Perfect Pear

Blueberry Bars

2010-02-11T19:12:00.000-08:00

Vegan too. What you can't experience is the AMAZING smell that has
filled our house...book review and recipe to follow. Stay tuned.

Kid has a cold so...

2010-02-07T18:06:00.001-08:00

It's fresh squeezed OJ, puzzles and cartoons for us. What do you feed
a cold?

Celebrating Blonde Brownie Day

2010-01-25T13:52:00.001-08:00

Last Friday, January 22nd was National Blonde Brownie Day and so I dug into the recipe books and studied all the "Blonde" brownie recipes. And I came up short... Betty and Fanny came up short, with no recipe, or one with corn syrup. If I want corn syrup, I'll go have a Coke. Actually, I love the Mexican bottled Coke, with cane sugar, but that's another post. So I decided to create a brownie recipe with Ghiradelli's 100% unsweetened cocoa. They were good, but not great. So I'm going to keep searching. What's your favorite recipe for Brownies? I want them chewy, cakey and really, really chocolate-y.

Purple Soup

2010-01-16T18:37:00.001-08:00

Our CSA delivery includes lots and lots of cabbage, green and red, or as A calls it "purple cabbage". So I'm always searching for recipes for the booty of veggies that arrive. Cabbage is a tough one, because most of the recipes that folks rave about are either tasteless or loaded with meat. Neither of which works for our family.

I was so happy to find this recipe on Epicurious (see details below). And even happier to find this article in the New York Times. It's not a new article, but it was new to me. Have a look. Tara Parker-Pope outlined, "The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating" and I was thrilled to hear that cabbage is "Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes."

Red Cabbage Orzo Soup
3/4 cup chopped red cabbage
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
3 tablespoons orzo (rice-shaped pasta)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
4 thin lemon slices
1 tablespoon thinly sliced scallion greens

In a saucepan cook the cabbage in the oil over moderate heat, stirring, until it is tender, stir in the broth and 1/2 cup water, and bring the mixture to a boil. Add theorzo, simmer the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the orzo is tender, and add the soy sauce and pepper to taste. Divide the soup between bowls and top each serving with half the lemon slices and half the scallion greens.

Here's my additions; I love to chop the cabbage really finely, saute an onion with the cabbage and use really good olive oil. Since it is one of those soups that tastes even better the next night, double it. But don't get too carried away with the orzo because the little buggers will soak up all the broth and look more like purple pasta.

Look what I found...

2010-01-11T09:49:00.001-08:00

A first edition, first printing of the 1958 version of the Betty Crocker cookbook, Dinners for Two. It must have been a gift for my parents when they married. I can't believe I own a copy and it's filled with amazing illustrations by Charlie Harper. I'm in love with every last one. The one above illustrates "Speedy Dinners". The used versions aren't hard to find on Amazon and I'm thinking of snatching up a couple of copies to include with wedding presents...

You need this...

2010-01-09T11:59:00.001-08:00

Combination beater and soft spatula, no more scrape, scraping down the
side of the bowls, and MUCH less messy. Find online at Broadway Panhandler in New York. (Santa brought mine!)

Something Blue

2010-01-08T10:36:00.000-08:00

When you lose four people in your family in less that four years, there is a stockpile of stuff.

Some things you can shred, old checkbooks, junk mail, 20 year old medical and tax records, receipts for rakes and door locks.

Some things you can donate, blankets, sheets, silverware, cookware, pillows.

Some things you can sort and save for someone else to peer over, photos, letters, diaries.

And some things you can't wait to settle onto your own shelves.

Other things, most things really... are more difficult. And there's only so much attic space, garage space and more importantly, emotional space for the rest. There are things that you know they treasured, my dad's train set, my mom's collection of recipes, the holiday cards and photos, yearbooks, bibles, letters and photos from folks I don't recognize, travel brochures, playbills. I'm going to write about this at some length when I can get my head around it. But I've spent so much time packing, sorting, organizing in the last four years trying to be as good a steward as possible for the things left behind by the people I loved, and it's an impossible task. Honestly. Impossible. There's no way to do it "right". Short of lighting a match and watching it all burn (and our garage is attached to our house... so that's not the BEST option) there's no shortcut to slogging through it all. And nobody can help. Greg is far more organized and far more meticulous, but he doesn't know the photos, or which recipe has been missing, or that the wedding linens are in the bottom of the very dirty box marked "kitchen". And did I mention we haven't been able to find my mom's wedding ring? So everything, everything, everything has to be sorted... just in case.

Over the holiday break I made a herculean effort to sort, toss, purge and organize the effects from four well-lived lives. There were boxes and boxes and boxes of photos. I've spent nights sorting and painfully, tossing alot of them. I could write a small book on family photos. Scrapbooking is cool for everyone who has the patience (not me). My job is knowing who the baby in the picture is, who's wedding was in 1966 and more importantly, is there a copy of that old, torn photo?

In the meantime, I discovered you can only donate so much... The Salvation Army kinda bums me out, the smell, the piles of junk, the dirt. I couldn't bring myself to let go of things I know were treasured and loved and I'm not a hoarder either... so the solution is Something Blue, my new vintage, Etsy shop. I've only had a handful of sales, and I'm not going to quit my day job (God, what is that?) but it's kind of thrilling to have things go to new homes. And no surprise, I have a big collection of vintage, even antique cookbooks. So ... enjoy.

Trader Joe's Cookbook

2010-01-03T13:15:00.001-08:00

Borrowed this from a neighboor and fell in love with more than a
handful of recipes, first and foremost the Cream of Broccoli Soup
(without cream). I recomend it, with an extra dash of fresh grated
nutmeg. Yum!

Love Soup by Anna Thomas

2009-12-30T17:42:00.000-08:00

I'm lazy by nature. Seriously. I'm a lazy person, who can't sit still. So that means I've got ten projects to do and dinner is often not at the top of my list. So I love one pot dinners. I love breakfast for dinner and I love soup.

This book was one of the coolest Christmas presents that landed under my tree. I'm loving it. There are over 160 recipes for soups and most can be made vegan, or dressed with a slab of cheese toast, you're choice. I tried the most inhospitable of the bunch as soon as I got it, Pickle Soup. Sounds like something that wouldn't be touched at a church dinner, right? It was rockin' good, especially if you like dill. If you don't, you just let the pickles simmer a little longer (ten minutes or so) and the spices all mellow out to a new familiar stew. We've also tried the Lima Bean and the Tomato with Kale is on the stove as I write this.

I'm over all the sugar and goodies this year. Working our way back to our healthy, mostly vegetarian, often vegan diet and this is a great roadmap back to where we want to be...

Click on this link to meet Ms Anna in person and get a short intro to the book.

Summer Delicacy

2009-08-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

This might be the best thing I've ever eaten, or made. Blackberry
Cobbler, drop crust... Sound a little boring? How about cardamom sugar
and vanilla, steeped in the blackberries as they simmer? It's awesome,
if I do say so myself. (Last week I had the pleasure of ruining not
one but two batches of Madeleines, so I was ready for something to go
well.)

Summer Salad

2009-07-24T17:29:00.001-07:00

Little Bites for Wednesday Reading

2009-07-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of tasty articles on topics that are fun and far fetched...

The World of Sandwiches, great recommendations from the LA Times, Food Section here.

What do you eat when you eat alone? There's a whole about that.

The New York Times has 101 Simple Salads for the Season. I can't wait to make this one...

A nice cucumber salad: Slice cucumbers thin (if they’re fat and old, peel and seed them first), toss with red onions and salt, then let sit for 20 to 60 minutes. Rinse, dry, dress with cider vinegar mixed with Dijon mustard; no oil necessary.

How about Fresh Ranch Dressing? Yum!

Save the Ta-ta's!

2009-07-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

I got word of this cute fundraiser today... Paint your appliances pink, take a photo or blog about it. Every entry helps raise awareness and $10,000 for their cause, and you could win a Pink KitchenAid® Stand Mixer, Pink Stand Mixer cover, Pink Silicone Mixer Spatula, Pink Silicone Heart Pan, Pink Measuring Cups and Spoons Set, and Cook for the Cure® Apron.The sweepstake runs from July 1, 2009 – September 30, 2009.

Here's the link to enter... Have fun!

Adventures in Downtown LA

2009-07-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

We had an awesome Saturday. It began with a great little tour of some of the Broadway theaters, hosted by the LA Conservancy. What an amazing way to see LA, explore LA and get to know the history intimately. We started here at the Million Dollar Theater, one of the first movie palaces in LA. It's a single screen theater, which was used for vaudeville and silent films when it was built in 1918. (Mary Pickford was there on opening night!) In the forties it hosted live acts like Billy Holiday and Cab Calloway. We've done the tour before, but love exploring it when we can. Our guide was OK, she kept referring to herself and stating the obvious, several times... My favorite line was, "... people like myself who saw the raw potential in downtown." Blech.

Anyway, we ducked out of the tour early and walked over to the Nickel Diner for lunch. Somehow I have never been to this amazing little gem. Their tagline is, "I've been in more laps than a napkin." It's hip and cool, but absolutely warm and friendly. The wait staff were such pros, removing and replacing iced coffee with such ease that I didn't see it going or coming. As you sit down they serve these cute little donut holes. They are known for their maple bacon donuts. Now, I have a confession to make. I HATE donuts. I will cross the street and walk three blocks out of the way to avoid the smell and suggestion of a Winchells. I have never had a Dunkin' Donut or anything vaguely similar. But I tried the maple, bacon donut hole and it was good... except that it was a donut. I'm sure if YOU like donuts, you'll love it. I didn't see that they make homemade poptarts until I was completely stuffed with a BLTA, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Arugula sandwich on sourdough with a spicy aioli. It rocked. I can't wait to go back.

THEN... we hit the Modernica Warehouse sale. We didn't buy a thing, but ate awesome ice cream sandwiches outside courtesy of the CoolHaus ice cream truck. If you are anywhere near these girls, you should run and get in line, to pony up and buy yourself an ice cream sandwich. You might have read about them here or here.Enjoy!

Couple of Random Bites...

2009-07-16T12:59:00.000-07:00

I was hooked on the sample chapter of this book... can't wait to get my hands on the whole thing.

I received a free case of POM Wonderful juices and while I don't always write about the freebies that come my way, I do love this juice. This cake recipe, made with pomegrantate juice looks good too.

Interesting article from Frank Bruni, the Food Critic for the New York Times on eating and his own eating disorder.

Family Abounds, The World Food Tour 2009

2009-07-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

My awesome cousin is visiting with her wonderful family and we have embarked on the World Food Tour 2009. So far each stop has been amazing, including Bulgarini Gelato, where we dug into Yogurt and Olive Oil (my new fav!), Milk with Lime, Blood Orange and Chocolate combo. We had lunch at La Estrella, dinner at Din Tai Fung Dumpling House, dessert at Beard Papa's and brunch at Europane. I need a five mile run to burn off some of the calories, but it's all worth it. So far we've covered, Shanghai, Italy and France. We are moving on to Korea tonight and will eventually make our way to Japan. Stay tuned.

Book Review: Food of a Younger Land

2009-07-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

I love this book. I didn't understand until it came to me that Mark Kurlansky is not the 'author' of this book. He's a wonderful writer, but this book is different than Salt or Cod.He's the editor of a wonderful selection of food writing, from recipes to essays to cultural reports from the lost WPA files. The sales blurb doesn't really do it justice, because it describes "A portrait of American food–before the national highway system, before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation’s food was seasonal, regional, and traditional–from the lost WPA files." I'm a nerd even that sounds like a big SNORE to me. It makes the book sound as though you're going to be knee deep in the process of food and highways, but instead it is a free-for-all. Imagine going into the archives of the WPA and coming out with gobs of food writing-- recipes, oral histories, lists and off the wall accounts that detail both culture and context for everything from chowders to cakes. If you have any interest in history or food or both... dive in. It's such a crazy, diverse collection, but wonderful and revealing and ... even familiar. You'll find yourself or your family at some point. I found my family, unexpectedly... My grandmother used to make my mom run down and find a neighbor to come to dinner when she counted and figured out they had an unlucky 13.

And by the way... where's the WPA now? Can you imagine what would happen if we put all the out of work writers to work on something now? How about teaching poetry, or short-story writing, or the art of the spoken word to third graders? I'm in...

Choices...

2009-07-02T14:25:00.001-07:00

Asada. Lengua. Cabeza. Al pastor. Carnitas. Pollo. Oh my. La Estrella
rocks. And they are open 24 hours.

Leftovers

2009-07-01T21:28:00.001-07:00

...from the first day of summer school.

Wisconsin...

2009-06-29T10:33:00.001-07:00

Haiku #2

2009-06-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sussina on 6th

Tiny chicken molds
waiting for hot chocolate,
while I wait for joe.

Haiku #1

2009-06-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

She is cake batter
sticky in bowl. And I am
pepper in chai tea.

...and the cake.

2009-06-21T13:32:00.001-07:00

Icing the cake is meditative. Yellow cake with chocolate buttercream
frosting. Not for Father's Day, but for a friend who just lost his
Father.

The business of cake-making...

2009-06-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

Must Read; Last Night at the Lobster, Stewart O'Nan

2009-05-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing book and I don't think I'm biased since I actually wore a Red Lobster name tag at one point in my life. It is great writing. If you've ever worked in a restaurant you'll relate and if you haven't, you're offered a window into the world backstage, the prepping of lunch/ dinner, how much they think of you before and after you sit in their booth. Stewart O'Nan does an incredible job of describing the bleak and the hopeful that are rolled into one when you work in a restaurant. He articulates the small things you do to connect to customers and the tiny acts of kindness and precision that define who we are in that moment, while we work.

Noe

2009-05-25T22:57:00.001-07:00

Amazing tomatoes and gelee, one of the nine course we indulged,
explored and inhaled at Noe for my birthday. It was wonderful in every
sense.

The Smell of Defeat...

2009-05-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

Just when I'm feeling sort of proud of myself in the kitchen, I go and
blow something so badly that I'm sure the neighbors are wondering what
the hell happened. Tonight I burned black eyed peas. I bet a dead
horse would smell better than my kitchen right now. Julia Childs says
don't apologize, but I wouldn't be surprsed if someone from the city
showed up on a hazmat suit. It stinks.

Wonder what I can make tomorrow that will restore my confidence and
mask the stench?

Sent from the moon

Licking the beater...

2009-05-24T15:51:00.001-07:00

Angel food cake with strawberries soaked in a little balsamic
vinegar... Who 's in?

And it looks like it's climbing right up to the sky...

2009-05-23T13:16:00.000-07:00

First corn of the season! Little lime, little olive oil and salt... It
all starts now.

Fresh eggs...

2009-05-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

From our neighbor's chickens. Nothing's better. (Except maybe their
duck eggs.)

Spring Soup Interlude

2009-05-10T10:40:00.001-07:00

More leeks than potatoes, fresh basil... Perfect weeknight soup.

Eating Our Way Through Austin

2009-05-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

I'm way behind on blogging, although the eating and cooking have been going fabulously. I had the amazing opportunity to go to camp for grownups, grownups who write poetry... It was just lovely. I flew to Austin with two of my friends, we flew the airline that offers TV's and SNACKS! FREE SNACKS! That part alone was work the trip. We arrived to a slightly muggy city that was spitting rain. It has changed so much since I lived there, but the heart and soul of the city is eccentric and easy going. We stopped at Mellow Johnny's Bike Store where we picked up bikes and grilled the guys who worked there about what to eat and where to go. They directed us here... but on our way, the traffic picked up and we started to feel the fact that we had only had FREE SNACKS all day, and it was almost 6pm. So as we stopped and started along Congress in the traffic, I saw Magnolia Cafe and we did a u-turn and were in front of a bowl of queso and chips in a matter of seconds. In minutes we had huge orders of pasta, quesadillas and gingerbread pancakes and life was great again. When we wander back out, fat and happy, we saw that there was a line of cool airstream trailers parked across the street, each offering a specialty food. We landed on the cupcakes of course, and they were above and beyond. I had a vegan mint choc chip, Mark had a vegan orange cupcake with almond frosting and Augusto had a yellow cake with choc frosting. They offer this cool option of whip cream jammed into your cupcake, to make it more airy and wonderful and because we needed to confuse the vegan option, we did it. Can't wait to do that at a kid birthday party.

We headed out to the festival which was out of town, in Round Top Texas about an hour and a half away from Austin. It was drab and rainy and eventually dark when we arrived. I egged Mark along a two lane road, in the pitch black, not knowing that we were very close to being stuck in the water and mud if we veered off the pavement, and eventually we landed at Festival Hill. Mark said landing there in the middle of the night was like a fever dream and it was.

Stay tuned for more about the next day... and Royer's Round Top Cafe.

Homegirl Cafe

2009-04-16T16:54:00.002-07:00

In the midst of the thin sheen of sweat that tax day inspired yesterday, I had the chance to pause and stop for lunch with G at Homegirl. It was a nice respite in a storm of stress which included driving six different freeways to pick up, sign off on and deliver taxes for signatures for all our various accounts. I'm so OVER filing more than one return. Anyway, we made a quick left near Phillipe's and opted for Homegirl Cafe which was crowded and warm and just great. The staff are rough around the edges and after a brief yelling exchange over whose table was who's... we were treated to lovely service. The staff knows their stuff and the menu is yummy. We started with guacamole with roasted pineapple that was not overly sweet and pineapple aqua fresca, great sandwiches, and fish tacos and finished with their fabulous coffee, which is roasted with orange peel and cinnamon. I asked about the various salad dressings and our waitress brought me two cute carafes so I could try both. You can sit near a window and watch the trains cruise in and out of the China Town station, kinda perfect to entertain train loving kids. The bakery is formidable too and worth a look, especially the Mexican chocolate cookies. And the art and decor are modern and elegant, without being stuffy. It's a great place for lunch and I'm excited to go back with my little homegirl.

Good Girl Dinette Opening...

2009-04-08T15:39:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a PR release for this fabulous new restaurant... Click on the release to see it in all it's glory. What a total blast... I wrote the release, created a list of contacts and sent individual notes to folks like Daily Candy, LAist, EatLA... The responses were fast and fun and nearly overwhelming.

Ow... ow... ow... Jitlada Hurts So Good

2009-04-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes LA seems like a small city and it's hard know it, really know it unless, you study hard, have a gaggle of adventurous friends, and/or are willing to try anything. And by anything I mean a southern style Thai restaurant in a mini-mall in Thai town. Low ceiling, family feel, warm but busy servers and a menu so long and crazy it's impossible to do it justice unless you studied it for hours. You just have to go with it. I tried Jitlada's food at the Jonathan Gold, Gold Standard event this year. Handed a plate of the hot, hot rice salad and Khrua Gling, dry beef curry, I dug in and Mark said I squealed. I don't remember squealing... I just remember this burst of flame in my mouth and then an explosion of flavor. It was fantastic and one of the best things we tried out of all the restaurants Gold hosted (another post on that...).

Anyway, we headed to the restaurant with our friend, Katie who is a fan of hot, hot, hot and ordered a bevy of drinks, Singha's and Thai Iced Tea and water, water, water... before we ordered the Khrua Gling again, catfish salad (featured here in Gourmet Magazine, and every bit as good as described by the article), rice salad (salty, sweet, crunchy and hot all at the same time), kaeng khew-wan khài "Mang-kon", green curry with egg-yolk-stuffed fish balls (we ordered it a 4 on a scale of 1-10 in hotness and it was mind blowing) and mounds and mounds of white rice. It was soooo wonderful. I loved every bite. We headed to Scoops for ice cream to cool our tongues after it was over. This place has been open since 2006, but I'd never tried it. But I'm a believer now, especially in the brown bread flavor, which tasted like sweet brown bread, a malted, crunchy bite with vanilla and brown sugar. Yum.

The only thing I regret was eating there the night before a killer workout at Catz on Saturday morning. Next time, I want to do lunch after the workout and with loads and loads of Thai-iced coffee. I can't wait.

New Toy! Cookie Press

2009-04-03T15:43:00.000-07:00

I was looking for a way to make dozens and dozens and dozens of cookies easily. There's a big Spring Fest at A's school in a couple of weeks and I wanted to make hundreds of cute cookies as a fund raiser. I have always wondered about making cookies with a cookie press but never knew how. On a whim today I bought a cheapie cookie press and came home and made sugar cookie dough. Basic recipe, tons of butter, almond and vanilla for flavor. Don't chill the dough. It took a little practice and coercion, but it was fun and relatively easy. Even the cookies that came out lumpy and imperfect will be great with a thin layer of royal icing and sprinkles. The bonus is that this is not my favorite cookie. I'm not a fan of plain sugar cookies, butter cookies or sprinkles. I can make thousands of these without being tempted to eat my weight in them. I'm going to make them, freeze them, ice them, package them in cute little bags with ribbon and sell them for the fundraiser... Anybody have any interesting recipes that would work in the press?

Ummmmm... never mind

2009-04-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

On April 1st, Snopes published this information... which does say that most of the claims about the bill are false, including The Senator's husband working for Monsanto. He has worked for them in the past, but not currently. I'm still uncomfortable with that, but not as uncomfortable. Snopes concludes that there is legitimate debate as to whether or not the bill will be effective at insuring and improving food safety, but most of the concerns are not as big an issue as I thought.

Please Act on This... Death of Farmers Markets, CSA's and Local Food

2009-03-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm cutting and pasting a copy of the blog from The Nourished Kitchen on the pending bill HR 875, backed by Monsanto. It's called the Food Safety Act and of course, who doesn't want that... right? But in fact, it does nothing on the front of food safety and instead forces small farms, local farms and even house gardeners who deliver excess fruit to local markets to spray pesticides, produced by... you guessed it, MONSANTO.

Here's the full article. Please, please, please act on this... Contact info is at the bottom of the article.

HR 875, also known as the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced by Rosa Delauro - a democratic party member of the United States House of Representatives from Connecticut - in February of 2009. The title of HR 875, The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, sounds innocuous enough - even comforting, but its implications yield a much, much different story.

HR 875 as it is written today, could very well mean the end of the vibrant and growing local foods movement. Yes - if it passes - it could herald the death of farmers markets, most CSAs, farmstands and even small family-run farms altogether.

Ostensibly, HR 875 or the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 would bring greater accountability to our imperiled food system. Indeed, with salmonella-infected peanuts and spinach laced with e-coli, who isn’t crying out for improvements in food safety?

However, HR 875 fails miserably in promoting food safety. Rather, than promoting true accountability and proper farming techniques that minimize the risk of introducing pathogens into the food supply, it simply will create greater barriers for our already struggling small farms and farmers markets.

HR 875 mandates that anyone who produces food of any kind - meat, milk, fruit, vegetables et cetera - and transports that food for sale be subject to warrantless government inspections of their farms and food production records. These random inspections can be conducted at the whim of federal agents without regard to farmers rights or property rights. Further, the law would allow federal agents to confiscate records, product as they see fit as part of the inspection process.

Agents could also implement draconian restrictions regarding how farm animals can be fed, how fields can be managed and the end result of these restrictions could mean the end of organic, biodynamic and sustainable agriculture practices if these practices are deemed “unsafe.” Farmers refusing to comply would be subject to penalties.

The penalty for denying federal agents unlimited, random access to a farm’s fields, properties, products and records is $1,000,000. The penalty for not registering is $1,000,000.

Remember, this law would affect every farmer or food producer who must transport his goods to sell them - in effect, every single farmer. That means that an orchard that sells fresh fruit at a roadside stand would be affected; a farmer who delivers CSA boxes would be affected, even a home gardener who brings excess harvest to a farmers market’s community booth would have to register or be subject to $1,000,000 fines and that garden plot would be subject to inspection by federal agents. Ridiculous, isn’t it? But it’s true.

HR 875 is such a massive bill, with such massive requirements and restrictions that, in effect, only huge agribusinesses would be able to effectively meet all its requirements. The small family farm would be history and, along with it, farmstands, farmers markets, most food cooperatives and CSAs.

Now, let’s get back to Rosa Delauro who introduced HR 875 in February. Ms. Delaura is married to Stanley Greenberg. Stanley Greenberg is a political consultant whose clients include Monsanto–Monsanto, the same corporation, who blessed us with RBGH and genetically engineered seeds. Should we really trust Ms. Delauro or her husband to make these kinds of decisions for the American people?

My husband and I run a farmers market - a vibrant and growing farmers market in the heart of ski country. Now, it’s taken our blood, sweat and tears (and I do mean real blood, real sweat and real tears) to make our market succeed. Were this bill to pass, it would mean the end of our market as our farmers - some of whom grow on as little as a single acre - would be forced to close their gates. It would also mean the end of our local CSAs - all of which are delivered from the farm after a winding trip through the mountains.

The bill has not passed yet, so you still have time to act. Remember, eating is now a political act so exercise your rights.

Act now:

Read the full bill here: HR 875 - Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009.
Contact your representative and inform them you oppose HR 875.
Tweet this post and spread the word about HR 875.
Stumble this post and spread the word about HR 875.
Blog about your opposition to HR 875.
Contact your representative AGAIN and make sure the message gets through.

Roll up your sleeves...

2009-03-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Michelle Obama is set to announce that there will finally be a garden at the White House again. I'm so excited about this. Talk about hope for the future, for our food, for clean work and well earned meals. It also speaks to how important farming is to our nation and not just for corn for corn syrup!

Root Beer Cookies

2009-03-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

How did I NOT know about these? Did you know about these?

They were here, here, and HERE.

We're leaving town tomorrow, but as soon as I have more than five minutes, I can't wait to bake these. I can think of five different occasions when these would have been perfect, including my the dinner fest for bookclub when we read Confederacy of Dunces.

Orange who?

2009-03-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Afton tells lots of knock, knock jokes these days and the punchlines are these wild rambling tales that she finds HILARIOUS. You know the knock, knock joke where you answer, banana... banana... banana... orange and then finally... orange you glad I didn't say banana?

Anyway, knock, knock? Who's there? Thiabendozole. Imazalil, who?

I bought a case of oranges from CostCo last week and when I got them home saw this little warning... I did a little scary research (the results listed lovely things like contact dermatitis, chemicals used to bind metals to prevent lead poisoning, 90% of the chemicals are processed by rats...), I decided to put the oranges in a warm water bath to dissolve the wax and hopefully some of the chemicals. I just wanted to make orange juice, trying to stave off some of the Spring colds and junk that's going around. This is what the oranges look like when I washed them. This is what they looked like after the warm water bath. I don't think I should have to wear gloves while making orange juice, do you? Kinda gross, right?

I know the president has alot on his plate, but don't you think it would be smart if we start to push these issues on a national level? He has children and I'm sure is concerned about what they eat and how it affects them and whether or not he and other parents have to google ingredients to feel safe.

Cool Taco Truck Prints...

2009-03-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

These are cool. You can hear the sound of the horn right?

Book Review: The Cracker Kitchen by Janice Owen

2009-03-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

One of the more fabulous benefits of having a food blog is the occasional cookbook that lands on your doorstep. My postman would probably prefer I was reviewing paperback children's books or lightweight poetry chapbooks, but instead he has to deliver these escoffier tomes.

The most recent book I received is Janice Owen's The Cracker Kitchen. I love books that offer as much character and writing as recipes, and this one is all character. There's real culture behind the recipes and if you think of the mid-west and the south as "fly-over states" it's not for you. It's not for the vegetarian faint of heart either, since the recipes for frogs legs and hog jowls might freak you out. But if you grew up knowing black-eyed peas go into Texas Cavier and Hoecake's need honey, you'll dig this collection. Owens identifies cracker culture as another American fusion culture, defined by "a near pathological love for family..." That's right on. There's a utilitarian passion in these recipes. Take for example the chicken... this is a great collection, with fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, giblet gravy, chicken tenderloins, chicken perloo, and plain old chicken gravy.

Pat Conroy penned the intro and calls the book, "a love letter to celebrate poor white people and people in the South..." and it is.. and it's also a love letter to mayo, lots and lots of MAYO. I guess there are folks in my family who are crackers... they say "eye-talian" when they mean "Italian" and don't take crap off anyone. While I don't think I'll be making baked Aramadillo anytime soon, I do appreciate having a definitive recipe for Lane Cake and Buttermilk Pie, and I can't wait to make peach cobbler with buttermilk in the fruit.

Use What's at Hand.

2009-02-25T11:04:00.000-08:00

Click on the link above for advice on using what's at hand... from Buddhist priest, author and fellow mom, Karen Maezen Miller. I'm working hard to still a very noisy, panicked mind. Sometimes baking works. Sometimes soup helps. Miller's writing is the best medicine.

CostCo Follow-up

2009-02-18T14:35:00.001-08:00

Here's a great list of CostCo favorites from Chow's readers... Love the all ideas.

The Joy of CostCo

2009-01-30T14:26:00.000-08:00

So I'd never been. Honestly. I'd been to a Sam's Club a million years ago, before I was domesticated and understood the joy of not needing to go to the grocery store every 10 minutes. All my friends were raving about it and even my friends who love to cook. They were slagging Trader Joe's and raving about CostCo. I couldn't put my head around it. I decided I had to check it out. I'm sure I'm preaching to the converted. I can't believe it took me this long to explore. It was wonderful, organic eggs, Annie's organic whole wheat snacks, already seasoned salmon steaks that were super yummy, and bread for La Brea Bakery. I'm a believer and I haven't even tried the hot dogs... yet. What do you buy there?

Honest Tea Was Not Served by the Bush's

2009-01-30T12:01:00.001-08:00

Honest Tea Rocks Obama's World
Word is out that President Obama likes to drink tea. His current favorite is Black Forest Berry, an herbal infusion made by Honest Tea of Bethesda, Maryland.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1430580/honest_tea_rocks_obamas_world.html

Pink Butcher Paper and The Perfect Sandwich

2009-01-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like I don't know my neighborhood very well. I tend to get into a rut about where to eat and where to shop and where to order carry out... Then I discover something new (to me, anyway) and my head explodes with love for this city. Have you seen this new book? Our friend, Carley gave it to me for Christmas and I've been perusing and daydreaming about eating, shopping, cooking, baking with it in hand. I have a thing about sandwiches, and am always on the hunt for the perfect sandwich. I came across the listing for Romo Italian Deli & Grocery which extolls the owner, Rosario's sandwiches as the best in the world. I checked out this Yelp listing too, which intrigued me even more, because it mentioned he only makes one kind of sandwich. Well, now I HAD to know. I'd driven by the place a thousand times, without a glance at the mini-mall exterior and tight parking lot. But little A and I headed over there after pre-school pickup and wandered around checked out the cheese, chocolate, cookies and pasta and ordered one of the famed sandwiches. It was so great, splash of olive oil, perfect crusty bread, prosciutti, salami, and provolone, wrapped in pink butcher paper--like the deli where I used to work when I was a kid. I loved it and picked up some hard to find pasta as well. Maybe I need to wear this book around my neck.

And don't miss this deal... lots of area restaurants are slashing prices on Prix-fix dinners for the next couple of weeks, inspired by the recession. Here's more details...

Such “Deluxe” (and EAT: LA fave) places as Beacon, Angeli Caffe, Carousel, Luna Park, Ita-cho and Royal/T will have three-course meals at $16 for lunch and $22 for dinner. “Premier” places (at $22 and $34, respectively), include Ford’s Filling Station, the timeless Dal Rae, Max, Vertical Wine Bistro, Chaya Venice and Cafe Pinot. On the high end are the “Fine Dining” places ($28 and $44, respectively), including BLT Steak, Bashan, La Cachette, Comme Ca, Water Grill and Grace.

And those are just the beginning — go to dinela.com for the roster of plenty more participants. Do your part, and show your favorite restaurant some love!

C'mon people... C'mon

2009-01-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

This is the lamest contraption I've ever seen. I can't believe anyone would buy this plastic gizmo to make perfect s'mores in the microwave. Seriously, how lazy do you have to be? I want to ask the people who bought one if they make other people "start their oranges". Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you ever met someone who pleads with other people to beginning peeling their orange for them, so they won't risk the slight sting or stickiness on their skin? I had a roomate like that. I'm sure he owns one of these.

Lovely Little Bites...

2009-01-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

Check out these amazing teas and the box is compostable...

Bacon and Chocolate... just close your eyes and take a bite, because it's unexplainably wonderful.

Blood Orange Olive Oil... I received this as a gift a couple of years ago and buy it every chance I get. Roast some beets, drizzle the oil on and you have winter perfection.

I'm jonesing over this table/ chairs, work surface... from Sur La Table. I really want to roll out cookies, knead dough and cook with my kid, right there.

Menu for the BIG DAY!

2009-01-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

It's seafood heavy and not very kid-friendly. What's doing at the kid's table, you think?

My dad was proud of the fact that he had fed two presidents and their families, both Ford and Carter. I have a set of the presidential seal cufflinks that were given to him by Carter, and cocktail napkins with the seal. He loved to tell the story of how an older woman surprised a secret service man in the bathroom, and not the other way around...

You can download the recipes here...

Cinnamon Apple Sponge Cake
Yield: 10 servings
Ingredients
Apple Filling

ӫ4 lbs Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced

ӫ4 tablespoons unsalted butter

ӫ¼ cup water

ӫ1/₃ cup granulated sugar

ӫ1/₃ cup apple sauce

ӫ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

ӫ¼ teaspoon salt

ӫGrated zest from 1 lemon

ӫ1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Bread Crust

ӫ14 tablespoons unsalted butter, melt 10 of tablespoons

ӫ2 tablespoons granulated sugar

ӫ34 slices brioche bread (or white bread)
Equipment

ӫ10 Ceramic baking ramekins or metal molds (3” diameter)
Sauce

ӫ2 cups caramel sauce(store bought)

ӫ2 cups granny smith apples, peeled, cored, diced small

ӫPinch sugar

ӫPinch cinnamon

ӫ1 tablespoon butter
Ice Cream
1 quart vanilla ice cream
Preparation
Filling
1. Melt butter in 6-quart saucepan over medium-low heat. Add apples and caramelize, add water,
cook, stirring occasionally for 15 to 20 minutes, or until apples are completely soft. Remove cover
and add sugar, nutmeg and salt. Increase heat to medium-high and continue to cook, stirring apples
frequently, until liquid has completely evaporated, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in
lemon zest, apple sauce and vanilla. Set aside to cool while making crust. The filling can be made
one day ahead
Making crust and assembly
1. Position oven rack in lower third of oven and preheat to 425°F. Grease 8 ceramic dishes with 1 tablespoon butter. Sprinkle sugar in dish and tilt to coat bottom and sides. Tap out excess sugar and
set aside.
2. Using a bread knife, remove crusts from bread. Center the bottom of mold over one of the bread
squares. Cut around mold to form circle to use as the top. Make a total of 20 of these round pieces.
Ten will be for the bottom and 10 will be used for the top. Dip each one in melted butter and place at
the bottom of mold.
3. Cut each of the 15 remaining slices of bread into four rectangular pieces. Dip one side of each strip
in the melted butter and arrange strips, upright, around the inside of molds, buttered-sides against
mold and overlapping by about 1/2” to completely line mold. Use 6 rectangles to line the mold.
4. Spoon the apple filling into bread-lined molds, mounding it slightly in center.
5. Take the remaining ten rounds of bread and dip pieces of bread into the melted butter and place on
top of filling, buttered-sides up. Press down lightly.
6. Bake for 30 minutes, then cover top loosely with aluminum foil. Bake for an additional 15-20
minutes, until top is deep golden brown and side slices are golden brown (slide a thin-bladed knife
between bread and pan to check). Remove from oven, uncover, and let rest for 15 minutes on wire
rack. Run thin-bladed knife around edges of molds to be able to flip the mold out onto serving
plates.
7. For the apple cinnamon caramel sauce, sauté 1 cup of peeled and diced Granny Smith apples in
butter, add a pinch of sugar and cinnamon. Allow to cook until apples are lightly browned and all
sugars have dissolved. Remove from heat and add 2 cups caramel sauce to the apples and stir to coat
apples.
To Assemble
Pour caramel apple sauce over warmed apple cakes and serve with your favorite vanilla ice cream.

Hope Cupcakes... Inaugural Party Toppers...

2009-01-14T21:26:00.001-08:00

These are lots of fun...

Diving into the New Year... In Slow Motion

2009-01-07T12:09:00.001-08:00

I'm getting a slow start into the new year. Our very last Christmas hurrah was last Friday and our last guest heads out of town tomorrow morning. We're not quite back to our routine since my kid has Chicken Pox, amazing since she had the vaccine, but we're hanging around the house, playing dress up and watching The Muppet Show. I'm intermintently cleaning closets and cabinets. I came across this article from Mark Bitman, "Fresh Start for a New Year? Let’s Begin in the Kitchen". It's a great article on everything from croutons and bread crumbs and vegetable stock. I can't believe that I haven't thought of making my own stock. I've been working my way through the Julia Child's cookbook soup recipes and discouraged by the different stocks. I really think the chicken and veggie stock sold at TJ's is awful, sometimes even sweet. I've found stock by Wolfgang Puck to be better, but the chicken and veggie are hard to find and the low sodium is even harder. I can't wait to make my own and I've got a loaf of sourdough that will make great croutons. All these choices are pretty green too, when you think about it and we're all short on kitchen space, especially with all the new toys that Santa brought!

Christmas Crinkle

2008-12-23T22:49:00.000-08:00

So my family is asleep and even though I made rows and rows of jars of vanilla sugar in October to share with friends and neighbors so I wouldn't have to bake as much this year, I can't stop. I can't help it. I've made batches of different cookies every day, shortbread, madeleines, choc chip toffee, and a boiled peanut cookie out of my new favorite cookbook that was at best baffling. Tonight it's quiet, finally and my shopping is done (hopefully). I peeled the apples and sliced them and will let them sweat all night in sugar and cardamon and the blueberries are having a bath in sugar and lemon rind. I'll make the pie crust and set in the fridge overnight to chill and then when I'm almost all done, I'm making Chocolate Crinkles.

You know this cookie. Your mom or grandmother made it out of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book, or the Joy of Baking.

I've been thinking about this, the compulsion to bake, why we make things that we know will make people happy. It's not just to show off, although I'm kinda good at that too. It's more than that. It's more than food, or ritual or community. If you have someone's old cookbooks, or recipe cards in your attic of garage and the pages are still sticky with sugar and smeared with flour-- if you flip through their casseroles and pastry dough recipes and see the neatly lined handwriting, blurred with watermarks, bent with use... it means one thing, you were loved.

It may be primal. They wanted to fill you. Maybe it wasn't a perfect family and maybe you didn't always (or ever) get what you needed, maybe you weren't greeted at the door with a hug and kiss or even embraced every time you needed it, but I promise you, you were loved, not flawlessly, but absolutely. Flip through those old books, the old recipes and remember the sights and smells. It will all come back to you. And Happy Christmas. Here's to a sweet, sweet, sweet New Year.

Frenzy of Butter

2008-12-19T18:12:00.000-08:00

Don't miss this article in the NYT's today all about the butter. I completely agree. Kerrygold salted is the best. It's the closest we can get to toast in England. (Collective sigh) The toast is always amazing in England.

And it is weird to me that the article would appear the same day I decided to tread the hallowed ground of shortbread. I had one of those fall-apart days, in which nothing really went right and I only got about three things done on a list of 100's. Anyway, I started my day by finishing up these little buggers for Afton's friends on their last day of school before the holidays. I started them in October but finished them the morning we were handing them out. I then decided to tackle shortbread and when I had a tray in the oven and one in hand, realized I was late for Afton's Christmas "program". The air quotes are to pay homage to the usually mild mannered toddlers who decide upon taking the stage to sing to scream in panic and claw their way off. It's amazing that Jingle Bells can sound like a funeral dirge. Anyway, I missed it. I missed the program. I baked my way through it and barely had enough time to pack up the people packages, the pizza for the potluck and get out the door. The kid, for all my panic, could have cared less. The rest of the day just kind of flopped around. We tried to get a Santa pic at the mall, but after standing in line patiently she would go nowhere near him. We're of the "no pressure little dude" school, so we went to get a pretzel instead. Santa said, "See you next year, kid." Maybe dude. Maybe.

The Shortbread kinda rocks and I'm going to make another round tonight as thumbprints. First I'm going to head into the kitchen and make breakfast for dinner, pan friend potatoes and scrambled eggs. Yum.

The Opposite of Christmas Cheer

2008-12-17T12:36:00.000-08:00

I don't want to bum you out, but this is amazing.
This is from today's Epicurious' Epi-log.

Dumb Food Crime: Adolf Hitler's Birthday Cake
by Michael Y. Park

This food crime deserves a whole post of its own.

A New Jersey ShopRite refused to decorate a cake for a Holland, Penna., three-year-old's birthday because it didn't like the look of the kid's name.

What was the toddler's name?

Adolf Hitler Campbell.

A ShopRite spokeswoman called the idea of making a cake with a birthday wish for HItler inappropriate.

Little Adolf's parents, who named their other children JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie, didn't take up the market on its offer to leave space on the cake and let them inscribe the name themselves. Instead, they went to Wal-Mart, which had made cakes for the kid's first two birthdays.

"ShopRite can't even make a cake for a 3-year-old," Deborah Campbell, 25, told the Lehigh Valley Express-Times. "That's sad."

Responded a spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League: "Might as well put a sign around (their kids') neck that says 'bigot, racist, hatemonger.' What's the difference?"

Wal-Mart has a policy against putting illegal or profane inscriptions on cakes, but says it respects its customers' viewpoints.

"Our No. 1 priority in decorating cakes is to serve the customer to the best of our ability," a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said.

According to the Campbells, Adolf's birthday party was attended by about a dozen people, including people of mixed race.

Should ShopRite have made the cake, or was it right in taking its stand? What about Wal-Mart?

Company Christmas Party

2008-12-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

These days primary employer is a three year old and I'm not sure if you know this, but toddlers are notorious cheapskates when it comes to throwing big holiday shindigs. Now I would never look a gift macaroni necklace in the face, but I'm not holding my breath for the typical eggnog party or even a gift certificate for a turkey at Vons. Maybe I should organize... In the meantime, I did get to go to the Amoeba Music Party here in LA and it was SO FUN and SO cool. If you haven't been to Amoeba, you should run there before the holidays. I bet you could get all your shopping done in one shot. The party was awesome and I loved every minute.

Here's a couple of fab highlights.
1. Absinthe Bars (I didn't get to partake, but my pals did)
2. Massage Chairs (unlimited visits)
3. Yum, yum, yummy buffet
4. Gigantic Bowls of Various Nosh, strategically placed
5. Karaoke-- In the name of edging out of my comfort zone, I sang backup on my first song ever, "Livin' on a Prayer", but my husband offered a rousing, "I love you more today than yesterday" which was fantastic.
6. Agave Lemonade spiked with Chlorophyll. Non-alcoholic, tasty and as green as the grinch
7. Great DJ. Can't go wrong mixing Bollywood with Snoop Dog.
8. Watching all the sweet Amoeba hipsters, with their hair and tattoos and getups. Fun, interesting people.
9. Freelancing is isolating and so is motherhood, being included in the Amoeba family made my heart happy.

Julie's Julia, My Julia, Your Julia

2008-12-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

So I was a huge fan of Julie Powell's earth-shaking blog, Julie/ Julia. It was in the early days (for me) of blogging, and I was fascinated at how someone could dig their way out of crap-ville towards fulfillment, or some semblance of. I was also fascinated at the hutzpah to approach the holy grail of recipes, and Julie's husband's very cool support of her endeavors. I thought I had read the whole thing, having read the blog, but decided to grab a copy of the book, Julie/ Julia at Tattered Cover last week. I imagined it would be like hanging out with an old friend and it was. If you read the blog, the book is the bigger/ lovelier version. Julia was a feminist, adventurist and the kind of woman who grabbed at life. Gotta love a 6 feet tall girl from Pasadena with the kind of gusto to hang out the window on roo-de-loo.

I have an old copy of Volume One of Mastering the Art of French Cooking that I bought years ago, used at Moe's Books in Berkeley. It has sat impressively on my shelf without any love at all for years. When I dove into Julie's book, I wondered why I hadn't made some of the simpler recipes. So last week, I tried it. I know I've mentioned that our CSA has gone potato crazy. We've got potatoes coming out of our ears...Er. Seriously, I had to do something with the little guys threatening to take over my cabinets. I grabbed some leeks and made Potage Parmentier, or Potato-Leek Soup, the first recipe in the book. I'm kind of ashamed that it had never occurred to me that the easiest, most approachable recipe would be the first one. The soup is "simplicity itself" made from leeks, potatoes, water and butter. The only trick was mashing the ingredients so that they were not "baby pap" as Julia warned. I used my hand blender with the lightest touch. It was fantastic and I got rave reviews from the other folks I live with, especially the kid. I love it when a recipe turns the corner from "that was nice" to "make that again" in the first go round.

I'm off to make cookies for the first go-round of Christmas wing-dings. I love the holidays.

Stay tuned for Onion Soup...

Natalie Dee is a Friggin' Genius

2008-12-03T16:22:00.000-08:00

nataliedee.com

Click on the link above to read her comics, buy her t-shirts, basically enhance your world.

Perfect Gift for Foodies

2008-12-02T14:29:00.000-08:00

We're all feeling pinched from the bleak financial outlook. Consider just for a moment, not having your own kitchen, or even your own stove to cook with.

Jewish World Watch is committed to protecting refugee women and girls from rape and other forms of violence, and helping them to rebuild their lives. Women and girls fleeing the genocide in Darfur, Sudan are placed in extreme jeopardy when undertaking the simple, but vital, task of collecting firewood for cooking fuel. We are reducing the vulnerability of these women by providing the Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps in Chad with solar cookers, and reducing their need to collect firewood. Our project protects these women and provides them with income opportunities that include: manufacturing solar cookers, training others to use the cookers and making carrying bags to increase the life span of the cookers. JWW is also developing other companion projects aimed to keep the women inside the relative safety of the camp.

This isn't just about going "green" by using solar power to cook. Solar cooking can reduce the need for frequent firewood collection reducing the risk of violence towards women and girls. Two solar cookers can save one ton of wood each year. There is no need to tend a fire so women are free to do other tasks. Manufacturing solar cookers provides income opportunities for female refugees.

You, you, you can do this. For only $30. That's probably less the price of one moderately nice dinner and glass of wine. It's the perfect gift for your foodie friends, the ones you commune and cook and eat with all year long.

You can have a direct impact on the lives of the women and children in refugee camps. And you can do it, without getting up from your computer... unless you have to grab your wallet. And if I was there, I would do that for you. I promise. Thanks, and Happy Holidays.

Here's the link to donate.

Thanksgiving redux...

2008-12-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was fabulous. I was worried about not having a traditional meal and ended up having two. We had a mini-feast at home the night before we left for Colorado and another in main street bar in Winter Park after we landed. It was kind of funny, all nine of us crammed into tables with bar stools, televisions on left and right, the ambiance would have been lacking except that we were all so grateful to be there. My family drove 14 hours. Yep. That's right. 14 hours. There wasn't much snow when we arrived, but it started snowing the next afternoon and didn't stop for four whole days. Anyway, we were all off the plane, out of the car and packed in to the pub. I expected a run of the mill, turkey dinner, edible but nothing special... and instead had a rocking four course meal. The chef must have been a hard core ski buff, but they knew what they were doing in the kitchen. The soup was butternut squash, which if done wrong can be mushy baby pap, but instead it was light and flavorful and sprinkled with toasted pistachios. There was a great salad with homemade dressings, or as Afton says, "Scratchy" dressings. And the main course was awesome, roasted turkey, sweet potatoes with a honey glaze, mashed potatoes and turkey gravy and stuffing. The pumpkin pie was served with homemade whipped cream and we all had to roll ourselves out of the place. We spent the rest of the weekend eating, cookies, candy, soups and of course, snow ice cream. It was wonderful.

Here's the recipe I made up before we left...
Thai-Pumpkin Pie!

Big can of pumpkin (not pie filling)
Half cup of sugar
One egg
Half a can of Trader Joes, Light Coconut Milk
Juice of one Lime

Pour it into a pie crust and bake for around an hour. This recipe makes two 8 inch pies. Let me know if you try it. I'd love to hear what you think!

Don't turn your nose up at those tins from the grocery store. One of my chef friends swears by them, loves them more than any color coordinated, fancy-pants ceramics or glass deally-bob from Williams Sonoma.

Little bites of blogs...

2008-11-25T14:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of lovely blogs that have captured my imagination lately. I'm trying to bake and make as many of our Christmas gifts as possible, fun food gifts and little sewing things. These have kept the ideas flowing. Don't be put off if these seem particularly girly or homemade, the style and design is part of the fun.

Sidewalk Shoes is a kindred spirit... great blog with books, recipes and sewing pattern reviews.

Posie Gets Cozy is filled with make your own ideas, kid crafts and inspiration for dragging the sewing machine out of retirement.

Sew Mama Sew is wonderful too, lots of gift ideas and places to shop if you'd rather buy.

Bella Dia has fun softie ideas and a great list of free gift tags from last year. Check her archives.

Mmmmm Mint Chips, Gearing up for Holiday Baking

2008-11-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

Here's the first round our annual holiday baking. We don't do Thanksgiving, instead we're usually traveling on turkey day. The downside is no leftover stuffing, but the upside cheap airfare, early skiing, and we are so excited for the big family Christmas meal. I always take LOTS and LOTS of cookies to Colorado to munch on apres-ski. The baking season, like ski season has officially begun. To kick off the whole shbang Mint Chocolate Cookies. Our fabulous b-sitter brought over some really delish mint chips from a gourmet shop in the area. Much like these I found online. I made Martha's Outrageous Chocolate Cookies, an easy choc cookie recipe with a nice soft center and instead of adding the last round of choc chunks, added the lovely green chips. They looked beautiful and fun, with green peeking out from the choc cookie. The flavors blend really well.

I also made one FUGLY cake yesterday. It was your standard two layer chocolate cake, with chocolate butter cream icing. Simple. I've don't it a million times. I have a new cake stand I wanted to use. But when I went to frost the cake, the sides kept falling apart, crumbling like a celebrity power marriage. I couldn't figure out why. I waited. Made another batch of icing and just schlacked the heck out of it. Everybody ate it, but I could barely look at it. Well, you win some... you crumble some.

Spicy/Recipe Card Combo...

2008-11-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

Boy, do I have an election hangover and I don't even drink. I'm thrilled about Obama's victory and still bruised and stinging from Prop 8's win.

Anyway, I'm sure you're gearing up for the holidays, getting ready for all the massive meals that are on the horizon. I wanted to share some beautifully designed recipe cards that many small online boutiques offer on their sites. No Biting Wolfie posted these very cool, very fluid cards on her site last July. Here's another set from See Jane Scrapbook, with light pastels and floral flourishes. And here's a more Fall-ish, modern set from one of my new favorites, Creature Comforts. Instead of dragging a bottle of mediocre wine to the next party you hit, take a spice jar, looped with a tiny ribbon and a recipe card for your Great Aunt Myrtle's hard sauce.

Sure, sure...

2008-11-04T13:09:00.001-08:00

This is from today's Cake Wrecks... Amazing find.

I've voted. And I managed not to cry, although I had to take a moment before I turned away from the booth to pull myself together. And I've gotten my free coffee at Starbucks. They had to revise their policy about free coffee for voters, because no good deed goes unpunished. I heard they would be giving coffee away but in honor of election day, not voting... although the barista asked me if I voted before she bestowed me my cup of decaf.

Last election eve we had the worst party EVER. Kerry was ahead in the polls and we thought for sure it would be a bumpy but victorious night. Well, we all know how that went. The food was great. G made mashed potatoes. We had lots and lots of homemade mac and cheese courtesy of my mom and dozens of brownies. But of course the mood just wen sour as the minutes passed and there was no recovering.

Tonight we're indulging in a grill cheese night with our friend's panini press and I'm making a roasted pumpkin filled with bread and gruyere. I spent way too much money on cheese and great bread. I'm going to saute mushrooms and kale, so we can build our own sandwich. And I'm making a couple of pies, apple and pumpkin.

Only a handful of our friends are coming, those folks too nervous to stay home or are party hopping. They are the folks who won't take it personally if I get overwhelmed and have to go to bed. Our checker at TJ's said she and her room mate were ordering pizza and cracking open a great bottle of wine they've been saving. How are you spending the evening?

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T09:36:00.001-07:00

Nothing like a finger in a bento box to say Happy Pumpkin Day! I wish I had pictures of someone actually eating the finger. That's scary.

Free Boo-rito, Happy Halloween

2008-10-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

Today's To Do List

Make and wear tin foil hat.
Go to Chipotle, between 5pm and 8pm.
Stand in line.
Order free burrito.
Go home and eat burrito.
Chase those damn kids off your lawn.

EAT the VOTE for FREE

2008-10-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

As if you needed more reasons to vote in the most important election in our lifetime, there are lots of fun places places to go after you pull the lever on Tuesday. Krispy Kreme is offering free donuts to folks who wear their "I Voted" stickers. And Ben and Jerry's is offering a free scoop of ice cream between 5pm and 8pm. Chik-a-fil-a offers a free sandwich. If you're not hungry, you can always go to Missouri, and get something pierced for free.

Freaky Freekah-three minute meal

2008-10-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Don't know if you've checked out the latest Trader Joe's Flyer, but there's some great stuff. One of the newest items is Freekah, which according to the flyer, Trader Joe’s Fully Cooked Greenwheat Freekah is durum wheat, the variety used to make pasta, harvested when it's young. I'm not a fan of brown rice. I keep hoping it's an acquired taste that I'll grown into, but it's not happening. But Free-kah is another matter entirely. It's delicious, less nutty than barley, less earthy than lentils but more flavorful than rice.

Here's the dish we stumbled on at the glorious sample table yesterday. I came home and made it for dinner in three minutes flat. Yum.

One package of Free-kah
One package of fresh Pico-de-Gallo salsa
One package of no-meat, chicken strips
Package of tortillas, or chips
Sour cream

Optional... avocado, olives, corn.

Warm the Freekah for 90 seconds in the microwave. While you toss that in a bowl with the salsa, heat the chicken-less strips for a minute or two and then toss that in the bowl. Serve on a tortilla, or with chips, and a dollop of sour cream. Lunch!

Carve away...

2008-10-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

Cool link on carving three-D pumpkins on the link above. I love pumpkins. I love their big fat shape. I love the seeds. I love the pumpkin dish served at this fabulous Thai restaurant. I love how, once a year friends and neighbors feel compelled to carve up great big orange squash and stick them on their porches with candles. It's really silly and who doesn't need silly? Another great site with cool pictures and ideas can be had here... Send me pictures of your pumpkins!

Diwali!

2008-10-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited because we get to celebrate Diwali tonight with some friends at a neighborhood Indian restaurant. This is the kind of thing I live for. It's exactly why I live here instead of um... anywhere else, aside from London or New York, where you can have a similar experience. The only thing I knew about Diwali was the episode of The Office when the whole office staff troops off to Kelly's family party. You can watch a clip here. I did a little research and found these notes on BBC's site. (See below.) How cool is it that black-eyed peas are traditional for the New Year in the southern states and in India? The celebrations include lights and fireworks, so I'm going to take a box of sparklers.

First day of Diwali: sheera - a warm fudge-like sweet made with semolina, saffron, cardamom, raisins and nuts - is eaten alongside a spicy black-eye bean curry.

Second day: Some Hindus fast all day, and break their fast at sunset with lapsee, a warm sweet porridge of cracked wheat, sugar and clarified butter.

Third day: kheer - a milky pudding made with rice, rice flakes or sago - is accompanied by spicy urid lentil vada (fritters).

Diwali and New Year's Day : Most Indians eat vegetarian food during Diwali, and mixed vegetable curries made with as many varieties of vegetables as possible (which represents year-long bounty), including whole pods of fresh green black-eye beans (which represent longevity) are especially popular. A huge assortment of sweets is an absolute must. Diwali day is spent feasting with the family, and New Year's Day, visiting all the friends and neighbours. Generous quantities of food is offered to guests, and one is expected to eat everything that's offered.

Plucked?

2008-10-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

Did you know parrots are edible? Check out the post linked above to Miz Murphy's blog, a fabulous read.

Yes on Prop 2 in California, California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act

2008-10-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

The editorial below is from the NY Times on October 9th. If you're reading this, you've probably heard of Michael Palin, know about organic versus not and have some idea about the state of food... but just in case you've missed it, read below for a full picture. Now to be clear, I still eat meat. I eat cheese and eggs and everything. When I was a kid I chased cows on my aunt's farm. I corralled them when they got out, I hauled hay and liked being around them. But I also grew up in kitchens, big, big kitchens with chefs who use food like painters use colors. I was a vegetarian for five plus years and try not to make it a daily habit. I generally stay away from pork, don't do veal or lamb and try to make a deliberate choice when I eat meat. Eventually, I think I'll find myself a vegetarian again... but either way, it's hard to stomach people treating animals in a way that I wouldn't be able to take if I were five feet away. So big Yes on Prop 2.

EDITORIAL
Standing, Stretching, Turning Around

The goal of the California Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act — Proposition 2 on the state’s November ballot — sounds extremely modest. It would ban the confinement of animals in a way that keeps them from being able to stand, sit, lie down, turn around and extend their limbs. The fact that such fundamental decencies have to be forced upon factory farming says a lot about its horrors. We urge California voters to pass Proposition 2. We urge every state to enact similar laws.

Americans are becoming increasingly aware of how and where food is raised. With that should come real concern. The mantra of industrial farming has always been efficiency, but efficiency has come to mean a pregnant sow — millions of them — confined in a gestation crate barely 2 feet wide and only as long as she is. It means veal-calves rendered virtually immobile in crates barely large enough to contain their bodies. It means endless rows of laying hens kept in battery cages so small that the birds cannot even stretch their wings.

No philosophy can justify this kind of cruelty, not even the philosophy of cheapness. Proposition 2 will not just improve the square footage available to these suffering animals. Reducing the concentration of animals will also help reduce the water and air pollution created by factory farms. It will also begin to redress the imbalance between small farmers and the huge corporations that have acquired vertical, and fundamentally anti-competitive, control over the meat industry.

To a California voter still undecided on Proposition 2, we say simply, imagine being confined in the voting booth for life. Would you vote for the right to be able to sit down and turn around and raise your arms?

Buy Me Some Peanuts and... Oh, forget it. Let's go eat pie.

2008-10-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

We decided to splurge on tickets to game five, to celebrate our wedding anniversary... but uh, in case you didn't know, it wasn't a banner night. Bummer night maybe. There were a couple of omens. I forgot to confirm with our beloved babysitter, Carley so we had to scramble at the last minute, and we were stuck in the parking lot when the first pitch (and home run off the first pitch happened...) We got to our seats and there was a woman sitting in one of them and she was... asleep. Fast asleep. Head back. Snoring. The real deal. I've been to games all over the country. I've seen a perfect game, a no-hitter, a season opener, season closers, playoffs, series, you name it... I've seen fights, sing-a-longs, fireworks, celebrities and run the bases. When I was 11 years old I ran after Sparky Anderson to get his autograph. But that's the first time I've ever seen someone sleep at a game. Thankfully the row in front of ours was open and we sat in the one. She slept for about three or four innings. I tried to take her picture a couple of times, but she woke up and gave me the dirtiest look. And then the game. (Sigh) So what do you do when your team eats it, Nomar waves good-bye to LA and you have to watch the Phillies fans wet themselves over their victory? You drown yourself in pie at Phillipes. Coconut Cream Pie. G had blueberry and pickles on the side. Somehow I feel like Joe Torre owes me dinner. I guess there's always next year.

Easing into Fall... Carrots, Mint and Soups

2008-10-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

I'm such a huge nerd. I can get excited about the smallest things. The other day I saw a guy at the gas station with an ACME Oyster Bar t-shirt from New Orleans and I was sucked back into an awesome memory of sitting at the bar, watching the shuckers work their magic. Today I was making soup and found a jar of bay leaves I didn't know I had, happy, happy, happy. I can't wait until the leaves fall on my maple tree and I can scoop them into a pile for A to jump in and then stuff them into my new compost. I'm actually excited about that. I know. Me=HUGE nerd.

Lately, we've been getting piles of carrots from the co-op. When I had a surplus before I took them to A's school and fed the bunny. But the family who had him over the summer decided they couldn't part with him, so we are bunny-less. I decided to make my own version of this carrot soup with mint that Greg and I had at the Old Hunter's Lodge in England a couple of years ago. I roasted the carrots with olive oil until they were soft. Then I used my handy dandy hand mixer to chop them, adding more olive oil and mint. Check out the result. Yum. We've also had a huge surplus of butternut squash. I overdid it when A was a baby and she will avoid it at all costs, but when I roasted it, cubed it, added broth, sage, ginger and sauteed onion... then I used that Magic Stick to puree everything. Add a little cream and voila, she ate a whole bowl of the stuff. For my bowl I drizzled a little red pepper puree and chipotle salsa. Couldn't be easier.

Gumbo and Biscuits

2008-10-10T14:47:00.000-07:00

So like everyone else in the country...
Wait, lemme check CNN online...
OK, I'm back... Make that everyone in the world, I'm a little worried about my finances. I'm a spoiled American who loves a good latte, is snobby about chocolate and eat (almost) whatever I want, whenever I damn well please. I really mean it when I say spoiled. Occasionally, I'll think whoa... we've got to buckle down spend less money and I'll make a concerted effort not to spend as much money at Target. I'm a conscience consumer hear me roar, "No. I refuse to buy that tenth set of PlaySkool Little People." Wow, I'm practically Ed Begley Jr.

So, I'm not Paris Hilton either, but I could do more. One way is to eat out less often. On that front, I made gumbo for dinner last night. Part of the haul from the Zantarain's folks. I get how gumbo became the dish because you can open the fridge and toss in whatever is leftover and it will be absorbed by the fabulousness of the gumbo. I had okra, green beans, squash, leftover (fake) chicken strips, carrots, celery, onion... tossed it all in.

Then because I don't really love cornbread, I made biscuits. I used Scott Peacock's recipe as a template and butchered the heck out of it. I replaced the lard with vegetable oil, buttermilk with whipping cream and they still came out tasty. Today, I think I"ll actually try them again and make them his way, except without the lard. I haven't worked up the courage to cook with that yet. I need to brave my local mexican market for a small hunk of it. I will do it though, because I like the idea of making biscuits the way my grandmother did and I suspect they will be mind-blowingly good. In either case, butchered or not, they took 10 minutes to throw together, ten to roll and clean up and ten to bake--almost as quick as the kind out of a can. While I work on my recipe, check out Scott Peacock's advice on the subject.

Hungry Deck... Pick a Card

2008-10-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

I got this cool Hungry? Deck in my stocking for Christmas last year. It's a deck of cards, each from a local restaurant in LA. Local being so relevant...Century City, Malibu, Encino all being "local"... so we haven't made the best use of it. I'd love to share the cards with my friends. Here's the list of restaurants, if you think you'll use one of the cards, email me and I'll get it to you so you can enjoy $10 off before December 31st! (I'll let you know if we've already used the card, or plan to in the near future.)

Bella
Blue Star
Café Beaujolais
Café Marco
Casey’s Irish Bar & Grille
Chili My Soul
Clementine
Coffee Zinio Café
The Courtyard
Dish
Dolce
Ebizo’s Skewer
Elena’s
El Tarasco
Enterprise Fish Co.
E3rd
Figtree’s
Geisha House
The Griddle Café
Guelaguetza
Howdy’s Taqueria
India Sweets and Spices
J Restaurant and Lounge
Ketchup
KP’s Deli
Larkin’s
Mario’s Italian Deli and Market
Michelangelo Pizzeria
Mr. Cecil’s California Ribs
Nick’s Café
Nyala
Opus
Ozzie’s Diner and Grill
Paru’s Indian Vegetarian
Pitfire Pizza Company
Pizza Next Door
Prizzi’s Piazza
Pueblo Viejo
Red Pearl Kitchen
Saddle Ranch Chop House
Sante La Brea
Shan Restaurant
Springbok Bar and Grill
Spitz
Sportsmen’s Lodge
Spring Street Smoke House
Sunnin Lebanese Café
Tiara Café
TiGeorges.
Tops
Uncle Darrow’s Cajun Creole
Weiland Brewery

Real Hope

2008-10-07T20:28:00.001-07:00

Click on the link above and just try not to smile... Thanks Paula!

Wordle

2008-10-06T13:31:00.000-07:00

Here's the last blog in wordle...which is so fun. Thanks Eric for the turning me on to this new obsessive toy. Who knew there was a font called "Grilled Cheese"?!

Cinnamon Rolls, Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

2008-10-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

Wow. My friend, Susan brought over a big ziploc bag of starter dough. I love presents like that. She said, "Here make some rolls for supper...." We sort of took it from there and decided to make cinnamon rolls. I've always wanted to make pretty rolls for breakfast/ brunch events. We live close to the parade route and every year on New Year's Day have a small crowd for breakfast before strolling down to watch all the idiots who slept outside, I mean... the parade. Anyway, we let the dough rise, bough raisons and plumped them in hot water, rolled out the dough on cold flour, buttered it, layered on a bowl of warm water, powdered sugar and a ton of cinnamon. It was A's job to shake it in and she did it well... We poured the sugar over the dough, rolled it. Susan then showed A the magic trick of using dental floss instead of a knife to cut out the rolls. We poured another layer of butter, sugar and cinnamon into the bottom of a glass pie pan and then squeezed the cut rolls next to each other. I put them in the oven for about half an hour at around 300 degrees and voila... They were a little over-risen and got kind of big and fat. I can't wait to make them again. The bonus is that they make the house smell FANTASTIC. I'm a little bummed this time of year, the time change is pending, baseball is winding down, football is winding up. But I'm ready to welcome fall with open arms when the place smells like cinnamon. Here's a recipe for you to try...

What is that ungodly smell? Politics.

2008-10-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Augusto created these fabulous stickers/ trucker hats/ shirts. You might want a couple to navigate the next couple of weeks. Click on the link above to order your very own...

Don't miss this article in the NYT's today... The Steamy Way to Dinner

2008-10-01T09:25:00.001-07:00

Who could resist this? I LOVE Bibimbop and it never even dawned on me that we might be able to make it at home!

"Cooking foods other than rice in a rice cooker is like baking a layer cake in an Easy-Bake oven: best approached with patience, curiosity and something to snack on in the meantime."

Splat, Squish, Splash... Sigh

2008-09-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-24T10:58:00.001-07:00

“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...

2008-09-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-22T13:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

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.

New Orlean's Zats

2008-08-24T23:24:00.000-07:00

So when I started this blog in 2004, I never imagined that I would get offers for food and wine. Cookbooks show up at my door hoping for reviews. I trying to establish a standard, what I'll accept, what I won't and what I'll write about and what I won't. No thanks to the weird water filter system. No thanks to the book on macrobiotic food. Blech. Great big hell YES to Zatarains.

I got an email recently from a rep at Zatarains offering me a couple of samples of their products. Now I'm not a big fan or food that comes in a box or a bag, but there are exceptions and Zatarain's is one of them. When you are in New Orleans and you sidle up to one of the waitresses, or cooks and ask how they make rice and beans... they say Zatarains. The company has been aroundn since 1889, so I guess they aren't yanking my beads. Now I know not everybody does it that way. Some people are willing to slave over a stove, but I think these lovely boxes can be dressed up nicely. And they have a new low sodium version. The box that landed on my doorstep has Creole Mustard, Fish Fry, Fried Chicken Fry, Jambalaya Mix, Blackened Seasonings and more. One of my favorite weeknight suppers is cornbread and beans and rice. My mom used to make it at home, tossing in a couple of sausage links and a small salad on a cold, almost-too-late-to-cook-dinner night.

Since New Orleans is one of my favorite places in America, we're closing in on marking the third anniversary of Katrina (and our government's continued and still deeply SHAMEFUL response), and seeing as how I have a HUGE box of goodies from Zatarains... I'd like to share the wealth with you. Post all the creative details of what you'll do with Zatarains, how you'll dress up the box and while supplies last I'll get your info, "Where Y'at?" and send you some fun.

No takers? Aw, where's the love people?

Cake Wrecks

2008-08-20T16:00:00.001-07:00

If you haven't seen it you need to click now and check out the funniest blog I've ever seen. I laughed so hard I cried, real tears.

Opinions are Like A&%holes. Everyone's Got One.

2008-08-18T14:52:00.001-07:00

Do you ever check out Yelp, or Chowhound to see how folks rate your favorite go-to places? Sometimes it cracks me up to read how high-and-mighty folks get writing their own reviews.

Check it out. Cafe Beaujolis in Eagle Rock. In a nutshell, it's a charming without being too cute, little French neighborhood bistro. Great neighborhood. Great parking. Good solid French food. Nice decor and warm waiters. The bread isn't the greatest, and the desserts are a little on the safe side... but the appetizers and main courses are really fantastic and could easily be split with a friend. The service is really knowledgeable and ... well, French. If you ask an opinion, you're going to get one. And it won't be neutral, but frank and direct. But they do know their stuff and they obviously enjoy the chef and his food. So match that to the reviews on Yelp... Most of them rave about the cute staff and the great escargots.

One yelp review says, "Good food, snobby waiters. If you don't speak French, assume that everything they say to one another is about you. If you do speak French, you'll know it is." And she still rated it four out of five stars. And um, I speak enough to know they weren't talking about patrons when I was there, but who knows. What's booger en francais?

And another woman criticized most aspects of the meal and then ended with, "But all-in-all, I would definitely go back here again. But next time it has to be on a date. This place is way to fancy." Huh?

And my favorite review, "Without a doubt, the best restaurant in town to go to with a girl you want to dump. The food is good, it is way too crowded for real conversation and the waiters, like a bad SNL skit, are likely to hit on her.
You will have a good meal, avoid getting yelled at and she will for sure get a slimy guy with an accent trying to get her phone number before you both leave. Win: win!! Oui,oui. All the butter - half the class of great french food. The last place I would take a beautiful girl I really liked." Insecure? Just a little? What would he do if a girl he was grooving on said SHE made reservations there? Hmmm.

Wear Your Pumpkin Pie

2008-08-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

Click here. I couldn't resist.

Pfffffttttt....

2008-08-13T14:14:00.001-07:00

If you live in LA you've heard about the problems at the LA Times.... but today's Food Section is just ridiculous. It's six pages long. And one of those is a full page ad. So five measly pages of editorial. It's thin enough to blow your nose in. Such a shame and tragic in a city where food unites us all.

Say Hey, Say Willie... Swinging at the Plate

2008-07-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

We landed in SF on the most beautiful day. The sky was a radiant blue. The game started at 6pm and we had great tickets behind home plate. We grabbed two orders of garlic fries, which were yummy-- even for someone on the fence about garlic like me. I held out for a crab sandwich and took the kid over to the slide and playground. She loved the little slide and took the obligatory picture in front of the huge baseball glove. The glove doesn't actually do anything, in case you're wondering, just looks interesting and inviting in the far outfield. I grabbed a spot in the long, long line for crab sandwiches, wrestling my toddler who just wanted to run and play. There were only two families in front of me when they started falling out of line, crestfallen. They were OUT of crab. OUT of CRAB. The guy in front of me offered to buy the sandwich on display, which had been sitting out under the lights for who-knows-how-long. They didn't let him. I kind of wished they had... Anyway, I settled on a standard all-beef hotdog instead. I'm sure it's because I'm a Dodger fan. Kind of a bummer, but what kind of a maniac goes to the games, just for the food anyway? We did have nice sundaes with Gheradelli hot fudge. Good ice cream, decent hot fudge. There was a couple sitting behind us who were making a tour of all 30 parks this summer. I asked him where the best food was and he said without hesitating, "Milwaukee. Brats. No question." I like a man with conviction. It did make me a little sad, since a friend of mine was killed in a car accident as he and his dad set off for a trip like that. They had a car accident and both were killed. They were different kind of men, but baseball brought them together.

Sunday morning we braved the line at Sears Fine Foods for some silver dollar pancakes and french toast with sourdough bread. It was simple, no frills and delicious. It kept us filled until we hit the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park for green tea, crackers and cookies in the outdoor pagoda. The first trip I ever took by-myself, where I wasn't going to see family was in eighth grade. We took a bus tour to San Francisco. Two things happened on that trip, I discovered the tea garden and The Clash. Both were life changing. It made me wildly happy to see Afton drinking (watered down) green tea and munching almond cookies there. Now we just need to introduce her to "Give 'em Enough Rope".

Local Jams... The Sticky Kind

2008-07-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

Don't miss this great article on the Ward family and their fabulous jams and jellies...It's only minutes from my house and I pick up my organic delivery from their farm every week and it's nice to be on a working mini-farm, even for a few minutes.

And here come the figs...

We're headed to SF this weekend and can't wait to dive into the good food there. I'll tell you all about it next week.