can we go home now?

really, i haven't gotten too excited about moving back to oregon just yet. there's still so much work to do in the next month, i couldn't imagine wanting this time to go faster. then i saw this picture. now i want to go to portland IMMEDIATELY. save me some berries!

Bloomington Flash Flood

Bloomington Flash Flood
Originally uploaded by Judge Smails

tuesday market is open!

hoooray for tuesday market! it's especially great for those of us (cough) who can sneak away from work to get the good stuff we miss out on by sleeping in on saturday mornings. my first purchase was two lovely heads of broccoli, which were very much admired by the other vendors. oooh, i love seeing new produce each week. hope this flash flooding we had today didn't hurt local crops too much...i'd hate to see strawberry season end with a couple hours of heavy rain (see above).

i (heart) a picnic

since the weather started turning warm this week, i've been dying for a picnic. the idea of slowing down, and eating some really simple, delicious food in a peaceful setting was enough to get me through an especially hectic workweek. i decided that we should go to leonard springs nature park, since it had the word "nature" in the name, and it's only about 5 miles away from our house. brian gets itchy if he doesn't get enough practice time on saturday afternoons, so i knew i couldn't steal him away for too long. we found a little rocky outcrop near the stream and settled down to a salad (fresh greens and strawberries from that morning's market), tofu wrap, and a shared cookie.

i recommend it.

okay, here's the news: we're moving back to portland in a couple of months.

what should we experience, food-wise or otherwise, in bloomington and environs before we go?

cookie issues

i am alone in the house with a freshly-baked batch of flawed cookies: very very tasty, but borderline to take to a memorial day cookout tonight. these are deliiicious, but mine flattened out a lot more than deb's did. the second batch looks to be shaping up better - i gave them more room to spread out by not flattening them as much. and sprinked more salt on top. and i'll wait to take them off the sheet, so they have a little time to crisp up. now the big problem: not eating all the messed up ones before brian gets home.

it's the mooost wonderful tiiiime of the year.

forget christmas, brother! the best time of the year has to be strawberry season. hands down.

...and just think...tomato season is just around the corner...

i'm bringing blogging back.

suffice to say i've had a lot going on lately, but all the time, things i wanted to share with you. like this ice cream cone. JUST KIDDING. i wanted the whole thing.

i've been bad at blogging, and pitiful at my trial of using no plastic the month of may, but a girl just keeps moving along, you know. getting better if possible.

getting excited about spring.

buying asparagus.

thinking of all the interesting food-related things to blog about.

i've got a lot of them.

party foul! quick cake fix.

sometimes, things don't work out how you planned. case in point: your mexican chocolate cupcakes don't come out of the pan. and you have a cinco de mayo party to attend pronto.

what to do with this edible yet unservable cake product?

how about cutting small pieces, and serving in a mini cupcake paper or petit four wrapper with dulche de leche?

yes. that would be good.

even though this was a mistake, i'd recommend the combination anyway. and i liked how they ended up being little bites - good potluck size, and not overwhelming, since the dulce de leche is so rich.

mistakes can be delicious.

many thanks to my sous chef

good news: my dear husband is getting many cooking lessons this week! bad news: it's because i'm sick and lazy. i have a allergy/cold one-two punch that's combining to make life fairly unpleasant. sorry there hasn't been much cooking around here lately, but i don't think i've made a meal for a week. wow. i have, however, been medicating my sore throat with lots of ice cream. that's good news.

trust me on this.

the budget works. okay, the budget has taken a bit of a hit this month, i'll confess. there's a week left in the month, and i've already sent out the "don't use the debit card without prior authorization, pretty please" warning to my dear husband. i'm embarrassed to admit that the grocery budget isn't looking too rosy at this point, either...i took out a larger chunk, thought i would do one big shopping trip to stock up, and ended up getting a cold and blowing money on comfort food instead. my incredibly organized, frugal shopping adventure didn't exactly materialize, but somehow the cash ended up spent. siiiigh. all this is to say: i'm no saint, but at least we've got a plan. meet the budget. this is a fictional version of what we use to keep track of our monies, because it would be really creepy if we told the internets how much we make and spend. all you have to do to make it your own is track what you spend for a month, put it in the spent column, and see how you're doing. spend more than you took in? whoops. just about right? keep tracking. under? geez, you're amazing. i update ours every day or every other day, and it just takes a second. when i want to see if we have money left at the end of the month for another tank of gas, or for a ticket to a fun event, i make changes to the "budgeted" column to "move funds around." no shame in that. the budget is not your boss. YOU'RE the boss here. as long as it stays under what i make, that's fine. we have a unique situation, as well, in that my income is steady, but my better half's is not. we just don't budget for his. we separate it out into three categories, unless another big expense has popped up: savings plan (including paying down debt), travel fund, and drum fund. your priorities might be different. very few of you need to buy new mallets all the time, i'm sure, but you get the idea. if you have more regular income, you can put things like this into the budget. i'm no financial expert, but this works for me. try it, you'll like it!

we (heart) brunch.

sunday morning brunch is the best, isn't it? you can take your time, eat something a little decadent if you like, and no one has to wake up early. that last part is my favorite. heaven knows i'll sleep in whenever given the chance.

baguette french toast with raspberry-mango sauce

i especially love brunch now that i have 4-hour practices to carbo-load for on sundays. if you can't eat much past 1:00 or so, might as well get seconds of french toast or pancakes, right? personally, i'm partial to french toast. it's easy to make with whatever bread is on hand, it's rich, but not TOO rich*, and easy to make variations. baked french toast prepared the night before is one of our favorites. what's your favorite sunday brunch food? *paula deen was making french toast with croissants and heavy cream the other day. that, my friends, is too rich.

first farmer's market of the season

hoooray! yesterday was the first outdoor market of the season. the winter market definitely has its charms, but the first outdoor market means SPRING! and spring means asparagus! and peas! and all sorts of wonderful fresh, green things we haven't seen all winter. of course, it's early, so there wasn't much produce selection yesterday. almost nothing that one couldn't have gotten at the winter market the week before, though i did see green garlic for the first time. and, like a jerk, i didn't buy any. kicking myself for that now - it smelled wonderful. ah, well...there's always next week. the gorgeous weather (i was warm walking home in a cardigan) meant there was a great turnout. much more so than the clammy weather of one of the early market days last year... ...does this mean i've been blogging here for a year? wow, looking back, i started this blog a year ago tomorrow. i have learned a LOT. i hope someone who's passed this way on their path through the internets has learned something, too.

New York food highlights

ah, new york. so many choices. so much food. so little time. here're some food highlights: union square greenmarket: not as big as i thought, but pretty wonderful! so many artisianal cheese, apples, pies, breads, lots of jam...i wished i could take something home, but we'd just arrived. oh, well. i got some maple pecan candy, which i'm now remembering i've yet to try. what's wrong with me? red bamboo: good! worth the wait? of over an hour? sure, since it's a nice neighborhood for strolling, and they take your phone number to call you when your table is close to being open. i had fake chicken parmesean, which was good, but i'd wished i'd gotten some vegetables on the side. brian loved our spring rolls, but they were a little oily for me. luckilly, it was right around the corner from our destination for the evening, the blue note, where i had a lovely manhattan. is it gauche to order a manhattan in manhattan? ess-a bagel: the concierge sent us down the wrong street on our second-to-last day (thanks a lot, pal!), but the phone book set us straight, and on our last morning, we had really good bagels. really good. confirms the hype good. hint: do NOT ask for your bagels to be toasted at ess-a bagel. they will hate you. this is new york - they don't have to be nice. bleecker street pizza: oh, yeah. the more you eat it, the better it is. one thing i was disappointed about in new york is all the plastic clam shell packaging (evidence below, though i didn't seem too sad about it when i had a few drinks in me and the clam contained cheesecake). you see a ton of ink devoted to plastic bags, then you have people eating in delis - eating in! - sitting in front of plastic containers. it's nutty to me. eating while traveling, especially for those of us with dietary restrictions, is hard enough without paying attention to what your food is being served in. new yorkers, can you let your local restaurants know we prefer paper? or - shock - dishes and silverware? the tourists will thank you. for our part, we'll try not to get our zabar's bags stuck in the subway doors. by the way, thanks for the bemused half-stares on that one, guys. that was helpful. geez.

bloomington - stop the presses!

i've received word that BLU Boy is now serving homemade ice cream. yes. indeed. i think i'm going to deserve an end-of-the week treat tomorrow, even though i took monday-wednesday off. ice cream, people! the good stuff, made with local eggs from heartland family farm. i'll report back. and also about our new york trip. which was pretty fun.

cheesecake: decidedly not sustainable in plastic clam packaging, but delicious!

start spreading the schmear

brian and i are headed to new york city very soon. whoopee! we're going to celebrate his recent (cough) milestone birthday, and i would love some recommendations for places to eat. i enjoy some spontaneity as much as the next gal, but it's still good to have an idea of the best places in a given neighborhood. the best, most reasonably-prices places. you don't want to end up some gouged sucker tourist. and good bars that you can go to in jeans and converse. ideas? must dos? we're so going to the union square greenmarket. my heart's going pitter-pat just thinking of it.

Peppermint fresh!

last night, in honor of my Irish heritage, i made a simple potato soup and soda bread from mom's recipe. mom, you never said when to put the buttermilk in, but that's all right. it's a pretty forgiving dough. i had some tense moments over the carrot chunks in the potato soup, afraid they'd end up too mushy, since the onions i was cooking them with were nearly caramelized by the time i turned them off. nope. make your chunks big enough, and cook the potatoes separately, and you should still have a little snap left in your carrot. if that's the way you like it. after dinner, in an attempt to give the mice a hint that maybe they're not so welcome in our home, i spent a few hours cleaning and boiling some water with peppermint essential oils. apparently, mice hate peppermint. i never know how much credence to place in old wisdom like this - there must be some truth to it, but maybe more to people who want to believe it. doesn't hurt, i suppose. hint: never buy a spray bottle from the dollar store. ever. i knew better, but i couldn't find one at the grocery, so i stopped next door. and my $1 peppermint oil/water spray bottle broke that very night. yeah. you get what you pay for. anyway, the house smells minty fresh now. will this drive mice out into what's supposed to be 2 days of heavy rain? we'll see.

unwanted visitors to the kitchen

aah, spring. the crocuses are blooming, the trees are budding. people are strolling around, smiling, perhaps falling in love. birds and bees are doing their thing. magic is in the air. and, as has happened around this time another year, we have discovered mice in the house. this time, they seem to be coming from behind the stove. my cooking has been drastically cut back. specifically, to buying sandwiches from bloomingfoods. the PEST-A-CATOR 2000 seems to be doing its work, however. what, you ask, is the PEST-A-CATOR 2000? well, my friend, it is a "rodent repelling aid," with the dubious claim that within 2-4 weeks, one will likely see a reduction in mice, due to "patented pulse technology" designed to annoy them enough to go take up residence in your neighbor's house. yep, you plug it in, it flashes, and you go from there. PEST-A-CATOR 2000: ON THE SCENE! whooo, boy. i'm a squeamish city girl; the last time we had mice and brian went out of town, i ended up going to a hotel at 3am, i got myself so worked up. this time (with brian, of course, going out of town again), i have been fairly brave, if i do say so myself. any tips, other than cleaning like crazy and setting up those no-kill traps? we ain't killing no mice in here. i like to imagine that they'll make a nice lunch for one of the neighborhood owls i've been hearing lately. is there anything that mice hate? other than electric pulses in your wiring system? p.s. - i know there's an ad with sliced ham at the top right now. (sigh.) the foodbuzz people are being very accomodating in letting me just promote their website, and not any of their affiliate ads, since there's a lot of food out there i don't want this blog to promote. so, just consider that if you're going to buy a ham, make it from a local producer with happy hogs, all right?

the blogger's dilemma

hi to all those hoosiers (and friends of hoosiers) who clicked over from feedme/drinkme. nice to have you! so. the plan was to find a good stretch of time time to sit down and write a long, thoughtful post about going to see michael pollan speak at butler a few weeks ago (has it been so long?). well, life has forced me to abandon that plan. look for more frequent, if shorter, blog posts in your future. but on this topic:

(that's me in the middle, bookended by my two cute companions) 0hmygosh! we met michael pollan! he signed my copy of the omnivore's dilemma! it took me over 24 hours to decipher what he wrote: "Kelley - vote with your fork! Michael Pollan." okay, mp. i kind of already do, but i'll keep it up and try to make those slipups of convenience fewer and farther between.

he spoke about in defense of food, so not much of his prepared speech was new to me, but i got a lot from the q&a session. for example: skim milk or whole? long story short: it depends. skim milk has something added to it for texture that raises cholesterol. the fat in whole milk can carry more growth hormone. what, you get the milk with no hormone added? sorry, friend. we've been selecting for hundreds of years for cattle with lots of growth hormone. what an interesting guy. worth the drive to indianapolis, even with the nasty weather coming back. thanks mari and liz for driving, and liz for the picture!

i do still cook sometimes.

thank goodness for the bread machine. i've made a lot of dense, doughy bread in my time, but the bread machine saves me from myself. the crumbly, crunchy, thick crust of bread that's actually baked in the machine tends to turn me off, but that dough function is a lifesaver. all i had to do for this lovely round of vienna bread was put the ingredients in, turn it on, and be around when the cycle was over to shape into a round (not rocket science, friends), and let it rise. now, if i could only let it rise a *little* longer. patience is a virtue i like to think i have, but not when it comes to dough. worse, i like to cut into a freshly-baked loaf right out of the oven when i ought to know better. tomorrow, a few of us are driving up to see michael pollan at speak at butler. my inner food dork is squealing! expect a report later this (very busy) week.

food for a good cause

to be honest, i probably would have skipped right by the food works by middle way house table at the winter market if these cheese crackers hadn't been so dang cute. i mean, they weren't exactly on the list. but who could resist something so fetching, and for such a great cause? since i got my first local salad greens in months, i knew right where they would go.

you might be able to make out some avocado slices down there, from my san diego trip. i had been afraid that i wouldn't be able to use them up.

that fear was turned out to be unfounded.

if you're in bloomington, and you need an event catered, don't forget about food works. we can't have sustainability when people are worrying about their very safety and survival.