The Delicious Laura Calder

Oh, my my my. Fan! Fan fannity fan fan fan!

With Good Friday's griefs passed through once more, and Easter and spring (and actual sun!) streaming in, we watched episodes of French Food At Home, and I'm more hooked now than I've been on any cookery or housewif'ry show in ages. Laura Calder is wonderful!

Her shows are currently broadcasting on the Cooking Channel, and her "Top Recipes" (all one hundred and eleven of them) are on their site.

For the first time, I am seriously considering owning a whole set of cookery DVDs. She makes my mouth water.

Okay ... I can do that ...

Do you ever make these?


This isn't the recipe I use - mine calls for cocoa, and the quality of the cocoa makes a huge difference. So does the quality of the vanilla, added right at the end of the cookery part.

Well, anyway, on August the twenty-second, our youngest child will be twenty-two years old. Today, when I saw him, he said that what he wants for his birthday is a huge plate of these. A mound. An enormous amount. And he wants them all for himself and intends to share absolutely none of them.

So I'll be making them for him. But what I'm wondering in the meantime is this. The memory of amazing deliciousness, associated with home and mom and all of that ... that's gotta be a good thing. But that "all for me" thing? Yeah. What's up with that?

It would be for Michael

It's pretty normal to crush on people ... just in general ... y'know? Like, my daughter is 24 years younger than I am, but both of us would go home any day with Sean Connery or Denzel Washington. And Sean Connery's old enough to be MY father! So - I'm just sayin - it's a kind of universal thing to crush on people, and it doesn't have much connection to reality, right?

And my husband - he does it too. If we ever went to a party where Helena Bonham Carter was one of the guests, I'd have to keep an eye on him. I don't think he'd go home with her ... I have a lot of faith - in laws about stalkers - and the caution of famous people - and my ability to watch two things at once while having a conversation.

But now... well, it's been brewing for awhile. But now - this Saturday morning shadow impromptu video of Michael Ruhlman doing his cookery magic? In his adorable Michael Ruhlman way? And edited with his perfectly dry editorial comments on top of the video? Oh, yeah. His wife is younger and cuter than I am - otherwise, she might have a real problem. If I ever left my husband ...

I WON!!

For real.

I actually won!

Pioneer Woman's blog is one of my favorites, and I sometimes enter her giveaways at Pioneer Woman Cooks, and I did enter this time, and I won, I tell you! I really won!

The proof is here.

I'm LittlefarmLady.

Me.

I WON!!!

Grown Up Pop Tart

If you asked a Poptart what it wanted to be when it grew up, it would tell you that it could never do better than to be smitten kitchen's "easy jam tart."

And if you asked any devotee of fresh ingredients how he or she feels right now about the last bit of the year before the new stuff comes in, that person would tell you that smitten kitchen said it already. "What she said." That's what the longers for harvest and eaters of produce would tell you. Rather unusually good asparagus this year notwithstanding,

I am small and petty and the Greenmarket is so devoid of anything but root vegetables — and also vegetables that grow in the ground and would you like some potatoes? We have crates and crates.
— I’m incapable of being happy for you.

Exactly.

Fat in a lean year

A couple of years ago, once all our kids were up and out and in their own adult lives, we declared a New Normal for Christmas here. Presents are not forbidden ... but now presents are officially declared to be beside the point. Now, when the children who are no longer children come home, they are supposed to bring food for the feast.

And for starters, this year, taller young giant tells me he is bringing home eggnog from Golden Glen Creamery. They use non-homogenized milk and he says it's delicious. That's my boy!

Other things I'm thinking about are found at places like smitten kitchen. Things like "Creamed Mushrooms on Chive Butter Toast," and "Vanilla Roasted Pears" have me ready to make very detailed grocery lists.

Many years ago, when that same young giant was so active and so young that we put our Christmas tree up on the table where he couldn't reach it, we made Duck L'Orange from the French language cookbook my husband had. (has? -- hm. I wonder where it is now?) We made it together because I can't read French. I've decided this is a good year to reprise that dish, whether we use the old recipe or I find a newer one on the web somewhere. Christmas Dinner just might be:

Onion Soup (smitten kitchen again)
Duck L'Orange
Balsamic Glazed Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta (ditto, s.k.)
Garlic mashed potatoes
Roasted beets
Homemade rolls
Prosecco

I might even try a Buche de Noel

Wanna come?

Smitten Kitchen cliché indeed

If I ever learn to paint, this is the still life I would put into oils on canvas. Her Flicker photostream calls the pile of peelings a "smitten kitchen cliché" - and it may be because everything else at Smitten Kitchen is this good, and all the food is this good, and now I want to make these "Vanilla Roasted Pears" for Christmas. I mean, seriously. Wow.

Cooks, cookery, and a last meal

This interview and story about Thomas Keller is well worth a listen. He understands food, eating, recipes, taste, and love.

Thomas Keller is the French Laundry guy - but down the street from French Laundry is the restaurant Ad Hoc, where there are no menu choices. You just order dinner, and you get what the cook's cooking - just like home. I'd take this guy's dinner choices any day! Keller has written this new cookbook, in which

Mr. Keller leads with his heart. He dedicates it to his brother Joseph and lays out in loving, exacting detail the recipes for the last meal he made his father. He reminds readers that life is better when you eat together with family and friends.

So I started looking around a bit. Well! No wonder I liked listening to Keller talk about food! He's yet another person connected to Michael Ruhlman, "the food writer who has been Mr. Keller’s voice on paper in each of his cookbooks."

Figures. I bet that if I looked for the various cooks Ruhlman has been associated with, I could outfit my own cookbook shelf with the best of the best and never need to look anywhere else for suggestions. I swear, Ruhlman's got a sixth sense about cooks and cookery. Flawless instinct, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, Keller's cookbook includes the details of that last meal. He has the sense and awareness - and fearlessness - to face what that meal taught him, as a cook and as a man. (Here's the NY Times article.) He talks about food that way - he says that you have to let go of fear, feel the food, love what you're doing. Never mind the burns, you'll learn. It's okay. Touch it.

Life is like that. It's delicious if you can let go of the fear. Never mind the burns. It's okay. Touch it.

Keller's words have connected me to something very large. We cook within a context, after all, and I'm a mom. And today is Veteran's Day. Before the horrible events at Fort Hood and all the news coverage, I didn't know about the custom of calling the roll, listening to the gut wrenching silence when each fallen soldier's name is called ... and not answered ... or not answered in a world where we can hear it, anyway.

And my daughter is in Afghanistan and may be moved to a different post. There is no way to know if I have already cooked the last thing I will ever cook for her, or if, like Keller's dad, she'll come home and live out her life in peace and safety. Her being there reminds me every day, at random moments, that there is also no way to know if my sons will ever come home, or if my husband will come home today for that matter. We never know. Life is like that. The part of me that weeps at the shattering silences in roll calls knows that life is like that. Knows, weeps ... and accepts because you have to let go of the fear, and never mind the burns, and go ahead and love.

When people ask me about my daughter, and whether it bothers me that she's in the Army, I always say, "Yes, of course. I'm worried about her every day. But I taught my children that everybody dies. What matters is why you lived." I taught them to never mind the burns - so I dance with glee when one of my sons says, "I totally blew it -- next time, what I want to do is ...." Go ahead, kids. Touch it. Life is scary sometimes, and sometimes you get burned, and you never know which meal will have been your last. It's all true.

And I promise you that Thomas Keller is right. "You learn by not being afraid, by not being intimidated by the food - just getting in there and enjoying it." And if the meal you just cooked turns out to be the last one with that person? "It's one of those things that happen, and in retrospect you feel blessed that that happened." Blessings on you, kids. And blessings on me. And never mind the burns.

And his wife Donna's a photo genius!

Have you ever been to Michael Ruhlman's food blog? The guy is pure delight to watch, I tell you. He's another heir of Julia Child - food should be amazing, and it should be something anyone can do with a little practice. He loves technique, tools, and flavor, and I love to read his work.

But his wife! His wife and her camera can do THIS! Those, my friend, are shallots. Yes, shallots. Aren't they wonderful? I want posters and paintings and a volume of food poetry when I look at Donna's work. There's lots more - go on over and look. It'll do you as much good as a trip to a gallery - or Sur la Table - and it doesn't cost a penny to look.

And speaking of 100 Mile Diet ...

Yesterday I went to Dickey's and bought fresh green onions, fresh pesticide-free heirloom variety tomatoes, and some really high quality feta, which I added to this "corn bread salad" recipe from Smitten Kitchen. The guy delivering locally raised, hormone and antibiotic free meats was at Dickey's while we were there, so I got his card. But the fresh pies they make at Dickey's were all sold out, so I did not get one of those. (And behold, there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.)

I used Uncle Dan's powdered ranch dressing mix for the dressing and a pre-washed package of butter lettuce for the base (not 100-mile foods). I made the cornbread with yogurt and a bit of half and half (which is what I had on hand) instead of buttermilk. This was also the first time I've made cornbread with stone ground cornmeal (pretty sure this was a Bob's Red Mill cornmeal, but it was in an unlabeled container in my cupboard) and no flour at all, and it was really really good. "Local," but in the Washington/Oregon sense - not in the 100-mile sense.

All in all, what we ate tasted like taco salad without the icky taco taste. Very refreshing - the slightly nutty taste of the toasted cornbread that fell apart in the salad was a perfect blend with the creaminess of the cheese and dressing and the sharp sweetness of the tomatoes. I could easily add some of the Trader Joe's marinated chicken meat into this. Or rinsed, canned beans. It was quite satisfying and yummy on its own, though.

And then for dessert, we had root beer floats made with root beer brewed locally at a quirky brew pub in Hood River. The place is called The Big Horse. We ate lunch there - in a booth near the sacks of brewing grains and we saw a sign on the wall advertising for the group called SNOB - "Supporters of Native Oregon Beer."

During this foray, which started out being "let's go get some lunch," I realized (again!) just how much abundance is right here. I haven't even bothered to look into the Gorge Grown Food Network's various listings for a long time. I do not even have to garden so much as radish in order to eat in a sustainable, flavorful, gorgeous way - all I have to do is wake up to the possibilities. Again. Somehow (forehead slap!) I have slipped into thinking that there was a lot I'd have to do myself if I wanted all these options - all this possibility. I've been succumbing (again) to Supermarket Syndrome. I shop the outer edges and stay out of the aisles all right, but seriously. I don't have to go in there much at all if I'd just pay attention!

Yum

New trick:

Shred a pile of zucchini

Let it sit there so the water starts to come out of it

Wring it dry in a kitchen towel

Toss it with flour, lemon pepper and salt

Fry mounds of it in olive oil until crisp on each side (turn once)

Drain on paper towels

Eat.

Juicy without being slimy. Full of flavor. Salty enough without added salt or sauce or dip or whatever. Crisp edges with little zucchini shreds off the sides all browned and crunchy.

Yum.

Really good!

Burgerville, our local fast food place ("Fresh. Local. Sustainable."), has started offering a lot more seasonal food, and their idea for seasonal berries in lemonade is really, really good! So far this year, I've had strawberries in lemonade, raspberries in lemonade, and now, yesterday, blackberries in lemonade. I'm telling you, these whole berries and partially crushed berries are absolutely amazing in lemonade!

In fact, last night when I got home, there were still some blackberries in the cup, and I didn't want to waste them. I refilled the cup with my own lemonade, and drank a second serving. Yum, yum, and yum.

The other thing they started doing is to offer the Walla Walla Onion Rings in orders of one, three, and five at a time. These onion rings are huge. Last night I ordered one. One onion ring. Yummy, and not too much to eat. And how ironic -- one of the places that has helped me to eat more seasonally is a fast food joint.

"What we eat shouldn’t be determined by diet dictocrats. It should be determined by history, culture, and traditional cuisines"

Go here. Read it. I, too, am a food renegade - I just found this site of renegades. Rebel, people! Rebel!

It’s my belief that this collective wisdom not only represents how our bodies have adapted to getting the most nutritional content out of our food through centuries of scarcity and abundance, but that these traditional diets can be studied — ought to be studied — so that we can know how to eat. So that we can know how to live.

Cookie Bowl!

Very few good ideas as good as this good idea, wouldn't you say? Go over to see what Michael Ruhlman did in response to his son's question, "Dad, what if you made a bowl out of cookie dough?"

Please Pay Attention (to your food)

For the sake of your own health, and that of your children. For the sake of our nation and the rest of the world. For the sake of industry workers and the quality of the food in the food chain. Click on that farmer, and listen to the report about the new documentary, Food Inc.

As director Robert Kenner and food advocate and author Michael Pollan tell Steve Inskeep, they made the film in order to raise Americans' awareness about where their food really comes from.

My idea of a good time

An odd effect of quality writing time is a desire for quality cooking time. I'd forgotten about it until last week, but it's happened before and it's still true. Creativity must all live in the same set of neurons in the grey matter. Sequencing and memory are elsewhere - I don't remember why I stumbled onto this today. It's yummy looking in every possible way, though. This is when the Weed Motto for Gardeners comes in handy. "It's not a weed if you want it there; how it got there doesn't matter." How I got here - to Culinate - doesn't matter.

The immediately preceding page was this one:Gourmet Magazine's FAVORITE FOOD SITES page. If my life were made of food pursuits of any kinds, that's a page I'd want to be on.

From there, I found Culinate.

At Culinate we’re engaged in an ongoing conversation about eating well. Our content — articles, cooking tips, interviews, recipes, podcasts, food news, blog posts — helps people put real food at the center of their lives.

After all, food is fundamental. We all make dozens of decisions about it every day: what to eat, where to buy it, how to prepare it. But there’s more to dinner than meets the eye.

Where does our food come from? How is it produced? What does the phrase “you are what you eat” mean in the 21st century?

Culinate is a community for eaters who are asking just these kinds of questions.

Nice, eh? There are links and recipes and articles -- seasonal and basic and avant garde - gorgeous layout, gorgeous photos. Very, very nice.

Take a tasty time out for this timely tome

It would be easy to say that Kerr leapt on Childs' coattails. After all, "The Galloping Gourmet" appeared on U.S. television in 1969, six years after "The French Chef." But it would be glib and plain wrong to say so. Not only had Graham Kerr been cooking since he was a wee one in the English hotel kitchens owned by his parents compared to Julia who began at a doddering 36, but his first televised cooking demo aired back in 1960 in New Zealand ("That doesn't count," Child teased him). True enough, Child was a pioneer in the United States and unquestionably deserves her iconic status as queen of small screen cuisine, but Kerr set a few firsts himself.

Viewers in the U.S. had been well prepped, of course, by "The French Chef," but the style of "The Galloping Gourmet" was a world apart. The show opened with the snappily-dressed, British dandy of a ball of energy leaping over a tall kitchen chair while holding a full glass of wine, setting the tone for the rest of the episode and raising the bar for almost every cooking show that followed.

What fun!

If you love cookery ... or if you enjoy quirky glimpses into modern sociology as it happens ... or if you think Julia Child was really really funny (and the Galloping Gourmet a bit smutty) ...

take 7 minutes and 19 seconds to listen to the author of Watching What We Eat talk about it with Renee Montagne, and listen to the clips. It'll put a smile on your face and something interesting into a pan for dinner too, I betcha.

Here's to the cooks! Cheers!

3-Day GPS

GPS - German Potato Salad. Three days in a row, and it just didn't get old. From here on out, this will often be the plan.

Made it Thursday night, and ate it with some VGH's (Very Good Hotdogs). VGH's being eaten in this house, courtesy of a couple of decades of professionally orchestrated whining about the stuff that goes into the cheap ones, the occasional informative How It's Made coming on the television, and the increase in the number of local Trader Joe's.

At it again Friday night, courtesy of the prayerbook feastday of Sts. Philip and James, making the meat contained therein part of our feast - a feast of steak, fresh fruit salad (with a dressing that turned out really well - mayonaisse and fig preserves, no extra salt or sugar necessary), fresh new asparagus, and that GPS with the addition of more water and salt, baked in the oven.

And this morning, we ate it again! We weren't even tired of it. Last night's oven baking produced a very wonderful brown crust at the edges, and so I thought I couldn't do better than to make an all-over crust. Add egg and flour, form pancakes, and fry those babies. Yum, yum and yum ... and no more leftovers languishing in the fridge. I know it doesn't look like much, but it's got a good quality bacon and apple cider vingar, sugar, and celery seeds in the dressing. Tangy, a touch sweet, and savory. And very nice fried!

Education is the Science of Relations ... so's baking

Charlotte Mason, a woman brilliant in her day, "ahead" of her time (which, in my opinion, means we moderns are surprised to find her relevant -- sheer hubris), made several good statements of educational fact. She taught that "children are born persons," and that "the mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum." She also taught that

Education is the Science of Relations

and she was right about this. Understanding the relationship between one thing and another is what makes musical intervals, healthy bodily habits, poetry, horticulture, and commandments functional. Nothing works without proper relationships. And that includes the baking of a loaf of bread.Rarely do I purchase brand new books, and even more rarely do I purchase these books in hardcover. But this is one I intend to purchase as soon as possible. Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, by Michael Ruhlman.

Wild Library Leavening

Perfectly delightful discovery yesterday at work. I work as a sub in the local community library. I love my hours there because libraries make me happy just by being libraries. But lately there's a new and interesting development. The "collection" (all the stuff the library owns) has begun to "float" (move from library to library by means of getting checked in wherever it lands and staying there).

The old-fashioned way was for each individual library to have and develop its own collection. Then the libraries made districts, and started to share their collections. (This, I imagine, went down with various librarians just about like a suggestion that they all share family members - or blood.) This sharing was done with extreme care and control. Stickers and markers and dates and a "grid" were in use so that everything would proceed in orderly fashion and the librarians would all know where their "own" books were at all times.

But then ..... (dun dun dunnnnnn!) a new computer system came in, and for some unknown and unknowable reason, the grid never worked again. Poof! Someone apparently shot the last living dodo bird, and the species was extinct. Just like that.

And the workers complained, and the librarians fussed, and the collections languished. (Hear laments being played on cellos here. Or the steadily dying beat of a funeral dirge.) It got verrrrry boring with only a few new books to alleviate the samey shelving that went on and on and on.

Then the librarians (who had become accustomed to a constantly self-refreshing collection, and had learned to like it) took matters into their own hands. "Fine," they said. "WE will rotate the stuff. Librarian Jane, I will send you a bunch of audio books, and you will send me a bunch of yours - okay?" said Librarian Joan. And so they did.

This went on for awhile, and then the whole system suddenly woke up. The solution, once completely inconceivable, and predicted by many to produce madness and chaos, was to let the community build the collection. Not by making suggestions, and not by being in on purchasing, and not by any other means than directly. In the district, it was already possible to return a book to any library regardless of its original home, but now the collection "floats" - wherever it gets returned is where it stays. When there's a jam-up of stuff, the librarians clear the drain and send it on to somewhere else; the collection is starting to perk up and look more and more interesting; and all of this was done by means of exerting less control over the specifics.

Apparently, libraries are like really good bread. You put in the flour and water, and you let the random spores leaven the lump. The library is being leavened by wild yeast, and it tastes great!