Look her in the eye.

It is a beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles. It rained last night, so the sky is blue, there are "Jesus clouds" in the sky, and it's cool - if only the weather were always like this. Of course, if it were I wouldn't appreciate it as much as I do.

I have lots of "inside" things I need to do today, but the day is much more suited to outside things - so screw it. I am pulling a runner on being responsible today. If you're out and about in "Snata" Monica today you just might see me - I'll be the freakishly pale girl.

Get lost in the sun.

Tonight for dinner I am making calabacitas - which is a delicious skillet squash dish making use of the bountiful Mexican summer squash in all the local markets.

1.5 lbs of Mexican squash cut into bite sized pieces (if you are using zucchini, you might want to add a sprinkle of sugar)
2 cups of frozen or fresh corn
1 medium red bell pepper, medium dice (or small if you like)
1 large (or two small) tomatoes, diced
olive oil/vegetable oil
grated cheese - jack is good, so is cheddar

In a good sized saucepan saute the squash, corn, pepper and tomato in a little oil. Cover pan, and cook over medium heat until everything is tender. Add a handful of cheese on top, do not stir through. Cover again and let the cheese melt into the mixture. Once it does, remove cover, stir, and add another handful of cheese. Let that melt too. Serve it up with tortillas or pita bread.

Oh, and if you're a meat eater you could add some to this if you were so inclined. You could brown off some ground (turkey? beef?) and stir it through when you add the second handful of cheese. Or, you could stir through some shredded chicken or something. I dunno why you would want to spoil perfectly good vegetables with meat, but hey, knock yourself out.

Delicious!

Liquid bliss.

Dinner tonight was a little something I like to call "using up random leftover" fry-up. I had some leftover mashed turnip, leftover zucchini and leftover cauliflower and leftover garbanzo beans. I roughly mashed up the beans, mixed them with the turnip and a little water, a little garbanzo flour and chili sauce. I heated up some oil in a skillet and poured the mixture in to make a sort of pancake. The zucchini and cauliflower I warmed up with more sriracha and some soy sauce. Once the pancake was cooked to my liking I put the veggie mix on top and ate it. It was delicious, and the bonus: clear sinuses!

Know no fear, I'll still be here tomorrow.

What to do with leftovers? I often myself wondering about this - cooking for one can be such a chore. There is always the temptation to make extra portions for later. But if you're me, you don't like eating the same thing more than once in a short period of time (unless that something happens to be cheese, fruit salad or pancakes).

Looking in my fridge I realized I had a fair amount of leftover red wine sauce leftover from a roast I made for Jackson recently which needed to be used up. Fair enough, red wine sauce is delicious on pasta, potatoes, rice, couscous... it also makes a lovely risotto - if one is in the mood. I, however, wanted to transform it completely.

I opted to make soup with it. It doesn't seem like a natural transformation, but it smells hella good and if early indicators are anything to go by - it's gonna taste fantastic.

I started off with just under 3 cups of red wine sauce. To this I added about a half litre of water and a mushroom stock cube (although I did debate using a pot-au-feu stock cube which I imagine would be lovely). I also added one 15 oz. tin of whole plum tomatoes (which I crushed up with my hands) and a carrot. I brought this mixture to a boil and added rinsed and soaked lentils (soaking isn't necessary, but because red wine can toughen the lentils I opted to soak them first to counter this) - I used french lentils, because that's what I happened to have to hand, but I imagine brown or even red would work just as well. Because the red wine sauce had salt in it, and the mushroom stock also had salt I didn't feel it necessary to add more, but I did add a fair bit of freshly ground black pepper. I also added dried thyme (fresh would also work but I didn't have any) and a bay leaf. Toward the end to punch up the flavor a bit I will be stirring in a glug of red wine vinegar and then topping it all off with some fresh parmesan.

Yay for soup!

Ever since we met you've had a hold on me...

Just home from a weekend splurge at Bay Cities Deli. Oh how I love that place! I do tend to go a bit overboard in my purchases, but it's such a rare splurge for me that I always find a way to justify it. I was actually pretty well-behaved, considering what I am capable of.

Most of what I bought were "staple" luxuries - mushroom stock cubes, creme fraiche, super fancy pasta (fresh as well as dried), olive oil, san marzano tomato paste, bread and cheese.

In addition I picked up a few splurges:

Sour Cherry Jam - why the hell not? Sour? Good. Cherry? Good. Jam? Good.
Ajvar - Nice break from chutney I thought.
Curry Ketchup - because it's a weakness of mine.
Olives - I shouldn't be allowed near olive bars, as a rule.

What shall I do with all this deliciousness? Why, make more deliciousness of course!

The bread shall be used for bruschetta goodness with the cheese, the olives and the ajvar variously.

The fresh pasta will be used with the creme fraiche to make one of my favorite quick pastas.

The dried pasta will be used with my own sauce which incorporates what I love about puttanesca and arrabiata. Mmm. Some of the olives will also be used.

The curry ketchup will be used on roast potatoes, in place of chutney on my grilled cheese, and a secret (and delicious!) addition to my curried cauliflower.

It's going to be a happy food week in Meganland.

It'll be alright.

2010. To be honest, it's difficult to believe I made it. By any calculation, I shouldn't be here. So, what - sheer dumb luck? Seems that way. At this exact moment I feel like anything is possible, and perhaps it is.

In a few days I hit a significant anniversary - 10 years. I wear my scars on the outside; they are visible for everyone to see. But even 10 years later I am still not ashamed of them, because they prove that I survived. I got through it the only way I knew how, and no, it's not pretty to look at, but I'm still standing and I'm only slightly worse for the wear.

Crooked on the outside.

There are moments when I am struck by how absurd my own particular brand of perversity is. To take a break and read something "lighter" than my usual Holocaust/Genocide-centric fare, I've been reading official UK government publications with delightful titles like, "Belfast Regional Survey & Plan Recommendations & Conclusions" and "Report of the Tribunal Appointed to Inquire into the Events on Sunday 30th January 1972, Which Led to Loss of Life in Connection with the Procession in Londonderry on That Day" AKA The Widgery Report. My lighter reading is about political violence in Northern Ireland, instead of Holocaust/Genocide material.

I am so warped.

It gets even funnier when I consider the looks I receive from people when I am on my break at work and sitting there reading such things. I imagine my co-workers would expect me to be reading some sort of Airport Fiction. I mean, they are after all the same people who assumed I would listen to bloody Top 40. Heh. It's certainly not the first time I've ever had to explain that, no, I'm not reading for school. Hee! Of course, what I do read for school isn't that much different. Mostly primary source material on really dark political or historical subjects. Oh well. I suppose that's just me.

On a lighter note: I've discovered my favorite sandwich place in Tukwila has opened a location nearby. Hooray! I'm going to treat myself to a #12 tomorrow for lunch. Mmm. Not that I wouldn't go anyway, but I've decided I particularly deserve it after the week I've had at work.

And so it goes. And so I go.

Charming, oh so charming...

It's official:

John Thornton kicks Mr. Darcy's ass. Not to mention that Margaret Hale is so much more endearing than Elizabeth Bennett. I'm just saying...

Food adventures today have been - well, non-existent actually. I had a night out last night and decided to turn to a favorite of mine for lunch. "Cheese on beans on toast" is a wondrous thing, but I put my own spin on it. Toasted thickly sliced sourdough bread slathered with a spicy Dijon mustard, topped with a baked bean paste (Heinz baked beans mushed up a bit), with sliced tomato (seasoned with salt and pepper) then the whole mess is topped with Gruyere and popped under the broiler until the cheese goes golden and bubbly. It's truly delicious.

My household adventures today - also non-existent. The usual daily chores and later this afternoon some grocery shopping. At some point I'll need to do laundry, the Scourge of Dirty Clothes and all that.

I suppose it's just a typical Sunday in MeganLand.

Is there a ghost in my house?

I cannot believe how cold it has been lately! It's fantastic!

The cold weather has prompted some stodgy eating on my part. Baked potatoes with chutney and a fantastic farmhouse cheddar, gingery pear crisp, sweet potato soup, butternut squash patties, and a variety of other stodgy wintery dishes. It's been great.

Tomorrow for breakfast I am going to have the last of the bread I baked a couple days ago toasted up with the last of the compound butter I have in my freezer. Mmm. That's gonna get me raring to go for the arduous task of cleaning out my car in preparation for tomorrow's adventure. What adventure? My friend is accompanying me to attend a taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson! YAY! If you are unaware of my appreciation for The Late Late Show and Craig Ferguson, clearly you haven't spent much time around me. Ah, Craig Ferguson. His show is one of the consistently bright spots in the general darkness of insomnia.

I've prepped some stuff to take as a picnic lunch for us tomorrow. We'll be having cheese and chutney sandwiches, tangy slaw, crisps and millionaire shortbread. Nothing fancy but super yummy.

At the moment, life is good.

Can we fix it?

Yes we can!

If you're wondering why I have the Bob the Builder theme stuck in my head - you're not alone. For some reason I've had horrible UK Christmas number 1s running through my head all day. I'm about ready to stab myself in the eye with any sharp object I can find.

If you're really bored have a peek at this. I love novelty betting. Not to actually bet, but to laugh hysterically at what people are daft enough to bet on.

It's about time.

Right. So I like Jamie Oliver. I like the fact that he puts his money where his mouth is, and even more importantly - he physically gets involved. He's been proactive about sustainable farming, humane treatment of livestock, etc. His work with school lunches, Fifteen, and the Ministry of Food is great. I've been watching the tv series Jamie's Ministry of Food again in preparation to compare/contrast with the new US version which is being jointly produced with ABC and set to begin early next year.

Even with the second go round it still completely boggles my mind that people can live like that. Every once in a while I enjoy eating take-out or fast food, but it's something I quickly bore of and nearly always get sick from. Nightly? I'd rather stab myself in the eye repeatedly with a pencil.

Fair enough. Because of life-threatening food allergies (allium: onion, garlic - basically the whole bloody lily family) I don't have the luxury of resorting to convenience foods the way that most people do. (I recently went into anaphylaxis and had to use my TwinJect because the lemon in the iced tea I'd ordered at a drive-through had been stored with the onion. Good times. A $1000 emergency room visit later...) Moreover, my mom died when I was a kid so I had to learn to cook for myself or I wouldn't have been able to eat. It's not like I started out making anything more complex than scrambled eggs, pancakes or pasta with butter and cheese. But after a while the scrambled eggs became omelettes, the pasta with butter and cheese became pasta carbonara and the pancakes became scones.

I understand that time is a big impediment to cooking for a lot of people. Personally, I don't think it takes any more time to throw something together at home than it does to head to your nearest greasy spoon and pick something up. The financial as well as physical benefits from cooking for yourself are tremendous compared to eating convenience foods. I just don't get it. I really don't.

All of my friends know how to cook (although some of them prefer not to). If they didn't, I would gladly embrace the "pass it on" mentality and invite people over to share a meal and learn how to prepare that meal.

Thinking about the meals I regularly prepare for myself, I'd say at least 90% of them take 30 minutes or less from start to finish. Sure, sometimes I decide to go all "culinary school" and make insanely complicated and time/labor-intensive dishes, but generally speaking it's more a case of, "hrm, I'm hungry, what's in the pantry?" and bang, 20 minutes later I'm eating. And yeah, sometimes I can't be bothered and I eat toast with peanut butter and a piece of fruit for dinner. But even that is still a far cry healthier for me than bloody take-out.

Raindrops falling on my head.

I loathe cooking dinner. Loathe. That said, I do manage to throw something together most nights - and when I really can't be arsed - toast is my friend.

A "go to" meal for me at least one night a week, is bubble'n'squeak or rumbledethumps or slump, whatever you want to call it. It's basically a concoction of potato and/or turnip, cabbage or other greens, in some cases egg and in some cases cheese. Heck, in some cases all of the above. You can use meat if you like - generally some sort of bacon. I don't, but that's personal preference. I like the concept, but I am not a purist at all.

Heat a mix of butter and olive oil in a reasonably sized skillet (if you are using bacon, you want cook that off first, remove the bacon and mix that with the rest of your ingredients, adding enough butter/oil to the bacon grease remaining in the pan to get a decent quantity). Get a biggish bowl and toss in cooked potato/turnip - boiled, mashed, even left over roasties can work here. Smash this up a bit with a cooking utensil of some variety, personally I find spoons to be rather useful. To your potatoes add in some cabbage. If you're feeling industrious you can dice up cabbage, if you're feeling lazy feel free to use bagged shredded cabbage, or if you happen to have some leftover cooked cabbage use that. If you want to add an egg or two, just whisk it up and add to the mixture. Add salt, pepper and whatever other seasoning your little heart desires. If you want it creamy, add some milk or cream. Mix/mash everything up and then put it in your heated skillet. Kind of press it down a bit. You want to cook and stir it for, eh, 10 minutes or so until you get the yum golden brown bits all kinda mixed through. Then you want to smash the mixture down a bit and let it cook for another 5-10 minutes or so. At this point you'll have a pretty decent crust on one side. Personally, I like to flip it over and crust up the other side. At this point you're good to go. For me, I like to melt a little cheese on top and top with hot sauce and ketchup. Hey - I said it was tasty, not that it was pretty or particularly classy.

Alternately, once you have the mixture together you can put it in a greased baking dish and put it under the broiler for a few minutes until golden brown. If I was doing this, I'd probably add some milk or cream.

Also, I suppose in theory you could actually use freshly cooked veg - but I'm sure as hell not that industrious.

Depending on the greens to starch ratio, it's pretty darn balanced. I also love it cold the next day as it kind of resembles a frittata. But if you're someone who simply must have a well-balanced meal, serve it with a tossed salad.

Just sittin' here watching the wheels.

Anyone else dream about wheels of cheese - or is that just me?

Today I've been reading and enjoying, "The Complete Book of Cheese" by Bob Brown. I am particularly enamored by "Sixty-five Sizzling Rabbits" and a list of cheese sandwiches that would intimidate all but the most cheese-obsessed. Perhaps most amusing is the language. For example, the "He-man Sandwich" recipe directs readers to, "Butter a thick slice of dark rye bread, cover with a layer of mashed cold baked beans and a slice of ham, then one of Swiss cheese and a wheel of Bermuda onion topped with mustard and a sowing of capers." Sowing is a much better word for sprinkling, don't you think?

My bed-time reading for the last few days has been, "The Cheeses & Wines of England & France with Notes on Irish Whiskey" by John Ehle. It's been most pleasurable. It is, "a genial guide to making cheeses and wines at home, plus history, anecdotes and other interesting lore about two of man's oldest crafts." In the introduction the author writes, "Our best - the local and individual and traditional - is being battered down and strewn about by mass production and mass merchandising ... Isn't it a pity that out of our potentially rich diversity comes such protected sameness?"

Word.

What I find stunning, is that the book was first published in 1972, completely predating the current Artisanal resurgence in cheese and wine craft (and baking, my other love).

Yesterday a friend asked me what food I would select if I lived in Hypothetical Land (a magical land with no scurvy or other vitamin deficiencies) and could only eat one food for the rest of my life. Without pause I replied, "cheese." Of course, if I lived in Even Better Hypothetical Land, I'd be able to add bread, fruit and relishes to that list.

Seriously, is there anything in this world better than a cheese toastie with some sort of chutney or relish on it and a scalding hot cup of tea? I don't think so. However, if you disagree with me, feel free to present your argument.

Everything is possible.

I love piccalilli. What I do not love, is making it. I'm not one for canning things; it takes too much time and effort and I prefer instant gratification - or as close to as possible.

I spent some time thinking about what I like in a piccalilli - sweet, mustardy, vinegary tang and still a hint of crunch to the vegetables.

In that spirit I present my "instant" piccalilli which I love on everything from a cheese sandwich to a baked potato.

I mix together prepared yellow mustard and a grainy mustard. You're looking for about a cup total of mustard, in whatever ratio you like. I tend to go with 70:30 yellow to grainy. To this mixture add a tablespoon or two of sweetener, brown sugar or honey work well. Then add a tablespoon or so of vinegar. Basically anything but balsamic, and you can even use the vinegary brine from the pickles. Then add the veggies of your choice. Standard would be really finely diced dill pickles, finely diced cucumber, finely diced red pepper, finely diced cauliflower and even sauerkraut (if you do use sauerkraut be sure to rinse and thoroughly dry). You're looking for about a cup of veggies in total, you an add more or less depending on how wet you want your piccalilli. Cover it and chill for at least a couple of hours in the fridge before use. It doesn't keep, so be sure to make only what you're going to use for a day or two.

A series of blurs, like I never occurred.

I can't get Felicity in Turin out of my head for some reason. It's no secret that Paul Durcan is my favorite poet - and though not my favorite poem of his, for some reason it's the one I've been thinking of lately. I suppose it's just a reflection of autumn bringing out my maudlin side. Heh.

In-between, without you.

I don't miss her anymore, I miss the idea of her. Maybe that's worse.

I'm 10 years younger than she was when she died.

I've lived 17 years of my life without her.

It's strange to consider that the single most defining moment of your life happened before you even hit puberty.

Just after a glimmer...

I just purged my kitchen of all animal protein. No ice cream. No cheese. No cultured Irish and european butter. (The last being the only difficult item to surrender.)

I am officially back to vegan. I did it for seven years, I imagine I can do it again. I may at one point opt to reintroduce a few select animal proteins into my diet - but not for a while.

It's not a religious thing, it's a health thing. It didn't really help before, but I am hoping that this go round the exclusion of animal protein from my diet will help with the inflammation - and I already know it'll help with my kidneys.

Now comes the fun part - concocting things to eat!

Do you never wonder?

I really don't know how I feel about this. I know there's this push to punish the last of the Nazi war criminals, and the reason being that within the next few years the last of their surviving victims will be gone. Still, what is life imprisonment really going to be? A year, maybe 2? Is it worth it? Not even going into the moral and philosophical questions - redemption, etc., the financial cost and the drain on the tax payers and other resources... I just don't know.

'Tis the gift to be free.

I've been re-reading McCullough's biography of John Adams. What a truly fascinating man. I think we forget just how complicated our "founding fathers" were.

Hell, look at Jefferson. 33 years old and he wrote the damn Declaration of Independence! An enlightened scientifically minded humanist - who owned slaves. It's that not complicated, I don't rightly know what is.

Everything will be fine.

God, what a miserable few days of weather!

The heat is overwhelming. I wake up every morning feeling like I am being smothered. I want October.

I did have a yummy salad - asparagus, snow peas, and radishes in a dijon vinaigrette. Mmm. Next time I think I'll add some pasta.