analog me

State Fair Dress

The dress with chickens on infinitely long sticks?

That's worthy attire for the Minneosta State Fair where about 120,000 of us get together every day for 12 days to eat foods on sticks, or fried foods, or better yet, fried foods on a stick.

Oh yeah, there are also animals, arcades, a tiny circus museum in (and on) a train car,

crop art, food art, art art, music, hawkers of gadgets that slice foods, inspired knitting,

inspired but uninspiring sewing,

and of course, rides at The Midway.

I am the only person who screams on the "Tilt-a-Whirl."

 
The Statistics:

• Pattern: Totally altered  bodice pattern, with a simple waistband and gathered on dirndl skirt. (Triple released pleats on bias=not a good idea.)
• Fabric: 3 yards vintage fabric from Savers and quilting fabric from stash.
• Time: 5-6 hours? 
• Food eaten: French fries, Cubano Torta, 1919 Root Beer, Jerk Flavored French fries, Caribbean Ginger Beer, Deep fried Pickles (mmmm) and Chocolate Chip cookies.
• amazingly comfortable, but I need better shoes. 

Busted

One of my least favorite things about being a mom is when you are "outed" by your own offspring. I don't really have any big secret shames. Yet, when my kids publicly reveal my weaknesses and eccentricites, I feel like a shy animal being spied upon by scientists and imagine the tabulation of my shortcomings. (My good friend also known as the Snee, refers to this as being "busted in your own habitat.")

And I have been so busted lately. 

First, I take my 11 year old son to the doctor and I have to sit there while he is interrogated, knowing that I will be blamed for any unhealthly habits that are uncovered, because that's what mothers are for, right?  We do well on helmet safety and seat belts. And then comes this question, "So, what do you have for snacks ?" I tense up. This could go anywhere. Who cares that I or my husband make dinner from scratch six nights a week, that I pack a homemade lunch every stinkin' school morning (for a kid that won't eat sandwiches), stock the fridge with fruits and vegetables and have a freezer full of grass-fed beef. Oh no, I am going to be judged by that after school snack I urge him to forage for himself. I brace myself for the worst (chocolate chips ? cookie dough ? ice cream ?)

Son: "A bowl of cereal" (I inwardly sigh in relief)

Doctor: "Like?" (Oh no, he's digging for some dirt on me! I hold my breath.)

Son: "umm, Honey Nut Toastios." (ok, but the word "honey" could sound bad.)

Doctor: "Well, that should be more of a special treat food." (I'm burning with shame.)

Son: " Sometimes I have granola." (I bet he will like the way that sounds.)

Doctor: "Yes, thats better." (Is it really ??)

Of course, the granola has 1/3 more sugar than the other cereal (I checked later), but the damage is done. I'm demoralized that it all came down to that, not all the other meals. And I'm feeling pissed.

Next, the healthy living talk moves on to smoking and my son was instructed to never even try a cigarette. The doctor backs this advice up with a staggering simplistic statistic (SSS): 100% of all smokers had a first cigarette.

I feel like interrupting with the idea that this advice is in conflict with my parenting style. My kids are already too cautious. They have never even played ding-dong-ditch.  If they logically equate smoking a single cigarette with a lifetime of addiction or with the advice to never, ever smoke crack, it seems there could be some very bad outcomes. Of course, this is the time to be silent. It's too complicated and besides, I am a mother who lets her son eat sugary cereals after school

Tabulation of scores:

Provisions and prepares 25 healthy meals a week: 0 points for Standing In Front of the Stove (SIFOS)

Provisions Mom's Best Honey Nut Toastios, and tells son to "make your own snack": -200 points for Being A Slacker Mom (BASM)

Thinks Incorrect Thoughts About Anti-Smoking Education: ? ? ?

 

The second time I am busted, I wasn't really busted. I just felt that way. It was 9 pm. and the dining room table was covered in sewing junk and I had decided to take the cover off my sewing machine to check on some things. (I have become like one of those guys who always has the hood up on his car to fiddle with the tuning.) Tools, parts, sewing patterns everywhere and in walks my teenage son with his girlfriend. They had just been to concert and wanted to have some fresh cookies and milk.

Tabulation of scores:

Two Counts of Dismantling of Sewing Machine on Dining Room Table: -50 points for Bizarre Behavior on the Part of a Parent in the Presence of a Teenager (BBPPPT) and  -25 points for Encouraging Odd Ideas About Dining Rooms and Thus Food (EOIAF)

Provision of cookies at 9 pm: -50 points for Parenting with Disregard for Sugar Foods (PWDSF)

Teenage son eating cookies instead of (and hopefully not because of) smoking dope: ? I Might Be Doing Something Right (IMBDSR) and then again, I might not.

Total Busted Score: -325 points

So, have you been busted lately ?

Just finished--Thanksgiving Cranberry ChutneyRelish

It's that time of year again. I make grocery lists, buy hundreds of dollars of groceries, go home start cooking, realize I am missing some ingredients, make a new list, go shopping, start cooking, miss something, go shopping, cook some more, etc. etc. until all the grocery stores close or Thanksgiving dinner is actually on the table and being eaten. As the big meal gets closer, the cycle speeds up. (Now I've gone from 12 to 6 hours.) I started the cycle a few days ago, and expect to be back at the coop grocery every few hours for another day.

Meanwhile, I made this and it is so good I almost cried.

You should make it too.  My cooking is pretty messy--I don't actually measure, so you don't have to either--but these are some guidelines.

Cranberry Chutney Relish

Start by heating in a pot:

• 4 Apples peeled and diced
• 2 1/2 Cups cranberries
• 1 stick cinnamon
• juice of 1-2 lemons
• 1/3 Cup vinegar

As this heats up add:

• 2/3 Cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Juice of 1/2 Pomegranate (break in chunks and squeeze juice out with a potato ricer)
• Sections and juice from 1/2 grapefruit 
• 1-2" (2.5-5 cm) ginger root peeled and grated (or 2T ginger jam)
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

When this gets a nice, thick, jammy look (5 min. or so) add:

• 2 cloves garlic pressed

Adding garlic always feels weird, but I make myself do it because it gives the chutney a little zing that makes it that much more delicious.

Now turn off the heat and taste it. It should be zesty, spicy, piquant, and fruity. Add more sugar, acid or spice to taste, and put it in a glass bowl.

You may wonder how I can write this up if I don't measure. I do something like forensic recipe reconstruction by carefully observing the evidence at the scene of the crime.

It's an ugly job, but I do it for you, dear readers.

Any other special recipes out there I should know about before my next shopping trip???

Hands on Pantry Salad

I have been trying to get back to an old goal of having some salad on the table for every meal. After I do my big weekly shopping, this is pretty easy. But, as the week wears on, the greens wilt and my salads start to taste fatigued. For awhile I began shopping a couple times a week to have fresh greens, but then my grocery bill seemed to double--and just for salad (and a couple other things I needed to pick up).  

So, the other night I tried to come up with a salad made from stuff that hadn't gone sad and I often stand a chance of having on hand throughout the week. The result sort of reminds me of the old Waldorf Salad, but it is a bit lighter and Springier. This salad also fits with my resolution to try not and make things so complicated. And I am avoiding the whole weights and measures issue that seems to plague me by using vegetable units (such as 1 stalk) or amounts that might feel good to your own hand (or mouth!) 

Anyway, I present to you Celery Salad.

Time to make: 5 min or so 

Ingredients:

• Celery stalks (1 per person)
• Walnuts (1 tiny handful for 1 person, a large handful for 4 or thereabouts)
• Green Onion (1 or so per person)
• Grapefruit (about 1/4 per person)
• Olive oil
• Pepper
• Salt 

1. Start by putting a heavy pan on low heat and putting a handful of walnuts in. 
2. While they are toasting, slice the celery very thinly by cutting diagonally across it into ribbon-like shreds. Pull out the annoying stringy bits. If you have the heart, (the celery heart) chop it up too. Spread the celery on a plate. 
3. Chop up the onion and scatter atop. 
4. With a spoon, scoop out grapefruit segments and arrange on top. 
5. Now, remove the walnuts from the heat and break them over the top of the salad with your hands while removing some of the crisp, dark skin that hides in the nut crevices. 
6. Liberally, drizzle some olive oil on top, then pour juice left in the grapefruit over it. A pinch of salt an a few grinds of pepper finish it off.

I'm often the best cook when I am enjoying the whole tactile experience and trying to make the food fit with how I want it to feel in my mouth. When I have to stop and take measurements, that process feels interrupted. But I am wondering: Do you find this kind of recipe liberating--or frustratingly vague in its lack of standardized measures? 

We Interrupt this program. . . .

Caution: this post contains graphic references to meat.

As you may have gathered from the Laundry Post, our household takes on the domestic arts at a large scale. Not only do the males scorn the dirtying of just a few socks or T-shirts, one of them also convinced me that we should buy some meat. Direct from a farmer, on the hoof, a cow and a pig. It's so much cheaper that way, plus we know the farmer. It's grass fed! This means that I should have delayed that post of Red Things, until after we got the 700 pounds of meat. (Yes, that is, by volume, at least a hogshead (maybe two?) and a bit more than 2/3 of a ton!) 

(A small sample) 

Not very photogenic is it? Don't worry, I'm not going to turn this into a meat blog, but I have been spending a lot of time reading meat blogs trying to figure out what to do with two pork bellies and about 40 pounds of soup bones that we couldn't squeeze into a freezer.  Interestingly, most meat blogs are written by men. Men who scorn archaic forms of measurements in their recipes for pancetta. This means I have been spending hours scribbling conversions from ounces to grams, and grams to pounds, and ounces to teaspoons and cursing our whole system of weights and measures and thinking perhaps it might not be so very un-American after all to convert to the metric system. I didn't know, but the whole pints, quarts, gallons, bushels, hogsheads and firkins up to the ton system is based on the ounce, which is--get this--a "mouthful."  Yes, our system is based on mouthful units. I can't decide if this is brilliant or disgusting, but thinking about it makes me feel very full.

Thanks be to the weather gods, it has been below freezing most of the week, so our front porch has been turned into a meat locker for the overflow. It's very difficult to rent cold storage these days, plus it's just so classy to meet your house guests with the sights and smells of a butcher shop.

 (Welcome to our Home! )

There has been one especially bright spot in all this and that is that I got to go on a quest for a strange ingredient. Sometimes I feel that internet shopping has turned those once rare and difficult to find things into what my son calls "plain old." The thrill of hunting down an elusive item is just not that exciting when it is too easy. But, I needed curing salt for my pancetta and I was too impatient to order it, so I had to call around to all the butcher shops in the area that still make their sausages. Finally, I connected with a butcher at Everett's who told me to come on over. 

I knew I was in the right place, because Everett's hasn't changed much from the 1960's, except that the flat bread section has expanded from just lefse, to lefse, tortillas and Injera. And the butcher was an old guy! I adore old guys.  Not only did he sell me a container of pink salt  for $1.50, I got a tour of the shop. They have a huge sooty smokehouse in the shop. I got to peek in and see sausages hanging over piles of smoldering sawdust! They have a brining vat for corned beef! I got samples of their own lunch meats! I got a verbal recipe for bacon! I got proportional information of curing salt to meat in pounds and ounces (4 oz. per 100 pounds of beef, in case you are interested.) I would have taken photos, but I always feel like a jerk taking pictures in public places.

The pancetta and bacon are now curing. The beef stock is cooling so I can remove the fat. Friends have helped me empty the porch of meat. I have stopped shuffling meat cuts around. Tonight my husband made steak ou poivre served with tater tots. I'm not sure the French would approve of that combo, but it is fabulous. I did notice the kids were less excited than I. I heard something about the meat being chewy and "too beefy."  Hmm, we could have a problem.