Food on the Brain

trying something new

Written by Jessamyn on July 30th, 2010

I’m really, really excited, and equally terrified, to tell you that I’ve truly, officially as of today quit my day job. This may prove to be a ghastly mistake, but I’ve been ready for some time to devote more of my energy to photography (not to mention cooking, writing, gardening and weaving) and this turned out to be the year to go for it.

What will I be doing? I’m not sure yet, but here’s what I’d love to do: photos of food (I know, you’re shocked). Photos of farms, and farmers, and chefs doing what they do best. Wine tastings, potlucks, farm dinners. Restaurants. I want to share all the wonderful things that are going on in the Northwest, and especially Skagit Valley, with food and cooking and farming.

This blog will continue, definitely. I have no idea whether I’ll spend more time here, or less, but I’m hoping more. I found out recently that a popular food blog roundup website rejected Food on the Brain for membership, presumably because I don’t include enough recipes. I felt miffed at first, but honestly, I’m not all about recipes. In fact, I’m frequently entirely not about recipes. And that’s OK. I hope, if you read this site, you also enjoy simply talking about food, and reading about food, and looking at pretty pictures of food, just because you like it. I see this blog as a way to share what I’ve been eating, what I’ve tried, and how it worked for me. If you’ve made the same sort of thing, I hope you’ll feel free to comment and tell me how it worked for you. We’re eating, not sitting for an exam.

So…here we go, wish me luck! And if you’re passing through the Wenatchee Valley any time during August, stop by my first solo photography show hanging at the Peshastin Creek Gallery. The opening reception’s on Sunday the 8th, I’d love to see you there!

Posted in self-promotion | 8 Responses »
Tags: announcements, career changes, eek!, photography

saucy peas

Written by Jessamyn on July 28th, 2010

Not the prettiest dish in the world, but extremely good. And easy!

The sauce, a mixture of tomato, cream, green chile, cilantro and spices, is straight from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe, but she wants you to serve it with prawns. We made it that way for a while, then hit on the idea of stirring in lightly cooked peas instead of shrimp. We’ve done it this way ever since.

…Continue reading saucy peas

Posted in eating in | 2 Responses »
Tags: cream, Indian food, peas, spices, tomatoes

Bivalve Bash 2010

Written by Jessamyn on July 26th, 2010

If you haven’t been to the Bivalve Bash at the Taylor Shellfish Farm on Samish Bay, you’re missing out on one of the best summer parties around. We went last year, but I didn’t do a post as my camera battery died halfway through. This year we took some shellfish-loving friends and a camera with a fresh battery and had a fabulous time.

We saw the kids’ Mud Run.

We toured the Oyster Shell Sculpture Contest.

Jon entered the Oyster Shucking Contest, and placed third (and got to keep a rather nice oyster knife). And the rest of us got to eat the oysters.

…Continue reading Bivalve Bash 2010

Posted in eating out | No Responses »
Tags: Bivalve Bash, events, oysters, shellfish, Skagit Valley

simple squid

Written by Jessamyn on July 23rd, 2010

We discovered that we can get big bags of frozen pre-cleaned squid rings and tentacles at the local fish market, and are preparing to embark on some serious experimentation with it. I know how to clean a squid in theory, but I’d really rather not, so this stuff is great. The one thing I’ve cooked with it so far, based on a recipe in James Peterson’s Fish & Shellfish, was incredibly simple and very, very successful: I sauteed chopped garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil, added the squid and sauteed for 1 minute, then added chopped parsley and cooked another 30 seconds or so, then scraped it all out onto a pile of Israeli couscous with some roasted asparagus on the side. The ultimate fast dinner, and tasty too.

Any suggestions for our next foray into squid cookery?

Posted in eating in | No Responses »
Tags: calamari, couscous, seafood, squid

caribou

Written by Jessamyn on July 21st, 2010

How about something sweet ? This confection, which I’ve known about as long as I’ve known my husband (that would be…19 years or so, yikes), is no longer something I can eat, as it has almonds – but I remember it fondly from our college days (when he made it recently for a work potluck he got roundly scolded for making something his wife couldn’t eat). It’s been handwritten in the back of our old Moosewood Cookbook forever, along with the Sour Cream Coffeecake and the Red Bell Pepper Pesto. I hadn’t realized the story behind the recipe’s name until recently, so I asked him to write a little about it:

It’s amazing how one rarely questions the things with which one has grown up. Take this dessert. Chocolatey and creamy, it’s almost a mousse, but then there are the ground almonds, giving it a firmer texture and a little bit of gritty crunch before it dissolves. That’s not a mousse; it’s caribou. Or at least that’s what we called it in my family.

Only when I got into cooking and baking in college and begged the recipe from my mother did I discover that it had another name – La Reine de Saba (the Queen of Sheba). Once again, I didn’t question the name. I had suspected that caribou was not the actual name, and La Reine de Saba sounded reasonable.

Except that this dessert isn’t like any of the other versions of La Reine de Saba that I have found. Those versions all have eggs, and most have at least a little bit of flour, yielding a dense, fudgy cakelike product. My family’s version is definitely not fudgy or cakelike. But it is mighty tasty.

…Continue reading caribou

Posted in eating in | 8 Responses »
Tags: almonds, chocolate, desserts, nuts

oyster anniversary

Written by Jessamyn on July 19th, 2010

Last Friday was our anniversary, so to celebrate we packed a few key items and headed out on Chuckanut Drive.

First we took a walk at Larabee. The weather has been gorgeous, once the morning fog burns off, and the woods were filled with dappled light.

Then we headed down to Taylor Shellfish. Usually we just come here to pick up oysters or mussels to take home, and of course for the Bivalve Bash (which happens to be next weekend!), but this was the first time we’ve taken advantage of their picnic area. We bought a bag of Kumamoto oysters, opened some wine, and settled at a table by the water and started shucking. We also brought some ham-and-butter sandwiches, made from Breadfarm baguette and Golden Glen salted butter, as well as some intensely flavored olives, and we alternated bites of these with sweet little oysters as Jon opened them.

This is a good place.

Posted in eating out | 1 Response »
Tags: oysters, picnics, Skagit Valley

Portland roundup (long)

Written by Jessamyn on July 14th, 2010

We got out of town last week and took the train down to Portland for a little vacation, just in time for a massive heat wave. Despite broken-down buses (one overheated and died on the Burnside Bridge – fun!), blisters, short tempers and heat exhaustion, we managed to have a great time and eat quite a lot of food. Also, it was an excellent weekend for sitting in the shade drinking beer, so we made sure to do plenty of that. We started at the Hedge House.

And we had to go to Pok Pok, of course. We have occasionally considered eating here every single night we spend in Portland. One of these trips…

…Continue reading Portland roundup (long)

Posted in eating out | No Responses »
Tags: beer, cocktails, Portland, restaurants, Thai food, travel

zucchini #5

Written by Jessamyn on July 12th, 2010

When a farmer hands you a beautiful fresh summer squash and tells you, “this is only the fifth zucchini I’ve picked so far this year,” you really want to do something nice with it. I made fritters.

Zucchini fritters are something I used to make a lot, but it’s been a while and I can’t find my original recipe, which was from a low-carb book by Fran McCullough and seems to be lost in the mists of time. I made something up, based loosely on my memories and on a recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and a bowl of egg yolks in the fridge left over from my grandfather’s birthday cake. Next time I think I’ll actually follow a recipe, but this was still pretty yummy.

…Continue reading zucchini #5

Posted in eating in | 2 Responses »
Tags: breakfast, fritters, squash, zucchini

birthday cake

Written by Jessamyn on July 6th, 2010

We made this cake for my grandfather’s 97th birthday. I’m not going to write down the recipe for it, because you really should just go buy Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking: From My Home to Yours, and make it out of that (it’s the one on the cover, with cake crumbs patted all over the outside). I do recommend our one embellishment, which was to stuff the frosting layers with fresh raspberries, and have lots of additional raspberries available to scatter over the top. Raspberries + chocolate cake + marshmallow creme frosting. Oh, yes.

It was a bit of a messy dessert, as the marshmallow frosting got soft and melty in the sun, and the raspberries were so ripe they turned people’s hands crimson. But it’s not like that was a real problem.

Posted in eating in | No Responses »
Tags: baking, berries, desserts, parties, raspberries

macaroni salad, very al fresco

Written by Jessamyn on July 2nd, 2010

This week we did our annual car camping trip to Washington Park on Fidalgo Island. It rained. Welcome to a Pacific Northwest summer.

Fortunately the firewood we brought burned well, and we were able to successfully cook our dinner. Hebrew National hot dogs, blistered over the fire and dressed with sweet relish and very hot Dijon mustard, macaroni salad, Bonny Doon grenache, and toasted marshmallows. I tend to think that, if you don’t cook it on a stick over the fire, it’s not real camping food. Except the macaroni salad, which can be scooped directly out of its tupperware in case you don’t feel like washing extra dishes.