Thankful for the Wisdom of Others

There's something infinitely soothing about knowing you're about to spend the whole day cooking. Well, infinitely soothing for those of us who really love to cook anyway. I know that I, for one, am looking forward to the act of preparing for the big Thanksgiving feast - even though I'm not the one who will be roasting the turkey, making the stuffing or the mashed potatoes nor many of the other wonderful, traditional dishes that grace Thanksgiving tables every year. But that's okay.

As much as I love being the one in charge (heck, I'd cook the whole thing and have all my friends over for it if I could, but I guess that wouldn't be proper, eh?), it's also liberating to not be the one calling the shots. Instead, I can focus on the few dishes I am in charge of - this year, it's the ubiquitous green bean casserole (only a homemade version this time) and a delicious-looking take on Brussels sprouts from Nicole Stich, the author of the beautiful blog (and now book!), Delicious Days. Later on, I'll make my own versions of the stuffing and cranberry sauce, turkey and other trimmings that I didn't make for this first meal. Who says you can only eat Thanksgiving foods on Thanksgiving? Why not enjoy them other times? They're still seasonal in December! Most of them would be fabulous by themselves, alongside roasted chicken or fish (miso green beans anyone?) and would even make perfect winter meals for tucking in with a bottle of wine and good friends (or even a good book).

Besides, I love stuffing and cranberry sauce - it seems a shame to only enjoy them once a year, and yet that's the only time I make or have them. For the stuffing, I want to try this recipe. And the cranberry sauce? I'm thinking of incorporating a few local ingredients - like ginger and lilikoi (passionfruit). Besides, many of the bloggers I love will be posting what they've made for Thanksgiving on or after the big day (at least if they are "slackers" like me) - why not try and enjoy them now? I'll have the freedom of playing around with cranberry sauce, stuffing and all the other classic dishes to my heart's content - and they don't even all have to go together! Plus, then I get all the leftovers I want, which everyone knows is the best part.

But something happened this year while I was out fighting the masses at the grocery store, buying all of the ingredients I needed. Something that really made me think about Thanksgiving itself. I had picked up one of those tin, disposable pie plates for LB. LB always makes his mother's apple pie for Thanksgiving - it's become one of our own traditions for the holiday, and he does a great job at it. But we only own one pie plate and there will be 12 or more people at the feast this afternoon, so he wanted to make two. The pie plates were in my small basket, along with a myriad of other things I had forgotten or couldn't find my first trip to the store (because, of course, this was my 3rd trip). As I was grabbing a plastic bag to place the collection of small, compact Brussels sprouts I had chosen in, an older woman reached out to pick one up at the same time. We both had our hands out, and she insisted that I go first - "youth before age," was how she put it. I thanked her and pulled my bag from the roll.

And then she said something that took me by surprise:

"Oh, you actually know how to make a pie! I'm so glad!"

I told her that yes, I do, and that I loved to cook. But also that the tins were actually for my husband, who was making an apple pie for the Thanksgiving table. She told me she thought too many young people didn't know how to cook anything from scratch anymore, and she was glad that some were still out there that did. That statement saddened me. Are there really so many people out there that don't know how that this elderly woman believes that young people will only go to the grocery store to buy a pie as opposed to buying the simple ingredients needed to actually make one? I guess so. I forget sometimes, in my world of food-love that not everyone avoids fast food restaurants or likes to cook from scratch...nor even believes that they have the time to do such a thing.

I didn't really learn to cook from my grandmother or my mother per se, as I've mostly taught myself over the last few years (and there have certainly been ups and downs) when I first had both the opportunity and the desire to learn. But they gave me advice along the way, shared their recipes with me, and more importantly, instilled an appreciation for simple food...crisp radishes and baby green onions in ice-water, canned pears and homemade jams and jellies, and the age-old family secrets for amazing fried okra. Even more than that, they helped me to not be afraid of the kitchen - as a child, I was enlisted to collect fresh eggs from our chickens, help snap peas from the garden, shuck corn, peel peaches and pears for canning, roll fresh egg noodles for stroganoff, and of course, prepare for the many Thanksgivings we had at both their houses over the years. They're the reason I yearn to go back to farm life in some ways - a big garden, fruit trees, fresh eggs - and they're the reason I want to learn to cook from scratch. Because that's the kind of food I grew up with and that's the kind of food I want to eat. It's also the kind of food I want my kids to eat too - when or if I have them.

Standing there in the grocery store, I suddenly wanted to ask the woman to share all of her wisdom with me - did she have any recipes that she loved? Any kitchen tips or home remedies she swore by? What did she love to make from scratch? What was she making for Thanksgiving and how many times had she made it before? Was there someone in her family who would be carrying it on for her when she could no longer? Not wishing to seem like some nosy grocery store freak, I wished her a happy Thanksgiving and hoped silently that she did. And I said a quiet thank you for the people in my life that have passed things along to me.

Many of us cannot be home with the rest of our family for this holiday, but we can carry our family with us and the traditions we have made with them to our tables no matter the far corners of the globe where we are today. Even if we're not making the same dishes that aunt Dottie or Grandpa Joe made when we were children, and we're now making our own traditions, we carry their stories and the memories with us no matter where we are today. I have been fortunate in that my grandmother gave me many of her own and her mother's recipes, and my mother now loves to cook as much as I do - but I'm also learning from the wisdom of friends and friend's families - people who are willing to impart a bit of their history, their recipes, and their experience with a novice cook such as myself. And then there are you, dear bloggers, who share so much of your thoughts, recipes and yourselves on the internet with me and with so many others. I hope this dissemination of information never ceases - may we all someday know how to make a pie from scratch and learn something from someone we love so that we can carry on for them.

I hope you all have a wonderfully delicious Thanksgiving, no matter where you are.

A Tribute to Sher

I was deeply saddened to learn a few days ago about the sudden and unexpected passing of a fellow food blogger, Sher, who was the author of the food blog, What did you Eat? Sher's circle of friends in the food blog community - her online family - spread the sad news with moving stories of her life, the friendships she formed, and the ways in which she had impacted their lives. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know her as I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of stumbling across her blog, but many of the food bloggers I visit regularly - my own food blogging family - did.

Sher was one of the fabulous Bread Baking Babes, and as a tribute to her they are making one of her recipes and posting it today.  Sher was an active member of the food-blogging community, contributed to BlogHer, and was involved in the long-standing and on-going Weekend Herb Blogging at Kalyn's Kitchen. Today, these bloggers and many others in the food blog community – all across the world - are celebrating her life and giving tribute to her by making and posting her recipes.  She will live on in the hearts and kitchens of all of her friends.

As my tribute to Sher, and the people who knew and loved her, I chose her recipe for Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs and Sun-dried Tomatoes. You can find her post about it and her recipe here. I chose this recipe because she was a self-professed meatball fanatic and her blog is full of delicious-looking recipes for them. And I chose it because I’ve never made them before. Sure, I’ve thrown a chunk or two of Italian sausage in some tomato sauce before, but her meatballs are the kind of soft, melt-in-your-mouth meatballs that come from a careful hand and a lot of love. They were delicious. I didn't have spaghetti, so instead of serving them with crusty bread, as Sher recommended, I put them on the crusty bread instead and had meatball sandwiches. We'll definitely be making them again. And every time I do, I'll think of Sher.

And this is what food blogs are about – sharing wisdom we've garnered and passing on recipes (and sometimes tidbits of ourselves), but more than anything else, it's about connecting with others and sharing a part of our lives that we're passionate about. Food is something that connects everyone in the world, regardless of location, age, job, lifestyle, political views or religion, and it has for hundreds of years.  Anyone who has blogged in this community knows that it is full of incredibly supportive and amazing people. By leaving comments and visiting other's blogs, by reading the posts that others write - the ones we all put our minds and our hearts into - you can't help but begin to know someone, even if you never learn their real names. And one day, you find you've somehow touched the lives of others and that they have touched yours - by encouragement, wisdom, laughter and sometimes just saying hello when you need it the most.

It's truly an incredible thing - the mere thought of the difference that Sher made to so many people, without having ever met them in person. I hope the posts today, which will be linked to the moving tribute by Sher's closest online friend, Glenna, and so that her family can find and read them, will help them to know just how much she was cared about. While she may have made her home in Davis, she touched the world through her blog.

Nostalgia: A Toast to Friendship

The experiences we have in life are so transient, here one moment and gone the next. When I started graduate school, I had no thoughts about what it would be like to leave Eugene or the life I had formed there. I left California having just gotten out of a nasty relationship, and I was ready to start fresh. I was interested only interested in getting there, in getting started, and in earning my degree. Yet six years flew by me in a flash. In that time, I became a completely different person; I got married, I got my degree, and before I knew it, I was already leaving to begin the next chapter of my life. And I was excited to go - I was full of expectations and ready to take on the world, to determine if I was on the right path and to see where it would take me.

You see, when the time to leave comes, when you've packed up your life and you've had that one last meal or drink with the people you love there - the surrogate little family you have created for yourself - you feel ready to go; you're off to begin that new chapter and the new adventures that await you in your new home. Months later, when the unpacking is finished and the jobs are settled, when the KitchenAid mixer has its new spot on your new kitchen counter and your bowls and your coffee mugs have their new places in new cabinets, when your books are put up on the new bookshelves and the various trinkets and memories that you brought with you have been settled into their new positions to remind you of the "home" you left behind, only then does it finally hit you. Only then do you suddenly realize that when you move somewhere, away from the place you have been living for a year, two years, six years, twenty, thirty - however long it has been - that you can pack up your furniture, and you can move your books, and you can pack up your clothes and your kitchen gear, but you can't move your whole life. There are some things, even things that took years (or a lifetime) to build, that must be left behind.

Friendships are the hardest of these things. In the beginning, it takes a fair amount of vulnerability to let someone else, someone you hardly know, in. Once you've passed that hurdle and become comfortable with another person, friendships - like good bread - must be kneaded and nurtured, and the good ones (the ones that last) require a measure of understanding that can only come with time and experiences shared together (sometimes that even includes perspective and understanding about yourself that even you don't have).

While true friends will still play a big role in your life despite the miles that separate you, their lives must go on, just as yours must. And while it's one thing to pack up and leave a house or a town, it's another to truly understand that the daily lives of the people that you left there will still go on...but you won't be a part of them any longer. That means that there will be no more Friday nights drinking wine at the Jiffy Mart people-watching with the *regulars,* no more Saturday nights while somebody's husband is nice enough to watch the kids so that you can have a girl's night and share food together, no more talking over a bottle or two at Territorial and ranting about troubles at work or at home so that you can go back to both places and be nice, no more sneaking off from work to grab a cup of coffee or a meal to chitchat about your co-workers and your lives, and no more sweating together through an infinite number of different exercise classes - relying on friendship to force/help/guilt you into going.

I miss my friends. Sadly, I think I miss Tweety so much because that darn little bird was the closest thing I had to a friend here.

I find that I'm half afraid to open the last remaining bottle of Eugene Wine Cellars wine that we brought here with us from Oregon - a 2005 Bellevue Cross Pinot Noir. I'm afraid the taste will transport me back to the nights I spent at the winery, and the friendships created there. Because I know in just a few short month's time, the 2008 harvest will begin again, with a new crew; new friendships will be formed, someone will take over my job, and they will bottle the 2007 wines that I helped make...but I won't be there to taste them. One of my friends will begin graduate school in the Fall, and I won't be there to offer advice or an excuse to escape the lab on hard days, like she did for me. My lab desk and my lab bench have been taken over by new lab members, my shelves filled with new lab equipment, and my freezer boxes of samples emptied. My tight-knit group of girls continues to meet weekly at our old haunts and are discovering new places together. They are my sisters in many ways - the ones I formed when my real siblings were so far away. But the part I miss the most about all of my friends there? They knew me. They know me. And there is nothing else that brings that about except for shared time together.

While I plan on taking these nearest and dearest friends with me wherever I go, as I have done for other places and friends that I have had to "leave behind" on previous moves, it's still not easy. I do have to say that it is truly comforting to still have all of my favorite bloggers stopping by here on a regular basis, letting me know you're out there, being an almost daily part of my life here (thank you, thank you, thank you!) and letting me be a part of yours - some of you for nearly three years now. I know I will find new people here, fall in love with them and their personalities just as I did with the people who became my friends when I first moved to Eugene. But again, these things take time, and it is the wait that is difficult. I'm not even sure yet where to seek out new friends here - although, shhh - I'm already scoping the Internet for other foodies! Because if they love food as much as I do, then I'm sure to love them, right? Then I'll just have to convince them to give me a try too. Should it become necessary, I'm also not above stalking potential friends at the various places I do go - the farmer's market, the grocery store, the lab...if I see them picking up an organic avocado from Kimberly, if I spot a pint of Hamakua mushrooms in their cart, or catch them dipping their spoon in a jar of mango curd for lunch (well, I would do that!), then I might just say hello - all of these things say "potential friend material" to me!

But for now, I think I will open up that bottle of wine and make a toast to you, my dear friends - both old and new. To my old friends, I miss you. I hope that someday the gas prices go down and the plane tickets get cheaper and a fairly godmother comes along to grant us a way to sit with each other once more and reminisce about the old times, while sharing the adventures of our new, different lives (since for most of us that are still living on student salaries a fairy godmother would actually be required). But until then, may you always know that that regardless the miles of miles that separate us, we will never be far apart. To my blog friends, I'm so glad you're here with me still and that, uniquely through our blogs our relationships are able to continue on the same paths - regardless of where the world takes us. And to my new friends, whomever you may be - I can't wait to see what the future holds. Okole maluna!

Welcome to the Islands

Ginger, flowering in our front yard

Aloha! Well, we've arrived in our new home on the island of Oahu and are finally beginning to settle in. It's been nearly two weeks of continually running the various errands that are required when you move to a new place and have nothing but the two bags you checked and the two you carried with you on the airplane (and, thankfully, your two dogs...who were so enormous and heavy that they were required to be "air cargo" - making them the most expensive part of your move - and that, to your dismay, have already have caught Hawaiian fleas even though you treated them for Oregon fleas just 10 days ago as part of the quarantine requirements for your new home state - arg!).

We've figured out how to get to the grocery store and the beach (the two most important places of course), gotten ourselves a contingent of simple food to get us through the first few weeks, learned to make our way to the big city of Honolulu (about 25 minutes away, when there is no traffic), bought ourselves a car, opened new bank accounts (who knew there were no "mainland" banks on the Islands?), met our lovely neighbors and learned to pronounce the name of the street we live on and a few of the highways (for instance, the Likelike Highway is not pronounced "like - like," but "lee-kay-lee-kay," unless of course you want to be immediately identified as a haole ("how-lee"), the not so endearing term for one who lives here but is not from here. But then again, one shouldn't worry too much about mispronouncing something, if one has pasty-white Eugene, Oregon winter skin that going to give you away anyway!).

Over-all, the move went very smoothly and we are now in the process of trying to find some sort of a semi-normal routine. The dogs and all of the items we shipped arrived safely and unharmed (including my KitchenAid mixer and my computer - one reason why it took me two weeks to begin blogging again). LB began his job on Monday and he thinks he's really going to love it, and I've decided to take the month off and prepare for the freshman biology course I'll be teaching at a small private university here beginning in the middle of May (and indulge in the time off to get organized and blog and...whatever else my heart desires). The house is great and our landlord is great, and just to give you a teaser, this is where we can eat breakfast or dinner now (although don't be too jealous - wait until I tell you how much breakfast and dinner groceries cost!):

The Lanai

Ah yes, the groceries. My worst nightmare - groceries are ridiculously expensive. I knew they would be more expensive than Eugene, I just didn't know by how much. On our first trip to the Safeway chain store that is a few blocks away, we discovered that a dozen eggs cost nearly $7, milk was $4.99+ for a half-gallon (and that's with the "Safeway club card" savings), a jar of peanut butter was $8, and a small bottle of lotion was nearly $10...and that's not the foofy organic stuff we're used to eating, either (ha ha, not including the lotion). We have since run the gamut of grocery stores here and found a local, vegetarian, natural foods store called Down to Earth (and they even carry some organic and local produce and products!), which is fairly close and surprisingly, has far better prices than Safeway (and the sale prices are even better!). The farmer's markets (yes, I've already sought all of them out on the entire island) have pretty good prices and produce that is far more enticing than any of the grocery stores (most of them have very sad looking produce - poor lettuce, I want to cry for them too), and Costco is a lifesaver, where prices for 6 cans of beans in bulk nearly equals the sale price of 2 at any of the grocery stores (we signed up, and stocked up, this last weekend).

I called my mom and told her to "send lotion, send food!" and while LB was aghast when I unpacked the spices I had brought and the jar of Dagoba cocoa powder that I'd sneaked into the boxes, I'm certainly happy I have them now and don't have to pay to replace them (damn, why didn't I bring the bay leaves? And about 50 cans of beans??!)! It's definitely going to change the way I cook, because there will be no more looking for inspiration and going to get the groceries I want... something more along the lines of finding a sale and going forward from there: 3 day old bread loaf for $0.99? When a loaf of flimsy, sliced bread is normally $5.50? It's hard as a rock, but once the knives get here I could cut the crusts off...grab some free basil from the yard and tomatoes at the farmer's market for almost half-price? Panzanella! We'll just have to live without the parmesan on it until that goes on sale too. Maybe we could call it poor man's panzanella - panzanella missing all the ingredients that cost too much that week? ;)

Truly, it's beautiful here and there are many things to love (the beach is nice - and we're going snorkeling on Thursday). The weather has been rainy, actually - almost like home in Eugene. Especially this week, but apparently, we are on the rainy side of the island and it's a warm rain, which is a welcome respite from the chilly rain of Oregon (which is something I don't miss). I miss my friends, I miss the places I knew I would, but I know that this will begin to feel more and more like home as time goes on. Now, on to unpack those kitchen boxes...it's time to get cooking!

Moving.

My life is in boxes. My house has been slowly emptying, room-by-room, and box-by-box. My roommate (not LB, my other roommate!) has moved out most of his things. My parents came and went, taking with them all of the pictures and memories and fragile things that we could not take to Hawaii but couldn’t bear to part with. One of the couches is gone and the other is leaving in a day or so, leaving us with only the floor to sit on as the chairs have already been moved out. Even my plants have found new homes, all except for the one that I’ve had for over 10 years – the one I bought for my college dorm room – that one goes to my dear friend Kristin, for safekeeping. The woman who was going to buy our bed neglected to call this weekend and so, thankfully, we still have a mattress to sleep on until we leave - the extra fifty dollars suddenly taking a backseat to the comfort we seek in our sheets after long evenings of packing and separating, separating and packing...this to Hawaii, that to storage, this to donate, that to toss in the recycling bin or the garbage can...twenty-nine years of accumulation being pared down to only the most important of material things.

My kitchen is packed away, bundled in bubble wrap, coddled by tissue paper and Styrofoam, and taped up - ready to be shipped to Hawaii. Most of my bakeware, my pots and pans and kitchen gadgets, unless exorbantly expensive or very high quality, were given away or sold at our yard sale a week ago. The rest was stored with my parents or went into the 6 uniform cardboard boxes with the U-Haul logo printed on the outside in dark green ink. After our final round of packing tonight, LB will rent a mini-van and haul the boxes to Portland tomorrow to be shipped as freight, arriving a week after we get to the Island. Then, we’ll start the process of cleaning the house, hoping to retrieve as much of our rental deposit as possible, to put towards helping us afford this vastly expensive endeavor. Next weekend, we’ll rent another car (ours will be gone by then – it already belongs to someone else who has graciously offered to let us use it the rest of this week), we'll drive down to San Francisco, California, put our dogs on a plane as “cargo,” and hop on separate flights trekking halfway across the Pacific Ocean to Honolulu, Hawaii.

I hope it all goes well.

Moving is so hard. People keep telling me it is one of the most stressful things we humans go through. I don’t necessarily feel stressed out (more exhausted really), but I know that the increasing ease with which my tears come as I slowly say goodbye to friends that I won’t see again for an indeterminate amount of time is a sure sign that I’m feeling the impact of leaving and this chapter of my life coming to a close.

I know that this is an adventure; a unique experience that will be good for me and open up new opportunities that I never knew existed. It’s a chance to begin again and see what the world has to offer. And, though I haven't said it before on this blog, it’s my last attempt at a job in science – academia anyway. And if I find it isn’t what I want, that it doesn’t enrich my soul or make me excited like it once did, then I know that it will be time to move on to something else. Who knows, perhaps I will no longer be an “accidental” scientist or maybe not even a scientist at all...my forays could lead me to seek a job in the food world. Or, I could fall back in love with science – that complicated companion that has led me through so many ups and downs during graduate school, almost on the verge of quitting more than once. And yet, having given nearly 12 years of my life to it, is so difficult to let go of.

I imagine that I could love coral reefs and the scientific inquiries to be explored within them – that was what I originally set out to do in graduate school, after all. But that remains to be seen – my funding for the job I have there has yet to come through, meaning that the road is wide open and I will have to find a temporary job in the meantime (shhh...I’ve been looking at bakeries and restaurants). I will miss Eugene. I will sorely miss the people here and the community. And of course: the food. This is the town where I found my passion, my love of all things culinary. This is where I fell in love with Pinot Noir, with chanterelles and sweet black truffles, hazelnuts and oysters. This is where I really started cooking (I had only really dabbled before), it’s where I began trying new things in the kitchen and where I started up this little blog (nearly two and a half years ago!). The excitement I feel for a new beginning in Hawaii is tinged with bittersweet sadness. Still, my bags are packed, and the plane leaves in a little less than a week. There’s no turning back now, so I’m trying to face forward with an open mind and an open heart to what Hawaii has to offer.

I know that in a few weeks I’ll be sitting in my new kitchen, opening boxes instead of closing them. I know that my closest friends will be carried with me in my heart and are only a phone call away, and that I will meet new people and make new friends, and that comforts me. And I know you’ll be here, dropping by to say hello and offer support, to see what sort of new culinary adventures Hawaii holds for me – and I’m excited to be able to take you along as I explore my new home.

For those of you in this area, or interested in this area, I leave you in the very capable hands of Culinaria Eugenius – a new food blog here. Go and visit and read about her adventures in her kitchen; she’s sure to keep you entertained and coming back for more about Oregon’s culinary offerings. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I hope you’ll come with me too. The next time I post here will be from Kaneohe, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu – I’m not sure when it will be, but hopefully within a week or two...we’re hoping we have internet access at the house we’ll be renting (just imagine – weekend posts!!).

So, my friends, until then? I’ll see you in Hawaii...

On Gaining an Understanding of Connectivity, Pocketbooks and People

We don’t have a lot of extra money. Sure, we get by. LB and I have some savings now, finally, which is nice – because for a long time, we didn’t. We basically lived life paycheck to paycheck, and for the most part still do (for when you make more, you spend more...and it always seems that life throws some unexpected expenses your way, like broken down cars or moving to a very expensive island in five weeks!), and that’s with two jobs. Each.

Yet, I can still justify (to myself, mind you, as LB is a sweetheart and doesn’t say anything about it) buying a gourmet food item here and there or a nice bottle of wine when I come across one I like. I buy high-quality food for our meals, mostly organic, and I’ll pay more for local ingredients too, especially if the humble farmer is willing to deliver organic eggs to our doorstep or sells us incredibly delicious hormone-free free-range pork like the gorgeous entire tenderloin we got recently from him:

This means that nearly as large a portion of our budget goes to food as it does to rent (yikes!). We have been known to buy wine to compliment a meal we’ll be having (usually on the recommendation of a very competent wine guru whom I completely trust), have spent upwards of $25 on appetizers (which we enjoyed thoroughly and completely, by ourselves, and “just because”), and I’ll often impulsively buy ingredients (or wine) at food festivals simply because they are there and I just might never see them again. All of this for one day (or meal) to be shared eating, drinking, and laughing. And you know what?

It’s worth it.

Do we have the extra money? Sort-of. We do each have two jobs. So, you could say we treat ourselves occasionally. But then again, the car needs fixed, there’s the move looming soon (very soon – another yikes!) in the future, there’s debt to be paid off and retirement to start saving for...so should we be spending our extra money? No. Could we spend less or settle for less? Probably. Will we? No...not while we’re in Eugene, anyhow (Hawaii might be a different story). I’ve tried to reason why this might be... why we might be so willing to spend our limited funds on food? Food is transient – you eat it, it’s gone. Some of it is wasted (think of those vegetables sitting in the crisper...). Is it the taste of the food? Is it a fear of what goes into our bodies? Is it a desire to spend, spend, spend, consume, consume, consume? No, no, no...well, maybe a little yes on the question of taste and pesticide-laden foods, but for the most part: No. What is it then?

It’s the experience.

It’s the connection with each other and with other people. The connection shared with our friends and family at the table, over a glass of wine or some incredible cheese – elbows up, smiles and laughter all around. It’s the connection with the people that sold the food to us, with the land and the farmers that grew it - many we have met here and many we know share the same soil and the same practices and philosophies as we do - and the hands and hard work that created it. It’s the romantic notions of how an amazing meal should unfold - not necessarily how it’s “supposed” to be in the imagination of Martha Stewart or Miss Manners (ie. perfectly folded napkins, fine china, proper couture...), but the idea that when we have that wine again or that cheese or that chestnut stuffing some Thanksgiving down the road, it will recall the memory of all the connected experiences once more...that we might remember the encounter of buying the food or wine, the shared familiarity of eating it... and it's the belief that later, we might just gain a few extra moments of happiness from that day, even though it is in the past.

Human beings are blessed with memories – we are the only creatures that live in our past as much as our present. The memories of the people we have known, of history and of places we have been, of things that make our hearts sing and our mouths speechless – these are all a huge part of who we are and the stories we share with others. Take wine tasting, for example. The adventure of traveling to the hills of the Willamette Valley, the whole experience of sipping, of quiet afternoons spent talking (sometimes about the wine, most of the time not) and gazing out across the grape vines. And the way a bottle in the wine rack at home calls forth the memory of being there. You just can’t get that when you buy a box of wine at your local convenience store or similarly, from an out-of-season, perfectly round, cardboard tomato at the grocery store (not that I haven’t bought my own fair share of those, of course).

You see, I buy more when I connect with the people who are selling me the food or wine. It’s not because I’m tipsy and thus looser with my money (well, I keep telling myself that). It’s not because I’m rich and have the money to spend (I don't). It’s because I so enjoyed the experience of being there and of talking to a certain tasting room manager about the Library of Congress releasing the Years of Bounty exhibit that I ended up with that $25 bottle of 2004 Pinot Noir from High Pass Vineyards (and oh yes, I have ended up with far more expensive bottles of wine other times and at other places, each one unique not only in taste but in memories) that I won’t be going out for a movie the end of this month, or that my savings is more meager than might be thought respectable at almost 30 years of age. But do I care right now? No. Will I later? Perhaps. But the memories will be what I remember, and I would never trade those for more money.

When I think of the people and places that I will miss the most when leave here and move to Hawaii in 5 short weeks, I realize that for the most part they are all connected to food or wine. My closest friends and I have spent an incredible number nights sharing bottles of wine together, my winery friends are near and dear to my heart, and the places I will miss the most are the farmer's market, the restaurants, and the food stores where I have spent so much time over the last several years – getting to know the proprietors, the bartenders, the waitresses and the farmers. Not to mention the incredible local ingredients...hazelnuts, chanterelles, wild salmon, and so many more (and Pinot – oh God, they don’t make Pinot in Hawaii!). At least there will be new and wonderful people and things to explore, and I do find solace (and excitement) in that.

Ultimately, I think that food and wine are as much about people as they are about taste – people eating, drinking, talking, blogging, telling stories and connecting with each other. The people I share food with (or the experience of making it or buying it) are what make it all worthwhile. I think that’s why I fell in love with all things culinary, with blogging, and with my job at the winery. Because truly, when it comes down to it, Life is really all about the people we share it with.


This is a recipe for a roasted fresh ham (ie. a "ham," or pork leg roast, that has not been cured). The recipe is simple, easy and pretty enough to serve to company so that you can enjoy those precious moments (or hours) at the table with the people you adore. The pork leg roast came from Paul Atkinson, who owns and runs Laughing Stock Farm locally. The pigs were cared for with love and respect, and it shines through in the meat...it's the best pork you can find in Eugene, in my opinion, and we've been buying meat and fresh eggs from Paul (who graciously delivers everything to our doorstep) for over two years now. There's nothing like it, and I will most certainly miss it when we leave!

Roasted Fresh Ham with Onion Jus, serves 6
**amounts are approximate, so use your intuition too!

1 fresh pork leg roast (approx. 2-3 lbs)
1 tbsp. salt
several grinds of fresh pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp dry rubbed sage
2 tsp herbs de provence
2 cups dry white wine
1 cup water
1 large sweet onion, thickly sliced

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Rinse the pork and pat it dry (thoroughly dry) with paper towels. Carve diagonal lines into the fat cap on top of the pork roast approximately 1 inch apart - you can do this both directions to make a diamond pattern (like I did), but it's not necessary. Try not to carve into the meat! Place the sliced onions in the bottom of a roasting dish or pan. Mix the herbs, salt, pepper and olive oil in a small bowl to form a sort of wet paste, then rub the paste into the meat on all sides and place it in the roasting dish on top of the onions. Pour 1/2 cup of the wine and 1/2 cup of the water into the bottom of the dish.

Put the roasting dish in the oven and roast for 30 minutes at 425F. Turn the oven down to 350F, and roast for approximately 1.5 hours more (or until the internal temperature reaches about 155F), turning it around once and putting a sheet of foil over the top of the roast if it begins to burn (ours didn't). As the wine and water evaporate, add the rest of each to the bottom of the pan and baste the roast occasionally to keep it most.

Remove the roast to a plate and cover it with foil, letting it rest for about 20 minutes before slicing. Meanwhile, pour the juices and onions into a small saucepan and let it simmer gently until it reduces and begins to thicken - you can also blend a few of the onions into the sauce to make it thicker or add a bit of arrowroot or cornstarch in some stock if you want a heartier sauce. Enjoy!

Hands-on Cooking

Eyes may be considered the windows to the soul, but a person’s hands speak volumes about them. As much as our fingerprints are unique, our hands have their own stories to tell. A baby’s fingers are fat and new, having not yet experienced much of the world. And then there are the hands of a grandparent: darkened liver spots, wrinkly knuckles that maintain their shape long after the skin has been moved around, and the hard work they have done and wisdom they have gained is easily recognized in the flesh surrounding long fingers and bones that have withstood so many years gone by. I remember my grandmother’s finger had swollen up around her engagement ring, making permanent creases in the flesh that bespoke the 63 years that she and my grandfather celebrated of their marriage before she passed away. And as my other grandmother fights the Parkinson’s disease that is slowly changing both her mind and her body, her fingers grow thinner, scars record the falls she takes much more frequently, and she now must wear her wedding ring on her middle finger.


When I lived in Monterey, California for two years, I was an avid attendee of the year-round farmer’s market on Tuesdays. There was a man there, surely in his 70s, who put up a folding table every week and sold beautiful, earth-covered mushrooms. His hands were gnarled, his knuckles swollen and fingers shortened from years of digging through the dirt to pick the small crop of mushrooms he grew on the land, and noble trade, he had inherited from his family. After picking out the basket I wanted, he would load them into a small paper lunch sack, set the sack down, then grasp my small hands in his large ones, look into my eyes and say, “Thank you, miss.” I bought mushrooms every week, even if I still had a bag left over from the previous one (and not just because he called me “miss,” which I also loved).

It’s easy to see evidence of the hard, physical labor of the Crush on the hands of the Winemaker I work with. During the most intense period of the Crush, the grape juice stains on your hands can no longer be washed out, and the acidity of the juice begins to dry out and crack your skin. When I asked him about his hands once, he smiled and called them “alligator hands,” but to me, they looked like the hands of someone who works hard, loves what he does, and has spent so much time touching the grapes and the grape must, doing the physical labor of the work, and putting a bit of himself into making good wine that it had left deep stains on the creases of his hands. During my time there, my own fingers began to develop purple stains in some of the creases of the knuckles, and it gave me a deep sense of satisfaction and gratification– the kind that can only be gained through accomplishing hard work. In this part of the wine industry, there is even a “purple hand award” – an acknowledgment that you made it through that most grueling period of harvest and have become part of a far-ranging team that understands just how much physical labor, long hours and care goes into making a glass of wine.


LB once made a comment about how he wasn’t sure he wanted to buy food from someone that had stains on their hands. I disagreed and immediately brought him to the farmer’s market - to the booths where just that morning, farmers had been digging in the ground, pulling up the super-sweet carrots – small particles of dirt still clinging to the skin of both vegetable and farmer. Farmers selling raspberries had juice stains on their palms and evidence of the prickly stems of the berries etched into the backs of their tanned hands. Every hand told the story of both the farmer and the food they were selling. None of the fruits or vegetables had been touched by cold, mechanized steel; only hands, loving and caring enough to make providing sustenance to others a profession, had ever touched them. After that, LB changed his mind and now actively seeks out farmers with hands that have stories to tell.

(That's an Oregon black truffle in his hands...)

Our hands are also a big part of how we cook. Touching food brings a certain sense of intimacy with it, just as touching the hands of another human does. Lovers intertwine fingers as a forthright show of affection and a gentle brushing of hands or fingers, one could not quite be construed as a mistake, often portrays a budding interest. More than just the wielding of a knife or spoon, when you touch the food you’re preparing, you transfer some part of yourself and your intuition into the dish. I heard a quote recently about how food that is only touched by machines is “emotionally sterile,” and I have to agree.

Cooking is done as much by emotion and four other senses as it is by taste. Plunging your finger into the flesh of a rare steak will tell you as much about its texture as it does the flesh between your thumb and forefinger. Good bread requires an understanding of the dough and kneading slowly transforms it from lumpy and incongruent to smooth and elastic. Marinades don’t seep as deeply into food when simply sprinkled above it as they are when they are rubbed into all the nooks and crannies. A good avocado can only be identified by a gentle squeeze, recognizing the right amount of give in the tender flesh of the fruit (but never, ever squeeze a tomato!). And if you make something with love, I think it shows - even if it doesn't come out perfectly.

As I've said before, cooking is one way I show people that I care about them, appreciate them or want to make them happy, and I never cook a meal without touching some part of my food...of course there is the chopping of vegetables by hand, but also tossing dressings into the leaves of salads, rubbing butter or olive oil into the skin of a chicken that will be roasted to crispy perfection (unless you have issues like I do with roasted chicken), forming tender patties of homemade sausage, grabbing handfuls or pinches of salt for pasta water, or sprinkling spices over a dish. I like to think that the people that I cook for can taste the love and work I put into each dish, whether they are friends or family or house guests. But even if they can’t or don’t, when I wash my hands for the final time, I get that deep sense of satisfaction that I made something for them with my bare hands – from picking out the ingredients, to transforming them into something delicious (well, one hopes), and finally, presenting it to them. And I hope that intuitively, if not consciously, they can read the story my hands are telling them.

A Year of Possibilities

Hi all, I hope this finds you well-settled into the new year and cooking up a storm. After nearly a month of traveling, it feels good to finally be home and trying to get myself back into a normal routine. While this post is coming a bit late, as January 1st has already passed, I think the sentiment is still applicable, so I'm posting it now. I'll be posting more recipes and pictures soon.

***

What is it about January 1st that makes us feel like it's our one chance in the year to begin anew? That somehow this single day is our God-given blank slate, no matter the mistakes we’ve made or how far we've strayed from our goals the rest of the year? We make long lists of resolutions, start diets and exercise programs, and vow loudly to anyone within hearing range that we're finally going to become organized this year! Even before the day arrives, we’re frantically writing out Christmas cards, baking cookies, making and buying gifts, and hosting dinner parties in an effort to be that woman (or person) that is able to do it all and survives the journey to midnight on New Years Eve in our perfectly fitting little black dress - without gaining 40 pounds, making too many visits to our therapists, or smashing the Kitchenaid with our bare hands when our 80th batch of snickerdoodles burns in the height of our baking frenzy because we were trying to wrap presents at the same time.

And yet, it remains that for the vast majority of us, even if we do wake up on January 1st alive and with our sanity intact, those long lists of resolutions become lost in the stacks of papers piling up on our office desks. The diets we began meet a quick death with that first thoughtless spoonful of indulgence into a full-cream vat of crème brulee (or maybe after the last spoonful at the bottom of that vat). Our desire to exercise or go to the gym falls away under the pressure of the other things we’ve already obligated ourselves to do, and daily life takes over our neat piles of bills and pristinely organized drawers and cabinets. Because the truth is, we’re human. And sometimes being human is just plain hard. Sometimes it’s hard to be a good graduate student. A good friend. A good blogger. A good daughter. A good wife. Each of these roles, whether you’ve been doing it for 6 months or 60 years, comes with its own set of difficulties and the vast majority of us are attempting to fit ourselves into all of them at the same time.

So instead of making resolutions this year, perhaps we should consider it as a year of open-ended possibilities...perhaps we should remember that we are never going to be perfect people, we are only always going to simply be ourselves – faults and burnt cookies, dry chicken breasts and little pudgy spots on our bodies, funky ear lobes and sometimes broken promises. Instead of beating ourselves up for not fulfilling some resolution we had, we can begin anew. We can accept our faults, our mistakes, our pudgy spots, and our trials as they come and realize that every day is a blank slate – no matter what the date is.

And this year, we even get an extra day! It’s Leap Year and Those Who Decide Such Things decided that this year they’re giving us one more day in the year to do whatever it is we need to do – to cook, to relax, to remind someone we love them, to get more work done or take up a new hobby - and to start over, free of any guilt or disappointment in ourselves for anything that might have happened earlier on. That’s my resolution this year – just to remember. Remember that everything is okay – that if I screw up tomorrow on a talk I have to give, or my chocolate truffles tasted like dirty tube socks and I just happened to have given them away before I tasted them, or if I haven’t posted to my blog in a few weeks, or if don’t like some small part of my body, that it really doesn’t matter, I always have tomorrow. No one isn’t going to be my friend, or stop coming by my blog, or stop loving me, just because of that one little thing. Gulp...I hope! But that vulnerability is simultaneously refreshing, terrifying and full of freedom.

While goals are certainly healthy, and oh yes, I still have goals...plus a thousand things to do on my “to do” list, and ways I’d like to improve myself and my relationships, and on and on and on...but I know that if I don’t get to them today, or if I fumble them up today, or if I forget this positive line of thinking and start screaming at someone who doesn’t deserve it today, then tomorrow is a new beginning. And I can get to those things, or start over, or apologize tomorrow – and you know what? It might even turn out better tomorrow, or next time. I might have to start saving for that Kitchenaid again, but hey, that’s what Life, and being human, is all about, right?

I had resolved to have a picture and a recipe to accompany this post for you. But alas, I do not. So then I decided that it doesn’t matter if I always have a pretty picture to accompany my posts. After all, I’m not a perfect blogger, I’m just perfectly me. And should I come across here as Little Miss Positive – please note that I just had my first breakdown of 2008 a few days ago. And that those tears were such a release I felt like a new woman afterwards...one that could face the world. I’m certainly thinking of myself, just as much as I am thinking of you. So: I hope 2008 brings you heaps of happiness to revel in and mistakes from which to learn, cooking triumphs as well as disasters, fulfilled goals and ones to strive for in the future (but not beat yourself up about), new adventures and new friends, lots of love and laughter, and perhaps a smidgen more of acceptance of yourself (baby steps, people!). I don't know about you, but I can’t wait to see what this year of possibilities holds for each of us. Shall we begin again?

Home for the Holidays

Christmas just never feels like Christmas until I go home. The entire house is decorated and being surrounded by family is what Christmas is truly about. In my childhood, the tree came out the day after Thanksgiving and was filled with decorations that spanned as many years as I have been alive, and even before. My mother has always collected ornaments from her travels; something I have carried on in my own life and that has enriched my own small collection of Christmas tree trinkets. I remember cradling the tiny, brightly-colored silken animals from her trips to Mexico and the minature China dolls with their exquisitely painted faces hanging from the branches of the tree. Handmade ornaments from my stepbrother and I, only 6 months apart in age, chronicle our years in the same classes together. The doughy hand prints - my hands so small that my adult palm now covers the stretched out fingers of the print, scribblings of "i love you" on construction paper shaped like tops and circles complete with glitter and sequins, painted wooden cutouts, and strings of colored lights adorn the tree that stands like a sentinal over the carefully chosen gifts underneath the tree.

When I think of Christmas at home, there is always warmth and comfort in my heart. The time spent there is steeped heavily in tradition, from the day I come home on my stepdad's birthday (the 22nd), to the dinner we eat on Christmas eve (homemade chicken noodle and crab soup, served up at Grandpa's house) and Christmas Day (prime rib with creamy horseradish sauce), and the order we tromp down the stairs in our nightgowns (youngest to oldest) and bed-head hair-dos to start out Christmas morning, everything is choreographed from at least twenty-nine years of repetition.

There are also things that "have" to be done every year while I'm home - from the drive through Crestview to view the amazing Christmas lights (this little subdivision actually has a stipulation in their neighborhood contract that if you live in the neighborhood, you must decorate your house with Christmas lights!); the requisite wine tasting troup with the whole family loaded into the "hot tamale" suburban (the last suburban, passed on now to my stepbrother, was called the "green booger" believe it or not, and both get a Christmas wreath strapped to the front grill this time of year); and even the white elephant gift exchange with my cousins (where you actually got the chance to get ahold of your very own jar of great aunt Shirley's leftover 1950s talcum powder - boy did that get passed around as many times as were allowed before it settled on its new owner!)...all of them filled with with laughter (the kind that comes all the way up from your belly) and raucous good cheer.

Backyard Christmas moonrise, at home.

I have my own traditions now too - I like to spend at least one weekend in December baking, and this year was no exception. LB and I also like to get a second-hand puzzle and put it together while listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Alabama (another long-standing family tradition - all of my brothers and sisters know every word to the 1982 Alabama Christmas CD and are not the least bit embarrassed to belt it out at the top of our lungs ever Christmas) crone on in the background about white Christmases, candles in the window and halls decked out with boughs of greenery. This year, we didn't have much time for decorating, but we have watched a few Christmas movies, drank some spiked eggnog together, and sang "Thistlehair the Christmas Bear" on the long journey home.

Their have been adjustments in these traditions of course. We now tromp down the stairs and immediately grab big mugs of strong coffee to get us through Christmas morning (though, as always, no one is allowed to take a shower beforehand and we still have votes on whose bedhead beats out everyone else's). Dinners now go through several bottles of wine and all of us bring dishes along to share. Many of the ornaments that used to hang on the branches of the tree now stay in boxes because there are far too many for the space available on the tree. As new members have joined the family, they too have become part of our traditions, taking their place at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning and contributing new ideas to enrich the holiday spirit (my soon-to-be sister-in-law is extremely crafty and this year we all recieved Christmas CDs and all-natural bloody mary mix to imbibe on Christmas morning!).

While new traditions are both exciting and refreshing, the old ones are the ones that put my heart at ease and let me know that I am truly home, and to me, these traditions, shared with the people I love, are the true meaning of Christmas. While they will continue to change in the years to come as brothers and sisters, and even myself, will have in-laws to visit, houses will change, and distance may prevent some of us from making our way home, I will always hold on to the memories - and many of them will be carried on in my own house and to my children when I am no longer able to come home. And there will always be a candle in the window at my house, and at all of my siblings houses, just as my parents have always lit in our bedroom windows since we were children - beckoning us home for the holidays.

My wish for you this Christmas is to be able to enjoy your own traditions - or to make new ones that you'll carry on with you in the years to come. Enjoy your families and enjoy your friends -both new and old, traditional or otherwise. And remember what the holidays really mean to you - whether based in religion, in tradition, or something else entirely. Regardless of if Christmas is a holiday you celebrate or not, know that you have people in the world who care about you, no matter where you are and whatever your beliefs, and that are thinking of you, and loving you, this time of year. And have a wonderful, wonderful holiday season - for a new year, full of new adventure and the promise of possiblity, is just around the corner.

*****

These are some of the cookies that I baked this year for friends and family - one of the recipes that I liked the best (and LB raved about), and that I wanted to share with you. They are spicy and rich, bringing you home with the comfortable flavor of buttery shortbread, and tantalizing your tastebuds with the unexpected flavors of cardamom and cloves...not so unlike the homey traditions of the holidays that grow and change as the years go by. These are perfect for a day of holiday baking - mixing up the dough is simple and you can let them rest in the fridge while you make your other batches of goodies. The hardest part is rolling them into the "logs" and getting the proper shape - something I have most certainly not mastered (the prettiest ones actually went into a tin for friends and were given away before I remembered to take a picture for this post!).

Chai Shortbread Cookies, makes 2 doz.
adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp of ground cloves
Dash of freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup powdered sugar
10 tbsp butter, softened
1 tbsp ice water (+ 1 tsp in my hands)

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 5 ingredients (through pepper), stirring well with a whisk. Place sugar and butter in a medium bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until combined (mixture will appear crumbly). Sprinkle dough with 1 tablespoon ice water; toss with a fork. Divide dough in half. Shape dough into 2 (~6-inch-long) logs; I rolled them out on wax paper and then used it to help me shape them. Wrap each log in plastic wrap. Chill 1 hour or until very firm.

Preheat oven to 375°. Unwrap dough logs. Carefully cut each log into 18 slices using a serrated knife (you can coat it with a little oil if you want to). Place dough circles 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes. Cool on pans 5 minutes. Remove cookies from pans; cool completely on wire racks.

Experiencing Thanks(giving)

It’s almost Thanksgiving here, a holiday to celebrate the Harvest (though that has a different meaning for me this year) and give thanks for family and friends and the gifts of the year that will soon be coming to a close. The turkey has been picked up, the recipes chosen, the rest of the groceries bought (after only two trips to the grocery store), and the wine to compliment the meal was picked out days ago (a German Reisling that we couldn’t resist, and an excellent, full-flavored - but not heavy - Oregon Gamay Noir from Brick House)...and it’s about time to start cooking and baking and drinking.

This year, LB and I will hole up inside our house, alone, to spend the long weekend relaxing, lounging in front of the fire (our only source of heat) and getting to know each other again after several months of craziness, travel, obligations and extra jobs. This is a first for me. Thanksgiving has always been spent with family – whether biological or created by the people who, because of proximity or shared experiences, have become family. We’re still making a big meal (we plan to subsist on the leftovers to last us through the rest of the month), we’re still going to drink and live in the day as if we are surrounded by others, and we’ll still eat at the table and toast to living in the moment and being thankful for how far we’ve both come these last few years.

We’ll get up late (if the dogs will let us), have a simple breakfast and then start chopping vegetables, tearing bread (a big, hearty loaf of pan levain from Hideaway Bakery) for a chestnut (from our trip to Hood River), sausage (from Laughing Stock Farms) and apple dressing/stuffing, and we’ll simmer cranberries for homemade cranberry sauce (this year it’s going to be steeped in a Colorado port – from my hometown, with cinnamon and orange zest). Our turkey is brining already, in a salty concoction of coriander, juniper berries and fennel seeds, and we’ll make a lemon-herb butter to rub gently under the skin, stuffing it with lemons, red onions and herbs, and hoping to get that perfectly browned and crispy bird. We’ll start by sipping Wandering Goat coffee and as the afternoon advances, we’ll snack on Salumi salami, beautiful cheeses and roasted Oregon hazelnuts before we crack open our first bottle of wine.

All this will go on with bluegrass in the background and in the comfort of our own kitchen – no stress, no visitors, no specific time to eat, nothing but good food, wine and our dogs for company. We picked out the recipes together, a mixture of old favorites and new flavors, but if we get tired of cooking, we’ll stop and take a break...or (gasp!) even put off the meal until Friday (but that probably won't happen). If we feel like watching a movie or a football game, we will. If we want to turn the music up loud and dance, we'll dance and be silly and loud. And if the house is messy (oh, and it is), it doesn’t even matter, because there won’t be anyone else around to see it.

As much as I love a traditional Thanksgiving, surrounded by family and friends and love and the traditional fixin’s – grandma’s stuffing, can-shaped cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole - this year we’re making it whatever we want it to be, and that’s okay with me. Christmas will come in another month, and that will be my holiday to steep myself in the traditions that my family has been building for years. Thanksgiving, though, has continually evolved as I’ve gotten older, and I see more change in the years to come as it will become something new, something different – with new friends surrounding us, with new family (or “family”) members, and new local foods to grace the table. I’m curious how it will evolve and when or if it will stabilize and when I will have my own traditions.

Over time, my Eugene family has been pared down to my nearest and dearest friends, the ones I truly want to spend my extra time with, just as all friendships evolve over the years. Nevertheless, there are now new faces in my life that came in by chance and yet are carving out places in my heart quicker and deeper than I could have imagined; and already I know in my heart the handful of friends that I will carry with me from this place when I leave, as I have from all of the places I have lived since leaving home, and those I will shake hands with and leave behind – thankful that they came into my life at all, but ready to move on.

Even you, dear readers, have evolved as an important part of my Thanksgiving. Some of you have been with me since the beginning, when I started this blog two years ago, and some of you I am just beginning to know, but I am thankful for all of you. I am thankful for the place in my life that you have gently nestled your way into, and how I have come know small pieces of you by the stories and recipes you share with me, and that you have come to know me in the same way. It's a different type of friendship from that which develops by meeting someone in person. Over time, there are those of you that have stopped blogging, like I did for a while. And whatever the reason, be it busy schedules or tragedies or simply needing a break, I have found that I never stop hoping you’ll come back, that I miss hearing from you, miss knowing what is going on in your life, miss the emails back and forth.

See, dear readers, I look forward to hearing about how your Thanksgiving (or your day, if you are somewhere else in the world) went, how you are feeling today, or some tidbit from your past, and of course, your recipes. Strangely, though, I have come to realize that I don’t read your blogs strictly because of your recipes (much as I love them and use many of them); I read them to get a glimpse of you, of your world and your surroundings, of your history and your traditions, of your culture if it is different from my own. So, in a way, you are now as much a part of this holiday as both my biological and my Eugene family, and I am thankful for the hundreds of ways you have opened my eyes, challenged me, inspired me, made me laugh and made me cry. Thank you, for sharing yourself on your websites. Thank you, for coming to read what I share one mine. Thank you, for just being out there, in the world and all over the world. And thank you, for being you.

Have a wonderful, happy holiday, and a wonderful, happy day.

Other Thanksgiving posts and recipes:
2005: Rustic Porcini and Onion Stuffing
2006: Traditional Pumpkin Pie with Maple Whipped Cream

some friendships were meant to be

I met my friend Caren years ago when I was living in Northern California, and we’ve maintained our friendship through both time and distance until I got lucky enough that her life brought her just north of me to Portland, Oregon. She’s been one of my closest friends for quite some time, and even honored me by being one of my lovely bridesmaids during my wedding.

For those of you that are already married, and/or have been through this before, you understand what I’m about to say already. For those of you that haven’t, weddings are one of the single most exhausting events ever!! Especially when you decide, for financial reasons (including an expensive upcoming move to an island called Hawaii), not to take a honeymoon and just go straight back to work. So, Caren, being the incredibly insightful friend that she is, whisked me off two weeks after my wedding for a girl’s camping trip in the Cascade mountains and a well-needed day trip to Breitenbush Hot Springs. I’ll extoll the virtues of that fabulous place in another post (and the amazingly fresh and beautiful vegan food they serve there), but for now, I want to extoll the virtues of having the wonderful friends I do, and how some friendships were just destined to be.

Caren and I had no qualms about doing this camping trip up right – it was car camping after-all, and we were having ourselves a relaxing, pampered two days. But first let me say that I try to downplay my food geeky-ness, admittedly bordering on food snobbery at times, whenever I am around friends and family (I only let the true food geek come out here, for you, lucky readers, because I know we’re of the very same breed and that you are as big a food dork as I am). Caren offered to bring a one-pot meal for dinner, dessert, and coffee if I would bring a bottle of wine to share and breakfast. No problem there – being as burnt out as I was from a week of socializing and coming down off of the months of planning and orchestrating our wedding, I was happy to oblige. I brought three small tubs of greek-style yogurt (not knowing which flavor she would prefer), a bag of organic granola, some farmer’s market blueberries picked up the day before, and a nice bottle of red wine from our wine rack.

Caren, dear that she is, showed up for our camping trip (mind you: I said camping trip), with the following items:

Real wineglasses – made of glass
Peet’s coffee, complete with a French press
Fresh pasta, from Portland’s fabulous Pastaworks
Prosciutto and Pea béchamel, also from Pastaworks
Homemade bread pudding with whiskey caramel sauce

...and here’s the kicker...

One of her All-Clad pots with which to cook everything in.

Oh, how I love my friends.

a long overdue apology...

just where, pray tell, have you been michelle?

i have received numerous, lovely emails and comments asking me if i am still out there, if i am okay, and even a jovial, “what the hell have you been up to?!” (by the way, i both loved and appreciated each of these sentiments – so thank you very much to those of you that care).

i am sorry that i disappeared into thin air, as it pains me to realize that it has been nearly a year – yes, a year! – since my last post in november. my dear friends and readers (if any of you are still out there), my life of late has been full of so many, many things.

in may, all of the hard work that i have put in over the last 5 years came to an end, when they handed me my degree – a PhD in biology. after nearly six months of day and night researching, reading and writing, i turned in my dissertation, orally defended it, and was released on my own into the “real world” (one word: frightening!)

a week later, i left for six weeks of intense research on a small island off the coast of oahu, hawaii. there, i met many wonderful people from all over the world, including africa, australia, england, new zealand, columbia, brazil and many others, and made some very close friends (although i didn’t get to cook or choose what i was eating for those six weeks, which was almost the worst fate imaginable for someone like myself who loves to cook and eat...especially for someone who prefers to eat healthy, unadulterated ingredients.)

three weeks after i returned home to eugene from hawaii, LB (now he really is a Lucky Bastard) and i were married in Bend, Oregon in a large ceremony in front of the 14,000 foot peaks of the Three Sisters mountains and surrounded by our families and our nearest and dearest friends. I'll try to post some pictures soon...

so hopefully you can see that i have been a busy, busy girl and perhaps, just maybe, accept my apologies?

each of these events deserve their own posts, and i’m sure that i will get to them at some point, but today i just wanted to say hello. hello!

as you can see, i’ve made some changes on my site to reflect that i’m looking at the world, and at food, with new eyes and from inside my new life. i’m a married woman now (weird!); i’ve got a new, very nice camera that was a graduation present that takes very, very nice pictures (and that i am still learning to use as you’ll probably see...); and i have a new, part-time job working for a winery during the crush season that i’ll tell you all about as my starting date gets closer and closer. i’m still a scientist, still working in my same lab full-time (mostly writing and doing a few experiments), still ramping up to make the move to hawaii, and still struggling to find balance in all of the things that are always going on and pulling me in a million different directions, including my love of blogging and of all of you.

but i am back. i have a computer at home now so that i can write my posts there (although internet access remains elusive), and a thumbdrive so that i can bring them into work to post them. but best of all, i have a brand-spanking new, shiny 10-piece set of all-clad 18/10 stainless steel cookware to test out as many new recipes as i can find time to try.

so hopefully, we’ll be seeing much more of each other and enjoying many meals together in the future.

"12 Pies Men Like Best" and Other Treasures

Just recently, I was able to sit down with my grandmother and sort through all of her recipes and cookbooks because she is no longer able to spend much time in the kitchen and my grandfather has become the primary cook in the house. There were certainly many treasures to be found. The first of the treasures she gave me was a book called "12 Pies Men Like Best," which I find just hilarious. How June Cleaver-ish! It was some kind of advertisement from Proctor and Gamble in 1931. The front of the little pamphlet shows a woman in an apron holding out a pie to a smartly dressed man. Like I want to make pies that men like because men like them! Ha! I want to make pies because I like them (although, um, uh, I guess I do try to make stuff that LB likes...)!

The next treasure was the cookbook pictured above; this one belonged to my grandmother's mother, my great-grandmother. I have no idea how old it is because unfortunately, the cover is missing, but it looks to be quite old, worn and well-used. I've tried finding the title on the web to figure out its publication date to no avail (there are cookbooks with this same name published in the 1800s all the way to the 1930s). But since it belonged to my grandmother's mother, and my great grandmother died when my grandma was young, it has to at least be at least as old as the 1930s. It's so amazing though: It's a compilation of recipes from home cooks around the U.S. and there are recipes for such dishes as rabbit pie, chow chow, watermelon ice cream, "luscious cake," and sour pickles. You can also note that the instructions are far less detailed than they are today, making me think that women, since they spent so much time in the home those days, had much more knowledge than I do about how to do things (like "make a pie crust that is delicately baked," and dress and joint a chicken "as usual") so that there didn't need to be much instruction in the recipe for them to follow. It's just amazing to look through! I'm definitely going to try some of these recipes when I get around to it...now, if I can only figure out how to dress and joint a chicken...

But lately, the one thing I've been treasuring most of all, was my great-grandmother's recipe for Date Nut Loaf Cake. I've decided that just as she passed it on to me, I will pass it on to you, because it's delcious! It's called a cake, but it's more like banana or zucchini bread...it's rich and dense, with a very distinct caramel flavor to it - especially in the end pieces (my favorite). It's also a wonderfully refreshing contrast to the usual banana or zucchini bread. At first I thought that perhaps I had written things down wrong because there were no spices in the ingredient list - but no, it has so much flavor to it that there's no need (although, I may try adding some cardamom or perhaps a little cinnamon next time, just to see what it ends up like). The recipe is also done a little differently than I normally would do things; for instance, creaming the butter and sugar and eggs together (I usually would do sugar and butter together, then do eggs one at a time), but this works too, so I've just written it as she did. Another note: the humidity of where you live will make a big difference in the texture of the loaf. I made this in Oregon exactly as written and it came out beautifully - I made it in Colorado and it came out crumbly and didn't hold together well, so you may need to fiddle with the amount of liquid if that happens to you.


Great-Grandma's Date Nut Loaf Cake, recipe courtesy of my grandmother

1 cup butter or trans-fat free shortening (the original calls for shortening)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup hot water
1 lb. nuts (pecans in her recipe, although I used a mixture of pecans and walnuts)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
2 1/2 cup flour
1 lb. pitted dates, chopped
1 tsp. baking powder

Chop the dates and put them in a bowl. Sprinkle them with baking soda and add hot water. Mix, then let stand until cool. Cream together butter, sugar and eggs, then mix together flour, baking powder, salt and nuts in a separate bowl. Beat together the butter mixture with the flour mixture and date mixture, alternating between them and ending on the dates. Bake 1 hour at 300 F.

This is best made in a cast iron skillet, supposedly. If you don't have one (like I don't), it will make two standard-sized loaf pans of the bread (I'm not sure of the size of the cast iron skillet she used either). Be sure and grease them, and line the bottom with either a sized piece of brown paper grocery bag (grandma's way) or parchment paper (my way). Important: No matter which container you're cooking in, about 15 minutes into baking, you'll want to put tin foil around the edges to prevent them from burning...this gives it that nice caramelized crust. Enjoy!