Jamming

It's the middle of the night. Do you know where your blogger is?

This is my extra-hard week, since my adviser is out of town and I am teaching his morning class in addition to my afternoon class. So I should have slept hours ago. But we went u-picking for strawberries this weekend and returned with about 20lb ($50). I had meant to jam them that day, but I didn't get to until today, by which time we had to throw some out.

On the menu: strawberry jam is in the canner; whole strawberries in rum syrup just came out; we did get two batches frozen right away; there are some fresh strawberries in the fridge.

By the way, I highly recommend the farm we went to. It's a bit of a drive from Berkeley, but worth it — the drive is beautiful. Oh, what farm? Swanton Berry Farm has five or so sites around Santa Cruz area. To avoid the traffic returning from Half Moon Bay, if you're coming from the north, like we are, take the 1 the whole way. From the strawberry fields (which were mercifully foggy when we were picking) you can hear the sounds of the elephant seals.

Picnic: Lebanese food

My boyfriend and I love hiking and dinner picnics. Yesterday we had a particularly nice one. We started at Inspiration Point in Tilden Regional Park, and followed the paved trail about a mile and a half, turning off at a wide dirt track to the left. This trail leads to the top of Wildcat Peak, where we ate dinner to magnificent views.

After taking a bushwhack trail back down, we continued on the paved trail another mile or so, past a cow grate, and then took another left on another dirt road. This lead up a gentle hill through cow pastures to a bench with even more incredible views: the city, the bridge, two other bridges, the headlands, another city, everything. We had dessert there.

Unfortunately, our camera battery ran out just as we were starting on the hike.

The meal began with babaganoush (score the skin of a large eggplant and bake at 400 degrees for 40-60 minutes, let cool, de-skin, and mash with tahini, olive oil, salt, paprika, cumin, and the juice of one lemon) and crackers; course number two was a chickpea dish invented out of lazyness (wash, shell, and wash one pound fresh green garbanzo beans, cover with water and simmer ten minutes and drain, and mix with tahini, olive oil, salt, minced garlic, juice of one lemon, cumin, and coarsely chopped fresh parsley — essentially this is un-mashed hummus). The last course was a Greek salad: half a head of lettuce, washed and ripped into the small pieces; one large Cherokee tomato, sliced thin; one fresh red onion, sliced thin; Kalamata olives; Corsican feta; garden oregano; olive oil, salt, and the juice of one lemon.

Dessert was a delicious lemon bar, made by my boyfriend. Can you tell we have a lot of lemons right now?

Three Berkeley Finds

While I'm trying to get back into the habit of regular blog posts — I have photos from most meals for the last six months, but I lost the cable with which to upload them — let me brag briefly about life here. The garden is doing well: we have our first small green tomatoes waiting to ripen, we put in more beans, and the herbs are incredible. We also had a few exciting discoveries in the last few days.

1. There is a post office just three blocks from our house.
2. More exciting, Tarra's ice cream, just blocks from the always good Ici, is equally amazing.
3. Most exciting, Berkeley Bowl West has opened.

Last post for a while: 17 December 2008

We often make a similar ragout, but this one was especially delicious. The kidney beans we have started soaking the night before, and boiled once before adding them to the ragout pot. As always, the potatoes and squash and the rest are cooked with butter and sage. The bread is from Acme (via Berkeley Bowl).

The following night, after some misadventure, we boarded a train to Oregon for Christmas. I failed to photograph our many delicious meals here in Oregon: crab, squab, salmon, lasagna, to name a few. In a few hours we will leave here for a trip to Fiji and New Zealand, where the food will not be as good but the swimming will be fantastic. I should start regular posting at the end of January.

15 December 2008

The fish, broiled with a sweet sauce, was divine. I really liked the rice tossed with greens, olives, and feta, but it was a bit crunchy (I had sautéed the rice in oil first), and my boyfriend doesn't like rice that tastes underdone.

11 December 2008

7 December 2008

The beans (black-eyed peas, soaked overnight and boiled, then cooked with olive oil, leeks, shallots, herbs, and spices) were great. The roasted root veggies entirely failed. I'm not entirely sure why, but they were gross.

6 December 2008

I had my doubts about a pizza with shrimp and pesto. But my boyfriend really wanted it, and there's jumbo shrimp at market. Which, it turns out, is the best shrimp around, and the pizza was great.

5 December 2008

The grain is black quinoa.

4 December 2008: oyster bisque

We saved the crab and oyster shells from the past month, and made a fish stock by boiling the shells with ends of leeks. In a separate pot, we sautéed more leeks, celery, and grated carrot in butter, and added potatoes and the strained stock. As this came back to a boil, we shucked a dozen oysters — I bought a shucking knife for the occasion — which we poached for just five minutes. We stirred in a pint of half-and-half and some salt at the end. It was fantastic.

I didn't follow this recipe particularly closely, but I had read it (and a few more that are no longer at the links I had bookmarked) before cooking.