Poor decisions, food and other tales

I don’t know how this is going to work out, but I’ve decided to do NaBloPoMo(Fo) again. See? Poor decisions. However, I said yes because it’s kind of a tradition on my small corner of the internet, so I’m going to make an effort to do it again. Even though I’m less than an hour from missing day 1.

Now for food matters. I’ll start by saying that I didn’t I realize until I got here that this is such a spectacularly good place for food. Which means I didn’t realize that my first month living here would turn me into a lunatic.

It’s not just that it would take months to go to all the farmer’s markets around here, but also that the area borders significant farming areas: the San Joaquin valley and the Pacific coast. Berkeley is the home of Alice Waters, who is one of the most influential people in the local food (and artisan food) movement. She’s also the VP of Slow Food USA, which is rather active here. Michael Pollan of The Omnivore’s Dilemma fame lives here too, and teaches at Berkeley. North Berkeley is home to an area called the “Gourmet Ghetto,” quite appropriately named. Berkeley’s city council and school district have food policies that reflect a local + healthy + sustainable goal as well. Most of the restaurants I’ve looked at or been to here talk about sourcing their ingredients from local, organic farms, as if they couldn’t get clientele if they didn’t. Maybe they can’t.

What that mostly means is that in the last month or so I’ve had a really good time with dinner. I’ve managed to buy all my produce from local markets, entirely organic local produce. Often for cheap (if you shop at the end of the day you can get great deals). I always wanted to do that, but it was difficult to do in Austin. Do you know people avoid Whole Foods here because they don’t sell enough local produce? Anyway, it turns out that when I am faced with farmer’s market vegetables all the time it sends me into a total recipe-and-cooking frenzy. I visited upon myself a month of such exhaustive cooking that I ended up getting tired and burning the grilled cheese at the end. I used very few short cuts (pasta and a couple of cans of canned beans), no boxed or frozen food, just the power of insanity.

• Fried Rice and Egg Drop Soup (I can only have this soup now if I make it. Chicken broth boo).
• Kung Pao tofu and egg rolls (ancient recipes I have).
• Quinoa cakes with ragu and mozzarella and chopped apple salad (these were a new hit, the salad is work-intensive).
• The dish in the pictures: Mediterranean veggie-cheese pie (fabulous crust idea for this quiche-ish dish, great dill flavor, fairly easy) and bulghur, garbanzo, etc. salad (simple, a favorite of mine).
• Tofu rigatoni casserole (an excellent lasagna substitute, not as heavy with a great use of tofu).
• Polenta and black bean casserole (I edited the recipe heavily – too heavy, too much corn/starch).
• White Bean and Vegetable Cassoulet (a decent but boring cassoulet interpretation) and warm sweet potato salad with chutney (excellent, on the sour side, good for those of us who like sour German potato salad).
• I made the Cassoulet and some White Bean and Pasta Soup (very good) with this sage-garlic cannellini recipe.
• I also madea turban squash and white bean soup with those beans, but I made that recipe up. Turban squashes … meh. I think they’re nicer to look at than try to cook, but I wanted to try.
• My old standby Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato soup, always good.
• Some lovely warming jalapeno chili with mexican corn bread. This is the earliest in the year I’ve ever made chili (it’s cold here!).
• Then later on my second batch of cannellini I made white chili and more mexican corn bread (mmmm).
• I cooked a Brussels Sprouts and Caramelized Onion Hash with a Celebration Roast. That brussels sprouts recipe is very good and sweet but holy cow it’s fussy.
• Made a random curry one night with spinach and paneer and baked some spicy chips from lavash bread. I like making curry at home because I’m somewhat allergic to coconut milk.
• Avocado, cheddar and chipotle grilled cheese sandwiches (this is me getting tired, but they’re tasty), a version of an NPR recipe.
• White pizza with spinach, mushrooms, onions, roasted potatoes and balsamic reduction (got my wind back a bit). The idea for this came from a specialty pizza I had at House Pizzeria in Austin, which of course I can’t get again!

So … that’s about 24 meals there, give or take. At some point I also turned chili into Frito Pie and made veggie burgers and sweet potato fries. It really was an epic month of cooking, and I tried a lot of new recipes. I’d also like to note, to all the people who wonder what there possibly is to eat if you don’t eat meat – HA. HA. There’s plenty! My goal was to make food that had decent proportions of protein, veggies and starch, so I did things like substitute a quinoa/kamut pasta in the white bean soup for regular pasta. I’ve found that if I shop in the gluten-free foods I can find interesting protein-rich substitutes for starches. It’s all mostly healthy, except for those times I crave Frito Pie or stuffed potato skins or something.

My goal for November is to not kill myself again, but also come up with a good set of recipes like this so that I can continue this trend. I’m not sure how long the growing season is here, but given that the weather is pretty much always the same, I’m thinking it’s really long. There are still apples on trees in my neighborhood and grapes on the vines. I even saw local strawberries the other day. If we weren’t nearing a water crisis the amount of produce would probably be even more staggering.

Well, not a bad first NaBloPoMo entry. We shall see if this turns out to be like the cooking extravaganza of last month – a decent idea until you try to actually execute it!

Up to some quilting, cooking and stuff …

Prepare for an extremely random post of different stuff. The annual fundraising luncheon I co-organize is happening in 1/2 a week. Six hundred something people for lunch. So not only am I tired, I’m feeling sort of scatterbrained as well. Coherency is not my strong suit at this point. Collating large quantities of data is.

So I’m really, really excited because I finally bought a walking foot attachment for my machine, and a 1/4″ walking foot. Can you tell I’m thinking of making another Large Size Quilt? I must be crazy.

I’m not sure if I should admit this, but I’ve never gotten any extra feet for my machine. I’ve been shy of learning new techniques for my machine, so for a long time I just stuck to the standard metal machine foot. Eventually I graduated to the zipper foot and others. I’m behind on learning machine gadgetry because I am self-taught. I figured out four feet by myself, and honestly some of it, well, it never occurred to me that some of the attachments existed (a ruffler foot? honestly!).

To educate myself about feet and what they do, I bought this book one day when I found it at Half Price Books. <– the Sewing Machine Attachment Handbook. It’s pretty good. There are a crazy number of things that you can do with machine attachments, as it turns out. Ruffling, pleating, smocking, hemming, cutting, darning, whatever. The book has quite a bit of history about machines and their attachments, which I found really interesting, partially because one day I’d like to own an antique machine. Anyway, if you’re interested in crafting gadgets or maybe you’re self-taught like me, it’s an interesting read.

In other news it’s farm market season again, so I brought home a bunch of leafy greens (I love lettuce with the roots still on), beets, eggs, fennel, zucchini and more! I’m (as usual) not thrilled with the hot weather, but I am excited that it’s produce season again. This year I’m going to join a CSA if I find one I like. I’m also starting to cook more again. Yesterday evening I cooked a really nice sweet asparagus and lentil soup – has carrots, onion, peas, roasted garlic and red bell pepper with prickly pear jelly and hot curry. For lentil soup, it’s on the pretty side, and it’s spicy and sweet. I made about a gallon of it, so it’s good that I like it.

Wesley has completed Obedience Training part 2. He took his test with two very excited Staffordshire terriers, a funny Corgi/bulldog mix, a crazy dorky Husky and a chilled out Labrador. Everyone passed the test, which was staying in place while the owner was out of sight, and then coming to the owner on command past a plate of food, sitting in front of us, and then heeling back to home. I must give most of the credit to my mother-in-law, who spent a lot of time training him while we were on vacation. Next I think we’re going to do agility classes since he has the basic commands down. This apparently involves lots of running around and using equipment (for me as well), which I think he will find awfully fun and interesting. He still has tons of energy that not even walking 3-4 miles a day can burn off.

Anyway, I’m 90% done with my new Memory quilt, I’m excited to say, and when I have some spare energy I’ll explain my rather abstract concept for it and how it ended up looking.

Woo! Back to … well, I’m going to sleep actually. Ta!

A few updatey type things

It’s been rather rainy and chilly here lately, which I’m enjoying very much, although it seems like everyone else just wants warm, sunny weather. Despite the frostiness, spring is soon to arrive. As evidenced the pictures gracing this post, which I took while walking to work one day after a night when it froze and even snowed. Leaves were damaged, but the flowers were undeterred.

I think it’s worth noting that I actually sat down and messed with the stuff (sidebar, pages, settings, etc.) on this blog the other night. I think some things hadn’t been futzed with since June 2007 when I started this blog, and others have stayed static since the redesign in October 2007.  I’d love to do another redesign, and restart the Index of Indie, but that will have to wait for available time, so I thought some tidying was in order. My blog’s making me feel a bit claustrophobic, it needs trimming. But I did like that I put the projects I’m working on in there.

Wesley graduated from the first round of obedience training last Monday. He is now an occasionally obedient dog. I’ve gotten mixed reactions about dog training – you all can rest assured, obedience training does not turn your dog into an automaton and there aren’t any choke collars involved. Our trainer Tara and co-trainer Amanda have been great, they love dogs, and they actually specialize in difficult, aggressive dogs, which Wesley is not. I love people who love animals, and don’t give up on them. Anyway, Wesley is still very much puppy-like and doggy. Just the other day he ate my wallet and license, the plastic on Jeff’s new tea mug, part of my shoe, the cheese crackers from a friend’s purse and an entire box of Kleenex. We are doing intermediate obedience training because Wesley enjoyed the classes so very, very much, him being an intelligent dog who likes people, activity and treats. I enjoy that he’s not chasing the poor cat as much, and that he’s ceased trying to dislocate my shoulder on walks.

I have sadly suffered cooking fail twice this week already, and it’s only Wednesday. On Valentine’s Day I did my usual and cooked Jeff dinner. The baked vegetable baklava turned out well, as did the saffron rice, however I … sort of melted the falafel. I used a recipe. I shouldn’t use recipes. The last time I made falafel I just invented it as I went and it turned out beautifully. Then tonight I tried to make red beans and rice – another recipe! – and burned the ever loving hell out of a dish I’m eminently familiar with and is only rice and beans, after all. I must be tired or something. I’m off my game.

I’ve been working really hard on my stack of crafting organizational items, and am proceeding quite satisfactorily. I’ll have some show-and-tell once I have some acceptable lighting. I am enjoying the time sewing very much. I should do this more often!