Caramel catastrophe
2007-05-21 14:10:40
I am d-u-m-b. Last Tuesday was my dad’s birthday. My mom wouldn’t be home until the weekend, so I planned a Saturday dinner to cook for him. I had hoped to secretly make his favorite dessert, chocolate soufflés with creamy caramel sauce, while he was at the airport picking up my mother.
All was going according to plan… I whipped up the soufflé batter, put it in the ramekins, and tucked them way back in the fridge. I had Henning do the dishes to get rid of the evidence. I started to make the creamy caramel sauce. And then I sat down to enjoy a glass of wine with Henning and Sebastian while I waited for the sugar syrup to brown. I paid no heed to a subtle warning from Henning, knowing that I had everything under control. Come on, I’ve made this dessert and this sauce at least five times before.
“Maia, something is boiling in the kitchen…”
“I know, it’s supposed to boil” *sips wine*
“Uhm, ok.” *worried look*
A few
KO TO
2007-05-26 19:55:11
I’m in Toronto for nine days, and oh man it is good to be in a real city, to be able to walk down the street, passing through narrow alleys between brick mansions and into streets where cafes and pubs spill out onto the sidewalk so that passersby brush shoulders between the menu board and the bike racks. And smelling the smells of it all—flowers then ice cream then coffee then perfume then sweat and something fried—I love even the bad ones. San Diego has its merits; the sea, the beach, and the weather come to mind. But San Diego has nothing like this. To be in a northern city on their first really warm day of Spring is something else entirely.
That’s not to say that I don’t have some gripes, though. I’ve seen at least three “health food” stores selling nothing but bottles of pills, and good luck trying to buy beer after 9pm outside of a bar. And don’t get me started on wine, which you can’t buy even in a beer store. No, it and
So fresh and so clean
2007-05-31 21:50:18
The combination of evenings alone in a foreign city, weariness from too much math, and boredom with the old blog layout got the best of me this week. On Tuesday night, I began to envision a new layout for my little papaya, and random spurts of tinkering over the last few days have resulted in what you see here (or here, if you’re reading this in a feed reader). What do you think? Does everything work nicely enough in your browser?
I’ll have more to say about Toronto tomorrow or so. I have an early flight and right now is bedtime!
Read more: fresh
POMbowlful
2007-06-04 17:15:17
Now I know you are all going to be raising an eyebrow at me blathering on about a hearty winter soup here on the fourth day of June, but man, it’s just not summer where I am. And the truth is, I could (and probably will) eat this soup all year round. A hearty mix of grains and beans made sweet-tart with pomegranate juice, this Persian soup is the stuff that vegan dreams are made of. It’s a complete, healthy, and damn tasty meal in a bowl, and there’s not an animal product in sight. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not much to look at, but hey, what bean soup is? Granted, it would have had a prettier purple pomegranate color if I hadn’t used black beluga lentils, but they were what I had lying around, so they are what ended up in the pot.
I served this to my dad and Henning on Saturday. When I first told my dad that we were having pomegranate soup for dinner, he looked at me like I was a little off my rocker to feed him nothing but fruit soup, sal
Toronto, part deux
2007-06-03 23:22:03
Toronto is an amazing city. It’s the 5th largest city in North America (after Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago), but it’s clean as a whistle and you have to work pretty hard to find somewhere you’d feel uncomfortable walking around in alone after dark. And there’s a lot to be seen just by walking around and stopping in anywhere that looks interesting. Distinct parts of the city have each their own feel, from the tree-lined neighborhood streets of The Annex and Little Italy to the glassy skyscrapers of the heart of downtown and the entertainment district…
The whole city is studded with gorgeous murals. I kept turning corners and finding them. Peek down any alleyway in Kensington Market and you’ll find an onslaught of color. It really livens up the city, and it’s nice to see that the murals seem to be immune to vandalization. That’s certainly not the case in large cities in this country.
Strolling down Queen Street Wes
Read more: Toronto
Oh, the irony of it all
2007-06-06 13:35:33
Someone is playing a trick on me. A mean, mean trick.
In January, I ordered six tomato plants from Laurel’s Heirloom Tomato Plants, with the goal of having beautiful heirloom tomatoes growing in buckets on my back patio all summer long. In the first week of April, they showed up at my door, all tucked into a little cardboard box. I followed Laurel’s directions to the letter and planted them in giant tubs with holes drilled in the bottom filled with organic potting mix and amendments. Everything was great for the first month. The weather was nice, with plenty of sunny days, and my little babies were happy. They grew and grew.
And then May came. And with it came the May gray. Suddenly the sun was gone and the air was extremely moist. One of my tomato plants had a stem turn yellow. Then another. And another plant started looking not so healthy. Part of the problem was that they were being over-watered; they were within range of the nighttime irrigation system for my apartment
Hey, thanks!
2007-06-12 15:45:58
Thanks to whoever nominated me for Culinate’s GrillMe Food Blogger contest! I really appreciate it :) It was probably my mother, ha. Anyway, I don’t stand a chance against the likes of Sam, Matt, and Deb, but I’m happy that someone thought of me, cause I sure would enjoy a trip to Napa. Especially one that comes with a course to bone up on grill technique under the direction of Andrew Schloss and David Joachim, coauthors of Mastering the Grill. If you feel like it, you can follow the link and vote to send me to Napa. There’s something in it for you, too, since they will select one registrant at random to go along with the winning food blogger!
Post-excess salad syndrome
2007-06-12 00:09:16
Saturday was Kate’s 60th birthday. Kate is a good friend of my parents, from their graduate school days. She, her husband, and their daughter flew out to San Diego from Williamsburg, VA, and met up with her son, who now lives in San Diego. My mom and I put on a damn fine dinner for eight Saturday night. We did three courses from Michel Richard’s Happy in the Kitchen, plus a soup from the Book of Soups, an intermezzo in the form of David Lebovitz‘ Raspberry-Rose sorbet, and a decidedly excessive chocolate cake (by the way, don’t ever bother with chocolate transfer sheets). Needless to say, I’m beat. And stuffed.
Henning requested something healthy tonight, after the weekend’s excess, and man, was I happy to oblige. We decided on a recipe that’s been in rotation as a result of a meal that my mother and Kate had at the National Museum of the American Indian a few years ago. The museum cafe serves an amazing wild rice salad, and Kate asked for the
Sister Blogger
2007-06-17 00:28:11
I’ll be out of town, hiking in Utah for ten days. In the meantime, my sister, Laurel, will be keeping you entertained. Rumor has it that she might tell you about cheesemaking at home and eating local in the Chapel Hill, NC area. Enjoy!
Read more: Blogger
Eating My Curds and Whey
2007-06-20 09:24:59
Hello all. I’m Laurel, Maia’s sister, and I’ll be your guest blogger for the week.
I recently read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a description of her family’s journey through a year of eating only (or mostly) produce and meat grown on their own property in Virginia. Kingsolver had more than your average knowledge of how to feed yourself out of your backyard (like what asparagus looks like and how to slaughter a chicken). She also shows more than a passing familiarity with the lost arts of canning, baking bread, and making (gulp!) cheese.
I’m a regular reader of many food blogs, and have noticed that canning (even cakes!) and baking breads has come back into favor, while cheese-making is still… well… left to the professionals. I predict this will change with Kingsolver’s account of how to make fresh, soft cheeses. As soon as I read her description of stretching and kneading mozzarella, I ran to Ricki Carroll
Eat Local Triangle
2007-06-23 10:01:36
Maia and I both have the great luck of living in a place where good local food is easily available. California is a standout in produce production, and you can’t go 5 miles on a Saturday in San Diego county without stumbling upon a farmer’s market. Stalls there are lined with ’seasonal’ veggies (quotation marks because of SoCal’s eerie refusal to have seasons). From squash blossoms to cherries to pluots to sweet peas, San Diego’s markets overflow with produce you just can’t find locally in here in North Carolina.
Don’t get me wrong. We do have our fair share of exceptional and varied produce.
The realm that RTP (that’s Research Triangle Park, corners of which are Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) rules, however, is meat. The Carrboro Farmer’s Market has everything you’d ever want. Local
grass fed beef? Baldwin Beef has you covered. Heritage pork and the best damn breakfast sausage ever? Cane Creek’s j
Pie Are Square
2007-06-25 08:45:39
I credit our parents with the development of Maia and my math-y minds (she’s getting her PhD in math, I’m in physics). They refused to let us buy into the mysticism and stigma associated with math, introducing us to the basic geometry and algebra concepts at very young ages. I remember many dinnertime jokes involving puns off a certain equation for the area of a circle.
What I’m trying to say, I guess, is on a scale from one to nerd, we’re off the charts.
Maybe that’s is why I’m so drawn to the idea of the gallette (free form pie, really). I can actually make a square pie and bring it to the table, snickering all the way.
I was reminded of the existence of these rustic pies from Elise’s recent post, and couldn’t resist. Like math, pie dough has a certain mystique associated with it.. as if only the truly talented can make a decent dough, and the rest of us should stick with store bought.
This being my first attempt at dough, I decided
Read more: Square
Marching through the desert
2007-07-04 01:11:20
I’m back from the parched and strikingly beautiful canyon lands of Utah. Henning and I spent a week and a half driving between national parks to hike and take in a good ol’ dose of pure nature. We managed to log over 2200 driving miles and 100 hiking miles in the process, and all that in the heat of a summer desert. Needless to say, when we got back we were craving cool, fresh, exotic flavors. And we needed a vacation from our vacation. Somehow it always happens like this when Henning is in charge of the planning.
Henning bumped in to our neighbors in the laundry room, trying to get the smell of dusty red dirt out of our clothes. Since he was leaving for a month in Germany in a few days and he wouldn’t see them again before they move out, he invited them over for dinner. To appease our desire for fresh and exotic, I cooked up some Thai food—fresh spring rolls, green papaya salad, and pad thai. It was exactly what we needed after a week and a half of pasta salads
A thousand perfect scoops
2007-07-08 22:13:42
So. Everybody and their mother has David Lebovitz’s awesome book, The Perfect Scoop. And everybody and their mother has blogged about it. But I can’t help but tell you about it too. It’s really that awesome. We’re talking pages and pages mouth-watering, butt-building frozen goodness.. it’s enough to make you swear off bikinis forever.
My sister, mother, and I have dutifully been working our way through the book. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. Here’s a quick rundown of the ice creams I’ve tried. My sister has made others, but I can’t remember exactly which ones or what she thought of them. Maybe she’ll let us know in the comments—hint hint.
Cinnamon Ice Cream - Richly flavored with cinnamon, without being “hot” or tasting over-spiced. This was one of my favorites. It calls for ten cinnamon sticks, so this might be a good time to hit up your local Indian market, if you’ve got one, t
Brain food
2007-07-07 15:41:05
This is the summer of research for me. If I want to graduate in a year, I really need to put my nose to the grindstone. I usually fuel my brain with plenty of lattes and tea, but there’s only so much caffeine a girl can drink in a day. When I’m looking for a refreshing snack to sip on as I work, I go for a mango lassi.
They are incredibly simple to make, and equally as delicious. Thick and frothy with sweet mango flavor, it’s no wonder that the mango lassi is one of the most popular drinks in its native India. On top of that, a mango lassi is healthy brain food, with protein and fruit sugar for a natural pick-me-up. Like a tropical smoothie, sans brainfreeze. They’re also great to round out an Indian meal, providing a cooling sweetness to counter the spicyness and giving a healthy balance to often-rich dishes.
(…the recipe)
Read more: Brain
Sister blogger, now and forever
2007-07-12 15:55:24
Good news: my sister will be a permanent addition to Maiapapaya. I asked her if she’d like to be the papaya, and she said she’d love to. From now on, we’ll both be posting here, so look forward to posts from San Diego and Chapel Hill. It’s going to be fun to have her around, and it will be interesting to see the differences in what’s available seasonally in San Diego and Chapel Hill.
As you can tell by this gorgeous card she made for my parents when she was in elementary school, she’s always been a fan of sweets, even if she can’t spell. She started off as the main baker in the family, but in the last few years she’s become quite an accomplished cook, throwing dinner parties and brunches for fellow graduate students in the Physics department at Carolina. I’m sure you’ll love her as much as I do :)
Oh, summer!
2007-07-15 19:08:00
The season of bounty, where fruit is bursting with juicy ripeness and everything is in abundance. It is here. Summer summer summer. Please excuse me while I do a silly dance with my bags overflowing with goodies from the farmers market. Sweet corn is so perfectly crisp and ripe and sweet that it doesn’t need any cooking at all. Tomatoes of all colors, shapes, and sizes are falling out of farmers’ boxes and into people’s mouths, dribbling that wonderful tomato goo down chins old and young alike. And the squashes, oh, the beautiful zucchini and summer squashes which will make many a summer dinner, simply rubbed with salt, pepper, and olive oil and slapped on the grill. Plus, I harvested my first non-cherry tomato today. It was an absolutely perfect Goose Creek tomato and it was stunning just sliced and sprinkled with fleur de sel.
As if all that weren’t enough to send me sailing away on a cloud of bliss, the stone fruit is incredible right now. I got some pluots
I heart Japan
2007-07-15 11:51:51
Only in Japan
would someone come up with the idea of confining melons and cucumbers to certain shapes when they are young, so that when they are ripe, they are square, or pyramidal, or star-shaped. Oh goodness, just go have a look for yourself.
Plum crazy
2007-07-18 18:25:44
Maybe I went a teeny bit overboard at the farmers market on Sunday. Is six pounds of stone fruit too much for one person? Hrmm. Well, I’ve got stone fruit coming out of my ears. Plums were spilling over bowls on my kitchen counter, cherries straining the strength of the colander in the fridge, and I’m all alone here, what with Henning being in Germany and all. Not that I’m complaining or anything, since the fruit is incredibly delicious, but I’ve been looking for creative uses for plums and pluots. There’s only so much a girl can eat out of hand.
I’ve made pluot sorbet and plum-raspberry sorbet and cherry sorbet for an ice cream social that I’m having on Friday (more on that later this week). I’ve made salad with plums, goat cheese, and almonds. I’ve eaten plums on my yogurt, pluots in a smoothie, and lots and lots of them dripping over the sink. And I’ve made this incredible plum salsa. It’s like a symphony. One of thos
Pesto-shmesto
2007-07-18 11:19:03
I have a confession. I don’t really like pesto.
I probably just feel that way because I’ve never been able to successfully make a good pesto myself - it always gets overwhelmed by the garlic. Maybe that makes me a little immature (like a kid who’s picked last at dodgeball - “Dodgeball’s stupid. I’ve never liked it”), but I’m comfortable with that. I’ve discovered a love for something far better.
Fresh, pungent, and fool proof, the traditional Argentinian sauce chimichurri is my new favorite summer flavor. Being a raw sauce, it doesn’t strain the AC while maintaining all those fragile good-for-you compounds in garlic, parsley, and olive oil. It’s supposed to be heavy handed, so too much garlic is never enough, and a good glug of red wine vinegar won’t overwhelm the parsley. Equally good on beef, chicken, pork, fish, shrimp, as a vinaigrette for a grilled veggie salad, and even slathered on a piece of bread (
Read more: Pesto
More scoops
2007-07-21 01:16:35
I know what you’re thinking. Oh here we go with the ice cream again. And that darn book, what was it, the Poop Scoop? She should just give up and send these love letters directly to this David Lebovitz guy and leave the rest of the internet out of it. I mean really. It’s kind of sad.
But I can’t do that. I have to tell you. Because if I didn’t, you might not know just how great everything about The Perfect Scoop is. It deserves another post for itself. And little mentions in every other post I write this summer. And its own fan club. And special spot on the bookshelf. Or maybe a pedestal even. You get the idea.
Since my mother gave me her old ice cream maker and a copy of David’s book, I’ve been churning up a storm. Now that Henning is gone, I’ve got no real reason to just whip up a batch of mango sorbet or strawberry ice cream, so, looking for more excuses to make ice cream, I invited some girls from the math department over for a little ice
Not your average fish stix
2007-07-22 01:55:45
I’m here to tell you about breading your fish with cereal, cornflakes to be exact, and then panfrying it. Doesn’t that sound good? No? Well just wait until you try it. It makes for the most impossibly crispy crust you’ve ever had on a piece of fish. I guarantee it. Granted, “breaded” and fried fish is really nothing more than glorified fish stix, but glorified these indeed are. Plus, Rick Bayless is the one giving the orders this time ’round, and you’ll do quite well to listen to what he has to say. I swear, the man is a culinary genius. His recipes are exotic, creative, and traditional all at the same time.
Of course, the amazing roasted tomatillo and seared corn sauce that these fish stix are served over does quite a bit to elevate them from the realm of the ordinary fish stick. Sweet with onions and corn, tangy with tomatillo, with quite a kick from a roasted jalapeno. It’s thick and loaded with corn, almost like a succotash, sans lim
Summer in a bowl
2007-07-25 11:10:48
You know those magical recipes that come together effortlessly and completely capture the essence of good eating? This is one of those. Bookmark this now and make it tonight. I’m not kidding. You can thank me later. The recipe couldn’t be simpler: coarsely chop tomatoes, peaches, shallot, and tarragon. Blend with a splash of white wine vinegar, a glug of olive oil, a few ice cubes, and a dash of salt and pepper. Strain and chill. Make an extremely simple peach and tomato salsa to top it with, and done. It’s that easy. And you’ll feel like you’re eating at Chez Panisse.
This soup is Summer
through and through. Cool and refreshing and highlighting some of my favorite summer produce, I could eat it all day long. I’m sad that I hadn’t discovered it in September of 2005, when Gourmet first printed the recipe. That’s nearly two seasons of peaches and tomatoes that could have become this amazing soup! Well, I guess I’ll just have to make
Feelin’ Blue
2007-07-24 11:25:22
I WENT BLUEBERRY PICKING, AND YOU SHOULD TOO!
Ok, sorry, let me try again, but with a wee bit less enthusiasm. You need to drive about 20 miles north of Chapel Hill, 10 miles past Hillsborough on the incredibly scenic old 86, where there are several pick-yer-own blueberry patches. You’ll see colorful sandwich boards announcing their presence, and your excitement will grow as you rumble down the short gravel drive. You’ll see hand-painted signs welcoming you, telling you to take your time and enjoy yourself, and just drop your money in the box on your way out. You can grab a bucket and saunter out to the rows and rows of blueberry bushes. Try to be clever and go as far from the parking as you can, there will surely be more blueberries on those bushes. Listen to the chatter of families who have met here for an annual outing, bringing young children whose only interest is to eat the blueberries right out of the bucket. Crouch and look up at the bushes from below, i
Elegance, defined
2007-07-24 00:46:12
Imagine a crisp breeze blowing through marshmallow clouds, and you’d be pretty close to tasting this salad. Shavings of endive, celery, and fennel are lightly dressed with lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper, and then topped with luxurious burrata cheese. It’s that simple. And it’s quite possibly one of the most elegant salads I’ve ever made. The crisp texture and fresh flavors of the shaved vegetables playing with the with the succulent burrata, it’s just more than words can describe. Maybe I should just let it speak for itself.
Is it talking to you yet? If you’ve never had burrata, just think of the creamiest, ooziest fresh mozzarella you’ve ever tasted, and multiply its deliciousness by, oh, about a zillion. Russ Parsons has said that burrata is to mozzarella as foie gras is to chicken liver, and I think that’s a fair statement. Even better, no poultry loses its liver for our pleasure.
Burrata is made by stuffing a thin pouch of fresh m
Read more: Elegance
, defined
Amalgamation
2007-07-28 17:07:13
On nights when I come to my parents house for dinner, my mom and I often exchange lots of emails trying to work out the menu. But yesterday I came over early, so we got to have our discussion in person. It usually goes something like this:
“So what should we have for dinner?”
“Well, I saw a recipe for X in Y that looked fantastic.”
“That sounds great. I saw a recipe for Z that also looked good.”
“Ooh, that sounds good too, but it doesn’t go with X.”
“You’re right. How about A instead of X? That would go nicely.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s exactly the season for that.”
“What about B? That goes with Z.”
“But the ingredients for B would be best from the farmer’s market tomorrow. How about we have X and C?”
And so it goes on, until we finally settle on a main dish and some veggies that fit our requirements: (1) sounds yummy, (2) dishes complement eachother, (3) i
Eat In, Act Out
2007-07-27 14:06:51
This coming week, July 29 through August 5, is Eat In, Act Out week, organized by San Diego Food Not Lawns. Here’s what they have to say about the event.
San Diego has the second-highest number of small farms in the entire US and yet, very little local produce is used in our restaurants or sold in our markets. Instead, our produce is shipped away, while the average store-bought fruit or vegetable has traveled over 1500 miles to our plate!
During this week of action, people across the country are choosing to eat locally and think critically about their food choices. “Eat in” refers to using local food, cooking food yourself instead of eating fast food, and “Act Out” means speaking up and taking action to change our food system and promote local food!
They have lots of activities planned, including a canning workshop and an edible bicycle tour of City Heights. For more information and the complete schedule check out the flyer or visit the Food Not Lawns webs
The temple explodes the chicken cube
2007-07-27 13:40:11
My friend Jason just got back from a few weeks in China. He was there for a conference, and wandering the streets he saw lots and lots of signs like this one.
Now, I know what dumpling, fried rice, and fried noodles are. But can anybody make any sense out of these other ones? Fragrant and hot soil bean silk? Anyone? Wheat Joss-stick Cow Willow? My absolute favorite is “The temple explodes the chicken cube.” Jason said he would have walked in and ordered that one just to see what it was, but he was scared off by the fact that the sign also advertised that they served dog meat. Oooh goodness!
So it grows
2007-07-26 13:26:10
Hey guess what I figured out. You’re not going to believe it, but it’s true: If you put plants into dirt and water them, they grow! Amazing, isn’t it? How they do it, I’ll never know. I mean, come on, let’s see you turn sunlight and water into green stuff that you can physically touch. And eat. It’s incredible. Plants are a-ma-zing.
No?
Well they are to me. See, when I was a girl, I had a horse, not a garden. Sure, there was that one summer when my dad rented a 6 foot roto-tiller for the tractor and drug it along behind the fruit trees to prepare the soil for a vegetable garden. And sure, I helped plant and harvest some vegetables. But really, the only things I remember from that time are some monster zucchini and a load of snake eggs unearthed whilst digging. Before a few weeks ago, I couldn’t tell a zucchini plant from a pepper plant, but now I’ve got both growing in my little garden plot. And let me tell you, zucchini is one beast of a
River Cottage Meat Book
2007-08-01 09:23:46
As you may or may not have noticed, there’s a new book in the “Must Reads” sidebar. That’s because I bought Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River
Cottage Meat Book, and I am obsessed.
I’d heard rumblings of the existence of this book from a variety of sources, and decided to take a look at it. I couldn’t immediately locate it on amazon (though it’s available now), and checked the UNC student stores on a whim. When I saw it on the shelf, I knew I had to have it immediately.
First and foremost, you really have to commend anyone who titles their book “The Meat Book,” and give it shelf presentation of a beautiful hunk of beef and “Meat” in big bold letters. And it’s not even an Atkinsian diet book!
The Meat Book looks like, and essentially is, a textbook about meat. It starts with a discussion of the morality of eating meat, and comes to the very sensible conclusion of “meat’s ok” (thank good
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