Food and Books and Books About Food

I love summer, especially this summer, which I have dubbed the summer of food and books. Jen and I have become healthily obsessed with food, specifically things like homemade sauces, preserves, and organic produce. My kitchen has never seen this much action before; I'm actually using all my gadgets and appliances, and I'm using every meal as an opportunity to experiment. I'm finding that I can cook even complicated meals with minimal stress and mess. It's almost surreal to get through the preparation of a pot of mushroom risotto without cursing, crying, or throwing my wooden spoon, but hey, it's a nice change.

I have been reading like crazy, especially books about food. Like I said, I am nursing a healthy obsession here. Sometimes I sit and read through my cookbooks, which has its own appeal, but what's even better is a book that combines food and great stories. My favorite food book is Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl, a memoir of the food writer and critic's early life in a dysfunctional home with a mother who not only can't cook, but really, truly cannot cook. Despite her mother's disasterous turns in and out of the kitchen , Reichl is able to find strength and love and personal connections through food. This book gave me a deep appreciation for the ways we can connect through food, and respect for food safety rules. It's funny, it's sad, it's relateable, but the best part? This book has recipies! I tried a few of the recipies, but my absolute favorite was for Nonna's Lemon Ricotta Biscuits, which my husband and I make all the time now.

So go ahead, read a great book and cook some great food this summer; that's what I'll be doing.

Vintage Skills: Hand Embroidery, Basting Stitch

Hand embroidery is an art form that is becoming harder and harder to find since the invention of the embroidery machine. While I am a huge fan of embroidery, whether machine made or not, there is a touch of something sacred in the skills of this centuries old art form. Kings and Queens adorned themselves in elaborate embroidery, but the meek and lowly also had family treasures passed down from generation to generation that were hand embroidered. The stitches marked the time of people who lived and worked long ago. In ages where many people could not read or write, their legacies lived on in the stitches passed down through generations. Tapestries were added to when marking the family tree, and family histories were often stitched to capture important memories, grievances, or victories.

When I look at the underside of an embroidered design, it shows me the time, patience, and attention to minute detail that was all put into the creating of the brilliant design on the front. That doesn't exist with machine embroidery. My Grandmother and my Mother taught me the basic skills of embroidery when I was young. Of course, I had little appreciation or patience for it back then, but I am very grateful for the knowledge that was passed down, now that I am older. My other Grandmother made handmade gifts for me and my sisters, so I feel very sentimental when I embroider anything.

Since I was blessed with learning to hand embroider, I would like to share this treasured skill with my readers. Once the basics are mastered, greater skill levels are easy to obtain. There are books that have simple and complicated stitches to keep up levels of improvement. The materials needed for embroidery are very inexpensive. Embroidery needles, embroidery floss, embroidery hoops, needle threader (if you can't thread the needle easily), scissors, fabric or garment, and stabilizer are necessary equipment for hand embroidery. These items can be purchased at craft stores and fabric stores. *If you are a beginner, avoid fancy metallic or iridescent floss; it is not easy to work with.* Always use fabric that is not important, or the final garment to practice on before starting a major project. Mistakes are part of the learning process.

Now that the materials have been discussed, it is time to learn the most basic stitches, and a few tips that are important for embroidery. Each week, a new video will showcase a new stitch or technique.

Grilled Cheese Bento

Right now I am trying to transition my way of cooking and eating to include more organic and local goods as possible. Organic goodies tend to be more expensive, so I have decided to take some time to make the permanent shift. I am a frugal person, so I cannot just waste what I have in my pantry and freezer. The good news is that I have very little processed goods so far. Meals in boxes and freezer bags are not in my house any more. So while my diet and my choices are far from perfect, I am taking some time and making it my goal to get there by January. Wait, not that I think that I can be perfect, but that I think I can give my best effort to be more conscious about where my food comes from and how it is produced.

I give myself kudos for baking my own bread when our last loaf went bad (in Germany the mold grows very fast!). My bread always seems to be smaller than what I get at the store, so it works perfectly for my bento boxes. After I slice my bread, I butter one side of a couple of pieces of bread, slip in a half slice of havarti cheese, and heat it up in my skillet on medium heat. I lightly brown each side, and get it ready to serve my daughter. Since she rarely eats a whole sandwich, I cut it in half, and give her one for dinner, and wrap the other one for her bento box. For my own bento, I cut my sandwich in half and stack the halves on top of each other, keeping the curves together. I wrap my two halves and my daughter's one half in cellophane, then add them to the boxes. My heart-shaped silicone cups hold some cut-up tomatoes, and I cut a plum in half, using cute blue elephant picks to decorate each half. Since the sandwich remains loose, I wedge in a few slices of cucumbers to secure it. My daughter loves hearts, so I add a paper heart with some tape. Cute stuff!

Homemade Mayonnaise: You Can Make That Yourself?!

This started as mayo, and I tried to save it with some extra flavors.

I can't help myself. The inner Curious George creeps out when I learn that there are things that you can make easily, but that I grew up buying in jar or box form. One such product is mayonnaise. To be honest, we were not a mayo eating family growing up. Our loyalties were with Miracle Whip. But, after growing up, my taste buds replenished themselves enough to change my taste preferences. If you didn't know, your taste buds change every 7 years or so. So now instead of being fiercely loyal to one version of condiment, I can enjoy them both.

I first heard about making mayo from scratch on a Martha Stewart show. She was having a sandwich showdown with some famous guy and started to boast about how her mayonnaise was made from scratch. So I tried to search her site for how to do that. I didn't have any luck. Then, as I was reading Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell, she started to talk about her adventures in mayo making. She mentioned how easy it was, so I got even more curious. Now, I stumbled upon an amazing blog (via Tigress in a Pickle) called From Scratch Club, and saw a post about Aioli. I had no idea what aioli was, so I checked it out. That post drove me to take a deep breath and dive into the world of making mayo.

I had some limes on hand, instead of lemons, so I grabbed a lime, two egg yolks, and ground up some fresh salt and pepper. I didn't have any garlic scrapes to make the aioli, so I just went with plain old mayo, which is what Liz, who wrote the amazing piece, said would work just fine. I had heard that if you use straight olive oil, the mayo will taste just like olive oil; I decided to mix in some vegetable oil because I had some on hand. I figured it wouldn't be a strong flavor, and would tone down the olive oil flavor some. (Do not do this!)

My ingredients were all set up, and I started to pour in my thin stream of oil. Then I panicked in my mind because it sounded like water mixing up for a long time. I was beginning to wonder if I made a catastrophic mistake. But slowly, it thickened, and I felt a little brighter. Once I was finished adding the oil, I switched off the food processor and then I tasted it. It was awful! It tasted like vegetable oil, with a slight tang of lime juice. Trying to rescue my mayo, I grabbed some parsley that I had chopped finely, some onion powder, garlic powder, a touch of cayenne pepper, and folded them in. It tasted really great with the new flavors combined, but the dominant taste was still the nasty oil.
Lesson learned: always use really tasty oil when making mayo. I am going to try this again, once I have awesome oil to use.

I used my organic eggs for this. Lime juice, salt & pepper are ready, too.

My super thin stream of oil going into the processor.
This was a tricky picture to take!

This is when I felt relief because it got thicker.

The finished mayo. After I took out the blade,
some oil was pooled underneath. I just folded it in with the rest.

Added ingredients:
Fresh parsley, chopped fine
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Cayenne pepper (dash)

*I feel that it is important to mention that there are raw eggs used in making mayo. When raw eggs are consumed, you can increase your chances of becoming sick with a food borne illness. If you choose to make your own mayo, refrigerate it, and use it within a few days of making it.*

Charaben Bento Box: Happy Worm

Almost too cute to eat!

I love making bento lunches for my daughter, but haven't tried out the character bento, also known as a charaben bento, until today. I wanted to start out with something simple, and quick, so I went with this cute little worm! He is happy, and why wouldn't he be, with those yummy carrots and that juicy strawberry to tempt his tastebuds?

First off, I made a simple wrap using leftover chicken, mayo, and slices of cheese. I had to tuck in the sides before I rolled it so that it would fit nicely in the box. I just rolled it from the short end to short end of the long rectangle...or top to bottom if you are looking at the picture below.

After I folded it like this I rolled it from top to bottom.

After it was rolled, I cut it into three sections. To make sure the sections would fit the box, I placed the whole roll in, took my knife and made a mark of how tall the bento came on the side of the wrap. I cut that section and then cut the remainder in half as well. If a section is slightly too big, try to put the lid on. If it won't close, then you can cut off however much is necessary to make it fit. Easy as pie! Once I had my wrap spirals, I carefully added them to one side of the box, and cut out my sliced cheese shapes using a little kitchen knife. The black stuff is nori, or seaweed, that was cut with kitchen shears. Nori sticks to the cheese easily. After I put his head on, it looked odd, so I made a wavy cut from the side of the cheese, and put it on the bottom of Mr.Worm. That did the trick! Then I cut up a little carrot into sticks and placed them in the bento box along with a strawberry. This took me about 10 minutes to make. I love easy lunch days!
*Nori can be found in grocery stores in the ethnic food sections. They are used to make sushi as well as other things.

Making Vanilla Extract: Ridiculously Easy!



This stuff smells so good.



I checked out some cool websites on how to make your own vanilla extract, and I just got very Curious George up in my head. Could making real vanilla extract really be as easy as they claim it to be? The answer is yes! Yes, in the sense that I now feel like doing a little facepalm over how much money I have spent on real vanilla extract in the past. As you can see from this blog, I love to cook and to bake. When I visit people, I nearly always end up browsing through the cookbooks they have in their kitchen. I know, I am a bit crazy, but I just can't help myself! I love to try new flavors and new techniques. Well, actually, with the speed cooking that America has come to call home cooked meals, the techniques are more like old ones that are just new to me.

A close-up view of the bean pods in the vanilla extract.

Anyway, I found this cool blog, called Simply Recipes, where there was a recipe for vanilla extract.
How to Make Vanilla Extract. Then I got my butt to the grocery store, where they sell the beans in pairs, and not too cheaply. I got two bottles, leaving me with four bean pods. Naturally, since the recipe calls for 3 beans instead of four, I divided the 1 cup of vodka into three, giving me a 1/3 cup of vodka per bean. With four bean pods, that meant I needed 1 1/3 cups of vodka.

I sliced the pods as per directions and stuck them in my mason jar, then poured on the alcohol, and stuck it in a dark spot for a few months. EASY! Oh, and of course, I took a look at the bottle of vanilla extract that I bought at the store, and lo and behold...there is corn syrup in it! BOOO! I think the best part of making your own is that you can reuse and reuse the bean pods for years by just adding more vodka as you use up the vanilla. You save some money in the long run, and the flavor is really amazing! So now I feel like running outside and shouting "this Curious George has made vanilla extract! Oh yeah, baby!" Hmmm, somehow I bet my town would label me as the crazy lady if I really did, so I'll put that on hold for now.

Ice Cream Floats: 50/50 Shakes

Mmm, it looks so yummy!

When I think of summer, I think of one of my favorite treats that my Mom used to make: 50/50 shakes. Basically, if you know how to make a root beer float, you can make a 50/50 shake. The only difference is instead of root beer, you use orange flavored cola. However, I do not recommend Fanta for this. For some reason, it tastes like Kool-aid mixed with sparkling water added to vanilla ice cream. But if you use a rich orange flavored soda, like Crush (which of course ended up getting REM's song stuck in my head) you end up with a shake that tastes like a Dreamsicle, or a 50/50 bar, in drink form. They called them 50/50 bars because they were 50% orange flavored and 50% vanilla ice cream.

We all got to have shakes.

Get the kids out for this, set out your tub of vanilla ice cream, open some orange soda, and get out some tall drinking glasses. Fill the glasses halfway with soda, and add two scoops of ice cream, gently, on top. Make it fun by adding some straws. Make it fancy with an orange peel curl for garnish. Just make it! Heck, it would even be good with some dark chocolate grated on top of the ice cream or garnished with a strawberry, sliced nearly in half. Of course, if you're like me, there is never a bad time to add a little drink umbrella to a drink. Sit back and enjoy your new treat!

Adding the soda pop.

Adding the ice cream. It will foam and fizz.