balmagowry

Breakfast always includes yogurt and coffee - in the past couple of months I've taken to doing it in that order. Used to be remiss about the yogurt (indeed, about eating breakfast at all, tsk, tsk), but my last experience with antibiotics cured me of that! Usually there's also fresh fruit, semi-seasonal: orange, grapefruit, clementines in winter; peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums, berries in summer; green grapes whenever they are affordable. I am a glutton for fruit. At the moment, however, I'm fresh out. Will do something about this tomorrow. As I've been bragging lately on the yogurt-making thread, I have been so happy lately with the flavor of my own yogurt that I have more or less given up mixing anything (peach or apricot jam, lekvar, honey, etc.) into it, and I let it stand proudly alone. So today's breakfast is a study of white on white - not my last for the day, either. (I don't know whose cookie that Chinese fortune came from, but it says "Your ability to juggle many tasks will take you far." Must be mine. Oy - I hope.) This is the last of the latest batch, so I shall be making some more before the day is out. And for once I am going to start it early enough so that I won't have to stay up until 3:00 AM to stop the incubation. Though the way things have been going lately, I'll probably still be awake then anyway. Before eating the yogurt, I started the coffee brewing. Of course there are stories attached to the coffee. Aren't there with everything? The Boy loves super-duper fancy-schmancy Colombian coffee, and when I first knew him he always had a plentiful supply of some wonderful kind that you can't get in this country unless you know the guy who knows the guy who knows the smuggler who.... That is the coffee he always served me when we were at his house. It is delicious - but I find it almost too aristocratic for my serious caffeination needs, if only because I am unaccustomed to its richness. My own tastes are more plebeian, running to what he calls "burnt" coffee - meaning a dark roast. What to do? When I turned around one day and realized that he was basically living here, I wanted to celebrate by upgrading the coffee operation. I was already grinding mine fresh for every pot (keeping the beans zip-locked in the freezer); now, since The Boy drinks coffee at all hours, I thought it would be nice to get one of those thermal-pot types, and to try to get a dual one so that he could have his flavor and I mine. No, no, no - he would have none of it. You're The Girl, said he, and I like whatever you like. When we're here we will drink your kind of coffee and I will love it. So we got the Gevalia freebie promotion thing, which has a nice serviceable thermal jug - and at my insistence we compromised on the flavor by blending the dark 50/50 with the Colombian. (I'm sorry, Owen, you must be shuddering by now. My palate is refined in some things - I can identify the nationality of butter in blind tastings - but coffee... well, I do know good from bad and I do vastly prefer good, but I'm just not educated much beyond that.) I figured now we were happy. That was - sheesh - four years ago. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that the worm turned at last. The Boy, without a word to me, quietly rummaged among the cupboards and found another pot he could rig, and started making his kind of coffee for him. The next time his back was turned, I - without a word to him - got on-line and ordered an early birthday present for him. Girl-coffee on the left. Boy-coffee on the right. Now we're happy. In my father's house are many mugs, but I always use this one if I can. Why? Because it is wider than the others, just wide enough to accommodate a cat's head. Murphy always drinks the dregs of my coffee, and he loves to get his whole head inside the cup. His predecessor, Basil, did the same. It wasn't the milk - sometimes I drink it black, and that has never deterred either of them. Today I am indulging - not only milk but... Carolyn knows what that is. Yup - Autocrat's best-kept secret, the spinoff brand Coffee Time... coffee syrup for making coffee milk! That I should live to see the day when I would put anything sweet in my coffee. Extraordinary. I like to heat the milk first. Aaaaaahhhhhhh. On to the business of the day. The dog food being decanted, it's time to make the yogurt. I'm still experimenting with flavors and textures, so at the moment I'm only making 1-quart batches, and haven't yet started using my own yogurt as starter. So far my favorite combination (again, this is all thoroughly documented on the yogurt-making thread) is whole milk with Erivan Acidophilus Yogurt as a starter. The batch I just finished was made with this freeze-dried culture and it was excellent, but so far Erivan is the clear winner. My local place still doesn't have Brown Cow in stock, though, and the jury is out until I can compare that. So today I'm experimenting with texture instead: for the first time I'm adding some dried milk to thicken it. I love it as it is, but there's only one way to find out whether I'll love it even more if it's thicker! So I'm starting with one tablespoon. (Dang - I should be weighing this. Next time.) White on white again: the milk is just coming to the boil. Once it cools, I put the starter yogurt (about 2 oz.) in a bowl, pour in a little of the milk, whisk thoroughly together; then pour it back into the rest of the milk, add the dried milk, and whisk some more. I use old containers from store-bought yogurt, Axelrod and Stonyfield Farms; for some reason this really amuses me. I am terminally easily amused. Ready to incubate. This means it's time to face the logistical problem. I know the sign says "AND/OR," but actually I haven't yet done both at the same time. The seedlings (tomatoes and peppers, at the moment, behind schedule of course) will have to be rearranged. Fortunately, we have the technology. Yogurt put to bed around 3:00 PM. And here it is almost 10:00 PM, probably time to take it out, and did I ever get around to lunch? Of course not. Dinner? Still TBA. In the course of the day I did, however, make one other important observation: violets in bloom. Inspired by several threads on the Cocktails and Fine Spirits Forum, I am hoping to do something of a liqueur or cordial kind with them, so I must pick them soon - and make sure I have a supply of vodka on hand in which to preserve/infuse them. Off to, um, grab some lunch... or just start the Dinner Debate and have done with it.

Ah - a former Guylander! Thank you. Clams - depends on the variety. Hardshells: toes. Softshells - hands and toilet plunger. I do my clamming on t'other side of the bay, down at West Gilgo. Here along the Sumpawam, though, we have a lot of characteristic Guyland clam-boats - today while walking Luke I selected a picturesque one for blog uses, and shall shoot and show it soon.

Welcome to Blogland! As one pedant to another, I'm sure you'll forgive me if I point out that it was James Thurber. Damn - of COURSE it was! I knew Feiffer wasn't right, but forgot to look it up. Besides, I have you to keep me on the straight and narrow! Well... at least I got the Pascal right. You know, I might as well face it: one reason I so loved working on the Patrick O'Brian material is that I'm simply living in the wrong century. I mean - I'm not about to give up computers and microwaves and Cuisinarts and dishwashers! but intellectually, literarily, take me home to the early 1800s, oh please. Or earlier. You'd never catch me making that kind of mistake with Austen or Bronte or Richardson. Or Trollope. Or Fielding. Or... well, anyway, you get the idea. Forgive you? I'm grateful. Thank you for setting me straight. :sigh:

OK, here goes, then. First of all, to orient you a little more. Here's where I live: . In a fit of gimmickiness I took this picture from my boat, because I had promised bleu a picture of said boat. So that's the house shot from the boat, and this is the boat, shot from the house. (You can start hating me now. It will save time later.) The house is not named. The boat is named Pauline, after my grandmother. A Southcoast 23, 1969 - Alberg design. This is taken from the porch outside my study; those little branches in the lower right corner are part of my white dogwood (the pink one's on the other side). I was going to crop this closer, but then I decided it'd be nice to show you this stretch of the Sumpawam Creek. I don't miss commuting.... Also, here's what I'm working with. Actually, I'm doing all this graphical stuff at my desktop computer, which is solid and unremarkable - but this is Shtinky, my faithful vademecum notebook computer, which follows me just about everywhere, though more sedately than Luke. Shtinky ain't the fastest horse out of the gate, but he's compact as hell: (the blue item on the left is a VHS videocassette, for size comparison) so with a WiFi card he's the perfect writing machine. Can't photograph the camera at the moment, so you can take my word for it: Canon S-20. Enough of this technical hoo-ha. To answer Bleu's question, Murphy and Luke have a most un-exciting diet. When I got Luke two years ago (he's a Rescue cocker spaniel), I learned a lot about animal food and the chemicals in most of the commercial brands, and started giving serious thought to what I was feeding my animals. Apparently there is an extremely high incidence of cancer among pets, and studies suggest... well, you know. Luke is benefiting from this knowledge. Murphy, at 14-1/2, is too old a cat to learn new tricks, I think; but his contemporary Flanagan having died of lymphoma a couple of years ago, I could wish it otherwise. Anyway, Murphy still gets Purina One in the morning, in whatever formula is most fattening. In the evening he gets canned food; the choices here are less exotic than Sissy's, but there is still a certain amount of variety. In fact, I vary the flavor as much as I can from day to day, but I never give him fish. I think this started out being some sort of dietary thingy, but now it's because of his breath. I live here too, you know. So here's Murphy at breakfast: Luke, as I said, benefits from my newly-rasied consciousness about health and nutrition, so he eats Wellness Super5Mix, which fortunately agrees with him very well. Cockers have particularly delicate digestion, so having found something that works for him I don't vary it at all. Mr. Boy laughs at this food because it contains, oy, baby carrots and blueberries. I think it's a little innerness-of-the-outerness myself, but since I'm the one wielding the pooper-scooper I have to keep my priorities straight! I know from experience what happens when Luke manages to get hold of, say, an entire stick of butter. I'm happy with what works, baby carrots or not. So happy that I buy 30-lb. bags which I then decant into these former-cat-litter-bottles. This, in my family, is what we call "a Brilliance," and in fact I also use these bottles for storing flour, corn meal, garden supplies, etc. - no limit to their uses. But the real Brilliance, in my view, is the decanting funnel: Clever, no? Most fortuitously the two bottles snap together - they're a perfect fit. I must have done something right to deserve this! Luke loves it when I decant dog food - every now and then my hand slips and he gets a bonus. The other thing he loves is the rare occasion when I give him an extra-curricular treat. I make these myself, and keep them in the freezer. Appetizing, aren't they.... The little round ones are dried slices of Hebrew National hot dogs - answering to a higher authority means no chemicals or preservatives. The others are my own mix of liver, cheese (cheddar), whole wheat flour, ground flax seed, and... I forget. Some egg, I think, and some mint. Can look up the recipe if anyone is dying to emulate - but I warn you they smell pretty vile while baking. Luke, of course, adores them. (Somewhere around here are some others I made for him - peanut butter, oats, flax, etc. Those may be in Gilgo.) He's a cocker. We called our last cocker "the vacuum cleaner," because they'll eat ANYTHING. Have just heard from Mr. Boy - he should be home fairly soon, whereupon the Dinner Debate will ensue. I shall of course report. Meanwhile, having got some exposition and livestock out of the way, I'm off to prep the breakfast and yogurt-making post.

Hoo boy, I can see it now - this is going to be one of those cathartic things, isn't it. Dang. Well, first of all, gotta thank you again for such warm welcomes and for saying such nice things about L&SD. Yeah, I'm proud of it - and I gotta say, whether you cook from it or not, you should only enjoy it even a fraction as much as we did researching and writing it. So it warms the cockles to know people do. Docsconz - I knew there had to be some other PO'Bians around here somewhere. A glass of wine with you, sir! And with yez all - bumpers all round, and no heel taps. Jensen, you're in luck - today was a yogurt day. Pictures follow as soon as I get 'em uploaded. JohnnyD, for the sake of the Gullet I will dare all and try for a few clams this week, even at the risk of frostbite. I also have some pictures from seasons past, including demonstrations of the use of a toilet plunger for getting steamers, and perhaps even some stuff about the MusselMatic that I kept mentioning on the Mussels thread but never got around to describing in detail. Oysters from the Sound - I dunno, though I can inquire. That's the North Shore, don'tcha know, and this is the South Shore. You'd be surprised how fa-a-a-a-a-ar apart they are, ideologically and stylistically! Soba - Fire Island is lovely - I have cousins, and family history, there. One of my more idyllic memories is a summer afternoon spent visiting friends who had a back yard overgrown with blueberries. One of my ideas of heaven. Yup, Carolyn, that's me - thought you knew. Figured it'd be up your alley... Hmmm, jayhay, I'm delighted you have the book but I have to admit that you've chosen some of my least favorite recipes from it, though the names of course make up for a lot. Will be happy to recommend favorites if you're interested. In fact, one of the... no, I'll get to that below. Blessings on you, Ms. Victoria. That means a lot to me. StInGeR, I'm not sure what to say. I'm a little embarrassed that Bleu's is the first food blog I've really followed and read - catching up on some of the others is a pleasure I've been promising myself as I sink deeper into the Gullet, but I hadn't gotten to it yet. The thing is, there isn't any rule about washing all one's personal linen, clean or otherwise, in public - I'm a little suprised to be doing so much of it myself, but I think Lucy's blog somehow put me into semi-confessional mood. My life is pretty weird right now, not that it's ever been what you could call normal (whatever that is), and you guys just happen to be on the receiving end. But I refuse to believe that that in any way affects the value of other blogs that have been done from a different perspective. So there. It's already wordier and more maudlin than most, and that ain't for everyone; there've got to be those around here who are merely too polite to say, shut up already with the personal stuff - show us some FOOD. Which, without further ado, I will. Weird hours, as I said. Just got back from the gym, and am thinking about lunch; there are a lot of small artichokes downstairs. I'm not very good about lunch. I tend to get focused on what I'm doing, and forget, and the next thing I know, damn, it's at least time for High Tea. That's OK, especially today, because I have no idea when dinner will be. Mr. Boy isn't home yet and I don't know when he will be. Dinner may or may not wait until he gets here - we shall see. (And, um, it may or may not end up being Chinese take-out, given my state of unreadiness. ) But I'm getting ahead of myself. Gimme a few minutes to upload some pictures, and I'll show you my "morning" - if you can call it that.

Um... Zowie... thank you! Whoa - this one is a surprise. I have to admit I thought my entry for the 20th Smackdown was a pretty decent contender, but... I'd, um, forgotten all about this one. Wow. (I am not kidding, BTW - false modesty is not by any means among my traits, I'm afraid. This knocks some wind out of me.) COOL!

And oy, where are my manners? Thank you, Carolyn, Hathor, Joe, for your kind welcomes and encouragement. And Lucy... !

He'd love to. His, um, summer haircut yesterday was rather more drastic than I wanted it to be - from looking like a bear-cub in his woolly winter coat he became an almost bald dog in a trice, and I think he's a bit self-conscious about it, even though he's the least vain cocker I've ever met. But he'll be presentable again soon....

Soba, dear, by the time I'm done with this you will know more about me than decent people oughta know! I still have to drag it from the pea brain to the keyboard, but what's writing itself in my head makes me feel like - was it Jules Feiffer who wrote "My World and Welcome to it"? I'm only sorry I didn't get it together to start a bio thread before embarking on this adventure.... Actually, I'm caught just slightly off guard. I have to admit I did have an inkling that I'd be up next... but for some reason I was convinced I was starting tomorrow, not today, so I'm trying to clear my decks in a hurry, the better to devote myself to blogification (blogifaction?). Here are some extremely bare bones to start with (I've dropped 700-plus posts' worth of hints and details all over this place, but have yet to index links to them!). My Actual Name is Lisa Grossman, and I am a hopeless food- and food-history nut. I live, garden, sail, cook and write on the South Shore of Long Island - mostly by the shores of Babylon (where we sat down and wept for thee, Zion) on the Great South Bay, but also at West Gilgo Beach, which is part of the Atlantic barrier beach, about half-way between Jones Beach and Fire Island. You may start the Pity Party any time you like. People ask me why I never go away and take a vacation, and I answer that it's because I live in a place where other people would go for their vacations. It's a little early in the season yet, but in the course of the coming week I will try to show you something of the local goodies that fall to our share because we are so lucky as to live here. That's one reason I've subtitled this blog "Back to the Future": to give you the full picture I may have to indulge in a little time travel, because right now the water is still a little cold for clamming, the crabs aren't running yet, the wild blackberries aren't ripening yet, the garden is only just waking from its winter sleep. Since it's in a good cause, I hope I may be indulged thus far. In fact, I hope I may be indulged farther than that - but of that more anon. (Sorry for the highfalutin lingo; it is Shakespeare's birthday, after all. Actually, though... I really do write like that. Oh well.) The work which I ought to be clearing from my decks right now instead of enjoying myself telling you about me me me me me... happens at the moment to be the re-design of a web site for a company in Mallorca (another long story). This is the vestigial remnant of my day job as owner/operator/chief cook and bottle-washer of a tiny computer consulting company called Gordian Knot Services, Inc. Kept me in shoe-leather for about 15 years, but I gradually strangled most of it because Bill Gates was spoiling my fun to an increasingly infuriating degree. So here I am working from home, and trying to figure out which book proposal to develop next. (This reminds me of something from Lewis Carroll, but I will NOT digress now.) As some of you know, my first book proposal met with an extraordinary and unprecedented fate, and led exactly where we wanted it to: Lobscouse & Spotted Dog. It was a wild and marvelous ride, and my mother and I had more fun doing it than anyone can possibly imagine. And once the book was published there was the lecture-and-tasting circuit, mostly for maritime museums and groups of culinary historians. That, in fact, is how we became culinary historians, and acknowledged experts in our one peculiar niche. Who knew? In the Patrick O'Brian world we were known as The Amiable Sluts; Clarissa Dickson-Wright dubbed us The Two Rat Ladies. From L&SD, then, we branched out, farther into the past and the world, seeking the esoteric and the quirky, writing and lecturing about it. It's during this time that I developed my obsession with Careme; I am still hoping, before I die, to finish translating his L'Art de la cuisine francaise au XIXeme siecle (I feel very weird eschewing diacriticals, but I gather that's policy here - and it do make things go faster). Be it understood that before "finish" comes "continue" - haven't done much, yet. But there's time - I hope. Not all that much more to tell, really. My co-author/colleague/twin/buddy/mother died a year and a half ago, and I am gradually putting some of the pieces back together and figuring out what most writers already know: that writing is essentially a solitary act. It wasn't news to me; but knowing it is one thing, living it another. The first fruit of this discovery is the article about the Borgias that I have been plugging so relentlessly; it was originally my mother's idea, but I ended up writing it without her, a sacred trust of sorts. The garden in which I grow herbs and vegetables and (edible) flowers is also hers, another sacred trust. So much for "extremely bare bones." Be warned now: whenever I say (sincerely!) I'm going to be brief... I end up running on at length. I love to paraphrase Pascal: I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter; if I had had the time I could have made it a shorter one. Let me go clear my decks. I've already photographed the whole breakfast routine in exhaustive detail; shall be back a little later and post same. Thanks for the Schwartz, Soba. Remind me to tell you about Paul Monette.

Really? Cool! Thank you. Yes, I am It, and It is I. The new blog has begun, at Foodblog: balmagowry; Back to the Future. You won't find anything very enthralling there yet, except for a certain bleudauvergne sitting back with her feet up and a bag of Cheetos in her lap, gloating and taking a well-earned rest from her labors. I have a few workish things to take care of for the next hour or so - first order of priority being to battle my cat for possession of my bowl of yogurt... and then, let the games begin!

Funny you should ask. Not entirely. I keep somewhat peculiar hours these days - I will explain more about this later - so although it is now noonish, EDT, my day has just begun. Before any food is seen, I must walk my faithful dog, Luke. Then he and Murphy must be fed. And then I embark on the business of the day, starting with yogurt and coffee. There will probably be a bit of a time lag between meals and postings. We shall see, when I'm more awake....

I doubt it. Ah. Speak for yourself, my friend! It is one hell of an act to follow, though - no question. Thank you, Lucy... I think. Yes, definintely. Thank you for leading, and showing, the way.

Oooooh, Lucy, you little devil.

Who have you tapped to embarass themselves after this effort? Aren't there rules for this sport? I bet there's one about disclosing the identity of the next victim. IAC, I can't imagine whoever it is being grateful for all these prognostications of doom. As if the task weren't tough enough already! Tsk, tsk. Hey, if Lucy'd been pre-heckled like this last week, she might have refused the blog altogether, and then where would we all be, hmmmmm?

Definitely broiled tomato with bread crumbs and probably some garlic and other seasonings in the bread crumbs. I'd guess a edge of some sort of shredded potato gratin myself. Okay, I've got this place pinpointed on pagesjaune, but mums the word unless you want to share the address and phone number. Hey... the rest of us can use pagesjaunes too, y'know. But I figure there's no hurry. When Lucy adopts me I'll just get her and Loic to take me there.

Bleu - when you get a chance - What accompanied the piece de boeuf? The broccoli and haricots I recognized, but there were two other things on the plate I wasn't quite sure about. Except that I'm quite sure I would have eaten them!

Gotta have saffron! but sometimes I goose up its visual effect with a little turmeric (just enough to take the color up a notch; not enough to overwhelm the saffron flavor with its own) - I imagine annatto could be used the same way.

FG, you probably already know this... but yes, the reaction is to the oils just as it is with poison ivy, and for exactly the same reason: urushiol. My mother had never had much trouble with poison ivy until after her first chemo; from that point on, however, she became extremely sensitive to urushiol - got horrendous poison ivy from the slightest contact with her cats' fur, and couldn't go near the outside of a mango. She could eat the flesh, though, if it was carefully peeled, at home, by someone she trusted - i.e., me.

don't gloat Hokay, 'splain for us non-French speakers what a Lyonnais Bouchon is, s'vous plait. Soba A bouchon is a sort of informal restaurant that serves Lyonnais specialities that are often offal based. Good hearty food, great fun. I've always been kind of curious about the derivation, because the literal meaning of bouchon is cork - in the wine-bottle sense, that is. Makes you think....

Yup, this is exactly why it was familiar - my father had to have several rounds of such tests last year. He's a kidney cancer survivor, but with only one kidney left (and a few other health conditions requiring caution of various kinds) he has to have it monitored extra-closely when anything else is going on, like surgery....

So you don't know! Looky here: Round 19 Winners So, um... was first place on this one ever announced? I'll shut up and crawl back under the table now.

Wow - if I had thought it was anythiing like that at my Lycee, I'd have lobbied a whole lot harder for the school lunch. (OTOH, the lunches my mother packed for me are the stuff of legend, and may well have been a factor in kindling my lifeling fascinaiton with food. So I ain't complaining.) I'm so glad you explained that! I've been puzzling over it ever since the subject first came up, been meaning to look it up and haven't had a chance. Considering how long we've been growing and eating the things, I'm a little surprised that I've never encountered anyone who had this problem - but I'm glad to have it identified. I wonder (and something tells me you may know) what effect cooking has on this polymer. I have eaten JAs raw with no ill effects, but our usual mode of preparation is to pressure-cook them with a little chicken stock and a little onion, then to puree the result, freeze it, and use it as a base for soups both hot and chilled (cold, on a summer day, with a little yogurt swirled in and some chives snipped on top, it has few equals!). So by the time we eat it it has perhaps been broken down by cooking more than once, as well as by freezing and defrosting; also diluted with a good deal of stock. I know a lot of people who are wheat-intolerant use a flour based on JAs to make pasta and such; I'm sure it's highly processed by then, and I suppose that even if those people have trouble tolerating inulin it is as nothing to what they experience when they eat wheat! Inulin... inulin... something familiar about that - wish I could remember what. Maybe I should have googled it before posting this. But I'm too headlong for that. EDIT: Of course I've googled it now, and reminded myself why I sort-of knew it - having to do with someone's kidney problems. Also learned that it is added artificially to a lot of foods, including, somewhat shockingly, Stonyfield Farm's yogurt(!). Here's kind of a nice piece on the subject, though like most of its ilk it doth protest too much, methinks, about the Jerusalem Artichoke not being an artichoke. Though by all accounts the stuff about its nomenclature is true, there is a reason the thing tastes a little like an artichoke, and that is... once you follow the wheel full circle it turns out that the two are related after all. (Sorry, I've spouted about this before, haven't I. And still haven't got round to offering proof. It'll come. It's in my archives somewhere.) Anyway, I love this bit from the revised Gerard's Herbal: Apparently, however, it is possible to build up tolerance. Maybe that's how I got mine. Go figure.

Is there any way that the eGullet powers that be can get her some more photo space? If not, I have some web space available - I'll be happy to store some images indefinitely.

I'm afraid I missed the 16th, but there's always next year. And I suppose this is almost equally appropriate to the 23rd - or perhaps to any other day whan that Aprille with shoures swete... oh well, you know. EDIT to add: an encounter with an off-list heckler has reminded me that I meant to post a disclaimer, to the effect that the good saint apparently possessed every virtue except an intimate knowledge of porcine anatomy and butchery - else he would have known that Canadian bacon is actually cut from the loin. (So there is no cause for concern about the pork belly industry.)

Good point - it does very much depend on context and company.