About That Recipe . . .

Well, it didn't suck, but it also was, um, different from what I said below.

The carrots are very good, but are one-of-a-kind, because of the shit I dumped in there, including some leftover caramelized onions and garlic from last week, a couple of tablespoons of cherry compote that has been hanging around (basically, just cherries cooked down), the remnants of the dried currants that have been in my cupboard for, oh, 5 years?, and some spices--cinnamon and cumin, I think, and some raspberry honey mustard. Instead of the orange juice in the recipe, I chopped up a couple of the meyer lemons and threw the whole things in there. I added a couple of tablespoons of orange juice, and something sweet; maybe some ginger syrup? Maybe some crystalized ginger? A splooge of honey? Whatever, it's very strong-tasting, but quite good.

When I went to do the eggplant, I realized I have no soy sauce. How the fuck can I have no soy sauce? Anyway, I took the remnants of some apricot ginger chutney (again, probably 5 years old, but chutney isn't going to go bad), some olive oil, some lime juice, and some of the garlic scape pesto that's been sitting in the fridge making everything smell like garlic and smeared it all over the chopped/cubed eggplant. I baked it for awhile until it was tender, then tossed it with low-fat coconut milk, lime juice, and parsley (supposed to be cilantro, but didn't have any of that either), plus some more crystalized ginger, I think; not a lot.

I had thought I was going to make a tart with the onions and kale, but instead I just caramelized a buttload of thinly sliced onions and eventually threw in the chopped kale. Finally, I chopped up some more onions pretty fine and sweated them awhile. (I typically use a mix of olive oil and butter.) I added more garlic scapes, and then the kohlrabi. I think I ended up adding a little water to that, too, so the kohlrabi would get tender. Finally, I added some shredded wild turkey meat from the freezer.

BT and I caught up for awhile and drank iced tea with lime slices. When we got hungry, I had her grate some gruyere and made some crepes and we filled them with combinations of the stuff listed above. None of it sucked.

I did not get to do anything with the shredded zucchini, of which I have a huge bowl, mixed with some grated onions and some pesto. I think I'll just make some zucchini pancakes, possibly, or . . . or I don't know what. That might be the best thing to do with it, that or a pasta salad of some kind.

In addition to it all tasting quite good, I have lunches and leftovers for DAYS, and I managed to use up a bunch of stuff that was sitting around--scraps of this, bits of that. I made the rest of the crepes and just stacked them between parchment paper and stuck them in the fridge. I suppose I could freeze them, but I think they'll make good wrap material for the aforementioned lunches this week. I say that I managed to use up a bunch of stuff, and that's true, but I ended up putting transformed versions of everything back in the fridge, so it's not as though there's any more space in the fridge, really. And? more veggies coming tomorrow.

Sunday Morning Roundtable

I keep trying to come up with schemes that will get me back to a half dozen things I've let fall by the wayside--this lonely little blog being one of them--but. Yes, but; we can all in fill in the blanks, I imagine.

The biggest issue has been exercise: In early March, I think it was, I had a week or ten days of some kind of outing nearly every night, plus all the stuff at work, and I just stopped working out. Again. For several weeks. I picked it back up again about two weeks ago, and I'm working on not berating myself, because, frankly, that kind of self-talk doesn't get anywhere. Same with the yoga. Am I doing it every day? Nope. I can find time to sit and provide a lap for the cat; I can find time to zone out with a computer game or tv game, but yoga? Not so much, apparently. But, again, I'm trying to get back to it, two sun salutations at a time.

One thing that helps is that I know how much better I feel when I get regular exercise. It's subtle--perhaps because I walk more in my daily life than many people so am not a complete slug all the time?--but I notice it.

Yesterday morning featured an exercise in another type of futility: I bought a DVR from friends, months ago, but I have been completely unable to set it up to record. What with the TV, the HD cable box, and the DVR, there are about 473 wires hanging all over the place, and I still cannot get the fucking thing to work properly--or at all, actually. So I'm going to throw up my hands and spend the extra $10/month and just get the cheap version of Tivo. Fuck it. It's not that I actually want or need to record anything for posterity, in general, I just want to be able to watch, say, the formula 1 races without having to get up at 2 am to do so. And the DVR works just fine as a DVD player, so it's not a total waste. Yes, over the course of the year it's probably more expensive, but it also means I don't have to buy disks, which ain't cheap, and I'm sure it'll be fine.

This morning, however, I've been busily assembling food items. I wanted to make a semolina sesame bread, but one formula didn't use any kind of preferment at all, and another formula used starter, which I don't have, so I settled on a preferment overnight. I used a combination of white whole wheat and semolina flours--about half and half--with about 10% bread flour thrown in. I added some powdered milk, but no fat. I decided to let the dough rise a second time after shaping, which is what it's doing now; we'll see how this all comes out.

I also hacked up onions, carrots, celery, garlic, and a venison roast, and threw in some cloves, fire-roasted tomatos, red wine, and fresh rosemary, along with something from my freezer that I'm pretty sure was oven-roasted tomatos. That's what it looked like, anyway, but I can't tell for sure. That will simmer all day, and I'm going to make some fresh pasta later and ladle some of the stew, along with some quickly sauteed greens (I think I have some beet greens in the freezer) and some grated parmesan or pecorino over top.

Last night, while out for dinner, I had some panna cotta that had cherries that had been macerated in simple syrup and balsamic vinegar, so I threw some of that sauce together, too. If it's too sweet or too sour or something, I also have some citrus simple syrup and some lemon rinds in it, so that will help. And I have some lemon cakes in the freezer that should be used up, so it looks like there will be dessert tonight, too.

Probably won't suck too much, though I suppose it might.

The other nice thing about all of this is that it once again uses up stuff that's been sitting around and needed using; that always makes me feel a little virtuous. Plus? It makes room for more stuff. The CSA share is starting up again in a couple of weeks, so I need to make sure last year's stuff is out of the freezer. (Ideally I'd like to defrost the freezer, but that's probably beyond my capacities at the moment.)

I'll try to post pics, or at least a taste report.

Lady Cooks-a-Lot Strikes Again!

One might surmise that things have been a bit hectic. And, yes, that would be a good guess. The short version is that my new boss is now our new head honcho; the old head honcho is out. I don't really know details, and I sure as fuck wouldn't put them here if I did. The upshot, though, includes a promotion and another raise for me, which, yay, and a very cool new job that actually maximizes the use of many of my best skills (or it will eventually; for the time being, I have to learn a whole bunch of stuff and teach a whole bunch of stuff to other people), while working for one of the best bosses I've ever had and working with a team of people I like and respect. So, yay.

Today's cooking has included, so far: more whole wheat soft pretzels and pretzel rolls (the latter will be used for tonight's venison sandwiches, more on which in a moment), lemon bars (more meyer lemons, and a recipe cobbled together from multiple sources), and wild turkey and white bean cassoulet, which is simmering on the stove at the moment. The soft pretzel/pretzel roll recipe is cobbled together from the KAF whole grain book and from the bakery formula for soft pretzels (and, needless to say, I use baking soda rather than lye in the water bath), and the whole grains in it reallty give the bread a wonderful chewy flavor. The preferment definitely helps, I suspect; I use whole wheat flour for that, which probably helps mellow it out some.

The lemon bars include a crust from the KAF book, sort of--I used a mix of chopped oats, whole wheat flour, and unbleached flour--and the filling was sort of from a David Lebovitz recipe, except I had to double it because the crust formula was for a bigger pan. I also cut back on the sugar--actually I used honey--because I was using Meyer lemons. They're quite tasty, too--lemony without being either too sweet or too sour. I'll probably cut back the sugar in the crust next time I make it, but in general I thought they were a success.

The cassoulet recipe is from "A New Way to Cook," and instead of cooking the meat that she suggests, I rendered some pancetta and then threw in some already-cooked wild turkey meat from Friend. I also used wild turkey broth. It's simmering still, and I have to add the chopped carrots and onions to it in awhile, but I suspect it's going to be pretty fabulous.

I have not exercised in weeks, though. I've either been out carousing (week before last) or coming home and staring at the wall with the Loaner Cat in my lap, stirring only to put on a hockey game or Top Chef. This is not a desireable development, however, not least because it has reversed all the progress I'd made in fitting into my clothes again. And then Friday I managed to finally catch a cold--I say finally because it seems as though everyone around me is sick more often, and more seriously, than I am. I actually had managed to completely avoid all illness this winter, and this cold is pretty mild. (I started sucking on zinc lozenges and drinking extra liquid before I was even sure that it was, indeed, a cold, and that seems to have reduced my "suffering" to "blowing my nose and sneezing a lot.")

One of the things that has occurred to me in the past month or so has to do with change. As you can imagine, there have been a whole boatload of changes in the past six or seven months--bosses and head honchos and organizational structure and even some organizational direction have been changing steadily, with some big dramatic bits every now and then for punctuation. While it is a little unsettling, in many ways, I've realized that it's not really bothering me as much as it's bothering some of my coworkers, and I was wondering why.

Was I hiding from my own stress or something? And then I realized that, for me, the stressful changes in my life have included big questions like "how the fuck do I pay the rent?" and "what about food?" and "oh, fuck, now what am I going to do with my life?" and "how am I going to pay off those loans?" Generally, several of those are in play, and, more often than not, there are multiple explosions in my personal life as well. So, compared to those kinds of stressors, the past six or seven months hasn't felt so bad. Not necessarily all puppies and unicorns and flowers, of course, but compared to being unemployed, it pretty much rocks.

Okay, so the cassoulet is pretty much done; the venison is sliced thin and marinating with garlic and a little wine; in a minute I'll get up and slice an onion, maybe actually caramelize it and take it out of the pan. The shrimp can be cooked quickly, and then the venison can be flash cooked, basically, the the cheese gets melted on top and the whole thing gets scooped up onto a pretzel roll (in Friend's case, one that has been smeared with mustard).

Friend has gotten addicted to these steak sandwiches. I did it on a whim months ago, then we didn't do it for awhile, but we've started again, and added the homemade pretzel bread, and it's just amazingly flavorful. We'll probably switch to the grill when it warms up a little (and the Loaner Cat is back at either Friend's house or his mom's; she doesn't like being abandoned). But in the meanwhile, this rather rocks.

Lemony Goodness

Yogi Berra noted that nobody went to Ruggeri's restaurant any more because it was too crowded. That's how I feel about going out to dinner around Valentine's Day. I don't have much of an opinion about VD either way; I do not participate in the craziness, I do not expect the men in my life to make gestures of any kind, much less big flower-and-jewel-encrusted gestures, and I tend to take the Twisty Faster view of it, that it's a big trade--baubles in exchange for access to vaginas, or, more to the point, access to a particular vagina. What it means, though, is that the restaurants are all clogged up with people engaging in this trade, which means I avoid it like the plague. The only drag of that is that Friend and I like to go out to dinner once a week or so, and lately weekends have been more convenient for that, but it's out of the question this weekend. (Chuck and I took the same approach to this.)

So I headed to Whole Paycheck yesterday, and got some tuna steaks, which I marinated in orange juice & peel, garlic, and fresh rosemary, a handful of shrimp (Friend likes shrimp), and three pounds of butter. And a bunch of other stuff, of course, because what's the point of a shopping trip if you don't haul 50 pounds of stuff on the el? I also braised some chard and collard greens with some pancetta and onions, and they were pretty tasty, too. I had bought a bunch of pancetta and I'd had the person slice it very thick, and then I froze it in approximately-two-ounce portions, and it has been extremely useful. Whenever I want a little of that bacony goodness, I just grab one of the portions and chop it up. It just occurs to me that I should have thrown a splash of balsamic vinegar into the greens, too . . .

And then I made up a recipe! Sort of, anyway, with some help from the chatline person at King Arthur. I was looking for a way to use the meyer lemons and make a cake, but with flour rather than almonds like the last time, and I wanted it to be very lemony, but I didn't want something that had a ton of fat in it. So I found a recipe (from KA, actually) that used buttermilk, and I reduced the butter, eliminated the buttermilk, and subbed lemon juice, water, and powdered milk, and used a lot of peel (about 10 grams--I ended up using the peel and juice of four lemons). I didn't have a mary ann pan (and had to look it up to figure out what it even was), but I suddenly remembered that I had a mini-bundt pan, and that worked beautifully. I topped the cakes with some whipped cream and raspberries and strawberries that Friend hauled over here from his freezer. The cakes were absolutely delightful; I suspect muffin tins would have worked as well (and were actually my first thought). Lemony and cakey and even a little chewy, because I buttered the tins very thoroughly. And, for once, I wrote down what I was doing, so I can actually make them again. I know! Who woulda thought!

Today I think it's going to be some venison steak, because I love me some venison steak. I have a head of cauliflower I need to use, and I'll see what grains I have floating around in the cupboard. And cookie-making needs to ensue, as well, so I can bring some to work tomorrow. I already mixed the dough; it's been chilling (literally) in the fridge since yesterday--I made a double batch. And I also bought a pineapple and two mangos, so I think I'll make a fruit salad, too, to take for breakfasts this week.

I think a lot of my food blogging is because work is still, as noted a steaming pile of stress. It doesn't affect me in some ways, but it does in others; one of the people with whom I work most closely isn't holding up his/her part of the work. Our old boss used to cover for him/her, or rope the person into line when I (privately) bitched enough about it, but the old boss isn't there any more, and Coworker is pulling the same old shit. Newboss is less tolerant--okay, not tolerant at all--and the rest of the team is getting really damn tired of the shit, too. It will come to a head sooner rather than later, I think, because Coworker thinks s/he can skate and it is just not going to fly. Newboss won't allow it or cover for it, and the rest of us are getting mighty tired of doing Coworker's work.

One thing that's been interesting to me is my own . . . complicity, I guess. I realized way back when that Coworker isn't able to do some of the things that would have been associated with his/her position--vital things, that really needed to be done--but also brought other strengths that we didn't necessarily know we needed. So, I took on some of Coworker's stuff--okay, a lot of it--which has worked out okay for me, because I've gotten experience that I would not otherwise have and some of it has been an interesting puzzle for me to solve, and I got my big raise as a result of it.

When Oldboss was around, I realized Oldboss wasn't going to confront Coworker in any meaningful way, and I recognized there wasn't anything I could do, short of quitting, and that I didn't want to do that. It was, after all, working out for me, even if it meant the labor distribution was somewhat unfair. When Coworker was getting too out of hand in some way, I'd bitch to Oldboss and get him/her to deal with it at least a little, and Oldboss also would cover for Coworker, in the sense of being present in the office when Coworker took many of his/her vacations and days off and whatevers. Newboss isn't willing to do that covering, and I'm finding that I'm actually rather relieved. I didn't like it before, but I liked Oldboss and there wasn't any way to really confront openly what was going on, other than my bitching about it, so I realized that and let it be. Now, however, it's coming out in the open, and I much prefer that, uncomfortable though it may be in some ways.

The other three of us on the senior management team are basically fed up with the whole charade, and Newboss is behind us on this, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Me, personally, I'm getting tired of people coming to me with things that are Coworker's responsibility--they do it because (a) Coworker isn't doing the thing, or is out of town or out of the office and/or (b) they know I'll get it done somehow. What Coworker doesn't realize is that it makes him/her look bad--people already questioned what Coworker actually contributes, and this isn't going to make answering that question any more pleasant for Coworker. The other thing Coworker doesn't realize is that I've been his/her biggest advocate, in some ways, pointing out the assets that may not be visible to everyone. Now, however, I'm sufficiently tired of my plate getting more heaped while s/he gallivants off somewhere, I'm less willing to come up with a cover story.

My main goal, through all of this, is to try to be clearheaded and fair-minded. I haven't been doing a great job at that, so far, but I'm working on it. I did realize that the thing that bothers me the most is that I get pissy and annoyed, and that's not a place I like to be. I don't like when I get that way--and my actions are my own responsibility. I don't care if it's "justified," it's not helpful or pleasant, either to experience or to be around. It's all a learning experience, I guess.

I am arguably throwing away $30 tonight, and I am not usually so profilgate, but I simply could not face it. My tile-making class meets tonight--it was cancelled last week but will be made up, which means I haven't been there in two weeks as it is. However, I had to shlep to the other end of the city not just yesterday but today as well, as the temporary filling fell off again yesterday. This means I was up by 4 or so and out the door by a little after 5 am two days in a row. In addition by the time the class is over tonight, it will be bitter cold again, with multiple degrees below zero wind chill, and the trip home takes at least 40 minutes, on a good night with good public transportation karma, which I have not been having lately. (Today's episode: the bus on which I was riding this morning pulled over on Lake Shore Drive. We sat there for 10 minutes, waiting for the next bus, onto which we were all herded. Luckily I had left some wiggle room in terms of the buses I was planning to catch, but the driver never did explain what the problem was.)

And I just didn't feel like it. Work continues to be a steaming pile of stress, and it's been brutally cold this week, and whine, whine, whine. Somehow, coming home and sitting on the couch with a cat in my lap and working on getting on the outside of some wine just sounded like a much better idea. So far, I'm right about that. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out whether I'm just whining and I need to STFU and get on with whatever it is, or whether I really do need to skip whatever it is.

So, yes, I have hauled my sorry ass all the way to the other end of the city three times in the past week, and two of those three episodes have involved the asscrack of dawn. The dentist was a bit abashed today--but it's just the kind of thing that's going to happen with an inlay as big as mine is, so I saw no point in getting pissy about it. It also means that they'll make it a point to get me in as soon as the piece comes back from the lab rather than making me wait a month (which is when my appointment was originally scheduled). Meanwhile, I've also discovered that the culprit in the recent recurrance of the back pain was my winter boots. Last weekend, Friend hauled my new boots--purchased at the end of last winter, on sale, and left at his house--over here, and I've been wearing them all week, and my back pain and heel pain? Nearly non-existent.

What I really want is a couple of days off--to go hang at the tile studio and work on my stuff; to get a massage; to take myself out for a meal; to work out (I haven't been able to get myself to do that this week, either); to sit somewhere with a hot beverage and a good book. And somehow I'm going to figure out how to get that, despite the continuing pile of things on fire on my desk.

This Week in Baking

Friday was an expensive exercise in shlepping. Two different bus delays increased by 50% the amount of time I spent on public transportation--and, given that my dentist is at the other end of the city, I was already looking at three hours on various forms of buses and trains. And the dentist visit cost $1400 (as Friend put it, there goes one of the chairs for my sunroom . . . which isn't quite the case, but close). My dentist is wonderful--I like him personally, and he has kept my teeth in my mouth--but dental care isn't cheap, especially at his level. (He teaches around the country, because he's at the cutting edge for various techniques, and he's one of the dentists for the Blackhawks.) It's worth it to me--the expense and the extended travel time--but I can see why it wouldn't be possible for everyone. And this whole adventure was expensive because he worked on two teeth and because one of them requires an inlay (rather than a crown, which he likes to avoid as long as possible). Oh well; mostly I"m thankful that I can afford it and that he's so good.

This week's baking is going to involve apricots and ginger. I've now started taking requests. My Newboss doesn't like fruit (don't ask; there's a long story there), which obviously eliminates a whole host of desserts, but s/he will be out of town for this week's management team meeting so I can ignore that restriction this week. BTart has provided some wonderful suggestions, and I'll probably end up doing gingerbread with apricots for Tuesday.

Today's experiment, however, is fougasse. I haven't made it it awhile, and of course I ended up combining several formulas (all from King Arthur, though one was from the Whole Grain book and the others were from the website), not least because I only had a little whole wheat flour. So, I used that in the preferment--which came up nice and bubbly and sour--and then threw in mostly all-purpose in the dough. I also threw in a little barley flour, just to finish the bag, and some high-fiber flour, and a handful of bread flour. For the fillings, I'm using dried pears, fresh rosemary, and maybe some chopped walnuts if I have any, and for the other I'm using apricots, candied ginger, and maybe almonds.

When you used dried fruit in something--cranberries, cherries, and blueberries are probably an exception--it's a good idea to soak the fruit in boiling water for 10 minutes or so. This is especially true for large pieces like apricots and, especially, pear halves. After soaking, I cut up the fruit with my kitchen scissors. Anyway, I used the soaking water in the dough as the liquid, figuring it would add a little more flavor. And I had to guess at the amount of yeast to use: the book used the same amount as the website formulas, even though the book's formula was for twice as much flour/fougasse. So I split the difference. It has a preferment, it'll be fine, probably.

I have no idea whether this is going to work, but I've decided my motto is, "It probably won't suck too badly." And, hey, if it does, I start over. I have the freedom and absolute privilege of being able to do that; my family won't starve if I fuck up the bread or the stew.

I'm not entirely sure why I've been doing so much baking for my coworkers lately. Part of it is that I have more time to do so. Part is that I have some new recipe sources and new ingredients sources, and I like trying new stuff. Part is that it's a way to provide some comfort to my coworkers, all of whom have been stressed out by all of the changes we've been dealing with for the past five months (and which continue)--who doesn't like baked goods? Part is that it's something I very much like to do, but I can't eat all of it myself (even with Friend helping). So? More baking.

I was emailing yesterday with one of my oldest friends (*waves toward Boston*) and she said something I hadn't realized about myself, which was that I'm not afraid to have things not work out. Which is probably true, at least with my baking--and I see what she means. It does give me a certain freedom, though admittedly I really do hate to fuck up. I guess it's what comes from learning so many new things over the years--new careers, new skills, new crafts. As I've noted here, when I was in pastry school, and now in my tile class, I don't expect to be very good at new techniques, and of course making mistakes is a great way to learn new stuff, if you have access to a person or information that helps you figure out how to fix something.

But, really, these mistakes don't have consequences except possibly some spoiled ingredients. Where I do get nervous is at work, where there really isn't as much room to fuck up. Not because my bosses are viscious taskmasters or something--and, once again, I'm privileged there, too--but because I'm managing a huge budget practically single-handedly. I don't like that; it means if I do fuck up, there's no one to find my mistakes, and that could be a big problem. Reality is, I DID make a moderately large mistake a couple of years ago (I overestimated third-party payments for one of our contracts), and no one caught it. I eventually did, and I tried to explain it to multiple people, but it kinda went over everyone's head, which just made me more nervous. I'm not saying I should have been disciplined or yelled at or something, and no one lost his or her job because of my mistakes, but it did affect our financial picture. To this day, it bothers me that no one really understood the mistake, but the part that really made me nervous, and still does, is that it means there's no one there who is going to catch my mistakes.

And I'm going to make them--everyone does. So, what I end up trying to do--for me, as well as for anyone else--is to try to establish systems of some kind that make it easier to identify problems. Last year I came up with this elaborate budgeting mechanism/workbook, complete with formulas and links and such, and very few people really get how cool it is. (Okay, yes, I'm bragging a little there.) But it is cool--and, more to the point, it makes the methods I'm using to allocate costs transparent and relatively easy to follow, which means other people can follow along and find my fuckups. Not that anyone actually does, mind you, but they could. It also helps me, so it's a win, but I sure would like it if someone would pick through it and find my mistakes.

Our organization has adopted this new financial management software--two years, actually--and everyone keeps touting how wonderful it is. I remain unconvinced, but I can't tell whether it's because it really doesn't do what I need done or because I'm stubbornly stuck on My Way of Doing Things. The new controller--whom I very much like--and I have been discussing it at some length, because the organization wants people to use it. I, of course, keep pointing out the ways it doesn't work for me, while still allowing him/her to show me how I'm wrong. So far, that hasn't happened. The other advantage to my systems is that they're easier to manipulate--it's easier to change a scenario and see what that does to the budget, which is really crucial when there's a lot going on.

Anyway, one of the things I've figured out about myself is that some of the things I do best--this kind of systems development, and the analytical part of it--are things that, if done well, are basically invisible. It's like facilitating a meeting: if you're doing it well, then the meeting runs well, but the facilitation is invisible and things go smoothly. Which, really, is sort of amusing, given the reputation I have for having a large personality. (I always tell people that I act taller than I really am--and people routinely estimate my height at two to four inches taller than I am--and I never wear heels.) The same is true for my spreadsheets and other tools like that: if you design them well, then they're easy to use, and people aren't fighting the tool to accomplish a task.

Okay, enough blather. Time to check the fougasse dough. I'll take pictures if I remember.

Julia, Julie, and Lemons

I finally saw "Julie and Julia" (thanks to my fabulous new Apple TV that I got to go with the fabulous new HDTV), and I am, once again, madly in love with Meryl Streep. Jesus christ on a pogo stick, that woman can act. The "Julie" part of the movie was kinda eh, IMHO. Amy Adams was fine, it's not a criticism of her; it's just that Meryl is so good, and Julia was so wonderful, there isn't enough room for the Julie part. Seriously, I would much rather have had an additional hour of Julia. And Stanley Tucci, for that matter, who was also wonderful.

I'd read the Amanda Hesser article about Julie years ago, and then looked for the blog, and then started at the beginning and read the whole damn thing (meaning I don't have a lot of interest in buying the actual book), and was sufficiently entertained by it. It was an interesting exercise, and, given my love of food and cooking, I am always happy to see someone actually interested in cooking. But, no, it was just way less interesting than the Julia part, and it would have been fun to see more of that part.

Meanwhile, back at Iron Chef: My Place, a bunch of stuff got made, and some of it was pretty good. I made the lemon ginger biscotti for the third time, again adding cranberries and this time adding pistachios instead of almonds, and they're getting better with each attempt. The lemon flavor and scent is really delightful. Not enough ginger this time, though--I couldn't taste it at all. I also attempted some chocolate hazelnut biscotti, and those were a major failure. For one thing, I must not have put in enough flour or something, because they simply didn't hold together: I have big chunks of chocolatey goodness, surrounding hazelnuts, but nothing that maintains its shape or integrity. For another, I really need to chop the hazelnuts; they probably contributed to the problems. However, the chunks taste just fine--very chocolatey. You can only get the barest hint of the barley sugar in them; it was another in my attempts to achieve a malted-milk-ball thing, so there's barley sugar, barley flour, and malted milk powder in them, but it's not all that noticeable, I don't think. I think next time I'm going to grind some hazelnuts into paste, and chop some, too. And add more flour.

For dinner, my task was to use some lemon (because while at the store on Saturday I purchased more Meyer lemons, even though I still had some here) and the kale that was about to become a science project. So I got out the big wok-shaped pan, put some water to boil in another pan (eventually there would be spaghetti in the boiling water), and got started. First, I took a lemon--sliced coarsely, so I could remove the seeds, but otherwise the whole thing--and a few cloves of garlic, and maybe some ginger (I don't remember) and put it in the bowl of my stick blender (I killed my mini-prep awhile ago) and whirred it around. I let it sit for awhile, remembering from Cooks that lemon will mellow out the garlic if I let it sit for a few minutes. I chopped up the practically-still-frozen chicken breasts and threw them into the pan with some butter and olive oil. Sauteed them awhile while I chopped an onion. When the chicken was nearly done, I threw the lemon garlic mixture in. Let it all cook a bit, then took all of that out of the pan. Added a bit more oil and threw in the onion, cooked that down, added the chopped kale (by now the spaghetti is cooking merrily on another burner). Eventually I added a splash of white wine to deglaze the pan.

To finish, after everything was cooked, I dumped the chicken/lemon mixture back in with the kale and onion mixture, added a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream, drained the cooked pasta, threw that in the pan to mix it all around, and served it with some grated cheese. It so totally didn't suck, and it had the advantage of using at least three things that needed using (the chicken, the kale, and a lemon), so yay for that.

Anyway. Lots of meetings this week, too, plus a hockey game tomorrow night and Chuck and CK on Friday, so it's time for sleep.

Random

I only seem capable of food blogging these days . . . let's try something else.

Partly it's because all of the stuff at work goes on, but I've become more wary about going into detail on the 'tubes (not that I've ever had any inkling that any coworker even knows I have a blog, much less has stumbled across it, number one, and, number two, the people about whom I would be most dismayed stumbling across this thing don't have enough internet savvy to find it--most probably don't know what a blog is, much less how to find mine; but you never know). Some things are going quite well--the new middle lord (my direct supervisor) has turned out to be quite good; I like hir personally and professionally, and zie seems intent on finding ways to use my talents to their fullest rather than just letting me continue to do three or four jobs in obscurity. Which, hey, all good. But it's too soon to even try to talk about it here; it remains to be seen what can or will be done.

So I go to work, submit the next thing, come home and provide a lap for the cat (Friend's cat is living with me for a little while, as I think I mentioned), work out, watch the hockey game if there is one, watch Top Chef on Wednesday night, maybe go out for dinner with Friend one night, maybe do some cooking or baking if I'm inspired.

My tile-making class started this past week, and I'm already feeling weird about it. Part of it is that I know that what I need to do is to sit down and do some drawings, start doing something, anything, really, but, instead, I dink around. The one tile I made last year actually came out reasonably well for a first effort, and I'm looking forward to making it even better, but that was a goddamned expensive tile. And now I'm in a class where I'm surrounded by people who are Genuine Artists--or it feels that way to me--and I'm just a schlub with no ideas about what I want to create. And I know that that approach violates the Top Chef Rule--cook your own food and don't worry about what other people are cooking--but my brain keeps going there anyway.

Well, there's only been one class, so maybe I'll get my head out of my own head and actually do the drawings I need to do, and create some fun playful stuff just to amuse myself, and take a couple of afternoons off of work and spend some time in the studios (which doesn't cost anything extra if you're taking a class). I also know that I do my best work when I have the opportunity to just fuck around, play, see what evolves, and I didn't have much of that last spring. I have a ton of vacation time--nearly three weeks, plus five personal days--so we'll see. And did I mention that I want to just have fun with it, fer chrissakes?

This week's other task is to find out what the weird patch on my leg is. I called my dermatologist today and got an appointment for Thursday. I'm perfectly willing to pay my co-pay only to be told that it's just a patch of, I don't know, eczema or something, but it doesn't look like anything I've ever had on my skin before, and it's in a location that isn't a good candidate for plain old dry skin, and I moisturize after my showers, and I've been treating it for 10 days or so with no results, so I figure it won't hurt to have an expert take a look at it. It's probably something stupid and routine--and that would be absolutely fine with me.

As for cultural commentary: Lately I've been reading Eliot Pattison's Inspector Shan series, and absolutely loving it. I've worked my way through the first four, I think, and I alternate with other stuff, of course, but it's way fun. The other thing I've discovered--and, yes, I realize I'm late to this party--is "Big Bang Theory." I've been getting it on Netflix and watching it while I row, and it makes me laugh out loud. I just finished season two (I alternate with the BBC's Inspector Morse series), so I have a few more disks to go. But it cracks me up, and I've always had a crush on both Johnny Galecki and Sarah Gilbert, so it's even more fun. I got a new TV, too--a big-ass sucker--but I'm using the old TV in the back bedroom with the rowing machine, i.e., I only get to watch the little TV while I row, but I have the rowing machine out of my living room. No furniture yet, but the furniture maker was here the week before last, and as soon as I figure out what I'm getting back on my taxes I'm going to order some stuff.

Okay, that's the best I can do without involving food.

Bunches of Lunches

I'm not going to comment on this weekend's events except to say that the right's true colors are shining through. That is, if Sarah Palin really believed all that eliminationist rhetoric she spouts, if the gun nuts really believed all the threatening crap they shout, if the far right really does believe that their rights have been trampled such that armed insurrection is required, well, then, don't you think they should be applauding instead of running away from it all? Oh, wait, it's just posturing, you say? When I was a kid and made a disgruntled or otherwise unpleasant face, my mother would warn me that it was going to freeze like that--and, on some level, she's right. The postures we adopt are not merely posturing; at some level, they're what we really believe. If you do not, in fact, believe that legislators, judges, and innocent bystanders should be shot point blank in the street because they support health care reform and you oppose it, then don't wave signs and put up maps and posts that recommend that. Personally, much as I oppose the right, I do not support gunning them down or threatening to do so.

This weekend's project was twofold--use up some stuff sitting around, and make a bunch of lunches; as you can imagine, these projects dovetailed nicely, though I did have to go to Whole Paycheck and get even more produce. And, I warn you, all three are very similar: a bunch of vegetables, with some spices, thrown into my big wok and cooked. This one has curried cauliflower, sweet potatos, and some peas, along with the usual spices and onions and garlic. (Spices were cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and garam masala, I think.)This one has butternut squash, white potatos (both from the CSA), garbanzos, tomatos, onions, garlic, and, at the last minute, I threw in the swiss chard I'd bought. I think I used the cumin and coriander, cardomom, tamarind paste, and fire-roasted tomatos.
This one has the rest of the sweet potatos, black beans (some frozen and getting frostbit, and one lonely can in the cupboard from January 2007), a can of tomatos, frozen corn, and onions and garlic. I also had a bag of greens from the CSA, which I'd thought was spinach but discovered also included some kale (I think), so I cut it all up and threw it in. It ended up being a lot of greens, but that's fine. I also made a pot of rice, and I portioned everything out into containers or freezer baggies, so I'm good to go; that's nearly 30 lunches, plus last night's dinner. Seriously, I think I could eat for a couple of months from what I have on hand.

I also bought a head of cabbage and some curly kale yesterday, and I have some potatos to use up (including some that have seen better days but I'll probably use anyway), so I think some soup might be the way to go. I also have two more squashes--an acorn and a butternut--from the CSA, but they'll keep for awhile, and half a bag of carrots.

Yesterday's impulse purchase was a bunch of Meyer lemons. I have heard about them but had never seen them in person before, so I bought a bunch. Of course, all of the recipes I can find have a ton of butter in them, which wasn't what I had in mind exactly. Brazen Tart made some suggestions (*waves to Tart*) and I think I'll probably use them for at least two adventures. Because did I mention I bought a bunch? Like 8 or 10 maybe? So there are enough, I think. Anyway, Tart had given me a recipe that calls for macerating the finely sliced lemons overnight, but every time I've made that recipe the results have been bitter more than sour. Once I even peeled the peel, then got rid of the pith (which is often where the bitterness resides), and used it that way, but that started being more trouble and I don't remember it being that much better. But maybe Meyer lemons will work better, and I otherwise really quite like the tart, so we'll see.

The other thing I"m going to try is some biscotti. KAF's Whole Grain book has a maple-something recipe, and a lemon-anise recipe, and there's a Moosewood recipe floating around somewhere in the sunroom, so I'll have to cobble it together, but I'm thinking lemons, maple syrup (or possibly honey), and probably pecans rather than walnuts. I'll let you know what happens.

Happy New Year!

The trick to meeting one's goals is to keep them modest, so I've been doing that; after the frantic hustle of the past four months, sitting on my butt--occasionally with a cat in my lap--seems like a fine idea. I also decided that starting the year with a dirty or cluttered home was probably a bad idea, though, so I've been picking away at the cleaning tasks, and I'm nearly done with everything except the laundry, which I'll do tomorrow or Monday.

Some bread will get baked, as well, seeing as how the yeast does most of the work--actually, there's going to be a sourdough wheat, and pretzels, and some lemon-barley scones, to which I'll add some grains and dried apricots or pears; the first two things require preferments, so I'll give the yeast something to do today and really do the baking tomorrow.

Speaking of baking, I got the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking book, and it's like a drug; partly as a result of that purchase, I've also purchased wads of stuff from King Arthur by mail order--barley flour, high-fiber flour, etc.--which is quite convenient. It's no cheaper than the grocery store, but I can get free shipping, so I can get 35 pounds of stuff without having to haul it on the bus or the el.

Which reminds me: I made some baked goods for some of the people at work (mini tarts with chocolate ganache and caramelized almonds--was supposed to be hazelnuts, but it turned out I didn't have any). One person asked if I'd made the tart shells--of course I had; why would I purchase them? And then I said that I had at least a half a dozen types of flour in my kitchen. This prompted cries of disbelief, so someone challenged me to list them, so I did: all-purpose; bread; whole wheat; barley; high-fiber; almond; hazelnut; cake; whole wheat pastry. Turns out I forgot one (I have some gluten-free flour I don't use much), too. To which one person replied, "I thought there was only bleached and unbleached." I didn't tell her that there is no good use for bleached flour.

I know I went to pastry school and all, but I continue to be shocked by how little people seem to know about cooking and baking. So, lately, I've been trying to spread the knowledge as best I can. At Friend's sister's house, I did most of the cooking and some baking for four or five days, which served multiple purposes. For one thing, I was able to incorporate more vegetables into the mix than is common in a land where the only vegetables in sight may be on the relish tray and may consist of a few kinds of pickles. It also kept Friend's mother out of the kitchen; she's not the most organized person in the world, and feeding a lot of people tends to make her even more anxious and fussy. For another thing--and the most important thing--it was something I could contribute to the mix, thereby allowing Friend's sister to hang out with her sons and daughters-in-law and not have to worry about feeding people. It's relatively easy for me to do these things, especially when it's pretty casual, and it feels like a gift, both a gift I can give and a gift I can receive, in the form of being useful, and using my skills to benefit the people around me. Because, yes, doing something useful is a gift to me, too.

There were 14 people for two of the dinners--in addition to Friend's sister and her kids and their wives, there was also Friend's brother, his wife and two kids, and Friend's mom and her friend. I made some baked goods, too--wheat rolls, my grandmother's sticky buns (some with nuts and some without, because we had some allergies), more mini tarts, this time with hazelnuts, and a fruit cobbler with an oat topping that was served warm over vanilla ice cream.

The first night was some venison with caramelized onions, some mushrooms, a little wine to deglaze the pan, mashed potatos, and broccoli and cauliflower in a cheese sauce. The leftover veggies got pureed and turned into soup for lunch the next day. The next night I used up some butternut squash from my farm share that had some bruises, some spinach, some wild turkey, the leftover bacon from breakfast, and some onions; that went over buckwheat. The buckwheat was only so-so, but there were leftovers of the squash mix, so I baked the other squash, mixed it all together, and made some homemade whole wheat ravioli in a rough tomato sauce, with more wild turkey available for those who wanted some meat with their sauce, and someone made a salad. A turkey that Friend's mom had purchased became dinner the next night; there was fruit salad and some other stuff to go with that. Mostly I tried to use up things that were hanging around; the basket of fruit and the honey butter that Sis wanted to get rid of because her not-yet-ex-husband had purchased it in one of his sprees but it wasn't being used both went into the cobbler. Other people contributed various bits as well--the salad and the fruit salad were assembled by others. The last morning I made a fruit compote and sweetened ricotta cheese (maple syrup and some half and half) and made crepes for whoever was around; I also wrote down my recipe and taught Friend's sister how to make them.

All in all, it accomplished multiple goals--feeding people, including people who are allergic to nuts and people who don't eat much meat; allowing the family members present to contribute as they wished, without requiring that they do so; keeping anxious people out of the kitchen; using up food that might otherwise have gone to waste; creating leftovers that people could eat for subsequent lunches; and also providing some . . . education, I guess. I certainly didn't do it as an educational exercise, but I've found that showing, and telling as I show, makes the whole process seem more accessible, even as I point out that it's easier for me because I lived alone for so long, i.e., I've had a whole lot of time to practice, without having to please other people with my experiments. People who are feeding picky kids--or just feeding multiple kids on a short budget and a short schedule--don't have that freedom/privilege.

But this weekend I'm just hanging out. My goals are to do the cleaning (which is nearly done), do some baking to fill the freezer, get in some workouts, and do a whole lot of nothing, including a bunch in front of the television. Friend's cat is staying with me while he's off at the Rose Bowl, and she wanders out to chat or to find a lap every once in awhile. The only other thing I need to do today is make sure I eat some pork: my grandmother always insisted it was necessary for luck in the new year. I don't have anything pork-like except some pancetta, so I guess that will have to do.

So, happy new year to all of you; I hope you're enjoying whatever it is you're doing.

In Which I Do Stuff

none of which is terribly interesting.

Although my neighborhood has its contingent of old crunchy-granola types like myself, there hasn’t been a city farmers’ market in the neighborhood until this year. (The city has markets in a whole lot of neighborhoods, and many accept food stamps.) The local market is on Sunday, and I’m not always around, so I didn’t get to it until today. It’s pretty modest--only a block long, on one side of the street--but the bakery is doing this market, as is the cheesemonger who also works the market near where I lived downtown. After putting a starter for some wheat bread on the counter and watching the Formula 1 race, I wandered over; I wanted to freeze a whole bunch of blueberries for use in my morning oatmeal. Did I limit myself to said blueberries? Take a guess.

My haul for today:
*about 10 pounds of blueberries
*two jars of Sun-Gold tomato jam
*one jar of strawberry-raspberry jam (both jams from the CSA that delivers my produce)
*two kinds of cheese--a parmesan-type cheese that had been soaked in raspberry ale, and a sheep and cow’s milk cheese that’s pretty wonderful--to bring the total to about 10 kinds in my fridge right now
*two loaves of pretzel bread from the bakery, most of which was cut into serving-size pieces and frozen

The bread dough is rising (this recipe, back to which I’ll return in a second, requires three risings) and I’m nearly done freezing the blueberries (I’m IQFing them). I have some others in the freezer that I need to use, but I have been less than pleased with their quality; they’re from Whole Paycheck, and I think they’re imported from China.

Which brings me to my next rant.

I had a 20%-off-everything coupon from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and decided to stock up on some things that I need, plus a few things that Friend is missing from his kitchen. (In my opinion they’re missing--he can fibrillate for, oh, years, over a simple $7 kitchen implement, which, when I’m cooking there, drives me batshit. In a good-humored way, I might add, but I took the cheese grater into my own hands.) When I got home and unpackaged the stuff, I confirmed what I suspected when I was shopping: Every. Single. Thing. was made in China. And last night, when I was making some frozen broccoli for dinner? Also from China (the Whole Paycheck store brand organic, IIRC).

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have anything against China as a nation or against people who live in China. But we have millions of people in this country out of work, and family farms are struggling. Yeah, sure, I know that people will stock up on stuff at the place that makes the Waltons wealthy, and, more important, I know that there are quite a few people who can’t afford to be shopping at Whole Paycheck--or anywhere that isn’t a resale shop or a food bank. But at some point, people who can afford to do so have to put at least some of their money where their livelihoods are. (I insist on the afford to do so part, and I am not going to decide who falls into that category for other people; I’m admonishing myself, and myself only.)

And there IS stuff out there--I just asked the Google. Yes, it’s not from my usual online retailers (I do nearly all of my clothes shopping online, because I loathe brick-and-mortar stores). But it’s time to suck it up and commit to buying at least a percentage of my clothing from retailers who make their stuff in this country. Food is a little easier, especially w/ the farm share this year (though I have not received produce in quantities that enable me to freeze anything).

Anyway, the bread recipe. I’m on the Cooks Illustrated mailing list to test recipes, and I glanced at this one, saw it had a biga and a soaker, and thought it might be good to test. Of COURSE I made a couple of changes--I replaced some of the wheat flour with wheat bran, I used 2% milk instead of whole, I ended up adding a splash more milk (probably because of the wheat bran), and I’m going to make rolls rather than a loaf, because rolls are more useful for me. It’s a pretty simple recipe, though the 8-24 hours during which the biga and the soaker sit, plus three risings, require a time commitment and some organization. We’ll see if I like it; I can’t imagine why not.

The other thing I noticed again today is just how cluttered my apartment is. Some of it is because I am . . . not the neatest person in the world. That’s hard-wired; it’s not going to change a whole lot. But part of it is that I am still (!!) settling into this place. I need to buy some more furniture; hang pictures; figure out where stuff goes; get containers for various types of stuff (hello, recycling pile; you need to be in a bin please); and just arrange things in a pleasing and convenient fashion. Obviously these tasks are interconnected: I can’t dismantle the recycling pile until I have a container in which to put it.

Overall, though, I think I need a MasterList, because what I find myself doing is making multiple mental lists, together with ruminating on how to solve this or that storage or furniture issue, but I’m not actually prioritizing, pricing, etc. So, really, nothing much is getting done. On the other hand, by waiting, I’m able to move things around some, reorganize what I have, and better determine what I really want. Still, the MasterList needs to become a priority.

The other priority is getting into some kind of half-assed shape. The sample weight-training classes were useful, but the place itself is wildly inconvenient and the prices are pretty high, so that’s not going to be the solution. But eating whatever crosses my path, coupled with no workout program at all, turns out not to be a useful strategy either, if the goal is to fit into the clothes I own.

ETA: Just stumbled across this tonight. Says it better than I did.

Whole Grain

This is the whole thing, finished, with the mail rack on top (it's still in Arizona; it's being crated and sent on Monday).
And here's a close-up that shows the grain of the wood.


As always, click to embiggen.

Scrappy

Well, I ended up doing a version of Iron Chef at my house tonight. The great thing about it was that I was able to make something for tomorrow's potluck at work and I was able to use up a whole bunch of scraps from around the kitchen. The two major things I had hanging around were three-quarters of a loaf of whole-grain bread that had gotten pretty stale and a fuckton of zucchini. I had originally thought to make a sweet bread pudding, maybe with some fruit thrown in, but then I thought doing it as a savory would be a better idea, one that would enable me to use up some of the zucchini. I sliced the zukes in the food processor. I chopped an onion and what I thought was another onion but that was a huge fucking shallot from my CSA share, and put those to saute in the big pan with some olive oil and a chunk of pesto from the freezer. I threw in four cloves of crushed garlic, too--also from my farm share--and then the zukes. I tried not to cook it too much. The bread--more than a pound of it--I cut into very small cubes. I used three cups of milk, six eggs, about three quarters of a cup of cream (basically, I used up some old milk and some old cream; I would have left out the cream if it were just for me, and I would not go out and buy it, but I happened to have a bunch of that around, too).

I mixed the cooked veggies into the bread cubes, then poured the milk and egg mix over it. I stirred it, a lot, and threw in some grated parmesan that was sitting in the fridge, and some grated carrots that I had intended to use for salads this week. I let it sit, stirred it again, and it's in the fridge now. Tomorrow I"m going to bake it in muffin tins, so there will be individual nibbles. I'm going to add some cheese curds (again, in the fridge, otherwise I'd grate some gruyere), and I took some slow-roasted herbed tomatos out of the freezer, which I'll chop and put on top tomorrow before I bake it. (I was a bit concerned about mixing the tomatos in, because of the milk, but I might do that anyway.) I was tempted to make it in a big pan, but I realized that it wouldn't bake all that evenly, or quickly, and would be harder to transport as well, so I think the little things will work better. We'll see how it comes out.

Finally, on tonight's Top Chef, more annoyance. This season has yet to really interest me, in many ways, and a lot of the people commenting at Television Without Pity seem to feel the same way. It may be that the lesser chefs have just taken up too much time and space and it'll improve, but . . .

The people who continue to annoy the fuck out of me: Amanda, oh lordy, she's insane. Not to mention, for someone who said, a few weeks ago, that she was an addict when she was younger, she cooks with an awful lot of alcohol. Having spent a fair amount of time around recovering people--and having been married to one--that just strikes me as odd. I know that alcohol is useful for flavors and sauces and such, but EVERY dish? And Angelo continues to provide adjectives with his dish, which is completely annoying; you provide the food, I'll pick my own fucking adjectives, 'kay? I find it disturbing how much he's treating the whole thing like Survivor: Kitchen. I know there is always a certain amount of strategery, but he really seems to take it to a whole 'nother level, and that turns me off. If you can cook, then your need for that kind of strategizing is really limited.

Finally, I ordered a table from a place I found online, a guy in Arizona who does custom furniture in the Arts & Crafts and Mission styles. It's nearly done--just needs a mail box on top (I asked him to create some kind of box to put on it for me to throw my mail into, but let him decide whatever he wanted to do) and finishing. Here's what it looks like in his workshop:

I'll post another picture when I get it and it's in its proper place.

Disorderly Profit

Little by little . . .

I keep hacking away, and I'm down to one box, and a couple of Areas of Concern; but I did a bunch of stuff yesterday and even already this morning. I already did two loads of laundry and cleaned the bathrooms this morning, so I don't feel a huge need to do a lot of other stuff today. I have a small editing job, and, if I get ambitious, maybe I'll knock out some of that and get it out of the way before the hockey game tonight. (No I don't have a ticket, but I sure wish I did--the cheapest resale tickets I've seen are about $150 a ticket, in the highest level of the stadium, and I don't want to see it in person THAT badly.)

I've been hearing this commercial lately for something labeled "shift work disorder," and I've decided it's the apotheosis of capitalism. People who work variable shifts, especially if some of them are night shifts, often have trouble sleeping or staying awake, and shift work can seriously fuck with your circadian rhythms, apparently. No surprise there. And some organizations (including the military, I believe) have done some research on this; I have vague memories of reading about police departments that structured their shift changes to minimize the havoc on people's systems, which makes sense.

But, when push comes to shove, on some level, it shouldn't be a surprise if shift work trashes people's circadian rhythms. "Shift work" is something you can really only do when you have the ability to see at night--so it's only a couple hundred years, at the most, that people could do it at all, and, therefore, something to which we would not be particularly adapted. The real push for it comes from a desire to not shut down large machinery; you can make more stuff if you keep the machines going. In other words, the "disorder" comes not from some illness or disability inherent in the system, but, rather, from the conditions of Modern Capitalist Life. Likewise, the "cure" for this disorder isn't something like "stop expecting people to constantly change their sleep-work schedules," or even "structure shift work in ways that minimize the effects on circadian rhythms." Oh, no--the "cure" is . . . a drug! In other words, a profit-making item, another product of the very system that causes shift-work disorder.

Really, it couldn't be more perfect: capitalism causes the disorder and then creates a substance that can be sold to treat it.

I'm half-tempted to go look at furniture today; there's a resale shop a few blocks away where I might find something. I've been contemplating having a Morris chair made for me; I found a guy online that does it, and it is Very Not Cheap, but I could have it made to my specifications--the size that would fit best in the sunroom, for example, and the type of arms I want, and so on. K found a somewhat-more-local place, as well, but they're not THAT much cheaper, for one thing, and, for another, it's not clear how much I could specify. But, really Not Cheap, no matter how I go with this.

I may decide to do it, but I think I need to contemplate it for awhile, see how the budget fares in the next few months, things like that. I do not want to make the classic move of buying a place and then emptying the bank account to buy furniture and decorations and such. In the meanwhile, however, I need more places to sit. I have these old wicker chairs of Chuck's in the sunroom, and they are really uncomfortable, which makes sitting there less enjoyable as well. I need a small table in the entryway, for keys and mail and the like. I need more seating in the living room--all I have there is the couch. I need a table next to the couch.

I am perfectly happy to buy decent used stuff for most of those needs, I just have to haul my ass around to find the stuff.

Furnishings

Hey Bill S.! If you make furniture, and would be interested in making some for me, email me with your details (pricing, styles, etc.). Or if you know someone who makes cool stuff, lemme know. I've been looking at Morris-style chairs and think that might be perfect for my sunroom.

Neither Long Nor Thoughtful

I don't have the time or the energy for a Long, Thoughtful Post--even provided I had Long-Winded, Thoughtful things to say. So the quickie version:

My apartment looks like a moving van threw up in it. There are a ton of packed boxes, because I packed crap on Saturday until I ran out of tape and wrapping supplies--all of the books, and the summer and winter clothes, and some of the dishes, are packed and stacked in various locations in the apartment. But then I had to stop, and, until I can get to the store and get more supplies, I can't pack any more. If I put in a solid day on Saturday, I should be fine, but it's kind of whirlwindy right now, and it makes me a little crazy.

I'm trying to move in two weeks or so, even though I didn't manage to get out of my old lease early. They're not going to get the keys until the lease actually runs out unless they relent, but, hey, I'd rather leave someone else's property unattended than my own.

The closing is still scheduled for next Monday. Theoretically. Let me just say that, if, two years ago, the banks had been as particular about having every last fucking cent documented in four different ways before they agreed to a mortgage, then the fucking financial system would not have fucking melted down. Yes, I AM peevish; why do you ask? Of course I understand the golden rule--he who has the gold makes the rules--but it makes me roll my eyes because they already have a big wad of information showing that I am actually likely to pay my mortgage each month and they still want more. Apparently they are unfamiliar with people who live within their means, save money, don't have a wad of consumer debt, etc.

The first tile-making class was entertaining. I'm not going to be able to learn enough or get good enough in the ten weeks allotted for this class--not least because i won't be able to spend other time there (the studio allows you to go in whenever, not just when you have class)--but I can see that it's something that could entertain me for awhile. Turns out that I really like making things. Oh; wait; I already knew that. I've always had some kind of project going on, and, more often than not, it has involved learning a new skill of some kind. So, really, there are two parts to it--making something, which has usually but not always been a part of it, and learning (or teaching myself) something new, whether it's needlepoint, or knitting, or handball, or yoga, or drawing and painting, or baking, or whatever.

The child-molestation ring that is apparently the Catholic church disgusts me and angers me. If any other group of people had members who systematically abused children for years and other members who covered for the molesters, everyone would be up in arms. And the fact that the same group still feels free to pass judgment on the rest of us? Bite me. Two times.

Okay, that's not all of the news, but it's almost 5 am (yeah, I know; I woke up at 3:30 this morning and it became apparent that I wasn't going back to sleep, even though I have a long day ahead of me) so time to do some yoga, make some oatmeal, and head to work for a day of long meetings about budgets.

Refrigerator Bingo

I have some more bakery rules for you, but I cannot focus on them tonight. Despite not leaving work until nearly 6:00 (and getting in early this morning), I fully intended to work out tonight. But my back suddenly became so painful that sitting and doing nothing is actually about a 3 or 4 on the 1-10 scale, and trying to row shot it way-the-fuck up the scale to a 5 or 6. (Especially weird because most of today was relatively non-problematic.) So I took some ibuprofen and ate some cookies, which will probably take care of the pain, but by the time it kicks in, it will be too late to work out.

This week's episode of Iron Chef: Friend's House required that I use a cabbage and some bacon as my Secret Ingredients, and the usual rules applied (make do with Friend's equipment and pans; create something that has some nutritional value in it, particularly in the form of vegetables and fiber). Friend often buys some bit of something at the local produce store--which isn't that great of a produce store, but he's enamored with it because, when he was unemployed, he'd buy the battered, bruised, brown, and/or slightly soft or moldy vegetables from the Really Really Cheap rack and create stews and otherwise feed himself for very little money--without any clear notion of what he's going to do with it. And, as with the bacon and the cheese in what follows, there may be little bits of things left from something else.

Then, when we're contemplating making dinner of a Sunday, he wants to use whatever it is he bought, along with whatever other scraps are sitting around--and, often enough, I'm the one who ends up figuring out what to do with it. Last week, for example, as I think I told you, I rescued a butternut squash that had a lot of moldy and brown spots on the outside but appeared to be otherwise okay (he cut off the oogy bits and I threw it in the oven, which was already on for the tart), and used the rest of the rutabaga, an onion, some fresh ginger that was sitting around, a little bit of leftover sweet potato (possibly from New Year's, but it wasn't moldy or anything), the juice from some oranges that were starting to go soft, and some of the applesauce he'd made from apples from the produce store rack. It made a lovely puree after it was all cooked together, it got rid of multiple odds and ends, and he now has several lunches' worth of soup in the freezer.

In principle, I like the thought exercise, and I like using what's available, and I particularly like not wasting things. I also know that having healthy lunches in the freezer, in easily grabbable packages, means healthier eating. But sometimes it feels like more of a chore, particularly when I'm the one who is doing all the work (Friend needed to do some work yesterday--several hours of it, it turned out), even though he is very appreciative of that. I was just kinda melancholy anyway yesterday (and today, too, for that matter), so that probably had an effect.

So: I cut the cabbage into thin strips and steamed it somewhat (though not till it was completely soggy). Meanwhile, I made some rice (a mix of brown and wild) and thawed a package of ground venison. The cabbage had to be steamed in batches, because of the small steamer; as I pulled it out, I put on some salt, pepper, and a little butter, as well as chopped-up cheese bits (probably no more than an ounce or two, of I have no clue what kind of cheese).

I added a can of black beans to the rice when it was done, and cut a few thin slices of semolina sesame bread, which I then cut into small cubes. I cooked the bacon and removed it from the pan, then poured off some (but not all) of the grease. I cooked a diced onion in the bacon grease, scraping up the fond as well. When the onions were soft and a little brown, I threw in the venison; when that was browned, I put the chopped-up bacon back into it. I spiced it with some venison sausage seasoning from Penzey's which is largely pepper of various sorts, I think. To assemble, in a lasagna-sized pan: a layer of cabbage; a layer of the meat and onions; a layer of cabbage; a layer of rice and beans; a final layer of cabbage, topped with some grated cheddar and the bread cubes. Baked the whole thing for a while--basically, until the top was a little crusty and bubbly, and I was guessing that it was more or less heated through, at least around the edge.

It tasted pretty good, though it does NOT retain its shape (e.g., like lasagna), and ends up being a heap more than a slice of anything. I would definitely make it again, though I would--of course--make some changes. In particular: I would use a grain other than rice--barley, farro, or cracked wheat would all be good choices--because rice isn't densely flavored enough. (If i did use rice, I'd perhaps do something with tomatos. But then you'd start losing the flavor of the venison.) Friend suggested adding corn, and you could do that, too, but I'd rather add some kind of dried fruit or tomatos. I might cook the cabbage a little longer. Definitely retain the bacon/onion/venison mix; that worked nicely to add some meaty complexity without being a big Wad O Meat. You could also do stuffed cabbage--leave the leaves whole and make the same mixture, but roll it up in the leaves--but this worked fine, even if it was less pretty.

Dessert included more of the bitter lemon tart, topped with a compote of orange juice, blueberries, and honey, and that definitely worked. I've now made that recipe at least three, and possibly four times, and each time it has had a too-bitter edge to it. I've decided I'm only going to make it if I also have oranges and can do a citrus mix. Brazen Tart has had good luck with that recipe, IIRC, but I'm not doing something right--and not doing it right the same way each time, apparently.

And, sure enough, as I've been sitting here, the pain has receded and nearly gone away completely. Which is definitely a good thing.

Bakery Rules

It turns out that a number of things I learned at the bakery apply in other realms, including the office where I now work. Feel free to use them if they're useful to you.

1. Not every day can be a good day.

Bossman says this when something fucks up (or someone fucks something up). I particularly appreciated this when I was the person who fucked things up, but, in general, it's a useful thing to keep in mind. People make mistakes; it's just one of the things we do. Ergo, any plan that requires that everything go absolutely perfectly is a shaky plan. It's a much better idea to have some backup systems in place, though even they are going to fail you sometimes.

2. Blame won't laminate the dough or bake the bread.

It's kind of a corollary to the above. Bossman didn't say this, but the "not every day can be a good day" thing is, I always thought, a way to deflect that blaming. On one hand, if someone consistently fucks up a product, or consistently fucks up, then s/he isn't going to be a great fit--perhaps they should be packing cookies instead of mixing dough. But the kind of blaming and finger-pointing that has been going around in my office is really a waste of time and energy.

3. The person you think of as "that asshole" may still be the person you need to mix your dough.

In the bakery, despite the various tidbits I narrated for the amusement of you guys, people were pretty much expected to just deal with each other. The kind of backbiting and throwing people under the bus that we've been seeing in my office job weren't as prevalent. Everyone had their buttons, of course, but mostly everyone got along, especially once Brad was gone.

Part of this was structural, in at least two ways: For one thing, the "hierarchy" was nearly non-existent. Bossman was working right there alongside everyone else, not sitting in an office "downtown." He might be down in the office doing the books or something, and he was much more able to take off a day or a few days, but, in general, he worked hours that were almost as grueling as anyone else's. Thus, jockeying for "position" was kind of pointless; there weren't positions for which to jockey. (That's also why Brad was a problem: he imposed pointless hierarchy, and it just annoyed everyone.)

The other structural reason for this was that there were just enough tasks that required others' cooperation to complete that it wasn't a good idea to completely piss off someone else. This guy may do all the cookies or all the cakes, but he needs that guy to do at least some of the baking for him. The other person may need help making this product. Everyone may need to gather around the line to make bear claws, which means the person in charge of the bear claws better have his ducks in a row before taking everyone away from their work. I tacitly referred to this when I gave Phil credit for baking the croissants (and I could always tell when it was him and not one of the night guys who had done the baking, because Phil did it better)--I knew that, while my lamination was crucial, baking was a huge part of their beauty, and giving him credit for it acknowledged that. You can take the most beautiful product in the world, and if you bake it wrong, it's going to suck. Same thing is true in office-world, but not everyone seems to realize that.

Finally, though, it was a really good crew of guys, who had known each other and worked together for more than ten years--more than 15 years in some cases. It wasn't terribly difficult to get along with them, at least in my case. If you work hard, do your job, lend a hand, and don't be an asshole, you'll get along just fine. This is more a personality thing than a structural thing, but it does speak, a little, to Bossman's selection of people to work there. He was tolerant of people's personality quirks--basically, he ignored them or, when necessary, worked around them--which definitely set a tone.

4. It takes four times to get it right.

Bossman always says it takes making a new recipe four times to get it right, and that proved itself to be true so many times. Even if you get really close the first time, you're still going to want to do some tweaking--fill the mold a little less, bake it a little longer, use a different shape or size, whatever. You can't change everything at once--especially if you don't know exactly which thing will get you closer to where you're trying to get--so you're going to have to do it more than once or twice. Sometimes, of course, you just have to take a shot and go with it; you don't have time to tweak. But if you take notes, then next time you're going to get a little closer. And, on the flip side of this, expecting perfection from someone else the first time out of the gate is a pretty sure road to disappointment.

5. Meetings are generally fucking useless.

A few months ago, when I stopped in the bakery, we were laughing about how a "meeting" at the bakery was when Phil was loading the oven and I was cutting croissants and Bossman was making galettes and we talked about when we were going to make the rolls, because I was needed to be part of that operation. I'm completely making up the example, but the reality is, the real work didn't stop for "meetings." In my current job, managers--especially at my boss's level--go to so many fucking meetings that it's not even funny. Every time I turn around he has to meet with someone else in the organization, often at another location; what meetings mostly do is take him away from his actual work. As a result, the actual work takes even longer, because the people who need to do it are stuck in stupid meetings. It kind of blows me away sometimes.

The other part about it is the amount of hand-holding that seems to be needed. Some of that is structural: we need some systemic solutions to many of the issues we've been facing, and there are no systems in place, so everyone's kind of struggling a bit, but there's still a notion that when person A has a question, person B--and sometimes person C and person D--need to drop everything to solve person A's problem or question. I try not to fall into that myself, and I recognize that sometimes you really do need an answer before you can go on with your work, but it can make it difficult.

Anyway. I need to get some sleep. I should be packing and watering my plants--Friend and I are heading out of town tomorrow for part of the weekend--but I don't feel like it. There will be time tomorrow.

Some Pie with Those Pretzels?

Mom's home.

She walked in and said no, she's not hungry, and then started nibbling the bits sitting around. She eventually ate a fair amount (for her), so yay. She's sore in a number of places--from the insertion of the chest port, from the tourniquet, from the new graft--and tired and such, but we all managed to laugh about a number of things. My brother came over after work, around 3:00, and mom and dad didn't show until 5, so we hung for awhile. We actually get along just fine in situations like that. My brother is extremely funny--really, seriously funny--and he's smart, so he is always entertaining.

What were we laughing about? The fact that my mother has things stored in spots that are less than obvious. Finding things in her kitchen is a serious adventure in hide and seek, and then there are the things that aren't actually stored in the damn kitchen. You may remember that I made a batch of lemon/aniseseed/cranberry/pistachio biscotti the other day that didn't come out as nicely as I would have liked (so I eventually made a second batch, which came out much better). When I'd finished them, she put them in a container and spirited them away. I kept thinking I would run across them--especially given the hide and seek for various ingredients and implements--but I didn't. So we're all sitting around, and I say, where's the two-cup pyrex measure? Because I know I saw one, but I looked everywhere! Oh, it's in the drawer under the stove. (Of course!) Not with the other measures, not with glass, or the other cooking or baking implements; oh no. It's under the stove. (I never think to look there, because I've never had a drawer like that.)

So then my mom asks, did I find the other biscotti? No, of course not--where are they? Oh--they're in the closet in the bathroom. (My parents' bathroom backs up to the garage or the outside, I forget which, so it's cool.) Well, yes, because everyone stores their biscotti in the damn bathroom closet. At this point, we're all laughing, of course, so it was great fun.

What did I make today?

Three pies (cherry with a lattice top for the older nephew; mince for my dad; and shoofly pie for my brother). Two batches of pie crust scraps rolled out with cinnamon and sugar. A batch of pastry cream for the cream puffs. A batch of pumpkin pastry cream (I made that one up as I went along, and it ROCKS THE HOUSE). (No, really, it is fucking amazing.) A batch of soft pretzels (two are gone, two went home with bro for my nephews, two are in the freezer, and the other three were actually pretzel rolls, and they're in the freezer, too). An egg for mom and an omelet for me (dad made his own omelet). Tomorrow will include the barley (with caramelized onions and dried cranberries), cream puffs, an apple cake (I keep forgetting about that one), creamed cauliflower, and, if I get ambitious and have time, caramel sauce and/or a roasted butternut squash and/or some meringues with all the damned egg whites.

Yes, I know that sounds like a lot of work, but it's actually a tremendous amount of fun. I'm making all kinds of fun stuff, for people I love. I can make a cup of tea and seat near the pellet stove when I want a break. I have my recipes, mostly. My dad keeps coming up with more stories I didn't know. There's good beer in the fridge (Rogue and Flying Dog). My mom didn't die yesterday. We all know how to amuse each other. There are other kinds of pleasures in life, some of which I also enjoy tremendously, but these are really among the best.

Competition

Last night, I made some rice pudding, mostly to use up the milk I bought a few weeks ago (one of the advantages of the ultrapasturized stuff is that it lasts forfuckingever). I used brown rice instead of white, and I sliced some fresh ginger in it while it cooked. I increased the amount of rice, to make it have more texture and chewiness. I used honey instead of sugar (you saw that coming, I'm sure), and, if I'd have any, I would have thrown in some orange rind. If I take it to work as a breakfast item, I'll throw in some dried fruit; if I were making it as a dessert, I might make a quick peach compote (or how about figs?) and swirl that in. In any case, it came out really well; next time I'll reduce the amount of honey a bit and possibly increase the rice even more. Maple syrup instead of honey would be an option as well. It's quite tasty. It would not win a competition, but it wouldn't end up at the bottom, either.

And speaking of vegetable-based cuisine, a couple of weeks ago I stopped at a local bakery that specializes in organic stuff, and includes vegan offerings as well. The cakes and cupcakes I've had were pretty good; the laminated doughs don't look like much. So I order a cupcake, and take a taste of this sample square sitting there. I asked the counter person what it is, and he says it's "vegan cheesecake." I point out that if it's actually vegan, then, no, it is NOT cheesecake. Oh, yes, he enthuses, it's made with silken tofu! (Which would explain why it tasted like ass, perhaps.) Look, people: if you want to be vegan, go ahead. But you can't call it "cheese" cake. Go ahead and call it tofu-cake, or even silken-tofu cake, but you can only call it cheesecake if there is yummy delicious cheese in it. (Similarly, you shouldn't call Pringles "potato chips." Go ahead and call them dried-potato-with-wheat-starch-and-maltodextrin wafers, or something like that, but they aren't potato chips in any real sense.)

An additional disadvantage I'd have on one of the competition shows is what happens when they put an unusual ingredient in front of me: snails, frogs' legs, cactus, a pork belly. Those are not, in general, the type of ingredient that shows up in your grocery store (cactus does, if you're in a hispanic neighborhood), and I am not sufficiently interested in learning how to cook them that I'd try to hunt them down. I don't know how to butcher anything, and, while I like the concept of using the whole animal, and am even willing to eat a lot of a given animal, if you put a beef tongue in front of me, I'd have no fucking clue what to do with it. I'd probably try to slow cook it in some way, because I can't imagine it's as tender as, say a tenderloin, but I am not going to be able to do anything creative or interesting with it, and there's a good chance I'd completely fuck it up.

One of the more interesting comments, from a couple of weeks ago, was Laurine's comment, on getting sent home, that she'd realized something about herself, i.e., that she really doesn't want to compete with people. I actually rather admired her for that; it's an important realization. I also suspect that she realized that, while she may be quite good at what she does, she doesn't have the skills that the Volts, Jen, or Kevin have. (I think the rest of them, even if they're still in the mix, don't have that skill set, either. Eli occasionally shows flashes, but he's not there, and his ego may prevent him from ever getting there.) Sometimes that can be very freeing, and really enable you to learn: when i was in pastry school, for example, it was clear pretty quickly that I simply did not have the skills or experience of several other people in the class (the Brazen Tart, for one, and her first partner, for another, immediately come to mind). But that didn't matter to me: I was there to learn, and it wasn't a competition. It was an opportunity to learn a whole lot of stuff that, had i actually been able to open a bakery, would have been necessary, and that even stood me in good stead in the job I got. I didn't care that others were a lot better than I was, and I rather liked the opportunity to fuck up, because I learned a great deal from that, without the danger of losing a competition, or failing out, or even screwing up something for my boss.

I've done a lot of stuff in my life, and it's one of the few times I've been able to engage in that kind of risk-free learning. Right now, for example, I'm basically managing all of the budgets for my organization, with no help, and it's making me very nervous. I talk things through with my boss, and he is really getting up to speed in the overall bits, but what I really need is someone with an accounting eye AND a program-oriented eye to review the whole thing and see what I'm missing. Instead, I have to deal with a controller who doesn't provide any assistance at all--who gets in the way, actually, and seems completely disinclined to learn about the program side of it. (And who is also acting like a complete tool, but that's another story.) There have been several occasions where I realized--rather late in the game--that I missed a big expenditure, or didn't take something into account when I was calculating productivity and revenue. This makes me very, very nervous, especially because the pressures put on me from above (including above my boss) simply are not concerned with messy, complex details. Some things cannot be made simple, and no amount of insisting otherwise is going to change that, but some people are completely impervious to that. Which just adds to the pressure.

Which--in my mind, anyway--leads to one of my biggest beefs with Top Chef: I really, really, really hate that they use up precious time with dramatic music and swirly camera shots before someone gets sent packing. I don't mind some of the outside-the-kitchen drama, because it helps illustrate people's personalities (up to a point, anyway), but we KNOW someone is getting sent home; just do it, already. I also don't like about half of the interviews--yes, we know, you're Still In It! And you Know a Few Things! And you're Here To Win! (Quick; someone come up with a Top Chef bingo card . . .) Sometimes it's useful--like showing Mike I. talking about how his mom was vegan and so he knows all about cooking vegetarian, and then he serves up that slop. Dude, you may be able to run a restaurant, but I could come up with a better vegetarian meal using what's in my kitchen right now (as opposed to the kitchens at Craftsteak, where they all were), than that mess.

Point being, the complexity of the show comes not from the attempts to add drama, but from what the chefs actually produce and how they do it (or how they fail). But the editors want to show the simple story lines--Robin is a pain; Mike I. is an asshole; the Brothers V. are competitive and tense, as well as talented; Jen is falling apart (which I wish she would stop; she's so talented, and she's just tying herself in knots; relax, dude!). Yes, fine, those are useful things to know, but give us more of the food, more of the cooking, more of how they think about and produce the food they produce. I don't want to see how Mike I. produces an undercooked leek that's supposed to mimic a scallop (thereby forgetting Fabio's Dictum: it's Top Chef, not Top Scallop), except in passing, I want to see more of the dishes that worked.

Anyway.

Let's see if I can manage to do anything today other than work out and take a shower (which I haven't done yet, so that's not a done deal, either).