makin' good use of CSA produce

This is what happens when you have an overabundance of produce from your local CSA. We've had to think of a great many new uses for root veggies and cabbage.


Our CSA, West Haven Farm, invited shareholders to harvest corn smut this year from the fields. Corn smut aka Mexican truffles aka corn disease aka huitlacoche are apparently a delicacy in parts of Mexico and fancy restaurants in the U.S. The outsides have these nice shades of purple, but when you bite into them, they pop open and the smut kernel's powdery black guts come spilling out. Strange tasting; they turn any dish dingy and leave a dry taste in the mouth. Kind of mushroomy yet slightly corn flavored. We tried them in burritos and with a sausage spaghetti sauce. I have a feeling we harvested too late and suffered the penalty of overly dry, spore-filled galls. Next year I'll be the first in line to pick and eat fresh smut. I guess one can buy them canned in international supermarkets.

Rastafarian and Burmese...bizarre combo

Last week's lab: Rastafarian and Burmese food. Burmese is incendiary, while food of the Rasta is woefully bland (unless you add cannabis oil, the traditional condiment for the culture!)

Burmese (or Myanmar-ese?) basil-pumpkin soup. The "pumpkin" is really butternut squash, since the traditional orange veggie we use for Halloween is indigenous to North America. I don't think it transferred over to Southeast Asia, but I could be wrong...
Prawn salad. Self-explanatory. I'm thrilled we get to requisition all these great ingredients - the shrimp were massive!

My lab is set for the second week of November, and I'll be featuring Filipino food. I'm thinking about procuring the infamous (and terrifying) balut egg. For those unfamilar with the snack, it's a fertilized duck egg best eaten after 7-14 days. Check out deep end dining's detailed blog entry. Warning: brace yourself for small, sickly, bloody baby ducks. Mwa ha ha ha! Actually, given the chance, I might take a small nibble, but I wouldn't dare unwrap the thing., but this means that I'll have to probably take the first bite.

Rastafarian cuisine, is, to put it bluntly, terrible. At least the small sampling we were subjected to. The culture doesn't believe in salt since it's processed, and its people subsist mainly on nuts, grains, fruits and vegetables. No fauna or fish, despite the fact that most constituents of Rasta beliefs live on the ISLAND of Jamaica. Surrounded by fruits of the sea, but not even able to eat a single crab. How sad! Apparently frequent droughts also leave Jamaicans and Rastafarians in dire environments. It must take incredible restraint to not dip into those waters and pull up a briny feast.

This here is groundnut stew, which is essentially peanuts, condensed milk and paprika. No salt, and no flavor. Not exactly mouthwatering. Again, the cannabis oil might help.

grasshoppers, scrapple and other culinary delights

So I'm taking a class in Cornell's Hotel School titled "Seminar in Culture and Cuisine". It's wild - we discuss communality and eating habits around the world, and then actually go into lab and cook all the food. We've had American Southern, Rastafarian and Burmese cuisine in the past two weeks. I've also eaten a number of new comestibles - grasshoppers, scrapple, and tobacco & betel breath freshener mixes. Check out the grub from the first week:

Dandelion salad. Still more of a fan of these leaves when they're cooked. I suppose I haven't developed that acquired taste for really bitter foods yet. The salad made in class was slightly wilted with lots of savory additions (i.e., bacon bits & fat).

Behold my second try at fried chicken! Turned out relatively well, although it could have used more salt and spice. Luckily the recipe requires hot sauce as a condiment, so all other possible rank flavors are masked. My first shot was pathetic - the oil wasn't hot enough and I removed the chicken before it was thoroughly cooked. The result? Slick, greasy, and very raw bird pieces. In a last desperate attempt, I put the mangled chicken in the oven to cook. No miracle ensued, and Tony had to gag down a few token pieces as to not insult me. These, fortunately, were edible and didn't make the class sick.


Frog legs had a yeast batter which left them nice and fluffy but not exactly pleasant when re-heated. I heart amphibians! They're especially delicious eaten with red chili sauce and ketchup. More food and knitting to come soon. The instructor promises we'll cook a turducken at the end of the semester. Exciting!

portland, my dream city

A few photos from the city of roses...



View from the teahouse's second floor at the Chinese Garden.



Pipe sculpture at McMenamin's Edgefield resort in Troutsdale. Nice place, fabulous food, but way too white for me. I mean, the place had a tribute statue of Jerry Garcia! Rock on. Tony and I got a few funny looks from other visitors who turned to gawk at "one of those interracial couples". The restaurant's offerings are to die for, though. Perfectly tender calamari, and peppered lamb chops that literally melted like butter in the mouth.



Japanese-American Memorial Park on the Waterfront.

Almost a year later....

Prompted/guilted into by a family member, I've decided to update the blog after almost a full year. What a waste of web space! I take solace knowing that other worthless blogs out there are still going strong.

The latest finished product I've knitted was months ago. A knitted box from July from: Mason-Dixon Knitting: The Curious Knitters' Guide: Stories, Patterns, Advice, Opinions, Questions, Answers, Jokes, and Pictures.

Kitchen's awaiting...

With the holidays just around the corner, it's high time I start forcing myself to get into the spirit of things. It's strange how as a child you count down the days until Christmas and feel as if you're about to explode from anticipation. Nowadays, exploding sounds like it might make a nice respite from all the pressures of everyday life and holiday preparation...

I paint a grim picture. Actually, things aren't that bad here. It seems, however, each year that passes the holidays creep up on me again and I can't fathom that another year has gone by with such lightning speed.

Received the holiday issue of Gourmet last week and I'm enraptured with their cookie recipes. Thinking about making grasshopper squares, seven-layer Italian almond cookies (also known as 'rainbow cookies'), limoncello for the adult folks, candied citrus, and ginger syrup for the ultimate spicy sweet ginger ale. We'll also no doubt be whipping up multiple batches of the famous Yori Italian 'S' shaped lemon biscuit and perhaps cucchidati (shortbread stuffed with a fig-chocolate mixture).

I'm lacking in photos today. Here's a pic of my new kitchen, all clean and prettied up. It's a rare occasion when we can actually see the countertop amidst the scattered papers and random bowls and containers that gather on its surface.

Husky cherries and sour Montreal farmers

These, my friends, are husk cherries. Didn't know about these little critters until this summer when we spotted them at a farmers' market in Montreal. I thought they were some sort of tomatillo until the seller took one, dehusked it in one firm snap, and popped the bugger in his mouth. The look of surprise on my face caused him to laugh and offer up a sample.

Unpeeled, it looks like a pallid grape with white veins. Taste is sort of nutty and semi-sweet, and the texture is similar to a tomatillo with hundreds of delicate little seeds that wedge their way into teeth crevasses you never knew existed.

Unfortunately, the farmer didn't speak English, and I don't speak French. When I asked what these novel little fruits were called, he turned to his female companion for an answer. She gave Tony and I a quick once-over, huffed and rolled her eyes. "Those are husk cherries, for God's sake!" she said in a thick French-Canadian accent. We got the feeling she wasn't so fond of explaining her wares to unworldly Americans, so we bought a pint and moved on.

I was thrilled to eat food indigenous to Montreal! It was only a few weeks later when I spotted the papery fruits at our own local farmers' market. We scooped up another pint, but they weren't as sweet or satisfying as the ones we bought while traveling in Canada.

BBM3

Hello world! Yet another go at the world of blogging. How do all you blogpeople have so much time to do your entries on a daily or weekly basis? I guess I need to get my priorities straight. That's why I'm doing this at work (heh heh).

So I'm participating in a BBM hosted by Cathy of my little kitchen.

Even without a blog, it needed to be done. Jenn from BeastlySum was kind enough to be one of the quickest package mailers in the West - I hadn't even thought about putting together my package when hers showed up on my doorstep last weekend. Check out her goods! Opening up a box from a stranger can be one of the exhilarating (or frightening, I suppose) things one can do in this lifetime. I was thrilled to be fortunate enough to open such a cool gift from Jenn.

Contents: Jar of homemade fiery pepper jelly, a fun turtle sticker, mint candy reception stick things, jar of Arthur Bryant's famous BBQ sauce, pumpkin pie cheeseball mix (can't wait to try this - I'm fascinated with the cheeseball concept), air-roasted Guatamalan coffee fromThe Roasterie, pumpkin pie spice mix, family recipes including a pastry made with gouda cheese, a photo of her fabulous kitchen, a chai recipe, and much, much more!

I'm so glad I was the recipient of her package. Sorry, Jenn, that I can't do you justice with my modest little blog.


See below for close-up of the pumpkin cheeseball mix and other edible delights.

bloghappy.

Test-bloggin' on blogger.com since I've grown weary of AOL journals and am too cheap to actually shell out money for a real web site (and too lazy to learn proper html!)

See my old site: http://journals.aol.com/shinyeel/moschophaven/

New news: I'm doing a fry up knit along!



Soon this fabulous morning repast will be sitting on my head and hung from my shoulder. Dogs and old British men will swoon when I walk down the street!