plums

I have been rejoicing over plums this year. There is a big plum tree that overhangs the ppatch wall. I have no idea on the variety, all I know is that the plums start in early July and they are red on the outside and red on the inside. They taste like a plum - tangy and sweet. I have yet to find a plum tree to plant that has the same characteristics. With the plums we picked day aft
er day - windfalls mostly and some off the tree, not trying to be too greedy, we made plum jam to mix into yoghurt and have slathered on toast come January.

The ubiquitous Italian prune which seems to drop its beautiful blue/grey fruits this time of year is another plum that I can do without when fresh - a bit astringent when under ripe and mushy when ripe. Not a flavor or texture that works for me - but oh, my my oh my when combined with apple for chutney or made into a plum sauce for meats - it transforms itself to a much nobler fruit. Blessedly at least six people you know have a tree in their back yard and will be happy to part with their fruit in exchange for a jar of chutney. I won't even go into the myriad of recipes for plum cakes that will use up the excess . Much like zucchini - many have been the victims of a drive by pruning.

Last weekend at the farmer's market, I saw Damson plums for the first time in a long time. This is a plum that has definitely fallen out of favor in the past generation. I can't blame you for not loving them - they are tiny, the pit versus flesh ratio is high and they are very astringent. However, with a bit of lemon juice, some sugar and time, you can create something that will bring you back to fall sometime in January.

Damson plum jam - makes approximately 4 pts

2 lbs damson plums
3 cups sugar
juice of one lemon

If you are patient, you can pit each plum.

If not, place plums in a heavy non reactive pot - I used Le Creuset with an enamel interior and cook until plums are soft - approximately 10 minutes, be careful to keep the heat even and low and check to make sure the plums aren't sticking.

Once soft and easy to pit, remove from heat.

Place softened plum into food mill or into sieve to remove the seeds. Collect plum puree and place into non reactive pan.

If you are patient and have pitted the plums by hand, pat yourself on the back with your sticky plumy hand and place the pitted plums into a non reactive heavy pot and heat under low heat until plums are soft. Stir often to prevent sticking and burning.

You can now use your food mill to remove the skins, but don't bother.

Add 3 cups of sugar and the juice of one lemon to the plum puree. Stir until mixed and heat under low to medium heat -stirring frequently to prevent sticking until jam starts to thicken - approximately 20 minutes, the mixture will come to a boil. When it has reached the desired thickness, remove from heat and let sit for a few minutes. Skim off any foam.

Place into hot jars - process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Eat within two years.

Dinner, all ready. I'm over it.

My father knows how to make three dishes tops, which considering his age and the era in which he was raised, is pretty good.

When we were little, my father left Seattle to go to London to take a course in biomechanical engineering. He went three months earlier than the rest of us. While I missed my father, I was more worried about what he was going to eat. As far as I was concerned, the only thing he knew how to cook was ab-gusht, the Persian lamb stew with shanks, chickpeas, onions, and tomatoes -- all slow cooked to a meaty goodness. The marrow was the best part. My mom assured me that he was going to be okay.

Later, his repetoire expanded to addas katteh - rice with lentils - easy fast and surprisingly meaty and hearty and his version of piperade - a mix up of eggs, tomatoes and potatoes. I used to love watching him make it, mostly because the idea of my father cooking was so unusual. His time at home was outside, or reading and studying. I also loved this combination of flavors - except back them I did not like runny eggs. The sharpness of the tomato combined with the richness of the egg yolks and the substrate of the potato was a classic combination, little did I know my dad was not this dish's inventor, but his version was a knock out.

Piperade is very much the same classic combination of flavors -- sweet peppers and onions as a base with a touch of smoked paprika or chile powder and tomatoes added and cooked down and the crowning glory -- eggs, glorious eggs. The potatoes are addition. Most people would mop up the eggy goodness with bread -- the potatoes are just a nice addition. Ditto for adding ham to liven things up.

The recipe I used was from Chocolate and Zucchini -- I'm going everywhere these days to excite my palate. The best part is the vegetable prep can be done the day before, leaving you with only adding the egg and cooking.

My hack:

2 peppers - red pepper and yellow pepper -- sliced
1 medium onion - chopped
1 t ground chile pepper - not hot
1 T olive oil
1/2 clove chopped garlic
sea salt
4 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped - could used canned in the winter
sliced cooked potatoes if you have some sitting around
8 eggs

In a large heavy skillet, heat olive oil, add sliced peppers, onions, garlic and cook using low heat until everything is softened and melting - approximately 35 minutes.

Add seeded chopped tomatoes and potatoes if you have them and cook another 15 minutes or until all the liquid has evaporated and spread the mixture evenly in the bottom of the skillet. Season with salt and pepper.

Turn off the heat -- crack each egg, without breaking the yolks. Add each egg to the pan one by one and cook over low heat until the yolks are softly set.

Remove from heat, divide into fourths and serve with crusty bread.

I spent today trying to not care about any sort of social media. I did keep my phone nearby as to see if TH would check in from the frigid north.

She did, late.

Out of boredom, I would hit the twitter icon on the blackberry and then think to myself - do I really care what you are doing? Do you care what I am doing? Why am I following a bunch of people who follow each other, start conversations or make dinner plans that 10000 people follow and don't invite you?

Twitter - The whole concept is voyeuristic and at the same time, disheartening and at times ego deflating. I wonder to myself --am I not a cool kid? Am I not one of the in crowd? Honestly, at the ripe age of 40 something, why do I care about such clique ridden things? Most of these intimate between two people conversations can be held via a email stream that not all of us really need to cc ed. It is my belief that for some,Twitter is now replacing that level of intimacy that most of us have come to cherish - notes passed in the hall, an email check up, and horrors of horrors - picking up the phone and actually talking to someone.

I think I understand why teens are not twittering -- IM works better to have a icon to icon conversation without the rest of the world reading and laughing along.

Why do I give a flying puck?

From an intellectual level and as a person trying to grasp how social media can be used for information dissemination - it is important. If I had a graduate student and a lot of time, I would spend time reading tweet streams of certain groups of people and the ask others to assess what they are really get from 140 characters or less? If I had the strength - I would write an abstract for AAG.

In terms of information dissemination -- news feeds, hurricane advisories, software updates, twitter is fantastic. Case in point, @dooce used twitter this weekend to reach out to her 1 million plus followers for help in locating a missing friend with some mental illness issues who was last seen in the Phoenix area. The police were not willing to start an investigation - but did at the urging of the public. Imagine if we could do the same with Amber Alerts, flood information, severe weather, that is a great use of twitter, what your on the spur of the moment lunch plans - not so much.

So, will I stop twittering, nope, but I will be more likely to keep things to myself and pick up the phone a little more often.

My friend JK, who we see only these days on Twitter and Facebook has given me lots of ideas to chew on for blog topics, thank you!

The weather on the East Coast this summer has been dreadful - wet and not too warm. The tragedy of it all is that potato and tomato blight has struck with a vengeance. We small scale city gardeners can kvetch about our lack of B,L, &Ts, but its the commercial farmer - be it a monolithic farm or a small scale CSA who are really feeling the hurt.

However, it gave me pause for thought -- how much does it cost to grow that tomato on your patio? Did you buy a fancy new pot? Compost, one of those spiral hoses? Did you remember to get someone to water it when you went away for the weekend? If sunk a bunch of money into that lovely terracotta pot and an obscene amount of money for that heirloom tomato plant and only get three marble sized tomatoes and cost average it -- well, you don't want to know. Twelve dollars a tomato is a really nice salad at Chez Panisse or a medium pizza with a coupon at Papa Johns.

Yeah, the 10' or 100 mile diet costs, big time.

Due to my schedule this summer I have been spending a lot of time in our ppatch and maybe we have been lucky so far with the varieties we planted, TH's judicious pruning and the exceedingly disgustingly torpid weather - leading to crankiness for humans and bumper crops of tomatoes for us.

Today I picked eight lbs - mostly these tiny little paste like tomatoes that I abhor and TH loves and made a thick rich sauce that will get us through at least six lasagnes this fall and winter. I think we might have another twelve lbs to pick if the weather cooperates.

I realize that our own little garden costs as well - our annual renewal fees, the compost and seeds we buy and the extra we contribute each year to garden scholarships. We also give back -- pounds and pounds of summer squash, beans, beets, greens and soon hard squash to local food banks.

The sauce is simple to make -- if you have a mouli or Foley food mill. I'm a lazy cook - I'm not one for the tomato peeling and deseeding pre-cooking - besides you lose so much of the flavor in the juice of the tomato.

Sauce for lasagne -- suitable for freezing, but not for canning

In a very heavy, non reactive dutch oven -- combine and melt over low heat.

4 T olive oil
2 T butter

Add 3 cloves chopped garlic

once that starts to cook

chop two medium sized yellow onions

Add to garlic/butter/olive oil mixture

cook until transparent - about seven minutes

Meanwhile, take six lbs of tomatoes - paste is preferable, but whatever you have on hand and is ripe will work.

Core the larger tomatoes and chop into fourths. Pierce the skin of the smaller paste tomatoes to allow them to burst when cooking.

Add tomatoes to onion/garlic mixture -- mix well.

Turn heat up a bit - you don't want to scorch the tomatoes and cook for at least twenty five minutes or until tomatoes have started to fall apart.

Take off heat.

Use the food mill to remove the seeds and skins from the sauce. Usually I do this right into the new pot - still keeping to non reactive finishes. If you wish, you can season with some sea salt. Cook tomato sauce down until you have reached a consistency you like -- this batch has been sitting and slowly cooking at warm for the last six hours and its starting to look like sauce.

Once you have reached your desired thickness for your sauce - -remove from heat - let cool down and decant into your favorite freezer containers.

Making tomato sauce can be discouraging -- all those pounds of tomatoes for a yield of four quarts if you are lucky. The sauce is wonderful on a cold winter's night. In some cases, I add one or two sweet peppers to the onion mixture to add a little complexity. I'm not one for adding the herbs until I know what I am planning on doing with the sauce and sometimes they go bitter.

Why am not suggesting you can this? I'm not sure that the addition of the butter is going to be good with boiling water canning. Its better safe than sorry.

This year I am not canning any tomato products - its too much work for not enough return. Sorry, I hate to tell you that - sauce is easy, peeling hot tomatoes and then canning them for 35 minutes - not so much.

Alas, my workcation has come to an end.

Today, I managed to get three things off my desk!

Like any vacation - I did a bit of shopping -- managed to score a pair of BR jeans at 80% off and took a look at the new Tiffany and Co. that opened in the destination mall by my house - scored a small box of Frans there - DOUBLE SCORE.

Dog walker took Ernest to Greenlake and around and to the DOG PARK and he's very tired - TRIPLE SCORE.

Yeah, for being stuck here instead of an immigration cell at YOW, I'm scoring left and right.

Its a long weekend - so I think I'll stick to the excitement -- cleaning, reading and gardening.

Day three of my workcation is over... Honestly, it is probably not a bad thing for me to be at work. I'm less stressed and asking people to cut to the chase instead of waffling. It saves everyone time, really.

I have yet to find poutine, I know its available at Bastille - but I'm not going there by myself. Instead we'll eat TJ's hors d'oeuvres and tomatoes from the garden.

I left work early - 4:30 yesterday and took my camera to the Ppatch and took 400 pictures. The abundance of what is grown is amazing and still people are planting -- winter greens, lettuce, peas and beets and turnips. Things are not going to grow as fast, but maybe we'll be rewarded with some dinosaur kale in November. Picardo farm is located in a hollow and heartache follows the first cool night when the fog settles into the hollow and we lose the tender squash plants. I hope that doesn't happen for a long while - I need a bit of cheer these days.

Anyone planning on planting a garden this winter?

nm

I find it amazing that TH can email her former advisor who is currently in Budapest tonight to bring her a crottin from CDG. The crottin will appear in front of her tomorrow when they meet in Ottawa.

Lucky dogs.

The dog is also lucky because his dog walker is taking him on two long walks tomorrow.

Lucky me.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

forsaken

I have been remiss. Sorry to my six loyal readers.

Its been a hard summer. For those of you who see me on a marginally regular basis can attest to my Pepcid AC swallowing and deep breaths. For those of you who aren't, you are not missing anything particularly pleasant.

This week I am pretending I'm somewhere else. Poutine, Molsons, bagels and a beaver will fill some gaps, but not all - including finally meeting Sherry, Graham and Sophie.

Well, there is always a next time and I'm a pretty lucky person these days, considering.

Happy September, the month could end now for all its worth.

Oh hi.

I can't say I have anything new to report. Life has basically been about work, editing and on occasion doing science.

I am relishing the last of the longish evenings -- now that Ernest is back I am back to watching the sun start to set as we finish up our last walk.

It seems like this summer was a big gyp.

Hot,work,too hot, operations, caretaking, work.

All I can remember is the blur of emails, running to and fro each soaker hose and the occasional moment of calm.

Most of those were short.

It felt weird not to train for anything, nor spend long hours talking to friends while walking. I miss it, but this year was not the year.

Today I told someone that I am looking to simplify my life - not add complications to sap yet more energy from me. It seems that life is throwing those complications at us right and left. Its just learning to say no, okay and maybe later to all those opportunities, chances and obligations.


I have said enough and maybe not much of anything.

Thursday suckitude v.2.0

More of the same, yeah, you know, I have talked about it over and over again.

Good points:
I am healthy
I have a roof over my head
It is not 100 degrees
I have a great support system

Bad points:
I'm unhappy with some things and this affects the rest of my life
This continues
on and on
that really sucks
The economy has still not recovered enough
to make a change
I'm also afraid of change

Outcome:
Who knows, is it worth being unhappy?

Big yellow moon and apricot jam

Cooler now, I can think.

Happy August.

Today it was only 86 degrees. The garden, for all that we have watered, mulched, pruned and carefully tended, is toasted. It is hard to see and even harder to swallow. I am over this, I was over it well before it started. We are not adapted to deal with these "weather events".

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement, none of it good - weather, my father's knee, the ensuing complications and becoming a dogsbody. While my parents are still healthy and have a myriad of resources, it always seems to be a crisis around the corner. Thank god for hotel status, communication skills, a huge network of friends who know everything and everyone in Seattle. TH has been amazing and ready to step up to the plate for almost anything at any time.

This aging thing is really overrated.

Tomorrow, we celebrate a birthday and an anniversary date that has come so fast -- at least we can toast the living and those who have passed with good food and dear friends.

Hanging in, barely.

There are only sixty days left of summer, thanks Martha for pointing that out to me on this month's issue of Everyday Food.

Its hard to make each one count when you are exhausted.

I am glad the MJ spectacle is over.

Today, while driving home from the dentist, I heard his daughter's final words during the memorial service.I was appalled by his daughter's public grief. I don't know why, but for some reason it rankled me. Sure it took guts to get up and tell the world how much she missed her father, but the question remains -- is there an end to all the coverage and media spectacle when kids are thrust in the spotlight?

I remember being overcome with sadness when William laid the wreath and the card on Diana's coffin. That was a private moment, that while displayed publicly, kept the feelings and the sentiments between William and his mother's mortal soul.

Don't think that I'm a cold callous person. I feel for these kids -- after all, who would want to be referred to the moniker Blanket? What child who spent the last eight years of their lives wearing masks and disguises in public would want to be thrust in the public eye at the height of their grief. Maybe now these kids will live a somewhat normal life given their notoriety and get a chance to grieve the loss of their parent in private.

I guess all things these days are ready to be shared with everyone, including our deepest sorrows.

Thank goodness for a cold front.

Lots to do and the heat didn't help.

Good thing there is always the week ahead to tuck in a chore or three and maybe, if you are really lucky, an unplanned evening to sit and listen wind in the trees.

I turned my tv on for the first time since the digital switchover.

There is still nothing on television worth watching. I spent three minutes flipping through the 10 channels we get -- including five religious stations and realized that it had all become Michael Jackson tv. I realized then and there, the only coverage of his demise that I had seen was static --the web, covers of magazines and the newspapers that still get delivered chez nm.

I had missed the spectacle of his moonwalk, the moonwalks of others, the tears, the exposes and all the old footage. It all seemed so kinetic, but didn't make it any more real for me.
I realized the same thing with 9.11 --all my exposure had been the print media, the internet and listening to hours of NPR for the few days after the event. I missed the footage of the planes hitting the WTC and people jumping out of buildings. The first time I saw the graphic footage was on some anniversary show. It just hadn't dawned on me that to some, all they had seen were the images of people fleeing, the smoke and the devastation. I can't say my life is better or worse for not watching the coverage. I just think that sometimes the visual doesn't necessarily help paint the picture.

I guess the televison will remain a vehicle to watch poorly subtitled films made in Ulan Bator until the next large weather event. In which case, we'll consider turning it on.

July is here. The year is half over. Ask me what I have done? Lots and not so much.

I have weaseled out of two races and this year's 3 day. Other than many walks with the dog and forty minutes four times a week at the gym, I'm not doing much.

Maybe I burned out last year.

I have three full months before Portland. All I can think of is Mile 17 and the climb to the bridge. God, that killed me.

I refuse to let it kill me again.

I also promised myself that I would shave a goodly amount of time off my time. I think this year I'll just settle for 12 minutes and be happy with 13. However, this takes some commitment to training. I haven't gone over ten miles since last October. I think I may be a fool to try again with only three months, but the only way to find out is to try.

I don't do a lot of ruminating on what makes a great leader, athlete, or entrepreneur. I am not a student of business or what makes something successful. I know there are a hundred books lining the shelves of airport bookstores waiting to be read on this topic. I tend to try and mull these concepts of failure and success and the obstacles to overcome them over in my brain until it hurts and then I ask for opinions or a bullshit check by some third party.

I'm really trying hard these days to not make public declarations of my intents -- for various reasons, but mostly because I do not want to appear a failure. I am fighting the same twenty pounds, my inability to keep my desk in my study tidy, and my ability to balance a check book, while seeming petty, all these things are things I have talked about and still loom over my head.

Let's say that from today, I intend to train for Portland with the intent of conquering mile 17. Check with me at the end of the month to see where I am.

when tragedy befalls you

I don't follow many celebrity trends. I get most of my news about tanorexics, infidelity, children stuck inside of culverts and the beagles that rescue them from whatever magazines are strewn around the gym. The Kate and Jon Gosselin saga is revolting yet like any good slowdown on the freeway, always a bummer at the end when its all for naught.

Yup, it's her hair. Her stylist should be shot and their collection of 80's new wave music removed from their possession.

Well, maybe not her hair per se, but all that it represents -- the money they accepted, the tummy tucks, the hair plugs and the house. They paid a price in the lack of privacy they had to endure, but they knew what they were getting into when they signed that contract. Who loses in the deal?

Not you and me. The Gosselin's will live in reruns and we will pick apart all the episodes to see what the tipping point was in their relationship - Jon forgot to put the cap back on the toothpaste, a kid lost his shoe, and they were late to school, the crusts were not cut off the sandwiches. Who knows.

The kids lose out. They were prostituted by their parents for their personal gain and they had absolutely no say in any of it. What three year old is benefiting from mommy's new hair (a life of its own) or endless tanning salon love fests? They lost a precious part of their childhood by having cameras shoved in their faces and every move recorded. Worst of all, they lost their family as they knew it.

I know some will argue that unhappy parents make for crappy childhoods, but one must wonder if they had just gone quietly and raised their brood without corporate sponsorship and cameras, whether life would have been better.

time out

I started moving at 0530 this morning -- dog, garden, ppatch (5 hours), house, friends and all the time my mind was organizing all that needed to be done.

The first true day of summer and I'm worrying about folding laundry, bill paying and what to have for dinner.

I let it all go. We went and got take out. The laundry can wait, the bills are not due yet, the evening light was marvelous. We ate cherries off the tree, white alpine strawberries off the plant, picked raspberries by twilight and marveled at all we have.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a series of killer work weeks. Its just grind, grind, grind until the end of the fiscal year. I have been planning, projecting and trying to organize myself and others so that we're not pulling out our hair the last two weeks of September. I let that all go this weekend and I'll be happy to tackle it tomorrow, in a new light.

As lame as it is, I am going to revamp the blog soon. I need a new banner, new links and a new look. Why do I bother? God knows, but I am going to do it. I still think I have something interesting to say on occasion.

Tonight I went to my first tweet up. Good times. I was excited to meet the man behind @Alaskaair's tweets. He has been very helpful. As I am starting to look at the idea of tweeting and location based services - it all is done for research. ;) I even won an all expenses paid trip to the flight simulator -- I may give it to TH, who knows.

Montana and VAF2009 was fun. Glad to be home. Many things going on, mostly all good.

For those who have asked or are going to ask. Yes, I am following the information coming out of Iran, but honestly, other than being amazed at how information is flowing via social networking and bluetooth technology, I'm staying out of this one. What you see in Tehran is not indicative of all of the country, much like our little hamlet of solstice loving/hemp wearing/ canvas bag carrying represents the heartbeat of America.

Oh yeah, I have succumbed to facebook, so sue me. I'm on there once a day unless I am walking the dog. Check me out.

Snoring bassets are not resting bassets

nm