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.

If I've ever meant anything to you... please click on this link and vote! It could mean $250K for my magazine!

Chase and Living Social are giving away 13 awards of $250,000 each to small  businesses. In order for our application to be considered, we need 113 more votes by Saturday Jan 29. Click on the link below, sign in through Facebook (ieasiest. You can also register) and input Flavor Magazine in the search box. We are based in Sperryville Virginia. The money will be put to excellent use -- promoting small sustianble farmers, food artisans and craft winemakers, brewers and distillers. Make the world safe for earthworms! Vote for Flavor! (that's the team below. I am rocking the bib overalls.)
http://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/

 

So my dear friends Meg and Ben live in a great albeit new house ion the Chesapeake Bay in North Beach, Md. They used  to live 5 blocks from me, and prior to that, Meg lived WITH me for 5 years. I think we both secretly  think we'll end up old ladies living together again, once those men die and leave us their fortunes. It will be sad for a while, but then it will be fun. (kidding, guys! we'll be sad FOREVER!)

Anyway: Meg and Ben let me run their life last weekend as they headed into the North Beach House and Garden show. they needed a firm hand to make their already lovely and interesting house gorgeous and serene. 

Now above you see my pride and joy. Ben and Meg, like me, have a laundry problem. They hate to do it, hate to fold it, hate to put it away. So several years ago I conceived of this system of baskets. The shelves were built  but for years they were just filled with a  jumble of clothes etc because they refused to just pull the trigger and buy the bins. The house tour, however, changed all that. 

See? Lovely. its a demosntration of a key principal: group like objects for order and beauty. Now all their laundry (dirty in baskets, clean in bins) is gorgeous to look at and easy to get to. Any no one has to put anything away. It comes out of the dryer, gets folded, stacked in a bin, then popped on the shelf. I love it. Here are 2 more views.

They have a great deck off their bedroom that they just painted -- and I tell you, the paint is a miracle. It feels like a place you want to be instead of a splinter fest. Ben made the chaise longue (not lounge! it's French!). The chandelier thingy is a group project (but I'm please to say my innovation). They had this old spool bed piece hanging around for years. I suggested it become a candle chandelier. A yard sale yielded mason jars for $2 and a spool of stiff wire. Ben painted the spool thing, and I twisted the wire. The brilliant design thing here is that by hanging it up it draws attention to the high ceiling, and it creates a foreground, which makes the background look so much more real and 3-dimensional. Gorgeous views without foregrounds can look like painted backdrops.

 Here is their kitchen. It wasn't much to look at before -- builder grade cabinets and crappy Formica counters. A coat of paint and some mail order butcher block, along with some bead board and it's gorgeous. The light is something I unearthed in an antique store for 40 bucks. It weighs about 6,000 pounds. Ben figured out how to rewire and hang it.

 Here is their living room. The colors are basically drawn from the Chesapeake Bay and tidal marshes outside -- that's the green and gray and blue you see. But the room needed color. Now I'm not one for color or pattern but Meggy is. I make fun of her for it -- she loves wee bitty patterns like holly hobby. She even likes her plants holly hobby -- little,  tight, speckled flowers. I like my blooms blowsy and fragrant (peonies, jasmine, clematis). But I "allowed" her to indulge in the living room. She came up with a great mix (I nixed a few) of colors and patterns. it's not something I would ever come up with on my own but I love it.

The rug is from Dash& Albert. That was a requirement: the room is large and needed a huge presence to anchor the living area. The night before the house tour we had pizza and the box collapsed on my leg. I tried to balance the pie but the hot cheese slid right off. This is where oxy clean comes in. You can even see the stain, which was ENORMOUS the night before. It was right at the foot of the green chair on the left.

 Here's another view. There is also a day bed in the corner, backed by a mirror to reflect even more water views. It's a great napping spot. That's not us in the picture. Those are neighbors coming to check out the place at the beginning of the house tour. But the skirt works in the space, so I'm ok with it.

Here's another kitchen shot. Ben built the pot rack out of a salvaged piece of metal -- probably an airplane cargo door, we decided after seeing something VERY similar in the movie Midway, which was playing last weekend.  Again: grouping like things-- steel pans -- is a great way to display otherwise mundane things.

 The cabinet came from Housewerks in Baltimore. Super cool and reconfigurable -- those trays can be moved up or down. I spent a lot of time arranging these pots. All their vitamins and prescriptions -- things they need every day -- are hidden in that tall sided box. Always keep your KitchenAid mixer out and ready to go or you will never use it.

 And finally: the view. I had nothing to do with this. It's why they moved here. Away from me. Booooo.
But the good news is I get to use their house as a weekend getaway whenever I want it. I know the alarm code, suckas!