Today's order of business is to congratulate Owen Linderholm on the publication of Digital Dish, the first offering from his new publishing company Press for Change. Naturally, this accomplishment in itself is noteworthy for I am in awe of anyone whose passion and commitment manages to get a business off the ground but that Owen is taking on the notoriously tough nut of the publishing biz, well, I find that just really amazing.
I'm especially excited about the arrival of Digital Dish because Owen included several of my essays from Hot Water Bath, an unbelievable honor given the company those essays are keeping and thrill quite unlike anything else I have experienced. I'm about halfway through the finished book and I am so pleased and proud to be a part of such a delightful collection. Hopefully, I'll have some permanent links up soon - pending me wrapping my little head around the code - but for now if you'd like more information just head on over to Press for Change's Digital Dish pages.
Congratulations, Owen. I hope that Digital Dish is but the beginning of a long and happy publishing career. I look forward to being able to say someday that I was there at the start.
Every now and again when doing time on a treadmill, step climber machine thingy or bike I take advantage of my gym's incredible array of entertainment magazines to distract me from the thoughts of what I really want to be doing, which is sitting in the cafe having a chai latte and chocolate chip muffin. This reading, which my husband has called mind candy, I defend by pointing out that it has provided me with the following useful knowledge:
And finally, in a somewhat different vein,
It would appear that I either need to start reading these mags a lot more or just stop altogether.
- 1. Dylan McDermott and Dermot Mulrooney are not, in fact, the same person. I've been conflating them for, I don't know, a decade or so.
2. Mira Sorvino and Mena Suvari are not, in fact, the same person. Ditto.
3. Colin Firth, Colin Farrell and Will Ferrell are not, in fact, the same people. Ditto again. (Go on, tell me that you weren't a little confused, too.)
And finally, in a somewhat different vein,
- 4. Mischa Barton is not, in fact, a man. All I can say about this is, Baryshnikov anyone?
It would appear that I either need to start reading these mags a lot more or just stop altogether.
In my opinion, tomatillas are a drastically underused vegetable (or are they fruit? I can never keep this stuff straight). Some of the best sauces I have ever had have had tomatillas at their base and I'm sure an imaginative person could probably think beyond the sauce for even more wonderful stuff - chopped into crepe batter? In a savory muffin with a bit of queso fresco and chives? The possibilities, I believe, are endless.
For now, though, I'm sticking with the easy stuff. Tomatilla salsa is a fairly expensive condiment and one that has me dipping into principle on a regular basis so when I noticed my local Giant offering tomatillas at a very reasonable $.99/lb. I figured making my own would be worth a try. And it was. And so it shall be for you because, after reading scores of recipes and eventually going my own way, I've decided it's pretty foolproof (my favorite kind of recipe). Here's how I went about it:
After removing the papery husk and washing the tomatillas of their slightly sticky coating I chopped off the stem end, not worrying at all about a core. Once stemmed, I processed the lot with the steel blade of my food processor, which I think saved a good deal of mess because these creatures get very watery, but a knife I'm sure is fine - as it was for the centuries before our friends at Robot Coupe came on the scene.
Anyway, for each pint of pulp, a diced extremely fine a quarter cup each of red and yellow onion and added that to the mixture. To bring in some heat, I used the last of my supply of frozen fire-roasted poblano, but you could probably use just about any pepper you like - fresh or pickled jalapeño would be nice. Next, add a bit of salt (maybe a teaspoon per pint of prepared salsa) and some cider vinegar (a teaspoon or two per pint should do it). As always, feel free to mess around with these ingredients, keeping the product fairly acidic. Add more pepper, if you like (hey! I wonder how it would be with a couple different kinds of pepper...hmm, food for thought) or a bit more salt or even more vinegar. Remember, the salsa will be very liquid - much more so than tomato salsa.
Once you're satisfied, pack the salsa into sterilized jars - as always, I used half pints - and process for 15 minutes. I'm going to let my jars sit for a couple weeks before I open them just to let everything mesh but I can tell you that the bit of salsa that was left after filling the jars and I ate fresh was very, very nice. If I can keep myself from eating it with a spoon, the canned salsa would be great with a firm-fleshed white fish or in enchiladas or, let's just say it, with chips.
Yes, I'm still here. I appreciate the e-mail check-ins and have no real excuse for this latest gap in posting except that for the first time in my life I am being walloped by unrelenting allergies. I feel as if I am enveloped in water and have a near constant cough. Stealing my husband's various prescription medications isn't helping much - the only thing that has was yesterday's 16-hour excursion to Philadelphia. Once north of D.C. I found that I could breathe easier and coughed much less. As soon as I hit I-495W on the trip home the cough returned. Living in the south can really be a kick in the butt sometimes, you know?
Today we harvested the last of the radishes to accompany the latest lettuce clippings. The Boy Wonder helped with both, guaranteeing consumption of his evening salad (like most kids, he'll eat just about anything he has a hand in preparing). This weekend I'll sow green beans in the radishes' space - I should be able to fit 8 or 10 plants, which will hopefully all germinate and go on to supply plenty for our table and lots of leftovers for pickling.
My husband and I had a slight garden-related miscommunication. I planted four Roma tomatoes and a variety of yellow grapes, the name of which escapes me. In discussion what more I wanted him to get while I was away somehow I either communicated that I needed him to buy tomatoes when what I was trying to get across was that I wanted room for zucchini, cilantro, horseradish, two bell peppers and some scented geraniums.
I arrived home (from the aforementioned Philadelphia trip) to find the new garden extension already planted with four Big Boy tomatoes, three cherries, a cucumber and...eight corn transplants. I've never been big on corn on the cob but the men around here seem super excited about it all so if that means I have to be less of a garden control freak in the name of familial happiness so be it. I don't have to mention the dozens of squash, hundreds of tomatoes, or many pumpkins we could grow in that space, right?
Finally, I made the tomatilla salsa last week and it came out very well. I'll be transcribing the recipe over the next couple days in between a couple new products and will post a pic as soon as I can find my little external storage thingy.
Today we harvested the last of the radishes to accompany the latest lettuce clippings. The Boy Wonder helped with both, guaranteeing consumption of his evening salad (like most kids, he'll eat just about anything he has a hand in preparing). This weekend I'll sow green beans in the radishes' space - I should be able to fit 8 or 10 plants, which will hopefully all germinate and go on to supply plenty for our table and lots of leftovers for pickling.
My husband and I had a slight garden-related miscommunication. I planted four Roma tomatoes and a variety of yellow grapes, the name of which escapes me. In discussion what more I wanted him to get while I was away somehow I either communicated that I needed him to buy tomatoes when what I was trying to get across was that I wanted room for zucchini, cilantro, horseradish, two bell peppers and some scented geraniums.
I arrived home (from the aforementioned Philadelphia trip) to find the new garden extension already planted with four Big Boy tomatoes, three cherries, a cucumber and...eight corn transplants. I've never been big on corn on the cob but the men around here seem super excited about it all so if that means I have to be less of a garden control freak in the name of familial happiness so be it. I don't have to mention the dozens of squash, hundreds of tomatoes, or many pumpkins we could grow in that space, right?
Finally, I made the tomatilla salsa last week and it came out very well. I'll be transcribing the recipe over the next couple days in between a couple new products and will post a pic as soon as I can find my little external storage thingy.
I think I've got the comment problem solved, fingers firmly crossed.
Big things on tap for this weekend: the long-awaited tomatilla salsa production, dinner with my parents (who are vacationing nearby), a short visit to the farmer's market and a quick drop into the new toy store on the Downtown Mall so my husband can buy my mother a mother's day present (my present was the Beethoven action figure, and we also picked up Ben Franklin for the Boy Wonder). With some luck, the weather will hold - still cold and misty - and I will be able to get tomatoes and peppers in.
We had initially planned to spend a good chunk of at least one day removing sick and dying foliage and removing some of the more oddly placed shrubbery - some volunteer, some actually planted by a person. With the weather as it's been, though, we just don't have the heart for a lot of outdoor work so we're instead going to approach the weekend in a more much pleasure-oriented fashion. Hence the culinary- and consumption-based activities. Chainsawing and digging can wait for a day when we aren't wearing turtlenecks (in May! In Virginia!) and scavenging for firewood. By the way, feel free to laugh at me if I end up complaining about heat in July.
Big things on tap for this weekend: the long-awaited tomatilla salsa production, dinner with my parents (who are vacationing nearby), a short visit to the farmer's market and a quick drop into the new toy store on the Downtown Mall so my husband can buy my mother a mother's day present (my present was the Beethoven action figure, and we also picked up Ben Franklin for the Boy Wonder). With some luck, the weather will hold - still cold and misty - and I will be able to get tomatoes and peppers in.
We had initially planned to spend a good chunk of at least one day removing sick and dying foliage and removing some of the more oddly placed shrubbery - some volunteer, some actually planted by a person. With the weather as it's been, though, we just don't have the heart for a lot of outdoor work so we're instead going to approach the weekend in a more much pleasure-oriented fashion. Hence the culinary- and consumption-based activities. Chainsawing and digging can wait for a day when we aren't wearing turtlenecks (in May! In Virginia!) and scavenging for firewood. By the way, feel free to laugh at me if I end up complaining about heat in July.
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