Mortar & pestle

Dale got me what is possibly the least new-fangled (oldest-fangled?) kitchen tool there is: a mortar and pestle. It's Thai, and made of bare granite, and it weighs about ten pounds. It's awesome. Garlic turns to puree in two good smacks, and I am sure it tastes better than minced garlic, because it has the oils crushed out of it rather than being sliced. In the summer I will make pesto (which gets its name from the pestle). So far, I have made guacamole, 'refried' beans, a side dish of roughly mashed chickpeas and green olives, and a marvelous pasta dressing made of pulverized garlic, black olives, capers, almonds, and lemon. Next up is curry powder from whole spices.

Making heat

The dryer is not heating. Based on a prior experience and internet research, we ordered a new thermal cutoff and high-limit thermostat for $20 and installed them ourselves.

It didn't solve the problem. This is particularly a bummer because the clothes we took to dry at the neighborhood laundromat today came back reeking of cigarettes. Eew.

I did make heat in the kitchen today: my first-ever batch of chili sauce, from homegrown chilis. It is eye-poppingly hot.

Artificial mystery flavor

Jordan got a lollipop as a prize in a bingo game at school, and here is the label. What is the world coming to?

I asked Jordan what it tasted like to him, and he said vanilla.

Market day

What an awesome morning Jordan and I had at the farmer's market! It was the Ballard one today, because I missed the Saturday one in the U-district for the plant sale (see other post). And it was SPRING. Asparagus! Rhubarb! A million other beginnings of things! Music, dogs, children, neighbors! Samples! It was like a festival. What a treat. I've been going to the farmer's market every week almost since we moved here, and I like doing that, but in the winter it's kind of just shopping. Today, we had fun things like the giant bins of dry beans, which Jordan asked to play with, and the bean guy was so amused by how much Jordan enjoyed it that he gave him a little bag of mixed beans to take home. Jordan could not have been more thrilled if it was a bag of jewels, and spent an hour at the dining room table spooning and sorting them. Another great moment was how long he took to choose between the apple, apricot, and cherry danishes. And better yet was when the cauliflower farmer gave him a raw floret, and he chomped happily away, cherry danish in one hand and raw cauliflower in the other. They were giving away free cauliflower leaves, and I took a big bagful to braise in the slow cooker with green onions from our garden. A couple of vendors down, I gaped at the rhubarb, which is orders of magnitude more magnificent than ours, and talked to the farmer about why ours is so meager. He says we need to dig it up and split it (violently - slice the root ball in quarters with a shovel), and then we will get another harvest in the fall.

Here's what I brought home: radishes, cauliflower (and many extra leaves), black turtle beans, asparagus, and rhubarb.

Strawberry birthday

I baked Ava a cake for her fifth birthday.  I feel like everyone deserves a homemade cake for their birthday with real butter and eggs in it.  For Ava I made a triple-layer strawberry cake (did you know you can put fresh strawberry puree in a cake?  marvelous), with fresh strawberry filling and pink cream cheese frosting.  It was way fun.  And what more thanks does a baker need than a picture like this?  Look at the strawberries in those cheeks!

Hamburger Helper

I was not about to eat Hamburger Helper, anyway, but now that I have looked at the ingredients (because of a conversation with a friend) I am even more specifically turned off. First of all, there are 27 or more of them, depending how you count. Corn is behind much of what's there: not only the obvious (corn starch) but also things like maltodextrin (a thickener) and dextrose (a sugar). There's MSG, and two other chemical flavor enhancers that work only in the presence of MSG (disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate), and BHA which is a petrochemical, and partially hydrogenated soybean oil which is the source of trans fats. None of this surprises me. But here is the thing that I learned which I had not known: The hydrolyzed soy protein, which sounds unexceptional to me (just soy, right?), is created by boiling the soy in a strong acid (sulfuric or hydrochloric), then neutralizing it with a base. The process creates MSG, among other things, thus providing a way to incorporate MSG without having to show it in the ingredient list. What am I eating? Oh, right: I don't eat Hamburger Helper.

Except that I do. The veggie sausages that my kids both love have many of the same ingredients as the #@!! Hamburger Helper. Again with the corn and soy chemical derivatives, the hydrolyzed protein, and the flavor enhancers that only work in combination with MSG. This time the MSG is not in the ingredient list, only hidden in the hydrolysis process -- but you know it's there, because without it the disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate wouldn't perform their function. Morningstar Farms is owned by Kellogg. We have been wolfing this stuff down daily for years, lulled by the cute natural-foods-theme packaging and the innocent Nutrition Facts, but it's all marketing. There's nothing natural about it.

I can't exactly be snobby about the one and still eat the other, now can I?

Whole Foods is cheaper

I invested an extra hour in my weekend grocery shopping today to do some research.  Armed with a pretty typical grocery list for our family, I went first to Safeway, figuring I'd get the Safeway brand organic products and save us a little money.  Big organic is big organic, seems like.  So I went, and I got what looked reasonable, and I wrote down the prices on my grocery list.  Next I went to PCC, which is a natural foods co-op around here, thinking I would get everything else on my list.  I couldn't do it.  The prices on some of the shelved goods almost made me choke.  And I didn't know what the labeling on the meat meant about its origins.  I asked someone and they weren't very informative.  So I couldn't buy everything there, but I bought some things and wrote down the prices.  Higher than Safeway, predictably.

But I still had shopping to do so I went to Whole Foods.  They had everything on my list.  When I asked the butcher about the difference between the "grass-fed" and "range-fed" labels I got a clear response -- and a passionate speech about how the labeling is being corrupted by Wal-Mart, that I am right to ask, and that I should know that Whole Foods and Oregon Tilth were the ones that created "organics" as a concept and that USDA labeling is not as trustworthy as their independent standards.  Whew!  This is all what I expected, and was even willing to pay extra for. 

But you know what?  I DIDN'T.  Whole Foods was not only cheaper for equivalent products than PCC, it was cheaper than Safeway.  I was dumbfounded.  But I had the numbers.  I talked to the cashier about it when I checked out, and she said, "Well, Safeway specializes in different products."  Right.  I think they specialize in high-fructose corn syrup.  For what I want to buy, which is whole foods, organic and local when I can, I should shop at Whole Foods.

(Clearly a person could spend an enormous amount of money at Whole Foods, on those gorgeous prepared foods.  Those are basically restaurant prices, which I think is quite fair for what they are.  Also on beautiful French cheeses or gourmet salsa or what have you.  But because I'm willing to make a lot from scratch, I avoid many of those things.)

I'm also spending a fixed amount every week at the farmer's market.  It's expensive, but it's something I want to support, and it's educational, also.  It makes me realize how alarmingly non-seasonal my grocery list is.

Eating food

Food is on my mind in a big way.  I read The Omnivore's Dilemma avidly and then spent a month in supermarket paralysis, in doubt about everything, not knowing what to eat.  Then In Defense of Food came in at the library, and whew, okay, I get it now.   Food.  "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants."  Investigating edible items in my household, I found very little that was not food, but there were some disturbing exceptions.  The supermarket-brand graham crackers, for example, contain "interesterified soybean oil."  What science experiment am I unwittingly participating in by eating that (or feeding it to my one-year-old)?  Turns out "interesterification" is the latest substitute for partial hydrogenation -- another process that makes soy oil solid at room temperature.  Uh... no thank you.  There were some other oddities, including L-cysteine in the frozen pizza.  Food-grade cysteine is made from either human hair or duck feathers, and acts as a dough softener.  I'd rather have hard dough.

I'm having a good time spending a predetermined amount at the farmer's market every week, and am starting to think how we could get economical access to healthier animal products, in particular.  We're thinking of buying a pastured cow and keeping it in the freezer for the year.  A physics professor colleague of mine at Evergreen is also an organic farmer who has livestock - maybe we can get one from her.

I was happy to see the pro-whole-foods editorial in the SF Chronicle, and I am totally delighted that the Obamas are planting a garden at the White House - just like Pollan suggested!  Maybe something is really happening.

Jaguar

Yesterday's improvement was to get all the kitchen stuff out of boxes and onto those basement shelves - the stuff that you don't need every day but is still (probably?) worth having, like pitchers and baking pans and the wok.  Today's improvement was to put all the bathroom stuff in the bathroom closet and get everything else out.  

While both of those projects were highly worthwhile, I think Jordan is more photogenic.  Here he is getting ready to go to school on Tuesday, which was Purim.  Kind of the Jewish Mardi Gras.  I did the face painting - not bad, for a first attempt.  I got a great book.  I was hoping to do Aaron too, but there was no way.  Aaron says that himself sometimes -- "No way!"  He also says "Oh, yeah," with the most hilarious intonation, and many more spontaneous multi-word sentences.  His vocabulary is beyond counting at this point.  "Where Daddy go?  Where he go?  Potty!" - and he discovers Dale in the bathroom.  In response to "What did you do at school today, honey?" I got "Aaron paint!"  True, too.  He walks a toy turtle on the wall and says "He climb!  Turtle climb!"  His pronunciation is charmingly idiosyncratic - my current favorite is "Cacayaya" for "crocodile" - but we understand him.

The bread baking continues - the bread is awesome and the system is completely sustainable.  Maybe next I'll work on a whole-grain version.

Bread

Here's another daily project of mine: Bread. I have learned that you can make a big batch of really wet bread dough and just let it sit in the fridge for up to two weeks. You don't knead it or anything; you just stir it up with a spoon. When you want bread, you scoop out a blob, shape it, let it sit out in the kitchen for two hours, and bake it for half an hour. If you want something immediately, you can just roll it out and bake it right then and there for five minutes - voila, fresh pita bread. (I served that with hot dogs when Kari and Danny and the boys had lunch here yesterday.) Either way is completely fantastic. Dale could hardly believe I had made it myself. Details at http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com, or buy their book. (I've been getting by with the website so far.)


(We ate the other loaf already.) The first time I tried it, I made the bread the way they recommended, with a steaming cup of water in the oven to make a crispy, crackling crust. My San Francisco bread-loving soul was in heaven, but the children, who adored the bread, couldn't gnaw the crust. So this time I went without steam and got something much softer.

I would love to be able to stop buying supermarket bread. Not only is most of it lousy and full of pointless food-science ingredients, it is stupidly expensive. Five bucks a loaf for the bad stuff. This delectable food is wholesome and cheap.

While the daily bread rested in the kitchen, Jordan turned the Slattons' former pea trellis into a tipi. (Tipea?) He was totally thrilled by this activity. And now we have a use for all those ratty blankets, which were furniture padding during both moves.

The birthday cake

I have fun making cake. Bekah asked me what flavor my birthday cake would be, and I told her it was cake flavor. Or really butter flavor. I love fancy hazelnut-mocha-cherry cakes or whatever too, but for my birthday I prefer to keep it classic. As you can see, the frosting was a totally retro pink. I did my first swiss buttercream, which is more buttery tasting and less chokingly sweet than ordinary frosting; it gets part of its structure from egg whites and you have to beat and beat and beat it. It's delicious. Dale still likes cream cheese frosting the best, but I think prefer that with a more strongly flavored cake.

Sweets

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend a cookie-making and -decorating party at our friends Matt and Sharon's house. I got to take home my favorite creations. Then we ate 'em.


I also wanted to share this picture from a couple weeks ago, in which Aaron and I share cake at a birthday party.


The birthday was Danny's sister Jill's, her 50th. There were a lot of people there I didn't know, so I wore a nametag identifying me as Jill's brother's wife's brother's wife. Wasn't that helpful? She had a picture of herself at age five on her invitation (and also on the cake), leading some of us to declare that "50 is the new 5."

What I don't need

You know what?  I like not having a recycling bin in the house.  What does it do, anyway, but get overfilled?  And foody and moldy, in the case of the plastic and cans.  Our current system is to just accumulate one kitchen session's worth of stuff on the counter nearest the back door (where the microwave is not), and then take it right outside when we clean up.  I admit this works partly because the outside bin is right there.  But it's a little revelation, anyway.

My other revelation is how little I need the microwave.  Even with hungry children whacking their spoons on their tables to hurry me up, a pan is fine.  

However, no way would I want to attempt breakfast without the toaster.  The toaster is a necessity.

Bad food experiences

Unfortunately we have not even remotely succeeded in eating well while we're here.  Last night I think we did the right thing eating at the T.G.I.Friday's in the hotel, even though it was... bad; we were all very tired and it was pouring rain.  And breakfast was there too, because it's included, the usual chain-restaurant/hotel fare.  For lunch we thought we were rather clever walking over to the Whole Foods across the circle instead of eating at the museum cafe... but it was a longer and hotter walk than we expected, and we probably spent just as much money either way.  

For dinner I had a real plan, which was to get tasty local delicacies at the Reading Terminal Market.  It's only open until 6pm but that's no problem for us, right?  we eat early.  Well, Aaron woke up from his nap feeling kind of hot, so we went on a Tylenol quest, thinking "No problem!  we have a GPS!"  Ugh.  The GPS doesn't prevent you from getting mired in traffic, construction, etc, and it sure doesn't find you a parking place.  The following sequence of dinner attempts ensued:

1. The Reading Market:  we were too late & couldn't park.

2. The Sang Kee Peking Duck House, which I remember very fondly from the last time I was here: Still couldn't park.  Bailed.

3. Back to the hotel, dropped off the car.  They recommended Pietro's, a five-block walk.  But when we got there there was a wait.  Couldn't wait.

4. Tried a fancy diner-looking place we had passed on the way.  We got seated right away, but I made us leave when I saw a "small plate" of lobster mac-and-cheese for $18.

5. Across the street we got soft pretzels, which sustained us.

6. Down the block we got water ice, which we all enjoyed very much.  Lemon is better than watermelon.  The kids were then finished eating.

7. Dale and I got bad Chinese food from the place next door to the hotel.

We hope to do better tomorrow.

Cook-it-up month

To follow up on a couple of days ago, the grits/polenta were (was?) delicious.  I cooked the whole lot in the slow cooker (just the proportions on the box, cooked all day on Auto)... creamy lump-free goodness.  Stirred in a big stir of parmesan at the end.  I topped that with a Tuscan-inspired combination of lacinato kale, sliced sausages, and beans .... baked beans that I was trying to figure out how to use up, actually.  I rinsed off the sauce, and the remaining sweetness was actually a very nice contribution.  Tabasco over it all if you like that kind of thing.

The silken tofu mayonnaise, meanwhile, was so good I almost bought another box of silken tofu today!  Aaron loved it too -- I dipped broccoli in it for him, and he kept sucking off the mayonnaise and handing me back the broccoli for another dip.  I didn't even mind; after all, unlike real mayo, this was actually food.

I have decided that cooking up everything in my cabinets/freezer is a terrific idea and something I should do regularly.  I'm going to designate one month of the year to be Cook-It-Up month.  What's the right month for this?  (And can anyone think of a catchier name?)

Grits

What do to with most of a 1.5-lb package of grits?  They're delicious cooked up with parmesan, but four servings of that only uses about 3/4 c of grits, and it's not like I'm going to eat that every night.  

Fortunately I found the baking soda.  So I started tonight with lime polenta cake, adapted from a Cooking Light recipe.  Grits are basically polenta, no?*  The cake was very yummy, kind of like a rough-textured cornbread, but soaked with lime syrup (which I made up).  It only used half a cup of grits, but it quelled somewhat my desperate yearning to bake.  I brought it to Mike and Kathryn's house and we gobbled it up.

I am further tempted by Martha Stewart's polenta cookies and perhaps a vanilla polenta pudding.  The thing is, none of these recipes use a large amount of polenta (or grits), and they use a lot of other ingredients... not to mention the fact that I would be faced with a lot of dessert.

More research, more good options.  Polenta is the pasta-equivalent for Northern Italy and can be used as a base for pretty much anything.  So perhaps my opening line of "not gonna eat that every night" was premature... lots of people do!  I'm liking the idea of topping polenta with white beans and black kale, very Tuscan.  But maybe too white, with the white grits... some prettier bean, maybe.  Sausage and cabbage is another very northern-italian combination.  And apparently the slow cooker (which I have not yet packed!!) makes perfect, creamy polenta with no stirring.  I am seeing tomorrow's dinner in my mind...

* If this horrifies your gourmet sensibilities, sorry.

Silken tofu

Seized with the urge to create something in the kitchen, I almost baked a lime-pistachio pound cake, but couldn't find baking powder anywhere.  Perhaps it's a good thing.  Since there's not much you can bake without baking powder, and I've already been to the store once today, I tried to move on.

One of the ingredients I've been wondering how to use up is silken tofu.  I have three boxes of the stuff.  A favorite food blog of mine suggested making a berry mousse out of it:  one block silken tofu, 1-1/2 c berries (I had frozen strawberries), 1/2 c sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla.  Blend and blend in a powerful blender or food processor, until silky smooth.  We did; and wow.  Delicious.  And startlingly healthy.  I could even have used less sugar.  Right now it's kind of a runny texture but in the fridge it will supposedly set in a couple of hours.  Jordan did not wait.

Next:  I'm cooking fish tonight and I've stopped even fantasizing about slathering mayonnaise onto things, I'm so WW-trained, but aren't you supposed to be able to make mayonnaise out of silken tofu?  You can.  I did.  Amazing.  It is so luscious and lovely, I want to eat it with a spoon.  And I can, with no guilt!  One block tofu, a sprinkle of vinegar (I used rice vinegar), a sprinkle each of salt and sugar.  Blend until creamy.  Try varying the kind of vinegar, or use lemon.  Try different sweeteners.  I also added a teeny clove of garlic.  Other spices would be great, I'm sure, I just wanted to keep it basic this time.

I still have another box.  suggestions?

Using what's here

I'm trying to use up the food in our kitchen cabinets.  Why move it when we could eat it?  And what's it there for, if not to be eaten?  So instead of my beloved Six O'Clock Scramble routine, I now plan our weekly meals around what's already in the house.  I really like this: it's frugal, it honors the food, and it's an interesting challenge.

Dry beans were the first thing.  They're easy to use and they cook in advance.  All I have left of these now is a lot of lentils.  Grains are also pretty easy because they go with everything, although I am challenged by all this barley.  I made a pilaf yesterday & we'll see if people like it.   Another challenge is all these prepared sauces and canned chili, which makes me realize I never use these in my normal life.  Remind me not to buy any more unless I have a specific plan.

This week my menu includes tomato soup with dumplings made from leftover matzo ball soup mix; canned chili with cornbread, using up the last bit of cornmeal in the freezer; frozen chicken shiu mai, with veggies, served over sticky rice with teriyaki sauce; canned soups with baked potatoes; canned baked beans with croquettes made from grits; and lentils and rice with caramelized onions (which is much more flavorful than it sounds).  All we need from the grocery store is some fresh fruit and salad fixins, and basics like milk and bread -- I'm expecting about $35 for the whole week!