Egg Day.

Happy (late) Easter, if you're into that sort of thing.
Or "Egg Day" as my mom adorably said in a text yesterday.
"Egg Day" seemed appropriate, as we did begin our Easter Sunday with very fresh eggs for breakfast, courtesy Easter morning from Lulu & Miranda. Being relatively new chicken owners, every egg is still something to celebrate.
As a half Jewish/half Catholic girl raised in neither faith, I mostly celebrate holidays with food. Not to say that I don't take holidays seriously. I celebrate anything. I am a big fan of any excuse to cook a festive meal, pretty much. Mardi Gras, Saint Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, whatever, bring on the food.
& the rituals. Christmas trees, menorahs, Easter baskets, Mardi Gras costumes.
Upholding traditions in some form is important to me.
I plan on making chopped liver & matzo ball soup this week in honor of my Gramma Bess & Passover. (I celebrate all the Jewish holidays with those things, they make me think of her the most).
Easter I've always been fond of: Spring is something to celebrate, egg dyeing is a nice ritual, & there's something about the Easter myth that appeals to the drama queen in me. Plus, Easter is a holiday where I have traditionally managed to avoid family obligations & spend the day the way I like, at home cooking a good old fashioned Sunday dinner with the person I love.
This is the first Easter in a long time that I haven't had to work, & our first married Easter.
We spent it exactly as I hoped. We ate a delicious breakfast of our own eggs & bacon while listening to some of the truly excellent Christian Country hits of Randy Travis, then we dug in the new garden all day.
We are attempting to clear by hand an about 60x60 foot square of abandoned & totally overgrown garden space.
On this Easter Sunday we tilled two new 45'x4' beds & planted sugar snap peas, yellow beans, French Breakfast & Easter egg radishes, golden beets, & blue potatoes, then dug a cold frame to harden off the kale & Kohlrabi & broccoli & cauliflower seedlings we have started indoors.
I'm really getting to know that pitchfork. I'm pretty proud of the calluses I've gotten on my palms, these last few weeks.
Then we cleaned the chicken coop (yay farm chores!) & hung out laundry on the line (I love finally being able to have a clothesline here!) & other weekends tasks, trash, sweeping, dishes, etc.
So we totally deserved the completely indulgent Easter dinner we had.

Egg Day Dinner 2012.

 Roast Duck marinated overnight in wine, garlic, sage, rosemary, chili peppers, olive oil, & salt & pepper. 
We bought the duck on a Friday night as a weekend impulse & grilled the legs that night, served with curried rice & broccoli. Then marinated the rest of it over Saturday night & roasted it Sunday.
Owen's famous Cheesy Bacon Mashed Potatoes.
I swear that man is insane. One pound of bacon, both ricotta & fresh mozzarella, & 1/2 & 1/2. Into mashed potatoes. I love him.
With some leftover Kale Pesto because I like to eat a green thing & I'm still on the Kale Pesto kick.
Topped with, of course, Duck Gravy.  Huge amounts of Duck Gravy.
God damn I'm glad a married a man whose good with gravy. 
My leftovers for lunch at work were kind of insane. Yeah, I'm just eating my roast duck & cheesy bacon mashed potatoes & duck gravy over here, don't mind me.
I went to bed completely exhausted & satisfied last night. Good food, seeds planted, house & coop clean. 
Right now I'm making a soup from the duck stock. Fridge soup, don't you know it!
I have a huge pile of seeds on hold I'm gonna buy at work tomorrow. There is a whole cleared bed we haven't even touched yet.
I don't mean to always be all Pollyanna on y'all the time here, but mostly, stuff's good. I don't think we have anything real to complain about.
I guess somewhere along the line I've turned into a positive thinker. Or I'm just happy.

Snow Day Nostaglia & General Laziness.

Slightly cheating black & white post (whatever I make the rules here). 

I have a lot of paintings in progress but they are all wet (damn watercolors) & I just felt like writing. 

It's a snowy evening here in Greenfield following a snowy afternoon, & I left work around noon (I am terrified of driving in snow) just in time to see my husband for exactly one minute before he headed for work (he's a better driver than me, & works about 25 miles closer to our house).

I've been at home with the animals all day. Started paging through the old sketchbook. 

I have been changing things around here & drawing less out of my sketchbook & more on paper & shit. Like a real artist. But you'll see little pieces of randomness from sketchbook here & there for old times sake.

So here are some unpainted drawings from a Mini-Vaca taken on an extremely rainy weekend last June.

6.9&8.11: Two Cape Cod Sandwiches.

A post-driving curried chicken salad sandwich & a next afternoon linguica & mustard sandwich, grilled & eaten on the deck overlooking the pond. Then some insane encounters with huge snapping turtles ensued. Damn those things are weird & prehistoric & creepy. Try swimming with one. & huge. Did I mention huge?

6.9.11: BBQ Pork During A Late Spring Thunderstorm.

Another one of Mum's great dinners. Plus the sort of thunderstorm I'm really looking forward to as we approach the end of winter. We had some thunder & heavy rain last week & it reminded me how good that sort of weather is.

 6.10.11: Egg Salad Sandwiches & Vintage Dresses.

Typical Cape Cod Mini-Vaca Sort Of Day. Ate some tasty sandwiches, some chips, purchased one of my now all time favorite dresses at a thrift shop in Yarmouth, & saw some swans on a pond. There were dogs.

 6.10.2011: Cookout!

All Cape Cod trips should include some sort of cookout.

The next morning we ate this meal, in the pouring rain we collected buckets of seaweed for the garden, & then we drove home. 

 I'm fearing we won't have much Cape Cod Summer this year.
We really like our new house. We can grill in the yard here. We can hang out outside here. I can sit on top of the hill & enjoy the view of cornfields & the neighboring dairy farm, & draw & read there. We aren't stuck in town in Noho anymore.  We are making the kind of farming-style commitments that make travel complicated. I think we all need to recover from losing a major part of those summers.
That's all. Apologies for the lack of color. It's still snowing. I'll probably be back with more tomorrow.

Thanksgiving, For Better Or Worse.

The Turkey, Jackson, NH, November 2010. 

Everything seems like a lot right now, but Thanksgiving did still happen.
One more drawing from last year. Blah blah blah holidays are very weird when you recently lose someone.
Not sure what I can personally handle for Christmas this year, but I feel good about decorating, I think. I guess you just do what feels right in these moments, i.e. I want to hang lights all over the house & have a giant tree & cover everything in glitter & but I honestly can't see opening presents without Gramma. 
Doesn't make sense, I know. But all the decorating crap seems peaceful, but I kind of want to skip out on the actual day this year.

Getting In The Thanksgiving Spirit, aka Cranberry Sauce & Stuffing & Gravy.

Well, it will be Thanksgiving the day after tomorrow. After some (hopefully brief) hours in Grocery Hell, I get to pack up my husband & my dog in the car (sorry DustyRose but you are not a good traveler), & drive to Cape Cod to see my family & eat good things.

 Thanksgiving 2010: The Sides, Part Two.

The (homemade by mum, always) cranberry sauce, the stuffing, & the garlicky green beans.

I lied. These sides are important too.

Anyway, I whine & moan a lot, but I'm grateful. Very very grateful, & looking forward to home tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving almost.

Thanksgivings Past & Future.

Apparently I am about a year behind in current events on this blog, as I never finished my drawings from last Thanksgiving.
Well, never say never-I just finished one. I drew this last November, in Jackson, NH, the same house where we spent our honeymoon. 

Thanksgiving 2010: The Sides, Part One. 

aka the MOST important Thanksgiving sides, mashed potatoes & creamed onions. More important than turkey or stuffing (although stuffing is pretty damn important).

Last year was an atypical Thanksgiving, in that Owen & I joined my moms in New Hampshire in a borrowed house in a beautiful place. 

This year is different in that we Diamonds lost a terribly important family member in September & one week later Owen & got married. 

It's a rather emotional holiday, I think for all of us. I can barely even write this, really, so no details. 

This year Thanksgiving will be at home, in Brewster, on Cape Cod, with new family but with a huge absence, too. 

All I meant to say here was, cheers to Thanksgiving (the sacred holiday of EnD), & all it brings.

& Gramma, I'm missing you a lot, everyday, even if I'm not so good at talking about it. But neither were you, really.

Butternut Squash #2: With Homemade Sausage In A Lasagna Thing.

As promised, the skipped #2.

10.27.2011: Butternut Squash Week #2: 

 A sort of lasagna, with alternating layers of thinly sliced butternut squash, homemade spicy pork sausage, crushed red chilis, red sauce, garlic, onions, & boursin, burrata (cream filled mozzarella), & parmesan. Served over pasta.

I just made this up. I like making up lasagna type things, or so I call them, they are usually only lasagnas in the sense that they involve layers (remember bacon as noodles?)

But truly, who doesn't prefer meat noodles to past noodles? 

Basically, it is fun to throw a bunch of different meats & veggies into a cast iron dutch oven & bake them & cover the whole mess with cheese. I made a lovely lasagna last fall with butternut squash & homemade green tomato sauce we had canned from the abundance of green tomatoes we produced in our garden in 2010. My favorite vegetarian main course is a pesto & mashed potato lasagna.

On this particular night, we had butternut squash, of course, & we had the same homemade pork sausage that went into this meal.

No recipe. Just layers layers layers. Use what you have-this a great way to get rid of random grocery items in the fridge in a delicious fashion. 

One of the first things I ever learned to cook & still one of my top three comfort foods (eggplant parm, curry, tuna casserole) was my mom's eggplant parmesan & maybe that's why I like layers of vegetables & meat & cheese & sauce so much.

Thus concludes the The Great Butternut Squash Food Challenge Of 2011. 

I think. I know we never had recipe #7, but once we had power & you could buy groceries again, we moved on. Blame it on the power outage. We do still have squash, so maybe I'll do one more, but no promises, since that week is long over. 

Six out of seven ain't bad, though, right?

These (Mildly) Difficult Modern Times.

It's been a rather exhausting couple of weeks here at EnD headquarters, i.e. a messy apartment in Northampton. Tons o' work stress, money stress, car stress etc. Blah. I've actually found myself absolutely too tired & cranky to even feel like cooking recently (very unlike me). I miss the garden. I hate when it gets dark at five. I'm sick of every single expense, like toilet paper & toothpaste,  for crying out loud, being a huge deal. I'm sick of not being allowed to get sick or miss any work for any reason because I earn our only income. I'm sick of doing all the cleaning because no one else cares. I don't want to get up at 6am while everyone is sleeping & still come home in the almost dark.
Whine whine whine. Not real problems, I know.
Still, sometimes I feel like maybe it would be cool to not be the one responsible for everyone's survival. I want to call out of work & go to the mall & buy fancy eyeshadow at Sephora & 20 cute dresses at Forever 21.
Sigh. Poor me, I know, I'm stupid. I have no real problems, &
I do have this.

11.4.2011: Dog Cat Husband.

So I guess that although we are pretty broke, my job is pushing me to the limit of reasonable tolerance right now, & the house is really dirty, I get to have this sweet family. & last night I made a really basic chicken & potato curry & felt a little more like myself. Cooking heals many wounds. Note to self: when depressed, purchase some inexpensive but still luxury cooking item (in this case, short grain brown rice & chicken thighs). Then cook dinner. Possibly listen to the Mountain Goats even though my husband hates them. Repeat.
I look forward to Thanksgiving. & I've seen some mad crazy gorgeous sunsets en route to work lately, so I guess that's also something.

Easter Wings (A Cape Cod Spring Holiday).

Happy Easter/Passover/Spring.

I am very fond of the Easter holiday, it is very aesthetically pleasing to me. Bunnies, Jesus, pastels, eggs, all very good. That said, this year I didn't really get it together to do anything about all that. No egg dying, I didn't wear a cute pink dress, & I haven't cooked rabbit since November. 

But we did have family, dogs, sticky wings, lots of good bread & butter, & a Cape Cod beach storm, aka an early Diamond family Easter.

4.23.2011: An Early Cape Cod Family Easter Dinner (With Dogs).

I had to work on Easter itself, & didn't really mind, since I very much appreciate all the ceremony & trappings of holidays, but also know that they don't really matter, in the sense that I can work all day on Easter in a pink dress then go & dig in the garden & enjoy that as holiday festivities (what I did last Easter). Plus I hate ham (is it the half-Jewish part of me?) Ham is great thinly sliced on a sandwich with the correct condiments, but an whole ham? One of the only, perhaps actually the only,  meat to which I say, yuck.

So the Diamond/Williams family (minus DR, who was missed but prefers not to travel, being a cat) packed up the car & drove to the family home on Cape Cod, stayed Friday night through Saturday night, & enjoyed the following pleasures: an early Easter dinner of Mum's sticky wings, roasted brussels sprouts, herbed mashed potatoes & French bread, an early Easter breakfast of cinnamon raisin bread & hard boiled eggs, both with the excellent bread from the French bakery in Wellfleet, collecting seaweed & shells on the beach in Harwich the pouring rain, Griswold cast-iron pan acquiring thrifting, Barb's Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies, & most importantly (or maybe most adorably?) a meeting of the dogs, Walty our hound meets Mum & Barb's Jack Russell terrier/beagle/dauschound? mix (we don't know what she is, just like Walt, but she looks like a tiny yellow lab pretty much-just imagine a full-gown high energy 14 lb lab with a terrier brain & a tendency for snuggling & here's Sophie), an awesome recent addition to the family. Walt & Sophie ran on the beach, rough housed, chewed on each others toys, leap off furniture, begged for food, cuddled on couches, lay by the fire, & overall had a stunningly good time. Yay dogs!

We drove back to Noho late Saturday night. 

On actual Easter, I worked, & then in a light warm rain, Owen, Walt & I foraged for fiddleheads by the river in the early evening, came home, I talked to my grandparents on the phone, ate steak & mustard greens, appreciated being alive & all the good thing I have, watched tv in bed & fell asleep. Where was the Easter bunny? I do not know.

A Trip Down Memory Lane & More: Cape Cod, January 2010.

Late winter on this blog is traditionally when I dig back through my archives from the past year or so, aka all those unfinished drawings of things I ate & cooked, just sitting in my sketchbook waiting for me. So expect very little time continuity in posting whatsoever for the next month or so. Here comes random food moments from 2010.
Tonight I bring you a little story from last January, in fact the first trip Owen took with me to my Mom's house in Brewster, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. First of oh so many. He already knew my dear sister quite well at this point, & had met my Mom & stepmom Barb briefly over Christmas, & then of course this magical trip to New Bedford, my original hometown. It turned out New Bedford was not the only place we had in common, & that Owen's family is from very close on the Cape to mine, & essentially we grew up with the same childhood summer. This trip was full of firsts: Owen sleeping in my teenaged bedroom, Owen & I on the Cape together, & me bringing someone home who knew where they were.
I believe I had previously mentioned that my mother is an excellent cook...

Dinner With Mum: Roast Pork With Pears, Red Onions, Gorgonzola & Rosemary Still Growing In The Winter Garden, Over Rice, A Green Salad, & Apple Pecan Muffins.

The next day, a sandwiches at the beach, a Cape Cod ritual, these particular sandwiches an Italian (ham, salami & peppers) for Owen & a chicken salad with cranberries & walnuts for me, from Nauset Market, with Utz Salt n' Vinegar potato chips, eaten on a bench overlooking Marconi Beach in Wellfleet. (Owen's sandwich choice was better than mine. Somehow a year later I still remember that clearly, shows where my priorities lie, I guess). But Utz chips freaking rule & so does eating a sandwich by the ocean on Cape Cod with someone you love in January.

Sandwiches & Chips At Marconi In January.

& before we left for home back in Northampton, pizza with the family, the current favorite (circa January 2010 of course) of Spinners Pizza's Chicken BLT ranch from Ring Bros. Market in Dennis, with the constant sides on Seamans Lane, Brewster, wine & a green salad.

BLT Ranch Pizza, Salad, Wine.

So there you go, a homecoming & meeting the family & road trip (&eating) story all in one. Welcome to Archive Month. Just paging through all these sketchbooks opens up so memories, whoah, I GUESS THAT'S WHY I DRAW. Go figure.

More Cape Cod Summer, Now With Red Sauce.

On another night of disgusting winter weather (waahh! Ice storm!) EnD brings you another Cape Cod Summer Vacation Memory.

I believe that I have mentioned my Grampa's strong opinions on food. Never challenge him on burgers, & never, ever dispute the glory of his homemade red sauce & stuffed shells. Apparently he had an Italian friend growing up in Brockton, Massachusetts, aka The City Of Champions, in the 1930's, & his mother taught my Grampa all her red sauce secrets. Yeah, so he doesn't believe that fresh herbs from the garden could possibly work as well as a jar of dried "Italian seasoning." There's no arguing with the man: his stuffed shells & homemade red sauce are the best dish known to the food community wordwide, no exceptions. Take that, Thomas Keller. You would so lose in a throwndown with Bob Diamond.
During our family vacations, Grampa waits around with anticipation for a rainy day. Why? STUFFED SHELLS. He gets up first thing after his 7am donut & coffee on the beach & starts the sauce, & fiddles with it all day. I believe he wakes up happy that first rainy day of vacation, just thinking sauce.

Rainy Day Italian Diamond Family Dinner: Grampa's Stuffed Shells, Pesto From Mum's Back Porch Basil, Garden Salad, Tomato Basil Bread from the Underground, Extra Cheese, Extra Sauce.
& Since Ali made it down from Turner's in time for dinner, the whole family: Mum & Barb, Gramma & Grampa, Ali & Katie, Liz & Owen, & Stella & Roxie (RIP sweet dog).

Guess what else we love in this family & on this blog of course? LEFTOVERS. What does it all mean? PIZZA PARTY because you can bet Grampa made way too much red sauce. Owen whipped up a bunch of pizza crust, Mum brought out the pesto & some chicken, & there you go.

Pizzas: Red With Cheese, Pesto With Chicken & Goat's Cheese, Pesto With Carmelized Onions & Cheese, A Calzone From All The Extra Ingredients.
& Blueberry Pie, Because It Was A Cape Cod Summer.

Surprise, surprise, Grampa Diamond wouldn't go anywhere near either Pesto based pizza. & the next day, the Brockton Pizza, specifically the pizza from the Cape Cod Cafe (confusingly located in Brockton, which for those not versed in Massachusetts locations, is not on the Cape at all) vs. All Other Pizza On Earth Wars began when my Aunt Jean innocently drove down with about a million Cape Cod Cafe pizzas. Don't ever talk down very thin crust around members of the Diamond side of my family, in fact, don't say any pizza not produced in Brockton is good at all. Really. Just don't.
Any way, it was a gorgeous July day on Cape Cod, our small family had enough pizzas for an army, & we brought it to the beach & ate it inches from the shoreline. Imagine that, back when the earth wasn't buried under ice, sleet, slush, & snow.
I love my Grampa Diamond, he won't eat green food or let me cook but I love him anyway. By some standards my red sauce kicks his red sauce's ass, but really, he wins.

A Snowy Night In January, Remembering Chanukah.

We are having some sort of ridiculous blizzard in Western Massachusetts, & can be considered officially snowed in here on South Street. Welcome to horrible Winter 2011, where it snows every minute. Snowed in with a glass of wine, I find myself examining my sketchbook, which has been tragically neglected lately. There I found this:

First Night Of Chanukah 2010, Liver & Latkes.

Back on the first of December, it was also a shitty night, weather-wise, although back then we didn't realize quite what we were in for. But it was rainy & chilly & blustery, & Owen unexpectedly had the night off, & it was Chanukah. You can't have a holiday without a special meal, right? (At least I can't). We were kind of broke per usual & I hadn't planned anything, so leaving work that afternoon I channeled my Gramma Bess & bought some liver, onions, & potatoes, & we stopped off on the way home for a big bottle of Manischewitz. Hence, a 133 South Chanukah celebration of homemade chopped liver, latkes, & terrible kosher wine, eaten around the kitchen table after lighting the first candle. Liver reminds me of my Gramma, although her chopped liver came from Sol's Deli in new Bedford & her latkes came from a box & she would have made a brisket, too. There is a balance to recreating a tradition, keeping some things the same as you remember but making your own memories too. I think the Liz, Owen , & DustyRose family is off to a good start, we have certainly made homemade latkes & special Chanukah meals a memorable occasion. So enjoy the snowstorm, everyone, & remember being snowed in for days = much eating & drawing.

Cape Cod Summer.

That last post got me thinking, & going back through my summer sketchbook, back to this past summer's family visit, to Cape Cod. & about my family. Yes this did indeed happen on this blog last year. I am apparently quite the creature of habit. So my family, we gather in a little house by a lake in the woods in Brewster, Massachusetts during the summer months, & we spend a great deal of time in the water & in the sun, & being us, we eat things.

Meals on the deck (this happens frequently):

Mum's Famous Panko Fried Cod, Purple Beans & Snap Peas & Basil from our garden, sauted with olive oil & garlic, a broccoli cheese casserole (cause hey, you can't leave your fridge in Noho full of those things while relaxing on the Cape for a week, can you?) & "yummy crusty bread" from the Underground. Good way to arrive anyplace, right? Mum never disappoints with the fried fish thing.

Owen reading with Stella on a summer evening.

No visit would be complete without a visit to Clancy's & drinking white wine with Gramma at the bar. Here it is in all it's glory, the Fisherman's platter. Yes, Owen & I both ate one. Yes we did. & A Fried Oyster appetizer, too.

HELLS YEAH FRIED SEAFOOD!!!

Owen, Grilling On the Deck.

& Owen & Mum, On The Porch, With Wine & Cigarettes. Oh Summer.

Now that Ali & I have been to Cali & back, & now that it's SO FREAKING cold & time for roasting ducks & not grilling on decks, I like to remember these warmer times. Here's to surviving another winter, & getting back out there on the lake in about six months.

Cali Part Three: Family Drinking & Mall Culture

& We're back.

At this point in our trip, I can say truthfully that we were losing our minds.

Here's what that looks like, Cali-style:

A Pair Of Chicken Dinners:

Part A: Old School Chicken, Carrots, Potatoes & Peas with Gramma, Grampa & Cousin Amy (following pinto grigio at 5 pm in the hot tub as went our Corona custom)

& Part B: Chicken, Onion, & Green Pepper Sandwiches at Uncle Bob's House, aka The Diamond Family Bar. With Top Gun (Ali, was it Top Gun? Now I'm blocking out the details?!) & copious amounts of scotch. Yup, weird night. Thank Christ it included the adorable puppy Bailey!

What could follow up a night of drinking at your family's own personal bar better then a truly old fashioned day of SO-CAL MALL CULTURE. Oh yes, the Diamond sisters meet a GIANT MALL. In the desert.

In short, our visit caused us to become addicted to Jamba Juice & Ross Dress for Less (actually, these are both re-addictions for me, I acquired them living in San Francisco & have been coping with the withdrawal ever since).

When Liz & Ali drove a red Ford Mustang convertible through the Hills:

to drink smoothies in flavors such as Green Tea Matcha & Pumpkin Pie & purchase discount Marc Jacobs scarves, gigantic Le Sportsac totes & sequined dresses of no brand name whatsoever but still beautiful,

(thank you Ali, I stll remember that is one of my Christmas presents)

So I mentioned Romano's Macaroni Grill? Same mall as the smoothies & shopping, 4:45pm on the dot, Diamond Cousin Reunion.

This type of crap food still makes me angry, but on the other hand I haven't had dinner with all four Diamond grandchildren in about ten years, so maybe I'll let this one go (Cousin Erin seems to have become a grown-up now, who knew?).

However, I must mention the following: that the waiter drew on the table with a crayon, offered the house Chianti as his wine selection, took his half hour break during our dinner, & served me a glass of wine I had ordered approximately 45 minutes before after the check came. Did I mention the food was crap? & Really quite expensive? How do places like this shithole get away with these shenanigans? Are we really that stupid as a food culture? (yes yes I know I know) (I guess I haven't let it go but REALLY?! In ten minutes with $3 I could have made better food for four with ten dollars I could have had better wine too) But anyway,

Seafood Linguine & Loster Ravioli, aka Mediocre Food & An Excellent Family,

(love&thanks Ali, Gramma, Grampa, Amy & Erin)

We did have one truly great meal, Ali & I, & eventually, I'll end this saga on that note.

Hint: Deep Fried Zucchini & Carne Asada. & That meal carried us through LAX & home again.

Cali Part Two: Grilled Cheeses at Old Spanish Missions, Burger Arguments, & BACON.

So Diamond Daughters in the great state of California, continued.

In which Gramma drives us to Riverside, & we get lost & end up at the city limits with the auto parts stores, & we eventually arrive at the Mission Inn, see some parrots, & eat grilled cheeses in Mum's (allegedly, Gramma tells these stories sometimes) favorite lunch spot, Simple Simon's.

Grilled Cheeses In Old Spanish California, After Being Lost In The Urban California Desert.

At some later point, we had this burger conflict. First, Grampa Diamond is self-admittedly terrible at grilling. Only burgers he is good at. This makes him a burger crazy person. I, as an adult, have formed my own burger preferences, & mine include Hellman's mayonnaise as a must & Sriracha as yes yes please & crazy additions as hells yeah what have you got? As you can see here. Sooooooo...I wanted my mayonnaise, some chopped jalapenos, & a sliced perfect avocado & whoah was I shot down. Oh families. PEOPLE FROM BROCKTON, MA DO NOT PUT FING AVOCADOS ON MEAT. END OF STORY. I forget this.

(Note, Ali, a burger girl is anyone is, did agree with him, so I give his taste buds the benefit of the doubt).

Anyway, I present,

Grampa's "Perfect" Burger.

To comfort us from all this terrible family burger conflict, Saturday morning breakfast. The most essential one, the Platonic ideal of breakfast, why bacon smells good like nothing else to me, & why I can never be a vegetarian.

Breakfast with Bob

(Fried Eggs, Bacon, Thomas' English Muffins, Always & Forever).

Coming up: We find our perfect Liz & Ali restaurant after almost dying of depression in a giant California mall, we purchase sparkly discounted things while drinking smoothies, have a more odd than even usual for us family evening, & a moving & memorable in emotional terms but so upsettingly bad foodwise Anthony Bourdain would cry Macaroni Grill experience. Seafood Linguine. Shudder. All coming up next. Stay Tuned.

Cali Part One: 3000 Miles From Cheezits to Red Snapper

Some things have happened since my last long ago post, mostly spring & summer & hence gardening & nightswimming & long evenings outside & much less internet. Also some family happenings, & what says family history memory the most?

Yup, food (which shapes our lives, etc.).

My dear sister & I flew on a plane to California in October.

Being us, we ate things. Lots of things.

Through the Sky to Dallas & LA.

Airports, airplanes, drive-thrus, & our Gramparents' House: Cheezits in the air, Starbucks' Iced Caramel Macchiatos, a Blimpie's BLT sub in Dallas, "El Potato Burrito" @ Miguel's Jr, Grampa's Famous Stuffed Shells back on Eureka Street.

So we knew we were home, in that sense of being at home in one's own past,

Grampa's Roast Beef & Sides, AKA The Taste Of My ChildHood.

The meal that I thought of first when we planned the journey. The smell that still means "FOOD" to me. Roast beef covered in pepper & onions, whipped mashed potatoes with tons of butter, canned peas, steamed carrots.

I think this meal is why I like to eat, why I learned to cook. So I could produce this feeling myself. I still can't cook this right though. Better maybe, but not right.

A classic shopping adventure with Gramma, to a (at least to me) fabulously insane California mall restaurant, The Elephant Bar.

The Elephant Bar, where two girls from Massachusetts meet Americana + Sushi.

Seriously. We split a tempura shrimp roll, & then I had ahi tuna over brown rice with seaweed salad & smoked tofu, & Ali enjoyed mac n' cheese & coconut shrimp. All presented in a completely over the top fashion with oddly low lighting as befits a fancy/trashy mall restaurant. According to Gramma, the bar was also an excellent place to meet men. We unfortunately did not get a chance to check this out theory.

Although the Elephant Bar was a tough act to follow & Although I am 32 & Ali is 27 we will always be "the kids" to our grandparents, one night they actually let us cook dinner. This was a very difficult trip in many ways while it was also perfectly wonderful in others, & in one of our worst early moments we found a grocery store we liked, the delightful Henry's, & it saved everything. Shows what food, & the option to purchase the food you want, will do to save a situation. We took many, many a trip to Henry's to enjoy the lovely cashiers who did not look at us & our outfits like we were crazy freaks like pretty much everyone else in Corona, & buy very cheap but delicious California white wines to drink in the jacuzzi & avocados & tomatillos & chilis & lemons & grapefruits & other amazing California things. What can I say? We like to eat in our family. Those first bags of groceries we brought home from Henry's were a turning point.

On this particular night: Red Snapper, with Asparagus roasted with garlic & olive oil, Baked Potatoes, & Salad with excellent California tomatoes & bermuda onions.

I will admit I caved under pressure so this is my mom's classic recipe for baked fish with butter & bread crumbs (my Grampa's favorite, always), usually as we are from Cape Cod done with cod. & I never make baked potatoes & had to actually ask Ali how to do it. But Oh well I wanted Grampa to like it. At least I snuck in the asparagus, kind of controversial in that house as not a pea or a carrot.

Us two transplanted Massachusetts girls spent ten days in our second childhood home, & as you have noticed, it was complicated. Stayed tuned for the rest, Family & Food & Feeling, here we go.

& Red Convertibles! & Shopping! & Pumpkin Smoothies!

Impromptu Stuffed Mushrooms.

A typical night 'round here of, lots of random crap in the kitchen, what do we do with it? i.e. we live off of free crap from work & buy very limited groceries, etc. This particular night: we had packages of semi-damaged white mushrooms in excess. I was given the challenge of making them Stuffed Mushrooms. I searched the kitchen for possibilities.

Therefore, into a mixed bowl, & then into the Cusinart (oh you, my favorite appliance!) went sweet red peppers, a yellow onion, fresh thyme, garlic, almonds, the mushroom stems, gruyere, parm & chive stale croutons, & olive oil. Plus, salt, pepper, & a splash of white wine.

So that was my side. Owen also made his famous fried chicken, this time buffalo style. Good meal. Those mushrooms were damn good cold leftover the next day, also, breakfast, lunch, snacks, etc.

I realize in the writing, the base sense of this recipe comes from Fedde, cooking in the kitchen back on Barnes Street, Providence, circa the end of the 90's. So cheers, lady, & god damn, taste memories are strong ones, 'cause now I'm back in that kitchen, 20 years old, eating those mushrooms.

Origin Recipes, Part One: Tuna Casserole.

The cover of this month's Bon Appetit advertises tuna casserole, eggplant parmesan, & chicken curry, which happen to be the first three important things that I learned to cook, & that taught me to love to cook. Looking at the cover, I started thinking, y'know, in the vein of food memories...& why Bon Appetit knows me so well, & what it all means...

To start, we go way back, way way back, to like me at ten or eleven, playing with the kitchen, with...Tuna Casserole...

Begin with a classic roux, butter & flour, then add 1/2 & 1/2 & white wine for a cream sauce. I also add chopped garlic at this stage.

(yes, you made already have noticed this is definitely a different version then the white trash classic, but's that why this is so good, do with it what you like).

To the sauce, add grated emmenthaler swiss cheese (my preference), frozen peas, chopped roma tomatoes, & a can of solid white tuna. Do that cool thing with melted butter & some crushed saltines or ritz crackers (the best way to go). Drain noodles (I generally choice elbows or shells but this time it was pappardelle).

NOTE: like any great recipe, this one lends itself perfectly to variations. Add whatever the hell cheese, veggies, crackers...etc, that you like. Don't even add tuna. See if I care. But be warned, my mom once added chopped canned clams instead of tuna, & at least to an eight year old, that shit is GROSS.
This is a messy fun kind of dinner. Pour yourself a glass of that cheap white wine you were cooking with & let your cat enjoy what's left in the can of tuna.
Combine sauce with noodles, cover with crushed cracker mixture, & more grated chesse, & baked for about an hour, uncovered for the last ten minutes so you get a nice crunchy top.
BEST LEFTOVERS EVER, especially with sriracha in your room late night with your kitten after dancing.

this is memory food,

Mum cooking this in our apartment on Orchard Street in New Bedford when I was little, me starting cooking as a teenager on Seamans Lane in Brewster, cooking this for myself in my first apartment on Medway Street in Providence at seventeen, Burns cooking me the Mississipi version with chips & sour cream on the night George W. Bush was (sort of) elected the first time in 1999, cooking this on Burns' last night in San Francisco on Cabrillo Street at twenty-two, & then eating the leftovers cold myself & wondering how I was gonna survive alone, at twenty-three on Burgundy Street in New Orleans that first winter when it finally got sort of chilly, at twenty-seven in the Prospect Street apartment in Noho when I started eating meat/fish again, & most recently for Owen in our house on South Street, at thirty-one, 11.23.2009.

Oh Yeah, this meal is a deal breaker with me. You are a vegetarian or think canned tuna is gross, I probably won't fall in love with you. Just sayin'.

Next Up: Eggplant Parmesan.

Vietnamese/Jewish Gramma Inspired Chicken Soup.

When I lived in San Francisco, in the Richmond, I became addicted to Pho.

When I was first seriously learning to cook on my own, well for the second time, (I learned to cook as a teenager as a vegetarian/anorexic, then I relearned in college after I started eating meat again, then I become a better educated vegetarian, & cooked the hell out of that, then I came an even better educated truly dedicated meat eater. Long story. Oh & I was a vegan for a while along the way, too.)

ANYWAY, at some point at RISD in the mid-90's I taught myself to make chicken soup. Roast chicken is one of my mum's classic recipes, & I do it too, & just today over lunch I was coaching my lovely sister in the Diamond family fine art of roasting a chicken. I was raised to of course always turn a roasted chicken into many more meals by making chicken soup from the leftovers (after the AWESOME sandwich phases of course).

Originally this was of a more traditional variety (my paternal gramma was a matzo ball soup queen) but I like spicy food, & I like asian food, especially southeast asian food & while I can also make pretty authentic Pho & sometimes I do, one of my favorite comfort foods is kind of a cross between my gramma's classic Jewish Matzo Ball Soup & this incredible spicy soup I used to get at the Citrus Club in the upper Haight in SF.

It's always different, my chicken soup, since I never ever cook with a recipe, but this particular one:

boil the hell out of the leftover chicken bones, strain, add leeks, carrots, chili peppers, yukon gold baby potatoes, lemongrass, & garlic (a shit ton of all the spicy elements), boil more, add brown basmati rice, simmer, splash of sriracha, eat.

oh & of course, as toast is really just a vehicle for butter, soup is sometimes just a vehicle for toast, & therefore butter.

God I heart butter, good butter, so much. Seriously, nothing like a hot, spicy, complicated broth with good veggies & chicken on a chilly October night. I like to freeze some for when I'm actually sick & don't have the energy for this, although I love roasting chickens in the winter so I usually end up with plenty of soup.

In conclusion, if you're sick & in need of soup, you know who to call.