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MONDAY 14 JUNE 2004 link
Now that Catherine & I have moved to Aptos, we are neighbors with Tom & Mima, the owners of Carried Away, where I used to work. We ran into Tom at the video store the other day - it's that kind of neighborhood, where you run into people you know at the video store - and he mentioned that a woman who's been cooking for him one day a week was leaving. I could feel Catherine trying to stare a hole through my head, but I ignored her, and just commiserated with Tom about employee turnover... I did email the next day, though, and asked if I could come back to work. I start next week!
I'm pretty excited to go back to work in a kitchen, even if it's just for a little while. I miss communal work, everyone standing around a big prep table, chopping and slicing and gossiping. I miss having a tangible, physical, (edible), product as the result of a work day. (There is something inherently unsatisfying for me about working on a computer. I like having something to show for my work, instead of a collection of words or pixels.) And I miss being surrounded by people who talk about food - what they've been eating, what they've been cooking, what they heard about what someone else has been eating or cooking.
(On the other hand, if I only cooked to support myself, I might go crazy. I like doing more than one thing - no chance of getting bored!)
I may have to get my wedding ring resized again. Although this seems completely unrelated, it's not. Last year, I noticed that my ring was getting a little loose. I took it in, and it turns out that my finger has shrunk an entire ring size. If this had happened because I lost a bunch of weight, that might be good news. However, I think it happened because I had stopped working at Carried Away, and also stopped lifting weights - I see that lower ring size as meaning that my hands are weaker. My calluses are gone, my skin is too soft - I've got inside, white-collar hands.
Maybe in a month or so those calluses will be back. All those muscles in my hand will be strong again, and I'll start to notice that my ring is a little tight. I wouldn't like going up a pants size, but going up a ring size won't bother me at all.
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FRIDAY 7 MAY 2004 link
Catherine just went through a brief encounter with the South Beach diet. Thank god it didn't last long. For the first two weeks, you are supposed to give up ALL sugar, ALL fruit, ALL white things (pasta, bread, potatoes, rice), and ALL alcohol. After the two weeks are over, you start re-introducing fruits and you can drink again, but only red wine.
She didn't make it through the first two weeks.
I hate diets. I hate having to follow rules about what to eat and when and how much. And I hate when I have to follow the rules when I'm cooking for someone else. Especially when that person is very grumpy about being on a diet.
Anyway, I had to get rid of some evil, fattening, high-glycemic bananas. So I made three mini-loaves of banana nut bread. I took one to a neighbor, one to some friends who just had a baby, and the third one I ate all by myself, a slice at a time, hiding in the bathroom. How messed up is that? I'm not an eat-in-the-closet kind of person, but Catherine was too tempted by all the regular food. She made me hide the chocolate and toss the not-quite-empty container of Ben & Jerry's. I don't know what she would have done if she had seen me eating delicious, sweet, nutty banana bread.
Reminds me of the movie Eating, which if you haven't seen, you should. I just looked it up on Netflix, though, and it's not available on DVD. My favorite scene from the movie involves a woman taking a chocolate bath. Chocolate triggers your endorphins, but she's worried about getting fat, so she's sitting in the bathtub pouring packet after packet of Swiss Miss into the hot water.
Catherine is back to the sensible way of losing weight - just exercise more. It's not like we eat at McDonald's on a regular basis, or eat dessert every night. We eat more vegetables than anything. A couple more days of surfing a week, and she's fine. Maybe I should write a diet book. I'd call it "If you want your butt to be smaller, stop sitting on it."
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TUESDAY 27 APRIL 2004 link
Californians, it's time to write your state senator.
There is a bill on its way through State Congress that would ban the sale and production of foie gras. How ridiculous! Not only does the method of producing foie gras go back hundreds of years, but the result is a delicious, indulgent, voluptuous treat. Doesn't it seem like the congress has better ways to spend their time?
If animal rights activists want to do some good, they should focus on the factory farming methods for pork, chicken, or beef instead. Those pigs are could use some help!
The bill is up for a Senate vote in May. Please write your senator and ask them to vote no on this bill.
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MONDAY 26 APRIL 2004 link
It was a friend's (and our friend's dad's) birthday last week, and to celebrate a group of us went up to Sonoma. We took a wine-blending class at Chateau St. Jean, and it was one of the most interesting, educational, and FUN afternoons that I've spent for a while.
We started out with four bottles of wine, each one made from a single varietal from a single vineyard. We tasted them, and that in itself was a revelation. There were three merlots, and they tasted completely different. The same grape, but grown in a different location, and treated differently during fermentation. You could taste the geography - logically, I've known this to be true, but I didn't really believe it until I experienced it for myself. And you could taste the difference between new and seasoned oak - that wasn't such a surprise for me. The fourth wine was a malbec.
After we tasted each of the wines separately, the woman who led the class, Laurie, the resident wine educator, divided us into three teams (there were eleven people in our group). Each group was to come up with one blend - we each had three chances - and at the end of the class the three blends were going to compete in a blind tasting.
It was amazing how much changing the ratio any one wine in the blend by just 5% affected the taste. I will say that one of the reasons that I had so much fun was that our team won. Laurie had warned us that if we wanted to win, we should take advantage of our spit cups, and I think our team was the only one that followed her advice. But all three final blends were good, and we all had a great time.
The process we went through to create our blends was the same process that the real winemakers go through, although ours was much abbreviated. We blended, tasted, rejected or approved, re-blended... in a couple of hours, but winemakers will spread the process out over several weeks, taking notes, reflecting, and coming back over and over to perfect a blend. And while we had four wines to blend, they will use up to twenty. I can't imagine how complicated that must be.
Merlot-blending class is a great way to spend $35 - worth every penny.
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FRIDAY 9 APRIL 2004 link
Pretty long period of silence, huh? Life took over, for a while. I'm sorry that this is the thing that got shoved to the side—not for lack of encouragement, especially from both of my parents.
Lots has happened, not the least of which is that Catherine & moved into a very big fancy house, with a very big fancy kitchen. I now have a (very big, fancy) Viking stove, with six burners. Even more important than the stove, though, is the dishwasher.
I have not had regular access to a dishwasher since I left my parents' house to go to college sixteen years ago. That's sixteen years of washing dishes by hand. I know that there are probably many people out there who have never had a dishwasher, who pride themselves on their hand-washing, but let me tell you that all those folks would be just as excited as me to have a machine that does the washing.
Maybe eventually the excitement will wear off, but I don't think so. I LOVE it. I'm giddy. I love to have a dinner party! I'll serve salad on separate plates! You can have a clean fork for your dessert! You want water, and wine, AND coffee? OK - who cares? I have a dishwasher - use two glasses and a coffee cup if you want to!
It really is amazing, the difference that it makes in entertaining. Of course, I'm so picky about my things that there's lots that I won't put in the dishwasher. My knives, obviously, never go in there. And my All-Clad pans, never. Not my LeCreuset, either. And not the cast iron. Nothing wood. I have loosened up my stance on the steak knives, since they're all stainless steel, no black or wood handles.
So, you've noticed some changes to the site. And more are on their way-- I'm adding a bookstore, as well as a gallery of Catherine's photographs. The other big change that's here already is that I can now take credit cards for subscriptions, through PayPal. You don't have to sign up for a PayPal account - they've done away with that requirement. So what are you waiting for?
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WEDNESDAY 30 JULY 2003 link
We have a homeless guy who's been sleeping on our porch at work. I got to work early yesterday - before he usually leaves - and had to step over him to get into the office, waking him up in the process.
It's a very frustrating situation. On one hand, if he always left before we got here, what does it really matter if he sleeps on our porch? But the problem is that he's using our stairs as a bathroom - it smells like a parking garage, and it's really disgusting.
So this direct confrontation with the problems of homelessness has got me thinking... edible landscaping. Why don't more cities have edible landscaping? Our main downtown street is lined with trees, and there are parks and gardens all over town. Why not plant apple trees instead of elms? Or oranges, peaches, apricots? Why do they choose ornamental plums instead of the edible sort? How about radishes in the flower beds, or lettuces, or carrots? Even the borg-like plantings around gas stations and malls (always petunias and marigolds) - couldn't they have nasturtiums or arugula or peas?
My sister Kelly went to UC Davis. When I visited her there once, she took me on a tour of the Village Homes, a sustainable housing development built in the seventies. The houses are enclosed in twelve acres of green space, including lots of -you guessed it! - edible landscaping. It was wonderful to walk from the community center through the neighborhood, picking a nectarine here, a berry there.
Seems to me that edible landscaping would not only provide food for people who needed it, but also for birds and bugs and furry creatures.
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MONDAY 21 JULY 2003 link
My friend Patrick is a genius. Thanks to his suggestion, we had an amazing addition to our Sunday breakfast this weekend - day-old glazed doughnuts, topped with butter and salt, and then heated in the oven. I added a little cinnamon, too, and the result tasted almost like a Frontier Roll.
I've restarted the tradition of Sunday breakfast. It's a good excuse to eat something really delicious but not particularly good for you. (Doughnuts are at the top of that list, of course.) It's our day for almond croissants, bacon, coffee cake, danish, sausages, eggs fried in bacon fat-- all those lovely, lovely treats that you can't eat every day. Omelettes and fruit are nice for a weekday, but give me a doughnut on Sunday.
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WEDNESDAY 16 JULY 2003 link
Sorry about dropping out of my Internet existence like that. Life took over. But here I am, back again, with the happy news that the new issue of Nobody's Fool is done. Look for yours in your mailbox.
This issue is about the ever-more-trendy raw food diet. My friend Monika's mom only eats raw food, something that I found rather unbelievable. But after I tasted her cooking, I could almost see that giving up bacon (and butter, toast, a nice juicy steak, mashed potatoes, curries, grilled salmon....) might be okay. Try some of her recipes for yourself, and see what you think.
Thanks for your patience, everyone!
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FRIDAY 2 MAY 2003 link
I've mentioned that our house is very small. We are beginning to remedy the situation - we've rented an office. It's pretty exciting, also a little scary - it has to be paid for, after all. I'm interested to see how we handle having a separation between our work and our home life. I've really liked working at home, being able to start something on the stove and check on it once in a while as it's cooking. Or being able to take five minute breaks to start a load of laundry or switch it to the dryer.
But lately, it seems like I haven't had the time, or self-organization, to intersperse my tasks like that. I've had the kind of glued-to-the-computer days when you look at the clock and all of a sudden it's 6:30. I stopped making lunch a couple of months ago, and started buying frozen lunches from Trader Joe's, much to my mother's disappointment and near-scorn. I haven't given up cooking dinner, though, and can't ever imagine doing so. It's the part of my day that I look forward to the most. Cooking dinner is my reward for getting through the rest of the day.
I'm looking forward to having people over for dinner again, and not having a desk in the middle of what we've designated as our dining room. I don't know what we'll do about music during dinner parties, though. We've been using one of the computers as our stereo. What will our house be like without iTunes?
Changes, changes. Spec's been very neurotic, needing lots of extra love. She's a nervous wreck in the new office, and tries to escape to the car. I just stuff her full of cookies whenever she's there. Eventually she'll associate the new place with treats, and everything will be fine. Catherine's been stressed out too. The equivalent of stuffing her full of cookies is our new tradition of Thursday Pizza Night. At her core, she is still twelve. Her favorite foods are cheeseburgers and pizza. )In addition to frozen food, Trader Joe's also sells really good pepperoni.)
A little petting, and some treats. It seems like we all need the same things.
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SUNDAY 20 APRIL 2003 link
We just had many of my family members over for Sunday lunch. Catherine and I, along with a dog and two cats, live AND WORK in 750 square feet. This means that our limit for indoor entertaining is two guests. So as soon as it gets warm enough, we entertain during the day - outside.
It was a nice day, and a nice lunch. Grilled leg of lamb and a huge vegetable platter - grilled asparagus & spring onions, sugar snap peas, baby carrots, radishes, and golden beets. I made a preserved lemon relish (using mint along with the parsley and cilantro) and some lemon-tarragon aïoli. My cousin Matt brought his friend Reed, and she brought some lovely red chile, New Mexico style.
(I was pretty grateful for the chile. I've been planning the menu, figuring out what to do ahead of time (babysteps!), and then spent part of last night and this morning working on the food - not that it was a difficult menu, just a lot of vegetable prep. But after spending so much time thinking about that food, and snacking on vegetables all morning, I wasn't that excited to eat it. You know how that goes, I'm sure.)
For dessert, my mom and dad brought a plain white cake, and we had it with whipped Straus cream and strawberries that I tossed with lavender syrup. I have developed a new love for dessert since I stopped drinking wine. I thought that the family sweet tooth had passed me by, but apparently I was wrong.
The best part about where we live is that everyone can end the day by going for a walk down to the beach. Spec got to do a lot of running, Matt and Reed played paddleball, my brother David and brother-in-law Aaron went rafting (kind of) and body-surfing.
Happy Easter, Happy Spring everyone.
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TUESDAY 8 APRIL 2003 link
BOOKS, BOOKS, AND BOOKS
Bookslut is an online magazine for readers. It is published monthly and features book reviews of every kind of book imaginable. In addition to the usual fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, they also review children's books, propaganda, and erotica. And I have recently joined them as the Kitchen Wench, reviewing food books, naturally. Take a look at this month's column, and let me know what you think.
Today is Barbara Kingsolver's birthday. Not only is she a wonderful writer, but she has also been an outspoken proponent of libraries and independent bookstores She is an environmental and human-rights activist, and has established the Bellwether Prize "in support of a literature for social change." For Banned Books Week, the Friends of the Santa Cruz Library gave away mugs with a quote of hers - "Americans who think and read are patriots of the first order."
And speaking of patriots and libraries, have you heard about Santa Cruz? Our librarians have intensified their protest of the Patriot Act. They were among the first to post notices at every check-out desk warning patrons that their library records could be subject to federal searches. And now they have started shredding all paper records on a daily basis, instead of the usual weekly shredding. I love my town!
Read all about it in the NY Times. (login: NF_foodnotes; passord: stories)
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TUESDAY 1 APRIL 2003 link
Spring is one of the best times of year in Santa Cruz. It's our summer - the calender summer is cold, foggy, and full of tourists. But the spring is warm and sunny, what people from pther places think about when they think about California. We spent the whole day at the beach on Saturday, something that we should do more often. We did it right - chairs to sit in, books, sunblock, snacks, an umbrella so that Spec could have some shade.
Catherine wants to celebrate the weather by grilling every night this week. Sunday I marinated lamb chops in rosemary, green garlic, and lemon (my new favorite lamb marinade), and we grilled those along with some asparagus and sweet potatoes. Preserved lemon relish to go with. Last night was sausage, more asparagus, and artichokes. That was the first time that I've grilled artichokes, and they were wonderful.
I just have to figure out what the rest of the week is going to be. We've been really busy with work, so I don't think we'll have enough time to devote to ribs - all the dinners this week have to be quick. Tofu, pork chops - I'm open to suggestions.
GREEN GARLIC MARINADE FOR LAMB
1 Meyer (or regular) lemon
2 stalks green garlic, minced
2 sprigs rosemary, minced
2 T. olive oil
a few grinds of black pepper
1/2 t. sea salt
2 round bone or shoulder lamb chops
Juice the lemon into a shallow, nonreactive container just big enough to hold the chops. Cut the lemon rind into six or seven pieces and add to the container. Add all the remaining ingredients, except for the chops, and stir to mix. Add the chops to the marinade, coating well on both sides, and leave in the fridge for at least two hours, and up to six. Grill over medium heat.
NOTE: I've noticed that green garlic doesn't burn on the grill like regular garlic does. This is nice because you don't have to worry about wiping off the marinade before grilling, and you just end up with more garlic flavor.
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