my husband is a chef

Christopher never ceases to amaze me. When we met nearly 6 years ago, he lived in a little studio apartment and ate mostly cereal and pizza. And coffee. When we moved in together, our biggest hurdle was agreeing on whether we would eat together nightly, and how big those meals would be. (me: it should have a vegetable and be nutritious and it should include quality time. Him: why do you need to make a big deal of this?)

Yesterday was my birthday. We didn't have much of a celebration, but Christopher asked me to pick up some ingredients when I stopped at the Coop on my way home. Sour cream, unsweetened chocolate and heavy cream. yum.

While I worked on my spinning in the afternoon (what better way to spend one's birthday?) Christopher was very busy in the kitchen. He emerged with this: Actually there were about 20 of them.

We went out for dinner, and when we got back I distributed cupcakes to some of our neighbors. Then we found some candles and had a little celebration. They were delicious.

speculaas

We are back from our holiday travels, and we are breathing a sigh and starting to relax. I am not a big fan of the holidays, to be honest. Too many people to see, too many expectations, and not enough time for regrouping and relaxing.

There were a few highlights to our trip, however. Isaac tried on his mouse mittens and then ran into the other room to show them off. Alden immediately ate (or tried to eat) his new bib.

And I made cookies with my mother.

The cookies were inspired by Meg's post on speculaas, since my parents have a speculaa mold and I am always game for making something out of the ordinary. Meg recommended lots of flour to keep the dough from sticking in the mold, and I emailed my mother a recipe I'd found online before we headed to Philadelphia. My mom made the dough and it was ready in the fridge for whenever inspiration struck. Which was right before Christmas dinner. Check out the awesome new vest that my mom knitted for me with Jacob's Sheep wool from the Hope Spinnery.

I rolled out the dough, and we pulled of pieces of it to press into the floured molds. Meg was right- lots of flour was the trick- and we quickly got the hang of it. Here's the hitch though: the recipe was wrong. I mean, the cookies were delicious, but I should have read it a little closer, or followed the link from Meg's blog to her favorite recipe. Our recipe contained eggs, which meant that they expanded and lost their shape when they baked. Which meant that pressing them into a mold was a waste of time. Oh well, maybe next year...

home again

Oh, we are back! I can't wait to sleep in our very firm queen sized bed tonight; the sag and smallness of the double bed at my parents' does not agree with my back! (sorry Mom!)

Tuesday night my father showed us his bounty-- many textiles bought in India. Many of the fabrics are meant as Christmas gifts, but before he went my mother and I somehow convinced him to buy yardage and what he brought us is gorgeous. I am moving closer and closer to doing some sort of quilting, though there's yardage enough of these prints for a dress or skirt, and should probably think carefully about whether I'll make a quilt. He also bought many beautiful scarves and several quilts, most of which I didn't photograph.

Our Thanksgiving was fairly uneventful. My mother, Christopher and I cooked for most of the day on Thursday. My father watched the first part of Game 5 of the World Series, which he'd TiVoed but not yet watched. Christopher's family came at around 4, and we had dinner on the table at exactly 5, which was actually quite amazing. (Amazing in that 5 o'clock was the goal, and we met it.) The food was pretty good, the company fine and the night not too long. The house actually warmed up quite a bit with the oven and various wood fires that my father got going once he arrived. (Apparently hooking up all the vents was just too big a project and was not done by the end of the day on Wednesday.) It was comfortable and no one complained. The pies were delicious.
Today we had a very friendly visit with my Brown cousins, and then we hopped a bus back to New York. Christopher is actually currently making pasta sauce, since he doesn't like the vodka sauce I bought. I'm trying not to get too excited about this, but those who know him should know to be impressed. This is a man who subsisted on pizza, yogurt and breakfast cereal before we moved in together, and who actually made a fuss when I suggested that we would share meals nightly as a married couple. This man is now making pasta sauce, without a recipe and while I blog in the other room. I'm trying not to be too hopeful that this is a sign of our future together, but man, it would be nice!

a birthday cake

Yesterday was my birthday, and Christopher baked me a cake.

Christopher doesn't cook. I mean, sometimes he boils pasta, and I've taught him how to make brown rice and quinoa, but he doesn't usually assemble ingredients in a complex way and then serve them to multitudes. But he wanted to impress me, and somehow he knew I'd be completely blown over by his courage to do something (on his own, and for the first time) that I have done before, and to make something that would be judged by our guests and myself in one bite.

The cake was initially meant to be a surprise, but since I kept mentioning the cake I was planning to bake, and showed no sign of leaving the apartment, he told me of his plans. Together we looked at some cake recipes, and we settled on a recipe for a coconut mace cake his aunt had brought to our wedding. She had also sent the recipe to my cousin, who had collected recipes into book for my bridal shower. The recipe as written is just a list of ingredients, in the order of adding them, along with an oven temperature and bake time. Since Christopher had never baked a cake, we decided to follow the instructions from a cookbook for a yellow layer cake, but use his aunt's ingredients. It worked rather well, I think!
The recipe calls for boiled frosting, which I've definitely heard of but did not know how to make. I pulled out the Joy of Cooking, and though there were cooked frostings, there was nothing specifically called "Boiled Frosting." My other standby cookbooks also offered no help, so we settled on a buttercream frosting, which involved cooking over a double boiler while mixing and measuring the temperature until it was exactly 160 degrees. I actually helped for that part, since it demanded more than one pair of hands.
Since we rarely make cakes, and definitely not iced ones, we didn't realize until it was too late that we didn't have an icing spatula. Christopher improvised rather well with the blunt side of a carving knife.
Not so bad, right? This is the finished cake, dusted with coconut flakes.
And here it is in action.
There aren't any more photos of the cake, or partial cake, since it was quickly devoured by our guests last night. It was incredibly delicious though, and my friend's boyfriend said that he was intimidated by the bar that Christopher had now set.

Christopher's reaction to baking the cake: he's not impressed by other people's baking anymore, since he had now done it and it didn't seem like such a big deal. Does this mean he'll bake regularly?

winter pie

We've been very social since before Christmas, going out nearly every night. Last night we enjoyed a delicious lamb roast at the home of friends. I offered to bring dessert and chose the Apple Custard Tart from The Kitchn (formally known as Apartment Therapy: Kitchen). Though it's not exclusively a recipe site, I've found in the past that their recipes are not only dependable but surprisingly good. (Just try the Israeli Couscous with Chard or the Chickpea and Chorizo Soup).I only had 1/4 tablespoon of cinnamon on hand (the recipe calls for 3) and therefore substituted a small amount of allspice for the missing cinnamon. The result was a very complex but delicious flavor that we all agreed we preferred to cinnamon.
Sometimes I wish I could just cook and cook...

house party

One of Christopher's friends invited us, along with a few other couples, up to her parents' second home in Connecticut this weekend. We took the train up after work on Friday and just got back. It was so lovely to be away, somewhere completely new, and no real responsibilities at all. Our hostess is very into games, and so we played Balderdash into the wee hours on Friday night. As one of the few non-writers there, I was a little nervous, but it was actually really fun coming up with fanciful movie synopses and word definitions.

Before going up I volunteered to help coordinate meals, and so on Saturday I created a menu and we all went grocery shopping together. And, can you believe it, everyone else helped cook the meal. That's five people plus me chopping and mixing and sauteeing. The kitchen was really beautiful, a chef's dream, except that it was lacking wooden spoons and a garlic press. Next time I know what to bring as a hostess present!

Anyway, I might say it's back to reality, but the holiday season isn't really over, plus we're going on vacation a week from now, so there's a lot to look forward to.

post-Thanksgiving

After consulting various cookbooks and websites, I think I've exhausted what one can do with leftover turkey. We've had several mini-Thanksgivings, turkey quesadillas with goat cheese, and turkey pot pie. Luckily the pot pie used up most of the turkey; all that's left is a drumstick that I intend to have for lunch tomorrow. And, not to waste anything, the carcass is currently simmering on the stove, giving me stock.

The holiday season is here, isn't it? Christopher surprised me by putting on The Messiah while we were cleaning the apartment last week. Am I ready to go into Christmas mode? Do I have a choice?

food

I made a delicious dish from the New York Times Dining section tonight: Curried Lentils With Sweet Potatoes and Swiss Chard. It's actually meant to be a side dish for Thanksgiving, at least according to the Times.

I'm not sure how our guests would like the flavor of curry at Thanksgiving, but it was delicious as a pre-Thanksgiving or other cold night meal. For once we didn't actually have any chard (lucky Christopher) but it was still fantastic
Look! The turkey is busy defrosting! (We ended up with the organic Kosher frozen one, which means I don't have to deal with brining it, but I do have defrost it.)

choosing turkeys

I have never bought a turkey.

It seems like an odd thing to say, or to admit. I've certainly eaten a lot of it, and I've even roasted a few. It's just never occurred to me to purchase one, since I've never hosted Thanksgiving. And until I just started thinking about it, I hadn't realized that for most people (myself included) turkey is a once a year event. I mean, why not eat them more often? Is it just too much work? Is it too expensive?

The food coop where I shop has just gotten in their shipment of turkeys. In the past I've eyed the list of turkeys with envy, wishing that I were hosting Thanksgiving and could justify the purchase of one of these locally grown birds. This year the list terrifies me.

There are seven different brands of turkey to choose from. Seven. All are antibiotic free and from farms within 500 miles of New York City. Some are pasture raised, some are organic, some are pasture-raised organic. One of them is kosher, organic and frozen.

I'm not sure how to choose. Maybe I'll just close my eyes and grab one.

some cooking humor

A few years ago, I read a book called Julie and Julia:365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. I know that some people didn't care for it, but I loved it. In the book Julie Powell, a writer about my age living in Queens, sets out to cook every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I. During the course of that year she learns a lot about herself and her marriage and what she's good at. I found it rather inspiring.

In any case, she is obsessed with Julia Child. Before I read the book, never had much interest in Julia Child, but now I'm fascinated with her as a person. I haven't yet bought My Life in France, but someday I will and I know I will love it.

Julia's birthday was yesterday, and a site that I frequently read posted this video. It's rather brilliant, I must say. Enjoy!

saturday pleasures

It was my intention to sleep in this morning, but dear Dinah decided otherwise and mewed at our door at 9:30 until I went out to pet her. Many of you who read this have small children and have no sympathy for me wanting to sleep in, but this week has been exhausting and I was parched for sleep.

But oh what one can accomplish in a morning!

One: our bathroom sink drain has been clogged for months. I battle it weekly with my eco-friendly baking soda and vinegar mixture, but it continues to reclog. This morning I did two doses of baking soda, vinegar and boiling water and finally gave up and poured some lye in. The lye seems to have done the trick and water flows freely down the drain.

Two: I made oatmeal. Not the instant in a pack kind, but the steel cut kind that I buy in bulk at the food coop. It takes about 1/2 an hour to cook, so it's not something I make regularly. But since it was a weekend and I wanted something heartier, I started a pot and worked on...

Three: the play I've been designing (which opened on Thursday night) is going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and we just realized that the folks in Edinburgh need a ground plan, which I drafted this morning.

And lastly, once Christopher woke up and had some oatmeal, I took a stroll down to the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza. It's there every Saturday, and usually I'm too lazy to go down there. Plus it is more expensive than the coop where we do our shopping and also know we're getting local or socially responsible food. Anyway, it is a gorgeous day and I wanted to get some fresh spinach so I took a little walk. Little did I know that it's been too hot for spinach so no one has any. They do have everything else: zucchini, carrots, garlic, scapes, onions, peppers, cauliflower, gooseberries, currants, pickles, flowers, fish, sausage, cheese, bread. I'm sure I've missed something. In any case, I bought 3 pounds of mussels, an eggplant and a bunch of carrots. Buying the mussels was enthusiastic of me; Christopher doesn't like them so now I have a huge bowl of them to eat within the next day or two.
When I got home, Christopher was busy doing laundry. He's also on a mission to finish painting the office, which is a great idea. We've more or less abandoned that room in the past month because we don't have an air conditioner in there so it's unbearably hot. It's also terribly organized; we need more shelves in our closets and better organizing strategies and the office has taken a hit. Maybe that'll happen this weekend. Hopefully it will happpen this month. We are trying to make more of an effort to go to theater, and the summer in New York is full of things to go to. Tonight we're off to the Lincoln Center Festival to see Gemelos, with discounted tickets.

creating things

I feel so glad to have today off. I don't know why this is different than any other day off, but I feel more able to relax and enjoy myself, for some reason. Maybe it's because everything is closed today so I'm not feeling like I should be accomplishing anything.

But- even without pressure- I have accomplished two things!

One, the baby hat started the other day is done. I still have to block it, but I think it's really cute. Oh, here's a question for all of you parents out there: should I put a chin strap on? The pattern calls for earflaps and a tie, but I'm not so into it. Another question for parents: Do you think this could translate into a hat for boys? The woman at the knitting store tisked at me when I said I'd like to make one for a baby boy, and now I have doubts. Maybe if I got rid of the decorative trim and used cooler colors? Argh, why do genders have to be identified by color?Two, I made a pie this morning. We're going to some friends' tonight for a July 4 hang out, and I volunteered to bring a peach pie, since peaches seem to be everywhere recently. I've never made a peach pie, but it wasn't so bad. The hardest part was cutting up the peaches after I'd peeled them, since without skins they were really slippery. Here are some photos:
These are the peaches prior to peeling. First you score Xs on their bottoms.
Next you plunge them into boiling water for about a minute, and from there into ice water for another minute.
Once they come out of the ice water, the skins just slide off. It's amazingly easy, except that they are then very slippery and hard to cut up. Once they are cut up, you just mix them with the other ingredients (allspice, nutmeg, sugar, lemon zest and juice, tapioca, salt) and stick them in the crust. I have to admit that there wasn't enough crust and it was hard to slide it into the pie pan without it breaking. The top of the crust is especially broken up, but somehow it looks good anyway! And I'm sure it doesn't effect the taste. Yum! I can't wait to try it!

summer heat

Before I get down to business, I have a bit of good news: Christopher is a winner of the Break-Up essay contest on The Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC. The contest was judged by Leonard's brother, Phillip Lopate, and both of them will be discussing the essays tomorrow afternoon on the show. Christopher will be on hand to read part of his essay and talk a little about himself. Exciting, no? Tune in from 1:20-2:00pm. If you aren't in New York City, you can listen online here. (I believe you can also listen to past episodes, so if you miss the live broadcast you can still check it out.)

The weather has been disgusting. It is humid. It is hot. It is unbearable.

With much pain and frustration, we installed an air conditioner in the living room about a week ago. It cools most of the living space fairly well. Since the evenings have been cooler, our bedroom hasn't really needed an air conditioner (though Christopher doesn't like the street noise from the open window). In any case, the bedroom AC has been low priority even though we have one hanging around. Which is too bad, because last night was really, super humid and hot. Our bedroom felt like a steam room. Christopher retired to the Aero bed in the living room and at around 3am I crashed on the sofa. We were miserable.

New York in the summer. It can be great, but when it's like this it can also be a nightmare. Today there was a power outage in the Bronx, which led to signal problems on the subways, which led to crowds of sweaty grumpy people on the stagnant platforms. The smells are amplfied, but mostly in bad ways: armpits, garbage, urine. Air conditioners drip from above onto one's head; I looked in the mirror today several hours after being dripped on and discovered that my face was covered in large black spots.

There is an upside, however: the farmer's markets are bursting with produce. I emerged from the subway at Union Square this afternoon and found myself in the farmer's market. It's odd, because I am often in Union Square, but I forget to go to the farmer's market. In any case, I bought myself a pound of potting soil, some baby carrots that look like parsnips, some little zucchinis and green garlic with the scapes still attached. I'm very excited to see what I can cook with these exotic, local items! Anyone have suggestions?

pie time

I made cranberry-apple pie today! It took forever, but I must say that it was worth it. And it's just about the handsomest pie I've ever made.

Oh, oops! It's already half gone!



I also want to note that our daliah now has another sprout and that the part I photographed the other day is already much bigger. Do daliahs usually grow this fast?