Two Books and a Problem with My Mouth.

I'm reading two books with food themes at the moment. It wasn't intentional. I keep a small book in my Baggallini because I spend time waiting for people to pick me up and my Baggallini isn't big enough for most books. I have another book by the chair in library or the chair in the living room or the bed depending on where I was reading last.
The current book on the go is one of the Persephone books. I really like the idea of reprinted books that would other wise disappear and they always do such a beautiful cover liner with a matching book mark. I'm reading Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekell. She wrote these little essays for the Times. It's apparent that she isn't really doing the cooking. In the first essay she begins the recipe with instruction to 'your cook'. The recipes are written as paragraphs and the time the lamb should be cooked begins at 4 and goes until dinner time.
Dinner time?
The current book by the chair is Maman's Homesick Pie, which is a memoir by the Donia Bijan who also wrote The Last Days of Cafe Leila. I just finished the latter. I grabbed it on a whim when I was in Bellingham and wasn't expecting much. I was so wrong. The writing is strong, direct and evocative. Food drives the narrative in both books and in the memoir there are recipes. The first recipe is for tea and includes warming the pot and warming the cup. It's a very tender account of her parents exile from Iran and her own love of the smells and flavors of Persian food.
I am more engaged by the second book. The writing in the first one is almost impossible to follow. It's old old old style. I find it amusing but I'm never anxious to pick it up.
I often find food writing tedious. Too many adjectives. Nothing is revealed.

I haven't written on this blog for three years. The original idea for the blog was to reveal the way I think about food and cooking, maybe blow away some assumptions about how fat people think about food. Or not. Maybe just develop my thinking about something that preoccupies me.
Food in the books by Bijan often begin with smell. My nest smells like peaches and bacon at the moment. Peaches because the last ones from the market took four days to ripen enough to try and a week to have any flavor. Now they are redolent and compete admirably with the smokey salty smell of the bacon I cooked for breakfast. I know there will not be any more peaches all too soon. Although they started late so they may keep coming for awhile. Peaches define my summer.

This summer has been odd. There's a problem with my mouth.
We have great lettuce in the Hood. It's only available for a few months. It comes from Zion Farms. I've been known to eat it with no dressing.  Not this year. I do OK in the morning with my yogurt, honey, peaches and berries. But in the afternoon I'm hungry and nauseated at the same time. I've had to send bags of rotten salad fixings to Mandy's pig. I just don't get it together. If I do get it together I can barely finish. The food feels bad in my mouth. This bad feeling doesn't seem to happen if someone else cooks. At least not as much.
I had hoped that the trip to SF might call me back to food and it sort of did. Yesterday I made this big plate of beauty and enjoyed it.   

                    

I don't know what's wrong with my mouth. Maybe just more grief stuff. 

Maybe the books and the trip are calling me back to cooking and eating. It feels like it's taking an act of will. I want to write more. Not necessarily about food. Just write. And I want to cook more. 

These are the things I love so it shouldn't be this hard. 

The BLAT

Awhile ago (actually months ago) I realized I had everything I needed to make a BLAT. I had precooked some bacon. I had really good Pine Street multi-grain bread, Zion Farms lettuce, garden grown tomato, mayo and an avocado. I took the picture and saved it all this time. I had thought I might write about how classic things are classic for a reason. And/or you see BLTs everywhere but you're more likely to see a BLAT in the west where the avocado rules.

A BLAT is fat on fat on fat and it's so good. But I've been worried about eating fats because ... of the bleeping gall stone. So lately when I've seen the picture buried in my photos I've felt like I should just delete it. 

For so long now I've fooled around with what I eat when trying to manage what I've called my stomach aches. I have believed it was about sugar. If I ate enough protein I could eat an amount of sugar. Never too much but some. I knew fats were in the mix but I just wasn't sure how. Since the bleepin gall stone showed up I've been eating like someone with an eating disorder. I've been so hyper vigilant and careful. I'd eat the same thing two days in a row and one day I'd feel fine and the next I'd get sick. I'd get frustrated and eat something I felt sure would make me sick and be fine. I'd eat really carefully and feel like crap. I'm not sure I have a clue what works anymore. 

And, after tomorrow,  I imagine it will change again.

But that BLAT was good. 

It is a classic. 

And I hope to eat another some day.   

Lemon Cucs

Jane found lemon cucumbers, which makes me so happy. They don't taste like lemons. They taste like cucumbers. They're just so dang cute. This is one of my favorite salads in which everything is local except the cheese and the olives. It would have been served by olive oil and balsamic but when produce is this fresh I love the flavors. And half way trough I thought I could have sliced in some shallot, or red onion. Next time. 

Although I love my aqua farm the herbs aren't growing big enough to add. I have wee tiny basil but I thought I'd give it a bit longer to grow. 

Beans

I've never been sure what to do with this blog. I post pictures on Facebook of stuff that I'm eating. Maybe I should post them here first.
Just before I left SF I found The Better Bean Company. I am particularly fond of their black beans. I noticed they were made in Oregon but when I got here I couldn't find them. Last week (or the week before) I went to The Farm Stand  for the first time and there were my black beans. I made this salad with chopped garlic, yellow bell pepper, celery, shallot (might have used red onion if I'd had one), corn and tomato. Squeezed the juice of a lime into it. The beans come well seasoned  but I love cumin so I added a bit more.The greens are from Zion Farms, which does not seem to have a web page but I love them.

Pleased

I read a short essay about Andre Soltner in The New Yorker (Sadly, you have to subscribe to read it on line.)  in which he is quoted: The molecular cuisine has some good things about it but I--I count my my cooking by the looks of satisfaction on the faces of the people who have eaten my food. 
Yes. Indeed.
I think a lot of the Adria stuff is interesting although foam always looks unpleasant to me. Interesting but not what I want for a meal. It might be a fun meal. And I think fun is a good thing. But I've seen too many chefs messing with food in an attempt to seem hip. Somewhere there's a chef "building" a salad of micro greens with tweezers. I've watched chefs pick at food trying to make it look better. It's good to make food look beautiful but it's best to make it pleasing. I don't think you should remember the chef. I think you should remember the food. Restaurant work is all about pleasing people. It's not always possible but you should be trying. I too often feel like chefs are so busy making a name for themselves that they forget they're feeding people.
Still not cooking much. But Mimi brought me some ham and cheese croissants from my favorite croissant place. The next morning I made one of my favorite breakfasts. Poached eggs on top of the heated ham and cheese croissant. Honey tangerine. Coffee. Pleased.

About That Asparagus

Debbie did bring me asparagus from the market. And I did eat it in curry. And it was crazy good.

My presentation could have been a little better but the smell of curry was overwhelming and I needed to eat. 

For no obvious reason I've been remembering a dish I cooked for brunch at a restaurant in NYC. It was latkes with eggs any style and pork loin. I don't remember if there was an apple-something or sour cream on the plate although that would have made sense. I do remember wondering if the person who created the plate was being funny or ignorant. Either way I got a craving for latkes.    

Conveniently Debbie got me spring onions. I intended to get pork loin but they didn't have any and I saw a small steak prepackaged. I cooked the latkes in the afternoon. I cooked a bunch. Not the best plan because they are one of those things that are best right out of the pan. But I thought I might like some for breakfast and I never feel like cooking that early in the morning unless there is someone else around.   

I like the outside to be crunchy and the inside to be like mashed potatoes. 

Debbie also got some chard. So that was dinner. I cut the steak in half. And I had Cowgirl Creamery Creme Fraiche. The next morning I had half of the half a steak, scrambled eggs, latkes and grapfruit. And I had a version of the dinner the next day with the remaining quarter steak.  

Here's a flavor tip to never try. As I was making breakfast I passed my pomegranate juice over the eggs, which were still sitting in a bowl waiting to be cooked. It wasn't a lot but it was enough to make me wonder if I should toss them and start over. I hate wasting food so I cooked them and they were OK. But it was not  a thing I would repeat. 

The market is just starting up and I'm already having too much fun. 

Processed

Someone at EA asked me if I ate a lot of processed food and I said yes. Later I realized we meant two different things. At the time I was always exhausted from the commute and the job. I got a lot of food from Whole Foods deli and carried it to work. It was food made by someone other than myself. Processed is more often used to describe food made in factories and frozen or canned or shipped to a chain location where it is served. I don't really eat that kind of food. I remember at the time saying something about the deli but she had already confirmed her opinion that I was fat because of the bad food I ate. I remember her seeing a container of mixed fresh fruit on my desk and looking confused. Ah well. 

I thought about it the other day since I'm only beginning to come out of my post Mom soup-a-pal-ooza. I've been eating lots of delivery and sandwiches and yogurt and popcorn. 

The Bay Area has so many local purveyors of great prepared food. The other day I noticed that Aidells has started making meatballs. I grabbed a package without looking too closely and got the Teriyaki, which I ate with rice. I had also purchased some Pasta Shop tomato sauce thinking they were a more traditional Italian and I had some dried pasta from a Christmas food basket Kristina had sent. So I got the Italian version and tossed all of that together and added a bunch of arugula and had enough for a few days. Technically all processed food but also local and of a pretty great quality. 

In my perfect world I'd make jars of tomato sauce every year with tomatoes, onions and herbs that I'd grown in my garden. I'd make my own hand rolled pasta. I have done and it's not that hard. And of course my own meatballs. But I don't live in that world. 

There's a local company that makes fantastic tamales. Also good when I don't want to cook. And I use their chips to eat hummus. Processed food. 

When I was younger and had the strength and stamina to cook all day at a restaurant I often resorted to eating other people's pre-cooked food. I've never really lived the completely home made life of my dreams. It's not always a bad thing. 

I am snapping out of my can-not-cook doldrums. Debbie says there's great asparagus at the market and she may bring me some. I'm already thinking curry.