Rachel at Home

Whoa Boy

2009-09-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a while!
Catering. That is going well. Have an event this weekend (small) thanks to another catering friend in SBA, and 5 next weekend (to make up for this weekend I guess...)

Robert, my business partner, is soooo happy that Becka is his new best friend. I like that we are keeping it all in the family.

Laine and I are happy. I wish I had a cool story to tell, but alas I do not. Except that we are getting our liquor license, we are in on starting a food co-op here, and um....I'm catering.

Smothers Brothers

2009-08-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

They have song lyrics that go:
"working, working, working, working."

That's ME! I just planted new herbs, flowers and mossy stuff in the front of our shop. very rewarding personally. Chef Julia is in the kitchen making TONS of local organic tomato saucy soupy stuff and canning it all. we can sell it back to the farmer who sold us the tomatoes, and he can sell it at his farmers markets. julia will take some of it to sell, and the rest will be ours!
I moved to Ojai with Laine. We live on Jo & Kris young's property under one of their oak trees. Here is a picture of me.

Time Flies

2009-03-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

Whoa! It's March!!!
Actually, it is almost April, isn't it?

Personal: I taught Laine how to play the coolest card game, Hand & Foot. This link is the best version of the rules Memaw taught me when I flew out to see her after Papaw passed away. Memaw's rules are a little different, but you get the drift. It's is one FUN game!

Laine's mom, Doris, was looking on last night, and she found another deck of cards this morning so that she can join in on the awesome card action tonight. We're wild and crazy around here, I tell ya.

Work: Robin and Aaron did some serious design work on the Main Course California website. If you haven't seen it lately, do yourself a favor! Don't you like the new logo?

Food: I have removed myself from the core group of Eat Local One Year. I'm still a local eater, but there is too much free and delicious food at work for me to eat. It's silly to spend money on other food when I - Have - No- Money - Right- Now. However, Laine and I went hiking in Ojai yesterday, and we picked about 8 pounds (yes!) of chanterelle mushrooms from under the oak trees. Can you believe it? We saw another couple walking out of the woods with THREE BAGS of chanterelles. Boy do I love spring!

I made a saute of chanterelles, tomatoes, buffalo, onions & garlic last night for dinner. This morning we had chanterelles, onions, and garlic simmered in dry vermouth. I threw in a few meatballs from the freezer. Delicious!

Company

2009-01-25T19:37:00.000-08:00

Today I treated Laine and his mother to a 100% local dinner.
It was delicious.

I'm only human

2009-01-22T19:24:00.000-08:00

of flesh and blood I'm made....I'm only human - born to make, mistaaaeeeeks.

Ok, Jovi & Becks, you've GOT to know that song, right?

So, I had a cookie today. Granted, I DID have to quality check the cookies because we have a new baker, but I ate the whole damned cookie. I dunked it in coffee even (coffee is an exception of mine, and it had local organic half & half in it...).

But still. I knew what I was doing. Hmph. Boy was that cookie good. My sous chef, Aimee, called me up on Sunday or Monday night and said her mom, who is visiting from Chile, has always dreamed of making cookies in a restaurant. She asked if her mom could come in and make cookies for fun. Of friggin course!!!!
Turns out, her cookies are divine. really.
Robert came in to the kitchen today and hired her. Too bad she leaves in three weeks.
Her vanilla bean sugar cookies are delicious. I asked her to make pine nut Mexican wedding cake cookies tomorrow. And her oatmeal raisin cookies are the best ever.

Food? I live on coffee, water & Wine

2009-01-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

The water I drink is local. Some of the wine is - though I drink whatever we have in the house. The coffee has been 100% crap of late - until now!
Coffee, as you know, is one of my exceptions for January, and I believe it will stay on the exception list thanks to Bourbon Tree's Tanzania Peaberry single origin roast. It wholesales for $7.95 per pound, and I couldn't be happier to contribute to their revenue stream.
Cool thing is that the two fellows who own the roasting company do this running and roasting 5 blocks from our restaurant/deli/fun food place I'm currently calling "home."
I went over to their little warehouse to smell buckets of green beans yesterday, and you know what? It was just like smelling the scent boxes in a wine-aroma kit! The Yemen coffee smelled like yeasty bread; the Indian coffee like dried hay. One coffee smelled like fresh grass, Peruvian coffee was vegetal - like a green bell pepper, and another like old hay soaked in turpentine. The green Tanzanian beans immediately smelled like a high-quality 80% cocoa chocolate bar - rich with berries, tannins, a hint of cedar. I fell in love instantly. Who knew those green, waxy beans could produce such a rich, dark burgundy aroma?
I'm in love!

My BEEF!

2009-01-12T19:18:00.000-08:00

Oh, I love my beef! It turns out that the beef I get at the restaurant from Nick Ranch is within the 100mile radius of the locavore project I belong to.
Oh, joy!

I love beef.

I'm hungry

2009-01-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

So, I'm out of chicken, and my two queries to local chicken raisers are unrequited. I was eating a lot of brown rice, but it was making my intestines hurt. Too much starch for me is not good. So, I'm down to vegetables and vegetables. Gotta tell you: I'm not so stoked.
And the kicker is that there is all kinds of good, local protein all around me; it's just a little more difficult to purchase - especially if I do this thing on my own.
Interestingly, the only way to obtain local food is to have a good network of knowledgeable friends active in the community. If one is a loner or too busy to reach out, one is left with whatever ends up on a store shelf - food that comes from far, far away. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Days 1-4

2009-01-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

Since I didn't plan AT ALL what I should have in the house that I could eat, days 1 and 2 were pretty crappy as I had no protein. I ate lots of chard, kale, collards, and turnip greens. Lots of brown rice. I had some local olive oil, and lots of meyer lemons. So, that's what I ate.
Yesterday I bought some local chickens, local chicken liver, and local eggs. I also bought some local pistachios & a few veggies I don't grow. I'm living large now. And of course I bought a bottle of local wine: Rancho Sisquoc Sylvander. Spritzy-feeling Reislingesque wine. Not terribly fabulous, I must say, but I'm really enjoying trying different wines.

This is friggin easy so far. I don't miss any foods yet, and I see my eating rules as opening up an entire grocery store of high quality, local foods. It's an adventure I'm so excited and happy to participate in. Within a few months, I will be much more informed about what foods actually come from within 100 miles! I love it!

My exceptions for Jan (and possibly the year) are:

Brown Rice
Coffee
?

I thought I'd miss spices, and that may happen, so I'm leaving #3 blank. Not sure if the lucky food will be balsamic vinegar, a spice, or something else. I don't want to choose it until I know what I CAN'T get locally. And I'm perfectly content right now with just brown rice and coffee.

Eat Local Has Begun!

2009-01-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

The Eat Local One Year group I belong to started its year on Jan 1st. For the year of 2009, I will eat foods that come from within 100 miles of where I am. I have three exceptions each month, and twice a month (which I must admit seems like a lot) I can eat whatever the heck I want.

On the 30th, Kris Young (co-founder with his wife Jo) called me and asked if I was still going to participate. He wanted to make sure I had the time. Boy did I feel overwhelmed that day! I had put off planning until the end of December, and then BOOM - here was the end of December knocking on my head! I gave the questions a considerable amount of thought, and I feel very strongly about the benefits of participating fully in this group. Here they are in random order:

I get to learn a lot more about my community: what is available to eat, who all the growers are, and who all the other locavores are.
What I am going to do and how I'll be entertained and what I'm going to make for meals is much more simplified. I LOVE that.
I have to pay attention to myself and what I'm eating. Usually I simply don't eat when I'm at work - and then I grab a Diet Coke and a gluten free peanut butter cookie from the jar in the front. I look forward to making my meals as important as everyone else.
I get to get over my shyness and fear of asking questions and feeling scared and stupid. Yeah. Who knew. But I'm embarased to ask farmers where their food is from. Can you believe it? I realized this yesterday at the farmer's market. I look forward to being a confident asker.
I am eating healthier. No more rice crackers. No more peanut butter. No more chocolate sorbet or flourless chocolate cake. No more stealing a bite (or handful) of potato chips from work. Instead, I get to eat delicious local chickens roasted with meyer lemons, fresh herbs, salt, and local carrots. It was tasty!
I don't contribute to global warming quite as much...though I have a feeling I'll be driving around this 100mile radius quite a bit, so....we'll see about that.
I am supporting local growers, food makers, and wineries! Heck yeah. Keep our California Economy strong. Why choose honey from Hawaii when we have awesome honey in Piru and Ojai? Why choose French or Chilean wine when we have world-class wine in Santa Barbara County?
This might be good marketing for the deli, though it might be kind of indirect. We'll see. Robert and I do want to have a farmer's market stand, and we're looking in to what has to be done for that. I want to make local ice cream - all from local goat & local cow milk using honey, pistachios, local fruits, etc.....and we can expand from there...

This one goes out to my homies

2008-11-15T18:10:00.001-08:00

Over the last 3 months, I've been reading a really fantastic book:

Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD

Great book. I just read a paragraph near the end of the book that he writes about preventing cancer. I've got to say, though, that the themes he brings up and the choices that are important are the same ones that have helped me manage my chronic yeast infection as well as simply digest my food better - not to mention help me be "ok" with some family relationships.

Here is what he writes:

`In the end, the best protection against cancer is a change in attitude arising from the process of growth valued by all the great psychological and spiritual traditions. To describe the very foundation of the life force, Aristotle speaks about "entelechy" (the need for self-fulfillment that starts with the seed and comes to full fruition in the tree). Jung describes a "process of individuation," transforming hte person into a human being different from all others, capable of fully expressing his or her unique potential. Abraham Maslow, the founder of the human potential movement, refers to "self-actualization." The spiritual traditions encourage "awakening" by developing the unique-in other words, the sacred- in the self. It is very important that we define our most authentic values and put them to work in our conduct and in our relationships with others. From that approach springs a feeling of gratitude for life as it is - and our body, and its biology, basks in its grace.

Windy City

2008-11-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

The Santa Ana winds are mighty fierce today. It's been hard to sleep at night with the wind howling through the windows, knocking all the doors around (even when they are closed!), and it is so darned hot...in late November.
I really miss Tuscany right now. Robin & I went there with Mom & Brad a few years ago, and it was so beautiful this time of year - so simple, too. Everyone who had a back yard had a garden. The young girls were stylish, and their grandmothers were so homely and comforting. The sunlight was amber colored, and it was as if I hadn't a care in the world. Really.
Except for the night I ate gelato. That was bad.
But it passed.

And now I must say that I have many cares in this world. The big one is my business. And that has made it hard to sleep, too. We should be open within two weeks, and our menu is now up on our website! Go take a look at it! I also put captions under all the food pictures in the gallery.

wanna see something cool?

2008-11-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

have you gone to my website?

www.MainCourseCalifornia.com

soon, I'll have the lunch menu up. I just have to make it into a PDF. And I'll have the Thanksgiving and Christmas menus up.
I'd LOVE feedback on the design & style.

AND did you see Robin's wedding card? Amazing!

Dancin' on The Ceiling

2008-11-07T18:44:00.000-08:00

My sis Robin posted a heart-felt, celebratory blog about our President Elect Obama and the hope he carries on his shoulders.

Here, here.

I'm cautiously overjoyed about the prospects of our new public servants in the Executive and Legislative branches. I do hope that our civil liberties will be protected - and increased - and our tax money will be used for the greatest good to All Americans.

I hope that we can be a nation where we have "freedom to..." instead of "freedom from..."

I think that the new administration will be a guide; I do believe that we will have some senators and congress people who may have an agenda that will be contrary to the "freedom to..." concept. I understand people's concerns over losing their right to own firearms - even the ones that seem pointless for someone to own such as assult rifles. I believe one should still have "freedom to" own one should he/she pass a background check.

I also hope that we can have "freedom to" enter an open & loving relationship with any one person - be it someone of the same sex or opposite sex - and have the same legal rights and eventually social acceptance as a "married" couple.

I also hope that ALL children - regardless of social background, class, and geographical location - have "freedom to" learn from excellent teachers, love the arts, enjoy math, and understand the relevance of excellent education in their daily lives.

I hope we ALL have "freedom to" practice our faith/religion - no matter what it may be.

While I may not agree that it is the right thing to do, I hope women continue to have the "freedom to" choose to have an abortion or to not depending on their individual situation.

This is what I mean by my hope to continue and extend our freedoms in America.

I share my sister Becka's concerns regarding the possibility of us small business owners paying more taxes - though I'm not opposed to paying them. I want them to be used for the greatest good rather than the greatest harm. I would gladly pay more taxes if it meant that children would have a better education, access to music, drama, woodshop, cooking, sewing, and in-depth history classes.
I'd pay more taxes to ensure that we had environmentally friendly & sustainable energy programs.
I'd pay more taxes if it meant creating a high speed rail system.
I'd pay more taxes if it meant that EVERY person in America had to fulfill a one or two year civil service program...
I don't want to pay more taxes to fight wars that take us no where or limit my or other's human rights.

This is what I mean by "freedom to." Ours is a wonderful country, and I am proud to be in such a free society. I hope we continue to demonstrate our ability to have strong personal values and faith while empathizing and having compassion for those whom are different that we are.

On second thought

2008-10-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

I stayed home today. I got up with Laine, ready to go riding, but then the list of things I need to get done by tomorrow night is so long. I was setting myself up for some serious stress. So, I'm gonna do some cooking today. I'm going to pickle watermelon. I'll bake some chicken, and I'll make some chocolate chip cookies and brownies. Then I'll shop out the ingredients for the rest of the food I'm preparing for my friend's mother's funeral reception tomorrow.

I'm sad I'm not out riding with Laine and the dudes, but that's the way I decided for it to go today.

Yet another weekend

2008-10-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about what to blog about, and it hit me that I'm just gonna say what I did last time: busy week, gonna go riding the motorcycles, then back to work. I LOVE having weekends - especially since I made a business and all...who knew it was possible. It's only possible cuz I don't have kids.
i think i'd prefer kids.
Anyhoo, being thankful for what I have (or, in this case, don't have), I'm going a moto-cycling. Again. For the second weekend in a row if my memory serves me correctly. AND we're gonna eat out twice tomorrow!! So cool.
AND I ate out last night. Had an ok hamburger at a really nice restaurant. Shouldn't it be the other way around. At least they had good foie gras and brioche with a silly basil foam. Good ingredients. Ok concepts. Passable execution. That's what I think of the restaurant. Thing is, it's all gonna be pretty darned good thanks to the high-quality ingredients.
I ate out with another private chef friend and a former co-worker from the Crazy as Hell household I was in for years - yeah, ya'll remember.
It was good times had by all last night. Good people, good stories, and the security to be able to tell said stories without breaching any contracts signed. yea. That is always a plus to any dinner outing, isn't it?
So, here's to weekends.

Long blog

2008-09-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

I made cookies last night because Vaughn was gonna come over after Laine and I had a really, really long and strenuous bike ride (for me)...but here is the thing about being a private chef (which I don't miss, I must say): even if you think you're gonna be done by, say, 8 or 9 pm, it is not really up to you...You never know who is going to show up who wants to be fed, what business meeting will really last for 8 hours or more, or who's birthday someone forgot to tell you about....so, Laine and I enjoyed the cookies while listening to Terry Pratchet's Thief of Time book. Very fun. Actually, I did not eat cookies. I ate chocolate & peanut butter with sea salt. I melted the chocolate in the microwave and mixed it with Laura Scudder's and added fleur de sel. Tasty Tasty.

Our bike ride was awesome - lots of stuff I had to get off the bike and walk down because I'm a scardy cat.

Now we're going out motorcycle riding. First I have to help find one of his socks...

Good immune system

2008-09-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

Laine and I are going for a bike ride today.
I'm reading a really interesting and helpful book called Anticancer: A New Way of Life. So far, it's really intriguing.
Umm...Laine is ready to go.

headache

2008-09-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

So, I stopped drinking for a month...I have two weeks left. I miss the flavors of gin and wine, but I don't really miss the way I feel when I drink it....so, it'll be anti climatic when I start drinking again - tastes great, too filling. I'll just drink less less often.

And I finally started moving my body again - walking and running. I have been still for way too long. Hopefully between no alcohol and exercise, I'll loose a little fat and turn it into muscle....that would be really cool!

Laine is off on another research ride. Ho hum.

New Content

2008-09-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I am intent on posting, but there is not much to post on.
I'm still hangin' in there; I'm in the game.
I do know that I have three quail - at least last time we counted...down from 17. They have a disease. Very sad because quail are really cute, and we're not there to save them.

Laine is leaving on a research ride tomorrow. He'll be gone three days, back one day to do some private motorcycle instruction with a client, and then off on another research ride for another three days. What a job!!! Now if only we could get rich...

That's my part of the deal. Our kitchen plans were approved by the county. Now we're waiting for the city to say our plans and money are good for them, too. Our contractor is ready to go, and of course we're chompin' at the bit.

Our catering schedule is picking up - pretty good for not even being open yet, and our private and personal chef placement division (i.e. me) is rockin' it on the staffing of chefs. We'll place ads in a few swanky local magazines starting in november - just in time for the holidays...

so, yeah, that's all good. i still get to keep it real cooking as a private chef occasionally, and I'm consulting with another private school re creating a food program that will support the kids. yea.

And I've gone off moto riding one day each week for the past two weeks. friggin amazing!

So, that's me in a nut shell. (I'm the nut inside)

I have no idea how many quail i have

2008-08-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

It's true.

We've moved out of our home in Santa Paula, and become one with the Collective. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
Well, it's quiet here in Camarillo, and the view is nice...but it's all made of ticky tacky and it all looks just the same.

Good for assimilation.

Rollin'

2008-08-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

Yeah, we rollin', yo. Robert got all giddy and purchased two of these:

Bob Ibex Trailer.

Well, basically it is a suspension trailer that goes on the back of a bicycle so we can rock it in Ventura with the gourmet food deliveries...I say, "Robert, I want to do bike deliveries." And he goes off and gets stuff to make it happen. Good teamwork, eh?

We have interviews for bike delivery peoples next week, and I have day dreams about renting one of the City of San Buenaventura digital video cameras to film our cheesy bike rider's test course...which of course we don't have because it is illegal to give employment applicants tests per se (good ol' CA employment laws...ruining good, clean fun).

I like that the trailer is named Bob. I think I'll call it Bobby.

I also like that, in honest naiveity, I excitedly told Becka we got two trailers...then I told her we had to get custom coolers to fit them. She, of course, in forced lament wondered WHERE IN THE WORLD I'd find someone to do that. Duh friggin duh. Becka and Mike only own a custom shop...of which their bread and butter I have yet to learn how to spell...upholstery. I did it!!!!!!

Awake

2008-07-29T02:04:00.001-07:00

Past few nights it's been quite difficult for me to sleep. I find this interesting and really annoying. So, tonight I'm getting up and doing something rather than just laying in bed hoping to get back to sleep.
I've wanted to show you my Pokemon cake anyway. It was wheat/gluten & dairy free. It was for an adorable kid named Sam for his 8th birthday.

Rest

2008-07-23T18:12:00.000-07:00

I learned that I need rest. I think I was getting sick. I'm really tired, and my eye is swollen. Not good. I've been not digesting food well. Could it be because I'm starting my company, moving into two new places, and Laine just left for a couple weeks? Yep.

Yesterday I listened to myself, and after I baked two flourless chocolate cakes, I took a two hour nap. Felt MUCH better today. Very cool.

Last Saturday, Laine took a bunch of us out for a ride to the Motorcycle Museum in Solvang. Lots of cool bikes. It was a bit difficult to find an open dirt road due to all the fires that were blazing just a week ago. Crews are still doing a bit of back-burning, and the forest service is busy blocking access to fire roads that were cut through the landscape. We were turned around by one ranger. However, we finally found a road that was accessible, and it was a blast because no one else was on it! I had to help out my fallen comrades, however. That is me in the front righting a big European dude's bike.

I made one of Jovi's chile rellenos for Kris & Jo on Monday. I did the second one she listed on her blog, but i used fresh pasilla chiles instead of dried anchos. And I didn't have any pine nuts, so I toasted some pumpkin seeds. And we were out of raisins so I used dates, dried apricots, and dried pears in equal proportions. Boy were they good! I'm thinking of having that on my company's regular menu. Thanks, Jovi, for posting the recipe.

I've got my Spine; I've got my Orange Crush

2008-07-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

Becka, here is your opportunity to correct my song lyrics again!

Jovi reminded me of my Grandma Main's Orange Slush. All it was made of was the juice from the oranges on her trees. She kept it in tupperware containers in the deep freezer downstairs. We'd go down the stairs and open the freezer lid and set a container of orange slush out for a while. And then we'd EAT IT.
Delicious all grated up with a fork!

The week is busy with catering three parties while moving the house, moving into a kitchen, working with contractors, equipment companies, and lawyers. Good times. I'm amazed it's all going so smoothly considering....thank goodness for loved ones and business partners.

I'll put up some new pictures as soon as I have some....

High, Ho Silver - Away!

2008-07-02T21:38:00.001-07:00

I'm getting a kitchen! Thanks to a wonderful man and his team of supporters, we're starting a catering company to compliment my personal chef and cooking class company. And today we signed lease papers on a brand new kitchen! Isn't this cool?

Here is the craigslist ad.

Check it out. We got a deal on the rent, and that made us both happy.
So, we move in on July 15th. That means that we can put in our oven, stove, hood vent, and fire suppression system on the 15th. It'll be about 2-3 weeks before we're up and running, and we'll have a celebration!

The kitchen is in a business park with lots of hungry workers, so we're going to do lunch take-out and delivery as well. Yehaw.

And I'm 30.

Labels

2008-06-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

Boy do I have some. Labels are a pain in my ass - always have been. I found it really hard as a kid to fit any kind of label...it's stuck with me all my life. Lately I've experienced great pleasure realizing that I'm happy AND sad, a beautiful woman AND a tough chef...how many labels do I have to have?
Forget them...

And this is why I think I hate labeling my food. I have to, though, because I give it to clients in aluminum boxes (I'll get to hating those soon enough), and they don't know what the devil is inside unless it has a label. So, in the words of Yoda, "label it, I must."

But you know what? My peeps freeze their food. I have an ink jet printer. To the untrained person, these two statements may seem non sequitur; however, upon closer rumination, one may realize that when one takes food out of the freezer, water condenses on the outside of the carton creating nasty moisture that makes the ink on my crappy labels bleed all over the place. it's like Carry in Black & White. Ewww.

I hate spending money that I currently don't have. I am not buying a laser printer anytime soon. So, I put packing tape on top of my labels so that the water condenses on the tape rather than on the inked up label. Pain in the ass - especially since for the LONGEST time, I used labels that were wider than the tape and I had to use two pieces. Not only does this waste tape (and cost me money), but it wasted time (and costs me money). Arg.

I bought new labels today. They will work with one piece of tape.

I'll let you know when I buy a friggin printer.

Limbo

2008-05-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick update for those of you pleading for new content:

My business is going very slowly. I'm interviewing for a Private Chef position with an entertainment family. It's going ok. I'd much rather have my business grow quickly quite honestly, but that is taking time, and my mortgage company needs to be paid every month. So, we'll see how the private chef thing works out. I'm good at it. It pays well. We'll see.

In the meantime, I cook 20-30 meals for my clients. Only one client I see twice a month. Everyone else gets a monthly service. I need to contact the property managers who service vacation rentals. Another lady in France emailed me regarding a friend of hers in Santa Barbara who is undergoing a double mastectomy. I'll do a one week service for her and her husband. It's the French lady's gift to her friend during this time.

Shady Gourmet dinners are going well - have been full since March. The last one was at Kris and Jo's house in Ojai, and Kenn was there! The food is always great, but the real treat is the conversation and the connections made between people. It's really special.

Mom and Becka's boys came over this weekend. They had a blast playing with the rabbit, eating all the plants in the back yard, and playing with Laine. We all sat on the deck in the back yard before they left and shared our favorite parts from their visit. It was really a treat to hear them talk about what fun they had. Mom and I sat around late on Sunday after Shady Gourmet and talked.

I made the best green chicken pozole yesterday for a client. Too bad it wasn't for us...

Laine is outside right now with our neighbor FINALLY building a redwood fence. Yea!!!

2008-02-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

Whoa. It's been a while. I've got lots to tell, but I'm busy!

First, the Shady Gourmet Session start in March. The March dinner is full. Robin & Aaron are most honored artists for the April session, which is already at 9 guests!

Business is kinda booming. I have almost all I can handle while figuring out organization, book keeping, invoicing, shopping, menu development, labeling, and advertising. Arg. But I need 8 more days of personal chef work to make a profit, so...high ho, high ho.

I start teaching cooking classes at a studio in Ojai in April.
I start catering for RawHyde adventures in March.
I've got private dinner parties and cooking classes scheduled for March.

I joined a business networking group - a chapter of BNI. Looking forward to those meetings every Tuesday morning. Really. No, really.

Delicious Potato Salad

2008-02-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

It's winter, and my Meyer Lemon tree is loaded with fruit. We've had a bit of rain lately, and our front yard is full of baby "weeds" including amaranth and dandelions. A couple of days ago, I spent half an hour in one tiny section of our front yard picking all the delicious little greens from the ground. I've added them to soup and sauteed them with bacon from Paidom Meats.

This recipe for Paper Chef incorporates their required four ingredients - potatoes, bacon, rutabegas, and plum tomatoes - as well as what I've got growing in my garden.

Warm Salad with Potatoes, Rutabega, Tomato Confit, Lardon, & Volunteer Garden Greens with Homemade Preserved Meyer Lemon Aioli
Serves 4

1 pound small Fingerling Potatoes
1/3 pound Baby Rutabegas, peeled, or 1-2 mature rutabega, peeled & quartered
¾ pound Slab Bacon, small diced, or use thick sliced bacon cut into ½ inch pieces
6 Plum Tomatoes, peeled, quartered, seeds removed
1/3 cup Olive Oil
3 sprigs Thyme
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Egg Yolk
Juice of 1- 1 ½ Meyer Lemons
2 tbs Preserved Meyer Lemon Peel, chopped – recipe follows
¼ cup Fresh Tarragon, Minced
2 handfuls Edible Volunteer Garden Greens, such as baby dandelion, purslane, amaranth, lamb’s lettuce
Maldon Salt
Fresh Cracked Black Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 300oF.
2. Wash the fingerling potatoes, and put them in a pot. Cover the potatoes with water, pour in a little salt, and place on the stove. Boil the potatoes and rutabegas, uncovered, until they are fork tender, about 15-20 minutes. Drain, and chop any large pieces of potato. Set aside. Keep warm.
3. Line a half sheet tray with aluminum foil, and place the quartered plum tomatoes in a single layer on the baking sheet. Sprinkle over the tomatoes about half of the olive oil, some salt and pepper. Put the thyme sprigs on the tomatoes, and bake in the oven for about 1-1 ½ hours. When they are a bit wrinkled, they are done. Remove from the oven and cool on the baking tray. When cool, roughly chop the tomatoes and set aside. Keep warm. Strain the olive oil; discard the solids, and add the tomato-infused oil to the remaining olive oil. Reserve.
4. While the tomatoes are cooking, heat a large skillet over medium flame. Add a touch of olive oil to the pan and swirl. Add the chopped lardon or sliced bacon to the hot pan. Cook the bacon for about 15 minutes, stirring and scraping the pan often to render the fat from the lardon. Once the fat has rendered, turn off the flame and place the lardon in a small bowl. Keep warm. Strain and reserve the bacon fat.
5. In a food processor, blend the garlic and egg yolk with a little lemon juice and 1 tbs water until the egg yolk is pale yellow and frothy, about 1-2 minutes. Add the 1/3 cup olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Half way through adding the oil, add another 2 tbs lemon juice, then continue adding the oil. (If your aioli looks like it is going to break, quickly add a dash of ice water to the mixer, and keep processing.) Once all of the olive oil is incorporated into the aioli, add about 3 tbs reserved bacon fat to the dressing. Stir in the chopped preserved lemon peel and tarragon. Taste for acidity; add more lemon juice if needed. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Place the potatoes, rutabagas, tomato, and lardon in a large bowl. Add the meyer lemon aioli, and toss. Add the garden greens, and mix gently. Season with Maldon salt and pepper. Enjoy with a nice glass of Sancerre.

Quick Preserved Meyer Lemon
Makes about ¼ cup

Peel of 6 Meyer Lemons, white pith removed
¼ cup granulated white sugar
¼ cup kosher salt
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp black and white peppercorns

1. Place the Meyer lemon in a small pot with water. Boil. Strain. Repeat this process again.
2. Place the boiled lemon peel, salt, sugar, coriander, and peppercorns in the small pot with 3 tbs water. Boil; reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Cool completely at room temperature.
3. Keep in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Paper Chef Recipe

2008-02-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

Today, I learned of the relaunch of Paper Chef. Might I suggest to some of my loyal readers (ahem, Jovi) to join in on this fabulous exchange of recipes. It is, essentially, a monthly recipe contest based on 4 ingredients. The winner gets the title of Paper Chef for the month. (Jovi, you better not steal this prize idea for your contest. We're all hoping for some knitted mittens or sweet nothings).
I think it's cool, and it does get the creativity going. I liken it to cooking for Jo & Kris. Jo calls me and tells me what is in her CSA box, and I just go from there. You could say that Paper Chef is a mini CSA box.
That said, here are this month's ingredients: Potatoes, Bacon, Rutabega, and Plum Tomatoes. I'm making a salad.

2008-01-13T12:07:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is the middle of January. The rains have come, our native lilies are springing up in the back yard, and - thanks to a long schlep through the mountains along Santa Paula Creek - I have a fabulous case of poison oak. Thankfully, I have no photos of my malady, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

In return for providing hours of fun skidding, sliding, puddle splashing, and low-speed crashing into trees, my bike requires maintenance. Who knew that Laine would not do it all for me and I'd have to take after my Dad and little Bro, Doug, and channel my inner mechanic? This is not exactly fun work, but it is a learning experience. As my sister, Becka, and her fiancee, Mike, are well aware, I'm really good at taking things apart, but not exactly stellar at remembering where all the parts go when it is time to REASSEMBLE...I spent hours at Becka and Mike's shop "helping" them reupholster and assemble a metal frame chair for our little sister, Robin. Thank god I was free labor because it took three hours, three attempts, and a lot of cussing to get the chair put together again. I have since devised a plan: I take photos of where all the doodads go.

My motorcycle is almost functional again. The whole front end was bent, and so Laine took the forks and triple tree to Dr. John in Anahiem, CA . Yesterday, I replaced the stock springs with Progressive fork springs and reassembled the front end. All I need now is a new front brake line, the magnet for the speedometer, and my high front fender to arrive via post, and I'll be ready for Death Valley Daze at the end of the month! It'll be a weekend full of off-roading through one of our nation's most beautiful parks.

I'll Never Give it Up!

2007-12-23T20:18:00.000-08:00

Well, 2008 is almost upon us. Know what that means? 2012 is even closer. Know what that means? In 2012, all foie gras will be banned from California. That makes me very sad. However, I recently discovered a pseudo foie gras, and I'm quite happy to tell you that not only is it a lot cheaper than a good lobe of grade A foie gras, but it is also vegetarian. Yes, that's right. The only animal tortured for this food is a cow, and the cow gets to keep its life. (If you've not noticed yet, cow's are immune from our thou-shalt-not-torture-animals laws. They're forced into cramped feedlots, pumped full of hormones, hooked up to milking machines for several hours a day, and fed grains and meat products that they'd never eat "in the wild.") Well, good thing, cuz to get the sensation of eating foie gras without actually eating foie gras, you're gonna need some butter. Here is what you do:

Put some butter on a plate. Grind sea salt and black pepper over the salt. Pour yourself some French Chardonnay or Viognier (I'm testing wines at this stage. Californian viogniers work fine as far as I can tell. Your chardonnay has to be mineraly - not too oakey. So many Big California Chardonnays are out). Now get some rice crackers; Savory Thins from Trader Joes work well. I'm pretty sure the experience would be ruined by wheat crackers. They have a different flavor, you know.

Put all of the ingredients together the way you best know how. Eat. Drink. Breathe out through your nose. Viola!

Foie gras the more humane - and soon to be the only legal - way.

2007-12-14T19:14:00.000-08:00

ohmygoodness.

Several things of interest have happened recently. First, I have discovered the (quite obvious) compose tab on this blog. So, now I can do things like this. Very Cool.

Secondly, Louisiana Crawfish Season has begun! Yeehaw! I have 5 pounds of crawfish boiling on the stove right now. I could easily finish off all five pounds myself, but being the holidays and all, I'm going to share them with friends. I've got one thing going for me: my friends are all from California, so they'll think sucking the heads is gross, and I can have all the heads I want. However, in the past, my friends have noticed that I know a thing or two about delicious food and followed my lead, so I might ruin my advantage of having friends suffering from California Crawfish Ignorance if I show them how it's done...

Third, I just got back from Vail; it was a peddling fish trip. It was 16 degrees, snowy, and...warm. Funny how warm one can feel when the sun is out and there is no wind. I must go back sometime and ski. I really like connecting with chefs and finding out what cool things they are doing with seafood. One chef is making "French fries" out of tiny fish. Another chef is educating his customers and staff on sustainably farmed and wild caught seafood - sometimes farmed IS better than wild! I've started working closely with some sushi restaurants in getting sustainable seafood on their menus. It is all really fun work.

Giving

2007-12-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

I'm a Cancer. I like to stay close to home, so when I look for charities, one thing that is important to me is that the work the charity does helps those I'm close to. During the months of November and December, many charities send out their requests for donations. My mail is filled with letters from rescue missions, my local public radio stations, and international organizations. I feel that all of these requests are meaningful. One Charity, however, speaks to me:

Heifer International. This organization is a leader in supporting grassroots development projects that eventually become self-sustaining. They have a Heifer Catalog that allows donors to select the type of livestock their donation will buy - be it goats, sheep, chicks, cows, lamas, or (my favorite) rabbits. Heifer also provides microloans to small business ventures and training in soil and livestock management.

And the coolest thing? Heifer has programs in the United States (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin).

So, I can help a family or co-op in my own country! That just rocks and reminds me that even though the USA is a first-world nation, we have many families who do need our help and support. Here's to America, sustainable agriculture, and entrepreneurship!

http://www.heifer.org

Toffee

2007-12-09T13:15:00.000-08:00

Well, tis the season of giving. I was looking through my recipe ideas and magazines for some easy, sweet things to make for the holidays. I think I'll make some toffee and bring it to work. I'm using a recipe from Saveur:

2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 tbs evil corn syrup (sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do)
2 tsp kosher salt
2 cups pecans - maybe CA walnuts...
...and I think I'll add a layer of chocolate.

Anyhoo, it's so darn easy. You just put the butter, sugar, evil corn syrup, and salt in a pan and heat it to hard-crack stage (310 degrees) while stirring constantly. Pour the toffee into a greased jelly roll pan (half sheet pan), and wait about 5 minutes. Pour some chocolate chips over the top, wait another couple of minutes for them to get soft, and spread the chips with a spatula. Sprinkle toased nuts over the top, and cool for, like, WAY too many hours.

Cashmere Robe for Smoking...Turkey!

2007-11-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

I'm certain that the former owner of the houndstooth cashmere & satin robe I'm wearing, Dr. Warren Austin, rarely smoked. But if he did, I'm certain it was the finest tobacco or cigar from Cuba or perhaps Nassau, Bahamas where he was stationed as the ONLY doctor on the island during part of WWII - and made fast friends with exiled former King of England Edward (who married American divorcee Wallis Simson and thus caused a consitutional crisis in his homeland. Ah, love. It's never easy. So, of course he gave up the throne - both in England and within his own house. Wallis, you see, was the real ruler of the family.)

Anyhoo, flash forward to 2007, and the vintage house robe's new owner is a private chef and fishmonger living in a dusty house in Santa Paula, CA. Interestingly, I also have some of Nassau, Bahama's finest cigars in one of the closets in my dining room. Perhaps not much has really changed in 60 plus years.

But I'm not smoking the cigars today. Instead, I bought a Zacky Farms turkey yesterday, and I'm going to smoke half of it this afternoon. I'm not sure what wood chips I have left, but I'm sure I can rustle up something around here; I think there are some wine barrel chips left from my tri-tip smoking days.

In another interesting coincidence, Dr. Austin's wife, Bunny, was an avid gardener and had a bright yellow pair of golashes that I now own and wear while working in my backyard. I think I'll wear them along with my smoking robe while preparing the turkey.

Clam Bake!

2007-11-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

Whoohoo!

My good friend Travis just called me and ordered some yummy stuff from Kanaloa Seafood. We're having a clam bake tomorrow for his daughter's second birthday. Travis and his wife, Amanda (my great friend and chili-making fool, yo) used to own Santa Barbara BBQ and Santa Barbara Bakery. Some of you out there may remember that I helped Travis and Amanda with their menu development for their catering company, and Santa Barbara Bakery had THE BEST cheesecakes I ever tasted. Really. Amanda had one cheesecake that was sugar-free and had a wheat-free almond crust. It was the bomb. It was a cheesecake bomb.

Cheesecake bombs are definitly categorized as friendly fire.

Anyhoo, I'm not sure if clam-bake is quite accurate. You see, there are 13 pounds of Maine lobsters, 4 pounds of local Santa Barbara black mussels, 4 pounds of sustainably-caught wild Mexican shrimp, and 7 pounds of Penn Cove clams. Oh yeah, and sausage and pappas and white wine oh, my! It's a seafood bake!

Boy, they sure do know how to throw a party.

Waiting

2007-11-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my last posting, but does anyone else experience the LONG wait when uploading photographs to their blog? It is enough to drive me to hit the cancel button...and then I get phone calls from sisters saying that I don't post often enough.
Such is life. I talk to my siblings, like, every other day and they (BECKA!) still say I don't keep in touch via my blog. I know, new content is FUN!

You know what? I agree.

So, I've been peddling fish for a couple of weeks now. I certainly have learned a lot about fish, and I've eaten a lot of oysters. I can finally say I'm able to identify different flavor profiles of these tasty bivalves. That's been a goal of mine for quite a few years now. Check.

I've flown to Tahoe to peddle the fish. I'm going to Dallas next. Big city. Full of big steaks, little French men with big egos, big Americans with bigger egos, big hair, and lobster. And butter. I bet they don't give a rat's ass that the catch-methods of the seafood I peddle is environmentally-friendly and sustainable.

Albacore

2007-10-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is the albacore I brought home from work. It was tasty. Here's how I made it:

I made garlic oil by simmering some slivers of garlic with canola oil for a short time. I poured part of the oil over some cilantro and arugula from our garden. That was the salad. The rest of the garlic oil I put into a small mixing bowl with sliced green onion and a little bit of Thai chili from our garden. Then, I seared the albacore in canola oil and some home-made chili powder for about 10 seconds on each side. I sliced that, put it on the plate with some sliced avocado from a neighbor's tree, poured the garlic oil/green onion mixture over that, and then sprinkled a little tiny bit of sesame oil over the whole thing. We ate it with wasabi and soy sauce.

Mizuna, Apple Cider Vinegar...Salad?

2007-10-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

I read Jovi's blog about hair care sans shampoo, and it was just the impetus needed to get me off shampoo and conditioner. I have hard water, and so was a bit concerned if baking soda would help my hair or make it even more horrendous. Turns out, so far it is helping keep the grease at bay. I washed my hair with sea salt, and that did little more than cleanse my scalp - great, no doubt, but I'm also dealing with greasy, tangled hair. I then went to the health food store to read non-shampoo products' ingredient labels. I read tons of labels listing celery, carrot, nasturtium..."hey," I thought, "this is the stuff I'm growing in my garden." Well, I'm not growing nasturtiums, but I am growing mizuna. It's green; it's bitter; it's spicy. It's in. I then looked at the price tags - $16 for about 12 oz. Screw that. My phone rang just as I was reaching for a bottle to put in my basket. Thank Jesus for cell phones. Thank him.

So, today I blended up a couple handfulls of mizuna along with 1/2 Litre of water and took that into the shower with me. I washed with baking soda and did a mizuna hair soak. As the vibrantly green liquid poured down my head, over my shoulders, and pooled near the drain, I suddenly thought, "Oh, shit. My hair is going to be green." I breathed deeply and fully (I've been practicing mindful meditation just for this moment!). Then I rinsed with apple cider vinegar/water, turned off the water, got out of the shower, and looked in the mirror.

I have beautiful blondish brown hair. It's awesome. I love mizuna. I love baking soda. I love apple cider vinegar.

In a couple of days, I'll try celery leaves.

Apples, and thank your granny

2007-09-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

When Ireally think about it, I only did two things today.
I ran.
I made pies.
Everything else I did today was to either prepare or clean up after these two events. Heck, even this post is because of the pies - or rather, I'd like to blame the pies on my neighbor.
My neighbor has two spindly apple trees. One makes little, green orbs that look pretty crappy. The other tree has mottled reddish-green fruits that are a great apple-in-hand size and have beckoned me for, well, three seasons now. I finally went over there and picked some apples. Turns out, the reddish sirens tasted pretty crappy, and the little crappy green ones are friggin' awesome! I ate lots of them while peeling and slicing and rolling out dough - which, by the way, took me two hours.
No, that's not start to finish on the pies. That's just making the dough, peeling and cutting the apples, and forming the pies.
Why?
I'm cheap.
I'm probably the only professional chef left on the planet without a food processor. I'm also probably the only home cook who does not own a pastry cutter. I made four 2-crust pies and 2 gallettes. I had to cut a lot of fat into a lot of flour, and I was dead-set against using my fingers. So, that took a while. Then to the apples.
These are small buggers - like the kind found on trees that don't get picked through during the season. Nope, this tree had every apple it started off with, so it had a lot of babies to take care of and feed. So they're all small.
While I was peeling and doughing and looking out the kitchen window, I thought, "holy shit. how did our grandmas - or great grandmothers, for that matter - ever get dinner for 6 or 8 on the table if they wanted to serve apple pies?" You know that our grammies didn't make just one pie. And they didn't have food processors to cut the shortening into the flour. And they probably had crappy looking little apples like mine (which, of course, probably tasted delicious like mine).
So, I think maybe I'll ask my last surviving grammy.

I tell you what, though, domestic life is pretty full of work - especially from my perspective. I basically have been working for the past few months - just for me, and I don't pay myself...so...um...I think maybe I like work a little better.

Except that since I don't eat sugar or wheat, I had to give all of my pies away. I took one to Thencha - the lady with the apple trees who started all this in the first place. Then I took one to Lois - the only other caucasian woman on the block who happens to live next to Laine and me. I took one to the lady who has an at-home daycare across the street, and I took one to the guy on the corner who has two little boys who always waive at Laine and me when we're on our motorcycles.

I like giving pies to my neighbors. I think they like it, too.

It's dusk, and now I'm going to make dinner - the third thing I'll have done today. Rice noodles with curry leaves, crispy garlic, and cilantro. No apples, though, that sounds really good...

Mushrooms and how uncool we are

2007-09-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

And in contrast, THIS is the HUGE mushroom I saw at the Pike's Place Market. It's large, no? We did not take it home to cook. Laine and I found some mushrooms in Gunnison, Co a couple weeks ago, and we were reminded of how not-cool we have become. Laine used to be an avid culinary mushroom forager, but life in Santa Paula has caught up with him - all the white dust, late nights, heavy intoxicants - OF HOME IMPROVEMENT - has stripped his time in the forest to little getaway jaunts like this one to Pike's Place (not a forest) or to Gunnison. We could have sworn that Colorado mushroom was edible, but then we had doubts about our memories...and then about life in general. Basically, it was a real downer. We kicked the grass, put our hands in our pockets, and agreed to dust off our copy of David Arora's "Mushrooms Demystified."

But then Laine went to Mexico, and I had to pay some bills and cook some shrimp...

Soon the rains will come, and the forests behind our town will have lots of chanterelles. Going out hunting for chanterelles is one of the only times I realize that there ARE other food freaks in Santa Paula - cuz we're often just a little too late...

For the past three years, we have harvested 2-3 morrel mushrooms from behind our neighbor's big rock. It's right next to our driveway and sits on a hard, compacted plot of dirt that one would never think a morrel would grow. But grow there they do!

micro strawberry

2007-09-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

We, umm, "found" these right below Mt. Ranier in Washington. I have it on very good authority that they tasted delicious - way sweeter and more floral than the strawberries growing in my garden. Of course, I don't get to eat many strawberries from my garden because often they have been eated by rolly polly bugs who don't know the concept of "share."

Shrimp

2007-09-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

This morning, Laine left on a 5 day ride in Baja, Mexico. He'll have lots of fun. In the meantime, I'm left to deal with the shrimp in my refrigerator, among other things. I'm sure there are more important items to tend to - like wiring the moolah to North Carolina for Laine's house that is closing today, but my mind keeps going back to those shrimp. I've got to cook them, and I have to do it today. So what am I going to make with them? I bought them to prepare for a photo shoot, but I wasn't as excited about them as I was the lamb and the buffalo shortribs or the nut & buckwheat gruel I turned into something pretty delicious.

So, today, it's etouffe or something with saffron and tomatoes. Maybe a curry. I have some pretty grand curry growing in the garden. I chopped some up and crusted lamb racks with it the other night. Seared and roasted the racks. Chopped up some pears and sauted them with butter, curry powder, and then threw in garlic near the end. Made a pan sauce and then wilted some kale and curly chickory. It was fantabulous.

Now I must peel some shrimp.

2007-09-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

This was one of our favorite campsites on my birthday trip to Seattle. Why was it so great? It was right on the Rogue River. It was free. We were really, really tired. We could hear the fourth of July fireworks at the Reservation Casino, but we couldn't really see them. Lots of birds, and a good beer each.

2007-09-28T07:37:00.000-07:00

Here is Laine hard at work winning his class at the RawHyde Adventure Challenge. He's cool.

Ingredients

2007-09-28T07:19:00.000-07:00

I had some friends over for food photography. Laine captured our rabbit. We thought better of throwing her in the pot.

here i be

2007-08-31T20:15:00.001-07:00

fasting and catering don't necessarily go hand in hand.
I suggest plenty of willpower and someone else around to handle all the tasting spoons.