eG FoodBlog: Jensen

[Jensen]

I'm not going to start my "official" blogging until tomorrow but, while I've got a few free minutes, I thought I'd at least introduce myself.

My name is Jen Jensen and I live in Sacramento with my husband and 14 year-old daughter, Kathleen (AKA the Spawn). We are imports from BC (Canada) and have lived here for 5 years now. I "retired" when we moved here, as I only have a "live" visa, not a "work" visa. Before moving here, I worked as a technical writer on various IT and business process projects.

My hobby is dog racing (whippets, not greyhounds) so we also live with four of the five dogs I own. Living here in CA with us are Streaka (AKA Über--as in Streaka über alles.); Tighe (AKA Goober, because it rhymes with Über and matches his personality); Dayton (Dids); and Rogie (meiner Deutscher Junge), whom I co-own with a friend back home. My fifth dog, Derby, is Tighe's daughter and lives with my friend in BC.

In the coming week, I'll be eating at home, eating out, and (most exciting of all) eating at Tigh-na-Mara, a spa/resort on Vancouver Island in BC. The trip to Tigh-na-Mara is why I won't be starting until tomorrow ... I want to be able to include my meals there in the blog.

Until tomorrow ...

[ronnie_suburban]

Very much looking forward to you blog Jen. I have a very special place in my heart for you because you are my Meyer Lemon Connection

=R=

[Jensen]

Yes, I am the lemon connection. Which brings up another little tidbit about myself that I neglected to mention ... I don't drive. Not a big deal in the more enlightened urban centres of the world but, unfortunately, Sacramento ain't one of them!

And why does the lemon connection bring this to mind? well, I owe Ronnie a box of lemons and I haven't remembered to ask at the grocery store for a box while I was there with a licensed driver.

Yes, that's right ... I often go grocery shopping on foot. The nearest grocery store is just over a mile away so I don't buy too much on any one trip.

Oh, the plans I had for this morning! I'm part of a book club that meets once a month at a different member's home. While there, we all eat breakfast. One of the members is a hard-core vegetarian so I'd set myself a little private challenge ... make the entire breakfast vegetarian, without seeming to be vegetarian and without using any fake meat products.

So I had this idea for a breakfast dish for book club...sort of a strata, with layers of thin pancakes, grilled vegetables (zucchini and eggplant), tzaziki, a roasted tomato sauce, and topped with feta cheese. I thought today would be the perfect time to try this idea out. If it worked, it would look wonderful and make a great photo contribution. If it didn't, I could always put some granola in a bowl, top it with some homemade yogurt, and pretend the whole strata thing never happened. Who would know?

Oh, I was practically dancing with glee! My first blog meal had the potential to be visually stunning! Who cares what it tasted like? I could make that part up!

Then, yesterday, on my way home from the grocery store, I stopped in to say hi to our friends who live around the corner, Marge and Bob.

Me: So, did I understand Wayde right? Are we going out to Foresthill for dinner tomorrow night?

Aside: I wonder if anyone will mind if I take pictures of the food. What if the restaurant isn't any good? What if it's [gasp] pedestrian?

Marge: No, not dinner ... brunch!

My first reaction was "Yeah! Brunch! That's even better than going out for lunch!"

Then I remembered the strata thing. Oh well....

So, breakfast this morning is simply C-O-F-F-E-E. It's not even espresso with wonderful clouds of foam swirled into it. It's just plain old coffee. Well, not just plain old coffee I guess; I do buy Peets' coffee. I like the French roast, which is too strong for Wayde (gives him migraines), so I just make a small pot...two cups. And that's my coffee quotient for the day (otherwise I get a migraine!).

Oh, there won't be any pictures of my kitchen in this blog, unless I scan in some magazine ads for high-end kitchens, artfully excising the model from the photo and skillfully inserting a whippet or two for authenticity. Being non-resident aliens (technical INS term), we can't take advantage of a number of banking opportunities here ... no 401K and no mortgage (unless we want to pay a gazillion percent interest--hey, we might be foreigners but we ain't stupid!). All that to say that we live in a rental in an older, established neighbourhood. Let's just say that the kitchen is original and leave it at that.

[SobaAddict70]

Do your husband and daughter know about eG?

More importantly, do they lurk? heheh.

Looking forward to your blog.

Soba

[ludja]

Cool idea to have your bookcllub meet in the am for breakfast/brunches. Since I'm a huge breakfast fan I think this would be a fun way to come up with all kinds of interesting fare. Our club meets in the early pm though and don't know if they'd give up their wine to accompany our discussions...

Looking forward to your blog and hearing a little about Sac-Town over here in the bay area.

[Jensen]

Wayde has his own discussion forum where he hangs out; it's all about Honda VTXs. And, after making a couple of poor decisions regarding the Internet, the Spawn no longer has access (yeah, that's right ... busted surfing porn sites!).

I did mention the blogging to Wayde last night, once I knew that we were going out for brunch today. I could probably take pictures of food at home without having to explain anything (which may or may not make some sort of statement about me) but, if I want to take photos at brunch, I reckoned I'd better let him in on the deal.

[kimabima]

Hi Jen!

remember me? I live in Victoria. I stayed at Tigh na mara last year- a lovely spot. We had their Sunday brunch- it is good not highly creative but not bad either.

The weather here has been sunny but with a biting cold wind so come prepared!

Looking forward to reading about the life of a canuck in CA.

[Jensen]

Our plans for Tigh-na-Mara so far are dinner in the Cedar Room on Friday night (Fanny Bay oysters! Be still my heart!) and then dinner in the cottage on Saturday night. One of my sisters is a "healthy cook" (it tastes like cardboard but it's healthy cardboard) but my other sister, Linda, is an incredible cook. I'm sure she'll be in charge of the dinner plans. She'll likely be enthused with the whole blogging idea too.

I'm not sure what we'll do for the other meals ... I imagine we'll be out exploring. I'm hoping the Coombs market will be open.

Ludja...this book club I'm in is really cool. They take field trips! Before I joined, they read "Under a Tuscan Sun" and then some of them took a trip to Italy for three weeks! (Okay, they ended up in Umbria, not Tuscany, but still...) After reading some Steinbeck, they took a long weekend in Monterey. More recently, they planned a trip to Arizona to see the desert in bloom. I was never clear on what inspired the trip but I went along anyway.

Edited March 28, 2004 by Jensen (log)

[nessa]

(AKA Über--as in Streaka über alles.); Tighe (AKA Goober, because it rhymes with Über and matches his personality

How funny!!

My most common nickname for my dog Hoover (vacuum not president) is Uber Goober! And he is, thats labs for you!

I'm looking forward to your blog.

[Jensen]

It's been a great day so far (even if ALL my food plans have been changed ).

We picked up our friends at 10:30 and headed out to Foresthill where we would have lunch at the Robber's Roost restaurant. Marge and I ended up ordering the same thing (Snow Crab and Tomato Eggs Benedict) and the guys ordered the same thing as well (steak and eggs).

Here's the eggs Benny:

The eggs were perfectly poached; the white was cooked through and the yolk was runny ... just how I like them. Just below the egg was a tomato slice and then below that was a crab cake (presumably made with snow crab). It was very tasty. It came served with potato cakes and fruit salad. The fruit was nice but the potato cakes were quite bland. Not even salt helped them

I took a picture of Wayde's plate as well but he wasn't waiting for me to take it (hence the knife and fork in the picture):

The guys liked their breakfasts too.

After we'd done, we found a small backroad that ran between Foresthill and Colfax. With a name like "Yankee Jims" road, how could we not take it?

It added a fair amount of time onto our trip but we got to see scenery like this:

Okay, that wasn't food related but what the hell ... I'm in the blogging seat now!

We stopped at an old suspension bridge over the American River and watched some kayakers shoot the rapids. I went to check out the cable anchors and found some Miner's Lettuce growing there:

I tasted one little piece ... it tasted very green.

Once we got back on to a larger road, we headed for Auburn so that we could jump onto Highway 49 towards Placerville. I wanted to swing by Venezio Winery to buy a couple of bottles of their port. My sister and brother-in-law love their port (as do I!) so I'll take both bottles up to BC with me later this week.

They're now selling chocolate to go with the port and, as they serve it when you taste the port, I got to sample it. Incredible! It tastes like the centre of a truffle. Needless to say, I had to buy a jar of that as well.

The winery is half way between Auburn and Placerville and both of those communities are equidistant from our house. So, rather than turn around and retrace our path, we decided to head on to Placerville. While there, we had to visit the hardware store (an old-fashioned one!); the only thing better than an old-fashioned hardware store is a good feed store!

We also took a wander through Tony Matthews, a nice kitchen store, and then headed to Z-Pie for some meat pies. We bought a case of 24 frozen pies: 12 steak and cabernet and 12 chicken and mushroom. They make a great quick dinner.

This is where the big change in plans came about. We hadn't planned on being out so long and had hoped to go grocery shopping this afternoon. Wayde promised the Spawn that he'd take her to a movie tonight. Well, we didn't have enough time for both so we'll be going grocery shopping tomorrow night and eating Z-Pies and a salad for dinner tonight.

More on that when it's dinner time ...

[Jensen]

I forgot to add that Z-Pies got a mention in Newsweek in February:

Article here

Pretty good for a little Placerville place! Wayde knows one of the owners, Marnie, so we're pretty happy for them.

[Jensen]

Geez, even my back-up plans are falling through! Yikes!

It turns out that the Spawn ate the salad fixings for her lunch while we were about so meat pie and salad became meat pie and roasted asparagus:

This is, without a doubt, my favourite way to eat asparagus. I coat the spears with EVSCCPDUOO ( my own little joke ... Extra Virgin Stone-Crushed Cold Press Decanted Unfiltered Olive Oil) and then season with some kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Then they go in a hot oven for about 10 minutes.

For the salad, I just chopped up a fresh tomato and drizzled it with a wee bit of dressing made from mayonnaise, mustard, and balsamic vinegar. The mustard is really tasty. It's homemade from all organic ingredients; I bought it at a bakery in Sonoita, AZ while I was there with my book club.

[Ling]

Brunch looks delicious, especially the pan fried potatoes.

[phaelon56]

How was the Hollandaise sauce on the Eggs Benedict? I don't think I've had decent Hollandaise on my eggs ever since the salmonella / raw egg thing became a big issue. I need to start making it at home but need a good excuse (i.e. a crowd to cook for.

[Jensen]

How was the Hollandaise sauce on the Eggs Benedict?

It was damn good

Lemony, but not overpoweringly so. Just the right amount of richness and very smooooooth. The colour looks a little fluorescent in the photo; it was more natural in real life.

[winesonoma]

Speaking of Placerville have you been to here? Great French Food. http://www.zacharyjacques.com/

Edited March 29, 2004 by winesonoma (log)

[Jensen]

Speaking of Placerville have you been to here? Great French Food. http://www.zacharyjacques.com/

I haven't but it looks great! Did you see they have a lawn bowling tournament in July? Hmmmm. I'm thinking that'd be something fun to do!

Have you been to La Provence in Roseville? We went after seeing a

review in the Sacbee. It was pretty tasty but no lawn bowling.

I think I have to take in that tournament! Thanks for the link!!!!!

[winesonoma]

Speaking of Placerville have you been to here? Great French Food. http://www.zacharyjacques.com/

I haven't but it looks great! Did you see they have a lawn bowling tournament in July? Hmmmm. I'm thinking that'd be something fun to do!

Have you been to La Provence in Roseville? We went after seeing a

review in the Sacbee. It was pretty tasty but no lawn bowling.

I think I have to take in that tournament! Thanks for the link!!!!!

Actually it's a Petanque

[Jensen]

Actually it's a Petanque

Oops. Sorry ... my grandfather used to play it and we always just called in "lawn bowling".

[rokinrev]

When I saw your name Jensen, I wondered till I read further in Phaleon's blog if you weren't the person I know who sings in my choral group.....

If you are hun, it's a long commute

and Petanque , isn't that like carribean bocci? (I grew up in RI)

Edited March 29, 2004 by rokinrev (log)

[winesonoma]

Petanque is a game from the south of France.

http://www.petanque.org/

Edited March 29, 2004 by winesonoma (log)

[Cynthia G]

Wow, Jen, went and took a look at the virtual tour at Tigh-Na-Mara. I could go there easily! Let me know if you wanna give up your room!

I was stunned that the prices on the menu in the Cedar Room are so reasonable. But maybe that's only because I'm comparing them to Santa Fe prices!

[Jensen]

Now that I look into it more, it wasn't petanque that Papa played. After your note last night, I looked it up and saw photos of the game as played in Australia. I must have been having a Homer Simpson moment not to see that it wasn't played on grass! Doh!

Here is where my grandparents played:

Canada Pacific Lawn Bowling Club

Either way, I think the tournament and buffet at Zachary Jacques' sounds like way too much fun and definitely something I should be doing!

Rokinrev: believe me, you don't want me singing in your choral group...

And now, on to my day so far!

Breakfast was my usual two cups of coffees.

This morning, I made yogurt (much discussion about making yogurt at home here). Once I got the batch underway, I started fretting that all my blathering on about making yogurt would jinx me and it wouldn't turn out.

I had to admit to myself that the real reason I am now using "visual cues" in the making of my yogurt has absolutely nothing to do with my skill level. It's only because my thermometer went on the fritz.

Accckkkk! I'd be exposed as a yogurt fraud! Yikes! Now I know how all you guys with performance anxiety feel...

Luckily though, after only a couple of hours, the yogurt is clabbering nicely. I might even stop the incubation earlier today than I have in the past to get an even sweeter end product. My last batch incubated for only 6 hours and it was great. This batch is looking almost as thick as that one at only 3 hours into the process.

Although, I wonder if shortening the incubation period would affect its usefulness as a starter for my next batch. Hmmmmm. I will have to ponder this for a while.

For lunch, I made an asparagus quesadilla-thingie. (I say "quesadilla-thingie" instead of just "quesadilla" just in case it was woefully inauthentic.) At any rate, I chopped up some leftover roasted asparagus spears, grated some queso with jalapenos, plopped it all between two tortillas, and put it in a frying pan.

Served with some purchased salsa and some homemade yogurt cheese standing in for sour cream.

As you can see, I'm trying to be artful in my plating techniques <cough, cough>. I'm wishing I had coloured plates though. Wouldn't that look so much nicer on something other than white?

Uh-oh ... more of that performance anxiety!!!

[phaelon56]

I'm wishing I had coloured plates though. Wouldn't that look so much nicer on something other than white?

Perhaps it would but did you notice how many of my plates were white? (that woudl be all of them) We have commercial china factory in town and I buy those oval plate you saw in my blog for about 79 cents each when they have a good sale. They weigh a ton but the shape is nice and one has to work hard at breaking them. Some day I'll have some cool colored plates. I'll probably juyst wait until they have their summer tent sale with lots of discontinued odds and ends and pick some up. They had some really cool black plates in both triangular and square shapes last summer but I had neither the inclination nor the space to store them at the time.

[Jensen]

Wow, Jen, went and took a look at the virtual tour at Tigh-Na-Mara. I could go there easily! Let me know if you wanna give up your room!

There are some obligations that go along with this trip that you should know about before you volunteer to take my place.

1. We're staying in one of the one bedroom cottages. It has one queen-size bed and one sofa bed. There are three of us going. That means two of us have to share a bed. I've pondered being really selfish and taking the bedroom all for myself but I will probably give my sisters the bedroom and take the sofa bed.

Obviously, the "go fuck yourself" benefits* of turning 40 have yet to take effect for me.

2. My sisters mentioned something about giving each other pedicures.

"Hmmmppph. Great prezzie for me...", I thought, "touching someone else's feet."

I did tell my sister that, since it was my birthday, I thought I should be exempt from the reciprocal pedicure thing. I'm not even sure I want them touching my feet! Maybe I'll dye my hair some wild, streaky colour whilst they are playing footsie with each other.

I was stunned that the prices on the menu in the Cedar Room are so reasonable.  But maybe that's only because I'm comparing them to Santa Fe prices! 

I'm hoping that it's because they use local products. Obviously, the Fanny Bay oysters are local (notice how I got that plug in there again? They are incredible!) but it'd be nice if the fish were truly local as well.

* Several years ago, when one of my friends turned 40, another friend told us that, for a woman, her 40th birthday was her "go fuck yourself" birthday. That's the point at which you can tell someone to go fuck themselves and then NOT feel guilty about it afterwards.