It's been forever since I've posted - so here's a quick pancake recipe.  These are light and fluffy and can soak up an enormous amount of syrup.  Yum.  The recipe is supposed to serve 3 to 4, but it only serves 2 at my house. 

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together 1 cup flour (or 1/2 cup white flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat, if you want to pretend you are being healthy), 2 teaspoons sugar, 1/2 teaspoon baking POWDER, 1/4 teaspoon baking SODA (don't mix up the soda and the powder.  They do different things), and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.   

You can even double or quadruple this and keep it around as your own personal bisquick, just use of cup of the mixture with the following amount of liquid ingredients.

In a 2 cup liquid measuring cup, pour 3/4 cup milk.  in a second liquid measuring cup, add 2 tablespoons melted butter.  Separate one egg, whisking the egg white into the milk and the egg yolk into the melted butter.  Stir well, then stir the butter and yolk into the milk.  Stir all the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until all ingredients are moistened - it'll be a little lumpy.  Let the batter sit while you prepare the pan.

Set a medium-to-large sized skillet over medium heat.  Don't use a non-stick skillet for this.  Let the skillet get good and hot with nothing in it.  Sprinkle a few drops of water into the skillet - if they sizzle and evaporate immediately, it's hot enough.  Pour about 2 teaspoons of canola or vegetable oil into the skillet and carefully brush the oil all over the surface with a pastry brush or a paper towel. 
Pour about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake into the hot pan - I can usually fit 3 at a time.  Let cook until you start to see bubbles in the surface of the batter, then flip them over and cook for about 1 minute more.  Flip them onto a warm plate, and cook the second batch - re-oiling the pan if you need to. 

To be totally decadent, melt some butter and maple syrup together and pour over the pancakes - nothing spoils a good hot pancake like cold syrup right from the fridge. 

To recap, you'll need:

1 mixing bowl
2 liquid measuring cups
Whisk
Skillet - not non-stick
Spatula or pancake turner
Measuring spoons and a measuring cup

1 cup flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 egg
2-3 teaspoons canola oil for the pan
butter and syrup for serving 

I have a little "health tip of the day" application on my Google homepage.  This morning when I logged on, the tip was "Eat breakfast - it'll stop you from pigging out later on."

How sad is this?  What a negative message.  How about "Eat breakfast - it tastes good and gives you fuel that you need after an 8 hour fast:."  Or "Eat breakfast - start your morning sharing with the people you live with, or contemplating your day, your god, your good fortune to be alive and awake."  Or something like that. 

Our relationship with food in this country has become so adversarial, it's second nature.  Almost every single party - Party!  Celebration! - I've been to as an adult has a group of us talking about our weight and how unhappy we are with it.  I catch myself saying " I shouldn't eat this, but...." way more often than I want to admit. 

I'm currently reading Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food", which is the most important book I've read in a long time.  One of the over-arching themes of the book is that as we've become more and more obsessed with eating healthily as a nation, we've become less and less healthy.  Definite "food" for thought. 

There's so much more to say on this topic, but right now I'm finishing the bread and butter that I made last night (10 minutes, tops, actual labor time) and enjoying my coffee with the cats before heading in to work. 

Hanging out with my boyfriend's father, waiting for the boyfriend to come home from work, and deciding to watch the first episode of the HBO show TrueBlood.

Not realizing that a portion of the show qualifies as softcore porn.

Oh my.

It's not that I'm delighted with the outcome and happy to reclaim my answering machine from the 8 robo-calls I've been getting each day, that's all true but perfectly normal. The main thing that scared me is that I've been so glued to CNN for the last two months that I found myself seriously considering ordering that sonic-scrubber, or that nifty tool that files down your pet's nails. The snuggly blanket with sleeves and the suction handle were tempting, too.

This from the woman who fell asleep during the Obama-mercial last week.

A Joss!Meme seems like a good idea: When you see this, post another Buffy quote in your LJ. Let's see how long this can go on.

"I didn't jump to conclusions! I took a tiny step, and there conclusions were!"

Oh and a twofer:

"Uh oh, you have but face"

"????"

"You look like you're going to say 'But...'"

So I'm listening to the Republican convention on CNN, listening to all the speakers blasting the "liberal media" for their "attacks" on Sarah Palin and their "adoration" of Barack Obama. 

All I can think of is the tenet we held back in my rock band days:  Don't piss off the guy with his finger on the "suck" button.

Oh, and I doubt very seriously that Mitt Romney loves me. 

I found this meme from the blog Very Good Taste on Chocolate and Zucchini, and thought it would be a fun way to get back into blogging a bit more. I'm on vacation at Gulf Shores, and my plan was to blog my birthday dinner at Quinones and introduce everyone to Igor the Hitch-hiking Symphony Cat, but mostly I've been sitting around on the beach or the balcony doing a whole lot of nothing.

Anyway, here's the meme.

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:


 

I heard a great quote a couple of months ago that keeps rolling through my head. I don't know the original source, it was mentioned in the context of a story about Judaic conversions on NPR.

"For a trivial goal, all obstacles are great. For a great goal, all obstacles are trivial."

I was jolted awake at 5:00 AM by my toothbrush.

All of the sudden I heard this high-pitched buzzing over my usual fan, sat up abruptly and sent the cats flying. Upon investigation, I discovered that my cheap battery-operated toothbrush had switched itself on and wouldn't turn off until I took out the batteries. My sleepiness dulled the edge of the weirdness until I woke up again later and saw the batteries out, so it couldn't have been just a dream.

It's working fine now. I just wanted to share.

Yes, I take full responsibility for the fact that that song will be running through your head for the next hour....hee!

So I've been taking this landscape design class over at Callanwolde in order to figure out what to do with my yard now that the exterior renovation is (mostly) done. It's been very informative, starting with how to use design elements in your space and progressing to what plants or other materials to use, where to get them, and how to take care of them. I've gotten some great ideas to start on this summer, and a game plan for the next couple of years. Tonight was the last class, so we all presented our plans to each other and brought out pictures to show what we were dealing with.

There are ten people in this class.

Two of them live behind me.

As in, we share a property line - our backyards are catty-corner to each other. I watched their house being built this past year from my kitchen window, and they were a bit spooked by my second-story kitchen door that opens on to nothing. (I said the renovations were mostly done, right? The screened-in back porch was over my budget, and the existing steps were a death trap.) And we had no idea until we saw the pictures of each others' houses.

So far all my plans were for the front yard, but I'm feeling this sudden compulsion to get the backyard in a a bit more order...

Getting back into the habit of posting with a meme, taken from pmgoose, that makes me look good.

( Least-Read Book Meme )

Hi Everyone!

Since I've been fielding calls all morning, I thought I'd just let you
know that I made it through the tornadoes last night with my house and
power intact. My cable, however, is out, so I have no TV, internet,
or home phone (I'm writing from work now, but I'll be out for the
next couple of days). My cell phone is working just fine..

I was actually at the Shakespeare Tavern downtown last night,
preparing for a cast party. The first we knew of the storms was when
the power went out for a couple of minutes - that has NEVER happened
in the 16 years I've been working there. We share the electrical grid
with Crawford Long Hospital across the street, which gets first
priority in an outage. The actors just went on the with play, and the
lights came back on soon. Then the mother of one of my employees
called him to check in, and told us what was happening. I stayed for
the party, and drove home around midnight. I only live about 4 miles
from work, and have 3 routes I can take depending on traffic or whim.
They were all blocked off by trees, debris, or police cars. My route
of last resort took me through Cabbagetown, one of the areas hit
worst. It was spooky, driving through the dark neighborhoods and
coming upon downed trees all over the place. The lighted sign at
Georgia Power was still shining brightly over the chaos - I should
have taken a picture.

Anyway, I made it home and my house is fine. My side of the street
has power, the other side doesn't. Penny called this morning to tell
me that there was roofing insulation in the tree tops by my highway
exit, but it wasn't mine.

I hope that everyone else made it through just fine. I can't believe
how lucky the city was over all, with so few injuries and no
fatalities. I know that there is a lot to clean up, but at least
we're still here to do it!

I made chicken wings for droid18's birthday party yesterday, my first time making wings from "scratch." They turned out so well that I'm posting the recipes before I forget what I did! These are based on a blending of recipes from Cook's Illustrated and Charles Reavis's 52 Ways to Wing It. Chaz was a friend of a friend who wrote many cookbooks, was a FABULOUS cook who knew how to have fun in the kitchen, and sadly, passed away about a year ago. He is missed.

( Baked Chicken Wings with two sauces )

I'm spending a luxurious week at my sister's beach condo in Gulf Shores, Alabama. My fellow introverts out there will understand that even more luxurious is that I'm spending the first 3 days completely by myself. Three days to re-center, quiet the monkey mind, do ONLY what I want to do, and eat whatever I want to eat. By then I'll be looking forward to my boyfriend joining me for the rest of the week, hanging out and relaxing in the best of company. My favorite thing about having a beach condo or house as opposed to a hotel is that you can cook your own food. I did most of my shopping at home and made a couple of salads that I can pick at all week, you can see them below.



Clockwise from the bottom are tortellini salad with sundried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, kalamata olives and basil (it's been on the Shakespeare Tavern menu a couple of times, John requested it), ingredients for guacamole, pasta salad with hard salami, provolone cheese, and kalamata olives (my mom used to make this all the time), and the wheatberry salad from my first entry in this blog. These are some of my favorites, recipes follow under the cut. I'm also including the black bean dip that my friend Kelley made every time we went to Tybee Island, and the best margarita recipe ever (don't worry sweetie, I promise I won't crack open the tequila until you get here!) All except the guacamole travel well in a cooler - make the guacamole once you get to the beach.

( Beach Recipes )

Ok, enough of this internet stuff. Time to turn my attention to the beach and the pile of books I brought. No, I still haven't gotten the Harry Potter book, even though most of the people I see on the beach are reading it.

The thunder's gone for now, or at least rumbling off in the distance and not accompanying lightning strikes in my back yard!

Ok, so where were we? Only one course in? Oh yes. We'd been looking over the extensive wine list, trying to pick a good bottle to have with the main courses we'd ordered. All right, HE was looking over the wine list, because he's had a lot more training and experience in wine, and I was hyperventilating over the bottles that cost more than my monthly mortgage. I love good wine, but I just can't get my head around bottles that cost thousands of dollars. I mean, "bottle of wine with dinner" vs. "place to live for a month" just doesn't compute. Although I suppose if you're regularly drinking that sort of wine, a)you don't need to worry about the mortgage, and b) your mortgage is probably so much higher a $1500 price tag seems like nothing.

But I digress. We asked for the sommelier, a beautiful young French woman who finally sold us on a bottle of Chateau Pas De L'Ane 2001, a St. Emilion Grand Cru. I tend to like lighter reds, and this one was lovely. With a kind of rootbeer "nose" to it. The bottle has taken a place of honor in my living room as a candle holder.

We moved on to our seafood course. I had the salmon sashimi with sushi rice, dashi broth, and dijon mustard ice cream. I've never really had a savory ice cream before - it was still a little bit sweet, but mostly tasted like cold, creamy mustard that went perfectly with the salmon. John's peeky toe crab cake with apple curry sauce was awesome as well - the fruit and curry were a nice combination.
( salmon sashimi )

( crab cake )

(I apologize for the poor quality of the photos, if anyone has advice for taking pictures up close on a white background in low-level light, I'm listening!)

For the main course, I chose the smoked roasted duck breast with truffle polenta, fresh figs, and citrus sauce, while John had the braised beef shrot ribs, baby turnips, gnocchi romaine, and red wine sauce. The duck was amazing, perfectly done at medium, tender without being fatty, and well complemented by the figs and citrus sauce, as well as our wine. The short ribs were tender - not meltingly tender, but still great - and the red wine sauce had some ingredient that we couldn't identify. We sent the server in search of the chef - it was orange peel. The baby turnips were so sweet they could have been served for dessert, but went nicely with the richness of the ribs.

( duck breast )

( short ribs )

I was getting pretty full by this point, but there was still the cheese course and dessert menu to check out. I decided I needed a little bit of a walk, so I visited the ladies' room, where I spent a good five minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the sink with no faucet handles or apparent motion detectors. ( Read more... ) Finally figured out the detectors were at the foot of the sink, but I'm sure I'm not the first person to be tempted to walk out with soapy hands.

On to the cheese course! My cholesterol level has doubled since I started dating John, and this is why. We both LOVE cheese. The selection of five cheeses was: Le Mouis, Saint Nectare, Clacbitou (goat), Medawaska, and Saint Antoine Compte. I forgot to take a picture, I was a little tipsy at this point. I'm afraid I couldn't say much about which cheese tasted like what, either, but they were all good. I only have the names because we sent our hard-working server back to the kitchen to write them down for me.

Finally, dessert. My first choice was a praline napoleon with carmalized pecans and lemon sorbet, but they were out of it. We were one of three tables left in the restaurant by this time, so I could understand. I ended up with the other dessert that had caught my eye, the hazelnut biscuit with milk chocolate mousse and milk chocolate ice cream. It turned out to be crispy layers of cookie layered with the mousse, much like a napoleon. John had the hot chocolate souffle with tonka sauce. We'd pretty much finished the wine, so we were giggling about the idea of melted tonka toys being poured into the souffle. Turns out that tonka beans are similar to vanilla. Oh well.

( milk chocolate mousse )

( Chocolate Souffle )

AND, there was a little birthday treat as well, a couple of hazelnut cookies and a candle on a plate that read "Joyeux Anniversaire!"

At this point I was having trouble moving and the restaurant was pretty much empty, but our ever-gracious waiter took us on a tour of "Joel's Dream Kitchen", 5000 square feet divided into at least four kitchen areas, including the country's longest cooking line(62 feet), a pasta kitchen with it's own humidity level, and freezers controlled via satellite in case of power failures. Yes, I have a handout. Yes, I'm jealous.

I was a little saddened to learn that the current version of the restuarant will close down in August, to be remodeled more along bistro lines. I'm sure the food will be just as excellent, but I do enjoy a formal dining room every once in a while. I do admit that when I heard they were remodeling, though, my first thought was "I wonder what they're going to do with the silver?"

All in all, a wonderful birthday treat with great food, great wine, and the best company!

Coming up, an account of a wine maker's dinner at Repast, corndogs at Corndogorama, all kinds of food in my old college town of Oberlin, and a couple of wonderful meals in Cleveland. Then, hopefully, I'll get back to the recipes!

John had been excited about my birthday dinner reservation for weeks, hinting and teasing at what it might be. Like I said, all I knew was that I needed to dress up, and eat lightly that day. I also knew that he has amazing taste in restaurants, having worked in many of Atlanta's best during his former life in foodservice. (He's out now, and I don't really blame him!)

I decided to wear my "Paris dress," a cute little thing that I got in the Latin Quarter a year and a half ago. It's a great dress, but I admit that the best part is responding to the question "Where did you find it?" Anyway, that turned out do be an appropriate choice, because we went to Joël. It's situated in a hotel/office complex, all landscaped with fountains and palm trees, reminding me of LA. We were greeted personally by the manager, who knows John, and seated immediately. Then the decision making started. Joël has a five course chef's menu, but you have to get it for the entire table, and we love to browse and share our way through the menu. Plus, there was no foie gras on the chef's menu.

*********DISCLAIMER**********

I try very hard in most of my life not to be a hypocrite, and generally I like to think I succeed. But I admit defeat in this area. On the one hand I'm going on and on about sustainable farming, local sourcing, organic this, ethical that, but I can. not. resist. foie gras. Ever since I first had it on that trip to Paris, if it's on the menu, I get it. I mean, that's only like twice a year! I have easily given up veal, I don't pine for lobster or whatever the latest endangered seafood is, but that buttery richness with a hint of gaminess gets me every time. Yes, I know how it's produced. I do beat myself up for it, but I'll still order it until it's outlawed here like they're trying to do in Chicago.

******************************

We ordered a couple of glasses of Deutz champagne to celebrate while we looked through the menu. John warned me that the bread was really good, but not to fill up on it. A good idea, since we ended up with five courses each. (OINK!) We started with two different foie gras presentations - I ordered the foie gras terrine with pear confit and brioche toast, which was light and creamy with the sweetness of the pear. The brioche was delicious, but maybe a little richer than I needed, I ended up using the bread basket baguette. John ordered the seared foie gras with hon shimegi mushrooms and caline sauce - the slightly firmer, unprocessed foie gras with the earthiness of the tiny japanese mushrooms was great as well.

( Foie Gras Terrine )

( Seared Foie Gras )

To be continued when the thunderstorm passes....

Sorry, no fantastic dinner update yet – I still don’t know where we’re going, but I have to dress up. Last year John took me to Bacchanalia, so I anticipate something amazing. I’m also supposed to "eat lightly" today.

To that end, I spent the morning at the Piedmont Park Green Market. I’ve been meaning to go for years, especially after rebelliousrose wrote so much about it last summer, but this morning I finally got off my tush and went. It was a bit smaller than I expected, but still worth checking out.



I talked to some of the growers and other vendors – there were a lot of very earnest, healthy-looking young people out there. I talked to a young man at the Moore Farms booth who was very enthusiastic about a California Olive oil they were selling, exported (is it still "exported" when it comes from a different state, not country?) for the first time ever – and the grower/bottler was only 25, the same age as the vendor. I felt old for a minute, then I tasted the olive oil – delicious! It’s only been off the tree for about 6 weeks, very bright, peppery, and young tasting. You could really taste the olives, and get an idea of the landscape just from the flavor – called terroir, in wine parlance. I bought a bottle for $12 – Seckinger Ascolano extra virgin.

There was a woman with some of the coolest picnic baskets, backpacks, and wine totes I’ve seen. I got one for my birthday last year, and I love it, so I was excited to see a selection of really cute ones for gift giving, or even to offer as part of a personal chef package. You know, I need to start carrying that backpack in the car, there have been plenty of opportunities for impromptu picnics lately. I bought some heirloom tomatoes, a baguette, and some Mimolette cheese for lunch, and some Saffron, Fire-Roasted Red Pepper & Porcini Mushroom Orzo for later from Pappardelle’s. There were also flowers, jewelry, pottery, and some gorgeous doggie treats that made me wish I had a dog (sorry, Charley, I’ll get some for you next time!)




Oh, and the obligatory musical entertainment, a guy softly singing Beatles and U2 covers while most people ignored him.



I took my booty over to John’s workplace, and we had a little picnic of our own.




I’m very interested in trying out the Moore Farms and Friends service, $20 a week for fresh locally picked produce sounds like a pretty good deal. I’ve been feeling more and more like I need to get involved in the sustainable agricultural movement, because it seems clear to me that our current methods of agribusiness are only going to work for a short time longer. You can only abuse the land for so long before it just gives out on you. I’ve also had this lingering guilt complex because I make my living based on the products of that very agribusiness, and knowing that I’m contributing to the problems is one of the causes of depression for me. Sometimes it just seems so hard to make a difference, but other days I feel like it’s really possible. Possible, necessary, and urgent. I’ve even got a compost experiment going on that I’ll write about soon.

First, accquire two very affectionate, loving, needy cats. Live with them for 10 years, let them become accustomed to sleeping with you all night.

Next, accquire a fabulous boyfriend who takes in and cares for his elderly disabled father. Because of said father, start spending more nights at his place than you do at yours.

Cue separation anxiety in cats.

Begin preparations for a cast party for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged). Buy an 8 or 9 pound bone-in pork shoulder butt roast. I've only found these at warehouse clubs like Sam's Club or Costco, usually in packs of two. My therapist, to whom I've given this recipe, tells me that boneless works just as well, which is good because that's what I've got in the oven right now. (I did mention the "very personal" part of this blog, right? You've been warned.)

Spend two lovely days at your boyfriend's place. Come home for a couple of hours, discover that someone has puked on your new shoes. Deal with that, feed the cats, wash your hands, and take out the pork roast. Pat it dry with paper towels. Oh, but first take out a shallow roasting pan or a sheet pan with sides, and line it with foil. Don't skip the foil, or the pan will take hours to clean later. Put a rack in the pan. Put the roast on the rack, then brush the top and sides with 1/4 cup of dijon mustard. Wash your hands and let that sit for a moment. Are the cats already nipping at your ankles? Good.

In a small bowl, mix together 3 tablespoons light brown sugar, 3 tablespoons paprika, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1 1/2 tablespoons ground black pepper, and 1 1/2 tablespoons garlic powder (I've put a couple of cloves of minced fresh garlic in with the mustard before when I didn't have powder, it works just as well.)

Sprinkle half of the spice mixture over the roast. Carefully turn it over and repeat the mustard brushing and spice sprinkling. Put the pan, uncovered, in the refrigerator, and go see the Transformers or a movie of your choice. It helps if you can race to several movie theaters because the times listed on the internet were wrong. Drag home at 2:00 AM after finally catching an 11:00 showing (at least there were no wailing infants at that time!), turn the oven on to 250 degrees F. Put the pork roast in on the lowest rack, and go to bed. It needs to cook for nine to eleven hours, so don't worry about over-sleeping.

Once you go to bed, the smell of spices and pork fat slowly rendering into crispiness will fill your home, especially if you don't have an exhaust system. Your cats, already wound up from being alone for two days, will go nuts. They'll tromp all over you for most of the night, licking any exposed skin, maddened by the smell of the cooking pork. It'll keep you up, too. This is a good night not to go to bed hungry. Oh, and if you try to shut them out of the bedroom, they'll just sit outside the door and yowl, so don't bother.

Get up in the (late) morning. The pork will be deep brown, crusty, and glistening. You'll be tempted to pull off a bit of fat to sample, but beware. It's very hot and intensely spiced, and won't taste as good straight up as it smells. Trust me.

Once the pork has reached an internal temperature of 170 F on a thermometer, it's done. If it goes a little over, don't worry. This is hard to over-cook. Take it out of the oven and let it sit for about an hour to cool off. You may have to lock up the cats at this point. I usually do.



Once it's cool enough to handle, cut it up into 2-inch chunks and shred the meat into a large bowl. You can add some of the pan drippings if you want it more moist - pour off the fat first, scrape the drippings into a small sauce pan, add about 1 cup of water and bring to a simmer. Stir enough into the pork to moisten it to your preference. I usually make bbq sandwiches with this. Stir in some of your favorite barbeque sauce (I like Kraft original), or put out a couple of sauces and let people choose their own. One pork shoulder will feed between 12 and 20 people, depending on what else you're serving or if they are low-carb freaks who won't eat a bun. :)

If you'd like to see the original recipe without all the personal commentary, check out Pam Anderson's "Perfect Recipes for Having People Over.". No, not that Pam Anderson. It's a great cookbook with lots of recipes that I have tried and am dying to try, as soon as I find time to have people over!

Coming up next, a review of whatever fabulous dinner John is planning to surprise me with tomorrow! God, I love food.