Boris the Bus + Momo the Bunny + Mike = Just a few of my favorite things. I did this photo shoot a few weeks ago, when it really started to feel like summer.
Archive for April, 2009
Not Your Grandmother’s* Dolmas
*Assuming your grandmother is from Turkey, Libya, Egypt, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, the Balkans, Greece, Cyprus, Iraq, Iran, Northern Sudan, Central or South Asia
I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting to write this entry on making dolmas. I have no link for the original recipe source, no one to credit, simply because I WROTE THIS RECIPE! That’s right, and I’m very proud of it. I finally wrote it down after improving it through seven batches. Ok, so the ingredients aren’t original – they’ve been around for centuries, I give you that. But the process of making these dolmas is definitely a creation by me – a modern, busy cook: making dolmas in a rice cooker. They are just as good. In fact, I think they’re better than the stuff you can buy in jars, or dare I say…at restaurants (in America, at least).
Yes, a RICE COOKER. There, the big secret is out. Middle eastern grandmothers can scold at me for “cheating”, but I call making a time consuming task more practical – “ingenuity”, thankyouverymuch. Remember that late night infomercial for…what, that ridiculous rotisserie chicken machine? Say it with me, “set it and forget it!”. That’s kind of what it’s like. The machine tells you when it’s done. Ahh, modern conveniences.
And the easier it is, the more often I’m going to make it, which ultimately means more dolmas in my diet. That’s a good thing, if you ask me. Dolmas are to die for.
Boris the Bus
Somehow, I got stuck in the 70s without actually living through it. Maybe it was the my somewhat conservative-yet-liberal parents, dancing to the Bee Gees with my dad when I was little, or the fact that my first car was an old Volvo I adored. I remember reading old 70s magazines and cookbooks I would find around the house, picking up guitar in middle school just to play “Hotel California” (I wanted to be the “next” Joni Mitchell), and drooling at 70s architecture, fashion, and product design in my college Design History class.
It’s strange, I know. I’m not trying to be hip (it’s rather dorky, actually), or purposely try to live a generation I know very little about. To be honest, I’m not sure what it is about the 70s that is just so damn appealing. Was it the idealism? The counter-culture? Womens rights? Enviromentalism? The technology (or lack of)? Or perhaps, could it be that the uncertainty I feel about the world today is not so different from the uncertainty people felt in the 70s?
Whatever it was, I was addicted. And I thought, maybe…just maybe, one day I will live my dream and drive a VW bus. My parents, of course, refused to let me drive a VW bus when I got my license, and eventually gave me a used, safe Honda to drive – which was smart, because it could not be more reliable. But in the back of my mind, I still really, really wanted a VW bus.
Lemon Ricotta Cheesecake
Cheesecake just got exciting. The texture of this cheesecake is light and fluffy, yet rich, like a cheesecake should be. It’s creamy, but tangy. Sweet, but not too sweet. Better than the regular old cheesecake? You bet.
I was inspired by a baking disaster I had a few months ago. I made Lemon Ricotta Tarts from Gourmet Magazine, just to find that the results were satisfactory for the amount of time I spent on it – slaving away in the kitchen for hours, following every detail in the ten-step process. I asked myself, how could it be that complicated – isn’t this just a basic cheesecake, but replacing cream cheese with ricotta instead, and adding lemon flavor?
The Slowest Car Show on Earth
Mike wanted to get ideas on how to restore a bus, I wanted to hug a round shiny one. So we went to the 2009 Niello VW Ranch Run & Car Show this Sunday. The show was all about quirky-old-slow-round-puttputputputtt cars, and it included an incredible range of classic VW cars – Bugs, Buses, Karmann Ghias, even a hybrid water-land vehicle called The Thing.
Since the show took place north of Sacramento, we ended up missing the “Ranch Run” part of it – where all the show cars met up early in the morning at the Niello VW dealership and slowly caravan their way up to Niello Ranch to park. When we got there, they were already doing the award ceremony, which was a great opportunity for me to sneak away to get some great shots on some of the beauties there.
You can see all the photos here »
I’ll be going to this VW show coming up >
(thanks, Thomas)
Basic Apple Tart
Finally, a solution for having too much fruit: eat it in pie form. My mom goes to the local farmer’s market every weekend (rain or shine), and whenever I come home to visit, she exclaims, “These [insert fruit or vegetable here] looked gorgeous, so I bought two cases! Here, take one.” – and shoves it towards me. I’m more than overjoyed at the sight of a box of beautiful, locally grown produce, but after a week of my bunny and I munching on it, the rest ends up forgotten in the produce drawer, or even worse, the garbage.
But now, lo and behold – the magic of making a fruit tart. It’s just 5 ingredients (which don’t include lard, or that strange goopy stuff found in American pies – what IS that?), involves very little work, and best of all, no more sugar rush from attempting to finish the rest of my fruit in a single day. It came out so well, I can’t wait to make a pear tart, peach tart, raspberry tart…