She Had Cashews On Her Feet

Honey Ginger Bars

2011-02-20T09:48:00.002-05:00

Those who have gone on hiking or birding day-trips with me are familiar with these cookies... they are soft and chewy bars with a bit of a spicy kick from all the ginger. And because of the honey, they retain their moist deliciousness for a good week while being sturdy enough to be tossed into a pack.

Honey Ginger Bars

1 cup oil
1 cup honey

1 cup white sugar

2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour (measured by scoop & level method)

1 cup chopped crystallized ginger
1 cup chopped blanched almonds (optional)

1 half-sheet pan, 12x16-inches inner dimensions (you could also halve the recipe and use a 9x13-inch pan)
parchment paper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and cut a piece of paper to fit in the bottom of the half-sheet pan.

In the microwave or in a saucepan over low heat, heat together the oil and honey until the honey just starts to boil. Pour into a large mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer and add the one cup of sugar. Mix together (it will still remain somewhat separated in appearance). Add the eggs and mix well. Then mix in the vanilla extract, baking soda, salt, cardamom and ground ginger.

Add the 4 cups of flour to mixture. Stir until just blended, then add the crystallized ginger and the almonds and mix well. Spread the batter in the parchment-lined sheet pan as evenly as possible (you can wet your fingers and use them to spread it, if that is easier).

Bake for 15-25 minutes (rotating the cooking sheet 180 degrees at around 12 minutes) until medium brown and the top springs back when gently touched. Let cool completely in pan, then cut around the edge with a knife to loosen it. Flip upside down onto a cutting board, peel off the parchment paper and cut into bars.

Makes ~4 dozen 1x2-inch bars

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And for DS who loves these so much he's going to try making them himself, here are the illustrated instructions:

I get the crystallized ginger from MOM's and the blanched almonds at Trader Joe's, but both carry both. Also, you don't have to use King Arthur Flour (which you can also buy at MOM's), but do make sure it is unbleached, all-purpose flour.

I use my mixer when making these, but there is no reason why you can't use a large bowl, mixing spoon and some elbow grease.

Here is the half-sheet pan that has been lined with parchment paper. You can also use two 9x13-inch pans, or just one 9x13-inch pan and halve the ingredients. Whatever you use, it must have at least 1-inch high sides.

Not to state the obvious, but it is important to use a liquid measuring cup to measure the liquids. And I just heat them in the microwave in the same measuring cup since, as you can read on it, it is pyrex.

I buy the "regular" crystallized ginger at MOM's since the organic version is so expensive and it always seems to have a bit of a funny flavor.

It just takes a minute to chop up the ginger and the pieces do not have to be totally uniform in size, but there is no reason not to buy smaller pieces if you can find them.

I like to use blanched (without the skins) almonds because I think the skins add too much of a bitter taste. And the ones from Trader Joe's come already chopped into a perfect size.

When you add the hot honey/oil mixture to the sugar, it will not really mix together until you add the eggs, then it will homogenize.

All of my recipes use the scoop-and-level method of measuring dry ingredients. If you pour or spoon the flour into your measuring cup, you'll end up with a significantly different volume.

Scooped.

Leveling the top with the back of a butter knife.

Leveled.

Into the mixer...

and mixed until it just starts to come together. It is okay if there are still some spots of flour or liquid.

Add the crystallized ginger and nuts...

And mix until everything is incorporated.

It makes a pretty thick and sticky batter.

Pour and scrape the batter onto the parchment-lined pan.

And spread to the edges. Note that I'm holding the parchment in place with my thumb while I spread the batter to the opposite edge of the pan. Once the batter is touching that edge, it will hold everything in place while it's spread to the other edge.

All spread out.

Then I wet my hands and use my finger tips to even everything out as well as possible.

Not quite done.

Done!

It will be somewhat puffed up when you take it from the oven.

And will fall a bit as it cools.

Cut around the edges with a knife and then invert onto a cutting board.

Remove the pan.

Peel off the parchment paper.

And if you are feeling brave, flip it over (it also does not hurt anything to just cut it upside down).

I like to trim off the crispy edges first.

And give them to RWT to snack on.

Cut into bars.

Keep covered for up to a week or so, or freeze for longer storage.

Wild & Wonderful

2010-07-19T17:54:00.012-04:00

RWT and I just returned from a trip to West Virginia. Since our main goal was rest and relaxation, we planned things a little backwards and first found a B&B that looked nice and quiet and then found things to do in that area. And that turned out to be a good plan.

We ended up at Chestnut Ridge Country Inn B&B in Dunmore, Pocahontas County. Nearby is the National Radio Astronomy Observatory that puts a damper on all electromagnetic interference in a rather wide area (the Quiet Zone) and that means no cell phone reception. None. But we did want peace and quiet.

The B&B was great with the owners hitting the perfect blend of friendliness without being overly hovering. And they served us very nice breakfasts -- which ended up being our best meal of the day on this trip. Dunmore is a tiny little town although central to pretty much everything we ended up doing.

On our way there on Thursday, we stopped by Seneca Rocks and did what turned out to be a hot and humid trek to the top.

Not sure the view from on top was worth it, but this sign along the trail was worth seeing. And the visitor center was very nice with a good selection of guides including the newly published second edition of "Birding Guide to West Virginia" that I ended up purchasing because it contained the exact sort of information I had been looking for (although the Pocahontas County website was also pretty good in that regard). It was quite birdy near the visitor center and that was where I saw my first warbler of the trip -- a redstart. Also, many chipping sparrows, cedar waxwings, red-eyed vireos and scarlet tanagers. I might have heard a yellow-throated warbler along the river, but I did not figure out the song until we were in the car and headed down the road.

We checked into the B&B late in the afternoon and then went in search of dinner. That was the biggest downside to the trip -- the lack of good restaurants. The first night we ate at Dorie's Home Cooking Restaurant and Lounge in Marlinton mainly because we'd heard they had sweet potato fries. It was clean and the food was fine, but I enjoyed my BLT more than RWT did his pre-formed hamburger. The next night we had dinner at the Foxfire Grille at the Village at Snowshoe Mountain which was slightly tastier food, but with an overall Disneyfied feeling to the whole experience. And, on our last night, we ate at the Greenbrier Grille. Wow. They now have the (dis)honor of serving me the worst meal of my life. The menu was nearly the exact same Sysco food as at Dorie's, but they could not even manage to cook the french fries until they were done. Ugh. The only things going for them were the view and the wi-fi access (after three days of no internet/cellular service, I was feeling more than a little cut-off from the world). I think if we go next time, we will take our grilling tools, a bag of charcoal, pick up some supplies at a local grocery store and make our own dinner on one of the grills at the many state/national park picnic sites.

After dinner on Thursday, we took what turned out to be the first of three walks along the Greenbrier River Trail, an 80-mile long rail-to-trail path. We parked at the burned-out railroad depot in Marlinton and headed north for about a mile and a half. Unfortunately, that way goes through what appears to be the "bad" part of Marlinton and we ran into a lady who confirmed that south on the trail was the prettier direction. However, we did find this cute little snapper along the trail.

On Friday morning, we headed to the huge Monongahela National Forest, specifically the Gaudineer Scenic Area. It is 140-acres of red spruce forest that was never logged because of a surveying error. On the way to the the picnic area at Gaudineer Knob, we heard lots of birdsong including black-throated green warbler, magnolia warbler, redstart, scarlet tanager, golden-crowned kinglet, hermit thrush, junco and one that it took me far too long to figure out -- winter wren. In fact, the whole area was crawling with winter wrens, with one about every 300 yards along the trails.

Many of the wildflowers were in full bloom, including huge patches of red monarda (bee balm) that were each guarded by a hummingbird.

The forest near the picnic area is nearly all red spruce and very mossy. It looked quite a bit like the area of the Canaan Valley Wildlife Refuge where Cheep took us (me, EES and the Norwegians) last summer.

The little spruces are so cute, I just want to hug them!

I felt like I needed a little red riding hood to go wandering through this forest.

Cool moss and lichen (which reminded me of that mind-controlling game from ST:TNG).

And don't even get me started on all the neato rocks that I wanted to bring home for our yard.

After walking around the picnic area and seeing the first warbler for the day (a maggie), we drove a mile down to the Virgin Spruce Interpretive trail. Sadly, the original-growth red spruce are all just about at the end of their lifespans and the majority have fallen. However, it is still a thriving mixed conifer/hardwood forest (more than around the picnic area which was nearly all-spruce) with gorgeous scenery such as this little stream.

From the interpretive loop, we walked for about an hour down the Allegheny trail until we somehow lost the trail and then we headed back up to the road to walk back to the car.

Here is a lovely mushroom screaming "don't touch me!"

We also found this adorable slimy salamander along the trail.

Coincidentally (?), this rock cairn (the only one we saw along the trail) was right where we found the salamander (you can see the piece bark where the salamander was hiding out to the left of the rocks). A salamander marker?

But that was not our last salamander of the day. We saw this little guy cruising along the gravel road when we were walking back to the car.

red eft

Once we got back to the car, we decided to take the back roads to get to our next destination: Cass. On the gravel forest service road on the way out from Gaudineer Knob we saw a family of wild turkeys. Four adults and at least a dozen youngsters running around with them. Once back at the main road (250), we took Back Mountain Road (county road 1, from 250 to 66) and, boy, did that turn out to be a good decision.

2.1 miles north of the church at Wanless, is a small boggy area. Approaching it, a brown thrasher flew right in front of the car and RWT wanted to know what it was, so he stopped the car. At that point, we could hear common yellowthroats singing and I commented that there must be a pond or a body of water nearby. We drove to the bottom of the hill and pulled over near some trees.

While trying to figure out what turned out to be yet another indigo bunting (female), a bunch of birds flew into the trees. They were some of the seemingly ever-present cedar waxwings, goldfinches, a couple of gnatcatchers and a bunch of chestnut-sided warblers. I was trying to sort through them all when I realized the one yellow-capped bird was not just another chestnut-sided... it had a black throat! Yup, it was a golden-winged warbler. I'd been hoping to spy a blue-winged, but never did I think I'd find a golden-winged.

Eventually, all the birds flew over to the woods on the other side of the road and we continued on our way. Although we did stop to say "hi" to this toad (I'm assuming an American toad since it had one bump per spot) and shoo it off the road.

On next stop was Cass Scenic Railroad State Park with rides on the gear-driven trains and an old-timey historic town. It is one of the main tourist draws in the area and most of the people staying at the B&B were in there to ride the train. We arrived in Cass too late in the day take a ride (or, what RWT really wanted to do, tour the shop), but we did time it perfectly to see a train come into the station.

We then, as I wrote earlier, drove up to Snowshoe Mountain for dinner. The most interesting thing about Snowshoe is that all of the resort is at the top of the mountain, unlike most California ski resorts. While up there, we saw a number of well-padded mountain bikers who were using the trams to get back up to the top of the slopes. And lots of ravens soaring around.

After dinner, we parked at the northern terminus of the Greenbrier River Trail in Cass and walked a couple of miles south on the trail. This netted me even more warblers for the day... black & white, redstart, blackburnian, hooded (that one popped up when I was trying to spish in an indigo bunting with a very odd song) and a first-year nashville (another bird I did not expect to see).

Cool rocks along the Greenbrier Trail.

Can you spot the nest?

Here it is! A phoebe nest perhaps?

Lots of milkweed blooming along the path and also this purple fringed orchid. I've also never seen so many butterflies as I did on this trip.

The next morning (Saturday) we headed to the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area. We had an early thunderstorm that day and it was raining buckets when we got to the visitor center. Red crossbills have been reported to hang out in the trees around there, but the weather was not cooperating. However, they had a very nice collection of snakes inside including: copperhead; timber rattler; watersnake; ring-necked, red-bellied and smooth green (all together in a tank); milksnake; black rat; black racer; and eastern garters. With multiples of most of them. And a ranger who obviously likes snakes.

After the rain started to let up, we did the boardwalk loop and then set off from there to do the ~7-mile (by the time you walk back to the car) Cow Pasture hike. The plants were gorgeous with the rhododendrons and turks cap lily still in bloom.

But all of the water that lead to beautiful plants, also lead to a lot of insects. After a mile or so being totally bombarded by various flies and gnats, we were dreaming of net-shrouded hats. However, we kept going with the interesting plants and animals enticing us forward.

Birdwise, I'd been hearing mourning warblers singing since the boardwalk. However, RWT had pretty much exhausted his supply of birding tolerance on the previous day and standing around being attacked by insects while trying to spot a lurking mourning warbler was not on his agenda. So, sadly, I heard at least a dozen mournings, but did not see a single one. Surprisingly, I also heard a prairie warbler near the edge of one of the open areas. Other birds for that hike were both (!) kinglets, an insistently calling red-shouldered hawk near the boardwalk, common yellowthroats, swamp sparrows and yet more, frustratingly silent, empidonax flycathers.

This hike was also full of salamanders and a few frogs that I could never manage to catch up with. More red efts on the move...

And there was a tiny (1.5" long) dark olive, with blotches on its back, salamander at one of the streams that I could not hold on to long enough get a picture of. It was hanging out at the edge of the stream and jumped into the stream to avoid capture, but always pretty much stayed on the tops of rocks rather than hide under them. Any guesses?

Because I was looking down at the ground for crawly things, I missed the most exciting part of this hike when there was a black bear on the path ahead. By the time RWT called my attention to it, it had fled, so no bear for me and I had to be satisfied with the scenery.

Due to the long hike and previously-mentioned disappointing dinner, we went back to the B&B to lounge around in the hammock for the rest of the evening and watch the meadowlarks poke around in the field behind the B&B.

And, before we knew it, it was Sunday morning and time to think about heading home. We took one more stroll along the Greenbrier River Trail (from just a bit south of mile-marker 67 to mile-marker 65) and it turned out to be the most picturesque section we walked. Some time recently (the disturbed plants were newly-wilted), a large section of rocks had fallen onto the trail.

It was a nice way to finish up our trip and we came across an area full of chipping birds, so while RWT walked ahead, I managed to spot a family of common yellowthroats, red-eyed vireos, carolina wrens, indigo buntings (as smug as ever) and a worm-eating warbler.

Then it really was time to head home. Fittingly, we returned to Alexandria in DC-style -- with an hour delay due to the closing of I-66E because of an accident. A sign that we should have stayed in West Virginia longer?

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Birders:

If you are looking for warblers in July, the mountains of West Virginia are a place to consider. I saw/heard 14 species and that was with only one day of anything that resembled serious birding.

Missed birds I'd hoped to see: black-throated blue, blue-winged and canada warblers; red crossbills; purple finches; pine siskins; any vireos other than red-eyed; red-breasted nuthatches; and brown creepers (probably because I didn't have EES around to "call" one for me).

Other notable birds of the trip: kildeer and eastern meadowlarks in the fields around the B&B; many ravens; bank and barn swallows; numerous, yet silent, empidonax flycatchers; lots of Carolina, house and winter wrens (there always seemed to be one of them calling wherever we went); phoebes, peewees and great-crested flycatchers; groups of crows on the ground out in the fields; veery, hermit and wood thrushes; red-shouldered hawks up close and personal (twice within 15'); juncos, juncos and more juncos; and towhees galore!

Birds of the Monongehela National Forest Checklist

Malted Milk Ball Blondies

2010-04-08T14:10:00.002-04:00

This one is still a work in progress... a couple of weeks ago, I made the Malted Milk Ball Blondies from Baked, New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. I thought they were a little too sweet and a smidge greasy. Also, while they had good malt flavor immediately after baking, it had disappeared by the next day.

Although everyone liked the first batch, I made them again the next week and used less sugar, less butter and upped the malt powder (and decreased the flour because of the changes in amounts of butter/malt powder). But then they were too dry and not quite sweet enough. Not really an improvement (however, my guinea pigs liked that batch too). At least the malt flavor was a little more pronounced.

I'll probably make these yet again since I love all things malted, but I think I will try to find another blondie recipe that produces the nice chewy blondies that I like and tweak that by adding chopped malted milk balls and malt powder.

Garlic Scallion Noodles

2010-04-08T13:51:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not falling behind in making new recipes, I'm just lagging in blogging about them. Why? Spending too much time out watching the birdies. What else?!?

I made this recipe for Garlic Scallion Noodles the other night. It sounded great. And also quick and easy. And I had everything on hand. But, unfortunately, both RWT and I found it disappointing.

It was a little bland and I found the sweetness (I added the lessor amount of brown sugar) a little odd in this application even though I usually like savory/sweet combinations. Perhaps it was missing acid? There is some leftover and maybe I'll give it a splash of black vinegar when I finish it off.

No pictures for this one, the ones in the link above are much nicer than I could ever take.

Pan de Horno

2010-04-05T19:45:00.004-04:00

Spanish Bread

To go with the Spanish-Style Meatballs, I will be making this Spanish-Style Bread (Pan de Horno) for my next gourmet group dinner. It is not an earth-shattering bread. Just a plain, white bread. The most notable thing about it is that it has that somewhat elusive thin yet crisp crust that makes for really good sandwich rolls.

I suspect the crust is the result of working some olive oil into the flour before adding the water. The oil coats the proteins in the flour and prohibits some of the gluten development, so it also results in a bread with a nice tender crumb (again, perfect for sandwich rolls). But, while the oil helps to delay staling, this bread is definitely best when eaten within a few days and you'll lose that neato crust after the first day.

The recipe can be found here and you might want to halve it because it makes a lot of bread. I ended up grinding about 1/3 of the leftover bread into bread crumbs to use later.

This bread will probably never be the star of a meal, but it can play a very nice supporting role. Especially supporting the insides of a sandwich.

Tapas Experiment #3

2010-03-29T19:51:00.001-04:00

Puff Pastry Crescents with Saffron Chicken and Almonds

Testing out this recipe for next month's Gourmet Group get-together also went pretty smoothly. I made my own puff pastry instead of the store-bought called for in the recipe. I also inadvertently doubled the almonds (half were supposed to be reserved to sprinkle on top of the turnovers) and omitted the green bell pepper (it is a very subtly-flavored filling and I cannot see how bell pepper would not totally overwhelm it).

The recipe instructed to make crescents using a 4" round cutter, but I think a 3" round cutter makes a more tapas-friendly size. Docking the dough helped to keep the turnovers from splitting open while baking. And no differences (other than an additional minute or two of baking time) could be detected between: turnovers made immediately before baking; the ones made the day before and refrigerated; and those that where made the day before and frozen. So, for the party, I'll most likely make them a few days before and freeze them.

When I tasted the filling alone, it seemed to be a bit too mild, but it really compliments the puff pastry nicely. But I imagine it would also work well to use pie or empanada dough. The only other thing I will do differently for the ones for the party will be to chop the almonds a bit (and use the correct amount) and be sure the chicken is diced very small. It would not matter much with the bigger 4" turnovers, but it should make the small ones a little easier to put together.

A very tasty and unusual recipe and one that I can see making for other get-togethers.

Puff Pastry Crescents with Saffron Chicken and Almonds

2010-03-29T14:30:00.005-04:00

Makes ~24 pastries, 12 servings

3 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

3 large cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into small dice

1/4 cup brandy

1 tablespoon tomato paste mixed with 1/4 cup water

1 pinch saffron threads, crumbled

1 teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika

1/4 cup sliced almonds

salt and pepper

1 pound homemade or store-bought puff pastry dough, defrosted if necessary

1 egg, beaten with 1 tablespoon water

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat, then cook the onion until golden brown, stirring frequently. Add the garlic and chicken and cook, stirring, until browned. Add the brandy and, once it has evaporated, add the tomato paste mixture, saffron, paprika and almonds. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, 4-5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let cool to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Roll out the puff pastry dough on a lightly floured work surface to ~3/8-inch thick. Cut into 3" diameter rounds, place a scant teaspoon of filling in the center of each round, fold the dough over to form a crescent, and crimp the edges closed with the tines of a fork. Brush the surface of each pastry with egg wash. Place on a baking sheet and bake until golden, 10-12 minutes. Serve warm.

Recipe adpated from: Little Foods of the Mediterranean by Clifford A. Wright

The Last Time I Get a Cooking Idea from a Comic Strip

2010-03-29T10:00:00.000-04:00

I read last Friday's Brewster Rockit and thought "hmmm, how would my favorite yeast-raised waffle batter recipe work cooked on a griddle as pancakes?"

I know that pancake batter usually needs to be thicker than waffle batter and that particular waffle batter is very thin, so I added an extra half-cup of flour to the recipe. But when I cooked the first batch of pancakes, the batter was still too thin, so I add more flour. Then it was too thick, so I added more milk. But regardless of the thickness of the batter, it simply did not make good pancakes.

It could have been due to all the stirring involved with the adding of the flour and then the liquid to get the right consistency, but the pancakes were rather tough. And seriously lacking in salt. However, the most notable attribute is that they tasted more of English muffins than pancakes. So I'll stick with my favorite buttermilk/sourdough pancake recipe and save this recipe for the waffle iron:

YEASTED WAFFLES
Makes ~8 waffles

This recipe comes from “Cookwise” by Shirley Corriher and it is my absolute favorite waffle recipe, especially when served with maple syrup. The fact that almost all the measuring and mixing is done the night before, makes cooking these waffles the next morning a breeze.

2¼ teaspoons (1 package) dry yeast
½ cup water, warm
2 cups milk, warm
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2¼ cups bleached, all-purpose flour

2 large eggs
½ teaspoon baking soda

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a very large mixing bowl and stir until dissolved. Add the milk, butter sugar, salt, and flour and beat until smooth. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and, if the ambient temperature is above 70 degrees, put the batter in the refrigerator overnight. If the ambient temperature is less than 70 degrees, you can leave the batter at room temperature overnight.

When ready to cook the waffles, beat the eggs and baking soda into the batter. The batter should be quite thin, and most waffle irons will need ½ to ¾ cup of batter. Bake in a hot waffle iron and serve waffles immediately.

Tapas Experiment #2

2010-03-28T15:15:00.000-04:00

I decided on Manchego-Stuffed Dates for my third, previously undecided, tapa. But how to specifically make them? We had a taste test of the following:

1. Manchego + Date + Olive Oil + Sea Salt -- Room Temperature

2. Manchego + Date + Olive Oil + Sea Salt -- Warm

3. Manchego + Date + Surryano Ham --Room Temperature (pictured above)

4. Manchego + Date + Surryano Ham -- Warm

We decided the best were #2 and #3, with #2 just edging out the ham version because you could taste more of the cheese and dates. Plus, there will be a couple of tapas that evening that will contain chorizo, so that is probably enough cured meat for one party (although some people might argue that you can never have too much cured meat!).

Manchego-Stuffed Dates

2010-03-28T15:14:00.000-04:00

Makes as many as you have the patience to stuff

Pitted Dates

Sheep-Milk Manchego Cheese

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

Sea Salt

Cut the cheese into ~1/4"x1/4" sticks, about the same length as your dates. Cut a slit in each date and insert a piece of cheese. Bake stuffed dates, cut side up, at 350 degrees for ~10 minutes until the cheese starts to melt. Remove the dates from the oven, let cool 5 minutes, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Serve warm.

(You can hold the stuffed dates in the refrigerator for a day or two before baking and serving.)

Cheese Marbles?

2010-03-24T17:20:00.003-04:00

In Little Foods of the Mediterranean by Clifford A. Wright, I saw an intriguing recipe for Cheese Marbles. Yeah, it was one of those recipes I read and thought to myself that is too easy, too obvious, it will never work. And, you know what? It didn't.

It is basically cheese mixed with flour, rolled in breadcrumbs and baked. I used the cream cheese that was first choice in the recipe, added a bit of smoked paprika for flavor, baked them up and they tasted like raw pie crust. Not that I have anything against raw pie crust, but I suspect it is a bit of an acquired taste. So I baked them so more... still tasted of raw flour, they were just not a soft as before.

Ah well, I can't expect them all to be good new recipes.

Tapas Experiment #1

2010-03-23T12:56:00.002-04:00

I made Spanish-Style Meatballs for dinner last night and they came out really well. In fact, so well that I will use the recipe as I made it for the gourmet club dinner. Yeah, not much experimentation was required for this one.

But that is not saying I did not make some changes to the recipe I used as a starting point (click on the "Printable Version" link to get a fun surprise!). I tweaked the spice levels (I did not want the nutmeg and cinnamon to be too prevalent), used a bit more meat (because it came in 1-pound packages). I also used the milk-soaked bread method rather than dry breadcrumbs. And, for the sauce, be sure to chop the onions finely and substitute red pepper flakes for cayenne (feel free to use more -- I was aiming for a gentle heat since it will be served to a varied group of people).

The next experiment will be Manchego-Stuffed Dates. Warm or room temperature? Ham-wrapped or not? Sprinkled with sea salt or truffle honey or ??? Hmmm...

Spanish-Style Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce

2010-03-23T12:53:00.001-04:00

Spanish-Style Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce
Serves 4-6 as main course, 8-10 as appetizer

Meatballs:

8 ounces ground pork

8 ounces ground veal

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1 egg

1 cup fresh bread crumbs + 3 tablespoons milk, stirred together

2 tablespoons olive oil

Tomato Sauce:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 cup dry white wine

16-ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1/2 cup chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
salt

Directions:

Combine the pork, veal, garlic, spices, salt, bread/milk mixture and egg in a bowl. Mix by hand until fairly smooth and leaving the side of the bowl. Refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes.

Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls and dredge in flour. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a skillet and toss half the meatballs over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes, or until browned. Drain on paper towels. Add the remaining oil if necessary and brown the rest of the meatballs. Drain on paper towels.

For the spicy tomato sauce, heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes, or until transparent. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Increase the heat to high, add the wine and boil for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste and stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the pepper flakes and meatballs. Simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until thick and the meatballs are coated in sauce. Add salt to taste. Serve hot.

Duck Eggs

2010-03-22T10:30:00.002-04:00

No, not to eat...

On the left is a Hooded Merganser egg and on the right is a Wood Duck egg. Both from the same nest box at Huntley Meadows Park.

This last week has been filled with bird-stuff and garden-stuff, so no new recipes. In fact, RWT was lucky he got any dinner on a few nights.

But I'll do better this week since I will be testing out the recipes for the next gourmet club get-together. I think I've finally decided on my third tapa -- Manchego-Stuffed Dates. I might try to work some Surryano ham into it also. Stay tuned...

Tapas!

2010-03-16T13:47:00.001-04:00

For my OSC Gourmet group, I'll be making tapas for next month's get-together. I will need to bring three different kinds. The first will be meatballs with an allioli sauce (exact recipe TBD). The second with be puff pastry turnovers filled with almond/saffron chicken (recipe from Clifford Wright's Little Foods of the Mediterranean). And I still need to decide on the third.

One of the other members of the club is bringing three veggie-centric tapas. (marinated carrots, tomato/avocado and eggplant) And another is making two tapas that are based on chorizo and also garlic shrimp. So I was thinking of possibly doing one with cheese or potatoes or both. Just nothing fried because I don't want to mess up the host's kitchen more than I have to. Recipe suggestions are most definitely welcome and watch this space the results of my tapas experiments.

Fried Chickpea Patties With Sesame Seed Sauce (Revithokeftedes me Tahini Saltsa)

2010-03-16T13:31:00.001-04:00

I ran across this recipe for Fried Chickpea Patties With Sesame Seed Sauce and it sounded too good not to try. However, it ended up being a bit of a disappointment. But I think it was more my fault than any issues with the recipe.

I suspect I whirred the garbanzos too long in the food processor because the texture of the patties was somewhat pasty. I also had a difficult time keeping the oil at a temperature that was hot enough to keep the patties from absorbing oil, but not so hot that they got too brown.

The best part of the dish was the accompanying tahini sauce. While uber-garlicky, it was totally delicious. So I'll probably keep looking for a recipe for better patties, but I'll definitely use that sauce again. Maybe with my favorite eggplant patties.

Flax Muffins

2010-03-16T13:19:00.001-04:00

Yeah, flax. No, I'm not turning into a bird. However, the recommendation of this recipe did come from a birder via another birder (Thank you, PS & MP!).

The recipe can be found on the back of a Bob's Red Mill Flax Meal package. A similar recipe is here, but the recipe on the package calls for unbleached flour rather than whole wheat pastry flour (which can be a bit of a pain to find) and oat bran instead of "oat bran cereal" (whatever that is!).

A substitution I made was to swap chopped dates for the raisins since I find it disconcerting how raisins can sometime "pop" when you chew them, especially in baked goods. I also used heavy cream in place of the milk since there was so little fat in the recipe and I wanted the muffins not to stale too quickly. And I used pecans as the nuts.

With all the goodies in these muffins, of course they are moist and tasty. My only quibble with the recipe is that it says it makes 15 "medium" muffins. I don't know what they mean by "medium", but with my standard-sized muffin pans, I ended up with 28 muffins. Not that having more muffins is a bad thing...

White Bean and Bread Soup

2010-03-16T13:01:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the delay with the postings of (mostly beige) newly-tried recipes. It is not that I've been slacking on the making of new recipes... I've just not had a lot of time to write about them.

The biggest surprise recipe in the last week was when I made one from the Washington Post for a White Bean and Bread Soup. The recipe calls for Bellota ham which, and this probably comes as no surprise, I did not have on hand. But what was lurking in the back of the refrigerator was some Surryano ham -- a Virginia-made Serrano-style ham -- which was certainly an adequate substitute as far as I'm concerned.

I also used some Virginia country ham instead of the Bellota ham scraps that were called for in the recipe. So, even with the more pedestrian substitutions, the soup was very tasty. And easy. And quick to make. And RWT really liked it. Definitely a recipe to keep.

Prothonotary Nest Boxes

2010-03-09T17:26:00.009-05:00

[For those non-birders who read my blog mainly for the food-centric posts, you just might want to stop reading right here. Yeah, you know who you are. Proceed at your own risk and absolutely no eye rolling if you do!]

I put on my waders and joined the very helpful staff at Huntley Meadows Park in installing some Prothonotary Warbler nest boxes today.

When I was helping to monitor the duck nest boxes last spring, I saw a pair of Prothonotary Warblers looking for a nice abode in the vicinity and that got me started on the path to resurrect the Prothonotary Warbler nest box program at Huntley Meadows. I coerced RWT into building some nest boxes, hit up the local Prothonotary Warbler expert, Mr. LC, for a ton of guidance and the folks at Huntley were kind enough to allow the nest boxes to be mounted at the southern end of the main wetland area. I will be checking these boxes every week from now until mid-July and, if we're very lucky, we'll be able to entice some Prothonotary Warblers into nesting in that area.

On to the pictures...

The boxes -- 4"x4"x8" with a 1.25" entrance hole

Box #1 (snag-mounted)

Box #1 (snag-mounted) & Box #2 (post-mounted)

Box #3 (snag-mounted) & Box #4 (snag-mounted)

Box #5 (post-mounted), Box #6 (post-mounted) & Box #7 (snag-mounted)

All of the boxes can be viewed (please don't touch!) by taking the informal trail just past the end of the boardwalk at Huntley Meadows Park. Boxes #1 and #2 are on the far side of the wetlands, behind duck box #61 and across from boxes #3 and #4 (which are near duck box #68). Boxes #5, #6 and #7 are closer to the tower and near duck box #62. These three boxes are located in what appears to be the most suitable Prothonotary Warbler habitat in the main wetland and have the best chance of being utilized by Prothonotary Warblers. Time will tell...

Whole-Wheat Blueberry Bars

2010-03-04T09:14:00.000-05:00

Friends PS and PK (plus BSB chiming in on occasion) have been having a lengthy email discussion regarding blueberries and I decided to try out a recipe for Whole-Wheat Blueberry Bars that was passed along by PS in one of her messages.

Of course, I had to change a few things... with the mindset of "if you are going to go healthy go all the way", I skipped the butter entirely and used 1/4 cup of a rather mild extra-virgin olive oil. And I subbed King Arthur White Whole Wheat (which is made from a different variety of wheat) for regular whole wheat. Also, I baked the bars in a 9x13" pan (who has an 8x12" pan?!?). I had no problems with texture or thickness and they sure look pretty. However, they were a little bland.

I'll either add some cardamom (one of my favorite baking spices) or nutmeg (not one of my favorite baking spices) next time. The cardamom would add a nice brightness and sparkle, but the nutmeg would give some warmth to the taste. Hmmm, I guess it comes down to the time of year and your preferences.

Good recipe, thank you PS.

Moroccan-Style Carrots

2010-03-03T17:26:00.001-05:00

After looking at all the recent beige recipes, here is one with a little color...

Moroccan-Style Carrots

These were easy and tasty. I was not sure about the cinnamon, but it was good (I used Ceylon cinnamon rather than Vietnamese cinnamon). The spices are a bit gritty, but neither RWT nor I found that it detracted from the dish. The only thing I'd change would be to cut down the cayenne to 1/8 teaspoon. While not overly hot, that much heat was a bit distracting from the other flavors.

Cabbage-Caraway Quiche

2010-03-02T09:22:00.001-05:00

As he usually does when he flees the country, EES relocated the veggies from his refrigerator/pantry to mine. This trip, it was a cabbage, a couple of small butternut squash and a fancy-schmancy pumpkin (but no heavy cream!). I'm planning on turning the squash and pumpkin into a soup for his homecoming, but what to do with the cabbage...

I eventually decided on a recipe for Cabbage-Caraway Quiche from epicurious.com that sounded really good (plus I'm a sucker for alliteration). The verdict: I liked it, but RWT thought it too "caraway-y". After nearly 19 years of marriage, I had no idea that RWT does not like caraway. I guess that also explains why he does not like my caraway rye bread.

Anyway, it was a good quiche although not great. The reviews said it was too much filling for the crust, so I made it in my largest deep-dish pie plate (no store-bought pie crust for us!) and it was too little filling. Also, I found it lacking in bacon flavor, but I did not use a very good bacon (accidentally bought the wrong type at TJ's) so that could have been the cause. Not sure I'll make this one again as written. At least not when RWT is home.

Potato Pizza

2010-02-24T09:47:00.001-05:00

Yes, yet another pizza recipe. What can I say? I like bread and cheese. However, this recipe has no cheese... but don't worry, the creme fraiche makes up for it.

After a few spicy meals in a row, RWT and I decided we wanted something a little calmer for dinner, so I decided on this recipe for Potato Pizza. I made it as written with the exception of adding about a half cup more water to the dough. Not only is a softer dough easier to spread out in the pan, it also has better crumb.

Although not spicy, this pizza was very flavorful. It was one of those things that you just want to keep eating because it tastes so good. And it is actually light enough that it could be cut into small pieces and served as an appetizer. It's another keeper!

Goldilocks Kimchi

2010-02-20T10:55:00.000-05:00

Finally... I got it just right. Take 1 was too salty. Take 2 was not salty enough.

For the second go-round, I tried the method of directly salting the chopped cabbage and that batch was lacking in salt. Plus the cabbage was still really crunchy and it just tasted too "fresh".

This last time, I soaked the cabbage as I did the first take, but paid careful attention to the time. But even with the shorter brining time, it was still tasting rather salty after it was rinsed, so I soaked it overnight in un-salted water to see if I could pull a little more salt out of it. And that did the trick -- the cabbage was softened, but the salt level was just right. Yay!

Here are the amounts I used:

1 large head Napa cabbage

1/2 cup kosher salt

1 cup water

Chop cabbage into large pieces and soak for 4-6 hours. Rinse thoroughly in three changes of water and then soak another 4-6 hours (or overnight) is fresh water. Drain and set aside.

1/4 cup rice flour

1 cup water

Mix together in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Then scrape into food processor and add:

1 head garlic, clove separated and peeled

1/2 medium onion, peeled and chopped into large pieces

2" piece of ginger root, peeled and cut into thin slices

1/4 Asian pear, peeled and chopped into large pieces

Process the mixture until everything is finely chopped.

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoons shrimp paste

1 tablespoons dried red pepper, medium grind (I don't know if it was the pepper I got or what, but it is still plenty hot with just 1 tablespoon, you'll need to adjust this to your particular taste and pepper)

1 bunch green onions, chopped into 1/2" lengths

Mix the above with the ingredients from food processor, add the reserved, drained cabbage and mix well. Refrigerate for at least a day for the flavors to meld.

Almond Puff Loaf

2010-02-20T10:34:00.003-05:00

My dear Miss L. was recently tasked with bringing a pastry to a brunch, which got me started looking for an appropriate recipe for such an occasion... and, boy, did I find one! This Almond Puff Loaf recipe from King Arthur Flour is just the thing.

I was able to get it into the oven in less than 30 minutes and it was ready-to-eat in under 2 hours total. Not too shabby for something that really does look and taste like it took much more work. The recipe is a very traditional European pastry that consists of a layer of pie dough (or tart dough) covered with choux paste and then baked. It is dressed up after baking and, in this case, it's spread with jam, sprinkled with toasted almonds and drizzled with a simple glaze.

For mine, I spread one with raspberry jam and the other with blueberry jam. The raspberry is definitely better to my tastes and I would imagine apricot would also go well with the almond flavor. In the comments section on the King Arthur Flour site, I read that some people spread cream cheese between the two dough layers. I also wonder how it would be with pastry cream (maybe spread on top after baking?).

The recipe was made as written although I used about 1/4 of a teaspoon of almond extract instead of the vanilla in the glaze. Also, the 4 tsp. of milk they call for in the glaze is way too much so just dribble in the milk gradually. And, as with all choux paste-based pastries, be sure to bake these thoroughly or else they'll have a strong eggy flavor.

So, Miss L., are you going to make them?!?

King Cake

2010-02-16T16:16:00.016-05:00

As I've alluded to here and here, I've been working on perfecting my King Cake recipe. The base recipe is this one from King Arthur Flour, but I've made some changes to it.

One change was to come up with a chocolate filling since it was requested for the King Cake I'm taking to a party on the 27th. I searched for a pastry cream-type of chocolate filling, but decided to go with a chocolate cheesecake filling instead. For the second test cake, when I added the melted chocolate to the cream cheese filling, the chocolate was not hot enough and the cream cheese too cold and it did not fully incorporate. But that turned out to be a good thing -- having the little chocolate pieces made it taste much more chocolatey, so I've kept it that way. Also, it is easier to put the filling together without having to melt the chocolate -- one less bowl to wash.

King Cake

One large cake, Serves 16

Dough
3-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
2-1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
3/4 cup warm milk
2 large eggs + 1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Vanilla Cream Cheese Filling
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla

Chocolate Cream Cheese Filling

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) sugar
3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

2.5 ounces (~1/3 cup unchopped chips) semi-sweet chocolate, very finely chopped

OR

Pecan Filling

1 cup pecan halves, broken up slightly and roasted until fragrant
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch of salt
4 tablespoons corn syrup

OR

Strawberry Filling
2/3 cup strawberry preserves (I like to use seedless jam), stirred well

Egg Wash

1 egg white + 1 tablespoon water, mixed together

Icing
2 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
~2 tablespoons milk

Topping
yellow, purple, and green fine sparkling sugars

Mix together 3 cups of flour and the rest of the dry ingredients for the dough, then add the warm milk and melted butter. Mix for 30 seconds or so and then add the eggs and vanilla and mix until a dough forms. Knead for 8 minutes, adding up to 1/2 cup flour. In order to avoid a dry cake, you want this to be a very soft dough, so be careful not too add too much flour, especially if kneading by hand. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.

If using one of the cream cheese fillings: While the dough is rising, mix together the cream cheese, sugar, flour and cocoa (if making chocolate filling) just until smooth. Add the egg and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Add the chopped chocolate if making the chocolate filling. Try not to incorporate too much air into your filling while mixing it or you'll end up with air pockets in the finished cake. Chill the filling while the dough rises so it will firm up and be easier to work with.

If using the pecan filling: Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl.

Transfer the risen dough to a lightly floured work surface and pat and stretch it into a 24" x 4" rectangle. Spread the filling down the center of the dough. Then fold one edge of the dough over the filling, brush the top of that edge with the egg wash and fold the other edge of the dough on top. of that Pinch the edges together to seal the filling inside as much as possible. Also pinch the ends together

Place the roll of dough on a half sheet pan lined with parchment paper (or lightly greased), seam down. Form into a circle and pinch the ends together. You will want a pretty big area in the center or else you won't have a hole in the middle once it bakes. Cover and let rise for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350°F while the dough rises.

Brush the risen loaf with the egg wash and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, then tent the cake lightly with aluminum foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes, until it's a rich golden brown. Remove the cake from the oven and carefully transfer it from the baking sheet to a rack to cool.

Beat together all of the icing ingredients and dribble in additional milk to make the icing pourable but still thick. Pour the icing over the completely cooled cake and, while the icing is still sticky, sprinkle with alternating bands of yellow, purple, and green sugars.

Although it hastens staling of any yeast-raised baked goods, you'll need to refrigerate this if not eating it within a few hours. Bring to room temperature before serving and keep leftovers in the refrigerator.

Good thing I heat-tested a baby! They will have to be inserted after baking.

Can You Guess What I'll Be Baking? More Hints!

2010-02-14T20:46:00.004-05:00

First hint is here.

I'll be taking this to a party on the 27th and this is the third practice one I've made over the last couple of weeks. I think I finally have all the kinks worked out.

I'll post the recipe next week.

Pasta with Spinach and Ricotta Cheese

2010-02-14T20:40:00.001-05:00

For dinner tonight, I tried this recipe for Pasta with Spinach and Ricotta Cheese. The good part -- it was really easy to put together. The bad part -- it was rather blah (although it did taste better lukewarm than it did hot).

RWT said it needed garlic. Or bacon. Or both. It is probably not a recipe I'll be making again without some changes. The idea of adding bacon is rarely a bad one, but I'd probably fry up a bit of pancetta instead. However, that would not make it a quick and simple recipe. Hmmm.... something to ponder.

Tandoori Turkey Fingers with Masala Ketchup

2010-02-12T10:37:00.001-05:00

Confession: I am not a big lover of turkey. I usually only make it at Thanksgiving and, very occasionally, Christmas. And by the time I clean the turkey, brine the turkey, cook the turkey and carve the turkey, I am well aware that it is a big, dead bird. But when I saw a recipe for Tandoori Turkey Fingers with Masala Ketchup on this blog, I decided to give it a chance.

I made the recipe as written and it came together without many issues. I used homemade breadcrumbs that were ground a little larger than what is shown in the pictures in the blog, so I did not have quite enough to cover all the turkey fingers. Next time, I'll make sure my breadcrumbs are more finely chopped. And I found a package of turkey cutlets, so I only had to cut them into fingers and pound them lightly. Lastly, I did not have any limes, so I omitted the lime juice from the ketchup and did not miss it because I thought it was tart enough without it.

And the verdict? They were very good. And very healthy -- the only fat in the recipe is from the egg-wash, buttermilk and turkey. They bake up really quickly (I put them on a rack on a baking sheet to make sure they were really crispy and that sped up the cooking even more), so there was a bit of a raw taste to the spices in the breading. I know pan frying would solve that (there goes the low-fat!), but maybe spraying the the breaded fingers with a little olive oil before baking will have the same effect without adding too many additional calories. And I guess I need to give turkey more chances.

Rice Crispy Treats

2010-02-12T10:06:00.001-05:00

I had a bunch of rice crispies leftover from the Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Bars recipe, so what did I make? Yup, Rice Crispy Treats.

But not your usual marshmallow-y ones, I used a recipe that calls for sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar and corn syrup. They are not as sweet as the traditional ones and have a more caramel-y flavor.

Here is the recipe:

Terri's Rice Crispy Treats
Makes one 13”x9” pan

16 ounces puffed rice cereal

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1¾ cups corn syrup

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

Place the rice cereal in a bowl and spray a 13”x9” pan with nonstick spray.

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and corn syrup and boil for 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the sweetened condensed milk, then boil an additional 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour the syrup mixture over the rice cereal and mix well.

Fill the baking pan with the mixture and allow the mixture to cool, then cut into squares. Wrap the treats tightly in plastic wrap if not serving immediately.

[If they come out too soft and don't hold together, boil the mixture a little longer next time!]

Snow Delay

2010-02-11T10:00:00.002-05:00

With all the snow we've had here over the last week, I've not tried quite as many new recipes as I'd planned. Partially because I am limited to supplies I have on hand. Partially because sitting around on the couch all day watching the snow fall does not really work up an appetite. And partially because I'm still trying to perfect a few "old" recipes.

So until I get back into the swing of things, here are some snow pictures...

This hungry squirrel had ventured out to dig in the snow for the peanuts I'd put out for the birds.

Would anyone like a seat?

Buffalo Chicken Dip

2010-02-08T11:10:00.007-05:00

As is appropriate for Super Bowl Sunday, I made Buffalo Chicken... Dip. Served it on sourdough toasts. It was good, but something seemed to be missing. I tried it cold when I first mixed it together and thought it tasted a little better (even though I abhor cold chicken), but it did not have the greatest mouth-feel cold. What I will probably do if I make this again is to stir some chopped celery leaves and possibly some cider vinegar into it since I think the flavors it is missing are "green" and tart.

I got the recipe from this blog, but ended up altering a few things. I used three baked (with salt and pepper) boneless skinless chicken breasts (that I cooked at home) instead of the rotisserie chicken. I shredded the chicken breasts and mixed them with Tabasco sauce, but nowhere near the 1/2 cup of hot sauce called for. I just added it to taste until the chicken was sufficiently spicy. And then I used Homemade Ranch Dressing in place of the store-bought ranch and blue cheese dressing. I mixed the ranch dressing with the cream cheese, then added the blue cheese, then added the chicken. Also, I put it together earlier in the day and kept it in the refrigerator, so it was pretty well chilled and took nearly 40 minutes to heat through.

I asked RWT what he thought would make it better and he suggested deconstructing it... into spicy chicken, served with a blue cheese sauce. Ha-ha.

Homemade Ranch Dressing

2010-02-08T11:03:00.001-05:00

Since I refuse to use store-bought ranch dressing because of all the junk they put in it, I needed to make my own for the Buffalo Chicken Dip recipe. There are zillions of recipes on the internet for ranch dressing and the one below is the combination of a few recipes. I did not have any chives (dried or otherwise) on hand, so I omitted them this time, but I've left them in the recipe below since I think they'd be a good addition to the dressing.

Homemade Ranch Dressing

1/2 cup mayonaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon dried chives

1/2 teaspoon dried parsley

1/2 teaspoon dried dill

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

pinch black pepper

pinch salt

Mix them all together and refrigerate for at least an hour for fthe lavors to meld. Thin with more buttermilk if you'd like a thinner dressing.

Condensed Milk Pound Cake

2010-02-04T15:27:00.005-05:00

The Condensed Milk Pound Cake recipe from The Sweet Spot did not disappoint. In fact, it is the best pound cake I've ever eaten. By far. You probably now realize how I adore that lovely sweet dairy taste and this cake has it. But don't worry, it is not overwhelming, simply a subtle goodness. While this cake is delicious on its own, it would definitely play well with other accompaniments such as peaches or strawberries or...

I did not follow the recipe as written when it came to the mixing since my food processor bowl was in the dishwasher after making Kimchi, Take 2 (the not salty enough sequel to Kimchi, Take 1). I used my stand mixer, increased the time for beating the butter/sugar, added the eggs (one at a time) and then added the dry ingredients, mixing only enough to incorporate the flour. The cake baked up beautifully. And was just the right amount of batter for my new 10-cup bundt pan. The one thing I would do differently would be to knock the batter-filled pan a few more times on the counter before baking to make sure all the nooks and crannies of the pan are filled with batter.

Previously, my favorite pound cake recipe came from Cook's Illustrated, but this recipe is now my go-to Pound Cake. Great taste, great texture and easy to put together.

Potato and Celery Root Gratin with Fontina Cheese

2010-01-30T19:49:00.011-05:00

Well, I'm 0-2 in my recent recipe adventures. I decided use the celery root I bought last week and make a Potato and Celery Root Gratin for dinner last night. And at 8:00 pm when it was still not done, I gave up and we had canned refried beans (from Trader Joe's, so they were not too bad), heated, topped with cheese and sour cream and eaten with tortilla chips.

So what went wrong with the gratin?

I was using a recipe from another blog (which shall remain nameless) and they'd mentioned that their recipe was based on this recipe from Bon Appetit. My mistake: not checking the Bon Appetit recipe. The blogger subbed 2 cups of milk (thickened with 2 tablespoons of roux) for the 2 cups of heavy cream called for in the original recipe. Now it is possible to do that (I have a gratin recipe that only uses chicken broth as the liquid), but it greatly increases the cooking time since there is a heck of a lot more aqueous component to milk than there is with heavy cream and that small amount of roux cannot make up for that.

And I really did know better since my favorite potato gratin uses heavy cream. But that gets to the real issue... the whole point of my New Year's resolution is to try new recipes. Tweaking a favorite recipe by simply adding a new component, is really not the goal of this endeavor. I want to discover new cooking methods and tricks and flavor combinations, so I've really been trying not to second-guess myself and to trust these recipes. However, there obviously needs to be some middle ground.

Luckily, unlike the Kimchi, this dish was easily salvaged by additional time in the oven (nearly three hours total!) and the gratin was fine (although lacking in that dairy goodness I so adore) reheated for a light dinner after a day spent lazing around on the couch, watching the snow fall.

I did learn something from following this recipe -- the onions do not need to be cooked first with this type of preparation. (Unlike with savory bread puddings where caramelizing the onions is vital if you don't want an overwhelming onion taste. I guess the longer cooking time of the gratin is what makes the difference.) Definitely something to remember because it really did cut down on the prep time to just layer sliced, raw onions between the potato and celery root layers.

Next time, I will make this as written in the original Bon Appetit recipe. Because, while it was decent and rather low-fat as I made it this go-round, the dish would have been much tastier and sumptuous with the inclusion of heavy cream. Calories and cholesterol be damned!

My Latest Kitchen Acquisition

2010-01-29T14:12:00.002-05:00

Heritage Bundt Pan

[Thanks to SPM for the gift certificate!!!]

I think I might try this recipe for Condensed Milk Pound Cake as the inaugural cake. I have the cookbook this recipe came from (The Sweet Spot, which I highly recommend) and it is full of very interesting recipes.

Other possible new recipes for next week are Buffalo Chicken Dip and a Chocolate Filling for the project alluded to here. It will have to be a light week for trying new recipes because I also need to bake at least three varieties of bread (Pain a l'Anncienne, Sourdough and Pecan/Raisin Rye) for a cheese platter I'm taking to a social function next Saturday and also a couple of batches of cookies for a military family with a child (recipient) & husband (donor) both recovering from a liver-transplant procedure.

Kimchi, Take 1

2010-01-29T13:55:00.002-05:00

When I was at the commissary buying Napa cabbage for the Kimchi, one of the stockers in the produce department asked what I was going to do with it. I replied "make some kimchi" and she told me she was Korean and makes it all the time. She then started giving me all sorts of tips, such as using Asian pear instead of sugar. And to add some rice flour cooked with water to thicken the "sauce". She also told me something that was obviously quite important, but, unfortunately, I could not follow what she was saying on that topic in the least.

But, despite all the good advice, I made a huge error in judgment when it came time to prep the cabbage. The recipe I was using as a starting-point said: "The vegetables need to soak in saltwater for at least 6 hours and preferably overnight." And I believed them. The cabbage had been soaking about 4 hours when it was time to head to bed. I considered draining off the brine and giving the cabbage a quick wash before bed, but I was too tired and decided to let it sit overnight. Bad decision. Unfortunately, that was far too long and the finished Kimchi is way too salty. I am a total salt-monster, but it is too much salt even by my generous standards.

At least the flavor is great (until the overwhelming saltiness hits). It did come out rather spicy-hot. Not any hotter than I've had in Korean restaurants, but even chili-head EES commented on the heat level. So I am going to try it again (once I get to the store for more cabbage and mustard greens) using these amount for Kimchi, Take 2:

1 large head Napa Cabbage

1/2 cup kosher salt

1 cup water

Chop cabbage into large pieces and soak for 4 hours. Rinse thoroughly in three changes of water. Set aside.

1/4 cup rice flour

1 cup water

Mix together in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Then scrape into food processor and add:

1 head garlic, clove separated and peeled

1/2 medium onion, peeled and chopped into large pieces

2" piece of ginger root, peeled and cut into thin slices

1/4 Asian pear, peeled and chopped into large pieces

Process the mixture until everything is finely chopped.

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 teaspoons shrimp paste

3 tablespoons dried red pepper, medium grind (still undecided if I should decrease this to 2 tablespoons or leave it as is)

1 bunch green onions, chopped into 1/2" lengths

1 bunch mustard greens, chopped into ~1" pieces

Mix the above with the ingredients from food processor, add the reserved, drained cabbage and mix well. Refrigerate for at least a day for the flavors to meld.

I'll guess I'll just have to let you all know how the next batch turns out...

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

2010-01-28T17:12:00.000-05:00

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

Oh, my, goodness, gracious. Unless you absolutely hate peanut butter (or are allergic to it), you should make these immediately. I thought they would be good, but, no, they are utterly spectacular. Not too sweet, not too chocolately, not too peanut buttery and with the perfect balance of soft and crunchy.

I made the recipe pretty much as written and it went together easily. The biggest change was that I did not have any milk chocolate, so I used semi-sweet for both the filling and the topping. I'm not sure how much it affected the taste -- I suspect using the milk/dark combination is more for the aesthetics of getting the greatest color difference between the layers. I also did all the heating of the chocolate mixtures (both for the filling and the topping) in the microwave. Just heat it in a microwave-safe container (I like to use a pyrex measuring cup) at 50% power and stir well every 30 seconds or so.

And, although it really is easier to use a candy thermometer, you can test the doneness of the syrup for the rice crispy layer using the cold water test. So don't use that as an excuse. Now go make a batch!

Can You Guess What I'll Be Baking?

2010-01-28T15:04:00.000-05:00

Deli Rye Blitz Bread

2010-01-25T22:20:00.001-05:00

Flavorful and light with a crispy crust. Found the recipe at King Arthur Flour. It certainly went together easily, but it calls for deli rye flavor, a specialty ingredient sold (only?) by King Arthur Flour. I already had some on hand, so it was not a big deal for me to use it in this bread, but I'm not sure what to recommend as a substitute. Maybe just sub a half cup of rye flour for some of the white flour? Add a little vinegar for some tang? Hmmm...

With a full tablespoon of yeast for just three cups of flour, the dough certainly did rise quickly. In fact, it nearly got away from me and I had to walk it very gently from the counter to the oven, so it would not deflate. But it took forever to bake. At least 60 minutes (the recipe said 35-40 minutes) and, ideally, it should have gone another 10-15 minutes because the very top, under the sauerkraut, was barely cooked. Perhaps I did not squeeze the sauerkraut dry enough? Another possibility is that I used only 3 cups of flour rather than 3-1/2 because my flour is so dry this time of year. But the consistency of the dough after mixing seemed perfect and I think if I'd added all the flour, it would have been very difficult to spread in the pan.

This bread also needs to cool quite a bit before cutting it. I did not wait and the first pieces were quite gummy, but the piece I ate later, was much better (additional cooking time would have probably also helped with this). Changes I'd make next time would be to bake it even longer, until medium brown on top, and to sprinkle the top with a bit of salt before baking (I imagine this depends a lot on the particular brand of sauerkraut -- I used Del Monte).

One last quibble... I'd make this again, but probably not when we have company over. While the sauerkraut topping adds a nice flavor, it dries in the oven into little strands that are easily lodged between your teeth. So while it went well with the arugula salad I had for dinner, it needed to be served with a side of dental floss or toothpicks.

Recipe Sources

2010-01-25T12:57:00.000-05:00

So where am I finding all these new recipes?

I get recipes delivered to by inbox every week from Epicurious and King Arthur Flour. And delivered to my mailbox from Cook's Illustrated and Sunset (I still subscribe to it even though it is a "western living" magazine -- I've found nothing on the east coast to match it, especially when it comes to cooking and gardening). Wednesday's Washington Post contains the Food Section, although it pales in comparison to the ones from the Los Angeles Times and, especially, the San Francisco Chronicle.

For additional inspiration, I've become fond of Food Gawker which has gorgeous pictures of some really interesting and different dishes. It draws from a lot of sources which saves time that would otherwise be spent searching through various blogs. Nearly all the items are submitted by readers (as I understand it), but it appears they have pretty high standards in what they accept and publish on their site.

And when I can't find a "new" recipe, I look through my "old" recipes. Like that Tasty Toaster Tarts recipe I printed out nearly two years ago. I have stacks of printed/torn-out recipes from various sources (some in binders, but the majority are in a couple of large piles) and a few bookcases of cookbooks (that I keep adding to!) . So no excuses for me -- there is a surplus of recipes to try.

The semi-popular cookbooks.

(The rarely-used ones are in another bookcase in the office and the favorite cookbooks are downstairs in the kitchen.)

Pop-Tarts at Home

2010-01-24T20:16:00.013-05:00

As a teenager, one of my favorite two breakfast foods was Pop-Tarts (the other was plain Cap'n Crunch cereal, straight from the box, sans milk). And my preferred flavor of Pop-Tart -- unfrosted strawberry, toasted (to get rid of that raw flour taste), but cooled. So when I saw a recipe for Tasty Toaster Tarts, I immediately printed it out. But that was nearly a year and half ago and I'm just now finally trying it.

First of all, it was not a quick recipe to put together. It took me nearly a full hour to roll out the dough, prep the filling (I used the alternate jam-based filling) and form the tarts. After a half an hour rest in the refrigerator and a half an hour in the oven, they came out pretty well. The strawberry preserves I used did not have much added sugar and RWT felt the tarts were not quite sweet enough. I messed up with my cutting and ended up with 12 square tarts rather than 9 rectangular ones (so much for carefully reading directions) and that definitely affected the ratio of crust to filling, so that could have also had something to do with RWT's dissatisfaction with them (not that it stopped him from eating four of them while I was out this afternoon).

So will I ever make them again? The crust is not too dissimilar from your average pie crust (even though it contains an egg), but they are like "real" Pop-Tarts in that I prefer them toasted and cooled because they seemed a little greasy when hot. I underbaked them a bit so they'd not be too brown to be subsequently toasted, but next time I would bake them until they were a little more brown and not worry about getting the toaster involved. If there is a next time... if a pastry is going to take that much time, I think I might just make something else, like sticky buns or donuts or croissants or danish or...

[For those keeping score, I only made a couple of new recipes this last week. Multiple social commitments have meant that we've not been eating many meals nor spending much time at home for the last few days. But I plan on making the Deli Rye Blitz Bread tomorrow afternoon which will get me all caught up so I can start on the other recipes I have planned for this coming week.]

Next Week's Recipe Plan

2010-01-22T10:07:00.007-05:00

RWT will be off basking in the warmth of Hawii next week, so I'm looking forward to trying out some new recipes that contain ingredients he does not care for. The food section in this week's paper had a recipe for Kimchi and that is a possible candidate. I'm not sure I'll have time between now and then to shop for the specialty ingredients called for in that recipe, so perhaps I'll look for a recipe that cheats when it comes to authenticity and uses ingredients I already have on hand (I have a hard time believing the dish will be totally "ruined" if I use a different kind of chile pepper).

Another recipe that I must make is this one for Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Bars and, because RWT hates peanuts in any application that is not savory, next week will be the perfect time to try it out. I am not big on chocolate, but mix it with peanut butter and make it crunchy... mmmmm.

The above recipe came from Baked, New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito and I really want to get that book. Why? From the description on Amazon: "a Malt Ball Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting, which captures the flavor of their favorite Whoppers candies (and ups the ante with a malted milk ball garnish)." Yes, Malted Milk Ball-based cake. As EES recently discovered when he got some for us to "share", I have zero self-control when it comes to malted milk balls. Yeah, I don't really need yet another baking cookbook, but it contains a recipe for a Malted Milk Ball cake. Malted Milk Balls! Time to put it on my Amazon wishlist.

So that leaves one more savory recipe. I had Kale Chips at a get-together a couple of weeks ago and they were delicious. But it is really not much to try in the way of a recipe since it only entails removing the ribs from the kale, tossing it with oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper and then baking it. Plus, I do already know what they taste like (really good!), so maybe it should not count as a new recipe. I still have the celery root I bought the other day when I was on my quest for daikon. Perhaps a Celery Root and Potato Gratin. Or ??? Hmmm....

Update: I stopped on my way home from lunch and picked up some Korean chile powder and salted shrimp at my favorite specialty market (88 Market on Rte. 7, Culmore Plaza, it carries both Asian and Hispanic foods), so after a trip to the commissary next week, I'll be good to go for the Kimchi.

Tomato Aspic

2010-01-22T09:48:00.001-05:00

Way back when, my mom would inevitably make tomato aspic whenever she had a group of church ladies coming over for a daytime get-together that involved food. All the ladies would ooh and aah over it and ask her for the recipe. I recall her aspic as being something that no one ever assumed I would like, but I always found it delicious and thought of myself as quite sophisticated in doing so. So with a bunch of military spouses (I nearly wrote "wives" -- we do try to be politically correct, but there is only one man in the club, so I still sometimes forget and use the "w" word) coming over for a board meeting, I started thinking... aspic!

I have some rather warm fuzzy memories of my mother actually making her tomato aspic, but there is a disturbingly nagging image of lemon jello being involved in the process. I looked through my mom's old recipe box, but could not find her recipe (one of my sisters must have liberated it from the box before it found itself in my possession). This sounds the closest to her recipe taste-wise (at least to my recollection), but the lure of ease sang its siren song and I made this recipe instead. I used a small bundt pan as the mold (just like my mom always did) and I wish I'd taken pictures of it because it turned out quite fetching.

I decided on a Cucumber Dressing to accompany the aspic although my mom always served mayonnaise with hers. But when I went to make the dressing, it was one of those days... I grabbed the mayo and there was only a couple of tablespoons left in the jar (RWT!). Then I snagged the sour cream to find only a tablespoon there. So I made up the rest of the half-cup called for with Greek yogurt. It still came out well, although the nostalgic side of me wanted more of a mayonnaise flavor with the aspic.

For the meeting, I had made Spiced Peaches (they are sort of sweet pickled with cinnamon and cloves, maybe I'll post the recipe here sometime), Green Chili and Chorizo Strata, Scones (found Devonshire cream at the commissary of all places) and that Lemon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake. I thought Tomato Aspic would have rounded out the menu nicely, but at the last minute decided that group of ladies would probably not truly appreciate its retro yumminess, so I kept it for myself. As I expected, RWT would have nothing to do with the gorgeous blob of tomato-y-ness, but I did manage to get EES and CB (an aspic virgin!) to try it out.

So I guess this adventure should be categorized as a new recipe, but an old favorite. Not something I'll make regularly, but maybe for the Spring Birders' Brunch. I know that group cannot think I am any crazier than they already do.

[If you still want to read more about aspic, this is an interesting post although it appears the author is not much of a fan of aspic's jiggly goodness.]

Nem Nuong (Pork Meatball) Banh Mi

2010-01-21T21:08:00.016-05:00

Nem Nuong (Pork Meatball) Banh Mi

Pretty darn tasty. And surprisingly filling. One of those sandwiches was plenty.

I followed the recipe as written for the most part. Omitted the sliced jalapenos in the finished sandwich because they would have been too spicy for RWT. As it was, the level of heat was close to his comfort limit.

Also, I did not have any daikon which was called for in the recipe. I'd planned on buying jicama as a substitute, if need be, but all they had was celery root (that was labeled as jicama, which I bought anyway and will probably use it in a new recipe next week). So I went with my back-up back-up and used shredded cabbage which worked out well. In fact, the simple pickled vegetable mix was really good and I'll probably use it in other applications (with the addition of a little sesame oil?).

I still have about 2/3 of the meatballs, spiced mayo (also not too shabby and will be repurposed at another time) and veggies left for future meals. The only things I'd do differently next time would be to try it with daikon and to hollow-out the bread a smidge more.

Definitely worth making this recipe again and I think it would be fun to make it with tiny rolls as an appetizer -- banh mi sliders, anyone?

More Pizza!

2010-01-20T12:45:00.005-05:00

On Monday, I made what might possibly be the best homemade pizza of my life. And I've baked a whole lot of pizza over the years. And whole lot of types of pizza ... thin crust, thick crust, deep dish, baked in a pan, baked on a stone, sourdough crust, no-knead crust and crust dough that takes a couple of days to prepare. But I think I may have finally found the Holy Grail of pizza (at least to my taste buds) -- the Chicago-Style Pizza from the Jan/Feb '10 issue of Cook's Illustrated.

And what, you ask, makes this pizza so particularly good? Butter. At least, I think it is the butter. (How can it not be the butter?!?) The dough is made with melted butter and then it is spread with more butter after the first rise and folded up like puff pastry dough. All that butter gives the crust a very nice texture -- tender, yet crisp where it should be. And the flavor is spectacular! The recipe also calls for an hour in the refrigerator for the second rise, but I went birding and left it in for 3-1/2 hours, so that might have also added to the taste. (I wonder how good it would be after spending the night in the refrigerator so the little yeasties can work more of their cool-temperature magic?)

As with most Cook's Illustrated recipes, it reads as quite fussy to make, but it actually went together very quickly.

Behold!

I won't do this for everything I make, but since this one was a definite winner, here is the recipe:

Chicago-Style Pizza

Makes two 9" pies

Dough:
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I used King Arthur brand)
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1-1/2 teaspoons table salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2-1/4 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
1-1/4 cups water, hot from the tap
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Sauce:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup finely minced onion
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
2 medium garlic cloves , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 teaspoons)
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
salt & pepper

Toppings:
1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 4 cups) (I was short on mozzarella, so I used 1/3 jack cheese)
1/2 ounce grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/4 cup)

4 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions --

Mix together the flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, and yeast in the bowl of stand mixer. Add the hot water and melted butter and mix on low speed with a dough hook for 5-6 minutes (or knead by hand for the same amount of time). The dough will be fairly soft. Scrape the dough from the sides to the bottom of the bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise at room temperature until nearly doubled in volume, 45-60 minutes.

While the dough rises, heat the 2 tablespoons butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until melted. Add the onions and oregano and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has evaporated and the onions are golden brown, ~5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the tomatoes, increase heat to high, and bring to a simmer. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sauce is reduced to 2-1/2 cups, 25-30 minutes. Off the heat, stir in the basil and olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste.

After the first rising, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll into a 15"x12" rectangle. Spread the 4 tablespoons of softened butter over surface of dough, leaving 1/2" border along edges. Starting at the short end, roll the dough into a tight cylinder. With the seam side down, flatten the cylinder into an 18"x 4" rectangle. Cut the rectangle in half crosswise. Fold each half into thirds, like a business letter, and then pinch the seams together to form a ball. Repeat with the other half. Return the balls to the mixing bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise in refrigerator until nearly doubled in volume, 40-50 minutes (or longer!).

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees about an hour before you plan on baking the pizza.

Coat two 9-inch round cake pans with 2 tablespoons olive oil each. Transfer one of the dough balls to a lightly-floured work surface and roll out into a 12" disk, about 1/4" thick. Transfer the dough to one of the prepared pans and press the dough into the corners and 1" up the sides. If the dough resists stretching, let it relax for 5-10 minutes before trying again. Repeat with the remaining ball of dough.

For each pizza, sprinkle one half of the mozzarella evenly over the surface of the dough. Spread one half of the tomato sauce over the cheese and sprinkle half of the Parmesan over the sauce. Bake at 425, in the bottom third of the oven, until the crust is golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the pizza from the oven and let it rest 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

And for your amusement... when you let two balls of dough rise next to each other in the same bowl, you end up with a rather funny-looking outcome:

The end.

Pizza Sfincioni

2010-01-20T09:04:00.007-05:00

A few additional notes on this recipe:

I did not use the panko the recipe calls for. Not that I have anything against panko, it is just with all the bread that is always around the house, I don't have much of a need to buy bread crumbs. I used sourdough crumbs made from some stale bread heels I had in the freezer. Chopped the bread into cubes and tossed it in the food processor for a nice, long ride. And I did not even bother to dry the crumbs. By the time they baked in the oven with the oil and herbs, they were plenty dry and crunchy. So no need to run out and buy panko if you have any type of "plain" bread in the house.

And I did not use the "Pizza Dough Flavor" nor the "Pizza Seasoning" (both sold by King Arthur Flour). I simply omitted the "Pizza Dough Flavor". To substitute for the "Pizza Seasoning" in the sauce, I used a tablespoon of dried basil, and a half teaspoon each of oregano and thyme. And added a fresh garlic clove, minced with a garlic press, just before adding the tomatoes to the onions. For the "Pizza Seasoning" in the crumb topping, I used some onion powder, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried thyme and dried basil. How much? Some. Start with a half teaspoon of the onion, garlic, oregano and thyme and a full teaspoon of the basil. Mix together with the crumbs and oil and add more onion/garlic/herbs (and salt?) to taste.

Lastly, the word "Sficioni". Italian, of course, Sicilian, specifically. There are quite a few spelling variations: sfinciune, sfincione, sfinciuni, sfincioni. Using the alternate spelling of "sfincione", I found the pronunciation here, at this totally cool site (I think I could listen to that guy speak all day long).

So now that you can say it and you don't have to make a run to the store for the panko and/or mail-order specialty seasoning mixes, you have no excuse not to make it yourself. Unless... click.

A New Year, A New Resolution

2010-01-19T16:20:00.013-05:00

Ah, my poor, poor, neglected blog. I just cannot seem to find the time to write anymore. And to take up even more of my time, I resolved this year to try out more new recipes. The goal is to cook at least two new savory recipes and one new sweet recipe a week. Since some of my friends (Cheep!) are probably already getting tired of emails about my latest cooking endeavors, I'll try to restrict most of my commentary to this blog from now on. Win-win?

To catch you all up on what I've made so far...

Pizza Sfincioni -- Pizza topped with flavored, crispy bread crumbs. Yes, bread crumbs. Carbs atop carbs with cheese in the middle. What more can one want? I'll be baking this recipe again and possibly adding some anchovies to the sauce next time.

Cajun Red Beans & Rice -- Not bad. I deviated from the recipe and used country ham instead of the bacon and I'm not sure that was the best decision. It's a recipe I'd like to try again to see if I can make it better. [I've linked to a "Cook's Illustrated" recipe above. Only members are allowed access to their on-line recipes, but if you are interested in any of their recipes that I link to, let me know and I'll email you a copy.]

Lemon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake -- I made this for an OSC board meeting that I hosted the week before last. It was a pretty easy to make cake and held well. In fact, I did not notice any real staling until nearly a week later. I used lemon's from my mother-in-law's farm, but I'm thinking of trying it without any lemon next time. Don't get me wrong, the lemon flavor was good, but it masked that wholesome dairy flavor of the cream cheese. [Another CI recipe, same deal as above.]

Indoor Pulled Pork -- Pretty darn good. A little (unattended) time-consuming, but easy. The smoke flavor comes from liquid smoke and you might not know the pork was not really smoked. I made the "Sweet & Tangy BBQ Sauce" from the recipe and it was far too sweet with not enough tang. Adding some cider vinegar helped a lot, but next time, I'll cut way down on the molasses. I will definitely make this one again. [Yet another CI recipe, the Jan/Feb '10 issue was a good one!]

Bacon and Cheddar Pretzel Bites -- I had to take a finger food (and they meant it -- no forks!) to a party to share and it was a really cold day, so I was searching for something that would be good at a rather cool room-temperature. I ended up taking these and they worked out perfectly for those somewhat restrictive conditions. I made half of them with bacon & cheddar and the other half with smoked paprika & cheddar because I knew there would be a number of vegetarians in the crowd. They were all good, but the bacon ones where gone in a snap. Changes to the recipe: subbed bacon for the country ham; sprinkled with coarse salt after boiling but before baking (it will not stick otherwise); and skipped the brushing with butter (did that with one batch and it made them far too greasy). I did not make the mustard sauce in the recipe, nor was it missed.

I was feeling rather retro last week and whipped up some Tomato Aspic, but I'll save that story for another day. And I made Chicago-Style Pizza last night. However, it was so delicious that it is worthy of a post all to itself. So that is all for now.

New recipes planned for this week:
Pork Meatball Banh Mi (I baked some baguettes last week as back-up on the off-chance the pretzel bites where an unmitigated disaster and still have a couple loaves in the freezer, so the bread is all taken care of already.)
Deli Rye Blitz Bread
Tasty Toaster Tarts (in other, non-trademarked words: Pop Tarts! I printed out this recipe on 4/17/08, so I've been meaning to try it for quite a while.)

Potayto, Potahto...

2009-04-11T15:33:00.012-04:00

It is that time of year again... spring migration... warblers... specifically, northern parulas. As in: "Hey, look! There's a p......". Damn! Who am I out birding with?

Am I in the company of people who pronounce it "PAIR-oola" as in a Pair of Oolas? (BTW, Oola is a Twi'lek dancer in Jabba the Hutt's court.) Or am I surrounded by those who say "pa-RUH-la"? (To continue with what appears to be a theme, Ruhla, a 40's-era comic book character, is also a rather scantily clad fantasy woman.) It seems like whichever way I say it, there will be someone in the group who'll give me that look... the one that basically asks what planet am I from (Tatooine?) and if English is my first language.

And then, after much threatening to come up with another pronunciation just so I can confuse everyone, I ran across this article that says it is "PAR-you-lah". Drats! He beat me to it!

I've read that Audubon and Wilson both called it a "Blue Yellow-backed Warbler". Maybe I should attempt to resurrect that usage? Or possibly simply say "NP", short for Northern Parula? Or use "NOPA", the BBL code? Or call up RWT and see if he can come up with some totally new name for the bird like he did with butches (aka snickerdoodles)?

Probably anything is better than "umm... umm... umm..." while someone else calls out the bird.

(Photo courtesy of Paula Sullivan. More of Paula's wonderful photos can be found here.)

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

2009-03-06T14:34:00.004-05:00

Although I try to make sure that I do so in person and with great frequency, I also want to give a public "Thank You" to those who've been so supportive of me lately.

2009 has started out as a pretty rough year, with not a lot of relief in sight, and I would not be managing as well as I am without the support of my friends. The following are true friends – those who check up on me regularly, understand if I'm feeling down and don't take it personally if I'm outright anti-social at times.

As they say on DWTS… "In no particular order":

MS, BT and RF – three of my oldest and dearest friends. I wish you all where closer geographically (keeping my fingers crossed, MS!), but you still always call or email just when I need you the most. You know exactly what I'm going through and prove that being a sister does not depend on being related by blood.

SPM – Your great outlook on life continually helps me keep things in perspective. Thank you for taking the time in your oh-so-busy life to email me with such frequency.

HG – Thank you for playing silly word-games with me when I cannot manage a real conversation.

Miss L, EM and JB – You all have stuck by me through some rough times when other "friends" turned out to be anything but. Thank you for meeting me for Thai, tea and treats. I owe you all so much and I'll always be in your corner.

EP and TB – No one else is as successful in getting me out of the house and out of bad moods. Thank you for the zillions of IMs (from the totally inane to those laden with mind-numbing technical minutia) and hundreds of invitations to all sorts of amusements.

MAP – Yeah, tough guy, I'm on to you. Your "random" phone calls are very much appreciated (and I know that RWT is also very glad you're keeping an eye on me). It is good to have you so close-by and, if one of those trees comes down before I get out of here, I'll know just who to call!

DB – Your door-step paper delivery has kept me from freezing these winter mornings and it is nice to know that someone goes out of their way every morning to do something nice for me.

CK – Thank you for giving me great a reason to get out of bed at 0700 on Sunday mornings.

PS – Your gorgeous photographs always cheer my day and your conversation/emails always challenge my mind.

The CH/OD Old Dog Club – Thank you welcoming me into your circle and giving me a sense of community.

TA – Your passion inspires me and your ready friendship will always be remembered. I just hope I can sufficiently repay you with scones.

DS – I realize you do not give your friendship lightly. Thank you for trusting me with it.

The CEC OSC members, especially, SB, DN, SW and CS – Thank you for camaraderie. It is great to have friends to talk with who fully understand the situation.

TT – You are the big brother I always wanted. Thank you for putting up with me all these years.

The G's – After dealing with some pretty challenging neighbors over the years, we've hit the jackpot. Both RWT and I rest better at night knowing you all are right next-door.

Last, but hardly least... EES – You keep me going through the day to day drama that would bore most people to tears. I hope I bring as much to your life as you do to mine.

PMS + Shopping at Whole Foods = One Bad Idea

2006-09-15T14:23:00.001-04:00

Every time I buy groceries at Whole Foods, it becomes quite clear as to why it has been at least three months since my last trip – it takes approximately that length of time for the horror of shopping there to fade from my mind. Today was not any better.

As if wandering about the produce area for fifteen minutes looking for the inorganic zucchini was not irksome enough, once I escaped that level of hell, I was trailed by a guy who might possibly be the most tedious man on the face of the earth (or, at least, the Commonwealth of Virginia).

On and on he went in a very loud, whiny voice pontificating that “it is not what in particular one eats, but the important thing is to eat a varied and balanced diet.” I have no issues with his premise, in fact, it is a theory to which I subscribe. However, to hear that blowhard lecturing his mother (mother-in-law? nanny?) for three isles of grocery shopping in his oh-so-condescending manner nearly made me start beating him about the head with my $7.99 per pound pork loin roast (and why, pray tell, do I have to pay three times the amount for a pork loin without additives? ).

The mother (mother-in-law? nanny?) appeared to have fallen into some sort of daze that was only broken when the guy would ask her some inane question in support of his sermon (“What about eating such and such? Would that be good or bad for you?”) or when she would hit me with her grocery cart. Yes, three times she drove her cart directly into me. Not a word of apology or even a blink of acknowledgement. Perhaps she was hoping I would get so angry that I’d put her out of her misery with a large lined-so-there-is-no-dangerous-metal-seepage can of organically grown, fire-roasted (for her pleasure) tomatoes.

I finally got through the last of the dried food isles and saw my escape to the refrigerator case on the far side of the cheese display. Never have I been so happy for the opportunity to buy crème fraiche. Unfortunately, I did not escape without hearing his conclusion that “It is all so obvious to me, I don’t know why more people don’t see it.” Aaack. Whole Fools it is.

The First Pitch

2006-09-13T15:49:00.000-04:00

[For those who asked… ]

Every family has their Thanksgiving traditions. Our more pedestrian ones call for the dressing to be made from sourdough bread, my father’s favorite creamed pearl onions to be on the table even though he is the only one who eats them, and any and all carrots present must be maple/mustard glazed. But a few years back, at a Thanksgiving dinner at my oldest sister’s home, a new tradition was started.

First, a little background on my oldest sister, JAC, and her husband, SJC. JAC is employed as a cheesemonger at an upscale grocery store and is the family’s resident “gourmet”. She is also, for lack of a more complimentary term, a grazer. She nibbles all day long. She’ll even pick at the food on anyone’s plate that is within somewhat reasonable reach, but for her to share the food off her own plate… nope. And she never serves anyone enough food at one sitting to really satisfy the appetite. There are definite food control issues at play (I won’t even go into “The Cereal Incident” and its aftershocks that can still be felt to this day).

My brother-in-law has also battled with control issues most of his life, but his are mainly anger-related. I am quite proud at the progress he has made over the years (such as he no longer rams other cars with his car), but my sister can try the patience of a saint. So back to Thanksgiving…

JAC had gone to great lengths to procure some special pâté to serve as an appetizer before the big dinner. When she brought it home from the store earlier in the week, she had pointed it out to SJC and specifically told him the reason it was in the house.

So Thanksgiving afternoon rolled around, appetizers were removed from the refrigerator and JAC noticed that something was amiss with the prized pâté. Not only had it been opened, but “someone” had removed a huge chunk from the middle. My sister went ballistic.

In front of everyone, she started in on SJC with how she had explicitly told him why she had bought the pâté (to which he replied that she never told him he could not eat any beforehand). Then she moved on to why he could not have just take some off one end instead of digging it out of the middle (to which he replied that it was just food).

My sister opened her mouth to start in on the third installment of her tirade when SJC picked up the offending pâté, carried it out to the back deck and chucked it about twenty feet into the woods. The problem was solved, JAC closed her mouth and a family tradition was born.

The following Thanksgiving, my other brother-in-law provided a set of custom made wings to help that year's pâté to be more aerodynamic.

Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

2006-09-12T14:49:00.000-04:00

After fifteen-plus years of marriage, I am pretty much accustomed to RWT’s spontaneous and rather arcane pursuits…

RWT: “I think I’ll build a sailboat”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “Will please record the weights of all the veggies you pick from the garden so I can run a cost analysis?”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “I’m going to make hammocks to give to our relatives for Christmas.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “After I retire, I plan on auditioning for Cirque de Soleil.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

RWT: “We need to collect all of these acorns and have an acorn side dish this year at Thanksgiving.”
MKT: “Sure, honey.”

As with most of his ideas, I have not a clue as to the origin. I’m not sure if the latest is merely a side-effect of his not getting any REM sleep because acorns have been raining down on the roof of our house for the last three days. Or perhaps it is some sort of karmic payback for the tree dropping a limb on our car. But, whatever the cause, I see acorn processing in my immediate future. I’ll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

The Devil Packs Samsonite

2006-08-29T08:01:00.000-04:00

Back in the olden days, when I had a real job and traveled nearly 50% of the time for work, I found myself urgently needing a new suitcase – the day before I was scheduled to leave on a 2-week trip to Japan, the zipper ripped out of my trusty old soft-sided suitcase. So, in a fit of desperation, I headed to the local mall.

In one of the big department stores, I saw it. The perfect suitcase. Large. Hard-sided. A nice understated black. Samsonite. On sale (!!!). Two side latches and a main latch with a combination lock. Yes! Just what I wanted. I pulled it down off the shelf, undid the side latches (which have a nice little slide lock that keeps them coming open accidentally), flipped the main lock… nothing. Locked. Locked?!? I made sure the combo was set to “0-0-0”, tried it again… nothing. Locked. Crap.

Okay, they must have another one. I looked around. Errr. None were in sight. I finally flagged down a saleslady. Nope, no more in the back either. I asked her if she knew the combination. Ha! That is why it was on sale.

But I wanted this suitcase. I needed this suitcase. So I started to think to myself “what would someone who would do something so juvenile as resetting the combo lock on a suitcase that was not their own set it to?” A-ha! I entered three numbers, flicked the latch and, ta-dum!, it opened. What where those numbers? 6-6-6.

I took the suitcase over to the saleslady, who told me again it was locked. I told her I wanted to buy it anyway. Got it home, reset the combination (I’m not terribly superstitious, but really wouldn’t you?), packed the suitcase full of clothes and shoes, and went off on my trip.

It has been nearly 10 years since I bought that suitcase and it is still going strong. RWT just took it on a trip around the world. It followed him home by a week, but I knew in my heart that it would eventually find its way back to me. My devil suitcase.

Salt or No Salt?

2006-08-17T14:00:00.000-04:00

The other night I mentioned to my dining companion how I nearly always have a pitcher of margaritas in my freezer. And, for some reason, he found that fact highly amusing. I’m not sure what was so funny – that anyone would keep a pitcher of margaritas ready and waiting, or that I would.

Of course, I am not talking about margaritas from a mix or those that come in a "Just Add Tequila" tub. Blech-blech-blech. I use freshly-squeezed lime juice, Triple Sec (for some reason I prefer it to Grand Marnier in this application) and decent tequila (but not fine tequila because it would be a waste to use it in a mixed drink). Whir it all together with ice and some sugar (amount needed is very dependent on the limes and requires lots of taste-testing) in the trusty blender and pop it in the freezer.

When the mood strikes for margaritas, I pull the pitcher from the freezer, let it sit ~30 minutes (if I can wait that long, I have been known to nuke it and/or hack away at it with a large metal spoon) and then have at it with the how-did-I-live-without-it-for-so-long stick blender to break up any large ice crystals that may have formed.

I was running low on tequila and the freezer is currently devoid of any and all pitchers, so I stopped by the package store today while on my way to commissary. (Note to non-military folks – although the name suggests otherwise, the package store is not where you go to mail the very, very late birthday present to your sister, but where you buy cheap, tax-free liquor.) I was standing at the checkout counter paying for my large (1.75L) bottle of tequila when the two young solders behind me decided to comment...

BabyArmyGuy1 (with a good ‘ol boy accent): Boy! That is a big bottle of tequila.
Me: Yup. I need to make some margaritas.
(I decided not to tell them how it is my freezer that needs them.)
BabyArmyGuy1: When I drink get tequila, I get mean.
Me: Hmmm.
BabyArmyGuy1: The first time I drank tequila, I left the club and ended up punching a Colonel.
Me: Really?!?
BabyArmyGuy2 (who is much cuter than BabyArmyGuy1 and is obviously feeling left out): I'm a sweet drunk…
Me: That's good.
BabyArmyGuy1: When it happened, I had no idea she was a Colonel.
Me: (Laughing)
BabyArmyGuy2: (Cannot think of a thing to top his buddy's comment and looking quite chagrined)

At that point, the two soldiers started discussing the how much that particular female Colonel can bench-press and I exited the package store still laughing. It is nice to see that, in addition to learning how to kill in all sorts of sundry ways, some young soldiers are apparently also working on excellent comic timing.

Now off to make those margaritas...

Snail and E

2006-08-11T15:31:00.000-04:00

I was looking for an old photo to show a friend of mine and I thought it was in my cedar chest in a box with a bunch of college memorabilia. Well, I could not find that particular photograph, but I did find all sorts of old letters.

Most was correspondence from guys who, even after reading their letters, I cannot recall. Nothing. Nada. Zip. The letters were silly, dopey, funny and a more than a few totally stupid, but nearly all long forgotten.

One guy I do faintly remember (the picture I found of him helped) was a summer “romance” (I was all of 13 or 14, so, other than a few chaste kisses behind the church, nothing much that could be considered in the least bit romantic actually happened between us). There are at least a half-dozen letters from him, but I have no recollection of writing from my side. I wonder if he wrote me for weeks after he went home without my reciprocating or if I just wrote him unmemorable (to me, at least) drivel. I suspect the former.

I’ve never been much of a letter writer. While I can type nearly as fast as I can compose the words in my head, my actual handwriting at that speed is completely illegible. I tended to woefully neglect my written correspondence before email came along. But, as much of a godsend email has been, it suddenly hit me today how fleeting it is. I am not an electronic pack-rat and twenty years from now I highly doubt I’ll be able to read my current letters to and from friends. Heck, I can’t even reread those from just last week.

Then I start thinking about going through that box this morning. I read the first four or five letters, had some laughs, but quickly tired of reading twenty-year-old words that no longer had any emotional resonance. If they had not been there physically in front of me, I never would have given them another thought again in my life. I can’t miss what I can’t remember.

And the truly memorable letters, such as my ex-fiance’s heart-torn missive (written on Garfield notepaper, no less) that accompanied the engagement ring he gave back to me after I returned it to him when I broke-off our engagement, I can recall every word without even having to look at it.

So I hope it is that way with the email -- the important letters will be etched in my mind forever and the others are not really worth remembering.

Pet Names

2006-08-10T01:35:00.000-04:00

My family has a tradition of giving our pets rather sensible names…

Morgan (an alligator lizard who ate mealy worms – what a nightmare)
Myrtle (one of numerous Myrtles – all were turtles)
Corkey (also one of many – all parakeets)
Cindy (short for Cinderella – my sister’s guinea pig that I dropped and I will never, ever be forgiven for doing so)
Butterscotch (my hamster – that I did not drop)
Lewis & Clark (experimental goldfish – Lewis was kept in constant light and Clark in the dark)

The cats –
Kiki (yes, I now know what that is slang for in more than one language)
Bobbie (who had seven toes on each foot)

And, in order of age, the dogs –
Jeremiah
Beau (actually Beauregard Zachariah)
Tasha (named after my mother's favorite childhood toy – a rather large, felt-stuffed, chartreuse dog name Natasha who currently resides in my cedar chest)
Sammie
Jessie
Scooter (he was constantly underfoot as a puppy – "Scoot!")
Anna (registered name “Diamond Anna”)

Most of the names of the early pets stuck. But, once my sisters and I were older, did we call our pets by their names? Of course not. My beloved calico, Kiki, more commonly went by Keeker-Weeker-Eeker-Squeeker. Or Eeker. Or Squeeker. Bobbie was Tube-Cat (she was very long and lean) or Bobbie-Wobbie-Obbie-Squobbie. Are you seeing the pattern yet?

And it was worse with the dogs (after all, how often do you really bother calling a cat’s name?). Tasha was Tasha-Squasha. Then Squash for short. Then Squash-a-lump for long.

Jessie is also known by Jesse-a-lump, while Sammie’s queenly nature is reflected by Sammirella (Sammie belongs to the same sister as the long-departed guinea pig that I dropped, and, for the record, I have never, ever picked up Sammie, let alone, dropped her).

Scooter (my father’s dog) is Scooter-Wooter-Ooter (that variation is somehow always tied to the pet residing in our parent’s house) or, my favorite, Ooter-Brauten.

However, the one who gets it the worst is my current dog, Anna. The fact that her name just begs for it does not help the situation. The most obvious: Anna-Banana. That quickly morphed into Banana-Boat then Banana-Nut then Peanut then Sweet Pea. But there is another branch originating from Banana-Nut… Banana-Nut Muffin then shortened to Muffin (which, coincidentally, was the given name of the cat that Kiki was named after – a very long story). And now Anna is currently going by Muffin-Head.

Odd? Yes. But it could be worse. RWT grew up with a half-sister named Emily and a pet Doberman named Emily. His parents both loved the name and, after they divorced, they each utilized it during their second marriages. Perhaps nonsensical pet names are a good idea after all.

Cookie Collection Recipe 9

2006-06-25T08:39:00.000-04:00

This recipe for Greek Toast is an old family recipe of my grandmother's. I've never seen anything like it in any Greek cookbook, but have seen similar recipes in Italian cookbooks. Perhaps it is the addition anise seeds that make it "Greek". It is an easy method of making biscotti because it is a batter that is poured into a loaf pan for the first baking rather than being shaped into a free-form loaf.

My grandfather always dipped these cookies in his coffee before eating them, but since I don’t drink coffee, I like them plain.

This recipe is easily doubled or tripled or quadrupled and the cookies can be stored for a very long time before there is any loss of quality.

Greek Toast
16 biscotti-like cookies

2 large eggs
⅔ cup sugar

1 teaspoon anise seed
1 cup bleached, all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease and flour a 4½”x8½” loaf pan.

In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the eggs and sugar and beat well until thick and pale in color. Mix in the anise seeds and gradually add in the flour. Mix the batter until well combined and pour into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake 20-30 minutes until the top is lightly browned and springs back when lightly touched. Remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a rack for 10 minutes.

Cut the loaf into 16 slices and place the slices on a half-sheet pan and bake 5 to 7 minutes until toasted, turn the slices over and bake an additional 4 to 5 minutes or until desired crispness. (Keep in mind that they will become more crisp as they cool.)

Allow the toasts to cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Cookie Collection Recipe 8

2006-06-24T11:11:00.000-04:00

“Butches” is a RWT-ism for Snickerdoodles. They are one of his favorite cookies, but he absolutely refuses to say such a silly word as “Snickerdoodles”. Hence, the term “Butches” was born. My niece immediately questioned her uncle’s authority to unilaterally change the name of a cookie, but she could not sway him in his conviction. So call them whatever you’d like, but this is the best recipe for this type of cookie that I’ve found.

Butches

Makes ~2½ dozen cookies

3 cups bleached, all-purpose
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1⅓ cups sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs

¼ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, cream of tartar and nutmeg. Set aside. In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, the 1⅓ cups sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, Scrape down the bowl and add the flour mixture. Mix on low speed until thoroughly mixed.

Mix the ¼ cup sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl. Form tablespoon-sized pieces of the dough into balls and roll them in the cinnamon-sugar to coat. Place each ball 2” apart on a lightly-oiled or parchment-lined half-sheet pan. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until the cookies are very lightly browned and firm. Remove the cookies from the pan, cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

Shiny Happy People

2006-06-24T10:58:00.000-04:00

I was recently discussing with a single friend what qualities she looks for in a man and her response was: “an old soul”. I know what she means…

In college, I dated a guy who’d led a very sheltered life. He was born very premature and his family never got out of the habit of protecting him from even the smallest of hardships. He was sweet, he was thoughtful, he was sensitive (it was the only relationship I’ve ever been in where the guy cried more than I did), he was romantic, he was devoted, he was every girl's dream guy. And I found him mind-numbingly dull.

It was not the poor guy’s fault, but we looked at the world from totally different perspectives. He only saw the good and pleasant things, while I could not overlook the negatives and dangers. It was like the thestrals of the Harry Potter books – how only those who have seen death can see them and, to everyone else, they are invisible.

Over the years, I’ve found that the people I am closest to are those who have also gone through some misfortune and heartache in life. They understand how surviving the rough times forces you to use a different scale in defining when things are good (and bad). There is certainly nothing wrong with people who've lived charmed lives, but I simply do not relate well to them.

And what ever happened to that nice guy I dated in college? I dumped him and then dated his roommate. I guess he did finally experience a little bit of tribulation after all.

More Guilt

2006-06-23T11:40:00.000-04:00

Okay, this blog has become a total source of guilt for me. I feel bad when I don’t find the time to post things here, but I also feel bad spending all sorts of time writing things to post here.

Bad, bad, bad. But not bad enough to change anything.

It brings to mind my favorite passage from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”:

Mr. Bennet: Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.

Elizabeth: You must not be too severe on yourself.

Mr. Bennet: You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.

For those who have not already heard my tale of woe, the owners of the house we are renting are returning to the area in August, so we will have to move to a new house. We found a place only about eight blocks away and will take possession on the 29th of June. So for the immediate future, I will probably be too busy moving to even think about my blog and too tired to feel any guilt over it.

Ouch

2006-05-11T23:08:00.000-04:00

The Definition of Disheartening: When your writing is apparently so formulaic and unimaginative that your blog host’s automatic spam-detector decides your blog is merely computer-generated spam and makes you enter a garbled word every time you publish something as proof that it has actually been written by a human.

Postscript -- From the Blogger.com management on 5/12:

"Hello,

Your blog has been reviewed, verified, and cleared for regular use so that it will no longer appear as potential spam. If you sign out of Blogger and sign back in again, you should be able to post as normal. Thanks for your patience, and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Sincerely,
The Blogger Team"

Inconvenience?!? What about the damage to my frail ego?

Bitch

2006-05-11T22:31:00.001-04:00

I have a friend who says that it has not been a good week for him until at least one person has called him a “cocksucker”. Well, I don’t think I can go out for a good evening of dancing without having at least one guy think of me as a bitch.

For some reason, ballroom dancing places (“place” is not the best word, but “club” is far too hip to apply, “dancehall” is just too country and “venue” sounds like we are going to Disneyland) have their own strange set of social norms. The biggest one is that it is rude to turn down a dance when asked. I guess this little piece of etiquette is a holdover from the era of Jane Austen, although RWT wonders if it is really a modern “rule” made up by desperate, nerdy, ballroom-dancing guys.

Whatever the origin, if anyone asks you to dance and you are not already on your way to dance with someone else, you are supposed to accept (hmm, a fresh compound fracture or death may also be acceptable reasons to decline a dance, but only in some situations). Well, not me.

I took up ballroom dancing at RWT’s urging as something for us to do together while living around here (good hiking/rock scrambling is just to far away and limited by weather in this area and dancing is slightly safer). In my mind, the main purpose of ballroom dancing is to spend time with my husband. Not dancing with random guys that I don’t know -- I had enough of that to last me a lifetime way back when I was in college. So when we go out dancing, I dance with my husband and no one else.

Most of you know how I hate confrontation, but being bugged for dances by strange men who will not take "no" for an answer instantly throws me into some sort of time warp back to the 80’s when I spent far too much of my free time in meat-market clubs. My polite, appropriate, good-little-military-wife behavior is suddenly replaced by that cold, hard bitch of yesteryear (but without the desire to wear lace anklets with my high heels).

For example, an exchange that happened last Saturday while out dancing:

Guy (who I think is one of the dance instructors at the dance place and appeared to be a very nice man): “Would you like to dance?”

Me (smiling nicely): “No thank you”

Guy: “Ah, come on. You can merengue, it is easy.”

Me (still smiling, but said in tone with more icicles dangling from it than were probably necessary): “I do know how to merengue, but no thank you”.

Guy (thinking to himself as he walks away): Bitch.

Oh well, it was a nice night of dancing with my husband.

Cookie Collection Recipe 7

2006-05-07T08:44:00.000-04:00

Okay, I won't lie to you, these cookies are really a bit pissy to make. Are they worth the effort? Yes -- especially if you are feeding them to those who like the flavor combination of chocolate and nuts. These cookies are also deceptively impressive. At first glance, they appear to be a plain chocolate sugar cookie, but break one in half and there is a layer of smooth, nutty filling inside. If you decide to take on this challenge, be sure to allow yourself plenty of time for forming the cookies since working with the dough and filling is definitely a fussy endeavor.

I've only found the patience to make these cookies once and that was for our last holiday cookie-fest. I used macadamia butter in the cookie dough and cashew butter in the filling (hmm, or was it the other way around?). The two things I would do differently the next time I make these cookies would be to make smaller cookies (halving the size of both the balls of dough and filling) and to chill the dough and filling before forming the cookies.

This recipe is based on one from "King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion" -- a very well-written book that is a fantastic resource for American cookies.

Surprise Cookies
Makes twenty-six 3"-wide cookies

Dough:

1½ cups (6¼ ounces) all-purpose flour
½ cup (1½ ounces) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (3½ ounces) granulated sugar (and extra for dipping)
½ cup (4 ounces) brown sugar
½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
¼ cup (2 and 3/8 ounces) smooth nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, macadamia, etc.)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg

Filling:

¾ cup (7 and 1/8 ounces) smooth nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, macadamia, etc.)
¾ cup (3 ounces) confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line with parchment paper or lightly grease two half sheet pans or cookie sheets.

For the dough: Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a bowl. With a mixer, beat together the sugars, butter and the nut butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the egg, beating to combine, then stir in the dry ingredients, blending well.

For the filling: Stir together the nut butter and confectioners’ sugar until smooth. With floured hands, roll the filling into 26 one-inch balls.

To shape the cookies: Break off a ~1 tablespoon portion of the dough, make an indentation in the center with your finger, and press one of the balls of filling into the indentation. Bring the dough up and over the filling, pressing it closed; roll the cookie in the palms of your hand to smooth it out. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

Dip the top of each cookie in granulated sugar and place on the prepared sheet pans ~two inches apart. Grease the bottom of a drinking glass and use it to flatten each cookie to ~½-inch thick. Bake the cookies for 7 to 9 minutes, until they are set. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool on a rack.

Cookie Collection Recipe 6

2006-04-23T11:31:00.000-04:00

When we lived in Twentynine Palms, we had a next-door neighbor who loved the cream cheese brownies his mother would make. His wife asked her mother-in-law for the recipe many times, but, somehow the mother-in-law would always forget to get it in the mail to her, or it got lost in the mail, or she was sure she'd sent it... Then, the wife tasted the cream cheese brownies made from this recipe at one of our biennial holiday cookie parties and realized that they we a dead-ringer for those elusive brownies of her husband's childhood.

I gladly gave her the recipe and she immediately made up a batch, wrapped them up and shipped them to her husband (who was on deployment at the time). He was thrilled, she was thrilled, but I suspect the mother-in-law was not very thrilled. So here they are... cream cheese brownies, just like mom makes...

Cream Cheese Brownies
Makes sixteen 2”-square brownies

⅔ cup bleached, all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 large eggs

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease an 8”-square baking pan and fit an ~8”x16" sheet of aluminum foil in bottom of pan so the foil overhangs both sides of the pan to use as handles to remove the brownies from pan after they are baked (it is really worth the trouble to do this). Spray with non-stick spray or lightly grease the foil.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside. Melt the chocolate and butter over very low heat on the stovetop, in a double-boiler or in the microwave and stir until smooth. Remove the melted chocolate mixture from the heat, whisk in the 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla, then whisk in the 3 eggs, one at a time, mixing each egg in thoroughly before adding the next and mix until completely smooth. Add the reserved flour mixture and whisk just until incorporated.

In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese with the ¼ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla, and the egg yolk until mixed well. Pour half the brownie batter into the prepared pan and drop spoonfuls of half of the cream cheese mixture over the batter. Repeat the layering with the remaining brownie batter and cream cheese filling, then use the blade of a table knife or a spoon handle to gently swirl the batter and cream cheese filling together, creating a marbled effect.

Bake the brownies until the edges have puffed slightly, the center feels not quite firm when touched lightly, and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into center comes out with several moist, fudgy crumbs adhering to it, 50 to 60 minutes. Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then, using the foil, lift the brownies from pan. Place the brownies on a rack and allow them to cool to room temperature. If you can stand the wait, refrigerate the brownies until chilled, at least 3 hours, cut into squares and serve.

Cookie Collection Recipe 5

2006-04-14T08:08:00.000-04:00

Here is another flourless-cookie recipe for you all...

Meringues are a favorite of my niece and all of the friends she made while visiting us one summer when I hosted a little ladies tea party for her (picture five 7-year-olds, one 4-year-old, tiaras and feather boas with their accompanying cloud of pink feathers). Adding one drop of red food coloring per ½ cup of egg whites makes meringues with a very nice, young girl-pleasing, light pink color.

("Meringue" also happens to be the same way I always misspell a certain Latin dance with that has a fast one-two, one-two beat... the Merengue.)

Meringues
Makes ~48 cookies

½ cup of egg whites
pinch cream of tartar
1 cup sugar

1 drop food coloring (optional)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees and line a couple of half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

In a very clean bowl, whip the egg whites and cream of tartar to soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar and whip to stiff peaks. If using food coloring, add it and mix at low speed until incorporated. Pipe (or drop by the spoonful) the meringues onto prepared pans and bake at 200 degrees for 1 to 2 hours or until completely dry. Do not let the meringues brown.

Helpful Hints:

Any oil in your bowl, on the beaters or bits of egg yolk can prevent the whites from being beaten to their full air-holding capacity. Make sure everything is very clean.

If you have a problem with meringues slumping and losing their shape in the oven, try beating the egg whites longer or increasing your oven temperature a smidgen. I usually cook mine at ~200 degrees.

Or, if the issue is that they hold their shape but are just not dried, you may need to bake them longer. I bake mine for around 1½ hours, then turn off the oven, leave the oven light on and let the meringues sit in the oven overnight. If you are living someplace humid, you will definitely need to bake them longer and might have to leave them in an oven set on "warm" for several hours or overnight (that is the only way I can get them to dry while in the D.C. area during the summer). Basically, as long as the oven is low enough not to brown the meringues, they can stay in there as long as is needed to fully dry them.

Meringues can be formed in pretty much any shape or size (within reason). The only thing to watch for with the bigger shapes is that they will take considerably longer to completely dry out.

Cookie Collection Recipe 4

2006-04-13T08:53:00.000-04:00

Last night at dinner, a friend inquired when I was going to post more cookie recipes here and it was just the kick I needed to quit being so negligent in this endeavor. I’ll try to make up for the missed weeks ASAP. In the meantime, here are a couple of Passover-friendly macaroon recipes.

Macaroons really do need to be baked on parchment paper or a silpat because they’ll stick like glue to an ungreased pan and spread too much on a greased one. Luckily rolls of parchment can now be found at nearly all supermarkets. But, if you frequently bake cookies, you may want to buy parchment paper in larger amounts. King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalog carries pre-cut sheets of parchment that fit a standard half-sheet pan ($17.95 for 100 sheets, item #5854, here).

And, although I prefer not to recommend recipes that require specialty equipment (and pricey equipment, at that), these macaroons are easiest to make with a food processor. If you don’t have one, you may be able to grind the almonds/coconut in a blender in smaller batches and then mix in the eggs by hand. However, one of the best material items that RWT brought to our marriage (and one of the few we still own) was his father’s old DLC-7 Cuisinart, so I have no experience using anything else for these cookies.

Almond Macaroons
Makes about two dozen 2-inch cookies

3 cups (12 ounces) blanched, slivered almonds
1½ cups sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 large) egg whites
1 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line two half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

Put the almonds into a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade and process for 1 minute, add the sugar and process for 15 seconds longer. Add the eggs whites and almond extract and process until the dough wads around the blade. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and process about 5 seconds longer until the dough forms a stiff, but cohesive, malleable paste (similar in consistency to marzipan), about 5 seconds longer. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn the machine back on and add water by drops through the feed tube until you get the right consistency.

Scoop balls of the dough, 1 to 2 tablespoon-sized (you can also make them smaller, just be sure to adjust the baking time), onto the parchment-lined pans, spacing them ~1½ inches apart. For a more finished look, you can roll the dough into smooth balls with slightly-dampened hands. You can also make fancier macaroons by piping out the dough into mounds using a large pastry bag fitted with a ¾-inch open star tip, but if you do go this route, add a bit of water to the dough to make it slightly softer and be prepared to use considerable hand strength. Usually, I just use a small (1½ tablespoon-sized) scoop (like a mini-ice cream scoop) and then use dampened fingertips to smooth the tops of the dough.

Bake the macaroons, switching the positions of the pans midway through baking, until the cookies are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, the macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored (but we still always manage to choke them down… somehow…). After the macaroons have completely cooled on the parchment paper, peel them off and store in an airtight container.

Coconut Macaroons
Makes about two dozen 2-inch cookies

14 ounces sweetened flaked coconut
1½ cups sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 large) egg whites
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line two half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

Put the coconut into a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade and process for 1 minute, add the sugar and process for 15 seconds longer. Add the eggs whites and vanilla extract and process for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and process about 5 seconds longer until the dough forms a paste that resembles slushy snow. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn the machine back on and add water by drops through the feed tube until you get the right consistency.

Scoop balls of the dough, 1 to 2 tablespoon-sized (you can also make them smaller, just be sure to adjust the baking time), onto the parchment-lined pans, spacing them ~1½ inches apart. For a more finished look, you can roll the dough into smooth balls with slightly-dampened hands. You can also make fancier macaroons by piping out the dough into mounds using a large pastry bag fitted with a ¾-inch open star tip, but if you do go this route, add a bit of water to the dough to make it slightly softer and be prepared to use considerable hand strength. Usually, I just use a small (1½ tablespoon-sized) scoop (like a mini-ice cream scoop) and then use dampened fingertips to smooth the tops of the dough.

Bake the macaroons, switching the positions of the pans midway through baking, until the cookies are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, the macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored (I’ve found the coconut macs tend to dry out less quickly than the almond macs, but they also burn more easily, so you’ll still need to watch them pretty closely near the end of the baking time). After the macaroons have completely cooled on the parchment paper, peel them off and store in an airtight container.

Convergent Phobias

2006-04-13T08:34:00.000-04:00

Yesterday evening RWT & I went out to dinner with some friends to Firefly. Since they do not have valet service during mid-week and we did not want to deal with the hassle of parking the car, we opted to take the metro. Simple? No. For me, metro is never a decision to be taken lightly.

While not exactly claustrophobic, I get extremely uncomfortable in places with limited egress. It does not matter how big or small they are. You can squeeze me into a large cardboard box and it is no big deal (unless it is made of particularly strong cardboard and you tape it shut!). In fact, for nearly my whole 3rd grade year, the favorite pastime of my friend and I was to spend hours sitting in a large cardboard box, playing Crazy Eights and eating pretzels with mustard. So it is not really a size-thing.

But you won’t be able to get me into anything but the shallowest of cave – no matter how roomy on the inside (I certainly won’t be listening to the Stalacpipe Organ at Luray Caverns anytime soon). I don’t like underground parking garages. Or going too deep underwater (no scuba diving for me). I’ve even been known to get short of breath when in the middle of a large, crowded room (I much prefer a table near the door, please).

The worst was when I worked as a corrosion control/paint expert and I had to inspect underground storage tanks. It would take all of my willpower to climb down the ladder into the tank. All of the tanks I inspected were huge, but every moment I spent inside, 98% of my attention was focused on fact that the exit was an itty-bitty circle high up at the top of a ladder. Ten minutes was about my limit, then I’d start to hyperventilate and flee the scene.

So taking the metro… ugh. Underground. No quick way out. And, to only make matters worse… in the D.C. area, the access to nearly all the metro stations is by escalator. Aaaack. Another phobia. Perhaps, when I was a child, my mother was just too diligent in her warnings to be careful not to get shoes/clothing/body parts stuck in the mashing escalator teeth. But to this day, navigating on and off an escalator is a feat that requires great concentration and bravery. Of course, there are elevators at the metro stations (if they are working), but, really, you’ve got to be kidding me.

The first five years we lived in this area, I never took the metro. However, about a year ago, after much encouragement and mental preparation, I finally took the plunge. RWT is wonderful and works diligently to keep me distracted from thinking about how I am deep within the bowels of the earth trapped in a very long, dark tunnel (even when the twenty-somethings sitting behind us start talking about what it would be like to be riding the metro and be claustrophobic and how one would want to pound on the doors screaming to be let out if the train suddenly stopped between stations). So now I am proud to say that I’ve ridden the metro. Four trips at that! I even have my own metro farecard.

Luckily, metro-riding does not also involve large areas of grating that I have to walk across, see-through stairs, crickets or needles (well, there probably are a few needle users on some of the trains, but as long as no one is poking me with any, I’m fine). Those would completely send me over the edge… or in search of parking.

Cookie Collection Recipe 3

2006-02-05T15:10:00.000-05:00

In the words of Annie Lennox...

I don't need a heartbreaker
Fifty-faced trouble maker
Two timing time taker
Dirty little money maker
Muscle bound cheap skate
Low down woman hater
Triple crossing double dater
Yella bellied alligator...

Forget about all the hassle of finding the perfect guy... just bake your own.

GINGERBREAD COOKIES
Makes ~twenty 5” gingerbread men or thirty 3” cookies

This recipe is for thick and chewy gingerbread cookies. This is not the type of gingerbread to build houses with, since it is too soft.

3 cups bleached, all-purpose flour
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and slightly softened
¾ cup unsulphured molasses
2 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease, or line with parchment paper, two half-sheet pans.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda. Add the butter and mix until the mixture is sandy and resembles very fine meal. With the mixer running, gradually add the molasses and milk and mix until the dough is evenly moistened and forms a soft mass.

Scrape the dough onto a work surface and divide it in half. Working with one portion of dough at a time, roll the dough to a ¼” thick between two large sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap. Repeat with the second half of the dough. Leave the dough sandwiched between parchment/plastic layers and stack on a half-sheet pan and freeze the dough until firm, 15 to 20 minutes (or refrigerate the dough 2 hours or overnight).

Remove one dough sheet from the freezer and place it on the work surface. Peel off the top parchment sheet and gently lay it back in place, flip the dough over, peel off and discard the second parchment layer. Cut the dough into desired shapes (set aside the scraps) and transfer the cut cookies to the prepared pans with a wide spatula, spacing the cookies ¾” apart.

Repeat with remaining dough until the pans are full and then bake the cookies until set in the centers and the cookies barely retains imprint when touched very gently with fingertip, 8 to 11 minutes, rotating the pans front to back and switching positions top to bottom halfway through the baking time. Do not over-bake or the finished cookies will be dry. Cool the cookies on the pans for 2 minutes, then finish cooling them on a rack.

Gather together the scraps and repeat the rolling, cutting, and baking with the remaining dough until all the dough is used. Decorate the cooled cookies with icing if desired and store the cookies between sheets of wax paper in an airtight container.

Ah-ha!?!

2006-01-31T17:21:00.000-05:00

On my favorite food forum they’ve been discussing “Ah-ha!” moments when it comes to drinking wine. As the one forum member put it so well: “that moment where someone tastes a new type of wine, or takes a chance on a wine that they've never heard of before and has that little vinous epiphany where a door that they never knew existed opens for them, and a gorgeous ray of enlightened understanding comes through and they say to themselves, "Damn, this is really great stuff!" (or words to that effect).“ (If you’d like to see the whole post look here.)

So I read through the first few posts on the thread and decided that I have never had a wine Ah-ha moment, or at least nothing compared to what these people seem to have experienced. Then I started to think that it was all just another circumstance of the world of wine making me feel rather inadequate. But… upon perusal of later postings, I think there might be hope for me yet…

It appears that most people started out drinking, for lack of a better term, low-end wines. Gallo Hearty Burgundy gets mentioned quite often. Then sometime in their adult (or near-adult) lives they got a taste of a quality wine and… ta-dum! Or, more appropriately… ah-ha! Their eyes were opened to the joys of wine and everything was good in the world (well, that may be overstating it, but it gets the point across).

However, being a native-Californian with wine-loving parents, I never drank bad wine as a child. And yes, I did drink wine when I was far younger than the legal drinking age. My parents did not drink much, but anything resembling a special occasion always warranted a bottle of wine and everyone got a glass. My folks believed that allowing my sisters and me to have wine at home made it (and all liquor) not such a big mystery and, therefore, less enticing as an illicit pleasure. Well, that approach worked with me (and one of my sisters – two out of three is not bad) and I was never one to go out drinking just to get drunk.

But back to drinking good wine… not only did my father insist on fine wine at the dinner table, but also in church. Every time he was assigned to a new parish, the first thing he would do was to get rid of the crappy, frequently corked (why is that?), communion wine (often labeled “Communion Wine”) and replace it with something drinkable. Oh, the little old Episcopalian altar guild ladies would about keel over at such a radical change, but my dad would just buy the wine himself and pour the old stuff out if they tried to thwart him. And once the wine was blessed, there was nothing they could do since one simply cannot pour consecrated wine down the drain.

So my thinking is that between the good wine in church and the good wine at home, I did have an Ah-ha wine moment, but it was so long ago and I was too young to realize it at the time. For me, there was no time when I started drinking good wines – I’ve always been privileged to do so. I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with having an Ah-ha moment about my wine Ah-ha moment.

Cookie Collection Recipe 2

2006-01-29T16:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, as promised last week, here is the recipe for bar cookies that are reminiscent of Girl Scout Samoas (also called Caramel de-Lites in some parts of the country).

COCONUT-CHOCOLATE-CARAMEL BARS
Makes ~24 bars

The original recipe (found in "The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion") calls for all sweetened coconut, but I found that made the bars too sweet. However, feel free to change the proportion of sweetened to unsweetened coconut to suit your sweet-tooth.

1½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
1½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut

½ cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
1½ cups packed (12 ounces) brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 large egg

1¼ cups (5¼ ounces) unbleached, all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup (4 to 5 ounces) firm caramel or caramel candies,
cut into ¼-inch pieces or heated slightly until softened

¾ cup (4½ ounces) chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate,
or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13-inch pan with a piece of parchment paper so it overhangs on two sides (if the other two sides are not lined with parchment, that is okay -- the main purpose of the overhanging parchment is so it can be used to help remove the baked cookies for cutting.)

Mix the two types of coconut together, spread on a half-sheet pan and toast in the oven, stirring frequently, until light brown. Cool and reserve ½ cup of the toasted coconut mixture in a separate bowl for topping the baked crust.

Cream together the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and egg in a large bowl, then mix in the flour, salt, baking powder and 2½ cups of the toasted coconut.

Spread the mixture in the prepared pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then distribute the caramel over the crust and return the pan to the oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until the crust is medium-brown and the caramel is melted and bubbling.

Remove the crust from the oven, and sprinkle with the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to soften for about 5 minutes and then spread it evenly over the surface of the caramel-topped crust. Sprinkle the reserved ½ cup toasted coconut over the top of the chocolate and press it gently into the chocolate with a spatula. Set the pan aside to cool completely.

Loosen the edges of the crust with a knife, lift out using the overhanging parchment, and then cut it into bars for serving.

Boyfriends

2006-01-24T17:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, after a long period of silence, I heard from my old friend ADD. I worked with ADD many years ago at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and I would have gone crazy there if not for his friendship. Some upheavals in his personal life have kept ADD out of touch lately, but I don’t care how long it has been, he will always be one of my most cherished friends.

Coincidentally, the quote with the “A Word A Day” yesterday was:

“Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship. “ – Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

Now I think Mr. Wilde was a very talented man, but, in my opinion, he totally missed the boat on this one. Some of my best friends are men and that is nothing new.

Growing up, we always lived in neighborhoods that were oddly deficient in girls my age. Girl playmates had to be imported by car which required parental assistance and planning (which I found quite the dreadful concept when young), so my playmates were mostly boys. My best friend in kindergarten was a boy and I was the only girl at his 5th birthday party, where I won all the games – not only was I taller than all the boys, I was much more coordinated (the way girls tend to be at that age).

Another factor in my relationships with the male of the species was that my father had totally abandoned the idea of having any sons by the time I came along and decided to do all the “father/son” things with me. I had a great collection of Tonka trucks for my sandbox (including a fire truck that hooked up to a garden hose so it could shoot real water), train sets, electric car sets (slotless so you could change lanes) and so on. And these material possessions made me very popular with the neighborhood boys. Time spent with my father tended to consist of woodworking, hiking and going to construction sites to crawl around the inside of half-completed houses to check out the designs (this was when we lived at Sea Ranch, a community filled with architectural wonders).

And it didn’t stop there. As an adult, I like cars, construction (still), sports, electronics and computers… in other words traditional “guy things”. Then I started working in an industry that was 90% men. In my building at the last place I worked there were three other women: our division secretary (who was a good friend and I was matron-of-honor at her wedding); a laboratory technician (an odd little woman who owned, I’m not exaggerating, over a dozen cats and would occasionally bring one or two into work with her); and a near-silent, painfully shy, chemist (try as I might, I could never strike up any conversation with her that was not work-related). Unfortunately, I could not waste time during the day with my friend the secretary since her desk was right outside the boss’s door. That left me to find friends among my fellow chemists and engineers who were nearly all men.

I’m not saying that male/female relationships are not possible with all people. And I find it interesting that most of my male friends have been, for lack of a better word, geeks. Scientists, computer guys, engineers and the like. Why? My guy-friend MDT think it's because those careers draw people with the type of personality who have things in common with me and want me for a friend. In other words, geeks stick together. RWT feels that nerdy guys get so much of the “let’s just be friends” line from girls in high school and college (RWT has an impressive amount of experience with this phenomenon) that they are actually forced into learning to become friends with women and keep that ability throughout their lives. I sometimes wonder if it is just a percentages thing… only a certain percentage of people have friendship potential and when you mainly hang around geeky men, you’ll end up with more geeky male friends.

However, I do not claim for a moment that male/female friendships are just like same-sex friendships. There are things I tell my girlfriends that I would never admit to my guy-friends. And there are topics I talk about with my male friends about that most of my girlfriends really have no interest whatsoever in discussing.

From my side of it, I've never had to battle much against romantic feelings surfacing during my friendships with men. But I do see how it could occur in some cases, especially if no effort was made to avoid it. My father is fond of saying, “we are not animals and have control over our actions and feelings”. Not very romantic, but I find it to be apt. I go into male/female friendships knowing there will not be anything else other than friendship. The reasons why can run from not being attracted to the person in a romantic sense, other relationship commitments (such as marriage), that the friendship is in a professional situation where anything more would be inappropriate, and so on. But the biggest factor for me is that I value these friendships so much that I would hate to do anything to mess that up.

Cookie Collection Recipe 1

2006-01-21T13:42:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's that time of year... cute little imps are running around knocking on doors and selling cookies. If you can't wait for your six boxes of Thin Mints to be delivered, you can satisfy your craving by making these cookies.

CHOCOLATE MINT COOKIES
Makes ~3½ dozen cookies

These cookies taste quite a bit like Girl Scout Thin Mints. The dough can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated or frozen until ready to be sliced and cooked. I like to drizzle these cookies with some lightly green-tinted white chocolate instead of the bittersweet chocolate.

1½ cups bleached, all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ teaspoon peppermint extract
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 large egg

6 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate or confectionary coating, chopped

Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, and salt together in medium bowl to blend and set aside.

In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Mix in the peppermint extract and vanilla, then mix in the sugar in 3 additions. Add the egg and mix until blended, then add the reserved flour mixture and mix just until blended (the dough will be sticky).

Divide the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and, using the plastic wrap as an aid, form each piece of the dough into a 2”-diameter log. Wrap with the plastic and refrigerate the dough until well chilled, at least two hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease or line with parchment paper two half-sheet pans.

Unwrap the dough logs and roll them briefly on the work surface to form smooth round logs. Cut the logs crosswise into ¼“ thick rounds and place the rounds on the prepared pans, spacing the cookies 1“ apart. Bake the cookies until the tops and edges are dry to touch, ~15 minutes. Then cool them completely on the pans.

Stir the chocolate in the top of a double boiler set over simmering water until the chocolate is melted and smooth, or melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe container at 50% power in a microwave. Let the melted chocolate cool until slightly thickened but still pourable, ~10 minutes. Dip a fork into the melted chocolate, then wave the fork back and forth over the cookies, drizzling the melted chocolate thickly over the cookies in a zigzag pattern.

Refrigerate the cookies until the chocolate is set, ~10 minutes (if using confectionary coating or if you tempered the chocolate, you can skip the refrigeration).

[Next Week: Samoas/Caramel de-Lites Knock-Offs]

I’m not Kelly McGillis…

2006-01-20T15:17:00.000-05:00

… and you’re definitely not Tom Cruise.

When I worked for the Navy as a paints & coatings expert, I regularly taught a class on lead-based paint management. Occasionally, it would be a free-standing course, but most of the time, I was a guest speaker as part of a larger course on paints & coatings or environmental topics.

Teaching the painters and maintenance workers was never an issue. Even though most did not have anything higher than a high school education (if that) and were not the most sophisticated of people, they always listened attentively to what I had to say and were there to learn. But teaching the military officers was a whole other matter and the first time I taught the lead-paint class to a group of officers, I was totally caught off guard.

One of the possible effects of lead-poisoning is impotence. Now, I didn’t go into it in detail in my presentation, buy merely included it in a long inventory of potential health risks. And when I rattled off my list (which also included numerous neurological problems, such as brain damage) and got to “impotence”, two Lieutenant Commanders in the back row of the classroom started giggling. Then commenting to those sitting around them. Then laughing. These were not two young officers just out of school – they both had been in the Navy for at least ten years or so.

And I was totally unprepared for their response (the most noticeable reaction when I mentioned “impotence” to the blue collar workers was that they would suddenly get very interested in their course outline), so I ignored Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #1 and Lieutenant Commander Snickerer #2 figuring they’d stop momentarily. Well, they didn’t. I was already on to sources of lead exposure and they were still being disruptive.

At that point, a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel stood up, spun around and told them to shut up, he was there to learn and they were wasting his time. While the unexpected assistance was certainly appreciated, I was determined that I would take care of it on my own if it ever happened again. So I went back to my office that afternoon determined to think up an appropriate plan of action and the next time I taught the course to a room full of military officers, I was ready.

What I had hoped most of all was that the first incident had been a fluke and it would not occur again. But no. Same course, same classroom, a different collection of Navy officers… I said the word “impotence” and a guy in the front row started snickering and poking his buddy. Sheesh.

So I put on my most pitying facial expression and, in a concerned tone, asked him if he was experiencing impotence problems and suggested that perhaps he should have his blood lead levels tested.

That was all I had to say. The class erupted into laughter, Lieutenant Smart-Ass turned bright red and no one gave me any lip for the rest of my lecture. Order was restored.

Segways & Segues

2006-01-20T08:36:00.000-05:00

There has been a big brouhaha regarding Segways discussed on, of all places, my food forum. Last week, someone rode a Segway into a restaurant and asked for his table while still mounted up on it. The hostess who was confronted with this patron towering above her wrote about the incident on my favorite food forum (here). Then, the Washington Post picked up the story (here) and it has only escalated from there.

What most people do not (or in the case many of the forum members, did not) realize is that Segways have become popular with people with mobility impairments. And those folks have come onto the food forum to point that out. Some of these Segway visitors are very nice and polite while others are angry. The angry ones make me think of my mother.

The last five years of her life, my mother had multiple serious medical problems and was in a wheelchair (she used a cane for the ten or so years prior). Additionally, she suffered from fibromyalgia which caused her to have constant pain in her back, across her shoulders and into her neck. To help deal with the pain, she attended a chronic pain support group and some of the new folks visiting the food forum remind of the people from that group.

I find myself wondering if my mom went to that group not for support but to keep her perspective. So many of the group were very, very angry. Angry that they were in constant pain. Angry that the doctors could do little or nothing to alleviate their pain. Angry that other people were not in pain. And I certainly understand why they would feel that way. But my mother (the only person in a wheelchair in the group) did an incredible job of not being angry. Sure, she had her bad days, but I think that witnessing the futility of the anger of the other people in her support group kept her from falling into that way of thinking.

Unfortunately, I never really had the chance to talk to my mother about this specifically. She was raised to “not to be a bother” and even discussing "bad" emotions such as anger was a definite no-no. My mother did an admirable job of not inflicting the way she was raised upon me – I have no trouble expressing my displeasure or being a bother (just ask RWT). However, my mother and I were still very much alike. Outwardly, our reactions to things were quite different, but on the inside, we usually saw things the exact same way.

About six months before she died, I took care of my mother for two weeks while my father took a much needed respite from being her primary care giver and went to visit his sister. The first night at my parent’s house, I spent most of the night worrying about how I would get my mother out of the second story bedroom of their house if there was a fire. She had an electric lift to get up and down the stairs, but I felt that it could not be counted on in an emergency. After much tossing and turning, the best I could come up with was lowering her out of a window using a bedsheet, but my mother outweighed me by more than twice as much, so barring adrenalin-induced feats of super-strength, my plan pretty much sucked.

The next morning, my mom took one look at the dark circles under my eyes and wanted to know what I had stayed awake worrying about all night. Well, it turns out she had already considered all the possible contingencies in case of a fire (including my half-assed sheet plan) and had determined her best course of action was to scoot down the stairs on her rear pulling herself along the track of her lift with her arms (my mom was always very strong and after she had one leg amputated, she had more upper body strength than ten grinches plus two). Not only did we think alike, we worried, obsessed and planned alike too.

Our similar way of seeing things enabled me to be a great caregiver for her. I always knew when to joke her into doing something and when to be the meanie. That time alone with her, caring for her, turned out to be a very special couple of weeks that I will cherish forever. It was the last chunk of time I spent with her outside of a hospital. After nearly six years of battling illness, she died on Valentine’s Day.

Yes, her dying on Valentine’s Day totally sucks. At first, when someone would come up to me in all the hype leading up to Valentine’s day, smile and ask what special thing I would be doing to celebrate that year, it would feel like they were laughing and joking at my pain. It made me angry, just like some of those mobility-impaired Segway users and like the people in my mother’s chronic pain support group. It took a lot of effort not to bluntly inform my good natured, but ignorant, friends and acquaintances that my mom had died on Valentine’s Day – just to wipe the grin off their faces.

Although my mother always wanted me to express what I was feeling, I am glad I witnessed her example that getting angry is not always the best course of action. Anger might be the only means of coping at times or a way to feel better for that moment. But for me, it is just ends up being a bunch of negative energy that does little to help an already difficult situation. Luckily, most of my anger over her death has dissipated over the last ten years and I can now sincerely smile and tell people that we’re not doing anything special for Valentine’s Day.

So on Valentine’s Day you won’t find me going to a romantic restaurant or riding on a Segway or being angry. We’ll probably just stay in again and have a quiet night. And I’ll be thinking of my mom.

I'm back...

2006-01-18T15:25:00.000-05:00

Hello.

I’m back.

Yes, it has been a while.

I’m doing well, how about you?

Actually, I am doing well now... November was a busy month with getting ready for our biennial Holiday Open House cookie-fest on the 11th of December. For some crazy reason, I decided to make a gingerbread replica of our house to use as a centerpiece for the party. Wait, go back, initially, for a brief moment of total insanity, I considered doing National Cathedral in gingerbread. Yikes! Just doing our square-box of a colonial (without the additions) was just about the death of me. I ended up spending hours and hours on it and that was only about half the amount of time I would have liked to have spent. But it came out pretty well. Here it is:

The week I baked the walls and roof was unseasonably humid and I did not take as much care as I should have in keep the pieces flat, so when it came time for assembly, there were some gaps. Also, I decided to pipe the dividers in the windows after I had made the molten sugar “glass” to pour over them. Let’s just say that piping straight lines under a time constraint is not one of my strengths. However, I was thrilled with how the tree came out – it was a lot of tedious work that I was afraid would be for naught.

If you noticed all the cookies surrounding the gingerbread house, those were for our Holiday Open House. Every other year (RWT refuses to allow me to do it every year, what a party-pooper), we invite all of our friends, neighbors and work colleagues over to stuff themselves silly with cookies. I still have to tally up the final count, but this year I made around thirty different kinds of cookies. [I am planning on posting one of cookie recipes here every week for your baking and eating pleasure, so stayed tuned.]

Unfortunately, in the midst of my baking frenzy, I really neglected my diet (yes, I had cookies for breakfast and sometimes lunch for nearly two weeks) and my food allergies got really out of hand. In fact, I spent one whole week thinking there was a distinct chance of my keeling over dead at any moment. But a consult to a specialist showed that simply was not true and I am no longer going to the military clinic doctor who put that idea into my head in the first place.

So with a renewed perspective on life (pondering imminent death for week will do that) and a better diet, I am writing here again. And it's good to be back.

The Dead Body Under the Sink

2005-10-25T17:37:00.000-04:00

I saw an ad today for a “No-See/No-Touch” mousetrap. It basically looks like a giant roach hotel and is designed so you can catch mice, but not have to look at dead mouse bodies. And this concept bothers me.

In our current house, we have gotten rid of at least two dozen mice (with the high point being three mice in one day, December '03) using plain, old-fashioned “snap” traps. Is it unpleasant to dispose of the dead mice? You bet. In fact, I usually make RWT do it because it gives me nightmares. And I don’t even want to get into what happens when a mouse is caught in the trap, but not killed. However, I have no desire to use one of those new “No-See/No-Touch” mousetraps.

I feel that if you are going to kill an animal (for any reason), you should feel bad about it. For me, it is better to look at that dead mouse, feel remorse that it could not continue with its simple short life, and tell it that I am sorry it had to die to make my existence better. With one of those new traps, I could choose to consciously ignore that my actions have killed a living creature. But I shudder to think what my unconscious mind could do with that knowledge...

It would be wonderful to be able to use humane traps and be able to relocate the mice. But to where? If they are dumped immediately outside of the house, they will quickly come back inside. Taking them for a ride to another location is not a good option either, because they’ll then become someone else’s problem. Humane traps are nice in theory, but their practicality is limited in an urban environment.

Ideally, the mice would just stay quietly in the basement walls and not be so destructive (and reproductive). Then we could all live together in harmony. Unfortunately, that is just not going to happen. So we will continue to put a baited snap-trap under the kitchen sink, continue to kill the mice that come to scrounge for goodies in the kitchen trash can and continue to feel bad about it.

I’m sorry little mousie.

Z vs. K

2005-10-18T12:28:00.000-04:00

When my über-foodie sister was visiting last fall, we went to a high-end restaurant that had just opened in the D.C. area. Running the kitchen is a New Young Chef who formerly worked for a Very Famous Chef at a Very Famous Restaurant in California (of which, my sister is a Very Big Fan). The meal was wonderful, but as can be expected with a newly opened establishment, the execution of some of the food still needed a bit of work (specifically, the distribution of salt – too much in some things, not enough in elsewhere). As to the taste of the dishes… even with the glitches, they were still fantastic with the big, yet elegant, pure flavors that made the Very Famous Chef very famous.

Since I had not been back in over a year and RWT went to Hawaii last week without me (what a bum), I decided it was a good time to go back to the year-old New Young Chef’s restaurant with some of my food-group friends. My overall impression... while the cooking during my previous visit was more uneven, I liked the food better last time. Not that my more recent dinner was anything other than great (and everything was cooked perfectly), but it was just not quite as breathtaking.

Why? On my first visit, (according to my know-it-all sister) the New Young Chef was mainly cooking variations on dishes he cooked under the tutelage the Very Famous Chef at the Very Famous Restaurant. I suspect that now the New Young Chef is coming up with his own recipes and they are just not the same caliber as those of the Very Famous Chef. Or, are they just different?

Perhaps the real question is if it is fair to expect the New Young Chef to forever cook food in the style of the Very Famous Chef. The New Young Chef could certainly continue to cook things à la the Very Famous Chef and have a very successful restaurant. But I would think the he’d want to develop his own repertoire and eventually step out of the shadow of the Very Famous Chef. Hmmm, I cannot help but wonder if the New Young Chef lays awake at night fretting over this exact thing.

But regardless if the New Young Chef's stays with the tried-and-true or progresses on to something else, I won’t be going back for another taste of his food for another year or so at the earliest because of the cost (after all, we are just poor military folk). And, even then, maybe I’ll save my pennies and instead go to the Very Famous Chef’s Very Famous Restaurant the next time I’m in California since that style of food is that I'll really be craving.

Stop Malling Me

2005-10-04T18:13:00.000-04:00

On my favorite food forum (of all places) there has been an ongoing discussion about the new expansion of one of the large shopping malls in the area. Specifically, Tysons Corner Center (the middle-of-the-road mall, not Tysons Galleria, the pricey one). They’ve added some new stores, restaurants and a movie theater. The reason it has been a topic of interest with the foodies is that it was rumored that some of the restaurants would be of the more up-scale variety.

But (and, apparently, quite shockingly to some), the restaurants are a disappointment. With “The Cheesecake Factory” being the most popular place at the high-end Tysons mall across the street, the lack of fine dining at the more pedestrian mall did not really surprise me much. But what I did find notable was how some of the folks on the forum think that the malls at Tysons Corner are known across the country. Ha!

With the exception of people such as my uncle Joe, who worked for a mall management company, and a shop-o-holic, frequent-flyer who I worked with back in California, I know no one who knows about any malls outside of a one hundred-mile radius of their home. Sure a lot of people know the best place to go for a day of clothes shopping or where the nearest Williams-Sonoma is located, but outside of a reasonable driving distance?

And why should anyone? A mall is a mall is a mall. They are all pretty much the same thing. Sure, there are super-large malls like the Mall of America (the only mall I’ve never been that I can name, but since it is considered the “biggest”, it does get a lot of press), or the outdoor malls (I’ve been a couple of times to one in Corte Madera, CA, but I cannot tell you anything about it other than there is a J. Crew located there where RWT’s little sister worked one summer and it is really, really hard to find parking there during the holiday season), or the malls with really cool and artistic fountains (such as Newport Fashion Island), or the malls that smell of mildew (which can be found in Guam, Houston and Austin). But whether they are indoor malls, expensive malls, mediocre malls, decidedly down-scale malls, small malls, hard-to-get-to malls or whatever malls… go to enough of them and they all pretty much blur together.

To me a mall is somewhere you go when you are on a mission to purchase something. A mall is not a destination in itself. The only exception to this is when visiting a friend in a faraway city and there is nothing better to do. But such trips are not the result of a specific mall – any mall will do. We go to look and comment on the merchandise (and the other shoppers). We go to try on clothes that we’d never think of buying when shopping by ourselves and then get the giggles at how we look in them. And we eat at the mall restaurants only because if we don’t consume some calories ASAP, we will pass out (or get incredibly grumpy and then no one has any fun).

Now don’t get me wrong. I love to shop and going to a mall is a great way to squeeze maximum shopping into a minimum amount of time and effort. But the reasons I go to the Tysons Corner malls are simply that they have a good number of stores where I like to shop and are reasonably close to where I live. Any other mall amenities… décor, layout, dining options, movie theaters, skating rink, carousels and so on… they are just things to walk past when getting from one store to the next.

So, other than having a few more stores to peruse on my next shopping quest, for me, the best thing about the new addition to the Tysons mall is the possibility that, for at least a little while, everyone will park in the new parking garage near the expansion and I’ll be able to easily park at the other end near the Bloomingdales!

Contingency Planning

2005-09-20T16:23:00.000-04:00

My food group is having a picnic in a couple of weeks and I have been tasked with helping to coordinate the food. Basically, I need to keep track of who is bringing what, determine which categories of food are lacking representation and then assign people to bring things in the aforementioned categories. Sound like fun? To me – YES!

I adore planning things. And to a rather fanatical extent. Of late, I typically only get to exercise these skills when entertaining guests. For example, dinner parties. The more complex the better. Determining the menu, décor, seating and writing out a timetable (in 10-minute increments) are almost as much fun as the cooking itself. I’ve even been known to create Gantt charts to help with the scheduling. To choreograph the cooking and serving so it all runs smoothly and flawlessly is a thing of true beauty and about as close to true artistry as I can manage.

I must have inherited this trait from my mother (certainly not from my father – he expected God to provide, which did work out since God provided him with my mother). When I showed horses, way back when in a former life, my mother would always pack my tack trunk with all sorts of stuff. And it was all inventoried on a checklist to ensure that nothing was left behind at the barn.

If a strap broke, we had a heavy-duty leather sewing kit (it belonged to her father, a shoemaker), extra leather straps and a leather punch. Nail polish remover to take care of spilled spots of hoof polish? Check. Extra boots, hats, gloves (which have a penchant for falling irretrievably into porta-potties), bits, cinches and reins. Yarn for braiding people’s and horses’ hair? Sure, which color would you prefer – brown, black, navy or beige? Sunscreen, bug repellant, hair spray (which, in a pinch, can also remove hoof polish), and pepto bismal. Indelible black marker and duct tape? Check, check. If it was not in the trunk, the horse trailer or the truck, it was something that was simply not needed, under any circumstance, at a horse show. My mother could put any boy scout to shame.

And she taught me well. By fourteen years old, I was planning our county 4-H horse shows. Typically, around 75 total entrants and each one showed, on average, in 5 to 10 of the 20 to 30 classes offered. I did all the accounting (various flat fees, plus a fee per class), number assignment (one number per horse/rider combo), judges sheets (entrants, by number only, for each class and spaces for final ranking), announcer’s sheets (name of rider, name of horse, and their number for each class), and official result sheets (signed by the judges). Plus, press releases, mailing of entry forms, ordering trophies and ribbons and contracting with the judge(s). The one thing I did not do was check-in the morning of the show because I was busy getting my own horse ready for showing (which I did by myself since my mother did the check-in of entrants).

Getting a scientific degree and working as a chemist only encouraged my list-making, chart-making and data-recording tendencies. On our corrosion surveys of Pacific Navy bases, I was always the one taking notes on a clipboard (this was back in the stone-age before PDAs). My organizational skills have also come in handy as a military wife when I've been put in charge (because no one else wanted to do it) of disbursement, by means of scholarships and grants, of charitable money raised by the spouses' group.

I’ve often thought about getting into the event coordinating business, but not sure if I have the patience for the histrionics that are so commonly associated with “special” events. Perhaps, planning for “real” events would better – FEMA is obviously in need of some competent people and the Department of Homeland Security is always hiring. But for moment, I’ll be content with the little stuff, like picnics. And it is never too early to start planning for our biennial Holiday Open House Cookie-fest…

Yes, I am alive...

2005-09-15T10:08:00.000-04:00

My nephew and father were in town for a visit last week and I was busy, busy, busy showing them around and stuffing them with their favorite foods. Sated with sightseeing and a bit heavier (my father gained 4 pounds during the week), they boarded a plane on Monday and flew back to California. Life around here is returning to normal and I should be back to blogging soon.

Guacamole!

2005-08-31T17:02:00.000-04:00

On my favorite food forum there is currently a thread on the best place to obtain guacamole. The short answer... California.

RWT's mom and stepdad are farmers in central California and have about 135 Hass avocado trees on their 40-acre farm (most of the remainder is planted with citrus and blueberries). From them, I've learned that nothing his better than a "fresh" avocado. By fresh, I mean one that has never, ever been refrigerated. Non-refrigerated avocados are richer, nuttier and buttery-er than those from a grocery store. But take one and refrigerate it, even for a short period, such as overnight, and it will taste like any other store-bought avocado. Certainly still good, but something detrimental happens to avocados when they are chilled.

However, even with "regular" avocados, I've found that you can make better guacamole at home than in most any restaurant. Below is my favorite recipe, but feel free to tweak it to your tastes. It does contain cilantro, so if you absolutely hate it, leave it out. Also some folks like to add a bit of chopped tomato to their guacamole. Personally, I think it just dilutes the flavor of the avocado.

If you are not serving the guacamole immediately, press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the top of the guacamole (it is contact with the oxygen in the air that causes it to darken) and refrigerate.

GUACAMOLE
Makes 2½ to 3 cups

3 medium-sized, ripe California Hass or similar rough-skinned avocados (do not, I repeat, do not use the big smooth-skinned variety from Florida, see here for more information)

~2 tablespoons juice from 1 lime

2 tablespoons minced onion

1 medium garlic clove, minced (IHMO, this is what makes good guacamole into great guacamole!)

¼ cup minced fresh cilantro leaves

1 pinch cayenne (I prefer cayenne to fresh jalapenos, both for ease and because I think jalapenos can add a bit too much of a vegetal flavor)

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cumin

Halve, pit and peel the avocados, drizzle with ~1 tablespoon of the lime juice and mash to the desired consistency. Add the onion, garlic, cilantro, cayenne, salt and cumin. Mix and add additional lime juice and salt to taste.

And for those who prefer graphic instructions...

Ingredients (I've used four avocados here because two were pretty small and one was over-ripe and I knew I'd not be able to use all of that one.)

Slice the avocados in half lengthwise.

Twist the halves in opposite directions to loosen one side from the pit.

Ta-dum!

(Caution: This may be the quickest, but is not the safest method of removing the pit. Proceed at your own risk or be safe and use a spoon to pop out the pit.) Gently, but firmly, whack the sharp side of your knife into the pit...

and twist to loosen the pit from the other side of the avocado.

Remove the pit and discard. (But I am certainly not advising you use such a dangerous method of pit extraction!)

Slice the halves in half so you have avocado quarters (this helps in peeling them).

Pull the peel back from the flesh. If the peel does not come off easily, you can also use a spoon to scoop out the flesh.

Don't be alarmed!!! Here is that avocado that I knew was a bit over-ripe (I could tell because it was too soft -- downright squishy, see here for more information on selecting and ripening avocados). The piece in the foreground shows a darkened over-ripe area and how it can also become a bit fibrous (and long fibers in the guacamole are not very appetizing). The piece in the background shows dark spots that are from bruising. But don't worry, all is not lost...

Simply cut off the dark areas and the rest of the avocado can be used.

Squeeze some of the lime juice over the avocado before mashing (the acidity will help to prevent the avocado from darkening).

I like to use a fork to mash the avocado. If it is too firm to mash with a fork, the avocado was not ripe enough (in a pinch, you can use a knife or food processor to chop an under-ripe avocado, but under-ripe avocados are also usually lacking in flavor and will be merely filler in your finished guacamole).

Don't worry about mashing completely, the avocado will develop a creamier consistency when the rest of the ingredients are mixed in.

And speaking of the rest of the ingredients... stir them in now.

Taste, taste, taste! You will probably need to add more lime juice and possibly salt. The richer the avocados, the more lime juice you’ll need. I like to taste it with one of the chips that I'll be serving it with, especially when trying to determine if it needs more salt since some brands of chips are much saltier than others.

And the finished guacamole. Dig in!

Pssst! So you want to buy something cheap?

2005-08-23T14:13:00.000-04:00

I think I may have been a personal shopper in a former life. Friends and family seem strangely compelled to contact me when they are trying to find something. And I am certainly not complaining. I love the thrill of the hunt.

An oval glass coffee table with a brass/bronze Art Deco base? Sure. Chinese black vinegar? No problem. A driver for a no-name second-hand video card? Done. An artificial Christmas tree in August? No need to wait for Santa.

I’ve found that, with the internet, almost anything can be obtained these days. But you really don’t need me, you can do it too. Here are some of my tricks:

Google – My search engine of choice and the starting point in any internet quest. It also does well with numbers (see here for more information). For example, if you enter an area code, it will give the region covered. Searching a part number (printed in a microscopic font) lead to the identification of that second-hand video card which, in turn, lead to a source for the driver. And remember to use quotes around the search term if looking to exactly match a phrase.

Also at Google, is Froogle, their new shopping search site. It works pretty well for the more commonplace items (such as coffee tables), but falters when faced with the more odd-ball and specialty goods (such as paillete feuilletine).

A bit off-topic, but if you have a newer computer with plenty of RAM, disk space, CPU speed and a quality video card, be sure to check out Google Earth, their new mapping program that utilizes satellite images. A very cool way to find where you are going (or just to look at a satellite picture of your house).

craigslist – Want ads for the cool & hip. This site was started by a guy named Craig in the San Francisco area in 1995, but it now covers cities all across the country. It is a good place to look for cheap, used furniture and other miscellaneous items. Plus reading the personal ads can be quite entertaining. (Just an FYI – the term “420” is defined by Wikipedia as “a euphemism for cannabis and its associated culture” and goes to show you can learn something new everyday.)

Freecycle – Like craigslist, it is structured by region and city, but everything is free. And no item is too small or seemingly worthless to be listed. But there are some really good finds on Freecycle – we obtained a trundle bed frame to use as a base for a daybed RWT plans to build (once he is ready to again face his nemesis, the table saw).

Not only is Freecycle a good source for free stuff, but an excellent method of getting rid of your own junk. A friend put in an ad giving away the ivy that had taken over her yard and people came, happily dug it all up and toted it away.

[A side note – Around the Los Angeles area, anything that is placed out in the alley is scavenged, usually within an hour. Our Belmont Shore next-door neighbor put an executive-sized desk out and within 15 minutes a couple of guys were strapping it to the roof of a car that was shorter than the desk itself. I always threatened RWT that I was going to park his evil little Spitfire next to the garbage cans so someone would haul it away too. Good thing for him and his beloved Triumph that Freecycle did not yet exist!]

Amazon – Even if I don’t buy the item from Amazon itself, the reviews can be very helpful, especially when buying electronics or appliances.

Amazon is also a great source for used books. I just scored a pristine copy of Bruce Healey’s out-of-print and much-coveted Mastering the Art of French Pastry for $100 less than it usually costs. How? I saved the book to my “Wish List” and regularly checked on the “Used & New” price. I had to wait about six months for the well-priced copy I bought to turn up, but it was worth it.

And if you purchase something from one of Amazon’s third-party sellers using “Amazon Payments”, Amazon handles the transaction and the third-party seller does not have access to your credit card information. Plus, Amazon guarantees the item under their regular policy. It is a good way to purchase from a small-time seller with less risk.

eBay – Don’t forget this giant e-flea-market. Just be careful you are not being overcharged on the shipping fees and the final price is competitive (it is easy to get carried away with bidding). Also, be sure to check the seller's feedback before bidding. Yes, eBay is a bit riskier way of purchasing stuff, but for finding discontinued crystal, china and flatware, it cannot be beat.

Well, that is it for now. I feel I’ve done my part in stimulating the economy for today. Happy hunting!

The Bad Karma Bed

2005-08-19T09:18:00.000-04:00

When we first moved to this area a couple of years ago, RWT’s sister lived with us for about nine months until she found a good job, an apartment and some roommates. She arrived with only the possessions that could fit in her vintage BMW (which she totaled within two months of her arrival) and immediately started looking for a bed.

She quickly found a queen-size mattress set with frame for a good price on craigslist and made arrangements to purchase it. RWT took her in our “big” car to pick up the bed from a fifth floor apartment in a building with no freight elevator. They lugged the box-spring down the stairs and loaded it on the car and had just made it down to the parking lot with the mattress when they saw the Bed Owner gesturing frantically to someone standing next to our car.

It turns out that the Bed Owner had already promised the mattress set to someone else (and taken their payment check!) but then thought they were not going to ever pick it up. Actually, the First Buyer had been busy arranging to rent a U-Haul to move the bed and, in fact, the U-Haul was sitting right next to our car. The reason for this whole misunderstanding – the First Buyer was deaf and communication had been limited to only a few brief emails. By writing in the dust of a dirty parked car, the First Buyer conveyed that he still wanted the bed, had paid in full, gone to the expense of renting a U-Haul and was very, very displeased (I think he also made that part clear with a few universally-understood hand gestures). But the Bed Owner would not relent and insisted the deal was off.

RWT asked his sister what she wanted to do and she said she really wanted that bed. Although RWT did not agree with her, he felt that she was an adult now and needed to make her own decisions. So they sheepishly packed the mattress and frame into the car and left the Bed Owner and the First Buyer arguing next to the U-Haul.

They arrived back here with the bed and decided the best way to get it into my sister-in-law’s room in the finished basement was through the side door that opens directly into the basement. Unfortunately, the box-spring could not make the turn at the bottom of the stairs to fit though the door. Nor was the stairwell wide enough for the box-spring to be lowered down to the doorway from above. So they took the box-spring around through the front door to the inside staircase to the basement. And… after much scraping of paint from various walls and the ceiling... it would not fit through there either. There was no way, short of cutting it into pieces, that queen-size box-spring was ever going to get into our basement.

RWT’s sister immediately contacted the Bed Owner for the name and address of the First Buyer to check to see if he was still interested in the bed (which RWT would have been more than glad to deliver and even haul up twenty or more flights of stairs), but the Bed Owner would not give out the information. So it was back to craigslist to sell the queen-size bed (which was temporarily residing in our dining room) and look for a full-size bed. (My sis-in-law briefly considered attempting to sell the queen-size bed for more than she paid, but I assured her that she would most certainly go to hell if she did.)

Within a day, RWT’s sister had procured a full-size bed (which did fit through the inside staircase) and found a buyer for the queen-size bed. But when the sweet young man (also a California native) came to pick up the queen-size bed, I felt really sorry for him. I considered warning him, but decided it was not my place (and he'd probably think I was stark raving mad). However, I fear he is doomed to sleep alone as long as he owns that bed. It is the bad karma bed.

Frequency

2005-08-18T13:03:00.000-04:00

Well, as you’ve probably all noticed, I am just not able to post to my blog every day. Obviously, a total delusion on my part to really ever consider keeping it up for any length of time.

As much as I enjoy writing blog entries, I was doing so at the expense of other things in my life… reading, sleeping, cooking, watching old sci-fi on DVD and, most importantly, spending time with RWT.

Also, RWT’s accident unleashed a bunch of dark stuff within my head. I seriously considered writing about those thoughts here, but for the time being, I’ve decided to abstain. The downside is that those moods make it pretty much impossible for me to write anything other than morose, depressing drivel. And, while things are definitely looking brighter, I still have my moments.

So to try to keep some balance in my life and not drag everyone down, I am aiming for posting something here once a week. Maybe more, maybe less (hopefully not too frequently).

[And I’ll have the time to once again pursue my latest knowledge quest:: learning to identify Eastern U.S. trees, both native and ornamental/yard trees. What is growing in your front or back yard?]

Must Be a Southern California Thing…

2005-08-10T17:06:00.000-04:00

On Monday, Clarence Page from the nearby PBS station, WETA, was using our street as a backdrop (keep your eyes peeled for the front corner of our house on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer during one of Mr. Page’s segments airing sometime within the next three weeks, also be sure to note our garden hose strewn sloppily across the lawn and the neighbor's semi-dilapidated Alfa Romeo semi-permanently parked in front of our house). Now a real television camera, crew and on-air personality in our neighborhood are certainly exciting enough on their own, but it didn’t end there… as they were filming, a red sports car blew down the street at 50+ mph! And, in hot pursuit, was a black pick-up truck moving at a similarly high rate of speed.

Unfortunately, I was in the kitchen chopping veggies for dinner (Thai pepper chicken with carrots, spicy garlic eggplant and rice, if you must know) and missed it. But our neighbor Max, a one-man neighborhood watch, witnessed it all and was more than happy to give a play-by-play account when I ventured outside to throw the vegetable peelings and chicken trimmings into the trash. It turns out the red car was car-jacked and following in the black pick-up was an off-duty policeman. Instead of heading toward the nearby Beltway as expected, the car-jacker drove through residential neighborhoods (with speeds approaching upwards of 80 mph according to the off-duty cop) in an attempt to get to 395 and into D.C..

The guy did make it to 395, but crashed on the 14th Street bridge and that was the end of the chase. The police later returned to our street to get a copy of the tape from the television crew for use in any future legal proceedings (like being found in a car, not of his belonging, crashed into the side of a bridge is insufficient evidence to convict the guy?!?). After getting the scoop from the neighbor, I went inside, turned off the Tivo’ed Iron Chef I was listening to while wielding my knife against the carrots and switched the channel to the local news to hear about the car chase. Nothing. Tried another channel. Nothing again. What is wrong with these people? There was a high-speed chase! Where is the footage?!? Then I remembered… I’m not in southern California anymore.

In southern California, car chases are a favored form of entertainment. This includes high-speed chases, OJ Simpson-like slow-speed chases, and, the most common, low-to-medium-with-bursts-of-high-when-between-clots-of-traffic-speed chases. Maybe because the news people there don’t have snow storms to cover, they rush to even the most serene and short-lived of chases (and ignore the pleadings of the mayor and law enforcement officials that television coverage only leads to more car chases, which is probably true since the car-jackers waving out the car windows to the viewing audience at home is a common sight). And people do watch. RWT and I watch. And we’re not the type of folk who watch “Cops” or shows like that normally. But there’s something about a car chase…

An episode of the short-lived sitcom, It’s Like, You Know …, covered this phenomenon to a tee. In that episode, the characters, who all live in Los Angeles, drop everything to watch a live car chase on television. One guy pulls out a notebook containing statistics from previous chases and the group starts debating the best route for the car-jacker to take to avoid traffic. Then they take bets on the duration of the chase and yell advice at the television. RWT and I were practically rolling on the floor while watching that episode because it is so true.

There is just something compelling about watching a live car chase on television. Initially, it is the curiosity of where it is occurring – I once watched a chase (involving a bus!) that went by the exit to my friend ADD’s house at least a half a dozen times. Then, it is figuring out the overall strategy of the chase – it’s surprising how often the pursued car will make great big circles around the Los Angeles area. But other times they are totally random in their route (lost?) and only very rarely do they attempt to run in a straight line up or down the coast (which almost invariably ends in either mechanical breakdown of the vehicle or simply running out of gas). And what will the police do? Will they use the spike strips? Or will the speeds drop enough for the PIT maneuver? Next comes my favorite part, just how much abuse will the car take before it stops – one guy drove a Ranger Rover over four spike strips (which only blew out the left front tire), then on the flat tire, then on the rim (which got smaller and smaller with each passing mile), then on the end of the axle and finally drove for a few miles scraping the undercarriage of the car on the road surface before grinding to a halt (what a great advertisement for Range Rover!). But once the car stops, I turn it off. I have no desire to witness the actual arrest (possibly due to seeing too much Rodney King incident footage).

I’ve been pondering why car chases are not seen (and I mean this literally, I’m sure just as many occur) as much on the East coast. Perhaps all the trees block good helicopter views or there are not enough long stretches of freeway. Or do we have too much restricted air-space around here for all the newscopters?

But just like putting “The” in front of freeway numbers (“The 101”, “The 405”, and so on), In-N-Out Burgers and ever-present smog, very few things say “southern California” to me like a televised car chase.

Sleeping with a Piano

2005-08-04T08:34:00.000-04:00

My adored nephew is coming to visit in a month and, in preparation for his visit, I am getting the piano tuned. Why? My nephew is a pianist. At one point, he’d planned on becoming a concert pianist, but has since decided that what he really wants is fame and fortune and there are much better ways to go about obtaining those. However, he is still quite passionate about his music and is looking forward to having the time and opportunity to play the piano while on vacation.

Unfortunately, my nephew normally does not get to play as much as he likes because his beloved baby grand did not move away from home with him and is still located at my sister’s house. The piano currently resides in their newly-built music room where it sits innocently, but before that…

First off, a couple of facts about the daily routine at my sister’s house… My sister does not run her A/C at night, but uses a whole-house fan for a couple of hours right before bedtime. The fan is located in the ceiling in hallway between all the bedrooms and with surprising force, sucks air up and out of the house (I suspect it could also suck their cat up and out of the house if she ventures too near while it is running) and draws the cooler night air in through the opened windows. Also, my sister does laundry every night until midnight or so.

But back to the piano. RWT and I were visiting one summer soon after my nephew received his piano. Since this was before the construction of the music room, the piano dominated my nephew’s bedroom. Pretty much all that fit in the room was the piano and the bed and that was the room where we would be sleeping. We’d tried my niece's bunk beds on our previous visit and just could not overcome the discomfort of the wooden slats lurking under the thin mattresses (not to mention the claustrophobia), so we opted for my nephew’s room with the piano looming over the bed.

Around 10:00 p.m., when RWT could not longer even feign semi-consciousness, we said we were heading to bed. My sister then turned on the whole-house fan and started to open windows to let in the cool air. As RWT was wrestling with the blind in my nephew’s room so he could get to the window to open it, my nephew came in a said “Oh, you can’t open the windows in here, the colder air will make my piano get out of tune.” Okay. We’ll just leave the door open and pray for a bit of air circulation.

At 10:15 p.m., we were in bed, the lights out (but still plenty of illumination from the hallway shining through the half-open door) and the whole-house fan sounding like a jet landing on top of us. BZZZZZZ. Time to change loads of laundry in the laundry room right across the hall. RWT then got up and shut (actually, "shut" is a bit too mild of a word) the door. Quieter. Darker. Hotter.

I finally fell asleep only to have vivid dreams that I was clinging for dear life to the edge of a mountain in a rain forest. It was then that I noticed the slant to the bed. When we first went to bed, I thought that RWT’s side seemed lower than mine, but figured he was just sinking into the mattress more since he weighs more. But no. There is a definite sideways tilt to the bed and I was on the uphill side. Every time I relaxed the muscles in my body, I would roll down into RWT. Not necessarily a problem (we can even sleep in a twin bed together, if necessary), but in the stuffy hotness preferred by the piano, it was torture. Warm, sleepy, sleepy, roll, hot, hot, sweaty! Eventually it occurred to me to wake up RWT and have him lay on the uphill side where his greater mass worked to even out the bed or, at least, kept him from rolling down it. Ah, sleep.

It was a great visit as always and the lack of sleep did not stop us from having a good time (and we took our airbed and slept in the family room the next time for an even better time). But, while I love my nephew and I love his piano playing, I still have a few issues with his piano. And I absolutely refuse to sleep with it again.

Truly Awesome

2005-07-26T14:29:00.000-04:00

[Between houseguests and the release of the latest Harry Potter book (which, in turn, triggered the rereading of the two previous Harry Potter books), real life and fantasy-book-life overtook blog-life. My apologies to those who’ve missed me!]

If you were to ask me what I though was the most incredible experience of my life, without pause, I would say that it was watching a space shuttle launch from less than two miles away.

When I worked for the Navy as a Paints & Coatings expert, I regularly traveled to Cape Canaveral AFB to observe some paint samples we had located there in racks near the ocean as part of a decades-long exposure experiment. The last time I went to rate the paint samples coincided with a shuttle launch and our Air Force hosts at Canaveral arranged a great viewing location for us to watch the event.

There is a little spit of land just across the water (on the Canaveral side) from the shuttle launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. Some hush-hush group is housed in a large glass-faced modern office building on that bit of land and access is only granted to those with special security clearance. Much to our surprise, our hosts kindly went out of their way to get our group the needed clearance (which explained why they suddenly needed so much background information on us four weeks prior to our trip) so we could observe the shuttle from that ideal location.

The morning of the launch, we had no problems getting through the security checkpoints in our host’s official government vehicle and we proceeded to the far side of the parking lot, the farthest from the imposing “secret” building and the closest to the water. One of my colleagues removed his camera from his bag to get some pictures of the shuttle in the launch structure, when a security guard appeared (seemingly) out of the nearby bushes. After a heated discussion regarding the use of a camera so close to a classified structure (which looked like every other glass-covered office building in the world – rectangular and shiny), it was agreed to that my co-worker would only take pictures facing away from the building (and the guard watched him the whole time we were there to guarantee that fact).

So after the nearly being carted off due to the camera issue, we settled in to wait for the launch. It was a bit odd because we could only hear the birds, the bugs and the lapping of the water against the shore, not any of the announcements that you hear when watching the launch on television. We had to keep an eye on our watches and the shuttle to know when the excitement was to begin. About 10 minutes before the scheduled launch time, I turned around and there were about 50 people standing behind us (which I assume were denizens of the office building, they were certainly sneaky).

Suddenly, someone said “there it goes” and everyone looked to the launch pad. Before I could hear the roar of the engines, I saw the bright orange flames and white smoke from around the base of the shuttle. Then the noise hit. “Loud” is not the right word… the sound was totally encompassing. I could actually feel the sound waves travel through my body as the shuttle gained altitude. That sensation somehow really made me feel I was part of the launch itself. And then, far too soon, the shuttle (and the noise) were gone. It was nothing more than a bright dot up in the sky.

Until that day, people leaving earth and going into space had always been a bit unreal to me. Intellectually, I knew that it happened, but it still always just seemed like another piece of Hollywood (actually Marin County) special effects. But personally witnessing the shuttle launch changed all of that, I could not help but know I was watching (and feeling) something incredible. Truly awesome.

The Birds!

2005-07-15T17:00:00.000-04:00

Way back when, when I was a chemist in the QA lab at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, I worked with lady named Hattie. Hattie was one of the two administrative assistants (but she was of an era that she preferred the term "secretary") in an office staffed with crazy chemists and a couple of slightly-less-insane metallurgists. But everyone there knew that all of our degrees and schooling did not change the fact that Hattie was the ranking person in the lab. She eclipsed us all in both age and number of years working at the shipyard, but her attitude was the real reason for her supremacy.

At that point in time, I often wondered why Hattie had not long since retired. She was a widow and, while not wealthy, was certainly financially secure. But I now realize that she really had a good deal going. Her only official responsibilities were to check in samples brought into the lab for testing and to answer the phone. The rest of her day was split between watching our antics (I’ll save those stories for another day), keeping Sally (the other administrative assistant who always wore pastel-colored, velour sweat suits that were the antithesis of her personality) in line and reading the Bible. With her civil service seniority, Hattie was probably getting paid more than I was as a chemist.

Every morning the sailors from the ships being repaired at the shipyard and those based at the adjacent Naval station, would bring in samples of fuel to be tested in the lab. For decades, Hattie checked in the samples using pen and paper, but “recently” the lab had switched to an all-computerized system (this change occured at least five years prior to my working there, but civil service years are the opposite of dog years with seven solar years being equal to one civil service year) . Hattie would sit down in front of her computer terminal, press some keys, hit "enter" just once and the whole system would crash. Every single time. Then my dear friend and co-worker, ADD, would have to reboot the lab’s server, while Hattie would disdainfully look at us and ask what we did this time to the database to break it.

Luckily, Hattie always fared better with the phone and intercom system. There were about twenty of us working there with only one main phone line into the lab. Of course, being a bunch of scientists we really were not that popular and did not get many calls, but the phone would still ring pretty much all day long. Hattie always answered the line and then, over the intercom, announced who needed to pick up the phone. The senior metallurgist, with the last name of DeVries, received the majority of the phone calls since he did most of the failure analysis for the shipyard. Typically, once an hour, I’d hear Hattie over the intercom announcing: “Devrie, Devrie, line one”. At this, ADD would always yell from his lair in the back lab: “Where is the S?” “What happened to the S?!?” (For you DR.com readers – perhaps this is the source of the S’s that keep appearing on the end of Chef Power’s name?) I never had the nerve to ask Hattie why she consistently mispronounced that name, but I wonder if Mr. DeVries or ADD had somehow incurred her wrath…

And Hattie was a person that you certainly did not want to cross. I found that out one slow afternoon when she started talking to me about her husband. She told me of the months and months of painful suffering her husband had endured before dying of stomach cancer. I opened my mouth to say that I was sorry they both had to go through that, but before I could get the words out, Hattie then added… “and he deserved every minute of that agony because God was punishing him for how he lived his life.” I just stood there with my mouth open, while Hattie nodded to me and walked back to read her Bible at her desk.

Only once did I see Hattie behave in a less than dignified manner. Early one morning, just as I had arrived for the day, I was met with the sight of Hattie running toward me, waving her arms above her head and yelling “the birds, the birds!” She flew right past me without pausing and slammed shut the door to the front office (until that point, I had not even realized there was a door to that office). With great trepidation, I ventured on in the direction of the origin of Hattie’s trajectory – the fuel QA lab. That door was also shut (and was the second door that morning that I was surprised to see actually existed). With Hitchcockian imagery flitting about my mind, I peered through the glass window into the lab and saw… a mourning dove.

On warm days, we’d open the windows in the fuel QA lab to let out some of the ever-present fumes and someone had forgotten to close the windows the evening before. Apparently a dove had ventured into the lab and, when Hattie went to deliver the day’s fuel samples, she startled it and the bird began to fly around. Luckily, our resident environmentalist chemist (a graduate of CSU Humboldt, no less) captured the hapless dove under a lab coat and released it back out the window. However, it took a bit longer to unruffle Hattie’s feathers that day.

But those shipyard days are a long time past for both Hattie and me. It has been fourteen years since I got married, followed my husband to his new duty station and left that job. I don’t know what ever happened to Hattie. She probably finally retired from civil service when the shipyard shut down almost ten years ago, but I suspect she held out for a hefty bonus resulting from her job being eliminated during the closure. And, although she would be easily into her 90’s by now, I like to picture Hattie still keeping order somewhere, making sure everyone is doing their job and imperious to the very end.