Meditations on yeast

I love making bread. My love of kneading started when I was a preteen, helping my mother make cardamom bread at Xmas. Mom wasn't a big fan of spending her days off slaving over a meal in the kitchen, so she was more than happy to pawn the task of mixing and kneading the bread off to me. I used to worry that the packets of yeast that sat in the back of the cupboards had expired - a worthy concern considering my mother bought a 3 pack of instant yeast maybe every other year or so. I also spent an exorbitant amount of time fretting over the temperature of the water - was it too hot? Too cold? What if I killed off whatever yeast had managed to live for an entire year while smashed underneath a giant container of taco seasoning? And the proofing... how was I supposed to know when the dough had doubled in size? Should I eyeball it or follow the recommended time on the recipe? And so on.

Of course, I figured out after a while that yeast isn't as finicky as I initially thought, and now I buy my yeast in bulk and just store it in the freezer - I don't look at expiration dates. Making yeasted dough is no biggie. And over the years I've gotten more relaxed about proofing, and kneading and all that other bread lingo. But when I brought home a bread making book from a book sale with detailed instructions on how to make sourdough bread without using ANY packaged yeast, I was dubious. I felt that old self-doubt creeping back - there was no way I was going to be able to make bread only with flour, water and a pinch of salt. Impossible. It would never rise.

Basic sourdough starter (the modern liquid levain style starter - there are also heavier starters that were used by the French for a zillion years, but they are more labor intensive) is made like so: You take some water, mix it up with some all purpose flour and a little rye flour, let it sit for 8 hours, then you mix it again, and then wait another 8 hours and mix it again, then add more flour and water, and wait another 8 hours. You do this for anywhere between 4 and 10 days. And lo and behold, somewhere in this process, the wild yeasts that were previously dormant in the flour come to life, and one morning you walk into the kitchen to discover that your levain has doubled in size, smells like a ripe apple and is as sour as a lime. I would never have believed it was possible until it happened right before my eyes, after about 6 days.

One I had the starter ready, I made myself french baguettes. Since wild yeast rises slower, it requires several rises and an overnight stay in the fridge. But let me tell you, when I pulled the loaves out of the oven, I felt like I had performed a miracle in my very own kitchen. I mixed regular old flour and water together and somehow got beautiful, crusty loaves of fantastic sourdough bread!

It's amazing how far away Americans have gotten from their food that the basic, ancient process of bread-making is completely foreign to the vast majority of the population. If I were to poll 100 people right now, how many of them would know how to make bread without commercial yeast? Maybe 1 or 2?

la taqueria and a lemon crepe

I flew to San Fransisco last weekend for some much needed R&R. I would have gotten far more R&R had I not booked a hotel at the very top of Nob Hill, but at least I had a nice view of the city once I got over the wheezing caused by the near vertical climb to my hotel room.

Anyone who says that Portland has great food (I'm talking to you, Mr. New York Times) is mistaken. Portland has adequate food. Sure, we have a nice variety of restaurants, and yes, we have new restaurants opening up on every corner. There are some nice grocery stores, like New Seasons. But when I try to think of a food - any kind of food - that Portland does better than anywhere else, I'm left drawing a blank. And I haven't even traveled all that much, so all the amazing food I'm missing in places like New York or Chicago (let alone most of Europe and Asia) blows my mind.

And it's true, familiarity breeds contempt.

The best food of my trip was a plate of escargot from a little French restaurant across from my hotel, a place called Rue Lepic. The waiter was Chinese, the chef appeared to be Mexican, but the food was perfectly French. The restaurant decor was charming, as it had no attitude whatsoever and wasn't trying too hard, like most French restaurants I've been to. The escargot was served in a garlicky tomato sauce instead of the usual sizzling butter, and it was exactly perfect. No pictures, though.

However I did take a picture of my carne asada tacos from La Taqueria in the Mission District. Amazing!

I also stopped at a creperie in the Mission called Ti Couz and had a lemon & sugar crepe with Chantilly cream. It was the best crepe I have ever had.

What is wrong with America today

Speaking of hicks and processed meat products, Kevin (who can't resist buying new and disturbing junk food) purchased this at Winco last week:

That's right, it's "Jeff Foxworthy's HAM JERKY." When beef jerky just isn't hitting the spot anymore, or if your beef allergies keep you from enjoying a chewy piece of jerky every now any then, you can rip open a big bag of ham-flavored dried meat product and tear right in.

Thank you, Jeff Foxworthy, for making sure that ham is no longer shut out from the jerky industry. You saw a niche market that wasn't being exploited to it's full extent, and you filled it. With dried, chemical-laden pork.

I wonder if Jeff Foxworthy and Dwight Yoakam are friends? Or maybe - deadly enemies?

Tomorrow I'm going apple (and pear) picking in Hood River. Whenever I think about picking apples, or any other kind of tree fruit, I get the Frost poem "After Apple Picking" stuck in my head and then I start thinking about extended metaphors and symbolism and how awesome Robert Frost was, and then I want to read the poem all the way through so I go start looking through my books, and then I find a bunch of interesting books I'd forgotten about, and pretty soon I can't remember what I started looking for in the first place. So, I haven't really thought out what I'm going to do with all my apples yet.

And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.

Little Pillows

I made potato gnocchi last weekend, and it was a very enjoyable experience.

I've never made gnocchi before, and after reading recipe after recipe warning of all the horrors that can occur in the gnocchi-making process (really either they end up too gummy if you add too much flour, or you don't add enough and they fall apart in the boiling water) I was worried I would screw something up. But in the end, they turned out quite nicely. I served them with a tomato-basil cream sauce, made with fresh tomatoes.

Instead of the typical gnocchi pattern made by pressing each dumpling against the tines of a fork, I went the lazy (or, I prefer calling it "rustic") route: I just made a little indentation with my thumb in each gnocchi, and when I was finished, it looked like a baking sheet cluttered with soft little doll pillows. So cute.

Food is disturbing

Look what I fished out of my homemade vinegar jar the other day:

It's a layer of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria, otherwise known as a mother. The slime layers had grown so heavy they had sunk to the bottom of the jar, so I pulled it out, and now another one is forming. The mother sort of reminds me of jello, or very firm jam. It was pretty thick, too:

Cool, no?

In other news, I made a peach lattice top pie last weekend. It tasted great, but it looked like it was made by a 3rd grader. I've always been too impatient to bother with making food look pretty.

Putting food by, or ; my basement smells like fermented cabbage

Presently, I'm obsessing over food storage and preservation. It's an offshoot of my whole trying-to-eat-locally obsession. And when I obsess, I go all out. In the words of Sylvia Plath:

Food Preservation is an art, like everything else
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

So, yeah. I'm obsessive. I just ordered "Putting Food By" from Amazon (to add to my small - but growing - food preservation library) and when I was at the coast I found and bought a book titled "Preserving Food without Canning of Freezing." I've started making my own vinegar (I have a slimy grey mother floating on the top of a bottle of local organic wine this very second!) and sauerkraut. I've already canned strawberry and marionberry jams, dill pickles and tomatoes. I've got bags of green beans, blueberries, roasted peppers, pastured beef and buffalo in my freezer.

The problem is, I think I may enjoy "putting food by" more than I enjoy the actual foods themselves. An example: sauerkraut. I adore sauerkraut, don't get me wrong. But the process of making real 'kraut is appalling in it's simplicity: You toss shredded cabbage with a few teaspoons of salt, then press it into a non-reactive (preferably ceramic) container for a month or two. The cabbage releases enough liquid to cover - which inhibits the bacterial growth. Lactic acid does it's work, and a few slimy weeks later, voila! you've got kraut.

Kraut is something my German ancestors probably always had on hand, because it stores well, and it tastes good. I know this. But my modern sensibilities still scream at me, every time I want to try a spoonful of homemade sauerkraut: "Ick! Why would you want to eat something that has been rotting on the counter for 2 months!"

So my point is - I have a full crock of kraut and no one to eat it.

Whispering Whale

I'm coming to the conclusion that I may not be cut out for this whole "blogging" thing. I like food, and I like writing, but I can't quite get the two things to gel together. But since I'm fully aware of my tendency to give up on pretty much everything after the initial novelty has worn off, this time I'm going to try to fight my "why bother?" mentality and keep on blogging. Yep. I'm taking one for the team. A team I refer to as "Team Blogger."

So - if there is one good reason to visit Newport, Oregon, this would be it:

The Shrimp Sandwich at the Lighthouse Deli. Super yum. The sandwich looks slightly mangled in the picture because I couldn't stop myself from taking a bite before taking a picture. Fresh seafood + mayo + good bread = genius.

And if there is one other reason to visit Newport, it would have to be the Captain's Platter at the Lighthouse Deli:

And even if you are one of those poor, misguided fools who won't eat seafood, you should still visit Newport. Head down to the Bayfront and buy yourself a Pronto Pup - then walk across the street and read about the Whispering Whale, who floats in space over a giant semi-transparent pyramid.