Posts for category ‘food & drink’

Like a lot of food-lovers, I harbor many kitchen fantasies about fresh-baked bread. Fresh bread is pretty much the ultimate definition of home and hearth, and the person who bakes her own bread is also the person whose house is the go-to place for neighborhood kids, who makes the stranger feel welcome, who has exactly the right advice for every friend with a problem, who has long glossy hair she usually wears in a bun, who composts, hangs laundry to dry in the sun, and never has a cranky day.  

Or maybe she just has a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Zoë Francois and Jeff Hertzberg. I acquired this book after a taste of the bread from their master recipe at my friend Ann Dee’s house about a month ago, and since then have baked six tasty loaves my very own self. It really is an amazingly fast and easy technique, and now I want to evangelize to everyone I know who cooks.  

While reading the acknowledgments for the book I discovered that Jeff and Zoë and I are all represented by the same literary agency, so of course I immediately exploited the connection to get them over here for a Q&A as part of my Shop Local Holiday Gift-Guying Guide. It makes a terrific gift for the cooks in your life, and you may as well get a copy for yourself while you’re at it. The basic ingredients for homemade bread are so cheap, this really pays for itself after the first four-loaf batch of dough. If you don’t see it on the shelf at your local indie store, ask! They can order it for you and have it in quickly. 

And now, let’s hear what the authors have to say… 

SZ: Congratulations on the success of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I’ve bought a lot of bread books in my time, and this is the first one that actually delivers on its promise of do-ability! What do you think it is about the prospect of bread making that strikes fear in the hearts of the average home cook? Read more »

We’re going to rise before dawn tomorrow, roll out of bed, try to get everything into the car and hit the road. And then G. puts his big brain to work earning his degree and I…well, you know how there’s this phase of writing a novel when you’re trying this and fiddling with that and pondering and mapping and discovering and you’re thinking hey, no rush here, it’s all about the process? Then the day comes when you seriously have to get down to work and produce a book. It’s time for that full-on NO FEAR attack. I’m scared. Oh wait, I said no fear.

So just as G. goes into “study” as his default setting during grad school summers, I’m going into “book” as mine. I might go to more photo blogging and less text for the next couple of months, or something. We’ll see. I did dig out my old Canon T-70 and have it loaded with actual film, old school, and I’m taking my zoom lens and tripod. Hopefully I remember how to use all that stuff.

It’s also time for summer vegetarianism! It started on Sunday. Last summer we were all vegetarian when eating in, but I did sometimes eat meat and stuff when out. This summer I’m going to try to be a bit more thorough. Even though I promised I wouldn’t buy any more cookbooks, I got one more teeny tiny (okay, it’s massive) one as my sole reference for the summer.

I love Mark Bittman. I have two of his other giant books, and really I could get rid of the rest of my collection and with his three I’d be well covered for life. I love his approach to food and cooking because he’s a home cook. He’s not like a restaurateur or a B&B proprietor a Food Network star. In his books, every recipe has variations in case you don’t have all the ingredients, or you have different ingredients. It’s all very approachable, but at the same time he knows his world cuisines and he doesn’t shy away from or discourage home cooks to do dishes that are a bit more complex or unusual or time-consuming, and he only uses real food. His cookbooks don’t just make me want to eat, they make me want to cook. Which is the point.

See you in a couple of days, live from New Mexico!

Three and a half hours on Friday and one phillips-head screwdriver later, voila:

I have to give kudos to Chris & Chris, the makers of this butcher block cart (ordered from Costco online). I’ve embarked on many “some assembly required” projects, and I have to say that the instructions that came with this are a thing of beauty. Every single step was completely described and diagrammed, the hardware came in coded baggies, and special tools (two small wrenches and some wood glue) were included. So all my doom and gloom predictions about how this would pan out were wrong. Having not seen the cart other than in its online picture, I was ready for quality issues to kill my joy, but it’s a really nice quality piece, especially considering the price (and the fact of free shipping…at 120 pounds that counts for a lot). Do you know Williams-Sonoma goes up to a couple of grand for stuff like this? Yikes. And now I have a granite surface for pastry-type items!

Speaking of W-S and bad instructions, the chrome shelf involved considerably more angst. So confusing, so difficult. But in the end, we have shelf. Although…the floors of our house are pretty uneven in some rooms. You just don’t notice how uneven until you put something tall on them. So it’s a little lean-y. Not too Read more »

I got a call this weekend from Plan U.S.A. (formerly known as Childreach). I’ve been sponsoring a child through them for about 6 years, I think, in Guinea Bissau. They have way more children in need of sponsors than they have sponsors, and invited me to take on another. I can’t do that right now but promised to write about it on my blog. Did you see About Schmidt? I certainly hope so. If you did, you of course remember Schmidt’s correspondence with Ndugu. That could be you! In all seriousness, consider sponsoring a child if you don’t already do something like that. When I was a kid, my family sponsored a child from Haiti even though we were fairly broke ourselves by U.S. standards. I still remember his letters, and hearing about the amazing things he could do with $5 a month. The price has gone up over the years, but it’s still a blip in the typical American family’s household budget.

My pal Jeffrey Overstreet tagged me in a meme. It’s been awhile, so…why not! In brief:

Four jobs I’ve had: cook at a day camp, church secretary, account rep for a commercial printer, personal assistant to a 70 year-old swingin’ bachelor on tony Telegraph Hill

Four TV shows I’m watching: when they make their triumphant return – Gossip Girl and 30 Rock, also Friday Night Lights on DVD, and my new guiltiest guilty pleasure, I Know My Kid’s a Star! It’s like ANTM for wannabe childstars and their nightmare mothers.

Four places I’ve been (now, with alliteration!): breathtaking Bryce Canyon,  majestic Muir Woods, closed Coney Island (in winter), notorious Navy Pier on the 4th of July.

Four musical artists I’m listening to: Nina Gordon, Led Zeppelin, Dierks Bentley, Rachael Yamagata

Consider yourself tagged if you want to play and/or are looking for work avoidance.

Speaking of doing things online that aren’t work, I have managed to turn my goal of actually using my cookbooks into a new blog. I’m calling it Mission: Kitchen Ambition; it’s really more an index than anything else and probably only interesting to me, but you are welcome to visit me over there and tell me what you’re cooking.

This will be interesting. I don’t think, however, that any laws will change or any federally-enforced oversight will happen because it’s one of those legal slippery slopes we so dread in this country. But maybe the media attention will inspire the membership and donors to think twice about funding their pastors’ private jets. And hey, Grassley, maybe your next letter should be to the Church of Scientology?

Speaking of religion, I’m taking another stab at a weekly rest period, also known as sabbath. This past weekend, I did not touch my laptop or the Internet from Saturday night to this morning, and I also did not look at my calendar/planner or think about work. And I tried not to do things like house cleaning, though you don’t really want the dishes to fester for a whole day.

Other stuff that happened this weekend: brioche French toast with orange creme anglaise and fresh berries (at Cafe Niche, which is relatively new in our neighborhood and a place we’ve been wanting to try – so good); Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (not really my cup of tea, but great clothes); Nine Lives (more my cup of tea though not entirely successful); and lots of cups of actual tea as I have this wicked painful cough that finally drove me to the Nyquil last night. There aren’t really any other symptoms. A bit of congestion, maybe, but I don’t feel sick sick. I just don’t feel well.

And, oh yeah, so much for spring. It snowed like four inches last night. Bah! But it is melting fast. Enjoy your Monday!