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.

Tartar, Lord of Sauces

I have big news, people: tonight, completely by accident, I made an EXACT replica of Zip's Tartar Sauce.

Whenever I make my semi-annual trek back to Spokane, I always make sure to go to Zip's at least once, so I can get my tartar sauce fix. Sometimes I stop at the Zip's location in Ritzville on my way into town, just so to order a large fry, a couple small containers of that precious mayonnaise-based sauce, and possibly one of their many burgers, that all have names like "The Boss" and "the Salad Burger" (when I was a kid, I always expected that one to be a salad on a bun, but no - it's just a regular old hamburger with lettuce and tomato.) But it's the tartar that keeps me coming back. A few of the Zip's locations sell the tartar in 12 ounce soda cups to appease frenzied tartar fans like myself.

And no, I don't drink the tartar straight out of the cup - I learned my lesson in moderation a long time ago. My parents would occasionally take my whining little sister and I to one of the million Spokane Zip's locations. One hot summer day when I was 10 or so, I went a little crazy with the tartar sauce and managed to suck down at least 20 servings before my mother could notice and tell me to knock it off. Unfortunately for yours truly, the zitty 15 year-olds working behind the counter must have forgotten to swap out jugs at the condiment bar, because I spent the next day puking my guts out. Spoiled tartar puke.

And yet - I still wanted more. It's that good.

When I really like a particular food, I always want to figure out how to make it myself, because I like the idea of having it available 24-7. I don't like waiting 180 days to get my Zip's fix. So I've tried replicating the recipe countless times, based on what I guess is probably in it. I've detected small pieces of onion a few times, and some specks of what looks to be pepper, so I always include these ingredients. Once I even overheard an cashier explaining what goes into making the sauce, but a screaming child drowned out almost all of his words except "pickle juice." So I've been making mediocre mayo and pickle juice concoctions ever since. For a while I thought I got close by adding grated onion juice. I've tried to make up for my failures by spicing things up with capers, lemon, dill, chives, and so on. Still, the flavor was just not right.

So tonight, I was in a hurry, so I put some light mayo in a bowl, absentmindedly (and accidentally) poured in a ton more kosher pickle juice than usual. Then in a fit of laziness I added some garlic powder, onion powder and pepper, stirred it up and LO! Trumpets sounded, the clouds opened overhead and a beam of heavenly light shone down upon the bowl, while wing-ed angels sang in chorus. Zip's elusive tartar sauce sat on the counter before me. It took 32 years for me to stumble upon the secret. It really is the pickle juice that makes the tartar!

And now I never have to go back to Spokane ever again. The icing on the proverbial Scripture Cake. Although I probably will, because of annoying things like family and guilt.

PS - for those who care (Lisa I'm talking to you) I found this for sale on Amazon. WOO HOO!

Edit: Never mind about the mac and cheese. Despite the picture of canned macaroni, the description states it "comes in a microwaveable cup." After doing some more research, I've determined that the brand of canned macaroni I'm searching for is Franco-American and it has been discontinued. Damn you, Con Agra!

Edibles

I've been working 50 hour weeks lately, so I haven't had as much time as I'd like to obsess over food. I have been trying to make foods from scratch using local ingredients though, and managed to make farmer's cheese the other night, and it turned out really freaking delicious:

and here's a fuzzy shot of my very first potato plant harvest... fingerlings!


On Saturday, I made chicken and dumplings for the first time ever, using leftover chicken from a Kookoolan Farms chicken I bought at the Hillsdale Farmer's maket.

It was good, although I'm still undecided about whether or not I'm a fan of dumplings. Gummy, wet dough is not particularly appetizing. But it was much more interesting than making chicken noodle soup, which I can't even think about without shuddering.

I'm also making red wine vinegar from scratch. The jar is sitting in my cupboard, I hope to have vinegar in the next few months. Or maybe just a jar full of of mold. I can't wait to find out.

Nothing to see here, move along

So no, I didn't take any pictures of my fancy Mexican dinner. When you're trying to get everything on the table before it gets cold, it's hard to remember to whip out a camera and take pretty pictures.

I've been spending an exorbitant amount of time lately pondering the meaning of "local" foods. "Local" is the new (well, the last few years) buzzword in the land of food blogs/magazines, but I still can't decide what my personal stance is on the topic. I really do try to buy local when possible, but I also buy my organic (or, if I'm feeling especially cheap, non-organic) tomatoes from Mexico in the winter. Even the highest quality canned tomatoes are produced hundreds (or more likely, thousands) of miles away. Should I stop this practice of buying produce out of season? Probably. Should I make a concerted effort to buy all my meats and dairy product from local sources? Well, of course - duh. All of that seems obvious enough.

But what about the grey areas? Like what if the milk I'm drinking was produced by a cow that lived only 20 miles away, but the cow was fed with grain that was sprayed with pesticides? What then? Should I stop buying dairy products altogether? But then what if the locally produced tofu and soymilk I buy is made with soybeans that were trucked in from the Midwest? Is that any more acceptable?

I've recently learned that there is no source of hard red wheat (the wheat that is commonly used for breads, pastas, etc) that is grown locally. Hard red wheat does not grow well in the Northwest. So - should I cut bread out of my diet completely, because I know that the wheat that was used to make it was produced at least 500 miles from Portland? Should I buy organic wheat from the closest possible source and make pasta, breads, etc, myself? Or can I buy products that contain non-local wheat from local companies? Or do I cut out wheat completely and start eating a crapload of potatoes instead? And considering that I have a full time job, when am I supposed to find the time do cook/can/grow everything from scratch?

And when I start thinking about all the foods I love that come from far away, tropical locales - like pineapple, or avocados, my head starts to spin. Do I have to say goodbye to tropical fruits forever in order to be a responsible human being? Even plain old sugar - think of all the miles sugar has to travel to get to Oregon. Not to mention the amount of processing that sugar requires before it makes it to my table. Should I try to hunt down a source of organic beet sugar? Or do I only use local, organic honey?

It gets so ridiculously convoluted. There are so many weird food rules - everybody seems to have some ludicrous idea of what is ok to eat and what isn't, and those things are constantly in flux. Junk food, bad. Whole grains, good. Carbs bad, protein good. Protein bad, carbs bad, fat bad, meat bad, soy bad, processed foods bad, calories bad. Bad, bad, bad. I've known people who "can't" eat fruit, or are "allergic" to vegetables. Why do we have to be afraid of everything we put in our mouths, unless it fits into some illogical dietary regime?

I don't have an answer to any of these questions. It's frustrating. Sometimes it seems almost impossible to eat anything without causing irreparable harm to the planet. But food is supposed to be a pleasurable experience, not purgatory. I shouldn't have to feel guilty (or, on the other side of the spectrum - superior) whenever I sit down to eat a meal. Right???