A Scoopful of Medicine

It is not ice cream weather. It is not even close to ice cream weather. It is curl up in bed with a cup of soup and the entire season of Girls weather. It is listen to Belle and Sebastian while making challah bread weather. It is rub George behind his little kitty ears while listening to Opera 101 on tape weather. It is accepting that I am an old lady at heart and drinking my extremely milky coffee weather. And it is eating a piece of extremely dark chocolate kind of weather.

In way, it's fortunate that Portland has so many rainy days, because chocolate in the summertime is, for me, problematic. First, there's the external temperature. Under the sweltering sun, a bar of the stuff oozes all over the place and I revert suddenly to a five-year-old with no hand-mouth coordination and a smeary (although smiling) face. Then, there's my internal temperature. When it's that hot I'm usually downing an iced drink of some sort, so my mouth is nowhere near 98.6. Instead of merrily melting in my mouth, I bite into a bar of chocolate and I'm left with a mouthful of cacao shrapnel.

onwards »

The Root of Things

Friends, I have discovered heaven. I have a little shot glass of it by my keyboard, and no, it's not what you think it is, and it's not what's pictured above, but those are both proven heavenly flavor combinations. Tomorrow, this nascent god will cogitate for twenty minutes in a machine of miracles and will emerge like a holy butterfly from its cool chrysalis to spread peace and love to the blessèd. And I will tell you how to make your own quart container of heaven. For now, I leave him to coolly meditate in my fridge while we work out our differences, namely, that I tried to put him in a blender. I happen not to have a lid for this blender. I tell you this to let you know only that I write this with bits of chocolate splatter all over me, slightly harrowed by the experience but also salivating. As you will be, too.

But moving on!

I do have a recipe to share with you, although depending on your climate, I'm not sure it's entirely summer-appropriate. If you live in Portland and are privy to our erratic weather patterns (they call it Junuary), there may just come a day in the next few weeks when all you want to do is curl up in two sweaters with a slice of this pie to keep you company. You'll feel all pleased with yourself for 1) turning one of the cheapest vegetables around into a meal that would put Alice Waters to shame, and 2) cooking locally and seasonally in a way that would also put Alice Waters to shame. (Fun fact: when I asked the sous-chef of St Jack what he thought of Chez Panisse, he said, "You mean Cheese Penis?" He has what you might call less than affectionate feelings for a place that charges a fortune for a spear of asparagus.)

onwards »

Farmers Market Fried Rice

Farmers markets are dangerous things. I go in all starry-eyed imagining what kinds of gloriously green produce I'll find, and I leave an hour later all starry-eyed at the thought of how suddenly poor I am. Then I get all weak at the knees thinking how on earth I'm going to eat five pounds of vegetables before it all goes bad, let alone how I'm going to get it all home on my bicycle without tomatoes bouncing down SW Yamhill. Then the thought of bruised tomatoes gets me all to whimpering. Not to mention bruised pedestrians. So my wallet and I are going to have to work out some kind of arrangement where I leave it out of the fun and bring  a set amount of dollar bills with me, because otherwise, well, it's going to be me and a variations in the key of beans and rice.

Last Saturday, I found these white beech mushrooms at my favorite forager's stand. I've gotten maitake, chanterelle, morel, and oyster mushrooms from him before, plus fiddlehead ferns (which I have pickled with great success) and sea beans (which are salty like seaweed and crunchy like asparagus tips). Not to mention the black truffles he gave me for free because I was admiring them with such fervor--flattery gets you everywhere, including into your local mycophiles's good graces.

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Gastronomy Northwest // Choux-Mi, Choux-My!

We called these "choux-mi" sliders since in Vietnamese banh refers to any kind of bread, and pâté à choux is the specific type we used for the savory portion of our Gastronomy Northwest event. Preparing 400 samples of the little devils was quite enough to do without trying to document it all, so we scheduled the leftovers for a little photoshoot after scouring the kitchen. We might have gone a little crazy, which under the circumstances I'd consider justified.

It's important, when making miniature sliders, to include a variety colors for visual interest, to tilt the tops at rakish angles, and to always, always make choux puns. If you follow these instructions, I guarantee that your success will be a choux in at your next party.

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Gastronomy Northwest // Black Bread Ice Cream

armies of choux photographed by mi amiga jen

Summers as a college student are wild and crazy. On Friday nights, for example, you might find yourself alone with Klaus Kinski and eighteen pounds of pork, surrounded by eight loaves of Russian black bread, six empty cartons of eggs, and four gallons of half-and-half.

Welcome to catering.

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