White House Kitchen and Garden tour!

Although I am not paid a princely sum (as discussed earlier, I draw the same salary as Abe Lincoln's Secretary of War, not adjusted for inflation), my job as editor of Flavor has some excellent side benefits. To wit, a photo shoot in the White House kitchen, and a private tour of the garden. Check out our June/July issue, which I am putting the finishing touches on now. Sigh. Haven't you subscribed yet? Don't you want me to make as much as Herbert Hoover's Secretary of War? THIS WONT HAPPEN UNLESS YOU SUBSCRIBE.

See?

Now you see me, now you don't.

The First Bee Hive. Turns out the White House carpenter is an amateur apiarist (?) so when they decided to keep bees he was all, !"ooh me me!"

The spinach, I have it on good authority, will appear on the Obama's personal table tonight.

I always thought it was spelled Bok Choy. But who am I to argue with the leader of the free world's garden label maker?

How to Make Your Eggs Adorable

tiny little terracotta pots make perfect egg cups. 66 cents at my local hardware store!

You definitely need these with Easter coming up, and now you can serve soft-boiled eggs to guests without them rolling all around.

I first tasted soft-boiled eggs in I think Reagansburg, Germany when I was 13. Total revelation.

I ate about 7 of them in one sitting -- they were served in a bread basket wrapped in a linen napkin.

Fast forward 7 years.

I was studying abroad in southern France and made a few Swedish friends, so when classes were over I took a train up to Stockholm to visit the girlfriend of one of them, Marie Svenillson (anyone out there in Stockholm know Marie???) (Stockholm is possibly my favorite European city). In Stockholm Marie introduced me to the proper picnic (bikes, salmon pate, fresh dill, brown bread... had a very lasting impact), and we had dinner at the castle (really! my host's best friend was the son of the prime minister or something, and they lived in a wing of the castle in the old section of Stockholm. We had cold roasted chicken and avocado salad, among other things). They there was much more drinking and driving around in a boat (she had rich friends). It was graduation night for the high school kids so the party went on forever.

I watched the sun not go down... in mid June in Stockholm it just drops to the horizon, sneaks across a few feet then comes right up again. Jojo, the kid whose family owned the boat, pulled up next to a Coast Guard trawler -- turns out he knew the captain of that boat. There was beer and vodka exchanged across decks and then we zoomed off -- but not, apparently, until after we inadvertently sliced through the line towing a sonar buoy that was hunting Soviet subs (it was the 80s!). We landed on Jojo's family's island (think Elin Woods) and continued to drink, eat herring and maple bread (surprisingly good together) and then went into the sauna.

One by one my group took turns beating one another with birch branches -- good for the circulation -- and then darted off to dive in the Baltic (I think. North Sea?). They finally talked me into it -- so I wrapped myself in a towel (am an American after all) bent over, got beaten (lightly) then took off. I dropped my towel and headed for the sea at full speed -- the only way to dive into cold water -- only to hear them yelling "not there! not there!" Promptly I slipped on slimy wet rocks (that's why "not there") and went ass over teak kettle, finally banging my head and slamming down on my back.

I came to with 6 naked Swedes and their parts all dangling in front of my face as they tried to figure out if I was dead. It was very odd, the whole experience, but fun. My main protector was a guy named Otto who was apparently a Swedish fencing champion and possibly the captain of their Olympic team? We had a love that never was... his father wouldn't let him have me over to THEIR castle for lunch, so that was that. He cancelled our date, and I went on back to the US. All of this brings us to a point: Stockholm has gorgeous home design stores and at one of them on that trip I bought a clutch of tiny terracotta pots advertised as egg cups. They have long since been broken and lost to time, so I'm very glad to have them back. Haven't thought about that long strange night in a long time.

How to Make the Best Roasted Potatoes You Ever Ate

First you have to make a roasted chicken. it's all very simple. Do the following:

1. First obtain a proper chicken. Said chicken should be from an actual farm. It will cost a little more but will not taste like cotton and it will not have been debeaked and declawed and lived in terrible conditions in a fetid chicken house. No, buying a so-called free-range chicken doesn't do it. All industrial chicken houses have to do to qualify for the free range label is to give "access" to the outdoors to chickens. So, 10,000 chickens, jammed in a methane filled hot horrible hut, pecking each other in misery, just need access to a door to the outside, and a tiny patch of grass. None of them ever go out. they are too depressed and many of them just give up and die. is this the kind of chicken you want? It is not. Get a farm chicken. Lived like a king, pecked at insects in cow poop in green fields, died an honorable death. I apologize for this next photo, but really, you should know about this. Once I became aware, I couldn't 't buy chicken in the grocery store anymore.

This is why your grocery store chicken is so cheep. (ha! sad, sad chicken pun).

Compare that with these happy chickens. They have gathered around Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm (who writes for Flavor!) for a discussion group on how to be proper chickens.

2. Next obtain Yukon gold potatoes. If you beg I will tell you a potato joke about Yukon Gold potatoes and Ted Koppel. Wash the potatoes and slice them into 1/4 inch thick slices. Don't peel them. Spread them in the bottom of the pan in which you are roasting the chicken. If you want you can add other stuff, like whole peeled garlic cloves or chopped carrots or mushrooms or chopped celery. But really all you need is potatoes. Now drizzle the potatoes with good cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle them with coarse sea salt FROM UP HIGH ( I refer you back to How to Run Your Life's treatise on proper salting) and pepper.

3. Rub the chicken all over with olive oil, squeeze a lemon over the top, and liberally salt and pepper it. Should be coarse sea salt and fresh pepper. Stick the lemon in the cavity. You can sprinkle the chicken with smoked paprika, if you like, or stuff it with rosemary or other herbs, but honestly, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper is good enough. Plop the chicken on top of the potatoes.

This one has rosemary on it.

4. Throw the whole mess in the oven. I like a high heat -- usually around 400. It could be lower or higher -- if any higher watch your chicken closely so it doesn't burn. If the skin starts to get really dark, cover it with tin foil.

5. By the time the chicken is done -- depends on size, usually an hour for me until the legs wiggle easily -- your potatoes will be outrageously delicious and very bad for you, as they will have been basted in olive oil, salt, and rendered chicken fat. Sounds terrible, is insanely delicious. Boyfriend said to me: what did you put on these potatoes that made them so good? I said: chicken fat. He smacked his lips and had more. Sometimes I just make this chicken so I can have the potatoes, and then I make enchiladas with the chicken the next day. I will tell you how to make enchilada sauce in a future post! Easy and delicious. I stole it from Rick Bayliss.

You're welcome.

How To Manage Your Farm Box

It never looks like this.

Farm box, Community Supported Agriculture, Weekly Delivery of Unwelcome Kohlrabi and Cabbage -- whatever you call it, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

The Unwelcome Kohlrabi

This winter you forked over $300 to $600 bucks to a farmer for a once weekly box of produce (contents: unpredictable) and will soon find yourself overwhelmed with weird vegetables whose season you thought was long since passed (honestly I was getting cabbage in July, and I always thought that was a winter veg?). Here's what to do: 1. It's too late now, but you should sign up for a farm box that delivers on a day or night when you have nothing else scheduled to do. Because you are about to be neck deep in garlic scapes (yay!) and bok choy (boo!), and they will ROT if you don't address them IMMEDIATELY. So: cancel all your plans, you've got work to do. 2. If you have a good farmers market nearby, yay for you -- because you are going to have to fill in some holes on that farm box. So ideally, you'll get the box on night 1, and day 2, head to the market to round things out. My farm box delivered on a Monday which was a total nightmare. I'd be eating cabbage and kohlrabi all week, then go to the market and see gorgeous asparagus, and couldn't buy it because I knew was about to get my avalanche of butternut squash (seriously, it grows in the summer) 2 days later. Don't let this happen to you. 3. Get yourself a food saver (or alternatively good freezer bags.) . If you have to eat everything in that box this week, you'll go homicidal. So divide what you have into "eat this week" and freeze. Chop up the freeze portion into bite size bits and freeze for November when you'll be all gooey hearted at the thought of summer and your nice farmer. 4. Now, with half the stuff safely stored, you need to make some menus to use the stuff, so plan to go to the grocery to get meat and other stuff you'll need. Tonight, however, have on hand bacon or pancetta, garlic, parmesan cheese and pasta. You'll definitely have something you can saute with garlic and bacon and toss with pasta (maybe a little heavy cream) to eat tonight. 5. Garlic scapes -- long, stiff, curly green stalks that are essentially the tops of fresh garlic plants and look a little like angry, petrified scallions --are my favorite farm box item. Puree your garlic scapes with olive oil and put the resulting gloriously bright green pesto in a good Tupperware container. Float a bit of olive oil across the top to seal it. This can be eaten on crostini, pasta, used as a dip, spread under chicken breast skin and roasted, swirled into cream cheese for your bagels, mixed with rice and stuffed into peppers... Do not waste these scapes. They make everything they touch wonderful.

The Treasured Scape

That isn't my hand.

6. I hope you're not a vegan because sometimes the only way to deal with strange new vegetables is to cover them with cheese or puree them into a cream soup. Keep this in mind: salt inhibits bitter tastes, so get out the fleur de sel when dealing with an unfamiliar vegetal foe. You'll thank me.

7. Prepare to throw some stuff away. It's heartbreaking but also a good lesson in a) exactly how many veggies you don't eat and need to eat more of and b) exactly how much food in general you often waste. Bad, you, bad. But yay you supported a farmer and gave him the capital, and reliable customer, he needs to flourish. I thank you, Flavor thanks you, and so does your food grower. The giant nasty food industrialists curse your name, but as a very revered Marine General once told me, you should judge your worth by who your enemies are. (That was after I got thrown out of a Coalition Provisional Authority hotel in Hillah because they didn't like what I wrote about them. I thought it was fine. The CPA had armed Ghurkas escort me back to the Marine base across the road which had less reliable air conditioning and terrible food. Ghurkas are much less scary then they sound, and frankly they agreed with my assessment of the CPA. When I got back to base I was summoned into the commanders office. He said the CPA had called him to complain about me. He asked me what I wrote. I told him and he said: "that sounds about right." That is why I love Marines.)

who ARE you people? Also: I am worth 3 camels.

Not that I don't appreciate you, but I apparently have 2 readers in Sri Lanka, 14 in Saudi Arabia, 1 in Switzerland (my PEEPS! Shout out to the Hess family in Sarnen! They make schnapps!), 6 in India, 2 in Russia, 8 in Pakistan (the tribal areas? Osama, is that you???) and 4 in Slovenia, among other places.

How on earth did you find me and why are you not leaving me comments??? I am stone cold bugging. It's like the UN up in here.

Funny story about Saudi Arabia -- I was at some government palace there in 2000 with the US secretary of defense -- I was part of the traveling press -- and we had to go to one of those massive banquets. But the Saudi royalty does them so often they just fly through like 400 courses of rather desultory food so we could all go home. I couldn't wear one of my normal cocktail numbers because I'd be stoned or whatever (with actual stones), so I wore this very cool floor length pink silk skirt covered all over with crazy beading and Indian embroidery, and a turquoise blouse from the Gap that had a very precise cut in the sleeve (it was from the outlet damaged goods bin).

Anyhoodle, there was a discussion in the corner that was a bit heated, to which I was not privy, and afterwards our minder from the State Department -- a very nice woman -- said this horrible ancient Saudi prince (really like 900 years old, Cryptkeepery) had offered the SecDef three camels for me. International incident avoided when my minder told him unfortunately I had three children and a husband back home. All lies of course. So I am worth Three Camels.

Please respond in comments from far flung places about how many you are worth. Thank you.

Some (I think well deserved) kudos, plus how to salt your food

This man is salting TOO CLOSE

To salt: Do it from up high. That means grab a pinch of salt (I like coarse sea salt -- its easier to control and adds a nice crunch), hold it a foot above the food (cooked or raw) that you want to salt then sprinkle it, moving your arm back and forth. This almost always prevents over salting (compared to shaking, or holding your hand closer to the food, which limits dispersal) and looks super cheffy. And it works.

Now, Lifers, for the love:

As you know, I'm the new editor of a gorgeous wonderful food magazine that every one of you should be subscribing to, clearly, because look what a very intelligent food blogger said about us:

"I actually ended up feeling better about the world, more hopeful, after reading this magazine."

OK, OK, here's the whole post. (PS I wrote the "captivating" article she references. I had to watch a cow die to do it, too.)

"On the upside, I did find one gem in all the pulp. Based in Sperryville, VA, Flavor magazine covers sustainable food production in the D.C./Virginia area. This publication is good for anyone in the D.C. area interested in gardening, CSAs, or day or weekend food trips to Virginia. Did you know there is a group that will come put a honeybee hive on your roof? Or come help you put a garden in your yard? Or bring you a CSA-style box of meat and eggs and dairy? The March/April issue also looks at things to do, places to eat and sleep in Fredericksburg, VA. I was captivated by an article on the process of executing animals in a humane way on a small farm. There were profiles of chefs working in a sustainable way with local ingredients–Jeff Black of BlackSalt; Ian Boden of Staunton Grocery–that weren’t heavy-handed and smug. I actually ended up feeling better about the world, more hopeful, after reading this magazine. And I’m resolving to go pick some produce this year on a farm in Orange, VA, just an hour south of D.C. I loved the scolding rant from a rancher, who explains in detail just how animals are not like people. Fun facts about cows and chickens galore! Chicks don’t need to eat or drink for their first three days, because they have to wait for all the chicks to hatch. They don’t feel that need until they get their first taste–like flipping a switch. I really wish I could link to this piece, but the website is very limited. You might just have to subscribe. ($24.90 plus shipping for 6 issues)

http://www.supertastes.com/blog/2011/03/19/magazine-buzz/

isn't that nice? go to Emily's site and read. Grrl takes no prisoners when she disjoints the Washington Post food section.

And indeed Flavor's website is very limited, but I have a good friend at Three Spot who is going to help us out.

How To Walk Around In High Heels All Day

This is my worst quality. I am the anti-high heel girl. This is not because I am 5' 10" -- I like being tall and i have been known to totter about on 4 inch heels for short periods -- but because of 9/11. Let me explain.

On the morning of 9/11 I was temporarily waylaid (read: I was in therapy because of a recent break up) on my way to work at the Pentagon. Then, as you have probably heard, terrorists slammed a plane into the building. They had already done so in New York and many innocent people died (as did some very, very bad men). The result: Two wars, more than 5,000 American deaths, tens of thousands of Americans injured and god knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands of non-Americans killed dead.

But this is about my feet.

On that day I was wearing flats actually -- cute navy and white spectator loafers. Nevertheless, by the time I have walked across Northern Virginia to get to the Pentagon -- where I was almost knocked to my knees at my first sight of the pancaked building -- and stood around in the Citgo lot waiting for info, trading the pay phone with other reporters because our cell phones didn't work, then walking all the way around the building (the largest office building in the world) several times trying to get in for the briefing, then all the way through the building to see the damage (what I was allowed to see -- the hallways leading to the impact site were dark, guarded by armed men, and sloshing with water from the newly installed fire sprinklers) walking around again at 11 that night after I was finished filing, trying to find a cab or a metro station that was open, and then riding home on the train and being quite literally the only person in any car, in any station we passed, I had 19 separate blisters (feet sweating and swelling and unswelling and sweating and getting dirty again...) and limped home. I threw out those shoes and thought: Thank Baby jesus I wasn't wearing high heels.

So pretty much I try not to, and if I do, I always try to have a pair of comfortable flats around. You never know when terrorists will blow something up or your car will get a flat tire. Best to be prepared. You should also always have bandaids on you, which I usually don't and always regret.

But this post is about how to walk around in high heels when flats are not an option. While I was hanging around The Source the other day (Wolfgang Puck's DC restaurant) waiting for a photo shoot we were doing for Flavor to wrap up, I asked the gorgeous blonde GM how she managed. Girlfriend was tottering up and down staircases and stands around all the live long day. The secret, she said, is different heel heights. She only wears black shoes and has several pairs of different height heels. When one starts to hurt, she switches, the pressure points change, and no one is the wiser -- but she's always wearing heels.

You're welcome.