Category Archives: Food

What’s-in-My-Kitchen Week, Day 1: Cheap Organizational Tricks

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A selection of inexpensive reusable plastic containers serves not only for food storage but for a multitude of small miscellany–kind of like my stomach and my brain, but probably in a far more effective sense.

Since I spent my anniversary hauling everything out of my kitchen cabinets, scrubbing everything down, and reorganizing about 90% of the kitchen’s contents, I shall give myself the pat on the back of showing off a bit. Mainly, in reality, because I was struck yet again on doing this necessary and not entirely unpleasant (thank you, Results) task at how much benefit is got from the process and how little it needs to cost besides effort and a tiny bit of ingenuity. The sort that comes from use and practice, in fact. And because when I rein in my high-end urges I often find it satisfying that my inner (and too often, very well hidden) miser can make a positive difference in my life.

Let me explain.

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In the lower cabinets facing the kitchen table, a ‘breakfast center’ of the simplest sort for guests who want morning tea, coffee, toast or cereal (the latter goes on the empty middle shelf when grocery shopping has occurred again!). At the bottom is a bucket of birdseed for our avian guest who might appear at any time on the patio just on the other side of the table, a box of lightbulbs and a seldom-used steamer dish.

The biggest thing about cleanup and re-org is that it satisfies my inherently neatnik soul. Though I crave tidiness generally, I can be as sloppy and untidy and dirty as the next person, especially when, as now, there are projects afoot–and underfoot. We are having some work done on a widely dispersed set of items that take the mess all around our house despite the majority of the individual projects’ being relatively small. A back door adjustment, where last month’s under-slab hot water leak led to re-plumbing the line to bypass the slab by going up and through the attic, which in turn led to the soil under the slab drying out, settling into the void left by the leak, and pinning the nearby exterior door frame shut. Removal of three horribly outdated and worn countertops and sinks and faucets in two bathrooms for replacement–and waiting, sink-less, for the new stuff to arrive. Getting the living room wall put back together after it was disassembled to run that new plumbing line down for reconnection after the leak about fifteen feet away was repaired. And pulling the old kitchen cooktop out to replace it with new.

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Another set of lower cabinets houses the large pots and the small appliances. It’s amazing how much putting a few of the latter into a clean, open-topped cardboard shipping box can do to keep the space from getting ridiculously cluttered by ‘floating’ parts and cords.

This latter, necessitated by the persistent crabbiness of the mistress of the kitchen about having a wildly un-level cooker, each burner skewing a different direction so that none could offer an even surface for a pan and finally, only two of the four actually, well, burning. So I was more than willing to forgo having any functional cooktop for the short term, thinking that it was not terribly different from having had a barely semi-functional one for the two years since we moved in here. Tomorrow we expect the stonemason and his crew to be in to install our new bathroom sink counters, and he will re-cut the cooktop opening to fit the slightly deeper configuration of the new appliance.

In the meantime, it was essential to pull out the drawers directly underneath the cooker for removal and replacement access. And there you have your ‘trigger’–the moment when it becomes clear that once a half-dozen dominoes of order have been tipped in the house, the rest will soon follow. As they did. The immediate effect of pulling out the drawers was a reminder that as neat as I can be at times, the world and our actions in it fill up the neatest of spaces with bits of detritus; things shift in moving drawers until they are nestled invisibly in odd corners and buried under other things, and stuff entirely forgotten as soon as it was put away and out of sight may be well past its shelf-life, if not the half-life of radium. In short: time to clean and reorganize thoroughly once again.

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Sometimes it’s the littlest things that please me most: having airtight plastic boxes to keep tea sachets together and fresh, and a cheap little plastic basket to keep the boxes proximal and easy to carry to the breakfast table, and a quick scribble on the boxes to remind me what the heck I’ve kept in stock–that makes breakfast time ever so much more relaxed.

Being a visually oriented magpie and loving things to look ‘right’ and living within moderate means can work at decidedly cross purposes from time to time. What I have begun to acknowledge as useful wisdom in my encroaching antiquity is that there are places I can compromise comfortably on having everything look (my definition of) perfect or designer-coordinated or fancy-schmancy or otherwise idealized. One simple rule for me is to remember that what is in a drawer, a cupboard or a closet does not get seen when the drawers and doors are properly closed between uses. If they are neat, clean and practical enough in their order for my purposes when open and in use, they needn’t be expensively or extravagantly stored, only tidily and securely. So although I may cock my glinting magpie eye with a tinge of lust at those magnificent custom closet installations and the exquisitely artful antique containers that fill some people’s pantries and the fantastic item-specific systems adorning someone’s million-dollar shed or garage, I look for a way to repurpose the extant and then ‘shop low’–look at the thrift stores and dollar-an-item bonanzas for bargains before I look elsewhere.

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Another tea-basket, this one with the sugars for visitors’ tea *and* coffee, lives by the first and by the one with the instant coffee–that, more for flavoring my cookery than for drinking, since most guests happily prefer using the French press or drip coffeemakers that I keep handy nearby.

Even this is hardly necessary for the quality of life. I know that plenty of people manage to keep their belongings in check by merely tending them carefully enough and placing them wisely enough that they are where they should be, in the required condition and easy to get and use at all times. I, on the other hand, find that grouping things with their fellows helps me immensely in having a sense of order and functionality and to survive the intermittent bombed-out adventures of a project taking over any part of house or life. So I love to find well-suited containers that fit the occasion and the objects and go forth from there with my space-arranging efforts.

To be Continued!

Foodie Tuesday: Thirst Quenching

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graphite drawing + textDrinks. I love food and all of its crunchy, salty, sweet, chewy, tender, steaming, spicy, bold, sour, gooey goodness, but let’s face it, all of that goes down better with a good drink or two. At the moment, I need to behave better than I have for the last number of months, so I’ll be living on the memory of all of the tasty liquid loveliness while sipping lots of cold, clear water for the nonce. This isn’t forever, and I know I feel better when I give my poor beleaguered body an occasional break from the excesses of travel and lazy eating and all of those other happy tortures that tempt and taunt in ever-increasing increments until it’s time for one of these breaks. And believe me, I’ve nothing against a crisp fresh glass of water. Or twenty.

photoStill, I do enjoy the wide variety of ways one can slake one’s thirst beyond refueling the necessary percentage of corporeal content with good old aitch-two-oh. That glass of lemonade made glinting green with alfalfa was a quintessentially Berkeley taste that was remarkably enjoyable in its grassy clean refreshment on a warm sunny day. I’m not sure if I felt more like a retro-hippie or a happy cow while sipping it–not much matter there; the only important thing is that it tastes great.

graphite drawing + textMostly, it’s a grand thing when the drinks complement the context. Sipping ‘hay clippings’ in earthy, counterculture country like Berkeley just feels mighty apropos. Wetting one’s whistle with a gingered Irish whiskey based drink in a pub while nibbling at hot fish and chips works like a, well, a lucky charm. Tipping back a glass of icy white rum with lime when sharing conversation with the cosmopolitan bar owner who made them and hearing about his history as an opposition newspaper editor in Noriega’s Panama, as a banker, and as a descendant of an old family determined to help shape the new Panama by subtler means, through ecological work, by working for social change, and by teaching others both by example and in simple, heartfelt conversations over a drink–that’s a combination perfectly designed to make a moment of what could be mere small talk into a cultural, educational and personal exchange to remember.

photoBecause we all thirst for something to drink. It’s essential that we replenish, you know, our bodily fluids. But far more than that, when we sip we are in communion, in a way. There’s the affinity between the drink and the situation, and between the drink and the food, to be sure. But a drink with another person can easily create, regardless of its contents, a real contribution to building affinities between those who share the drinks. Those that already existed, they can grow stronger. Some meetings of people need that nice drink to invent the possibility of affinity. The raised glass is the opportunity for a new meeting of minds, and maybe of hearts.

Then again, sometimes a refreshing drink is . . . just a drink.

Walk a Mile in My Baby Shoes

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photoI’ve been thinking about childhood. The freshness and innocence, the naiveté and helplessness, the curiosity and amazement at every new thing–and everything is new–and of the naturally self-centered universe one forms because self is all one knows. I’ve been thinking about how all of these qualities, so clear and natural in childhood, repeat throughout our lives in cycles. Varied by age and circumstance, and certainly by our own personalities as they develop, but there and recurrent all the same.

I’ve been thinking about how little we are all aware of these cycles and patterns in ourselves over time. We humans, though we congratulate ourselves as Homo sapiens, intelligent beings, are poignantly–sometimes poisonously–unwilling and even unable to truly see ourselves all that clearly. It’s not terribly hard to be self-aware, to know the good and bad of one’s personality and character and style, but it’s amazingly uncommon that we choose to acknowledge it, let alone are able and willing to do anything useful to control or change what we can or should. Most of us are rather childlike, if not infantile, in that respect. We want forever to be loved and be the center of the universe in that way we sensed we were as small children, before knocking up against whatever form of reality dented that illusion for the first time.

For the very fortunate (like me) it’s easy to look with a critical eye on those who are in the midst of childlike neediness because of their poverty, ill-health, lack of education or resources, old age or difference from the popular norms. Easy to forget that I don’t have the same obvious petulance or beggarly qualities only because I am so fortunate, so well off and well fed and loved and young and-and-and. I am the lucky center of my universe for now. It’s simple to be placid when I’m so rich.

I can only hope that this good life not only continues to keep me content, but that it affords me the leisure and good grace to look a little less harshly on the struggles of others. To be more patient and understanding when someone else is in that childlike state of need, whether for the starkest, plainest of dignities–sheer life not being at imminent risk–or for food and shelter, for health and wholeness, for peace and hope. If I can’t be an agent of change, bringing those gifts to those who need them, at least I must try to remember what it is to be in that fragile state and know how much I depend upon the rest of the world myself for being, by contrast, not in my childhood of utter need.photo

Foodie Tuesday: Pilgrimages

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photoSince I have made it clear that I spend much of my travel time and energy on eating and/or thinking about eating (just as I do at home, but more exotically, if you will), then the clear corollary is that I am inclined to travel toward, and for, specific foods and eateries. Returning to my home turf is clearly a time when this is bound to take on a significance and intensity of the grandest proportions. Needless to say, it would be impossible to revisit every place we love to eat in one trip, let alone a fairly brief holiday, but we are dedicated enough to the love of good food to make our best efforts in the attempt.

Spud Fish & Chips is a local landmark institution that predates even my existence by, say, half a length, and its place in my personal registry of notables was confirmed very early not only because it’s a great place to get very tasty, freshly made cod and chips for which people have long been accustomed to queue up around the block and down the street, but one of its four (I think) branches happens to be located about two doors down from where my grandparents had their apartment when I was small. The cod (or halibut or salmon or shrimp, if that’s your preference) is hot, moist and sweet and coated with a lovely, crispy golden jacket that holds the fillets neatly together whilst they are being gently paddled through a bit of sweet tartar sauce or drizzled with malt vinegar en route to their demolition. The fries are unevenly hand-cut so that one gets the meaty, mealy, potato-y big fries and the medium, slightly more greasy ones and the thin, crisp ones all together for fine textural variety.

From the first bite of cod, I was transported immediately to the days when my parents would pile us four girls into the car and head to Grandma and Grandpa’s and at some point we would essay right across the street to Alki Beach (the nicest and most popular tidal beach in Seattle), play until we were sufficiently caked with sand and maybe had had a quick stop to pay homage to the Ice Cream Cone Lady, a 3-meter mini of the Statue of Liberty that stands almost directly across from the apartment on the beach whom I so named for my obvious assumption about that strangely compelling object she lifted in her hand while she hugged what I guess I must have thought was the menu to her bronze breast. After these exertions we would inevitably get hungry for the aforementioned fish and chips, preferably followed by our own ice cream, and that was the heavenly point of the whole outing. Besides Grandma and Grandpa, of course.

photoAnother luscious luxury I crave after too long away from it is the New England style clam chowder at 42nd Street Cafe in Seaview, Washington. In our earlier married years either my husband and I had a whole lot more free time on our hands or (more likely) were willing to cram more into the available time, so we went as often as we could manage for a three- or four-day weekend on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula. It’s quite touristy, especially in the summer high season, because of the marvelous beaches, the excellent boardwalk, the fantastic biking and walking paths that range all over the peninsula, the usual silly shops, the fairly constant wind that makes it a prime place for kite flyers, and the regularly held classic car shows. Among other enticements. Primarily, though, it’s a place to go and relish the ocean–and, yes indeedy, to eat. For a pretty small set of towns and off-season residents, the peninsula offers a goodly range of fine eating, and we have favorite places and foods to show for it.

Cheri Walker’s glorious clam chowder is one of the many reasons we’ve faithfully, if not obsessively, returned to 42nd Street for all of these years. She somehow concocted the perfect balance of ingredients for a chowder I’ve never tasted anything close to matching, to the degree that while I won’t give many clam chowders elsewhere the time of day anymore after one look at their floury glue-like consistency and paltry pieces of rubbery clam, I would happily eat Cheri’s clam chowder three meals a day when I can get it. Bacon in it. Yes, you are unsurprised that I think this a superb ingredient in a clam chowder. I am nothing if not predictable. A major attraction of her clam chowder, however, is naturally the large quantities of fresh and tender clam bits therein. Little pieces of potato, the soft crunch of celery. That sort of goodness. But what really sets it apart is the light, savory broth, with just the right juices and herbs interlaced with cream and, I suspect, a tot of sherry or cognac to give the finish such sweetness and depth. In any event, heaven.

photoAnd while we’re on the peninsula, we indulge yet another seafood craving, this at another small-group chain restaurant. Dooger’s doesn’t either sound or look particularly impressive other than being a pleasant-looking middle-of-the-road place frequented by the older set and families with lots of squirmy kids. And it is that. There are people who disdain it for its plainness or complain that it’s predictable and dull. But we two have willingly waited at the no-reservations place as long as perhaps an hour on occasion when the crowds are in town. Why? Crab legs. Dooger’s makes the very ordinary extraordinary, at times. So very worthwhile. What you see on this plate is fairly common fare, mainly: a butter and sour cream loaded baked potato, fried white bread, a little plastic cup of very very simple seafood sauce with a hint of horseradish. All well made in their simple ways, to be fair. We always start with the salad-from-a-bag salads because (a) they go through their salads so fast that it’s always fresh greenery on your plate there and (b) it’s piled up high with the sweetest little lightly briny tiny shrimp your heart could desire. A perfectly refreshing start. Followed by this comfort food pile-up of potato and toast and oooooooooh, Dungeness crab leg pieces. Already cracked open for us lazy diners, and as we generally choose them (though you can order them sautéed in garlic butter, steamed, or Cajun spiced, too), coated with the most delicate dusting of flour and deep fried in a flash to meltingly dainty little bites of sheer Northwest nirvana. Try ’em straight up or with a squeeze of lemon.photoI limited myself to the ‘small’ serving shown here only because I decided I would also succumb to the key lime pie which, you guessed it, is presumably made from the recipe right there on the Nellie and Joe’s juice bottle, but by golly has been a popular recipe for eons for good reason. Still and all, next time: just get more fresh, delectable crab legs. Who really knows when I’ll get to eat as many of them as I want again?

Thankfully, I have in no way limited my foodly fun to these few specialties on this trip any more than I would do so at any other time. There was a scrumptious lunch of grilled Tillamook cheddar cheese sandwich also, happily, jammed with Dungeness crab at the charming diner the Beehive in Montesano, Washington (sensing a theme here, are you?) and accompanied by light, crispy onion rings, and followed by a densely packed pie of tiny wild blackberries with just enough sugar to hold them into proper pie form. There was a delectable pub supper at A Terrible Beauty (right in West Seattle) of beer battered salmon and chips. The ethereal, candy-like Walnut Prawns at Lee’s Chinese, also in West Seattle.photoI could go on, but I’m starting to get hungry as usual amid the Foodie Tuesday tales, so I must bid you adieu for the nonce and grab my cutlery as I trot over to the kitchen in search of . . .

Wishful Gardening

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photoIf you haven’t already guessed it, gardening in the temperate climate of the Pacific Northwest is a mixed blessing. Yes, you can battle long, murky, cool, overly rainy winters that seem to last seven months of the year, so the easiest things to grow are mold and mildew, possibly between your fingers and toes. You want a green roof? Get yourself a rooftop Japanese moss garden without even trying just by positioning your house close to any healthy shade tree. I can’t promise you’ll feel very Zen about it, because like the fiendish imported English ivy, such moss is mighty hard to stop let alone kill, and eats buildings faster than you can spell ‘plague’. Mud is perhaps a given, but so, in the territory of a once quite active volcano is the euphoniously named glacial till that means Rock Picking becomes a competitive sport among gardeners and anything larger than a teacup had better be excavated for with vigorous pickaxe action and the tenacity of a Welsh miner. Slugs grow to mythic size and are believed by small children to be capable of swallowing their pint-sized innocent selves without chewing.photoBut the mildness of temperature and plentiful rains also mean that one can practically put a piece of two-by-four in the ground and grow a tree, or at the very least, can make greenery and flora proliferate in an almost jungle-like exuberance. Heck, though outsiders might doubt it, you can grow big healthy palm trees and citrus and big fat figs right there next to the cold waters of the Puget Sound, mere crawl strokes away from the chilly dark not-really-Pacific Ocean. So the P-Patch allotments of Seattle are rich; why, even a parking strip along a city street can support a dandy raised-bed vegetable garden full of tempting green and vitamin-packed leafy goods.photoOne of the things I’ve missed greatly since leaving the west coast is an incongruously tough plant, one evolved to withstand the vagaries of coastal wind and salt and coastal dwellers’ neglect with remarkable stamina and glamor. The Ceanothus, sometimes known as Farmer’s Lilac, is one of my very favorite plants for this combination of ruggedly handsome looks and ease of care. I am fairly certain that an experiment with one or two of these heady-scented, blazingly blue delights is in my Texan future. They come in such a variety of heights and breadths, leaf sizes, shades of blue and purplish, and even both deciduous and evergreen types that there’s sure to be a sort that will withstand even north Texas trials. Now that I’ve been back amid them in full-blast bloom, I know I can’t keep going sans Ceanothus without giving them a good old Texas try.photoThe other thing I miss most, perhaps, about Northwest gardening will likely be much harder to replicate in my newer, ahem, digs: cottage gardens. Besides that native-born northwesterners are not much inclined toward formality, their access to easy growing conditions make them quite fond of that crowded, colorful and slightly overblown style of gardening, not least of all because it leaves less room for weeds, which of course also love the mild and friendly weather. But in hot and dry climes it can be a little too stressful on the water meter and long for greater shade than is easily procured by the average gardener. Clearly, it’ll take some tricky thinking to overcome those obstacles. Our recent negotiations with the fellow who will likely supervise our landscape overhaul when we can manage to do it have been a solid reminder not only of the limits of NTX nurseries and their resources but how much it’s going to cost us to do any adventuring in the fuller development of our patch of ground. Our recent house plumbing near-disaster and a couple of automotive ones, not to mention the trip we are making just now, all send pretty clear signals to our budgetary brains that it’s yet a while before we can tackle much renovation or revivification in our happy little greenbelt-hugging home zone. So for now it seems all the wiser to me to store up all of the brawny, brainy yet beautiful garden ideas I can and savor my short stay back in cottage-garden country to help me suss out just what I can do to bring a semblance of it back home with me when the bank account has been fattened up a bit more again.photophotophotophoto

Foodie Tuesday: Pleasing Paternal Palates

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photoFather’s Day 2012 arrived on a date when we were both in the same state as our respective fathers. How about that. So it was our pleasure to gather up both sets of parents and the one sibling in close enough proximity and have a meal together.

I know that you all love food, and most of you love cooking and entertaining, too–especially if it’s for loved ones. You’ve told me so on many a Tuesday, not to mention with many a blog post of your own heralding the glories of your hospitality. I appreciate these wonders more than I can express–and the insufficiency of my words to do so is still mitigated, I think, by your awareness of my good intentions when it comes to these things. But being ‘on the road’ and having no kitchen to call my own, I knew it was the better part of valor to find a good meeting place that would supply the edible, drinkable provisions and let us all sit back and do the eating and drinking unencumbered by such worries.

Since all seven of us in the party are fans of various kinds of seafood, we opted for the Father’s Day Brunch at a local waterfront eatery well known for such stuff and let it go at that. Not a bad choice. Buffets are often a dangerous no-man’s-land of dining, to be sure, but a very popular and well-attended one is virtually guaranteed not to have the infamous nastiness of those foods that crepitate tragically on the serving board until petrification or putrefaction begin to gain ascendance over them and everything gets that creepy sheen of something that may or may not have been prepared using automotive lubricants and plumbers’ tools. Father’s Day is clearly one of the Top Five when it comes to holidays associated with hauling the parental units off to an eatery, because of course even the worst cretins among us know at some level that it’s not very polite to ask Dad to cook up his own celebratory treats and not a lot of us have the time, talent or gumption to do the deed ourselves. So we were not remotely surprised to see our restaurant of choice, and all of those we passed en route to it, jammed and jiggling with crowds of hungry visitors.

The buffet was not particularly unusual or even, probably, more sumptuous than many we’ve seen or heard others describe, but it was certainly lavish enough and varied enough to keep all of us from trying very hard to converse in the noisily crowded dining space, but rather left us making cheerily knowing winks across table at each other while cramming yet another tidbit of roasted or sugary whatsis onto a fork and into our grinning mouths. The weather was far more cooperative than predicted, so we enjoyed sunny views out through the expansive windows straight across the Sound to the big city, gulls parked on the old piling remnants of the piers adjacent to us, scudding clouds that failed to reflect in the increasing chop of the water and a few water taxis and ferries cutting through the chop to zigzag from shore to shore.photoWe ate lox and blackened salmon and hot-smoked salmon, fried shrimps and steamed prawns and seafood chowder, crab legs and crab Benedicts and crab salad; fruit and greens and vegetables and pickled goods. We ate roasted potatoes and hashed and steamed and whipped; roasts of beef and lamb and pork, and sausages and bacon; pasta and bread, muffins and scones. Cakes and pancakes, crepes and rolls, desserts and cheeses and so, so much more. Bloody Marys and coffee and tea and liquid chocolate poured from a fountain over pretty much whatever you might opt to stick under the flow. Fingers included, if I judge correctly by the number of small persons hovering near said fountain. But who’s to blame them? It’s Father’s Day, after all, and without those little scarpers there would be no fathers to celebrate, eh.photo

You’re not the Boss of Me! Well, Yeah, You Probably are.

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Lest I, as a mere human sort of creature, forget my place in the universal power structure, a few days communing with my sister’s four-legged family members swiftly reminds me that I can have all of the ingenious ideas and deeply meaningful thoughts I want in my pretty little head and they won’t change the reality of how the day will go for, and with, Ruffian, Mercer and Tristan.photo

Ruffian is well aware that all of creation was designed for the sole purpose of serving her and meeting her Needs (often mistaken by others as wants or Whining Points) and keeping out of her way in general so as not to disturb her beauty sleep. Being a large and well-rounded woman-cat, she prefers not to exhaust herself with any sort of excessive or unseemly activity if it does not culminate in being fed something. If there’s really no thrilling edible stuff involved, her time is far better spent in her semi-comatose repose, and most pleasantly of all, that in a place which is capable of creating maximum inconvenience for anyone who might wish to go through the door she is blocking, sit on the chair or window seat she is luxuriating upon, or sidle down the hallway she has carpeted with her soft and well-cushioned form. Yes, I suppose you are all by now sensing a bit of similarity between her and yours truly, perhaps?photo

Mercer, her fellow shelter adoptee, dresses formally for all occasions, preferring the classic tradition of the black suit and white button down shirt because he is much too dignified to be associated with frivolity and self-indulgence like his ‘sister’s’. If he should happen to take an interest in a cat toy and even deign to frolic after it a bit, it’s best for all others in the room to pretend not to have noticed, lest he take umbrage over this imagining of his being anything other than the most sober and staid member of the household. Despite his being strictly aware of his handsome panache and savoir-faire, he generally dislikes having his portrait taken, a trait I have assumed has to do with his being in the Witness Protection program and not wishing to be ‘outed’ inadvertently. I do suspect he might have some Scottish heritage because, although he doesn’t speak about this past of his, he still wears a fuzzy white sporran that swings jauntily under his belly when he’s patrolling his fiefdom.

While Ruffian and Mercer rule the house, Tristan lives exclusively outdoors. This arrangement seems to suit all three to the degree that each is able to maintain his or her sense of being the center of the solar system and ruler of all he/she surveys, since the two cats pay attention to each other primarily when needing someone to compete with over food, beat up or otherwise annoy.photo

Tristan was rescued from a neglectful owner after the people of the household split up and Tristan’s longtime canine companion died. He’s now twelve years old and, age and arthritis notwithstanding, maintains a cheerful demeanor, particularly if there happens to be a massive ham sandwich anywhere in sniffing distance. And he does have prodigious sniff powers, undiminished by the years. So when he goes for his three walks a day, nary a leaf or blade of grass goes unexamined, yet he keeps up a steady pace and chooses which of his favorite routes is preferable for the moment’s expedition, tugging all of his people-pack insistently if gently until we all acquiesce, recognize his prerogative, and follow orders. I’m just glad I smell acceptable to him, never mind whether any of our human companions find me tolerable or not.

After all, we are all just passing through, aren’t we? These three clearly know it’s all about the quality of the journey and that the destination will take care of itself soon enough. Say, toss me a treat, won’t you–I’m feeling a little peaked from not having napped enough yet today and can’t reach over that far.

Foodie Tuesday: I Travel on My Stomach

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photoYes, I travel tummy-forward. But then, you knew that, didn’t you. Of course food is the center of my travel adventures. It’s pretty much the center of my daily life, as you have seen. So one of the central joys of going on any expedition is guaranteed to be eating related. I am somewhat inclined to plan any trip around the potential dining and snacking involved in the destination of choice. The choice of destination, if I have any, is certainly influenced as well by the quantity and quality of delicious items available in said locale.

photoAs it happens, the point of this journey was determined in advance by the lovely necessity of the Berkeley Early Music Festival and Collegium‘s participation there. It was mere marvelous luck that sent us off to Berkeley, and San Francisco was of course a truly logical pit stop on the way to see our family up north, then, no? As it happens, there’s no end to the glorious eating and drinking you can do in the magnificent Golden Gate city. There are the icons of foodie worship all around that range from the Buena Vista, where Irish Coffee is purported to have been born (and is aging very gracefully indeed, I can tell you) and the venerable eateries of Fisherman’s Wharf (yes, we did pop in to Alioto’s last night and the Dungeness crab Louie was loaded with sweet crustacean dreaminess) to a nearly endless parade of newer delicacies and delicatessens.

photophotoOne thing that could hardly steer you wrong on any expedition, from road trip to round-the-world, is keeping a sharp lookout for good food and drink at every turn. The most logical place to start is any farmer’s market, food hall, CSA, allotment or other magnificent foodie emporium. Say, perhaps, the Ferry Terminal, where just by crossing the cable car line at the Embarcadero you enter into a haven of artisanal glories that will transport you to another plane. There are charcuteries boasting all sorts of exquisite hand-crafted organic meat treats, a creamery or two filled with cheeses ranging from creamy goat cheese or a fromage triple-crème smoothness to the wildest of the contemporary cultured creations and back again to the most scintillating classics like the weirdly beautiful Mimolette (not, as it appears, an alien cantaloupe but a deep orange hearted beauty of a nutty salty cheese) and of course the most glamorous hunks of lovingly aged Parmigiano-Reggiano looking ever so much like a cheesy lunar landscape inviting exploration by hungry adventurers.photoThere are the vegetable stands full of produce and forage unspeakably pristine and desirable in its purity and freshness. Sea beans, anyone? Mushrooms picked from their carefully hidden home turf this morning? Artichokes still small and tender and almost as delicate as to be able to self-destruct in a puff of fairy sparkles? Oh, my darlings, you can see that I’m bound to instantaneous loss of–well, okay, I would lose my composure and maturity if I had any to start. When I get around this stuff it just happens. And I think you do know what I mean. Be nice.photoMeanwhile, I shall be dashing hither and yon to hunt along those pretty, pretty piers of San Francisco, where the fishermen bring in their catch of the moment, just to see what tempts my hungry soul. I love fish. I love shrimp, prawns, scallops, calamari, all sorts of goodies. But what I’m most often and most likely to want any time I can possibly get hold of it is fresh, sweet, insanely delicious Dungeness crab. I will certainly eat it as many times as I get the chance on this visit to the coast. I had it at both lunch and dinner yesterday and it was barely enough to whet my appetite further. Don’t get me wrong: the crab Louis was excellent and the macaroni and cheese with D-crab in it was a dish of smooth, melting yumminess. But life is short and Dungeness far, far away from Texan turf, so I’ve a great need to fill up my innards with as much of this joy-inducing treat as I possibly can. So much work to do. I’ll get back to you later on this.photoWhat are you waiting for? You should be rushing out in search of, at the very least, a good grocery store or picnic ice chest. Get yourself moving. There’s very little time until the next meal, and who knows when it’ll be the last one, really? Hungry, I tell you, hungry and sure that time is seldom better spent in pursuit of grand food and drink than in nearly any other work known to humankind. Be reasonable. It would be quite a pity to let any such fine things go unappreciated, now wouldn’t it.photophoto

Foodie Tuesday: Egg on My Face

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I have no particular secrets from you kind people out there in Bloglandia, so it can come as no surprise (especially to those who have seen any of my previous food posts) not only that I am an unreconstructed carnivore but also a generally unrepentant eater of all things–okay, nearly all things–that might be considered decadent if one is of the sort that equates dining habits with morality. I like eating. I like eating lots of different things, and in what even I will readily admit are too large quantities. It’s not good for my health, to be sure, and possibly not best for my soul, but there it is. I love food.photoOne of the things I would be most reluctant to give up eating or cooking with is of course that stupendous universal donor among ingredients, the humbly perfect egg. If I must be limited in my access and opportunities and omnivorous mania, I would proudly and gladly be wearing a nice schmutz of egg on my chops any day. Besides, with my coloring I am very ill-suited to wearing any other form of yellow, so why not embrace the ephemeral form of dressing up in some eggy yellow goodness that can at least be licked off my lips and make my innards very happy if its look doesn’t suit my exterior. I love what the egg can do for a sauce, a custard, a souffle. For baked goods; for dishes where it serves as binder, thickener, garnish.photoMaybe most of all, I love eggs when they star in the show. Their honest simplicity and smooth, creamy deliciousness deserve to be featured and recognized as the wonder that is borne in that beautiful capsule of the egg’s origin. So today I give you one of my very favorite meals, which despite my fondness for all sorts of marvelous mealtime miracles is a supremely simple omelette with grated sharp cheddar cheese melting in the middle, accompanied by some nice crispy bacon with a little drizzle of pure maple syrup, and a fresh, crisp, fabulous apple. I don’t usually mess with eggs much when I cook them, and a nice little cheese omelette like this deserves to be treated respectfully, so the only ingredient in the omelette besides the eggs, lightly beaten, and the cheese is just a nice big splash of melted butter to make the eggs easy to loosen from the pan and fold over when sufficiently set–but just barely set, really. Still light and creamy through the middle.photoI’d go on, but I’d kind of rather dash over to the kitchen and grab an egg or two . . .

Foodie Tuesday: All about the Ingredients

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photoI’ve said it before, and lots of food experts smarter than I am have said it lots of times before I ever did: good food preparation starts with good ingredients. No amount of genius and skill will make a great meal out of so-so ingredients, let alone out of bad ones. And me, I have a modicum of smarts and very modest, though for a lazy goof-off like me, surprisingly patient skills. So yeah, I can get the job done, as long as I have some excellent ingredients in hand.

photoStarting with salt. One of the most indispensable of delights in the entire pantheon of foods and culinary assets from its first discovery, good salt in just the right quantity is the First Rule of Yumminess in many, many a dish. But, hang on, salt should still often be the last ingredient applied. Tricky, no?

photoThe meal, however, if it’s with fun guests on hand and stretching a little over the course of the day or evening, well that should begin with a little taste of something nice. For the other day’s dinner guests, who were indeed a whole lot of fun, the starters were simple enough, and already on hand: the crackers I made (and posted) last week, the olives I’d previously bathed in sherry and olive oil, and smoked almonds, plus a few chilled prawns with dill-enhanced cocktail sauce. A fresh, cold batch of light Sangría:

Blushing Sangría

Two 750 ml. bottles dry rosé (I used a nice dry Pinot Noir rosé by Toad Hollow), plus 1 bottle of sweet white wine (I used a bottle of Moscato), 1/4 cup of Amaretto, 1/4 cup of Himbeergeist, 1/2 pint of fresh raspberries, 6 small or 3 large fresh peaches, 1 teaspoon rose-water, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1/4-1/2 cup of light agave syrup or raw honey. Stir gently and chill thoroughly before serving.

The peaches I bought were an unexpected mix of half overripe and half underripe fruits, so I peeled and sliced the underripe pieces into the Sangría, where I’d already immersed the raspberries, and the too-ripe ones I pitted; I put the mushy peaches and all of the skins from both kinds into the blender with a bunch of the liquid ingredients, blended them all thoroughly and sieved the pulp into the Sangría, so I still got all of the mileage of flavor and color from the peaches, if a little less sliced fruit. In the end, it was plenty drinkable, so all was well in our pre-prandial world.photo

photoThe meal needed vegetable balance, of course, so I kept the ingredients to a fair minimum again and the flavors simple. Why mess with good contents? A mix of heirloom tomatoes and red cherry tomatoes made a simple but flavorful topping for romaine lettuce with a couple of simple salad dressing choices. Sweet corn, freshly pared off of the cob, was gently and quickly warmed in butter. And some delicate asparagus was steamed with a little soy sauce, a little plain rice vinegar, a very small dash of toasted sesame oil and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

photoThe main dish, which I’ve undoubtedly mentioned in previous posts, was our old favorite household standby of Smoked Salmon Pasta. Not even a true recipe, really. Dearest John, I did not hand-craft my pasta. Yes, I bought refrigerated fresh fettuccine. Would that I’d had you supervising the party, not to mention in charge of the pasta-making, this element would indeed have been more, erm, elemental. Not to worry. Some day I shall reform. Meanwhile, a decent store-bought fresh fettuccine is not such a bad thing when dressed up just a leetle bit with smoked salmon cream. Simmer about a pint of heavy cream until it thickens to a nice sauce thickness, add about 1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg and 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper, 1 cup of broken up [hot smoked] alder smoked wild salmon, and a good splash of lemon juice. Toss gently with the freshly cooked and drained pasta and serve.photoThere are only two main high-quality ingredients needed to complete a pretty good party with all the rest of this, then. Dessert, naturally, should be offered–a bit of sweetness to follow all the preceding, and stretch as far into the evening as can be managed by all. But most significantly, the last essential ingredient of the gathering is, well, the gathering. The good company. We had that. Good enough company to want to stretch out the evening. So there was just a touch of dessert. Fresh strawberries and, you guessed it, chocolate.

photoI never said I was original in my menu planning. But I am really good at putting myself in excellent company, and that’s always what the party is all about. There you go: my real culinary talent is cooking up a right magical blend of outstanding people and enjoying the delights that result from the combination. Too bad there’s no cookbook out there that teaches that–no, wait–every good cookbook in the world gives guidance for just this art. As these good books teach us, choose your excellent ingredients wisely, food or company, and you will brew up a marvelous party.