Cookbook Editor

The cookbook by Kids .01 and .02 was a big success. I made only 12 copies, trying to save color printing expenses. All the relatives who received it appreciate how authentic it is, with very little adult intervention in the writing and illustration (just fixed spelling).
Tomorrow kids and I are baking 100 cupcakes for a big party we’re throwing for my parents.
Am rather tired… but it’s been that kind of year.

Drama

The moment before a 160 lb. pig that has been roasting underground for several days gets pulled up, like a mummy. Yummy.

Winter Garden

It’s been raining here, practically a miracle. My romaine is very happy. Winter lettuce in the garden is pretty and eliminates those nasty surprises you forget about in your crisper—you simply nip off as many leaves as you need for each meal. Both my kids eat salad, and like to dress it themselves with Euro oils and vinegars a friend brought me.


And if you were wondering, my worms not only lived through the hot summer days, but are thriving! Yes, Kloe hearts worms.

Mac, Cheese, Bacon, Rain

I hope I didn’t jinx those poor men and women in the field, but it poured rain today. I let the kids get totally wet, they were so excited.
Didn’t feel well, so Kid.01 made dinner. Had a little issue with burned bacon, but on the whole, it was pretty good. His recipe (he’s writing a cookbook, Kid.02 is illustrating):

Mac & Cheese

This ain’t your ordinary mac and cheese.
What you will need:
1/3 cup butter
½ cup whole milk
¼ cup cream
2 T flour
3 scallions diced
5 strips of cooked bacon, chopped
1 cup mozzarella cheese
3 T parmesan cheese
1 pound pasta
Set heat to 350.
First boil pasta. Strain and set aside for later.
White sauce:
Melt butter in a sauce pan. Then add flour and stir. Pour milk and cream in slowly while stirring your white sauce til thick. It’s cool.
The dish:
Put half of pasta in a large baking pan. Dish half of white sauce evenly on the pasta, put half of bacon and scallions on layer. Then put ½ cup of shredded cheeses. Do the same process on top of that.
Bake for 20 minutes. Cut and serve warm and enjoy.

Trade Show Update

I just received word that the "Trade Show" may be exhibited in Ankara! It came down last week in Istanbul. So cross your fingers…
And even more important, many congrats to M on the publication of her dissertation—she’s now Dr. M! Will send the chipotles...

Drivel and Chocolate

Can’t concentrate on art tonight, am not in my usual serious mood.
It was Biscuit’s birthday last night (we are both 29…), Kid.01 made lava cakes. Nearly singed both our hair.
Oh, and got worms today!

In Love with Turkish Food

So the first morning I wake up to one of my kids’ favorite things: Turkish cocoa puffs. They are different than American cocoa nasties, as they have much less sugar. This is true of most Turkish snack foods: better ingredients, less salt, less sugar, more taste. I have a friend who works for one of the major chocolate/snack food companies here, and he’s confirmed that the American market demands more sweetness than the Turkish market.
It being Ramadan, and eating on the street during the day is not OK, I went out to a small shop and bought every kind of junk food I wanted. Have to be aware of those around me who are fasting, which also means no drinking or smoking.

Taco Crawl

A few nights ago I went to a fiesta encantada.
We met at the hostess’ house for chips, guac and margaritas. I didn’t know many, but it was a fun group.
We then walked en masse about six blocks as the sun set, passing local points of interest, such as where you can buy a mariachi outfit. This was East LA, not a neighborhood I could normally cruise by myself.
We finally arrived at a parking lot filled with food vendors running grills by generator, and had the BEST tacos, gorditas, crepes filled with cream cheese, juices, churros…
Algunos no creian que una guerra como yo podria hablar un poco de espanol...
And we then waddled back.
?Quien dice que nadie anda en LA?

Suddenly, Summer

We experienced our usual May Gray and June Gloom here in SoCal. Just when you’re ready for some heat, the weather bores. The best months of the year are January and February, when the air is startlingly clear and the rest of the country is in blizzards…
But a few days ago we awoke to blue skies, and by 10am it was HOT. Bamm, summer is here. Tourists crowd the streets wearing the most god-awful outfits, welcomed for the money they bring.
Our new reality is water rationing, which makes us realize how long and hot the summer promises to be. No running through the sprinkler or taking long showers. No watering the lawns or washing cars.
I particularly suffer at the moment, as my car air-conditioning is kaput. I drive around with all the windows down, kids complaining in the back seat.
Reminds me of when I was 23 and drove cross-country in my non-ac-ed orange GLC with one of my best friends. She was about to leave for what would turn out to be a four-year Peace Corp stint, and I was moving to DC. We made a huge arc in the dead of summer, tent camping through Yosemite and Yellowstone, the Badlands (oh, what we saw!), moving through the breweries of the Great Lakes, then down through the Bible Belt (relatives must have thought me damned forever), Kentucky where we bought shot glasses and used them, to end up in New Orleans somehow.
It was a great education for two freckled-faced young women. Driving with the windows down, drinking lemonade, adventures waiting.
Love these bloopy paintings of donuts and beer by Tracy Miller.

Grocery List

Jennifer Rockage at the Garage Gallery.
When I heard about “found” grocery lists silkscreened, I thought it might be interesting conceptually, but probably not as visually compelling. Wrong. These are funny, graphic, and beautiful: transformed by the screen process into Art.
In case you can’t read it:
Pudding
Waffles
Milk
Lettuce
Bib lettuce
Red tomato
Flank steak
Mayonnaise
Apples
Sweet potatoes
Wheat thins

Caviar and Sconces

For our MDay lunch, my kids and I shopped at the local gourmet grocery, buying whatever we wanted: beef and salmon jerky, mango salsa, fava beans in olive oil, Humboldt Fog cheese, proscuitto and melon, Indian salmon, truffle pate, and multiple desserts. But the biggest splurge was a jar of caviar. My foodie thought he might like it, and now I’ve created a monster…
After a long lunch outside I worked on these crazy brass sconces. Everyone said, correctly, they were too much trouble to clean up. But when I went to the antiques shop to find replacements (as you can’t just plug up a live hole in the wall), I found they are worth several hundred dollars a pair! One of my sconces (not pictured) is fully cleaned, and it looks like plastic, so I’m going to leave the others shabby chic-ish. That’s what you get when you’re working on a house with a history, and it’s fun!
Hope you had a good Mama's Day too.

Cupcakes!

Fun little show by Jennifer Bennett. I love how flat the paintings are, surface and form. She is mostly interested in abstraction, but sometimes we all need to paint something sweet and silly. And because they are small, she selling, quite a feat right now.

Post Holiday Gripes

How many trips to the gym does it take for the chicken to stop waddling across the road?

Olive Oil Cake

I’ve been seeing lots of art and will write about it soon, but for now here’s a recipe for all of you stuck at home in freezing weather (here it’s sunny and warm, crazy).
I learned to make this cake one summer when living with friends in Marbella, Spain:

Torta de Aceite
1 cup olive oil
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 ½ cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 spoon anise seed
dash salt
Mix ingredients well. Bake in a 8x8 inch pan, greased and floured, medium oven, 30-40 minutes. Let the edges get slightly crispy.
Delicious with red wine.

Holiday Cooking

In my quest to get my mind off my horrible school situations, I’ve started my holiday baking. I like to buy beautiful produce and display it on my kitchen counter to get me in the mood.
My mom has a Meyer lemon tree, so that’s why all the lemon stuff (these are a beautiful, very yellow, sweet fruit)
Here’s what I’m up to:
• Meyer lemon marmalade
• Garlic and rosemary jelly
• Challah with candied fruit and pecans
• Homemade applesauce with lemon rind
• Latkes (for Hanukah)
• Roasts (to show off my marmalade and jelly)
• Tahini sweet rolls (for holiday mornings)
• Deviled eggs with anise
• Pecan pie and chocolate mousse pie (for Christmas Eve)
• Raisin pie, for myself, and to remember my gramps, who loved this pie
What about you? Any suggestions for anise, as I have a beautiful plant in my garden?
(plate and jars from Ikea)

My Thoughts Turn to Beans

The semester is winding to a close. My last lectures this week, and then tests and final projects. I have seven courses at four schools scheduled for Winter/Spring 09, but am I counting on them? No, I am not. I have no idea what will happen, but it will not be good. We are living in a dream that education will not be cut.
It will.
And so, to beans. And crock pot food. My old pot is not fancy, it cannot be submerged in water. It has only two heat levels, low and high. And it cannot fail. Cheap food stuffs in, amazing, hearty stuff out.
Sit and eat a big bowl of beans with salt and tomatoes, maybe rice and tortillas. Cold beer. It will calm you, I promise.

Are We All Fat and Happy?

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving (I missed Mom’s turkey and traditions, but had fun too). Actually, the best thing I ate all holiday was a bowl of homemade refried beans. What do you expect here in LalaLand?
It's been raining a bit on the holiday, and we need it desperately. But that’s not to say it isn’t also gorgeous between showers.

Hungry

Kid.01 had a school assignment to use adjectives to describe a favorite food. The rest of the class had to guess it. Here’s what he wrote:
soft,
white,
chewy,
squishy,
oval,
salty,
good with pesto…
yes, gnocchi. Not one person, not even his teacher, had ever heard of it. A staple of our household.
The easiest? Crunchy, spicy, red. If you don’t know, you haven’t been around kids lately.
Above is menudo with thick homemade tortillas, rice and beans. Later we ate carne asada tacos, street style.

Bitch Out

• A student basically dissed me today when I tried to help him.
• I got sent home from a lunch meeting because I had a kid with me.
• Arnold is threatening to cut pay for State workers, possibly including me, to minimum wage.
• I nearly faint every time I fill my gas tank. And fall semester hasn’t even started.
• Some are reading this blog for truthful information. I AM A DOLL!
• I deparately need pizza, the thickest and greasiest possible.

Happy 4th

Have two writers from the East Coast visiting me, very fun women. My kind of women: one brought 9 pairs of shoes for 4 days. Shoes, meaning heels.
Tonight we’re doing Turkish BBQ: mercimek kofte, lamb kofte, shish, leeks in oil, imam beyildi (stuffed eggplant), baklava, raki, cay.
Kisses, and have a great 4th.