alone-time

A maple-scented pudding and a quiet moment alone.

~ wellfedemily ~ 8 Comments

It’s finally quiet, except for the squeak-bark of some cat-infuriating miniature dog or giant rodent on its leash and squatting beneath the wilted rhododendron bush beside the street. Nick is out for a nerdy night of board games with his friends. The baby is sleeping. I have sent out all the resumés I feel like sending out for today, and am no longer wearing pants (as is my preference). There are dried smears of yogurt and vegetable purée all over everything including the washable high chair I keep not washing, but I am not going to let that be my problem. That is why I have Nick.

We are spending a lot of time together now that neither of us is required at an office every day, and though the ratio of arms to babies is now 4:1, I’m still finding myself busy most of the time. There are cover letters to write and my resumé to tweak for each job application. Every time I click “submit” or “send” on some application I panic that I accidentally typed the bad words I’m always thinking, or that I used the wrong homonym, or that I spelled the word “editor” with two Ds.

There are meals to make: minimally spiced purées for the baby and interestingly spiced lunches and dinners for the diabetic, who answers “I’m not really excited about that” to most of what I suggest we eat. We keep producing dirty laundry. I spend a lot of time shaving my legs in case someone calls for a last-minute interview and there’s no time to find or buy pantyhose. I always have to go to the store.

But when there is no one around to bug me, I eat pudding.

The surest way to ensure that no one else touches my pudding is to make it with tapioca.

Stirring a sweet-smelling pot of goo can be relaxing, helping to erase the little panics and trifles that so often take up the days. The goo will burble softly, in a way that is wholly unlike something tedious like oatmeal or hot cereal (which splatters and plops and lacks euphony). You can make pudding for other people, and sometimes I do, but a small amount of pudding is the sort of easy indulgence that suits a night alone, in a room barely lit by a lamp in the corner that’s just bright enough to read a book beside.

The tapioca pudding recipe I like to use is at Simply Recipes, though once you make it the recipe will stick in your head forever (it’s that easy). I don’t know enough people who like tapioca pudding to have ever made a full batch, so I can tell you that a half-batch works quite nicely – it will make enough to fill four ramekins or two soup bowls (I always eat one serving warm, and then another much later after it’s been in the fridge for awhile).

I am not going to bother reprinting the recipe here as it’s all right there, but I will tell you that I make a few changes.

  • Instead of white sugar, I use maple syrup, and rather than add it after the pot comes to a boil, I add it at the beginning. It’s less sweet this way, but more complex. If you don’t have maple syrup, use honey, or brown sugar.
  • At the end, rather than add a drop of vanilla extract, I like a scrape of half of one vanilla bean.

When you are making something that is just for you, use good ingredients (tapioca costs so little anyway) – you will be more inclined to savour if you use the good stuff, and it will be the good kind of eating alone (there is a bad kind of eating alone, which I also enjoy, but for that just use the cheap stuff).

This is a good for-now recipe, for while we’re still not into the abundant-fruit season. Do you realize that in just a few short weeks and we’ll be having conversations like this one over lightly sugared local strawberries? And reading our books in patches of summer sunlight. I can’t wait.

Sugar sandwiches.

~ wellfedemily ~ 10 Comments

If you read a lot of parenting blogs or websites (and oh, for the love of all the things please don’t), one of the myths you might encounter is the one about how if you do everything right, in your fourth month post-partum the pounds will literally melt off of you and you will suddenly weigh what you did in high school. It’s almost month five, and I did everything according to the literature but noticed this morning that my top is more muffin-like than it ought to be and my chins are more numerous than I remember. So you know what? Screw it. Sugar sandwiches.

By this point it’s well established that most of my happiest memories involve food, so it makes sense that some of my earliest recollections of my grandparents involve treats. My Dad’s mother died when I was very young and I don’t recall very much about her but I do remember sitting at her kitchen table, and the way my skin felt beneath my thin cotton undershirt against the cold vinyl of her kitchen chair, and the way my spoon scritched on the bottom of my bowl of Rice Krispies. I remember scraping brown sugar off the bottom of the bowl, my spoon holding more sugar than cereal, and how much better these Rice Krispies tasted than any I had eaten before.

More than 25 years later there is no more unhealthy breakfast cereal for me than puffed rice, because I can’t have it without adding too many heaping tablespoons of brown sugar – there is more sugar in my Rice Krispies than in five bowls of anyone else’s Cap’n Crunch. There can be no breakfast cereal in my cupboards.

My Mom’s Dad had as much to teach me. His penchant for sweets remains unrivaled by anyone I’ve ever met. Around my grandparents’ house there were always dozens of boxes of chocolate, some stashed in his usual spots – the kitchen, the living room, other parts of the living room, every container or drawer on his side of the bedroom – and some stored in the freezer for when his reserves ran low. At the end of every visit he would send me home with a sandwich bag full of the better flavours – hedgehogs, caramels, and never the gross orange cremes.

It was watching my grandfather that I learned about sugar sandwiches.

To make a sugar sandwich, you need good whole-grain bread (the whole-grainier, the better), non-fancy peanut butter, and brown sugar. After admitting on Twitter that I really don’t like natural peanut butter, I was comforted to discover that most people have strong feelings about, or at least have considered, what makes good peanut butter, and most of the time one remains loyal to the peanut butter of her childhood. And while natural peanut butter makes a good ingredient in other things, in sugar sandwiches we do not mess around. Use the kind of peanut butter you are faithful to.

You must smear a tasty amount of peanut butter evenly upon one entire side of each of two pieces of bread. Then add the sugar to one of the pieces of bread, spreading evenly over the peanut butter, even to the edges of the slice. How much sugar you use depends on you, but I have the kind of weak character that compels me to unapologetically don footed pajamas for company, so I use a little more than a rounded tablespoon.

At that point, you can slap your bread together and shove the whole thing in your mouth, or you can get a little bit fancy. You can add a few flecks of fleur de sel which will make your sandwich quite lovely if your peanut butter isn’t salty. You can jump back in time and toast each slice before peanut-buttering them up. You can shove the whole deal in a panini press, or you can put the sandwich under the broiler. I like the last option, because the effect of a crunchy exterior giving way to a soft interior is a sensation I enjoy. Warm, a sugar sandwich tastes very similar to fresh peanut butter cookies but it only takes two minutes to make.

Eat your sugar sandwich on the couch, with your feet jammed between the cushions and your legs covered by a blanket. You may want to have a book handy. A glass of milk or a cup of tea will complement the sandwich nicely. Linger long over your snack, drink, and book, and then indulge in a nap afterward. Calorie-counters and diabetics will take issue with this luxury, but the important thing is that Grandpa would heartily approve.

Roasted grapes.

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

Four o’clock in the morning is cold even when all the windows are closed and you’re wearing flannel jammies and slipper socks. 4:00 a.m. used to be different, maybe because anytime I found myself there it was because I had been having too much fun, and my veins were warmed by the coursing of so much rum through them. I remember dancing until my clothes were soaked through with sweat, then packing into the always-busy 24-hour pho place on Broadway for a bowl of rice noodles and beef wontons. It is less fun to be awake now than it used to be.

At four there is no traffic on the street outside. There is little activity on Facebook or Twitter to serve as a distraction. Even the cat will not be coaxed awake.

The baby sleeps long hours through the night now, waking only briefly every now and then – he sighs heavily and his eyes flutter, but his fussiness is mostly gone. He’s a bottle baby, so he gets to sleep while I wake every three hours to pump his meals. I keep a lamp on in the living room at night, so when I wake up I can see Nick’s face and the baby’s in the shadows, both of their mouths wide as they breathe deeply, right arms at ninety-degree angles above their heads, snarfling and snoring in their separate beds.

When I sleep I dream about sleeping.

On the one hand, I am very tired. On the other, these moments alone in the lamplight are mine, and I savour the time on my own. Also, four o’clock is a peckish hour, and I always need a snack.

Roasted grapes

This idea comes from Fine Cooking, with some adaptation. I prefer to use seedless red globe grapes, and to roast them longer than the original recipe calls for. Some olive oil, some maple syrup, and a pinch of salt are all you need. They will take on a jammy, almost molasses taste. Serve these over ice cream.

  • 1 large handful of seedless red globe grapes
  • 1 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 tbsp. maple syrup
  • Pinch salt

Preheat oven to 425°F.

In a small baking dish, toss grapes with oil, maple syrup, and salt.

Roast 20 to 25 minutes, turning the grapes occasionally, until they are soft and their skins have ruptured.

Serve hot, over ice cream.

These are easy to make ahead and reheat, if you’d prefer. They are great as they are, or as a side for roast pork, or as part of a fancier dessert that you might serve to company. But in those cold hours before dawn when you’re wearing flannel pants, they are at their best.

Three days!

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

I have spent the better part of the week whining to Nick about how I had no ideas for my contribution to the 3-Day Novel Contest, but this morning – THIS MORNING – with the sun shining and the liquor store presenting its cheapest treats at every turn, I have had the early stirrings of inspiration, and though I haven’t got the details down, I think I know what I am going to write. I have to go to the office today for a little bit, so I am going to swipe a stack of sticky notes and turn the space above my computer into a wall of ideas. I am not going to spend any time crying on the floor between the hours of one and five in the morning, and I promise, I will take naps and walks to break the time up and save my eyesight.

I also have four potent bottles of creative juice, two boxes of macaroni and cheese, chocolate milk, five pounds of stone fruit, a chunk of Cheddar, a loaf of bread, and a fresh jar of peanut butter. I think I have pickles in the fridge, and there is a bag of chocolate chips hidden at the back of the left bottom cupboard underneath several bags of lentils which I have been saving in case of emergency. Tomatoes are roasting and stock is defrosting, which means actual nourishment will be possible with some help from Nick.

The cat has food, Nick has plans, and I have washed all of the pajamas and comfortable underpants I’ll need to remain mostly clothed. The countdown is on, there are ten hours to go! Wish me luck!

Love,

Emily

A delicious thing to do with sardines.

~ wellfedemily ~ 6 Comments

Kitten and I are alone this weekend, as Nick is off to a rainy lake four hours away to fish for trout/drink on a boat. And so I will stay in this rainy city, with tinned fish and my pajama pants, and drink on my couch. At least tonight. Though this work-week was only three days, they were three busy, non-stop days that required focus and effort – neither are strengths of mine.

So I’m staying in, alone. And instead of cooking, I’ve opted instead to “assemble” a meal, and have put together a grazing platter that should carry me through the evening, if I am able to stay awake. The centre of the meal is a thing with sardines, and it’s based on this anchovy thing I really like called anchoïade.

Anchoïade is a French thing, and at its most basic, it’s a potent mix of anchovies, olive oil, lemon, and garlic. It’s delicious, but I can’t quite justify a large dish of the stuff because anchovies are not a particularly sustainable ingredient these days. Good news though, sardines are. They’re plentiful, and they’re from close-by – there’s a cannery in California in Monterey and when I eat them I think of John Steinbeck because I love that book and because I literally hemorrhage bliss when an item of food tickles my book fancy, if you know what I mean.

I hope you enjoy this little adaptation. It’s for Linda, who asked for a sardine recipe; she’s expecting a baby, and sardines are all kinds of good for moms-to-be. Wander over to her place and say hello!

Sardinoïade

  • 1/2 cup whole almonds (skins on), toasted
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 tin sardines packed in olive oil (smoked, if possible)
  • 1 tsp. lemon zest
  • 1 tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1 tsp. grainy dijon mustard
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. pepper
  • 1/4 cup good olive oil

Okay. You can do this two ways.

The easy, smooth-textured way to do this is to grind almonds and garlic in a food processor, then add remaining ingredients (add the oil from the sardines too, don’t forget!) and pulse until the mixture achieves the texture you prefer. I like this way for parties and things where you can just put it out without having to explain too much about it. It will resemble pate, and it will work as either a spread or a dip.

The other way, which is also easy but has more steps, is to chop the almonds as finely as possible (or as you like), mince the garlic, and mix them both together. Dump the tin of sardines into the mix, oil included, and mash it all up together until it’s a texture you like. Stir in remaining ingredients until well combined. This is better as a spread. It’s much less attractive, but just as, if not MORE tasty.

Scoop either variation into a ramekin, and drizzle the top with good oil. Serve either on a plate with pickles, slices of hard-boiled eggs, and slices of baguette. You must also have wine or sparkling water. Pajamas optional, but always implied.

If you have any left over the next day, it’s nice to thin it out with a bit more olive oil and toss pasta with it, topped with fresh herbs and grated Parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

Earthy toasty mushroomy deliciousness, a thing you should eat with wine while wearing pajamas.

~ wellfedemily ~ 9 Comments

Shroomy.I’ve been very alone this weekend, which is never a bad thing, as Nick has been out of town and it’s been just me during the days. I almost always manage to find someone to entertain me in the evenings, but tonight, with Nick away and a busy weekend behind me, and an even busier work-week ahead, I thought that this would be a good evening to do nothing. Which always involves wine and eating.

Today I found mushrooms at the market and fell instantly in love, as one does. Fat white mushrooms, earthy-looking criminis, a meaty, sturdy shitake, and a few wispy yellow chantrelles. The thing about fancy mushrooms is that you don’t need very many – I spent exactly two dollars and eight cents on all of my mushrooms, more than enough for dinner for one. Actually, two even, because this made more than I thought it would. Most of them were the cheaper white ones – those were the base.

I decided it was a good night for a hearty, comforting meal of mushrooms on toast, which doesn’t sound like much. Indeed, it isn’t, and that’s the beauty of it. It’s simple and filling, garlicky, buttery, and autumnal, a thing you might imagine eating after a fox hunt or something similarly British. Top with a couple of soft-poached eggs and serve with a heady, oaky white wine. It’s exactly what you should eat on a foggy, misty night when it’s cool out. Or, better yet, when there’s a Julia Child retrospective airing on PBS.

I’m going to tell you how to make enough to top four slices of French bread, but you can adapt this as you like, to suit more or less, or to make it an appetizer or a side dish. Multiply, divide – math it up. It’s an easy one, and not fussy.

Mushrooms on toast

  • 4 thick slices of French bread, toasted
  • 1 tbsp. butter
  • 1 slice of bacon, cut into pieces about a quarter-inch wide
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 2 1/2 cups mushrooms, cleaned with a damp cloth and then chopped, whatever kind you like
  • 1/2 tsp. thyme, dried or fresh
  • 1/2 tsp. black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup oaky white wine, such as chardonnay
  • 2 tbsp. creme fraiche or sour cream
  • 2 tbsp. finely grated cheese, such as comte, gruyere, or an aged cheddar
  • Salt, to taste
  • 2 eggs, poached (optional)

Since you’ve opened the wine, pour yourself a glass.

Set the oven to broil.

Melt the butter in a pan on the stove, and toss in your bacon. Let cook until the bacon is browned and crisp, two to three minutes. Add the garlic, mushrooms, thyme, nutmeg, and pepper, and fry until mushrooms have softened, another three minutes.

Oh! Inhale! So fragrant.Pour in the wine, coating the bottom of the pan, and scrape up any browned bits. Stir in the creme fraiche or sour cream. Pour over toasted bread, and grate your cheese over top.

Broil for three or four minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and the edges of the bread are golden brown. If you love eggs like I love eggs, feel free to top the thing with soft, runny-y0lk eggs. But you don’t have to. This is lovely, LOVELY, all on its own.

Here it is without the eggs:

No egg ...

Here it is with the eggs:

.... eggs.And now, I am a happy little badger, and very full. And Julia has just come on, so I have to go. Back soon, and I’m looking forward to waxing poetic about peanut butter, maybe tomorrow.

Bon appétit!

Lemon sugar cookies.

~ wellfedemily ~ 1 Comment

Strange thing, how your hands in a bit of dough can soothe you.

After midnight, it was clear that I would not be sleeping. I uploaded all of my travel photos – Disneyland with my mom, but only 12 photos, since we spent most of the time walking and eating and eating and eating and my hands were mostly busy dispensing cash and transporting foodstuffs into my face … more on all of that later – and blog-stalked all my favourite imaginary people, who are all probably real but I can’t see them in real life, and then realized that Nick was asleep and I had no one to talk to and it’s dark and I was bored. And I’m an eater, more than anything else, so to busy myself: Cookies.

Nothing strange about how butter and sugar make everything better. A little lemon and good vanilla don’t hurt either. I tried to make these with a mixer, but it’s very quiet here, so I had to quit. I used my hands instead. Very rustic.

First, measure out half a cup of butter. Don’t use margarine. Margarine never made anything better, ever. Half a cup. It should be room temperature, which, if you’re like me and leave your groceries on the kitchen floor overnight because you’re forgetful, will be normal. The butter is only cold when Nick assists.

Whisk the butter. If it doesn’t whisk, you can cream it with an electric mixer, but work quickly, because it’s noisy and maybe you don’t want everyone in the building to know that you’ve got no will-power. Is it will-power or willpower? Whatever, I can make up words if I want to because it’s late and that’s how I roll.

Zest one lemon into the bowl. Squeeze the juice out into there as well, and then pour a half a cup of white sugar into the mix. Add a teaspoon and a half of good vanilla. The Barefoot Contessa is always talking about “good vanilla,” and I’m not entirely sure what that means. Around here, it’s vanilla from Mexico. Real vanilla, the kind that actually tastes like vanilla when you dab a little drop onto the middle of your tongue. Artificial vanilla extract is the kind of thing you use if you have to bake with margarine, and life is too short to eat weird chemicals unless you’re eating Cheetos or maybe drinking Cherry Coke. I don’t know if Ina Garten would qualify it as good vanilla, but the smell when anything’s baking around here reminds me of bakeries at 7:00 am, all warm and sweet, the kind of aroma that trickles into your nose and tricks your stomach into thinking you’re hungry.

Whisk again, blending everything together. Crack an egg into the bowl, and continue to whisk. Once you’ve got everything thoroughly combined, shake the whisk off and toss it into the sink. If you miss and it lands on the floor, shooting dough hunks everywhere, whatever. Maybe you’ll get mice or something and they’ll run across the floor right when a potential buyer visits to view the place, which your landlord has listed for sale and he’s very nice so you feel conflicted about thinking unkind things especially as the apartment is his and he can do whatever he wants with it, and they’ll be so grossed out that they won’t buy it and you’ll get to stay here forever. You can get an exterminator once it’s official that you’re staying. You can’t whisk dough, and dough is what happens next.

Measure out your flour, a cup and a half, and dump it into the bowl. Measure a quarter-teaspoon of baking soda and a half-teaspoon of salt and add both on top of the flour, and stir with your finger, or perhaps a wooden spoon, until the mix begins to form a ball. Knead it lightly with your hands. Press the soft dough between your fingers, watching as it crests your knuckles and absorbs your hands, like Play Doh, and be sure to taste it, which I also did with Play Doh and doesn’t that explain a lot.

Roll it into a log, about an inch and a half thick. Maybe two inches. The width of a piece of plastic wrap minus an inch on either side. That’s what you want. Roll it up like that, wrap it tightly in the plastic, and throw it into the fridge. If you doubled the batch for sharing, make two logs of equal size.

RollTurn on your oven, heating it to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour yourself a glass of wine. Maybe watch the last of America’s Got Talent and wonder why the guys who did the Power Rangers dance got roundly dissed by the judges when CLEARLY they were awesome and what does David Hasselhoff know anyway? Not enough to do up his shirt and cover his sparkly dog tag, which should be a secret, especially if it’s been designed for Walmart by Hannah Montana, which it probably was, so maybe I expect too much.

After 30 minutes, at least, you can take the log(s) out of the fridge. At this point, unwrap the dough. If you’d like, you can sprinkle the sides with sugar. I did. “No added sugar?” Not around here.

Using a sharp knife, slice the log into pieces approximately a half-inch thick. You should end up with twelve slices. If you have more, that’s okay. If you have less, that’s okay too, and it’s okay if you’re not good at math because they have apps now for your iPhone that’ll do it for you. There are also still calculators, which is nice.

Roll, cut.

Midnight cookies.Bake for ten to twelve minutes, unless you cut these thinner – then cook for six to eight minutes, or unless you cut them thicker, and then give them up to 15 minutes, until the sides and tops are golden and everywhere around you smells like good vanilla. Give them five to ten minutes to cool enough that they won’t burn you when you stuff that first one into your mouth.

The best thing about these cookies is that they pair excellently with a nice Riesling, preferably a French one, from Alsace. Something with a delicate hint of citrus, just enough to make the lemon sparkle. You could drink cold milk with these as well. I guess. You don’t drink wine and eat cookies at midnight on a Tuesday all by yourself? You’re missing out.

Cookies!And it’s now after one o’clock, which means I have to be up in too few hours. Fortunately, there are cookies for breakfast, and if I’m responsible, maybe a little wine?

Here’s the roundup of ingredients and their measures, for good measure. In case you were paying as much attention to the details reading as I was to the writing …

Lemon Sugar Cookies

(Makes one dozen)

  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • Zest and juice of one lemon
  • 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt

Bake at 375°F, for ten to 12 minutes.

Tomatoes and lemons and very good bread.

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

Taste pretty.

I am the worst bride ever. It’s been nine months since the wedding, and it’s taken me that long to finish my thank-you cards. That’s how it goes when you do them three at a time, every few weeks, and I am terribly embarrassed that it’s taken this long. But tonight, with Nick away at a stag and nothing pulling me out of the house, and with two bottles of wine and a recipe from a cookbook I got as a wedding present, I got them done. All of them. Addressed, sealed, and stamped, all ready to go.

Ohai, me? I suck.I am pretty sure you can do anything if the meal is right, and today, without anyone demanding meat hunks or cheese-covered miscellany, the meal was perfect. Please don’t think I am in any way against meat or cheese – my two favourite things. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to play with other flavours. Today I found some rainbowriffic tomatoes at the market, and some fat, fragrant lemons. And basil, which is my favourite kind of leaf. And it was hot out, but not too hot, especially as dusk began to fall, so soup was more desirable than it’s been in a long time, and I’d missed it.

Avgolemono is a kind of soup. It’s easy, though it seems fussy, and it tastes like it would be perfect if you were in the early stages of a cold, or if you were a few days into a flu. It’s quite lovely, with a soft chicken taste, framed by lemons, and made rich with egg yolks. Apparently it’s Greek. I’ve had it in restaurants before, and though it seems like a fancypants dish, it’s very simple. Very few ingredients. And you can taste everything in it.

This recipe comes from the Williams-Sonoma cookbook, which I got as a wedding gift. It’s quite a good book, and everything in it is completely doable. I halved the recipe, as it serves four, but I’m going to give the full recipe, with tweaks.

The book.Avgolemono

(Adapted from The Williams-Sonoma Cookbook. Serves four.)

  • 6 cups chicken stock
  • 1/2 cup jasmine or long-grain white rice
  • 4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (approximately two lemons)
  • 1 tsp. lemon zest
  • 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
  • Salt and white pepper, to taste
  • 2 tbsp. fresh chopped parsley

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the rice and boil, uncovered, for about 15 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat, and add lemon juice.

In a medium bowl, whisk together egg yolks, lemon zest, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. Scoop out a cup of the hot liquid and add it gradually to the egg yolk mixture, whisking as you pour. This is tempering. It sounds harder than it actually is, I think.

Pour your tempered egg mixture into the hot liquid. Return to heat and reduce to medium. Stir, cooking another three to four minutes, until the soup has thickened slightly. Don’t let it boil. If it boils, you could scramble the eggs, and then they’ll look like sneeze. That would be a heart-breaking disappointment. When you smell this, you’ll understand what I mean. Salt and pepper, to taste.

Pour soup into bowls and top with chopped parsley. Or basil. That’d be good too. Drizzle with olive oil and serve with very good bread, fresh tomato salad, and chilled prosecco. And breathe a sigh of relief, especially if this is your reward for crossing one big red late item off your task list. And then eat a pint or so of concord grapes while whipping up a batch of “You don’t suck, you’re awesome!” brownies.

Lemons and tomatoes. And very good bread.

Sometimes you just want to drink wine, eat pudding, and watch YouTube videos of wiener dogs getting their cute on, and I’d like to think that there isn’t anything wrong with that.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

Today was Friday, and it was pretty much the worst Friday ever. Nick got yelled at by crazies all day at work, and I wore pants to the office and nearly died of heat stroke. When I left, it was over 30 degrees Celsius, which in America or Imperial or whatever is in the high 80s, which is inhospitable and makes me regret wearing a bra and then I can’t concentrate and all I can think about is cold beer and getting the hell out of there as soon as possible. A very nice old man on a ladder visited today and installed these solar blinds that are supposed to reflect the heat out, but he might as well have covered the windows in tin foil, for all the good it did, and I’m beginning to think my entire department is the butt of a cruel, cruel joke. It’s hot. And the wall of my pen is right up against the vent, so cold air blows up, up, and away, but never on me. I considered tears. Except that I think they’d come out as steam and that would be terrifying and they already think I’m dumb there.

So I got home and Nick and I were both in terrible moods and he’d finished the beer and I was mad so we decided that we’d go eat a ridiculous amount of meat, because that makes everyone feel better, and they had PBRs on special, so we ate and drank for super cheap, and it was magical. I wore a dress. And we were still hot and uncomfortable, so we got Slurpees and energy drinks on the way home, and Nick bought some beer and a bottle of wine, and then when we got back to our apartment, we discovered that there were goings-on going on, and everyone was going down to the beach to set stuff on fire and be jovial. And then a series of complications arose, and it became clear that I would be bound to the overheating indoors while Nick went to the beach for fun and socializing.

Complication #1: Tomorrow we’re going to my parents’ for a barbecue and I am bringing a salad because I make this caprese salad with roasted beets that’s spectacular, but you have to roast the beets well in advance so they’re cool and easy to work with, so the night before is ideal. We didn’t know about the beach until 10:30 pm, which was right after I put the beets in the oven.

Complication #2: I ate too much meat at Memphis Blues. A certain amount of discomfort ensued.

Complication #3:

Nick – “Everyone’s going to the beach. Wanna ride down?”

Me – “Who’s everyone?”

Nick – “People, you know – everyone.”

Me – “Do I like them all?”

Nick – “Well, I said everyone’s going to be there.”

Me – “Who don’t I like?”

Nick – “You know.”

Me – “Oh. That sucky girl who makes me angry and who I vehemently dislike in the nicest possible way?”

Nick – “You’d have to behave.”

Me – “I have to roast some beets.”

And so I am spending the night in. Which turned out to be a good thing, because I was in the mood for pudding, and I’m the only one here who likes pudding. So I roasted some beets, made some pudding, watched an hour’s worth of wiener dog videos on YouTube, and then set in to catch up on all my favourite blogs. And also to watch this, repeatedly:

But the main thing here is the pudding. It’s a recipe from Gourmet’s February 2009 issue, and I’ve made it several times now, and it always turns out perfect. It’s pretty much a hug you can eat, and it’s as easy to make as that Jello stuff, and takes the same amount of time, but it’s in a realm of its own for taste. It kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and we’d get toast with butter and brown sugar on it – like that, but creamy and rich, and you eat it with a spoon.

Gourmet Magazine Butterscotch Pudding.

Butterscotch Pudding

(makes enough to fill four regular-size ramekins)

  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. cornstarch
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 2 tbsp. butter, cut into bits (they say to use unsalted butter, but they would be wrong)
  • 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar and cornstarch. Then, whisk in the milk and cream. When I’m making this for just me, I halve the recipe, and use a single cup of light cream (or coffee cream, or Creamo), because why not?

Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking frequently, and then boil, whisking constantly, for one minute. Remove from the heat, and whisk in the butter and vanilla. Pour out into ramekins, cover with plastic, and then refrigerate until cooled, 60 to 90 minutes. Don’t chill for more than three hours, however, because it will begin to take on a weird, starchy texture. I made this in February, and cooled it on the patio because my fridge was full, and then when I brought it back in it had developed a skin and the cornstarch was very prominent – an undesirable flaw in any pudding.

When I halve the recipe, it makes enough for two ramekins. Which is perfect, because there’s no way you could eat just one serving of this stuff – I’ve already eaten my two, and now I am regretting my decision to not make the full amount. And I feel much better about life, and the fan is going in front of the open window where I’m sitting around in a clean pair of Nick’s underwear, so I’m starting to cool off. Pudding will do that for you. It’s a cure-all, like cough syrup and vodka, but you can serve it to children while their parents are watching.

Pudding!

And so the weekend begins, and I look forward to posting the fascinating details of my upcoming raspberry-picking expedition on Sunday. In the meantime, I’ve got some beets that need prodding and a bottle of wine in the chiller that’s begging for my touch. Cheers!

This whole post is little more than me bragging about my day off. Which was awesome. I crave your envy.

~ wellfedemily ~ 7 Comments

Long before Nick, there was the city. Having grown up outside of it, and just out of its reach, I was determined to someday get here and renounce my suburban roots. Vancouver to me is like Paris to people who’ve been there and loved it – it occupies my imagination as much as my reality, and it’s wonderful. The water! The buildings! The markets! The wine! I smugly wonder why anyone would ever live anywhere else but here (the cost of housing? The long stretches of grey weather? No! That could not be). I do this mostly on bicycle.

Peppers!

Last night, Paul, Nick, and I went to Granville Island for the opening night of the Altar Boyz, a tremendously raucous bit of blasphemy that had my face cramped with laughter and my mascara running all the way down my cheeks. Before that, we sat on the patio at the Backstage Lounge, which is fantastic not for its food, which costs more than it’s worth and is generally subpar, but for its patio, with water views and generous sunbeams. The cheap beer also helps.

Tard!

Bridge!

Moules!I had mussels, which were not memorable, but they were pretty, and they reminded me that I love shellfish and had not had it in nearly long enough. With the promise of a busy Nick this evening, I knew that this was my chance: Clams! I would alert Grace of my desire to feast, and we would eat bread and clams and drink refreshing summer wines. So I returned to Granville Island today, because The Lobster Man just beyond the public market is my favourite place to buy shellfish. Oh, the adventure!

Strawberries!

And along the way, I became distracted, as always, by Oyama Sausage, which is the most wonderful place in the world. Fact. I decided, having just purchased a short, me-size baguette and sweet little local/overpriced strawberries, that in addition to the clams, I would also buy lunch.

SDC10667

There’s a large Frenchman there who gave me his name but it was jumbled, the way French is, and I could not piece it together in any logical way. He asked for my order in French (I don’t know why), and in order to not seem like a jerk, I responded in High School French, what little I recall of it. (Although, if he’d asked me to sing a song about Les Pompiers, I would have been able to. That stupid song – about firemen – is etched into the recesses of my brain. Thanks, Grade 8. THANKS.) He laughed, apparently tickled by my efforts. What wonderful samples I was handed as a result!

I ordered Delice de Bourgogne, which is possibly the most delicious cheese in the world except for all the other ones, and decadent, oily duck prosciutto. Then I wandered into Liberty, intent on picking out a wine that Grace would surely enjoy, and then discovered cherry wine, which I couldn’t not buy – I had to consider lunch! I wonder how long it takes to get gout. Note to self: look into that.

Sixty dollars later, I finally made it to Lobster Man, the entire purpose of my trip. Mindful that everything I had purchased would have to fit into my backpack, I resisted the urge to buy every kind of oyster, sticking with my original clam plan. Cramming my day’s purchases into my pack, I raced home, in part to get the clams into the fridge as quickly as possible. But mostly to get to the sandwich, which by that point was actually shrieking my name. Here it is:

Lunch!

SDC10672I’ve now discovered that everything tastes better when you order it in French. (Be warned, favourite restaurants, most of which are not French.) And the strawberries were fantastic – little bombs of sweet red glory! How perfect with just a touch of balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of basil and black pepper. I don’t care how much cheaper it is to buy a townhouse in Surrey: I’m never living any farther than a bikeride away from duck prosciutto and still-breathing shellfish and cheeses with names I can barely pronounce and wonderful, obnoxious French men. Vancouver: Nevermind how often I whine about your weather – I love you!

Tomorrow will be less a love-fest and more an actual, respectable post about clams, a recipe for clams, and strawberries in honeyed whipped cream. Stay tuned?