19 September 09
Apostasy
Before I visited the new Getty Museum in Los Angeles I happened across a New Yorker article on the landscape design for the museum, the famous altercations between architect Richard Meier and the landscape architect Robert Irwin. (Architects can have really big egos, exacerbated to infinity by open purses.) It described cascading gardens that filled hillsides, that echoed and mimicked the chaparral landscape on top of which this great white city (“Oh, it’s just like Jerusalem”) had been plonked, glowering above the 405.
When I got there, eager to see this vast transformation (desecration) of the landscape, I asked a guard how to get to the rest of it. Oh, this is it, he said. It? It seemed tiny compared with what I’d been expecting. No expense had been spared for sure, but it seemed way overwritten. It also seemed way out of scale with the rest of the structures. (To be fair to Irwin, it seems that the number of edifices multiplied over time, while he’d been given an initial set of plans to work from, so it was never going to be to scale.)
Disappointment. Arrgh.*
Most of my friends in Davis rave, rave, rave about the Davis Farmers Market. It was sold to me repeatedly when we were planning to move here. Best in the country, best in the state, biggest, best, best, best. I remember thinking when I first got here well, this is nice, but where’s the rest of it?
It’s probably unfair to compare any farmers market in the U.S. with what I grew up around in Spain and France. The “smelly markets” that made us wrinkle our noses (brats from JFK-era sanitized California supermarkets) filled large warehouses, overflowed from them. Fish, driven in that morning from the coast. Meats. Stalls numbering in the dozens all selling fresh vegetables and fruit, artfully stacked and arranged. They were vast, overwhelming, gorgeous. We took them for granted.
Farmers markets here are a 70s resurgence, a protest, the anti-supermarket. If the Davis one is the biggest and best, I’m not well encouraged to visit others. (Numenius tells me the one in Bloomington he visited in in September was excellent, but that was probably because many of the sellers were Amish, and they never were shopping in supermarkets in the first place.)
So, a typical experience of shopping at the DFM: I look around. I try and fit what I see into an ensemble that will work for lunch or dinner. (We only eat organic veggies and my choices here are limited to about 3 or 4 stalls, so the comparison is even more unfair, but still.) I can never quite find what I’d envisaged. I buy things anyway. They go into my bike basket and I have just spent $30 on stuff I didn’t plan on buying, without finding what I needed, so I bike over to the Coop to get the rest. Invariably. Every time.
The Davis Food Coop happens to sell produce from the three local organic growers who show up on Wednesdays and Saturdays at the Farmers Market. It also sells produce from about 8 other local organic growers. And about 12 other not-so-local ones. I never leave there unable to find what I went in for. Sure, it’s really a supermarket. But it’s also a community in which I’m invested.
This morning I will go to the Farmers Market, hauling along Sweet Caroline my new spinning wheel for Spin in Public day. (Not on my bike, but when a bag arrives next week for my wheel, this will not be out of the question.) I will run into, probably, 25 people I know (more if they come in more than one at a time). I will joke and laugh and revel in the community that convenes in the Central Park area of Davis every Saturday and Wednesday. I may buy lunch. I may even buy flowers. But I will probably not, apostate that I am, buy produce. They may revoke my citizen of Davis card…
* Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.9 August 09
A Fine Day By The Bay
We went on an wonderful outing today to the Giants game in San Francisco, escaping the heat for a pleasant sunny SF day with the fog content to hang just outside the Gate, taking a lovely ferry ride from Vallejo direct to the ballpark, meeting up with our friend Barbara at the game and returning back to Davis with her, and best of all, watching the Giants come from behind and beat the Cincinnati Reds 4-2 in convincing fashion! The bullpen was solid, unlike last night’s meltdown.
I hope everybody’s Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbors’ Porch Day went according to plan.
10 June 09
In Search of the Cachapa
I went to a retirement party on Sunday, a friend who has worked in communications for sustainable agriculture and who gathered her various communities at her home. We spilled out into the Village Homes common area, laughed, talked, caught up. I’ll miss her searing intelligence, cheek (well, chutzpah), and questioning in meetings, her role as chief bullshit detector…
One of the delicious morsels served at Lyra’s party was carrot cachapas. Cachapas are Venezuelan pancakes usually made with fresh corn. Corn’s not quite available here, fresh, so the chef at Tuco’s used carrot puree instead. They were tiny carrot pancakes encasing a fresh goat cheese (which didn’t taste goaty in the slightest; I was surprised to learn it, and I have a very strong goat-sensor), like a sandwich.
They were incredible. I am going to try to replicate them, kind of smooth carrot latkes with cheese…
21 May 09
Even The Petals Are Edible
Our guava bushes are blooming profusely!
8 November 08
Maine
I’m in Maine, here to visit family before the snow flies. I’ve been making sushi with my nephew this evening, which I consider to be a step up from when I did this four years ago… photos will appear when I can figure out how to do it.
At some point I’ll describe what it was like to travel across the country sitting next to two young evangelical christians, one of whom wore Sarah Palin glasses, on the day after the election…
Update: finished the socks, which I gave to my sister who is modeling them.
5 November 08
Onion Soup
Following an election night tradition she learned from Arthur Goldhammer, Pica made and brought onion soup to an election party we had over at Mary’s this evening. We’re all verklempt at the result.
1 October 08
New Dish
The pomegranate tree I planted a couple of years ago has born fruit. Two fruits, to be precise. One of them was split open today: you KNOW we had to eat it.
I had some squash cooking in the solar cooker — it was cloudy this afternoon which got in the way of success, here, but got it started. Add to this the farro (heirloom wheat; emmer is a good substitute) I cooked like barley and the sorrel I parboiled down, and done. A little basil found its way in there. The pomegranate’s tartness was offset by the sweet squash; the sorrel’s light lemony taste did away with the need for a dressing. I wish we’d had a little salty cheese but maybe next time.
1 September 08
Paella
It’s been a long time since I’ve made a paella, not since before I left Boston. But it’s a great dish for a crowd (my sister regularly makes it for 25+ people). I no longer have my mother’s paella dish that fed I think 20, but when we were in Berkeley at the Spanish Table recently we picked up a more modest one. The key is that you have to be able to apply even heat to the full base of the pan, so the limiting factor is the size of your burner, not how many friends you want to invite along.
We returned to Berkeley today to Numenius’ sister’s and cooked the paella on their barbecue, which could, in retrospect, have accommodated a 50-person dish. It was a success, despite having left the lemon wedges in the fridge and the miscommunication about the alioli (I should probably have made it myself before leaving for Berkeley but oh well).
Paella: it’s all about the stock. I’m looking forward to making it again.
28 August 08
Foods I've eaten
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros I will never eat fried eggs in any guise
4. Steak tartare (And she says she’s a vegetarian)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue The last time I ate this was New Year’s Eve sometime in the 70s. It was a bad idea.
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
17. Black truffle not sure what the fuss is?
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Yuk.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream From the great Italian ice cream place on the Castellana in Madrid in the 70s
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras On New Year’s Eve in Paris in 1982. Accompanied by the inevitable French handwringing about what a terrible thing it was to do to geese. I became vegetarian that night.
24. Rice and beans Often. I never get tired of them.
25. Brawn, or head cheese You’ve got to be bloody kidding.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper Too sweet. Oh, and very very hot.
27. Dulce de leche Made by hand in Argentina!
28. Oysters for comment, see 25
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl Yuk apart from the bread
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar I think so. I’ve done both but not sure if together and there are good reasons for not knowing.
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail only in soup
41. Curried goat at a Jamaican wedding
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk – no, goat cheese under suffrance.
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more – whisky is lost on me, cheap or expensive
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi yum.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle A swiss friend made them. I didn’t like them much.
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores yes. As a girl scout in Spain where all the ingredients were bought on the black market. Pathetic, isn’t it.
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian – no, often wondered about it.
66. Frogs’ legs Catalunya.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake Beignets in New Orleans, Churros throughout many a Spanish summer evening
68. Haggis Nope.
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho making it tonight
72. Caviar and blini it’s wasted on me
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill Pheasant. Not killed by me, but killed on the same year in the same county as I first passed my driving test.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie – not knowingly but how would you know?
78. Snail Oh, that texture.
79. Lapsang souchong Oh, that taste.
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict overrated.
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant — I don’t think so, just 2 star…
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash I first developed an antipathy to hungarian paprika here. It’s too harsh for me.
88. Flowers Sigh, yes, Napa Valley: you can’t escape them.
89. Horse See Steak Tartare, above. What can I say?
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam even battered, in boarding school. Pudding was spotted dick.
92. Soft shell crab Not keen
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish blackened only
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox under suffrance. The lox, that is.
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake snakes are holy.
28 August 08
Amaranth in Bloom
The mystery plant which Ron correctly identified as as an amaranth is now blooming, thanks in part to the alfalfa field recently being flood irrigated.
Meanwhile, Pica’s solar garden cooking has been highlighted on the blog Veggie Meal Plans: she has a guest post for a recipe for aduki bean and quinoa stew cooked in a solar oven here.