Becca's Blog

Midsummer'sdayfeast

I just scored 2 pretzel croissants & some Jewish rye at Octoberfeast Bavarian Bakery on mid-University. This place is open very limited hours, so I lucked out.

Although I'm saving the croissants to take home and share, I snuck a little nibble of a corner. Nice salty, crunchy brown crust, with a soft, bready interior. I will get the rye bread all to myself: Jane's not a fan. 

I also poked my head into the recently opened New Amsterdam Coffee Shop, but didn't settle in because the tables all seemed to be occupied, it was unpleasantly warm, and the pastry selection looked rather thin. Maybe some other time it will be more inviting.

Sometime this weekend Jane and I need to get to Café Zoe, just opened by our friend. I'm looking forward to seeing what he's done and having some excellent coffee drinks.

Yeah, I know nobody cares what I had for lunch, but

here's what I had for lunch:
hummus and sprouts on a whole-wheat pita with a little crumbled feta. Doesn't that just scream "dyke of a certain age"?

And in my informal taste comparo of Trader Joe's eggplant hummus vs Athenos black olive, the black olive won (slightly more piquant and less salty, but higher in fat and calories--oh well).

A little aesthete from early days.

God, I must have driven my mother crazy. In fact, I know I did, she hardly made it a secret. I didn't like ham; it was too salty. I didn't like the sandwiches she made me because I didn't like mayonnaise and the store-brand baloney was too strong-flavored (I didn't tell her this, I just dumped my lunch at school). The stewed prunes I was forced to eat for breakfast most mornings as a cure for stomach problems were a constant source of misery--certainly for me, probably for her also.

But no one could accuse me of being a picky eater or having a delicate constitution. I inherited my dad's love of meat (especially fried, as in chicken) and junk food, and I always cleaned my plate. I liked most foods, but I had a few strong taste preferences at an age when I clearly was not supposed to have opinions of any kind.

The thing that's bringing this back to me now is my distaste for mealy, yucky, poor-quality citrus fruit. I didn't like oranges as a kid, and the abundance of pith plus the woody, tasteless ends of oranges that have been frozen are the reason why. Now I like the smell and taste of oranges, but I'll still pick off as much of the white stuff as I can manage, and the frozen ones are gross. (Now that I'm an adult, I don't have to eat them, or prunes either. Ever again.) Also, I know something that my mother didn't seem to: The thin-skinned ones are more flavorful, in addition to having less of the bitter, spongy white stuff to deal with.

I've been trying to eat more whole, fresh fruit (I guess that would count as a resolution), including at least one piece of citrus a day. Síle brought over some Satsuma tangerines a few weeks ago, which were awesome. Seedless, easy to peel, and wonderfully fragrant and juicy. Inspired by them, I bought a little crate of those "Cuties" California clementines, and they have been a disappointment. I wonder whether they are bred to have loose skin, because they certainly do. And I think the loose rind contributes to them drying out and getting moldy fairly quickly.

I just peeled two of them, looking for a decent segment or two, with no luck. So I gathered up most of the rest and dumped them in the compost bin. If the remaining two aren't good, I'll dump them, too.

Mashed potatoes are the food of the gods.

So is pie. I played hooky from work on Thursday and made pumpkin pie, and we roasted a wee turkey. And we have just enough leftovers.

This is a working weekend for me, and I'm likely to be doing 12-hour workdays next week; maybe by next Sunday I can show you some pictures of the finished carwash flaps scarf and my snail's progress on the baby blanket edge.

Ageless — yeah, right.

Above is the aftermath of the big book I just finished proofreading (photo taken with my new cameraphone — I finally got one). Eraser dust everywhere and dictionaries piled on the floor. I'm relieved to have it done (partly because my full-time job has gotten a bit hectic), although in reading the book (a travel guide to France) I learned some new things and got to use my education in French. (Look ma, I'm using my degree!)

"What do you do with a BA in English?" is one of the first big laugh lines in Avenue Q, which Jane and I saw last Saturday, as one of my birthday presents. It was cute and amusing, particularly if you grew up watching Sesame Street, as I did. Before the show we had dinner at CAV wine bar near the Castro. The food was pretty good (high spots: grilled nectarine/goat cheese bruschetta and coffee pot de creme with hot cinnamon beignets) and the wines were mostly very good. Prices were not bad, but it's not cheap. We were seated in the back, but the action is up at the bar (and I mean girl-meets-girl action). Many moneyed and young, sleekly dressed ladies. Made me decide that my cute outfit was actually dorky. At the theatre, I really began to feel like a country mouse (many fancy outfits from Bloomingdales, not my style but much more au courant than mine — I just felt a little bit tattered). Although I start up the "I don't fit in" internal monologue whenever I'm in a crowd, the sartorial life lessons I decided to take away from the evening are these:
a) When I think I can get dressed in under a half-hour and look polished and put together, I am fooling myself.
b) My mother's advice about being able to wear classic, well-made clothing forever is wrong.
c) Corollary to b: Saving clothes for special occasions is a waste. I have a tendency to buy pretty clothes that I love but that belong to some life full of formal meetings and garden parties that I don't live. (I prefer not to think about the clothes I'm saving until I fit into them.) I put them away in my closet and take them out once every 18 to 24 months, wear them on special occasions, and realize I've done what my mother does when she puts on that patchwork velvet long skirt (the holiday skirt, you know). I have no idea when she bought it—it's ageless (yeah, right).

From here on out I am going to seize the day. If I feel like wearing the fringed nubuck wrap skirt out for coffee, I will damn well do it. I will wear the white cotton suit to work, by gosh. And when their time is over, I will let go of them without regret. Not only that, I'll buy cheap, trendy clothes if I like them, and let them go when their moment is over. So there.

Of course, 25 days out of 30 I will still take 5 minutes to put on a t-shirt from Target and some cheap jeans that don't really fit. I'm old enough to realize that I might be able to change a little bit, but fundamentally I'm still the same.

Don't get me wrong--I love food.

Food should not be a religion, but it's culture, economics, politics--and thus endlessly interesting. It's really the elitism of boutiques of precious produce that pisses me off.

I've been thinking some lately about trying to eat as locally as possible--seeing last weekend that the fish at my local Albertson's came from Chile, Vietnam and Lake Victoria, Kenya, jarred (and nauseated) me. The relatively virtuous choice was wild-caught salmon from Alaska, but still nowhere near the 100-mile radius that environmentalists (the good ones) advocate.

I just subscribed to a service that delivers a box of (sort of)  locally grown organic produce. We'll see how that goes.

More on Sept. Knitbloggers' picnic

I just looked into reserving a picnic area in the East Bay Regional Parks, and found out that it's not free to make a reservation. I'm happy to front the money or show up early to stake out a spot for free, but I'm not going to do so unless people are actually interested in showing up. So talk to me, my 10 subscribers. September 18? September 25? The 12th of Never? 

Knit(blog)ers' picnic.

Anyone else like the sound of that? Particularly if you're in the SF Bay Area? It'd be nice to socialize outside, and take advantage of the summer weather. It would even be possible to include non-knitting family, friends, significant others, etc.

Mebbe in about a month? Potluck? At a park in southern Alameda County, like Del Valle or Sunol or Joaquin Miller, to make it easy for Peninsular people to attend?

Addendum: Here's what I'm thinkin'. Lake Chabot Marina, in San Leandro. Very close to 580, not far from 92, so it's accessible from the other side of the Bay.  Josie, Tina, and me checked it out this afternoon, and it's a nice little spot.

Here's what it has, in addition to picnic areas with grills:

• A bike path around the lake
  
• Paddle boats for rent
  
• Fishing
  
• Volleyball courts
  
• Horseshoe pits (Whoreshoes venue?)
  
• A snack bar, which they rather grandly call a cafe. But still, cold drinks, in case you forget them.
  
• Plumbed toilets

I like me a developed park. A park with amenities.  I'm thinkin' I'll reserve a picnic area for Sunday, September 18.

I'd be happy to organize, if there's interest. Leave a comment if you're up for it, with preferences as to date and location, if you have any.

I opened Pandora's jar yesterday.

I wanted apricot jam on my toast so was rummaging around in the cupboard for the jar I thought we had but we didn't, and instead found a jar of Nutella that I bought quite awhile ago, for no particular reason.

I've never eaten Nutella before, and curiosity and that self-sabotaging impulse got the better of me (have you looked at the nutrition label? Sugar and peanut oil are the first two ingredients), so I put some on my toast (but just one piece). Damn, it's like turning your toast into a gooey cookie.  And the illustration on the label has all kinds of other serving suggestions--but I'm thinking that the animal cookies in the cupboard could benefit from a little sticky chocolatey hydrolized goodness. We can always buy more when the next toddler visits. I wonder if my dad (who puts peanut butter on cookies) knows about this. I also wonder how long that opened jar in the cupboard is going to last. Compulsive, me? No.