Eat Beautiful Food

It's been summer for approximately three weeks now, off and on, with coldish cloudy mornings and warm afternoons. It's glorious. After all of my caterwauling about the endless rain, it feels luxurious to sit in the sun on our back stoop, wade through 2666 and watch the tomato plants grow. I'm watching our arms grow tan, our cheeks rosy and glowing.

And while we're still waiting for tomato season (hurry up! I want tomato corn pie and toasted tomato breakfast sandwiches smeared with a tiny bit of mayo), we have baby fingerling potatoes and sweet corn and fava beans to play with and distract our stomachs.

Oh, Favas.

Have you eaten them? Vivid green beans that require shelling, then blanching, then skinning, then cooking and which are so worth it for their buttery, almost cheesy taste. Our last foray into favaland was a pasta I made last week with garlicky lemon sauteed favas tossed with pasta and homemade mint-pistachio pesto. This week I might make a fava spread or a salad, something to eat with a cold lemon-garlic-olive oil dressing and the Puy lentils sitting in the fridge, and roasted baby squash. And some time this week we'll eat a fingerling potato and sweet onion tart and I'll smear avocado on sour rye bread and devour my breakfast.

I love eating in the summer. It takes no effort and everything tastes wonderful.

Today at lunch a (very lanky) co-worker of whom I'm fond admitted to being addicted to food. At first this sounds like a scary admission--something a contestant on the The Biggest Loser says to his shame and the viewers' consternation--but I think I know what he meant.

Food is a pleasure. And in the summer it is a fragrant, colorful pleasure of fruits that stain your lips and hands and sweet baby vegetables, and heavy red tomatoes that taste like a voluptuous promise of happiness and beauty. When food represents so much that is good in the world, when cooking it well makes your friends smile and you hum and dance in the kitchen, as long as you eat it with care and eat what is beautiful (because what good food isn't beautiful: the lacy grain of wheat, the jeweled red of beets, the bright green of new peas) an "addiction to food" is less a pathology than an effort to appreciate what grows in each season and how it gets into your belly.

Increasingly, I find myself looking forward to the day when I can teach our future babies to shell fresh peas and water the basil. And stuff fresh raspberries into their mouths and understand that to live life with this sweetness and gluttony and appreciation and attachment to what sustains us is the best way to live. I work on learning these feelings and living this way every day now. It is hard, but it is good.



P.S. This is Princess. T won him for me at Wunderland Nickel Arcades this afternoon and is immensely desirous that Princess appear in this blog post. Sometimes in marriage it is just best to agree.

The Gray Days of Summer

I know that whining accomplishes nothing but social alienation, but man, these cool gray days are wearing me out.

For a while--meaning, from October through to the present--I was able to content myself with cooking and baking projects, reading, theatre, working and daydreaming, but my body is screaming for some sustained sunshine. We've had random beautiful days, and I've ridden my bike gleefully, even to work, and eaten my lunch, back pressed against the warm concrete walls of the warehouse. I've trudged to the gym and run back out as soon as my workout was over, to drink a glass of wine on the back stoop and gaze lovingly (if fretfully) at my potted vegetables and herbs. I've eaten a small mountain of baby beets and tender lettuce and fresh sugar snaps, and even a couple of tiny, sun-warmed strawberries from my little plants. Summer is here, fitfully.

But on the 4th of July, it is cool enough to keep the back door closed and wear a sweater, and I don't feel like baking bread. The small pile of herbs sitting on my cutting board, snipped this morning from my parents' garden, induces more angst than creativity. And this month's literary project, Roberto Bolano's 2666, does not entice, perhaps because reading about depressed literary critics isn't uplifting. It raises spectres of my own abandoned graduate studies, making me glad and sad, both, to have left the ridiculous and insular world of academics.

I keep trying to imagine myself on the Irish coast, where it is often cold in the summer time, or at the very least, already on our September honeymoon to Kauai. I'm reading side novels about wars and magic--anything to distract me from the moon-colored sky and my uncharacteristic boredom. I even talked the management team into running a warehouse-themed haiku contest at work, and am now at a loss because all I can think of to contribute is

Books books books books books

books books books books books books books

Books books books books books.

When we were little, my sister and I used to sing this kids' song "Mr. Golden Sun," that went as follows:

Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun,

Please shine down on meee.

You hear that, Mr. Sun? Portland invites you to visit.

Three Pestos

With the herb bounty from our Creative Growers box increasing each week, I've been forced-- really quite aggressively, in that passive-aggressive way languishing fruits and vegetables have of fomenting guilt in the lazy cook letting them rot--to do something with them, something more lasting and copious than adding a teaspoon of fresh chopped herbs to the top of a tart or the last stir of a sauce. Hence the little plastic baggies of pesto dollops now filling our freezer, mint-pistachio pesto, parsley-sunflower pesto, and the standby basil pesto to be precise.

Truth be told, I'm not 100% pleased with any of the pestos--a crime considering the amount of kitchenware, herbs and olive oil that went into them. We did eat a lovely pasta with a combo of the basil and parsley pesto last night, and I have a feeling that the mint-pistachio pesto is going to find its cause smeared onto homemade flat breads and then baked with a smattering of ground lamb and aromatics. But by itself each pesto tastes too...green. A symptom of a lazy cook chucking them into the Cuisinart stem and all (so don't do that!), and a lack of lemon juice, perhaps. The pestos manage to taste both leafy and flat, a little too rich and not bright enough. Like Paris Hilton.

For this reason, I'm not going to give you precise recipes for these pestos. Besides, pesto is easy (just take off those stems and have plenty of lemons on hand). Grab your herbs, your olive oil, lemons, salt, garlic, nuts or seeds and cheese if you like, and grind them up. I like to toast the nuts/seeds before using to bring out their flavor and add depth to the pesto. Then, either put dollops of the pesto into a spare ice-cube tray, or do what I do, and place dollops (they will look unappetizing in this form, but go with it) onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Freeze the pesto lumps until solid and then scoop up with a spatula and pack loosely into plastic baggies. Voila! Instant flavor for pastas, soups, pizzas, roast fish and meats, and sandwiches. Or follow T's example and eat it with a spoon. Just don't, like T, expect a kiss afterwards.

At the Hop

Our retro-tastic 1950s cocktail party was a vibrant, if mellow affair.

There was the booze...

...and the jello.


In rich reds and greens, laced with tuna and dotted with olives, these jiggly gems reminded us of why our (grand)parents drank so many martinis.

The night's winner was probably Fred's mold, which looks like a night's worth of vomit topped by a jujube. Needless to say, only T tried that one. (Brave man, T! And handsome.)

Slightly more palatable, though no less era-appropriate, were the pigs in a blanket, francheezies, tuna noodle casserole, cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, Velveeta fudge, and Judith's chocolate Coca-Cola cake.

The sandwich loaves sounded promising, but it turns out that grape jelly, minced shrimp, cream cheese, bacon, and olives do not mix well.

My mom's was a bit ahead of her time; I call this The Ken Kesey Loaf:

While Dave presented the more streamlined Londoner:

And when we weren't hesitating over the food table, or drinking Fred's handmade Manhattans, martinis and whiskey sours, we were watching Joe and Dee's hilarious beer-can baby.

A good time was had by all. (If not by our stomachs.)

Waiting on the Cake

It's late, I'm waiting for the half-pound cake in the oven to rise to its golden domed climax (oh my) and rest into its cooling stage before tucking myself in. Tybalt is raging around the room , chasing one of those white bulk bag twist ties that I hoard in the small appliance drawer in the kitchen for reasons unknown even to myself.

Tom and I went to the wine country last Sunday.

Wildflowers, and small grape vines, Gewurtraminer and Pinot Grigio, and dry salami on rosemary crackers in the sunshine. And time alone with T. It was a good day.

It occurs to me, in my baby-addled mind, that these impromptu trips to the movies, the pub, our favorite wineries, will probably disappear when we start making little Waltons next year. Not that I don't intend to haul said tiny Waltons wherever I wish to go, but I need to start savoring these moments with T. Too often we get wrapped up in our lives and I forget to value him as much as I should.

It's been raining again, all week, cool and gray, making this a good weekend to prepare a Father's Day-Parents' 34th Wedding Anniversary feast for my family. I wish the date didn't coincide with Finals Grading Weekend and Theatre Audition Extravaganza (one audition today, call-backs tomorrow, followed by a first read of our summer beach show), but I have the Fennel Honey Pork Loin marinating, the pate fermentee for the baguettes fermenting, the pound cake baking, and a lovely roast beet and carrot salad, mashed potatoes with caramelized fennel and young Walla Walla onion, and a velvety butter lettuce salad waiting to be made tomorrow. My father asked for the homemade bread, roast pork and strawberry shortcake; I am surreptitiously adding beets to the menu to show my family that, when cooked properly and laced with my mom's Italian herb vinegar and olive oil, they can be quite nice.

One day, if I open the Ramona St Keep, I will serve this simple beet salad, maybe adorned with fresh thyme and a soft white cheese. The recipe comes from my CSA farmers, who adapted it from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook. It made a convert out of me, especially the next day wrapped up in a whole wheat tortilla with creamy avocado slices and cheddar cheese. But I eat weird lunches.

The Beets that will Change your Mind

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove the beet tops (you can save these for another recipe--I chopped and sauteed them, and added them to a quiche), leaving about 1/2 inch stem. Wash the beets and cut in half. Put them into a baking pan with enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 45-60 minutes, until easily pierced with a knife. Uncover and allow to cool. Slip the skins off (this is quite fun) and cut off their tops and tails. Cut them into quarters or slices, sprinkle with at least 1 tsp vinegar (the recipe suggests sherry vinegar, but I used my mom's homemade herb vinegar to delicious results) and salt to taste. Let stand for a few minutes to allow the beets to absorb the flavors. Toss with a generous drizzle of olive oil and enjoy, warm or cold.

*If you want to add carrots, as I'm doing tomorrow, simply blanch the carrots in boiling water for around two minutes--until just tender--and cut into chunks or coins.

Of Grahams and Granola

When I told my friend Julia this evening that I had just made granola, she replied, "If that isn't a stereotype."

Julia lives on the East Coast.

She's a Portland girl by birth, and probably owns more tie-dye than I do (one shirt, which my parents bought for me, okay?), but the stereotype of the dread-locked white chick baking granola to Phish while fragrant waves of Patchouli grace her cleansed-with-biodegradable-food-products skin is strongly ingrained in the popular culture. For an east-coaster--even one with Western roots--the fact that I do not have dreadlocks or scent my house with Patchouli is nullified by the fact that I bake bread, belong to a CSA and utilize (privately) the term "locavore" without cynicism.

Well, sprinkle me with fairy dust and send me to the Oregon Country Fair. Because granola this good is worth the name-calling.

The recipe is Molly Wizenberg's, taken from June 2010 Bon Appetit. I modified the recipe slightly to use cashews instead of pecans and slightly less honey than Molly calls for; granola is both flexible and forgiving. I've only tasted a few of the crumbles--one must eat a real dinner, after all--but I'm already looking forward to breakfast tomorrow. This granola is sweet and wholesome, without the sometimes cloying sugar and rich fats of store-bought varieties.

Tonight's other project--less socially stigmatized but still rarely performed--was to bake graham crackers. I was inspired by Deb's graham tartlets, but didn't want to deal with macerated strawberries and whipped cream. True to recent cravings, I wanted something reasonably simple, with whole grains and a homey flavor.

As you can see above, the little buggers were hard to hold together, resulting in an unhappily patchy surface. (Though the little bears are pretty darn cute. Even with mangled feet.) I followed Deb's recipe exactly, but next time would add a little milk or even apple juice to the dough to make it softer and less dry. The recipe also yielded far fewer cookies for me (10 instead 16), but that might be due to the fact that after a few unsuccessful attempts at rolling out the dough, I resorted to lightly bashing it flat with the side of the rolling pin. The spicing is just right, though, and once baked, the graham crackers are crunchy, buttery and not too sweet, perfect for dipping into tea.

(I couldn't resist.)

pain au son

Yesterday, after 3 weeks of rain, it was warm and sunny and it seemed like the entire city was outside mowing 2 feet of grass from their front lawns. Arms full of grading, I sat on our back stoop and let my arms freckle, overjoyed with the sun.

And when my work was finished, I walked to the store and came home with bags of tomatoes and green beans and pints of California blueberries, and baked a lemon blueberry tart and a roasted tomato salad.

It all tasted like summer.

This morning we woke up to a steady rain driving past our windows and clattering onto the street. There are pools of water in my tomato and sweet pea pots. The cats are damp again and settle into our laps to dry.

Time to bake bread.

This morning I thumbed through one of my favorite bread books, Home Baking, by husband and wife bakers/photographers/travel writers Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, and settled on the pain au son. A French bran bread, pain au son is kind of a rustic Branola, with a sweet wheat taste, moist crumb, and crunchy, toasty crust.

I didn't have enough wheat bran for two loaves, so I added an equal amount of raw whole oats, as Alford and Duguin note that they always use oat bran in place of wheat. I also replaced some of the white flour with whole wheat. I like the combination--the oats disappeared into the loaf and whatever the science of it is, the results are soft and sweet on the tongue.

This is a nice everyday bread, to be eaten as toast, or alongside soup, or slathered with peanut butter and eaten as a snack. It tastes like the warm bread served in the dining room of Bascam Lodge on Mt. Greylock, where people hiking the Appalachian Trail stop for a night in bed and the best, simple, warm home cooking. My family used to stay there for a week at a time when I was a kid, all of us in bunk beds, hiking different trails each day and inhaling the kitchen's warm bread and gingerbread pancakes. I haven't been to Mt. Greylock in a long time (and now as a Pacific Northwesterner, the mountain wouldn't look so high), but this bread brought me back.

Pain au Son (adapted from Home Baking)
Makes two very large loaves

4 C lukewarm water
6 T light brown sugar or honey
3 tsp active dry yeast (I used the extra quick rise kind)
1 1/2 C what bran
1 1/2 C raw oats
2 C whole wheat flour
5 C all-purpose white flour, plus some for dusting and adding to the dough if need be
4 tsp salt

Stir together the yeast, sugar and water. Stir in the bran and oats and set aside to soak for 10 minutes.
Sprinkle 1 C of flour over the top and stir in. Sprinkle the salt on the top and stir in. Working 1 C at a time, add the remaining flour to the dough. I use a standing mixer for this, but you could also use a wooden spoon, stirring flour in until it gets too difficult, and then adding the rest as you gently knead the dough.
Once the flour is incorporated (you want a soft, not too sticky dough), knead for 8 minutes, incorporating as little extra flour as possible. I found myself adding a little extra flour to prevent drying, and then adding water to soften the dough, just to add a bit more flour. Just watch the dough as you knead, adding what it needs in tiny increments until you have a large, smooth ball.
Place the dough in a clean, lightly oiled bowl, cover and set aside some place warm for up to 2 hours, until doubled in volume.
Lightly butter two 9X5 loaf pans. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and give it a few kneads. Let it rest for 5 minutes, loosely covered.
Divide the dough into the two pieces and shape each into a loaf (the easiest way to do this is to flatten the dough into a rough square or rectangle and roll it up from the shorter side, pinching the seam closed as you go). Gently plop each loaf into a pan and cover, letting rise until doubled in volume, about an hour.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake for 50-60 minutes. You'll know the loaves are done with they're a rich brown and you hear a hollow sound when you tap the bottoms. Another trick is to pinch the loaf's corners: they should feel firm. If they still feel a bit soft, pop the loaves (without the pans) back into the oven for 5 minutes.
Let cool on a rack before slicing.