proteanme

Uncut pie

Originally uploaded by proteanme

I haven’t made a pie for a couple years. But it’s RU’s birthday and that meant it was time. The crust was the bomb, but the peaches got a little under cooked. Still good though. We’ve been celebrating in one or the other since Friday night tacos. We saw this really wonderful French film this morning while we were waiting for the skies to clear – The Father of My Children. I can’t recommend it enough. So sweet and sad. And all the nuance and beauty that American films don’t trust their viewers to get

• Joan Mitchell
• Grace Hartigan
• Dressing up
• Cooking

Lately, I’ve had good luck with a run of recipes that feature some kind of ground meat. The overhead is low but the taste is high. So run don’t walk to your kitchen and try one of these: Curried pork noodles, Thai Basil chicken, and Green chili with pork.

With the economy so uncertain and having endured a round of layoffs, I updated my freelance site. Next up my resume.

At the end of 2008, I recorded a couple songs. These are scratch tracks and  here’s one of them Just Now (at 3am).

I’m eating my lunch, a simple potato salad and a nice tomato salad, and it strikes me that good olive oil is almost always worth the price.

Figuring out what’s worth what reminds me that I wanted to say I am committing myself to a fall purge in which I’m hoping to get rid of a lot of stuff — books, cds, clothes, the buttload of junk Rachel and I drug down to her basement, the detritus of my life in Portland. My intention is unclutter my living space and to have the things I own better reflect what’s meaningful to me.

I’ve got this new mix going on my ipod that I call, “longing”.  It hits the spot, even if it’s a tender one.  It’s got the Kinks, Cat Power, Sera Cahoone, Lucinda Williams and depending on if I’m at work of home, it’s also got Al Green and Bjork.

My CSA share started about amonth ago and that’s led to a number of Mondays in my kitchen.  I’m happy to report I’ve had some early successes, like lettuce smothered in pancetta, marinated carrots and balsamic onion jam. One of the things I like best about the share is it forces me out of old habits and I end cooking things that I might not have picked out myself.

Oh and for you Portlanders I found some of the best Chinese food I’ve ever had here and it’s in China town, of all places.  I can’t remember the name of the palce, but it’s right across the street from he Magic Garden.  Hmmm, what am I doing at the Magic Garden?!

Feeling restless and unsatisfied the other day I started thinking about about my incubating list and in an effort to put words into practice I got my ass in the kitchen and cooked up a small storm. Made some pasta from scratch for the first time and it it was a satisfying endeavor all the way around. The fresh pasta and dried garbanzo beans really made this simple dish tasty. And I imagine fresh tomatos would make it sublime.

I’m psyched that I’ll be going to see Destroyer tonight. One of my favorite artists over the last several years – a cross between Dylan and Bowie. Rubies was a great record and Trouble in Dreams had been getting alot of play recently.

I heard Nigella Lawson talking about chocolate the other day and she said something along the lines of food is not meant to impress, it’s meant to bring pleasure. A woman after my own heart.

I’m always pleased to see Rachel, Pat, Clint and Kelly, and even more so to see them in the context of sharing a good meal and talking over the last book we read together. A couple nights ago we shared a really fabulous meal at Wong’s King Chinese Restaurant. If you come to Portland go there and get in line for the best dim sum in town.

Here’s a quick recap of dinner:

• Appetizer recommended by the server: Lightly deep fried, but not greasy, tofu cubes with multiple spices served with a white vinegar dipping sauce. Peppery, crunchy, and silken on the inside. These were sublime.
• Clint picked: Short tip pork ribs in garlic sauce served on a small bed of lettuce, scallion and black bean. Succulent.
• Liz picked: Dry green beans with minced pork. Fresh ingredients and just the right amount of oil raised the bar on this old stand by.
• Author recommended: Cod and tarrot root stir fry with a light sauce that really show cased the vegtables and fish. This was the biggest surprise for me in tasting so good.
• Author recommended: Crispy garlic chicken where I guess they pour deep fried oil over the chicken and then serve it in some kind of sweet and salty dark sauce. I almost never eat chicken when I go out, but this rocked my world.

Today’s list consists of some of 2007’s food hilights.

• Homemade ice cream, using a custard base and the hand crank ice cream maker I scored at an estate sale.
• A perfect steak, medium rare, at Le Pegion.
• Cooking fresh fava beans Roman style.
• Making the perfect Provencal salad with help from Gourmet.
• Manilla mango season.
• Pork belly pate at Navarre.
• Lots of home made spicey corn fritters.
• Making a killer salsa verde for the first time.
• Tacos at Por Que No.
• Using fresh tomatoes to make panzanella (bread salad), and bolognese, carbonara and amitricianna sauces.
• First time I went to Ken’s Pizza.

I love grocery shopping, in part because of how much I love food and cooking, but also in part because Portland is home to the best local grocery chain I’ve ever had the pleasure of shopping at. New Seasons rocks it because they are friendly, they support local farmers, offer organics as well items like Coke and Oreos, employ a knowledgeable staff who can make good recommendations about what’s in season, what wines go with what, etc, and are more than happy to let you sample all sorts of stuff. I had an interview there a number of years back and could have had the job, except it was more technical support for electronic devices like scales, card swipes and registers than it was web development. So it wasn’t a good match. Anyway back to today. It was an especially nice excursion because it appeared to be foxy lady shopping day. Good lord, it was impossible not to be distracted by the wide variety of hot women in nearly every aisle. I’m not even sure I got all the items on my list, but I don’t care as I rode home happy nonetheless.