More MFK Fisher loveliness

The first time, on our way to Germany, we had sat downstairs while our meal was being made. There were big soft leather chairs, and on the dark table was a bowl of the first potato chips I ever saw in Europe, not the uniformly thin uniformly golden ones that come out of waxed bags here at home, but light and dark, thick and paper-thin, fried in real butter and then salted casually with the gros sal served in the country with the pot-au-feu.

They were so good that I ate them with the kind of slow sensuous concentration that pregnant women are supposed to feel for chocolate-cake-at-three-in-the-morning. I suppose I should be ashamed to admit that I drank two or three glasses of red port in the same strange private orgy of enjoyment. It seems impossible, but the fact remains that it was one of the keenest gastronomic moments of my life.

I am so in love with this book. It is transporting me to another time and place, and it’s inspiring me more than anything ever has to seek out new flavors, textures, and experiences.

Eat, drink, and read The Gastronomical Me

Dream Come True!

Guess where I'm going to lunch on Tuesday, July 8th. Just...guess.

Thanks, Amy and Lisa, for getting the rezzie!!!!

California: Reality Check

I’m ecstatic to go back to California*. Really, I can’t express it in words. It’s not that sort of excitement: “Yay! Vacay!” No, it’s more soulful, more guttural. I can live in NYC the rest of my life, but I will always be a “West Coaster”. I will always have that friendly, relaxed, tell-you-everything-about-my-life sort of manner that West Coasters have. This trip to ALA and then to see friends and family will be a cleansing deep breath for my soul.

HOWEVER, I really have a love-hate relationship with California right now. Namely, the car culture there. Keep in mind that one of the Top 3 reasons I moved to NYC was because I didn’t want to drive again…ever (for more on this, check out Justine Larbalestier’s post on Non-Drivers). So I’m not renting a car at ALA. I refuse…because I’m stubborn…and scared. But remember I posted about all the fabu restaurants I was going to try while I was in Anaheim? Well, Google maps tells me that these are the actual distances from my hotel to each restaurant:

Café Casse-Croute: 4.3 miles
Café Contigo: 2.7 miles
Sarkis Pastry : 4.5 miles

Now, I’m certainly not opposed to walking 2.7 miles and back for good food – in fact, I’d welcome the opportunity. However, anyone who has attended any sort of major conference knows that there just isn’t time to do all that. I’ve got meetings and sessions and the exhibit floor and…

Additionally, I’m meeting with my Emerging Leaders group on Thursday night to prepare for our poster session, eat dinner, and drink wine. I volunteered to bring wine. I started searching for wine shops in the area and found some really fantastic possibilities. And then I looked up the distances:

Twisted Vine: 8 miles
Wine Exchange: 6 miles
Italia Wine Imports: 3.8 miles

I’m tempted to just pack a bottle in my suitcase but that could be bad… On principle, it seems ridiculous to pack a bottle from NYC when I should be exploring Anaheim’s local culture. Yeah, it’s CAR culture! So I’m not bringing a bottle with me. Instead, I’ll ask at the front desk of the hotel if there’s a wine/liquor store I can walk to. See what happens. I might be pleasantly surprised. I’m just lucky I discovered all this before I actually started walking to the specific stores and restaurants. That would have been bad and I most likely would have cried. And I would have received multiple blisters on my feet as a reward for my efforts.

Eat, drink, and create your own adventures


* For the record, I grew up in the foothills of Northern California where you really don't see palm trees. Evergreens were the norm and no celebrities were sighted there. I'm fiercely loyal to NoCal.

Giada's Melon and Prosciutto Panini

This is one of my favorite springtime meals: Giada De Laurentiis' Melon and Prosciutto Panino. It has the ideal combination of flavors and textures: crunchy bread, smooth melty cheese, sweet melon, salty meat. And the colors: peach, brick red, green, white, brown!




This is the first time this spring that I've made this (I only make it in spring) and, unfortunately, I got a little cocky this time and managed to mess it up. It really is an easy recipe:

1. bread - Giada calls for focaccia, but I usually use whatever rustic bread I have on hand
2. Brie - but any variation on the soft-rind, soft texture cheese will do (I've used the Chimay stuff before to great effect)
3. cantaloupe - one half is enough to feed me, Adam, and the kiddo
4. prosciutto - I've always used prosciutto, but I suppose you could play around with other meats. This is probably blasphemous to say since melon and prosciutto is the traditional preparation... But then, I've always been a blasphemer myself...
5. arugula - you really only need a small amount for this recipe

Seriously, that's it, people. And then you grill it. I use my stovetop cast iron grill and cast iron panini press, but you could use just a regular pan or even the outdoor grill (though I've never tried it this way).

As far as the asparagus is concerned, I used the simplest (and best) preparation: grilled it, drizzled it with rad extra-virgin olive oil (off the grill), salt, pepper, and lemon zest. Shazam! And it was certainly more successful than this attempt...

So how did I manage to fubar this easy recipe? Totally forgot the arugula. Wanna hear something even more assenine? We mmm'ed and hmmm'ed over the meal...and I never noticed anything missing. Until 3 days later when I was rummaging through the fridge and discovered the arugula, thinking, "What the hell is this for? I don't remember..." And then I remembered. I'm such a fool in the kitchen...I suppose it's all the wine I drink while I'm cooking...

Eat, drink, and don't forget the arugula!

Gearing up for ALA...Anaheim-style

You may not see much of me in the next 2-3 weeks: in addition to having friends staying with us this weekend, I’m gearing up for ALA*’s Annual Conference in Anaheim next weekend. After that, it’s a week with my family in Northern Cal. Then two days in the Berkeley/Oakland area with more friends. By my account, I should be back blogging regularly about mid-July. In the meantime, here is a schizo post on a sunny Friday afternoon:

- I’ve never been to New Orleans and, until today, I’ve never really had a desire. I’ve only considered myself a true foodie in the past year and, up until 3 years ago, the ongoing joke among family and friends was that I ate only white food. So New Orleans didn’t sound like my kind of place with all that flashing-strangers-at-Mardi-Gras and okra and spicy stuff. Well, in the past three years, a new world has opened up to me….and today, Omnivore Herbivore Carnivore has expanded that world even further. Check out Kyla's culinary adventures in the city and you too will want to head on down there ASAP…or at least wait until autumn…

- I am the happiest clam! Look at the two ARCs I received this week!

- Most of my meals at ALA Annual are being very generously provided by publishers (thanks, guys!)…however, I do want to try and strike out on my own and see what Anaheim has to offer. I have very little free time so I’m going to have to schedule any foodie adventures down to the minute. Nevertheless, I have to at least try. In the latest SLJ there are some intriguing restaurant suggestions. I get into Anaheim around lunchtime on Thursday so I’m thinking of hiking to Café Contigo for Cuban sandwiches that “will change the way you look at sandwiches…promise”. I’ve got the most time on Saturday so I’m hoping to get to Sarkis Pastry for breakfast**, which is rather ambitious since it’s, you know, the morning. I also have lunch free on Saturday (how decadent!) so I’m planning on Café Casse Croute (French-Canadian cuisine, Vietnamese-owned). Anyone reading this who wants to check out any of these restaurants with me, let me know – I’m always open to hanging out with a fellow food explorer! Likewise, if you know of any great food places close to the convention center, let me know…I don’t suppose I’m going to find a farmers’ market that close, am I?

- A night of Stephenie Meyer and Blue October? Oh, how I desperately want to go! Desperately. But quite frankly, I really don’t want to compete with thronging groups of tween girls to get a ticket and to go to the event. Especially since I don’t know another librarian in her (or his) right mind who would go with me. So I’ll stay home, turn on Blue October, and imagine Justin Furstenfeld singing only to me. Just like a tween girl would do. Oh, the irony.

- Courtesy of my daily Shelf Awareness email, I leave you with this fantabulous quote from Huck Finn (as quoted by Jennie Shortridge): “I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself, ‘All right, then, I'll GO to hell.’” That totally made my Friday.

Eat, drink, and ride the wave

* When, oh when, will I realize my dream of being on the Newbery committee?!

** Because baklava is one of my all-time favorite desserts...in those rare moments when I eat sweets.

Alison at PW totally cheered me up

Why I Don't Want to Write about Kids' Books Today:

Reason #1

Reason #2 (and, gosh darn it, I love pretty* in the city!)

Why I Still Love Kids' Books and Kidlitbloggers:

Reason #1

Reason #2 (I commented that I'd make out with MT Anderson, Donna Jo Napoli, Shannon Hale, and Kadir Nelson...but other commenters reminded me that I'd also make out with Christopher Paul Curtis, Sarah Miller, Louise Rennison, and Gary Schmidt. 'Cause I'm kind of a whore that way...)

Lots of Food, Part III

I’m reading MFK Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me right now and it is rocking my world. I thought Ruth Reichl was brilliant while reading Garlic and Sapphires (and she still is); however, Fisher is leaving Reichl in the dust in the Great Food Writing Write-Off. I never thought food writing could be like this, where food and life and everything in between are so intricately woven together as to be indistinguishable from one another. Which is exactly how life is and Fisher has somehow captured that. There is nothing episodic about her writing, and she writes so beautifully about the people she encounters that, after they've left the narrative, you want to follow each of them to find out more about their story.

Because the prose is so tightly woven together, so fluid and connected, it's difficult to find a passage brief enough to include here. But I must give you some little delight from the book so here is a brief description of a meal that Fisher ate as a child with her sister and her father:

…it was one of the best meals we ever ate.

Perhaps that is because it was the first conscious one, for me at least; but the fact that we remember it with such queer clarity must mean that it had other reasons for being important. I suppose that happens at least once to every human. I hope so.

Now the hills are cut through with superhighways, and I can’t say whether we sat that night in Mint Canyon or Bouquet, and the three of us are in some ways even more than twenty-five years older than we were then. And still the warm round peach pie and the cool yellow cream we ate together that August night live in our hearts’ palates, succulent, secret, delicious.

For heaven’s sake, if you love food writing, read this book. Read it now.

Eat, drink, and read food porn.

Lots of Food, Part II

I went to a panel discussion at the New School last week on Julia Child, and it was fascinating, inspiring stuff. Check out the line-up: Joan Reardon, Judith Jones, Laura Shapiro, and Molly O’Neill. And if you don’t know who these people are, I urge you to do some Googling. Each speaker was engaging and interesting, full to the brim with funny stories and anecdotes about Julia Child.

One of the many things I appreciated was that Molly O’Neill shared that Julia’s public persona was not an act – Julia was funny and brassy and a complete “goofball”. Molly also mentioned how lucky Julia was to have an editor that encouraged her to be “real”; to which Judith Jones replied that Julia was incredibly humble and Judith absolutely had to encourage Julia to let her personality show.

Additionally, I believe it was Laura who talked about Julia’s “conversion experience” in France. Likewise, Alice Waters and MFK Fisher had experiences of their own in France. Laura described it as that moment when a person is turned on to and discovers a whole new way of eating, cooking, and enjoying food. To the point when your whole life changes in reaction to your experience. This experience gives you a new gold standard by which all other food is measured. Hearing this was like a bell going off in my head. I had a “conversion experience.” My best friend had a “conversion experience.” I daresay that all the people I know who are deeply passionate and excited about food had such an experience. I want to sit in a room with 20 people and share our conversion experiences because each one would be so different, informed by such diverse backgrounds. But I love the idea of something clicking in one’s head as they take that first delectable bite…and you’ll never be the same again.

Lastly, one thing that Molly said struck me (because Molly was a hilarious and interesting speaker): Julia, for better or for worse, made cooking a white-collar experience, whereas it was once a blue-collar industry. I don't enough about the history of cooking and restaurants to comment on Molly's statement; nevertheless, I do find that an interesting point and it has inspired me to do more research to find out when that change took place. Because Molly is right: certainly in America, cooking is, to some degree, a white-collar activity. I guess that this is in large part, particularly in recent months, because of the price of "good" food. But how does Julia Child fit into this? I don't know yet...but I'm reading more to find out...