Frame: I Never Liked Chemistry
Chemistry was my least favorite of the many, many science courses I endured in high school and college. But if I had been asked to study this table, perhaps I would have enjoyed it more. (Click to enlarge.)
Feast: Baked Eggs and a Fake Bloody Mary
There’s really nothing like your best friend’s wedding, and there’s really no better cure for the post-dancing, post-gimlet, post-clown car ride home than brunch. Oh brunch, how I miss you. These days I don’t get too many brunch dates- work keeps getting in the way. But this Sunday I met up with some of my dearest friends for one of the most decadent morning meals I have ever had.
My first trip to Sonsie on Newbury Street was ten years ago. Back then, it was the epitome of cool to my nerdlet self, and even though none of us college kids could afford to eat there, we could scrounge enough for a pre-party drink. Over the years Sonsie has remained a see and be seen place on Newbury, and I’ve long enjoyed their Bloody Marys. But only recently has their food become a reason to visit.
A lunch this winter proved that their new mussels are fresh and aromatic, their staple mesclun and goat cheese salad still holds up, and their reinvented items- scallops and vegetable spring rolls, for example – are surprisingly fresh and refined. I haven’t been for dinner in years, but if this weekend’s brunch was any indication, dinner would be a meal to roll yourself home from.
I chose the Baked Eggs for my meal. The server explained that these were whole eggs baked in a gratin dish, served with irish bacon. This was a fairly accurate description, save for the omission of about a cup of cream. The eggs and bacon had been baked with cheese and copious amounts of heavy cream, topped with more cheese and scallions. Oh, and a side dish of potatoes. After a few bites I decided I was only going to be able to eat half, but I managed to power through thanks to my brunch cocktail, the Golden Bloody Mary. One of four specialty Bloody Mary options, the “Golden” was described as basil vodka muddled with yellow tomatoes.
recipe for a happy marriage?
Not to disparage the drink, but it would be far more accurately described as a Basil Martini. And it was a good Basil Martini, it really was. It cut right through the richness of my fat-laden breakfast, which I appreciated. But this Bloody Mary left me wanting…a Bloody Mary. Next time I’ll go back to the original, or switch to a Salty Dog, as did one of my brunch companions.
pre-brunch, pre-dancing, pre-clown car ride home
Frame: “My” Recipe
AVV and her chicken cacciatore
When does a recipe become “yours?”
Do you have to cook it a certain number of times? Change a key ingredient? Buy special equipment to prepare it? When does it shift from being Ina Garten’s, Food and Wine’s, or grandma’s recipe, to being yours?
My friend Amanda decided that she owned “her” Chicken Cacciatore, a recipe she originally found on PBS, after cooking it half a dozen times. For her, mastery equals ownership. A recent dinner party confirmed that this dish is all hers- it’s one of those meals that must include crusty bread so you can sop up every last delicious bit of sauce.
For others, owning a recipe happens when they pass it down to another generation, or teach it to a friend. And there are some people that only feel comfortable owning a recipe if they create it from scratch. For me, the shift from theirs to mine occurs when I no longer need to consult the actual written instructions. By the time I can do it on my own I’ve usually changed it enough that using the original script again would result in a significantly different dish. Case in point:
my pasta
Several years ago, I found a simple recipe for pasta with mushrooms and a tomato cream sauce- I’ve probably prepared it 15 times since then. I usually have most of the ingredients in-house, I make a big batch so I can eat it for several meals, and it is one of those sauces that doesn’t have to simmer for 4 hours to taste good. Tonight, while organizing some cookbooks, I ran across the original recipe. A quick glance proved that it is but a distant cousin to the dish I now prepare, and that’s how I know that pasta is now mine.
How do you gauge ownership of your dishes?
Feast: SB’s Cupcake Awards
Every six months I think the cupcake fad must be dying out, but it still appears to be thriving. More cupcake-only bakeries are popping up, cafes and sandwich shops are adding the little treats to their offerings, and you can even buy special cupcake holders on Amazon. I can understand why the trend has taken hold; aside from being a fun sugary dessert, cupcakes make you feel like a kid again. A big fluffy cupcake with a sugary rose on top just begs to have its icing licked, a finger poked into the white frosting and then smeared across your friend’s face in jest.
There are definitely winners in the many different categories of cupcakes, thus the following set of awards for the Boston Metro area. Note: I am including sweet muffins in these awards as, while I appreciate those establishments that refer to them as muffins and thus enable me to eat them in the morning, I don’t really need an excuse. A mini cake-like pastry that is either stuffed with goodies or topped with frosting is not a muffin. It is a cupcake.
1. Best Classic: Party Favors
Sometimes you just want chocolate, or you just want vanilla. You want the cake to be moist and the icing to be sugary sweet and in the perfect ratio to the amount of cake. And that’s when you go to Party Favors in Brookline. I’ve mentioned them before as a fail-safe for last summer’s great cupcake baking experiment, and I still think they are the best you can get. They aren’t trying to be gourmet, they are just trying to be the best basic, classic example out there. Bite into one of their vanilla cakes and you are right back at your best friend’s 12th birthday party (or her wedding, as in the above picture).
2. Best Filled: Gingerbread Construction Company
Gingerbread Construction is one of those places that refers to their cupcakes as muffins, even though they are filled with ingredients like whipped cream, lemon curd, chocolate sauce, fresh peaches, etc. Each “muffin” is like an individual cake, and my favorite is the Strawberry Shortcake, which is exactly what it sounds like.
3. Best Gourmet: Sweet
I love anything that involves the combination of sweet and savory, and the Salted Chocolate cupcake at Sweet fits that bill. Unfrosted, it avoids being sickly sweet so you can focus on the flavors instead of the icing. This fall’s Chocolate Orange and Molasses Ginger are also refined enough to make you feel a bit like you are at high tea, but still fun (and small) enough to be eaten with abandon.
4. Best Themed: South End Buttery
The Buttery has specialty cupcakes- lemon raspberry, chocolate pistachio, the ubiquitous Boston Cream, and they are all good. But what makes it special are its classic cupcakes, all named for the owner’s dogs. The Madison, The Harriet, and The Simon make you wish you were having your coffee and cupcake with a big dog staring at you adoringly and shedding all over your lap.
5. Best Makes You Feel Like a Baker: Treat Cupcake Bar
At Treat you can really fool yourself into thinking that you know how to make a good cupcake. You pick the cake flavor, the frosting, and the “extras” – snickers, gummy worms, coconut, chocolate chips. I think the concept is a lot of fun for groups or kids, and the cupcakes are great, which is why I’m giving it an award. However, like many things in life, there is danger in having too many options. I can put gummy worms and nerds on my cupcake, but should I? Sometimes it’s better to pick one of Treat’s sensible, pre-made cupcakes instead of cruising for one that’s all tarted up at the bar. You might have fun with it that night, but you’re just going wake up with heartburn, wishing you’d been nicer to that sweet, sane cupcake who used to make you coffee in the morning.
6. Of course, Best Vegan: Flour Bakery
I’ve said so much about these in previous posts that I’ll try not to blather here. Suffice it to say, one more time, that I can’t live without these in my life.
Sometimes the best part about cupcakes is that they can give you comfort and courage. And, they are a much better (and wiser) choice than wine to boost you up for say, a wedding toast.
toast fueled by cupcakes, not wine.
Frame: Just Add Swagger
Of all the things I’ve written in my life, a wedding toast is not one of them.
I’ve written speeches before- I believe the words “I’ll pay you to laugh” came out of my mouth more than once in the days before walking up to the podium to give my business school graduation speech. I’ve done plenty of public speaking, to groups as large as 500 and on a regular basis to groups of 20-100. I’ve written tributes for anniversaries and salutations for babies. None of these things is foreign or nerve-wracking anymore. But this wedding toast thing is different.
just add swagger
I’ve known the couple for six years, so it’s not that I don’t have plenty of great things to say about them. But on an occasion like a wedding, with such a mixed crowd in the audience, I found myself editing my words more than usual. Don’t want to be too personal, don’t want to make too many private jokes, don’t want to be too bland. Ultimately, I was looking for a balance of humor, wit, and wisdom regarding love and relationships. Never having been married I can safely say that wisdom part will probably fail. But I think I have some perspective that lends at least a little credence to my words about the work that goes into maintaining a relationship, and the courage that it takes to love someone. The terms “Renaissance Faire” and “slumber party” also feature in my toast, so here’s hoping someone laughs. Sometimes it’s all in your swagger when you go up to the microphone, your cadence when you speak, or the dress that you choose to wear, so I’ve been working on those aspects as well.
I was surprised at how much marinating my toast took before it was fully cooked, but ultimately I’m happy with how it turned out-I only hope the bride and groom like it too. Congratulations Mike and Karen- I will see you in a few hours!
Feast: Dumplings, Dumplings Everywhere and More Than a Drop to Drink
Last night I went back for another helping of Thursday Night Wine Bar at Central Bottle, this week featuring dumplings from Myers + Chang. I had been looking forward to this combination since I saw it publicized via twitter from Nick @centralbtlwine and @myersandchang, even though my skill with a pair of chopsticks is not something I’m known for.
If you haven’t been to Myers + Chang, you should go. Run by Joanne Chang (a woman so cool that I like to pretend she is my best friend in some alternate universe), M+C is visually arresting with its combination of vibrant colors and carefully chosen decor pieces. And oh yeah, the food is great too. I believe the dumplings we enjoyed last night were Mama Chang’s Pork and Chive, pan-fried. I can’t claim to be an expert on dumplings, but I’ve had my share. I’ve eaten some with non-existent, clearly frozen, or just plain bad filling. I’ve eaten some with watery, tough, or flavorless wonton wrappings. These were none of the above.
The filling was substantial but the dumplings weren’t over-stuffed, and the flavor was delicate. Nobody wants gamey dumplings, and these were, of course, very fresh. The wonton wrapping itself was also a nice surprise, tough enough to withstand two bites without falling apart, tender enough that you didn’t have to fight your way to the filling, and tasty enough that you still wanted to eat it even if your bit of pork had already fallen out and been stolen by someone else at the table.
And of course, the wine. Oh Central Bottle, how I love it when you pick wines for me. Never would I have thought to choose Richou Anjou Blanc ($18/bottle) to drink with dumplings, but not only was it my favorite of last night’s pairings, I see it quickly becoming a staple in my house. With your nose in the glass, the aroma is a very distinct honey, and the taste is like creamy apples, really complementing the flavor of the pork in the dumplings. My other favorite from last night was the Chanteleuserie Bourgueil ($18/bottle), a smooth deep red. The other two wines, a Sigl Gruner Veltliner and a Eichinger Gruner Veltliner, were a nice contrast. Leaner than the first pair, the Sigl was (to me) almost spicy, while the Eichinger was smoother, with notes of peach.
The best part (aside from great food and drink) of another successful Thursday Night Wine Bar at Central Bottle? Introducing more new people to the experience. Beware: if I know you, you’ll be attending this with me sooner or later, and you’ll leave warm, happy, and, as a guest stated last night, “wanting more of this in your life.”
BC and AD
MA and SB
Food: Mt. Tam- Cheese as Procrastination
I have a mad, obsessive love with cheese. I spent a year working with just cheese (and olives, and chocolate, and coffee…all the best things in life), and learned quite a bit. Shortly, dear reader, you will see more and more posts expounding on the merits of cheese and my favorites in each category. But today is not the day for a primer on the types of milk, the aging process, the beauty of mold. Today is a day that I am procrastinating, putting off writing something that I have to write by writing other things. I have also cleaned my apartment, re-arranged all of my furniture, and looked up synonyms for procrastinate.
Dally, dawdle, defer, give the run around, goldbrick, hang fire, hesitate, hold off, lag, linger, loiter, poke, postpone, shilly-shally, stall, stay, tarry, temporize, and be dilatory. In case you were wondering.
But I digress/postpone/hang fire…back to Mt. Tam. It is one of my favorites. From the second I tasted it in the Ferry Building in San Francisco years ago, I knew I was smitten.
Here is the description of Mt. Tam, from Cowgirl Creamery’s website:
MT TAM
Just North of the San Francisco Bay, Mt. Tamalpais rises like a monument to Northern California’s natural beauty. In deference, Cowgirl Creamery named its signature cheese MT TAM. It’s a smooth, creamy, elegant, triple-cream – made with tasty organic milk from the Straus Family Dairy. MT TAM is firm, yet buttery with a mellow, earthy flavor reminiscent of white mushrooms.
Now, I may still be learning about wine, and I may yet be a novice at cooking a good steak. I may not know when to give up or when to shut up or when I’ve had too many Army/Navy’s, but if there is one thing that I know, it is cheese. And I do not agree with that description.
Mt. Tam tastes like the beach. It is salty and biting, almost briney at a certain stage but always with that fresh creamy note of ocean air. As it ages, the ammonia pulls at your nose more and more. When it is young, is has the texture of firm marscapone. The rind is mild but- and here I will agree with the cowgirls- it has a note of mushrooms.
Another term for procrastinate: “eat some Mt. Tam.” As in, now that my apartment is clean I guess I’ll have to eat some Mt. Tam to avoid my actual work.
mt. tam, from cowgirl creamery website
Frame: Office Space
it has that new desk smell
I know, I know, I said that if you write you should be able to write anywhere. But there is something awfully tantalizing about a new desk, a fresh coat of paint, and cork boards just dying to be filled up with pictures and ideas. The trillium photos, one of my favorite gifts, don’t hurt either. Unfortunately I still need a proper chair, which brings me to…
Why are chairs so expensive? The above desk was shown with a chair that cost $500 (which is more than I paid for the desk) and did not seem extraordinary in any way. I’d like the chair to be at least a little comfortable, as my Nanowrimo #4 is fast approaching, but even plain old wooden chairs appear to be running close to $200. If you have any ideas for a chair that is less than $150 and has at least some kind of comfort level over just bare wood, please, don’t keep them to yourself.
Frame: At Least Once a Year…
Today I need comfort and chili. And I need a laugh. I need to laugh.
picture from someofficestuff.tumblr.com
Feast: Darwin’s, a Dose of Snark
The atmosphere at Darwin’s can be summed up by the slogan on their t-shirt:
healthy dose of snark
Darwin’s Ltd., a sandwich shop with two locations in Cambridge, describes itself as ” a unique, bohemian, shabby – chic deli and cafe, serving up gourmet sandwiches, saucy and satisfying take-out dinners, local bakery breads and goodies, deliciously rich coffee, and a great selection of loose teas.” Pull up the couch Darwin’s, you need to work on your self-awareness.
If Darwin’s were a person, he would be a Cambridge Hipster with too tight jeans tucked into his too expensive yet made-to-look- worn sneakers. He would have dirty hair because he’s too busy looking emo to take a shower, and he would carry a messenger bag with buttons on it that say things like “I’m cleverly disguised as a nerd.” In fact, his name would be HipNerd. Mr. HipNerd.
It’s not that I don’t like Darwin’s, I have enjoyed their food for years, and my favorite sandwich is the Crawford. Darwin’s sandwiches are named for the streets in the surrounding area (Prescott, Ashton, Broadway), and the Crawford is smoked turkey with avocado, mayo, lettuce, tomato and herb vinaigrette- I usually add cheddar and have it on sourdough. It really is a great sandwich, and I appreciate that Darwin’s has recently expanded to offer more local products (Taza chocolate etc.) in their grocery section. They have good coffee, flavorful soup, and nice mini cupcakes.
But frankly, I don’t like their attitude. They aren’t the only sandwich game in town anymore, and I hope someone clues them in to this reality.
sandwich board at Darwin's on Cambridge St.
My last trip to Darwin’s was at 1pm on a Friday, and when I got there the salad case was completely blown (industry term for almost empty, with whatever is left looking sad and dejected). The bakery case needed to be fronted (industry term for pulling product to the front of the case and straightening the rows) and cleaned, both inside and outside. The gentlemen making the sandwiches were audibly snarking about customers. The floor was dirty, the coffee bar was a mess. Didn’t exactly make me want to stick around.
Now, I work with food, so I understand that during a rush cases get emptied, product gets thrown around, tempers flare- and all of this I could have overlooked if the place hadn’t been so…how shall I put this…grimey and mean. It seems that Darwin’s doesn’t realize that you can be a Cambridge Hipster and still be clean and well-adjusted. Mr. HipNerd, I’m really sorry that your girlfriend left you for someone taller/your Harvard advisor didn’t like your thesis on The Minutiae of Something Meaningless/your annoying little dog won’t wear his new sweater, but that is no excuse for having an attitude with your customers. We all have our personal problems. Get it together, wash up, and slap a smile on your face.
the crawford
Frame: Providence – 48 Hours of Food
sb's other favorite thing about rhode island
I’m embarrassed to admit that before this weekend I had grossly underestimated Rhode Island. I’d always considered it a drive-through state, home to more CVS’s per capita than any other place in America…and not much else. I was wrong. Not only is Rhode Island an easy drive and day trip from Boston, it is home to some great food and fall activities.
First, there is the Johnson and Wales Culinary Arts Museum. I will spare you the many, many food-geek pictures I took of vintage Hobart mixers, notes from past presidents about their dietary requests, and antique pasta machines, but I do have to share this picture of a cool old stove:
cool old stove!
and this picture of an amazing collection of Pez dispensers. Yes, that’s a Yoda.
The museum also has an exhibit on the first incarnation of Tyler Florence’s new show subject- food trucks. Behold, the cars of the Worcester Lunch Car Company:
the first food trucks
Ok, maybe you’re not as much of a food geek as I am and the idea of this museum is truly boring. Bear with me, there is actual food in Providence, most of it found on “The Hill.”
Federal Hill is Rhode Island’s answer to the North End, with one key difference: the stripe down the middle of the road is painted in the colors of the Italian flag. No joke.
Federal Hill
This being Columbus Day weekend, Federal Hill was having a festival, and the shouts of “hot ravs for sale!” were mixed with accordion music and the smell of cigars and anise. Like Hanover Street in Boston, Atwells Avenue in Federal Hill is lined with restaurants and markets. One market, Venda Ravioli, boasted a wall of fresh pasta and an entire freezer section of house-made ravioli.
wall of fresh pasta
More interesting to me, however, was Tony’s Colonial Market. Along with the typical Italian case full of sausage and peppers, cured meats, and stuffed vegetables, Tony’s had some really unique items. I purchased Annisette sugar (can’t wait to make whipped cream with that), a fantastic piece of glassware that doubles as a measuring device, and – my weakness- some really long, unwieldy, impractical pasta.
anisette sugar, glassware, really long pasta
Now, how do you cure the food coma resulting from a night on Federal Hill?
Take a trip to Phantom Farm for apple picking, one of my favorite fall activities.
one of my favorite fall activities
Phantom Farm is a small operation, but they make their own cider and sell hotdogs – what’s not to love? And, like the rest of Rhode Island, Phantom Farm is really, really excited about pumpkin season. Seriously, people in Rhode Island carve pumpkins like it is their job. Not pictured? The Roger Williams Zoo Jack-o-Lantern Spectacular, which has got to be the most carved pumpkins I have ever seen in one place. While I didn’t get to see the pumpkins at night, we walked through the fringe of the exhibit during the day, and even then it was impressive.
All in all, Providence was a really lovely road trip, and Rhode Island, I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Your insane amount of CVS locations ensures that one will never be without a toothbrush or flip flop, you have plenty of outdoor activities for a weekend of great fall weather, and your food scene appeals to all of my geekiness. Thank you.
Fluid: Travaglini Gattinara 2004 and A Word on Wine Rankings
While Pinot Noir has become almost grossly popular since the movie Sideways thrust it into the public eye, I’ve recently been exploring another varietal that is similar but (to me) more interesting: Nebbiolo.
Nebbiolo is grown in Piedmont, Italy, and named for the principal villages in the region: Barolo, Barbaresco, Ghemme, and Gattinara. Like Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo is difficult to grow and cultivate into a drinkable wine, and Gattinara’s are similar in taste to California Pinot. And, some people say that Nebbiolo is Italy’s most noble red grape.
Shoot me if I ever use the word noble to refer to a grape.
The best Nebbiolo I’ve had has come from the Travaglini Winery, and it’s not just because the bottle is so cool.
Travaglini Gattinara 2004 looks watery out of the bottle, a little thin in the glass. But it is full-bodied and tastes of red fruit- cherry and raspberry. Winemaker’s notes say that it also has hints of rose and violet, which I am not yet skilled enough to detect, but I will say I tasted some vanilla undertones.
Wine Spectator gives this wine 90 points, which puts it in the “outstanding” category. There are a few well-regarded wine scales out there, most notably Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate Scale. This system ranks from 50 to 100 on color, appearance, aroma, flavor and overall quality. There is still some cache to drinking a wine Mr. Parker has blessed, but the truth is that if your tastes don’t match with his, the scale means nothing. Rankings from magazines like Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast can also be a helpful guidepost to quality, but there is always some question as to whether advertising dollars play a role in how well a wine is reviewed* by these publications. You can get some information about a wine on retail sites or Snooth.com, but many times the material on those sites is submitted by the public – the whole world is becoming one big Yelp. While it is helpful to get a layman’s opinion on certain things, it’s not always accurate information.
Personally, I’ve been enjoying Wine Spider. Their mission is “to remove the mystery behind the numbers and allow mere mortals to participate and analyze the positive and negative qualities of a wine with confidence.” Sounds good to this mere mortal. While it doesn’t yet list the wide range of wines other sites have- Wine Spider is based on Australian wines- the site ranks nose, palate, and finish and also includes a “value for the money” rating that I appreciate.
In the end, any ranking system is fairly useless unless you find something you enjoy drinking. Better, I think, to pick a wine shop and cultivate a relationship with someone there who can learn your specific tastes and give suggestions tailored to you. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the best way to figure out what you like to drink, is to drink it.
*Note, you can always be sure I am giving you my honest opinion since I currently receive zero dollars for anything I write on this blog.
Food: Hanger Steak with Salsa Verde and Mint Zucchini Pancakes
sb the butcher
There is something very satisfying about preparing a really excellent steak for someone. Before last night, I had never realized that kind of satisfaction- my command of the cow has never been that great. But, with the help of a partner (also responsible for the photography in this piece) and his cookbook “The New Steak” by Cree LeFavour, I not only made a really nice steak, I started all the way at the beginning: with a bit of butchering.
When you buy a whole hanger steak (also known as bistro, onglet, or skirt), there is a tendon running down the middle that needs to be removed. Normally this is the kind of thing I would ask my friendly grocery store butcher to do for me, but not this time. This time I got out the knife.
I have to say, it was surprisingly satisfying to concentrate on trying to butcher something correctly (not that I’m sure that I did) and I have a new appreciation for what I already knew was a tough profession. I did have to consult the cookbook a few times for some guidance- how much of this was I supposed to remove? (All of it.) Were the resulting pieces supposed to look sort of mangled and irregular? (Yes!)
After butchering, it was on to trying not to ruin my now beloved hanger steak. I seasoned it with salt and rubbed a little bit of olive oil on it just before cooking. Then, to pan fry, I put a few tablespoons of safflower oil (you could use peanut or any other high heat oil- not olive oil) in a pan and brought it to a very high temperature, then seared the meat for 3 minutes on both sides. Once seared, I turned the heat to medium and let the meat cook for another 10-12 minutes, turning periodically. I have a meat thermometer, so I could check for a temp of 120-130 for medium rare, but you could just cut into a piece to check.
While the meat finished cooking, I made one of the easiest and quickest steak accompaniments that exists: salsa verde. I ripped up some parsley, chives, and mint, and put them into a food processor with a clove of garlic and a few anchovies. Once this mixture was chopped, I put in the juice of one lemon and about 1/4th cup of olive oil and pulsed for a few more seconds. All of this took about 2 minutes (I didn’t do any precise measuring) and added a really fresh taste to the whole meal.
Once the meat was done, I wrapped it in tinfoil and set it to rest on a plate while I finished the Mint Zucchini Pancakes I’d started earlier. The pancakes, also from Ms. LeFavour’s book, were not complicated, but they did take some work. You have to shred about 4 cups of zucchini, let them sit for 20 minutes with some salt, and then make a serious effort to drain out as much water as possible. I don’t have a box grater because I don’t like them, but when you need to shred a lot of zucchini you should have something heftier than a microplane.
Add to the shredded zucchini a leek, some salt, milk, matzo meal, mint, two eggs, and some pepper, and then drop by spoonfuls into a hot buttered pan. Like most pancakes, the first batch is not that good. But by the third run, you’re getting some really nice, well-formed patties.
The last addition to this meal (save for the dessert crepes made by my partner) was some lovely Valbreso feta. The recipe suggested crumbling it over everything, but instead I sliced it so it could be layered with the pancakes, dipped in the salsa verde, or just eaten as is. The cheese adds a good layer of salt to everything, but on the whole I wish there had been a better texture balance in the meal. If I was writing the recipe I would have included slices of firm tomatoes somewhere on the plate, for a little contrast. But, if I do say so myself, the steak was delicious, my butchering was not a disaster, and even though I’m not a baker, I could definitely make those zucchini pancakes again.
Food: The Only Way To Eat Pumpkin Seeds
Every single time I buy packaged pumpkin seeds I am disappointed, no matter what the brand or promise of freshness on the package. There is only one way to eat pumpkin seeds and it starts with this:
1. Buy a pumpkin.
sb on the prowl
2. Carve the pumpkin.
3. Take the seeds out of the pumpkin and put them on a baking sheet. Take most of the pumpkin slime off of the seeds, but don’t get too precious about it. Sprinkle the seeds with salt. Do not add oil. Do not add butter. If you want to mix it up and try some spices, go ahead.
4. Bake the seeds in a low oven- 250- for an hour. Voila.
(Don’t forget to finish carving the pumpkin.)
Frame: My Synesthesia
It has been almost seven years since I learned that I have synesthesia. I actually found out about the condition by accident – I was living in San Francisco and one of my roommates was watching 20/20, and there was Barbara Walters, talking to people who had been diagnosed as synesthetes. When I tell people about it I usually get a “you are some kind of circus freak” glance, but truthfully I forget that I have it most of the time, since it has always been part of my life.
Synesthesia is a “neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory path leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory path.” In other words, your senses- smell, sight, touch, taste, hearing- get crossed sometimes. Instead of operating independently of one another, they play together. There are over 60 different types of synesthesia, but of the several that I have, the form I experience most distinctly is color graphemic.
In color graphemic synesthesia, all of one’s numbers and letters are associated with colors. For my whole life, each letter and number has been assigned to a color in my head, and that color does not change. Before I knew about synesthesia I just thought that everyone had their own colors for letters/numbers, and that your color association came from the alphabet magnets you played with when you were a kid, or the 500 count crayon box. But now I know that while my “a” is yellow, most people don’t assign a color to their a.
There are some tests you can do to determine levels of synesthesia, and one that I do on myself is to just write out the alphabet a few times a year, with the color of my letter beside the letter itself. Then I compare with the last list and see if anything has changed. Here are my two most recent lists- one from today and one from a few months ago.
Kind of hard to capture written lists in a picture, but you can see that they are almost identical, save for me using “bronze” instead of brown in one instance. (Must have been feeling whimsical.)
The other thing about graphemic synesthesia is that every letter has its own color, but every full word has its own color too. So all of the letters that make up a word have their own color, but the word as a whole could be a color all its own. For example:
Now, I see you giving me the circus freak look, but I actually don’t mind the party game that usually ensues after a group of people find out about this.
“What color is chair?”
“brown.”
“What color is bar?”
“blue.”
“What color is BEER?!”
“purple.”
Trust me, this goes on and on and people love it.
As I said, I don’t normally spend too much time thinking about synesthesia, but recently I described a certain olive as tasting “purple” and got the circus freak look from a co-worker, and was reminded of my special little gift. Sometimes when people find out they ask me to write their name in my colored letters – I never really understand this. The colors mean nothing to the other person, they are (selfishly) my colors that will always exist in just my head. But if, after reading this, you’d like to know what color your name is, or play the “what color is desk/stool/pencil” game, I’d be happy to. Fire away.
The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread 