Category — nice to see your face

Every weekend I spend in DC, I fall in love a little bit more. It’s a small town full of brilliant, motivated, passionate people who all seem to be connected to one another in a complicated, but pretty tiny social network. It’s a transitional town where people come and go and folks seem open to experience. Plus, it’s below the Mason-Dixon line, which (I’ve been told) means that folks are just naturally more friendly.

Sure, there are those who might be a little too into the ‘game’ — collecting connections like baseball cards (or Magic cards for the fantasy inclined), racking up favors, perfecting tactics, but I’ve been fortunate to mostly a crowd of interesting and genuine people.

To those who bemoan the black and grey suits, the wonkiness, the who-do-you-work-for-who-do-you-knowiness of the district, I say: come to Bates House to hang out and your soul will be revived. Next party’s Saturday April 17th — hope you can make it.

One weekend in February, we threw a little brunch party. Around 25 friends and neighbors came to snack on cinnamon rolls and frittata and drink delicious coffee. The first guest arrived a little before 11, and the last one headed out the door around 6. Seven hours of community and conversation: not bad for a lazy Sunday.

The drink station set-up. Strong coffee, Bailey’s, tea and mango puree. Yum.

Marcie making French toast and Chris on BACON, BACON, BACON.

Happy Chris and the first guests, partaking of food (plus the back wheel of my bicycle making a cameo appearance in the left corner)

Greg, the ex-architect and documentary film maker chatting with neighbor Lara, public health advocate and server at a legendary local bar.

Friends in the happy food corner, where most of Bates eating action happens.

Bates love.

The die-hards, sticking it out till the end. Can you spot the two ethnomusicologists in this picture? The activist who works directly with victims of human trafficking? DC, you are ridiculous.

My boyfriend Jaime sent this to me. He is on his way to becoming a fancy scientist who studies the impacts of salmon farms on wild salmon populations. He is incredibly supportive and, if you can’t tell, he has a sense of humor.

from Toothpaste for Dinner

Forget warm wontons!!

Courtesy of VT at The Sap Also Rises

Wednesday night the Daniel Family hosted our first Real Good Food Potluck. It was a smashing success — over 50 folks made it out, the living room was full to the brim with family, friends, and many new faces.

Mum and I spent the day shuttling to the farmer’s market on the scooter and cooking up a storm. We made chicken enchiladas from a couple of our backyard chickens (more on the processing soon!), pumpkin gnocchi from the Halloween pumpkin I picked with Christina (I owe a post on this too!), a couple of persimmon cakes, and pumpkin & white bean chili. Very seasonal. Very delicious.

It was especially awesome to have a couple of people there who I’d never met (Jessie, Sharon, Carolyn, Gabe, Tod), folks I hadn’t seen in forever (Derek,  a few new friends (Jorge, Janet) who I’d just met the previous week.

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Pumpkin gnocchi in the pan -- 5 minutes to showtime!

As the night kicked off, I was a smiling dervish, pulling hot lasagna from the oven and jumping at the doorbell, and digging up serving implements, and hugging my Godparents as they walked in. People just kept coming and coming with amazing food. There were beets and beet greens and slaw and paella and spinach ricotta pasta and homemade tomato pasta; teriyaki chicken and shepherd’s pie and grilled veggies and crudites and baguettes and guac and salsa. Not to mention the glorious desserts. At one point, I ran out to the garage to grab another folding table to hold the bounty.

A little after 7, we screened Food Inc. Only 2 folks other than my family had seen the movie before. Everyone gasped and “wow”-ed and a number of folks came up to me afterwards and mentioned how much it moved them. I’ve now watched the movie 7 times with about 60 different people and I have to say it’s a pretty darn effective tool for getting people to start thinking about what they eat.

I was especially happy because at least 3 people visited the Fullerton Farmers Market after I suggested making a visit to get potluck supplies. Of those, at least two said they’d definitely be making the trip weekly from now on. Hooray!

I got a few questions afterwards of the “well, now-what” variety. People were moved by the film, but were wondering what to do next. I mentioned eating local, seasonal, and organic foods, talked about buying “whole” foods and shared some of the places we shop.

But people’s questions really got me thinking again about how important it is to have a combination of consumer education driving demand and values-based businesses supplying alternatives to the everyday obvious options. Here in Fullerton for example, we really only have one truly organic cafe option and only one big natural food store, not that close to many neighborhoods. The farmers market is wonderful, but not huge. In general, it’s not that easy to get organics or local produce. The markets — Stater Bros, Albertsons, Ralphs — don’t carry any sustainably raised meats; Stater Bros doesn’t appear to carry any organics at all. A shopper really has to go out of his or her way to do things differently.

But for those of us who want to try, here are some great resources for North Orange County:

• Directory of Orange County Farmers Markets
• Ecology Center – educational organization dedicated to teaching and learning about sustainable agriculture located near South Coast Farms in San Juan Capistrano
• Fullerton Arboretum ‐‐ often hosts classes on growing your own food, also provides community plots for a small annual fee
• Fullerton Certified Farmers Market
• Henry’s Farmers Market ‐‐ Grocery store (1447 S. Harbor) sells a wide variety of natural & organic products
• OC Abundance Organics ‐‐ Cooperative buying club for organic produce, located in Fullerton
• OC Organics – Farm and Community Supported Agriculture program, delivers in OC
• OC Slow Food – Orange County Chapter of the Slow Food organization, lists of recommended restaurants and some events open to non‐members
• South Coast Farms – Farm and Community Supported Agriculture program, delivers in OC
• Tanaka Farms – Farm and Community Supported Agriculture program, delivers in OC

Last Sunday, I came back from a visit to the Bullocks’ Homestead on Orcas Island in the afternoon, tired, dirty, ridiculously happy, and ready to collapse in a heap on my little blue sofa with some iced tea and The Taste of Place, which I had started on the ferry. But then Lucy came and roused me and told me she had been invited over to Rob’s to pick figs.

Rob is a fellow farmer, known for his pasture-raised meats which he sells at the farmer’s market along with his buddy Guard Sundstrom. Their Meat Wagon is always busy with folks looking for fresh, local, humanely-raised ridiculously tasty meat. Both Rob and Guard are members of the Island Grown Farmer’s Cooperative which is a group of farmers who banded together to design and launch a mobile slaughtering unit that allows for local processing of beef, lambs, and pigs. This unit was the first of its kind in the US and since then groups of farmers’ around the country have come to these folks for help replicating the model in their own communities.

But Rob isn’t just a lamb man, he’s a true farmer and, dare-I-say, homesteader.

In addition to his animals, Rob takes care of a lovely orchard, and a garden on an adjacent property. He started out 30 years ago in a little trailer; he built a lovely yurt, then a beautiful home where his older son now lives with his wife and children.

When Lucy and I arrived at Rob’s place, the two big dogs ran out to greet us, barking madly. No one was home so we poked about behind the house, amidst the chickens and the trees, looking for the fig tree. Being city-folk we weren’t exactly sure what a fig tree looked like, so we stopped off at the walnuts and the pears and the apples before finally we sighted the little bush close by one of the mobile chicken coops.

Right as we started picking, Rob arrived, clean and spiffy from his granddaughter’s birthday party. We picked a basketful of ripe figs, then Rob offered us cling peaches from his trees.

We walked through the orchard, asking about the different pears and plums and apples — Asian pears, Bosc, Red Anjou, Santa Rosa plums and about the history of the place.

Rob told us of wheeling his pregnant wife to the car in a wheelbarrow back in the days before there was a proper driveway to the house. She vowed not to come back until he built a proper house. He built the yurt where he still lives today.

Then he showed us the house that he built back in the early 90s with help from his brothers, one an architect, the other a woodworker. It was a well-conceived house, and very beautiful; white adobe-style walls and huge windows facing out on the orchard and the pond. Inside, the exposed wood beams and gorgeous live-edge counter gave the house a cozy woodsy smell and a warm, friendly feeling. The wood came from trees felled and milled on the property and Rob described the process of forestry management — taking skinny, distressed trees from beside the thicker looking counterparts because their skinniness was indication of slow, dense growth.

Then we went up to the area where his younger son was just laying the foundation for his own home. We toured the sweet outdoor kitchen, composting toilet, and the wooden frame ready and waiting for the concrete truck which would arrive the next morning.

I was inspired, to say the least. My own dad and I have been talking about building a home together. I can’t think of very many things that would be more satisfying.

I ate most of my share of the figs fresh within a day or two — subtle, sweet soft flesh popped into my mouth whole. All that remained was a little pile of stems in the compost bucket below the sink. But then, the remaining fruits started to get a little soft. I didn’t want to eat them all at once, so I looked for a way to turn them into something else to savor.

I wanted to pair the figs with anise — one of our local bakeries makes an amazing yeasted Fig Anise Bread and I’m obsessed with the combination. It’s warm and crunchy and slightly spicy. But I wanted to make a breakfast bread, so I looked around for recipes with fresh figs and fell upon instruction for a Fig Tea Bread by Jenny Colvin of Jenny Bakes. It turned out that the tea in the recipe gave the bread a deep, smoky richness and lovely color and the seeds from the figs distributed through the bread gave a lovely crunch — something like poppy seeds in other breakfast breads. I reduced the other spices and the sugar, so the star anise flavor came to the fore, perfectly complimenting the soft sweetness of the figs.

Figs, raisins, tea, star anise and nutmeg make up the flavor body

I kept the fig chunks pretty big so they’d stay whole in the bread

The figs soak in the tea for just over 10 minutes, then part of the tea is reserved for the bread

Wet ingredients

After the dry ingredients are in, mix in the tea, figs and raisins

The finished loaf is dark brown and almost savory…

Black Tea, Star Anise, Fig Bread
Adapted from Jenny Colvin of Jenny Bakes

1 cup figs, stemmed and coarsely chopped
1 cup Irish Breakfast tea, brewed double strength
1 3/4 cup flour
1 cup golden raisins
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 sections star anise, ground
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup olive oil
2 eggs

Gently combine figs and tea; let stand 10 min.

In a medium sized bowl, beat sugar, oil and eggs to mix. Sprinkle flour, spices, baking soda and salt on top and mix until just combined.

Drain tea from figs, reserving 1/4 cup of liquid. Gently stir in figs and ¼ cup tea; pour batter into well-greased loaf pan; bake at 350º F for 1 hour, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in pan 10 min., then invert onto a rack. Keeps on the counter in plastic wrap for up to 1 week, or freeze slices in plastic baggies and thaw in the toaster or microwave.

Oven baked tomatoes: a dash of olive oil and 5-6 hrs at 200 degrees make sweet, crispy tomato chips out of juicy tomato slices, lovely in pasta and as a snack. Halve the tomatoes and cook at 150 for 12 hours for a sweet, chewier version yummy in salads, or in your panzanella.

Once upon a time, I was a kid who hated tomatoes. Tomato sauce was okay, ketchup was great. I even slowly came around to salsa, though for years I survived on dry chips (guac didn’t interest me till well into college). But that wet, slimy slice — that interloper between my hamburger and lettuce and bun, seemed tasteless, useless and generally insulting.

I don’t know when I came around, or the exact details of the conversion, but I’m quite I was spurred by my mother’s coaxing and a few superb Caprese salads.

If you’re lucky, you know the joy of a fresh, vine-ripened tomato. In case you don’t, it looks like this:

and tastes like this:

(actually that was remnants of powdered sugar and french toast, but you get the idea)

It’s become the poster-child of gardening advocates and “eat local” fanatics — it’s one of those things that really does taste better (taste at all? most tomatoes in the supermarket still seem mostly like soggy pink water) when you pick a ripe one direct from the garden.

We sold our first tomatoes back in July — the weekend a gaggle of friends came up to visit from San Francisco, and we took a bunch of the first Stupices for a picnic on the beach with a loaf of bread, some cheese, the last of the garlic scape pesto, leftover spicy scones from breakfast, and a bag of luscious cherries.

The tomatoes were exclaimed over, praised, and gobbled down; we expressed our regret at not bringing more. Then we went about our business hunting cockles in the low tide and headed home to use the rest of our tomato stash in a 4-pan paella masterpiece (only two of four shown below )

Since then, I’ve been continuing to enjoy the tomato harvest: on the grill, in salads, in pasta, and yes, though I never would have believed it had you told me as a child, sometimes bitten whole, like an apple, as a snack before dinner.

But one of my favorite dinners has been a simple panzanella, or simply said: hastily concocted bread and tomato salad.

Panzanella from forgotten ingredients, inspired by tomatoes

• One stale crusty loaf of rosemary hearth bread from the local bakery — at least 10 days old, abandoned on a lower shelf.
• Two beautiful red tomatoes with bright yellow crowns
• A forlorn chunk of sharp cheddar (or some very thin slices of Parmesan or hunks of fresh mozzarella would do)
• some browning sprigs of basil, rescued from the farmer’s market leftovers
  
• olive oil and balsamic vinegar
• a dash of salt

Careful of my fingers, I hacked the piece of bread apart, doused it in oil and threw it on a baking sheet in the oven which I set to heat to 400. In the meantime, I chopped up the tomatoes and cheese, tore up the basil and sprinkled them all with balsamic and salt. By the time the oven reached 375, the bread was browned and sizzling and crispy. I threw everything together and a delicious meal was born.

The next night, I repeated the dish with the remaining bread and added in some sweet dried tomatoes straight from the oven.

There’s something so happy and so sensual about tomatoes in late summer. Thank you Pablo Neruda for putting the words in my mouth.

A couple of years ago, Jaime and I went to Puerto Vallarta to visit his high school friend Naomi and her two incredibly cute and precocious little boys and to bask in the sun and eat delicious food. Rather than stay in town, on Naomi’s recommendation, we headed off by boat to a tiny little cove in a town called Yelapa.

For three endless days, we stayed in a casita at the beautiful Hotel Lagunita and spent our afternoons lazing under the pelapas on the beach, reading beach fiction, and practicing our broken Spanish with the overly aggresive local parrot. One evening, we headed up the hill behind the beach to explore the windy, narrow streets of the town, peering into backyards filled with banana trees and chickens, greeting old friends of Naomi’s, and ending up at dinner at the amazing Pollo Bollo. There we closed the night nursing warming bottles of beer and licking our fingers clean of the tangy sweet sauce that accompanied the succulent tender to the bone BBQ chicken that is their specialty. Another night, we wandered into the Yelapa Yacht Club, where the hopping local expat community jammed the night away to a mix of Tom Petty and world beats.

But some of my favorite memories of Yelapa were the mornings. The casitas at the hotel were open to the air and we woke up to the sound of the surf and the smell of the exposed wooden beams and salty air. We walked out the door down the flower-lined gravel paths out to the beach. Jaime and I were the only guests, and they had set up a lone table under a pelapa where we sat and ordered our breakfast. Strong Mexican coffee, juice, and delicious delicious food.

That was the first time I ever had chilaquiles — Jaime and I hadn’t ever heard of them before, and he ordered them as an experiment. They were served hot, with scrambled eggs and beans with a side of salsa, maybe some avocado, but definitely a stack of warm, fresh corn tortillas. They were so delcious that it didn’t seem at all weird to be putting cooked corn tortillas inside of more corn tortillas.

So when I looked in a corner of my kitchen the other day and saw a bag of stale tortilla chips, it got me thinking of that happy memory and the delicious mornings and how much I’m missing Jaime these days, and I had to try to recreate the moment. I’m the first to admit that food can be oh-so-comforting when you need something to cheer you up.

I’m quite sure they made their chilaquiles in Yelapa with stale tortillas, as is traditional, but this technique seemed to work just as well, and it probably takes even less time since you don’t need to fry the tortillas in oil before starting.

Chilaquiles like that morning in Yelapa
Serves 2-3

4 cups stale tortilla chips
1 tbsp olive oil

salsa
2 dried New Mexico Chiles (or dried California or Ancho Chiles for a more mild flavor)
1/2 cup fresh or canned tomatoes
1/2 medium onion
1 clove garlic
1/4 cup reserved chile soaking water
1/4 cup chicken broth (or substitute another 1/4 cup chile water)
1 jalapeno (optional for spice)

salt, to taste

optional toppings
– fried eggs
– avocado
– nopalitos (http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/nopalitos.htm)
– cotija cheese, queso fresco or feta in a pinch
– cilantro
– sour cream
– leftover chicken

Heat a dry cast iron skillet until hot but not smoking and toast jalapeno and dried chiles until lightly browned on all sides (3-5 min). In a small pot, bring 1.5 cups of water to boiling. Place dried chiles in boiling water and remove from heat. Allow chiles to sit for 10 minutes to reconstitute. Water should turn reddish-brown and chiles should become pliable.

Meanwhile, coarsely chop tomatoes, garlic, onion, and toasted jalapeno. When chiles are done soaking, add chiles, 1/4 cup of the soaking water, chopped vegetables, and chicken broth to blender. The chicken broth gives the dish an especially full flavor, but you can also substitute 1/4 cup extra chile water to make the recipe vegetarian.

Blend ingredients until completely smooth.

Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a cast iron skillet. When hot (you can test to see if it’s ready by throwing on a drop of the salsa and seeing if it sizzles) add in salsa and fry for about 5 minutes, until the color deepens slightly and the consistency turns a little thicker.

Turn down the heat to medium and season sauce with salt. Add in stale tortilla chips and stir well to coat. Cook for at least 5 minutes — the sauce should soak completely through the tortilla chips. They should lose their toughness and turn moist, but not mushy.

Top chilaquiles with your choice of garnishes and serve with warm beans.

Today is Friday. My birdboy left yesterday on the 5pm ferry. He’s gone for another year, and I’m grey.

We had a day of fun: cast-iron farm breakfast of ham, eggs and potatoes, coveting an electric smoker at the thrift compound near Roche Harbor, a beautiful hike along the island’s edge where we saw nice things in tidepools, running past the stench of a rotting deer, last minute scoldings, and some yummy Mexican food.

But all good things must come to an end, so…

I took off from the ferry landing, dropped off some magazines at the magazine exchange outside the hardware store, then spun the 3 miles or so back from the ferry landing to my yellow water tower, where I trudged up the stairs, plonked down, and felt sad.

To keep myself busy, I took pictures of saffron for a new project I’m working on, details to be announced soon. Then I started researching grad programs and did some reading and made some comforting hot chocolate and ate too many Cadbury eggs — the kind with the candy pastel shell.

This weekend Jaime and I headed off-island to the big city of Seattle for Jaime’s bro Liam’s graduation. We got up a little after dawn to make the 6am ferry to Anacortes and the Subaru pulled up outside Liam’s apartment in Seattle a little after 9am.

It felt strange to be in a city again. I spent a couple of days back in SF en route to the farm back in March, but that was familiar territory, friendly streets, friendly faces. This was folks who hurry by without smiling back at you, and over-tan girls in short short skirts and chainlink fences and unkempt grassy patches on sidewalks.

Of course there are things that are wonderful about cities, like eating a HUGE plate of migas at Portage Bay, dinner in Chinatown, a trip to the famous Uwajimaya, but for the most part, I felt out of place like my heart was being tugged back farmward.

After Seattle concrete, it was lovely to arrive in Bellingham on Friday night. Saturday and Sunday morning were spent lying in the sun, reading, playing with little nephew Adyn, walking into town and eating — lovely lazy time with the whole family. It was wonderful, but it made me miss my own family something awful, and it also made me think of what it’s going to be like when Jaime leaves again.

Since I first visited Jaime five-and-some-months years ago, I’ve come to think that Bellingham is a pretty awesome little town — it seems to have such vibrant community life and a thriving local economy. I know it has it’s issues, but it seems like the very sort of place I’d like to end up. If only there were cheap land, and it were closer to California…

Feasting in Bellingham: Farm-fresh greens, Orzo salad, Grilled wild salmon, Chili crab, and a big glass of milk

Last weekend was the Singapore feast, and this past Saturday we hosted another big dinner in honor of Jaime’s arrival — this time, representation from the (arguably) best known of the Southeast Asian cuisines: Thai.

The cooking only took a day this time (not counting some minor prep the day prior) but I had a lot of help from Jaime who can fry Pad See Ew like nobody’s business, among his other many talents.

We ended up with a crowd of a little over 20, and we estimate we fed everyone for a little under $3 a head — not bad, given the variety and the fact that we made two meat dishes, and fresh rolls with shrimp. Yum.

Prep work took most of Saturday morning and early afternoon

Mise en place — almost all the ingredients, ready for cooking

The chef snacking on a mango pit

The feast!

Jean serving up some noodly goodness

Patio arrangement courtesy of Lucy and Colin. Flower arrangements by Jaime.

Green Papaya Salad (The papaya was verging on not-green, but it still turned out dee-licious)

Tom Kha Gai, Galangal & lime chicken soup (This soup was a major triumph, just the right amount of coconut, and the dried galangal and leftover kaffir lime leaves from last week infused the soup with a fantastic flavor)


Ground Pork Lettuce Wraps (Simple stir-fried crowd-pleaser)

Pad See Ew (Very similar in style to the Char Kway Teow from last week, but Jaime’s mad frying skillz made it so that the noodles stayed beautifully intact during the frying process)


Basil Tofu (Simple, quick and tasty vegetarian dish)

Fresh Rolls with Shrimp (Made with fresh local spotted prawns bought at the farmer’s market that very morning!)

Dessert
Black sticky rice with mango and toasted coconut

Synergy Farm Thai-style Lettuce Wraps

1 red bell pepper, diced finely
1 1/2 cups carrots, diced into 1/4” cubes
6-8 brown crimini mushrooms, diced into 1/4” cubes
1 cup snow peas, cut horizontally into 1/4” strips
3 garlic scapes diced into circles 1/4” thick
1 small onion minced
1 large shallot minced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 lb ground pork

2 tbsp oil for frying
2 tbsp fish sauce
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
black pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped cilantro or mint or basil

2 lettuce heads (preferably a butter lettuce variety or trouthead for perfect lettuce-wrapping cups)

optional: 1 tbsp oyster sauce, two green thai chilis, minced finely, other vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, sugar snap peas, green beans, etc.

Heat 2 tbsp oil on high heat in your pan or wok. Add in shallot and onion and fry for 10 seconds until fragrant, then add in garlic and fry another 20 seconds. Add ground pork, breaking it up with your spatula or wooden spoon. Fry for 2 minutes, or until browning, but not yet cooked.

Add in carrots and snow peas and scapes and fry another 2 minutes, stirring well. Add in mushrooms and bell pepper and fry another 2 minutes. The meat should be cooked, and everything should be well mixed.

Add in sauce and chilis, if using. Stir well to coat all ingredients. Add in chopped herbs (cilantro, mint or basil) and stir until wilted.

Serve at room temperature with washed lettuce leaves.