I Paint My Food...

It was steak. Then it was a painting. As I've been painting, I realize something: I do food well.

Paint what you know.

Welcome to Blogathon 2014

Well, it almost went undone, this year's blogathon. Then someone (Annie?) asked about it and the next thing we knew, Freelance Success decided to host it with a generous amount of backup support from Michelle Rafter.

And we're off. I, for one, was definitely missing the idea of it.

So here we are, I've barely blogged since the last blogathon, but I intend to try yet again to make this a better place to be, a better place to learn about food and just be inspired to eat well.

My goals are to blog daily. I hope to create a lot of new recipes for my readers. I will be sharing food photos, too, because it's yet another thing I do. And, perhaps, some food paintings (okay, definitely some food paintings! I've started doing watercolors in a big way...I do food best. Go figure.)
And my overarching goal is to have this momentum carry over into the rest of the year so I come here to blog.

I will add that in addition to this daily blogging, I have some other daily goals in my life. I've been trying to paint daily (mostly have succeeded, but this week have fallen woefully short), exercise an hour a day (yes, I blog that, too, but it's only an exercise log) AND I've been trying to learn french by doing one French lesson online daily at French, ETC. Of course this means I've given up about three hours of my day--well, maybe 2.5 hours--but that's okay, because I am pretty sure I was wasting that much time. Now I try not to waste time.

So welcome to my blogathon 2014. Eat well this month!

Baking Bread In Memory: David and Tea

I've lost these two in the past three years. Miss them both. Three years ago today, David died. So I  bake on May 20. Today, I might be on overload, making bread AND pizza. But it makes me happy and makes think of David. The spiral form (in the photo below) is one he used...the essay is one I wrote and read at his memorial service in September, 2011.

Before you go on and read below, do this--it is taken from something I wrote on May 31, 2011:

So today, please go open a bottle of wine you may have been saving for a special day. Pitch the sliced bread and either bake a loaf or go get REAL bread, good bread. Drizzle out a bit of really good olive oil, and savor it all with family and friends. Because today? Today is a special day. 

Remembering David

My little brother David died very suddenly this past May. He was 47.

David was a real intellectual. He had big ideas and frankly, I am sure I didn't always even understand what he was talking about, and we often butted heads over ideas and issues. But we did share one passion: cooking. Any heated debates were quickly forgotten at the dinner table when we--quite literally--broke bread. We would thoughtfully taste, chew and discuss the merits of the loaf at hand, no matter what we'd been arguing about during the day. 

David was a bread baker better than any of us, his recipes spreadsheets (formulas, really, weighing in humidity, type of wheat, etc.) that I didn't really understand. In fact, we found his spread sheets on bread and those are pages I will treasure always. Even if I can't bake from them.
Early in the year, in February, I got an email from David asking for savory chocolate recipes. He was on his way to a Slow Food dinner in Redlands, California, where he lived, and the theme was chocolate. He was determined to do something different. 

I had just written a short online piece about where to find great chocolate recipes and one website had stuck with me, a site with a lot of savory dishes. After we traded a few ideas talking about possibilities, he tweaked a recipe, making corn cakes topped with his own version of Mexican mole-style chicken and some cheese. 

His report back captures David's personality for those of us who knew him and still makes us chuckle, especially reading of his scorn for American cheese "food":
Topped a tablespoon of cornbread batter with a bigger spoon of the chicken mix.  Topped that with a modest amount of mozzarella cheese since I had some handy already shredded -- bad move; should have used the local Monterey jack I bought for the purpose, which is very tasty, or had I thought of it, better still would be supermarket-humble Havarti (which is a great American cheese, IMO, if inexpensive and widely available...at least it's cheese compared to prevalent and therefore so-called American "pasteurized-process cheese food").  15 minutes in the oven and they were done.

He signed off "mangia, mangia."

Three months after those emails, I found myself in his house, my first time in Redlands, but he wasn't there. His death was heartbreakingly sudden and being there was unspeakably sad and difficult.

We spent a week at his house, cleaning it out, preparing details of the memorial we would hold, sometimes finding laughter in our memories, admiring his garden full of wildflowers, touching pots and pans he touched, always aching for his presence.

One day I peered into the freezer and found a batch of little corn cakes, wrapped in foil and plastic, perhaps a little freezer burned. I knew exactly what they were. I pulled them out, heated them up and had a couple for lunch one day, remembering the process, remembering David, and happy to taste, one last time, one of his creations.

Repost: Lobster Bisque

I should have posted this on Superbowl Sunday...this was a good one--I made lobster bisque with spiny lobsters (warm water lobsters caught by my host that morning, most likely)...but I still love my Maine lobsters for the bisque...But this version was pretty awesome...

This was January, 2009...

Lobster Bisque (or: I Like My Friends)

Go Steelers...oh, this is about food, isn't it? Well, as we were wondering where we should watch the game, G was thinking a bar with a big crowd, I was thinking my couch with a big TV in front of me...a text came through from the T household: Super Bowl, their place, did we want to join them and another couple or two?

Of course we do. This is an event, after all.

Then comes the next text:
Can you make lobster bisque.

Yeeessss, I think, wondering if he is going to make fun of me for something or if he really wants to know...Yes, I text back.

DT: I have 4 (Florida lobster) tails. Can you make it for the game?

Oh, is THAT all? So K comes over with six tails (even better), luckily still in the shell--and I head out for ingredients. That's how I spent my Saturday evening. Well, that and cleaning, as you will see if you read on.

My go-to is Best Soups and Stews from the publishers of Cook's Illustrated...looks delish. And it IS delicious...but man, what a lot of steps.

And you know the part where they want you to process the shells into a paste? Imagine the lid of the processor getting knocked off by those hard shells and lobster schmutz flying All. Over. The. Place. I need to shower before bed tonight. I was wiping down walls for about 20 minutes.

Those shells went into the stock WHOLE.

Maybe the flavor is more intense with the paste, but this will have to do. Bourbon instead of brandy, too, because I am a Kentucky girl at heart..(oh, that and the fact that there was no brandy in the cupboard).

In the meantime, the tool toll: one stockpot, a cast iron skillet, a small bowl, a large bowl, a second stockpot, kitchen shears, a veg cutting board, a fish cutting board, a large measuring cup, a ladle, a fine mesh strainer, one large chef's knife, one pair spring-loaded tongs, the food processor (and a sponge to wipe down the walls after my topless accident) and a spatula. Oh, my shirt. My hair...I hope crunched up lobster shells don't hurt dogs too much, too.

Everyone had better LOVE this soup.

This, some empanadas and cookies for dessert? Nice start to a Super Bowl meal.

Here is the host enjoying the fruits of my labor/his inspired idea. He looks happy to me...

Go Steelers. (Later that night: Way to go, Steelers...Best. Game. Ever.)

Best Fish Tacos. Ever.

Oof.
Poor Babette Feasts!! It's not as if I haven't been EATING. I just haven't been writing about eating. Or cooking, for that matter..
But I have to tell you about the fish tacos I got to eat on Los Cerritos beach in Cabo--I can describe them as the best fish tacos I've ever had and the simplest fish tacos I may have ever had, too--

My friend MJ invited me to be her guest on a work trip--who could say no to that? So off I flew to fall in love with Cabo San Jose and Los Cerritos and Todos Santos, an artsy little town up the Pacific coast from Cabo San Lucas (where I did NOT really do anything but pass through)...We took a jeep tour with our buddy Marco (from High Tide Adventures--highly recommend), broke down, UN-broke down, drove to  beautiful Todos Santos (where Hotel California is...they say where THE Hotel Califonia is!!) then he drove us back towards this beautiful, world-renowned surf beach called Los Cerritos to Los Cerritos Beach Club,

 where we had these fish tacos while watching the surfers...

The tortillas were freshly made, each having a bit of char on them from the griddle where they'd been cooked. Then each was filled with fat chunks of fresh white fish (wahoo? grouper? I don't know. It didn't matter...it was awesome)...add a scoop of chunky guacamole and a scoop of fresh pico de gallo--we sat in the shade of an umbrella eating fish tacos and watched the surfers and watched the waves crash onto sand that is black and flecked with gold sparkles.

MJ Agrees: Best Fish Tacos Ever.

Best. Fish. Tacos. Ever.

Brown Butter Shortbread

Sooooo. Not a lot of baking this Christmas. I made Martha Stewart's shortbread (awesome recipe, Ms. Martha), but most of that went to school for friends and teachers...(I was SURE there would be some left...). So when I decided I really wanted to bake something for keepers, I made Brown Butter Shortbread. This is so good. Between the browned butter and the brown sugar, there's nothing not to love about this. It is simple and one step above...

Christmas Light Show!

Merry Christmas...
MVI 0164 from Barb Freda on Vimeo.