Tag: food

Harvest Love

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It’s beet season! I love beets – their earthly taste, their dente bite, the way they turn everything a deep, rich, fuchsia. With the tough personal loss I recently suffered at the hands of the second son of God (thank you very much Mr. Tebow) I needed some comfy food. My grandmother, the one I fondly remember with her tongue out, used to make these for me. She also pickled cucumbers the way Denveater described them. Well, not quite. I’m sure the taste was the same but the presentation was waaaay different since she wasn’t an east coast Jew but a southern Episcopalian.

Anyway, beets are coming down the TCSA pike and into my veggie bin. Using my considerable(ly limited) skills, I created this short homage for your viewing pleasure. I should probably have let the piece speak for itself. Ah, well. Turn up your sound.

I’m also thinking very good thoughts for a friend of mine with potentially very good news that goes along with a local, organic, communal harvest. Sparkles, Molly!

Nipples of Venus

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First, apologies to anyone who came here after a google search. No porn here. I just had to talk about this most luscious, luminous, sparkly thumbprint cookie ever.


Isn’t it fantastic? And, OH.MY.GOD! These cookies are so yummy. Add the coldest freshest milk and really, why bother with anything else? It’s my Friday. It makes up for needles flying at my eyeballs, job dramaz, and Yu-Gi-Oh cards that must be Pokemon cards or an 8 YO boy might be too embarrassed and die to go to school because only the butt picker likes Yu-Gi-Oh. Thanks Molly. I needed the purple box with thumbprint cookies in it.

They do remind me of nipples of Venus though I’ve never actually eaten one. These are my nipples. Not the actual… Point is that when I was in 9th grade I was apprenticed to a guy in the drama department at OU who would rather do ANYTHING other than spend a second with some 9th grade alternative wannabe. He told me to hang out with Katie Somebody. Katie was a bitch. I avoided her like the plague. She got to eat nipples of Venus because she was Mozart’s wife.

Speaking of music and theater, a pal o’ mine had a birthday and you know what she did? Well if you were paying attention, you’d know it has something to do with musical theater and that can only mean one thing – GAY MEN’S CHORUS! Yes, you are reading this correctly. SHE had a birthday and gave ME a concert ticket. I’m telling you, I have the most incredible giving friends ever. We went out for healthy Chinese and then to see Reveille Men’s Chorus presenting Holidays in Hollywood. To be fair, I can’t attest to any of the members’ statuseses in the gay community, however, they have the cutest little logo. It’s a cock.

decorative

Grateful

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Not long ago I went to a fundraiser to benefit two organizations with similar goals. One organization seeks to help hungry people in Tucson and the other to provide breakfast for young kids in an African school. For my money I got to eat good food, “win” exciting auctions, and sit in good company. All my winnings left me in a quandary. What the heck I should do with my African booty?
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It Was the Milk!

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Not the cookies, not the chocolate, not the cup cakes, not the chips, not the fries, not the pizza, not the soda, not the candy – NO! The 8 YO boy filled the bathroom sink with vomit because of the milk. I should have known.

No Waste Day Wasted

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I started out No Waste Day with the best of intentions. I put my coffee in a jar and the jar in a sock. My son’s soccer water was also in a jar. My daughter drank her soccer water out of her expensive and cute SIGG thing. But that’s not really “no waste” as we always drink out of thermosesesi and to go mugs and such. The sock had a wintery theme to bring cheer to the dreary 70 degree temps Tucsonans are forced to face.
Post-soccer we went to lunch and partook in much waste, but the girl collected leaves for later use in a front window Fall display. I tied the leftover food and harvested leaves to the top of the minivan along with the kids since the interior of the minivan can only hold so much junk.

Upon arriving home, I cleaned out my minivan. H.O.L.Y. C.R.A.P. I pretty much had to cart No Waste Day to the curb with the trash at that point because there was such a paper blizzard I considered shipping it to Aspen to improve skiing conditions. Then, I collected all the food from the floor and sent it to Pilgrims Pride to compliment their reduced lunch for kids program.

Afterward, I did a bunch of laundry, but only hung one load to dry. A girl likes soft skivvies, you know. Blah blah blah worked for pay, which may never get done. Then packaging for dinner was unwrapped and trashed. Oh, hey, I have a solar oven on loan that cooks potatoes like silk.
So, today was Best of Intentions, Recycle, Trash, Use, and Think of How I Once Did Something Good for the Planet Day.

Halloween Snapshot

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Okay, I wanted to blog all this stuff about Halloween, but I neglected to attend to one of the more important tenants of publishing – deadlines. Of course for a blog, I don’t have to plan as far ahead as traditional publishing, but perhaps some of this would have been more interesting/useful BEFORE Halloween. It’s highly unlikely that my three readers would take a look at this today. In any event and without further ado, here are my Halloween snapshots.

First, we picked pumpkins. This was a time for funny faces and produce bigger than my baby. In AZ, we sell our pumpkins alongside dried chilies.

On to the massacre. The Weisers continue to invite us to Pumpkinpalooza in spite of the fact that we ALWAYS come. Robyn is a great pal who shows us a good time and feeds us well. Chili – YUM! I took a photo of my dinner. This year, I let the ankle biters carve their own designs with actual knives. No trips to the ER. Phew!


The 8 YO boy carved a bat in flight and the 6 YO girl carved a kitten cat. I scored a surplus pumpkin for free because someone dropped it. I carved snakes coming out of the resultant crack, which I had enlarged. We coated our pumpkins with Vaseline so that they would keep. We didn’t do such a great job this year and that, partnered with the heat, saw two of our pumpkins turn gross-out mushy.

I painted the girl’s fingernails orange, but it didn’t last. Then we roasted our pumpkin seeds. We washed the 3 or so cups of seeds, boiled them for 10 minutes in 14 cups of water and 14 tablespoons of salt, then coated them in olive oil and roasted them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. YUM! Better than I thought, though I’m not the sort who cares for the outer shell.

Finally, we are looking forward to Dia de los Muertos. The kids made sugar skulls at one of the school’s fundraisers. Cute huh? These were made sans glue, so they are entirely edible.

Anna and I have been talking about how fun and inspiring Dia de los Muertos is in comparison to the more somber Memorial Day. They each have their place. Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church is celebrating the Feast of All Saints on November 1st and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day) on November 2nd. I’m looking forward to bringing photos of my loved ones who’ve passed on to the services.

Check out posts from last year. Here, Here, Here, and Here.

Know Your Farmer

Oh, okay. Well, does this AP story bother anyone else? Makes you want to know your farmer. If you think you might like, you can read the FDA draft and then make public comments for the next couple of months.

And as a refresher, you can read labels on your produce too to see if you are consuming genetically engineered food.

Just so you know how this came to my brain, I was reading Nature Moms Blog and this item was mentioned in one of the comments. I followed the story to get to an “unbiased” news source.

Happy Birthday to Me!

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For some reason I dressed all in shades of brown with black and white highlights today. I likely look like a monkey, but as my big bro points out, I don’t have to smell like one too. I could shower. But I didn’t, because it’s my birthday and I didn’t want to. Happy birthday to me, I live in a zoo, I look like a monkey, and I smell like one too. Oh, wouldn’t it be awful if I smelled like “one/TWO”? Eegads! Then again, I’d fit in at the park where I cruse the homeless cliques in my never ending search for a good source of TB.

I also didn’t want to drive the kids to school so the hubster did it. I stayed in my jammies until 9:30 in the a. to the m. Then I bought myself a full-fat iced mocha from a local joint who gave me a 15% discount on account of how awesome I am (and how I rocked my Catcard). Heck, for all I know the coffee wasn’t even Fair Trade and it came in a one-time use (but recyclable) plastic cup that didn’t even drip on my shirt. Afterward, I went to my son’s school on the premise that I would train to volunteer in the library. I was really only going to hang out with Anna who was casual cool in a Japanese coy T. We went to lunch.

Food was a big part of my big dia. I got some backyard tomaters from Molly and popsicles for FOUR kids plus myself from Kathy and hung out with Cassandra and Yvonne. Then Todd-o and Jesse took me and the ankle biters out for dinner. YUM-O and no dishes bitches! Please excuse my tone. I think my husband’s near beer has gone to my head. Luckily, he limited himself at one. That was his joke, btw. He’s hilarious.

Even the chickens helped me celebrate. They each gave me a perfectly shaped and colored egg. Thoughtfully, Flower treated me to an egg from the nest and not one randomly left in cacti or the coop floor. Jesse’s aunt sent me a pewter photo frame and of course my grandmother sent me a check for $25. Kari sent me a cardi and so did the dentist and a restaurant. My dad wished me happy birthday on his blog and my mother sent me a “card is in the mail” e-mail. I live a fat life!

Finally, because it’s my birthday, I’m not going to bother with “visual interest” on my blog. Now it’s time to leave you now (right bro?).

Smörgåsbord

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Smörgåsbord my style isn’t exactly Swedish or buffetish, but I like the word anyway. Those Sweds just use cool words. I’m attempting a more enriching daily kitchen experience through the preparation of one inspired foodstuff creation each day. Sadly, today’s effort fizzled with an applebutter sandwich. I should have recognized my own culinary incompetence, but I have had some successes.

George and I made the muffin recipe again only we used organic blueberries and lemon juice instead of chocolate chips and vanilla. Next time, I would set my blueberries in sugar like my great aunt. In fact, I really need to get that recipe. The muffins were drier than I would have liked. Also, I tried to save them for a potluck lunch, but in just two short days a swamper/plastic bag combo set them to mold. Not exactly inspired, but attempted.

Starting 15 or so years ago, it became impossible for me to think of summer without thinking of tabbouleh (tabouli?). The tomatoes and cucumbers are just too good to be true in the summer and the two in any combo makes my stomach go mad with anticipation. I tried a new recipe and it worked. Only I didn’t stick to the recipe. This is something like a cup of bulgar, a cup and a half of boiling water, some olive oil, and some lemon juice sitting for an hour. I added salt at this point. Also, I used table salt instead of kosher salt. It was too salty. Once the bulgar soaked up all the juicy goodness, I added tomatoes, flat leaf parsley, spring onions (or whatever you call them), cucumbers, and dry mint. I didn’t like the tabouli at this point, so I put in lots more lemon juice and more onion. It worked and was eagerly received at a potluck lunch. Is potluck the new fondue?

Olive oil has been central to my attempts in the kitchen. My girlfriend Anna brought some to me from her husband’s folks in California. I used it to make my favorite garlicky mustard vinaigrette. I stole this recipe from my friends the Cojeens. If you are ever in Oklahoma and in need of archaeology, guitars, or salad dressing, they are your peeps. I don’t know that it would be appropriate for me to publish their recipe, but to give you an idea of why I like it so much, this small half jar took eight cloves of garlic. Luckily, we had just been to a garlic and onion festival at Agua Linda Farm.

I put up some blackeye peas in the freezer some time back. I needed to cook them up. Nothing fancy here. Peas, water, bacon grease (I didn’t want to wait for hamhock to thaw), and after 45 minutes, salt. Now we are full circle because this food reminds me of my mother and her family. It goes super yummy with my great aunt’s tomatoes and cornbread.

After all this eating, I need to jump on a stationary bike at the kids’ school to exercise and generate electricity.

Parrish’s former teacher got a sentence write-up in today’s paper:

● $994.74 to help second-graders at Borton Primary Magnet School see energy being produced by pedaling a stationary bicycle linked to a generator.

Read the full article here.

Muffins and Memories

I’ve been talking to a great aunt of mine every day, every fifteen minutes because she forgets that she’s called. Recently we discussed a tomato sandwich that she ate. She said it reminded her of my mother. Lots of foods make me think of my great aunt. The big three are fried baby catfish, tomatoes, and blueberry muffins.

My great aunt grew blueberry vines like crazy over her patio. She would harvest them, coat them in sugar, freeze them, then make blueberry muffins. They were the moistest, yummiest thing I ever ate with the possible exceptions of fried baby catfish and home-grown tomatoes.

With all this memory, aunt, food energy going around every 15 minutes, I figured I’d better make some blueberry muffins. Parrish was off LEGOing with a buddy, Jesse was working, and George and I were on our own. I recruited her for baking duty. George had her own ideas about muffins. What if we traded out the blueberries with chocolate chips? What if we traded out the lemon juice for vanilla and almond extracts? Here is what we got:

I don’t have my aunt’s recipe, but maybe I’ll get it in the next 15 minutes. Here’s the one we made up for ourselves.

Directions:

Sift in medium bowl
1.5 cu flour (I wanted to use wheat, but we had none, which made the muffins way more yummier than planned)
1/2 tsp Coke (baking soda, but not what George called it)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt.

Beat in another bowl
1/3 cu sugar
4 tbs melted organic butter
3/4 cu organic milk
2 organic bantam eggs
2 tbs organic vanilla (too strong, but wanted moisture)
1 tb almond extract (too strong, but wanted moisture).

Blend the wet mixture with the dry then add 1 cu organic, fairly traded chocolate chips. (Don’t these ingredients seem bourgeois? All the social climbers are going socially and environmentally conscious with their food.)

Fill greased muffin pan with mixture and put in preheated 350 degree oven for 20ish minutes. Cool muffins on a rack a while, then eat straight away. Don’t forget to turn off your oven. I forgot and the kitchen got quite hot. Luckily I don’t cook often enough to worry about the gas bill.

George and I are majorly self-congratulatory. We did a yum-yum-yummy job. Parrish took a bite and declared they were awful. Later he confessed that he liked the bite but wanted to protect his reputation. The next morning he requested a muffin for breakfast, so apparently he got over his “rep”. It’s cute that Parrish is self-aware, but I’d rather him be a big geek who is all himself, than super cool and hidden. I’ll work on that.

For now we will choke back what ails us with chocolate chip muffins Georgie style. The next thing on my list is to figure out what to do with the unused blueberries. Maybe I’ll ask my aunt. Is that my phone ringing?