Sunday, August 29, 2010

Food Porn

No not Porn, not if I don't show you the amount of butter that goes into a full batch of scones. Let me present the food spread at Cora's Birthday Party.
This is my Sonoma Chicken Salad on the left, Herb Cream Cheese sandwiches on the right.
Lemon Tea Cookies... came out a bit dark, but were surprisingly well liked.
Experimental Raspberry-Clove Iced Tea, Sally Fallon Carrot Cake, a tradition.
Ah, yes do you see them now... my best batch of Whoopie Pies, YUM! And my Maple-Oat-Nut Scones... Which leads into something naughty.
Ok now for the afortomentioned shocking material ...Now to go flush out your arteries... no more Ice Cream, eat lots of raw garlic and ginger.

MWAH (Thats for you Nancy!)

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

My Life in Food

The picture loaded in reverse chronological order but they still tell a story I think, no matter the order. I was just wondering why I photograph the food I cook. More and more I find adventures in the kitchen give me a grounding into what I really am doing with my life these days. OF course we eat it and then usually it is forgotten. Kinda sucks to do something so useful pretty well. Not like an engineer who gets to drive over his own Bridge once in a while. What I do passes over the palate, yet there is adventure, struggle and beauty in it all.

For example, on a whim the family voted for some homemade eclairs when I mentioned
I had found a recipe, and a darn good one too. This led to a 7:30 pm grocery run and a delayed bedtime but it was so worth it.With Cora on my hip I sliced them open and Mark folded the custard while Grady watched and helped. Was so nice for the family to make such a treat together.

I expected to see a fabulous difference between industrial eggs and local free range eggs. Celeste Alber's Green Grocer egg on the left and Egglands Best on the right. So easy to see which chicken actually goes outside, grazes and eats a few bugs.
What I didn't expect from Green Grocer was a set of double yolks the other morning. Side by side in the crate. Imagine the odds. (Based on a story of a woman who encountered 6 double yolkers the calculation for the odds is one in every 1,000 has a double yolk, then take 1,000 to the power of two since I encountered two. Apparently one in one million!) I turned to Mark and said "things have got to be looking up now!"
My spread for Grady's Fourth Birthday Party had to somehow Be Monkey-Pirate, with bananas and Ham I had fun trying to pull this one off.
What was really fun was designing and running full steam ahead with a Monkey cake. So proud of this one, I love surprising myself, and it tasted pretty good too. Mostly banana cake with some yellow cake, and whipped icing as the filling, with bananas on the banana side. Chocolate and Mocha Butter-cream Frosting finished it off and worked well with the banana!
My herb cream cheese creations, yummm!
homemade herb cream cheese, hummus and a cucumber in a pita pocket. Try it!