The Literary Foodie

An Affair With Magazines

2012-02-27T17:46:00.000-08:00

I am a bit of a magazine junkie, though I hate the term as it insinuates something negative. A magazine lover? Whichever, I believe it started with Seventeen magazine, at a much earlier age then seventeen and grew from there. Surprisingly, though I love them, I am only subscribed to one food magazine. I tend to wait for the magazine to offer a special subscription price before I hop on board, and now I am at the point that if I add on another I will never read them all. There are of course months that I skip an issue or two, but for the most part I always get around to reading each one.

Sacramento is lucky enough to have two local magazines

I love opening the mailbox to find a new one, I love the short and to the point articles, I love the pictures, I love it all. They are happy little vacations from the many books that I seem to always have wrapping up my attention. Those are some of the reasons that I get subscriptions, the other is that I really, really want journalists and writers to have jobs, and I want to keep these magazines in existence. Each year it gets harder and harder for print media to stay in business, and along with them the shops and individuals that make them available to us. Everyone in the food community remembers when the closure of Gourmet magazine was announced, and closer to home for us in Sacramento the awesome and unique midtown magazine shop Newsbeat that closed down just a few months ago.

There is something to be said for a really well written article, and just as importantly a perfectly shot photo. Though I love books, magazines hold a special place in my reading time, that sexy half hour vacation where everything is pretty and interesting and so perfectly propped, placed and posed. Can’t help but love them.

Currently my magazine subscriptions include:

Food & Wine (got a great holiday offer and so far so good, man love those pictures!)
Ms. Magazine ( A Christmas present from my husband, the feminist that he is. I have wanted this one for years and never subscribed)
Marie Claire (Gotta get my beauty tips somewhere J
Sacramento Magazine
Sac town (seriously I live in a town that has two magazines! I think it is shameful to live here and not support these two great local magazines)
Bottom Line Personal ( A Christmas present from my dad, and I love the random things I learn with each issue)
Lucky Peach ( though I don’t have a subscription yet, I am loving this brand new food mag, and I think, it is a new essential for any lover of food writing)

So, what are your favorites? Do you subscribe to the print edition, buy it off the stands, read it online, or subscribe to the digital edition?

Another yearly favorite of mine:

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Libraries and Oranges

2012-02-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

So, I have been away from the blog for sometime, it’s true. But, they gave me a library. Seriously, a whole library, that is all mine. I get to make all the decisions and plan all the programs, I even get to make the displays and pick out the stories for story time.

I have been a little distracted to say the least. More than distracted, I have been in love. If I were to have written down all of the things I wanted in a job, I probably would not have thought of half of the things that I love about this job. I am running an entire elementary school library, and I am the only one in there, thus making most decisions on my own, and also figuring it all out as I go. Sadly, due to budget restraints, it is only a part time position, which you would not know by everything I have been able to pull off. One book, One School anyone?

This job is by far more perfect for me than I could have hoped for, and though there is the very real threat of budget problems that make this job a bit insecure, I am so, so happy that I have it. This should not mean that I let the other things I love fall to the wayside, like The Literary Foodie, but that is what I have done . I have the tendency to put all of my energy, creativity, and thought into whatever major project I have going and not leaving much left over.

But then the orange trees started producing fruit. And producing. And producing. You may remember from my little rant last year, Pick Your Damn Fruit, Or How I Love Winter in Sacramento, how strongly I feel about the fact that I live in a place that oranges grow. This year I had the good idea of putting a request on freecycle to pick peoples citrus fruit that they are not eating. I got a pretty awesome response and so, every few days Rob and I have gone to different homes in Sacramento to pick from different trees. We have ended up with yellow grapefruits, lemons, and bags and bags of oranges.

As you have figured out, when I have a large quantity of something I see it as a project, and these oranges were no different. Now that I am not (as) afraid of canning, that is what we decided to do. The results?

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4 4oz & 2 16oz jars of Orange Beet Chutney from this recipe
3 4oz & 1 16oz jars of Morning Cheer Marmalade from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
2 16oz jars of Honey-Orange Slices from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving
Two trays of Candied Orange Slices from this recipe

(with hopes of doing an orange and lemon curd in the next few days)

So, not that I needed any, but February is yet again giving me more reasons that I love living in California. I can’t make any promises, but I hope to start learning some time management so that I can actually do all of the things that I love to do. We will see.

But, seriously, MY OWN LIBRARY!

Happy 1st Blog Birthday: A Year in Review

2011-10-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

A year ago today I finally figured out a way to alleviate some of the pressure from being unemployed as well as found a way to talk about books and food as much as and whenever I wanted to. Thus The Literary Foodie was born. Though I am not exactly what anyone would call consistent I absolutely love this blog. I love that it has me learning/trying/tasting/seeing new things. I also love that it has helped me meet new people, in person and virtually, as well as kept my family over in New York more involved in the things that I am doing here is California.

Moving away from everyone you love, and everything you know is incredibly hard. This blog was one of the things that made it not only easier but a pleasure. I hope you have all enjoyed it as much as I have, and I hope you will all stick with me for many more to come. For kicks and giggles you should go check out my very first post, And So I Begin, and see just how hopeful and earnest it is, I think it’s pretty cute.

Happy 1st Birthday The Literary Foodie!!

And here are some interesting factoids about the blog:

The most popular post so far is my Valentines Day Post, The Food of Love, talking about romantic food and recommending some romantic reads.

After that was my post, A New Family Member, and Emptying the Fridge, about getting my dog and getting ready to move. I am pretty sure that one was popular because everyone was hoping I was pregnant.

By far the most popular pages have been Food Fiction and Food Memoirs with Fiction coming in first.

The country with the most Literary Foodie readers is (obviously) the USA followed in order by Russia, Canada, The United Kingdom, Poland, India and Australia. Can't deny that I have been pretty darned excited each time a new country gets added to the list.

The Google searches bringing people to my page have been the interesting, and sometimes pretty funny. The most common has been people searching for Isabella Allende books, which I completely understand because she is incredible. There has also been: equipping a kitchen, literary restaurant in NYC, and how to rediscover passion for writing. I am pretty sure none of these folks were looking for me when they did their search, but find me they did. I would like to think they were pleasantly surprised.

So far my favorite post to write was, Pick Your damn Fruit or How I love Winter in Sacramento. Followed in second place by one of my very first posts, As I Stare Into the Fridge.

So, again thank you all for joining me I hope you have been enjoying as much as I have. Know that I love all of your feedback, and welcome any questions. Here's to another year!

What have been some of your favorites over the past year? Is there anything you would like to see?

My Fear of Canning: Spiced Lemon Fig Jam

2011-10-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

This is one of those things that I don’t tend to talk about, because once it is out there, there is no taking it back, and honestly I would rather not find out that I am actually alone in this. Here it goes anyway, I have found my 20’s to be rife with insecurities. Most people seem to reminisce and romanticize their 20’s so much that at points I have felt like I must be doing it all wrong, thus the insecurities. Though I am finding my way more, and refining my once vibrant confidence I still find those moments when uncertainty seems to be trailing my every move. I am in awe of the confidence that I vibrated with in my teens, some of it certainly an act, but so much so that I believed it myself. Back then I didn’t doubt anything. I honestly can’t wait until I stop feeling so nervous about each new undertaking.

A very over-ripe Fig

Most of it has had to do with the idea of being an adult and realizing that I have no idea what that entails. As I mentioned recently for the first few years out of college I worked in a bookstore, which I absolutely loved. With that, though, came disapproval from my parents and (so I thought) judgment from others. Why was I working in retail with my degree, why wasn’t I making more money? With the best of intentions, these types of questions tended to cement the fact that I felt like I was doing it all wrong. At the time and still sometimes now it always felt like everyone else had it down and it was just me stumbling around.

I know better than all of this of course. I look back at each new thing that I was scared to try, certain that I was going to do it wrong, and many of those same things are second nature to me now. More often than not it turns out that I am very good at many new things, and I know how to ask the right questions so that I learn how to do whatever it is correctly. For some reason I still go into the unknown with some serious insecurity. I will say that after making the move from New York to California my confidence has risen considerably. I mean really I did that and survived/succeeded what else can really knock me down? Besides canning that is.

I have wanted to start canning for years, sometime around the time my husband started working on farms and bringing me home excess amounts of whatever was in season. But each season and each year has found me too nervous/unsure/insecure to actually try to can anything. I blame it on the fact that I think about things too much, and then to make is worse I research. When you research canning you find out that if you don’t do it right you make people sick. Bad sick. Making people sick is not something that I am interested in, especially people outside of my household. My husband will probably forgive me, but what about the people that I give these canned goodies to? It was all just too much for me to handle, and since I didn’t have anyone to actually teach me to can I never tried.

Last year I made a refrigerator fig jam that was pretty incredible, and I got very anxious that I did not know how to can it so that I would have it all year. So, this year when fig season came around I vowed to learn how to can so that I would have the jam all year. I read a lot, I googled a lot, and in the end I feel pretty foolish that I did not try this a long time ago. I did have trouble with the fact that most of the fig jams out there were pretty strait forward with minimal ingredients but I found a few to give me an idea that last years recipe was right on, I just had to actually can it. So I went out and got a big pot with a tray in the bottom, some Ball jars, and a jar lifter. In the end we jarred three different batches of jam, one batch of marinated roasted peppers, pickled carrots, and pickled grapes. Hopefully we will be making some regular pickles pretty soon too. Now that I actually bit the bullet and learned how to can I seem to want to “put up” everything. So, at the age of 27 I have gotten over one more hang up and learned to can.

How old were you when you started canning?

What kind of cooking fears do you have?

This was one of the many books that I referenced to figure out what I was doing:

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And this site helped answer a lot of my question.

Spiced Lemon Fig Jam
Though the recipe is my own I followed the process here

24 medium figs chopped
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ packet pectin*
½ cup water
Zest of 2 lemons
1.5 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons honey
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Prepare your jars and lids for canning.

In a medium pot bring lemon juice, pectin, water and figs to a rolling boil.

Add remaining ingredients, stirring occasionally bring pot back to a boil & allow to boil for 1 minute.

Turn off heat and skim foam from top of jam, allow jam to sit for five minutes.

Take jars from hot water and line up on counter, using a funnel fill each jar, leaving a ¼ inch at the top.

Remove air bubbles from jars.

Put on and tighten lids, and process jars in boiling water for 5-10 minutes

*I used a minimal amount of pectin because I felt like I had to use it, this is not a runny jam so next time I don’t think I am going to use any at all. It’s all up to you and what you prefer.

I also think that more spice could be added to this with nice results, let me know any combos you try out.

Of course now that I have figured it out some other great Sacramento food bloggers have been putting out some fig jam recipes, you can check them out here and here.

Another Taste of A Homemade Life

2011-09-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

I would not normally do two posts from the same book but when the Cook the Books club chose Molly Wizenbergs A Homemade Life, I couldn’t resist another go at it. Some of you will remember back in January when the other online book group I take part in, This Book Makes me Cook, did the same book. The fact that I have tried and loved quite a few of Molly’s recipes, either from her blog Orangette or from the book was my driving force in doing another post. Unlike some other food related pieces of literature the recipes from A Homemade Life have not only all worked for me but have often been very nice surprises.

You have all had that moment (I hope) while reading a book, memoir or fiction, where you stop and start taking stock of your life. Not in a bad way, not to look at your life and say that it is not good enough or nitpicking all the faults. But in the good way, in the way that makes you look in every corner for your potential. This is what reading "A Homemade Life" does for me. Reading about Wizenberg’s life, from her childhood through her college years, a studio apartment in Paris, a long distance relationship started with a fan of her blog, and settling down in Seattle, all I think is that I want to know her.

I tend to embrace anything that makes me take stock of life, and when you have your eyes open most things probably do. The breeze as you walk down a city street, a certain song playing at a certain time, a good bookmoviephotographmusician. The sun hitting me in just the right spot on the back of my neck that made me decide to ask my husband to marry me (I promise to tell you more another day). So you see, I was happy to chat with you again about A Homemade Life.

This time around I chose not to re-read it, though I found myself taking quick little bites as I flipped through trying to decide which recipe to do. How do you pick between all these recipes?

Wizenberg on tomatoes:

“They were fleshy and deep red, with edges crinkled like smocking on a child’s dress. When we bit into them, they shot rich, vermilion juice across the table. We were sold.”

Wizenberg on getting married:

“First, when you get engaged, a few things happen. You agree to marry someone, for starters. Also, your head sort of explodes. Third, you are handed a ticket--rather sneakily, I should note, with no warning at all-- to an amusement park ride known as THE WEDDING.”

Wizenberg on trying new recipes:

“I have a lot of cookbooks, and they demand my attention. You wouldn’t believe how pushy they are. They lie next to my bed like fat, lazy dogs. They stretch and yawn all over my lap.”

I don’t know if I picked the best sentences, but do you see what I mean? You want to read more don’t you? I hope you do, and you should. Please come back when you are done so we can chat about it. Which recipes did you try, which could you already taste before you had even finished the page? Why sections made you cry, did she make you want to live in France? Enjoy!

Trying to pick between the recipes is fruitless, I want to try them all, and so I have placated myself by saying that eventually I will try most of them I just need to pick one for today. Okay maybe two.

If you remember I recently posted about having trouble with the heat in Sacramento when I am so ready for fall to start. I have countered my feelings by picking all the incredible fruits and produce that California has to offer and canning them. Well not all, but a lot (you will read all about it in the next week or so) figs, peppers, plums and, thanks to A Homemade Life, carrots and grapes. Grapes? That’s right, pickled grapes. And I am sure glad I did.

The quotes and recipes are directly from Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life
--------

Spicy Pickled Carrots with Garlic and Thyme
from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

2 cups apple cider vinegar plus more         1 ½ teaspoons red pepper flakes
    for topping jars                      heaping 1 ½ teaspoons salt
2 cups water, plus more for topping jars   heaping 2 teaspoons brown mustard
¼ cup granulated sugar                                seeds
6 (5-6 inch) sprigs fresh thyme              1 ½ pounds small (finger sized)
5 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced                 carrots, or standard-sized carrots,
1 ½ teaspoons black peppercorns               cut into sticks about ½ inch wide
   cracked                                                    and 3 inches long

In a medium saucepan, combine 1 ½ cups apple cider vinegar, water, sugar thyme, garlic, black peppercorns, red pepper flakes, salt and mustard seeds. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, and let cool for 5 minutes. Stir in the remaining ½ cup of vinegar.
     Put the carrots in a large, heatproof bowl, and pour the warm brine over them. Cool to room temperature.
     While the carrots cool, wash 2 quart-sized canning jars and their lids in warm, soapy water.
     When the carrots and brine are cool, distribute the carrots evenly among the jars, arranging them snugly. (Hands and fingers work best for this tongs make a mess.) Using a ladle, divide the brine evenly among the jars. The carrots should be covered completely by brine. If they are not, add a mixture of 2 parts vinegar and 1 part water to cover.
     Seal firmly and refrigerate for at least 3 days, or, preferably, a week; carrots are dense and take time to absorb the brine.
Note: Covered and refrigerated, pickled carrots will, in theory, last indefinitely, but we try to eat them within a month or two.

Yield: 2 quarts

Pickled Grapes with Cinnamon and Black Pepper

from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg Adapted from Susan Kaplan

1 pound red or black grapes,            1½ teaspoons brown mustard seeds
   preferably seedless                         1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 cup white wine vinegar                  1 (2½ inch) cinnamon stick
1 cup granulated sugar              ¼ teaspoon salt

Rinse and dry the grapes, and pull them off carefully from the their stems. Using a small, sharp knife, trim away the “belly button” at the stem end of the grape, exposing a bit of the flesh inside. Put the grapes into a medium bowl and set aside.
     In a medium saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium- high heat, then pour the mixture over the grapes. Stir to combine. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
     While the grapes cool, wash 2 pint-sized canning jars and their lids in warm, soapy water. When the grapes are cool, ladle them into the jars. Chill for at least 8 hours or overnight.
     Serve cold.

Yield: about 3 cups
(Wizneberg recommends eating these in the first few days, though she mentions that others have really enjoyed them after a week or two)

If you would like to read about the last time I read A Homemade Life and tried the recipe for Dutch Baby Pancakes with Lemon and Sugar you can check it out here.

To read the other blog posts from this months book group, or to join this great little collection of bloggers come on over to the Cook the Books Club

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A Sad Farewell to Red Fox Books

2011-09-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

I remember walking by the brick building for the first time knowing that there was going to be a independent bookstore opening up and I did a dance out there on the sidewalk. I did a dance not knowing that this store was going to change my life, or that the people opening it would become my dear friends. I don’t remember my first impressions of them, I was so nervous on the interview I don’t remember much of anything, including whether or not I made a fool of myself. It was my first job outside of temping since I graduated college, and though some people would not consider working at a bookstore to be the next logical step after college, but to me nothing else could possibly make that much sense.

Years before a travel partner asked me what my dream job would be if money was not an issue. Everyone else in our group had exotic answers, I answered that I wanted to open a bookstore/poetry venue. So to find myself four years later working in a fairly brand new independent bookstore was the hands on experience that I could never get in college. I was also lucky enough to be working for two incredible people that were more than happy to show and teach me all they could about the business. They were also comfortable enough to give me room to be creative and start my own projects within the walls of their wonderful bookstore.

Since opening its doors in 2006 Red Fox Books truly grew into an integral part of the small town of Glens Falls. The downtown is only a few blocks and all of the small businesses and restaurants feed off of each other making what was not that long age a sad deserted little town into a place to come and spend the day, shopping, eating and walking around. In my years there I saw a few businesses close, but I also saw many more open up. All of these businesses have been independently owned and run by some very brave and creative people, who understand what a local business can do for an area.

I know that people in this country are finally coming around, I see it everywhere I go. You see more and more people focusing on eating locally, and wanting to know where their food comes from. Willing to pay that little bit more, to know how there food is raised and the people that are raising it. You see this with other independent business as well but not nearly as much. When it comes to a book people have a fairly easy time justifying going online at all hours and buying a book from an online retailer that has the ability to sell it for a few dollars cheaper.

I don’t think that I need to go into the whole lecture about all the many reasons you should support an independent business, it would be like lecturing a smoker about why they have to quit. Believe me I understand, I was a smoker for a very long time. I know you all know better, and I also know that many of you will continue supporting nameless faceless businesses for the sake of a dollar or two. I get it. You can blame it on the economy or on E-readers, but the truth is there are just too many people that don’t much care where their belongings come from or who they are supporting, though I hope some day soon we will start to see those numbers change.

Today will be the last day of business in Red Fox Books in Glens Falls, NY. Next month the store would have hit it's fifth year in business. They have had some incredibly wonderful and loyal customers, who I have missed dearly since I moved away. I am sad for those customers, Ann and Keith, Matt, Gary, Jon and Liz and so many more of you that have loved this store as much as I have. That found a home there as I did, a place that was safe and comfortable that always made you happy to be there. I know how lucky I was to have had Red Fox in my life, and to have been able to work side by side with Susan and Naftali for the three+ years that I was able to. I am pretty sure that most people don’t get that lucky. I can't tell you how sad I am not to be there right now, though for what reason I don't know it just feels like I should.

I hope all of you, no matter where you live will go into an independent business today, I don’t care what kind, and buy something. Make sure you ask the person working there for a recommendation because for once you will actually get a good one, from someone who is doing this for a lot more reason than that it is just a job. Stay and chat awhile, because they will actually be willing to chat instead of moving you along to get to the next person, or selling you a membership or store credit card. I know it is easy to go to the larger store where maybe you can get more things done. But I promise you the more you do that the more you will look back on your life and see a blur, because none of those shopping moments (and we as Americans have a lot of them) will be of any substance, and more likely than not the things you buy in those places will not last you long enough to remember.

So today, for me, Susan, Naftali and Red Fox Books, go to an independent business. I have the feeling you will thank me.

An Olive Oil Education: "A Taste of the Good Life" at The Greek Village Inn

2011-09-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

When my husband and I made our original life altering drive into California, we entered the state from the North traveling on Route 97 and then connecting to I-5. Our conversation on that first monumental drive went something like this:

Me: oh my God it’s snowing, how can it be snowing, we have to go home!

Husband: I think it’s just the elevation, yeah, it has to be the elevation.

Me: but we’re in California!

2hrs later

Me: what are those trees?

Husband: I don’t know maybe Oranges?

Me: they don’t look like oranges, look at all the little ones in white tubes, what are they?

Husband: maybe nuts, I think they can grow almonds here.

Me: really wow, almonds, that’s cool.

And thus the idiotic conversation of two New Yorkers entering a state that can actually grow things, lots of things, things that even New York big chain supermarkets don’t always carry. Those trees, for those of you that don’t know, were olive trees, which I now know are abundant in California and specifically in this part of the state.

So the irony of now, a year later, being invited to an olive oil tasting and dinner put on by STAR Fines Foods olive oil, is not at all lost on me. Along with the Olive Oil that gave them their start, the company also imports and sells pepperoncini, anchovies, Onions, Capers, vinegars and much more. This summer they debuted their first grown-in-California olive oil, and as part of STAR’s “A Taste of the Good Life” tour, I was lucky enough to be invited to a dinner and olive oil tasting at the Greek Village Inn here in Sacramento featuring a six-course tasting menu created by Greek Village Inn Chef Matthew Martinez.

To say I was thrilled is a complete understatement. Not only did I get to try out a restaurant that I had never been to, I also got to meet members of Sacramento’s incredible food blog community and spend a few hours eating and talking about food, blogs and everything in between. STAR and The Greek Village Inn put together a wonderful evening and I think highlighted the beautiful relationship between olive oil and great food quite well. The fact that I am Italian and sometimes feel as if I was born with the taste of Olive Oil in my mouth just heightened my enjoyment of this event even more. Some of the other bloggers that I had the pleasure of sitting near and sharing wonderful conversation with were: Charlotte from The Grand Adventures of a Food and Wine Diva, Dawn from Kitchen Travels, Doug from Javaholic, and Stephanie from 52 Kitchen Adventures, plus many more. Special thanks to Catherine over at Munchie Musings for getting it all together.

And now for the Food!

Along with the full menu we also had a wine pairing from, Sean Minor Wines, supplying some very unique wines. I never thought to get any good wine shots, but you can see by the stems of the wine glasses surrounding the food just how many we got to try.

I know, I know and yes you should be jealous. Now I don't know if you can recreate this evening exactly but you are more than welcome to try. If you are lucky enough to live in the Sacramento area head on over to The Greek Village Inn and give it a try.

Missing the flavor of you (Fall)

2011-09-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

What is it that I have been missing? I admit that technology has made moving so far away from New York easier to deal with , between facebook and email I am kept up to date on the little details, thanks to unlimited long distance, Skype and even Google Earth I am able to hear my families voices, see their faces, go on tours of new apartments and even spy on them from above. It is my memory though that I rely on the most when I start feeling homesick

I have a very good memory for detail and can mentaly reenact entire scenes and moments of my life, often getting caught “daydreaming” in public while I do so. Sometimes this is terrible, just recently I went mentally step-by-step through the process of lighting and smoking a cigarette in a windy car, and though I quit over a year and a half ago this little memory dalliance left me craving nicotine like I had just quit. I have been doing this a lot lately (not as destructively as smoking a cigarette) and it is what first cued me in to the fact that I was missing New York.

I caught myself mentally getting of the subway (in New York City) at Astor Place and walking through the village looking at all the piercing shops and restaurants, wandering my way through until I would find myself waiting in line outside of the Nuyorican Poets café. I would be walking outside in the 95 degree California weather thinking about walking to work in the snow, my chin tucked tight to my chest as I watched each boot encase foot plow through the fresh flakes.

Mostly, though, I have been envisioning fall. Fall is my weakness. Fall could probably push me back to the East Coast faster than anything else, though hopefully I would have the sense to remember that after fall comes winter and I would not trade in a Sacramento winter for a New York one for all the Fall in the world. This does not stop my romantic little mind from reminiscing on all of the things that I love about this upcoming season and missing New York.

Yesterday I had a wake up call from all of my fall musings in the form of peaches… and figs… and peppers and melons and almonds and tomatoes and plums. It might have hit 100 degrees today and yes I might find that a little hard to deal with but I live in a place that I can go pick all of those glorious treats on September 6th. Fresh, ripe and begging to remind me of just why I chose this place I now call home, and why it was a damn good decision.

I have plans to make a spiced peach butter that I found here, and maybe a plum sauce if I find a recipe I like, I am also thinking of jarring some roasted red peppers and maybe some pickles. In New York fall would be coming soon, and normally that would mean I would start baking, here in California I am just getting around to canning the summer bounty, and I am not even late! I will always be in love with New York fall and I really hope that next year I will get the money together to fly home just in time to get a little taste of the season. In the meantime I will rely on my memory, and keep myself afloat with the flavors of fresh figs.

Risking Our Lives While Celebrating Our Love (Part 2)

2011-08-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

I realize that I left out a pretty major detail of yesterdays story, the car that we drive is a 2004 Chevy Malibu. That’s right a sedan, and not just a sedan but a pretty low riding sedan. Does that put things into a little better perspective for you while also making us look a little stupider?
Now that you are armed with that important bit if information why don’t you join us again as we watch the sun set while ~~walking~~ trudging along the road our car can’t follow. The further we go the more we realize there is no way our car can come this way, the road crisscrosses back and forth over the creek, and there are very few openings if we were to try to go anywhere but on the road. We are pretty numb now mentally, and we just continue on knowing that this is way bigger than we are. We can’t even hypothesize about the possibilities because we can’t think of any. One of the few I could come up with I did not share, and that was the fact that we very well might be leaving our car for good.

We made pretty good time, in part thanks to the lizards on the road that kept the dog busy running forward. As the sun set we finally met up with a real dirt road, we did figure out that what we were on was definitely not a road, though we had no idea what it was meant for it sure was not us. At the last stream crossing we could see a roof in the distance and our moods lifted quite a bit. What scared me the most during this whole time was not all the things that had happened so far, but the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere and might not have been able to find help. So, seeing sings of civilization helped me out a lot. That first house showed no signs of life and neither did the second, so we continued on until we got to a home that was obviously inhabited with the lights on and cars out front.

I am ashamed to say we questioned knocking on the door, and really we know better than to have such little faith in people, but after a day like the one we were having who knew what could happen. As we debated I asked Rob what he would do if people in our situation came to our door, and that was all it took. So Rob, Murtry and I went to the door and tried to look as pitiful as possible as we knocked. At first we were greeted by two very excited terriers, who we later learned to be named Rufus and Ruby (a very significant fact being that those are the names of my parents cats). After a moment a man came to the door, looking very much like he was at the end of his day and a little wary of having strangers at his door (little did we know the amount of times this has happened before). We quickly tried to explain that we had gotten our car badly stuck, and asked if he could take us to town, hopefully to a police or ranger station. After asking a few questions of how it happened and how much gas we had the man, Randy, went inside to get dressed.
His wife, Kim, came out to chat while he got ready, and definitely put us both at ease about everything. She seemed so nonchalant about it all and was so welcoming and comfortable that I actually started to believe we were going to be ok.

Rob, Murtry and I loaded up into the jeep with Randy, and thinking we were going to town, were a little surprised when he turned back to the way we had come. Another important detail you should know, I have never done any sort of off-roading in my life and had no idea what a jeep was capable of, so you can imagine my state of mind as Randy starts driving along these creek beds. Randy had some realizations of his own as we started giving him directions, quickly figuring out that no we were not stuck on a road, it turns out what we had been following was a fire break, a term I had never even heard of before. Apparently the forest service cuts out roads/fire breaks to slow the path of wild fires, and which we were stupid enough to follow. When he figured this out, Randy got on the phone to tell Kim to throw on another pork steak because they were having company for dinner. We arrived at the car, filled it with gas and rode back down the creek bed to their house. Showing our ignorance of the type of people we were dealing with we said that we would sleep in the car and try to get out in the morning, which Randy responded to with silence. Not only did they fill our car with gas, and feed us dinner they also gave us a bed to sleep in (or at least lay awake worrying in which is what I did).

The next morning after feeding us breakfast Kim dropped us half way to the car loaded with rope and a hand wench (another thing I had never heard of until now), with wishes of luck and insistence that if we couldn’t get out to come back to their door. Though I loved meeting them, I really hoped we would never see Kim or Randy again. Sadly, and gladly all at once, this was not true. We were feeling pretty hopeful though, especially without the pressure of a dwindling gas tank, and we really did try our best to get out the way we had come. My mind had conveniently forgotten how bad it had truly been and the first time around we have mostly been going down hill. This time we were not so lucky and we were not even able to get the car up the second hill (sounds easy but all of this took us about three hours). So with the sun beating down on us and our spirits completely crushed we walked back to Randy and Kim’s house to wait for them to get home from work and somehow tell us what we were going to do.

Kim got home first and immediately called Randy, phone calls were made and equipment collected and when Randy got home all four of us hopped into the jeep ready to go. I had no idea what they planned on doing but both Randy and Kim seemed so light hearted, and almost as if they were on a fun adventure. As Randy took the road that we should have been following, the one we sadly turned off of and which was aptly named Black Diamond, Kim pointed out different sites in the distance and the animal tracks along the way. They both took turns correcting each other as they told us about the many folks that had come before us arriving at their doorstep, pointing out the spots where they had gotten stuck, slid off the road or crashed. Sadly for us no one else had been stupid enough to follow the cat trail, we were the very first, and I personally think a damn good addition to their collection of rescue stories.

I think Randy knew it first, and seeing this trail a second time around I really don’t know what we were thinking, but there was no way we were getting out the way we came. One way or another we were going to have to get out over the creek. Going through all the details would make this rather long story much longer and honestly would not do the experience justice. So I will paint it for you this way, the jeep led the way as two-to-four of us cleared out the major rocks that the Chevy could not drive over, and we crossed over the river seven times. The jeep had to pull us out three times, and we built two bridges out of logs, but we manually made a new road down Dry Creek creekbed.

When we arrived back at their house all four of us got out and hugged laughing and shaking our heads. Both Rob and I were in a bit of a lightheaded shock, we couldn’t believe we had actually gotten the car out, not including the scratches to the paint job the car had not been damaged either! We sat around with Kim and Randy for a bit, drinking beer and wine, trading stories and reveling in our success.

To say that we made mistakes in an understatement, we definitely risked our safety and the life of the car. To say that I regret it would be wrong though. I met two incredible people whose characters have given us a pretty darn good model to strive after, and we have got a story that is going to last us a lifetime. I am so happy that Rob and I go on adventures and I believe it is things like this (preferably not always so dramatic) that build a relationship that will last a lifetime, and if Kim and Randy are any indication I am right. As Kim said, all we have to do after this is pay it forward, and I intend to do so every chance I get, it is people like them, and hopefully us, that make humans so unique and this life so absolutely wonderful. Also, Randy left us with some very good advice, always go to the park service and pick up maps before driving into the mountains.

Risking Our Lives While Celebrating Our Love (Part 1)

2011-08-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

Maybe not our lives (although there were points that I sure felt that way) but definitely the life of our car. Before I continue I will warn the mothers of the stars of this tale to only read on at your own risk, sometimes it is better that you don’t know. I will also say that there are no photos, and this story has nothing to do with food or books, just the craziness that is life.

I had a bit of time in the last few days to try to figure out where things went wrong. I think I can blame it on finding out that I will be out of work come September leaving my mental state a little frazzled, but there were so many places for our path to diverge I can't truly pinpoint a single event that could have stopped the end result. The possibilities are endless: deciding to go camping for our second anniversary, staying up till 2:00 am the night before, picking a campsite so far from the mountain we wanted to hike, not filling up with gas before entering that forest, Rob stepping on the one rock that tossed him into the river, and most importantly following GPS directions while driving in the mountains.

Our campsite was perfect, sitting on a lake surrounded by mountains, and on the day of our anniversary we decided to go hiking to a waterfall in Mendocino National Forrest. So Rob and I and our dog Murtry drove the hour to the trailhead and set out on our hike. The day was beautiful, we had a picnic in our packs for when we reached the waterfall and the trail was nice and steady, never too difficult but also not so easy that it was boring. When, two miles in we reached a stream we were not fazed, first trying to skip from rock to rock and then deciding to take off our shoes and walk across. Rob gave it one more try before taking off his shoes and right at the last leap lost his balance falling knee first into the creek. At first he seemed fine, but as we watched his knee quickly began to swell.

It has always been a fear of mine that Rob would get hurt when we were out in the woods. Sure it would be terrible if I did but Rob can get me out, when you turn it the other way around the situation gets a lot more complicated. I am sure you are thinking this is the climax of my story but it is actually just the beginning. We hung out by the stream for a while keeping Robs knee submerged in the freezing cold water and enjoying our picnic. After an hour or so his knee had gone down a bit and we were able to hike back out. Though we never got to see the waterfall our hike was actually really nice and thanks to a tightly wrapped bandana by the time we got back to the car the swelling had almost entirely subsided. This is where we made our first major wrong move.

We were running pretty low on gas, not dangerously so, but enough that we wanted to take the shorter route out of the mountain instead of the one that we had taken in. So we turned to our GPS, I know a lot of you are thinking this was a stupid move but at the time it seemed ok. It quickly showed us a road out that was much shorter, ending at a town with a gas station. Off we went on the “better” road. You must remember that Rob and I drove across the country to move here, and we have also taken a lot of trips together, and though I may grip the side of the door until my hand hurts I trust Rob to get me through even the scariest of mountain roads. So we drove the twenty five or so miles along this tiny dirt mountain road, with nothing but emptiness along the side of the car. There were definitely points that I was scared, especially areas where you could see that parts of the road had already slid off down the cliff, but the views were unbelievable and we were moving steadily along. When we got to a point where the road split the GPS told us to go left. Major wrong move number two, we listened.

We knew it even then, after turning left we reversed back to where the trail split looking for a sign and checking the GPS. The GPS showed that if we continued strait we would have had a very long road ahead of us, and though to the eye the road to the left seemed rougher it was only four miles to paved road. So we continued on with the rougher road. Just minutes after making the turn we went down a hill so steep that our decision was sealed, we couldn’t go back even if we wanted to. Each hill crossed made turning around more and more impossible and as the Manzanita bushes scraped along the side of the car and the tires locked while sliding down hills we new we were in some trouble.

At the bottom of one of the windiest of the hills we finally leveled out, and according to the GPS we only had two more miles to go. Right at the bottom of this hill was a dried out creek bed, but we could see the dirt road on the other side and the bed did not seem too terrible. So as I walked backwards in front of the car waving my hands in a made up sign language Rob slowly guided the car along the rocks. When we got to the other side I hopped back into the car, and we were both laughing feeling pretty good about ourselves and knowing we would get out with no problem. Not even a minute later we turned a bend and our road ended. That dry creek bed that we had no trouble crossing fed into a low but active creek that with no amount of luck or hope were we going to cross.

I am pretty proud of us (specifically myself) that we did not freak out at this point. There was no question of the situation we were in, and what we would have to do. We had an hour left of sunlight and a little over two miles to hike out, before we hit a road where we hoped to be able to hitch a ride. We quickly packed up water, food and clothes as well as any survival type tools we could think of, leashed up the dog and started on our way.

Due to the length of this post I will continue the rest of this story tomorrow, I hope you return to see how it goes.

Wild Plums and To Do Lists

2011-06-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

I have no good excuse for my absence; except that once you skip one week it becomes dangerously easy to skip the following ones. I think this probably goes for most anything in life: writing, exercise, cooking etc. Sadly, the things that we so easily find excuses to skip are things that make our days better, those things that we have chosen as extras because we enjoy them and gain from them. It is so easy to get wrapped up in trudging through the days, working too much forgetting to pay attention to all of the extras that really make up your life.

I know many people have the opposite of this problem, and I often envy them. For whatever reason I have the tendency to put so much focus on work and the things I feel “have” to get done, that I stop paying attention to the things that I truly enjoy. I also often allow my to-do list to taint the times that I do just take-it-easy. I am very aware that this is really unhealthy and it is something that I am constantly working on, though it is an incredibly slow process.

What my usual to do list looks like

Though I would like to blame it all on (the lack of) money, I know that I would probably do this no matter how much money we had. I have worked two jobs for the last four years with a six month hiatus after we moved where I was unemployed (and as you read here was anything but a happy experience). My current two jobs do not have set schedules so I never have any idea what my weeks ahead will bring. I also have the tendency to always say yes to shifts, and though this is great on payday, it is not so great the rest of the week. We moved into our new apartment at the beginning of the month and at the same time I said yes so many times at work that I did not have a day off for our first two weeks here. As a result my to-do list is getting pretty overwhelming and I never really got to properly unpack.

I woke up this morning extra early because I knew that it was supposed to reach 100 degrees by mid day and I wanted to get things done. Last night I went to sleep going over my to-do list and woke up with the same items flickering through my head, though I work from 3-11 tonight I viewed my morning as the perfect time to get all these things done. After having my coffee I took Murtry (my dog) out for a walk, again trying to get it in before the major heat of the day hit. And here is where my day changed. I spent the first part of our walk rushing Murtry along, trying to get him to stay in the shade, not really taking anything in or even seeing my surroundings. While I was busy looking down I saw a little yellow fruit on the ground, and then another and another. I look up to see two little trees tangled in the bushes and vines along the side of the road, one heavy with little round purple fruit and the other just shining with these bright yellow orbs. Wild Plums!!!

The New List

Normally I don’t just assume that I can eat a random fruit that I have never even seen before, but thanks to Hank Shaw and his awesome blog I knew exactly what these were. I filled a bag with these little beauties as happy as I can be, entirely forgetting the things that I was supposed to get done today. As I finished my walk popping plums in my mouth and letting Murtry decide our pace I started thinking (as I often do) about my problem with just letting go and enjoying right this second. Why can’t I treat these things as important as the other to-do’s on my list? I do actually know there importance and yet when it comes to the day to day I so easily brush them aside. I would like to tell you that I came up with an answer and that I am all cured but I know this is not true. I did make myself a brand new to do list, placed at the very beginning of my planner, a list that will never get crossed out and will never be finished. Thank you plums.

A New Family Member, and Emptying the Fridge

2011-05-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

One of my least favorite things about the move was the overwhelming feeling of insecurity. Having no idea if what we were doing was going to be the right choice and the sheer size of this possibly wrong decision was pretty overwhelming, and here it is again, albeit on a much smaller scale. When we landed in Sacramento we had to find an apartment pretty quickly, since we were living out of a Motel 6, so we were not really picky. We had no idea where in the area we would want to be, so we chose our apartment based solely on the cost of rent (very low) and the length of lease (very short).

Meet Murtry, the newest member of our tribe

It has been some time since our lease was up and we have been looking for a new apartment for months, though somewhat lazily. When we got our tax return back our search got a little more serious, and then our family expanded. About two weeks ago we adopted/inherited a dog. This was not at all a planned thing, so we were completely unprepared. One of the first things I said to my husband when he told me that he was bringing home this dog was that we had to find a larger apartment by the end of the month. I cannot in good conscience keep a dog (though he is small) in our one bedroom apartment.

So our search has had a bit of fire put under it. We have looked at tons of apartments in the last few weeks and none of them seemed to be right. More than once we tried to convince ourselves to take apartments we didn’t want because they looked good on paper. We tried making lists of all the things we want in an apartment and the more we looked the more realistic we had to become, with our price range there is only so much you can ask of an apartment.

This might take a while

We have (hopefully) chosen an apartment that works, and as we wait to find out if our applications get approved the anxiety is building. What if we are making the wrong choice? Its main selling point for us was its location, walking distance to Rob’s job and the American River. Since Rob and I share one car this is pretty huge for us and will relieve a lot of stress and gas money. Though I know that we made a good choice I can’t stop having doubts, which get exasperated by well meaning folks that question whether we should continue looking for that perfect place.

I can’t wait till we are actually in the apartment so that these doubts will be behind me, and I can start cooking and eating for real again. We are currently trying to empty out the fridge/freezer/cabinets because I have a weird thing with moving food, of all the things we have to pack, carry and move I find food to be unnecessary. So a lot of our meals are consisting of canned beans, frozen stocks and soups and root vegetables. Though some are coming out great (I have plans tonight for a meal that I will tell you more about if it works) I hate to be so contained.

I-man is less than pleased with the new guys eating habits

Our new buddy seems to be thrilled with his new family, and has been eager to show us his love, which is pretty awesome. I am confident our new home with more space and the river so close by will make him ( and us) happy, and though there will always be a mythical better choice over the horizon I am more than happy to end the search, and get on with things. We did talk to the landlord this morning, who said that our credit looks great and as long as our current landlord says good things it is pretty much ours. Keep your fingers crossed!

An Edible Upbringing

2011-05-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

It seems that most of my childhood food memories blend together into a big blur of taste, smell and experience. Not because they weren't special or because there were so few of them, instead it is exactly the opposite. Food was a constant in my life and my family, it was always there being prepared, often from scratch, as the central focus not only to large family gatherings, but also the nightly gathering of my own little universe. It was not until I was older that I really grasped how special it was that I spent every evening with my family around the dinner table. I credit this with my love of food and cooking, and also my ability to be a good listener and to engage in lively (often political) conversation. I didn't realize until I was in high school that all my friends were not going home to dinner when I was, I just thought this was what families did. I had many rebellious stages but not sitting at the dinner table was never one of them. Even when I figured out that there was all this action going on when I went home for dinner, I still did not try to get out of this nightly ritual.

My mom and I @ my wedding shower

I am lucky enough to have a mom that takes pleasure in cooking, though I can assume there were plenty of those nights that she would have rather ordered a pizza or stuck something in the microwave. It was important for her to gather our family around the table, and I think the act of making dinner was also a winding down from the work day for her, her way of leaving that world and entering the one at home. Whatever her motivation for it, I can easily say that this was one of those things that hugely affected who I am, and for the better.

It was pretty rare, in my early days of figuring out how to cook for myself, that I did not call my mom mid cooking with some edible dilemma that I needed her to fix. I will still call her over googling my quandaries, knowing that her answer will probably be better. I have gotten to the point that I am pretty confident in the kitchen, though I still hold my mom to this standard that I can’t imagine myself reaching. I do not yet have the ability to open the fridge, and not matter what is in there, put a full meal on the table. If I realize that I am missing an ingredient half way through a recipe I will often go get it at the store, though I am sure my mom would know a replacement.

1st time grilling this season

Early last month my parents came for their first California visit, and I was thrilled to be able to show them this place I have chosen as my home. Of course much of the visit was spent concerned with food, either in the deciding, procuring, cooking or eating format. My mom and I had the pleasure of cooking together as equals, possibly for the first time. We have cooked together many times, but usually with me asking her tons of questions, and lacking confidence while in the kitchen with her. This time around I was pleased to know a few things that she didn’t, and to impress her with the quality some of the ingredients that we have here. Though she will always be a few (or lots of) steps ahead of me in the kitchen it was a pleasure to know that I could hold my own, and I think that she enjoyed it just as much.

A meal made by my mom and I

We take away a lot of things from our upbringing, some of them we realize and many of them we don’t. I know for certain that without those nightly meals I would be a very different person, and I wonder if I would take as much pleasure from food as I do. I hope that many of you were as lucky as I was in these nightly dinners, and if you weren’t I hope you are doing your best to introduce them into your lives. I can promise you that it is worth it.

Happy Mothers Day to all you moms, I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing day, preferably with someone else fixing you a great meal.

Rediscovering A Writing Passion

2011-04-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

For a while after finishing college I seemed to have lost my creative fuel and motivation when it came to writing. Since I had so many other things going on, what with trying to figure out how to be an “adult”, I did not put much thought or worry into the fact that I no longer wrote. I figured it was probably a natural progression of things, and if I had the urge I would just start writing again. My biggest error was in not acknowledging the amount of creative stimulation I was surrounded by in school, and the fact that my own creative ability needed to be fed regularly.

I know that some people have the discipline to get up every morning and utilize a scheduled writing time, every day, whether they are in the mood for it or not. Though this method is not for me, I definitely see the value in it, and it sure beats ignoring your craft for years as I did. While in school I had the constant creative energy of writing workshops and discussions, arguments about politics and life and eternity. Upon graduation I abruptly found myself without this constant fodder and instead of actively seeking it out I just let writing fade out. My other problem was that because my main writing outlet had been poetry I never actually tried to branch out into other styles. If I wasn’t writing poetry then I was just not meant to be writing at the time. I know, I know stupid.

It took not having so many distractions for me to notice that I was really lacking without having writing in my life. When I started this blog I tapped back into that passion and I have not started seeking out more sources. When I started reading “Will Write for Food” by Dianne Jacob, I got a little giddy. As far as I can tell this is the only book around at the moment that is strictly about the act of writing about food, and though at times it is a little quote heavy, I find reading it to be pretty darned similar to being in a college writing class. Not only is it a trove for other food writers, whose names I have been scribbling away on random scraps of paper to be added to this blog, there are also great ideas and writing exercises. For someone who has been missing the stimulation of the classroom this book is perfect.

The beauty of all of this, the blog and now reading the book, is that it has a snowball effect, I am now looking into taking a one day food writing workshop with one of my favorite local bloggers Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic, and seeing what else is out there. Hopefully, more books on the subject will start coming out, and there will be more workshop in my area. Though none of it will compare to the pleasure and privilege of spending large portions of my days on writing and talking about writing as I got to while in college, I am thrilled to have the act of writing back into my life. For those of you that write, what do you do to keep the wheels constantly moving?

Some books you may enjoy:

Shop Indie Bookstores

You Do Not Remember (A Quick Food Rant)

2011-04-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

As you can rightly assume I have read a lot of food books, some of them have been incredible some of them have been horrible and many have filled the spaces in between. Though I won’t give a book a bad review on here, I will share with you one of my pet peeves when it comes to food writing, something that comes up in many, many food books good and bad. The writers declaration at the beginning of the book of their kitchen/food memory at 2 or 3 or 4 years old so eye opening that it was life changing and as a result they are now a cook, restaurateur, food critic etc.

1. I don’t think you can have life changing experiences at such an early age, because you have not yet cultivated a life to change

2. I am sure many will disagree with me but I don’t think we are paying that much attention when we are that young to each individual experience. At that age everything is incredible and brand new. Your first time making cookie dough does not decide that you will be a cook, though when you become a cook you may look back on that time fondly.

3. It may be a good start to a book but I don’t think you actually remember these things from when you were that young.

This probably bothers me more than it should but as I said, I have read a lot of these books and this theme is annoyingly recurring.

I have an incredibly good memory, a trait that at times I love and at others I (and my husband) wish I could shut off. I do have memories from 2 & 3 years old, though they are very quick little snippets, not whole scenes with scents, flavors and thought processes. I do not have an early food memory that I credit my current love and interest on. My childhood was surrounded by food: a mother and grandmother that took pleasure in cooking, and a father that took pleasure in eating. I can’t say that I ever really noticed though, it was just always there and I took it for granted. There is no doubt that my upbringing has brought me to the point that I am today, and I have lots of great memories of cooking with my mom, and eating with my family. I won’t be starting a book, or a blog, out with my baby memory that changed my life though.

Healing/Cooling

2011-04-19T11:38:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to California I was unemployed for a little over six months. I had expected that it would take me a little while to find a job, I mean we did decide to move during a slightly precarious time in this countries economy. I was not prepared though, for how hard this would be on me. Rob found a job rather quickly and needed the car to do it so I ended up on my own with no way to get anywhere. I was already pretty fragile due to my fear from the move and the fact that I did not know anyone here in California, so I had to be extra careful with myself.

Anyone that has been unemployed for an extended amount of time knows how damaging it can be and also how boring. Before my move I had worked two jobs for three years leaving myself with only 1 day off a week. During that time I dreamed of having extended time off and all of the things that I would do with all that time. I can now say that all those imaginings are a crock, I never did any of those things. What I did do was sit on the computer and watch TV a lot. I often felt guilty about my lack of contribution to the household as Rob worked his butt off, yet I could never seem to find the energy to carry my share. I would scramble around the house in the hour or so that Rob was to get home from work trying to do a days worth of chores and cooking so that he wouldn’t think I had spent my day doing what I had actually spent my day doing.

Rob was at as much of a loss as I was, and was doing his best to be as careful with me as I was. Neither one of us could do much about my employment situation, but we could try to fill my time. He brought me home tons of figs, peaches, pomegranates and persimmons from the farm he was working on in the hopes that the foreign to a New Yorker bounty would catch my attention. I won’t be so quaint as to say that cooking healed/saved me, though I think for many it can. I did learn the importance of simple things though. A lot of my unemployment was spent during the hottest months of summer in a pretty hot area of the country, so the foods I was drawn to and the ones that made me happiest included very little cooking and tended to have a cooling effect when eaten.

Some of my favorite healing/cooling unemployment foods:

Gazpacho,
Fig and lemon jam
Plate of hard boiled eggs with cut up veggies and cheese
Fresh tomato, Mozzarella and Basil sandwiches

I find when times are tough we seek out simple things to latch onto, so that although we may be surrounded by difficulty and our mood and emotions seem out of our control, we still have this little thing to find pleasure in. I am sure I will have many more instances in my life where things will be pretty darned tough, that is the nature of this glorious life, but I do know that eventually I will get out of them and I will usually emerge with a few more recipes and favorite foods. I will also say that knowing that is no consolation while these things are actually happening.

Some foodie books I enjoyed while I was unemployed:

Born Round: the secret history of a full-time eater by Frank Bruni
The Feasting Season by Nancy Coons
Bento Box in the Heartland: the Japanese girlhood in whitebread America by Linda Furiya
The Big Oyster: history on the half shell by Mark Kurlansky

I'm Back!!

2011-04-18T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hello?

Is anyone out there?

You all had every right to abandon me but I hope you haven't. My bank statement says that this new computer better mean that I will not be leaving you again anytime soon. For those of you that didn't hear, a few weeks ago my computer crashed, and though this was not a huge surprise it was still pretty darned inconvenient. The fact that I went as long as I did without a computer is pretty impressive I think (my husband rolls his eyes at this).

So what did you miss?

My parents first California visit
Our first Spring barbecue
My surprise birthday trip to Santa Cruz
A food tour in San Francisco
My first official wine tasting in CA wine country
A food discussion/panel here in Sacramento

Yeah, it was a busy couple of weeks, is it possible that without a computer I had a little more time on my hands?

So with that list to start us off, which of those events would you like to hear about first, or at all? I have also been doing a lot of reading as well so there will be plenty of book talk as well. I have to admit to you that though I remember to take pictures while I am cooking I rarely remember to when I am out experiencing and so there are very few photos of any of these events. I know, I know I really need to work on this but in the meantime I am sure I will think of something.

I missed you all and I am so glad I am back. Be prepared for some proper catching up in the next week or so!

Excuse the delay

2011-04-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

You will all have to forgive me for the delay in posting. My computer has crashed and I am in the process of getting a new one. I hope you won't forget me, and I promise that once I get my new computer I will have lots of new books stories and foods to share with you. Just stick with me!

An Embarrassement of Mangoes

2011-03-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned a few months ago I decided to join two online book groups, one I have posted about the last few months but the other, Cook the Books, I had not gotten a chance to do until now. Of course, I am still posting on the very last day possible, but I enjoyed the chosen book “An Embarrassment of Mangoes” so much that I wanted to make sure to get one in this time. Enjoy. To check out everyone else’s reviews and recipes click here.

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Besides the fact that I stuffed my life, cat and husband into the car to move across the country with no actual plan set up I am not normally an overly adventurous person. I like security and plans. So, the fact that Ann Vanderhoof’s memoir “An Embarrassment of Mangoes”, seriously had me contemplating the merits of learning how to sail just so Rob and I could go live on a sailboat all over the Caribbean is a pretty good testament to how inspired I was by this book. If I had not already made my move, this probably would have pushed me over the edge.

Ann and her husband Steve made the major decision to leave behind their lives and successful careers in Toronto to spend two years sailing from Canada through the Caribbean. Early in their plan making you get the feeling that this is more a push by Steve than Ann, Ann seeming to be the more schedule/plan oriented of the two. But, once the wheels start turning they never stop and seven years after they first throw the idea out there they are sailing away from their jobs, friends and families towards a complete unknown that will leave them forever changed. The woman that you meet at the beginning of this book is not the same woman that you leave as you close the last page, and every moment of her transformation will leave you wanting to make one of your own.

You will quickly get wrapped up in their adventures as they learn the ins and outs of what it means to truly live on a boat. The space constraints and scary night sails are balanced by the fresh caught fish for dinner and the incredible community of fellow boaters that quickly takes them in. Vanderhoof has a great ability to fully engage you in her life and you find yourself just as entranced by what they are eating for breakfast as their first experience at Carnival.

Ann’s appreciation of food and her ability to cook under any circumstances (I can only imagine the size of her “kitchen” on the boat) make every edible moment of this book an adventure of it’s own. Thankfully, from my point of view, there are lots and lots of edible moments here. Each chapter is followed by a recipe, and each recipe will have you wondering which of the ingredients you can find where you live, so that you can try them out.

I changed what I would be making many times as I read this book and in the end I am trying a bunch of the recipes. As I wandered through the market earlier this week my eyes caught on a Papaya, and immediately my memory was dancing through the pages of Ann’s book, papaya salsa, papaya banana muffins! The fact that I have never even cut into a Papaya was thrown to the wayside as I thought about the amount of new foods that Ann and Steve tried on their adventure, if they could do it on their boat I could do it in my apartment.

Luperon Papaya Salsa

(recipe page 101)Which we served over swordfish alongside Bahamian Peas 'n' Rice (recipe page 64) and Steve's 'Ti Punch (Recipe page 149)

1/2 Large Ripe Papaya, diced (about 2 cups)

1/2 Cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced

1/2 small red onion, thinly slice, cut into rings and halved

3 Tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 small red hot pepper

1 lime, juiced

3 Tablespoons fruity olive
oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Combine the Papaya, Cucumber, Onion, Cilantro, and Red Pepper. Set Aside

2. Whisk together the olive oil and half the Lime juice. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss with Papaya mixture.

3. Taste and add lime juice accordingly.

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Awaiting The Flavor Of Spring

2011-03-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

The amount of things that I found to worry about before actually making the move to California was irrational. Now that I have accomplished the move I can look back and say that most of my worries were silly, or have been proven unnecessary. One of my big worries was the loss of Spring in New York. I had this same worry about Fall, and though you only caught me at the end of it (if you have been reading the blog from the beginning that is) I can confidently say that I have not missed out by moving to California. Spring is a different issue, it is by far my favorite season, the one that I look forward to the rest of the year, and the one that I daydream about when I am struggling through hard winters. Can a California Spring really compare?

If you have never lived through a bad East Coast winter I don’t think you could understand the ridiculously giddy elation that comes with the first hints of Spring. You act differently, you find yourself with ADD like symptoms. This is when people skip class or call out from work, find themselves driving past their home exit just because the sky is blue and there is a good song on the radio. I am getting a jittery feeling in my belly just trying to describe the feeling to you. In short, it is incredible, or at least it was for me. This is also a pretty good indication of just how much I hated winter. Here lies my dilemma, was my love of Spring tied to my hatred of Winter or can I still experience Spring in the same manner here in mild California?

I will admit that the intensity of my emotions as Spring arrives is not at the height that it would hit in New York, but my emotions are also not swinging so wildly from one extreme to the other. Sacramento’s winter never dragged me so far from my Spring bliss, so, though I find myself thrilled by the season, it is not the same overwhelming experience as I am used to. I can’t say I am disappointed by this.

There are a few foods that I associate strictly with Spring, and I look forward to them all year. Artichokes and asparagus are at the very tippy top of that list, the first time I would see asparagus at the market in New York would be the first time I could breath properly. Here it is a little different, my two favorite veggies snuck up on me, I was not even ready for them. The official first day of Spring had not even arrived yet, and in New York forecasters are still droning on about yet more snow, and yet here in Sacramento there they are, the trumpeters of Spring. I can now add Strawberries to my list as well, apparently here in Sacramento they are one of the first signs of the change to the season as well and I am happy to welcome them.

So, Happy Spring everyone, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. For my readers in New York, I know that the official (calendar) first day of Spring is a complete joke to you, but you and I both know how incredible it will be when it does actually get here. Know that you earned every minute of it. I will say that when Bon Iver came on the radio today and I had an incredible blue sky stretched out in front of me I had that urge to just keep on going.

Roasted Baby Artichokes

I leave this recipe pretty vague intentionally, you can do a lot of tweeking with this and have great results, so enjoy!

After following this very handy tutorial for trimming baby Artichokes from Saveur

Toss your baby chokes with some salt and olive oil and chopped garlic and roast in a 400 degree oven until tender (covering with foil part way through if they start getting too brown)

I recommend tossing in a few cloves of unpeeled garlic, the experience of breaking open a roasted garlic clove with your teeth is one that should not be missed, the creaminess and flavor of the garlic is incomparable.

Eat these as a side as we did, or toss them with some pasta, either way they are great!

Simplicity: Tender at the Bone

2011-03-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

It is no secret. I love, love, love Ruth Reichl’s books! If you remember my very first blog post, I mentioned that I became comfortable with my decision to move here when I found, Comfort Me With Apples, at the thrift store near my house. I have read each of her books, though out of order, at least twice, and I have enjoyed each reading greatly. It is not lost on me that she has spent a chunk of her life in both New York and California and has very strong feelings for both states. This month the book group I am in decided to read, Tender at the Bone, Reichl’s first memoir of her childhood and early adulthood.

As with all of her memoirs food is interwoven with every event of her life, sometimes shaping and other times accenting the tumbles and tribulations of her story. Though always told with a hint of humor we quickly come to understand the difficulty of being raised in a household with her manic depressive mother, and see that cooking became a means of survival for Reichl. A young Ruth took it upon herself to be the protector of the guests as her mother would consistently serve them food unfit to eat. She explains her mother as “taste blind and unafraid of rot”, someone who refused to waste food, even if others would consider it spoiled. Though the stories are always entertaining I found myself continually feeling bad for this young girl, it was not till later that her mother was labeled “manic depressive” and even with the title I doubt it helps the daughter any.

We get to travel with a young Reichl as she visits France for the first time, to Montreal where she is randomly banished to a boarding school, her college years in Michigan, and as she eventually finds home in Berkeley California living in a commune. For me, reading Reichl gives me the push I sometimes need to try that next thing that comes along, she makes you ask yourself, why not? Though things always seem to work out nicely, nothing ever seems handed to her, and you can tell that it is her adventurous spirit that draws the many good things into her life.

If you are like me and read her books out of order, you have still missed nothing. Towards the end of, Tender at the Bone, Reichl starts her path as a restaurant critic, a life choice that both her other books, Comfort Me With Apples, and Garlic and Sapphires, focus around. As you learn about her life growing up, and her many food adventures the woman that she is now (or at least the one she represents herself as in her books) starts to form and make sense. The adventurous eater, and descriptive writer all start to take shape as you read on through this tale of “growing up at the table”. Because, Comfort Me With Apples, was not only the first of her books that I read, but also the first foodie book I ever read, (sending me on quite a journey as you can see) I will always have the softest spot for that title of hers, but so far all of her books have been well worth the read. I am eagerly anticipating her next book, rumors have it that it will be focusing on her time as editor of Gourmet!

Now for the recipe:

I married a very simple man. I mean that in only the most positive way. Rob finds happiness in many places and it really does not take much to please him, the simplest things can make his whole week. I envy him this trait and am continuously trying to learn it from him. As I read through this month’s book I was trying to decide what I would be making from it, until I reached the very end, where the last recipe was for deviled eggs. It is the most uninteresting and unexciting recipe in the whole book, and I knew without a doubt that it would make Rob’s day if he came home and I had made deviled eggs. To him deviled eggs are for special occasions, parties, picnics, and gatherings. They are not something that you get on a regular old workday Monday. I could not resist. So, sometime soon I will probably flip back through the pages of this book to make the "Oleron Berry Tart" or "Claritha’s Fried Chicken", but tonight it shall be Deviled Eggs. Here’s to the simple things. Enjoy.

A Happy Rob and a curious Kitty

To read what the other members of the book group had to say about this months pick check them out here.

Marion’s Deviled Eggs

Reichl talks about her friend Marion saying she “had reinvented herself in middle age and did not seem to think there was anything remarkable about it”

4 hard boiled eggs

¼ cup mayonnaise

1teaspoon cider vinegar

1 teaspoon ballpark mustard

salt and pepper to taste

Shell eggs, cut carefully in half lengthwise, and put yolks into a bowl. Mash the yolks with a fork until they are smooth

Add remaining ingredients and mix well. The mixture should be thick and creamy.Fill each egg white half with the yolk mixture. Grate a bit of pepper on top. Refrigerate until needed.

Makes 8 deviled eggs, or about 6 servings.

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The Biggest Shame of a Foodie

2011-02-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

Most foodies don’t like to admit to not eating certain foods just because they don’t like them. Somehow they think that this lowers their credibility, and granted if your list is very long it will, but for the most part we can’t all like the same things. If we all had the same taste experiences with every food I doubt that there would be nearly as many different types of food. So, for that I am grateful.

The color won me over

My mind has always been intrigued by this concept, that although two people may be eating the same dish and enjoying it, they are both having a completely different meal depending on how their taste buds work. I believe it was in Mimi Sheraton’s memoir, Eating My Words: an appetite for life, where she discusses actually having her taste buds tested, and was relieved to find out that her taste receptors were average, exactly where you would want them to be as a food critic. I have the feeling that if my taste buds were tested I would not land in the comfortable average area.

The dish is mine the glass is Robs

Through the last few years I have made it my goal to go through every food that I thought I did not like, and make sure that I still did not like it. For the most part this project has been successful, I now have no problem eating fish, and have discovered that I like Pacific Salmon much better than Atlantic. I love cilantro, and my dislike of Hollandaise Sauce was the fault of a bad cook not a bad recipe. I am still not a fan of red peppers, I feel they take over the dish, but now I don't avoid eating them as I once did.

I have two things I still have not been able to cure myself of. Growing up my parents did their best to get me to drink milk, and I did my very best to get out of it. From knocking over my glass, to leaving a bit of broccoli floating in it making it undrinkable, I would do anything to avoid drinking that disgusting stuff. My parents finally gave up and added orange juice with calcium to the nightly ritual. I still have no interest in drinking milk straight and honestly don’t feel that I am missing out on anything.

Proof for my parents, I do
actually enjoy Salmon

Spicy foods are a whole other matter. I know I am missing out some of the time, and it drives me nuts. Believe me I have tried, and though I can take slight spiciness now, I have not been able to get myself very far with this one. I have mostly accepted that this is just the makeup of my taste buds and there is not much I can do about it. There are so many dishes, and sometimes entire cultures, that I am missing out on and if there is a way to train my tongue to like spicy foods I would really like to know about it.

So there you have it, I have admitted my dislikes, and I still have the nerve to consider myself a food person. You will have to forgive me if you never see a recipe or reference to glasses of milk and spicy foods on this blog, but you can trust me to always go into eating with an open mind, and to try everything I don’t like more than once.

Will any of you admit to your food dislikes? Are there foods that you thought you hated that you ended up loving?

Some books you might like:

Are you Really Going to Eat That? Reflections of a culinary thrill seaker by Robb Walsh

Fork it Over: the intrepid adventures of a professional eater by Alan Richman

Hugh Fearlessly Eats it All: dispatches from the gastronomic frontline by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

How We Eat: appetite, culture, and the psychology of food by Leon Rappoport

We're Famous!

2011-02-23T17:35:00.000-08:00

Well a little. Doug Gruse, (my very favorite) reporter from the The Post Star did an article on The Literary Foodie blog! As you can imagine I am more than a little excited about this, and even though I knew full well that it was happening it still felt like a big surprise. I think it was really well done and I hope you will all go check it out. This has turned out to be a very good day indeed.

Blogger serves literary dish

The Art of Equipping a Kitchen

2011-02-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

Rob and I decided not to rent a moving truck, or even get a roof rack when we moved, instead we crammed what we could inside of our Chevy Malibu and sold everything else. We had some boxes of clothes and other light things mailed to us once we were settled, but for the most part we pared down to the bare essentials. Being who I am about 50% of what was in the car came out of the kitchen: the wine and martini glasses I did not trust to ship, the All Clad cookware that I loved too much to let out of my sight, the hefty cast iron Staub pot, my grandmothers china, and the list goes on. We had gotten married less then a year before our move and our families and friends had generously updated our kitchen arsenal to items that may very well last the rest of our lives, so there was no way we were leaving any of it behind.

Our moving sales were pretty incredible, the type I am always on the hunt for yet rarely find. How we had fit all of that in our tiny apartment I have no idea, but it sure did help pay some of our moving costs. For all of the kitchenware that we kept we also sold a lot, and for the most part I don’t miss any of it. I think of certain items from time to time, why I got rid of the avocado slicer when I was moving to avocado territory I don’t know, it’s not like it would have taken up much room. Other things I find myself looking for, digging through drawers having forgotten that I no longer own them. The rest: the ice cream maker that I never used, the bread maker that I used when I first got it and then forgot about, the mini Staub pots that I loved because they were adorable yet never once used, had to be left behind to support the (moving) cause, and I don’t find myself missing them. Having to sell off a good chunk of my book collection was a whole other matter, and one that I am quite scarred by.

If you read my post "Foodie Thrift Store Find (of the Year?!)" you know that I am a thrifter, I love going to thrift stores, and garage sales finding the perfect things for very little money. It is one of the reasons that I have such a fun kitchen arsenal. If you are a thrifter you know that you see certain kitchen items everywhere you go: the bread machine and ice cream maker noted above, both found brand new at thrift stores and sold by me still brand new, are two of the most common. When you start seeing them that much you know odds are you will probably never use them either, a lesson I am still learning.

All foodies have a kitchen wish list, often changing depending on what kind of food faze they are going through. I have started to notice that if I am patient I will almost always find the things on my list at thrift stores or garage sales. Rob and I just got our first juicer which we are really excited about, found at our local thrift town (never used) for $10.00. Last month I found a yogurt maker for $4.00 still shiny and new but missing one lid. Being a soup lover I have had an immersion blender on my list for quite a while but it never seemed to make it to the top, that is until I found one at a thrift store for $2.00, the fact that it was hanging with the curling irons really worked in my favor. I am still bitter about the $75.00 Kitchenaid mixer with all the attachments that I didn’t have the money to buy last fall, and I know it is one of those things that will stay with me for a very long time. You don’t let a Kitchenaid mixer pass you by!

For many, kitchen items are a fad or a passing fancy, they buy them because they are popular or they have these big ideas of how they are going to change their diets, and then they sit around in a cabinet until someone thinks to donate them. There I await, ready to use them but never willing or able to pay full price. So I am grateful to all the magazines and cooking shows that convince non-cooks to purchase all the fancy cooking tools that they will never use, and I am even more grateful to those non-cooks who have the sense and courtesy to donate these items. Now if someone would just donate a food-dehydrator (preferably this one) I would be all set!

If you are so inclined check out:

Alton Browns Gear for Your Kitchen by Alton Brown

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In the Hands of a Chef: the professional chef's guide to essential kitchen tools by The Culinary Institute of America

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Cook's Tools: the complete manual of kitchen implements and ow to use them by Susan Campbell

Warmans Kitschy Kitchen Collectibles Field Guide by Brian Alexander

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New Titles

2011-02-20T17:31:00.000-08:00

one of the major reasons that I started this blog was that I really felt there should be a resource for people to go to find titles of food literature. Having been a food lit reader for years I was always having to search all around the Internet and Amazon, and once I had read all the really popular titles I really had to dig to find new ones. In the last few years the genre has taken off adding lots of new titles and yet there still was no place to go and find them. So, I took on the project, knowing full well how never ending it would be.

I happen to enjoy searching around looking for new books, and the fact that I work in a bookstore and the public library I am in a very advantageous position to hear about new titles. The piles of sticky notes and random scraps of paper around my house attest to the fact that I am always finding new titles! Today I finally sat down and added a bunch of new titles to the Fiction, Memoir, Mystery and the newly renamed history/politics list, and I added a whole new list of food movies!! There are still plenty more titles, and I will continue adding them as well as searching for ones that I have not found yet. I hope if you all come across titles that I don't have on my lists you will pass them on to me, I can always use the help. Anyway, I hope you enjoy poking around and checking out the new titles, and if you are anything like me you will be stocking up your Netflix que with some new movies!

The Food of Love ( Happy Valentine's Day)

2011-02-14T15:58:00.000-08:00

Food has this awesome ability to take romance to the next level, accompanying our emotions with flavors and mouth sensations that stay with us sometimes longer than the lover. I have had the good fortune of sharing some incredible meals with my husband, and many of our favorite memories occurred over, with or while making food. I have a list of foods that immediately come to mind when I think of romantic foods: Oysters, artichokes, lamb, most things eaten with your fingers, brie and bread (so often eaten while lying in the grass). Some of these are cliché (oysters) others personal favorites (artichokes), making me curious what everyone else's lists look like.

What would you say is a romantic food? Is this personal or one you think is common?

Some good books linking romance with food:

Aphrodite by Isabele Allende

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Chocolat by Joanne Harris

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The Food of Love by Anthony Cappello

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Keeping the Feast: One couples story of love, food and healing in Italy
by Paula Buttini

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The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto

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Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

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The Feasting Season by Nancy Coons

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Trail of Crumbs: hunger, love and the search for home by Kim Sunee

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Anyway, no matter where you are or who you are with I hope you all have a wonderful day today and hopefully there is some great food involved!

Pick Your Damn Fruit or How I Love Winter in Sacramento

2011-02-06T22:30:00.000-08:00

I can’t really explain to Californians what would happen to me come February in upstate New York, hell I could barely explain it to New Yorkers. I told a coworker here that Glen’s Falls hit -30 Fahrenheit recently and he just looked at me wide eyed, the thought of 10 degrees is unfathomable to him so anything in the negatives is a joke. I want to be him so badly.

By this time of year I would normally stop caring, I wouldn’t go out much, and I would spend most of my time reading or watching movies, just waiting for a Spring that would be months away. Underneath all of this uncaring would be a desperation to get away, I started looking at apartments in California about five years ago, the search always starting around January. Sure, everyone would complain about the cold and all the snow, the cities inability to properly take care of snow removal, but I knew most people did not feel the way that I did. Even Rob, though happy to be in California could have stayed through many more winters with no ill effects. For me, I knew that life is too good to go so many months each year hiding from it. For some winter could be a lot of fun taking advantage of all the activities you can only do that time of year, for me it was a torture that came each year and seemed to get longer and longer.

So here I am, on a beautifully sunny day on February sixth, with my windows open singing along to Sublime as I slice fresh oranges, mandarins and tangerines that I picked up from the farmer's market. I can take the rainy days, the clouds that come and go here because they are not non-stop and they don’t keep pushing me further and further down.

With all of that said, I acknowledge that I am viewing everything here in Sacramento through the eyes of someone that might be wearing rosy glasses. It is our first winter here, and it is an incredible experience for someone who has only known Northern East Coast winters. But that is no excuse for the shear obliviousness that some Sacramentans show to their good fortune. There are orange, mandarin, lemon, grapefruit and just about every other citrus tree you can imagine growing all over this city. Most are in people's yards, some line the curbs downtown, and more populate the city parks. And beneath most of these trees lays rotting fruit, ignored and underappreciated. Sacramento, you have the ability to grow this fruit that the rest of the country uses as a life raft to get though winter, pick your damn fruit!

I understand that many of you cannot keep up with the bounty of your trees, but there are plenty of us out here that would be happy to take some of the fruit off your hands. There are great resources like Craigslist, freecycle and more recently neighborhoodfruit. On all of these sites you can post your fruit and offer picked fruit or even allow others to come pick your fruit. I know you are all used to having these trees around, I am sure you do not point out each citrus tree you see (as Rob and I still do giddy with the knowledge that we live in a place that this is even possible), but you should still know that you have got something good going here, and all of the bounty should be treasured. So please Sacramento, for everyone that is suffering the foot upon foot of snow that is hammering a good chunk of the country this year, I repeat, pick your damn fruit!

Knowing that I was planning on making these candies, Rob has diligently carried his fruit peels home from work in a ziplock bag, eagerly anticipating a new treat. He has been so good at this that I have more than double the amount that I actually need. I plan on using some of them to make orange sugar, as well as orange extract. Any other ideas, recommendations?

I mixed steps from a few different recipes and added a few touches of my own, feel free to mix and match as well. I was inspired by the recipes from recipesexpert and simplyrecipes

Candied Citrus Peels

Scrub Oranges (or any citrus fruit, I used a mix of naval, mandarin, blood oranges and grapefruit)
Slice peels into thin strips, if you are worried about bitterness remove as much pith as possible
Soak peels for about 4-5 hours (or overnight) in a salt water bath (2 tablespoons of salt to each quart of water
Rinse thoroughly
Cover with water and bring to a boil
you can repeat this step a few times, I did it twice I saw others recommend more depending on the thickness of the peel
For each cup of peel add 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar
I added 1 clover honey stick for good measure, this is entirely optional
Simmer peels in sugar mixture till it reaches your desired flavor, taste every 30 minutes or so, it can be a few hours depending on the bitterness etc.
Roll peels in sugar coating evenly
Place strips side by side on a cookie sheet and put in a warm oven until dried.

Enjoy!

Once dry they can also be dipped in semi-sweet chocolate if you want to take it to that level.

You also now have an awesome orange simple syrup.

This Life That we Make or A Homemade Life

2011-01-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

As I recently mentioned I joined an online book group and handily the book this month was by one of my favorite bloggers Molly Wizenberg, author of the endearing food blog Orangette. I read her book, A Homemade Life, for the first time a few years ago and rereading it now has proven to me yet again that there can be great pleasure found in reading a book at different stages of your life. In the time since I last read her book, I have not only moved across the country, but I also got married. Somewhere in these events my way of relating to Molly in, A Homemade Life, has changed. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the book the first time around I found myself skimming certain sections that at the time I thought were kind of boring and now I know I was just not at the point in my life to relate properly to what I was reading.

I found in both readings that Molly Wizenberg is a very open writer, making it very easy to relate not only to her life but also her stories and “characters”. By giving you quick peeks into so many different parts of her life, from her family, her years living in France, meeting a man through the comment pages of her blog, Wizneberg grabs onto the readers attention. I found, A Homemade Life, to be a perfect book to curl up with a cup of tea and read a day away, surfacing once in a while driven by her food descriptions to go scavenge in the fridge. At the end of each chapter the reader is rewarded with some incredible sounding recipes, such as: Fresh Ginger Cake with Caramelized Pears, Butternut Soup with Pear, Cider and Vanilla Bean, Caramelized Cauliflower with Salsa Verde and Custard filled Corn Bread. If those recipes don’t make you want to pick up this book I don’t know what will. I will say, now that I have read the book twice, that I think I am currently at the perfect stage in my life to get as much as possible from this book. I am very curious to see if others felt the same way.

At first trying to decide which recipe to do for the blog was almost impossible and with each chapter I read my decision changed. The descriptions and recipe choices featured in this book are all really tempting and I doubt you will get through the book without marking at least a few. Timing worked out on my side and I finished the book right before my New York House guests arrived. As Rob was working on their first morning here breakfast was on me and I immediately thought of

Molly’s recipe for Dutch Baby Pancakes. Not only did I have all the ingredients but it seemed the perfect breakfast for two people suffering from jet lag and awakening to their first California morning. The only changes I made were to use 5 eggs, because mine were small, and to use a 12-inch cast iron skillet because that is the size that I have. Though the recipe says it serves 2 the three of us had plenty with Sausage and berries along side. I am happy to report that both guest really enjoyed their breakfast and I think it was a pretty great way to kick of a vacation.

To read the other group member reviews and see which recipes they tried out go to the group site This Book Makes me Cook.

I also highly recommend checking out Molly’s blog Orangette where you can see even more of her recipes and read more about her life since, A Homemade Life was published. According to her most recent blog

post she has another book in the works which I am really looking forward to.

Enjoy!

Here is the recipe straight from the book, if you would like to see it on her blog along with her writing to go with it you can click here.

Dutch Baby Pancakes With Lemon and Sugar

From A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

For the pancakes

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) unsalted butter

4 large eggs

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup half-and-half

¼ teaspoon salt

For the Topping

freshly squeezed lemon juice

powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat the oven to 425F

Put the butter in an 8-inch cast-iron skillet and place over low heat.
Alternatively, put the butter in a similarly sized cake pan or pie plate, and place in the preheated oven for a few minutes. As the butter melts, use a pastry brush to coax it up the sides of the skillet.
Meanwhile, in a blender, mix together the eggs, flour, half-and-half, and salt until well blended.
Pour the egg mixture into the warmed skillet. Slide into the oven, and bake for 18 to 25 minutes.
The mixture will rise and puff around the edges, like a bowl-shaped soufflé. The Dutch Baby is ready when the center looks set and the edges are nicely risen and golden brown.
Remove from the oven. Drizzle-or splash, really; abundance is good here- with lemon juice and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar. Serve immediately.

Yield: 2 servings

Some Things to Look Forward to, and January at the Market.

2011-01-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

One thing I really miss from Glens Falls, NY is the foodie book group I ran at my old job Red Fox Books. I had the pleasure of being a part of this book group for over two years and I had a wonderful time reading, eating and chatting with some great people. To take something so solitary as reading and make it a group undertaking is a great pleasure and one that I miss. Not to mention the relationship you forge with people over good books and food.

As far as I have looked there is not a foodie book group in Sacramento, though there is a group for “regular” fiction that I hope to start attending in February. I have found two different online foodie book groups for bloggers that I have decided to take part in. Obviously being a part of three book groups is a bit extreme and not something I plan on doing every month, but I hope to always take part in at least one and maybe more depending on the books we are reading.

The first, This Book Makes Me Cook, and the second, Cook the Books Club, have the same concept where groups of bloggers read the same book, blog about it and link to each others blogs. Cook the Books club is a little different because each month there is a judge (sometimes the author of the book) that will pick a winner for that month. If you are interested in joining or just want to know more about the groups please click on their names to go the sites.

So you now get to look forward to reading my book group interactions, including thoughts on the books I read and experiments with food from the books. Feel free to read along if the fancy strikes you, I will try to keep you updated on the future titles.

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On a completely separate note, Rob and I made it to the Sunday farmers market in Sacramento and were yet again blown away. It has been a while since we were able to make it to the market, so we did not have the highest of expectations for a market visit in mid January. Ha, were we wrong!! If you have been to a market in New York this time of year you know that the selection is pretty slim and often markets don’t even go through the whole winter.

As we walked up to the market the smell of citrus hit us full on before we even saw the piles of oranges, mandarins, lemons and grapefruits. Some other great surprises were bags of kiwis, baskets of intense smelling strawberries, and of course lots of greens and root vegetables. I also say a vendor selling raw milk, which kind of freaked out my New York brain (where raw milk is illegal to sell). I will have to look into the many things I can do with raw milk, the first thing that jumped into my head was to make cheese. Any ideas or tips?

This market definitely makes me so excited that I live here, and I always leave in a great mood with plans of meals and treats dancing in my head. Farmers markets are one of my favorite things to visit and wherever I go I always try to seek one out. I think it tells you so much about the place that you are visiting, and you get to see a view of real life that many tourists tend to miss. In my travels the market in Montreal has stayed one of my favorites. Where is your favorite farmers market?

My favorite find this week which we did not buy but did get to try was Blood Orange juice, which blew my mind on a few different levels. The Blood Oranges we got in New York are nothing like the ones that we have here and I am a bit resentful that I have been missing this flavor from my life all this time. Oh, January in California you are my friend.

New York Dining Companions

2011-01-17T16:31:00.000-08:00

(Pictures to come when the New York photographer recovers from jet lag)

You will have to excuse the gap in posting but Rob and I had our first New York house guests staying with us for the last two weeks so we have been pretty busy. We had a lot of fun sharing Sacramento and San Francisco with my mother and sister in-law, and I think they had a good time getting to know our new home. Though we had lots of support in our move it was still pretty hard for our parents to embrace the fact that we were moving all the way across the country, so the first visits are really important. We need to show them that we are doing well and that we made a good choice. The fact that New York has been getting slammed with snowstorms these last few weeks definitely helped our cause as well.

We did a lot of sight seeing, much of which Rob and I never got around to when we first moved here like; touring the State Capitol, checking out Sutter's Fort and the State Indian Museum. Along with the sightseeing we ate, A LOT. Most of our time in Sacramento has been spent being very careful with the money that we spend so we have not gone out to eat very often. Having guests gave us the excuse we needed to finally try out some of the restaurants that we have been ogling the last few months. Restaurants say a lot about a city, the different ethnicities represented and the importance the residence put on food.

Some of our meals included: Kangaroo, Yak and Wild Boar burgers at the Flaming Grill Cafe(Kangaroo was my favorite), an array of Tapas in midtown at Tapa the World, a lunch focused on fresh ingredients (the meat had never seen the inside of a freezer) at Gatsby's Diner, and a very laid back meal at the Delta Bar and Grill which sits on the beautiful old Delta King riverboat floating in the Sacramento River. There were plenty of others but those were some of the highlights, and the ones that I think we sent them back to New York talking about.

There is nothing comparable to sharing a really good meal with people that you love, especially when it has been a while since you have been able to do it. If you have been reading this blog you have noticed the recent holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas were sans extended family, and though we had a great time we definitely missed seeing everyone. So, it was really nice these last two weeks to be able to sit around a table with family, chatting and trading stories as we shared food from each others plates. It is something that makes moving away hard to do, because for a while you will be without those type of experiences.

Also, having tried so many new restaurants I can now say for certain that we definitely made the right choice in Sacramento, because there is some awesome food!

If you read food writing I am sure you have read plenty of books on the restaurant industry. Some of my favorites include:

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: the romantic, impractical, often eccentric, ultimately brilliant making of a food revolution by Thomas MsNamee

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bordain

Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch

Spiced: a Pastry Chefs True Stories by Dalia Jurgensen

I am Resolute

2011-01-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

I have always had mixed feelings about the act of making New Years resolutions. I mean, sure it is great to set goals for yourself and to always strive to make yourself and your life better, but starting each year with a list of “demands” for yourself seems a bit much. Life tends to be pretty stressful all by itself, with deadlines and expectations and the like, so why in the world do we start off the year (often within the first hour or so) with this list weighing on our shoulders?

Don’t get me wrong I have made many, and am always cheering on those that are trying to accomplish theirs, I just don’t think it is for me. Rob asked me on Saturday what my resolutions were, and, after giving him my lengthily speech, I realized that he and I are kind of exempt from the tradition this year anyway. The sheer act of starting out a New Year in California is a pretty good start, it seems to me that almost everything we do this year will be new, exciting and life changing. So, as I see it, we don’t need any resolutions, our lives are changing all on their own!

I am pretty excited about everything I see in my immediate future: the new library job, the foodie blogger book group that I joined (you will learn about this very soon) my soon to arrive New York visitors, and on and on. So, this year I don’t feel any need to add additions onto my life they seem to be coming all on their own.

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you are as excited about it as I am!

Dare I ask what your resolutions are?

Notifications

2010-12-30T08:24:00.000-08:00

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am very much learning this whole blogging thing as I go, so, some things that seem obvious slipped by me as I was setting up The Literary Foodie. One of those obvious things is the option to receive email notifications each time there is a new blog post. Though you would think so, becoming a follower of the blog does not actually send you any notifications. So, without further ado, for those of you that are interested in being the first to know my thoughts and musings, you will now see an option to enter you email on the right side of the screen. Hopefully I did it right and you will actually start receiving notifications. I would appreciate it if someone would let me know that it is (or is not) working! Are there any other options that I am missing on here that you would like to see?

Portable Traditions

2010-12-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

I have always considered myself a habitual person that has a need for comfort and predictability. I have been told by many close to me that this is the way I am and it is something that I have always embraced. Though I do like my certain habits and comforts I am beginning to question this label that I have been toting around for so long. Everyone, myself included, was waiting for a bit of a meltdown when I moved across the country leaving behind everything that I knew. The meltdown never came. The same went for Thanksgiving and Christmas, both times I was prepared, so much so that I started psyching myself out, and the days came and went and I had a great time. I am now starting to think that though those things might have once been true for me, I have become stable and secure in myself to handle the changes that life throws out.

I have also learned that, for me, having portable traditions is a very comforting thing, especially around the holidays. Of course there were plenty of things that I missed about spending the holidays in New York with my family, but I was able to continue many of the traditions that I hold dear right here in Sacramento. For our first holiday season here in California my husband and I were not really sure what to expect, so we fell back on some favorite traditions to give us that bump of holiday mood that the (50-60 degrees!) weather was keeping from us.

One of the more intricate and delicious of my family traditions is the feast of the seven fishes on Christmas Eve. There are a few theories of where this tradition came from, most coming from a religious stand point, but for me it is just a wonderfully over the top meal that you don’t do any other time of the year. Following the rules completely you are supposed to make seven different dishes each with a different type of fish, but since it was just the two of us we had five dishes one with three types of fish.

I was working Christmas Eve until 7 (oh retail) so Rob got to do most of the fish shopping. I was actually pretty jealous, he went to a great Asian market in downtown Sacramento and got most of the fish right there. He came home telling me all about the tanks of live fish, and I can’t wait to take a trip to this market. Grocery stores can be quite a field trip for Rob and I!

Turned out to be my favorite

Our menu consisted of:

Smoked Salmon on rye and Caraway seed crackers with herb chevre

Seared Scallops over a salad of mixed greens and herbs with a balsamic reduction

Steamed clams in a White Wine, Garlic and Parsley broth

Spaghetti allo Scoglio
Boiled crabs with garlic and butter dipping sauce (eaten in the dark thanks to our power outage!)

All the color comes from the shrimp heads!

All in all our meal was fantastic and a lot of fun to cook together. The evening was slow and languorous, as we chatted, cooked and ate with no pressure. As we found with our Thanksgiving meal (you can read about here) there was a lot of pleasure to be found in the intimacy of a holiday with just the two of us.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and are all gearing up for an awesome New Year. And as an homage to my fishy celebration here is some equally fishy reading:

The Big Oyster: history on the half shell by Mark Kurlansky

Shop Indie Bookstores

Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky

Shop Indie Bookstores

Sex, Death and Oysters: a half shell lover’s world tour by Robb Walsh

Shop Indie Bookstores

Hope you Enjoy!

The Baking State of Mind

2010-12-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

I never fully realized just how much your state of mind truly affects your baking. Sure it affects your cooking in general, but baking just tends to be a bit more sensitive and really shows when something is off. I honestly can't think of a time where everything that I was trying kept failing. Of course recipes go bad, it happens to all of us, and I have definitely forgotten a major ingredient or step before, but these are usually isolated events. Oh, the holidays! I can think of a few books that acknowledge emotions affecting cooking and baking, Like Water for Chocolate, is first to come to mind. At least my stress isn't showing up in my food to make my guests sick!

I didn't think much of it when the caramels I tried to make didn't turn out, that was just a bad recipe, and my second attempt was just a shot in the dark anyway. But then came the failed coconut bars, and finally the safe standby, my ginger spice cookies that I have been making for years. I am pretty sure that if I had continued attempting recipes my predicament would have continued. There was a bit too much of a trend there for me to for me to just brush it aside as nothing. I have never worked retail in such an exhausting and crazy environment, and both Rob and my schedule have been overlapping badly lately causing us both to constantly go out of our way adding longer hours onto our already long days. It is also possible that the amount of rain we have been getting has been affecting pressure/moisture in the air in a way that I am not used to.

Whatever it was I had to take a few days off from baking to let things fall back into whatever place they need to be in so that everything does not keep failing. Sadly though this does mean that the packages that I sent out were a little lighter than planned, but I am still pretty proud of myself for getting them out at all, I have always been a holiday procrastinator and since almost all of my things have to get mailed to New York I had to get everything done and out by Monday. The Post Office did not seem to care that I was having kitchen dilemmas and needed more time.

There is a holiday dessert potluck at work today so I am up early preparing to take another stab at my ginger spice cookies. I will also be bringing some of the peppermint bark as well (Rob made that and it turned out great) so if the cookies fail I have a backup. I have cleaned the kitchen and made sure I have all my ingredients and utensils ready. Hopefully, with the calm of the morning my kitchen juju will be all healed so that I can get back to one of the best and busiest baking/cooking times of year. Wish me luck!

Anyone have a kitchen fail story to share? I am sure I am not the only one this happens to :)

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Update:

I am happy to report that my cookies turned out perfect and were the first ones gone from the potluck. All is right with the world!

I Will Make it Feel Like Christmas!!

2010-12-16T00:24:00.000-08:00

Being a New Yorker in California is proving to be a surreal experience during my first Christmas here. Today (December 15^th) was in the mid 50’s and just a few days ago we were inching towards 70, not only is the thought of snow a joke but Rob actually donned his shorts last week! I did not realize how much weather told time for me until I moved here to Sacramento where the weather does not match the time that my body expects it to. Christmas is only ten days away and judging by the weather it feels as if I still have another month or so. I can only imagine that it will take a few years of living here to really get used to this, and I may never get all the way there.

This is my fourth Christmas working in retail and for those of you that have had the pleasure of this experience you know that it changes the way that you view, and feel about, the holidays. Not only do I get to see the more unpleasant sides of this time of year (I lost count of how many angry/disappointed people I had to tell that the Mark Twain bio was sold out today) but I am also overworked and exhausted. This leads to a real lack of interest in holiday festivities.

This year it is only my husband and I on the holidays, a first ever, so I am a little worried about becoming melancholy. I am trying to counter this by finding holiday things that work around our crazy schedules and are forgiving of our energy level. Thanks to Google I was able to find out where the best neighborhoods are to drive around to see Christmas lights, and this handy site has told where I can watch all my favorite holiday movies.

We have also decided to do a bunch of holiday baking and candy making which has been fun and has the best rewards at the end. This week has been pretty hectic with both jobs overlapping and Rob and I sharing the car, so today demanded some more relaxing baking. We decided to make Peppermint Bark and Salted Caramels, the main component of each consisting of us standing side by side at the stove stirring and watching our pots bubble merrily away. I am sorry to say I can’t think of any books that really focused on candy making, if you can come up with some let me know!

I have made caramels once before, so this time I knew that I would be standing and stirring for quite a while. My first time around I was so sure I was doing it wrong and the stupid line on the candy thermometer refused to budge. Caramels are not something that you make often, they are time consuming, but if you only make them once in a while the pleasure of the finished product is more than worth it. My first time around I used a recipe from Mark Bittman’s, How to Cook Everything, but since my cookbook is still packed away this time I used a recipe from the blog The Comfort of Cooking (please read my update before following this recipe, you can thank me later). These are taking forever to cool and it is pretty late so I am not going to get to try them until tomorrow. I really hope they came out good, since I didn’t get to use the recipe that I know works great and Caramels can be such a finicky candy. I will let you know in the next day or so.

I have never made Peppermint Bark, and though I feel like I must have at some point, I can’t remember having ever eaten it either. While ringing customers out I overheard someone ask my coworker if we sold peppermint bark, he told them that we didn’t and, being a foodie himself, proceeded to tell them how easy it is to make them. I don’t know if those customers took his advice but I did, and I can happily say this is one of the easiest holiday treats I have ever made. Though I pretty much went word for word from my coworker’s description, I did use this recipe as a back up. These are all finished and taste great, though I think next time I will add peppermint extract just for the extra kick.

This weekend I have a little more time on my hands so I am looking forward to doing some actual baking ( and hopefully more blogging). I hope you are all enjoying the buildup to the holiday season, and you are all treating your retail workers kindly!!

Do you have recipes that you only make during the holidays, or treats that you look forward to all year?

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Update
12/16/10

OK, so I really hope none of you have attempted to make Salted Caramels from the recipe link that I gave you because if you did you would have ended up with a half hardened very sticky mass of caramel. I should have double checked with another recipe because the temp did seem a little low, but I thought what do I know I have only made caramels once. Well, once was enough to know that cooking the caramel to 225F on your candy thermometer is not going to do you much good when what you want to cook it to is 250F.

I took it in stride though, and did not let it ruin my spirit. Instead I covered my hands and arms in caramel as I attempted to remove the wax paper backing from the caramel so that I could cook it again. I won't tell you how long that little endeavor took me, just trust me that you are glad you read this before making your caramels. Now my second attempt is cooling in the fridge (minus about a quarter of the original caramel). If this attempt does not work out I throw in the towel until next year.

I recommend finding the recipe for caramels in Mark Bittmans cookbook, like I did my first time around. That batch came out so perfectly I feel as if now I will never make them that good again.

Eating The Books (Or at least from them)

2010-12-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, by this point, you have all at one time or another tried a recipe from a book that you were reading. Maybe it wasn’t even a recipe, just a dish that a character talked about that you then had to go figure out how to make. We have all been there: an author describes a food in such a way that you want it right then and there and you will do whatever you have to, to get it. Sometimes this is as easy as going into your kitchen and whipping it up, other times it is impossible, with ingredients that are completely foreign to you or that were made up to begin with.

I remember my earliest frustration, one which I think I shared with many: wanting Turkish Delight after reading C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and having no idea what they were or where to get them. It wasn’t until years after reading the book that I found and tried Turkish Delight in Canada, and after that long wait they were not worth it at all. Honestly, I wish they still lived only in my imagination.

More and more authors are having the foresight and courtesy to include recipes with their wonderful descriptions. Though I have had a few incidences of these recipes being complete failures (a love of food does not necessarily mean an ability to cook) usually if a recipe makes it through the whole writing, editing, and publishing process you can trust it. Sometimes it is a hassle to go to the bookshelf that holds your fiction and memoir books to leaf through and try to find recipes though. I assume most of you, like me keep your cookbooks separate from your other books, most likely near the kitchen. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone took all those recipes and made them into their own books?

Well, it seems a few other clever individuals thought this was a good idea too, and they took it a few steps further and actually did it! After a little field trip to the library I have collected a pretty good collection of those type of cookbooks, and after a little research have found the titles for a whole bunch more. Some of the recipes are from books about food, and some are just inspired by favorite stories and characters. Personally, I hope to permanently add to my collection both, The Book Club Cookbook, and, The Book Lover’s Cookbook. These two are not only great resources for recipes to try and books to read, but their eclectic mix would keep kitchen boredom at bay for quite a while.

Those I found at the Library:

The Cat Who… Cookbook

by Julie Murphy & Sally Abney Stempinsky

Over 200 recipes and menus inspired by Lillian Jackson Braun’s beloved bestselling mysteries

Lobscouse & Spotted Dog

by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman & Lisa Grossman Thomas

A Gastronomic companion to the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian

The Book Club Cookbook

by Judy Gelman & Vicki Levy Krupp

Recipes and food for thought from your book club’s favorite books and authors

The Book Lover’s Cookbook

by Shaunda Kennedy Wegner & Janet Kay Jensen

Recipes Inspired by celebrated works of literature and the passages that feature them

The Jane Austen Cookbook

by Maggie Black & Deirdre Le Faye

Recipes from Jane Austen’s household and time period

I couldn't resist

Do you have any literary inspired cookbooks?

What about books that you wish had cookbook
companions?

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T11:09:00.000-08:00

After finishing the prep last night for one of the biggest meals of the year, I realized just how lucky (and happy) I am to have a partner that I have the pleasure of cooking side by side with. It may just be the two of us on this Thanksgiving in California but the pleasure of the meal and the company is no less than if we had our whole clan here with us.

I am taking a break from cooking now, listening to Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe and watching the moisture drip down the living room window. I hope you all have a wonderful meal today and that you take pleasure in your good company.

On The Menu

Salt-Roasted Turkey with Lemon & Oregano
Greek Inspired Fresh Oregano and Giblet Pan Gravy
Mashed Garlic, Rosemary and Butter Red Potatoes
Rosemary Bread Stuffing with Prosciutto, Fennel and Lemon
Orange Cranberry Ginger Relish
Roasted Brussels Sprouts w/Cranberries, Bacon and Pecans
Shallots in Thyme Wine Sauce
Italian Marinated Mushrooms

Pumpkin Mousse Parfait

Ginger Snaps

Spiced Pumpkin Hot Chocolate w/rum

What's on your menu?

Thanksgiving Prep 2010

2 New Yorkers get a Fall re-education (Apple Hill Adventure part 1)

2010-11-20T18:23:00.000-08:00

There is no a doubt that when “winter” arrives in Sacramento I will be thrilled that I decided to move here from upstate New York. Fall on the other hand is a whole other ball game and something I have been worried about since early summer. How could it ever compare to the incredible experience of living in the Adirondacks and Berkshires this time of year. Did they even know about cider donuts here? What about pumpkin lattes?! These are the thoughts that put me into a panic, and if you have lived in some of those leaf peeping Meccas, you would understand.

September brought days in the hundreds fueling my fears and adding to my doubts, the leaves were neon green showing no thoughts of desertion. October brought some potential but still very little compared to what I was waiting for. As October faded into November I started noticing something strange; it seems the trees do not all change at once here, instead, like proper Californians, they take their time languidly varying hues hitting every color stop along the way, often taking turns with their neighbor trees.

Now we are barreling towards Thanksgiving and I can happily say that Fall is all the way here and looking the way that it should (in my mind anyway) though with much more comfortable temperatures than what I have been accustomed to in New York. This past week we decided to fully embrace fall by going on an Apple adventure to Apple Hill in Camino, CA. We caught Apple Hill at the end of the season and in the middle of the week, so it was not overly crowded and we got to really take our time chatting with the different purveyors. We also tried Cider donuts at each place that had them, and gave them stars (as only snooty know-it-all New Yorkers could) from 1-4 depending on proper sugar covering and flavoring, temperature, cake crumble, and proper frying.

After spending the day happily tasting different wines, apples, donuts and so many more treats, seeing all the different sights and being “leaf peepers” we headed home with an oh-so-worth-it sugar bellyache and concrete evidence that Fall does happen here. Driving back to Sacramento we were greeted by the kind of sunset that you always seem to get on vacation, the kind that engulfs you with its beauty and it never seems to end as it changes over and over morphing from one color extreme to another. Yeah, we made a good move.

So Sacramento does have Fall, though it may not be the same overwhelming experience of New York, it is a Fall that is very California and one that I am going to enjoy getting to know. It also seems that northern California does know how to properly celebrate fall, cider donuts and all, and we New Yorkers can get over ourselves and embrace our new home.

Random thoughts for a Saturday afternoon

2010-11-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

"Close you eyes, and open your hands, and I will give you a big surprise” she would sing as she walked down the stairs from her bedroom. My brother and I would stand eyes squeezed shut, hands cupped in front of us giggling and waiting. There was no surprise, we knew exactly what was coming as she placed green foil wrapped Andes chocolate mints in our hovering hands. Nana always kept a box of Andes "hidden" in her dresser drawer, and throughout my childhood this rhyme always meant that we would be getting a chocolate treat. I can’t say that I ever loved these candies and if I did not connect them to my Nana I would probably never seek them out, but with this memory I am always happy when I see them.

Rob brought home a box of fancy peppermint chocolate truffles yesterday and they have me thinking of Andes chocolates and Nana each time I eat one. So many of my memories with Nana are tied to food and sitting at the table, I just wish I had been as into food as I am now while she was still alive. Yes, I loved eating, but I had very little interest in cooking or learning about food. There are so many things I would ask her now that I never thought to when I had the chance.

Writing the last post on recipes had me thinking about the fact that I don’t seem to have any family recipes, either from my grandmother or my mother. There are certain recipes that I watched my mom make often enough that I know them by heart, but there are so many that I have no idea about. I find family recipes to be incredibly important to pass down, as important a tie to your family’s history as stories. I think I will have to make some moves to remedy this situation, especially once I have my fancy new recipe holder.

Trying to contain the madness

2010-11-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

I have recently decided to take on my recipe collection and move it into a more manageable format. I have the irritating feeling that this is something that I will be doing over and over throughout my life, similar to the never ending search for the perfect purse. I am sure that I have plenty of company when it comes to scrambling around trying to find that one recipe that was so good! Or, something I do often, find a recipe online that you love and not saving it, leaving yourself to keep trying random fish taco recipes for years never sure if they are the ONE.

I have a pretty admirable cookbook collection that is always growing, and having been a bookseller I have a very specific way that these are all arranged so that I can easily find what I am looking for. Whenever I bring a new cookbook home I quickly sit down to read it, usually the whole way through (I know I’m a dork!) and I put markers on pages of recipes I definitely want to try.

My problem is not the books but the loose recipes, from magazines and printouts, and the many saved recipes in my favorites tab and recipe folder on the computer. This is one of the only things that, for a few different reasons, I don’t like using the computer for. I have no interest in having my laptop in the kitchen with me, just asking to be spilled on, dropped or somehow burned, so storing my recipes on the computer just doesn’t work when it comes time to cook from them. I have found that all the recipes I have saved on the computer I tend to forget about and never end up making anyway. I have also been utilizing the public library and the extensive cookbook collection that they have, writing down the recipes that I know I want to try.

So, I have recently started poking around the Internet to see what my options are and I ended up drooling over all the different types of recipe binders, boxes and journals that there are out there. I am worried that I am going to end up with something that is pretty to look at and that will look great in my kitchen but will end up as something that I never use. I am prepared to spend the time at the beginning to gather all my recipes from their current homes to shepherd them into to the new digs, but once that is done I want it to be easy to add all the future recipes to my family.

I also have the other option of making my own, sort of scrapbook style, but I question whether I will do this. I don’t want to spend lot’s of time making something pretty to then have it get all grody and food spattered in the kitchen.

Being that we are still on a pretty tight budget I have a while before I need to decide on (and actually be able to buy) my new recipe holder. But, unlike most areas of my life, I have been having fun planning ahead and pondering the possibilities. Have you found a foolproof method of storing your recipes? What works best for you?

From the page to the screen

2010-11-08T17:09:00.000-08:00

It seems that when it comes to translating food lit to film, sensuality is key, not only with the food but with the characters. There is no doubt that the love of food tends to bring out the passionate nature in a person, one which happens to transition beautifully onto film. Though it is a small genre, I think it is one that has a hearty following and, like food lit, is having a bit of a revival. Most people, whether they consider themselves “food” people is irrelevant, have a favorite food movie: Big Night (1996), Babette's Feast (1988) and Like Water for Chocolate (1993) have been some of the most recommended to me.

This weekend I had a bit of a foodie movie marathon, focusing on movies adapted from novels. Two I had seen before, Chocolat (2001) and Like Water for Chocolate, the third, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976) I had never before seen the movie or read the book. I usually try to avoid seeing a movie before reading the book, but I have the feeling that I won’t be getting to this book for some time so I broke my own rule.

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Chocolat, from the novel by Joanne Harris, is the only movie of these three that did not include any truly sensual scenes between it’s main characters, but since Johnny Depp was one of them I think they can get away with it! The birthday feast for Armande’s (played by Judi Dench) is one that I think stays with anyone that has ever seen the movie. The pleasure shown in the cooking, serving and eating of that meal is by far one of my favorites.

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Like Water for Chocolate, from the novel by Laura Esquivel, is a foodie classic and should definitely be seen by anyone interested in the genre. It is so chockfull of incredible food scenes I can’t pick just one to recommend, you have to see them all! The sensuality throughout this movie, as with the book, is nonstop and makes the rest of us look pretty boring in comparison. Oh unrequited love! Think Quail in Rose Petal sauce as the edible translation of love.

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, from the novel by Jorge Amado, is definitely the most sensual and least food oriented of the three. Though the main character runs a cooking class and, you are made to believe, spends a lot of her time preparing food, there is very little focus on the food. I understand that the book does go more in-depth with recipes and whatnot, but as with the movie it is more about love/sex than food. There is definitely a bit of humor, and it got a lot of attention when it was released, but I would not recommend as a foodie movie.

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Since I did a little research I will pass on to you my new list of (adapted from the novel) food movies:

A Good Year (2006)

Babette’s Feast (1988)

Chocolat (2001)

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976)

Eat Pray Love (2010)
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

The Joy Luck Club (1993)

Julie & Julia (2009)

Like Water for Chocolate (1993)

The Mistress of Spices (2005)

Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (1978)

That is all I have so far, I hope you will let me know of any others!

This got me thinking about which books I wish they would make into a movie and my list includes:

Taste’s Like Cuba by Eduardo Machado

The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber

Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl

Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks

and

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister

Now, if only they would make a foodie dancing movie, I think I would be set!

Which food lit titles would you like to see as movies? Also, now that I have made these lists I have started compiling a list of food movies (not just novel adaptations) would anyone be interested in a tab on the blog for movies, like the others I have for books?

Foodie Thrift Store Find (of the Year?!)

2010-11-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

If you have not figured it out already I am a thrift

store shopper, I just love all the possibilities you have when you go into a thrift store. You are not tied down by current trends and fads, and (the best part) I can usually afford just about everything! Thrifting has been great for outfitting my kitchen, from those specialty gadgets that I can never afford in the kitchen stores to unique dishware that makes my table stand out and my food look fabulous.

I discovered something at the local Thrift Town that trumps many of my great finds for the year, a foodie board game!! Spices of the World: the McCormick Spice Trading Game, was put out by McCormick Spice Company in the 80's and whoever owned it before me either never played it or took very good care of their board games because this not only has all the pieces but is in pristine condition, it even has the registration postcard to mail in!

I have yet to figure out all the rules to the game, there are a lot of them, but I have had a blast looking at all the different pieces. A lot of detail went into the making of this game and I have to wonder if it was for a special McCormick anniversary or something. Even the little playing pieces have actual spices inside, there is: Mustard Seed, Dill Weed, Paprika and Rosemary. Each spice card, 38 in total, has a recipe on the back that highlights that spice. A few of those are; Lobster with Vanilla Sauce, Apple Cider Squash, Saffron Rice, and Poppy Seed Dressing. I can't wait to try out a few of these just to see if they work!

This is definitely one of my favorite foodie thrift store finds of all time, I can't think of anything more unique that I have found, and this is a great example of something you would never find in a "new" store. I should mention that it was 99cents too, you can't beat that! What are some of your favorite foodie thrift store finds?

Happy Halloween!!

2010-10-31T13:19:00.000-07:00

I-man investigating the bounty

As I stare into the fridge

2010-10-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have two extremes when faced with the prospect of cooking for myself (and only myself): I either get excited and creative, concocting something new that will last me a few days, or I get pouty, waiting until my stomach begins to hurt before I start banging cabinets and opening and closing the fridge door. Granted this can happen when my husband is at home as well but the experience of cooking for one and eating alone is something all its own.

This seems to be a subject of some curiosity to many, as shown by the books “Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for one and Dining Alone” edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler and “What we Eat When we Eat Alone: stories and 100 Recipes” by Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin. Both books are collections of stories about the experience of cooking for one from the cabinet bangers and the excited folks that look forward to making exactly what they want they way they want it. They explore the pleasures of being able to cater to our every gastronomical whim and also the concoctions we will eat alone that we would never eat in front of anyone else (or even tell them about).

The majority of my experience cooking for one was in college where a meal of ramen (the 25 cent packages!) was acceptable and often showed up more than once a week. That being the case, I have found myself ill equipped for the many nights I have found myself cooking for one, thanks to my husbands new job. I am more than a little ashamed to admit that I did try the ramen again (the price has gone up), and although I had the sense to add a few things to it, something I never thought of in college, it is really not a suitable meal for someone who claims to be passionate about food. So I am learning.

Because my current situation has me eating alone for a few days in a row, I have learned to set myself up ahead of time. Roasting a chicken for my husband and I the night before sets me up for chicken and rice or soup that will last me a few days. In her book “The Gastronomy of Marriage: a Memoir of Food and Love” Michelle Maisto talks about how she misses the food that she ate alone and how now some of her favorites are her husbands least. She finds herself looking forward to cooking her meals for one, and in suite I have started to think of the foods that I like that I cook less (or not at all) when it is the two of us.

I love soup, all kinds all seasons, it makes me happy. My husband less so. It’s not that he doesn’t like soup, he like’s it fine with a meal. To him a bowl of soup with a side of crusty bread is not a whole meal and to me it is The meal. So, on my days alone soup has played a starring role. I have also found that soup is the kind of dish that I look forward to making, thinking about it throughout the day, mentally adding and taking away different ingredients. Now that we are in California we have such an incredible amount of fresh local produce just begging me to be made into Minestrone, Gazpacho, Potato Leek….. I could go on and on.

I will admit that I now have days that I am thrilled to eat alone, so that I can eat exactly what I want, when I want and while doing whatever else I might want at the same time! On the other hand, I will probably always have my days where I have no interest in dealing with food and since there is only myself to answer to I just don't bother. I'm OK with that.

So, what kind of food do you cook when you are alone? Are you a pouty cabinet banger or an excited planner?

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And so I begin

2010-10-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

In May, 2010 my husband and I moved from upstate New York to Sacramento, California. We moved here on blind faith; neither of us had a job, we didn't have an apartment and we didn't know a soul. Like the many that have come before us, all we had (or needed) was the naive assumption that it would all work out. Slowly and surely things are starting to work out, but, they are definitely taking the slow road. Once we found an apartment my husband quickly found work, leaving me jobless and bored, with way too much (alone) time on my hands.

A few weeks in and starting to feel lost and unsure of the decisions I had made, I wanted to re-read, “Comfort me with Apples” Ruth Reichl’s second memoir about her time living in California and getting into the food scene. I was hoping that reading this would boost my spirits and inspire me to start my new Californian life. Not only was this one of the first food related memoirs I have ever read, getting me entirely hooked on the genre, it has also continued to be my favorite. Because my copy was packed away in a box in New York, I decided to walk across the street to the Goodwill with the sole purpose of finding this book. If you are a used book shopper you know, as well as I do, that you cannot go into a setting like this assuming that you will find exactly what you are looking for. If you do this you will constantly be disappointed. With that said, I not only found, “Comfort me with Apples” but also a stack of other foodie memoirs! It was at this moment that I knew that even if I had no job and no friends I had made the right choice by moving here.

The fact that finding a certain book in the Goodwill had the power to squash most of my fears and insecurities about my move should give you a good indication of the type of person I am. I can and will talk about books and food constantly, often wondering if my listener is just being polite or if they are actually as interested in these things as I am. Thus, I start a blog. I assume that if you continue reading, you are interested, and if you are only semi interested you will jump around only reading parts.

My goals for this blog, (because as with any project I feel I must start with some) are to be able to not only share my love of food literature, but also to make the process of being a food lit lover easier. I have spent an incredible amount of time tracking down titles, and though this is a process that I happen to love, I have always felt that there needs to be a place to find a comprehensive list. My list will never be complete but I am going to do my best. I will share my thoughts on what I am reading, and also my attempts at following the recipes that are scattered throughout the stories. Occasionally there will be random thoughts on my food life in Sacramento, as well as books that may have nothing to do with food that I just happen to really like.

Whether you are a little interested or a lot I hope you enjoy my musings and gain a few things from my plethora of food lit information. If you have questions or need recommendations please feel free to ask!