Kitchen Chronicles: Part One. The Pantry.

I am somewhat fascinated with hearing about how people eat, about the patterns and rituals and habits of their diets.

I love pictures of people's kitchens and pantries.  I love food descriptions in novels. When I buy a cook book, I'm usually most interested in the opening chapters that include lists of things to stock, basic principles to uphold. I frequently ask my friends about what meals they make over and over again. I sneak peeks into strangers's grocery carts when I'm shopping.

While I appreciate a good recipe or a beautiful food picture, I am far more interested in the bigger picture. What is your food philosophy?

In that vein, I've decided to share how we eat. Cooking and food preparation is a big part of my day. It's takes up a huge part of my time, head space, and budget.

For the first part of this series, I thought I would share my top pantry essentials. Over the past year, I've tried to make our diet increasingly more seasonal and local. We have a local foods market nearby, which I love.  If you are local and haven't gone there, you definitely need to. Chesapeake's Bounty is my new favorite thing about North Beach. However, there are some things not produced in my bioregion that I still very much enjoy and like to include in my diet. I get most of them at Trader Joe's, which is kind of a hike but the price is right, and I only have to go up there once a month or so.

If I had to pick just dry goods, these would be them:

1. Olive oil. Kind of obvious.
2. Bragg Liquid Aminos. My friend Katie made a salad a few weeks ago with spinach, oranges, avocados and a homemade salad dressing that was heavy on the Bragg Aminos. I have remade it so many times since then that I think my whole family is sick of it. I, however, am not.
3. Crystal Hot Sauce. On eggs with avacados, it is pretty much my favorite breakfast. And it doesn't have a load of creepy ingredients.
4. Apple cider vinegar. Sometimes I buy Bragg. Sometimes I buy stuff I can get at Chesapeake's Bounty. I think I have both in my pantry right now.
5. Bulk white rice.  I don't love rice, but everyone else does and it's easy to keep around and helps round out a meal.
6. Oatmeal. The kids rotate between oatmeal and eggs for breakfast every morning.
7. Nuts. Essential for car trips. 
8. Coconut oil. It's the new Windex.
9. Canned salmon. My mom's salmon cakes are one of my favorite dinners ,and I love eating leftovers cold the next day for breakfast. Having it in the pantry is great for nights I forget to take something from the freezer to dethaw.*
10.  Maple syrup. (not pictured) For coffee and oatmeal and apple slices for dessert. 

Runers-up: Tomate paste, diced tomatoes, dried beans, and almond butter.

*I did not realize that dethaw was not a word until writing this, but it has been in my lexicon for so long that I can't bear to remove it now. 

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My Heart is in the Kitchen

My heart is in the kitchen, stirring oatmeal, scrambling an egg, cutting up his avocado. It's in there with the scratched linoleum begging to be swept, by the recipe box I inherited from my grandmother. It's in and around the jars of fermented salsa, the bone broths that make my house smell of an old world.

My heart chops up garlic and it scrubs out pots. It pulls out knifes that are never sharp enough to prepare meals that are always simpler than the recipes, ingredients forgotten at the store or in the cabinets.

My heart unloads the dishwasher when it can't find a child to do the deed. It wishes that the stove was gas and that vinegar and baking soda didn't require quite so much elbow grease. It wakes up in the morning to brew Maxwell House and in the evening it's there to plunk ice cubes into a glass for a tall, weak gin and tonic.

It makes it's way into the bellies of the people I love through roasted chickens and buttery mounds of sweet potatoes.

My heart waits there among the amused cast iron and the oft- misplaced measuring spoons. Beating and waiting.

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This Weekend We

This weekend we tried our hands at making donuts for the first time. I saw a video narrated my Michael Pollan on Cup of Jo, and it inspired me to make my very favorite junk food at home. I fancy myself a cook, but I steer clear of baking usually, with the exception of my one and only "baking" trick, whiskey instead of water in boxed brownie mix. (I'm telling you, this is a very, very good trick.)

Sena loves to bake, and Gus, just like his mom, loves donuts. And I would like to stop breaking my resolve at a perfect diet with peanut M&M's and other corperation made sweets. I would so much rather lovingly make my favorite foods with my kids, and eat them with my family, than cave to foods I don't actually love.

And so began our donut diaries. This time we made apple sauce donuts, at their request. When it's my turn to pick, we are absolutely making chocolate sour cream donuts.

On Saturday afternoon, full of fried deliciousness and more than a few cups of coffee, I carpooled with friends to book club. We talked about Hild and about women and about power. And we ate more things that I love: pickled vegetables, cured meats, hard, hunks of cheese.

And there was a whole lot of laughing and many bottles of wine. And as usual, an overwhelming sense of gratitude for friendship.

I'm already ready for another weekend: more friends, more wine, more donuts. And hoping beyond hope that we don't have more snow heading our way just yet. 

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Clean Body, Clean House

I've been trying to clean up my act the past few months, mostly with regards to what I eat, but it's amazing how once you start paying attention to the chemicals and craziness in your food, you also start noticing those chemicals all over your house. 

I am totally okay with a little/ lot of dirt. Kids should have some dirt under their nails from time to time, and the 10 second rule is more like the ten minute rule. If Arlo finds some old Cheerios in a hidden corner, I say go for it. I have always shied away from anti-bacterial products, despite the fact that high school parents frequently gift me with bottles of hand sanitize, but even my lighter duty cleaners are full of crazy stuff I want to get out from under my kitchen sink, especially since Arlo really enjoys getting in there to see what he can find.

I decided to finally make cleaning products, just like I've meant to do for years. I made two different "recipes" and to see which one I liked more. 

Spray #1:

1/2 water

1/2 vinegar

15 drops of lavender oil (it just happened to me the only essential oil I have on hand)

So this one couldn't be easier. At first I made the cleaner without the lavendar oil, and although it worked just fine, I couldn't help but miss the smell of a fresh, cleaned kitchen. I added 15 drops of oil, and viola, my kitchen smelled cleaner, though Gus still isn't a big van of the vinegary residue.

Spray#2

1 tsp borax

1/2 tsp washing soda

1 tsp liquid castille soap (mine was tea tree oil scented)

15 drops lavender oil (I wanted this one to smell good from the get-go)

enough water to fill the bottle

Shake that puppy up and you're go to go.

So spray # 1 was obviously easier to make: no measuring and I already had the ingredients, BUT... even with the essential oil, it smelled like, well, vinegar.

Spray # 2 took a little more work (I ordered everything online), but smelled more like I am accustomed to cleaners smelling. 

Both worked pretty well, and can be used on my butcher block counters (bonus). I will say for certain messes you will need to add a hefty dose of elbow grease, but I bet it helped me burn a few more calories, so I'm going to pretend like that's a good thing.

The verdict: I like # 2 more, and since I now have very large quantities of all the stuff I need to make more, it's going to be my go to. If I run out and don't feel like playing chemist, the vinegar can always stand in. 

The other nice thing about making these is I don't feel guilty putting my kids to work. Though their standards aren't as high as mine (which aren't that high to begin with), I'm trying my best to get them in the habit of helping out.

Do you have any other natural house cleaning tips? I'm all ears.

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This Weekend We

This weekend we hung close to home, watching movies and baking cakes, wearing lots of green and eating corned beef and cabbage. We only ventured as far as a few houses down for a surprise party complete with the best deviled eggs I have ever experienced.  There were no long car rides, no great adventures. An effortless weekend nearly perfect in its simplicity. Sena, who loves to weave celebrations into the everyday, made a shamrock and declared our dinner a party.

We ended the weekend piled together in my parent's living room, watching Life of Pi. Arlo just might be a film critic. He cooed and smiled at that screen til he wore himself out. That tiger managed to excite my mellow boy more than anything else he has experienced in his first three months.

We got the cake recipe from here and the icing from here. I'm trying to clean up my eating, move towards a Paleo diet.  I want to try to tweak this recipe the next time, but Sena has declared it is perfect. While this cake might not be the pinnacle of healthy eating, it is a step in the right direction. And since Sena is in a constant search to find cake worthy occasions, a healthier cake round these parts is certainly in order.

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Sena's First Cake

After making Arlo several one month birthday cards, Sena felt that Arlo's first month of l

ife deserved a cake as celebration. She figured if I ate the cake, it would make it's way to Arlo eventually.  My little lady bug is always looking for an excuse to celebrate, 

and you can't celebrate without cake.

We decided that she should make the cake on her own for the first time, 

so she followed the recipe all by herself. It may have only been a box cake, but you have to start somewhere, and what a deliciously perfect first baking attempt it was.

My little girl sure is a good big sister to her two little brothers,

 a mighty fine card maker, and quite the budding chef. 

Also, I love a girl who is always lookin for the party.

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