Blackberries break on through

by Stephanie

So I’ve now been in this country for close to two months now. 54 days to be exact. It’s so hard to really explain to you over the internet what it feels like to not live in the US, to not be constantly surrounded by the comforts I think are home. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I really have nothing to compare it to. Even my update newsletter, which is supposed to be this grand sweeping exegesis detailing succinctly exactly what I’ve been doing for the month of September, is pretty shoddy because it’s just so hard to describe the sights, the sounds, the smells. Oh the smells. They run the gamut from freshly fried “donuts” right outside our apartment in the morning to garbage...lots and lots of garbage. Everywhere, everywhere. Okay, not everywhere (as evidenced by the photo above), but do not be deceived; there is a lot.

But what comes most to mind right now is something I received right before I left home way back in late August. You see, I’m kind of picky about the types of fruit I will eat (and up until now, most berries have been on the no list), and so when I discovered last summer that I actually enjoy the gentle sweet/sour flavor of the blackberry, I felt victorious and freed from my former habits. Modesto blackberries are awesome. And these berries taught me a few lessons before I left home this past August.

One thing I’ve noticed about blackberries is that inevitably a few of them will bruise and smoosh in your bag/bowl/fridge. These are the softer, riper ones. They are also, as I have found, dramatically sweeter than the firmer ones, and infinitely more wonderful in my opinion. To be frank, my life is a little bit of a mess right now. Somehow, the harrowing questions of What I will do with myself next year? and How I will go about doing that? eclipse the beauty of the moment, this year in Asia. There also exist the strange little things that creep around in the burrows of my heart that whisper, What if you’re not ready for that? or Seriously? (That one is more prevalent than I would like.) Add to that the utter confusion that generally accompanies one’s entry into a foreign land completely different than one’s own, and I can say that my life, right now, feels like it’s taken a small beating. I know I’m better for it, though. (Process of growing up, I see you! Don’t even try to hide.)

Another element of growing up is learning how to be fully responsible for the stuff you have to do. Sounds easy, but obviously since the vast majority of people are still incapable of doing this, I have wiggle room. The night before I left, I was in a frantic rush trying to pack all the things I should have tucked away about a week before (procrastination a giant barrier to the aforementioned element of growing up). My mom knew what a difficult time I was having trying to wrangle a year’s worth of belongings into a mere two suitcases. So when she showed up in my doorway with a bowl full of consolatory end-of-summer blackberries, I started to cry. Not the heaving sobs type, but the pathetic tiny sniffles that mean only one thing: I am not going to see my mommy for a year, and I will miss her.

Joy comes unexpectedly

by Stephanie

Whether you're actively looking for them or not, life's little surprises will get you--oh, they will. Some are good and some are wrinkle-your-nose not-so-good, but the joys produced by the first kind tend to override the disappointments of the others. Good thing too--I have wallowed more than my fair share in my various clouds of melancholia. But when joy, wonder, unexpected blessings shine their way into my life, I can do nothing but gaze skyward and whisper, "Thank you thank you thank you thank you" (who says that prayers have to be complicated?)

This past weekend the family took a little trip to the Monterey Bay region. The ocean (and other related scenery) were gorgeous as always, although the food is always the star of the show. A new (to me) spot was La Bicyclette, a place where the salad/soup are family-style but you have your own entree--I had the most luscious carrot soup of my life as well as this fabulous pot of chocolate mousse (they claim it's for 2, but I'll claim that it could be for 8 and I ate at least 6.5 persons' worth...) The interior was so cute and cottage-y, and did I mention the chocolate mousse was unbelievable? Okay. I love Carmel. And I love La Bicyclette so much I didn't mind too much that we didn't go to my favorite restaurant probably in the whole world, Casanova, this time around.

Things I've attempted: choux pastry (it never rises like I want it to! Why?!), these infamous cookies which I saw featured on this blog, quite probably the biggest food blog influence in my life. Lisa's too. (We like to pretend we are on a first name basis with the author and her husband...of course we're weird!) The cookies were amazing. I will now let all my cookie dough rest at least 24 hours before baking. However, that does allow a lot more time for the dough to be eaten and not baked...

Some less-than-great surprises: a little car mishap in Berkeley that is resulting in a very large price tag, Sylvester my cactus dying, but most salient right now is this. (Before you start to narrow your eyes in disgust that I even mention the S-word of coffee on this hallowed ground, please know that not all of us grew up in places with an abundance of cafe culture. Starbucks introduced me to espresso when I was just a silly junior high kid with no concept of coffee. It also enabled me to see that there is much better out there.) But back onto the topic. I did not care a ton about 600 Starbucks stores closing, but then I took a closer look at the list and was promptly saddened. First, there is the Standiford & Tully store closing, which miffed me a little because it is spacious and happy and orange and the closest place to home. But then...the Berkeley Shattuck & Cedar store, nicknamed "the faraway Starbucks" by yours truly, the site of so many memories...I am sad to see it go. It was a place of retreat for me, where lots of hangout with friends and Jesus and even studying happened. It was also the place where Lisa found out she would be a hot 50 year old woman...dearest faraway Starbucks. I suppose this is one of those times when I just need to buck up and realize that Berkeley is not obligated to stay the same, in fact can't stay the same...but I can look back on all the very wonderful times and take joy in all of them.


update: In addition to a dead cactus, my mother and I also managed today to kill our fish. We were cleaning his water and he managed to jump out of the bowl and into the sink. I had to turn the disposal on him. Hoping there is joy somewhere to be found here...

If we dare say so ourselves

by Lisa

Really, I don't have much I want to say today except that Sarah and I made a potato salad this weekend which we quickly declared was The Best Potato Salad We've Ever Had.

Okay, maybe I have a few pictures, too. We had some burgers,


did some cartwheels (more like, As Many As We Could Possibly Do Before Feeling Ill),


tossed around a frisbee,


and laid around like kittens.


But really, the most important thing we did, honestly, was make and eat that potato salad. Okay, fine. Maybe that was second to hanging out with each other. And eating burgers. And doing cartwheels and playing frisbee. And sleeping like kittens. But still. It was darn good.

It was so good I'm tempted to go buy more potatoes right now. Even though it's July 7th. And we're not having a picnic for dinner tonight.


The Best Potato Salad We've Ever Had
adapted by Lisa and Sarah, from The Silver Palate

My favorite foods to make are those which don't depend on exact measurement, but rather require intuition and experimentation. So, as usual, please don't stick to what I've written here. Taste along the way (how could you not?) and adjust to your preference. You're bright. (You certainly will be after making and eating this baby.)

8 red potatoes, washed, peels left on
3 hard boiled eggs*, chopped

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2-4 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2-1/4 red onion, diced small
1 or 2 stalks green onion, chopped thin
handful of chopped Italian parsley

splash of white wine vinegar
splash or two of olive oil
salt and lots of fresh ground pepper

Boil potatoes whole in salted water until tender but still firm. Boil eggs as instructed below. In a bowl, stir together diced vegetables with mayonnaise and the rest of the ingredients, except last three ingredients. Roughly chop eggs when they are done. When potatoes are done, slice them roughly and sprinkle still-hot potatoes with vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix into mayonnaise mixture.

Eat. Enjoy. Rinse. Repeat.


*Tried and true method: Add cold water to pot with eggs, bring to boil, covered. With pot still covered, turn off heat and set timer for 5-7 minutes (depending on how cooked you like them). Drain, and run cold water over them until to stop cooking and cool eggs. Also, older eggs (i.e., purchased a week ago or so) peel more easily, so plan ahead if you can.

There is no theme to this post

by Stephanie


It seems that I haven't posted in over 2 months. Thanks, Lisa, for picking up my pathetic slack. Hmm, let's see, the excuses for the absence: I graduated from college (note the ceremonial leis), moved back home, am currently working on raising support to go overseas next year...not good enough reasons. (I actually misplaced my USB cable, which prevents photo uploading to computer. And you think, Steph--how lame do you get?) What have I been doing, food-wise and etc-wise, exactly? No easy answer, so here are some highlights that were chosen because I have accompanying photographic evidence.

First, a little surprise outing for some Very Special Little Sisters to Lovejoy's Tea Room in San Francisco, lovingly planned by Teresa and me. They thought we were kidding when we told them to bring blindfolds. Dressing up for little feminine jaunts like this is just one of the many things I'll miss about being in a sorority. The people, of course, I'll miss most (here: Natalie, on the left...my beautiful, beautiful little sis and Steph, my honorary little because we are the same person, waiting outside the place, which induced many giggles from passers-by.)


I'm in Modesto (my hometown) for the summer. It is an ever-growing town (or city?) with over 200,000 residents and continuing. But its roots reside in agriculture, and this is never more prominent than in the summer, when fruit stands are at their best as their proud displays burst with splashes of color--plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, pluots. And cherries. OH the cherries. I've been chomping through bags and bags of them since I returned home in late May. My favorite is called Fidel's, and every time I go the lady who works there smiles warmly at me and playfully chastises me if I take only one bag because inevitably I will be back the same day for more.


Here's something I've actually done: individual chocolate souffles with a 9.7 oz Scharffen Berger home baking bar (70% bittersweet, of course, acquired from the delicious Scharffen Berger factory tour) for my friends Heather and Kristen from Oklahoma who visited for a couple weeks back in June. They were a little dense. I had a hard time deciding when to take them out of the oven because my ramekins are different sizes and how high are they supposed to rise anyway and I wanted them to be perfect...but we managed though, and everything tasted a little sweeter with some homemade whipped cream.


Does anyone know why my pictures are turning out all blurry? Is it the lighting, the fact that I can't hold my arm steady when I take a picture, or that my camera is 4 years old and I've more or less thrown it around rather roughly for those 4 years and it wants to quit?

A win-win situation

by Lisa

Navigating life in a period of transition comes with its challenges. In just a few weeks I'm packing my bags (more like, my bag) for the Windy City, leaving (at least physically) many dear friends from college (the most growing period of my life) as well as the part of the country in which I've spent most of my life.

When it first sunk in that I was leaving, I wondered about how I should invest in relationships. Did I need to taper off times with old friends, or just the opposite? And I also faced decisions about new acquaintances. Do I ask somebody to lunch and just as soon as they let me into their life wave goodbye? (They'll probably just as soon be thinking, "I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello..." Or maybe only Annie would think that.)

I had the same dilemma two days ago, when I re-found the seed packets some good friends had given me for Christmas. I don't know why I had put off planting them (or making a sourdough starter or writing that thank you card or anything else on The List, for that matter). Ah, procrastination. I guess it took Realizing There Isn't Much Time Left to just go ahead and try planting them. Pretty soon after, this thought flew into my head: "I'm going to be so upset if they actually grow (because I'll kick myself for not having planted them earlier)." Then I (just as) quickly realized the stupidity of that thought - of course I wouldn't be upset! It is almost a truth universally acknowledged that much sadness can be swept away by parsley pesto or a bowl of fresh arugula with goat cheese and vinaigrette.


It was a win-win situation. If I had herbs before I left, I would be joyful. And if I didn't - well, it didn't matter that I hadn't tried earlier!

I labeled the pots with question marks at the end. Who knew if they would contain parsley, chives, or arugula? So I labeled them "parsley?", "chives?", and "arugula?".


Today after getting up from a little nap, I checked the plants to see if they needed water. I couldn't believe my eyes - was I still dreaming? - when I saw tiny little shoots in the arugula pot! It hadn't even been two full day since I had planted them!


So I'm hopeful. Like the arugula, some new friendships of the past few months I'd mentally labeled "friendship?" have similarly started to sprout up. And instead of having regret that we didn't start this earlier, I'm grateful for what they are now.

And so I'm going to water them and care for them for the next 55 days and see what happens.

Surprisingly delicious

by Lisa

Being a food blogger comes with its challenges. (Sometimes it's so much easier to write haiku that doesn't make any sense.) I mean, I feel like I always have to have some sort of theme, where I creatively and analogically tie it into the recipe, or something brilliant like that. And also I almost always feel like it's not okay to cheat on recipes, like calling for spaghetti sauce from the jar or using canned garbanzo beans. And even though I disclosed all in my last post, it's not without at least a little diffidence that I bring today's recipe, which doesn't even pretend to be gourmet.

I was actually quite caught off-guard when I found this recipe online which inspired today's. I wasn't looking for a recipe for instant chai. Even in the past I have had this discussion in my head: Should I make an instant chai? No, it wouldn't be fresh. But it'd be so easy. No, it's not as good as the real thing. But it's so easy. No, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. (Or something like that.)

[For those as neurotic as I and who may want to know how I "accidentally" found myself at this site with this chai recipe which threatened so my mental stability: I was actually looking up recipes for aloo gobi to try to figure out why the one I ordered had been so soupy - maybe it was something regional. One site suggested that there's a wetter version of potato cauliflower curry called aloo phulkopir dalna, but when I googled that, it didn't really seem to explain my soupy curry. But somehow I found the link to the instant chai, and it caught my eye.]

[For the not-so-neurotic, I proceed here:] Long story short, I decided, what the heck? why not try this instant chai? As lovely as it is to be able to boil chai at home with milk and with whole cardamom pods, cloves, cinnamon sticks, etc., when you're at work with only the water "cooler," a good instant chai sounds a lot more attractive and reasonable than walking down the street to the dreaded Starbucks for a too-expensive,-too-sweet,-not-creamy-enough chai latte.

The recipe looked reasonable enough. I used it as a guideline, not really following the proportions, and it was surprisingly delicious. I think I've had three cups every day since.

I'm planning on making more and mailing some to a certain friend in Minnesota once she gives me her new address. (I can even throw in some instant coffee powder, too, if you'd like it dirty. Even more if you want it... um, nevermind. Eww for gross guy at Starbucks. Yay for Molly!])

The stuff is great 'cause you can have it hot or cold, although with the weather here the last few days, it's kind of hard to tell which way you'd want it. It's still good anyway; just be careful when you get to the bottom of your mug/glass, lest you end up with a mouth full of ground spices which have sneakily settled to the bottom.

So, here's to a lukewarm glass of chai! Cheers!

Instant chai tea
inspired by Sandi on RecipeZaar

The original recipe called for instant tea (have you ever seen it in the stores? I haven't); I didn't follow that. In any case, I still liked being able to keep my tea brewing separate from the powder, so my recipe basically makes the creamer/sugar/spices part for the chai. The recipe is really rough, and I really encourage you to modify it according to your liking. I couldn't have it any other way for you.

It's a bit awkward with some ingredients you may not have just lying around the house (like vanilla sugar; odd that I had some), but I did some quick and dirty calculations, and I think that even if you spent the money on it, it might work out to cheaper than instant chai from the store. (It's definitely tastier.)

I'm putting my original proportions, but I'd recommend doubling it; it goes fast. (I did two batches one right after the other.)

1/2 cup dry whole milk powder
1/2 cup non-dairy powdered coffee creamer
1/2 cup vanilla sugar (which Sandi says you can make by putting vanilla extract into the sugar, allowing to dry, and then breaking into clumps; you can also replace this with 1/2 cup regular sugar, plus 1/2 cup French vanilla flavored powdered coffee creamer - in addition to the plain powdered coffee creamer above)
1 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
2 heaping teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 level teaspoon each, ground cloves and cardomom
*adjust spices to your liking, and also consider adding: white pepper, allspice, nutmeg, cayenne
tea bags (black, orange pekoe, darjeeling, etc.)

Pulse ingredients for a few seconds in food processor to blend ingredients.

To serve: Brew black tea in hot water. (Use less water if you're going to ice it.) Any tea (even Lipton) will do; my dad always sends me home with different teas from the Indian market which are in nice bags. (I am not tea snobby enough to say you must brew loose leaf.) Stir in 2-3 heaping teaspoonfuls of your newly blended chai. Enjoy!

Store dry mixture in airtight container.


[P.S. If you were looking for the theme in this post, sorry. I don't think it really got anywhere. I think I was trying to go for something like, how 'bout we give me a break? or Here's a cup of chai to make us all happy!]

a poem

by Lisa

over vanilla milkshakes and smooshed "double" cheeseburgers
after minigolf
around 12 midnight

listening to camila
sitting in the parking lot

under the streetlamps

annie says,
"lis, i love how you can be such a food snob and yet still enjoy
mcdonalds."