Week Four: The Story

If you could put every warm feeling of winter -- wool mittens, your favorite sweatshirt right out of the dryer, the warmth of a coffee cup on your hands, the steam of tea -- and pair it against the coldest day of the season -- just miserable with such a bone-aching chill that it takes every iota of strength, courage and iron-will to get out of bed --

You have those two yin and yangs juxtaposed against each other?

Good.

Now just recall how truly, almost other-worldly that warm feeling is when you finally get out of that cold and...

Well...

Then...

You'll have some kind of idea as to how fantastic the vegetarian stuffing filled chard purses were.

Hold on. I need a moment.

Feel free to entertain yourself with this.

Okay. I'm ready.

Pre-leek-tied purse.

The stuffing turned out really great, especially with the warm savory mouth of the chard. I'll admit, in lieu of butter, I opted for a nice healthy dollop of (You guessed it) bacon grease to saute my vegetables in. The bacon grease added an unbelievably savory and subtly smoky flavor.

I'm sorry Meghann; I know you were hoping I wouldn't 'ruin it with bacon' but what can I say? The little blue bowl of warm bacon grease just spoke to me and the greedy little fat kid in me who would kill for that umami taste and texture just couldn't help herself.  Trust me, considering my growing waistline and the fact that I'm supposed to using this cooking experience to be uhm, healthy and sustainable (Which okay, bacon grease isn't healthy but I've got a solid argument that it does, indeed fall into the sustainable, oh-so-Portland tail-to-nose cooking ideology), she's definitely getting a time out in the corner (Followed by another early a.m. ten mile run).

Yeah, you can get an idea of
how small my kitchen really is.

Sidebar conversation aside, the purses were, I'll admit, kind of a pain to make. I'm actually pretty baffled that Epicurious/Gourmet suggested it as an appetizer. I mean, as much I love cooking and entertaining and wowing guests with pretty looking and amazingly tasting food, I'd have to have my arm twisted pretty hard to make these as more than just a meal (Which actually, they're quite filling and can easily stand alone as a hearty vegetarian dish -- hint, hint Piper, Ariel and all you vegetarians and vegans out there. To make it vegan, just use olive oil and swap the recipe's chicken broth for vegetable broth and perhaps add an extra pinch of salt to make up for the flat flavor of veggie broth). After all, one bunch of chard, which was about eight leaves thick, yielded six small-to-medium sized purses.

While a pain in the rear, they were still so so so worth it.

Really, had I chard in my fridge right now, considering I've still got half a loaf of stuffing...yeah, I'd definitely make them again. Right here, right now.

The great thing about that would be the fact that prep time would last no more than 20 minutes (as opposed to the 90 minutes I spent during round one) and, knowing what I know now (See tips below), I'm pretty certain they'd be even better. 

This one was special.
It needed a lot of leeks.

If you do make these (Which I so so so so SO recommend), keep these tips in mind:

1. Blanch your chard one leaf at a time. Pat dry them immediately after, otherwise, as I talked about before, the water will start to break your leaf down faster than a Portlander can put a bird on something and call it art.

2. Dry your blanched leeks asap too, for the aforementioned reason.
3. Make the stuffing ahead of time. It's not that time consuming to chop a bunch of veggies, but combined with everything else, you could save yourself a solid hour when you're hungry for some winter loving by making the stuffing ahead of time.

4. Use bacon grease. Like really. It's delicious.
5. Get creative with the stuffing. Really, my stuffing was more of a what's-in-the-fridge concoction. You can really play with the flavors, omitting the sage and Craisins for a less-Thanksgiving taste, adding paprika or curry for smoky, curried flavors, adding meat or a par-cooked grain like quinoa for extra carbs. 

Week Two: The Story

I have to preface this blog entry with the big whiny complain that I ruined my favorite pair of pants last night. So here goes:

(Imagine me, face scrunched up into a pursed-lip, eyebrow-furrowed scowl, perhaps with a quivering chin that's fighting oh-so-hard to combat the onslaught of tears that rest behind my watery, pained eyes)

"I caaaaaaaaan't beeeeeliiiiiiiiiieve I ruuuuuuuined my cords last night. They're gooooooood pants. Uuuuuuuuugh. My faaaaaaaaaavorite and I juuuuuuuuuuuuuust bought them like twoooooooo months ago."

(Imagine me, red faced, streaming tears, pouting like a spoiled 15-year-old brat who is sooooo toooootally bummed that daddy didn't buy her a 2011 whatever-car-teens-are-hot-for-these-days)

Ahem. That's out of the way.

Yes; this buttery broth now
 speckles my favorite cords.

Aside from the pant-ruining snafu -- which, I'd like to put out there, didn't actually occur until after the meal was sitting happily inside of our stomachs and we were cleaning up and I idiotically believed I could pour liquid from a 12 inch skillet into a container three inches wide without spilling it all over the counter, the floor and myself -- last night's cooking frenzy was a big hit. Which I so totally needed. Unsurprisingly, I had finished a crazy day at AngelVision, full of clients who can't make up their mind and/or think that I'm twelve years old, and was exhausted, worn down and feeling a bit down in the dumps.

After a quick four mile run in freakishly warm weather (Warm being high 40's, a far distant cry from Tuesday night's freezing temperatures and freezing rain), I rinsed off then headed over to Jason and Co's to begin the orchestration of a very wintery-ingredient meal.

Ahhhhh. Being in the kitchen rinsed off all the stress and self doubts I had just experienced two hours prior, replacing those Negative Nancy worries with culinary confidence and might.

Colorful, even for chicken.

Of course, I hadn't braised chicken before but I think it turned out pretty fantastic. While I could have crisped up the skin for another couple of minutes, the flavor of the bacon, sage and butter really shined. That said, the extra butter in between the skin and the meat isn't necessary to keep the meat moist (And if you want a truer chicken flavor, omit the bacon and sage of course) but it adds an incredibly creamy and full-body bite to the celeriac pieces, which fried up in oil with the garlic before simmering in the buttery chicken broth.

Winter in a pan. 

Admittedly, I overcooked the squash a bit while leaving the beets a bit too al dente but to Jason, who had never before had butternut squash, roasted beets, parsnips, celeriac or rutabaga (I also had never had rutabaga or celeriac), was surprisingly pleased to find out how much he liked them.

His exact quotation? "The chicken was fucking fantastic but I really dug the veggies."

Music to an amateur chef's ears (Regardless that it came from my doting boyfriend).

My new favorite veggie.

My favorite piece of the meal was actually the celeriac. Raw, it really emits an aroma of parsley and earthiness...an odd olfactory pleasure of fresh, clean dirt. Being so starchy, like a potato, the celeriac really took the flavor of the chicken-butter-garlic-bacon broth, transforming it into a melt-in-your-mouth, rich yet clean delicacy. I think I found my new favorite vegetable.

Then again, anything that takes on bacony-garlicky-chickeny-butter with so much gusto is a favorite in my book.

Just missing the crab...

I just wish my pants didn't take it on so well.

Until next week.

Oh PS: My favorite salad, though not chock full of super seasonal ingredients: Avocado (duh) and grapefruit.

Yes....the bacon caramel latte happened

Warning: This blog post contains adult-language which, undeniably so, is the only way to really, truly describe what you're about to see and what you'll so so so SO want to taste.

While I have yet to be able to try it (Dairy and everything), these are the words I've heard thus far about the bacon-caramel latte:

"Man it's good. Like so fucking good."

"It's sweet, but not too sweet and the bacon so comes through."

"It's a good ass latte."

Okay...so that's all Jason saying that. Whatever. We've got another victim...oh, I can't believe victim is the right word...trying one later on today. Will report after that.

Back to the grind (And no...sadly, not the coffee grind)...

And here's the bacony-caramel macchiato:

The Web

No. I'm not talking about the internet.

So...if you're a tech-savvy super nerd (Ahem, Walker), feel free to stop reading now because my story of the web probably isn't going to interest you.

That said...


I'm talking about a different type of web...the spider web.

It's everywhere. Or rather, to be more realistically and grammatically correct, they're everywhere.

August and September mark one of my favorite times of the year to be a Northwest (Okay, fine...they're all over Stumptown) Portland resident because spider webs are in absolute overabundance (Yes mom, I know you're cringing and wondering how I ever came from your loins but, come on, by now you should know that I'm a psuedo-hippie -- to Spokane standards, anyway -- creature-loving nerdy  hipster. I mean, half of my hair is shorn for crying out loud). I first fell in love with them -- and noticed them, to be honest -- at the end of last summer when I was taking a lot of early morning, have-to-get-out-of-the-house-or-else-I'm-going-to-go-crazy walks. Still shining with early morning dew, the spider webs, which decorate bushes, trees, building eaves, fire escape stairwells, road signs and everything in between, simply shine in a glorified omnipresent beauty that's just radiant.

And the spiders that dabble in the middle of these five and eight and thirteen inch webs (Yes, I've measured and taken photos) just hang out, asking whoever stops in jaw-dropping awe in proud mockery, "Yeah...what have YOU done today?"

Turns out...usually when I have the chance to really admire these webs, my answer is, "Eh, not much."

That's how it was this morning, anyway. After a night of tacos and tequila with Walker and Jason, I was..admittedly...a bit slow to the start of my morning. Usually, during the work week, I'm up at 4:30, running by 5 when the spiders are rebuilding their webs after a night of human destruction.

How do I know? Because I'm the one breaking the random web strings flailing like silent assassins from the the trees. They attack my face and brush my cheek with such eerie vengeance which, regardless of how much I don't mind spiders, freaks me out. If anyone saw me karate-chopping with my arms while running up Lovejoy and Cornell at five in the morning, I'm almost certain they'd believe I was yet another neighborhood crazy.

But this morning, as mentioned before, was slower, recovering from a celebratory night with Yeyo (QO landed quite a few jobs lately...woot woot), so instead of an early morning run, I went on a regular-morning (i have to believe that 8 a.m. is 'normal' morning time) walk around the neighborhood while talking on the phone. It was nice...taking time to notice the beauty of nature that, despite living in the city, surrounds me.

Big old spiders. Big old webs, glimmering in the big old sun that danced behind big old clouds in that big old sky.

It was pretty and calming and nice to realize that, even though I'm typically a hustle-bustle, go-go-go individual, the power of nature never ceases to amaze me.

Movin' On Up!

I hate moving. The whole idea of packing up every little piece of my property, whether it's my black pub style table and corresponding wobbly stools (We're talking Target here, not Pottery Barn) or one of 12 dinner plates (This time we're talking IKEA) is just exhausting. I loathe getting boxes together and filling them in an organized fashion with trinkets and dishes and books and toiletries only to have to unpack them within the following days. 

Then there's the cleaning. It's not as though I keep a dirty apartment (My mother would be so ashamed) or anything but I just have this nagging guilty conscious that forces me to perform the deepest scrub on any place I leave behind (Save for the last place I live that is, but hey--I was jipped out of my Eight Pound Oreck in that deal so I don't feel much remorse). I'll wipe down walls and scrub corners with a toothbrush until I've inhaled so many cleansing fumes that I'll start scrubbing spots that are more a figment of my intoxicated imagination (It's also at that point that I usually get distracted and think it'd be a good idea to go on some kind of Gonzo crusade).

I personally blame my three years living in UP dorms for my inane moving-out cleansing ritual. At the end of the school year, RAs would scrutinize our dorm rooms like a grandma scrutinizes fingernails, pointing out with horror and dismay the teeniest, tiniest, most minute speck of dirt. Unlike grandma though (hopefully!), UP charged a bleeping dollar for every one thing left in the dorm room. I once had to pay for a dried leaf the size of my pinkie nail.

And of course, along with the packing and cleaning, there's the whole finding a new place to live process and the accompanying stress that hides in its back pocket. I always get bullet-sweating nervous that I won't be able to find a place to live, despite the fact that Craigslist touts an average of 90 new listings at my price range in Multnomah County alone each day. Obviously I'm going to be able to find a new place to live but that still doesn't stop me from embarking on my search for a new abode weeks before its even sensible to start the application process.

Nevertheless, despite loathing the actual moving process, I can't help but be totally and completely stoked that I'm moving at the end of this month. Thanks to a 100 percent increase in my monthly budget, I'm able to afford a bigger apartment so that Walker -- bless his heart for putting up with being squished in a studio for three months -- and I can live more like adults in a real, live, well-put-together apartment and less like close-quartered college roommates.

Where we're going to live yet...well, we haven't figured that part out yet. But anywhere than where we are now will be better. It's not that The Plato is all that bad...there are worse places out there (Gresham, Tigard and Hillsboro to name a few). It's just become a bit inconvenient as of late, what with my apartment manager threatening to kick me out because Walker has a set of keys and The Nympho's Johns confusing my apartment for hers (I had a guy on Monday who, honestly -- looked 14 at best, knock on my door, push his body partially into our studio in search for her). My early mornings sometimes conflict with Walker's late night so the fact that he can legally have a set of keys would make our daily routines a bit smoother. My early morning runs and stretching routines won't bother his beauty sleep and his late night post-QO meeting drinkfests won't bother mine.

Now that I've put my (our) 30 days into the landlord, I'm starting to get antsy about finding a place, even though I'm still 9 days away from being able to make any kind of deposit. And there's the fact that we'll be headed to Spokane for Hoopfest (No, not to play 3-on-3 basketball...we're going to watch my brother and his friend play hungover) the last weekend of June, possibly leaving us with just weekdays, probably more realistically weeknights to move all of our stuff...

...which we have a lot of. Combined, we have enough place settings to throw a killer three-course meal dinner party for two dozen people -- predinner drinks and postdinner coffee included -- without washing a single dish. I have as many books (Helloooo English major!) as he does movies (Hellooooo Film major!) and the sheer quantity of appliance we have probably require more than one packed-to-the-brim car trip to our yet-to-exist new place.

We've yet to nail down where we want to live...though the lure of Northwest living is a luxury I've definitely gotten used to. Forest Park? Shopping? Close to work? Coffee every three feet? Yeah...leaving this area would definitely force me to make a change in my daily routine that I'm not quite sure I'm ready or willing to make.

I can only handle so much change at one time, after all.

Give them some love

I'm going to go out on another nice-girlfriend limb and post a brief blog about Quarter Orange and their push to make their very own, very first feature film.

It's about Bigfoot which, as long as its not linked in with anything clown-like (A Bizarro cartoon from last week's funnies in the Oregonian had Bigfoot dressed up as a clown; scariest effing thing in the world if you ask me), is maybe the second coolest thing someone could make a movie about -- I say second coolest only because I'm a die-hard zombie fan and nothing could top a great zombie flick.

Anyway, I'm digressing. Allow the boys of Quarter Orange to tell you about their film:

Quarter Orange makes a feature film!

I think its great that Walker, Kyle, Eli and Jason are putting themselves out there because, as creative people, putting ourselves out there is something that we have to do, even if it means little or no money. As an aspiring writer, I'm working my tail off at two non-writing jobs so I can go dine at restaurants to review them (I don't get paid to do that and I've only managed free meals twice) and writing for an online publication that's incredibly awesome and contains the type of content I love to write (profile pieces about my neighborhood, that is) but sadly, doesn't pay the bills. I'd love the opportunity to have someone support my writing habit (Because yes, it's a habit) so that I can, indeed, binge on writing all I want.

But I know, sadly, that my binge-writing days are yet to come. However, the boys of Quarter Orange are slowly rising to the peak of their potential...they just need a little help.

I mean hey, if this poor writer helped out, you can too!

Neighborhood Notes

As though working two jobs at 60 hours a week wasn't enough for me, I've gone ahead and taken on a new freelancing gig. I mean, what's the point of busting my butt at two non-writing jobs if I'm not going to pursue writing in all of my free time (You know, the few hours I have in between Pottery Barn, Whole Family Wellness, trying to have a social life now that I have the means to do so and that most-sacrificed past time I like to call sleep)?

Right, there is no point. So bring on the writing.

Here's the new gig: Thanks to Walker, whose company, Quarter Orange, is on a full-on marketing barrage to promote their very own short-film night at Radio Room, located on NE Alberta St. this coming Monday from 9 pm to midnight (If I'm not a good girlfriend promoting them on my sometimes-read blog, I don't know how one can define 'good girlfriend.'), I got in touch with a web site, Neighborhood Notes. On my free half-day Saturday morning I uploaded my resume as well as three writing samples (including my blog post about the Annex and some of my restaurant reviews) and by Tuesday afternoon, I was contacted to become a writer.

Talk about a quick hire. It's funny; I looked for MONTHS during the end of graduation to end up at Pottery Barn (which I of course, love but there's no denying the fact that my $130,000 piece of paper that says I graduate from UP is worth $8.50 an hour) but a whim of an application lands me a new freelancing position within four days. The world definitely works in weird ways.

Anyway, about the site: Neighborhood Notes started as a blog by a regular Portland citizen, Lynnette Fusilier, who joined the Pearl District Neighborhood Association (I love me some neighborhood associations) in 2002 and, being what I am sure is an overachiever (Hey, I've only Gmail chatted with her once), took on being a coordinator for everything Pearl District. Her blog grew in readership (which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, blogging isn't as ridiculous as it seems) and quickly bloomed into a Portland-wide phenomenon, covering every teeny tiny neighborhood that makes Stumptown the quirky city it is.

And now I get to write for the site.

I'm pretty stoked because I get paid and some pretty sweet perks too (Insert Steve Carrell as Michael Scott at the paper conference bragging about SWAG here). The pay is...okay...ranging at about $.10 a word but the perks are pretty neat, mainly because they include free tickets to shows (ballet, theatre, opera, concerts, you name it) as well as happy hour invites and hopefully, if my food writing skills come to fruition, free meals, too. I get to conduct interviews, meet new people over coffee and tea, write drafts and work on a deadline.

Deadline. I love that word; both syllables emphasize such an importance of finality. Dead -- as in, that's it; no more. Line simply brings up a myriad of cliche sayings: "No going past this line," "Crossing the line," "The finish line" or thanks to my stint at Clara's two Tuesday's ago when I watched The Biggest Loser, the dreaded Yellow Line.

Gosh, it's like I'm a real, live writer again. I've been in such a slump lately, with my column for the Regence Group all finished for the 2009 year (I'm semi-patiently awaiting the content calendar for the 2010 year), that I've felt less college-graduated-freelance-writer and more minimum-wage-worker. It's nice to know that I'll be paid for my writing from here on out (At least some of it) and that I'm about to have a much larger audience.

Anyway, expect my first article to appear on Neighborhood Notes in about two weeks; I've been handed a doozy of an assignment that's going to take some real research...

...which reminds me; the site's Writer's Guidelines instructs the writer to "write what you know." If that isn't a sign that this site is a good fit for me, I don't know what is --- Writing what I know is all I know! is one of my most basic tenets of writing after all.