All-Consuming

Ask me, at any given moment, what I want to eat and there's an excellent chance I'll say bread. I love bread. Were I forced to give up every other food in the world save one, that one would be bread. Bread is also somewhat of a nemesis. I believe that the standard serving size of bread is one loaf. I believe bread is a meal. I believe bread is an inalienable right. These beliefs are the enemy of a trim waistline and a diet sufficient in nutrients.

So bread and I have lurid affairs. We meet secretly and occasionally. We are passionate in our time together knowing that it can't last. Often I don't even dress bread up with toppings but will devour it unadorned. When we are apart, I am mightily tempted by bread, even mediocre bread, but I stay my hand knowing that bread and I will be together again soon. I play favorites with bread and am, while polyamorous, discerning.

I have made a bread from time to time, but given my propensity for entire-loaf-consumption, don't make a habit of it. Yet even the best of intentions get tested. My mother wanted a baguette pan for mother's day and it seemed silly to just buy one while Amazon was already delivering to my house. I've never made a baguette, so the prospect was interesting. I do like eating baguettes...

I was all set to make a plain white version when the same bad influence mother pointed me to the 20% wheat version profiled in The New York Times Magazine earlier this year. Since I happened to have wheat flour in the house, I figured what the hell. The recipe couldn't have been simpler and the dough quickly took shape. A half hour or so in the oven nestled soundly in the baguette pan and there were three tiny loaves ready for the sharp-toothed embrace of my mouth.

The verdict? For a loaf I whipped up in a minute in my house with a conventional oven? Pretty good. But there is much room for improvement. I'll start with the flavor. When I have a wheat bread, I enjoy a little something extra: malt, honey, molasses, something to highlight the wheatiness. Since this recipe had all of 4 ingredients (5 if you count water), this extra oomph was absent. My next iteration will likely try adding one of the above. Fearing overcooking, I likely took this out of the oven 4 or so minutes too soon. The bottom crust is perfect, the top crust a little too pliable. This bread isn't quite white and isn't quite wheat and I think I'd prefer one or the other. I think if one made this recipe with 5% wheat flour instead of 20%, the result would be a nice, slightly complex white. I'm also debating beginning my own sourdough starter. These are not good thoughts as they imply more bread.

Like any good affair, though, the key is to not make mistakes that could lead to discovery - where discovery in this case is 15 pounds of additional stomach attributable solely to bread. If bread and I are to continue our assignations, we must moderate. This means that either a lot of leftover bread is headed to the freezer or everyone in my neighborhood is about to find homemade bread bundles on their doorsteps.

Not-Quite-Whole-Grain Baguettes from Mark Bittman, New York Times

100g whole-wheat flour
400g all-purpose flour
10g salt
6 instant yeast

Add the above to a food processor and turn on - slowly add up to 1.5 cups of water until the dough comes away from the sides (and looks like dough), then keep the machine running another 30 or so seconds.

Transfer the dough to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap while it rises over the next 3 hours (the colder your room, the longer you may need - mine rose over 4 hours).

Divide the dough into thirds and shape into rough logs, then cover your logs with a towel for 20 minutes (very lightly flour your work surface if needed).

Roll the dough into more baguette-shaped configurations and put them in your baguette pan and let sit for a half hour. Use this time to preheat your oven to 465.

Slash the tops of the loaves (next time I will do one long cut down the middle as opposed to many short ones for aesthetics) and bake until a thermometer inserted in the loaves reads 210. Cool on a rack (but not for too long since you know you want to break off a warm piece and start eating).

A Chocolate Chocolate Rebirth

I think it's been a year, or thereabouts. As I've told my in-person readers, there got to be a point where I didn't know how much more the limited public could stomach "horrible metro north commuters and their horribleness," and since I don't, as a rule, write about work or my marriage, there wasn't much else going on. After nearly four years, the suburbs are home, not some bizarro world I've been transplanted to. Do I still have tons to gripe about in this hellscape of no pork buns? Surely, but if it ever was interesting, it certainly isn't any more.

But I do DO things. Mundane things to be sure, but things nonetheless. And since I am loathe to introduce an entirely new address to the online ecosystem, I'm going to use my existing real estate for things.

Today's thing: What Is The Point Of Pinterest If I Don't Use My Pins?

I pin. Not as widely as some, and along very narrow points of interest, but I pin and I'm not ashamed to say I like it. Curious? Partially curious? Pins. As you will see the main focal points are Things I Would Like To Wear and Things I Would Like To Eat. I pin actual things that I might actually want in my actual life. Sorry if you clicked the link to discover what inspirational quotations I enjoy (hint: none). But I also have a certain fondness for order. It's why I started subcategorizing my pins. Things I Would Like To Wear became Things I'm Still Waiting For To Go On Sale, Things I Bought, Things I Can No Longer Buy But Might Like To Reference At A Later Date. Things I Would Like To Eat became Things I Have Eaten And Liked, Things I Have Tried And Not Liked Well Enough, and Things I Am Waiting To Eat. I like a good taxonomy. But for the lists to remain relevant, I need to try more things and re-categorize them, otherwise my useful tool becomes massively non-useful for me.

It is with this noble cause that I bring you Double Chocolate Chip Cookies.



I am a very very messy chef, but in honor of this rebirth, I cleaned my counter and my beloved tangerine Kitchenaid stand mixer. I am also actively wiping up my messes as I go along. And though my kitchen is blessed with some of the worst lighting AND some of the ugliest and lowest cabinets imaginable, I am also taking photos. If you're going to be following along at home, I should mention a couple things about my "Cooking Philosophy:"

1. All measurements for spices and herbs in recipes are woefully inadequate. I dump the required spices into the cooking vessel until it "looks like enough." For the purposes of recipe transcribing, however, I will use a 3-4x estimate over what the recipe originally called for.

2. In addition to not measuring spices, I also don't measure salt. Some things just need a good eyeball and salt is one of them. I generally adhere closely to the recipe, it's just I will really never ever get out my 1/8 teaspoon for salt.

3. I like metric and you should too. I'm not going to be a bitch about it and convert imperial measurements to metric ones where the original recipe was in imperial, but I'm also not going to convert the other way either. Buy a kitchen scale and embrace grams - you will totally thank me. In fact, stop reading, go buy this kitchen scale. It's 25 bucks, comes in fun colors (mine is obviously orange), and lasts forever.

4. Kind of related to #3 and about that old canard regarding baking and measurements and ANY SLIGHT DEVIATION WILL IRREPARABLY DAMAGE YOUR CONCOCTION. This is both true and misleading. Yes, if something calls for a teaspoon of baking powder and you put in a tablespoon, you're hosed. If I'm weighing out a liquid and I get 5 grams more than I should, not a tragedy in any way. What is frequently more important is temperature and humidity. Don't try to leaven things when it's raining outside. Your kitchen isn't humidity controlled, your bakery's likely is.

Ok, let's go.

Ever so slightly adapted from Annie Eats.

2 sticks of butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup cocoa powder - I use Valrhona and it is worth every extra penny it costs. Quite honestly, if you're about to pull the tin of Hershey's out of the cupboard, don't bother making this recipe.
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
salt (I used in the general neighborhood of 1 tsp.)
1 12 oz. bag chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)

Preheat your oven to 350 and get your cookie sheets out. I use half-sheet pans and Silpats and love this combo, use what you've got.
Cream butter and sugar together until very smooth. You'll learn to eyeball this, right now, just put it in the mixer, walk away for approximately one segment on The Daily Show, come back. Scrape bowl.
Add eggs one at a time and beat until combined - about a minute per egg. Scrape bowl.
Turn mixer down to low unless you like getting a face full of cocoa powder and VERY SLOWLY add the cocoa powder. Once it no longer looks volatile, you can turn the mixer back up. Scrape bowl.
But then turn it down again because you're going to add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Again, please do this in batches and slowly so that your mixer doesn't attack you with dry ingredients.
Turn the mixer back up briefly to really incorporate the rest of the dry ingredients. Scrape bowl.
Add chocolate chips, mix briefly, turn mixer off. If large clumps of chocolate chips exist in your batter, disperse them with a spatula.



The original recipe calls for monster cookies, but I'm not a fan. Not only do I dislike huge cookies for vanity reasons (as in huge cookies don't look good in form fitting dresses), but I like being able to have small bites. Also, since our household is intolerant of things like 4 dozen cookies lying about for nights of insomnia and bad sci fi movies, I will make a small batch of cookies from my batter and then freeze the rest of the dough. This is genius because the next time you want a cookie, you just go to your freezer, grab your cookie log, and cut ONE cookie from it and bake it. You get a fresh cookie and your rear end gets a reprieve. I think cookies of the chocolate chip milieu don't need to be uniformly shaped, so I put my batter briefly in the fridge to firm up a little, and then used my trusty soup spoon to measure out one cookie sheet's worth of cookies (in this case 10). My baking time for these was 16 minutes, but since all ovens are different, start checking yours at 12 minutes just in case. Now a nifty trick I learned from my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe which is in Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc At Home is that if you want moist cookies, don't underbake them. Instead, spritz the cookies with water before baking them. This gives you a nice crisp outside and a nice moist inside - just how I like my cookies.



Oh, and for those keeping score. Number of chocolate chips spilled on the floor - 9. Amount of raw batter consumed - about 3 tbsp. Amount of flour on clothing - 3 handprints.

The verdict: Ok, I think we all can agree that this batter would benefit from being rolled in balls then flattened on the cookie sheet prior to baking, cause these aren't the most attractive of cookies. Due to the addition of the baking powder, these rise more than my standard chocolate chips and are cakier. And I think that's where the problem lies: I don't really want my cookies to be cakey (unless they're rainbow cookies with which I have an unhealthy relationship). Of course, now I have a log of cookies I'm not crazy about which means some lucky person will get gifted them and I might just experiment with dumping cocoa powder into my preferred chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Curse You, Default Sheep Mentality

While we're on the subject of cooking, I thought I'd share a problem I've been having recently: following directions. As in, I follow them when I know I shouldn't. The wedding cake death march should have taught me that, when reading a recipe, be skeptical.

Over the holidays, we sampled some really delicious chocolate sables from a bakery in San Francisco. They were delicious enough that I wanted to find the recipe and crank out some myself. It took me until now to try (also I needed more cocoa, aforementioned wedding cake having thoroughly plundered my supply) them and how lucky I was that the recipe was available on el internet. In fairness, I gave myself every opportunity to correct the obvious fault with the recipe. I read it several times, opened up my master notebook of working recipes to compare, read the original again, shrugged my shoulders, and said (in a famous last words kind of way): "they published this recipe in a book, it MUST work."

Intrepid readers and bakers, perhaps you can spot the missing ingredient: cocoa, butter, sugar, flour, baking soda, vanilla extract, grated chocolate.

I'll give you a minute.

For those who don't bake often, the missing ingredient is some form of EGG PRODUCT. An ingredient, by the way, that was in every sable recipe I had in the master notebook. The mixture this recipe gave me could politely be described as "sandy." It was so dry and separate-y that even an attempt to roll it in log form in cling wrap did nothing for it. While the recipe implies that one should be able to roll the dough out and cut it into shapes, this was demonstrably untrue; instead I mashed it onto a cookie sheet as best I could and threw the whole mess in the oven (the final destination of these cookies is, as luck would have it, the crust for a cheesecake, so presentation is the least of my concerns as the whole mess will end up in the food processor anyway). What came out of the oven could politely be described as looking like the waste product of a mammal pressed onto a baking sheet and cooked.

The flavor was fine, but you couldn't possibly mistake it for a cookie - or a sable for that matter. It should work for its purpose, but don't expect to see these tied up with ribbon and presented as gifts anytime soon.

So while I seem to be a know-it-all, when confronted with written instructions, I tend to follow blindly and curse later. I find the same thing when following a knitting pattern. In both of these endeavors, I need to stop trusting the authors and instead trusting my wealth of accumulated knowledge.

On the bright side, and following from yesterday's post, the utter and complete failure of this extraordinarily simple recipe removes any chance that I would buy the full cookbook (oh, I realize I have been protecting the guilty: the recipe was from the Miette cookbook).

Otherwise They're Just Taking Up Space

One of the novelties of our suburban life which pleased me to no end was this magical extra room known as the laundry room. In apartment life the laundry room was in the basement if you were lucky, or several blocks away if you weren't. I spent many many years paying other people to do our laundry because I simply couldn't endure the laundromat - a luxury I know, but one which we endlessly justified by comparing our hourly rate at work vs. the .60/pound the nice people charged to do our laundry (and fold it) for us.

With the advent of in-house laundry, this rationalization flew out the window. I still do not relish the laundry job, but I have come to accept it as something normal people do. However, our particular laundry room may well be the largest room in our house and that seemed like a lot of room to allocate just to soiled things. So, in my optimism, I rechristened our laundry room: the prep kitchen. It has industrial shelving and a 6 foot long stainless table; all of the bizarro ingredients that don't belong in our regular kitchen (I'm looking at you, atomized glucose); and the massive stacks of cookbooks I have amassed over the years. This configuration, though, has proven the out of sight out of mind adage, and only in very special circumstances do I pick up one of those dusty cookbooks.

This will now change.

Starting this week, I will select a never before made recipe from on of the books and we will have it for dinner on Thursdays. There is really no point in ever buying another cookbook (and on this point, I have been rather firm - I haven't had a new cookbook in well over a year) if I haven't made at least some of the recipes from the existing ones.

True, there are some limitations. As there is still some calorie-watching going on in our household, it will be safe to assume that pork belly in cream sauce will not be on the menu anytime soon but, as luck would have it, the first book I selected at random immediately coughed up an acceptable meal: lime and chili crusted seared tuna.

Watch this space on Friday for the post-game.

There Are, Occasionally, Things To Eat Here

I have been remiss in oh, so many things, but it occurs to me that as I have gotten more used to Connecticut, I have stopped talking about it. And things do change here from time to time. I now know which of the 3 Super Stops and Shops within short distance from my house is the one to shop at - Glenville, if you were wondering, always has my Kashi Go Lean bars in stock - I know that no matter how hard I try, I will not be able to rationalize getting Chinese food from the expensive places when the hole in the wall on Main Street in Port Chester, China House, is a) better and b) 1/3 the price, and I finally know that it really is faster to take the highway.

But it is food I wish to talk about, especially as people will be visiting from out of town soon. Lower Fairfield County (and Westchester County) is not a food mecca by any stretch of the imagination. Devoted partner (soon to be rechristened, hmmm, I don't know "devoted life partner," "legally devoted partner," "partner of legally mandated devotion") and I simply do not eat out often. Part of this is cheapness on our parts, but the better part of it is unwillingness to shell out money for substandard food. The "nice" places around here are, sadly, so much country club cuisine. The number of times I have typed "Stamford CT ramen" into google hoping to find something is embarrassing.

It helps that food has not been a priority of late, notfood having won out for nearly 2 years, but occasionally we want someone else to bring us food. Especially last Sunday when we were hungover. So, I thought it would only be fair to highlight some of the food we have enjoyed.

My friend Julie recommended Casa Villa. One night when, again, I could not find the taco truck open (the taco truck is awesome, but not even remotely healthy), we took a look at its location on the Stamford border. We did not stay. It was not the shiniest of locations and food was in steam trays, and it just sort of said "don't eat me if you want to enjoy tomorrow morning." Perhaps this judgment was premature. Last week Julie and I went to the nicer, shinier location, where comely waitresses with perfect command of English brought us yummy tacos and plantains. I was hooked. The tacos were really really fresh with lots of onion and cilantro. I was so smitten that when Sunday came, I schlepped devoted partner there as well where I discovered that an additional bonus is the presence of Mexican coke. My only complaint about the food is that the cooks are a little liberal with their use of salt, but the Mexican coke helps.

And let's keep going with the taco theme because Port Chester got a hot new place over the summer and I mostly believe the hype. Bar Taco is happening. We waited over an hour for a table the first time we went. The menu is limited and the process of ordering (golf pencils and a fill-in order card) is hokey, but what is served is pretty damn good. And the ambience, while also hokey were it plunked down in Manhattan, is nice for people who miss non-starchy eating environments. The majority of seating is outside on a deck which has a bit of Kennebunkport to it. It gets busy and noisy and some of the patrons would do well on reality tv but, again, beggars and choosiness comes to mind. In a taco-off between Bar Taco and Casa Villa, I'll give the nod to Casa Villa, but for a night with a group and the desire for liquor based potables, Bar Taco gets my vote.

And apparently, we like food made by Spanish speaking peoples because for my birthday this year we tried out up-scale Lolita in Byram. It's Mexicanish, very dimly lit, and, I guess, good for dates or for drinks once hedge fund hours are over. The food was good. Not great. Good. But I have to reiterate that when in a food desert, sometimes good is great. Would the restaurant last five minutes in Tribeca or DUMBO? No. But there were no strollers which, believe me, is a godsend.

We also finally tried Layla's in Stamford late one night with Abby. Layla's is storefronty-looking, but serves very competent middle eastern food. I tried the falafel and the lamb schwarma and both pass with high marks. We passed on the hookah course, but it's there if you want it.

I'd like to give some props to the big bowl noodle soup we ended our Sunday hangovers with from Penang in Greenwich. It wasn't Ippudo, but it was warming, not overly salted, and under $10.

But the place in our neighborhood that is most craved, is clearly, and without peer, Burgers Shakes and Fries. Maybe it's simply that my body wants fried potatoes more than it wants any single other thing, but this is a good, grease-filled meal of excellence. I may have been originally swayed by the orange interior, but these people make excellent, as you like them, burgers. True, I've never managed to finish one, but I rarely eat an entire burger. The fries are my current local favorite and they are on the precipice of too salty - also known as perfect. They're also really really nice. Even when busy. And full of strollers. When it seemed like we would have to have a rehearsal dinner, I kept threatening to do it here.

So while I would love to find a place that does Dim Sum (good luck), perhaps some Turkish or Moroccan, and another Italian place (dear Tarry Lodge, you're my go-to for dinner with adults, but would it kill you to change your menu?), I will not dismiss, out of hand, all food options in our area. Most of them? Yes. But there's at least enough here to satisfy our 1-2x/month escape from the confines of our own home and the neverending grilled chicken served there.

Why New Yorkers Remain Globally Friendless

Because you just can't take us anywhere. See if this rings familiar:

"While you're visiting, we just have to go to Panda Dragon*. It is THE BEST Chinese food in all of Boulder!"

*Panda Dragon is not a real place. It was my lame attempt at naming anonymous Chinese restaurants which generally have either Panda or Dragon in the name.

One hour later and your hosts are looking at you like you'll never be invited back to their home because you vaguely picked at the gelatinous mess that was Panda Dragon's Kung Pao chicken.

Since moving to Greenwich, devoted partner and I have tried our hand at local Chinese (which is perilously more expensive than your de facto local Chinese in New York - I mean when was the last time your Chinese food main course cost more than 10 bucks?) and have decided that the best option is the anonymous, neon lighted shack on Port Chester's main street whose cuisine you lovingly refer to as "dirty Chinese."

As an aside, I don't know where this handle came from, but we've been using it for quite some time. Since I think it is a personal moniker, let me explain: "drity Chinese" comes from a place with one or two molded plastic bench/table combos, optional bulletproof glass separating your from the person making your food, and frequently serves such Chinese delicacies as fried chicken. Clean Chinese a) delivers, b) has waiters, and c) does not immediately assume you intend to rob the establishment.

However, despite my near-universal pessimism, I am still idealistic when it comes to CT food - I feel like I just haven't found the excellent food, not that it doesn't exist. So this weekend, a girlfriend and I hopped in the car and drove just shy of an hour to reach New Haven where "the best pizza" is. Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana is a New Haven institution, operating since 1925, and if you make with the google, it has an insane following of superlative gushers, touting it as the best pizza, not in CT, just THE BEST.

I like pizza. Many know that my last meal in prison prior to death sentence would be pizza. I think it's important to try as much pizza as possible. Driving an hour for pizza, especially the best pizza, seems a small sacrifice.

The good news: we managed to sneak in just shy of noon when there was no wait. Upon exiting a mere 30ish minutes later, the line was out the door and halfway down the block, forcing passers-by to imagine the best pizza is only a half-block line away.

The bad news: the "best pizza" is, for your New Yorker accustomed to an embarrassment of pizza riches, 100% average. There is nothing wrong with the pizza, but there is absolutely nothing special about it. It is thin crust pizza and if I had to rate it next to some of New York's thin crusts, it's in the Grimaldi's range (though Grimaldi's is better) and falls far short of, say, Patsy's in East Harlem (bonus note: the ONLY good thing about living in East Harlem was the proximity of Patsy's).

It's crust, which needs more salt, topped with bland but not objectionable tomato sauce, and the same cheese everyone else uses. I don't know why that gets the title "famous," but I assume it's the same kind of "famous" as Original Famous Ray's, Famous Original Ray's, Ray's Famous Original, etc. etc. The long and short of it is, it's flippin' thin crust pizza. End of story.

Having never lived in New Haven, I can't determine if it's the best pizza in New Haven, thereby earning a place in Yalies' hearts, but I do know that it would not remotely distinguish itself on the streets of New York where there is just a lot a lot of really good pizza.

Nota bene: in addition to being "famous" for their regular original famous pizza, Frank Pepe is noted for it's clam pizza. I, myself, would never eat clam pizza, nor would I judge a restaurant on it's clam pizza because if you're a pizza place, first and foremost, you need to make cheese pizza. It is the barometer. If your cheese pizza is good, one may be tempted to try your other flavors; however, if you can't make a cheese pizza, I don't care how much crap you pile on another pie, you gave failed in my eyes. However, my friend Julie DID order the clam pizza. She was unimpressed.

The Fish Resolution

One of the dirty little secrets of my upbringing is that from birth to the time I moved out, we never ate fish for dinner. Not one time. The only fish that was ever in the house was gefilte for passover and lox on special occasions like my mother's birthday party. There was no tuna, no flounder, no bass, no halibut, nothing. Dinner was never ever ever a piece of fish. The reason, insane though it may sound, was simple: my dad didn't like fish. So we children grew up never eating it.

So I reached maturity without a taste for fish. In fact, given the two fish products ever in the house, I only understood fish as something deeply smelly and not really fit for ingestion. And, sadly, I still have significant lingering fish issues.

Issue #1: Fish is not meat. No matter how it's dressed up, no matter if it's a tuna steak, no matter, no matter, fish is not as substantial a protein as meat or poultry. My favorite way to eat fish? As a prelude to the meat course.

Issue #2: Eating fish in a restaurant is a far different proposition from eating fish at home. I estimate that for every pound of fish cooked in a restaurant a pound of butter is used. This masks the objective blandness that is fish. Fat makes everything taste good. At home, where I control what goes into the pot, pounds of butter are reserved for baking, pats of butter for cooking. I simply cannot, in good conscience, throw a stick or two of butter in a pan to cook a single fillet. As a result, my fish tastes like vaguely proteinaceous matter, while restaurant fish tastes like a butter delivery system.

Issue #3: Not so hot on salmon. Salmon is, for me, the fishiest of the fish. I can eat sardines and anchovies and mackerel, but salmon just makes me blanch. This complicates the cooking of fish as salmon is universally available where as, for example, monkfish is not. Smoked salmon? I won't even touch it. When we have it at parties I force devoted partner or my mother to be in charge of touching it.

But I know that fish is good for me, not fattening, and an important part of my cancer avoidance regimen. So on the list of slightly silly new year's resolutions was the resolution to eat fish a minimum of one time per week. After all it will break up the chicken monotony. Week 1 I cheated. I mean, I didn't really cheat, we ate a sea creature, but it was a scallop. I should mention that I 100% consider scallops to be food. I love scallops and I have some kind of minor superpower that enables me to perfectly cook them every single time. Of the under the sea creatures we eat, scallops easily make up 50-75%. My problem is that I honestly believe most fish doesn't taste like anything. Scallops taste like something.

So yesterday we had a cod fillet for dinner. Simply cooked in a pan with a pat of butter, a sprinkling of panko, thyme, salt and pepper. It tasted like, um, warm vaguely protein stuff with salt and pepper. And I am a confident enough cook that I know this is just what fish tastes like. I've had some better luck with mackerel, which is a stronger tasting fish, and if I was willing to salt my cod and add it to mashed potatoes with heavy cream, I know it would be quite tasty, but it would defeat the healthy motivation behind eating fish in the first place.

So much like a previous year's resolution of doing something every day for the entire year (if you know what it was, so much the better, but I'm not repeating it here), this is going to be one I just get through and hope that, as I explore additional fish and additional recipes, fish becomes something I enjoy and not something I take like vitamins.

Xmas Dinner, Take 1

Despite the years of hebrew school and zionist summer camp, there once was a time when our family celebrated Christmas. In grandma and grandpa's brick house on the corner lot. With a tree and lights and seasonally colored Hershey's Kisses in glass container's and carolers outside and chocolate mousse pie and aunts and an uncle and cousins. While my dates may be spotty, I think we did this yearly until a year or two after my grandfather died. We have pictures to prove it including one I wish I had to share of me in a pink cashmere sweater, pink and grey tartan skirt, with a pink wand - I was 6ish. Yes, our family also brought a menorah when the holidays overlapped and we were certainly not chomping down on bacon in the morning, but there was Christmas and I liked it.

Then there were the non-Christmas years. The stay in New York and see a movie on Christmas day years.

Then there were the in-law years. I went to church. Two years ago I fell asleep in church. After that I chose not to go to church (jewish folks: church is a lot like synagogue except in English and there's slightly less getting up and sitting back down).

But Christmas never recaptured those early years for me. Perhaps it's that devoted partner's family wasn't my family. And there are no small children which, though I despair of spending time with them in general, do add to the Christmaseyness of Christmas.

So this year, now that our families are soon to be joined officially, I requested that we host the Christmas meal. And by requested, I think I said something like, "that's it - I want US to do Christmas this year." But, you know, nicely. Not like some crazed shrew harpy. Honest.

And that brought me to the next obvious question: what to cook? But not really. I've known what I want to cook for Christmas dinner since 2005 when, in the john at Ed's house I paged through the December issue of Food and Wine magazine. There it was: the perfect Christmas dinner. My mouth watered reading about it. So when we started planning, the Food and Wine website was the first stop. Here, in fact. Do you not want to start eating this immediately?!?

I cut back on some of the three million dishes both for expediency and the simple fact that our Christmas dinner will be serving 8 (9? Stupid Kate), not 20. Also, my dad won't be eating a lot of this because of his dietary restrictions. I've ordered my roast and I know it will not be cheap, so we didn't want to leave its preparation to chance. Also, while I'm confident I can whip sweet potatoes on the fly, I was less confident with creamed carrots. So last night I made a single rib and some creamed vegetables. And I'm so glad I did.

My meat was delicious but decidedly medium - and we're a rare to medium rare kind of group. So now I can adjust cooking times. The vegetables were good, but our tastes run to the more intense, so I'll be adding more ginger and more horseradish and, in a nod to having something without heavy cream, I think we're going to saute the mushrooms in sherry vinegar instead. It was also useful from a timing perspective. Anyone who was at our inaugural Passover dinner may remember that we ate in the round because the meat took way longer than expected and I spent most of the meal in the kitchen with The Boy finishing the lamb on the stovetop. Now I know what can be made ahead of time (all initial vegetable cooking for example - if they get finished with the cream sauce, they will heat up again, and that cream sauce need not be made a la minute). And I just bought a chafing dish which will help immensely since I despise serving lukewarm food.

I'll give credit where credit is due, though, and the credit belongs to devoted partner. I absolutely tend to wing it on cooking, figuring stuff will be good enough, and it drives devoted partner crazy because sometimes I fail. Mightily. And while for some dinners, I think the pre-cooking is unnecessary, for this, our first Christmas meal, it made a lot of sense and I think it will prevent me from overcooking 200 dollars worth of cow.

Now if only he'd tell me what time his family is showing up, we'd be golden!

Even After the Explanations, I Still Think It's Wrong

Disclaimer: that blue box with the non-curving noodles and the cheese that was squeezed out of a packet? I've never had it. Add that to the list that includes Big Mac and is entitled: Yelena - Skinner Box Child. And before you go around accusing my parents of being hippies who deprived us of processed foods, let me remind you that our cereal consumption was obscene: froot loops, golden grahams, corn pops. No, we were deprived of Kraft Macaroni and "cheese" because it was a) entirely uneconomical and b) retarded. To my knowledge, you had to boil the noodles just as you would if you were making it from scratch. The only "time-saver" it afforded was that your cheese was already in goo form. WTF?!? I have no idea why people buy this crap.

This was brought into sharp relief this past weekend when I went to a truly awesome event at one of my fellow knitter's houses: a Pampered Chef party. If you are an urban gal, don't worry if you've never heard of this (though, since it's owned by Omaha's own Warren Buffet, I will guess that Amy has heard of it), it's a tupperware party of sorts. Your friend invites a person (woman) to her house to tell her friends all about the terrific things said friends can buy from the Pampered Chef catalog. And the catalog is filled with useful things like knives and pots and cutting boards and cookie cutters. While you're being pitched, you get fed recipes from pampered Chef cookbooks made with Pampered Chef mixes.

The pizza dough mix, while ridiculous to me (flour, yeast, salt...why do you need someone to pre-mix these items for you?), didn't get my panties in a bunch. After all, measuring is hard. I get it. (nb: I do not get it.) Then the dessert composition began. It was described as a chocolate tiramisu trifle. It started out well enough with the presenter whisking confectioner's sugar into mascarpone. Then things got ugly.

She added to the delicious and luxurious mascarpone Cool Whip and pudding mix. And then crumbled up brownie-like cake from, yes, a mix.

For me, this was an irony because as she was desecrating her mascarpone with cool whip, she was extolling the virtues of the Pampered Chef whisk and stainless steel bowls - 2 things that could be used to, I don't know, WHIP CREAM!!!!!

I have done it. It is annoying as all hell when you know that if only the mixer was working you could whip the cream in about 30 seconds. But there you are, in the freezing pastry kitchen whipping cream by hand - lots of cream. Way more than would be needed for a single chocolate tiramisu trifle. But you don't complain because hardcore mofos can whip their own cream.

Oh, wait, you're not a hardcore mofo? Sorry. Try this instead: pour cream into bowl of mixer; turn on mixer; wait 30 seconds; have whipped cream.

Cool Whip is made from orphan's tears. You know it, I know it, Kraft knows it (point of information: I have no idea what the cheese goo is made of - I'm guessing it's made of people). Cool whip should only ever be used ironically, preferably at the same party as cheese whiz and spaghetti-Os.

But I'm a working mom with 47 bratty kids and no time to do anything except sit on my couch and mow cool whip! you might say. I would then ignore you. Because I am not kidding when I say that, if you don't REALLY care about the consistency and perceived professionalism of the final product, whipping enough cream for one person/pie/trifle takes 30 seconds in a mixer. There will be no leftovers because every supermarket in America carries heavy cream in an 8oz. container. If you do not have 30 seconds to whip your own cream, you do not deserve whipped cream.

I had a fantastic time at the event. I bought stuff. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I thank our hostess.

But I cannot forgive the cool whip.

Chalk it up to my unconventional pinko upbringing.

Other Places

IMG_2801
Originally uploaded by reallyct

Food issues aside, one of my favorite things to do in new places is stop by the supermarket. The world's travel writers have a million and one ways that visitors can dig on local vibe, but I have yet to see one emphatically suggest a sampling of local supermarkets - sure, they'll all tell you to hit the farmer's markets and bazaars, but I'm talking about the super pedestrian, industrial lighting, devoid of aesthetics supermarkets. I love them! I truly cannot go to a new place without stopping by a supermarket. When my parents were recently in Paris, my shopping list for them could be 95% dealt with at the Monoprix - a supermarket. Please bring sea salt and reusable shoppers.

I think you can tell a lot about a place from its supermarkets. Even in New York, the difference between shopping uptown and shopping downtown can alert the newcomer to micro-regional tastes (witness the tamarind vs. the dairy- gluten- taste-free crackers). So when we pulled off the road Sunday to grab coffee and carrots, I was thrilled to be taking in a little bit of the Pennsylvania/Maryland border culture as witnessed through the prism of the MegaMart.

And rewarded I was. For at the Halloween candy display, which we last-minute availed ourselves of for potential trick or treaters, I was overjoyed to discover Jesus Harvest Seeds.

It is important to note that the above package was ACTUALLY in the store. I did not mail away for this from some gag company. This is a product. People can buy it. At least at the Giant Supermarket somewhere in lower Pennsylvania.

And, as promised by the packaging, each snack-sized gem does, indeed, contain some scripture. I would have honestly crapped my pants had I ever received this as a child at Halloween! But apparently, not everyone in the country is as potentially bowel-incontinent as I.

I have oft been accused of having a warped view of The Rest of the Country, and some of that may be true. I enjoyed our time in the Carolinas greatly and could well see myself living there, but it cannot be argued that some cultural mores have varied levels of acceptance. And in Places Not New York, love of el Jefe, is an acceptable thing to shout from the rafters and plaster on your bumper.

I would venture to assert that ignoring these differences is just as dangerous as pretending they don't exist. But I will not lie: this sort of shit tickles me in all the right places!

Mistakes Were Made

On a crisp fall morning, when sloth was attempting to reign, devoted partner muscled us out the door and into Manhattan to visit the New Amsterdam market even though, as I said, I didn't need anything. He thought the act of simply doing something would be good for our constitutions and morale. Also, he wanted to take me to lunch at a rugby bar.

I'm pretty sure I learned about the New Amsterdam market from Clay and I decided it would be a good time to figure out how to use my prime lens and also check out the vittles. We could not have been blessed with a better day and after only 15 minutes, we managed to find parking near South Street Seaport, which is no small feat on a Sunday. The market was not what I expected. First off, I expected it to be IN the Fulton Fish Market, not haphazardly outside of it. And yet, and yet, someone looking for food and fun would not be disappointed.

Having now seen some farmer's markets outside of New York, I must say that while I applaud the greenmarket program for hewing to the ideal of 100% local 100% of the time, places like San Francisco, Portland, and frankly even Durham, North Carolina have markets where a person could theoretically do all of his shopping, not just the raw materials. And I like seeing what local food artisans are making just as much as I like to see what local farmers are growing. The New Amsterdam market, while small, had a decent combination.

There were people actually cooking things on site as well as people selling pre-packaged goodies like oils and candy. And there was glorious meat product. And that's where the problems started. Country pate? Clearly needed. Oh, no, and there are duck rillettes - absolutely needed. Devoted partner apparently needed cheese. And Scandinavian bread. I needed fancy caramels. And a bar of regrettable, half-a-bite-only, bar chocolate.

I like this market. I want to go back again and again.

Then we made more mistakes at the rugby bar where beer and shepherd's pie magically appeared. In my defense, I ate about 1/4 of what was put in front of me (rugby players need lots of food; more food than perhaps I would like to eat). The rugby bar was more of a slick Pacific rim bar/resto, but there was rugby on the TV and immediately after my telling devoted partner that all rugby players looked alike we had to suppress a giggle as one sat down next to us ably proving the point.

I responsibly froze the rillettes so that we could concentrate on the pate without distraction. But knowing there are delicious ducky wonders in my freezer is keeping me sane in these times of rice cake and chicken austerity.

My Pants Don't Fit

I've been hiding this from you because gloating is unbecoming. But yes, my pants don't fit in the good way. As I am solidly at my senior year of high school fighting weight, I find myself tugging up my waistbands more and more. Today, for example, I have a serious case of saggy baggy elephant butt, and you know what? I'm sort of ok with it.

I'll tell you the secret, because I know you're dying to hear the magic weight loss formula that has permitted devoted partner and me to jointly lose over 60 pounds this year, but I warn you, it's complicated. A serious regimen that requires round-the-clock attention and management. The kind of thing that takes dedication and organization and whose publication will probably net me millions.

The secret to weight loss is

(drum roll)

(more drums)

(yet more drums)

not eating.

(cue awed gasps)

Yes, dear friends, the secret to losing weight is to stop stuffing things in your face. In fact, in order to cut weight, you should adopt an adversarial relationship with food. Food is the enemy, the Delilah to your Samson, waiting for an opening (literally) to derail you with its promise of delicious delicious fat. Do not succumb. Try to forget how delicious an entire loaf of pumpernickel raisin bread truly is. Also bacon. Also army-sized bowls of pasta. Also brownies. And ribeye steaks.

And I'll tell you why you must forget these things and here's where the real secret lies: rarely is what you're about to eat as good as you want it to be. The number of times I've looked longingly at a chocolate chip cookie or brownie and then remembered that 98% of the time when I would buy those things before, they were rarely as good as I wanted them to be is staggering. Macaroni and cheese is another. Sure, all macaroni and cheese is good enough, but very little of it is transcendent. And if I'm going to eat it, I want it to rock my world.

For example, this afternoon I'm meeting my former chef from db for a bite at the new Payard on West Houston. What? you say, you're going to a patisserie? Quelle temptation! Indeed it will be. But I will order what I want and proceed as follows: take one bite; if confection is remarkable, take 3-4 more; else, stop eating. You see? This kind of thing works if you remind yourself that you'd like to be able to reserve those cheaty calories on things that are really really phenomenal and that you can't do that if you cram mediocre fat into your piehole (pies are another category of things that rarely measure up to expectation).

I'm halfway there. Halfway to a weight I haven't been since puberty. A made up number, really. A guess as to what would be healthy and look good. And I'm halfway to it.

ChickenFail

I have mentioned before that Dan is the motherplucking chicken whisperer. It may have been his beef that was served at Chelsea Clinton's wedding, but I feel his chicken transcends poultry in ways that are still not fully understood. I will not lie, though, these are not inexpensive chickens. In fact, given that you can probably pick up a purdue roaster for like $5 (honestly, I don't know, I've never had one) and Whole Foods will sell you a cooked one for like $10; Dan's are $7 a pound.

Believe me when I tell you (though, frankly, it's not important until next year since the chickens are done for the season) that it is worth $7/pound. Yes, there is something unsettling about not really getting change back from 30 bucks when you're buying chicken, but I am happier about eating this chicken than I am about eating 98% of the rest of the stuff I eat that I have decided price is unimportant.

For the most part the chicken comes to our house to be prepared in a most basic fashion. Specifically, the Amateur Gourmet's fashion. It has never not been good. Generally speaking it is out of this world. Two weekends ago it was exceptional, as were the veggies, fingerlings and cippolinis which were absolutely pwned by Maillard reactions.

This past weekend I bought my last chicken of the year. I even emailed Dan to make sure I could get my hands on one. Devoted partner and I decided jointly to try something new. He wanted something that utilized herbs, a more traditional recipe if you will, and I had seen a recipe that used root veggies in this month's Bon Appetit. It sounded fine. And as I had learned, it's really difficult to mess up Dan's chickens.

Until now, that is.

Scratch that, the chicken is fine, the meal sucked.

We threw out the pan juices that I was told to add lager to and reduce because the resulting concoction tasted exactly like skunked beer with meat in it; the root vegetables released too much water during cooking and as a result nothing caramelized and everything was bland. The saving grace? The cup or so of the previous week's pan juices that, when drizzled over this lackluster meal, went a long way to salvaging it.

I know every recipe won't be a winner, but this one was a real loser, the kind of loser that, coupled with my magazine malaise, is really taking Bon Appetit out of the running for renewal. I just can't believe that I messed up the recipe to such an extent that it was my negligence that made it taste bad. I think it was simply a crap recipe.

Tonight we'll give the folks at Saveur a try with a cardamom chicken curry. The chicken has been marinating in salmonella yogurt since yesterday, so if you don't hear from me tomorrow, you'll know why.

Printout

If you still read magazines, you've doubtless noticed the ads that essentially tell you print isn't dead just because the internet exists and the logic employed is convincing: real coffee didn't go extinct because of instant coffee etc. I am a supporter of print. Well, sort of.

The New York Times is something I may well never again subscribe to simply because the format of a newspaper has always been cumbersome. Since we are no longer a nation of hourlong breakfasts where mom and dad swap sections while sipping freshly squeezed orange juice, the idea of traveling with that behemoth that needs a Master's degree in origami to be utilized holds no appeal to me. Whereas the New York Times online allows me to cherry pick those things I'm interested in and ignore the rest. When they finally come up with a way to do micropayments, I don't think I'd be offended if I was asked to pay a nickel or dime per article I read.

But I subscribe to a frankly dizzying number of magazines. After all, when they tell you it's only a buck an issue, it's hard to say no to that. Currently on roster, I think, are the following:

Bon Appetit
Conde Nast Traveler
Food and Wine
Islands (this was an impulse purchase)
Martha Stewart Living
National Geographic
National Geographic Traveler

Now this is what the list will look like after non-renewing:

Food and Wine (75% chance)
Martha Stewart Living
National Geographic

Occasionally I have flirtations with Real Simple and Saveur, and while at the airport I enjoy picking up Afar, but since I now get so many magazines, I have come to the sad realization that they're all saying the same thing.

I am officially bored with: articles on food trucks, short ribs, Portuguese wine, Dubai, desserts made with cereal, hotels that cost more than 1K/night, "bargain" hotels that cost more than $300/night, recipes for green salads, how hot retro cocktails are, spiritual holidays, and how to cook things on a grill.

I would like to see more: excellent bed & breakfasts/small inns/tiny hotels under $150 (and I know they exist because we stay in them EVERY TIME WE TRAVEL), recipes involving game and how to cook it, suggestions for where to go next that aren't Jaipur, Croatia, Brazil, or Beijing, desserts that don't use enough sugar to turn you immediately diabetic, more technique and fewer 30-minute-meals, travel and kitchen tools that are a) practical (i.e. no Louis Vuitton steamer trunks or gold-plated chargers) and b) reasonably priced (ibid.).

But I know that I'm not going to get those things. So instead I'm going to pare down. Food and Wine is going to get another shot simply because once upon a time they had a Christmas issue that was hands-down the best collection of recipes I have ever seen (and quite probably my Christmas menu this year). National Geographic, while recently in a bit of a boring and/or preachy phase, generally bottoms out at a B+, and Martha Stewart because, well, it just combines so many elements of other lifestyle magazines in a terrifically entertaining way.

My favorite part of MSL is her calendar. Every month the magazine prints Martha's own to-do list and it is wonderful and aspirational. Not only do I wish I did that much horseback riding, but I wonder how one gets to the point where one plans on which day one will beat out comforters and lubricate door locks. I want to get to the point where I have a calendar like that.

So, magazines, when you wonder why you're losing readership, part of it is the internet - it might not have the same glossy appeal or ability to be read on the john, but it also isn't as full of 15-page advertisements for cruiselines designed to look like part of the magazine, and it doesn't have to be so repetitive. When I look back over the issues I have yet to throw out, I can't help but notice how the same they all are. Yes, tacos are in. So, too, is Paris (though I don't remember when Paris was out). There has to be someone on your staff who would welcome the opportunity to travel to and write about Gabon and someone who wants to debone a pheasant. These lifestyle magazines are about the people we WANT to be and know we aren't, so why not toss us a little more exoticism COUPLED WITH a little more we could actually do.

I like reading magazines. It's just I feel I've been reading the same one over and over again.

Sympathetic Pregnancy Eating

Portland is a food town. I know this because after three days there I think I ate everything Portland has to offer. I blame pregnancy.

Not mine, of course, my hostess's. The DuYo clan will become four (yes, I'm counting the dog) and I thought it would the height of rudeness to not eat for two as well while I was their guest. I didn't see a lot of hideously obese people wandering the hipsterized streets, but my guess is that either a) since no one apparently has a job, all may spend the hours not engaged in eating at the gym or b) everyone climbs Mt. Hood - a lot.

Having kickstarted my metabolism after several weeks of subsistence eating, I was pleasantly pleased to discover only a very little damage was done to my downward scale progression, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

The Portland Farmer's market might have beaten out the Ferry Market in San Francisco to be my favorite market. Primarily due to two things: the nectar-of-the-gods nectarine I ate there and the wild boar, hazelnut, and fig pate I bought from Chop Butchery. Frankly, if I could only eat those two items for, say, a month straight, I would not be disappointed. I look forward to returning to Portland to see the new DuYo when he arrives, but also, quite honestly, to spend more time at that market!

Naturally, when you think of Oregon, you think of southern food, so it would be no surprise to you that on my first night we went for southern food. Also of no surprise should be my ordering of the hushpuppies - though you should be surprised that I shared them. The next day found us lunching at the Grilled Cheese Cart (food carts are big in Portland, but unlike in New York the carts have fixed locations - no relying on the vagaries of Twitter and the parking cops here). I enjoyed the "grilled cheese" on sourdough filled with Colby cheese, cream cheese, roasted jalapenos, and tortilla chips, but couldn't resist only eating half the sandwich to justify my purchase of a second sandwich, The Elvis (grilled banana and peanut butter, natch), of which only half was consumed as well. This was followed, predictably, by dinner at Le Pigeon where I happily ate three courses (I should admit now that the reason some of these pictures stink is that this was my first ever time using a prime lens and I still have some kinks to iron out): pigeon on brioche with foie gras and a mache and grape salad, beef cheek bourgignon, and foie gras profiteroles. The next day, after merely scratching the surface at Powell's bookstore, we went to the downtown food cart agglomeration. Two city blocks of food carts. Do you know how difficult it is to make a decision like that? Which is why I wisely suggested we pre-eat some dumplings before getting Vietnamese. And after that, we had to go to Voodoo Doughnut, because there needed to be some food-related sightseeing. I ordered two donuts, and ate one (I like to have choices). It was sweet, disgusting, and eminently satisfying. I IMed devoted partner that we were in luck: Voodoo Doughnuts offers affordable legal wedding packages! Devoted partner directed me to the domain name I bought: nofatti.es.

Point taken.

I don't think I could live in Portland full time unless I also developed a taste for marathon running - perhaps my brother could live there, but then he'd have to develop a taste for hippies which is about as likely as the former.

GSM: The (Long) Summary

- This place is almost unspeakably gorgeous. It really doesn't ever stop being gorgeous. Yes, that as a trailer park, but look just behind it and pooppooppoop it's pretty. Also, there are quite a lot more mountains than I had thought - just tons of them really, and they actually don't all look the same. I know this because we pulled over at 75% of all scenic overlooks.

- Kudos to the national parks of Tennessee and North Carolina for having some of the best maintained roads we have ever been on. It can't be easy to keep mountain roads in such pristine condition, but we would have been hard-pressed to complain about anything we drove over.

- Southern people, you really are very very nice. Not every last one of you - devoted partner felt one of you may have judged our living in sin status and been less pleasant to us on that account - but for the most part you said hello and please and thank you and have a nice day with such alarming frequency that my jaded ears nearly wondered if it was a put-on. I think I'm more than a little in love with your gentility.

- But, holy crap, are you people ever fat! I mean orca fat. I mean in any given grouping of people, devoted partner and I were the slenderest. BY 100 POUNDS! We are not slender people. In any given grouping in Greenwich, we are the orcas, but you all (and I mean ALL of you until we got back to Charlotte where women in expensive running gear were athleticizing with their labradors) made us look like we had just emerged from the pages of SI. I thought I had an eating problem, but you guys are probably the least healthy people I have ever encountered. Your fatness was fascinating it was so, pardon the pun, larger than life.

- Which is at least a little understandable given what you all eat. Let us, for a moment, put aside the sheer bounty of your fast food (I had my first Arby's sandwich - it wasn't bad, I just didn't think it tasted like anything; on the other hand, Arby's, your curly fries and god help me banana split shake were a little piece of heart attack heaven), and go back to your indigenous cuisine: bbq. There was not a plate that was put in front of me that didn't contain food enough for two-three people. In my defense, I did only eat the amount I thought was food for one (except for hushpuppies which, as noted last month, are only really delicious in quantities above 10), and I was still too full. A pound of meat, no matter how tender, fatty, and slow-cooked, is still a pound of meat and is, as such, an unsuitable amount for one person to eat at a sitting unless said person is an Olympic athlete which, as I have just mentioned, not one of you is.

- My entirely unscientific survey of what bbq was available gives the nod to Old Hickory House BBQ Restaurant in Charlotte. While your bbq was not wholly Carolina authentic, it was tasty and your hushpuppies were, well, let's just say I'm thinking inappropriate thoughts about them right now. It's still no Allen and Son, which now that we have some comparables, is off the charts delicious, but as a last stop before the north and food privation, it was a delightful send-off. The wood-paneling was a great help to the ambiance as well.

- Also, if I can go back to the fat thing for a moment, it doesn't help that you consider paved walkways "hikes." Hike to the top of Mount Mitchell, read the sign. The hike in question was 250 yards of slightly inclined 10-foot wide pavement. Chimney Rock's Exclamation Point, the highest part of the park, was billed as a strenuous hike. We were advised against climbing to Chimney Rock and then trying to make it to Exclamation Point. Exclamation Point, while making one's heart beat faster, was reached by stair. Some ricketier than others, but stairs. Not a hike. A stairmastering. Perhaps if more of your hiking trails were hikey, you could eat your bbq and assorted fried comestibles with more impunity.

- But none of this should dull the message that you put on an excellent nature show. I saw a bear. Actually I saw two, but only one was slow enough to be photographed (like many of you, it was eating). I saw a deer run by the side of the road - which is exciting for a city girl like me. And, if you've been following my tweets, I saw devoted partner make out with a camel. This was a good trip.

And We're Off

Great Smoky National Park, here we come! Finally figured out how to attach my tripod to my camera bag. The staggering array of printed material concerning planes, cars, and lodgings has been duly printed. I'm sort of packed. As is devoted partner. What remains is a little bit of personal grooming and to call a cab.

In the meantime, though, I thought I'd talk a little bit about food. And the little of it I've been eating recently. You see, the south is full of magical wondrous hideously fattening food of which I occasionally (fine, often) dream. Devoted partner and I, while making progress towards ultimate defatification, kind of slid a little there for a while. Back on the horse, I knew I had to make some serious progress ahead of this trip in order to enjoy pork and hushpuppies and pie without guilt. Now that the trip is upon us, though, I worry about my willpower - after all 12 hushpuppies tasted 12x as good as 1.

So I'm going to make a concerted effort to not clean my plate. I will order what I like and nibble at it, the way I see skinny people do (how do they do this?!?). I will remember that most pie is disappointing and not eat some that isn't stupendous - and only eat half of stupendous slices of pie. I will, while scarfing down pulled pork, remember that the reason it tastes so good is that it was cooked long enough that all the delicious fat had time to sink into the meat. And I will try my hardest not to mainline hushpuppies.

I'm at, what I like to call, a manageable weight right now. I look in the mirror and don't want to kill myself. All clothing that should fit does fit. I would like to not return home next Tuesday weighing five pounds more than I do now.

But then I remind myself that we signed up for a full day of rafting in August. Clearly there's A LOT of rowing in my future!

I'll Show You Eating Local

Flowers are lovely, what with their colors and scents; yet they are also in grave danger should they cross my path. I am a killer of flowers. It's not malicious, mind you, merely negligent. My poor mother, a great lover of all things floral, tries to help me with my black thumb by, you guessed it, bringing me flowers which, also guessing correctly, I promptly kill.

So what on earth could possibly account for the frank bounty of my small garden? It's that I can eat my garden. I have a vested interest in its health because it feeds me. And it has been feeding me quite well.

I started with some seedlings from seedsavers.org and I waited until May to nestle them in the dirt by our front door. And then I waited. And watered. And waited. And watered. My herbs I was less concerned with: herbs are weeds - they grow anywhere (not so interesting side note: I grew some black peppermint in a pot on my fire escape and really paid it little heed; so little, in fact, that when winter came, I didn't bother bringing the plant in - after all, it cost me like 3 bucks, I could buy another one come spring - after a winter during which it was snowed on and frozen, wouldn't you know it, the plant rose again come the warm weather). By the time we came back from Nicaragua, the plants had nearly outgrown their stakes. More, bigger stakes were purchased. Then the plants started flowering and then, about 2 weeks ago, there was fruit ready to be picked.

The most glorious fruit possible. Tiny Mexican midgets, blondkopfchen, black cherries, purple Cherokees, green zebras, stupices; all sweet, all scrumptious. My awe is disproportionate to the event in question given how long we humans have grown things, but I simply can't get over the fact that I have successfully not killed plants.

And last night, in an effort to pretend we're eating while not really eating, I made the following (I'll leave it to you to guess which item someone else was responsible for procuring, but mind you it was local too): broiled Spanish mackerel (too lazy to get out the grill) over oven roasted cherry tomatoes with a parsley and mint salsa verde.

We ate the things that came from our garden. The things I water and prune and worry over. And it tasted good and fresh and low-fat and all the things the locavores say it should taste like.

Next year I'm definitely branching out into more than tomatoes and herbs, but for now, for the next 6 or so weeks, I will be blissfully happy with just that.

Aside to Clay: thanks for the mention, but crap, I try to keep my own political ranting down to 3x a month or so.

What I Learned This Weekend

If I buy nothing else this autumn, I must have a camel coat. This important bit of information courtesy of Andrew, fashion designer and excellent Waldorf to my Statler. I spent the weekend in the Berkshires chez Amy ('s parents) and I must admit I had trepidation: after all, there were going to be an astonishing number of people with dietary habits I rebuke. Thankfully Andrew, while himself the possessor of food, shall we call them, peccadilloes, was content to use the energy he saved by not masticating meat and using it to be snarky with me about, well, everything. Apologies to our fellow guests.

The second thing I learned was that a dog, no matter how awesome, playful, gorgeous, fluffy, and big, does not quite replace a devoted partner. When I learned that the Greatest Bernese Mountain Dog Ever was joining us, I may (or may not have) squealed like a cartoon character, and while dog and I did some masterful playing, she just wasn't enough of a replacement for my awesome, playful, gorgeous, fluffy, and big human companion (Amy, please note the ultimate commas). That being said, I need a dog badly. Those things are awesome! Even Hogie, the smaller dog of oodle provenance, gets my heart pitter-pattering (also he is a surprisingly un-annoying small dog and quite adorable; also he does not bark).

But the final thing I learned was more a confirmation of prejudices long-held: vegetarians...WTF?

You know when you talk to vegetarians and they try to tell you that they have entrees just like normal people? It's a lie. Vegetarians do, in fact, eat like rabbits. They nibble from assortments of dishes that can only be described as salads. I don't know if eating 3 different kinds of salad at one sitting can be justified as a meal, I think it sounds a lot more like the unlimited salad at Olive Garden. And the salads all taste more or less the same. Which is understandable given the ingredient limitations (god help you if the people are also vegan). In the grand scheme of things, lentils and mung beans with tomato vinaigrette taste enough the same as rice with tomatoes in a lemon vinaigrette as to not really require two separate dishes.

When you see a plate composed of a quadrant for arugula, a quadrant for grilled vegetables, a quadrant for rice salad, and a quadrant for lentil salad it hits you that these people must be kidding. Now I am not as adamant about meat for every meal as devoted partner is, and quite frankly there is a lot in the pasta world that I enjoy meatless, but the above plate as your daily supper? Come on!

So, I'm sorry, god of tolerance, but I now have first-hand knowledge that the not-eating of meat is precisely the ridiculousity I always thought it was.

Of Epic Battles

Really, peaches people? I know there are a lot of you out there. Why within my own family both devoted partner and internets-savvy mom are partisans for the P-Party! I know matters of taste are exactly that, but I have to say, even after all this time and a fair bit of effort, I just don't get it.

Nectarines are WAY better than peaches!

I'm not even sure I feel it's a fair fight. Yes, in a vacuum, peaches are wonderful: sweet, summery, sweet, juicy, sweet. If there were no such thing as nectarines and peaches had only the plain black plum to fight in the stone fruit wars, then yes, viva peaches! But peaches DO have stone fruit competition: the apricot, the greengage plum (now in the market and many times this morning in my mouth and bag), not to mention the weird ones like the plumcot or the apricine or whatever Californians are doing to mate their fruits with one another today. Peaches, to my tastebuds, don't stand a chance.

And nowhere was that clearer than in last night's fruit salad (side note: gentlemen, why does fruit not seem like food when it's in the refrigerator in its whole form, but once sliced immediately becomes food?). When sliced and placed next to the nectarine, the peach's one-hit wonder of taste (sweet) was so achingly, painfully obvious, whereas the nectarine, which is sweet with a divine tangy bite, shone. Notice, if you will, that fruit juice companies frequently pair the peach with another fruit, mango or orange. Could it be that the frail peach is just too simple to stand alone and needs some acid from a friend?

And poor devoted partner, he'd eat peaches every day (provided said peaches were cut for him, see above), whereas I have, throughout the years, made him exactly zero peach pies and countless nectarine mascarpone cheesecakes (Amy, can I bring one next weekend?). In my market bag right now are four peaches: two yellow, two white so that I can make more fruit salad and we can bring it to the beach, but the peaches were purchased with a heavy heart: can a relationship survive this most fundamental of differences?

Perhaps we are saved by climate. The peach vs. nectarine wars are ephemeral, lasting a mere 6 weeks each summer, after which time peace reigns in a household that prefers tart apples to sweet ones.