Day 4.

Friday, Day 4. The plan was to arrive at work early enough to complete the wholesale orders we were behind on. This involves no hard work, but a critical amount of time in order to melt, temper, clean, remelt, and temper two different kinds of chocolate. Needless to say, my 7 a.m. arrival turned into 8 a.m., which means the double americano with a bit of steamed milk went with me directly to the chocolate room. It is my belief, backed by years of formulated logic and calculation, that chocolate and wine are best tasted first thing in the morning. Without going into the chemistry of my theory, this is the time of day that your palate is the freshest. My wine purveyors are happy to schedule a 9 a.m. tasting with me, since most self-respecting bar managers are still asleep at that time. Same for chocolate, although my tasting days are thankfully over, given the accessibility of approximately 700 lbs of chocolate on any given morning. Today, however, I plopped myself down at the dipping table, palate clean, senses honed, and stomach growling just slightly miffed about the long-digested ear of corn. Those little drops of chocolate that fall around the pan when you're moving chocolate around are pretty easy to just pop right in, and the wonderful flavor of chocolate and perfect mouth-feel of cocoa butter cries out for another. I will admit right here to being addicted to chocolate, so of course the doors flew open and caution be damned. By the time the orders were filled, I had moved in to the office for my usual morning chores, grabbed a couple of cookies left over from last nights library capital campaign committee meeting, and by the end of the second one remembered my beautiful garden. That's always the way it is, the deceit of the body hides the truth from the mind until it's too late.
Lunch, atonement: That hot tub of carbohydrates kept me going until around 1:00. I put a potato and a golden beet in the oven to roast, same oil and salt treatment as in Day 1. I sliced my biggest carrot into coins, added a dot of goat cheese to the plate, sliced the hot potato, and ate them happily sitting in my garden under the big cedar. Carrot and goat cheese turns out to be nice. I turned off the oven and left the beet in there while I went back to work to deliver a cake to Harbor Lights. Happy Birthday Brian.
Dinner: It was the herb garden that gave me the idea to ask Amanda for an egg. I drove the 4 blocks over, and was rewarded with 6 eggs and a glass of wine, a Beringer Sauvignon Blanc, refreshing. Amanda explained that eggs of free-range chickens have twice the protein, and besides that she's now feeding them flax which ensures a dose of omega 3.
Back home, omelet in mind, I picked a 4-inch zucchini, one roma tomato, a leaf of sage, a sprig of fennel, a leaf of basil, a sprig of thyme, and a few strands of chive. I call it a Farmer's Omelet. Here's what to do: Get everything ready first. Stir up a couple of eggs in a dish with a fork. Put in a teaspoon or so of water, the steam from the water as the eggs cook will make them fluff. Slice the herbs. Cut half the tomato into 1/2" dice. The roma has less juice than regular, and won't mess up your omelet.
Melt a bit of butter and some canola oil in a hot egg pan. Clarified butter instead of the combo is the best, but the last thing I need hanging around the house is a squeeze bottle of clarified butter. Slice the zucchini very thin, and throw it around in the hot oil with some salt. When it takes some color, throw in a little sherry or wine and cook it off. I used some Madeira, a nice one left from a wine dinner, and poured myself a little glass while I was at it. It's Friday night. Pour the eggs into the pan, and turn and shake the pan to keep it off the bottom. Lay the tomatoes in and the herbs over that. I love flipping omelets, just do it over the sink unless you feel like cleaning the kitchen. If it doesn't flip, turn it into a scramble. Oh, I put a dot of the goat cheese in too. Love that.
You're done. Life is good. A chicken pecking around under the beans would be great, remind me to check how Daisy feels about that.

For previous posts: http://affairschocolate.blogspot.com

Day 2.

Wednesday, day 2.
Breakfast: My usual double americano with a bit of steamed milk accompanied a nice bowl of strawberries sitting at my desk. By noon I was famished. As soon as the restaurant was calm, I drove home to prepare a midday garden feast.
Lunch/Dinner: My Food Diary is an online database designed for tracking calories and nutrition for healthy weight loss. It confirms my lack of protein and carbohydrate, so I decide to add 2 servings of grains. Dinner became long-grain brown rice, a steamed ear of corn with a bit of butter and salt, and green beans. While munching a carrot appetizer, I seared the beans in a hot pan with a little oil and salt, this being my favorite treatment with the addition of garlic. When I told my friend Amanda my plan, she pointed out that I would never make it because I didn't plant garlic and onions. The onions I can live without, but she could be correct that lack of garlic could very well be my demise. For now, so far, it was delicious.
A bedtime snack became imperative. 10:00, I took the flashlight out to the garden and picked 3 small zucchini, doing my best to ignore and avoid the slug population. Hate em, but can't stand the killing part. Slice the squash thin, heat a pan with a little butter and oil, and fry them fast and hot with some salt. Plate and eat immediately. Trust me that this is better than popcorn. Crazy, you're thinking. Try it, but don't even think about buying zucchini. Find someone with a plant or two, believe me they will be happy to give you some. When you get it, run home and cook it. Amazing.
Salt, you wonder? Yes, I've salted most of the vegetables I'm cooking. I'm using kosher salt, a wonderful flavor for less quantity sodium. And my liberal salting is tempered by the rest of the menu content. There is salt in almost everything you purchase at the grocery store, and that doesn't even touch the massive quantities in fast food. Did you know there is salt in the milk you buy? There is salt in every baked cookie, cake, bread, cracker, and cereal. As a pastry chef, I can tell you that salt is not instrumental to either taste or chemistry in any of these items with the exception of bread. (Note that my bakery does not use salt in any pastries that do not use yeast.)
Great flavors, my garden put to work, and Food Diary gives me a happy face for consuming 13,160 units of vitamin A. And yet, the last two tablespoons of almond butter somehow made their way onto a cracker and up the stairs with me. Good night.
Previous posts: www.affairschocolate.blogspot.com

Return to Back to the Earth

Monday: By the end of the day I had harvested a sizable basket of potatoes, beets, carrots, zucchini, beans, and tomatoes. On my back porch I keep a commercial size prep sink pulled from the restaurant equipped with a high-powered pre-wash wand that I use as a garden sink. The potato was huge and beautifully thin-skinned, an obvious meal for one. That's when it occurred to me. I had purposely planted conservatively, with the exception of cucumbers, mixed salad greens, and cherry tomatoes which I supply for the restaurant. I began to realize that if I was going to do justice to my garden I would need to eat a lot of vegetables, and maybe only vegetables. I love a challenge.
In 1972 I read my first copy of Mother Earth News. Being a dreamer and an idealist, I purchased with my then husband a 40 acre parcel and joined the "Back to the Earth" movement. More on that later. Today's experiment will be salted with some age-appropriate realism, but the values of eating local, small-is-beautiful, and a love of the earth is still there. Self-sufficiency has been tempered to recognizing the need for sustainability, with the burden on all of us as a culture and not just on my old 40 acres or my current .3 acre. Gary Snyder said, begin to change the world by beginning at home. My mother said 'Look in your own back yard.' I'm interested in how this all comes about, and suspect that global change, reduced like a balsamic reduction sauce, is individual. Besides, I'm curious, frugal, and determined. Let's eat that garden.

Tuesday: Day 1.
Breakfast: Strawberries.
Lunch: Carrots, lots.
Dinner: The potato. I rubbed it up with canola oil and sea salt, having decided that condiments were exempt. Same treatment to three good sized beets, one golden and two red, and baked them all in the oven.
This is a great way to cook beets. When they are done, you can take a slice from the stem end and pull the peel right off. If they are very fresh, they peel like a skin. Otherwise you may need a little paring knife. At this point, you can eat them hot or chill for a roasted beet salad. Mix them up with a bit of red onion and some peppers if you have them, toss with a little orange vinaigrette and top with some crumbled feta.
The potato was golden hot, slightly crispy-chewy skinned, and tasted like a fresh autumn morning. Not particularly earthy, a description often used on a potato, but a more fresh and clear taste. The oil and salt was flavor enough. One must take care not to over-complicate fresh flavors. I sliced it with a chef knife and ate it standing at the stove.
8 pm: Looking at my produce basket and feeling pretty good about how much I ate. Next to it is the peanut butter and the end of my loaf of multigrain bread. Seriously considering growing peanuts next year.