African Adventure

I have been admiring our new cymbidium in the sunlight on our deck. I got it for my husband for our anniversary. It's called Arab Trader 'African Adventure.' I can't explain the name, except that marriage is an adventure and ours is a beautiful flowering.

Quest for the Best Soda Bread

This March I decided I finally have to sort out the soda bread question. Maybe it's an urge to connect up with my Irish roots. Or maybe it's an excuse to use up some of the flours I keep buying.* Whatever it is, this month it's soda bread in my kitchen.
Okay, I admit it, the immediate trigger was a photo in this month's Bon Appetit of a slice of Mrs. O'Callaghan's soda bread slathered with yellow Irish butter. The loaf above is the result of Mrs. O'Callaghan's recipe. I think it's pretty gorgeous (and you should see Mrs. O'Callaghan, whose photo is also in the magazine but unfortunately not on the website), and we all liked the taste, especially slathered with Kerrygold Irish butter. The texture is slightly crumbly as opposed to the chewiness of a yeast loaf. But it's moist and hefty and rustic and the ideal vehicle for butter. Strangely, the comments on epicurious regarding this recipe all said it was too dry, many added extra buttermilk, and some people couldn't get it to come out at all. Mine was not too dry, but my only criticism is that it's a little on the sweet side, with 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Brown sugar! I suspect this is an Americanization because last time I was in the British Isles, brown sugar was not to be found. I wonder what Mrs. O'Callaghan really uses. But we ate it up in 24 hours. Four thumbs up.
Next I tried 101 Cookbooks' recipe for Irish Mum's Brown Bread. I got graham flour especially for it. Above is the result. It's a smaller loaf, with less flour and a bit wetter dough so I baked it in a loaf pan. I love the coarseness of the graham flour. The boys did not like it as much as Mrs. O'Callaghan's, probably because it has no sugar. But it has an egg, which I think makes it a bit stronger and maybe a tiny bit lighter. I can't wait to have some toasted with marmalade for breakfast tomorrow.
But I'm not done yet! There are still more recipes to try. I've been drooling over a recipe in the Silver Palate cookbook for soda bread with currants, and there's another one on epicurious with caraway seeds and another one with sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds! Probably not too Irish but worth a try.

*I just did a flour inventory. I have unbleached white flour, unbleached white bread flour, graham flour, whole wheat pastry flour, white whole wheat pastry flour, and wheat bran. And that's just the wheat flours. I also have masa harina, cornmeal, polenta, and almond meal. Gotta use it up before it goes stale.

The Rainbow Dinner

These are just a few of the colorful dishes we dined on last weekend when my brother-in-law came over to cook dinner with us before flying back to NY. We asked him to accompany my husband to Berkeley Bowl to buy the ingredients, and as you can see, the abundance of Berkeley Bowl produce inspired both of them.
Unfortunately the first course went unphotographed: sauteed prawns with garlic, parsley and Spanish paprika. We consumed that around 7 pm, before my son went off to play his jazz concert. While he was at the concert we sipped our wine and finished the prep on the second couse: baked petrale sole in butter, roasted purple and golden carrots and red and golden beets with dill, and frisee salad with more beets and carrots with avocados and golden tomatoes. The concert went on longer than we thought (in addition to jazz there was a classical tenor and Chinese poetry; kind of glad I didn't stay for that one), so we went and watched some of the Olympics and got inspired by sailing ski jumpers. We finally all sat down around 9:45 for the second course, and by the time I brought my son home for his dinner it was 10:30. The sole and salad and vegetables were delicious (forgot to photograph the sole, too).
Then for dessert a medley of berries with whipped cream.
I don't think there is any color found in nature that we did not have represented in that meal.

The New Family Pie Baker

I think I am about to cede my title as the family pie baker to my youngest son. Look what he made in the last week, with only minor consultation from me on how thin to roll out the crusts. (The first one is apple, the second pecan.) Need I add that both were delicious? And with crusts that a professional pastry chef would be proud to serve. Maybe this is what being teenage-boy hungry and no soccer practice to tire him out does.

Pinchos Morunos

Didn't these come out looking good? And they tasted even better.
We discovered pinchos morunos when living in Spain. They are pork kebabs marinaded in spices--I have seen it translated as "Moorish pork kebabs" but the Moors, being Muslim, did not eat pork. I guess it's a uniquely Spanish blending of two cultures. The grumpy butcher near our house used to sell them uncooked. It was my "easy" dinner: pick up some pinchos morunos, broil them and cook up some rice, make a salad and that was it.
My older son picked pinchos morunos to make as his meal over the holidays. He did the whole thing! I only collaborated on checking if the kebabs were done (we broiled them). I really like this recipe from Joyce Goldstein's book, Tapas: Sensational Small Plates from Spain. Here it is as published in the SF Chronicle:

Pinchos Morunos
1/2 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp. pimenton dulce
2 Tbsp. toasted cumin, ground
1 tsp. pimenton picante or cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. saffron threads, crushed and infused in 2 Tbsp. hot water
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 lbs. boneless pork shoulder or tenderloin, cut in 1-inch cubes (we used loin)
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
Chopped flat leaf parsley
4 Tbsp. lemon juice
Lemon wedges
In a small pan over low heat, warm the dry spices in the olive oil. Transfer to a bowl and cool the mixture completely. Rub mixture on the cubed meat. Toss in salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, and lemon juice. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Soak bamboo skewers in water for 30 minutes.
Preheat broiler or make a charcoal fire. Threat meat on skewers and broil or grill until done, about 4 minutes per side. Serve with lemon wedges.

Comfort and Joy

We noticed this chair, looking out over the birds and seals in Bolinas Lagoon, on our walk around the lagoon while spending a few days with our family at Stinson Beach, our regular holiday ritual. In the car ride home, my sons were talking about their grandparents, how interesting and funny and kind they were. I loved hearing how much spending time with their grandparents means to them.
Of course there was also good eating, another holiday ritual. We had Steven's luxurious barbecued prime rib with roasted vegetables for Christmas dinner. I made fresh ginger cake and Meyer lemon ice cream for dessert.
My favorite concoction was my brother-in-law Mark's lunch plate with leftovers the next day.

The Baker Guy

My younger son produced these yesterday, with minimal input from me. He has been wanting to bake these since we got our Christmas tree last week. I think gingerbread people are part of his Christmas ritual, so I'm glad he knows how to bake them now.
I told my boys that this vacation I want some more participation in meal preparation, ideally for them to choose a dish they like and cook it for dinner (with me as helper if they want). To my surprise they agreed with no complaints. The older one said he wants to cook Pinchos Morunos, a favorite from Spain that we recently found a recipe for. It's chunks of pork loin marinated in paprika and spices and broiled. The younger one wanted to know if baking TWO batches of gingerbread people would count as a meal. I said no.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Two pumpkin pies and one apple galette captured before they got eaten. We also had roast turkey, cornbread and sausage stuffing, twice-baked potatoes, green beans tossed with garlic and herbs, gravy, cranberry sauce, and good conversation and company.

The Pumpkin Bread Ritual

The Pumpkin Bread Ritual is...making pumpkin bread and sharing it with friends. (Not necessarily in the month of October, although I cannot let October pass by without making pumpkin bread. I just barely squeezed it in this year.) My book club is coming over tonight and they will get pumpkin bread. I wrote a post a while ago about my mom's pumpkin bread recipe, and since I saw another blogger do a "rerun" of a past post, I think I'll do that, too! The title of this post was "Everyone's Pumpkin Bread."

I enjoy thinking about this bread almost as much as I do making it, giving it away, and eating it. The recipe is my mom's. She makes it every October and gives a loaf to her friend Liz for her birthday. I hear that Liz starts salivating for her pumpkin bread on Oct. 1. The recipe makes three loaves so I believe my mom keeps one and freezes the other. It freezes well. She used to make it a lot when we were kids and I loved having it in my lunch. I loved how it got even moister and greasier wrapped in plastic in my lunch box. I really savored every bite.

I made pumpkin bread for one of our parent coop nursery school potlucks and it was such a hit I ended up giving away the recipe to a lot of people. One friend of mine serves it for dessert with dulce de leche ice cream--a great innovation. Another now runs her own nursery school and she makes the pumpkin bread every fall and gives it away to her families. She adds chocolate chips (uck to me, but...) and her son demands it as his birthday cake every year. This fall she called me in a panic.
"We remodeled our house...I lost my recipe box...I can't find the pumpkin bread recipe!!!" she said breathlessly. I emailed it to her again. Here's the recipe. I decreased the sugar from my mom's original 4 cups because I prefer it less sweet.

Betsy’s Pumpkin Bread
Makes 3 loaves.

Ingredients
3-1/2 cups sugar
¾ tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. baking soda
2-1/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. each ground cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg
5 cups unbleached flour
6 eggs
1-1/2 cups canola oil
3-1/2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin

Line 3 loaf pans with waxed paper. Combine all ingredients and mix just until blended. Bake at 300 degrees F for 1-1/2 hours. Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then turn out onto a rack to cool to room temperature. Wrap in plastic to keep fresh.

You can also make smaller gift loaves and muffins, even a round cake. How will you make yours?

When My Husband Cooks

My husband is the rummage-around-the-fridge, make-something-up-on-the-spot kind of cook. I have rarely seen him cook something from a recipe, except when we used to make Pong Pang together (before kids) . I do most the cooking around the house these days, so he doesn't get that many opportunities to go rustle something up. I think he's just out of the habit. It's good when I can just lie on the couch and pretend I'm not craving a fried egg, too, so finally he goes into the kitchen and makes it. This is what he rustled up this morning, for our mid-morning snack. It's a fried egg with a bit of left0ver fried polenta on top with a dollop of tomato sauce. Hombre, it was good.

Tomato Envy

My Aunt Terry had a party yesterday for my granny, who is turning 90 this month. If I live to be 90, I hope I'm as sharp as my granny. She seemed to enjoy herself but didn't feel the need to enter into every conversation. That's good, because there were about 20 different conversations going on at the same time. The party was in Terry's backyard, so I had plenty of time to check out her garden, and she's growing tomatoes. I did really feel a wishful longing as I examined her tomatoes. She always grows vegetables every summer, and every year tries to give me some of those huge zucchini. I'll pass on the zucchini but say yes to the tomatoes. Here she is finding a ripe cherry tomato for me.

Snowstorm Skiing

It was snowing on Sunday at Donner Ski Ranch but there wasn't any question about whether or not we would ski. We had a lot of fun, especially because we were skiing with our friends who live in Sacramento now. We first met when our kids were in nursery school together. This weekend the four boys were skiing/boarding together, while we parents went off and skied together (we can't keep up with them anyway). We just couldn't get over how cool it was that they were having fun hanging out together even though they don't live in the same town anymore and only see each other about once a year.
The weather improved on Monday and today it was much sunnier, so we could look east toward Donner Lake, and see all the other familiar landmarks like Crow's Nest and Castle Peak.

That's Commissioner Norton, to You!

My sister was sworn in on Wednesday night as a commissioner of the Board of Education of the SF Unified School District. You can read all about it, see some better photos, and even see the herky jerky video I shot of her remarks, at her web page.
It was really wonderful to see her come full circle. A year ago she declared her candidacy, and began campaigning, and now she takes up the job. What a journey it has been, and it's only just beginning.
Her daughters made a big splash at the event. First her youngest chatted up Mayor Newsom and got his autograph. He made a point of mentioning her in his introduction to swearing Rachel in, saying she "has a lot of energy." Then when Rachel got up there to speak and began by thanking her husband Tim and daughters (and me!), they rushed the stage and let out a few shrieks. Tim had to corral them back to their seats, while Rachel giggled a bit and announced that once again, the Norton family had disrupted the proceedings. But all went smoothly and her speech was gracious and short.
I thought about how great it was for her daughters to see her up there being sworn in. It made me remember when my mom graduated from medical school (I was a teenager then) and how proud I was of her. Some things stick with you.

Favorite Quote

This is what my eighth-grader wrote on one of his high school applications that asked for a favorite quote:
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
French pilot/explorer/author

It's one of the most famous quotes from The Little Prince, which I'm pretty sure he's never read. So I went and asked him how he found it. He had read about Saint-Exupéry in a book about real-life harrowing adventures, and the pilot part caught his attention (since he's really into aviation). So he Googled Saint-Exupéry and found out more about him, and found the quote.

Reading this, and his application essay, I found out a bit more of what goes on inside his head. There's a lot going on in there, and I only know a smaller and smaller piece of it. And I get the feeling that's just how he likes it. Maybe that's one of the reasons he chose this quote.

Many Birds Sighted

We were out at Stinson Beach for a few days with family and I did a lot of bird-watching. My mom is my fellow bird-watcher (she calls herself "obsessed"). She has a serious harness-contraption for her binoculars, which puts less strain on your neck. I have a little bit of binocular envy since hers are a lot better than mine.
The oddest birds we saw were vultures sitting on the ground and in trees, lots of them, sometimes up to ten at a time. The smallest bird we saw was a Bewick's Wren, in a bush. In the water we saw many wigeons, mallards, scaups, buffleheads, goldeneyes, and surf scoters. I saw a northern shoveler, and she saw a northern pintail and a green-winged teal. On the beach we saw marbled godwits, willets, curlews, and whimbrels. She saw avocets and I saw a killdeer and a semipalmated plover.
I think my sister thinks we're weird. She took a lot of beautiful photos of the winter beach scene (all the beach photos on this page are by her). I like how she captured that silvery look of the beach in December.

There was also swimming (in the swimming pool), driving-practice, tennis, poker-playing, reading, talking, and a lot of cooking and eating.

Big Day at the Founders' Cup

I admit I was resentful about it: a soccer tournament, in Morgan Hill, Saturday AND Sunday, two weeks before Christmas, after their season was already over? But we went along with it. We had to leave the house at 7:30 am this morning, and weather was predicted to be in the 30s. We got there an hour early and stood around sleepily until it was time for them to play. The Scorpions (my younger son's soccer team) played their game, and they played really really well, even missing three key players. And they won! Yes, it was very very cold, but I wore my down jacket. We had a 3-1/2 hour break until the second game, so my husband and I and our son had a delicious, peaceful and restorative lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant, then we hit the premium outlets in Gilroy and bought pants, shoes, belts, and some secret items. We saw quite a few people we recognized from the soccer complex at the outlets. Back to the fields for the second game, which the Scorps also played really really well. They worked really hard, had some brilliant plays, took chances, got knocked down, and knocked some other players down. They won again! It was very exciting. Even though they still have one more game to play on Sunday, this means they go on to the quarter finals, next weekend. Oh.

Youth soccer is insane, my husband and I decided long ago. Mostly because of the parents. And yet there are some endearing things about it, like the kids, and even, sometimes, the parents. At a tournament like this (not a select or elite level, but strictly recreational, class 4) the families are not just from one ethnicity or one socio-economic group. There are teams from all over Northern California. We played Hayward and Napa, and tomorrow is Manteca. A parent from Modesto gave us some tips on what our players should and shouldn't have for lunch. At the end of our second game, one of the Napa parents came over to ask who were the parents of player #17. I hesitated a moment (was she going to complain his flying elbows?), but it turned out she was grateful that he paused on the field to check on her son, who was down. She appreciated his concern. Player #17's parents weren't there, but we made sure the compliment got passed on.

Election Eve

My husband came home from work tonight and asked me if we had any large Rachel Norton for Board of Education signs. I told him yes.
"Good, because the N___ Y___ people are out on the corner with their signs and we can't let them be the only ones out there," he said.
I ran downstairs and told the boys there was a campaign emergency.
My oldest went in the garage and got some leftover posts and started taping our signs to them. My youngest got his sweatshirt on. We left Dad to finish cooking dinner and me and the boys went out to the corner with our signs. We decided we didn't want to be too confrontational so we planted ourselves across the street and started waving our Rachel Norton signs. I waved at the N___ Y___ people, who were joined by a S__ L__ F__ person. We waved our signs at each other.
One lady stopped. "You are all pretty nice to be out here for this....Rachel Norton," she said.
"Well, she's our aunt," said my son.
"So, why should I vote for her?" she asked.
I started to give her my spiel, and she waved her hand.
"If the three of you are out here for her, that's good enough for me!" she told us.
One more vote for Rachel Norton!

Pea Bouquet

I came home from a bike ride today to find this beautiful bouquet of sugar snap pea branches in my kitchen, arranged by my husband. He had taken out our pea plants because they were getting mildewed, but saved the nicest part. It's edible, too!

Rescued by the Chicken Tikka Masala

This summer, my 13-year-old son refused to do any summer camps except a one-week half-day soccer camp at the end of July. He wanted to do nothing. So for the last three weeks he has been doing nothing except for playing his Flight Simulator game, reading (a bit), and practicing clarinet and saxophone (only when asked) and electric guitar (every day). And picking blackberries. About ten days into the summer he overstepped his computer limits and had his computer confiscated for 24 hours. At that point I told him that this unstructured summer was a kind of experiment and that it wasn't working too well. I told him I would be glad to put him in a day camp if he didn't find a way to get out and do something besides the activities listed above. So far this has been an empty threat.

He did make an effort to call some friends after that, but today was another day where he did not leave the house or bother to put on anything other than pyjamas. In fact, he barely left his room. And--to make things worse--this morning we discovered that he had left his cell phone at the field last weekend (where he reluctantly emerged for some soccer on Saturday) and the person who found it had been going crazy text messaging and making long distance calls to Spanish-speaking countries. Luckily we called to suspend the line exactly 48 hours from when this low creature found it, and 48 hours is the grace period you get from before the moment you suspend the line when you don't have to pay for the calls. As I went downstairs around 5 pm this afternoon to nag him for yet another thing I was grumpy about, he said to me, "Mom, let's cook something."

Last summer, he had also refused to do any summer camps but I scheduled some for him anyway. One of the camps was a Mom cooking camp, run by me, in which he got to choose the kind of cooking. He chose Indian. We bought a cookbook and tried a bunch of recipes, including chicken tikka masala, which is his favorite Indian dish. It didn't turn out very good. But he has grown a lot in his cooking skills since last summer and it seemed worth giving it another try. It was the one thing he had actually asked me to do all day. And besides, I happened to have all the ingredients on hand, including 2 lbs. of chicken thighs.

The recipe we used was from Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran and Stephanie Lyness. Suvir Saran is one of those hot and trendy cooks who seems to be the instant authority on Indian cooking these days. I've had mixed results from the recipes in his book; some turned out great and some didn't. In general they are simplified and don't take hours or too many difficult-to-obtain ingredients. But some of them have been a little flat, or a weird texture, like our first chicken tikka masala last summer.

This time, with my son in charge, and me just helping move things along and making tactful suggestions about how high to turn up the burner, it turned out sublime. He chopped ginger, pureed onions, marinated the chicken, measured spices, fried the onions, and more. The sauce was silky, thick, tangy and rich. The chicken was tender and flavorful. We had it with basmati rice, sauteed greens, and nan. It was better than any restaurant chicken tikka masala I've ever had. After dinner, I was suffused with good feelings for my son. He was proud of his accomplishment. The other two members of our family were grateful and appreciative. It's amazing what a good meal can do.

Father's Day

This morning I made cinnamon rolls for the dad in our house, my husband. I made the dough the night before and let it rise in the refrigerator overnight. Then this morning I rolled it out, sprinkled on the raisin/nut/cinnamon/sugar mixture, cut it into rolls, let them rise again, then baked them. They were heavenly, but we did have to wait an more than an hour for our rolls. Next time I will try making them ahead up to the cutting them into rolls part and let them do their last rise in the refrigerator overnight.
Last week I had been all preoccupied wondering what I was going to get my husband for Father's Day. then suddenly I had a realization: he's not MY dad, he's my kids' dad. I don't have to get him anything. I talked with my sons about what they were going to do for him. "Buy him a new combination charcoal and gas grill," suggested my younger son. That idea was reluctantly rejected due to the cost. They finally decided on taking him to buy a new plant at his favorite nursery, Flora Grubb. And so they did. That afternoon a new woolly bush (adenanthos) appeared in the yard, and my husband spent a half an hour happily trying it out in several different pots.
As far as my own daughterly duties, I reached my dad in the evening, between two of his trips. He sounded excited, packing to go to Colorado tomorrow.
"I'm glad you're my father," I told him.
"Well, you didn't have much choice in the matter," he said.
"I got lucky," I said.
It's all true.