Sticky

A few years ago, five, I think, I planted a peach tree in the front yard. It was a weedy little thing at the time, barely two feet tall. 

The next spring it bloomed and we got a few tiny peaches that never ripened. 

Ever since then it's been touch and go, the bloom getting hit by frost or the peaches being carried off by squirrels long before they were edible. 

This year is different. The bloom didn't seem that heavy, but there are so many peaches the tree can't hold itself up properly - one of my neighbors volunteered her laundry poles keep the branches from snapping. (One of her laundry poles snapped instead.)

And while there have been peaches scattered up and down the block, there are too many for the squirrels to handle on their own. I've got multiple bowls in the kitchen, waiting to be turned into jam, and on Sunday I did the first batch of five half pint jars. 

That was plain peach. Next up is peach vanilla, and after that peach jalapeno. I'll do another batch of plain if the squirrels leave any by that point.

A few days later, and I'm still waiting for it to totally set up. I thought I messed up, but after doing some reading, it seems that peach jam takes its sweet time to find its set point. 

I care, but I don't. It tasted so good in the cooking process that I'll just pour it over ice cream and call that a victory over the squirrels.

Put 'em up

It's that time of year again, when the fruits of my garden become the fruits of my labor. I've officially canned so much tomato sauce that I can't even look at the plants anymore; if I see red on them, I call a neighbor and she comes and picks them. 

This past weekend it was figs. Fig jam, specifically. I'm not a fan of figs, to be perfectly honest but I like making jam. And I was given a little sprout of a fig plant in fall 2021 that has grown into a 10 foot beast that's trying to take over the driveway. 

We've been picking every morning and sticking them in the freezer until there was "enough" to make jam. The recipe called for 3.3 lbs. We had just under 10. So, triple batch.

It turned into 17 half pint jars and a few of the itty bitty ones. 

It took about 3.5 hours, start to finish (excluding all the sticky pots and pans, which my husband washed because he's a good man and also the one who eats most of the jam). 

That's a lot of jam for the price of a bag of sugar, some lemon juice, a few tablespoons of balsamic, and time. 

I like canning, even when it's hot and melting in the kitchen makes me cranky. I enjoy bringing the garden indoors and turning it into food for later. But I can't imagine how hard it must have been when this was a necessity and not a choice, when canning meant the difference between eating and going hungry in the winter.

Tomato season. Again.

For the last week, I've been hearing skeins of geese flying over at night. It seems early, but maybe not? The fruit trees bore heavily, I'm drowning in tomatoes, the fig looks like it's been decorated for Christmas, and old wives tales - which exist because they've been right more often than not - say that a heavy yield is a harbinger of a hard winter.

It's hard to believe that right now, as it was 95 on Labor Day and we made it even hotter by canning some of our overabundance of tomatoes. Again. I already did a day in a friend's kitchen last week, doing quart jars, which are just too big to deal with in our kitchen.

Not that we didn't already have plenty of our own, but I got a call from a friend who runs a food pantry on her front porch. She had most of a crate of plum tomatoes that were at risk of going bad because everyone was taking the cherry and slicing tomatoes and leaving the ones that involved labor and sweating. So we drove down and got them, and because my husband is Italian and thinks that sauce should only be made from plum tomatoes, we've made a separate batch from them.

There's absolutely no difference, but he spent the holiday standing with me over a boiling canning kettle in a boiling hot kitchen, so I'll let it figure that out for himself.

Because my single jalapeno plant has also exploded, I made a batch of pickled jalapenos. That's a new one for me, but I've already got close to a dozen jars of cowboy candy, so I thought I'd try something different.

I've always enjoy tomato season and putting up food for winter, but there's a lot extra going on this year and it's beginning to feel really personal, every time I open the back door and see bright red shining back at me from the plants that have taken over the backyard. I'm actually looking forward to cooler weather - frost, even - so that I can cut them down, take them out, and add them to the compost which will enrich next year's garden.

Circle of life, right?

Do you do any preserving? What's your favorite thing to can or preserve?

A piece of my past

Two of the most gloriously technicolor years of my life were spent behind this sign, which read, in its glory days, Middle East.

It was a restaurant, a bar, a gathering place, a dysfunctional man supermarket, and for a while, the place where I felt most at home and alive.

Strangely enough, it had also been a part of my life when I was a kid. The Middle East was my mom's favorite place to go out for dinner. She judged her dates by how they responded to the belly dancers, working for tips, and when she had enough drinks, she got up and joined them. She said she knew she'd had one too many when the Arabic waiters started to turn blond.

I drank there, a lot, but that never happened to me.

Years later, in my late twenties, a friend started taking belly dance lessons. The guy she was dating thought it was cool until she got good at it and wanted to try performing. Then he wanted her to quit, so she quit him. We started hanging out at the Middle East so she could convince them to let her dance there.

It became the slightly out of the way place we would go for a drink after work, and usually end up staying until bedtime. It became the place where I got so comfortable that when the bar phone rang, I answered it if no one was available. It became the place where if I saw a table that needed clearing, I would grab a bus tub and do it. Finally, it became the place where the owner looked at me one night and said, "Why am I still surprised to find you in my kitchen?"

After that, I went on the payroll. I worked the door for their upstairs music nights, I hostessed at the comedy club and at the restaurant, and eventually, when my law firm job got to be too much, I started working days in the basement office, helping to organize a business that looked like it ran well but was total chaos behind the scenes.

I slept a little, drank a lot, ate mostly Middle Eastern food, and was absorbed into a family both real and found. While I mostly worked the upstairs concert venues, it was the Middle Eastern music that had gotten its hooks into me young, and while I never wanted to dance, I can, if pushed, make a mean belly dance costume.

Also, I still love Middle Eastern food. I've been making mejedra all through the pandemic. It's a one-pot meal that I can make on a Monday and that will last us for lunch all through the week.

Barcelona: Food

I'm embarrassed to admit that I did not take ONE PHOTO of any of the spectacular dishes we consumed over the last week.

I would place my order, think about it, even go so far as to put the camera on the table . . . and then remember, when the plate was bare again.  Oops.

To make up for it (or possibly because I couldn't consume this food), I took a lot of photos at the open air food market, one of my favorite places in the city, and a few shop windows.

The Boqueria, or the food market, is amazing.  And it was near our apartment, which meant we wandered through there several times during the course of our stay, each time finding new things to sample and bring back to the apartment.

Stall after stall of meat, cheese, fruit, vegetables (look at the size of those tomatoes, my winter-deprived friends), all kinds of spices, peppers, seafood -- I love finding things that I've never even seen in person before, much less cooked, like those sea urchins -- and yes, oddities like that head-of-a-whatever there on the left by the pig feet.  Calf?  Sheep?


We discovered tapas the first day, and in a very big way.  That first night, we were exhausted but determined to stay up as long as possible to put ourselves on local time.  We'd eaten in the afternoon, but decided to take ourselves out to someplace not too far from the apartment for at least some wine and tapas.

Our afternoon snack had consisted of my new favorite food, padron peppers (I brought seeds home!) with sea salt, patatas bravas (lovely potatoes with a garlic/ paprika/mayo sauce), steamed mussels, grilled shrimp, grilled asparagus, eggplant rolls filled with ham and goat cheese, and a few things I forget.

The evening meal was similar, but not.  The restaurant had an 8 tapas meal for 15 euro, and we got one portion and two glasses of wine.

That got us a cheese sampler, some ham (Mario was in his glory -- he loves that stuff!), more patatas bravas, a seafood plate with clams, mussels, enormous shrimp and calamari, and something else that I've lost.  Delicious.  Again.

The next day, after a relatively insufficient breakfast -- I need more early morning fuel than most Europeans, it seems -- we went exploring, and at lunchtime we met our first paella.

Which I now need to learn how to make.  Again, a beautifully photo-worthy meal, and within moments, it seemed, nothing but a black, rice-crusted paella pan.  Maybe that's the best food review of all, that it was so good that it made me forget to take a picture.

On Saturday, we found a lovely little restaurant near our apartment.  We'd already had dinner, but somehow, we were still hungry.  Also, we'd learned just how late the people of Barcelona stay up at night, and it was pretty loud under our windows the night before.  Since Saturday was a big Barcelona/Madrid football (soccer) game, we assumed sleep would be hard to come by, so we stopped after dinner and a walk for another drink and some more tapas (marinated anchovies, which are nothing like those nasty brown salty things we get on pizza), sausage and cheese.

We talked to the waitress there,  who spoke very good English.  Turns out she wasn't Spanish at all, but Polish.  I asked how she had ended up in Barcelona, and she matter-of-factly said, "Football.  The Polish team, I root for them because they're my country, but they suck."  So instead of doing what women have done over the ages, follow a man to a new place, she followed an entire team of them!   She took very good care of us over our next few visits, and always wanted to know where we'd been and what we'd seen that day.

On our last meal there, we had the mixed paella, which we'd also sampled elsewhere during the visit.  This restaurant, though, instead of just adding beef or chicken, used rabbit, which I love.  It made for an entirely different dish, though I have to admit that I like the straight seafood paella best of all.

We've been to Paris, Florence and Bruges, and I have to admit, this is the first time I've come home heavier than when I left.  Considering all the walking we did, that's quite a testimony to the power of tapas.

Recipe?

Apparently when one talks about food, one is supposed to provide recipes.

Problem is that one (me), trained by Burda, cooks like she sews - cursory look at the ingredient list, deeper look at what's in the fridge/pantry/garden, heavy sigh, make it work.

So, basil/garlic scape pesto, as best I can describe it:

Take a bunch of garlic scapes (I had about 20; the section of the garlic bed where the stray cat lays hasn't put up scapes yet), cut off and discard the pointy heads, which are the seed pods, and cut the rest into inch long pieces.

Take your basil (in my case, about 3 cups worth - I know this only because I have a 4 cup food processor), put it in the food processor with a good slug of olive oil, and whiz down to a lovely green paste.  Add the chopped garlic scapes, more oil, and whiz again.  I'm not being deliberately vague on the oil, I just add whatever feels right.  This may also depend on how pasty or smooth you like your pesto.

Salt and pepper to taste, whiz.  I know there should be pine nuts or some other nuts in pesto, but I didn't have any, so instead I added a heaping tablespoon of goat cheese.  Not sure how that was a substitute, but it's tasty so who cares?

Lemon juice to taste, then a nice helping of grated parmesan.  Whiz one more time, taste again.

Cook pasta, drain.  Add a little olive oil to the pot, whirl the pasta around in the oil so it's coated and doesn't stick together.

Put your pasta in bowls, add a big dollop of pesto on top, a few grinds of black pepper and another sprinkle of parmesan.  Mix, eat, go back for seconds.

That's the closest I can come to a written recipe, folks.  It's all seat of the pants in the kitchen as well, but other than having to clean the food processor (which is a job I choose not to do), it's quick, easy, requires no cooking and, if you're lucky, you have some left over for another night.

Serves 6, maybe (2 bowls each the first time, probably enough left for another 2 servings).

More backyard goodness

It still hasn't stopped raining.  Today we were supposed to have monsoons all day, starting before dawn.  When I got up at 7:00 and it was still dry, I went out back to get some time in the garden.

This was before I made my coffee.

This is very unusual.  Very.

I fed the chicken, hilled up the potatoes (they're growing like weeds, plus all the rain has been washing the soil back), picked a half pint of blueberries, a few strawberries and then happened to look at the garlic bed on my way back inside.

Yikes.  Last time I checked, the garlic was getting nice and tall, but this morning there were scapes waving all over the place.  Not for long.

Dinner tonight: goat cheese ravioli with backyard basil/garlic scape pesto.

Yum.

That is all.

Say Cheese

Occasionally I play mad scientist in the kitchen. This was one of those moments, and it was such an interesting experience that I wanted to share it.

For those who came looking for a sewing post, they'll be back soon. Promise. My version of spring fever gives me loads of energy and no focus, and I'm all over the place without effecting much change other than to leave rubble strewn in my wake. This is not always good for sewing, and infuriating when I return to a chaotic workroom that I can't convince someone else to clean up.

A few weeks ago, when spring fever started boinging around inside my head like a tennis ball, I got an idea. Normally when I'm antsy, I sew, but spring brings on a different, more concentrated antsiness, and if I can't work it off in the garden, or build something in the house, it generally devolves into some project that trashes my kitchen. Since it's too early to put the veggies in, there was nothing interesting left to try to preserve and I haven't gotten past the planning stage of the next building project, I decided to try to make cheese.

After some exploratory reading, the idea became more insistent. And then we went to the farmer's market last weekend, and I noticed for the first time that one of the farmers sells raw milk. Hmmm. I toted home a half gallon, which sat in the fridge, looking at me accusingly, for the better part of the week. (Trying to keep someone from pouring it over his cereal was also fun; that stuff costs way too much for breakfast).

The other night, Mario went out, and I decided it was time. Making cheese, at least beginner cheese like this, is surprisingly easy, as evidenced by the fact that I never forgot to take pictures of the process. All that was required, besides the milk, was a big pot, a thermometer, a strainer, some cheesecloth and an acid (white vinegar or lemon juice).



I poured the milk into a pot and turned on the heat. The milk needed to be brought to just below the boiling point, or around 185 degrees. I had to pull the thermometer out and check whether the black or red numbers were the ones I was supposed to look at, since the C and F were hidden on the far end.

I'm not a big milk drinker (I drank it by the gallon as a kid, but around age 12, it started to taste sour) but I was curious about raw milk and whether it would taste different. I don't know if it's from lack of processing, or lack of hormones or the better feed the cows eat, but this stuff was really tasty. And when was the last time you opened a bottle of milk and there was cream floating on top?

After a few minutes, when the milk hit about the 160 mark, the milk developed a wrinkly skin on top while starting to bubble around the edges. I'm surprised the skin actually came up in the photo. A few minutes more and it hit 185, but the milk still wasn't boiling. I gave it another minute and 10 degrees before I took the next step, taking the pot off the heat and pouring in 1/4 cup of lemon juice, very slowly, and stirring.

Once the acid hit the milk, all kind of fun chemical reactions took place. Basically I curdled the milk, and the stirring was to separate the curds (solid, soon to be cheese) from the whey (liquid, leftover milk with the proteins knocked out). After I'd stirred and stirred, and no more curds appeared, I took a slotted spoon and removed the curds to a strainer lined with cheesecloth.

I let the curds drain for a while, and then tied them up in the cheesecloth and let them continue to drain overnight.

As I went to clean up, I looked at the big pot of whey on the stove, and realized that almost 3/4 of the bottle was still left, though it was technically no longer milk. I sampled it, and amazingly, couldn't taste the lemon at all. It still tasted milky, but not quite. What to do with it?

When in doubt, ask the Google. I came upstairs, turned on the computer, and typed in, "uses for leftover whey from cheesemaking." Other than to ask me if I meant to say "cheese making" instead of "cheesemaking," it had a ton of suggestions. The best one was to use it in place of water in bread recipes. Making bread is on my list for the weekend, so I poured the whey back into the milk bottle and put it in the fridge.

This morning I got up early to play with my cheese. I unwrapped it, and cut it into cubes and put it in a bowl with olive oil, salt, some red pepper flakes and a few chopped sundried tomatoes. Left to marinate in the fridge all day, it made a yummy post-work snack this evening, and there's plenty left for the rest of the weekend.

The whole process, from start to "forgetting" to do the dishes (remember the part about the rubble strewn in my wake?) took less than an hour, plus a few minutes in the morning to finish it off. And it tastes really good, did I mention that? Creamy and spicy and really fresh.

I'm definitely going to try this again, see what other flavorings I have around the kitchen that would work well with a simple cheese like this.

So, okay, I made cheese. It forced me to focus, it drained off some of the excess energy, and I learned a new skill that will keep us fed (and me occupied) in the future. Not saying I'll never buy cheese again, at least not until I have the space to acquire goats to make my own chevre, but this was a good evening for me - I learned, yet again, that complicated stuff doesn't have to be that complicated, that it's not difficult or expensive to eat good, healthy food, and that there are way less useful ways to spend an evening than to absorb a new skill and expand my mind a little.

So, I made cheese Thursday night. What did you do?

Another sick kitty, and random weekend stuff

Well, as weekends go, this one has had its ups and downs.

My original plan was to curl up with the February issue of BWOF, trace a few new patterns and sew until I was cross-eyed. But that was not meant to be.

Veterinary crises seems to come in waves - first Vlad came and got cleaned up and took up residence in the guest room. Then Lily had to go to the ER for her embarrassingly-located abscess.

Now Thomas has been sick for the better part of 2 weeks, and the vet still doesn't know what's up with him. He's lost almost 5 pounds in that time, he's drinking but refusing to eat, his hair's lost all its luster, and he just looks sad. He's had tests, he's had more tests. It's like veterinary episode of House - every test just lets them know what he doesn't have. Right now, they're torn between not knowing and suspecting lymphoma of the kidneys. And because he's FIV+ (for the non-cat-experienced, this is an immune deficiency syndrome for cats which works basically the same way as HIV; it can remain dormant in their system for ages but when they get sick, it more or less welcomes the illness in with open arms and throws it a party).

The vet doesn't approve, but I'm leaning toward letting Thomas go to that big kitty condo in the sky. I don't want to see any animal suffer, but watching him revert from his happy affectionate self to the fearful, feral cat he was originally (because of pain, I'm assuming, and also because he seems to process being medicated and fed as violence toward his furry person) just hurts too much. He's not Thomas anymore, and I can't imagine what the vet could come up with that would turn him back into Thomas. Certainly not the ultrasound, needle-guided aspiration of his kidneys that she wants to do on Tuesday.

On the plus side of the weekend, Mario and I went to the movies Friday night to see The Wrestler. It's gotten a lot of buzz and I thought I'd like it, but it was amazing. I watched a lot of pro wrestling as a kid, and seeing some familiar faces from the 70s and 80s just enhanced the documentary effect. I'm not a big recommender of movies, but go see this one. Mario did ask the question, "Why is every movie set in New Jersey a tragedy?" but as someone who was born there, I guess he's entitled to ask.

Last night we went out for dinner for my birthday - yes, 45 got somewhat lost in the shuffle this weekend, and that's okay by me - and it was fabulous. We went to The Restaurant School, which is only a few blocks away from the house (good for a cold night when I wanted to dress up). There are 4 different restaurant options - French, Italian, American and the Great Chefs room. The prix fixe menu there comes either with or without a wine flight that tailors your wine to each course. We went for that, and it was good. It was very good. It was so good I woke up this morning still full.

I'm supposed to be in the workroom finishing up my blouse, but I haven't gotten up the motivation yet. I did the buttonholes last night after we got in from dinner - he fell asleep on the couch, full of wine and French food, but for some reason gluttony made me energetic. It's looking good, I'm really glad I went for the alternative side of the fabric (and thanks to those who gave me that word for it instead of the reverse). Today's work, when I get to it, is to sew on the buttons, do the hem and figure out exactly what I want to do with the sleeves because the elastic just isn't doing it for me.