bittersweet tart

Ahhhhhh.........this bittersweet thing we call life. How do you deal with it sometimes?

Like today, let's have a little look see into the life of a Monkey Wrangler, on what is turning into one of those classic days in the stay at home repertoire to remember for a long time........

Big girl was watching an early morning program and was being unresponsive to me asking her something. Meanwhile, little dude was downstairs mangling something of hers, making enough noise to make it obvious. When I threatened Big girl that I'd turn off the TV if I didn't get a response, it was met with an unresponse. I turned it off and suggested we do something else. There was absolutely no protest and she stayed put staring off into who knows what. Within about 43 seconds, she was up and walking about the house and starting to grunt and whine a bit. Within another minute she was saying "Daddy.............I don't want to throw up!" over and over, while pacing figure eights around the two tables downstairs again and again. "Daddy, now I have to go poop!" she mutters and I think, oh crap, here we go..........

We make it upstairs and I assist her. As well as hold her hair out of the bowl she is clutching on her lap, should she need to hurl. The little bro' unit comes crawling in, then gets into a squat position and stands up. He takes a few steps at us near the toilet. Usually big sis' would be having a major conniption fit about him being anywhere near the bathroom while she's in it. Today though, nothing. She stares through him. He is like a fly in the room. Besides our being in the bathroom under such conditions, I know she's sick when she pays no mind to what her brother is about to get into and/or destroy of hers.

Ahhhh, the bittersweetness of parenting. I'm holding onto one kid who is shivering uncontrollably and dry heaving while the other is showing his newfound skill and making day two of being an upright homo sapien. I laugh at myself for a second, being in the midst of all this.
Then it hits me.
Shit.
This is only Monday.

Well, at least yesterday I got something done. I got to use some lemon quark in a new way for me, in a dessert I've been imagining for well over a year now. And I had the immense fortune that it incorporated a few of Carl's peaches. Making it was bittersweet though. The peaches were the rarest I'll have this year, for on Saturday the 5th when I saw Carl and he had a few peaches, he said "yeah, these are the only ones for the year..........today." I gasped, I was so excited. I bought half a dozen. (I would have bought more, but I wanted others to have a chance at the few boxes he had.) Then I came home and nearly cried thinking of the bittersweetness of it all. How these would be my only fresh peach this year from my favorite king of peaches.

Then again, if that is one of my big worries for the year, then I surely have it really, really good. Dry heaves, shivers, giggling while walking and all.

But, like, jeez, I do wish it were Tuesday already..........if you are having a similar day, make yourself one of these:

BITTERSWEET PEACH AND CHEESE TART

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 stick of damn good butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 pint lemon quark
2 large eggs
3 of the rarest peaches you can find, preferably one you will not have for at least another year. This is essential.

cut the butter into the flour after you have mixed the sugar into it. like, duh. pat this into a 9x9 pan or something oval and smallish. bake it at 350 for about ten minutes. when this is just showing a hint of golden, pull it out and cool for a bit. meanwhile, put the leftover 4th of July booze down and crack a few eggs into a bowl. slop in the quark and mix thoroughly. skin your peaches and cut into slices. if they are clingstone, place the pit in your mouth and suck the stubborn, hard to get stuff off. do not put this part with the slices. pour the egg and quark mixture over the crusty thing and place slices of peaches all over the top. put it into the oven, still at 350 for another 25 of so minutes. well, maybe 18, maybe 33, who knows, learn to pay attention........eat the whole thing yourself and try not to cry.

local winter verde

We've been broke (looking down at belt and tightening one more notch) so now is where we really start paying more attention to the shopping bills and start combing the cupboards for meals. Happy that we put up a lot of stuff this past summer, most particularly in September, it is time for the freezer and pantry to shine. We've been enjoying endless english muffins slathered in jam, but we need to dig deeper into dinners. I had porky goodness on the brain. A roast put in the freezer way-back-when, for occasion just such as this came to mind. Mmmmm, chile verde. Local ingredients, our hard work at food preservation, and craving for succulent pork shoulder in a mouth watering green sauce all came together. It was a Dark Days Challenge inspired: Winter preser-verde dinner.

Pork shoulder and meat stock from the freezer. Tomatillo sauce from one of those crazy canning sessions. More from the pantry in the form of whole wheat flour and homemade salt (not much left these days, might be time to make some again) are ready for dredging the meat before frying it in olive oil and ploppin' in the crock. I just love cooking like this. Defrost, powder, brown, braise. I can handle that. When the weather is cold and damp, nothing says loving like braised pork shoulder.

(sluuuuuurrrp!) Lookin' good!
Green, chunky, seedy. That's pretty darn verde to me. It was now time to work on the rest of the meal as this stewed for a few hours and shrank in volume. Not really due to evaporation but as a few pieces of pork are sampled throughout the process. Who can deny this delight in such braising events? Not me. Nope, and an unh-uh. Can't do..........

And the final result?

Mmmmmmm!
Yeeeooowww!
Hooooo-hooooo-hoooooo-hooooooooo!!!!!!!!


It felt so primal and good to enjoy this feast. Hot, local, porky and all. I enjoyed the feeling so much I had seconds. Which, come to think of it is more like thirds or fourths after all the tasting during the cooking. Mmmmmm, here's to no self-control in the kitchen around braised meat!

And wait, I can't forget to give credit a bit here. This verde sauce was lacking in heat compared to another batch I made. In subsequent leftover helpings I gave it punch by adding a few crumby pickled peppers (that you don't even want to know what I had to do to get my hands on a jar of) to the dollop of local sour cream. The first bite and right there it went over the top.......off into that: I will remember how this tastes right now and forever, vowing to recreate it with future frustration and never quite get there kind of dishes. Those ones are tricky. Could have been the moon cycle, the humidity and day of the week that all conspired. For sure, the peppers kicked ass. Well, I won't forget to mention the produce and local bounty, but still, for this one, it all came together soooooo well......(licking last bit of sauce off fingers as I finish typing this..........)

kitchen noir

Dark, mysterious things have been happening in my kitchen. Like the case of the missing toast:

In the busy life I lead, I am often not able to fully ingest something before my attention is diverted away. In this case, I was about to sit down to a nice slice of toasted baguette when the wee one woke up from a morning nap. I ran upstairs to attend to him, and returned just a few moments later to find these remains. Hmmmmm, in black and white, to make it all the more mysterious......

Well now. If my breakfast is going to disappear I'll just have to do something about it. Sticking with the theme, I pulled out a boudin noir (my new favorite sausage) from the fridge and plopped it in a frying pan. I went to the remains of the baguette and discovered there was enough for a breakfast sandwich. So after frying the sausage, with the pan still blistering hot, in went two eggs. Slice the bread and pop it in the toaster. Spicey mustard in hand, the fixin's were coming together.

Now that is one good looking breakfast sandwich.

Wait.

What the hell? Black and white still? What the f*%@ is going on here?

Can't a guy enjoy his morning sandwich in peace AND color?

Well, it tasted great. Them folks over at the Fatted Calf really know a thing or two about charcuterie. Topped off with local eggs and handmade mustard on a sourdough baguette and I nearly fainted. I could eat this all the time for breakfast. And lunch. Okay, and dinner too, who am I kidding. But I'll still need something to wash it down with. Something black I suppose.

Like a homebrewed black death stout. Who cares if the picture is black and white or not, the beer is black. That's all that matters. Oh, and super yummy tasty. I guess that matters too. There is another gallon or two in the garage, that should in theory, peak in flavor somewhere near the winter solstice. Pffftt! Like it will last that long. (I've really gotta get to making another batch of that stuff, damn it's good!)

Then, with the holidays just around the corner and the prospect of cooking very large sized meals for lots of family and friends, you start looking at all the kitchen implements at your disposal and wonder: do I have a big enough pot to cook that 15-20 pound roast in? I rifle through the pots and pans in the kitchen and none look up for the task. Besides, it's hard to gauge how big such a roast would be in theory. Unless you have such an ample sized "roast" at your disposal.

Looks like an eight-gallon stock pot will work!

Thanks little buddy. Good thing 6 month olds are entertained by such simple things. Like being momentarily sequestered in a large pot while your father day-dreams of enormous quantities of chile verde............

And for the folks worried about child endangerment: calm down. I'm a professional Monkey Wrangler here. I've been on the job for four years and haven't killed anyone yet. There was no active flame under that pot, nor was there one for the previous couple of hours. And just so you know, he loved it. So much in fact that the elder monkey requested she try it out as well.

See you all later. On the dark side of things.

Got any kitchen noir to share?

zucchini: fried and baked, hold the steam

We've entered that time of year when the garden is a jungle. Even here in foggy ol' oakland, in a yard with southern exposure and nicely amended soil, you too can enjoy the sensation of summer squash coming out your ears. And if you have corn currently doing the tassel and silk dance, it can be coming out both of your ears. This is great and all, but about now is the time when you've had it steamed so many times that you need a new preparation or you just might hurl. Childhood memories, formed by a full stomach at my italian grandma's house are recalled and I find myself reaching for the fry and bake method. One that is very near my heart in the kitchen.

We browsed in the yard, wondering what the take would be today. A bowl full of squash and tomato. Hmmmm. What to do now? I brought the loot in the house, then decided we needed some fresh mozzarella. This meal would become a one-two garden variety punch. One I was craving. One simple, with bright flavors.

With my ingredients assembled, I gave the squash a cursory wash and began cutting it into 1/4 inch slices. I halved our cherry tomatoes. With a dip in a simple egg and milk wash, then finished with a lightly seasoned whole wheat and corn meal dusting, the disks were placed into a large pan with a nice layer of hot olive oil. A quick fry, turning once, followed by a quick rest on a rack to drip, and our bases were nearing completion.

Arranged on a cookie sheet, with the oven warming, I placed a cherry tomato atop each disk and then sprinkled it with a healthy pile of finely grated dry jack cheese. It was a little hard to not eat them at this point. (Well, a few disappeared, but really, they wouldn't fit on the pan without ruining the symmetry so I had to do something.) With our assembly complete, I put it in the oven and turned my attention to part two.

This next one was really easy. You probabaly all know the drill: Drain the mozzarella ball and slice. Slice the rest of the tomatoes, Go pick some basil, maybe give it a chop or tear and get out a bit of olive oil, and you're done.

Plated, I was in heaven. We we're having squash. Again. But this time the steaming basket was nowhere near. It was a celebration of summer, with all ingredients from the yard or the farmers' market. Well, wait, I used black pepper, and that came from a distant land. Whatever. I've been over that one before. Besides, grandma would probably not approve of me flouring squash without it. With a picture of her on my kitchen wall, it's a nice reminder of where dishes like this that fall out of my head really come from. They emanate in my heart, travel up through the memory bank up top, where through my hands it gets expressed as dinner. Which with some thoughtful chewing resides again in my stomach, next to my heart.

I wish you were still here to share this with me grandma. You'd be proud.

fresh picked produce

This past weekend, we went on down to Reedley, to my wife's folk's house. Being that it is the month of July, and her father is a gardening fiend, a trip to their house is like a trip to the market. As usual, we picked stuff for a few hours before packing the car and heading back home, this time resulting in a whopping 111 pounds of produce. Which come to think of it, is about half of our all time biggest load.

While visiting, I was speaking with my father in-law about our recent jam adventures and intentions of preserving stuff from this trip. He mentioned some of the things his mom used to "put up," including elderberry and blueberry when the berries had a good year. His reference to putting up food struck a chord with me. It reminded me of being very small and wandering into my grandma's pantry to stare at the multi-colored glass jars filled with food. He meant preserving and putting on the shelf for storage too, and coming from a child of the depression, this was something nearly everyone did. It wasn't considered liberal, or hippy or new age. You weren't considered weird or even strange in the least bit. You had an excess of a particular kind of food, so you feasted on it and then preserved it for later. No contemplating whether you needed to, or should. No pledging to folks that you would. You just did it.

So are we. I guess that makes me a child of the depression. Only this one is defined as the time when we forgot for the most part, how to grow, prepare and preserve our own food. We rely on others for our processed food needs, keeping the source obscured, cheap and distant, resulting in a massive depression of another kind marked by excess filled with emptiness.

As I write this, we have golden ketchup, seasoned tomato sauce and dried figs. There are peaches to jam, dry, or cut up for freezing. Plums to eat. Not pictured was corn and carrots. There were a number of white onions. That paper bag was half filled with green bell peppers and these light yellow, medium-hot kindamagigs. After picking up a pork roast, tomatillos and jalapeños yesterday, I've been having fun with chile verde in grandma's test kitchen today, and the aroma is making me weep with happiness.

Keeping this one short today, so I gotta go. Gotta stir, peel, chop. Salt and boil. Try not to burn the hell out of myself in the process. A lot of work, that will be yummy later. September and beyond is going to be delicious.

Time to put up.

local loca

This one is crazy local. Sourced primarily (by weight, somewhere past 90%) from our yard. It made me so very happy. AND, this is one of our family favorites, so I just had to share. I'll try and keep it brief after that long-ass, last post. In fact, maybe I should work a little conservation and sustainability into my own words. Anyway, this one is simple, rooty, roasted, tossed and salted. Sounds good eh? I'll even get to a recipe in a bit.

We had beets, green onions, garlic, and carrots this year that were intentional, and a few potatoes that came up in last year's compost pile area of the garden. As we were ripping out the last few beets this year, the two potato tops started dying and I got impatient. I yanked 'em and carried these inside, seeing a small pile of carrots on the counter from earlier in the day. It hit me. Combined with my local sourced salt and our herbs around the house, we have enough components of our favorite recent veggie hash to make one nearly all from our garden. I jumped for joy - three times, remembering that this would be the one and only time this would happen this year for this dish; it wouldn't be more than two cups worth; we would have to use spanish olive oil for the toss. Still. Almost super local. Local loca that is.

Last week, we re-created this dish after visiting the farmers' market. This time, we had much fatter and abundant veggies than our home growns, from some of my favorite folks there. Between this, having it for dinner and having ample leftovers for making it into hash for breakfast, I had to write this one down to document somewhere in my crazy life with kids that you actually can feed them delicious stuff that doesn't take forever to make. Well, forever for me that is, since I enjoy making things that take all day.

I gotta say, this was my favorite version to date, especially fried again the next day in a little bacon grease, served beside our staples of english muffins and fluffy eggs. At times like this, I revel in being a short order chef for my family and serving them such yummy grub.

For those still interested, a dish that feeds alot, doesn't take too long to prep, and requires strirring three times while baking for an hour. Here goes. An attempt at putting this down in recipe form.

Early June Local Hash

10-12 small potatoes (Yellow Finn or Yukon Gold work nice)
I bunch beets (3 nice beets)
1 small bunch carrots (1/2 pound)
1 large yellow onion
1 small red onion
6 cloves garlic
1 bell pepper
10 brown mushrooms
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon aged bay salt
1 small bunch parsley (1/4 cup)
A few sprigs of thyme (1 teaspoon)
2 twigs of oregano (1 teaspoon)
1 lemon


Cut potatoes into finger tip sized pieces. Peel and dice beets and carrots, especially if you have little people in the house who don't like things looking fuzzy or crinkled. Chop onions and garlic while no one is paying attention. Hunk up the bell pepper into small bite sizes depending on the aperture of the mouths in your house. Trim mushrooms to whatever size will trick your family into thinking they aren't in the dish. If you have herbs around the house, go out with your kid and encourage them to pick whatever they want for the dish. When you get inside, take out the ingredients harvested that you actually need and put the rest out of sight to dry for the future. Mince the herbs. Combine all the ingredients into a large bowl and douse with at least half of the oil. Sprinkle some salt over the top and toss together. Squeeze the lemon over this and hand the rest to your kid to taste and walk around the house with while making puckery faces. Place the whole mess into a large roasting pan and put into a pre-heated 450 degree onion. Oven. I don't have an editor and you know what I mean. Every 15 or 20 minutes open the oven and give it a stir. When the onions are getting carmelized, and the beets have stained absolutely everything, take it out of the oven and serve. The following morning, pour yourself a big cup o'joe and heat a pan with some piggy fat drippings and plop some on. Do it on a searing hot pan and it will get some blackened crispy bits that approximate burnt bacon bits. Serve it with eggs, toast, and lots of love. Enjoy seconds with more toast while dreaming of the dish washing fairie.

why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side, right? But, for what exactly?

Anybody?.......got any theories?

Keep in mind, most chickens these days never see a road, let alone set foot on one, and then have a reason to cross it. So what are these statistically few up to anyway? Well, yesterday, after a long hot sweaty day out in the central valley, I found one answer to this age old question, while out touring a few farms that our food comes from. Namely, the source of the eggs, brown rice, and peaches that I feed my family.

Down stream from Lake Oroville, live the chickens supplying most of the yolky goodness and whitey structure to our meals. We have been eating them since hearing that these chickens roost in the trees at night and wander the farm. Now that sounds like free range. While on a field trip with members of the Berkeley Farmers' Market Advisory Committee, I was fortunate enough to check out the lives of these birds and their environs. I even witnessed one reason to cross that road.

In this case, it is to go lay an egg under the propane tank. Or any other place that individual bird might choose to. In fact, I heard if you leave a car parked for a week, you'll have eggs under it when you try to move it. Eggs end up being laid all over the place, in places deemed safe by the chickens. That is, if you are a chicken who lives at Kaki Farms.


When we arrived, the birds were roaming free under the canopy of orchard surrounding their optional "coop." There are a lot of persimmon trees around the place offering a nice thick shade, which you might have imagined, if you know what kaki means in Japanese. The birds here roam and scratch the earth where they please, tended by dogs (like tiny, itty-bitty "Cheech," pictured in the photo at top if you look hard enough, doing about thirty miles an hour), their owners Nicasio and Carmen, the surrounding neighbors I'm sure, and yes, roads.

This is a wonderfully diverse farm, that was a treat to walk around, seeing things such as the asparagus in its feathery and red berried state, young walnut trees, tons of tomatoes, corn, nopales....the list goes on. Kaki currently has wonderful blackberries and strawberries too. Hot sweet berries, plucked and popped in the mouth; the perfect treat in 90+ weather.

I'm happy to know that the chickens who lay the eggs I feed my kid (kids, when the wee one is old enough), are what looks to me like happy ones. With at least the option to go cross a road, eat grubs wherever they find them, and well, live what I believe is a somewhat normal life of a chicken.

Let's now go on the western side of the Sacramento River, near Chico, where there dwells a superman. We paid a visit to learn a few things about modern organic rice production and learned a few things.

Like this photo for example. If I tell you that it was taken in a rice field, you might assume that most of what is in the picture is rice growing. Wrong. Apparently, it's a lot of sedges and hard to kill weeds that must be dried out in order to temporarily rid the "check" of them. As Greg at Massa Organics explained, organic rice farming is a tenuous job, where one must alternate flooding your crop to act as a mulch to keep the weeds down, and then drying your crop, to keep the weeds down. Really, no matter what, you grow a lot of weeds. The magic is in playing the wet and dry cycles to minimize the unwanted greenery and let the rice up.

I saw many ducks, tons of black birds, and field after field of rice in various stage of flood. At some point, while our host was rocking two little ones in a stroller and standing over a third, he mentioned that they plant the rice in the spring, after soaking it a day to begin the germination process, and that it is done by airplane. Later in the fall, with the fields dried one last time and hard enough to support a heavy piece of equipment, and the rice is full and ready, comes the harvest.

Wait a second, did he say planted by plane?.........I'll have to come back to this one at a later date after I get my head around the logistics of that one. But I guess rice is a commodity item, and planted on large scale, even for a small scale family farm. It figures you'd have to do part of the work while flying around at speeds much faster than planting by hand, or tractors for that matter, would allow.

I tell you what, these folks do a ton of work. A ton. And I'm not just talking about the parental duties. As a father myself, with two monkeys, I have the utmost in respect for this family farm and their superdad. When I want local brown rice, I get some of their stuff, and now, picture the ten acres of rice straw that became their home, the beautiful views of Mt. Lassen, and how after four generations of farming rice, this family is definately doing their part in working toward sustainability and stewardship of their land.

But what about those peaches I mentioned earlier?

If you want the best peaches around, talk to Carl and his crew. This man is a powerhouse of exploration and discovery, as well as a pioneer of the organic movement in California. His solar powered oasis, known as Woodleaf Farms, is located at 1300 feet in the rocky foothills above Oroville. This farm started out with thin topsoil 20 plus years ago, but having been amended and built over the years with compost, minerals, and ground cover, it is now a stunning example of what vision, sweat, perseverance and time can do.

While touring, we got a first hand view of the his beautiful soil; black and rich with life. He dug down around a sprinkler, using it as a measuring post to demonstrate. After shredding through the grasses, the word fecundity came to mind. It's no wonder why his peaches are the yummiest things around, because his soil is too. Remember, you are what you eat? Well, that applies to trees to.

After hearing him talk about his philosophies and practices, seeing them in practice, then sharing lunch in his lovely home, I came away full with a warm fuzzy feeling about the place. (Yeah, yeah, peach farmer, I know....the pun is intentional) Here, everything gets a gourmet blend of love, respect and mindfulness, from caretakers who see the place as the larger organism that it is. People before me have pointed out the quality of his peaches, some say they can't be beat. I'd like to add to that: you can't beat his soil, water, or sky either.

A true explorer in the world of growing things (if astronaut means space exporer, then this man is a bionaut) he is steadily at work running experiments in bringing more power to the people by encouraging they utilize something like this raised bed to produce food at home. He is hard at work on test plots, and if the corn we saw there is any indication, we will see more of these in the near future. Anybody got any grant money? Talk to Carl Rosato. The man is FILLED with great ideas for our future.

A bright future that is. Filled with great food. That in producing it, gives back to the earth. Hungry anyone?

If you have the fortune of seeing where your food comes from, do it. You'll learn a few things. And likely, come away with enormous respect for the people who take part in bringing you life.

To the families and hard working help of Nicasio, Greg and Carl, thank you.

pizza di alice

Although yesterday was the Superbowl; a highly American ritual of excess and hyper-media (or is that Extreme-media) and millions of people were spending the day watching the game, pumped up and likely intoxicated (ok more men I should clarify); I filled the majority of my day with different ritual behavior. Don't get me wrong, I had a beer, some good pizza, managed to watch the last quarter, and was impressed that the Colts coach is only the third guy to have been victorious as both player and coach in a superbowl; congrats Tony! But really, I was very satisfied that my day contained three important rituals. Or four, if you want to call watching the superbowl one.....

My niece was blessed this morning. Men gathered around and wished for the wonders of life to be bestowed upon her. Her full name was spoken for family and church before god. It was a standard performance, but one that carries deep meaning. I am not LDS, and as usual felt like I wasn't quite dressed right in church; one of those "long-hair" with beard that I am. It was the first time though that I didn't feel awkward actually being there. The congregation were welcoming, and as usual I had the slight sense that a few were getting giddy believing they had a few new recruits on their hands, but this time felt as though I was perfectly entitled to share the same ritual space, bearing witness to another cousin of the monkey in the blessing gown that H's mom so lovingly embroiders with her grandchildren's names.

We came home and the kitchen smelled of sourdough. Go figure. The monkey and I went outside and picked some herbs. The photo up above was taken a few days ago during our first real harvest of chard and parsley for the year. The herbs went into my latest veggie stock and Aunty had the chard, but it shows an example of the oregano and rosemary that were harvested for our impending dough of herby bliss.

During ritual number two (going for a run, a more sporadic ritual, but one I'm currently working on the frequency of) my mind was awash in family tradition. It made me think back to our own little blessing of sorts where we captured an image of our portly 5 month old monkey displaying her newfound talent of sitting up. We had planted an olive tree as part of our ritual. After digging the hole, we placed some compost in the bottom, including her placenta as encouragement for growth and health. We figured hey, hella vitamins and minerals in that thing, must be good for a young tree, considering some folks actually ingest the thing themselves in the form of........well, if I haven't totally grossed you out already, I'm gonna make a self-arresting move right here to not lose any more readers (and should you want to know more about it, or our own use of placenta, then just ask).

I came home all sweaty, checked the score, and eyed the big cold beer in the fridge, but I hadn't anything to eat for a good four hours at this point. I was dehydrated from the run, and the booze tops out at 9.9% alcohol, so I abstained a bit longer and chugged some water. My dough looked nice, so I pounded out some rounds and prepped the toppings.

I had some local produce (peppers, mushrooms, onions), a newfound meaty topping (Sugo di Carne, thank you Biggles), and a nice tryptic of cheese (jack, mozzarella, parmesan). Ritual number three was shaping up to be good. Maybe even seriously g__d (I'll leave that to the judge). With everything ready for assembly, we called the monkey into the kitchen for one of our newest rituals: family pizza construction. The monkey wasn't as interested in this as in the past, but H and I brought our parental obligations to the table so we followed through. We had one biggie of the thin crust variety, and four little "fluffies" more along the lines of a deep dish style. With the oven hot and the pies waiting, the ritual continued on.

While the pizza was cooking, I said hello to Aunty. We had one of "those" conversations about how lame our father is (in retrospect, this should probably count as a ritual too, though more of the purgative type). I came back in the kitchen and two of the five were being ingested. The meaty centerpiece was intact however, and maybe the beer was playing with my head, but it seemed to creep back toward the wall as I came at it with the pizza cutter. Sourdough may be tasty, but remember, it starts out most certainly alive.

The pizza was a hit. The crust was fluffy and herbal, laying a foundation in the grassy world of wheat and herbs. The carmelized onions were divine (are they ever not?) and went very nice with the woody/earthy cremini and tangy green bells. The Sugo did a glorious job as the carne, and I instantly put it into the "can't go wrong" category for pizza toppings. The cheeses glued it all together and provided the cream to bind all the flavors together. With our bellies thoroughly stuffed and the table cleared, I brought the rest of the beer and another piece of pizza upstairs to commune with SB41.

Although the kitchen still smelled of carmelized onions, confronted with the inevitable cold pizza and empties, I was a bit sad this morning. It was back to the ritual of a typical monday: deciding what we're gonna eat tonight. We have some yummy fish on board, and I have a line on some garlic quark that will be part of another ritual around here: quiche. If I only had some more brown shugga and pizza toppings, I just might be able to replicate the experience. Or should you want to experiment on yourself and/or family then read on.

Herbed Pizza Dough

1 cup sourdough starter
3 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat
1 cup warm water
2 T olive oil
1 t salt
I T finely minced fresh oregano
1t finely minced fresh rosemary

Mix ingredients and knead until smooth. Let rise in a warm place for several hours until it has doubled in size (how's that for an original line in a recipe huh?. I've just got to plagiarizing someone there....) Form into whatever pizza style floats your boat. Let rest for a bit while you prep the toppings.

Alice's toppings (she doesn't even have teeth and is purely on a milk diet at this point, but I'm sure she will like this one in the future. Also, I just couldn't relate this one to the game or it might have been called Peyton's pizza or some other cheesey title (snicker, snicker).

3 carmelized onions
1 julienned green bell pepper
8 thinly sliced medium cremini mushrooms
1 jar/can tomato paste (6-8 ounces)
1/2 lb grated monterey jack
1/2 lb sliced fresh mozzarella
2 ounces microplaned parmesan
1/3 jar (4-6 ounces?) Sugo di carne (I'm working on getting savvy at linking stuff to my blog, go to the fatted calf site to read more)

With the dough ready, prick it numerous times with a fork, if putting onto a non-perforated baking sheet, and spread tomato paste thinly, until all but the outer crust is covered. Put down a base layer of cheese (most of the jack, and all of the mozzarella) Pile on some onion, mushroom and bell pepper. Distribute the meat. Add the rest of the jack and generously sprinkle with parm. Place into a 450 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Serve with high alcohol beer, brewed with brown sugar and you can't go wrong......unless your serving this to your toddler, and then come on, who would share such a good beer with their kid, I mean hey, they're not suppossed to have the stuff, so drink it all yourself, and quickly for child safety sake.

plain jane bread (or re-inventing the wheel)

Last Tuesday the monkey was in the throes of a nasty stomach virus. Poor thing. She yakked for quite awhile and it was early in the morning when she stopped. H slept with her that night, and I wondered what else I could do to help. I could feed the sourdough right? Yeah, bake a loaf of plain white bread for the delicate recovery into eating food, that always accompanies such experiences. And for Z, I know that she just loves bread, in just about any form, so at the very least, I could get some bread in her in the near future.

Wednesday morning H went to work and the monkey lay around. She was on the couch watching "Wonderpets" and was saying she was cold. "Wrap me like the burrito daddy, with the blanket." What was that honey? "I'm cold daddy. Wrap me up!" I commenced tucking the edges of the folded blanket around her. She enjoyed it enough to pull it off so that the process may be repeated. She wasn't really smiling though, so the sicko-meter was still reading at least half. Can I get you anything sweetie? "No." How about some orange? (citrus has been a big hit lately) "No, I'm not hungry"

I pulled out the starter, fed from the night before, and it was bubbly and happy. I gave it a thorough stirring and measured out about a cup into another bowl. I added 1+ cups of water and about 2 1/2 cups of bread flour. I mixed it quickly and left it to get all spongey.

See, believe it or not, I have read about doing sourdough as a sponge first, but have never attempted it myself. Well, actually this isn't totally true, I've done it for english muffins and it is quite tasty, but for just a big loaf or baguette, no. I have been playing with a sourdough starter now for 9 months, basically unsupervised, so my experiments, though based in the published world of sourdough technique, are really me re-inventing the wheel of dough and learning the hard way, by repetitive motion, how to produce a good bread. I am an apprentice, with only my senses as master.

The sponge did its thing for around five hours, until it was threatening to vacate the bowl it was in. I stirred in a few more cups of bread flour, a little over a teaspoon of salt, and tablespoon or more of a nice green-hued olive oil. After mixing by hand brought the dough together, I put it onto the board and got down to thumping, slapping, and twisting it into a fluffy white dough, appropriate for a plain jane loaf. All white flour, salt, water and oil.

Hey sweetie......."Yes dada?" Can I get you anything, maybe some applesauce or something? "No." You sure, maybe we could have a little chocolate afterwards? "No, It's okay, I'm not hungry right now." She is DEFINATELY still sick. Well, the bread will be awhile more anyway.

After the dough had risen once, I split it into two baguettes and a free-form loaf. Before going in the oven, the dough had at least doubled in size. This stuff was going to be very light. Only one thing, after turning on the oven, the power went out. First a small on/off flicker, then maybe 5 seconds of on. Hmmm. What was that abou?[DARK] We fished out our flashlights, lit a few candles, determined that the heater wouldn't work, or the hot water heater (what was in the tank hot, but cooling despite its protective insulation I'm sure). But the old gas stove, dating to a time when electricity was not standard in most homes works just fine when the power is out. It contains no technology that involves an electrical spark. In fact at this point in time, the now common sparking lighters on gas ranges were some 50 years out. In short, my oven worked fine.

I baked the baguettes first, as they rose faster. I was using a head lamp when judging during my first oven intervention. They were looking rather dark, I thought at the time, so I turned the oven down to about 375 for the last ten minutes. When these were removed, I placed them on a rack to cool by an open window for a draft. I was going to try these tonight, torturing myself until after they cooled completely so I could judge the moisture content as it would be in an intact loaf. At this point, the monkey had brushed her teeth, after eating the tiniest morsel of a dinner, and would have bread in the morning. I'm sure about it. About half an hour before the loaf went in the oven the power was restored. I looked at the baguettes and thought: "self, you could have left the heat up for longer on them, try it with the loaf okay?"

On Thursday morning, the monkey woke up in a pretty good mood, ready to try the bread from the night before. I'm not saying she horked down a ton of it. She was just starting to eat a little something. But toasted, with butter or raspberry jam (or both as she prefers sometimes) seemed like something worth trying to eat.

Since then, our whole family has experienced some form of this little stomach enemy of ours. And we have been living off of bread. You see, with the nice fluffy results from my first sourdough involving a sponge, I just had to make it again the next day, in a half whole wheat form. Turns out that works great too. And when you are not feeling like eating much, or need it to be nice and plain, then my vote is a plain jane loaf. White, or whole wheat will satisfy, although the whole wheat probably has a higher nutritive value, that maybe we should think about leaning toward after a few days of not eating much.

When this weekend came around, we were all looking forward to some fruits and veggies (and hoping for some fresh live crabs, but without luck). This morning the monkey and I wandered over tho the Farmers' Market and blew all the cash we had on us. I was looking at the individual booths, seeing the span of region that it reprsents, and had a smile of contentment. We had our goods, likely the bulk of the veggies for our week, and it came from areas that either have a special place in my heart (Northern reaches of the Sacramento Valley) or in my family (Fresno County) or in my blood (my Californio connections to the Central Coast). It is a priviledge and an honor to talk to the purveyors at our market, and support some more of our local* scene. We rode the bike back, unloaded the loot on the table and took a photo as a means of archiving what was available this first week of December



So do I title this picture "Still life with morning market bounty" or simply "37 bucks, Dec. 3rd, 2006, Temescal Farmers Market"........

israeli couscous with carotenoids, betacyanins, and xanthophylls topped with anthocyanins

The monkey was mixing up a batch of fruit salad. "What do you want in your salad dada?" Her method involves tossing in ALL of the fruits and veggies that she has into a large bowl, and giving them a thorough mixing. When this is complete she fishes out your requested items, plus a few that she thinks will pair well with them, and carefully arranges them on a plate for you. I believe her last plating involved peach, orange, cabbage and cauliflower as a bed, supporting the bell pepper and corn 2nd floor. I was inspired to duplicate her range of colors into a dish that had alot of local* ingredients. It made me think of using our carrots, butternut, beet, and yellow bell pepper that was hanging around the kitchen from the last trip to the farmers market. We also had local* mushrooms, celery and onions that I figured would go well with everything else as long as I tied it all together with some ginger, and maybe drizzled it with grenadine.

So, I roasted some butternut, steamed some beets, sliced some carrots and bell peppers, chopped onions, celery, mushrooms, garlic and ginger, picked a few strawberries and little bit of mint, and measured out a few tablespoons of grenadine. A few cups of israeli couscous topped it off.



I sauteed the onions/celery/mush/gar/gin combo in olive oil and combined it with the couscous and some water in our largish green caserole thingy. To this I layered the sliced carrots on one side and bell pepper on the other and then piled on the butternut and beet. I topped this all of with the strawberries and a healthy pouring of the grenadine. I poked some mint sprigs in a few places and put it in the oven at 350 for over an hour.


And because this meal was all about the fresh, colorful, and somewhat local* produce, we steamed some cabbage (yet more anthocyanins) and carrots (carotenoids........duh?) to serve up with it. Those crazy beets stained the couscous a nice burgundy (those betacyanins are the ultimate in staining, they will even turn your urine pink if you eat enough, so I hear...) and that cabbage, WOW! (although in honesty the cabbage was not that color when I put it in the pot. It was no trick, just plain ol' purple cabbage, steamed until quite tender). In fact now when I look at it, I think that we needed some more yellow stuff (xanthophylls) to offset that shocking bluish purple. I mean, do you eat bluish veggies THAT often?

This meal really made me reflect on how dull and boring most of the typical American diet is. I guess as a stay at home dad, who cooks, loves veggies, and doesn't eat much meat (less than twice a week lately, and that usually fish), I'm not exactly typical. I like that.


* Local for purposes here being produced in California, within about a three hour drive (say 150 mile radius from home) and purchased by us at the closest Farmer's Market or at our one of our neighborhood stores (all walking or biking distance). The onions, celery, garlic, bell pepper, carrots and beets are all organic and from the Farmer's Market. The grenadine was from Reedley pomegranates, juiced by hand with a ricer and then boiled with a cup of organic sugar (Whole Foods). The butternut was also from Reedley. The ginger is admittedly from Brazil (Berkeley Bowl), and is a leftover from my last attempt at making candied ginger. The mushrooms and couscous are from Whole Foods, the mushrooms produced locally (Monterey County), the couscous from unknown sources (I didn't pay much attention to the bin it came from as this too was a leftover ingredient from a past dish, I do believe it was organic). The olive oil (Greece, Kalamata actually) and the salt (France) were from the mediterranean by way of Trader Joe's. We had a locally produced olive oil that could have been used, but I can't yet justify using the $15 bottle of dipping/dressing oil for frying in a pan. I will look into getting a "cooking" oil from the local folks. The little strawberries and fresh mint are from our yard. You could say that this dish was a result inspired by the monkey's color scheme, local ingredients, what was in the cupboard, some oil-economics (olive), and the food we pass everyday going in and out of our door.

Putting it all down in this form and documenting where the meal came from goes out to my sister-in-law Sheryl. For being one of those folks who are brave enough to look at where your food REALLY comes from (and who having made it through the corn chapters in the Omnivore's Dilemna, now probably doesn't see that big grass the same anymore). Let me know when you get your hands on one of them Polyface chickens.