After the Party

A friend visiting from the states brought me two cans of black beans, so I decided to have a black bean burger dinner party. I made burgers, spicy tomato relish, and chocolate cookies. Amanda made a salad and brought hamburger buns from the Champion grocery store in Lilas. Here's the fridge:Of course I decided to take these pictures very late at night, after coming back from an after-party drink at the cafe... so they're a little fuzzy. Up top there is an open carton of Knorr Veloute de Potiron, pureed pumpkin soup. Knorr's version has creme-fraiche in it, it's my Paris version of comfort in a can. That one has been sealed with a piece of tin foil. Next to it is the old strawberry jam (or rasberry... i keep forgetting to buy toasting bread, it's been a while since I've had jam), three 33cl cans of 1664, the goat cheese, and the coffee. That thing wrapped in plastic hanging out in front of the beer is a wedge of lime. It was a fun party.
Below that is one green chile pepper in a paper bag, a tomato in a very large plastic bag, the end of the parmesan cheese, and one egg leftover from that dozen.
The next shelf has some spinach wrapped in paper towels, leftover rice (to thicken out the burgers a bit) half a can of chick-peas wrapped in plastic (they went in the salad) and leftover black bean mixture, just enough for another burger.
The last shelf appears to be salad greens, a bunch of tarragon, and a thing of yogurt.
Do excuse the fingers. In the drawers we have spinach and a paper wrapped package of cilantro, those are some carrots next door. They roasted up very nicely for dinner the next night.
Door shelves: Theres the mustard again, but notice how the vodka has been switched for a more-than half-empty bottle of gin and a carton of orange juice. it was a fun party.

I'm really good at grocery shopping

I had a party this weekend, which means that my fridge is very full right now. But let's take a look at my fridge a week and a half ago:Hmm. this is depressing. I was sick that week too, I remember being really annoyed that I had no comfort food. Up top there is a thing of Monoprix goat cheese, strawberry jam, half a lemon, and coffee. I broke my coffee maker, so i've actually gone off coffee for the first time in three years, since I started drinking coffee regularly. Life just isn't the same.
On the next shelf I believe that's half a red pepper wrapped in green plastic, half a yellow onion, the end of one butter and an unopened new package of butter.
Then there's half a dozen eggs. I had a friend visiting last week, he makes good eggs.
On the bottom shelf is an unopened slab of Comte cheese and some salad greenery wrapped in a dish towel. Nothing in the drawers.
The side door:There's the Britta pitcher, still no filter, that mustard and still the same vodka.
I thought it would be not at all interesting to take pictures of the insides of my cabinet too, so you can see the non-perishables...Wow, they really aren't all that interesting. That's a canister of rock salt and a box of VanHouten cocoa powder, which is a really good brand. I seem to remember it being a luxury item in the states, though it's not at all here. Behind it is a canister of sugar, that you can't really see, and the funny box of baking soda I had to go to a pharmacy to buy. It's pharmeceutical quality fine white powder. I get a little nervous every time I use it. There are my plates. They are small and I've broken several already. Next to the plates are two green papered cans, one was tomatoes and one was white beans (both have since been consumed). Thats a glass jar of honey, and the thin box in front of it is veggie boullion cubes. I won't tell you what brand, I don't like them very much. The thing wrapped in a pink bag is actually an opened package of spaghetti left here by the previous tenant. I still haven't managed to finish it. I'm not the biggest fan of long pasta. I like to always have a can of tomatoes on hand, they can be tomato sauce or soup pretty quickly for all those hungry people who show up unexpectedly. Next to it, in the package with the blue label, is rice.
This is my countertop. I swear it's usually a little neater than this. There's balsamic vinegar and a bottle of monoprix-brand olive oil. That yellow bottle in the back is rancid sunflower oil left by the previous tenant. I'm in the process of remembering to throw it out. There's a box of matches, a bottle stop, and my lovely fruit basket. There's a lime, a lemon, and half a head of garlic. That bag has delicious pain aux six cereales from the bakery down the street. The small bowl wrapped in plastic next to the fruit basket is cocoa powder mixed with spices and sugar, left over from a fried banana experiment. I've since eaten that with a spoon. between the chocolate stuff and the vinegar is the salt shaker, table salt en poudre rather than rock salt en crystal, and two moulines de poivre, one has a blend that was left by the previous tenant and the other is straight up black pepper.
That empty glass bottle in the back is now serving as a vase for some lovely zinnias I got in the market the other day.

My Life through Pictures of my Refrigerator

]]I may start doing this weekly.
This is from very early on in my life in 75014.
Amanda was still living here..sigh. On the top shelf we have a bottle of milk, an almost finished thing of organic yogurt, and one lonely bottle of 1664. Below that, there is a slab of President Butter and a container of grated parmesan. The next shelf appears to be a cucumber, half an onion, and half a lemon accompanied by a half eaten brick of chocolate. Amanda converted me to keeping chocolate in the fridge. Below that is an unopened thing of non-organic yogurt.
This is the side shelves. A jar of Bonne Maman strawberry jam, a jar of mustard, a bag of organic coffee from Nicaragua, via Monoprix. Below that is the Brita pitcher sans filter, half a bottle of Svedka vodka and half a bottle of precious precious cranberry juice, which the French call canaberge and vastly under appreciate. It goes with the vodka.We were so healthy back then! This is half a bunch of carrots and a whole lot of girolle mushrooms occupying our bottom drawers. I think there may have been some spinach in there too, that looks like too much bag for just the girolles. We made a great soup...

Bunny Rabbits

No Knitting, just soup

I havent been knitting at all lately, despite having these baby things to finish. The baby wont be around for another few months, she can wait. I've been looking for a job, and after another day not getting anything I just decided to go home and cook. My friend Allie is coming to visit me (picking her up in two hours) and we were planning on having an artichoke and asparagus party tommorrow night before the first saturday dance party at the brooklyn museum. I'm not sure if anyone is going to be around for this party, but they should be because I already made more food than I think we can eat and knowing us there will only be more tommorrow. I know this is supposed to be for my knitting, but lately I've just been enjoying being unemployed with my parents kitchen at my disposal.
I started with asparagus soup. My asparagus soup recipe comes from many hours of studying asparagus recipes about two years ago. Asparagus can seem like a tricksy flavor, but it actually goes well with alot of things as long as the tastes balance eachother out. Traditionally, asparagus was often served steamed or grilled with a fried egg and parmesan cheese. If you like fried eggs, (i dont so much) this is great. When I was a kid my parents would steam it in the microwave and douse it in too much vinagrette. This isn't bad, but I could never eat a whole plate of it. My favorite preparation for plain asparagus is simple grilling, preferablly outside on a lovely summer day. Sprinkle a little salt and lemon juice over it and eat. But I live in the city, and I dont have a grill. This soup I first made for a dinner party that me and my friend Yana threw on April 16th, 2004. (I used to keep a paper cooking journal; I wrote down every geust I had and what I served them. We had six people eating dinner, we ate this soup, carrots and broccoli with mustard sauce, salted cucumbers, Josh's mushroom risotto, remember Josh forgot to put in the stock so he just added lots of wine instead?, pignoli cookies, and brownies that someone brought. I also remember that I wore a poufy flowered skirt. That skirt was the reason I wanted to have a party.)
Anyway. I'm giving you my recipe. I wrote down that I based this soup off of the one in Laurel's Vegetarian cooking book, which taught me most of what I know about coooking vegetables. I wrote down that it's on page 156, but I don't feel like checking that and I wouldn't necessarily believe anything I wrote down when I was seventeen.

Asparagus Soup:
You will need:
1/2 red onion, 1/2 yellow onion, both diced
1 yellow potato
4 cups vegetable stock or water
lots of oil for sauteeing
1 pound fresh asparagus
4 cups frozen peas
salt, pepper, fresh mint, fresh thyme (the amounts aren't that important, whatever you like. Use less thyme than mint and adjust the salt depending on the liquid you use.)
Saute the onion in oil until the yellow onion is almost translucent. Dice the potato and add with a 1/2 cup of liquid. Simmer until potatos are soft.
Wash asparagus and snap off the tough ends. Asparagus is nice like that, you don't have to force it, just bend it and it will break naturally where it needs to. Slice the asparagus in about inch long pieces and add to pot along with another 1 1/2 cups liquid. Add peas and the rest of the liquid, then the herbs. Rolling the herbs in your fingers will help release the flavor, tear up the mint and crinkle it before you add it. Cook for fifteen minutes or so, until vegetables are tender. Add salt and pepper. Puree.
-I like to puree this soup using a stick blender. My standard blender is older than my parents and doesnt like hot things anymore. If you do use a standard blender, I reccomend working with batches of two cups at a time. Either way, definately let the soup cool a little first. If you're really anal about it, you can strain out the fibery stuff. I don't do this, I perfer a coarser soup. It's better to serve this chilled. I like to let it sit in the fridge over night and eat it out of a small water glass.
-About the liquid. I often just use water. This time I used water my parents had saved from boiling asparagus last week, but this makes for a really strong taste that you may not want. It's also labor intensive. Use whatever you want. If you use just plain water, make sure to add extra herbs.
get cooking. now.
I'm gonna go make chocolate cookies and then pick up Allie at the train station.

Haven't blogged in a while

I've been busy, and not knitting much.
Yesterday my house hosted a baby shower for a friend of my mothers. She'll be having a girl around the fourth of July, so I decided this would be a good excuse to knit up the teal tahki saucy sport mercerized cotton I got last summer. I was thinking about drapy cotton sweaters, but this yarn is much to hard and inflexible for that. I think it's gonna be perfect for a baby sweater. I started knitting up the two-needle baby jacket from Elizabeth Zimmermans knitting almanac (I think it's March baby things?). Of course, it's Elizabeth Zimmerman so the pattern is wonderful. I'm just following the pithy directions, I've been too busy lately and as usual much too un-arithematic to do my own math. The sweater starts with fifty-one stitches at the neck (around ten inches if you're on gauge, which I almost am), and a garter stitch yoke turning into a simple lace body. The baby won't need a heavy sweater in July, so I decided to do the lace. The only problem is that E.Z. wrote her patterns to work best in nice cushy wool, so the increase rows in the yoke are alot more obvious in the cotton, something I should have anticipated. I'll knit a little more and see what happens, if it bothers me I can always start over with a decorative raglan shaping. It's a nice relaxing knit though, exactly what I needed. The mother-to-be also made a specific request for this hat. I get the joke of knitting a bunny-ear pattern in alpaca, but I'd rather do it in a yarn that's easier to take care of, also lighter in case it turns out to be the right size for her to wear before it gets that cold. It's a worsted weight yarn, substituting it will be easy.
I've decided that the Jaywalker pattern, as much fun as it is, might not be the best for my super-wide feet. I might redo it using yarnovers to make it stretchier. Or I might find another pattern for the beautiful self-striping yarn Hannah made me. In the meantime, I'm trying to come up with an appropriately sized sock pattern for my fathers socks, but all the mens sized patterns I've seen use worsted weight. stupid big feet.

because sparky refused to get off the couch...

I finished my first Jaywalker (these pictures were taken before I had the toe). I didnt feel like finding the instructions so I just did the toe decreases the way I wanted to, which is probablly exactly the same as the instructions in the pattern (two paired decreases on either side, not especially innovative, but I like the way paired decreases look). I was also too lazy to get Elizabeth Zimmerman and a yarn needle for kitchener instructions, so I just did a three needle bind off. Bad idea. It's wearable, but theres a pretty thick seamy-thing and it just looks sloppy. Not as sloppy as my kitchener will probablly be, but that has the advantage of being kitchener, and much better for socks. I'm considering making knitty's Bristow with the red yarn I got in Montevideo last year. I think the gauge is about right if I go down a needle size, which will make it a little denser for colder weather.