She Spills The Beans

No Poster Girl

2011-05-01T07:50:38-07:00

I have a new blog! Join me as I tell the entire internet about my life with severe ME/CFS at No Poster Girl.

Blogepilogue

2010-08-16T14:06:15-07:00

So I never came back as I promised to, did I? Until now.

Where have I been? At the end of 2007, right after Christmas, I very suddenly became bedridden. It happened almost literally overnight. And I thought I would bounce back some, as I always had up to that point, but I didn't. So two weeks into 2008, I resigned from my job, which I had been doing from home since mid-2006.

What caused it? I stopped being able to sleep in October 2007. One night I went to bed and I just couldn’t fall asleep. Same thing the next night, and then the third night I slept for two hours. Then two days without sleep and then another two hours. We started trying over the counter stuff, which didn’t work, and then prescription stuff. After a few months of almost no sleep, I couldn’t walk, couldn’t stand, couldn’t sit up. Bedridden.

In the process of trying to find something to get me to sleep, a doctor who failed to warn me what I was getting into had me on 2 mg of Klonopin, which quickly turned on me. I started a six-month hell of withdrawal in March of 2008. In May, we moved me from California to my mom's house in Indiana, via air ambulance. And I went downhill all the way through 2008. In the fall of that year my sleep drugs failed and I again went months without sleeping. Already totally bedridden, I believe I came pretty close to dying. I couldn’t lift a glass, couldn’t move my legs, my heart was going crazy, and the lack of sleep and another poorly-tolerated drug threw me into a sheer hell of paranoia and delusion.

At the beginning of 2009, because of a fortunate leftover forgotten prescription for a soporific muscle relaxant from that same stupid doctor who’d prescribed the Klonopin back in California, I survived a couple months by finally getting a little sleep. Then in spring of 2009, with the combination of an off-label prescription for an anti-psychotic and a new beta blocker (both of which I'm still on), I started to get some full nights of sleep for the first time in a year and a half.

Soon after that, we heard from Dr. Cheney, a prominent ME/CFS doctor whose waiting list I'd been on for a year and a half. He could see me in June. So in June 2009, we took me - lying down in the back of my mom's SUV - from Indiana to his clinic in Asheville, North Carolina. I spent two full days with him. He told me that of all the patients he’d seen in his twenty-five years of treating ME/CFS, I was among the half-dozen most severely affected.

When we left North Carolina, we took me to Pennsylvania, where Chimp had bought us our first house, near the college at which he’s now teaching. Once we got there, it took me a couple months to recover from the trip. While that was going on, it took about 90 days to add each medicine and supplement Dr. Cheney had prescribed, carefully, one by one, to avoid confounding any negative reactions.

Slowly, after about another three months, I started noticing tiny, tiny improvements. After six months, a little bit more. I could pet a cat a little. I could type a sentence or two. I could participate in a conversation for a few minutes. By Christmas Day 2009, I was able to walk the twenty feet from my dayroom to lie down in the living room to visit with my in-laws, who’d come up from Maryland. By March of 2010, I was able to walk to the bathroom again - something I hadn't been able to do since 2007.

At this point – a bit more than halfway through 2010 – I’m still technically bedridden. But there are gradations of bedriddenness, believe me. In 2008, I literally could not get out of bed and walk across the room. Right now, I wake up in the morning in my bed, walk the 20 feet to the couch in my dayroom, and lie back down there, where I spend my days. Most days, if I want to, I’m able to get a snack out of the pantry five feet away. I can walk to the bathroom a couple times a day. If I’m having a particularly good day, I’m able to get up and walk 10 feet or so to the kitchen table and sit there for a few minutes, talking with Chimp. I’d say I’m about 98% bedridden.

So all of that’s why I’ve never been back. And because I remain bedridden, I don’t have any plans to start blogging again. I miss the food business. I miss cooking even more. I miss the grocery store and my friends at the farmer’s market. I miss blogging somewhat less than all of those things, I’ll admit, but I did enjoy it.

The other thing that’s happened since I disappeared is the paper in the journal Science about the retrovirus XMRV. That’s what Dr. Cheney thinks my illness will eventually proved to be caused by. (I’ll be tested sometime this year, when the “green fluorescent protein” assay is introduced.) The XMRV discovery is huge, and it’s done so much for my sense of hopefulness – even though it possibly means I have an incurable retrovirus! Someday – hopefully soon – there’ll at least be some treatment for my illness, and those of us who are suffering will be believed – and vindicated.

Having a Crash

2007-09-27T07:41:19-07:00

I'm trying to recover from another crash. I'll be back when I can.

On the First Cool Evening

2007-09-19T20:33:05-07:00

Some nights my body is so weary I almost forget about my love of food and wish there was a microwave dinner I could heat up. Then I remember that it's not a microwave dinner I want at all, just the ease of it. I love my box of vegetables and my piles of produce from the farmers' market, but they are undoubtedly more work.

There was food in the fridge that Chimp had made, so without the energy to cook I ate pasta, chickpeas and tomato-zucchini stew without ceremony. As badly as I felt, I decided I deserved extra cheese on my dinner. A lot of extra cheese.

I closed up the house at around 7 p.m., with the temperature starting to drop. Tonight's the first night that turning the oven on has felt like a welcome idea. I put some figs in to roast, and pulled from the refrigerator the bag of shelling beans I got from John on Saturday. I sat down to get them out of their pods.

He had told me there were three types; I put three bowls in front of myself. I quickly found three types, then four, then five; I incorporated two similar types into one bowl, then two into another.

The pods were of varying maturities. Some peeled open easily and the beans fell into the bowl almost without effort. Others I had to pry open with great attention. Every so often I misjudged the amount of force needed, sending a loose bean careening into space in a grand arc. The cat watched one fly and sniffed it on landing. It was swiftly deduced that it was clearly not cat food nor a cat toy and it and subsequent missiles were disregarded.

I combined one batch of beans with another, coming down to two bowls. Eh, I figured, even if they have different cooking times and some get softer than others, they'll still look pretty together.

The warmth of the oven began to reach my spot at the table, warming my back. I sat shelling, aware of the darkness gathering outside and the rising smell of the roasting figs with a sweetness like a batch of molasses cookies.

The beans went in a bowl and the pods went in a growing pile. I thought for a long time about a friend struggling with a still-evolving problem and the difficult decisions that lay ahead. I thought about how much more pleasant it is to think on others' troubles than your own, and how much easier it is to solve others' problems in your mind than your own.

The last of the pods snapped open, I looked at the two bowls. I decided the difference between them was not really important. I combined them into one.

I got up and took the figs out of the oven and watched their edges curl around their flesh as they cooled.

I decided I would cook the beans plain, with butter.

What You Missed at the Market

2007-09-19T19:52:19-07:00

About my absence: I am just swamped at work and it's keeping me from doing much else. I'm not even cooking...Chimp has been keeping us fed.

Saturday was the first sweaterday at the market since the spring. It sure was nice.

I picked up some of these beans from John of Flower Garden of Madera. He said they're three different types - I need to shell them still to find out what I've got.

I got a pint of jalapenos from Michele, thinking Chimp would certainly find something to do with them. He loves cilantro, lime juice, jalapenos, garlic and salt buzzed together into a fresh seasoning, as do I.

I also picked up another eggplant! I've been making this dal recipe that's just been great - one more try and I think I'll have it perfected.

What's In the Box

2007-09-13T12:20:00-07:00

After I picked up the box last night, I was too swamped with cooking and work to get to this then, so here it is on Thursday lunchtime.

We have in the box this week:

Red Roasting Potatoes (Wonder if these will be as incredibly sweet as the Yukon Golds from last week?)
Sweet 100s Cherry Tomatoes
Nakata's August Red Nectarine (These will probably be the last nectarines I'll eat this year. Where did the season go?)
Soghomonian's (Three Sisters) Ribier Grapes (big, black, seedy and sweet)
Genovese Basil
Romaine Lettuce
Roma Tomatoes
Fair Hills' Gala Apples (I've resigned myself to the fact that apple season is here - I don't like it yet, but I've at least accepted it.)
Baby Leek (Not "leeks" but "leek" - as you can see, there's one diminutive leek in the box. I tucked it into the bag of shallots and onions I have in the fridge because when I went to wrap it up all by itself it looked so lonely. I guess it's because it so resembles a scallion, and both they and leeks usually come in bunches with all their friends...)
White Garlic
Italian Frying Peppers
Italian Zucchini

When I was driving over to get the box I was absolutely exhausted from the day's several long phone calls for work. I had some dal in the fridge, but I'd already had that for lunch, and I was trying to think of what I could possibly manage to make for dinner, considering that at that moment I could hardly stand up.

Once I opened the box I was relieved to see its contents. Summer vegetables are so easy to work with. I knew I had some cooked chickpeas in the fridge - this is like having cooked chicken breasts for an omnivore, I think, in that they can go any which way. I minced some garlic, chopped up some plum tomatoes I'd gotten from Michele on Saturday, a zucchini and some basil from the box, started some water boiling, and in no time was enjoying a little tomato and zucchini stew with chickpeas over whole-wheat pasta.

"A good dinner doesn't have to be complicated," I thought.

Looking at what was in the box, I also decided to whip up some whole-wheat pizza dough, making another iteration, with another small change, to the food processor-kneaded recipe I've been working on perfecting all summer (it's almost there, I swear). By the time I was done with dinner, feeling refreshed and had put the food away, the dough was ready to be made into crusts.

I topped the pizzas with sliced plum tomatoes and frying peppers from the box plus some onions, and a nice layer of fresh mozzarella and Dry Jack cheeses. (I had to photograph this pizza under a mix of incandescent and florescent light, which is not very flattering...I tried the "night portrait" mode on my camera too, but it made the pizza look like a deer in the headlights somehow.)

Sometimes I surprise myself. I thought I was going to come back with the box and be forced to collapse for the evening, but a little dinner and a little rest really helped. When I went to bed last night, I was feeling some of the feeling of tiredness after an active day, which is so pleasant as compared to the all-encompassing exhaustion that I constantly carry around to varying degrees. I can tell today that I pushed myself a little too much, but I'll take it easy and hopefully I'll stay on an even keel tomorrow.

When Chimp came home from work late in the evening, I said, "You only have two choices for dinner. I made a chickpea stew with tomatoes and zucchini, or there's pizza."

"Pizza?!" he said, dropping his bag and heading for the kitchen.

"I knew all you'd do was complain," I told him.

Radish, Cucumber, Onion & Chickpea Salad with a Lemon-Parsley Dressing

2007-09-10T20:42:37-07:00

Frankly, given how often I make this, it's hard to belive it hasn't made it to the blog before now.

This is one of my favorite dinner salads. We make it in spring, when the first radishes appear, along with green onions and green garlic. At that time of year, it tastes like a spring tonic after a winter of cooked green vegetables. The salad gets a rest during the height of the summer when the heat is too much for radishes here, and then it returns with the fall crop. This time of year, we use mature onions and garlic, and it's a reminder that the days are starting to gather in.

Part of my love for this salad is that it's super-easy - if the chickpeas are already cooked, it's just a little chopping and getting the dressing ingredients into the food processor. Sometimes I'll toss a little cooked grain into this salad - bulghur is my favorite, but quinoa or millet or even some cold brown rice would be nice. I do that - as I've mentioned before - because the grain picks up the dressing nicely and also gives the salad a bit more heft and a pleasant chewiness.

We had this with Yukon Gold potatoes from our CSA box that I roasted with olive oil and tossed with lemon juice, parsley and garlic after they came out of the oven. They were the sweetest-tasting white potatoes either of us had ever had.

For the salad:

1.5 c. radishes, diced
1.5 c. cucumbers, diced
1.5 c. onions, diced
3 c. cooked chickpeas (if cooking from dry, that's a little less than 1.5 c.)
salt and pepper to taste

For the dressing:
1 c. chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/3 c. olive oil
2 T. lemon juice
1/2 T. minced garlic
2 t. stone-ground mustard
3/4 t. salt
3/4 t. pepper

To serve:
6 c. salad greens
4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled (optional)

Combine salad ingredients in a medium bowl. Place dressing ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and buzz until the dressing is emulsified and the parsley has been chopped to tiny bits. Pour dressing over salad ingredieints.

To serve, divide salad greens among four plates. Top with salad mixture and feta, then toss.

Makes 4 light entree servings.

Subversive Baking

2007-09-09T12:25:27-07:00

A couple weeks ago I came upon the new octopus cake pan that had just become available at Williams-Sonoma. I nearly put up a post about it, even, just because it was so nifty and the decorated sample cake pictured with the pan (image at left) was so pretty (and also because it reminded me of all the elaborately decorated shaped cakes my mother baked for my and my brother's birthdays when we were kids).

Well, internets, I should have known we couldn't give you anything nice without you ruining it in a spectacularly hilarious fashion. Behold the awesomely clever demon spawn of the new octopus cake and the long historical tradition of the creepy, creepy doll cake:

The tentacle hentai birthday cake.

And it's gluten-free and vegan! I laughed for about ten minutes, and every time I look at the pictures I start all over again. No, I don't think the development team had this in mind when that cake pan was manufactured. And strangely, you can't buy the pan at Williams-Sonoma any longer....

What You Missed at the Market

2007-09-08T21:50:05-07:00

Summer's definitely starting to come to a close. The peaches and nectarines are seeing their last days; there are still plenty of plums, of course.

There are still grapes, too, and will be well into the fall. Fred Smeds of Savage Island brought the above Concord grape juice today. He says he likes it even better than the cherry juice his wife Paula also makes from their fruit. Having had both, I said it'd be hard to beat the cherry juice in my mind.

"The grape juice is good for everything, though," he said.

"What, you mean like vodka...rum..." I raised an eyebrow.

"No, no, I mean good-for-you good for everything."

"Ah, you mean like anthocyanins and resveratrol."

"Yes."

"I bet it's still good with vodka, though."

I was telling Fred another one of my inane stories while I was picking out what will probably be my last Rose Concord grapes of the season, (one month with Rose Concord grapes...11 months without, sigh) that since I learned a few years ago that the grape industry term for the percentage of loose berries that fall off the bunch is "shatter," whenever I pull grapes out of the bag and see the stragglers down at the bottom I hear Mick Jagger singing the Rolling Stones' tribute to NYC.

The onions are starting to wane a little bit. Michele of K.M.K. brought purple and white last week, and this week, just white. Pretty soon I'll have to turn back to supermarket onions - always a sad moment. The garlic's going great as fall is coming on, though - I picked up more from Vine Ripe's booth again this morning.

There are lots of peppers to choose from. I picked up these pasilla peppers from Angel Farms and some green peppers from K.M.K.

Also got some of these San Marzano-type tomatoes from Michele - these are great for skewering or cutting in half and roasting, as she suggests.

I talked to John of Flower Garden of Madera and he said he'd have some black-eyed peas in pods next week. Very exciting news to me! He said he mostly grows them for soil fertility - leguminous crops, are, of course, good for fixing nitrogen in the soil.

I took home some figs from Marchini Sisters for another fig sauce experiment. It'll make it to the blog if it turns out.

Also grabbed some cucumbers from Il Giardino Organico for one of my customary cucumber-radish-onion-chickpea salads with the fall radishes that came in our box this week.

And I bought some eggplant, would you believe?

Last week when I had that eggplant in my CSA box I made something that turned out really well and I thought I'd try to improve on it a little bit before putting it to the blog. I picked up some of these white ones from Michelle to challenge myself. Will this be the eggplant revelation I've been looking for all these years? We'll see. If it doesn't turn out to be, Vachte from Cracked Pepper promises me that his Eggplant Napoleon will change my mind....worth a try.

What's In the Box

2007-09-05T20:06:51-07:00

In a moment, a note from the CSA newsletter about how Alice Waters says we're awesome. This should help Fresno's inferiority complex some.

Denesse said in this week's newsletter that the heat wave we just had did a number on the crops - they lost entire plantings of beets, carrots, beans and chard, she related. It meant they had to bring in some outside crops to help fill the box this week. So we have:

Yukon Gold Potatoes
Vine-Ripe Table Tomatoes
Full Belly Farms' Hosui Pears (an Asian pear type, from the Capay Valley west of Sacramento)
Soghomonian's Muscat Italia Grapes (Three Sisters, Fowler)
Red Leaf Lettuce
Roma Tomatoes
Fair Hills' Gala Apples (Paso Robles)
Mendrin's Yellow Onions
Easter Egg Radishes

Tom has a wonderful note in the newsletter (PDF file) about his friend Alice Waters' visit to Fresno on the occasion of the Slow Food meeting and Fig Fest. I'll excerpt some of it here:

"What most stirred my friend's emotion on this recent visit was the affecting beauty of Richard Erganian's arched arbor pavilion, which so elegantly shelters the Vineyard Farmers' Market. Alice maintains this is the only structure she has witnessed that sufficiently honors the sacrament of fresh food beneath it. Alice is above all else a visionary who conceives of food and fellowship at table as hallowed art and culture. Her recognition and blessing of our efforts to raise this kind of consciousness across the California 'heartland' are welcome and appreciated."

Here here.

And speaking of Alice's visit to Fig Fest, here is a picture of two people at Fig Fest. One of them is Alice Waters. I am the person in the picture who is not Alice Waters and who is looking absolutely delighted to be standing next to Alice Waters.

Grocery Chain Wegman's Grows its Own

2007-09-05T20:00:00-07:00

The always-innovative Wegman's grocery chain is going a step beyond private label and has begun developing its own farm to supply some produce to its stores. The Wegman's Organic Research farm is the subject of this article from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

The privately-owned Wegman's chain is known as a grocery industry leader because they really know service - and they really know food.

From the Department of Yikes!

2007-09-05T19:55:00-07:00

For those of you who have been following the stories about lung injuries from diacetyl suffered by workers at popcorn plants ("Popcorn Worker's Lung" - and it's not funny; this has killed people), here's the first report of a consumer with the same illness, which has been at least correlated to his twice-a-day microwave popcorn habit.

Apparently he liked the smell of the stuff so well that he would open the bag and take a big deep whiff of the escaping steam, inhaling diacetyl each time.

The story, from the New York Times, also notes that despite it being the likely cause of his severe shortness of breath, the man was "really upset he couldn't have it anymore"...but since breaking the twice-daily popcorn habit, has lost 60 lbs.

Maybe somebody could teach him how to make it the old-fashioned way on the stove like I do? I haven't eaten microwave popcorn in at least a decade; I started avoiding trans fats in the mid-90s and all of them were loaded with hydrogenated oil back then (pre-Newman's Own with tropical oil) and it had come to the point where the fake-butter (diacetyl) smell gave me the heebie-jeebies anyway.

Though I use plain old non-microwave popcorn, for those of you who are landing here with Google searches about Newman's Own and diacetyl, I wrote to Newman's Own Organics to ask them if their "natural butter flavor" contained the chemical, and here is their helpful reply:

Jocelyn,

Diacetyl is not added to any of Newman's Own Organics varieties of Pop's Corn, however, it is a naturally occurring substance found in butter in miniscule amounts. I hope you find this helpful.

Peggy Westenhofer
Director of Customer Relations
Newman's Own Organics

Then I wrote to Newman's Own, at a commenter's prompting, about regular (not organic) Newman's Own microwave popcorn, and here's the reply I received:

Dear Ms. (my last name),

Shuster Laboratories, Inc. is a technical consulting organization retained by Newman's Own, Inc. to provide technical and quality assurance services.

Currently, diacetyl is a component of butter that is in the flavor. It is a potential hazard in concentrated form as inhalant to workers in manufacturing. All safety precautions are in place at Newman's Own manufacturing facilities. Newman' Own is working to remove the diacetyl from the popcorn. We hope you find this information helpful.

Sincerely,
Newman's Own Customer Service Team

So there you have it: Newman's Own Organics microwave popcorn is currently diacetyl free (except for the minute amount naturally occurring), Newman's Own microwave popcorn is in the process of going diacetyl free but is not there as of this September 9, 2007.

A Different Kind of Fried Green Tomato

2007-09-04T22:21:59-07:00

Well, no, those aren't particularly green, are they? They do look suspiciously red. (They were green when Michele sold them to me on Saturday; I just didn't get to them fast enough and they reddened on standing a few days.)

That's not what's different about them, though.

Though I've had some food blogs put me in their Indian category when linking to me (I consider it an undeserved honor), I'm as pale as a marshmallow. I'm not Southern either - yes, I grew up in Virginia, but Northern Virginia, the D.C. area, which is a different state entirely from Virginia Virginia, the rest of the state. I sometimes tell people I'm from the "Fake South."

Despite that, somehow this Indian-by-Southern food hybrid arose in my kitchen and has developed into one of our favorite summertime treats.

Most fried green tomatoes are made with cornmeal and use egg to bind the coating. These are made with chickpea flour, also known as gram flour or besan, which is a wonderfully versatile ingredient. In this dish, it fries up on the outside of the tomatoes with a smooth, crunchy (not gritty) crust, and it doesn't require the slices to be dipped in egg before the batter is applied - which means they can be made vegan. (You can do fried green tomatoes without egg, but there is significant trouble in convincing the cornmeal to stay attached.)

I laced this chickpea flour batter with aromatic cumin, coriander, cayenne and ginger. The result is something like pakora, the Indian batter-coated vegetables or cheese - but I've never seen a tomato pakora.

They're simultaneously crunchy, juicy, salty, tomatoey, spicy - and all-around delicious.

You definitely want green tomatoes for this - the redder they get, the juicier, softer and trickier to handle they become. Dry them well to help the batter adhere, and don't sweat it if they're not perfectly coated - their roughness is part of their charm.

3 medium-sized green tomatoes, cut in 1/2 in slices
1 1/3 c. chickpea flour
1 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
1 t. ground cumin
1 t. ground coriander
1 t. black mustard seeds
1 t. fresh ginger, grated
1 T. (packed) cilantro leaves, minced
1 c. water

neutral oil for frying

For the raita:

1 cucumber, pureed (peel if it's waxed) and drained in a fine-mesh sieve
1 c. plain yogurt
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. cilantro or mint leaves, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Using a whisk, mix the chickpea flour, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, ginger and cilantro together in a shallow bowl. Add about a quarter of the water and begin mixing it in with the whisk. The mixture will pull together in clumps. Gradually add in additional water until the batter is slightly thinner than peanut butter - not extremely stiff and sticky, but not drippy at all. This will take most or all of the water.

Heat enough oil to put a thin coating on the bottom of a 12-in. skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Take a slice of tomato and dry each side of it using a paper towel or clean, lint-free kitchen towel. Using a blunt knife like a butter knife, coat both sides of the tomato with batter (or use your fingers, if, like me, you are Not Fussy). Place the tomato slices a few at a time in the hot oil and cook for three or four minutes or until reddish-brown underneath. Turn and cook the other side for three or four minutes. If the tomatoes stick or brown too fast, lower the heat a little. Cook all tomatoes in the same way and set on paper towels to drain as they're finished.

To make the raita, mix all the ingredients together and allow to stand a few minutes for the flavors to combine.

Makes 4 servings.

What You Missed at the Market

2007-09-01T21:41:42-07:00

I was awakened this morning by a lack of air-conditioner noise. Most of the time, we turn the poor beleaguered thing off at night (so the hamsters that power it last longer), but on days when it's forecast to be 105 or hotter, running it at night gets the house cool enough that it's easier for it to keep up during the day.

I looked at the clock. It was dark. I got up, got my watch - it was 6:45 - and looked around the house. Indeed, the power was clearly out.

The power having gone out wasn't that big of a surprise, given our unexpected summer rainstorm on Thursday - which roused me, startled, out of bed at 3 a.m. to check the radar as I could hardly believe my eyes when I looked outside. (It Does Not Rain here between April and October.)

When it rains here, things tend to break. The power goes out because various pieces of electrical equipment fill with Valley dust over time, and when the dust gets wet it makes nefarious electrical-equipment-shorting mud. Our phone service seems to go out at least once a winter by the same mechanism.

Since it hardly ever rains here, nothing really seems to be constructed to withstand it.

As previously mentioned, however, the forecast today had been for high temperatures - between 107 and 110, depending on what source you checked. No power would mean the temperature in our apartment would be untenable for Jocelyn-the-hothouse-flower by mid-afternoon.

I called the PG&E outage line. They were aware of the outage but didn't have a projected repair time yet. Chimp happened to be awake. We agreed we'd pack the cats up and go to a hotel around noontime if the power wasn't back on. We've done it before.

That decided, I went back to bed to rest through the worst of the morning M.E./C.F.S. discomfort, and when I could stand to stand up, cleaned myself up and headed out to the market. There wasn't much shopping for me to do today. We're a bit backed up on produce because Chimp spent much of the last week on campus, but I still wanted to have my morning outing. I think there was some part of me that thought maybe by leaving the house or by buying more food I would motivate the power to come back on. Thank goodness I already have a fridge full of food sitting there getting warm, I thought as I pushed the garage door button. The door didn't go up. I pushed it again. It still didn't go up.

Then I remembered, oh yeah, the reason I have a fridge full of food sitting there getting warm is the same reason the garage door is not going to go up automatically.

Sometimes I wish I could drink coffee.

I drove up to the stoplight and found a PG&E guy sitting in the cab of his truck on the far side of the intersection, talking on the phone.

That can't be good, I thought. If it was simple to fix he'd be out fixing it, not talking on the phone.

I promised myself I wouldn't buy anything that required refrigeration, which pretty well cut my list down to onions and garlic.

But as always, when you get to the market, there's something you absolutely have to have that you haven't even thought of.

Michele of K.M.K. brought the first avocados of the season! This is the Mexicola variety.

I remember when I saw these on her table for the first time last year. I was awestruck. I'd never lived anywhere I could get a local avocado before. "How long will you have these?" I asked her, thinking I'd stumbled on an evanescent treasure - a week, two weeks at most to enjoy.

"Oh, until March or so," she replied.

I think my jaw must have dropped wide open. And that was the beginning of a whole winter of avocados.

These are a little trickier to ripen than the Hass variety most people are familiar with. I like to let these go until they are a little wrinkly and definitely soft around the stem end. Because the body of the fruit is small, it's tougher to get a read on their ripeness by squeezing that part, so I go with the way the top feels. Michele says that if you find you've cut one too soon, you can squeeze it back together, wrap it in plastic and it'll keep ripening.

I also walked up to Vince Iwo's table full of plums and asked him if he was harvesting Angelenos yet. (Angeleno plums are the big last hurrah variety for the plum harvest.) Nope, he said, give it at least a week or so. Then I looked down at the green-yellow fruit and said, "Wait - are these still Flavor Golds?"

"Nope," he replied, "Emerald Beauts." I was surprised at first, having gotten that whole box two weeks back because I thought I was missing the variety's harvest. I'm perfectly glad he's taking his time - it just means his fruit will be coming to market longer. So even though I wasn't supposed to buy fruit, because there's plenty in the fridge to be dispensed with, I bought more Emerald Beauts. Just a few, though.

And Moa's had the cutest little eggplants - truly egg-sized eggplants. No, I didn't buy any, because, again, I wasn't supposed to be buying anything that needed refrigeration, and also because I had a big eggplant from our CSA box to use.

When I got in the car I pulled out my phone to see if, by chance, my absence from the house had worked its magic and gotten the power turned back on. It had - and on my way back I opened my sunroof, waved to the PG&E guys, who were now up in the truck's bucket and yelled, "Thank you!"

They smiled and waved back.

Emerald Beaut Plum Crumble

2007-08-31T08:00:00-07:00

So, besides the salad already mentioned, here is where many of those green-skinned Emerald Beaut plums ended up. Surprise! They're yellow inside! Don't they look nearly like peaches, as yellow as they are? It's only the lack of any red coloring around the pit cavity that gives them away as plums.

Chimp and I made a double batch - two 8x8 pans - of plum crumble at the start of the week; I took one of the pans down to the office on the day of a meeting and we kept the other one to enjoy ourselves.

This recipe became a major favorite of mine last summer, when we made at least four double recipes of it with large quantities of fruit left over from photo shoots. It's adapted from the July/August 2006 Cook's Illustrated, where it was originally a recipe for peach crumble (having tested multiple varieties of all three fruits in this recipe, sometimes in combination, I can vouch that plums work equally well, as do nectarines).

What I love about this recipe is that it makes a massive amount of topping - none of this little-bit-of-crispy-stuff-on-top-of-a-whole-lot-of-fruit problem. There is at least as much volume of crunchy, crumbly topping as fruit, and it's like a miracle - you just pulse it up in the food processor, spread it out on a sheet to bake, and when it comes out, it's made itself into all these little cookielike nuggets with bits of almonds in them. I have seriously considered just making the topping, rolling it out into shortbread cookies and forgoing the fruit altogether.

So there is a two-step baking process here - bake the topping, then place it on the fruit and bake the fruit - but it is entirely worth it. I use white whole wheat flour and I think the extra nuttiness makes for an even better end result than when I first made it with unbleached. After all, crumbles often have whole oats in them, so why not a whole-wheat flour?

We went ahead and peeled the plums on this occasion, but if you're not fussy and the fruit isn't fuzzy, I don't think that's even absolutely necessary.

Oh, and a tip - if you are baking and you find yourself with stone fruit that is clingstone, as we did on this occasion, don't wrestle with trying to cut wedges off the pit. Instead, set the fruit on its stem end (on its head, basically) and cut down both sides of the pit to cut the cheeks off. Then cut off the other two sides that are left, then the little bit at the tip. You'll lose a little bit that sticks to the pit, but that's always the case with clingstone fruit, and cutting it that way is safer than trying to knife and extricate all those little wedges away from the pit while holding the slippery piece of fruit in one way or another.

Filling:

3 1/2 lbs. peaches, plums or nectarines (6 to 7 medium peaches or nectarines, 7 to 9 plums), peeled (in the case of fuzzy peaches; plums and nectarines can be left unpeeled if you want the extra fiber and don't mind the skin) and cut into 3/4-in. wedges
1/3 c. sugar
1 1/4 t. cornstarch
3-5 t. juice from one lemon (add to taste to the fruit depending on sweetness; the sweeter the fruit, the more lemon juice it can take - the tartness will add dimension to the flavor)
pinch table salt
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1/8 t. cardamom

Topping:
1 c. white whole wheat flour (trust me, they'll never know)
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. packed light or dark brown sugar
1/8 t. table salt
2 t. vanilla extract
6 T. unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces, very soft
1/2 c. slivered almonds

Adjust oven racks to lower and middle positions; heat oven to 350 degrees.

Filling:

Place the fruit and sugar in a large bowl and stir gently to combine. Allow to macerate for a half-hour, stirring occasionally, then drain fruit in a colander, catching juice in a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix together 1/4 c. of the reserved juice, the cornstarch, lemon juice to taste, salt and spices. (Remaining juice can be discarded...or better yet, mixed with liquor! Bourbon is good.) Place fruit in an 8x8 baking dish and pour juice mixture over it; toss gently to combine.

Topping:

Place flour, sugars, and salt in food processor workbowl and sprinkle vanilla extract over dry ingredients. Pulse to combine, then add butter and nuts and process until the mixture begins to show signs of clumping together - this will take about half a minute. (If it doesn't seem terribly clumpy, don't worry - it'll clump in the oven.)

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and turn the crumble out onto the paper. Spread it in an even layer across the sheet. If there are few chunks, pinch a few with your fingers to encourage it. Place on middle rack of oven and bake 18 minutes, until light brown.

To finish:

Pick up the edges of the parchment paper and slide the topping onto the fruit. Spread it into an even layer over the fruit. Place on the lower oven rack, increase oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake until well-browned and fruit is tender, 20-25 minutes.

Remove from oven and set on a wire rack to cool somewhat. Crumble can be served warm, room temperature or cool. Store in refrigerator.

Makes about 6 good-sized servings or 8 smaller ones (of a good size when combined with ice cream).