Spice Dish

Creativity Sparks

Dali Themed Street Art. Creative.

I went to a book club a little while ago. It was full of strangers. I’ve never, in my life, done that before. We had an amazing conversation and I left completely creatively energized. It wasn’t just that I was using my critical thinking skills for the first time in months, but that I was trying something new. I realized that I needed to do lots more of this sort of thing--  not in the interest of 'self improvement' but simply for the sake of experience. For fostering creativity. For enjoying life. So I came up with a list of “Creativity Sparks” (i.e. stuff I’ve never done before but am going to try in  order to keep  my brain excited and to experience new things) Hey if Stephen Fry can get pierced, I can find things I've never done!

I’m not calling it a ‘bucket list’ because I don’t care if I do or don’t do these before I die. Dying is not the point. Some are little things, some are big life altering things. Some are free and some make me thankful I have no kids in need of a college education. 

I think I know which one I’ll start with, but I’m not sure. I don’t even know how closely I’ll be keeping track, hell I don’t even know how many items are on this list! (Just counted... 64) Here I go. Here’s to creativity!

Ride in a hot air balloon
See the northern lights
Take a sailing lesson
Write a book
Have a conversation in a language other than english
Send a message in a bottle.
Ride a camel (or elephant) etc
Take a ballroom dance class
Learn to play a musical instrument
Take a singing lesson
Make a complete fool of myself
Eat at the French Laundry
Learn to juggle
Learn to drive a stick shift
Spend three months getting my body into athletic shape
Go fishing and eat my catch
Ride a motorcycle
Work on a farm for a day
Learn a new skill (no idea what yet)
Make soup dumplings
Run a 5k (not walk)
Find a food I've never eaten and eat it
Go to a jazz show
Play a game of ice hockey
Go horseback riding along the beach
Learn to ski
Take a fencing lesson
Go on a helicopter ride
Sleep overnight on a train
Collect fresh chicken eggs from a nest
Go to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Try a new restaurant in San Francisco
See the Parthenon in Greece
Go to Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
Read Moby dick
Visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy
Spend an afternoon in El Prado in Madrid, Spain
See "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso at the Museo Reina Sofia
Spend a week in Bora Bora
Attend a Japanese tea ceremony
Learn to sculpt
Learn how to perform a magic trick
Learn to knit one thing
Make cheese
Watch lawrence of Arabia
Face a fear (not sure which one)
Become financially literate
Go to an auction at Christie's or Sotheby's
Sleep in a castle
Create a well-stocked pantry
Go to a yoga class by myself
Become an 'expert' at something
Write an article and have it published
Register for NaNoWriMo and write a novel in one month
Do NaBloPoMo for one month
Write a cookbook
Audition for something
Travel to another city to go to a concert/show (performer TBD)
Try fugu
Get a tarot card reading
Get hypnotized (for what I have no idea)
Eat something I've grown
Travel solo (even a day trip)
Get rid of 100 of my possessions

 

So what about you? You have a list? 

EB

Resolutions 2012!

Happy New Year's!

Again, I'm not a New Years resolution kind of gal, just never have been. But lovely Marisa, of Food In Jars inspired me this morning. Just because I don't do personal resolutions doesn't mean I can't make some bloggy ones! So here goes, my Blog Resolutions for 2012:

1- To post more vintage cookbooks (you guys seem to like those)

2- Maybe a little re-design (change is good right?)

3- In general, just be more consistent with my posting (I can do it!)

Sound good? Ok then. Happy 2012!

EB

Of Anniversaries and Things

My first picture posted

I started SpiceDish four years ago. FOUR. It’s strange where life takes you in four years. I’ve never been a diary keeper (too embarrassing) but I realize now that SpiceDish is a diary of sorts. Looking back on past posts I can see when I was happy at my work (fewer posts), when I needed escape (more posts), when I was engaged with the blogosphere (lots of comments), and when I was playing recluse (no comments).

I can see when larger life issues, very personal ones, took precedence over posting or when I was compelled to post by those same issues.

I have met some truly amazing people because of SpiceDish. People like Bethany, Victoria, Sarah and Jessie.  I have been let into many other worlds in the past years and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Like a lot of you, I’m at yet another crossroads in life. The ‘what’s next’ type. The ‘can I really make that happen’ type.  I have no idea where I will be come next October’s blogiversary, and that’s a bit scary. I do know that I’ll be able to look over the year’s posts and see where I’ve been. And that is comforting.

Here’s to another year.

Enjoy-

EB

 

Time To Help

Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

I know a lot of us don’t want to think about it, but as we write up recipes and swap restaurant reviews there are many, many in the world without enough to eat. Especially now with yet another famine in drought stricken Somalia. There are many ways to help.  If you cannot send a donation, give these groups a call and ask what it is you can do.

Oxfam America:  800-776-9326

UNICEF: 800-4UNICEF  | Text "FOOD" to UNICEF (864233) to donate $10

Doctors Without Borders: 888-392-0392

Save the Children: 800-728-3843 | Text "SURVIVE" to 20222 to donate $10

For those of you who believe in “feeding your own first” there are many people in need in our insanely wealthy country. Try helping an organization like

Feeding America

Meals On Wheels

Or

Your local foodbank.

 

It's time to help-

 

EB

The Naughty 90's

No... not those 90s. The other ones. Before those...

I have in my collection strange little book, "Rector's Naughty '90s Cookbook". This fascinating book was published in 1949, yet the recipes are from the 1890s. They are recipes from father and son team Charles and George Rector. in 1899 Rector's Restaurant on Broadway in NYC was one of the finest, most opulent restaurants anywhere in the U.S. This article from 1908 notes that the building bought to 'upgrade' the restaurant cost upwards of $700,000! It was where anyone, who was anyone went. It was known for “loose” women, not so above-board gentlemen and all around hijinks. It's name was put to songs, plays and slang.

  
                 Rector's in full swing!

On the elder Rector's death, hundreds of recipes were found in his files. Those recipes are what make up this interesting little book, filled with long forgotten ingredients, headshots and biographies of leading women of the day and period (for the 1890s) advertisements.

The recipes themselves are a great collection of the 'novel' and 'elegant' from turn of the century America. There one I chose was for:

Stuffed Avocado a la Maxine Elliot

 

It's an old take on the shellfish stuffed avocado with “Russian” dressing. One of those, at one time was considered elegnt, now is considered cliché dishes. The recipe for the dressing included a few ingredients I had never heard of, “India Relish”? But it really was tasty. There's a reason recipes like this one stick around.

As for the recipe's namesake? This Maxine Elliot was one dapper woman. She was smart, beautiful and strong. She was an actress, lover of kings, robber barons and anyone else she fancied. Married several times, it was said she had better business sense than most men. I assume this dish was served at one of her sought after lavish and "fabulous dinner parties."

Russian Dressing

1 cup mayonnaise

2 tbs chili sauce

2 tsp finely chopped green pepper

2 tsp India relish

2 tsp finely chopped pimento

Combine all ingredients and blend well.

 

After prohibition made running the restaurant difficult, George Rector (the son) and his wife toured the US and wrote food articles for the Saturday Evening Post. They issued a well received cookbook in 1928 and were considered culinary experts who appeared in national newspapers, on the radio and in newsreels offering culinary advice until 1947.

The book is a snapshot of what Americans were looking back at in the 40s. What were they nostalgic for? Apparently the freedom to be "loose," carefree and opulent. Sounds good to me!

Enjoy-

EB

Freezing Cold Tourists

pier39.com

I have a new job. I do. And it’s at the corner of pasty Wisconsinite and tourist Hell, aka Pier 39. Pier 39 of the bad chain restaurants, Duck Boat tours, $4.95 corn dogs, Hooters and very few San Franciscans. As I look out my office window at large tourists in pedi-cabs on their way to eat at Bubba Gumps (and shivering in the cold June fog) I have to wonder why. There are so many amazing places to eat in this city… why that? How did this bastion of overpriced tourism come to represent “San Francisco”? Where did it come from to begin with?

Pier 39 was not an organic creation.

It was built specifically as a tourist attraction to accompany the goings on at Fisherman’s Wharf. Restaurants weren’t always the main “attraction” at the wharf, apparently “In the early days of the fishing fleet, the homes of the Italian fishermen boasted the area’s finest cuisine. But, even before there were any sidewalks or restaurants at Fisherman’s Wharf, some of the fishermen set up cauldrons of boiling water for cooking the freshly caught crabs, dispensing them in paper cups as a crab cocktail to be enjoyed by visitors.”

                                                                                      www.letseat.at/cioppinos  

Those fisherman also got together and created "cioppino." The origin of the name is little fuzzy but the fact that this is a distinctly San Franciscan dish created by immigrants (supposedly “chipping in” ingredients) is such a San Franciscan way to do things.

These  days a lot of that fish stew comes with a hunk of Boudin sourdough. A bakery that started in 1849. As in the Gold Rush 1849, as in the namesake of our beloved 49ers. There is a museum on the wharf dedicated to the bread and to it's motherdough. A starter that is older than most other institutions in this city.

While doing this research, I didn't come to love Pier 39 but I did come to understand how the wharf itself drew visitors. Food. Always food. Hot steaming crab, swarthy fisherman cooking with garlic, tangy sourdough and an ocean view. What's not to love?

 

EB

Glasses Up, Diets Down!

www.cameronbooks.com

Do you want to know one of the reasons I love San Francisco? We produce guys like Robert Cameron. A helicopter riding, photo taking, meat eating, drinkin' man of the 1960's who wrote the “Drinking Man's Diet” diet book.

 You want brandy and a hollandaise sauce smothered steak, followed by some pate and champagne (all imbibed while snuggling up to a giggly little thing in a wiggle dress?) Then this is your diet! Years before Dr. Atkins, Robert Cameron was touting the health benies of bacon for breakfast and vodka for happy hour.

Don't get me wrong, even in 1965 Time Magazine had issues with the “diet,” but I just love the whole bon vivant-ness of it. It IS very San Francisco to be concerned with cocktails as the cornerstone of your diet. It really, really is. I mean... just check out the sample dinner menu, there are no less than 5 glasses of booze involved! Mmmmmm dinner on the rocks.

Dinner:

Martinis or highballs, if you desire (trace)
Hors d'oeuvres of 2 stalks of celery stuffed with pâté (5)
Shrimp cocktail (4)
Beef, pork, lamb, veal chicken or turkey (0)
Green beans, 1 cup, brussels sprouts, 1/2 cup, or cauliflower, 1 cup (6)
2 glasses dry wine (trace)
1/2 avocado with French dressing (8)
Cheese: Roquefort, Camembert, Swiss or cheddar (trace)
Coffee or tea (0)
Brandy (trace)

Total grams of carbohydrate: 33

While there were certainly detractors, his idea has lived on in the likes of French Women Don't Get Fat and the Fat Fallacy. Making the closing note in Cameron's book still relevant to all of us lushes... um I mean 'dieters'...

"So, drinkers of the world, throw away your defatted cottage cheese and your cabbage juice; and sit down with us to roast duck and Burgundy. You have nothing to lose but your waistlines."

Glasses up!

EB

The Politics of Food

I know that for many of us food is central to our lives and "food politics" is looming somewhere in the background. However, many are still discovering the how's and why's behind America's food culture.

Someone close to me has recently embarked on this journey of food education. After weighing her down with more books than she could ever, truly, possibly read and getting way over excited about the provenance of a basket of mushrooms, I realized that for a beginner all this information could be seriously overwhelming! This post is dedicated to her, to all those just finding their food knowledge bearings and to all of us who sometimes let the politics take a back seat to the purely delicious.

Here is a grab bag of resources:

Marion Nestle's Food Politics blog.

The One Dollar Diet Project.

Jeff Bridges' End Hunger Network.

The concept of "food fraud" explained here.

And of course, Michael Pollan. Here he is on the Daily Show.

There are, without exaggeration, thousands of other sources, ideas and arguments. Explore, learn, educate.

Above all, enjoy!

EB

How Do You Know It's Christmas in San Francisco?

You Know it's Christmas in San Francisco When:

1. You're watching men frolic in tights.

2. You're dodging drunken Santas.

3. You're trying to figure out just how many NYE house parties you can hit before you will be too drunk to go on.

4. You're listening to SomaFm's Xmas in Frisko.

by MooHaHa
5. You're asking your father to buy you a month's garage parking as your big Christmas gift. 

Happy Holidays!

EB

Here Comes Gingerbread... Here Comes Gingerbread....

Photo by DNAMichaud

This is a holiday ice cream recipe I came up with when I was invited to a friend's house for Thanksgiving. It was a good thing I brought ice cream, because it was no less than 79* that day. Ahhh California living. Now that there's snow on the ground, and a chill in the air, this recipe still screams out 'holiday'! It's creamy, laced with booze and spiced up with gingerbread. This is one of the most well-received ice creams I've ever created. Give it a shot yourself this holiday. You will not regret it.

Bourbon-Gingerbread Ice Cream

3 cups half & half

5 large egg yolks

1 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ground clove

3 tbs bourbon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup broken gingerbread cake or ½ cup gingerbread cookie pieces

 

Warm 2 cups of the ½ & ½ , sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Pour the remaining ½ & ½ into a large bowl and put a mesh strainer over the bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yolks. Slowly add some of the warmed mixture into the yolks and whisk vigorously. Slowly combine the two mixtures until completely combined, then return the mixture to the saucepan. 

Constantly stir the mixture as it warms over medium heat. Scrape the bottom and sides of the pan, until the mixture coats your spoon. Pour the cooked mixture through the strainer, into the remaining ½ & ½. Mix in the spices, bourbon, and vanilla. Cool over ice.

Chill the batter completely! Once it is chilled through, churn it in your ice cream maker according to the instructions. 5 minutes before it is finished add your gingerbread. Let finish freezing in the freezer.

Enjoy!

EB