Day 16 - Leftovers --and Apple Crisp!

Leftover Spanish Rice and Chicken

Steamed Broccoli finished with Black Salt

Baguette and Happy Acres Family Farm (Templeton) Goat Cheese

Apple Crisp with Greek Style Honey Yogurt

Sigh. Leftovers again. How sad. I finished off the last of the torta for breakfast this morning. You can just call it grits if you like. We did have mere leftovers from last night for dinner tonight, although I discovered some broccoli lurking in the vegetable drawer to add to the plate. I love all the fancy salts you can buy now. I sprinkled a little black salt on the broccoli. We bought a nice baguette at farmers market this morning and served it with the goat cheese I bought last week. I just can't get Randy to get excited, or even particularly to like, goat cheese, but I just love the stuff. We are so lucky to now have a local producer of fresh chevre. I'll continue going to the Templeton farmers market just to buy the Happy Acres chevre. It's delicious.

The Big Deal in cooking today was Apple Crisp. Although Alice gives a recipe for peach crisp with a nut topping, I've had a yen for some fall apple crisp. To me, apple crisp needs the traditional oatmeal topping, so I used the marthastewart.com recipe. The recipe says prep time is 20 minutes. They lie. By the time you do the mis en place, it's more like 1.5 hours, believe me.

I used Winesap apples, recommended by the See Canyon growers. For the first time I used convection baking in our new oven. Mostly it's an energy and time saver. You lower the recommended cooking temperature by 25 degrees and reduce the cooking time to 75% of what is recommended. The crowning touch was my own moment of inspiration. I shopped for ice cream at Trader Joe's, but didn't think any of their offerings were suitable, so I topped the crisp with Greek style honey yogurt. Oh! It was heaven! The tangy-sweet flavor and creamy texture played off perfectly against the crispy and sweet flavors of the apple dish. Good thing I got plenty of the yogurt. I foresee apple crisp for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. After all, I have about 8 servings of the stuff. Well, 6 now.

Otherwise, we took a trip out to Las Pilitas Nursery near Santa Margarita to purchase a flotilla of manzanitas and ceanothuses which Randy planted under one of our oak trees. He's doing vast amounts of planting and replanting, all with native plants. Las Pilitas has been very helpful with the project.

Carry on! Happy Halloween! Happy Dark & Gloomy Evenings!

Day 15 - Cleaning Out the Freezer

Spanish Chicken and Rice (from "Real Simple" magazine)

Seriously. About cleaning out the freezer. There are things in the freezer that we brought from the old house. Some of them went into the garbage can a few days ago (too much old bread saved for bread pudding). Some chicken breast meat became dinner tonight. From my box of saved recipes I brought out "Spanish chicken and rice" from the October 2007 issue of "Real Simple."

According to "Real Simple" this is an easy dinner and is heart-healthy. Basically it's a version of paella, of which there are jillions of variations. It's a one-skillet meal, which is good, and easy to cook, which is good, but the mis en place does take some time. With frozen peas and canned diced tomatoes, this recipe would not pass the Alice Waters test, but (as I've said before) I'm not a purist. I just want to learn to cook, which means I need to cook. And it's such fun! I have a notebook full of clipped recipes that are worth keeping. This one will go into it. It would feed 4-6, depending on what else was served. Guests could get involved with the mis en place. The flavors would appeal to most everyone, and the ingredients are familiar. And, it was a pretty tasty dinner -- Randy loved it. Sprinkle chopped parsley on top and anything looks upscale; that's my opinion.

Our old house is in escrow, but I'm not at all sure the deal won't fall through. I won't even publish my opinion of the buyer, but to say that he wants something for nothing and wants our 35 year old house to be in the pristine condition of new construction. It ain't gonna happen. I worry about these things and was wide awake from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. At least I made good use of the time, hauling boxes of stuff upstairs from the foyer to my studio.

Our project manager was here this morning working on the weather stripping on our front door. It's an artisan-made door from Santa Fe, gorgeous, but something of a challenge. Fortunately, we love our project manager. And we all love the door.

This afternoon Randy and I had lattes at Randy's favorite coffee house, bought a few groceries at Trader Joe's, and finished emptying 1 of our 2 storage lockers. Yeah! The end is near. Er, maybe I should find a better way to phrase that.

I am reading Thomas McNamee's biography of Alice Waters. At the end of Chapter 3 he writes, "Alice decided to cook her way straight through Elizabeth David's 'French Provincial Cooking'." Julie Powell cooked her way through Julia Childs. Alice Waters cooked her way through Elizabeth David. Sally Knight is cooking her way through Alice Waters. Interesting. There really is nothing new under the sun.

I must also add that as I go along my own learning-to-cook path, I grow more and more in awe of Julie Powell. Regardless of Julie's motivation, what she did was remarkable. To make everything in Childs' book on top of working full-time, and to do it in 1 year, is astonishing.

I'm going to spend the rest of the evening relaxing, not worrying, and not hauling boxes of stuff around. The rest of you? Carry on.

Day 14 - Leftovers and a Radiocat

Good thing there was plenty of Torta left over from last night since I only had the energy to ask Randy to nuke some of it for dinner tonight. I had to drive to San Mateo and back today to bring Maizie Jane Valentine home from Radiocat where she was treated for hyperthyroidism. A total of nearly 8 hours of driving. I had contemplated going to Chez Panisse in Berkeley for lunch (again) before heading to San Mateo, but with the Bay Bridge closed I decided it wasn't feasible. Judging from the back-up of vehicles waiting to cross the San Mateo Bridge that I just barely avoided coming and going, it was the right decision.

My big thrill for the day was a stop at the Gilroy Outlets for underwear. I did find a snuggly bathrobe, too. That was a good thing. I didn't have one. Can't run around in the house in the nude all the time.... Otherwise, I just drove straight up there and, with Maizie in tow, straight back. Lunch was a bag of Chex Mix and a bag of honey roasted peanuts that I picked up when I stopped for gas. What a come-down!

I'm delighted to have Maizie home again. She's a good cat, a lively cat, who's quite engaged with the other cats and with her people. Amazingly, she knew exactly when we got to the freeway exit that leads to home. She stood straight up and meowed all the way from that point to home.

And, of course, I'm hauling some more of my stuff up the stairs to my studio. I'm so looking forward to getting back to my work up there once everything is unpacked and put away.

Day 13 - A Recipe I Need to Tweek a Little

Simple Tomato Sauce, the out-of-season version (pg 264)

Polenta Torta (pg 95)

served with mixed greens dressed with clean-out-the-frig dressing gussied up

Ya live, ya learn. Or not. Since Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of this week are all pretty much shot in the nether region, I hit the ground running at 6:30 this morning. Unpacked and washed and put away a ton of dish (we own 7 or 8 tons all together). Did a mountain of laundry. Carried dozens and dozens of boxes of stuff upstairs. And still planned on making Polenta Torta for dinner. When will I learn to ALWAYS read through all the recipes FIRST?! Turns out that it takes some time to make the polenta and I still wanted to get another load of boxes from storage and maybe get to the Atascadero farmers market.

Shoot. Time was growing short. So I decided to just make the torta with store-bought pre-prepared polenta. Searched the Von's supermarket about 3 times before finally tracking down an employee to help. No polenta! The store had NO POLENTA!! Went to the Albertson's, which is huge. Went to customer service. Four additional employees and 1 store manager later, someone finally managed to find one roll of polenta. What the hell do these people eat in this town??? For all that, I could have stayed home and made the darned stuff from scratch. OTOH, I did get another load of boxes from storage. That's something. And dinner was on the table at 7 p.m., not 11 p.m. as it otherwise might have been.

I made the torta with the out-of-season canned-tomato version of Simple Tomato Sauce, and used the hard-won store-bought polenta, adding sauteed sliced mushrooms to the sauce. It was darned tasty, but my tomato sauce was way too runny. Less of the canning liquid, or some roux to thicken the sauce, or time to reduce it, or something. Or run it through the blender. Or use fresh tomatoes when in season. Something. The torta was pretty runny. Using from-scratch polenta would have helped, too. So, this one I need to make again with a thicker sauce.

However, the end product was delicious. Even with 5 cloves of garlic, the overall flavor was mild. I thought that was a nice change from the highly-flavored foods we're all used to. We forget what simple food tastes like.

I just tweeked some bottled salad dressing to put over greens. There are things in the fridge I want to get rid of and I'm too cheap to just throw them out. With a little fresh lime juice squeezed onto the whole thing and some red Hawaiian salt sprinkled about, the salad was pretty good. Okay, not my best meal so far, but not a total melt-down either.

I probably won't be cooking tomorrow since I have to go back up to San Mateo to retrieve Maizie. The report is that she's done very well while at Radiocat. I'm not surprised. Maizie is about the most easy-going cat I've ever known. She's a total sweetheart.

Carry on, loyal readers.

That's 11 recipes down and 294 to go.

Day 12 - Eat Seasonally

Alice's second principle of good cooking is Eat Seasonally.

I remember that when growing up in Wisconsin in the 50s and early 60s, eating seasonally in the winter meant canned tuna/peas/mushroom soup over toast. Pork chops and potatoes. Liver and onions. Casseroles. Iceberg lettuce. But oh! The summer bounty! Watermelon, fresh-caught fish (caught by Dad), tomatoes, corn on the cob, asparagus we harvested from along the railroad tracks, berries from country road-side patches. Fall meant a wealth of apples. Oceans of apples in all their many forms. Okay, so maybe the food wasn't always a cornucopia of great stuff, but we sure did know about eating seasonally.

Today, we can eat anything any time anywhere. Fly it in from somewhere. Dig it out of the freezer. All it takes is money. Here in coastal California we are even more spoiled. We really can get fresh-picked local strawberries nearly 12 months out of the year. I mean berries grown within an hour's drive of our home. Cole vegetables are year around as are most "basic" vegetables. Here it is the end of October and we are getting terrific asparagus. But some things are still prizes of their seasons: winter squash, peaches, the best tomatoes, all come to mind.

The weather, too, dictates many of my cravings. Pea soup, navy bean soup, and chili mean winter to me. Minestrone and cold soups mean summer. Kale, root veggies -- all in the winter. And then there are all of those traditional holiday foods for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter on the one hand; and Memorial Day, the 4th of July and Labor Day on the other.

To cook seasonally certainly means to NOT select all my ingredients from the shelf and the freezer day after day 365 days a year. You know I'm not a purist. I will fall back on those things from time to time, but I'm looking for more. You've seen that I've added a "gadget" to my blog showing what's in season in my area at any given time. You can move the cursor around and check out your area, too. We're spoiled here, it's true. I love reporting what I buy at farmers market each week to thrill and amaze you. Still, I love going with the local seasonal flow.

No, sorry; no cooking today. It just wasn't in the cards. I had a great lunch with a friend at Hush Harbor here in Atascadero. Their portions are huge. I brought half my curried tuna sandwich home and had it for dinner. Poor Randy opened a can of soup, but he said it was good. Progresso, I think. Tomorrow I won't be quite so busy chasing around, running errands, moving yet more boxes from the storage locker to the house and up the stairs and into my studio. Tomorrow I cook.

Carry on.

Day 11 - Lunch at Alice's Restaurant

You remember the old Arlo Guthrie song -- "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant."

Today was quite the busy, adventurous, exciting day. We crawled out of bed at 6 a.m. in order to be out the door at 7 a.m. Too early for me, but the sunrise was beautiful. So my Dear Husband asks me if he should make a lunch reservation for us at the Chez Panisse Cafe. Holy mackerel! Yes! If we can get in... Yes! Yes! And we can get in! At 1:15, we'll be eating at Alice's restaurant.

At 7 a.m. we're out the door, my Honda CRV loaded with the boxed pieces of a cabinet that has to be returned to Ikea (it has a warped piece and needs to be exchanged) and Maizie Jane Valentine who is going to Radiocat in San Mateo for her $1,000 high-tech radio-iodine treatment to resolve her hyperthyroidism. Maizie rode in her carrier, right in the back seat between us, high enough so she could look out the window and watch everything. Maizie is a good traveler, thank heaven. We arrived at Radiocat shortly after her 11:00 appointment time. Traffic was squirrelly and apparently all the cats were running late. (You know how distracted those kitties can get....) Maizie is totally calm about everything. She's probably the most easy-going cat we've ever had. We got her checked in and then we were off to Berkeley.

Ah yes, lunch aboard the mother ship. Basically, this was a real vote of confidence (and encouragement) from Randy. Sunday night he told me that he's really impressed with what I'm doing with regard to my learn-to-cook project. Bless his heart.

Randy had:

Cannard Farm leeks with mustard vinaigrette and chervil

Autumn vegetable couscous with harissa and charmoula (Moroccan condiment sauces)

Carmel cream puffs with bittersweet chocolate sauce; coffee

I inhaled:

Rocket and celery root salad with Meyer lemon and black pepper

Northern halibut with cauliflower, spinach, lime and ginger butter

Pink Lady apple and quince tart with wild flower honey ice cream

Sour cherry D'Arbo fruit soda

I don't have to tell you that everything was wonderful. Expensive, but wonderful. And inspiring. This is only the second time I've eaten in the cafe. We also had dinner there with friends maybe a year ago, although I can't remember for the life of me what I ate that night.

Between my own cooking and this lunch, I'm getting a handle on what signature Waters food/cooking is all about. It's not like other food, even in other upscale California restaurants. There something different here that I can't quite yet put my finger on. One thing I know by now is that this is food for the adventurous eater. New ingredients. New combinations. New ways of preparing food. I'm an adventurous eater. Early childhood influence from my father's side of family. I'll have to write more about that later.

Anyway, after lunch I bought a few things at the Andronico's grocery store across the street from Chez Panisse. I would have thought that store, of all groceries on the planet, would have salt-packed anchovies, but nooooo. I did bring home a celery root however, a couple Meyer lemons, a proper fuyu persimmon, some shriveled French olives, some fresh mozarella, walnut oil, and raspberry white balsamic vinegar.

Then it was off to the Emeryville Ikea to exchange the cabinet. Lattes at the nearby Pete's and then head for home. We stopped in Salinas for a bite to eat at Jack-in-the-Box. That was tough after Chez Panisse, but I survived. We got home about 10:30 and hit the proverbial sack.

No new recipes today, but plenty of inspiration and reinforcement. Not to mention great eating!

Carry on.

Day 10 Redux - And Dinner, Too!

Pan-Fried Sirloin with Salsa Verde (pgs 120-122 & 45)

Brussels Sprouts Gratin (pg 295)

My main goal today was to get caught up with laundry, so I was eager to cook some more for dinner tonight. ANYTHING to avoid laundry. And, no, I'm not caught up with the laundry. Anyway, I tackled 2 new recipes and another variation on an old one for dinner tonight.

I've pan-fried pork chops and wanted to try my hand at some beef tonight. It was some sort of sirloin with a very long name on the label. I can't believe how easy it is to cook meat! I always thought it was one of the dark arts, that you had to make a pact with the devil to be told the secrets of cooking meat. Even with a spatter guard, pan frying makes a heck of a mess on the cooktop, but it's so quick and easy and Randy cleans up. (I just don't want to push my luck in that regard.)

To top the steaks I made the second of Alice Waters' Four Essential Sauces: Salsa Verde. Basically it's gremolata gussied up. A lot of chopping and zesting, but my skills are improving, however slowly. I am now certain that it's way easier to zest a fresh lemon than a frozen one. Should have guessed that one.

Accompanied by Brussels Sprouts Gratin. We LOVE brussels sprouts. I was thrilled to find another way to prepare them. Somehow I've managed to live all these years never having made a gratin (or much of anything else in recent memory). This was not a low-cholesterol dish what with the cream, butter and bacon. But my-oh-my was it tasty! Alas, I used Progresso bread crumbs, not home-made. There are limits and I'm not a purist.

I wasn't quite as organized tonight as usual. My mise en place wasn't in place. I was in a hurry and learned, once again, that rushing this step just doesn't pay off. Nonetheless, I'm feeling more confident overall. I'm paying strict attention, too, to presentation. If I'm going to do this, it's going to be beautiful on the table. Period.

The veggies were creamy without being mooshy. The steaks were delicious. The salsa was a nice fresh-tasting addition. Another terrific meal.

9 recipes down, 296 to go

Day 10 - Grapefuit and Avocado Salad

Grapefruit and Avocado Salad (pg 240)

Man, what I did to that poor grapefruit could probably get me arrested. Remember that scene in the movie "Julie and Julia" where Julia Childs is at home chopping a mountain of onions to perfect her knife skills? Well, I need to do something similar to a mountain of grapefruit. Peeling one down to its flesh was challenge enough, but then merely identifying the membranes separating the sections, much less properly cutting them, was a real challenge. So, I foresee making this particular salad again. And again. And again. And again. Beats the heck out of chopping 20 pounds of onions anyway.

I made the vinaigrette with champagne vinegar instead of white wine vinegar because that's what's on the shelf. I used Hawaiian red clay salt on the avocado slices. I arranged the slices on top of mixed organic greens and sprinkled the whole thing with bacon pieces before serving to make the salad lunch-worthy, served only with a big bowl of tortilla chips. Sunday lunch!

Once again, I bow to Alice where flavor is concerned. This recipe sounded like the most boring thing in the world but was absolutely wonderful. I do think that the bacon pieces added the perfect savory flavor for us carnivorous fat seekers. Bacon/ham and avocado always seem to me to blend beautifully. I think it's the salt and the contrasting textures. This time of year our local ruby grapefruit are just becoming sweet, not like those awful sour things I remember from my midwest childhood. I want to try this salad again in a couple months when the grapefruit have been on the trees a little longer and are just that much sweeter.

The vinaigrette, made this time with a little of the grapefruit's juice, was excellent. Good thing I had the foresight to cut the fruit on a rimmed plate to catch the juice, eh? Comes from actually reading the recipe first and thinking it through. I AM learning SOMETHING!

Another success, I'd say, even if the condition of the fruit slices left something to be desired aesthetically. I'm becoming more and more amazed at how this project is opening Randy and I both up to new tastes. Honestly, I think we had gotten into a terrible rut with our cooking and eating. There's more to life than Trader Joe's pasta, good as that stuff is. More importantly, I'm really enjoyed cooking. It's "making stuff" as much as any other creative pursuit.

Now, on to a mountain of laundry. Not so creative, I'm afraid.

7 recipes down; 298 to go, more or less

Questions to Answer After Cooking....

How did it taste?

What did I learn?

Day 9 - No Cooking Progress Made Today; Sorry...

What did I do today? Darned if I know. Didn't cook, though I thought a lot about cooking. I did make it to farmers market. Purchases included Winesap apples for a crisp, a pomegranate which cost all of 25 cents, a ruby red grapefruit, and a persimmon which turns out to be the wrong type for a salad. I have a heck of a time keeping those 2 common persimmon types straight. I need the fuyu, the small flatish one. I got the pointy one that I can neither pronounce nor spell, but it starts with an h. I was in a hurry this morning, which never pays off.

Otherwise, more box hauling since I'm determined to move a car-load every day. I want to get all our stuff out of storage and into the house ASAP. So the house is a mess, but at least I'm motivated to unpack while surrounded by all our stuff. If it's still in storage, the old "out of sight, out of mind" thing is starting to come into play. Not good since I'm a procrastinator by nature.

Well, more tomorrow. Carry on.

Day 8 - Leftovers and a Vinaigrette Variation

We had lunch out at a Japanese restaurant where, for the first time in my life, I did NOT order sushi. I don't think I'll make that mistake again. The miso and tempura were terrific. The beef stuff was okay. My stomach is small. I took home leftover rice and leftover beef stuff.

After an afternoon of hauling boxes from the storage locker to the car to the garage to the foyer and upstairs to my studio, while just generally also putting stuff where it belongs, I was kinda pooped but still not very hungry. In the refrigerator lurked... (wait for it)... leftovers. Japanese beef stuff. Rice. The end of the green chile stew with its little bacon sprinkles. Half an apple. Half a plum. Most of a lemon. Some chopped parsley. A few Red Flame grapes. It was time for a communal dinner of salad and leftovers.

I made more or less the same salad as last night, and tried another Alice vinaigrette variation, using fresh squeezed lemon juice instead of vinegar and plain basic Trader Joe's organic olive oil. Again, a pinch of salt, but no pepper. It wasn't the total orgasmic experience of last night's honey and lime sauce, but it was still Yum.

So, it was a day of chauffeuring my poor injured husband around, shopping for cool baking dishes, and getting our new life in order. I think I'd rather pack than unpack, to tell you the truth. Oh well. No new recipes today, but tonight I'm going to do some planning for the coming week in order to use my time and resources effectively at farmers market in the morning. I still have an avocado from last week, as well as some brussels sprouts that I plan to au gratin with pan-fried beef.

Carry on.

Day 7 - Vinaigrette With a New Twist

Left Over Green Chile Stew from last night

The end of the pugliese loaf with basil olive oil for dipping

Greens and Fruit Salad with Honey Balsamic and Lime Olive Oil Vinaigrette (pg 44)

The very first recipe/cooking lesson in TAOSF is vinaigrette. Randy has been dressing our salads with red wine or balsamic vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette forever. Frankly, I've never been wild about it. Too acidic and, well, boring, for me. So, I've been avoiding even thinking about making vinaigrette a la Alice. But, today was very busy. The featured entree at my cafe was Leftovers. Leftover stew and leftover bread. Not a lot of time for other cooking.

I had an idea! We recently went to We Olive in Paso Robles California with friends for a major olive oil tasting. It was there that I fell in love with a mixture of honey balsamic vinegar and lime olive oil for bread dipping. Well, it seemed to me that a vinaigrette of these 2 ingredients, with salt but no pepper, would make a swell dressing for a salad of greens and fruit. I love to add fruit to my green salads anyway. So, I thinly sliced some apple and some plum, threw in a few raisins and chopped pecans and dressed the whole thing with my honey balsamic lime olive oil vinaigrette a la Sally. Heaven! It was Heaven! Honestly, the best salad I've ever had in my entire life.

My vinaigrette success tonight makes me now eager to try some other variations, some that Alice suggests in TAOSF and some that I've been thinking about. We have a whole bunch of different vinegars and olive oils in the house, and easy access to many more. This is another major breakthrough, on a par with my recent cauliflower breakthrough. Yippee!!

Otherwise, it was just a very busy day of errands and chores. Some days are like that.

6 Waters recipes down; 299 to go.

Day 6 - A Side Trip to New Mexico

Californian Green Chili Stew

served with tortilla chips, salsa, and cilantro/roasted pecan dip from Trader Joe's

When Randy and I were in New Mexico earlier this month, we took a chile (not chili) cooking class with Rocky Durham at the Santa Fe School of Cooking. It was a WOW!!! We made tortillas, red chile sauce and green chile sauce. We followed our Friday afternoon class with a Saturday morning visit to the Santa Fe farmers market. We brought home tortilla-grind masa harina and 2 pounds of red chile, 1 Chimayo-style from the School and 1 from a Chimayo vendor at the market.

Today I wanted to test my green chile roasting skills on our gas cook top by making the Santa Fe School of Cooking's Green Chile Stew. I made a version based on their cookbook's recipe and another that was on their web site 2 years ago. Of course, my green peppers were Californian, not New Mexican, but the resulting taste definitely had that New Mexico edge. As we learned in Rocky's class, chiles vary greatly depending on many factors: where they are grown, the type, the time of year, the soils, how much water they get and when, and so on. So no matter the taste, my chile was Californian Green Chile Stew. And, it was great! There are plenty of leftovers; I'm anxious to learn what the stew tastes like tomorrow.

Still holding at 5 Waters recipes down and 300 to go.

On a more mundane note, my creative time today (other than cooking) was spent hauling yet another load of stuff up from the storage lockers. My poor husband's knee is in such bad shape he can hardly walk; he bought crutches today. He also had it X-rayed this morning, the first step toward actually getting it fixed. Something tells me this is going to be a long week.

My Blog Sucks; Alice Waters Doesn't

I've just been web surfing, finding all kinds of wonderful food and cooking blogs. Mine, however, sucks. No fancy photos. No great lists of recipes and dining destinations. No links. No bells and whistles. What can I say-- I'm nearly a luddite. Well, I'll try to gussy it up in the future. I'm still working on unpacking and getting settled into our new house. Remember? And there's this to-do list.... which is very long.

In my surfing I've also discovered that Alice Waters has become quite the controversial political figure. Or shall I put it this way: some folks are making Alice into a political controversy. Sorry, but you won't get any of that from me. I just want to learn to cook.

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I went cooking shopping. Turns out there is a huge, wonderful kitchen store right at the base of my hill. Who knew!? I bought 2 mortars and pestles. A medium and a large. I'm ready to pound. I found this double boiler gadget. It's sorta the top part of a double boiler, but made to fit any size saucepan. And a tortilla press. I got a tortilla press. Later in the day I found a Paula Deen 5 quart cast iron casserole at Ross Dress for Less. Forty bucks! I've love to have the $200 version. Someday. I'll try out this one today. It weighs a ton. I'm starting to think that cooking might be a good workout.

Carry on.

Day 5 - The Dreaded Cauliflower, Part II

Spicy Cauliflower Soup (pg 257)

Pugliese Bread with Honey Balsamic Vinegar and Locally Produced Lime-Flavored Olive Oil

I believe I'm going to have to stop whining about cauliflower. Just don't ever ask me to boil the stuff. I made the soup this morning using boxed chicken broth for all the liquid. Then "coarsely pureed" and reheated it at dinner time. Alice doesn't like blenders, but I think I could have stirred or whisked for a week and not gotten the results I got in 2 minutes using the blender. Sorry, Alice; I admitted up front that I'm not a purist.

What separated this soup from the masses was the garnish. A large dollop of nonfat Greek style honey yogurt, a little chopped parsley, and a generous squeeze of fresh lime juice. Balanced out the spiciness of the soup quite nicely.

The pugliese was simply from Ralph's, but very high quality. I am in love with the locally-produced lime-flavored olive oil. Excellent for dipping, especially with honey balsamic. Pasolivo also produces orange and lemon olive oil. I'll try them the next time I get to We Olive.

Am I writing into the wind? It's just that I'm so excited about this journey and I want to share it! I will have to settle for Randy's enthusiastic feedback. Bless him: he cleans up after my cooking. And praises the cook.

This makes 5 recipes completed. 300 to go, at least.

Carry on, whoever you are. Wherever you are.

Day 4 - The Dreaded Cauliflower

Sauteed Cauliflower Italian Style on Egg Noodles (pg 119)

Slices of Fresh Fruit with Red Flame Grapes

Did this ever happen to you when you were a kid? Something revolting was served on your dinner plate which you refused to eat and you were forced to sit at the table for hours until you ate it? Who the hell ever thought THAT was a good idea?! My "something revolting" was boiled cauliflower. Which does NOT improve as hours pass, I can guarantee you from actual experience. Nor will all the Kraft American cheese sauce in the world make it any more palatable. I haven't been able to eat cauliflower since. Hardly even raw with Ranch dip. Julie Powell had her eggs. I have cauliflower.

A close second is plums. Never did like the over-juicy, stringy texture when biting into a whole, somewhat over-ripe plum. Just biting into the skin made my teeth shrink back up into their gums. So I don't eat those, either.

But, as long as I'm studying the techniques of pan-frying and sauteing, I thought I might as well cowgirl-up and try sauteing some cauliflower. Luckily Alice lists a variation that adds parsley, garlic, anchovies, capers, hot chile flakes and olives, all to put over pasta. I used the last of some fabulous smoked olives lurking in the back of the frig. I do love olives in most all their many incarnations. Alice doesn't mention any measurements for any of these ingredients, so I was on my own. I can deal. This isn't baking.

Since I'm getting awfully tired of the same-old, same-old lettuce salad accompaniment with all our dinners, I thought that fruit would be a good alternative. One of my fondest Roman memories is the bowls of chilled whole fresh fruit put out for dessert in all the little trattorias. Small plates and small sharp knives were passed around so each diner could peel fruit, share fruit, whatever. My variation tonight was slices of apple, slices of slightly under-ripe plums and more of those Red Flame grapes, all heaped together in a bowl and sprinkled with a little yellow sugar.

Oh ma gosh! What a great dinner! The cauliflower and pasta dish was superb, truly. I'd make it again and eat it again in a heartbeat. The fruit was perfect. I did feel like we were in Rome. The plum was delicious. Randy thought it was a little under ripe, but for me it was perfect. Firm and flavorful. Life is good. Hell, even cauliflower is good. At least in this case.

Okay, that means I've tried a total of 3 Alice recipes. All with success. I am optimistic that I might actually learn to cook one day.

Carry on!

Day 3 - A Complication Emerges

My girlfriend Georg and I hit the Open Studios trail again this morning, followed by a modest lunch of a small french dip-type beef sandwich at a favorite waterfront haunt in Morro Bay. Damn. Remember how I told you that recent tummy surgery had resulted in my having an actually smaller stomach? So I'm eating less because I get full faster? Well, by the time I got home hours after lunch and it was time to cook dinner, I was still so stuffed from lunch that the mere thought of cooking was turning me bright green. Hot flashes didn't help. The result is that Randy ate leftovers for dinner, while I nibbled on bread pudding (warmed with butter and cream) and Red Flame grapes. Sigh. Delicious, but didn't add to my culinary education much.

However, I did get one cooking-related project completed today. I have a largish pile of recipes clipped from various magazines and newspapers, downloaded and printed, begged from friends, you name it. Collected over more years than I care to admit. I've wanted to go through them, toss out the less than exciting ones, and transfer them into a nice box where they would be a good bit more accessible. I started very early this morning and just finished. Done! I'm feeling like an organized cook, if not an actually cooking cook. Apparently, for at least the near future, I get either lunch or dinner but not both. On the other hand, if the result is a shrunken ass, I'm willing.

In the meantime, why Alice Waters, you might ask? Julie Powell cooked her way through Julia, Volume I. There are plenty of other cookbooks out there. Why Alice? Three reasons. First is that "The Art of Simple Food" is written as a how-to-cook-book. There is no Cordon Bleau here in San Louis Obispo county. I need a teacher. A curriculum. TAOSF is it. Second reason is in the title: simple. Simple. It's not that I'm unwilling to tackle complicated stuff. Occasionally. It's just that I want to cook for real life, as a way of life. Third is that, like Alice, I live on coastal California where one can easily eat from wonderful farmers markets all year around. Indeed, there is at least 1 such market every day somewhere in my county. After living here for nearly 20 years, I've come to know and appreciate the markets, the local CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture programs), the abundance and quality of food we can access. Alice's is the way of cooking and eating that is natural to me, given my wants, my disposition, and my geography. It just makes sense.

Alice gives 9 principles of good cooking in her introduction to TAOSF. Perhaps I'll discuss them -- as they seem to apply to me -- one at a time, from time to time. First is: Eat locally and sustainably. Here is California we have numerous examples of both small, local producers and giant corporate agricultural operations. The differences are stark. I won't get into a long explanation. Suffice it to say that produce safety scares of recent years have always involved the big producers and/or distant producers. Okay, I'm not a purist. I eat some of that stuff, but I certainly prefer our local small producers. Randy and I belonged to an organic CSA program for a couple years at our old house in Los Osos. I can tell you from experience that organic produce tastes better. It does. When you wash your lettuce and wash off the bugs, you can be sure that if nothing was applied to the lettuce that killed the bugs, then there was nothing applied to the lettuce that would kill you. A comforting thought. Again, I'm not a purist about organic food, but I do know that organic farming is by far the most sustainable. Organic practices preserve and built the soil and the water resources. Frankly, shopping at the farmers markets is one heck of a lot more fun than shopping at the giant corporate super markets.

Okay, enough for tonight. Hopefully I'll be back to the range and the oven tomorrow.

Carry on.

Day 2 - Templeton Farmers' Market

Girlfriend Georg and I hit the North County trail of Open Studios today. Bruce Everett, our first visit, set a standard that wasn't matched all day. Still, we had a good lunch at the Paso Robles "Crooked Kilt." (Whoever thought I'd find a sports bar to be one of my favorite lunch spots?) It was squid strips for me. The squeamish can call it calamari.

Randy made his first attempt at New Mexican red chile sauce this evening. It was pretty yummy, but honestly, I think mine will be better. Sorry, Randy.

First thing this morning, Georg and I made a visit to the Templeton Farmers' Market. It's a nice size market in a relaxing small-town park setting. I now have a huge "Lamb" Haas avocado that was too lovely to pass up. Some plums and pluots and sugar-sweet Red Flame grapes. I found a few green chiles for practicing my roasting technique. Only 1 vendor had cauliflower, which was my primary goal for this market, but one was all it took. The head I bought is a beauty.

Big news is that we now have a local producer of artisan chevre! Apparently it is very difficult to get proper licensing to make and sell chevre in California -- who knew?! I didn't buy any today, but I certainly will soon. Memories of last week's New Mexican chevres still linger on my palate.

Carry on.

Day 1 - The Art of Simple Food

Pan-Fried Boneless Pork Loin Chops with Gremolata (pgs 122 & 231)

Oven-Roasted Asparagus (pg 289)

We returned yesterday afternoon from a much needed week of R&R&Shopping in New Mexico. Our first dinner home was nothing more than a roasted chicken and container of broccoli slaw from the local supermarket deli. Pretty good stuff, actually.

But I also shopped for tonight's dinner. Pork loin chops, asparagus from Peru (forgive me, Alice; I don't want to wait until farmers' market Saturday to begin cooking), and broccoli.

This afternoon I made bread pudding. I have a standard recipe, subject to much variation, given to me by Susan, manager of a now-defunct coffee house in Morro Bay. I throw odds and ends of bread and pastry past prime into the freezer until I have enough for a batch. Right now I have enough for several batches, having moved all those frozen heels and stale cake bits with us from the old house. (Would someone please BUY the old house?!)

Dinner is Pan-Fried Pork Chops garnished with Gremolata and Oven-Roasted Asparagus drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with shaved Parmesan.

First an OOOPS! Pork chops (or beef or chicken) must be thin, 1/2" for pan-frying. My loin chops are 1" by actual measurement. Alice says that after browning, I can finish them by baking in the oven. But who knows for how long? Not me. I drag out the trusty cast iron skillet I begged hubby for nearly 2 years ago when I decided to learn to cook a la Alice. Get it HOT. Add oil (a mix of olive and some other stuff). Toss in a little salt to keep oil from splattering (a trick I learned from Chinese wok cooking). Dry the chops (learned from the movie; and from Julia). Salt and pepper. Into the pan to brown. Looks promising.

Mean while, my assistant, dear hubby Randy, has peeled the asparagus with a vegetable peeler (who knew?), laid them in an oven-proof pan, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt.

When the chops are browned, they go into the oven, right in their cast iron skillet. About 5-7 minutes later, in go the asparagus. The whole thing bakes away at 375 for about 10-12 minutes.

Oh yes! The gremolata! Mine is the parsley, lemon zest, garlic combination that Alice spells out. I'm not thrilled with mine since the proportions don't seem quite right, but then again I didn't measure all that accurately. I'll have to try it again.

Anyway, the whole meal was damned good if I do say so myself. The asparagus should probably have roasted at 400, but that could have killed the meat. The chops were excellent, which shocked me. I've always been nervous about cooking meat.

Later in the evening, the bread pudding with tea.

By my count, there are 305 recipes in Simple Food. (And endless variations, which can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on your goals in life.) I will say I accomplished 2 today, so there are 303 to go. Okay, to be honest, I need to try the pan-fried meat thing again. I have some appropriately thin beef in the frig now. But I'm still going to call it 2 down and 303 to go. I'm just beginning to think that I might be actually learning to cook from this project! Julia always said that to learn to cook one must simply cook. Sounds reasonable.

Carry on!

Long Story Short

We built the house and we now live in it. I intended to blog the whole process but, heck, I barely SURVIVED the whole process. Stressful? You can't begin to know. Unless you've done it yourself. Bits and pieces of the house are still being finished, but we're here and we love it.

Health? Well, all that almost-pneumonia that wouldn't go away traced back to a hiatal hernia. One-third of my stomach was above my diaphragm. No wonder I couldn't breathe. Never mind the acid reflux. So, I've since had laproscopic surgery to fix the whole thing, and I feel great.

Life goes on. In our new house I have a large studio. Which I am slowly whipping into shape.

We also have an excellent new kitchen. Dacor everything except a Bosch dishwasher. So I'm finally able to learn to really cook well, something I've planned on since the decision to build a new house. Coincidentally, out came Julie Powell's book, closely followed by the movie adaptation, "Julie and Julia." Inspiration! My guide will be Alice Waters' "The Art of Simple Cooking." Stay tuned for further exciting adventures!