Domesticity and zombies.

My usual morning routine goes a little something like this: wake up, make coffee or tea, stumble around the apartment opening blinds, glare at the never ending Seattle drizzle, boot up the computer and peruse news sites. This particular morning, a headline on Fark.com caught my eye. It read, "It's now fashionable to be like a 1950's housewife as more and more young women master the arts of sewing, cooking, knitting, gardening, and raising chooks."

I didn't even bother to read the article itself but went straight for the comments thread as apparently I like a little trolling and misogyny with my coffee. Sure enough, there were a fair number of posts decrying feminism, er sorry, "raging feminism" and how women, the second they whined to be let out of the kitchen, doomed themselves to be miserable and poor mothers. Sure, whatever you need to keep telling yourself to feel better about why no woman in her right mind would want to be with you, dude...

There were also a number of posts in which men were very eager to brag about their own domestic skills or those of their father, grandfather, etc. Often cited as the reason for these skills was necessity or experiences in the military. Great!

Most of the other posts were comprised of women who came forward to declare that they indeed know how to cook, sew, and the rest of it, but that they also chose to work, stay at home, or take turns staying at home with their partners. Also great!

My anthropologist's mind was reeling with retorts and arguments. I started my own post and would type several paragraphs before deleting the content about five times. I realized it was an exercise in futility and would only result in either being called a derogatory name or being asked, "How YOU doin'?" Instead, I searched for a particular set of words; "zombies" and "apocalypse."

Sure enough, this is where I found my ilk; those light-hearted (or seriously crazy) folk who warn everyone that all genders better hurry up and learn how to knit, cook, construct, and produce their own food. Why? Because the last thing we need is a bunch of naked, hungry fools whose only skills in life are Tetris (sorry Sam) and reformatting their hard drives (again, sorry Sam) running from zombies when the apocalypse happens.

Coincidentally, I had this conversation with Sam last night, as I shoved a newly knitted sock in his face.

"Look, I can fashion clothing out of string! What are you going to do when the apocalypse comes?"

"Uhh, I have a lot of clothes, I'll be fine."

"Dude, what doesn't get destroyed by brimstone is going to be stolen and eaten by the zombies. You're screwed!"

Okay, so maybe I won't get Sam to learn how to purl anytime soon but there's a nugget of truth somewhere in this goofy back and forth. What happens if we suffer a major catastrophe, the likes of which throws us back into a situation in which we must be self-reliant? Do we sit here and wait for some government to send aid? I think there are a lot of Katrina victims who would strongly recommend otherwise. What about the rising costs of food? I make choking noises every time I walk into a grocery store and see the cost of tomatoes. Should I cough up the cash or plant my own?

The satisfaction of being able to make a meal from scratch, knit my own clothes, and do other "domestic" activities does not come from some innate femininity nor desire to become June Cleaver. It comes from knowing that I can survive and the fear of not having perfectly-fitted socks with which to run from zombies.

Even this zombie appreciates a home cooked meal.
Photo courtesy of pageofbats

2, 4, 10 lbs of chantarelles! Ah-hah-hah!

Yes, this blog is defunct. However, I decided to resurrect it just to inform the world that my friends and I picked about $200 worth of chantarelle mushrooms today. Don't think for a second that I'm going to reveal the location! Anyway, we hunted (or browsed as one friend put it) for about 4 -5 hours and put forth little effort to find the golden gems in the underbrush. Sam and I decided to leave the majority of the haul with the two fellas who took us under their wings, revealed their hunting grounds, and showed us what not to pick if we didn't want to barf for three days then die. Still, we walked away with over two pounds of mushrooms and I am at a loss for recipes. I'm not a mushroom eater. I'm fine if small amounts are disguised in food but typically they're not my thing. This has to change since I have so damn many of them. I'm thinking a nice cream of mushroom soup would be perfect, especially since Seattle has decided to fully embrace autumn.

Tampopo

Ahh, Tampopo. I had never seen this film but my friend Meghan assured me I’d love it. During the opening scenes, when the old man described the perfect bowl of noodle soup and how to eat it, I became intensely hungry. It brought back two memories, old and new.Photo courtesy of www.theragingspork.com

When I was about six years old, right around the time my mother and father divorced, I would spend Wednesdays after school and daycare with dad. He lived near my school and a short drive from Chinatown in Victoria, BC. He would take me to a little hole in the wall restaurant that I could never pronounce. I referred to it as “the place with the ducks in the window” as it served whole barbequed ducks. The owner came to know us and would send out a giant bowl of noodles for me along with a fork. I insisted on being a big girl and using chop sticks, much to my father’s chagrin as he was splattered with steaming hot broth. These Wednesday afternoons fostered my favorite pastime of finding a good soup place on miserable days (weather or emotional).

A few months ago, Sam and I discovered Samurai Noodle in the International District. We stood in line for 45 minutes until a spot opened up in the tiny restaurant. It was totally worth the wait. The bowls of noodles were amazing! The broth was perfect and you could order the noodles at varying stages of soft or chewy. A big, thick slice of fatty pork floated on top and each table offered condiments like sesame seeds, chili flakes, or dried seaweed. We both worked through our noodles quickly and discovered that we could order extra noodles to finish off our broth. There is now a sign on a building in the University District claiming that a Samurai Noodle will be moving in. I can hardly wait!

Another side effect of watching Tampopo was that I splurged at Uwajimaya on items I have no clue how to cook. I bought dried ramen noodles, fish sauce, and a few other things with no real intention of trying to make my own noodle soup. I just like having the stuff around my house.

The Future of Food

The most disturbing part of watching the film The Future of Food, for me, was the notion of a company patenting something like seeds. Seeing the farmers deal with their crops becoming “infected” with GMO seeds and then being sued for supposedly using the seeds without purchasing them was really alarming. It made me think of Ruth Ozeki’s book and how adamantly her characters fought the idea of seeds being controlled. I agree with the right of farmers and gardeners to save their seeds for future seasons. Mother Nature doesn’t understand patents. She created seeds and made them opportunists that will stick to the cuffs of pants, fall with the droppings of birds, and float on wind currents in order to propagate their species. Without each other and a symbiotic relationship, seeds and humans wouldn’t survive.

Photo courtesy of asianreporter.com

Overall, I thoroughly enjoy Ozeki’s book All Over Creation. It has been a while since I’ve actually cared about fictional characters and I welcome the change of pace. I usually read “scary food” books in the form of Michael Pollan or Raj Patel. A story about the struggle for non-GMO foods in a fictional book was refreshing. The information was still there but delivered in a much different fashion.

Dumpster diving dilemmas

Photo courtesy of mollygood.com

What stops me from dumpster diving? I’m not afraid of produce that might have a bruise or juice that is a day beyond its expiry date. I think removing perfectly good food from the waste stream is a noble idea. I’m strapped for cash and not above sifting through grocery store garbage bins. So what is it? I’m a coward. The thought of confrontation with a store owner or a dumpster-protecting-rent-a-cop (seriously?) makes me willing to drop ludicrous amounts on apples from Safeway.

In an effort to figure out which places I might sift through a dumpster without being chased off, I have scoured internet sites such as http://www.wayfaring.com/maps/show/3726 only to find tips for jumping fences and dire warnings about security. Not exactly my cup of tea! Posing the notion of dumpster diving to Sam (“Hey honey, want to go wade through some trash cans for dinner tonight?”) results in The Look followed by silence. I asked Ann Anagnost if she would bail us out of jail if we got arrested while dumpster diving in the name of education. I told her I was joking…

Meanwhile, the vegan banana bread David Giles, a representative of Food Not Bombs (FNB), has brought in was delicious if mildly burnt. You’d never know it was from a dumpster upon tasting it. David’s figures and statistics were astonishing. I didn’t realize how much food gets thrown away by families. I am certainly going to make more of a conscious effort to watch what I’m throwing away and adjust the amount I purchase if I can. Sam and I do a pretty good job of consuming any leftovers we have around the house so I think we’re already a little ahead of the crowd.

I also think about the many times I go into Safeway at Roosevelt and 75^th to see homeless men hunched over at the counter, eating pints of cheap ice cream or tearing lettuce leaves out of a bag and eating them plain. Why on earth should they be forced to purchase food when the grocery store is probably throwing away tons of perfectly edible produce?

In the coming weeks, I hope to convince Sam to play look out while I hoist myself into the dumpster outside QFC on Roosevelt and root around.

I am a fun gal. Fungal. Get it?

The last section of Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma caused a peculiar thing in our household. First, let me say this: I. Hate. Mushrooms. I have tried to like them. I have eaten them raw, cooked, chopped up and disguised in other foods, etc. No can do!

However, Pollan’s description of going mushroom hunting ignited something with my little heart. I felt a desperate need to forage for fungus. So, at the end of last summer when the days started getting cooler, Sam and I grabbed a couple canvas bags and drove east to the Curtis-Asahael trail in the Cascade range. As we walked along the path, we discovered many different varieties of mushrooms. We carefully loaded up our bags and brought them home where a friend helped us identify them.

Sam taking a photo of some crazy mushrooms on Asahael-Curtis.

Photo by Beth Hamburg

I was convinced we would have a feast that night. I would fire up the grill, invite friends, and make delicious mushroom dishes that even I couldn’t resist. This didn’t exactly happen. Almost every single mushroom Sam and I brought back, with the exception of a badly bruised Chanterelle, was a variety of Russula which causes bad things to happen. Since then, I have spent time at mushroom exhibitions in Seattle and have purchased a couple mushroom identification books. I have thought to myself, “Man, I bet it’s cool to be a mycologist.” But I still hate mushrooms.

I think there’s something not quite right with me.

The P-Patch wait

While I wait for my chance at a P-Patch, I have been working on my patio garden. Sam and I recently received approval from our landlord to hack out half of the monster rosemary bush (tree) that was growing in front of our door. The soil beneath was rich and dark. We added some compost and manure then set about choosing what we wanted to plant. I was torn between filling the space with as many varieties of vegetables as possible or being minimal and letting a couple larger plants take over. In the end, my desire for zucchinis won out and I planted two where the rosemary used to be.

I then proceeded to take note of every nook and cranny that could be exploited as garden space. The unused space in front of our living room window that sported a healthy bed of weeds became home to a dozen or more herbs, climbing peas, and honeysuckle. I thought this would be a dead zone. Instead, I’ve been rewarded with fast growing, thick peas and honeysuckle that is apparently trying to take over the house. In the corner of another bed I found a small patch not being shaded by a Japanese maple and put a pumpkin plant in. I used a large container for wild lettuce and another for green onions. One container sits empty, waiting for tomatoes. My landlord came out the other day to mow the lawn and do some edgework around our stone path. He left strips of grassless dirt that are about half a foot wide and could easily be converted to homes for strawberry plants.

In the end, I wonder if I would really need a P-Patch. I have more opportunity than most apartment dwellers in Seattle to grow my own food right where I am. During our tour with Teresa Mares, I enjoyed looking at the small garden plots stuffed with veggies but I doubt I could fit in anymore than what I have going here. Perhaps I should leave the P-Patch for someone who truly needs it.

Animals: Good to eat

It was Pollan’s book that reverted me back to being a carnivore after a long period of vegetarianism. My decision not to eat meat, at the time, was based on my concerns about the environment. I have never had a problem with animals being (humanely) killed and consumed. After all, I was nearly eaten by a lion in Uganda. I figure as long as animals are willing to eat me, I’ll do them same for them. Rather, I was critical of the processing of animals and the distance traveled to bring meat to my table. When I read about Joel Salas’ farm, I thought, “That is how it should work.”

An animal should be able to live its life as an animal. Chickens should scratch around and eat bugs. Pigs should wallow in “clean” mud. Cows should graze on grass under the sun, etc. If the animal has had a happy life, I have no problem with eating it. There is something grotesque about torturing an animal all its life and then sending it through a disgusting mass slaughterhouse process.

Humans were made to eat meat on occasion. We do take this to the extreme in America, though. Meat consumption is through the roof and our health problems confirm this. When my mother came down with breast cancer, she was told to lay off the meat and fat and focus on better sources of protein such as legumes. We don’t eat enough fiber to take care of all the meat we eat. What I decided to do was resume eating meat but only do so if I can afford to purchase locally produced stuff. This limits my meat intake and I support local, humane farms at the same time.

Commodified Taste

A widely known truth in my elementary school was that eating raw (unheated) Top Ramen gave you worms. As I eat my chewy, barely “cooked” noodles, I am glad my inner child now knows better. However, I don’t remember Top Ramen being so…fluorescent. What is this traffic-stopping crud clinging to the side of my paper cup? I’m glad the term “chickenized” has been added to my vocabulary because without it I would be lost in describing its flavor. Mostly, it tastes like salt. The Diet Coke tastes like sour water as I was too afraid of the sweetener (I get migraines from it) to pour much and I let it set until it went flat. It does nothing to quench my thirst from the sodium. As the minutes go by, I’m still thirsty and now there’s a thick film of what tastes like…well, sick! Seriously, it tastes like vomit.

When I’m up late at night, craving junk food, I often wonder why my body wants commodified tastes. Truth is, I know why. Sugar is addicting. I can hardly find a healthy snack that I honestly think is as delicious as Swedish Fish or root beer. I try to trick myself into thinking blackberry yogurt or apple slices will quench my desire for a Nutella milkshake but my body knows better. It won’t be fooled. It wants processed, simple sugars. Despite the vomit and sour water taste our Diet Coke and Top Ramen experiment is leaving in my mouth, the food leaves me craving more.

The last thing I think of as I gulp down the final forkfuls of this experiment is the time in Uganda when my dad fed his German Shepherd, Ben, leftover Ramen and, undigested, it came out the same way it went in. Mary, a Ugandan friend of the family who is unfamiliar with most processed and packaged foods, saw Ben’s droppings and proclaimed, “The dog has worms!” …fitting.

***A food I lay claim to...***

I am parts Dutch, German, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, with a smidge of Cherokee on my mother's side. I have a difficult time identifying with a particular food type though I do have favorites (Thai food, southern Mexican food, Indian food). My grandma is from former Yugoslavia and spent several years avoiding Nazis in Germany and before finally settling in Holland. Somehow, during all of this, she became an expert goulash maker. It is my single favorite dish of hers and she makes it whenever I visit and ask for it. I know, when I’m tired from a long drive and ferry trip to Vancouver Island, that when I arrive at her place late in the night she’ll have a steaming pot of beef goulash waiting for me.

When I backpacked through Hungary for two weeks, I spent each evening hunting down restaurants and trying their goulash. Some were like hamburger soup, others nailed it and made grandma-like masterpieces. In particular, one restaurant that fellow hostel-dwellers recommended called Fatal (ignore the name…) served me a huge dish of melting beef, tender dumplings, savory paprika sauce with dollops of sour cream on top. Heaven! I sent postcards to grandma every couple of days telling her about the various goulashes I had tried.

Grandma is getting old. I don’t know how much longer I’ll have her around and I’d never mastered her goulash. She never committed it to paper and when asked to tell me how she made it, she would say things like “a little of this, a little of that.” The last time I was up there, I asked her to make it. I practically perched on her shoulder like a gargoyle and watched every step. I finally felt confident.

Upon returning home, I ran to the store and purchased what I’d need to make Grandma Goulash. I pass along her simple gift to you, dear reader.

A package of stewing beef

Two yellow onions

2 tbsp vegetable oil

A couple of bay leaves

4 or 5 tablespoons of paprika

Enough water to just cover the beef

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Dice the onion and toss it in a soup pot with the oil and bay leaves. Add some salt. Cook over low heat until soft and translucent. Add the stewing beef and cook just long enough to sear the outside of the meat. Toss in the paprika and pepper, give a good stir, then add water and cover. Simmer this for 2-3 hours. Season to taste.
2. To make the noodles/dumplings, I’ve had to rely on my mother’s recipe which is not the same as grandma’s (next time I visit, I’ll watch her again). Also, I don’t really measure things out here. You’ll have to fiddle with it a bit.
3. Mix about 4 cups of flour with a pinch of salt and two eggs. Add enough milk to make the dough wet and very slowly slip off a spoon. It should be softer than bread dough…not something you’d want to stick your hands into but not soupy either.
4. Boil a big pot of salted water and drop teaspoon-sized balls of dough from a spoon into the pot. When they float to the top, give them another couple of minutes then drain. Return to the pot and add a couple spoonfuls of the beef stew to keep the dumplings from sticking together. Serve with strew on top and a little sour cream. Enjoy! (Make sure you have some veggies with this so it’s a little healthier.)

My nerves are shot

I was really looking forward to a peaceful evening of hippy-dippy drum circles, patchouli stink and delicious food at Northwest Folklife. The delicious food happened, thanks to Kenyan Kitchen's Piri Piri Chicken and Curried Vegetable Combo. Yum! I topped it off with a Thai iced tea and Sam supped upon a coconut with the top hacked off and a straw stuck in it. It was authentic-ish, I guess. But it was certainly lovely sitting in the shade, listening to a marimba band in the distance, and eating a mediocre but reminiscent dish that my father's wife makes on occasion.

The unpleasant part came when some jerk apparently tried to pistol whip another guy, firing the gun into the crowd and hitting two bystanders. Sam and I didn't see it, but we heard the shot and the subsequent screaming of a woman running past us crying, "PROTECT YOUR BABIES!"

Folklife. Come for the food, leave for the bullets.

***The struggle to eat ethically***

Yesterday, after listening to Raj Patel eloquently state the failings of a food system that depends on trucking items all over the globe, our class discussed the difficulty in obtaining local food.

Eating locally is a goal of mine. Sometimes I get very determined about this and march down to the U-District farmer's market to stock up. On the way home it hits me as I pass Whole Foods, I could sure use an avocado with all of this stuff. Beaten!

I like rice, avocados, bananas, nori, and chili peppers way too much. I'm doomed.

This morning, as I stumbled into the kitchen to get my morning dose of granola and evil, peasant-killing banana, I was distracted by a BBC article about Gordon Ramsay who is now, apparently, demanding that the British government outlaw out-of-season produce. Asparagus in December really pisses him off. Ramsay annoys the ever-lovin' hell out of me yet I find his over the top rant in agreement with my eating goals.

The problem is, I am simply uneducated in eating locally. Every time I think I can make an entirely local meal, I discover my salt was flown in from Morocco or some such place. I am not at the local-only ingredients stage but rather trying to get to the point where I make all of my meals from scratch. I think this is a good first step. Once I get that down pat, I can focus on adapting the ingredients to seasonally available produce from Washington.

A few nights ago, Sam and I invited our friends Bob and Meghan over for dinner. It had been a long, rainy week (hello? June?) and I wanted to make soup. It needed to be vegetarian for Bob and Meghan. Since it was early on in the day, I decided to go whole hog and get to work on some bread to accompany our soup.

I whipped up four pounds of rye dough then rolled it out into an oval shape and “crusted” it with a coating of caraway seeds. I then rolled it up like a jelly roll, sprinkled more seeds on top, and baked it until dark brown. While that was cooling, I whipped together some lentil soup. I quickly discovered a shortage of lentils in the house and fumbled about for a recipe that included split peas, which I had a ton of. Lo and behold! My Rebar cookbook listed Lentil & Split Pea soup. Hoorah! I have provided the recipe below (with my adaptations).

To round the whole meal out, I dashed out onto the patio and harvested a huge amount of mixed wild lettuces. We sprinkled this with goat cheese, hazelnuts, and a blackberry-orange vinaigrette (picked the blackberries last summer). Decadent!

Everyone decimated the bread and the four of us managed to consume most of the soup.

I am taking steps to eat locally. I don’t know that I’ll find local substitutes for soup ingredients such as ginger, red chile flakes, cuminseed, paprika, turmeric, or lemons, though. I would love to find out how to make food flavorful without all of these things. Or is Pacific Northwest food meant to be bland? Even if I managed to become a local eater, would my social opportunities be severely limited? I don’t think I could force Sam and my friends to eat like me just as Bob and Meghan never demand that Sam and I not be carnivores. I only know of a couple Seattle restaurants that serve local food and they are way beyond my budget.

It baffles me that eating food practically grown in my own backyard should be more difficult and expensive than obtaining items from far away lands.

Lentil & Split Pea Soup (Serves 8)

Ingredients

1 cup yellow split peas (I used green)
3/4 cup brown lentils
3/4 cup red lentils (I used all brown)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp black mustard seed (I didn't have these so I used a little ground mustard instead)
1 yellow onion, diced
2 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup minced ginger
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red chile flakes
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp coriander, ground
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp turmeric
2 carrots, diced
8 cups vegetable stock or water
cracked pepper to taste
juice of two lemons

1. Combine peas and lentils in bowl and soak in cold water for one hour.
2. Heat oil in soup pot and add mustard seeds. When they start to turn grey and pop, add onion and bay leaves. Saute until soft. Add garlic, ginger, salt and chiles and cook five minutes. Stir in remaining spices and cook for several minutes, stirring often and adding small amounts of stock to prevent sticking. Add carrots and saute until tender.
3. Strain and rinse legumes. Add them to pot, along with 6 cups stock or water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until peas and lentils are soft and broken down (about 30 mins). Add more liquid to cover if necessary. Puree the soup with a hand blender or food processor. Reheat in pot and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Add more stock to thin if necessary.

An Open Letter to the Couple We Sat With at the Best Burger Joint in Seattle

Us: Two raucous, hungry, occasionally verbally inappropriate couples with one falafel quinoa burger with Satan's Tears ketchup; one buffalo burger with sweet chili mayo, maple bacon, and whole milk cotija cheese; one beef burger with caramelized onion, Havarti, and 7-pickle dilly sauce; two orders of tater tots (one with bacon salt), two orders of twisty fries, two Boston Creme shakes, one chocolate cherry shake, and one Heath toffee mocha shake.

You: The wide-eyed, charming, easy-going couple who was forced to sit with us for body warmth due to the sub-zero temperatures and was happy to join in the discussion about Democratic Debate drinking games and beet bundt cakes.

We found you delightful and we would like to see you again. We're sorry Sam discussed bodily fluids several times during the meal. Next time you go to Lunchbox Laboratory in Ballard, track us down.All photos attributed to Sara A. and Michael E. on Yelp.com.

I know, this is all well and amusing but something special happened this day at The Lunchbox Laboratory. While Sam and I sat with our friends Bob and Meghan, each couple consuming meat and veggie burgers respectively, we chatted it up with another couple who, due to lack of space, were forced to almost sit on our laps. We never learned their names but we learned what they were eating, which Democratic nominee they preferred, that they liked videogames and Battlestar Galactica. Food brought us together and created a social connection.

It started out with eyeballing their meals and asking what they had ordered. We then shared other favorite restaurants and brunch opportunities with each other. From that point on, it felt weird NOT to converse with them. As they left the restaurant, I could tell the four of us wanted to blurt out something to the effect of, “Wait! Can I have your number?!” But that would be a little too strange, no?

Our (the two couples’) favorite pastime on weekend mornings is to either find a delicious brunch joint or invite each other over for whole wheat pancakes while wearing pajamas. So far the winner has been sitting at a cozy table, early in the morning, with mugs of steaming coffee in Senor Moose in Ballard. They have the best authentic Mexican breakfast food (don’t let the name fool you). I think I died and went to heaven when I ate their bowl of savory tomato broth with strips of tortilla and two poached eggs. Meghan never gets anything other than Chile Aquiles and Sam swears by their homemade chorizo and scrambled eggs. Bob always orders a side of cactus leaves.

I’ve never had so much fun with Bob and Meghan than the time we sat around Senor Moose, waiting for our food, and drawing on the butcher paper-covered table with crayons. Each of us sketched out how our food would make us feel. My drawing consisted of my fork, spoon and knife sporting mohawks and singing in a hardcore band about Mexican food. It was silly, fun, and social.

Beets in my bundt

I love unusual recipes. I came across this one when I was searching for ways to use six lovely, small beets I received in our farm share box.

My friend Meghan loaned me her crazy bundt pan last night and I got to work. The result? Deliciousness! Sam and I can't stop eating this thing.

Beet Bundt Cake - Submitted by Vermadel Kirby on Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened, divided
• 1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 cups pureed cooked beets
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• confectioners' sugar

Directions
In a mixing bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and brown sugar. Add eggs; mix well. Melt chocolate with remaining butter; stir until smooth. Cool slightly. Blend chocolate mixture, beets and vanilla into the creamed mixture (mixture will appear separated). Combine flour, baking soda and salt; add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake at 375 degrees F for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Cool completely. Before serving, dust with confectioners' sugar.

Enjoy!

***Airplane food be damned***

Sam's mother is really wanting us to fly out to Dallas in the next couple of months. I'm antsy to get out there as well. Sam misses his nephew and I have yet to meet the little guy. The flight to Dallas stinks, though. There is usually a layover some place such as Denver or Houston and while those are fine airports, I guess, their food selections leave much to be desired. And at the risk of sounding like a bad 90s comedian, what is the deal with airline food?

The only pleasant, high-altitude dining experience I've ever had was on a Belgian airline. The server was a strapping, multilingual Adonis who kept me in perfectly steamed halibut and single serving bottles of wine the whole way to Nairobi. How that man managed to respectfully refer to me as Mademoiselle while I guffawed my way through Nacho Libre like an American buffoon will forever be a mystery to me.

All other airline meals have been a total bust, if I'm "lucky" enough to even get one. I may have a solution to this dilemma, however. This past week our class has been exploring bento box lunches. While the discussions of how a small, seemingly trivial thing such as a child's lunch in Japan is closely tied to larger issues such as motherhood, gender activities, socializing, and politics are incredibly complex and fascinating, I found myself focusing on my gut reaction to these meals.

I get the bento box. Everything about it is appealing. The appropriately sized portions, the variety, the attention to color, texture, and nutritional value, and the effort put into them seem right and good to me. I love the idea that you can put together a comforting and satisfying bit of home to sustain you through long, dreary, and at least in my experience on campus, lonely stretches at work or school. The thought of someone, ahem Sam, doing this for me and individualizing my meal with a memento or style unique to him and home damn near makes my toes curl with delight. I think everything could go wrong in the world on a given day; I would open my bento box to find a goofy vegetable likeness of him and find something to smile about.

My attempt at a bento lunch box.
Smoked salmon onigiri, edamame, little fish tube things, pickled radishes and beefsteak plant, nori, some sort of yellow onigiri seasoning, broccoli, pepper thing, soy sauce.
Photo taken by Ann Anagnost.

Flying sucks. I hate the feeling of being herded about and suspected of potential criminal acts and being fed a cold, stale meal of pretzels and lousy juice. The next time Sam and I fly to Dallas, I will put my new bento-making skills to good use and pack hearty, healthy, homemade meals for us. Airlines can go ahead and make the whole experience as unpleasant as possible but I will take a little bit of home and comfort to the skies with me.

Zucchini Bread: Hijacked and Adapted

Professor Anagnost was kind enough to bring in some zucchini bread during our last class and it coincided with a current zucchini bread roll I've been on. I wanted to share my recipe which I borrowed and adapted from Allrecipes.com.

Makes two loaves.
Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• a pinch of nutmeg
  
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup Trader Joe's apple or apricot sauce
  
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar - feel free to replace with raw cane sugar or mix white and brown
  
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups grated zucchini (make sure you peel it first and don't squeeze out any liquid)
  
• 1 carrot, grated
  
• 1 cup chopped walnuts or pepitas

Directions

1. Grease and flour two loaf pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, fruit sauce, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl (you can easily do this by hand with a wooden spoon if you don't have access to an electric beater). Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat (or stir) well. Stir in zucchini, carrots, and nuts/pepitas until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean (best to begin checking every five minutes once you have baked for 40 minutes). Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

***Chicks and the City***

Urban chickens would be so cool. This is what I thought about as my Anthropology of Food class toured the UW farm. Keith Possee, tour guide and farm co-creator, mentioned the group's current struggle to obtain permission to keep chickens on the campus farm for the ultimate goal of creating some amount of closed circuitry in the garden. I felt his pain. For years I have harbored an intense desire to decorate my front lawn with a coop of saucy hens. I frequently picture a half-dozen of those plucky gals making soothing cluck-cluck noises as they maneuver between a robust rhubarb and tomato pots. I want warm, green eggs, damn it!

One morning, before going to visit Ann Anagnost’s chickens, I called my mother in Olympia with the hopes that she would share some chicken stories with me. You see, before my birth and until I was very little, my family had a farm of sorts. We mostly owned a couple of horses but some close family friends did the whole farm thing nice and proper; pigs, cows, horses, goats, chickens, ducks, etc. My mother was given several chicks and put them in an empty aquarium equipped with a heat lamp. When the ladies got bigger, they were put in a chicken coop built by my father. Dad knew the area was patrolled by foxes and coyotes so he ran the chicken wire deep under the coop. Mom became very attached to the hens and named them all, of course. She never had any intention of turning them into chicken soup.

One day, mom’s favorite chicken, Singer, hopped up onto the wood pile below the kitchen window. She began pecking, waiting for a handout as she usually did. Mom went outside after feeding her and was dealing with one of the horses. She turned around and didn’t notice Singer pecking about between the horse’s legs. Out of the corner of her eye, my mom saw the chicken go flying and knew the horse had given it a swift kick. She and dad spent the next hour trying to spot Singer under the porch and they were sure she was dead. However, Singer, very much alive, was eventually hauled out and put back in the coop to see what would happen. After a week of recovery, Singer was back to her usual antics. The only exception was that her head now dragged close to the ground at her side.

The other story mom had to offer was about the night she was awoken from her sleep by the sound of frantic hens. Sleepily, she peered out the window and saw a chicken go flapping past, closely followed by a fox. Mom woke dad and together they set the dogs (a German Shepherd and a Great Dane) free, thinking they would make quick work of the fox. The dogs dashed out, did their doggie business on the trees and came racing back in. Miraculously, the chickens were not harmed and all were located the next day in a tree down by the creek.

All this chicken talk began to remind me of two other childhood incidents. My sister, Noelle, who is thirteen years older than me, was often left in charge of her annoying little sister. One day she’d had enough. I think I was following her around while she was trying to be cool and teenager-y with her friends. Noelle dragged me into the barn and ushered me into a hay bale house she and her buddies had created earlier in the day. She gave me a smooth, round rock and said, “If you sit on this and keep it warm, it’ll hatch. If you get off of it, it will die.”

I think I spent the better part of three hours on that rock until finally bursting into the kitchen in search of a hammer to crack it open and speed up the process.

Noelle also had me convinced, for the majority of my childhood, that Cadbury Crème Eggs were filled with real, raw egg yolk. I am still demanding reparations for years of unwittingly handing over my grandmother’s Easter gifts. So far, Noelle has not complied.

I have never owned an animal that produced food. Since I like food and I like animals, I’m sure my desire to own chickens comes from a marriage of the two likes. I am a fan of eggs yet I don’t eat them enough to constantly buy 12-packs of them. I would love to have a couple fresh eggs for daily purposes and only resort to grocery store eggs when I’m baking. Also, Sam has a love-hate relationship with eggs. His doctor ordered him to lay off unless it was just the occasional egg white. I am of the firm belief that an egg white omelet is a food of the devil and not worth making. Plus, my heart breaks a little if I have to toss an egg yolk down the drain. I do indulge him, of course, but it has become easier to just not eat eggs very often.

Here is one of my favorite bread recipes involving eggs. Please note, these are completely and deliciously unhealthy. Enjoy!

Brioche Beignets (Makes four 1-pound loaves of Brioche bread or three million Beignets)

1.5 cups lukewarm water
1.5 tbsp yeast
1.5 tbsp salt
8 eggs, lightly beaten
.5 cup honey
1.5 cups unsalted butter, melted
7.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp water)

1. Mix yeast, salt, eggs, honey, and melted butter with the water in a large (5-quart) bowl.

2. Mix in the flour without kneading, using a spoon or a mixer. The dough will be loose but will firm up when chilled.

3. Cover (not airtight), and allow to rest at room temperature until dough rises and collapses (2 hours).

4. Chill the dough. It can be used as soon as it’s chilled or kept in the fridge for five days (beyond this, freeze it up to four weeks).

5. When ready to bake, tear off a grapefruit sized portion of dough and quickly (less than 60 seconds) shape it into a ball, stretching the surface and bunching it up on the bottom.

6. Tear smaller chunks off of this and punch your thumb through the middles, stretching to make doughnuts. Be aware that you need to make the holes absurdly big since they will puff closed.

7. Allow the doughnuts to rest for 15-20 minutes.

8. Fill the saucepan (I use a wok) with three inches of vegetable oil and bring to 360-370*F.

9. Drop the beignets in 2 or 3 at a time. After 2 minutes, flip them over and let the other side lightly brown. Drain the doughnuts on a paper towel.

10. Dust generously with powdered sugar or a cinnamon/sugar mix.

***Goat, guacamole, and green oranges***

In the fall of 2006, strange events culminated in a two week trip to Uganda with my boyfriend, Sam, of only a few weeks. We'd been friends for nine years prior to this trip so it wasn't as insane as it sounds but still, it was a test of sorts. My father was, at the time, working for the UN and had been transferred to Entebbe from the Republic of Congo after enduring five years of tanks, tear gas, and teens with stones and good throwing arms.

The entire trip was life changing for me and I could fill many posts with food stories. For instance, the night we arrived we were treated to the best tasting BBQ chicken I've ever had. Scrawny street-roaming chickens that feed off piles of trash and get crispified on car grills have a disturbing yet delicious je ne sais quoi. I kid you not. I also tried goat for the first time in Uganda and was pleasantly surprised. Goat stew with matoke was comforting and reminded me of my grandmother's goulash. Sam and I frequently and fondly recall the greatest guacamole and chapathi chips we have ever consumed when we spent the better part of a day at Bujagali Falls, relaxing under a thatched roof and gazing out over some incredible rapids.

I have yet to taste tilapia as fresh and delicious as the stuff we had on the beach of Lake Victoria, flash fried and whole, no utensils needed and doused in hot sauce. Sam encountered a jar of Salad Cream which thoroughly freaked him out (something I was familiar with when growing up in Canada) and we were both perplexed by something in the Belgian delicatessen called Children Salami. The papayas and avocados were as big as our heads. We were spoiled.

On rainy days like today I try to brighten things up with citrus fruits. This morning I squeezed some Valencia oranges and a pink grapefruit with the hopes of stickin' it to the clouds. It worked in part because I was transported back to one sunny day in Uganda when we stopped at a roadside produce stand. The women running it were eager to let us sample the wares and tempt us into stocking up. I was handed what I thought was a green lemon and urged to eat it. My father's wife, Pasco, explained that it was actually an orange, that their skins never actually turn orange in that region.
With some trepidation, I chomped down. Oh my goodness, that thing was amazing! The juice was both tart and sweet, with much more richness that anything we get in the U.S. I almost felt like I could taste the rain, the humidity, and the red earth packed into that little orange. I handed over a wad of shillings (pennies, really) and went home with half a dozen of them. They were gone in three days as I would sit on the warm, stone steps of my father's home each mid-morning, letting the juice run down my arms and the seeds fly out onto the concrete where dad's dogs loitered, hoping for a morsel of something more canine-friendly. If I ever manage to get back to Uganda, the first thing I will purchase will be a sack of green oranges and a bottle of ginger beer. Edible sunshine.

Omens

The superstitious part of me that gives in to chills when a streetlight flickers off as I drive beneath it or prompts me to toss a pinch of salt over my shoulder when I topple the shaker is rearing its ugly head as I write this first food blog. In the spirit of creating this blog and taking an anthropology class about food and culture, I decided to make bread yesterday. Not just any bread, artisan bread. Putting it in italics makes it fancy, see?

I received a beautiful, glossy cookbook from my mother last week for my 27th birthday, called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking, which claims I can put forth a mere five minutes of effort and treat myself and loved ones to warm, artisan bread everyday. The first chapter of this book drew me in, teasing me with Da Vinci Code-like promises of great yeasty truths and crusty secrets waiting to be unfurled within its pages. I stole my mother's pizza stone and got to work.

The creation of the dough was uneventful and, surprisingly, as easy as the authors claim. The baking of it was the ominous part. Ten minutes into the high-temperature baking of my lovely French bread with perfectly executed scallop-slices in the crust, I heard a horrible crack. The poor old pizza stone didn't withstand the 500 degree temperature. The bread had already formed a crust, perfectly steamed and crackling, so I was still in good shape.

Now I hunt for a suitably sized saltillo tile to replace the stone since I can't fathom shelling out $50 for what essentially amounts to $.83 of clay. The search has been fruitless thus far but a plain old cookie sheet under the one pound loaves I have made since seems to be adequate.

I need to make another loaf and get better photos than the one I have offered. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks have been good excuses to slice off a slab of chewy bread and slather it in warm, gooey egg yolk, leftover roasted chicken, or raw honey. So far the bread has been disappearing before I can get in there with my camera - a good sign, perhaps? Maybe all will be well, after all.