The Glamour of Book Writing: Revisions

This is what I have been doing for the past week. It has been cold in the city so most mornings I even pulled out the space heater to warm my toes as I clutched a warm cup of coffee or tea and set to work revising the first six (six!) chapters of the book.

It is messy and overwhelming. My head and eyes hurt at the end of every day. I have been thankful for summer months that provide juicy nectarines to pick me up in the afternoon, berries for smoothies, and lots of things that don't require cooking or thinking at all.

Cookies and ice cream have often been dreamed about in the past week, but I am trying to abstain. Some days it works.

What do you cook and crave to help get you though the messy moments in life? Things here have been a tad intense around here, and cooking has not been at the top of our list. I am glad for a well stocked pantry that allows for lots of last minute meals.

P.S. Yes, that is our dining room table. Around 4:30 each day, all those piles and papers magically go away. It is very Mary Poppins-esque.

Zucchini Potato Frittata

Remember the day I made two kinds of cookie and neither turned out? I wasn't going to cook again ever!

But then I redeemed myself at dinner.

I made this summer frittata the night before I left on my trip. My boy suggested we go out to eat, but I wanted one last night of eating at home, so I took on dinner duty. I questioned this fiercely at 3PM when I had messed up two batches of cookies, had no dinner or ingredients, hadn't finished packing, and had an evening class from 7 to 9 and a date with the new Harry Potter movie at 10:30.

But then it all came together, which is why frittatas are really lovely. Not only do you get to eat eggs for dinner, but they are delicious eggs, hard to mess up, and pretty on the plate.

And something I did not think of while I was beating those eggs: cold frittata eaten pre-dawn while getting ready to depart for a major excursion is super yummy. So is a bite or two at 2 AM when you get home from a movie.

Now that I think about it, frittatas might fall into the perfect food category (at least for me, at least right now.)

Serves four to 6
1 medium zucchini, sliced
salt
4-5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 lb. waxy potatoes, sliced thin
1/2 large onion, sliced thin
hefty handful of chopped chorizo
6 eggs
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 -3/4 cup feta cheese

Combine the zucchini and 1 tablespoon salt in a colander and toss well. Set aside to drain for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350.
Heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium high heat in a large, well seasoned, oven proof non-stick skillet. Add the potatoes and onion, reduce the heat to medium low, and cook until the potatoes and onions are soft about 20-25 minutes. Increase heat and toss to brown potatoes, about 5 minutes more. Remove the potatoes and onions but keep the skillet on the burner.
Transfer the zucchini to a paper towel and pat dry. Add zucchini and chorizo to the skillet and saute over medium high heat, until the zucchini is just tender, about 4 minutes. Remove zucchini and chorizo, but keep the skillet over the heat.
Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Add pepper to taste. Fold in potatoes, zucchini, chorizo and cheese.
Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to the skillet as needed to lightly coat the bottom. Pour in the egg mix, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook without stirring till the bottom is set, about 10 minutes.
Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake until the top is set, 5 to 15 minutes, checking every five minutes.
Remove from oven and place a serving plate on top of the skillet and carefully invert -- the frittata should fall out of the pan. Cut into wedges and serve.

Cilantro Pesto

Unlike some people I know, our basil has not gone crazy this summer. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that for the past ten days it has been foggy, windy, and cold. But even before that the basil was small and dainty, not tall and crawling all over the place like some of the other herbs in the garden.

Our cilantro is huge and leafy. I have been making buckets of pesto with it:
1 large bunch cilantro
2 tablespoons walnuts
1/4 olive oil (maybe more, see how it all comes together)
liberal salt and pepper
juice of 1/2 fresh lemon
Put the cilantro and walnuts in the food processor, blend, add oil, blend, add salt, pepper, and lemon juice -- and more oil if you think it needs it.

Just like basil pesto there is no real recipe that goes with cilantro pesto. We have mixed it with pasta and drizzled it on top of beans and summer veggies. Yesterday I stirred it into couscous along with a bit of plain yogurt, some chopped shallots, and diced dried apricots. It was surprisingly tasty and delicious.

I heart cilantro pesto. Even if my basil doesn't grow I am perfectly content.

Roxy Paine's Maelstrom

I thought I was done posting pictures from NY but I just can't stop thinking about the sculpture on the rooftop of The Met.

Roxy Paine's Maelstrom is about the relationship between nature and the built world and the inherent chaos of everything. The sculpture is chaotic and tangled and beautiful, kind of like life. I sat up on the roof for a long time the first day I was in NY. It was so hot but it felt so good. I took a few pictures but planned to buy lots of postcards to send to people. But there were no postcards --? The guy said it was because it was a special exhibition. As he told me this I was purchasing postcards from "The Model As Muse," another fantastic special exhibition. So that can't be true.

Anyway, in the 10 days that have passed I have found myself thinking about Maelstrom a lot. There were so many people I wanted to share it with. So, if you are one of my artistic, beauty loving, footloose and fancy free traveler friends -- this one is for you.

Happy Weekend!

May your days be filled with pork products of some kind.

Take the High Line

I discovered the coolest park on the edge of the meat packing district. It was my last few hours in the city and I had been everywhere -- I mean it, everywhere. My feet hurt, it was hot, there was no room in the bag for more stuff. I was looking to kill time.

Being hot, ragged, and tired, I decided to head to the meat packing district to look for celebrities and other famous folk. Somehow I thought a cold beverage at Pastis might help me whittle away the time. But when I arrived it was packed, filled with entirely normal looking people, and the raised eyebrow the suit-clad host gave me indicated I might be a bit to sad looking to linger at the bar.

So I moved on, and a few blocks closer to the Hudson I discovered this park. It is called the High Line. It's lovely, just opened, and it is a little oasis in the city. I hate that word -- oasis -- but that's pretty much what it is. There were wild flowers, quiet, a breeze off the river, and places to sit and relax. It is an oasis.

The New York Times just happened to write about the High Line this week. Read about it here.

Recreate Passively

I really wanted to enjoy summer in the city and do all sorts of things that you can't do when it is snowing, 14 degrees, or the wind blowing off the Hudson is flecked with pieces of glittering ice. Luckily the weather in New York was divine -- sunny and warm and not too muggy. I spent time in nearly every park that would have me, and if you've been to NY you know not all of them will. It is my secret wish to be granted entrance to Gramercy Park, if only for a few brief moments. But the doors are always locked.

So I went to the places that would have me: Central Park, Madison Square Park, Washington Park, Stuyvesant Square. And I loved the people watching: the kids on the swing sets, the teens in bikinis, the people reading the paper and eating ice cream, those engaged in deep but completely not private conversations.

I guess if you live in the big city you have to look for nature where you can find it, even if it is in thin stretches of grass between tall glass buildings. And you enjoy every minute of it, even if this means going to some parks that only allow "passive recreation," a concept that would go completely unheeded in any of the other big cities I've lived in. But those New Yorkers made passive recreation look pretty lovely -- New York is a rather European city in so many ways.

To Market We Go

Since I was staying just shy of Union Square on East 17th, I wandered through the Union Square market several times a day. It was funny to see signs that on the West Coast would be a sacrilege -- Jersey peaches -- but in NY meant something was super fresh and local. It was also fun to see the things that are in season right now no matter where you are: beans, zucchini, peaches and apricots, berries and cherries galore. New York does seem to have beauteous sour cherries so red and shiny they looked like a perfect lip gloss. These were what caught my eye and held my imagination. I wish I could have bought a bushel to taste and bake with.

Breakfast on Bleeker

The best part of NY in the summertime might be that you don't have to sit down for coffee or a meal every ninety minutes just to get out of the freezing cold. I loved being able to grab a round, fuzzy, large apricot to go from the Union Square Market, eat a hot dog in Central Park, or lick on a creamy dreamy frozen chocolate and vanilla custard cone from the Shake Shack while strolling under a canopy of park trees. Iced coffee was everywhere, and for some reason, infinitely better than the numerous cups of bad hot coffee I had during my last visit. This makes no sense, but was a very welcome summertime perk. I also love how in NY they ask you if you want milk and sugar in your coffee and add it for you... no swizzle stirrers or pots of skim, whole, and two percent in this city! But coffee talk is a bit tangential right now. What's on my mind is yogurt.

Yesterday morning I woke up still full from dinner. This can be a big problem in NY -- you eat so much you aren't hungry for the next meal! In this case I might have gone a bit too big at The Little Owl in the West Village. For some reason it seemed prudent to order meatball sliders, fries, calamari, and (thankfully) a couple of salads to share with a girlfriend. There was the bottle of Italian white wine too. It was a bit too much (though delicious and delightful) and I found myself waddling back to my hotel room on a warm summer night.

I felt better in the morning, but not so much better that I wanted to indulge in any more gluttonous NY behavior. But a few hours later, I did get hungry. I had a carton of Siggi's Yogurt in my bag which I ate while walking down Bleeker Street. It was one of my favorite meals.

This is Icelandic style yogurt, which means that it's been strained to make it extra thick, but not as thick and sour cream-ish as greek yogurt. It was mild, not too sweet, full of protein, and very healthy tasting. It was so good, I even stopped to take a picture and rip off the label which I promptly lost.

But thanks to the wonders of the internet I now know that Siggi's is sold at Whole Foods (and at New Seasons too, Portlanders) so one fine day I may have to venture in to get me some Siggi's.

Back at home in SF, I am trying to convince my stomach not to be hungry until West Coast time, cope with an empty fridge, a grey day and piles of laundry. I wish there was Siggi's in the fridge and I really wish the sun was shining.

Coming home can be hard sometimes.

How The Cookie Crumbles

My agent likes cookies -- I'm not sure if he's a round the clock cookie hound or if he just likes the ones I make. But does that really matter? Usually the cookies I send him are of the shortbread varietal, specifically those butter rich cookies you roll into a log and the slice and bake. I have sent him lemon cookies, cookies with cranberries and pistachios, chocolate cookies, walnut rosemary cookies. He loves them all.

So this morning I set out to bake him some cookies using a roll of dough hidden away in the fridge -- this short cut was going to save me big time. I heated the oven, whirled up my smoothie, put the coffee pot on, then sliced and baked. But apparently in my hurry I did not fully read my little recipe card and the part I had heavily underlined in black pen -- the part about lining the cookie sheets with parchment. I didn't use parchment and the cookies stuck, broke, and turned into butter cookie crumbles.

Ok, I thought. On to plan b. Plan b was significantly under-researched. I basically used the first recipe I could find that used ingredients I had: Vanilla Hazelnut Shortbread. They sounded kind of plain, but like they might be nice mid-afternoon with a cup of coffee.

Once again, I should have read the recipe. These are gluten free cookies that are also trying (just a bit) to be healthy, low-fat, etc. They are bland looking, bland tasting, and so crumbly I am sure they would not survive the flight, much less being tucked into my bag and ferried to breakfast, the Met, and then our first meeting. I am willing to say that if you can't have gluten these cookies might be ok. They might also be good alongside a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and a pile of summer berries or peaches, but I am not carrying any of those things uptown either.

So, this how the proverbial cookie crumbles. I am either going to: go to Tartine and pass off one of their delectable baked goods as my own (I am so not above this), get something fancy in NY, or show up empty handed. All these things sound kind of sad.

I guess I could always bake more this afternoon -- but two batches of messed up shortbread in one morning do not bode well for a successful post lunch baking endeavors. I might be done for the day.

Zuni Cafe Roast Chicken

It's been a bit of a busy week and it will only get busier as I prepare to head to NY on Thursday morning!

But, I have to tell you... I had the most sumptuous (yes sumptuous)thing I have ever eaten in my life on Sunday at about noon: The Zuni Cafe Roasted Chicken with Bread Salad and Frisee. This is one of those meals everyone talks about. I am so wary of those things -- can it really be that good?

Yes, it really can be that good. And it helps if the chicken is organic, brined, perfectly roasted, juicy, and piled on top of bread salad with currants and pine nuts. It was so good I really didn't feel the need to eat much till Monday afternoon. And I'm glad it takes an hour to arrive and costs $48 because if it was any quicker or any cheaper I might have a serious problem.

As it is, I'm sad I didn't take any photos and a little bemused that I can't think of anything to say other than it was sooooooo goooooood.

So, for a more articulate rendering, check out Smitten Kitchen where there are photos AND a recipe. Or you can just come to SF and eat it with me.

Please? Pretty Please?

Food Memory: Olallieberry Crisp

We had so many olallieberrys I had no choice, really, but to make a crisp. I made a topping from the Hay Day Country Market Cookbook. It had cornmeal and almonds and oatmeal and was crunchy and delicious. It also made enough that I have a little container of crisp topping waiting in the fridge for the next fruit or berry that ignites my passion.

Crumb Topping:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup medium grain stone ground cornmeal
1/3 cup light brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup old fashioned roled oats
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into bits

Combine flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, salt and oats. Add butter and mix with electric mixer on medium speed until the topping comes together. I was lazy and did this part by hand, mashing everything together. Tres simple! The topping should resemble coarse crumbs and put it in the fridge till you are ready to use.

I sprinkled topping on four cups of olallieberrys that I had mixed with 1/4 cups sugar. I baked the whole thing for 35 minutes at 375.

When I tasted the warm olallieberry crisp I was transported back in time. I was five years old, and we were spending our summer vacation in a small, A-frame house on Whidbey Island. There was a huge field in the back that looked out towards the sea, and the land was teeming with tangles of blackberry bushes. My mother made a blackberry crisp with berries we picked ourselves. That dessert is one of the first things I really remember tasting as a child. It was sweet and tart and deep deep purple. My baby brother smeared it all over his face in an attempt to get every last morsel into his mouth. No crisp, no summer fruit dessert, had ever tasted as good as that crisp -- until now.

I loved every single bite.

Chioggia Beet Salad

One of the most perfect meals of summer 2009: chioggia beets from Pie Farm, a little goat cheese, some lettuce from our yard.

I set the table but had no idea how perfect and pink it would all look together.

Olallieberry Cocktail/ Drinking Before Noon

Doesn't this cocktail look fruity and divine? M. whipped it up for me on a hot summer afternoon. I can't begin to tell you how to make one -- I think it had vodka, olallieberries, simple sugar, mint, and maybe a twist of lemon for garnish and color. It was pretty to look at and went down nice and easy. We named it the Annebelle, because I have been in search of my signature cocktail. But after a couple of house made mojitos over the 4th of July, I am pretty sure mojitos are my real signature cocktail. The Annebelle will have to be number two on the list of delightful summer alcoholic drinks.

However, I would die to be drinking anything with a nip of liquor right now as I stain treat two loads of laundry that were mistakenly put into a washer where someone (bad tenants!!!) left a maroon duvet cover soaking for far too long. All my clothes look like they have the chicken pox: splatters and spatters of red and pink dots. This includes a set of white sheets.

The olallieberry cocktail seems the perfect drink to get me through this episode since, at first glance, I thought my jeans were spotted with a bit of residual olallieberry juice. "How sweet," I thought. "A small memory of a good day."

If only it were so.

Olallieberry Picking

Last weekend we went olallieberry picking. What is an olallieberry, you ask? It is a cross between a logan berry and a young berry. But logan berries and young berries are themselves hybrids of blackberries and either raspberries or dewberries. So the olallieberry is more or less a mutt berry.

We went picking at Swanton Berry Farm, which is just south of Half Moon Bay on Highway One. Not only is Swanton Farms organic, but they also use union workers, and they have u-pick olallieberries. Can it get any better for the San Francisco, food loving, liberal set?

Perhaps because of the above reasons, (he is a food loving, California liberal but he doesn't want to act like one), M. was not super excited to go picking. But plied with a taco lunch from his favorite HMB Mexican joint, he acted like he was excited about olallieberry picking, which was good enough for me.

He also proved to be a stellar picker. We picked so many of these tart berries we had to think up lots of things to do with them, so many things that I have to save those photos for another post because Blogger just can't handle all the olallieberry goodness. But we can, and we did, and they were so good -- the photos will prove this, I think, that I don't think he will ever question a Saturday spent picking again.

In fact after four years, I think I may have FINALLY found the way to his heart. Yes, its through his stomach (that was apparent in the first 10 minutes of conversation), but more specifically through a jar of olallieberry jam.

The 3rd of July!

Happy 101st Birthday M.F.K. Fisher!

Thank you for giving me an excise to throw a soiree that has no association with the pomp and circumstance of the 4th of July.

My party will be small but fabulous. There will be good food, good wine, and maybe even dancing. I am counting down the hours...


P.S. This photo brings back fond memories of last 4th of July. It was so hot in Portland and with no plans, Souchi Suzi and I met at Navarre for a light dinner and piece of patriotic red velvet cake. I think we were the only people there, but I remember it was good. That night, I lay in bed and watched the fireworks explode over the Willamette River -- beauty!

DIY Fatbread

There are days when I catch quite a bit of flack because I like to cook using recipes. I know that M. thinks this is slightly elementary and he is right. What he doesn't know is that the biggest reason I like to cook using recipes is so I have someone else to blame it on when it doesn't work out. Now that is elementary (school, that is).

But really, with summer upon us it is so easy to not use recipes and just throw things together with great results. So I have been improvising a bit. The other day I spent hours trying to decide what I would make for dinner. There were 4-5 tomatoes in the bowl but they weren't great tomatoes. I thought about stuffing them. I thought a long, long time about stuffing them with sausage and herbs and topping them with breadcrumbs and then baking them and serving them alongside a green salad. But then I decided I didn't want stuffed tomatoes. I wanted something bready and cheese and savory -- is this how pizza was invented?

I roasted the tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper in a 350 oven for several hours to make a rich, jammy tomato sauce. Late in the afternoon I went to Trader Joe's for a bag of their ready-made pizza dough. For $1.29 I was excited by skeptical, hoping it would be good. I wrestled with the dough, and layered it with my tomato jam, mozzarella slices, and handfuls of fresh herbs from the garden: three kinds of basil, thyme, rosemary. It was so beautiful.

Into the oven it went. I finished it with a few minutes under the broiler so it was hot and browned and bubbly. It wasn't thin crust pizza exactly, which is why in some ways it was really more like a flat bread but it wasn't flat. Hence the name FAT BREAD. Maybe next time I'll have the energy to beat it into submission. But for the price I was impressed -- it is definitely something to have in the fridge for those "what's for dinner?" days.

Best of all was the satisfaction of knowing I'd thrown dinner together for less than two bucks with nary a plan for how I was going to pull it all off.

I felt very sneaky.

Chocolate Walnut Blondies

I made these amazing blondies a couple of weeks ago to send to my Dad for Father's Day. Apparently they were a big hit -- he enjoyed the first one before dinner with a tumblerful of Wild Turkey. That's quite an amuse bouche, but I bet it worked well with the caramel tones of the whiskey bouncing off the buttery, brown sugary, chocolate walnutty goodness of these amazing little squares.

The recipe, from the June 09 Bon Appetite is supper easy. You always hear about those one bowl desserts, this is one of them. And if you're a person who keeps your pantry stocked for baking and butter in your fridge, than you are only a few short moments away from blondie goodness. In my opinion this is a very very good thing.

I am whipping up a bunch tomorrow to take to the various 4th of July potlucks and bbqs. My Mom says I should label this food with some sort of "Careful! This Contains Nuts!" sign that is colorful and attention grabbing, but I'm hopeful that the obvious walnuts protruding from the tops of the blondies like some sort of moon rock will be a dead give away.

In Bon Appetite the blondies are made with peanuts not walnuts. I bet that would be good too. Also, be sure to let them totally cool before cutting. If not you will end up with soft gobs of baked but still pleasantly soft blondie which is not bad, if that's what you're going for.

Chocolate Chip and Walnut Blondies
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 and 1/4 cups (packed) brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup walnuts, divided (you may want a few more for extra sprinkling on top if you are a walnut fan)
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips, divided

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour an 8x8x2 baking pan (or the equivalent). Whisk one cup flour, salt, and baking soda in medium bowl. Melt 1/2 cup butter in heavy saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and add sugar and whisk until smooth. Cool mix two minutes, then add eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour mix, then 1/2 nuts and 1/2 chocolate. Spread batter in prepared pan and sprinkle with remaining nuts and chocolate.
Bake blondies until golden, a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, and the edges just begin to pull away from the sides, about 30 minutes.
Wait until very cool, then cut into 16 squares and serve.