News

News
Originally uploaded by lady grey cupcake

...and a blurry picture! (All the pictures we take seem to be coming out a little blurry lately.) Featured here are my new book, The Bread Builders, my new mug and some new bread! The book is really fascinating, it talks not only about masonry ovens and how they're built but also about how bread is made - not recipes so much as the mystery of baker's percentages. Between the chapters are little profiles of bakeries, like American Flatbread or the Cheeseboard and it's exciting to know what and where they're talking about. I'm just about to start the section on baker's percentages. Eee!

We picked six ears of corn from the garden last night and eagerly set some water boiling. George shucked them and we were pleasantly surprised to find they hadn't been ravaged by various bugs. We were not pleasantly surprised when we finally got to sink our teeth into it and it was ... kind of mushy, sticking to our teeth, and a little flavorless. Did we pick it too soon? Too late? What happened, corn?

Luckily we had some other dinner to fall back on. This leads me to my actual news which is that I've started up a second blog! It's really going to be all about food! I invite you all to head on over to Pétit Déjournal and read about my new project: Food Day. (At least that's what I'm calling it until something more elegant comes along.) Bicycats will continue and will still just be about what's happening with our riveting lives and how cute our cats are.

Dutch Baby

Dutch Baby
Originally uploaded by average lavender

It wasn't until we reached Boston that we started hearing about this breakfast thing called a "Dutch Baby." Cynthia described it as a giant popover, and as you may know, I adore popovers. Once we got to Vermont George's mom started talking about a Dutch Baby. I had honestly never heard of this baked good until Cynthia first mentioned it, so naturally after hearing about how delicious it is from her and Susan, we had to make one.

Preheat oven to 425.

Whisk up:
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. a.p. flour*
1/4 c. sugar
2 eggs, room temperature

Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a cast iron skillet. Swoosh the butter around in the pan so all the sides are coated. Pour in the batter and let cook for a minute on the stove top without stirring. Stick the skillet in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Serve immediately! Sprinkle a little lemon juice and powdered sugar on top and serve fruit preserves on the side!

Seriously, delish.

I've put some pictures from our trip up on Flickr, we realized when we got back to Asheville is that we didn't really take any pictures at all. So when I say, "some" I mean "most of."

* a.p. = all purpose (it's something I say to myself and use when I write recipes and will probably do it again, so now you know what I'm talkin' about.)

Bean town

We've made it to Boston. The drive, flight, T ride, and short car ride were all painless and efficient. There were bagels for breakfast. In case you didn't know: New England is old, dirty, worn. It's okay with itself, it has accepted it's identity, it is what it is. This makes it comforting.

Being in the north is also exciting due to good friends, good family, and good food. Again, the NY Times is talking about central Vermont's cuisine, apparently it's all the rage these days. Fresh ingredients? Lovingly prepared? Who would've thought?

Soup & the decorating scoop

While Asheville is suffering through the gas crisis George and I marvel at how little it's effecting us.  So far as we can tell, there's no predicted shortage of biodiesel and the little single gallon tank on the scooter is full, but mostly we don't go very far even when we do drive.  I thoroughly enjoy my life revolving mostly around home right now: knitting, cooking, baking, attempted home decorating, garden watching are all at my disposal.  

The latest food craze around here is carrot soup.  Now that the weather is cool and we're both working with little time to make lunches, soups are our new best friends.  Yesterday I made the Herbed Carrot Soup* from the Moosewood Cookbook and after George snatched it away for the pot luck Wednesday at work, I started in on the Gingered Carrot Soup from the previous page.  The herbed soup was lacking something and I'm pretty sure it was enough herbs. And lemon juice.  In case you'd like follow along at home:

Gingered Carrot Soup

from "The Moosewood Cookbook"

2 lbs. carrots

4 cups water

1 Tbs. butter or oil

1 1/2 cups chopped onion

2 medium cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbs. freshly grated ginger

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp each: cumin

                        ground fennel

                        cinnamon

                        allspice

                        dried mint

3-4 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

1 cup lightly toasted cashews

1) Peel and trim carrots and cut into 1-inch chunks. Place in a medium-large saucepan with the water, cover and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer until very tender (10-15 minutes.)

Meanwhile...

2) Heat the butter in a small skillet.  Add onion and saute over medium heat for 5 minutes.  Add garlic, ginger, salt and spices.  Turn heat to low and continue to saute for another 10 minutes - until onions are very soft.  Stir in lemon juice. 

3) Use a food processor/blender (or swanky immersion blender you got for Christmas) to puree everything together (including the toasted cashews.)  You may need to do this in multiple batches.  Transfer it all back into a dutch oven and heat gently before serving.

The changes I made included: omitting the fennel and mint because I had none, adding a potato, and sauteing the onions & co. in the bottom of the big pot and then adding water, carrots, etc.  Will it be delicious?  Perhaps.  Next on my list of soups are the Brazilian Black Bean and Susan's Easy Woodbury Chili.  

Now I'm going to share my home decorating woes with you.  Number one is that what little wall-worthy art we have is all miniscule for these walls - I don't know how to hang these without them swimming in a vast sea of wall color or without the walls become wicked cluttered.  Number two is that I'm still searching for an awesome room divider.  After dreams of a big Ikea bookcase turned to nightmares I'm finally moving on.  It would be great to do something so hip and so DIY like ladders with planks - but where do people find those oh-so worn and loved magical ladders?  I'm still considering the curtain divider which has potential to be neat, but also potential to be torn down instantly by Boy.  C'mon personal think tank, give me some ideas!

I leave you this afternoon with my next culinary task: Pine Nut Tartelettes.

*An interesting note:  while making this, the simmering carrots, onions, and potatoes smelled exactly like my grandmother Jane's kitchen.  

Harvest

Harvest
Originally uploaded by average lavender

Around here the days go by slow and lately there's nothing to show for the passage of time - except these vegetables. Out of the three squash plants we've got the big papa squash, the medium mama squash, and the baby squash - big papa's the only one producing. It was beginning to feel as though we weren't going to be able to eat anything from the garden this year, like it was a dry run.

Seriously though, aside from the garden, the air is like molasses in this house--especially today. Sure, we didn't get up until 9:30, but that's because I didn't get home until 11 or 11:30 from work and then not to sleep until 1:30 or 2. The sky looks like a full lint trap and it's been dead quiet all day. We're having cereal for dinner and, if nothing more exciting comes along, I'm going to watch some Star Trek and make big plans for tomorrow. You're in luck, here's the preliminary plan:
- make a pie
- make more hummus so George can eat it all again
- call acupuncture place again, hope they answer the phone or call me back
- whip up some pizza dough

Fashionable food

Coffee & cinnamon cupcakes
Originally uploaded by average lavender

Yeah, I bet you all wish you were coming to our Project Runway Pizza Party we have every Wednesday night! Especially tonight when dessert is coffee cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream. (Earth Fare checkout girl = not invited*.) These are coffee cupcakes intentionally plain ol' coffee and not mocha because I believe coffee to be a flavor strong enough to stand on it's own.

Tonight there will be two types of pizza dough: the good ol' basic pizza dough from Joy of Cooking and a yeast-free, wholewheat naan-ish one from some website. Last week I tried a wholewheat yeast-free dough that relied on baking powder and soda for any rising.  Unfortunately, the pies turned into big, dense crackers. One of the pizzas we didn't put a sauce on, which is not unusual, however with this particular dough it meant that none of the toppings adhered. It was a huge disappointment for everyone. I'm optimistic about tonight because in addition to two types of dough I'm also armed with fresh roasted red peppers and pesto.


*Apparently, after I glared and left her she had to repack the whole bag because she hadn't accounted for the two large glass bottles we had. HA.

Woe is us...

George is headed north, last I knew he was somewhere in Virginia. He's hoping to stop and get a little sleep somewhere along the way and then hit up some dude in New Jersey for some veggie oil before 10am. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Girl is a little clingy, a little unsure of how she feels about George being gone, he is her favorite. Boy is pacing and yeowing. I have been watching "Murder, She Wrote" and eating dinner - refried pasta with garlic. None of us know what we're going to do without George for two whole weeks.

Enough about dinner, let's talk about breakfast. This morning we went to the Sunny Point for breakfast, we even walked there! While George had eggs over easy with sausage and cheddar grits, I had an orange cornmeal hot cake with blackberry butter (okay, it was Earth Balance) and a side of mapley, peppery bacon. All the food was, naturally, incredible. There was, however, one thing that I did not love about my meal, and it wasn't the service, it wasn't the noise, it wasn't some screaming child, it was that our table. While wonderfully outside, it was one of those tables in "the path." You know what I mean, it's near the server station so someone is constantly whisking by you with busy energy. I'm a fairly picky person, but I'm not going to go through the trouble of having a fit and asking to be moved because that's just out of line and ridiculous. I will however have a grumpy moment while I fidget around trying to find the spot that makes all the bustle less annoying. Also, 90% of the time stuff like this doesn't actually bother me at all, it's just that we've been seated in "the path" three times since we've been here - which mystifies me because we've only been out to eat like four times!

I think maybe I'm more sensitive (i.e. crazy) because I work in a food environment, so the last thing I want to be around when I'm not working is other people working like I work. Sitting next to the bus tub and water pitcher make me feel as though I should bus my table the table of the people next to me in addition to filling my own water glass. Going out to eat is a gluttonous treat, it's exciting and special, I look forward to it.

For fall/winter I hope to perfect the art of cheesey grits.

Part one: the food.

We really did try as hard as we could to put together our costumes, but it just didn't work out. Luckily, by the time we finished with dinner it was 11pm and even Liz, the party girl that she is, was fine with ducking out on Halloween festivities. Chez Panisse was one of the most elegant meals I've ever had--big plates with consumable-size portions precisely, yet nonchalantly arranged food, the waiter actually used a crumber. The menus are printed for the specific day and they have a great print on the cover. I think the vegetarian menu had an eggplant...or grapes, equally as beautiful as the tomato plant.


The best courses: the appetizer and dessert. The mozzarella was mild and cheesey without being rubbery like big pieces of mozzarella tend to be. The fig crostata was wicked figgy (a crostata is essentially an Italian galette but much flakier), and the fennel ice cream cut the intensity perfectly. George and I plan to go back at least one more time before we leave the Bay area. (Most of the things to do before we leave are eat at certain places.)

Continuing with food, I have three different cakey things to share with you. The first are some hi-hat cupcakes I made for Emily's birthday back in October. They're a chocolate cupcake frosted with a mound of marshmallowy stuff, dipped in a chocolate shell. I pawned most of them off on George's office.




At work I've been playing around with frosting some more cakes, the most recent a spice cake Shannon had leftover. I put some chopped apples and unsweetened whipped cream in the middle which was what really made it. Next time the apples need to be chopped smaller and more of them.




Most recently I made cashew, carrot, cardamom cupcakes with cashew cream cheese frosting from a recipe at Cupcake Bakeshop. The best way to describe them is with their name: they're exactly that. They're delicious in the way that cashews are buttery, soft, and salty.

you know, more bikes

what do you find in the bottom of a jug of maple syrup after it's been sitting for a while? a crystallized pancake!




i had my doubts about amaryllis bulbs, but they were a) unfounded and b) wrong. towards the end of last summer susan (george's mom) gave us a bunch of them and naturally i brought them all the way across the country and about a month ago decided to give 'em a go. the result was this great bloom - however, it was too heavy for the rest of it so it fell over and broke off. so the leaves in the background are still in the pot and the flowers are actually in a blue thermos. we fooled you though.




after discovering a flexible bondo-like substance, george got to work remodeling our new/old dash! he cut some custom vents and applied the aluminum strip (at the bottom). we haven't decided what color to paint it yet, the front-runner right now is beige (because it'll match the color of the roof inside.) the other option would be black, but we have a theory that a lighter color would help keep the car cooler in the hot summer sun.

saturday we made a trek out to walnut creek to check out rivendell bike works with karl and lindsay and it was a tremendous success. the guys there were really nice, really helpful- nay, ridiculously helpful. the rear spacing on my new/old frame is narrower than bikes these days and someone invented a pair of tricky little tools to a) increase the spacing and b) re-parallel them. the best part is that i got to do it myself! that way i couldn't blame anyone else if it fucked up the frame, wouldn't have to pay them to do it, and i got to do it myself. we walked away with a bunch of snazzy new bike parts and a rear wheel on order. i froze on the saddle choice; i've been eying the brooks b.18, but didn't realize that brooks makes a womens version of the b.17, which is less cruisey and more roady. lindsay got a b.17 for her 1980-something schwinn le tour, which she was super psyched about (apparently the current saddle is really dirty and suede thanks to the bike's previous owner.) hopefully by the time my rear wheel is ready to be picked up i'll have made a decision. instead of getting me new handle bars we got george new, wider, handle bars so i'll have his old ones.



(click for a larger, readable version)


after work today i was ready to start trying to assemble some bikey things and decided to start by putting a tube & tire on a wheel, a nice simple place to start. everything was going fine until the tube exploded! being captain cool/clueless that i am, i forgot to put the rim tape on the rim. it's this nice cloth tape that goes around in the inside of the rim and covers the end of the spokes so they don't....pop the tube! it was a shocking, headache-inducing pop and it's still in my head. then george got home and enlightened me regarding rim tape and we set out for performance bikes for some springs for the brakes, bar tape, and a bottom bracket tool. on the way home we stopped and picked up sushi for dinner and got liz o and mike's message asking to crash on our couch tonight.

george is currently dismantling his handle bars. boy is sleeping on the couch. girl is stalking around outside. i'm sitting on the couch.

p.s. - we think girl may have ringworm again.

montpelier visit no. 1

george, jesse and i drove into montpelier today to stop by the bakery and hang around town. paul and elaine had already left, but denise was still there and we talked about bakery things and new news-the delivery car finally died. magically, while we were there liz called! (liz k.-the first liz i worked with at the bakery) we made a date to hang out at the langdon street cafe this very afternoon! i got to meet her five and a half month old daughter, amelia! she's pretty little and pretty cute. she's got wisps of red hair and a distinct voice.

george and jesse played scrabble-jesse won. we went to rivendell and bear pond looking for the horn of the moon cookbook and any good book. i found this one! ideally i'm in the market for a used copy of the horn of the moon. then we went to the co-op and passed susan on the way in, but she didn't see us. jesse got stuff to make quiche and george got some asparagus to roast and we're hoping that james will bring down some steak. it's a lot of food. so come by and eat some.