jgarner53

Hmmm, it looks like most of you actually have lives on Fridays, or else you're all stuck in weekend traffic! I get out of work "early" for once, and there's no one here. I'll hold off on my dinner prep pics. I'm still wondering if anybody can guess what I started yesterday. In the meantime, let's start this morning. Today I didn't have to be in until 5, so I got to have a more leisurely breakfast, meaning about 15 minutes as opposed to 5. I sectioned the rest of the grapefruit I started earlier in the week and started with that. Then I started pouring my cereal...into my juice glass! Ooops! At least it's better than the times I've poured OJ onto my cereal instead of milk. Today it was Kashi's Go Lean Crunch, a favorite in our house. It reminds me a lot of Super Sugar Smacks that I loved as a kid, except maybe slightly better for you? I even got to read Wednesday's Food section! (See how behind I am?) Work was much easier today - no product testing for one, and just a lighter list than usual. I was feeling a bit faint around 9 so peeled myself a navel orange. It was really sweet and juicy and quite refreshing. About an hour and a half later I grabbed a sandwich - proscuitto and provolone on a roll. It's a good sized sandwich, and I took this bite as I was carrying it back upstairs. One of the great perks of working in the food industry is what all we get to eat. Where I work, we can pretty much get anything to eat, from sandwiches to mini quiches and slices of tarts. The only downside is that eventually it grows old. But there is enough variety that I'm not totally sick of any one thing yet. Today was a very lemony day in my kitchen. Three lemon things going at one time: lemon macaron filling (on the stove in the back), lemon tart filling (in the pot on the stove) and the lemon turnover filling (in the lexan). We cook the lemon tart filling until it begins to thicken, then cool before baking it again in prebaked shells to set it. Really, it's very good, even better with meringue, but we just glaze them and garnish with candied lemon zest. Meringue would slide off the tart in the angled case. From here on out it's dinner prep, but I'll give you a teaser photo or two. First, the crust: And something on the stove: While I had some time in the kitchen, I started putting my shelves into the cabinets - yay!, and fitting in the pieces of shelf liner I'd already cut. A few need to be trimmed a bit. I want to finish that much today (except for the cabinet where the shelves have gone AWOL), and then maybe put in the dishes and silverware. Even more tempting, though I must resist, is that the new speakers arrived, and I really, really want to set up the new receiver and speakers! Must. Focus. On. Kitchen. OK, off to start dinner prep. It won't take long, and most of it is hands-off cooking. I'm roasting my first chicken in this oven tonight! With tiny yukon gold potatoes (mmmm, schmaltzy!). So far I'm really pleased with the oven's baking performance. Yay!

I have a traditional rolling pin, too, but I actually find it too heavy sometimes. I like this pin because it's easy to maneuver. One with tapered ends is even easier. I like that you can place your hands anywhere on it. I don't really know if there's any trick to using it. I just roll it under my palms. Even if I need more leverage, it doesn't seem to be a problem. Because it's lighter, I find that I can control the pressure more easily, too, without having to lift the pin - just press harder if you need more. I hardly use my traditional pin anymore. Nope! I'm off to do some prep for dinner and trim the cabinet linings so I can start unpacking a few things! I'll be back later with photos from this morning and what I'm working on for dinner. I've used three of my 5 ingredients - just two left! What will I do with them?

Awww, shucks. After all, as GC said to Husband (aiki_brewer), "She's pretty sharp for a woman." (Husband was kind enough not to kill GC at that point, since I don't think we even had walls yet, and refrained from telling me this until just this week so I wouldn't kill him) Thank you very much, Arne. I feel quite honored. And if a very, very similar kitchen (down to the tile, green walls and inset cabs) hadn't been on the cover of Old House Interiors back in May 2005 (though I'd made my selections and only saw it when I went to the tile store where the owner had bought her tile, and they had copies of it everywhere), I might even consider it. I really can't wait to show you all the final reveal. It's proving such a pleasure to work in so far. I can only imagine that when my things are in here it will be even better. And gawd, I can't wait to take down these ugly fluorescent fixtures! (waiting until the plumbing inspector has signed off - don't want to trigger any attention).

Oh, I thought you might want to see the bottom crust. Really, this could not be possible without a pizza stone. These things rock! Funny thing is that my pizza stone barely fit into the old oven. In fact, I had to measure the oven and check the size of the stones I was interested in before I bought one to make sure it would fit! I could probably fit two in the oven now. Good night! See you tomorrow. Shall I ask aiki_brewer to keep you entertained in my absence?

Huh. I didn't know that. I wouldn't say that it was crappy, just that I probably wouldn't know the difference between good mochi and bad mochi. And no, I'd never thought of making my own. That somehow seems beyond my skillset, though with as much stress as I've had the last few months, pounding rice might have been therapeutic! OK, who said that I was making pizza? I see you, and you, and you over there. Good for you! Here it is! I could have cheated and bought Trader Joe's $1 dough balls, but thought, "What the heck, I'll make my own." Really, pizza dough isn't hard, and if you're like me and have yeast on hand, even through cleaning out the fridge when you get a new one, and 3 months without a kitchen and who knows how long before that since you made bread, it's really not hard at all. Sure, the label says it's only good for six months. Bah. When this: turns into this: practically while you watch, you know your yeast is good. By the way, the asexual reproduction there did not happen by itself. It's pizza dough, not biology class! I divided the one big ball into three. Yes, yes, I really did plan to start putting things away in my new kitchen this afternoon. Really, I did. But no sooner had I gotten out of the shower (I was barely dry and still, uh, in a natural state), there was a knock at the door, and it was the painter. I did get dressed before I let him in. By the time we'd finished our discussion, aiki_brewer was home, and I had to turn on the oven to heat it up for the pizzas. So let's back up and see where we started this afternoon. First, what I bought at TJ's, which should give you a good idea of what's for dinner tomorrow. First, wine! We opened up a bottle of our case of 2001 Syrah from Roshambo, a nicely fruity wine that goes down easy. Once the dough had risen, I punched it down and divided it into three and let it rest for 10 minutes or so before trying to shape it. Otherwise it's just too elastic and springs right back at you. My thanks to aiki_brewer for the following photos. I've been trying to grow a third arm for this sort of thing, but nothing seems to be working yet. I dusted my smoooooth countertop with some flour and pulled out a ball of dough and started to flatten it with my rolling pin. Many just use their fingers to shape pizza dough, but when I try that, I get really thin spots here, thick spots there, and a crust that falls apart, won't hold sauce, and no one wants to eat. (The oven, btw, was at 500F) Rolled out a little more, I got to about this point before it was time to move the dough to the peel. I loaded it onto the peel, dusted with cornmeal, and finished shaping it, working it back into a round. A little sauce A little cheese, and it's ready for the oven Twelve minutes later, a chiffonade of basil, and voila! Plated up with (duh) salad and my glass of Roshambo, we have a fine dinner, with a second pie in the oven. The second time, I baked the crust halfway before adding the mozz. The oven's rolling racks work great for this. I don't have to worry that the rack is going to get off balance, even with a pizza stone, tip out, and dump molten pizza onto the oven window. I might skip dessert tonight. It's already 9, and bed's just around the corner. In fact, I'm already yawning. Oh, for those of you guessing on the component for tomorrow night, you haven't been paying attention! I gave you the answer on day one when I gave you the ingredients in my teaser photo. Oh, and about the beeswax, and whether you can taste it in the cannelé, I'm not in the habit of eating beeswax, so I'm not quite sure how it would taste. I'm sure it's about like the carnauba wax coating on some candies. Certainly it's not like the wax lips you might have had as a kid (me, I never got the appeal of them).

Finally, I'm back! I had some prep to do for dinner when I got home, and I wanted to get it started for reasons I'm sure you'll guess in a bit. (oooh, mystery!) We used to make babas, but stopped about a year ago. They just weren't a big seller anymore. We'd bake the bases and freeze them, and then soak them in syrup each day. We don't do molten lava cakes -- too American (but cupcakes aren't? this one baffles me ). But we do make a melting chocolate cake, more like a really greasy brownie (if you ask me) than a true molten lava cake. We've done them for one of the restaurants in the owner's empire, but they just invert out of the mold to be right side up (they're baked upside down). One thing we do have to flip back over is the French toast we make for our bakery cafés. It's 3 slices of brioche cut into rounds to fit into flexipan molds, then soaked with a custard mix, sprinkled with sugar and baked. They're sturdy enough when cooled a bit to be able to flip the whole tray over, remove the pan, and then flip the toasts back over again. Very efficient. If you noticed, the cannelé molds are wider at the opening than at the bottom, so that when they're depanned, the bottom (which is kind of ugly) is hidden, but wider to support the cannelé. Did you season them first? We season ours filled with oil, then baked at a high temp for about an hour. Then we wax. But the seasoning is only occasional (thank goodness). The molds are never washed, so built up a fine patina over time. If it gets mucked up for any reason, we have to scrub them out with salt, wash them, and reseason before waxing. Nope. Haven't tried it. My former boss was trying to get them to work with pan spray for about a month, but they just weren't the same. The crust was dull and unlovely to look at, and the texture was all wrong. (Hence we had to reseason them and start over). OK, on to today! Same schedule as yesterday, but I'd left a bagel out overnight to thaw so I could have something different today. This is really rare for me, and only done because I happen to have bagels in the freezer & cream cheese in the fridge. Filled up my go cup of tea, ate about half of my bagel before it was time to go, and finished the rest in the car (don't worry, I brushed my teeth!) It wasn't raining this morning, so I was able to risk life & limb by taking this photo of the front of the bakery while I was crossing the street. I managed a shot of our back room, next to the kitchen. We have much more storage than this, and in a few weeks, actually, this room is going to become and office, and we have to move everything downstairs somehow. The bakery operates 24/7, so there is always a crew there. Soon the night bakers will be gone, and the viennoiserie (puff pastry, croissants) will migrate to our much larger baking facility in South San Francisco, leaving us more room. Also in this room are two reach in fridges, and more stuff. It was a busy day, and I didn't see much of the owner except when he came in to show me the mock up of the box for the puff pastry squares he's trying to sell to Trader Joe's. (We already make some things for them, including bread). A few weeks ago, he handed me these baked puff squares and asked me to make a couple of simple tarts with just whipped cream, strawberries & raspberries. They would be shot for the cover of the box, so couldn't look too complicated for the home cook (but had to look pretty). I spent about an hour very carefully arranging berries! How exciting! Something I made is going to wind up on a package! So when he showed me the mockup today, it was really, really cool to see my strawberry tart right there on the front of the box. Then it got better. He said that this packaging he's going to sell "everywhere." Uh, everywhere? "Yeah, Safeway, everywhere." Safeway? My tart is going to be in Safeway? I don't think I came down to earth for about an hour. And he'd asked ME to make it. I did manage some lunch, a slice of our new chicken tart: roasted chicken in a cream sauce with tarragon, and topped with large mushrooms before baking. It was quite tasty. This was the first time I'd tried it (see what I do for you?) The rest of the day was quite a rush, and I didn't take any more pictures at work (sorry). I had to stop by TJ's on my way home, even though I was still in my stained checks (oops for forgetting a pair of jeans to change into). I needed a couple of things for tonight's dinner and for tomorrow's. This particular TJ's has a microscopic parking lot, and there is frequently a line to get into the parking lot. There was one today, but not too bad. It gave me time to take this photo while I waited. The best part is that it's right on my way home. Aiki_brewer also has a TJ's about two blocks from his work, so he can easily stop by for any last minute ingredients if I need him too. I won't show you yet what I bought, though. First you have to figure out what I came home and made (this will give me a chance to shower and relax a bit! ) When I got home, I dug out the food processor and got started on something for tomorrow night. At this point, all the ingredients are either in the fp or on the counter. Can you guess what it is? Having a little trouble? Does this help any? This is what came out of the fp: Next up, something for tonight's dinner. I gathered all my ingredients, once again, just before beginning to process. I had to work this a bit by hand, but eventually got it together (I didn't want to burn out he processor). Here's what it looked like when I was done: I tossed the fp into the dishwasher and started 'er up. This isn't the first load, but boy, do I love having a dishwasher again! It was really fun to do this work on the counter. In the old kitchen, I had tile counters and had to put down a cutting board if I needed a smooth surface. It worked OK, but was a pain. Any idea yet what I'm making for dinner? What if I show you the next thing I made? Since the fp was now in the dishwasher, I pulled out my new immersion blender to get this one going before putting it on the stove. I'd had an old one, a one-piece Braun that had been a wedding present, but I really wanted one with a metal wand and detachable motor. I got this one, though in white. Wow, it has speeds! Anyway, it did the job in no time flat, and I love the simmer feature on my burners - no splattering! So, what are the mystery components, and what am I making for dinner tonight? What am I going to do with the first thing I made? Guess away!

I think I'm more exhausted writing it than actually doing it! The wax and butter do two things: help release the cannelé from the mold and adds some flavor and (ok, 3 things) imparts a bit of a shine to the finished product. You can really see it in the picture. The ingredients are milk, butter, pastry flour, sugar, eggs, egg yolks, rum, and vanilla beans. We mix about 16 quarts a day. They really are quite tasty. The exterior is crisp and chewy; the interior is custardy, not so much like a popover, but really more custardy. If you ever get a chance (they're all over Tokyo, for some reason), I highly recommend trying them. I think the name of the Thai market in Berkeley is Erawan. It's on University Avenue just about across from the Andronico's market. It's definitely one of those "blink and you miss it" kinds of storefronts and took me a couple of passes the first time I went there. I love Berkeley Bowl! I can't shop there often, obviously, as it's a good 40 minute drive away, but if I happen to be in the East Bay for any reason, I almost always find an excuse to visit. It's such a serious produce mecca. I've never seen three different varieties of mango, all labeled, in one place before. Or so many varieties of apples, both organic and non. And their bulk foods! I've never been to Monterey Market, but it's one of the names bandied about by food lovers all over the Bay Area. I highly recommend the Cheese Board, also in Berkeley, on Shattuck, north of University (so north of campus). Fantastic pizzas and bread and of course, a huge selection of cheese. I adore Acme bread. Their sour is the best. Even though I can take home loaves of bread from work for free, I will go out of my way to pick up Acme if I want sour (something we don't do nearly as well as they do). And sometimes you just gotta have sourdough bread. Like when we do our annual Dungeness crab feed, in December or January. Wow, bedtime already! Did I say I was going to start unpacking my kitchen? I lied. I finished my snack of an apple (fuji) and some cheese (a great aged Irish cheddar with those fantastic little crystals in it that I just love) and then I decided to have a bit of aiki_brewer's oatmeal stout (on tap on the kegorator - remind me to show you that) and watch a bit of TV before dinner because really, it was after 6 at that point. Hadn't I done enough work for one day? Oooh, a bit more about the cheddar. I really like TJ's for their cheese selection. It's not high falutin' or anything. For that I can go to a number of cheeserias or upscale groceries, including one around the corner from work, to pick up that special favorite, like Redwood Hill Farms' Boucheron or Camelia (both goat's milk cheeses). But for your everyday snacking cheeses, TJ's can't be beat. Many times on Sundays, when I have the whole afternoon/evening to myself because aiki_brewer is out doing his thang, I will pick up two or three hunks of cheese, some crackers (preferred over baguette slices), and make that a dinner, maybe with a few TJ's gyoza or some soup to round out the meal. I'd already decided to reheat the curry, so tonight's plate doesn't look all that different from Monday's except that tonight I had the other sampler bottle of the California Common that aiki_brewer had last night. Really, I promise, new food tomorrow. In fact, I already dug out the cookbook I needed, buried, of course, at the bottom of the box. Tomorrow, we change continents! So here's tonight's dinner, with very heady beer and the same ol' salad. As I said, aiki_brewer doesn't get home until about 11 and doesn't really have time for a real dinner between practices (in two places, each with its own outfit). He usually packs a sandwich or something he can eat cold, then makes himself a snack when he gets home: some cheese, maybe some peanut butter. And I won't see him, except for a bleary-eyed sleepytime half-eye open moment. Maybe. One of the things I love about Wednesday nights, though, is getting to watch the stuff on tv he doesn't like. Right now I'm watching Top Design (well, not as I type this - that would be a challenge!), but I watched the penultimate episode, and Tivo will catch the finale tonight. I Tivo. For someone with a schedule as wonky as mine, it's indispensible. After digging out my cookbook, I decided to open the mochi I bought on Monday. Not bad - just enough texture in the bean filling to identify it as red bean. I'm a sucker for red bean paste ever since a Korean-American roommate in college took me to Koreatown one day and bought me a red bean donut. (Her kimchee did stink up our dorm fridge though. A bagel with kimchee-flavored cream cheese was not a good thing). When we were in Tokyo last spring, red bean donuts were a staple breakfast, often from the dinky bakery across the street from our hotel. But I love red bean ice cream, mochi, yum yum yum! C'mon, wouldn't you? For all I know, these are bottom of the barrel, cheap crap mochi, the Lil Debbie Snack Cakes of mochi. But what do I know? They're fine by me. I hate to leave you all again until tomorrow afternoon. I feel like I miss so much! I'll try to shoot more of the bakery tomorrow, or at least more of what I do, get you a 'hands on' shot (easier with tomorrow night's meal and aiki_brewer at home), and show you the keg-o-rator.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, as you might have noticed from the busy stove photo, that because we are in this rinky dink home style kitchen, and the dishwasher is downstairs, I do all my own dishes. Every bowl, pan, whisk, and lexan container, all day long. How the hell do I do it and why am I not dead tired at the end of every day? Hell if I know.

Did you miss me? Longer day at work than I anticipated, then spent half an hour talking to GC after I got home, while he went over the stuff he did, and we debated the finer points of paint finishes. Painter Bruce, who is also a surfer, I believe, or at least has inhaled too many paint fumes, insists that eggshell and satin are the same. Dude, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. OK, questions first, but I see that aiki_brewer has answered a few in my absence. It helps a lot that I'm not a night owl. Even on a normal schedule, I'd be hard pressed to make it past 11. But it did take me about six months to really acclimate to it. I'd come home every day just wiped and need a nap, which our old cat Spanky, was happy to help out with. And at the beginning of every week, I'd just think, "Why am I doing this?" But now I'm used to it. I like getting out early, though if I had my way, I'd work 7-3 Tuesday-Saturday, so aiki_brewer and I could enjoy some weekend time together. As it is now, with my promotion, I don't see him from Tuesday evening until Thursday evening when he gets home (usually about 6-ish). I used to be able to leave work on Wednesday and take sandwiches down to his office for lunch, but I'm never out of there early enough anymore. Well, having never had a smoothtop range, I couldn't say. The old range had individual burner rings, so you were still removing them to clean out the gook (and rice boilover). Since this is only the second meal on the range, and it was just a little oil splatter, I'll have to get back to you. Seems like a quick swipe with a soapy sponge was all it took. GC: Dude, you've, like, totally got to see the whole picture, man! Me: What I see is that this isn't right, and this isn't, and this isn't... GC: But, like it's all beautiful, you know? Me: Just fix it. Thanks. I can't wait to oil it again. Most of it is unoiled because I hardly see the point yet. Soon, though, soon! I love how smooth it feels. Yeah, I should branch out more, but I have a handful that I drink regularly -- Peachy Canyon Incredible Red, Castoro Cellars Zin, and others I can't remember, but if I were in the wine aisle at TJ's, I would. We also have a case of Roshambo Winery's Syrah which we really like. We also love their attitude - wine is for enjoying, not snobbery, and it shouldn't matter if you're drinking it out of a paper cup or Riedel stemware. Their tasting room is very modern, and their pourers usually pierced and tatted up. Freaked the hell out of my mom on a tasting trip last summer! OK, onto the food, and then I am going to start putting things away in my kitchen! My drawers are clean! (sounds like a medical issue or a laundry one, but I'm speaking of cabinets!) Got up this morning and snarfed a bowl of cereal, TJ's honey graham squares. Eh, OK, not my favorite, a little sweet. Made my tea in my travel mug, and I was out the door, just after it started to rain! I didn't see that coming. I wanted to take a picture of the front of the bakery in the pre-dawn stillness, but with the rain, I just wanted to get inside. We have a bigger, more commercial looking space on the ground floor, but this is where I spend the bulk of my day, and what it looked like about 4:30: What you can't see is the two-door reach in and six-foot bench on the other side of the room. There's a double convection oven in the back, past the metro rack, where we do the bulk of the baking. (There's also a huge rack oven downstairs and a majestic deck oven) Between 4:30 and 5:20 I: baked off 6 Gateau Basque (lemony tart dough filled with cherry jam and pastry cream & baked) baked off 27 cupcakes (3 flavors - vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet) glazed and garnished 9 lemon tarts depanned and garnished 7 chocolate tarts depanned 8 cheesecakes put 4 goat cheese tarts on cardboards and carried everything but the cupcakes and Basques downstairs to the walk-in and retail areas (depending on whether it was for the store or our other stores), along with: 25 chocolate brownies and 2 cornmeal tarts. AND brought up two cases of milk, a stack of sheet pans, towels, and aprons. Each trip goes up or down a flight of 25 stairs. Remember the old army ad where they said, "We do more before 9 am each day than most people do all day?" That's kind of how I feel, especially when I open on Wednesdays. Wednesdays I'm by myself until 6, then two others come in to help with the morning production. After I finished all that, it was on to the cannelé, delightful little treats from Bordeaux that are our specialty. I think we are the only ones in the city who make them. Why? Because they are a royal PITA, that's why. Labor intensive. First, set up the molds (today 360 of them), 40 to a pan: Then whisk and pour just the right amount of batter (about the consistency of crèpe batter) into each one, so they're all about 3/4 full. Too little, and you'll have a shorty. Too much, and it will catch on the edge of the mold and not bake properly. Repeat 320 more times. Halfway through the baking, the pans (now heavy with batter and the trays laden with melted (hot!) wax) must be rotated 180° and top to bottom. Then, when they're done, arm yourself with a good towel, folded in quarters, a knife to pick up the molds with, and, two (or three if your hands are big enough), knock them onto a sheet tray to release the cannelé. Here's my first 100: After you're done with all that, let the waxy pans cool, scrape that gunk off and discard, and melt yourself some beeswax and butter and paint the inside of each and every stinking mold with the liquid. Gee, I can't imagine why more bakeries don't make these. I didn't get around to asking the owner today if I could take pictures downstairs or of the retail store. I guess he has a policy of no photos in the store because people were just coming in to take pictures (to remember us? spy on us? who knows?), so it might not happen. Once I'd finished morning production, close to 8, I wrote up the production lists for the day for upstairs and headed downstairs to do theirs. I also had to do ordering today, so I checked all that stuff out before I could come back and actually get to work. By then (almost 9), Chris had gotten busy in the kitchen, and the stove looked about like this: I had leftover pears after assembling the day's goat cheese tarts, so had myself a snack about 10 (the pears go on the goat cheese tarts, along with huckleberries) That held me until maybe 11, when I really started getting hungry (4 am was a long time ago!). Some days I don't even make it until 9 before I eat lunch. Today I had a goat cheese/chorizo quiche, my favorite, and it goes well with a Diet Coke (the house favorite, so I go along, rather than drink my Coke Zero). Mind you, like most people who work in the industry, this is all done without a break, without sitting down, without stopping. Which is not to say that I couldn't, but it would just mean I'd leave 15 or whatever minutes later at the end of the day. Sometimes it can take me over an hour to eat a sandwich. Later I had a reject cannelé. For some reason, the top came out really light, but it still tasted fine! I'm not counting the bits of chocolate chip cookie dough, or chocolate chip cookies and double chocolate cookies that I'm testing. We were done with production about 1-ish, and I started to work on my product testing, which kept me there until just before 3. I wrote up the next morning's list (much like today's only a little larger), and finally came home. It's 5pm now, and I'm feeling a bit peckish but am not ready for dinner. I think there's some cheese in the fridge. Maybe I'll have that and an apple. I'll let you know later. Tonight, aiki_brewer has both martial arts practices and isn't home until well after I've gone to bed. Usually I don't even wake up when he comes in, or else it's so quick that I mutter a very sleepy "hello" and go right back to sleep. What with all this cooking I've been doing, we are flush with leftovers. I'm thinking curry. But don't worry, fresh cooking will happen tomorrow!

Oh man! And I thought I was doing so well! Kitty porn and everything! I have handwritten maps of where everything will go when I can put it away - would that do? I'll see if I can scan them tomorrow. Growing up, my family would often make trips out to Palm Springs for Easter vacation, and I loved getting to the part in the long ride where you could smell the orange blossoms! We have a flowering plum tree now, next to the cherry, and I absolutely adore their fragrance. They bloom in January, so the tree's now nicely leafed out. The rhodies and cherry blossoms are my true sign of spring, here where we have no real weather (not that I'm complaining, mind you). Who needs opposable thumbs? I'm definitely returning as a pampered house cat. Sleeping in the sun all day? Finding a warm lap at night? Man, that's the life! Thank you. So far it seems to be working well. I mean, aside from not having my tools or ingredients in place, the workflow itself seems to be good. I am really enjoying the higher counters (38 inches rather than the standard 36). Prep is much more comfortable and feels easier now that I'm not reaching down to the cutting board, or bending over it. The stove's new location is good, too, though, in the old kitchen, I was used to being able to dump something in a pan and reach over with my left arm and put the bowl in the sink. Now it takes a (small) step. I love having light over my cooking, too! It's fantastic to see what's going on. Just getting things out of the fridge is easier, or will be once the door's installed properly and doesn't swing wide every time it's opened. The old fridge opened the other way, so you had nowhere to go to put stuff once you took it out, except to close the door and walk back to the counter. And that leads me into tonight's dinner: basa filets misoyaki. I pulled this recipe of the internet a few years ago and haven't made it in a while. I'd probably vary it a bit now; the flavor seems a bit off, maybe not sweet enough. I started by mixing the marinade ingredients this afternoon and putting the fish into a ziploc bag with it for a few hours. It felt better to have brown rice tonight. I love the earthiness and chewiness of brown rice, particularly the short grain variety, and managed to find some without too much looking (first box!) The simmer function on my new range is so great - not a single boil over! (No matter how low I set the flame, or how big a pot I used, I'd always get at least one boilover with rice before) While the rice got going, I sliced some zucchini and made the salad. I also poured myself some wine, leftover from last week, but vacuum sealed. Not the greatest wine, but passable. I admit to not being much of a wine snob. I rarely buy a bottle for more than $10. I far prefer reds, sticking mostly to zins or syrahs. This one I'd bought to go with the last of the frozen baked ziti last week. Tonight I was going to try out the fancy pants infrared broiler on the range. ooooo! Infrared! The old range had a flame powered broiler underneath the oven (for those not up to speed on the old kitchen, the old stove was a well-loved O'Keefe & Merritt from the late 40's) that I rarely used because it was tricky to get the broiler pan in and out, based on where the oven was in the kitchen. The broiler pan, after suffering 60 years of abuse, was also a beast to clean. I lined the broiler pan with foil and sprayed the top well. Still, the pan's in the sink, soaking. Any good tips on how to keep a broiler pan from being a PITA to clean? The fish filets went on and into the oven. I heated up the rest of the marinade and brushed it on about halfway through. A couple more minutes, and the fish was perfectly done. I really think that's a first. I also sautéed some zukes in olive oil and then sauced them with soy and sesame oil at the end. If I had sesame seeds, I might have thrown them in, too, but oh well. Another time. The zukes splattered up a bit when I first threw them in. It's really surprising how low you need to set the flame on this range to get the same heat or more that I struggled to eke out of the old range. Aiki_brewer wanted to show off his beer with the plated dinner shot. He brewed a batch of California Common (like Anchor Steam) for GC at the beginning of our project, kind of an extra thank you. Now, we're not sure we want to give him any of it, given what we've been through. But he held out a couple of sample bottles, and this was what he was drinking tonight. We'll see if GC can meet the deadlines we set before we decide on the beer. The heat from the zuke pan set off the new smoke detector just outside the kitchen again. It seems awfully sensitive, but managed to shut itself off after a few beeps. Either it figured we'd died, or woken up and were escaping our now burning house. I overcooked the zukes a little, so they were softer than I'd have liked, but otherwise tasty. The fish, as I said, was perfect, and went well with the rice. For dessert, aiki_brewer had stopped by Mitchell's on his way home to pick up some ice cream. Purple flavor! Yes, it really is this purple. It's ube, or purple yam, flavor and pretty tasty, though not my favorite. I haven't checked, but I think if I went into the bathroom and stuck out my tongue, it would be purple. This being Tuesday night, tomorrow is my Monday, meaning Wednesday. I get up at 3:45, scarf a quick cold cereal breakfast (I will try to remember to take pics) and rush off to get to work by 4:30. I open Wed. and Thur. which means 4:30. Otherwise it's 5. So you won't hear from me until after I get home, probably not before about 3pm. I know I have some product testing to do after the regular work is all done. I will take my camera, never fear! It also means an early bedtime (it's 9:15) to be able to function in the morning. Sigh. I hate Tuesday nights. Crap, I just realized I need to clip my fingernails, too, before going to bed. Good night! I know I'll be thinking about this all day, wondering what you all are saying about me while my computer's off! Just remember that aiki_brewer will be watching you!

Remember, he is pure evil! I wouldn't want to be GC at this point! The man has a sword, and he's not afraid to use it!

Is that spring enough for you? It's the cherry tree on the sidewalk in front of our house. We planted it in 2000. No? Want more? The rhodies have just started blooming. It's probably in the mid-60's today. I was just sitting outside enjoying the sun on the front porch in a t-shirt and jeans. Pic came out, too and spent a minute or two writhing around on the porch before heading off to munch on the grass. Now, back to your regularly scheduled foodblog. Kasma was indeed the person I took my class from. I found her to be a great teacher. My palm sugar is in a jar like peanut butter, but it didn't look weird or anything when I bought it. Lunch was uninspiring, just leftovers from Saturday's trip to the Shanghai Dumpling Shop, a hole in the wall with unenthusiastic service but the most amazing soup-filled dumplings! They serve steamed dumplings filled with some kind of meat/veg filling and broth. When you bit into them, the broth squirts out. We also order other things and always get way too much food for just the two of us. This time we got lion's head meatballs, these baseball-sized delicately seasoned pork meatballs that are simmered in a soy-based sauce. Three come to an order, and we didn't finish one. We also ordered minced pork noodles that, in retrospect, were flavored a little too close to the meatballs, but were yummy nonetheless and garnished with cucumber. Aiki_brewer's been working on this for a couple of days. Today I finished off the noodles and one of the meatballs and had a little rice. Full, but wanting a bit of sweet, I grabbed a couple of leftover Robin's eggs (malted milk balls in a crunchy coating) from the candy jar on the (dusty!) coffee table. The candy jar was my grandma's. Now I really need to get inspired to type up a final, comprehensive list of everything my contractor needs to get done to finish my kitchen and maybe start cleaning. The cleaning is so overwhelming at this point that it's hard to know where to start at all.

Hasn't ever been a problem for me. I put a silicone hot pad in the bottom of the stock pot. I would think that maybe that provides enough of a heat sink that it doesn't affect it? I used to read them religiously, but kind of stopped a while ago and haven't been reading them lately. I love the voyeuristic thrill of hearing about other's food, but I don't shop everyday at exotic outdoor farmer's markets, or cook gourmet extravaganzas or host fantastic dinner parties with 37 courses. 360 days a year I probably eat cold cereal for breakfast. Typically one of us cooks something that lasts 2 or 3 days and we eat leftovers. I'm cooking every night for this just so you all don't get bored! (What, leftover curry again?) I guess I'm just worried that I won't measure up to the high bar set by all the previous bloggers.

Wow, so many questions to answer! I'm glad you're all enjoying this. Part of me is amazed that anybody's that interested in what I eat for a week. Wow, that is a coincidence. Every year in his Christmas stocking, I give aiki_brewer an issue of Skeptics magazine. The best was the issue that had the Mythbusters (also local faves) on the cover. And as to whether he uses his powers for good or evil, I guess that depends on whether you are good or evil, doesn't it? Perhaps he will chime in on this one. That's me at about age 4. This is what I look like now, taken in the demolished kitchen in about February, while the heat was still off. Aiki_brewer is next to me. Right now, with the mindset I'm in today (I'm pissed - see this morning's post in my reno thread as to why. But right now, I just want to scream noooooo! don't do it! We started off so placid and peaceful, and everything was great, but now, three months later as things drag out, I am so over the whole remodeling thing. I highly recommend the Kitchens forum on GardenWeb. That and a lot of wine! Yes, if the fridge repair guys hadn't said they'd replace it, I would have asked GC to pay for it and the labor to install it. As of right now, nobody gets anymore money until this is all done, and if it's not done by Friday (he promised last Friday), nobody gets anything. Period. I haven't been much on eG at all in the last few months. All summer I lived over on GardenWeb researching and focusing on planning the kitchen. A girl can only spend so much time online every day. Thanks! I'm finally getting the hang of production, and Easter went relatively smoothly - my first holiday. I do remember - I was so enamored of it all! The gloss has worn off a bit now, but overall it's still a pretty good place to work. We don't make Princess cakes, though. Sorry! I use MaePloy curry pastes. They are in about a pint-sized container and last forever if you keep them in the fridge. We did a lot in the class over 4 weeks: tom yum goong, calamari salad, pad thai, masaman curry, mango and sticky rice, black sticky rice pudding, steamed red snapper mousse in lettuce cups, some vegetable dishes, pad ga prow (one of my faves and so easy!). The only thing we didn't make that I also love is larb! I actually prefer a Thai brand of fish sauce (we had a whole lecture on fish sauce in the class), but I can usually only find it at Thai markets, so I just go with Tiparos instead. A non-local aside, but there are great Thai markets in Thai-town in LA. On a recent No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain was all over Thai town. I was stunned he didn't see the Thai Elvis at Palms Thai since he was at a bakery literally right next door. But since we don't get down to LA more than twice a year anymore (we are both originally from Orange County), trips to Thai town are a rare luxury. There is a Thai market in Berkeley, and a tiny one here in SF as well. OK, on to breakfast! When I have the time, I like to start off with some fruit. This time of year it's grapefruit. When I was growing up, we always had some fruit with breakfast. My favorite then was sliced bananas with lots of sugar and milk! For some reason, my camera did not want to shoot the grapefruit in focus. Of about 6 shots, this was the best one: Now that I know where all my pots are, and we have eggs again, I could make scrambled eggs. I know that the common reasoning is that you cook them low and slow, but I find that they work for me just fine if I cook them pretty quickly. Some butter in the pan (oops, notice that the stove isn't quite level front to back as the butter slides right to the back of the pan), let it heat, toss in the eggs, and bing bam boom, you have scrambled eggs. Add a toasted bagel, and it's a huge breakfast! I washed up and emptied out the kitchen while my water for tea was in the microwave. I could get the kettle out, but it's just one more thing to put away every day right now. I'm now done with my tea and while I could and should go to the gym, I want to be here when/if GC shows up today. There's a can of whoopass in my kitchen, and I need him here when I open it.

I'm steaming. Steaming! When GC reinstalled the cabinet doors on Friday after having them repainted, they still didn't match. At the time, I was thinking, "OK, I just want this to be done, I'll live with it. I don't know why they're not matching, but I'm just going to live with it." That was until this morning. The little shim that's been holding the new access door under the house closed had stopped working, so I was looking for some way to hold the door closed so the cold air wouldn't come into the house. Ahh, paint cans in the garage! So I grab one paint can. It's marked "Kitchen ceiling and cabinets." Looking at the label it's eggshell finish. From Day 1, I have said that the cabinets are supposed to be satin. They are the same color as the ceiling, but not the same sheen! And even knowing that's written on the can, GC had the nerve, the living, ever-bloody nerve to look me in the eye and say he didn't know why the finishes weren't matching either! I am as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Gone is the nice me that asks as neutrally as I can for something to be fixed. I'm pissed. I want to move into my kitchen, goddamit, and I'm tired of GC's f**kups and excuses and 3-hour days. Assuming he shows up today, of course, I have a list of things that will be completed today. Period. And the cabinet doors, shelves and appliance panels will go back to the shop with the correct paint today to be repainted. AGAIN. And the kitchen is to be 100% done by Thursday. Period. And all the other little niggling things that have been eating away at me (little piles of dirt that don't get swept up or vacuumed) are going to be done by Friday. I want them gone and out of my house and so help me I never, ever, ever want to do another remodel.

He has a name, you know. And even a EG log-in! Yes, aiki_brewer is Husband. He is a second-degree blackbelt in two different martial arts (aikido and iaido) and an avid homebrewer. He's been brewing now for 10 years and just brewed batch number 123, a dandelion rye. We've been married for 12 years and only furry children. Well, it's just the one wall in the dining room, but I love it too. Made quite the scene when we'd first moved in and had no blinds. Neighbors could watch us painting it. After the sedate beiges and mauves of the previous owner, I'm sure it was startling. I'm not sure how to pull off the photos; I'm sure the owner wouldn't mind, but I'll check with him first. Then again, how am I supposed to get any work done if I have to wipe my hands off every 3 seconds to take a picture??? I find the same thing to be true at 99 Ranch as well. We're two, not one, but the same thing applies in many cases. Do I really need a whole pound of ginger? The idea of packaged produce somehow strikes me as wrong, certainly wasteful. San Francisco recently banned styrofoam packaging for food. I wonder how this will effect 99 Ranch and the large supermarkets. After dealing with the refrigerator repairmen who claimed I had no warranty and that I'd bought my fridge in 2002 , I set them straight, showed them my receipt and receipt of delivery and then watched them cavalierly make a huge scratch in the freezer door handle with the refrigerator door! They said that the doors hadn't been put on properly (they'd been removed when the fridge made its way through the kitchen window on a crane), and tried to say that it wasn't their fault that the freezer door handle now had a 3-inch gash in it! I said, "No way. You knew the door wasn't level, but you didn't take any care to prevent what you did. You're replacing it." They did realign the freezer door and told me to wipe out the frost (such helpful fellows, these), but they wouldn't touch the fridge door -- "not under warranty" they said. So I have to get GC, my general contractor, to remove the door and reinstall it properly, which he should have done in the first place. So after that, I needed a breather and a little pick-me-up. And what's better to pick one up than Pocky! I really adore the mousse Pocky and am quite partial to the purple yam variety, though I think they were a seasonal or temporary thing, and I haven't seen them in quite a while. Aiki_brewer goes to practice Monday nights after work, so I go ahead and make dinner on my own. We have a long-standing arrangement that we alternate cooking dinner by the week. If it's his week, he usually will make something Sunday night so I just have to reheat it. But we worked it out so that it's my week, and tonight it's Thai green curry with chicken and eggplant. Finding the rice, pots and pans was fun and only required moving and opening about half a dozen boxes. What's especially awkward about this phase in the remodel is that the kitchen is fully functional; all the outlets work, the lights, the sink, garbage disposal ( ), etc. But I can't put anything away yet, so making dinner involved a lot of running back and forth to the dining room for things. And, of course, after dinner, it all has to go back in the dining room until tomorrow. I started with the rice. In my Thai cooking class, we learned a technique for steaming rice that will guarantee it never overcooks and won't crust onto the pan. Also, the pot I was using for the curry would have been the rice pot, so I needed an alternate method. I also don't have a rice cooker. What you do is this: In a heat-proof bowl (I use Pyrex), measure out your rice and cover by about 3/4-inch of water. It's been a while since I made rice this way and only remembered halfway through that it should have been boiling, but it seems not to have mattered. Place the bowl in a large stockpot on the stove with about an inch or so of simmering water in it (I put in a silicone hot pad to cushion the bowl). Cover and steam for about half an hour. You can even turn the heat to low once the rice is done, and it will stay warm that way. So I put the rice on and prepped the rest of the ingredients: chicken thighs, baby eggplants, some frozen peas, asparagus, basil, and kaffir lime leaves. It's important not to shake the can of coconut milk prior to opening it. The first step is to fry up the cream on the surface. After that, it's kind of one thing after another. My curry paste isn't brand new, so it's not a bright green anymore, but it still tastes great! It took me a little bit of tweaking to get used to controlling the temperature under the pot. On my old stove, there was very little play between "high" and "off," so you'd have to bend down and watch the flame while you veerrrrry carefully turned the knob. I got good at it, but it took time. With this super-powered stove, the flame was at medium-low for most of the cooking, and down almost all the way to low while it was simmering. It's also going to take some getting used to the knob placement. It's exactly opposite the stove I use at work, so I repeatedly find myself reaching for the wrong knob, then wondering why the back burner's on when I turned the knob for the front one! Finally, time for my first dinner (grilled cheese sandwiches not withstanding): Really, this is comfort food for me. Macaroni & cheese may take the top comfort food honors, but it's followed closely by this curry. It was just spicy enough, though I'm sure aiki_brewer wouldn't have minded a little more heat. It didn't make him sweat. Over the years, I've learned to like spicier food, but I still can't tolerate the heat that he can. When I was a kid, I even thought taco meat (ground beef seasoned with one of those little packets) was too spicy! (As to the salad, we have a green salad most nights. If I'd known where my rice vinegar was, I'd have used it and some sesame oil, but I couldn't find it, so it was dressed with salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Yes, I know it doesn't make a very authentic meal, but so what? This is how we eat.) Aiki_brewer and I have a bad habit of watching tv while we eat, sitting on the sofa. There are placemats on the coffee table all the time, except when we have company. Usually, we use cloth napkins, washing them each week, but with the remodel, we lapsed and have been using paper. Nothing says "festive" like Halloween napkins in February! Lastly, dessert. We are big dessert eaters (surprised?) and almost always have something to round out a meal. Tonight we finished off last week's ice cream, from a local place called Mitchell's. They sell real half-gallons and make their ice cream in small batches, on site. Over the years, they've added flavors like Thai tea, ube (purple yam) and macapuno (young coconut) because they have a real following with the Filipino community. Double Rainbow, another SF original, may be my favorite vanilla, but Mitchell's wins hands down in the overall competition. Tonight, it was Mexican Chocolate, a chocolate ice cream with a hint of cinnamon in it. I'm stuffed and yawning. The dishes are done and stashed back in the dining room, the lights are off in the kitchen, and aiki_brewer's already in bed. We are not night owls, though on Fridays and Saturdays he will frequently stay up until around midnight. I rarely make it past 11. During my work week, I'm usually falling asleep on the couch by 8:30, but then again, I do get up before 4. More tomorrow!

Oh, so that explains it! I will go through bouts of neatness where I will clean off the desk in a frenzy, put things away, etc. and then within a matter of days, it's back to its old messy self again. I guess I should just embrace the messiness! Strangely, I am hyper-organized except when it comes to clutter (see dining room photos above - each box is labeled, and I have a rough idea of where things are, but the overlying mess makes it nearly impossible to dig through!) I have. I haven't been successful getting my own starter going, but I do have a culture in the fridge. Since I got my job at a bakery, going to the effort of making my own bread seems a little, oh, not worth it, when I can bring home a baguette for free any time I want. But I did get some pretty tasty sourdough, and would make it about once a week. Palm sugar is made from palm trees and is common in southeast Asian cooking. After a trip to Thailand 3 years ago, I came back enamored of the cuisine and determined to learn how to make it myself. I found a woman in Berkeley who's a cookbook author and cooking teacher, who teaches very popular (she has a wait list) Thai cooking classes in her home as well as leading food-based tours of Thailand periodically. We learned a lot about Thai ingredients, tasted different brands of coconut milk to get a feel for the differences in quality, and then would collaboratively make a meal of the week's recipes and sit down to a family-style dinner at the end of the night. It was a great class, and I learned a lot. The palm sugar in this case will be going into the green curry chicken I'm making for dinner tonight. It's my absolute favorite Thai curry. It helps to enhance the heat of the curry paste and soften it a bit, too. Brown sugar works, too, but as long as I have the palm sugar, why not use it? I'll get to the miso paste later. You want spring? Will this do? I took this this morning out the sunroof while driving downtown to the Container Store. Not a very interesting view, as it's downtown traffic (Union Square is about 3 blocks north of where I am), but you can see the nice blue sky. It's about 60F and breezy. I had to rush to get all my errands done, but managed to do it. Husband was kind enough to go to Trader Joe's for me yesterday morning for staples like OJ, milk, yogurt, cereal and lunch fixin's. So I just had to shop for produce and get things for dinner. We love TJ's for staples, but I'm not keen on their produce. Because why buy your produce elsewhere when you can go to this local gem, the Fruit Barn? It's about a 15 minute walk from home, but since I was also going elsewhere, I took the car. Fruit Barn was originally owned by Greek George and his wife, but they have since retired and sold the business to either George's cousin or brother, I'm not sure which. This place just oozes local charm. I love the murals that run around the top of the wall, each one naming a famous movie with fruit or veggie characters. This would be "The Grape Escape" Here's "The Last Mango in Paris" Maybe because George was Greek, but my personal favorite is Zorba the Leek (not shown), wearing a mustache and vest, and doing a Greek dance. Fruit Barn is tiny, but makes up for it by cramming in produce, bulk foods, and health foods in just about every square inch of space. Produce here is pretty basic. You won't find exotic ingredients, a huge selection of organic and non-organic produce, and sometimes they don't even have some things I'd consider more basic, like rhubarb when it's in season. There's really only so much space, and I guess they know their customers. But it's usually cheaper and better quality than you'd get at any supermarket, TJ's included. So I stick with Fruit Barn and head to the supermarket when I do need something they don't have. Here's what I came home with today: Salad stuff (lettuce, yellow bell peppers, cuke, an avocado, and mushrooms), baby eggplants for tonight's curry, asparagus, a couple of zukes, some grapefruit, lemons, basil, rosemary, Fuji apples, and a can of tomatoes. My other grocery stop was here: Since it was Monday morning (a great time to shop), and there was staff everywhere restocking the shelves, I didn't feel comfortable trying to take pictures in here, but MizDucky's recent foodblog had some great shots of her 99 Ranch. I love this place for the juxtaposition of very traditional Asian ingredients and things you'd only find in the US. Where else could you buy durian and Pringles in the same store? I usually come here when I need Asian ingredients. They're definitely cheaper than a supermarket and have a much better selection. I can choose from 10 brands of soy sauce vs. maybe 3 at a regular market, for example. Most days I love to sort of wander and just enjoy the experience - the unfamiliar ingredients, inscrutable packaging, and the great debate over whether Thai jasmine rice or Vietnamese jasmine rice would be better. But today I had a lot to do, so had to be relatively businesslike and efficient. I picked up what I needed, making a brief detour into the Pocky aisle and decided on a treat of some matcha Pocky and also grabbed some mochi (the unfrozen kind, filled with red bean jam). Here's my haul: New sesame oil and fish sauce (who knows where mine are, plus I think my current bottle of fish sauce is a bit on the old side), coconut milk (on sale for 69¢/can - Mae Ploy is also very good), Thai basil (I hope - I pricked the packaging open to sniff it once I'd purchased it - it wasn't labeled and seems to smell basilly), some basa fish fillets and chicken thighs, and the aforementioned Pocky and mochi. A quick stop at home for the photo shoot and to put everything away. I found Piccolo the cat "watching TV" as we say upstairs in our bedroom: I also managed the obligatory fridge shot before I grabbed another bottle of water and ran out again: This is the most food it's had in it since we got it in January. The takeout containers have Chinese leftovers from this great Shanghai dumpling hole-in-the-wall we went to on Saturday. No doubt they'll be my lunch tomorrow. The freezer's a lot emptier. Most of the stuff's downstairs in the spare garage freezer because of this: I'm currently waiting on the repair people and crossing my fingers that because it's under warranty, whatever's wrong is either fixable, or they won't hassle me about replacing the fridge. After running a couple more errands, I met a couple of friends for lunch at one of my favorite spots, which I discovered when I was temping a few blocks away. It's in an unlikely area, near the Design Center, and a quasi-industrial neighborhood bordering on residential. I wasn't initially impressed with their burritos, but when I discovered their soft tacos one day when I didn't have much money for lunch, I was instantly hooked. These little gems are only $1.50 each and come jammed with your choice of meat, topped with some diced onions, cilantro, and house-made salsa. Topped with a squirt of lime juice, they're heavenly and worth the drive across town. Lucky for me, I was already in the neighborhood. Being in the same city counts, right? This place is always busy, from the Culinary Academy students to designers to people who work in the offices a few blocks away. We were lucky to get in when we did because not 15 minutes later, the line to order was about 10 deep, and we got the only booth in the place. Most of the place is stools and decorated with very bright paint and hot sauce bottles. I had my usual: two carnitas soft tacos, and because this is my Saturday, a Negra Modelo. Within about 3 minutes, my order was up, and I picked up some salsa to go with the chips we got for the table. The red salsa was a nice, roasted tomato with just a hint of heat. The green tomatillo salsa was spicier and had a nice kick to it. Kira had the same tacos, but made "super" with the addition of guacamole, cheese, and sour cream. I kind of like the simplicity of the basic version, but after seeing her plate, I might have to rethink that next time around: These tacos are so good. I'm not even sure I can accurately describe their deliciousness. Something about the combination of the buttery soft shards of pork, the bite of the onion, the herbal freshness of the cilantro, the earthiness of the corn tortillas, and the spark of lime juice combines to make one damned fine taco. Hours later, I'm still savoring the taste of it. I should go downstairs to do something like start cleaning or at least finish cutting the shelf lining for the cabinets. The doorbell's been disconnected during the remodel, and it's sometimes hard to hear a knock at the door when I'm back here at the computer. I'll be back later.

Good morning! I feel much better after a lot of lovely, lovely sleep! Mondays and Tuesdays are my weekend days, so I have plenty of time today to get this thing off to a good start, go shopping (with Easter yesterday, there wasn't time), and dig out the tools I'll need to make dinner tonight. They're somewhere in this mess: When I packed up the kitchen after Christmas, I started with the less used stuff and worked towards the stuff we use all the time. Ideally, that should mean that the stuff I'm most likely to need will be close to the top. So far, I've found my cast iron skillet, Husband's moka pot, the popcorn popper, the waffle iron and my pizza stone. Still, I think I have fairly ambitious plans this week. I don't know that it will be either, actually. It will be based on what I know I can find. After three months of soups and casseroles, I'm craving lighter foods and more fresh veggies. Right now, I'm enjoying my breafkast while I write. I took in bagels to work yesterday morning for my crew, especially those who came in early or on an off-day to help crank out the morning's production, larger than usual because of the holiday. There were leftovers, so I am taking a break from my usual bowl of cereal for this, an everything bagel with smoked salmon/chive shmear and a bit of OJ: I haven't completely unpacked my dishes yet. Where would I put them? So I'm using the last paper plate. Boy, is this a delight! I'm practically licking the plate to get up all the goodies that fell off the bagel: caraway seeds, poppy seeds, salt, bits of onion... Yes, I do work in a French bakery, but even heavenly croissants get old and a person needs a break. A bit about my work. A few years ago, out of work and burned out as a graphic designer, I got hooked on eGullet at one particularly slow temp job. I was starting to think about a career change to pastry. I'd always enjoyed baking, why not? I began to focus and get intent on the science of baking and ultimately went to Tante Marie's here in San Francisco. It was a six-month part-time pastry program and about 1/3 the price of the California Culinary Academy, also here. I really enjoyed it, and Husband's coworkers loved eating the fruits of my labors! After I got out of school, I got a job at one of the top French bakeries, a boulangerie that does more rustic pastries. We do amazing croissants and French bread. I do tarts, mostly, but we also make pound cakes, madeleines, financiers, macarons, the lovely cannelés de Bordeaux, cookies, etc. We only make one cake, a flourless chocolate one. Generally, I like my job and the people I work with. I've been there just under two years now. Last month I was promoted to production manager (there are 8 people in my department) which means that I have to figure out what gets made, how much of it, who makes it, each and every day. I do get production numbers so I know how many of a particular thing to make, but there is an art to knowing whether we have enough madeleine batter, or it should be mixed today, for example. I do promise to take you all to work with me one day! Time for tea (and a typical shot of my very, very, very messy desk: I tried to learn to like coffee when I was in my early 20's, but found that it made my stomach jittery and fluttery so I happily went back to my first love: tea, which I had discovered at 13 on a family trip to England. I do occasionally (maybe twice a year?) have a mocha or frappucino-type beverage, but I really don't even like coffee ice cream. Husband is a coffee fiend, however. (He's also a homebrewer, but that's all for another post, I think). Lately, I've been drinking generic green tea from Trader Joe's. I have a busy morning: grocery shopping, getting new glass cut for the cabinet doors in my kitchen, meeting a friend for lunch at my favorite taqueria, all to be back here by 1pm. My new freezer's started getting frosty ever since it was moved into the kitchen from its first home in the dining room. So I will rush around only to come home to wait until probably 4:30 when the tech shows up. Oh, my teaser shot: From the top, going clockwise: cherry juice, palm sugar, flour, miso paste, and I'm sure you all guessed the lemon in the middle! Tonight's dinner will feature the palm sugar, but I'll be prepping the miso paste into a marinade for tomorrow's dinner.

Pssst! I guess I'm shilling for myself here, but look who's foodblogging this week? me!

I have to start cooking tomorrow. I haven't cooked dinner since the beginning of the year. I don't even know where my pots are, but somehow I have to find them. Hi, I'm Jennifer, and this is my foodblog. I have been posting about my kitchen remodel here. for the past few months. With all my heart, I wished my remodel would have been complete on Friday, but there are a few details left to handle (like dusting out my cabinets) before I can begin moving back into my kitchen. With luck, I'll be able to actually start putting things away and getting to know my new kitchen this week. I definitely have to start cooking again, as the homecooked frozen dinners I squirreled away last fall finally ran out at the end of last week. My husband and I live in San Francisco. He's a technical writer; I'm a pastry cook/production manager at a French bakery. We're both "near" 40. Join me as I try to settle in to my new kitchen, adjust to the taller counters and expansive storage, fine tune where everything goes, and adapt to having to cook again. I have a new professional-style range. I'm not entirely sure that I won't just burn everything with the intense heat it produces. Right now it's quite late for me. Typically I go to work about 5. As in a.m. Today, being Easter, I went in at 3, which meant getting up at 2:15 a.m. I did get a nap, but a good amount of wine at my brother's Easter fest and plenty of good food means that by now I'm just about wiped. I apologize in advance for the typos I know are lurking in this, but I wanted to introduce myself and get this foodblog rolling. Answers to snowangel's post of my teaser photo tomorrow. At least one of you had one ingredient right. See you tomorrow morning!

Ok, you all remember way back at the inspection stage, when GC found out that San Francisco requires separate inspections for the plumbing, electrical, and framing, and all the hoops to jump through to get the initial inspections done? (Electrician had to call for the inspection, could only call between X and Y hours, etc) Well, guess what's true at the other end of the project? Yup. The building inspector signed off on the construction, but GC has to get the plumbing inspector back out to check that, yup, we installed shut-off valves under the sink, and the electrical inspector out to make sure that we met the Title 24 high-efficacy lighting requirements and that the outlets are all wired correctly. (big sigh) I was so hoping to have a finished kitchen to show you this weekend, too! Also, the very last of the frozen food is gone. I have to start cooking next week! So instead I decided to give you teaser photos - little bits and pieces of what's completed. First, come in and turn on the lights: Open a cabinet. Grab a glass: Get yourself some water: While you're at the sink, see if you can spot the airswitch for the dishwasher: Try out the stove! It's really powerful! Did you notice the tile? I hope to start moving into the kitchen by Wednesday, which sucks, since Monday and Tuesday are my days off, and I already have to be home most of Monday waiting on the fridge repair guy. Oh well. What's a few more days?

Word of advice: If you are heating your new pro stove up to 475F to bake a pizza, and your GC has left 3 smoke detectors on the counter waiting for install, remove the batteries BEFORE you turn on the oven. I'm surprised the fire department didn't roll up. And this is in a clean oven, just from the heat generated by the preheating oven! Pizza sure was good, though. I love their cornmeal crust pizzas. Safety point: Dave the electrician recommends replacing your smoke detectors every 5 years.

I will continue to taunt you with no pictures, but fill you in on the work going on. GC has promised a Friday inspection and wrap up. I'm sure there will be niggling details here and there after that, but as long as I can start moving things in, I'm happy. On Monday Dave the Electrician came over and installed all the plugs (woo hoo! Plugs!), lights (woo hoo! lights! I'm especially glad to have the one in the back stairs installed. Going down those stairs (to the garage) in the dark always made me a little nervous, and switches. Wow, so much light! The undercab lights are great, even if the light they throw seems a little, er, green. They add just the right amount of light to make working, say, at the baking center, perfect. Dave installed the Title 24-ready fluorescents in the ceiling. These will come down as soon as the inspection is done and signed off. I already hate them. They're cheap, ugly, and the globes above the sink are giving me flashbacks of the 70's. But overall, it's great to have light over the sink counter that I'm not casting shadows into. It's also really great, I found this morning, to be able to just turn on the undercab lights, first thing in the morning (which for me is about 3:45) and not have to have a ton of light on. Tuesday, oh, Tuesday! Tuesday I got my faucet, disposal, and dishwasher. Forget the fancy counters. I'm in love with my garbage disposal! The thing is so quiet that you hardly hear it at all, even when it's grinding up food. The old one (and InSinkErator Badger) sounded like it was grinding up badgers (hence the name? ). Husband asked, "How do we know when it's done?" I kept putting things down it while I was making salad (instead of composting) just to be able to use it! The airswitch in the counter is spiffy, too. Once I've oiled the counters, you'll hardly even see it (I opted for black). So after one day, I can heartily recommend the new InSinkErators And to have a dishwasher again! To celebrate, we pulled out the china plates (everyday, not the good stuff) and ate dinner with real silverware. It truly felt hedonistic to put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher! See what 3 months of paper plates does to a person? Turns out the stove is supposed to be the way it is. As long as the knobs don't get hotter than 170F, it's within specs. So I guess I need to get used to it. I plan on cooking a Trader Joe's pizza tonight - I do, at least, know where my pizza stone is. See how it does on that. The cabinet doors went back to the painter's shop yesterday to get the right sheen on them. I don't know how they came out eggshell and the boxes something else, but this isn't exactly the first time nobody paid attention to what I told them. As long as they match and are easy to clean, I don't really care at this point. I just want my kitchen done! I'd hoped to be able to make desserts for Easter at my brother's (17 adults, 20 kids), but I think I'll just do them at work instead. I'd have to find my pots and pans, dig out the mixer, etc, not to mention find the time to do it all. But next week I should be cooking!

The tile is going in (well, OK, it's in, and being grouted). Who knew there were so many different colors of grout available? It seriously made my paint choice for the cabinets seem easy by comparison. I went back and forth between two off-whites: a cooler one and a warmer one, ultimately picking the warmer one (but it was close). Ultimately, the decision was made for me because the warmer one was only available by special order, so it's the cooler one. The faint hint of color should just set off the pattern in the tile and not scream "dirty" instead. But I decided to hold off on pictures until the big reveal! Let you all just imagine how it's coming together. The tile is really looking good and finishes off the kitchen nicely. Now if I could just get my freezer to stop frosting up! GC says he's trying to get the electrician and plumber here tomorrow to wrap their things up, which would mean light fixtures, plugs, a working sink and dishwasher. Wow, that's like a complete working kitchen! I could actually do a whole dinner in there! Now, where was that saucepan again? And where's the pasta? And my utensils? The tilers are also going to regrout my shower, floor, and countertop in the bathroom. Just before putting the house on the market, the previous owners redid it, did it themselves, and did it poorly. Even when we moved in, the shower already looked horrible, and it had only been finished a few months! Now add eight years of daily use, non-daily cleaning, and you have a really icky looking shower, even when it's just been cleaned and the grout scrubbed within an inch of its life. No wonder people don't stay with us. This will mean showering at the gym for a couple of days, but no biggie; it's only a couple of blocks away. Husband's work has showers, and he can shower there. I bought shelf liner over the weekend, too. All those pretty new cabinets, gotta protect 'em with something! Clear Lifeliner for most of the shelves, but cork for the pot drawers and pullouts that will have cookware on them. Part of that is because those are all natural wood tone, not painted, part of it is for the damping effect the cork will have on the pots. OK, I'm crazy. So as I started cutting out the shelf liner this afternoon (since many of the shelves are in my living room and out of the way of the tilers), I came across a shelf I can't place. It's about 16 inches wide (along the painted edge), painted, but about 30 inches deep. What on earth do I have in the kitchen that meets that dimension??? I still haven't figured it out, even after going in there to look. After some further research on the heating problem on my stove, it appears that this is typical of the range, within UL limits, and just the way it works. I guess I will have to get used to it. Good thing I have those "asbestos fingers" I inherited from my mom. With some of the key elements (plumbing, electrical) not complete, it's kind of hard to believe that we are truly almost done with this remodel. There are things to finish outside of the kitchen, of course: painting, wall patching, more painting, installing things like doorknobs, but it will be a little bit strange when I come home from work and there's nothing new to look at (or freak out over). I guess then it's time to start cleaning. I've let the living room and dining room get into quite a state.