Monthly Archives: November 2010

Raw Cranberry Relish with Tangerines and Walnuts

November 23, 2010
Cranberries square 1

Thanksgiving dinner was just another family meal until my paternal grandmother started serving a cylinder of quivering cranberry jelly, gingerly laid on its back and sliced into thin discs. Not only did it inject a flash of color into the meal’s otherwise narrow spectrum of ivories, beiges, and chestnut browns, it was geometric and precise, and I was a child of all things orderly.

Later, barely into my double-digit years, I noticed a bowl of juicy cranberry sauce on my maternal grandmother’s table. It had probably been there each year, pooling in its faceted crystal bowl, but only then did I realize that mashed potatoes and cranberries and stuffing and cranberries and turkey and cranberries are all better when paired in a four-to-one ratio than when each is eaten alone. It was the first meal—and is still the sole meal—at which I willingly commingled my food.

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Posted in Fall, Fruit, Nuts & Seeds, Sweets, Winter

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Down-to-Earth Inspiration (Fall Cookbooks)

November 17, 2010
soup love

Once every few weeks, I pull one of a stack of boxes from my clothes closet and lift the lid with a mix of verve and trepidation. Sleeping—or, more accurately, hibernating—head to toe are objects known to most as pumps and to me as relicts. Until Elinor was born, including the final weeks before that delicious day, they accompanied me to the office five days a week. Now, I rely on flats, except when Dave and I venture out to taste the latest from San Francisco’s restaurants.

Last weekend, I unearthed a pair of black, pointed-toe d’Orsay stilettos, the kind with tomato-red soles, to accompany me to dinner and drinks. We started at a so-called tavern, where carbon-filament bulbs narrowly illuminate walnut-paneled walls and the fare is standard turn-of-the-twentieth-century San Francisco: roasted marrow, oysters on the half-shell, and the rough-and-tumble Hangtown Fry. My kind of place.

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Posted in Other Musings

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Borlotti Bean Mole with Roast Winter Squash and Black Kale

November 10, 2010

My 11-month-old daughter has developed a reputation in our neighborhood. Mind you, we live in a densely populated, urban neighborhood, so this is not an easy feat. And, while she is out and about three times most days, she is not outside for that long. But each neighborhood has its characters, even if you only see them every so often. We have the compact septuagenarian with a stern gait, undoubtedly a former dancer, who walks her twin black Scottie dogs several times a day. Without fail, she is adorned in black tights, a black wool topper, and a cloche hat (yes, also black). There is also the heartbreakingly skeletal woman who used to inch along alone on her spindly pilasters of legs, but walks these days with her blond Labrador Retriever service dog. Now, apparently, there is also Elinor. While she was at the park admiring dogs with my parents, a woman announced, “There’s the naked baby again!” (“The naked baby,” as in a baby that has been previously specified as naked: people are talking about her. This is quite different from the indefinite “a naked baby,” as in, “Is that a naked baby working on her tan?”)

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Posted in Fall, Grains & Legumes, Soups, Vegetables, Winter

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Arkansas-Black Apples

November 4, 2010
Arkansas Black Apple

Well after the early, rose-fleshed Pink Pearls and Thomas Jefferson’s dear Spitzenbergs, I was wrist-deep in a box of russeted Ashmead Kernels at the farmers market when a woman pressed up behind me. “When are the Arkansas Blacks coming?” she inquired hopefully, while peering over my shoulder, of Stan Devoto, grower of more than 50 apple varieties. He suspected a couple weeks. So each Saturday and Tuesday to come, as the firm Swaars, tart Sierra Beauties, and even the spicy Mutsus came and went, I asked about them, too. At least four others asked the same question, increasing the currency of this fall fruit with a seemingly cult-like following.

The day finally arrived—last Tuesday, to be precise—when I spotted a box mounding with deep burgundy orbs freckled with ivory specks. A small zinc label erected at the back of the box proclaimed: “Arkansas Black.” Behold! I gathered several pounds of them, wanting to make sure I had enough specimens to study, while also insuring against the risk of a cameo—what if they were only available that one day, as had happened to other varieties this season?

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Posted in Fruit

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Kombucha

November 1, 2010
kombucha go to

Ritual. Repetition with meaning. To begin, it is a single act. In the dark, cool bedroom, I wake up to see Elinor sitting, watching me sleep. I hug her, and she settles her head into the nook where my torso and shoulder meet. She sings quiet, delicate songs to herself. We stay here for minutes; soon a half hour has passed. A memorable morning. This was last Wednesday. Each morning since she has done the same. A ritual. A child’s ritual, more fleeting since interests morph in perpetuity.

Some rituals are less overtly meaningful. Each Saturday morning just before eight o’clock and as Elinor and I head to the market, Dave walks five blocks to get his weekly cup of dark, heady coffee and then walks three more to the boulange, where the smell of baking brioche lingers as he waits for them to finish making his sandwich: soft, pungent Cambozola and crisp slices of pear pressed into a still-warm walnut baguette. I like to think that this is his time to spend with his city and his thoughts.

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Posted in Drinks

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