Sweet eats.

It's that time of year again

2011-04-11T16:30:00.013-04:00

Last year, I didn't blog much about gardening despite ending up with a pretty rockin' garden. Energy that could/should/would have been spent on blogging instead went into the new puppy, dealing with the garden, dealing with the new house, etc, etc. Last summer was overwhelming.

My first priority was peas. I knew a "real" garden would take some work and planning and money and sun, but I could handle peas. (Please disregard the super-high-tech, dog-proofing twig fence; March 21, 2010):

The few that I got were pretty tasty. I didn't really "amend" the soil, and they didn't get as much sun as I'd hoped. And then Lucy (the new puppy) dug them up.

I brought a really beautiful strawberry plant home from the Union Square Greenmarket. It transplanted well into the sort-of-raised-bed (complete with amended soil) B created. But then one day I came home to this (June 25):

It was OK, though, because the rest of that garden had turned into this jungle (Lucy's in the back left. June 25):

We grew zucchini (July 7):

And purple green beans (July 7):

They turn green when cooked (Note super-duper-high-tech kitchen implement to keep half a bean out of boiling water; July 8):

An attempt was made at eggplant (July 7):

All seemed to be going well in Gardenland. Until... (July 12)

Something went wrong and bugs got into the zucchini. Not just the zucchini fruit, but into the vines themselves. I think they might have been some kind of borer. I remain the only person on earth unable to grow tons of zucchini.

Luckily, we had little hot peppers to distract us! Look at all those jalapeños trying to flip us off (July 12):

There was a tomato (July 12):

An ominous sky artsily framed with tomato blossoms (July 12):

And even more ominously, a wild dog with no regard for chicken-wire fences (July 12):

To be continued...

A three-attachment weekend

2010-11-16T10:15:00.004-05:00

Over the weekend, I made:
Really fucking good plain ol' white bread - subbing local honey for sugar.
Lemon bars - with Meyer lemons I brought back from my parents' yard.
Butternut squash and apple soup - with more local veggies!
Lemon, cream and pepper pasta sauce - with more of those same lemons and Hudson Valley Fresh cream.

I used all three attachments that came with my stand mixer, and the immersion blender.

That was a tasty weekend.

(I also pulled up all but three plants in my little garden - the bok choy is hardy as hell and still going. It was such a bummer to pull up the tomatoes. Maybe they'll do better next year.)

Grape pie. Who knew?

2010-11-12T16:10:00.002-05:00

At today's Greenmarket, I picked up parsnips, a rutabaga and onions from Dutchess County (it's possible I buy more local produce in the city than actually in Dutchess County); brussels sprouts, carrots and beets from some nice guys from Pennsylvania; eggs from New York (don't remember who my egg guy was today) and honey from those nice guys, near the Finger Lakes. But I made sure I didn't spend my whole twenty. Oh, no.

My last two bucks were spent on a slice of grape pie. How could I resist?

It looked a lot like a blueberry pie, and that's actually what the woman working the booth compared it to. Once I got back to work and my boss and I dug into it, I learned it was so much more. It was Concord grapes, cooked down and sugared, seeds removed but skins remained. Unfortunately (for me), it reminded me so much of Welch's grape jelly, but more pure and essentially GRAPE-y. I say "unfortunately (for me)," because apparently I hadn't had much in the way of actual Concord grapes to compare this to. I must say, I like the real thing better than the jelly.

I'd never seen this pie before today. This recipe, at Martha Stewart's site, doesn't seem too complicated to make.

Other Google recipe search results led me to this — a grape festival in Naples, New York! The last full weekend of September, next year, it's on.

Seriously?

2010-08-27T12:49:00.004-04:00

"Last published on April 29, 2010"

I can't believe it. I mean, I can, since the evidence is right there, but that kind of updating (in)frequency is downright embarrassing.

This summer has held so many great food experiences, and my garden (I have a kickass garden!), but... in May I got a puppy who, in the course of teething, decided to chew through the photo uploading cable. And my camera needs a silly proprietary Casio cable, not a mini-USB one like, oh, everything else. And I have been too ~~poor~~lazy to order a new one. Though a quicker solution would be to buy a USB memory-card reader. Sigh.

Once I've got pictures, I'll post. Promise.

Sweet treats

2010-04-29T14:02:00.006-04:00

I am a serious sucker for sugar. Two things I've eaten this week:

A mini cheesecake from La Delice bakery, a couple blocks from work.

I blame Sam and my BFF Jenessa, because when I was antsy on Tuesday, they Facebook-peer-pressured me into dreaming about cheesecake. I had to do it. The good, kinda healthy, news is that it wasn't as tasty as I'd hoped. It was drying out. Though I probably won't get cheesecake from that bakery again, there are many more cheesecakes in the sea...

(Why yes, those are bottles of wine in the background. No, I do not drink at work. Usually.)

So then yesterday, when I found myself with a little extra time at Grand Central before my train, I wandered downstairs to the ~~food court~~"dining concourse," and Magnolia Bakery. Until recently, Ciao Bella gelato was my early-evening, pre-train sugar fix. No more. I am crazy addicted to this:

Magnolia Bakery's Blueberry Jamboree.

Now, I have no idea why this is called a Jamboree, as I have never seen Boy Scouts nor Animatronic bears gathered around it, but last night was probably the fourth time I've bought it, and the fourth time it has knocked my socks off ~~but the first time I have not brought any home to share with B~~. Doesn't hurt that it's also one of the least spendy things at Magnolia. Here's the recipe. You're welcome, in advance.

;)

"Gardening" update

2010-04-29T13:22:00.002-04:00

Well, we've been in the house a month this week. There are still boxes to unpack, but during the bouts of dry weather we've had, I've been able to work a little bit in the yard.

The lone length of fence that seems to get the most sunlight was overrun by maple seedlings and saplings, so it's taken some work to clear that out. As soon as I cleared one section, I mixed some potting/garden soil in with the dirt that was already there, formed the dirt into mounds about 2 inches high, and got my peas in the ground. There were frost warnings the past two nights, but 1) peas should go in the ground as soon as it's workable, and 2) because we're so close to the (temperature-moderating) river, we can usually disregard the frost warnings after April 15.

If you know me, you probably won't be surprised that *I* was surprised that "pea seeds" are nothing more than dried peas.

The week before we moved, in late March I guess, I started these little Home Depot seeds in a mini-greenhouse plastic-eggcrate-looking kind of kit. We bought one "kitchen herbs" one, with basil, chives and parsley, and one "pepper selection" (or something) one, with two hot peppers and one kind of sweet pepper. Each species got two pots. On one end of the herb container, the basil is growing and is overdue for transplanting... One chive sprouted on the other end, but has since withered. In the middle, where I thought I'd see parsley, nothing so far...

With the pepper one, two pots on the same end are doing really well and are probably ready to be transplanted. The middle pots have slightly smaller sprouts bursting through. The third set hasn't seen any activity yet. I actually have no idea which peppers are which, because although I wrote the plants' names in Sharpie above them on the lid, I rotated the lid at least a few times in the watering process... So I guess we'll see how those turn out.

I meant to start lettuce like, oh, I dunno, maybe two months ago. I still haven't done it. It's frustrating, but I ~~hope~~know it will get done when the time is right, after I feel like I've contributed enough to getting the house in order.

Other things we've bought that need to get in the ground: asparagus shoots(?), two kinds of grapevines (this will require more clearing of the baby maples), and seeds for purple green beans (ditto), tomatoes, squash (I think?) and bell peppers. Maybe I go a little crazy with the seed-buying... but I get excited and can't help it! We've been looking at dwarf fruit trees, too. But we can't do those until the hulking, behemoth trees in the front get taken out.

In other kitchen news... Haven't been cooking nearly as much as I'd like. Especially lacking in kitchen time are new-to-me dishes, and some of the good stuff I made during my last months in SLC. (I'm lookin' at you, lentils, onions and rice. I'm lookin' at you, teriyaki chicken.) I keep saying it'll happen once we're settled in — seriously, there's no shelving below head height in the pantry — but I just need to make that happen. A few days ago, I cooked an entire meal from things we had on-hand, and it felt like a big accomplishment. How sad is that?

One of B's relatives gave us a $100 Williams-Sonoma gift card. It may take a while to get used, because I want to save it for something "good." I'm not sure what that means, really, but I just want to make sure that it's not wasted on froufy dish towels or gourmet croissants, when we could really use "x." Does that make any sense? What would you get with it?

Old friends, new restaurants, and a little bit of a tangent

2010-04-15T13:07:00.006-04:00

Emily, a girl I went to high school with, and have since become friends with, is visiting New York this week. Out-of-towners are always a good excuse to try eating at restaurants that I otherwise would probably not venture to, whether it's because they're expensive, out of the way, or time-consuming (i.e., too long for work lunch).

A summary:

In November, I went to Brasserie with another high school acquaintance, Amy, and her husband, Derek. I hadn't seen her since high school graduation and we didn't so much get along, in those days. Thanks to the modern miracles of MySpace (R.I.P.) and Facebook (and maybe some growing up on both of our parts?), we have become quite friendly over the past few years. Regardless, I still kind of wanted to show off and go somewhere impressive for lunch. Silly? Probably.

Brasserie was recommended by a couple people at work. Shiny, modern, expensive, but apparently with good food. I took the 6 train up there, and although it was great to see her (and meet him) and reconnect, I don't think any of us was impressed much by the food. For $27, I expect more something from a lobster club sandwich. Thanks, Derek, for buying!

In December, my former co-worker at Starbucks and all-around awesome chick Caroline came to NYC to see her friend do some standup comedy. In true Caroline and Catherine fashion, there were all sorts of directional miscommunications, but we ended up at a cheap bar in TriBeCa, where friends old and new and drunk and jet-lagged had burgers and beer. And we made good use of the pub's crayons to draw all over the butcher paper table covering.

Past two friend visits, totally authentic to each of the relationships. Also, now I wouldn't hesitate to go to a dive with Amy and Derek. We just had to get that out of the way. Next time, I'll buy.

But then... Last month, my BFF from junior high came out to NY with a friend. I think I'd seen N once or twice since 8th-grade graduation, but she looked pretty much the same. Just thinner. Very thin. I am always a little suspicious when planning lunch with a thin person whom I don't know very well. Our trip to Les Halles proved why. This place, just up the street from work, is the former home of the gonzo chef Anthony Bourdain. It garnered rave reviews from my coworkers about the reasonably priced, pretty damn good, unpretentious, bistro food.

How bad is it that I have to think really hard to remember what I got? I was dressed pretty business-casually. Something about the visitors screamed "tourists!" — the shopping bags? the heels? They just seemed less than enthused to be there, and I wasn't the only one picking up on it. The dining room was not packed, but service was pretty inattentive (for a fairly popular place that has at least as many regulars/locals as it does tourists, I am used to more here in the city). My old friend ordered — wait for it — a salad. Her friend got, I think, a croque monsieur, but mostly ate the fries. After reviewing the online menu, I am remembering the "Merguez, Frites, and Salade" I ordered. Everything seemed fine, and the table bread was good.

* * * time out * * *

I'm reminded as I write this that there is a fundamental disconnect between me, someone who loves food and enjoys savoring and sharing flavors, and gets excited about little things like the seasoning in the (quite tasty) Merguez sausages, and people who eat only because they have to survive somehow, and grazing on grass simply isn't efficient. My boyfriend once made that observation about his brother. Funny thing: My boyfriend is the former; my ex-husband, the latter. I know that I shouldn't judge, it's not their fault we speak different languages, but maybe for those people I should stick to coffee dates? (But I get just as worked up about coffee. Sigh.)

* * * time in * * *

So the girls just picked. In my perfect little "let's get together for lunch," we would have ordered wine, and an appetizer (I sensed this would not be a good first time to order escargots), and compelling lunches that we couldn't have found many other places, and certainly not at these prices. Then our tipsy selves would pass around the plates and try everything. And then, of course, dessert. There's always room for dessert at "I-haven't-seen-you-in-15-years" meetups. At least in my little made-up world. It's possible the service would have been just as meh, but at least we the diners would have had more fun.

And then, the visitors were bad tippers. Oh well. Then they were scared of the subway. Oh well, again. (I know that there are people with fears and anxieties over so many things, but this was just, I dunno, exceptional. Too much for me to just go with.) We didn't hang out again while they were here. I guess it's nice to get together anyway, and see how the 8th-grade BFF-ness still aligns...

So then yesterday Emily hops on the subway (her answer to my query on her comfort level with subways: I've done a bagilliion subway systems so just tell me which line and I'll be there! Nothing could be harder than Tokyo..partly because theirs is in Japanese.). I'd been thinking about hitting a cheap Indian buffet in the neighborhood, but then we passed Bagel & Schmear, home of the best tacos in New York. We each snagged a trio of those, as well as a black and white cookie, then sat in the sun at Madison Square Park and caught up.

The last time I saw Emily, she was visiting Salt Lake for work two years ago, and our dinner turned all romantical when a car hit a pole a couple blocks from the restaurant. The power went out, and the whole place was candle-lit and, well, romantical. We hadn't seen each other since high school, and we weren't even friends then, but we had a freaking blast! So maybe that's why this time was easy-peasy, too.

So, taco-lunching with me must not have been too bad, because when I got out of work and got out of the post office much more quickly than expected, we met up again at Union Square and headed for a dessert place (at lunch, she'd mentioned some fancy-schmancy dessert place with a gargantuan menu, and I started Yelping "dessert bar" when I got back to the office).

Dessert fans, meet The Spot. On a funky street in the East Village, a sign proclaiming a sweet retreat will call out to you, like an angel's voice in the wilderness (or something). (I tried to post pictures, but that didn't work, so other people's photos are linked instead.) At any rate, I had the Yuzu Eskimo ("oreo, strawberry, raspberry foam"). The menu neglected to mention the edible glitter! But there it was. Apparently, I'm not the only one to have been captivated by it. Really, I thought I was having a blonde moment... The dessert was unlike anything I've had before, and I'd have to say that that is probably this Spot's greatest strength. They're unique, just like every other dessert tapas bar in the East Village — except that I haven't yet tried any of the other ones. :)

Emily got the Chocolate Banana Pudding ("caramel, cocoa soil, vanilla chantilly"). It was good, just maybe not as experimental as we'd hoped? Regardless, we dipped into each other's dainty little plates freely. (The Spot was, unfortunately, out of the Ovaltine and Kabocha Roll we were both intrigued by.) They have a ton of different selections, including a half-dozen cupcake flavors, ice cream and sorbets, weird and right-up-my-alley toppings such as palm and basil seeds, and my if-I-were-on-death-row-this-would-be-my-final-meal, the $48 omakase dessert tasting menu.

My cousin Jamie is visiting next month, and I am going nuts trying to figure out where we will eat while she's here. She is definitely in the former, food-lovin', passionate-eatin', group. There are so many places and concepts we could try while she's here! Aaaaackkk!

Once we've been out and about, and proper pictures have been taken, you'll read about it right here. But now that this is ridiculously long, I pledge to break restaurant visits into their own posts from now on.

Teeeeensy update

2010-03-23T14:34:00.004-04:00

Got the house, with big backyard. Need to map it out a bit.

Seedlings for three hot peppers and three herbs (basil, chives, and uh, something else) started.

Seeds for peas, beans, and red sweet bell peppers purchased.

So excited!

Sorry to have been so absent. I have tons of ideas scribbled down for posts, including a roundup of lunch-spots in my work neighborhood. Can you believe that the best tacos I've had in New York (by far) are from a place called Bagel and Schmear? Well, believe it.

Garden porn

2010-01-22T15:54:00.002-05:00

This story has me really anxious to find out whether B and I got this house. I am itching to map out garden space in my (hopefully) new big backyard! There's something about dirt between the fingers that just feels so good... If I'm already really excited about the first three plants mentioned, it can only get better.

:D

Happy New Year!

2010-01-11T14:16:00.003-05:00

I wish I had some kind of exciting food-related resolution to share with y'all, but I don't. I wish even more that I had some kind of exciting culinary accomplishment to share too, but alas, I don't.

BUT! In the great battle to do more on the weekends so I don't have to do as much on weeknights, I had small victories yesterday. B and I did massive groceries, and it was awesome to see how few of the items on the conveyor belt were NOT processed. (Is beer considered "processed" food? Kraft doesn't make it, so I'm going to go with NO.) I made lasagna (with lots of extra veggies) that is more than a week's worth of lunches. I started Jenessa's vegan bread last night, but it went in the fridge because I decided to not wait hours for it to rise. While cutting the veggies for the lasagna, we chopped the ones for tonight's chicken curry. They're in a bucket, just waiting to be dumped into my birthday saucepan.

B's folks gave me this saucepan for Christmas; it was too, too generous. But I love it already, all the same.

The holidays were fine; ate a lot of good food. B made eggnog from scratch — raw eggs and everything! It was good. He used this recipe (not the gorgonzola one). It was a hit with the neighbors, with whom we spent Christmas Eve. It was fun to make it, just for the novelty, but what a pleasant surprise when it turned out tasty!

Sorry, I sucked all month. No pictures. Oh wait, there's one. But it'll have to wait. Suffice to say: I found the elusive mangosteen.

Eat. Drink. Be Merry.

2009-12-18T10:50:00.002-05:00

I was reminded today of some people's obsession with nutrition, as opposed to healthfulness.

A company sent the magazine a resveratrol-packed chocolate bar that claims to have a bajillion times as many antioxidants as red wine, blueberries, açai and goji berries and chemotherapy combined (or something like that). This bar will cure your as-yet-nonexistent cancer, just by you looking at it. It will lower your blood sugar. Then it will save the world.

I have thought for years that a relative of mine has orthorexia (only I didn't know it was called that until recently), and I wonder how much it is compounded by her work in the nutrition field. When I was a youngster, I remember, she was making almost-no-fat meals out of a cookbook by Dean Ornish, and I noted aloud that his name sounded suspiciously like "denourish." As the low-carb fads came around a few years ago, she tried those as well in attempts to get her "numbers" (cholesterol levels, blood sugar, other leading bad-stuff indicators) down. All this, mind you, for a 5'1" woman who I've never seen weigh more than 115 pounds. I'd be surprised if she's been over 100 in the past five years.

She has developed a type of pre-diabetes (as I understand it), and feels betrayed since she has always "done everything right," and she doesn't "deserve" this. (Do people with full-blown diabetes "deserve" it?) Well, she's never enjoyed just chilling out. Her blood pressure has been high despite exercise. But then, she won't exercise because it makes her lose too much weight. She's so fixated on this constellation of numbers...

I can't imagine living like that. Not eating this food or that food because it's a "carb bomb" (as she called a Thanksgiving dish my brother prepared last month). Have a taste, and enjoy it, and a glass of wine, and enjoy it. Watch those blood pressure numbers fall. And don't buy in (literally and figuratively) to ostensible "health foods" just because they market to your anxieties. If you want chocolate, eat some damn chocolate. And enjoy it.

A life spent tripping over numbers and eating by "rules" just doesn't sound that fulfilling to me (although one friend in particular manages her diabetes exceptionally well, and eats pretty well too). Yeah, I've gained 20 pounds back since moving to New York. I chalk that up to eating and drinking more, and exercising much, much less. And I'm trying to find a balance there. But I'm not going to turn to fake, "value-added" food to save me.

Of course there are soooo many people who are legitimately struggling with disease (e.g. diabetes) or weight as a real health and lifestyle problem. And I hope that each of them finds the combination of lifestyle factors that work for them to be happy, and healthy, and pain- and disease-free. But it's a slap in the face to people who have actual problems to see someone who is basically fine counting calories and agonizing over a "carb bomb."

So eat real food. And enjoy it.

Home sweet garden

2009-11-05T14:25:00.002-05:00

If I figure out a way to buy a house in the next year, it will be because I want a real food garden. I'll probably end up spending all of my money on plants and seeds and garden-y stuff, and I'll crash on the floor of a woefully underfurnished room in a sleeping bag.

But I'll have squash next year, dammit!

Would having chickens be going too far?

Guess I should get the yard first, before I think of the chickens.

This book has done a number on me.

A victory, of sorts

2009-11-05T14:10:00.003-05:00

That looks so gross. But it's *my* gross. Thyme and parsley from my little pots that sit on the kitchen floor. The rest of it is fixings for chicken stock, which will become chicken soup tonight.

Last night, I finally got the chicken (his name was Gary, by the way) in the slow cooker with onion, carrots and celery. The recipe called for a parsnip and another vegetable I can't remember. Didn't have them, so I ignored that part. I feel really ridiculous for needing a recipe to make chicken stock in the first place. I mean, really. It's hot chicken water. How do you screw that up?

The recipe also called for a bay leaf, parsley and thyme. Alright, I thought. I have a package of bay leaves that have been in the back of the fridge for almost a year. It's dry in there, and they still look great, so I used a couple. You can sub extra bay leaves for a parsnip and that other mystery vegetable, right? Totally.

It was exciting though, to find that the parsley that hadn't been growing so great outside has really done better since I moved the pots inside about two weeks ago. So that's in there, kinda hugging the right side of the slow cooker insert.

The thyme, well, it hasn't done so hot since the move. It was in a pot with some insane, ravenous chocolate mint, and I think the mint might have screwed things up for the whole pot. Roots running around the perimeter of the pot are a bad thing, right? At any rate, the mint seems to have burned itself out, and there were still teeny sprigs of green thyme. They're in the mix too, right on top. Poor baby thyme. You get your own pot next time.

So it's all sitting and stewing as I type. Hopefully the joint's not burned down when I finally get home tonight, and making soup is easy. At least I don't need a recipe for that.

It's been too long...

2009-11-03T15:41:00.004-05:00

I used to blog in the mornings or early afternoons before leaving for my 4 or 5 p.m. shifts at the newspaper. I'd make coffee, maybe an egg or some yogurt concoction, then settle in for a morning of paying bills and snuggling with the dog and reading blogs and news. A couple days a week, I'd go for a hike with my puppy, Leo, either up Mount Beacon down to Dennings Point. Once in a while, I even made real food, like bread or scones, before heading in to work.

But then I got a day job—my dream job—for which the hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. I catch the train at 7 in the morning and get home around 7 at night. I love everything about it.

The pace of the work suits me—no more 11:28 p.m. anxiety attacks while someone wants to change a headline and my boss is telling me to just send the page.

I'm smitten with a good deal of the content—the best hot cocoa in the world, anyone?

I learn something new every day—even if it's just that ATMs at Duane Reade are fee-free to me.

The train ride is often breathtakingly beautiful—pink fog rising from the Hudson this morning, stellar sunsets for the past two months (not anymore, of course, with the expiration of daylight savings time).

I'm exposed to things I'd never have the chance to try anywhere else—a fancy-schmancy French wine from 1995 that showed me what "elegant" means. Balsamic vinegars from Italy that poured like motor oil, aged 12, 25, and 100 or more years.

But getting home at 7 means that adventurous cooking goes on the back-burner (so to speak), a little bit. After two months in this schedule, I think I'm getting used to it, and will be able to figure out a routine that involves more cooking. Once my weekend days opened up, I got roped into (often literally: we climb) more adventures in the great outdoors. Now that the weather has chilled substantially, I look forward to spending more days in the kitchen. That said, I've saved a fair bit of money by making quick dinners at home, even if, like last night, it's just mashed sweet potatoes and stir-fried frozen veggies with Asian-inspired seasoning. That was on the table before 8, and I even played ball with Leo for a while.

I did some freezer-oriented cooking a month or so ago. I had really ambitious plans one day to make vegetable lasagna, butternut squash-apple soup, sweet potato chili, a spicy carrot-cabbage Chinese kimchi kinda thing, and ... and I can't remember what else. I took a picture of the table laden with all the food I planned to cook that day. I'll put it up here when I get home (if I remember).

It probably goes without saying if you know me, but I didn't quite get through everything on the table. I got the lasagna and chili done and frozen, and the butternut squash roasted (it's easier to prepare if it's cooked first). We went through the lasagna pretty quickly. There are still two big yogurt containers full of chili in the freezer. Unfortunately, the squash didn't get made into soup until its already-roasted freshness was already questionable, and it just tasted "off" no matter what I added to the soup. Also unfortunately, that will finally get chucked tonight so I can use the big pot for chicken soup.

There's most of a roasted chicken in the fridge, see, and I don't want it to meet the same fate as the squash. Since B and Leo will be at B's parents' place tonight to celebrate his sister's birthday, I have an empty kitchen to work with. Can't wait!

Coming soon... A roundup of some of the awesome and not-so-awesome (but usually cheap) places I've had lunch since starting the new job, and thoughts about agriculture/farming/conscientiousness since reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." It's amazing. And what happened to that garden on the back deck, anyway?

Results may vary...

2009-09-08T14:20:00.003-04:00

I made stuffed, fried squash blossoms last night from this post at thekitchn.com.

Mine did not look anything like theirs (the photo, above). It's possible, though, that what mine lacked in looks, they made up for in flavor...

Drool-worthy summer inspiration

2009-08-21T11:14:00.006-04:00

It's really hot. Like, sweating-while-sitting-still hot. Yeah, I could turn on the air conditioner, but it's all the way upstairs and any move away from this seat would be just. too. much. effort.

So this'll be a roundup, of sorts.

Cruising Thekitchn.com this morning, I have been so inspired by posts about and gorgeous pictures of salads: cabbage, macaroni, beet... I was reminded of what a geek I am when I saw this book, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, by Harold McGee. I literally drooled while I was reading the post. Maybe the science-y stuff in this book could explain exactly what neurotransmitter synapse caused me to salivate over a reference work. Or, I might just be a sleep-deprived nerd.

Reading through my favorite food blogs, instead of getting into the kitchen and making something refreshing like a kickass spicy Chinese cabbage/carrot/pickled chili salad, reminded me of this article at the New York Times last month. I hope I'm not becoming one of those people who are "out of the kitchen, onto the couch"; reading about food instead of doing something with it. I don't even own a TV, so maybe I'm somewhere in the middle? Believe me, I'd rather be cooking. It's just that the kitchen has no air flow. No, it's worse: It has negative air flow. All the hot air in the apartment goes there to hang out, and like some dinner guests, it doesn't know when to just leave.

I have had a fair amount of food interaction this summer:

In July I made awesome strawberry-sour cream scones (recipe here). It was still raining every day at that point, so using the oven was not so painful.

My vindaloo spices. I think getting them prepped for the cooking is my favorite part of making that dish.

The Latin American festival at Beacon's Riverfront Park:

Where I come from, "Latin American festival" likely means a huge event with a ton of Mexican food, with at least one vendor for each of the country's distinct regions, plus Central American and South American booths. Roaming mariachis, and the Chilean folk music Inti-Illimani guys, and the Peruvian pan flute players, and tiny wrinkled Guatemalan ladies selling brightly colored cloths. So it felt strange to go to a smallish event, with booths mainly representing Caribbean nations such as the Dominican Republic and Cuba, and Puerto Rico of course. Welcome to New York, Cali girl... Of course the food was amazing. This was actually the second of two plates B and I shared (and maybe Leo got some too).

I had a rare weekend off after the hecticness (hecticity?) of the past few weeks, and I needed to get out of town. B found a bouldering area near a lake in the Adirondacks. I stuffed a bottle of wine in my backpack for Saturday night. It was worth the extra weight.

Wild blueberry bushes covered the area where we camped. The ones I picked Sunday morning were just what the Quaker Instant Oatmeal needed. (Well, it needed a lot of help, but the berries were a great start.)

Comfort food

2009-08-13T17:38:00.004-04:00

photo source

I'm nearing the end of a pretty trying 10-day stretch. There have been some lows, but to be fair, some highs too (including meeting extended family in Boston). This afternoon, I only had a few minutes to concoct something to eat between finishing errands and leaving for work at 3. It was raining and at only 70 degrees felt a little chilly (how pathetic, I know), so I wanted something comforting...

I cooked a Chinese stir-fry last night and made extra rice. There were leftover garlicky-gingery sautéed veggies from something else a few days ago. Perfect.

After I mixed those and heated them through, I cracked an egg over the top, stirred it and put a lid on the disgusting-looking mixture, then took the dog out. (I'm all about being efficient.) When I came back in from the rain, the egg was cooked perfectly. Added a little sriracha and soy sauce and I was set... (Then I made an egg for Leo. He's the most spoiled dog ever, I swear.)

I'm not sure why I have an Asian comfort food. It's not like I had a sweet little grandma whipping up congee for me (although mine did have lemon drops). You'd think it'd be something like mashed potatoes and beef stew or something, with my Euro-mutt roots. Of course, those sound good too.

Lately, some readers have e-mailed comments to me... Why not post them instead and share your favorite comfort foods? I'll make cookies for the most unusual one.

More fermentation education. (Guess I really like the rhyming.)

2009-08-12T17:52:00.004-04:00

photo source
A kind soul gently pointed out today that a few posts down, in my rambling tale of the sauvignon blanc trip to the wine store, I incorrectly said that a Sancerres wine I bought was from the Bordeaux region of France.

Sancerres ≠ Bordeaux.
Sancerres = Loire Valley.

I have no doubt the woman at the wine store told me the correct one, but it got lost in the overwhelming amount of geographical information she ~~imparted~~ attempted to impart.

I could have gone into the post and edited it to be correct, and just pretend I never got anything wrong ever, but how lame would that have been?!? I started this blog as I was learning about cooking; now that I'm learning about other ingestible substances, I might as well document this process too, right?

Of course.

I Googled the wine today and this blog came up:
brooklynguyloveswine.blogspot.com
I love this guy, and not just because we have similarly constructed blog names. He has this to say about my not-Bordeaux Sancerres:
The 2007 Christian Venier Touraine Le Gautrie Sauvignon, $17, Savio Soares Selections ... was lovely, although not as stunning an example of Loire Sauvignon Blanc as Venier's VdT is as a Cheverny.

Brooklyn Guy described Venier as a Loire hipster-natural-wine-biodynamic-producer.
Anyone who can use "hipster" in a serious discussion about wine has my vote.

Time to go make dinner... Tonight's wines are from Whitecliff Vineyard, just up the road in Gardiner, New York.

Turns out....

2009-08-12T11:57:00.004-04:00

Turns out that in the following sentence, from the last post, I was merging two fruits:
I remember seeing some spiky melon that I think ends in -iya when I lived in San Diego.

Thanks to flickr.com user Mixed Masala, we can see them side by side:

On the left, the thing that I thought ended in -iya but is actually -oya (cherimoya). On the right, some spiky melon (kiwano).

I didn't see these strange, exotic fruits while in the city.

(Insert big eyeroll at my expectations...)

I found them yesterday at my supermarket in the 'burbs.

Frozen treats save steamy day.

2009-08-06T10:58:00.015-04:00

I went down to the city for a Tuesday night concert, but once I knew I could bring a backpack in with me, I decided I was on a mission. A weird produce mission. Specifically, I was looking for the beautiful, exotic, alluring mangosteen, but really, anything new would do nicely.

I got in to Grand Central a little after noon, and needed something to tide me over for a few hours:

Subpar lo mein from Feng Shui in Grand Central. It was unbelievably salty and I didn't finish it. That never happens. I should have just stuck with my tasty GCT standby, Cafe Spice.

A few hours later, after hanging out with a good friend until she had to go to work, I was hungry again. Getting your eyebrows threaded for the first time is a surprisingly effective way to work up an appetite.

I wanted to take one of the green trains (4? 5? 6? I'm still learning, folks), so I headed back down to GCT to first snag a refreshing blast of Ciao Bella, where, in the past, I'd had a revelation of mint gelato (it tasted like fresh mint, not mint flavoring!), among other flavors. I ordered the papaya-crème de cassis, expecting unicorns to come charging out of the cupcakes at one of the bakeries and flower petals to rain into the food court, and for world peace to be achieved and cancer to be cured.

It didn't quite live up to that. I was so meh about it that I didn't even take a picture. Of course the papaya-crème de cassis gelato was okay, but I have really high expectations of Ciao Bella. Unicorns, people. I demand to be blown away.

Several hours and a walk to and fro on the Brooklyn Bridge later, I had made my way to Chinatown. It was probably about 6:30, and I wondered after the fact whether it was late enough that I missed the really weird (to me, you know) produce. I really wanted to find mangosteen... Hell, I don't know if they're even in season. Dragonfruit would have been cool. I remember seeing some spiky melon that I think ends in -iya when I lived in San Diego. It was not to be - I could ID pretty much everything I saw. (I'm no expert; there just wasn't that much.) Note to self: Don't worry about the Brooklyn Bridge. Just go to Chinatown with hours to kill.

Fruit and veggie stand in Chinatown. I was probably there later than the really intriguing markets would be open and/or have really intriguing produce.

I wound up with lychees (which I seem to recall my dad ordering at a Chinese restaurant in the East Bay, where we lived til I was 11)...

Lychees. I don't know what to do with them, yet, other than chill, peel and pop 'em. Maybe some kind of granita?

Starting to make up for earlier: barbecued pork buns, or char siu bao, from Excellent Dumplings in Chinatown.

I demolished those buns.

I walked and ate... Classy. From Chinatown I hoofed it up to the DessertTruck...

Dessert Truck scene

... where my day redeemed itself immediately, and wholly:

Lavender-peach sorbet, with crème frâiche, almond meringue and fresh berries. Unbelieveable. Best six bucks I've spent in at least a month.

From Dessert Truck to Webster Hall, every spoonful of that amazing concoction contributed to this stupid grin spreading across my face. Suddenly, the Brooklyn Bridge blisters and ridiculously heavy backpack (why did I buy so many damn lychees?) seemed a million miles away. Lavender-peach sorbet, with crème frâiche, almond meringue and fresh berries = SALVATION IN A CUP.

Concert. Pete Yorn. Eye and ear candy.

The show ended with time to spare before I had to get back up to GCT for the 12:08 train home. I could grab a slice of pizza, I thought, or... I could go to Daydream (which I keep wanting to call Dreamberry, a la Pinkberry frozen yogurt).

Half original icy, half pomegranate tart frozen yogurt, with ripe (yay!) mangoes and blueberries. Found this place after a concert in April. It hits the spot even more on a steamy late-July night.

Snapped this at a station as I was making my way north:

Someone loves breaded, fried pork cutlets more than I do.

dessertforthemorningafter

Ask, and ye shall receive...

2009-08-03T23:51:00.003-04:00

I have a couple great friends who live up in Ithaca (about four hours away) who I rarely see. Katie and Jon are two of the most fun people I've ever had the pleasure of hanging out with. We talk only sporadically, and usually conversations are about last-minute invitations to an adventure of some kind. They invited B and I to go camping last weekend, and I couldn't go because I always work weekends.

I asked if they might be available on a Tuesday and/or Wednesday for some antics, and received this reply from Jon:
Tuesday or Wednesday seems like a perfect time to do some wine-touring in the finger lakes. :)

As noted in the last post, I've been wanting to learn. Don't know much about wine, yet, but here's to getting educated (and seeing Katie and Jon).

An education in fermentation.(Rhyming is good, right?)

2009-07-30T20:21:00.014-04:00

Sorry, mom and dad...
I lived in Utah for eight years, ages 18 to 26. Prime beer-drinking years, right? I guess. I only went on a booze run up to Evanston, Wyoming, one time, and although I had the world's best fake ID, I was so terrified of getting busted on the way back to Salt Lake that I never went again.

I didn't do much beer-drinking after about age 20. Not because of any kind of moral calling or righteous superiority, I just... didn't. A guy who I was with for a long time didn't drink at all. When I did buy a six-pack, four or five bottles often languished in the fridge for months (gross, absolutely; maybe even borderline criminal). I was so, soooooo boring.

At the beginning of 2008, I moved near one of the state-run wine stores downtown, and began cooking the ethnic-inspired meals nearly weekly for my friends. When possible, I bought wines from the appropriate country. Feeling kind of goofy for the last event, Morocco, I bought one wine from Spain and one from South Africa, and we roughly (very roughly) decided to split the geographical difference. There was no method, usually just madness.

Since moving here, and living with wine drinkers, I've been drinking much more thoughtfully. Which is to say, now I do more than buy whichever bottle has the more interesting label.

Right on Main Street in happenin' downtown Beacon is the Artisan Wine Shop, and these folks have helped me immensely. Although I work nights and weekends and therefore have yet to make it to one of their tasting events, the owners have steered me toward some great bottles. Also, I always assumed that good wine equals expensive, and they have shown me that that doesn't have to be true! I owe so much to these people, and they don't even know it.

A couple of weeks ago I walked in with a blank look on my face, and walked out with three bottles of grapey goodness. One was a white zinfandel, my boyfriend's mom's fave; one was a Spanish red with a dramatic label (I'm not totally out of the woods yet) that my boyfriend had bought before; and the third was a sauvignon blanc to pair with dinner's scallops. I'll be honest: I loved it for the cool label, and I was intrigued by its claim to having citrus notes.

But we opened it, and it really, really did have those citrus notes! It was like grapefruit (or, more accurately, grapefruit's cousin pomelo) slapping you in the tongue. In a good way, of course.

So when I walked in there a few nights ago, I knew at least one thing I wanted. But I know that I know nothing about wine, so I kind of crafted an experiment. "Would it be really lame," I asked, "to get another sauvignon blanc so I could compare them side-by-side and maybe learn more about that family?"

I felt really dumb asking. Like, really dumb. Luckily, Mei Ling So (one of the owners) is either used to dumb questions or good at hiding disdain for their askers... She told me it was actually a pretty good idea, and gave me a couple of choices. Most from France, either the Loire Valley or Bordeaux. I asked her what caused the differences, and finally learned how to pronounce "terroir." (The thing about food editing is that although I've learned to spell unusual words, I haven't always learned how to say them right, if at all. For a long time in Salt Lake, "tart-ees tate-in" was a running joke about tartes tatin...)

So I got the Mason Cellars' Pomelo 2007 sauvignon blanc, and a biodynamic sancerres from Bordeaux. She mentioned that it was citrusy, too, and I got all excited about them being similar, but she shut me down: "They're really different." Apparently the biodynamic winemakers don't "mess with" (I swear those were her words) the winemaking process as much. She described the French one as "yeasty," because fewer preservatives are added. Also, the biodynamic guys add infusions of chamomile and nettles, which is really interesting but I don't really get. Yet.

Oh, boy. Have I got a lot to learn...

Picked up sushi on the way home, and cracked open - well, unscrewed, anyway - the Pomelo. Because it was a ~~school~~ work night for the boyfriend, getting though two bottles of wine was out of the question and the sancerres is still chillin'.

Which means, you know, that I have to go back and get another bottle of Pomelo for an advance-planned tasting. It'll be rough, but I think I'll get through it. Here's to more sushi and wine this Tuesday!

Starting from scratch

2009-07-29T23:59:00.007-04:00

Nothing but Miracle-Gro Organic, a bunch of tiny seeds, and crossed fingers.
Everything we bought in May was already sprouted, beyond seedlings, nascent little plants. Like, toddler plants. Things went well, for the most part.

I got ambitious. I bought seeds. I probably waited too long to plant them.

So on July 24, I buckled down and did it. Here's the lettuce (mesclun mix), basil, zucchini (One seed in the packet? Are you kidding me?) and sunflowers. Lettuce and sunflowers are in the full-size egg cartons; basil in five of the six nooks in the smaller one, zucchini in the last niche:

Urban forager

2009-07-25T14:58:00.013-04:00

Sign below mulberry tree

Last Friday, I headed down to Denning's Point in search of berries. I've seen several mulberry trees, strawberries, and raspberry canes getting ready to burst, and it felt like time to forage...

Raspberries were first up:

That's a lot of raspberries.

These guys weren't quite ready, but plenty of others were.

I don't know what these two are. I think the berries in the second might be currants?

Leo got to swim in the Hudson:

Then we heard thunder - not exactly a surprise, since it seems like there has been rain every day this summer - so we took off for the car. But first, the mulberries.

I didn't know the flash was on for this, but the unripe berry looked just like that a moment later when there was lightning.

We made it home just before the sky opened up. I had to rush to work, so doing something with berries had to wait. All told, there were about two and a half cups of berries. I made a smoothie with about half of them, plus some blueberries. Mulberries are (mostly) on the left, some with stems; black raspberries (mostly) on the right.

These have been growing in the jungle on the side of my apartment. The landlord said she wouldn't go through the trouble of picking them, but I was welcome to.

The rest of the Denning's Point berries and the backyard blackberries topped a Big Pancake this morning. The camera battery died before I could get closeups of the berries and whipped cream. Suffice it to say that it tasted as good as "fresh berries and fresh whipped cream" sounds.

While walking the dog a few days ago, I discovered the next frontier in my urban forages: a tall old apple tree by the water tower up the hill. Looks like I'll need to find a ladder before autumn...

¿Yutia? ¿Cómo? or, talking tubers...

2009-07-25T14:54:00.000-04:00

Way back when, when I started the ethnic cuisine challenge/resolution, I had this precious little idea that I'd walk into an ethnic grocery with a vague idea of what I wanted to cook, then I'd find unknown-to-me ingredients/items and ask the employees/owners how to prepare them. It would have worked in SLC. I regret never having been to one of the African grocers...

So a few months ago - wow, looking up the photos I see that it's been six months - I went to a new-to-me grocery store that looks a little warehouse-y but is closer than the one I had been going to. The produce selection was broad, and prices seemed good. As I wandered the aisles, I came to a tuber section. Yes, a little area with nothing but brown tubers in various lengths, widths, and stages of hair growth. In addition to yams, sweet potatoes, and jicama, signs read batata, malanga, casava, manioc, taro... and my new friend, yutia. A cute little older couple was picking through these tubers, arguing in Spanish about which ones to were good.

Aha! I thought. This was my chance to try to fulfill what I'd originally set out to do. I asked them in my crappy Spanish (I may have studied it for six-plus years, but my last class was in 2002) what this vegetable was, and how to prepare it. Luckily this sweet man was adept at charades, because I understood "slice it thinly" and "bake it."

So I bought some, brought it home, and promptly Googled "yutia." Yeah, it doesn't really exist on the interwebs. Results were spotty at best, and basically told me that South American indigenous peoples cultivated it. After that, I'm not sure what they did with it... It came across as some anthropological curiosity more than a vegetable you'd pick up in a suburban New York ShopRite.

So I did what the abuelito said. I peeled it and sliced it as thinly as I could, which got difficult, as this tuber was really slimy. I tossed the slices in some olive oil and salt and pepper, and stuck it in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes, tossing it again at some point in there.

When I figured my little medallions were done, it looked like they needed something more. Sour cream! That makes almost everything better. And it did, for these guys. They were still pretty chewy. Pretty bland. One big "meh," you know? But they reminded me of something. I couldn't place it for a few days.

Bam. Top left. Thanks to the "exotic vegetable chip identifier" at Terra Chips' website, I had known this previously as taro... Good to know. There are plenty of recipes out there for taro. It seems like a lot of these starchy/slimy tubers are interchangeable, as far as recipes go. But I'd wanted to do something uniquely yutia... Chips, so original, I know.

Today, six months after starting the yutia journey, I re-Googled "yutia recipe." And got results, including this one for a Filipino tapioca stewy-desserty-thing called tabirak o binignit o ginataan. I ♥ Filipino food, so who knows, maybe I'll give this (and tapioca, eek) a shot sometime.

Also among the Google results: "Did you mean: yautia recipe"

Turns out that yes, yes I did mean "yautia recipe." Where the heck was that six months ago?!? Next time I get a bug to buy it, I know where to find recipes.

Except that I ended up switching back to the other supermarket.

Tomato blight? Not in my backyard.

2009-07-20T14:51:00.014-04:00

A horticultural pandemic is sweeping the Northeast.

Late blight, the same fungus that killed three-quarters of Ireland's potato crop in 1846, has taken a severe toll on tomato plants around New York. It's been confirmed in 30 or so of the state's 60ish counties, and Margaret McGrath (a Cornell vegetable epidemiologist) said on today's Brian Lehrer show that plant authorities simply haven't checked the remaining counties.

The fungus is highly contagious, and this spread is starting mainly in backyard gardens. Most outlets are saying that the main source of the blight in the Northeast is plants from big-box stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's. One supplier in the southeastern United States seems to be at the root (no pun intended) of this outbreak. The supplier, Bonnie Plants, says it isn't to blame and that its plants were somehow affected along the supply chain... To the company's credit, they've aggressively worked on recalling all of their plants.

Yellow leaf? yes. Telltale fuzzy spores? No.

Cherry tomatoes. Yum.

Sure, my plants have yellowing and even browning leaves. But that likely has more to do with the nearly nonstop rain this summer, and the fact that a fairly big plant is in a fairly small pot. Are our plants faring better — they're not dropping dead, at least — because we bought them from a local greenhouse? It's possible that quality control is easier when the production scale is smaller. I wonder what, if anything, the GMO-ness of our tomatoes has to do with their hardiness.

Here is McGrath's Cornell blog.

The one on the left was ripe enough a couple days after this was shot.

During the cage installation, three tomatoes fell off of the big plant; we kept them outside anyway. Today I ate one; half of it was good. (The other half was a bit more mealy than I'd have liked.) We've eaten several of the cherry tomatoes, and they've been great.

Last September, I took an incredible daylong class at the Culinary Institute of America right up the road in Hyde Park titled "Taste of the Hudson Valley." It was more than a Millbrook Winery this, Sprout Creek Farm that, Stone Barns blah blah. It delved deeply into food as politics; more deeply than many of the participants were comfortable, I imagine.

Among the hottest topics were the buzzwords "local" and "sustainable." Late blight appears to be neither. Although produce with either of those labels is often more expensive, it seems to be worth it, so far. Does produce come more locally than from my back deck (not that I have a front deck)? I'm still in my first season as a wannabe farmer, so I'm not sure how sustainable this endeavor will be.

The class' instructor reminded us that we vote with our dollars. And it's a deeply personal, and political, decision to just say "no" to big agribusiness. Now, I'll be the first one to admit that I buy the majority of my fruits and vegetables at the local supermarket, but the transition to local/fresh/sustainable feels pretty good. I've been hitting up two local (haha, I had to throw that in) farmers markets and loving what I've come home with.

It's also really cool to me to be able to have a conversation with the person who actually is doing the growing. Maybe I just like to talk; maybe the investment and exchange of ideas appeals to me. But after last Thursday's trip to the Fishkill market, I realized that nowhere else would someone have offered me a plum, even while I was checking out the blueberries. Nowhere else would someone have jogged across a parking lot to tell me I had money hanging out of my back pocket. Nowhere else would a farmer give me advice on what to do with my own fennel, as I wasn't buying hers...

I think I'll go back and see them again tomorrow.

Dinnertime...

2009-07-16T19:58:00.008-04:00

I made this killer sandwich before I left the apartment today. Multigrain bread from the farmers market, hummus, veggie cream cheese, avocado (just a teensy bit overripe), ripe tomatoes, sharp white cheddar, lettuce, and leftover tuna that B was brilliant enough to put capers in.

Some of that spicy cranberry mustard that's hanging around in the fridge woulda been good, too.

It was warm and kind of smoggy today, so I just wanted fresh flavors, you know? I ate an apricot on the way to work, and a juicy white nectarine once I arrived at 4. By 5, I'd eaten the sandwich. It's freezing cold in the office. So, as usual, despite my best intentions, the dinner order came a-calling...

You know how when you're cold, you want hearty, fortifying foods? It could be 100 degrees outside, and if I'm at work, I'll be craving chili and cornbread because of the office's sub-Arctic temperatures.

So tonight, colleague E and I spearheaded an order effort from Ambadi, a White Plains takeout spot. It's nice to get out of the Mexican/ribs/Chinese/Uno's/any-of-several-Italian-places rotation. From the write-up the paper gave it upon its September 2004 opening:
The restaurant, which is named for the birthplace of Krishna, is a modern take on Indian, and offers small plates of street food like Bombay chaat, samosas, tandoori and korna.

I'm not sure what "korna" is... but I hope the chicken korma ordered by a co-worker turns out tasty. (This reminds me of how much I miss food editing. Sigh.)

an appetizer called samosa chaat, which reminds me an awful lot of something else, called kosta kachori.

vegetable biriyani

Hi there

2009-07-16T17:56:00.007-04:00

Has it really been more than two months since I've trolled around here?

I've got no excuse, I suppose. Have had a to-do list as long as I am tall, but who doesn't, really? I got some big items checked off of it over the past few days, which feels good, but that doesn't write blog posts, now does it? Even when blog-writing has been on said to-do list, it still hasn't happened. To my blogging friends: How do you keep it up? Do you write whenever you're inspired? Adhere to a schedule? I need to figure out how to do this on a regular, disciplined basis, despite the pushes and pulls of everyday life.

Maybe my barrier has been one of opportunity. I've been getting outside, hiking with my puppy a lot more than I thought. Despite this summer's torrential downpours, Leo and I have had a great time. Many of the excursions have been marked with opportunities for urban foraging: mulberry trees everywhere, from a branch inching toward my bedroom window, to berry-laden fronds hanging over a trail near where we climb, to another path at Dennings Point. There's even a white varietal a few blocks over.

There are wild black raspberries growing everywhere, too: along just about every trail I hike on, including both of the aforementioned trails. On windy country roads near B's parents' house, even in their yard. I've seen wild strawberries around Dennings Point, with hypersaturated red berries. A few weeks ago, B, Leo, and I were making our way around the Beacon Reservoir and spotted blueberry bushes. Along the fence bordering our landlord's property, blackberries are peeking out from among the overgrown vines. This is stunning...

Maybe the next time I head out (tomorrow?), I'll remember to bring a clean container for collecting. Recipes like this one, for rosemary ice cream with mulberries (the same dappled ones I've seen more of recently), have inspired me to do something with the mulberries before it's too late. I'm new to this gardening stuff, and newish to the Northeast, and totally new to making ice cream (that one time in preschool where we shook some container of something does not count), and I have no idea when "mulberry season" is over, so I guess I better get on this.

Late-spring dinner. Fiddlehead ferns sauteed with shallots, butter and some lemon juice (thanks, Lesli, for the prep idea). Garlic mashed potatoes, half-sweet and half-red. Thyme-poached salmon (thyme from my pots!) with a random concoction of a yogurt-sour cream sauce with tarragon (tarragon from my pots!).

I've still been cooking up a storm — fiddlehead ferns have been among the more unusual ingredients around the kitchen. There's a nascent container garden on my deck, too: fennel, onions, rosemary, lavender, basil, parsley, tarragon, lettuces, red and green bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, three kinds of tomatoes (small, medium and large), chocolate mint, thyme, broccoli, and collard greens. The photo above is from May 13...

From around the same time, here's a view of Leo in the "garden," before seedlings and starters from Adams were even potted:

I took new pictures today, and can't wait to put them up for comparison.

The lettuces in the pot right now aren't doing so hot, so I bought some seeds, which I need to start. It rained for a month straight starting around Memorial Day, but we've had some hot, sunny days in the past week so I hope the plants start really growing. But not like the lettuce and basil that bolted. Still not sure what to do about those.

I see things every day and think of content I'd love to write about, but never get around to it. Among those items: my newfound love of kimchi, this article from the NYT, how much I miss food editing, and my summer food love adventures... all of it TK, as we say in the biz. Which reminds me - also TK was more info on the tubers... Did I ever finish that? No? Well, that also is TK.

They're back!

2009-05-11T17:57:00.003-04:00

Mother's Cookies Circus Animals are back, and although I hardly ever bought them, I'm happy they're once again an option.

My old pal Kathy explains it here.

While looking for a good picture of the cookies, I found this interesting note too. "Dessert first"? Sounds like a blog I should keep an eye on.

Beacon Bites: Homespun Foods

2009-04-22T17:07:00.010-04:00

Salami(I think?), provolone and caponata panini and carrot cake, Homespun Foods, 232 Main St., Beacon, NY; www.homespunfoods.com

Despite success with the vegan bread, I was having a really awful day, and wanted something kinda fancy-schmancy for lunch, with something sweet too. The awesome Japanese place doesn't take cards, and I didn't want to stop at the credit union for cash, so Homespun it was. This place is rockingly busy on the weekends due to its proximity to the art museum and inclusion in Beacon writeups in the Times, and usually a little sleepier on weekdays. Well, that'd been my prior experience. It was hopping at 2:30 on a Wednesday with about 20 women and four guys (but two, photographers, quickly left).

I've never had anything bad here, but nothing jumped out at me from today's specials. The salami, provolone and caponata panini sounded swell, and was a little cheaper than the consistently-to-die-for quiche. There are usually more desserts to choose from, too, but from today's choices of chocolate-enrobed brownie, carrot cake, and a poppyseed (probably lemon, too) bread pudding, I went with the carrot cake. The Mexican chocolate pudding, made with almond milk, sounded good but it looked like the pre-portioned servings were all in to-stay dishes, and I wanted to get back home to my puppy.

The panini was okay. It probably would have been better if I'd eaten it there, as the cheese got the way melted cheese gets when it cools for a bit. The caponata was different from any I'd had before, occasionally screaming "OLIVE! INCOMING!!" with each little green chunk. I don't really love salami, but I forgot that before I ordered it.

The carrot cake was interesting too - in a good way. The icing had a subtle citrus tang. A little nuttier than I like, but I know that's the breaks with carrot cake. The icing-cake ratio was a little high. I guess I wasn't expecting the layer of icing between cake layers. On the other hand, when the woman working asked which piece I wanted, I said "corner," so that'd explain the preponderance of icing as well.

I'd eat them both again, although I probably wouldn't order the sandwich again. But that's only because I know you can't go wrong with the quiche and its accompanying salad. There's a patio out back, and it'll be nice to sit out there the next time I'm not in a hurry. The service is always friendly, and usually efficient. I'll probably be back this weekend.

A note on Homespun's desserts: The Nutella-cherry bread pudding I made for New Year's was a ripoff of their chocolate-cherry bread pudding. I've also made my version of their caramel-apple BP. They've had ginger-pear BP too, and while it was good, I don't think I'll be trying to replicate it any time soon. Just Sunday, B and I had a lemon tart and chocolate espresso cookie. Next time I'll try to take pictures before Leo laps up the last crumbs (of everything but the chocolate, of course).

P.S. - This awesome plate was among kitchenesque Xmas gifts from B:
I love this plate for everything...

BADD (bread attention deficit disorder)

2009-04-22T16:39:00.006-04:00

Oops, I did it again.

See, we were only going to go to the grocery store, and I had a list, so it should have been an hour at the most... The dough had only risen for about two hours before, so I figured that if it was rising in the loaf pan for more than the planned 45 minutes, it'd be okay.

And it did turn out okay, after I punched the billowing mass back into the pan and baked it.

B got home from work and we turned around and headed to the store. But we were both hungry, and I had a menu from a Greek place in the car. Hannaford's can't hold a candle to gyros, pastichio and milkshakes. (Even though we only ate the gyros - he opted for Marathon beer, I got water, and the pastichio is sitting in the fridge, still untouched 24 hours later.) Plus, going shopping ~~with a~~ hungry ~~boyfriend~~ is a recipe for spending $200 on organic junk food. My least favorite thing to hear while shopping: "Ooh, this might be good." (Thing is, though, he's usually right.)

So the dough rose for at least another two hours. Maybe three? As pretty much anyone who knows me will attest, I'm not so good with those clock things. This has to be the most forgiving bread recipe EVER. See?

First stage of rising. That's a lot of flour, and my dough is always gummy. Oh well.

Not sure why I didn't take a picture immediately before this, when the dough had spilled over the pan's edges.

See? it turned out fine. And it was delicious with eggs this morning.

Alien bread

2009-04-21T17:58:00.003-04:00

There's flour all over the kitchen.
There's flour all over me.
The apartment smells like stale beer.
(I think it's the yeast, but it could be stale beer.)
The dough is rising.

This is the fourth time I've attempted to make my BFF Jenessa's vegan bread, and I swear it turns out different every time.

Maybe it's because I'm not the most attentive dough-watcher. ...Maybe.
Last time, I let it rise about two and half hours, until it was doubled. Then the boyfriend and I wanted to go do something else, so I stuffed it into a loaf pan, beat it down, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge.

We have refrigerators to inhibit growth of cultures such as yeast, right??? Well, we got home from wherever pretty late, too late to bake the bread. I peeked into the fridge and was confronted by an angry, amoeba-"shaped" tan mass that threatened to hold the sprouts (don't laugh at me because I ♥ sprouts) hostage. The sprouts will never forgive me, because I shut the door, went to bed, and tried not to have nightmares about that horrific scene.

I had to work the next day, so I punched the dough back into the loaf pan, re-Saran-wrapped it, threw it back in the fridge, and walked away. Again. With the lives of at least a few different kinds of produce at stake.

I checked it again when I got home sometime after 1 a.m.
It had exploded. Again.
I went to bed. Again.

I probably should have known better, and just thrown it out, but I'm always game for a bit of a science experiment. So I baked it the next day. Needless to say, it was not as tasty as the first three loaves (the first time, I split the dough into two loaves like BFF says; second time, baked it all in one and it was great), but it looked amazing! This was the ~~Sears~~ Willis Tower of bread tops. Too bad that when I took it out of the oven, even after tapping it for that lovely hollow sound, much of the interior was doughy and gross.

I still ate the crusty parts.

Here's hoping the current loaf comes out better...

It's electric, pt. 2

2009-04-08T14:27:00.003-04:00

this fascinated me
Originally uploaded by stephaniekg

The coffee grounds acted like this.

It's electric! (... boogie woogie woogie.)

2009-04-08T13:04:00.004-04:00

Yesterday morning and today, I had chocolate cake (left over from B's birthday Monday) and black coffee for breakfast. Delicious. Of course, this is my weekend, so I'm not worried about the inevitable energy crash.

B, being the earlier-riser, had been the primary A.M. coffee-maker. He's mentioned it before, but not until my own recent forays into home coffee brewing have I noticed that the coffee grinder magnetizes the grounds.

Huh??

No, I'm not walking around the kitchen holding a magnet, but it seems as though when the receptacle for the grounds is pulled out of the grinder, and when the lid's removed, grounds splay out in patterns that look like the same ones metal filings make. Remember Wooly Willy? Where you drag the magnet-pen to make his beard and hair and mustache? Like that. It's kind of a pain to get coffee dust to behave.

Well, after much Googling and not-really-what-I-was-looking-for information about magnetic therapy, I found this in a review of a coffee grinder:

* Grounds receptacle builds up static charge. This is an amazing thing. I had no idea coffee beans could so convincingly mimic the properties of magnetized iron filaments, as they cling together in a lump on the wall of the plastic container. I am forever scraping them off into the coffee filter. Sometimes they take to flight, perhaps attracted by the magnetic force of the International Space Station, only to settle scatter-shot all over the counter.

Makes sense.

A review for another grinder claims that the slow bean-grinding speed doesn't magnetize the grounds. Yet another site is pro-grinder magnetization, but I can see why they'd want to conserve as much product as possible.

So now I know a little more about the science causing the Wooly Willy coffee grounds, but I'm still not sure what to do about it. I really like the grinder, and it was free. Funny thing: Until looking it up just now, I didn't know that it claimed to have an anti-static bean container.

More Googling yields this coffee-grinding nugget: The static charge can be created by the speed of the burrs when coupled with the wrong humidity and temperature.

Looks like plenty of other people have had this problem, as "static" is mentioned in more than a few coffee grinder reviews. I guess once this one dies, it'll be good to have a reference. Until then, it doesn't sound like there's a way to fix the current problem. Throwing some Downy in with the beans is not exactly appetizing.

OK, OK... this post totally doesn't count...

2009-01-28T20:38:00.004-05:00

I really really realllllly meant to do a full post today. Except, see, the boyfriend took a snow day, and you know, really, I couldn't tell you the last time we had an entire day together. So we stayed away from the Interweb in general and walked and did groceries and laundry and cooked dinner. Is this what normal couples do? I'm sure we'd get sick of each other after, like, three days of this.

But - this is what I was talking about when I said the weird stuff came to me.

Or, as my friend S asked when I showed her this picture, "Why did you take a picture of turds?"

Recap

2009-01-27T17:40:00.001-05:00

Danielle, aka Fran, gave "Moroccan wine" a thumbs-up.

What I made in SLC, except for the already-recapped Italian (photos here):

Cuban: Cornmeal-crusted whitefish with an almond-butter sauce, and a cinnamon-mango crisp. Caroline (aka Vera) came over and did accounting homework while she ate. This one was so easy - and it must have been good, too, because after this she brought her own Tupperware for leftovers. From this cookbook.

Indian: Chicken vindaloo. Really well-seasoned, with small amounts of many spices. Spicy, but not burn-your-mouth-for-days hot. There's a picture of it in an earlier post somewhere down there...

Thai: I made pad thai and a potato curry. They were delicious. The curry comes together really quickly, too, so I've made it a few times since. From this cookbook.

Mexican: This was so good!!! There was an almond mole, almendrado de pollo. I also made mexican rice because, well, it was easy and we needed something to put the mole on. I think both recipes were from Mark Bittman's book, which felt like cheating, but he seems pretty authentic. (E.g., in Asian recipes, he's not afraid to use plenty of fish sauce.)

Japanese: Teriyaki chicken (unlike any I'd had before), yakisoba noodles, and edamame. The chicken was coated in cornstarch before cooking it, which worked really well. Not a crunchy texture, but not soggy either. The sauce wasn't what I'd thought of as teriyaki - it wasn't sticky sweet like it as at most places.

Irish: I'll be honest, this was an easy pick, as I cooked on St. Patrick's Day. I made an Irish beef stew, and colcannon (mashed potatoes with leeks). Friends brought Guinness and beer.

Colombia: I found this cookbook at the library, and for that one book alone, I miss the SLC library a bunch. I haven't been to the little one here in this little town, but it'll be interesting to check out the breadth of their selection. I made fried bananas, coconut and black-eyed pea rice, and a stew with fish and plantains. The first two dishes were fantastic. The stew, well... I don't know if the plantains were extremely unripe, or if that's just how plantains are supposed to be in savory dishes. The fish kind of started to fall apart. On the off chance I were to make the stew again, I think I'd get riper plantains, and cook only add the fish when the rest of the stew is close to done. Maybe even fry it first for better texture? Anyway, I learned a lot with that one...

Last, but not least, Moroccan: I don't know how I decided on this one. It's entirely possible that I just picked up one of the prettier cookbooks on the shelf at the Trib and went for it. In this case, the book was Arabesque, and I could almost smell the spices when I opened it. I made harira, a traditional Moroccan stew, from the book, and a lentil, onion and rice "salad" from a recipe I found online. We had been getting wine from the same country as the dishes, but I couldn't find any wine from Morocco at the state store down the street. So I picked up one bottle from Spain, and another from South Africa, and decided to split the difference. (I didn't say the difference was split equally by geography!)

That turned out to be the final SLC cuisine night, because a week or maybe two later I was packed up and on the road to New York. Even in the new apartment, it's been hard to plan dinners like those because
1) I don't have friends to invite over to eat. There's me, B, and the puppy.
2) I work nights and weekends.
3) It's harder to find weird ethnic ingredients because this is a smallish city. What I should be doing is planning way ahead, so I could go down to the city on one day off and get ingredients, and on the second day off, cook my brains out.
That said, with No. 3, it's not as hard as I thought, and sometimes the weird stuff comes to you... More about that tomorrow. (Yes, tomorrow. Wednesday, January 28.)

New year, new (well, two months old) kitchen, new blog post

2009-01-05T12:57:00.006-05:00

The first things I unpacked? Wine glasses and Larousse Gastronomique, parting gifts from my Trib family...

Despite the kinda-success of my actual resolution of cooking dishes from a different country every week, execution of the blogging portion (can't remember if that was part of the resolution) SUCKED.

Since reading so many stunningly beautiful food blogs, with amazing photos, it has become really hard to post my lo-res camera phone pictures. It's like, why bother? Everyone's done this, and they've done it prettier. And it's been intimidating to try and catch up on the backlog of projects - I just realized that today, January 5th, it's been one year since the Italian kickoff. Unbelievable.

I moved again November 1 to a great apartment in a great town, and have been cooking a pretty fair amount with the boyfriend, B. He loves to cook and eat as much as I do, except he's a little more adventurous and a little more confident that his adventures will turn out tasty. (He's usually right.) He makes the best breakfast burritos ever.

He and I hosted Thanksgiving, and his parents and brother came down. We made these caramelized root vegetables (sans dried currant sauce, which sounds pretty damn good), two pumpkin pies and an apple pie, and a cranberry relish, whose recipe I got from my Aunt Judy last December when my family organized a "Chris-giving" during one of my rare trips back to SD. There's nothing like Christmas by the beach... (Really, this is where I grew up. That place is a block and a half from the beach.)

This blog kicked off with a little bit of a yoga tirade, and although my passion for it hasn't dropped off, my practice certainly has. Without that point of reference, I never would have gotten where I am today, physically/geographically and mentally. I've been to two classes since moving to Beacon. This first one I did in a studio in six months (maybe more) was on Thanksgiving Day. It was for my friends and family who helped me get to this point too. Cheesy, but true.

I know I always say this, but... Updates to come. I promise. They're already in a draft post. For now, though, I need to do some groceries. :)

Nutella bread pudding, again, but this time with dried cherries! For New Year's Day brunch in Ithaca with Katie and Jon.

night at the fair...

2008-08-19T23:14:00.009-04:00

Dutchess County, New York, is covered in farms. They're everywhere. The last fair I went to was the then-Del Mar Fair (apparently it's now called the San Diego County Fair, but that just sounds wrong to me), a pretty big one that seems to be dominated by vendor booths selling every product I've already glimpsed while flipping through shopping network channels. Although I half-thought the Dutchess County fair would be quaint, with a plethora of bunnies, I really didn't know what to expect from tonight's venture.

By way of comparison:
Del Mar Fair, from flickr.com's teamtauni (I forgot how to embed the credit, oh well).

Dutchess County Fair, from flickr.com's jeanphony.

It was a little quaint, but I'll take a plethora of bunnies over a plethora of ShopVacs any day.

More to the point, here's what I ate, with some help from B. There may have been some local fare among these. Note: I hadn't eaten anything between 9 p.m. Monday and getting to the fair at 4 p.m. Tuesday. I tried to prepare...

Started with kielbasa, potato and cheese pierogis (which, when eaten at a deli around the corner from my Bay Area elementary school, we pronounced as "piroshkis") from a stand whose awning blared "MILLIE'S." Three and sour cream for four bucks. Not bad, kinda gummy, but I was unfulfilled. Maybe I should have been more adventurous and tried the prune one.

But still hungry, so onto the chicken skewer. It was actually B's idea, but I ended up doing most of the eating. It was, again, okay. Yakitori-style chicken on a skewer. Not seasoned very much at all. Pretty basic.

Went on a couple of rides before having a corn dog. This was the culinary highlight of my trip to the Dutchess County Fair. Unfortunately, I couldn't handle the just-out-of-the-fryer, crispy-shelled, perfectly salted (and I don't even like salt) dog, dropping it about two-thirds of the way through. Also unfortunately for my taste buds, I'd given B's niece Riley a couple of bites. The girl had never tasted a corn dog before! So, glad she got to try a good one; sad I didn't devour the whole thing more quickly.

Then it was time for more serious fair fare. We found a spot at some picnic tables in the shade, and ventured out for more serious food. I came back with a pulled pork barbecue sandwich. It was basic, but awesome (but not as awesome as the corn dog). Meat, sauce, bun. Don't waste my time with accessories like pickles, you know? Other people had some weak-looking burgers, and fries that came in a cardboard bowl that looked like a dog food dish. Weird. (The fries actually weren't too bad.)

Had to drink something, too, you know? I'm a big fan of lime, so when I saw the "Lime Fizz" sign, it was, well, a sign. I guess the booth primarily purveyed lemonade, but we can get that anywhere, you know? Lime it was. The girl working grabbed a couple of limes, hacked them open, and juiced them. She poured the juice in a cup, squirted what I am pretty sure was simple syrup (sugar water), and added soda water. A few swirls of the straw, a sip - sublime. Get it? Sub-lime? Ahahaha, just kidding... (It would have been good with vodka, too. But that would likely have precluded going on any more rides.)

I think we headed out for more rides and a tour of the horticultural building. I saw a cow put its hoofs up on a teenage girl's shoulders and wasn't sure if it was some kind of stunt or something - I'm a city kid, remember? - but the look of terror on her face let me know... Fortunately, someone moved the cow and all was well. The girl was probably happy to sell it for any price at the 4-H auction.

Then we had to get a shake. These shakes are legendary (I guess). Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. I was under the impression that they were something SPECTACULAR, like they workers shot the milk from a cow's udder into a cup, into which fell some kind of magical glittery ice cream and then with the first sip, we have world peace, and a unicorn is born right in front of you (maybe in the barn where the cow was mounting the girl), and there's no wait when leaving the parking lot post-fair. I got a strawberry one. It was - okay. The proceeds benefit the local 4-H, I think. (I just spent way too long looking at the fair's Web site and still couldn't find the info.) Good for them.

After walking around even more, we stopped for fried dough. It tastes better than it sounds. Kind of funnel cake-y, covered in confectioner's sugar - be careful not to inhale. I only had a few bites, as I was busy trying to cool my coffee down by alternately spilling it and blowing on it. Plus, I wanted to save what little room was left for a cream puff.

A cream puff? Yep. I'd been waiting alllll summer long for this cream puff, the favorite carny food of the fair's new director, which he'd raved about in the Hudson Valley Table magazine. I bought one; the chocolate syrup surprised me. It was kinda heavy. Maybe I'd been thinking about something more like a popover? Fluffier, you know?

But it was cool. B and I sat at a picnic table next to a radio booth that was blasting cheesy hair metal. We gave the popover our most valiant effort (I wondered why they gave us a knife - it was kinda tough). Then we called it a night and ~~waddled~~headed to the car. Naturally, I finished the cream puff on the way home. I had to - I waited all summer for that and I'll be damned if I wasn't going to finish it!

Now, if only we'd taken pictures...

in the meantime...

2008-08-12T14:04:00.005-04:00

Since arriving here, I've done a little cooking. The photos are from when I made the dishes in SLC.
A repeat of the chicken vindaloo:

A repeat of the Thai potato curry; apparently, Caroline liked it:

I made the Nutella bread pudding again; that was good but my timing was off as two of the other four people I'm living with had just gone out of town and I was about to. It was a little too much, too rich, for the people left behind.

Got a puppy on July 1 and he's had some digestive problems, so recently my cooking has looked more like this:

C'mon, who doesn't love sweet potatoes, chicken, yogurt and rice? Speaking of the pup, it's time to walk him so I'm outta here... I hope to have more (and better) pictures up soon, and new dishes.

2008-08-07T11:20:00.004-04:00

hey there, 'member me?

it's been a while. i actually was doing okay with the whole national-dish-a-week resolution - until i picked up the first week of may and moved to new york. no, not the city, but not toooo far from it, either.

don't exactly have my own kitchen, so it's been hard to stay up on cooking, but that should change soon. maybe another two months?

i made this buttermilk-chocolate cake when i was here in april for job interviews and dear friend (of the flame le creuset)'s birthday.

pictures and blurbs of the national dishes to follow.

Meals, Ready to Eat

2008-01-08T20:31:00.001-05:00

for the MRE project (before)
Originally uploaded by Amelia PS

I received this e-mail Monday afternoon from my coworker and friend Matt.

"I'm working on an article about military MREs. As part of our extensive reporting on this very important topic, we've invited some of Utah's top chefs to come and review 20 of the military's infamous travel-ready meals.

"And I'm going to need some help.

"I need three people to help me cook & plate the MREs, beginning Monday at 9:30 a.m. and lasting for about two hours. Experience with these nasty things is nice, but not necessary. (I'll give a quick crash course on the preparation of these fine meals and then let you go at it.)

"If you're interested, please check with your editor to make sure it's OK to burn a couple hours this way and then let me know if you can lend a hand. The expressions on these gourmets' faces should be enough, but I'll also make it worth your while in other ways (read: booze.)"

Not noticing the email's timestamp, I assumed the request was for the same day (one of my days off) and I blew it off, looking forward to hearing about the results.

Apparently, response wasn't what he expected (or editors wouldn't OK the time), because he tapped me to help out next Monday. He thought it might be worth bloggin about. I hope so.

The Italian challenge went well – eventually. Pictures and a longer post TK.

Italian

2008-01-06T00:41:00.002-05:00

Week one of the challenge was, well, certainly a challenge.

A bunch of old friends from my days at Starbucks were weaving in and out of town, and many of them started school on Monday, January 7. I wanted to host a shindig at my new place. Consensus was that Saturday night (which I usually work) would be best for most people.

(bradley, left, lexi, back of caroline's head, danielle, and ryan. it was late; we were tired. except brad.)

After looking through a cookbook one of my cousins put together with recipes from family friends, I decided to start with Italian food. Jamie's compilation, The World in My Kitchen, includes recipes from Raffaele "Lele" Malferrari, who grew up outside Bologna. Apparently Lele loved bean soup as a kid, so Jamie included its recipe. She also included one for lasagna verdi al forno (baked spinach lasagna) that included bechamel and a ragu.

The pasta di faggioli, Lele's Bolognese bean soup, looked easy enough on paper. I soaked the navy beans overnight, and then some. The aroma of olive oil and garlic filling the kitchen was heavenly. Things were going well until the oil started splattering all over! I hurried and turned it down, but that front right burner runs extra hot. After I added parsley and tomato puree, the saucepan calmed down. I cooked the beans in the FLAME! oven, which also runs hot, and I can't believe those didn't burn.

After running the beans through the mini-chopper (oops! I guess when I read the recipe the first time, I didn't see anything about a food mill - which I don't have), with cooking water, I set the mush - not exactly puree - aside in a big china serving dish. I was trying to cook for the lasagna at the same time (I'll get to that) and was running out of stovetop food receptacles! After rinsing the oval oven and pouring the lasagna sauce into it, I rinsed the big pot and reassembled the beans and tomato/parsley/garlic sauce in it. I followed directions and added the rice and potatoes, but after waiting a while it seemed like the potatoes weren't cooking. So I covered it and turned up the heat.

If you're a real cook, you may have just winced at that.

I burned the soup. Didn't realize that was possible. And I didn't realize what was happening for a while, either. My phone was ringing off the hook and I was trying to concoct lasagna, and I probably didn't like the song on the radio, all at the same time.

As soon as I figured out something might be wrong with the soup, I pulled it from the heat, after playing musical chairs with the other pots on burners, and stirred it. When you can tell that the entire contents of the pot are rotating together, things are very bad. I used a spatula to pull up from the bottom of the pot, and there was my charred pasta di faggioli. I'm sure it wasn't the worst thing that could have happened, because it was surprisingly easy to scrape the soup from the charred part and keep cooking - after adding more broth, and going back to low heat.

The lasagna didn't give me any trouble, really. It was just more complicated than I expected.

Ragu alla bolognese - was supposed to be made with freshly ground chuck, which sounds like it would be damn good. But one of my presumed guests was vegetarian, so I substituted finely chopped (minced? I should learn the difference) portobello mushrooms. It turned out great - Danielle, the veg, loved it, and no one else noticed what was missing.

One of the ingredients for the lasagna was bechamel, a sauce made from butter, flour, milk, salt and pepper. It sounds fancy, and there are only a few ingredients, and it involves whisking constantly, so I was pretty intimidated.

Bechamel is the most forgiving sauce ever. I was mid-whisk when I noticed the soup crisis. I turned down the heat on the bechamel and dealt with the soup, and when I went back to whisking, the bechamel recovered marvelously. And I couldn't stop "tasting" it - next time I'll double the recipe, so there's extra for the lasagna.

I wanted to have dessert ready for my friends, too, but there was no way I could make something else. The boxed tiramisu (in keeping with the Italian theme!) from the frozen foods aisle worked GREAT.

Went well: Lasagna prep and cooking, chopping all the veggies the night before, substitutions. And we had such a good time!!
Didn't go so well: Figuring cooking times - when Caroline started into the soup, the potatoes still weren't done. Pot and pan and burner management - musical chairs on a stove is no fun. I went through the saucepan, the frying pan, the big pot, and the oval oven (that's all I've got) multiple times each before the meal was done. I hope that was a one-time thing.

I was given china when I got married that I had never used in three years. Well, why not now? We went through all eight place settings. I've never been happier to do so many dishes. Friends I hadn't seen in ages came by and ate and drank (and disregarded the vaguely squatteresque feel of the apartment). Dyson took pictures of the food, but I still haven't seen them. I only have the party pic, which is fine. Even though it felt like my head was spinning for hours, once my friends were over and food was done, it was SO worth it.

new year, new kitchen

2008-01-05T00:37:00.000-05:00

I recently moved out of a long-term apartment and left a lot of things behind. My new apartment looked and felt naked, and I felt like it wouldn't be home until I made a meal there. The kitchen, especially, depressed me – drab white walls with a high ceiling and poorly designed "country kitchen" cabinetry, which probably magnified the empty feeling, because I could see what was missing behind the glass doors. It looked like there might be potential, but it was difficult to identify what was missing. Needless to say, I kind of avoided it.

Then a dear friend called on Christmas Day, asking if I'd received a large box in the mail. I said I hadn't, and he was upset because "they said it would be there by Christmas." I didn't know who this "they" was. We hung up, figuring the package had just been delayed. Leaving later that day to go do some laundry, I happened to look around the staircase that goes up through the center of the building, and caught a glimpse of a box in front of my apartment's vestigial door (it's probably left over from when the building was a house, or each floor was its own flat). That door doesn't have a number on it - it could be a closet as far as anyone's concerned. But there it was, the missing box.

I hauled it inside, and called him back to let him know I'd been mistaken. As I opened the box, I ended up leaving a long, rambling message of flabbergastedness – as close to speechless as I've ever been. The return address was The Chef's Shop, in Great Barrington, Mass., and inside were many goodies:

COLOR was what my kitchen was missing! It's funny how much of a difference that made once the tea towel and oven mitts were arranged just so by the stove, and of course that Le Creuset oval oven in FLAME! (which looks too small in the picture; must have been the angle) will stay on the stovetop. The gifts were an unbelievably generous move, and I can't wait to cook for the giver.

Its been very chilly here lately, so the first thing I made in the FLAME! pot was chili:

The super-high quality of the pot, and maybe even just the brand's reputation, really intimidated me! I still handle it very gingerly, even though that thing has more tough in its plastic oven-safe-to-450-degrees-lid than I do in my whole body. But the chefs at work assure me that I won't ruin it, and it'll cook everything. Kathy, the food writer, said, "You can even braise in it!" I replied that I don't even know what that is, yet. The coworker behind me assured me that I've done it a million times, whether I knew it or not. I looked it up in Food Lover's Companion, and nope, I've never braised. But I'll see if I can do that in week two of the...

...Food/cooking-related New Year's resolution! It got figured out Sunday with lots of help from my coworker Erin. I'll be cooking food from a different country every week. If I go out of town, I don't have to do that week (but probably will). Instead, I'll do at least two dishes the preceding or following week. Erin, a world traveler herself, had lots of good ideas about procuring recipes, so I'll only head for Bittman's World's Best Recipes if I abolutely have to.

I have this vision of heading to the African grocery store (I know the Salt Lake Valley has at least one), ingredient list in hand, then talking with an employee about me trying to cook, and hopefully getting suggestions for side dishes (such as injera, a flatbread – I'm learning already!) or cooking techniques that might help.

For week one - Italian! No, I'm not boiling up some Bertoli and throwing in some Prego (not that anything's wrong with that). On the menu this week, for a long-overdue shindig for old Starbucks coworkers, are pasta e fagioli (that's how FLC spells it), lasagna al funghi (subbing chopped portobello mushrooms for chuck in the ragu alla bolognese recipe) with handmade sauce and béchamel, and probably some combination of salad, bread and wine. I hope to have pictures of this - ideally with a digicam, not just my phone.

This is all happening in fewer than 24 hours, so I should probably get on the ball about it. Or at least start soaking some beans.

two

2007-12-13T20:10:00.000-05:00

I have a love affair with Nutella.

Found this recipe for Nutella bread pudding last month, and made it just as soon as I could go to the store and snag the ingredients. I didn't wait for the brioche to officially be a day old. Heck, I wasn't even sure what brioche was when I set out. (This foodie thing is still new to me. I'm learning on the fly.)

Apologies for the camera phone picture, but even if it had been professionally styled and shot and all of that, there's no way it could look as divine as it tasted.

And if you decide to try and make it, it really does fit in the 8x8 dish. (I was skeptical.)

On another blog I read, someone attempted a 52-week baking challenge. I've been inspired, and maybe I'm warming up for my own challenge in the New Year because over the past six weeks, I've baked six pumpkin pies, one coffee cake, and Nutella bread pudding. Maybe my challenge won't be baking, but it'll be fun nonetheless.

one.

2007-12-02T23:26:00.002-05:00

I love food. Is that quite clear yet? I guess this blog exists for me (and you, my dear potential readers) to explore what that means.

One of my main interests is yoga. I often think, and say, that doing yoga gives me permission to eat whatever I want and enjoy it. I don't mean that in a calories-in-to-calories-out-ratio kind of way. I mean it like this: Yoga has taught me, and continues to teach me, that being a human being is very much about the senses. The act of creating meals from scratch tickles allll the senses. Smelling sweet, spicy, and savory aromas wafting through the whole apartment. Seeing brightly colored fruits and vegetables mingling in the pan, mellowing with a little cream. Hearing the crackling, popping sound of seeds, or the low roil of boiling water, full of potential. Feeling the dry, comforting heat of an oven or the sharp OW! of a slipped paring knife. And the best - tasting not just the finished product, but during each step along the way.

Yoga also teaches me that enjoyment is a good thing (I know - who has to be taught, right?). And cooking is downright fun! The process of creating a unified something from a bunch of little somethings is so fulfilling to me. And then, of course, there's the eating.

Before I worked at the paper, I liked food, a lot, but now cooking is part of me. When I started there in January 2005, I became responsible for the production of two weekly features sections. I refer to only one of them as "mine." This attachment wouldn't be the case if not for the amazing women I work with, reporter Kathy and editor Lesli.

Oh - and for the record, I'm a stickler for Associated Press style. I must differ, though, on one point. The stylebook lists "chili" for all food-related uses. I diligently, if begrudgingly, follow that rule for print copy. Here, you will see that spelling used only if I'm referring to a concoction headed for a bowl. Members of the capsicum family are, of course, "chiles."

If you happen to be a member of AFJ, lobby your representative to lobby AP. Peppers everywhere are counting on you.