Not with a bang but a whimper

by Lisa

Transitions, change, saying goodbye. There's no way to express the emotion with cohesion and clarity.

In a few months, I'll be leaving for Chicago. And I have friends moving on, as well, to other things, and places: China, Guatemala, marriage. I'm not quite sure what it looks like to say goodbye, because what is going and what/who is staying has become so confuddled, diffused like an electron cloud. Because I can say that I'm leaving Berkeley, but I'm also taking parts of it with me. And of course, whenever I return to it in future visits, it won't be the same.

Berkeley, you have been good to me. Rough, too. The city, the classes, the people, the bus lines, the restaurants (oh, the restaurants), the noise, the strangers. I think I will miss you.

I started to make a mental list of things I should do before I leave Berkeley, like Eat At Cheeseboard For A Week Straight So That I Get Too Sick Of It To Miss It, things like that. Or, dine downstairs at Chez Panisse, eat at À Côté, appreciate Berkeley Bowl. All those concrete things are good, they're easy to measure, and to check off a list. But how do you make sure you've spent enough time with your closest friends, and made sure they know that you've appreciated their friendship? That you don't know what you would have done if they hadn't been there to see you through your hardest moments, when there couldn't have been enough Kleenex boxes around, or minutes to sit together in the silence before you both had to get back to the paper that was due the next day? That through the sacrifices of their time, love, and lives, they've challenged you to be the best you could be, that they weren't afraid to tell you that you needed to change - to prune a part of yourself - for the better? That you're going to miss the way they imitate and mock you; or the way they complete your sentences, and you, theirs?

Portland stole my heart

by Stephanie


It is such a beautiful place. 2 weeks later, I'm still in awe. (Let's not focus on the fact that it's taken me 2 weeks to post.) It's so green! So laid back! So many Subarus! (By the way, the last point does not really excite me at all. It was just an observation.) Anyway, enough with the parentheses, I'm sure you want the dirt on Portland.

The thing is, there is no dirt. Well, none that I saw. Locals were so nice to my roommate and me when we looked lost; the coffee was bordering on Blue Bottle status, and Powell's is a 4 story bookstore that takes up an entire city block. Why did I leave you Portland, why.

My World Cup Coffee cafe au lait...delightful.

Flowers at the Portland Farmer's Market, located at Portland State University on Saturdays. There was a hyper-abundance of tulips and poppies, which made me oh so happy. The roommate and I made a lunch out of chive pesto, a demi-baguette, Bosc pears, and a huge cookie for dessert.

Next up was Reed College, where I hung around in hopes of running into Donald Miller. (Mark my words; next time we meet for sure.)

There is this gorgeous lake behind the campus that provides the perfect backdrop for quiet contemplation and the like. I had a really hard time capturing with my camera how lovely the atmosphere is here. My soul felt quiet and at rest.



You can wikipedia Renn Fayre if you're curious...just another crazy differentiating feature that separates Reed from pretty much every other college campus in the world.

"Hi, our name is adorable Portland doggie chocolates! Take us home with you!"

This is the last picture I took before my camera battery pooped out on me. I consider Saint Cupcake amazing because I actually loved the cupcake frosting. I really don't like frosting, so this was huge.

Oh Portland, thank you for a lovely time. I will be back; a gem of a city like you is too good to ignore for long.

Speaking of food disasters...

by Lisa

Well, I wasn't really planning to write about my chocolate pudding disaster, because, for one, I'm not even supposed to write about it (I'm leaving that for Stephie), even though I've already written about it here and there. But I realized tonight when eating my fifth serving, I don't think I've had a disaster as delicious as this one. And since I didn't actually follow the recipe (do I ever?) I don't feel so bad writing about it. I can still let Steph take credit for the real recipe.

So a few weeks ago I made the pudding for the first time in a long time when I got these new dessert glasses (I think they're these ones; they look like the ones at Bittersweet and I looove them!). And that turned out well; see pictures in previous post. We stood around eating it. "Boozy," one person noted. "Yeah," the others agreed. "It is?" I chirped. But really, I didn't think it tasted boozy, per se - the alcohol only worked to cut the sweet a tad, which there was little to begin with, which I like. But to be honest, I felt embarrassed for not having noticed how boozy it was because one, I should have a discerning palate - I'm a food blogger! - and two, I've been trying to defend myself against the outrageous and unfounded claims that I'm an alky.

My friends call me The Alky, but I know that deep down inside they really actually appreciate it. In fact, these inklings were confirmed when Anna asked if, for her 23rd birthday, I would make "the boozy pudding." (Wait, did she ask, or did I just offer? Can't remember. I was sober then - really, I was.)

Anyway, I was all ambitious about making a huge batch of it, so there I was, pouring loads of milk into the saucepan, thinking, I want to make lots of pudding, and that requires lots of milk. (Was I trying to make it so that the rum could not claim to comprise most of the pudding as regards the liquids? No, not at all, not at all.) And then of course I didn't really have enough of the other ingredients to match the proportion. It didn't take long to figure out that it wasn't going to set, so I ended up throwing the bowl of liquidy goop in the freezer. I remember thinking it looked (and tasted) like melted ice cream (which foreshadows what was to come). Not exactly what I would expect of any pudding.

I was devastated, but instead of drowning all my sorrows in alcohol - after all, it had all gone into that pudding, anyway - I gave it one last chance to redeem itself. After giving it time to harden up, we popped it into the microwave and defrosted it slightly. Two minutes later it was as scoopable as ice cream, and twice as delicious. Redeemed, I thought. I almost wasn't sure I'd ever make the pudding the right way anymore. Spooned into a stemless martini glass with a dollop of whipped cream, it was enough to make up for a lifetime of cooking disasters. Ice-y, chocolatey rich, creamy, and most of all, boozy.

So, yeah, in true Lisa form, in order to make what I made, you can't really follow a recipe. But if you, too, want to enjoy an adult fudgsicle made from a pudding recipe gone wrong, you can try doing what I did, which is this: boiled three cups (i.e., way too much) milk, to which I added about 10 ounces chopped 70% cacao chocolate after turning off the heat. Threw this into the blender with only two eggs, poured half of it into a bowl, and added an additional egg to the blender, and poured the remainder in a separate bowl. Added generous amounts of alcohol. Despaired and whined. Threw bowls into freezer, then the microwave. Scooped, ate, and cheered. Hooray!

You know you're slightly addicted to food blogging when...

by Stephanie

...you create an absolute disaster in the kitchen and your first thought is "Do I want to blog about this?"

Readers, I feel like I am not that uptight of a person. My room is usually an organized mess, minus the organized part, and you know, I enjoy going with the flow and laughing at what happens along the way. But last Saturday night...oh goodness. A veritable disaster. My mother put me in charge of the Easter dessert, and I had all these visions in my head of a 13-layer cake complete with sugared pansies and the most perfect fondant hands could create. Kidding. But I did have the ambition to make a marble cake, and that all came crumbling (ha) down when my mom took the cake out of the oven 20 minutes before it was due to be done and called out, "Honey...I can't get it out of the pan." The cake was completely rock hard. I went over the recipe later, which called for milk in the ingredient list but never included when it was to be added in the procedure part...and so I completely forgot about it and never included the milk. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Talk about perfectionism rearing its ugly head. I have never been so upset about failure before. Baking is my thing. I don't do the whole botched cake thing. Was the world coming to an end?

At my wit's end (it was 1:30 am, people), I decided to make the brownie recipe on the back of the King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour bag. And they were wonderful indeed. I suppose even failures can be fortuitous at times. Because when push comes to shove, even a 13-layer cake can't top a hot fudge brownie sundae on Easter Sunday.

(according to the King Arthur flour bag) The Best Fudge Brownies Ever

1 cup butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt (inc. to 1 tsp if using unsalted butter, which you should be doing anyway)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour (the good stuff, none of this whole wheat stuff, seriously)
2 cups chocolate chips (I chopped up one 4 oz. bar and got too tired to do the rest. It was still good)

Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan.

In a saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter, then add the sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the heat briefly, just until it's hot but not bubbling. It'll become more shiny as you stir. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl.

Stir in the cocoa, salt, baking powder, and vanilla. Add the eggs, beating until smooth; then add the flour and chocolate, beating until well combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 28-30 minutes or until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.

No pictures from that little event, but here are pretty flowers from the City! Specifically, Bi-Rite Market (adorable).

We've waited long enough

by Lisa

Wow. It's been a long time, friends. Almost a whole month has gone by without us saying even a word. Is anyone still there?

I've been thinking about you, readers, and have wanted to tell you about recent adventures. A lot of important things have been happening around here. One, I made my first hummus from scratch - well, almost from scratch. (Thanks, Soofie!) Two, Steph and I finally (two years later!) made the Salmon in Lemon Brodetto with Pea Puree and had the most wonderful dinner party ever, hands down - mostly because of the creative and hilarious company. (What could be more fun than giving each other piggyback rides around a tiny apartment after eating a delicious meal topped off with chocolate pudding pie?) Three, I ventured out to Blue Bottle - what else is there to be said?


But what I come to bring you today is these to-die-for biscuits. Actually, just hours before, I had made Steph's chocolate pudding (a pot de creme of sorts), but kinda felt guilty blogging about that. It is her recipe, and she still needs to write about it; after all, who do I call every time I forget the three ingredients that go into it? I wonder: did I make these biscuits out of penance? I really still don't like to bake, even though I often get all kinds of urges to do so; where they come from, who knows. But I was kind of hungry, and it's nice to have a motivation to do something I do/n't want to do. I knew I could, for at least a few minutes, trick myself into thinking I enjoy baking if I knew I could eat the result before no time at all. That's what quickbreads are for, no?


After cutting out the shapes (hearts, I know, I'm a softie - what can I say?), I wasn't quite sure what to do with the scraggly edges that remained. I'd tuned out almost everything I'd heard about baking, but I vaguely remembered that it's not a good idea to overwork dough that you want to be flaky. So, tossing the remainders on the baking sheet along with the nicely cut shapes, my roommate Anna teases, "Wow, Lisa. You really don't have much patience for baking, do you?" Hey, hey. I'm just trying make flaky biscuits, okay?


We enjoyed the dinosaur-shaped pieces with honey, watching the pieces as though figuring out what shapes the clouds were forming. Okay, not really. We were busier consuming them than thinking up such romantic notions, but I'm a writer - I feel like I have to say idealized things like that.

But without further ado, let me give you the recipe; I've waited long enough and probably so have you. And, Stephie, I promise to make you a whole tray of them, to make up for making the pudding and these, without you here!

Heart and Dinosaur Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter (I used 1T less than a stick)
3/4 cup half-and-half (you could also use cream, buttermilk, milk)

Preheat oven to 425. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut cold butter into pieces, and using a pastry blender (highly recommended!), work the flour mixture with your hands or a pastry blender until it resembles pea-sized crumbs. (Alternatively, if you are without a pastry blender, you can use two knives, or your fingers to cut the butter into the dry ingredients.) Pour in liquid and stir a few times to mix. Turn onto a floured surface, and knead once or twice in order to bring it together. The dough should be sticky, resist the temptation to add too much more flour, but you can if you need to. Dust a rolling pin with flour and roll dough to half-inch thickness. Using a floured cookie cutter, cut biscuits. Place biscuits (and the edges, if you want dinosaurs/clouds) on a parchment paper on a baking sheet, next to each other, so that they rise up instead of out. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until the tops are golden. Makes 10-12 biscuits.

Birthdays all around

by Lisa

I don't know how it started, but last summer I made a goal for myself to learn how to cook Indian food. Maybe it started because Indian food occupies a lot of my mind space. Whenever I go see my parents, I cast my vote for Indian. It's something I grew up eating, since my family is from Malaysia and the cuisine there is almost as much Indian as it is Chinese. And it's not uncommon on the way back from class or work for me to call Naan 'n' Curry to order a piece of naan or container of rice. (Yes, they are programmed on my phone.) On top of all that, two of my good friends (one of whom also posts to this blog) wrote a song about the dreamy curry guy at the Naan 'n' Curry down the street. (It's called, well, Dream Curry Guy: The Spicy Remix.) Regardless of how it all started, the point is: I did it! I learned how to make Indian food. I shared a chana masala recipe a few months ago, and here I am back with more.


My best friend, Elizabeth, turned a year older this week. For her birthday, she asked if we could cook together and if I would teach her to make my Chicken Tikka Masala. We used to cook a lot together when we were in college (I say that like it was so long ago), and since it was something both of us missed and treasured, I happily agreed.

We actually tried making it a few weekends ago when we were at her parents' place. I looked up a few recipes and they all looked complicated. I ended up making a hybrid of a few recipes. We broiled the chicken, but in later versions, I found it unnecessary to do that; pan frying was enough for me. For me, at least, it's all about the cream sauce. My version is a little more spiceful than what I've had in restaurants. While I told you above that we ate Indian food often while growing up, I had never had Tikka Masala until I came to Berkeley. When I first had it, it didn't seem authentic to me - it seemed too starter, almost like vodka cream sauce. (Not that that's a bad thing or anything... just not authentic seeming.) So it's funny that my version is more spiceful than even I like, at least for Tikka Masala. It's just that it feels so wrong to cook something so plain. You'll have to play around with it on your own and see what you like, and/or visit the dreamy curry guy at N and C. So far we've discovered that he's most often guarding the cashier on Sunday nights.

Additionally, I recently added Making Rice On the Stove to The List of Lisa's Deviations from the Chinese Culture (the first item relating my use of a fork, and not chopsticks, to scramble eggs). I posted a recipe for spiced rice below, and you can also do it similarly in the rice cooker. And don't forget to call your local curry house for some fresh naan.

--

I came home one day and these little beauties had been baked. (Happy birthday, Justin!)


Oh, man. Is it okay for me to even like these things? I mean, I have a food blog, guys. I'll give you one if you don't tell anyone I like them. In fact, have a whole tray. (Except for the three I already ate.)


Maybe you've stuck with me so far (even through those pink things) because you're wondering what the question of the week is. It's a spin-off an icebreaker question I was asked at my work meeting. (Yes, I got a job!) I'm part of a team that addresses staff development/training at the University, so the question was: "If you could have a magical pillow for one night that could teach you anything you wanted to know, what would you want to learn? And how would your life be different after that?" So my spin-off is this:

If you could learn any one type of cuisine overnight, what would it be?

You already know mine.



Relatively Easy Chicken Tikka Masala

2 chicken breasts, diced

Marinate in:
1/2 cup yogurt
juice from half a lemon
salt and pepper
around 1/2 teaspoon each: ground cumin, coriander, tumeric, other spices as you wish (cayenne pepper, paprika, nutmeg, cinnamon)

1 medium onion, diced
1/2 inch ginger, minced or sliced
1 small jalepeno, seeded (or not), minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
additional ground spices

1 small can tomato sauce (8 ounces)
1 cup cream

Marinate chicken, overnight if possible, but while prepping sauce will be just fine. I have a hard time giving measurements, since I just grab from the spice set I got.

Heat a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pan (preferably not non-stick) over medium heat. Add cumin seeds and cook until they begin to sizzle and pop, a few seconds. Add the onion and saute about 10 minutes; don't be afraid to let them get a little brown/caramelized. Add jalepeno, garlic, and ginger and cook for a few more minutes. At this point, throw in any additional spices (e.g., dried ginger if you don't have fresh, more clove if you like it, etc.) and fry until fragrant.

Add entire can of tomato sauce and stir; it seems to help clean up the bits that stick to the pan. Then add cream, stir, and heat.

In a separate pan (I like to use non-stick for this part), add few tablespoons oil to pan, and heat to high. Sear the chicken cubes. They don't have to completely cook here, since they can continue to cook in the sauce; breast meat tends to overcook quickly, so don't overdo it. When the chicken is done, throw it into the sauce.

Let sauce simmer on low or medium low until ready to serve.

Serve with rice, naan, yogurt, cilantro, lemon slices, tomatoes.


Indian Spiced Rice

3 cups long-grained rice, unwashed (I use Jasmine, but would like to learn how to do it with Basmati)
5 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1 pod cardamom
3-4 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 inch ginger smashed

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon tumeric

Combine first set of ingredients in pot. Bring to boil, covered, then reduce to low and let cook for 15-25 minutes until water is absorbed. Avoid the temptation to lift the lid and check; it needs the steam to cook, and the water is pre-measured for this. When it's finished, stir in butter and tumeric. You can also add chopped flat-leaf parsley.

The challenge

by Lisa


So, today I face a challenge. No, it's not Can I Eat More Bananas Than My Housemates? (The checker at TJ's asked me, when scanning the second batch of 12 bananas in a month, "Do you live in a zoo?" Last time I checked, no. )

No, it's a lot more serious than that. Steph emailed me yesterday morning, providing the stats on our blog. Exactly three posts every month since we launched - no standard deviation on that mean. She said, "You have two days to post. Go!" (Thank goodness for leap years.)

It didn't take long to figure what I could write about. Because most of my brain space these last few days has been occupied by another challenge I had been facing. I was asked to cook for a dinner party for seven. Not a difficult task, under usual circumstances. But when I thought about those in attendance, I realized one of them had given up meat for Lent. Not a big deal, I frequently cook vegetarian. But add to that two lactose intolerants (one of whom also gave up sweets for Lent) and another who is deathly allergic to nuts, and there go a few good stand-bys like quiche, quiche, and quiche. Also, having recently read Smitten Kitchen's gracious post, I wanted to make Rachael Ray's You Won't Be Single For Long Vodka Cream Sauce. (My two cents' on RR is, well, simply this: Steph's amazing chocolate pudding is from her.) In any case, alas - vodka cream sauce contains, well, cream. Another no-go for the attendees.


So, anyway, the dinner. I was excited about this one. On the menu was a fellow foodblogger's Accidental Chickpea Soup, a Great Big Salad with Tomatoes and Cucumbers, Dessert Stolen From Someone Who Stole It From Cesar. For appetizers, crusty bread with all kinds of yummy tapenades: roasted garlic in warmed olive oil, parsley pesto but without almonds (it's official - I'm obsessed), sun-dried tomatoes, buttered mushrooms.


The dessert idea is so killer - figs and dates quartered and arranged in a flower pattern against white dishware with a dollop of lemon zest marscapone, drizzled with honey, garnished with an almond.

And, on a whim, I decided to use the lemon curd I made the night before (which I made for no other reason than just to make it), to make a lemon tart not unlike this one. For the curd itself, I used a hybrid of a few recipes I found, and I liked how it turned out - not too much sugar so that it's tart/sour enough to surprise you but not too sourface sour, if that makes sense. Maybe you'll just have to make it yourself. I think you'll like it, too.

Of course, getting to use my cake dome was really the highlight of it all. And the new pitcher. Oh, the new pitcher.


Two other things that made smile this week:

One. At Trader Joe's they were giving away balloons to the kids. I watched as what looked like a four-year-old girl tell her two-year-old brother, "Don't let go." As though the period at the end of her sentence were a cue, the little boy released his balloon just as she finished. The green balloon floated to the ceiling. I laughed out loud.

Two. On a more serious note, the other thing that made me smile this week was the rad sunset on Tuesday night. I think God uses these to remind me that He's in control. About a year-and-a-half ago I remember watching a sunset and sensing Him say to my heart that I don't lift a finger to make such a beautiful thing happen; can I not, therefore, trust Him to make a beautiful thing of all my life?

What two things made you smile/laugh this week?


(Thank you to my dear friend, David, for taking photographs tonight when I was without Elizabeth's point-and-shoot, the only camera with which I have any amount of familiarity.)


Here's a recipe for the tart; it's very flexible, so use your intuition and vary as you go!

Tart with chocolate and lemon curd

Tart:
1 prebaked tart
a handful or two of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Curd:
5 egg yolks plus 1 egg
1/2 cup lemon juice (~4-5 lemons)
zest from lemons (~1 tablespoon)
1/2 cup baker's sugar
5-8 tablespoons of butter

In a small saucepan, whisk together eggs, lemon juice, zest, and sugar. Heat on medium heat and continue to whisk constantly for about 8-10 minutes as it thickens. At some point, switch to a rubber spatula and continue to stir until it coats the back of the spatula, or you can run your finger through and it holds.

Remove from heat and stir in butter, a tablespoon at a time. Place saran wrap directly on surface to prevent skin from forming and refrigerate.

Place chocolate chips on tart. Place in warmed oven for a minute or so until chips begin to melt. (This works well when you've just baked the tart and the oven is already warm.) Remove and spread chips into a layer of chocolate. (I just used a butter knife; a spatula will do, too.) Refrigerate entire tart for a few minutes to cool.

Spread curd on top of tart with chocolate. Refrigerate some more. Garnish and serve!