sis. boom. [blog!]

Fame: From Croquembouche to Cupcakes?

2010-03-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

I always get a giggle whenever someone tells me about their "famous [fill in name of food dish]". Recently while dining with acquaintances we were informed that we were about to be treated too our hostess's "famous meatloaf". She actually informed us that she "was famous for her meatloaf"! Now don't get me wrong, it was actually quite a delicious meatloaf but I had no idea our hostess had acquired a degree of notoriety for it. Quite honestly, I had never heard of her meatloaf before that evening. Perhaps I'm just not as au currant as I thought I was? (I read the New York Times daily. I even read People magazine and when nobody is looking I'll even pick up The Enquirer. Never heard of her meatloaf.) Just this past year, however, I have been treated to "famous lemon bars", "famous Asian salmon", and more recently, "famous artichoke dip". (Trust me, as delicious as it is, NOBODY'S artichoke dip is worthy of fame.)

Within my group of closest friends, each is somewhat associated with a particular dish and yet none claim real fame for it. If you say 'popovers' we would immediately think of John who will make these (and strawberry butter!) for any gathering we might have. Michael makes an amazing carrot soup. (His other specialty is egg whites believe it or not!) Gary can whip up a pork tenderloin dinner with all the sides to perfection in just minutes. (I have made his recipe so many times that I call it "mine" when he is not around.) Lastly, Steve can turn any leftover chicken into a chicken salad so good you would be surprised that chicken salad can get even get that tasty. And yet, as good as it is, it certainly hasn't made Steve famous yet -- though it probably should.

My friends would probably have a hard time associating me with any one particular dish. Maybe if you pressed them they might laugh and say "croquembouche" -- even though I haven't actually made one since 1996. I was young and too foolish to know that some recipes should only be admired --not attempted. I had just caught my first glimpse of a younger, slimmer Martha Stewart in a set of VHS videos that belonged to my mother. She stepped her viewers through the very complicated recipe -- assuring us along the way how easy it was at each step. When I saw Martha spinning the sugar and wrapping it around the festive assembly of puff pastries I was hooke and determined to make it for my next holiday party. Surprisingly, it turned out pretty darn nice even thought it took several batches of cream puffs to get enough good ones to complete. One of my guests was so enthralled by the whole thing that he started eating it piece by piece, one puff at a time, turning my creating into a culinary game of Jenga. Before I could do a formal presentation to my guests most of its structural support had been eaten away. When I went to check on it and get it ready I found 25% of it missing! Traumatized, I have not made another one since. The stuff of legend.

Martha has since simplified her recipe-- and I now see is has beco me "famous" as well. I wonder if I had anything to do with that?

Which brings us to chocolate cupcakes. Specifically, my "famous chocolate cupcakes".

I'm not famous for them at all though they are one of those recipes that I wouldn't mind being famous for or at the very least associated with. They do have quite a few fans at the office when I make a batch to bring in and they always seem to disappear at dinner gatherings -- even when I've invited the 'no dessert for me" crowd. Despite the surprising inclusion of Hershey's syrup in the ingredient list they are not children's cupcakes and before you blanch at the thought of using Hershey's in your baking I will tell you that I think the distinctive flavor actually works quite well here as it delivers a certain note that your guests won't quite get a handle on.

The recipe is adapted from Ina's to make them less sweet and a bit deeper and darker in cocoa flavor. I also add some baking powder to get just a tad more lift. She makes them plain but I always decorate a few with toasted walnuts or slivered almonds.

Ingredients:

1/4 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
11 fluid ounces Hershey's chocolate syrup (1 can)
1 TBS baking powder
1 TBS cocoa powder
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
Toasted slivered almonds
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Ganache:

1/2 cup heavy cream
8 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time. Mix in the chocolate syrup and vanilla. Add the flour and coffee granules and mix until just combined. Don't overbeat, or the cupcakes will be tough.

Scoop the batter into the muffin cups and bake for 30 minutes, or until just set in the middle. Don't overbake! Let cool thoroughly in the muffin pan.

For the ganache, cook the heavy cream, chocolate chips, and instant coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally.

Dip the tops of the cupcakes into the ganache. Do not refrigerate.

Saturday Haiku: Enuii

2010-03-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

Cold, damp, blah morning.
Time for it to get warmer?
Not feelin' the haiku.

Hotel Room Wisdom

2010-03-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

Love this. There it was, right up on the wall of my hotel room at the W Hotel. Quite profound really. After having given it some thought (there isn't much to do right now) I realize that we can create ourselves in many ways, not just by choosing what to wear and what to do with our hair. We create ourselves by exploring new music, meeting new people, traveling, trying new things (like blogging!) But even more importantly, we can create and define ourselves by choosing our own attitudes and deciding how to feel about the things that are happening around us or to us. Its not always easy, but we can do it.

Think about it.

What do you do to create yourself?

Saturday Haiku: Haiku's for my week

2010-02-27T06:28:00.000-08:00

Purposefully Bland?
It is usually chicken.
That's conference food!

Workout while away?
Not really motivated.
Where is the trainer?

(DC Equinox Club.)

Abomination!
Selective Bible study:
Miss Beverly Hills.

I Wish I Made More of This:

2010-02-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

We had friends over for dinner last week and once again I was not inspired to do anything special for hors d'oeuvres. I'm not an appetizer kind of cook. Never found much inspiration there I suppose. Who sits around and dreams of appetizers to serve at a dinner party? All the action is at the main course and dessert...

I'm on the road all this week, eating on airplanes, in hotels, and at conference lunch tables pretending to be interested in what the others at the table are talking about. The only good food to be had, aside from the the hotel hamburgers, is in my mind! Why is it that a hamburger is always the best thing on the menu at a hotel? Hotel hamburgers are seriously good! I'm also thinking a lot about that last jar of Port Rosemary Jam sitting nearly empty in my refrigerator back home. Did I really only keep one jar for myself? Must be true because when friends came over for dinner last week, and I needed something to make a generic cheese plate pop, only one jar was on the shelf. All the jams and jellies I made in December are gone and its not even the end of February. Did I give them all away? I tend to hoard things (which makes making jams and preserves a fitting endeavor wouldn' t you say?) but I really wanted to give home made gifts this year so I guess this later value won out.

Dammit. When is fig season going to start again? I seriously need some more of this. I bet this jam would be good on a hotel hamburger. Its not too sweet so its definitely not a breakfast jam. Perhaps it would be good to dress roasted pork tenderloin? Or it could turn some sliced pears and Gorgonzola into a amazingly adult after dinner course? Or you could put in a Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus with Port Rosemary Fig Jam for an appetizer! Or make a thin crust Port Rosemary Fig Jam and Crumbled Pork Sausage Pizza.

Mmm.... I hope I can remember that next year! I guess people do sit around and dream up appetizers.

Port and Rosemary Fig Jam

2 pounds green or purple figs, stemmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup white port
2 4-inch sprigs of rosemary

In a large, nonreactive saucepan, toss the fig pieces with the sugar and let stand, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, until the sugar is mostly dissolved and the figs are juicy.

Add the lemon juice, rosemary sprigs and water and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Simmer the fig jam over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the fruit is soft and the liquid runs off the side of a spoon in thick, heavy drops, about 20 minutes. Remove rosemary and discard. Use an immersion blender to emulsify if necessary.

Spoon the jam into three 1/2-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch of space at the top. Close the jars and process in a water bath and store in a cool place for up to a year or let cool to room temperature and store the jam in the refrigerator for up to 3 months or

I Have a New Salmon Recipe!

2010-02-22T18:40:00.000-08:00

I just can't share it with you yet. You see, if I share it with you my mother will see it and then she will make it before I have a chance to make it for her. I really like salmon but stopped making it as it was always, well...always the same. I told my mom I was looking for something new and she said, "Be sure to give it to me. I'm looking for a new salmon recipe too." She makes a mean salmon and while she makes some of the best salmon I have ever had she makes it the same way each time too.

Just about everyone I asked during my search told me they were looking for a new salmon recipe. Salmon boredom must be an epidemic. Well guess what? I have one!

Sometimes when I discover a new recipe and it rates as "dinner party caliber" I can get very possessive and secretive about it until I have had a chance to serve it up to the various groups I like to invite over. "Dinner Party Caliber" recipes aren't too hard to make but they have that certain something extra that signifies it is something "special". The recipe should have enough 'play' in it so it would be unlikely anything tragic will happen and ruin everything in the final moments. (I know those among you who like to entertain you exactly know what I mean, from experience.) So when I find such a recipe, its golden and must be fully exploited before it is shared.

Can you guess that my Mom reads this blog? Mom, you'll be getting an invitation shortly!

"T'aarof Bread Pudding"

2010-02-21T09:32:00.001-08:00

Persian culture has a fascinating custom called "T'aarof"that can be somewhat exasperating if you are unfamiliar with its complexities. It is a form of civility comprised of an abundance of polite phrases, language, and behaviors that can get rather extreme if you are not aware of what is going on. At its most artful it is a verbal dance allowing you time figure out the intentions of the other party. If you are at someone's house and they offer for you to stay and have dinner, t'aarof dictates that you immediately refuse even if you would like very much to stay. You are allowing for your hostess to have offered out of politeness. She might not really want you to stay. Get it? She will offer again, but then again you will refuse. This will go on at least three times while each of you figures out the real intentions of the other. If you should actually stay for dinner you will find yourself in an endless round of 'taarof as the hostess offers you more food but you must refuse for fear of looking like a glutton. She will offer again, of course. You can accept on the third offer, if it is made. In the world of 'taarof you have to be careful as you could end up either hungry or overstuffed depending on how you play it.

As you can gather, this is extremely difficult to the newbie or unskilled. And while you are permitted to request no t'aarof-ing ("t'aarof nakonid"), that itself is a suspect request that could be t'aarof! As a westerner just being introduced to Persian culture I was unfamiliar with what was going on. It lead to some unusual, awkward, and often humorous moments while I figured this custom out. You should have seen the looks I got on one of our first dates when I immediately accepted an offer of the hostess to send me home with leftover food! They sure had a laugh at that one while I tried to explain that in my culture it would have been rude to refuse such an insistent request. And imagine my surprise when I once complimented a gentleman on his watch and he very insistently offered to give it to me!

There are other forms of t'aarof but mostly the practice involves saying a lot of things that you might not really mean -- knowing all the time you won't be taken literally because the other party knows you don't mean it. Got that? The overriding value, however, is always about showing proper humility while doing all you can to be hospitable. Eventually, what I at first found to be somewhat annoying and puzzling is now quite charming. I marvel at its masters.

So what does this have to do with bread pudding you might ask? Good question! I realized the other day that I had been way too indoctrinated into the ways of t'aarof when my dear friend Michelle surprised me by taking me up on my offer to bring something to her dinner party.

"We are very excited to see you, what can we bring?"

She quickly responded with, "how about dessert?".

T'aarof would have dictated that Michelle refuse my offer! I totally expected her to say, "nothing!" and I would have brought wine anyway. Even if I had offered again she would have still been obliged under t'aarof to refuse me. I have grown so accustomed to a world filled with t'aarof that I forgot to realize Michelle, my dear friend since college, didn't play by the Persian rulebook. Duh!

Nevertheless, I took this for the huge compliment it was and quickly settled on bread pudding for my contribution. Michelle was entrusting me with the dessert at her dinner party and I wanted to be sure it was something great and deserving of the honor. Now, I have never really met a bread pudding I didn't like but when I saw this recipe on a blog I love I saved it away as a sure hit for some future dinner party I would host. Since t'aarof is all about doing more for others than you would do for even yourself I was quite honored to be making it for Michelle and her family.

I followed the recipe closely but left the bread crusts on as I was after a more rustic pudding. Make this just before your guests arrive and gently reheat just prior to serving. Be sure to go look at Jennifer's blog and the pictures she took of her prep of this wonderful pudding. I'll be making this one again for sure.

Apple Rum Raisin Bread Pudding
Inspired by Bon Appétit

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

⅔ cup raisins
2 tablespoons dark or spiced rum
2 cups whole milk
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla
4 cups packed Challah or Brioche pieces, cut into ¾-inch cubes (you'll need one loaf but you won't use all of it)
1 large tart baking apple such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, cut into ⅛-inch slices and cut in half.

For Serving
Vanilla Ice Cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 11x7-inch glass (or equivalent 2-quart) baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Place raisins and rum in a shallow bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Let raisins soak in rum while you prepare other ingredients.

3. Whisk milk, eggs, sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, salt and vanilla in large bowl to blend. Add challah cubes, sliced apples and raisins with rum and fold together with a large spatula. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish, flatten with spatula and make sure apples and raisins are evenly distributed. Let stand 15 minutes.

4. Bake bread pudding until top is golden and center is set, about 55-65 minutes. Spoon into bowls, top with vanilla ice cream and serve.

Saturday Haiku: The Morning After

2010-02-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

Fun dinner party.

I kept refilling my wine.

Hello hangover!

The Valentine's Date Massacre

2010-02-13T10:26:00.000-08:00

I don't really have a fondness for Valentine's Day. Its not that I have a problem with the celebration of love in all its forms. Its just that why single out just one of its forms? The focus of the day should be on telling people OTHER than yours significant other that you love them. Don't you think? As a day for one-on-one love it never really worked out well for me. Remember how in elementary school when you were required to make valentines for the whole class? The teachers had the right idea: Valentine's Day is just better when attentions are focused on the many and not just on the one. Focusing on the one has been my downfall with the day, ever since the 3rd grade some smart-ass classmate of mine noticed that I had given my biggest valentine to one of the boys, not one of the girls He made merciless fun of me. (Apparently I had yet to develop the skill-set necessary to keep my secret out of view! I'm not sure I even knew what my secret was anyway.) The day has had a tendency to be unkind to me ever since! My friends, who know all my stories suggest I should write a book. Perhaps.

Contrary to what you might think, the worst Valentine's Days aren't when you are single but rather when you are 'not quite coupled'. In this state you are forced to submit to the pressures of the day and go through the motions even though you (and your date) aren't quite ready for prime time. What should be a regular date takes on new dimensions. Its on these types of Valentine's Days where I have had the most "colorful" experiences. On one particular such date (which my friends now refer to as "The Valentine's Date Massacre") my date, someone I had been seeing for a few weeks and who seemed nice enough, showed up with flowers (nice) and took me to a fancy restaurant close to my home (very nice!) Somewhere between salad and dinner he started to confide in me that he frequently violated the restraining order his former lover had on him by repeatedly calling him on the phone 50 times a day, stealing his mail, and putting nails in his car tires. By the time desert arrived (why did I order that souffle?) he was in tears and I was making plans to walk home in the slight hope that he would not remember where I lived. And that was one of my better dates.

The picture posted above is from what is I'm sure my favorite Valentine's Day. Isn't he cute? (I kept him.) I was so happy to be in love. Real love. No going through the motions for the sake of the day here. I spent days planning the perfect 6 course meal and pulled out all the stops. If you could see the appetizers on that platter you would see that they were heart shaped crostini piped with pink salmon cream. In fact, several of the dishes that night were heart shaped! I decorated the room with a flock of 50 red birds whirling about in an homage to an inside joke that we share. (You can see only a few of them in the photo.) I was in heaven: in love and cooking a special dinner for someone I truly loved. I was so excited, in fact, that I lost track of how many pink cocktails I had been drinking and passed out --waking up a few hours later only to vomit and crawl in bed! Wasn't THAT a special evening? Good times.

Despite that awkward display of love (thankfully he did not take out a restraining order after that) we are still together. I'm not going to tell you what we are doing this Valentine's but suffice it to say it is a much lower key affair these days. Just the way I like it. Also, we try to do stuff for our friends and family and our friends who are our "family" --the people we love dearly but don't get to tell we love as often as we should.

I guess we prefer to share our messages of love with the many and not just the one -- just as our teachers thought was best.

Saturday Haiku: Valentine's Day

2010-02-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

High expectations?

Who needs a day to show love?

Halmark Holiday!

Food Porn

2010-02-11T18:37:00.000-08:00

For many food bloggers the photograph of their creation is as important as the sharing of a recipe. Posting a picture is the digital equivalent of presenting a meal to an appreciative family. Comments on your post would then be the 'oohs' and 'aahs'. As self esteem boosts go, the Holy Grail is winning the acceptance of The Powers That Be at Food Gawker or Tastespotting. These sites aggregate photos from food blogs (with links to their corresponding posts), selecting what they consider to be only the best quality food shots. (Not recipes!) Food bloggers hate them and love them -- all at the same time. Their decisions can seem arbitrary at times and it is very frustrating when what you think is a great shot gets passed over. The reward for acceptance, however, is a huge increase in blog traffic and the thrill of seeing your photo on their site. Paying these sights too much attention, however, has its down side. Its easy to spot the bloggers who worry too much about the shot and not enough time worrying about the whole post itself. Also, its not good when bloggers start to doubt themselves because their photos get rejected frequently. The photos below were rejected for having "lighting issues, dull, unsharp focus."

Yesterday's photo of corn muffins, however, got accepted at both sites. I didn't really even consider the photo all that great. I submitted it just for kicks after a blog friend wrote about his own self doubt at the hands of these sites. They had rejected several of my photos in a row and I just didn't want to be a glutton for punishment. I cook in a real kitchen after all, not a photo studio. I work all day so I cook at night and therefore do not have great lighting. So most of my photos get rejected. So what? Who cares? I don't. But I do. Its both. If its not important, why did it feel so good still to get accepted?

I will say this, the featured photos at these sites ARE gorgeous and you can spend hours paging through the amazing recipes and photos. I often go there first when looking for a special recipe. Food bloggers are a wealth of information and seeing their step by step photos is much more useful than going to a recipe book. Bloggers are some of the friendliest people around and will usually ALWAYS respond to a comment or question. Just try doing that with a cookbook editor! Use the search function, find a picture that looks good, then jump to the blog. Leave comments.

Ooh and aah.

Corn Muffins? When Did I Eat Corn Muffins?

2010-02-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

It was a dark and stormy day and not feeling very creative, I put my 'go to' Chicken Chili with White Beans into the crock pot. Usually I would pull out a few more stops for a good friend visiting from London but all I had the energy for was to pull out the crock pot. Besides, I knew he would be quite jet-lagged and I had all the ingredients at hand. I put two bottles of white wine in the fridge in anticipation of his arrival. (Yes, two bottles. We had a lot of catching up to do.) I browsed the internet while I awaited his arrival. I hadn't dropped in on the beautiful Jennifer at Once Upon A Chef blog in a long time so clicked on over to her and landed smack dab on her most recent post: Savory Corn Bread with Cheddar and Thyme! Now, I'm not a big fan of corn bread. I find most of it way too sweet for my tastes but this one, with only a 2.5 TBS of sugar and loaded with thyme and cheddar seemed a perfect accompaniment to chili. I had leftover thyme on hand so this was a no-brainer. I had newfound energy to cook for my friend! Her recipe turns out a dozen muffins which only need to be baked about 22 minutes.

And check out what she had posted on just one day before her corn bread! White Bean and Chicken Chili. Great minds Jennifer, great minds! (You can bet I'm going to make your version next!)

Make Something, Buy Something...

2010-02-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

he best advice comes from Ina (as usual.) When it comes to entertaining: "Make something, then buy something." That was our approach last night when we hosted our dearest friends. We hadn't seen them in so long that neither of us wanted to pull kitchen duty and miss out on the chit-chat. There is a great family owned Persian restaurant a couple blocks away so that became our theme. We made the Shiraz salad and the Maast-o Khiar (yogurt w/cucumber) and ordered the rest. The hardest part of our evening was keeping the cocktail glasses full!

Just because you are ordering out doesn't mean you shouldn't ditch the take out containers and artfully arrange the food. Here we are waiting for the guests (and dinner) to arrive:

Dinner is ready!

Oh, and no, we didn't even watch "The Game". Good times.

Saturday Haiku: Super Bowl

2010-02-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

I don't get team sports.

I do not know Saints from Colts.

I just cook the food.

WTF is this "snack"?

2010-02-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

So I haven't written about my Zone Diet Delivery plan in awhile. This is most likely because it has become something of routine. Each day brings another day's worth of food but I would hardly call the contents exciting -- or creative. Now, I'm really not a picky eater and I am a realist when it comes to these things. This is a diet after all and not a gourmet chef's tasting. Ultimately, all the diet has to do is provide edible food under The Zone 'prescription' in calories low enough to lose weight. After about 3 weeks saw that 'variety' is not one of the primary attributes I would assign to The Zone Diet Delivery. Breakfasts are usually scrambled eggs with something veggie like tucked in. Twice we have had a blintzy thing. (One was quite good while the other was stuffed with canned corned beef hash, feh.) Lunches are almost always salads made with cheap lettuce greens and some sort of meat protien. Additionally, each day has a Zone Perfect bar as a snack. So far there have been only two kinds of Zone Perfect bars despite their website showing over 20 different varieties. (My guess is that they got a good deal on soon to expire or overstock bars.)

I still really do love the convenience and I have lost some weight (although that has stalled with about 5 more pounds left to go -- despite my near religious adherence to the diet.) Some of the meals don't really seem all that Zone if you ask me so I wonder who is actually certifying these meals as Zone? On the upside, I have managed to stay out of the lunchroom at work, I feel better and I'm seldom hungry.

Which gets us to this snack pictured above! What the f*ck is it? I'll tell you what its made of: A slice of eggplant, a couple slices of cucumber, a dusting of parmesan cheese, some boxed seasoned croutons (the kind that no human should ever eat) and to finish it off, banana chips. (Yes, I said banana chips. )

WTF? I didn't see that one on the sample menu page. In fact, I haven't seen much of what is described on the sample menu page.

I am learning, however, that if I want to continue with this diet on my own, its not going to be that hard. Apparently, no special recipes needed. Or ingredients.

Notes on the "Social Agenda" of Food.

2010-01-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

I'm new to food blogging. Scratch that. This is not a food blog. I just happen to write a lot about the food I prepare (or have delivered) because, well, I have to eat. And when you think about it, so much of who we are as people is tied to food and what we do to get it and eat it.

Yes, I had intended to write a bit more about my actual life, the small tools I use to navigate it, and my daily passions. For some reason, however, I keep coming back to food. This really isn't that surprising given that our whole lives are basically shaped around our need to eat every few hours to live. By extension, our whole society is shaped around this basic need as well. We (or our proxies) have to find it, cultivate it, grow it, buy it, hunt it, transport it, and save it until we eat it. Once the food is in our homes we have to clean it, chop it, cook it and serve it. None of this can be done without the participation of others with whom we have to socially interact and all of it takes place in a social ecosystem that developed around our need to eat. Food, in fact, is the medium for all of our social relationships. Food is how we create community.

So in light of this it is only natural to see the social aspect of our lives when we talk about food. Or share recipes. I haven't been very good at it but I can see now that my favorite food bloggers are those that share more of their personal selves and personalities. In light of this I was rather surprised to read of criticism aimed at one of my favorite food bloggers, Greg at Sippity Sup. Seems Greg was accused of inserting his "social agenda" into his yummy blog postings! (He is so good humored that he even had a little fun with the criticism on Braised Potato day. If I read between the lines correctly he is a bit more restrained than I would have been!) Now, to my way of thinking, a food blog post without color or some sort of personal anecdote is just boring and "setting the stage" before sharing a recipe is the specialty of Sippity Sup so I certainly hope he doesn't heed the advice of the wingnuts.

So back to food. Reading between the lines of Greg's post and thinking about how important food is made me think about this blog and what I hope to say through it. Guess what? I still don't know! But I do know that going forward I will try to inject more of MY "social agenda" whether or not I am talking about food because I definitely have one. Inevitably however, that means I will be be talking about food a lot because, like I said, I have to eat. And I prefer to eat with people. And I prefer to cook for people. And I work so I can buy food to eat. And when I'm celebrating, I eat. Etc.

So if it is just recipes you want devoid of any of its social agenda, move along and go to Epicurious.

Blog Exchange!

2010-01-31T10:23:00.001-08:00

One of the nicest things about the blogosphere is being able to connect and share with other people. Sometimes even a random comment on someone's blog leads to a nice surprise. I commented on a post at SippitySup.com and next thing I knew I received a custom recipe for artichoke pasta! Well, it happened again when a random comment on Kate's The Sunnyside Blog netted me this jar of Rhubarb Chutney in the mail! I sent her a jar of the Pomegranate Jelly I made from the recipe Cindy posted on her blog. See how this works? (Kate blogs about her end of the exchange here.)

I adore rhubarb and Kate grows her own! Now Kate, in case you are reading this, I'm not allowed to open the chutney just quite yet. The rule in our house is that I have to finish one of the existing jars in the fridge first. This will, however, give me the time to figure out the best way to enjoy this. Sunday night is roast night so I might just sneak this in. . .

No Need for a Skeptical Look.

2010-01-30T11:32:00.000-08:00

(Note: This blog entry was originally posted at One Box A Week back in July 2009. This was my opening post after signing up for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project. I'm posting it to he front of this blog as I think it reveals a bit of my skeptical thinking pattern -- something I haven't talked a lot on this blog about yet but intend to -- and also how it reveals how economics became a bit more important to me this year. When I started the CSA, I didn't care so much about the money. In October, I did.)

Those that know me outside of the office know that I am a skeptic. I don't really take many claims at face value and that is especially true when so-called authorities in the 'wellness biz' make them. Like most skeptics I feel that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" so when wellness practitioners suggest that I do something or another, or buy something or another and everything will be wonderful , I will be healthy, or I will save money, I tend to take it all with a grain of salt. Enter Farmer Donna of Morning Song Farm.

Our company is blessed with a corporate culture that promotes wellness. We are also blessed with a HR team that is passionate about the environment. This often results in various speakers coming to the office who cause me to run to the research in order to investigate their claims. (For those in the office reading this and wondering about the score: Green Tea, YES; the Master Cleanse, NO.) So you would think that I would be skeptical when I when I showed up to Farmer Donna's seminar on organic farming. Not really. I had been exposed to organic foods since I was a teenager (a funny story for another blog post) so I didn'tneed convincing that organic was preferable wherever possible and affordable. It was the whole CSA part that threw me. I had never heard of it before.

Only moments after Farmer Donna's spiel began was I to feel my skeptic hat firmly in place. Turns out she was not just an educator that day but also a salesman! Anyone who has ever been approached by someone selling water purifiers, motivational tapes, weight loss shakes, vitamins, magnets that relieve pain, (you get the drift), knows that salesmen who are also 'educators' can be a dangerous proposition. And, in fact, Farmer Donna's spiel did contain a few of the classic fear statements salesmen use to kick us into immediate action. While prior speakers at work have told us that our water supply is slowly poisoning us, Donna's version had more to do with vegetable seeds going extinct and the harrowing prospect of worldwide famine should anything happen to the loss of heirloom seed inventory.

That said, the pleasant surprise for me here was that there are plenty of good reasons to sign up for a CSA program that had nothing to do with responding to fear statements. Similarly, you didn't even need to consider the "dollar saved" proposition (again, another good future blog topic):

Doesn't it make sense to know the person growing your food?

Exposure to knew vegetables and fruits you wouldn't ordinarly try.

A chance to visit the farm.

Produce picked one day prior.

Higher degree of credibility regarding the "organic" label.

Just doing your part to sustain local farming, keep money local, and support a distribution system that doesn't burn a lot of fuel shipping things cross country.

So, no extensive research needed. I'm in!

Blog Import!

2010-01-30T09:57:00.001-08:00

I am about to find a cure for my somewhat schizophrenic blog existence. When I started this blog I ALSO started what was to be a group blog with some coworkers who were part of a CSA project we had at work. Well, that didn't go so well! I was receiving all sorts of produce weekly and blogging about it over there and neglected this blog. My coworkers never really took to blogging so the intended group aspect of One Box A Week never really took off. The CSA in our office never really took off either as one by one, we dropped out. I quit the CSA back in October and not coincidentally, that was the last blog post. Over the next week or so I will be bringing the dozen or so of my contributions on that blog over here. I won't be doing it all at once so as not to overwhelm the few subscribers there are here. (Thanks for subscribing by the way!) I haven't decided if I'm going to post those old entries as new posts with followup commentary, just stick them back in the history of this blog, or a bit of both. If you subcribe you will be sure to see them all no matter what I do.

What I do know, however, is that after I'm done I will be deleting the old blog. I hate a messy Internet.

Saturday Haiku: Saturday at the Office

2010-01-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

Too much work to do.
Busy times with 'distractions'.
So I work today...

There is Magic Inside! My Favorite Xmas Gift!

2010-01-30T07:51:00.000-08:00

Take a look at my favorite Christmas present!

I'd wanted one for a long time. Something magic takes place inside it. I used it for the onion soup but you don't really need one of these for soup. Last week, with the help of this French Oven I took this:and this: and made this:

I used it recently for the onion soup but you don't really need one of these for soup. Slow cooked chicken or stews, however, there is nothing better. And all the leftovers get used for lunches and dinners during the week.

Get the recipe here.

Default Pasta w/Artichokes (and chicken)

2010-01-25T21:25:00.000-08:00

Greg at SippitySup wrote a blog entry recently on what he calls "Default Pasta Night". The rest of us call it "find some stuff in the refridgerator and make a pasta with whatever you have on hand" night. Only Greg puts a lot more thought into than I do. So much thought, in fact, that he give us 5 rules to follow as we assemble our "default pastas"! But you know what? He is right on all of them. His blog is pretty fantastic and full of inspiration. And if you need a little push after reading his blog posts you can always do what I did and leave a comment. He answers everyone. I mentioned I had some frozen artichokes to consume and within minutes he had answered with a plan for using them as the basis for his default pasta. He even followed his own rules! (Be sure to read them!) To show my appreciation I'm showing him the outcome here:

The recipe is in his blog comments. I used whole wheat pasta and added some roasted chicken breast to make it a bit more "Zone". Thanks Greg!!

French Onion Soup Day!

2010-01-24T10:15:00.001-08:00

Happiness is a day that starts with this!

And ends with this!

I have to admit that I have had a few turns in the kitchen since starting my diet. There is, after all, another person in my household who must eat and as long as there is someone hungry in our home, I will be cooking. Likewise, just because I am dieting doesn't mean we don't still welcome friends and family when they wish to visit. So was the case recently when my nephew-in-law and brother-in-law dropped by for an afternoon of cards and sports on the tv. (Don't ask.) As luck would have it, the only thing on my agenda for the day was to make chicken stock from the various frozen chicken carcasses I had been saving up from earlier meals. Onion soup was the natural extention of my afternoon plans. (I'm not much for sports on tv if you haven't caught on to that already.)

Now in the past, French Onion Soup meant Julia Child's recipe. This is the recipe of my childhood and, in fact, to this day onion soup means "Christmas Eve" to me. This was our family's traditional Christmas Eve meal. Our main holiday meal was on Christmas day, when the larger family group would arrive. Mom realized that Julia's recipe would be perfect for Christmas Eve because it could be made well in advance, it was quick to get to the table, and it was filling without completely destroying anyone's appetite for the next day's feast. Mom would make this a day or two before Christmas Eve which actually works best -- this soup gets better if it is allowed to 'rest' before serving for a day or two in the refrigerator.

Julia's recipe, as most French Onion Soup recipes, calls for beef broth. Now it is not written in stone that French Onion Soup must be made with beef broth but most of them are. I was flush with freshly made chicken stock, however. Luckily, I recalled the recipe in my Balthazar cookbook that calls for chicken stock. (I also recalled the bowl I had the last time I was lucky enough to be eating there! Mmm.....)

When making this be sure leave yourself enough time so you don't rush the onions. You aren't required to cook them down until chocolate brown (like Julia's) but you cannot rush them on their way to being golden brown or you will not do the soup justice. The recipe says 30 minutes but it took mine almost an hour to get to the desired golden shade. This is just going to be a function of the onions you select with the sweeter onion varieties taking less time. If you get impatient, add 1/2 teaspoon sugar (but I wish you wouldn't).

(Adapted from:)
BALTHAZAR'S ONION SOUP GRATINEE

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
4 medium yellow onions, peeled, halved through the stem end, and sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 garlic clove, peeled and thinly sliced
4 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 TBS AP white flour
2 quarts Chicken Stock
1/2 cup port
6 slices of country bread, about 1 inch thick, toasted
2 cups Gruyere cheese, coarsely grated

In a 5-quart Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot, heat the olive oil over a medium flame. Add the onions and, stirring frequently to prevent burning, saute until they reach a golden color, approximately 30 minutes. Add the butter, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper and cook for 10 minutes. Raise the heat to high, add the white wine, bring to a boil, and reduce the wine by half, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add 1 TBS flour and mix well. I added this as it makes for a richer soup - a technique borrowed from Julia's version.

Add the Chicken Stock and simmer for 45 minutes.

Preheat the broiler. Remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaf, and swirl the port into the finished soup. Ladle the soup into 6 ovenproof bowls. Fit the toasted bread into the bowls on top of the liquid, and sprinkle 1/3 cup of Gruyère onto each slice.

Place under the broiler for 3 minutes, or until the cheese melts to a crispy golden brown. Allow the soup to cool slightly, about 3 minutes, before serving. Garnish with chopped flat leaf parsley.

Weekend Over: Back to The Zone

2010-01-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

The weekend is over and its back to The Zone Diet for me. Although I didn't really leave it. You see, my Zone Diet Delivery program is only a Monday through Friday affair. I'm on my own on the weekends. I don't want to undo all the "work" I put in during the week so I try to put meals together that would fit the program. 5 days of examples before Saturday rolls around has been truly helpful in this regard. Last weekend I prepared a huge pot of "Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic" which pretty much filled the bill and provided a lot of leftovers. This weekend I ate out both nights and, except for a few cocktails while visiting with my friends, I'd say I did pretty well just by eliminating sugar and carbs from the plate.

But today, its back to the plan. Several have asked so let me show you what it looks like after I unpack the small, portable cooler that all my meals are delivered to me in:

This is what a day's worth of food looks like. Could you survive? My food blogging friends will be horrified to see this I'm sure. Sorry gang. Your wonderful posts have had ill effect on my waistline and I have to take care of it before I can rejoin you.

Why I Can't Have Nice Things.

2010-01-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

I break them. That's why. Well, I don't always break them. Sometimes its my husband or, unfortunately one of my dinner guests, but mostly its me. Given that I do that I have a tendency to break them you would think I would decide collecting nice ones wouldn't be a good thing for me to do. Nope. I have nice bar and tableware. I've been collecting it since was in high school which I know is odd but one can't help what one likes. Usually I break wine glasses while I'm trying to clean them and put them away. I have so many that the cabinets are crowded and that is part of the problem. I had the glasses out after New Years. In fact, I blogged about the fantastic meal I made to serve with the great champagne we had a bottle of but I left off the tragic ending to the story: Sina broke a glass the next morning during clean up. (I use the word tragic despite realizing that a broken champagne glass is far from real tragedy. I'm just dramatic sometimes when it comes to stemware.)

So I went to the cupboard to count my Ralph Lauren Edward tall fluted champagne glasses and saw that I only have seven left! I used to have 12! Even thought they have long been discontinued I've managed to replace several casualties along the way by finding them at replacements.com or on ebay. In case you haven't heard of Replacements Ltd. they are an outfit that specializes in buying up discontinued china, crystal and flatware. Their buyers around the country find lots of the stuff so that when you break something of grandma's you can replace it. Often when you can find them there, however, they are very expensive depending on the demand for your pattern or item but I usually splurge to buy what I need as the security of having a complete set is at stake. I feel like a hostage to my discontinued stemware! Well, no more. I'm done. I give up!

What a lot of people don't know is that in addition to selling all this stuff to you Replacements will buy it from you too. Of course, not at their retail price but its a good place to sell your stuff if you, like me, have thrown in the towel. So, since I'm on a mission to simplify my life and reduce my life's 'clutter' I called them up and made arrangements to pack 'em up and ship 'em to Replacements for cash. I didn't stop with these glasses either but decided to stop fighting on my other set of discontinued crystal from Ralph Lauren (Bedford) as well. It served me well (and many others!) but its just too difficult when one gets broken.

I was surprised at how much money I'm getting for this stuff! Replacements only takes mint condition pieces but if they have a waiting list on what you have you will get close to top dollar without the hassle of ebaying it a few pieces at a time.

Now I'm going shopping for a good set of wine glasses that aren't discontinued. Any ideas?