Good Morning, Süßigkeit!

Kindle Cover Craft Time!

2012-01-23T15:56:00.001-06:00

I love books. You know this. And I love beautiful books, nice paper and smooth covers and all of the colors when they stack up to the ceiling, covering an entire wall of whatever abode I'm living in this year. And I thought that I would be one of those stalwart anti-e-readers until the day I died, but alas, things are different now. Perhaps it's because I'm (relatively) fresh from a book-move, the source of the only real, true anxiety that surfaces in my life. When I'm faced with moving my books from point A to point B, chances are the stress caused by the daunting task results in some mixture of tears, booze, and stupid choices. So when my mom and sister got me a Kindle for Christmas this year, I was actually thrilled. Anything in the public domain? Yes please! PDFs of my documents? Yay! Even though I lusted after the Kindle Fire, I wound up getting the Kindle Touch with 3G so I would be able to get books and things on the farm. Things= The New Yorker every Monday. Thrills a minute!

Anyway, the point of this entry is not so much the kindle itself but the case for it. These suckers are another $40 on Amazon so thrifty crafty Val decided to forgo fancy leather and overhead lighting for cheap and booky. Hey! That's me!

This is attempt one at making a Kindle case from a poor piece of literature that found its way to the St. Vincent de Paul thriftstore. I think I'll make another one when I get back from Hawaii, since the book wasn't wide enough to make a nice looking side edge. Also I'll use a better exacto knife...

Find a book that is at least an inch wider than your e-reader. With a clear, non-tacky glue glue the back page to the back cover of the book. Pull open the front cover and the cover page to be out of the way and then paint the edges of the rest of the pages with the glue. Leave overnight to dry. In the morning you should be left with a solid book where only the front cover and cover page open.

Trace your kindle and then with an exacto knife cut into the book a few pages at a time. Going too deep too quickly results in tears. That's what she said. Also, I love the page that wound up being my backdrop!

Once your kindle can fit comfortably in your hollowed out book (I went about 75 pages deep), clean up as much of the ratty looking edges you can manage and glue the inside edges, leaving no gobs or gloops. Then put a smooth coat of glue over the back page as well. I left the top edges glue-free but to each his own.

Voila! Kindle Case 2.0 will have clean edges, more space on the right side, and some sort of rubber band to keep the machine from toppling out. So far the little guy stays pretty snug.

Snow Day Turns Into Snow Week!

2012-01-17T20:03:00.001-06:00

I am back home after four days in Seattle, looking at the sunny blue skies through the cedars unencumbered by the fabled snow that was supposed to bring this state to its frozen little knees. We are kind of at halftime right now-- the first round of our “major snow event” has come and gone, hitting Capital Hill with a Chicago-worthy blast of powder while sparing the northend and the bottom of the hill altogether. Sometime—anytime, really, round two is supposed to hit, and depending on where the arctic low front and the storm collide could mean anything from 6-10 inches of snow to just a load of unpleasantly cold rain.

After my fear of snowpocalypse 2012 drove me out of the city, it seems that most of the meteorologists have scaled their doomsday predictions back and are just laying in wait like the rest of us to see what unfolds. Even though I can't say for certain what the second half of Snowmaggedon holds, there is a very high probability it will include huddling around a fire after the power goes out at my mom's place and trying to read by the light of our Coleman lantern. Or not. One of the beauties of Snow Day is you never know what exactly is in store. But at least I can tell you how the first phase of Snow Day went down. Like all of my favorite holidays, it involves copious amounts of song, snow, and food.

Saturday I was sick and spent a pretty satisfying afternoon drinking tea while laying in bed and watching Firefly. I certainly would have been fine vegging there until I was back to full health but I had plans to go to Seattle for karaoke and who am I to deny Jamie and her friends the chance to hear my sultry, sinus-y rendition of “Living on a Prayer” just because I felt like total shit? No one, that's who. I put a bra on, slapped on some eye make-up, and caught the boat. I should have sensed something was brewing when I had to run back into the house for gloves and a hat, but it wasn't until pulling up next to the ferry's paybooth that word reached me about the incoming snow. The woman jerked the sliding window open a few inches, a wrist emerged that physically shuddered from the cold, and a voice came through the tiny gap, “I think tonight it's meant to come down hard. Are you sure you're prepared?” before handing me back my card and slamming the window shut. But my last three winters were spent in Illinois. I didn't think twice about it.

Off the boat and I head to Super Deli Mart, the new mecca of microbrews and other fancy schmancy beers that masquerades as a neighborhood bodega just on the other side of the ferry. I have a schooner of a Dogfish Head Belgian style ale while shopping and make off with some cider and this super schmancy stuff.

Russian River Supplication Sour Belgian

Conversations about the snow-to-be and Saturday night escape plans filled the shop. The Seattleite in me started second guessing my trip.

Once parked by Jamie's house on capital hill, the snow was out of mind. We had two hours in a Japanese style karaoke room at Rock Box that reminded me of Hawai'i and our frequent escapes to the air-conditioned booths when the temperature got too hot (read: over 84 degrees). I ordered spam musubi for the occasion but neglected to sing Alicia Keys. I did, however, sing some pretty shitty Adele, amongst other things. Ryan stole the show with his tambourine skills and new-friend Matt actually had a voice on him, so it wasn't all cracking high notes and giggles in there (which, I suppose, is a good thing).

photo courtesy of Jamie!

Booze plus loopy sicky feeling meant staying the night at Jamie's rather than driving to the ferry and when I awoke, what do you suppose greeted me?

What a cute little Seattle amount of snow, I thought. I gave it no mind and just four blocks away at Cafe Vita nothing was sticking to the ground. Smug Val. I conquered the Rockies! This can't phase me. I would just wait for Jamie to get back from taking Ryan to the airport and hang out with her for a bit before leaving for Port Orchard. And why not?

Alright, that's a fair reason.....

We got about two inches in one hour! It was crazy! And not just this slushy Seattle snow, but real, powdery, MIDWEST-STYLE snow. It kept coming, too.

But we are optimists and this snow brought us a lot of joy. We walked through Seattle U's campus, past pick-up snowball fights and brightly dressed Baptist preachers whose awesome all-purple suits and gigantic hats perfectly popped against the clean-white backdrop of untrodden snow. Jamie and I decided to hope Seattle's fear of wintry weather would keep people indoors and headed to the usually impossible Skillet for brunch, where we were greeted immediately with a table that overlooked the slip-sliding street. Cars began to struggle on the incline and we basically decided over some snowday biscuits and gravy that I was going to be spending another night on the Hill rather than even attempt to drive. Casey came over to wait out the storm, too, and after watching some old school Leo we got to work on yet another snowday meal. Sea-Tac's one de-icer meant Matt had an entire day in the airport only to wind up getting put on a flight out the next day, so he, along with neighborhood buddy Taylor, joined us for a heavy snowday dinner. I had been black-boxed: make a meal, Jamie says, of butternut squash, kale, peas, carrots, celery, snowman and snowflake shaped pasta, and here was the result. Delicious!

My car gets bundled up.

I was still feeling kind of crummy, though chances are that had a lot to do with wearing the same clothes for two days running and not having a toothbrush. Either way I dosed myself with some Nyquil and had some wacky, cough-free, dreams. Then I woke up and made pancakes. Snowday!

Jamie worked from home as I watched the snow fall and read The New Yorker. She made some carrot and apple juice which, along with my little cutie pie from High Five Pie and coffee, served as my lunch.

I probably could have chanced it and made it to the ferry without hitting one of the icy side streets, but instead, and after much waffling, I decided to stay another night in Seattle. I joined Jamie for a yoga class, which dissipated my jitters and then made us Japanese curry, which I have been trying to feed this girl for at least ten years. Success!

And while I was on the phone she made oatmeal cookies!

We were all supposed to have happy hour tonight but NPR's Steve Scherr succeeded in scaring the almighty shit out of me as I drove on the relatively clear streets to U-District. From the sound of it, we should have been blanketed with twice the amount of our average annual snowfall by noon, so I simply got coffee and hopped on the highway towards the boat. Like I said, it is all clear blue skies in these parts. Steph is now making some spaghetti squash and meatballs, so at least snowday fare lives on even if the rain decides to come instead!

Journey Home!

2011-12-16T17:35:00.001-06:00

Greetings from Port Orchard! My solo journey across the West has found its endpoint, here, leaning back in a kitchen chair upholstered by my dad and looking out of the huge window in my brother's former bedroom at a squirrel trying, non-too successfully, to shimmy up the bird feeder. The air smells like home-- like rain, pine trees, and the salty sting of the Puget Sound. This comes as a refreshing relief after 4 days in a car which started to take on a distinct, nomadic smell of its own, courtesy of two stressed out cats, their litter box, my increasingly filthy self, and Culvers.

I wound up working for an extra week after the season's end, which cut down my pre-drive preparation and my time with Illinois folks considerably. I was lucky enough to make it to Chicago for a couple days and to stick around and have a few nice meals at Mustard's new restaurant. I cleaned, and re-cleaned the trailer, moved my mountain of books from Andy's house, and aside from some washing accidentally left on the lines in Brian's bedroom and some books scattered about, I managed to get out of there in relatively good time and with very little Val-Footprint left on the place, just in case one of my future roomies gets there before I do come Spring.

All in all my drive was relatively easy. I spent an extra day with my aunt and cousin in Minnesota, which made the trip feel a little like I was a holiday maker rather than a long haul trucker. I then spent the next day driving straight through the foggy and snow-crusted nothing of North Dakota, only to spend two extra stressful hours frantically driving around the town of Dickinson in search of an open hotel room that wasn't already booked by some Halliburton employee who was working at the near-by oil fields. Driving in the dark in ND wasn't so bad-- there were no lights on the interstate, but not many cars or curves either. The weird light from the oil wells rippled like a hundred big bonfires from across the grasslands and eventually I was far enough on the outskirts of the oil colony to find a room in a frozen little inn with an icy little front desk lady where I could stay for the night. I slept a restless, stressed out sleep, and decided that I'd try to make the drive in one fell swoop, Montana to Seattle, with intermittent naps.

Montana, by the way, is gigantic. It took me almost thirteen hours to drive across the entire state and that was going about 75 the entire time. I got a lot of nice thinking in during my Montana drive; the podcasts I downloaded didn't do me much good on an ipod with a dead battery. Montana's three radio stations-- an NPR that it shares with Wyoming as well, a Christian station, and Fox Radio, would crackle in and out of life as I skirted around the mountains, so I would just switch it off and sink into my thoughts until those got the better of me. Then twenty minutes of fuzzy Christmas music would come back into my life. It was nice to be driving alone but however nice it was to contemplate at length while surrounded by big Montana sky I would have given most anything in the world to have a co-pilot take the wheel when it came to driving through the big Montana mountains. It got dark. It got curvy. Not fun.

I didn't make it far into the dark mountain passes, my sweaty hands fearfully gripping the wheel and my voice growing increasingly shrill as I talked myself through the steep climbs and blind, twisting descents, before I decided on stopping for the night in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. It's been so long since I've driven in the mountains-- I can't believe how petrified I was. I was so happy to pull into the Super 8, I wanted to reach across the counter and kiss the mustachioed woman who checked me in. Instead I released the nomadic road cats into stately room 117 and walked across the slippery street for some chinese food that I'd then eat sitting up in my bed while watching The Big Bang Theory.

I'm glad I stayed, but the snow that was coming down in the morning put new fear in my heart that Snoqualmie Pass would be a replay of the night before, though this time with snow or frozen rain. I was jittery and nervous but was soothed by an empty interstate, a set of tire chains in my trunk, and the calming voice of Colum McCann reading a Benedict Kiely story. Love!

And it was a simple, super fast drive across the state of Washington. I crossed the Cascades with no incident and was greeted with the grey skies and misty rain that will make up my winter. The cats are still cowering under the bed, but they probably think I'm going to fish them out and jam them in the wretched carriers for another 12 hour day on the road-- understandable enough, I suppose.

My Pretty Amazing Year.

2011-11-21T20:09:00.000-06:00

Well folks, I'm now officially done with my internship at Henry's Farm! I moved here at the end of February and had nine months of early mornings, long days, two hour lunch breaks, delicious food and crazy weather. I came to the farm on the heels of Thundersnow, that monster blizzard that laid Chicago to waste and resulted in my first night here pushing the struck truck through thigh deep snow by the light of the moon. I spent all of March with a shovel in my hand, digging and mixing soil, alternately freezing outside or sweating like mad in the greenhouses. Spring came and we moved into the fields. I spent an inordinate amount of time daydreaming about Carles Puyol during those first months of day-long weeding jobs, before I managed to train my mind to soar into this wonderfully contemplative and creative state. It's very possible that this might be the best thing to happen in my life as a result of my year here, the kind of deep thinking that now happens when I'm alone in my head, surrounded by nature and focusing on some repetitive task or another. Still, that can all come crashing down around me in a blast of bad music if anyone even so much as mentions the words “Half way there.” Bon Jovi, she says, shaking her head, one of my four, often shifting, farm nemeses.

A beautiful Spring blossomed, I was awed that the seeds I put in the ground were indeed growing into food and FAST. I got my only sunburn of the year during a 60 degree day in April. It poured in the Spring and we put off planting for weeks, praying for the rain to stop. Our transplants went in during the couple tiny windows when the sky was dry, but the fields were still a sloppy mess that couldn't be tilled and which filled our boots with rainwater from the puddles we knelt in. Zoe came home after the big earthquake in Japan cut her study abroad short and a month later Asa was whisked away from college after the tornadoes struck down in Alabama. I learned some of my first Japanese during a long and muddy Saturday that we interns and the family spent planting all our onion transplants: doro means “Mud”, doro doro means “muddy”, and doro doro dorri means “muddy lane”.

And now you know.

Other Japanese phrases learned this year include: Ichiban waturi stoh dane (“you're the worst!”) chi chai (“tiny”) jchew (“eleven”), anno... (“well...”) and sechai ichi no anu (“You're the greatest dog in the world!”) Both the first and the last were learned to honor Koko, the delightfully wonderful and aggravatingly mischievous farm dog, who also happens to be one of those four nemeses listed above.

Pretty soon the rain stopped and the heat started in earnest. The days grew longer, the vegetables exploded, and we spent months sweating under the 90 degree sun which really outdid itself for most of August, when it climbed into the 100's (oh, you shouldn't have!) We started praying for the rain, supplementing that fruitlessness with rain dances and, finally, irrigation. Every three hours for what felt like weeks we would stop what we were doing in the field and move two dozen hoses from one row of vegetables to another. Back bent and running down the uneven terrain, the black plastic burning your hand from the heat as it slips through your palm; nothing like a mile-long, doubled over sprint three or four times a day to appreciate the heat at its fullest.

Around the third week of days over a hundred degrees, I told the guys I'd be willing to cover any of their weeks at the Saturday markets in order to have one less super hot work day in the field and boy did they take me up on the offer. That was the end of the guys going to the market and my routine became pretty constant: work Tuesday morning til Saturday (a day that starts at 1am and goes til almost 7pm) and instead have Sunday and Monday off. I think I set an intern record, attending every market save one from the end of July to the final market in November. I loved it, though. I got to see a lot of my dearies and it was wonderful to me that the cap of my solitary work week was a day surrounded by hundreds of people, many of whom I've known for going on four years. The trailer certainly became more solitary as the season came to a close, though, and I started spending a lot more time escaping to Blo-No or Eureka. There was a major food explosion, the summer season stretched into Fall and we had such a daunting amount of vegetables at our disposal; it made it hard to remember the monotony of food choices back in Spring. Burdock and sunchokes, burdock and sunchokes... I spent hours each week chopping up tomatoes for freezing and am now regretting that I didn't put up about four times the amount of food I did.

It became dark earlier, we started seeing our breath in clouds before us and before we knew it our hands were dry and cracked and our noses frozen. The leaves blew off the trees, the weeds we knew so well in Spring returned, we were back to digging burdock and sunchokes-- a cyclical season, indeed. And then. It was over. We had our last market followed by the end of the year blow-out lunch at Anteprima Saturday, which were both wonderful. Mustard was out of here a week ago and Brian moved back to Evanston Friday night. So now it's just me, the cats, and the few remaining sweet potatoes in the Trailer til I'm ready to head West. Though right now it just feels like any old Monday, like Mustard will come tromping in for his lunch break in a couple hours and tomorrow I'll have to wake up to my reggae beats alarm and go harvest for the CSA. Truth be told, I will probably help out a bit before I leave; our Indian Summer meant a lot of stuff is still in the field, so Henry extended the CSA for at least one week and I might mulch the garlic at the beginning of December. But... I'll be doing that stuff as FARMHAND Val rather than as an intern.

And the cycle continues!

My clean, clean hands before my first day of work back in February

A collection of dirty farmer hands at the finish of our last market.

T minus ONE WEEK

2011-11-12T08:55:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we finished pulling up the turnips, radishes, rutabagas, and other roots whose little shoulders are bared to the now freezing temps. It's been cold indeed. I am throwing on maybe 8 layers right now to stave off the chill, wind, and water and still my teeth are chattering in the mornings. I'm now the not-so-proud owner of gigantic yellow overall rainpants that add about fifty visible and twenty actual pounds to my body and can be seen lumbering across the muddy, frozen fields like a giant bespectacled clown. Hot stuff! Or cold stuff... In fact, while I was kneeling in the middle of a bed, shaving the little beards off the already gnarly celery roots, little flurries of snow began to fall. The trees have lost all their leaves, but they glowed orange as the sun sank behind the lip of the valley and I paused for all of sixty seconds to just sit there and take in the scene: sun setting, snow falling, birds singing, Matt scowling at me across the field.. Ah beauty. All big yellow clown pants aside, I've absolutely no shortage of it here.

But my 2011 Farm time is quickly speeding towards its close. I'm starting to really look forward to three months in Washington and my work-time daydreams, often hours-long contemplations and imagination sessions playing through my mind while weeding or harvesting (and interspersed with a quite random soundtrack of bizarre songs) have shifted towards more mundane mental tallies and increasingly repetitive to-do lists. I need to figure out how to get the cats to Washington, I should bring a giant cooler, no I'll leave my freezer stuff and just bring things from the fridge... oh jesus, there is so much stuff in there, maybe I can unload somethings on Blo-No folks...is anyone driving with me out West? I should make a winter reading list. I can't believe I didn't read a Dickens and there's already snow... maybe instead of driving the stick-shift car on the ferry I'll park at Southworth and then take the bus into town, should I go to Minglement or that other cafe? I really want to try that farm to table restaurant on Vashon, I hope the car can play my book on tapes...I can't believe the Bay Street Ale House closed...maybe I'll make Mac and Jack's when I get back to the trailer... I think there's a brew store in Bloomington now... we should make a doppelbock first thing when I get back... I wonder who will live with me next year... oh god, I need to move all my books from Andy's.... should I have my birthday in Washington or Hawai'i?... insert Little Wayne song or Bon Jovi's “Living on a Prayer” here, along with the occasional, “hm, where are my twisties?” or the count of a box of radish bunches and you've got a pretty clear picture of what's going on behind these big, round hornrims.

I used to be the queen of the list makers. I had lists that referred to lists, lists at the front of all my binders in school, lists for the day, the week, the month, grocery lists, reading lists, people to write letters to lists...well, you get the picture. Not a lot of that happening here on the farm, aside from the occasional “shit to look up on the internet list” that I without fail leave on the kitchen table and is a direct result of me spending most of my weekly two hours of internet time on facebook.

Note to self: kindl prices

directions to Ann Arbor

which hops are in New Belgium's Snow Day?

Cobbett autobiography?

Post THIS BLOG

done and done.

Holy Moly, and I'm almost done here. The next time you hear from me, I might be in Evanston for a last visit, or Freeland for Thanksgiving, or somewhere on the road in the Great, Open, Big-Sky-ed West (with or without a giant cooler of frozen tomatoes in tow).

Til then.

Musing

2011-11-06T10:33:00.000-06:00

I'm treated to some spontaneous people watching right now. Bloomington decided to en masse enjoy pancakes at Coffeehouse this morning and I'm squashed up next to the coffee roaster surveying the scene of post and pre-church families, sleepy undergrads, a writing group and about ten tables of older couples each sharing a newspaper over coffee. Big bellies, big hair, loud laughs...Standing room only! who would have thought? I recognize some people from helping Andy at the Bloomington market and am feeling pretty good that instead of struggling with the stress and sadness of the end of the season, and an impending move away from Illinois and my friends, the farm, the cafe, dogbeach, on and on, I'm sitting here content with the fact that this normal little town is going to continue to be in my life. Nothing but normal Normal. And pancakes.

So a newsflash: I'm going to work another season on Henry's Farm! We're done in two weeks and then I will buy the car of my childhood dreams, a Dodge neon from one of Matt's friends, and drive across the great West for a winter spent writing in Washington (and surfing in Hawai'i). As a kid I knew I would grow up and get a Neon, isn't that strange? We would drive by a dealership or see one from the window of our boxy nissan and oh, I would expound on how cool they looked, how much I wanted one, etc. etc. While this particular car isn't the rocking turquoise with purple lines on it that my fifth grade self had envisioned, the florescent triangle pattern on the seats more than fulfills the early materialistic lusts of my 90s youth. Now I only need to become a writer, move to Mackinac Island and marry Chris O'Donnell for all my childhood dreams to come true.

So back to the farm. I'll be upgraded to "Farmhand Val" and will live in the trailer with one intern (Henry's downsizing a bit) who will be... A WOMAN! It will be such a different season without all these dudes, though Matt can certainly fart and belch and blow enough disgusting snot rockets out of his nose to make up for Mustard and Brian's absence. I also am looking forward to having someone at the trailer again-- it is lonely out there in those woods! I cook a lot less, write a lot more, and have started watching Twin Peaks again, which kind of spooks me when I get to the Bob parts and there's no one else in the house save my two coward cats. But I'm proud to say I don't fast-forward through them! Ah, the things from which one can derive strength...

Escape time. I have to go buy rain pants since mine ripped a not-so-ladylike hole in the crotch during the constant rain Thursday. Peace, Bisous, and SWEET POTATOES!

2011-10-28T19:19:00.000-05:00

oh hi.

It's Friday night. And unlike every Friday night for the past three months, I'm out on the (kinda sorta) town, not in bed forcing myself to sleep at 7 o'clock in order to get a few hours in before needing to wake up around 1am for the ride to the market. About the out on the town stuff: not true. I'm at Mika's, the only person here save a musician and his wife who will be playing a sad show for one in about ten minutes. And I'll probably take off before the end like a total asshole. alas. But no market tomorrow, at least not the Evanston one with Henry, which feels both awesome and a little bit like I'm shirking my duty. Eh well-- it's the last market in Bloomington and the last time I was there it was scorching hot and we were up to our eyeballs in tomatoes. So it goes.

I am TIRED today. Tired from digging and squatting and running all over the place. phew. Oh, and my hands stink like scallions. I've worn these dirty jeans for days, egads how am I fit to be seen? Dave, the musician, just asked my name and thankfully some other people just walked in the door.

phew.

I've been feeling... a little isolated. I made the big decision to buy a car here, so hopefully that will drastically alter my view of what a "night on the town" means. Oh to be mobile! (with the memphis blues again...) I could go to... Bloomington! Peoria! Drive to visit my cousins! Drive all the way to Washington if I wanted. I might look at a car tomorrow, a stick-shift which is fine for here but which gives me the heebie jeebies when I think about driving in Seattle or onto the ferry. Foibles sure to follow.

What is with this entry? I must think in simple sentences and fragments after a week of working on this farm. Hard, wonderful work.

Val vs Veg

2011-10-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

It's Fall and the trailer is perpetually empty these days. Brian lives with his girlfriend (slash wife in one week) at Henry's sister's place a few miles away and Mustard is spending more and more time working on his restaurant-to-be, leaving me the place to myself more often than not. Instead of the suspected outcome of a much cleaner and neater dude-free household, I'm again faced with the sad truth that the dishes in the sink are mine, the dirt on the carpet came from my shoes, and the toothpaste speckles on the mirror only could have come from yours truly. In short, I can't blame these dudes anymore for being slobs and I'm not pushing myself to be cleaner when no one is going to see the place but me. I am, however, getting tons of reading done, writing is underway, and the daunting amount of food piled in every bowl on the counter, tetris-ed in our fridge, and overflowing from half-bushel baskets on our floor takes major precedence over vacuuming the matted sand colored living room carpet. Always.

Since I'm probably venturing West and will probably do so by plane, I've given up freezing the incredible excess of food around this place and have made valiant but ever-failing attempts to limit how many vegetables Mustard and I bring back to the Trailer. Reasonable-Val says, “We only need to bring back the stuff we'll eat the next few days. Piles of food are available Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays-- we don't need to each bring a basket home every time.” But then a small voice asks “but what the hell are you going to eat this winter? Get a U-haul, you cheap-ass and use the money you would spend on plane tickets, shipping your thousand books and kitchen gear, and on future groceries to haul a gigantic cooler full of food across the country...”

Maybe. Anyone up for a road trip? I have loads of kale popsicles for the journey.

So disregarding the voice for one more week, I'm mentally preparing myself for my Monday food-day ahead. Usually I'll go to Market on Saturday, hang out in Bloomington Sunday and then Monday is major Trailer go-time. Me versus the “For Us-es”-- the market rejects that we treat like those little grannies raised during the 30's who fill their purses with sugar packets; we just can't seem to leave the stuff behind. I have bowls upon bowls of winter squashes giving me dour little stares from the countertops, pleading not to be forgotten for yet another day: delicatas, acorns, pumpkins, and spaghetti, all mere days, hours, yikes, from the compost pit if I don't do something about them soon. the first of our tiny little sweet potatoes are tantalizingly heaped up in a bowl next to one of our 3 big bowls of potatoes. Must. Eat. Squashes. First. Sigh. Bread is on the rise, and the fridge is so full of greens: mustards, chois, the last of the amaranth, that a greens pie or three might be in order.

Shit, I just walked back from the bathroom and found another bucket full of squashes and potatoes on the ground, deposited by some dastardly fairy in the night (or flung down at the front door by my sluggish, sleep-deprived post-harvest day self). Greens pies, pumpkin pies, butter crust city. Population: Val.

Major Market Streak

2011-09-18T15:09:00.001-05:00

I'm in Chicago again, woh woh woh. I have been on a major streak -- up to Evanston (5 hours before) the crack of dawn to work the farmers market every Saturday for over a month now. I love the farmers market, which I'm sure has been overstated in these pages, but there is something so satisfying about talking to people about vegetables. I especially love this time of the year, when all these new folks move into Evanston to start at Northwestern and discover the market for the first time. Some of my favorite conversations start with a "so... I don't know what half of these vegetables are..." or "What is this? What do you make with this?" I can be sort of evangelical about some veggies or recipes (You've never had parsnips?! You've never lived!) while also being a totes hater regarding others (salsify you ask? the most boring of vegetables.) I like these conversations all the time but I especially love them with first-timers and particularly younger people who are just starting to cook for themselves on a regular basis. And what joy to spend all this time and energy growing food and then be able to pass it off to the person who is actually going to eat it. The stand is beautiful, the people are wonderful, Henry gets his market face on and it's just a great time all around. The day is long, starting at about 12:50 am and going til about 6pm but it's a treat to leave the farm and deliver our awesome produce to it's ultimate destination (fulfill its destiny!). I've started sleeping in the truck on the way up to Evanston, waking up as we take the exit into Skokie and then scarf down a quick, sugary donut and coffee while Henry spruces himself up in the Dunkin Donuts bathroom just before 4am. Then it takes about two hours to set the stand up with the help of a couple volunteers. Even though the market doesn't officially start til 7:30 the first custies arrive around 6:15. At about the same time I head over to the Unicorn and hang out with my dear Mandi for a few minutes while I make our coffee order. Then, with a half bushel full of coffee cups, snacks for the ride home, and the Chicago weekly newspapers (including "the fake news" as Mustard puts it) I walk back through an empty Evanston and jump right into the busy bum rush of Henry's Farm's market stand. I find I'm amazed by how clean people are, even if they just rolled out of bed, find myself marveling at the stylish shoes they choose. Such bright colors! Not a smudge of mud on them! What impractical height!
And I love the balance the market lends to my life: 4 days of the week I'm under the open sky, surrounded by little green growing things, and watching the subtle changes of the tree's leaves. Four days surrounded by about 6 other people and then on Saturday I'm surrounded by hundreds of folks, many of whom I've known since coming to Evanston another fine September day four years ago! A fine balance, indeed, even if it does involve me waking up before 1am. The ride back with Henry is also a highlight of my week-- we are both so loopy and exhausted after our long day that everything seems funny. Also there are matching sunglasses involved. Evanston style at its finest!

This was taken during my first ever visit to the market and Henry's stand, 4 years ago when I first moved to Evanston.

Weekend in Chicago!

2011-08-22T13:28:00.000-05:00

My weekend has been stupendous, friends! I blew into town on a monster storm that managed to (of course) miss the farm entirely but dumped hour after hour of icy rain on me at the market. I was soaked to the bone and people, for some strange reason, decided to forego buying their vegetables in the apocalyptic storm. jerks. But this weekend was my staying in town weekend and no amount of rain could damper that! And of course, the rain stopped the second we packed up the truck so it was only my slowly drying clothes and loads of leftover vegetables that remained to mark the terrible morning. I had coffee with Tracie, made some soup for the cafe, and then rode on Josh's moped into Andersonville where Carlos from Acre made us an incredible meal made of Henry's farm vegetables (and one of every dessert, bless him). By this time I've been up for over twenty hours, at one point telling Josh the great news that Stephen Fry reads the British editions of Harry Potter books on tape when in fact Eric told us all maybe an hour before. sigh. Met up with Brendan, Marissa, and Jules and had a surprisingly quiet drink at the Oasis. Love them all!
Hm. I ate a lot of dang pastries this weekend, the culmination of which was a pie-sized apple creme brulee tart that I bought from a French nun outside old St. Pat's before 9am Sunday. And an apricot croissant. Then I went to brunch at M. Henry with Mandi and Brendan, eat eat eat, walked through the Glenwood Arts Fest and felt my heart grow grow grow being in my old neighborhood with all these different kinds of awesome people surrounding me. There was a band from the School of Rock, a four-piece of 13 year olds totally shredding. heartwarming! Then we went to Tommy Nevin's and caught the tail-end of the Irish session, where I maybe drank one too many Guinnesses and then went back into Roger's Park for movie night! Two rows from the front, looking straight up like we are at Laser Floyd, another Guinness in hand, we watched the slew of CGI apes take over San Francisco. Back at B-rand's and we listened to Book of Mormon, swapped music, acquired the Stephen Fry HPs and then I slept exhausted sleep. A visit to the water, started a new book, and now I'm at the Unicorn and I couldn't be happier. Three hours til my bus and the country!

Summer Food!

2011-08-13T13:48:00.000-05:00

Three weeks in a row I've sat here in Coffee Hound, half way through a blog entry, and then poof, I scrap the thing for some reason or another (friends walked in, too hot to think, croissant sitting in front of me, the entry was crap, most likely about the weather). So now that it's (relatively) cooler and I'm all by my lonesome, I'll give you a quickie update. And why not? I'm sick of this stupid bug post being the first thing you all see.

Right now we are in the midst of tomato city. A couple nights a week I spend two or three hours dicing up the salvageable parts of the "for us-es", the tomatoes smashed on one side, overripe, or with little, dodgeable worm holes . Pounds and pounds and pounds, mostly into the freezer but some made into tomato butter, a jam that is spiced up with whole lemons and some cinnamon and clove. It's delicious and sweet, a very different take on tomatoes and one my mom reminisced about at length when I began farming. I made two batches-- one with the spices and one with just lemon, and I like them both. The lemon one tastes a bit more tomato-ey and is more like a marmalade than a jam or butter. My mom says the bits of softened lemon peel are the the best parts and I'm inclined to agree. The spiced one is superb, too, and very fruity. Henry was surprised I didn't slip in some stone fruit or another but nope, all tomatoes. It really does taste like cherries! It took ages for the stuff to reduce on the stove, but with our cool spell (read: less than 95 degrees) I didn't mind having a pot boiling on the back of the stove for an entire evening.

Another awesome cooking adventure this week sprung from a glut of thai basil that the foolish fools of Bloomington don't feel like buying by the yard. I made a thai basil pesto, using cashews in place of the pine nuts and coconut in place of the parmasan cheese. Add some chili garlic sauce, a bit of soy sauce, an even smaller bit of fish sauce, and boom. you have the makings of a curry. oh yes. add a dash of curry powder, if you feel. I found this awesome awesome, SO AWESOME! I whipped this up real quick during lunch and then we ate it over green beans and summer squash. I then had some on pasta with pan glazed carrots, diced tomatoes, and negi, the Japanese scallions Henry grows. summer! Such good summer food! And, even better, it will freeze up perfectly and bring me a taste of summer in January.

If, you know, I'm around here in winter. eep. time to start thinking about my future. Again! hm. so tiresome. off to read a book instead, I think... But decision time will be here soon.

Murder at Henry's Farm

2011-07-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

Yet another scorching week, yet another intro telling you all how hot it is down on the farm. But seriously this time! It's freaking killer! And no, that's not what the title refers to (for once). The hot hot heat (ooh remember that band?) has reached a high high peak and thankfully Henry knows that the bodies of mere mortal farmhands and interns aren't made for such stuff, granting us three hour lunch breaks during the hottest part of the days and giving us non-strenuous jobs. One of these cake walk jobs, though the metaphor there just made me pull a majorly grossed out face, is killing bugs, LOADS OF BUGS, plant by plant, leaf by leaf. Truth be told, I thought we'd be doing a lot more of this on an organic farm, but vegetables have an easier time than fruit and we've got better things to do most of the time.

So let me introduce you to our cast of characters.

oh god, these things are the worst! I, ew, I can't stand it. I can't stand them! You can tell they are near because the tomato leaves and stems have been eaten down to little nubs (also look for the hookah) They are huge, these tomato worms, they are hidden, though you look and look for them and BAM you find one and it still manages to startle the crap out of you. Steel yourself, pluck it off little stuck-on foot by little stuck-on foot, and get the thing out of your hand and under your shoe before it starts wriggling around, spits at you, or sticks its horns out. And you squeal. like the girl you are. But, another truth be told, I have a better time plucking these things off the plants than some of the guys around here. No judgement-- It's not pleasant for anyone (girl power!)

Squash bugs and their wee little eggs. We've spent hours this week walking slowly up and down the summer squash plants, turning over every leaf in search of those little dots. Sometimes we'll find adults, sometimes we'll find little ones that were just hatched (gross but the easiest to kill) and sometimes we'll stumble upon a squash bug metropolis that pushes the farm-intern into the same gross-out mode as experienced during the tomato bug searches. smash smash smash.

Bonus points for these guys, which we never go on the hunt for but which are overwhelmingly satisfying to snatch out of the air. These are the butterfly stage of cabbage worms, a supreme nemesis to my brassica loving self. They used to look nice, flitting and bobbing above the plants. Now they just look sinister and my inner-killer comes out.

A Very Pleasant Saturday

2011-07-12T13:19:00.001-05:00

Back at the trailer, humid big fuzzy haired and sitting in my still-wet bathing suit at the kitchen table with a fan blowing on me full blast. Sunday in Summer! sigh sigh sigh.

Saturdays in Summer are also good-- better in fact because my antsiness level is still pretty low this early into the weekend. Our harvest wound down around 6, though we probably could have picked more if time was on our side Thursday afternoon. I spent my last night in Vacation Home on Friday and was awake bright and early Saturday to go to the Bloomington Market. It was a beautiful day, people were in brilliant moods, we traded for enough bread to last a month and enough coffee to last me the morning. And Andy got interviewed for GLT! The reporter took her time getting things right and the custies started piling up, milling around and waiting to get past the camera man and at the vegetables that were getting filmed. I like these Blo-No folks. Funny, down-to-earth, kind, like to talk about their gardens.... One brilliant returning customer planted the idea of mojitos in our heads, so after the market I walked over to the CVS and bought a ridiculously large bottle of rum. I felt a little silly buying this huge bottle at a drug store in the middle of the day but hey, it was only $3 more than the one half its size! I know a deal when I spot one... give me a break. And of all the summers in my life that the icey-limey- minty concoction might make a couple encores, this one would be it. Don't judge.

As a side to our mojitos were some awesome BLTs, oh boy. The bacon I cooked the night before and brought to the market with the intention that we'd eat them under the tent while selling veg, but that was before mojitos stepped onto the scene. Katic makes these amazing baguettes, the best I've ever had outside of Europe, the bacon comes from South Pork Farm, lettuce from Andy and one big, juicy tomato from the big, not so juicy green house at Henry's. One sandwich had cream cheese and avocado on it and the other had some Prairie Fruit Farms “red dawn” cheese instead. Mmm. Summer fare for sure. I made a massaged kale salad, too. And berries! And did I mention MOJITOS?

For the first time in as long as I can remember I sat outside and did nothing. Well not nothing. I played with the world's greatest dog (seki ichi noanu... impressed, Zoe?), drank my mojito, round two, and laughed a bit. So many hours of my life have been spent relaxing outside in the shade-- it kind of shocked me after a few minutes that this was the first time all year, considering I spend about 10-12 hours everyday outside.

It's weird, but Saturday also held another picnic and another sandwich. Weird indeed, since my time working at cafes has almost completely disabled my hunger for the things but something hit when we were harvesting garlic on Wednesday and boom. I wanted roast beef. This same, out of the blue roast beef craving would hit me every six months or so during my vegetarian years. So I vowed to go with it this time and the roast beef date was set for Saturday when Michelle and I were going to the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. The show, by the way, was awesome. It's called the “Complete Works” and is a mish-mash comedy of all the shows. I had a great time, Ewing Mansion and grounds were beautiful and had the most luscious grass... my barefeet rejoiced and my conscious ignored what it takes to get grass looking like that with each swig of our hard-earned moscato. Seriously hard-earned-- it took us half the picnic to get that dang bottle open, thanks for nothing Pampered Chef wine opener. One broken cork, a ding on the mouth of the bottle, and twenty minutes later we were in! Beef, wine, fancy grass, Shakespeare and Michelle. Bliss!

Now it's Sunday, and I spent the morning tidying the trailer and finishing Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Allow me to evangelize: IT's the greatest! Go read it! And then pass it on to someone you love. Souls and Time and what makes an upright character over space and time... now now now. Amazon. I'll put a link if I must... that's how much I want you to check it out.

also. val+cody. happiness!

2011-07-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

My time at the Vacation House is drawing to a close, sigh, and soon it will be back to hot-box trailer and roommates and disgruntled, neglected cats. Bob and Renee sure have a knack for going on vacation and leaving me to watch their little blue B&B-for-one during the hottest days of the year, thank you very much. Last week reached a heat-index of 106 and when I got behind the rototiller it was, no question, the hottest I'd ever been in my life. I discovered that my thighs had the capability to sweat through my pants. hm. now I know. We did major, major work that week, by the way, weeding like mad til the fairies came out 3 of the 5 nights and all day Saturday. My mom visited the farm and did her fair share a couple of the days, helping with the CSA harvest, weeding onions and reminiscing about her former farm-life and cooking a kick ass barbecue Tuesday night. We had grilled salmon, bison burgers, DREAM BARS, an array of salads and grilled veg... bliss! Most of the farm-folks came (to the vacation house, of course) and it was wonderful. Let me just tell you: kohlrabi+green apple+ fennel+ some of those feathery little fennel fronds+ yogurt= DO IT. My mom was also here for her birthday, which we celebrated together weeding parsnips and then over a meal of Japanese curry.

Since my family reunion at end of last month til now I've been staying awake a lot later which, surprisingly, hasn't been too shabby. Most of this is situational but the extra hours at work, chance adventures, favorite movies, and the glories of the internet are pushing me into the wee hours (read:10:30 or later. nothing too crazy here). I went to Michelle's birthday dinner at Harvest Cafe, watched The Departed one night, read Cloud Atlas the next, road-tripped to South Pork Farm over an hour away with Mustard to buy 7 gallons of raw milk and started learning Catalan. All in a week's work, or a week's worth of extracurricular time-- the busiest week so far, I might add. However... my sacred weekend has begun, it's 9:21pm and I am cooking bacon for the BLTs (plus some As for Avocado) I'm scheming up for my lunch tomorrow. It will be a day of picnics! BLTs at the Bloomington Market, Roast beef at Shakespeare in the park, many pastries and snackies between. I think I'll put off cleaning this place up til Sunday morning...

Killing Time

2011-06-12T20:43:00.000-05:00

I am sitting on a park bench in uptown Normal, borrowing some internet from Coffee Hound which, for some stupid reason, now closes at 1pm on Sundays. Coffeehouse, the grungier, more Unicorn-y cafe also changed their hours and I had such big time wasting internet and latte dreams for this hour before picking Brian up from the Amtrak. A gaggle of high school girls are taking pictures of each other in front of the theater marquee and boy, when did they start looking like children? and Blossom? And that dates me how that I remember that tv show....

Facebook tells me that I graduated high school 10 years ago last Friday. TEN YEARS! My classmates have Kids! And houses! And marriages and divorces.

And I have...
adventures?
an education?
explorations?
dear, dear friends?

Pretty good, I'd say. I guess. This year at the farm is making me want to settle down and quit the moving around, though. Maybe it's something about living in a grungy trailer with two dudes or maybe it's being older or maybe it's doing something that I can see building my life around/with. Maybe it's missing my family. Who knows. I don't want to think about what I'm doing after the farm just yet-- I've still got some time before I get stressed about those future plans, but sometimes I just can't help it. Sometimes I want to just KNOW! What am I DOING?!

To be determined.

What am I doing tonight? Well, picking Brian up because this dude ordered chickens, live chickens, to be sent to the post office and raised by him and than eaten by him sometime in the Fall. They came a day early, though, so he had to high tail it back from Evanston and get those little critters to their final destination and who else was going to collect him but yours truly? I didn't even bring a book! grrrr.

This past week on the farm was a hot one and a hard one. It was over 90 every day and we worked til 8 Wednesday through Friday. phew! But it was so good to get stuff done and actually plant for the first time in almost a month. So good! I was getting nervous we'd have a watermelon free summer and a squash free winter. Now I'm sitting out here on my little bench in my little t-shirts and slippers and don't you know it but it's 68 degrees, windy, and feels absolutely freezing after the hot stuff of my week. I had some major heat-relief, though. I was house-sitting for the neighbors and was able to sleep away from the super hotbox trailer. Such my vacation home, Renee and Bob's! I cooked some nice meals, worked in their garden a bit, played with their cats, and didn't suffer heat stroke. Perfect! They had a Swabian cook book and I flipped through trying to find all the pictures of Tuebingen and reminisced about my wonderful time there. Score one for Adventures! Abenteur!

Now it's 8:40 and B's train still is 50 minutes out. A happy week to you and proper entries to follow when, you know, I'm not just killing time.

Anti-Raindance Time

2011-06-06T08:10:00.001-05:00

It is hot stuff down here! It's also rainy-stuff down here, so no matter that 5 of the week's 7 days are over 90 degrees, the brief rain storms that hit during those rainy days dump enough water on the ground to make us put off planting yet another week. We are really behind, my friends, and unlike the tomato debacle of my last cry-fest entry there is no one to blame but the rain, or the fates, or the big guy upstairs (cue this little number from the Book of Mormon musical). The ground is too wet to till up new beds with the tractor and just when it seems like it will be dry enough, you know-- give it one more day! later this afternoon! 30 minutes of super heavy rain comes down and all our plans turn to dust (or mud). So it goes. I'm scared we might not have watermelons! Or flint corn! Or beans! Keep your fingers crossed and do a little anti-raindance if you've got the gumption.

This week I'm housesitting for some neighbors and frankly it feels like I'm on vacation. For starters, here I am on the internet! woh! Their house is also beautiful and sunny and smells like my aunt's house in Hawai'i (and now like my house in Hawai'i with the smells of cake and bacon tacked on. mmmm).
And it's so clean. That trailer I live in at the farm is pretty grungy, truth be told. Mustard and I clean it all the time but still it manages to fall into disarray ten hours later. It's like there are little grunge-fairies who sneak in through the broken front door while we're down in the fields and sprinkle the place with caked mud, dirty tissues, a veritable confetti of food scraps and a sink full of dishes. We need a trailer maid, I think.
House sitting is also giving me the opportunity to sing pretty loudly/ theatrically with no danger of glares and eyerolls from Brian. Have you heard this Adele cd all the kids are talking about? She's pretty good, even if all she sings about is her broken heart. Adele, Neko, Shakira, shake it shake it shake it.
I'm going to drive over to the trailer after I go out to the backyard here and pick some strawberries and will drop off the strawberry rhubarb cake I made last night and pick up some stuff for my first day of preserving so far this year (hooray! Surpluses!) I probably won't play trailer-maid too much on my day off today, but we shall see how much those little fairies trashed the place before I decide.

Ey yi yi

2011-05-22T16:46:00.000-05:00

The biggest news of the week was the mass slaughter of tomato transplants, which turns out is a lot more harrowing and stomach turning to me than slaughtering ten measly rabbits (which is what I did exactly a week before). For one, my damn fine memory makes it impossible for me to fool myself into thinking I was not to blame-- I know that some of the plants we dug up were put in the ground by yours truly and no matter how much I'd like to, I can't throw the entire blame on Brian. I mean, this was certainly not all me-- a small comfort, I guess. Henry has remained his stoic self throughout this whole ordeal, breaking it only to muse how on earth so many could have died “I've never seen the likes of this before” and comforting me (in his way) when I fell into stressed-induced super guilt. I had a bit of stress anyway this week but it was nothing, NOTHING, to how I felt about the tomatoes. These are Henry's cash crop, after all, and we fucked it up, WE, people. Not rain, or frost, or bugs, or disease, but people who spent hours and hours over the last three months transforming these from seeds to plants and then what? Just smashing them into the ground with such careless abandon that 207 of them, a freaking third of his entire crop, die within the next few days? Shameful is what that is, and I couldn't get it out of my head. Thursday he informed us we'd be replanting transplants and we were thinking that we'd be putting roughly thirty plants into the ground. As we walked slowly down the rows with shovels, digging a foot down at each withered or missing plant, the mood darkened considerably. Each shovel full was like a little grave digging into my conscience-- I was sad, and stressed, and so, so guilty. Excuses were like wildfire, but I knew that some of the plants I planted just keeled over, that I put them on their sides and bent the stems past capacity. Others did this, too, which I'll probably say it to myself a dozen more times; these excuses, along with Henry's “so it goes” attitude, have been my saving grace on the subject. There was definitely a hurry to put them into the ground and Henry's beds were full of two-foot tall, mowed down wheat grass that had only been plowed under earlier in the day, making it nearly impossible to dig deeper than 5 inches. The plants were already on the tall side for planting anyway, so the method for getting them in the ground before the rain came (which, of course, was supposed to be anytime) was to put them on their sides, support the stems with some dirt, and bend them up before burying them and tamping them in. They were too big, it was too shallow, and we probably pressed to hard. We, not just I, but unfortunately a whole lot of I, I think. I called Charlie on the long walk back to the trailer Thursday night after transplanting til 8 and he gave me some comfort, though my stress was even more compounded by Henry telling Mustard to have us interns meet him ten minutes early the next day so he could talk to us. “Oh god!” I thought. I didn't know what I was scared of (now I think a fat lot of that was pms-induced) but it certainly wasn't that I would get yelled at, or Henry would get mad, or I would be fired or anything like this. I was just scared that I would show up to this meeting and Henry would put to voice all the nagging guilts I had accumulated and excused away (or at least to the nether regions of my brain). Over and over that evening I thought about all the things I've done wrong-- not working hard enough, not working fast enough, talking too much, showing up a couple minutes late... not to mention those tomatoes. Charlie calmed me and said, “Henry is fair, but has high expectations.” Perfectly true. And after a fitful night's sleep I woke up bright and early and the three of us walked to the greenhouses to face the music, only to get a pep-talk about harvest day protocols. Geeze. We blasted through this Friday, too, finishing just after 4pm. I came home, showered and heated up some leftovers before Brian came in. We watched Super Troopers, my ultimate favorite funny movie, and I went to bed at about 8, successfully fooling myself into thinking it was 2 hours later. My first market day, which was about 16 hours from start to finish, began at 1:40am, waiting in the pitch dark at the end of the trailer lane for Henry to pick me up in the big market truck. We talked a bit in the ride up, but had “silent time” after his designated pee stop and during which time I gratefully slept until our arrival at the kosher Dunkin Donuts in Skokie (the designated changing clothes and contacts-in stop). I downed a big cup of coffee and a donut (I'd also already put away a bowl of oatmeal I ate out of tupperware around 2am) and was in tip-top form by the time we pulled into the market. Unpack, schmooze, a trip to my sacred Unicorn (which included a latte and pastry and Mandi time) and before I knew it 5 hours had passed and the market was underway. I had a great time and will probably go up to Evanston pretty often. I also didn't get too bowled over by the long day and early start.

This morning we raced against rain and Zoe's high school graduation to move around some transplanted kale (transplanting transplants. The theme of May, I think) and then put the sweet potatoes in the ground. Brian and I finished up while the Fam went to watch their valedictorian get her diploma and we put the very last pepper in as the fat rain drops we'd been praying for began to fall on us. We rushed back and pulled my laundry off the clothesline and had a blissful five minutes before the massive thunderstorm killed the power in the trailer. Made beans in the dark (not many vegetables coming back from market... another week of sorrel is ahead) and once the hail died down Brian and I escaped our dark hot-box of a home and hit the road to blo-no, where I am writing to you, watching a lame soccer game, and waiting for B's girlfriend to get in from the train. Also I went to the bathroom and realized I was covered in dirt. Such a charmer.

April in the Rain

2011-04-29T10:17:00.000-05:00

Woh boy!

This is the first time I've been with internet in almost a month-- crazy, yes? I'm writing this while watching a replay of Barcelona vs. Real Madrid Copa del Rey final, a game whose outcome I already know (and don't like) thanks to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me spilled the beans last Saturday. Lame. I hate taking the suspense out of the thing. It's Friday and we have a surprise day off so Henry can drive down to Alabama, pick up his son in tornado ravaged Tuscaloosa, and drive back in time to work tomorrow. So a day off, a day on, and repeat. well. one time. Then it's going to be plant-city! We have spent two rainy weeks doing every odd job possible on the farm waiting for the soil to get dry enough to plant and hoe. The trench-digging, gravel sifting, thistle wrangling, box making, and chicken-sitting made up our days. Something's been eating the chickens, so I've spent a lot of time on my knees in the wet grass on the outskirts of the chicken pasture, building wonky boxes on the uneven ground. The critter would come in the middle of the day, sneak over or under the fence and get two or three chickens at a time, often leaving a couple headless bodies in his wake. During his intrusion a few more chickens would somehow manage to escape both the mystery critter and the pen, only to be found later, moseying among the greenhouses and then alluding capture by running into the thorny outskirts of the tiny woods. I have only successfully caught one chicken in my time here and that was because the idiot got stuck trying to run back through the mesh plastic fence and I was able to grab her floppy self and just dump her on the other side. The guys are pretty good at it, slowly pinning the chicken against a building or between a couple of us and then diving at the bird, grabbing leg or tail feathers or whatever. I'm taken back to the eighth grade when my soccer team's goalie ran away from home and I, being the tallest and thus clearly most intimidating girl of the bunch, was put in her place even though I was terrible and still too cool for glasses. I hated it. I hated knowing I was going to have to dive to the ground, hated seeing the person running towards me and knowing, knowing, knowing that I didn't have it in me to stop that ball going into that net. Same with chickens. I go into the chicken-corraling with the full knowledge that if that bird deems me the weakest link and makes a run my way, it's done for for all of us.

So now we've had someone sitting vigil in front of the chicken pasture, hammering together vegetable boxes or sifting soil with the sole purpose of spotting and stopping whatever the critter is that's eating the birds. We discovered the last couple birds probably moments after they were killed-- heads off and stuck in the fence, still warm and ready for pick up once the little bugger finished up whatever else he needed to do in the area (“what, like pick up his drycleaning” says Brian). Near the end of one of these fox-attack days, Henry had to go to Peoria to pick up the car he and his wife bought the day before so I was left on the first watch while Mustard scooped up the birds and took them back to the trailer. He dressed them (or undressed them? Why is this the term for de-feathering and pulling the guts out?) and made a chicken soup with some of the remaining roots and some deliciously thrown together homemade noodles. I didn't get to the trailer until 8:30, after the rest of the chickens, seemingly unruffled by their diminished numbers, ambled their way home and Zoe and I closed them in for the night. She came and helped me chase down two escapees, crashing through the woods after the birds who wound up finding it much more enticing to run through the open door to their shed than deeper into darkening woods. I schlepped myself home, down the big hill, across the stream, and under the moon to a steamy trailer full of the comforting smells of Mustard's soup.

My post-work life has been quite different these last few weeks. Brian's girlfriend basically lives with us now, so Mustard and I are hanging out a lot more while they do their own thing. He and I started playing Farm-Scrabble, a game of our own invention, and Banana Grams in the evenings. After a particularly hard day of sifting gravel from some super wet dirt shaved from the lane-- a wet, hard, and seemingly pointless ordeal, we took ourselves out for greasy dinner and pie at the Sheris-type diner called Busy Corner, followed by beer and Jameson at the smoke-filled bar just outside Eureka. Isn't it illegal to smoke indoors in all of Illinois? Surprising. We had some farm-late nights, but this week was kind of a last hoorah before we begin starting at 6am come Monday. Things are planted, things are growing, and pretty soon our days of sifting lane-dirt to kill time will be over. Can't wait! 9pm bed times are certainly nigh!

Days Days Days

2011-03-26T16:01:00.000-05:00

Hello friends! Greetings from Mika's, the little coffee shop in Eureka, the little town next to the even littler town that's next to our little farm in the country. The trend seems to be that I am getting some internet time about once per week and when I do, I'm horribly bored with it by the time roommate-Brian is finished. Today I spent some quality time looking up Farm German, so when I'm talking to myself in my head, I'll be able to have some nice conversations about rhubarb or hoes (Rhabarber and Gartenhacke, just so you know).

The farm is still wonderful, I'm still spending my days exactly as I'd like, and the people I'm surrounded with are all pretty great. We're still eating great food, though there will certainly be some rejoicing when our dependence on sunchokes lessens. This morning, while listening to our Saturday morning radio shows, Brian and I learned that Jerusalem artichokes, which are neither from Jerusalem nor even closely related to artichokes, were brought back to Europe from N. America in the 17th century and eventually got their name from a mispronunciation by the English. The Italian for sunflower, girasole, turned into Jerusalem and one of the earliest purveyors of the root thought it tasted like artichokes, which just stuck. Interesting, eh? Car Talk didn't teach us this. Brian and I are masters of multi-tasking, so thanks to Claudia Roden and her book of Jewish Food. But yes. We are anxiously awaiting a sunchoke-free day in the near, near future.

This week I planted onion sets, uncovered some mulched garlic, mulched some sorrel and chives, spent a lot of time on my knees in the greenhouses, either weeding and/or thinning teeny tiny onions or brassica seedlings, or mixing soil. The time is zooming by and tomorrow I've been here a month! The fields are greener, my hands are dirtier, my muscles are beefier and my days are pretty divine.

I'm going to try my hand at making spoon bread tonight with some of the awesome cornmeal that's been in my life this year and will eat some fresh green things, namely the brassica sprouts that I thinned yesterday! I love that they taste like broccoli or cauliflower, even at this wee little stage, depending on which plant it is. Okay. Time to pry Brian from the internet and get the hell out of here. A happy and relaxing weekend to you all! May your week be as fulfilling as mine!

Burdock Quiche Recipe

2011-03-12T14:49:00.000-06:00

I made this quiche for Andy's housewarming potluck and got some requests for the recipe. I didn't take any pictures, sorry! Use your imagination (and then enhance that image-- it was pretty good, if I do say so m'self)

Burdock quiche recipe

Pie crust:

2 egg yolks

250 g flour

2 tbl ice cold water

120 g butter (stick and 1/4)

innards

those 2 egg whites plus 6 more eggs

¾ to 1 full onion

2 cloves garlic

burdock (what? Half a pound? 3 medium sized sticks?)

smoked spanish paprika

salt

pepper

(I used ukranian village seasoning from Spice House)

butter for sauteeing

¼ cup milk

1 tsp harissa

1-ish TBS white wine or white wine vinegar to deglaze pan

to make the crust:

cut the cold butter up in little chunks and toss with the flour. Put in the resorvoir of a food processor with the blade in and put in your freezer for about 10 minutes to get it super cold. Mix the egg yolks with some cold water and salt and put in the fridge until you take the other stuff out. Whir up the butter and flour until it's sandy then slowly add the liquid until just coming together. Pour onto the counter and then squash together into something resembling a disc (it will still be really loose) and saran tightly and put into the fridge for about half an hour.

While that is resting, chop the onions, garlic and burdock (thinly). Brown some butter in a pan and saute the three until the onions are caramelized and the burdock is soft, maybe 20 minutes. Add some smoked paprika or chipotle spice and salt and pepper (I used a salt seasoning that has some pepper flakes in it) Deglaze with a wee bit of white wine or white wine vinegar and cook for another minute or two to burn off the acidity.

Preheat the oven to about 375

Whisk together your eggs, those two egg whites, about ¼ cup milk or cream, and the harissa or other pepper paste.

Grate your cheeses-- maybe a half cup each (I think we used a little bit more parmesan...)

Now you are set. Get your dough from the fridge, lightly flour your work surface, and roll as thinly and as circular (and as fast!) as you can. The less time spent between the fridge and oven the better. Unmelted butter=flakey crust. Om nom nom.

I hate rolling out pie dough, by the way. I look forward to it as much as I look forward to putting together IKEA furniture or (now) re-wiring the supports in the greenhouses. I digress.

So breath deeply and once you're rolled out, put the dough in a pie pan. Add the burdock-onion mix, sprinkle the cheeses over it, and then pour the eggs over top. Fold the crust down and put into the preheated oven. Check it after maybe twenty five minutes and see how set the middle is. After probably 35 or 40 minutes turn the oven up to 450 for the last five or ten minutes to poof the eggs up and brown the cheese on top. Once the middle is set, remove from the oven and enjoy warm or room temp. Tell me how it is warm! We had this cold/room temp 24 hours after it was made. It was good, but I bet warm with a nice salad would be freaking supreme.

A Week Late First Week Update. With Cookies!

2011-03-12T13:37:00.000-06:00

It's just before 6am on Wednesday morning and since I don't have to be up to work until 8 I thought I'd catch you guys up a bit before I head to the greenhouses. New roomie Brian and I had our first farm weekend and spent almost all of Saturday cleaning stuff out of the trailer that was left behind by years of former inhabitants. After about eight hours of sorting jars and washing walls we escaped the cardboard confines of the double wide and took a walk together around the fields and then came home, refreshed, and cooked for the rest of the night. It's weird posting a blog that I wrote days ago about a day an entire week ago, but so it goes. This was kind of the beginning of what is turning out to be an amazing year of food.

Andy gave us an enormous squash the night before and we set about roasting it by baking the entire thing in the oven a la Hansel und Gretel.

This thing gave us over a gallon of squash that became part of our Saturday Trailer dinner and then was pureed and frozen by yours truly on Sunday. I put off baking the cookies until the squash was relatively done, since we had to take out the second rack in order to fit the thing in! Later in the evening I split the squash up, tossed out the innards, and baked it again until the flesh got super tender and kind of collapsed on itself. Perfect.

this was the amount of squash AFTER our dinner. A few pieces became soup, the rest became freezer-puree

Between squashing tasks, the rest of the meal was put together. Brian made some pasta by hand, clearing off the counter and making a well in some flour for a few eggs (1 egg for every 6 ozs? Is that right?) he then integrated the flour slowly with a fork and moved to kneading the dough, adding more flour as he went until it was time for it to take a break in the fridge.

He then split the orange pasta ball into four servings and stretched each quarter along the floured counter with a rolling pin until it was as thin as possible. Then time to cut up the noodles and voila! Pasta!

During this time I made cookies and a sauce for the pasta. Sauce first: We had a bag of frozen parsley pesto that I defrosted earlier in the day and added that to some sauted garlic and olive oil, along with a pound and a half or so of the cooked squash (which was what? 1/12 of that monster squash?) It cooked down briefly and once melded together I added some balsamic vinegar and then cooked the pasta quickly in the sauce. Top it off with parmesan cheese, serve some mustard greens on the side and we have dinner!

Now cookies. I have been dreaming up these cookies for awhile now, so bear with me if you are already sick of the play by play of my Saturday. I had cornmeal cookies for the first time recently and have wanted to replicate them using some lavender from Vashon in place of the dried fruit the original cookies had. I originally thought I would have lemon in them as well but it's not like lemons grow on trees here and I'm certainly not in a position to run to the store and just pick one up. So instead I added a little extra vanilla and a touch of sea salt and cracked black pepper to my shortbread base. These were easy. And delicious. So Delicious! And so buttery.

Speckly dough. Lavender, bloody butcher corn meal, and black pepper.

To the Recipe!

Borrowed from Moosewood Celebrates, a wee bit, at least:

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature (that's two sticks, people)

¾ cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extracting

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon cracked black pepper (I eyeballed this. You can too)

2 TBS lavender

1 ½ cup white flour

½ cup cornmeal

Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking tray with parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth and fluffy. Add the vanilla, salt, pepper, and lavender.

Fold in the cornmeal and flour until the dough forms a sticky ball.

Chill in the fridge for 15 minutes

Cut the chilled dough in half and press each half into a smooth disk about six inches in diameter and about 2 inches apart from one another on the baking tray. Score into 8 pieces each.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until firm and slightly golden. Cool for a few and then cut along the score lines and let it rest til room temperature. Then eat! Or put in a covered container where, Moosewood assures me, they can last for a week. Truth be told, they lasted about 3 days in these parts...

Woh Farm!

2011-03-04T13:09:00.000-06:00

Greetings! I'm writing to you from my room, at the trailer, at the farm, in wee little Congerville, Illinois. My new home! Brendan and Marissa dropped me and the cats off here on Sunday and I've been getting my first taste of farm life during our shortened week. The first few days I worked mostly in the greenhouses with interludes of organizing the shed, digging out beds, pretending to be a fence in order to herd some cows, and chasing down renegade chickens. One of the other interns, Mustard, is a total pro at catching chickens, by the way. You grab them by the leg and then cup them to your chest where they calm down and let you walk where you will. In theory. I trimmed the wing on one whose spur gave me a nice little cut down my throat as payback.

But I'll let it slide. These chickens make the best eggs after all and since I'm eating two or three a day, I can't really complain when one takes a stab at me every now and then. I am back to eating so good, let me tell you. There was overwintered spinach in the greenhouse and loads of roots and frozen veggies. I'm defrosting goat meat to make some more krygyz-style food and Brian, the other apprentice and my roomie, woke up yesterday and asked whether or not I had ever made bread from this wonderful book Bread Baker's Apprentice, which, of course, is my favorite of bread books and the one that basically taught me all I know. Bread is now rising on the counter. I made a really awesome brown buttered parsnip and french lentil dish that we wilted some spinach on for dinner and will probably make granola sometime this weekend. Oh boy. And cookies. Lavender cornmeal cookies that I've been dreaming and scheming up since Washington.

The work is tough, the trailer is homey and full of junk, the cats are under the bed and I have left the farm only twice since arriving, one for a good-bye lunch with Marissa and Brendan at Busy Corner right after they dropped me off, and after work Tuesday to go help Andy put up a greenhouse at his farm. So today will be an adventure of sorts, even if it is only going to the little town of Eureka (where I will eventually post this from!) Coffee shop, thrift store, Michelle, oh my! A nice treat after a day of mulching, digging, digging, digging. Yesterday was tough and my body feels it. My forearms are sore and my hands ache from holding a shovel all day. I had my first experience digging burdock which is... challenging. I think I'll grow to actually enjoy the challenge of it but this first time was a big, deep, tender-rooted hole of frustration. Some of the roots went a meter into the ground and others curved backwards or down or hey, right under your spade... And they snap at the touch of a shovel, they get nicked by a fingernail, they break, break, BREAK right when you are inches, centimeters, MILIMETERS from pulling the thing out. It's a real process, extracting these things from the ground and I was trying to do this two-man job by myself for a good part of the time. But once I get the strategy down I may learn to love the burdock. Or I may not, who knows. But if someone complains, even a little, about the fact that this stuff costs $6 a pound at the market, I will justifiably snap one of the largest of the brittle roots over their head.

Peace out, clean, soft hands! The morning before my first day at work.

Update! About to get on a PLANE!

2011-02-26T12:00:00.000-06:00

Two more days left in Washington and it's been snowing since early morning. Lucky that it's warm enough that hardly any is sticking to the ground, but we're still semi-snowed in, seeing that the big hills surrounding our house are always dicey. Always? This happens two or three times a year. Thanks, Washington, for letting me a part of this.

sarcasm.

It's been pretty fun here since last we spoke. My mom and I have gone on some adventures to Bainbridge Island, Port Townsend, I've ventured to Poulsbo and Vashon again. I actually went to Seattle for a couple days and saw my two closest high school friends and then some people I worked with at the University library.

Pause and Return! It's now Saturday morning and I'm taking advantage of the free wi-fi at Sea-Tac. My trip was two weeks, the first of which I traveled around, revisiting my old haunts and my dearies, and week two was spent mostly hanging out in my mom's kitchen, on facebook, and watching Jersey Shore with my sister. And cooking! So while I'm sad to be leaving Washington and my mom and sister, it will be nice to be leaving sloth-ville USA. I am really looking forward to MOVING again.

Moving my body, that is. I am really not looking forward to moving, parts 1b, 2, and 3, which will take place over the course of the next month or so. Tonight it's back to Chicago, drop off my super expanded bag of stuff, then eat and dance. Sunday morning it's time to go to the farm! Tomorrow! Holy Crap! But that involves putting the cats in the carriers, which is one of the worst possible things in life. They hate me for it, let me tell you. Eh well... They will be richly rewarded with a trailer full of mice and a wacky cardinal to watch all the days long.

Alright, this is starting to turn into a list, so I'll spare you all. But the next time you'll hear from me will be from the farm! Or rather, some coffee shop nearby.

Adios internet! Hello world!

Birthday! Washington! Vashon!

2011-02-15T18:28:00.000-06:00

Hello my friends! I'm in Washington WASHINGTON my home and native land. I'm happy to be here, and happy to be spending so much time in the place I actually grew up in rather than Seattle. I'm seeing Port Orchard a lot differently than I did as a kid. Do you know how many little farms there are here? I didn't, even though I live on a street with about a dozen of them. Tomorrow I'm going to walk a few houses past Mrs. Schuck's and buy some free range eggs for $1freakin50. Even though I'm sure it will rain on me, it will feel good to walk. I have been driving a lot. I forgot how far away things are. Yesterday I spent the day with Steph at Bay Buoy Espresso, ostensibly training her how to make better drinks, but mostly just helping (and hanging) out. Driving my mom to work, then there, then home for lunch, and then collecting my mom again clocked in almost 50 miles (!!!) Hard to believe that this distance felt so normal. No wonder I have such stamina for driving long distances. Also I drove on my favorite road in the world, Beach Drive, a curvy road that hugs the puget sound and passes through big tree tunnels, past marshes, and by those two random camels that live at the llama farm... I love that road. Three deer, a mom and her babies, crossed the street in front of me yesterday after they had their fill of licking some low-tide salty rocks on the beach. Sacred Malacred.

I am spending today at what might be my very most sacred malacred place of my life: Vashon Island. I love it here. Two miles from my house to the ferry, ten minutes on the boat to the island and here I am, in one of the most unique, beautiful, loving, community-oriented, and perfect places on earth. I went to Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie today and had a lavender and honey latte while writing a letter and petting the random dog that decided to park himself under my table. The sun came out for a blissful five minutes while I was there and the people in the cafe all cheered. Most, including the workers, went outside and hung out on the huge white porch, looking for rainbows and filling up their coffee. The drip coffee is set up in urns on the porch and people will just hang out outside together, even in February, chatting and filling up on the tasty stuff. No one is minding the can of money that you pay to take some coffee, no one is minding the urns, unless of course you count rebrewing the coffee. People don't lock their cars and they wave when you walk down the street. I bought some local wine to take to Seattle for dinner tonight and will come back in the next few days once some lambs get processed and buy some super fresh meat.

Waiting for the ferry to Vashon

Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie/ Minglement

Cafe Luna, in Town.

While it feels so good to be here, I am exhilarated to start at the farm. I moved some of my stuff on Friday, though, as these things go, it didn't exactly go as planned. Andy and I had a nice, leisurely lunch in Chicago, packed up my stuff destined for the trailer, and then, after a stop for coffee, we drove out into the terrible world of Chicago traffic. First I should mention what Andy nicely called my "trip" to Coffee Falls. Long story short, I had the mother of all the many and spectacular falls of my life, rounding the corner behind the counter at the Unicorn, slipping on some ice on the floor, and splashing my just poured cup of coffee into my face as I fell, slowly and heavily (and, thanks to years of ice skating, quite expertly) to the ground. Egads! Thank goodness for eyeglasses or I would have been a blind girl on my birthday. Antonio picked me up and pushed me into the kitchen, telling all the concerned custies that I was fine and helping me clean the au lait out of my hair. The irony that a few hours earlier I wrote about how I'll miss smelling like coffee when I take showers hit me and I couldn't stop laughing. Seriously. What a freakin' send off, cafe! I would even start laughing in the truck two hours after it happened, shaking my head at myself. Oh me.

So on the road. Slowly, slowly. It took us about 4 or 4 1/2 hours to get into the country. We were hoping to be there by 6 but the fates were against us. Tarp troubles and traffic, but we still had a good time nonetheless. Around 8 or 8:30 we approached the lane to the trailer, my new home, and I was so excited to have my farming life officially get kicked off!

Then we got stuck in the snow.

So by the moonlight I attempted to push Andy's truck out, coming close a couple times, but not close enough to make much difference. After a half hour or so we conceded defeat and called Henry to come help us. We waited, surrounded by moonlight and the creaking of the slightly swaying old oaks. Wispy, waving clouds blew steadily across the sky and it was like we were seeing the stars through a gossamer curtain that blew softly in front of an open window. It was truly beautiful, the blue light reflecting itself on the pristine snow-- even though it was only half-full, it lit everything up brightly. Henry arrived in his truck, with a shovel and a bag of ash to help Andy's truck along but when that didn't work, he decided to drive back to his house to get a chain to tow us out.

Then his truck got stuck.

We sprinkled ash behind the wheels, smudged the stuff with our hands into the tire tread, and sprinkled out hopeful little paths in the snow we hoped the truck's wheels would deign to follow. The guys shoveled ferociously around the wheels, trying to widen the path made with the tractor. We finally got Henry's truck unstuck-- both Andy and I bumping on the bed over the wheel wells while Henry careened up the path, smashing through the waist-deep snow and causing me, ever so slightly, to fear for my life. Oh how poetic it would be, I've thought in the past, to die on your birthday. Historians love this sort of thing, but it's not a nice thought to hearken back to when perched on the bed of a determined pick-up truck trying to power its way backwards up an icy hill.

Henry drove back to his house and collected Hiroko and his tractor to tow us out in the dark. He hitched the back of the truck, still full of my stuff, to the tractor and pulled the thing dangerously up the innocent looking, snow laden lane. I jogged along the passenger side of the truck, trying to guide Andy's backwards steering with such helpful tips as, “move that way more,” and “go, baby, go!” I then put my focus a little more on galloping through the now-knee deep snow and trying not to slip under the truck. Hey! Survived! We wiped the snow off ourselves, tried to de-ash our hands as much as possible, and then got back in the truck, lighting the way for Henry as he moved slowly down the country road and to his house. He gave a great wave without looking back at us and Andy and I (and all that stuff) headed back to El Paso where Michelle, dear sweet michelle, was waiting for us with pizza.

Happy Birthday to Me, eh?

It was though. A nice birthday, indeed, all things considered.

And now I'm in Washington! Happiness, indeed. I'm still on Illinois time, though, thanks to a power outage last night that made me go to sleep early and a phone call from my sister at 5:30am to fix the Buoy's espresso grinder, so time for another cup of coffee before heading back to the boat and to Seattle. Love!

Year 28 Starts Now

2011-02-11T10:52:00.000-06:00

Bia Bia, it's my birthday! And Bia baby, I'm moving today, too! Well. Sort of. Stuff to the trailer today, which will be my new home at the farm, cats to the trailer in two weeks, storage stuff to central illinois sometime when it's warm enough for a diesel engine to not crap out on us. A nice way to spend a birthday, actually. I don't have to worry about planning a party, wishing someone was planning a party for me, and my expectations are as low as they can possibly be. I mean really. It's moving day, one of the worst of all days, so I'm taking the perspective that my birthday is just a silver lining. And it's a golden excuse to do things like, say, treat myself to a donut at Charmers (done and done!)

So to the farm today. Exciting, exciting. Talk about today being the prime time for new beginnings! I'm literally going to spend my entire 28th year living the farm life. Wonderful!

Yesterday was my last day at the Unicorn Cafe, which was the best job I've ever had, oh man. It was sad to leave, so sad! I've made some of the best friends of my life in that little place, I was doing something I love, and I was serving and involved in a really neat, quirky, and delightful community. sigh sigh sigh. I will miss so many things. The conversations I have there, making 12 ounce lattes, training new baristas, spinach and feta pockets, how I exude the smell of coffee when I take a shower, flirting with Johnny Metropolis, Brendan's soup nights, second person opening shifts, soul music, Real Talk, Agnes pressuring me to work out, Sorin Maruster, Beef City, the freak delivery of Schweik (feels like Christmas!), Totes hot studs and spurs, custie crushes, our Unicorn-language. and laughter. So much laughter! I look forward to getting some early morning coffees there the Saturdays I'm in Evanston for the farmers market.

And woh woh woh, Mubarak just stepped down. My hopes are for whatever next will be peaceful and fair!

Back to the apt. to pack up my fridge stuff. Next time you hear from me I'll probably be in WASHINGTON!

Super Snow, Post 2-- FOOD!

2011-02-03T16:25:00.000-06:00

Okay Okay. So after icing up my ankle with various corn products, my snow day writing quickly turned to food. Here's the part two-- THE GREAT FOODS OF SNOW DAY! And snow-night, and fundersnow, etc. etc.
Tuesday night, as the blizzard entered its fourth or fifth hour, Marissa and Brendan trekked the couple blocks for some kyrgyz food. We were definitely geared up for snow.

This was my first time making this; sort of a curry, sort of a stew, sort of Russian and Asian and Hungarian and Persian. And delicious! A thick and rich tomato sauce reduced around steak pieces, onions, garlic, daikon and parsnips (carrots would have been delicious, too), green bell peppers and spiced with harissa, paprika, a wee bit of curry and some vinegar. I served it alongside some spaetzle, the German homemade noodles/dumplings that have, since I was a kid, ranked among the highest echelon of my favorite food heavens. Oh! I forgot my secret ingredient! Black cardamom. An impulse buy from Spice House, black cardamom isn't actually from the cardamom plant, but is a stronger, smokier relative. Really a nice touch.

The daikon and parsnips were so good in this, they became almost buttery. Oh, how I wish we had leftovers! I bet this nameless meal (let's call it snow stew) would have tasted so good the next day!

We watched the storm from my kitchen windows and witnessed the perplexing astounding Istillgottagooglehowonearththisispossible phenomenon: Thunder Snow

Marissa and I moments before thundersnow.

Marissa and I at the earth shaking moment of thundersnow. Things are different now.

"You'll never be the same after THUNDER SNOW!" Okay. Not a direct quote. but I'm gonna go with it.

Now I'm sleepy and unceremoniously kick them out into the elements. (so long, suckers!) I sleep like a baby, thanks to the blessing of a power outage that killed the terrible orange street lights outside my apartment. Bliss!

Now we've hit morning, and I write you that last blog while waiting for my steel-cut oats to cook and with a bag of from-the-freezer cornmeal draped over my slightly strained ankle. The healing power of corn.

The sun comes out! I'm blissed out and my neighbors stream outside and begin the 2 hour long arm-wrenching project of shoveling out their cars.

One neighbor in particular brought me joy; he helped about a third of the street dig out their vehicles and motivated me to bake cookies for them all. And people actually ate them! Take that, lame-ass 'no candy from strangers' rule.

This was an experiment, some ginger cookies that tasted awesome but didn't spread out for some reason. Maybe because I melted the butter instead of creaming it and thus there was a lot less moisture in the cookies, meaning there wasn't a lot of melting action going on in the oven, meaning instead of spreading into a reasonable cookie-shape it would stay in basically the same little ball I rolled it out as. Just a guess.

Solution? Cut them in half and fill the things with a buttercream. Also an experiment (I attempted to integrate some pudding mix... DON'T DO IT!) but recovered by adding that wonderful Unicorn mess-up stand-by ingredient: brown bananas. So now I had spicy ginger cookie-lettes with a banana cream cheese buttercream filling. Supreme! But. You don't get the recipe until I perfect them. Can you handle the suspense?

Lunch I continued the eastern bloc/ random part of the world fusion by making these African curry beans but adding Croatian Ajvar sauce instead of tomato. And Peas! I need green things. And protein. Hence the egg on top (actually, I wanted tasty drippy farm egg yolk much more than that I needed protein. Flashback to my mom teaching me the difference between a want and a need and I, I walk that fuzzy line down the middle.)

Hot, rich, slightly spicy and stewy. Culinary musts for snow day.

Somehow Brendan and Marissa knew I would have cookies and paid me another visit. We ate cookies (and, truth be told, the banana buttercream by the spoonful) and then walked around in the sunny, completely mind blowing snow. Walk, walk, help push a car that was stuck, walk, walk, lots of laughing, lots of people with huge smiles on their faces. Along the way was witnessed a neighborhood wide snowball fight and the strange vision of a large dumptruck full of salt and with a plow on front being pushed, plow to plow, by a bulldozer when it got itself stuck on my street. This morning a crown victoria was stuck and abandoned in the same spot. To Brendan's, a couple episodes of Arrested Development, and then we ended our snow day eating by sharing a deep dish pizza at Giordano's.

Snow Day Stew:

1 TBS oil

10 oz. steak, cubed

2 cloves garlic

1 tsp. paprika

salt

1 TBS oil

1 onion, chopped

2/3-ish cup chopped bell pepper (or sweet peppers would be good, too!)

an array of roots: 3 parsnips, 1 turnip, (carrots would be good, rutabagas, always good)

2 korean daikon, sliced in 3 inch strips

1 cup tomato sauce

1 cup beef broth

1 TBS paprika

2 TBS or to taste Harissa

1 bayleaf

1/2 tsp curry powder

1 black cardamom pod

1/2 tsp balsamic or red wine vinegar

Heat your oil over medium/high heat and brown your steak with some salt, the first bit of paprika, and the garlic. After two minutes put the meat and any juices into a reserve bowl and ignore for a bit.

Heat the 2 TBS of oil and saute the onions and roots until they are as brown as you can get them without burning. Make a well and add the harissa directly to the pan. Spluttering ensues, and after about 20 seconds, pour over the tomato sauce, stir, heat until burbling, and then add the broth and vinegar. Add all the spices, and the beef with its juices and reduce the temperature to a steadily bubbling medium/low. Taste for salt and harissa and add more if you desire. Add the bell peppers and let it simmer uncovered for an hour (ish), until it's reduced itself to a delicious curry-consistency. Is it stew? Is it curry? Is it gulash? It is all of these things, my friend. It is Snow Day Fusion.

Super Snow, Post 1

2011-02-03T09:20:00.000-06:00

Greetings from a snowy and snowed-in Chicago. It's looking to be a city-wide snow day! Not just for me, the cafe, and the majority of businesses but also for the 410,000 kids in Chicago Public Schools who haven't had a snow day in twelve years. I hope it settles down a bit out there and they are able to enjoy it. I have never seen anything like this, by the way. My winter weather-familiarity comes mostly from a childhood in rural Michigan. There was snow for sure, lots of it, but how that snow rips down an empty, wind-tunnel street was a new phenomenon when I moved to Chicago. And this? This storm blew anything I've learned about winter over the past three winters out of the frozen water. The panicked mood in Seattle that tends to arise after an inch or two of snow-- fishtailing buses, abandoned cars, city wide cancellations, bare supermarket shelves and sheer surprise has finally been seen in Chicago. This blizzard is well on its way into day two, and yes. It's nothing like I've ever seen. The world is completely white, the snow, both still falling and being stirred up from the 16 inches that already fell on the ground, charged down these empty streets on the wings of 70 mph winds and, the kicker, there was freaking THUNDER SNOW?! Have you ever heard of such a thing? It sounds like something out of a comic book, and actually it looked like it sprang from an imagination rather than from a February snow cloud. The clouds lit up in a strange neon purple and the sound of thunder in a season when it seems impossible was positively spooky.

I took some photos from my back porch this morning but by the time I find the internet (which is now, 6 hours later), I suspect that those drifts that look like a snow-covered parking lot will seem quaint after the two of three inches we expect each hour starting... about a paragraph ago (and hey! I was right!)

There was even a little snow drift that made its way between my glass and screen doors and when I walked back in from taking photos I slipped and fell from the snow that had blown its way into my kitchen (snow covered linoleum, the slapstick faller's new banana peel). My ankle is a wee bit sore and I iced it with a bag of cornmeal that was in my freezer and watched as the snow started again in force.

I can't even see the trains right now! 30 feet away and I hear them but they are just really indistinct, grey slow moving slugs almost completely obscured by the snow. I'm charging my phone up, filled the kettle and a couple big mixing bowls of water, and will eventually venture into my basement (via a brief walk down the back stairs...) to get my camping lantern. The power went out last night as I was talking on the phone with my little brother who, to be fair, called to ask about this crazy storm but was by this time bemoaning the unheard of cold temperatures that hit Hawai'i a few days ago, too. 60 degrees. Ha. Ha. Ha. (sarcasm). I had him tell me about life in Hawai'i--snorkeling, riding his bike, swimming beyond the breakers (“into shark territory”) and the restaurant he works at. A different world! I schemed about going there for a well deserved visit after the farm.

I've moved on to frozen corn, the big guns, since my ankle started swelling. I can't believe my worst fall of the year happened when the crazy winter blizzard snuck its way into my house. I peaked out the front windows, past the snow-covered screens as best I could, and saw that in the two hours since waking up, four foot drifts have waved themselves between cars and seem like little mountains planted in the middle of the street. It looks like sand dunes to me.

Pancake Breakfast

2011-01-28T17:43:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it's Friday. I want to tell you about a breakfast I had last SUNDAY and it seems like I should only need to reach back into the archives a day or two to get there, but alas it's been ages. This week blended into itself more than sped by, but sped it did. Day in, day out I trained a new barista, slept terribly, napped in the afternoons, pressed the snooze button (and actually needed to set an alarm!), read about a third of what I normally do, wrote about five pages of anything, and ate about three times as many sweets as advisable. Wedge an evening hanging out with Brendan and Savs during art day, a haggis lunch, a first friend-date, tea with May, and some Battlestar Galactica and thus, my week. And what kicked it off, you ask? Why pancakes, my friend!

This was the second time that I had people over for a laid back later than normal pancake breakfast since moving to this new place (brunch. it's okay to use the word 'brunch', val...). I made pancakes and a sad amount of bacon ("half a piece each, sorry!") and bada bada bada bada bada bum: Bananas Foster! I love this meal, by the way... Brunch. People showed up and I made pancake after pancake while everyone chatted around the table. As more people showed up, spots were swapped, plates were washed and handed off, and people ate their pancakes in shifts: without a griddle I was only making 3 at a time. Maybe 3 pots of coffee were made, the first of which was my favorite cardamom coffee and after half the people were already full of pancakes slathered in maple syrup or almond butter or mascarpone cheese (or all the above) I made the bananas foster topping. Our veggie supplier at the cafe mistakenly sent us black bananas awhile back which I had taken home, sliced, and froze. If you haven't experienced the sweetness of both overripe bananas or frozen bananas (and, particularly, when a banana has both those attributes) well, you have been deprived. The starches break down to syrupy sugars and are the bananas you want when making banana bread or cake (or, when still frozen, whirred up in your food processor with a TBS of almond butter to make a fakey and super creamy banana ice cream). In this case I cooked the sliced bananas with just a tablespoon of brown sugar, a couple tablespoons of butter, and then a slug or two of maple infused whiskey. In a not so impressive effort at pyrotechnics, I attempted to light the bananas foster on fire, producing a feeble blue flame or two but only when I shoved the lighter into the banana goop. Everyone applauded, which says a lot more about how great these people are than my culinary skills. More coffee, more pancakes, musical chairs, and lots of laughs. You guys are the greatest.

Val's Pancakes:
1 1/2 cups white flour
1/2 cup corn meal/ polenta

2 tbsp sugar1/2 tsp salt1 tsp baking powder1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups milk

1 TBS white or cider vinegar

1/4 cup plain yogurt2 large eggs3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Mix the vinegar and the milk and set aside for about five minutes. If you have buttermilk you can use that, but it's a rarity that I have some. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large-ish mixing bowl. In another bowl, whisk the eggs and then add the yogurt, milk, and butter. Whisk and then make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet to it. Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined (too much stirring= gluten development= gummy, flat pancakes). Heat your pan and butter it. Cook the first side about 2 to 3 minutes and then flip once, cooking the second side for about 1 minute. Top with all manners of delicious things. Nutella and mascarpone are a new favorite.

Bananas Foster Topping:

2 cups frozen banana slices, thawed

1 TBS brown sugar

3 TBS butter

3 TBS rum, brandy or, in my case, maple-infused whiskey

heat the bananas on the stove and add the butter. After about 3 minutes, sprinkle over the brown sugar and turn in delicately as to not smash up the bananas too much. Add the liquor and light that shit up. Or try. Best to have an audience as a morale booster just in case (but seriously, the flambee method does give the stuff a pretty awesome marshmallow-in-the-campfire flavor). This makes an awesome ice cream topping, too.

Val's 9am Coffee

When I'm not making coffee for people at work, this is the coffee I make for them (and myself on my days off) at home

Slightly stronger than normal black coffee

2 cardamom pods

3 tsp vanilla sugar

milk

I make this coffee in a melita for myself, each 14 oz cup individually drip brewed over one cardamom pod. I then add 2 tsp of vanilla-infused sugar, an ounce or so of milk, toss out the pod, and that's that. When serving a crowd, I make my coffee in the coffee pot or french press, add two or three cardamom pods and increase the sugar to 3 or 4 teaspoons. It's delicious.

Trust me, I'm a professional.

Get It Out Of My System and A Winter Stew From Me To You.

2011-01-21T11:38:00.000-06:00

Big happenings in my life, big exciting changes, and I've felt the urge to write and write often but I feel a little like I've neglected the blog, even though I'm writing all the time in so many other places. Like little old me, the blog is about to undergo a pretty major transition, too, moving from a focus on books and food to the colorful stories and foibles of farm life (well, and books and food). I'm finding it difficult to write anything aside from "Holy Crap! I'm moving in (insert day countdown here)" and while I could easily tell you about the delicious things I'm cooking and my adventures with my dear Chicago and Evanston folks, it seems a little trite to type out a recipe for burdock soda when the farm looms looms looms so largely on the periphery of my mind. Plus it wasn't all that delicious (val shakes fist at the air/at the chicory she substituted unwisely for the dandelion root)

So, to get it out of my system:

Holy Crap! I move to the Farm in 37 days!
... actually. I thought it was a lot sooner than that. So let me be a bit more specific.
Holy Crap! I move all my stuff out of my apartment February 11th!
Holy Crap! I go to Washington February 13th!
Holy Crap! Two weeks with my family, friends, trees, mountains, ocean, ferries, no sidewalks, and... rain.
Holy Crap! I have one night in Chicago for Club Unicorn and Val's going away blow-out February 26th!
Holy Crap! The cats and I are hitching a ride to the farm in 37days! That's February 27th.

that felt good.

Now on to dinner.

Last night Mandi, Ross and I had a sacred malacred dinner together at my house which was, if I do say so myself, supremely delicious. I made a bean, smoked turkey, and root vegetable stew that was pretty awesome and, as these things go, will probably be even better today. Rewind to Thanksgiving, when I bought two legs of smoked turkey to stand-in for the whole roasted bird (me and one french canadian aren't going to be eating that much for Thanksgiving, after all) and one of those legs made its way into my freezer. Do you know how large a turkey leg can be? Leg One fed she and I on Thanksgiving proper and then stretched itself into 3 more leftover meals. Leg Two had a hard time fitting into my dutch oven and once the meat was stripped from the bone, I was left with a pretty big femur (that's what she said?)

you give me femur, femur in the morning, femur all through the night...

sorry. hrmm. So I defrosted said smoky femur and after soaking some pinto beans, sauteeing some onions and garlic, deglazing with some white wine and peeling a few of my remaining roots, I wedged the big leg into the pan, covered it with water, some crushed tomatoes, an unorthodox 3 (count 'em 3!) bay leaves and a couple sprigs of thyme. Boil, boil, simmer, simmer, clean up my abysmally messy apartment, listen to NPR, read a bit, and then once the potatoes and beans have soaked up the majority of the moisture, and the cats are safely in the couch, it's time to eat. I also made some kale with onions and balsamic at which point I thanked my delicious foresight for freezing so much of the stuff during the autumn months. Ross made some amazingly tasty bread with a wild yeast starter they just made (I should try this sometime... a future project, indeed) and we feasted. Delicious, exciting, and finished with pumpkin ice cream and more wine.

Bean Stew with Roots and Smoky meat
1 1/2 cup dry pinto beans, soaked overnight in salt water
2 onions
3 cloves garlic
3 TBS olive oil
1/3 cup white wine
1 1/3-ish cup crushed tomato

1 stalk celery
1 carrot
1 turnip
1 rutabaga
2-3 waxy potatoes

smoked turkey leg or ham hock or other smoky meat of choice

water or broth to cover
3 bay leaves
3 sprigs fresh thyme

Heat up the olive oil in a dutch oven or other large pot with a lid. Saute the onion and garlic until soft and browned, and get to peeling and chopping the other veggies. Add the white wine and then tip in the rest of the vegetables and wedge the meat in to the pan. Add the drained beans, the crushed tomatoes, the water/ broth and the herbs. Bring to a boil and let it bubble on low-medium for about half an hour. Lower to a gurgling simmer and keep uncovered until the liquid has reduced about two-ish inches. I wanted this to be the least soupy stew possible, so I left it uncovered the majority of the time on the stove. Simmer away slowly for about 2 hours or however long you want, really, making sure it doesn't get too dry if you are putting it on the back of the stove for a longer period of time. And, you know, the longer the better. that's what she... egads, sorry. But honestly. If you have 4 hours to let this sit slightly covered on the back burner, do it. Especially on a day like this! -3 out, with a windchill of -14. Chicago, you're killing me.

My 2011 in a Nutshell.

2011-01-03T17:26:00.000-06:00

so... guess what I'm doing right now...

Posting my freaking apartment on craigslist!

It's official. I'm leaving the city. And soon. I had so much blissful yet antsy, dragging, time full of time in December but today, the first Monday of January, it's time to get down to business and boy can I get down.

Here's what my month looks like: find someone to sublet my apartment, train the new general manager at work, train someone as a regular manager, and train the new general manager to train some new employee, who I'm also training at the same time (got that?). Then figuring out what becomes of all my stuff, what should get shipped to Washington, what should get moved to the farm, what should get moved to storage, and what should get kicked to the thrifty curb. Then there's a Washington trip on the horizon, which means I need to find someone to take in my cats for the 3 or so weeks I'll be gone and homeless, figure out dates, find a ticket, figure out when I'm done with work-- so yes. Time enough to get down.

And you know what? I'm so excited. SO EXCITED! I can't wait to get down to that farm. I imagine you'll get quite a few stories of woe and exhaustion as this year progresses, but on the whole I aim to tell you about the abundance of positivity, since of course I expect that to be the majority of my experiences. I'm not buying a 2011 planner. To me, that is supremely blissful. So a month of stress, a month of family, relaxation, and preparation, and then nine months of... farm. work. land. food. country. friends. building and happiness!

My 2011 in a nutshell. Jealous?

Best Books I Read ThisYear

2010-12-29T12:08:00.000-06:00

This year has slipped past so quickly. It seems that both a lot has happened but relatively little at the same time. It was a pretty mental year for me-- the past several years I'd been working towards some career-ish ambition, but 2010 was a year of sorting myself out-- getting healthy, developing better relationships with people, thinking many thoughts about my future and what I want in life. I started working at the market, tried to class up the Unicorn, moved to Chicago, thought and wrote and thought and wrote. So yes. A lot has happened and almost all change for the best.

It's strange to reach back to last January and I find myself muddling memories from last year with the early months of this one. I wanted to make a couple top five or ten lists of the great books, foods, moments of 2010 and will try to place something fantastic I read and then realize it must have been winter of 2009-- oh how the years slip by.

My Favorite Books I read in 2010

6. A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

This is a combination cookbook and memoir, written by the creator of the Orangette blog, one of my favorites, at least until a year or so ago before she and her husband opened a restaurant in Seattle and she decided to put her energies into that venture rather than her writing. She holds to the dictum that good memories are linked with good food and the book moves through her life one good story and food-memory after another. And yes. There were tears. Twice. Oh, and tuna. So laugh, cry, relearn to eat and enjoy your childhood cringe-food. Win win!

5.Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Don't hate. I almost didn't even put this on here, since eye rolls and groans were my MO whenever someone mentioned this book the last several years but here it is. Perhaps I read it at the proper time in my life or perhaps it was just good, so get over it, val! I won't say that reading this book had a direct effect on me breaking up with my boyfriend, but I'm only not saying that since I know he'll probably read this (thanks for starting to read my blog only AFTER we broke up, Josh). There were many laugh out loud parts, particularly the Eat portion of the book (obviously my favorite section). The Pray I could have done mostly without but the Love brought things home, as it's wont to do.

4.Mystic River by Denis Lehane

Another 'are you really about to put that down, val' entry in the top five but you know I love a good mystery and this may be by far the best mystery I've ever read. Another thing to know about me, I love Southie Boston even though I've never even set foot in Massachusetts. So it goes. This book is incredible INCREDIBLE and the shitty little movie-covered and creased-to-broken pocket paperback I have doesn't do the innards justice at all. It should be gilded and leather-bound, though that would probably take away some of the novel's inherent grit... The story is very real and if the end hasn't been spoiled by watching the movie, then read it because it will fool you. It fooled me, and in that wonderful way that doesn't just stump you, but convinces you that the guy that looks like the obvious killer (who, if you've read even a handful of mysteries, is necessary for the formula but never is the guy who does it) did in fact do it, though of course... well, I won't give it away. Read it. It's awesome.

3.A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle

I have a sneaking suspicion that I read this in 2009, but I'm still going to put it down since the suspicion only came on me while writing about Eat, Pray, Love above. This books takes place in 1916-20s Dublin and centers on this guy Henry who seems to have his hand in every important event of modern Irish history. Also Roddy Doyle is hilarious. I was excited to see there is a sequel, but it kind of flopped for me and I couldn't get through fifty pages of it. There are a few kookie elements in this book-- if there can be something called Irish magical realism, this would be it, but carrying those details into another book, taking place this time in New York and the birth of jazz rather than in Ireland and the birth of that country, didn't work for me. But maybe I'll try, try again. Also maybe the first book was too good that some distance is necessary between readings. And now that I'm positive I read this in December 2009 (whoops) I'd say that's enough distance.

2.Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Oh man. What a good book. This takes place almost completely on one day in New York City, the day in 1971 when a french man walked on a tightrope slung between the twin towers. In one day, it expertly lays out the separate but often overlapping lives of an Irish monk, his brother, a handful of prostitutes, a group of mothers who lost their sons in Vietnam, the tight rope walker, and New York City itself. Colum McCann writes so simply and beautifully. It's amazing how real and true some of his descriptions are-- like you can't believe that no one writing in the English language had ever thought to throw these certain words together to describe something, it's that perfect. Where were you on that, Shakespeare?

I loved it. My book club didn't, which surprised me when I showed up gushing out the ears about the thing. Perhaps my most evangelized book of the year (?) So read it!

1.Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Yeah okay. You probably read this in high school. Or like me, you just assumed you did because everyone read this in high school and you have some distant memories of it but if you can't remember it, can't remember how it made you feel when you read it, may I suggest getting your ass to the used book store and starting it. Now! Do it! What an incredible book. And Steinbeck is of course an incredible writer. I read this in October through November and have been in a major book desert ever since. To pull myself out I've needed liberal quantities of bad British mysteries, Travels with Charley, and East of Eden (nothing like the hair of the dog). On a side note, read Travels with Charley, too. One of my greatest Christmas presents ever came the year my mom discovered Ebay and must have had a great, nail biting time bidding on old and antique copies of books for me, several of which were original Steinbeck's. He can be bleak, vivid, heartbreaking and funny all on one page and if you have any interest in American history whatsoever (which you should) then you need to read this. I want to plaster all of chapter 19 onto my facebook page and if that doesn't say something about a book in this day in age, then I don't know what does. Start Grapes of Wrath now, finish it in January, and it will be both the best book you read in 2010 and in 2011.

Yupper Christmas

2010-12-28T17:24:00.000-06:00

Ambitions were had. A woman on a budget, I had big plans of baking my loved ones their Christmas gifts, and not just the cookies and snackies of years past but something bigger, louder, tastier (wait, tastier than those mince pies that nobody eats?) It's true! But life, laziness, and an out of commission oven threw most of those plans under the sleigh. I did, however, succeed in getting one person's gift to him in time for Christmas (apologies to literally everyone but Brendan whose gifts still need to be trekked over to the post office).

Brendan was off to Michigan the next day and I had hoped to go see my family there this Christmas as well. So with Michigan in mind I made Brendan a batch of our state's classic dish: PASTIES!

Is it our classic dish? What are some other contenders? Why can I only think of venison jerky and green jello with cream cheese balls rolled up in it? Pasties are a pretty typical stuff stuffed in bread concoction that made its way down into the mitten from the Upper Peninsula, the U.P., home of the stalwart Yuppers who I imagine survive off of these things and have grown to their enormous heights because of it. I first had pasties when some of these yuppers opened up a little shop next to the grocery store in my home town and I would eat two of them on the ride home. It was a long time after leaving Michigan that I had pasties again, in fact, it was in England a couple summers ago that I spent a month eating them at every chance, being some of the cheapest food you could find. In Seattle, the Russian cousin to pasties, the piroshki, was a fine substitute but are also impossible to find in Chicago.

I made these after getting home from work, threw them in a paper bag immediately after coming out of the oven and then trekked over to the movie theater with the pasties warming my back through my backpack where Brendan, Savannah, and I feasted on them while watching True Grit. One Christmas present down!

Yupper Pasties

For the crust:

2 sticks butter, frozen and diced in tiny cubes

2 cups flour, plus a little more to liberally flour the work surface

¼ tsp baking powder

2-4 TBS ice water

¼ tsp salt

For the Innards:

2 TBS butter

1 small onion

1 pound steak, diced

1 carrot, diced

2 rutabagas, peeled and sliced thinly

2 potatoes (or one large one), sliced thinly

1 tsp salt

1 Tbs mustard powder (I have weak stuff in my kitchen. If using chinese or english mustard powder, try only half a tablespoon at first)

the slightest shake of nutmeg

Combine the cubes of butter, flour, and baking powder in a bowl with your hands and put in the freezer for about ten minutes. Add salt to ½ cup water and put in the freezer as well. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Pull out the crust fixins from the freezer and put the bowl of butter and flour into a food processor and whir until it resembles course cornmeal. Add the ice water a tablespoon at a time until just bound. Squash together and divide in rounds into how many pasties you want to make. This recipe is good for five pretty big ones or eight-ish smaller ones. Wrap them up and put in the fridge until the filling is made.

Cook the onion, potato, carrot, and rutabagas in the butter on a medium flame. Add the diced steak and the spices and cook until the potatoes are tender, maybe 20 minutes.

Line or grease a couple cookie sheets and flour your countertop. Roll out each round of dough (leave the other ones in the fridge until you're ready to use them) and try to get them about ¼ thick and even all over. Scoop a portion of the pasty innards onto one half of the round, leave about an inch around the edge of the circle, and fold the other end over to make a half-moon. Fold or crimp the pasty closed and then move on to the next.

If you feel the need, you can brush some melted butter or whisked egg over the closed pasties to give them a nice sheen, but I tend to always skip this part. Even for Christmas. Put them in the oven and after 15 minutes turn the temperature down to 375. Cook for 15 more minutes and voila! A feast fit for a bearded Michigander.

Eddy and Betty

2010-12-21T18:26:00.001-06:00

I just spent two hours with Brendan in our neighborhood's cavernous junk shop, Lost Eras, digging through ladies magazines from the 1940s, getting lost amid rows of old and forgotten party dresses, and sorting through rusted scythes and other old farm implements that somehow made their way into the dank basement of an old theater in this very urban corner of the great metropolis of Chicago. It took us 45 minutes just to get through all the rooms and then while Brendan descended on the boxes upon boxes of old 45s, I settled down with two drawers full of letters between one Eddy and one Betty.

Actually these were all letters written by Eddy to Betty, daily letters that came to her from who knows where on navy stationary between 1942-1944. They almost all invariably start "Dear Darling, I just received your letter and I love every word you wrote, you can never write a letter too long," etc. etc. He then would write about the two of them, their future, his friends in the navy-- nothing about fighting or where he was stationed. If she had written a dismal letter, he responded in kind, saying how miserable he was without her, how much he hates being where he is. If responding to a happy letter, he was sunny and hopeful. I read about their plans to get married at the beginning, saw him transition to calling her his wife, signing the letters 'love Eddy, your hubby' (though her last name never changed on the envelope). He called her hon, darling, and never wrote an address on the front of the envelopes, simply "Betty Bauer, Chrismark, Minnesota" and it took until July 1944 for the post office to start insisting, with the use of a purple rubber stamp and an apology for delivering late, that he write the full address down if he wanted it to get delivered. But he never did and only two more of those envelopes got the purple stamp before the post office gave up and just delivered the letter to Betty. I'll bet those days that the envelope was getting duly stamped at the post office, Betty was wringing her hands wondering what happened to Eddy and where her daily letter was, because it really was every day that he wrote to her. It was sweet and sad to read through their separation, to wonder what Betty's end of the conversation had been, how the letters survived this long and then just wound up in that dank little basement in Rogers Park. Near the end a few envelopes were addressed, house number and all, that weren't written in Eddy's hard to decipher cursive and that didn't put umlauts over Betty's last name. When I opened them I was struck with super sadness at the sympathy letters and condolences from Betty's friends and people who served with Eddy. I assume he died sometime in October 1944, somewhere overseas. Who knows when Betty even saw him last, but she probably kept those letters until she died. I wonder if she got married to someone else, if he knew about Eddy, if her children found the love letters from Eddy and just threw them in the auction lot with the rest of their parents' junk. It was surprising to find something of absolutely no monetary value just sitting there in a shop and I was half-tempted to tuck them into my coat pocket and give them a proper home but, you know, I'm no thief.

I got to thinking about letters, how nice it is to get mail, how nice it is to hear from somebody through writing-- it can be more honest, more thought-out, less guarded (or more expertly guarded, as the case may be). So many of Eddy's letters were simply a reminder that he still exists, a 'hello darling, love you, here I am still alive" kind of comfort where the letter just arriving at the front door was the main attraction. But so many of the other ones were way more heartfelt than anything I've ever read. I've been in the position several times in my life where just getting something on paper and shipping it off and out of my hands was seemingly the only feasible way I was going to ever get my words out in one coherent piece. I think writing a letter is an easier way to get your feelings across, certainly more so than a phone or often face to face. That said, it took me about five minutes to write and rewrite that sentence. Easier yes, less time consuming, no. But since when are feelings measured temporally?

So I lift my glass (of resteeped mint tea) to one Betty and Eddy, and I hope one day to come across a stack of letters like that again, maybe from my grandparents or my parents, and hopefully in a more honored locale than the neighborhood junk shop. Oh, and write me a letter please. That's really what I'm asking here.

Chili, Interrupted

2010-12-18T15:40:00.000-06:00

My love affair with my stove and oven continue. After two weeks of being on the road and then being without stove, the ability to cook myself food without the use of my crock-pot or microwave seems a real gift. I got a bit experimental when I returned from New Mexico, attempting to make steel-cut oats in the crock pot (scorchy fail), cook sweet potatoes in the microwave (dried themselves into sweet potato jerky), and a 20 minute, nail-biting wait for some winter squash to microwave during which time I was sure my pyrex bowl, the winter squash, or both would explode. Naturally that was the only success story during my week without gas-- the squash was perfectly creamy. Next time I'm pressed for time but need a kabocha in my life, I'll do the microwave trick but then finish the job under the broiler to get that knobbly caramelized browning that I'm currently craving on everything I cook and eat.

Of course it turns out yesterday's big meal I made, let's call it andouille winter chili, could totally be cooked up in a crock-pot, but the browning and caramelizing of the ingredients sort of makes it blog-worthy. First you brown butter, then you caramelize the onions in that. In another pan, brown about a pound of andouille sausage without casings and then get to slicing and dicing all the other veg. I utilized the microwave again when dealing with the squash, just putting the other half in for five minutes or so in order to more easily slice the skin off with a paring knife. Once the onions are perfectly caramelized, and this takes time people, make a well in the pan and scoop a tablespoon of tomato paste directly onto the pan's surface. Let it burble and brown for about thirty seconds and then mix with the onions. Throw in your jalapenos and garlic, the carrots, the half dried ancho pepper and its seeds. Drain the fat off the sausage and then add the meat to the onion mix. Inhale deeply (unless you don't have a stove hood. Then inhale deeply, cough in a non-pan direction and make yourself a cup of tea to recover). Here is where I forgot to defrost some chicken stock, so again to the microwave for me. Either way, just barely cover the ingredients with water and bouillon or stock and then add diced tomatoes. Add bayleaf, chili powder, vinegar, mustard, and harissa or the chili sauce of your choice along with the white beans and the diced squash. Stir stir stir, boil, lower to a simmer and then ignore. I already had this started when I got word that a Chicago-adventure was imminent, so I quickly combined all the ingredients post-browning and simply left it on the dormant stove to stew together while I trained downtown to eat gyros and watch soccer in Greek Town (oopah!). If you don't have a spontaneous hot date that interrupts your chili-- really, an ideal way to allow the flavors to meld together for an extended time, I would say let it simmer for at least an hour, certainly until the squash is completely cooked and preferably when its surfaces are a bit fuzzy, a sign the squash is infused with loads of tomato-peppery goodness. Just before you're ready to eat, add the kale.

Oopah!

Andouille Winter Chili

1 onion

1 TBS butter

1 pound andouille sausage, removed from casings

1 TBS olive oil

1 TBS tomato paste

2 jalapenos, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

½ dried ancho pepper, sliced finely and with all the seeds

2 carrots, sliced in half moons (or really, whatever you fancy)

1 can diced tomatoes

2-ish cups chicken broth

1 small-medium winter squash, cubed

2 cups cooked white beans

1 TBS balsamic vinegar

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp or to taste harissa sauce

1-2 TBS chili powder

salt and pepper to taste (be a liberal!)

12 or so ounces kale, chiffonade (mine was previously blanched and frozen)

And make some cornbread while you're at it.

A fine lunch.

Antsy Times in Chi Town

2010-12-14T14:13:00.000-06:00

I can hardly see straight, I'm so hopped up on caffeine right now. I've spent the better half of the day reading and puttering around on the internet at Charmers, catching up on blogs, searching for winter water polo leagues in Chicago, attempting to plan my pie-in-the-sky travels to such exotic locales as St. Paul and Freeland, Michigan, while constantly refreshing facebook. The Unicorn is in December dead-zone, when everybody and their mother leaves Evanston in droves and the cafe is open more out of routine than anything. A good time to catch up with friends and a time when much silliness ensues. I have ambitions of finishing my book today, so I decided to forgo the journey into Evanston and the free coffee that goes along with that for the relatively uninterrupted atmosphere of the cafe on my block. Exciting.

Not that exciting. It's true. After my whirlwind journey to New Mexico last week and with the prospect of moving to the farm on the horizon, I've found myself in my own little December dead-zone. My stove and oven are still out of commission, so you get no word about all the awesome things I could be baking for Christmas and anyway my Christmas is going to be so Unicorn-y that hardly any of you will reap the benefits. totes a sour puss this morning. I also have two knitting projects going that won't be report-worthy for at least another week. What's a girl to do???

I think my body just needs to move a bit more. I got used to running, swimming, biking, walking, barista-ing and forced-upon hibernation is not my cup of tea. I bike when I can, I walk when I can't bike, and I scour the internet for winter team sports to fill the gaps in my sit-on-my-ass day (no dice. How come only 14 year olds are able to play winter water polo in this town? Next search phase: indoor soccer). So to stave off boredom I'm writing to you fine folks about basically nothing. Sorry! But think of all the wild and crazy tales that will come your way next week!

Hats!

Cowls!

Cookies!

Mystery Sweet Potatoes!

Unicorn Christmas Fest Blowout!

Just thought I'd get you mentally prepared, you know.

Sacred Journeys There and Back Again

2010-12-11T14:04:00.000-06:00

A week in my life has passed, but it seems like just yesterday I was sitting in this same seat in this cafe, playing on the internet and writing to who knows who. But instead of lollygagging my life away in the cafe that is also my place of business, my week was spent driving across the country to deliver Rebekah to her new home in New Mexico. We left Chicago on Sunday morning, riding to the farm with a couple southerners up here for a Roots concert the night before. Beks said many good-byes in the few days we spent together and most everyone lifted her off the ground, sometimes with a spin, during that parting hug. Sweet stuff. Some packing, some cleaning, some cooking, one last living room dance party and then it was Monday and we were ready to hit the road. It was cold. cold cold cold Illinois complete with icy roads around the farm that luckily melted away to smooth and sunny roads for the rest of the trip. Our little fingers were frozen but that faded, too.

19 hours from Central Illinois to wee little Halmon (Harmon? Helman?) New Mexico where Beks and Daniel live in a lovely little red roofed adobe house on 7 acres. Lovely! The drive was pretty beautiful, the stars were amazing. There was fry bread involved. We did a straight shot that first day, arriving Tuesday around 5:45am. We explored the property, the little town nearby, visited Daniel's job at a wool factory/ mill, and took a well deserved nap.

Next day we trooped back into the car and headed over the pass to Santa Fe, 2 hours of windy roads away. Even though there wasn't a coast to be seen, the roads still reminded me of what I learned to drive on. And even though the promise of 19 more hours in the car the following day was there, I still drove a bit on the way back from the city. It's pretty small, Santa Fe, all adobe (or fakey adobe) that looks pretty spectacular against a sunset. Not many apartment buildings anywhere. Sparse, poor, not too green, but beautiful.

We thrift-stored a bit, I pouting most of the time in antsy, stuck-in-the car-ness, but finally we walked around and explored.

Thursday morning Michelle and I said our goodbyes and drove drove drove through the New Mexico desert and the ranches of the Texas panhandle, then across Oklahoma with its crazy accents at the toll booths. We overnighted on Michelle's daughter's dorm room floor or rather, Michelle slept on the floor and I curled up on a love seat that left me smelling of grape hookah which actually was probably an improvement. Complete days in a car is not so great on the body.

Back to Illinois through the surprisingly beautiful Missouri. Okay. Not beautiful. But not straight-ranch. Or corn fields. Look! A Lake! Fog resting on tippy tops of trees! A hundred billboards for a place called Meremack Caverns! (okay, maybe that one didn't warrant an exclamation point...) Back in Illinois by lunchtime and chel and I ate a fine sandie at The Garlic Press. Back to her place, fun times with her son, Zane, back into Normal uptown for coffee and a the-train-is-totes-late beer with Andy and on I journeyed. Then home. Then here. And like my Saturday mornings of old, I'm writing to you while listening to Positive Vibrations on KEXP. I told you it was sacred.

Get Ready!

2010-12-04T13:33:00.002-06:00

Greetings from SNOWY Chicago! Finally we've caught up with the early West coast winter and got a decent, stick to the ground snowfall. Of course, it did decide to come on the eve of a several day long car journey, but so it goes. I still love the snow but even more than that I love the clear, cold, blue winter days full of sun sun sun. Let's see how romantic I feel towards them come March.

This morning finds me cozied up on the couch next to a window showcasing the falling snow, with my third cup of coffee and an alternating rotation of knitting, reading, writing, list-making, Christmas gift-scheming, and cat petting. The good life. The good life would have been even better, but the nincumpoopery of People's Gas loused up my account (after three Val-attempts to deal with it) and decided to just turn off my cooking gas. I had just trimmed and prepped all my hoarded brussels sprouts Thursday and defrosted some sausage meat before realizing that my stove and oven were out of commission. Peanut butter and jelly ensued, though I suppose it was made with homemade apricot preserves, a silver lining on my sad little night. I then found out I won't be able to get it turned on until I return from my journeys west and thus had to cancel my Friday potluck. Boo! I had big, tasty dreams of date cake and corn cranberry muffins, too, but those went the way of 'another day'. However, I was not about to give up my granola making schemes, so I threw together all the ingredients and hauled my backpack full of oats and stuffs to the Unicorn to bake away while I worked.

Tonight Rebekah and I are going to drive down to the farm to finish cleaning the trailer and packing up her things before we then drive together, with Michelle, out to her new home in New Mexico! We're hoping for a quick drive in order to spend at least a full day in her house before Michelle and I jump back on the road. To be reported on with pictures in a week or so! Get ready!

And very exciting news to report: Next season I'm going to move down to the farm to work as an intern! This is big stuff, folks. Leaving my job, leaving the city, new roommates, difficult work, long days, trees trees trees, vegetables to the moon-- and as much as possible, I'm going to write about it. So again, get ready! I'll probably move down there in the beginning of March with a couple weeks in Washington beforehand. The cats will come with me and live the life of indoor farm cats, catching mice, curling up on laps, and watching that weirdo cardinal bump against the windows repeatedly. I hate moving, and I hate moving the cats, but this is going to be so worth it. And when the season ends in November? Who knows?! Back to Evanston? back to Washington? stay in the south and write? it's unclear and of course will remain that way for several more months at least. For now it's just anticipating and preparing for the farm-- reading and learning, dealing with my apartment and stuff, finding a new general manager for the cafe. There really is a lot to do in these couple winter months. GET READY!

Procrastination Pie

2010-11-23T17:13:00.000-06:00

Last Monday I made a rockin' shepherds pie using organic beef, roasted parsnips, glazed Japanese turnips, carrots, peas, and topped with a mix of japanese sweet potatoes and pumpkin which was mashed with some thickened potato leek soup from a few days before. I have pulled the thing in and out of the freezer two to three times since Monday when I made it (as in, last Monday!) and various circumstances of the sick or tasty persuasions have impeded my ability to eat the deliciously heavy fare.

Last Monday was the eve of the flu that knocked me out for the rest of the week, so I couldn't bring myself to have more than one, tasty slice (well, “scoop” would be more like it). Back to the fridge with you, pie!

Tuesday I sustained myself on a marathon bowl of oatmeal picked at throughout the day and supplemented with the ubiquitous saltine crackers. Wonderful Mandi doted on me, bringing by soup, yogurt, saltines, ginger beer, and movies-- what a gem! Sometime during my 18-hour sleep and Fraggle Rock-fest, I managed to cover the shepherds pie and put it in the freezer where it stayed until Friday night. I took it out to defrost so I could eat it Saturday night after the last farmers market of the season (weep, weep). It was like the end of summer camp, though. Full of joy and hugs and assurances that we'll stay in touch over the long, market-free months.

Henry took all the workers and volunteers out to Acre, a restaurant in Andersonville which is owned and operated by the same people behind Anteprima. The chef from Acre, like Anteprima, gets a lot of his veggies straight from Henry's stand but even more so than its fancier parent, Acre is truly farm to table-- as in, whatever's in season at Henry's is whatever you're getting. Oh, and you're getting it with a whopping five-or-six courses of charcuterie. Yes please! We were served up blood sausage, English pork pies, head cheese and pate, grilled cuttle fish, cabbage and leek strudel, Amish roast beef, roasted rabbit, boy boy boy. Then came desserts-- a chocolate truffle and poached pear tart, a swedish-style coffee cake made with some kind of nut flour (almonds?) and then the coup de grace-- banana bacon ice cream served on an almond swedish visiting cake (wo, link to my blog, baby!) So with such a formidable lunch/dinner (dunch? Linner? Meh, we'll go with supper) I wasn't about to go home and eat some shepherds pie. I couldn't even get on my bike for an hour. Back in the freezer with you!

I thought I was ready yesterday. I pulled the pie out of the freezer again, prepared a salad and waited for Brendan to wake up from his nap and come over for dinner. The weather was raging-- thunderstorms, sheets of rain, tornado warnings-- what's the deal Chicago? Tornado warnings this late in November?! So Brendan opted out of the journey (and, thankfully, I guess, the weather dropped to a proper 26 degrees over night). I was fine with shepherds pie for one, which also meant I could indulge in some of my hoarded veg. I started preparing some of the only brussels sprouts I am to have all year when my neighbor knocked on the door. Greeting her with a stalk of sprouts at the door, she told me that I had a big package down by the mail boxes. Excitedly I slipped on some shoes and skipped down the stairs to find a package from my mom, which I immediately opened. Inside was a variety of stuff I put aside back in August to be sent to me-- old Cooks Illustrated, a big tin sacred heart, a shirt, etc. But on top of all these forgotten goods were sweets upon sweets, an array of all my mom's signature desserts. Shepherds pie remained lonely on the counter as I worked my way through “one of each” of all she sent-- homemade caramel, dream bars, brownies from my sisters birthday last week, my dad's favorite molasses cookies that my grandma Loughney used to make (though sadly lacking raisins this batch), peanut brittle, chocolate covered macademia nuts from my mom's visit to my brother in Hawai'i. Have I mentioned my mom's parents met while working in a bakery? That one of her uncles was a candy maker? Oh sweet, sweet, sweets. So yes. One of each. Back to the fridge with you, shepherds pie.

But today's the day. For real this time! May's on her way over, the oven is on, and instead of an afternoon beer at Celtic Knot (I had inadvertently typed 'afternoon beef at celtic knot'... how prescient), we'll have a big salad with these amazing Pink Pearl apples tossed in along side this shepherds pie!

Look at these beauties! I found them at Morse market this morning. Aside from being astoundingly beautiful, they taste wonderful. And like most things in life, they taste even better with a smidge of Old Town Oil's 18 year balsamic.

Alright, It's not the loveliest thing, this procrastinated pie, but it sure was delicious. Here is May and me doing our best hungry and sultry Nigella impressions. Like that lady, we are big fans of sexy meat and potatoes.

See the resemblance?

We followed up our meal with a taste of each of the desserts my mom sent. Yum!

Joanna Macy heart heart heart

2010-11-17T12:39:00.000-06:00

So this is about half an hour, but it's lovely and inspiring. Hooray for uncertainty!

Potluck Upon Potluck

2010-11-17T12:26:00.000-06:00

Like so many people my age, my favorite way to spend time with my friends is over a good meal. Unlike most people my age, I'm not a huge fan of forking over my hard earned dough in order to establish contact with someone I know and love (side note: fork? Dough? weird how many food/eating metaphors are used for money). Last Spring I realized that my long-established norm when it came to socializing was spending money to sit across a table from someone, be that table laden with food, drinks, or coffee-- my friends and I, and our generation in general, needed to spend money and consume to get together. Want to chat for a couple hours? Best do it over a cup of coffee. Want to celebrate? Let's go get a beer. Let's catch-up. Meet for dinner at 6? Where should we go? I and my friends were just aching to spend our limited funds and didn't even have a preference on where we did it. 'Doesn't matter, you choose.' Well, I began choosing my own home. I cook better than any restaurant I can afford, I know exactly what's going into my meals, and I love that my vegetables were picked by my friends and earned by me and my hardworking market day. I can afford to eat organically and still put money in my savings account for basically the first time since childhood. Plus I'm cooking which, you know, I sort of love.

In the past few months, my friends have heartily jumped on board the eat-at-home train. This weekend saw me double-booked for Potlucks, a scheduling mistake of my own making (never trust my organizational skills at 9pm on a market day) and tonight I'm heading to another potluck. It's been absolutely wonderful to eat in the homes of my friends, even though I missed out on one of them. I bustled over to Andrea's house, dish in hand, and discovered that her potluck was scheduled for the next day. But she was home in a few minutes and we ate some of my North American wild rice salad and threw together the rest of dinner from her second ever CSA box. So nice!

Earlier that day, May and I had lunch together at my place (that tasty salad I posted about last time plus potato leek soup) and then we made whoopie pies together for Laila's New England-themed dinner Saturday.

Since we each ate a whoopie pie, decreasing my batch by a delicious third, I decided to supplement my dessert assignment by also bringing pumpkin custard bars with a butterscotch cream cheese frosting. I had roasted the pumpkin Friday thinking I would make pumpkin gnocchi for Andrea's but then running out of time when faced with lazy whoopie pies and delightful conversation. Someone else brought cream puffs and Laila's roommate made ice cream using Maine blueberries. Oh yes, our non-sugar course was clam chowder. Yum! Another super plus of potlucks and dinner-at-friend's is the incredible potential to learn and experience new food.

Yes. Clam chowder is “new” to me.

But so was the Iranian food from the week before, and everything I made for these three potlucks were first-time recipes. Delicious, educational Bliss! Remember when people got together, ate, laughed, listened to good music, had diverse and exciting conversation and didn't have to pay someplace to host this sacred gathering? I love these new/old traditions. AND I was called the Michael Phelps of the game Guesstures, a nice post-dinner substitute for squabbling over how to split the bill.

North American November Salad

2 cups cooked wild rice

2/3 cup dried cranberries

2/3 cup toasted and chopped pecans

½ cup toasted pumpkin seeds

½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley

dressing:

2 TBS Walnut oil

1 TBS best balsamic (Old Town Oil's 18 year. Buy it!)

2 TBS cranberry butter/jelly/sauce (I used a cranberry apple butter that was in my fridge)

salt and pepper to taste. That translates to more salt than you'd normally think to put on this.

Mix the dressing together and then combine all the ingredients. I brought this to Andrea's and made a repeat to bring to the Transition Rogers Park potluck tonight. The ingredients are super cheap and found in a bulk bin near you.

Meandering Thursday

2010-11-12T11:16:00.000-06:00

Wednesday was a 12 hour Unicorn-stravaganza, starting with managerial tasks, broken up by a lovely 8 hour shift with Savs, and then topped with some late night soup and sandwich making. My foresight and the extra $35 from the soup made for a pretty pleasant cafe-free Thursday, spent walking and exploring big 'ol Chicago. Ostensibly I left my apartment in the morning for a long walk to a bookstore in Wrigleyville in order to get my sister a birthday present (did I ruin the surprise by saying I planned on getting you a book, Steph? Was that much of a surprise anyway?) but I ended up circling Andersonville, stopping in loads of shops, getting coffee, and returning home. I also didn't get the present. Woops. But don't worry, I have other books, er, presents, up my sleeve, sis!

Stop one was the Rogers Park library, where I picked up a CD I put on hold, my cheapy efforts to amp up my boring old music collection, and then walk walk walk down Clark into Andersonville. It was bright and hot, and I repeatedly bemoaned my silly decision to retire my sunglasses from my backpack just that morning. I walked up and down Clark trying to find the Brown Elephant thrift store but gave up to go to Women and Children First bookshop when it opened at 11. Surprisingly they didn't have the book, but I instead bought Up Tunket Road for myself (this is a trend, steph. There's going to be a lot of 'for myselfs' on this journey to buy you a birthday present today. Sorry again.) The woman at the counter told me where the thrift store was and I found an awesome squashable straw hat that I was in the market for in the summer and these books

The cashier gave me a nice canvas bag and off I trotted back up Clark. I crisscrossed through Andersonville and Edgewater backroads, past a beautiful high school and a pond of koi. I stopped and watched them for awhile and they gathered at the surface, waiting for me to feed them (which I didn't, though I insensitively was munching on a honeycrisp apple at the time). I moved left and they followed, I moved right and they followed. A passerby laughed and when I asked what happens to them in the winter, he said he had asked the owner who said the pond was deep enough for them to survive under the ice layer. A long way from the concerns of the koi in Hawai'i, where the big worry was getting smacked in the face by some nickel thrown into your pool by a tourist.

Cut down to Broadway and visited True Nature Food, an organic grocery store I'd never visited before. I found organic meat (for another time) and bought some much needed clover honey and a few huge parsnips that I baked into thin chips later that evening. Spent an unprecedented three hours at Metropolis and wrote for a bit. Also drank an unprecedented two lattes. Thus my lunch.

Randomly walked into a hidden thrift store that gives their profit to climate change research and action and found (oh boy oh boy) a food dehydrator for a whopping ten bucks. I'm not sure what my inaugural food will be-- maybe apples or some peppers I have in the fridge?

The food dehydrator sort of put me over the edge and I now resembled a total bag lady. As such another visit to the public library was in order. Dropped off my cd, picked up a movie, and home for good! I put the chips in the oven and my next door neighbor came over from across the hall and we talked for an hour and a half. What a pleasantly serendipitous day!

oh. And I made this salad, which I'll poetically call: Sunny Fall Harvest Salad (and why not?):

Fresh green lettuce or mesclun mix

Chevre to crumble creamily over

Small handful dried cranberries

2 TBS (or so) roasted pumpkin seeds

Dressing:

2 tsp pumpkin butter

½ tsp olive oil

Wee drizzle of white wine vinegar (let's say ½ tsp again)

Quarter of a sage leaf, chopped up

shake shake shake!

Wash and dry the lettuce, mix the dressing, combine leaves, dressing, seeds, and berries. Crumble on the cheese and grind on some black pepper. Serves two, but not if you find out your neighbor is a vegan. Eat it all yourself or lose the chevre.

Today The Internet Taught Me How To...

2010-11-07T16:35:00.000-06:00

Make walnut oil! Not that this is a skill I'll put to use anytime soon, but nothing wrong with a little education.

First crack open 8 pounds of nuts and grind the nutmeats in a meat grinder or food processor until fine. Put the ground walnuts in a dutch oven and just barely cover with water. Heat for 40 minutes, presumably not boiling, and stirring constantly. It's possible to skip this step and expel oil from raw nuts, but the cooking step doubles the yield. Here is the step where I can't just run out there and give this a whirl-- it's oil press time. Apparently it takes tons of constant pressure (yes, I think we can take that literally) to get the best oil, so no dice when it comes to banging the meats with a rubber mallet. Using our non-existent oil press, squash the walnuts in batches until you're done-- apparently you can collect 2 quarts of oil from 8 pounds of nuts! Filter with cheesecloth and refrigerate. Voila!

The obvious downsides are not having a ready supply of walnuts, not owning an oil press, and the fact that walnut oil is a low-heat oil, so you can't really use it for cooking. But if you gave the girl a walnut tree and the gift to convert a car hydraulic system into a press....

Writing, Knitting,Saving, Eating,

2010-11-03T17:12:00.001-05:00

Reading and Writing and arithma-KNIT! I'm hearkening back to my student days a bit, working through some questions and ideas in the form of personal essays that tend to resemble articles or research papers more than the free-wheeling feeling of my blog or journal entries. It's nice to write in a more reflective way, not to say that you guys always get stream of consciousness rambling... just most of the time. Once I'm done with this first essay, I'll post it for your reading and thinking pleasure, but for now let me tell you about what else has been happening in my life as Fall falls on Chicagoland.

Firstly, I knit my first scarf, which actually was finished the week I returned from the farm and I feel pretty proud of the furry little thing. I've yet to embark on another project, but my goal of SOCKS by December is motivation to get moving again. Egads, it's November!

aren't i just the cutest.

The hat! The scarf! Both of my October creations.

I have been enjoying this scarf the last week or so, in close conjunction with my wool coat and that wooly hat I told you about a few blogs back. My instinct is to bundle it up and gift it to someone rather than continue to bundle myself up with the cozy thing, but it would really ruin the surprise (to us all, really) if I spilled the beans about who gets it. Plus I have no idea who of you is worthy. Seriously.

The wind that hit Chicago last week saw me riding the buses and trains to work and back, stuck waiting at the redline, then for the purple line, then for the bus to leave, then twenty minutes at the Davis stop... After only two days of this, I've vowed to get myself around on my own steam throughout winter, be it on my bike or with my own two feet. The last couple winters I walked everyday, so I am pretty hardy when it comes to standing up to the cold. Now I live an extra mile from work, but that just means leaving twenty minutes earlier (if walking) or sporting the balaclava and checking for icy streets if biking. No big thing. I love walking and value the clarity of mind I get, being able to observe the world around me, and how good my body feels after putting in a couple miles each day. Sometimes I like to think or dream or just listen to the world, others I like to listen to books on tape. Thank goodness for a brother who worked at North Face and could load me up with warm, breathable gear on the cheap (p.s. I took your cold weather running pants when I visited Washington. I figure you won't need them, seeing as you live in Hawai'i). Also there are a thousand more things I would rather put my $5 daily transit money towards, the best of which is the old savings account. After rent, my biggest expenditure has been these $2 cups of coffee at Charmers and Common Cup that I dutifully pay for and which allow me to check the internet. Even though I could do this at work, and do, I can't get any writing done. Also it's nice to get out and visit the cafes-- sometimes I lament my initial desire to go live on my own and going to a cafe eases that a bit. Plus tips cover this all anyway. Soon the market will be over and I'll have to transition to buying groceries again. sigh.

Speaking of the market, I made a hearty kale and white bean soup and cornbread made with Henry's bloody butcher cornmeal that has lasted for five days. So good!

Kale Soup:
1 bunch kale, de-stemmed, washed, and chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
2 bay leaves
2 cups chicken broth (or your broth of choice)
1-2 more cups water
2 cups white beans, soaked and cooked (or 1 can)
1 cup chopped potatoes
1 japanese turnip (or other non-super-aromatic root of choice. Two carrots would be good, but I had what I had)
1 Tbs dijon mustard
1/2- 1 Tbs (or to taste) good balsamic or red wine vinegar.

Heat up a stockpot with some butter or oil and brown your onion. After a few minutes throw in the garlic, the red pepper, the bay leaves, and half the beans. Squash the beans as best you can with a wooden spoon and then add your stock and water. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Add the rest of the beans, the potatoes, the mustard, and the turnip and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and after about fifteen minutes add in your chopped kale. Stir it in, taste and adjust seasoning. Then let it bubble away, partially covered, for another 20 minutes. Just before turning off the stove, add the vinegar, a small amount first and then to taste. Consume happily with friends or, barring that, a slab of cornbread slathered with honey.

or, dare I say, both.

A Visit to the Farm

2010-10-25T09:48:00.000-05:00

Greetings from the big city. I'm back in Chicago after 4 days down in the dirty south. Well, South= southern Illinois and dirty= I spent the first two days digging potatoes and harvesting greens at Henry's Farm! It was wonderful, of course. I arrived in Bloomington-Normal Wednesday night, helped with the harvest Thursday and Friday and then spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out with Bekah, Charlie, and Andy. The days were not as long as I anticipated, and we apparently had the shortest harvest day of the season Friday, since Thursday we bunched all the greens in preparation for the deep frost that was scheduled for that night. I liked digging the roots much more than putting together bunches of greens, and pulling rutabagas may be my zen-pulling crop of choice. No pictures from the harvest days, but picture perfect weather, blue skies, hawks soaring in and out of view, good friends, and a couple wonderful pooches.

Friday after harvest we road-tripped down (over? up?) to Champaign where Beks and Charlie saw Bob Dylan play and Andy and I moseyed around the college town. We shared a couple beers and people watched mostly.

Saturday it rained buckets, but we still ventured to the Bloomington farmers market and spent some time in that neat town, drinking coffee, reading, interneting, and napping. Beks and I then got a pork shoulder going and that evening the four of us feasted, drank, were merry, before one rousing game of Bang! that left me dead after a whopping one turn. So it goes.

Andy came out victorious.

Sunday Beks made some glorious pancakes with apples, walnuts and a couple raisins thrown in. We then spent the morning lazying about the trailer and once I got a bit stir crazy, Beks and I walked down to the golden fields. So many times over the weekend I was hit with some long-buried sense memory of my time on my grandparent's farm or my house in Michigan and it hit me over and over as Beks and I moseyed around the fields. It was in the 70s, the leaves were golden, and I was in a t-shirt. Perfect! When we returned to the trailer, we made some eggs that we picked up the evening before and sandwiched them between a couple leftover pancakes with some chevre from the farmers market, arugula, and a drizzle of maple syrup. Charlie made greens and the cycle of lazying began all over again. I read and worked on my scarf and after a few hours we went to Eugene Lake Park, where the trees were in full autumnal form. Walked, talked, watched geese and ducks. Oh, and thought. Much thinking to be had while walking around that little lake.

And then I was off as fast as I got there. The time flew by, but comfortably so. I wish (wish wish wish) that I would have visited earlier in the season and that this didn't turn out to be my 'one time only!' for the season, but what can you do? Back to Bloomington, a stop for dinner, and on the train I went. I arrived into Chicago around 9:00pm to 65 degrees and a lightning storm. Walking the empty streets between the amtrak and the el, the lightning illuminating the big buildings in one minute intervals, was such a contrast to my time on the sunny farm. And here I am again. In the big city.

Knit Knit Cook Cook

2010-10-19T10:57:00.000-05:00

At the local coffee shop again, watching Johnny the Metropolis delivery guy scramble up the back counter to rotate big blue five pound bags o' beans. I'm hit with an 'oh man, it's only Tuesday!'moment and get a bit of a chuckle that my natural calendar is realized and determined by what is delivered on which day (even at a shop that isn't my own). The daughter of one of my favorite afternoon customers rings up people here and gives out a very familiar "Alright Alright" and only one custie has come over in the past half hour to mock-scold me for sitting in another shop. I basically blend right in!

I had the urge to write today and the things I will tell you are again without pictures (sorry!). First, I learned how to knit, which is very exciting to me. Before Mandi left on her honeymoon, she loaned me the Stitch and Bitch book which she also learned from and, in a very characteristically teacher move, highlighted different techniques and sticky-noted different lessons to ease the confusion of learning such a hands-on task from a book. I worked away at it until the movements became muscle memory and then after two weeks of dabbling, I bound off my work, a heather grey acrylic swatch that, because of an error made over and over, resembled a little cape rather than a straight-edged rectangle. the top edge measured about 4 inches and the bottom about a foot. By complete chance, I plugged away at it long enough to give me a piece of fabric whose sides could be joined together and out of nothing I fashioned the wonkiest, most beloved little hat ever.

So onward and upward. Yesterday my desire for instant gratification brought me to a local shop called Close Knit and I ogled wall upon wall of brightly colored and superbly soft skeins of yarn. I am still working on techniques with my grey practice yarn, such as purling (the backward stitches that most sweaters seem to be made using), and rib stitches (alternating purl and knit to make a flat lying bit of fabric-- think the cuff or neck of sweaters). Anyway, where the instant gratification comes in is instead of starting fresh with my thin grey yarn, I bought some super thick and chunky wool yarn and a couple size 15 needles (think double the thickness of a ballpoint pen) and am well on my way to a full-length scarf. The bigger fabric and larger needles make for a chunky knit that takes up way more space than the teeny tiny worsted weight I was using which, in reality, is not teeny tiny at all. Wait until I start making socks and use yarn more akin to thread. So after one evening laid out on the couch with my two beautiful colored balls of yarn and two cats following the rhythmic movements of my needles from their perches on the back of the sofa, I slogged out a very satisfying foot and a half of super soft scarf. Guess what you all are getting for Christmas!

In other news, I'm eating delicious green things and have three little pumpkins that just finished roasting at home, ready to be made into puree and then one lucky cup or two thrown directly into a pumpkin bread. One of my favorite meals yesterday-- delicata squash chopped in half moons and sauteed with onions, a poblano pepper, turnips, sweet potato rounds, and then once all those are caramelized and broken down a bit, some chinese broccoli thrown on top. I have a perfect seasoning from Spice House called something like Great Northern Seasoning Mix that has some maple sugar in it that went perfectly. A delicious meal that manages to fit in tons of different flavors without overcrowding. No photos, no recipe, just trust me.

So homeward I go to throw together a pumpkin bread to take along to the farm tomorrow. Then it's off to meet May for a hot date, a few Unicorn hours, and then downtown to help out with the Land Connection's presentation of Sandra Steingraber's Living Downstream. If you are in Chicago, you should come! It's at the Museum of Contemporary Art and starts at 8pm, with a question and answer session with the author to follow. Then it's sleep, work, train, and FARM!

2 Years...

2010-10-14T19:50:00.000-05:00

Good Evening my friends, hello and greetings! It is Fall, FALL, my favorite of seasons and I'm at Charmers, the cafe by my house, where I peruse the internet and eat ice cream until they close at 8pm. I miss sitting in coffee shops-- so many hours I've spent sitting in coffee shops and now so many hours I spend in my coffee shop, but of course no reading, or studying, or writing can get done there. Just loving, laughing, making... not a bad gig, but nice to be a custie again and focus on this and this table only.

I'm reading loads right now. Basically I get home from work, make dinner, and then hunker down with a stack of books for the next few hours. Then I write, remember to feed the cats, put off doing my dishes, and think and think. The solitary life suites me, but sometimes, like tonight, an escape to the coffee shop is certainly in order.

Today was my two year anniversary at the Unicorn. I started there as a barista and three days later got promoted to general manager-ship. It was a whirlwind but awesome. Now I'm in the process of training two new people; in fact, it's felt like I've been on a training train for the last three months It's always neat to see how the different people learn, and try, and nestle their way into the fabric of the cafe and I'm excited because I know these two girls are going to add so much to an already awesome group. People have come and gone since I started two years ago, but so many people dear to me are still there. What luck that I happened on this job when I moved to this place-- I have done so much life changing and life contemplating these last two years and these people and that place are a perfect crutch for an evolving life.

But now it's 10 minutes to close at Charmers, and if it were us we would be queuing up the R. Kelly, so I'll wind down here and kick myself out. A random post, but you get what you get!

So Much!

2010-10-05T18:05:00.000-05:00

Hello all!

So much to catch you up on-- I am now an official Chicagoan, where I moved midway through September. I live in Rogers Park, of 2-or-so blogs ago fame, and aside from the cats building themselves a fortress within my couch frame, we are all getting along swimmingly. It's a wee studio apartment, but situated in such a way that my bed is shoved in its own little hidey hole and my kitchen is a separate room, large enough for the table, even. There is a deck and on a recent windy night, my basil plant decided to end it all before facing the prospect of becoming pesto and jumped from the balcony to the ground below. Eh well. I have to bring them in anyway before the first frost which is due any old time now. Another winter in Chicago. Sigh.

The farm has been having a sad Fall so far. July was soaking and then way to hot, so things like squashes and brussels sprouts didn't manage to get going before the frost hits. That said, I have been eating greens to the moon and ushered in Fall with some very tasty kale that I served alongside sweet potatoes and pork tenderloin.

The kale was lacinto, but any variety will do you just fine or really, any green for that matter. First I caramelized an onion and near the end of its browning, tossed in a quarter of thinly sliced apple. I removed that from the pan and set it aside. I tossed the washed kale, with the stems removed, into the pan (making sure there was some water still clinging to the leaves) and let it wilt down for a few minutes. At the end I put about a teaspoon and a half of really good balsamic, some salt, and added about half of the caramelized apple and onion mix. Stove off. Yum yum.

Tonight I'm making a stir-fry of some sort and then it's off to pub trivs. I really don't know what to do with myself now that I am internet-free-- perhaps exercise, read, clean... ah, how productive I am these days.

or... KNIT! With a little help from my friend, Mandi, I taught myself how to knit last Friday. The two little swatches I've managed to turn out are pretty dang knobbly, but practice makes... bearable (and wearable!)

I read Colum McCann's Let The Great World Spin and was practically the only person at my book club head over heels about the thing. I don't know why, but I really loved this book. I'm now re-reading Walden, which is basically the exact opposite of LTGWS, a novel that characterizes and utilizes the city and all of its loud, obnoxious traits, to set every last scene of the book. It certainly is about New York and I don't think that it could have taken place in any other city. So Walden seemed like a nice respite after so many (albeit wonderful) hours spent reading about ghettos, hookers, class unrest, etc. In fact, both these books are run through with wonderfully simple phrases that resonate with me in similar ways. I think I also just needed something so distinctly rural (and what's more rural than Thoreau's little hermitage?) after reading perhaps the most intensely urban novel ever. I recommend the combo (and in this order, if you please)!

Washington Trip!

2010-08-31T11:03:00.000-05:00

I just returned Sunday from Washington, my home and native land, where I spent 10 days visiting old haunts, visiting old friends, exploring in Seattle, and being lazy in Port Orchard. Oh, and hiking. (ah yes, that part...) I joined Josh's family on a backpacking trip in Olympic National Park, which took us along the High Divide/ Seven Lakes Basin for 3 days. It was beautiful and great, but much harder than I anticipated. There was a very steep grade for the majority of the hike's 20 miles and my backpack weighed about 9 pounds even before stuffing it full of essentials. Thank goodness I had strengthened up over the last several months or I would have been suffering by the end. Instead I just walked and daydreamed or chatted with the others, all the while soaking up the Olympic Peninsula, which I didn't realize I missed so much.

The first day was mostly mossy forest but pretty steep after the first mile. Luckily we only put in about 5 that day, so even though we left Port Angeles late, we got to our campsite at Deer Lake early enough to lounge about and not immediately go into eat-set-up camp-sleep mode. Helen and I walked around the lake while Josh's dad played his little backpack guitar. I made tortellini with ajvar and salami for dinner and we all did our part to help empty the bladder of wine that was weighing down J's dad's pack.

deer lake at dusk.

our site at Deer Lake

Day two started off later than I would have liked which resulted in us not being able to detour to Bogashiel peak, which would have given us a 360 degree view of the ocean, Mt. Olympus, Vancouver Island, and, you know, whatever's south. It was perfect weather, clear and about 80 so we had excellent visibility when we reached the high parts of the high divide. This was a ten mile day, by far the hardest of the three, where we climbed through steep, open meadows directly under the sun (hooray for Josh who brought 2 hats!) then after a bit of forest it was a couple very treacherous feeling miles on a skinny little path just barely carved out of the cliff and scattered with loose stones. Of course, this was probably the most beautiful part of the entire hike, but lord knows I was only interested in the piece of solid ground a meter ahead of me.

sunny meadows

clear blue sky (??!!!)

Thanks for the hat!

this was the beginning of the scary part of the trail. Many switchbacks ahead! Also we saw several bald eagles and falcons at this point.

blog writing interlude: I miss trees! And the smell of the forest! And sea air! waaaah

ahem.

We got to Heart Lake pretty late and I immediately set about making dinner-- rice and beans mixed with jambalaya and three varieties of Trader Joe ready-made Indian food. So Good! Just what we needed after a strenuous day. A neighbor camper informed us that a bear passed through our camp earlier in the day so we were extra cautious with our food (already in bear canisters) and cooking gear. So strange that "bear canister" slipped so easily into our common vocabulary in the course of a few hours...

I was highly anticipating seeing some beautiful stars but the moon was full and both nights we camped it shone so brightly that the stars were muted out, just like in the city (though with a bluish rather than a harsh dirty orange light). It was so quiet. No cicadas in these parts.

Day three we set off at a reasonable time and moseyed our way back down into the basin and eventually to the car. I loved this day. We followed babbling brooks until we reached the Sol Duc river, which we crossed a few times (once using a log bridge to cross over rapids... not pleasant).

Like I said, day three was beautiful, though it looks like I only stepped out of my head for enough time to take photos at the very beginning of the trail.

Us at the beginning of the entire hike. Fresh faced and (for the most part) unencumbered.

We got to the car and drove the 2 miles to the sol duc hotsprings in order to shower up. Then some errands in Port Angeles, including a stop at Elwha Fish Company , which has the freshest and tastiest seafood ever, though we got there too late and settled (ha!) for some alder smoked King Salmon of two varieties. We then went to a disappointing and pricey restaurant, our second of its kind in Pt. Angeles, though we had the most memorably bumbling waiter, which is at least something. Perhaps I should open a fish restaurant on the peninsula....

While I'm in Port Angeles mode, I should mention that before our trek we went to Peak's Brewpub, which had several very nice beers, including some micro-micros they make in-house. These were mind-blowingly awesome and I wasn't surprised when the owner mentioned that he often places first in brewing competitions. So until I open my fish restaurant, you can easily get by in Pt. Ang with a visit to these two places and a bakery for a baguette and sussigkeit.

Then home. We saw the moon look awesome again over Hood Canal and were actually able to get out on the bridge, which opened to let some tugs through. I saw several sea lions lolling about and looking curiously at the quiet bridge, which I assume usually conducts a loud roarhum through the water as the cars drive over.

Then home. Well, Josh's home. I had one interim day between camping and Port Orchard and spent a lot of it in wonderful Ballard before going off to meet Irene, Chrysti, and Jamie on Capital Hill. I didn't take any pictures, but managed to go to Cupcake Royale twice (hrmmm, priorities?). Jamie and I had dinner and then sat on the roof of her townhouse, watching the city. It's so much more quiet than Chicago. sigh.

To Port Orchard! My mom made an amazing dutch oven dinner, truly an awesome and new experience for me at that house. A firepit is now in the front yard, surrounded by chairs, a little weber grill, and a rickety table for the two cast-iron dutch ovens. In one, my mom smoked fresh salmon and in the other she made cornbread and then pineapple upside down cake. On the grill I made tequila lime shrimp, fresh corn, and zucchini and peppers.

the bottom is the cornbread, top is the salmon

wine time!

smoke, baby!

there, that's better

corn soaked, tied, and ready for the grill

cornbread!

dusk again.

Life of Pi

2010-08-09T21:06:00.000-05:00

Only about 8 years late, I just finished Life of Pi, which Tom and I (and now Steph!) are reading for our newly founded Brother Sister Bookclub (which I just christened as such). What a great book, though I will advise you not to read while eating. I had about an hour and a half to kill before my cousin's wedding on Saturday so I hunkered down at what may be the only cafe near the MSU campus and ate lunch during the not-so-pleasant hyena vs. zebra scene. Not so pleasant. And the end THE END! I couldn't believe how sad it made me :-( So choose the better story, people!

Here is an essay by Yann Martel from Powell's Books:

How I Wrote Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

I would guess that most books come from the same mix of three elements: influence, inspiration and hard work. Let me detail how each one came into play in the writing of Life of Pi.
Influence

Ten or so years ago, I read a review by John Updike in the New York Times Review of Books. It was of a novel by a Brazilian writer, Moacyr Scliar. I forget the title [editor's note: it's Max and the Cats], and John Updike did worse: he clearly thought the book as a whole was forgettable. His review — one of those that makes you suspicious by being mostly descriptive, without critical teeth, as if the reviewer were holding back — oozed indifference. But one thing about it struck me: the premise. The novel, as far as I can remember, was about a zoo in Berlin run by a Jewish family. The year is 1933 and, not surprisingly, business is bad. The family decides to emigrate to Brazil. Alas, the ship sinks and one lone Jew ends up in a lifeboat with a black panther. What displeased Updike about the story? I don't remember him being clear about it. Was it that the allegory marched with too heavy a tread, the parallel between the black panther and the Nazis too obvious? Did the premise wear its welcome out? Was it the tone? The style? The translation? Whatever it was, the book fatigued Updike but it had the effect on my imagination of electric caffeine. I marvelled. What perfect unity of time, action and place. What stark, rich simplicity. Oh, the wondrous things I could do with this premise. I felt that same mix of envy and frustration I had felt with Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, that if only I had thought of it I could have done something great with it. But — damn! — the idea had been faxed to the wrong muse. I looked for the book, but booksellers consulted their computers and shook their heads. And then I forgot about it. I wanted to forget about it. I didn't really want to read the book. Why put up with the gall? Why put up with a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer. Worse, what if Updike had been wrong? What if not only the premise but also its rendition were perfect? Best to move on. I wrote my first novel. I travelled. Romances started and ended. I travelled some more. Four or five years went by.
Inspiration

I was in India. It was my second time. Another stint to shake me and dazzle me. The start of the trip had been rough. I had arrived in Bombay, which is indeed a crowd, but one that was bypassing me. I felt terribly lonely. One night I sat on my bed and wept, muffling the sounds so that my neighbours would not hear me through the thin walls. Where was my life going? Nothing about it seemed to have started or added up to much. I had written two paltry books that had sold about a thousand copies each. I had neither family nor career to show for my 33 years on Earth. I felt dry and indifferent. Emotions were a bother. My mind was turning into a wall. And if that weren't enough, the novel I had planned to write while in India had died. Every writer knows the feeling. A story is born in your mind and it thrills you. You nurture it like you would a fire. You hope to see it grow and eventually be born on paper. But at one point, you look at it and you feel nothing. You feel no pulse. The characters don't speak naturally, the plot does not move, the descriptions don't come to you ? everything about your story is thankless work. It has died.
I was in need of a story. More than that, I was in need of a Story.
I got to Matheran, the hill station closest to Bombay. It's a small place high up, with beautiful views over the surrounding plains, and it has the peculiarity of not being able to accommodate cars, autorickshaws or motorcycles. You get there by toy train or by taxi, and then you must walk or ride a horse. The closest you get to the noises of a motor on Matheran's streets of fine, reddish earth are the rumbling, horking sounds of Indians spewing out betel juice. The peace of the place is blessed and utterly un-Indian. It was there, on top of a big boulder to be precise, that I remembered Scliar's premise.
Suddenly, my mind was exploding with ideas. I could hardly keep up with them. In jubilant minutes whole portions of the novel emerged fully formed: the lifeboat, the animals, the intermingling of the religious and the zoological, the parallel stories.
Where did that moment of inspiration come from? Why did I think that religion and zoology would make a good mix? How did I think up the theme that reality is a story and we can choose our story and so why not pick "the better story" (the novel's key words)?
I could give approximate answers. That India, where there are so many animals and religions, lent itself to such a story. That tensions simmering just below my level of consciousness were probably feverishly pushing me to come up with a story. But in truth I don't know. It just happened. Some synapses in my brain started firing off and I came up with ideas that were not there a moment before.
I now had a reason to be in India.
Hard Work

I visited all the zoos I could find in the south of India. I interviewed the director of the Trivandrum Zoo. I spent time in temples, churches and mosques. I explored the urban settings for my novel and took in the nature around them. I tried to immerse myself as much as possible in the Indianness of my main character. After six months I had enough local colour and detail.
I returned to Canada and spent a year and a half doing research. I read the foundational texts of Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. I read books on zoo biology and animal psychology. I read castaway and other disaster stories.
All the while, in India and in Canada, I took notes. On the page, in a smashed-up, kaleidoscopic way, Life of Pi began to take shape. I took a while to decide what animal would be my main animal protagonist. At first I had an elephant in mind. The Indian elephant is smaller than the African, and I thought an adolescent male would fit nicely in the lifeboat. But the image of an elephant in a lifeboat struck me as more comical than I wanted. I changed to a rhinoceros. But rhinos are herbivores and I could not see how I could keep a herbivore alive in the high seas. And a constant diet of algae struck me as monotonous for both reader and writer, if not for the rhino. I finally settled upon the choice that in retrospect seems the obvious one: a tiger. The other animals in the lifeboat ? the zebra, the hyena and the orang-utan ? arose naturally, each one a function of a human trait I wanted to embody, the hyena cowardliness, the orang-utan maternal instincts and the zebra exoticism.
I chose meerkats because I wanted a small ferret-like creature without the connotations that ferrets have. I wanted a neutral animal upon which I could paint a personality of my choice. Also, meerkats rhymed somewhat with mirage and meekness.
The blind, cannibal Frenchman in the other boat came to me in those first moments of inspiration in Matheran; in other words, I don't know where he came from. In my first draft, the scene with the Frenchman was much longer, close to 45 pages. It was one of my favourite sections. It was Beckett in the Pacific, I thought. Which was precisely the problem, my editor told me. It was funny and absurd, she told me, but in the wrong place, like a good joke told at a funeral. The tone was wrong; it broke with what came before and after. So I had to cut it down substantially.
The algae island floated into my imagination from the same dark luminous place from whence came the meerkats, the Frenchman and, indeed, the novel as a whole.
The rest was hard, fun work, a daily getting it down on the page that came not without hurdles, not without moments of doubt, not without mistakes and rewrites, but always, always with deep, gratifying pleasure, with a knowledge that no matter how the novel would fare, I would be happy with it, that it helped me understand my world a bit better.

Move to Rogers Park We'll Hang Out, Move to Rogers Park We'll Go All Out

2010-08-06T11:14:00.000-05:00

Two of my friends moved the hop skip and a jump to Rogers Park this week and yesterday evening was devoted to seeing their new places and eating my way through their new neighborhood. This was certainly a Round One of many because holy crap does Rogers Park have an abundance of awesome, inexpensive food.

to wit:

Hopped on the Metra and five minutes later we were in the hustle and bustle of the Clark Street corridor. First stop: Tamales Lo Mejor de Guerrero. Brendan got both the puero verde and the pollo verde, which are the spicier pork and chicken varieties. I got the pollo verde and enjoyed it immensely.

Mosied into Casa Roman grocery after an internet tip to try their tacos de sesos, though I couldn't remember what it was that the person said was so good and it didn't look like much of a deli counter so we opted for sweet things instead. To Panaderia Ayutla!

scarf. Not quite sure what this thing is called, but it is basically a challah-esque slice of fluffy brioche bread slathered with butter (or, most likely,a combination of butter and lard) and then sprinkled with sugar. Wow, how did I not gain any weight after all this? At Ayutla you grab tongs and a silver tray and have your pick of 5 or 6 large, aisle-long cases of pastries to pick from. The only things with prices were the churros, at $1.25 they are by far the priciest things there. Our churro and mystery treif-challah came to $1.80. Yelp tells me they have amazing pan dolce. Definitely will visit again.

Me-yah see! Every old timey Chicago gangster needs a delicious churro cigar. Here we are walking to Brendan's new place, passing one of the two dozen super cheap Mexican grocery stores/ produce markets.

Can I say that Josh has pestered me to move from Evanston for the last couple months and after seeing Brendan's apartment I am finally ready to make a change. Nice timing Val, you doofus! (we just signed another lease).

After leaving Brendan's perfectly situated beach front apartment, we mosied next to Royal Coffee, an awesome Ethiopian coffee shop on the corner of Pratt and Sheridan. This place has fine coffee that's served with delicious little orange-blossom kissed cookies the size of oyster crackers. Brendan got coffee and I got a fresh squeezed orange and mango juice. Oh, delicious, delicious. We then split the vegetarian plate, which certainly rivals anything at Ethiopian Diamond and is $10 rather than your hefty $30+. The red lentils are especially amazing and the yellow lentils were the best I've ever had there. The poor woman who runs it was working by herself going on 11 hours-- please go eat here so they can afford to hire someone and not go out of business!

Across the street is a great little bookstore called Armadillo's Pillow which reminds me of something you'd find on the Olympic Peninsula or in Bellingham, though that might just be the nag champa. I went against my oath to not buy any books and bought John O'Farrell's Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years In The Life of a Labour Supporter.

Seems funny and interesting. And unlike the used bookstores in Evanston, most of the books here are in the $3-$4 range. yay!

Next? We're already running late for Eric's potluck, a housewarming sort of affair for my other friend who moved into Rogers Park. Circumstance and taste dictated that we retrace our steps and bring along tamales and churros and so we did. We bought out both Ayutla's churros and most of Guerrero's tamales. I was able to use my 10th grade Spanish for once during this visit to the tamale shop, since the person who spoke English left for the day. Aside from mis-translating how many cents we were supposed to give, I did pretty well and we even got a free tamale to boot! We bought a sweet tamale to add to our dessert spread which, aside from the churros, also included a meringue-like little cookie that we ended up slathering with red currant jam, a scone-like pan dolce, and a gigantic palmier (Brendan hates coconut so all the treats with that, one of my favorite flavors, will have to wait). Completely stuffed, we headed to dinner where I ate to abandon and then regretted it for the next 8 hours.

The worst food coma since at least two Thanksgivings ago.

I'll leave you with a picture of Josh with Eric's favorite new roommate, Mahat!

Upside Down Zucchini Corn and Cran Bread

2010-07-26T10:33:00.001-05:00

Hello Internet! Good morning to you and good grief where is this dang handy man? It's monday morning and I should be at work, diligently ordering cookies and paper goods for the cafe but instead I'm waiting around for my landlord to bring over OUR BRAND NEW REFRIGERATOR! Yes, I used caps lock and I sincerely hope you read it Price-is-Right style. THAT's how excited I am about this. Our old fridge had the drips and we've lost lots of produce because of it. Drip drip drip right into the bag and my beautiful farmers market lettuce/sorrel/cabbage/whatever rots. BOO! Then the machine would over compensate and freeze anything that touched the back, so adios basil! But no more! It's a new day, a glorious new day where I can shove as much stuff into the fridge as I want with only myself to blame if we don't get to it in time (and maybe a little bit Josh).

While I wait, let me tell you about my super hot Friday, my soaking and freezing Saturday, my awesome lazy farmers market dinner, and my Sunday bookfinds.

In other words, Weekend Recap!

NPR kept telling me that Friday was going to be the hottest day of the year. Maybe that was the case but I couldn't feel the difference between the other 92-ish degree days earlier in the week, or maybe I was mentally prepared and those 3 extra degrees didn't phase me. Either way, after work I set up camp in our air-conditioned bedroom and decided, most likely delirious from the heat, that I should bake something for the market on Saturday, since I'm holed up away from the kitchen anyway.

And bake I did. Two things actually, a cornbread plumped up with zucchini and dotted with fresh corn and frozen cranberries and another batch of my diet's bane, birthday granola. The cornbread was excellent, though in order to share the oven with the granola I had to keep it on the uppermost rack, causing the top to brown quickly and fooling me into pulling it out of the oven a bit earlier than I should have. I realized this too late and by the time we sliced into it there was no way I was going to turn the oven back on to correct my error so I simply cut around the gooey almost-cooked middle. Solved! This was really easy and very summery feeling, even with the cranberries (which, hey! you freeze in Fall for a reason!) but of course you could use any sort of berry you like, or leave them out and just have a corn and zucch bread (which would be awesome with a bit of fresh rosemary, especially if you sautéed the needles with brown butter and wait for that to cool in place of the melted butter or oil. oh man. do that, please!) I think next time I will use more cranberries and do brown butter, too.

Upside-Down Zucchini Corn and Cran Bread (a val original)

1.5 cups whole cranberries

2 TBS brown sugar

1.25 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup melted butter or oil

2/3 cup brown sugar

zest from 1 lemon

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup yogurt or buttermilk

1 tsp white or cider vinegar if using yogurt rather than buttermilk

2-3 cups zucchini, shredded (add an extra tsp cornmeal for every extra 1/4 cup zucchinis over 2 cups)

1 cup corn kernels, either frozen or fresh (if fresh, also use the creamy juice)

Butter a 10 inch cast iron skillet or a springform pan and set the oven at 350F. In a small bowl, sprinkle the 2 TBS brown sugar over the cranberries until they are covered and the sugar is evenly distributed and then tumble them out into the bottom of the pan. Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl or your stand mixer, whip together the brown sugar and the melted butter until it gets frothy and creamy and then add in your zest and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, and switch over to your paddle attachment. Add the yogurt and vinegar or the buttermilk and blend until totally combined. Add the zucchini shreds and once combined mix in the dry ingredients only until the flour is completely hydrated. Mixing it too long will develop the gluten and result in a firm, gummy bread. You also want to work quickly because the reaction between the baking powder, baking soda, and buttermilk or yogurt & vinegar that causes the bread to rise has just started working, so you want to get that puppy in the oven asap. Mix in your corn kernels and any of the milky corn juice that accumulated if you used fresh corn and then pour the mixture over your cranberries, spread it evenly, and immediately put it in the oven (and trust me, you want it on the middle rack.) Give it 45 minutes and then test it with a skewer or fork or other method that's a bit more fool-proof than just looking at the top and giving it a jiggle. Let it cool in the pan for about 15 minutes and then turn it out onto a rack. Enjoy it warm, room temp, or (the best!!) toasted in a skillet and served up with some wilted raw sorrel and a runny egg. Yum!

That last bit was basically my dinner on Saturday, by the way. It stormed all night Friday and through about 10am Saturday, resulting in me hardly getting any sleep and then experiencing the wettest, worst bike ride of my life to the market at 4:30 in the morning. It was like I fell into a pool with my clothes on, I was so wet. I got to the marktplatz and only one truck was there-- the highway had been flooded and the paddywagon of farmers coming from S. Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana ended up being stuck in traffic for another two hours. The other volunteers and I went and had some tea and cappuccinos at the shuttered and dark Unicorn while we waited and then hurried over when Henry called. In record time, we got the tents up and the veg out, but I was completely disoriented from the 5am coffee break and still soaked to the bone. Surprisingly, we sold quite a lot of produce-- nice job, you hardy folks of Evanston! But I was completely wiped out and slept from 3-7:30 and basically managed to cook eggs for dinner, though as I said before that ended up being perfect. What was even more perfect, or what rounded out my quick supper perfection, was a deliciously ripe peach and a round of nice goat cheese for dessert.

To close I'll just tell you I bought another dozen books from the Friends of the Library booksale and am going cold turkey on book buying for at least 2 months. Some good finds, but the piles are mounting and it's time to get some serious reading done (seriously!) Unless of course I find something I just NEED at Magus when I visit Seattle in August. Adios!

Books and Cooking and Cooking Books

2010-07-21T10:57:00.001-05:00

That's basically my life right now, interspersed with the occasional walk and bi-weekly disaster call from the cafe. I finished reading Eat Pray Love and am now on the hunt for something a bit non-fiction-y, maybe some stodgy old history, say, about Bismarck or Napoleon or something. Even as I write that out I think, 'mmmm, Bismarcks' and 'mmmm, napoleons.' My world has turned into one big pastry case!

insert Hitler joke here.

I started the first Colin Dexter book but think it's time for a break from British Mysteries. The book club next month is reading Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, but that isn't calling to me much, either. I guess if all else fails I can start reading one of the dozen and a half cookbooks that have made their way into my home within the past month. Remember that big stack I got at Amaranth? Glanced through two and the pile I arranged for the blog photo is still in tact, though hurriedly shifted from the windowsill to avoid one impending storm or another. I also bought the Cafe Zuni Cookbook which is so mind-boggling good I find myself regretting our move to Evanston over Berkeley each time I open the thing. Josh brought me back the Cafe Flora Cookbook from Seattle and last night I made a dressing for a buckwheat salad that was inspired by it, but still haven't given either of those a full, dedicated read-through. Then my mom sent me two packages laden with thrift store finds, including several of the Time Good Cooks series. These are awesome books hiding their many culinary prowesses between uninviting late 70's-early 80's brown and orange covers, often making them prime toss-out material for those upgrading their shelves. Ha, the fools! These are always at thrift stores, and for no good reason except maybe fate is on Your side for once and the previous owner is suffering some sort of kharmic punishment. They are chock full of tips, step by step photos, and are very, very detailed about the basics and advanced techniques. The basics are where the money is, because some of the advanced recipes tend to be a bit retro, but after a few minutes with one yesterday, I can now bone a lamb if you hunkered me down in front of one.

What.

With about 6 of those and a couple other bistro-y books from Mom, 3 new Nigella books, and the Sunday Suppers at Lucques, my cup/bookshelf/floorspace runneth over. And I want a break from them all! Fine. History? 1980s Belfast it is! (mmm Irish car bomb...)

But before entering the warzone, let me tell you about my lovely dinner last night! I went to Mandi's before my bookclub which was conveniently located about 4 doors down until yesterday morning when they decided shoving 20 people in a 3rd floor walk-up with no air-conditioning could conceivably be unpleasant and moved the meeting to the Gold Coast. But dinner plans are dinner plans and naturally take precedence over chitchatting with strangers about books (since, hey! you can chitchat with your friends about books WHILE eating dinner. win win.) Mandi made "massaged" kale salad, which was sweet and tart and wonderful (and with toasted pepitas, om nom nom) and I made that buckwheat salad and steaks with chimichurri sauce. Sidenote: when you click on the squiggly red underlined "chimichurri", the blog editor suggests I'm trying to spell chimerical, which makes me laugh a bit. Actually, I used some Russian Red garlic, half the amount suggested, and it was so garlicky and spicy I could conceivably call it chimerical. But I won't, because it was awesome and not at all destructive.

Insert garlic-breath joke here.

massaged kale.

buckwheat salad with japanese cukes, olives, feta, and a roasted garlic and herb vinaigrette.

One big, pile of beef. I used round steaks and they turned out pretty perfect considering we were sans grill. Served up with chimera chimichurri and some feta.

Chimera Chimichurri Sauce:

1 bunch parsley
1 cup loose (not packed tightly) arugula leaves
handful basil leaves
2 shiso leaves
1 head russian red or other tear-inducing garlic (or 2 heads of your run of the mill cloves)
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp harissa
1/2 cup to 1 cup olive oil.

Add all the ingredients aside from the oil into your food processor and blitz away for about 20 seconds. Slowly drizzle a steady stream of olive oil through the top hatch as the machine is still spinning and until you reach your desired consistency. I opted for less oil (the half cup side of the spectrum), which resulted in a more scoopable rather than pourable sauce. Scoop or pour onto some rare to medium rare (don't wimp out here!) sliced steak. Enjoy with some friends, please!

The Beans are Spilled. Now Time for Some Rainbow Wedding Cake

2010-07-19T08:26:00.000-05:00

As promised, here is a full report about my sugar-overdose cake made for one of my dear friends, who decided to get married a month or so ago and finally, after all that waiting, skipped off to romantic Wisconsin and did just that last Thursday. She has good judgement and I get good vibes from the guy, so instead of worrying over her future life, I decided to make cake.

Since my friend is pretty whimsical and obviously romantic, I made a red velvet cake masquerading as a rainbow masquerading as a prim little white wedding cake that could have easily been perched on the top tier of the giant wedding cakes we're accustomed to. I made the cake batter, weighed it and divided it into sixths, and used some gel food coloring to color each layer. I then baked them in 5 inch pans and frosted with a combination of cream cheese frosting, poured buttercream, and regular buttercream.

Let me tell you about icing cakes when your apartment is 90 degrees. DON'T DO IT! Find a friend with air-conditioning, venture into your dank basement, bring your supplies with you to the movie theater, anything, but don't try to ice the cake in the heat and certainly don't try to make a poured icing because wow will it not stick to the sides and just keep oozing off into tasty, sugary, plasma land (and then, naturally, to your fingers which are then shoved in your mouth. 8am sugar high!). Luckily, my cake would have been a comical one-foot tall Cat-in-the Hat type affair if I didn't slice each layer in half, so I was left with Cake 1 and Cake 2, something which saved the day when the aforesaid melting icing disasters kept taking place.

It doesn't help the heat situation that I also have no idea how to ice cakes properly. I usually never bother with the stuff, but somehow I thought, meh, this will be easy, just watch a youtube video or two, slap some frosting on, pour over your buttercream to look like a total pro and then make some sweet little dots or swirls and voila, a wedding cake. Well, like I said Cake 1 (above) certainly became a melty mess once the buttercream became involved, so the happy couple actually got Cake 2 (which, as is my custom, I never took a photo of after all was said and done). Actually this worked out well, since Cake 1 had a little bit of a gangster lean to it and Cake 2 just sat there, like cake. Which is what I was going for, really! It pains me to put this on the internet, but here is the remains of Cake 1 after I decided to throw in the towel on that one and use it for practice/let it sit on my counter for more than 15 minutes.

I'm meeeeeeelting

Not pretty. But then you cut a slice....

Squeal! the little girl in me just did a little sugar-high induced dance before hopping on her happiness Unicorn and rocketing off to Jupiter (happiness Unicorns are space-worthy, didn't you know?)

Cake 2 had the pleasure of being eaten by some people from the market, who all had birthdays last week, some Unicorns who often get my scraps and who deserved a treat after a crazy couple weeks, and me at an outdoor concert/picnic with Josh.

NY Times Magazine: Michigan Teen Farms her Backyard

2010-07-15T09:55:00.000-05:00

Look at that chard! When I was a kid (also in Michigan) I started 2 gardens over the course of 2 summers. I must have been 10 or 11, so I can't quite remember more than the planting but that also might be because that's as far as the projects went. Sort of like when I would sign up for baton every year, but taper off and eventually quit before the annual recital. But this girl, Alexandra Reau, has her Michigan garden AND a CSA to boot. I love that she won a start-up grant for a CSA in a youth-inventors contest (are these all over or just in Michigan, too? I can't for the life of me remember what 'I invented' when our 4th grade ENDOW class entered this thing, but I do remember showing it off, science fair style, amid the pantyhose at our local K-Mart and being amazed by the brilliance of my best friend Bethany's invention: a gliding ball-bearing hand rest for lefties who don't want their words to smudge up as they're writing.)

Where was I? Oh yes, what a great climate for small farmers right now. I'm surprised, but happy that organizations are considering youthful interest in the biz as worthy of investment and that NY Times is practically smitten with this stuff right now. Here is the story, by the way: Michigan Teen Farms Her Backyard. I mean, what a headline. Basically the story fits the billing-- just a girl with a garden. But it's nice to see that people are interested enough in farming that something as seemingly mundane as a girl from Michigan growing crops in her backyard and selling her produce would even make it to the editor's desk. And I mean, look at that CHARD!

What I've made, What I've Eaten, What I've Read

2010-07-14T13:36:00.000-05:00

Or.. a Recap!

It's been a few days and the pictures and stories are piling up here in blog-land. I just got done making my first wedding cake and now am on the brink of diabetic shock from how much dang frosting I managed to imbibe during the process. I'm not a cake decorator, that's for sure, and two of my biggest faults, being a bit lax with the details ('meh that's good enough') and jumping straight into a project without exactly knowing what I'm doing ('oh god, why did I not THINK about the fact that it's 90 degrees outside!), definitely sparkled through this morning. Oh, and my sugar addiction. That is still shining through, particularly when I'm trying to steady my jittery hands over the proper keys and keep the computer screen in focus. So while I will regale you with a full tale of first foray into fancy cake baking once the cake is in on its way to wedding-land, and I won't make too many references to Miss Havisham's cake, for now let us discuss the more pedestrian side of my week in eats while I drink a strong cup of black coffee and await the impending sugar crash.

Honestly I got on here today to tell you about another cake I made, one of two that I put together last week for Jodi's birthday and which may have been the tastiest thing ever. EVER. It's a date cake flecked with dark chocolate and then topped with a bunch of dark chocolate and pistachios. You might not be able to tell that the mysteriously delicious flavor in the base was dates until told, the crumb had the springiest, moistest, most perfect mouth feel (what a term) and, you know, it tasted awesome. Of course, me being me, I managed to take photos of almost every other thing I ate this week and just let this cake slide under the radar and into never-never land. After some incredible praise from Jeff, whose opinions on bake goods I hold in pretty high esteem (he works in a bakery, his mom was the local star who baked non-Miss Havisham wedding cakes), I decided to actually write down my recipe, which means, someday, I actually get to eat more than one piece of it!

I also made a polenta and olive cake, since Jodi, unlike me, is not a sugar addict and usually leaves about half of one teensy little slice of whatever dessert on her plate for the next day's breakfast. This little stud-muffin also had golden raisins, a bit of honey (must slip sweet in somehow), our windowsill rosemary and walnuts on top. He lifted pretty hilariously, perhaps since I used cornmeal rather than polenta, but I like the effect and am excited to use these cute little 5 inch pans on some soda bread in the near, non-90 degree outside future.

I've been eating my way through a couple cabbages, which taste awesome stir-fried up with some garlic, ginger, fish sauce, chili garlic paste and then topped with a ludicrous amount of thai basil. Green beans and broccoli have also got this treatment and, come to think of it, this may be lunch today as well. Also Japanese cukes are in season! hoorah! It's totes tatziki time!

Beauts. I've made a couple carrot salads, one with harissa and feta, the other with peanuts and a vinaigrette. I'm working on a summer root fritter (okay, latke) that is composed mostly of carrots, beets, and sweet potatoes, but have yet to get them perfect, though we've certainly had a good go of it the last two nights.

In true eastern European form, we ate them alongside some sausage, though these were also a bit summery, since they were cevipici, a specialty from summery Croatia, and which were my reintroduction to carnivorous life back in the summer of 2007. My friends returned to Tübingen from their mini-break on the beaches of Croatia and barbecued some of these little beauties one night, serving an awesome eggplant and pepper relish called ajvar alongside.

I was seduced. The next time they made them, I, very consciously, decided to join in, throwing three years of vegetarianism out the window. The rest is history! I moved back to the US, decided if I'm a born again meat-eater I'd better know how to whip up more than the occasional stir-fry, and taught myself to cook. Thanks, meat! I bought our cevipici from Lincoln Quality Meat Market, my first trip to a real butcher since my days in Deutschland, after a fun day out with two randomly visiting cousins (again, no camera-- why do I do this?!)

Last but not least, I've been continuing my unconscious nostalgia for Deutschland this week by indulging in the best, most European, yogurt I've ever had here in the states. It's from Traders Point Creamery (as is the above photo) and tastes... real. Like what yogurt is supposed to taste like. It's smooth, but not too smooth, drinkably thin, but not too thin, and the taste, the taste! A swirl of honey and I am transported. Yes. I went there. Traders Point has a booth at our farmers market and will probably be seeing a lot of me over the next couple months.

On the book-front it's been all mysteries all the time. I read another of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse books and subsequently bought the entire series used off amazon. They are so good and so underrated (as though I keep up on the reviews surrounding 1990s-era Brit mysteries...) Next wast The Beekeeper's Apprentice, a new mystery written by Laura King, which proved to be nothing more than a good concept with a poorly constructed story to go along with it (bummer! but if you can't write a suspenseful plot well, you shouldn't venture into Sherlock Holmes territory) and then a long wait and a bus ride put a $1 copy of some random Hercule Poirot novel in my hands (and, a day later, right back out). Needless to say (or maybe not, maybe you guys don't get super-saturated with cheeky English mysteries that you start seeing everything as potential murder weapons), but everyday objects and situations in my life are getting the british mystery treatment. Even my dreams are taking dark, mysterious turns. But we won't discuss those.

My stockpile of mysteries is on hold, though, while I read Eat, Pray, Love, which is my bookclub's selection for this month and which I LOVE. I scoffed at first. I saw it at many a used book store, at Costco, all over, and it just seemed like some floofy self-help book for women not as intelligent or sensible as me. Nope! It's pretty wonderful and may be the ultimate 30-something-lady-memoir, which is a genre I just invented and which, obviously, I'm pretty fond of. So don't scoff. Read it. You'll love it.

Summer oh, summer

2010-07-04T11:40:00.000-05:00

I've been loving this midwest summer, even with its 90 degree spikes, its ridiculous thunderstorms, and its super sweaty humidity. It feels like I'm on a bit of summer vacation, even though my Unicorn-duties have just morphed a bit from everyday ordering and all around helper-gal to shifts and the bi-weekly emergency phone calls when something breaks down as it's wont to do. I think I just really like Evanston, right now, in summer, when I jog in the morning along the waterfront, when I go into my little cafe, when I'm reading on the beach or in my non-air-conditioned apartment, and, of course, when I'm working at the farmers market. I feel lucky to have neighbors who share their badminton set and 10pm tastes with us (last night they made fried zucchini blossoms and we brought over Josh's birthday cake).

Cake! I sort of bombed the strawberry rhubarb pie that I made for Josh's birthday-proper, but luckily he wanted to celebrate a bit more and I was able to take another crack at baking. This is a chocolate bundt with some walnuts and a cheesecake and chocolate chip ribbon. Super tasty. Super glad that there are still 3-ish slices left. I got the recipe from a lovely little book I picked up at Amaranth, along with a grocery bag full of fellows, called simply, Coffee Cakes.

This is one of those beautiful books from Chronicle Books and will certainly see a lot of use in the near future. I also bought one from them called Southern Cakes that is just as beautiful, but is slightly daunting because, you know, it involves frosting.

My haul!

This is a scattered post, though my weekend has been pretty smooth. Friday was baking, drinking mojitos to celebrate Josh's birthday, cat sitting, and Unicorn-ing all of this after exhausting myself by running on the treadmill while watching Netherlands play Brazil. Saturday I worked at the market and was able to deliver another birthday cake to Beks, this one a rendition of my Swedish visiting cake, but made in a slightly smaller pan and with cherries baked on the top. So good! So easy! Perhaps we'll serve these up at Unicorn in the near future....

Came home and made a tasty market-salad and then grazed on granola until dinner. That granola I made Josh, in the gigantic jar? Gone by Saturday. I made some more when the cakes were in the oven and if my progress as a cook goes no further than where it's at now, I know granola will be to blame. It's so good. It's all I want! I almost made haricots verts last night WITH A SIDE OF GRANOLA. Fine, no more I said. I'll cut myself free from the oaty constraints and make myself dinner (harumph)

I'm working on training the cats to guard the granola from me. Luckily for me they are usually distracted by my leg, which clearly needs rubbing, and I can reach down and swipe up the jar before they even know the wiser. suckers.

But even though granola sounded awesome, and even though our kitchen was still a mess from our Friday night gathering, I made kaese spaetzle, which is delicious, but takes every bowl in my arsenal to complete. So now the kitchen is in dire straights, which is probably the reason I'm still sitting in here, telling you all about what I ate this weekend in order to put off the great dish event of 2010 for at least 20 more minutes. But no matter. Here's a nice photo or two!

To continue my German theme, I made some sweet red cabbage slaw using dried apricots and some of our apple rhubarb butter. OMG yum! I had to use pretty crappy red wine vinegar, which reminds me that I need to make a pilgrimage to Old Town Oil soon...

Spaetzle and haricot verts, sauted in brown butter and mixed with Jarlsberg cheese and caramelized onions. True summer food, at least for me and my memories of beer gardens and lazy days in the sun.

Birthday Granola

2010-06-30T09:05:00.000-05:00

Josh is home! Hoorah, it's been a long two weeks but he finally got back from Seattle last night at about 12:30am. I had one silly drink at pub trivs last night that, to the onlooker, probably seemed to be my fourth I was that excited about seeing him again. Yay. love.

Today is his birthday and when he walked in last night I immediately pounced on him with hugs, kisses and then, voila! presents! I love giving presents. I love the brainstorming involved, being attuned to the subtle hints that point to the perfect present, the one that the receiver didn't even know they wanted. I also love making things for people. Nevermind that he asked for a bike pump-- where's the fun in that! Maybe I'll just go fill his tires up with air while he's still in bed. But again, where's the fun in that.

Monday I wanted so badly to write to you about the present I made him, but naturally didn't want to spoil the surprise just in case Josh happened to be on the internet between Monday morning and Tuesday night. But now I can spill the beans! Homemade granola!

Of note: This jar is GIGANTIC, at least a gallon, but probably 1.5. It formerly housed olives destined to be tapenade for the cafe as well as about 3 more inches of granola that has mysteriously disappeared since I made the batch Monday. Okay, I've probably eaten more granola in the past three days than my entire life put together. A couple research bowls from Whole Foods' bulk bins, a research bowl of Unicorn granola, many dips during the process, and about 5 bowls since, all in all constituting about a week's worth of calories. And right now I'm fine with that, though slightly lamenting all the granolas of the past I must have missed out on when I opted for something cheaper, something less caloric, something more egg and bacon-y. This version was inspired by a recipe for Fairfield Granola in Nigella Lawson's Feast crossed with my attempts to mimic Milk and Honey's Original granola.

After a trip to Whole Foods and some light fingered dipping into the bulk bins (for research purposes!) I came up with something pretty close to Milk and Honey's while using the method in Nigella's book. Wheat germ and finely shredded coconut are in M&H's corner and a ridiculous amount of sesame is in Nigella's. I added more almonds than I would normally have liked, and less sunflower seeds than I will next time, but aside from that it's pretty dang perfect. It's pretty dang easy, too. I have a feeling that a gigantic jar of homemade granola may become a household staple, at which point I'll need to formulate some sort of "Jar and Release" rule to keep myself in check (though having the granola around certainly made me forget that cake). Also part of the specialness of the granola, the gift side of the thing, is that I never really keep cereal, nuts, or dried fruit around because Josh wolfs through them in a matter of days and somehow forgets to eat anything else. Well, now I know how-- this stuff is delicious and ridiculously filling. See, all it took was one and a half gallons of granola to have a slightly better understanding of my boyfriend!

Josh's Birthday Granola:

5 cups rolled oats
1 cup almonds
1 cup white sesame seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup oil (I used olive, but coconut oil was on the agenda and melted butter would be AWESOME)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 TBS vanilla
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS cinnamon
1 TBS ginger powder
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cherries (I would have put in more of these if they weren't $16 a pound)

Mix everything aside from the fruit in a large bowl and turn into a large roasting pan or between 2 deep-ish jelly roll pans. Bake in a 350 F oven for about 45-65 minutes or until the brown sugar has caramelized on the oats and the coconut is good and toasty (you'll need to taste a bit as you go-- don't burn your tongue like I did!) Turn the granola gently every 15 minutes or so to prevent the bottom layer from burning, but don't stir too rigorously or you'll lose your little clusters. When it's done, let it cool in the pan for about ten minutes before adding the dried fruits. Let the mix cool on a rack and when it's completely cool, move to an airtight jar. And to the bowl of your choice, naturally.

So many almonds!

So many sesames!

So long!

OMG Bake and Release

2010-06-27T20:02:00.000-05:00

A very pleasant weekend, this one, spent reading, marketing, cooking, and the thrice daily running around my apartment slamming windows against monstrous thunderstorms. My alone-time is winding down and today I've sort of transitioned into "Josh returns" mode. I'll find myself smiling a bit, giddy a bit, and it's pretty nice to know that he'll be back here in a matter of days. Josh-Returns mode sort of pushed me to do some things around the apartment that I planned on doing right when he left, like lugging the hulking suitcase full of winter clothes down to the storage unit and deep cleaning the bathrooms, and other exciting things of that nature which, surprisingly, I procrastinated on not because Josh was around distracting me, but wholly on my own accord. Actually I'm still procrastinating on this stuff. The suitcase is right next to me-- look, here I am touching it, just an arm's length away... It sort of turned invisible these last couple weeks...

I still woke up around 5:30, made breakfast and a coconut tea cake before 11, and read for several hours, the wonderfully unseasonable 75 degrees allowing me to lounge on the couch, with a cat on my chest, and the windows wide open, at least through morning. The tea cake was for no reason, really. Last night I decided to retry the German pretzels I made Friday and which got glued to the parchment paper after I boiled the little twists and then put them in the oven. German pretzels are one of my favorite foods, one of those things that no matter the price, circumstance, or degree of hunger, I will buy as many as I can whenever I happen to see them (which is all too rare, let me tell you). Everywhere in Baden-Württemberg sells these things, which are huge and smiley and best served up with a radler and a plate of radishes. At least that is my memory and hey, also my vision! So today when I woke up and the sky was dark and the clouds started rolling in, I wasn't exactly feeling motivated to mimic beer garden fare. With several birthdays coming up this week (Josh! My Mom! Beks!) I gave a bit of thought to birthday cakes and toyed with the idea of making a practice one today, mostly to try my hand at icing which I'm horribly lazy at. In fact, I almost never ice cakes so when it came time for the baking bug to bite this morning, I quickly left behind the motive for making a cake in the first place and made a simple little bundt number fit to be piled with fruit, teamed up with coffee, and shared with some friends instead.

Oh yum. Coconut milk + vanilla bean= someone get over here and give me an excuse to have a slice, please!!!

So I have this idea. It's called "Bake and Release" and I'm hoping this will help assuage my guilt over eating a ton of susigkeits while still having fun making them. I guess I like the idea of having a cake around, just waiting for someone to stop by or to be served up after dinner if the evening decided to turn towards the special. I, however, do not want to eat a slice of cake each day after dinner (well, I would like that, yes, but you know what I mean...) so I devised a little rule that requires me to Bake and Release-- to bake something and then set it free, to my neighbors, coworkers, Josh, and other friends. I think I'll allow myself one slice of each and be happy with the taste I had rather than nibble off the thing every time I walk by. I figure I manage to walk into the cafe each day without feeling the pull to gorge on all the sweet things in there, why should the things I make be any different? This will also motivate me to make my best-- I don't want to send off some shoddy, bedraggled thing, even if I don't mind shoving it in my own face. Plus this will allow me to experiment way more and I won't have to wait for some occasion (or guiltily make up some occasion...) Perfect! So what happens to this guy? Well, I will probably freeze half of it and then let they other half sit on its little butterfly plate until someone wants to come over and be entertained. Then that person will probably get some tea. Maybe some gooseberry syrup (there's no way this stuff is going to ever make it to Jam-status now!). I'll call J and J and see if they want some after-dinner cake. Then I'll take the rest to the cafe and set it freeeeeeeee.

I remembered something yesterday after I wrote about my grandfather and pickles. He and my grandmother met while working in a bakery together! Just thought I'd share. It made me smile when I thought of it.

This also made me smile when it came fluttering down to the floor after I moved some stuff off a bookshelf a minute ago (in order to hide the cake, you see)

OMG curry. I made a curry tonight for the first time in ages. Before I really learned how to cook, a stove-top stir-fry was my daily stand-by and curries were my favorite by far. Tonight's was an Indian rendition loaded up with chicken and tons of super fresh market veg. Saturday I had a market-day-off, but when I popped over to buy my groceries, the stall was slammed and Henry asked if I could stay. So not only was I able to help out, but I managed to work through the end of the market, get some tasty treats, and not have to trudge to the marktplatz at 4:30am during a crazy thunderstorm. So yes, a good weekend.

Big storms, visiting switches, and a day of jam

2010-06-25T21:05:00.000-05:00

It's been a tempestuous last couple days here in Chicagoland and that Swedish visiting cake from last time had the pleasure of visiting my neighbors rather than my bookclub because of a raging storm the likes of which I have never seen. The sky turned black in an instant and the rain began gushing through the open windows (picture me running around slamming them shut but still needing to use all our towels to wipe up the water from the windowsills and floor). The oak outside our apartment whipped around dangerously and all you could hear were the leaves whipping around, the rain pelting against the windows, and sirens from the firestation a block away. And Harry Potter book-on-tape, naturally. So yes, not a night to be driving. But here I was left with this cake. I tried to ignore the buttery beauty as best I could and read Utterly Monkey until I became even more distracted by the incredible post-storm sky. It was astounding! By now it was just after 8pm (8:09 according to my friend, agnes, who like several other people the past few days knew exactly the sky I was talking about) and the light was the clearest, brightest gold and the clouds were incredible. I went to get my camera and talk a photo of the church with the golden light on it from my window when I saw J and J down in the courtyard looking up at the sky in the other direction.

"Are you seeing this?"

"Are you seeing this!?"

While I had golden light, they had a double rainbow. I rushed down and caught the very tale end of the rainbows-- we could actually see the cloud sinking down towards the lake and pulling the rainbows with it. After a few more minutes of sky watching, we decided on a dessert summit and I ran back up to the apartment and got the cake and some gooseberry syrup nee jam that I made earlier that day. They had all visited a bakery in the north suburbs and had bought a couple nice cookies, a whoopie pie, and a s'mores bar, so we had a nice smorgasbord of sweet things (see! somehow this was going to be Swedish-themed!) and continued to watch the sky throb, undulate, and turn various shades of orange.

Before the storm bashed up my evening plans, I was at home making jam for most of the day, aside from a visit to work and lunch out at Blind Faith Cafe. I was overwhelmed with possibilities and finally decided on an apple rhubarb butter (made in the crock-pot), a gooseberry jam, and a blueberry rhubarb jam with candied meyer lemons and lemon grass.

woh woh woh TASTY! I need to redo the gooseberry and add pectin to it, since I didn't add enough sugar to pull the pectin out the fruit (I like a tart gooseberry, me). I most likely will let it be and just rechristen it "gooseberry syrup", though, and in fact I already did in the beginning of this post so there you have it. It would be good for me to add pectin though. Character building...

we don't need no stinkin' sugar!

The blueb-rhub recipe was dreamt up by yours truly with a little help from the Wednesday Chef. She just wrote a blog entry about a strawberry jam with lemongrass recipe from Christine Ferber which I adapted by using blueberry, rhubarb, and throwing a couple cardamom pods in. No pectin in this recipe as well but unlike the gooseberry, it thickened up perfectly.

It feels good to can. There's such a timeless quality to it and I love that the pressure to move through everything in the fridge is lifted a bit. I get such a thrill when I hear the *pop* that means the lid sealed itself and I love seeing my little army of mason jars on the table each time I walk into the living room.

Once patty pan squashes make it to market, I am going to venture past the boundaries of jam-land and into pickle-world. When I visited Poland in 2005 I fell in love with the tiny pickled patty-pan squashes they sold there. Good thing, too because I was a vegetarian at the time and Poland isn't exactly known for its green cuisine. I had to beg a restaurant manager to sell me a plate of steamed broccoli once and for almost 2 weeks I carried around a gigantic bag of fresh fava beans bought at market in the hopes that some restaurateur would take pity on me and cook them rather than give me the perfunctory omelet loaded with mushrooms. No dice. But I did discover the pickles and my friend, Ilana, and I probably ate our weight in those things. My grandfather made pickles. And apple butter. I should track down these recipes...

A Nail-Biting Swedish Visiting Cake

2010-06-23T12:10:00.000-05:00

My book club meets this evening and since we'll be discussing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I thought I would bring along something Swedish.

My first thought was little open-faced sandwiches, since one of the main characters seems to live off the things, but an email saying snacks would be provided buffeted me towards the sweeter side of the bring-a-long spectrum. I had flagged this recipe of Dorie Greenspan's when I first was reading the book and had to track it down across a number of blogs before finding it again (I was searching for Swedish Friendship Cake when in fact its English name is Swedish Visiting Cake. No idea what the Swedish name is...) It's an incredibly simple and straightforward cake-- a cup of sugar, a cup of flour, a stick of butter, and two eggs form the flaky and slightly-flat background. Toss in a bit of salt and some extracts and there you have it! A cake fit to be brought over to someone's house and enjoyed together. There's no leavener, so take care not to beat the flour too much or else you'll be left with a very buttery pancake. This is a perfect cake if you are mixer-free and feel like using only one bowl. Cooking it in the cast-iron gives the edges a golden and perfectly caramelized little crust, though a 9 inch cake pan will work, too.

I decided to start making this cake while simultaneously watching the USA v. Algeria game, which was awesome, awesome, awesome and pulled me from the kitchen more than a few times. I put the cake in the oven and then didn't notice the timer go off during the very dramatic last few minutes of play so I have no idea how long this was actually in the oven for (probably 35-40 min). I also have no idea if my jumping around affected it at all, but from the looks of it, no harm done. What a great game! I hope the US does well in the next round and soccer manages to get a boost here.

Recipe
(from Dorie Greenspan by way of The Little Teochow)
Makes 8 to 10 servings

- 1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
- Grated zest of 1 lemon
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- About 1/4 cup sliced almonds (blanched or not) (I used hazelnuts)

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (about 175 degrees celsius). Butter a seasoned 9-inch cast-iron skillet or other heavy ovenproof skillet, a 9-inch cake pan or even a pie pan.

2. Pour the sugar into a medium bowl. Add the zest and blend the zest and sugar together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Whisk in the eggs one at a time until well blended. Whisk in the salt and the extracts. Switch to a rubber spatula and stir in the flour. Finally, fold in the melted butter.

3. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Scatter the sliced almonds over the top and sprinkle with a little sugar. If you're using a cake or pie pan, place the pan on a baking sheet.

4. Bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it is golden and a little crisp on the outside; the inside will remain moist. Remove the pan from the oven and let the cake cool for 5 minutes, then run a thin knife around the sides and bottom of the cake to loosen it. You can serve the cake warm or cooled, directly from the skillet or turned out onto a serving plate.

This would be awesome with some whipped cream or a berry sauce (or both! or just a cup of tea!). Cherries and raspberries would be perfect. I'll let you guys know how it goes over with the peeps tonight!

I was planning on canning today, but my apartment is getting new washing machines, which means all the water in the building is turned off. I have a rhubarb apple butter bubbling away in the crock pot and once the water turns back on I'll be making gooseberry jam and another rhubarb jam (with beets!) I'm also going to write down my recipes for once!

Here is a picture of my tasty snack from yesterday. Right now I'm hungry and may actually go out for lunch in the hopes of returning to an apartment with running water.

Can City

2010-06-21T16:49:00.000-05:00

I mentioned in the previous entry that I successfully canned my first pantry-ready chutney and all day I have been scheming up exciting and creative food-in-jar combos. I have made jams before, but had only ever frozen them. Not limited by freezer space and armed with 6 pounds of rhubarb, 2 pints of gooseberries, and a couple days of good brainstorming, I'm going to make some mind-blowing jams, compotes, and curds over the next few days. Right now the tentative list is:

Candied lemon, lemon grass, and rhubarb jam
Passionfruit curd
rhubarb, blueberry, and cardamom jam
gooseberry jam,
pickled beets
apple butter

I also found this cool site that links to 101 awesome jam recipes and the banana jam recipe is super appealing, since I have about 10 frozen brown bananas in my freezer and no food processor to whir them into fakey ice cream. This may change, actually, since I made a deal with myself that if I get back on track with exercising, and follow through on all my scheduled workouts this week, I can buy myself a new food processor to replace the one that kicked the bucket a few months back. Hooray, self bribery!

Sigh. Someone across the courtyard is singing opera, it's 90 degrees outside, and I don't want to go to the gym for two hours, but I will because I have a food processor in my sights and I still need to make up for my butter-fest on Friday (and, let's be real, Saturday, too). Always a pleasure, internet, let's talk again soon!

Weekend!

2010-06-20T20:07:00.000-05:00

Hi-oh, hi-oh. Another exhausting weekend down and hopefully my last for a good long while that sees me working at the market Saturday and opening the cafe Sunday. It's tiring stuff, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else (at least in Saturday's case... Sunday I would be fine sitting on this couch reading a book but in terms of jobs, yes, I am more than happy in the place I landed.) Seriously, I love the market right now. I am starting to get people coming back and telling me about the food they tried which I recommended and still a lot of people seeking advice on what to do with all the different veggies. The smell of basil is overwhelming and wonderful, the cucumbers and Japanese turnips are harvested, and the seasons are certainly shifting as the spinach and rhubarb bid their delicious adieus.

Friday saw my second monthly dinner party and, incredibly, I didn't manage to take even one stinking picture of all the food and festivities! Pretty shameful, but old habits die hard, or rather, old habits I used to disdain but am trying to develop are taking their sweet time sticking. I'm talking about taking photos, which I need to force myself to do in most situations. It's hard to be that person taking pictures of her food or flitting around the room taking photos and again I just decided to pass and enjoy the food and friends sans documentation. Now, of course, I'm kicking myself over it, or I would be if I wasn't so exhausted.

I made two desserts-- an upside-down rhubarb cake from Martha Stewart and pistachio cookies with roasted hazelnuts in them. Both were delicious and both I'll probably make again, even though I know how much butter went into them (let's just say there isn't any left in the house...) Luckily I made these tasty treats in the morning because a HUGE storm came through in the afternoon and my power was out from about 3 until exactly 7pm (the start-time for dinner-- nice!) Since I have a gas stove and oven, and ample natural light, the power outage wasn't a huge deal. A bunch of people didn't show because of the storm and Northwestern's graduation, so I texted the people I knew were coming to tell them not to bother bringing food, but to schlepp over some candles instead. Luckily we didn't need to use them, though it would have set the mood nicely, of course. I had so much food from the market so I hardly bought anything to prepare the dinner-- I think a bag of frozen peas was my only expense. Nice! My menu was:
Ploughman's kebabs (which quickly turned into meat balls when the ground chicken-mix refused to cling to the skewers). These tasty numbers were ground chicken with some blue cheese, mustard, pomegranate molasses and served with some delicious german mustards and my rhubarb and fennel chutney. Also some carrot salad with cilantro and feta, farfelle pasta with peas and dinosaur kale in a sauce made from my garlic scape pesto, fresh lemon, and plain yogurt. and a big, green salad (and probably a few other things... I forget). In addition to candles, Jeff and Jodi brought over wine, chips and guacamole, and zucchini ceviche, which I think I ate half of by myself (over the course of 2 days!). The guac was supposed to be avocado soup but the power didn't kick back on until it was too late to utilize the blender. No matter-- they made it and shared it with me and Beks the next evening! (yum again)

Oh yeah, Beks was in town! She came for one quick weekend and stayed at my place Friday and Saturday night. Always so nice to spend time with her, cook with her, CAN WITH HER! That's right. I finally canned something-- Take Two of the rhubarb fennel chutney, which ended up completely different from the first time around because of the addition of a Serrano pepper, the fronds of the fennel, and minus the one roasted beet I added to Batch One ("why isn't it pink this time????" Duh.). This batch is now christened "spicy rhubarb chutney" so no one will know the wiser. But seriously, I really should get better at writing these recipes down...
Our Saturday night dinner was leftover pasta with a bunch of mustard greens and fresh croûtons mixed in and we were both super delighted to hear the tell-tale "pop!" from one of the cans as it successfully sealed itself all the way in the living room. We lounged around, went over to J and J's to trade market veg for toilet paper (and share the aforementioned AMAZING avocado soup) and then crashed out around 10:30. She single-handedly saved my Sunday by coming with me to the Unicorn to help open, enabling me to have a stress-free morning and allowing me to sleep in an extra hour (the cat, however, had different plans for that last bit.) Weirdo shakshuka tonight with farm fresh eggs she brought with her from Henry's and which included the leftover carrot salad and guacamole and which lacked harissa (suck! I need to make this stuff soon. ooh, and can it!) Canning will be on the horizon tomorrow or Tuesday since I brought home gooseberries and the last of Henry's rhubarb. I think I'll do 2 rhubarb things: one more of a compote, the other a slow-cooked rhubarb butter and then I'm up in the air in regards to the gooseberries. I have nice memories of gooseberry jelly, but certainly don't have enough berries to yield more than one jar of that stuff. So jam it is, and maybe I'll mix it with the currants to tang things up a bit. To be determined.

I miss Josh today and Seattle. He's at a veritable reunion celebrating Matan's engagement to the lovely Ella and will be seeing a lot of people who are pretty dear to my heart. Also it's jolting and slightly sad when I am sifting through the fridge and find something that I think I should save for Josh and then realize he won't be here to eat it. Oh well, it's just one more week and he'll be back for his birthday!

I already feel like crashing, but I think I will try and watch some Masterpiece Mystery and spend some quality time with these cats. Afterall, I do get to sleep in tomorrow!

Jollypoldy the rix dix doldy. Happy Bloomsday, folks!

2010-06-17T19:32:00.000-05:00

sketch by John Coulthart

It's Bloomsday, which means it was annual urban hike time! I left the house around 9:30am and walked back through the door at 8:50pm. 12.7 miles all-in-all and that is without counting a 4 mile busride as the sun was setting over Andersonville.
9:30am-- return Tracie's car to her driveway. Visit her sweet little cat!
9:45am-- walk to Unicorn. Thank god my sunglasses were there because I would have some miserable feeling eyes with all the sun our 90 degree Chicago threw at me yesterday. Also the first of what I hoped would be many iced coffees moseyed with me across Evanston. Oh! and talked to my sister on the phone.
10:13am-- pass by the apartment. Should I change out of my jeans? Grab an extra t-shirt? It's getting pretty hot already?
10:16am-- Oh god, I should have put a skirt on. I can still go back. nah, it'll be fine.
10:19am-- jesus now I'm too far to turn back.
10:22am-- I should have turned back the last time I thought I was too far because now I'm really too far.
10:30am-- give a Bulgarian guy directions to Davis street
10:40am-- so long Evanston! I have a very silly song in my head but can't recall it now. Salt n Peppa maybe?
10:45-11:30-ish am-- walk down Western. So many barbershops and so many store-front revival churches. Also the Shari-ah Law center. Walked along the backside of the gigantic Rosemont cemetery for a mile or so. Found it pretty strange that I could see a swamp through the fence-- there is something distinctly horrific about a murky swampy wetland connected to a graveyard.
12pm-ish: ooh Lincoln Square. Let's find this pastry place I have a groupon for and get lunch. Walked up the delightful shop-lined Lincoln (ave? st?) and found some places to check out post-lunch.

12:30pm-- emerged from Ravenswood Books with some Irish themed lit and a $2 bill given to me with my change:

Books, books, books. But a woman needs foodstuffs!

Lincoln Square is pretty, huh? I ended up spending most of the day here. First meandering up this street and then through a park, past the Old Town School of Folk Music and then down Montrose to Lutz Konditerei where I had unofficial plans to eat lunch thanks to a conveniently printed out groupon. I found the place, but the lunch stuff didn't look too appetizing (it is a bakery afterall-- it takes a lot to use your 10 free bucks towards a turkey sandwich when all those sussigkeits are right in front of you). I decided to hold off and use the coupon sometime when I needed to buy dessert and walked back to Julius Meinl. What a wonderful little place. I hunkered down around 2:30 and stayed until 4-- reading, writing, and eating delicious kaese spaetzle with fresh English peas and roasted pine nuts, a couple cafe au laits and one pretty tasty topfenstruedel.

photo courtesy of juliusmeinl.com

It was really nice to be able to sit and read in a cafe again. It's been ages since I've done it since every time I try, some customer will come up and either scold me playfully for being seen at a different cafe, or apologize profusely for getting caught in the act of drinking a non-Unicorn latte. It was nice. I read Ulysses, naturally, and had the pleasure of sitting within earshot of someone talking enthusiastically about Kant, quantum mechanics and hilbert spaces. Needless to say, it made me miss Josh.

After my delicious lunch, I followed my bread crumbs back down Lincoln where I first checked out the Book Cellar. What a great book store! It's also a cafe and wine bar, but as I was still pretty wired from my 2 meinl Kaffes, I didn't check out that side of things at all. I did, however, remember that I brought a camera (the previous photos are courtesy of the internet) and took some photos of the Penguin display and the staff recommendation sheets that are taped up every few inches along the shelves. You know the place is full of good books when you see a shelf looking like this

Here is one that particularly made me smile:

And how fitting that this was recommended by someone named Stephen (though I don't think it would be possible for him to mention Hamlet on a piece of paper this tiny).

After Book Cellar I crossed over to the Chopping Block, a cooking supply store that was fancy but bare bones. I did leave with a class schedule but more out of politeness than anything. Then (then, then THEN!) I went to Gene's Sausage Shop knowing full well I wouldn't be able to buy anything since I still had a 7 mile schlepp back home and like I said earlier-- 90 degrees outside.

Holy meat casings, batman! This deli case seemed to go on and on and the bazillion choices and the various subtleties between the different sausages demands further investigation. I'm definitely coming back here in the chilly months when I can make it home without the sausages cooking in my backpack. There is also another butcher a block away that sells some nice looking chickens and rashers that will warrant a visit, too.

Here is the view from the top. Look at all those smoky links! The rest of the store had a lot of imported German and Polish groceries and I managed to find my favorite mustard!

photo courtesy of kremel.de

I also picked up some Landbrot, even though we have 2 loaves of bread in the freezer, and a german pretzel which was sadly quite terrible and ended up in the trash. Guess what? It's now about 6pm! Oh how the day flew by! Time to meander back home, this time North (and, yikes!, slightly Northwest) up Lincoln.

By now I am a bit hungry, a bit tired, and incredibly sweaty. I'm also carrying 15 pounds more than when I started, but am really pleased that my feet still felt fine. I had already decided not to walk back on Western, which was dull city-USA but when I noticed that Lincoln veers too far west, I headed down Foster and started wending my way through the neighborhoods in a general northerly direction. After a spell I find myself on some lovely tree-lined streets and hear my name. Ross was riding up on his bicycle--apparently I was right in front of their new apartment, and invited me up to meet his and Mandi's cats.

I ended up staying for dinner which was wonderful in itself but really nothing could have been better than having someone cook for me after a day of walking in the sun. They just got their first CSA box and Ross made a very tasty garlic scape pasta and arugala salad (and I managed to unload half of my bread on them. Suckers!)

how nice that a bottle of wine was handy, too!

So at about 8pm I headed back out into the world, full and content and happy that my day turned out so well and serendipity worked for me so nicely. I ran into another person I know but declined joining him and his friends for a drink-- I still needed to walk 4 more miles home.

Actually about 3 minutes after parting with them, a 22 bus pulled up to the stop light and I made a split decision and dashed across the street to the stop-- getting home at about 9 rather than after 10 seemed a much more pleasant prospect than continuing down Clark. I caught the bus to Howard and then walked the 1.5-ish miles home from there. A long, ambling day and look! A long, rambling post to match!