Oh, What the Heck

Some of us are better photographers than others. Some of us really suck, even with the finest equipment and lighting. Some of us get sparklingly perfect shots with a cell phone camera. Some of us know all sorts of image editing tricks. Some of us are brilliant at framing a shot, choosing blissful focal planes and dreamy shadows. Some of us don't even deserve to use a disposable camera.
I'm somewhere in the middle of all that. I occasionally get a beautiful picture, but when that happens, it's usually luck. I know what kind of lighting works best for me, and I'm having some success with focus. I've taken some real stinkers: blurry, dark, poorly framed, indecipherable. And I've taken some so-so pictures that were slightly redeemable by fooling around with saturation, straightness, exposure, etc., in the editing software.
I'll gladly publish my pretty pictures, and I'm only slightly embarrassed by my average shots. I'm still learning.
But who in their right mind would deliberately publish an Ugly Photo? On purpose? Really ugly?
Well, I got talked into this by Rachael from Fresh Approach Cooking. She proposed a one-off event she's calling "My Blog Went Up in Flames" (read about it at Food Blog S'cool), where entries will be judged on General Unappetizingness, among other criteria.
I may not already be a winner, but by my standards, I had a doozie to submit.
Once I mailed off my entry, I was suddenly free of shame. My ugly photo is out there, and will probably be posted on Rachael's site sometime next week.
So, I decided to OWN my unappetizingness, my lousy lighting, my — well, face it, my mystery meat.
Voilà, le preview, along with the description I sent to Rachael.
Hi Rachael:
Too funny. I happened to take this picture just four days ago. It's Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room of the senior community where my parents live, and there wasn't a green vegetable to be found in the entire buffet line. You are looking at (clockwise, from "noon") a hunk of roasted turkey the carver couldn't be bothered to slice thinly; a pockmarked chunk of sweet potato (I suspect a raisin was embedded in that scary hole); creamed carrots with an overdose of dried thyme -- actually the only herbal flavors on the whole plate; and a scoop of mashed potatoes drowning in a sploosh of decidedly non-turkey gravy (onion was the predominant flavor).
OK, title. Let's go with "Preznit Giv Me Turkee." (References: here and here).
Lighting: Oh, just say "ambient old folks home."
Backstory: See above.
Appetizingness: You judge. I brought sandwich baggies in my purse, in case there was something good to smuggle home. They remain pristine, unused.
No way was I going to blog this mess. But I sure hope you will.
Thanks!!
xx
cc
Yes, well, obviously I have now blogged this mess.
Please enjoy the rest of your day.

Motels and Meals

This is the bedspread in the motel we stayed at in Ventura. Can you tell what motel we stayed in? Look closely. Click on the pic if you have to.
OK, that was easy.
But this is an entirely new bedspread for Motel 6! No more of that corporate, restrained, "tasteful" decor. ("Tasteful" invariably means bland. None for me, thanks.) We prowled outside the door to the laundry room for a few minutes, hoping to find the place unmonitored for long enough to pilfer one of these wacko bedspreads. No such luck.
Still, it was a great trip, down 101 and back up again, staying in different Motel 6's along the way. They're inexpensive, and they allow dogs in the rooms.
We always reserve a non-smoking room on the ground floor, and we almost always end up in a non-smoking room on the ground floor that reeks of cigarette smoke. Cranky figures that ground-floor rooms are primo real estate because they don't require you to schlep luggage up stairs. He suspects that smokers who ask for a smokers' ground-floor room are sometimes told there aren't any available, and that said smokers suddenly become pseudo "non-smokers" — and then just merrily light up anyway. (Hey. They're smokers. No wonder they don't want to trudge upstairs. Gasp.) Motel 6 provides ashtrays in non-smoking rooms, just in case. And they get used. A lot. Cranky has taken to calling the place Motel Cigs.
But this place in Ventura was sweet, freshly painted, bright and pleasant. We sat on the beach for a couple of hours, and then wandered over to a Mexican restaurant (Joannafina's) where we enjoyed sopes on the patio, with the doggie hidden in my bag. The next morning we found a terrific Mexican restaurant (Evita's) that serves brilliant burritos with award-winning salsa. Yes: patio, pooch, purse.
Traveling with a dog puts huge limitations on eating options. Sometimes that results in lounging on a gaudy bedspread, munching on Tim's Cascade Style Jalapeño Potato Chips, slurping Bud Light, and channel surfing the Food Network. Other times we've made do with impromptu pita/hummus/tomato/cucumber sandwiches, or enjoyed an ad hoc salad of leftover roasted beets brought especially for the trip, tossed with cotija cheese, cut-up apples and shelled walnuts.
Fun.
But it's nice to be home.

Sam's Mum Dropped By

And she left a comment, on the post just below this one.
Just thought I'd brag.
We're back from traveling. Will talk about that later.
I missed you all very much.

Baby's Rosemary

Edible things grow so well in Southern California that the hedge outside my parents' front door is a square-trimmed rosemary bush. Just bump into that thing and you smell fragrant all day.
At the moment, Bean Sprout smells pretty fragrant. This hedge is just his height.
He managed to find the one lone rosemary blossom still hanging onto the branches this late in the season, and put it on top of his head. All by himself, smart doggie.
Rosemary blossoms, if you can find them, make a fantastic addition to food, lending just a whisper of redolence without hammering you in the face with beaucoup de too-too. Sprinkle a handful of rosemary blossoms on a salad made with shredded raw celery root that has been tossed with stellar olive oil and a little champagne vinegar. Don't forget the fleur de sel. I like to pile this salad atop a mound of gently cooked beluga lentils, also tossed with a smidge of oil and minced chives.

My Dad's Peppers

This is how I'm eating in Escondido, while visiting with my parents for Thanksgiving week. My dad is an avid gardener. He avidly grows stuff he can eat. I guess that's who I inherited my tomato urge from.
These are Hungarian peppers on the bush in the patio.
The planter used to be placed directly over the earth just beyond the patio, but there are gophers who like Hungarian peppers just as much as my dad does. Gophers are all about teeth, as you know, and in what must have been a scene straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, one of dad's pepper plants "mysteriously" disappeared from the planter. The beast gnawed right through the plastic planter. Look:
All's well that ends well, though. Most of the plants survived, and some of those that did valiantly sacrificed themselves for this gloriously aromatic bowl of sauteed yum-yum. Makes a pretty good addition to an Italian sub sandwich, which I would photograph, except it's all gone.

Ethereal Cereal

Or, What I Had for Breakfast on Sunday. (Go visit Andrew to see what this is all about.)
This is one of our best breakfasts, and Cranky is always the one who makes it. He takes some nice, fresh, Bob's Red Mill stoneground "polenta or grits," as the label says (not the cornmeal) and mixes it with the prescribed dose of water and salt, in a slow cooker. He uses one of those mini slow cookers intended for hot party dips, and it holds the perfect amount for two bowls.
Plug the cooker in, which equals "On" (there's no switch and only one temperature on this guy), cover it and leave it alone for two hours.
You can check on it now and then if you're around, but unlike stovetop polenta, it really needs no stirring.
As it approaches the degree of tenderness you like, begin to grate some sharp white cheddar cheese, and chop some jarred pickled jalapeno peppers (to taste). You can add those flavorings now while the grains finish cooking, or you can stir them in at the end.
Cooking time seems to vary; today it took two hours and 45 minutes to get perfectly perfect. That's really not an absurdly long wait for breakfast! Drink your tea, go out for a walk to the Farmers' Market, putter in the garden, and then return to a bowlful of ethereal cereal.

I'll Give Up Summer...

...when they pry it from my cold, dead — oh, wait, maybe not dead — fingers.
We took advantage of an unusually warm November week to bask outdoors, and today that meant a summery meal on the patio. The purpose, as much as it was to enjoy picnic food, was also to clear out perishables from the fridge, because we're headed to Southern California (and possibly even warmer weather) Monday.
So. On the left, a potato salad made from Point Reyes potatoes, Point Reyes red onions, Clover sour cream, McEvoy oil, Tulocay's Napa Valley mustard, parsley from the patio, salt, pepper and some fried diced Niman Ranch bacon (the last three items were the only nonlocal ingredients). On the right, local tomatoes from the Civic Center market, McEvoy oil, salt and pepper.
It pleases me that if you simply keep good, simple food on hand, then having to "clear out" the larder can be a feast.
(Though I'm living in fear that Jeanne is going to come over here and rat me out. So I'll confess first. Last night I had a box of Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese. Because I felt like it.)

Snickersticker

Cranky saw this bumpersticker today, and he says it put a smile on his cranky face:

GEORGE BUSH IS A LYING SACK OF SHIT

Oh, man. They goin' down.

I'm Mad and I Eat Meyer Lemons

Weekend dog & herb blogging, all wrapped up in one tidy post.
Well, I think I can stretch it by calling a lemon an herb: We use them for flavor, right?
But I'm mad at my lemon treelet. Those two lemons on it are from last year. They're a whole year old, and that's weird. They've never become ripe enough to fall off by themselves, and I'm going to just pick them anyway.
I heard that picking lemons promotes new fruit growth, and boy do I need some of that. Every little new lemonette that shows up eventually turns yellow and commits infantisuicide. I had a promising-looking bud this month that just bit the dust yesterday. Darn.
I've repotted the tree into a larger container, so we'll see.
Bean Sprout sees nothing undignified at all about sitting in a lemon tree pot.

Soup

I love roasted cauliflower, but I was in the mood for soup, because I wanted to try out the new bottle of Trader Joe's black truffle oil.
So I roasted the cauliflower anyway, set aside some toasty flowerets to use as "croutons," and blended up the rest with some sauteed onions, salt and about three cups of vegetable broth. Since the broth was still cool from having just been thawed, I put the blended mix in a saucepan to warm gently on the stove, along with a small handful of grated white cheddar cheese to melt into the soup.
Then of course, I ran outside to get this picture, as the sun started its slide into afternoon angles.
(Verdict on the TJ's truffle oil? Meh. Not a total waste of money. It wasn't expensive, and it was "worth it.")

Fall On My Face — Er, IN My Face

Really good ingredients equals really good eating. Not much imagination required.
Dinner last night was a composed plate of roasted beets, boiled potatoes and roasted butternut squash. Drizzled with McEvoy olive oil (and why aren't you splurging on some of that yet?) and a whisper of 12-year-old balsamic vinegar. Strewn with crumbled cotija cheese and chopped parsley. Deeply satisfying.
I think Cranky is *thisclose* to becoming a vegetarian, because he requested this meal.
The funny thing is that I, who have always been a semi-demi-quasi-vegetarian, am now fascinated by meat. It really kicked in when we ordered the Kentucky ham, with its darkly animal flavor. Like a switch was flipped.
Eh. Still. I loved last night's dinner.

Because You Need a Laff

Skip Julie & Julia, and head straight for Jules.
Have you heard about this restaurant-reviewer stalker with a blog? She shadows New York Times diner-in-chief, Frank Bruni, and lampoons him on http://brunidigest.blogspot.com/. She's mercilessly funny. A little potty-mouthed. And she decorates her reviews of Bruni's reviews with inappropriately appropriate art.
There's an AP story about it here .
What do you think — should I start a blog-stalker blog and lampoon her?
Nah. She's too good.
Maybe I should just continue to sit quietly in the dark, rocking... Wondering why Michael Bauer thinks "dices" is a plural noun.

Fascists in Marin

At our usual enoteca today (where we smuggled in the doggie inside my purse, as well as some lunch in the form of olives, goat cheese, an apple and some bread), we sat on the patio with a view of the crazy parking lot, and ordered glasses of zinfandel.
It's always crazy there, with bad drivers, bad walkers, and other doggies walking by.
We like to watch the passing scene, including the influx of cars parking (poorly) and the outflow of cars exiting (poorly).
Today, a car parked especially poorly. It drove up with a bumper sticker that said "Smaq Iraq." Two stickers, actually, each homemade, made up of put-together bits of previously printed stickers.
The cowboy-hat-wearing driver walked into our enoteca, where we were sitting outside, and as she came into earshot, Cranky shouted out, "Smack Iraq? We're supposed to be protecting it!"
She answered, "I'm a patriot."
Remind me not to wear a cowboy hat.
It used to be that "Support Our Troops" was a bumper sticker that actually meant "Support the President's War." Now they're saying "Let's Just Kill The Towelheads, Eh?"
Presnit has lost his message.
(Photo from robert-fisk.com.)

Go Read the Next Item

After you watch this clip.
Is this man intoxicated ?

What Do You Hate to Eat?

In the wake of the Culinary Confessions theme that made the rounds of food blogs recently, I learned a funny thing. We all love to be the best damn cook in the kitchen, but it turns out we have feet of clay. Er, well, mouths of clay?
It's not particularly surprising to find out someone's kitchen might be less than shipshape, or that somebody buys cheap-o cookware at the drugstore. No great shame to confess you've never tasted some exotic ingredient or that you keep a years-old bottle of ketchup in the fridge that you never use but just can't throw out.
But I've been discovering that my fellow bloggies have aversions to actual food items. Sometimes the aversion is taste-based, other times it's texture-based, and in some cases, it's probably psycho-based.
Me first: I have trouble with basil. It's soapy and bitter to me, and while I will eat basil, I'm not going out of my way to find it. I don't grow any, and there's none in my fridge. I suspect it's a problem with my tastebuds (a.k.a. being a semi-supertaster, which just means that some flavors are too intense for me).
Then I found out that Lisa at Comfort Food can't do sage. See, and I love sage. Huh. (Sorry I can't provide links today; my html is wonky.)
The other day Jamie at 10 Signs Like This did a rant on horrid, vile, rancid, inedible olives. Olives? Lovely, innocent, pickle-y olives? She can't stand 'em. Doesn't even like to touch them. In response to Jamie's rant, Rozanne from Is There Anything of Interest? agreed about abhorring olives, and added that hazelnuts were a problem. A couple of other non-food bloggers chimed in on the olive-detesting issue.
And now I've learned that Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness has problems with onions. The taste is OK, she says, but the texture is creepy.
So what's your gag threshhold? Any inexplicable — or explicable — aversions?
Cookiecrumb wants to know.
You're so fine!
Update: Responses are coming in, but I want to know why you can't abide these food items. Texture? Creepiness? Taste? Weird childhood associations?
You blow my mind!

Don't Waste Food

This meal was made entirely with food we already had in the house.
Well, that sounds weird. Of course it was. What I mean is, we hadn't planned on this recipe, but we just happened to have ingredients on hand that needed using.
You can call it minestrone if you want (and it's a fairly close approximation of the never-too-purist Italian recipe). Cranky likes to call it "Cream of Bottom of the Refrigerator Soup."
I started with a tub of frozen vegetable broth — and that was a don't-waste project, too; I had salvaged veg trimmings, herbs, bits of produce that were on the brink of less-than-fabulous, stewing it all in water with the addition of some lentils and dried shiitakes for depth, before straining and freezing. This particular tub was dated June 2005. I almost always have tubs of veggie broth in the freezer.
Then I sauteed some diced onion in oil in a Dutch oven, salting from the get-go. Dumped the frozen broth in to melt. Added (this is the good part; pay attention) some chopped ribs of collard leaves. The collards had been used in a previous greens dish, but the reserved (uncooked, as yet) sliced ribs have a fantastic flavor and texture of their own; think of them as celery on steroids. Along with the collard ribs, a handful of lentils. Some dried pasta (smallish, if you have it). A little later on, I added chopped carrots, potato and hacked green beans. (I would have thrown in that bit of cabbage out of the crisper drawer, but I'm saving it for a soup made with potatoes, cooked in leftover corned-beef-cooking water from St. Patrick's Day — March 17th! — in a couple of days, maybe with some of our leftover Kentucky ham.) Finished it off with some leftover homemade tomato sauce that still had shreds of cheese, from the pasta dish it was stolen from.
Taste for salt. Eat.
Happy.

Sage Advice

Sage is really one of my favorite herbs. I like it fresh, as a counterpoint to something sweet — I used sage in a strawberry sorbet once, and it turned out really sleek and metrosexual. [Pokes fun at self.] And I've recently infused some vodka with strawberries, sage and cracked black pepper: stunning.
You know sage is good with sweetish things already, if you're a fan of fried sage garnish on squash-filled ravioli.
Of course, sage is great in savory preparations. A couple of years ago I made Christmas presents of sage/cranberry-infused rice vinegar. Snappy. Sage is an important flavoring in lots of sausage recipes. Then, naturally, there's turkey stuffing, which wouldn't be turkey stuffing without the sage. Dried sage, actually. It really tastes different. It intensifies as it dries, unlike most herbs. (And dried sage makes a most delicious hot tea.) Dried sage is easily crushed by rubbing between your hands.
You may already know that sage has been touted for centuries as a boon for the memory. Now, research is suggesting that might just be true. (Can't remember where I read that. Oh well.)
Then there's that hippie-dippy practice of burning bundles of dried sage as incense. Stink-ay!
The sage I'm talking about for most cooking purposes is salvia officinalis, but of course, there are other varieties. You could read a whole book on the subject.
I'd rather just cook with it. I came across this recipe (haven't tried it yet) from a master gardener named Madeline Wajda, and doesn't she look like just the kind of lady you'd like to have cooking for you?

Sage Pecan Cheese Wafers (Makes 3 Dozen)

1 Cup (4 oz.) Shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
¾ Cup Flour
¼ Cup Chopped Pecans (or Walnuts)
¼ tsp. Rubbed Sage
1/8 tsp. Ground Red Pepper
1/4 tsp. Salt (one-fourth)
One-third-Cup Butter or Margarine in Small Pieces

Process first six ingredients in a food processor for 10 seconds. Add butter a piece at a time while processor is running until mixture forms a ball. Roll to one-fourth inch thickness on lightly floured surface; cut with 1 and one-half inch round cookie cutter. (The dough can also be shaped into a long roll, refrigerated, then sliced and baked.) Bake at 350 degrees on ungreased cookie sheet 12-14 minutes until edges turn golden.

Thanksgiving Thinking

Well, come on. It's on its way. Not much we can do about it.
Maybe you've already ordered your heritage turkey. Maybe dinner won't be a lot more imaginative than spiral-cut ham.
But please, please, don't buy your side dishes pre-made. I will allow catered gravy for those of you who are gravy-impaired (but for me, it's not really Thanksgiving without homemade turkey gravy).
Off limits, though, are canned yams; Stouffer's frozen vegetables; that horrendous salt-pile of green beans with mushroom soup and fried, canned onion rings; and completely ::forbidden:: is canned cranberry sauce.
I'm not even allowing you to make stove-top cranberries with orange rind and cinnamon. Trust me.
No. There is only one way. The one true way.
Bookmark this recipe.
In your head! In your head!
Zombie! Zombie! Zombie-ie-ie!

One True Way Cranberries

1 12-oz. bag of fresh cranberries
1 Tbsp. minced fresh sage leaves
1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup bourbon or brandy (optional)

Throw the berries, sage, nutmeg and sugar in a casserole or cast-iron skillet that has a well-fitting lid. Stir, cover, and place in a 350° oven for half an hour. Remove from oven and stir in the hooch, if using.
Allow to cool some.
It will keep for weeks, refrigerated. It's essential, spread lightly on bread with mayo, for turkey sandwiches... and iceberg lettuce, of course.

This Ain't Pretty

There's nothing I can do to make this photo, or this post, pretty.
It's just ugly survivalism. And boy, does it hurt, after the wonderful lessons my mouth learned during Eat Local August.
This is our stockpile, our hedge fund, our emergency rations, in the event of an avian flu pandemic.
It has to be preserved food, and since I didn't think about preserving very much local produce myself (I do have a freezer full of tomato sauce I made this summer, but that's about it), I've had to settle for Safeway and Long's Drugs and Costco.
You're not even seeing half of it. I have no idea how much food to store up, but I'm thinking right now we could get by for maybe six weeks without having to visit a store. In addition to the cans and packages you see here, we have dried beans, dried pasta, beef jerky, peanut butter, jugs of juice, evaporated milk... (That's even a bottle of hand sanitizer on the cracker box.)
The plan is to be able to avoid crowds, to not have to exchange contaminated cash, to prevent making just one fatal misjudgment.
Pedestrian food, for a couple of geezers who would rather not be pedestrians when the germs are a'swirlin'.
I know. Hyperdramatic.
Whatever. I've actually been known to eat stuff like this.
Update: Dr. Biggles, who is emphatically not frittering away time at work, has seen the light. Er, the not-light. He tinkered with my original color pic, and spookily turned it into black and white. It now replaces my first effort. Dr. Biggles, with his absolutely spot-on Rod Serling interpretation, is now officially Art Director of I'm Mad and I Eat. Eh, Doc?

His Name Is Mud

And my name is mad.
I voted today. In a special election that is costing the state of California funds it can't well afford to squander. An election mandated by a fraud of an actor, acting as a fraud of a governator. An election for dubious issues that were promulgated by the Republican party... but when said issues started to fizzle among the voters, said promulgator and his Republicans advised voters who were opposed to the whole thing to protest by not voting at all!
Right, Arnold.
You just got a bunch of "Nos." Officially.
I'm wearing my "I Voted" sticker, even as we speak.
Plus! We walked to the precinct, because the weather was so unexpectedly nice. And since the precinct was halfway to the cool retro restaurant down the road, we kept walking. And had a totally unseasonable mudslide to drink.

Mudslide
1 oz. Vodka
1 oz. Kahlua
1 oz. Bailey's Irish Cream
Mix with cracked ice in a shaker and serve in a chilled cocktail glass.

J'accuse... No, Wait, J'admets!

There's a fun spate of culinary confessions making the rounds. It began with David Lebovitz, I believe, and has been spinning out from there.
I thought it was embarassing enough having to post a picture of my pile of unwashed dishes (though I'm getting a little better with the dishwasher — it's just that I've lived without one for so long, I'm out of practice).
But it's been a hoot to learn that careful cooks are full of foibles. Such as "I wash mushrooms." (Lebovitz) "I don't taste things I prepare before I serve them." (Comfort Food) "I have Velveeta in my pantry." ( Sweetnicks ) And others.
I don't feel terribly confessional, but give me another glass of confession juice (confession: Two Buck Chuck) and I'll see what I can come up with. OK:
1) Some of my dried herbs are really, really old.
2) I buy salsa at Big Lots for about half a dollar (or less) a bottle.
3) One year at Thanksgiving, I couldn't find the turkey baster. Because it was still sitting on the kitchen counter, unwashed, from the year before. Behind a stack of, oh god, I don't even remember.
4) Spam. I don't know what to do with it or why I have it, but there it is. Two cans: turkey and, uh, "real"?
5) We eat most of our dinners in front of the TV. Not even on an actual dining room table.
6) I cooked a bitter melon once, but threw it away after one bite. (Well, so would you.)
7) I have a really hard time with basil.
8) Sometimes I get jittery at the farmers' market. Too many pushy yuppies, and I can't decide what to buy.
9) I've never tasted chervil.
10) For lunch yesterday, I had half a can of cold Rosarita refried beans, straight from the fridge, straight from the can, with a big sploosh of Big Lots salsa.
11) I'm a little nutty about those twisty white threads in a raw egg. I'll spend ten minutes trying to remove them before I cook the egg.
12) I've only used my KitchenAid mixer two times.
13) I will drive thousands of miles for a meal. My honeymoon was food-themed, and ran across the entire continent.
14) (I'm going to bury this one deep inside, in case anyone's actually reading.) I'm more into the Idea of food than the Eating of food. In other words, I can compose a meal like the deaf Beethoven could compose a score, and I don't actually have to "hear" it. I know what it sounds like. Besides, sometimes I'm just not hungry. But I like thinking about food.
15) Doritos.

Stalking and Gawking

Having decided not to spend Friday night in Point Reyes Station in anticipation of the visit of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, we stayed home and got up early Saturday morning. After a pretty, misty drive over to the coast, we pulled into the picturesque little West Marin town at 8 a.m., found a parking spot on an easy-getaway side street, and then just hunkered down in the car for a while, reading the paper, until the farmers got their booths set up. (They wouldn't sell us any produce before 9 a.m.)
There was a definite buzz in the air, and lots more color than in recent weeks. One proprietor shouted to another, "I've never seen folks dress so nicely for the market!"
And that wasn't the only gussied-up touch: There was more food for sale. Supplies of produce that earlier seemed to have waned with the changing of the season were miraculously on hand, but the truth is, well, twofold.
1) Normally the Toby's Barn Market ends the last Saturday of October. This year it was extended a week, to accommodate the special guests.
2) Knowing ahead of time about the special guests and the extension, the farmers hoarded their loveliest crops, or chose not to even reap them for a couple extra weeks, so that Nov. 5 would be a visual (and, of course, edible) feast. I joked with Peter Worsley that he'd been holding out, and he flashed a mute, pained expression. I mean, he even had tomatoes Saturday from his own garden, and I'd never seen a single tomato there in the past. (To his credit, he gave me one at the end of the day.) Here's a shot of him sexing up his pile of delicata squash, under the blue hubbards (and we bought one of each).
And not just more food. The woman who sells beautiful, naturally dyed homespun yarn had a couple of goats on the premises! Good photo-op, eh? And yes, later on the Prince petted them. (So did I.)
But here's the deal. After we bought some jewel-like beets and some perfect potatoes, we retreated to the Western Saloon across the street. Oh sure, drinking was happening, but for the record, orange juice and coffee were being poured. Then, when a set of barricades was moved into place, effectively forming a gateway directly into the saloon, we realized the royals would be popping in for a pop! Alas, we were invited to remove our plebeian butts from the barstools and join the throng behind the barricades outside. And this is when we saw that the market had also been cleared of commoners.
Thus began the wait. Every car (official only, of course) that passed by on the street prompted gasps. At one point, two horses and a mule headed our way, right in the center of the road. All the king's horses? Ah, but no... To a chorus of boos, these hapless but well-mounted locals were diverted to a back street, which led them to where we were standing. (They had a terrific altitude advantage for watching the unfolding events — "He's turning around. They're crossing the street!" — but they had to sit directly over the organic stench that inevitably plops to the asphalt when you make a horse stand in one place too long.)
When the royal entourage finally arrived (and with deadly precision; we'd been told it would be 10:45, and it was 10:45), they strolled the market for what seemed like an hour or more. Well, yeah, it was more. They were scheduled for the Western at 12:04, and that's when they finally crossed the street to "our" side. And that's when Cranky caught the money shot.The one I posted yesterday was pretty good, too, but I have to add this one, of the ugly little pug, Fred, whom Prince Charles actually petted right in that very doorway.
The truth is, that picture I posted yesterday of Prince Charles was literally a 1-in-100. Between Cranky and me, we shot 100 pictures — not all of them aimed properly, or even intentionally, at the royals.
Yesterday's unbelievably successful shot — I'm only 5'3" — was number 99.
This is what most of our attempts looked like. Every time Charles and Camilla loomed into view, hands clutching cameras of every sort (from cardbord to Darth Vader-esque) were thrust into the air, over the heads of the crowds lining the street.
Even Cranky, who is admirably height-endowed, took an awful lot of shots of hair and sleeves. (He needs to work on his aim.)
Ah, well. So at the end of the day, I chatted with a guy outside Tomales Bay Foods. He bragged that he had shaken the Prince's hand, and allowed me to shake his, for a contact high. I told him I had petted the goats.

His Highness Likes Farms

We're back from approximately five hours of milling about in crowds. There was a moment, while we were seated at the bar of the Western Saloon in Point Reyes Station, when we realized Charles and Camilla would be visiting that very saloon, presumably to meet a fat little, carrot-eating pug named Fred! Oh, we had the catbird seat, we thought.
Until a special agent rousted us out (and she was packing heat, so we obeyed).
From behind barricades out on the street, however, I was able to get a fairly good picture of the Prince of Wales as he emerged. (I learned he had two sips of a local ale inside. No word on what the Duchess of Cornwall ordered.)
I'm tired, so I'll fill in all the details tomorrow.
Well, I'll just add that everyone said he was charming. Imagine that. Prince charming.

TGI Herbday

You petless food bloggers who want to join in on the weekend "pet" blogging have been invited by Kalyn to post pix of your pot! I mean weed. I mean herbs. Go take a look.
It's a little hard typing today, because I made a mighty snip into the flesh of my fingertip with pruning shears. I was grooming the bushy, leggy marjoram plant, a largely useless herb in my opinion (and I welcome the input of anybody else on that subject). I think it tastes soapy, although I will use a smallish pinch for a "green" flavor now and then.
Anyway, I was in the middle of trimming off the excess when I trimmed something I'd rather hang onto: my corporeal substance.
I was too angry to clean up the pile of foliage on the patio, and it lies there still.
I don't think Bean Sprout cares much for it either. And boy, am I not in the mood to give him a trim just now, even though he needs one.

Totally Inappropriate: BLT in November

I'm swiping this idea from Lisa at Comfort Food (whose blog, from San Diego County, is only a couple of weeks old): "season-inappropriate cooking."
Lisa's examples are strawberry scones in the fall, and steaming-hot chili in the summer.
I know exactly what she's talking about. But today's lunch was not inspired so much by a quirky craving as it was by two simple facts: The tomatoes were really red, really ripe, really juicy. And dammit, I'm not ready to say goodbye to them yet, not if I don't have to.
The lettuce is the last gasp from my patio crop, fresh as imaginable and deep in flavor. The bread came from this morning's farmers' market. Mayo: Best Foods.
We used a couple of new (to me) kinds of bacon on the sandwiches, a sort of taste-off tribute to the Food Bloggers' Picnic of last summer. And, uh, Biggles... I'm going back to Wellshire Farms bacon, from Whole Foods.

One Hand Clapping

Hey, this is cool. Chubby Hubby announced the winners of the September "Does My Blog Look Good In This?" photo competition, and Cookiecrumb got an honorable mention for this picture, which ran with this post a while ago.
Congratulations to the shooters, and thanks to the judges.
Woo-hoo!

The Safeway Remodel Is Finished!

It's in Mill Valley, across the freeway from the town we moved out of last spring, and it was never even a store we shopped in regularly.
But we were driving past on the way home from an appointment, and decided to check it out.
Pretty nice, I'd say. In the produce department, they had not only taro roots, but malanga roots, which are close cousins. The cheese department was half-hearted, sad to report, and I didn't really snoop around deeply enough to say much more. Well, they carry Semifreddi's bread (good), lots of organic this and that, huge wine section. The whole place is huge.
But this isn't a Safeway review.
It's simply a report on the best darn arare (Japanese rice-cracker snack) I've ever tasted, and I bought it in the newly remodeled Safeway.
I don't know how to tell you the brand name. (I've left a request for Obachan to drop by and suggest a translation). I do know they are called Iso Maki, and I suspect the "maki" part refers to the nori wrapper. They are very crisp and substantial. The nori tasted fresh and bright, not at all soggy. The shoyu glaze on the nuggets was an artful blend of flavors, including sugar, seaweed powder and bonito powder. Ooh, and they stuck to my fingertips in just the right way.
You do know the right way, don't you? You just press a fingertip onto the cracker and it should stick. Then you transfer the morsel to your mouth.
And your fingers get successively stickier with each bite.
On the back of the package (sorry, that package was empty by the time I photographed it), it says simply "Distributed by JFC International Inc., S. San Francisco, CA." I don't even know if the crackers were manufactured here or abroad.
Oh well. Look for the black cellophane bag.