Indispensable

Here are some things that I wind up using over and over again in the kitchen. Even if you don't feel like you "cook" you'll cook for yourself sometime, and these will come in handy. (I've included where you can buy them as well.)

Silicone Spatulas
The little red one, in particular, is good for getting the last bit of anything out of a bowl, narrow jar or can (think tomato paste and horseradish). It also works for mayo, mustard, and molasses and honey at the bottom of a measuring cup. I keep a well-nicked white spatula specifically for cleaning the food processor so the other ones don't get shredded. Silicone spatulas are obviously also good for every type of flipping or stirring whether or not heat is involved. Dishwasher safe.

The little thin yellow one is the king of tiny flipping. Eggs, blinis, corn pancakes, crepes, whatever. It's always either in use, or in the dishwasher, because we use it so much. What I love about it is that when I'm making corn pancakes, or any batter, for that matter, I can use it to scrape out the bowl before the last pancake. Only one utensil to wash. Thrifty and Compulsive at it again-- it drives me nuts when cooks on television don't scrape their bowls out when making recipes. "You put three tablespoons of (ingredient) in there!" I shout. "What if there's a tablespoon left!" or "There's another whole pancake in that bowl!" Ok, I don't really shout, but I think about doing the math and wonder how many hundreds of pancakes could have been saved if each and every one of them would just scrape out the bowl. I have not been able to find this specific spatula online yet. The initials on the handle are WMB. My mom got it in a store in Modesto. I will find out more if I can.

Sturdy Kitchen Shears
I use these for everything from opening zip-top packages (such as those nasty sugar-laden dried apples) to snipping chives, parsley and cilantro, cutting flowers, string, parchment paper. Absolutely everything. Even cutting up those nasty sugar-laden dried apples. My grandmother asked me once what I wanted for a present, and I said kitchen shears, and this is what I got. She thought it was a little weird at the time, but I use them a lot, and every time I look at them and use them, which I have for years, I think of my grandmother.

I don't remember exactly when I started making a point of making sure that my birthday and Christmas money went towards specific things that were practical and I knew I'd use, but I'm glad now that I did. My big dictionary, my stockpot, these shears, my good chef's knife, all came from my grandparents' gifts. My pepper grinder was a wedding gift from a good friend. She asked for one from me for her wedding, and I asked for one from her. It's always been symbolic of our friendship to me. Not that our friendship is peppery. It's simple, sturdy, and important, and it's always at hand, whether I need it or not.

Dog
Great to have on hand, or under foot as the case may be, if you don't have a dustbuster. (We are thinking of calling our next dog Underfoot.) For cleaning up small spills and flung granola bits. Easy to use.

Fruit of the Day- Royal Blenheim Apricots

How Do You Like Them Apples? I Don't.

Dear Stoneridge Orchards,
Stoneridge Orchards sounds very farmy and wholesome. Imagine my surprise when I opened the package of "Dried Granny Smith Apple Wedges" and found that they were coated with sugar, dextrose, citric acid, malic acid, ascorbic acid and sunflower oil. Yes, they are technically speaking "all natural" but they are certainly not au naturel.

I should have been wary when I read the medallion on the front which highlighted the fact that they were made from "freshly hand-picked apples" (what else would they be made of?)...which are then dried and apparently covered in sugar. I was making granola, and I had already put in as much brown sugar as I wanted, so I had to rinse the sugar off of the cut-up apples and bake it more so that they'd dry out.

My gripe is not that you choose to put sugar on the apples. Some people might like that. I would just like to have been warned. How about putting "Sweetened Dried Granny Smith Apple Wedges" on your packaging in the future?

Thank you,
Tamara Landre

Isn't She Lovely?

Voila! My new composter. Is it just me, or does it look like the maid on the Jetson's? Did she have a name, or was it just Maid? Somebody look that up for me. Wait, I looked that up myself. Her name was Rosie. I have reservations about naming my composter Rosie, since Rose is my grandmother's name. I'm not sure she'd appreciate that. I love having the little bowl on the counter for the stems and scraps that collect in the day, knowing that eventually it will all end up as some nice, nutritious stuff for my garden. There is something very satisfying about completing that circle. (That's my thrifty side and my compulsive side, wringing their little hands and contemplating the takeover of the universe.) Now that I have been overwhelmed by late season kale and turnips, the composter is going to come in handy.

In completely unrelated news, my book club, or rather, the book club that I attend, is reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Click on the link to visit its very unique and interesting site.

For those who want to know, here is what the garden that I planted a few Sundays ago looks like now. I added sunflowers, which were supposed to be lined up along the back (whoops, a little crazy raking must have happened) and some wildflower mix in the bare spots caused by the gophers. Whatever's been munching on my basil seems to have abated temporarily.

Oh yes, and here's today's art class piece. It is a hat, with a scarf on it, sitting on top of a wooden hat form on top of a chair which is out of perspective with another scarf draped over it. Free to good home. They can't all be trout.

San Francisku

Oh, San Francisco
Chilly city-- hilly city
San Francisco

Been Around the Blog Once or Twice

Tonight I went for a brief cruise through the blogosphere. You can do it too if you click the "next blog" link at the top left of my blog. Be forewarned: most of the blogs are clean, some are in foreign languages and then without warning, a seriously porn-blog will appear, with no way to zoom on to the next blog until ALL the pictures load. Do not cruise the blogosphere at work!

I found this picture on this blog. There is something about it. I just love it. Low on brainpower today. This is good enough.

Let Me Count the Ways

Is it possible to be in love with a store? I think I am. I can't wait to move in. Unfortunately, my love is unrequited. (Have you ever heard of "requited" love? I have not.) Here is a glimpse of what I fell for today. The images from the cameraphone do not do it justice.



I'm a sucker for cool, soft cotton quilts in bright colors and retro patterns, bold graphics and vintage-looking botanical prints and hardware. Their imaginative fixtures and decor blow me away. Even their dressing room lighting is flattering. If anything even remotely fit, I was going to buy it. Alas, it was not to be. All of the stuff in the Anthropologie store in Corte Madera (Marin) is gorgeous, but I have reached a certain size where the clothing...fits me not. (It fits me, it fits me not, it fits me, it fits me not...pluck!)

Of course, if you've ever received their catalogues, you know that the clothes aren't for wearing, per se, but for decorating oneself in some dramatic setting, like the tenements of Havana, or the garden of an Italian villa. And once one passes the "willowy" stage, the clothes begin to resemble demented homeless person more than eclectic funky layering. An outfit like this is adorable on a 2-4, but begins to look a bit clownish when you hit the double digits. Alas, I wouldn't be the first person to starve myself for love. I suppose I'll just have to settle for the sheets and quilts.

If you're into this kind of stuff, here's some more eye-candy for you:
Blinkdecor

This Week in the Garden

Holy Flying Cats, Batman!

Ok, a word or two about the Moscow Cats Theatre. As part of her Christmas gift, I took my mom to see this show at the Opera House between my Hawaii and Seattle trips. (The other part was the Guthrie Family Tour.)

Imagine if you can, a group of street kids putting on a pretend circus show using cats. In order to get the cats (and one dog) to do tricks, they have to give the cats little morsels of wet cat food. Each trick must be followed, or wholly enticed by, a treat. Now make the kids about 40, dress them in bad clown clothes and day-glo wigs, crank the volume on your third-world disco boom-box to ear-splitting, throw in a splash of low-rent Cirque du Soleil, bad juggling, a disco ball and a gratuitous ballerina, and you've got yourself a show. Oh yeah, you'll need about 20 cats, one hairless.

We laughed ourselves silly. It was about the silliest thing I've ever seen in my life. Russian clowns (was the juggler actually drunk, or just bad?), cats driving cars, dragging carts, spinning batons, jumping, scrambling, climbing. The cat agility tricks were great: climbing horizontally under a rope, up a 15 foot pole, etc., I found it amazing that the cats would dash off the stage in the right direction after each trick, but there was probably another treat waiting just off stage. At the risk of completely ruining the ending if you should have the chance to see this show (which you won't) the last trick is the best, if only for the wide-eyed concentration of the cat at the top of a very tall pole looking out towards the audience at the platform below. It was thrilling to watch that cat size up the distance, wiggle, and leap, saucer-eyed, limbs, claws and tail spread wide.

For kids up to about 10 years old, this would be a pretty good show.

For Your Refrigerator

Here's what I did at school today. (Camera-phone shots.) I'm taking Introduction to Art Media-- it's a Community Education class through the Napa Valley Junior College. Today, we worked with charcoal pencil. I was given an etching of fish to draw in charcoal, so I drew fish. Mostly, they look like fish. I left out a lot of scales. I promised Kristin that I would post what I did each week, so I here it is. You can stick it to your refrigerator with one of those alphabet magnets, if you still have any. These are just-caught fish, lying on the ground, by the way, not swimming fish. In case they looked like they were swimming weird, they are. They are swimming in a dead way. I photographed them before I started putting in the background stuff, just in case I messed up, and then afterwards. I'll try to get a better close up for you with the real camera.

I do love school. I think regardless of the anxiety I suffered over assignments and measuring up, it was mostly, if not always, a place of calm, and quiet. I love the way the air-conditioners hum, and the college always seems cool and quiet. I love the smells, of paper, books, air-conditioning and art supplies. I'm always glad to be in school. School was a refuge for me from a chaotic home life.

When I'm in art class, time melts away. I started class at 1:00 p.m. today, and the next time I looked up, it was almost 3:00. And the time in between is spent thinking about the real shapes of things, about curves and lines and how to get what I draw to look like what I see. More than looking like what I see, I want it to look true. Things don't have to be ultra-realistic, they just have to have a form that the eye believes.

Very satisfying work. At least today. Another day, there might be another challenge, and I might spend the three hours frustrated, but I'm finally, finally learning to let go of the outcome and enjoy finding my way, respecting that what I draw is unique, because I am the only one that can draw it.

How to Be an A Student

I graduated from high school with, I think, an embarrassing B average. I spent the entire four years alternating between feeling pretty smart and agonizing over unfavorable comparisons to my smart friends. I spent a little too much time thinking about boys-- one in particular-- and not enough time with homework. I love my friends, and now that I'm older, I'm so grateful that we found each other then.

In college, my first year was a disaster. I was ambitious in my course planning, and included, among other things, an 8 a.m. philosophy lecture. I worked, sometimes until 10 or 11 at night, and I swam on the junior college swim team. I was in over my head, and I don't mean in the pool. My final GPA that year was below a C, I think. Maybe worse. While I got A's in some classes -- psychology, geology, art -- I just stopped going to the philosophy class mid-way through the year, but didn't withdraw, and completely fouled up a sociology class. I was majorless, directionless, and my parents were just wrapping up their divorce. Both were using me as a sounding board for their problems. I didn't feel like I had anywhere to go for guidance or support. I was working at a movie theater. In Modesto, this is a great job for a teenager, and I never regret it. Free movies, free popcorn, and air-con-ditioning all day long. But it does not pay well.

I knew I didn't want to give up on school. I had seen my parents both struggle in adulthood to take college courses and get their degrees while working full time jobs and taking care of us. I knew I wanted to graduate from college. I was afraid to apply to a four year college, mainly because of the expense, but also because I didn't know if I could handle it. I didn't know how to get from where I was to one of the places in the many catalogs I'd sent away for.

The summer of that first year, one of my best friends moved to Santa Cruz to attend UCSC. I was still working, taking one class, and had met a guy on the swim team in Modesto. When he moved home, also to Santa Cruz, I followed, with the excuse that I wanted to move there anyway because of my friend. (I was born in Santa Cruz, and my family has history there, so it was also a place I'd wanted to go back to.) Later that summer, he was offered a full scholarship to Long Beach State to play water polo, and he went. I felt abandoned, but if I had followed him to Long Beach, I would have had to admit that I followed him to Santa Cruz in the first place. Not to mention that he didn't ask. But that is another story that ends badly.

So, in Santa Cruz, I went to another junior college, Cabrillo. I decided to make a fresh start and try to be the very best student I could be. As a long-time procrastinator, I know that part of the fear is "What if I do my very best and it still isn't good enough?" So I decided to find out. If I did my best and still didn't do well in school, I was going to quit and find a full-time job.

Here is what I did:
1. Show up, every day
No excuses, no cutting classes. When the teacher explains the acceptable number of absences, don't even write it down. Just go.

2. Sit in the front
If you're making eye contact with the teacher on a daily basis, you're less likely to drift off and more likely to engage with the subject matter. Initially I did this as part of number 3 below, to "fool" the teacher into thinking I was an A student by behaving like one, but I found that it also changed the way I behaved in class for the better.

3. Act like an A student
As above, make eye contact with the teacher, pay attention, smile, ask questions, take notes. Even if you just sit in the front, nod your head strategically and scribble jibberish every once in a while, it helps to create the impression.

4. Create "homework gaps" in your schedule
For budgetary reasons that first year (i.e., I was supporting myself and did not have a car yet) I did not buy any text books. That meant all of my homework had to be done in the school library with loaner books. Leaving hour-long gaps throughout my day, especially just before or just after tough classes, meant that I always had time to do the reading and course homework while the information was still fresh in my mind, or at least do it right before class so that it would be turned in on time. Assuming there will be homework and planning time for it without the distractions of home is huge. When I left campus for work or for home, I wouldn't have to worry about studying late at night, exhausted, or trying to study with a party going on.

5. Join study groups before big exams
This was my least favorite thing. I'm not really that social when it comes to school. I also found that I was often ahead of the curve and would end up tutoring other students, but anything that reinforces the information so that you can remember it for the test is good. Someone always has the answer to a question you can't answer. Sometimes, another student who knew someone who had previously taken the class would even show up with an old test to review, so that we knew the potential nature of the questions. Once, this happened, and it turned out that the instructor had not changed one word of the test in years. I accepted my A+ a little sheepishly, but I knew the material, so he could have given me any test and I would have aced it, and I did get the extra-credit questions.
(Always go for the extra credit, by the way.)

6. Always do your reading
This goes without saying, and fits into the study gaps above. Rather than trying to get away with reading as little as possible, prepare before class and read the subject matter that is going to be discussed. Make notes about things you don't understand, and ask the teacher. That's what they are there for.

This seems like a lot of work, but when you're in school, school is your job. It's your priority. If you really don't want to be there, go find something you do want to do, and do it to the very best of your ability. A lot of it, just like in the real world, is "Fake it til you make it." Look like a good student, act like a good student, and study like a good student, and you will be a good student. I started doing all of these things initially for other reasons, to create a false impression of studiousness, to save money, etc., but I found that together, they changed the way I approached school.

When I graduated, slightly over the recommended four years, but completely school-debt-free, it was with honors. Magna cum laude. I had raised my GPA as far as I could after that first year: I was a nearly straight A student (only one B, in an art class if you can believe it). It made me realize that I was in many ways as smart as my smart friends, and that anything is indeed possible if you put your mind to it.

Corn, Tomato and White Bean Salad

Anytime I can eat fresh vegetables raw it's a good thing, but carrot sticks just aren't my bag. Here are a couple of quick recipes for raw salads, and one cooked one.

Corn, Tomato and White Bean Salad

Ingredients

2 ears fresh uncooked corn, removed from cob
2 small summer squash, any type, diced

1 container cherry tomatoes, cut in quarters

1 can small white beans

1 small spring onion or green onion, chopped small

salt

pepper

olive oil

seasoned rice vinegar

Tools

Knife (serrated helps with the tomatoes)
Bowl

Spoon

Method

Dice and gently mix ingredients. Adjust vinegar and salt balance to taste. Mix again and chill.

Works with any corn/bean/squash/tomato combo.

chopped fresh herbs like basil, cilantro, parsley or oregano are optional

Broccoli Salad

Broccoli supposedly helps fend off the potential carcinogens in grilled food, so bring this one to your next barbecue.

Ingredients

2 big heads brocolli, cut up in small florets, including stems cut into dice or slices1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper

2 green onions, sliced

1/4 cup chopped almonds (pine-nuts or other nuts ok to substitute)

cole slaw type dressing

(mayo, rice vinegar, olive oil, sugar, salt, pepper)

tsp of hot sauce (optional but delicious)

Tools

Knife

Bowl

Whisk for dressing

Method

Mix dressing in bowl with whisk, chop and dice vegetables and nuts and toss with dressing to coat. Chill.

Warm potato salad

Ingredients

10 baby Yukon gold potatoes, sliced

green top of one spring onion (make this and the corn salad and use up one spring onion)

a few strips of prosciutto, speck or cooked bacon, cut into small pieces

apple cider vinegar

good olive oil

hard-boiled egg, optional

salt and pepper

Tools

Saucepan

Knife

Bowl

Method

Slice potatoes into water, boil until fork tender

If you don't already have a hard-boiled egg, put eggs (might as well have them on hand for next time) in a small saucepan when you put the potatoes on, and bring to a boil. Lower to simmer and set timer to 12 minutes. When timer goes off, run cold water over eggs to chill and peel. If you are doing this in advance, just turn the eggs off at about 9 minutes and let the pot cool down to room temperature, then refrigerate the eggs.

Slice onion, cut prosciutto into 2" strips (I like the smoky element of "speck" or smoked prosciutto)

Drain potatoes

Lightly mash potatoes with egg, onion, vinegar, oil, salt and pepper while still warm.

Gently mix in prosciutto.

Check flavor balance, adjust.

How big is a dice? Well, imagine that a fork full of salad should have at least one piece of each thing on it. If your broccoli is so big that nothing else would fit on the fork, then it's too big. With the corn salad, I like to make everything except the tomatoes a little bigger than corn sized. But it's no big deal. Cut it as big as you like, and adjust the seasonings the way you like them. The traditional salad dressing proportion is 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil. Yesterday I made the corn salad and warm potato salad both in 15-20 minutes including cooking the potatoes, which cook faster when sliced about 1/3" thick. They were yummy together with some previously cooked beets, and a green salad.

Garden Tour

On Sunday, my friend Lisa and I toured six pretty gardens in the Napa Valley, courtesy of the Napa County Master Gardeners. The gardeners and their volunteers hosted a well-organized and well-staffed day of beautiful sites. Below, some photos from the day. Highlights included a 150-200-year-old Banksia climbing rose, a "Barbara Streisand" rose with incredible sweet fragrance and a lavender-lilac color, and the cheery and helpful gardeners themselves. Any time we had a question, they jumped up to answer. What a great community resource.

Homemade Granola

Homemade granola seems to be a popular topic. The Cleaner Plate Club had a recent post, as did a couple of people she linked to within her recipe, so you can check them all out and find your favorite.

When I make homemade granola, I think of a couple of things, one of which is a guilty moment from my past. There were a couple of girls in our extended neighborhood who lived a few blocks down and around the corner from us, in a cul de sac, third house on the right. They were sort of scratchy-voiced, obnoxious little girls, and were afraid of bees, but they were close to our ages, and somehow we got invited over. On one day that I was there, their mother was making homemade granola bars. The house smelled heavenly. She gave us each one to eat, and then when I left, she gave me a few bars (it is entirely possible that I asked for them) wrapped in foil, to take home to my mother. Well, they never made it all the way home. I scarfed down and savored every last one on the long walk home. I probably felt guilty for weeks afterward.

The other thing that always comes to mind when I make granola is my niece Kayleigh. She's going to turn 21 this month, so she's far from a little girl, but when she was a very little girl, we used to pal around together. When I make granola, I imagine showing her how to make it, and sitting in the kitchen together being friends. I do remember baking with my mother, but by the time I was in high school, she was pretty tired of putting dinner on the table every single day, and she doesn't cook much for herself anymore. (Update 06/11: Mom just requested my granola recipe. I think she's enjoying some kitchen time lately...)

I don't know why homemade granola is the thing that makes me think of all of this. Maybe it is its semi-wholesomeness, its money-saving aspect, or just the fact that it makes the kitchen smell so good that it makes you feel like having people over. Whatever it is, here is the latest incarnation. All quantities are plus or minus, depending on your personal tastes. Any dried fruit can be substituted in for the blueberries, and feel free to use the nut of your choice. I particularly like untoasted slivered almonds, as they toast along with the oats. If you like it sweeter, add more sugar. Just don't skimp on the cinnamon or omit the salt (though you may decrease the quantity).

May your kitchen smell heavenly.

Granola of the Week 5/25

Ingredients
1/2 C brown sugar
1/4 C butter
2 TB honey
1/4 C molasses, dark
1/2 tsp salt
(melt together above ingredients and stir into below ingredients)

6 C old-fashioned oats
1 c nuts of your choice, any form (I used pecans for this one)
2 tsp cinnamon
1 C dried, unsweetened flaked coconut

Oven 275 degrees, spread mix on parchment paper
Bake for 30 minutes, stir
Bake for another 30 minutes

Stir in 1 bag of dried blueberries (or 1 cup of raisins, currants, etc.)
Bake for 15-30 minutes or until evenly golden all over. Store in air-tight containers. Serve with yogurt or milk and fruit, adding more honey to taste.

I Don't Want Any More of Your Snack, Mobyfinger

Last night, Mike and I watched Jackie Brown, which I think is a great movie. I like any movie where the woman kicks butt and wins in the end, but this one I think is really good and well-cast. Except for Samuel L. Jackson's ponytail, I believed all of the characters.

It was on channel 36, so it was dubbed and cut up for commercial breaks. I had to laugh out loud at the fantastically imaginative substitutes for unacceptable words. I wish I could remember more of them. Here were a few of my favorites:

Melon-peeler (Picture Samuel L. Jackson saying, "You tell that melon-peeler I want my money.")
Motorscooter
Mortgage broker
and the mysterious
Mobyfinger

I'm going to see if I can find some kind of database of acceptable dub-stitutes. Otherwise, I'll have to make my own.