While I Was Out

I cannot tell you how many times over the last three months some or other thing happened and I thought, "oooh! Blogworthy". Or maybe a child suggested that something would be interesting and I agreed and then...nothing. I'm processing a lot, though, and always thinking of here and you. I'm inspired by Becky's commitment to post every day in November - I think there's an acronym for this - but not inspired enough to actually do it, too. Maybe weekly, I could do. Yes! Weekly until the end of the year? That seems a reasonable expectation. Let's do it.

So. How are you, then? Are you part of the Hot Water Bath Facebook group? Yes, I know. As Faux Fuschia has famously suggested, say what you will about me, I'm a joiner. Most of our canning content has migrated there so if you are looking for something you can't find in my archives it just might be at Mr. Z's little thingymadoodle.

What's left consists largely of the following:

1) Months and ages ago I received an e-mail from someone who claimed to be alarmed by my promotion of, ahem, the patriarchy. I'm not sure what I was supposed to do about that or offer in response. Pictures of my son in the kitchen? Posts about my job and the men who take my direction? A pledge to stop cooking entirely? I don't know. I found it odd, really.

2) Where do you stand on Hiram Walker's Pumpkin Liquor? I don't know. In theory, this could be the Egg Nog game changer I've long sought. If not, though, the downside could be very significant. Thoughts?

3) I'm in the middle of my employer's annual review process and recently was compelled to compose my self-appraisal. In my head this is created of nothing but variations on the phrase "I am awesome" but the reality comes out more like, "if you don't mind so terribly, would you perhaps see your way clear to, um, liking me?". Because I am fiercely competitive, I am alarmed at my own behavior.

4) A confession: I am obsessed with "freezer cooking" blogs. This post is particularly inspiring, focusing on football-based merriment as it does. Although, duh, I am on record as being kind of into the whole preparing-food-in-advance thing, I felt compelled to prove my allegiance to team sports and my free-standing freezer alike by producing, in quantity, nacho toppings such as shredded Buffalo chicken and chili, and sausage balls. Go ahead, it's o.k. to mock, but when you're done mocking I'll still have that shredded Buffalo chicken.

5) My farmer pal dropped by the other day offering a large box of apples, saying he wasn't sure of their variety. What else could I do but make applesauce? So I did, but it wasn't very good. You know those little red cinnamon candies? Turns out that they really can save an insipid applesauce. Take note.

6) Now that my oldest is 11 (!) I need take more care in logging out of things. A couple days ago I was perusing Nerf guns on Amazon - because I am exactly the kind of parent that promotes the patriarchy as well as violent play - but ended up just kind of wandering away when the heat (read: kids hanging around my desk) was on. Later on, the Boy sat down to look for a gift for his sister (!!), looked up Amazon and found all kinds of "what you just looked at" notifications. Same way, he zipped over to gmail to check on a note from a friend and discovered in my inbox a notice that read in its subject "REMOTE CONTROL HELICOPTER ORDER CONFIRMATION". Right. PSA: log out, already.

Tiny Bubbles

Have you met my new friend Irene? She is evidently coming up for a visit this weekend so we're all aflutter getting ready, even though she's really not pleasant company. The sidewalk chalk and bubble blowing supplies are now in the mudroom's "summer fun" bin, all and sundry outdoor furniture crammed into the enclosed back porch, we've laid in a supply of wine, and I consider us as prepared as we're going to be. As I type, there is a light, but steady, summery rain. This we don't expect to continue for long. Bring it, Irene.

I started a convo over on our Facebook page on the benefits of having a bit of home-prepared food on the canning shelf when faced with these kinds of events. I'm on record all over the place here as being firmly in favor being ready for things, distinct from being prepared, which has taken on a somewhat sinister and aggressive anti-community feeling for me these last years, but even so...I don't know. Did you read The Poisonwood Bible back in the day? Remember the cake mixes hauled all the way to wherever in Africa and the bugs? I think about it. All the time. Doesn't stop me from whipping up another batch of pickled hot peppers or brandied blackberries, though. I guess we all cope in our own way.

Moving on. I'm reading another new cookbook this weekend, Andrew Schloss' Homemade Soda. Now, I really like soda (or pop or soda pop or, in the shoes of Xerox or Kleenex, coke). I really like it - it's a flaw in my locafoodievore armor that allows everything from Orangina (interestingly, people who appear horrified when they encounter me clutching my daily Diet Coke seem to have no trouble at all forgiving me an Orangina or two) to Jolt (I used to love warm Jolt right from the can) to frill-free raspberry tonic from the whatever grocery and darn near everything in between. On this point I am neither ashamed nor repentant, and I do not seek input, thank you for your concern. Flavored bubbles are fun! And delicious! I am not particularly brand loyal and will buy whatever is on sale, although I have a slight preference for Diet Coke. My first morning in Taipei last month I keened with delight at finding a Coke Light in the minibar. At three American dollars, it was money very well spent and after the second morning housekeeping started leaving me extra. I loved those women.

I come by my tastes honestly. When I was a pre-teen (this is what we're calling 'tweens now, yes? 11ish/12ish?) my mother started me on Tab as a way to divert my enthusiasm for grape Kool-Aid (and, ever mindful of my figure, its calories, too). You don't see Tab much anymore, but I can recall clearly it's lemony metallic sharpness and, although I don't precisely miss it, I remember it fondly). Later, when I had my own money, I started buying Jolt by the case. Despite it's tagline promising "All the sugar, twice the caffeine" my parents looked the other way figuring that any jitters I experienced would deal with the stuff they'd rather I not consume.

At one point in my childhood, my mother bought a contraption designed to make sodas. The idea was that you'd bubble up some home tap water and somehow incorporate a flavored syrup and - voila! - soda. Or rather, pop. I didn't start saying soda until I came to college in Philadelphia. Anyway, I don't recall the machine being used more than once or twice and the device ended up on a shelf above the washing machine for some time and is likely still in my parent's basement, unloved and (mostly) forgotten. But look! Homemade soda is back! The more things change, I suppose.

Enter Homemade Soda. I really have no desire to actually make my own soda so cannot explain why the book seemed so compelling. A good chunk of the text is dedicated to instructing the reader to add tonic water to juice or various flavors of simple syrup, something I file under "duh". But then there are true recipes dedicated to using sodas in actual (definition: flexible) foods. My own great-grandmother was devoted to basting her Easter ham with 7-Up, so who knows. And then there's chocolate Coca-cola cake, a recipe my mother made exactly once ever but which I recall with perfect clarity 30 years later (why did I never make a Jolt cake, I wonder?). Soda obviously has more Proustian implications than we recognize.

Whether I actually produce something out of this book remains to be seen. That it has prompted a host of remembrances and made me wistful is completely unquestioned.

Pulse, Finger On

I’ve long enjoyed the online cookbook purveyor formerly known inexplicably as Jessica’s Biscuit. I bought an Elizabeth David compendium from them years ago – much loved but heretofore unused in any actual cooking application – and have spent hours perusing their paper and e-catalogs. Hours. I’ve always appreciated their forays into the novelty, too, in the form of insect cookbooks (which I would neither purchase nor even peruse, although I respect its position in the world) or an entire cookbook on sous vide (my conviction: the idea is irredeemably dumb). So, you know, a fan.


Lately I’ve been more interested in the site’s “new and notable” (henceforth N&N) section as a barometer of trends about which I might not have been aware (meaning any/all of them). For example, I’ve read in multiple places recently that cupcakes are on their way out as a fashionable dessert and that we could look to pie to take the number one place in our sweets-loving hearts. Based on the number of popsicle books gracing the summer shelves, though, I’d say that pie needs to wait a bit. I’ve made a few pops in my time, but none very impressive. Mostly, my cold dessert achievements are in the ice cream realm. There, too, I am apparently a piker. A number of ice cream-related books appear on the N&N.


I don’t remember how I came to have Kimchi Chronicles on my library hold. Nevertheless there it is and I’ll be picking it up this weekend. Aside: There was a very sketchy Korean restaurant down the street from our house in Charlottesville from which we would, once or twice a month, pick up bulgogi and spicy rice cakes. When I say “we” I mean my husband because telling you that the place was sketchy doesn’t really communicate that the place was sketchy, and so I refused to enter. The food was good, though, and we’ve missed it terribly these last five years so I thought I’d figure out how to make the rice cakes at least. For a nice change of pace, I must be on the bleeding edge because I spy three books covering Korean cuisine on the N&N.


I’m also nicely surprised to find that N&N has quite a few books featuring Spanish food, given my recent adoration of Claudia Roden’s Food of Spain. Other than tapas and paella and maybe gazpacho, Spain gets short shrift in the food buzz world, so I’m kind of glad to see five books on the lsit. There a number of aspect of Spanish life we’d do well to adopt, plancha is not the least of them.


Then see The Sweets of Araby and Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume and 150 Tagines. Saffron! Honey! I really, really would like a gander at each of these books. Can we draw any lines between them and current events? Why the enduring fascination with that part of the world? Is it that it holds so much of our history and future? I don’t know. I’d like to find out, though. Also: honey.

Oh, and canning! How could I forget? Being as I’ve been here in my little corner of the ‘tubes for more than 9 years now and these days you can’t swing a scalded tomato without hitting a canning blog, it’s not like I should have been surprised at the number of new home preservation books out and about. I wonder if any of the authors started with blogs. Did I miss the brass ring, do you think? No matter, some of these look really interesting but…I don’t know. I have my favorites (that is: the first two I ever bought, plus the Complete Book of Home Preserving that Ball sent me a couple years ago) and, call me sentimental if you must, but I seldom find a reason to pick up new ones. Always nice to see what people are up to, though. And? Five canning books in the N&N (not to mention a hipster-populated spread in Bon Appetit) surely means that the trend has hit maturity and any minute now we’ll be able to buy used jars at a deep discount from the folks who kicked their day jobs to open artisanal pickle companies.


These days, my cookbook acquisition budget is woefully inadequate. Luckily, browsing the N&N and learning that I'm not always missing out on the bleeding edge is still free.

Postcards From the First Day of Summer

1) This is the time of year when the bloom of garden excitement begins to fade. You know, the weeds are coming back after initial clearing but there's not much in the way of food. At least not yet. It appears, though, that my early efforts may pay off in the form of yellow squash. Note to self: look up summer squash recipes.

2) This month's issue of Country Living featured a cover line that read something along the lines of "Summer's Perfect Wine" or somesuch. Turns out the editors have become fond of a particular "summer white" which I have loved for some time.

 We usually pick up a couple cases for summer fun but this year we bought three. One doesn't mess around in the face of media madness, you see. If you were to come to my house for dinner between, say, the end of May and Labor Day this is what I'd pour for you.

At $8ish dollars a bottle, Famega Vinho Verde is hands down the best affordable fizz you'll ever buy. Do you think less of me for waiting to take delivery of my three cases before recommending that you, too, seek it out?





3) I'm reading cookbooks again after a long hiatus. Through a convoluted path I've become a late addition to the Claudia Roden fan club (if there isn't such a thing, there ought to be - Claudia, call me!). Although I am not particular to Spanish cuisine, I'm relishing a slow, deliberate read of The Food of Spain. This book is absolutely amazing. Literally epic in scope, the first 100 or so pages is nothing short of a culinary history textbook. Roden traces Spain's intertwining Christian, Jewish, and Muslim histories that are the underpinning of every summer's breathless tapas articles. Truly extraordinary and I insist that you go buy a copy immediately, if not sooner.

4) We're enjoying a very nice lack of extracurricular activities at the moment. Baseball and dance are over and there's little movement on the scout (girl or cub) front. The next six weeks stretch luxuriously mayhem-free. There are some camps on the calendar, of course (in our town, parents who do not abundantly enrich their offspring during summer break are considered reportable to the U.N.), but until football and cheer begin August, it's nothing but old-fashioned summer fun around here. Firefly-chasing, popsicle-licking, tree-climbing, dog-hugging summer fun.

It's glorious.

Sometimes Early Looks a Lot Like Late

I didn’t pull out the Easter decorations last year. I didn’t host a post-church family brunch. I didn’t color hard boiled eggs with the kids. Oh, we had a delightful celebration and I have no regrets whatsoever about the somewhat unorthodox way we made our observance, but that did not stop me from looking ahead to this year and planning a return to the Old Ways. I thought that certainly this year there would be decorations, there may well be a brunch – heck, I might even conduct my traditional frenzied search for last pair of white girl's tights anywhere in town.

These children own 17 types of adhesive products and yet they will steal my Scotch tape if I look away for so much as a second. They cannot be trusted.








Early guidance suggests that none of this will happen again this year. I've not dispensed with the critical pre-holiday planning stages, however. To my way of thinking, there’s nothing like the memory of a recently passed or about-to-be whiffed holiday to prompt progress toward the next time around. Women’s magazines advocate such an approach – buy Christmas wrap on December 26th and so forth – but I really feel that I’ve got the methodology down to an art. My procedure is as follows:

1. Six weeks before the day arrives, write a lengthy and elaborate list of projects to be completed. You might, for example, want to make your own wrappings out of quilting fabric or wish to potato-stamp bunny shapes on a hemp table runner. Maybe include both – there’s no need to be under-ambitious, I always say.
2. Purchase, recover from dusty underbed storage, or otherwise gather from the kids’ art bins the required supplies. If you require more than two adhesive products an angel gets her wings, so don’t be shy!
3. Pile said supplies on sideboard, end table or sofa, awaiting time (and energy) to use them.
4. Express gobsmacked shock as the holiday comes and goes while preparatory supplies go untouched on sideboard, end table or sofa. Wonder what you did with those 42 days, and then strike vague recall of unarticulated expectations at both home and work having chipped away at what had seemed to be abundant leisure.
5. Find time (and energy) the week after the holiday when the rest of one’s colleagues and friends are recovering from festive excess to complete the projects because there’s no way those things (see Step 3) are going to be put back under the bed. Too crowded under there anyway, what with all the pipe cleaners and felt, and fabric paint leftover from prior years.

It’s simple, really. While to the rest of the world I will appear to be ever so late with my adorable beaded springtime napkin rings and wooden eggs decoupaged with butterflies, I maintain that, no, I am quite prepared for next year. Bring it, April 8, 2012. I’ll be ready for you.