Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - Cooking with the Penguin, Part 2- It's the Little Things...
Posted by NC Penguin
... that make me happy.
I was off work today and realized that I could go to the Durham Farmer's Market today. It's now open on Wednesday afternoons so I headed to downtown Durham after my hair appointment.
As I expected, there were fewer vendors than on a Saturday, the regular day, and I had no idea who'd be there. I tried to buy a bulb of fennel but it was about five minutes before 3.30pm, the official opening time, and the vendor couldn't sell it to me. Then, after a bell rang at 3.30pm, sales begun. However, I'd left the fennel vendor and I was filling a plastic bag with fresh peas, still in their pods.
For me, picking and shelling peas (I think they're known as English peas in the US) reminds me of my childhood because my family would pick peas right in the fields during the season. I have looked for peas in the pod here in North Carolina but today was the first time I'd seen them. The vendor was selling shelled peas for $5.00 for a 1lb bag but it's more fun to shell the peas oneself. So, I was picking out the plump pods from a big box. Those were $2.00 a pound.
Fresh peas don't last long so I changed what I had in mind to make for dinner and made a spring pea frittata instead. I didn't have all the ingredients on hand so I had to make a quick trip to the grocery store to get fresh mint and some ricotta salata. The resulting dish was delicate and tasty. The frittata was said to be six servings but the two of us ate the whole thing.
I'd been considering going down to Bunn in North Carolina to pick organic strawberries from Vollmer Farm but with the cost of gas, I've hesitated. Fortunately for me, Vollmer Farm had a table at the Farmer's Market today and were selling large punnets (2lbs 6oz) of organic strawberries from their farm. I bought a punnet and have already but some of the berries to use when I made a homemade strawberry shortcake using a recipe from this past weekend's Parade magazine.
Here's a picture of the strawberry shortcake:
Picking strawberries every year, during strawberry season, was part of my childhood back in the UK. My family would make it a (very long) day trip, driving to Tiptree in Essex. For those who know their jams, Tiptree is the home of Wilkin and Sons, one of Britain's most famous jam and preserves makers. Reminising about strawberry picking is probably another blog entry.
This is the number of early votes counted in Durham County, where I live, as of April 30th. I voted early in North Carolina's primary election yesterday.
I waited nearly 10 minutes just to get inside the building where voting takes place. I can't imagine how long voters may have to wait on Primary day itself, May 6th. However, there will be many more voting locations on that day.
I saw on a sheet attached to the door that the number of early voters has been increasing rapidly since early voting began on April 17th.
In North Carolina, one has to declare a party affiliation (either Democratic or Republican) which I think infringes on my privacy because I've received pre-recorded messages from Barack and Michelle Obama as well as getting mail from various candidates for local city and county positions.
2008 is a special year for me because it will be my first opportunity as a naturalized citizen to vote in the US Presidential elections and my state primary is just the beginning.
For the Democratic Party, the party whose symbol is donkey, the Presidential race is extremely exciting and it's exciting for me to participate in it.
My philosophy about voting is simple. If one doesn't vote, one doesn't have the right to complain about the outcome because one didn't participate. Plus, there are some countries in the world where women do not have the right to vote. e.g. Saudia Arabia, Bhutan, Brunei and Vatican City.
In Durham, NC, there's little excuse for not voting, in particular early. During early voting, one can register and vote on the same day and I saw people doing just that (they got to jump the line in doing so). At my polling station, there was curbside voting too and voters were taking advantage of that. I'm not sure if that's an option on May 6th.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - And Then They Were Gone
Posted by syllk
A couple of years ago, I noticed two little gems sitting on the corporate network...two internal network addresses that didn't really have to strive too hard to catch my attention.
And maybe that's got something to do with the fact that one was called \\testicle1 while the other was more imaginatively called \\testicle2
I only bring this up because today I was going through some old work emails, and I happened to open the one that I had sent out to all of my work colleagues immediately following this utterly fantastic discovery. And so, like a trip down memory lane, I decided to see if they were still around, but alas, I was saddened to find that they have since been castrated from the network.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008 - Cooking with the Penguin, Part 1
Posted by NC Penguin
I don't like to eat meat every day and I like to try out new foods and recipes so a few nights ago, I remembered I had a bag of roasted, unsalted cashew nuts in the pantry. I found a recipe on the web that looked simple and tasty.
The recipe was appealing because the cashews are ground up (I remember eating a really delicious Indian dish featuring a cashew and beet sauce at Rasa in London about 8 years ago) and most of all, the preparation looked simple.
I had all the ingredients on hand except I don't mess around grating fresh ginger after the experience at my best friend's house one time when I offered to help prepare the food (all Indian) and was given the task of peeling and grating fresh ginger root. I cannot stress enough how fresh ginger really stains one's hands. So, to save time and aggravation, I keep a jar of pre-grated ginger in my fridge (available from Indian or Chinese grocery stores).
I'd say the prep time for this sauce is about 20 minutes, using the aforementioned ingredients. I ground the cashews in my mini grinder which meant I had to grind the cashews in two batches. Mixing all the ingredients in the pan to make the sauce took the longest time because I wanted to blend all the flavors together and make sure the honey was fully dissolved.
I served the sauce on fish which was part of a wholly vegan meal.
I'm not part of the school of thinking that believes that a nutritious meal has to feature meat in any shape or form. I can create nutritious meals without meat or even animal products using alternate protein sources. However, I don't think I can give up meat altogether because I love pork and lamb too much.
Monday, November 19, 2007 - My News: Starting a New Life...
Posted by NC Penguin
Since Thursday last week I began a new life in the form of a new job. It's not just any old job though. I'm working in an industry that I have no experience or qualifications in and is far removed from what I was doing previously.
Those who know me (especially my friends in the UK plus my spouse), know my love of food, cooking and everything (and I mean everything) relating to food. Thus, it seemed somewhat obvious that if I were to make a career change and work in the restaurant/food business, I'd better start now rather than later.
So, I know work in a restaurant. It's a small, locally (woman) owned restaurant in my new home town of Durham, NC. It's very close to my former employer (ironically). I'm going to rotate through the various parts of the business and so far, I've been learning to be a prep cook. I wasn't even sure what a prep cook did before my first day. I most certainly know now.
I don't have many misconceptions about the kitchen side of the business and I came prepared although I was surprised to realize yesterday (Sunday) that I didn't sit down at all during my shift, not even to pee because I didn't even have the urge to go...
The key skills to being a prep cook appear to be:
stamina
energy
attention to detail
speed (not the drug)
consistency (nothing worse than producing 100 biscuits and noticing that they're not all the same height)
Working in a restaurant kitchen is not much like cooking at home. e.g. just today, I made 20lbs of potato salad. For those who missed it, on my second day I butterflied 40lbs of chicken breast. Biscuits? I made nearly 200 on Friday.
At this point, I am enjoying my job. I'm learning a lot about the business, recipes and working quickly. I haven't had any accidents and I feel I'm part of the kitchen team (all are Mexicans. They're lovely, hardworking guys).
The best thing of all is the customers love the food and keep on returning and even placing catering orders. The loyalty of the customers is notable because I don't think my place really advertises. Most business is through word of mouth and that's a lot of mouths.
Anyway, that's my news and I'm off from tomorrow for my Thanksgiving break. I may be back to work on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
I just had a conversation with my Mother-in-Law. My niece turned six in October and I wasn't able to go to see her but I've been updated about her birthday celebrations including the all important presents.
Little Miss S. may only have turned six but she's going on sixteen. She had requested those Aqua Dots for her birthday and that's one of the gifts she received from my MIL. However, as you may have heard, these have been recalled.
So, my MIL emailed her daughter, Little Miss S's mother to notify of the recall, just in case she didn't know herself. My SIL told her daughter that she couldn't play with the Aqua Dots and explained why. Little Miss S's response was this. "We (her and her brother) are six and seven. We don't eat our toys!"
That response is an absolute gem and so very S. She's very mature for her age and can grasp concepts far beyond her years. She's also fearless and has already broken toes in both her feet.
I just know she's going to be more of a handful when she hits her teenage years.
I will see her soon at Thanksgiving. No doubt, I'll hear more gems during the visit.
My husband Jeff graduated from Penn State Uni in May. He had dropped out of college in 2002. Disillusioned with pretty much everything about life he packed in his Electrical Engineering degree, and moved back home to his parents to figure out what to do.
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Then he met me.
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One of the things I quickly realized about the USA is, if you don't have qualifications life is extra hard. If you're taking over your mom and dads business or you're starting your own or you have 20 years experience etc etc of course they might not be needed, but from where I was standing, Jeff and I needed all the help we could get. Two years after he dropped out and now newly married to yours truly, I persuaded him to go back to college and this time to do something he loved instead of something he thought he should be doing. Hating offices and cubicles and loving the outdoors, he choose Forestry, and in 2005 he went back to college. While I set about the task of supporting us both ( I don't recommend it to anyone, newlywed, new immigrant and soley responsible for keeping your marriage financially afloat for 2 years - fun fun fun! ) So 2 years later in May 2007 Jeff graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Forest Sciences.
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For his graduation present I wanted to get him something super cool...so I got him a ticket to see these guys in Philadelphia:
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Ok so we're only 30 and 31 years old and might be too young to remember them first time around, but good music is still good music. We both love The Police. I know a lot of people think Sting is a wanker but there's no doubt The Police were a cracking band. Listen to their greatest hits album and you'll remember how awesome they are. I remember days when I was 19 spent in my friends council house passing a spliff and listening to people trying to play the bongos along to "Don't stand so close to me."
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The tickets were outrageously priced, about $250 -$350 a pop and with our non-budget we couldn't afford them. Then I got lucky and found out that if you had a Best Buy loyalty card (which for some reason I do) and you emailed your membership number to Best Buy on a certain day and a certain time that Best Buy would then email you a link to a website where you could buy tickets 2 weeks before they went on sale, and get 2 tix for the price of 1. Still pricey but what the hell.
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It was worth it, the show was fabulous. It was held in the Philadelphia Phillies baseball stadium which was enormous and seemed poorly staffed (don't events like these always seem like that?) but the atmosphere was tangible and the weather was hot and sticky. We had great seats, we made our way down to the field near the front and as soon as Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers came on I squealed like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. Possibly my fave song was "Message in a Bottle" and of course, "Roxanne." Which everyone drunkenly screeched along to. During the concert me and my husband agreed on one thing - Sting is a total and utter bastard, we're so jealous of him we want to reverse over his face. Not only is he a good looking fella in real life, he also played the bass like a fiend and his voice sounded like it hadn't changed a bit in 30 years. When Elton John sings now I cringe a bit because he's losing it with age. Sting is about 104 and still able to hit every note and belt out every "eyyy -oooh" with the power of a 21 year old. Add to that , he's in one of the coolest bands ever and the fact that he has zero fat on his perfect yoga toned body and Jeff and I were convinced that there's nothing the man hasn't got. Bastard. Here's some pics of the show:
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The Police @ Citizens Bank Park - Philadelphia, 7/19/2007
Our DSL has gone up to $40 a month. Forty bloody dollars!!!!
Way too much in my opinion so after some discussion with Jeff we've decided to take our cable modem back today. I'm sad because I'll miss being able to get on the internet everyday, but to be honest, we can't really afford it right now.
