Monday, April 30, 2007

David Sedaris ★ Steven Barclay Agency

Rob and I went to see one of our favorite authors, David Sedaris, in Santa Barbara on Saturday. I had bought the tickets for a performance by David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell as a Christmas present. I'd been searching for tickets to see David Sedaris for some time because I just love his readings on This American Life, so this seemed as though it would be a really fun thing for us to share. Rob and I rarely plan events for ourselves, so we were both pretty excited about this night out.

We had a blast.

We went to dinner at our favorite restaurant in Santa Barbara, The Paradise Cafe, which has the best hamburger around. It's oak grilled and you can get it medium and it's juicy and fantastic. I had a burger and Rob had a porterhouse steak. We made fun of the rich people -- well made fun of and envied them. There was the requisite perfectly groomed older woman whose hunched-over frailty was in direct contrast to her smooth, flawless face.

Plastic surgery in real life tends to look weird. The surgeons have it down so that there's nothing wrong with what you're seeing, but somehow up front and personal there's something jarring about a face that's seen a lot of surgery. It's too plastic, waxy and not quite real. I guess they call it plastic surgery for a reason.

There was the lady dressed in a thousand shades of green with green sunglasses. We named her The Riddler. It ended up she was going to the David Sedaris thing too and we spotted her taking her seat. I'm always taken aback by the money that's evident in Santa Barbara. I grew up around enough rich people to be able to spot the signs. Truly rich people don't tend to be all gaudy and gauche. They are understated. Their clothes look almost too casual and sloppy. But if you look closely, the haircuts are expensive and the accessories are for the rich only.

We finished our meal, which was leisurely because we got there with plenty of time and headed to the theater. The Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara is built to resemble a Spanish courtyard, complete with adobe building fronts and a fake starry sky with painted trees. This was a good thing because it's also huge and you couldn't see the speakers. I mean you could see them all teeney up at the mike, but you couldn't make out facial features or anything.

David Sedaris started first by doing a really sarcastic piece on honesty in his stories. This is in response to an article by Alex Heard in The New Republic, an expose that reveals that Sedaris may sometimes exaggerate for comic effect. The article was roundly ridiculed by many in the literary world, including the Web site Gawker. They cite the example of Sedaris claiming he was sent to speech therapy because he was gay when, in fact, it was because he had a lisp. As it was pointed out by commentators, lisp = gay in South Carolina and in the 1950s.

Of course, something like this is way too much of a gimme for the satirist, who probably wrote Heard a thank you note, and if he hasn't he should. Sedaris' piece on honesty in his works was inspired. He ended up pondering why he should be called to task when such lies and prevarications -- like, say, weapons of mass destruction and imminent threats to the U.S., lies that have resulted in untold deaths -- are treated as "typos."

I had a great time, well, except for a couple of little things. Like the fact that my seat SUCKED and Rob wouldn't switch with me. The guy next to me had atomic breath. It was so bad it hit me like a supernuclear blast every time he laughed. This is a good way to establish a Pavlovian response. Every time Sedaris or Vowell -- who is also great -- would say something funny, I would cringe -- waiting for the wall of stink to envelop me. It was the kind of stink where you take your fingers to your nose and smell, a la Molly Shannon, to block out the other smell.

I kept trying to scootch away, but I couldn't see the stage below because there was a girl smack dab in my line of sight and she couldn't sit still. She'd go right, so I'd go left, so she'd shift left, so I'd go right and she'd go right, ad naseum. I was going to smack her. It's not as though there was much to see -- literary readings aren't exactly visual feasts -- but I at least wanted the option. No one was sitting in front of Rob, but he wouldn't switch. I probably shouldn't have told him about the bad breath.

Sedaris did some new material from early this year. It was pretty good, not as good as his lie riff, but it was good. Sarah Vowell likes to do satiric history humor. That sounds a lot more esoteric and nonfunny than it is. But she's good. She's got a real knack for the comic pop, so her bit about a cartographer from the 1800s who was hysterically unimpressed by the pioneering explorations he was undertaking, was really funny.

They did questions and answers but the venue was too big and it was awkward. We could have stayed for the book signing and meeting of the author after, but there were a ton of people there and Rob and I aren't stand in line for a rote meeting and signature kinds of people.

I always wonder why we don't do more of this kind of thing when we have so much fun every time we go out. Oh yeah, I forgot. We're lazy.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Hummingbirds









We kept noticing humming birds up by our front window today. There were a bunch of them in my peach tree, so I decided to take some pictures. The hummingbirds seem to have nested in our neighbor Dan's tree. I've spotted Dan sitting out front with his camera taking pictures of them.

Dan appears to be mad and Rob and me right now. We don't know why, but he turns his back when we come home and is quiet. He was the same way to our neighbor Ramsey, so who knows what it is. Our dogs were also hassling his dog, but his dog has hassled ours and is a LOT meaner. Who knows? And we really don't care because we're friendly neighbors -- we'll catch your dog if it's out or tell you if you've left the lights on in your car, but we're not best buddy neighbors.

Back to the hummingbirds. They've been going to the peach tree because it's been blooming. We have some of the most amazing hummingbirds here because Ventura is on a major migratory path and because of the temperate climate we see all kinds of birds that follow the coast.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

The Weddin

 

 
Posted by Picasa

My daughter, Lindsay, is getting married. This isn't a surprise -- she's been dating Ryan for years. But like with most things like this, I've been trying to avoid it until I absolutely have to deal with it.

The wedding is May 26. I absolutely have to deal with it. So today Lindsay, her friend Shelby and Lindsay's future mother-in-law, all piled in my pet-hair strewn car and went to Burbank to the Ikea store there. I'd been looking online for stuff to make into centerpieces at the wedding. It's going to be outside, so it seems a good bet to go with low centerpieces.

Lindsay wants a colorful wedding and I've arranged for my flower guy to deliver a bunch of flowers a few days ahead so they're open for the wedding. We're just going to assemble a bunch of the best flowers available, avoiding pastels and going for vibrant colors.

I decided to put one together to see how it would work. It's sitting outside now to see how it will work outside. Discovery No. 1; regular tea candles in those little tin dealies work just as well as floating candles. Wooo Woooooo.

It's getting to be kind of fun to wander into the L.A. area. I'd been to Ikea before, but this time we actually ate dinner in a downtown Burbank restaurant. I hadn't spent much time with Dorothy before so that was fun. Lindsay always talks about how sweet and nice she is, with that slight -- or not so slight -- reproving tone she likes to adopt. Despite that, Dorothy is still a lovely lady and we seemed to have the same attitude toward the task at hand, which was to get it done with.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Another test recipe

 
Posted by Picasa

Cooks Illustrated sent me another recipe to test. It was a really good idea to go with two email addresses because I get so many more recipes this way. This recipe was for tangerine beef stir fry with onions and snow peas.

It's a fairly simple recipe and I served it with some chow main soba noodles. Rob, however, hated it. This in and of itself really doesn't mean anything. Rob is one of those people who uses food to gain power over whomever is cooking. By withholding his approval he -- by extension -- is showing is displeasure with the cook. Or, as I like to put it, he's getting back at mommy for not paying enough attention to him. Either way, he said he didn't like this recipe.

I, on the other hand, enjoyed it. The flavors are complex -- more complex than most Westerners are used to. One thing the Chinese enjoy a lot more than Americans is bitter flavor. Chinese cuisine works to balance five elements of taste: sweet, sour, spicy, salty, bitter. There is a general enjoyment of foods that are way too bitter for the Western palate. I once tried some bitter melon. I'm not sure what I expected, exactly, something called "bitter melon" is pretty much letting me know how it tastes. I was still shocked when I tasted it; maybe not so much because it was bitter, but more because it was impossible for me to understand how anyone would want to eat it.

This is a long way of saying that this dish had a real bitter element to it, which came from the tangerine zest. The bitterness wasn't overwhelming and in this case adds an interesting dimension to the dish. This was the most flawed recipe I've tried so far -- the onions are way overcooked, among other things, but I enjoyed it.

Friday, April 13, 2007

The. Best. Roast. Chicken. Ever

From time to time Rob goes to the store to do grocery shopping. I do most of it, but occasionally he heads out. He came back one day last spring with this really weird gadget he'd bought on sale. He said it was to roast chicken.


It wasn't impressive to look at: a small silver bowl and two large wires. Rob said it was advertised as being a roaster for barbecues and grills. I realized immediately that this was sort of a beer can chicken apparatus. But we don't have a grill that can accommodate a chicken in a vertical position.


It was easy to put together. I just snapped the wires into place. I put some wine in the bowl. I figured the whole reason beer can chicken works is that the heated beer steams through the roasting chicken. This doodad would allow the wine to get hot and because the chicken would be perched on the two wires, there would be more air circulating up into the chicken, along with the steam from the evaporating wine.


I have a pretty standard way of preparing roast chicken. I change the herbs around sometimes and alternate using wine and beer to put in the roasting bowl. But I always use lemon and I usually use shallots. I rinse the chicken off and squeeze the juice of a lemon all over the chicken, making sure to get the inside cavity. I then grate lemon zest onto the chicken skin. I place one lemon in the chicken cavity. I also put a few shallot cloves up there. I sprinkle the chicken with whatever herbs I'm using; I generally alternate among sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano and any combination. I then sprinkle garlic powder and onion powder. Finally I grind white pepper all over the chicken.


I place the chicken in a roasting pan and put it in a 350 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The smell is incredible and makes the house feel all homey, and the dogs love it. Our old cocker spaniel Jersey would just go and sit by the oven whenever I roasted chicken. She didn't want to waste any energy and she just love the smell of cooking bird.


The resulting bird is tender and juicy because the steam helps cook the bird. The flavors are amazing because the wine or beer vapors along with cooking shallots, lemons and herbs inside the chicken in in the bowl really add so much to the chicken. An added bonus of cooking the chicken this way is the skin is crispy all over and you can get to the little tenderloins on the back of the bird easily.

I've made chicken a million different ways over the years and this is really the best. It's better than a rotisserie because of the steaming of the meat and the skin is actually crisper this way than any other way of cooking, except for frying.

I have no idea where to get these little things. They're amazingly cheap -- as well they should be. They're an amazing innovation the world of roast chicken. I've seen some other vertical roasters out there, but this one works the best because it just uses wires to support the chicken. This is a case where less is definitely more.

Oh yeah, for the record, Rob claims this recipe as his because he found the little gadget. But it's not because a roasting gadget does not a great chicken make.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Apres Easter

 

 

 

 
Posted by Picasa

This Easter turned out to be surprisingly festive. I had thought only a few people would come over, but we ended up with a full house: Lindsay and Ryan;Gen, Sean and Kaia; Colin and Tracey (late); Kim and Dennis; Dena, Kelly and Kelly's friend and Dave. I'd already bought a huge Honeybaked ham. I love Honeybaked ham for the holidays. I also had lamb to grill outside with garlic and fresh rosemary. We had new potatoes with green onions and parsley all from the farmer's market along with asparagus with lemon and butter and Rhodes rolls.

Because Dena is a vegetarian, I bought extra eggs to make an asparagus/Swiss cheese frittata. They take just minutes to make and really taste good. Dena was lucky to get a slice because everyone flocked over after I pulled the browned treat out of the oven. I was told it was the hit of the evening during the post-feast reviews. Basically I go, "how was the food?" and everyone has to say how great it was and how wonderful I am.

When I was making the frittata, Kim came over and wanted to know how to make one. They're so very easy and they can easily be incorporated into many of today's diets.

Asparagus/Swiss cheese/bacon frittata

8 eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
salt
fresh ground white pepper
3 tablespoons butter
20 spears lightly cooked asparagus cut into 1-inch pieces
8 ounces Swiss cheese
10 slices of cooked bacon


Beat the eggs and milk in a small bowl with a whisk. Add salt and pepper. Heat butter in an iron skillet. Add the asparagus spears and spread them out over the bottom of the skillet. Add bacon and spread it evenly around. Pour the egg mixture over the top and reduce the heat to medium. Add Swiss cheese slices, spread evenly over the top of the mixture. As the frittata cooks, loosen the edges with a spatula, letting the egg mixture flow through. Be careful not to scorch the frittata -- use your nose for this. The minute you smell the eggs beginning to overcook, turn the heat down and turn the pan. Cook the frittata until it seem set when you jiggle the skillet. The top will still be liquid, but everything underneath should be set. This takes about 7 t 8 minutes. Place the skillet in the broiler just under the flame and brown for about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove and slice to serve.

*A couple of notes: I add a LOT of cheese which makes it seem runny, although the egg is cooked through and it will set up when it cools. But you don't have to use so much. Whole milk works best, but you can use low-fat and low fat cheese. Serve this with a nice salad for really quick and good meal. Fritatta are extremely flexible, so mix it up. The best frittatas have some kind of vegetable along with the eggs and some cheese. Feel free to experiment.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Here comes Kaia Cottontail



As usual, it being a holiday and all, I'm all over Easter. I've been squirreling away candy -- especially Reeses peanut butter eggs, the small kind. It's kind of
like shovelling the walk in a blizzard -- Rob eats them as fast as I can buy them.

Actually, I've been cutting back because in past years I've thrown out pounds and pounds of candy. It's one of those overcompensating for the lean years -- like the year Briggs and I ended up putting real grass in the baskets because we couldn't find any at the last minute. But I've swung too far in the other direction and have been buying way too much, and I really don't eat that much candy, so it's wasteful.

But I've got my Easter decorations up. I buy stuff when it goes on sale after the holidays and I can get it dirt cheap. I ended up getting two bunny dolls last year -- they're really not as bad as they sound. They're dressed up in elaborate Beatrix Potter-type costumes and I have them waving out the front window. OK, I swear it's a lot cute than it sounds. I've got all kinds of other Bunny droppings around, including a bunny windsock, an Easter egg tree and assorted other decorations.

I have no idea why I do this every year, especially now that the children are gone, but I really enjoy it, so there you go. What's the harm?

We have Kaia come over each year to help dye Easter eggs. This year, I decided we'd make Easter nest cupcakes too, dying coconut green to look like grass and putting jelly beans in the middle. We discovered quickly that Kaia doesn't like coconut. Frankly I've never understood coconut haters, oh well.

Kaia is getting older. She's moving into full-on childhood, which comes with school I suppose. During the past few months since the start of school, she's exploded in her knowledge. She's reading and learning letters. She's counting and adding. She's at the "Watch me do this" phase, which my girls went through, when every hiccup was worthy of note. There's nothing wrong with this IMO. After all, if you can't get unfettered praise when you're 5 ...

We have a lot of fun working on my little projects; something I cherish for the fleeting thing it is. When the girls were little people always said, "the grow up so fast," and when you're in the middle of it, with the insane running around and craziness, those words seem like silly prattle. But they do. It's a cliche because it voices a universal truth.

I guess that's why they invented grandchildren.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Having a good time



I enjoy all kinds of odds and ends that make me really happy. I really like to decorate my house for holidays. I enjoy big flower arrangements that I make with flowers I buy at the Ojai Farmers Market each Sunday. I love bike rides to the beach, although I haven't been for a while. I kind of enjoy gardening, although the Southern California weeds are persistent and they can overwhelm me.

My very favorite pastime, however, is food. I subscribe to all kinds of food magazines, including Olive magazine from England, which is a real indulgence and one of my favorite things, what with all their puddings and everything being brilliant. I've had to learn another language because the Brits don't speak English -- seriously. Courgettes are zucchini, aubergine is eggplant, rocket is arugula, chips are french fries -- seriously when did English people stop speaking their eponymous language?

And don't give me the whole "it was their language first." Um, we're bigger, stronger and a whole lot cooler and we have Hollywood. Hollywood determines the popular culture for the world, at least the English-speaking portion of it; at least the American English speaking portion of it.

In addition to the weird language, I get a real kick out of reading Olive and looking at products available in Europe that aren't available here. Unfortunately I'm never going to be able to make a recipe from Olive seeing as how those difficult Brits have everything is weird measurements and temperature. Sure, I could convert the measurements -- after I smash into a wall head first. My head would explode either way.

Another magazine I get is Cook's Illustrated . This is an ad-free magazine that comes out six times a year. It basically gives practical cooking tips, explores recipes and reviews various cooking products. When I say explores recipes, I mean they really look into various standard recipes and see how to make them taste the best. Cooks Illustrated writers will dissect a recipe, looking at each ingredient and each cooking method to find the best way to make the best everything. If you need a great recipe for some favorite dish -- say sugar cookies, brisket or what have you, Cook's is the place to go.

I get periodic emails from them and I don't block them because they're usually pretty interesting and have a lot of information. I noticed one day that they were asking for people to sign up to test recipes for upcoming issues. They will send you a recipe and they ask to to prepare it and let them know how it went, what works and what is unclear. I had signed up some time ago, but I'd never heard back. I'm one of those people who lives in some kind of bureaucratic black hole. When it comes to forms, applications, queries, etc., things get lost. So I figured I'd try to sign up again, but this time I used my gmail account.

Lo and behold I received, not one, but two recipes to try out. One sent to my home account and one sent to my gmail account. One was for tiramisu and the other was for chicken tikka masala. I had a great time trying them out -- tracking down the right ingredients, making sure I had the right equipment.

The tiramisu recipe calls for rum, but I didn't want to use any alcohol in the cake for a number of reasons. I finally had a moment of clarity and realized that what I needed to replace the rum was hazelnut syrup from Torani. It was an inspired choice. The chicken tikka was also really good.

So now when I get my upcoming Cook's Illustrated and I see these two recipes, I'll know I was one of the people who had some small input into their final versions. How fun.