I have an abundance of mint in my garden — which is partially my fault because I deliberately transplanted some mint from the front garden to the back — I knew I might regret this, since mint is really weedy, but so far, I kind of like it as a ground cover. It’s invasive, and I’ve pulled a lot of it out, but I also really love this mint in particular — it’s somewhere between a spearmint and a peppermint — not too strong and not too sweet. I crush up a big handful in my pot of tea every…
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Reading this article in the SF Chronicle this morning has me wondering, is it gender that separates the show-off chefs from the nurturing chefs? Gender seems like both a simplistic and sexist way to separate out these very different approaches to food — (especially when published in the edition of the Sunday paper dedicated to Gay Pride weekend). Myself — I’m what this author calls a “mama cook” — I don’t cook what I think of as “restaurant food” at home. My cooking tends toward braises, marinated things on the grill in the summer, tarts, cakes … home food. I…
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Forest fires are a huge drag when they’re happening, although I have to say last summer as we watched this column of smoke rise behind Livingston peak, we were thinking of morels. The Jungle Fire was scary — it roared down seven miles of drainage in an afternoon — my friend Scott who was over there covering it for the paper said it sounded like the loudest jet engine you’ve ever heard. And yet, a few months later, here’s what’s happening in the burn — morels. Lots of morels. I went up early yesterday morning and it’s fascinating up in…
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If it’s Memorial Day, then it’s time to get the garden put in (I love that phrase, it’s so old-fashioned) — I jumped the gun a little on the tomatoes this year — they were getting so leggy in the cold frames that I had to put them in — and last week’s spate of cold, wet weather didn’t do them any good. It went down to 28 degrees at least twice — although sheets draped over the trellises seem to have kept them from giving up the ghost entirely. This year I’m experimenting — these are the eggplant seedlings.…
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Swamped with work today, but there’s an interesting piece over at the Columbia Journalism Review on the new direction food reporting is taking: “The world of food reporting had been divided,” Severson told me recently. “You’d have an agriculture reporter who didn’t understand how a kitchen worked and a reporter covering hunger who might not understand what it took to put food on the table at night,” plus the restaurant critics and the recipe editors. Newspapers today, she adds, “are really bringing all of that together.”
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Sam over at Becks and Posh did a little comparison shopping, and discovered to her surprise that by shopping at the Farmer’s Market last weekend, she saved 29% over what it would have cost her to buy the same items at the supermarket. Considering that she was shopping at Ferry Plaza Market, what’s so exciting about this is that Sam’s also been keeping track of her food expenditures all year — and what she’s finding is that for ordinary produce shopping she’s ahead by going to the market. I’ve shopped Farmer’s Markets for 20 years (scary, that thought — I’m…
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When I bought those peaches in the grocery store the other day? Well, I know what I was thinking — I was thinking that I needed some fruit for breakfast, and since oranges are really going out of season (I know, they’re not local, but it’s not perfection we’re after here at LivingSmall), I thought I’d give the apricots, peaches, and plums that had just come in a shot. I lived in the Central Valley long enough to learn that at least they’re coming into season there, and stone fruit from California seemed less egregious than grapes from Chile, so…
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This morning, the food section of the San Francisco Chronicle covers the conflict between Carlo Petrini and the Ferry Plaza Market farmers. There’s a really interesting conversation going on in the comments over at Steve Sando’s blog — Sando, who runs Rancho Gordo is one of the farmers who sells his stuff at Ferry Plaza, and he’s on the board for the non-profit market. He also is one of the folks who met with Petrini when he was in town last week promoting the upcoming Slow Food Nation event next Spring. Petrini has a book out, and was supposed to…
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Spring has been late this year — I can’t remember a year since I’ve lived here where it’s been May before I’ve had greens — but April was cold, grey, and snowy. These are the first of the year — Grumolo Bionda Chickory from my beloved Seeds of Italy. These overwintered, actually — once things thawed out this spring, I pulled the dead rotty bits off the tops, and lo and behold, green leaves sprouted from underneath. So, while the spinach, arugula, italian mustard and turnip greens and broccoli rabe are all just wee seedlings, I’ve got some greens out…
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In my quest for a bread that is slightly more sophisticated than the no-knead bread, but yet, relatively easy to produce on a regular basis, I’ve been playing with Nancy Silverton’s Country white bread recipe. The first one was okay, but I didn’t like the way it baked up. I resisted the temptation to cook it in my Le Cruset pot, and well, the crust was too hard, too thick, and slightly burned on the bottom (I have a baking stone in my oven). Here’s the second try: This second loaf, while quite pretty, is a little tough. The challenge…