|
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TUESDAY 29 JANUARY 2002
A few weeks ago, I mentioned a perfect snack - a hot cup of tea, a few slices of brine-cured turkey, some blue cheese, and some Duchy Originals Oaten Biscuits. They're made by the order of the Prince of Wales, and all the proceeds go to charity. The biscuits have a very nutty texture, and they're not too sweet - good with tangy blue cheese, also good drizzled with honey. I just ran across an interview with David Wilson, the Prince's organic farmer:
When David went for his interview with the Prince of Wales in 1985, he was asked whether he'd be prepared to "try a bit of biologically sustained farming."
"I had no experience of it," David laughs, "but of course I said yes."
I guess you don't say "no" to the Prince of Wales!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
FRIDAY 25 JANUARY 2002
I stopped by my old work today. Usually I'm fine when I go there, and then other times I miss being there so much that my stomach clenches and my chest tightens. Today Mima was chopping parsley, and the sound of her knife hitting the table brought back the feeling of standing there working with people that I love. Cooking at home just isn't the same.
Working in a restaurant kitchen is physically such a different thing. The tables are lower than kitchen counters, so you hold your body a different way, have better leverage for chopping and stirring and kneading and rolling. It's easier to wash dishes, especially pots and pans, in the deeper sinks. Everything's bigger. You're either hotter (in front of the stove or taking something out of the oven) or colder (walking in to a walk-in refrigerator.) The sound of chopping is different - a deep chunking of knives on 4-inch thick wood, instead of the thin, hard, tapping of chopping on Corian.
And it's so different to work in a group of people. I miss the camaradarie of a busy kitchen, everyone doing something, no one running into each other, the music and gossip and laughter. I try playing the same music - the Commodores and Aretha and Al Green and Phoebe Snow and Marvin Gaye - but it's not the same when I'm the only one singing. I had such a feeling of belonging when I worked there. That kitchen was my home and everyone who worked there was my family.
I started this site and my newsletter when I left Carried Away as a way of keeping the food part of my life alive as part of my work. It does feel good to be writing, and I absolutely love working from home, and I love that Catherine & I are able to pay the bills AND save money, but I still miss being there.
I should call some future business Pillar of Salt - I am always looking backwards.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TUESDAY 22 JANUARY 2002
THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH SOFT BROCCOLI
I think I've said this before, but here it is again. Long-cooked broccoli is a delicious thing; forget all your prejudices about overcooked, soggy vegetables. Here's what you do:
Roughly chop one smallish onion and cook it very very slowly in a fair bit (3-4 T.) of olive oil. While it's cooking, peel and slice at least three cloves of garlic. Add them to the pot, and then cut up one bunch of broccoli. Peel the stems and cut them in medium-sized chunks and then cut the tops into pieces about twice the size of the stem pieces. When the onion and garlic are nice and soft, put in the broccoli, add some salt, and give the whole thing a stir so that the broccoli gets coated with oil. Add a few tablespoons of water (or chicken stock is even better), put a lid on the pot, and then make whatever else you're making for dinner. (It was sautéed boneless chicken thighs for us tonight.)
Once in while, check the broccoli and make sure it's not sticking to the bottom. Add a little more water or chicken stock from time to time. Cook for 15 or 20 minutes. It will get very very soft. This is OK. The tops may even start to fall apart a little bit. This is also OK.
If I'm eating by myself, I like to have this broccoli in a bowl with a couple of poached eggs on top, maybe sprinkled with a little romano cheese. It can go next to or underneath just about anything. Tonight, since Catherine does NOT like broccoli, I added a big handful of grated fontina cheese, and stirred it all up until the cheese melted. (Dairy products - cheese, butter, cream - are a great way to bribe anyone into eating any kind of vegetable.)
A nice bowl of cheesy, warm, soft, comforting broccoli, topped with a crispy-skinned piece of chicken. What a very nice thing to have on a very cold winter evening.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SUNDAY 20 JANUARY 2002
I spent the entire day reading yesterday. Well, not the entire day, but 9 hours of it. I got completely absorbed by my book - I ignored everything else that I was supposed to be doing, which is a delicious feeling. And then instead of getting up today, I stayed in bed until I had finished it.
Since I can't cook and read at the same time - I can, actually, but it's not safe! - my solution is peanut butter. I am having a bit of a love affair with peanut butter right now. We rediscovered it on our road trip. Filling, nutritious, and makes stuff like apples and celery taste really good. It only takes about three minutes to cut up half an apple and spread the slices with peanut butter, and three minutes between chapters just helps build up the excitement.
Fluffernutter sandwiches. That was what I was longing for today - graham crackers spread with peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. Childhood food. My mom used to make them for us and showed us how to dip them in hot tea so that the graham crackers would get soft. Salty and sweet and creamy - YUM. (You'd think that marshmallow fluff would contradict my local-in season-organic priciples, but those principles are overridden by my nostalgic love of my childhood.)
There's one book left in the trilogy and I've been ignoring its siren call all day. In a fit of guilt at spending two days reading books that aren't really improving my mind*, I took down the Christmas tree, vacuumed, and did three loads of laundry. Now that my chores are done, I'm headed for the couch, a glass or three of wine, a pear and some blue cheese (peanut butter may be great, but I need some variety), and another few hours of reading.!
*Catherine likes to make fun of my reading taste - she thinks it's a little trashy. Better than TV any day, if you ask me.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
THURSDAY 17 JANUARY 2002
THANK GOODNESS FOR BEANS.
For some insane reason beyond my comprehension, I woke up at 6:15 this morning and went running, but after that burst of energy, I crashed and I've been dragging the rest of the day. Didn't want to stand up, could hardly leave my chair (which does make for a very productive computer day), certainly did NOT want to cook.
Beans in the fridge are like money in the bank. Catherine had beans and eggs and green chile for breakfast, I had beans and tuna for lunch, and I didn't have to work up the energy to think about cooking until dinner.
Catherine got me just what I asked for for Christmas: under-the-cabinet lights for the kitchen. She just installed them today, but it turns out that they're a bit of a mixed blessing. It's great to be able to see what I'm doing - the cabinets cast a shadow from the ceiling lights, so it was very hard to see at night - but on the other hand, I might be able to see a bit TOO well. Apparently I tend to clean what shows, so if I couldn't see it, I didn't clean it. Now everything shows, and it looks like everything's dirty. I had planned to spend the weekend reading on the couch - hopefully the book that I've requested at the library will come in - but it looks like I might have to spend some time rearranging and organising - actually moving olive oil and vinegar bottles and the pepper grinder and utensil bucket and sea salt and the blow torch and the blender out of the way to clean underneath and around them!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
WEDNESDAY 16 JANUARY 2002
You may remember a few weeks ago that I was trying to decide whether or not to get a crock-pot. (Two incidents when I left the stove on by accident; both times, what were supposed to be 1/2-hour meetings turned into 2 1/2-hour meetings. It's difficult to concentrate when you're thinking about how the pets would escape, if indeed the house was on fire!) Luckily, my mom had just bought a brand-new one at a Xmas fair for only $12, and she lent it to me so I could see if I liked it.
I like it. I made a pot of beans yesterday that turned out perfectly and were incredibly easy. I didn't pre-soak the beans at all; just threw them in the crockpot with a lot of water and a couple of bay leaves. When they were about halfway cooked, I added 1 1/2 yellow onions, chopped, and a few cloves of garlic. (You could add the onions and garlic in the beginning, but I was busy doing something else, and only got around to chopping later. Bacon, of course, or a ham hock or another nice smoky meat product, is another good addition.) When the beans were almost done - about 4 hours later, on "high" - I added a few teaspoons of salt, then turned it to low while I went out to dinner. The best part is that when I had my customary moment of panic when I was running errands in the afternoon ("Did I turn the beans off?!?"), the slogan popped into my head: "Cooks all day while the cook's away."
It's so nice not to worry that I might be barbequeing my pets.
I'm going to try a few more recipes, but I think that having a "slow cooker" is worth it just for the beans. I bet it will be really good for chicken stock, too; another thing that stays on the stove all day. The only problem is finding a place to keep the thing - it's huge!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TUESDAY 15 JANUARY 2002
HOME AT LAST
I quite frequently complain about Santa Cruz - it's getting really crowded, there's too much traffic, it's expensive to live here, our house is VERY SMALL, we'll never be able to buy a house here, and so on, and so on - but then we get back from a trip and I remember how wonderful it is to live by the ocean, and to be in a place where we have lots of vegetables, and good wine, and lots of oxygen in the air. (The air is very thin at high altitudes; I was out of breath in Utah.)
It's also nice to be back in my own kitchen, with my knives and my pans. Although cooking in other peoples' kitchens can be very amusing. I managed to set off the fire alarm at our friend's house in Park City not just once, but twice. An operator at Brinks Alarm had to talk Catherine through the process of dismantling it; it was like defusing a bomb.
It was such a great trip, though. I love the desert so much. I love to be able to see so far, and I love the colors, the subtlety of the landscape, and I love New Mexico green chile. We brought some back with us, but both Catherine & I could eat green chile every day and not get tired of it.
It was very restful, also, being away from email and computers and phones, for the most part. I feel very refreshed and renewed, and I have lots of energy for this site and our other work, which feels good.
And I was greeted by letters from two new subscribers when I checked the mailbox yesterday. Yay! And thank you for subscribing! Welcome!
|
