Splat, Squish, Splash... Sigh

Friday night I was rushing around while A and G were at an art class. I was trying to make dinner, clean, bake and talk on the phone at the same time. We went to a debate watching party at some friends and our babysitter was on park, dinner and book duty. I like to think of myself as a master-multi-task master, but really I'm not. First, I was prepping some of the great organic produce we picked up from our co-op delivery yesterday. When I was finished I went to dump the bowl of compost (my new obsession) into the composter, but for some reasons the angle was wrong and I got splashed by the remnants of compost sweat. Old wet food that's heated up for the last two weeks. Ugh. Not a pleasant experience. Then I took cleaned out the fridge and took out the trash that couldn't be composted and dammit if there wasn't a line of trash water from the fridge to the door. Even the dogs sniffed and bailed on that one. Yuck. Then I went to put the cake in the oven, in it's lovely angel food cake pan which is in two parts and for some reason my brained misfired. I thought the bottom was not aligned so while I was holding the cake pan filled with cake batter in mid-air, I readjusted the pan. Splat. I spilled about a third of the batter on the floor. The cake was fine, just exceptionally short.

I thrive under pressure. Write, produce and edit commercials with exec producers breathing down my neck and screaming, no sweat. A million years ago, when I considered law school for five minutes I worked for a corporate law firm. (If you know me well, this is when you start to laugh.) I worked for a woman who was scary. Really, really scary. She had worked for the justice department, liked to scream, made the third and fourth year associates shake in their shoes and was about as hateful as Aunt Spika from James and the Giant Peach. She thought it was funny that her kid's teachers mistook the nanny for their mother. She had to be forced out of the building hours after her water broke. She liked to finish briefs that needed to be filed at the Federal Courthouse at 5pm at 4:53pm. I was in charge of getting them there. It was like that crazy scene in broadcast news, except there were buses, cabs, court guards, lines and court clerks to be navigated in 7 precious minutes. I never failed her. Not even the time my shoes kept triggering the x-ray machine and I handed them to the guard and took off running down the hall, with one of the guards chasing me. But tonight I realized there are simply some things I don't do well under pressure. Work, yes. Write, yes. Cook, bake and generally live... not so good. Lesson learned-- I have to go start dinner now, tomorrow's dinner.

Cool Hand Luke, Sometimes Nothin Can Be a Real Cool Hand

Click on the link above to watch a clip from Cool Hand Luke. It's not the whole scene, but parts of it. The rest of the script goes like this.

Luke: Anybody here? Hey, Old Man. You home tonight? Can You spare a minute. It's about time we had a little talk. I know I'm a pretty evil fellow... killed people in the war and got drunk... and chewed up municipal property and the like. I know I got no call to ask for much... but even so, You've got to admit You ain't dealt me no cards in a long time. It's beginning to look like You got things fixed so I can't never win out. Inside, outside, all of them... rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in? Old Man, I gotta tell You. I started out pretty strong and fast. But it's beginning to get to me. When does it end? What do You got in mind for me? What do I do now? Right. All right.
[Gets on knees, closes eyes and begins to pray]
Luke: . On my knees, asking.
[Peeks up with one eye, waits. Then opens eyes and crosses arms]
Luke: . Yeah, that's what I thought. I guess I'm pretty tough to deal with, huh? A hard case.
[Clicks tongue]
Luke: . Yeah. I guess I gotta find my own way.
[Headlights shine through windows, backs up]
Dragline: Luke?
Luke: [Shakes head and smiles] Is that Your answer, Old Man? I guess You're a hard case, too.

I can't watch this without crying. We watched this movie sitting vigil with my dad, when he was home in hospice care and hours from dying. I like to think he could hear it and was taking it in too. It was one of his favorites and I'd never watched it until then. My dad was a hard case. My brother is a hard case. Paul Newman was an artist when it came to articulating that kind of guy-- good looking, funny and damned. I'm grateful for the insight, the look inside. I could care less about celebrities, but I always wanted the chance to say thanks.
Thanks.

From the NYT's, Sweet, Sour, Tasty: An Old Iraq New Year

“I would say this dish is about 1,000 years old,” said Paul Freedman, professor of medieval history at Yale. “The sweet and sour probably came from Persia and went as far west as Andalusia with the traders. The mercantile and rabbinic network of Jews created an arch of tastes and food.”

An arch of tastes and food... that's like a line from a poem.

I can't wait to try this recipe. Swiss chard is a staple in our organic delivery and I'm never sure what to do with it. I love beets and I can't believe how beautiful that pink rice looks. I'm sure my toddler is going to be all over that. I've been on the fence about swiss chard, trying different recipes, sauteing it, and um... burning it frequently because the line between tough and tender is not something I'm always patient about. Another part of my personality where life imitates food. I'm also excited about trying it with veggie ground, instead of beef, prepared beets and rice from Trader Joe's. I'll stick to the rest of the recipe, like pink on rice.

Here's the recipe, lifted from the NYT's...

False Mahshi: Layered Swiss Chard, Beets, Rice and Beef
Time: 1 hour, plus 1 hour for soaking rice

1 1/2 cups long-grain jasmine rice
2 pounds rib-eye steak, cut in 1-inch cubes
Salt and coarsely ground black pepper
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large onions, peeled and diced
2 large beets (about 1 pound), peeled, 1 cut into 1/2-inch dice and 1 grated
1 pound Swiss chard, leaves left whole and stems cut into 2-inch pieces
8 teaspoons sugar, or as needed
4 tablespoons fresh spearmint leaves
1 teaspoon dried mint
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely diced
Juice of 3 lemons (about 1/2 cup), or as needed.
1. Place rice in a mixing bowl and cover with water. Stir, drain off cloudy water, and repeat until water runs clear. Cover rice with fresh water and let soak for about 1 hour.

2. Season beef with salt and pepper to taste. Place Dutch oven over medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil. When oil is shimmering, add beef and sauté until well-browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove beef and set aside. Return pan to low heat and add 2 more tablespoons of oil. Add onions and sauté until transparent, about 5 minutes. Add diced beets and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add two-thirds of the Swiss chard stems and continue cooking until onions are golden, about 5 more minutes. Stir in beef, cover, and remove from heat.

3. Drain rice and return to a bowl. Sprinkle with salt to taste, 5 teaspoons of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1 tablespoon fresh mint and dried mint. Stir to blend, and add garlic, grated beet, remaining oil and juice of 1 lemon. Spread one-third of Swiss chard leaves in Dutch oven, on top of beef mixture. Spoon half of rice mixture on top, and cover with another third of chard leaves. Spread with remaining rice, and top with remaining Swiss chard leaves and stems.

4. In a small bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups water with remaining 3 teaspoons sugar and juice of another lemon. Taste and, if necessary, add more sugar or lemon juice so mixture is both sweet and sour. Pour over Swiss chard and bring to a boil. Cook partially covered until chard begins to wilt, 3 to 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup water if pan is very wide and there is little liquid on bottom. Poke handle of a wooden spoon into mixture in three places, making holes to let steam rise through chard. Cover, reduce heat to very low, and cook until rice is tender, about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and let rest for 15 minutes. Just before serving, sprinkle with remaining lemon juice and remaining fresh mint.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Cake Wrecks...

Cake Wrecks... when professional cakes go horribly wrong. I know I've blogged about it before, but this IS the funniest site online. I went cake tasting this weekend with some friends whose wedding reception is in a couple of weeks and it was so cool. I overheard the decorator, who is a real artist trying to talk a very young bride and groom out of ordering a mickey and minnie cake head cake. Life size. She was being so generous and kind about it, I wanted to lean over and say something, but my mouth was full.

Follow My Blog

Sort of like Follow the Leader, except you don't have to actually do anything but click. Check out the link in the left (your left, ha) toolbar and click on follow my blog. I'd love to see who's here the most and I'll send you free stuff!

Lovely Little Mooncakes

Friends brought us these cool little Vietnamese mooncakes. I was asking about the Moon Festivals that you see celebrated this time of year and they brought these for us to sample. The cakes celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, a popular harvest festival that's been celebrated for over 3000 years. Traditionally Chinese families gather to howl at the harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. There are other cool cultural or regional customs like putting pomelo rinds on your head, burning
incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e, planting trees and my favorite, collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members. The cakes are heavy, densely sweet pastries. Ours had a salted duck yolk in the middle. I tried it, on a dare, and it was pretty tasteless, like any other old yolk would be. Ours was imprinted with Chang'e, the woman in the moon. Here's her story, if you're interested. I can't say it was my favorite pastry, but it is everything I love about food. You can simply breathe in, bite in, dive in, drink down as much culture as you can get your hands on.

Get Your Finger Out of That Pie

I had to share this article from the LA Times today... If you've ever been to the Berkeley Bowl, or been yelled at by a stranger in Berkeley, you'll relate.

At Berkeley Bowl, the nuts are off the shelf
The grocery shopping is madcap at Berkeley Bowl, renowned for fine produce and quick fists. Sampling without buying? You're banned!

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 22, 2008
BERKELEY -- As most veteran customers know, it takes a pretty thick skin to successfully navigate the Berkeley Bowl, this strident city's most popular grocery store.

Outside, petitioners seeking signatures for ballot measures have come to blows with opinionated residents. In the tiny parking lot, nicknamed the Berkeley Brawl, frustrated motorists have been known to ram one another's cars. At the checkout, people have thrown punches and unripened avocados at suspected line-cutters.
When one shopper was told she couldn't return a bag of granola, she showily dumped its contents on the floor. Culyon Garrison, who works at the customer-service desk, recently had a loaf of bread thrown at him.

The produce emporium -- one of the nation's most renowned retailers of exotic fruits and vegetables -- creates its own bad behavior. Kamikaze shoppers crash down crowded aisles without eye contact or apology for fender-benders. So many customers weren't waiting to pay before digging in that management imposed the ultimate deterrent: Those caught sampling without buying will be banned for life -- no reprieves, no excuses. (Not even "I forgot to take my medication.")

Raphael Breines, who was ejected last year for eating on the premises, said he couldn't decide between two types of apricots, so he sampled both. Security stopped him in the parking lot.

"They treated me like a thief," said the 37-year-old park planner, who was photographed and required to sign a no-trespass agreement. "Technically I was stealing, but I wasn't trying to hide anything. I was just deciding which type of apricot to buy."

Breines, a longtime customer, sent an apology letter, asking to be reinstated. His request was denied.

Store manager Larry Evans says the policy is a fair response to doctors, lawyers and college professors who help themselves to bags of cookies, nuts and vitamins, stick their fingers in pies and guzzle from bottles of sake, assuming the rules don't apply to them.

"There's a sense of entitlement to this town," Evans said. "People think, 'If I want to do it, I'll do it, just try and stop me.' "

Seven years on the job, he said, has given him insight into the city's sometimes sharp social elbows.

"Berkeley residents are angry -- they're mad at the president, the economy, all kinds of stuff. And this is the place where it seems to get released, the local supermarket."

Longtime Berkeley residents also think they have a grip on the good life, so being banned from the Bowl is no small matter. On a typical summer day, a shopper at the Bowl is likely to find 20 kinds of apples, eight types of mangoes, half a dozen varieties of papaya, six kinds of garlic, five types of ginger and 40 different tomatoes.

Glenn and Diane Yasuda opened their market in 1977 in a nearby bowling alley. They specialized in produce from the start, creating a section that today is among the largest on the West Coast if not the nation.

A decade ago, the store moved to its current larger headquarters. But kaleidoscopic choice is still Glenn Yasuda's business recipe.

"When it comes to food," says Yasuda, 74, "Berkeley shoppers will try anything."

Five mornings a week, usually before 3 a.m., Yasuda rises to scour several wholesale produce markets, hand-selecting the fruit and vegetables that will soon fill his shelves: Barhi dates, Gravenstein apples, Flame seedless grapes, Idaho pears.

Yasuda, whose father and grandfather were Los Angeles produce farmers, wants to handle the merchandise. "Before you buy anything," he says, "you have to smell it, taste it."

He knows his customers expect new taste sensations. They often corner him, asking him how to prepare produce they're seeing for the first time.

Local chefs savor the store.

"The produce section's like an orchestra," said Ryan Scott, executive chef at San Francisco's Mission Beach Cafe. "The last time I was there, the cucumbers were just screaming at me. As a chef, it's often hard to get excited about food. But I get excited there."

Produce accounts for 30% of the Bowl's sales, nearly triple the percentage of most grocery stores nationwide.

On an average summer Friday, three tractor-trailer loads of produce are delivered to the Bowl to get customers through the weekend. Often, it's still not enough to meet the demand. So Yasuda soon will open a second store nearby to take some pressure off his flagship.

One shopper said she asked her mother, who was visiting from out of town, if she liked the Bowl's produce section. "You know in that book 'The Lovely Bones,' where you get to pick what your heaven looks like?" the mother answered, gazing at the selection. "This would be mine."

Each morning, the early birds wait in line for the Berkeley Bowl to open.

Then the rush is on -- the elbowing and scrambling to reach the shelves of reduced-price produce that can be bought in bulk. The scene is so madcap, the store used to play the "Call to the Post" theme used in horse racing. Now management enforces a no-running policy -- because when Berkeley switches into hunter-gatherer mode, things can quickly get out of hand.

The Internet site Yelp, where customers review restaurants and other stores, has hundreds of entries about the Bowl. One writer said weekends were the craziest, when "you don't wander through the aisles as much as hack through the underbrush of nose rings and cloth shopping bags with a machete, only to count the minutes you creep closer to death at the checkout line."

Like the city itself, the Bowl is idiosyncratic. With its weird yin comes a gracious yang: shoppers who greet strangers like old friends and point out the best bargains.

But other things get pointed out too. Your cart is at the wrong angle. You didn't replace that apple where you found it. Tell your child to stop playing with that plastic bag -- it's a choking hazard. One customer said he thinks he's come up with the perfect city bumper sticker: "Welcome to Berkeley: Now please stop doing that!"

Once, caterer Francisco Machado was at the checkout, talking on his cellphone, when he got a shoulder tap.

"I made a remark to a friend, 'Dude, this place is a meat market!' And the guy behind me took offense. He started shouting that what I said was really sexist," Machado recalled. "He wouldn't let it go. I finally had to turn around and say, 'Mind your own business.' "

On a recent day, shopper Jean Sirius, a local editor, was standing in the produce section explaining the store culture. "There is a goddess Oblivion, and she has many devotees who shop here," she said. But before she could say more, a male shopper in a sweat suit removed his iPod earphones and barked: "Hey, you've been taking up space there for too long! Why don't you move aside so the rest of us can do some shopping?"

Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling book "The Omnivore's Dilemma," is a Bowl regular who calls the store one of his top three places to buy food in the world. Still, he knows there's easier shopping.

One time, Pollan was picking out a box of cereal for his daughter when a fellow shopper interrupted him. "He said, 'I'm watching Michael Pollan shop for groceries,' " Pollan recalled. "There was this note of disappointment that I was buying Fruity Pebbles. Berkeley is full of hall monitors. It's a small town, and people are looking into each other's baskets."

Diane Yasuda allows a fair share of customer quirkiness, but she does draw the line -- politely but firmly.

"I don't like to see them berate employees," she said. "I'll say, 'I'm sorry, but we just can't seem to please you. Why don't you shop somewhere else?' "

Glenn Yasuda, meanwhile, can only shake his head. He employs a produce-buyers' philosophy when sizing up his Berkeley customers.

"For every bad apple," he said, "you've got 100 good ones."

Cupcakes, Ice Cream Cones and Cream Cheese

Six dozen cupcakes this weekend. I am a cupcake machine. Three dozen for our family/ friends party and three for our kid party. The kids I put in ice cream cones and baked. Which is a little harder than it looks. It's not balancing them in the muffin tins that's the trick, it's making sure they don't overflow and spill and drip on the floor of the oven, smoke up the house and set off the smoke alarms.
Again.
Yeah.
That's the hard part.

But barring that. It was a blast all around. I had in mind that I would make grown up cupcakes, and kid cupcakes for both parties, but they kind of blended all together. I love the now defunct ChockyLit List of Cupcakes... I tried to make the lavender cream with citrus cream cheese icing. But I had real trouble with the lavender cream. Steeping the lavender was easy, whipping the cream should have been, but something went wrong and about three quarters of the way through whipping, the cream turned mealy and chunky, like it was on its way to being cottage cheese. I dumped it and made the citrus cream cheese icing and they were still delicious. And the house smelled WONDERFUL with the lavender. So it wasn't a complete wasted effort. I also made chocolate cupcakes, devil's food and when they were still warm stuffed them with Trader Joe's Peanut Butter Cups. I iced them with Chocolate buttercream icing made from Penzey's cocoa powder. 24% Butterfat People! 24%! I iced the ice cream cone cupcakes the morning of the kid party and did a light sprinkle of sprinkles, or "sprinklers" as Afton says. They are a little hard to transport, and a couple slid around in the car and got mushed... but they were yummy. The tang from the cream cheese was a nice combo with the cone and cake. The picture of the kid's above was taken AFTER they ate their cake! Love that sugar high. I realize I'm a more flexible cook/ baker now. I have to roll with the punches, keep things moving when the cream fizzles or the cake overflows. I don't freak out or feel like I completely failed. It just is what it is. Less handwringing to move on to the next thing...

Happy and Sad

Here's one of my favorite pictures of the two of them, before my mom was diagnosed and the world spun off it's axis. Afton had just had a little meltdown and that's why she looks very Winston Churchill-y. My mom looks so content and at peace, holding that tiny ball of cranky kid. It's that kid's 3rd birthday tomorrow. I love everything about three and I love everything about that kid. I'm in a whirlwind of cleaning, baking and sewing. It's fun and I live for it. But I miss my mom so much. I never dreamed I'd be doing any of this stuff without her. My heart sings to be able to celebrate our fabulous three year old with our family and friends. But my heart breaks that my mom's not here with us to bake and sing and tease me about over-committing, under-planning. I need her to tease me. I need her to unravel the mysteries of bias tape, watch the oven timer and bask in the sugary, sticky sweetness of my lovely kid.

Veggie Creole Voodoo

Maybe you've got New Orleans on the mind these days. Or you want a little spice to contrast to the bland Minnesota convention food... We've been making lots of spicy stuff at our house. And BeastMomma (a reader) emailed me to ask about tweaking the Zatarain's for veggie recipes. I dug through cookbooks and this is what I would do... For Gumbo, use Imagine's No-Chicken, Chicken Broth. I love this broth. It's savory and everything I love about chicken broth, but without the, you-know.. chicken. And toss in a little cubed butternut squash, eggplant, okra and stewed tomatoes (drained), and if you can find it spicy veggie sausage. You'll never miss the shrimp, pork and chicken. Yum.

Recipe Plagarism

I was fishing for reviews of the food at the RNC and discovered this article, which I missed last April. My favorite part is that a "low-level" employee was blamed. That Cindy McCain is a class act, huh? Nice.