To Kiss The Cook

A Change Has Come and It Comes with Pie

2011-12-08T16:35:00.007-06:00

Tomorrow I have the honor of doing something absurd- leaving a job I love while grinning to Cheshire proportions. Friday is my last day at Edelman after three and a half fantastic years.

All of this because Monday will be my first day on the digital team at Obama for America.

I’m joining the team to do whatever I can to ensure Barack Obama is reelected, as I believe him to be one of the single greatest agents for positive change my generation will know. I’m doing it because it absolutely qualifies as a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity to be part of something *big*, on behalf of something I so wholeheartedly believe in.

And because this is still a food blog and this is how we celebrate… I baked a pie. I will save you from any self-assigned deep metaphorical meaning and just tell you it’s an apple pie topped with half blueberries and half cranberries and it was delicious.

Baked goods aside (for now), I have every reason to believe this could be the single hardest thing I’ve ever taken on. I’m on the brink of being fully absorbed into a challenge so rich that it will swallow me whole for the next year by every account, including that of my new colleagues. And yet I can feel myself humming in anticipation, ready to dig in, understand, and be useful. There is a very real chance that everything I've done to date has led me straight to this whether I was aware of it or not.

For the last few years I have had the supreme good fortune of filling a role at Edelman that more often than not felt tailored to me like a glove, and definitely the kind with the nerdy tip points for texting. I've spent the last three years reading stories and meeting the women and men behind them. I've watched voices from the depths of the Internet become credible and recognized voices of “the people.” There are days when I even feel like I had a bit part in setting up the loudspeakers.

Not to mention the adventures. One after the other after the next and I came home breathless and chattering nonstop. I met her! We ate there! We had the best idea! From Portland to Asheville to Austin to San Diego and New York, New Jersey and New Orleans, I was buzzing. And I was pinching myself all the while for being the one that got to connect the dots. For getting to do it in such fine company.

I work with a bunch of nerds and it’s the highest compliment I can think to give in this context. People with the wanton ability to geek out over feed readers, measurement theories and platform coding but it goes beyond that.

I’m talking about food policy wonks, letterpress junkies, women in waders in search of a quiet spot with all the fish. People who run marathons with hip fractures because you cannot stop them from moving and try at your own peril. Star Wars junkies, chorus girls, music nuts, a fascinating breed of style curators and even a NASCAR fan. There may even have been a few fellow kitchen witches, Gryffindors, cat ladies and bourbon lovers. Just maybe. They are the kind of people who rave rave rave on about that thing you must try because it’s spectacular.

I can’t underline the importance of working with people who are passionate. Who are excited and eager and, above everything else, they are curious.

How does that work? Can I take it apart and will there be something simple and true at the center of it? Yes? Then let’s go there.

Yes. Let’s. I have a good feeling that I’m not done with the nerds. If anything, the stakes may have just been raised. Now that the secret is out, you know where to find me in 2012. There’s work to be done and if you feel like helping, I will gladly take you up on that.

Be advised, I'll be asking for your vote as well.

Red Pepper Almond Hummus and Keeping It Simple

2011-11-28T09:04:00.002-06:00

As I'm thinking many of you probably did this past week, I am just on the other side of a really nice few days with the family. Mom and Dad flew into Chicago, now the residence of both their children, and we spent a relaxed few days taking in the sights, smells and (clearly...do you know us at all?) tastes of an unseasonably warm city.

This would be Brother giving us a tour of his most recent campus home.

As Dad rightly noted, we just don't see each other very much these days so to get a couple weeks in one month's time feels like a luxury.

The other luxury is getting to play the tourist. I've lived in Chicago for going on seven years and I hadn't been to the Field Museum in that time. That is a tragedy and something we spent four full hours rectifying on Thanksgiving morning. We were first in line and got what felt like a private tour of the birds of North America, geologic treasures, the special Whales exhibit and the like. That's the kind of prioritizing you can expect from holiday Langsens.

It was decided early in the planning stages that me making Thanksgiving dinner was going to be more fuss that it was maybe worth for 3-5 people. I'm still not entirely sure I agree but I know when to defer and I don't regret the dearth of dishes in my kitchen (the dearth of turkey leftovers is another story). And while we ate really (Longman & Eagle), really (Leopold) well throughout the city, I'm pleased as punch that my favorite latest snack was appreciated by the whole family throughout the weekend.

If I were to venture a guess at your thoughts, I might wonder what the big deal was. Hummus is generally four ingredients tops and it's just not terribly tricky. To that end, you would be completely correct. It's easy. But a couple quick tweaks to traditional hummus makes this stuff completely addictive, not to mention versatile, delicious and delightfully cost-effective as a holiday potlucker.

Red Pepper Almond Hummus

1/2 small jar of roasted red peppers (no juice)
1 15 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (Bush's is a client and a favorite...the two are not mutually exclusive)
1/4 cup whole raw almonds
2-3 TB olive oil
1 tsp Sriracha (more if you like the heat)
2-3 cloves of garlic
Thick pinch of smoked salt and some freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Put all ingredients in a food processor then turn it on.

2. Throw a cracker in and adjust as needed by adding more of whatever you please to the food processor then whirring again.

3. That's it. You're done now.

Covered in the fridge , this will keep beautifully for a week. The likelihood of this lasting for a week is slim at best. If you're really looking to go the extra mile, might I recommend spreading the stuff on toast, layering slices from half of an avocado on top, drizzling a little extra Sriracha and topping it with a fried egg. Just in case you were looking for ideas.

Someone to Watch Over...My French Toast

2011-11-22T08:02:00.004-06:00

There's not much out there that competes with the all-around goodness and simplicity of French Toast. I'm not even going to bother qualifying that with an "in my opinion." If you want to argue it as fact, I'll go to the mat for French Toast and I will do so with vigor.

That isn't to say that there aren't higher forms available. Like anything else, a French Toast variation can fall into a quick hierarchy based on the sum of its parts. Let's go ahead and name that most important quality. It's not the bread (though clearly challah is a superior choice). It isn't the presence of exceptionally fresh eggs (just the yolks, apparently). It's not the maple syrup or the amount of butter used to fry impossibly thick slices.

You are running out of patience for my chosen approach, I can tell. We can skip the part where I decry "it" not to be cinnamon or orange zest either.

It's the company. The person who passes the syrup across the table. The one watching the oven timer to ensure the bread has been dried out just enough to promote optimum batter absorption. My company for the affore-heralded French Toast? Unparalleled but wholly familiar to longtime readers. I managed a weekend in the woods outside Seattle earlier this month with Pop, a man of the hour every hour and one for the ages at every age. I think the shot above is a few years old but it best captures the two of us doing what we do best. Scallops in that instance, rather than French Toast.

We did a good amount of cooking, exploring, napping and general indulging (balanced by some elevation run-run-running on my part). A trip out to Denny Creek took us over the river.

And through the woods.

And back to grandfather's house we went...for additional exercising of hereditary feast talent.

I'm especially proud of this one. Yes I know, pride comes before the fall. But fall was already in high season when I got to Seattle and I am just fine with the hubris that comes with a beautifully stacked lox bagel. That is a work of art. Bless you, Blazing Bagels.

Other moments when we patted ourselves heartily on the back included the day we decided duck pâté, apple slices, crackers and pomegranate seeds counted as lunch.

And the night we decided to find out how sole would taste fried in truffle butter over leeks and chantrelles. In my defense, I did manage to get a lot of vegetables on the plate and we went with lemon sorbet for dessert.

But I think if I had to pick a dish to represent the weekend, that French Toast was it. I mean that was it. Top of the pile and that pile was covered in blueberries. I have to give thanks to Christopher Kimball because Pop had prerecorded the demo we modeled our own toast after on America's Test Kitchen (recipe linked). We added some orange zest and were lucky enough to find eggs at a roadside stand in Woodinville (assured they were exceptionally fresh).

I try to get out there a couple times a year. I love that part of the world but I'm in it for the company. One night after dinner we sat and listened to music for an hour and a half. When his favorite version of "Someone to Watch Over Me" came on, he belted it out with a lack of self awareness that comes with being 92.5 and not giving a damn for anything but things that give joy.

And yes, as the years have gone on there are other, shorter conversations that come up. It would be ridiculous for us to pretend that this will go on forever in kind. I think it's comforting to both of us that it's addressed in the form of him sending me home with paperweights and books and old photos. This time he pledged to be at my wedding "no matter what" and, should that come to pass, I suspect he might come disguised as a French 75 for a different kind of toast altogether. Pop is and will remain a bit of magic. It's not a secret, it's a treasure.

Comeback Kid- Revisiting the Morning Person Project

2011-10-18T22:25:00.006-05:00

Just about two years ago, I embarked on a shift of sorts, known around these parts as "The Morning Person Project." The premise was pretty simple. Some of the most accomplished people I know are early risers and it seemed to be the best time to regularly get a workout in. I also, frankly, just needed more hours in the day.

In 2011, all of this is still true and even though I haven't mentioned it in awhile, I think I can tentatively say I'm actually enjoying it. There are a lot of things that seem to be a matter of "fits and starts" but mornings aren't one of them. If consistency can be a challenge for you as well, you know what these little victories feel like.

In addition to just generally being part of the world a little earlier and, ideally, bouncing some endorphins around, I've come to take great care in planning what was at one time my least favorite meal- Breakfast.

I've always done good thinking while cooking and it turns out this is no different in the earlier bit of day. It helps wake up the other side of my brain and it also sets the stage for some good moves later on. With that in mind, I've put my three latest favorites below. None of them, when prepped accordingly, is at all time consuming and they work best when rotated.

Pumpkin Pie Breakfast Parfait: Greek yogurt with two heaping tablespoons of pumpkin puree, topped with cinnamon and a scant handful of Scholars Inn Granola (thanks, Molls!). This is for the sweet tooth mornings and it genuinely tastes like getting dessert for breakfast for 230-250 calories*.

Avocado Toast: A piece of whole wheat toast with half a mashed avocado, hot sauce or salsa, seasoning and one of Bruce's eggs over easy. 300-320 calories*

Breakfast Beets: Pictured in this morning's golden incarnation at the top of this post and in a glorious deep purple above, this is my latest favorite. Maybe atypical as breakfast goes but it feels a little fancier without the extra work. Any fresh herb will do (tarragon and basil are my favorites), just roast your beets the night before (I do mine in foil), leave them out on a plate or refrigerate overnight and then rub the skins of easily in the AM. Chop, add cottage cheese, herbs, lemon juice (+zest if you're up for it) and a couple cracks of good black pepper. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and tell me it's not genius. Thanks to my dear man, Jamie Oliver. (275-300 calories*)

*This is not about to become a calorie counting blog but I'd already counted them up and am usually at least curious so there you have it.

As for the rest of the morning, it goes a little like this:

5:15 Alarm goes off. I get one snooze if I need it (i.e. I am *this close* to unlocking the keys to time travel and need to finish the thought before that pigeon stops talki...zzzzz)
5:32 Okay, for real this time. Radio on, ice water poured and four mornings out of five I'm into the workout clothes I laid out on my way to bed. This is very important because I am not firing on all cylinders and something as simple as no clean sports bras could still be a deal breaker. I've made progress but I'm no saint.
5:54 Shoes on, teeth brushed, cat fed, face splashed. Jog to the gym. Or run if it's 5:57 already (it usually is).
5:59 Deep breath. It's cool and it is that very particular brand of early morning air that feels a bit private. The second freshest breath of the day.
6-7 Any assortment of sweaty things. So long as I can wring out my ponytail at the end, I'm in pretty good spirits and, no, I don't think that's gross.
7:05 Back to the house, kick on the coffee, finish that glass of water.
7:10-7:25 Stop sweating. Morning edition is on and I am now listening to the news, attacking my Reader and drawing a picture of what the day is going to look like.
7:30-8 Wash, dry, sparkle. You know the drill.
8-8:15 Breakfast with a crispy side of email.
8:20-8:35 Off to the races with a good chunk of day already behind me.

In the Name of Comfort and All Its Formats

2011-08-28T21:39:00.001-05:00

This was supposed to be a post about plums and oatmeal. As you might have already guessed by that auspicious beginning, that's not an exact representation anymore. Now this is a post about comfort. About the ease of breath that happens when your molecules slow down.

Of course, food can do that to us...comfort food is a real thing. I'd be curious to know what does it for you but in my world it's banana bread in the oven, onions caramelizing on the stove, citrus being zested and cinnamon in anything. All four set me at immediate ease and I take my life in a little deeper with their cues.

I had a five star, five senses comfortable weekend. This is one of those posts that might be more for me to have a record of than it has much to offer anyone else but I needed to put it down just the same. From the weather to the company to the lack of company to the feasts, I don't know that it could have been improved upon.

Since I can't find a way to eloquently share the bones of it, I'm making myself an outline at the bottom of this post for the truly curious. The short of it is that it had a lot of my favorite people, many of whom I just don't see much of and in whose presence my molecules ease up. As one of those people who occasionally forgets to breathe, I am so very into this.

At the risk of getting spectacularly sappy, this guy is one of them. I took this at Salvage One this afternoon during our (straight up successful) treasure hunt through Grand's vintage corridor. I realized tonight that I hadn't said anything here in the official online outpost but Brother is an official resident of the Chicagoland area for the next two years and I am breathing in a different way just coming to terms with that.

It's not like we'll see that much of each other, we won't. I know that, I truly do. But I've been living a plane ride from my family for 10 years and while I miss them, it's just a fact to which I got accustomed. I typically see them three times per year. Four if I'm really lucky. And even with a lot of friends who live close enough to have Sunday dinner with their parents or take sisters for a birthday lunch, it just wasn't my reality.

And now one of my favorite people is here and I can feel a different sort of root take hold. If things get dark, or even just a little gray, I have family a 15 minute train away. Or forget gray, an extra ticket to the Nice Cream benefit at a local brewery. Or the same seatmate for a live NPR show who's been sitting next to you listening in the backseat for 25 years. That still seems so wholly remarkable.

So the weekend was a wonder. Filled with the friends who are family and the family who's a friend and enough quiet time to myself to be grateful for the whole shebang. It's a true comfort for someone who didn't realize she needed comforting. Sappy, overindulgent weekend post achieved. Sorry I'm not sorry. At least I saved you from a title trying to riff on the word aplomb, only about breakfast :)

Steel Cut Oatmeal with Fresh Plumbs

11/4 cup water
1/3 cup steel cut oats
2 Tablespoons bran meal
2 Tablespoons flax meal
1/2 teaspoon salt (I used the BLiS vanilla salt pictured above but only because it is the spice I am most likely to start dating at the moment)
Pinch of cinnamon
1 Tablespoon of maple syrup (I used BLiS bourbon barrel aged maple syrup but only because it is the condiment I am most likely to start dating at the moment)
1 Tablespoon of half and half
4-5 small fresh plums cut in half and pitted

Boil your water.
Add oats, bran, flax and salt. Lower heat to a simmer and stir every couple minutes till desired consistency is reached. This is usually about 12-15 minutes for me.
Add your cinnamon then spoon oat mixture out into your favorite breakfast bowl du jour.
Sprinkle cinnamon over the top then drizzle maple syrup over the top.
Pile on those beautiful plums and trace the edge of the oatmeal with the half and half.
Take a deep breath with nose directly over the bowl and enjoy not being hungry until well into the lunching hour.

Weekend in Review

Friday: Portabella/Garlic Tempeh Burger take-out from Native Foods, ridiculously good new vegan place just up Milwaukee. Eaten with a glass of wine while watching Before Sunrise and Before Sunset which have now both made my top 25 movies. Celine's monologue from the car scene in Before Sunset just about killed me.

Saturday: Started with a sweatfest. So much so that it was physically difficult to ride a bike that day. Kind've a beautiful thing. From there, the annual scrub at Paradise which comes with velvety soft skin and the reminder to be brave. Then off to the Food Truck Social for ceviche and tan lines with ZP and Emili. Just enough to hold me for JB's alfresco birthday dinner at Due Lire with a whole host of fun folk. A few glasses of wine floated me to 5 Star to crash G's big date (by invitation, bien sur) and meet up with Suz. Who then scooted me in brave attire for two wheels to Rainbo where the night/morning finished up.

Sunday: Starts with the discovery of buttermilk on its last legs, leading to blueberry pancakes in great company. A little organization before heading to Floriole for a light lunch with Ellie followed by the movies. Picked up at the theater by Brother and off we went, trolling for a Mid Century Modern coffee table on a grad student budget. Post 27, Urban Remains, Salvage One...all the good stuff. We found exactly what we needed, fell in love with significantly more along the way and then headed north to Revolution Brewery and the Nice Cream Benefit. So many good things/people in one place. Brother dropped me off with my adoptive Chicago family for a glass of wine with the Dawsons & Co at Mana.

Balsamic Roasted Plums, a Burglary and a Birthday

2011-08-22T23:12:00.009-05:00

Ah yes, one of those things is not like the other. I'll get there.

Above we have a scene from the kitchen during tonight's Monday meal prep. Karyn ran over from Old Town, showered and spent the rest of her birthday dinner in her birthday suit and a very stylish towel wrap. Gina came straight from training but skipped the shower. Joner was a frock-rocking basil-tearing machine and Bec wore one of my oversize buttondowns around, buttoned all the way up as mosquito/frosting protection.

I'd put the picture up but I think I need approval on that one first.

Menu:

Zucchini fritters with yogurt and apricot jam
Mixed greens with balsamic roasted plums and blue cheese*
Pork scallopini (Divina Cucina style=fennel pollen!)
Pappardelle with heirloom tomatoes and fresh pesto
Chocolate Cake with Guiness poured over the top

I'm grateful for beautiful nights like this one. I snuck off to the downtown farm stand to grab beautiful plums at lunch was home in time to head to the butcher shop. I've made that chocolate cake so many times that I think I could do it blindfolded and the rest...while creating a breathtaking path of dishes and destruction...came together simply. We ate outside in the magic garden and I just needed that.

It's been an interesting seven days. My apartment was broken into, my laptop and iPods stolen and some peace of mind taken along with them. I am a tough cookie most of the time but knowing someone was in my home is jarring. Even though it could have been a whole lot worse (I wasn't there at the time), I still feel violated. And pissed, if we're being candid. Five separate friends offered HC and I a place to stay that night and all I could think of was straight, stubborn, crimson fury.

A planned work trip got me out of town for the weekend and it was truly awesome. I still wasn't feeling quite myself but Philadelphia with a bunch of professional optimists and an old school partner in crime were the best kinds of distractions.

Police reports filed, fingerprints collected and now we wait. It's not the first time I've been here but that doesn't make it easier. Some simple precautions like new windows, fresh locks do wonders but having a house full of people who love you and the smells that go along with that are the fastest ways to restore order to my world. Monday mission accomplished.

I lied about the picture. I'm sorry, friends. It was too perfect. I love you enough to delete it later if you want to raise a protest.

A chocolate beer cake cheers to houses that feel like home and to the people that fill them with light. Dinner was very much in Karyn's honor tonight but I'm definitely going to bed feeling gifted.

Balsamic Roasted Plums

6 small, ripe plums

2 tablespoons good balsamic vinegar

Smoked salt to taste

Rinse and dry your plums then cut them in half, removing the pit. Toss in balsamic in a glass baking dish and top with a pinch of smoked salt. Roast at 375 for 4-5 minutes. I don't even know that this counts as a recipe, it's that easy.

Serve over mixed greens with blue cheese and just pour your roasting juices from the plums over the salad as a dressing. It's a delight.

Down on the Farm

2011-07-24T10:27:00.006-05:00

It's midweek at this point but I'm still glowing from a proper Midwestern summer weekend. It kicked off with wine on my neighbor's deck, an overly wondrous nap and a birthday for one of my Mondays. If you can believe it, things just continued to climb from there.

Look at those beautiful, beautiful berries- it was another sweet year for the Jerseys at Joe's. The day was supposed to be nasty but we were running out of time to get our fruit so Molly and I drove out to Bangor anyway, fully prepared for rain and mud.

80, overcast and smelling of rain- perfect for picking. It didn't hurt that we arrived to some familiar faces on the wall.

Or that the sun came out as soon as our buckets were good and full. The light came in through the weave in my hat, leaving me with superfreckles I got quite attached to.

There was sour cherry beer to try and even a proper Blueberry jam session happening in the farmhouse. The boy with the marracas was my favorite.
I just love being on that farm. It's full of vintage farm equipment, wood-sided Wagoneers, cold beers and a collage of the state of Illinois I'd like to have run off with.

We couldn't believe our luck so we pushed it and drove 15 more minutes to South Haven.

I was pretty well coated in mud from getting all up in those blueberry bushes so it was in the water almost immediately then down for the count.

Five o'clock rolled around and we decided on a late lunch/early dinner in town. One Oberon, please. I think they brew this stuff specifically to be drunk on old wood decks overlooking Lake Michigan. This was the only one though and we drove home shortly thereafter. Unreal how close a vacation of that nature actually is- we were home by seven.

The next morning had its own fun. Bruce emailed to say he had a plethora of eggs from his chickadees and I think I waited all of 2 minutes to volunteer my house for consumption. I literally pulled an egg out from underneath a chicken in one of the laying boxes. This whole urban farm thing? I am a fan.

And then even though we had brunch plans with Kelly at Delish, I cooked it. I couldn't help it. I have a whole new meaning for 10 minute eggs. Hope your summers are churning out equally wonderful weekends.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Look at Me Edition

2011-07-17T13:42:00.006-05:00

As far as Sundays go, it's a good one. Up early and at Lula Cafe for breakfast with Janine when they opened. We don't see each other nearly as often as we mean to but it's like inhaling a series of cool, deep breaths every time we do. I don't know why that's the thing that comes to mind when we change topics so rapidly that a breath could easily be forgotten but it's refreshing.

I'm reminded again why that place remains one of my best brunches in Chicago ( just about tied for first with Longman & Eagle). Delicious. And afterward a lap around the Logan Square Farmers Market with the woman who, no joke, wrote the book on Midwestern Farmers Markets. That means stopping to chat with all the vendors and sampling along the way. Janine is a naturally charming person but she also asks the questions I don't always remember when confronted by something tempting. For me, it was an excellent reminder of "conscious consumption" in action. And sometimes that includes a mini cone of Cashew Crunch.

I nabbed a number of goodies to supplement my own growing bounty but a jar from the Chicago Honey Co-op and a bright bouquet from Tempel Farm Organics topped out I think.

Of course just when I start to grab a couple pictures of what is now a very happy kitchen table, I am reminded of who the star of Sunday is in reality.

"Oh a few photos? Of course I don't mind."

She was promptly shooed off the table but another reminder that Honeycat will not accept second billing to a single other organic entity in this house. What on earth was I thinking.

Why Violet, You're Turning Violet! A Wicked Vegetable Patch Update

2011-07-16T10:19:00.007-05:00

Summer is really kicking up now and the garden is starting to look a lot like Mardi Gras. Less in the way of beads, boobs and blackouts and more in the sense that there is a lot of purple, green and gold out there. It's lovely. I've even started to mimic it in my meals- Pe sto and spinach stuffed, grilled portabellas topped with goat cheese, purple/green salad, roasted kaleidoscope carrots an a bowl of spicy cucumber soup. Molly's welcome home dinner and several key ingredients were pulled straight out of the Wicked Park backyard which just makes my heart happy.

Onto the actual update. I went a little nuts this year and when Bruce had several extra tomato seedlings, I went from a planned eight plants to eleven. I say this having just adopted a 12th from my neighbor Sam who had little cherries growing wild.

I can say it. I'm a tomato-aholic. I fuss over them first thing every morning and occasionally visit them at night as well. And now that all twelve have erupted into yellow blossoms and tiny green fruits, I don't even attempt to contain my glee in their presence.

"Look at you! You're a wonder, Black Krim! You remind me of a pumpkin. A pumpkin that will be fully appreciated sliced with krimped edges with a soft burrata. Keep up the excellent work- you should be really proud of yourself."

"And you, little black cherry. A natural overachiever. The first to ripen and surely the first treasure to be plucked and enjoyed without ever making it inside the kitchen. I just can't tell you how much I've enjoyed watching you develop. I know you have a lot of wonderful gifts to share in the future."

Yes, I really do talk to them. The benefit of doing my fussing at 5:30-ish is that no one else is up to wonder at my rambling. In the spirit of full disclosure though, we have had one bit of disappointment. One of my San Marzano plants is afflicted with blossom end rot. Wretched little illness that can really put a dent in a tomato yield. Never fear though, I think some extra calcium and a good series of pep talks should help to clear it up.

Beyond tomatoes, I did mention purple. I'm not kidding- I think it's the Wicked Patch's favorite color. These towers of leafy ruffles are called Jester lettuce and will be growing more next year.

It's delicious and sets of a wooden bowl of salad just so. Grows like a weed too, which works out well.
Ah yes, the Black Beauty eggplant has returned. Key learning from last year was that eggplant doesn't mind our garden's heavy clay soil so I trimmed down from four seriously overproducing plants last year to two this year.

The second of my eggplants is called a Listada de Gandia. I'm convinced I need a dress in this print and it's even prettier in person. I would love any recommendations for recipes that might maintain the look of that gorgeous exterior in a finished product.

The passion for purple has not limited itself to Ground+. Not at all- here's some young hard neck garlic that's taken on deep purple clove casings beneath the white paper exterior. Did I mention young purple garlic is delicious? I used it to make the pesto in the stuffed portabellas at top.

"Red onion" has always struck me as a bit of a misnomer. They are purple to the point of being practically lilac on the inside. And oh my do they taste good caramelized. Clean Out the Fridge Pasta- post coming soon.

Once I wrapped the photo session in my own patch, I walked across to see if I could finagle some eggs for breakfast from our local chickens. I was a little early for them but they came out to say hi anyway.
Have I mentioned how much I love this neighborhood?

Austin: A Wonderful Sort of Weird

2011-07-13T23:45:00.007-05:00

As I think we've started to establish, June was a month of adventures. Per usual, most of those adventures involved a trip to a new place that was made up of dozens of miniadventures containing snacks.

{Perhaps there are adventures to be had that don't involve snacks but they are not mine.}

Moving on. Does anyone remember last year when I just flat out fell in love with Portland? To the point that I was wantonly surfing Craigslist every so often "just to see"? That was during my first IACP Conference. My second one, this year, was in downtown Austin, Texas.

And of course the next gathering of my people (the ones who've dedicated their lives to the edible arts and related interests), would be in another exceptionally cool town that was somehow foreign to date.

This time I skipped Craigslist altogether. I've found my house. It's in Hyde Park, just around the corner from Antonelli's Cheese Shop, Quack's and Asti. A solid bike ride from downtown and a ride that if done often enough might burn off the thigh penalties attached to those three neighbors. You'll know you're close when you see a gigantic fork. How fitting. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The trip started on a particularly hot Wednesday. As it happened, the same Wednesday wherein the First Lady made a pretty major announcement around Let's Move! and the week leading up to revised dietary guidelines. So quite the week to be surrounded by people who are passionate about food and nutrition. And that's why it began with a kick-off covering all of the above at the Texas State Capitol building.

That was the perfect start to four full days of intelligent discussion. We didn't always agree but it was always a respectful conversation between peers. I came out better for it, energized and just really grateful to get to do what I do. Even more grateful to see an increasingly familiar bunch of faces at IACP from the food blogging world. There will be more to say on that elsewhere soon, but I'll stick to romancing my travel snacks in these parts. Work/Life balance, don't you know.

Okay, so maybe one of the more grateful moments I had was when Dorie Greenspan handed me one of her oh so famous CookieBar butter sables from an AirStream trailer. That had been tricked out by Culinapp, a nifty little tablet app. Cookies+Dorie+retro transportation+digital food geekery. Bake at 100 degrees of "dry heat" and slap a smile on my face for at least a week.

I'll stop now, promise. I'll even transition by saying not much washes down a sable like a prosecco cocktail on the patio at the Hotel San Jose. Conference days are long and the real world does not stop turning because you're not around. Booking this hotel back in November was about the smartest thing I've done all year. I loved it. Loved it like the Ace. Loved it like my office in a dry, hot sauna with great music, strong wifi and beverage service. If you have an Austin trip on the horizon, just book it. You'll love the neighborhood.

That wasn't the only advance planning that happened for the trip though. I might have been on vacation the week prior to Austin but that doesn't mean I skipped out on my homework. Between standard reads like Boots in the Oven, Poco-Cocoa and the ever so lovely Stetted and new reads like Austin Gastonomist and Fete and Feast, I had a solid bunch of research to ground my limited number of eating and drinking (italics) opportunities.

TKTC Austin List

Uchiko- Incredible meal. Maybe top two best Japanese meals I've ever had. Three and a half hours start to finish in absolutely excellent company.
Asti Trattoria- Another incredible meal but on my own. A conference tradition at the end of a lot of people time. Delightful service, lovely neighborhood and the food was divine.
Taco Deli- Annie and Neal insisted. And they were right. Taco Deli breakfast tacos picked up from Jo's near the San Jose was a spicy way to start the day.
East Side Showroom- The bar that made me miss living in the South. Or True Blood. Or both. This place is a nonnegotiable for a cocktail with music. Another winner from the Murrays and I've promised myself I'll get to neighbor Shangri-La next time.
Frank- A serendipitous lunch with Megan and Kathryn that involved fries dressed up as nachos and a hot dog so rich I excavated. Frank and Doug would have a lot to talk about.
Amy's Ice Cream- Lila, Brenda and I may have had Grasshopper cones for dinner one night.
Woodland- With a pie chaser. Of course.
Lambert's- Real friends bring you brisket in a soaked through paper bag while you work an Expo booth. It is known.
Quack's- Worth the field trip for the most adorable flooded sugar cookies. Molly McGuff-approved.
Antonelli's Cheese Shop- Do I really need to say more than cheese, salumi and wine? No.
Cake & Spoon (Farmer's Market)- Miniature quiche that reignited my love for caramelized onions.
Hotel Saint Cecilia The pretties party patio that ever existed. I want to take that gigantic tree with me wherever I go. They hung chandeliers from its branches. Chandeliers, you guys.
Hotel San Jose- I know I already mentioned it but it really was the scene of some of my favorite evenings. Sangria with Gaby and Lillian, coffee with Ari (!)...just a delightful spot for a chat.
Gordough's- Fresh doughnuts from a trailer. I had the Elvis to complete my comparison to VooDoo.
The Odd Duck- I would not have made it to Odd Duck or Gordough's with some urging from Ben. I'm going to go out on a limb and say if Ben has a hunch and he shares it with you, you should just say thank you and follow at a hustle.
The Broken Spoke- I can't and won't keep this to one line.

All this said, I hope you're getting how affectionate I feel toward Austin. I'll be back. I'll have twenty other places I didn't get to try when I do. But as in all other things, I loved this place through the lens of the one I loved before it.

I never shook Portland.

In the weeks ahead of Austin, I knew Brenda and Danielle, two Portland conference comrades made last year, would be in Texas with me. Brenda's invitation to join an existing Uchiko reservation meant a night among the kind of people you just feel like you've been sharing tables with for years. Brenda, Lila and Andrea became my adopted pack of sorts for the rest of the week, thus only furthering my devotion to Portland even while running around an entirely different kind of place.

To the point that, even now, I have moments when I make a mental note to invite them to that dinner at that place and then remember none are in walking distance in the way I somehow expect them to be. That's what happens when you eat an extravagant amount of uni with someone, they bring you barbecue brisket take-out then everyone eats ice cream for dinner and eventually goes two-stepping.

Speaking of which, my last night in Austin was spent at a Honky Tonk which by some series of small miracles was totally documented. The two photos at the very top, the one just above and all the delights below were shot by the ever so multi-talented Brenda Crow.

This is George. He might be some of the best Austin has to offer. George and the other regulars at the Broken Spoke represented an approach to nightlife that unfortunately seems have diminished over time. It's joyful. No worries about who came with who, everyone just dances with everyone and you get asked. George is pushing 80 but even the younger guys-it was never creepy, it was just good fun.

Even for dear, uncoordinated me. George took it upon himself to teach all three of the ladies in attendance how to two step. I dance about as well as I sing so this was quite an undertaking but again...oh it was just fun. Great classic country with that throaty twang and a steel guitar...I want to go back. Not in general, tomorrow.

Part of that, again though, owes to company. This is Tony. Once Mike left, Tony was basically Bosley to our Angels. He can clearly hold his own.

This is Andrea. Andrea is going to give me an excuse to go to Alinea, Girl and the Goat, Longman & Eagle and Big Star all in one weekend. Lila had to leave a day earlier but my goal is to get all three of them down at once.

And that was me up top in a similar series. Enjoying the hay out of the city, the honkytonk, the Lone Star and the company. But that's the thing with adventures...they aren't meant to last forever. Eventually the pie and the brisket and the 20 hour days and the cocktails and the talking till you're hoarse will catch up with you. Like a 6 year old crashing after a particularly good birthday party, no one even needs to ask, it is written right across your face.

The party was fun but gather your goody bag and say goodbye to your friends. It's time to go home.

The Garden of Good & Evil: Year Three and an Ode to the Eves

2011-07-07T07:20:00.017-05:00

These were the leftovers if that tells you anything about the kind of party it was.

And this was the evolution of the spread if that tells you anything about what kind of party it was.
And the two singing and dancing lovemuppets were my co-celebrants if that tells you anything about what kind of party it was.

It was supposed to rain all day long and we never felt a drop. Equal numbers of friends showed up in yoga pants as in maxi dresses. Both claiming room for cake. Two different pitchers of alcoholic nectar and a jug of cucumber water never seemed to run out. Stevie Nicks was on rotation with Animal Collective and the potatoes I roasted when I was perhaps a little toasted came out perfectly. That's what kind of party it was.

The Garden of Good & Evil party is an annual ode to my girlfriends disguised as my birthday party. The first two years I co-hosted with my much beloved friend Caroline who is now living in Telluride. I got really lucky this year when it turned out two kindred spirits who also happened to be Geminis liked the concept. And so. Hadley came bearing the best mango salsa and homemade hummus and craft supplies. Molly L brought cheese plate skewers and a general's eye for detail (that's her supervising the hanging of paper lanterns above).

Ah, but what is that concept? The garden part is pretty obvious. Wicked Park is a little bit of magic right in the city and it loves a soiree. The Good is meant to be something wholly holistic. Deep stretching, yoga, a little revival for your insides. My own guru of sorts, Mary Beth Janssen came down two years ago to lead the Good.

Yes, this is all very hippie dippy. I love hippie dippy. An afternoon where the only thing anyone is allowed to bring is flowers or wine unless they are moved to cook in theme (or bring a pineapple- thanks Alexis!). Then we all sit in the grass telling dirty jokes, drinking spiked lemonade, making new friends and then there's cake. Fini.

This year, due to the alleged rain, we were fully prepared to make vision boards in the living room in lieu of yoga. But when the guests arrived and the sun stayed out, I'll be the first to admit I got a little too excited and wanted to break out the wine to celebrate our Good fortune. So HC is the only one who really got her stretching in this year. In the spirit of self love and preservation, we weren't too hard on ourselves. Or at all.

This is the enchanted beverage station. I'm only half kidding when I use names like that. I mean there was a swan champagne cooler courtesy of the Milwaukee Duo...that's basically the definition of enchanted. The main party beverage has traditionally been Wicked Lemonade which is the ever-so-glamorous concoction of Crystal Light Raspberry Lemonade with Black Cherry Vodka, sparkling water and some fresh raspberries in every clear plastic dixie cup. Look friends, you know I love my frou frou fancy cocktails and my dark syrupy bourbon but there is no shame here. We aim to please in bulk. Apart from a rather unfortunate incident involving a nonexistent water:lemonade:vodka ratio two years ago and an enthusiastic group of GG's (who will all promptly disown me), it's only been beneficial by the barrel. This year we also managed copious amounts of sparkling wine and a delicious sangria a la Ellie.

Lest you think all that colorful seating went to waste though, you would be wrong. The Evil refers to more of a pleasantly dark sense of humor than anything actually demonic. Sparing a mixed audience the details, it was kind of like a tupperware party hosted by Bacchus. Only instead of an actual nymphic creature we got Samuel who was pretty darn close and just the most adorable person ever. I might be inclined to whisper more about this over a glass of wine but for now that is all I feel at liberty to share. Onward! To the feast!

At this point in the afternoon, I was leaving my camera all over the place so the only snapshot I have of the spread I snuck inside to prepare was taken with my phone. Alas, better than nothing. Tradition dictates a large salad bar is a popular way for friends to be able to customize their meals.

Earlier in the day, HC and I grilled up almost ten pounds of free range chicken breasts that had been marinating overnight in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and rosemary. To that we added a couple varieties of mixed greens, sugar snap peas, sliced sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, roasted golden beets, homemade croutons, walnuts, dried cherries and some of Jo's fresh eggs hard-boiled and ready to be shelled. Those are good friends who can't come to the party but give you eggs their chickens laid. They were also in the cake. Magic chickens.

We did three dressings- Lemon Vinaigrette, Pop's Caesar and a Spicy Ginger Peanut. Lizz modeling her plate so helpfully above also showcases the aforementioned baby potatoes that were on a whim thrown into a baking dish, coated with live oil and put in the oven with full sprigs of rosemary resting on top. This could have gone terribly awry but instead went terribly delicious. Those potatoes might be foolproof. As the fool, I would know.

When I got back outside to start corralling people in for the salad bar, I remember just surveying the crowd in the yard. I hear from a lot of people that it's been particularly hard to make new girlfriends in the city. I could see that but I also feel like I need to recognize I'm sitting on a treasure trove of awesome females. Some newer to me than others but all just wonderful. There is nothing that makes me happier than when they meet each other and fall in genuine like.

Going through the pictures afterward was a stream of "Doh! Of course you two love each other!" It's easy for women in their early twenties and thirties to get caught in a cycle of being set up and setting others up for romance. Love that- appreciate it! But being set up with a friend is a whole other kind of thing I forget about too often. Anyone else notice that? And then friends move away and it starts all over again.

I feel like an auctioneer going "Beautiful NEW mother of one, fresh to Miami Beach, culinary school grad and all around Grade A girlfriend material- who's got a match for farmers marketing and play dates and dog walking with strollers?" I'm ranting now. Chime in any time if you know what I'm talking about.

That was where I was going with the ode to the Eves. I'll be honest- year 27 had a couple proper rough patches. Mischief that was only managed by the presence of friends in walking and/or Internet distance. So here is a piece of cake for you. You beautiful, fully imperfect, hilarious bunch of hooligans. I don't care what year it is, you are some of the most charmed pieces of my life and I am very grateful for you.

Please do forgive the colorful mess of a frosting job on your confection.

It was done by your colorful mess of a hostess. Who is currently still fighting back vanity in sharing this photo everyone else thinks is terribly apropos and I think the only picture taken of me during the whole of the party (I am an excellent camera dodger. Blasted Instagram, Shecky). Not my most polished but accurate and happy.

Now here's a quick tutorial on how to make your own rainbow chips. My own inspiration was Ashley Rodriguez's significantly more professional tutorial at Not Without Salt. I'm telling you essentially the same thing but so you can see that if I can handle this, you can too.

Start with ramekins filled with while chocolate chunk for as many colors as you plan on making. Melt in the microwave via 30 second increments.
Stir in 2-3 drops of food coloring to start with. You can always add more.
Spread on to parchment paper laid on a tray or cutting board.
Freeze for 10-15 minutes.
Chop.
Ready for frosting.

I'm going to advocate adding them to vanilla cream cheese frosting to go with this chocolate cake recipe from I Am Baker. Bold statement: All frosting should be cream cheese frosting. Do not flinch when five or more friends swarm the bowl to take care of the leftovers.

And speaking of leftovers, how much prettier does a whole heap of dirty dishes look with those lovely flower arrangements all over the place?

Summer Berry Spectacular (and a Pie Party)

2011-07-05T11:58:00.013-05:00

I am wrapping up a four day weekend in the summer sunshine. Four days of relaxed schedules, friendly cookouts, garden tending and patio parties. It's every bit of bliss inferred. On top of that, I baked every day. Saturday, Sunday, Monday all had a different ode to summer fruit in its finest forms (including juice-running-down-face-au-natural).

Today, though, we're talking about my favorite of the oven-plied loves...pie. When I heard Shauna speak at IACP in Austin a few weeks ago, the thing she said that resonated most was this:I bring pie just about everywhere. There are some photos below of what happens when we need to mix things up a bit but my first love is whatever is in season wrapped in a golden swath of crisp layers I made with my own hands. Thanks to Kate McDermott, I don't even use a food processor anymore. It's just not necessary and a pie crust is certainly not a thing to be fretted over. Hence the necessity of the Pie Party. As though a better occasion ever existed.

When Shauna announced her plan for a #PieParty, most of us didn't even have to consider an occasion. More of an "if you bake it, they will come" sort of thing. My friend Suzanne has recently taken homemade ice cream up as her personal passion so her place seemed to be the one most in need of a pie partner. Blueberry Pie it is. I had blueberries on my mind anyway.

This will be my second year "leasing" a blueberry bush from Joe's Blues in Bangor, Michigan. Last year's adventure is documented with great affection below. I'm told by those who would know that July 21st will mark the beginning of picking season this year. That's in two weekends for the planners out there.

I recommend the Corrado's operation highly if 20lbs of fresh, sustainably grown blueberries sounds good to you for $35. Seriously, clear some space in your freezer. Mananya is in on a bush this year as well. I don't think I've ever leant my face or massive orange sunhat to a more worthy summer cause though this was a hilarious surprise to find in our mailbox:Bring along picking companions who are by nature efficient beings and happy to be just the littlest bit filthy. If one of them happens to have a 4WD vehicle to make the post-pick venture to the "swimming hole" afterward, all the better, but it is not for the faint of heart.

This is an easy day trip from Chicago and close to a number of fine little beach towns if you're inclined to rinse off in Lake Michigan afterward. Hats are encouraged. Frank let Molly and Patty borrow two of his tango hats and they looked so cute we just about took them with us.

Thankfully we thought better of it and took our blueberries for a beer and a BLT instead. Incidentally no one raised an eyebrow when we walked into the tavern with pounds and pounds of blueberries. Goodnight I love Michigan. And blueberries. And the pies that are made in their honor.

Blueberry July Pie
Crust
1 package of Kerrygold (I typically do half butter, half lard but sacre bleu I was out of the pig's portion)
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup-3/4 cup ice cold water

Make sure that butter is really cold and cut it into rough 1/2 inch chunks. Drop in the flour that's been dropped into a cold bowl with the salt and cinnamon and start working your (cold) hands to pinch the butter into the flour mixture until you get it mixed into not quite uniform pea and almond size pieces. Add your water (remove any ice) and mix with a fork till you get a slightly sticky ball. Split in two, wrap each half in plastic and chill for 2 hours.

Roll out and lay the bottom layer carefully into your pie dish.

Filling
6 cups of fresh blueberries
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup amaretto
scant 1/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 TB tapioca

Add it all together and fill your bottom pie crust. Add the other crust on top, fold the edges under and pinch at even 1/2 inch intervals so the pie is sealed. Cut vents to your liking in the top and bake atop a foil lined baking sheet for 45 minutes-ish at 350.

Other Baked Berry Goodness for which ice cream is nonnegotiable:
Now pie is not the only way to show love and friendship. It's a good one but there are clearly lots of others, particularly this time of year. The summer berry crisp above is a story for a different day made for Jim and Michelle's housewarming cookout. It is easy and delicious and was based on Sandy's Summer Berry Crisp with amaretto used in lieu of cointreau, strawberries for blueberries and almonds subbed for walnuts. Negligible changes based on my personal pantry- the recipe is a good one!

The recipe that actually made it to the Fourth of July was a request from Gina, our hostess for an especially patriotic Monday dinner. Our almost-new-mom-friend-in-Sweden had shared some perfectly craveable Peach Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting and they were every bit as good as advertised. Laura, I don't think we can ship one to Scandinavia before it melts/the baby arrives but you should feel good that another lovely pregnant blondie benefited from your find.
All in all just a really lovely weekend. I almost said "with a few of my berry best friends" but then I remembered I am a pie person and not a shortcake. Pies don't suffer that level of foolishness. I think they revoke your lard license.

The Italian Word for "Pause": Strawberries and Cream

2011-06-27T22:33:00.001-05:00

A note from the start…I’ve been waiting. Waiting to say so much because it felt like I’d never have the time to do it. It’s not the first time I’ve done this but, as happened before, just because I’m not writing about it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. It’s been an adventurous couple of months. Marked by more travel than I’ve ever done so close together. By the end of June, it will be 18 airplanes, 7 cities and three places I’d never been before (Austin, Asheville and Oklahoma). 19,710 miles all told. Most of those miles garnered on an Italian vacation with my family in which I felt a million miles away from anything but was in fact only 2% of that.

Vacation sounds pretty Griswoldian. Not bad (and not always inaccurate) but not the best word. 2011 by definition seems to move about a mile a minute and several fast-paced projects have had me rotating at an occasionally brutal clip. I love it but eventually I needed a break. It couldn’t have been timed any better. So yes, it was a vacation. But more than that, it was a rosemary-scented, sun drenched, mossy tile roof-topped, highly tannic, golden garlicky pause. To the tune of rolling bouts of laughter as only your immediate family can provide. I start with this picture because it’s the view from my bedroom window that week, taken very, very early in the morning. It is the beginning.

My parents rented a house on a working vineyard in a tiny town called Pianella, 20 minutes outside of Siena. It was a grand old farmhouse that had been lovingly kept seemingly for the full 500 years it’s graced the crest of a characteristically Tuscan hilltop. The trip in was pleasantly uneventful. Feeling the need to always dress in character (casually posh European jet setter, natch), I arrived in Florence wearing red suede heels and a favorite straw hat though in the 12 hours of travel post-Chicago, the person between those two items was rumpled and dazed with a bit of melted chocolate on her white button-down. I’d been re energized by a sparkling conversation with a retired Stanford Physics professor on my way in from Munich. Then the entire family met me at the airport (Dad, Mom, Brother, Aunt and Uncle) so that level of enthusiasm just about counts for an extra couple hours of sleep.

Day 1: Rain, sleep and a bath with perhaps the prettiest view in the house from the tub. It was the only real rain we had the whole trip and it was the perfect opportunity to catch up on the rest I’d been missing while being unapologetically immersed in a new book. Various family members tried their hands at making coffee from the French press and the fridge had been stocked with various meats, cheeses and fruit prior to our arrival (a girl could get used to this). As had the wine closet. With the windows open, all those rich, related smells of coffee and bath steam, ripe pears and rain on dark soil, fresh pages and a juice glass of Chianti (because we couldn’t find the wine glasses) made it easy to imagine never going home.

Oh yes, for those of you new to TKTC, the toothy foursome first pictured here would be my true, nuclear north. My friend Danielle made note when I was first back that I am, at 5’9, a shortie in my family. We all drank tall glasses of milk with dinner (or at least that was what my Dad attributed it to growing up). I like that none of us can quite believe our luck here.

Day 2: A different day entirely. I was up with the sun to snag the second shot above and it was one of about 10 I took, not quite believing it to be real. Along with Mom, Aunt Pat (Mom’s sister as will become rapidly apparent to you, the reader, when you seem them in photos together) and Uncle Bill (Pat’s husband and the co-chairman of I Married a Kirwan Anonymous) and I struck out early toward Cortona, nestled on something more akin to a mountain than one of the rolling hills in our bit of countryside. We toured a museum, had some lunch and I slowly started to get that familiar feeling of insignificance whenever I’m in Europe. Everything is so much older. That town was settled and civilized 1,000 years ago.

From there we drove to meet my Dad and brother in Montepulciano. I’d been there for the first time in 2005 on an exquisite post-college adventure with the one and only Molly McGuffin and was excited to be able to go back with family. We tracked down some Brunello to fortify ourselves for the trek uphill to the main piazza and were again rewarded at the top, not just with wine but with a view that was quite simply the most remarkable set of views in the entire region.

Alright maybe I’m exaggerating but if I am it’s only because there are so many views to choose from so until I see all of them, it would be impossible to properly judge. I agree with you, I should really start committing myself to seeing every vista in Tuscany. It would be irresponsible not quit now.

Brother greeting the sun in Montepulciano. Poor Boston had it worse than Chicago last winter and he was locked away with some intense projects for what Spring Beantown did have. We both showed up looking a little sallow so every uninterrupted sunbeam in Italy was gulped from a crystal cup. This picture reminds me both of the Rapture and of Twilight. I’ve made peace with that.

You guys know how much I adore brother dearest. I will likely tell you again but right before we arrived in Italy, Brother found out he'd be moving to Chicago in August for grad school. First time in 10 years that we'll live in the same city and I'm a big ball of joy for it. Tack that bit of awesomeness onto Dad's retirement, parent's 30th anniversary, aunt and uncle's 40th...keep the wine opener out and maybe buy a spare.

The rest of the afternoon was spent tooling around town, Brother and I sharing my Dad’s old D100 and my humble point and shoot (the family mantra is “Langsens share” after all). We even managed a short, wonderful stop at Susanna Crociani’s cantina. She’d introduced herself via Twitter prior to my trip and I was so pleased to find her there when we were in town. I walked out with a few beautiful bottles, my favorites being the one she made for her brother George and her “experiment”…a sweet, almondine VinSanto. This made it's way into the first of a few Italian kitchen concoctions I've brought home to keep. More on that later.

Onward to Florence. This is where I can be fully judged. I was maybe dragging my heels a bit Tuesday morning. I’d been to Florence and have a sadly notorious lack of patience when it comes to churches and museums. Small galleries? One after the other after another. But I’m not crazy about crowds, particularly on vacation. I want to be where no one else is. I like the find. I like the local joints. This occasionally leads me to forsaken alleys and mild food poisoning but at least there’s a story there.

Alas, this was the view that greeted us at the top of the driveway that morning (36 cypress trees per side, Aunt Pat counted). You don’t come across a view like that without wanting plow toward it, Manifest Destiny intact. So I gathered my angst and slept most of the way there, covered in crumbs from my Italian breakfast sandwich special (crusty bread spread with Gorgonzola, pears, prosciutto, greens and a dab of jam). To the city we go.

I was wrong in my hesitation. You told me so. Moreso, Mom could have told me so but she has too much grace to actually say it if I am properly abashed. We had a guide for the Uffizi who told all kinds of stories about the Medicis and the art their empire inspired. Even in packed galleries, in unwise shoes (“but I want to look Itaaalian,” said the 14 year old Jessi who follows me on all family vacations), it was fascinating. I was still craving some solo adventuring by the end of it but how fantastic are the photos my brother caught of us with our guide at the end?

The main place in Florence that didn’t exist to me when I was there many moons ago was Santa Maria Novella. The apothecary, named for the beautiful church and piazza above, produces gorgeous scents and it’s a bit of a mecca for fans of fancy lotions and potions. Hundreds of years old, produced by a monastery and a singular luxury I found when I was in no position to have any luxuries. When I moved to Wicked Park, I smelled their potpourri in a shop and fell for it so intensely that I tracked it down at LAFCO in New York. It’s strong but I love it and a little bit goes a long way. So I’ve been using it in my apartment since and I was thrilled to pick up two little packages straight from the source. I managed a few other goodies too. I think I’d have bought magic beans from them if they left me in there long enough. Even Garance loves it.

On the way to meet the rest of the family, I picked up some pistachio gelato using the two full phrases I know in Italian and the man with the scoop spoke Italian back to me, winked and then continued in Italian. As though we were in on some charming little joke I’ll never know the punchline to. I’m good with that. Si si si (wink back)- Buon giouornato! And off I went. Joy in heart.

It was a lovely day but a particularly exhausting one. In Italy for three full days and jumping headfirst into meat, cheese and pasta almost exclusively makes one especially wan and in need of a home kitchen’s sustenance. On the drive home it was decided this would be a good night for dinner in. We stopped at home to drop off the menfolk and Mom, Pat and I rolled down to the tiny market in Pianella. Beyond a rather hilarious driving mishap in which we couldn't figure out how to get the stick shift into reverse and thus pushed the car into a forward facing position while it neutral, dinner was easy, simple fare.

Roasted asparagus with orange zest and olive oil made on the same land we were living on. Fresh farm eggs scrambled and slow cooked with tomato, herbs and prosciutto and a fresh green salad with vinaigrette shaken in an empty olive jar.

But we had dessert too, of course. A team effort that made everything taste even a little bit better.

Photo by Dad, styled by Brother. I was still finishing dinner so the guys took the tray out to the patio to ensure I'd having blog photos. There is nothing about any of this that doesn't make me smile.

Strawberries and Cream Parfaits
1 quart fresh strawberries as red and ripe as you can get them
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 box/package of light crispy cookies (we had yogurt cookies on hand but crisp ladyfingers or even vanilla wafers would work)
3/4 cup Vinsanto or good Sherry
1 Tablespoon sugar

1.) Slice your strawberries into a bowl and toss with 1/2 cup of your Vinsanto, cover for at least 20 minutes.

2.) Load your cookies into a zip top plastic bag and beat them to manageable, uniform bits. Including the cookies was Aunt Pat's moment of genius. I think she meant to serve them on the side but that would require anything be beaten and why skip that part if you don't have to? Don't feel bad for the cookies, they recover beautifully.

3.) Whip your cream and when you start to get soft peaks, add the remaining 1/4 cup of your Vinsanto and your single Tablespoon of sugar. Keep beating until you've got a whipped cream that sits tall on a spoon.

4.) Put it together. Crumble in the bottom then the gorgeous cream, then the tipsy strawberries. Repeat. You see why we don't pity the cookies. Sandwiched between sweet wine-soaked summer berries and drunken, full fat Italian whipped cream. Cookies never had it so good.

5.) Throw them in the fridge until you're ready to serve. After about an hour the whipped cream and strawberry syrup will just be beginning to compromise the cookies. You'll have just the loveliest bunch of textures.

If an unexplained breeze passes under your spoon on your second bite and it smells ever so vaguely of lemons and cypress trees, take a deep breath and enjoy that perfectly Italian pause. Then fill up your spoon again.

Thinking Ahead to a Fall Feast

2011-04-22T11:35:00.005-05:00

Sisters of the Pie from by.luuvu on Vimeo.

As I have raved and raved about for close to 8 months now, I took a pie-making class from Kate McDermott in Seattle and it was as close to transcendent as pastry lesson could really be. There are very few places I'd rather be in November than Provence with she and her counterpart Kate in France, Kate Hill. Kate Hill may be better known to some of you as a mother of Charcutepalooza. If you happen to be available, a fan of proper farm to table cooking and unopposed to fall in Provence- Pi g & P ie is for you.

Gansu to the Garden: Grilling Season (Citrus Basil Scallop Skewers and Pesto Stuffed Portabellas)

2011-04-12T05:36:00.003-05:00

For those of you residing beyond the Great Lakes' finest grid, Chicago just wrapped up a banner weekend. It was this beautiful, sunny bit-o-glory that glittered like a preview of a fine season to come. Saturday was spent harvesting compost, spreading that fertile wormy goodness out on the new vegetable patch, planting onions and garlic, breaking up peat moss and the like. I was devoutly rank by the end of it and it felt like pure perfection.

Sunday opened up to much the same but I don't regret investing most of it in a bar-tending class with the Martini Queen of the South Side- pretty sure you'll see some of those skills popping up as the summer works its way forward. That being said, we were determined to squeeze a few additional outdoor hours in once class wrapped. Time to christen that grill.

Sorry for all the we-talk but it was the usual suspects. Molly, Jaime, Dave and Lisa- with all the travel schedules it legitimately felt like we were all variations on the Goldilocks bears, creaking out of hibernation. Dave is freshly returned from a month in China (hence the Gansu reference) and Lisa is still so excited that she's cooking. "She who brings the wine" has discovered quite a cook's streak and I don't see her slowing down anytime soon. In fact she's quite eloquently laid out her approach to both of these recipes over at Elle Michelle.

Lucky us:

Sharing the screen time above was my main contribution- Citrus Basil Scallop Skewers. Cooks Illustrated has a handy how-to on grilling scallops in their May/June issue and I just so happened to have a bag of the frozen bay variety in the freezer. I love it when that happens.

The recipe tasted pretty great but I think it might have looked even better. Keep your Skittles, this is the much-preferred method of tasting the rainbow.

Just above the skewers themselves was another grill friendly creation. It is a non-secret that I love mushrooms. A friendlier food never did exist in my opinion and, by the by, I held that opinion long before my Mushroom Channel days (client). That being said, those lovely caps were a riff on my first favorite stuffed portabella recipe from a couple summers ago.

Seeing as there was less Oberon involved this time, I had the good sense to simplify. That recipe accompanies the skewers below. I also just have to note that Oberon season is upon us again and it's the equivalent of being grateful for the sunshine only you can drink it. I said it. Bell's Oberon is drinkable sunshine.

In the midst of the grilling process, there was plenty of time for Dave to chase his favorite tail around the garden (not literally though, my timing was just funny for that one on the left). Typically HC has sprinted in the opposite direction whenever Dave comes over. His affection for her is that powerful. I think she must have missed him though because that Hocat was feeling quite coquettish, a reminder of the season.

We finished off dinner with a baby apple pie a la mode- a 7 inch pie dish is the perfect amount for six eaters. That brings my tally up to four pies in two weeks. In case you needed another reminder that the season is changing.

Citrus Basil Scallop Skewers
5 wood skewers that have been soaking in water for at least 30 minutes

2lbs bay scallops, rinsed and dried (And thawed if they were frozen. Come on, guys.)
1 blood orange cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1 tangerine cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1 cup whole basil leaves
15 brightly colored sweet bonnet peppers

1 TB flour
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp citrus salt (kosher salt will be just fine but go fancy if you're feelin it)
Lots of fresh ground pepper
1 TB citrus zest (I used orange but anything would work here)
2 1/2 TB vegetable oil

First, put your skewers together. Take one pre-soaked skewer and stab one of your bigger peppers. From there the order is as follows: folded up basil leaf, 2 scallops, blood orange slice, 2 scallops, basil leaf, tangerine slice, 2 scallops, pepper and repeat one more time till you get to the end of the skewer and it looks about as pictured.

Second, mix all of your grill marinade ingredients in a small bowl (makes a loose paste) and brush both sides of your completed skewers.

Grill at a medium flame for about 4-5 minutes per side or until they've have a nice, even char grill lines. Enjoy!

Pesto Stuffed Portabellas
1/4 cup prepared pesto (I defrosted some from last summer)
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup spinach leaves
1/2 cup basil leaves
3 portabella mushroom caps, excess dirt brushed off and stem removed
Cooking spray (I am a new convert to the Spectrum Organic Olive Oil Spray)
Your favorite goat cheese (Prairie Fruits for me, please)

I actually found that the easiest way to start was to give each mushroom cap a light coating of olive oil all the way around then season it generously with fresh pepper. Then I felt ready to start filling.

Stir the pesto and Dijon together and spread an even amount at the base of each mushroom. It's only a small amount of mustard so it doesn't disrupt the pesto flavor but does add a nice bite. You could also achieve this with some fresh lemon juice. From there, start alternating layers of basil and spinach leaves. Three of each is more than enough but it will wilt down. From there, press your goat cheese into the the top leaves to secure all the filling. Top with chopped leftover greens.

These are on the grill the same amount of time as the scallop skewers, though please don't flip them :) 8-10 minutes total (with lid on) or ready when the cap turns dark brown and the goat cheese is getting golden on the top.

Dirt, Grit, Growth: Spring and a Not Quite Nicoise Salad

2011-04-02T10:29:00.003-05:00

Spring is coming. I'm looking down from 36,000 feet on April 1st and below me it's already been warm enough to melt the snow once, just not thaw the larger bodies of water. Since then, in keeping with a March reputation, there's fresh dust on the ground so the bulk of what's below is white but only half-heartedly so. It's lingering just a little bit longer but it'd probably let you in with your own pop and snacks if you tried to sneak it past at the movies. It's got plans later and its heart isn't really into militancy anymore.

The post-prime garlic cloves I haphazardly tucked into a shallow ditch in October? Sprouting strong green scapes- eight count marching up out of that sticky clay-infested dirt. I've secured a squared, sunnier plot this year and am now in the enviable position of needing to transplant the garlic I never really expected to come up.

In a frenzy this morning, I also managed to pick up my cool weather seedlings and then broke ground in my new patch without ceremony. Okay, maybe not entirely without ceremony. For as fast as I clawed through that dirt today, there were weeks of toiling over seed catalogs, filling in communal excel spreadsheets and transplanting ambitious seedlings that had outgrown their tiny cups. Gina came over as I was putting the first of the seedlings into my plot behind the house. Even before they made it into the dirt, I'd harvested a little arugula and some joker lettuce for our lunch. Not enough to be the dominant ruffage but herein lies the ceremony with a Not Quite Nicoise Salad "recipe" below. Those few fronds are meant to represent the fresh crunch of many salads to come.

Bruce has been the absolute patron saint of growing, providing a home with lights, rich dirt and seemingly boundless curiosity for the process. Growing from seed, knowing how much food could come from a $2 seed packet...these were firsts for me this year. He and Heidi have been running Green Roof Growers for years and coupled with my landlord Ala's intrinsically green thumb, my luck at finding this apartment continues to resonate four and a half years after I moved in. My kale affection is well-documented and to be able to take advantage of its growing season on two ends this year is just really exciting. I imagine myself attending dinners with bouquets of kale tied up with gardener's twine. Maybe some wild arugula providing an attractive ruffle around the edges.

It feels like a good year for walking the walk. I spent my second annual Saturday in like-minded company at the Family Farmed Expo and was so happy to be nodding along with the rest of my crunchy kin. I'm trying. I'm trying to vote with my dollar, to budget in a way that better represents the rest of the world in what I invest in my food. I've always cared. It always mattered. I just haven't always been very consistent in what sounded like the right thing and what ended up being the easiest.

And on an ever so brief personal note, it's April and I've got a March reputation of my own. My wintry mix was the travel and womenfolk whom I love dearly. While the travel and girlfriends aren't going anywhere (I'm on a plane to Seattle while writing this but likely there already for the posting), I'm thawing out. An uptick in daylight and energy lends itself well toward other pursuits. There've been some false starts but my shoulders are finally relaxed and the cold is less daunting this way. Feeling new on the heels of a sleepy season is good for the soul. Bring on the Bambi levels of twitterpation, my greens are in the ground and my salad days are beginning again.

Not Quite Nicoise Salad

Mixed Greens (I use the boxed organic mix with spring greens and spinach)
Purple cabbage, shredded
1/2 cup chopped olives (I had Cerignola, Nicoise, and those delicious extra salty and wrinkled black ones from a Pastoral run)
3 potatoes sliced and steamed
6-8 grape tomatoes (couldn't resist at the store but ready for them to be in season properly)
Handful reduced fat feta
3 hard cooked eggs, quartered

Simple vinaigrette (juice from 1/2 lemon, 1/3 cup olive oil, teaspoon Dijon mustard, salt and pepper)

Arrange however contents your precious little heart then toss with the vinaigrette. Delicious and satisfying lunch, also recommended with a warm demi loaf of crusty bread and some salted butter.

And because I hope you post your lists too...here's what will be growing for me this year!

2012 Wicked Vegetable Patch Roster
Arugula
Joker Lettuce
Lacinto (Dino) Kale
Red Russian Kale
Pentland Kale
Italian Parsley
Tatsoi
Bok Choy
Vitamin Green
Beets
Scarlet Nantes Carrots
Marvel Striped Tomato
Black Krim Tomato
Black Cherry Tomato
Valencia Tomato
Red Pear Sel Tomato
San Marzano Tomato
Listada de Gandia Eggplant
Black Beauty Eggplant
Santa Fe Grande Hot Pepper
Bee Balm
Rosemary
Lavender
Oregano
Sweet Genovese Basil
Sacred Basil

Marauding on Weekend Street

2011-02-13T23:11:00.006-06:00

It was just one of those good weekends. Friday night started with a knitting lesson with some new friends for Karen's hilarious 30th birthday project (I'm a little obsessed with this idea). That came with wine and a lovely spaghetti squash dish for dinner courtesy of Leah. Then thanks to the power of Twitter and an open-minded partner in crime, I got to toast Katie for her birthday at Innjoy with Robin and TC, then finally made it to the Burlington for one of Jim and Michelle's DJ gigs.

Saturday afternoon was pretty much strong-armed by the dentist. That was probably the least fun piece of weekend but I had a Fresh Air podcast and Terri Gross really did help pass the time. Reward was a fun trip to Whole Foods. If my face hadn't been numb, I might have even had a glass of wine. That would have been absolutely tragic given the circumstances so I just shot wanton looks at everyone else's wine and tried to avoid smiling so I didn't frighten the children. This became a totally moot point because I arrived home to see a snow family had been built in our front yard by the much beloved neighbor kids. They'd made a snow incarnation of Honeycat (who adores them as much as I do). N,o I don't have a picture of either the snowcat or my crazy Two-Facesque expression when I found it. Face still numb, smiling like a crazy person. I love neighbors/neighborhoods.

Saturday night (once I had full use of my face back) was just a beautiful chunk of absurdity. A bunch of us met up at Big Star and even the wait was a joy thanks to some delicious margaritas and some "preview tacos" holding us over (that would be KP and I up top, photo credit to G's iPhone). Different people came to meet us throughout the night and by the end of our taco tenure, there was dancing. So much dancing that we decided to take our talents elsewhere and ended up at Rodan. More dancing. Til the music stopped. Were we done? Apparently not. Off to the Flat Iron. Pool and 90's hip hop and ohmyGOODNIGHT it is 5 in the morning. As in a half hour before my alarm goes off for the gym on weekdays. I could not tell you the last time that happened.

I slept for a lot of a beautiful day on Sunday and I wouldn't take it back. I opened the windows and the cat and I just languished in heavy covers, fresh air and sunshine. I called Gina from bed and we recapped the evening with cracked voices and laughter that hurts a little bit because it feels like your brain is part of a pinball machine. When I did get up it was done with jaunty step. A long walk around the neighborhood, a cake to bake and all the fixings.The weekend shop closed with a proper Sunday supper. Lo and Christina are two of my best friends from college and it was just the most delicious rewind to have them around the table. Dinner was inspired by Kona Bistro, our favorite restaurant in Oxford. Smashed Salmon Salad (which has even been documented here before) and "Winning of Hearts and Minds Cake" from Orangette. I wish I could have shown a clip of it to the three twenty year olds sitting in our dining room on West Collins. They're both wives now- one husband makes tremendous chocolate cookies, one sent his wife to my house with miniature artisan grilled cheese sandwiches. Which is to say, they are both winners in my book. Everyone with joy in their work and life in general. These are good things.

This is a strange type of post for this place- more of a journal entry and kind of a throwback to days of yore. I just don't want to forget it. Not the time untangling yarn and telling stories, not the cabs dotting the west side, not the solo adventures in food shopping, not the hiccups or the hijinks. I don't want to forget cool sheets and the sweetest cat or a house that feels like home and smells like cake.

In Search of Spice

2011-01-25T23:38:00.013-06:00

The dregs of winter are upon us, friends. As with every season, there's a bright side and a Deathstar side and while winter seems more frequently placed in the stormtrooper's camp, I'm not about to write it off so simply. We're just digging out of the biggest blizzard in at least a decade and just when you think that aforementioned light might be buried the deepest, you remember it is snow after all. My neighbors seem to shine the brightest when reflected off all that white.

Everyone's smiling like third graders with their rusty shovels and their shiny stories. Digging each other's cars out, complimenting canine footwear, making snow creatures. We're at our best when winter's at its worst. This is where we secure the bragging rights that take us through the rest of the year and we'll all be tuckered if New York is going to hijack our rightful, wintered glory.

It's not all ponies though, there's the cabin fever, as well. Cabin fever and its deeply disturbed cousin complacency. Get off my couch, complacency. For the last few weeks it hasn't mattered as much because I've been running around the country so the couch and its sleepy occupant were left to their own devices while I was in Denver and Nashville (oh be still my heart after all this time). I head to DC on Monday and Montreal next week and Orlando a week after that. I'm taking in a lot of views like this one (on descent toward Denver).

The truth is, I am so much happier when I'm speeding around trying new things and places and people. That need not be relegated to when I'm on the road- is anyone else prone to constantly finding greener grass in other pastures? Because I spent an evening at No. 308 in East Nashville and had myself convinced for days that there wasn't anything like it in Chicago. And while that might be true for Robert's, I can get my Mumford & Sons/Jackson 5 dance party on at the Whistler (or anywhere else in Logan Square) not 10 minutes from my wicked front door. It's not the same but it's a similar breed of smoke. Now I'm rambling (HA- you probably called that 10 minutes ago). Blame it on the Deathstar but I need to be spicing things up on the home front a little more and I am nothing if not overly literal.

On a snowy Sunday in Old Town after many lists and recommendations, I bit the bullet and totally refreshed my spice rack at The Spice House. I had a coupon for 15% off and was already partial to their simple labels and careful quality. Most of my spices had been traveling with me since my four year stint in Oxford, Ohio. Ground spices are only meant to last for a year according to Cooks Illustrated so I was pushing my luck seven times over. Felt really good to just toss everything and start fresh and for less than $70, I managed the following:

Garam Masala Curry Mixture
Ground Ginger (China Number One)
Aleppo Pepper, Crushed
Ground Cumin
Ground Organic Turmeric
Whole Coriander Seeds
Granulated Garlic Powder
Saffron, Spanish Superior Grade (1 gram- a little goes a long way)
Spanish Smoked Paprika, Hot
Hungarian Sweet Paprika
Curry Powder, Sweet
Organic Saigon "Cassia" Cinnamon
Mustard Powder, Medium Heat
Ground Cloves
Whole Fennel Seeds
Whole Black Tellicherry Peppercorns
Dried California Parsley Flakes
Organic Dill Weed
Ukrainian Village Seasoning

Now what to do with all this bounty? A few ideas.

My favorite snack/salad topper. Chickpeas rinsed, patted dry and roasted for 12 minutes at 400 in a very light coating of extra virgin olive oil. Once they're out, spice as you like but my personal blend is Aleppo pepper, sweet paprika, curry powder, turmeric and Maldon smoked salt (which I put on everything these days). If you line your baking sheet with foil, cleanup is a breeze. These are the best.

Another new neighborhood favorite- The Butcher & Larder - has opened its doors and relieved us of what was once a neighborhood desert for sustainable, ethically raised meat. I took home two of their house sausages, broke them up then sauteed with tomatoes, Aleppo pepper, garlic powder, dried parsley and some sage I found clinging to our plant in the garden (very hearty plant, noted). Served with a pillow of fresh Pecorino atop roasted spaghetti squash.

My other B&L purchase- a lean shoulder cut of beef. Covered in Ukrainian Village Seasoning, seared on all sides in a cast iron pan then popped in the oven till medium rare (about 7 minutes at 425).

And finally, an actual recipe. Because this is about to change your roasted sweet potatoes and then it will move on to charm everything else it touches like fat slices of toasted Italian bread or root vegetables. Based on a recipe of Paula Wolfert's. I got really lucky and discovered it just in time for dinner with my friend Janine, the brains/beauty behind Rustic Kitchen.

Moroccan Spiced Butter

½ teaspoon of Maldon smoked salt
4 spring onions, white part only, chopped (reserve the green bits for something lovely)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 heaped teaspoon of smoked paprika
1 tablespoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of coriander seeds
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
½ teaspoon of hot chili powder
Small handful of parsley, chopped

½ cup of unsalted butter, room temperature

Using a mortar and pestle, crush the sea salt, spring onions, garlic and spices to make a paste. Add the parsley, and pound until quite smooth. Chop the butter roughly and pound it into the paste until well combined. Form the butter into a log, wrap tightly, and place in the fridge to rest till it gets its bearings.

Year of the Green Goddess

2011-01-03T22:42:00.002-06:00

That sandwich was a month on toast. A good month. Not a perfect one but a little braver and with a very satisfying crunch at the end there.

If you're wondering (and I'm always wondering), that is multi-grain toast spread on top with a thin sheen of Rare Bird's Plum Cardamom Orange Preserves which are then holding a substantial blanket of baby spinach in place. Beneath that we've got some fresh roast chicken (a favorite in these parts) and lower still, mixed greens. From there, we pick the sweetness back up again with thin slices of Granny Smith apple. All good things, yes? Good, great in some cases, but not magic. The magic is that last element before we're back to toast (ashes to ashes). You can barely see it on the bottom there.

A closer look. Thick and rich and fully earning its name- Green Goddess.

These are the ingredients for magic and it was a group effort so my thanks to Pop Pop, Elana and Jenn for their respective bits of inspiration. Pop really was the original goddess charmer and I have clear memories of sneaking dips of romaine spears into the blender in the fridge when he was acting as chef-in-residence on his visits. Anchovies are never negotiable when it comes to Pop and I quite agree with him. One thing I did on my own though? No mayo. No oil. Just all manner of green things and some fat free Greek yogurt. Three veggie trays, two salads and one sandwich later, you would never have known that this was holistically healthy by the responses (mine included).

I brought this one to Gina's annual Eve of the Eve dinner. It did a tremendous job balancing out all that wine.

I brought this one to North Woods New Year's at Bob and Christina's. All the while, whenever I started to run low on the special sauce, I treated it like a starter and just kept adding yogurt, herbs and the like.

Green Goddess Dip/ Dressing/ Spread/ Fantastma

16.7 oz container of fat free or low fat Greek yogurt
4 whole cloves of garlic
1 tin of flat rolled anchovies
1-2 cups of fresh spinach leaves, depending on your preferred level of green
2 green onions, roughly chopped
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves (leaves of 4-5 stems)
2 TB fresh tarragon leaves
1 TB fresh oregano leaves
1 ripe avocado (halved, pitted and removed from shell)
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 tsp of kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Optional: 1-2 ounces of Roquefort. Great tip from Pop but clearly a little evil. Not a lot for the whole recipe but does add a little something.

Put it all in the bowl of a food processor and whir till you have a uniform mixture. Scrape down the sides, whir some more. I added a little more spinach and some extra lemon at this point for color and zing. And then I made sure it was safe for at least three coated spatulas. I'm a health hazard, what can I tell you? If you want it a little looser for salad dressing, a little water goes a long way.

Unrelated but I noticed this in all my veggie plate prep...how gorgeous is the inside of a red pepper? Happy New Year. That really was a great sandwich.

Snow Day (Spinach, Sausage and Shallot Quiche)

2010-12-12T15:18:00.006-06:00

This is what a Sunday snow day looks like. This is what it tastes like too but never let it be said that I am cruel enough to ask you to imagine that. For the record, you're looking at a spinach, sausage (banger, if we're going to get specific) and shallot quiche, baked into my favorite pie crust.
To be even more specific, this is another view of the same snow day.

Sunday Snow Day from ToKissTheCook on Vimeo.

For those of you in warmer climates (cough *parents* ahem), this is what a snow day looks and sounds like. Please forgive the low-fi recording but I think you get the idea.

Yes, I think we all prefer the view from here a little better though it has to be said that from inside a cozy house, hot coffee in hand, looking at evergreens heavy with snow isn't the worst way to spend an afternooon. It's potentially the best way to spend an afternoon when it involves a long lunch with Miss Rebecca.

The coffee in this case is my latest little addiction- Tanzanian from Steaming Bean. A friend brought an extra pound back from a Colorado adventure and I'm officially hooked.

Incidentally, it washes this down really well and will properly defrost any toes that dare trudge through the snow toward quiche.
I love days like this. I was up early early early for no particular reason and just started making pie crusts. Then watched Hannah and Her Sisters followed by a snowmelt sweatfest and then the lunchy brunchy business above. Tonight is a turkey dinner with yet another neighborhood friend/family and I go bearing apple pie. A great day and it's just nice to write that down from time to time.

Spinach Sausage and Shallot Quiche
1 half pie crust recipe ( or just make a full one and save the other half for some other noble cause)
1 8 oz package frozen organic spinach, thawed and wrung of as much liquid as possible)
5 pork bangers (I love Spencer's- great quality, posh tasty)
2 shallots, minced
1 cup shredded or shaved Pecorino cheese
7 eggs
3/4 cup whole milk (2% would work fine)
Pinch of Nutmeg
Salt and Pepper (hooked on Maldon Smoked Salt this month)

1) Put your pie crust together, chill it for at least an hour, roll it out, put in your pie or quich dish and put it in the fridge till you're ready to fill it.
2) Preheat oven to 400 F.
3) Saute your bangers in a frying pan over medium heat, ensuring even browning on all sides. Bangers tell you they're done by splitting open. Once your little meats are split and browned, put them on a plate lined with paper towels and let them cool a bit.
4) Saute your shallots in the banger drippings. There are healthier ways to do this but I ran 5 miles this morning and was feeling a little cheeky/counterproductive. Sue me.
5) Scramble your eggs and use a basting brush to glaze the top of your quiche crust. You'll appreciate this later when your edges are all glossy. Once that's done, add your milk and continue to beat egg mixture till everything is incorporated and it's a uniform consistency.
6) Add spinach, bangers, cheese and sauteed shallots to egg mixture. Season but go a little heavier on the pepper than the salt- both the bangers and the cheese are giving you a little extra sel already.
7) Pour mixture into your pie crust, tent loosely with foil and bake for 1 hour at 400. Check it at 45 minutes and remove the foil if you need some extra browning on top.
8) Once the quiche is set in the middle (no more jiggling), pull it out and let it cool for 10-15 minutes before slicing. Know that sounds like torture because the house is going to smell really really good but it's worth it to have slices that actually come out of the pan in the way nature intended.

TGI Pieday: Pie to Bring You Back from the Brink

2010-11-24T08:13:00.004-06:00

It's not really a secret that I'm a pie person. It's my thing. I can make a mean cake but it will never be pie. Pie is proof that somewhere in me lies the ability to be patient for all the right reasons. Pie requires me to know what I'm doing but hold it loosely without overthinking. All things I could stand to mimic in other nooks. But pie did not spring from a kitchenwomb fully formed. In the last few years, I've tried all butter crusts, half butter/half shortening crusts, crusts with ice water and crusts with ice vodka. Hand pies and lattice pies and pies that required a turkey baster to unjuice.

The pies themselves have been chocolate cream, lemon meringue, apple cheddar, cherry bourbon (Manhattan), cherry peach, strawberry rhubarb, coconut cream and, finally, peach straight up. All throughout my pie-making history I've made them for the people I loved and they consistently reflect the state of my non-pastry being. I'm a big believer in the ability to infuse food made by hand with a little bit of what you're going through at the time, a la Like Water for Chocolate. With pie crust, all ten fingers are literally in the dough- kneading and patting and shaping- how could you not lose track of a few stray pieces of love, lust, sad or worry? The crust- it knows.

But in August, I wasn't making pie at all. In the height of Midwestern fruit season, that was a signpost and all it said was "lost." I was at a fork in the road and I had nothing of substance to eat with that fork. No clear direction in the proverbial yellow wood.

Sometimes the light ahead appears from the least deliberate of places. Meet Kate. My pie angel and the voice of Art of the Pie, which incidentally sounds exactly like her speaking and you should read it regularly. I met her at the end of August when I headed up to Seattle for a pretty fantastic weekend at IFBC and some quality time with Pop Pop. The fact that there was a pie class offered through a conference I was technically attending as part of my job is yet another marker that I'm in the right line of work.

I signed up at the last minute and knew immediately that I was in the right place. Kate is every bit herself, but she reminded me of a cross between my friends Mary Beth and Janine in spirit.

Beyond introducing me to the pie crust I'd been looking for, she showed us that it just doesn't have to be that hard. No need to peel the peaches before slicing them, they're fine as they are. No fussing with a food processor when a couple forks and cold fingers would do. No crying over dry pie dough. It's almost always fixable and when it's not? You can start over. I didn't realize until then that I was looking for the permission to do exactly that.

The pie we made in class was a peach pie with peaches from Frog Hollow Farm. This is a place I was totally ignorant of until August and I'm not entirely sure how that happened. All I can offer by way of excuse is that my Southern/Midwestern life has been thousands of miles from the perfect groves of peaches, apples, pears and apricots. Kate passed an uncut peach around the class, followed by a plate of slices. You did not need to actually get your snout right down to the fuzz to smell the sweetness coming off the whole fruit. When the slices got to me, I knew why. Whoa. I'm a fan of more locally grown Michigan peaches but this was another hemisphere of flavor.

I don't know how they did it but I needed more peaches and I needed them fast. As a gift of timing, it turned out that we were in Seattle for the end of Peachorama at Seattle's City Markets which meant I could actually buy fresh Frog Hollow peaches while in town. The next chance I got, I was in line with my own pallet-o-peaches and everything I needed to recreate that pie for my grandfather (the perfect audience for all edible treasure).

Once the conference wrapped, I got myself straight back to Sammamish with all my treasures in tow. I couldn't rectify the leaf lard situation (Kate's reco) without some serious sourcing but there's nothing wrong with an all-butter crust so long as you're using a Euro-style butter (Kerrygold, Plugra).

Another little revelation beyond the leaf lard was the inclusion of tapioca with the fruit to hold the pie together. I'd never had anything with tapioca in it other than bubble tea and had also been a little wary of thickeners in my pie. Flour always seems to dull the flavors a bit and Arrowroot and Cream of Tartar can be detectable flavors if not stored correctly. Kate's pie actually sliced without hemorrhaging all the sauciness that makes a proper bite. Not a hint of minerality. I'm officially a believer, particularly for juicy fruits like high season peaches or cherries.

I sliced a peach for Pop to snack on while I worked out the crust with a floured wine bottle. By 8 we were happily couched watching Moonstruck and digging into a beautiful piece of pastry still warm in the middle. I was one slice into the first of my new pie life and actually brought peaches home to make another pie for friends immediately.

We may have had it cold for breakfast with a little yogurt before I left for the airport. These are the things one does with an unapologetically hedonistic grandfather. At least I know I come by it honestly.

Once I got back to Chicago, I got in touch with my pig people at Slagel Family Farm on the hunt for leaf lard (the fat between the kidneys on pigs) and they did not disappoint. Three days later I retrieved a 5 lb tub of lard from my customary pick-up at Mado. The waitstaff was just ramping up when I got there and I explained my plans to them. I still think I owe Rob and Allie a pie for opening up the connection with Slagel. Seems like an appropriate gift on the opening of there new butcher shop, Butcher and the Larder (all responsibly, sustainably raised animals). Note that the tub actually says "Jeffy" which amused Molly to no end. The lard is mostly tasteless but definitely has a subtle, savory hint of bacon. Can you imagine anything better to complement a sweet peach pie?

True to promise, Kate's crust recipe held up and my Chicago peach pie had the layers of crust I'd been looking for (thanks to the different melting points of the lard and butter). I know I sound dramatic here but I'd been working at it for years- this was big.

Now that I had my crust, it was game on for baking. I made a little chocolate cream pie just because the Dawson sisters stopped by.

I made a miniature coconut cream pie for Molly's birthday. By the by, these little pie dishes are a bargain and come in every color of the rainbow.

There was another little chocolate cream pie for Nicole and Jamie's visit to Chicago.

Then apple season arrived by the truckload from Michigan and Indiana.

The crust held up when latticed with ribbons of pastry puffing up in all the right places.

The crust held up in general. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, marks the unofficial climax of pie season. I hope that those of you who are baking will take this crust into consideration and fill it with all the thanks you want to give to the people at your table. I'm thankful for the pies that got me to this one and the ones still ahead of me. I'm grateful for a kitchen consistently full of people I care about to eat the pies that are made there.

I know it sounds cheesy but it's not. It's pie. And pie is love.

Kate McDermott's Pie Crust Recipe can be found on her blog, Art of the Pie. If you are ever in the Seattle area and in need of spiritual pastry guidance, she meditates on 8 inch pie plates regularly.

A Creature of Habit: Travel Traditions

2010-11-10T15:06:00.007-06:00

I'm about to contradict myself. Let's not pretend it's the first time. In my last post I got all lament-y about my lack of consistency. All I had to do was go back to San Francisco- it took me all of 2 hours to fall back on something familiar and fantastic.

I was in town for the Foodbuzz Festival last weekend and lo and behold, I was on the ground and chomping at the bit to get to my beloved 18th and Guerrero. Tartine isn't exactly a secret but, like all the good places, in the last three years of fall pilgrimages it's felt more and more like my own. The tastiest tradition I've ever had on the road.
I arrive in San Francisco with a belly already rumbling after an early morning and a long flight. I get myself checked in at the hotel, I check in on my emails and then I check into 16th Street on the BART. Like clockwork. Even with all its fanfare, there's still reliably a spot at a communal wooden table waiting for me in the middle of the afternoon. I plug into the spot with the best view of the door so I can watch the Mission's eclectic brand of persons strolling in and out.

Then there's the order. Three years have seen only the slightest of alterations and I've now gotten several friends on-boarded to the same, perfect combination (Jess, Sabrina). One croque monsieur, formerly turkey and now shiitake. The main course and perfect for someone who went light on breakfast but has a way to go till dinner. A slab of Tartine's famous bread saturated but for the crusts with béchamel, gruyere, thyme and seasonal vegetables. It's warmed and toasted through when it's laid on the table several minutes later. In a rare bit of portion control, I set half aside last week so I could have it for breakfast the following morning (top picture). One of my better ideas.

The next component is where the truly blush-worthy noises come into play. The lemon cream tart. Thursday, Chelsee came to meet me for her first introduction to this heralded place de pain. She'd eaten lunch already but joined me with her own tart, it's that beautiful that you know on sight that you need your own. Now I'm a published sucker for lemons but this is just a new league. The cream is so balanced between sour and sweet, the most graceful cloud of cream resting right on top (convinced that baby angels scoop up the cream with their creaseless little palms). In the picture above (2009), it's pretty clear I was already halfway through my dessert when my sandwich arrived. I was powerless.

The recipe is in their first book but I'm thus far too entranced in my little getaway romance to want to approach it in my own kitchen. I'm hearing that Floriole Bakery in Lincoln Park has made a solid run at this favorite confection of mine. I'd almost rather not know. I love my tradition. I love the people and textures and the sense of locality I get to borrow on brief San Francisco runs. Maybe I'm still not consistent, per se, but I sure do love a tradition.

Dayplating: Midday Joy in a Salad Plate

2010-10-26T13:13:00.005-05:00

We've been doing strength-finder tests at work for the last couple weeks. Many of you in corporate America and otherwise will have encountered some kind of personality test in the process but what I love about this one was the lack of a downside. No wrong answers, as it were, just a different forte, another niche. I love finding out what combination my coworkers fall into and I've even started thinking about the people outside these walls in similar terms. We all have our little tics and tells and it's fun to sort them out. Embrace the naval gazing for bit, as it were. Agreed?

Even though the strengths themselves are positive, there were a few that have never been assigned to me that I'm working at. Consistency, for one, is notable by its absence. I do not know what it is about the way I'm wired that fights process and routine. It can be maddening. Even my body has a hard time doing something the same way twice- I have no muscle memory for sports. I can't swing a club or a racket or a bat the same way twice. That said, when someone gives me a process that shuts off my internal chatter (or at least channels it for a few minutes), I'm blissed.

Hence the love of cooking. It's flexible enough that I don't have to do everything the exact same way. I am not a professional and have never had the desire to go to cooking school. Cooking comes with it's own set of hard and soft rules and you can celebrate the differences while relying on the process, the benchmarks. I love that. There are others who would say that cooking is highly specific, mathematical even. It's glorious that one umbrella term can incorporate so many different kinds of practitioners because man alive, I'm still not a math person so that can't be how I cook.

I'm quiet when I'm prepping. Chopping and stirring and placing and saucing. I'm processing, sure. The way I suspect many career runners do (only often to opposite effects). So in an effort to find some middle ground, I'm bringing my tried and true quiet time to the office with me a couple days a week. It's unrealistic to think I can do it every day but it's helpful when I do.

Today was one of those days. I had all my ingredients partially prepped and brought to the office where I keep a real plate for just such an occasion. Then the hour struck and I took 10-15 minutes to quietly cut up the last of my Black Cherokee tomatoes, a roasted golden beet, an apple from my CSA box. I'd brought green and purple kale shredded with some leftover romaine and the remnants of some cranberry walnut dressing. The topper was walnuts as well- stored in a baggy with fresh pepper and sea salt from home.

It was nice. Really nice to have something beautiful and healthy to put together in the middle of the day. I loved the process. I feel more focused thanks to a salad. Again, I hesitate to put too many rules on it- don't want to draw the ire of my own nature- but from one side of my brain to the other? I'm hoping a few things start to stick- salad plates and beyond.

White Beans with Tomatoes, Sage, Garlic and Half a Teaspoon of Pure Evil

2010-10-19T12:49:00.009-05:00

I'm celebrating the return of Sunday suppers. It's not guaranteed every week but we've got two under our belts now and I feel good calling it a custom now. It doesn't matter how tired I am, I'm still excited for dinner with the local loved ones. I've been thinking a lot lately about the things I need and this kind of intimacy among familiar faces and warm plates of good food was really high on that list. Surprise, surprise.

College friends, neighbor friends, old Memphis friends, new Internet friends, people who fall into multiple categories. The call could come at any time and we very much take requests.

It puts me at ease in my week ahead. There are great bouts of belly laughter. Bellies filled with a meal put together largely by team at the kitchen table over wine. This week there was even a potluck element. Nathan brought a glorious pot of squash with walnuts and even though I accidentally yelled at him for being early (mistook him for Dave who, despite my protesting, is the world's most reliable sous chef whether you're ready for company or not). Even though I have all but been forced into it, I think I get to claim this newfound delegation as personal growth. Or something like that.

This week in particular we were celebrating a leg of lamb defrosted early on accident. Seven pounds of bone-in Mint Creek glory and the collected produce to plate it with. That was the easy part. Olive oil, garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and seasoning. Same for the potatoes that roasted with it. Two hours later we had this. Please excuse the furry shot, we were all very excited to dig in so any possible artistry went by the wayside.
The real star of the show was no more complicated than the lamb. You can actually see every single ingredient in the white beans in the picture up top. If you squint. Okay, maybe not the salt but you see where I'm going with this. White beans with garlic just felt right for lamb. And later that night, they felt right almost-cold from the fridge. And for the next two days they felt progressively better for lunch. Like a good stew, they only seemed to improve with time and I couldn't help but remember just how easy they were. Add broth and some kale and they could be soup. Add to toasted baguettes and they could be crudites. Add a spoon and they could just simply bring satisfaction. Nevermind the evil. It's optional. But I recommend it.

White Beans with Tomatoes, Sage, Garlic and Half a Teaspoon of Pure Evil
Adapted from Dana Treat's recipe

3 15.5 oz cans of cannelini or white northern beans
Olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 28 oz. can Italian whole tomatoes, with added puree
3 tbsp. chopped fresh sage (or shredded with your fingers)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Optional: Evil= 1/2 tsp truffle oil (subtle but pure velvet)

Drain the cans of beans and rinse them well with cold water in a strainer. Set aside.

In a large skillet, heat enough olive oil to lightly cover the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic and saute until it begins to brown. Add the beans and the tomatoes, breaking up the tomatoes with your hands as you add them. Be sure to add all the puree in the can. Sprinkle with a healthy pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper, and the sage and cook, uncovered, until thick, about 20 minutes.

Add your evil as a finishing touch, stir and take a taste. Basically four cans, fresh garlic, sage from the garden and 20 minutes to the perfect flavorset for fall.

If you're going to get brand-y, I'll give that to you. I used Bush's Great Northern Beans. Bush's is my client but I think you probably know better than to think I'd serve something to seven friends that's anything less than superb. It would be at odds with my apron ego. The other recommendation is San Marzano tomatoes. They are slightly more expensive than the ones I've bought previously but the flavor was absolutely worth the price difference in such a simple recipe. And I like the packaging so there's that.

Monday Soup: Curried Lentil Stew with Kale, Red Onion and Coconut Milk

2010-10-04T20:44:00.010-05:00

I've just now had the exquisite experience of craving something comprehensively wonderful and then being able to realize the bowled vision in my own kitchen.

I cook a lot. I like it. It's like meditating without the the mat that smells like plastic and feet. And still- this is exhilerating. I've never made this recipe before and yet on the first attempt I'm content. That does not happen at my house. I may be satiated, even happy, but rarely am I content. Happy is a fleeting high, content means I want to stop moving for more than a string of minutes.

It started a few weeks ago when I picked up take-out from Mana before babysitting. I think I've mentioned it before but 2.5 years since it opened, that place still blisses me out. Having fresh, inventive vegetarian food a 5 minute walk from my door has not ceased to be a treat. Anyhow, on the night in question, the special was a lentil soup. I can't say I was immediately wooed but figured I was due for something healthy to temper my standing order of collard greens and polenta.

I slurped that first spoonful and then did not take more than a few sparse breaths from brim to bottom of my borrowed bowl. Sweet and spiced and warm and textured- I've been thinking about it ever since but today the longing was so powerful that I called them. I called Mana. The first thing I asked was whether they'd be serving my magical soup this week.

Yes, I'll hold.

A new voice on the line- Jill Barron, the chef. She does not schedule her specials but she's glad I like the soup and incidentally which lentil soup did I like so much?

Quiet on the line.

Then I tried to describe the flavors. It was confirmed to be Curried Red Lentil soup. I may have then started shamelessly guessing ingredients. Palpable desperation over soup. She, rightly, refused and said to keep checking back.

I stewed (pun intended).

I had lentils.
I had a huge pot of homemade chicken stock taking up refrigerator real estate (one equal to its size had already been frozen).
I had a large red onion. And garlic. And carrots from my CSA box
I had gorgeous bunches of dinosaur kale.
I had curry and cayenne.

I had soup.

A quick audit of Google Reader directed me to this recipe on Epicurious. Well, my $.89 pound of lentils were green, not red. And I had kale in lieu of chard. Then I saw a few other recipes. Some folks were putting coconut milk into their versions. I nosed around and found a little can picked up on a whim on Argyle.

As soup is another tremendous vehicle for the stuff I love so dearly, I also took stock of a rogue purple potato and the last of my cherry tomatoes. In the back of the fridge I found a jar of Chile Colonial Chile Crunch (oh condiment of kings) and a lone Greek yogurt.

What do they say? Pride comes before the fall. Duly noted. Now seconds please.

Curried Lentil Stew with Kale, Red Onion and Coconut Milk
Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large red onion, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced
1 purple potato, diced (totally optional but very pretty)
4 teaspoons curry powder
1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or Aleppo pepper if you have it)
5 1/2 cups of broth (I had fresh chicken broth but vegetable would work as well and makes this purely vegetarian)
5.6 oz can of coconut milk (about the size of a can of tomato paste)
1 large bunch or 2 small bunches dinosaur kale, leaves pulled from ribs
1 pound green lentils (about 2 1/4 cups)
1/3 cup bulgur wheat
Sea Salt to taste
6-8 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 1/2 Tablespoons Greek yogurt
Chile Colonial Crunch (I'd knock it off with the namedropping but I can't think of a generic category that describes the stuff)

Directions:
Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrots, potato and garlic; sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. Mix in curry and cayenne. Add broth, kale and coconut milk. Stir to incorporate. Increase heat; bring to boil. Add lentils and bulgur; reduce heat to medium.

Cover; simmer until lentils are tender, stirring twice, about 15 minutes. Add the cherry tomatoes during the final stir. Season to taste. Divide stew among bowls. Top with yogurt and a proper dollop of chile crunch (it's hot, so go easy at first).

What I Did on My Fall Vacation

2010-09-27T21:50:00.007-05:00

For most of my working life, it's been really hard for me to take more than a long weekend off at a time. I'm going to attribute most of this to a brand of self-importance that I'm hoping was unique to the first part of my twenties. The "things will fall apart if I don't keep checking my email" complex.

Have you done this to yourself? Had yourself so thoroughly convinced that the Apocolypse might come that you couldn't check out? It's ridiculous. If the year has taught me nothing else, it's the power of a good step back and a change of scenery. And the fact that the world won't fall apart if I step away a minute but I most certainly will.

No more sleeping next to the Blackberry. No more rolled over vacation days. No one ever told me that I needed to stretch myself thin. As luck would have it, the opposite is true. I've replied to notes from vacation and gotten "Oh my God gotothebeachalready" for a response. It was ego. Sometimes it still is. That and the perpetual fear of getting organized (why unpack when I can repurpose?).

The good news is that I'm getting better at figuring out tipping points- work and personal life alike. There's a place I can go where the noise falls behind me and what's left of it ebbs to a very different pattern. I packed my suitcase and headed toward salt.

The first day I was just happy to be in the northeast but it's been a long few weeks and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to just being exhausted. The day itself was perfect though. The sky looked like a Pantone swatch and we rode to Duxbury with our wine and rowdies.

Brother had orchestrated an outing to the Island Creek Oyster Festival and we slurped and cracked and seasoned our way through hundreds of them. We tempered their salt with whatever was at hand but the best of it was called sangria flora. I bought a bottle of St-Germain as soon as I got home but that's probably beside the point.My brother is 3 weeks into solo living and every once and awhile I broke away from the merry band just to look back at him within the life he's made. It changes just like mine does but it's good and it made me really happy to watch it. I have friends having babies now who will be close in age like Brother and I. I'm happy for them, too.

The next day was a slow start. The kind where my eyes were still dancing out a bit of the rhythm from the records the night before. Not wholly unpleasant but requiring brunch. We walked across the street and then I was deposited at the South End Market to wander. I got really lucky in my wandering.

Not only did I hit the art jackpot but Chelsee was already en route and it meant I'd get an excpetionally stylish strolling buddy for the afternoon at Boston's best flea market. Of course most of our photos are of produce. Proof positive that time and again something as unromantic as the Internet can deliver you to your people. I love that even when I leave Boston, I know I have a little smidge of a life that stays there.

My next stop was the quiet place everyone keeps in their heads somewhere. Occasionally buried, but never that deep. Welcome to a long walk at low tide on First Encounter beach. I wish you could smell this. It's entirely possible that some of you can.

My walking companion. She smells pretty great, too. Like home. The weather held itself in that very September place, perfectly suspended between summer fall. It's not like we laid about all day, we didn't. We went to the seafood market, the roadside stand, the galleries that dot the marsh in Wellfleet. We even made it over to Nantucket for a day and returned to a feast from my father.
This be him. I couldn't tell you the last time I spent a string of days just hanging out with my parents in a place that feels like home. No gifts to wrap or people to entertain. Just us. I had my space when I wanted it and company when I needed it. My dad and I even got into some of the big picture stuff.

"When you're ready to meet someone, I think you should be looking where you already have interests," said Dad. " You like to cook, you like music but you have other interests too. For example, you're really into science fiction and fantasy novels. They have conferences for that kind of thing."

Dad is now rolling his eyes that that's been recounted. We took a long bike ride and I thought about what character from Game of Thrones I would most likely be drawn to if he appeared at Comic Con next year. By the way, I've already finished the second installment in the Song of Ice and Fire series and if you are also an unapologetic geek with an overactive imagination, it's the series for you. Just keep your hands off Jon Snow, he's mine.

We did a lot of cooking as well so I'll start with the first apple pie of the season (try and feign some surprise). I had one more peach pie in me upon returning to the Midwest but biting through apples with cinnamon made for a very happy harbinger of what was to come.

Potatoes on one side with rosemary, butternut squash on the other with sage. A very happy roasting pan.

My best foot forward, made up on a whim and held there. Peaches sauteed with white wine, shallots, slivered almonds and thyme then laid on top of crostinis spread with a little goat cheese. I will refrain from really saying "Just peachy" but I am thinking it loudly. The actual recipe is up on Tumblr.
By the end of the trip, I was a lot more than a shadow. I was slept and fed and freckled and loved in a place that actually knows how to love back. That's what I did on my fall vacation.

Think on Something Really Lovely

2010-09-05T13:22:00.010-05:00

Have you ever been paralyzed by the sheer amount you want to say? I have to think that's common but it's unnerving. I talk too much as it is but to literally have week after week of not knowing what to say is so daunting.

The short of it is this: Jaimeson and I parted ways about a month ago. There's a lot that could be said. He is a kind, generous and talented man but years of being apart most of the time took its toll. You can't help but grow in different directions and I know it's the right thing for me. While this has been hard and I still feel like a jerk sometimes, I'm proud of the fact that we were honest with each other and ourselves without a single unkind intention. It is still pretty fresh.

I don't have anything else to say there but that's the gist of it. Rather than linger, I'm leaving you with a set of things from the last few days that have me smiling. It's really and truly beautiful in Chicago right now and I'm off to Lincoln Square for some time in the park with Williamasaurus Rex and Kate, the closest thing I have to an older sister.

The happiest table in my apartment. I found the little tin at the Fremont market in Seattle last weekend and filled it with Santa Maria Novella, my favorite potpourri (which was also, miraculously, found in Fremont at Essenza). The Eiffel Tower is exactly what it looks like. I bought it in Paris when I was 13 which is probably explanation enough.

The orange roses were $6 at Jewel and the concert poster was found for $3 in the back of Una Mae's. The owls- the larger is a print by Emily Leonard and the smaller is a Japanese pencil sketch by way of Pop Pop. I had the pleasure of making a pie for Pop last weekend and that was its very own happy event.

Yesterday, Gina and took a daytrip to Korea. At least that's what we were telling ourselves. Both coming off an exhausting few weeks, we decided we needed an adventure and the fact that it was a 15 minutes drive to Albany Park rather than a 15 hour flight to Seoul did not diminish the experience. A proper bi bim bop lunch at Kang Nam (so so good) followed by a few hours at Paradise Sauna.

Per the sauna, words elude me a bit again but if you are looking to really drop off the map, this is the place to do it. $50 bucks will get you all the steam, heat and hot tub you can handle along with a "scrub" that will leave you polished like a piece of silver. Nevermind that it shares space with a Mexican restaurant. This is not your frilly, fluffy "spa day." Bring your bravery, leave your modesty and sweat it out.

Sunday Breakfast:

A piece of multigrain toast from Flourish
A thin layer of garlic & herb goat cheese
Tomato Mountain sun gold tomato preserves
Assorted cherry tomatoes from my garden and my generous neighbor's
Leftover honey/thyme pork tenderloin from a dinner party Friday night
Basil plucked while watering first thing this morning

Some variation of this combination has been my favorite snack since I picked up the sun gold sweetness at the farmers market a few weeks ago. Need to grab another jar for the preserve reserves, thus securing bites of summer in the middle of winter.

When I went out to weed later, Honeycat came to help. If you want to talk about really lovely, you cannot omit the Lady of the Garden from the conversation. She's ready for fall like I am only I don't think she realizes her shady spot under the tomatoes will be relinquished to rows of kale and collards.

Dear Universe,
Thank you for the lovely and all it brought with it.
TKTC

Farmstand Toast- I Put A Egg On It

2010-08-09T21:01:00.014-05:00

It was a real weekend. Tonight I feel like I have been wrung out like a tea towel but I take nothing back. Not the driving day to Wisconsin. Not the Sprecher's root beer or the spit-roasted chicken. I do not take back the pounds of produce purchased in a house bearing painted mushroom murals. I don't take back a whiskeydrink, a nip of pie crust, a lobster corndog or a single second of sunshine filtered through a large straw hat.

I can't bring myself to regret the hours spent being decidedly awake and giddy when I would typically have been drooling into a pillow. It was a real weekend, filled with ice cream and friendlies and dancing in the grass. I would not take the hippiechild moments back, even though it means I've launched into full-on cat stretches and cavernous yawns throughout the afternoon and evening.

While most of the weekend was spent as a fuzzy sweatfox (caught in a near constant state of music and junk food-fueled rush), I gave myself a break on Sunday. Knowing the day ahead would be festival hours and festival food, I took a look at my foodstuffs and set to work on a simple and delicious brunch that could easily transition to lunch or dinner.

Lake Geneva- Love that this could just as easily be 1970 as 2010. Gimme my glam rock and denim shorts.

We'd stopped at River Valley Mushrooms on the way back from Lake Geneva the day before (the Mushroom Council is a client but this was not official business. In the least.). I was thrilled to see more than just an array of the shrooms themselves but a full farmstand spread including muskmelon, golden plums, peaches, cherry tomatoes- all of which came home with me.

A slow morning with a light rain and nowhere to be for a few hours- that's the break needed from a really rascally weekend fun run. I'd been gifted with a loaf a multigrain bread from Flourish and thus proper toast has been the basis for many meals this last week. Two slices tossed into their dedicated blackener and I set to work on the veggies.

One big frying pan took on quartered creminis, halved garden cherry tomatoes and angular pieces of gai laan (Chinese broccoli), my latest vegetable obsession. All were sauteed in a small amount of olive oil with a minced clove of fresh garlic until they were cooked but still bright. From there I just scooted the veggies over and cracked a fresh egg into the pan, letting the whites go opaque on both sides. Ironically, tonight's bedtime reading is actually a new foodzine called "Put A Egg On It." So far so good- thanks Tasting Table for the tip.

The toast came out hot and crunchy and was immediately spread with a thin layer of Prairie Fruits Farm goat cheese then layered with the vegetables and topped with a single shared egg. It was fresh and light and the perfect way to temper some unapologetically indulgent behavior the rest of the weekend.

Case in point: Peach Blueberry Pie, served still-warm after being cut open with a pocket switchblade and passed in-dish from person to person with a pair of shared utensils. Cheap beer chaser encouraged. Felt right to end on that.

The Goodness and the Go Forth

2010-08-02T12:50:00.016-05:00

Sun Wah Saturday

This is a celebration post. Not because anything terribly momentous has happened recently but because I woke up this morning after a great weekend and this whole day has been one little sparkler after the last, lighting up an exceptionally busy day. It's even not just today, it's been the last few days...and weeks. So here's a list of things that have the grins going.

"Now & then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness & just be happy."- Guillaume Apollinaire

1) Music from a part-time city lover. Portland is invading Chicago with aural goodness this week. Tonight the Portland Cello Project is in town, playing a free show at the ever-so-gorgeous Pritzker Pavillion. I've been long convinced that the cello is my spirit instrument. To have it paired with unlikely cover songs and that essentially odd duck persona that develops in the Pacific Northwest... it's more than I could really have thought to hope on.

That's how I'm starting this week but I'll be ending it among an entirely different Portland posse...those Trappers are back. I managed to weasel my way into a basement rehearsal when I was in Portland back in April, listening to a few of the new tracks in the process. Because of that, I can say with superb confidence that if you can catch Blitzen Trapper's Lincoln Hall show on Saturday night or be in the vicinity of the stage for their Lollapalooza show (2pm Budweiser stage), you will not only save yourself a smack of regret but you may be compelled to bake me some zucchini muffins. Or...something.

Forget the muffins, I'll just be glad to see you.

Though if you do have an abundance of zucchini, a warm muffin happens to pair beautifully with Stumptown coffee.

2) Flower power karma corral. I ordered flowers for a friend recovering from surgery this morning. Not 30 minutes later, I got a picture of a beautiful bouquet that another friend had been sent by her crushman. Having picked some up for myself at yesterday's farmer's market, I can attest to the fact that they raise a person's quality life by an exponent of at least 6.5 smiles per day- whether they are a gift for someone else or just you (in this case, me).

3) Swimming on two wheels. I spent the whole weekend on my bike. Not only was it 30 miles of personal tour guidesmanship but it was a hell of a workout. A workout that delivered me to not one, not two, but three separate feasts this weekend and then brought me home lighter than I left. Peking duck at Sun Wah (you need to do this as soon as possible), Brioche French Toast at LM and Green Curry from Silver Spoon (but at Gina's)... and I STILL got on the scale to good news this morning. This bike is a miracle machine. Not only that, but when you ride through shady spots, the breeze feels like swimming through cool currents. Riding that bike is properly lovely and the best part is that it is physically impossible for me to multi-task while doing it.

4) On the town with my girl Friday. Molly McGuff and I, despite our physical proximity, rarely have schedules that totally match up on the weekend. Friday night we discovered that we were both available for dinner and thus we feasted. And in the process of feasting, we had some wine. And that wine told us we should venture into the world and so we did. To Rainbo, to Bar Deville, to nostalgic shots of tequila and a photo booth. That wine is pretty persuasive but tequila is still tequila. Worth it.

5) Delivering the good goods. It's not quite a secret that I've got a little thing for kitchen bits. I manage to keep my hand out of the prodigal "big purchase" cookie jar but man does my cup runneth over with brightly colored spoons and mixed medium bowls. Being that it is wedding season, I have found my favorite gift to give and, of course, felt like I needed one for myself. So I ordered a pair of these lovely French carafe sets from Brooklyn Kitchen (a truly lovely little site) along with a couple other odds and ends (like a large ice cube tray for slow melting in my bourbon, a pie server and some grapefruit bitters). My box arrived but I was one carafe short- an easy mistake because who orders two (ahem...then two more...good gifts are hard to come by)? I shot an email over to the BK folks and was sent the missing set that day with a nice note and fantastically soft t-shirt. Happy happy.

6) Pages and Pages. It's been a great summer for reading. In addition to reading the books everyone seemed to be talking about (The Help, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), I've polished off The Known World, Eat Memory, several cookbooks and my current (and potentially most beloved), Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Where have I been? I love this book- thanks to Amanda for the reco. If you like food, feeling like you've got the inside scoop and some shameless sex, drugs and rock and roll as translated by a no-nonsense chef, this is your salacious summer read.

At the heels of these final chapters, I've already selected the next: Everything is Going to Be Great by Rachel Shukert. I'd heard some good things but her perspective on the Eat Pray Love phenomenon is what made this a must.

Summer in a Sandwich: A Wicked Vegetable Patch Special

2010-07-26T23:08:00.004-05:00

That, my friends, is a sandwich. Summer layered lovingly, stacked high between two halves of a toasted pretzel roll. Every flavor a reminder that the real season is still new. We've only in the last three weeks stepped into the high grass of harvest in the Midwest. I like to think I know a little bit more about that this year.

The view above (click for the real detail) is from day 1, week 3 and week 6. I'm talking to you now from the beginning of week 8 and can bear witness to even taller tomatoes. I remain absolutely enamored of this new hobby.

Through that lens, I'd like to share the first two eggplants of my eyes. I think you can hear the cliche I was going for but it still sounds weird (I'm going with it). They are such a dark purple that in this light they look black but get past that onyx exterior and there's a pale flesh with just the freshest tint of green. I was weeding when I realized just how big the eggplants had gotten and since these two, we've enjoyed four more, even trading one for a tomato and some arugula.

The gift of an overzealous farmers market trip brought extra pretzel rolls so I set about deciding what I could make with my haul including eggplant, chard, basil and cabbage from the garden, an onion from the garden of a friend, yellow squash from my CSA box and that traded tomato. And some found feta, which made up the first layer of the sandwich I couldn't keep myself from.
On top of the feta went a thick layer of lightly steamed greens. There are a lot of lovely vitamins hidden this sandwich's foundation but those greens are the real powerhouse so this is not a time for frugality of sandwich. With a modest pinch of truffle salt over the top? Perfection.

From there I took a cue from my inspiration in both activity and appetite and slow roasted the eggplant and squash. This row made it into my sandwich but the rest made for sweet accoutrement to other meals for the rest of the week.

A lovely tomato, grown in the same garden that produced many other layers. Bartering for vegetables is the weekly pleasure chest that bartering for Halloween candy was annually as a kid. Only this kind of trade enriches my palate rather than a dentist's pocket.
That last layer is a crisp, clean crunch of basil. I've got no shortage on aromatics this year and I am throwing basil into everything.

Look at that. Stacked to heaven with homegrown angels. There's something so incredibly satisfying about knowing where every piece of this sandwich came from.

With feta and a little love (Jaimeson's vocabulary word for olive oil) as the only accompaniments to the bread, the vegetables unique flavors absolutely shine through. Okay, there may have also been a nice drizzle of balsamic over the tomato layer but I was going to keep that between me and them.

It was such a spectacular sandwich, it deserved to look like something special. Parchment paper and a little garden twine did the trick. I love how at home a vegetable sandwich looks, wrapped in the same twine their leafy vines grew up in the back yard. My thumb just might be green after all. Don't worry though, I'll still wash it.

Easy Breezy Summertime: Spicy Pickle (Cucumber) Soup

2010-07-18T22:23:00.003-05:00

I have forever been a girl built for autumn- better suited for well-worn jeans and someone else's sweater than weather that makes my hair identifiable via satellite.

And yet.

This year I am in love with the summer. Even in the heat, I feel a breeze. I am drawn to early mornings where I can fuss over that patch of edible earth. I roam toward golden afternoons on two wheels (that's mine with the basket).

Isn't it just like summer to make my Internet eye wander? Wander from the screen toward a dappled patch of grass or vine-ripening fruit. Wander from the city toward sandy shores (some salty, some not). And, inversely, wander away from the evenings formerly spent typing. I have four posts loaded right now and not a one of them had any words...just the pictures. My goal for this week is to clear that up because man alive...summer is too good for eating not to share it.

My mom was in town last weekend and I thought it would be an appropriate time to formally give you her cucumber soup recipe. This was the summer classic growing up- I can still see the gray ceramic mugs she served it up in. Every member of the family beaming when they opened the fridge and saw that blender in there, frosted from the chilling process. I love cold cucumber soup. I love it so much that, as an adult, I've taken to adding heat.

That's a strange way to say it but it's true- spicy pickle juice changed the course of this recipe's story. That's what made it mine- different from my mom's but clearly, gratefully derivative.
I attempted to type up this recipe a couple years ago but have had the hardest time doing it here, where things become official in a sense. Lucky for me, I won't have to.

As with all good recipes, Cucumber Soup now has several storylines going. There's not much more satisfying for a home cook than having someone take something you love and make it their own.

So it worked out that the person who introduced me to McClure's Spicy Pickles (and to the summer glory of coastal Michigan) is the one who has the fully typed and lovely recipe up on her blog today. You know the backstory, now take two people's word that this is a summer soup to be immediately added to your arsenal. It's worth wandering toward.

Danielle has her spin posted over at Foodmomiac, mine is below (they're similar but not the same).

One seedless English cucumber, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks (if you only have a cucumber with seeds, just remove them)
Small handful of fresh dill
1 cup spinach leaves (kicks in both color and some lovely health benefits)
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 can low fat cream of chicken soup (I've tried to find a proper sub here. I can't. Forgive me and yourselves.)
1/2 cup McClure's spicy juice
Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to taste

Combine everything in a blender. Chill for at least an hour while you enjoy a cool beverage on the patio.

Wicked Vegetable Update

2010-06-26T01:14:00.003-05:00

It's been three weeks since the soil first got tilled and we have already come a long way. While there's still a good month of patience ahead for any harvest beyond herbs, I look around the garden every morning and every night...there is always something new.
This little Thessaloniki tomato being the biggest news in new things. He is going to get big and red and heavy. He is soaking in the rain and the sunshine and all the sweetness available. I am quite protective of my lone tomato.

This is an eggplant. Err...this will be an eggplant.

Beets. And that also means beet greens.

The tomatoes are starting to grow up onto the trellis built for them and I'm hoping the zucchini and cucumber will see what a wonderful idea that is and try it out for themselves.

So far the only seed that hasn't consistently come up is the carrots. I will try again but I'm thrilled with the butternut squash, zucchini and cucumber. Send recipes...I'm going to need them. The garden is a totally new kind of joy for me. You'd already know that if you heard my pep talk to it yesterday morning.

Maybe not the best idea to admit to talking to the plants on the Internet. You won't commit me till the first frost, right?

Summer Supper: Open-Faced Banger Sandwiches with Grilled Onions, Garlic Scapes and Asparagus

2010-06-14T15:36:00.004-05:00

That piece of poetry above is the best meal I've had at home this summer. Honestly, I don't remember outdoing it last year so I'm declaring an early victor- this is the bar against which all other summer meals will now be measured.

Maybe I should back up a moment and tell you what you're looking at. This is especially important to me because I'm pretty proud of the "where" associated with "what."

The meat of the dish was really the heart of it. On a slow stroll through the first Wicker Park Farmers Market of the season, there was a lovely English gent sampling Spencers "jolly posh British and Irish foods." Being a bit of a sucker for all things across the pond, I indulged a bite of the pork and herb banger and settled on purchasing a pack immediately.

I typically do a lap around the market before buying anything so the seconds-long exchange between my taste buds and pocketbook (and the resultant decision to snap these up) is a testament to purely stated mouthbliss. For those of you confused and/or giggling, a banger is a particular kind of pork sausage prone to splitting during cooking, the UK's version of a hot dog. Other market pick-ups included 5 pounds of ground beef from Robinson (we had beautiful burgers on Sunday), a shallot, an onion, radishes galore, baby lettuce, pretty purple scallions and some obscenely expensive tomatoes. I really cannot wait until I can pluck them from my own garden.

A few days later, I picked up the first of the CSA shares I'm splitting with Homemaker's Habitat this summer. Harvest Moon has started a pick-up right in front of our office and the whole transaction could not have been any easier. You should have seen the beaming happening in the elevator as I went back up to my office, clutching all of our fresh treasures. Among those treasures were a pound of fresh asparagus and three long and lanky garlic scapes. Garlic scapes are the flower stems that garlic plants produce before the bulbs mature- if you harvest them, the bulbs themselves tend to grow larger. The scapes are delicious- a cross between garlic and a scallion- and this was my first time cooking with them.

I also found a baguette in the freezer. Frozen bread is the gift we can give our future selves. It defrosted in seconds, was sliced and spread evenly with olive oil then massaged vigorously with a cut garlic clove. Then grilled alongside the rest. *swoon*

The compilation process was no less beautiful. The onion was sliced into rings and tossed with olive oil and one dice garlic scape before being set on the grill atop doubled up foil. Asparagus went for the same olive oil/salt and pepper treatment before being laid into its own foil nest. Later in the process the bangers were added atop the onions to distill some additional love on the layers. Just looking at that spread on the grill made me so happy.

For the sandwiches, we started with the bread then butterflied bangers atop each half. Onions were then liberally spooned over the meat before being kissed with sloppy enthusiasm by Dijon mustard. The finishing touch was a half of a purple scallion which had been grilled with the asparagus. The spears were gathered into the middle, so long that they couldn't quite be contained by the plate.

Salty sausages filled with herbs and caramelized on the outside. Bread that was toasted with blackened edges but kept a soft center. Sweet and garlicky onions and that blackened scallion on top...all tied together with a vinegary bite of mustard in the middle.

Please try this at home. Then tell me about it so I can relive it myself.

Having My Cake and Airplanes Too- A Birthday Post

2010-06-10T07:32:00.008-05:00

Today is my birthday.

As the weeks zoomed by through April then May, there were mornings that I woke up and wondered if I'd missed it altogether. The best part is that I could always identify the next closest thing to look forward to and just brushed right past it. This has not been a year short on adventuring. Given everything else in play, today is but a happy benchmark.

Even today, I know that tomorrow I'll start my trek toward Mississippi to celebrate the wedding of a very old friend. Exactly five years after the wedding of another friend within the same set.

Five years ago I was freshly home from the-adventure-to-which-all-others-are-compared: three weeks in southern France and northern Italy with Molly. I had a heart still very freshly broken but it had taken on a defiant limp toward a new life in a big city (at this point I thought that city would be Boston). I saw it all working out perfectly. I was moving to the city, getting a job in PR, getting a cat, hosting several dinner parties and would generally become a totally sexy jetsetter.

For all the things I couldn't have known then, (subjective/overtly optimistic self-projection aside- in my head all "jetsetters" looked like Penelope Cruz/A. Jolie hybrids), I wasn't that far off. In the last year: 42 airplanes, 10 states, six west coast expeditions, three trips into LAX, three trips into LGA, two city crushes and one pretty fantastic long weekend in Italy.

It hasn't all been cake but the odd bitter pill makes the frosting taste a little sweeter on days like this. I'm grateful.
I think I feel my age today. It sounds strange to say it out loud but I can't remember a birthday when that wasn't the case. I have a lot to learn and become a little more open to just how deep the "things I don't know" bucket actually is by the year. That's also how I know I'm not 22 anymore. At 22, I had the whole thing figured out. At 27, I don't and I like it that way.

27th Birthday Cake: Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake (yes, you read that right)

Adapted from Bon Appetit

Cake

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 3/4 cups boiling water
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sugar
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1 1/3 cups mayonnaise (do not use reduced-fat or fat-free)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting

10 ounces bittersweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao), chopped
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Cake

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour three 8-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 1/2-inch-high sides. Combine chopped chocolate and cocoa powder in medium metal bowl. Add 13/4 cups boiling water and whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.
Sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder into another medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat both sugars and mayonnaise in large bowl until well blended, 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 4 additions alternately with chocolate mixture in 3 additions, beating until blended after each addition and occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Divide batter among prepared cake pans.
Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 30 to 32 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks 20 minutes.
Run small knife around sides of cakes to loosen. Carefully invert cakes onto racks and let cool completely.

Frosting

Place chopped chocolate in medium metal bowl; set bowl over saucepan of simmering water and stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. Carefully remove bowl from over water; let melted chocolate cool until lukewarm, stirring occasionally.
Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth and creamy. Sift powdered sugar over butter and beat until well blended, about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Add melted chocolate and beat until well blended and smooth, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl.
Place 1 cake layer on platter. Spread frosting over top of cake layer to edges. Top with second cake layer. Spread remaining frosting decoratively over top and sides of cake.

Edible Patience: My First Vegetable Garden

2010-06-06T09:47:00.008-05:00

I am not a patient person. I do want to be. I keep hoping I'll grow into it. But man alive- does it have to take so long?

Exactly.

As an exercise in slowing down, enjoying the journey, etc. I have a new project I'm bouncing around like I have springs on my feet to share with you.

Behold: The Wicked Vegetable Patch
Rather, my crude interpretation of it. Don't laugh. This makes me feel awfully organized.

About three weeks ago, what had been a vacant lot near Wicked Park turned into a Grade A Community Garden. I immediately put pen to pretty paper to express an interest in a plot to the group in charge.

At first, I thought I was out of luck. Demand exceeded supply when it came to plots and my name was not called. Alas, a day later, my "gardening angel" got in touch volunteering to share, seeing as he had a full-fledged farm on his roof. Seriously- my neighbor/mentor de dirt is a spearhead of Green Roof Growers. Lucky lucky girl. As an experiment, Bruce even built the trellis pictured, making for what will surely be really happy tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis.
We picked up the plants on Friday after work and tilled the soil well into the dark. I sustained 15 mosquito bites to prove it. By Saturday morning, it felt like Christmas. I could not sleep, I just wanted to wake up and get my leafy loves into the ground.
This, I know, leads to the inevitable question: What did we plant and how long will we be waiting?

Per the latter, I'm not planning to see so much as shiny fruit till mid to late July. It's a short season but I'm still so very very excited. Now the what.

5 varieties of Heirloom tomato: Cherokee Purple, Thessaloniki (surprise, surprise), Caspian Pink, Kellogg’s Breakfast and Red Cherry
1 seedless Armenian cucumber (from seed)
1 classic zucchini
4 eggplants
1 row of Scarlet Nantes carrots (from seed)
1 Early Jersey cabbage (free from garden neighbors with an extra)
2 Basil plants
2 Dill plants
1 Italian parsley plants
1 Butternut Squash (from seed)

And one perfectly lovely green paw who is fully grown but ever on her journey toward self-actualization and if that takes vegetable gardening, then so be it.

There's Always Time for Pie. Always.

2010-06-03T15:35:00.007-05:00

These are strawberries that ripened two miles down the road from my parents' house. The air on Cape Cod is sea salty and all bakers worth their sel know what a little salt does for sweetness. It fundamentally moves the sweetness of a berry and, in my personal experience, leads to a juicy mouthstain Sephora would be behooved to copyright.

Not pictured is the rhubarb, which is a shame. There are children who don't know what rhubarb looks like. Rhubarb is stocky with an exterior not unlike celery. It is one of those lovely pinky reds not frequently found in edible nature. It is tart and and is glorious cooked down into compote and served over Greek yogurt. Or vanilla ice cream. Or Couer a la Creme. Or a spoon.

This is a pie that's been filled up with goodness. I do understand that goodness is a subjective term but strawberry and rhubarb grown in running distance of where said pie is being rolled out absolutely qualifies. Particularly since I can't run very far, very fast. Unless it's toward pie, which has been my exercise momentum in one form or another to date.

This is a pie that's been basted with yolk using the back of a teaspoon. Teaspoons work when your mother has a beautiful kitchen and too many drawers for brushes to hide in. Just be gentle. Pies are more sensitive than they are ticklish.

This is my pie. Strawberry Rhubarb. It was the first pie I made from scratch, for Jaimeson. It was the pie I made with a broken Honeyed heart. It was the pie I greeted a baby with. Last weekend it was the first pie I made for my family who I'd love to cook for more often if we weren't always dashing around, miles apart.

It is my pie of summer, always perfectly in season around my birthday in any place I care to be. I have yet to do a lattice perfectly but I also can't say I'm paying that much attention once I'm working on it. Detail orientation eludes the pie and I. Light dustings of flour will coat the entirety of the kitchen and someone may have a snowy handprint on their back. No matter what, the juice always bubbles up in the oven. My pie is excitable and imperfect and mostly sweet but those little bits of tart rhubarb will catch you off guard every third bite or so.

It's been a wild week but there was time for pie and that counts for everything.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Filling adapted from Smitten Kitchen, Crust adapted from Orangette
Serves 8

Crust
8 Tbsp. ice water, plus more as needed
1 ½ tsp. apple cider vinegar (combined with water and kept in fridge till needed)
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Filling
3 1/2 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices trimmed rhubarb (1 1/2 pounds untrimmed)
1 16-ounce container strawberries, hulled, halved (about 3 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar (scant)
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg yolk beaten to blend with 1 teaspoon water (for glaze)

Crust: Combine flour, sugar and salt using a pastry cutter or food processor. I went with the cutter because I tell myself it burns calories later consumed and forgotten. Cut in butter until coarse meal forms. Blend in enough ice water 2 tablespoons at a time to form moist clumps. Gather dough into ball; cut in half. Flatten each half into disk about 1/2 inch thick. Wrap separately in plastic; refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Keep chilled. Let dough soften slightly at room temperature before rolling. Can be made 1 day ahead and you could also do a double batch and wrap two disks of your four discs tightly to freeze for future pies.

Filling: Preheat oven to 400°F. Combine first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Toss gently to blend.

Putting it Together: Roll out 1 dough disk on floured work surface to 13-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch pie dish. Trim excess dough, leaving 3/4-inch overhang.

Roll out second dough disk on lightly floured surface to 13-inch round. Cut into fourteen 1/2-inch-wide strips. Spoon filling into crust. Arrange 7 dough strips atop filling, spacing evenly. Form lattice by placing remaining dough strips in opposite direction atop filling. Trim ends of dough strips even with overhang of bottom crust. Fold strip ends and overhang under, pressing to seal. Crimp edges decoratively.

Brush/Spoonback yolk over crust. transfer pie to baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350Â°F. Bake pie until golden and filling thickens, about another 25 minutes.

Green Un-Machine: Homemade Spinach Fettuccine

2010-05-24T23:39:00.001-05:00

The soft heft of fresh pasta has haunted me since Italy. Ever since I started making my own pie crusts a few years ago, I've wondered when I would finally break down a particularly stubborn fear set to make my own.

Turns out the when is in the years category. I've helped to feed pasta dough made by pros into pasta machines so I at least had a basic idea of how it should feel but I'd never pulled it together from scratch. Turns out it just took a quiet Sunday night when the Internet had been taken over by Lost fans to coach me away from my computer and toward a low shelf of forgotten cookbooks.

The book I ended up opening was Chez Panisse Pasta Pizza and Calzone by Alice Waters. Surely, if anyone can guide me through scratch cooking at its finest, it's the Madame of the American Slow Food movement. I happened to have a fresh supply of spinach and figured I'd go really nuts with a spinach/parsley pasta given that it didn't change the steps to dramatically.

One thing I'll say right off the top: pasta dough is more resilient than pie dough. It actually prefers a little handling, requiring 10-15 minutes of steady kneading before it rests.

Stop giggling.

Once the dough has gotten ahold of itself while wrapped tightly at room temperature, it's time to kick it up. Flour your work surface, flour your pin and put your back into it. Even with a sweat on my brow, I knew I couldn't get the pasta as thin as an actual pasta machine could. I'm alright with this.

There will be a time for machines but sometimes you just want to know you can do something with your own two hands. I'm so used to the buttery slip of pie dough that being able to maneuver the pasta was refreshing. Roll, roll, peel, flip. Roll, roll, stretch, peel, flip. It was cathartic.
Soon enough, I made peace. The pasta and I had reached where we could, so I rolled my sheet up tightly and cut the most uniform fettuccine I could muster. They were imperfect, slightly clumsy and were very clearly made by hand. They were beautiful.

I laid them out, exhausted, on a drying rack to rest for another hour. Even when the time came to cook, I had butterflies scooping up my bounty and approaching bubbling, salted water. Ready or not.

Sigh. Rustic and toothsome and perfect right out of the pot (which incidentally only takes about 5 minutes).

The pasta and I worked hard as just the two of us so I didn't take further pairing lightly. I flash toasted a small handful of pine nuts in a dry pan then wilted some additional spinach in my good olive oil.

At this point I stuck my full face in the bowl because it smelled so ridiculous. My good olive oil du jour (or rather, di giorno) was brought back from Alba and it's like it had been waiting months just to touch fresh pasta. Fragrant and spicy with a sliced garlic clove mingling somewhere in the mista. I topped it with the Parmesan I had on hand. Admittedly a cheap trollop as cheese goes but the pasta was graceful and I ate heartily.

Spinach Fettuccine
adapted from Chez Panisse

6 to 8 ounces of spinach leaves
1/4 cup Italian parsley leaves (hallelujah! we can get this locally now)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt

Remove the spinach stems if they're obtrusive and pull the leaves of the parsley if you haven't already. Puree in a food processor until you have about 1/3 of a cup of dense, dark green mass. Add the beaten egg, puree. Add salt, puree again.

In a separate, large bowl dump in your flour and make a deep well in the center. Use a rubber spatula to our the spinach puree from the processor bowl into the middle of this well. Now, start mixing the flour and spinach a little at a time, starting at the inside and working in a circular motion to incorporate from the middle out. This will take a minute if you're going to incorporate it evenly.

Once you have one mass in the middle and all flour involved in the green drama, add a couple drops of water. I used water with lemon because that's what I had in my glass. It worked. You want it to have just enough moisture to hold together but as Alice says, only experience will allow anyone to do this by feel. Being as this was my first time, I happened to get lucky and am still in no position to tell you what's what.

Turn it out onto a floured work surface and knead with abandon for 10-15 minutes. flatten and fold and flatten and fold twice....it's tough, it can handle it. Cover and leave for 45 minutes to prevent a skin from forming.

Forty five minutes later ("the magic of television..."), roll out. No, not to the club. Roll out your dough as flat as you can. Once you can get it no flatter, roll it up tightly (ensuring both sides have been freshly floured, as pictured). Cut your pasta to the desired width. Fettuccine is about an 1/4 of an inch.

Lay them out to dry for another hour before cooking. Everyone's working hard, I'm sure you could use a break. Check your email, have some wine. Maybe watch an episode of Firefly.

Now get a large pot of water boiling and do not be shy with salt for the water. Once you have a steady boil, add your noodles and cook for about 5 minutes. Check the texture/taste.

Just slightly salty and al dente?

You're done. Dress as desired.

Bellini, Banana, Blueberry, Brunch

2010-05-23T14:20:00.008-05:00

Wicked Park woke up this morning to pure, unadulterated sunshine. It was already warm and a little humid and that made the grass smell that much sweeter. I'll admit that my initial impression of the day was not necessarily a charmed one (stepping over an avian corpse on my way to NPR and coffee will do that to a person).

Alas, once I got going, it was clear that today was a day built for a slow brunch outside. Lisa showed up with wine for a light aperitif, Joanna, Damon and Mel brought the bubbles for Bellini's. FYI- a jar of peaches (no sugar added) will blend beautifully. Get that juice into a carafe and you've got mix-your-own Bellini's. And happy guests. Dave even stopped by in full biking regalia with flowers. Catholic guilt that he would not be around to do the dishes.
I knew we were having blueberry banana pancakes so I didn't want to sit over the stove for a savory item as well. Not on a day built for rolling around in the sunshine or taking naps in the shade. Strata it is.

I'll admit on the front end that it was thrown together with about zero regard for method. My cooking has gotten to a point of extreme flexibility and I admit to leaning a lot on things I just know will taste good together. Eggs with veggies is pretty tough to muck up but take the following with a pinch of (seasoned) salt.

Wicked Park Garden Strata
Serves 8

1/2 tsp butter
2 cups cubed French bread
3 TB fresh chopped chives
1/4 cup quartered grape tomatoes
1 cup fresh spinach leaves
2 chopped chicken sausages (we used sweet apple but most flavors would do)
8 eggs
1/2 cup milk (whatever's handy- we use 2%)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
4 oz goat cheese
Optional: chopped red pepper garnish

1) Preheat oven to 375. Butter an 12x9 inch casserole dish and set aside.
2) Evenly distribute your cubed bread in the bottom of the dish. Disperse chives, tomato, sausage and spinach over the top.
3) In a large bowl, whisk together eggs milk and seasoning then pour slowly over the top of the bread, vegetables and sausage.
4) Break goat cheese up with your fingers and sprinkle over the top of the strata. Thinly slided red pepper can be scattered over the top (I had some that needed to be used up and these kinds of dishes are hallowed burial grounds for stranded vegetables).
5) Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned and egg has set.

I'm not giving you my pancake recipe because it's not mine to give. I've been making buttermilk pancakes out of the original Joy of Cooking for many moons and am unconvinced that I will ever find better. Pancakes, like egg dishes, are incredible vehicles for stuff. Man alive do I ever love stuff.

This would be a nice experiment to try out over Memorial Day. It's fuss free, as any summer Sunday should be.

A Slow (Food) Soul: Thomas Keller's Roast Chicken, Potato Sunchoke Puree and Beet/Watercress Salad

2010-05-10T07:26:00.006-05:00

As is typical with Chicago, Spring has been a bit of a tug-of-war. It was 70-something for a spell in March and now it's May. There were ice chips at my windowsill last night.

Ice aside, there's tall grass in the yard and the flowers are at full tilt. This week marked the first of the big summer farmers markets opening for their regular seasons and there was a rebel yell that went up in my heart at the site of those tents.

The market wasn't the only thing that returned. Jaimeson came home after being on the road, but for a night, since February. What has been a rigorous tour schedule is relenting a bit for May and June and thus, a feast was in order.

Enter Dill Pickle Food Coop. A beautiful, fresh and "happy" chicken. Locally grown parsley and watercress. Prairie Fruits Farm goat cheese. An organic lemon. Sunchokes and gold potatoes.

And the beets. Deep garnet and bright gold with sunset orange on the edges. I wrapped each beet in foil and roast them for an hour at 425. Once they were cool enough to handle, the skins rubbed right off and those colors revealed themselves like gems in rock quarry.

They were then diced and scattered among the watercress, dotted with the soft goat cheese. We cut the sweetness with a lemon vinaigrette. Nothing fancy- juice of half a lemon with a quarter cup of olive oil, some salt and some pepper. The salad was simple. And it tasted sublime. Highly recommend.
The chicken was similarly simple in its ingredients but I need to give credit to ad hoc at home for teaching me a few new techniques. Ad hoc is one of the cookbooks I picked up at the IACP Culinary Trust Dinner...the night after Thomas Keller picked up an award for best cookbook in the Chefs and Restaurants category on its behalf. The book lived up to its reputation and delivered not only a gorgeous chicken but a straightforward bread pudding for dessert (not pictured...we gobbled).

As a product of all of the above, J walked into a house that smelled like home. It takes me awhile to get used to being with company again but I'll just keep feeding him. Welcome back, buddy.

Spring Awakening: Caturday Edition

2010-05-08T10:40:00.011-05:00

MAJOR UPDATE: As of the morning of May 9. Newbuck, as he will now be called, has decided to make an honest woman out of Honeycat by proposing marriage. I will of course continue to keep you informed though I will say I'm a little perturbed he has not so much as let me scratch his ears, let alone asked for my blessing.

There's a new buck in town looking for a little tail...cat tail, to be specific. For those of you just joining us, I have a 9 year old feline named Honeycat. HC, as she’s more commonly known (Twitter characters. You know how it is.), is friendly to the point of getting herself in trouble. I get calls regularly from strangers passing by, assuming she is lost for the way she desperately rubs against their legs and rolls over for belly rubs in front of our house. This includes kids. HC loves our neighbors.

You might remember an actual dark time exactly a year ago. I'm not writing this to celebrate the anniversary formally. We don’t need to discuss it past saying I’d rather get calls when she’s not missing than ever go through the grief and silence of her actually going missing again. And thank you again...you were awesome throughout.

Honeycat's love threshold very much extends to her own breed. Specifically the mencats of the Northwest side. HC is fixed but every single Spring and Fall there is a line-up of male cats who come a-courting (loudly), waiting in the yard for her affections.

Last year there was even a love triangle (below). The intrigue!

What she does under the picnic table or front stairs is her business. She's a single lady practicing responsible sex and I'm happy for her. Okay, I do remain just a little disturbed but I've yet to determine whether that's maternal concern, jealousy or worry for my own mental health that I document this so carefully.

My point is that it's Spring and we've got a new player (as of 5:30 AM). HC bolted from bed, out to the yard and halfway up a tree in 4 seconds. I ran to the window to ensure she wouldn't come back with another bird in her mouth but no, just another set of bright eyes barely visible at the base of her evergreen tree. Once I established that they did not belong to a raccoon, I trudged back to my blankets, eyes rolling.

About 10 minutes later she was back, mewing and kneading for her breakfast. Work up an appetite, did we? Fine. That was when the serenade started. I looked at the patio and made eye contact with this smitten kitten.

He's a good-looking cat. I get it. A tawny gray, large build, a full tail and stripes around his paws. If I were to say she had a type, long, gray and stray would be it.

As Wicked Park's resident Samantha, she's a lot of flash and sex but she also understands the importance of girl time. For all her shenanigans, HC has a green claw in the garden and would never think to leave a lap cold. Even the most inconvenient angle of lap. God forbid you be typing with cold wrists and forearms...friends don't let friends prioritize mobility over mutual warmth.
All this to say that she is loved by more than just me and it’s nice to be that kind of pet owner. Particularly because as that kind of pet owner, I have been allowed to dress a cat up as the cougar she is. Kills me every time.

So I might have understated something above. I have been thinking a lot about when HC was gone last year and made a donation to Paws Chicago this week. Partly to celebrate a miraculous reunion and partly to commemorate a fellow pet lover who lost her Dexter recently. Paws is a tremendous organization. If you find yourself seeing some savings from smaller heating bills or increased bicycle use entering these warmer months, it's a beautiful place to support with your efficiencies. A Spring awakening of another sort entirely.

Top Chef Masters...Complete with Resident Master

2010-05-06T01:00:00.005-05:00

Went to a Top Chef Masters viewing party tonight, hosted by Tony Mantuano, a contestant and the chef behind one of Chicago's biggest names- Spiaggia. The evening's ticket price? A $20 donation to Share Our Strength. So essentially come watch a local star on TV with him giving the play-by-play, snack on tricked out popcorns and tea cakes, have a glass or two of Prosecco AND give to a great cause.

Truthfully, I've always known Spiaggia was good but it's such an institution that I admit to personally finding it a little intimidating. As of tonight though, it's high on my list of places to try. Chef was playful, honest and a little brash...if that's a reflection on the main menu, I'm in.

On to the soundbites. Mantuano took questions while the team sorted out some early technical difficulties and then during commercials. Formspring for chefs is a big win in my book. I've included a few favorites below:

Ingredient he most wished he had? A sous chef.
Best restaurant in Chicago other than his own? Raved about the twice-cooked pork at Lao Sze Chuan. (feel like this is a cop-out answer to avoid offending but color me curious nonetheless)
Favorite team member ? Susur Lee is terrifying(ly good).
After hours life on-set? Jonathan Waxman is an incredible person to be in LA with. Every night, those of us who could still walk (those are really long days) took in some of the best restaurants in Los Angeles. Waxman can walk in anywhere and get a table for 6. He was and remains a pioneer of American cuisine.

I Am Ready for (Farmer's Market) Love

2010-05-01T10:10:00.009-05:00

If you follow me on Twitter, I'm afraid you're already aware (to a painful degree), how hard I fell for Portland while I was in town last week "for work." I have work in quotes because sometimes I need to pinch myself that this is part of what I do for a living.

I was there from Wednesday through Sunday attending the International Association of Culinary Professionals Conference. I feel like it's going to take a few posts to get through the ways my mind was a little blown but it's Saturday morning and this feels like the best place to start.

A week ago today, I fell for a farmer's market. Mushrooms of every shape and variety, chard that actually looked like a rainbow piled high on a folding table, flowers in every fattened form. I have two weeks more to wait until Chicago is in its proper market season. It was just enough time for my eye to wander. My appetite clearly followed and thus two early AM hours in the market became a pretty good representation of the full trip. All the photos in this post were shot at the Portland Farmer's Market and this post was inspired in part by a fellow attendee's post yesterday.
To be surrounded for five days by people who so profoundly love food the way I do... I slept for maybe 4-5 hours a night. I did not want to miss a single minute. It's not even that they simply love food, it's that they love the craft, love the energy that truly good food brings. And man alive...they have taken the time to get educated and are so excited to pass along the good word. I drank it in. I ate it up.My hotel (The Ace Hotel-highly recommend) had bikes for lending and every morning I got up with my own timezone to tool around a two-wheel friendly town. The Ace also housed two establishments that anchored my days- Stumptown Coffee as the sun came up, Clyde Common cocktails as the sun went down. I was a regular. I even shared my Voodoo Doughnut treasures with the bartenders. That's affection.

Everyone was so sweet. Not in a saccharine, "what can you do for me" way, but a genuine, earthy interest. Adventurers, idealists, authors, editors, idols- many times a combination therein. You know me- I talk so much. I talk so fast. Yet for so much of the trip, I just wanted to listen.

The mistresses of ceremonies were two of the most prolific women in the edible world- Ruth Reichl and Kim Severson. They were hilarious. And smart. And I'm gushing. I can't even bother being embarrassed.
We ate some of the best food that Portland has to offer. From end to end, street cart to white tablecloth. The conference itself was a string of long days but from an organization perspective, they did the best job I've seen weaving the stunning location into the daily activities. Bakery tours, brewery tours, biodynamic vineyard tours (I did this one)... memories of the conference are inseparable from the host city in the best way.
It still wasn't enough time. I could go back for a week and still leave wanting. My last night was spent with dive bars, diners and a belly dancer thanks to Doniree, in town by a serendipitous fluke. We're in the same boat, she and I. Both living in great places but easily enamored of this new one. Everything was so lush, so clean. It was an extra large village and the folks living there were proud stewards. Farm to table is actually being implemented as the norm by a city. Two separate cab drivers gave me the sales pitch.
I managed an evening with some old friends, caught in town by a small miracle before they head out for a summer on the road. As though I needed another layer to love the city through, seeing it with the folks actually living there took it just a little bit further. Streets lined with pregnant rhododendrons, bungalows with wide front porches and the outline of Mt Hood in the distance.

When I was a freshman in college I listened to India Arie's "Ready for Love" more times that could possibly have been mentally healthy. Particularly absent any sense of irony. The angst, the impatience all sitting, legs dangling at the cusp. I wanted so badly for my life to start. Its a time that's been front of mind lately because I recently unearthed my journal from that summer. The one where I lost any sense of gravity and fell in love for the first time. I'm starting to realize that its the exact sense of romantic possibility that drives my travel habit.
When I manage to have a strange, new city opened up in front of me, I get that same rush. More than two days in a new place and I can imagine what my life looks like there. Do you do that too? Do you fall for places like you fall for people? I want to know what a place tastes like, what its extremes are. I want to know the corners only its closest friends care to patronize.
I've fallen for this place. I saw a snapshot of what my life looked like there and I savored it. For now it's not an affair that requires a commitment. For a few days at a time I can return to bury my face in its lush greens and lean back on a wind that smells like snow and moss and dark soil.

So yes, this is my infatuation and the beautiful thing is that I can go back. But for the time being, I walk through my front gate into Wicked Park and I can feel that warmth swell up inside me all over again. I'll keep traveling and I'll fall in love from time to time. But after what feels like a month away, I'm happy to be home.

This is a Reggie sandwich from Pine State Biscuits. After all that sentimental produce, this is an appropriate end note because once you take down half this beautiful beast-buttermilk biscuits with fried chicken, bacon and mushroom gravy-you can't do a whole lot else. Pure romance.

Eataly by the Rules: 72 Hours in the World's Cutest Boot

2010-04-21T19:50:00.008-05:00

Airplanes remain the final frontier of unplugged living for me. Even when the omnipresent Internet is available, I can’t bring myself to use it once off the ground. That's the space reserved for reading and writing.

It’s little rules like these that keep me writing at all these days. The problem is that a few little rules stacked up starts looking like a squirrely Jenga tower.

No writing with an email program open. Gmail or Outlook.
No writing with a movie on. I don't even have cable and yet.
No writing on a somnolent post-lunch belly. (yes, this needs to be a rule)

I think you can see that it was time for some new rules...and maybe a few exceptions

Rule: If your girlfriends invite you on a long weekend to Italy with most expenses paid, never say no. If that trip involves a large conference devoted to wine and olive oil, not only do you say yes, you get that ticket booked within a day's time. And thus, one month after Becca and Gina suggested it, we were on the ground in Verona, fresh off the plane at VinItaly. The building behind me in the photo above? There were 8 others just like it. Each representing a region in Italy. Huge.

Rule: If winemakers offer that they'd prefer you try the whole line rather than the 2-3 vintages on display, "Grazie", "Prego" and repeat as necessary.

Rule: Don't judge a book by its cover but compliments on the wine bottle gets you a lovely breed of pink frissante.
Rule: If you love it in the States, you love it even more in Italy. This applies to pizza, wine, scooters and Slow Food. I bought myself a kid's book about making cheese to help improve my Italian then did an organic wine tasting. Once we'd had enough wine, Gina would give an Italian lesson based on our loosened pronunciations.

Rule: If the guy at the awesome olive oil booth insists on having his chef whip up some lunch, go with it. Jacamo, wherever you are, genius.

Rule: If it's meat and the Italian who raised the beast is the one that butchered it, you should try it. That sounds dark but donkey sausage is delicious.

Rule: Your teeth are never as red as you think they are. When you think to check, that is.

Rule: Lago di Garda is the perfect place to bribe trailer park guards with spastic winking. The photos and the sand are worth it. Also note that Europeans are pretty brilliant with their luxury trailer parks on the waterfront.

Rule: When a professional pizza man offers you a shift in his shop, you should maybe try to negotiate full-time. I could have stayed at Okay Pizzeria a good bit longer. We were clearly great for business.
Rule: It's tough to go wrong with this combo: friendly local, chipper friends, quiet wine town in the hills of Piedmont, gorgeous, traditional dinner. Just add wine. Also, watching a dashing Italian man flirt with one of your best girls doesn't get old. Less of a rule, more of a recommendation.
Rule: Waiting for Gaja is a lot like Waiting for Guffman. It's still entertaining even if he doesn't show.
Rule: It's rude to say no to moscato in the morning. You're on vacation. It was made 3 km away. Live a little.
Rule: Even dry pasta tastes better. Also, don't put truffle oil in a leather suitcase without a ziploc bag buffer. Just trust me.
Rule: On a rare occasion it will hit you that you're having one of those adventures that you will be talking about many years from now at the very moment that the occasion is still happening. Go with it. Happy is very chic for Spring. Also, welcome to Milan.

Rule: Italian elevators are built for cuddling.

Rule: This is a big one. Trust the universe. It started with a restaurant recommendation from Marco (far right) via Twitter. It ended with a five hour food PR tweet-up in Porta Romana, just outside Milan. Grazie mille to Marco, Sara and Marco for the drinks at Il Cavallante and dinner at Ristorante Dongio. You turned a a short stay in a beautiful city into a case study on why social media goes beyond connections and into community. Know this rule turned into one big, cheesy geek-out but two tweets turned into dinner on the other side of the world with like-minded people. Talk to me about that.
Rule: Adventuring is hard work. Maps make for decent blankets.

Rule: Rinse, repeat. Grazie, Prego, Grazie, Ciao.

The Salty Sweet Life: Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte*

2010-04-06T00:02:00.013-05:00

* Alternatively titled: "If Sex Was Baked It Would Have an OREO Crust and a Peanut Butter Chocolate Cream Cheese Middle"

Long absences aside, I'm not much of a hugger. But I will make you a pie with butter crust and serve it with hand-whipped cream melting off the top. I have a devout tendency to protect my space but the affection hasn't baked off of any cake I've ever made. There's just a balanced bit of bite in the frosting. A stack of lemon bars with shortbread crusts isn't made less sweet by a whiskey chaser.
In that way, I am a human equivalent of a quintessential combination- salty sweet. Never fully committed to one or the other, I am unlikely to provoke insulin shock with a superbly sweet nature but am incapable of hardening a heart on purpose.
This is my kind of dessert. Savory hits of peanut butter, creamy folds of cream cheese and then the chocolate. Goodnight...the chocolate.

In the midst of a folded-peanut-butter-cream-cheese-whipped-cream-mousse, bits of bittersweet chocolate and roasted peanuts rolled in cinnamon and espresso appear to break up that milky heaven with a toothsome crunch. It embarrasses me that one sentence was just that long but how do you break that up without the grammatical equal of a toothsome crunch?

As you've likely gathered if you've hung around for more than a post or two, I'm on the road a lot. What you might not realize is that for as much as I'm gone, I have a full family of friends who travel 10 times the amount I do. Jaimeson is my personal pied piper of musical gypsies but over the years the troop has widened considerably. I occasionally envy their rootlessness but, more than anything, I love the ability to provide an edible anchor of sorts when they appear in a 5 mile radius of Wicked Park's winding brick path.

These visits have punctuated the last five years. Once a month or so, someone will turn up to do something wholly wonderful onstage. New people, new sounds, new fun to be had and stories to be told... it's not a conscious effort but you would be hard-pressed to find a more interesting group of humans to spend time with on occasion. I just try to err on the side of mindful when talking about those occasions- we all have a right to determine our own level of public.

All this to say that it was one such visit that gave me a real good excuse to make this dense bit of magic so Amen for that. And on that note I'll throw out two related recommendations.

1) Food people love music and music people love food. I mean if you had to name the two concepts that gave you the most basic level of joy on a consistent basis, these two go together like peanut butter and jelly. Or peanut butter and chocolate, as the case may be. That link has never been more pronounced than it is now. Allie is a master bread baker and sends secret salad dressing ingredients. Elliot started a whole Tumblr dedicated to eating healthy on tour. And Jaimeson. I think you know by now.

If these kinds of things excite you (as they clearly do me), you should really check out the Epicurean Musician. Andrew interviews bands and musicians of all kinds to get the inside track on all the best ingestibles.

This week? He interviewed Cary Brothers. Cary released his second full-length album, Under Control (link is to iTunes, you will need that), on April 6th. The title kind've says it all, "Reformed Fast Food Addict Turns Toward Greener Pastures." Yes, I recognize the full irony of his TKTC love directed in the same breath with kale and asparagus while I'm here today posting about ~~sex on a cakestand~~ a Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte. However I will happily take the nod that this oft-neglected corner d'Internet helped point the way to greener living. It's nice that we can all feed each other in different ways.

I realize that's cheesy. Pop a Lactaid.

2) While I'll probably keep to my ambiguous personal guidelines regarding what to post and why, I think I could probably do a better job of speaking up when some of these folks are coming to Chicago...they give good (great) show, as the saying goes.

Starting with Bess Rogers and Lelia Broussard at the Elbo Room, this coming Monday, April 19. Be there- it's gonna be a rock show.

Without further ado (and thank you for your patience with all ado above), the instructionals for a pretty piece:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte
Ingredients:
For the crust:
32 Oreo cookies, finely processed into crumbs
5 1/3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Small pinch of salt

For the crunch:
1 1/4 cups salted peanuts, finely chopped, divided (for the filling, crunch and topping)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (I used bittersweet chips chopped down)
2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. espresso powder
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
Dash of ground nutmeg

For the filling:
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted (I found 1 cup perfectly sufficient)
12 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter (not natural)
2 tbsp. whole milk

For the topping:
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Directions:
To make the crust, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and place it on a baking sheet. Combine the Oreo crumbs, melted butter and salt in a small bowl. Toss with a fork to moisten all of the crumbs. Press into a thin layer covering the bottom and sides of the springform pan. Freeze the crust for 10 minutes. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before filling. Yes, that is the only baking that needs to be done. It's awesome.

To make the crunch, in another small bowl combine 1/2 cup of the chopped peanuts, mini chocolate chips, sugar, espresso powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Toss with a fork to mix and set aside.

To prepare the filling, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip 2 cups of the cream until it holds medium peaks. Beat in 1/4 cup of confectioners’ sugar and whip until the cream holds medium-firm peaks. Scrape the cream into a separate bowl and refrigerate until needed.

Wipe out (do not wash) the mixer bowl, replace the whisk with the paddle attachment, and beat the cream cheese with the remaining 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar on medium speed until the cream cheese is satiny smooth. Beat in the peanut butter, whole milk, and 1/4 cup of the chopped peanuts until well combined.

Using a large rubber spatula, gently stir in about 1/4 of the whipped cream just to lighten the mousse. Still working with the spatula, stir in the crunchy peanut mixture, then gingerly fold in the remaining whipped cream. Scrape the mousse into the crust, mounding and smoothing the top. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight; cover with plastic wrap as soon as the mousse firms.

To finish the torte, put the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Leave the bowl over the water just until the chocolate softens and starts to melt, about 3 minutes; remove the bowl from the saucepan. Bring the 1/2 cup of cream to a full boil and remove it from heat. Pour the cream over the chocolate and, working with a rubber spatula, very gently stir together until the ganache is completely blended and smooth.

Pour the ganache over the torte, smoothing with a metal icing spatula. Scatter the remaining peanuts over the top and chill to set the topping, at least 20 minutes. When the ganache is firm, remove the sides of the springform pan. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Source: adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan and Annie's Eats, where I saw it first.

This last picture brought to you by a great show at the Riviera, the end of what I imagine to have been an awesome tour (Jaimeson was on it for a few weeks, dance moves and all), some deliciously obscure beer, two kinds of whiskey, two full bands and crew on one tour bus, a torte that turned out worthy of its alternate title (at top courtesy of Elliot) and one song made popular in a little film called Beetlejuice. Salty, sweet and delicious the whole way through.

Bourbon Belly: Longman and Eagle

2010-03-30T18:06:00.002-05:00

This is a post about wanting. Wanting a sense of newness, wanting whiskey, wanting substance, wanting to do the right thing the right way. Tuesdays are just wanting kind of days.

Which is not to say they can't be grateful days as well. Particularly when all of my wants meet such satisfying ends. Enter Longman & Eagle. Here is a place I'd been wanting to try. Nestled on Kedzie just up a major artery from the heart of Logan Square, the byline for this place reads "Eat Sleep Whiskey." I'll get down to the first and the last shortly but the first thing I remember hearing about this place was that it would be an inn. A proper, rock'n'roll inn where you pick up your key from the barkeep and get a cup of coffee and a shot of whiskey in the morning. That is up the alley of so many favorite people, I run out of fingers and toes to count them on.

My last few months have been glazed by greener grass fixations on places like New York and Nashville. Longman & Eagle reminds me of the famed fleaholes of yore on Manhattan's Lower East Side, only less fleas and coming with spirits knowledge that borders on encyclopedic. The neighborhood applies a little bit of Flatbush, a little bit of East Nash and a lot of Chicago which appears to be the crux of both.

I needed out of my routine for a night and requested Molly for a single but proper cocktail just off the blue line last week. We walked in and sat right down at the bar (my preferred seat so I can stare at the selections). Our bartender introduced himself (Derek) and promptly whisked us away from our good intentions. A cocktail and maybe a nosh we said. We started with whiskey sours (top picture) and the sun set right on top of the glossy foam topper only egg whites can give. It was glorious.

We set in on the menu, laying our top choices out to Derek, who said all of those things were good, but they would be there another time. The Flight of the Pig would not.

I'm familiar with Slagel Family Farms. They sell their wares out of the walk-in at mado (another place high on my to-dine list) and appear at the farmer's markets from time to time. Pigs in general seem to give me pause these days. They are smarter than the dogs I love so dearly and I can't bear the pain they suffer at the hands of a industry sorely in need of reform...and yet I eat pork. The caveat being that I (enthusiastically) eat pork that's been raised with the attention actual farmers give. Farmers like the ones running Slagel, Gunthorpe or Jake's. Makes all the difference (all taste, no tears) and I love supporting restaurants who are of a similar mindset (and usually even better educated on some less traditional cuts- see menu above).

That was an incredible meal in a low-key, unassuming new place. Sitting at the bar in the middle of the week, sharing course after course with my best girl and bantering with a fantastic mix-sir... some courses tasted like candy, some like salted rinds. Black Olive Caramel- who thinks of this stuff? All while sipping on a whiskey sour or a local brew. Toward the end of the night, Derek mixed up what will become Longman & Eagle's answer to a mimosa at brunch- the Seelbach.

It was the perfect note to end on because it secured that I'd be back. As a matter of fact, I'm headed that way shortly. And I won't be left wanting.

Longman & Eagle
2657 North Kedzie Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647-1607

Semiramis, Sister Act, City Love

2010-03-21T10:36:00.005-05:00

This weekend has been spectacular but you won't find any of the usual suspects in its description. The weather was murky at best, spitting wet snow at worst (most of Saturday). There were no parties, no new corner bakeries or backstreet bistros discovered, no grand plans to be seen. I don't think I've put lipstick on since Friday and even then it was because fishing in my bag for chapstick wasn't catching anything.

Instead, I spent 90% of it alone or with my best friend/neighbor. We made a Brown Line run up to Kedzie on Friday night and it still blows my mind that it takes 1 train and less than $3 to get all the way up into Albany Park, one of the city's more concentrated Middle Eastern neighborhoods. You step off the train and there it is. The best damn Lebanese restaurant I have thought to want. Semiramis.

Last year about this time, there were some strange things afoot in my health department. After an especially long afternoon in an MRI tube, Molly picked me up and we went straight there and had an incredible go of both food and company. Friday, it'd been a wild week* for both of us and we wondered if our friends would be there again. They were and again it was wine, fattoush, kafta and fat fries coated with sumac and garlic mousse. Semiramis and places like it remind me why I love city life so much.

Saturday was a day mostly categorized by the snow. I did 5 miles at the gym because Sister Act was on and I wanted to keep going till "Oh Maria."

Molly and I took off to the Empty Bottle Farmer's Market** picking up a small lemon tart from Celestial Kitchens and a gorgeous fresh baguette from Cook Au Vin. The latter is opening a new location on Milwaukee in Logan Square this summer and I'm looking forward to warm walks up there for bread. Or perhaps a crepe (should you ever be in a position to talk me into going to get a crepe with you, know that the word itself will suffice). There was a Target run for a heart rate monitor (thanks again to Coach Gina) and a quick stop-in at Goddess and the Grocer for their lemon spinach artichoke dip and some Israeli couscous.

I watched the entire 5th season of Weeds (croquet, ftw) and we feasted on the picture at top for dinner: fresh baguette, salted butter, quince preserves, prosciutto, a wedge of Boucheron cheese, fruited Israeli couscous and some of that glorious green dip. We had wine and then I folded laundry. Today I'm taking my heart rate monitor for a spin after brunch at Dave and Lisa's. This weekend was not all that exciting on paper but in reality was filled to the brim with everything I needed.

*When I say wild week I mean so wild I think I actually mentally blocked my ATM pin number. It is the strangest thing. I have had the same one for 3 years and then POOF! It was gone from my head. It's hard for me to even admit this beyond wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else?!

**I will be avoiding travel at all costs on the third weekend of every month in order attend this market. Farmers market in a rock venue with killer bloody marys and excellent vendors. In my neighborhood. Only exception could be Portland next month but the Portland of my imagination is one big rock venue farmers market so I feel justified.