Friday morning, a “wintry mix” of rain and snow hit the Seattle area. As the day wore on, it turned into all snow. Luckily, there was no accumulation and the rain resumed in the afternoon. This morning the snow returned and briefly accumulated over the Doug Fir needles on the upper deck. Again, the white stuff stopped falling in the afternoon. As I’ve mentioned before, snowfalls send folks hereabouts into a tizzy. My mother and sister back in the Snow Belt got a kick out of the fact that we got snow before they did.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/11/05/first-snow/
Nov 05
The Falling…Needles
One disadvantage of living in the Evergreen State is the damn evergreen needles. The slightest wind sends a fine flurry of them to the ground. A stiff wind sends a blizzard of needles. The needles get tracked into the house and ground into the carpet, and are a bear to remove. In theory, the only conifer that loses all its needles in the fall is the larch, native to the Cascade Mountains and a punch line in several Monty Python skits. In practice, the other species can give the larch some competition. We have a big honking Douglas fir just off the decks of Casa Sammamish. This is what the upper deck looked like yesterday. Even more came down in the last day.
Julian’s comment was, “At least we don’t live in Arizona, the Nevergreen State.”
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/11/05/the-falling-needles/
Oct 29
Another Beverage Boondoggle Bites the Dust
Apparently the Teamosa (see prior post, Yet Another Beverage Boondoggle) has met the fate of the Juicero. Who put up the capital for this product? Obviously nobody who drinks tea.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/29/another-beverage-boondoggle-bites-the-dust/
Oct 28
Paella Para Dos
Although paella is a party recipe at heart, we have made it for just the two of us. Sometimes it’s just chicken and sausage, other times it’s seafood.
Today we were on our usual caffeine run downtown when the question of dinner came up, as it always does. Julian suggested paella, so I did a quick search on the phone for a recipe. I came up with this one from Food and Wine magazine. Since we needed other groceries, we did our shopping run after we left the coffee shop. Cockles are hard to find, so I just used more clams and mussels. The recipe was pretty straightforward, although the ratio of rice to seafood was lower than what we’re used to. It’s a keeper.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/28/paella-para-dos/
Oct 22
Smoke Screens
What if the constant Twitter wars and kerfuffles are strategic smoke screens to hide what’s really going on in the current administration? Alternately, are policy pronouncements timed to when attention is focused on other headlines (e.g., hurricanes and wildfires)? Diversionary tactics are common in military actions and in dictatorships. Administrations past and present have released unpopular regulations and decrees on Friday evenings after the East Coast broadcast television news deadlines. Even in the current 24-hour news cycle, these announcements tend to evade detection.
The most current example of the smoke screen strategy occurred this month, and was reported in yesterday’s Washington Post. On October 2, when attention was focused on the (non-)response to Hurricane-Maria-ravaged Puerto Rico, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos rescinded 72 guidance documents pertaining to the rights of students with disabilities to access education. The official line was that these documents were rescinded “due to being outdated, unnecessary, or ineffective.” For whom, pray tell? Many of these guidances were to help parents navigate the current laws on getting free public education for children with special needs.
Many of you know that this topic is personal for me. My brother was born with spina bifida and had to be bussed to a neighboring town for junior high and high school because my hometown school at those grade levels was inaccessible to a wheelchair. He was bullied at the junior high school, and his desire to do anything in school dissipated thereafter. More recently, my honorary niece has developmental delays due to prenatal lead exposure. Her mother has had to sue the school board on a yearly basis to make sure her daughter receives a high-quality, appropriate education. What about the parents who aren’t as legal-savvy as my friend and need to know how to advocate for their children? Are their children doomed to a lower-quality education that won’t meet their unique needs?
Perhaps instead of seeing the smoke, we should find the fires that are coming out of the administration that have a direct effect on the public, especially the most vulnerable among us.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/22/smoke-screens/
Oct 21
Garden Postmortem
The Italian basil is history. The shiso plants have gone to flower, as has the Thai basil. The padrón pepper plants are soldiering on, but it won’t be long before they need to meet the compost bin. The peppermint plant is thriving, but the spearmint plant is DOA. The survivors are all waterlogged with the rain we’ve had this week. All in all, it was a good year for my humble upper-deck garden. Now I get to daydream about what to include next year.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/21/garden-postmortem/
Oct 21
Oh, Pear
To me, fall hasn’t arrived until locally-grown pears reach grocery stores and fruit stands. Part of the former family orchard consisted of Bartlett pear trees. Two Bartlett trees grew in my grandfather’s front yard, and two Seckel pear trees grew near the old chicken coop on the farm. My grandmother used to can both varieties.
As is typical of any kid, I didn’t know what I had until I moved elsewhere. I bought some pears at the Dallas Farmers’ Market many years ago, thinking they’d be as good as what I’d get back home in New York. Big mistake. I bit into one and it was as if I’d bitten into vaguely pear-flavored pea gravel. BLEAH!!! I think pears benefit from being grown in places with real winters and more temperate summers.
Pears don’t ripen on the trees. Storage helps the starches break down into sugars. If you’re not going to eat pears right away, buy less ripe ones and let them ripen in the fridge – or on the counter if you’re in a hurry. A ripe pear is every bit as juicy as a perfect peach. Unfortunately, ripe pears are also as fragile as ripe peaches. If you take a ripe pear to lunch, it’s a good idea to protect it in your backpack or lunch bag by packing it in a plastic bag with some air in it to act as a shock absorber.
Bartletts are my go-to pears. They’re readily available and consistently good. I also like Boscs, as they have a slightly spicy taste. Comices are tricky, partly because they can have a gravelly texture similar to the pear I had in Dallas. The color of the pear isn’t critical. Red Bartletts taste the same as the yellow ones. For a treat, buy some Seckel or Forelle pears when you see them in the market. These are small in size, but have excellent flavor. They’re the right size to serve with a cheese plate. Asian pears are more like apples in texture. They’re good grated up in a marinade for Korean bul gogi or kalbi (barbecue beef or short ribs, respectively). They’re usually more expensive than domestic pear varieties, which is why some of the Korean recipes we’ve tried recommend using 1 pear and 1 apple as a substitute in the marinade.
If you’re suffering from apple fatigue at this time of year, consider the pear. There may be fewer varieties of pears in the stores, but I think they’re less of a gamble taste- and texture-wise than apples – as long as you’re not in Dallas.
An addendum: I was in the mood for comfort food the night after I wrote this. Julian made grilled cheese sandwiches with cheddar and (Bartlett) pear. It worked very well, although the cheddar wasn’t sharp enough for my liking. Word from the wise: Irish cheddar is wimpy. Go for New York or Canadian Black Diamond sharp or extra-sharp in grilled cheese.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/21/oh-pear/
Oct 20
More Utopia, Less Dystopia
I am no fan of the dystopian movies, television shows, or books foisted on the public these days. As I said earlier, the real world is dystopian enough.
Last week Julian cajoled me into going to Blade Runner 2049. The original Blade Runner was one of his favorite films. I fell asleep during it. I got a copy of the book on which Blade Runner was based, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, when it was the Cornell Freshman Common Read a few years ago. I haven’t opened it. Since he still couldn’t drive after dark after his cataract surgery, I acquiesced. We met for dinner at a Thai restaurant in our old neighborhood before driving up to the Imax theater.
Our review: We both thought it was a poor film. The sound was dialed up to 11, so both of us spent half the movie plugging our ears. The violence was gratuitous, and there wasn’t much plot between the slashing. (So how come most of the killing in this movie involved knives? It’s set in 2049, you’d think they’d have lots of nifty ray guns.) Finally, the overt product placements got pretty old after 2 1/2 hours. I’m supposed to run out and buy a Peugeot or a limited-edition bottle of scotch because of this film? Not likely.
Dystopia may be all the rage these days, but I’d prefer a little more utopia.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/20/more-utopia-less-dystopia/
Oct 17
Holy Mole
Chicken mole (pronounced mo-lay) is one of our standard weeknight meals. It’s reasonably quick, courtesy of the jarred mole concentrate you can find on the Mexican aisle of well-stocked grocery stores. And it’s quite tasty.
In Mexico, moles come in a variety of colors. In the US, the standard mole found in restaurants is mole negro. The predominant ingredients are roasted dried chiles, nuts, and chocolate. You can occasionally find jarred green mole concentrate if you’re in Texas or a Mexican grocery.
Mole concentrate.
There’s a reason these jars of mole concentrate are so popular: Making mole from scratch is time-consuming and requires ingredients that you may have to hunt all over town for. Shortly before we moved to Seattle, Julian had the idea to make mole sauce for our leftover Thanksgiving turkey. The first step in a mole recipe is toasting dried chiles in a hot dry skillet. The aerosolized capsaicin nearly drove us out of the house. (After this adventure, any chile-toasting takes place outdoors on the grill.) Once all of the toasting, blending, and frying were done, we concluded that our results weren’t any better than diluting the jarred concentrate with some chicken broth.
While moles are available throughout Mexico, the epicenter of moles is the state of Oaxaca. Seven different moles are found here, according to Diana Kennedy: Negro (black); colorado (red); amarillo (yellow); verde (green); coloradito (little colored); chichlo (also black); and mancha manteles (translated as tablecloth stainer, deep red). Should you want to try your hand at making your own, Kennedy’s The Art of Mexican Cooking contains several recipes. Be forewarned that often the authentic chiles used in Oaxaca aren’t readily available on this side of the border. However, making mole is an interesting project. Just don’t toast the chiles indoors unless you have a real exhaust fan over your range.
Diana Kennedy is La Señora Grande de cocina Mexicana. I don’t think she’d approve of the jarred mole concentrate.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/17/holy-mole/
Oct 14
Roast Those Veggies
Now that fall’s here, many of our dinner vegetables get roasted in the oven. Roasting is easy, and allows you to work on the other parts of the menu without worry. The results are caramelized goodness.
This is how we do it. Preheat the oven to 400°. Peel as needed and cut up the vegetables into uniform pieces. Put the vegetables into a sheet pan and drizzle with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt to taste. Other spices can be used. Our go-to seasoning is the salt-free Tuscan Sunset from Penzey’s. Roast the veggies in the oven for 20 or so minutes until browned and tender. Shake or stir the vegetables at least once to encourage even browning.
What do we roast? Asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts are often roasted. One of our favorite combinations is referred to as snips and rots, or parsnips and carrots. If you’ve never had parsnips, roasting is a perfect way to introduce them into your repertoire. If you roast more than one vegetable, make sure the combination has similar density. Last night I roasted leeks, celery, and a few of my padron peppers. After roasting, I tossed in some sliced kalamata olives. I served these alongside pasta with mushroom sauce.
When summer comes, we use the grill for roasting veggies when we’re grilling salmon or other protein. In this case, we use a perforated grill pan so the veggies don’t fall into the fire. It keeps the kitchen cool, and produces a similar effect as oven-roasting. Give it a try next time you grill burgers or brats.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/10/14/roast-those-veggies/
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