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Orange Cake

In the comments on the Citrus! post, two people referred to the Orange cake described, photographed and explained on Kuidaore. Follow this link to her gorgeous post and recipe. Thank you Marc.

It's what I want to try next.

Although we are being told that this year the citrus will be spare and not very good, I am finding that Clementines and Satsumas, so far, from small farms, far exceed exceptional.

And because I love the acid in said family of fruits, when I make desserts with them, I always celebrate their bracing acidic characteristics. I'm not shy.

{Ok, ok, so now I'm done posting for November.}

NaBloPoMo is over today.

phew! NaBloPoMo is over. I have posted every single day. insane.
and now something else is about to happen in my life.
I started this year working for Apple.
then Poulet.
next... well I'll tell you about it soon enough.

I'm going to take a little break in between. go to the farm. watch a lot of my favorite show, have some days away with the coffee drinker... we are thinking Pt. Reyes or Inverness... something special before I dive into the new kitchen.

posting every day has been a challenge. but extraordinarily rewarding. You all made it fun. all the comments, all the traveling around looking for new people to read, telling stories, listening to new voices, making the www even wider! look how many people ended up participating!

can we have a round of applause for those who gave content every day? those who gave recipes and critique and photos and silliness and snarkiness? good job one and all. and thank you Fussy for the challenge! finally a blogging thing I could understand and make happen. see you in December.

citrus!

the lovelies are back at the market.

what are you doing with them?

which are your favorites?

do you peel or cut?

jelly or marmalade?

juice or bake?

sweet or sour?

drink or zest?

i love them so.

The Grammarian In Me Rubs Off On The Grammarian In You

I have turned in my winter article, recipe and photos for Edible San Francisco. This article marks one year of writing for this beautiful seasonal magazine. It's never too late to get a subscription...

Bruce Cole, our editor and publisher, sent us a "Style Guide" for our articles. Specific grammar reminders and some special requests. I feel endlessly graced that some of my best friends and parents are editors, so I have their voices in my head as the words stream from my fingertips. But there are the odd mishaps, the moments where I take grammar into my own hands, and the dashes and splashes of poetic license I season my paragraphs with.

I am a huge proponent of blogs. This very one has changed my life a million ways from Tuesday. There are billions of voices out there none would ever hear or read if it were not for this incredible technology. Have you taken a click through of my "kooky" section? How about "not for the meek," "more like this one"? Of course these are barely a nano of what exists, but they are where I have time to go to a few times a week.

But inherent in blogs is a voice that can sometimes be quite lazy grammatically. Whole baskets of sentences that don't need to be there. Paragraph breaks which never arrive, making eyeballs tired. Words which are spoken but don't need to be written.

I read an interesting flier at The Commonwealth Club about making the Internet more accessible to people with disabilities. When I write my posts I try to think of all the different sorts of people reading them. My "traffic" states that over 500 people visit a day, yet only a handful of you lovelies tells me you're there by commenting. It's impossible to imagine who is reading, but I try to write better and better all the time. Thereby becoming a better writer, and also pleasing all of y'all more and more.

Here are a few of the Style Guide rules we follow at Edible San Francisco:

"William Zinsser on simplicity:
The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur, ironically, in proportion to education and rank.

William Zinsser on style:
Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style and how it obstructs what they are trying to say. If you give me an article that runs to eight pages and I tell you to cut it to four, you'll howl and say it can't be done. Then you will go home and do it, and it will be infinitely better. After that comes the hard part: cutting it to three. The point is that you have to strip down your writing before you can build it back up. You must know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do. If I may labor the metaphor of carpentry, it is first necessary to be able to saw wood neatly and to drive nails. Later you can [end of page 19] bevel the edges or add elegant finials, if that is your taste. But you can never forget that you are practicing a craft that is based on certain principles. If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

William Zinsser on clutter:
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon. "I might add," "It should be pointed out," "It is interesting to note that"—how many sentences begin with these dreary clauses announcing what the writer is going to do next? If you might add, add it. If it should be pointed out, point it out. If it is interesting to note, make it interesting. Being told that something is interesting is the surest way of tempting the reader to find it dull; are we not all stupefied by what follows when someone says, "This will interest you"? As for the inflated prepositions and conjunctions, they are the innumerable phrases like "with the possible exception of" (except), "due to the fact that" (because), "he totally lacked the ability to" (he couldn't), "until such time as" (until), "for the purpose of" (for)."

PET PEEVES

Ruth Reichl’s Never List:

•    Food, in my world, is NEVER divine.
•    Nor is it sinful.
•    I dislike yummy.
•    I loathe eatery.
•    addictive - it's a silly way to say something's good to perfection.
•    crispy (things are crisp, not crispy)
•    meltingly (why is meat ALWAYS meltingly tender?)
•    veggies (so disrespectful to growing things)
•    yesteryear (like fingernails on chalk to me)
•    toothsome (ditto)
•    sumptuous when referring to meals
•    vibrant (in connection with food)
•    served up (served is fine all by itself)
•    tend to be (I prefer "are often")
•    procuring - such a needlessly pretentious verb

{Shuna's Never list:

* Food is not healthy, people are. Food is, if it actually is, Healthful.

*Decadent is not a compliment. No, don't put it near my chocolate cake! The word you mean is Opulent.

* A cake is never flour-less. The word cake denotes flour present. When something that rises like a cake has no flour in it, it is a Torte. }

(For Derrick's pet peeve, click here.)

Jesse Kornbluth’s Never List:

•    PERFECT
As in "the perfect vacation" or "the perfect date." No. Nothing's perfect. [Well, maybe: a perfect idiot, a perfect delusion.] People who use "perfect"—a dumb, empty, overused and altogether meaningless adjective—are not signifying their good taste, but their unwillingness to think of a more descriptive word. {Amen}

•    HOPEFULLY
Everyone uses "hopefully" as a shortcut for "I hope." It is not. Yes, the dictionary allows it, but that's just bending to popular usage. In my book, there is only one correct use for "hopefully." It's a synonym for "prayerfully"—as in, "She looked up hopefully and said, 'Dear Lord, please make it rain soon, or we'll have no harvest.'" Do you want to say "I hope"? Then say "I hope."

•    EVERYONE and THEY
As in: "Everyone knows what they want." Who is this "they"? A singular subject is followed by a singular pronoun. How to write this sentence correctly? I say: "Everyone knows what he/she wants." Looks awkward? True. But at least it isn't sexist. Or wrong.

•    SINCE and BECAUSE
They're not synonyms. "Since" only refers to time: "Since August, he's been in a funk." It cannot be used to suggest causality: "Since he's depressed, we never call him."

•    VERY UNIQUE
I think this started in real estate ads, where hype often trumps truth. "Your apartment is unique? Wait 'till you see this totally unique place." Implication: The new apartment is far more unique than the old one. But something can't be "more" or "less" unique than anything else. "Unique" is an absolute. It can't take a modifier. And if you stop to think about it, you grasp that everything is unique and everyone is unique—as in "one of a kind"—and, suddenly, "unique" becomes...banal.

•    OVER and MORE THAN
"He has over a billion dollars." Wrong. Riveting, but wrong. "Over" refers to positioning in space—the opposite of "under," as in "over the fence." When you refer to quantity, you want "more than."

•    DISINTERESTED and UNINTERESTED
"Disinterested" describes neutrality. "Uninterested" suggests a negative point-of-view. A gay man may be said to be sexually "disinterested" in women; that is, he doesn't care about having sex with them. But he may be "uninterested" if a woman propositions him; that is, he has a definite opinion on the idea, and it isn't to rip her clothes off.

•    ITS and IT'S
Now you think I'm being insulting. But its amazing how often people get this wrong. Oops. Wrong. (But you caught that, didn't you?) I meant "it's"—the contraction of "it is." The possessive adjective has no apostrophe.

•    DAY THAT CHANGED US...FOREVER
A cliché used to describe 9/11, and, as a result, other events. What does "forever" mean here? That it didn't change us in a way we could unwind? As if we could, with less momentous events, turn back the clock and have a do-over? No, unless there's been a change in philosophy and physics, even if you could tidy up whatever occurred so there was no evidence anything ever happened, you and the place would be still be changed forever—you're in a later time. All change is forever. Live with it. And dump the horror movie sound of "forever."

Do you have any grammatical pet peeves you'd like to add?

"The Mocha Pot" our new toy

When the smell of coffee brewing is wafting through your house it's morning.
Except when you don't drink coffee in the morning.
Or you shouldn't drink it at all.
Or you don't need caffeine to wake you up.
Or you're no longer dating someone who drinks coffee in the morning.
Because now you, the person for whom coffee is a treat, but otherwise a bad bad thing, are living alone.

Not even a roommate to make coffee in the morning.
To remind you it's morning.

How do you tell it's morning when the scent of coffee isn't wafting through the air?

When I moved into my little tree house I looked for a coffee contraption, just in case someone who drank coffee in the morning might sleep over and want their toasty black beverage in the A.M. But I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, and anyway no one was staying over, so I gave up.

Two weeks ago I found myself in Sur La Table buying fun things for my pie dough class and came upon the Mocha Pot section. I knew I didn't want an aluminum one, and there were two choices for stainless. This one seemed the best. Heavy and striking.

 

To seal the deal I bought one of those little wands for frothing milk. At Manresa almost every cook has one planted on their station. Right before plating, sauces are often given a whirring hit to lighten them, give them a bit of body and a sense of "foam" without the annoying cannister. And then we bought the most chocolatey delicious smelling espresso grind coffee at Ritual. {Ethiopia Yirgacheffe.}

I still should not be drinking coffee. It makes me crazy. No, crazier than you. I don't need caffeine to wake up. I'm the annoying person you work with who, if he's gotten enough sleep, is even chipper on Saturday and Sunday when everyone else is hungover. I don't "call in sick" on those days, nope.

But how wonderful it is that now I have an excuse to make coffee for someone sometimes. Absolutely delicious strong coffee. And make the best foam ever.

For someone who's not afraid to then make me breakfast.

Crepes.

This weekend I found all the posts on eggbeater where I gave, or explained recipes. There they all are, in that there blue column.

:}

It's a great way for me to see what I've given so far. I know some of you are waiting for specific recipes, don't worry, they'll get here. In the meantime I have written about the science; the whys and the hows of crepe making. If you begin to study these ingredients, many of the elusive mysteries associated with the science of baking will break open a new sky for you.

Releasing and raining down
a gorgeous array of lacy crepes,
all unique and delicious
like snowflakes.

Go on, you know you wanna, take a cyber skip over to KQED...

***December 2, 2006, Just in: this post featured in Food & Wine's Blog Watch!! Follow this link to see for yourself... ***

The East Bay Express Interviews Eggbeater

There's a little paragraph in this week's East Bay Express featuring the book recommendations of one Shuna Fish Lydon. Pick up your local copy, or click on this link to find out which two books I think some of you may want to read.

My favorite part of the interview was when Chris Ulbrich and I spoke about the finer points of grammar. He called himself a grammarian. I may have to pilfer that one. It goes with my old fashioned gentleman identification...

Punkin Pie! or: Did You Get Your Pie On?

Pumpkin pie for breakfast means that yesterday was Thanksgiving. It means that, by only eating it once a year, you ain't tired of it yet. It means you are a grown up, not afraid of dessert for breakfast and made yoself some amazing goddamned pumpkin pie yesterday.

Pumpkin pie for breakfast means that there were more than enough pies on the table yesterday and you got to bring a piece or two home. Even though you swore you'd never eat again. Ever. Even though you told your kids they couldn't have pie for breakfast.

Pumpkin pie for breakfast is pure silliness. Pure happiness. Pure, unadulterated pleasure. For which you unduly deserve. For which the world over can laugh at, but we sit here smiling, eating punkin pie for breakfast.

Did you get your pie on?

Did you make yoself some kick-ass pie dough? Flaky, buttery, delicious pie dough? Did you blind-bake that gorgeously crimped pie crust until your kitchen smelled of caramelizing butter and hot dried beans? Did you go all out and throw flour all over the kitchen, pull out the rolling pin and evenly roll out one splendid pie dough, soft as a baby's bottom?

Did you roast some eclectic squash/pumpkins? Sweet 'uns and spongy and golden and orange alike? Did your house smell of Autumn warmth and winter's chilly onset? Did you spice some hot cider and curl up in woolly blankets or make a fire?

Every year I want to eat the thanksgiving dinner I know signifies this time of year. Nothing new-fangled. Just tender turkey, meaty gravy, sage-y stuffing, sweet potatoes, tart cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. I like myself a little family teasing, hysterical laughter, a full tummy, warmed by one of my mother's hand-knitted creations, and the knowledge that I was here last year and I will be with the same people again next year.

thanksgiving.

I woke up early today. Anticipating. Watered all my succulents quietly, thought about this year. Let the sweetheart sleep.

The sky is bright with cold cobalt blue, the air is stock still and only a car heard here and there on the main street. I woke up thinking about family on the East Coast, pumpkin pie and an impending deadline.

Winter approaches. I will soon be at the farm walking the dogs, noticing subtle shifting grey light, making quiet dinners and missing Isaac. I am thinking of those who died this year, those whose lives have changed, and a transition I am about to make. A new consulting job is on the horizon.

Dessert ideas dance in my head, flavor combinations arrive like small envelopes in a treasure hunt. Another transition is here. Brush strokes. Out with the old, in with the new. baby steps.

I look forward to a kind of busyness I've not felt in a long time. To hunkering down, keeping warm, making soup and the challenge of fruit desserts in winter. To friends and family, forgiveness and tradition, writing and loving.

My best to you and yours.

Clementines

Clementines make me happy. I find their personality to be buoyant, sprightly and specific. They have a fantastic burst of acid, almost as powerful and sudden as a lemon or Meyer lemon, and exceptional zest. I eat them, when I get lucky enough to find them, delightedly, one after another in winter.

Last night I had an exceptional Clementine sorbet at Delfina. It used to be that one could only find them as an import from Spain. But nowadays they are grown by a number of small farmers in California. Tonight I picked some up at Rainbow, and last week I found them at the Saturday Berkeley Farmer's market.

They are not terribly easy to peel, but for the effort of this, or cutting them into small boat-shaped wedges, your mouth will be well rewarded.

I hope you're able to have some this winter. The citrus crop of 2006/2007 will be small, expensive and very possibly hit or miss on taste quality. They are still recovering from hurricanes and a lack of bees to pollinate.

 

Look for tight skinned, small pored, shiny, very orange globes. A good rule of thumb to know with citrus: look for fruit "heavy" for it's size, refrigerate when you get home, even if you don't like eating cold fruit. If the latter is the case, take citrus out 1/2-1 hour before eating. But remember, citrus is a winter fruit. It does not like being frozen, but the juice will turn to alcohol immediately if not kept cold.

For all you Americans, I wish you this:

I hope you get to eat all your favorite foods on Thanksgiving.

For the rest of the world: Don't let the turkeys get you down.

Should I Go To Culinary School?

I received one of the best comments recently. On the post "Culinary Positions: The Interview part 1." from Lainie:

"Great advice. 

Anyone reading this who is interested in culinary school, I beg of you
to go work in a kitchen for at least 3 months.    Make sure you want to do this for a living (meager as it is) and if you answer yes after that time, ask yourself if the investment in school is worth it.  You'll come out deeply in debt making less than $12.00 an hour in many cases. School is simply not a sound investment. . invest the money back into yourself. . . Shuna's ideas are golden.  I can't tell you how many kids have worked for me who are $45,000 in debt at 20 years old with a $9.00 an hour job.  They realize once they work for someone who can mentor them that they could have learned everything on the job."

I can't tell you how many email inquiries I receive on this very subject, "Should I go to culinary school?" Or, "What culinary school would you recommend?" Although there is so much more to say, Lainie covers a lot of it here passionately.

I wanted to publish this comment as a complete post, because I don't know this person, and they were brave to make such a bold statement with only other stranger's interests in mind.

Before you sign that check, come talk to me.

Squash Squash Squash Winter Squash Squash

Tripping over Squash. Consoling Squash. Taking Squash to the dance. Chatting with Squash. Knocking on Squash. Clocking Squash. Listening to Squash spoken word. Belly dancing with Squash.

Squash Squash Squash Squash. Can't squelch Squash. O no.

When you make friends with a farmer, watch out. What you consider a garden they consider a flower pot, what you consider a farm, they consider a small garden, and so on. When I farm sit, Patrick says, motioning to his "summer garden," "Hey, take a few things before you leave, eh?"

What he means by a few things might be a case of tomatoes, any number of cucumbers measuring 1-2 feet, a pound or two of Sweet 100's, 10-12 Italian eggplants, and enough basil to make pesto for a hungry basketball team. I always remind him that I don't need this much. When I get back to the Bay Area, I give away as much as I can.

After I excitedly wrote about Annabelle Lenderink, I ran into her at the market. "HEY!" She shouted at me. "I went and Googled myself the other day, which I never do, and I saw you wrote about me! What's the big deal? You called me GRUFF??!!! I'M NOT GRUFF!"

Backing away hurriedly into oblivious Berkeleyites, I meekly responded, "Wait, didn't I also call you friendly and beautiful? I think I also called you beautiful... didn't I?"

"I DON'T REMEMBER. But you called me gruff, I know THAT, and I'M NOT GRUFF!"

But now she likes me. Go figure.

And every week she pushes of another few squash on me-- "HERE. Try this one. Come back AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!"

Thank goodness my beau is a strapping young ox. They're strong, and can carry more than one 5# Squash at a time.

So after a few weeks of turning the tight corner into my cozy leetle livingroom and stubbing all my toes against these hard winter beauties, I roasted all but one of them for my first Pie Dough class yesterday.

I'll have to get back to you on the names. That Annabelle is one smart, gruff, beautiful, sharp, funny, knowledgible farmer. She's growing forgotten Heirloom Squash varieties, bred for more defined, specific traits and characteristics, both in flavour and texture.

Starting in the upper right ~

The long dark orange one: this is you basic "pumpkin flavour" and texture. It roasts very fast, retains a lot of moisture, has a thinnish skin and can be a bit stringy. The flavour was nothing to write home about.

The green ovular shape: yellow flesh, retains a fair amount of moisture, not stringy, a bit spongey, very light mild flavour. Compared to the others, this one lost.

The two corrugated conical pale pieces: This is my new favorite Squash. It has a pale, buttery flesh which can both be really smooth or slightly spongy-- depending on size, age and how you cook it. It's barely sweet, but just enough so that you could use it for pie. If you can get to the Berkeley Saturday Farmer's market, please please buy enough of these to last you.

The orangy-black-green guy who looks like kabocha: This one was the most interesting! It had a thick skin that made it difficult to tell if it was done. The skin is thick like a weathered dock with barnacles living on it. It was so sweet I could barely believe it was vegetal! And the flesh is extremely dense, smooth and dry. Parched, almost. The flesh is persimmon orange when baked, absolutely gorgeous.

The little flesh colored orb: Bright yellow-orange flesh. Mellow flavour, smooth flesh. Very middle-of-the-road, but in a good way.

The big daddy: Is still on my living room floor.

After hours of roasting, my little oven needed a rest.

Winter Squash can be kept, like onions, potatoes and garlic, in a cool, dark, dry place, for as long as a month, or more, depending on the weather inside their storage unit. They are picked, like their brethren, melons, when the curlicue stem attached to them, like an umbilical cord, dries up. And then they're moved to a storage facility where the skin/outer shell will continue to harden. The Squash's character changes the longer they're kept. Some say they get sweeter.

Annabelle, for all you Bay Area folks, will only be at the market until just before Christmas.