Category Archives: Food

Seattle Update

17 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Personal, Soup

≈ 8 Comments

People keep making suggestions about other jobs for me to be doing. The Best Brother Ever thinks I should become a personal chef for someone who has a lot of food restrictions and can’t handle the challenge of eating within them. My friend E thinks I should be packaging my granola and selling it for ridiculous prices. (Someday I am going to do a cost analysis on my granola — I suspect it’s not any cheaper than the ones that companies do sell for ridiculous prices, because I put a lot of good ingredients in it. But it is tasty.)

And my friend P now says I should become a home organizer, traveling around and helping people de-clutter their houses. That’s because I spent the last three days working on her kitchen. I wish I had taken before photos, so that a before-and-after would make sense, but when I first got here, she had no available counter space on which to work. I don’t think I complained too loudly, but I muttered, and eventually I did wistfully say, “I wish I could organize your kitchen.”

To which she replied, “Knock yourself out.”

In my defense, I then asked several times if she was serious. Did she really want someone else going through her stuff? Deciding on the right places for useful things? Pushing her to get rid of the stuff she never used?

Patiently, she answered, “Yes, yes, yes.”

So I did. Her dishes are now stored above her dish rack, so that you can put them away without taking a single step. Her pantry items (formerly stored on a bookcase outside the kitchen) are now in what used to be the dish cupboard; snacks on the bottom shelf, soups and pasta on the next, rices and grains on the third. Her spices (formerly stored in a drawer in living room) are now alphabetized and in an angled double row on an open shelf next to the stove. The tea cups she uses are on the bottom shelf on the sink side, also an open shelf; the cups her guests most often use are stored within reach on the third shelf. The teas are in order — chai, ginger and herb, black — on the second shelf.

Eventually I stopped asking as I moved items to the “to be donated” pile in the living room. We all have those things: the inefficient jars for storing baking staples; the cute plastic dishes for little kids; the hand-me-down second or third crockpot; the fondue pots. She had three of the latter — she’s keeping the mid-size one, letting the other two go.

Or the chipped dishes that have been around forever, the glass jars that might come in handy someday, the abundance of plastic leftover dishes that somehow seem to multiply in the drawers. She still has an abundance of plastic dishes, but only enough to fit neatly into two drawers and she’s going to have to start her glass jar collection anew. The chipped dishes will happen on their own, of course.

I’m not entirely done. I left a pile of stuff on a small table needing to be sorted and one counter was still topped with many glass bottles needing to be recycled last night. But I’m pretty close. And P, whose kitchen was cluttered and overflowing with stuff, now has several entirely empty cupboards that she can start filling.

P tells me I could make a lot of money at it, but I don’t think I actually want to start cleaning out people’s houses for money. Maybe this is just the Floridian in me, but I suspect the jobs would mostly be getting rid of stuff after someone had died and that would be seriously depressing as a way of life. But it was highly satisfying few days.

And it gave me a new piece of my travel plans — I’m not sure what the next week or so will bring, whether I’m going to drive south into the path of the total eclipse coverage, whether I’m finally going to connect with my other WA friends — but at some point after the 28th, I’ll be back here in Seattle. I’m going to tackle P’s teenage daughter’s bedroom once she gets home from her summer vacation with her dad, and I am quite looking forward to it.

In other news, I’m getting a little obsessed with insta-pot soups. The combination of an insta-pot and an immersion blender make vegetable soups trivially easy. Last night I was feeling awful — either a gluten reaction, a mold reaction, or the beginning of a cold — but I threw some onion, carrots, curry spices and chicken broth into the insta-pot and hit the soup button, then when it beeped, added some coconut milk and blended. I wish I’d had some leftover rice, but since I didn’t, I topped some gluten-free bread with butter, a little minced garlic, parmesan cheese, and cilantro, toasted it, cut it into crouton-ish sized pieces and dropped it into the soup. It was delicious. Oh, I added some salt at the end, too.

Given that I felt terrible (and still do, alas), it was a lovely, low-effort meal. I will be eating leftovers for lunch. Maybe with some left-over quinoa instead of toast. If I’d remembered the quinoa yesterday, I would have used it then. Carrot, curry and quinoa soup — doesn’t that sound fancy? It was really just the only non-nightshade vegetable available to me, and I felt too lousy to go to the store.

And that’s a terrible note to end on, but I do have to get to the store today and I can tell already that it’s going to be a very low-energy day. Simple goals: a shower, the store, some more time spent staring at Grace, wondering what Noah’s motivations are. And the dogs, of course, will want to be walked. Huh, I’m feeling tired already. Maybe I’ll start with a little more coffee.

Oh, but since I have no photos — how about a link to an incredibly adorable set of baby photos? Kyla, who comments here sometimes, had her baby last week, and he is gorgeous. If you get a chance, stop by, say “aw,” and wish her well!

Seattle

12 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by in Food, R, Serenity

≈ 6 Comments

If I was going to post a picture of the past several days (which I am not), it would be of the little park on the corner of the street. Preferably with a lot of dogs in it. Over the past few days, I’ve spent enough time there that I’m starting to actually get to know some of the neighborhood dogs. Not quite by name yet, but maybe soon.

I’m also developing familiarity with the neighborhood Pokemon players. There’s a yellow team that I’m starting to feel a deep envy for — at least four players, who play together. Every morning or so, I take over the park’s gym, turning it blue, and before too long — sometimes within the hour — they’ve taken it back. It’s fun, but Team Blue could use a little more support. Also there are a ton of Pokemon raids available in Seattle and I’m not good enough, as a solo player, to win any except the easiest. But a team of four probably wins them all. I wish my brother and nephew were here or some of my friends from Florida — we’d be collecting legendary Pokemon right and left. But I don’t think I’m going to manage to convince my friend P or any of her housemates to start playing anytime soon. Maybe I should start working on the teenage boy who lives in the front apartment.

So, yeah, I’ve been parked in my friend P’s driveway for the past several days. They have been lovely days. R and I squeezed in a trip to Value Village, our favorite Seattle thrift shop, and a showing of Spiderman on his last day in the city, before I dropped him off at the train station and waved goodbye. I’m always sad to say good-bye to him. I love how independent and mature he is — it’s fantastic to have an almost entirely self-sufficient 21-year-old — but I do miss him. And saying good-bye with no idea of when I’ll see him again is always hard.

But I got over the pain pretty quick. The next day I did useful stuff, lots of it. Email and writing and laundry and cleaning and working on plans for a new screen door. Zelda walked through the old one, breaking the strings that created the tension that kept it up. I miss it already and I’m pretty sure that no substitute I come up with is going to work nearly as well, but it was pretty fragile for life with two dogs. B used to walk right under it. I’m not surprised that it broke, really, just hoping that I can create something that will let me get airflow through that door without being too inconvenient to live with.

Anyway, after my useful stuff, I went kayaking on Lake Washington with P and J. We saw a beaver! It was much smaller than I would have expected it to be, but the tail was unmistakeable. If my phone hadn’t been buried in a dry bag, I would have tried to take a picture, but we didn’t get close enough that it would have been more than a brown and black blur in the water on a phone photo, anyway. It was sort of thrilling, though, to see an animal that I’d never seen before in the midst of such an urban setting.

That evening, there were five of us for dinner. I’ve been cooking a fair amount, but nothing too exciting. We had summer quinoa bowls one night (greens, quinoa, corn, avocado, salmon, cilantro, with a dressing of sour cream, lime, and garlic) and autumn quinoa bowls another (greens, quinoa, roasted broccoli, baked sweet potato chunks with cinnamon and ginger, spicy roasted chick peas, chicken, with a dressing of thinned hummus with extra garlic). That night, though, we had tacos: I made spicy shredded chicken in the instant pot, which basically involved dumping a couple tablespoons of chili garlic sauce and some water on top of two chicken breasts, and pressure-cooking for 15 minutes on high. Yum. On my first couple bites, I thought it was too spicy, but it was great with avocado and mango salsa, and made for excellent leftovers. If there was any left, I’d be putting it in an omelette this morning.

My big accomplishment yesterday was putting curtains up in Serenity to separate the cab from the rest of the van. I’ve been thinking about doing it for months and my one regret — as it always seems to be with things like this! — is that I didn’t do it eons ago. I bought a Maytex Smart Curtains Ultimate Light Blocker Sheridan Window Panelin white at Fred Meyer and hung it sideways, so the 50″ side goes top to bottom. That way the dogs can still easily go under it to get to the seats and their bed under the seats. Also, I can push it to the front of the seats, so my back-of-the-seat storage doesn’t get impeded by the curtain when it’s closed. But wow, sleeping last night was so cozy. I’d sort of been vaguely aware of how much light coming in through the spaces around the front window covering kept me restless, but last night I slept like a rock. I think it’s going to be helpful with the heat, too, but the weather has changed today and it’s currently gray and chilly outside, so I’ll have to wait and see on that aspect of it.

Hmm, I think I meant to write about something else, too, but I am being summoned for breakfast, so maybe next time for whatever that was. May all your Saturdays be pleasing!

Sous vide spicy sockeye salmon

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by in Food, Seafood, Spicy, Vanlife

≈ 2 Comments

I was texting a friend recently, making plans to meet up with her in August to go camping together, and she wrote, “I can practice my cast iron pot campfire skills.”

I responded, “Or we can use my perfectly good propane stove. Or my microwave.”

Or my grill.

Or my induction cooktop.

Or my InstaPot.

Or, now, my new favorite toy, my sous vide precision cooker.

And yes, I do think it’s a little crazy that I live in a van and carry more cooking devices than outlets to power them. (Not literally true, by the way, Serenity has plenty of outlets!) But more cooking devices than surface areas to put them, maybe? Certainly more kitchen stuff than room to store it all: over the past year, the kitchen and pantry have gradually crept from the obvious space — the compartments over the stove and the drawers under the microwave — to take up almost the entire wall of compartments on the driver’s side, plus some room under the bed, plus some room in the space over the cab, plus some floor space, too.

No regrets, though. Last night’s dinner was a spicy wild sockeye salmon over brown rice with a salad of arugula, avocado, fresh peas, radish, and cucumber with balsamic.

salmon and salad

Not the greatest picture, but it was dark and rainy, so the light wasn’t great.

The salmon was sous vide cooked at 115 for 30 minutes, which felt a little underdone to me, but tasted incredible. When I was done, I used the warm water from the sous vide pan — completely clean, since the food was cooked in a ziplock bag — to wash the dishes. This morning (and last night, too) there was no smell of fish in the van, despite the fact that rain meant that I’d had to keep the van closed up during the night. YAY!

The recipe I read from the Anova app (where I got the timing and temp) said not to use acidic or chunky ingredients, because they would damage the shape and texture of the fish. I read that and promptly ignored it, putting about a tablespoon of chili garlic sauce into the bag with the fish. It was not as pretty as it might have been if I’d gone with the suggested dill, but wow, it tasted great. Sous vide cooking is supposed to infuse the food with flavor and yeah, it works.

The salmon was on sale at CostCo, which means I’ll be having lots more opportunities to practice my sous vide cooking skills this week, but that’s not a problem. I’m writing this at 9:20 AM and already looking forward to my lunch leftovers. And fortunately, salmon is thin enough to easily fit into Serenity’s freezer.

I do look at that picture and think, “you’re eating sockeye salmon and arugula, no wonder your grocery budget is out of control.” But the salmon cost about $3.50/serving, the arugula probably .50, the other ingredients in total maybe $1.50/serving, which all adds up to a cheaper meal than a Chipotle burrito or a Big Mac meal at McDonald’s. (I had to google the latter — it’s been so long!)

In other news, I’m in Ohio. It’s rainy. I’m starting to wonder if life in Florida and California has just really skewed my perceptions of how often it’s supposed to rain. Maybe the rest of the world really does have rain every day? Campgrounds in PA and OH don’t seem to include water hook-ups with their electric sites — maybe that’s because they think you can just stick a bucket outside and have it fill up overnight? But the grass is very green and pretty, and it’s so hot that the rain feels nice.

Lesson learned this morning, though: if you’re enjoying walking in the rain with the hood of your jacket down, perhaps roll the hood up or tuck it inside the coat to prevent it from filling with water? I wouldn’t call it an unpleasant surprise, exactly, but when I decided I’d had enough of the rain on my head and pulled my hood up, I splashed myself with all the water that had filled the hood while it was down. Ha.

Last night I reread everything I’d written on Grace so far and decided it was all an incoherent mess. Before I threw the whole thing away, though, I decided that maybe I was just tired. Reread it this morning and yep, I was just tired. Whew. For a lot of reasons, what I should really be doing right now is finding myself a place to sit and write without any distractions at all — no family or friends to visit, no beaches to roam, no interesting meals to cook. Actually, “a lot of reasons” boils down to “finances.”

But I’m not going to. The aforementioned friend is a single parent with a real job, and limited time. I’ve got a chance to go camping with her and I’m going to take it. Which means I’m about to embark on an epic cross-country drive to get to Seattle by early August. I might be making poor life choices. But when I run out of savings, maybe I can find a job as a cook. Although if I did that, I suppose I’d have to care about whether the salmon looked as pretty as it would with dill…

Duck, North Carolina

07 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Food, Personal, Travel

≈ 6 Comments

I’ve been meaning to blog every day this week. In fact, I think I’ve started a post every morning! But something always gets in the way and the something is always really nice. That’s because I’m currently on a family vacation in Duck, North Carolina, with my brother, SIL, niece, nephew, and SIL’s aunt and uncle. My SIL’s sister is supposed to be here, too, but she hasn’t made it yet. Maybe later today. Plus, my stepsister and her family live nearby, and my dad and stepmom are staying with them, so I’m being very sociable.

beach with bird

The house we’re staying at is easy walking distance to a very nice beach and equally easy walking distance to an extremely cute town with a great boardwalk. It has a swimming pool, plus three sides with sometimes-sunny balconies. I’ve got about a zillion pictures of gorgeous beach skies that I could post, plus almost as many appealing food photos. Well, okay, maybe not a zillion food photos.

And if you’re not interested in food, you can probably skip the rest of this post! I’ve been doing the cooking, which has, of course, been very fun for me. I was going to just write about my favorite meal, but then I couldn’t decide which one it was. But for my own future reference, here’s what we ate:

On our first night, I grilled chicken marinated in yogurt and garlic and honey, and served it with quinoa mixed with goat cheese and green onion. We also had a raw veggie tray that included red, yellow, and orange peppers, radishes, broccoli, carrots, pea pods, and cherry tomatoes.

On our second night, we had flank steak, corn-on-the-cob, roasted potatoes, and green salad. I also made two appetizers: quinoa cheese puffs, served with sour cream; and caprese skewers, i.e. a cherry tomato, basil, and mozzarella on a toothpick, topped with a balsamic reduction.

On the 4th of July, we went to my stepsister’s house for burgers and hot dogs. I brought a chick pea salad with cherry tomatoes, parsley, and a honey vinaigrette; a quinoa salad with red onion, black beans, corn, cilantro, and a yogurt-based dressing; deviled eggs; and some more of the caprese skewers. Oh, and a blueberry-covered goat cheese, with gluten-free crackers.

On Wednesday, we ate grilled pork chops with a garlic-mint-salt rub; roasted potatoes; salad of mixed greens, tomato, cucumber, and goat cheese with a balsamic fig vinaigrette; and the leftover quinoa and chickpea salads. Appetizer of crackers, goat cheese, and fig spread.

Thursday night, we had make-your-own tacos with possible fillings of shredded chicken cooked with salsa, flank steak, grilled pork, black beans, red onions, guacamole, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, green onions, cilantro, sour cream, and shredded cheese. Oh, and I made a salad of tomatoes, mozzarella and a reduction of the balsamic fig vinaigrette. And I made a tray of nachos, too. That was meant to be an appetizer, but it didn’t really work out that way.

tacos

Today I’ll be making some vegan chili and some gluten-free cornbread and we’ll finish off some of the salads. And I think maybe I’ll make the quinoa cheese puffs again, although we’re out of shredded cheese. But I’d like some shredded cheese for the chili, so I guess I’m headed off to the store.

Every day has been busy. I’ve gone to the beach every day, most often with Zelda, but once with both dogs, and once entirely sans dogs, which was fun because I got to actually go swimming and the water was perfect. There was a parade on the 4th, live music last night, outings for ice cream more than once. I’ve wandered around the town with my brother, my father, and my SIL, all on separate occasions. I’ve floated in the pool, and I’ve also played in the pool. My nephew and I were having float races yesterday, including one where we were each holding a dog and I laughed so hard I almost fell into the water. Lots of walking, lots of water, lots of sun, lots of cooking, lots of family. Not a lot of time for blogging or writing, but that’s okay — next week I’ll be back at it!

This week has been golden, glorious summer. And now it’s time to go swim!

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook on sale

18 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Books, Food

≈ 6 Comments

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant is on sale today for $1.99.

This was an absolutely formative cookbook for me. I read it cover to cover, learned so much from it, made some of the recipes (the baked artichokes) repeatedly, and was so, so pained to give it up when I moved into the camper. I had to close my eyes to drop it into the library donation box. Actually, I think I rescued it the first time, then closed my eyes the second time. But it’s an absolute bargain for $1.99. I’ve been trying not to buy cookbooks, but I didn’t even pause before hitting click.

Chowder (non)-recipe

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Food, Recipes, Soup

≈ 4 Comments

Bay scallop chowder

Bay scallop chowder. It was delicious, even better the second day!

I love reading cookbooks and recipes, but I don’t actually follow them when I cook any more. Mostly, I make stuff up. It’s more fun that way and since I’m mostly cooking for myself, I don’t worry about screwing up. And when I cook for other people, they’re always people who love me enough to be appreciative, whether or not I’ve screwed up. 🙂 *

That said, this is a pretty solid outline of a dairy-free chowder… well, process. Not exactly a recipe, more of a strategy for creating your own ideal combination of tastes and flavors in a chowder.

Ingredient list:
A cooking fat — butter is nice**, olive oil is fine, coconut oil works…
Spices
Vegetables
Chicken broth — (or seafood broth or maybe veggie broth, but not beef broth, that flavor would be wrong)
Coconut milk — the high-fat kind that comes in a can, with plenty of cream and richness
Seafood
A green herb, preferably fresh — cilantro or parsley or maybe rosemary. Probably not mint, though. Basil could be interesting.
Salt & pepper, to taste

If you like real recipes, you’re looking at that list and making faces right now. What quantities? What types of spices or vegetables or seafood? But it depends on how much soup you want to make and what flavors you like. And how you think the flavors will blend together. Shrimp is great with curry, but for the bay scallops I used just ginger powder, because I didn’t want to drown out that ocean flavor they have. A boring white fish might be good with red pepper, but you’d want to be more sparing with your quantity of red pepper (vs, say, ginger powder) so as not to overpower the other flavors. I could make guesses but this is really a process recipe, not a prescription.

So…

Heat/melt your cooking fat over medium heat. Add your spices to the fat and warm them, but don’t let them brown. Sort of swirl them around in the fat for thirty seconds or a minute or two, until you see the fat bubbling around them, in a pleasant but not overly energetic sizzle. (That’s called “blooming” the spices and it enhances their flavor.)

Add your vegetables and saute them in the spiced oil. You want them lightly browned and carmelized, because that enhances their flavor, but the timing will depend on what vegetables you’ve used. The basics of onion, carrot, celery, and potato are good, but I’ve also tried cauliflower, mushroom, zucchini, squash, sweet potato and broccoli. If you want to use leafy greens, you might wait to add them until the end (unless you’re using kale or chard or one of the tougher greens that need more cooking time). And the broccoli… well, that might work with fish, but I didn’t like it with the bay scallops much.

Add your chicken broth and your coconut milk and gently stir. I think I generally use about two cups of chicken broth to a can of coconut milk to get two servings of soup. Coconut milk sometimes separates, which is annoying, but stir it thoroughly or blend it to get it smooth again.

Lower the heat and let the soup simmer for long enough to thoroughly cook your carmelized vegetables. Your timing on that is going to depend on what vegetables you used. Potatoes cook slowly, zucchini might be cooked after the sautéing. But somewhere between ten to twenty minutes of simmering is about right. This should also be reducing your broth, so making the soup thicker.

Add your seafood and let it cook. Usually that’s five minutes or so. It depends on whether your seafood is frozen, obviously, and how much of it you’ve used.

Take a spoonful of the chowder and let it drip back into the pan. Is it thick enough for you? If not, you can let it simmer for longer, or you can ladle some of the broth and vegetables into the cup of an immersion blender and blend it, then return the blended soup to the pan and stir. You could also make a roux (a mix of flour and fat used to thicken sauces) but that always seems like a lot of work to me, plus I no longer use flour, so the blended veggie route is my preference. Or just appreciating the soup as a lighter chowder, to be honest.

If you decided to use leafy greens, toss them in now and give them a minute or two to soften and wilt. Don’t let them cook too long, though, or they’ll turn into weird sludge.

Taste your soup. Does it need salt? If yes, add a little.

Put the soup into a bowl or bowls, chop up your green herb and sprinkle it on top, also maybe some black pepper. Why the herb on top, not mixed in? Because that way different mouthfuls have different tastes, instead of all the flavors blending together. I don’t want my chowder to taste entirely like cilantro, but a little cilantro flavor (or parsley flavor) in some bites makes for a nice contrast. (Bites seems like the wrong word for soup, but swallows sounds wrong, too.)

I feel like I should give credit now to some soup recipe somewhere — it’s not as if I didn’t follow lots of them in the past. Mostly, though, this is just my trial-and-error process, developed by making myself soup for lunch on a regular basis. I cannot promise it will work for every or any combination of seafood and spices and vegetables: I don’t personally think, for example, that I would try cinnamon shrimp broccoli chowder. That doesn’t sound appealing. But I could see a cinnamon squash chowder, maybe with chicken instead of seafood, and with the veggies definitely blended to make it truly thick? Hmm, now I want to go cook that. It sounds yummy. Also, I love citrus flavors but citrus and milk — even coconut milk — have not worked well together in my experience. I don’t think I’d try a lemon-y chowder.

But the ginger bay scallop chowder was delicious, curry seafood chowder has also been great, spicy shrimp, also great. And it’s fun to experiment, of course. This process is a great framework for playing in the kitchen.

*I feel like I should add, with the exception of R, everyone I cook for is perfectly happy to have me do the cooking. R lived with me while I learned to cook, starting from “able to burn hard-boiled eggs” (true story) to where I am today, so he still always votes for restaurants. But he’s eaten variants of this chowder recipe many times and always approves!

**Edited to add: also, obviously, if you’re going the non-dairy route, don’t use butter as your cooking fat.

Monday mornings

08 Monday May 2017

Posted by in Food, Randomness, Seafood, Serenity, Soup

≈ 5 Comments

sunrise on Cedar Key

Sunrise from the bridge leading into the town of Cedar Key.

I’m sitting outside Serenity watching a giant white bird — I think a great egret, but maybe a snowy egret — stalk its breakfast in the water and wondering why those birds are so cool. Partly it’s the color, of course — it’s such a pure, almost shocking white. But it’s also the mix of awkwardness and grace. They look so ridiculous when they’re standing still or when they’re just beginning to fly — legs too tall, neck too long — but their movement can so quickly become beautiful. And their stillness has such an expectant, waiting quality to it. A predatory peace. Hmm, that feels like the beginning of an idea. Probably just because it’s alliterative, though.

My weekend was glorious. The storm brought a cold front in and the temperatures dropped, into the 50s at night, only up to the 70s during the day. It was delightful. I baked cornbread and made a bay scallop chowder, grilled pork chops with a spice rub and chicken marinated in yogurt and garlic, made salad dressing with my homemade yogurt… I also took some nice long walks with Zelda and wrote some good words, but really, it was the cooking that made me happy, I think. Well, or vice versa — I was happy so I was cooking. But either way, I had a lovely couple of days.

Yesterday, though, I looked at the weather report for the week coming up and thought, ugh. Back to the high 80s by Tuesday. Then I looked around me at the open spaces in the campground and thought, hmm… so I strolled over to the office and asked about moving to a different campsite. The ones I asked about were already booked, but the campground host suggested another one. My old site was on the water, but in the direct sun most of the day. My new site is not on the water, but it’s got trees all around it. Also, a concrete pad and a gravel driveway, which I didn’t know enough to care about until I realized last night that Zelda was no longer bringing a handful of sand into the van with her with every step. Yay for gravel and concrete! And trees. It also still has a lovely view, which could disappear if someone moves into the site across the way, but for the moment at least, this campsite is all good things. It’s in the very center of the campground, too, which I probably would not like if the campground was crowded, but in its two-thirds empty state, it just means that we’re getting to meet all the dogs that wander by. I’ve counted either eleven or thirteen this morning. (I’m not sure whether there are two sets of people with two labs each or whether those were the same labs being walked by different people.)

My summer plans have reverted to their previous state, which means I’ll be heading up to PA in June, down to North Carolina in July, with destinations along the way to be determined. R, in a move that I find both amusing and also somewhat gratifying, turned his summer internship into a tutorial, applied for funding, got it, and now has his transportation issues resolved without relying on me. My lecture on settling still feels appropriate — I really think he underestimates himself — but I think he would argue that I just think he’s great because I’m his mom. I’m pretty sure he’s great, though. But I’m looking forward to my Pennsylvania blueberries and my North Carolina beach days, so no complaints.

Bay scallop chowder

My bay scallop chowder. Next time I wouldn’t use broccoli but might add some bacon. The mushrooms, eh. Not sure about those either. (Made with no recipe, obviously, just what I had on hand.) The bay scallops are amazing, though. I might have to buy some more before I leave.

Gift horses

06 Saturday May 2017

Posted by in Food, Randomness, Self-publishing

≈ 7 Comments

Babelcube sent me $64.63 today.

I blinked at the email in surprise for a few seconds, then said, out loud, “Seriously?” Zelda put her paw on my knee and stared earnestly into my eyes, informing me that I should really not be reading my email before walking her, so I didn’t bother to look up the circumstances until later, after walking and breakfast. My walk thoughts, though, concluded that it was likely to be a mistake.

But nope, turns out the German copy of A Gift of Ghosts actually sold a few hundred copies in January and February on Tolino. I’m delighted — really more for the translator than for me, because yay, she’s finally earned some money for her hard work. Not much money, obviously, but I hope it came as a nice surprise to her, too.

I promptly spent almost my entire $64. My first purchase was two nut milk bags. My homemade yogurt tasted pretty good, but it was too thin. The internet informed me that if I want thicker yogurt, I’ll need to drain it, and offered lots of options for how to do so. I went with the nut milk bags as feasible, low-effort, and requiring minimal storage space. For obvious reasons, items that can be rolled up and tucked into corners make a lot more sense for quixotic cooking projects than mesh strainers or boxes of industrial-sized coffee filters.

Next up, AmazonBasics 4-Piece Packing Cube Set. I met a fellow Travato owner last week and her above-the-cab storage was so much more organized than my own chaos. It’s not space that I find very useful — I’ve got clothes, linens, jackets, towels, a yoga mat, window covers, and hand weights all stuffed in there, more or less haphazardly. She was using it for the same type of stuff but with packing cubes, which seemed so much more efficient. Her packing cubes are nice ones, but I decided to go with cheap ones instead. Fingers crossed that they last more than ten minutes.

Then I spent $38 on books, all by Lois McMaster Bujold. Huge mistake, most likely, because obviously, I am now going to want to read all weekend, but I’ve been slowly but steadily re-purchasing the books that I regretted leaving behind. I used to have everything of hers in hardcover and when I cleaned out my storage unit in April, I didn’t even look in the box that I was taking to goodwill. I knew once I saw them, I’d want to keep them. But Paladin of Soulswas only $4.99! And once I started… well, my two favorite Miles bookswere in a boxed set for only $8.99, and the books I was missing from the Wide Green World serieswere only $6.99 each and The Curse of Chalionwas only $2.99 and… yes, my resistance was low.

It feels delightfully improvident of me to treat a windfall as an opportunity to splurge. But it was really fun. If it had been just a slightly nicer windfall, I’d have a new shower headand/or a rather cool hanging organizeror maybe one of the interesting cookbookson my wishlist. Maybe next time!

Last night, it was so windy that the van felt like a boat, rocking from side to side. It was fun in a worrying sort of way. My neighbors, who are in a pop-out trailer, had a much more anxious night than I did, though.

ocean view at sunrise

Looking west at sunrise.

But I’m loving the weather. It’s only going to last for another day, but I baked cornbread (gluten-free) this morning to take advantage of it being cool enough to use my oven. I’m going to make a bay scallop chowder with coconut milk and ginger to go with it for lunch. In fact, I think I’ll go do that right now. And then I’m NOT going to reread favorite books, but am going to work on Grace. Well, at least for a little while.

(All those links are affiliate links, so if you buy something from one of them, I’ll get some percentage of sales. So far I’ve earned .20 from my affiliate linking, so thank you so much to whoever bought… well, probably a book! I appreciate the contribution. 🙂 )

Random things

05 Friday May 2017

Posted by in Food, Personal, R, Randomness

≈ 8 Comments

On one of my first days here, a bird flew overhead carrying a fish at least half its size. It was a raptor, and the first name that popped into my head was “osprey.” I didn’t even try to catch a picture–I just watched in awe and wonder as it glided past me.

Then I looked it up. The app I’ve been using to identify birds is seriously stupid. This bird was obviously, unquestionably, without a doubt, a raptor. I knew it was some sort of hawk. But the method of narrowing down the options is by location, size, and color, so my first list of birds included ducks and geese and other totally inappropriate choices. My second list was just as bad. In the end, the app’s only close-to-reasonable choices were peregrine falcon or red-tailed hawk. I was grumpy about both of them. It didn’t look like a red-tailed hawk to me and it seemed too big to be a peregrine falcon. Today I remembered to look it up when I was on my computer. It was totally an osprey. I’m both pleased with my own bird identifying abilities (score!) and ready to look for a new app, one that lets you choose “type”. Maybe even food supply.

pelican

No app required to identify this bird.

The wind yesterday was strong enough to shake the van. This morning it was strong enough to blow Zelda sideways when we were walking and to turn her fur all sleek and spiky. There’s something exciting about wind. It feels rejuvenating. I’m not going to be trying to sit outside and write in it, though, because the gritty sand is getting everywhere.

But that’s okay, because with the wind came a twenty-degree temperature drop. It’s glorious. The first thing I did when Z and I got back from our walk was open all the shades and take down the window covers. I’ve been trying to keep it cooler inside by keeping it dark, but wow, the light really makes me happy.

I’ve been thinking about the rules of communication recently. Text, emails, messaging… Partly it’s because I got an email from a friend that made me unreasonably happy, which in turn sort of annoys me. Quit being so silly, self. Partly it’s because I have not gotten a return text from R, which makes me (possibly unreasonably) annoyed. Quit being so unsympathetic, self.

But also it’s because I joined OK Cupid a while ago, thinking I could find people to do fun things with along the path of my journey. I can tell already that’s not going to happen — it’s surprising how many people are looking for their One True Love rather than someone to go kayaking with, but perhaps I chose the wrong site. My ideas about the rules of online politeness are evolving rapidly, though. And I’m finding it sort of gratifying to realize that I don’t owe a stranger on the internet who calls me “sweetie” anything at all.

I think I’m letting go of two ideas: 1) that it’s polite to respond to people who talk to you and 2) that I have to be polite. I would never be mean or unkind, of course — I’m not going to troll people. But I was so well socialized to be a “nice girl” and I’m finding it very freeing to realize that silence is sufficient reply. It still seems to me that a polite rejection ought to be kinder than no reply at all, but sadly, I think the entitled assholes of the world have ruined that for everyone.

Also — unrelated thought — I am seriously mystified by the number of men who start with something like “hey, beautiful/cutie/sweetie/pretty woman/angel”. Is there a planet on which it’s appropriate to call women you don’t know by pet names? Because on my planet it’s patronizing as anything. If you walked up to me in person and said, “Hi, sweetie,” I would not respond positively. Why should that change online?

None of that, of course, has anything to do with feeling annoyed at R for not responding to my text. I have agreed to change my summer plans to give him a ride anywhere he wants to go, and while yes, that agreement did come with a lecture about initiative and settling, it is still a pretty damn generous offer. I deserve a thank you, even if it’s a sulky thank you. The longer I go without getting my thank you, the more I want to rescind the offer. On the other hand, I’m quite enjoying the uncertainty of having absolutely no idea where I’m going to be headed after June 2 or 3. It feels really freeing, even though I quite liked my June/July plans.

Last random note: I just put yogurt starter into the insta-pot. In approximately eight hours, I will be moving my homemade yogurt into the fridge and tomorrow morning, assuming this is not some total disaster, I’ll be eating my own yogurt with my breakfast. My happiness practice of appreciating my morning food is turning into a very entertaining creativity exercise in optimizing yogurt and granola. As with the granola, I really like the idea of not having to settle for lesser yogurt when stores don’t have the ones I like. It sort of defeats the mindfulness part of the exercise — I’m not exactly practicing acceptance by insisting on really good yogurt, not just average yogurt — but it’s going to be fun to see what I can make.

And now… to work. I really just meant to write about the osprey, but the sunshine in the van instead of darkness and the cool breeze instead of air-conditioning is making me feel really cheerful and chatty. I hope that translates into some good Grace words, too!

*****

I’m so terrible about remembering to add this, but I appreciate all purchases made through my Amazon associate link!

Cedar Key

04 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Campground, Food, Personal, Seafood, Serenity

≈ 2 Comments

picture of a camper under a palm tree

That palm tree really doesn’t provide much shade.

I’m watching the rain right now, although not really over the ocean, because the view out the side window is of the campground. I could angle myself better to see more water, but not without disrupting a dog’s nap. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because the rain is coating the windows and turning the view into a static-y television screen.

(I wonder when the image of static-y television will become completely meaningless? Like talking about a party line or sending a telegram? Probably not yet, but eventually.)

Serenity is feeling really crowded, because after six days in this campground, I’d pretty much filled my outside space. I had my chair, my table, my grill, my beach mat, and miscellaneous smaller items all scattered over the site, until it became clear that this was going to be serious rain. Now everything is jammed haphazardly inside while I watch the storm.

So even after six days, I’m still not sure how I feel about this campground. The biggest negative is the lack of good walks. The campground is set on a busy road and there’s no sidewalk. I’ve walked in both directions, roamed around some roads that feel like they should be private despite not being marked as such, gone all the way into the town and explored the railroad trail, but it’s felt like a struggle every day to find places to wander. The roads in the campground itself are dusty sand, the gritty kind that sticks to everything, and bumpy rocks, not at all fun to walk on.

The second biggest negative is the no see ‘ums. Relatively speaking, I don’t think they’re that bad. I’ve certainly been in places with much worse mosquitoes — I remember a park in Vero Beach, where the mosquitoes swarmed even the dogs. But when the no see ‘ums are biting — which is not always — staying outside is not fun. They seem completely undeterred by my environmentally friendly bug repellent.

And I guess the third biggest negative has been the heat. My spot is in direct sun and the weather’s been hitting the high 80s every day. I’ve had to run the air conditioner almost constantly. Sadly, I originally had reservations to be in Key West these weeks, but I cancelled them months ago because I decided it would be too hot. It is just as hot here. Alas. I rue the cancellation fees. And as I wrote to a friend today, heat + camping = sweat + dirt = yuck. It’s certainly no fault of the campground, but I really hate feeling dirty all the time.

All that said, wow, the sunsets are lovely. Sunrises, not so much. I haven’t found a place with a good view of the sunrise, except for a bridge on the way into the town. The campground is cute as can be — colorful signs, lots of plants in pots, pretty picnic tables — and the town is adorable. It is what I imagined Key West would be — small and arty, tropical but still feeling like Florida, not the Caribbean. I bet if I was here in March, I’d adore it. Even the lack of good walks would probably not bother me so much. In fact, if it weren’t so hot and dusty, I’d probably think walking into town was a great walk, despite the lack of sidewalks.

And sitting still feels wonderful. I originally thought that yesterday or today I should drive to a store to do some grocery shopping, but I have been completely reluctant to make the effort. I’m not being lazy — I’ve been writing and walking and cooking — but I’m really appreciating the peacefulness of not needing to pack up and go places.

It’s been good, but not yet great, for my writing. I’ve made definite progress, including some words that are very entertaining (to me, at least) but my characters seem to want to chat rather than reach exciting climactic moments. But I’ve got another week here, so I hope to get there.

Today I walked into town without Z and went to the little market. It’s 1.4 miles away, so I couldn’t buy more than I thought I could comfortably carry that far. In 80 degree weather. But I bought yogurt and salad greens and bananas and a few other things, enough to avoid shopping for a couple more days, I hope. On the way back, I stopped at the seafood market. The right thing to buy there was clearly fresh clams and if I was feeding anyone else — ideally three or four people, I absolutely would have. But they were selling the clams in bags of 100 and the thought of eating 100 clams by myself… well, I’m really not sure I’m capable of that. It seemed ambitious, anyway. So I bought some frozen bay scallops instead.

For dinner, I started with brown rice, while I marinated some of the scallops in lemon juice and garlic. I was thinking of doing something lemon-zesty with them but I got distracted by the red pepper flakes I bought recently. Once the rice was done, I melted some butter in a frying pan, added red pepper flakes to it until they were sizzling, added green onion until it was sizzling, then tossed the scallops in. I think I would have done better with a hotter pan at that point or less lemon juice on the scallops or longer defrosting of the scallops, but eventually they looked done. I then tossed in some arugula. I gave that thirty seconds at most, then put the whole thing over the rice. I added cilantro (which I should have added with the arugula) and then a sprinkle of romano/parmesan cheese.

I inhaled it. And if there’d been more, I would have eaten every bit of the more. The combination of the ocean taste of the scallops and the kick of the red pepper and the bitterness of the arugula… so good. Even the textures blended well. When I make it again (which I will have to, because I have about 3/4 of the scallops left), I’m going to skip the lemon and garlic, because I think I was working on two different ideas at once. But maybe I will marinate the scallops in a little gluten-free soy sauce.

The dogs are also eating really well. I don’t remember if I wrote about this, but when I took Zelda to the vet last week, she had some tests, and has an appointment for more tests, but the vet did sort of shrug and say, “Well, maybe feed her what she’s willing to eat.” And what Zelda is willing to eat is people food. And, post my birthday, I have an immersion blender as well as an insta-pot. So dinner for the dogs tonight was sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and chicken, cooked in the pressure cooker and then blended to a dog-friendly consistency. (I define that as one where Zelda can’t pick out the meat and ignore the vegetables.) I’m going to have to figure out what supplements they need and maybe, now that I can make the veggie cubes, I will try the raw diet for them. But it’s been really satisfying to watch Zelda lick out her bowl instead of turning away from it and leaving it to B. B, of course, is delighted. He’d be perfectly happy with kibble, but chicken and veggies works for him. The other day, he actually growled steadily as he ate, which you would think might indicate something bad, but which I think was him saying, “Mine, mine, mine, mine…”

So yes, cooking good food, writing good words, and watching the rain. And now I’m getting back to those other words…