11.05.09
101 in 1001 {II}: 038 cook with 12 ingredients I’ve never used before [ongoing]
04: key limes. our friends with relatives in florida fell over laughing when i showed them one of the grape-sized mexican key limes i ended up ignoring the health-care-related whole foods boycott to buy back in august; i'd apparently compromised my ideals for the runtiest limes on the eastern seaboard. i argued that their size wouldn't affect the eventual excellence of a key lime version of giada de laurentiis's unstoppable lemon ricotta cookies with lemon glaze,* and i was right; the awkward process of juicing in miniature did leave me with arthritic little crone-hands, however, and i know just which exotic fruit to curse when i'm unable to play the piano someday. in conclusion: key limes make fine cookies and sublime pie,** but i probably don't need to bake with them again (unless i find myself in florida).
05: sunchokes (aka jerusalem artichokes).
(how 'bout that bubble wrap presentation! there was a lot of that for a few weeks there.)
these rooty little things were pitched to me as tasting like a cross between artichokes and potatoes, which (if blackened and thrown in a taco) would make them the perfect food. in practice they're neither as scary as the alien grubs they resemble nor quite as chompable as advertised, but my impatience as a roaster could be to blame: our oven at the old apartment handled vegetables unevenly, and my little sunchokes (tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a few whacked-up shallots and cloves of garlic) were subsequently either velvety and winning or surly and a tiny bit fibrous, depending on where they were in relation to the heating element. everything sorted itself out in the next day's reheat, though, and the apartment smelled fantastic; sunchokes will come home with me this winter. that mysterious hybrid flavor (a bit taterish, a bit chokesque) is worth investigating.
06: mochiko (aka sweet rice flour).
(i also baked while we were moving. i have the attention span of a gnat.)
i feel i deserve double credit for baking with mochiko; i had neither used it nor known of its existence prior to this recipe (i adore the green tea mochi that sometimes materialize at sushi restaurants and japanese grocery stores, but i'd never devoted much thought to what went into them). the food librarian's blueberry mochi cake (via my friend sara) promised exotic, gluten-free chewiness,*** so i scored a box of the good stuff at the soho dean and deluca and got baking. straight out of the oven and warm on a napkin, this cake is dazzling: its texture is unusual without being off-putting, and the flour's whispery sweetness (paired with a bit of tartness from the wild blueberries) is light and sophisticated. a few days in the refrigerator (as we're no longer the destroyers of cake we were in our twenties - most of the time, anyway) weren't especially kind to the leftovers, so i'd recommend this as a decadent breakfast or dessert item for company (that is, people who can eat it right away) - but i'd certainly recommend it.
101 in 1001 {II}: 038 cook with 12 ingredients I’ve never used before [ongoing]
04: key limes. our friends with relatives in florida fell over laughing when i showed them one of the grape-sized mexican key limes i ended up ignoring the health-care-related whole foods boycott to buy back in august; i'd apparently compromised my ideals for the runtiest limes on the eastern seaboard. i argued that their size wouldn't affect the eventual excellence of a key lime version of giada de laurentiis's unstoppable lemon ricotta cookies with lemon glaze,* and i was right; the awkward process of juicing in miniature did leave me with arthritic little crone-hands, however, and i know just which exotic fruit to curse when i'm unable to play the piano someday. in conclusion: key limes make fine cookies and sublime pie,** but i probably don't need to bake with them again (unless i find myself in florida).
05: sunchokes (aka jerusalem artichokes).
(how 'bout that bubble wrap presentation! there was a lot of that for a few weeks there.)
these rooty little things were pitched to me as tasting like a cross between artichokes and potatoes, which (if blackened and thrown in a taco) would make them the perfect food. in practice they're neither as scary as the alien grubs they resemble nor quite as chompable as advertised, but my impatience as a roaster could be to blame: our oven at the old apartment handled vegetables unevenly, and my little sunchokes (tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a few whacked-up shallots and cloves of garlic) were subsequently either velvety and winning or surly and a tiny bit fibrous, depending on where they were in relation to the heating element. everything sorted itself out in the next day's reheat, though, and the apartment smelled fantastic; sunchokes will come home with me this winter. that mysterious hybrid flavor (a bit taterish, a bit chokesque) is worth investigating.
06: mochiko (aka sweet rice flour).
(i also baked while we were moving. i have the attention span of a gnat.)
i feel i deserve double credit for baking with mochiko; i had neither used it nor known of its existence prior to this recipe (i adore the green tea mochi that sometimes materialize at sushi restaurants and japanese grocery stores, but i'd never devoted much thought to what went into them). the food librarian's blueberry mochi cake (via my friend sara) promised exotic, gluten-free chewiness,*** so i scored a box of the good stuff at the soho dean and deluca and got baking. straight out of the oven and warm on a napkin, this cake is dazzling: its texture is unusual without being off-putting, and the flour's whispery sweetness (paired with a bit of tartness from the wild blueberries) is light and sophisticated. a few days in the refrigerator (as we're no longer the destroyers of cake we were in our twenties - most of the time, anyway) weren't especially kind to the leftovers, so i'd recommend this as a decadent breakfast or dessert item for company (that is, people who can eat it right away) - but i'd certainly recommend it.
*george's (excellent) idea.
**that i will continue to purchase from the pros.
***wheat and i are cool, but some of us need an alternative to cupcakes; i hear that.
11.04.09
say what you will about beautiful families, adoring dogs, and cottages left intact after dragon attacks, but from where i'm sitting, the very best greeting at the end of a long day comes from a stack of boxes from the oxford university press.
ALL YOUR WORD ARE BELONG TO US.
say what you will about beautiful families, adoring dogs, and cottages left intact after dragon attacks, but from where i'm sitting, the very best greeting at the end of a long day comes from a stack of boxes from the oxford university press.
ALL YOUR WORD ARE BELONG TO US.
11.02.09
when i was a wee lass, we didn't mess around on halloween: my mother has an art degree from stanford, and she put it to good use in service of the holiday and our whims. each of our costumes was completely handmade,* and many of them were so well received that they were re-used by friends and neighbors over the next few trick-or-treating seasons (artichoke costume of the late '80s, i salute you). she still has a hand-feathered bird costume she made when my sister was a toddler, and it still drops jaws. said sister has her own art degree now (and is plugging away at costume design in grad school); the family tradition of bringing it each october has survived and gotten ever more feisty over the years.**
...which worried me when i decided to be the log lady. last year's bowie costume didn't involve a lot of sewing, but it called for enthusiastic face-painting; i got my effort in, after a fashion. i did some fancy ebaying to find a proper sweater coat and wig, but the former ended up being too big (the log lady is frumpy, but she isn't portly) and the latter arrived from hong kong...today, actually; getting a sweater from old navy and turning another wig into a bob (lauren: "hey, would you wear this while i chop it up?" joe: "no!") hardly seemed like a proper tribute to the fam. so (in the convenient absence of ponderosa pine) i made my log.
like most of the soft pieces i've built, it's primarily felt; this time i sprang for decent wool felt rather than the crappy stuff from the local art store, as i knew i'd be detailing the hell out of the bark (it will be a long time before i applique again) and i wanted it to retain its shape (and be washable, which turned out to be important, as i carried it around all night at a bar).
inspired by an extremely timely copy of jenny hart's embroidered effects,*** i tried my hand at some simple rings for the cut edges of the log and branches; given that it's the first time i've ever embroidered, i'm pretty happy with how it came out.
(that's stuffing sneaking out around the stitches; i sort of forgot to do the detailing before i constructed and stuffed the log.)
i also had a go at one of lovely amanda's favorite pastimes and spent a lunch break in central park gathering acorns and caps. i hot-glued a pair back together (you know it's craft if you melt glue), convinced them to stick to a pair of leaves i cut from log-scraps, and glued all of that to a safety pin. boom! brooch.
(you can see a bit of glue behind the caps, but that's a little cobweb rather than glue in the front. sometimes it's important to wear cobwebs.)
my log and i had a lovely time on saturday; a few people thought i was a tree-hugger and a few more thought i was carrying a giant cigarette (?), but the occasional twin peaks fan's happy shrieking was more than enough. log on, internets.
when i was a wee lass, we didn't mess around on halloween: my mother has an art degree from stanford, and she put it to good use in service of the holiday and our whims. each of our costumes was completely handmade,* and many of them were so well received that they were re-used by friends and neighbors over the next few trick-or-treating seasons (artichoke costume of the late '80s, i salute you). she still has a hand-feathered bird costume she made when my sister was a toddler, and it still drops jaws. said sister has her own art degree now (and is plugging away at costume design in grad school); the family tradition of bringing it each october has survived and gotten ever more feisty over the years.**
...which worried me when i decided to be the log lady. last year's bowie costume didn't involve a lot of sewing, but it called for enthusiastic face-painting; i got my effort in, after a fashion. i did some fancy ebaying to find a proper sweater coat and wig, but the former ended up being too big (the log lady is frumpy, but she isn't portly) and the latter arrived from hong kong...today, actually; getting a sweater from old navy and turning another wig into a bob (lauren: "hey, would you wear this while i chop it up?" joe: "no!") hardly seemed like a proper tribute to the fam. so (in the convenient absence of ponderosa pine) i made my log.
like most of the soft pieces i've built, it's primarily felt; this time i sprang for decent wool felt rather than the crappy stuff from the local art store, as i knew i'd be detailing the hell out of the bark (it will be a long time before i applique again) and i wanted it to retain its shape (and be washable, which turned out to be important, as i carried it around all night at a bar).
inspired by an extremely timely copy of jenny hart's embroidered effects,*** i tried my hand at some simple rings for the cut edges of the log and branches; given that it's the first time i've ever embroidered, i'm pretty happy with how it came out.
(that's stuffing sneaking out around the stitches; i sort of forgot to do the detailing before i constructed and stuffed the log.)
i also had a go at one of lovely amanda's favorite pastimes and spent a lunch break in central park gathering acorns and caps. i hot-glued a pair back together (you know it's craft if you melt glue), convinced them to stick to a pair of leaves i cut from log-scraps, and glued all of that to a safety pin. boom! brooch.
(you can see a bit of glue behind the caps, but that's a little cobweb rather than glue in the front. sometimes it's important to wear cobwebs.)
my log and i had a lovely time on saturday; a few people thought i was a tree-hugger and a few more thought i was carrying a giant cigarette (?), but the occasional twin peaks fan's happy shrieking was more than enough. log on, internets.
*which was especially impressive when i chose to be, say a telephone receiver, or autumn. you were patient, ma.
**my dad's side has its own techie subspecies of enthusiasts: for their semiannual halloween party this year, my godparents made a dvd invitation complete with easter eggs.
***jenny hart is my crafting idol; i've seen her at events in the city for years now, and i'm still too starstruck to roll up and say hello.
10.31.09
I carry a log--yes. Is it funny to you? It is not to me. Behind all things are reasons. Reasons can even explain the absurd. Do we have the time to learn the reasons behind the human being's varied behavior? I think not. Some take the time. Are they called detectives?
10.29.09
ours is a short-haired marriage (for demonstrable reasons), exhibit A:
anne geddes, watch your ass.
ours is a short-haired marriage (for demonstrable reasons), exhibit A:
anne geddes, watch your ass.
10.28.09: "it is not to me."
1: ...and besides, spending days and days making a really lovely detailed cloth version of a log instead of carrying a real log is kind of lynchian,* wouldn't you say?
2: [silent]
1: what if i told you it was stuffed with severed ears?
in other Lauren's Log Lady Halloween Costume news, i got a note from the ebay seller from whom i purchased a brown wig two weeks ago: alas, the wig is still without a tracking number somewhere in guangzhou province (notes to self: read fine print in item listings. do not buy fake hair from china.). it will, however, be here by 11/14! (do not buy fake hair from china.) happily, my friend sarah has an extra brown wig that she dug out of her closet on my behalf last night; judd (her husband; yep, same judd) brought it to work today and will be messengering it up here. is messengering fake hair lynchian?
1: ...and besides, spending days and days making a really lovely detailed cloth version of a log instead of carrying a real log is kind of lynchian,* wouldn't you say?
2: [silent]
1: what if i told you it was stuffed with severed ears?
in other Lauren's Log Lady Halloween Costume news, i got a note from the ebay seller from whom i purchased a brown wig two weeks ago: alas, the wig is still without a tracking number somewhere in guangzhou province (notes to self: read fine print in item listings. do not buy fake hair from china.). it will, however, be here by 11/14! (do not buy fake hair from china.) happily, my friend sarah has an extra brown wig that she dug out of her closet on my behalf last night; judd (her husband; yep, same judd) brought it to work today and will be messengering it up here. is messengering fake hair lynchian?
*from "david lynch keeps his head," one of my all-time favorite david foster wallace essays:
A Rotary luncheon where everybody's got a comb-over and a polyester sport coat and is eating bland Rotarian chicken and exchanging Republican platitudes with heartfelt sincerity and yet all are either amputees or neurologically damaged or both would be more Lynchian than not. A hideously bloody street fight over an insult would be a Lynchian street fight if and only if the insultee punctuates every kick and blow with an injunction not to say fucking anything if you can't say something fucking nice.
10.26.09
we concluded a truly epic wedding season this saturday with the union of our lovely jersey barbecue hosts, megan and patrick, and a wild celebration in west orange. say what you will about the less lovable parts of the garden state, but it was in its glory this weekend: i actually didn't mind our getting a bit turned around on the highway en route to the reception, as it bought me another fifteen minutes of roadside leaf-peeping. joe and i also broke out our "name that (meowed) tune" time-wasting game, so four fifths of the car* spent the last bit of the drive to the manor meowing "we are the world" as soulfully as we could (judd really outdid himself on the cyndi lauper and michael mcdonald parts). a long weddingless winter is on the horizon, but we have my little sister's wedding in the hazy future to sustain us: baby jo and her excellent boyfriend, chris, got engaged this past friday, and they tell us their first dance will be "as the world falls down." if she rocks sarah's ball gown (a distinct possibility, as she's getting her MFA in costume design), i can die happy.
we concluded a truly epic wedding season this saturday with the union of our lovely jersey barbecue hosts, megan and patrick, and a wild celebration in west orange. say what you will about the less lovable parts of the garden state, but it was in its glory this weekend: i actually didn't mind our getting a bit turned around on the highway en route to the reception, as it bought me another fifteen minutes of roadside leaf-peeping. joe and i also broke out our "name that (meowed) tune" time-wasting game, so four fifths of the car* spent the last bit of the drive to the manor meowing "we are the world" as soulfully as we could (judd really outdid himself on the cyndi lauper and michael mcdonald parts). a long weddingless winter is on the horizon, but we have my little sister's wedding in the hazy future to sustain us: baby jo and her excellent boyfriend, chris, got engaged this past friday, and they tell us their first dance will be "as the world falls down." if she rocks sarah's ball gown (a distinct possibility, as she's getting her MFA in costume design), i can die happy.
*george was the holdout. in his defense, he was driving.
10.23.09: to say that bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all
twelve things i brought home from my desk-hoard this week:
01 a pink hammer
02 five hundred pyramid studs*
03 six bricks of sculpey**
04 a broom
05 two yards of brown wool felt***
06 tapestry needles****
07 a glass cloche
08 tovah martin's the new terrarium
09 a momofuku galley
10 a pendleton blanket from procter & gamble kansas city (SEPTEMBER 1968 - WORLD SAFETY RECORD)
11 pictorial webster's
12 a large wooden basket*****
twelve things i brought home from my desk-hoard this week:
01 a pink hammer
02 five hundred pyramid studs*
03 six bricks of sculpey**
04 a broom
05 two yards of brown wool felt***
06 tapestry needles****
07 a glass cloche
08 tovah martin's the new terrarium
09 a momofuku galley
10 a pendleton blanket from procter & gamble kansas city (SEPTEMBER 1968 - WORLD SAFETY RECORD)
11 pictorial webster's
12 a large wooden basket*****
i'm hustling to acquire furniture for the new apartment because we'll only have space for it for another few days, you see. it's a compulsion, the hoarding of craft supplies and blankets and weird office giveaways.
*for making a pair of these. that was a strange order to place; i called joe to let him know the paypal charge to our account from studsandspikes.com was mine.
**to make a brooch for my log lady costume, and for our housewarming party. in related news, a coworker told me the other day that shrinky dinks still exist; this will be the best housewarming party ever.
***also log-related.
****ditto.
*****ditto, in spirit if not in practice.
10.22.09
i've been trying to put my finger on what it is about the last few generations of blog trends that's so very alienating. at some point i started feeling like statler and waldorf in the balcony on the muppet show; like many a blogger before me, i've taken to missing The Old Internet, and get off my lawn. online shopping is now a fabulous thing, of course, and as a researcher i can hardly complain about the databases that have gone virtual, but...the blogosphere is getting a bit desolate. at some point it stopped feeling like a good party and started feeling like a bedroom with a bunch of magazine clippings taped to the wall (by a semiliterate teenager). i love a collage (and magpies), but seriously, why can't original content be the status quo? where'd everyone go, and why are the stragglers all wearing the same shirt?
i don't know that i'd care for a web with universally personal sites. i do care - quite a lot, actually - for taking a collective breather from the echo chamber of #followfriday, tumblr, flickr-as-stock-photos...you get my drift. let's stop dumping on things we're tired of seeing and mimicking things we find; let's put out.
my-damn-self monday? media fast monday? maker's monday, if you're into brown liquor? i'd like to see a day devoted to blog content that's utterly original. start the week with fresh writing and images; hold off on the links and snippets and shout-outs for a bit. tell me what you did over the weekend instead of showing me what you want to buy. if your site is topical, make it a manifesto day rather than a meta day. what if i said all the cool kids are doing it?
i've been trying to put my finger on what it is about the last few generations of blog trends that's so very alienating. at some point i started feeling like statler and waldorf in the balcony on the muppet show; like many a blogger before me, i've taken to missing The Old Internet, and get off my lawn. online shopping is now a fabulous thing, of course, and as a researcher i can hardly complain about the databases that have gone virtual, but...the blogosphere is getting a bit desolate. at some point it stopped feeling like a good party and started feeling like a bedroom with a bunch of magazine clippings taped to the wall (by a semiliterate teenager). i love a collage (and magpies), but seriously, why can't original content be the status quo? where'd everyone go, and why are the stragglers all wearing the same shirt?
i don't know that i'd care for a web with universally personal sites. i do care - quite a lot, actually - for taking a collective breather from the echo chamber of #followfriday, tumblr, flickr-as-stock-photos...you get my drift. let's stop dumping on things we're tired of seeing and mimicking things we find; let's put out.
my-damn-self monday? media fast monday? maker's monday, if you're into brown liquor? i'd like to see a day devoted to blog content that's utterly original. start the week with fresh writing and images; hold off on the links and snippets and shout-outs for a bit. tell me what you did over the weekend instead of showing me what you want to buy. if your site is topical, make it a manifesto day rather than a meta day. what if i said all the cool kids are doing it?
10.20.09: milestone postcards
we burned two and a half hours of chilly october daylight around a conference table on friday afternoon. i spent most of that time signing my name and/or nodding while making earnest faces at our attorney (part of that was to demonstrate my hard-earned understanding of new york real estate; part of it was our bonding over the improbable revelation that she had a three-legged cat). after the previous owners (finally) pushed a hedgehog-sized pile of keys across the table at us and wished us well, we dashed into a drugstore down the street, grabbed little bags of cheez-its and big cans of heineken, and took a cab to the lower east side.* champagne toasts are nice and all, but we wanted to make it to the new digs before the sun set.
we did, just barely. "i wish we could stay," joe whispered.** "we need the cat," i whispered back.
so we took the subway back up to hell's kitchen, where our broker and dear friend judd sang us some bowie. good people, our people.
we burned two and a half hours of chilly october daylight around a conference table on friday afternoon. i spent most of that time signing my name and/or nodding while making earnest faces at our attorney (part of that was to demonstrate my hard-earned understanding of new york real estate; part of it was our bonding over the improbable revelation that she had a three-legged cat). after the previous owners (finally) pushed a hedgehog-sized pile of keys across the table at us and wished us well, we dashed into a drugstore down the street, grabbed little bags of cheez-its and big cans of heineken, and took a cab to the lower east side.* champagne toasts are nice and all, but we wanted to make it to the new digs before the sun set.
we did, just barely. "i wish we could stay," joe whispered.** "we need the cat," i whispered back.
so we took the subway back up to hell's kitchen, where our broker and dear friend judd sang us some bowie. good people, our people.
*joe told his mother about that when he called her a few hours later; she said that when she and his dad bought their first place in arizona thirty years ago, they spent their first night sitting on the floor with coors and beer nuts. heritage!
**though we closed on friday, we couldn't move until monday morning.
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