Winter 2010, In Random Dinners.

I'm still in a similar mental place to my last post, still feeling archivey, still hiding out in our room, still digging around in the old sketchbooks & rediscovering memories through drawings. Winter is still totally kicking my ass, so my motivation for complicated projects & exciting new recipes is low.

What has been keeping me going throughout these last (hopefully) weeks of horrible snowy icy slushy winter (spring! gardens! soon!) has been just the appreciation of our everyday life here, that we make time to cook & eat dinner together even when it's complicated, even when we hate each other, that we collect objects we like & live in a space that however cluttered & messy looks like us, that we have sweet sweet animals, good kitchen stuff & a cozy home.

Last winter was our first few months of really living together, so these pages of my sketchbook are especially sweet to me.

It is really feeling right now that Winter 2011 is never ever going to end, so to give us hope, some moments from Winter 2010, which did end eventually, becoming this.

1.11.10: Black Bean Chicken Chili.

1.13.2010: Scallops & Noodles.

1.19.10: Sausages & Peppers & Spinach & Whiskey Shots.

1.12.2010: Thyme & Shallot Salmon Fillet, With Broccoli & Cheese.

3.7.10: Weird Curry Stir-Fry.

Sometimes I just want to leave the pictures here by themselves, because to me, the specific details alone mean so much.

We ate this on this date, & it looked like this. That comforts me, when life seems bizarre & overwhelming, I guess just like actually cooking food does.

Would anyone care about that? Does anyone care anyway? When I was in art school I kept a very specific food I ate journal in my sketchbook, maybe I should just start posting those.

But I love those pages, when I look back, even as I laugh at how pretentious I was. Sometimes I can feel the specific moment, smell it, taste it, just from reading those lists.

Damn this blog is getting verbal!

I'll try to dig myself out of this hole soon, the potential of this sort of meal will help, but I have a few more of these style posts planned for the next month or so, then it's garden time.

Cape Cod Summer.

That last post got me thinking, & going back through my summer sketchbook, back to this past summer's family visit, to Cape Cod. & about my family. Yes this did indeed happen on this blog last year. I am apparently quite the creature of habit. So my family, we gather in a little house by a lake in the woods in Brewster, Massachusetts during the summer months, & we spend a great deal of time in the water & in the sun, & being us, we eat things.

Meals on the deck (this happens frequently):

Mum's Famous Panko Fried Cod, Purple Beans & Snap Peas & Basil from our garden, sauted with olive oil & garlic, a broccoli cheese casserole (cause hey, you can't leave your fridge in Noho full of those things while relaxing on the Cape for a week, can you?) & "yummy crusty bread" from the Underground. Good way to arrive anyplace, right? Mum never disappoints with the fried fish thing.

Owen reading with Stella on a summer evening.

No visit would be complete without a visit to Clancy's & drinking white wine with Gramma at the bar. Here it is in all it's glory, the Fisherman's platter. Yes, Owen & I both ate one. Yes we did. & A Fried Oyster appetizer, too.

HELLS YEAH FRIED SEAFOOD!!!

Owen, Grilling On the Deck.

& Owen & Mum, On The Porch, With Wine & Cigarettes. Oh Summer.

Now that Ali & I have been to Cali & back, & now that it's SO FREAKING cold & time for roasting ducks & not grilling on decks, I like to remember these warmer times. Here's to surviving another winter, & getting back out there on the lake in about six months.

Cali Part Three: Family Drinking & Mall Culture

& We're back.

At this point in our trip, I can say truthfully that we were losing our minds.

Here's what that looks like, Cali-style:

A Pair Of Chicken Dinners:

Part A: Old School Chicken, Carrots, Potatoes & Peas with Gramma, Grampa & Cousin Amy (following pinto grigio at 5 pm in the hot tub as went our Corona custom)

& Part B: Chicken, Onion, & Green Pepper Sandwiches at Uncle Bob's House, aka The Diamond Family Bar. With Top Gun (Ali, was it Top Gun? Now I'm blocking out the details?!) & copious amounts of scotch. Yup, weird night. Thank Christ it included the adorable puppy Bailey!

What could follow up a night of drinking at your family's own personal bar better then a truly old fashioned day of SO-CAL MALL CULTURE. Oh yes, the Diamond sisters meet a GIANT MALL. In the desert.

In short, our visit caused us to become addicted to Jamba Juice & Ross Dress for Less (actually, these are both re-addictions for me, I acquired them living in San Francisco & have been coping with the withdrawal ever since).

When Liz & Ali drove a red Ford Mustang convertible through the Hills:

to drink smoothies in flavors such as Green Tea Matcha & Pumpkin Pie & purchase discount Marc Jacobs scarves, gigantic Le Sportsac totes & sequined dresses of no brand name whatsoever but still beautiful,

(thank you Ali, I stll remember that is one of my Christmas presents)

So I mentioned Romano's Macaroni Grill? Same mall as the smoothies & shopping, 4:45pm on the dot, Diamond Cousin Reunion.

This type of crap food still makes me angry, but on the other hand I haven't had dinner with all four Diamond grandchildren in about ten years, so maybe I'll let this one go (Cousin Erin seems to have become a grown-up now, who knew?).

However, I must mention the following: that the waiter drew on the table with a crayon, offered the house Chianti as his wine selection, took his half hour break during our dinner, & served me a glass of wine I had ordered approximately 45 minutes before after the check came. Did I mention the food was crap? & Really quite expensive? How do places like this shithole get away with these shenanigans? Are we really that stupid as a food culture? (yes yes I know I know) (I guess I haven't let it go but REALLY?! In ten minutes with $3 I could have made better food for four with ten dollars I could have had better wine too) But anyway,

Seafood Linguine & Loster Ravioli, aka Mediocre Food & An Excellent Family,

(love&thanks Ali, Gramma, Grampa, Amy & Erin)

We did have one truly great meal, Ali & I, & eventually, I'll end this saga on that note.

Hint: Deep Fried Zucchini & Carne Asada. & That meal carried us through LAX & home again.

Cali Part One: 3000 Miles From Cheezits to Red Snapper

Some things have happened since my last long ago post, mostly spring & summer & hence gardening & nightswimming & long evenings outside & much less internet. Also some family happenings, & what says family history memory the most?

Yup, food (which shapes our lives, etc.).

My dear sister & I flew on a plane to California in October.

Being us, we ate things. Lots of things.

Through the Sky to Dallas & LA.

Airports, airplanes, drive-thrus, & our Gramparents' House: Cheezits in the air, Starbucks' Iced Caramel Macchiatos, a Blimpie's BLT sub in Dallas, "El Potato Burrito" @ Miguel's Jr, Grampa's Famous Stuffed Shells back on Eureka Street.

So we knew we were home, in that sense of being at home in one's own past,

Grampa's Roast Beef & Sides, AKA The Taste Of My ChildHood.

The meal that I thought of first when we planned the journey. The smell that still means "FOOD" to me. Roast beef covered in pepper & onions, whipped mashed potatoes with tons of butter, canned peas, steamed carrots.

I think this meal is why I like to eat, why I learned to cook. So I could produce this feeling myself. I still can't cook this right though. Better maybe, but not right.

A classic shopping adventure with Gramma, to a (at least to me) fabulously insane California mall restaurant, The Elephant Bar.

The Elephant Bar, where two girls from Massachusetts meet Americana + Sushi.

Seriously. We split a tempura shrimp roll, & then I had ahi tuna over brown rice with seaweed salad & smoked tofu, & Ali enjoyed mac n' cheese & coconut shrimp. All presented in a completely over the top fashion with oddly low lighting as befits a fancy/trashy mall restaurant. According to Gramma, the bar was also an excellent place to meet men. We unfortunately did not get a chance to check this out theory.

Although the Elephant Bar was a tough act to follow & Although I am 32 & Ali is 27 we will always be "the kids" to our grandparents, one night they actually let us cook dinner. This was a very difficult trip in many ways while it was also perfectly wonderful in others, & in one of our worst early moments we found a grocery store we liked, the delightful Henry's, & it saved everything. Shows what food, & the option to purchase the food you want, will do to save a situation. We took many, many a trip to Henry's to enjoy the lovely cashiers who did not look at us & our outfits like we were crazy freaks like pretty much everyone else in Corona, & buy very cheap but delicious California white wines to drink in the jacuzzi & avocados & tomatillos & chilis & lemons & grapefruits & other amazing California things. What can I say? We like to eat in our family. Those first bags of groceries we brought home from Henry's were a turning point.

On this particular night: Red Snapper, with Asparagus roasted with garlic & olive oil, Baked Potatoes, & Salad with excellent California tomatoes & bermuda onions.

I will admit I caved under pressure so this is my mom's classic recipe for baked fish with butter & bread crumbs (my Grampa's favorite, always), usually as we are from Cape Cod done with cod. & I never make baked potatoes & had to actually ask Ali how to do it. But Oh well I wanted Grampa to like it. At least I snuck in the asparagus, kind of controversial in that house as not a pea or a carrot.

Us two transplanted Massachusetts girls spent ten days in our second childhood home, & as you have noticed, it was complicated. Stayed tuned for the rest, Family & Food & Feeling, here we go.

& Red Convertibles! & Shopping! & Pumpkin Smoothies!

As Summer Draws To A Close...

...some drawings from an early August trip to Cape Cod that never got posted due to pre-DnDnD2k09 excitement. (Family, Friends, Food, & all the complications that ensue.)

First night leftovers dinner in the guest room at my mom's house, when that sort of thing was still comforting.

The next morning, a classic trip to the sparrow & what was formerly new york bagels, followed by even more classic cape cod church thriftstoring. Oh, Joanie's.

2nd night of the visit, when the leftovers all alone in my room thing gets angry, & way too reminiscent of high school.

But then, a fabulous lunch with gramma the next day at Clancy's.
"It's too early for a martini so I guess I'll have a margarita."
Yes! & a FRIED SCALLOP PLATTER.
& then we went to job lot & the astonishingly good dennis marshall's.
heart heart heart, gramma, guess where my personality came from?
OH, RIGHT, YOU.

Followed by a much needed dinner party with jed & melissa back in noho at my then brand new apartment. First shared meal at the new apartment, in fact.
& I believe jed drew us both bending over a lot while unpacking books in short skirts, & then we all went to the 11's to dance, cause it was wednesday.

This brief moment of summer 2009, brought to you by my current need to remember the more innocent times.