Taster Spoon

Happy All Saints' Day!

What did you do for Halloween? 

Tuesday night Ace and I watched The Ring.

Wednesday and Thursday I tried to keep up with the Kitchen Cure, but it's getting the better of me.  Our kitchen is seasonally-appropriate: horrifying.   

Friday night we had a game night with very rummy spiced cider (with shrunken heads) that devolved into pretty raucous karaoke, but we haven't heard a peep from the neighbors, so it seems like they've given us a free pass.

What did you go as?  I recycled last-year's costume.  (Before that I had gotten three years' wear out of a chicken costume that originated when "avian flu" was still a thing, mainly because a lot of work went into it, but it was time for something fresh.)  It was store bought.  I kind of feel like it's cheating to wear a store-bought costume, but this one makes everyone happy so I make no apologies.

 

What's that on my feet, you say?  Yes!  Our friend who is a sexy French maid has her birthday on October 30 so this year she organized a roller skating party on Halloween.  Is that not the bestest?

Frenchie was unable to attend our wedding last month because on the very same day, she and her husband Chief were renewing their vows and baptizing their daughter Genevieve.  

Genevieve!  Also the bestest!

Frenchie and Chief have the greatest party ideas.  Their backyard wedding last year included a self-serve ice cream bar, salsa lessons, a hula hoop contest, and a fire juggler.  Possibly the most fun wedding Ace and I have ever been to.  Frenchie has previously thrown trampoline parties, trapeze parties, you name it.  Her mom mentioned that she'd had a pitch black party where the only light came from everyone's glowstick necklaces.  Saturday was par for the course, with a costume contest as well as roller skating.  

Reno 911, here in a death spiral with Frenchie, was the crowd fave.

Frenchie and Chief also tend to collect really open, welcoming people, so even though Ace and I didn't know anyone but them, we immediately felt included.

Included in the roller train!

 

It  was a good time all around.  Then Ace and I went to a Halloween feast at Rad and Victor's, where there was a very small fireman named Austin and a princess named, oh shoot, what was her magical princess name? 

Sunday Ace and I sailed, hoping that the next time we do we will pass our basic cruising certification practical test, and then be only one course away from being able to rent a boat in Croatia or some such.  Finally.  Then, since we were in Oakland already, we stopped in at the house of friends who just bought a house/had a baby and were captivated.  Srsly, babies everywhere.

Last night we tried watching Night of the Living Dead, which neither of us had seen, because it's supposedly on that Top 100 Movies of All Time list...but I got fed up with how useless all the women were and we turned it off.  I guess I'll have to watch the last 45 minutes just to check that off my list. 

Next up: Turkey Day. 

Speaking of which, I'm thinking of quitting animals again.  We've been veg at home for about four weeks now, ever since getting another one of those "if you only met them, you wouldn't eat them" pamphlets at the Strictly Bluegrass festival.  Nothing I didn't know in there, but a reminder that I do basically agree with the sentiment.  And then a friend posted the NYT excerpt from Jonathan Safran Foer's new book as a Facebook link, which made me think about, you know, integrity and what have you.  I'm not eeked out by animals (like us) eating other animals, it's the abuse associated with factory farming that turns my stomach.  So I'm game for making exceptions for meat where we have knowledge of where (whom) it came from, but know that those occasions, practically speaking, will likely be rare. 

Then again, if industrial husbandry were my issue, I'd swear off eggs and dairy, too, which I'm struggling with.  I hate that free range eggs and sympathetic dairy are so hard (and expensive) to come by; they do have eggs (with photos of the happy scratching chickens) at our Sunday Far Mar, but we've been so busy we haven't been to it in a month and anyway the eggs are about a buck apiece and sell out in the very early hours.  I'm annoyed that things I think our grandparents took for granted as cheap and plentiful are now so scarce and precious.  Of course, you know what this means: Eglu. 

I've put the book on my Amazon wish list (I order only once I've accumulated $50 worth of merchandise, you know, for the free shiping).  Anybody else newly affected/motivated?

Hi, guys!

I've been mighty busy and out of town over the last several weeks, and work has been pretty consuming.  Both in actuality (real work that requires real time) and in my head (guilt that all spare time should be directed to working). 

But today I was shamed into showing my face for a moment.  I was reminded that I do actually have 'material' that I'm looking forward to sharing (such as my recent travels) and there's no reason I can't shoot off a hello every now and then. 

I could protest that my life story has unfolded on Facebook instead of here, but that's not even true.  I update seldom, and when I do, it's not usually pertinent to...anything real.  Example: A couple of days ago I Facebooked that I had consumed one of those Digestive Yogurts.  Commence the snickering comments concerning the well-being of my gastrointestinal tract. 

But the backstory is simply that I went to the dentist last week, and when I go to the dentist I have to take a bunch of antibiotics so I don't die.  And my mom always used to say that when you take antibiotics you kill all the good bugs as well as the bad, and therefore you should replace them by eating yogurt. 

So I thought I'd buy yogurt with extra bugs and lo, Activia and its Yoplait competitor were both half off so I basically walked out of Safeway with a one month supply. 

If you must know, GI-wise, I'm actually shooting for twice a day!  So there.

In related news, our CSA started up again last week!  Our pickup day switched to Friday, and I spent a pleasant Friday evening chopping off stems and blanching greens and whatnot so it all fits in the fridge.  Having to do that every Friday evening has potential to be a drag, but it's still fresh and new for now.

They sent us a great recipe for parsnip soup that I made, and for all it is shockingly easy, it tastes unusual (parsnippy) and luxurious:

Grate a mess of ginger (1-2 T) and saute it in a saucepan till fragrant.  Dump in a mess (4 cups) of peeled and chopped parsnips.  Add a quart of chicken stock.  Heat until the parsnips are very soft.  Whip it all up with an immersion blender (my favorite kitchen toy) and add about 1/4 cup of cream.  Salt and sugar to taste. 

I have read that parsnips are of questionable healthiness because they contain arsenic or cyanide or something.  But I guess apples do, too.

To your health!

How green is my lifestyle?

It's not.   I mean, Bike to Work Day yesterday was okay, but Bike Home from Work Day was super painful.  I didn't realize how bruised I'd gotten on the way in.  The lesson?  Ride your bike all the time or not at all.  Or buy a big padded saddle.  Incredibly, I haven't been on my bike since my race in Florida last November.  I thought maybe I'd forgotten a ride or two, but when I pulled out my bike the number was still on it.  Sad.  Obviously, this falls far short of my bike-to-work-once-a-week resolution.   

The no-purchases resolution also went by the wayside pretty early, but I've held on to some happy habits.  I've been very attentive to my use-up-what-I've-already-got goal, working through disfavored shampoos and hotel complimentaries...and I'm about a week away from buying my first shampoo and conditioner for the year.  Although I want to give baking soda and vinegar a shot for a week and see whether it's as good as claimed.  Sounds tangly.  (I tried those baking soda/hot water and baking soda/vinegar solutions to unclogging a drain, and they did squat.  Ace called in the big guns when I wasn't looking.)

I also now try not to weigh people down with Stuff when I have to give a gift - I still go with edibles and drinkables and spa treatments.  People who already have a lot of stuff and people who prefer to have no stuff both seem to appreciate it. 

The community garden thing never worked out, but I'm delighted with the way the CSA membership has shaped up.  I'm still not wild about some things (bitter greens), but I've adapted to others (tumbleweed),  been surprised to enjoy others (raw baby turnips eaten out of hand - so sweet and delicious!) and the summer bounty, whew.  We get strawberries every week, y'alls. 

And remember how I planted all those flowers and weeds?  It turns out you can eat Johnny Jump Ups as well as geranium flowers and nasturtiums - and I guess the dandylion leaves I accidentally ate are actually full of Vitamin C - and I've been making fancy pants salads with them.  The rose and lemon-scented geranium petals are amazing.

(Dressing = 1 part walnut oil, 1 part white wine vinegar, 1 part Torani pomegranate syrup.) 

I've been really proud of my firm, too.  We did away with bottled water several months ago, and now, in this heat wave, we're putting all the lights on the lowest power setting and closing our blinds to "reduce the solar load."  Does walking around in dark hallways feel like we've entered a depression already?  It does, a little.  But mostly it makes me happy that the powers that be are actually taking steps, rather than just paying lip service to being green. 

Of course, not everything is top down.  On the day the bottled water disappeared, we were given personal water bottles to refill at the tap.  Me:  Really?  More plastic?  Ten other voices: Oh no! The wrong type of PVC!  Throw these away!  We need new water bottles!  We ended up getting more glasses in the cupboard, which is a good thing, but then this week we were handed plastic cups full of candy to remind us to be sweet to the folks in our summer program.  Within minutes I received an email warning me not to drink from it.

Just goes to show, the power of the internets.  I emailed some friends this article on people stealing gas, and one emailed me back that she'd just called to have a lockable gas cap set aside for her at a shop in Redwood City.  I felt bad.  Am I just fueling the hype?

Maybe it's always been this way, but it does seem like the media lately seems to be composing the narrative, rather than merely observing it, creating self-fulfilling prophecies.  The economy, the election process, the pendulum swinging from optimism and a renewed desire for community to hopelessness and looking out for number one.  I'm not above it.  Heck, who just bought a 25 lb bag of brown rice last Friday?  Who decided not to give those lumpy pillows to Goodwill after all, in case of having to take in neighbors, in case of the apocalypse?

Are we on the verge of disaster?  Is this the beginning of the end?  Or is it the same as it ever was and it's all just a matter of selling newspapers?  Maybe it's too much to ask that consumers of the media look askance at it; what's the alternative?  Blogs? 

If you can't be with the one you love

Or, if you didn't get the vegetables you love (nope, no asparagus yet), love the vegetables you get!

Shiitakes!

So I've been putting into action that plan of eating a thing until you're used to it, and it seems to be working.  We got another load of agretti, and I tried a few more recipes until it was, dare I say it, tasty.  Most appealing was this one:

Basically, you blanch the agretti in boiling water, then make a hot bacon dressing as for one of those spinach salads.  I got past the non-leafy (what I thought was creepy) texture by treating them as green noodles, and it made all the difference.  I was really psyched to be over this particular hurdle.

We got through all our greens by Sunday evening, and I actually had to go buy more to tide us over.

We'd been backing up on fennel, though, but I found this recipe for the bulbs, I think on epicurious.com, and made it Sunday.  It's fantastic, and so easy.

Cut off the fennel tops (which I've used in stock, and the very fluffy bits of which make a beautiful, fresh, green tea that is supposedly good for your digestion).

Quarter them.

Put them in a pan (this is three bulbs' worth).

Sprinkle on some olive oil and turn on the heat to medium-low.

Pour on generous splashes (a half cup to a cup) of white wine and of chicken stock (I fudged the amounts and proportions), and throw on a generous sprinkle of salt.

Cover, bring to the bubble and simmer for 40 minutes or so until the bulbs are tender.  The recipe said to turn them frequently, but I forgot and turned them once in the last 10 minutes and  it didn't seem to matter.

They look limp and not very colorful, but they taste fantastic.  I expect these would be good served atop orzo or another pasta, especially with the sauce (which remains very liquidy) reduced and a sprinkle of parmesan.  But definitely garnish with parsley or something, because they are very blah looking.  (They taste just as good as leftovers, but go even greyer.)

Summer, anyone?

Remember these from November?

...that turned into these (from last month)?

Okay, how about now?

I guess I've been eating flowers all this time.  Whoops.

I've got a ton of borage now, which I recently learned are vital to a Pimm's Cup.   You don't see Pimm'ses around much in the States,  but I was startled to see a Pimm's cocktail on a menu at Zibibbo a couple of months ago, so I ordered it and it was delicious.  Just the word "Pimm's" takes me back to when I was a little kid in Hong Kong and my parents would drink them with their British friends after a round of doubles tennis.  And then the next time I saw Pimm's after that was in my junior year of college in the U.K., when Pimm's Cups were served at an end-of-term party while we played croquet in summer dresses and boating jackets. 

So Pimm's connotes summer to me.  I had a "Bellinis and Bikinis" pool party a few years back, but I don't guess it could have half the vibe that we could generate with a late-afternoon tennis party "to use up all this borage." 

I opened the front door last weekend to go for a run and a hummingbird was getting all friendly with the yellow flowers (which are a leafy Asian green I meant to eat but bolted before I got around to it).  He didn't even fly away when I started talking to him.  Just hummed over to the door, looked me in the eye, then hummed back over to the flowers.  So I left out the back door.

I tidied up the above entry area a little, so now it looks like this. 

Still not great, so I'm still taking suggestions.  (Apartmenttherapy - come deal with my entranceway!)  Bear in mind that that little concrete corner is pretty much the only sun we get.

And the scraggly cherry tomato and jalapeno plants (from last summer!) have to stay - the tomato is still producing and flowering, and the jalapeno has like thirty little peppers on it!

We also have these riDICulous jasmine bushes - they are impossibly fragrant.  There are so many flowers I didn't feel bad about cutting off some bunches to sleep next to. 

 

I read somewhere that the average person takes 7 minutes to fall asleep, but that the scent of jasmine can decrease that.   

Beats me why the hummingbird didn't go after them.

CSA Week 3: Fruits of my labor

[No CSA box picture this week.  I topped and rinsed and prepped everything before I remembered to take a picture.  It was a beautiful box last week, though.  Lots of  multicolored leafy things that I actually like (salad!  finally!), and spooky purple carrots.]

For several years now, I've been doing my best to get the required "5 a Day" minimum servings of fruits and vegetables.  I thought that doing the CSA would make it a piece of cake, and I'd never have to go to the store except for the occasional trip for eggs and milk. 

But last week, as I chewed through another lunch of sauteed spigariello, or confronted my fridge to find a yummy snack, or rummaged around the kitchen for breakfast, and all that looked back at me each time was bitter greens, salty greens, chewy greens, I realized for how much of the 5 a day load I've relied on fruit.  I love fruit!  And I missed it!  Vegetables do not excite me.  I think the recommended daily fruit/veg proportion is 2/3, but I'm more like 4/1.  The dentist gave me a hard time because something was wearing on my enamel.  "Um," she said, "do you eat a lot of fruit?"

I also am startled to realize how much I have relied for my veggie quota on just a handful of go-to items - steamed broccoli, frozen spinach, sweet potatoes, bell peppers (really a fruit!) and asparagus.  NONE of which I'm getting in my CSA.

So while I'm definitely expanding my diet into lots of exciting, exotic veg, it's not quite as purely scrumptious as Jamie Oliver might have one believe. 

Fruit just makes everything go down so much more easily.  As you will recall, I made pureed parsnips last week for dinner, and cut them with a golden delicious apple.  Big improvement.  Ace went to the store last week and came home with a bunch of grapes that I snarfed in two sittings.  We get an order of fruit at work on Mondays, and this week I snagged a grapefruit that just now made my day.  And yesterday I caved and picked up some out-of-season, non-local items: a couple of apples, bell peppers.  I'd have got a mango but they were green.  Ace brought home a box of Cuties that were a way better dessert than the pumpkin pie I tried to make out of our Halloween pumpkin on Saturday (blaaaaaaand).

Nevertheless, I'm pressing forward, and we ate the entirety of our box this week, plus some rollover from last.  More because of appetizing selections than through any virtue of ours.  I think it will become easier as spring turns into summer and the berries and tomatoes start coming in.  But not just yet.  The heads-up e-mail from the farm this week announced mostly good-sounding things, except for another load of tumbleweeds/agretti, the last batch of which we still have some left over.  I tried it stir fried and hid it in that magic custard from last week, but just don't like the way it tastes.

But we went to friends' house for ribs on Sunday, and J. told me about a book she was reading about a guy who took a job as Vanity Fair's food critic and trained himself to get over foods he previously didn't care for.   She made it sound as simple as exposing yourself to it eight times.  (Great mental picture.) 

So I'm choosing to view the repeat of undesirables as but an opportunity to expand my palate.  And in the mean time, I'm rewarding myself with fruit.

(Photo by Marcus Nilsson lifted from Gourmet mag.)

Recipe for the week is a link to something my friend Gina made for a girls' night a few weeks ago.  It was delicious then, and it was good again when I tried it this weekend. 

The recipe suggests it's better reheated; I made it Saturday while I was home all day, and reheated it Monday.  (But it was still good, fresh, at Gina's.)  Instead of a whole bunch of chicken thighs, I just used a single chicken, separated into parts (bones in).   Gina said when she did it, she skipped the pre-roasting of the chicken, so you can skip that step, too.   I skipped the Gobo (Burdock Root), because I don't know what that is.  I used all rehydrated mushrooms, and used the mushroom water in place of some of the chicken stock.  I added multicolored (pink and orange and purple!) carrots at the stirring-in-the-chicken stage.  And where it says "Mizuno," it means mustard greens, which were fantastic - I used at TON, and they didn't taste quite so peppery once mixed in.   

Here it is: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/240262

And then have Cuties for dessert!

CSA Week 2: Taking a Leek

We were champion vegemunchers this week, getting through most of our stash, part of which I credit to a more satisfactory selection of CSA items.  More carrots, but of a different color, and everything else was different from Week 1.  (I had worried about celery fatigue.)  Along with the carrots we got fennel, spigariello, tumbleweeds (!), teeny radishes, a couple more winter squashes, and leeks.

It has taken me a long time to come around to liking leeks.  I did my college Junior Year Abroad in England, in Bristol, which right across the river from Wales.   At the time, I was vegetarian, and in Wills Hall where I lived, there was but a single vegetarian option each night - nine times out of ten involving leeks, white beans, or some combination of the two.  I grew very quickly to hate leeks, and have been unable to tolerate them ever since.

But a couple weeks ago Jamie Oliver did a pasta with caramelized leeks and pancetta that looked kind of awesome, and I made it, and it kind of was!  I'd broken the leek curse!  Then last week I got the weekly marketing e-mail from America's Test Kitchen where they try to lure you with some free recipes and tool tips (a.k.a. the poor man's Cook's Illustrated), and they had a recipe for salmon pot pie that looked mighty good - involving leeks.  So last week I was pretty happy that leeks were part of our haul.  I haven't yet gotten around to the pot pie (would involve going to store to buy puff pastry), but I did use a leek Monday night to great effect. 

First course was a savory custard full of leeks, carrots and agretti that went over like gangbusters.  Seconds were had.  Then we had grass-fed steak with parsnip/apple puree and green peas.  (Parsnips are mainly sweet, but can be quite sharp on their own, so to tone them down I boiled/steamed two chopped parsnips in a very little water, adding a chopped golden delicious apple in the last five minutes, then threw them all in the blender with two teaspoons of butter.  Creamy and sweet - I loved them.)

Also this week we put our booty to use in stir fried radish greens, fennel soup, radishes as munchable lunchables, pumpkin-coconut soup, tumbleweeds with chicken maple sausages for breakfast, lots of sauteed dark leafy greens, carrot custard, and (the big cheat) - vegetable stock with the green leek tops and carrot tops and what have you.

Here's my big discovery of the week: an unbelievably easy recipe for a custard you can complete in less than 45 minutes that's a great way of getting rid of unwanted vegetables but which makes it seem like you actually planned it out.

The farm newsletter included a recipe for a sweet carrot custard.  I made that (it was yummy), and I modified it the other night to make a savory one.  I mean, basically it was quiche.  But either one serves as a super easy way to use up any old vegetables you've got lying around the house.

Foolproof Sweet or Savory Vegetable Custard

For sweet:

• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 cup grated carrots (or probably anything else sweet, like parsnips or zucchini or pureed pumpkin)
• 1 cup bread crumbs (I toasted 2 slices of bread on low a couple times till they were dry then ran them through the mini prep processor. )
• grated nutmeg
• some vanilla

For savory:

• About a cup or two of mixed vegetables - grated or chopped small
• maybe some grated cheese?
• seasoning to taste (I used salt and red pepper flakes)

For both:

• 2 cups milk
• 3 eggs

How to:

Turn on the oven to 350, put a kettle of water on to boil.  Set some adorable little ramekins, around six of the teeny 4 oz. ones, fewer if bigger, in a big oven pan with sides - i.e. a roasting or cake type pan, not a cookie sheet.   (For containers, I used those glass ones with lids so I could just seal them up for lunches.)

For the sweet: do your grating; whisk everything together.  (Note: the original recipe demanded 2 cups of scalded milk, but I forgot and just used cold milk and they turned out fine.)

For the savory: I don't know if precooking is reallynecessary, but I used 1 piece of bacon chopped small and a little olive oil, and sauteed a finely sliced leek, a handful of chopped tumbleweeds, and a grated carrot until they were bright in color. Pour the milk in to cool the veggies, season, and whisk in the egg.  Whisk in half a cup of grated cheese if you like.

Ladle your mixtures into your little dishes, pour the boiling kettle around the dishes, and transfer to your oven and bake for 30ish minutes. 

Voila, a first course for supper, a dessert, an easy breakfast, or a simple snack or lunch for work.  Great way to clean out the fridge.

Speaking of unwanted vegetables, Amy made the awesome suggestion last week to donate my extra escarole (the neighbors didn't want it either) to a rabbit rescue organization.  First I inquired with a friend who I knew had two bunnies, only to learn that his bunnies had both gone to the great Mr. MacGregor's Garden in the sky, but he also knew about and referred me to the House Rabbit Society (which led me to start really wanting a bunny - look at these faces...and these!), and also mentioned that there are a couple of donkeys who live in Menlo Park who might appreciate fresh produce.  Hee haw.

When two heads are not better than one

I subscribed for a share in the Two Small Farms CSA this year.  It costs about $20/week, and you can pick up your box at some thirty locations all up and down the Peninsula on varying days - easy peasy.  Last Wednesday I picked up the first box.

It contained

• a few bunches of spring garlic (looks like green onions, but smells and tastes like garlic)
• LOTS of parsnips
• 2 small butternut squashes
• 2 petite bunches of celery
• multicolored carrots - an enormous orange ones, and pink and white ones, too
• a little bunch of hot-pink radishes
• a tight, crisp green cabbage
• more escarole than you can possibly imagine.

For about six extra dollars a week, you can (and I did) also receive a bouquet of local, organic flowers.  I was skeptical of these, expecting buggy, spindly wildflowers, but the bunch was gorgeous - enormous pink tulips and two colors of iris and branches of flowering rosemary and bay leaves (whose leaves I'm going to dry and save when they're done being colorful) and a number of other bright orange and pink flowers I don't know the name of.  I enjoyed them as a bunch for several days, then separated them out into four different, smaller bouquets I put around the house, and which are still going strong.  Six dollars well spent.  If they're still looking good when the next box comes in tomorrow, we're going to have an embarrassment of flowers.  (But if they're organic, maybe we can eat them.)

I'm accustomed to organic produce costing an arm and a leg (and, truthfully, don't buy it when it does), so I'm amazed how much eating $20 provides.

So far, I've used the veggies in:

3 meals' worth of cream of vegetable soup (celery, parsnips, spring garlic)

4 meals' worth of honey glazed root veggies (multicolored carrots, parsnips, radishes)

2 servings of Asian-style cole slaw (cabbage, radishes, spring garlic)

1 serving of stir fried radish greens (radishes)

1 wilted salad (escarole, spring garlic)

1 serving of smoked salmon dip-filled crudite (celery and radishes).

I'm not crazy about celery, but I'm chastened by the idea that food dislikes are to some extent acquired, and have managed to get through it all, by seasoning highly the above (mostly celery) soup, filling raw stalks of it with crazy delicious salmon-dip, hiding chopped celery as a base layer in a mushroom risotto and freezing the small amount that remained for stock.  Very pleased with myself.  I suspect that at least one item a week will be my 'challenge' item, which I will have to really push on through.

I am NOT pleased with myself re the escarole.  There is a ridiculous amount.  I guess it's just two heads, but it's a little bitter, so it doesn't make for an inviting salad, so I don't know what to do.  I stir fried some on the weekend, but can't say I enjoyed it.  But they're looking at me, wiltingly, and I know I need to make some headway before tomorrow's box comes in. 

Anyway, I've only gone shopping once - a last minute run on Good Friday to grab some mussels and frozen fish filets for dinner.  Ace picked up some milk and cereal and OJ, and bread at the farmer's market.  So, financially, this CSA thing is not as much of a hit as I thought it might be, now that I'm forced (by the threat of waste) to build most meals around the produce. 

The threat of waste is no small thing.  I have a few things remaining, besides one and a half HUUGE heads of floppy escarole, but they don't bother me yet.  Three quarters of a cabbage (we can blow through this in a couple of stirfries and slaws), a handful of parsnips and carrots (just enough for one roasted dinner) and the butternut squashes, which I've refrained from cracking into in favor of the perishables.

It's a challenge, for sure, but I'm looking forward to the year. 

Tomorrow, I'm expecting to get a bunch of greens that are mysterious to me - Italian greens I've never heard of, tumbleweed.  The farm is kind enough to include some recipe ideas in their weekly newsletter, which they send in advance so we can plan ahead.  They manage to make a lot of the vegetables that intimidate me (bitter greens, chard) seem, instead, sophisticated and refreshing.   So I'm going to hew closely to their recommendations on these - I feel like I'm being thrown into an area of cooking that's completely new to me, dealing with mystery produce, and it's exciting. 

I think I'll learn a lot this year.

I'm a Growing Girl

The other thing I did this weekend was clean up the back patio and the front entrance. 

I'm continually chastened by people more environmentally inclined than I, and the green thumb secretary at work advised me that there were definitely things I could grow through winter here in California.  Greens, mostly, and onions.  The only reason she doesn't, she said, was that slugs nipped everything she planted in the bud - or really, as soon as it sprouted.

So on Sunday I ripped out my disappointing zucchinis, left the tomatoes and jalapenos that are still (barely) producing, and planted seeds from the packets I had left over from summer.  Mostly herbs; a little lettuce and watercress.  I guess I could go out and buy spinach starts or something, but I'm afraid to invest until I find out whether anything at all will manage to grow - the summer was such a bust.  Maybe I'll bury a turnip. 

What is remaining there, besides the stringy tomatoes, is an African Daisy (that got all long-legged, but appears to be working - I had a ladybug clinging to my tomato), and nasturtiums, which seem to thrive no matter what I do.  I also rearranged the paving stones to eliminate the bark mulch that is all over the place.  I know it looks terrible - trust me, it's better than it was.

To prevent slugs I crushed eggshells all over the top of the dirt.  (Supposedly slugs don't like to slime over the sharp edges.)  I also planted seeds in containers in the entrance area, since that gets more light than anywhere.  It's a shamed it's all paved over.

Can anybody give me tips for making that front area look the slightest bit better?  Except for getting rid of the growing things...  It looks so bleah.  Remember that I'm renting, though.   And where the pots are now is pretty much the only part of the landscape that gets any sun.

The back of all the seed packets made all kinds of health claims.  These leaves make an antiseptic compress, those roots prevent coughing.  I'm going to go all Clan of the Cave Bear on you guys.  Ace is already suspicious because I ground up Vitamin C and Zinc to sneak into his honey lemon tea when he had a cold a few weeks ago.  I think he thinks I'm going to slip him a rufie.  (If that's what it takes!)

This morning I checked on matters, and was reminded of the hazard that besets everything I ever plant.  Squirrels dig into everything.  I don't know if they can actually smell the borage seeds and can pick them out, or if they're just curious.  I guess I need to string fishing line or something.

Anyway, I figured the lifting and carrying and stooping gave me a credit for skipping my second 300 Workout - so that's the plan for tonight.

T-minus Turkey Day

For the past several weeks I was looking forward to sharing Thanksgiving with one of my favorite people anywhere.  It came about, however, that my brother was able to join us, and he independently hatched a last-minute scheme involving a two-seater airplane that suddenly subjected our holiday to the vagaries of cloudy skies and practice-intensive hobbies. 

He left Seattle on Sunday morning, and it wasn't until Wednesday afternoon that he arrived in California.  It wasn't till Wednesday night after the Beer Mile that all three of us were finally assembled and able to determine a Thanksgiving plan. 

A track, four beers, and thou.  Miller Time.

It was about 11 p.m., as Beaker followed his 7+ beers of the evening with a couple of glasses of port, that he informed us that would not be able to fly before 11 a.m. the next day.  "Twelve hours, bottle to throttle."

(He's a font of these little aphorisms.  On sleep: "The more you get, the more you need."  On exercise: "Pain is the feeling of weakness leaving your body."  On clean runways and consciences: "If there's doubt, there is no doubt.") 

Given that it's a 5 hour drive to L.A. in non-holiday traffic, and Beaker was insistent for his part on flying, the logistics of arriving at my heart's desire by dinnertime proved overwhelming.  We went to bed.

I woke up on Thursday thinking, how am I going to put together a Thanksgiving dinner by tonight, when my mom freaks out with weeks to prepare?  I looked around the kitchen, and lo, we had all the vegetables we needed from the farmer's market the week before.  Potatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes, celery, mushrooms, Thai broccoli, bread for stuffing.  And we had everything we needed for pie in the cupboard.  At first I thought it was remarkable, because I picture Thanksgiving preparation as a lot of rushing around buying specialty foods.  Then I realized that the whole point of Thanksgiving was to celebrate the bounty of Autumn, and since that's what the Farmer's Market (and the Milk Pail) served up regularly, we were all set.  Except for one thing.

Where was I going to find a turkey in time to cook it for dinner? 

Brining was out of the question.  Frozen would be impossible.  But more to the point, would there be any turkeys left on Thanksgiving morning?

I set out with a sense of foreboding.  The roads were empty.

Not a good sign.

I headed to the Milk Pail, because I remembered they'd had signs up about ordering fresh, local turkeys well in advance.  Maybe they'd have a cancellation.

But the Milk Pail was closed.

A terrible sign!

I'd never seen a turkey at Trader Joe's, but decided that if my luck ran out I might be able to get a chicken there.  After all, there were just us three.

So I next went to Safeway. 

The store was jammed.  Not just with people, but with trolleys full of bread, cans of french fried onions and cream of mushroom soup and green beans, stacks of baked pies and mountains of three different kinds of sweet potatoes.  I walked over to the fresh poultry department and the refrigerator case was bare. 

Of course it was.  What was I going to do?

Then I turned around.

Dozens of birds, all of them on sale for six dollars.  Jackpot!

But what was I going to do with a frozen turkey?  They were labeled "2 Hour Turkey," but I don't know which two hours they were referring to.  The turkey packaging said to defrost it overnight at a minimum, and that it would take an additional 4-6 hours to roast.  I wandered around and found cornish hens on sale, so I picked up two of those.  The Barefoot Contessa did a Thanksgiving for two the other day and she made hens. 

But far be it from me to refuse a good deal on a turkey.  I decided to chance it.  The 12 lb. turkeys tempted me - as I said, they were all six dollars.  But I tried to be sensible and got the smallest bird in the bin: 9 lbs.

To be honest, I felt kind of bad about the six dollar turkey.  It seemed so disrespectful.  I mean, to look a turkey in the eye and say I valued its life at six dollars, I was really uncomfortable with that thought.  But it was a little late for that, and efficiency took over.

As soon as I walked in the door I put a pot on to boil and immediately started soaking it in super-salted, warmish water, on the counter, just like you're not supposed to.

Here's what else I did in the next hour and a half.  Chopped old bread into cubes and dried them in the oven.  Boiled and drained both kinds of potatoes.  Cooked down the sweet potato cooking water and added just a little brown sugar and cinnamon; poured it over the sweet potatoes and added marshmallows.  Sweet potatoes: done.  Warmed milk with smashed garlic.   Ace went to town on the mashed potatoes and garlic milk - creamier mashed potatoes I've never had.  I couldn't keep my finger out of them.  Mashed potatoes: done.  Poured OJ, ginger and cinnamon into a small pot of cranberries and turned on the heat till they popped.  Added Torani Pomegranite Syrup and a little cornstarch and thickened it.  Cranberry sauce: done.  Sauteed the onions, celery, Japanese eggplant and sausages for stuffing; added the bread cubes and chicken stock.  Stuffing: done.  Grabbed the pastry cutter and made a pie dough of lard, butter, whole wheat pastry flour and hazelnut meal and put it in the fridge to chill.  Throughout this process we'd pull out the turkey and re-heat the brining liquid - a total microbe soup, I'm sure - and put the turkey back in.

By this time it was 1 pm, and Beaker was itching to fly his airplane.  Ace insisted that I get the first ride.  Unthinkingly, I downed a glass of egg nog for sustenance and we headed on over.

Isn't that the cutest airplane you've ever seen in your life? 

As Beaker did all his pre-flight checks, the manager at the Palo Alto airport piped Glen Miller over the loudspeaker.  (A Very Miller Weekend!)

I did what I was told, adjusting altimeters and punching 'horizon' buttons till they were level, and wondering aloud what I would do if my brother had a heart attack up there.  This airplane is a trainer from the 1950s, so both front and back seat had the same controls and could fly the plane.  But he offered to let me fly in a straight line and I declined.

Here we are over San Gregorio:

And here we are making a right hand turn over Pescadero:

Yeesh. 

Here we are over Half Moon Bay:

We flew all along the coast.  It was a beautiful day, but as always it was windy at the coast and we jumped up and down until my egg nog made itself felt.  We headed home.

When we landed, the airport manager was playing the Top Gun sound track over the loudspeaker.

During my flight Ace went for a run, washed all the dishes and put the turkey in to roast.  He met us at the airport and I walked over to the duck pond and watched as they took off. 

Beaker again offered his passenger the controls, and Ace flew them to the Golden Gate Bridge and back.  I reckon I managed to take in more scenery than he did, though. 

Beaker pointed out a corn maze, and I spied a pumpkin patch and an even smaller hay maze, plus horses and cyclists taking the routes we take to the coast.  An awful lot of people in Atherton have swimming pools and tennis courts.

By the time they got back, there was just time for Ace to shower, Beaker to pour the wine, and the two of them to invite the neighbors for dessert.  The turkey was resting, the vegetables were warming in the oven, I made gravy (it was way too salty when I added the pan "juices" - but that tip to cut up some plain old potatoes and fish them out later totally worked), sauteed the broccoli, filled and baked the pie.

Mom, you'd be proud.  Except that it was a pretty low-fat meal.  Mom might not be so proud.

Anyway, we spent Friday sleeping and playing with iTunes and going for a run on the Baylands and eating leftovers and watching a terrible movie, and Saturday Beaker left really early. 

Ace and I went out on the duck path to wave him goodbye. 

The wiggle is Beaker waving back.