This is the slightly neurotic backstory to the cook fish story

So I woke up this morning and really didn’t want to get out of bed, but I did manage to barely get out of the house in time to acquire the 20L stock pot a nifty Philadelphia food person had offered on Twitter. I did not do public transportation, nor the brisk walk I had thought might be fun. I drove. But still - pot acquired. And even though I had grabbed a small book I’d made and a bar of fancy chocolate to offer in exchange, I did not remember to hand them over… a bit out of sorts today.

But then I was in the vague vicinity of the one place in all of Philadelphia to get reliable fresh seafood. So I stopped in and made a fool of myself and clearly admitted I knew nothing but would they please point me toward something fun. And I ended up with a pretty whole fish, which I asked them to fillet and give me the bones and head and all so I could make stock.

So I get home and have to look quite hard, but I do find a close-ish parking spot off of the snow emergency route (oh, hey, looks like we’ll probably get more snow).

So I get home and do the dishes, so I’ll have a clear workspace for the fish. And there are a lot of dishes (just because). And I open up the fish, and there are only two lovely fillets - no bones or bits. Grrr.

But I’ve got this weird thing going where I should have left five minutes ago, if I were going to go to work, but I have to get the fish sorted before I leave. No idea why I can’t just shove it in the fridge.

So I trim the awkward bits (not really awkward in the real world, but I was looking to make them smaller, anyway, so that was my excuse for picking on the thinner area) off the fillets and set them aside to dice and make ceviche. And I wrap the now 3.5 and 4 oz fillets back up tightly and back in the plastic bag. Next, I pull out my ice bin and line it with foil before I put in the bag with the fish to approximate the rig Alton Brown had which took up a whole shelf in a decoratively empty fridge.

And then I look at the clock, and I could just put on clothes and grab a cab and make it to wok five minutes late… so I start preparing the ceviche. It’s a weird disconnect that happens sometimes, but not so much since I quit being stressed from college. So I called out sick and had a great day of it.

1) As of the wee hours of the morning, I’m an aunt.

2) I did not get the house on which I made an offer - over the weekend, someone else also put in a bid for the house, only full asking price.

3) I have a new laptop. Oddly, it’s still in the box.

4) Made more truffles - for the help_haiti auction. They are getting mailed out today. Made a box to fit them all perfectly, too, and I might be even more proud of that because the little muffin wrappers were ornery and hard to keep squished together and tidy.

5) back on the wagon for Weight Watchers. Over about the 8 months off the wagon (wherein I discovered rudimentary baking), I only gained 11 pounds, so I’m not too badly off. I restarted also to enable my boss’ quest to fit into her pants.

6) have new kitchen toys: a salad spinner (birthday present and something I’ve been pining after for years and years) and a pressure canner

7) While planning for the house, evaluated apartment. With sufficient boxes, I think I could pack up to move in about 4 hours. Maybe less.

8) I’ve lost my apples tree in the back yard to termites and heavy snows. If I’m not moving, I am worried about the summer. I’ve long suspected that the shade from that tree was the main reason I could manage without air conditioning.

9) Okay, now I have to get dressed and mail packages, including one addressed to a brand new baby, probably still in the deeply unattractive stage… though after 12 hours of unproductive labor, there was a C-section, and I hear those babies are supposed to be prettier - at least their head shapes are less silly, but they might still be purple. No idea. No pictures yet.

10) This week, I have to reserve all the side trips and stuff for the Rome trip.

11) I need to call the property manager and ask them to check that my neighbor isn’t dead. (I haven’t seen him for a couple months and for a couple other reasons)

12) I did my taxes. Federal ones have already been e-filed. Now I have to remember to mail in my state taxes. There was a terrifying moment when I thought I owed almost as much to the state as I’d been getting back from the federal government. Then I saw I had entered the state withholdings line with a decimal point in the wrong place. ~whew~! All is well with the world. I requested direct deposit so I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I’d still be at that mailbox when the check came.

I was sitting here very impressed by a chef on twitter praising one of his prep cooks for cutting up cilantro (because, really, who does that? Giving random praise by name for doing simple tasks well is awesome.)

And then I popped out, and my student worker was running around keeping a whole room full of microfilm users educated and happy - I’d had no idea we were having a rush. So I sent off a note to my boss.

Car found!

It’s suspiciously close to a fire hydrant, but that’s where the city put it, so I’m leaving it there until streets are better.

Fine high, but not as bad as I’d been willing to grit and bear. So I’ll call that a win.

Now to summon up energy for the rest of the cooking I had planned

• Chana Masala - Done, turned out really well! Wonderful flavor and a spice level that’s just challenging for me
• bread baking - Done, got it nice and chewy like storebought bead (yes, this was a goal)
• canning 1 more batch of stock - ETA:Done, now I have a full case of 12
• and starting a pot of beans and ham hocks

Oh, yeah, and I promised the cat I’d clean her water fountain

So I gambled and lost. My car has been towed.

Fine, it was a risk I knowingly took because it had been a hellish week, parking spots were scarce and last Snowmageddon I’d moved off the snow emergency route and ended up plowed in and painfully excavating the car for two days while those who’d stayed had it easy. And I figured I was okay with the consequences.

I’m oddly not okay with it. My car getting towed has got me all depressed and doubting my judgment and avoidy. Which is a little disturbing, but I plan to repress all that with further baking.

However, it did throw off my cooking game, and I should not have tried my first ever batch of brownies while iffy. And I apologize to everyone I called at midnight with random brownie questions - even though no one answered and that was confusing because I was pretty sure people would be home. But if the phone ringing frightened you because you thought a relative might have died, I’m very sorry - I just hadn’t noticed the time.

Right, so car has been towed. So I called the hotline for having your vehicle towed from a snow emergency street, and they couldn’t find a record of my car. So they told me I should just go out in the snow and wander about the two intersections where they were taking towed cars. Only these two areas aren’t places that had spots open before it snowed, and I’m a bit confused by the crazy. I don’t want to go out and randomly wander. And then the emergency hasn’t been called off yet, so if I do find my car, then where to I put it? I thought right after the streets were plowed curb to curb, I’d be able to put my car back.

Meh.

There’s not a single flake here yet, but I am so rooting for the snowpocalypse. (even though back in my day when we had snow, we just bitched about it a bit and shoveled it)

Even though I don’t get off work until 9pm and will be walking back through the thick of it, I can’t wait. I brought boots to work in a bag.

But I so want a weekend where I can’t leave the house. It probably means that I’ll have to take vacation days somewhere in this month to visit my grandmother during the week, but still. A whole weekend where I can’t go out.

Oh, yeah, I also want the snow to reach New York. Please. So it’s credible I can’t visit (even though I never told her I planned to visit this weekend and even though I warned her my February is crazy busy… it’d be nice to call her for my birthday without her being all disappointed I’m not there). Maybe I’ll even go up for Wednesday and Thursday (Fridays are right out because then I’d have to attend the bridge lessons from hell).

Right, so - snowpocalypse. YAY!

I have plans. I want to make vegetable stock and try canning it in the new pressure cooker.

And last time I saw my mother, she brought ham hocks and chicken leftovers. And I have crazy fancipants dried beans… and there could be soup.

And chana masala.

I bought a lot of carrots, and some is going in the soup (and the peels are going in the stock), but I might also play around with chutneys.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll try baking something that isn’t bread. There’s a brownie recipe for which I have all the ingredient.

And I could clean. It looks like it won’t be high enough above freezing for laundry until Thursday.

Oh, and I could work more on books. I am missing the official deadline for Fun-a-Day, but maybe I can turn things in on Monday. If not, I’ll have done stuff. And I have some longer term projects to work on, too. La la la.

And a book to read! I’m 3/4 through Spindle’s End

It’s going to be a great weekend! (if it’ll snow as promised)

So there’s this friend whose relative is starting a job at a grocery where he’ll supposedly (not proven yet) have access to expired food.

Sadly, they live about an hour away from me, and my schedule is a leetle full these days. So I could probably not acquire produce as soon as it appeared.

Therefore, I am attempting to build a list of vegetables so that should they appear, I could ask for minimal processing in order to accept them in a stable form and process them further into tasty food at home.

I shall also accept suggestions from the audience.

Leafy and salad vegetables - Once salad greens go bad, they turn into brown sludge fairly quickly and can not be saved. If you want to start a compost bin, however, this is a great place to start. I have plenty compost, though, so I don’t need these.

Fruiting and Flowering vegetables
- Avocado | avocados are usually on sale long past the overripe stage, so by the time they squish off the shelves, they are probably brown through. If, however, they are not completely squishy, it’s worth saving about a dozen for immediate consumption. They do not freeze! But out of the dozen expired avocados, you can probably salvage enough good bits to make guacamole for 3 people and a bowl of chips.

- Bell peppers | possibly too much work to ask of someone else, but the best way to extend the lifespan of dodgy bell peppers is to cut the flesh away from the stems (usually slicing off the big lobes works well), placing them face down on a baking sheet, and then broiling them until the skin blisters and blackens. Turn the oven off and go do other stuff for an hour or so. And then the skins should come right off. Pack the roasted peppers tightly in their own juices and/or a little vinegar or a little oil and either freeze in manageable packets or store tightly closed in sterilized jars. (or proper water bath canning, but again, a bit much to ask)

- Corn | (really, wikipedia? You’re putting corn here and not as a grain? I give you a skeptical look) Cut off the cob and freeze. Woo hoo!

- Chayote | I haven’t experimented with them fresh yet, but I keep meaning to. No idea about large quantities.

- Cucumbers | I’ve never tried freezing cucumber, but I bet that if it were peeled, shredded, and then left to dry in a colander and patted dry, then freezing it in muffin tins would produce a fully acceptable product for tzatziki and raita.

- Eggplant | One friend has had great success with cutting eggplant up, freezing it, and then adding it to dishes later. I am skeptical but willing to give it a try. I would want the first quantity to be no more than 5 lbs, peeled, and cut into reasonably saucy pieces (<1″?)

- Mango | I am very interested in both damaged unripe and ripe ones, but if they are both very ripe and very damaged, there’s not usually much salvageable. Again, however, these can’t be frozen as is - otherwise they’ll be solid and crazy. And peeling and de-seeding them is a lot of work. But, if you are interested in peeling and de-seeding them, then I can take any size chunks and turn them into jam and/or chutney.

- Summer Squash | remove bad spots, and then cut thinner, even sized pieces (more like julliene or half moons than thick chunks) and freeze. Or can be shredded and frozen, but clearly labeled as not cucumber (for use in quick breads and stuff).

- Tomatillo or Green Tomatoes | slice in half (through the stem bit) and freeze as is. To use them, I usually end up roasting them, anyway, so it should be good.

- Tomatoes | I’m willing to try one large batch with just the bad spot cut out and frozen whole, skins on and everything. And I’d then try making tomato sauce from scratch. I’m not 100% sold on this plan, but I’d give it a shot.

- Winter squash | If there are no obvious bad spots, just age, then I can take them all. Bad spots meaning brown and squishy - it it’s just scrapes on the surface, then usually the squash underneath is okay. If there are no more than a couple minor but obvious bad spots, then I can take 2-3 squash for immediate conversion to roasted goodness and probably soup. But there’s a limit to how much squash soup I can make/eat (and that’s about 1 pot every 2 weeks) so I’m not interested in frozen quantities

Flowers or flower buds of perennial or annual plants
- Artichoke | no hope for the unloved artichoke

- Broccoli / Cauliflower | cut into small chunks and freeze. Stems can also be cut up and frozen, but separately and they cook differently - thin thinner slices, like water chestnuts

Bulb and stem vegetables
- Asparagus | rinse, dry, trim of dry tip from the flowering end, and then line them all up and make one cut 2″ from the tips and another cut 2″ down from there. Discard (or compost) anything below. If the stems are shorter than that, just the first cut. And then freeze no more than 1lb together. And I don’t think I can go through more than 5lbs of asparagus soup a year.

- Celeriac | you should try and see if you like these - because I don’t

- Celery | Nope, I hate celery, too.

- Garlic | I am rarely short of garlic, but I am willing to take any non-moldy, non-dried solid garlic and give it a good try as is

- Kohlrabi | peel, slice, and freeze with the broccoli stems. Cooks exactly the same.

- Leek | Get a big pot. Slice leeks in half the long way, and then in 1cm thick half moons the short way - all the way up into the dark green parts until it gets all dry and split. Dump them into the big pot. Cover with water. Swish them so well with your fingers that all the rings separate. Leave sit for 20 minutes so any dirt settles to the bottom. lift off the floating leek slices into a colander. In a big skillet, heat up some oil to frying temperature and fry the shit out of those leeks (they don’t have to go all the way to crispy, but definitely into limp land. Drain on kitchen paper. Salt some and eat them right there. Cool the rest and freeze them in muffin tins or baggies or 1/2 pint containers.

- Onion | Can be peeled, diced, and then frozen. You probably want to just keep these they are that awesome

- Scallions / Green Onions | A little bit more problematic. If they aren’t at all crispy and looking like they can keep until they are used fresh, then they probably aren’t going to be worth freezing. I do use their greens to make stock, but I usually have plenty.

- Shallot | again, peel and then either slice or mince and it will freeze well.

Root and tuberous vegetables
- Beets | if they’ll keep fresh, then YAY! And they’re edible way into the stage where you can bend them. But processing them to freeze them is so messy that if you aren’t getting food out of it, it’s not worth staining your cutting board and clothes.

- Carrot | If you have a bunch of fresh carrots that need to be turned into soup, I’m here for you. But if they won’t last until they see me and need to be processed and frozen, then I’m just not as interested.

- Ginger | I hear that one of the best ways to store ginger is peeled and in the freezer. I haven’t tried it on my own, but I’m game. If there’s a lot, then I could even try candying it.

- Parsnip | option 1) just trim of heads, tails, and dubious bits and freeze and I’ll turn it onto stock; option 2) bring a bunch fresh, and I’ll roast em or mash em or supthing; option 3) trim bits, peel, and cut into 1″ chunks and I’ll do any number of things with them

- Potato | while there are many things to do with an abundance of potato, I have no need They are so cheap in perfect condition and I still have trouble getting through an entire bag.

- Radish | good fresh and in spring, but I have no need of sketchy surplus

- Sweet Potato | I haven’t tried freezing these, but I just that if you just cut out any rotten bits and froze them they’d keep well enough for roasting. Then again, probably if you didn’t freeze them, they’d still keep well enough for roasting.

- other miscellaneous root vegetables | someday I shall be a poorer person and be grateful for them all, but right now I find they add too much bulk and not enough vitamins.

Pome fruits
- Apple and crabapple | Not interested in any with a waxy skin. If they can get to me fresh and whole, that’s awesome. If they are in danger of all rotting to death: cut into quarters, remove seeds, cut out bad spots, freeze with or without skin - can be turned into apple sauce or apple butter

- Pear | fresh is good, same procedure for freezing. If you cut into slightly rougher pieces, could probably also make jam

- Quince | wash off fuzz, quarter, seed, freeze

The stone fruits
- apricot/peach/plum/hybrids | If they won’t make it to me fresh, wash the surface, cut in half, remove the stone (if the stone doesn’t come out easily, then compost the whole batch as overripe stone fruit is not hard to come by and the extra work isn’t worth it - though I hear they often do taste better when in god enough quality to eat fresh), peel the fruit (I use a knife to peel, so that’s easier after they are halved. If you do the parboiling method to peel, that’s easier before - I don’t judge), and then cut out the bad spots. freeze them by type or all together and I shall make jam.

- Cherry | don’t save. After they have been both frozen and cooked, they start to taste medicinal.

Other fruits

- Banana | there is no shortage of bananas in my world. If you want to make bread or smoothies, then they freeze well after peeling.

- Berries | are going to be all moldy by the time they are expired :(

- Citrus | might still be perfectly happy for weeks after pulled. If some of the batch start going bad and you don’t think the rest will keep fresh, and if you are willing to put in the effort, you could prep them for marmalade and then freeze. (and, yeah, that’s any citrus)

- Melon | I do not need more melon in my life.

- Tamarind | I find the pastes in the store much easier to process than the whole pods.

Herbs
I don’t really need any more herbs than I grow, but I hate to see them go to waste. For basil or cilantro, pick the leaves off the stems, mince finely, pack tightly into small containers, and freeze.

For all other herbs, freeze as is - on the stems even - and I can chuck them into stock.

One of the things I love about my local group of friends is that we have combined ordering for a few companies with high shipping (i.e. Republic of Tea, Penzey’s Spices, and King Arthur Flour)

I just put in an order to Penzey’s and need to pick it up from my mother’s this week. (eta: would anyone mind if I picked that up 1/22? I might be able to get both orders at the same time and save on gas that way)

And now I think I’m going to put in an order to King Arthur’s Flour.

Really, all I need is yeast (because my grocery store carries their flour already). But feel free to make suggestions to me of other things (not too expensive - I don’t plan to spend more than a total of $30) that I should buy for tasty bread experiments.

Also, if you are within an easy distance of me, let me know if you want to order something, too.

• I’ll need you order by noon Thursday (1/14/2010)
• I’ll send you the total, and then you can either paypal me or give me cash on delivery (the former, if your order is huge)
• And, yeah, when I do the ordering, I have everything sent to my parents’ and then we’ll need to meet up, so it won’t be as timely as direct shipping

The past several years, my parents have gone to my sister’s for Thanksgiving. And she and her husband have made traditional Thanksgiving food (roast turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing from a package, gravy, and steamed broccoli).

This year, however, they shall be going to her in-laws because she’ll be too preggers to fly for Christmas.

So I get to make Thanksgiving for the second time ever. Really - just my second time cooking this mean, so I am not bored of the routine in the slightest.

So I called me mother to menu plan…

For the turkey… well, I was going to take a five or more year old free turkey from our deep freeze and turn it into something amazing through magic and impressiveness. My father, trusting neither my skill with freezer-burned meats nor the turkey in question, insisted on getting a fresh turkey. Apparently, it’s a very nice one, so I’ll go with a much simpler recipe than I had originally thought.

Actually, apparently, my mother isn’t waiting for me to think of a recipe at all. She bought a packet of turkey roasting herbs and the onion for it already. What herbs are these? Thyme, rosemary, and other things I still mostly have growing outside my apartment ready for final harvesting.

And for the vegetable, I am putting my foot down. All my father will eat for a green vegetable is either sugar snap peas or baby peas. Frozen. From green giant. And I declared that not enough vitamin content to count as worth my father’s time, so we’re having a green vegetable he won’t eat - namely, the last harvest of the swiss chard in my garden. So there.

My mother has already bought the sweet potatoes… because of my parents’ health issues, I’ll be making the traditional sweet potato casserole in individual-sized ramekins.

And then I was pondering the savoury starch option. Maybe mashed potatoes from scratch. Maybe I’ll make dressing from scratch. BUT my mother informs me she has already bought a (bag?) of Stove Top’s cornbread stuffing. Mer. So I’ll at least doctor it up a bit for fun and profit.

So all that’s left for fun is dessert. And I’m bad at desserts. I’m thinking of trying to make the old family recipe pecan pie. Unfortunately, I told my mother that, so I am betting that when I get there I will find either: a) a storebought Mrs. Smith’s pie or b) 2 brand new bottles of Caro, light and dark - even though I found half a dozen such bottles the last time I cleaned out their pantry, and I’m sure I left them one of each, kept one of each, and threw out several others.

It’s odd, because I’m pretty sure my mother understands how much fun I have with cooking and planning food. And I thought she trusted me to make fancy stuff still withing the limit of what my father’s bland tastes are willing to eat.

ETA: Oh, right - so one of the points of this whining. There’s still a random frozen turkey at my parents’ that they are never going to eat. And I have this plan for ethical meat consumption that goes: I’m going to eat all of the meat my parents have wastefully bought and then buried in their freezer. But turkeys are huge. Does anyone (well after Thanksgiving, because the turkey will keep) want to help me eat this turkey experiment? Or are you all afraid of the freezer taste, too?