Catch up and DRs Birthday

Oh my, a lot of food has been made since I last wrote. Most of it pretty banal, but all of it from scratch. I have been struggling with motivation on a level that shouldn't already be a problem so early in the year, so close to the making of New Years resolutions, resolutions that haven't even been given enough of a chance to fail. I read somewhere that it takes a month to break or start a habit, and now four months (almost) into this project, the making of the food is the new normal. There are so many things that don't even feel like effort any more, like making bread or granola. Even yogurt is only a mild effort. I finally had to make baking powder, and it really couldn't have been easier. I did have a totally unsuccessful go at making sour cream for DR's birthday chili, which was weird because I made it over the Christmas holiday and it worked out fine. But I guess I'll have to revisit that to see what went wrong. It was probably the fact that we were having guests, DRs friends who already think I am a little nutty came over to play poker, and partake of the weird set of snacks that result from trying to stay within the rules. There was an olive tray (remember the olive amendment), that included pickled okra left over from Thanksgiving, Tex-Mex Chili with tortilla chips which were made by cutting into triangles and frying corn tortillas that have been in our fridge since September (I didn't mention this to the guests), guacamole (this falls under the handmade by someone else rule - they make it fresh at Figueroa Produce), the sour cream that never set, nuts, and yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

I revisited the cake recipe from Baby J's birthday and set out with such high hopes that I was correcting all my previous mistakes. I bought actual pastry flour, assembled it while Baby J was sleeping so that he wouldn't distract me from combining the ingredients in the proper order, carefully sifted the flour, everything was going so well. It all started to fall apart when I tried to use the roasting rack in place of a cooling rack and totally split the first layer all to pieces.

I was devastated, but the second came layer out perfectly,

and DR was able to frost them so you couldn't tell at all, so I was sure that crisis had been averted and it was going to be wonderful, (my sampling of warm, broken piece was wonderful as only warm, broken pieces can be). But when it came to eating it actual slices of cake it was dry as dirt. The frosting was great, but I think the cake was even worse than the first one. I am blaming the flour. I was so excited to find actual Pastry Flour that I didn't take in that it was whole wheat pastry flour. (I'm also easily seduced by promises of making things that are delicious and better for you at the same time.)

It has come to my attention that whole wheat flour sucks moisture out of baked goods at significantly higher rate than white flour. I guess I thought it being pastry flour meant that it self corrected for the whole wheat aspect. I would like to test the theory of making it again with the an additional egg yolk and a little more milk, but I can't bear the possibility of another disappointment just yet. And it is quite a bit of cake for two adults to have around the house... and no matter how dry and awful it is, somehow I still end up eating it. The whole adventure was not lost, however because I got to test a little bit of knowledge passed on to me by my sister KK at Christmastime... Before shopping for the cake and frosting I noted that we had a box of powdered/confectioners sugar left over from the cake I made in December, so I didn't buy anymore. I didn't note that I need 3 cups of it, and that the 4 cup box was 3/4 empty. But in discussing making some dessert for Christmas, KK mentioned that you can make confectioners sugar by putting regular sugar in a coffee grinder.

 

The name powdered sugar should have tipped me off, that it's just sugar, powdered. Anyway, this was a thrilling discovery that worked out great, though it was pretty time consuming making sure all the grains were ground up. I had to grind it in batches, and run each batch through twice. But the frosting was delicious, so at least something worked out. 

Train Adventure Part Two

For my birthday last week we finally went on another train adventure. I just read my posting about our first train adventure back in November and my ambitious plans to go on the second one a week later... well two months later... better than two years I guess.

It was another beautiful day, cool and sunny and bright. This is why we love Los Angeles. Growing up my birthday usually involved ice storms and muddy puddles from snow melting off boots indoors, not than walking around outside in short sleeves and sunglasses.

We started off at the first stop of the extension, Little Tokyo/Arts District. This is the last stop before the train goes over the LA River into East LA. It is also the one neighborhood with which I am already somewhat familiar. As you might guess it is mostly as Japanese area with a great Japanese grocery store, a bunch of noodle shops and sushi joints as well as a Japanese mall. As the stop name also implies, this area also consists of a bunch of converted warehouses that serve as artist studios, performance spaces and trendy restaurants. For this adventure we kept the hipness factor at a minimum and just checked out a French café located in a strip mall on Second Street called Frances Bakery & Coffee.

There's a tiny little dining room, with a sort of Asian-French Colonial/hole in the wall feel to it. We ordered the Napoleon and a piece of cinnamon walnut coffee cake and a cup of coffee. I was worried about the coffee, because you never know in this type of place... but it was sufficiently rich and dark (although the free refill was a bit burnt).

The cakes were delicious. The napoleon was rich and creamy, and the coffee cake had a lovely and surprising hint of coconut. Even DR liked it and he usually hates coconut. I would definitley go back there if I were in the neighborhood. In reading online, it sounds like they are really known for their macaroons. So I'm going to try to keep that in mind.

We decided to walk over the First Street Bridge to the next stop, which was Pico/Aliso. This one only had one restaurant listed in the article, a hipster pizza joint, and as I said we were leaving hipster pursuits to another day, so we just jumped on the train here and road it out to Indiana, which is fourth from the end, and the next one in after we left off on Train Adventure One. Here we walked around El Mercado, which is a three story open market. There is a supermarket, all kinds of food vendors (if by all kinds you mean everything from tacos to tamales) and stalls selling a lot of crap... cheap toys, kitchy mexican clothing and tchotckes, etc. I mostly enjoyed looking at the supermarket. I'm sure some of the food is great, but we had our sites on some other places so we just looked around.

Next we went across the street to Tamales Lilianas where we had two tamales, pork & green chilis and cheese & pepper sticks.  They were both delicious. Baby J enjoyed the pork very much... the cheese and pepper was a little too much for spice for his delicate palate, but we are working on getting him into spicy food, little by little. I forgot to take a picture of the tamales, but here is the place. The guy working behind the counter was wonderfully friendly. I think he might have been the owner. They have a fancier restaurant on Cesar Chavez, I'd like to check that one out sometime.

Then we hopped back on the train heading west to Soto. The train goes underground for two stops here, and this is by far the coolest station on the whole route. It's blue, grey and white with doves flying over maps and a nest with an egg light over the center. I'll try to take some pictures next time I am there. We realized when we came out of this stop, that we should have walked from Tamales Liliana's because all the restaurants listed for Soto where really between the two stops, and about 10 blocks to the East. We decided instead of doubling back we would just walk down First Street toward the next stop and see what we came across. We ended up chatting with aguy who runs an arts community center there for a while. He said we should have walked down Cesar Chavez, parallel to the north, it has a lot more life on it, but we were running out of steam at this point, so we decided to save that for another day. Our last stop was La Placita del D.F., a teeny, tiny hole in the wall restaurant that specializes in cemitas poblanos, which is a Mexican sandwich with meat (we chose milanese - which is pounded steak, breaded and fried), white cheese, avocado, string cheese and cabbage on a buttered sesame bun. This is messy, fatty, deliciousness. We took a picture of it, but somehow it got deleted. I guess I will have to go back...

There are still dozens of places left to try along this route, so I am looking forward to Train Adventure Part Three. Hopefully it won't be months before we get to it.

Summation and the future

The project officially came to a close two days ago. I wish I could regale you with tales and photos of a beautifully assembled and delicious from scratch celebration meal that was a culmination of all the skills I have developed over the last two months. But alas, I petered along to the end just as I had all along. I didn't even keep very good track of what I ate in the final couple of days. I do promise you however that I remained faithful to the end. In fact, I have grown so accustomed to this manner of eating that I am committed to keeping it up now in my regular life. (Upon seeing a contraband package of goat cheese in the refrigerator used in a recipe made for someone outside of our family, my husband recoiled in shock.)

There will be a few slight modifications based on what I have learned so far. The following items will be admissable:

1. Canned tomatoes, tomato puree, tomato paste. (Tomato season is over, it is too late for me to learn how to can and put up tomatoes to use all winter, and these are useful in so many recipes. This is a rare instance where fresh produce is an unequal substitute, and the effort is not worth the reward. I hope to be canning like a frontiers-woman by next tomato season and we can amend this rule at that time.)
2. Olives (I love olives, and my research shows that they are extremely time consuming to cure, and there aren't many places to buy raw olives, and I hate buying things online for some reason. Also, olives are the kind of thing that people spend their lives perfecting, and I don't think I am going to make them better. Perhaps down the road when I am looking for a challenge I will investigate this further, but for now I want to enjoy some kalamata olives free of guilt.)
3. Salted nuts. (Because it is silly not to allow them.)
4. Dried Fruit. (I haven't bought any because of the sulfur dioxide counting as an ingredient. I think that's a little over the top for everyday living.)
5. Beer (Because I want to stay married. And, although I did go to the beer making workshop, and actually we need to drink that beer... this is another thing like the olives where I think that people dedicate their entire careers to making delicious beer, and I'm not going to all of the sudden make better beer. I want to experiment with this, and I do intend to make my own beer, but it also requires an investment in equipment, and in addition to hating to buy things online, I'm not crazy about buying special equipment in general. I like to improvise out of what I have, but maybe eventually I'll break down and buy some stuff to make beer. We'll see.)
6. Some combinations. Like the 13-bean soup mix that is just 13 beans. Or I saw a 10-grain cereal at the store, the ingredients are just 10 grains. That's one of those silly distinctions I am not going to worry about.
7. Homemade items made by someone else. (At the grocery store I go to they sell jam that is homemade by a person in the neighborhood. I support this idea and I intend to buy some of that jam. This will be applied on a per case basis, but if something is 'artisan' made and I support the ideology and practices I will buy it.)

These are the modifications I can think of right now. It's pretty minor stuff. Someone asked me on Saturday if there were specific things I really missed. Surprisingly I thought, not really. The things on this list were inconveniences I will be glad to leave behind or things I just don't see the benefit of making myself or not supporting. But I haven't woken up in the middle of the night jonesing for an olive or a beer. There are some foods I haven't really had that I look forward to eating sometime. Things like cheese, or a sandwich. But what I really want is to learn to make wonderful, springy, sandwich bread and a fantastic sharp cheddar cheese. I think I have mentioned that numerous recipes call for parmesan cheese and it is inconvenient not to have it available to me, and it takes a long time to make. But I have to some interesting conclusions about food and how we consume in relation to this project. Most fruits and vegetables are ready for consumption right off the tree or out of the ground. We can modify them to any degree we wish, but they are ready to eat right away if needed. Milk is more or less the same, you could drink it straight from the tap if that were available to you. But all other dairy products require some processing. You can do most of that processing yourself in your own kitchen. It just requires heat and time. The amount of time required seems to correlate well with how we should regulate our consumption. There is really no limit to the amount of fruits and vegetables we can eat in a healthy diet. Very few people are in danger of overindulging in vegetables. (I have eaten too much fruit and paid the price, but this isn't the same sort of problem as eating too many cheeseburgers). Dairy products are filled with important nutrients, but they require a little more moderation. The fact that it takes 24 hours to make a soft white cheese might make one think twice before slathering it so thickly on a bagel, and waiting 10 months for parmesan puts it into the luxury category where it belongs. The same can be said for meat. It always needs to be killed, butchered and cooked before you can safely eat it. This effort says that it is something to be eaten with a little less frequency than something that is ready immediately. And a step further, bacon takes a week to prepare, and should be eaten with more discrimination than a chicken that can be roasted within hours of being killed. This is rambling, but I hope it makes a little bit of sense. I don't miss the foods I haven't had, I look forward to enjoying them and the effort that goes into them on occasion. In the meantime, I have eaten more interesting and varied food in the last two months than in any similar span in my memory. I have been too busy loving the food I have been eating to miss anything else.

I plan to keep you all updated on my culinary adventures going forward. There are so many things I haven't made yet. I feel like I have barely scratched the surface on making things from scratch. I will no longer bore you and myself with lists of my daily meals. But I will continue to update with recipes and ruminations. And I will continue to want to hear your thoughts.