First of Many

Obviously there are the daily howdies. The sharing of sugar, flour and eggs. The occasional dog walking sorts of favors and chit chatting on the front stoop to digest the humdrum of our days. But there is one thing about neighboring that doesn't occur to the mind immediately upon moving in: that someday you'll co-host a dinner party together with your two kitchens, your two sinks, your two sets of plates and forks and knives. And that together, the two of you will maneuver a cart full of produce around the Berkeley Bowl and gather a mix of friends to feast upon it--two sets of hands at the helm of the ship, steering it toward the dusky table where masterfully, you'll feed the people.


With a little planning last weekend, Marianne and I did just that in the second half of a Sunday afternoon. Chopping vegetables and finding ways to prep things for grilling in our rather cozy kitchen was challenging, but also meditative; washing dishes between rinsing mint and pots balancing on stools, for instance.







No matter how much you think about setting the table, I love when you can count on the guests to contribute top-shelf costume elements to the mix. That orange pattern pictured was a jumpsuit Nicole wore, and she may as well have overtaken that small vase of daisies as our centerpiece.

It was the first time we've played host to so many people at once, now with the expanded space of our backyard to use. And we billed it as a trial run for our grill, which newly functions thanks to some rigging. On both counts, it was quite a success, as the grill carried on like a champ and our otherwise huge table felt perfectly sized, and we settled in elbow-to-elbow over some of the finest food of my summer.




The menu was changing up until the last minute, but at last count featured: White Sangria; Goat Cheese with Roasted Garlic dip; New Potato Salad with Salsa Verde, Grilled Corn & Shaved Fennel; Panzanella; Red Onion, Eggplant, Zuchini, Mushroom & Lemon wedge skewers with Red Pepper Pumpkin Seed Slather; and for dessert, a Gingersnap Mascarpone tart topped with stone fruits and fresh mint.

Solid Saturday

In heaven, all Saturdays would start with a half dozen Golden Gate donuts eaten in the car en route to five estate sales, culminating with a fancy Floral brunch in the early afternoon. In fact, if every day in heaven went something along these lines, I wouldn't much object. Especially if I had such stellar company as Roxanne, Marianne and Jen for each go around. Groundhog Day, I say, bring it on.

A sampling of today's loot, in order of acquisition:

Square Ceramic Floral Dish with Lid + 2 smaller dishlets

Shell shaped vinyl placemats in avocado, the kind you can wipe down with a damp cloth and they're good as new. Perfect for those of us who are laundry-deficient.

Long coveted first volume of the Julia Child staple in any cookbook collection. I spotted this one despite the key information faded entirely from its spine.

Linen placemats with pockets for their contrasting napkins. I may need a larger table in the near future, so that I can mingle both sets simultaneously. Goodness, do I love to set a tidy table.

The other purchases are more the outdoorsy type if you catch my drift. They'll make an appearance in the next post, so stay tuned.

Extra Bakeware

In a house with only two mouths to feed, there comes a time when you really have no foreseeable use for another cake pan. It is a dark day, indeed.

So when I came upon a bundle of old Bakerex and Ovenex pans a few months ago, I knew I couldn't really use them in my own kitchen but also lacked the willpower to leave them be. They have the most incredible pattern embossed in the metal, I think to aid in even baking and in removing finished cakes. I conidered selling them, but it turns out they're neither rare nor dime a dozen and not worth much in any case. Since I found mine for fifty cents apiece, I decided to keep them and figure something out.

Someone on etsy, I can't remember who, was selling a piece of bakerex and suggested framing something in it. Interesting, no? Cake pans doubling as frames? This daughter of framers had never thought of such a thing, but decided to give it a go.

I selected some better than average photos I recently got developed to float inside the four round pans. Using Elmer's Craft Bond Multipurpose Spray Adhesive (Acid Free) to attach the photos to the pans and contact cement to attach sawtooth hangers to the center backside of each, the project couldn't have been easier. By now of course you know, it worked like a charm.



In this bundle of bakerex & ovenex, I also got some bread pans, which are similarly embossed in the repeating crown pattern but also look like origami, becuase the metal is folded on itself to produce corners.
These are currently storing bits and bobs in our bathroom with a too-small medicine cabinet.

Brunch For One

It's not that I don't like company. But there's something really nice about having the house to yourself and still chopping some vegetables and making a substantial meal for yourself around noon on a Wednesday. Yesterday, with drizzle looming over Oakland, I put our new baby cast iron to work and make a little frittata, a la Bill Stehlin (John's dad, who has perfected this breakfast food).

Some onions cooked til brown and sticky, red pepper and spinach. Then two eggs whisked together with heavy cream, salt, pepper and a shake of sugar, a secret that makes any sort of egg dish a little bit better than it would otherwise be. This is all poured over top of the vegetables, covered and then cooked a few minutes on top of the stove until set. Then thrown into the broiler with some shredded monterey jack until brown and visibly delectable. It slid right out of that well-seasoned pan, and folded just slightly in half.

I've started to take my breakfast plate with a side of vinaigrette, in lieu of ketchup, and some buttered toast. With a little shake of some hot sauce on top, that was it. Brunch for one.

Cuisinart, dissected.

Our cuisinart is of a particular vintage, probably several decades old (its heavier than any other one I've ever handled) and doesn't have any switches or pulse-levers like newer models do. Rather, it starts whenever the components are locked in. More recently, it starts up whenever the bowl is locked in, regardless of where exactly the lid happens to be.

You can imagine this being a bit of a problem, particularly in the case of making something with flour like pie crust, say. Or something wetter like hummus. The potential for mess and danger is really infinite. So, we unscrewed the motor and took a look under the hood. I'd never speculated over what the guts of a Cuisinart might look like but here you are:

Curiosity answered. We fixed it right up with some oil on the internal switch and for now, its working like a charm.

The Shafter House

Shafter is in fact, only a street here in Oakland. But the little hand tooled sign posted over the door of a house holding an estate sale yesterday seemed to still chuckle at the play on words; I like it when a person's sense of humor can linger from beyond the grave. As the advertisement read, "Family home of an architect, shopper and foodie," and the house was only 20 blocks or so from our place, it seemed like it could be a good one. And for me, an eerie foreshadowing of what my own house might look like someday if all my current plans do hatch.

It was a great little house, full indeed of tons of kitchenwares. Sadly the accompanying cookbook collection was mysteriously absent and the architecturally relevant items were fairly out of my budget. I came away with two rather lovely pieces all the same. One, a Corningware bake & broil tray like the one pictured here which was buried under a stack of unremarkable serving platters. The other this precious tart pan, ceramic and unmarked but along the lines of what I've begun to consider the Retro NoCal chic.



They are all a speckled ceramic with brightly painted or printed flowers. My kitchen aesthetic has already shifted since moving; there's a lot more Earthenware in my cupboards than there used to be. I'm just afraid if I live here too long I'll end up with quite the collection of these, as they do beckon! We're adorable they say. I'm just not my other east coast self would agree.

Utensils

Miriam bought these little tools at Thriftown a couple months ago and they are such a handsome pair. I thought so, anyway. Somehow I feel like they might be useful in gutting all those persimmons around lately. Not in a vicious way, of course.