California!

I'm in So Cal for the weekend for a conference. It's already lovely and I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy traveling by myself! Bought some Blenheim super-spicy ginger ale from a cute soda-fountain shop, all the way from South Carolina. Upon arrival, I also ate an orange that I bought in Chicago and was likely grown around here. It's funny how much food travels around.

It's clear, sunny, hot, and kind of boring here (more antique stores than seems even remotely sustainable), but I strolled around, met a lot of friendly people, ate some tasty tacos (So Cal does seafood tacos RIGHT), and now I'm going to see if I can't take a dip in the pool. I'll try to take some pictures, and I'll try even HARDER to get to the beach (it's only a train ride away but I have to, you know, work).

Romantic Candlelight Dinner: the Aftermath

This is an old post but thought I'd put it up.

A good friend and old roommate is visiting, and on her first night here we had a romantic candlelit dinner. We made Mediterranean Fish Bake, from a recipe given to me by a friend who took a cooking class at Camaje, a restaurant in NYC, back in 2005. It was pretty delicious, and we had it with grits, which if that sounds weird to you, call it polenta, but we only cooked it for 5 minutes, and mixed in some feta and butter, I think.

Mediterranean Fish Bake
2 servings

1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 sprigs thyme, leaves only
10 leaves basil, sliced
2 Tbsp. capers
2 (6 oz.) fish fillets-- just about any fish works, except tuna, we used cod
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbed (ok we used a lot more)
1/4 cup breadcrumbs (we just toasted the ends of a loaf of bread and tore them up)

Preheat oven to 375F. Combine onion, garlic, tomatoes, thyme, basil and capers in a small bowl and toss to combine. Lightly oil a small baking dish. Place fillets in dish and season with salt and pepper (do a little happy dance when you get to use your new mortar and pestle as you are out of ground pepper but have lots of whole peppercorns). Top with tomato mixture. Combine feta and breadcrumbs and sprinkle over fish. Bake for 20 minutes or until fish is just beginning to flake and a knife inserted into the fish is very hot to touch.

I baked it 20 minutes and hoped the fish was done, which it was, since I would have no idea when it was "just beginning to flake." This is the first animal protein I have ever successfully cooked "on my own," (my friend helped a lot, and her confidence helped even more, especially as I stood in front of the meat and fish case in the grocery store at a total loss). I am generally deeply afraid of cooking meat of any sort as I recall two failed attempts in college that practically burned down my apartment and were inedible, so I just stick to vegetables. This wasn't too hard though. I might try chicken next time.

We also mixed some feta and butter into the grits, and it was delicious.

You can see in our "aftermath" picture that we also had wine, whiskey (that was later), and Root, a Pennsylvania-made liquor based on old recipes for the pre-Prohibition root beer. It tastes like very-alcoholic root beer, and it has a charming label with drawings of all the ingredients.

Redmoon and Sartorial Struggles

This morning I woke up feeling unable to get the "Amy's productive day" show on the road. It doesn't help that I was feeling sick again, perhaps from sitting outside in the cold for a few hours last night watching Redmoon's The Astronaut's Birthday. It was a pretty cool show, though I didn't appreciate being packed onto uncomfortable bleachers with irritating children and craning my neck upwards. The show was done entirely with over 4,000 (or something, I forget) hand-drawn, hand-gelled slides and overhead projectors shining from inside the building windows, with occasional people as shadows and puppetry animation. The story was a little "meh" (this review suggests it was too slow-paced, but I also think the overt moral was a strangely uncomfortable one: "don't dream big or shoot for the stars, because love is all that matters.") But I love Redmoon for their commitment to fantastic public art and elaborate low-tech spectacle. And afterwards I got a "blood orange" hot chocolate from a 7-11 and went to a potluck party at a friend's house. I brought a cous-cous salad with grapes, orange pepper, and feta, a combination of two Mark Bittman picnic ideas from the New York Times. Most of them look super good and fast, so I'll be trying them for more than just picnics.

Another thing slowing me down is trying to wear something other than my corduroy pants that I love so much. I think it would be nice to wear skirts and tights, but can never get it to look right or feel comfortable. It's mostly an issue of improper footwear. Somehow, the flats I wore all summer with skirts don't look right as soon as I add tights to my legs, which I can't figure out. And as great as heels look, I just can't bring myself to wear them to walk the 20 minutes to campus, where they will slow me down and make me uncomfortable all day. How do women who wear heels every day do it? I have some ankle boots that I bought last spring and really liked for awhile, but now I feel like they make me look like Robin Hood with my skinny legs poking out of their wide tops. This post from Jane at Ill Seen, Ill Said, inspired me to try to make flats look just as sophisticated, but I can't pull it off. I always love her "Sunday best" imaginary outfit posts, and she's so smart and posts a lot of interesting things about art and books.

OMG it's FALL!

I saw this post this morning, while I was having my coffee hot, and wearing jeans and a cardigan, and hearing the wind blowing the leaves outside, and I got really really excited. I love fall! Even though I pine for summer and love it so much, the return of cooler weather is just absolutely wonderful. I wonder how I would deal in a place that doesn't really have a change of seasons.

Unfortunately I am starting this fall off more broke than ever, so there won't be much or any back-to-school shopping for me, which is probably good. You don't care about that anyway, do you?

I made that key lime cheesecake and had it the last two nights while sitting on the front porch with friends. I got to see two of my best friends, one of whom was in town to visit before she leaves for Cameroon for two years! I'll miss you so much! The other is back in Chicago and we made plans for some sewing project together. We even got to Skype in with another one of my college apartment-mates, who is far away in Utah, which was lovely. Even the one who just started grad school in Massachusetts hasn't been a stranger, and I've gotten heartening text messages from her. I love you, friends. Oh also the cheesecake was not bad at all.

Tonight I decided to stay home, make curry lentils and chocolate-covered strawberries for myself, and read. So far, so AWESOME. Also, it was all stuff I had at home, so that's good too.

Hipster Dinosaurs

So my dad sent me this, with the tagline: "I thought you might enjoy these, if you don't already know everything about it." ZING!

There's much more where that came from, at Molly23's twitpic stream.

Other stuff my dad sends me is more along the lines of this potentially significant scientific discovery (which is actually SUPER INTERESTING), and ominous articles about terrorism in Egypt.

I spam people with this article about linguistic relativism, this key lime cheesecake from Smitten that I bought the ingredients for and am very excited to bake, and pictures from 24freedinners. Also this hilarious illustration of the two paths women can take, from NoGoodForMe.

Hi, I'm random.

Here's how it's been in my life, recently: busy. So that's why no posts. Also, like I said earlier, I've kind of lost interest in looking at stuff I can't afford to have.

BUT there is some stuff I'd like to share! For example, this tumblr, 24 Free Dinners, by the blogger of Daddy Likey! Great pictures of sexy people, pretty stuff, and funny funny words. Seriously, and a small obsession with the cast of 10 Things I Hate About You. I love that movie. I also love Empire Records, which has a very young Liv Tyler in it, who is also on 24 Free Dinners looking incredible. Fun fact: one time I watched Empire Records with a boy I liked, and he didn't get why I liked it so much, and when it didn't work out with him, I didn't care for very long. Because he didn't like Empire Records. That's how much I like it.

I'm also a big fan of some stupid lyrics, for example:

"baby you the whole package, plus you pay your taxes" - B.o.B.

"toodles to you bitches" - Drake

"would I be violating if I grabbed me a handful?" - T.I.

"brain so good, good, school you went to college... baby you can do whatever you like" - T.I.

"I could teach you to speak my language, Rosetta Stone" - Drake

Anyway, I went to Kimbark on my birthday, to get ready for my party, and my roommate was buying a nice bottle of Scotch and the girl working there was like, "aw yeah, he knows how to treat momma right on her birthday! You can do whatever you like!" Yesss.

At a party on Saturday night this guy was talking about James Murphy, the lead guy of LCD Soundsystem, who apparently has done a lot of coke: "He took care of all the bullshit for us. He's like the hipster Jesus."

I've been eating the leftovers of my birthday cake, which is the best carrot cake ever even though I forgot the oil, and I've made it for my boyfriend's last two birthdays, and I'm not sure if I'll ever bother making another cake again. I've also been eating some Christmas curry, which is green peas and red pepper and white tofu and green curry paste and coconut milk.

It was too hot last night so I had bad dreams and stayed up all night thinking disturbing things about fate and how bad the world can be, which is what I always do when I can't sleep, and then I found out that my boyfriend's personal genie is a lady genie "from the ocean" who gets really jealous because she really digs him, so it was probably her just trying to mess with me. I swear I am not making this up.

Picture from 24 Free Dinners. I love Harrison Ford.

Charleston

I went to Charleston for a couple days with some friends last weekend. It's one of my favorite places to be, so I wanted to share some things that we did.

We went straight to the beach at Isle of Palms. It's easier to park in the residential part of the island and use the public access paths to the beach rather than deal with the crowds near the middle of the island where the public park is. You can always go back there to use their outdoor showers and bathrooms. When I went the weekend before, we swam at Sullivan's Island, which is even less popular, but currently there is a big sandbar blocking all the waves. We walked out to the sandbar and found a lot of starfish and sand dollars (and jellyfish!). The picture is from the beach at Isle of Palms a couple years ago.

After everyone was good and salty, we took showers (my friend's aunt lives on the island so we stayed with her) and headed to Charleston Crab House for dinner. There's one downtown that I've been to several times for the rooftop dining with a view of the market and the water, but we went to the location on James Island. I had bacon-wrapped crab-stuffed shrimp (yeah, that's right. I'm definitely not vegetarian in South Cackalacky) and she-crab soup. She-crab soup is my second-favorite thing to eat in the Lowcountry, but I already had shrimp and grits last weekend at Shem Creek Bar & Grill, another fantastic place to eat. Shem Creek is in Mt. Pleasant, and you can sit beside the marsh and enjoy the evening while eating some delicious seafood.

After dinner, we went to Surf Bar in Folly Beach. This sounds like a lot of driving, but it's all pretty close, and you get to look at pretty marshland and live oaks while you're going from place to place. We sat out on their big patio and played Uno and had some local brews (from COAST and Palmetto Brewing Company, I had a Mobius, which was very refreshing and tasty). We waited out the worst of an epic thunderstorm and then spent the night at our friends' house on James Island. In the morning, we hauled out the boat and put in at Wappoo Creek, then cruised over to Red's Ice House on Shem Creek. I had an oyster po' boy (I only eat oysters when I can smell salt water) and a lot of sweet tea. It was really cool to see Charleston and its surrounding area by sea. We went out past the bulkheads into the open ocean, where we saw a lot of dolphins playing, a mysteriously-colored "dog shark" and a lot more jellyfish. We went past Fort Sumter to a little beach at the end of a long peninsula jutting off of Folly Beach, where we swam and hung out and got worse sunburns. Some other people were having a shrimp boil, which looked and smelled like an excellent idea, but we had to get back. We had showers, I had a nap, and a quick dinner at Jack's Cosmic Dogs on James Island, before heading home.

Now I just have to have a Cheerwine before heading back home!

Cheap Food and a Less-Cheap Cocktail

This is what I ate for dinner not long ago: rice with onions, raisins, garam masala, and grated carrot. It was super easy and just stuff we had lying around. I eat pretty sad food when left to my own devices.

But I drink well! I had bought Elderberry Flower Concentrate at IKEA a long time ago (and not opened it, I'm not that gross) and found a recipe for using it on Apartment Therapy.

1 oz IKEA elderberry flower syrup
1 oz gin (I think we had Broker's at the time, but before that we had Junipero, which I heard about on a Design*Sponge article)
1/2 a lime (the recipe calls for 2 slices of lemon, but we only had lime. We're big gin & tonic drinkers round these parts)
the rest of the glass (6-8 oz) chilled soda water

Mix it up with ice, add the soda water, and enjoy! Your drink is officially way classier than your food!

Oh, and this is our back porch & cat, both of which I will miss to varying extents when we move. In the spring we took all the glass windows off the porch and put in the screens, and it makes a lovely place to sit and enjoy the backyard, and for the cat it is a giant moth trap.

Peach Cobbler

A few nights ago, I made myself some cheese grits & peach cobbler. Although Georgia is known for its peaches, South Carolina actually produces more of them. We just have more important and interesting things going on to be famous for, so we let that slide.

In addition to Smitten Kitchen, as previously mentioned, we in my house love Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen. To the extent that we are disappointed that one cannot be a "fan" of them as an entity on facebook, and must be a fan of the TV show, which we do not watch. We have the cookbook, The New Best Recipe, and we are fanatic about it. I really appreciate their scientific approach to cooking. Multiple tests with controlled variables and a totally obsessive pursuit of perfection: it warms my compulsive little heart.

But, in real life, I don't cook like that at all. For someone so in love with perfect scientific recipes, I really play fast and loose with them. How hypocritical.

Click here for the recipe I used, sortof. (You have to be subscribed in order to use Cook's Illustrated's website, and I happened to have one issue with this recipe in it. Fortunately, other people have typed it up for me.)

I had bought a pint of peaches at the farmer's market, but they went bad in about 3 days, and I was vexed. I salvaged what I could of them, leaving me with about 2 cups, if we're lucky, of peach mush. That's not at all the 2 1/2 pounds of firm but ripe peaches that the recipe calls for, so I halved the rest of the recipe (again, more or less.)

I used more than the proper proportionate amount of lemon juice, and didn't drain the peaches at all, just added extra cornstarch. I also didn't have plain yogurt, so I used sour cream. In addition, I ate about a quarter of the dough before I baked it (it was delicious).

We ate it with ice cream and watched the Up Series documentary. Lovely!

Image from here.

Jess's Sour Cherry Pie

Today I'm at work munching down the last of Jess's delicious sour cherry pie. I'd actually never heard of sour cherries. I love cherries and can eat them exclusively for days, but sour sounded less than ideal. But I was obviously missing out my entire life, because this was great! I had to take a picture before it all disappeared, so sorry about the camera-phone quality and the unattractive desk background.

I can only assume that she used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, as we love Smitten in our house, and click on all the links to look at pictures of her uncommonly adorable baby, and make one of her recipes at least once a week.

Cannelle et Vanille + Escape from the Meringue Crevasse

I'm entering the world of google reader so I have a place to keep straight all the blogs that I sometimes read. When I get organized, I'll clean up my blog links here so that I only include those that I really read a lot.

I wanted to pitch this lovely food blog, Cannelle et Vanille, which has some of the prettiest food photography I've seen. It got me wanting to figure out how to set up a light box myself.

And then I remembered another food blog, Omnomicon, which is both funny and has beautiful pictures, and the post I read a long time ago about how to take nice food pictures. It has some really helpful advice about light balances and f-stops and so on that I attempted to employ when I made some little mountain climbers to climb into the crevasse in the lemon meringue pie that my roommate made.

Isn't it awesome? I spent a lot of time taking pictures of it, so perhaps I can dig the better ones out soon.

Pic Unrelated

1. My friends from home send me lots of pictures from the internet and youtube videos of dumb stuff, but never cute puppies.
2. Today I made cilantro pesto pasta. Its merits are: uses up cilantro about to go bad in the fridge, some protein, alarming green color, somewhat sinus-clearing, good use for Magic Bullet.
3. I also cleaned my bathroom.
4. I also spent 3 hours in class, 1 hour meeting with a professor, and 3 hours annotating gaze.
5. I only had 2 1/2 hours of sleep last night.
6. I'm tormented by the dim memory of a song I heard last night in the coffee shop and had stuck in my head for hours, and now it is totally gone.

Baking vs. Paper-Writing

Now that a warmer breeze is blowing, I have emerged from my cold-weather-induced panicked state (huddling in the library, endlessly whining, chapped lips, etc) and am ready for fall. I want to make apple cider doughnuts & whoopie pies so bad. I saw the recipes on Katy Elliot's blog. She made whoopie pies with her grandma & great-aunt in Maine, and other than how adorable is that, check out the Awesome Moxie Product Placement. I think Moxie (a Maine coke) tastes gross but apparantly that is because I'm from "away." (I also call it "coke" because I really am from the south). But there's nothing like fall to make everyone wish they were from New England. Sadly, instead of baking, I am probably going to just write papers & presentations & read & read & read. Reading blogs really drives me insane, especially when they say stuff like, today I made x creative, cute thing & now I am going back to bed.

Last night I made bulgur & pomegranate salad. The best thing Zeb could say about it was it was "interesting" but I actually really like it. What can I say, I like fiber. Anyway, I found it on 101 Cookbooks, perhaps my favorite cooking blog. The recipes are not terribly hard, most of them are easy to make substitutions in, and they are healthy and almost always vegetarian.