eG Foodblog: tammylc - (and Liam)

[tammylc]

Who does the decorating in the common area? I ask because I have a tapestry very similar to the one over Willie's right shoulder. I got mine in Guatemala.

And, a food-related question: Because your community feeds so many people, is it possible to buy things wholesale? If not, is there some kind of incorporation that would allow you to do so?

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What you're looking at is our "Art Wall." Each quarter community members are invited to bring art from their homes, and a small group picks out art to feature for that quarter. Sometimes a quarter will have a theme, and this time around it was Travel. We had a little contest where people had to match up items with their country of origin. So it's very possible that the tapestry you're looking at is from Guatemala. Although Senegal might be more likely, as we have a family where the parents met during a Peace Corp stint in Senegal.

One of the downsides of the way our meal system works is that we can't take advantage of buying wholesale or in quantity. Every time I buy a 5 lb bag of rice I'm annoyed that I can't just by the 25 lb bag next to it that costs only twice as much. Since there's no coordination between cooks in setting their menus, there's no coordinated buying either. It would also complicate the billing system, since meals are optional and different people attend different meals - splitting the cost of food items across a couple of meals would make the accounting more complex. And then there's the issue of having insufficient storage space for keeping large quantities of things like rice and flour. We do have a pantry fee that pays for stocking some staples - salad dressing, sugar, basic spices, salt, flour, etc - so if you buy something like that in a quantity larger than you're going to use for your meal, you can bill it to that account instead of factoring it into the cost of your meal.

This is something that I'd like to see us do better, and perhaps over time we'll be able to develop a different system that would allow us to do so.

[tammylc]

Making baby food. The baby food cookbooks all talk about batch cooking, but with only 2 ice cube trays and a crowded freezer compartment, I tend to do a little bit per day for a few days.

We've been really low on fruit choices other than apple sauce for a few days, so last night's priority was processing up some pears, one of Liam's favorite fruit. I just peel them, cut them off the core and pulse them in the food processor until they're in Liam size chunks. When he was little I'd puree them smooth, but now he likes his food with some texture. Then spoon them into ice cube trays, cover with plastic wrap and freeze for a few hours. This morning I popped them out into a freezer bag, thus freeing up the ice cube trays for my next project.

Even though I was most concerned about the pears, in the spirit of multitasking I started a batch of veggie lentil puree before I started working on the pears.

Here's the recipe, modifed from Annabel Karmel's First Meals:

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 leeks, finely sliced

1 c carrots, peeled and diced small

1/2 c red lentils

1/2 lb sweet potato, peeled and diced small

2 c water

Saute the leeks in the olive oil for 2-3 minutes. Stir in carrots and lentils and cook for 2 more minutes. Add sweet potatos and water. Bring to a boil, cover, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minute or until vegetables and lentils are very tender.

When this was done cooking I put it in the refrigerator overnight and then spooned it into the ice cube trays this morning after removing the pears. For a small baby, you'd puree this finely in a food processor or blender. For Liam, I just cut the pieces small and mashed it a little bit with a potato masher when it was done.

It's surprisingly tasty, and as I've mentioned before, would make a nice dip for pita chips. I'd add salt, maybe some cumin, and lots of lemon juice, then puree it well.

Cooking veggie lentil puree:

[EllenC]

Tammy, great blog. I love all the different factors you bring into it. What is the kitchen in your house like? I imagine it's pretty small with 1300 sq ft - or is it?

[Schneier]

Interesting stuff.

B

[tammylc]

Back from playgroup and lunch, and Liam is on nap #2.

Since this blog is ostensibly about what I'm eating this week, I'll back up to breakfast for a moment, when we both had our usual. I realized that I forgot to write about Liam's lunch yesterday - he had 3 cubes of spaghetti (whole wheat pasta mixed with spaghetti sauce and chopped up into bits), 1/2 c of tofu chunks, and more applesauce. In the afternoon he had some cheddar cheese chunks as a snack.

I was hungry on my way into playgroup this morning, so I stopped at Zingerman's Roadshow for a snack. I have a long post about Zingerman's planned for the tomorrow, when I'll have pictures from a bunch of members of the Zingerman's family, so I'm not going to post any now. I wanted a ginger scone, but they were all out. In true Zingerman's style, when I asked if they had any slices of coffee cake instead, she offered to cut one up for me. So I had a slice of sour cream coffee cake with walnut and cinnamon, and a lemonade.

Playgroup was fun, as usual. I hadn't had an opportunity to do much research on a new place for us to eat, so I decided to default to somewhere we'd been before. The Creekside Grill isn't the most exciting or interesting place to eat, but they have a big menu with lots of choices, ample seating space that's mostly empty by 1:30 in the afternoon, and five highchairs.

Today we had 8 moms, 1 dad, and 8 babies. Here we all are:

I could talk about what we all ate, but it was a bar and grill - it's not really all that exciting. I had a battered cod sandwich and fries, with a glass of water. The babies had a slightly more varied selection.

Closest to Liam is the food I brought for him today - a beef/potato/tomato/onion stew, the pears I made last night, and some cheerios. Across the table, James has a smorgasbord of diced apple, diced tofu dog, provolone cheese, and turkey slices.

But he'd rather eat a lemon (he ate about half of this piece, rind and all).

Apparently, so would Amelia.

Liam, on the other hand, was not so impressed by his first taste of this new food.

Maya is just starting to eat solid foods, and here dips into a vegetable medley her mom considerately cut up into tiny bites for her.

And then there's Jack ("we don't need no stinkin' spoons") about to lick some hummus off his mom's finger.

Luckily, Autumn brought her own chair to sit in. Her mom is feeding her a mixture of rice cereal and something that came in a jar - squash or sweet potato, I think.

And Stacia may only be 5 weeks old, but if everybody else is eating, why gosh darn it - she will too.

Edited March 31, 2005 by tammylc (log)

[Rehovot]

Wow, fascinating community, great food, cool blog. And the cubes of baby food are ingenious! Maybe someone already asked this question (if so, sorry), but I wondered if you could clarify how quickly the cubes defrost...? Or if they're teethable? They don't defrost and ooze inside the baggies? (A Kidless One, speaking here, but wanting to stash this info away for future reference.)

[tammylc]

Tammy,  great blog.  I love all the different factors you bring into it.  What is the kitchen in your house like?  I imagine it's pretty small with 1300 sq ft  - or is it?

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Thanks for asking, Ellen - I love my kitchen and was hoping to get a chance to show it off.

Our house has an open floor plan, with the square footage of the kitchen, dining room and living room combined at about 400 sq ft. The ceiling is slanted and goes from 8 ft at the outside to 14 ft at the peak, for a nice airy room. Here's some pictures:

It's a great kitchen to work in. The long penninsula counter makes it easy for many people to work at the same time, or makes a great buffet table for serving that way. The undercounter shelf with the toys on it used to hold cookbooks before Liam came along, and will again someday! The potrack over the window was a great find - exactly the right size, and we happened to have a stud in exactly the right place to securely mount it.

There's not a lot of cabinet space. Some people chose to add an additional base cab, but I felt that cut the kitchen off too much from the rest of the room. We have an unused short hallway leading to the third bedroom (which we made into a den, cutting a hole in the wall to connect it to the living room), so right now we have an shelf unit in there acting as a pantry. Eventually we're planning to build a floor-to-ceiling pantry into that space. One of the corner base cabs is a lazy susan. The other opens from the dining room side of the penninsula, and it's where I store all my serving pieces. That left us with a perfect narrow cabinet next to the stove for storing cookie sheets, etc. Liam loves to play in there, and pull things out all over the floor. Our favorite game is when he gets behind the door and opens and closes it to play peekaboo with us.

[tammylc]

Wow, fascinating community, great food, cool blog. And the cubes of baby food are ingenious! Maybe someone already asked this question (if so, sorry), but I wondered if you could clarify how quickly the cubes defrost...? Or if they're teethable? They don't defrost and ooze inside the baggies? (A Kidless One, speaking here, but wanting to stash this info away for future reference.) 

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Thanks! I'm really having a lot of fun blogging, glad people are enjoying reading it.

I can't take credit for the ingenuity of baby food cubes - I just got it from a book. But it sure is handy. 1 cube takes about 20 seconds to defrost in the microwave - you don't want the food hot, just room temperature. 4 cubes takes about a minute or longer, depending on what it is. It's important to stir well to distribute the heat and avoid hot spots. Leaving cubes in the refrigerator overnight would also do it. When I have to plan for lunch out in a couple of hours, like today, I'll partially defrost the cubes at home, and let them finish defrosting in the diaper bag.

While he might like to teeth on a cube, it would be awfully messy, I think. And I've never had a problem with defrosting or oozing in the bag - but it just stays in the freezer all the time, except when I'm grabbing cubes out of it.

[Priscilla]

What a cute baby! And, glad to see the traditional, well-fed, foodblog kitties.

This is so interesting.

Tammy, in planning the group meal, are there any proscribed ingredients or dishes? What has been your most popular group meal menu?

[tammylc]

What a cute baby!  And, glad to see the traditional, well-fed, foodblog kitties.

This is so interesting.

Tammy, in planning the group meal, are there any proscribed ingredients or dishes?  What has been your most popular group meal menu?

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Luckily, no one in our community is allergic to peanuts, the big food allergy everyone thinks about. But we do have some people with life threatening allergies to shellfish, particularly shrimp. Because of that, we're not allowed to cook any shellfish in common house pots and pans. You could cook it at home, but then you're supposed to serve it on paper plates.

A while back I was cooking a marinated pork loin and realized that we'd used oyster sauce, and that oyster sauce would count as shellfish. But I figured out who the allergic people were, made some calls, and determined that I wasn't going to poison anyone coming to dinner that night - they were only worried about shrimp. And since I got my oyster sauce from the half empty open jar in the refrigerator, clearly I wasn't the only person to have made that mistake!

We have a member with a non-life threatening allergy to eggplant, but residue isn't an issue, so we just have to carefully label things containing it. There are a couple people who can't eat dairy, so that's another labeling issue, and sometimes cooks will make special efforts to accomodate them.

I've gotten really positive feedback for most of my meals. The Tortilla Soup I made at the end of February got raves at the time, and is the only meal where I've had someone request that I make it again. So probably that one. (Link goes to my description over in the Dinner for 40 thread I started back when I first started cooking common meal.)

Or did you mean most popular in general? Our largest attendance has been for a couple of special events - both happening to pertain to the Jewish faith, despite the fact that we're not at all overwhelmingly Jewish. Both the Passover Seder and the Hannukah Latke feast had over 70 people attending. Can you imagine making latkes for 70 people?!

[Pam R]

  Can you imagine making latkes for 70 people?!

Yep

Still enjoying your blog - thanks!

[whatsup1]

I am really enjoying your blog, Tammy. I had no idea what a cohousing community was, and find the concept fascinating. Thank you for letting us view a slice of your life.

You said that each adult volunteers about 8 hours a month to the community. Do you cook or assist in the kitchen for all of your volunteer hours, or do you do other things as well. Along the same lines, do most of the volunteers gravitate toward one task for their volunteer commitment?

Edited April 1, 2005 by whatsup1 (log)

[Tepee]

Ooooo...lookie at the pictures of the cutie patooties! Especially Liam

Thank you for bringing us through your community meal process. Makes incredible sense. Now I wish we had one because our neighbors are Malays, Indians, Chinese and Indonesians. Just think of the menu we could have.

[tammylc]

I am really enjoying your blog, Tammy. I had no idea what a cohousing community was, and find the concept fascinating. Thank you for letting us view a slice of your life.

You said that each adult volunteers about 8 hours a month to the community. Do you cook or assist in the kitchen for all of your volunteer hours, or do you do other things as well. Along the same lines, do most of the volunteers gravitate toward one task for their volunteer commitment?

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If anyone would like more information about cohousing, visit http://www.cohousing.org/ for information and a list of communities across the country. As someone I met recently said - the best way to think of cohousing is as condos with soul.

I head cook twice each month. Each head cook shift is worth 4 hours. In addition, I facilitate community meetings twice each work season (so far seasons are either 3 or 4 months - we're still working on figuring out how best to align them with the seasons. That counts for another 4 hours across the season, for an average of 9 hours each month.

Each season there's a work survey we all fill out online, where you rate all the various jobs in the community according to your preference. A computer program makes the first draft of assignments, and then a committee meets to finalize everything. Over half of all our community work hours are for the meal program, but we think it's worth it.

There's a pretty regular core of head cooks, and anyone who expresses even a neutral preference for cleaning will end up with at least one cleaning shift per month - those are our hardest shifts to fill, despite getting 2 hours credit for what's usually at most a 90 minute job.

The most flux is probably in the groundskeeping jobs, as it's different groups of people who are interested in gardening in the summer vs. shoveling and snowplowing in the winter.

Different communities arrange their work programs differently. Sunward, just across the pond from us, has a separate meal program, and only people who cook or clean are able to eat. Because of that, they have much lower participation in their meal program than we do. But they only have 4 hours of community work per month. We felt that sharing meals was at the heart of building a happy and healthy community, so we chose to prioritize that in our planning.

[jackal10]

It sounds like a kibbutz or moshav system.

However I can't help but wonder if its a cunning scheme that allows the property developer to build higher density housing by making many of the faciliies communal.

[tammylc]

It sounds like a kibbutz or moshav system.

It's much less communal than a kibbutz, at least as far as my understanding goes.

However I can't help but wonder if its a cunning scheme that allows the property developer to build higher density housing by making many of the faciliies communal.

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Not in the slightest. In many ways, we are the developer. We worked with a development company mostly composed of people who lived in cohousing themselves. They purchased the land, but after that, the future residents worked directly with planners and architects to design the community. Everything from the site plan, common house and individual unit design was created with significant direction and input from the us, the co-owners.

Touchstone, the cohousing community under construction on the plot adjacent to ours, is higher density. They have 47 units compared to our 37, on the same size plot of land (6 acres). The residents decidd to do that in order to lower the per unit cost of the shared expenses (common house, land, etc) and make it slightly more affordable.

[tammylc]

So much to write about today! But I'll start with last night's dinner.

Tim (on the left) was the head cook, ably assisted by Jim. Tim is another great cook, and I always look forward to his meals. He's the one who met his wife while they were Peace Corp volunteers in Senegal, and about once every couple of months he makes a Senegalese feast for dinner. But not last night.

The chili was good. Served very mild, with an assortment of hot sauces on the side to spice it up. While I don't avoid heat entirely, I try to never make anything hotter than medium, and give people ways to add some heat if they'd like.

The coolest thing about dinner was that the only thing we had to bring for Liam was a kiwi! He ate chili with the rest of us, and happily fed himself bits of the shredded cheese, tortillas and pasta.

We were at the baby table. Liam was at one end (out of view). Sawyer is the little tiny head at the other end. And Becky - with baby still on board for another month - is sitting closest to the camera.

I just had a very small portion of chili before running out the door to head down to Zingerman's for the Creamery cheese tasting, but that will be the subject of my *next* post...

[SobaAddict70]

Do your neighbors know about eGullet and your Foodblog?

Soba

[tammylc]

Zingerman's has spun off a number of businesses in the region over the years, and one of the newest is Zingerman's Creamery, which makes a variety of cheeses that are sold at the deli and elsewhere. Last night's tasting was presented by the managing partner and cheesemaker, John Loomis.

Zingerman's runs about one tasting a week. They usually cost $20, and all but one that I've attended have been good. The ones that are run by Zingerman's staff tend to be the best, and the ones where they bring in an outside producer or distributor can either be really good, or really, really bad. I wrote about the recent bacon tasting here.

Last night's tasting was quite good. We got to try 11 different items over the course of an hour and a half, and hear all of John's stories about how the cheeses came to be (which basically boiled down to - cheesemakers are cheap, and never throw anything away unless they're sure it's gone bad).

Here's a shot of most of the cheeses we tasted.

As you can tell from the picture, at this point they're pretty much entirely focused on fresh and lightly aged cheeses, although they are looking to move into producing hard cheeses sometime this year - they just need to get the details worked out to be able to produce raw milk cheeses. All of the current products are made with pastuerized milk, and John says that he refuses to waste his time making hard cheese with pastuerized milk.

The tasting was really well attended, with about 30 people in the small upstairs room where tastings are held.

And now, on to the tasting notes. Tasting sheets are handed out, with four columns for each sample: Know It, Look At It, Smell It, and Taste It.

Cream Cheese (both goat and cow milk varieties)

The two different cream cheeses were presented side by side for comparing and contrasting. Both of these cheese are made with just rennet, salt and cream - no vegetable gums or preservatives. The goat cream cheese was noticeably whiter than the cow's milk, and John informed us that it's because goats can't digest certain components of grass the provide the yellow color in cow's mlk. The goat was also notiecably moister and creamier than the cow. I asked John if this was a result of choices he'd made as cheesemaker, or the nature of the milk. He expressed that he didn't like the result when the goat cream cheese got too dry, so tended to err on the side of less draining time, since it would continue to dry out some after being packaged. The cow's milk version was drier and slightly crumbly in texture, but both were very smooth on the palate and put that packaged Philly stuff to shame! The cow was sweet, while the goat was tangy, with just a hint of that characteristic goat cheese flavor. Both could top my bagel anytime.

Bridgewater

These are the ball-shaped cheeses to the far right of the picture above. This double cream cow's milk cheese is studded with ground Tellicherry peppercorns and has a mold rind. John grinds the pepper immediately before adding it to the cheese, maximizing the peppery flavor. The rind was slightly yellow and dusty looking, with a white middle studded with black pepper specks. The flavor is tangy and spicy with a strong pepper flavor. John loves pepper, and uses it to flavor four different cheeses from the Creamery.

Manchester (fresh and aged versions)

The fresh Manchester is in the middle of the right hand basket, above. This is the original double cream that led to the development of the Bridgewater. In its fresh form, it's incredibly creamy, smooth and rich - I wrote the word "creamy" three times in my tasting notes, it made such an impression. Buttery, too. John harkens back to the days before only asceptic white rinds were considered acceptable on soft cheese like brie and camembert, and this one has spots of lovely blue and green molds dotting the exterior of the edible rind.

The aged version is quite a different beast. Invented by letting as surplus of Manchester run wild, this is left to age at 50 degrees for three months. In the first part of the aging process the molds are allowed to go crazy, entirely covering the cheese. Then it is rinsed in a brine and left to age on wood boards. This is the yellow hockey puck shaped cheese next to the fresh Manchester. Inside the hard yellow exterior is a light yellow cheese that's fairly hard and a little flaky. The flavor is extremely sharp and strong, although the cheese still melts into creaminess on your tongue, evoking a hint of the fresh variety. I found the finish/aftertaste too bitter for my preferences, but many people in the room really liked this cheese. It reminded me strongly of something I'd had before, but John was unaware of any other aged double cream.

Sharon Hollow (Garlic and Chive)

This is a fresh cow's milk cheese, made in the same way as fresh goat goat cheese. It's very milky, creamy and mild. We tasted the garlic and chive version, but there are also Tellicherry Pepper and Plain versions. John recommended serving the plain topped with some roasted almonds and honey.

Moving away from the cow's milk cheeses and heading into the goats, we started by tasting a sample of goat's milk, from that morning's milking. John is incredibly particular about the freshness of his milk. All of the milks start becoming cheese with about 8 hours of arriving at the Creamery. The cow's milk come from Calder Dairy, a local dairy whose milk is from a mixed herd of Jersey's, Brown Swiss, Holstein and Gurnsey cows, rather than the exclusive Holstein herds that produce most of America's milk with high volume but low fat content and flavor. You can get their milk at Arbor Farms, and it's sold in glass bottles. And I've just heard that Calder Dairy will deliver, and I'm going to investigate a bulk buying option for Great Oak, since I'm sure other people would be interested in getting fresh local milk delivered. But I digress...

The goat's milk comes from a goat farmer cooperative in Michigan. John described the considerable difficulty in maintaining a steady supply of goat's milk, because it's very difficult to encourage goat's to kid off season.

Goat Milk

The milk we tasted was whole and unhomogonized, although it had been pastuerized (John pastuerizes his own milk at the lowest temperature allowable, which takes longer, but maintains as much flavor as possible). If I hadn't been told it was goat's milk, I would have guessed, I don't think. The only hint of that goatiness was in the lingering finish. According to John, this is how all goat's milk should be, and if it's otherwise, it's a sign of poor cleanliness of the goats. Male goats like to spray a lot, so it's important to wash the goats regularly and keep the milkers away from the males.

Little Napolean

This is the small, light yellow round on the front left of the picture. This has the strongest rind of all the cheeses, and it had an interesting stretchy texture. While the rind is noticeably yellow, the interior of the cheese was a creamy white. The taste was mild and smooth, with a little bit of a drying effect on the tongue. The cheese we were eating were about 10 days old - letting them age a little longer would bring out different flavors. For both these and the Manchester (above), the Deli generally has a variety of ages available at any one time, so you can get one that's too your liking.

Lincoln Log

This is one of the newest cheeses being produced at the Creamery, and is based on the classic goat's cheese, Boucheron. It's the large wrinkly ovals behind the Little Napolean's. The larger diameter means a smaller percentage of rind to cheese, so less of a mold flavor in the cheese. John likes a fairly thin rind on this, so after it reaches the thickness he's looking for, he moves the cheese to extra cold storage to continue aging while retarding rind thickening. The wrinkly, dry, dusty rind has a very distinctive texture and flavor that was not unpleasant - kind of chewy and maybe vegetal in flavor. The Boucheron inspiration was obvious in the flavor of the cheese, which had the tang and texture of a nice, lightly aged goat cheese.

Detroit St. Brick

This is the rectangle next to the Lincoln Log. In fact, this is made in essentially the same way as the Lincoln Log, except for the addition of ground, cracked and whole green peppercorns. The texture was a little crumblier than the Lincoln Log, and the green peppercorns gave the cheese a bright bit.

Burnt Sugar Gelato

In addition to cheese, the Creamery produces 14 different flavors of gelato, and this is my favorite flavor, with a deep carmely flavor and just a hint of burnt sugar bitterness to counter the sweet. Oooh la la.

A note on the names - all of the Creamery's cheese are named after small towns in this area of Michigan. The sample above represents most of the Creamery's selection, although there are a few that we did not try.

All tasting attendees receive a coupon for 20% off their purchases that evening, and I spent enough to earn back about $12 of my $20 investment, but that's another post...

[EllenC]

Thank you for all the pictures Tammy! Your kitchen is very nice. I like the color scheme.

[bleudauvergne]

Wonderful. I feel like something has happened to shift the crust of my reality and I am happy to dwell in the glow of Tammie's blog swelling up in between the cracks in the parched terrain called home in my mind. I feel like there's something possible in that dream of mine that one day in the small town where my mother perpetually awaits her yearly wheel of imported something - she will go for her morning walk, and stop idly by the creamery for a bit of something locally made to crumble on her luncheon salad. This dream has now been proven a possibility. (sorry for the rambling, reading Faulkner this week)

Tammie those cheeses look amazing. What did you buy? What did you buy and what do you plan to do with it?

That idea of the tasting sheet is a really great idea.

[Alex]

So much to write about today!  But I'll start with last night's dinner.

Tim (on the left) was the head cook, ably assisted by Jim.  Tim is another great cook, and I always look forward to his meals.  He's the one who met his wife while they were Peace Corp volunteers in Senegal, and about once every couple of months he makes a Senegalese feast for dinner.  But not last night.

Tim is a dead ringer for Mark McGwire, post-steroids.

Seriously, though, I'm enjoying your blog a lot. Thanks, too, for the web site link -- I learned that a cohousing community is in the works here in Grand Rapids! It'll be more urban-style than yours, though -- 15 units + common house on about one acre, with a city park across the street.

Edited April 2, 2005 by Alex (log)

[annarborfoodie]

It's so interesting to read a blog from my own hometown! I was interested in that tasting at Zingerman's last night, but I had a class at Schoolcraft Culinary Institute (french pastry part 2 - millefeuille).

We're thinking about doing the tour of the Creamery this Sunday.

[tammylc]

Wonderful.  I feel like something has happened to shift the crust of my reality and I am happy to dwell in the glow of Tammie's blog swelling up in between the cracks in the parched terrain called home in my mind.  I feel like there's something possible in that dream of mine that one day in the small town where my mother perpetually awaits her yearly wheel of imported something -  she will go for her morning walk, and stop idly by the creamery for a bit of something locally made to crumble on her luncheon salad.  This dream has now been proven a possibility.  (sorry for the rambling, reading Faulkner this week)

Tammie those cheeses look amazing.  What did you buy?  What did you buy and what do you plan to do with it? 

That idea of the tasting sheet is a really great idea.

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Of the cheeses we tasted, the only one I bought was the Manchester. Which is strange, because I'm usually a huge goat cheese fan. Guess I got my fill last night. I also bought a two year old Dutch Remeker. I'll be taking them (along with some other goodies) as a picnic lunch of sorts when I get together with a foodie friend tomorrow. More on that later, of course.

And the tasting sheets are really handy for writing up the experience after, that's for sure!

[tammylc]

Breakfast today was the usual - by now you should know to expect that. I promise to eat something else for breakfast on Sunday.

After Liam woke up from his morning nap we headed over to my friend Sue's for our weekly Friday playdate. Her son Alex is 6 months older than Liam and they've known each other since they were born. Today Sue did the cooking for babies, making "cheesy pasta blend" with pasta shapes, tomato, and lots of carrots. Liam wasn't quite up for the chunkier texture that Alex likes (being older and more sophisticated) so mostly he just ate tofu.

Alex opened right up for his mom's home cooking, though.

Meanwhile, Sue and I had soups that I'd picked up at Zingerman's Roadshow. It's a drive thru, which is great with a baby, because getting in and out of the car is a pain (pictures of the Roadshow and the rest of the Zing empire coming real soon now, I promise). She had the cream of wild mushroom, while I had the ancho beef chili. This is a lovely, moderately spicy deep dark chili with black beans and big chunks of Niman Ranch beef chuck, cooked until luscious and tender. I also had a garlic bagel and a lemonade.

I tried giving Liam some honeydew melon - one of Alex's favorites - but he was not at all impressed. But he absolutely went to town on some red grapes. He's had grapes a couple times before, but this was the first time in any quantity, and he ate them right up.

And yes, opening your own mouth wide while feeding a baby does seem to be obligatory (and completely unconscious).

About midafternoon Liam started getting cranky, but we had one more errand to run before coming home. So we bid Sue and Alex goodbye and headed to Village Corner (VC).

You'd never guess that the best wine store in town is hidden inside this grungy looking corner store in the student ghetto, would you?

Great selection, and helpful and knowledgeable staff - as long as you're there during wine staff hours. Go after 5, and you're faced with pierced and tattooed college students selling beer, cigarettes and munchies... VC has a 5 minute parking space out back - a boon in this area of town. Since I knew exactly what I wanted (two bottles of Simonet Blanc de Blanc Brut, the best $7 Alsation sparkling wine you're likely to come across), I parked there and just dashed in.

And then home, so Liam could get a nap.