Things have been busy at work lately and I haven't been up to much outside of that. So not much to say in posts.

Also, I haven't really felt the urge for creative cooking. Mostly just making fuel. Not that it's not good-tasting fuel, it is usually pretty delicious. Just have been sticking to easy things and old stand-bys. Thank goodness for our weekly vegetable delivery or we would be nutritionally deficient, I'm sure. Though I will admit that I'm falling behind on using all the winter squash, it's starting to take over the kitchen. :)

I got a little inspiration from the box this week..( Read more... )

A number of people I know have expressed interest in preserving some lovely summer fruits and veg. Canning is traditionally done as a group activity, since it's a lot of work, prepping food, sterlizing jars, etc. So, I was thinking.. what if a group of us got together and chipped in for tomatoes and jars and whatever else in one place and worked together, then we each got to take home a variety of stuff. So that I am not stuck with a whole bunch of work by myself and just a lot of jars of one kind of jam or pickle or whatever, and my friend is not stuck doing a whole mess of work on his/her own and being stuck with a different, but also sole type of product.

Originally I'd envisioned someone with a large kitchen volunteering their place. Or perhaps renting a commercial kitchen for a few hours, which by the way is far more complex than I'd imagined. Or possibly being swayed by caramida and getting a rental house for a few days of gaming/canning sleep-over-adventure.

None of those seems to be occuring out of thin air, strangely enough. So, unless one of you lovely lj people have a better suggestion, I'm thinking of hosting a slightly scaled down version of my imagined project at my house. I figure if we take over the dining room as a prep area, we might be able to work enough magic to make this idea a reality.

Please let me know if you are interested in joining, and what you'd be interested in canning. Full Belly Farms, our CSA, is currently selling 20lbs of (early girl or roma) tomatoes for $24. And I'd love to have tomatoes be one of the projects. Other than that, though, I'm open.

Let me know what you think and what weekend days you could be free to make this happen. I think a weeknight would probably run too late. Though possibly the Monday of labor day might work too.

The forecast for tomorrow is LAMBY!

I have confirmed with the farm that I will pick up the lamb at Berkeley Farmer's Market tomorrow between 12:30 and 7pm. I'm thinking I might just pick it up after work, so I can keep the zipcar and do some lamb delivering, as my freezer cannot contain the abundance.

So those of you who ordered lamb, will you, or someone in your household, be home tomorrow evening for delivery purposes?

Particularly you, cat_herder. If late-lunch time works better for you, let me know, and I'll change the plan to suit. Since I really don't have room for your half-lamb!

I think all of this may have inspired me to purchase a separate freezer. This, and In Defense of Food too.

Got an email back from my CSA regarding the lamb..

Whole Lamb (40-45lbs) : $200
Processing Whole Lamb : $50
Total cost : $250

Half Lamb (20-25lbs) : $100
Processing Half Lamb : $35
Total cost : $135

The cuts for HALF lamb are (double for whole lamb) -

1 Breast
1 Rack
1 Leg
8 Shoulder Chops
8 Loin Chops
Neck & Stew Meat
Liver & Heart (optional)

This seems pretty reasonable to me. I should probably figure out a system of dividing this up so people can let me know how much they're interested in/if they're still interested etc. I'll try to post some sort of poll or something later today after the coffee starts working. But I wanted to update everyone on cuts and price right away.

EDIT: I think I'm just going to try tracking this via excel, it's easier than putting together a poll. If you can comment or email me your interest/preferences, I'd appreciate it.

Full Belly, our CSA farm, is offering for a limited time/supply, some of their organically raised lamb to their CSA customers.

It is available as a half (~20lbs meat) or whole (~40lbs) and will be ready around the 10th of July.

I, of course, want a whole one just for us, but we do not have a chest freezer or some other method of storing that much lamb. Also, I think Brian is (possibly justifiably) a little concerned about my sanity.

However, if I could convince a few of you lovely people to go in on this with me... I might be able to rationalize it and afford it.

Speaking of affording, they didn't mention price. I can get that info from them, but I kind of wanted to gauge interest before going any further.

So who's with me on this hare-brained adventure?

I've been considering ordering a notebook to keep my bread experiment notes in. It would be good to note how much garlic or olives or whatever I put in so I'd know for next time. As well as times, temps, ingredient changes and results. For the time being, I'm still just posting here.

Last night steluch and I made dinner for arkibet's birthday. (poached salmon, green beans, mashed potatoes and a big mixed green salad with homemade vinaigrette.) enf picked up a lovely princess cake on the peninsula for the occasion. If you've never had princess cake, it is layers of white cake, rasberry, custard and whipped cream covered in a pale green dome of marzipan. It's quite delicious and fancy.

Since I got home early from my day-off excursion to Golden Gate Park and I had a whole wheat nk dough in the fridge, I tossed some garlic cloves and parmesan into it and baked it up to go with the dinner. Having all the garlic and cheese definitely distracted one from the slightly extra heaviness of the all whole wheat. Usually I mix the white whole wheat with some bread flour or AP flour, but the other day I had accidentally tossed in all www. It's hard to dislike freshly baked bread, even if it's not the best ever. It went over well with the rest of the meal and was especially good dipped in the vinaigrette. I make a decent salad dressing, if I do say so myself. I was glad I had made a large batch so I could send some home with the birthday boy.

And now I should eat my lunch and get back to work. Still going through all my email from yesterday. Having a mid-week day off is really nice, but almost doesn't seem worth the hassle.

[Edit: New userpic is a photo of one of my first nkb experiments, taken by caramida]

Had a really nice weekend full of friends, family and good food.

We visited with caramida's brother, his wife, their daughter, and family on Saturday. It was great fun to see how much their daughter has grown in the last year, and spend some time with all of them. caramida's brother even hinted that they may be moving to the bay area in the next year or so. They currently live outside Vegas and we don't see them nearly as often as we'd like. I didn't bake anything to bring since they were celebrating passover, and leavened breads are a no-no.

Sunday was the annual EastOver brunch. I made hot cross buns that turned out pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. And they were fairly easy, I finally settled on following the King Arthur Flour recipe online. I made a few adjustments, including adding the candied lemon peel I'd found at Whole Foods. I'd been hoping to find some other citrus peel at ici, but they were sold out! Oh well, the buns were still lovely. caramida had the inspired notion that we should bake them at the host's house so they'd be warm and fresh. It certainly increased the anticipation. It was hard to let them cool enough to put the icing on before digging in. :)

I also brought with me a nkb garlic bread, which had just come out of the oven that morning. Yum. There was such an abundance of delicious things. Spiral ham, haroset, bunny fricasee, salads, matzah, blue easter eggs, etc. We met some new folks, one of whom had brought some Humboldt Fog cheese and mentioned that it makes a great cheesecake. Seriously?! I am all over that idea. There is definitely a Humboldt Fog cheesecake in our future!


Hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed the lovely weather here.

After my last entry on bread and pizza dough, I decided to try a recipe I had found online at nook & pantry. It's based on the no-knead bread, but with some olive oil and honey added.

Tuesday evening after the dough had done it's super-long rise, I cut it in half, formed a ball, then rolled/stretched it out into a cookie-sheet sized rectangle. I like a relatively thin crust, so I didn't give it much second rise time.

I don't have a pizza stone, yet, so I just slid it onto the back of a cookie sheet with some cornmeal. Topped it with roasted garlic, pesto, asparagus, walnuts and cheese (asiago, mozarella, and parmesan). It turned out pretty well. The crust looked and tasted very good. I was less enchanted with my topping combo, but it was still tasty.

The other half of the dough is still in the fridge waiting for the next pizza night. Probably tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing how the dough is after a few extra days in the fridge.

This weekend I'll be attempting hot cross buns for the EastOver brunch. Wish me luck!

Recently I made a no-knead bread that turned out really delicious. It had asiago cheese, a mix of herbs (basil, oregano, thyme?) and some fresh black pepper. I had been hoping for a cheesier bread, but it was still pretty darned delicious. I brought a hunk to work to share and people were quite impressed, which is always inspiring.
( More babbling about bread below the cut. )

Currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (and family)

Came across this paragraph that I want to save for later thought:

No cashier held a gun to our heads and made us supersize it, true enough. But humans have a built-in weakness for fats and sugar. We evolved in lean environments where it was a big plus for survival to gorge on calorie-dense foods whenever we found them. Whether or not they understand the biology, food marketers know the weakness and have exploited it without mercy. Obesity is generally viewed as a failure of personal resolve, with no acknowledgement of the genuine conspiracy in this historical scheme. People actually did sit in strategy meetings discussing ways to get all those surplus calories into people who neither needed nor wished to consume them. Children have been targeted especially; food companies spend over $10 billion a year selling food brands to kids, and it isn't broccoli they're pushing. Overweight children are a demographic in many ways similar to minors addicted to cigarettes, with one notable exception: their parents are usually their suppliers. We all subsidize the cheap calories with our tax dollars, the strategists make fortunes, and the overweight consumers get blamed for the violation. The perfect crime.

(Any typos/etc are mine)

I love that I can walk to work most days now. I enjoy taking 20th so I can catch the corner of the lake. It's a very nice way to start the work day.

I love that we are getting more rain here, we really really need it.

I hate walking to work in this rain.

I have decided that I need some shoes for rain. Because the drainage between my house and the office is super craptastic. There are veritable lakes on every corner. And while my bag seems to be surviving, my shoes are doing less well.

There are quite a few very adorable rain boots out there these days. Unfortunately, they are made for women with skinny calves. =) This has made my search for rain gear a bit more difficult.

I've narrowed it down to just a few choices:

• BOGS OUTDOOR: Journey MT - bogs also makes some cute mid-calf boots that seem like they might be big enough in the calves, but only come in shoe sizes 6 and 7. Not my size.


• ComfortView 'Rayne' wide-calf boots These seem good, though they only come in black, red plaid or leopard. Meh.


• Sperry Top-Sider Pelican Loafer in Black or Black tweed. Cute and possibly could wear all day at work.(Amazon has a red plaid one, which I don't think they make anymore, which could be fun, but less work-friendly)


• Tretorn Skerry comes in fun colors and I think is a low enough boot that the calf will fit.


Thoughts and/or opinions welcome. =) Hope the rest of you are faring well with the winter weather. Especially the east-coast folks being besieged by snow.

I looked back through my archive and it looks like I received a jury summons notice in Nov 06, Jan 08 and now Feb 09.

No jurors were called for the morning session. I have been instructed (as usual) to check again between 11 and 12 for "further instructions."

Listened to Biden and Obama being sworn in over the radio on my walk to work this morning. So full of hope.

Had a few minutes at work, and wanted to tweet about it, see what others had tweeted, etc.. Instead of twitter, I saw this message:

Due to the Inauguration, access to this site has been blocked so as to ensure the integrity of our network systems.

If you require access to this site, please contact your local HelpDesk. Be prepared to provide them with your workstation ID or IP.

Harrumph. Good thing my blackberry still reads twitter! Bwahaha!

As many of you know, today is caramida's birthday. For TOMORROW (Saturday) we are planning a group early dinnery get together at Zachary's on College Ave at 5pm and maybe some games at our place afterward if people are interested. We would love to have any of our friends available to/interested in joining us. Hope to see you there!


I am grateful, particularly at this time of year, for all of you and most especially for my sweet caramida. I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving.

I'm not sure if getting my hopes up again is something I can do today, but I wanted to share this post from one of the No on 8 groups:

Nov 05, 2008
Results Status

Roughly 400,000 votes separate yes from no on Prop 8 – out of 10 million votes tallied.

Based on turnout estimates reported yesterday, we expect that there are more than 3 million and possibly as many as 4 million absentee and provisional ballots yet to be counted.

Given that fundamental rights are at stake, we must wait to hear from the Secretary of State tomorrow how many votes are yet to be counted as well as where they are from.

It is clearly a very close election and we monitored the results all evening and this morning.

As of this point, the election is too close to call.

Because Prop 8 involves the sensitive matter of individual rights, we believe it is important to wait until we receive further information about the outcome.

Geoff Kors
Executive Committee NO on Prop 8

Kate Kendell Executive Committee
NO on Prop 8

I've decided to put down some notes about my choices on the measures on the upcoming ballot.

1A - Yes, 2 - Yes, 3 - Yes, 4 - No, 5 - Yes, 6 - No, 7 - No, 8 - No, 9 - No, 10 - No, 11 - ??, 12 - Yes, N - Yes?, NN - No, OO - No, VV - Yes, WW - Yes

My reasoning is not always the most sophisticated, but this is where I landed.
More detail behind the cut.
( Read more... )

Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in planning a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

Get out and vote, people.

He asked, and after much stuttering in disbelief, I said yes.

This week's produce box is a lovely lovely thing..
cucumbers, edamame, grapes, (orchid) watermelon, asian pears, gypsy peppers, and more beautiful tomatoes.

Add that to all the wonderful cheese we picked up at Loleta Cheese, and the corn from caramida's grandfolks and we're in fresh summer fruit/veg heaven. No photo though. I was too tired to set it up.