peaches - yum!

Yesterday morning, someone told me about Katie's peach upside-down cake  and naturally I thought about it all day and had to bake some for myself when finally I got home at 8:00.  It was absolutely worth the wait.  The fresh peaches were yummy and the butter, flour, and sugar made them that much better. I'm not sure why the photos are that blurry. Every photo I've taken in the past few days has been blurry (see photo of new railing on facebook) so I'm guessing my arms are just tired (wimpy).

Recipe: http://e-quilterscorner.danemcoweb.com/recipes/

Speaking of fresh local fruit, I just signed-up for a winter fruit CSA. Every Thursday for twelve weeks, we'll get an assortment of local apples, frozen fruit, jams, cider, and honey DELIVERED TO OUR HOUSE!  This is the second coolest thing that has happened in my life this week (#1 being the new railing).

"Coconut milk cures all!"

In an attempt to make a Jamaican jerk seasoning for a tofu stir-fry, I realized that, once again, I had no idea what I was doing. There are three main ingredients for the seasoning - allspice, thyme, and some fancy hot pepper name. I used cinnamon, thyme, and a fresh serrano and jalapeno pepper from the garden. And so the adventure began, improvising every step of the way. I should mention that I looked up other ingredients people have tried adding. Anyway, I started out with diluting molasses with water, adding the main pseudo-ingredients, and then tasted. Not bad, but how about adding some lemon juice, salt, tomato paste, which made it even better. Something was still missing, we needed something fatty to make it into a creamy sauce for a stir-fry and the coconut milk on the shelf spoke to me, in Jamaican! Pouring the Jerk sauce over the cubed tofu and baked for a half hour I thought, this meal seemed easy enough, right? Sure enough, the dish was delicious. We served it over basmati fried rice with onions, greens, and tomatoes, and ate it all. I highly recommend coconut milk for any recipe that needs a little extra something, it's just like dairy cream, only better.

the city of buttery love

Baltimore - The City of Buttery Love
The entire inner harbor smells like lobster and crab drowning in butter.  Or maybe it was just the smell of butter oozing from my pores. Either way, it was worth it.  These photos don't really do justice to the lobster and crab boil for two we devoured on Friday night.  The pot was filled with crab, clams, mussels, potatoes, corn, and did I mention...lobster?  Guess how much of it we were not able to finish?  Only one potato (of 4) because of course I needed to leave room for bread pudding.
Speaking of lobster, I felt like I had struck gold when I realized I was in town for the Baltimore Book Festival!  In addition to talking with local authors and scoring 7 used books for $5.50, the timing was just right for me to watch two chefs from McCormick and Schmick's produce lobster thermidor in the cooking tent.  The samples were amazingly creamy and confirmed that I should not attempt this at home until I'm ready for bigger pants.
I did make it to the Saturday Farmer's Market on the Harbor and it was possibly the smallest farmer's market I've been to, but certainly sufficient.  I believe there were five stands: baked goods, fruits, veggies, jerky, and meals to go.  I bought bison jerky for Kyle and bison dog snacks for Elle.
My recommendations for your next visit to baltimore: McCormick and Scmick's, Phillips Seafood (for the bucket 'o seafood), Sofi's Crepes, and the Walter's Art Museum (free).

Went to Kennywood on Saturday! It was a rainy day with no lines to wait in. Well, I may have exaggerated just a little. Sometimes we would have to wait for the cars to pull back up. I had a blast and Tim got home just in time to ride all the rides before we left at 8. In the meantime I was lucky enough to enjoy some potato patch fries! You can't go to Kennywood without having the famous potato patch fries!

julia & julia

Although I’m inspired by Julia Child’s zest for life and spunky determination for cooking, I’m left pondering whether I’m at all interested in mastering the art of French cooking. There is the obvious meat issue, but I also prefer a more simplistic style of cooking than Child seems to be known for, one that focuses on local seasonal food and doesn’t involve so much precision. Of course, there is probably still a lot to be learned from her and I should probably spend some time with MtAoFC to determine which recipes and techniques to incorporate into my repertoire. I’ll gain a bit of exposure when we attempt a few recipes next Monday at book club.
I must say that I also respect both Julia Child and Julie Powell for taking a cooking challenge so seriously. It’s always nice to see others who appreciate food and cooking so much. Personally, I would love to work my way through 524 dessert recipes in a year, but with my lack of self-control, I’m likely to have a heart attack before the year’s end and on top of that, a new wardrobe to cover the accompanying enlarged bottom is simply not in the budget right now.
Nonetheless, I highly recommend both the movie and the book.
Next up: My Life in France by J. Child.