Last night's apple tarte tatin was a wild success! The pie crust was a bit too salty (I overcompensated for unsalted butter) but I didn't salt the apples and it actually worked out great. It was time-consuming, but a fun little late-night post-dinner project. Also DELICIOUS. Did I mention delicious? Definitely going into the regular rotation of recipes. I ate the last of it for breakfast.
Today I did little, again. My mom and I visited the Air Force Base to go to the commissary, the BX, and Class Six, the liquor store. Everything is so cheap on base! I forget these things. We got lots of booze (restocking the liquor cabinet, wheee), and LOTS of food, and we ate sushi in the car on the way back home! The commissary has a little sushi stand that sells pretty good stuff. I LOVE sushi. I miss it so much when I'm in Ohio.
After getting tons and tons of food (and marveling at the cheapness of beans... seriously, why do we eat anything else? oh yeah... in co-ops we don't.) we went back home, where we bought... more food! Because commissary produce is substandard, apparently. And then we went home, and I put all the groceries away, and everyone had lives except for me. Miles went off to band practice, and then a performance. Tory went to work. Mom went off to a hotel for her annual birthday getaway, and Dad was commuting from L.A. I was ALONE. So I unpacked some more (the boxes I shipped myself arrived), and now my room is clean of small piles of socks.
Tonight's dinner: with our food stores restocked, you'd think dinner would be something elaborate and amazing, right? No. Dinner instead was whatever I could cook that didn't a) require advance preparation, b) require thawing frozen meat in an hour, or c) use up ingredients earmarked for other dishes. So... cauliflower soup!
The soup was actually incredibly tasty. It really didn't have any ingredients but onion, olive oil, cauliflower, and chicken stock, but I jazzed it up a little at serving time by adding a lot of fresh-ground pepper and a swirl of argan oil. Argan oil is this weird fair trade oil sold from Morocco (I think) that is made from certain nuts, which, since they have an incredibly difficult fibrous outer fruit, are only processed after they have passed through the digestive system of a goat. That's right. We eat goat-poop-nut oil. And it is DIVINE. It's also super expensive, but since the rest of the soup ingredients were so cheap, I felt fine drizzling a little on. Unfortunately, it loses a lot of its unique nutty flavor when heated, so you can't sauté with it or anything, but it was perfect drizzled on the soup.
The guy from Mattei's didn't call. It's not a big deal, I wasn't exactly waiting by the phone. I would like a job, though. I really would like something to do. I hope people call me sooner rather than later.
Tomorrow's tasks: setting up doctors' appointments, looking through the course catalog and application deadlines for 4th quarter at UCSB, and babysitting in the evening. Whee!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
I have a strange obsession with the idea of things on strings.
Today I did nothing. Bleh.
So I suppose this will be a particularly uninteresting post. On with the minutiae, I suppose.
I made a list of various things I think are artistically cute! And I decided to set up doctors' and dentists' appointments, and get a new passport. But I didn't actually do it.
I guess I was too industrious yesterday with the whole WRITE RESUME NOW JOBS APPLY thing yesterday. I now have nothing to do but wait for people to contact me. Unbearable!
I had that weird early-evening illness again tonight. I thought I felt sick because I hadn't eaten much, and I occasionally feel queasy when my blood sugar is low, but it turned out to be the whole barfy thing again. So I barfed, felt better, and ate my burrito. I will be going to the doctor to figure out why I get inexplicably vomity every couple of weeks at 5:30, though. I might as well.
Oh yeah. Burritos for dinner tonight. I wanted to make a tomato tarte tatin, but the fam has a Thursday-night-burrito tradition, so I'll have to do the traditional apple tarte tatin instead. Oh no more desserts! What a terrible thing.
Tomorrow we go to the commissary to shop for ingredients. I'll make a point of getting ingredients for both of Blair's recipes, the bean and kale one, and the pear pie. Then we come back and I wait for the guy from Mattei's to call and see if I want to talk to the chef-owners. I also make a start on those doctors' appointments and passport-getting. If I want to go to Italy with Danny this summer, I'd better have a passport!
So I suppose this will be a particularly uninteresting post. On with the minutiae, I suppose.
I made a list of various things I think are artistically cute! And I decided to set up doctors' and dentists' appointments, and get a new passport. But I didn't actually do it.
I guess I was too industrious yesterday with the whole WRITE RESUME NOW JOBS APPLY thing yesterday. I now have nothing to do but wait for people to contact me. Unbearable!
I had that weird early-evening illness again tonight. I thought I felt sick because I hadn't eaten much, and I occasionally feel queasy when my blood sugar is low, but it turned out to be the whole barfy thing again. So I barfed, felt better, and ate my burrito. I will be going to the doctor to figure out why I get inexplicably vomity every couple of weeks at 5:30, though. I might as well.
Oh yeah. Burritos for dinner tonight. I wanted to make a tomato tarte tatin, but the fam has a Thursday-night-burrito tradition, so I'll have to do the traditional apple tarte tatin instead. Oh no more desserts! What a terrible thing.
Tomorrow we go to the commissary to shop for ingredients. I'll make a point of getting ingredients for both of Blair's recipes, the bean and kale one, and the pear pie. Then we come back and I wait for the guy from Mattei's to call and see if I want to talk to the chef-owners. I also make a start on those doctors' appointments and passport-getting. If I want to go to Italy with Danny this summer, I'd better have a passport!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Apparently L.A. has a yearly extra virgin olive oil competition.
Today I did stuff! Stuff to make sure that I am employed! Yaaay!
It was fun. I made a resume and everything. My very first resume, imagine! Once I started thinking about it, I am actually highly employable in a kitchen for someone my age. I have worked in CDS in several positions, and I worked in Pyle, and I was a part of the Oberlin catering team, so I definitely have experience in commercial kitchens. Our friend Lee came by the house when I was doing it, too, and she has experience looking over things like this (it used to be her job) so she helped me spruce it up and told me lots of useful stuff about getting a job, basically that I can't be too professional.
I dropped the resume off at three places (Petros, Los Olivos Cafe, and Mattei's) and the guy at Mattei's opened it right in front of me. He was super friendly, but he's only in charge of the wait staff, bartenders, and the front of the house so he wants me in to talk to the chef-owners sometime on Friday, which I can do!
I also called everyone I babysit for to make sure they knew I was back in town and available. Amusingly enough, I got an immediate response asking me to sit for five hours this Saturday. So I have at least one paying job!
Also, my stipend check from Confluence arrived! Since we were guests, they apparently promised us a stipend, forgot to give it to us, and then remembered last-minute. So all four of us got checks for $60-odd dollars, which is excellent. More money for the bank, yay!
It was nice to get out of the house today. After I delivered all my little envelopes with resumes to the restaurants, I walked over to Global Gardens and decided to do a little olive oil tasting. They sell tastings for $3, and I was curious. One of the most interesting things on the menu was being able to taste the difference between two oils made from same olives, one batch of which was pollinated by sage grown nearby, one batch left alone. The difference was immediately and obviously apparent. It was super cool to be able to taste a bunch of olive oils next to each other, too. I might have to become an olive oil snob until I'm old enough to fully develop my wine snobbery; the tasting methods are similar. I mean, I have to find something to do with my vast amounts of disposable income.
Dinner tonight: roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots with paprika and whole garlic cloves. Made up entirely because I wanted to use my paprika, and we had root vegetables in the larder. Absolutely DIVINE. Served with salad, of course, because I go into green withdrawal.
recipe for those what care...
PAPRIKA POTATOES:
Ingredients:
3 large yukon gold potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
2 large carrots
a head of garlic
sausage (optional)
paprika
thyme mustard (moutard au thyme)
mustard powder
cayenne pepper
ground thyme
salt
a couple tablespoons of brown sugar
a couple tablespoons of butter
a quarter cup of olive oil
Cut carrots into pieces. Put in pot of water on stove. Heat while chopping potatoes and sweet potatoes. Put those in the pot and parboil for 5-8 minutes. While boiling, melt butter, then and add olive oil, spices, mustard, and brown sugar. Whisk until emulsified (the mustard should do that for you).
Drain root vegetables, put back in pot, and shake pot, until edges are fuzzy, but chunks are not broken. Spread onto baking sheet (the heavier the better) with unpeeled garlic cloves and sausage chunks and toss with oil and spice mixture.
Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, take out, stir around (add oil or butter if necessary) and put back in for another 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Turn off oven. EAT (the potatoes, not the oven).
It was fun. I made a resume and everything. My very first resume, imagine! Once I started thinking about it, I am actually highly employable in a kitchen for someone my age. I have worked in CDS in several positions, and I worked in Pyle, and I was a part of the Oberlin catering team, so I definitely have experience in commercial kitchens. Our friend Lee came by the house when I was doing it, too, and she has experience looking over things like this (it used to be her job) so she helped me spruce it up and told me lots of useful stuff about getting a job, basically that I can't be too professional.
I dropped the resume off at three places (Petros, Los Olivos Cafe, and Mattei's) and the guy at Mattei's opened it right in front of me. He was super friendly, but he's only in charge of the wait staff, bartenders, and the front of the house so he wants me in to talk to the chef-owners sometime on Friday, which I can do!
I also called everyone I babysit for to make sure they knew I was back in town and available. Amusingly enough, I got an immediate response asking me to sit for five hours this Saturday. So I have at least one paying job!
Also, my stipend check from Confluence arrived! Since we were guests, they apparently promised us a stipend, forgot to give it to us, and then remembered last-minute. So all four of us got checks for $60-odd dollars, which is excellent. More money for the bank, yay!
It was nice to get out of the house today. After I delivered all my little envelopes with resumes to the restaurants, I walked over to Global Gardens and decided to do a little olive oil tasting. They sell tastings for $3, and I was curious. One of the most interesting things on the menu was being able to taste the difference between two oils made from same olives, one batch of which was pollinated by sage grown nearby, one batch left alone. The difference was immediately and obviously apparent. It was super cool to be able to taste a bunch of olive oils next to each other, too. I might have to become an olive oil snob until I'm old enough to fully develop my wine snobbery; the tasting methods are similar. I mean, I have to find something to do with my vast amounts of disposable income.
Dinner tonight: roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots with paprika and whole garlic cloves. Made up entirely because I wanted to use my paprika, and we had root vegetables in the larder. Absolutely DIVINE. Served with salad, of course, because I go into green withdrawal.
recipe for those what care...
PAPRIKA POTATOES:
Ingredients:
3 large yukon gold potatoes
2 sweet potatoes
2 large carrots
a head of garlic
sausage (optional)
paprika
thyme mustard (moutard au thyme)
mustard powder
cayenne pepper
ground thyme
salt
a couple tablespoons of brown sugar
a couple tablespoons of butter
a quarter cup of olive oil
Cut carrots into pieces. Put in pot of water on stove. Heat while chopping potatoes and sweet potatoes. Put those in the pot and parboil for 5-8 minutes. While boiling, melt butter, then and add olive oil, spices, mustard, and brown sugar. Whisk until emulsified (the mustard should do that for you).
Drain root vegetables, put back in pot, and shake pot, until edges are fuzzy, but chunks are not broken. Spread onto baking sheet (the heavier the better) with unpeeled garlic cloves and sausage chunks and toss with oil and spice mixture.
Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, take out, stir around (add oil or butter if necessary) and put back in for another 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Turn off oven. EAT (the potatoes, not the oven).
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
When I was 9, I made an apron out of a dishtowel with colorful fish all over it.
So I'm home, and it's weird. It's green here. And rainy. But really warm.
Today I discovered in my junk mail folder something sent to me about a mandatory federal loan exit counseling session, since I'm not going to be enrolled so my loans start needing payment. And I was like OH SHIT OH SHIT but then it turns out it's an online counseling appointment? So I clicked through this website that told me lots of stuff about my loans. And at the end it had a little calculator so I could figure out how much money I needed to make in order to pay off my loans in 10 years. According to the calculator, I need to make at least $3.61 an hour, $640something a month, and $7500 dollars a year for ten years. I think I can do that. It'll be tough, but I can handle it.
Dinner tonight: Galettes! Actually, it's kind of a clean-out-the-fridge kind of meal, because we don't have an awful lot of food in the house. So I took some broccoli and made a little broccoli-garlic sauté with toasted walnuts and white wine, and soon enough I will put it into pie crust and fold the pie crust around it, then bake it and put cheese on top of it and eat it with great relish. Oh, and a couple of the galettes will have fresh tomato in them too. I chose not to sauté the tomato, because I want the tangy taste of a fresher tomato against the darker flavors of roasted garlic and broccoli. It will probably bake in the oven to be cooked-tasting anyhow, I just don't want it overcooked.
Another weird thing about California: fresh produce? In the winter? Not that I'm complaining...
Tomorrow I look for a job, preferably at a restaurant kitchen. My options:
1) Los Olivos Café. A nice little place with good ambiance and vaguely Italian food. It was featured in the movie Sideways so it's been very popular since then. Also has a wine bar. Has a history of employing younger people on the wait staff.
2) Mattei's Tavern. Built in an old stagecoach station, a pretty nice restaurant. But I haven't been there in years. Apparently the wait staff get really good tips. More popular than its quality warrants, and apparently expanding, so they are liable to be hiring. Yay?
My most vivid memory of Mattei's is being there with family friends, one of whom ordered plain noodles with butter, and being astounded that someone could fathom eating something so bland. The concept of noodles with butter had never even occurred to me.
3) Petros, the local hotel's Greek restaurant. Good but overpriced, apparently. I've never been, but it's less than a year old. Maybe hiring? Maybe not.
4) Patrick's Sidestreet Cafe. A tiny little restaurant-cum-art-gallery with an open kitchen, this is definitely the best restaurant in town. Patrick is a brilliant chef (trained at the Culinary Institute of America) and nothing I've had there has ever been less than superb. However, I've been warned away from applying because people who know Patrick say he's CRAZY bipolar, and liable to be impossible to work with. You know those crazy artists.
And the list of "restaurants I can walk to" ends. If I don't get a kitchen job at any, I'll apply for a table-waiting position. I also have the option of working at a coffee shop or one of two delis in town. Unfortunately, most shops in town are wine tasting rooms, and I'm not 21.
Well, time to get back to dinner. Those galettes won't fill, fold, and bake on their own!
Today I discovered in my junk mail folder something sent to me about a mandatory federal loan exit counseling session, since I'm not going to be enrolled so my loans start needing payment. And I was like OH SHIT OH SHIT but then it turns out it's an online counseling appointment? So I clicked through this website that told me lots of stuff about my loans. And at the end it had a little calculator so I could figure out how much money I needed to make in order to pay off my loans in 10 years. According to the calculator, I need to make at least $3.61 an hour, $640something a month, and $7500 dollars a year for ten years. I think I can do that. It'll be tough, but I can handle it.
Dinner tonight: Galettes! Actually, it's kind of a clean-out-the-fridge kind of meal, because we don't have an awful lot of food in the house. So I took some broccoli and made a little broccoli-garlic sauté with toasted walnuts and white wine, and soon enough I will put it into pie crust and fold the pie crust around it, then bake it and put cheese on top of it and eat it with great relish. Oh, and a couple of the galettes will have fresh tomato in them too. I chose not to sauté the tomato, because I want the tangy taste of a fresher tomato against the darker flavors of roasted garlic and broccoli. It will probably bake in the oven to be cooked-tasting anyhow, I just don't want it overcooked.
Another weird thing about California: fresh produce? In the winter? Not that I'm complaining...
Tomorrow I look for a job, preferably at a restaurant kitchen. My options:
1) Los Olivos Café. A nice little place with good ambiance and vaguely Italian food. It was featured in the movie Sideways so it's been very popular since then. Also has a wine bar. Has a history of employing younger people on the wait staff.
2) Mattei's Tavern. Built in an old stagecoach station, a pretty nice restaurant. But I haven't been there in years. Apparently the wait staff get really good tips. More popular than its quality warrants, and apparently expanding, so they are liable to be hiring. Yay?
My most vivid memory of Mattei's is being there with family friends, one of whom ordered plain noodles with butter, and being astounded that someone could fathom eating something so bland. The concept of noodles with butter had never even occurred to me.
3) Petros, the local hotel's Greek restaurant. Good but overpriced, apparently. I've never been, but it's less than a year old. Maybe hiring? Maybe not.
4) Patrick's Sidestreet Cafe. A tiny little restaurant-cum-art-gallery with an open kitchen, this is definitely the best restaurant in town. Patrick is a brilliant chef (trained at the Culinary Institute of America) and nothing I've had there has ever been less than superb. However, I've been warned away from applying because people who know Patrick say he's CRAZY bipolar, and liable to be impossible to work with. You know those crazy artists.
And the list of "restaurants I can walk to" ends. If I don't get a kitchen job at any, I'll apply for a table-waiting position. I also have the option of working at a coffee shop or one of two delis in town. Unfortunately, most shops in town are wine tasting rooms, and I'm not 21.
Well, time to get back to dinner. Those galettes won't fill, fold, and bake on their own!
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