Tea & Cookies

12. 14. 2009

Menu for Hope

I’ve mentioned before how I sometimes feel funny admitting that I write about food. It seems so superficial, so swanky, so truffles and caviar. But it’s not, really. It’s really not superficial when you don’t have enough to eat.

Every December, those of us who spend our year writing about food come together to try and help feed some bellies who need it. Menu for Hope is the fundraiser that Pim (the powerhouse behind the blog Chez Pim) put together in reaction to the South Asian tsumani in 2004. For the past few years the money raised has gone to the UN World Food Programme, the largest food aid agency in the world, working in over 75 countries. Last year we raised over $60,000!

This year funds raised will go to support a new initiative called Purchase for Progress, which enables smallholder and low-income farmers to supply food to the UN global food operations and strengthens the local economy by creating jobs. Rather than just distributing food, they are building a food system, empowering participants to become self-reliant.

Where do we come in to all of this?

This year I am sponsoring a bid item for Menu for Hope—but there are plenty of other great items too. Everything you can imagine to delight the food lover, from gourmet goodies, meals and cooking classes, kitchen gear, wines, cookbooks—even a sous vide machine!

My item (no, it’s not the sous vide machine), is a signed copy of my new book—shipped in January, a month before actual release—and a selection of my favorite gourmet treats from Seattle and San Francisco. I’m happy to slant the goodies in a vegetarian or a meaty direction, if you would like, and I’ll include some of my own jam. It will be a bundle of foodie fun to show up on your doorstep in January, just in time to alleviate some of that post-holiday let down.

The code for my item, if you would like to bid, is: UW36

Here’s how the system works: for each $10 donat
ion you get one ticket for the raffle item of your choice. The more you donate, the greater your chances are of winning. If you wanted to donate $50, you could select five different items, or you could put all five raffle tickets towards the same item, increasing your chances. Winners are selected at random, and notified in January.

For more great items, see:

Helene of Tartelette (US East Coast)

Shauna of Gluten-free Girl (US West Coast)

Tara of Seven Spoons (Canada)

David of David Lebovitz (UK and Europe)

Ed of Tomato (Australia and New Zealand)

Alder of Vinography (Wine)

To Donate and Enter the Menu for Hope Raffle  

1. Choose a bid item or bid items of your choice from our Menu for Hope main bid item list.   

2. Go to the donation site at Firstgiving and make a donation.   

3. Please specify which bid item you’d like in the ‘Personal Message’ section in the donation form when confirming your donation. You must write-in how many tickets per bid item, and please use the bid item code.   Each $10 you donate will give you one raffle ticket toward a bid item of your choice. For example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for EU01 and 3 tickets for EU02 – 2xEU01, 3xEU02.   

4. If your company matches your charity donation, please check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.   

5. Please make sure to allow us to see your email address so that we can contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.  

Check back on Chez Pim on Monday, January 18 for the results of the raffle.

I hope you will consider participating this holiday season, to help those who need it a little more than we do.

style="font-family:verdana;">Many thanks to you.

PS. Yes, that’s the book cover—I’ll tell you more about it soon!

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12. 14. 2009

Looking for Simple Solutions

I’m participating in Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge. It’s an opportunity to look back and appreciate the year. Feel free to play along on your own site, or answer the question for yourself in the comment section. I’d love to hear about your year!

Today’s question: Best change you made to the place you live?

I’ve been between homes for some time now, slowly moving my belongings to Seattle and into the Treehouse. But that’s just temporary, and I never planned to stay as long as I have here. Someday, in the very near future, I’m going to have a home of my own again, but for now it’s all pretty temporary (though the nicest temporary digs ever, I really am lucky).

Because of this, I’m not really decorating. Much of my decorations remain in boxes in the storage room and garage. This is a stripped down life I’m leading, though every trip to San Francisco brings back more things to clutter/cozy it up (choice of word varies, depending on the day and my mood).

So it’s hard for me to think about the best change I made to the place I live, but I am trying to organize the kitchen better. This means I need to sort out some solution for the mess that is the tea and spice cabinet. Imagine hundreds of mismatched bags of this and that, all threatening to fall out whenever the cabinet is opened.

For the moment, this is it: a series of Mason jars. I suspect it’s not the best because the sunlight may fade the teas, but it’s December in Seattle, we don’t need to worry much about sunlight. And I like being able to see the tea blends, which now sit on a shelf above the area where the kettle and teapot reside. No more walking across the kitchen to get the tea, and back to get the hot water.

Sometimes—especially when you’re not entirely at home yet—it’s good to have what you need close at hand.

Now if I could only come up with a solution to all those spices…

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12. 14. 2009

Kimchi Fried Rice

Today’s question: Favorite New Food?

I sometimes think about underrated cuisines—the sort of food that you love but doesn’t seem to get much love elsewhere. Or perhaps you don’t think it gets nearly the amount of love it deserves. I have three underrated cuisines:

Persian

Burmese (you know how I feel about that tea leaf salad)

Korean

I think the tide is shifting for Korean food these days. After being the forgotten middle child to Chinese and Japanese food, Korean seems to be coming into its own, with a huge boost from David Chang and the Momofuku mini-empire. These days kimchi is no longer a strange and foreign substance, the Kogi Korean taco truck in LA is all the rage, while here in Seattle, the Marination Mobile won best food cart in America for their take on Korean/Hawaiian curb cuisine.

And this year, I got addicted to Kimchi Fried Rice.

The recipe comes from an article in Gourmet magazine (sob!) about Korean street food, written by my friend Matthew Amster-Burton. I’ve tweaked it to my own tastes, and added fried egg on top. It’s one of the things I crave the most these days.

Give it a try, you might find you like it too.

KIMCHI FRIED RICE

Adapted from a recipe by Kye Soon Hong in Gourmet magazine

Serves two, multiply as needed

2 cups cooked rice (1 cup rice, cooked in 1 ¼ cup water)

2 strips bacon, cut into ¼ inch cubes (use five shiitake mushrooms to make this vegetarian)

1 ½ cup kimchi made from napa cabbage, chopped. Old kimchi works well here.

2 scallions, chopped.

1 tsp sesame oil

2 eggs

oil for frying

sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

Every fried rice recipe I have ever seen calls for day old, cold rice. I’ll be honest and say I’ve never planned ahead on this level and just use freshly steamed rice. It can be done, though it probably better with old rice. You decide for yourself.

In a large sauté pan, cook the bacon over medium high heat for about five minutes. Add the chopped kimchi and stir to mix. Cook another four to five minutes. Raise the heat in preparation for adding the rice.

If your bacon has given off a considerable amount of grease, you’ll be fine. If your pan is on the dry side, you might want to add some oil. I like to push the kimchi mixture to the edges of the pan and add oil in the middle. When it has come to the temperature where a drop of water flicked into the pan will sizzle or bounce, add the rice.

I like crusty bits on my rice, so I will let it sit a minute or two before stirring. Slowly incorporate the rice and kimchi mixture. I like to add half the scallions at this point, so they soften, and reserve the rest for topping the dish.

While the rice cooks, heat a small frying pan. Add the oil, and fry the two eggs, one at a time. I like to keep the yolks runny a bit. When done, set aside.

Drizzle the sesame oil into the kimchi rice mixture and remove from heat.

Serve the rice on a plate, topped with an egg and sprinkled with the remaining scallions and sesame seeds.

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12. 13. 2009

The Park Next Door

Today’s question: Where is your best place?

I’m not naturally a city girl. I can do it and be happy—I love that mash of different people and cultures all mixed together, the energy of a city, the humanity—but I need to be able to escape the city too. As much as I like cafes and museums, I need my parks to survive.

When I lived in Vienna I regularly took a tram out to the very last stop, where there was a tiny park with a lake. It was really more like a puddle, in a depression of earth, but from the bottom the surrounding hillside was so steep that it blocked the buildings and houses and all I saw was green and sky. The city was still there, but I could ignore it for a while. There’s a hidden little path in San Francisco that does the same. Only the occasional siren reminds you that you’re in the urban core.

In both Seattle and San Francisco I’m lucky to live next to big parks, it’s the reason I’ve been able to stay living in cities so long. In San Francisco I’m half a block from Golden Gate Park, in Seattle I’m a stone’s throw from the Arboretum. Out my window in both cities, I see the tops of huge trees.

I’ll be moving in Seattle soon, to a neighborhood without a huge big park. I’m not sure how I’m going to survive.

How it works is this: when I’m exhausted from staring at a computer screen and wrestling with words and ideas that won’t behave; when I begin to grow cross-eyed and cranky; when I start to feel like nothing I try works out and there’s no hope in the world (usually around 4:30 or 5 pm every day), that’s when the park comes into play.

I step away from the computer and put on my running shoes. If I’m up to it I run, but since I sprained my ankle so badly last spring I’ve been walking.

(Note to all: if you skip lunch and dinner and instead go to a wine and cheese tasting and then stay too long in a very hot hot tub you will FAINT, wrapped only in a towel, and you may mess up your ankle on the way down; don’t say you haven’t been warned).

Even if I’m walking, it’s still good. I just need leaves and trees and light filtering down (I’d say sunlight, but in Seattle in the winter we take what we can get). I need the smell of fresh earth, the sound of the wind through the leaves, the feeling that I’m pretty small in the scope of things—my problems smaller still. Whatever I’m trying to accomplish is a mere trifle when compared to a forest, a bank of spring ferns, even a tree.

It never fails, I come back with my thoughts untangled, my fears at bay, my faith restored. I come back buoyed, or soothed, or whatever it is that I need on that particular day. And I know, whenever I need it, the park’s right there waiting for me.

Whatever I need, is there.

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12. 10. 2009

Get Some Happy

Today’s question: Album of the year? What is rocking your world?

Oh people, people—I’m supposed to write and read and exercise, and keep my house clean, my teeth white, my hair shiny, and stay up with the music scene TOO?

Please don’t hate me, I don’t.

I like music, but it’s not a driving force in my life. I once fell in love with a serious music lover—one of those people who need a soundtrack for their life. I’m fascinated by this, but it’s not me. Though I left that relationship with some great mixes, made just for me (and, geek that I am, I’m still trying to figure out the meaning of some of those songs).

I’m not a sophisticated music appreciator. Mostly I use music as a mood lifter. My playlists are titled with things like: Up, Happy (and Clean—devoted to music that makes cleaning the house tolerable to me). I want music to get my toes tapping, to make me feel bouncy. Life is hard enough, sometimes. When it comes to music, I want happy/enlivening.

[Although I have been taking flamenco classes, as you can see above, and they go for a mix of enlivening and dramatic with a side of anguish, and that works too.]

But I am happy that my two favorite music groups both have (relatively) new albums. I haven’t had a chance to listen to either, but I will. Soon. When I need a little music boost. So this is a premature endorsement, but this is what I’m looking forward to:

Pink Martini: Splendor in the Grass

This Portland-based band crosses languages and cultures with their jazzy tunes. I’ve been a fan for about the past decade. On my life list is seeing them in concert for New Year’s Eve, when they are always home in Portland. The one time I saw them people literally danced out of the theater. I used to describe their music as what you might hear in a cafe in Paris, but they are always growing and branching out. I can’t wait to see what they’ve been up to with the latest.

Great Big Sea: Fortune’s Favour

I first discovered this Canadian band while driving fast in a small car across Ireland with my friend Brendan and have been smitten ever since. How can you resist a bunch of guys singing about boats, whiskey, and women? (in that order). I can’t. They fuel my desire to go to Newfoundland and gaze out at a rugged and unpredictable ocean. I’ve tried repeatedly to see them in concert, but it never works (last time they played Seattle was Molly’s wedding, and I couldn’t skip that, could I?). Some day I’m going to St. John’s to have a rollicking good time seeing them play their hometown. Then I am going to gaze out at the moody sea and drink whiskey in small dark pubs. I’m serious.

And as a bonus, to redeem my poor showing in the music department, I’m going to share with you my favorite song of all time—because chances are you haven’t heard of it. It’s from an Italian band, now defunct, called 883 (yep, that’s their name) and the title is Tieni Il Tempo. It’s Celtic-inspired Italian pop music, if you can wrap your brain around that. I first heard it in Japan, and for the last fifteen years it’s my go-to get-happy song. It’s just not possible to listen to this song without wanting to jump around. Seriously. It’s on iTunes, and the video is here. Go get some happy.

It’s probably telling that my favorite song is in a language I don’t fully speak. The words really don’t matter that much to me (I have enough words in my life elsewhere). I just want the tune that makes me toes tap. That makes me happy.

Which makes me realize that yes, 2009 did have a song (whew, I was feeling like a music failure for a moment there). Jai Ho, from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack was the song that I played over and over again (and helped me clean the house). The film was gutting and sad and sweet and wonderful. And at the end of it I was left wrung out but happy.

For me that’s what music is all about: happy.

Come on, folks. Clearly I need some help in the music department. What are your favorites?

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