Posted by Anita on 02.02.07 11:37 AM
It’s been an entire month since the kitchen-remodel kickoff meeting, so I thought I’d share our progress so far. We’re very pleased with the work that’s being done, and — as you can see from the photo — things are moving along quickly. We may even be done by the end of the month!
We’ve had a few course corrections recently, most notably one that cropped up due to our inability to find the perfect cork floor (compounded by concerns about how cork holds up to dog toenails), which led us to choose wood floors to match the rest of the house. It’s a classic blessing in disguise, as this choice had the double benefit of making our contractor happy and leading to a gorgeous end result.
Another design change: Our contractor is going to make a built-in bench for the breakfast room, a development that makes me inexplicably giddy. There’s something magical about a booth (or, in this case, a half-booth) in an old cottage kitchen. And ours will look out a gorgeous pair of French doors onto our deck and the view beyond. Our poor dining room may end up feeling quite neglected!
Since the last update, the following items have been added to the kitchen: Insulation, wiring, plumbing (gas and water), ducting for the range hood, drywall, a level floor in the breakfast room, pocket doors, French doors, and (ta-dah!) wood flooring.
Still to come: Cabinets (arriving today — wow! — though they likely will rest in the living room for a bit), paint, millwork/trim, appliances (sitting in the warehouse and scheduled for 2/15 delivery), countertops, sink, final plumbing and electrical hookups. Lights are on order, the sink and faucet are waiting in the basement, and the wood floors will be sanded today, possibly with the first varnish coat.
Hungry for more? Here’s a mini-tour of how the new kitchen looks today, and another showing a few of the things we’ve made in the “camp kitchen” downstairs.
kitchen
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Posted by Anita on 01.31.07 12:04 AM
One of the farmers at the market this weekend was selling a big-ass bag-o-roots combo — turnips, parsnips, mostly, and also some gnarly carrots — so of course I couldn’t pass that up. As I strolled the empty aisles, wondering how I would prepare my mess of veg, I remembered seeing a recipe for a creamy root vegetable soup in the market newsletter. Nobody seemed to be selling celery root, so I popped into Farm Fresh to You (after a stop at Miette, mais oui!) and picked up a knob. Mission accomplished!
With a minimum of chopping and sauteeing, and a little help from — don’t hate me — chicken broth from a box, we had an incredible soup that left each of us scheming for ways to get all the leftovers for ourselves. I made a double batch, and froze half of the puree (omitting the creme fraiche, which I’ll add when I thaw and reheat it), so the next batch will be even speedier.
Golden Vegetable Bisque
– adapted from Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice, via the CUESA newsletter
2 T fruity olive oil
1 small onion, sliced
1 small celery root (celeriac), peeled and cut into chunks
1 parsnip, cut into chunks
1 golden turnip, cut into chunks
1 carrot, cut into chunks
1 bay leaf
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed
1 quart chicken stock, low-sodium chicken broth, or water
4 oz. creme fraiche (or other dairy, as you prefer)
1/8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a medium-sized saucepan. Add the onions and sauté until tender. Add the vegetables one by one, sauteing each for a moment.
Add the stock to cover the vegetables by about half an inch. Add the herbs and garlic, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until all is tender, about 25 minutes.
Remove the pot from the heat, and discard the bay leaf and the thyme stems. Puree the soup with an immersion blender (or in batches — carefully — in a standard blender). Add the creme fraiche, nutmeg, and a big pinch of pepper and salt. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning. Feeling fancy? Try it with some Eatwell Farms rosemary salt.
cooking, farmers markets, recipes
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Posted by Anita on 01.29.07 11:33 AM
As part of Meeta’s Postcards Around the World event, I just shipped off a valentine to …well, I can’t tell you who, but I can say that she’s a foodblogger who lives in a country that I love to visit, appropriately enough.
I’ve never been to this blogger’s town, but — as I now know from Googling — it shares many similarities with San Francisco, including “a superb choice of restaurants” (according to the local tourism council), an historic waterfront, and a brewery that’s been turning out well-regarded ales since the Victorian era.
The valentine I’m sending is a photo I took a few weeks ago at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market — featuring radishes in reds, hot pinks, and other valentine colors — with a postcard sticker on the back. (Not surprisingly, finding a food-related postcard is hard enough, but finding one that’s holiday-specific is impossible! And besides, it was fun making my own card.) Of course I’m using some of the Crops of the Americas stamps that I’ve been hoarding, too.
Somewhere out in the blogosphere, another food blogger is getting ready to send a valentine postcard to me, too. I can’t wait to get it!
holidays & occasions, other blogs
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Posted by Anita on 01.23.07 9:50 AM
I made an atypical stop at Starbucks on the way in — oooh, they’re importing Top Pot doughnuts from Seattle! — and got a huge kick out of the array of super-picky orders being called out by the barista:
“Short triple latte extra-hot, extra foam”
“Iced triple tall sugar-free cinnamon dolce”
“Venti half-caf extra-shot soy with-whip white-chocolate mocha”
They were all picked up by people wearing Fancy Food Show badges.
breakfast, coffee & tea, Seattle
6 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 01.22.07 6:08 PM
Yesterday, the Bald Guy celebrated his thirty(mumble) birthday — an occasion worthy of pulling out all the stops… and half of the pantry bins. But when you’re baking in a toaster oven countertop convection oven, your patisserie options are a wee bit limited. In one of those “only in the food-blogosphere” coincidences, Chockylit and Garrett are hosting a cupcake roundup this week — and yours truly just happens to have a little six-cup muffin tin that’s perfect for a half-batch of mini birthday cakes.
Not content to follow a request for “yellow cake with chocolate icing” to the letter, I started thinking about fancier alternatives. A series of chats about classic New England fare got me wondering how I could make Boston Cream Pie in a cupcake format. So I whipped up a batch of vanilla sponge cake [link removed*], some pastry cream, and a simple chocolate glaze: a cup of heavy cream, a quarter-pound of dark chocolate chips, and a tablespoon of Karo syrup.
One of the things I love about Boston Cream Pie is the way it combines a trio of simple Home Ec 101 recipes into a fun, old-timey dessert. But, as I soon discovered, the original format — cake sliced in half, pastry cream between the layers, chocolate glaze over the top and dribbled down the sides — doesn’t work very well in miniature. If you add enough cream to make a distinct filling layer, the pieces won’t stay together. You end up with a (delicious) mess, rather than a cupcake.
Undaunted, I tried a new method: Using a doughnut hole-cutter, I punched halfway down each cupcake, and dug out the center, ever so gently. Then I dipped the top of the cupcake in the chocolate glaze, far enough that the center got coated. I added a tablespoon of the pastry cream to the well, and filled the hole with the top half of the cut-out round. After a little more experimentation, I realized that it was easier to dip the center piece of cake in chocolate before placing it over the cream, rather than drizzling more glaze over the almost-finished cupcake. (If all this is too much to visualize, I’ve documented it all in a Flickr set.)
An excellent side benefit of dipping the unfilled cupcakes and their “stoppers” — rather than pouring glaze over the completed cupcake — is that the chocolate keeps the cream filling from soaking into the cake. And, it also makes a whole lot less mess.
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* Edited to add: We removed the link to the Cook’s Illustrated recipe in July 2008 in protest of their bullying tactics.
baking, dessert, holidays & occasions, other blogs
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Posted by Anita on 01.19.07 7:53 AM
In our house, we’re New England Patriots fans (Cameron’s an East Coast transplant), and Sam Adams is the usual “football juice” on game day. But with the AFC championship at stake this weekend, a more pointed beverage is in order.
This variation on the Moscow Mule seems a fitting tribute to the Pats. After all, the story of Ichabod Crane is a formidable legend, just like our boys on the gridiron. And when you’re playing a team called the Colts, the mere thought of headless horse-men is enough to make you giddy.
Headless Horseman
2 oz. vodka
3 dashes aromatic bitters
ginger ale
orange slice, for garnish
In a highball glass, combine the vodka and the bitters. Fill the glass with ice, and top with ginger ale. Garnish with the orange slice, and serve with a haunting laugh.
Boston, Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes
Comments Off on DOTW: Headless Horseman
Posted by Anita on 01.17.07 11:55 AM
Sandi at The WhistleStop Cafe (of Fried Green Tomatoes fame) has tagged us to share “six weird things” about ourselves with our readers. Now, I don’t know about you, but I am guessing you don’t care that I drive a 1966 Volvo, or that I had braces as an adult, or that I’m the oldest of ten grandchildren on my mother’s side… so let’s keep this food related, eh?
- Cameron and I share a surprising number of food dislikes. Neither of us cares much for eggplant, squash, or sweet potatoes.
- We have been known to drive an hour — and to plan our airport flight-arrival times — to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant.
- I’d rather have citrus or caramel desserts than chocolate, any day. I realize this makes me a traitor to my gender. (I don’t dislike chocolate, but I don’t crave it.)
- One of my favorite things to do on vacation is visiting the local supermarket. Sure, farmers markets are great, but the grocery store is where you see what everyday middle-class food looks like.
- My early food-related jobs included: breakfast waitress, bakery manager, drugstore soda fountain jerk (at the place shown in the photo above), pizza-delivery girl, and sundae-scooper. Waiting tables was undeniably the hardest work I have ever done, for the least amount of money. Jose Feliciano was one of my regulars, and he used to say corny stuff like “Sanka very much” when I would bring him refills of decaf.
- We’ve never been to New Orleans. It was on the short-short list when Katrina hit…
levity, other blogs
7 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 01.16.07 11:39 PM
Not much of a story: We bought two baby fennel bulbs at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market this weekend, with no definite plan for what to do with them. I decided a nice shaved-fennel salad would be a good, crisp foil for the cheesy softness of tonight’s main course: the Baked Manicotti [* link removed] recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. (I give it a B-minus, not that you asked.)
Cruising the aisles of Bristol Farms, I picked up a beautiful pear and a container of mild bleu cheese crumbles. When I got home, I sliced the pear and fennel as thin as I could — which was pretty thin, since we’d just gotten our big knife back from Critical Edge — tossed them with some Alejandro & Martin “fruity and fragrant” olive oil, half as much champagne vinegar as oil, salt, cracked pepper, and those bleu cheese crumbles.
If I do say so mahself, it was one of the best salads of the year. (OK, so the year’s only 16 days old… it was still good enough that I wanted seconds.) We’re eating pretty well down here in the basement!
Fennel-Pear-Bleu Salad
2 baby fennel bulbs, or 1 smallish regular fennel bulb
1 ripe, fragrant pear
2 tsp. fruity olive oil
1 tsp. Champagne vinegar or other mild-flavored vinegar
1/4 to 1/2 cup mild bleu cheese crumbles
salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste
Remove the fennel tops, and slice the bulb thin, on the bias. Halve the pear, remove the core, then halve again and slice thin. Toss the fennel, pear slices, and half of the cheese with the olive oil and vinegar, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper. Plate up, and garnish with the remaining cheese.
Serves 2
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* Edited to add: We removed the link to the Cook’s Illustrated manicotti recipe in July 2008 in protest of their bullying tactics.
farmers markets, recipes
1 Comment »
Posted by Anita on 01.15.07 9:25 PM
Mmmm, football-watching Prather Ranch chili dogs…
And we also have a WINNER. In fact, we have a couple hundred. But for those of you sitting on the edge of your seat, wondering whether you’ll be the lucky one getting a care package from us this week, you might want to cast an envious glance in the direction of the appropriately named “Award” — he or she is the winning bidder who will be taking the Armchair Tour of the Bay Area from this year’s Menu For Hope raffle.
Thanks again to everyone who bid and supported this amazing event. Be sure to visit Chez Pim for the complete list of winners.
other blogs
5 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 01.13.07 3:05 PM
This month’s Mixology Monday, hosted by the folks over at Imbibe Unfiltered, features Winter Warmers — a happy thing for those of us who happen to be living in unheated basements. Now, I realize that “warmers” refers to these drinks’ effect on the drinker’s internal comfort, rather than the temperature at which they’re served. But with the weather in Fog City threatening to dip into the 20s overnight, a double-dose of warmth seems wise.
I was looking for something that packed the twin punch of alcohol and heat, along the lines of an Irish Coffee. But unlike my better half, I am not much of a coffee drinker. I love the taste, but I can’t do caffeine… especially once the sun goes down. Mexican chocolate is one of my favorite warm drinks, so it seemed natural to fortify this brunchtime favorite with a nip of something strong.
Plenty of complementary liqueurs came to mind; we tried brandy, Cointreau, Kahlua, and even nocino. But in the end, tequila worked best. A tot of mezcal adds fire and a touch of funk, which keeps the drink from veering off into sickly-sweet territory. A dash of orange bitters rounds out the taste and keeps the tequila’s aroma in check. (In a pinch, Cointreau or another orange liqueur would do the same, but the drink needs no extra sweetness.)
The Spanish word chispa literally translates to “spark”, but it also has connotations of enthusiasm, liveliness, and — a ha! — small amounts of liquor. And in some parts of Latin America, chispada (lit. “sparked”) is a colloquial expression for “buzzed” or “tipsy”. More genteel than borracho (“drunk”), it’s something you might say about your grandma after she’d gotten uncharacteristically alegre at a family gathering. In other words, you’ve imbibed just enough alcohol to warm your toes, but not enough to slur your speech.
If you don’t want to buy Mexican chocolate tablets just for this recipe, feel free to make your own, or simply add cinnamon (preferably canela) to your usual hot cocoa mix or recipe. The texture won’t be the same, but the flavors will still sing.
La Chispa
Mexican chocolate, such as Ibarra or Abuelita
1 cup milk
1 to 1.5 oz. medium-quality tequila, to taste
2 dashes orange bitters (or a dash of Cointreau)
whipped cream, perferably unsweetened
Prepare the Mexican chocolate according to package directions — typically 8 oz. hot milk blended with 2 wedges of chocolate tablets. In a mug or an Irish coffee glass, combine the tequila, bitters and the hot chocolate, and stir gently to combine. Top with a dollop of whipped cream, and dust with cinnamon or chile powder.
Drink of the Week, drinks, Mixology Monday, other blogs, recipes
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