Cookbook – Nittin' Ninja

We’re Ready For Winter

It’s time to play a little catch up! And I do mean a little…

Well, hello! Has it been since March that I’ve posted? Tempus fugit. In the meantime, I hope you all have been well and happy.

As my month of selling at Bierwagens is over, I’ve started making stuff for myself as I do every year at this time. I know, most knitters create for other people, but call me selfish because I want to wear what I make! I am currently working on a pair of socks using the basic construction from my Cozy Fireside Socks pattern and using the chart from Tellybean Knits “Boneyard Sweethearts Hat”. I realize most people associate skeletons and ghosts with Halloween, but I am determined to make these, and I love them!

One down. Not happy with the tension. Using light fingering weight yarn is definitely a challenge with stranded knitwork.

And speaking of Bierwagens, I must admit the most serendipitous thing happened my first weekend there. None other than Ashlee of @ashandherknits popped into my little stall with her husband and mother-in-law. I was over the moon! I mean, what are the odds? She really is sweet and considerate. I also discovered that she’s been working on her masters for teaching while working on her sweaters. That is truly commendable.

After that visit, the rest of the month was a bit flat for random Instagram celebrity appearances! That, and the weather rained me out for another couple of weekends. Not my best turnout. It happens.

Contrary to my “linear projects” timeline, I am also working on a sweater, “Metropolis” by Tanis Lavallée. I have a sleeve and the turtleneck parts to finish. It went so quickly because it’s a chunky weight sweater and I am grateful for that. I am also using plain old acrylic so I can throw it in the washer and dryer – yay!

BTW, I finished the Caitlin Hunter “Caribou Hills” in plenty of time to wear it. I get so many compliments on that one and I am proud that I made it.

As for the cookbook, I currently have 46 solid recipes. I realize that this will be a few years in the making. Coming up with unique ideas that are also I.C. safe is a challenge. I also have been working on revising old classics and making them safe. I want the food to be tasty enough so it won’t seem like a restricted diet, just different. I also realize I will have to include a few mushrooms in some offerings because that is a thing…and I’m not too keen on mushrooms. Do you think anyone would notice if there weren’t any? *sigh* It will be worth it. I’m considering starting a YouTube channel featuring me making food from the cookbook. Should I wait to be closer to the publication date or should I start now? I would really like to hear some feedback on that.

One of the many blessings that has happened since my last entry isn’t so much a personal one, but it felt like it, nonetheless. The wildfires were muted this year as opposed to the last several years. Yes, there were some big fires, but nothing like we’ve seen recently. Now this is when it gets personal – the fires that did happen weren’t anywhere near my neighborhood. My family and I were not in an evacuation watch zone poised to flee at a few moment’s notice, not choking on thick smoke, not dealing with fine ash on every surface, and not waking to hazy, amber-hued mornings that turned into sickly puce days.

I was able to get out and do some plein air painting

So with Christmas, and winter, around the corner, I must admit that I’ve been lazy. I normally have all the holiday cheer out and flashing by now. The lights still aren’t up, the garlands are still in their storage bins and my little nativity set is not gracing a side table. In my defense, there are a few random decorations out. At least the autumn wreath and Halloween skeletons have been packed away!

But most importantly of all, we now have a snow blower and a cord of wood. I wish there was a way to insert animated fireworks because that’s what it feels like! We are experiencing a rather wet, not snowy, cold season so far, and being in the middle of an El Niño here in Northern California, we may not get enough of that white stuff to use our very expensive appliance. We don’t mind. Snow will happen again eventually, and we’ll be ready.

Until next time, dear readers! See you in the funny pages.

Snow, Snow, Snow, Rain, More Snow And Writing A Cookbook

When life gives you lemons…well, you know.

There was a time I got excited when snow was in the forecast. We’d get maybe 3 inches, just enough to look pretty, and when tired of it, poof – it was gone. This year winter has been extended. We’ve had so much snow and rain that Governor Newsom has retracted almost all of the drought measures for the state of California. That is great, but the larger portion of precipitation has been within three weeks. Not great. At least not for those of us shoveling very long, steep-grade driveways. Snowblower sales have been brisk in our neighborhood. Of course, my husband and I have plans of purchasing ours in the summer. In the meantime, it’s shoveling and borrowing our next-door neighbor’s snowblower (which we have yet to do!). I have snow saucers that I never use because the slope has to be cleared while it’s still fresh. The snowman is never built because I can’t make it to the yard because the snow from the metal roof slides off and creates an impassable berm of ice at the front and back doors. The only way in or out is through the garage, where the ice berms are cleared every few hours, depending on the amount of snow packed on the roof and how often it drops. Taking a scene out of the Gilmore Girls, I am officially breaking up with snow.

Moving on…

There is a mention of writing a cookbook in the title. Let me explain. I have a condition that’s not fairly common but can cause pain that can be triggered by food. It’s known as Interstitial Cystitis or painful bladder syndrome. I haven’t written about it before now because I didn’t feel I had a grip on it. Besides, talking or “venting” about the symptoms just felt like bitching. I figure we’ve all got enough of that. At the recommendation of my doctor, I went on an elimination diet. Overnight I lost about 65% of the foods that I love. I wished I could have found a cookbook that would help me get my eating habits back on track quickly, with tips and general guidelines I could use right then, not have to figure it out over months like I did.

This project will take a while because I’m going to be doing a lot of recipe testing and picture-taking. I want the recipes offered to be easy to make and delicious, obviously, and that can be tough when you can’t eat:

Fruits

Cranberry juice
Grapefruit and grapefruit juice
Lemons
Oranges and orange juice
Pineapple and pineapple juice
Strawberries

Vegetables

Chili peppers
Pickles
Sauerkraut
Tomatoes and tomato products

Protein Foods

Processed sandwich meats (salami, bologna)
Soy

Dairy

Yogurt

Condiments

Chili
Horseradish
Ketchup
Salad Dressings
Soy sauce
Vinegar
Worcester Sauce

Beverages

Alcohol
Coffee (caffeinated and decaffeinated)
Tea (caffeinated and decaffeinated)
Carbonated drinks (cola, non-cola, diet, and caffeine-free)

Other Foods

Chocolate
Indian food
Mexican food
Pizza
Spicy foods
Thai food

Additives/Artificial Sweeteners

Artificial sweeteners (Equal® (sweetener), NutraSweet®, Saccharin, and Sweet’N Low®)
Monosodium glutamate (MSG)**

See what I mean? When I first looked over the list I wasn’t so intimidated because I hadn’t been carefully reading the ingredient lists on processed foods. During the first part of my elimination diet I was ignorantly ingesting a ton of soy, vinegar, and MSG. Not until the second or third week did I start examining exactly what I was eating. Then I got really upset! Maybe not everyone has the same experience, but I can’t be alone, so I thought, hey. Let’s help others out so their journey isn’t so frustrating.

In the meantime, I continue to knit. I finished the Ghost Horses sweater, the Fallow sweater by Anne-Michelle Phelan, and am currently working on yet another Caitlin Hunter design, Caribou Hills sweater.

Ghost Horses by Boyland Knitworks, modified

Fallow by Anne Michelle Phelan, slightly modified

Need to finish those sleeves. And yes, I have modified this pattern also!

I hope to have the last one finished before it gets too warm to wear it!

I hope your life has been drama-free, dear reader, and I’ll catch you up next time!

**This list was taken directly from here: https://www.ichelp.org/least-and-most-bothersome-foods/

Moosewood Revisited

How many of you remember the 70s and the organic/vegetarian/yoga movement? No? Very briefly, these concepts were a direct result of the “tune in, turn on and drop out” mindset from the 60s, but a little more realistic than the naivete that drove so many young idealists to believe the fantastic, plastic Madison Avenue Establishment was going to crumble with non-violent demonstrations (that turned violent when the cops or the National Guard showed up) and mind-expanding LSD. The experiences garnered during this turbulent time brought about changes as banal as middle of the road music (remember The Carpenters?), as radical as experimental relationship options like open marriages and as big as heightened awareness for the general public about our eating habits.

Which brings me to my eating habits. One of the things I briefly flirted with at this time was veganism. I visited some local eateries that specialized in vegan food and experienced my first pita bread sandwich without any meat, cheese or mayonnaise. I had raw banana-apple juice without and sweeteners. I became aware that not all was right with the world, including where my food came from. Mind you, I was already indoctrinated to the idea, and practice, of not eating so much meat because the way I was raised. Our diet included dairy products, which is called ovo-lacto vegetarianism; however, my mother worked full-time to raise my sister and I, so ~~sometimes~~ frequently, she came home tired and didn’t feel like cooking. That’s when we were “treated” to McDonald’s and the local greasy spoons and their wonderfully fatty, meaty fare. Vegetarian drive-thru options after 5:30 pm in Bakersfield in this era were non-existent. Now, that I think about it, they’re still pretty rare even today.

Anyway, life went on. I married a meat-eater and together we raised a most serious carnivore. Over the years, though, I have had trouble with reconciling my animal love:

with this:

Not exactly appetizing in this form... — Not exactly appetizing in this form…

BTW, National Hamburger Day for 2016 is May 28.

Enter: The Moosewood cookbook I just recently purchased to help me with my nutritional changes. This book was the seminal vegetarian cookbook of the 70s. Originally published in 1974 to a local audience in response to the popularity of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithica, New York, Mollie Katzen, one of the original founding members, handwrote and illustrated this collection of recipes. Interestingly, none of the cooks were professionally trained as chefs. They were a bunch of friends who wanted to share their love of vegetarian food. Funny how these things happen. As history goes, 10-Speed Press in Berkeley, California got wind of this culinary gem and published it for the rest of the world in 1977, when it became a huge best-seller.

Though I never purchased the book itself, I was affected by it because my sister and mother cooked from it, and it fit with the religious and nutritional beliefs held by our family at the time. When my daughter bought an original edition on Amazon, we both pored over it for different reasons. My daughter, Rachel, as mentioned throughout my blog posts, is a trained chef and works as one. Her passion for food and dedication to learning the many aspects of it is an ongoing process. Her cookbook library is extensive and includes such favorites as The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook to the obscure. Unlike me, when I get a cookbook I’m just looking for the recipes, I’m not going to bother with the methods or the how and why. She actually learns from them. Imagine that.

Last night, I made my first adult foray into Moosewood and chose the Mexican Pepper Casserole. Of course. It was an easy recipe with, sadly enough, a few minor errors. The first boo-boo I noticed was the fact that she has you mince 4 – 5 garlic cloves, and doesn’t tell you what to do with them.

Since this is not a pretty food blog, I thought I’d show some reality.

Second, the amount of oil that is recommended is not sufficient for the flour she has you add later on. Since it was dairy based, Rachel had to add about 1/4 cup of cream so I could continue cooking without scorching everything. I cross checked this version with my daughter’s vintage version and yes, the garlic was supposed to go in with the onions – but I wouldn’t have done that anyway; garlic burns so easily. I did like that when I pulled the dish out of the oven the eggs in the sour cream mixture had poofed up like a souffle; and like any souffle that I make, it went back down after a few minutes. After that, I don’t know because Rachel and I were serving it up.

It was quite filling and very meatless. I didn’t have to worry about how Flossie cow died for this meal.

Julia Child’s Coq Au Vin

Like so many people my age, we were aware of Julia Child in a peripheral sort of way. We knew she was a woman who cooked and had television shows and quite a number of cookbooks. The term “foodie” had not yet been invented, and the culinary arts weren’t the enormous enterprise they have become today. (Does anyone remember the Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr?) It wasn’t until I saw “Julie/Julia” that I had to run out and buy Julia Child’s co-written premier cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” at the tender age of 47. Unlike Julie Powell, I have not, and will not repeat her project of cooking every recipe in the book; however, I have dabbled in a few chapters here and there. I now know how to make an omelet, something I had been making totally wrong before. I can whip up a mean tomato sauce that works on spaghetti as well as chili (I can’t think of anything French that I have needed it for!) I have also served her famous Bouef Bourguignon and found it most tasty. Her mayonnaise recipe is wonderful and the directions that she gives are so intrinsically….her you can almost imagine she’s talking directly to you. I suppose it was this running narrative throughout the book that helped make it such a big hit. Well, that and the good food.

Anyway, I spent four hours in the kitchen concocting her Coq au Vin. I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms, but it didn’t seem to matter. The sauce was delicious! Even the onions were cooked in a special way for this recipe, which, incidentally, is the same onion recipe she employs in her Bouef Bourguignon recipe. I did double the amount so my husband could enjoy this for his dinner away from home. And I did use the instructions she gave for an electric skillet, because the amount we had was so huge it wouldn’t fit in a regular 10 or 12-inch pan. I may have misread the recipe, but I don’t think so. About halfway through her directions, she totally drops the ball on any electric skillet temperatures, so I had to figure it out myself. I was capable, of course, but if I had been a newbie cook and was really needing some numbers, this might not have turned out so well.

All in all, it was a good experience. If you’re looking for some old-school recipes that were devised before such widespread worries as calories, cholesterol, carbohydrates, etc., nip on down to your local bookstore or peruse your online book purveyor and grab this gem. Be prepared to spend some time in the kitchen, but also be prepared for callouses on your back as you pat yourself for creating such wonderfully rich and satisfying food!