Summertime

It has been Another Week: more killing in the United States and abroad, violent political instability, and don't forget the generous side of racism from the star of the Republican National Convention.

But this morning, on my way to Other Avenues to buy ingredients for lentil soup (because it is a wintry, foggy, 55 degrees in San Francisco), I found myself walking behind two men, one black and one white, and they were out for a walk with a dog. Just before moving to the side to let me pass and greeting me with a big, warm "Good morning!" I overheard them discussing the history of the Black Panthers. In those few seconds of eavesdropping and exchanging greetings, I got exactly the reminder I needed this morning: Things may not be good in the world, but the potential for greatness in our connections with each other is staggering.

As I mentioned, it feels like winter where I live. If you go 20 miles north, south, or east you'll find summer; we'll get ours in September or October. So, unlike most people in my part of the world, I'm coming up with reasons to turn the oven on. Another reason I'm excited to use the oven is that for ten days, we didn't have one. The glass oven light cover had shattered, and it's only thanks to Marc's keen research skills and perseverance that we didn't have to replace the entire (20 year-old) stove because of this one, very basic part.

While we were relegated to stovetop cooking and reheating, we ate a lot of salads. I started by incorporating a warm element, like boiled new potatoes cut into bite-sized pieces, and then adding other vegetables and greens, some cheese, sometimes a super ripe avocado and other times just a simple red wine vinaigrette. The vinaigrette is best with shallots, but I often skip them when I'm short on time (or short on shallots). We topped the salads with chicken or boiled eggs, and in one case, jarred herring (which was terrific).

Two actual recipes I've followed and loved recently are Runner Beans with Swiss Chard Stems and Basil (can't find runner beans? fresh green beans work great), and Chickpea and Celery Salad (it is even better the second day, photo is at the top of this post). And in case you need a recipe for the swiss chard leaves, try Sautéed Swiss Chard with Garlic and Lemon.

I wish you a good week, full of delicious vegetables and staggeringly good connections with strangers.

Got Plums? Make Jam!

"Mom. Play Lulu's message again for me. I love when she says, 'Yummy, yummy, yummy! Plum jam in my tummy!"

If you haven't been paying attention to the plum trees in San Francisco, consider this a warning: the plums are ripe. And ripe plums means we are so close to having sticky, plum-spattered sidewalks in certain neighborhoods. I wish I had photos from past plum seasons when unsuspecting owners thought they were lucky to nab parking spots shaded by plum trees. I have yet to meet anyone who liked the purple goo and pits that ended up baked on their car.

For the last couple of years, there have been plum blossoms in January and February, but no plums in the spring. I suspect the lack of fruit is thanks to the drought, but I don't really know. This year, though, is definitely a plum year, which is lucky for Wyatt because he has been dying to pick plums and make jam.

Plum Tree, 2013

The last time we picked plums for jam was July, 2013. Wyatt had just turned two. We picked over ten pounds of plums, all from the plum tree in front of our house.* I cooked them into jam, and we managed to put up enough jars to give some away and continue enjoying the jam until this fall. Even though Wyatt doesn't remember our picking the plums, he remembers eating the jam. While our picking didn't seem to reduce the number of plums Marc scraped off the sidewalk every weekend that season, the jam tasted great, and it allowed us to feel like we were making the most of the situation.

Wyatt tried one of the plums from our tree last week, and he reported that it wasn't THAT sour. So we picked plums on Friday. Here is a mock-up of our set-up, because I wasn't able to photograph what we actually did.

In reality, I climbed and perched all the way up into the tree while Wyatt nestled himself in the crook closest to the beach bucket (that he had cleverly insisted we lash to a limb with sparkly yellow shoelace). I picked whatever plums I could reach, handed them to him, and he put them in the bucket. Just after we got started, our neighbor, Lulu, visited with us through her second story window. We talked about how there were definitely some plums this year, but not as many as in other years. Once I had picked the eight plums I could reach, and Wyatt had started complaining there was nothing for him to do, I said to Lulu, "I really wish we had one of those fruit pickers, because I can hardly reach any of these plums. You don't have one, do you?" She said, "Do you mean one of those things that can grab and bring things down? I have one of those! I'll bring it to you." And Lulu presented us with her Gopher. She said she uses it for reaching jars or cans that are on high shelves. But I can now attest that it is great for picking San Francisco street tree plums. I plucked each plum with the Gopher and then reached it down to Wyatt, released the plum into his hand, and he placed the plum in the bucket. Teamwork for sure. We also got a few more plums using the ladder and Gopher, but not many.

We picked just shy of 2 1/2 pounds of plums.

And on Saturday, we made jam. I love the recipe my friend, Sarah, suggested three years ago, from Food in Jars: Italian Plum Jam with Star Anise. Even though the recipe is technically for Italian plums, our San Francisco street tree plums are great in it. Once we had pitted and chopped our plums, we had about four cups. To scale the recipe up, I used about 1/4 cup of sugar per cup of plums, and it worked perfectly.

We chopped our plums, let them mascerate with four star anise blossoms and the sugar for about an hour, removed the four star anise blossoms, cooked the jam for about 15 minutes, and checked the temperature and conducted a couple of plate tests as it started to look done. When the jam was finished, we put some in a jar for us and some in a jar for Lulu and her husband. Because the yield of this jam was so small, I didn't bother with a full canning set-up. We're just refrigerating our jar.

I recommended to Lulu that she also refrigerate her jar when I called to ask if Wyatt could deliver them some jam on Saturday evening. When Wyatt returned, he said, "Lulu said thank you so much, and she's going to have the jam on her toast in the morning! Can I also have toast in the morning? Please? With PLUM JAM?"

* The Friends of the Urban Forest claim the fruit of these trees is "insignificant." I couldn't disagree more. While each plum itself is pretty small and in some cases, mostly pit, the volume of plums (and mess) can be quite large for a street tree.

Treetop Owls and "Goldfish" Crackers

I have just published my third pattern! The Owl & Branch Beanie completes what I've named the Treetop Collection.

It was pretty thrilling to hit "publish" on Ravelry, and I love that people are "favoriting" my designs. But there's even more to be excited about. Hard copies of all three of my patterns will be available for purchase in the Sincere Sheep booth at TNNA in Washington, D.C. and at the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon later this month!

Obviously, I'm excited about the release of these patterns. And Wyatt is also excited, but for a different reason. He's thrilled he won't have to sit (or stand) for any more photos for a little while.

This weekend included a flurry of activities related to getting knitted samples and pattern copies ready for the shows. And it also included some baking during a low-key, at-home day today.

Wyatt has recently been asking for Goldfish Crackers. Or, I should say, he has been asking for gluten-free, goldfish-shaped crackers (which, as far as I know, only exist if you make them yourself). It remains my opinion that Pepperidge Farm Parmesan Goldfish Crackers are the best snack cracker ever invented. It pains me that most gluten-free crackers are terrible. If something's going to be devoid of nutrition (as most snack crackers are), it should at least taste great. Store-bought gluten-free crackers never do.

When we went gluten-free four years ago, Wyatt was one year old. Parenting was very new, the toddler years were just beginning, and with the dietary restriction, the usual toddler snack foods weren't going to work for us. It was time to start figuring out alternatives.

Some of the first snack foods I made regularly were Anytime Cookies and Gluten-Free Cheesy Mini Goldfish Crackers. I stumbled on the cracker recipe pretty early in my search, and I have never strayed. It's fantastic. And even though I have yet to spring for two expensive (and no doubt time-consuming to use) tiny copper goldfish cookie cutters here or here, I think it's fair to conclude that the crackers taste great whatever shape they are. (But see UPDATE below.) Wyatt would desperately like to test this hypothesis, of course, and eat crackers shaped like tiny fish. So maybe we'll spring for those cookie cutters someday. Meanwhile, though, I do like the speed with which I can make random cracker shapes with the pizza cutter.

The recipe at Gluten-Free Canteen is perfect as-is. And here's what it looks like when I make gluten-free not-goldfish-shaped knock-offs with a pizza cutter:

And just like the "real" Goldfish Crackers, it's really hard to close the bag and walk away. Our half-gallon jar of them is already one third gone...

6/5/16 UPDATE: Imagine my surprise last Thursday when we received an unexpected package that contained two tiny copper goldfish cookie cutters. Our friends had sent them. We made more crackers today, this time with the shiny new cutters. And while I would have expected the goldfish shapes to taste the same as the random shapes, they don't. The goldfish shapes consistently bake so there is a delightful bubble in the body of the fish, and this bubble vastly improves the texture of the crackers. I was right about the cookie cutters taking more time, but it's so worth it.

Let Your Curiosity Transform You

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I dedicated the month of February to drafting my first ever knitting patterns. Now that I'm on the other side of my first draft, I can say that the pattern writing and accompanying hand-cramping deadline-knitting were challenging. The whole affair actually reminded me a little bit of my first legal writing assignments. Once again, I was struggling to write a piece that made sense, on a deadline, while employing unfamiliar citation formats. I had forgotten how difficult it is to drop into an industry, grab an opinionated reader's attention, show them an irresistible point-of-view, and then take them through a logical process, step-by-step, using concise and perfectly clear directions. It's really hard. I stayed up way too late every night, cut corners on pretty much every other aspect of my life, and I began seriously to doubt myself. (Can you spot the hard-boiled perfectionist who has committed herself to trying something new?)

Halfway through writing my second pattern, it dawned on me that I had probably taken on too much. I recalled the time in high school French class when we were assigned to write a journal entry with the story of our day. I attempted to write the actual story of my real day, with all the things I had done, along with my thoughts and feelings. You know, like an actual journal entry. I used my English-French dictionary for so many words, and I thought I had done a remarkable and insightful job on the assignment. But I hadn't. My teacher returned the assignment to me full of red ink corrections, genuinely quizzical question marks, and a gentle suggestion that next time, I keep things simple and report what time I woke up, what I ate, and when I went to bed.

If I had actually absorbed that lesson from Madame (whose last name I have now forgotten), I would have first attempted to design an interminably boring scarf or a detestably predictable shawl (that I could neither pin, tie, nor drape without looking absolutely ridiculous). But I didn't. Apparently, I remain as over-confident as ever in certain of my abilities. On March 1, I gave my kind, generous, and ridiculously capable technical editor my patterns. I await her proverbial red ink and promised constructive criticism. Part of me wants the patterns to be perfect, and most of me knows that under the veneer of my fine organizational structure and carefully chosen font, they are a hot mess. Whatever. I cannot wait to learn from my next draft.

Let your curiosity transform you, I say! The magical looking photo collage at the top of this post is my first visual representation of the spirit behind String & Twig (you can see additional related photos, as well as the sources of the photos I selected, on my Pinterest board). It dawned on me just this past week that this process of learning and growing is what my blog is all about. My posts are about how we indulge our curiosity by trying new things, seeing what works, and what doesn't. And every time we try something, there's some kind of transformation, like milk into cheese, seeds into plants, or me into whatever comes next (unwanted ecologies and all). We're all changing in big or small ways every day, regardless of whether we want to or not. Why not evolve in ways that satisfy our intellectual curiosity?

And at the same time, how about working to cultivate curiosity in the more ho-hum aspects of life, like cooking for example? On a very basic level, if we're doing our best, we're transforming ingredients into a meal (or more) every day. And there is so much eating that happens every day. Three meals! Every day. It's hard to get or stay curious about cooking, especially, as I noticed this past month, when you have some shiny, new, more interesting thing going on. I found myself becoming keenly interested in staying out of the kitchen. But because fasting wasn't an option, I focused on decent food I could assemble and cook quickly, as well as food I could basically ignore once I had applied a heat source.

My solution to dinner in a pinch became Weirdly Addictive Tortilla Pizza. We have eaten it every Saturday evening since I learned about it. We use the fancier handmade corn tortillas, and they have been fabulous as pizza "crusts." Another ridiculously easy and shockingly popular dinner solution at our house is a Baked Potato Bar, and it now also appears almost weekly. Confession: I didn't know how to make a good, oven-baked potato until recently. But now I use this very easy recipe and the potatoes turn out beautifully every time. Top your crunchy, fluffy, perfect potatoes with sautéed leeks, butter or olive oil, sour cream, bacon, herbs, whatever other odd ends of previous dinners you have in your refrigerator, salt and pepper, and enjoy. Aside from scrambled eggs and kimchi atop rice from my 1990s rice cooker (which I also hauled out this month), the Baked Potato Bar is the most straightforward weeknight dinner I have ever encountered. Even better, everyone is always excited about it.

If you do have some extra time or oomph for the kitchen, though, I have to point out that blood orange season is coming to a close. I've been grabbing them while I can. If you have eaten more than your share and are looking for a new preparation (but aren't up for spending the small fortune required to make a batch of blood orange sorbet), try a blood orange curd sundae or this lovely riff on the Dominican Morir Soñado.

We made the blood orange curd for dessert with homemade vanilla ice cream and whipped cream when my cousin, my favorite author of books about pirates and teacher of fourth and fifth graders in Atlanta, visited a few weeks ago.

As for the Morir Soñados, Marc, Wyatt and I enjoyed our beautiful pink drinks in martini glasses during one recent kid-friendly Saturday evening cocktail hour. See the tortilla pizza? I wasn't kidding. Every Saturday. Make some yourself and be sure to be messy enough with the cheese at the edge so that you get some of those crunchy bits, too.

The Meaning of Life

One evening after work, over a decade ago, I shared an elevator with a former boss of mine down to the parking garage of our Los Angeles law office. I have no memory of what we were discussing in the elevator, but I will always remember that whatever it was prompted him to ask me once the doors opened, "Do you want to know the meaning of life?" I remember looking at him sort of sideways, equal parts dubious and curious, and saying, "Of course I want to know the meaning of life. What is it?" He said, "It's relationships." I remember falling silent, thinking to myself that the answer did not sound profound enough, and then wondering if he might be right.

All these years later, I'm pretty sure he was right. It seems like the best things in life come out of relationships we build and connections we make with other people. For example, this weekend alone, thanks to fantastic friends and acquaintances, we enjoyed a parade, a farm visit, a cheese party, and a food swap.

On Saturday morning, Wyatt, Marc and I attended the Chinese New Year mini-parade. It's the greatest, most low-key, kid-friendly Chinese New Year celebration in San Francisco, and it seems like hardly anyone has heard of it. I only know about it because my friend, Raejean, took me to it one year to teach me photography basics. She and I had the best time, and I got some good photos, too. Raejean moved away several years ago, but thanks to her, we now take Wyatt, who is already looking forward to next year's parade.

And then there was Sunday.

A couple of months ago, I was listening to the Local Mouthful podcast, and the hosts were discussing the magic of Food Swaps. Intrigued, I looked online to see if we had one in San Francisco. When I found one, I asked to be added to the mailing list. The date of the swap has been on my calendar for a few weeks. But the event wasn't until the afternoon, so there was time for some fun in the morning. Some cheesemaking, perhaps! Darcie and I decided to make a surface ripened blue cheese (like we had learned in our workshop). I invited another friend who is interested in learning to make cheese, and her daughter, one of Wyatt's friends from kindergarten, to join the fun. Darcie's wife, Lauren, planned to join us, too. Even though it seems impossible, our day got even better when Darcie texted me that she had made a goat milk connection. Could Wyatt and I meet her and Lauren at 8:00 a.m. in Oakland to milk some goats? The answer was a resounding, "YES."

We got up early on Sunday and were on time to the urban farm where we met the farmer, his chickens, and his goats. The farmer milked the goats, I gave milking a try, and then we all enjoyed a goat's milk tasting before we took our fresh milk back to San Francisco to make some cheese.

When we got back to our house, our cheesemaking party began. We made a surface-ripened blue camembert style cheese from cow's milk and also some blue goat's milk cheeses, using the blue mold that I cultivated on our homemade sourdough bread. We also started a batch of fresh chèvre, because who wants to wait a month or more before tasting any of the cheese? When we were done straining the curds from our blue cheeses, we made a fast ricotta out of a mix of the whey of both types of milk. We also enjoyed a delightful array of amazing snacks, pretty much all day long.

When cheesemaking was over, Marc, Wyatt and I pulled together the ten eight-ounce jars of organic cultured cream cheese that I had made to trade at the food swap, along with the rice salad I had made for the potluck (I substituted sunflower and pumpkin seeds for the pine nuts in the recipe).  We headed over to Sports Basement on Bryant Street, and we proceeded to set up our cheese shop. While we were swapping food, we met an entire room of delightful makers and tasted their delicious wares. I also got to meet a friend I had only previously known on Instagram!

We "sold" all our cheese, including our sample jar! Obviously, our entry was a huge hit and it was fun to hear people marvel at how they had only ever eaten store-bought cream cheese, and how different (and better) fresh tasted. In exchange for our cheese, we got plum butter with grand marnier, apricot jam, peppermint creams, vegan lox, carrot ginger miso dressing, garlic confit, pickles, apple ketchup, baba ganoush, and some handmade soaps.

Regardless of whether you want to make cream cheese to trade, share, or keep for yourself, it's very easy to do, as long as you're willing to maintain a kefir grain cheese pet. (They're really not that much trouble. I promise.) I found the basic cream cheese recipe in David Asher's book, The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, and I tweaked it only slightly by replacing some of the cream with whole milk.

Fresh Cultured Cream Cheese (makes about 12 ounces)

Equipment:

• Clean, fine cheese cloth or butter muslin (NOT the loose stuff you can get at the grocery store)
• Fine mesh strainer (for straining kefir)
• Quart jar or other similar vessel
• Pot or bowl for catching whey
• Colander

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of fresh, heavy cream (not ultra-pasteurized)
• 1 cup of fresh whole milk (not ultra-pasteurized, and preferably not homogenized)
• 1 teaspoon (or so) of kefir grains OR about 2 tablespoons of homemade kefir
• Kosher salt

Directions:

Mix the cream and milk together with the kefir grains or prepared, strained kefir in a quart jar. Loosely screw on the lid of the jar. Let the jar sit for about 24 hours at room temperature. You're basically making crème fraîche, so keep an eye on when the mixture has thickened to that consistency.

Once the cream and milk mixture has thickened, strain out the kefir grains (if you used them) and place them in fresh milk. (If you used prepared kefir, there's no need to strain anything.)

Spread the cheese cloth evenly over a colander that you have placed over a pot or bowl and pour the thickened cream and milk mixture into cheese cloth. Knot the cheese cloth at the top and hang it from somewhere in your kitchen with a pot or bowl below to catch the whey. I hung the knotted cheese cloth from a wooden spoon that I placed across the top of a tall pot. Let hang for about 8 hours at room temperature, or until you have the consistency of cream cheese that you prefer. Add kosher salt to taste. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator. You may notice that after your cream cheese has sat in the refrigerator for a day or more that it becomes slightly effervescent. That's totally normal.

(Thanks to Darcie and Lauren for sharing their photos for publication here. Once again, friends make everything better. Even blog posts.)

Gooey Food and Gratitude

"Mom. I'm hiding my eyes because when I look at that gooey food on my plate, it makes my body feel weird."

I wasn't planning to write a post about our Thanksgiving. But on Wednesday, a lovely friend of mine texted that she was looking forward to reading about what we had for Thanksgiving dinner. I thought to myself, why not write about it? It was going to be an amazing meal; I had already spent hours working on it.

For years, our traditional Thanksgiving meal has centered around Dungeness crab. But this year, crabbing season has been postponed because "potentially deadly levels of domoic acid have been found in Dungeness crab."  We needed a new plan, and we decided to go with Winter Vegetable Pie from the Fields Of Greens Cookbook. I had never made the recipe before, but it was the reason for adding the cookbook to my Christmas wish list last year. A vegetarian foodie friend had told me that this time-intensive pot pie was the ultimate in delicious, vegetarian comfort food. The recipe suggests that a salad of bitter greens, pears and walnuts is great with it, so I planned to make that salad. I decided we should also make some gluten-free sourdough bread to eat with our homemade cultured maple butter. And Wyatt requested crème brûlée for dessert because "we always have that." I think we may have only had it last Thanksgiving, but who was I to argue where a cooking torch was involved.

On Tuesday, I spent the entire day cooking while Wyatt played astronaut (and other wonderfully imaginative games that I don't recall) at the other end of the kitchen. I began by making crème brûlée. Next, I simmered mushrooms and other vegetables into stock for over three hours. Finally, I made the dough of my first ever gluten-free pie crust.

On Wednesday, we took a break from cooking and went to the Exploratorium.

Thursday morning arrived, and it was time to bake and cook again. Wyatt and I started the bread on its final rise around 7:30 before I headed out for a class at the gym.

When I got home from the gym, I found Marc and Wyatt just hanging out, and I felt myself getting really annoyed. With just the three of us having Thanksgiving together, it felt like a regular weekend day, only with a whole lot more preparation and cooking than I wanted to do. But instead of expressing those thoughts directly, I demanded that we clean up our messy house. Marc, suddenly irritated himself, pressed me as to why I was "leveling edicts" about tidying-up when no guests were coming over. I am pretty sure I responded that I had been planning for days and cooking for hours, and I would really prefer that today, Thanksgiving, which he didn't seem to care much about, be different from all the other days when I plan and cook all by myself and we eat surrounded by clutter. I like to imagine the wonderfully evolved adult I would be if I had said all of that in a calm, eloquent and loving way. But as the person I am today, I remain grateful to Marc for quickly understanding my point of view, forgiving me for "leveling edicts" before explaining where I was coming from, and immediately getting on-task after our discussion.

I baked the bread while we ate a light lunch, and after lunch, it was time to start cooking the pie. I assembled the many vegetables we had gotten from our farm share box, the additional vegetables I had bought from Rainbow Grocery, as well as herbs and one little carrot from our garden. I then realized I had miscalculated how many pounds of mushrooms we needed, and Marc dashed out to the supermarket to get some more.

I started rolling the pie crust.

Next, Wyatt and I started chopping. Soon, Marc returned with more mushrooms and joined the prep party.

I made an actual gravy out of a roux of homemade mushroom stock and gluten-free flour. I could hardly believe the gravy worked, never mind its hearty flavor and smooth texture. I assembled the pie, and while it baked, we enjoyed cocktails, washed the various salad greens, burned the walnuts, substituted sliced almonds, and crumbled some bleu cheese into the salad. When the pie was finished baking, our dinner looked like this.

When the pie was cut, our dinner looked like this.

And the verdict? Well, our 10-hour Winter Vegetable Pie was met with mixed reviews. Marc thought it was fantastic. I thought it was fine, but I was expecting something more amazing for the time spent on it. Wyatt hated it. I hadn't realized until we sat down to dinner and he said, "looking at that gooey food makes my body feel weird" that we never, ever cook gravy or classic American comfort food. Wyatt never got past the gooey brown factor. Instead, he ate bread with maple butter, some salad, and he asked every three minutes whether it was time for crème brûlée yet.

The crème brûlée was perfect, thank goodness.

And even though Wyatt didn't say it, it was pretty obvious that he was grateful we had stuck with tradition for dessert.

So Much Pumpkin

Did you know that the warty pumpkins are supposedly the sweetest ones? With that trivia nugget in mind, Wyatt and I set about finding the biggest, wartiest pumpkin in the store. And then we roasted it whole for over an hour in a 400 degree oven. 

I didn't weigh this beast, but I should have. From this one big, warty pumpkin, we made pumpkin custard (which took about two cups of pumpkin), pumpkin bread (another cup), pumpkin soup (five cups), pumpkin muffins (one cup), and we still have have one cup of pumpkin purée left in the freezer.

After roasting the pumpkin, we quartered it, scooped out the seeds and strings, and then removed the flesh from the skin. We then puréed the pumpkin in the Vitamix until it was smooth.

To make the pumpkin custard, I followed Against All Grain's Maple Pumpkin Custard recipe. My only recipe changes were to use cream instead of coconut milk, and to bake the custard in one 9 inch x 12 inch glass pan instead of in individual servings. Using the larger pan nearly doubled the recipe's estimated baking time for me. And no surprise, pumpkin custard baked in such a casual way is not very photogenic, so there are no photos of our final product. But I promise that we ate it the first night with whipped cream on top, and later in the week, we enjoyed it plain.

Wyatt insisted on wearing his chef's hat to mix the custard. The hat seems to give him focus and determination while cooking or baking. He keeps telling me I should get one so that I can be a real chef, like him.  

Our pumpkin bread recipe came from Elana's Pantry: Easy Paleo Pumpkin Bread. We used the Cuisinart for this recipe. 

I made several changes to the original recipe. The volume of spices for this recipe sounded heavy for our taste, and I don't have a tiny loaf pan. So I doubled all the ingredients except for the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. I omitted the stevia because I can't stand the taste of stevia. And I baked the bread in a regular sized loaf pan. Baking a larger recipe in a larger pan extended the baking time. The bread was done after about an hour in the oven, and it was delicious.

Our last pumpkin product (before deciding to freeze the rest lest we overdose and never willingly eat pumpkin ever again) was pumpkin soup. I followed the spirit of my Really Good Butternut Squash Soup recipe. Because we had already processed the pumpkin, I didn't have any strings or seeds to brown in the pan for flavor this time. But I did a really good job browning the onion. The soup was great, and we garnished it with sprouted pumpkin seeds.

We then took a pumpkin breather for a couple of weeks. 

Next, with an eye towards baking some gluten-free Smitten Kitchen pumpkin muffins, I defrosted one of the remaining cups of pumpkin purée.

Keeping in mind some of the lessons from America's Test Kitchen's cookbook, How Can It Be Gluten Free, I substituted, in a ratio of 1:1, my current favorite gluten-free flour blend (I mix it at home, but you can also buy it pre-mixed) for the all-purpose flour called for in the recipe. I also used a full tablespoon of baking powder, and I allowed the batter to rest at room temperature for a half-hour before baking.

I've been calling these muffins "cupcakes." Their snickerdoodle tops certainly elevate them over any regular muffin. But the real reason for my sleight of language is that they'll be Wyatt's treat at an upcoming birthday party. Because this recipe made a dozen muffin-cupcakes, I have also tucked several away in the freezer for another day.

Vegans, Vegetarians, Gluten-free-ers, and Thanksgiving

I've had enough of the Thanksgiving articles and listicles about what to make for the perfect Thanksgiving dinner, how to make it flawlessly, and most of all, how to "handle" the people we apparently most dread coming to our Thanksgiving tables. You know the people I mean. The ones who show up to dinner with their dietary restrictions: the vegans, vegetarians and gluten-free-ers. 

Silly me. I thought Thanksgiving was the holiday where we got together, regardless of differences, to share in a feast while letting our gratitude shine so brightly that our Puritan forefathers would be embarrassed for us. 

On Thanksgiving (or any other day), if our family of three is eating the same dinner, we are eating gluten-free vegetarian fare. And I've been thinking a lot about why we, who make a point of being on time, helpful, polite, and never arriving empty-handed, qualify as some of the most dreaded guests anyone could have at their Thanksgiving table. I've come up with four possible reasons why people like us, with dietary restrictions, are so dreaded. Only one of the reasons seems irrefutable: we pose a threat to tradition. We don't eat a lot of what has become accepted as the traditional recipes for Thanksgiving dinner, and people don't like other people fooling around with their annual eating traditions. I get it. And if you're into following tradition for tradition's sake, you probably should continue not to invite us to your Thanksgiving gathering.

But if you dread vegans, vegetarians or gluten-free-ers because we make you feel a little guilty, it's time to let that go. Maybe you're really altruistic and would feel sorry for us because we were missing out on amazing food. Or maybe you'd worry we'd be hungry because you don't want to disappoint all the other guests who are counting on your traditional menu. Either way, you may actually be concerned about being an inadequate host. As someone who admires and occasionally strives for perfection, I totally understand that concern. But we who have dietary restrictions are the last people who would ever accuse you of falling short of being the host(ess) with the most(ess). Remember that we are used to avoiding foods everywhere we go, and many of us even happily bring our own cupcakes to birthday parties. In short, it's really no big deal to avoid certain foods or bring more than the usual number of dishes to Thanksgiving dinner.

In all likelihood, though, you dread us because we threaten to require extra work, and you don't need extra work, especially on Thanksgiving. I suppose we do require some extra attention, but it's only because you care. And we care, too. Thanksgiving menu planning articles always manage to leave out how we "dreaded guests" are fully aware of what a pain in the ass it can be to cook for us. And the menu listicles also always ignore the fact that we can help with your menu woes. We have so many recipes! And work-arounds. And not only would we be willing to share how we do things so you don't waste time experimenting, but we'd be eager to make and bring things to your table that would be not only great for us to eat, but also delicious for your other guests to share. Let us help solve the menu problem and not add to your load (by much). 

"But," you might exclaim, possibly with your index finger in the air, "it's Thanksgiving! It's about togetherness, sharing, and leftovers! We should all be able to share and enjoy the same meal!" Absolutely. I agree one hundred percent. Joining friends and family around a Thanksgiving dinner table is really special. And it would be so nice and easy if everyone ate exactly the same meal. But did an American family ever sit down to a home-cooked dinner on a Thursday where every family member ate all the same things, and no one complained about anything on their plate? I suspect that Thanksgiving dinner is probably not going to be any different in that respect, regardless of whether you have vegans, vegetarians, or gluten-freers in your midst. 

It may be time for us to try embracing the imperfections in our guests and in our feasts. It could make the whole affair more enjoyable for everyone. And if it backfires? You can always fall back on tradition another year. 

Really Good Butternut Squash Soup

It seems like everyone loves autumn and all the winter squash it brings. Everyone except me. I do like kabocha squash and some other pumpkins, but if I'm honest, that's about it.

I'd prefer to let the squash lovers keep their acorns, butternuts and especially their spaghettis, for themselves. But cooking for a somewhat vegetarian household in the fall and winter means winter squash will have to grace our table at some point, especially since we are guaranteed to get some in our CSA box. 

In fact, last Wednesday, we unpacked our first butternut squash of the season. I groaned inwardly as I stuck it on the counter, next to the bowl of onions. I figured it would stand there awkwardly for a few weeks until I finally, and grumpily, got around to slaughtering it, cooking it, and then vaguely avoiding it on my plate. One of my complaints about squash (especially butternut) is that to me, it's just sweet and has no depth of flavor. Roasting it helps, but that's not enough. I cannot give up on learning to like squash, though, for the reasons I just mentioned, so I remain open to new recipes.

Last week, I listened to the Local Mouthful podcast where Joy Manning and Marisa McClellan discussed how much they were looking forward to winter squash season and how they prepare their squash. I was totally unmoved by their descriptions of roasted squash with butter. But Joy Manning's suggestion of how to prepare a flavorful squash soup grabbed my attention. Get this: She cooks the squash strings and seeds in the soup pot until they develop into a deep fond on the bottom of the pan, and then removes the extra strings and seeds before going forward with the rest of the soup. What a great way to develop good flavor! Yesterday, Wyatt and I tried it. It made a great butternut squash soup. And I don't mean "great for butternut squash soup," but actually great soup that happens to be made with butternut squash.  

Here's what we did:

I peeled and cut the squash. Wyatt helped to cut the pieces smaller, but squash is hard to cut (yet another of it's charming qualities), so we worked together. We also sautéed some onions until they caramelized. Ours actually got a little burnt, and then Wyatt ate a third of them, but I was aiming for one large onion, thinly sliced and then caramelized. I think that would have been ideal for this recipe. I removed the onions from the soup pot, added a little more olive oil, and then scooped the seeds and strings of the squash into the pot and let them cook there until a fond developed on the bottom of the pan. Once there was a deep-colored fond, I removed the remaining loose squash strings and all the seeds, sautéed some fresh sage for a few seconds, added the squash, deglazed the pan with some white wine, and poured in a quart of broth. We let the pot simmer until the squash was soft, and then we put the soup in the blender in batches. We added salt and pepper to taste, and we added some cream before serving, but you could easily leave out the cream if you prefer.

I'm pretty excited that I'm actually looking forward to the leftovers of this soup. And if you have some clever and delicious squash preparations you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them. Squash season is just beginning, after all.

Date Treats with Pepitas and Cacao Nibs

My friend Sara, owner of  Thrive Nutrition & Yoga, is a nutritionist, food activist and incredible mom, among other things. I love learning from her. Every time I see her, she inspires me to cook more, cook better, and look at ingredients differently. 

The last time we had lunch together, we had a picnic, and as usual, I openly scrutinized everything she brought and asked a million questions. We discussed the bread she was using (gluten-free, Grindstone Bakery, toasted) for her sandwich, where she got her incredible plums (farmer's market), and these intriguing truffle-shaped desserts she brought to share (Three-Stone Hearth).

The truffle-shaped desserts were date balls that had been fancied-up. They were delicious, and I decided I'd have to attempt to come up with a similar recipe. The idea to re-create these little treats also fit nicely with Sara's and my ongoing discussion about concocting homemade snack bars, like Larabars. It seemed to me that you could make a recipe like this into whatever shape you desired.

I finally got around to working on a recipe for date treats last night, and they're great. We like them so much I don't know what I would change.

Here's how I made them:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups pitted Medjool dates
• 1/2 cup sprouted sunflower seeds 
• 1/2 cup sprouted pumpkin seeds
• 3 tablespoons cacao nibs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3-4 tablespoons coconut butter
• finely shredded unsweetened coconut

*Notes: If you can't eat coconut or can't find coconut butter, I bet you could easily substitute 2-3 tablespoons of a seed butter and omit the coconut flakes. I currently get my sprouted sunflower and pumpkin seeds at Costco. I like using sprouted seeds when I can. The seeds I use are lightly salted, which helps this recipe taste good. If you use seeds that are unsalted, you'll probably want to add a pinch or two of salt to this recipe.

Instructions:

Put the dates in the bowl of a food processor with the s-shaped blade, and process the dates so they are coarsely chopped. Add the seeds and cacao nibs and process until everything looks pretty well chopped-up. Add the vanilla and 3 tablespoons of the coconut butter and let the machine run until the "dough" starts to look as if it is coming together. If it looks like it's a little dry and when you pinch some between your fingers, it seems crumbly, add another tablespoon of the coconut butter and run the machine again until the "dough" holds together.

Take a cookie scoop (or your fingers) and scoop up enough "dough" to make a ball that's about an inch in diameter. Roll the ball a bit to make it spherical and then roll it in the shredded coconut. Place the balls in layers, separated by waxed paper (just to avoid them mushing together) in a storage container. Put the container in the refrigerator if you want the treats to be firm, or you can leave them at room temperature and they will be softer. 

For me, this recipe made about 3 dozen treats.

Crab Apple Jelly

My dad suggested we make crab apple jelly. Wyatt and I thought it was a fantastic idea.

In my imagination, making crab apple jelly involves foraging adorably small sour apples in weather that's just starting to turn cooler. The crab apples don't take too much preparation before cooking because we will strain out seeds and stems later. Once the apples are on the stove, a cranberry-meets-apple fragrance will fill our home as the pot bubbles away. And once the jelly is in the jar, we will see its beautiful, clear red color, and I will probably declare that crab apple jelly is my new favorite thing. It will be tart, sweet and delicious.

I have a terrific imagination. And the only thing I got right in that Pinterest-tinged daydream was that the apples smelled wonderful while we cooked them.

Attempting the jelly actually involved my dad and Wyatt picking cherry-sized sour apples from a tree in the yard in 80 degree heat and swamp-like humidity. A ladder was required. 

The apples also took a fair amount of preparation. My parents, Wyatt, and I started chopping the apples in half to remove their long stems. The apples were hard, though, so Wyatt couldn't cut them with his kid knife. As a result, he was left on stem removal duty. Because removing stems is way more boring than cutting apples, he pretty quickly wandered off to go play with the dog.

My parents and I finished preparing the crab apples, and my dad consulted the general jelly recipe directions in The Joy Of Cooking. We cooked the cut crab apples as the book recommends, with just enough water so that they were definitely all in water, but none of them were floating. About 15 minutes into the cooking process, we realized that we were making crab apple sauce instead of jelly. We did not have enough water in the pot, and we guessed that the chance of straining the sauce and getting any clear juice was almost none. Nevertheless, we tried to strain it in cheese cloth. We made a mess, and we strained no juice. Disappointment! But then we thought, maybe we should just make jam.

I found no crab apple jam recipes online. Undaunted, I suggested we try a honey lemon apple jam recipe. We followed the spirit of the recipe. We added honey, sugar, more honey, more sugar, some lemon juice, even more sugar, and we thought it tasted great. We sealed it in the prepared jars.

The jam didn't set. We waited 24 more hours. It still didn't set.

We were indignant. We wondered aloud, "Why didn't this work?" all the while knowing that any success in this project was thanks to sheer luck. After all, we sort of followed some recipes, substituted the main ingredient, didn't check the temperature with a thermometer, and we didn't test to see if the jam was ready to set before we put it in jars.

Never mind. 

We decided to make the runny jam set (dammit.) We went to the store, bought some Certo, and attempted to merge the directions in the Certo with the directions from my favorite canning blog, Food In Jars, to ensure that the stuff set. We reheated the sauce-jam, added more sugar, used the thermometer, added Certo and lemon juice, and poured the jam into jars again. And it set! Boy did that jam set. It set immediately, and in all honesty, it is probably way too firm even to be called jam. It seems we overcorrected.

On the bright side, though, the crab apple concoction tastes great with cream cheese, and it stays exactly where you place it. 

Sending Love

"Can you believe that your baby girl is nearly eleven weeks old? Congratulations! Enclosed are Goodfood Chocolate Ginger Date cookies to help celebrate." 

I like to think I'm a good friend, but if I'm honest, I'm a lot more unreliable and inconsistent than I was before I became a parent. Fortunately, people seem understanding about these shortcomings (or at least they pretend to be). But the fact remains that I see a lot fewer people a lot less often than I used to, and getting together with dear friends seems unbelievably and unacceptably challenging most of the time.

With one good and very likable post, however, social media can help soothe that "I never see anyone!" feeling and give me the impression that I'm maintaining many relationships. It's a good illusion. And even though I know that status updates and photos of my dinner are no substitute for actual communication with people I care about, I will probably continue to rely on the shortcuts that social media offers because they are so easy and fun.

But what about people who aren't on social media? Two of my best friends aren't. Until they had a baby three months ago, I was terrible about keeping up with them because, as I mentioned, they don't exist on social media (and I have become a less-attentive friend). But sometime over the last 15 years of our friendship, these people became family, and I was so overjoyed when they texted to say their baby had been born. I was also frustrated that most of the length of California separates me from them. I couldn't just show up and bring them food on a whim. And I found myself wondering when I'd see the next photo of that adorable baby.

Obviously, these two issues aren't problems. Lucky for me, I pretty quickly snapped out of that way of thinking and recognized these "problems" as opportunities to become a better friend. By making a giant pest of myself by text and email, I get almost all the photos and funny baby anecdotes I could wish for. And by sending care packages, I have managed to supply my friends with snacks over many weeks. 

When I started sending packages, I had no plan for how long I would continue. I just needed to send them love. And snacks. After all, sometimes snacks are love.

For the first package, I baked and sent granola bars that would arrive for the baby's second week birthday. The text I received from my friend when the box arrived was all the encouragement I needed to send another package: "Thank you so much for the granola bars! I just ate 2. Our biggest miscalculation has been how difficult it is to feed us. These literally came in the nick of time...."

Over the next couple of months, I kept sending one package per week. Some snacks were healthier than others. I chose what to send based on what I felt like baking, what we had in the house (like zucchini, or the ingredients for granola), and what I thought my friends would enjoy. I baked all of the recipes gluten-free, because that's how we bake at our house. 

I can hardly express the expansive joy I've gotten from baking (and waiting in line so I can send the boxes)--activities I normally tolerate or even loathe. I'm not quitting social media anytime soon, but all this real life making, sending and connecting has been a refreshing reminder of what friendship can be.

Here are the snacks I sent, including links and my personal recipe notes or substitutions.

Smitten Kitchen Thick, Chewy Granola Bars -- I use hemp seeds, chocolate chips, dried cherries, and pumpkin seeds. These bars are even better with coconut oil substituted for the butter. I skip the corn syrup and add a bit more maple syrup or honey instead.

Elana's Pantry Blueberry Mini-Muffins -- I use 2 tablespoons of honey instead of 1/4 cup of honey or agave, and 1/4 cup melted butter or coconut oil instead of grapeseed oil.

Anytime Cookies -- So good just they way they are.

Cacao Nib Cookies -- I add one egg and 2 tablespoons of coconut flour, and I use plain cacao nibs instead of chocolate chips. As Wyatt says, cacao nibs don't taste very yummy on their own, but they are delicious as an ingredient IN something.

Chocolate Zucchini Mini-Muffins -- I baked this bread recipe in mini-muffin pans. I use vanilla extract, not vanilla stevia.

Everyday Granola -- I use coconut oil instead of vegetable oil.

Real Chocolate Chip Cookies -- I use sweet rice flour instead of oat flour, melted butter, and added 2 tablespoons of milk to the batter. I let the batter rest in the fridge for about 45 minutes to give the gluten-free flour an opportunity to hydrate and lose its graininess.

Bulk Bin Snacks from Rainbow Coop -- I was short on time. Wyatt scooped them some of his faves: cashews, pistachios, and dried organic California apricots

Week 11: Goodfood Chocolate Ginger Date Cookies/Biscuits Get out your cooking scale because this recipe is written mostly in grams, and it's fantastic. I substituted an equal amount of my gluten-free flour blend for the all-purpose flour, added 2 tablespoons of milk, and before baking, I let the dough rest for 45 minutes in the refrigerator to give the gluten-free flours an opportunity to hydrate and lose their graininess.

The Special Momma Day

About a week ago at dinner, Wyatt said to me, "Mom. I have a great idea! On the next Momma Day, let's visit Andy at Rainbow and make that special smoothie we like, but let's have it in the morning so that I'm not so full at dinner. And then when it's quiet time, we can get lawn chairs and blankets and lots of books and have quiet time outside. And when quiet time is over, let's just keep reading! For snack, we can have bagels and cream cheese, and stay outside until it is time for dinner." I agreed that this sounded like an excellent plan, but suggested that we could have the smoothie for lunch--can you imagine? drinking your lunch?--instead of in the morning. Wyatt agreed with a satisfied grin, and he asked me to put the entire plan in the calendar.

Every day or so, for the next week, he asked if the Special Momma Day was in the calendar and if the plan was still on. It was. And then finally, Special Momma Day, otherwise known as Thursday, July 30th, was upon us. 

As things turned out, Special Momma Day was made even more special (and slightly more complicated) by the delivery of Wyatt's big boy bed. We got going early so that we could head to Rainbow Coop to visit with Andy, sample some cheese, and get our shopping done. We headed home just in time to meet our bed delivery guy, Jeremy.

Jeremy was so gracious. He had an attentive audience while he assembled every single peg, screw, board and wheel to the new bed, and it seemed not to bother him at all. When something didn't go exactly as he had originally planned, he went out of his way to explain how he would move forward and how the minor change he was about to make would cause no problems whatsoever, and might even improve things. In spite of (or perhaps because of) his thinking out loud, I felt self-conscious "supervising" the assembly. For a moment, I considered leaving Wyatt so he could watch the process on his own. But then I realized that if I left, it would be worse, because I would be that lady who expected the delivery guy to watch her kid while he assembled furniture. So I matched my mental discomfort with physical discomfort, smushed myself next to Wyatt in his toddler bed, and settled in to watch.

Wyatt reveled in and marveled at the entire hour-long process, but he particularly loved tightening the last bolt and drilling in the final screw. As for me, my self-consciousness lifted somewhat after lending Jeremy an Allen key, and it disappeared once I had given him a tip.

Because of the bed delivery, smoothie lunch was an hour late. And because there were no gluten-free bagels at either of the grocery stores I had visited during the week, we opted for pretzel sticks with cream cheese-as-dip for snack. These adjustments did nothing to disrupt a perfectly planned and executed afternoon of smoothies, lawn chairs, books, snacks, a game of catch, and butterfly, bird and plane watching in the garden.

It would have never occurred to me that such a "boring" afternoon could be so anticipated and so special. We didn't go anywhere, we did nothing new, and everything we did was within the normal rhythm of our day. Minor tweaks and changes elevated things from normal to utterly amazing. 

As you might guess, it was challenging to transition from such an epic afternoon to dinnertime: "NOOOOOOOOO! I WANT TO PLAY FOR A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MORE MINUTES! NOT FIVE!" But my suggestion that we go inside to make a minty melon salad for dinner that we could eat with cottage cheese was just bizarre enough of a dinner suggestion to be an easy sell. A bonus for me was getting to use the three melons that had somehow managed to accumulate in our refrigerator.

Smoothie Recipe:

Lite Bite on Union Street in San Francisco makes the most amazing Omega Smoothie. Even though I am a regular customer, they won't give me the recipe. Fair enough. But it hasn't stopped me from attempting to recreate it on my own. I'm getting very close. Here's what I put in the blender yesterday, and it made two smoothies.

• About 12 oz of unsweetened cashew milk, frozen in ice cube trays
• 8 pitted Medjool dates
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons of almond butter
• 1 small banana
• a splash of vanilla extract 
• About a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• About 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 2-3 tablespoons cacao nibs