Two Thanksgiving Tips and What I Just Learned About Purses from Poppy

OK, so it's been about 3 years since I posted. I had 28 views on this blog today so by god, I'm gonna post again (whenever I have something useful to say.) And I do.

Thanksgiving Tip the First: 

You can cook your massive turkey overnight.
Do it with a brined turkey to make sure it isn't dry (google brining turkey, or pick one up pre-brined from Red Apron in DC or Trader Joe's. I am sure Whole  Foods has them too). My turkey is from Fields of Athenry via Red Apron.

At around 10 pm on Wednesday, put it in a large roasting pan breast side up. Dry the skin. Smear it with olive oil or melted butter.
Salt it liberally with crunchy sea salt. Coarse grains are easier to control. Grind pepper all over it. Do whatever else you want to do. Don't stuff it though.
Pour at least a cup of water or wine or broth in the roasting pan. Throw in some herbs and whole peeled garlic coves if you like. A little orange peel? Why not? You do you.

Roast at 400 degree for 30 - 45 minutes until the skin is nicely golden. Cover the whole thing with foil, sealing it around the edge.

Then crank the oven  down to 200 and let is roast for another 8 hours of so. When you wake up, the house will smell of turkey. Wiggle the legs. If they are loose, the turkey is done. You can also insert a meat thermometer in the thigh (not touching the bone) to make sure it is done. Remove the turkey and let it rest and cool. Pour off the juices to make gravy. Put the bird in the fridge when it has cooled, and leave it there until it's time to reheat -- about an hour before dinner. Cover it tightly and put it in a 350 degree oven till it is warmed through. Or carve it, cover it with plastic, and leave in the fridge. Bring it to room temperature before you serve it, but cover it with hot juices (which you removed from the roasting pan earlier and boiled up) to warm it again.

Here are more details:

Thanksgiving Tip the Second:

OMG make your mashed potatoes in the slow cooker overnight. Right after you get the turkey in the oven, do the potatoes. Wash and quarter 6 lbs of Russet or Yukon gold potatoes. Put in  slow cooker with a cup or so of water and a couple of teaspoons of salt (I always undersalt until I can taste them. You can add salt but you can't take it away).  If you want to be fancy add the rind of a wedge of parmesan ... will impart a wonderful flavor. Turn it to warm, batten down the lid. Let it cook all night.
In the morning, the potatoes will be ready to mash. Turn off the slow cooker. When you want to mash them, turn it back on, pour in the milk and butter and mash right in the cooker, and let it warm up again. You may want to add a bit more milk to keep things from drying out.

Here are directions. 



What I Just Learned About Purses from Poppy:

Poppy is my new friend and idol and she showed me how to manage your purse. I spend an inhuman amount of time and effort trying to find things in my purse. The answer: get your hands on a bunch of mismatched zippered make up bags. One holds your wallet and receipts. One holds phone cords, ear phones, zip drives, other electronic stuff. One holds make up and odds and ends like tampons and advil. She has another for emergency snacks (a Luna bar and some almonds, maybe? Some gum and mints). Throw a Moleskine or similar notebook in your bag. Phone goes in a pocket, keys go on a lanyard and are clipped inside. When you switch purses you have 3 or four organized little pouches to move over and you are done. Nothing loose rattling around. Genius.

If you want to get super anal about it, order these with appropriate monograms (but I think different colors make it easier to spot the one you want)

Have we talked about Demeter's Fragrance Library?

Do you know about Demeter perfume?
You should.
http://www.demeterfragrance.com/58083/All-Classic-Scents.html

They are cheap -- about $15 per bottle at my fancy Walgreens -- and come in scores of scents (10-score, to be precise). My favorites are Jasmine and  Tomato (separate bottles).  You may recall my love of Jonathan Adler's Tomato candle from a few Christmases ago. ..

They do a lot of single scents. They also have weird scents like Funeral Home. Here's what it smells like:

"A Spot On Match

by Liz the Mountain Mama from Littleton, CO on 12/16/2013

The first time I encountered this fragrance was in a blind sniff-test my friends held as a party activity. I remember I exclaimed that "it smells just like a mortuary!" It speaks of dried lilies, carnations, mums, and ferns; old oak furniture and flooring; dusty, closed-up room air; and the faint whiff of formaldehyde. It's not a scent I'd choose to wear, but it's definitely eponymous."

 

 

They also have Glue, Holy Water, and Dirt.  And String bean. And Stable.

 

 It's so fun to just go and smell everything ( I made my girlfriends accompany me on a smelling expedition on my birthday. I love smelling things. One of them bought her daughter Gingerale, which smelled effervescent. really!) I am anxiously awaiting my Walgreens to stock the Grapefruit Tea.Anyway: buy them online if you don't have the fancy Walgreens.  Treats!

My sister's kitchen. Help me convince her by leaving fawning comments!

So nothing makes me happier than designing kitchens on Ikea's oft-maddening kitchen planner. Maddening, but so fun as you can see everything in 3D and twist the room all around. Excellent for sharing ideas with people who have a hard time visualizing your genius.

 Remember we talked about my sister's terrible terrible kitchen? Here's the plan for fixing it. 

First, the overview:

 Sliding glass windows to the ... I think east? The kitchen and dining room are both small and cramped, but opened up are large(r) and lovely. We determined that  she needs a table for entertaining, so the table (which will be custom built by our brother) will pull away from the island (also custom built... these are Ikea stand ins). But day to day, everyone can sidle up to the kitchen area to eat. 

So look through these photos, and don't get confused by the different color cabinets.. I tried them out in both white and gray. She liked gray in the showroom.

The image below is what the kitchen would look like if you were standing at approximately the sink.

 Here's from the current dining area.

 Flying overhead like the Flying Nun:

 Standing at the stove, or walking in the sliding glass doors to the deck.

Standing in the living room ... you are seeing the back of the stacked horizontal cabinets here. What you will really see is wall.

 

 

 This is if you are between the sliding glass doors.

 And by the stove again, buyt levitating slightly, like in those scary Paranormal movies.

 From the dining table. Bring me mead, woman!

 here I've switched over to gray cabinets. Note my continued resistance to traditional upper cabinets. They are the Buck Teeth of the kitchen, and I hate them.

 We like the gray. That's a wall of cabinets on the back of the current dining room... longer term storage for the kitchen. We might even build in a little bar there.

 If you were a raccoon living in the wall with Xray vision. Looking out over the sink.

 Back to white cabinets. There's no rhyme or reason here.

 Working at the island.

 Mullions!

The end. Total cabinetry and appliance cost: under $10K for everything you see here. A wall between the kitchen and living room will have to come down, but that's nothing a sledge hammer can't fix.

Menus for an Easy Dinner Party

My friend Meg is coming by in a minute to talk through a big family dinner party she has to give next weekend.

The trick. obviously, is to make everything you can in advance, and work on it throughout the week. 

You need an appetizer of  some sort, or else everyone stands around staring hungrily and starts off on the  wrong foot. Then your main dish needs to be balanced with the sides -- if you are having something cheesy and rush, you want thresh, crisp sides. If you are having something light as the centerpiece -- branzino stuffed with herbs and lemon and roasted -- you can afford a side of truffled mac & cheese. 

Dessert also needs to bow to the main dish. If you've served something heavy, dessert should feature fruit prominently.

Here's what I am suggesting she makes.. I have three possible menus. 

FALL MENU NUMERO UNO

• butternut squash soup (make a few days before) - grated or oven dried apple slices float on top right before serving. Maybe some croutons you make that day and toast right before? 
• short ribs with maple coffee (make the day before, reheat the day of) -- see my post "Last Meal"
• cheddar grits -- make that day
• green salad, please oh please make you're own vinaigrette
• tarte tatin with pre made puff pastry -- make in the morning.

FALL MENU NUMBER 2

• refrigerator pickles: carrots and green beans (make a week ahead)
• radishes with buttered french bread and salt 
• special lasagne with pesto sun dried tomato ricotta cheese, a light marinara, smoked ham, roasted red peppers (make and freeze)
• garlic bread (if you don't serve the radishes)
• caesar salad
• tarte tatin or baked apples finished of with a hit of bourbon. maybe a scoop of ice cream. If you want to be really ridiculous, you can scoop individual scoops out in advance and freeze them on parchment paper. Easy serving. But you can also offer freshly whipped cream on the side. No one ever complains about that.  

TROIS!

• pork roast with fennel
• delicious oven potatoes.. perhaps cooked under the pork? or in a gratin? or scalloped? or you could make Giada's delicious gratineed cauliflower with capers and bacon. 
• roasted brussels sprouts with bacon lardons (leave the bacon out if you make the cauliflower). Lots of salt ad olive oil will do it. maybe throw in a few cloves of garlic.
• fresh fennel and apple salad with celery and parmesan
• good bread 
• great cheese tray for dessert with fixins like marconi almonds, dried apricots, walnuts, honey, fig loaf or fresh figs, dates, crystalized ginger. You need stilton, parano, some good drippy cheese like brie or camembert or other better ones, a cheddar, and something soft like St Andre or goat cheese. Snip fresh rosemary on your goat  cheese and give it a little cracked pepper if it's mass produced
• dark chocolate

My sister's kitchen

is in dreadful shape. Her wall oven broke like a year ago. She has 4 hideous electric burners. The cabinets are mismatched and falling apart. Hideous floor -- vinyl tiles. PLus wallpaper in a sickly pink with light blue check marks or something. It does not merit a photo.
It is supremely awful . Luckily, however, she's got the sliding glass door.

Because we Have a Plan.  A High/Low Plan!

She loves this kitchen that I found on Remodelista.com

Her kitchen is a bit smaller than the one above. Imagine the left 2 upper cabinets and the base cabinet below gone. That's the size we're working with.  Only about 12 feet.

I am buying her a new gas range -- likely this Samsung. Notice the continuous iron grates on the top and good chunky handles.

http://www.samsung.com/us/appliances/oven-ranges/NX58F5700WS/AA

I'm a good sister. I can't help myself. My nieces and nephew need proper meals, and my sister is a great albeit cash-straped cook.

That's a custom walnut island. My guess -- it cost at least $3K, possibly more.
We want maximum size for the island plus seating, and luckily our dad is the Tile King of FLorida. So we have the counters covered.

So I found a series of potential stand ins, ready to go. We'll add casters to whatever she buys.  They are all $1100 or less. I think the first one is the winner. Or the last one. We'll likely do an ivory granite or marble counter that extends at least 6 inches over either end, plus at least a foot behind to allow for bar seating.  They are not as deep as the island so I am also looking for two of these that exactly match in height, width and wood tone (a tall order) to place back to back.

Then we'll add some cabinets from Ikea, chunky subway tiles, open shelves, a cool stainless fridge, a farm sink because I need it, and this rug and these lights and dishes (and the cabinets, but in Ivory). The dishes have to be new to look as nice as the rest o the kitchen and to allow them to be on open shelves.

You're welcome, sister!

Ballers: How To Core Apples

Apple pie is so wonderful, french apple tarts sublime, baked apples filled with brown sugar, bourbon, and vanilla the perfect thing to eat on a cold night in front of the fire. But coring those little effers is a pain in the ass, and you end up with  apple juice running all down your arm and missing apple cartilage and terrible pips and it's just too much sometimes.

I have your answer. First, to peel an apple I feel very strongly about this old fashioned kinda peeler. The head swivels easily around the apple, it works a charm and costs nothing (I won't use those stiff newer ones, and I don't like the U ones because they don't give you the same kind of control and dexterity).

Now to core. Git yourself one of these:

 It's a melon baller. A melon baller played a very important role in my nursery school years (there were 2 of them. I started when i was 3, finished when I was five, and split half the day in kindergarten. This was not because I was particularly smart but because I am and always have been tall.) Anyway, I was forever forgetting what day I needed to bring something in for show and tell (once I plucked a daffodil at the last second from the garden, and once I brought my sister and everyone fought over who got to play with her). On the way out the door one morning I said to my mom: show and tell. She handed me a melon baller. I won show and tell that day.

But here's the beauty of this thing: it is strong and sharp and is the perfect size for cutting out the hearts of firm apples.  For slices for pie or tarts, just peel your apple, cut it in half from stem to stern (not across the equator) then dig out a circle of core on each half. You'll get almost all of  it in the first pass. Next, dig out the little core veins that remained. The whole process will take you about 15 seconds, and there will be no juice on your arm. Then just slice and go.
If you need to leave your apple whole, say for some gorgeous pastry-covered baked apple, then just dig down from the stem end, cleaning out little circles as you go. You can hold the baller perpendicular to the apple and just drill in, like they did the Chunnel.  Repeat the process from the bottom up. It should take no more than 2 balls on each end to make that thing as clean as a whistle.

I made some baked half apples using this method last night -- glorious. Peel, halve, and core the apples. granny Smith are good whenever you are going to be baking because they are tart and hold their shape. Honey Crisp are good too. Lay them cut side down in a cake or lasagne pan. Sprinkle them all over with sugar -- I used a large (actual) tablespoon (as in one you would serve at the table) and gave them a nice coat. Dotted them with a fair amount of butter. Then I grabbed a very expensive bottle of bourbon and gave them a little shower -- not too much -- there shouldn't be any depth. Just enough to give the sugar something to do when it falls off the apple. Then a shake of vanilla extract, and a wee sprinkle of coarse sea salt. Put them in a hot oven -- about 375 -- till your house smells delicious.

 (this apple image lifted from gourmet.com)

There will be shallow puddles of thick, clear caramel around them when you take them out of the oven. Tilt the pan and with same tablespoon, scoop up what gathers and pour it into the apple cavities (oh, right. Flip them over halfway through so the round side gets  a caramel kiss, too. ).

Eat with ice cream or cookies, or if you feel fancy make a deconstructed apple  pie by baking up circles or scraps of pie dough sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, and serve in shards along side. It's very gastronomique.

(Had a fabulous deconstructed white peach cobbler in Paris at Spring restaurant a few years ago. A white peach was I think roasted with a littel vanilla till it was just tender. He made an oat cookie of sorts and broke that up on the side. Served it all in a pool of reduced fresh peach juices with a daub of thick whipped real cream. heaven. I've tried to make it myself with only middling success. His white peach was just perfect.)

Anyway, deconstruct desserts and wow your friends. The end.

Dinner this week, in 15 minutes flat

Picture Lifted from The Food Network

Linguini with clams sauce is a family favorite and comes together in absolutely no time if you don't bother with fresh clams. You can, you probably should, but when your boyfriend is hungry and cranky, you can whip this up in about 15 minutes -- which includes pasta cooking time.

Gather your ingredients:
Linguini -- up to a pound if you and the bfriend are famished, but I usually do 1/2 a package. (that's half a pound).
A garlic clove, peeled and thinly sliced.
One anchovy fillet : THIS IS NOT OPTIONAL! DO IT!
1 or 2 pieces of bacon, sliced crosswise into lardons, or some diced pancetta, which you'll find at Trader Joes. very convenient little package
Olive Oil
One or two jars or cans clams. TJs has nice big Maine clams, with ruffly edges. But Chicken of the Sea works just as well.
A splash of whatever white wine you're drinking.
A bit of chopped, fresh flat leaf parsely, which hopefully you are growing in the garden. Mine has been green throughout the winter in DC!
Dried red chili flakes: ALSO NOT OPTIONAL!
It's anathema to Italians but I love freshly grated Parmesan cheese on this. 

-- Set your water to boil. Salt it well.
Meanwhile: fry up your bacon. I like a cast iron pan for this and just about everything else. When it's rendered and beginning to get crisp, add the anchovy and mash it into the pan so it melts into the sauce, add the sliced garlic, and a shake of chili flakes. Stir the garlic so it gets golden brown but not burned.

Add the pasta to the water when it's ready.

When the bacon is cooked and the garlic is golden, open up the can or cans of clams and dump them in with their juices. Splash in a bit of wine. Simmer that  all together till the sauce thickens a bit. Taste it, add salt if necessary.

When the pasta is cooked, dump it into a sieve or pull it out of the water with tongs and add it to the clam sauce. Toss or stir so it is well-covered with sauce.  Sprinkle with parsley and grate cheese over the top (unless you are Italian or a purist, in which case, clutch your pearls and tell me that seafood pastas don't get cheese in Italy. I will grunt back "whatbever" because I will be eating already.)

Seriously: my boyfriend begs for this, and I never have to run to the store at the last minute because the clams live in my pantry, who doesnt have garlic and parmesan?

How To Remove a Broken Lightbulb From The Socket Without a Bloodletting or Electrocution

When a light bulb breaks (often when it's really old, burns out, and you are trying to replace it, but sometimes when your boyfriend removes his t-shirt with a flourish and like Bamm-Bamm doesn't know his own strength and smashes a $4 silver-tipped light bulb all over your bed and then you cut your finger and it bleeds*):

IGNORE THE POTATO LOBBY. No spud will help you. Did I write this already? You'll just get potato juce down your forearm, and your arm will fall asleep from all the pointless jamming and turning.

 EMBRACE THE DUCT TAPE LOBBY.

  
Get your self a wadded up piece of Duct tape or electrical tape. Jam it in the stuck cylinder. Oh, first turn off at least the light switch if not the breaker in the fuse box. Let's not tempt fate. Anyway, jam it in and start to turn it lefty loosey. Ta daa!

You're welcome.

*happened.

How to Make Things Taste Like at Full Kee

http://richardbarrypaintings.blogspot.com/2010/12/garlic-ginger-and-chilli.html

With a  tip of the hat to artist Richard Barry from whom I lifted this lovely image... (visit  his site, buy his paintings and assuage my guilt!) these are the three ingredients you need to make many things taste like the most  delicious thing on the planet, if you like garlic, chili and ginger, which you should because all of them are cancer relieiving super foods or whatever. But mostly delicious.

There's a fabulous Chinese restaurant in DC called Full Kee. 

I have a very hard time moving past a few things on the menu because they are so flipping delicious.  So if you go, you should order the roast pork appetizer. Their egg rolls are good if you are an old school Chinese food type eater. Order the stir fried chive flowers. Don';t ask me questions, just do it. And order the SPicy Fried Grouper (it might be called Crispy Spicy or something). It is most likely going to be catfish but they will tell you it is grouper. Sometimes they will tell you they are out of grouper, but then a more experienced waitress will tell come over and say, no we have grouper, and then she'll look real hard at the younger waitress. This dish is on the wall, not on the menu. Don't bother looking for it. You may have to get up and point at it for the young waitress.
It will come to your table looking like this.

For the record, Full Kee identifies this as crispy spicy canadian cod fish. Trust me, it's catfish.


Anyhoodle, when it comes, you'll fall in love with it and think, I've never had anything so delicious as these chive flowers, and this spicy grouper/catfish/species unknown.

Now, I can't help you with the chive flowers (which are truthfully long green thick chives (not scallions) with unopened buds on the end, stir fried in a ton of garlic) but the fish I can -- and this same preparation can be applied to many things that are sauteed quickly and need flavor -- ie shrimp (do them in the shells), thinkly sliced pork, chicken, chicken wings, beef, most likely scallops and I bet lobster would be delicious, if yuou live in Maine and have way to much of it. But for the lobster I'd steam them first till almost done, then sautee them in this, and let it get all over your fingers.

You need equal amounts of garlic (lots), peeled minced fresh ginger (lots), and fresh chilis (serrano, jalapeno, whatever). Mince them to all the same size. Stir fry or saute whatever protein (including tofu) you want in a hot pan with oil (peanut oil can take the heat), then when it's a minute or so from being done, throw in the garlic, ginger and chilis and saute it for a minute. give it a good sprinkling of salt -- it makes the spice easier to take for some reason, and lets you really taste things besides heat. Then throw in a few chopped scallions, green parts included, and toss it again, then serve.If you've got cilantro, throw it on there.

Super super delicious and you'll be all what is this fancy fusion restaurant i have stumbled into? And then you'll me like, oh that's just me.

To do the grouper like Full Kee, get some catfish filets (ha!), slice them into fingers, toss them in buttermilk, then roll them in seasoned flour (salt and pepper is enough but you can other things if you like them) Shake off the excess and fry. When it's cooked, removed the fried fish to a paper towel or brown paper bag to blot the excess oil, then toss them all back in with the g/g/c and a bit of salt. Remove and serve.
For chicken wings, give them a little oil massage (maybe include some toasted sesame oil in the mix) and put them in a hot oven till their done. Then remove them, throw them in a hot wok with the g/g/c and scallions, maybe  a touch of soy if you really want to, a little dribble of toasted sesame oil, and mow mow mow.

You're welcome. 

Most of my readers are foot fetishists.

I'm pretty certain. I'm pleased -- whatever gets you here, and hopefully you are interested enough to stay and learn how to make stock or not get fired or whatever. But week after week, my stats tell me that my most read post is  How To Walk Around In High Heels All Day and you got here by doing a google image search of high heels.

There was a time when my second top search was "Nate Berkus Bare Feet"... This one's for you! Thanks for reading! Happy new year!

3 Practical New Years Resolutions I'm Finding Easy to Keep (to varying degrees)

Inspired a little by Martha, a little by Bon Appetit magazine, and a lot by Joel Salatin, my favorite farmer who preaches long and strong about capturing fertility instead of throwing it out (I speak here of kitchen scraps, that can be chicken food, or compost, or or or): I have begun

RESOLUTION 1: A FREEZER BAG.

Rachel Ray can have her garbage bowl. I for one am throwing all my veggie scraps from meals I make at home into a plastic bag with a sliding zipper thing (it closes securely) and stashing them in the freezer. Onion tops, bits of garlic, carrot stems, herbs from a package unused and drying out. When I have a bag full, I put them in a stock pot with water, throw in a few extra whatevers I've got threatening to go bad in the crisper, and I boil. In a few hours: 2 quarts free veggie stock. I am doing the same with chicken bits -- wings, trimmings whatever. Say hello to my little friend: 

The beautiful thing about those zipper enclosures is you can keep adding to the bag. And then reuse the bag for your next stock, yay. You can do this while you are at work if you have a slow cooker.

No waste, no guilt for not composting (I don't have the space in my yard but I have a very active contingent of possums and raccoons who would LOVE me if I tried) but delicious free stock. Then you do like the chefs say: freeze it in another freezer bag flat, then "file it" in the freezer. 

This sounds very straight forward. It's not. The bags freeze to other things in the freezer and they get a little misshapen, but still so worth it when risotto time comes around. It always comes around. 

Speaking of did I tell you my butternut squash risotto technique that has everyone just passing out from how good it is? The secret: roast and puree your squash flesh, then make risotto as you would normally (hot stock, wine, arborio rice, probably some sauteed shallots to start). At the last minute, stir in the puree and a little bit of heavy cream. Lots of Parmesan (freshly grated, please, not that crap in a box). On top, garnish with fried sage leaves (heat some olive oil, toss in the leaves, when they get crispy -- one or two minutes -- fish them out , park them on a napkin or paper bag, and salt them with coarse sea salt. Put the rest of the sage in the freezer bag with your butternut squash trimmings. Be sure your risotto is swishy rather than gummy. I think people think it should be thick enough to stand a spoon in, but it shouldn't. It should swish about like a little minx after your man.

Risotto brings us to

RESOLUTION 2: Buy Only Whole Chickens. 

I think you are probably aware of my problem with industrialized chickens. Tortured in life, killed cruelly, they taste terrible and are basically heartbreak on a drumstick. I like my chickens happy, fat, pecking about in green fields, able to stretch their wings, then blammo. Quick dignified death at the hands of the folks who raised em, and to my plate or freezer the next day.

I get squeamish in grocery stores around the bloated white chicken carcasses that are sold for $1.79 a pound -- life should cost more than that. I want my chickens a little skinny and yellow (from eating lots of grass and bugs). And I want them whole. Whole means stock. It means ethically sourced wings (don't get me started about the massacres that happen to bring you a plate of hot wings. Lord). It means chicken thighs for a stew, chicken breasts for a saute, and fried drumsticks because yum. And then of coruse all that stock. And then  you use that in the risotto. Perfect circle. 

RESOLUTION 3: This has only tangentially to do with food but still. It makes cooking easier. 

Clean out and organize your pantry. I did mine color coded so it's like I'm shopping in Williams-Sonoma when I go to set the table. Mason jars for dry goods to keep the icky moths out. I also organized the fridge and tonight I am doing the freezer. The trick: break it up into small bits and commit just an hour (or 15 minutes, or whatever) to it. It work and makes life nice. I find myself opening the fridge and pantry simply to admire them. 

How to pack your bags.

So over on Apartment Therapy theres a discussion about how to pack for trips and how not to forget everything and do you start a pile of everything you want to bring?

The answer is "read below" (to questions 1 and 2) and no. 


I've traveled. I've had to pack for 9 week stints in war zones with body armor (it gets its own bag and weighs 40 lbs. Hideous. But your arms get super toned and you lose a ton of weight just carrying it around all day). And 10 country tours for work involving weird Saudi princes who wanted to buy me with 3 camels (really. A State Department official told them I was married with 3 kids, which as you have probably gathered is actually opposite reality, and they accepted that. That would be the only acceptable excuse not to marry this revolting 80 year old horrible prince and never get to drive my own car again. It's a 2001 Ford Focus).

So onto packing. I had a boyfriend years ago who was anal beyond all anality, and we once took a trip to a rather remote island off Florida where we had to bring not just all our camping gear but all our food too, as there were no stores or anything on the island (and not for about 2 hours in any direction.) . That's it, above.

This triggered every insane impulse he  ever had, including two bouts of REHEARSE packing to see if everything would fit in the bags we intended to carry. That means taking everything out we wanted to bring with us 2 weeks before the trip, piling it up, then putting it away. Twice.

The trip was a disaster -- the weather was bad, I wanted to kill him because of the insane control issues, and it all culminated with a tropical storm and gale force winds, me naked? practically naked? in the middle of the night  with lightning and thunder and lashing rain trying to secure our tent with the duct tape I had insisted we bring while he stood around and  yelled that I was doing it wrong. I yelled back "YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF THIS!" We stayed together more or less for 2 more years but never vacationed together again.

The upside was that in the morning all the shrimp fisherman landed on our island to recover from a rough night at sea and I was able to trade charcoal for a 5 lb bag  of just-caught shrimp which we ate all the rest of the week. The best schwimps I ever tasted.

(This island, Fort Jefferson off Key West, is a totally weird experience. There are no stores, no ATMs. Cash means nothing It's a barter economy. A bottle of tequila or charcoal is the best currency with the fisherman, who have refrigerators and lots of good stuff, but drink up their alcohol first, and don't bother with charcoal because who wants to burn down their fishing boat? But then they are out of luck when they land on the island and want to cook. The experience really drives home the importance and/or lack thereof of cash. It's freeing, really. But grim if you run out of food or tequila.)

In the ensuing years I covered my fair share of wars (that's me just after a patrol in Fallujah with a bunch of Iraqis and one Marine) which is probably the ultimate in packing. You've got to be smart about what you  bring, pack lightly because you're gonna be carrying it (sometimes, really fast...) and you can't get tampons in a war zone (easily, anyway). That's what I learned in the experience captured above.

So what I worked out is lists. This is not revolutionary, I know, but it works.

Make a simple chart that shows every day you will be on the road.
Divide the chart into categories:
clothes (to include accessories and undies)
equipment (computer, power cords,  thumb drives, pens, notebooks whatever)
documents (tickets, passports, directions)
hygiene: bandaids, meds, tampons, shampoo etc.
travel_ shizz for the plane ride. Books, Kindle, chewing gum, magazines, eye cover, socks.


Think through each day: what will you be wearing, when? Will you be exercising? What will you need to do your work (or go to wedding... gift? gift wrap?). Think through each day from the time you wake up to when you go to sleep. (wake up: wearing a t shirt and boxer shorts. Need flip flops for the shower. Need mesh bag to carry things to latrine. Need a towel. Toothbrush, toothpaste. Eye makeup remover. Moisturizer. Shampoo Floss etc).
Then what? On patrol: need body armor, helmet, ballistic eye wear. Pens (multiple), paper, tape recorder, extra batteries.Tampons, Advil (never be without tampons and advil). A few mesh Bandaids. Sun screen Water bottle. Luna Bars. Change of shirt and socks. Computer (never,never get separated from your gear).

Or a weekend beach getaway: wake in negligee, hygiene supplies, bathing suit, cover up, flip flops, hat, sunscreen, lavender spray (I love it), chapstick, towel, book for beach reading. sundress for later, undies that work with sundress. hair brush. Bathrobe if you're at a b&b where you;'ll walk down the hall to the shower.

It will look like this:
                                         Friday                            Sat                          Sunday
clothing
                                         yoga pants for drive       bikini
                                         t shirt                              hat
                                         blue dress                      red linen caftan
                                         strapless  bra                 flip flops
                                         blue sandals                   etc
                                         nightie                                       
hygiene                             tooth brush and paste
                                        hair brush
                                       
equipment                        Ipad
                                       charger
                                       batteries for beach radio

documents                       Reservation confirmation
                                        Directions and phone number of inn 


Write everything on your chart. Do this simply sitting on your couch or at your desk - don't try to gather the stuff. Don't pack a single thing until the list is completely filled out. No piles, no mess, and nothing will be forgotten.

The night before, pack it all up methodically going off the list. Pack the list last. When you come home, you can repack according to the list and you won't leave anything behind.

Follow these directions exactly for a panic-free packing experience. And a low stress trip.

My new project!

So we Ladies of Flavor sat down  and had a good hard think, and realized that what we really love is all the stuff we are able to do for farmers, vendors, chefs and landowners as a result of the magazine (ie, finding new sources for chefs, land for farmers, hooking up retail vendors with cool local food and wine artisans). So we decided to do it for reals.

May I introduce you to Foodshed? Foodshed is please to meet you. It's a non-profit that will be producing our new magazine (same idea, much more gorgeous) and doing the things officially we always just did anyway, on the side. Please go on and like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Foodshed-Magazine/446116425440743?ref=hl  

Our website will be up early next week at food-shed.org... you can subscribe there, or just donate! It is (or will be) tax deductible.

How to get cat hair off your velvet chesterfield.

I love my two cats beyond all reason. Their legs are too short, they are stupid, and they are irrational. But I love them. No one else could love them like I love them. I am a crazy cat lady, kept in check only by the fact that I have just 2 cats instead of more. I'd take home every kitten if I could. Like these! But I couldn't. So I drove them to a vineyard where they live very happily chasing voles and snuggling sheep.

Anyway. My two cats leave an awful lot of hair on my velvet chesterfield, which you may remember from such posts as "Merry Couchmas."
It's gray, 10 feet long, tufted and big enough for 3 adults to sprawl reasonably comfortably.

It also collects cat hair like a mofo. Cat hair is different from dog hair -- more tenaciously clinging, I think, to upholstery. So I finally worked out this excellent method which is both fast and weirdly satisfying.

You will need:
a set of dishwashing gloves. Mine are purple.
a dustbuster or a vacuum.

Method:
1. Don gloves.
2. Approach couch like surgeon who has scrubbed "in."
3. Begin rubbing the velvet back and for5h till the cat hair balls up and sticks to itself in long, yucky lines of cat yarn. bleck.
4. Vacuum up yarn.
5. Sit on hair free couch.
6. Sing my praises.

You're welcome. 

Last meal.

We buried my aunt this weekend after a five-year struggle with pancreatic cancer that finally spread to her lymphatic system and brain. It was brutal but she was quite something throughout her illness -- she worked up until five weeks before her death, and traveled all sorts of weird places (Bulgaria, China) between bouts of chemo because she wanted to cram in as much living as possible.

That's her in the photo above, nestled between my grandpa and dad. Her sister is to the right. My aunt and I shared a birthday; she called me every year to wish me a happy one.

A few years ago in the autumn, a little while into her diagnosis, she and my uncle were in D.C. so I invited them by for dinner. It was a weeknight, and I had a rather demanding job at the time, so I did almost everything the day before and my lovely boyfriend Steve set the table and reheated everything while I made my way home from work.

I served an appetizer of sliced beets, feta, Granny  Smith apples and horseradish/sour cream sauce, stacked up in free-form layers -- gorgeous reds, greens, and whites. My aunt wasn't eating much so I made her a mini version, like you'd get at some fancy restaurant.

For dinner I made chipotle/coffee/maple short ribs over mashed sweet potatoes. It sounds a little weirder than it is -- it's actually totally delicious. Sweet, bitter, and smoky-spicy all at once. Again for my aunt, just a daub of orange and brown on a plate, but she pronounced it delicious.

There were candles on the table and linen napkins, and wine. A lovely evening. I don't remember dessert.  

I learned from my uncle a couple of weeks ago that that was the last real meal she ever ate. She couldn't digest solid food after that, a function of the cancer, and was fueled almost entirely by liquid meal supplements.

I can't tell you both how awful and wonderful that was to hear. I have many deficiencies, but if there's one thing I can do, one gift I can give, it is to cook.

Iron your napkins and get out your wine glasses, be it for family, friends or just yourself. Think hard about what to serve, and have it be delicious. Make every meal a celebration. You may, like me, be very humbled and grateful that you did.

---
For the beets, simply roast them as you would, cool, peel, slice and layer with crisp apple slices and feta cheese. Mix a little horseradish into a few teaspoons of sour cream until you like the taste. If you have fresh dill, you can add that too. Drizzle the beet stacks with horseradish cream and serve with fresh cracked black pepper. 


This is more or less the short rib recipe.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Short-Ribs-Braised-in-Coffee-Ancho-Chile-Sauce-107596

 

How to write anything, in 12 easy steps.

I'm a magazine editor, reporter, and therefore, a writer. Writing is the last thing I worry about -- for me it's all about gathering information, making sure it is interesting and correct.

I work with a lot of writers, many of them new to the craft, and this is what I tell them when they are "blocked" and when they are struggling, and when they are writing crappily. I like that word, crappily.

This is a method I actually derived in college because of my towering laziness. It's easy and it works. 

1. Read over your notes a couple of times. Make a simple outline or flow chart  of what your piece will say. Don't fill in details -- just write how the thoughts will flow, a vague order that makes sense.

Here's an example from my own notebook:

Intro --> 7800 farmers markets, 2500 take snap
Farmers markets affordable?
New study says yes
Compared 24 common items
Found comparable prioces in season
Except meat, eggs
How to stretch that budget (whoel chicken instead of parts)
How snap works



2. Go to sleep. This lets the notes and details arrange themselves in your brain. The important stuff, the stuff that is actually interesting, will stick and be the most prominent parts of your work. That is as it should be.
3. Wake up, take a shower. That signals to your brain it's time to be serious. Turn on your computer. Don't go on the internet, don't check your email. Do not open Facebook under any circumstances.
4. Do not look at your notes before you start. That's just procrastinating.
5. Get a mental picture in your head of who you are telling this story to: your grandma? your best friend? Your favorite professor? Now tell the story. Write one true sentence after another. That's Hemingway's advice. Worked for Poppa, works for me, works for everyone.
6. Write your piece all the way through. Finish your draft. Don't get up till you do.
7. Now get up, stretch, eat a donut. Don't look at Facebook yet.
8. Sit back down. Get out your notes. Don't look at your screen. Read your notes. If there's anything important you forgot, it will jump out at you.
9. Add true, simple sentences including whatever information you neglected to include the first go round in a place that it makes sense.
10. Fix whatever facts, names, dates, numbers you may have screwed up in your memory by comparing them to your notes.
11. Put it all away.
12. The next day, read it over. Smooth out transitions. Rewrite whatever you think needs it. Don't try to get fancy - short, direct words, true statements -- that's what your readers want. You are not David Foster Wallace. Don't try to be. Be you. Impart what you know.  You're done.

ok, so D's kitchen! 
You'll recall she is transforming a first floor bedroom/living room combo into a full-blown apartment -- ie, adding a kitchen. She's got a $15k budget, more or less.  I am in charge and am very happy about that.  Here's the plan (you'll also recall the idiot builder she was going to go with wanted to do a corner kitchen in this rectangular room, which made my eyes roll back in my head with fury because hello: corner sinks generally suck, and super suck if you are jamming a dishwasher on one side and an oven on the other. You can't stand in front of the sink to load the dishwasher in that configuration. And there's no where to put anything next to the sink because the stupid range is there. Anyway: here's a better plan:

 Here's what it looks like in Ikea's 3D model (hint: even if you aren't buying ikea stuff, iots a really easy tool to do 3D planning -- better than others I have tried to use).

This first shot shows the room if you were standing at the double doors that open into the room from the street. The appliances aren't actually levitating -- I just didn't add in legs. Here's the genius part: I flipped a base cabinet around backwards so it's accessible from the snack bar side. This lets me block that area on the opposite side with a run of 1-foot deep cabinets. More counter space, more storage. The second genius part is the counter. I will actually be builduing that counter up with a false wall and topping it with a chestnut board I have that has a live edge on it (the bark and natural contours). Very fancy and Nakashima-esque.

here is a view if you are floating above the room. There is a lot of levitating in this kitchen,

This is a weird view from the far wall next to the fridge. If you were, say, a plant on the counter looking out.

 

I have a great handyman who can do all the cabinets, carpentry, and painting,and will get a professional plumber and electrician in to do the lighting and sewage. Hopefully I can get everything done for under $15K, and she can rent this place for big jack. The most fun part is I am TOTALLY IN CHARGE.