Found Treasures

I am finding that trying a new thing a month and trying to tighten up my budget is a tricky thing to accomplish.  Plus the lingering cold decreases my motivation to push myself out of my comfort zone and into tango class. But I stumbled onto a solution of sorts. One of the benefits of living in close proximity to the more affluent neighbors at the other end of Capitol Hill is that often enough people purge by just leaving perfectly good household items on the sidewalk. Recently, on a fluke warm enough-to-ride-my -bike day, I scored a suitcase, food processor, and lamp. The former two I plan to give to friends who need them, the lamp I recently discovered fulfilled my new thing for February. The lamp was just a base. Feeling empowered and organized getting a lamp harp (also learned a new term) made it not only onto my to do list but quickly crossed off with a trip to Target. Of course it couldn’t be that easy; the first buy didn’t have the base thingy (apparently some terms remain a mystery) needed to attach the harp to the lamp base.  After a trip to Frager’s, I thought I had learned my lesson to remember to shop there first. Next I had to disassemble the inside parts of a lamp, easy enough, but the wires that wrap around the light bulb socket made me nervous enough that one wrong move could prove to be disastrous.  I embraced my inner MacGyver and persevered.

new to me lamp

Lamp harp, base thingy, and other random part

Of course now that I have the thing disassembled, I realize the base part thingy that came with the second lamp harp doesn’t actually fit in the lamp base. I figure at this point it’s best to just leave the pieces in the bowl on the coffee table for a couple of weeks. Frager’s comes to the rescue again and I find the kind of lamp thing that just fits on the bulb and attaches to the shade. Now if I had taken the easy way to put a lamp shade on my free lamp I might not have spent an extra $10 on lamp harps but I also wouldn’t have learned how to take a part and put back together a lamp.

fixing snaps

Darning socks

The whole exercise inspired me to fix the snaps I had sewn on to give extra security to a couple of wrap skirts and while I was at it darn a pair of socks. Living frugally may take some practice and patience but you do gain a greater sense of accomplishment and feel good about recycling stuff to boot. Maybe with my pennies  I can feel ok about doing two new things in February  and buy for the first time ever a brand new piece of furniture. I have my eye on this chair.  

But then I found this stray part that didn't make it back into the assembled lamp. 

What is it and is it necessary?

Spring will come

This was actually from a colder day in January.

It was one of those bitterly cold Mondays, where just the air hurts your face and work makes you want to stick your face into a bag of potato chips. Luckily I had chicken stew in the crock pot to come home to and a roommate to cook the rice and sesame greens I had pulled out of the freezer; so I was able to feed my salt craving in time to catch the bus to meditation.

The session was on fear, stopping the loop of thoughts that we pile onto this emotion creating hindrances.  The preferable alternative is to pause, relax, and be open to what is. But first during the meditative sit, I took a huge pause and fell asleep. I don’t mean just a little slip into a deeper relaxation, I am talking about head jerking, starting to drool sleep, the kind that would get you a sharp nudge from your mother during church kind of sleep. Apparently my path to enlightenment must start with going to bed a lot earlier so I can be open to all my fears of the future. And apparently learning to let go of the mental composition of flavors in the vinaigrette I want to make for tomorrow’s nicoise salad so I can pay attention to the discussion.

On the way home I am still struggling to pass up my craving for potato chips. In the front door to the warmth, I heat a cup of milk.  And I am struck with brilliance, toast! I can usually pass on toast but I spy a fresh loaf of white bread my house mate has recently bought on top of the refrigerator. For all intensive purposes white bread has become a pleasant memory of the past skipped over for more virtuous whole grain bread. But there it is and memories of breakfast or a late night snack at my Grandmother’s wash over me. She lightly toasted the bread in a toaster oven so that the butter pats could melt into the bread as it toasted and then thick cool think homemade blackberry jam picked in the heat of summer from the brambles spreads over making the most perfect piece of happiness. And tonight I treat myself to white bread toast complete with butter, and my own homemade jam, this time from sour cherries a new adaptation to my more northern clime and one that reminds me there are some benefits to living farther north and spring will come.

Returning Home

This past weekend, I went down to Alabama to visit my Grandmother and extended family. Now a lot of people may mock the Deep South but there are some very lovely places, wonderful people, and the places where family is and memories made are the nicest ones.

My family loves to eat in a way that might make more disciplined people cringe. We ate unapologetically ham sandwiches on white bread, homemade pound cake before lunch, and cheesy broccoli casserole made with Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. Not at all the way I eat normally; but the foods of childhood help melt away the anxiety that can sometimes come with seeing far-away family because of the intensity of emotions squeezed into short visits.

The combination of a backdrop of mountains and lake and leaving behind my hectic life, a life that I love, was very restorative. I returned to DC feeling more grounded.  But leaving behind the side of my family that is loud and boisterous, clamoring over one another at the dinner table can make my present life feel a bit lonely. That is until a dear friend surprised me with a piece of truffle cheese, the perfect way to end a Monday Valentine’s Day. We shared it over a round of Peronis, breaking it into little pieces until it was all gone but we were not.

Hump Day

This has been one of those hump days when Friday seems further away than it did yesterday.  The day started off fine with happy greetings from metro workers. Nine hours later emerging from a government cube into a sleety jam-packed metro ride home, my mood had definitely shifted. I will never understand the compunction other's have about leaning their entire body against a pole and flinging their hair about during rush hour!

Between doing laundry and preparing for tomorrow's meetings, there wasn't much time or desire to cook something. My normal stand-by for nights like these is pasta. The powers of slowly sauteed garlic in olive oil are not to be dismissed. Plus you can toss in  whatever else you are in the mood for or have on hand and easily make a balanced meal. I opted instead for the gumbo which had been defrosting in the fridge just long enough to be at the eat it or toss it stage. While this was the responsible choice and did feed my need for the comfort of carbs it wasn't quite the same remedy. Luckily, I have some great kimchi. The resulting combo is not appealing enough to many nor picturesque to anyone that it should be shared in picture form here.But it did sated my near constant vinegary spicy craving.  So instead I will leave this post tonight with a couple of pictures from a happier day, spent at Shenandoah Valley National Park and the thought that days like to day make the others ones even nicer.

Facing our Fears

For the past couple of weeks at meditation the talk has been on fear. Recognizing what is behind it, if it is a healthy or unhealthy type of fear, and ways to deal with these emotions so that they do not become hindrances. As I reflect on these thoughts I know there are some large areas of my life where I have become very good at standing in my own way. But there are also smaller areas where this is surfacing. I have been very nervous to not only start this blog but to share it with people. Will I be exposing myself too much? Will I post often enough and interestingly enough? Should I be using my time for better purposes?
And then there is the way that fear and anxiety creeps into cooking.

Yesterday I attended a Super Bowl party. This was exactly my kind of Super Bowl party where more attention was paid to the food, the funny commercials, and mocking the half-time show than actually watching the game. The host made a wonderful version of "chili" morchilla and chorizo. A grilled Caesar salad was whipped up and presented alongside a wonderful assortment of cheeses, smoked salmon, and childhood favorite dips.

Happy handful of remaining chips

In the midst of challenging myself to eat only food I have previously purchased in an effort to get my budget back under control, I realized my pantry contained ingredients to make spinach artichoke dip. I also has a couple of sweet potatoes to fry into homemade chips. The chips came out beautifully, crisping up a bright orange to contrast with the gray day. The dip, usually one of my stand by party recipes, left something to be desired. I scrapped the very last bit of mayonnaise into the bowl  and even with the last of the sour cream there wasn't enough creaminess to add to the current amount of ingredients already in the bowl. At this point there wasn't enough time to break my rule of staying away from the grocery so I just grated on a bit of extra cheese and took it for what it was, knowing the crowd of foodies in attendance.

There is a wonderful piece of advice from Julia Child in My Life in France. She advises cooks to never apologize for food served because if it is good it just makes you look like you are fishing for compliments and if it is bad it forces your guests to falsely give assurance that everything is wonderful.  I need to practice following this advice. All said and done the dip was fine but not as I had hoped. I think knowing you don't have to apologize for mistakes should remove some fear, which is part of the path to happiness and enlightenment.

Hello Dollys make an excellent bedtime snack

Plus most of the cooks I know are our own worst critics. The dessert for the Superbowl party, Hello Dollys, were made from the host's mother's recipe. He wasn't satisfied in much the same way I wasn't with my dip; after all the hardest things to cook are what your mother makes well.  But the leftover bars I am eating as I type this are certainly contributing to my current happiness.

Ode to Aunt Sally

This was originally posted as a guest spot on The Green Gourmets and served as the impetus for starting this blog.


I have loved food for a long time, and I take pride in being able to put together a meal not just for myself but one worthy of sharing with friends on a pretty tight budget. But as the issues and calamities of our food system are getting more attention (deservedly so), the choices we make at the market are not always so simple. It is easy to get bogged down by too many choices, and trying to decipher what’s the right choice. Do I go local versus organic all while trying to keep my budget in check? There are times when I haven’t planned ahead and haven’t made it to the market, need to go to the gym, still have to buy groceries and am left standing among aisles of food comparing what the USDA approves as organic with the foods I grew up with.  After all of the confusion, it’s easy to lose a bit of the joy that good food brings to our lives. But then sometimes all of the factors come together in just the right way for a perfect meal. So here’s to Aunt Sally…

Inspiration for this meal came from my good friend Patrick’s Aunt Sally and her guiding influence on his life, a desire to preserve lemons, and  the need to test a beautiful tangine to determine its status as cookware or simply decorative. In my freezer were two beautiful, bison osso bucco cuts from Gunpowder Bison, waiting since the fall trip to the country for the right occasion to present itself. The recipe below is a close adaptation from, Moroccan Cuisine by Paula Wolfert.

Soak a cup of prunes in cold water. Set aside.

In the tangine over low heat, melt 3 ½ oz of unsalted butter, 3 tbsps olive oil, a pinch of saffron, 1 tsp of ground cinnamon, 1 tsp of ground ginger, 3 tbsps grated onion, and 4 sprigs of cilantro tied together with twine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Once the mixture begins to meld together, place the meat in the pot. Cook for a few minutes on each side then add enough water to almost cover the meat. Note this is not the same as braising since the ceramic tangine can’t get hot enough to brown the meat. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for an hour. During this time we made the start of preserved lemons in preparation of our next Moroccan feast, (stay tuned ) and ate some wonderful pate.

Once the meat has simmered for an hour, add a thinly sliced small to medium onion, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Add drained prunes, along with  1-2 tbsps of sugar or honey, ¼ tsp cinnamon.  Uncover the tangine and simmer until the prunes soften and the liquid reduces to two-thirds, about 30 minutes.  At this point if you haven’t already, pour some wine and enjoy the incredible aroma that is now filling your house. You have a choice at this point to either catch up on daily trivial life pursuits or solve the world’s problems.

When there is about ten minutes left in the cooking time for the tangine, cook the couscous. For two people we added 1 cup of Israeli couscous to 1 ¼ cup of stock, with an extra pinch of saffron because at this point you are fully embracing this experience.  In a large skillet sauté peeled, quartered apples in some butter, cinnamon, and sugar.  We used two Pink Ladies and two Granny Smiths from Eastern Market farm stand. These varieties can be found late into the winter season and provide just the right balance of sweet, tart, and crispness to hold up in the pan yet add a subtle creaminess to the palate of the dish.  I saved half of the apple peels to add to salads and composted the rest.

Dinner is served! We enjoyed this seasonal meal with a lovely Bordeaux picked up for the bargain price of $7.99. The robust flavours filled our bodies and spirits just as icy rain began to fall outside.  And I was given a renewed sense of what Slow Food truly is, good, clean, fair, and enjoyed from preparation to finish with friends. A glass of Italian dessert wine and gingersnaps rounded out the finish. So cheers to Aunt Sally and Buon apetito a tutti.