washing dishes by hand

when i was a child and we moved to a house with a dishwasher, it seemed like a luxury.
i don't have one, now, and neither do, wow, quite a few of my friends if i think about it.
most of them say they enjoy washing dishes by hand.
so now that is the luxury, isn't it?
having the time to wash your dishes by hand while your mind roams free for awhile and your hands play in warm soapy water.
it's twice as nice when someone joins you and dries.

the joy of dieting

"diet" wasn't my thing.  this left me out of or seriously bored with many conversations.
i assumed it all had to do with some body image problem.

recently i watched a super good PBS video Eat, Fast and Live Longer with Michael Mosley (available it says until 9/7) http://video.pbs.org/video/2363162206/ and decided to try it. (except i don't really want to live with michael mosley)

now i get it!  it's a way to organize your life.  instead of wandering aimlessly about in life, you are on a mission, a project.  you research, you devise menus, your brain has something to do when it needs distraction -- think up menus, plan new wardrobes, pat yourself on the back, plan how you'll get through a restaurant or party experience, all that kind of stuff.

Things People Organize Their Lives Around fascinates me since i quit my job.  it's kind of a sub-category of my lifelong interest in What People Should Do With Their Time, other than, that is, criticize everyone else for how they're spending THEIR time.

anyway, this 5:2 diet is great, because you only do it 2 days out of 5, and on the days you are eating very little, you can just reassure your tummy that tomorrow you will FEAST!

serendipity strikes again

all they had were the really big watermelons, not the small sweet ones, but we figured it would be ok for the party.
 but then we didn't get to go to the party!
 plus it was hot hot hot
 thank goodness for the world wide web, the information highway, the 'net.
i discovered a new fabulous hot weather cooling beverage...fill the blender with watermelon, mince up some mint (rampant in our back yard), and when it's all a liquid, chill it.
it looks so pretty in a glass with a sprig of mint.
deeelicious, plus i filled several quart jars and froze them for winter.
watermelon mint ice cubes would be good too!

new fangled gadgets

Me, being dramatic, "WHAT?" "Did Mom DIE?"
Dad, "No, she doesn't know yet"
Me, "She said you could get a microwave over her dead body."
Dad, "She's in Maryland for the week at her sister's. So I needed one! Don't worry, she'll get used to it."

This was in the 60s. Recently I sent a link to friends with kids, grandkids, work with kids, for a summer fun project using ivory soap and a microwave oven.  One friend replied "I wish I had a microwave -- Not really."  She's an old-fashioned sort of cook.

Mom did find uses for the microwave.  Dad then got each of us kids a microwave so he could use it for his coffee and his oatmeal when they visited us. I foresaw it as useless, but once we had it, we found it handy.
 
It turns out the first microwave oven was sold in 1947. That's as in freaking NINETEEN FORTY SEVEN!  It's new like the TV, refrigerator and stove are new!  The countertop version was introduced in 1967 by Amana. Lots of people still refuse to have TVs, and dammit, you just can't get ice delivered for an icebox any more.

Some people are convinced microwave cooking is dangerous, radiates microwaves, chemically changes the food.  Could be.  I will say this, if you aren't careful, it for sure lets you to cook up all kinds of prepared foods best left out of your meal plan!

for love of winter

sunny and 30 F today!  i took some more rugs out and broomed them...didn't bother with my jacket, and walked on the frozen snow in my sneakers.  w00t!

had some eggs to use up so i found a simple and delicious quesadilla recipe.  this used up all the eggs (so now am out of eggs) and have now to use up a bunch of cilantro, 1/2 can of black beans, and most of a jar of salsa, 2/3 a package of whole wheat tortillas. 
 there is also cheddar cheese left over but that won't be a problem!

for the book groups i am trying to read Pillars of the Earth, and for the other one, Founding Brothers.  omg they are both so bad.  xtian told me to read Geek Love and the library got it for me -- a paperback covered with tape and well used.  i'm already into it.

what are they thinking?  this looks like it must be popular, can't they spring for a new paperback at least?  but i know it's not that easy accessioning a book, lotta paperwork and stuff.  anyway, Geek Love will save me from death by ponderous tomes.

Rude Veggies

in one of those british tv shows, as kind of a casual aside from the plot, there was a box for collection of rude vegetables.  apparently there was to be a contest judged by  -- of course --the parish priest.  

i had no idea what a rude vegetable might be until the contents of the box were shown!

what a fun idea!  carrot growers especially have had many a hoot over their crop.  i mentioned it to my neighbor, and she brought this one by yesterday. 

could my town have a contest like this?  not likely!  this is america - we are above that sort of thing.

*giggle snort*

veggie heaven

a food day today.
our neighbor's been generously sharing the garden produce, and our fridge hardly closes.
last year it was zooks.  ..i'm just eating the last of my frozen zuchinni bread!
this year it is cukes, cabbage, rainbow chard, tomatoes, and a pepper or squash here and there.
so delicious! but!
today is the day.
last week i started the vinegar made from blackberries and water. 

we're eating the amazing tomatoes fast as we can.
today i washed and briefly steamed 3 pots of chard, and bagged and froze it for winter soups.
the long colorful stems, i debated, then (shhh) threw away. as Ma said in Jeff Danziger's Out In The Sticks "want not, freeze not."
i used the rest of the cabbage to make a big lot of cole slaw to eat for a few days.
the remaining cukes became 2 jars of refrigerator pickles (not worth dragging out the canning equipment)
now i just have the not-quite-ripe pears on my pear tree, and all the quince if i want to make jelly.
who needs a CSA when you have NGV -- neighbor growing (too many) veggies.

Dancing and dessert

is there a standard length for a minuet? i got a new recipe book -- one recipe mentions 'minuet' several times but it doesn't list it in the back under the measurements section!

must be a commonly used measure, because when i google "how long is a minuet" there are numerous sites addressing the question.

answer is, it depends.  but not on what you are cooking -- it depends on the piece of music, and also, it is usually played faster if there are no dancers.  so if i dance, this will take longer to cook.

warm brown & fragrant

everyone knows Freud's famous comment "What do women want?" (my favorite reply is from Gloria Steinem: "ask them one at a time.")

do you ever hear "What do men want?"

usually John does the cooking, but lately I've been cooking.  last night i made a meatloaf so good he actually dreamt about it during the night.

in case you are wondering, it was a turkey meatloaf recipe from the internet - lots of onion, garlic, ketchup, some w. sauce,  breadcrumbs, 1 egg, i think that's it!

do i ever dream about food? not that i remember...i'll have to pay attention.

tea

apparently tea can get moldy.

even tho it is merely flavored water.

esp if it is left in a pot and the pot is put away in a cupboard for

say a month or two.

making vinegar

friends used to talk about fruit flies - even get into animated conversations with strangers - it was some class i guess i didn't sign up for....breeding fruit flies.

my neighbor has given me a big bowl of blackberries from her bushes. 

or are they black raspberries?  the internet says: Black raspberries become hollow in the middle when picked from the main plant whereas the blackberries retain its stem.

must be black raspberries.

last year i froze much of what she gave me, then never knew what to do with them. 

so this year i am making vinegar. 

here's how:

cover berries with water.

mash them up.

pour into a sterilized jar (i boiled a large canning jar for a bit)

cover with cloth and a rubber band (i used a flowered handkerchief i found in my drawer - where/when did i ever get that?)

wait 3 months or so until the mother (gloop on top) falls to bottom and then pour off the vinegar!

sounds easier than the saurkraut i tried to make last year and ended up throwing away !

but what about the fruit flies?

they seem to like the idea, and gather on the top.  what are they doing?  

if they are sitting, ok, but if they are laying eggs or pooping, i'm not happy about that.

i can't see that they are leaving anything there...they just seem to like to gather in the vinegary atmosphere.

i guess i should have taken that class!

chocolate mousse guacamole??

some saturdays i leave the radio on a while after "wait wait don't tell me" --  until it just becomes annoying.

a few weeks ago, a cooking show came on with guest cheryl crow. her recipe for chocolate mousse caught my ear, basically thick chocolate pudding, made with 2 avocados, agave nectar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and almond extract!

i got a couple of avocados and gave it a try. since john doesn't like avocados, it seemed like a perfect test!

it was simple to make and he loved it. 

deeeee-licious!  (it's not green either)

i didn't have almond extract, plus one of my friends is allergic to almonds, but i had just made coffee, so i put in that instead.  we ate it like pudding, in little bowls, not being the owners of martini glasses. 

hell i drink wine out of little juice glasses and john likes to drink water or juice from canning jars....martini glass? gimme a break.

here's the link to the recipe....it's great stuff!

  chocolate mousse recipe
oh another thing...i didn't use a food processor, just an old blender i have.  worked fine!

in which i decide to take up cooking

my plan -
choose a cuisine - thai, or mexican, or indian
get a book or course
learn the vocabulary, utensils, ingredients
work through it and become proficient
that was my plan
alas
systems, discipline, linear progressions -
a wrestling match i seldom win

here's how it goes so far:
PEARS
our pear tree did its thing
many small misshapen pears.
the internet to the rescue!
aha - i DO have vinegar, raisens, sugar, garlic, chiles, spices
voila - i taste no trace of the pears in it
but the resulting chutney is a WOW!

EGGS
our fridge is full of certified organic
eggs from a neighbor's free range chickens
(read that as deeelicious eggs!).
search of index of cookbooks
aha - i DO have large cast iron skillet
+ potatoes onions oven = yumm frittata
serve with juicy orange tomatoes from another neighbor
and kale from our kale patch!

CABBAGE
a neighbor brings us cabbages
i search the pantry - 7 kinds of dried beans!
i search the internet - SOUP
amazing soup of beans cabbage and best of all -
anything else! clean out the fridge.
in goes the left over garlic-mashed-potatoes kale
peas carrots zucchini, onion tomatoes i forget what else.
we eat it for days - it gets better and better!
some goes to a sick friend - she gets better!

MORE CABBAGE
in Sun Magazine (highly recommended) -an interview
with Sandor Katz who is wild about fermentation!
a fermentation madman! his enthusiasm is contagious!
i shred up the rest of the cabbage, mash it and cover in brine.
it sits in the pantry in a jar
like some science experiment,
weighted down with a waterfilled baggie.
i'm watch it closely to see what will happen!

MAYBE NEXT WEEK
use up all those apples - yum
apple crisp - my favorite.

contemplating ramadan

fasting all day - could i ?

eat nothing -

from breakfast to lunch?

maybe.

drink nothing -

from breakfast to lunch?

doubtful.

(here i take a sip of coffee)

eat nothing -

from lunch to dinner?

gasp! (reaching for a cookie)

drink nothing -

from lunch to dinner?

impossible!

and besides -

these northern August days are long!

in Alaska do they get to eat at all?

sugaring time

there was a time when i didn't know that maple-flavored syrup wasn't really maple syrup, and didn't care.
i'll bet there are lots of people who still don't know! once my cousin cathy came to visit me and asked me "where's the maple sugar industry?"
i said more or less "say what?"
she wondered where in this rural and forested state were the factories big enough to make all that maple syrup sold worldwide -- she meant products like aunt jemima's.
she wondered was i was putting her on when i told her that for a few weeks in spring, sap gushed from holes drilled in trees, and was gathered in buckets, poured into vats often pulled on sledges by horses, and boiled down 40 to 1 to make syrup.
pretty unbelievable!
nowadays many big syrup makers use tubing through the hilly woods from tree to tree to a collection tank, but some still use horses to get up in the snowy hills. (the trees won't grow in nice rows on flat land like apple trees). many people tap just a few trees around their place and gather the sap by snowshoe. something to do when the weather is warming, but too cold and muddy for anything else outside.
once you have a tank of sap, you need an outdoor shed for the 40 to 1 boiling, unless you are tired of your kitchen wallpaper.
and that's why the stuff is wicked expensive, but tastes like nothing else!
here are some photos of local sugaring so far this spring!


http://www.vpr.net/episode/48111/

you are what they feed you

Last night i watched a movie called Food, Inc.

In some ways I think everyone should watch it.
On the other hand, I'm not sure everyone should.

It is very much like a science fiction tale of the 'future', except that in science fiction you are horrified even though it is not real -- although to some extent you realize it is.

Food, Inc is horrifying in much the same way. Oh, and it is real.
So if you like scary movies...this one's for you!

You need this information.
Not to make you feel bad about yourself and the choices you make, you are the victim not the perpetrator in this story.
Information however unpleasant, provides choices. Knowing more, you can recognize times when you have a choice, and make the one you need to make at the time. Only you know what that is.

It's one thing to decide you are going to eat bacon now and then, despite all you know about it. It's another to ignore and even condone the passage of laws that result in millions of people having no choice but to eat total crap that ultimately sickens them.
Children shouldn't watch this.

You can get a copy here http://www.foodincmovie.com/

for thanksgiving ~ gokan no ge sutra

This food of three virtues and six tastes we offer to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and to all life in every world.

First, innumerable labors have brought us this food
   we should know how it came to us.

Second, as we receive this offering, we should consider
   whether our virtue and practice deserve it.

Third, as we desire the natural condition of mind to be
   free from clinging, we must be free from greed.

Fourth, to support our life we take this food.

Fifth, to attain our way we take this food.

ricey beanie recipe

cook some brown rice
  (organic is best - for the planet,
     the pickers and planters,
      the web of life,
       your health,
        maybe your karma).
open a can of organic beans
  (the plainer the better,
    the kind you like best,
     black beans are my favorite
       recycle the can).
rinse all the packing liquid off the beans.
put beans in a pan with 2 cups of the rice.
open a jar of organic chunky salsa
  ( local if possible,
     otherwise newmanzone is good,
      whatever heat level you like
         recycle the glass jar).
add to the rice and beans
warm it up good.
put it on nice pottery plates
  (or eat from the pan if you are alone
    and really depressed).
good with salad and red ale
  (or you can skip the salad
    and add seconds on the ale).

Lucy cooks Uncle Ben

Dear Uncle Ben
First let me say, it's not me it's YOU!
We've been friends for so many years, I thought I could always count on you.
the boxes change, the cooking times change...I stuck with you.
i'd look at your face on the box and think "ok, this box feels lighter, but Ben's a guy I can trust."
they say aquarians are loyal...loyal beyond commonsense maybe. but once an aquarius walks, we don't look back.
goodbye Uncle Ben.

Oh the reason?
boil-in-the-bag.
THE STUPIDEST WAY TO COOK ANYTHING.
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?
the box was purchased by accident, because IT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THE REGULAR BROWN RICE BOX.

Ok, 4 little bags inside. drop one into 4 cups of boiling water. WHY WHY WHY?
OK maybe some people's water isn't potable, this would be good!
But NO...there are HOLES IN THE BAG. The rice absorbs the water.
Ok,well you don't have to use a measuring cup for the rice
BUT YOU DO HAVE TO MEASURE THE WATER!
It takes 15 minutes - AFTER the water boils! Why not just cook regular rice?
Do you sense me stomping around jumping up and down shaking my fists in the air at the stupidity of it all?
Now,FROZEN TOAST...you just pop into the toaster, is FUNNY. Boil-in-bag rice isn't even funny.
Uncle Ben, were you kidnapped and taken to MARS? Did they feed you M&Ms until you were brain dead, or just replace you with a cardboard cutout?
Shaking my head sadly. Can Opsrey create another blog for this?...posters searching for the lost, kidnapped or compromised -- our formerly trusted ummm trusted ummm fictional purveyors of comestibles?

Lucy cooks beans and finds Mycroft

turkeys crossing the road with Thanksgiving right on their tails...it's a sign!
i'll blog about food!
let us (heehee) begin with one of my favorite food groups, a favorite around the world -

BEANS AND RICE !!
it makes a complete protein (says Diet For a Small Planet) and
like buddhism, takes on the local flavor wherever it finds itself.

oh sure, there are many kinds of rice in the world,

but that's nothing - NOTHING I TELL YOU - compared to the beauty and variety of BEANS!
which reminds me, speaking of cooking, and also of beans,
i have found THURSDAY NEXT's UNCLE MYCROFT!! (inventor of the entropy detector)!
he has changed his name and is living in Seattle!
read it for yourself...who else could it be??

a few quotes:
...an eclectic array of speculative and potentially world-changing ideas — inventing a new battery, taming hurricanes, defeating disease. And here, along with the laser designed to shoot mosquitoes out of the air (a high-speed camera counts the rate of wing-flapping to ensure that innocent insects are not vaporized), is the best-equipped restaurant kitchen anywhere that never serves any customers...
...They also demonstrated cryoseared duck breast, a technique that calls for implements not typically found in a kitchen: a small satchel of loose metal, dry ice, dog hair brush...

shhh don't give him away!