Anyways, I wish I could take pictures of my creations and my plants I’m growing and the orange tree I climb to pick the fruit to make the best orange juice… but I have no camera and that fact makes my blogging less frequent. I want to buy another camera, I know how cheap they are these days; but I am unemployed. go figure.  Unemployment, however, has been an adventure. 

I’ve discovered a (new to me) mexican grocery store chain called Vallarta. They’re weekly specials are insane. 4 pounds of onions for $1. . . 4 pounds of fuji apples for $1. Fluffy mexican loaves of white bread 3 for $1. I love the ‘dirty’ feeling of these kinds of places. This place has  meat in glass cases that look (and smell) like they have questionable refrigeration. They have hand made mexican chorizo that is so obviously still stuffed in intestinal casing… Huge cow tongues, delicate calfs tongues, pig trotters by the dozen and all sorts of other goodies. Theres also a section that sells prepared mexican food. My favorite, however, was definitely the undersized kiwi at 7 per $1, green onions 4 per $1, and parsley at 3 bunches $1. I LOVE this place.

I followed these instructions

and because my ingredients weren’t exactly the same as the authors I’ll leave some mozzarella notes. Its much more simple than I could have imagined… to think I went to culinary school and I was afraid of making mozzarella… It was easy, really easy.

Ingredients

1/2 gallon of raw milk (unpasturized, non-homogenized)

1tsp citric acid powder disolved in 1/4 cup water (I found citric acid at a home beer brewing and wine making supply store $5/lb)

15 drops concentrated liquid rennet mixed with 1 Tbsp water (found next to the raw milk at the store)

1 scant tsp salt

Thermometer – mine was in celsius and one of those mercury kind…

strainer or cheesecloth

I followed the instructions loosely and I still got fantastic cheese. Right now I’m in the process of making ricotta with the whey… And also writing this is the only thing really stopping me from eating all that cheese.

I Like (out of 120):

119: Sea Salt

112: Hummus

111: Pea Coats

106: Facebook (its how I can actually get in touch with my brother [of all people] )

103: Sweaters

97: Scarves

91: San Francisco

90: Dinner Parties

87: Outdoor Performance Clothes

78: Multilingual Children

64: Recycling

63: Expensive Sandwiches

61: Bicycles

60: Toyota Prius

58: Japan

54: Kitchen Gadgets

50: Dogs

48: Whole Foods & Grocery Co-ops

42: Sushi

36: Breakfast Places

27: Marathons

24: Wine

23: Microbreweries

19: Travelling

15: Yoga

13: Tea

6: Organic Foods

5: Farmer’s Markets

1: Coffee

So What did that tell me? I’m a foodie (although I hate the term foodie) , I’m from California, I’m Japanese and I like clothes.

Sometimes it is to kill my sourdough. I’ve never been able to kill my sourdough. I will neglect it often… not feeding it for over a week… and then I will feel sorry for my life-form and feed it a little. Sometimes I get sick of it and I will dry it and powder it or freeze it to restore later.

This time I came very very close to killing my sourdough starter that sits in a ziploc container in the refrigerator. Very Very Very close. It smells like alcohol, fermentation mmm. Actually, it doesn’t smell very pleasant at all. AND I was pretty sure it was dead. But I tried to feed it anyway. Like when you come across something that was once living when you walk on the beach and have to poke at it to see if it moves. Well my sourdough moved! So now that I’ve nearly killed it I think I will try to restore it to a healthy sourdough again. The way I put it to my mom, right now my sourdough is my 90 year old senile- can’t remember how many times he’s eaten breakfast today-  grandpa and I’m going to make it my 22 year old surfs-swims-does martial arts-works out alot-  daily brother.  I’m going to make some bread tomorrow.

Changing subjects abruptly… I’m also going to attempt to make mozzerella cheese. I found some raw whole milk and liquid rennet (both in the dairy section) at the Lassen’s (like baby Whole Foods – same company). The other ingredient I need is acetic acid, which I hear they sell at brewing supply stores– and there happens to be one in town. Hopefully it works… with internet guidance and a thermometer… and hopefully successful F to C conversion skills because all my thermometers are in Celsius. Yay cheese.

* note: at the Lassen’s I bought another can of black beans. I think what happened to me and black beans was that when I was in Japan for a year and a half, I ate them once. The one time I ate them, they were ridiculously expensive (but still good), so now when I go to the grocery store I pick up reasonably priced black beans, all the time. It’s a good thing its healthy

I remembered another thing I plan on making tomorrow (You get the inspired (?) part yet). My friend’s birthday is coming up so I’m making her a chocolate cake studded with hazelnuts, soaked in Grand Marnier and covered in dark chocolate mousse. Its not as messy looking as it sounds. If I make it correctly it’s actually pretty exquisite.

Also! I discovered maple butter at the Lassen’s. Its inverted maple syrup that spreads like, well, butter. It’s completely natural and it tastes like butter pecan ice cream (which was my favorite as a kid) (Right now my favorite is spiced rum raisin)

Also at the Lassen’s – because I keep finding cool stuff – is vanilla bean paste, for those of you who are too lazy to scrape out the vanilla specs out of the pod or think vanilla bean pods are too expensive (there are easy ways around the price factor). Vanilla bean paste comes in a jar and it is a million times better than Vanilla essence (vanilla essence is 35% alcohol — vanilla bean paste is not)

Today I picked some guava, cherimoya, my first harvest of sugar snap peas, mandarins, tangerines… hm what else… passion fruit, sweet potatoes (a little late in the season) burdock… I think thats it for now. I will update if I remember more.

On the radio I’ve been hearing ads for cherries on sale at local grocery stores… cherries are NOT in season in California. You’re probably buying product from Chile or somewhere very far away. If it has to travel then its probably been put through alot of stress, sometimes chemicals, picked early and sprayed with chemicals to ripen earlier. You’re better off waiting for your local seasonal fruit. If you’re in California, something is always in season… at the very least strawberries (unless its raining)

Also, I accidentally broke my dslr and my point and shoot… so no pictures unless I try really hard. sorry.

This is Joy the Baker’s post on it

This is Alton Browns Chewy Recipe from the Good Eats episode : Chips for Sister Marsha (Youtube link)& Part Two

also featured in the episode

The Thin (Crispy) Cookie

The Puffy Cookie

I use the chewy recipe and add the variation of using browned butter instead of just melted butter (gives the cookies a toffee kind of flavor). To make browned butter melt the butter in a saucepan, keep the heat on until the butter starts to turn a hazelnut color. Turn off the heat and place the saucepan on a wet cloth (or a bowl of water) just to stop the butter from overcooking and burning.

I like to add things like walnuts and cranberries and nix the chocolate chips for a change.

1. Near the intersection of Wilshire and Western, about half a block up from the Wiltern Theater on Western Avenue there is this small boba ‘hut’ called I Love Boba, a local chain. Hands down the best boba around. Their boba drinks in their smoothie line are the best. I like their strawberry peach and strawberry kiwi.

2. on West Olympic Ave and Vermont, also about half a block away from Vermont on Olympic Avenue is this really big (kinda old 80’s looking grocery store building with big red korean lettering) Korean grocery store. They have so much seafood and fresh meat and 3 aisles of kimchee, other cool asian products and produce. I always buy all the asian mushrooms you can’t find at your local market like eringi, oyster mushrooms, enoki, shimeji, etc. Everything is so cheap and fresh I can’t resist. They must have amazing turnover because whenever I go its very crowded. You can also buy 10lb (probably bigger) bags of peeled garlic and 10lb bags of bean sprouts. yum! The place may be daunting for first timers but I love the old asian feel to the place. Plus you can’t beat the prices. A pound of pumpkin seeds for under $3. I get excited just thinking about it.

The octopus got boiled then pickled into a vinegar and sugar solution.

The crabs became miso soup (they were small so we were going for extracting the crab flavor rather than trying to eat the tiny bits of meat)

The clams became the soup broth base for my Kimchee Chigae

In addition to this, I forgot to add the egg to my batter… which made a dry batter that I just added more liquid to adjust the consistency. HOWEVER because I forgot the egg and put in no sugar the muffins didn’t take on any color. No warm brown muffin hues. You see in order to achieve browning batters need either sugar or egg or both. Thats why alot of bread recipes call for an egg wash for additional color. Without color on my muffins the eyes percieve the treats as still raw and as a result the brain thinks that they don’t taste as good as they should. But if you can overcome that… my muffins have tons of fiber in its whole wheat flour, flax seed meal and oatmeal, tons of omega 3 from the flax and chopped walnuts, good vitamins from dried chopped dates and dried blueberries.

Once I finish my… 24 muffins … I will retry and post if the muffins turn out nicely

We pick alot of strawberries. I love strawberries. I love to pick them and eat them in the fields, warmed by the sun. Sun-kissed, sun-warmed fruit always makes me feel at home. None of that refrigerated chemically sprayed grocery fruit for me thank you. But going back to my confession. I cannot stop at one strawberry or even a basket of strawberries. I live to eat strawberries until I start feeling sick. I’ll have strawberries as an addition to breakfast. Only strawberries for lunch and more strawberries for snack. And even after I’m sick of them I’ll eat more. And even more the next day. I don’t know how to stop until the strawberries are gone or I’ve put them somewhere. God I want some more, but I’ve put them somewhere…

Many of my several pounds of strawberries have been washed, stemmed and frozen for future use in jams, smoothies, purees, other cooking adventures. All of the damaged strawberries went into jam… Jam is easy… some sugar, some pectin, some fruit, some heat and some time. I accidentally made about a gallon of jam. Maybe more. But I canned it so I’ll have it for a while.

The lesson here is this: while it may be ok to eat strawberries until you get sick repetitively, a gallon of jam is entirely too much jam.