More legs = less cuteness (no kittens here)

Yours truly is not genius material, as proved by the fact that I cheerily slung my bag of Metro essentials (book, keys, iPod) into the trunk of Iosif's car with the camera still in it before heading down to Hungry for Music's crawfish festival. Not to fret, there is no theft in this story, only the sad song of lost opportunities and the lament that I can only tell you about the fun of crawdad munching, at least until Iosif comes through with his pics [ETA: the harrah, the harrah! no, honestly, what the hell is to be done with my hair?].

Crayfish! Arthropodically delicious! Much less work than crabs and much more tastiness than lobster. Grip the head and tail, wrench the body torsionally, scrape off any offensively ooky innards, suck de head, peel a segment or two off the abdomen, and bite out the pinky-size bit of tasty tail meat. Repeat. Break for beer or corn or bread. Shove away from the table, grab a snow cone, stroll around, and back for more. I got enthusiastically into the crowd-jostling scene around the crayfish trough, where everyone positioned themselves, paper plates at the ready, waiting for the large aproned men who entered yelling, "Hot hot hot, make a lane, make a lane!" and slung steaming potsful of scarlet critters down the length of the table. Frantic scrabbling with plates (pah), shovels (bah), and bare asbestos fingers (yay!) ensued, everyone piling bugs onto their platters and eventually triumphantly breaking free to look for seats and wet wipes.

Two observations. First, it was odd but flattering—and amusing—that the guy at the check-in thought I was eight years younger than I for trulio am, though that's still old enough to get a beer bracelet and therefore no problem atall atall. Second, okay, there is absolutely nothing wrong with piling your crawdad heads in neat rows around your plate. Crawhenge! Tamercraw! Stop taking pictures!

Slave to the food meme

Ganked from MightyGodKing.com. Stuff I've tried is in bold.

1. Venison (not crazy about it)
2. Nettle tea (is it just me, or is this entry oddly specific?)
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare (and its sinful Korean equivalent, yook hwe)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (as well as morcilla, and to both of them I say: PLEH)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (what, are we godless people?)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho (hail, oh Vietnamese soup, and again I say thee hail)
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream (best at the motherlode)
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries (in their forms blue, straw, rasp, black, and salmon)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (of which too much is never enough)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (on a particularly horrible day in December 1989, I made a vow never to smoke, so no cigars for me)
37. Clotted cream tea (thank you may I have another)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (we're not counting accidentally inhaled ones, right?)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (BUT I AM OPEN TO OFFERS)
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin (I have limits, and this is one)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (cf. limits)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (hail the Brickskeller)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S'mores (any two of the ingredients pair well, but squished all together, they leave me cold)
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (pica is for type and not diet)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs' legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (I'm not counting my addiction to down-home sopa de menudo)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (but of course)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost (two esoteric cheeses on the list and no deep-fried candy bar? lame)
75. Roadkill (that's taking terroir a leetle too seriously)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail (officially not on my list of good foods)
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (again, open to invitations)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (AGH!)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (on multiple occasions, which is some sort of quality-of-life indicator)
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (lobster, bleargh)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake (rattle, to be specific)

Who Eats Free at Ben's

Who Eats Free at Ben's
Originally uploaded by thedoublepeace

DC locals will get a kick out of this: Ben's Chili Bowl has updated their who-eats-free policy to reflect the changing demographics of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Is this the terrible first step toward state control of the means of production of chili dogs? Only time will tell.

Consolatory expedients

I didn't watch the Derby, and events like Eight Belles' death make me never want to see or hear of another horse race ever again. You could argue that every horse ever put under saddle is under some sort of compulsion, that TBs are like sled dogs and have that desire to run bred into their bones, that most racers don't die on the track or suffer major long-term injury or end up sold to butchers, that racing is one of the few ways that most Americans see and support any form of horse industry. I don't care; watching races makes me slightly sick, and I've pretty much given it up. The loss of one non-betting, non-track visiting individual won't bring the industry to a screeching halt, of course, but it will make me feel like less of a voyeur.

Lest all that fumfering sound too noble, in fairness be it spoken that I had forgotten it was Derby day. I was busy making chocolate-chip banana bread of such fearsome deliciousness that it must be gotten out of my hands vitement lest it end up elsewhere on my anatomy with equal vitesse. This recipe is so easy and yet so tasty—and involves no fat beyond that of two egg yolks and the chocolate, which is so full of antioxidants that it's practically a health food, so that's all right—that you'd be tempted to let whole groves of bananas go squishy just to have an excuse to make another batch. Don't resist.

En breve: vade retro, Satanas

The miniature cupcakes from Sticky Fingers that my office has set out may be vegan and low-fat and save puppies and turn birdsong into pure nonpolluting solar energy for all I know, but they are still full of sugar and I have no power to resist their siren song. Make them go awaaaaaaaaaay.

Wrangle wrangle

Tickets: Too much money.
Car rental: Not very much money.
Dental insurance: So very much money.
Wrangling cattle for a cowboy who once hollered at you because you declined to bulldog a charging cow: Absolutely priceless.

Which is to say: Tickets to AZ, I has them. Last year's fun was tempered by the need to get up at o-hell-no-thirty in very chilly predawn darkness. This year the weather should at least be warmer, since we'll be down there in May, and instead of layers of shirts I will be toting SPF Avogadro's Number to protect my neo-Victorian pallor. I'm almost more nervous this time, because working later in the season means more of the calves will be big and ornery, while I have not added much mass. Last year there were a couple of times when I had to yell for one of the guys to lean on my shoulders lest the calf on which I was resting my entire weight still manage to get up. I suppose I could line my chaps with lead plates, but that's some spendy smelting tailoring right there.

Dressaging this week was the usual fun. I got there early enough to snag Cappi, hah! And after just one week on Laura, I had to relearn to find his barrel. It's tough having long legs and a teeny horse. He was great, though; at one point he considered going back to his old left-evasion ways, just as I was bending him and asking him to reach down for the bit. But a little leg pressure, and suddenly he relaxed, reaching down like a champ and keeping his energy forward even as his head dropped. Bless. Max the square peg was back in class, doing his usual routine of "oh God, cantering, so much work, two strides is all I got, boss!" riiiight up until his rider slipped the crop behind her leg and smacked him smartly. Suddenly, as twere a miracle, he found all sorts of energy; she never tapped him again, but he had gotten the picture. Turns out he has a very pretty canter, too, so kudos to her for determination and timing.

Western was...well. I love me a Western saddle, I love having a single hand on the reins, give me a smart cow pony and watch me try to hang on. But it is ridiculously frustrating to work with horses that aren't consistently trained to respond to Western cues, and yet be told to improve my cuing. Not sure that this class will stick; I'm having trouble working with this teacher. It would be different, as would so many many things, if I had the money to keep and train my own horse, but for now I'm trying to grit my teeth and be zen with every bone in my body. "You get all tense," says Teacherwoman MkII, and it takes my limited self-control not to snap anything smart-assed back. (This counts as personal growth.) So we'll see.

Dinner tonight with Mr. and Mrs. JackZodiac at Restaurant K was a lovely treat. I got the chocolate pie, which comes with homemade sour cream and sour cherry coulis and which The Voice had gotten during our Restaurant Week dinner. It's still toe-curlingly, pass-me-the-cigarette, I-just-got-religion good, but I'd better do a hell of a lot of running around at the kite festival tomorrow to compensate. Swope's recipe makes the kind of dessert that can single-platedly shift your center of gravity. The fact that I had it after an orange/jicama/spinach salad with hibiscus vinaigrette and some luscious rockfish Veracruz did not help. Well, okay, it helped with other things. But I'm betting Danny wouldn't thank me for squashing his calves flat.

Yeast is yeast and west is west

Pursuant to yesterday's post, I should mention that fasting in the Orthodox tradition involves giving up almost all animal-based foods, including meat, dairy, eggs, and fish, as well as olive oil and wine (technically speaking, alcohol of all sorts is verboten, but the Russians claim that beer is actually a form of bread and thus permitted—don't think about it too much). The week before the Great Lent begins, the Orthodox dip a toe into the waters of deprivation by giving up meat, and in theory you spend that week clearing the larder of all the remaining dairy products. Really you're building up a cushion against the coming weeks of thin food: To quote a small child of my acquaintance, when asked whether he was storing berries in his stomach instead of his basket, "No, I am eating them." So say we all.

Which brings us to blini. There seems to be a some disagreement online about the taxonomic differences between blini and oladi, but wevs, every thin spongy sourdough buttery pancake crepe-like thing I've had has been referred to as a blin. Back in ze old pagan days, when people got sick of the endless Russian winters, they made round warm yellow pancakes as an attempt to encourage the sun to get its ass back into the sky; these days, blini are an integral part of Maslenitsa ("Butter Week"), aka Carnaval for Slavs. It not being bikinis-and-feathers weather in that part of the world, samba parties are replaced with feasts of blini. The blini themselves help explain why, even when bikini weather rolls around, many of us are not fit for it.

God do I love blini. It's not enough that the average blin is made with eggs and whole milk, fried in butter, and kept from sticking to its neighbors with butter; it's got to have toppings at least as rich as the blin itself. Blini can be served savory, each person applying the appropriate personal measures of sour cream, chopped hard-boiled eggs, chopped green onions, smoked herring, smoked salmon, caviar, and/or extra butter, and sweet, with preserves, honey, sour cream, and/or extra butter. It is not unheard-of for blini to be filled with ice cream or Nutella (although this is rare and considered faintly indecent). You can pile your doctored blini in layers and cut them into wedges for genteel forking into face, or you can roll them up like burritos and end up smeary with butter. In a wonderful example of evolutionary symbiosis, icy shots of vodka help keep the cholesterol from building up to lethal levels and the blini help cushion the effects of the alcohol. At larger events, there may be dancing to help you process your sudden lipidosity, but in smaller gatherings the evening is likely to wrap up with conversation, possibly dessert, and maybe a pre-bedtime serving of yet more blini.

This morning, after spending yestereve at The Voice's and putting away three generous plates of blini, four glasses of red wine, and several shots of vodka, I am not sure I will ever move again. Hail to the blin, says I. Hail to butter, hail to smoked salmon, hail to the people who managed to eat dessert. Hail most of all to a friendly and fattening farewell to winter.

Texas loves you anyway

What ho et cetera. The novelty of corporate travel wears off quickly, and I'm well on my way to becoming a hotel snob (Marriott Marquis Atlanta: best beds in the history of ever; Seattle Westin: winnah for most lurfliest shower set-ups; Hilton Austin: best exercise in trekking a quarter mile to find the loos on each floor, plus best chandeliers evoking l'esprit del armadillo inverté). With the exception of my time in Atlanta, where I would use free moments to crawl into the embrace of my bed and nap for all I was worth, I've been trying to counteract the creeping conference-room ennui by bolting out of the hotels during downtime.

Which brings me to Las Manitas. On Thursday afternoon, after strolling on Congress and working up an appetite, I stopped in for a homemade lemonade and a taco al pastor. DC being tragically lacking decent Tex-Mex, the first forkful woke up tastebuds that've been in hibernation for months. I gave up on being dainty and picked up the whole thing, a corn tortilla wrapped around red-sauced pork spiced with lime and chili. The waiter, grinning, dropped by with a stack of napkins after I was done and pointed out that I was wearing al pastor al over my chin. Cost for the whole meal? Five bucks. Yesterday morning, I sprinted out extra-early for breakfast: chilaquiles verdes sharp with fresh tomatillos, refried beans, and hot flour tortillas, plus a strawberry licuado (fruit, ice, and a bit of milk, totally healthy...except for the added sugar). The place itself is kind of unpolished, although the folk art hearts from a gallery down the street perk up one wall and the service is fast. If you're looking for white tablecloths and the good china, you'll get the vapors, but then, if that's what you want, the Driskill is just up the road and serves tea.

A couple of years ago, developers tried to buy the Las Manitas block and build a hotel there. Locals fought back, arguing that the city needed to balance development with retaining the city's landmarks and that Las Manitas supported a variety of local schools and arts groups, and won. Hurrah! Migas for all!

Austin breakfast FTW

I got up at a stupid hour this morning, a time when I was not inclined to deal with the taxi shenanigans that ensue whenever you have to deal with Montgomery County's eedjit cab services, and managed to sleep a few hours on the flight to Dallas. At the DFW airport I wandered around in an uncaffeinated, fasting haze until I found a Starbucks, then meandered over to my gate to find that, whoops, they were almost finished boarding. Would've been so embarrassing to miss the flight. But I got to Austin fine, grabbed a cab, slung my bag aboard, and bid the driver hie us to the Hilton by way of breakfast tacos.

"Okay," he said. "There's a place on the way. You mind if it's grungy?"

Things were looking up.

It turns out that in this case, "grungy" meant "a converted Popeyes in which the redecorating has involved knocking out the order counter, chiseling off some wall tiles and replacing them with other tiles reading 'Mi Cantina,' and adding hand-written strips to the menu board. And you will be the only guailo in the joint." Rock on. I passed on the especial del día ("carne azada") and got a taco de huevos y tocino (a small flour tortilla filled with fresh eggs and bacon) and one of huevos y queso, both enlivened with a cup of fresh roasted-tomato and cilantro salsa. Life and civility flowed back with the cholesterol. The cabbie and I traded notes on barbecue, once I'd established some fresser bona fides (he asked where I went in Lockhart; I passed the test), and he pointed out a 'cue place down the road from my hotel. Since at the last meeting I was at with this crew, our token Y-chromosome finished a pound of steak at dinner, that intel will come in handy.

I hesitate to say how much more I'm enjoying Austin than Seattle, for fear of being thought ungrateful (and really, I keep trying to write up the dinner we had at the Impromptu Wine Bar on Thursday night, but it always ends up a string of obscenity-laced superlatives and l33t-speak, "OMG so fucking good," which isn't much help, but I can sum up by saying that I didn't think the place could match the swoony food pr0n the chef's wife writes at Gluten-Free Girl and I was wrong, amen). But I like it better in Austin. It has something to do with the sun.

[ETA: The hotel is hosting a boxing match tonight. The people-watching is unbelievable; someone could write a thesis on the difference between the ring girls (travel in groups, uniformly blond, ponytailed, and mascara'd into tarantula territory) and the pros (pretty in a way that is also kind of terrifying). And this is four hours before the bell, so it's only going to get better more.]

Speaking softly

To my sorrow, I haven't gotten to try out the new dressage crops (thanks, Santa, ya perv) on Grayson. I don't cherish hopes of flogging him into good behavior, but the crops are long enough to allow the tip to rest just behind your leg, allowing you clarify your leg cues by touching the horse's side. Paraplegics and amputees can perform dressage using just two whips rather than leg pressure; it's neat to watch. So I have high hopes of seeing work with Grayson go forward beautifully, at least once I figure out how to negotiate getting into the saddle while holding one without being kicked into next week.

But for ineffable reasons related to the horse list being blatantly manipulated to favor a teacher who always rubs me the wrong way, I got yet another partner this week, one who is such a nervous squirrel that I couldn't even consider using a crop. Roosevelt is completely adorable, a tiny chestnut Arab pony who looks like he was made by Gund or some other mass manufacturer of the huggable, and there's not a malicious bone in him. But like most Arabs, he's highly strung and tends to jitter. He's got the softest bit in the barn, a simple snaffle covered with rubbery plastic, because he'll stop on a dime if he thinks that something's about to hit his mouth. Nother words, you've got to ride him with perfect balance and featherlight hands, ideally with a zen level of calm and steady alpha waves and a clean conscience and pure of word and deed. Don't get me wrong, I like Roo well enough, because he's trying, but at this point, erm, I could use a slightly broader margin of error. After a couple of months working with my regular boys, riding Roo is like switching from a Civic into a jury-rigged jalopy with supersensitive brakes and acceleration and really woggly steering. He does have a lovely canter, and in the brief interludes between dead stops, he has a floating trot, unusually smooth for the breed, so if he could just be trained into a steadier frame of mind, he might be lovely.The woman who feels about Roo the way I feel about Doc watched the class and confirmed that the problems I had were the ones she has, so at least I didn't damage his fragile psyche further. Yay?

In other news, Restaurant Week, she ees feeneeshed. The highlight was Restaurant K by Alison Swope, where the arugula salad with gorgonzola, beets, and shaved fennel, venison pot roast with roasted root vegetables, and cornbread pudding were perfect comfort foods on a sleety night. Lowest marks to Taberna del Alabardero, which offered a binary choice for each chintzy course, ignored our table most of the evening, and tried to double-charge me for my glass of Molinet 2006 (which, to be fair, was a great recommendation). And now I plan to live on carrots and lentils for a month or two, or at least until it's time to go to Seattle. Shit, that's next week.

Tis Restaurant Week, knaves!

The annual event that I usually celebrate by missing it and grumbling after the fact. But no more! I carpe the diem! Qu'ils mangent de la brioche! Ecce horario: Vidalia for lunch today with 4mastjack (mushroom soup with pancetta, roast rabbit with carrot puree and pea-analogs made of green gnocchi, vanilla bean cake with strawberry-champagne jam), Taberna del Alabardero with Sunflake and Teal tonight, Restaurant K for dinner with TheVoice on Thursday, and i Ricchi with 4mastjack and 5starjoe for lunch on Friday. Saturday? Lolling about in a carbs coma and wishing for elastic-waisted pants.

I am breaking up this constant caloric influx with some horse time, of course, although by next week I will be a fatter-assed rider. This past Sunday was my first experience with the mixed teen/adult Western class. I was heavily outnumbered and very impressed: Unlike the adult dressage class, where you always have to be on the lookout for someone not paying attention or a horse having ADD attacks, the weaving and bending and circling of the warmup were conducted in almost perfect silence, with no near-collisions or anything worse than Grayson's usual irritable ears (downside: my habit of murmuring directions to horse and self was more conspicuous; fortunately, as the official old coot of the class, I am allowed to be eccentric). Later, during pattern work, ha! Pat's theory was supported: Cappi pulled exactly the same evading BS he no longer tries with me. Doc was a dreamboat, because, after all, whoozagooboyden and he had a good rider, and I found to my delight that Grayson was beautiful with the looser reins. Still a total bastard on the ground, but credit where it's due. Then last night Doc and I were reunited for a fairly slow workout under saddle. Cold weather gets Doc into his sparky pants, which combined with a foul muddy ring, several other horses to work around, and his recent vacation and new pain meds spelled me not wanting to push my or anyone else's luck. He was disappointed not to get to run like the wind, snorting all the way, but I comforted him with carrots and assured him that we'll try a little more next week. He listened to the part with root vegetables. Tomorrow night I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be back with Grayson, who at any rate is a useful reminder of how important it is to read a horse's body language and know where its feet and teeth are at all times. Since he tried to bite me on the head last time (kids! helmets! protect your valuable follicles!) when I was cleaning his hooves, you could say he's focused on experiential learning. Or that he's a farting demon-beast in dappled skin, whichever.

The Wire is hungry

Okay, not the Wire, the yours truly, who is probably nicer and has never tried to suck out anyone's life essence and render them faceless. Well maybe the once.

One of the few missions I had going into Atlanta, apart from surviving and maintaining a veneer of professionalism, was to get down to Ria's Bluebird for breakfast. And I did, although it was hard to crawl out of bed; the preceding evening had involved a party and then vodka and sonnets and conversation until quite late, and my hotel bed was both extraordinarily comfortable and big enough to swim in. But no! Duty! To the pancakes! I staggered out.

My first impression was that Ria's is as much like an Austin dive as I've ever encountered outside that city--decor that's funky without being twee, pleasant forthright waitstaff, a mix of students and office workers and truckers, a cheerful but not overloud buzz of conversation--and nothing dispelled that impression. I can't speak first-hand about most of the menu's offerings, although the biscuits and gravy and the mushroom/brie scramble that people around me got looked excellent and vanished fast, but the buttermilk pancakes with bananas that were set down within minutes of my arrival were, as advertised, fantastic. I had to close my eyes. Two large perfectly fluffy pancakes soaked with warm syrup and topped with fruit that had given up all hope of being a healthy source of potassium, along with pedigreed coffee that was looking for some ass to kick, bliss bliss bliss. Ria's, you guys. No joke. Plan ahead and you can even work off the caffeine high by strolling through Oakland Cemetery, across the street. I did not have the time to budget and had to bolt back downtown to help wrap up the last of our meeting, but I did it with a happier heart.

Thanksfeasting

moar funny pictures


Weebat points out the NYT article in which high-tone chefs, asked what restaurants they themselves like, cite Joe's Shanghai. Soup dumplings FTW! "I love going there and ordering the pork dumplings. Lots of pork dumplings." Word, Chef Sandoval. Personally I am biased toward the crab/pork dumplings, but it's a minor point.

The cats who live on Los Padres' porch have been driven mad by the scent of turkey. Their afternoon kibble was topped with the uneaten leavings from the bird after the main platter was cleared before dish-washing commenced, and now we are afraid to leave the house lest we be buried under piles of desperately yowling cats. Mental note: Do not let the felines develop tryptophan habits.

The average American eats more than 4,000 calories at Thanksgiving. U! S! A! U! S! A! Aerobic exercise for today: Laughing self conspicuous at this.

Gearing up for appetite

Chez La Mère and Il Padre, there are strong opinions about Thanksgiving, now of course shared by Seesterperson and yours truly. The most important thing is that the food has to be right: roast turkey, stuffing without weird shit like oysters, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry relish AND canned cranberry sauce in slices, a bowl of celery and olives (I came across a reference to a similar presentation in an Edith Wharton novel, so it was neat to hear that this particular item is something my mother picked up from her grandparents), some green beans. Extras are allowed but may not be encouraged to return, as was the case with creamed onions. Dessert is pie, with a choice of pumpkin, pecan, and sometimes sweet potato or, in a few grim years, mincemeat, and heaping dollops of homemade whipped cream flavored with a touch of Mexican vanilla. The drink of choice is Piper Brut. Anyone can propose a toast at any point, but the meal must begin with a toast before anyone starts sneaking olives or a stray crouton from the stuffing.

The culinary traditions are taken so seriously that we have had at least three do-overs. One year I was too sick to eat on the regular day, and life happened for a while after that, so come late winter La Mère went out and found a turkey and the rest of it and sat us all down to the meal because we were going to by God give some thanks, and none of us was disposed to say her nay. Two do-overs happened during years when we had traveled and been served subpar meals elsewhere (my godmother's third husband poured rum into the stuffing "to keep the turkey moist while it cooks!" and the bird tasted like it had died twitching at the DTs), and we all felt like the seams on our clothes were in the wrong places, bad feng shui of the holiday alimentary system or something, until we had the right version of the festal board.

And, of course, this is all completely normal. Like so many people, I didn't realize until fairly late that anyone else was so benighted as to mess with the clear recipe for success. Sure, there are the bizarre suggestions about things to do with turkeys from Gourmet and Martha Stewart and their ilk, but nobody took them seriously, right? It is a relief, therefore, to reread Tomato Nation's screed on Thanksgiving and the sacred nature thereof and to remember that it ain't the food, it's the family.

The summertime is fading

We're coming up on the last week of the Silver Spring farmers market, sniff. After this weekend, getting Stayman apples (ostensibly for Doc, really mostly for me) will entail riding a whole stop down the Metro to Takoma Park, which has a larger market but which is a lot more crowded. Also it lacks the European Gourmet Bakery stall, whence comes my cinnamon roll fix. Woe.

But there's still a weekend left for the local market, and this time I am heading straight for Babes in the Woods, a stall that sells forest-fed pork. Yeah, go ahead, figure out the name; it took me a few seconds and then I was torn between grimacing and laughing hysterically. The proprietor and his uber-cute daughter explained how they let the pigs run loose on 78 acres of land, only bringing them in for vet checks or slaughter, and I imagine that the meat is pretty damn good. After missing last week's market for Festing, I was doubly determined to pick up something there this weekend, maybe a pork loin to fix with rosemary and garlic and salt, but then I read Orangette's post about brats and apple compote, and now a pack of sausages has to make the list. Blow winds and crack your cheeks, I'll be fixing comfort food to keep you at bay.

Further nattering about the wonders of New York

I cannot do justice to the weekend's happy times in NYC in a coherent text post. Herewith the highlights instead.

• The Shanghai Joe's [ETA: D'oh, it's Joe's Shanghai] waitress who greeted every customer with the same question: "You need some dumpling for start off?" Oh, hon...always.
  
• The weather. September in New York is the city at some sort of platonic ideal.
  
• Street markets. Everywhere. With puppies! And a jewelry vendor who accused me of taking advantage of her mental exhaustion following Rosh Hashanah! And free samples of organic lavender shea butter from Brooklyn! And food that would have looked delicious had I not been full of dumplings and pastries from...
• Rocco's Bakery. I've gone there since I was a wee lil moppet, seeing three or four different redecorations, throughout which the counter crew of streetwise Sicilian kids and their realm of confectionery goodness have remained unchanged.
  
• Negotiating the East Village, with my usual quota of wrong turns (I swear, the place spins my mental compass like a ship's in the Triangle), to finally meet up with SerialKarma and her coterie of fangirls, for beers and a slice and very disturbing references to childhood books.
  
• Finally, after a lapse of 20 years, having yuk hwe again. Kunjip serves it with jicama (or maybe it's pears) and shreds of a deceptively innocent-looking green pepper that tried to remove my lips. Good thing there were panchan dishes and rice and pancakes and bulgogi and ginger tea.
• Pinkberry! Please export this chain to DC as soon as possible; I would sacrifice the city's half-assed creperies for access to Pinkberry's delicious sour-sweet frozen yogurt.
• Herr Professor's cooking. What that man does with tofu scramble and bean sprouts to make them taste so much like chorizo hashbrowns and french toast and perfect bacon must be black magic known only to the initiates.
• Finally, and not least by any stretch of the imagination, getting reacquainted with Herr Professor and Weebat. As glad as I am that the internets have allowed us to maintain a friendship through a set of unregulated tubes, it's a great pleasure to have real face time with them. Vote for Santa, you two; vote for Santa.
  

Brevity, thy soul is peaches

Having successfully resisted the lure of the deep-fried things at the Maryland State Fair, yea even unto the funnel cakes (and, no problem here, the batter-fried banana twinkies and peanut-butter-and-marshmallow-fluff sandwiches), I hereby recommend a recipe for enjoying the last of the summer's stone fruit while being too lazy to do actual cooking.

For each person, take one peach, cut it in half, and remove the pit. Fill the hollow with a small pat of butter and some cinnamon and sugar. Put the halves back together and wrap the whole in a piece of foil. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until yt be done (times will vary by the size of the fruit). Remove the peaches from the oven, unwrap each into a bowl, and fill the pit hollow with a spoonful of FireFly Farms' meadow chevre with ginger, almonds, and honey, resisting (or not) the urge to make Serenity jokes. Serve immediately.

Countdown to sweet freedom!

A three-day weekend and a new Terry Pratchett book? Mm, tasty. My newly minted plans to check out the Saturday Pilates class may be undermined by the inertia induced by a shiny new book with adjacent caffeinated options. Who wants to do the Hundred when they could be giggling through a latte?

Lately I've been reading mostly food porn, including M.F.K. Fisher excerpts that should probably carry some sort of warning label, or at least drool-proof pages, and a book summing up the Julie/Julia project (blogger versus the entire Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a single year). All the talk of butter and and pate choux and duck and rich winy sauces tends to trigger my late-summer/early autumn Slavic craving for heavy starchy baked things, lest winter catch me unprepared and blubberless. "They throw thin ones to the wolfs!" warns the inner babushka. "Have a pierog and some kartoshki, you feeling better." I'll bake something and then give most of it away; so far that's kept the yen for massive piles of carbs under control.

Next week the barn goes back to a regular class schedule, so I'll be riding three times a week rather than twice, hip permitting. Scheduling snafus meant I got only limited horse time this week, but I did manage to eke out time to take Doc for a graze. He claims to live on the ragged edge of starvation, and I am not above bribing him to think that my arrival means happy food time as well as happy games of running around in the woods. As long as we can sustain the "me != misery for Doc" equation, it counts as an equestrian success.

The zen of activity

When the world is too much with my level of indignation, as when Michael Chertoff gets up on his hind legs to prate about how we, by God, need another way to say, "Ihre Papieren, bitte," to potential terrorists and anyone who doesn't look sufficiently anglo, or when the White House deals with Jose Padilla's verdict by announcing Jenna's engagement, I am glad to have physical action in my life. John M. Ford's advice about dealing with stress--"Find a distraction and allow it to distract you"--is straight to the point.

I was the only student at last night's dressage class, so I got a serious workout; inside of ten minutes, sweat was trickling down my face and my legs were aching. Private lessons are great, because you don't have to keep tabs on other students and whether their horses are about to be unpredictable (or whether yours is going to be so in their flight space), you get lots of direct instructor feedback, and you can work on your weak spots. The downside is that you can't hide or slack or learn from other people's mistakes.

I was paired again with Cappi, a plump little Morgan. He's not a bad critter, but he's smart enough to have learned the trick of ducking out of a turn and running down the long side of a ring when he doesn't want to do something. Unfortunately for him, I am learning a trick known as not letting him do that. In a way, his spastic attacks are even helpful: I have to pay more attention to him and read his intentions, I damn well better be balanced on his back to handle his lateral moves, and I eventually have to be able to bring him back to wherever he might have freaked out and make him do the move correctly. Also, the adrenaline rush after he bolts down the ring, maybe veering a little too close to a pile of jump standards ("Not the face! Not the face!"), clears the nervous system out a treat.

To balance out the inevitable "whoa, about to die" moments of excitement, there are the long stretches of hanging out the horses in the barn. You still have to be careful, because they're still large skittish prey animals with big teeth and feet, but within those limits it's possible to decompress a lot. Contact with a large relaxed animal, just leaning into a shoulder and maybe giving them a good scratch along the neck where they can't reach, is very good for the blood pressure.

Orrr you can go home and attack the chilly peach army using strategy e-mailed from a friend. It's like Sun Tzu, only with more brown sugar and almonds!

A pyrrhic victory

Since this weekend's jaunt out to a pick-your-own farm in rural Maryland, I've had a kitchen occupied by an invading army of fresh peaches, their serried ranks covering about half of the already limited counter space. When I was wandering around among trees covered with fruit, a single bucket's worth seemed moderate, but in the confines of a galley kitchen, the scope of that miscalculation became clear. Fresh-off-the-tree peaches are too good to waste, but they're too ripe to last long; quick action was essential.

The pie recipe I got from Weebat had worked out fairly well in the past, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try something new, so I pulled up a recipe for peach meringue pie and got to work. Much less cursing than usual later (I am not a kitchen adept, save in the area of fressing like a bandit), the results are a pie that looks okay but fails the taste test. First, and saddest, the filling is too dense. Maybe it needs to be lighter on the corn starch; maybe it needed less cooking; maybe the apartment's damnable electric range is somehow to blame. Second, a frozen crust, that boon to lazy cooks, doesn't cut it for a recipe with so little oven time. Third, I did not read Alton's advice on the subject of meringue pies (nor do I even own a blowtorch), so my effort to get those lovely brown peaks caused the tragedy of weeping meringue. Friends, don't let this happen to you.

The rest of the army mocked me from its conquered territory, and I had agreed to meet up with the Texas Cajuns at a local bar, so I surrendered and took the easy way out, slicing, pitting, and freezing the remainder of the peaches. Their eventual fate is TBD. Baked, into cobbler or pie or even just in foil? Topped with raspberry preserves and fresh whipped cream? Drowned in vodka, to be alchemically distilled come Christmas? The decision will not be hasty. Let 'em fret.