Tag / Food

by Sixer

Footnote on a plan

My appetite has been completely squashed.

Yes. I’ve been reduced to punning. Punning is more fun than pureeing. In case you’ve ever wondered how much puree you can make from a five dollar farmer’s market gourd – a fairly pretty blue “sweet meat,” bought with an eye for its cuttable flatness more than for its shade. There was a simply exquisite slate blue, of a different variety, but it was dangerously egg shaped – the answer is over twelve cups. Ugh. Just the thought of orange makes my over-licked fingers cringe reflectively.*

On the bright side, the bright green side, I now have pumpkin-miso muffins, which I’m sure will taste great once I can face them again. And I have frozen pumpkin custard.

The heart plummets at the thought.

I have also done a more thorough job of cleaning the kitchen than any of my family could ever have expected*, and I have bathed for over an hour with Bram Stoker’s Dracula – which I am earnestly enjoying. Would it be too redundant to say I’m enjoying it with great delight? The prose is hilarious, the meals described do not involve squash, and though only twenty-some pages in, I have already been surprised quite a few times. It’s not at all what I was imagining, and it will be most difficult to pace myself and finish it near halloween.  Especially since I have another squash, already cut, on a plate in my fridge, waiting to be simmered.


___________________ Sock’s Off ____________________

* I’ve never claimed to be some paragon of cleanliness, but more than once today the idea of washing my hands again has nearly made me throw them up in the air in surrender. Hopefully the squash stains will come off the walls.

* As Stoker writes “Despair has its own calm.”

by Sixer

Miso

I cannot find the words to describe miso. Perhaps there are somethings that can only be truly understood after a long familiarity. If this is so, miso is certainly one of them.

It’s not that words simply stop coming to me when I sniff at a box of miso, or raise a spoon to lips for a quick taste. Licking my fingers absentmindedly, I find that it is sharp, salty, strong. But the only usefully informative word that has come to me is cheese.

Not that miso tastes like cheese, my mind refuses to accept this statement, more like miso has the same spirit as cheese. It’s aged, for one thing, and it is, as previously alluded to, salty. Its odor is pervasive and its taste distinct. These are attributes of cheese as well. I suspect that, scientifically speaking, tofu is closer kin to the cheddar than miso, but tofu has few qualities. Cheese has many.

I’m looking forward to growing closer to miso, close enough to tell the color of it’s eyes, you could say. Right now I am still learning to like it. It’s the person who you would love going to a movie with but would hate having to eat dinner with beforehand. Who’d you play cards with all night, but would never invite for a walk. You might frown at it in baked goods but savor its presence in soup. It is irreplaceable in my udon’s broth, and that binds it to me forever – like a brother-in-law.

Hello miso, fancy seeing you here. Want to go for a walk?

Triple Soy Loaf, from JustBento
by Sixer

Rind-up

This pie, cake really, was great. So delicious and moist . . . . The recipe came from Cooks Illustrated, which has to be the most enjoyable cooking magazine, whether for pleasant perusal or serious study. Bon Appetite has pretty, glossy pictures, but Cooks Illustrated has art, not to mention actual articles to accompany each recipe, sprinkled with good advice and culinary science. The cake itself is harder to find than cook, in the index it’s not called “Boston cream pie” but something like “wickedly delicous boston cream pie,” which can throw off even the best index skimmer. There are three parts to this delight: cake, cream, and glaze, and I cannot wait for an excuse to bake the cake all by itself. It’s that good.

If you click it, it expands.

The cake was for Easter, which was delicious thank you, but even before that blessed day arrived I managed to check off one of my culinary goals: the watermelon rind pickle. I found this recipe in The Woman’s Home Companion Cookbook, which was published in the early forties, and also in The Foxfire Book. If you have never heard of The Foxfire Book (I believe it’s derived from an old magazine series, but I haven’t actually looked it up) than you are missing out. Such useful information lies within their covers. Everything from building a log cabin to slaughtering a hog. There are even pictures.  My copy of Foxfire comes from my misspent childhood, when I went around reading The Black Stallion, My Side of the Mountain, and Stalking the Wild Asparagus*. Now I read Heyer. Oi vey.
Anyway, the idea of pickling rind, an hither to useless substance, tickled the remainders of my childhood fancy. Especially since the recipes called for cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. And yes, the two sources provided nearly identical recipes. So last Monday the Geekette came over and helped me boil them into existence. The Geekette has been a co-conspiritor of mine since before we really care to remember, and is responsible for such experiments as fried angel food cake. With her help we combined the ingredients and managed to make the sweetest pickles I’ve ever had. We used the rind of one watermelon, which yielded about one quart of thin, unevenly proportioned, white squares. We left out the slacked lime, because for some reason we were out (I’d also never heard of it before out side of historical fiction, which I make a habit of not learning from. Can you buy this at the grocery store?). The result was a slightly gummy confection with a bite only slightly reminiscent of bread and butter pickles. The squares were deep brown, mostly because we used ground spices instead of their whole counter parts. In fact, the ground spices were such a bother that we had to rinse off the pickles before eating them in order to avoid covering our tongues in cinnamon paste. Blech. Even though these pickles were peculiar I’m definitely going to make them again. Especially since I found a use for the left over juice.
See, the Geekette and I deemed actually pickling the pickles to be a waste of resources, since it wasn’t like we had a whole truckload of them. So there I was, with a whole bucket of christmas scented syrup in my fridge, wondering what to do with it. Mouse? Ice cream?  Delicate lemon squares? The last was the clear winner. When I was a child it seems my mom made desserts all the time, every other memory is about us beating egg whites for meringues – innocently called kisses throughout my whole childhood – or sniffing at the lemon scented air as mom pulled a pan of yellow goodness out of the oven. I haven’t had lemon squares in ages now, so recreating them with pickle juice was a lot of fun. The best part was my family didn’t touch them. Score for the pickle bar.

In other news, I am now the proud owner of a Honda Fit, and Doctor Who has started up again. Oh, and I discovered how to make my dad’s camera zoom and focus. Like, at the same time.

Wow, it’s been quite a week.

Be blinded by the cake, ignore the absence of pickle pictures!
*Speaking of Euell Gibbons, someone I trust and admire deeply told me they had made wisteria fritters before. Wisteria. Fritters. Oh my, imagination overload.
by Sixer

Wow, I Haven’t Written Since……

Anyway, here’s my “literary” quote for the post:

“‘Names,’ she was saying. ‘Where would we woodtrolls be without them? They tame the wild things of the deepwoods, and give us our own identity. Ne’er sip of a nameless soup, as the saying goes.'”                                          —— Paul Stewart, Beyond the Deepwoods 

It seemed kind of relevant since last fall I studied the development of the novel which, interesting enough, outlined the rise of the individual. Naming was a big theme. The importance of what we associate our selves with stretches back even to Moll Flanders, where an ignorant little girl desires to be a gentlewoman. But enough of this, lets talk holidays.
Here is cheer, in the form of yarn:

Kindness, in the form of Fetching gloves, knitted by Theo:

And hospitality, in the form of food:

We had a big New Years party at our house (again) this year, and I decided to try Ms. Ree’s Chesse Puffs. My mom inisits on calling them fondue bread. I thought I’d photo-log the process, but the kitchen was a bit of a mess, here are the pictures I did take:

If you’re interested in making these (and you should, they’re not only easy and delicious, they’re also a nice change from candy canes) you might be interested to hear that when I doubled the recipe I neglected to double the butter. Bad llama. But seriously, the kitchen didn’t explode, the cheese didn’t curdle, and Ms. Ree did not hunt me down demanding that I strictly adhere to her fat content.
Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic.
After the Cheese puffs where in the frezzer my mom talked me into making carrot soup. Don’t laugh, but my carrot soup recipe comes directly from the Samantha cookbook – except mom dosen’t keep half and half on hand so I had to use heavy cream instead. I guess that was my karma for not doubling the butter.

Anyway, this was just a quick post to let everyone know I was still alive, and should be back tomorrow to review The Good Earth, which I finally finished yesterday. I’m also hoping review some of the books I was forced to read during the fall. I’ve realized that I’m really bad at talking about books. I either say too much (“Well, it was about this guy, a hobbit, who was forced into an adventure by a wizard, and, have you ever read Lord of the Rings? Okay, because it ties into that, and the man, his name is Bilbo, has all these adventures……) or I say too little (like “it was a good book” which means nothing).  Until tomorrow then, I remain,

Sincerely yours,
Ms. B

P.S. Just a follow up of the last post, I visited Pablo’s scifi poll and realized that I had left science out of my equation. I still think scifi is mostly about society, but there has to be some kind of science in there too, right? So here’s the big question, is Stargate science fiction?  What about the new Startrek movie?

by Sixer

Happy, Happy Day!

“Even a muggle such as yourself should be rejoicing on this happy, happy day.”

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter, Book 1

 

Dear Sister,
You are always bugging me to post, so, since the box containing your birthday present (and that of another) is still sitting in my room, untapped and unlabeled, let this post be your official birthday present.
There is some debate about what would make a good birthday post, some say pretty pictures, preferably old. I can’t see me pulling that off, this is not exactly a personal blog. Luckily for me I can just follow the golden rule of birthdays, which is “always have food.” In other words, here is your Birthday E-Feast Via Blog!
BiBinBa – This is a Korean dish, and very good. I got it at the Fugi Grand food court this Monday. There are various toppings you can pick but, following Mrs. Purewell’s lead, I chose cheese. It’s served in this huge pot of a bowl, and you are given an egg to crack into it. Don’t worry, the rice is so hot that the egg scrambles when you mix everything together. It’s slightly spicy and oh so good!

Seven Eleven – Yes, the local seven eleven. Right across from the church, so I can run over and get my self a lunch. From Right to Left: Rolled Sushi with Nattou (the only inherently nasty food I’ve had yet), Melon Pan, and a Chicken Pasta Salad (the chicken is on top with the salad and the salad dressing. Some assembly required). I’ve had all of these before, though at different places. In fact, I’ve had melon bread twice. They serve it every where, even at McDonalds.

Mabodofu – Here’s what I had for lunch this Thursday. I had no idea what is was, but I bravely took it to the front counter anyway, just for you. Usually the cashier asks me if I want hashi, but this time they asked me something else. Needless to say I was thrown off. Eventually they found some way of communicating the simple question “shall I heat it up for you?” and I was able to stutter out an “onegashimasu.” Then, once it was all nice and hot, and tucked into the bag with a spork, I asked the lady what it was called. “Mobarohu,” she said. Or so I thought. But when I got back “home” and looked it up I found my hearing was a little off. Mabodofu it is then, and it’s good. Though a little greasy, as though the hamburger meat wasn’t drained properly. I think I’ve had something similar at the Toothy’s, only without the tofu and with way more veggies. Yum!

There you go, your birthday feast. And for dessert why not forgo the usual cake and have some kakigouri, blue Hawaiian is my favorite. Make sure they drizzle it with plenty of condensed milk! (or put ice cream on top and call it a “cream frappe”).

Love,
Little “B”