we now interrupt our regularly scheduled program...

Or, rather, not regularly scheduled. Not anymore. I did think, il etait une fois, that food blogs were fun. I liked learning recipes from others, seeing where they'd gone wrong, where they'd gone right -- which recipes were worth their weight in saffron, which were a steaming bucket of poo. After a while, I even thought that writing a food blog would be fun. After all, the gradual maturation of my time in the kitchen felt noteworthy, somehow. As I tried ever more complicated and ever more simple recipes, as I began ditching recipes all together -- look ma, no hands! -- it felt good to share. It felt like happiness, lightness. But now, truly, it seems immeasurable egotistical. Yes, I made a lovely osso buco with citrus gremolata the other weekend. Does anyone care? Unless you were at the table, probably not. There's probably a post in there about how once-abandoned cuts of meat that should be dirt cheap -- peasant cuts -- are now absurdly expensive, thanks to our factory farming. But, really, who hasn't figured that out by now? We roasted a chicken from the market, made pretty chanterelle custards, apple-cider ice-cream the next night. I could've told you how I found the custards equally lovely to the quiches I've been turning out, but minus the time consuming process of blind baking a crust. So what? It's pasta weather, gourd weather, and I've been doing my best by them: oven roasted, filling out i ravioli. Smashed potatoes and carrots, homemade sausages -- easy comfort foods. Is this any surprise to anyone? It's November 3rd, the tomatoes are all gone and the kale has settled itself in comfortably. I live in a bubble but who isn't inundated with root veggies? making soups and stews? Tarte Tatins, poached pears? We made these great T-shirts for the incoming freshman one year -- "I'm unique just like everyone else!" They seem apropos at the moment. What sort of cry for approval is a food blog, anyway? a need to reassure ourselves that we are special, that we don't sit down to rice-a-roni every night, get our meals from McDonalds. I see no reason to revel in mediocrity (and trust me, I enjoy a good box of rice-a-roni) but I understand that it is a luxury that I am able to eat organically, that it is a luxury to have the time to prepare food, a luxury to have an educational background that made sure I thought hard when addressing any aspect of the world -- even my dinner. Frankly, it's a spoiled position to come from. There is nothing wrong with striving to be our best but somehow food blogs still smack of elitism for me. By and large they are associated with a certain socio-economic class, and in some cases their authorship seems intent on demonstrating that. Not that there isn't joy inherent, as well, and the simple desire to share that joy, spreading the wealth as that terrible socialist candidate would say. Not that once you really learn how to cook (something I'm still working on) you learn how to make even the cheapest, most humble of meals a feast for your tastebuds. I don't paint all food bloggers with a black brush, individually there are still those I read with regular frequency. It's just looking at the genre as a whole that enables these sweeping generalizations, this semi-indefinable sense of angst. Ultimately I think some part of me wanted to build community from this online home. With friends scattered to all corners, and the ones in town I rendezvous with merely once a quarter at best this felt perhaps like I was bringing food to the table. Sharing meals digitally, since our busy lives mean we never share them in person any more. In retrospect, not the worst idea, but also not one I'd fully realized. With that perspective I'm almost tempted to solider on, start writing again, sharing again. Almost, but not quite. Not now. And so, the end of the current era. I've eaten a lot of hot dogs from a lot of carts in the past several months but instead of telling you about them I suggest if you're interested you go look for them yourself. You'll be surprised what you find when you start looking -- carts spring up in the strangest places, down surprising roads. Sure, you might end up thinking, "I paid $4 for this?" But you'll also find those wonderful fat koshers for $1.50, the ones where they throw in the relish for nothing, offer onions and, yes, mayonnaise. I'm not sure if this blog will be resuscitated in another form at another time but in the meantime I'm packing away the dishes and moving out. xoxo cc

the Great Portland Hot Dog Experiment

I love hot dogs. No, I'm not being hiply ironic. I don't love hot dogs the way too many supposedly grown Portlanders love Kick Ball and Miller High Life. I don't think loving hot dogs makes me cool, or makes it cool for me to wear skinny jeans and have an ironic mullet under my ironic trucker hat. I don't think my love of hot dogs will make up for the fact that I drive a Scion instead of riding a fixed gear, that I drink wine out of appropriate stemware instead of juice glasses, that I like Britney in a non-ironic way. No, I just happen to adore the snap of a natural casing giving way to juicy, salty meatiness. I mean, I love salt. And I love meat. So salty meat? Does it get better? Could I survive on hot dogs? And heck, you can't say enough about the versatility of the hot dog -- boiled? broiled? grilled? sauteed? baked? Oh yeah baby, you can have them however you'd like. Want to jam a stick right through them and stick them in a fire? Go right ahead! You can have them in a bun with a little mayo and ketchup or slathered in chili and cheese. You can be disgusting and drizzle mustard all over them, or add pickles or onions -- be my guest! Want to cover them in cornbread and deep fry them? Go for it, they'll taste great! Undercook them? No worries, they're so chock full of preservatives they'll still be around after we've destroyed the world and the aliens are digging through our middens. And really, is there a better compliment to Kraft Mac N Cheese than a couple of sliced hot dogs? I think not. Given how much I love a good dog I decided recently that I had to conduct the Great Portland Hot Dog Experiment. For the record, I decided this on a whim while hanging out near 72nd and Flavel. I'm not sure if the location had anything to do with my decision but I'm willing to argue that the proximity to Frankie's Franks was a factor. (How else was I going to convince Joe to eat there?) Since I decided to conduct this highly important research I've averaged a dog a week. In order to keep things fair I decided to order the basic dog wherever I went. No upbuying to a Hebrew National or a Foot Long, no matter how sorry looking the basic model is. I'm going to look at the cheapest dogs on everyone's menus and compare them on cost, bun, and, of course, dog. Natural casing or not? Large? Small? Grilled? Boiled? Beefy? Porky? Random-Pressed-Meaty? It makes me happy just thinking about it.

taste a little of the summer

my grandma put it all in jars...

Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go

I just ate one of the most amazing meals. Megs called me last night. She'd just gotten back from dinner with a supplier -- an amazing meal that reignited her passion in wine and her faith in this industry and it was so wonderful to hear the joy in her voice. That's sort of how I feel right now. I have no pretty pictures or recipes for you; after an 11 hour day I drug myself home and could barely survey the contents of the fridge. Given that I've been gone the better part of the last 6 weeks - and working flat out when I was in town - my fridge is looking bleak. There's leftover Thai, from when Hadley came to dinner. Mama Leone's from the night I felt sick last week. A carton of expired eggs (eh), artichokes that must be going on a month old, tortillas from the last neighborhood dinner. But! Poking perkily out of a glass of cold water on the top shelf was a fistful of green garlic I couldn't resist on Sunday. And suddenly two pots of water are on the stove on high, one for penne, one for the unpeeled frozen shrimp from TJs. {sigh. budgets suck.} The cast-iron got a pat of butter and a bit of olive oil, the garlic got chopped into thirds. I washed breakfast dishes while everything cooked, sang along to Joni while splashing water everywhere. {I've mentioned I'm not such a tidy kitchen-dweller, haven't I?} The shrimp were peeled and added to the skillet, the penne drained and added as well. Salt and just a touch of nam prik pao. Heaven, really. Especially with a cold glass of 2007 Txacoli Rose.

loquat love

I've been running around again. I know, I'm probably getting quite the reputation. Alas! New Orleans, Pensacola, Roseburg, San Francisco... I'm just not a one-city woman. For as much as land and roots are so dear to my heart the truth is I'm an incorrigible flirt. I just can't settle down. {And isn't that metaphor sadly apt... ahem} Last Tuesday I slipped away from the new Dr. and Dr. Henry as they argued over the best way to load their PODs and took the Muni down to the Embarcadero. The rattling of the cars and the screeching of the breaks always leaves me with an odd sense of familiarity, like a favorite pair of old socks you find wadded up in the back of the drawer: metros in Bilbao, Barcelona, Madrid, New York, and - yes - San Francisco - all blending together, that lulling rhythmic sway, the cla-clunk cla-clunk cla-clunk, the syncopated flashes of sunshine... And there was sunshine, once I got out of the Sunset. Glorious, brilliant, drenching sunshine. Tuesday's green market is a fair sight smaller but there are still a handful of stalls set up outside the Ferry Building, and it was intoxicating to ogle their produce. Though perhaps it has changed since I've been out of town the past several weekends the riot of reds and oranges was a nice contrast to Portland's farmer's market. Cherries and apricots left the biggest impression, though there were some of the first small, hard, spring peaches as well. And, by the by, there was a whole raft of savory ingredients -- pretty ones, too: spring onions, fiddleheads, asparagus -- that left me nonplussed. No sense in racking up more food miles than necessary. (Though, given that I was in SF anyway, does carting them back really add to their carbon footprint?) It was after I'd waited patiently for my Blue Bottle coffee that I discovered what looked like a strange apricot hybrid. The fruit was smaller than an apricot, and lighter -- far more yellowish. It was still on the stem, in open clusters of 4+, and the stem itself was almost downy. The sign in front of the box simply said "Loquats $3- / lb." Ho-boy....! I think I've mentioned before that I'm something of an information whore. Nothing brings a greater thrill than learning, I get all giddy and excited when I realize there's a whole new something or other to explore. The poor men behind the counter weren't quite sure what to do with me, but I know how to flirt with more than just cities and my bag of loquats grew by several bunches after it came off the scale. SO: As I've since found out, loquats aren't grown as a commercial crop here in the states. If you want them, you can find them in California or Texas, along the side of the road, or in someone's backyard. Japan is the world's largest exporter {biwa}, though they're popular in Portugal {nespera} and throughout the Mediterranean. The farm I bought mine from had a mere 5 trees that they had planted to use as pollinators for their apricot crop. {How lucky was I to stumble upon them that day?? More interweb trolling returns dozens of commenters remember the loquat tree of their childhood and asking desperately where they could find them. Awesome!} Loquats are quite delicious, very delicate and floral and ethereal. Even without the skin they are more tannic than a lot of stone fruits, and these I would classify as sweet, though verging on subacid. Though roughly the size of a small apricot there isn't much flesh to the fruit; each orb had 4 or 5 large brown seeds in the center, and a fairly tough outer skin that peeled off easily. The consistency reminded me a bit of canned pears, though with more firmness and a touch more acidity. I bought three pounds and loaded them into my carry-on with much glee. (along with a couple pounds of apricots that turned into gorgeous preserves, as well. 'nother post) With all my pretty syrups lying around it seemed like a good chance to press them into service. The madrona was all but completely folded into last week's rhubarb preserves so I chose the apple-blossom's quiet restraint as a better compliment than the somewhat soapy nature of the geranium. I put my new sous to work halving, pitting, and peeling roughly two pounds of the pretty fruit -- with my help, of course, and some good music. Into a ceramic bowl with about 375ml of apple blossom syrup and the juice of a lemon, and a parchment lid to finish it off. À la Ms. Ferber I left the loquats to slowly soak up the syrup in the fridge overnight. The following evening I strained the syrup into a pan and brought it to 221F, skimming constantly. I gently reintroduced the fruit, the juice of a second lemon, brought it back up to a boil -- still skimming, of course -- and let it go for another 5-8 minutes or until the fruit seemed to be cooked the way I like it. Quickly into two jars, sealed and upended. All that work for a mere pint of preserves! I'll letcha know if it's worth it. In fact, I'll shout it to the moon! I want to let them set for a week or two to really marry the flavors but then I'm going to be all over it. I think -- pound cake, or shortcake, with whipped cream...

madrona blossom, wild apple blossom, and geranium syrups

Embarrassing admission number 17: I often have the attention span of a 2 year old. Someone shakes some keys in front of me and I lurch forward repeating the inner mantra of "shineyshineyshineyshineyshiney," until something else catches my eye, of course, and then I couldn't care less about the keys. I used to be able to focus far more; I blame my job entirely. It trained me to respond to whomever shouted louder, whichever fire seemed bigger. Which has been bad on sooo many levels. Anywho, right now I'm a little focused on both preserves and foraging. The jam was so awesome and yeah, I thought it was kinda cool to find a huge rosemary bush outside of an apartment building. Since we're still a week or so away from strawberries, according to the farms I've called out in Yamhill county, I'm stuck with rhubarb as my primary ingredient. How to riff on the theme? Last year when I visited D&D in SF I picked up some goodies up from June Taylor, and, in particular, loved the rose geranium syrup. Which got me to thinking, of course, about using floral syrups in jam. The lovely Ms Ferber certainly uses flowers, though not in quite this manner. No worries, I love a little experimentation! Sunday morning dawned pretty at the vineyard and I wandered around a bit playing with my new toy. Up behind the new building I caught the sweetest notes on the air and followed my nose to a blooming madrona tree. Clip Clip Clip and I hauled the small clusters of tiny white bell shaped flowers it back into the kitchen. Flower syrups are pretty easy. I follow a basic 2-to-1 or 3-to-1 ratio of sugar to water. A packed cup of flowers, maybe a bit more if they're only very faintly fragrant. Bring it all to a boil and then remove it from the heat and allow the flowers to infuse the syrup. Boil it again to consistency and then strain through cheese cloth and into a container. They last about two weeks in the fridge.

j'aime beaucoup Mes Confitures pour Christine Ferber

I'm a sucker. Wandering through the farmers market is all about the internal battle of wills -- my brain screaming desperately, "you're cooking for one! ONE! ONE. Stop that, STOP! NO! Don't pick that up! What are you doing?!?" while my avaricious eyes squeal, "Oregon asparagus! pea shoots! ooo... rangpur limes! Oh, look at that rhubarb!" (yes, they really squeal. you can hear them if you're close enough. it's disconcerting, kinda like all those people with ceramic hips only more like squealing and less like squeaking.) Given how disciplined I'm being with the rest of my life right now you can imagine that, well something's gotta give. So last Saturday I arrived home with all sorts of rhubarb. {and pea shoots and asparagus- but that's another post.} And anyway, I have a confession. I'm sure its a guilty admission shared by many of you, but it's embarrassing nonetheless. I love love rhubarb, the tart tang, its zippy acidity which is so nicely complimented by mellow orange notes and sweet strawberry... but I'm not sure if I would love it quite so much if it wasn't so damn seductively colored. Something about the deep magenta fading to pinks and greens just makes me itch to touch it. The scarlet stain on the cutting board gives me nearly as much pleasure as the bite along my salivary glands. And yes, I still buy books based on their covers... So I came home with all this rhubarb on Saturday morning and, oh did I mention? I'm just finishing up the first month aka the "shock-and-awe" phase of a new nutrition regime. Which pretty much just means no alcohol, no sugar, as little processed food as I can get away with, things I should be doing anyway but in the fatty winter months I always sorta slide away from. Which would be why I came home with the Rhubarb in the first place. Yes, I have a degree in a field that requires logical coherency, why do you ask? Anyway, rhubarb being the sort of "fruit" that needs excessive amounts of sugar I got home and was momentarily stumped until my eyes alighted on a lone jar of lemon curd, the last survivor of last month's curd obession. It's a little too early for strawberries but I could always make jam! Jam can be consumed in the future! Jam is a nice, natural sweetener for my unsweetened morning yogurt! Jam is so, well, Jammy! So I went trolling the interweb for some good rhubarb jam recipes. Now would be a good time to plug the food blog search engine. I used to be quite the epicurious whore but I've fallen away from them of late. My current M.O. is to scour the indexes of my mound of cook books while running a search of food blogs in parallel. I've found some really good {and some not so good} recipes and blogs that way. Back to making jam, however, and the much lauded Christine Ferber who I'm now embarrassed to admit I hadn't heard of. Apparently Christine Ferber is the doyenne of small batch jam. In fact, my guess is that the guys down at we love jam might've gotten an idea or two from her. I could paraphrase all that I've read about here over the past couple of days but instead I'll just send you to a couple sources... here and how about here? By far the most interesting jam recipe I stumbled over in my ruthless combing was one attributed to Ms Ferber, a Rhubarb with Acacia Honey and Rosemary Jam. Mmmm.... Rosemary.... Here are the ingredients: 2.75 lbs rhubarb 2.75 c sugar 7 oz acacia honey 10 sprigs of rosemary 2 lemons God I love the simplicity of preserves! This recipe uses the juice of 2 lemons as a jelling agent in place of commercial pectin. Ferber is pretty insistent on allowing the sugars to be uploaded to the fruit in delicate, non-rushed fashion so I started out by rinsing off my rhubarb and cutting it all to pieces. I dropped those in a bowl, covered them with sugar, and squeezed the juice of one lemon over top. And then I mixed it all together with one of my favorite bamboo spoon/spatula things. This received a parchment lid and went into the fridge to macerate overnight. In the morning it was all goey and runny and beautiful and I stirred it up and put it on the counter before hitting the streets to forage for some rosemary. Yes, that's right, forage. See, I've been waking up at ungodly hours recently, somewhere in the 4:30/5:00 range. {must be a guilty conscience} So when I got to the rosemary stage there weren't a whole lot of places open, and of course I'd forgotten to pick up the day before. Never fear! I was sure I'd seen rosemary around the corner from my apartment, and lo and behold I was right! So I poured my rhubarb goeyness into a sieve to separate the rhubarb from the goey, and the goey went into a pan with some honey and was brought up to a boil. I could've sworn I had acacia honey on hand but I didn't, so I substituted in lavender instead. Once this syrupy mixture was boiling there was the inevitable skimming and waiting for it to come up to temp (221F will jell). At that point you gently dump in the rhubarb, bring it back up to a boil, add the juice of your second lemon and your rosemary, cook for another 5 minutes and check the jell. That's it! you're done! [A note on canning, however. I grew up canning the way Ms. Ferber does it. I pour boiling water into just-washed jars, and boil my lids. Then I dump the water, pour in my boiling jam, quickly seal the jar shut, and invert it for about 5 minutes. When I flip it back over I tighten the seal. This works great for jams and jellies, etc, but I would NOT recommend this for canning meat.]

travelin' food

The last year or so of my life can aptly be described by the Facebook group, "My friends are getting married, I'm just getting drunk." Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy for my loved ones and happy, too, that I've thus far dodged that particular bullet. Not that I don't hope to some day find some -- you know, I'm going to stop right there. Beginning of last summer I casually mentioned to a coworker that I thought I should date an architect. I mentioned it once. Once! or maybe twice... By July -- or was it August?--out of the blue, I get hit on by an architect, and we begin a lovely relationship full of insanely gorgeous fall light, crisp walks, and surprisingly interesting conversations that, of course, goes sour in a couple months and leaves me helplessly wondering what the hell that was all about. So forgive me if I just cut myself off without putting out what kind of man I'd like to sweep me off my feet some day. Sometimes the universe listens a little too closely and I want to stay single a little while longer. Anyway, as you've no doubt inferred from my remarkably deceptive post titled, "I heart NOLA," I just got back from a trip down south. My first, actually, since I was a thinking individual. Not quite managing to be the bookend of what's turned into 18 months of weddings, the lovely SB is getting married in a month, and she and AP call the Big Easy home. (For another 2 weeks, anyway. But that's another story.) So, high on cold meds and nursing a fever I hopped a red-eye to New Orleans a couple weeks ago, intent on getting my fill of po-boys and fried chicken. Unfortunately I didn't quite appreciate just how nasty my little virus was and it was more like getting my taste of po-boys and fried chicken. I got in on a Tuesday and promptly curled up on the futon to sleep for a couple hours. Emerging blurry eyed around noon we wandered around the corner into the back room of Frankie & Johnny's. The water glasses were huge, the french fries limp but my oh my the andouille po-boy was everything I wanted it to be, and more. After lunch we went for iced chicory coffees, completely soothing and nicely nutty. The following evening we ventured out to Jaques Imos, which I found disappointingly not worth writing home about. The fried chicken was certainly tasty but in the end, well, it was fried chicken. I s'poze I expected it to be revelatory, somehow, and it just wasn't. I'll give you a hint about what was, though... Racing out of town toward the Redneck Riviera we made one little detour. Since I'd gotten off the plane I'd been begging for beignets. Eggy, fried crisp with that meltingly soft interior, absolutely drowned in powdered sugar they were lightyears beyond what I was expecting. I can't tell you about the devastation, about how the Quartier looks, about whether NO's coming back from Katrina. I have no frame of reference, no idea how it looked before. All I can tell you is that the andouille was perfect and the beignets heaven. Really, what else do you need to know?

i heart NOLA

Republic of Curd-istan

I've never thought of myself as a custard lover. Though the International Pudding Cup Ambassador {IPCA} expressed her horror when I said as much the other day, I've always thought that I'd never given much thought to custards. Then I sat down to write this post and realized that, well, I do love a good pot-de-crème, which is a custard if you come right down to it. Oh, and I had that fascination with crème brûlée three or four years ago. Crème brûlée is definitely a custard. I generally prefer my ice-cream to be less custardy, but look at my recent ravings about asparagus custards. And if you consider curds to be a custard, well, that just tips me over into the realm of obviously-doesn't-know-herself/delusional-custard-eating-queen. I still have a lot to learn about myself, apparently. Custards can be defined by their use of eggs and dairy heated to thicken and in that very broad definition you'll just have to include curds as a custard. Though traditional custards use milk or cream, fruit curds omit those particular dairy products {which would curdle in the low pH environment} in favor of butter. Mmmm, butter.... Everyone's favorite lemon curd is so versatile I can't imagine how I spent so many years without a jar of it constantly in the fridge. {well, my waistline can...} I have, of course, rectified this situation. A glorious meyer lemon curd is currently in heavy rotation as the sweetener for my morning yogurt/granola bite. I've consistently used the same recipe throughout the past several years, {2 lemons juiced and zested, 3 eggs, 3/4 cup of sugar, 4 tablespoons sugar}, more because it was easy and produced a lovely curd than for any other good reason. Which got me to asking myself whether I should try another recipe for curd -- you know, kinda the way you debate whether or not you should cheat on your hair stylist? It's not that you don't like what she's doing, necessarily, you've just lost that initial glow of attraction, you're sick of hearing about her kids, and god knows she doesn't style your hair anymore, just kinda kicks you out the door still damp. Maybe you should check out that new salon around the corner? It wouldn't hurt to go in for one cut, would it? just one? Ok, maybe two, they do trim your bangs up for free... Anyway, with too many loved ones hurting right now and finding myself the stable/happy/calm/joy-suffused one at the moment -- wait, me?!? stable/happy/calm/joy-suffused?!? -- I spent last weekend in the kitchen trying to heal through food. I was intent on determining whether or not cheating on my stylist was worth it. (it was. cheating on my curd, however, wasn't.) ingredients: 3/4 cup sugar 3 large eggs juice and grated zest from 2 large lemons (or 3 smaller meyers) 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes In a non-corrosive heavy saucepan {really, does anyone use a corrosive saucepan these days?}, whisk sugar, eggs, lemon juice and zest until thoroughly incorporated. Continue whisking, and add the butter. Cook over medium low heat, whisking constantly for 15 minutes or so, or until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Don't let it boil! The curd will set up a bit as it cools but not insanely; make sure it's nearly as thick as you'd like before you remove it from the heat. Transfer the curd to a bowl so it doesn't scramble in the hot pan sans whisking, and cover the surface with plastic wrap. (Or can it, at this point.) If you're planning to use essentially immediately, chill in the fridge 4 hours or overnight.

à deux

Everyone knows one. Chances are, if you're engaged enough to be reading a food blog you may well be one. I am. I dislike the term that comes most readily to everyone's lips. It's not intended to be insulting, at least not insulting in the way I take it, I suppose. But it makes me uncomfortable to somehow minimize the incredible horrors of the third reich by using "nazi" as a descriptor for my controlling kitchen habits. Oh yes, I admit it. I'm one of those. One of those kitchen people who are always peering over your shoulder when you're whisking warm cream into eggs, hovering behind you to restir those onions you're sweating. I'm likely to follow you around my kitchen to give what ever you're doing an extra whip, stir, shake, blend, tap, poke, or rotation. I'll come over and adjust the temperature on your burner when you're not looking. I'll shuffle your baked goods in the oven, add a little more salt to your water. It's not that I don't trust you.... entirely. It's not that I don't think you're competent! It's just, that, well, it's my kitchen. And I'm an Alpha Cook. I imagine this makes cooking with me a daunting task. And if you happen to wander into my kitchen to cook with me, please know I feel for you, I really do. My zodiac readings caution me against being critical and controlling, (which, of course, I am and in spades), and I do try so hard to take a step back and just let it all flow. But it's so hard to sit idly by and watch you scramble those eggs when I know that if you'd just go a little .... more ..... slowly.... now, see, isn't that better? Its been a bit of a shock to realize how much my kitchen is a microcosm of my life. My kitchen relationships are demi-glace versions, too, relationships boiled down to the essence, complex and compact and sometimes too salty. Having spent three hectic, nonstop days cooking over the past weekend (I'm still angry with you, Mr. Keller) I've been thinking about the people I love to cook with and the people at whom I want to scream, "Get out!" S and I never cooked together all that much, at least as I remember it. We'd take turns in the kitchen, or fill out our traditional gender roles and divide the grilling and baking. Pretty much he'd leave me to it, popping in for a glass of water every now and again. With V I realized how controlling I could be, scared and on my own for the first time, trying to create order. He was a decent cook but not polished, he was impatient and his ego definitely made my meddling an issue. I bit my tongue a lot both in the kitchen and out. A played dumb for awhile, refusing to admit he knew what was going on and then suddenly springing his knowledge in "I gotcha!" form. We cooked together alright until I pushed him to teach me a Vietnamese recipe from childhood, which was a silent, production line affair devoid of joy or laughter. Even as the memories of dancing in an empty square under streetlights fade the sheer grim duty of that afternoon remains seared into my brain. Food and sex are, of course, inextricably intertwined. How many courtships begin with food? A bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates sitting in the parlour under mother's watchful eye used to be the norm, now we circle each other over dinner and a bottle of wine. I've learned so much about potential mates by cooking dinner for them. Whether they sway uncertainly from one foot to the next, watching. If they leap in to help, or even just offer. If they know their way around a garlic clove, if they're brash enough to compliment my ass or make a sexist comment about liking me in front of the stove. It's not surprising to discover that I cook the best with those who will never share my bed. We are more forgiving of our friends for ultimately, they are our life partners. Men come and go -- one may even make it past the 7-year itch mark some day -- but our friends love us for our eccentricities, not in spite of. They know they can always retreat to their own kitchens and so they love us for the time they spend in ours. I don't imagine I'll ever learn to fully give over my kitchen, to relinquish my obsessive need to reseason, rehydrate, rethink everything you do while you're within its {tiny} confines. I imagine I'll always be one of them. Just, please, don't use that term?

timbales des asperges

I couldn't be happier that spring is officially here and flower petals cover my car when a strong breeze happens along. We had a blessing in the vineyard on Friday, and I'm sorry Thomas Keller, but your Bouchon cookbook has yet to produce a single successful recipe for me. Oh the flavors are balanced and tasty but the execution is flawed. I'm not the world's smartest girl by any stretch of the imagination but I know how to fix most recipes I come across with issues. {That's right, quiche crusts 1, 2, &3, I'm looking at you.} Despite following directions to a T, my pate brise dripped over the edge of the spring form to burn on the rack, and then shrank away from the edges quite dramatically. Though I filled every crack in the dough I could find I've now got second degree burns on my forearm from scraping burning quiche batter off the bottom of the oven so the smoke wouldn't overwhelm the tasting room. I'm putting Mr. Keller on notice. One more snafu like this and I might retire his pretty coffee table book. In far more successful news I finally got around to a recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, languishing on my shelf these past three months. A nice confluence of events pointed me to timbales des asperges: I've been picking at Julia's biography, An Appetite for Life, for several months, just finished her memoirs, My Life in France, had the girls coming over for a spring meal, and came across the sweetest young asparagus I've been lucky to find in several years. The idea of an asparagus custard had been bopping around in my head for about a week and when a food blog search brought back a Julie/Julia post I figured it was meant to be. Timbales des asperges have to be, aside from my old standby hummus, one of the easiest recipes I've made. I think that's entirely a result of R's participation, as I am not known for my ability to make a good rue. I know, I know, I do just fine with them but R's definitely top mine. That left me to merely steam the asparagus for a scant minute or two before blending it with the eggs and egg yolks, and a touch of truffle oil. R's rue was gorgeous and definitely created a "thick bechemel." In fact, she added in the whipping cream directly to the bechemel to thin it down a touch. What color! I was so caught up I failed to document a single aspect of the cooking process -- it was over before I even thought of it, really, though I did mean to show you how stunningly green and perfect the custards were cooling in white ramekins on the windowsill. The flavor and texture went beyond the perfection of color, though -- light and creamy, deliciously evincing the ideal sweet asparagus flavor. Each spoonful melted on my tongue and disappeared leaving just the impression of a soft spring evening. I'm so thrilled with the recipe I'm making it again today for my orphans Easter dinner, and I'm excited to experiment with other ingredients. Timbales des asperges For 4 cups serving 8 people 1.5 tbs butter 2 tbs flour 1 c boiling milk .25 tsp salt pinch of white pepper Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make a thick bechamel sauce in a small saucepan by cooking the butter and flour together until they foam for 2 minutes without coloring. Off heat, beat in the boiling milk and seasonings. Boil, stiring, for 1 minutes. Allow to cool while preparing the other ingredients, beating occasionally. 1 lb steamed asparagus 2 eggs 2 egg yolks .25 tsp salt pinch of white pepper Place the cooleg steamed asparagus, eggs, egg yolks, and seasonings in the blender, cover, and blend at top speed for 1 minute. 6 tbs whipping cream 1 tsp truffle oil (optional) Add cool bechamel sauce, cream and truffle oil to the asparagus mixture and blend for 15 seconds. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl. 1-3 tbs butter 8 ramekins of 1/2 c capacity, or a 4-cup ring mold Butter the interior of the ramekins or mold heavily. Pour in the asparagus mixture filling each ramekin or the mold to within about 1/8 inch of the top. Set in a pan of boiling water, then place on a rack in the middle level of a preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until a needle or knife plunged into the center comes out clean, and the timbaled have just begun to show a line of shrinkage from the ramekins. my notes Julia intends for her timbales to be served hot, and unmolded onto a plate (hence being a timbale instead of merely a custard.) I chose to remove the ramekins from the oven instead of leaving them in the water bath in the oven with the heat off. They sat happily on the windowsill for another hour or so while we roasted a chicken and made a risotto milanese, and they were still warm and perfect. The original recipe calls for a pound of raw chicken liver but suggests the substitutions for equal weights of cooked ham, chicken, turkey, sweetbreads, salmon, lobster, crab, scallops, mushrooms, asparagus, or spinach. She also intends for this to be served with a sauce -- bearnaise, aurore, madere, perigueux, or estragon are all listed. I thought it was quite rich and lovely enough on its own and a heavy sauce would only obscure the bright green palate of the asparagus.

joy

Joy is so surprising to me. It wells up at the strangest moments. Sitting in the courtyard with my back up against the wall, soaking in the vitamin D I can hear red-winged blackbirds and smell fresh green things, loamy earth. Someone is taking apart a tree with a chainsaw, that droning buzz like the neighbors lawnmower in childhood memories. there's just the slightest breeze that picks up here and there. All that is missing to complete the perfection would be a good book and a glass of colombard or something equally bright and acidic with just a rounding of tropical fruits on the back palate. If I'm dreaming I'd take a chaise lounge, as well, perhaps a drooping willow, a few more crocus and daffodils, a cherry tree blooming in the distance. almond blossoms.

stories

Our lives are just the stories we tell: to ourselves, to others. I remember this when I have time to think, when I have time to remember. Walking to Ken’s for a Sunday Morning Bun, a latte, an ensconcement with the Times and a book. What story am I telling consciously – a little mussed, extra makeup, pressed slacks? that I just rolled out of bed, that I could be lured back? What story am I telling unconsciously -- the tired lines around my eye, the haunted look I know is lurking, the book AND the Sunday paper? That I try a little too hard, want a little too much? I realized yesterday with a jolt that I must’ve been quite a nasty person in a previous life to meet such karmic resolution in this. I’ve been learning my lessons this time around, trying anyway, trying to learn grace with ever fibre of my being. People are fallible and inconsistent; life is not fair. Change is inevitable, growth is optional. I am the only person I can count on, and still I fail myself all too often. But I’m learning that’s just fine. Perfection is boring. Dad and Sue in town for the Jazz Fest, dinner at Higgins after drinks and fries at Clyde. Popped in to South Park in betwixt the two but with no drinks after waiting half an hour we thanked our waiter and walked out. As our entrees are served I ask my father what we ate growing up. "Who am I?", I am asking. "What’s my story, what’s the preface to today, tonight, tomorrow?" What I remember: pork chops, overcooked, no sauce or dressing. Baked potatoes, corn and peas (separately) frozen and then boiled, drained, and served with a pat of butter. The rice cooker, homemade pork-fried rice. The occasional hamburger, spare ribs and corn on the cob in the summer. Roasted chicken. But these are all meals shared with my father, just the two of us, after my mother walked out. I don’t remember much from before then, and it turns out that neither does he. "I suppose it depends on what you mean by left," he says. "When she started to disappear was when I started to cook." He laughs at my mention of frozen veggies. "You suffered through the worst part of my learning curve." In a period of growth, kept company by the dichotomies of grief and loss, contentment, happiness, and hope I am rethinking the story of my life. Food, wine, the table-- the family I have been building in the world gathers around the hearth and the story of my life is told in recipes and meals. It is the story of my life in food. At Higgins we are eating oysters with a spicy tomato mignonette. These oysters taste as they should, like the sea, bright and clear and salty. Kurlansky begins The Big Oyster by making this completely unoriginal and yet perfectly apt statement, that oysters taste of the sea. Sue mentions her first introduction to oysters in Albuquerque at the tender age of 14. She knows what the sea smells like now, but then she just knew that they were different, magical. Landlocked though she was, with days old oysters, Susan learned that food could have mystery and possession. Her story in food really began with those oysters, and she relives it every time she comes across them on a menu. Falling into bed after too many Lillets, a bottle of Produttori, closing the evening’s story of family I’m already dreaming of morning coffee and pastry, an afternoon of wine syrup, candied and sugared meyer lemon peel, a meyer lemon curd. I’m telling myself the story of a birthday gift, trying to figure out the next chapter in the story of me, and as with any good bedtime story I am soon fast asleep.

Moving thru the day I generally am traveling so fast I'm not entirely conscious of myself. I inhabit my body so entirely that I have no distance to truly see myself. And when I'm alone in bed at night, when I close my eyes... I don't know who I am any more. I feel like I have been transitioning for so much of the last two years that stability is no longer the status quo, this odd state of waking dream is actually my life. I keep waiting to get back to reality and yet I can forge no sense of gravitas at the moment. I laugh (not nearly enough), cry (all too much), yell, murmur, and whistle and they are the actions of someone else. and I am tired. tired, tired, tired. I'm sick of struggling to make sense of this all, sick of being misunderstood, belittled, taken for granted. I'm sick of the arms enfolding me being too needy, too absent, never just right. I'm disgusted by the fact that I have rituals to handle a breakup now: new sheets, new lingerie, a nice bottle of wine. wtf, & son of my bitch. But that is life, isn't it? a constant transition from there to here. Waking up each day to do it over again, to struggle to find meaning in a world that can be careless. It's a slow process, this deep-seated realization that life is indeed what happens while we're waiting for life. Seizing the moment and solidifying my possession of self, new goals for a new chapter.