A Summer Preview: Burrito Night.

We have lately been having these great summer-eqse days, bright hot sun, perfect for afternoons in the garden, getting sunburned & tricking oneself into believing that it is July. But of course, it isn't, it is May in Massachusetts. Right now it is 50 & raining & will apparently stay this way for the next five days.  

There is a while to go before pleasures such as swimming & sunbathing & eating garden tomatoes, for example. I love this rainy May weather too, but I'm just saying, one can get addicted to 70+ afternoons gardening in the sunshine. (With a hound dog napping on your napa cabbages). The problem is, after one of those afternoons, a girl wants actual GARDEN FOOD. & no luck yet, most things are just tiny baby seedlings. 

We have got some radishes, spinach, garlic greens, but we are a while from tomato basil city. 

What to eat then, leaving the garden muddy & delightfully hot & looking for satisfaction? On this particular Saturday, BURRITOS. 

First, I will admit upfront that I am a burrito snob. I am a Californian goddammit & you just don't get food like George's Drive-In here. You don't. Ali? Are I not right? That shit was off the hook. 

Every time I give in & try a burrito place here on this coast that's supposed to be "just so great, so authentic" I am deeply disappointed. Not naming names, but really, sorry Noho. Massachusetts does not equal burritos. Taqueria Cancun, Pancho Villa oh where are you? Oh right, still in San Francisco where you belong. I'm the impulsive idiot who moved back to New England & left all that food bounty behind.

5.7.11: Pre Summer Burrito Night.

I seem to have a lot complaints here. I'm not intending to. Describing what led to the creation of  a meal gets complicated sometimes (food shapes our lives). 

To simplify: it was unseasonably hot, we built raised beds out of mulberry lumber all day, & I wanted a good burrito. (Because I am a burito snob & never get one unless I make it myself). 

So, we broke the "no food out of season, especially tomatoes" rule & went to Stop & Shop & bought tomatoes & cilantro & avocados. Oh well. At least everything we needed cost next to nothing by some reduced produce miracle. Cause you know we are CHEAP.

I think both my summer produce longing & my burrito angst both come down to salsa, truly. Good salsa. Homemade salsa. Why why buy salsa? & Why is the salsa at any random hole in the wall place in Cali so divine & the salsa anyplace here tomato water? Why?

So yeah, I was reasonably tan for the first time in a year & I broke down & bought crap grocery out of season tomatoes & made my own salsa, to eat on a giant burrito (I make great salsa, FYI). Whatever. It still was delicious, helped along greatly by a jar of pickled jalapenos from last year's garden that I recently found in the back of the fridge.  Ah, the magical joys of food preservation. Better than unicorns.

They were steak burritos, with pinto beans & onions, grilled red peppers, homemade guacamole & salsa, chopped lettuce, fresh cilantro, sour cream, cheese, & of course, tortilla chips & Mexican beer (Dos Equis). 

Tons of leftovers, so I ate one wrapped in aluminum foil at work for lunch the next day & also felt like I was back in SF, heading out for lunch in the Mission (Sigh. ALMOST). 

This is the food one wants to eat when sunburned & pleasantly exhausted & starving from gardening. 

Things are just gonna get better. Our tomato plants are in the ground, people (one each of every heirloom variety we could order on the internet, & lots of the regular ones too).  Our basil & peppers seedlings are started. We are actually beginning to enjoy the delicious, incomparable pleasure of eating food we grew.

Bring it on, Summer!

Radishes Have Arrived. & Been Eaten.

Now this is what I am talking about. A rainy Sunday afternoon in May, a trip to the garden to plant turnip seeds in a light drizzle, & acquire a fresh bunch of gorgeous, gorgeous radishes, Easter egg, French Breakfast, all bright red & purple & so beautiful against the damp green day.

To take it up a notch, when we got home it turned out that Owen had been growing arugula quite successfully behind our bookcase (don’t ask) so dinner was suddenly a quite delightful proposition. 

We have been on a kale kick lately-I think because I am in terrible need of green food & kale is cheap. Also, after a lifetime of considering it one of my least favorite leafy greens, Owen won me over. 

Grilled steak, sauted kale, chopped fresh radishes, topped with a arugula pesto sauce (one of my favorite things). 

5.15.2011: Arugula & Radish Rainy Dinner.

Garlicy, sharp, a little spicy, texture flavor color-for a random unplanned dinner, this meal really rocked. Go us.
& Then on to Karaoke at Bishop's Lounge in a downpour with the fabulous Matt D. & Melissa.

Easter Wings (A Cape Cod Spring Holiday).

Happy Easter/Passover/Spring.

I am very fond of the Easter holiday, it is very aesthetically pleasing to me. Bunnies, Jesus, pastels, eggs, all very good. That said, this year I didn't really get it together to do anything about all that. No egg dying, I didn't wear a cute pink dress, & I haven't cooked rabbit since November. 

But we did have family, dogs, sticky wings, lots of good bread & butter, & a Cape Cod beach storm, aka an early Diamond family Easter.

4.23.2011: An Early Cape Cod Family Easter Dinner (With Dogs).

I had to work on Easter itself, & didn't really mind, since I very much appreciate all the ceremony & trappings of holidays, but also know that they don't really matter, in the sense that I can work all day on Easter in a pink dress then go & dig in the garden & enjoy that as holiday festivities (what I did last Easter). Plus I hate ham (is it the half-Jewish part of me?) Ham is great thinly sliced on a sandwich with the correct condiments, but an whole ham? One of the only, perhaps actually the only,  meat to which I say, yuck.

So the Diamond/Williams family (minus DR, who was missed but prefers not to travel, being a cat) packed up the car & drove to the family home on Cape Cod, stayed Friday night through Saturday night, & enjoyed the following pleasures: an early Easter dinner of Mum's sticky wings, roasted brussels sprouts, herbed mashed potatoes & French bread, an early Easter breakfast of cinnamon raisin bread & hard boiled eggs, both with the excellent bread from the French bakery in Wellfleet, collecting seaweed & shells on the beach in Harwich the pouring rain, Griswold cast-iron pan acquiring thrifting, Barb's Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies, & most importantly (or maybe most adorably?) a meeting of the dogs, Walty our hound meets Mum & Barb's Jack Russell terrier/beagle/dauschound? mix (we don't know what she is, just like Walt, but she looks like a tiny yellow lab pretty much-just imagine a full-gown high energy 14 lb lab with a terrier brain & a tendency for snuggling & here's Sophie), an awesome recent addition to the family. Walt & Sophie ran on the beach, rough housed, chewed on each others toys, leap off furniture, begged for food, cuddled on couches, lay by the fire, & overall had a stunningly good time. Yay dogs!

We drove back to Noho late Saturday night. 

On actual Easter, I worked, & then in a light warm rain, Owen, Walt & I foraged for fiddleheads by the river in the early evening, came home, I talked to my grandparents on the phone, ate steak & mustard greens, appreciated being alive & all the good thing I have, watched tv in bed & fell asleep. Where was the Easter bunny? I do not know.

A Snapshot In Leftovers (The Bento Post, Sort Of).

A couple of thoughts-lately I have been on a campaign to improve my life in small ways. One way of actualizing this has been my work lunches. One of my core beliefs has to do with avoiding convenience food, well really unnecessary convenience itself-why not do things yourself & do them well rather than buy a cheap, quicker, lesser version (blah blah blah yes I hate fast food & most restaurants really, I am a do-it-yourself-kind of gal). & of course I am generally pretty broke. I work in a grocery store, where it is easy to spend money on food everyday, but I have been successfully strict for a while now about bringing my lunch always, the problem is frequently I am lazy before bed & my lunch is therefore lame, lots of random crap from the fridge thrown into tupperware with no style or taste logic. 

I spend a lot of time in life doing things that take work because I value the outcome, i.e. cooking a decent dinner every night & growing as much food as I can & canning & preserving as much of that as possible. So why not bring this level of value of life to my work lunches? Exactly. 

I have been reading the Adventures in Bentomaking blog for years, & have always been inspired by it, but never acted on it. I've owned this adorable lunch box with cute compartments for years too (free sample from a previous job) but never use it. 

So this week! Adorable Bento-Style lunches! 

The thing is, I draw these imagines & sit down to paint them, & while I am watercoloring, sometimes my mind wanders. So this post to me now is more about leftovers & grocery shopping creatively on a budget, less about my own adventures in Bentos. Still a great blog, though. 

First, Four Recent Bento-esque Lunches. 

What these lunches make me think about is how telling they are of our recent life in food. The great thing about the boxes is that they are tiny, & perfect for small amounts of weird former meals in the fridge that you don't want to throw away but aren't enough for a meal. Seriously, I am really cheap & I hate to throw out food. Why haven't I always been doing this?
So these lunches are a product of the last week of dinners in our lives (& dinners are the emotional heart of this home of course). They create a picture, & this is what it looks like: a cheap giant bag of broccoli from Price Rite, New England Chinese Night based on a super sale at Stop & Shop last week on crab meat & pork, the Stop & Shop sale last month on lamb stew meat that led to lots of lamb in the freezer, a recent trip to the Asian Market for affordable peppers, ginger, lemongrass, & cilantro,  last Saturday's family journey to New Bedford where we picked up good Fall River Linguica on the cheap at Friendly Fruit, & those jars of green tomato pickles in the fridge. 
The Grocery Store really tells you everything you need to know about a person. Equally their leftovers. So here are mine. Judge me as you will.

Blogging With The Windows Open, & Green Times Three.

We had our first 75+ day here in Western Massachusetts, & it was pretty sweet. There's is just something about being actually hot...outside in the early evening walking a hound dog beside a river with a breeze promising warm rain, wearing a t-shirt & a skirt, bare legs, bare arms (but cowboy boots of course). The water expectant with future swimming, the air carrying smells of grilled meat & green things growing. I can't help it, I love hot weather. Living in New Orleans totally ruined me, I like sweating. 

Having the windows open after all these months of winter is a joyful experience. I slept in bliss last night because there was a constant breeze through the open window. & tonight, sitting in the kitchen after having fed the animals, drawing at the kitchen table with a glass of chilled white wine, hearing the random music from the Community Music Center next door, various conversations on the street, smells, & the feel on my skin of that warm, soft breeze. I love air. The worst part of winter is all that time inside.

Oh & the lack of fresh food possibly grown or gathered by oneself! Hey fresh food, you are almost here! Ramps, lettuces, fiddleheads, morels, oh yes! 

& now it has begun to rain. Perfect. One of life's great pleasures=the sound & smell of warm rain with the windows open.

In a spring mood, although the garden is just beginning & the farmers markets haven't started & fiddleheads will be a while yet, I give you three green moments of early spring anticipation.

Green #1. Spring Sunday Dinner (we love Spring Dinners & Sunday Dinners!)(& dogs & cats): 

4.3.11: Cilantro/Almond Pesto with Hot Italian Sausage & Peperoncini over Pappardelle.

I really love Cilantro Pesto. Very spring tasting, even if it's too early to grow it yet. So what, at least the bundle I used cost a dollar at the Asian Market. But Cilantro Pesto, check it out, made just like any Pesto, use any nuts, any cheese, olive oil, garlic, salt & pepper, a bunch of cilantro, you're there. & like Arugula Pesto, this is a good one to make spicy & add peppers or hot sauce. I wouldn't make it for my Grampa though. 

Green #2: Recently buried in the back of the fridge I found several large Mason Jars of Spicy Green Tomato Pickles we pickled last fall at the end of our huge garden tomato crop. I guess they got forgotten back there in the fridge, but wow I just found them the other night & they are delicious.

We just mostly pickled them like they were cucumbers: sliced green (unripe green, not green heirloom) Mason Jar, allspice, mustard seed, garlic, coriander, cumin, whatever, salt, pepper & vinegar, & added some habaneros we also had in excess from the garden. These guys are really pretty great, also coming in handy for my new project, Bento Box Lunches For Work, inspired by this fabulous blog. (stay tuned).

September 2010-April 2011: Spicy Green Tomato Pickles From Last Year's Garden. 

& finally, Green #3: 

April 2011: A Sketch of Our Future 2011 Garden.

We have an additional plot there this year, so if all goes well, twice the food (If only we could somehow fit in chickens & a goat, maybe a sheep, maybe a cow, we could realize our dream of not buying food). We have tiny radishes, beets, & cabbages growing there. Chard & carrot seeds are planted (Bright Lights for the chard & Purple Haze & Atomic Red for the carrots). A gentle spring rain is falling on them right now. 

We will be eating radish & lettuce salads from the garden before we know it. & drawing them, & swimming. & sleeping with the windows open all the time. 

One For The Dog People: Introducing Walt. Plus Lentils & Cumin.

As I mentioned, a little more than a month or so, we added a new family member to the EnD household:

Walt the Hound, February 2011. 

Walt's feline sister, the country singing grey tiger cat DustyRose, has always been an important presence on this blog, as she is in my art, & my life. Walt is turning out to be an equally unique & fabulous animal, clearly the world's best dog to go with the world's best cat (or maybe I'm slightly biased? IDK, they are both seriously goodlooking & complete sweethearts).
Like DR, Walt turns out to be an excellent drawing companion,

Walt sleeping while I paint, 2.21.11

 & Walty, A Sleepy Hound With A Tennis Ball, 3.29.11

There is something about a pile of sleeping animals in sight while working that has because a required studio element for me, like my preferred sketchbook, Pilot V-5 pens, the right music (usually the Mountain Goats), & a glass of cheap white wine. To get real work done, I need my pets. They give good solid feedback. Or they love me unconditionally & are cute. Whichever.
 In a nod to remembering that this is supposed to be a food/art blog (whatever that means) & not a "my pets are cute" blog, a drawing of what the humans ate on Walty's first night as a resident of South Street (Walt ate dog food & bacon & Tator Tots, of course).

2.18.11: Lentils, Onions, & Broccoli, Over Potatoes Roasted in Olive Oil & Cumin (Walt's First Night). 

So yeah, we have a dog now, it's pretty great. We also have twice, maybe eventually three times the garden space as last year. & we just actually cleaned the apartment. Other than the generally wretched weather, Spring 2011 is shaped up pretty positive so far.
Yes, we love cats. But we also love dogs. Wait for the drawings from the dog park. & Walt sleeping at our garden plot, also good. We also also recently acquired four Koi, so maybe I'll draw the fish too. & the baby plants! The world is my drawing oyster. & hopefully soon we are on Cape Cod eating actual oysters!
Or maybe I'll actually cook something & draw that. You never know. Eating & Drawing & Gardening & Pets?

Hot Dogs & Hound Dogs.

Happy Spring!

A few random images, thoughts, meals, opinions, what have you. 

First, we fairly recently acquired a spectacularly great hound dog, Walt, a red-brown & white spotted coonhound/pointer mix. On Walt's first night here on South Street, we brillantly left a plate of Tator Tots & bacon on the counter, leftover from our nervous "are we getting a dog today?!" breakfast (we had him on hold over night at Dakin to decide. Of course we were getting him.) This moment will always be special to me, because he hadn't shown much post-shelter-experience personality yet, so Walty on his hind legs at the kitchen counter eating bacon & Tator Tots off a plate with huge enthusiasm & a giant grin, was kind of wonderful. A Limoges china plate, no less. Ah dogs. He's a food hound. Remind me to draw him with his face in a 5lb bag of sugar on the couch after being left alone for three minutes.

2.19.11: Walt's First Night. 

They were Price Rite generic Tator Tots, a brief new weakness of ours. But although the Tator Tots were trash food, Price Rite actually rules. Holier than thou co-op shoppers should really check out their produce section. Happily, we are getting really close to the season where we can grow all our own produce again, but the Chicopee Price Rite & their gorgeous & low priced jalapenos & ginger & chard has really helped me through this winter.

On that note, I have a confession. I really am kind of a food snob, in my own way. Let me explain. Although I have my weaknesses (you know, Price Rite generic Tator Tots or Cheeseburger flavored Doritos), I really am against processed food. It's not an indulgence or diet thing, not at all, because I cook everything in bacon grease or chicken fat, but I guess I just like to know my own indulgences, i. e. that chicken fat from the chicken I roasted the other night, not mystery ingredients. If I am going to eat a ton of fat, why not eat straight good slab bacon, not a McDonald's thing? I annoy the hell out of my dear partner, but I really don't like to eat fast food. I like to save money, but a fast food sandwich still costs more than the bacon scraps we sell at work, so whatever. 

However, one night last March, in the grips of New England March depression (when will the snow truly stop! Snow forecasted for this weekend!), like what's happening now, pretty much, my dear boyfriend did convince me to buy a package of hot dogs & we ate this for dinner.

3.11.2010: Hot Dogs, Mac N' Cheese, & Broccoli. 

At that point, we were still using up a case of free expired stupidly organic mac n' cheese any way we could (don't worry, we threw out the cheese packet, & made our own cream sauce. That's essential). But it was a glum March day & we were walking by the Mill River, & Owen said "Hot Dogs & Mac & Cheese for dinner!!!" & I agreed. That's love. 

I won on the broccoli though. Broccoli in a cream sauce. Always good. As good as hot dogs seemed to me when I was five? 

Ask Walt. 

Piles Of Noodles, PIles Of Opinions.

Welcome to my controversial world of noodles. Linguine, fettuccine, elbow macaroni, whatvever, noodles have also been one of my favorite things to draw. Long long long before I had a food blog I was painting piles of noodles everywhere. For example, this classic painting of mine: 

"219", Acrylic on canvas, 2005

So, visually,  I am all about the noodles. Gastronomically, they are actually not my first go to comfort food, or at the least not the classic Italian style pasta variety. I am a chickpea curry girl all the way, or spicy beef & soba. Milkshakes & onion rings, I'm all over that. I believe I have mentioned my opinion on the general American trend of paying way too much money for a large plate of crappy pasta, & eating it in a mall, probably. Why not eat cheap food with some complexity & flavor, a bowl of pho or steamed pork bun? & We all know my Grampa Diamond's strong opinions on red sauce.  I guess it's a family thing. 

That said, there is more to do with a box of fettuccine than dump some jar of sauce from the grocery store over it .  

2.10.10: Homemade Red Sauce, With Bacon, Chicken, & Veggies. 

 3.2.10: Angel Hair, In White Wine & Butter, With Summer Squash, Thyme & Mushrooms. 

I guess behind my ranting & raving ala Anthony Bourdain about the Olive Garden (we actually saw him do this that night) is that both these meals weren't particularly creative, didn't cost much money, hardly took any real time or effort & were delicious. Learn to cook your own food, rather than throwing away money on crappy American chain restaurants, please. Seriously, learn to cook, y'all, at least enough to cook some veggies in butter & olive oil, chop some garlic & onions, & boil water.
This is the lesson in the noodles.
(It is still very much winter, although it is March, I am therefore apparently still cranky). 

Tegan & Sara, & Noodles & Cake & Friends.

A little more than a year ago, two out of the ordinary events occurred on one winter night in Northampton: Tegan & Sara played at the Calvin Theatre, & someone besides Owen made me dinner.

Yes, last February, Melissa, Ashley, & I had tickets to see Tegan & Sara, & Melissa made Ashley & I dinner (Penne, Red Sauce), I brought the wine (of course) & Ashley brought a chocolatey thing from Woodstar.

The first Tegan & Sara album I owned, The Con, I bought on itunes immediately after my hand surgery in late November 2008, & I have very vivid memories of listening to it in an intense sort of way, tucked in bed with the laptop, vaguely pleasantly high on oxycodone & watching the snow out the window. Staying in bed after surgery gives one plenty of alone time to think, & all the details of those memories are really clear. Made for an interesting show, I guess.

2.12.10: Noodles, Wine & Cake at Melissa's, Tegan & Sara at the Calvin.

This blog did use to be a lot more about rock music, I guess I used to go out more. Back when it was just me & the cat, before we decided (mutually) to add a boyfriend & a dog into the family. It's still about rock music in the sense that it is very difficult for me to paint or write without music, but maybe I should see go see more shows.

Owen & I saw the Corin Tucker Band at the Iron Horse back in the fall, if I can remember what we ate first I'll try to draw that one, because that show was amazing. Sleater-Kinney! Rules!

(Ashley is from Oregon, so somehow this train of thought makes sense?)

Don't worry though, Owen, Ali, Katie & I have tickets for Loretta Lynn this Saturday, & that's sure to be an art piece. Hopefully that show begins with a lovely meal with lovely people like this one did.

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.