Happy Halloween!

It's not midnight yet, so I got this one posted in time!

Happy Halloween, Gentle Reader! If you're not bouncing off the walls from a sugar high or drunk off your ass, take a few moments to enjoy some images from Halloween 2009 at Chez Boeckman-Walker.

This year, the boy had not one, not two but three costumes. Here's the latest custom costume, courtesy Mum. The boy has a...frightening attachment to Anakin Skywalker and won't be persuaded away with it, no matter how many times his father and I remind him that Anakin's a real jerk and then becomes Darth Vader, who's really a jerk. Ah well.

Here the boy attempts to do his "angry Anakin" impression. Umm, okay. (Check out the "authentic" Jedi padawan rat tail--er, braid. The husband found it while cleaning out the Star Wars closet this summer, knowing it'd be right up the boy's alley come Halloween.)

I don't think Anakin was ever this smirky. But the boy is. The boy could have been the smirkiest Jedi ever. If, y'know, Jedi were real.

The boys once again carved pumpkins. Let me assure you, Gentle Reader, great thought and planning went into choosing a design for them. The boy, in fact, drew up several ideas at the end of September, when we acquired our gourds.

Perhaps that's why the boy was so...anxious about Daddy getting things just right.

In the end, the husband thought the duo sort of looked like Waldorf and Statler.

What do you think?

While the boys wielded knives, I wielded butter cream frosting and cakes made of swirled-together orange-colored and cocoa batter.

I was inspired to do this little bit of butter cream artistry by my dear friend and the world's greatest Spin instructor, who now is my dear friend, the world's greatest Spin instructor and entrepreneur. She's launched her own cupcake and doggie treat business, Sweet Treets (Web site forthcoming). Since we've swapped goodies over the years and the husband put together her logo, my dear friend shared some very yummy treats with us, and they put my own frosting work to shame:

Check out the logo!

For as much fun as we always have come trick-or-treat time, Halloween 2009 started with a pleasant surprise.

Calli has found her way home!

First Rory P. Calhoun and Keeko showed up on our kitchen porch on the first cool morning of the fall, and I can so count on them showing up anything the overnight temperature dips below 65 degrees that I've now set out three bowls so the boys and Momma don't fight. Now with Calli's return, I'll have to scrounge up a fourth bowl.

Momma needs to do a better job of finding homes for her offspring, methinks.

Well, check back tomorrow for pictures of the human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker in their trick-or-treating attire. That is, if you're not in a sugar-overload diabetic coma, Gentle Reader.

Happy Halloween!

A Busy Week for the Boy = A Busy Week for the Faudie

Yes, Gentle Reader, I realize it's been a while since I posted, but that's life. A very busy life, in fact, and time's a' flyin'. Just a moment ago, we were barely into October and now Halloween's a week away. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, for you know what a Halloween lover I am. Time only flies when every moment of every day has been spoken for.

This blink-of-an-eye week focused a lot on the boy. He was on school holiday Monday and cheerfully--yes, Gentle Reader, cheerfully--helped me clean the house. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have a kiddo who's thrilled by the idea of cleaning and who's keen to learn another chore. I taught him how to scrub sinks, bathtubs and bathtub walls. He had a ball. I have one less backache-inducing chore to do!

The Littlest Faudie
Tuesday and Wednesday are a blur, but Thursday proved to be quite memorable. After wrapping up his homework, the boy cheerfully helped me not only make him a loaf of bread for his lunch sandwiches, but he was very eager to try a new recipe--one of his choosing. After passing over some options I thought surely would appeal to him, he settled on one from Rathmell German's The Bread Machine Cookbook that let him do a lot of the measuring and let his 'ol mom do a little bit of experimenting.

Wheat Flake Bread3/4 C water
1 T butter
2 t brown sugar
1/4 t salt
1/3 C rolled wheat flakes
2/3 C whole wheat flour
1 C bread flour
2 t vital gluten (optional)
1 1/2 t yeast

1. Add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Wheat or Basic cycle on the machine.
   
3. If available, select the crust color.
   
4. Press Start.

Yield: One one-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
I guess I should write Donna Rathmell German and request she revise and update her books into one handy volume that includes nutritional info. Of course, having all the recipes in one book might make some of them--maybe a lot of them--seem superfluous.

The Faudie's Futzings
Well, Gentle Reader, I finally did it: I used an artificial sweetener in a loaf of bread. It was....

Okay, it wasn't really anything. I wasn't racked with anxiety about the result, nor was I exhilarated by doing the deed at long last. But I wasn't disappointed either. I guess...well, I guess I really had no expectations. How very Buddhist of me.

"So what the hell is she talking about?" you ask, Gentle Reader? Allow me to satisfy your curiosity. In lieu of two teaspoons of brown sugar, I used one teaspoon of Splenda brown sugar blend. Okay, yes, I admit that the product isn't solely composed of the artificial sweetener: It does have some real brown sugar in it. But I've yet to find (and, truthfully, search for) information about how artificial sweeteners impact the action of yeast in bread-making, so perhaps using the Splenda brown sugar blend was a baby step in doing my own research and reaching my own conclusions.

The use of the artificial sweetener blend might be the reason why the loaf deflated slightly about 15 minutes before the baking cycle started. Before then, it had risen with a peak almost level with the top of the pan. Given the heft of the rolled wheat flakes, that's some fairly impressive rising--or at least it is to me. Maybe my expectations for the height to which bread can climb are too low.

When the husband and I cut off one end to sample the loaf, which had finished baking long after the boy's bedtime, we found it had the slightly nutty taste we've come to expect from whole wheat flour-containing baked goods. The presence of the wheat flakes added extra chewiness, and the husband put a dollop of crunchy peanut butter atop his morsel of crust and declared this bread was just the thing he'd been searching for to pair with said crunchy peanut butter.

I'm not sure if the artificial sweetener had a hand in this or not, but the entire crust was very light, crisp and melodious. "Melodious?" you ask incredulously, Gentle Reader? Yes, melodious--for lack of a better term. It's said that bakers in France know a good loaf from a bum loaf by the sound it makes when rubbed against another loaf. The sound I imagine a good loaf makes when rubbed against another is the sound the boy's loaf made when I lightly brushed my knuckles over it, back and forth and back and forth. Ahh, that's music to a carb lover's ears!

Strangely, the boy wasn't interested in trying his loaf at breakfast the following morning. Instead, he informed me, "I want it to be a surprise at lunch." Such an idea held little appeal to me since I knew the boy'd go hungry if he took a few bites and decided he didn't like the bread. Fortunately, that didn't happen. As he unpacked his lunchbox Friday, the boy happily reported he found the bread very tasty.

What? No 30-minute Delivery Guarantee?
Not only did the boy get to choose his own bread recipe Thursday, he had another special treat in store for that afternoon.

Unbeknownst to him but beknownst to me, my elder sister had sent the boy a Chicago-style pizza from her favorite pizza place as a reward for his stellar first report card. We'd thought it was to arrive Wednesday, which has now become Pizza Night--but that didn't happen because I didn't look at the delivery confirmation information closely enough. So I spent the better part of Thursday hovering near and listening for the doorbell that works only when it wants to, for I didn't want to the UPS dude to leave a pizza packed in dry ice just sitting on my doorstep.

I waited and waited. I picked up the boy from school and waited and waited.

The husband arrived home from the office, and I scooted off to take the bike ride I'd had to delay earlier because of the torrential rain.

Naturally, 10 minutes after I pedaled off, the box arrived.

I came home to the mouth-watering aroma of baking Chicago-style pizza. While the husband has had some snatched-from-the-jaws-of-defeat successes with making his own Chicago-style pizza, there was something a little different about one direct from Chicago baking happily in Lumpy.

Perhaps it was the presence of real pepperoni, not turkey pepperoni. Maybe it was the real cheese, not the fat-free stuff that's more chemical than dairy. Maybe it was the mounds of chunky tomato sauce, not the thin stuff we make here at Chez Boeckman-Walker. Whatever it was, that pizza was damn good.
And there's nothing better than teaching the boy about the joys of real, stringy cheese.

Well, There Is a Novelization
While the bread machine was doing its thing late Thursday afternoon, I had one more task on hand before I could slip off to take that nice bike ride into a steady headwind: I had to transform a khaki jacket with chocolate corduroy-lined collar into a Rebel Alliance flak jacket.

While I do know how to sew--badly, I might add, I'm not a fan of whipping out the sewing machine. Even Mum admits the Singer model I have (a gift from her) isn't a great one, and I knew already the collar was far too thick to be sewn as I needed using any of the sewing machine needles I had on hand. That's why I picked up some iron-on no-sew double-sided adhesive ribbon at Wally World earlier that day.

While I have an inner Martha Stewart when it comes to things culinary, I have no inner Martha Stewart when it comes to couture things. That's why I assumed going in that I'd royally fuck up, leaving the boy with a crudely altered jacket to wear to school on the one day he and his classmates were allowed to come dressed as a favorite literary character. (Like the header says, Empire Strikes Back has a novelization, so Bespin Luke is technically a literary character.)

But to my amazement, that didn't happen. The collar tucked down just the way I wanted and stayed in place just the way I wanted with the iron-on adhesive tape. The points of the collar folded in and stayed in place just the way I wanted. The boy ended up with a nice Mandarin collar, even if it wasn't the color of the collar on Luke's jacket.

Paired with yet another pair of little girl's boots I scored him from eBay and the belt we bought him last year for his Jedi costume, the boy made for a pretty respectable Bespin Luke when he trotted off to school Friday morning.

Okay, It's Not Exactly Indian

With Diwali happening this weekend--or at least on Saturday, according to my Hindu art calendar), I wanted to do something appropriate to celebrate, not just with the fam but also with my ever-dwindling number of students in my noon yoga class in South Austin. Mind you, Gentle Reader, I can't exactly bring curry, rice and naan to a yoga class, but I was inspired by the weekly dispatch I received from Indian cooking maven Tarla Dalal to make some sweets to share.

If I'd had time and courage, I would have tried a traditional Indian sweet. The FSM knows I've got recipes for various burfis and halvas out the wazoo in my ever-growing collection of Indian cookbooks. But when you're cooking for folks you only have a casual acquaintance with, you don't want to hit them with something that for them is probably really exotic and maybe even off-putting. So out went the idea, however fanciful it was, to make burfi. Instead, I whipped up a batch of molasses-spice crackles, another recipe I'd been eyeballing for a while, with the boy's help.

And with a wee bit of help from the boy, the more than 40 cookies we made were gone within two hours of their coming out of the oven. For that reason, Gentle Reader, I have no pictures of the savory and sweet treats to share with you. Fear not, though, for the boy has made me promise I'll make him another batch soon, so stay tuned for more on this topic.

In case you're wondering, I did have 20 cookies left come Saturday, so I took them to class. The gym was a ghost town since the Red River Rivalry started at 11 a.m., which means I had just 10 students. They were all very grateful for the treats and raved about them. Success!

Tomatoes A'Plenty
As for our Diwali celebration at home, it somewhat mirrored my attempt to share the celebration with my students. For you see, Gentle Reader, the husband and I had identified earlier in the week a Moroccan recipe from Ziryab: Authentic Arab Cuisine by Farouk Mardam-Bey that we thought held much promise of tastiness that the boy wouldn't overly object to being served. Come Saturday, the choice was either to make this recipe or have pork chops, which I'd picked up on sale Friday at HEB.

Yes, Gentle Reader, pork chops aren't exactly a great fit for Diwali, but they're even less appropriate than a dish from Morocco. Okay, yeah, there's vindaloo, which came to India from Portugal and is traditionally made with pork, but for all the Indian food I've eaten, I've yet to have vindaloo (my loss, I know) and highly doubt pork chop meat would be great for a vindaloo recipe. The dish from Morocco, in my mind, was far more appropriate since Arab cuisine was brought to India by various invaders and traders (although I think the Portuguese brought tomatoes to India) and incorporated into that deliciously varied landscape that is Indian cuisine.

Djej b-matisha
or
Chicken With Caramelized Tomatoes4.5 lb. very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 large chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1 chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, chopped
8 T butter
3 T honey
1 C water
1 C toasted blanched almonds
1 T toasted sesame seeds
1/2 t pepper
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t saffron
1 t cinnamon powder
Salt

1. In a heavy pot, place the chicken, tomatoes, butter, onions, garlic, salt, pepper, ginger, saffron and water, then cook over medium heat for 45 minutes.
   
2. Remove the pieces of chicken from the pot as soon as they are cooked.
   
3. Caramelize the tomatoes by stirring them frequently, and then add the honey and cinnamon, still stirring.
   
4. Place the chicken back in the pot for a few minutes to give it the flavor of the sauce.
   
5. Arrange the chicken in an attractive serving dish, pour the sauce over it and top with toasted almonds and sesame seeds.

Yield: 4 servings

Nutritional Info
Mardam-Bey does not provide nutritional information for the recipes in his book. That's probably a good thing because, well, do you really think 8 tablespoons of butter makes for a low-fat dish, Gentle Reader?

The Faudie's Futzings
If you think, Gentle Reader, that I probably did something about those 8 tablespoons of butter, you're right. But I'll get to that in a moment. First, I want to talk to you about tomatoes.

When I was growing up, my dad always had tomato plants in the garden. He loves tomatoes. I think Mum liked them too, but now her GERD has made them verboten to her. Anywho, the most my parents ever did with the tomatoes we grew was to wash them and slice them for salads or sandwiches. I suppose that if I enjoyed raw tomatoes I would have a better memory of what happened to our crops, but I don't enjoy raw tomatoes. Cook the suckers!

Because of my less-than-intimate relationship with raw tomatoes, I tend not to buy fresh ones for various recipes. Yes, Gentle Reader, I'm a lazy cook: I buy canned ones. But as Cook's Illustrated has noticed in some taste testings at its kitchens, canned tomatoes are more likely to have actual tomato flavor (the result of additives, no doubt) because the mass-produced fresh tomatoes available at your local grocery store are sort of like iceberg lettuce: no flavor whatsoever. It's been bred right out of them for the sake of size and speed. Why do you think heirloom tomatoes are all the rage?

Sorry, I digress. As I prepared to make these caramelized tomatoes, I was unsure what canned tomato product I should use. Did I use whole, peeled Romas? Could I use no-salt-added diced ones, but wouldn't those pieces still have their skin and also entail draining them? Would crushed tomatoes be to obliterated to properly caramelize? You can undoubtedly surmise, Gentle Reader, that I was in quite a pickle over the tomatoes. I wanted the right texture for the toms and didn't want to jeopardize the caramelization by having too much liquid involved.

In my indecision, I made a bold move: I bought fresh tomatoes. Big suckers too that were sure to have no flavor. And, as I learned as I tried to seed the damn things per the instructions I found in The Best Kitchen Quick Tips, the suckers weren't "very ripe" as specified by the recipe. By the time I was finished coring, peeling and seeding them, I had a big pile of juicy red guts on my cutting board. So much for trying to keep the liquid in check!

By the way, Gentle Reader, if you've never peeled a tomato, you have to try it. And I thought peeling roasted bell peppers was a hoot! There's something rather enjoyable about boiling a tomato for less than a minute, then dunking it in icy water then tearing away its flesh as easily as one might peel a sticker off a slick sheet.

Fun fun fun!

While I'll admit that I didn't exactly futz with the tomatoes, I did make a few changes to the recipe:

• Forget the whole chicken. I thawed two giant chicken breasts (again with the modern production techniques breeding out flavor in favor of size and speed) and cut them into smaller pieces so they'd cook faster. All that fuss with the tomatoes took up a lot of time, and the boy was getting crankier and crankier as he grew hungrier and hungrier, so this momma was in a race against the clock to get supper on the table.
  
• Forget the 8 tablespoons of butter. I poured in maybe 2 teaspoons of olive oil, heated it, browned the onions, then the garlic (minced from a jar) then put in the chicken, tomatoes, spices and water.
  
• Speaking of those spices, I inadvertently added the cinnamon at the wrong time. In my efforts to achieve mise en place while the tomatoes boiled, I combined the teaspoon of cinnamon in the little pinch bowl along with the saffron, pepper and ginger. Once the onions and garlic were browned and the chicken and chopped tomatoes were in the pot, I dumped the pinch bowl's contents into the pot and stirred. Only when I doublechecked the recipe to determine if the contents needed to cook covered or uncovered did I discover the cinnamon was to go in later. Oh well!
  
• I didn't use the almonds or the sesame seeds. I was so kerfluffled over the tomato fiasco that I just wanted to get the food on the table and totally forgot about the garnish.

Caramelization is a curiosity to me, Gentle Reader, because I only have a vague notion of what the end product of such a process should be. I believe that caramelization is simply heating a food hot enough and long enough so the natural sugars within it undergo some kind of chemical change. Yes, I suppose I could look it up somewhere (I understand there's this online encyclopedia thing that anyone can contribute any information about any topic to called Wikipedia....), but sometimes I prefer to live with my ignorance: It saves me from feeling like a total jackass in my own kitchen.

Whether or not I achieved caramelization with my tomatoes is unknown. The husband set to stirring the pot after I'd removed the cooked chicken, and I checked it every now and then to see how much the liquid had reduced (I was busy making strawberry fluff for dessert later--another far-fetched food for an Indian celebration). I'm not sure how long he stirred, but at some point I decided the stuff in the pot had reduced and thickened enough to add the honey, then I took over stirring until I figured the sauce was finished. Why did I do this? Haven't a bloody clue, Gentle Reader. Perhaps I too was out of my mind with hunger.

Despite the tomato fiasco and the half-assed preparation, the finished dish was incredibly flavorful. Adding the cinnamon when I did allowed the chicken to absorb even more of that sweetness. Happily, the saffron didn't get lost in the sweetness of the cinnamon and the honey and the caramelization, and it served as a delightful counterpoint. Served atop Basmati rice, it was rendered a curry--and while curry really isn't native to India in the grand scheme of things, what's more quintessentially Indian than a curry?

Next time, though, I'm going with diced tomatoes from a can.

Nuts and Gum

In "Lisa vs Malibu Stacy," one of the last great episodes of The Simpsons, Homer trots into the kitchen, makes some comment about being in the golden demographic of males ages 18 to 35 whose every whim and desire was met by manufacturers worldwide. He then pulls out a cannister of nuts and gum--"Two great tastes finally together!" or something like that.

Yeah, we all know that bringing together two great tastes into one product is always a smashing success. Here's a fine example of this principle:

German French Toast

Yes, that's right, Gentle Reader--it's an irresistible combination of French toast and muenster cheese. As the person (afflicted with a strange disorder that rendered his or her taste buds dead) who submitted this recipe and photo to AllRecipes.com noted, "I know it sounds weird, but you have to taste it!"

Umm, yeah, that'll draw people in for sure.

But here are two great tastes that I can say from experience do go well together: cinnamon and orange. If you don't know this already for yourself, Gentle Reader, bake this bread and discover for yourself!

Whole Grain Orange Cinnamon Bread1 C orange juice
2 T vegetable oil
2 T honey
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 1/2 t orange zest
1/3 C old-fashioned oats
1/3 C whole wheat flour
1/3 C rye flour
2 C bread flour
1/3 T vital gluten
2 t yeast

1. Add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Raisin, Wheat, Sweet or Basic cycle on the machine.
   
3. If available, select the crust color.
   
4. Press Start.

Yield: 1 one-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
I have nothing to say here.

The Faudie's Futzings
The loaf of bread, Gentle Reader, represents a first: I truly futzed with a bread recipe. Well, I should make that "recipes" since the above is the combination of two entries from Donna Rathmell German's The Bread Machine Cookbook and The Bread Machine Cookbook II for an orange cinnamon loaf and a whole-grain orange loaf, respectively. I at last felt ready to do some mixing and matching, and the result was a towering success...

...literally.

Not only did I get what's probably the tallest loaf produced here at Chez Boeckman-Walker, but I also got a kitchen filled with the mouth-watering aroma of orange and cinnamon that lingered long after the bread had baked. What's even better is that those two flavors have stayed in the bread long after it was baked: That's not something I've been able to achieve, particularly with orange flavor, before in baked goods. Then again, using both a full cup of orange juice and a teaspoon and a half of freshly grated orange zest should infuse the bread with longer-lasting orange flavor.

While the orange flavor was full-bodied, it didn't overpower the cinnamon. Unlike the cinnamon-raisin loaf we made early on in our bread-making misadventures, the cinnamon flavor stuck around in the finished product and was balanced with the orange.

The combination of grains, particularly the rye and oats, helps elevate this loaf beyond just an orange- and cinnamon-flavored white bread. All those grains don't make the bread dense. In fact, it's actually pretty light.

Now, let's all forget our troubles with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream!

Food for Thought

A week or so ago, Condé Nast announced Gourmet was dead--or at least would breathe its last with its November issue. The news was a surprise to everyone, from its editor-in-chief to little 'ol me, who'd received the mag for two nonsuccessive years as gifts. For all those issues I received, I made one or two recipes. I read maybe half a dozen articles. I kept none of the issues.

Yep, I guess I helped kill the magazine. Not just because I wasn't one of those food enthusiasts who lived and breathed by the publication, but because I'm part of the food blogging movement that some folks claim drove some of the nails in Gourmet's coffin. I'd beg to differ on that second point because I hard ascribe to capture the...cultured, sophisticated, très chic, trop cher aura of food and dining that Gourmet seemed to proffer (at least to me and some other readers and browsers).

My dear Christopher Kimball chimed in on Gourmet's demise in the op-ed pages of The New York Times (lucky him). He too comments on the role (or alleged role) of food bloggers in this murder, but he also has some very astute things to say about how the Internet has given a ready platform for any idiot (that's me!) who things she or he has something to say, with the quality of the content not even considered.

Sorry, that's a bad summary. I'll let my dear Christopher Kimball speak for himself:

The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up. They can no longer be coronated; their voices have to be deemed essential to the lives of their customers. That leaves, I think, little room for the thoughtful, considered editorial with which Gourmet delighted its readers for almost seven decades.

To survive, those of us who believe that inexperience rarely leads to wisdom need to swim against the tide, better define our brands, prove our worth, ask to be paid for what we do, and refuse to climb aboard this ship of fools, the one where everyone has an equal voice. Google 'broccoli casserole' and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise--the kind that comes from real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind. I like my reporters, my pilots, my pundits, my doctors, my teachers and my cooking instructors to have graduated from the school of hard knocks.

I'd like to think, Gentle Reader, that my culinary misadventures allow me to gain that 'thoughtful expertise' of which he speaks. I'd like to think that by sharing those misadventures with you, I might be inspiring you to think about the way you eat, the way you prepare food (or don't), those experiences that shaped your attitudes about food and its preparation and about how you can royally screw something simple up. Am I doing that? Hell if I know. And to be truthful with you, I don't really care. By writing about my misadventures, I have the opportunity to reflect on the successes, the unmitigated disasters and let those lessons sink in so that the next time I step foot into my kitchen, I'm a little bit more sure of what I'm doing, I'm improving.

Gourmet, I suppose, presented the mastery that comes after many a culinary misadventure. Of course, that mastery also had the good fortune to have at its disposal some very high-end equipment and ingredients--things I'll never have in this lifetime. Just like that mastery.

Ahh well. Good thing I believe in reincarnation.

Happy Diwali, everyone!

Bully for Me!

So this morning I received an email from the organizers of last Sunday's Run Austin Run event. It attempted to be a mea culpa, but really it shifted the blame to a lot of locals. Here, Gentle Reader, read for yourself:

Thank you for your participation in the inaugural Run Austin Run Half Marathon, 5k, 10k. We would like to apologize for the lack of organization in a number of aspects of this race. And, we truly appreciate and understand the feedback we have received from many of the participants.

Our 'Come for the race, Stay for the party' has worked for us in every other city/state where we have put on an event...from rain in Portland to serious heat in California. But, our food sponsors in those destinations have also performed by having plentiful quantities of food that lasted until the end of the race, so that racers have stayed for the party. In fact, we typically have food left over at the end of each event that we take to the local food banks, churches, fire stations, and even give out to the local people who are picnicking in the nearby areas. This, obviously, was not the case in Austin. As the rain came down, our sponsors and vendors chose to pack up and leave. This was not our plan. We thought it would be best to support the local food vendors and companies in the Austin area but have learned this will need to be done with due diligence in the future, to ensure our expectations are understood and met.

On a positive note regarding food, we were happy to donate over two thousand pounds of food and generate great feedback from the Capital Area Food Bank about the services we have provided for the hungry in the Austin area. This will be a continued nonprofit effort for USA Productions in every city we hold our events throughout the country.

With regards to the services on the course, there seemed to be an unfortunate lack of commitment with some of the volunteer groups we signed up in Austin. Perhaps it was the bad weather but over half of the volunteers that committed to support this race did not show up as assigned. This tremendously affected the support for registration and packet pickup, water station staffing and setup of GU products at each water stop location, course marshals and finish line reception. Volunteer fall out does occur from time to time but having only half show up had a huge impact on staffing the course. National, our porto-toilet supplier did apologize for not dropping the toilets in the correct locations as well as leaving two behind at the venue. Again, this is follow through on our part that we take full responsibility for.

We have ordered additional quantities of medals and t-shirts and they will be shipped within the next 14 days to all that didn't receive a medal at the finish of the half marathon or didn't get a shirt at registration and packet pickup.

Some of our sponsors that did stay around for the brief after party were well received by participants looking for post race massage and sports therapy; thank you Austin Sports Therapy and Triangle Chiropractic for your great support for the Run Austin Run.

We hope this message has addressed the majority of concerns. Again, thank you for your emails and feedback. This event was very difficult to plan and bring to fruition for many reasons. We respect and appreciate your expectations and are sorry they were not met. We look forward to future success in Austin as well as at our locations across the nation next year.

Considering the "bad weather" didn't roll in until about two hours after the event started and the packet pick-up day was fine, I don't exactly think that drove half the volunteers away. Ah well, believe what you will.

The email did come with a link to the official results...and I did fairly well. I placed 176th overall--bully for me!--and ninth overall in my class (women ages 30 to 34). And if you need a laugh, check out the official photos of me. Gads, I look like a total twit when I run.

Homecoming

Fortunately, this homecoming has nothing whatsoever to do with getting mummed.

She looks thrilled to have been mummed, don't she?

No, this homecoming did not involve spending an ungodly amount of money on a tacky collection of cheap ribbon, silk floral, plastic gee-gaws, glitter and a hell of a lot of hot glue. The cost involved was very minor, and it came as quite a surprise on a chilly morning.

Look who made their way home!

If you're having a hard time discerning what's in that photograph--which would not be surprising, given that photographing anything through our filthy kitchen doors is impossible, especially at the butt-crack of dawn--shown above, the gray blurs are, respectively, Keeko (aka Tweedle Dee), Momma and Rory Calhoun (aka Tweedle Do).

That's right, Gentle Reader. Two of Momma's three kittens have found their way home after she took pains, I'm sure, to lead them away to new homes where they could freeload off another fam--er, I mean, fend for themselves. No sign of Calli, but that's not surprising. The Tweedle twins were the ones who stuck to Momma like glue, and since I believe they're both boys, it kind of makes sense that they'd find their way back to the place where they could always count on a meal.

Gads, I'm such a sap for cats. Because you know already, Gentle Reader, that I gushed with joy when I spied them out the window. And I rushed to put out more food for them--because Momma was not happy that some of her brood were back and now threatening to diminish the booty she guilts out of me every morning and every evening.

With the weather turning cooler and damp, it is nice to have a reminder of the warmer (not the blazing hot) days of the summer that just passed. Plus it's nice to see the kids all grown up, although they do still have a lot of their kitteny skittishness and catlet independence streak. I do wonder if Momma will try to ditch--er, lead them away again to new homes, or will she just hiss and spit and spat at 'em until they get the hint and go away.

Ehh, they're male. They won't get the hint.

To Burn Nervous Energy, Visit Morocco

As has happened the previous times I've taken part in a race event, I had a lot of nervous energy leading up to the Run Austin Run half-marathon. It started coming on midway through Thursday then really kicked in Friday. So what's a Faudie to do with a lot of nervous energy?

She retreats to her kitchen and gets busy.

The mindless, straightforward, methodical actions of gathering ingredients, chopping and prepping ingredients, measuring and combining ingredients is all very soothing for this restless soul, Gentle Reader. When I'm especially agitated, I like to channel that excess energy into preparing new recipes. Since the weather leading up to the race was rainy and chilly, preparing some warm, comforting dish or other seemed like an ideal solution to my problem. And coming on the heels of the tasty Ethiopian honey bread and the much earlier African chicken, this recipe seemed tailor-made for a restless, rainy Friday.

Moroccan Vegetable Stew2 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed with the side of a knife
1 t ground coriander
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t cayenne
1/4 t ground cinnamon
5 C vegetable or chicken broth
4 carrots (12 oz. total), peeled and cut into 1/2" lengths
2 1/2 C diced peeled eggplant
2 1/2 C sliced zucchini, 1/2" thick
2 C cauliflower florets
1 C diced onion (about 5 oz.)
2 14.5-oz. cans stewed tomatoes
15 oz. garbanzos, drained and rinsed
3/4 C dried currants
1 C chopped toasted almonds
1/2 T kosher salt

1. Pour the olive oil into a small frying pan over medium-low heat.
   
2. Add the garlic and spices and cook, stirring often, until fragrant (1-2 min.), being careful not to scorch the garlic.
   
3. Scrape the mixture into a slow cooker that holds at least 5 quarts.
   
4. Add the broth, carrots, eggplant, zucchini, cauliflower, onion, stewed tomatoes (with juices), garbanzos, currants, almonds and salt into the slow cooker, stirring to combine.
   
5. Cover the slow cooker and cook on high until the vegetables are tender and the flavors are blended (8-9 hrs.).
   
6. Ladle about 3 cups of the stew into a blender.
   
7. Holding the lid down with a towel and taking care to avoid steam, blend the stew until smooth.
   
8. Return the purée to the slow cooker, then stir to blend.

Yield: 12 cups for 6 to 8 servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 292
Protein: 10 g
Fat: 14 g
Sat fat: 1.4 g
Carbs: 36 g
Fiber: 8 g
Sodium: 741 mg
Cholesterol: 2.3 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I don't think I've shared this information, but I haven't been able to sell plasma for about a month now because my protein levels are too low. That deficiency is not because I don't eat enough protein. Instead, the issue is a result of my...full schedule of exercise. I work hard, I burn a lot of protein and when I go in for the tests to measure the protein level, I typically have come from a workout. So, well, yeah, I suppose I'm not eating enough protein then.

In the hopes of getting back to selling plasma, I decided to add some meat to this stew, specifically chicken breast meat. With that addition, not only could I introduce some extra protein to the dish but also increase the likelihood that the boys would enjoy the stew. To even further increase the likelihood that the boys would enjoy the stew, I opted not to go out and acquire an eggplant to peel and dice or cauliflower, fresh or frozen, to put into the mix. Ahh well, maybe next time.

While on the topic of veggies, I must say I would have loved to have included zucchini in the stew. But I couldn't. Fresh zuccs are a bit too expensive, I didn't want to use the one bag of frozen stuff Mum gave me for fear the stew turned out to be a bust, which means I would have wasted that last back--plus the boys won't touch the stuff. But given how much I'd already accommodated the human male residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker, I tossed in not one but two bags of chopped yellow squash. Take that, XY carriers!

Here are my other, minor futzes:

• I used minced garlic instead of buying a head to get those whole cloves.
  
• I used raisins instead of currants.
  
• I didn't include any almonds.
  
• The stew wasn't in the slow cooker for eight or nine hours. I think it was in the works maybe four hours. I was concerned initially that the slow cooker would heat the stew hot enough to cook the cubed chicken breast, but it did. And the carrots were just the right tenderness for the husband--not mushy but not too crisp.

Much like the Persian cuisine we've come to love from Alborz, this stew had a bit of heat to it, but that heat was tempered well with the sweetness of the coriander and cinnamon. Those raisins, by the way, absorbed the cinnamon-coriander sweetness after stewing in the slow cooker for four or five hours, just as the golden raisins and dates do when I make Moroccan tagine.

Just a tip, Gentle Reader, if you're concerned about the rather high sodium content of the dish: Use low-sodium broth. This recipe appeared in Sunset, which isn't exactly concerned about the healthful nutrition content of its recipes. Using no-salt-added stewed tomatoes and using maybe half a teaspoon to a full teaspoon of kosher salt, as I did, can also reduce the sodium content.

Soup Needs Crackers
I've noted before, Gentle Reader, that I have this innate need to pair soups and stews with some kind of crisp carb. But what goes good with a Moroccan stew?

Why, Moroccan bread, obviously!

Moroccan Anise Bread3/4 C water
3 T margarine or butter
3 T sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t anise seeds
2 C bread flour
1 1/2 t yeast

1. Add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Sweet or Basic cycle on the machine.
   
3. If available, select the crust color.
   
4. Press Start.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
The recipe's from Donna Rathmell German's Bread Machine Cookbook II. I cannot give what I do not have.

The Faudie's Futzings
Don't you hate it, Gentle Reader, when you get really excited to make something new only to discover you don't have one ingredient? I do. That's why I try to keep stocked in a certain number of ingredients that have become staples for my culinary range of expertise. Anise seeds, though, aren't one of those staples.

Fortunately, I do have a small quantity of star anise, which feature somewhat prominently in rice pilaf recipes (most of which I've yet to make). Thanks to Cook's Thesaurus, I learned one crushed star anise is roughly equivalent to half a teaspoon of crushed anise seed. So out came my mortar and pestle and two star anise--just to be sure I had enough.
And yes, I had more than enough anise, albeit crushed, for the recipe from those two star anise.

Did you notice, Gentle Reader, how much sugar is in this loaf? Three tablespoons is a lot of sugar, and I was this close to substituting honey. But I didn't. And I'm glad because the finished loaf tastes wonderfully like King's Hawaiian bread, which I've loved since I was a kid. The anise and its licorice scent just made the loaf all that more heavenly. Trust me when I tell you I had a helluva time resisting the urge to gobble up what was left of the loaf after supper.

With the growing number of North African dishes I've been making and reading about of late, I've come to realize I just need to save my money so I can take a culinary tour of North Africa, the Middle East and India. Gads, wouldn't that be a truly tasty adventure!

I Made It Through the Rain....

Gotta love a good Barry Manilow tune, don't ya, Gentle Reader?
Well, it's all over but the screaming in DOMS agony. My first competitive half-marathon is but a memory, and...well, I finished on my feet. Despite the 15-minute late start and the piss-poor organization at the starting gate. Despite the chill that set in about 30 minutes after we finally got to start. Despite the course planned by a damned sadist so it had more hills and long climbs than flats and declines.

And despite the sprinkles that started around mile 9 that became an all-out downpour come mile 12.

"Come for the run, stay for the party" my soaking wet ass! The runner's village that was advertised as offering a postrace feast was a ghost town by the time I came in, a little less than two hours as the air horn marked the start of the run. The husband told me even before the rain started, very few vendors were attempting to peddle their wares. So as soon as I chugged down a Myoplex, walked a while, then walked back to the finishing line because I forgot to turn in my timing chip when I first crossed it, the boys and I took the long walk to the car and hauled our drenched selves home. Once there, I took a long, hot shower, snuggled up in my thick, fuzzy red robe and crawled into bed.

Yep, I made it through the rain. My newish running shoes, the ones I've faithfully only worn while on the treadmill at the gym so they'd be in really good shape for their first road race, are soaked through and through, just like the rest of me was by the time it was over. Sure, I wish I could have done better, but I didn't stop to walk, I didn't keel over, I didn't hack up a lung. I wish I could have done better, yeah, but I'll take the average 7:57 minutes per mile my iPod/Nike + logged for me, all things considered. Now I just hope my iPod made it through the rain....

Pizza + Bread = Awesome

Here's the husband with another bread-making post.

--The Faudie

I've noticed that I tend to blog about three basic food groups: pizza, bread and dessert. So imagine how pleased I am that I can now feed two of these three cravings with one recipe from The Bread Machine Cookbook II:

Pepperoni Bread
1 C water
1 1/2 T olive oil
3/4 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t dried oregano
1/2 t garlic powder
1/2 t dried basil
1 C whole wheat flour
2 C bread flour
1 1/2 t yeast
3/4 C diced pepperoni

1. Place ingredients into bread machine in the order suggested by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Raisin, Sweet, Wheat or Basic option on the machine, then start the cycle.
   
3. Add pepperoni at the beginning of the second kneading cycle.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Not provided.

The Husband's Futzings
We added vital gluten and substituted a heaping 1 1/2 teaspoon of "Italian seasoning" (basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme) for the oregano and basil.

The boy, who's the real pepperoni fan in the family, was just as eager as I was to try out this recipe, so we prepared it together. In all honesty, he did most of the work. In addition to measuring out most of the ingredients, he programmed the bread machine and he diced the pepperoni all by himself. I just tried to keep the mess to a minimum. Oh, and I put the lid back on the bread machine after he somehow managed to remove it. (Don't worry, no damage was done to the machine--it looks like he took it off the way it was intended.)

Nicely diced pepperoni, don't you think?

I'm not sure how to describe the final product except to say that it's very, very good, dependent, I'm sure, upon your fondness for pepperoni. While it was baking, the bread had the aroma of a pizza-flavored snack cracker (no doubt due to the spices involved), but the final product really has a lot of pepperoni flavor. Again, your enjoyment of the bread is going to depend a lot on your fondness for pepperoni.

Yummy pepperoni bread

The boy and I, we like pepperoni, and we like pepperoni bread.

We like it a lot.

A Taste of Ethiopia

I might have mentioned, Gentle Reader, that I'm interested in trying Ethiopian food after reading about its influence and flavor similarities to Indian food. I'm ashamed to admit that the interest isn't strongly compelling, as there's an Ethiopian restaurant not too far from Chez Boeckman-Walker that I've known about for some time but haven't yet found the time to go there.

Since I can't get motivated to get to a restaurant, I've even bookmarked a few recipes with alleged Ethiopian roots, but I haven't made a single one. I don't know why. Maybe I'm too circumspect of their authenticity, seeing as how I found them in Cooking Light, which does highlight ethnic dishes occasionally but, like Cook's Illustrated, tends to make them more suitable for the fat- and sugar-loving typical American's palate.

But finally I've broken my Ethiopian drought (ooh, bad choice of words--"We Are the World" and all that), and it wasn't for any main dish. And the authenticity of the recipe is highly circumspect, coming as it does from Donna Rathmell German's The Bread Machine Cookbook II. But the other night I was overwrought and stressed and needed to soothe myself, and nothing calms my monkey mind like working in the kitchen.

Ethiopian Honey Bread5/8 C water
2 T vegetable oil
3 T honey
1/2 t salt
1 t ground coriander
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/8 t ground cloves
2 1/4 C bread flour
3 T nonfat dry milk
1 1/2 t yeast

1. Add ingredients to bread machine in the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Sweet or Basic cycle on the machine.
   
3. Press Start.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Do you really expect this, Gentle Reader? After more than a dozen bread posts, do you honestly expect this information?

Which begs the question of why I keep adding this subhead to bread posts. Yeah, that's a good question. Damn my compulsive editor's need to keep entries consistent!

The Faudie's Futzings
No futzings to report, Gentle Reader, that might really matter. Instead of the Sweet cycle (which none of our brood of machines has) or the Basic cycle (which I assume Donna Rathmell German uses as a synonym for the Normal cycle on our Wellbilts and the White cycles on our Breadmans), I chose the Fruit and Nut cycle on one of our two Breadman TR444 machines. Granted, I had no fruit or nuts to add to the dough later in its preparation, but I thought perhaps that cycle might be better suited for a sweet bread such as this one.

I realized quickly, however, that the Fruit and Nut cycle isn't all that different from the White cycles. Oh well. Live and learn.

With the combination of coriander, cinnamon and cloves, the mixing dough smelled to me much like pumpkin pie and promised warm, carby tastiness to come. And when the husband and I rose from bed half an hour after turning in so that we could yank the loaf from the machine (I started the cycle kinda late in the evening, plus the husband and I go to be between 9:30 and 10 p.m., which I'll readily admit is really, really pathetic), the kitchen became filled with that same aroma. Wonderful!

Blind as a bat without my glasses, I turned the pan over onto the cooling rack, and the loaf popped right out. Peering inside the empty pan, I was delighted to find a hunk of bread that had stuck to the stem for the kneading paddle. Being careful not to burn myself on the hot pan (awfully difficult when you can't see shit), I scraped off as much of that bread as I could and shared with the husband. Oh yes, good things were to come!

The next morning as I prepared breakfast for everyone (including my feline brood, both indoors and out), I unwrapped the loaf from the towel the husband had wrapped it in and took a whiff. The aroma had altered slightly to my senses, smelling now more like gingerbread--which is odd given that the loaf has no ginger. Once the husband trotted out to join me to eat, I sliced off the crust from one end and took a bite. While it wasn't warm, the bread was still carby tastiness.

After offering the husband a bite, I then slathered the remaining crust with honey for a second tasting. The honey was a nice addition but probably not necessary.

In the pale light of a new morning--and with the help of my contact lenses--I discovered something I'd missed the night before: The kneading paddle was gone. It wasn't in the baking pan, and it wasn't stuck in the center bottom of the loaf.

Where the hell was the paddle?

Upon closer inspection of the loaf, I found just a hint of grey metal on one side.

Aha! Paddle found!

The discovery of the paddle on the side of the loaf also explained something I'd observed during the making of the bread. During both kneading cycles, the machine sounded like it was struggling to spin that paddle round and round. When that happens, it indicates the dough needs a wee bit more moisture. In fact, early on in the first kneading, I added half a teaspoon of water to see if that might help.

Apparently it didn't because something caused the paddle to come off its post!

Hmmm.... Guess that's a great excuse to make the bread again soon.

Ciao Time

Almost a year ago, I first made the bliss dubbed balsamic-glazed chicken and bell pepper sandwiches for a family lunch at school. Over the past year, I've made the dish countless times, although rarely have the chicken, bell peppers and onions made their way onto focaccia or any other bread. You may well know by now, Gentle Reader, that I try to avoid bread the way a recovering alcoholic tries to avoid alcohol to stay on the proverbial wagon.

But when you've had a particular dish a particular way several times, you get a little bored, or at least uninspired. Rather than serving the chicken, peppers and onions with a side of basmati or jasmine or brown rice on Sunday, I thought I'd live on the wild side: I'd attempt to make our own focaccia.

In that respect, Gentle Reader, I failed. While I did find a focaccia recipe in Anne Sheasby's The Bread Machine Bible amongst the numerous recipes that need to be baked in an oven, I didn't want to hassle with using both a bread machine and the oven. Not only was the Sunday evening rather warm and muggy as the sun shined brightly after several rain showers throughout the day, but I didn't want to hassle with letting the focaccia loaves rise before baking them.

Ruling out the focaccia recipe, I settled on another in the book, rosemary ciabatta rolls.

"Rolls?" you ask, Gentle Reader? "Have you ever made rolls in your life?"

Yes, rolls. And no, I've never made rolls in my life. And that statement still stands.

Rosemary Ciabatta Rolls1 1/2 C water
2 T olive oil
3 1/2 C white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1 t salt
1 t sugar
1 t instant dry yeast
1 T finely chopped fresh rosemary
milk for glazing

1. Pour the water into the bread pan, then add the oil.
   
2. Sprinkle the flour over the water and oil, covering the liquid completely.
   
3. Place the salt and sugar in separate corners of the pan.
   
4. Make a small indent in the middle of the flour and add the yeast.
   
5. Place the pan in the machine, close the lid, set the machine to Dough and press Start.
   
6. Meanwhile, grease or flour two cookie sheets and set aside.
   
7. When the dough is ready, remove it from the machine, punch it down on a lightly floured surface, then knead the chopped rosemary evenly into the dough.
   
8. Divide the dough into about 10 equal portions.
   
9. Roll and shape each portion into a ball or oval, then flatten them slightly.
   
10. Place the rolls on the cookie sheets, spacing them well apart.
    
11. Cover the rolls and leave them to rise in a warm place for about 30 min. or until they've doubled in size.
    
12. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
    
13. Brush the tops of the rolls with milk, then dust them with flour.
    
14. Bake the rolls about 20 min. or until they're golden brown and sound hollow when tapped underneath.
    
15. Transfer the rolls to a wire rack to cool.

Yield: About 10 good-size rolls

Nutritional Info
Like Donna Rathmell German, Sheasby doesn't include nutritional data for her recipes. Bummer.

The Faudie's Futzings
I'm sure you're asking yourself now, Gentle Reader, "Why did she choose this recipe if she didn't want to mess with using both a bread machine and an oven, which excluded the focaccia recipe?"

I chose the ciabatta because the use of fresh rosemary intrigued me and, for no reason in particular, I thought this recipe might work well done entirely in the bread machine.

And that's just what I did. Instead of selecting the Dough cycle on the Breadman Ultimate, I opted to use the Rapid French setting--again, for no particular reason except that I seemed to recall seeing a recipe for an "Italian" loaf in another machine's recipe booklet that called for using the basic French cycle. Since I'd never used any of the rapid cycles on any of the six (or is it seven?) machines we have, I thought, Hey, what the hell? Why not give it a try? It's not like this loaf has a snowball's chance in hell of turning out right.

Given that frame of mind, I suppose it was somewhat cruel to send the husband out in the rain twice to steal--er, collect rosemary from the neighbor's plant. Compounding that cruelty, I suppose, was that I didn't check out what exactly happens during the Rapid French cycle before starting it up. If I had, I'd have learned that the two kneadings take place back to back, followed by two risings that are separated by an 8-second punchdown. Since I failed to realize this fact, I therefore failed to add the rosemary at the right time.

No, I tried to haul my tired arse to the kitchen in time to dump the tablespoon of fragrant, freshly chopped rosemary during that 8-second punchdown.

And yes, Gentle Reader, you're right when you suspect that I failed miserable. All that rosemary just sat on top of the loaf.

Well, this way picking off the rosemary would be easier if the boy protested its presence.

While the rolls only needed 20 minutes or so of baking, I let my ciabatta loaf go for the full 40 minutes of baking programmed into the Rapid French cycle. And that seemed like a good enough time, for when we pulled the pan out, it looked somewhat edible.

When I sliced into the loaf after it had 20 minutes or so to cool, I was pleasantly surprised to find the loaf was pretty well baked through.

Hazaa!

The loaf was, I'll admit, a bit doughy yet in the center, but that didn't put us off from eating it. In fact, we ate the whole damn loaf for supper because it was damn tasty. The crust had the right amount of chewiness, and the flavor seemed right to me too. Next time, though, I'll make sure that rosemary gets kneaded into the mix at the right time.