cake for breakfast

i figure the best thing about birthdays is that you get to eat cake for breakfast.
we were celebrating my mom's 58th birthday this weekend. she came down from mt. shasta for a visit which included walking on the beach at point reyes - lovely although it's suddenly winter again here in the bay, a goat roast at our friends' new club downtown (what birthday would be complete without a goat roast?), and we did a storycorps interview together in san francisco.


we started her birthday off right with cake for breakfast. every week for months we have been getting a bag of carrots in our csa box from terra firma farm. they are the best, sweetest carrots in the world. but a person can only eat so many carrots. so we have an entire refrigerator drawer full of carrots. i came across a recipe for carrot cake a few weeks ago that my mom had sent me, and i remembered she really likes carrot cake, so i've been planning to use up some of those carrots in this recipe. then i found this recipe from smitten kitchen for carrot cake - so i sort of blended the two recipes together. i like everything that has ever come out of smitten kitchen, so i used that as a base in this cake and added a few extras: toasted pecans (since walnuts make my tongue swell), dried craisins (because i can't stand raisins - as they say in benny and joon, they're like humiliated grapes), a little shredded coconut, and i meant to add some crushed pineapple, but forgot about it until after i'd put the cakes in the oven so that will have to wait till next time.
as smitten kitchen points out, the best part about carrot cake is the cream cheese frosting. she added some maple syrup to her frosting, which i did as well, but then i thought it could use a little extra kick so i grated some fresh ginger in there too. that was a big hit. it sparks the pallet enough to be raise questions but is subtle enough that it's hard to put your finger on.
and here's one of my best kitchen tips ever, learned from my friend rachel's chef friend: keep your ginger in the freezer. it makes it waaaay easier to grate. you'll be amazed. i love fresh ginger, but i hate all the muscle you have to put into grating it - this makes all the difference, plus ginger snowflakes are pretty delightful.
so we're now eating carrot cake at every meal because, well, it's a vegetable right?

strawberry season is here

last weekend, the farm that delivers us a box of fresh, local vegetables every week opened up their fields for u-pick strawberries. sele, aryn, and i took a field trip (literally) up there to gorge ourselves on strawberries and bring home a few boxes for frozen and canned delight. it turns out aryn, having grown up on a strawberry and asparagas farm, is a pro at strawberry picking and we loaded up our 3 flats ($10 a piece!) in no time.


the strawberries were beautiful and picked at the peak of perfection, which means they don't keep long in the fridge, so we got right to work processing them. my freezer is now stocked with little ziplocks full of strawberries, and i was inspired last year when my friend rachel told me her mom was making strawberry cardamom jam. i haven't stopped thinking about it since then, so i figured now was the perfect time to try it out.


as much as i raved about pomona's pectin, the problem with not using sugar in the jam is that once you open the jar it only lasts about 3 weeks before starting to get moldy. so aryn and i decided to revert back to using regular pectin; however, i neglected to buy enough of the regular pectin to accommodate the strawberries we were canning, so we ended up having to do an awkward split midway through the process and using some of the pomonas as well.
so the process went something like this:


we washed the berries, and squished them between our fingers - resulting in strawberry splatters all over the kitchen blinds - which i left as inspiration to myself to get around to making some curtains. then we boiled them down with some hand-ground cardamom, grape juice and honey (just juice for the kerr brand pectin, honey for the pomonas pectin).
i won't detail the canning process here, but if you're interested check out previous posts on jamming.


the pectin snafu resulted in half of the batch becoming jam and the other half becoming something more like strawberry sauce. Still tasty, we had some on waffles this morning.


we also made some fresh daiquiries in the process.

michelle's garden makes pesticide-lovers "shudder"

i've got to give props to the obamas on their domestic endeavors at the white house. if you're going to have two things that really make a house a home, a puppy and a garden are pretty good choices.
here's a the layout of michelle obama's garden:

click for a closer look

i love all the leafy greens and herbs. and i love the message she's sending about the importance of eating locally, knowing where your food comes from, and connecting with the earth through raising plants.
but not everybody loves that message. listening to democracy now! earlier this week i heard the following report:

Pro-Pesticide Group Criticizes First Lady’s Organic Garden

And First Lady Michelle Obama is coming under criticism from a pro-pesticide industry group for deciding to plant an organic garden at the White House. The Mid America CropLife Association recently wrote to the First Lady to urge her to consider using pesticides, or what they call "crop protection products.” One official with the pro-pesticide group said, “While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder.” Mid America CropLife represents agribusinesses like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont.

i am amazed, first of all, that there are people who shudder at the thought of organic vegetables and that anybody is willing to publicly support putting chemicals on our food - knowing what we know about the effects of these chemicals (remember DDT?) on our bodies and our environment. you can read the full letter here; i especially like that they address the letter to mrs. barack obama. what year is it?

i know a thing or two about pesticides, and i'm learning more through my work with breast cancer action. yesterday i was on a call with dr. tyrone hayes, of uc-berkeley about his research on a pesticide called atrazine. atrazine is the second most commonly used pesticide in the u.s. and it is the most common contaminant in our water - drinking, surface, even rain. it's used in incredible amounts on the corn fields in the midwest. it's also an endocrine disruptor - it converts testosterone into estrogen. i'm particularly interested in this because estrogen is what regulates the growth of breast cancer tumors - and pretty much everything we know about breast cancer: how it develops, how to treat it, has to do with regulating exposure to estrogen.
Figure 1. Map showing distribution of atrazine-use by state. Atrazine use by crop is also shown. Map courtesy of United States Geological Service (USGS).

so being exposed to additional estrogen-like compounds from our environment is of particular concern when we're thinking about the breast cancer epidemic - and it is an epidemic. in 1964 a woman's lifetime risk of developing breast cancer in the u.s. was 1 in 20, today it's 1 in 8. which, incidentally, is a trajectory that coincides with the "green revolution" here in the u.s. where we took the chemicals left over from wwii and found new uses for them as pesticides and fertilizers on our food crops.

so while we're waiting to see the results of this unofficial experiment that's been happening by exposing people to chemicals through our food and water, tyrone hayes is trying to find some quicker answers by studying frogs. frogs synthesize hormones the same way vertebrates, including humans, do, and when you expose male frogs to atrazine - some end up "feminizing" - their vocal box changes and their testosterone levels drop - and some end up changing sex entirely - they develop eggs in their testes and mate successfully with male frogs.
and if you look at exposing rats, even to small amounts of atrazine in the womb, their offspring have problems with mammary gland development.

other studies have been recently in the news, such as this one, suggesting babies conceived in the spring and summer are more likely to be born with a range of birth defects because of the contamination of pesticides and other agrichemicals in the water during that time of year.

so where are the regulations on this? well, there really are none to speak of. the only federal regulation on chemicals is the toxic substances control act of 1979. and it's pretty irrelevant to what we're dealing with now.

yesterday, the EPA announced it's going to require pesticide manufacturers - for the first time ever - to test the chemicals in their products to see if they are endocrine disrupters. it's never to late to start, i guess. what i found interesting is that our friends from CropLife showed up again in the news - saying "For pesticides, we think the likelihood is extremely low we'll have any concerns come to the surface."

and i'm sure they will do their best not to find any problems with their pesticides- so we'd better have our eyes open to the kind of studies coming out of industry about their own products.

or we can all start growing our own in chemical-free neighborhood gardens, which is pretty damn subversive and seems to really piss them off. though i'll argue that we need to do both, since those pesticides have legs - atrazine can travel over 600 miles from the point of application.

ps - until your garden gets big enough to provide all your food needs, here's a handy shopping guide about what vegetables are the most and least pesticide-ridden, so if you have to make decisions about what to buy organic - and who doesn't in this economy? you can see which fruits and veggies are safer than others.

sauerkraut saturday

i never thought i liked sauerkraut. i have a kind of tenuous relationship with foods that are essentially rotting. blue cheese - huh uh, kombucha - definitely not.
but after tasting some homemade sauerkraut at a friends' house a couple years ago i had to change my outlook on the pickled cabbage. plus it's more like kimchi than anything else, and i love kimchi.


i'm kind of alternately fascinated and disgusted by the idea of keeping a batch of decomposing i mean fermenting vegetables in my house for later consumption. but i've been collecting cabbages each week from our farm share and i've run out of other ideas of what to do with cabbage, so i decided to spend my saturday morning prepping my first attempt at sauerkraut.
plus they say fermented stuff is real good for you.
i found this great tutorial on how to make sauerkraut - unfortunately i didn't watch the video until after i'd made my batch, so i should have done a few things differently - i'll just give you the video now to spare you my mistakes.


the process is pretty simple: you chop up the cabbage, and whatever other things you want to put in there. i added garlic and wakame (seaweed) and a few anise seeds, just to see what that was like. you layer your chopped cabbage with sprinkles of sea salt, and then pack it down into your container a little bit at a time.




then you cover it with a plate and stick a jug full of water on top to weight it down. it's supposed to look something like this:


i didn't exactly have all the requisite tools at my disposal (they say you're not supposed to use anything aluminum in the process, fyi). so i had to be a little creative with what to pack the kraut into. i ended up using my salad spinner bowl, since it was the only thing i had that size that wasn't aluminum. You're supposed to fit a plate "snugly" inside the bowl - and i also didn't have the right diameter plate, so i ended up cutting one of our many flexible plastic cutting boards into a circle and pairing it with the steamer basket from our rice cooker to hold the water jug weights. we'll see how that goes.


upon watching the video, i think i should have sliced my cabbage a lot thinner, but i do like my sauerkraut crunchy, so ... this is all an experiment.
hit me up if you've got good sauerkrauting tips.
in the meantime, we'll be waiting around here for the kraut to do its thing. updates forthcoming in one to three weeks.


here's what my little sauerkraut bundle looks like in its towel tent.

end-of-springtime sweater renewal

it feels like we're in the final throws of spring here in the bay area, and if you're like me you're itching to wear some summer clothes just to encourage the season along. but i'm learning that it's advisable - no matter how anxious you are for summer - to at least bring along a sweater or two to combat the ever-changing bay climate.
i've got a lot of sweaters, but honestly i've either worn them till i'm sick of them throughout the winter, or they have holes in them, and/or don't actually fit me anymore.
so in the spirit of march mending month, and always in the spirit of conserving resources in this economy (the above and below posters are courtesy of the u.k.'s wartime "make do and mend" campaign) i've collected some options for sprucing up your sweater wardrobe.


option 1: fix a snag


i'll admit that when i snag a sweater my usual response involves cursing rolling the loose end into a ball, tugging at the edges of the sweater, and praying it stays put. i can't say this technique has ever actually worked long-term, so i'm glad to provide you with a super easy tutorial on what you're really supposed to do when you snag your sweater.

option 2: mend a hole

if you've got a more substantial hole (rather than just a loose thread bit from the snag) you can easily mend it - knits are generally really forgiving; i've done many a sloppy i'm-on-the-train-to-work-and-i'm-determined-to-mend-this-hole type of mending jobs on sweaters and you really can't tell at all. so even if you don't consider yourself a seamster/seamstress i think this is a repair you can handle. here's a little video tutorial:

How to Sew a Hole -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

option 3: embellish over a hole


i like this idea of embellishing over a sweater hole because it both makes the item wearable again as well as adds a brand-new appeal. i still recommend mending your hole first before adding embellishments. plus this option will cover up any weirdness you may have created while mending that hole.

option 4: crochet a patch


i had to include this hole patching idea because i think it's so interesting. you're basically crocheting into the perimeter of the sweater hole - this method is for big holes - and crocheting a spiral into the middle. i like it.

option 5: let's be honest, you're never going to wear that again.


part of spring cleaning is a realistic assessment of what you're hanging onto despite knowing that you'll never really wear it. i've got several sweaters that fit into that category but i'm just unwilling to toss them. i just think it's a pity to get rid of something as potentially useful as a sweater.
i'm willing to be reasonable enough to admit that it's no longer useful as a sweater, so here are a couple projects you can make out of old sweaters:

recycled sweater animals


yes, this project is brought to you by martha stewart (don't judge me). aren't they cute? the pattern looks super easy; i love the idea of upcycling a well-loved sweater into a stuffed animal, and i'm always looking for gift ideas for friends' babies.
you'll need to felt a wool sweater to start off with for this project, and martha doesn't explain that part in her online pattern, so here's a tutorial on machine felting - basically you're just washing the sweater in hot water until the fibers mat together.

recycle that yarn!


i recently needed to buy enough yarn to knit a sweater - more on that in a minute - and i realized
a) that's a lot of yarn, and
b) it costs a ton of money
so now i'm looking at those sweaters in the back of my drawer in a whole new way. inthe way a hungry wolf looks at a wooly sheep, i suppose.
it is, in fact, possible to recycle old sweaters into reusable yarn - and they tell you the best way to go about it at craft leftovers.if you're not a knitter, but like to take things apart you can always give your plunder to a knitting friend - one thing about knitters, we can't seem to turn down free yarn.

option 6: make your own

i found this sweater pattern online and fell in love - i really like owls. so in typical fashion i got really excited and bought the yarn (ugh) and started knitting - and then my enthusiasm ran over a speedbump and i haven't picked it up since. the speedbump was gauge. testing gauge is recommended for anything you're knitting that has a pattern, to make sure what you're making is similar in size to what the person to created the pattern was making. gauge is created by the particular combination of the weight of yarn you're using, the size or your needles, and how tension you use while you're knitting. i've never really understood how gauge works in a pattern, and i have very little patience for knitting something that is not actually the sweater i'm so anxious to be making, so i rarely test my gauge. i did test the gauge on this one, and instead of knitting up a nice square, i made a long skinny rectangle. but then i didn't really know what to do about my gauge being off, so i just proceeded to try making the sweater and seeing how it turned out. it turned out small. really small.


so now it's sitting on the needles waiting for me to figure out what to do.