So welcome new readers, pull up a chair. And ice cream. You’d think the best welcome mat would be a shiny new recipe, but not in this corner of the web, not so. I’d love you to stay, but first you should know what’s on tap: I talk about food. I talk about food, and my family, and my dog and also chefs, and I take pictures. I pretend I can draw.

Sometimes there are recipes, sometimes not. Frankly, it would be quite dull if not for marvelous friends and food-lovers who make up the Simmer community. Like real family they tolerate nonsense, and weird snacks, and repetition of tales. If you’re new here then this food story – with typical scribbles, and no recipes – will be new to you. If you’re an old-timer, well, forgive me. I do like a good repeat.

If you’ve arrived from this lovely Babble.com list, thank you. And come back soon.

A Deep-Seated Need originally posted March 30, 2009

We saw a movie years ago in which a housekeeper, played by Helen Mirren, notes she has the “gift of anticipation.” She knows what people need – or will need – long before they do and is tuned to their next requirement, be it refills or discretion. As she described her onscreen fate, I grabbed Greg’s arm in the theater, whispering “it’s me, it’s me!” Like Helen, Greg had seen it coming. “Mm…okay.” But the recognition was inspiring. “No, I mean it. I have the gift of anticipation.”

“Okay. Shh.”

“I have it!”

Later, he’d propose that what I shared with the housekeeper was not anticipation, but martyrdom. “That’s not how she described it,” I said, “and you know, everyone in the audience felt bad for her.”

“Yeah,” said Greg, “exactly.”

Whatever the name, it’s there: I know the bride will demand more icing, sleepover kid won’t like onions and wait, you’ll need water with that pill. Over-thinking, yes, but a particular brand, one of cause-and-effect, a mixed blessing. Being ready makes life smooth and being kind makes life good, but the constant pull of awareness can, and will, set you apart.

It will poke you in small ways at the wrong times. At a recent dinner event I was seated between Greg and a smiling corporate publicist. She had blinding teeth and a still, groomed ponytail; she chatted left to right about running her last 10K, but I suspected that within the hour, she would need chocolate.

The first course was served in a synchronized flourish of plates. This was a fancy affair, with predictably affair-tall food, but I’m not easily impressed. Not that I’m jaded, really, because done right I’ll eat both high and low, but one day after chef school I stopped ooh-aahing every garnish and leaf.  Still, this course was lovely, presented to a room full of stylish diners feigning indifference to their glee.

Here is what they saw: chic edible puzzles arranged on white rectangular plates.

They saw two ceramic squares with wasabi and lemon herb sauce, and next to them, a Tiffany box-sized ice cube. A well down the center burst with upright crustaceans – one lobster tail, two speckled crab legs and two meaty prawns, fat as steaks from the sea. A twiggy iron fork harpooned it all together, and that was the first course. Gifts from the deep, one raw bar per person.

Here is what I saw: a waiter’s worst nightmare.

Even as oohs and aahs were stifled, I saw what hell this course would bring. The plating was so precise that it left no room for shells, lemon rinds, or tails. The rectangles were shallow and the giant ice cubes, already glistening, would soon melt across the dish and leave a small but briny sea. I glanced around the table; my well-heeled seatmates were diving in, cracking shells and dipping chunks. Water began to seep past plates and down the napkins, toward all those pressed pants. I turned to Greg – who was waiting for it - and leaned over.

“What.”

“It’s really nice…aren’t they nice?”

“Yes.”

“But…kind of a mess.”

He was pulling crab meat.

“The ice cubes. They’re melting all over. The plates are filling up.”

“Yes.”

“The waiters won’t be able to pick them up. They need room on the edge. The…crab shells are spiny.”

“And?”

“They’ll hurt their hands.”

He blinked. “The shrimp are great,” he said. “but there’s so much here.”

Why. Why? No one else was thinking shellfish wounds, or wet linens, or how to balance a dish full of arctic melt. They were just eating.

My PR neighbor cheerfully spooned drowning wasabi, but whispered in my ear about her severe obsession with chocolate. Seated among them I wished for a different head, oblivious and nicely level, but it did not come. Resigned, I picked up the skinny wet spear and ate my beautiful seafood, and since it wasn’t exactly tragedy and since I am no martyr, I did not further discuss what might happen.

Even though, of course, it all did.

—————————

* Sketches? Well my friends, turns out there are some places where it seems – gasp – inappropriate to photograph food, and this was the best I could do. Given the end scene of struggling waiters and dirty sea water, I kind of wish I had.

The Center of Everything [originally posted July 2, 2009.]

It’s been a month since Josie’s bat mitzvah, and looking at photos now with a better-rested and less tearful eye, it’s hard to believe we did all that. But we did, and at least one part of it merits a closer how-to look.

Centerpieces. We planned 16 tables of adults at our party (some 60 kids ran loose in the Dogg Pound, see here) and all of them would need centerpieces. We did not want flowers for our dog-themed bash, nor floating candles or exploding fountains. We wanted something funky and handmade that reflected Josie (since we could not stand her atop each table) and was not, in my vague notion, a “regular centerpiece.” I sketched stuff for weeks.

On receipts and memos and envelopes, I sketched centerpiece ideas: dog houses from boxes, with dog photos on sticks, and paw prints, and boingy silver things and metallic shreds. All the ideas seemed to require mass materials – styrofroam blocks, cardboard boxes, spray paints, photographs, disco balls. About two weeks before the party, we thought we had a winner. Me, Greg, and our friend Korrin – an OCD crafter and all-around good sport – huddled at the third floor craft table, each trying to make a prototype work. But they would not work; the boxes were too big, the paper too thin, sticks toppled off. Korrin got a headache, and left. Greg saw something in my eye he’d seen before, and left. Alone at midnight and surrounded by crumpled silver shreds, I had a short but weepy pity party, followed by a hearty round of why-the-hell-am-I-doing-this. Still, I’d made tea and the house was quiet, so I sat down fresh at the table, switched on the HBO show “In Treatment,” and started doodling again. By now I hated the failed ideas – so tacky, overblown, “regular.” Why did we need so much stuff? Could we create something but not take anything home? Forty-five soothing, Gabriel Byrne-filled minutes later, an answer:

We would build a small tower of items from the Lawrence Humane Society’s wish list – pedestrian stuff like paper towels and dog food, but exactly right for Josie, who volunteers there, and reusable to its core. Applying wedding cake logic, I sprayed cardboard cake rounds silver, and used them to separate and stabilize layers. The paper towels were bound, cake-style, with paper and ribbon. We could donate the towel rolls and dog food, recycle the paper and cake boards, and reuse all the ribbons. Only the balloon toppers were a one-night stand – but they were lovely.

Whether you’re throwing a big event or a cozy party, I urge you to try reuse/recycle decorations. Our guests appreciated both their funky “found-art” looks and the care behind them. Plus, you don’t need to be an artist or a serious crafter to pull it off. Can we apply this idea to different events? Here’s a few to start:

Child’s birthday party: even for a small party at home, decorate with short stacks of give-able items, like toy trucks for a truck theme, stuffed animals, etc. Donate to a local homeless shelter, hospital, or social service group.

Garden party: make the stacks from terra cotta pots, seed packets and small plants. All can be given to guests for planting, or donated to a local community garden.

Pizza party: (Josie’s idea!) Use disposable pizza pans to separate “layers,” and stack with flour bags, cans of tomatoes or sauce, onions or canned olives. Top with fresh tomatoes. Donate all to a local shelter that cooks and serves hot meals.

Your ideas? Share them below and craft away.

“The Center of Everything?” The post title references a well-known Lawrence writer who, rather than mess with centerpieces, just produces great books.

And…beer. Did I mention the beer? Like an amber line on the map, beer, serious bier, trailed us all through Bavaria. Beer is somehow beautiful over there; all hefty steins and tradition and frosty hopped-up light. That, or I was just on vacation. Either way me and beer, we’ve not always been friends. As an eager college drinker I’d throw up – Greg’s hair-holding skills sealed our deal – and later, a moderation-minded adult, I’d try excellent “artisan” beers and my nervous stomach would think it ate three loaves of bread. An uneasy truce, at best.

On this trip we traveled with my brother-in-law Stephen and his wife, Moa, a native Swede whose sociable, even-handed beer skills could put most European men to shame. She was happy. Greg and Stephen were deliriously happy. They were all three happy to explore the sudsy maze of cafes, cellars and stubes. And me? Come follow the amber line:

In Salzburg we visit Zum Fidelen Affen, which we thought meant something about a loyal monkey, but a waiter reveals it’s The Funky Monkey. Actually, the waiter says, it’s “funny” monkey, but “I just like to call it funky.”

In this friendly, wood-beamed room I discover the joys of rotwein gespritzt - red wine spritzer – and also free, fresh-baked pretzels. I will find out fast in other places that free pretzels don’t always mean good pretzels – but here they are both free and good. I suddenly feel great loyalty to The Funky Monkey, and resolve to become a great Austrian beer drinker, and get more pretzels.

I overdo it at The Monkey. At Gasthaus Somethingplatz I start ordering bottles of plain wasser, and by late afternoon in Mozartplatz, at a place possibly called Mozartbar, I start drinking peppermint tea. I am traveling, and careful. I am boring, and this annoys me. So I down a tall Pils, get twitchy, and then go back to sipping tea.

In Munich we visit a true temple of bier, the Hofbrauhaus, founded in 1592. Here, servers (some in traditional, half-laced St. Pauli girl-garb) rush liter beer steins, sometimes eight in each hand, to long wooden tables stuffed with locals, tourists, yuppies and grandmas. They eat weisswursts and clink glasses and have a marvelous time. I am about to succumb to the liter – an optimistic move, at best  – when I discover the Radler. Part beer, part lemonade, it’s similar to the English Shandy and a great beer compromise for me, or, as Greg concludes, “a tasty little kid’s beer.” I love the Radler, hoist it with two hands and drink every drop. Greg and Stephen are amused. Now if they only put coffee in beer, I tell them, then you’d see some drinking.

And speaking of drinking, the Hofbrauhaus sees a lot of it. Most don’t get drunk, exactly  – a higher tolerance than weak Americans – but the group right behind us, the big table of young, super-buff Italian guys? They gave their best impression of trying to drink all the beer in Germany.

They got more excitable round after round, yelling toasts and smashing heavy steins together. They broke into drinking songs, pounding beers, fists and cameras on the table, and each time they pounded, the beers jumped. Our table mates were Russian, the rowdy boys were Italian and the old ladies at the next table over were German, tut-tutting the rowdies. It was all very cavernous and beamed, cozy and sloshing. I slurped my Radler, smiled at my husband, read the beer-soaked carved initials lining wood planks. We shared another salty pretzel, smelled amber and lemon and hops, and I let that Bavarian afternoon drift away.

Why am I doing it again? We recently unearthed a few notes from those days, and I decided to revisit, and finish the doodling I’d started some twelve years ago. This update is a gift for a friend, someone expecting her first, someone who will also tread floors and will, perhaps, find the need to recite baked goods. I was always amazed how the silly muffin-and-pie mantra soothed us both, rocked her to sleep and kept me awake. It also seems to work on small, sweets-loving kids, goofy adults and a few chatty, sugar-looped bakers.

A is sweet on apples, that fall into the pie

B melts into butter, and makes the muffins sigh

Carrots from the garden, deployed to make the cake

D’s are for the donuts when you don’t know what to bake

Elephant ears are flaky (you can say palmiers, too)

F is for the fritter that has nothing else to do

G is for galettes, swirling summer, dripping fruit

H is for hamantaschen, three-cornered cookie loot

I is pie in the icebox – it’s lemon, sweet and cold

Jam befriends the sponge cake and they build a jelly roll

K is always Key lime – should be yellow, never green!

L is for the lattice that keeps red berries seen

Macarons are le favorite, a Paris souvenir

Napoleon’s gone forever, but his treat still lingers there

O is for Oh So Many, a hundred cookies that we ate

P is for the nice plain pears we’ll eat to clean the slate

Q is for Queen Mother’s Cake, from Maida Heatter’s book

R is for the recipe our dog’s jaws sadly took

Scones are a craggy compass, to point us through the day

Tea is their companion (though not the American way)

U loves umeboshi, Japanese fruit that’s pickled tart

V is for vanilla, pure and closest to the heart

W sings out welcome, which is what cakes tend to say

X is for the extra slice you might get on that day

Y is for golden egg yolks, like whisking in the sun

and Zzz’s are heard at daybreak…

…when the bakery work’s begun.

On receipts and memos and envelopes, I sketched centerpiece ideas: dog houses from boxes, with dog photos on sticks, and paw prints, and boingy silver things and metallic shreds. All the ideas seemed to require mass materials – styrofroam blocks, cardboard boxes, spray paints, photographs, disco balls. About two weeks before the party, we thought we had a winner. Me, Greg, and our friend Korrin – an OCD crafter and all-around good sport – huddled at the third floor craft table, each trying to make a prototype work. But they would not work; the boxes were too big, the paper too thin, sticks toppled off. Korrin got a headache, and left. Greg saw something in my eye he’d seen before, and left. Alone at midnight and surrounded by crumpled silver shreds, I had a short but weepy pity party, followed by a hearty round of why-the-hell-am-I-doing-this. Still, I’d made tea and the house was quiet, so I sat down fresh at the table, switched on the HBO show “In Treatment,” and started doodling again. By now I hated the failed ideas – so tacky, overblown, “regular.” Why did we need so much stuff? Could we create something but not take anything home? Forty-five soothing, Gabriel Byrne-filled minutes later, an answer:

We would build a small tower of items from the Lawrence Humane Society’s wish list – pedestrian stuff like paper towels and dog food, but exactly right for Josie, who volunteers there, and reusable to its core. Applying wedding cake logic, I sprayed cardboard cake rounds silver, and used them to separate and stabilize layers. The paper towels were bound, cake-style, with paper and ribbon. We could donate the towel rolls and dog food, recycle the paper and cake boards, and reuse all the ribbons. Only the balloon toppers were a one-night stand – but they were lovely.

Whether you’re throwing a big event or a cozy party, I urge you to try reuse/recycle decorations. Our guests appreciated both their funky “found-art” looks and the care behind them. Plus, you don’t need to be an artist or a serious crafter to pull it off. Can we apply this idea to different events? Here’s a few to start:

Child’s birthday party: even for a small party at home, decorate with short stacks of give-able items, like toy trucks for a truck theme, stuffed animals, etc. Donate to a local homeless shelter, hospital, or social service group.

Garden party: make the stacks from terra cotta pots, seed packets and small plants. All can be given to guests for planting, or donated to a local community garden.

Pizza party: (Josie’s idea!) Use disposable pizza pans to separate “layers,” and stack with flour bags, cans of tomatoes or sauce, onions or canned olives. Top with fresh tomatoes. Donate all to a local shelter that cooks and serves hot meals.

Your ideas? Share them below and craft away.

“The Center of Everything?” The post title references a well-known Lawrence writer who, rather than mess with centerpieces, just produces great books.

“Okay. Shh.”

“I have it!”

Later, he would propose that what I shared with the housekeeper was not anticipation, but martyrdom. “That’s not how she described it,” I said, “and you know, everyone in the audience felt bad for her.”

“Yeah,” said Greg, “exactly.”

Whatever the name, it’s always present: a bride will demand more icing, sleepover child won’t like onions, and wait, you’ll need water with that pill.  Over-thinking, yes, but a particular brand, one of cause-and-effect, and a mixed blessing. Being ready makes life smooth and being kind makes life good, but the constant pull of awareness can, and will, set you apart.

It will poke you in small ways at the wrong times. At a recent dinner event I was seated between Greg and a smiling corporate publicist. She had blinding teeth and a still, groomed ponytail; she chatted left to right about running her last 10K, but I suspected that within the hour, she would need chocolate.

The first course was served in a synchronized flourish of plates. This was a very fancy affair, with predictably affair-tall food, but I’m no easy target. Done right I’ll eat both high and low, and though I’m not quite what you’d call jaded – more like hugely jaded – one day after chef school I stopped ooh-aahing every garnish and leaf.  Still, this course was lovely, and the servers met a room full of stylish diners, feigning indifference to their glee.

Here is what they saw: chic edible puzzles arranged on white rectangular plates.

They saw two ceramic squares with wasabi and lemon herb sauce, and next to them, a Tiffany box-sized ice cube. A well down the center burst with upright crustaceans – one lobster tail, two speckled crab legs and two meaty prawns, fat as steaks from the sea. A twiggy iron fork harpooned it all together, and that was the first course. Gifts from the deep, one raw bar per person.

Here is what I saw: a waiter’s worst nightmare.

Even as oohs and aahs were stifled, I saw what hell this course would bring.  The plating was so precise that it left no room for shells, lemon rinds, or tails. The rectangles were shallow, and it didn’t take a chemist to see that giant ice cubes, already glistening, would soon melt across the dish and leave a small but briny sea.  I glanced around the table; my well-heeled seatmates were diving like ice fisherman, cracking shells and dipping chunks. Water began to seep past the plates and down the napkins, toward all those pressed pants.  I turned to Greg – who was waiting for it - and leaned over.

“What.”

“It’s really nice…aren’t they nice?”

“Yes.”

“But…kind of a mess.”

He was pulling crab meat.

“The ice cubes.  They’re melting all over.  The plates are filling up.”

“Yes.”

“The waiters won’t be able to pick them up.  They need room on the edge.  The…crab shells are spiny.”

“And?”

“They’ll hurt their hands.”

He blinked.  “The shrimp are great,” he said. “but there’s so much here.”

Why. Why? No one else was thinking shellfish cuts, or sodden linens, or how to balance a dish full of arctic melt.  They were just eating. My PR neighbor cheerfully spooned drowning wasabi, but professed to a severe obsession with chocolate.  Seated among them I wished for a different head, oblivious and nicely level, but it did not come. Resigned, I picked up the skinny wet spear and ate my beautiful seafood, and since it wasn’t exactly tragedy and since I am no martyr, I did not further discuss what might happen.

Even though, of course, it all did.

—————————

* So – what’s with the slobby sketches?  Well my friends, turns out there are some places where it seems – gasp – inappropriate to photograph food, and this was the best I could do.  Given the end scene of struggling waiters and dirty sea water, I kind of wish I had.

Anyway, found within a stack and then another stack of dubious food-sketchbook archives, here is my long-ago view of our Big Fat 90′s Wedding Cake, and it’s even more curl-explosive and toweringly white chocolate than I remember it.  The other stray doodlings on the page lend a nicely extra-crazy air, no?   With a fresh look at this a few years on, I can tell that the artist has recently married, and has not yet endured fifteen years of learning to fold t-shirts like her husband’s mother – clearly, the cake is all aglow.