Summer food cravings

All the cooking mags are coming out with their summer covers and recipes for summer food - corn, tomatoes, peaches, melons. Here in Wisconsin, though, summer's bounty is behind schedule, since we had such a wet June. I'm eating organic watermelon for lunch, but it's from Texas. So far I've had basil and zucchini in my CSA veggie box, but no tomatoes or melons yet; there're tomatoes at the farmers' market, but mostly the hydroponic ones so far - I bet some of the hoop house growers will have cherry tomatoes soon.

All the delicious-reading recipes for tomatoes and other summer goodies have been making me feel wistful, but our local paper kind of irritated me this week - they must've scheduled their annual feature on sweet corn recipes for mid-July as usual, and they even interviewed some farmers for the article. But they didn't listen when all the farmers were saying, "eyup, we're behind this year - no corn till August", and they ran the article July 16th anyways.

I think I'll try to recreate my grandmother's tomato preserves sometime soon, though; they don't require perfect tomatoes. The recipe in Joy of Cooking, written Irma Rombauer, a German woman from St. Louis, is the match of (and probably actually is) my grandmother's, since she was a German woman from Cincinnati.

What a difference a day makes

This morning my cell phone rang at about quarter to 8:00, and instead of being a kid in trouble as I feared, it was the owner of the construction company that's doing the remodel at my supper club house - he'd been out of town. We went over and took a look at things this morning, and essentially the HVAC guys were right, moving the ducts to the front of the chimney is what needs to be done. So, ouch, more money than I intended to spend, but in the end I will have the window (and the cool new stove, and more cabinets and counter) - and the boss is back, and the job is moving forward again, probably even more important.

His wife tipped him off to my discontent - she read the blog post where I was bitching about the job - totally embarrassing, but it worked ... not sure what that says about blogging as a form of communication - is it passive aggressive to kvetch on your 'blog? or, if you're self-centered enough to simply assume that "everyone" is reading you, maybe it's being forthright - but you're a self-centered, self-important jerk ...

And CraigsList rocks. Yesterday at about 5:00, I posted the stove that I am replacing at the supper club house, for sale, and the firewood from the big branch that came down while we were in Anaheim for ALA, for free. In 15 minutes the doorbell rang and a guy came and took all the wood away. Within an hour, I had two emails from people interested in the stove. I met one of them at the house this afternoon, she brought her boyfriend, they paid cash, and I didn't even have to get my renter to move her truck (it's parked right close up to the garage, so that the carpenter for the kitchen remodel can get in) - the boyfriend biked back to their place a few blocks away, and came back with a buddy and an appliance dolly, and they wheeled it off down the street.

The other thing that's cool about this CraigsList experience is it's using the big, global Internet to connect with people right down the street. I guess the same could be said about my bitchy 'blog post as well. Maybe that makes it better - I'm not a self-centered jerk, I only expect my closest friends and relatives to read my 'blog.

Deb's Lunch ... on Wisconsin Native

Take a look at Deb's lunch, over in another place, Wisconsin Native, a new site started by David Stoeffler and Susna Lampert Smith, newspaper writers looking for new venues in the Internet age.

Remodel job from hell

Maybe that's getting a little extreme - I've been saying, "well, it's an old house, and there are always surprises when you try to remodel".

But tonight I'm just kind of pissed.

The fact is the kitchen in my dining club house has been out of commission for a week, and I don't know when I am getting it back. It seemed like a simple job - cut a window between the kitchen and the dining room, to make it easier for cooking classes, and socializing. Get a new stove without a backsplash, so people could see through the window. Add two small cabinet units, for more counter space and storage.

But when the carpenter cut through the plaster on the kitchen side last Tuesday, he discovered heat vents running through the wall. We've been waiting ever since then for the proposal from the HVAC guys - and I have said that if it's too expensive, I'll just have the carpenter close up the hole, and at least I have the new stove and cabinetry - and deep disappointment. I really wanted my window.

It's just all round frustrating - what I have heard communicated from the designer of the HVAC guy's plan sounds ridiculous - I'm not an HVAC guy, but I am sure there must be an easier way to do it. They want to move the ducts around a bend, about 2 feet, and box them into the front of the chimney (it runs through the kitchen wall, too) - plus they included a bunch of bullshit little things like replacing the wooden dryer vent in the basement window with metal, and relining the chimney - which makes it all sound like the proposal's gonna come in sky high, because they don't really want to do the job.

The really sad part about it all is that I think we got in this mess because one of the head guys at the construction company is my friend and I think he was trying to do me a favor - at the start, he only had the designer come out and look, but he never sent any one to look at mechanicals - trying to save me money, putting less people on the job, keeping it simple ...

Pie Palooza 2008

I volunteered again this year for Pie Palooza, one of REAP food group's annual benefits. What a difference - last year we were crazed; this year, calm. And I think we made more money. The trick was timed seatings - like the Art Institute of Chicago for its blockbuster shows, people were sold a ticket for entry at 10:00, or 11:00 or noon. There were some other small niceties, too, like vendors were asked to provide multiple copies of the same pie - we had people last year who sent one each of 6 different kinds ... although that was including the rabbit pie, that was definitely the most exotic, albeit that it came deep dish and still warm and almost impossible to slice ... this year the most exotic was the B'stilla, with chicken, apples, and Berber seasonings in filo (I had to tent it with foil to keep filo flakes from blowing all around the convection oven).

I made a similar pie; last year it was Zucchini, Tomato & Basil Quiche; this year Calabacitas Quiche. I also have decided that my perfect crust is half butter, half organic vegan shortening - Earth Balance from the coop really seems to be the best. Crisco put both and me and my mom through library school - my grandfather was a chemist at P&G, and his specialty was hydrogenated fats; he left my mom P&G stock which I have inherited - but dammit, the Earth Balance tastes better in a crust.

Calabacitas Quiche
crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1/4 cup shortening, Crisco, Earth balance, etc.

Filling:
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 TBLS butter
1 large zucchini, or 2 small, quartered longwise, and then chopped into chunks
1 poblano chile, roasted, skinned, seeded, and chopped
3/4 cup corn kernals, fresh, frozen whatever you got
cumin
salt & fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 cup grated cheddar cheese; I used Widmer 2-year cheddar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups half & half

Make the crust: measure the flour into a bowl and add the sugar and salt. Cut the shortening and butter into cubes over the salt and flour. Cut the fats into the flour with your fingers, a pastry blender, or paddle attachment of your stand mixer, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Drizzle in about 1/3 cup cold water, while stirring, until you've got a bunch of small clumps of dough. Dump out onto a floured surface, knead lightly to bring it together, and then flatten the dough into a disk and wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.

Meanwhile, make the filling: melt the butter in a large skillet, and add the onion. Sauté over medium heat until the onion looks translucent, then add the zucchini. Cook until the zucchini is starting to soften, and then add the poblanos, corn, salt, pepper and cumin. Cook until all is well blended, and then set aside to cool.

Roll out the crust and fit it into a pie dish. Layer the cheese in the bottom, the add the zucchini mixture.

Beat the eggs, add the half & half, and pour this custard into the crust. Bake at 375 until the center is set, and the quiche is puffed and golden brown in spots.

Cake tasting

My friend Susan and her beau Carl are getting married this summer. They are going to elope to Reno for the ceremony, and then have a party in rural Wisconsin. They came up with the best disclaimer for the invite on a marriage like this; both partners married to others before, and of a certain age: We are trying to condense two households into one, so no presents….please

I'm going to make the cake, and Susan is subcontracting for the rest of the food - a little from here, a little from there - she didn't want me to cater the whole thing, so I could have fun at the party too.

We had a cake tasting on Monday - here're almost all the cakes, under wraps:
I made 6 flavors - White cake, Yellow cake, Cordon Rose banana cake, Spice cake, Chocolate cake and Carrot cake - and said pick three.

The spice cake was almost everyone's fave. They're going to have the white cake with raspberry jam & chocolate filling on the bottom, then the spice, banana, and a tiny lemon poppy seed (the Cake Bible, source of the banana cake, has a good lemon poppy seed, too) on the top to freeze for next year.

The joys of home ownership

I've written before about how I sort of hate going away, even to fun and interesting places, because I have this superstition that something bad will happen; I usually am afraid one of my kids will get in trouble.

To add fuel to my fire, this time a big branch came down in our yard, hitting the roof and the garage.

Branch down

I wish I had some "before" pictures; we only had the virtual experience. It started with a Sunday morning call from Al, who'd been home from camp overnight on Saturday.

Al: "Do the cleaners come this week?"
Me: "Why, is the house a mess?"
Al: "You've come home to a cleaner house, and you've come home to a dirtier one. The recycle bin is overflowing with beer cans, but I really didn't have a million people over." [Mom thought bubble, no, probably only half a million...]
Al: "And you know the big oak tree over the garage? There's this giant branch that's cracked and it's hanging down over some wires."

I called John and he said I should have Rachael take a look. She got over there on Monday, and said, mmmph, yeah, it's like pretty scarey.

Mark's son Ethan called later on Monday, when we were walking through the Anaheim Angel's vast parking lot, heading for game, to tell us it had come down. No phone, it hit the house, and it's sitting on top of the garage. And there was an email from the neighbors when I got in from the game, that the leafy part was totally obscuring the garage door.

Tuesday morning, still in Calfornia, I called the insurance company, and the tree trimmers, and AT&T.

Wednesday afternoon when we got back the chain saws were going the entire time I was cleaning up from Al's half a million people - he was absolutely honest, the house has been both worse and better. The most egregious thing is that the hallway floor is so dirty I am wearing flip flops to keep my feet clean, and I had to do a good bit of sorting to get the beer cups and paper towel and cigarette packs out of the recycle-able cans, bottles, and boxes. Mostly I was fretting that my insurance allowance of $500 for tree removal was being spent 3 times over, with three guys at $85/hour per guy. The next day the adjuster reassured me that the $500 is for after they get the tree down to the ground - they were still on the garage roof with ropes around the branch for most of the afternoon.

I spent the morning Thursday waiting for AT&T, and the insurance adjuster. The AT&T guy called us when we were in the cab home from the airport Weds. to say he couldn't do his thing till the the tree guys finished theirs. He spent a long time rewiring - he knows a lot of the same swear words as me - but the happy side effect is that with the new wires, our DSL is actually up to the 6MB we're paying for.

I went to work for a few hours, grocery shopped, and picked up my veggie box. Finally did a bit of 4th of July cooking. I made honey baked beans; I must not've cooked the beans long enough, since they are a little crunchy, dammit. But I made hot dog buns (for the 2nd time) with my new New England Hot Dog Bun pan, and they came out perfect, soft and flexible. I am going to try adding potato flour to my sticky buns for the brunch on Sunday.

I know Michael Ruhlman thinks single-use kitchen gadgets are silly, and I am with him for most part - no way I'm buying the Williams-Sonoma stuffed chile pepper griller - but I like this pan (and so must lots of other people, because King Arthur Flour seems to be out of them now).

And I put the beans back in for a bit this morning and they're better.