Category: food

apples and crisp fall days

pb085402
Big bins of apples.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I love the fall. I especially love fall in New England, with the stunning foliage and trips to pumpkin patches and apple orchards. (And you know we’re big fans of Apples in this household.)

On Sunday we paid a visit to a local apple orchard that has an apple tasting each year.

We’d been apple-picking at this orchard in previous years, but I wasn’t sure what to expect for the tasting. It turns out that it was a very low-key event, with not too many people. But there were a whole lot of apples.

Inside the barn/farmstand building, they had set up a long row of wooden bins, each with a different kind of apple. In front of each bin was a little bowl with apple slices, and attached to each bin was a tag with the name of the variety, and bits of information about the cultivar and its history. I felt like I should have taken notes. (For example, I wish I could remember to tell you which kind was the most popular apple in the US in 1900.)

I knew that the orchard claims to grow over 50 varieties of apples, but I thought they’d perhaps have a dozen or so available to taste. I was quite impressed that they had probably closer to 2 dozen kinds out on display with samples set out for tasting. It turns out the folks at the orchard store apples that are typically only available earlier in the season specifically for the tasting weekend.

In spite of all the varieties, I ended up choosing a couple of bags of some familar apples: Macouns (a Mac variety) and Empires (which I love for making applesauce). And now I should have plenty of apples to make an apple crisp.

pb085384

pb085382 pb085385

pb085405
The orchard has this gigantic walk-in refrigerator. I wish had someone in there for scale.

pb085392
Apples of my eye.

pb085396 pb085399

pb085406
Theo, post-smooch-from-Phoebe.

Sevilla Tapas tour

p9253379
Three glasses of Manzanilla sherry being poured at El Riconcillo, the oldest bar in Sevilla.

I’ve been meaning to share some more stories and photos from our trip to Spain, which was (shockingly) now over a month ago. I have largely given up on sharing a detailed chronlogical account of the trip, so I’ll dive in here.

In Sevilla, my mother and I had the fantastic opportunity to go on a tapas tour with azahar, Sevilla blogger extraordinaire of casa az and Sevilla Tapas. (Yes, you should be jealous. It was an absolutely fantastic evening: the company, the sights and the food could not have been better.)

To make you even more jealous, I thought I’d share with some highlights of our evening. With photos.

We met up with az around 9:30 p.m. on a Friday, after I got Theo settled in for bed. (John was kind enough to be the one to stay home with Phoebe and Theo.) We arranged to meet at a little park near our apartment, which was bustling with folks heading out for dinner, and then walked through Sevilla’s maze of streets and alleys to our destinations. We went to 3 very different places for tapas, each with a distinct charm and menu.

Our first stop was El Rinconcillo, which az tells us is the oldest bar in Sevilla. I loved the decor of the place, which was dominated by dark woods, patterned tiles, and shelves well-stocked with bottles. (Not to mention hanging hams.) We stood at the bar.

Our second stop was Modesto, a more modern, bustling bar-restaurant with friendly waiters and lots of outside tables. (We sat inside at the bar, though.)

Our third and finally stop was La Sal, a charming and elegant small restaurant specializing in fresh seafood dishes. We sat inside at a table by the window.

p9253415
Peering in through the wide open window of El Rinconcillo from the sidewalk.

p9253392 p9253407

p9253383

p9253405 p9253388

p9253391 p9253401

p9253395

p9253412
The bartenders wrote the tabs on the bar in chalk. They’d cross out the numbers once the tab was settled.

p9253432
My glass of sparkling water at Modesto.

p9253434 p9253445
Some olives and az’s beer, and a really big bowl of really big capers.

p9253435
The Land Squid.

p9253450
One of the waiters at Modesto gave us red carnations. Az put one in her hair.

p9253455
Tuna tataki at La Sal. I think the stuff on top was something leeky. The sardines, which az cut in 3 for us to share, are in the background.

p9253457
The very yummy goat cheese salad with carefully halved (not roasted) tomatoes.

p9253459
I liked the way this wine rack glowed, but felt a bit awkward about taking a picture of it while there were people sitting at the table in front of it. Happily, we stayed so late (enjoying the food and conversation) that we were the last ones there!

Az also posted about this night, though in a more timely manner! In case you missed her post back in September, check it out: “girls night out.”

If you want to be tormented by photos and descriptions of delicious food about daily, you might want to follow Sevilla Tapas on twitter. (Or join the Facebook fan page.)

——-
This post is trying to pass itself off as a Monday Mission. The assignment for this week was to write a post in the form of a menu. I actually did such a task once before about 2 years ago, and you should totally go read what I wrote before, because I re-read it, and I cracked myself up. (“cereal: it’s what’s for dinner“) Also, go check out the other Monday Missions at Painted Maypole. The illustrious Painted herself has a brilliantly creative menu posted that I would have liked to have written myself!

roasted caramelized pears

I made a discover recently: I love to roast things. Mostly I roast vegetables, but a couple of months ago, I decided to try roasting pears. Now I have a new food love.

Roasting pears is really easy, and if you use juicy ripe ones, you get the added bonus of caramel flavor without adding even a bit sugar. Here’s what I do:

  1. Start with ripe pears. I like to use Bartlett, once they’ve turned from green to yellow. I find things work best with pears that have gotten somewhat soft, but not totally mushy.
  2. Cut pears in half, peel, and cut/scoop out the cores.
  3. Arrange them flat side down in a single layer in 13×9 glass baking pan, or your roasting pan of preference.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.
  5. When finished, the pears will be lightly browned and the juices that have run from the fruit will have mostly evaporated and caramelized.
  6. Remove the pears from the pan with a spatula. Put a tablespoon or two of water in the baking pan, and stir around with the spatula, scraping the caramel from the bottom of the pan. (You may want to let the pan cool a few minutes first, especially if using a glass pan.) Poor the resulting caramel/juice mixture over your pears, which will absorb most of the liquid.
  7. Serve warm. (I like them as they are, but I imagine they’d be good with vanilla ice cream, as well.) (They’re also pretty good cold, for that matter.)

pb055234
1. The ingredients: some ripe bartlett pears.

pb055240
2. Some pears that have been halved, peeled and cored.

pb055244
3. Pear halves arranged in a baking pan.

pb055245
4. Roasted pears just out of the oven. (Okay, I did add a bit of extra cut-up pear. You don’t want the pan too full, though, or the juices won’t caramelize.)

pb055248
5. Some of the caramelized juices stuck to the pan.

pb055258
6. Roasted caramelized pears, ready to eat.

Spanish toast

A Spanish toast: una tostada con mantequilla y marmelada
A Spanish toast: una tostada con mantequilla y marmelada

Our trip to Spain was full of adventures. We traveled by train, by bus, by air, by boat and by foot and had one rather scary taxi ride. We saw historic landmarks and breathtaking scenery, an ancient palace and some masterpieces of modern architecture, and many more things that I’ll hopefully tell you about soon. Among my favorite memories of the trip, however, are the calm moments we had just enjoying sitting still for a little meal.

In Sevilla, we stayed in an apartment located in a little pedestrian square. A perk of this particular place was that the owner also owned the little bar/cafe down in the square, and breakfast was included in the nightly rate. (I’m ever-so-grateful to az, who helped us pick this place, from among a dizzying array of apartment options.)

Breakfast was served from 7 a.m. till noon. After the first rather stressful morning (during which we found that it didn’t work too well to actually have breakfast downstairs due to the difficulties of wrangling small children out the door before their breakfast, combined with the rush of people breakfasting at the hour of the day coinciding with our ability to get the small children out the door), we found that it was very pleasant to sit outside for a late-morning snack.

The included desayuno consisted of a beverage (such as coffee or cola cao, the Spanish version of hot cocoa), plus fresh squeezed orange juice, and a “tostada.” The tostada was a toasted mini-baguette, which we could get with various toppings. A couple of times, I had my tostada with tomato and olive oil, a popular and tasty Spanish breakfast. Mostly, though, we would get mantequilla y marmelada (butter and jam). The toast was always fresh and hot, and the butter was so sweet and tasty that I rarely added jam. The coffee was excellent, as was the orange juice.

A view of the cafe tables set up in the square.
A view of the cafe tables set up in the square.
The square was shaded by orange trees.
The square was shaded by little orange trees.
The window where we'd order and collect our breakfast. We did, however, need to be cautious as we walked from the cafe window to the tables, as you never knew when a moped might drive along the sidewalk in front of the cafe.
The window where we'd order and collect our breakfast. We did, however, need to be cautious as we walked from the cafe window to the tables, as you never knew when a moped might drive along the sidewalk in front of the cafe.
Phoebe and Theo.
Phoebe and Theo.
Phoebe enjoys the last drops of her hot chocolate.
Phoebe enjoys the last drops of her hot chocolate.
Theo enjoys his crust of bread.
Theo enjoys his crust of bread.

Here’s a little movie of Phoebe and Theo down at the cafe. I warn you that nothing much happens in the movie, but it captures a bit of one of those pleasant mornings.

If I could, I’d go back there in a heartbeat. I’d raise my glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in a toast:

To the pleasures of a tasty mid-morning snack, sitting in a little outdoor cafe, in a little square, on a beautiful day, in a charming old Spanish city.

(Actually, I probably wouldn’t actually say all of that. But this post was inspired by this week’s Monday Mission, which was to post in the style of a toast. I chose to post about toast.)

blueberry breakfast

img_7227

img_7221

photohunter7iqThis week’s PhotoHunt theme is “breakfast.”

These are pictures of Phoebe at breakfast this morning. She’s wearing my mother’s blue beret and eating frozen blueberries. (As in blueberries that are still frozen. She likes them that way. They’re like little blueberry popsicles.)

pink applesauce

My grandmother wasn’t a big fan of cooking. She wasn’t a bad cook, but just didn’t like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. She made food that was, for the most part, pretty uncomplicated. When possible, she would use shortcuts.

For example, when making apple sauce, she wouldn’t peel the apples first. She would just steam them right in their skins, and then mash them in some sort of a ricer. I remember her using some tart apples that grew in her back yard, with skin that ranged from green to light red. The resulting apple sauce would have a bit of a pink tinge to it.

I made apple sauce a few weeks ago with some of the apples that we picked the weekend before. And like my grandmother, I didn’t bother to peel them first. I just quartered up about a dozen of them, and cut the cores out. Then I steamed them in a big pot. When the apples were soft, their flesh just separated right from the skins. I pulled off the skins, and plopped the apples into a food processor. The deep red skins of the Empire apples tinted the resulting sauce to a rich rose color. There was also quite a lot of juice that pooled in the pan, and since I’d used only a bit of water to steam, the juice was not only pink, but really tasty.

Pink apple sauce (and juice) and an Empire apple.
Pink apple sauce (and juice) and an Empire apple.
The rosy apple juice byproduct of steaming unpeeled apples for apple sauce.
The rosy apple juice byproduct of steaming unpeeled apples for apple sauce. (This photo shows the color a bit better, though the light's not as pretty.)

the omnivore’s 100

This is a meme that’s been making the rounds that I couldn’t resist. I mean come on. It’s a list about food. I saw it first chez az, then at magpie’s, and kc’s. It started a few weeks ago at Very Good Taste. (By the way, the original list has lots of wiki links for those who need/want to look things up. There were quite a few items I didn’t know, or know by name.)

Here’s the deal:

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 at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare (Though I did try raw hamburger meat as a kid)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp (in gefilte fish, as Magpie points out)
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or Head Cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam Chowder in Sourdough Bowl (I know I’ve had both, but can’t remember what soup was in my bread bowl…)
33. Salted Lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted Cream Tea
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu (aka pufferfish)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (I’ve had them, just not together)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snails
79. Lapsang Souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose Harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole Poblano
96. Bagel and Lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

So it looks like I’ve tried 50, plus a few partials. Which is pretty high considering I haven’t been quite so omnivorous in my adult life. (I stopped eating most meat-type things when I was 18.) (Actually, many/most of the items I crossed out I did so based on my diet restrictions. It’s a bit strong to say I would “never consider eating them.” I mean, at some point in my life I would have.)

I would also like to propose the following additions to the list, which cover some more geographical territory:
101. poi
102. kimchi
103. vegemite
104. guaraná

signs

I had a marginally eventful day today, with various unrelated things happening that gave me some pause.

  • The first event was being met with this message:

    Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.

    I was just saying last night that I needed to buckle down and get stuff done. And mentioned my “other methods of procrastination.” Well, as it turns out, this was one of them: I’ve been playing a few games of Scrabulous (the Scrabble rip-off) on Facebook with a few friends.¹ It’s not a huge time sink, since a whole day usually passes between turns. But I was usually playing 2 or 3 games. (Okay, and I’ve tried a couple of other word games as well. What can I say? I love to play with words.) But now the makers of Scrabble are suing for intellectual property/copyright infringement (and I can’t say I blame them). So no more Scrabulous for me. And seing as I was just hinting at needing to cut down on my procrastination, this seemed to be a sign. Or perhaps a S₁I₁G₂N₁.

  • This evening I also experienced some more signs that my pregnancy is progressing. I’ve had quite a few (painless) contractions and various other sensations that remind me how little time may be left before the little guy makes his appearance. I’m almost 37 weeks along, and as such, I could go any day now. I’ve sort of been counting on having a few more weeks to get stuff done.
  • The final sign of the day was more unambiguously welcome. A box of brownie mix that has been sitting around for weeks (or months) caught my eye. In particular, the directions calling for 2 eggs. We had eggs for dinner last night, in part to try to finish them up before their expiration date. After last night, we had 2 eggs left. Exactly 2 eggs. Eerie, don’t you think? Add to that a craving for chocolate, a mixing bowl out of the dishwasher and not yet put away, and evening temperatures cool enough to consider turning on the oven, and I ask you: could the universe be sending me a clearer message than that?


    • —-

    Okay, there was one more event that happened today that got me riled up, but I can’t say I took it as any sort of a sign. I got into a bit of an altercation with a truck driver in Boston. He was trying to “help” me out of my parking space (which he, or perhaps another truck driver, had half-blocked me into) by yelling out somewhat useless and conflicting instructions. Which were then supplemented by rather patronizing and sexist comments. I was about ready to engage in fisticuffs. Perhaps I’ll have time to share the full rant later, now that I’ll have gained all that time from abstaining from addictive word games…

    ———-

    Oh, and there was some other good news. A good sign, even, one might say. Phoebe used the toilet at daycare for the first time today. (And second and third.) After my rant just last night. Further, she wore the same diaper home that she left home in. (And no, not due to neglect. Nor due to her stubbornly holding back all day, which did cross my mind.)

    —————-
    ¹ So, az, it looks like I can’t play for a bit. How does this affect Canadians living in Spain, by the way?

    in real life

    As I was saying, we just got home from a grand trip out to California to visit my sister and mother. I hope to share a bit more about the trip soon, but as Jen went and wrote some lovely things on her blog, I wanted to share a bit about our Monday-night visit, too.

    Because, you see, I got to meet Jen (of one plus two), someone who I have long admired (or perhaps hero-worshipped) from afar. Since I won’t be able to go to BlogHer, where Jen and other fine bloggy folks will be gathering next month, and since Jen will be moving to Belize in a few short months, I felt compelled to make the effort to stalk Jen in person while I had the chance. Happily, she was open to being stalked, and even invited us over for dinner.

    Jen is just as warm and beautiful and down-to-earth and magnificent as you might gather from reading her blog. And M and J were equally wonderful and charming. But I got to learn more than that. Jen is also a damn fine cook, and served up some tasty gnocchi with home-made pesto, some fantabulously delicious oven-roasted vegetables, and garlic bread made from bread that she baked herself. The littler diners were served a classic grilled cheese dinner (crust removed upon request) and a big bowl of strawberries. (Phoebe may have eaten more than a few strawberries.)


    Phoebe and M, frightfully cute together.

    Ten o’clock rolled around before we noticed, with our little ones romping and cavorting around us, up well past their bed-times. We stayed later than we’d planned, caught up in comfortable conversations, sitting on the living room floor. We talked about life and work: kids and travel and family, friends and blogging and bloggy friends, non-profits and language and disaster recovery. And a dozen other topics that I can’t even recall.

    This was the first time I have met someone in person who I’d previously only known online. It wasn’t at all awkward, though. Instead, it felt like we were old friends, just picking up the conversation where we’d left off last. Even though, before this meeting, I could have passed Jen on the street without ever recognizing her.

    I’ve thought quite a bit recently about the distinction people sometimes make between online friends and real-life friends. I’ve realized that the distinction is remarkably fuzzy, because the people behind the blogs I read are unquestionably real people. The joys and pains and tidbits they live and share are real, and they affect me in real ways. Through our conversations, the friendships become real.

    Of course, it’s hard to beat the pleasure of getting together with friends in person. Especially when there is real food involved. (So I hope to meet more of you out there, too. I might even cook.)