Bringing Autumn Inside

Dry and scatter your colored leaves. Don't worry if the edges curl up a bit, they look prettier that way. Invest in some tiny seasonal decorations like these felted acorns.

Buy pumpkins of all colors and sizes. These tiny ghost pumpkins march along our dining room table. Traditional orange pumpkins flank the fireplace. Gorgeous knotty squash from our CSA make beautiful decorations -- until we eat them. 

Treat yourself to nostalgic candies that make you feel like a kid again. I can't survive fall without candy corn; the peanut butter M&Ms are a more 'sophisticated' taste. Together, they're a magic combo.  Dahlia season is almost over, but the guy on the corner still occasionally sells big bunches for $5 a pop. 

Roast peppers over open flame.

Roast fall veggies in the oven. This acorn quash was stuffed with a crushed garlic clove, a mix of fresh herbs, and a drizzle of olive oil. The roasted 'meat' became autumnal vegetarian tacos.

Cook with bacon, ideally artisan bacon from a small shop you found while on vacation. Extra points for using a Lodge cast iron pan, homemade stock, and opening an old bottle of red wine to drink with it just because. 

Light a candle. Part of the reason I love fall is because it is a little mournful. The colored leaves that fall off the trees, overcast days, and cozy mornings offer the perfect chance for a little reflection. I like waking up early, lighting a candle, and having a few moments to myself in the dark. The Voluspa Golden Cypress scent from the 'Maison Rouge' collection is my favorite right now. 

How do you embrace this season?

Late Summer, In Photos

Just over a month ago as August was bearing down on me, I wrote a summer do list filled with things I wanted to accomplish before the air got thin, it began to get light earlier, and the crisp evening air demanded that the bedroom window be shut. So, how'd I do? 

I didn't eat an It's-It in the back yard on a sunny afternoon, go to the Coppola Pool, make another batch of jam, or bake with blackberries. But I did can two batches of pickles (a first!), freeze loads of Marcella Hazan tomato sauce, and make a killer Italian Plum Cake no less than three times. 

There still may be time for the things I didn't get to do. After all, summer in San Francisco often starts right about Labor Day. And if not, there's always next summer. 

Did you make a Summer Do list? If so, did you accomplish what was on it? Do you have an Autumn Do List? (Eeep!)

One last note. I've become recently obsessed with Instagram, and all of the above photos were shared there first. You can follow me at "poeticappetite" for photographic bits and pieces of our world. xx

Discovery

 

If you don't know about Remedy Quarterly you must, you must!

RQ is a charming magazine filled with food memories and the recipes that inspired them, interviews with food people, and vintage tips & tidbits. It was started by the very cool Kelly Carámbula who, in addition to being publisher, editor, and designer, also runs the beauty of a blog The Best Remedy. Kelly also gives great travel advice. Thanks to her, Sean and I ended up at the cozy and decadent Manka's Inverness Lodge for our first wedding anniversary. 

My essay about love, discovery, and a life-changing sausage from Rosamunde's Sausage in San Francisco is in the most recent issue of RQ. There's also a killer recipe for curry ketchup, which you're gonna need for all the knockwurst you grill and eat this October. Subscribe today or buy a copy at one of these fine local shops.

Coming to My Senses

The reason I decided I wanted to write a book about M.F.K. Fisher wasn't because I was obsessed with food and wine. It was because I related on the deepest and most cellular level to how M.F.K. Fisher used food as a metaphor to write about her happiness and loneliness and desire and love.

That piece in Serve it Forth about eating bread and chocolate on a cold hillside? Sure it's about the way a piece of dark, salty chocolate melted into a chunk of crusty baguette and how delicious it is to eat something decadent and unexpected after a long hike. But it's also about getting to the top of that hill. About standing with strangers while your husband (who you don't really get along with anyway) stays at home with his books and his poetry. It's about taking the bread and chocolate from an old man's hand and eating it as the chilled wind whips around your face and you stare off into the distance, alternately happy to be on top of a French hillside taking in the view, and sad because you never wanted to be there without him. It's about realizing that the old Frenchmen standing beside you have been through war and famine in recent years. And yet they are still hiking and laughing and sharing food with you, a young American girl who they can't really talk to and who they have nothing in common with except for this small shared snack.

Those people who think M.F.K. Fisher is just a food writer have it all wrong. 

When Alyssa Harad wrote to me and told me about her book, Coming to My Senses: A Story of Perfume, Pleasure, and an Unlikely Bride, and asked me if I'd read it and consider offering a blurb for the back copy it seemed a random request. I don't even wear perfume. 

But that's the point. Alyssa's book isn't about perfume. It isn't about a fancy bottle or the familiar heady smell that hangs in the air at the mall or a celebrity's newest fragrance. It's about scent. It's about familiarity and treading into the new. It's about discovering who you are and pushing the boundaries  of who you want to be. 

Just like M.F.K. Fisher doesn't simply write about food, Alyssa Harad doesn't just write about perfume. She writes about scent and our sense of smell and how those two things are intimately tied to the people that we are and the women we want to become. Her book is beautifully written and evocative and deeply personal.

I loved this book. In the couple of months since reading it I've found myself picking up small vials of scent and ordering little round jars of solid perfume from artisan producers. Some days I wear nothing at all, others I tuck a little bit here and there and observe how the perfume changes over the course of the day, and how I change when I'm wearing something earthy or exotic or intensely floral.

I'm at the very beginning of my scent journey, that's certain. But just like learning more about food and taste is a lifelong quest, so is this scent business. I love the idea that no matter what my favorite perfume is now, it will change. And that someday, when I look back at these foggy, tomato and basil scented days, ripe with peach juice and mid-afternoon sunshine and sweat, it will remind me of this. August. 

Do you have a signature scent? What is it and how did you discover it?

Untitled

All I have for you tonight is a few photos. Photos from our vacation that I meant to post and write about immediately (and beautifully!) as part of an effort to be more committed to writing and to this blog. And then, I got busy. Except I wasn't busy, I was just avoiding.

For those who have been vacationing in a New York Times free zone, or who reached their limit on free articles like I did this month, you might not know that busyness, and the anxiety that is produced when we worry we aren't doing enough, has been a hot topic lately.

First, Tim Kreider wrote a piece called The 'Busy' Trap. Next, the chorus weighed in with odes to summertime, to hammock swinging, to long afternoons trapped by an all consuming book. {For the record, this wasn't supposed to be another voice in that clamoring chorus. I hope I'm at least successful in this.}

So the thing is, at first I really was too busy to write. Sean and I spent two blissful weeks in Pt. Reyes, where my daily schedule went something like this: Wake, make coffee, move to recliner chair. Work (a bit), think, write. Lunch. Write, think. Long hike. Shower, wine, read till the sun drops away. Dinner. Friday Night Lights. Repeat. Repeat.

Notice there's nothing in there about blogging or pinning or tweeting. And nary a facebook post came out of those 14 days.  It was amazing. I felt more me than I've felt in a long time and spent many hours thinking about how and why.

We drove back into the city on our first wedding anniversary, and I spent the entire next week (yes, week) trying to get over my post-vacation malaise while simultaneously trying to figure out how to incorporate my vacation spirit into my real life. My friend Megan was right, however. It doesn't really work.

Then, of course, after all that, after nearly three weeks of vacations and bottles of wine and mid-week holidays and work avoidance it really did get busy. And yet -- when I look at my calendar I actually have no idea what I did. I just felt busy. Not just busy, stressed. Disconnected. 

But why? I felt busy, and just as Kreider guessed, that busyness was a mask for anxiety. I'm sure it's because there's so much happening that can't be written about and posted next to a neat stack of chocolate brownies. These are serious things. Sean's mom went into the hospital, came out, and today went back in. Last week, during a family meeting, she asked me to blog about her death. It seems like that sentence should be attached to some sort of funny quip but it isn't. Not at all.

Normally, when I take some time away, I jump back in with lots of explanations and most of them involve the world 'travel' and 'busy' (and we all know that travel is busy, much of the time). But thanks to recent thoughts, that busy label seems much less authentic. Because, as I've just mentioned, it's so much more than that.

Summer Reading

I've been plowing through books lately, and consuming them with the same frantic, never-come-up-for-air feeling that I remember from childhood. Back then, I used to check out a dozen books from the library and then descend into the basement for a cool, dark escape. I'd spend days down there, only coming up to eat, run through the sprinklers, or to return to the library for more books.

These days my reading time is more limited. I'm lucky if I get in thirty minutes before sleep (I'm talking book reading, people. I read a lot of blogs and articles during the day. My favorite form of procrastination!)

But one of the best parts of vacation is that there is always time for reading. While in Point Reyes I developed a delicious habit: A mid to late afternoon long hike, followed by a shower and then a long (two hours, plus) cocktail hour devoted to book reading and wine sipping. Finally, when my glass was empty, my stomach gnawing, and a chapter finished I'd go in search of dinner. Just like I did when I was a kid.

Over the past couple of weeks I've devoured Rules of Civility, Bringing Up Bebe, Turn of Mind, and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place.

On the 4th of July I finished reading The Help (I can't wait to finally watch the movie!) And now, two days later, I'm trolling around for something new. This is on my nightstand, but last night I fell asleep while reading The New Yorker article about Ben Stiller. I also want to re-read Coming To My Senses, which I first read earlier this year in proof and adored.

What's on your summer reading list?

Winner: M.F.K. Fisher Musings on Wine & My Richness

There's nothing like having your disorganization and procrastination splayed wide for the whole wide world to see. Case in point: I'm an entire week late in picking the winner of a copy of M.F.K. Fisher: Musings on Wine and Other Libations. It's totally my fault and I have no good excuse. It feels a little like I invited people over for a dinner party and then chose not to clean up (something I would never actually do, by the way). Guests show up and there it is: my mess. The pile of ironing on the couch, the kitchen that needs to be swept, the stack of mail and bills to pay.

But, as Pema Chodron says, "all this messy stuff is your richness." And so it is. And so it's not too late to announce a winner.

There were so many nice comments about lovely glasses of wine that it became impossible to personally pick the best one. So I made someone else do it. And Elizabeth, of the lovely Ring Them Bells, won with her description of Pinot noir from Lemon Creek Winery in Michigan. I'll be looking for a glass of this soon.

I plan to be back shortly with a roundup of things that have been keeping us fed in recent weeks. In the meantime, here's a reminder that not everything that looks messy is messy:

Le Weekend

Where did the week go?

It's the nicest Friday in San Francisco I've ever seen, and it's made me incredibly dreamy. Here are some of the things I'm thinking about:

A solitary mid-afternoon snack at Prune in New York City:

1/2 avocado with hojiblanca olive oil, salt, and lemon:

This neon pale pink lipstick with a cinematic name.
The pecan tart with butterscotch ice cream and whiskey sauce I ate here last night.
The delicate, delicious, not-budget-friendly House Kombucha
Becoming an Irish housewife and baking brown bread.
A lovely book by an even more lovely author (more about this soon).
Loss.
The basket of bright red strawberries I bought today at Bi-Rite Market and ate one by one while slowly climbing a hill.

Enjoy.

Eating Alone

Sean's been in Los Angeles with his mom for ten days and in that week-and-a-half, I've learned something: My views on eating alone have completely changed.

Is it because I'm lonely, you wonder? No -- even though I am, a little. It's because before, when I was single, eating alone was The Norm. I lived alone, I ate alone. I cooked only things I liked, planned for leftovers, and went out a few times a week simply to be sure I wouldn't shrivel. 

Then for awhile I lived with someone, only he traveled for work all the time. Most weekdays I was alone in our house perched near the top of one of San Francisco's big hills. I'd watch the fog roll in and feel the chill begin to seep through the cracks. I hardly ever went out during this time. I was finishing the book, and I was poor and tired. Most days, an intense yoga class and a bowl of soup sounded better than fighting for a solo spot at a restaurant in the Mission.

Now, I am married. I live in a different house, near the bottom of a different hill, but I can still watch the fog roll in. And when that starts to happen, I know it's time to get up from my desk and make dinner.

I cook five nights a week, at least. Always something different, only a little repetition, and the meals are hearty. All of a sudden I cook like my mother: Meat, a side salad, maybe some bread. Ideally there's something else in there too -- A rice, quinoa, or lentil salad, roasted potatoes or brussels sprouts. Sometimes Sean eyes the dinner plate and then -- before he ever even sits down -- pulls a cheese or two from the fridge so they can soften while we eat. This means he's really hungry (a long run) or that my "substantial" meal of beans and greens isn't quite substantial enough.

Now that he's gone more, I've completely stopped cooking. I stretch my leftovers beyond what most people would consider reasonable, and eat lots of my usual lunches for dinner. This often means slabs of Acme bread with hummus, avocado, and cheese, or scrambled eggs and steamed greens dribbled with olive oil. One night I ate cheez-its and a side salad. This was the night that got me thinking.

I knew lots of girls that ate like this all the time when they were single: Bags of Trader Joe's edamame tossed with salt. Bowls of granola. Cheese and crackers. Waffles. But I was never that girl. I always cooked meals. I always took care of myself. What happened?

I think (hope) that this has less to do with slovenly behavior or a total abandonment of my self than it does with an acknowledgement of my own needs -- as separate from Sean's needs and different from our needs as a couple.

Now when I'm home alone taking care of myself means something different than it did before. Some nights I'd rather take a bath than cook dinner. Others, I'd rather crawl into bed and write or think about bohemian poets. And then there are the nights that all I really want to do is watch TV and bake coconut-cashew-cranberry granola and eat roasted brussels sprouts for dinner. Again.

I'm curious to know what you think about all this. What do you eat when you're alone? If you live with someone -- a roommate or love -- is it different when they're gone?

I don't really have plans to make any big adjustments, mind you. In fact I think that's my point: Sometimes the best way to take care of yourself is to just do the things that make you feel like you.

Valentine's Day Breakfast

The other day, Sean looked at me and said: "I married you because I wanted someone to share the good times. And now we have to share the bad." This, I think, is love.

A year ago today, Sean proposed. It was impetuous. No rose petal aisles, rooms full of candles, or panoramic views. Just Sean in his brown furry bathrobe, a yet-to-be-cleaned-or-sized antique ring, and a sudden but deep desire to say those four little words.

In the 365 days that passed between then and now, we got married. Books were published. We traveled. We fought. In January, we found out Sean's mom has terminal brain cancer. Just yesterday, I looked down at my hand and noticed that one of the tiny sparkling diamonds in my engagement ring was gone.

None of this has been what I expected. I used to think I understood what love meant and what marriage required. But my notion of this is being expanded to include larger highs and lows every single day.

Thank goodness there are some things that are reliable. Like breakfast. This morning we had soda water waffles, sliced pink grapefruit, and coffee.

And I'm happy to report that Sean wore his fuzzy brown bathrobe.

My Winter List

So, it's nearly the middle of December. We have a tiny tree, a snow globe collection, a parade of penguins lined up on the mantle. Every morning I light candles to brighten up those grey moments between night and day. Yesterday, there were even some Christmas tunes involved.

And yet -- I just spent six days in New York and am headed to Los Angeles later today. While I dream of cookie baking and gift wrapping, my reality is flight check-ins, email returns, and detail management. I'm the kind of person who sees a photograph of snow in April and starts to countdown till Christmas. The fact that I can't quite fully embrace the holiday spirit makes my heart hurt.

And yet -- Two weeks ago we attended a friend's lyric choral concert. It was in a chilly but beautiful church. The music was in Latin; full of highs and lows and lots of melody. We paused and listened.

The next night, we went to the Singalong Sound of Music in the Castro. To see it on the big screen -- those mountains and hills! -- was a treat. We laughed and sang.

And yet -- Some night next week Sean will surprise me. We'll get in the car and head south towards West Portal, stopping along the way to look at the big houses with opulent Christmas lights. Once arrived, we'll buy a ticket for a movie. (Any movie, but nothing too morose, maybe The Muppets?) Last year we were sneaky and brought in burgers.

The lesson? Sometimes, instead of you finding the holiday, the holiday finds you. 

And yet -- There are some traditional things that just must be done, because without it, it wouldn't seem like the holidays. Here are some cozy, wintery things I'm looking forward to this season:

Forcing my brother to decorate sugar cookies with me. He always resists. He always dives in. (Albeit with typically "boyish" results. Ex: A bloody reindeer.)

Reading by the tree, in front of the fireplace. That spot in the photo is the most prime lounging real estate in the house.

 My mom's holiday table. Believe it or not, this is a weeknight meal.

Snow. Walking in it; looking at it; skiing through it. Snow.

What's on your Winter List?

Isn't It Enough?

Simply Lit

 

Often toward evening,

after another day, after
another year of days,
in the half dark on the way home
I stop at the food store
and waiting in line I begin
to wonder about people—I wonder
if they also wonder about how
strange it is that we
are here on the earth.
And how in order to live
we all must sleep.
And how we have beds for this
(unless we are without)
and entire rooms where we go
at the end of the day to collapse.
And I think how even the most
lively people are desolate
when they are alone
because they too must sleep
and sooner or later die.
We are always looking to acquire
more food for more great meals.
We have to have great meals.
Isn't it enough to be a person buying
a carton of milk? A simple
package of butter and a loaf
of whole wheat bread?
Isn't it enough to stand here
while the sweet middle-aged cashier
rings up the purchases?
I look outside,
but I can't see much out there
because now it is dark except
for a single vermilion neon sign
floating above the gas station
like a miniature temple simply lit
against the night.

Poem by Malena Mörling

Postscript: I'm going away for a few days. If I don't get the chance to tell you, have a lovely and abundant Thanksgiving.

Inspiration

Where do you find yours?

This week I've found inspiration in the changing seasons, new neighborhoods, coffee fueled conversations with friends, afternoons spent drinking rose, long lunches in Marin, the sound of literature being read aloud, and these photos -- taken during an Open Studio visit a few weeks ago.

To me, they're a useful reminder that even though the creative process is important, breaking away from routine can lead to beautiful things.

2011: Thousands of Futures

 

There's a lot of buzz right now about the new year: resolutions, house cleaning, and getting fit. For me, it's cacophony. I've been scrambling to get on top (and stay on top) of my world since 2009. It hasn't happened yet. There have been massive to-do lists, endless sorting piles, cleaning frenzies, resolutions and promises. And I still end each day with an overflow pile that leaves me wishing I needed much less sleep. 

And then, I woke up and things felt different. Today the sun is shining, the coffee in the tin is ground. I showered before 9 a.m., which for a work from home writer, is a feat. The piles and boxes in every room of our new house seem to be diminishing. With each trip to the recycling bin comes a small sense of order that is endlessly satisfying. 

Perhaps it's the 90 minute yoga class I attended last night, but I am feeling good. This doesn't mean that I won't spiral back down quickly -- just last Saturday --January 1!-- I was despondent over the book. Would it sell? How to pay the rent?

But today, the world seems bright. And it reminds me of something I posted on January 3, 2010, a passage I love that will continue to carry me (and you?) into another new year:

"Sometimes the days burst open like seedpods and we see thousands of futures, and it's so much that our throats swell and we can't do anything but turn away and forget that gleaming, all that possibility. Who could live into such brightness? Sometimes the days beat their wings slowly so we can take their measure, so we know how lucky we are that we are being given just one moment more."
From The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After, by Melanie Gideon

 

I was in a very different spot last year: broken heart, life full of disorder.  Now things are different. I fell in love again, and finished writing my book. But I still adore Melanie's words, and thought about them a lot as 2010 was spinning into 2011.  

 

This wasn't supposed to be a mushy, reflective musing. It was supposed to be a bit about the kick-ass coconut cilantro rice I've cooked two times in 2011. But I guess that's the point  -- isn't it? Sometimes plans go awry, and when they do, it's best to pick yourself up and keep going. We've got a thousand different futures, after all, each of them gleaming and full of good fortune.

Happy New Year. 

 

P.S. If you want to take some concrete steps to a better 2011, check here. If you want to be more mindful and look a little more carefully at your environment, check here. And if you want to simply focus on the good, try this. xo

Last Minute Gift: Remedy Quarterly

My favorite gift that I am giving this year also happens to be the one I wish I was GETTING: A subscription to the independent food magazine Remedy Quarterly.

Let this be a lesson to me: usually if I purchase a great gift for someone else, I get one for me. Some people call this selfish. But it's how I have acquired half of my coolest things.

This is the Holiday Volume I Gift Subscription to RQ. You get the first three volumes of the magazine, plus the fourth volume, which is coming soon in 2011, and includes one of my essays.

Kelly, of Eat Make Read, helped start Remedy Quarterly. She sent the gift to me all tied up with bakers twine and with an adorable gift tag. I love love love it, but really don't want to give it away.

I'm planning on stealing this from Mom on Christmas afternoon and reading through every issue, piece by lovely piece. Is that selfish?

Pattypan Squash and Fennel Soup

This week has been a small lesson in failure. Sure, I have a book coming out, but there are so many things I'm not doing. Blogging regularly. Investing the time to take better photos. Befriending bloggers and editors. Pitching freelance stories. Tweeting. Facebooking. Tweeting some more.

Just writing the list makes me tired.

What's unfortunate about our sped-up, plugged in world, is that increasingly, the simple little things seems to be valued less and less. Where's the time to read a book if I'm always on the computer? And new writing projects are rarely, if ever, born from a revelatory blog post.

No. The things that make me want to write, and cook, and write some more, come from real life: the fog covering Twin Peaks. A rain slicked street. Being up early, with only my coffee, and my oatmeal mixed with pear compote to keep me company.

Still, I vow to do better, because that's what we Type-A-Personality-Industrious-Catholic-Girls do. I tell myself I will write more, blog more, and take more photos while I am doing it. All this will be balanced by long walks up big hills, and time spend reading The New Yorker and the best collections of food writing.

And then I fail, fail, fail.

So I cook, because cooking is good, and simple, and no matter what, we gotta eat. I open the fridge. I pull out the veggies that have nearly turned the corner. I find a recipe. I adapt it, roasting the veggies with a little paprika.

The smell of them fills up the house, reminding me again, that what's good in this world isn't always founds through an i-product.

The simple whir of the roasted vegetables mixing with broth and a hint of cream make a velvety soup. It's the color of coffee with lots of milk, but finished with another dot of cream and a spoonful of red wine vinegar, it is complex and warming. We eat in the soft light of Sunday supper, with jazz on and a big glass of wine.

This is real. It's the good stuff, and what I'll try to share more.

 

Pattypan Squash and Fennel Soup

4 or 5 medium Patty pan squash or zucchini

1/2 big red onion

1 medium fennel bulb

Olive oil

Paprika
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 to 4 cups chicken stock, homemade or store bought
1/4 cup heavy or sour cream (optional) plus more for serving.
Drizzle of red wine vinegar (also optional).


Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Cut the zucchinis, fennel and onions into chunks, place in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and paprika. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until all the vegetables are tender, turning once.
Remove from oven and using a stand-up or immersion blender, coarsely puree the roasted vegetables. Add three cups stock, and more if needed, until the soup reaches desired consistency. Add cream if you like, and also red wine vinegar to round out the sweetness of the vegetables. Serve with a dollop of cream or yogurt.
Feeds 2.