Not Quite Rural

Relocated

2008-07-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Clearly, my life has changed. The baby is kicking my ass in a number of ways. After a fatal bullying incident that soured us on birds forever, the chickens have found a new home. I have a new job, no time, and haven't had an unbroken night of sleep in 15 months.

And I have a new blog. Visit me there.

Green leaf lettuce recall

2006-10-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Reason #581 to shop at the farmers' market:

Today, green leaf lettuce from the Salinas Valley was recalled. The spinach ban has lifted, but bagged spinach still gives me the creeps. And maybe it should. Central processing spreads potential contamination across the United States--the same bacteria that killed a woman in Wisconsin could be in my food in California. If any one farm that supplies a central processing facility has tainted spinach, the bacteria is efficiently distributed to thousands of Americans within days.

At the Saturday farmers' market in Nearby College Town, I buy my greens from Rob. I know his practices (organic, but not certified). My risk of food poisoning by green leafys is limited to one farm--one local farmer I trust. And I'll take those odds.

Tonight, a mixed green salad with sweet pears and stilton dressed with walnut oil and balsamic vinegar.

14 weeks pregnant

2006-10-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

In the last week, I've made macaroni and cheese with bechamel sauce, gnocchi (storebought, I'm human) with pesto (fresh, absolutely), pasta topped with bacon, countless apples topped with peanut butter, pancakes smothered in yogurt (twice), a bagel and cream cheese, potato foccacia, and an apple/cranberry pie with strusel topping. And this is only the beginning.

The limited-wheat thing? Not so much.

So, I'm hungry after three months of small bites. I ate lunch twice today. And I'm still hungry.

The master plan is to put so much weight on my ass that it will draw the eye from my stomach and I can put off announcing the big news to my boss. Not working so far. W. looks at me every morning, sighs, and says, "You know, you've really got to tell them."

Other slice of pie, and I can maybe put it off until we pass deadline.

Managing molletes

2006-10-02T16:27:00.000-07:00

I am finally drifting back into the kitchen. Every couple days has turned into every other day, and I find myself loving the smell of a pork stew with onions and prunes or potato foccacia.

But still, the puking continues. The long list of Things That Must Not Be Eaten (hummus, meat in large chunks, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, melty cheese, fresh tomatoes and peppers, my toothbrush) is limiting my options, but as we learned in planning grad school, from constraints come opportunities.

For me, this is an opportunity to revisit the staples from years past, when I was picky and cooking was hard. I had forgotten how good these were:

Molletes: a toasted roll (bolillo) spread with refried beans and topped with cotija, that lovely Mexican hard, salty cheese, and run under the broiler. Topped with cilantro and served with salsa, these are fast and good and filling and altogether inoffensive. They are perfect for breakfast with fresh orange juice and milky coffee made with a little cinnamon thrown in with the grounds--for those lucky suckers who can still enjoy the smell of fresh-brewed coffee...

Unexpected guest

2006-09-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

What is it the Japanese say about guests and fish? Three days? Well, it’s been three months, and it is just starting not to stink…

Our guest dropped in without warning, with teetotaling ways that put the kibosh on cocktails. And all the fresh tomatoes and peppers in the garden—totally out of the question. In fact, even entering the kitchen has been fraught with puking possibilities.

Yep, I’m whipping up a person, which is not, despite all prevailing romantic notions to the contrary, as easy as it sounds.

I know there are those out there who doubt our ability to properly and reverently nurture a child. You’re in good company--we have our own doubts. Between the two of us, we couldn’t even figure out whether the home pregnancy test was positive.

But we do know this: He’s our kid, so he is going to turn out weird.

And if he is anything like his papa, the chicks will dig it…

Against the grain

2006-09-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

Just because I'm feeling contrarian.

My nominations for the totally undeserved popularity prize:
-chocolate fountains
-cell phone ring tones
-the Olive Garden
-Rachael Ray
-platform thongs

Why, people, why?

The future's so bright...

2006-08-24T18:50:00.000-07:00

There's a Chinese food restaurant here we like to go to. The menu is exactly the same as those of the other seven (yes, really) Chinese places in town, and the food is what you think when you think Americanized Chinese: bathed in grease, most of it served in pools of unnaturally red sweet sauce.

But homemade kim chee comes out first. And the pork potstickers are homemade and thick and browned to a crisp on the bottom. And because we ask, we get hot oil and a soy and green onion sauce to dip them in.

W. and I always go in the afternoon, on a whim, when the place is nearly empty and the owners have time to show us the pictures of their last trip to China. He cooks; she waits tables. They worked 11 hours a day, seven days a week until last year, when they decided to take Tuesdays off.

They know what we like and always bring us an extra cup of hot-and-sour soup, even if we only order one early bird special. (That's $3.95 for soup, wontons, fried rice or chow mein, and entree--so hold the early bird special ridicule.) When asparagus is in season, they sometimes bring us plates of it, fried like onion rings and sprinkled with salt.

We drink tea, read the United County realty brochure, and dream of buying 100 acres in small-town Iowa.

But yesterday's lunch was a little disturbing. My fortune cookie had no fortune. I had a brief moment of utter panic when I snapped the cookie in half, like this was a portent of some terrible thing.

W.'s cookie? Also fortune-free.

Quick superstitious visions of car crashes, fires. "At least we'll go at the same time," W. said.

But instead, we thought, maybe we are heading for something so new, so unknown, that there are no signposts, no clues. Just the blank page of the unknown.

Or maybe our cookies just happened to be fished out of a bunk bag and half the town is worried about their future.

(Can't say I'm not still just a little creeped out.)

Good idea, cheap vodka

2006-08-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Between my creative career and W.'s late academic re-entry, the funds are in short supply--for now. If there were tracks in this town, we'd live on the other side of them.

We've gotten good at at optimizing eBay usage to stay in the kind of jeans we grew to love behind the Orange curtain. Our cereal doesn't come in a box, and our beans are scooped from a bin. Coffee is made at home 99% of the time. We wash and reuse the Ziploc bags. It's gotten to be a challenge, how to live the best with the least. And we're good at it.

I recently tried to be thrifty-clever, coaxing the last bit of flavor from a mango pit by infusing a so-cheap-it's-worth-the-risk vodka with it, some lime zest, and a couple chunks of piloncillo sugar.

It looked pretty, tasted like rubbing alcohol.

We used it in a vodka gimlet. Rubbing alcohol.

We shook it with strawberries and lime juice and sprinkled the whole thing with coconut and promised never to speak of that drink in public. And even the frou-frou didn't cut the burn.

So vodka made it to the list of things that aren't worth the skimp--along with Parmesean cheese, irrigation piping, shovels, bacon, and bikini waxes.

We've tried it, so you don't have to.

Spaghetti's siren song

2006-08-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

I did succumb. Then, with the taste of semolina still fresh in my memory, I did it again. I had to. I had too many tomatoes pilling up in the kitchen, screaming for a long, slow roasting and a quick toss with some spaghetti.

And, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of a long chew on gluten-free, wheat-free, brown rice noodles, let me just say that sometimes only wheat will do.

But I won't be doing that again any time soon, and I'll spare you the details. And until next time, I am eating my roasted tomatoes with my breakfast fry-ups, or with pecorino romano cheese and salami, or tossed into hot rice with basil, cubed fresh mozzarella that gets all lovely and stringy, and a tiny pour of balsamic vinegar.

SLOW-ROASTED TOMATOES

Wash your tomatoes and cut out the hard core. Quarter the big ones and halve the smaller ones so your pieces are roughly within the same size range. Pack onto a cookie sheet with edges or a roasting pan, skin sides down.

Chop a bunch of garlic and sprinkle over tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil. Be generous. Then sprinkle with salt.

They will look like this (except, hopefully, with better lighting and more foreground focus):

Put the pan in a low oven, about 200 degrees, and roast all day (usually 5-8 hours, depending on size and juiciness of your fruit), checking every couple hours. If the bottoms start burning--not just carmalizing and darkening a bit, which is good--turn the oven down to the lowest setting. If they don't seem to be drying out at all, turn the oven up to 250.

When the tomatoes have collapsed into themselves somewhat and are nearly dried out, they are done. There should be a core of moist, concentrated tomato-ness that spurts a little when you press or bite into one, but no thin juice.

They keep well for a couple days or so layered in Mason jars in the refrigerator--just fish out as needed to put in sandwiches or pasta or assorted creative wheat-free snacks. I pull off the skins before eating these.

For those of you who can eat pasta with impunity and who have too many tomatoes, try this:

Working over a big bowl and using your hands, tear the skins off roasted tomatoes and discard. Break them up drop into the bowl until you have enough sauce to cover the amount of pasta you plan to make. Add olive oil and salt as needed and a generous amount of slivered fresh basil. Toss room-temperature or warmed-up sauce with hot spaghetti and top with creamy goat cheese.

Shopping in foreign countries

2006-08-02T08:21:00.001-07:00

When I was in high school, my family took a summer vacation to San Diego. We took in Tijuana and stared with awe and sadness at the gorillas at the Wild Animal Park, but the biggest attraction was the 99 Ranch market. We were coming off a lard-intensive visit of a Mexican bakery, but this stop was the ultimate. 99 Ranch is an enormous Asian food superstore. And yes, grocery shopping IS the kind of thing my family likes to do on vacation.

The produce section was just about the size of our hometown grocery store. Men in waders sloshed around in knee-deep aquariums to catch that night's fish or lobster meal--in one motion flipping them out of the water and dispatching them with a quick blow. Two whole aisles and one refrigerated case were devoted to noodles.

But the thing that I remember most vividly, the thing that made my and my younger sisters' eyes widen in horror, the thing that made my mom and aunt choke on their giggles and try, desperately, to play it cool, was the beef pizzle. There it was, "Beef Pizzle," lying in a plastic-covered butcher shop tray like, well, a detached, um, pizzle.

"Is that--—?" we said.

"Yes," my mom whispered.

And, like the good cultural ambassadors we hoped to be, we acted like we ate beef pizzle for dinner every Saturday and went on to browse the selection of miniature dried fish.

But we sure did giggle about it later. After all, we were young and not quite ready for pizzle.

And in that spirit, since I am clearly older and more mature, some inappropriate humor:

Summer sweets

2006-07-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not a sugar girl (with the exception of my Southside addiction). I don't need chocolate daily. I rarely eat dessert.

Instead, I crave salty, crunchy things. The crust is my favorite part of the pie. Put a basket of chips in front of me, and prepare for an episode of mindless munching. If it's got bacon in it, I'm pretty much in hog heaven.

But I do love fruit, mostly unadorned: mango slivers with lime, halved figs with a dab of chevre, peaches with lemon verbena syrup. And, when I want to glam it up just a little, this:

ROASTED NECTARINES WITH BALSAMIC SYRUP

Make syrup by combining 2 parts honey with 1 part balsamic vinegar. Add a splash of vanilla.

Halve nectarines and put, cut side up, into an oven-safe pan. Brush with syrup. Broil until the peaches start to brown on top.

Serve with a spoonful of fresh ricotta and more syrup drizzled on top.

This recipe is very clean, so everything has to be tasty: the nectarines should be sweet and firm, the vanilla should have bits of vanilla bean, the vinegar should have some depth. I use fresh ricotta from Trader Joe's, but I imagine it would be even better with fresh homemade ricotta.

Easy, sweet but not-too, tangy, impressive and delicious.

One classy weekend

2006-07-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

2 gorgeous boys

3 heavy packs, 1 sweet ride

1 cowboy hat, 6 cups of cowboy coffee, grounds and all

12 Clif Bars, 1 pound of jerky, 2 Nalgenes, 1 bag trail mix

and, yes, rice in a bag cooked in a coffee can

16 ounces scotch and 12 roll-your-owns

1 perfectly ice-cold river swimming hole, 1 tired dog

lots of dust boogers, plenty sweat, a couple blisters, abundant sun, then countless stars

Time out. Good times. Not enough time.

An oeuf

2006-07-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I have been taking our chickens for granted. They cackle triumphantly late morning, waddle and scratch around the yard in the evenings, and keep us in eggs. And it takes a brush with a bad egg to remind me of how primally delicious our symbiotic relationship is.

We were house-sitting this winter while our house was being torn apart. A lazy Sunday morning in a house with heat. So, naturally, time for a fry-up. And we scrambled up some of their eggs, the kind that come in a jumbo pack advertised with a slogan like "500 eggs for a buck" or "insanely cheap eggs from unhappy hens" and keep indefinitely in your fridge.

One bite of the squeaky pale eggs made it abundantly clear that we were spoiled--and so were our hens. These were eggs with all the life sucked out of them, eggs that tasted machine-made. No yellow glow, no creamy taste of sunshine and long afternoons. Tabasco didn't cover the taste of assembly-line desperation, and we couldn't finish them.

Now we spend mornings with soft-boiled eggs and laugh that our breakfast comes perfectly formed from our pets.

As W. likes to crow to the more squeamish of our friends while handing them a fresh egg, still warm, "This just came out of her butt!" Often, he gets a quick moue of disgust and the egg handed back as if it were painfully hot, not just still quivering with life. Probably these people insist on a shower before lights-off sex.

And those people we know we are going to love curl their hands around the warm egg and ask for an omelet...

A not-quite-rural late afternoon

2006-07-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

In lieu of late nights on the 5 freeway...

No foot on the brake, we watch tomatoes ripen and imagine dinner.

First the Pirate's Booty...

2006-06-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

...and now this.

At Trader Joe's, at the register, a sign for store-brand lotion:

"A midsummer's night cream."

And you thought this was a family store.

Ciao, pasta

2006-06-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sophia Loren has attributed everything she's got to pasta--and I lived that since I moved out of my parent's house. That's 10 years of triweekly pasta, minimum. With cream and lemon; with avocado, basil, blue cheese, and bacon; with a winter sauce of sausage, sundried tomato, and porcini mushroom; with peas, spring onions, asparagus, and chevre; with roasted butternut sqash and onions...

And then there was the genetically ingrained call of my German ancestors: "Eat bread. Eat cheese. Eat sausage. Drink beer."

So, naturally, I have reached the point where my body isn't so forgiving of late nights, blended margaritas, or--yes--wheat and dairy. I can't ignore it any more.

I'm taking it slow, but the more I cut these things out, the better I feel. My allergies, my skin, my energy, all improving. And until this becomes second nature, I take comfort from Gluten-Free Girl , who found opportunity in constraints.

And I get my triweekly pasta fix from rice noodles.

Dreaming of creme fraiche, wood-fired pizza, cappuccini and brioche...and semolina.

All footie, all the time

2006-06-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

We won't be doing anything around here for a while:

World Cup madness

Almost done

2006-06-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

Tiles straight, moldings cut at 45 degrees at the corners...

How to tile a bathroom

2006-05-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

Things we learned the hard way:

1. Remove the toilet before installing the Hardiboard.

2. Paint before putting tile down, especially if you are using a bright green-blue and your tiles are white.

3. The instructions on the box of grout say to let it firm between tiles before wiping off the excess, but this does not mean you have time to go play poker at a friend's house. A delay like this means three very miserable hours crouched on cold, hard tile scrubbing, scraping, and muttering obscenities under your breath while your hands cramp up and your waterlogged skin starts to slough off.

Talking lobster not included

2006-05-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

We are tackling our shell of a house one room at a time. There is no money for flooring, so instead, we coat the plywood with red garage paint and call it temporary.

We used to have to climb a ladder that dropped into the middle of the living room to get into our attic bedroom. Peeing in the middle of the night was no joke. So in honor of the unprecedently luxury of being able to drink water with impunity at 1 a.m., we decided to do the upstairs bathroom first.

I had this idea that the bathroom would an antique robin's egg blue with white trim and lots of chocolate brown to match the inexpensive Ikea vanity with a lovely wide sink. I had a perfect palm-sized dish glazed in that exact blue. W. and I took the dish to Lowe's and carefully matched the color.

We pulled everything out of the bathroom, and I spent hours taping and painting. And we have, not antique robin's egg blue, but an aquamarine, a tropical shore turquoise, a sea foam...

The bathroom looks like the Little Mermaid's grotto. We are hoping a white ceiling and tile and molding will cut the oceanic feel.

And for the rest of the house? We are thinking no more fun with color, dreaming of shades of white...

Forget the roses...

2006-05-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not a chocolate and flowers kind of girl, but a surprise gift of my very own toolbox, with my own tools? Makes me melt.

W. knew exactly how much this would mean to me: Now I can find tools were they should be, all the time -- organized in my soon-to-be-shined-up Craftsman box. No more sharing, no more rusty tools left out in the rain, no more searching through the garage for a Phillips.

And no, I didn't like sharing my shovel in the sandbox either...

Why I stayed

2006-05-13T19:56:00.000-07:00

Today I was in the front yard building a retaining wall of river rock and broken-up pieces of our old foundation that the contractors left for us--a job that began with a lot of sweat and ended with a brusied hip, several minorly squashed fingers, and impressive biceps.

While I was toiling away, dripping with sweat, a dirt smudge wiped across my cheek, looking totally frightening, no fewer than five people stopped to talk to me.

A couple complimented us on our new house color. One offered to help us fix our car. Another neighbor stopped to throw the ball for the dog, who he has called his girlfriend since he got divorced. His 80-year-old mother, who moved in before Christmas, shuffled by with her growling mop of a dog. The woman who lives at the end of the lane brought us begonias, a housewarming gift. A Jack Russell terrier came by for a sniff and a doggie smile.

This would never happen in Orange County. (Well, with the exception of the surfer neighbor who knocked on our door a couple times a week with Coronas and a smoke. Blaine, we love you and miss you sorely.)

And yes, one woman carried on a conversation with lit cigarette attached precariously to her lower lip. Another is a bit manic and missing some teeth. There is the veteran who saw too much in Vietnam; the one who just got out of jail; the teenager who throws loud parties and rides his Quad up and down the lane, driving us crazy with noise and dust. And, of course, the Bay Area transplants.

But every one of them is looking out for us--bringing over tomatoes; a wheelbarrow; tools to borrow; offers of help on the car, on the plumbing; congratulations, conversation...

There are no Joneses to keep up with, and that would never happen in Orange County.

The best fava bean recipe

2006-05-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

Like all great recipes, this one starts at the farmers' market. Go there for fava beans, scoop a generous amount of the pods into a bag.

And it's a Saturday spring morning, so pick up some incidentals: pencil-thin asparagus, a still-warm loaf of bread, Meyer lemons, strawberries you can smell an aisle away, a rubarb kuchen and a cup of coffee. Take the dog to the park; devour your kuchen; sip your coffee; admire the wildflowers; let the dog swim in the lake and shake all over you until you all smell like pond.

Favas are not the kind of thing to tackle alone in the kitchen. You will find yourself hunched over the counter, festering in a stew of resentment as you painstakingly pick apart each infuriating bean as everyone else enjoys a sunny late afternoon.

Instead, get someone you like to chat with to make a couple Southsides. Having an former bartender as a husband helps. We use a modified version of Pete Wells' recipe from an old Food & Wine magazine:

SOUTHSIDE

Fill a shaker with ice. Add 6 oz. gin, juice of half a large or one small lemon (Meyer preferred), a spoon or two superfine sugar and two fresh mint sprig. Shake the hell out of it. Strain into two chilled martini glass and garnish with a mint sprig.

The straining is suggested most people don't want to end up with mint in the crevices between their teeth--I personally like my cocktail all rustic and green with bits of mint. But that's me...

Then, on to the favas.

Pile them on a table and get comfy. Split the pods open and strip out the beans. Then take the frosted sheath off each bean. This could be considered tedious and frustrating. Don't go there. Take a slow sip of your Southside and enjoy the chance to slow down.

You'll soon develop a system and the peeling will become a point of pride. Mine involves a thumbnail at the end of a bean and a little squeeze.

When the beans are peeled and the cocktails are sipped, toss a good amount of small-cubed pecorino cheese in with the favas and dress with olive oil and pepper.

It's sprung

2006-05-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

All Summer in a Day

2006-04-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

After nearly 80 inches of rain and scattered snow, we finally see the that unfamiliar ball of light in the sky. And I am stuck inside, glued to the computer, working.

I'm like Margot in that Ray Bradbury story, trapped in a closet while all her playmates raise their faces to the sun.

Guilt omelettes

2006-04-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

I have to preface this by saying that one of us grew up near Los Padres National Forest, where a pet left out overnight was one didn't come back in the morning and raccoons pulled a beloved guinea pig to bits by reaching through the wires of its cage and tugging.

The other one of us grew up in the heart of Orange County and was completely ignorant of the evil genius of a raccoon on the prowl.

Any guesses as to which one of us regularly forgot to close the chicken coop up at night? Let's just say that won't happen again...

We were woken up last night at 2:45 a.m. by a single panicked squawk, then silence. The dog and I sat bolt upright; W. groaned.

"Did you shut the chickens in?" ... "Well then, go!"

Then, the horrible sound of a chicken screaming, like one of our ladies was being torn limb from limb. Guinea pig flashbacks--and I was outside in a second.

The raccoons were treed by the dog; the screaming chicken was huddled under the shell of the front porch-to-be; W. was trying to figure out how to put it out of what must have been the misery of mortal injury--severed limbs, broken wings.... We brainstormed about the fastest and least painful ways to finish the job: a hammer (too messy), a quick jerk (no nerve), a head in the tailpipe of a running car (hmmm... too suburban?)

I guarded the one chicken left in the coop from a sneak attack. (Never underestimate the tenacity of a raccoon.) W. took a deep breath and went to face the gory mess of the mutilated chicken. He came back with her perfectly intact, in his arms--they clucked softly at each other in what must have been sheer relief on both sides.

We reinforced the coop, rewarded the dog for the crisis averted, and spent the next half hour in the cold drizzle with a failing flashlight trying to find the third chicken. We couldn't believe she had been taken, especially not silently. She is nearly as big as a raccoon herself--and furiously chases the dog around the yard when she gets too close. And no sign of her, not even a stray feather.

But this morning, there she was, waiting outside the garage door, completely unruffled.

Everyone is OK, but I don't think we'll be getting any eggs from the ladies today.

Next stop, slop

2006-03-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

I hate to make a big deal of the tragic state of the culinary landscape our town because I believe constraints make for opportunity. Really, the fact that one small town has a Cozy Diner, Kalico Kitchen, AND Comeback Café is no reason to get discouraged and eat hash browns that are delivered frozen by Cisco.

And we can finally chalk one up for the culturally adventurous and celebrate the new Thai restaurant. Our contractor loves the place--and had never eaten thai food before, ever! Criminal....

Last time we were there, an old couple was loudly complaining that they didn't have fried rice just like one of the 10 Chinese restaurants down the street and proclaimed that it was horribly neglectful of the staff to leave the soy sauce off the table. We immediately creeped out the waiter by being overcompensatingly nice, as if our smiles could drown out the grouchy croaking at the next table: "They must miss you over at (unnamed greasy Chinese restaurant). We'll go there next time."

W. and I started to bet on whether they would ask for chopsticks, but quickly remembered the only chopsticks in town are at our house. They certainly don't come to your table with your sweet and sour chicken at the local favorite Chinese joint.

Gotta love it ... the only alternative is a perpetual state of despair.

Hot drinks for cold garages

2006-03-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

Because W. and I are living in the garage while the contractors toil in the incessant rain and occasional snow, we have learned some creative ways to keep blood circulating in our extremities:

The laptop warms up your legs; the trendy vintage good-idea-when-we-lived-in-so-cal metal desk? Cold, cold, cold.

Junk mail catalogs on the floor cut the cold of the concrete slab (and absorb mud and dirt before being easily recycled).

Socks and mittens are a mixed blessing—if our fingers and toes are already cold, wearing them is like insulating ice cubes. An external heat source is key...

... and that’s where the hot alcohol comes in. Not only does it warm us to our toes, it makes us forget about the dirt and sawdust and pet hair and mud for a while.

When our kitchen is stripped of windows and insulation, I make a quick version of the BISHOP featured in a recent Gourmet. I cut an orange into thick slices, stud each with a clove, and broil on each side until dark brown around the edges. Then I dump the orange pieces into a saucepan with enough ruby port for two generous drinks and heat. Sturdy mugs or hot toddy glasses or Mason jars wrapped in napkins are lovely, but an insulated coffee mug is the only thing that will make it across the yard to the garage without making the drink tragically cold.

When we are feeling ambitious or celebratory, we make an adapted version of our friend Mike’s wassail. A certain very lucky group in my hometown looks forward all year to New Year’s Day, the day of Mike’s annual party and the notorious wassail. I won’t lie, it looks like sludge with a film of pond scum resting on top; It is served in coffee cups that waft steam of pure alcohol—breathing in before a quaff is a dangerous proposition. But a few sips of the sweet hot spice, and the party becomes very convivial. A few more sips, and we’ve nearly forgotten the homemade bagels and gravlax, the brown bread and roast beef, the persimmon pudding.

I don’t make my wassail in bulk like Mike does, but I like to make enough to fill the Crockpot. We missed Mike’s New Year’s party this year, but made the wassail ourselves to serve before and after a rich pork chili spiked with coffee and topped with avocado, toasted pumpkin seeds, cotija, and radishes.

WASSAIL

Combine in heavy saucepan, boil, and cool slighly:
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 T. nutmeg
1 t. ground ginger
6 cloves
4 allspice berries
1 stick cinnamon

Beat until stiff, not dry:
3 egg whites

Beat until light, about 2 minutes:
3 egg yolks

Fold whites into yolks in a large bowl. Slowly strain sugar mixture into eggs, whisking to avoid making scrambled eggs instead of a nice, thick, muddy-looking layer that will rest on top of the wassail and disgust your friends in the most satisfying way.

Heat to 130-140 degrees:
2 bottles cream sherry

Add:
1 cup brandy

Slowly mix in the egg mixture. Reheat if necessary, but not over 140 degrees. A slow cooker will keep your wassail piping hot.

Ozzfest

2006-03-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

Contractors plus portable CD player equals all classic rock all the time.

If I hear one more double shot of Jethro Tull ...

Somewhere in Northern California

2006-03-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

On one concrete floor, one California king mattress.

On one Calfornia king mattress, two sleeping bags, two wool blankets, four pillows, four wool socks, two pairs of capeline, two wool sweaters, two jackets, two wool hats, four mittens, one scarf, four cold feet under one dog and two cats, two cell phones, one bored husband, one contested iBook, no money to get the hell out of here.

The bigger cracks in the wall are stuffed with newspaper
--the worst chills are chased away by wassail.

It may not be Minnesota, but this is pretty fucking cold.

Deconstructing Paradise

2006-03-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

If everything contains within it the converse, a bit of ying to its yang, dark to its light, red to its blue...then construction must be made up in parts of the opposite: destruction.

Of course.

I just wish I had realized that before. Before backhoes ripped our backyard into oblivion. Before the aluminum siding had been stripped off the house--just in time for the freak snowstorm. Before our bathroom opened to the elements. Before we moved into the garage with the two cats and the dog. Before getting a snack meant a trek across the yard and a hop over a mudhole. Before I know what really cold and really wet and really dirty really were.

A little addition/remodel on a budget, starting in February.

Seemed like a good idea last fall...