It sounded good in theory.

Our granite counters are pretty busy
and one can only photograph a mise en place on a cutting board so many times.

The advantage of a cutting board is that you can easily wipe it off if you get stuff on it
and it doesn’t wrinkle.

I know that now.

Those things didn’t occur to me on a drizzly Sunday morning
while I stood in a sewing shop
running my fingertips over fabric.

I was thinking that I should call my grandmother
a woman who created countless smocked baptismal gowns for her many grandchildren
and almost every single dress I wore for Picture Day in elementary school.

I loved those dresses.
I loved all of them except for one.

It wasn’t so much the dress that I disliked
but the pantaloons she made to go with it.

My mother was over the moon about them
however she did not have to wear the pantaloons to school for Picture Day in 1991.

I wasn’t a stupid kid.
I tried to reason with my mom that
you wouldn’t even see the pantaloons in the photo
so why did I have to wear them?

“Because your grandmother made them to go with the dress. You will wear them.”

And I did.

At least I didn’t suffer alone.
She made a matching dress
and pantaloons
for my older sister.

You can bet I took comfort in the fact my sister looked like Little Bo Peep, too.

In the more recent past
I left the store with a few neatly folded stacks of fabric
and a desire to learn how to sew
(not pantaloons, I’ve had all I need of those).

I pushed thoughts of sewing out of my head
and tried to stay focused on the task at hand–
the task of making a red velvet cake.

Back to the whole great ideas in theory
white cloth
while making a lovely, calm background
also gives photos a bit of a ‘sterile’ feeling.

Like I lined things up on a hospital bed
perhaps.

I assure you
that this was in my kitchen
and there was no hospital bed crammed in there.

SCALPEL.

Ok,
this photo isn’t really helping.

The red gel on the knife is actually red food coloring
and I used a lot of red food coloring in this cake.

I found it interesting that Wilton has red food coloring in two types:
‘No Taste’ and the other kind.

I opted for the tasteless one
because I’m crass like that.

Actually, I had never used this much food coloring in a cake
and not being familiar with the regular taste of red (?)
I decided to go the safe route.

Not safe enough! Muahahaha!

Egg whites, food coloring, and vanilla mixed together.

Thankfully
not every shot in this set had what looked like hospital linens or blood in it.

See?
Nice and safe.

I chose another recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Heavenly Cakes.
Her red velvet cake called for some cocoa whisked in the flour.

Some red velvet cakes are simply butter cakes with food coloring
while others are chocolate cakes tinted red.
I’ve made several butter cakes lately and wanted something different
so a recipe with cocoa sounded good.

Beranbaum’s recipe also uses a mix of oil and butter

and some buttermilk,

googley-eyed smiling face optional.

I added the dry ingredients to the mixer

and let it do what it does best.

Food coloring, egg whites, and vanilla added to the mixture:

Grisly.

After mixing:

This picture is the perfect example of a point in time
when a personal photographer would have come in handy.

They could have captured my carefree happy baking face
turn into my I HATE BAKING AND CAKES AND YOU face.

Those particular faces are stored very close to each other in my expression cache
since one usually changes into the other quite rapidly.

After all that work
the batter did not appear to be nearly red enough.

Flapping around in the kitchen
trying to save the cakes,
trying not to get splatters of food coloring on the new fabric,
I used the entire bottle of red gel food coloring
and the liquid bit I had rolling around in a drawer.

I don’t know if using Dutch-processed cocoa powder affected the coloring
or if the cakes would have turned out fine after baking
but these were special
and I did not want to goof them up.

Colorwise
they turned out just fine:

Pretty and red,
I almost didn’t want to ice them
but every Southerner knows
you need cream cheese frosting with your red velvet cake
(even if your nice natural light for photography is slipping away).

Cream cheese, butter, and sour cream ready to go.

I went with the recipe and added white chocolate
although I don’t like what it did to the texture of the frosting at all.

It was almost rubbery.
Cross that frosting recipe off the list…

Next time I’m sticking to the basics.

I made many, many, batches of this frosting
and I am done with the taste of cream cheese frosting for the next few years, thanks.

Here you can see my makeshift turntable.

A cake stand on a spice rack suits me just fine.

This was the first layer of the first tier.

Due to the special occasion
I decided to make a tiered cake.

The top tier filled and ready for a crumb coat.

Last month
Nishta hatched a beautiful plan of pairing cakes and cocktails with Valentine crafting.

I could take or leave Valentine’s Day
(one too many lonely February 14ths.
Probably because of those damned pantaloons.)
but Nishta put the best possible spin on the whole event.

Nishta knew of U.S. soldiers in Iraq who were in need of some love and encouragement
and asked if I would be interested in teaming up with her
to gather some Valentine notes and care packages for them.

Both of my grandfathers were in the Air Force,
my brother-in-law is in the Air Force,
and my uncle is in the Army.

The faces of ‘the troops’ are the faces of my family
so of course I was thrilled to help.

Thankfully, I did not have to worry about shipping the cake:
it was just for people to eat while channeling their inner 10 year old and making cards.

We got permission from the (amazing) bar to bring in some crafting supplies
and Houston turned out in force with cookies, candies, DVDs, toiletries
and yes,
we made Valentine’s Day cards.

The cake with some of the crafting supplies and care package items.

Big ol’ slice.

Truth be told
I did not like the cake.
The frosting was weird
and layers were kind of dry.

Hub gobbled it up
and several people gave it a thumbs up
so I’m glad I didn’t inflict something (too) horrible on people showing up to help soldiers.

In addition to the red velvet cake
there was also Victoria’s king’s cake
made with a recipe from Brandi.

It shrouded itself in darkness in every photo I managed to take of it
so as punishment
I ate it.

It was only fair.

There were cookies from Brandy Graesser

and from Plinio Sandalio
(some to fuel Valentine-makers and others to ship to the troops!).

The fantastic nibbles to eat at the event enticed Hub to come out for the evening.

He doesn’t usually come to the weekly cake nights
(he lives under that rock called medical school)
but Hub came along for the event.

I tried to get him to make a Valentine for the soldiers.

“They do not want a Valentine from a guy.“
“What?! How do you know?”
“Because I know. Guys don’t make Valentines. You can make some for me.“
“Guys do too make Valentines.”

Like the pantaloons,
it was a losing battle
so I gave him the stink-eye
then made some extra cards to make up for his lack of Valentine’s Day spirit.

We filled a giant plastic bag with Valentine’s Day cards to the soldiers in Iraq
and Nishta even let me send my ugly ones.

I’m better at making cakes than Valentines.

Many beautiful cards and notes went in the care packages
but I found my favorite Valentine’s Day card before the night was over.

I marched over to Hub
card out in front of me.

“SEE. Guys do too make Valentines!”

I hope the soldiers smile at the Valentine’s Day cards
(even/especially at the ones from dudes)
devour the cookies
and find relief in the care packages.

Happy Valentine’s Day, soldiers.
Houston is thinking of you.

I usually bake the cake on Sunday
then make the frosting and decorate on Monday night.

(I’ve also been known to procrastinate
and do everything on Monday.)

That places me at Lil’ Ol’ Bar at around 8:45 – 9:00p
despite my best intentions of getting there at 8:30p.

Oh
there’s always a missing coupler
fallen cake layer
or not enough frosting
and before you know it
I’m running behind.

(We all know the procrastination part
would never play a role in getting to the bar late.)

Since Monday is a school night for many people in Houston
bringing cake to a bar at 9:00p keeps the party small.

Not wanting people to feel left out all the time
I was determined to let the Tuesday early birds eat some cake
instead of worms.

I decided last Monday’s cake would arrive at the bar
promptly at 5:00pm.

Since I work for The Man
the cake would have to be ready the day before
so I could just bring it straight to Lil’ Ol’ Bar
right after I was released.

I had grand plans of starting on Saturday
or even Friday night!
but Sunday afternoon found me driving from one side of Houston
to the other
searching for hazelnuts.

H-E-B didn’t have them
all types of nuts except hazelnuts at Costco
Central Market (an upscale HEB) was out of them until Thursday
no dice at Rice Epicurean (like an even more expensive Randall’s
[if you can imagine])
but I finally found them at Whole Foods.

I pretty much wanted to make out with the bulk dispenser
but they have rules about organic/non-organic cross contamination.

I’m the organic one
in case you’re wondering.

Hazelnuts in hand
I returned home at 3:00p to start the cake.

Mise en place for the cake

So much butter

It took me years to figure out that if I sliced up all the butter
it would soften a lot faster.

I wish I had known that when I was a kid
because I’m sure I wouldnt have melted
so many sticks of butter in the microwave
just trying to make it soft for cookies.

Liquids mixed together

Adding vanilla to milk
usually ends up with me hunched over the bowl
going all googley-eyed over it.

The magic is gone once you stir it up, though.

Dry ingredients mixed together

Added some eggs and all of the butter

Once I beat in the rest of the liquids
I weighed the batter so I could distribute it evenly into the prepared pans.

An empty 5 quart KitchenAid bowl weighs 1 pound and 11 7/8 ounces (ish).

Knowing the weight of the batter allows you to put the same amount in each pan
thus giving you (a better chance of) even layers.

Owning a scale will change the way you work in the kitchen
and I highly recommend getting one.

I smoothed these out and put them away to bake.

Cooling after 25 or so minutes in the oven
(beside my woodland creatures)

Once the layers were out
I started on the frosting.

I decided to triple the batch since I was making a big cake
confident my mixer could handle it.

Mise en place for buttercream base

And I thought there was a lot of butter in the cake

The kicker is that in this photo
there is still one pound of butter missing from the grand Jenga Butter tower.

Squeezing out that whole bottle of corn syrup
must have been as satisfying as squeezing out a whole tube of toothpaste.

I wouldn’t know
because I would have been promptly grounded for that as a kid.

I guess I could try it now
but my husband might look at me strangely
and ask if I was feeling ok.

“YES, I AM FINE! CAN’T I JUST HAVE SOME CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AS AN ADULT?!”

Probably not.

I will stick to squeezing out whole bottles of corn syrup.

I made a syrup with the sugar and corn syrup
then added it to the KitchenAid bowl with all those egg yolks.

After a little bit of beating
I started to get concerned.

As it turns out
my mixer can not handle three batches of buttercream.

I ended up having to beat it in batches
and it added a lot of time onto the cake making process as a whole.

I don’t mind learning lessons
I just wish they didn’t take so long
or make so many extra dirty bowls.

I don’t have any photos of the thousand batches of frosting
because I was pretty pissed off
and covered in egg and sugar.

It was not the time to be taking pictures.

Once I got the buttercream under control
it was about 6:00p
and I finally arrived at the last part of the cake making.

Hazelnuts for the praline

Another syrup
this time with only sugar and water

The shadow is from the candy thermometer
something I would be lost without.

You can go ahead and think you don’t need one
however, I do not recommend checking sugar syrup temperature with your fingers.
It will not end well.

The syrup just started turning brown on the edges here
and the kitchen smelled delicious.

The finished caramel over hazelnuts

I got a little aggressive with putting a hazelnut in its place
and ended up with BLAZING HOT CARAMEL on my finger.

I instantly got a blister
and still have one
four days later.

It is right on the tip of my index finger
and using the little scrolley thing on my mouse was not pleasant on Monday.

Injuries notwithstanding
the caramel cooled in about 20 minutes

The praline broken up and about to be ground

Grinding that was loud
let me tell you.

After processing

I added the ground praline to the buttercream to make a ‘praline crunch buttercream.’

Since it was late
(the sun set long ago
taking all of the pretty natural light with it)
I decided to simply fill the cake with the frosting
instead of making something else to fill it with.

I did not anticipate that
once applied
the frosting would look like it was filled with cake crumbs.

The ground praline added a pleasant crunch
but I did not like that my cake looked a little sloppy.

So I compensated
and worked on piping

You can see the praline bits in the cake here
and also my strangely blue phone.

If you look really hard
you can also see a goofy looking shell piped on the cake there.

I wanted to add something fun to the top of the cake
so I got out some snowflake cookie cutters
with the idea of filling the shape in with the praline powder.

I should have just practiced my writing skills instead.
At least one of the snowflakes turned out, though.

A better idea would have been to make another batch of caramel
make snowflake shapes out of it
and then stand the shapes on the top of the cake.

There’s that learning thing again.

Monday evening made it worth it, however.
I was thrilled to see that more than just the Tuesday early birds turned out at Lil’ Ol’ Bar the next day.

I was even happier that I had almost no cake left to bring home.
Husband was very happy that I did have cake to bring home
since he returned from another residency interview later that evening
and missed the early cake night.

I’ve not yet picked out a cake for the next Monday
although I’ve been toying with the idea of a Yule Log.

This weekend will be packed
seeing as I’ve done zero Christmas shopping
so I am unsure if this is the weekend to undertake a challenging cake.

Something easy may win out
and I’m sure that will mean I am hustling around the kitchen on Monday evening
bursting through the doors at the bar fifteen minutes after I said I’d be there.

The hustle is why I do it, though
the push to create
to keep getting better
to make someone happy with something I made
and dammit
to not have leftovers after I get creative
even if it does mean learning lessons the hard way
and having 50 bowls to wash.

I construct grand entries
witty one liners
things that happened I want to remember
or I take a million photos of something to document later.

Then the kitchen needs cleaning
the dogs keep bringing me their toys to play fetch
hair needs washing
and I fall asleep, exhausted and feeling behind,
again.

At least, that’s how I feel
until December rolls around.

December holds the key to self-redemption in the Blog Universe.

I can dump everything I wanted to write about
(but was too busy throwing slobbery, dirty Kongs around for our dogs to get to)
in a grand ‘look back’ entry
and no one will think twice about it.

In fact
people may hope that January will see a turn around the bend
and that I’ll post more often.

It’s nice in my head you know.
Lots of puppies and dandelions.
No alarm clocks, either.

Without further ado/procrastination
I present to you the things I did this year and didn’t write about:

I saw my family a lot
which a bit out of the ordinary.

I ended up eating Pappasitos more than should be allowed, though
so hanging out with the family has its downsides.

There are redeeming qualities:

like how they are not afraid to give you a really stupid look
when you ask a question that deserves it.

I also started taking a lot more photos this year.

Of everything.

Having a phone with a camera made for innumerable impromptu photoshoots
exponentially increasing documentation of cooking projects.

I can’t decide if having a camera on my phone is a good thing or a bad thing.

One part of me is glad that I’m documenting
the other sees it as lazy.

If I used the More Advanced Camera
my photos wouldn’t look so grainy and dark
but I am spoiled by the instant gratification of one-click shoot, upload, and post.

So, I’m split
but I will stop with the agonizing and post the damned photos.

Italian Creme cake for a surprise party in April or so.

I was obsessed with panna cotta in the spring and summer.
Thinking about it still makes my mouth water.

Breads also took over most of my brain.
I grew and killed a starter

R.I.P., R.I.P., R.I.P., and R.I.P..

After a period of mourning
I received the gift of mature starter.

Dead starters notwithstanding
breadmaking is going swimmingly.

This year I made the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever had

and possibly the worst bread I’ve ever made
(that actually made it into the oven instead of the disposal).

It was terribly dry and dense.
I was not the only one that had a problem with this bread
so I felt a little bit better about wasting all that chocolate.

Both shots are pre-baking.

In my bread making mania
I also tackled croissants
(armed with the More Advanced Camera).

I can’t stop laughing at this picture:

If you know what is about to happen
then you can imagine the little pats of butter in there crowded together
saying
‘OH NO!’

Pull out a cookbook and find out the ending
’cause I’m leaving you with that cliffhanger.

They turned out alright but I will be revisiting croissants with a different recipe and better lighting.

One can only eat bread alone for so long
so it was fortunate that my other obsession this year was sandwiches.

Red wine braised skirt steak with peppers and cheese on ciabatta

Grilled guyere on rye with butternut squash soup

Pork shoulder with cabbage and jalapenos on cheater (purchased) bread

Roasted eggplant with tomato sauce, red peppers, and basil on sourdough

Roasted eggplant (again!) with mozzerella and pinenut-anchovy relish on ciabatta

Of course
of course there have been cakes almost every Monday:

I need to remember to never again employ whatever technique I used to decorate the top.

Yep.

Not all the cakes turned out beautifully.
Some of them were too ugly to even photograph.

I’M LOOKING AT YOU, BOSTON CREAM PIE.

I am getting better at the frosting
slowly
so I need to keep pushing myself
no matter how frustrating.

Lest the stream of poorly lit cameraphone photos lead you to to think that I ignore my More Advanced Camera
I have photos to prove that I did haul it around every now and then.

Sometimes I had it with me in my kitchen:

Other times I toted it around town.

Caesar Salad Class with Carla Cardini:

Photography Workshop with Penny De Los Santos:

Taco Truck Crawl II put on by this guy, this place, and these guys:

Actually, it was probably best if you didn’t follow the bus.

Unless you like doing U-turns.

One of the several trucks that took credit cards.

It was a grand year for food
in my house and about town.

Next year, I think it will be much the same at home
although I can’t say the same for what it will be like out the door.

In three months we’ll get word on if we move from Houston or not.

Medical school ruled our lives for the past five years
and I can hear residency stomping around the corner.

To make a short list:
we could move to Pennsylvania, New Jersey or West Virginia.

We could also stay right where we are.
Match Day is in March
and we’ll know at the same time as the rest of the U.S. where we will be spending the next three years of our life.

I hope those years will be filled with cakes, sandwiches, and fun things to learn, though.

It is comforting to know
that if good food is hard to come by in our new locale
I’ll just stay in and make it on my own.

And write about it
of course.

We’ve received very few of our weekly deliveries lately
and the owner of the CSA (a co-op) has cited family emergencies, weather, and just plain exhaustion.

I get it.
I’m not standing there
expecting a delivery like clockwork every week from a group of farmers.

I understand that when it rains
you can’t just SLOSH ON THROUGH your fields to pick tomatoes.

Things like car repairs come up
and for someone running razor thin margins
getting the radiator fixed can’t always happen on the same day that it breaks.

What is frustrating
is that I’ve heard the same things week after week lately.

For the first half of the year
we did not have any problems
and the deliveries were amazing.

Things seemed to go downhill quickly these last few months.

More often than not
our delivery is delayed by several days
and there have been instances that when it does show up
the produce is bruised or past its prime.

My husband and I have had numerous conversations about whether or not we will renew in January
since we prepaid for the year.

The last conversation we had
we were both tired of the lack/wild variation in timeliness of deliveries, poor produce quality as of late
(a whole bag of green beans was moldy)
and exasperated by the fact that we received an email stating that we would receive a delivery that week
and nothing ever showed up.

Nice.

We were not the only ones with less than squishy lovey feelings for our CSA.

Yesterday I received a notification of a new blog post from the owner on the social networking site
(one we had to join to receive updates about deliveries and pertinent information)
and scrolled on down in the e-mail to read it
(at least that was convenient).

Below are some excepts:

In the last 2 months 22 members that were supposed to, by the agreement all members signed, did not give any notice and dropped their membership. When I got back on line this morning two more members had dropped without adequate notice. All members (on their honor) agreed to give us at LEAST 2 months notice but, these ex-members did not give us this courtesy. In addition , over the last two months we’ve only gotten a few new members~ most of which were only quarter shares. Of those remaining members due to renew this month , only one paid their renewal on time.. . . I have put $6000 of my own personal money into the CSA over the last two months , trying to keep it afloat, but now I am totally tapped out and cannot affoard to (simply don’t have it) put another dime into it. I don’t stand a chance of seeing that money again.

As things stand as of right now, we have no operating capital to get deliveries out. As soon as we do we will deliver the remaining undelivered members currently due deliveries. We will then shut down for the remaining time~up to a month, if necessary~ until our membership can support the costs of deliveries again.

Well
that explains a lot.

I’m not sure why she waited so long to clue the rest of the members in
but there ya go.

I posted this response in the comments section:

“I think many members feel the same way that I do in regard to the CSA at this point. There have been MANY deliveries that were not made, even when e-mails went out that the deliveries would be made that night or that week. In addition, the deliveries are very rarely made on the day they are supposed to be made. Please do not think that I (or we) believe that you can control situations like rain or emergencies, but when something happens almost every week that prevents/delays the deliveries, it becomes very frustrating. In addition, I’ve received several deliveries with moldy fruit and vegetables or items that were obviously past their prime. The issues in getting the produce even delivered prevented me from contacting you because I did not want to add to the apparent stress that you all were undergoing. Looking back, I should have contacted you to give you a heads up on the situation if you were not aware of it.

We are due for renewal in January, but given the issues that the CSA has been having, we will probably not be renewing our membership either. I hope to see things pick up for BlueStar Acres, but I think it will take action on the members’ part as well as yours.”

I tried to be fair and honest.
Farming is hard and is not something that you can force to a schedule and expect quality out of it.

I don’t expect to get my deliveries EVERY WEEK AT THE SAME TIME.
Some consistency would be nice
and I really don’t want to get an e-mail saying that our delivery is going to be late ‘because everyone is just so tired.’

That does not make me very confident in you
nor does it make me want to give you my money.

You want my business, you win me over.

Many of the commenters reiterated a line from the welcome e-mail all members were sent upon sign up
that the ‘CSA is not a business.’

Uh-huh.

Whether its a profitable business or not is a different matter
but when I get an e-mail from the owner saying they can’t continue providing a product because they don’t have enough money to pay people
doesn’t that sound like a business?

The CSA is not run like a business
but it is a business operation.

There is a lot of debate on the blog going on right now–
some people out-and-out ripping the owner a new one
others sprinkling flowers everywhere and shining love out of every orifice.

I volunteered
along with some others
to help transfer files over to Facebook to get them started there
and also to build a database for better tracking of membership and renewals.

The owner is supposed to get in touch with me today
but I’ve yet to hear from her.

I haven’t quite given up on this CSA yet.
There were quite a few months when our deliveries were beautiful;
the fruit and vegetables were ripe and heady
and the selection was enough to make Central Market jealous.

I really want to see them succeed.
I love fresh produce and have been challenged wonderfully this year to try new recipes.

It was also an eye opener as to how hard it is to identify some items without a neat little printed sign in front of them.

Husband couldn’t tell the difference between a zucchini and a cucumber
(there was much pointing and laughing at him)
but I’m proud to say he’s done been learned.

If anyone is interested in joining this CSA
please let me know.

I know that seems strange to plunk out here after all of this
but honestly
when they’re in their groove
they really impress.

Plus
I’d really like to get the rest of my deliveries.

Edit: You know what, nevermind. The ridiculous saga that has taken place in the past few days with the owner has only enabled us to settle firmly on NOT renewing our membership.

I’m sorry to say that a lot of flapping arms and incoherent posts on her behalf do nothing to make me want to help the CSA
especially coupled with the owners consistent inability to follow through on ANYTHING.

I’ve started Twittering
along with the rest of the world
and have been trying to document what I make for dinner ever day.

I would do lunch too
but taking a picture of a Lean Cuisine every day would be a little depressing.

So instead
I take bad iPhone pictures of my dinner
none of which want to post to my entry
so I’m going to stop trying.

Last night dinner involved white rice
something I try to eat in moderation
but I’m ashamed to admit that dinner tonight also involved white rice.

BUT
there are no photographs, not even on Twitter
so we can all pretend like it never happened.

It was red beans and rice with tomatoes and balsamic vinegar if you’re wondering.
Complete white trash cooking
but delicious.

Brown up some 80/20 ground chuck
season with garlic and good ol’ Lawry’s seasoned salt
dump in a can of red beans with a little bit of water
let reduce for a few minutes
and spoon over white rice.

Top with sliced tomatoes and balsamic vinegar and then go sit out on your front lawn with a wife beater on.

Tasty as it is
I think it could be better.

I was thinking about the tomatoes today
and how they are my favorite part of the dish.
Right now
tomatoes obviously are not at their peak
but perhaps I could elevate this dish to a slightly higher socioeconomic status by making a tomato confit and a reducing the balsamic vinegar down to a glaze.

Then
maybe replace the ground beef with braised beef
(oxtails, perhaps? I like this dish a little bit on the fattier side since it tastes like sawdust if a low fat cut of meat is used)
and use long simmered red beans instead of my salted friends out of a can.

Ideas, ideas.
I probably will just stick to my regular recipe until I finally get so ashamed of it I’m forced into making something better.
This probably won’t happen for a while.

In other news
on Friday at Restaurant Job
Chef said that we would be taking part in Outstanding In the Field.

My face nearly cracked in two because I smiled so big
and Sous Chef was ecstatic as well.

Chef said he would need our help
and we both told him we would be there in full force.

Its not until September
but I’m still so stupidly excited.

It will be fun to work at such an amazing event.
I’m trying to do my part to eat more local food
although I’ve been taking baby steps.

We did join a CSA for our fruits and vegetables though
and its been an adventure.

Our first delivery in January looked like this:

and our weekly deliveries have been some variation on that theme so far.

We’re getting greenbeans and lettuces now though
which make me happy.

I’ve meant to photograph our deliveries every week
but that hasn’t happened.

Those personal failures aside
joining the CSA was a wonderful decision.
The farm is a little bit spotty on regular delivery
but its nothing that messes with meal planning too much.

Food is fresh and unblemished/unbruised for the most part
and it averages out to about 20$ a week
a great price for the load of food that arrives at our front door every Wednesday(ish).

However
I might PAY someone to take all the cabbage we’ve been getting.

I’ve forced unwanted heads on people at Job 1, Job 2, and the next person in line is going to be the guy panhandling on the street.

Guy: “Homeless, hungry, anything will help”
Me: “HERE! Take a head of cabbage!”
Guy: “What am I supposed to do with this?”
Me: “I DONT KNOW. I’ve been asking myself the SAME DAMNED THING.”

Husband started looking at me with a pained expression
when week after week
he would open up our box and find one
or even TWO
heads of cabbage in it.

I finally called the farm and asked them just to leave it out of our box
not replace it with anything else
just leave the blasted cabbage in someone ELSE’S delivery.

I think I’ve done everything legal in Texas to a head of cabbage now.
Next, I think I am just going to candy it or stick it in my ice cream maker and see what happens.

I can’t imagine that would be anything good
but you never know.

We also had the radio on in our house, and for good reason. Dire hurricane warnings were being blasted from every device capable of communication in Houston and every store in a 20 mile radius was out of ice. We know because we looked. Unlike the rest of the city of Houston, we weren’t looking for ice for our food but for our fish tank.

We have a 150 gallon salt-water fish tank and if there is no power in the house that means the chiller for the fish tank doesn’t work. Without a chiller to keep the water at a certain temperature for the fish, we could end up with 150 gallons of tropical fish soup.

I’m all about bulk cooking but that’s not usually what I have in mind.

Husband and I were not too concerned about the whole thing; we laughed at the non-event for Houston that was Rita and our lawn got a nice sprinkle from Gustav. We figured we would be without power for a few hours and then life would go on.

Since we couldn’t find ice, we filled up plastic baggies with water and put them in our outside freezer to freeze.

We crowded our patio furniture and decorations into the living room and we settled in for the storm.

With not much to do and cookbooks in my reading stack , I decided to cook a few things from our freezer lest we lose power.

I started making pork for tortas ahogadas.

Since the preparation for that dish is lengthy, my dinner that night was not any delicious pork. Instead, I grabbed something out of the freezer to eat.

That’s right, I ate a Hot Pocket.

I was just doing my part to continue emptying the freezer. Hot Pocket by Hot Pocket.

The power went out at 11:30 pm after the pork finished cooking. I still could have kept trucking with my gas stove, though.

Our house was pretty dark. See Exhibit A:

I moved the pot o’pork to the freezer for safekeeping and was happy I did not start making birote (the bread) for the tortas ahogadas. My stove is gas powered, however my oven is not.

The next morning we surveyed the damage to our house. It was not much; we lost a little tree in the back yard which almost took out the AC unit, but other than that we were still in shipshape.

Although we did not suffer any structural damage, we did not get power back for 6 days and lost almost all of our perishable food.

SIX. DAYS. Those little baggies in the freezer were sure laughing at us.

For 5 days we stayed with friends who got their power back within 24 hours. We transported as much of our frozen food over to their house as we could. Even with the food relocation, we had over $250 worth of steak in our freezer which partially thawed and was the cause for much sadness.

We did managed to save a lot of chicken, and the tasty pork was reassigned to nachos one night and carnitas another night.

I was sad that I didn’t get to finish making tortas but the grocery stores were circus-like, so I made do.

My refrigerator and freezer and still not fully stocked yet and I’ve managed to run out of non-perishables since I brought most of them over to our friends’ house.

Usually I do my fun baking and slow cooking on the weekends, along with all grocery shopping for the week, but Mr. Ike has thrown a wrench into things along with the fact that my weekends are pretty busy now.

I managed to land a part-time job at a restaurant here in Houston and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

The reviews on it are wonderful and the chefs intimidatingly creative and good. I feel like getting all Julie Andrews on you and singing ‘I must have done something gooooooood!’

It’s hard work. I worked in retail for a long time so I can deal with the standing up for long periods, but it’s keeping all of the orders straight which makes me a bit cross-eyed.

I get orders called to me without being able to see a ticket so I better be able to keep 7 orders of salads or desserts in order without missing one. It’s difficult but I enjoy it and I’m learning alot.

I’m proud that I’m in there and I already have a lot of food and technique knowledge I just need to work on my plating and balancing flavors.

I’m a slave to recipes something I’m trying to come away from but one thing at a time right?

For now I’ll worry about restocking my larders and not forgetting anyone’s orders on the weekends.