eG Foodblog: Zucchini Mama - A Merry Zucchini Christmas

[Zucchini Mama]

Looks like a great itinerary, Zuke. May the horses be with you!

Christmas hugs,

Jamie

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Why that's right nayyyybourly of you Jamie! Make sure Eva gets some licorice tea and propylis throat spray. I had that nasty throat bug a week ago.

Pan, I am German, English, Irish, Scottish. My grandpa, who was German and from whom I have received my surname is Lutheran German. He came here to avoid being drafted into the Nazi Youth party. This was much later than most of the settlers of the St. Joseph's Colony, who considered themselves "German Russian" because of the way the borders were shifting at the time they left to come to Canada. My great grandpa on my dad's side was a cowboy of British ancestry who lost his first wife in a tornado in Nebraska. His wife was a secretary from Chicago who got a bit of a shock when she ended up in Luseland, Saskatchewan (birthplace of vancouver businessman Jimmy Pattison). She went from typing memos to plucking geese, and other elegant fowl. (She's the one on stage left.)

KatieLoeb, I am a longtime admirer of your posts. Gegenbauer is special. have you been to Artner?

Moosh, I hope Noah has given you a long list for Santa to keep you busy! Happy Holidays!

rjwong, I am touched as gemütlichkeit is one of my favorite words and I try to use it once a day, preferably in the act of consuming chocolate!

Hello everyone. Well, the camera battery conked out tonight, so I'm going low tech. Actually, I always feel a bit awkward taking photos at a guest's house, so I was able to really be present in the evening, which was a blessing. We live in an era of blogging, an over-documented era of railing against the inevitable organic loss of memory. Since we are humans, not cyborgs, perhaps it is more natural and comfortable to use the software we were born with to remember what is at the heart of life, that which is invisible and can not be recorded.

At the same time, there is an art to making someone comfortable enough to ask them to document their lives. My dad has that skill. He is an excellent amateur photographer with a knack for putting people at ease. It's one of those life skills you spend your life working on. I love his photographs of community events.

You know, I love an evening of great food, but when you can say the conversation was even richer, that's a great night. I am truly lucky to have such generous in laws. We started with Sumac Ridge Stellar Jay Brut. This is a B.C. bubbly that has an incredible balance of the richness of ripe yellow apples, and a crisp grapefruit acidity. After the dryness of the Cava this morning, it almost tasted of apple cider to me in comparison. This is a robust, medium-bodied bubbly with dimples in both cheeks. Okanagan sunshine.

We had the Leslie Stowe cranberry and hazelnut crisps for starters along with some parmesan pastry thins. Then we had a simple meal of barbecued salmon with steamed beans, carrots and roasted potatoes. The wine with them meal was the 2003 Nichol Vineyards Pinot Gris from Naramata B.C., which happens to be one of my favorites. It is salmon in color. It married well with the salmon, having again a bit of the cranberry pink grapefruit acidity that cuts the oiliness of the fish.

Ullie ate well. I was proud of him. He loves his grandma's potatoes. Someone should do a study of children's eating habits in large family sittings. I bet they eat more within such a group. It seems to be a natural inclination. For dessert we had an old fashioned mince pie--the kind that separates the "flexitarians" from the vegetarians. Now this pie is very citrusy and rich and I would have believed it contained suet, but I must admit I was a bit surprised that it contained minced beef. I mean when it's served with whipped cream and Warre's Warrior Port, it just tastes like Christmas. It's almost as though port was made for mince meat pie. That combination of fresh, dried and stewed cherries and plums just helps me experience the music of the lemon and orange peel in the pie. I noticed the vegetarian at the table declined the pie. She knows the beasts that lurk therein. I also noticed that my MIL said that next year she might leave out the meat altogether. The ghost of Christmas future brushed against the back of my chair.

So I asked Grandma and Grandpa C. about their memories of Christmas, particularly when they were five years old. Grandma C.: "I was a bit of a troublemaker, so I was sent to my aunt and uncles' place. They gave us each two or three presents each: a pair of skates or skis and a couple of items of handmade clothing. My dad had caught tuberculosis in WWI where he fought at Vimy Ridge, so he was spending a lot of time at the San. He had been found in the trenches by the search dogs on the last go around. Otherwise they'd have left him for dead. He had a shattered leg, and an injured shoulder."

Grandpa C: "I have vivid memories of the orphanage where I lived. I remember getting in trouble for throwing a snow ball through the window. I remember the food was terrible." Well, if living well is the best revenge, he has certainly had his. He is a member of the Commanderie de Bordeaux a Vancouver, and has a cellar full of some of the world's most beautiful wines. Tonight he is very excited that he found a Golden Mile pinot noir in a local restaurant that is velvety, full of red fruit, but subtle and well-structured. I treasure the education I have received from him.

Both of them remember a favorite Christmas when they were young and in love and she knitted him a pair of wool argyle socks. "Oh, they were red socks with a white and gold argyle pattern." She describes them vividly as if she's holding them out to me in her hands.

One of Ullie's aunts works in a café that was recently trashed in a review in the Globe and Mail. I told her about all the gossip on the Vancouver eGullet forum. She was nonplussed, as is her style. Another of the cousins has recently been to Argentina, so he was telling me about the Yerba Mate culture there, which intrigued me. Giggles, gossip, politics and philosophy. I'll take them all. Since Grandpa C. used to be a surgeon, I have to have a conversation with him about the recent "face transplant" case--fascinating.

Okay, if I can stay awake, I'll post some of the day's photos. If not, sweet dreams of port, sugar plums et al.

Zuke

[Zucchini Mama]

Ullie with "croysant"

My favorite shucker

cookie ingredients

a goody from the Fraser deli

fat chocolate pretzels

Loganberry was one of the original Vancouver Island wines.

avocado lovin' with pepper grinder/shakers from Italy

Chocolate with the little whisk I use to foam it up

Edited December 19, 2005 by Zucchini Mama (log)

[Matt R.]

Zuke.

It is possibly too late, but after consulting with a reputable source (the pastry chef where I work), you can substitute honey for sugar one to one by weight, for volume 7/8 C honey equals 1 C granulated sugar. You need to allow for moisture content in the honey, by reducing water 3 T per C of honey. Honey is also acidic, which will aid in the shelf stability of your processed jam. Depending on the pH of your recipe (does it include lemon juice?), processing and canning this jam with hot water method is not safe, as honey can contain botulism. You need a pressure canner for this, to destroy the spores.

For baking, the extra acid may need to be tempered with the addition of baking soda. On a side note, sucrose (white and brown sugar, molasses) is absorbed into the blood at a rate 5 times faster than fructose (honey), causing a bigger hit of insulin and a spike in blood sugar. Both are carbohydrates, a macronutrient, but honey contains 15 other nutrients. White sugar has none. Boy, surprised what you can remember from a textbook studied years ago.

Now, onto traditions.

Growing up, traditions were strong. Our families would alternate years hosting, either at our house in Victoria, or my Aunt's in Port Coquitlam (always knew we were close when we passed the Hell's Angels compound). I always connect holidays with Vancouver, with family in PoCo, on False Creek and later in Shaughnessy. Christmas Eve on a hide-a-bed, in a spare bedroom, or in a sleeping bag on the floor was way too exciting for a little boy. It felt like camping, and I was always the first one up.

Excellent home cooks were everywhere, and strong Scandinavian roots on my mother's side sometimes meant for unpalatable preparations of pickled fish, at least to a five year old.

Suffering the loss of my mother 13 years ago at age 16 took a major toll on traditions in our household. My dad was very strong, and kept the family together, both sides. When my aunt retired to Parksville, our gathering place changed, too. This meant a quick drive up island instead of a three day trip to the mainland.

I am forever thankful to be married to a strong, beautiful woman for 5 years now. We have two children (girl, 3 1/2, and a boy, almost 2) and are building our own traditions. Usually broke (my wife is a full time student and mother, I am a full time wage earner and father), we found making gifts for the people we love much more appreciated than another DVD or incense burner, and often less expensive out of pocket, and a much more enjoyable way to spend time together as a family. Who wouldn't rather drive out to Babe's Honey than drive to Mayfair mall to circle the parking lot for half an hour.

In the last five years, we have made compound butters (5 varieties), infused honey (five varieties... this was my favorite) sorbets and ice creams, jams, jellies and salsas, all sorts of cakes, loaves, tarts and chocolates. All handcrafted, with tonnes of love, and nicely packaged for giving. Dollar stores have proved valuable for little boxes, jars and tins. We even make dog and cat treats for those with pets! This always goes over well ...

This year, in keeping with this tradition, we are giving cookies in jars, including three varieties plus a gingerbread one, complete with stencils for next years gingerbread house. We figure people will be happy with a custom designed home. These recipies fit tightly packed in 1L Mason jars, nicely layered ingredients with simple, hand stamped instructions. Add 1 cup butter and two eggs, mix and bake. We need one more idea for this year, but we are stumped. It will come to us! It's too late for infused liquors, but maybe next year.

So, after working through some tough times and personal losses, we are finding our way and building new traditions within our own family, still staying in close touch with extended family around us. It's true what they say, you can never go back. But you can go forward.

If you have any ideas for this year or next, let me know ... my wife's last final exam is in 6 hours, and after that it's smooth sailing, until she starts her co-op term in January, that is.

-- Matt.

[Darcie B]

Pan, I am German, English, Irish, Scottish. My grandpa, who was German and from whom I have received my surname is Lutheran German. He came here to avoid being drafted into the Nazi Youth party. This was much later than most of the settlers of the St. Joseph's Colony, who considered themselves "German Russian" because of the way the borders were shifting at the time they left to come to Canada...

Zuke

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Great start to what I am sure will be a memorable blog. I, too, am from German/Russian descent and grew up in North Dakota so I will be reading eagerly. From my understanding of the North Dakotan German/Russians' route to the U.S., there was a large outmigration of Germans to South Russia because of a generous land grant program started by Catherine the Great in the 1760s. There was a large influx of German settlers to Russia in from 1763-1767, then again in the early 1800s when Catherine's grandson, Alexander I, renewed the manifesto offering special status to emigrees. (My mother's family settled near Odessa in the second wave of German settlement.)

However, Alexander revoked much of the manifesto in the mid-1840s so waves of emigrants came to the U.S. for free homesteading in the midwest. This continued until the Russian revolution in 1917. My maternal great-grandfather, conscripted into the Russian army in 1913 and finding out he was to be posted in Siberia, took his young bride and their infant daughter and set out for America. They settled in southern North Dakota.

The story is much the same on my dad's side of the family but they got out of Russia in the first wave of the 1870s-1880s.

Sadly, the Germans who remained in Russia suffered mistreatment throughout the communist reign. However, after 1989, many Germans were able to return to Germany and begin life anew in the homeland.

To get back to food, my paternal grandfather had a secret recipe for sausage that he sold to the local grocery store and sadly, which we never got from him before he passed away. I loves me that sausage! I remember going to my uncle's house for pig slaughtering. I would watch as my uncles would clean and rinse the intestines and grind the meat for sausage. My grandfather would mix up the sausage and it would get stuffed and tied. My mother and I would stir the pig's blood to keep if from coagulating, and it was later used to make blood sausage (which I just couldn't bring myself to eat).

Carry on, and I look forward to the rest of the blog!

Edited December 19, 2005 by Darcie B (log)

[Pam R]

Pan, I am German, English, Irish, Scottish. My grandpa, who was German and from whom I have received my surname is Lutheran German. He came here to avoid being drafted into the Nazi Youth party. This was much later than most of the settlers of the St. Joseph's Colony, who considered themselves "German Russian" because of the way the borders were shifting at the time they left to come to Canada. My great grandpa on my dad's side was a cowboy of British ancestry who lost his first wife in a tornado in Nebraska. His wife was a secretary from Chicago who got a bit of a shock when she ended up in Luseland, Saskatchewan (birthplace of vancouver businessman Jimmy Pattison). She went from typing memos to plucking geese, and other elegant fowl. (She's the one on stage left.)

Stories like this are so Canadian. I love it. Where is St. Joseph's Colony?

My grandmother went through much the same thing. My family (father age 3) came over from Poland/Germany in 1939 - the government shipped them off to Saskatchewan. It was a great shock to go from being business people to having a homestead in rural Sask. But my father still talks about things on the farm - milking the cows and making their own cottage cheese to stuff the perogies with, etc.

[Abra]

You know, what is really striking me about this blog is the Kookiness Factor. We all seem to take outselves so seriously, and I'm sure that if we all painted ourselves green we'd be a more interesting lot. And I love how you already have Ullie on the path to Righteous Kookiness. It's wonderful.

The oven story was so poignant to me. I too think about how other women's hands have worked with my tools and recipes. Speaking of recipes, this might not be too special if you already have a chocolate zucchini collection, but I think it's really good. This is the recipe I use.

[jamiemaw]

Zuke,

I'm very grateful for this diary. I'll never forget the day that we both appeared on the Vicki Gabereau show on CTV. You made the audience stand still with your performance. And as I recall, we also made her stand still with the response to her question as to the principal ingredient of coq au vin, i.e. "a dependable old cock." That show remains one of her, ah, most memorable - art requires risk.

I hope that you share the "Christmas Present" story with Ullie. I've read it to numerous kindergarten and primary school classes and always look forward to their reactions - virtually everyone has a Bill Hockey character skirting the edges of their lives and memories.

I'm also delighted that you will be discussing sustainabilty on the grand prairies, an issue near and dear.

Your voice on our local forum has been filled with light; I'm glad that many others will be allowed to share it now - there are many stories in the naked city.

Merry Christmas,

Jamie

Edited December 19, 2005 by jamiemaw (log)

[Zucchini Mama]

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful... Let it Rain Let it Rain Let it Rain...

Brrrr. A good day to stay in and make jam. I think there was caffeine in the coffee last night. I didn't sleep much. Feel about as fresh as the spinach on a broiled oyster. I was woken by the loud polka music in my dream at four in the morning. I guess the house was dreaming. I wish it would dream more quietly. Bobby Vinton at four A.M. is too much. I think the house is very excited about cooking prairie soul food.

It occurred to me that we must make goulash today. I searched through my cookbooks and found no good recipes for goulash. I guess it's one of those foods I have really taken for granted. I thought it was ubiquitous. Of course in Vienna there's a museum of goulash. (Gulaschmuseum, 1 Schulerstrasse.) From the Time Out Guide to Vienna,

" There are always at least fifteen types of goulash to choose from on the daily menu: forget the normal beany goulash thing and go for the chicken liver goulash, fish goulash, or even chanterelle goulash, for vegetarians." I could go for chanterelle goulash! I was imagining what a museum of goulash might be like: people eating in hushed tones as a security guard hovers near the ancient art of goulash display. I feel a culinary mystery coming on that could be made into a movie starring Roberto Benigni at the bumbling detective. "Who could have stolen the medieval cabbage shredder? What's more who would have murdered for it? Roberto Begnini fights culinary crime in a city where goulash is king."

Or, it could be a novella about a travelling goulash museum. One man drives across Canada and spreads the good news goulash to isolated rural housewives, falling in love with a zaftig frau who lives near covered bridges.... Wait a minute, that's been done.

Anyway, good morning! I'm off to make some quince jam. Please say a prayer to the patron saint of preserved foods for me.

Thanks Matt R. for your post. I treasure it, and it's exactly the kind of response I'm looking for. Maybe it's fate that I didn't make the jam yesterday, and now I can do it well, I hope.

Darcie B. Thanks for the history. I really appreciate that. I love learning about people's family history. I did a project a couple of summers ago researching dying prairie towns and just got so caught up in the stories of the settlers. There's a good book I'm going to reccomend to you. I'll search for it.

Pam, here is some info on Cactus Lake

Jamie, I loved your Christmas story, and why don't you make it into a children's book?

Abra, Kooky loves what Kooky does and thanks for the recipe!

[jamiemaw]

Looks like a great itinerary, Zuke. May the horses be with you!

Christmas hugs,

Jamie

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Why that's right nayyyybourly of you Jamie! Make sure Eva gets some licorice tea and propylis throat spray. I had that nasty throat bug a week ago.

Zuke

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Eva has been taking oregano oil for her sore throat. She smells like a Greek restaurant - pass the feta.

Condiments of the season,

Jamie

[Zucchini Mama]

The honey I'm using for the jam is wildflower honey from UBC Farm.

Here's a journal entry about the farm from this summer.

Farm Time

"One of the casualties of progress is peace and quiet."

Jeannette Winterson, Art Objects, 1995

I am over-stimulated. Traffic noise, computer noise, radio and television static is peeling the protective coating off my nerves. I grew up surrounded by silence and the subtle sounds of life in the middle of the prairies. I grew up in a childhood where even my thoughts were silent and pictorial. Apart from the music that criss-crossed my daydreams, I was generally shy and nonverbal. It has taken me a long time to become comfortable with words, and even now my own speech feels like a second or third language. My love of poetry comes from trying to uncover that lost daydream language of my childhood, born of living close to a quiet land.

I live in Vancouver, but really I got lost somewhere between Saskatchewan and the Pacific Ocean. It has been difficult to find my niche as when I left home I lost my sense of being grounded. I love the ocean, and by that I mean I love to look at the ocean. I love the sound and sparkle of the ocean, but it is not where my spirit resides. I most attracted to sky, earth, and rocks. I am looking for a place where I can breathe. It is for this reason I feel myself drawn to the farm just down the road.

Let me be clear. I did not live on a farm. I lived in a small hamlet, but my backyard was a field of wheat. In one minute I could walk to the strip of natural prairie around the railway track and then in a few seconds I could be under the barbed wire fence into a moderately grazed pasture. This pasture was full of the Plains Prickly Pear Cacti that gave our hamlet its name: Cactus Lake. This town has only two permanent residents left: my mom and my dad. Cactus Lake is one of many disappearing towns. Part of it resides in me.

Living in the city sustains and inspires me. Living in the city depresses and erodes me. I need a break. I need a place to mend the wear and tear of everyday life as an urban mother. I need to put my feet in the earth and my hands in the grass. I need to retune my ear to birdsong and grasswhisper. I need to walk to the farm that's just off my bus route. What will I find at the UBC farm? I don't know what I'm going to write. Maybe I won't write. Maybe I'll pull a few weeds or maybe I'll just lay on my back and look at the sky. I am very excited about the options of what I can do on the farm. I don't want to disrupt the work that goes on there. I just want to blend in and become a part of the scenery. Maybe you'll see me there, the woman deep in thought, deeply inside another time--farm time.

"When did seasons become fiscal quarters?"

-Starbucks ad on a bus stop near UBC farm

I spent an hour at the farm this morning. (I also spent less than five dollars on organically grown cauliflower, kohlrabi and radishes). I spent time, I spent money and in return I received a quiet place to think, remember, and imagine.

How do you put a value on silence? How do you commodify an hour spent dreaming on the grass next to the intelligent bustle of a sunwarmed apiary? It's impossible to express the value of this land in purely monetary terms. So my task this summer is to describe its value in other terms, using the tools I have as a writer, as an artist and as a gal from the prairies. Some would say this land is worth a million dollars. In the words of agricultural land reserve protection activist and soil expert Dr. Susan Ames: "Some farmers like to grow condos." So the problem is if we don't convince the community of the cultural, historical and spiritual value of this land, it too, could be "farmed" for condos. I can't even bear the thought. Can you?

LDW July, 2005

"Silence and noise do not seem to me to be equivalents. When I was growing up, without a bathroom, without a car, without a telephone, without central heating, without a record player, without money, silence was free and not far away. Now it is a marketable commodity and more expensive than a good seat at Covent Garden."

Jeanette Winterson, Ibid.

[Zucchini Mama]

Okay, so half of the quince are burbling away on the stove top and the house is filled with the their lovely sweet smell. It's kind of a bittersweet to wash the lovely fuzzy bits off the skin of a quince, like you're removing its comforter. The warm water released its quintessential aroma which reminded me of the day we bought quittenschnappes at a farmer's market in Austria. The woman selling it said it was particularly good for women's health. I'll drink to that!

I put some lovely dried porcini mushrooms in hot water for the goulash, and I'm steeping ginger, cloves, cardamom, and a pinch of cayenne to make homemade ginger beer. All the windows are steamed up in the kitchen and poor Ullie has that throat bug, so he is cuddled up on the couch listening to Prince Caspian's voyages on a CD.

Jamie Maw, you crack me up. The day we made Cornish game hens with raspberry balsamic glaze on daytime tv, the birds were cooked by your searing wit.

I just had some mineralwasser and a piece of grandpa C's stolled with low fat ricotta. Now I've got to cook the other quince.

Zuke

[Pan]

[...]Of course in Vienna there's a museum of goulash. (Gulaschmuseum, 1 Schulerstrasse.)  From the Time Out Guide to Vienna,

" There are always at least fifteen types of goulash to choose from on the daily menu: forget the normal beany goulash thing[...]"

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Normal beany goulash? That's not what I remember from eating gulyásleves in Budapest! Do you use beans in your goulash? What kind of beans? Beany soupy stuff sounds more like pörkölt to me.

I just did a search to check where the accent went in "gulyásleves," and found some references that might be of passing interest to some of you:

Wikipedia entry on Gulyásleves

Wikipedia article on Goulash (someone might want to edit some of the spelling in this one)

[Carrot Top]

"When did seasons become fiscal quarters?"

  -Starbucks ad on a bus stop near UBC farm

"Silence and noise do not seem to me to be equivalents. When I was growing up, without a bathroom, without a car, without a telephone, without central heating, without a record player, without money, silence was free and not far away. Now it is a marketable commodity and more expensive than a good seat at Covent Garden."

       Jeanette Winterson, Ibid.

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I adored this entire post, Zuke.

Quiet is like air, to me. Sometimes one just needs to fill oneself with a huge breath of it and feel its expansiveness.

I did have to laugh a bit at the Starbucks bus stop visual. Now that does seem a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, to me.

Edited December 19, 2005 by Carrot Top (log)

[mizducky]

Chiming in belatedly to say I totally identify with your feelings for your late lamented stove. Many moons ago when I lived in the Boston area, I owned an old refrigerator that I absolutely loved (I dunno about now, but in the 1980s a number of Boston-area apartments did not come with their own fridge so you had to BYOF ). It was a 1950s era Kelvinator with the rounded top, just like my grandmother's. Even though it was missing a lot of modern features and had a freezer compartment the size of a mailbox, I still adored it. I finally bequeathed it to a soon-to-be-former roommate when I moved into a grad-student's dorm. I just took a look around the net and saw this baby--except for the lousy paint-job inflicted on it, it's pretty close to the one I had.

[BCinBC]

Hey Zuke,

Great start to the blog. One of the things I quite enjoy is your sense of irony or dare I say contrarianism, particularly in quotes like this:

Thursday, Dec. 22: Fly to Calgary, and have a salmon dinner.

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Enjoying the read, and Happy Festivus to all.

[Zucchini Mama]

I was reading my perogie primer to get up to speed for tomorrow. It's called "a Feast of Perogies and Dumplings and other scrumptious pockets and pastries filled with all sorts of cultural tastes." It is written by a former member of a Hutterite colony and amateur dumpling lover Samuel J. Hofer. I seem to have a small collection of cookbooks based on one food item or ingredient. I have an entire cookbook on how to cook with bulgar wheat and another one on squid. I also have an autographed copy of The Gilligan Island Cookbook signed by the author who played Mary Anne on the show.

Anyhow, here is a poem I wrote with a perogy reference. Maybe Pamela Reiss will recognize the story as it's inspired by a woman in Winnipeg.

(Just a note to say that these poems are all works in progress, so bear with me!)

Escape

When I see a doughnut shop on the prairies

I think of her.

The woman who left the Hutterite colony

to work alone in the city.

Did she walk off the farm

down a dirt road,

one of those blue sky yellow brown-eyed Susan kind of days?

Or was it an adrenaline moonlit night,

wet grass on bare ankles?

Homemade rucksack sewn of plain black polyester scraps

steering clear of telltale polka dots.

No wonder she didn't even know how to use

the city bus they'd say,

pink farm-cream cheeks.

Someone must have taken her in.

A Salvation Army or church basement potluck.

Some sympathetic soul embraced her

and gave her a new place to sleep.

Got a job at the local doughnut shop,

mopping floors, selling humble sugared daydreams.

Thinking to herself is this coffee cigarette bathroom

freshner freedom?

Eventually, she managed her own doughnut shop,

became a one-woman underground railway

for others who dared leave.

Formed kinships with them,

over Sunday night dinners with store-bought perogies

and homemade prayers.

LDW 2002

[Zucchini Mama]

Okay, so I'm taking a break from the quince marathon. Phew! Three hours later and I'm only two thirds through the cooking process. No wonder people don't make quince jam very often! Now in the recipe, which was posted by ludja in an eGullet quince thread, it didn't say whether to cook the quince pieces and water with the lid on or off. I think I made a mistake when I cooked them with it off, so I added the water back that had cooked off, and cooked the second half of the quince pieces in the strained quince mush with the lid on. It required stirring quite often, so I had to get into a rythmn--wash some dishes, lift the lid of the Creuset, stir the mush. Put some chocolate chip amd almond cookies in the oven, stir the quince, make us grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, stir, clean and bake the pumpkin, stir, bake chai shortbread, stir, and finally let the quince steam for a few minutes while I take a break and come up here and post. Phew!

Dear sweet Ullie is listening to books 1-8 of The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne and entertaining himself by making up games. Now I've got to finish the jam glaze the chocolate pretzels, make some chai, and cook the goulash.

I was going to say that my trick for chocolate chip cookies is to rough the chips up a bit in the food processor before adding them to the batter. That way there's little flecks of chocolate throughout the cookie as well as the hits of chocolate in the chips.

Back to the kitchen to process the quince some more.

[mizducky]

Escape

When I see a doughnut shop on the prairies

I think of her.

The woman who left the Hutterite colony

to work alone in the city.

Did she walk off the farm

down a dirt road,

one of those blue sky yellow brown-eyed Susan kind of days?

Or was it an adrenaline moonlit night,

wet grass on bare ankles?

Homemade rucksack sewn of plain black polyester scraps

steering clear of telltale polka dots.

No wonder she didn't even know how to use

the city bus they'd say,

pink farm-cream cheeks.

Someone must have taken her in.

A Salvation Army or church basement potluck.

Some sympathetic soul embraced her

and gave her a new place to sleep.

Got a job at the local doughnut shop,

mopping floors, selling humble sugared daydreams.

Thinking to herself is this coffee cigarette bathroom

freshner freedom?

Eventually, she managed her own doughnut shop,

became a one-woman underground railway

for others who dared leave.

Formed kinships with them,

over Sunday night dinners with store-bought perogies

and homemade prayers.

LDW 2002

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Bravo. This put a lump in my throat, especially the last three lines.

[Zucchini Mama]

Wow--two little jars of jam out of six quince. After having been put through the food mill and cooked for another hour, I put just 1/3 a cup of the honey in it. It's almost the colour and texture of crabapple sauce. The cookies are baked and glazed. I used bits and pieces of chocolate around the house, including some of that spicy Dagoba bar. Now, if I were Ling, I would have put a few grains of fleur de sel on top so they would really have that faux pretzel look.

I'm just about to attempt the pumpkin spaetzle. People say that spaetlze means "little sparrow", when what it really means is "little sparrow poop" because of the shape they end up in. Peter's about to come home from work for a bit, eat supper, and then head out again for a robot-building workshop. He's made these little robot insects that are all over the house. I'll go out and get a couple of ingredients. Thanks Pan for the Hungarian soup and stew references. I agree that a goulash should not be tomato-based, only paprika gives it than nice burnt orange-red colour. I was intrigued by the reference to Transylvanian goulash which uses pork and saurkraut. My back is killing me, so I'll reply to other people's comments later when I get my strength back. Until then, I'll devise a short a pop quiz for my next post.

Zuke

[Zucchini Mama]

Oh, pop quiz will ahve to wait, as I haven't put those photos in albums yet. In the meantime, and ad from Christmas future?

Edited December 20, 2005 by Zucchini Mama (log)

[Zucchini Mama]

Zucchini Mama spent Chistmas here one year getting squiffy on cider with girlfriends. Which city is it? Clue: look in the reflection in the windows.

[Zucchini Mama]

This may also help--Zucchini Mama sat here.

Zucchini Mama also enjoyed a quiet moment with P.U. in that city.

[jackal10]

Zucchini Mama spent Chistmas here one year getting squiffy on cider with girlfriends. Which city is it? Clue: look in the reflection in the windows.

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Must be Paxton and Whitfield in Jermyn St in London

[Zucchini Mama]

Okay, the chai spices are steeping, and all I have to do it get changed for the party and finish the dishes. I popped over to Windsor meats looking for interesting sausage, but ended up with four little marinated lamb chops instead. I also bought a half a marinated Cornish game hen for Ullie.

The spaetlze was great. The pumpkin gave it a very subtle change in color and very little change in favour, but it's probably slightly healthier version. I hope to post the photos late tonight.

I sautéd onions and Crimini mushrooms, browned the lamb, cut off the fat and cut it into little pieces. Then I cut up some cabbage and red peppers, and added it all to the dried porcini mushrooms and liquid as well as some mushroom stock. I browned some Hungarian paprika and added it in. The trouble with sour cream is that Peter is lactose intolerant, so I added some low fat yogurt into mine. It curdles, which bugs me, but what is the other low fat alternative? I fried up the spaetzle, and put spinach salad on the table. I poured a bit of pumpkin seed oil on top and I tell you I was transported to the cuckoo clock adorned walls of the imaginary goulash museum in my mind. We finished off the Freixenet. I'll have to try to get some Zweigelt, because that grape variety is definitely a goulash sort of wine and the goulash is always better the next day, isn't it?

Ullie was a happy camper with his hen and noodles, and so was I.

[Zucchini Mama]

Zucchini Mama spent Chistmas here one year getting squiffy on cider with girlfriends. Which city is it? Clue: look in the reflection in the windows.

←

Must be Paxton and Whitfield in Jermyn St in London

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Nope, check where they have other stores.

Zuke