food, and other musings

Here comes the weather

Jeff has posted one of his nearly finished songs to his band's page online, and it's one of my favorites so far. The mix isn't done, so the vocals sound louder than they will ultimately, but I can't get enough. I know I'm biased, but I think it's a damn good song anyway. Vocals by Larkin Gayl.

storm

Today it's raining cats, dogs, and dinosaurs.

Sane people are at home, snuggled under the covers reading a book. Sane people who must pay rent are at work, getting ready to brave the elements with the help of umbrellas, rain boots, and parkas.

Insane people are sitting in a Starbucks in Walnut Creek, a faraway suburb of San Francisco, with jeans soaked to the knees, wet socks, and a computer.

Blink. Blink.

Yessirree, nothing like a good old hurricane to make Jeff and me jump out of bed at 6 a.m. (which is, like, painfully early for us) and head an hour East of the city. Why the adventure? Because Jeff's disability insurance company -- you remember, the ones who think that he should be able to work full-time since he can, you know, unload the dishwasher once a week -- needs him to be evaluated by an independent neuropsychologist. For 9 hours. On the day the worst storm of the last 2 years hit the Bay Area.

Good times.

We've known about the appointment for a few weeks, and I've been planning to drive him to and fro all along. The plan was to plant myself in a Starbucks -- hey, they are warm, dry, and they have a bathroom and Wi-Fi -- and work remotely while he worked his traumatized brain at word tests. But when I heard about the storm system moving in yesterday, I started to have second thoughts. A quick Google search proved that my co-workers weren't being alarmists -- there really was reason for concern. The city of SF was handing out sandbags and advising that residents stay indoors. Highway Patrol was predicting they'd be closing certain stretches of road, and the line at the Safeway last night at 7 p.m. was 30 people deep. In each lane.

Fearing the worst, I spent most of yesterday trying to convince our attorney that we should play it safe and cancel today's appointment.

Attorney 1, Catherine 0. Hey, if she's on a winning streak, I guess I shouldn't complain.

We made it over here safe and sound, thanks to our Lincoln Towncar driver. And boy was I glad it was him driving, not me; at 8:45 a.m. parts of the highway were already flooded, and the air was so gray with moisture that visibility sucked. Plus, I don't know where the hell Walnut Creek is.

Because I firmly believe that a worry-free existence is over-rated, I fretted all day and all night about the trip. I spent most of my grocery expedition crying crazy tears of fear -- what if we got into an accident? -- and frustraton -- without a car, what would I do in Walnut Creek for 9 hours? It's the burbs, so it's not like they have a great taxi system. Should I just stay home?

I wanted to, I really did. But I just couldn't. I was afraid that worsening conditions could mean Jeff would be stuck here overnight in a hotel, and as horrible as sitting in a windowless doctor's office lobby for 9 hours would be, not to mention spending the night in a hotel with no supplies, I figured it would be even worse to be home, safe and warm with loads of food and candles while Jeff had to fend for himself in the slanting rain.

(Wait. Did I really think that? How uncharacteristically selfless of me.)

So here I am. The day has been hellish in some ways (see also: wet, moldy, and cold pant legs) but nice in others. I met a super friendly cab driver lady who's become my constant companion, I managed to find a power chord for my laptop at the Radio Shack two blocks away so I could continue to work (and blog) all day, and the rain seems to be slowing down. With luck, we'll get home tonight.

But just in case, I packed a change of underwear.

Love is...

...being picked up after a long day at work, and coming home to pan-seared butterfish served on a bed of sauteed kale, mushrooms, and bacon. Lordy, lordy, was it good.

Should I even mention the cone of Rocky Road we shared afterwards?

11:15 p.m.

44 things I love about Mr. Food Musings

44. The way his tooth sort of sticks to his lip when he's trying not to laugh.

43. The way he went to sleep last night wearing only one sock. He'd taken the other one off.

42. The way he listens so carefully to my opinions.

41. The way he drives automatic rental cars like his mission in life is to change gears as fast as possible.

40. How much time he spends writing out cards for other people on their birthdays, often buying two cards in case he makes a mistake, and typing up what he wants to write first.

39. His curly, curly hair.

38. The inexplicable phobia he has about getting his curly, curly hair cut.

37. The way he lets me towel off his back after a shower because otherwise, he'll just leave it wet when he gets dressed.

36. The way he will go and get tacos or a burger for me when I'm not feeling well.

35. The way he always offers me a foot rub when my tummy hurts.

34. How supportive he has been since day 1 of my writing.

33. The way he believes in me more than anyone else I can think of, passionately, fervently, insistently -- sometimes, to the point of irrationality.

32. The way he eats all of one thing on his plate before he moves on to another one.

31. The way he hugs me with my arms curled up in front of me, and just stands there while I soak it all in.

30. His schadenfreude.

29. His shadenfreude when his stocks tank.

28. The silly smile he gets on his face when he's made a joke he thinks is funny.

27. His puns. (For instance, we used to live above a man named Creighton who was a pain in the ass. He always called him Cretin.)

26. How much he loves music.

25. His perfect man legs.

24. The way he quickly latched onto wearing a crappy tee-shirt under a nice blazer when I told him it was cool.

23. The way he won't throw away any sweatshirt his mom has ever given him, no matter how old or how stained.

22. [censored]

21. The way he has to buy 42 magazines every time we go to the airport.

20. The way he always runs off to the magazine stand in every grocery store, pharmacy, and gas station.

19. The way he can always locate the nearest wine store with his inner GPS.

18. The way he's been keeping up with the chores since I went to work, even though it's not second nature for him to remember to do them.

17. The way he always uses my olive wood mortar and pestle to smash garlic

16. The way he makes all our homemade salad dressings.

15. The way he pulls a pillow over his head while he sleeps.

14. The way he has valiantly, and with very little complaint, gotten up very day of the last year and a half and done what he had to do.

13. The way he has pushed himself in yoga, in running, in all things physical, even though they make him feel terrible, all so he can feel good again.

12. The fact that he thinks I was (am) the best account person he ever worked with in advertising. (Which isn't true, which is why I love him for thinking it.)

11. The way he has gone out of his way to teach himself how to make me feel good when I am down.

10. The way he can drink a glass of wine in 2 sips. It's sort of gross, but it's also sort of cute.

9. The joy he takes in choosing a bottle of 20 year old French Burgundy from his dad's wine selection.

8. The way he uncomplainingly accompanies me out to dinner wherever I have to go or want to go, regardless of what he wants to eat.

7. The way he loves Top Chef, American Idol, Project Runway, The Shield, The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, and Big Love as much as I do.

6. The way he buys more books than he could ever read, and can't seem to stop.

5. The way he never gives me even the slightest hint of a dirty look when I come home with new clothes, even if it's right after we've had "the budget discussion."

4. The way he knows to set the table with sel gris rather than table salt, especially when it's pizza night.

3. His nose.

2. His Grizzly Adams look when he hasn't shaved for four days. Which happens every five days.

1. How much he makes me laugh.

Happy Birthday!

The Birthday Dinner Menu

Today has been all about one thing: The Birthday.

On Wednesday, Mr. Food Musings will turn 44. To celebrate, we're spending next weekend in Napa, swimming in the shadow of vineyards with the aroma of hot soil and lush grapes wafting through the air. People will come to our hotel room to massage our tired muscles, and we will eat meals that are simple yet satisfying.

But before we go, I thought it would be fun to turn myself into a maniac (or a monster, depending on your point of view) by cooking a birthday feast for Mr. FM and his mom, whose birthday is only one day away from his. The menu was inspired by the Spanish cooking class I took not too long ago:

* fried pimientos de padron sprinkled with sea salt *
* white gazpacho *
* chicken and sweet pepper empanadas *
* little gem lettuces with roasted beets, blue cheese, and toasted walnuts *
* spring peas with butter and salt *
* orange cornmeal almond cake with whipped cream and honeyed cherries *

Because I am smart, lazy, and bossy (and also because I worked 5 days this week -- whew, how do you people do it?) I asked Mr. FM to help with the dinner. We went to the market this morning where I piled my basket high with lemons and oranges, almonds and cherries, beets and a chicken with the head and feet dangling off either end. Then we came home, ate lunch, and proceeded to bake the cakes, make the gazpacho, roast the beets, and make the dough for the empanadas. I rewarded myself with a gingersnap and vanilla ice cream sandwich, and now I'm off to wash the flour off my aching arms.

Orange Cornmeal Almond Cake
Adapted (ever so slightly) from El Farol: Tapas and Spanish Cuisine by James Campbell Caruso
Makes 2 cakes

2 whole oranges, with peel on
1 cup flour
1 cup polenta or cornmeal
2 TBSP cornstarch
1 1/2 cups roasted Marcona almonds
1 1/2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup whipping cream
1 jar Happy Girl Kitchen Co. cherries jubilee

Preheat oven to 325ºF.

Bring a stock pot full of water to a boil. Add the whole oranges and simmer 30 minutes. Remove and let cool.

Meanwhile, combine the flour, polenta, and cornstarch in a large bowl. In a food processor, pulse the almonds until smooth being careful not to turn it to nut butter. Add to the dry ingredients, mix well, and set aside.

Process the oranges in a food processor. In a standing mixer or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. With the mixer running, add the eggs one at a time. Add the orange puree and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and beat well until combined. Butter two 8-inch cake pans and divide the batter between them. Bake for 40 minutes. Serve with freshly whipped cream, cherries, and plenty of birthday candles.

This is what happens when Mr. Food Musings makes dinner

We have a new rule. (Sort of.) At least once a week, Mr. Food Musings is in charge of making dinner.

I say sort of because we've tried it before. Last time, it faded away after, oh I don't know, the first week.

I'm not blaming him entirely, though. I can get a bit mouthy in the kitchen.

But with me going back to work nearly full-time to bring home the bacon, we agreed he's going to have to help cook it. So we made a deal. He'd cook once a week. And I'd keep my mouth shut.

Last night was his first time. I confess, I was a bit nervous. We discussed what he'd make on Sunday and settled on pizza, since I already had the dough ready and didn't feel like making it myself that night. (See also: hangover.) But that was pretty much the extent of our discussion.

And, it turns out, his planning.

About 7:30 last night, he mentioned he thought he'd get going on dinner. We'd just run out for a coffee and we were both hungry. I offered to set out the dough to let it come to room temperature, and to preheat the oven to 500º. I also let him know I had a few tips from my Tante Marie's cooking class that might help him when it came time to rolling it out. A half hour later, I told him things were ready for him to start the prep. I assumed he'd be making a simple Margherita pizza, as I'd planned to the night before.

The hallway that runs from his office to our kitchen is long. He said later that he felt like a Dead Man Walking as he headed stoveward. You see, he realized then that he'd done no shopping for ingredients, and had no idea if there were any in the fridge. Oops!

I walked into the kitchen a few minutes behind him, oblivious to his inner turmoil. His head was buried in the bottom cabinet, and loud banging noises issued forth. "Where's a pan I can caramelize in?" came the cry a few minutes later.

I'd like to pause here a moment. The man knows that you can't caramelize in a non-stick pan? A miracle had occurred. Yes, Virginia -- men do listen!!!

The black skillet found, he set to work. I saw a slab of bacon, an onion, and a green pepper out on the island. I have to admit, I was impressed. It all made sense -- a riff on a sausage/peppers/onion pizza. Though I'd pledged to keep my mouth shut, I decided that was only for opinions. For solid cooking advice, it seemed appropriate to speak up. So I helped him caramelize the onions, noting he'd need butter and oil and some brown sugar to start, and that he'd want to cook them "low and slow" rather than over the mile-high flame he'd conjured on the stove. I cooked the bacon, suggested he mince some garlic, and found the missing mozzarella. Then I offered to help chop.

"I've got it all under control,"  he said. "But you can pour me a glass of wine."

When he tossed the garlic into the caramelizing onions, I was tempted to scream "No!" But I didn't. When he scattered Parmesan cheese all over top of the tomato sauce, I gulped. When he mused aloud about boycotting the mozzarella. I ahemed. (Loudly.) But mostly I stayed out of it until it was time to roll out the dough.

From my class, I knew how to get a cracker-crisp crust: simply divide a standard pizza dough -- enough for one pizza -- in half or even in thirds, and roll out each of several pizzas extra thin. You end up with a great pizza that cooks in about 7 minutes. I also learned that cornmeal (or polenta) really will "grease" a pizza peel (or in our case, a wooden cutting board) and that you have to slide it onto the pizza stone with confidence. If you do, it will slide off easily. But if you hesitate, you'll end up with an accordioned pizza slopped all over the oven. Mr. FM's first attempt wasn't confident enough, and we ended up folding a lip of dough over the pizza to get it all onto the stone, but by the second pizza he had it under control.

What can I say? We've made a lot of pizzas in our house. Some of them look pretty, some of them don't. Turns out, Mr. FM rolls out a mean ball of dough, producing a nice round(ish) circle versus my usual trapezoid. He caramelizes onions like nobody's business, and he has a great sense for toppings. The bacon, caramelized onions, Kalamata olives, and green peppers were out of this world good. The garlic didn't burn. The Parmesan cheese added a lovely depth of flavor and there wasn't too much salt. His pizza had more class, more love -- and a lot less mouth. Honey, you can make dinner any time.

You've come a long way, baby

I realized that it's probably time for an update on Mr. Food Musings. After all, I've made you suffer through rants, rants and more rants during his long recovery from the multiple skull fractures and resulting "severe brain trauma," so it's only fair to give you the good news, too.

Here's an example of a conversation I used to have a lot.

Friend: So, How's J***?
Me: He's good, but you know, I mean, he's not good. He's still pretty light-headed all the time, and the nausea is mostly gone but it still bothers him, especially when he's in the car for more than 20 minutes. And his legs are cold and numb and he just plain doesn't feel good.
Friend: Oh...

And here's an example of that same conversation, as of about a week ago.

Friend: So, How's J***?
Me: He's...good! He's really, really good!
Friend: Oh. OH! Oh my God!!! [cue sounds of screams, cheers, hollers and woops]

That's right: Mr. FM finally turned a really big fat brick corner sometime last week!

1) Two separate specialists confirmed that they expect him to make a full recovery -- always good to hear! -- and that his recovery so far is astoundingly fast -- my little overachiever! (It's hard to fathom that a 7-months-and-counting recovery is fast, and I pity the poor soul who has it worse than we have.)

2) One of the specialists told us that one of the nastier symptoms that really had us worried, namely these crazy, all consuming twitches that would overtake him througout the day, are not conscious but they are voluntary. (Figure that one out.) And then the doctor basically said, "Quit it." And he did. Just like that. Crazy, isn't it? As of about 3 weeks ago, he no longer looks like a dancing Elaine on crank.

3) His physical therapist is cutting him down to once a week, and he's started running again, outside on his own. He can run up to 2 miles in a row -- something the specialist we like to call "Dr. Kevorkian" said he'd probably never be able to do again. Idiot.

4) On certain days he can actually say, when asked how he feels, that he feels good. No qualifiers. Just good. Not great, not perfect, but good. I mean, shit -- we'll take good around here!

5) He's working again, nearly full-time, and really enjoying it.

6) A lot of the things in our lives that have been on hold for seven long, dreary, scary, horrible months are now starting to move again. Maybe we can't hang out hats on 'em quite yet, but they're close enough that if we threw some hats their way, one out of four might hit the hook.

Most importantly, there is a lot of joy in our house. Finally. Living in the present is really, really important when things suck. It's a skill that you are forced to learn during dark days if you want to survive intact. But once things get good again, it's nice to be able to look forward -- and see good things. Better things. Bigger things.

This has nothing to do with eating local...

I never was much for symbolism, which explains why all the posts about Mr. Food Musings' recovery have all-too-obvious shots of spring flowers in blossom.  (I majored in Russian, not English, so what do you expect?) Still, as tired a symbol as these lilies may be, they are a fitting one.

I wanted a break from the eating local theme that's been consuming my blog lately, and I noticed it's been about a month since I posted about Mr. FM. But more than that, I finally have some good news to share!

(Aside: I know you're thrilled not to have to endure another weepy, depressing post. In exchange for that kindness, I reserve the right to be pissy and sad and temperamental whenever I want to, and to remind you from time to time that life isn't perfect. Deal?)

The doctors said that around the 3 month milestone we should start to see some big changes. We kept thinking that they'd happen over the first 3 months, and by day 90 we'd be in the clear.

Ha.
Ha.
Ha.

(...laughed Fate at our naivité.)

Instead, it was more like nothing happened until we hit month 3. I'd try to create celebrations around things like "you haven't thrown up in 2 days!" but really, they were half-hearted. As sickening as it may be to us cynics, just about the time the rains fled and the sun came out over San Francisco, things in the Food Musings household started to mend.

I'll spare you some of the gorier details, but recently Mr. FM has been doing all of the following:
~ going for walks by himself, something he hasn't done since he fell 3+ months ago
~ going to the gym and doing the Stairmaster (he hangs on for dear life lest his bad balance send him sprawling, but so far so good)
~ walking without a cane when we're together
~ going out to dinner and to friends' houses regularly
~ looking up (and I mean actually turning his head up) when he walks without falling in the middle of the street
~ graduated from walking on a treadmill in a harness at physical therapy to kicking a soccer ball

This very morning, he went to acupuncture by himself, and he decided not to take his cane. I feel a bit dorky admitting it, but I was a little proud and a little scared. What if he falls? What if I should be there to help him? What if he hurts himself? 

But then I thought, What if he doesn't?

"Call me when you get there?" I asked before he left. Keep in mind the acupuncturist is 7 blocks from our house on a residential street. I sounded a little pathetic and needy, even to me, but old habits die hard.

He looked me straight in the eye and said, "I'll call you when I'm on my way back."

I opened my mouth to say something, but then I thought -- hey, he just got sassy with me. And that is a very good sign, maybe the best sign of all. For 3 months he's followed my cautious instructions on everything from going down the stairs one at a time to not spending too much time looking at the computer, which can make him sick. So if he's starting to ignore me (again) then things may be even closer to normal than I thought.

It's time to break down and go to Café Fanny

I have my favorite cinnamon toast, and Mr. Food Musings has his:

"Whenever I take my VW to the mechanical maestros at McNevin in Berkeley, my car isn't the only thing that gets fixed up -- I get my fix too. Because right across the street from McNevin is Café Fanny. Tucked between Acme Bread and Kermit Lynch wines, Café Fanny serves the finest cinnamon raisin toast I've ever tasted. It's so good, in fact, that I kinda wish my car was a little less reliable. Thick, chewy, buttery, and served with the day's house-made preserves,  Fanny's cinnamon toast is one of my life's true pleasures. I always order it with a cup of coffee and a bowl of fruit  (berries, never melon) with Straus yogurt, and lately I've added a single, soft-boiled egg. I like to sit outside on the patio, where I can feel a bit of a breeze, while I munch my toast and read the paper, but there's also a bench inside. Of course, if you're not a maniacally single-minded cinnamon toast eater like me, Fanny's also serves exquisite pastries, including powdery
beignets, and offers a fairly complete menu that stretches from breakfast through lunch."

Café Fanny, Berkeley, 1603 San Pablo Avenue, 510-524-5447