You Eat Funny Stuff when...

...you are leaving town and trying to finish the last odds and ends of food. Especially when you didn't buy much of that food yourself, but it was bequeathed to you when everyone else left.

For example:
black bean-butternut squash-chipotle wraps
beer-buttermilk-lemon crepes
lentil-squash curry

It's actually been surprisingly good. I made some regular crepes and was so disappointed in them that I went back to the beer-buttermilk recipe. And who knew that you could put butternut squash in everything?

Of course, there's also those splurge meals where although you've vowed not to buy any more food, you suddenly find yourself at the farmer's market in Homer with the best looking fresh vegetables in your hand and it suddenly turns itself into a gourmet, $80 a plate meal for 5.

Kachemak bay oysters on the half shell? Yes please. Especially ones bought that day from the grower's association on the Homer Spit.

Seared blackened tuna? Yes please. Especially when it's hand-delivered by the woman who caught it in Mexico and served up with bleu cheese.

A bed of organic greens? Oh, yes please. I also won't complain about caramelized carrots, delicious organic strawberries, or organic lemons.

Clos du Bois merlot? Ok, if you insist.

Cranberry Pear Crisp with Vermouth and sweetened milk? Oh, you want me to have indigestion, do you? Well, lucky for all of us, such fresh food doesn't weigh us down even when we do overeat.

And to top it all off, a night of wonderful company with three old Bohemians and one young one too. Hooray for me.

A Tale About Smoking

Smoking fish, that is.

My dad had a smoker that got used a handful of times during my childhood. I have vivid memories of seeing it chugging away in the back yard, covered by that old quilted blanket, but I don't remember ever liking anything produced from its smoky belly. Dried out hams and turkeys, I think. My poor father - generally an exceptional cook, but always the experimenter. One too many failed smoking projects and he lost all support from his family to attempt again. We wanted a dinner we could eat, after all.

Here in Alaska, smoking fish is a perfected science. It provides an easy way to preserve fish or use up those not-quite-grillable pieces. Last week a friend had some lingcod belly pieces left over from a deep sea fishing expedition. We smoked them up in some coconut rum-ginger-lime brine with hickory chips, which gave it a very smoky, vaguely sweet taste. This week it was some fish I found buried in the back of the Common's freezer. Now that everyone is gone except me, all property reverts to the last man standing.

With my not-so-grillable salmon rescued from the freezer coils, I made a brine of coriander, black pepper, dill, yellow mustard, celery (all in seed form), crushed bay leaf, and fresh garlic. These I heated in some water to release the aromas, then added to a salt, lemon, brown sugar and water marinade.

The salvaged fish went into the brine, and was forgotten for a while. In the meantime we ate a feast:
Lingcod steaks grilled with lemon peel
Home-grown oyster mushrooms sauteed with soybeans and garlic
Caramelized dill carrots
Brown rice with tomato and parmesan
Homemade wheat bread
Red wine (of course)
and for dessert, my absolute favorite, Flan

Ok, now that you're drooling, back to the fish. After brining for 3 hours, we laid the pieces out on the smoker rack (my pitiful salmon scraps only filling one shelf - compared to Rachel's lingcod which needed two batches to fit it all). Then the serious business starts: smoking.

I used alder chips for a more mild smoke flavor (and because the bag said it was the best for fish) and Dominic's hot smoker. The coil in the bottom of the smoker (a metal box about 3x2x1 ft) heats up a pan of wood chips sitting on top of it. The chips slowly smolder and fill the box with heat and smoke. Every 45 minutes to an hour, the blackened chips must be tossed over the deck railing and the pan refilled with fresh ones. We started smoking at 10:30. I was up all night.

Ok, that's a lie. The hot smoke works relatively quickly, and by 2:30 I was done resetting my alarm and snuggled down on Dominic's couch to sleep the rest of the night. The salmon sat outside on the deck in the unplugged smoker until morning, inviting all sorts of creatures to investigate and steal it. Fortunately it was still there in the morning.

And delicious! I'm so proud of my little fish babies. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it, since I can't take it with me...

How to Make the Best Raspberry Jam You've Ever Had

1. Get to Homer, Alaska.

2. Find the "Seaside Farms" campground and pitch your tent in the horse field. Be sure not to step in the horse poo. And don't mind the horse; he won't bite.

3. The next morning, walk out of your tent and into the organic raspberry patch. Pick to your heart's delight. Be sure to get low and look under the leaves. It's rude picker's etiquette to only pick the easy-to-reach berries.

4. Eat lots of berries as you pick. But also pick a lot and put them into your bucket.

5. Be sure to observe the epic view across Katchemak Bay to the mountains and glaciers on the other side of the sea. The berries have spent their whole lives imbibing the view. This makes them taste extra spectacular.

6. Carry the berries with you the rest of the day to make sure they stay safe. Whatever you do, don't let them out of your site. Berries tend to disappear that way. They also tend to disappear into bellies, so keep an eye out for snitching fingers too.

7. Purchase Certo liquid pectin, sugar, and canning jars at Fred Meyer.

8. Back at your trailer, mash the berries carefully. Be sure to say, "Smash smash" every time you make the mashing motion.

9. Follow the recipe inside the Certo package for making raspberry jam.

10. Make a big sticky mess.

11. Clean up the big sticky mess.

12. Eat delicious jam!

Granola is Holy, Constipation a Sin

This tidbit of history (read below) is just too ironic.

In case anyone was wondering if religious movements are influenced by time and place. Because everyone knows that today's good right-wing Christians wouldn't be caught dead eating granola. Obama probably eats granola.

And vegetarians are just straight up sinful. Didn't God create animals for us to eat? Except he apparently also created constipation to punish us for eating meat. I always knew he was a tricky bugger.

"During the early 19th century, most Americans subsisted on a diet of pork, whiskey, and coffee. It was hell on the bowels, and to many Christian fundamentalists, hell on the soul, too. They believed that constipation was God’s punishment for eating meat. The diet was also blamed for fueling lust and laziness. To rid America of these vices, religious zealots spearheaded the country’s first vegetarian movement. In 1863, one member of this group, Dr. James Jackson, invented Granula, America’s first ready-to-eat, grain-based breakfast product. Better known as cereal, Jackson’s rock-hard breakfast bricks offered consumers a sin-free meat alternative that aimed to clear both conscience and bowels." http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20822.html

Mushroom season

Mushroom season is progressing very nicely. I would post photos if it weren't so darn difficult around here.

The warm summer and recent warm showers have created perfect conditions for a generous mushroom year. I am in heaven just walking the dog (yes, dogsitting again) and observing all the beautiful - and not so beautiful - varieties in abundance.

I've also been eating them. I've tried 5 varieties, a not-at-all shabby number for my first ever season of wild mushroom collecting. I'm impatient, but slowly I'm learning how much I can add to my cache of experiences and skills with time - and only with time. I can't expect to do everything at once.

So far, I've had: brown and orange birch boletes, honey mushrooms, gypsy mushrooms, and puffballs. My favorites is definitely the puffball - sliced thin and fried until crispy, like a mushroom potato chip. And conveniently, puffballs are among the most numerous and definitely easy to identify. The brown birch boletes are also numerous, but the flesh is often mushy, they are always infested with fly larvae (read: maggots), and honestly, they don't taste better than store-bought canned mushrooms.

Mushroom Mushroom Mushroom

Today I joined the Kenai Peninsula Mycology Society's Google Egroup. Maybe I will join the actual society --and maybe I will help out with their first ever Mushroomania Festival in September. I am as happy as a clam-stuffed mushroom cap.

Also, I got to read their April edition of The Spore Print, which is full of amazing and delicious information about How Mushrooms Can Save The World (if I could access Youtube from work, I'd post a link here to Paul Stamet's lecture with that title - you'll have to do the leg work yourself).

I would copy and paste it all here just because I'm so pumped to share it with everyone, but I don't know how kosher that is. Instead I'll just post the link and let you read it yourself. Trust me, it's Ahmazing.

Something's Changing

A few days ago, vole tracks appeared.

Since arriving, I'd seen maximum two trails left by subnivean creatures. In the last few days, they are suddenly everywere: around the office, around my cabin, doodling around the commons in loopy trails from under one building to another or in fairly straight lines across the road.

Subnivean creatures, by the way, are the tiny rodents: mice, shrews, and voles. Subnivean (for those of you who weren't in any of my field trip classes this year) means "under snow." Under the deep snow is an insulated layer where these animals build tunnels through the dead grasses to stay warm, find food, and hide from predators.

Shrews have long pointy snouts and can be aggressive insectevores. I'm hoping to find evidence of the water shrew this summer in our wetlands and lakes. Water shrews are badass.

Mice and voles are basically indistinguishable. I've heard contradictory evidence as to whether mice are actually native to Alaska or have been introduced, but there are a vareity of vole species native to, and even unique to, different regions of the state. They look cute and cuddly and they can be serious pests to home owners.

Usually these animals stay in the subnivean all winter except maybe to reach grass heads above the surface or if they are forced out of their tunnels by packed trails. In our field trips we talk a lot about how trails negatively impact subnivean residents with an aim to promote lower impact recreation (for example, using established trails for snowmachining or using a frozen lake area).

Trails can also impact plant life, partly because packed snow takes longer to melt -a big concern in an area with such a short growing season- and also because packed snow reduces light cues that reach the soil.

Plants rely on light cues, rather than temperature, to initiate their growing cycles. Thus, even with a cold spring or warm fall, deciduous trees will still grow new leaves or display fall foliage and eventually go dormant. There are still temperature considerations, of course; nothing can happen while all the water in the ground is still frozen.

Trails aside, what has sparked the sudden infusion of tracks? What has happened to make all these voles suddenly appear out from their safe, warm, food-filled subnivean tunnels?

The temperature hasn't changed. The range has been the same since I arrived: nights down as low as -20, days up to 30 or 35. The snow hasn't gone away. There is no new food source that I can think of.

Today I actually saw some voles. I glanced out at the bird feeders we keep on our windows. The chickadees, red poles, and nut hatches use a few nearby spruce trees as their access point to come to the feeder, grab a sunflower seed, and return in order to eat it. Under the trees where not as much snow has built up there is a patch of dead grasses. The voles were darting in and out of view through the grasses, eating bits of dropped sunflower seeds, I suppose.

The presence of dropped sunflower seed hasn't increased. It's possible the voles have been doing it all winter, but I've spent a lot of time looking out that window and today was the first time I've seen it. That, combined with the sudden profusion of tracks, makes me thing something has happened to encourage these creatures to emerge from their subnivean world.

I look to the light. Today is the first day of spring. This week we had our twelve-hour day. Like the plants, I imagine these creatures take their cues more from light than temperature as they prepare for the growing season that will come.

Predators still abound, so whatever could encourage them to seek out food sources that expose them to eagle eyes (literally) must be pretty darn important. More important than keeping themselves alive, which they've already been doing just fine all winter long. My guess: babies.

Mating season is upon us, folks.

There's a reason Bambi's friend Owl talks about twitterpating. In other places it corresponds to the melting snow and emergence of new plant growth. In Alaska, waiting that long to get it on wouldn't leave enough time to adequately reproduce in number before temperatures dropped again. So the mice, shrews, and voles sense the stronger, longer rays of sun filtering through the snow to their tunnels and say to themselves, "hooray! spring is coming! time to make babies!"

At this point, I don't know if those babies already exist (if so, Round 1 of several for the year, I'm sure) or if the voley-poos are merely preparing themselves physically to be able to reproduce, but either, way, I like seeing their tracks everywhere. They're pretty cute.

Green Beer It Is

Kind of a weerd picture, but hey. Green beer is green beer.
(By the way, I've decided to start spelling it weerd instead of weird. Easier to remember - wierd? or weird? what about i before e? - and uses the same delicious vowel combo as green. and beer. and other words that have ee.)

Dexter and I went for a long walk yesterday in the brilleeantly sunny afternoon. The snow was perfect, the trees were perfect, the mountains were probably perfect except I couldn't see them thanks to fog.

Oh ReDoubt: when are you planning to erupt? You crazy teese, you.

Dexter was thrilled to get some Exercise after spending all day sitting in the car waiting for me to finish work. If this sounds cruel, let it be understood that this dog has an anxiety disorder and can't be left home alone because he goes mental. (The door has the gouges to prove it.) On the other hand, he happilee (if somewhat bored-looking) sits in the car for hours on end because he does not feel abandoned inside a vehicle. So by far the less cruel method.

Down on the wetlands, the snow moves like sand into drifts and dunes. Even with the bright afternoon sun it never warms up enough to stick together. Each snowflake remains at the mercy of the wind to pile up in shelves and pyramids around the stubbee black spruce saplings.

Black, green, brown and dusky blue lichen wrap around tree trunks and hang from branches. They call it witch's hair and old man's beerd. If you see it or feel it, you know why. It's alive, but its draping fibers crumble between rubbed fingers.

Yesterday was our 12-hour day: Sunrise at about 8:12 am, Sunset at 8:12 pm. With Civil Twilight, which extends the day an easy hour in eech direction, no one can think of me living my days in the dark. We gain five minutes every day - that makes over 2 hours a month - rushing towards summer when the sun never seems to set. So long as the sun is shining, I am just as happee with the cold.

Bacchanalia

The wine festival in honor of Bacchus. It just so happens to be the same day as St. Patty's, on which we are supposed to drink a different alcoholic beverage.

What a challenge: green beer or wine? Which to drink, oh which to drink??

The temperatures dropped this week to about -30F overnight lows, +3F today's projected high. The interior, where the dog sleds are competing in the famed Iditorad, has windchills below -50F. Poor puppies. Poor mushers.

I am hanging out with Dexter while housesitting for a coworker. He is a dog fit for Alaska. His neck fur is so think I really have to dig in order to scratch his neck. His paws are so furry they remind me of ptarmigan feet:

He's a nervous dog, but I'm starting to win him over.

Some More About Alaska

While I was in Michigan, I found out that people do actually read this blog from time to time and do expect to get some information about where I am and what I am up to. In light of that, here is a slightly more detailed update about me:

I have moved to Alaska. I am living at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, where I have an internship in Environmental Education. This means I run (along with my supervisor) field trip and summer camp programs, as well as do a lot of other random stuff.

I will be here until late October.

When I arrived, it was a delicious -5degrees Farenheit (I loved it), but for most of the time since then it has been a balmy high of about 30 every day. Usually there is not a lick of wind, so it doesn't feel as cold as Grand Rapids at the same temperature, where the wind goes right through you. About half the time the sun shines - and then it is absolutely the most beautiful kind of winter you could ask for. Blue skies, white snow, crisp air, bright sun, dark spruce trees, white birch trees, and lots! of animal tracks to investigate. My first day at work I followed moose tracks to the office. I have also seen lots of red squirrel, snowshoe hare, ermine, spruce grouse, raven, and some other unidentifiable prints.

"Downtown" Soldotna is a mile-long strip that starts about a mile from my cabin. The furthest place I would go is Fred Meyer (the Alaskan version of Meijer or super-Walmart), which is just over a 2 mile walk. Fred Meyer has just about everything I could ever want or need food-wise, including organics, bulk foods, and vegetarian options. There are also about 5 coffee shops in town, not to mention several drive-through espresso shacks.

At this time, the sun is rising at about 830 and sets at about 630. It's hard to say exactly, because the sun rises and sets are sooo long. Because the sun doesn't move in a lateral line East-West, but rather scoots along the southern rim, the sun lingers around the horizon for a very long time. Needless to say, it's very beautiful. My window faces west; I love to watch the sunset on a clear night or wait for the first beams of morning glow hit the tree tops.

Mt. Redoubt can be seen from anywhere there is a clear view to the west. That is the volcano that might blow any day and cover us all with toxic volcanic ash - yummy yummy. I've had one chance to see it in the brilliant orange-pink alpenglow that hits it just before the sun slides over the eastern horizon.

I don't have internet from my new home. I have to hike myself and my computer into town to find a wifi point to get online.

To pass my time after work, I cook, crochet (I started my first afghan), play my ukulele, read, watch movies, write, and pretty soon I will start writing letters. So far I have not felt lonely, though I love talking to any and everyone on the phone.

I hope this satisifies your curiosity. If you want to know more, write or call me and I will gladly tell all.

Valentine's Day Dinner

In case any of you were worried, I took good care of myself on V-Day.

Here is my lovely treat-for-myself dinner.

Why yes, that is Alaska King Crab (not vegan but local!)

with lemon butter (freegan; the butter was in the freezer when I moved in),

Baby Romaine-Watercress-Avocado salad,

and a Framboise Lambic.

And, there were vegan Rum Raisin Scones for dessert, made by moi.

I challenge any lover out there to beat that!

Why a Philosopher can’t convince me of What I Already Know

In response to Wake-Up Weekend in Grand Rapids last Friday and Saturday, I engaged a few smart friends in the topic of Veganism. By ‘smart friends’ I mean some vegan philosophy students that I know and like very much.

I was curious what their response to my question would be, but I was not looking for an answer perse. The result of the entire discussion was to persuade me – yet again – that philosophy is overrated. Over the past year I developed a tendency to expose myself to the pompous intellectual mind games that call themselves philosophy despite being a skeptic. I have learned a lot through this, and feel more strongly now than ever that philosophy has its merits but is not the substitute for God that it likes to claim.

My question builds on the following premise:

I see two basic differences in types of vegans – the Must-Not and the Should-Not. Both groups see animals as having more rights than generally afforded by human society, and therefore they do not eat or use animal products (meat, dairy, leather, fur, gelatin, or anything else that comes from an animal).

The Must-Nots believe that animals and humans have the same rights. That is, humans have no more right to eat animals than they do to kill and eat other humans – or use them for their products such as milk even without killing. Their moral structure, therefore, forbids them from eating anything animal as an abhorrence.

The Should-Nots believe that although animals have rights, human still, in some circumstances, have the right to eat them or their products. These people choose veganism primarily as a protest against the corruption in the production of animal products.

I fall into the Should-Not category, which, unfortunately, gives me freedom to eat animal products occasionally even though I feel that it’s better not too. I take advantage of this freedom all too often. I presented this question in part because I am trying to increase my private arsenal of conviction for maintaining a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle.

The question I presented is: “Given these two categories, what are the differences in practice? What potential fallout is there?” I could have given my own answer (I just did, in an abbreviated sense), but I wanted to hear what other people had to say. I wanted to be convinced.

The problem with philosophy is it is all built on common assumptions. First philosophers break down all common assumptions to the bare nothingness, then they build them back up again using reason to determine their validity. Any discussions I’ve had with philosophers end up pandering in a mire of declaring assumptions, having them challenged, backing them up, which reveals deeper assumptions which are then challenged, and so on. It’s very easy to digress and lose track of the point altogether. After the end of the convoluted conversation, I tried to piece together what was presented, and I came to this:

1. Sentient beings feel suffering.
2. Causing suffering is less preferable than not causing suffering.
3. Humans are moral beings.
4. A duty of being a moral being is to maximize what is more preferable and minimize what is less preferable.
5. Suffering among all sentient beings is equal (no differentiation human vs. nonhuman).

Therefore, humans must not cause suffering in any way shape or form upon any other sentient being.

The problem with an attempted logical argument is that it is required to be foolproof. It must go all the way. This argument in no way goes all the way. A vegan, however, could probably fill in the cracks. We got mired in a few details, such as, why are humans not allowed to eat animals when other omnivores are? I got two responses: other animals actually don’t have the right to be omni/carnivores (I don’t get that one); and because humans are moral, we have the duty not to cause suffering. We entered the inevitable extreme case model, for example when it is either eat or be eaten. In that case, self-preservation trumps. One validation for this what because a human death causes more suffering because other humans feel sorrow.

Trying to pin these considerations down just leads into increasingly complex byways. For example, does self-preservation extend to species-preservation? And only after that, sentience-preservation? And after that, preservation of things non-sentient? What if self-preservation comes only at the cost of causing massive suffering upon any one of those other categories?

We didn’t discuss the problem of flourishing. Do I have a right to flourish? Do I have a right to increase my flourishing? At what cost? Imagine we decide that to minimize suffering must come before increasing flourishing; it is not likely to flourish while there is suffering (roll with me here). Therefore a person should not eat animal products, even at the cost of her own flourishing, because it inflicts suffering on another. This model, when fleshed out logically like philosophers do, raises many questions. Is it allowable for any being to pursue their own flourishing at the risk of causing suffering to another? What about getting a promotion over a colleague? Is it allowable to pursue flourishing when another sentient being is suffering? Or must we all collectively progress together – all nations and individuals and cows and turkeys together?

Clearly that is impossible. Existence is an inherently selfish pursuit.

And what constitutes flourishing anyways? One idea is to maximize potential. But does human potential include the capability for pleasure? In which case, the human ability to take pleasure in consuming animals is acceptable, even encouraged.

If we allow for flourishing, what kind of rubric must we put into place where we can flourish at the extent of others?

And this doesn’t even touch on the assumptions made about morality. Is morality necessarily to pursue what is more “preferable”? Why does our morality put us above animals only in responsibility towards them but not rights over them? (That is, they, being not moral, can eat each other, but we, being moral, must not eat them.) Why doesn’t our morality put us above them so that we have the right to use them, so long as it is with care and responsibility?

In turn, the others disagreed with my differentiation between “should not” and “must not,” for how can there be shades of morality? There is only “allowable” and “not allowable.” I couldn’t disagree more heartily with that. Life is full of “should nots” and “must nots.”

At the end I realized that I can’t be convinced. The others’ beliefs were just that – beliefs. They could logically argue them in the same way that a Christian theologian can argue, but without a leap of faith to see morality the way they do, no attempt at reason could convince me.

The truth is, first we FEEL something is right and then we find the arguments to support it.

When it comes to veganism, I believe that I should not participate in the animal products industry as it exists today. Veganism is a better choice on many many levels. My point here is not to argue them, but they spread the gamut of animal rights, human rights, environmental, health, and a general concern with capitalist infrastructure. In the end, there are many pressing reasons to be vegan, even if dissecting them all to prove them logically is impossible.

There are no pressing arguments for the consumption of meat. The only real reasons for a person like me to use animal products are for pleasure and convenience. Even without a cohesive ethics structure, I cannot validate my own pleasure and convenience despite all the evils that they cause.

And so, I reach my own conclusion, which is the same as it was before the discussion. My belief in the effectiveness of reason and logic, however, take one more hit.

Some Top Choice Awards

My current favorite breakfast: Gorgonzola dolce and honey on toast and a double espresso.

My current favorite appetizer: Artichoke tapenade and Monte Veronese cheese on bread accompanied by Green olives (hold the pimento) and Italian red wine.

My current favorite fruit: Artisan pear served with a butter syrup.

My current favorite city in Italy: Florence. Not very original, I know, but I simply had so much fun there. And it was beautiful. And I felt such a strong artistic spirit there, something that is just… missing… in Milan. Turin is in second place, by the way. The Slow Food movement has captured my attention – especially when enjoyed in the city that founded Martini, solid chocolate, the chocolate-hazelnut combo, and (drum roll please) TicTacs.

My current favorite pastime: trying to make other people jealous, apparently. My cousin called me out on this – but then consented me bragging rights since I am, afterall, living in Italy. I mean, why am I here if not to earn bragging rights, vero? Ok, so this would all be worth it even if Facebook and blogs didn’t exist, even if I could tell nobody about my experiences, ever; but spreading the joy of my current experience sure helps. ^_^

I think I want to go to a disco on Friday. I was going to go to Rome this weekend, but Valy and I rearranged my schedule so that I can go to the English Dinner on Saturday and Rome some other weekend. That’s the last major city to check off my list. There are still a lot of places I would like to see and explore, of course, but I simply /have/ to see Rome.

How to make Pumpkin Pie from Scatch. In Italy.

1. Brag to all your friends about how yummy pumpkin pie is. Get roped into making some for the Halloween party.
2. Explain to everyone three times that pumpkin pie is indeed a sweet and cannot be served as a main course.
3. Buy zucca from the store. “Zucca” is the translation of “pumpkin,” so even though it’s a different shape (and green on the outside), assume it will come out just fine. Don’t expect to find it in a can.
4. Removed the seeds from the quartered zucca. Try not to fling them all over your apartment in the process.
5. Boil or bake the zucca until the flesh comes off the skin easily. Remove the skin when cool enough to handle.
6. Puree the cooked zucca with a fork until it is a uniform, smooth consistency. Set aside.
7. They don’t sell pie crust in Italy, so you must make it from flour and margarine. Find a recipe online and follow it as best as you can. It’s surprisingly easy, and fun to get your hands into.
8. Put the finished dough into the fridge. Spend an hour picking pie dough bits off the rug. Next time don’t let it be quite so much fun.
9. The next day, you are ready to make the pie. You will need: zucca puree, pie dough, pie pan, sugar, egg, evaporated milk, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice.
10. Set the oven to 400 degrees F. This is probably 215 degrees Celsius.
11. Roll out the pie dough. If you don’t have a rolling pin, a wine bottle (preferably empty) works fine. Use plenty of flour to keep it from sticking. Sneak tastes of the dough.
12. There are no pie pans in Italy with angled sides. A torte or cake pan with 90 degree sides will suffice. Carefully transfer the crust to the pan and flatten it down. Using your thumb, flute the edges attractively.
13. Mix the filling.
14. There’s no evaporated milk in Italy. You can make it by preparing powdered milk using fresh milk instead of water. If you don’t know this, thicken some cream with flour and let it simmer a while until it gets to roughly the right consistency. Do this ahead of time so it is cool when you are ready to make the pie.
15. There’s no allspice or powdered ginger either. Substitute cloves. Don’t worry if you have to grind the cloves yourself; just pick out the largest pieces and use the finer ones in your mix.
16. Relish the chance to grate fresh nutmeg instead of using stale powder from a shaker.
17. Stir everything into the zucca and then pour it into the crust.
18. Bake 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350 degrees F (175C?) for another 45-60 minutes.
19. Serve chilled. Don’t worry if the crust flops; that’s because there wasn’t an angled pie pan. Don’t worry if it comes out a rather nuclear greenish-orangeish-yellowish color; it will still taste delicious.
20. Explain to everyone three times that no, this is not pumpkin cake. Because it has a crust, we call it pie.
21. Note that it does not pair well with Tiramisu.
22. Enjoy! Happy Halloween!

Recently I have been up to everything.

A brief overview:

Last weekend I went to Florence. It was a fantastic trip: excellent to get out of the rain into some sunshine, met some fun people, saw some of the most beautiful (and famous) art on earth. Did some sketching and thinking and overall it was very refreshing. Envigorating, even.

(Recently I’ve had several conversations about the merits of creating new words or spellings to better suit the meaning. Can you find the “error” in the last paragraph?)

Getting to and from Florence was a bit of an adventure, but that story will have to wait for another day.

The next day my sister arrived from London to visit me. Hooray! Of course, on that day there was a TRANSPORTATION STRIKE (sciopero) all over Italy. Karen arrived at the Central Train Station at 11, and I finally arrived three hours later (after walking, biking, bussing, and hitchhiking to get there!) at two, even though I left my house at 9:30. Then we had to walk halfway across the city to get to a working Metro station to take us home. So our first day was cut a little short.

Nevertheless! The next day the transportation was back on line, and we were off to Torino for a day of Food Tourism (thanks Mom and Dad!).

A Slow Food feast, a day of sightseeing, and an authentic apperativo later, we were back on the train to Rho.

The next day we saw Milan. I was excited about getting up to the top of Il Duomo, where we went together as girls, but it was raining too hard to make the 10 Euro investment worth it. Bummer. Instead we wandered past La Scala opera house and to Castello Sforzesco. A Florentine man gave us his museum tickets, so we checked out the gallery of antique instruments. And also we went to the Aquarium.

I assume there are pictures, but all on Karen’s camera, because the batteries I bought at the euro store (yes, just like a dollar store) didn’t work even for one minute.

Today I am off to Modena and then on to Bologna for some more food tourism.

Edible one of the Day

Too bad they're so expensive - 25 Euro per kilogram

In other news, last night I had Polenta with a red wine a mushroom sauce - mushrooms hand collected by Valentina's uncle. As Valy's mother said, "Tonight, you die."

HOW TO COOK ON A BUDGET. IN ITALY.

Ingredients: What you already have in your flat. Broccoli.

1. Mince the onions. To mince is to chop as small as possible. As you ball your eyes out, regret the conspicuous absence of a food processor.

2. Put the minced onion in a pot over low heat with a small amount of olive oil. If you happen to add vinegar by mistake because your cute containers for oil and vinegar look exactly the same, nevermind because the vinegar taste will evaporate.

3. Meanwhile, mince the garlic and add it to the onion. Every kitchen on a budget must stock onions and garlic, as these provide a base of flavor for everything.

4. Cut the stalk (ie stem) off the broccoli and mince it as well. Add it to the pot. If you have a second stalk of broccoli, you must also mince and add it, no matter that your hand is getting sore from all the mincing. You are on a budget, so you must not let anything go to waste. You need those vitamins!

5. Once everything is in the pot, add a generous dose of salt, some pepper, and enough water to cover the vegetables. Let simmer until everything gets nice and mushy.

6. This will take a while, so now is the perfect time of open your delicious bottle of wine. Wine? you say, But I thought I was on a budget? Well, yes, but while in Italy there is a rule that you must drink Italian wine as often as possible. And we MUST follow the rules. Besides, at only two or three euros a bottle, even a girl on a budget can afford to treat herself now and then.

7. Stir the pot frequently. Add more water is necessary. Marvel a the delightful chartreuse color it’s turning. DON’T think about that reminds you of a drink you once had with a boy you once knew.

8. When the vegetables are sufficiently mushy, chop the crown (dark green tasty part) of the broccoli and add. You can try to mash the veggies first to get a smoother consistency, but this doesn’t work very well, gets rather messy, and as such, isn’t recommended.

9. Add half a box or less of “panne per cucinare” (cream for cooking) which is, as far as you can tell, milkfat in a 200mL tetrapack. You just added about 26grams of fat, but you don’t care, because when you’re on a diet, you need all the calories you can get. If you happen to have an open container of milk you are trying to use up, add some to the pot. Otherwise, water is sufficient.

10. If the soup is too think for your taste, add 1tablespoon of flour to some cold water or milk, whisk till dissolved, and pour into the soup.

11. Bring the soup to a boil and it’s finished. Top with parmesan cheese (no cheddar in Italy, cowboy). Pour yourself another glass of wine (Hey, they’re small). And… Buon Appetito!