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November 19, 2008

Food!

 My new geared bike is complete. I am in the process of making a few adjustments to it and getting used to the different style of riding. One of the amazing sensations of cycling is feeling the difference between one bike and the next; I love my single speed coaster brake even more now, though I am sure that I will grow to love this new addition in different ways. (Larger pictures here.)




As always, I am doing a lot of cooking! I have pictures to prove it!

I've been on a cake kick. While watching PBS last weekend, I saw someone make this pumpkin spice cake. I generally don't appreciate pumpkin in desserts aside from pumpkin pie as the true flavor of pumpkin is rarely used in a worthwhile manner. This cake, however, tasted like pumpkin pie in cake form; it was not just some nondescript "spice" cake, but sincerely pumpkin. The honey-cream cheese frosting was also a treat. I decided to top my version off with some crumbled walnuts. (Recipe here.)



Here we have orichetti in a wine cream sauce with fresh green beans, sauteed in butter and garlic, and topped with some lightly sauteed shrimp. I didn't follow a recipe.



A while back I scored a Le Creuset grill pan on ebay, brand new. I've since been grilling a few nights a week to work up a nice patina on the grill pan. Here we have grilled (with a hint of tandoori) pork loin, stuffed baked potato, and sauteed fresh green beans, carrots, garlic and onions. Again, no recipe.



We've had bouts of warm weather in the last few weeks with a few gray, chilly days in between, making a perfect excuse for warm comfort foods like stews and casseroles. This is just a standard chicken and broccoli casserole made with a can of creamed celery soup, cheese, milk, and so on. Recipes like this are a dime a dozen, nothing fancy, but still enjoyable. There is satisfaction to be had in putting everything into one dish, sliding it into an oven, and forgetting about it for an hour or so.



I have a huge sweet tooth. There's always a candy jar at least half-full somewhere in my apartment. As you well know, there isn't always time to bake a nice cake from scratch or to whip up some delicious ice cream. On those occasions, I whip out a box of fat free-sugar free Jello pudding and Cool Whip free topping; garnish with a few slivers of a Hershey bar.



I've been working with a friend on planning a charity bike race that I mentioned here before. We recently got together for brunch and to do the manifest ride. We met at Mission Beach Cafe and I had an amazing veggie quiche with chard and cauliflower, served with a side salad dressed with pomegranate and fig and some roasted potatoes. It was absolutely flawless.

Posted at 9:27 AM. Comments: Post or Read. (16)

 

October 29, 2008

Pumpkins!

 Mine on the left, [info]adancingshiva's on the right.

Posted at 12:41 PM. Comments: Post or Read. (7)

 

October 21, 2008

Food, Glorious Food

 On a whim, I picked up some short ribs that were on sale at the grocery store last Saturday. I ended up braising them in a combination of ketchup, tomato sauce, white wine, lemon, onion, brown sugar and other miscellaneous barbecue-oriented flavorings. The rich, slightly bitter, slightly sweet sauce was complimented by plain white rice and meat as tender as butter.


I've been particularly interested in lentils recently. Last week I put together a sausage and lentil soup with some sweet Italian sausage, roasted butternut squash, turmeric, and other soup-oriented ingredients. It's really easy to cook without recipes most of the time, but it's also important to write those ratios down if the product is so special as to warrant exact replication. This recipe was one of those.


I've been incrementally embracing vegetarian and vegan cuisine. I'm soon to try to make a coconut-based vegan ice cream, and I've managed to pull off vegan chocolate cake in many incarnations: muffins, brownies, layer cake, sheet cake. Here we have vegan chocolate cake sprinkled with chocolate chips and served up with some almost-too ripe strawberries.


My passion for late summer vegetables is no secret. I loathe the end of market season, at least three long months ahead of refrigerated tomatoes and root vegetables, expensive peppers and flavorless peaches. I rely heavily on frozen vegetables to carry me through, and I relish every dish made with the lingering remains of a season passed, like grilled yellow squash.

Posted at 9:20 AM. Comments: Post or Read. (12)

 

September 3, 2008

Icebox Prowler

 I had heard about the problem but didn't realize the brevity of it until I became a victim. A delicious block of cheese scarred with the indents of my two front teeth disappeared. At first I thought it had become buried under the mismatched array of pre-packaged sandwiches and salads, stained Chinese take-out boxes, plastic bags of ground decaf coffee soldiering on in an attempt to stay fresh in the cool refrigerator temperatures, tupperware neatly packed with the remnants of someone's previous night's meal. My cheese was nowhere to be found.

A few weeks earlier I had heard of other casualties: There was Sylvie's turkey-on-whole grain sandwich, also half-eaten; there was Jason's Lean Cuisine, in his favorite chicken alfredo flavor, no less; there was also Ann's Trader Joe's spinach lasagna. I listened to the horror stories, shocked that someone in our office had stolen the food from our mouths; someone silently preying upon the fifth-floor fridge and devouring sustenance not intended for their lips.

The culprit remains a mystery though the thefts continue; last week, I lost my half-eaten bagel and half of a banana to the thief. I realized that I had been hit again when I found myself on my hands and knees pulling out the produce drawer in hopes of finding my breakfast abandoned at the back of a drawer that I did not leave it in. My breakfast fare, too, had been devoured by some desperate office worker who has no issue with eating food laden with bite marks not their own.

A friend suggested I place a post-it on my refrigerator contents announcing, I have hepatitis! If you eat this, you will too!

I've been bringing food to work less because I can't trust that when I put it in the fridge in the morning that it will be there three hours later. Sometimes it survives until I can sink my teeth in, and sometimes it doesn't. I am both disgusted and amazed at the sheer greed, audacity, and disrespect that someone in the office has for their colleagues that they would take the food from our mouths. No one employed here is underprivileged and therefore unable to afford to feed themselves.

I am not the only person perplexed by this situation. The other day when I went to the fridge, I saw this note posted there, reminding me that there is still some good in the world. John certainly did not want to be mistaken for the thieving bandit.

Posted at 3:21 PM. Comments: Post or Read. (19)

 

August 16, 2008

bike.

Posted at 11:07 AM. Comments: Post or Read. (8)

 

August 14, 2008

Spammin' the SF peeps...

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June 24, 2008

There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

 For a few months now I have been struggling with limiting the number of things I own. This is not a simple undertaking as I am a fine purveyor of all sorts of rubbish. I need 30 pairs of knickers, at least six pairs of sneakers, and countless other piles of different-colored sameness. The stuff is not so much about status as it is about comfort, these things that cause my apartment to simulate a womb; the just-in-case stash of matchbooks, chaptstick, and spare towels, array of wooden spoons, coffee cups, tea cups, gravy boat (only used twice), juice glasses, appliances, baskets, clothes to be worn tomorrow, handbags used once every three months.

I've been going through my possessions, slowly shaving away thin layers but still wrangling with the barely noticeable distinctions between want, need, and consumer gluttony. I have a long way to go, and I am not the only one who has taken such a feat upon them to live with less. Last night while looking at my things and thinking about which ones should be weeded out next, I decided to chronicle a few items that, while seemingly lacking in value, cannot be torn from my greedy fingertips. The perceived sentimental value of an object dictates its necessity, a placeholder in my memory that may be forgotten if the object is no longer there to remind me.

To the right is Exhibit A, Hula Justin. This cutie was a birthday gift from a friend several years ago, a play on my fondness for kitschy hula paraphernalia along with my fondness for a certain boy by the name of Justin. It's small and doesn't take up much space, so I don't see the need to part with it.

Exhibit B. Teapot Monkey.
This teapot belonged to my great aunt, Nancy. Nancy is my maternal grandmother's sister who is in her late 80s and has struggled with health issues for several years. Before leaving Maryland, I used to take her to play bingo on some Sunday afternoons and she would cry when she first saw me, thinking I was my mother. However, this teapot does not conjure fond family memories; rather it is so ugly that I know I will never see another one like it again. No one else has this teapot, and that's what I love the most about its creepy eyes that stare out at me from its enameled, leafy perch, feet tucked neatly under the curving base.


Exhibit C. Kitchen Utensils.
I seriously use all of this stuff. It is not uncommon for all burners on my stove to be going at once while two pans are crowded in the oven. I've got a honing rod for my knives, a pastry cutter for my flaky pie crust recipe, a curved blade for my mezzaluna, a book in which to log my creations, an array of spoons, whisks, devices, containers of secret ingredients. The other three sides of my kitchen are as equally cramped. This is the room in which I don't know where to begin in whittling down, but I know that many cooks of far superior skill than I are able to prepare delicious meals with less help from gadgets.


Perhaps with the advice and inspiration of my fellow hoarders, I can find the strength and encouragement to let that gravy boat go, ditch the things that mean less, make pastry without the cutter, and discover that there will always be another coffee cup if I let this one get away. There will not, however, be more bicycles. I must keep all of those (counting 4).

Posted at 10:49 AM. Comments: Post or Read. (14)

 

May 29, 2008

TOP CHEF SPOILER: Don't Let the Door Hit Ya on the Way Out

 I am hooked on Top Chef; I plan my 10-11pm hour of every Wednesday night around the airing of this show. Each season I watch eagerly with fingers crossed, hoping that the despicable characters get the boot. This usually happens sooner rather than later, but this season presented an exception in the form of slimy, sneaky Spike, who continuously made poor decisions (despite his inflated ego) and was allowed to hang on to almost the final four before the cord was cut.

This guy whined about his precious soup early on and the recipe was rejected by his team, only for him to insert it into the competition in a later challenge. This reeked of bypassing the spontaneity that makes a good chef a great one, and it also reeked of his conceit in that he expected to go all the way because he can make good soup, and his momma told him that the mark of a great chef is their ability to make delicious soup.

These little notions that making good soup or cooking eggs to perfection are indicators of the quality and talent of a chef are long out-dated with the advent of new and improved appliances, utensils, and so forth. Get over it, Spike. I make good soup, too. He continuously touted the simply irrational belief that he worked harder than everyone else and that he deserved to win. The sense of entitlement alone invokes a food poisoning-esque reaction in me. Not only did he vocalize such sentiments, he made no secret to the cameras of his intent to "sabotage" the other contestants through various means when the opportunities were presented.

He's the kind of guy who conjures memories of elementary school know-it-alls, ooh-ooh-I know the answer-hand-raising, and generally people you don't want to be friends with, or really know (or know of) at all. Goodbye, Spike. May your Fedora continue to mask your disillusionment.

Posted at 3:17 PM. Comments: Post or Read. (17)

 

May 1, 2008

Innuendo, Anyone?

 Today, I bring you a healthy snack.










(Source.)

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April 24, 2008

Exhaling, Deconstructing

 I don't like to talk about quitting smoking because it makes me think about cigarettes; reams of smoke from between my lips, escaping to the window, open, street below, whir of electric buses jammed with faces unknown, a time when there's no talk; no need for it. Only twice has the craving whispered from the window, fumbling fingers on the blinds, to sit for a minute and pretend to look out, away. I don't want to talk about how I've done it, asked how are your cravings; it makes me think of what I am missing, like wearing a jacket that doesn't fit, doesn't flatter, is not my style, my steed. But I'm not going to wander back, though the window will never seem the same in such minutes as these.

Posted at 6:33 PM. Comments: Post or Read. (8)