Ch-Ch-Ch Changes!

Since moving back to New York, I have concluded that I was and am not such a half-spouse after all. My domestic output is about the same, as is the approximate amount of time I spend doing fun stuff with my husband. It turns out that I only have so much time and energy, and that is okay.

Two Homes, Half a Spouse

Sometimes I feel like half a spouse.

I go back and forth, forgetting to write the rent check, leaving my chores half-finished, overcompensating with homemade bread and candlelit dinners.

Sometimes I come back for a night, watch Jerry play, and then I’m gone in the morning. Jerry says it feels like a dream. I’m awake when I leave, so I remember.

Jerry’s Album is Here!

Jerry’s album came out today, and I’m so proud of him.

Take a look, and download it. I promise that it’s awesome.

Fighting for You

Ambition Squared: The Album

I’ve been thinking about what Meg has to say about ambition squared, about how a solid partnership can give you the courage to chase your dreams and turn them into reality.

I think Jerry‘s hitting that point now. After years of piano gigging and vocal coaching and supporting everyone’s musical dreams but his own, he’s finally working on his first album. And it’s good. It’s really, really good.

He’s doing almost everything himself: songwriting, recording, laying down drum and guitar tracks, and then editing hundreds of tracks until the song coming through the speakers matches the song in his head.

Jerry would have done this on his own sooner or later, but it helps to have someone who absolutely believes in what you are doing. It’s so easy to let your own work drift to the margins.

The album’s coming out in January. It’s called Fighting for You, and it’s fucking amazing.

Where I’ve Been

Holy shit! It’s been two years since I last posted. A lot of stuff has happened since then.

Jerry and I got married. I made my dress. The pattern is from the 1930s, when film stars were covering up their busts and revealing their backs to appease the censors. This tactic also works with easily scandalized family members.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time constructing the dress out of tracing paper, then muslin, then some really nice fabric. At one point in the process, my grandmother asked me if “there was a little corner in the apartment where I could work on the dress without Jerry seeing it.” I told her that I needed Jerry to help with the alterations.

Here’s a clip of Jerry singing while I walk down the aisle:

Did I mention that our wedding was two weeks after the bar exam? Don’t worry, I passed.

Then, I moved into a women’s commune in Philadelphia about two weeks later because I had to start a new job and the job I got was in Philly. Jerry and I became Bolt/Mega/Chinabus ninjas because one of us gets on that bus every single Friday night no matter what. I’m typing this on the Bolt bus now – they should totally sponsor my blog! And, um, my marriage, which I suppose they are already doing.

So that’s where I’ve been. Working in Philly, weekending in New York, and paying off my student loans as fast as I possibly can.

I think I’m ready to talk about food and home and making a place for myself again.

Spelt Pumpkin Bread with Raisins, Coconut and Pumpkin Seeds

When I was born, the neighbors brought us pumpkin cake. We’ve had the recipe in our family ever since, and last night I doctored it up with some raisins, coconut, and pumpkin seeds.

I also cut the fat and the sugar and skipped the (delicious) butter-cream sauce that goes with it – the man I live with feels acutely nauseated when confronted with the butter and sugar-filled reality of Western baked goods, and I try not to traumatize him too much.

I did, however, leave in enough fat and sugar to make it taste good.

Here’s the new recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan and set it aside.

Mix the following dry ingredients together:

2 1/4 cups spelt flour (white flour or a combination of white and wheat would also work)

1 cup of sugar (1 1/2 cups in the original)

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

1 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon of ginger

1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon of clves

Beat the following wet ingredients together:

5 tablespoons melted butter (I just used the partial stick of butter we had in the fridge – somewhere between half a stick of butter and a whole stick of butter should be about right. The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup Crisco, which is one of the ingredients that makes Jerry shudder.)

1 cup (or 1 can) of pumpkin puree

2 eggs

3/4 cup of plain yogurt (the original recipe calls for buttermilk, which I had forgotten before beginning the recipe)

Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, then stir in a bunch of raisins, coconut, and pumpkin seeds. If you’re the measuring type, I would suggest adding 1/2 a cup of each ingredient, mixing them in, then adding more if the batter looks too sparsely populated. I don’t think you’ll need more than a cup of each ingredient.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, or until the cake is done.

And Then I Died and Went to Heaven

Cut up half a cantaloupe. Wash a handful of basil leaves, tear them up, and sprinkle them over the cantaloupe. Squeeze half a lime over everything.

How to Make a Most Bodacious Lentil Salad

A most bodacious lentil salad

Put a cup of dried lentils (green, brown, or puy lentils are best – the red lentils will fall apart) and three cups of water in a pot. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat until the lentils are done. This will take about thirty minutes.

Locavore Dinner

Local ingredients: Potatoes, garlic, fava beans, fennel, rainbow carrots, purple cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, and alpine cheese.

Nonlocal ingredients: Butter, salt, and vinegar. And we really could have gotten butter and vinegar at the farmers market.

The technique: Bring a small pot of water to boil. Shell the fava beans. Wash and slice the potatoes, and skin and chop up the garlic. Saute the garlic in butter, then add the potatoes.

Wash and slice all the other veggies while the potatoes cook and the water comes to a boil. Be sure to give the potatoes a stir every now and then so that they don’t burn.

When the water comes to a boil, dump in the fava beans and cook until they’re tender. Fresh fava beans don’t take very long – they cook up just like lima beans. I think 2-3 minutes is probably enough time for them.

Drain the fava beans and add a bit of salt to both the favas and the potatoes. If you’d like to turn your purple cabbage pink, serve it with a little vinegar.

Bon appetit!

Markets, Infrastructure, and Locavores

It really is possible to eat entirely locally, or nearly so, if the right infrastructure is in place. New York has a huge network of farmers markets throughout the city, many of them year-round. There’s one by our apartment, and another by my office, which makes it easy to pick up eggs and vegetables, or whatever else we need from a local source.

Ironically, it’s much easier to eat locally year-round in New York than it was when I lived in rural Michigan, which is prime farm country for all sorts of things. Th local food supply – farmers markets, community supported agriculture, locally produced wine and beer – is plentiful and varied all summer long and into the fall, but things get a lot more sparse in the winter.

It’s not so much that there’s literally nothing local to eat, or that one can’t possibly grow or store local food for the winter. Winter squash, carrots, beets, and apples will keep for a long time, and some of the hardier greens (think kale) will keep going even after it starts to snow.

I think the problem has more to do with a disconnect between farmers and eaters over the winter: most people assume that nothing grows or overwinters in Northwest Lower Michigan, the farmers markets confirm this assumption by shutting down after Halloween, and the farmer-eater connection goes dormant until spring.