Dough boy

     

     I bought this big blue bowl for two dollars on Page Street between Scott and Divisadero, specifically for dough mixing and rising.  I've used it several times now since discovering it, and it has been magnificent.  Here I have made a jpeg where the bowl cradles a ball of pizza dough.  Julie and I are visiting the Sueys and the new boy Hunter Harvey this afternoon.  Pizza seems right for the occasion.  I'm rising this dough, above, in order to make two rounds of about one foot in diameter.  It is not yet clear what they will be topped with.  Ideas are smoked mozzarella, pepperonis, mushroom, ground pork knots, and tomato sauce.  The possibility of introducing shrimp ceviche has surfaced as well, for we have here at least three lemons that have been previously zested for dressings.

     There they are.  I often and always wonder what to do with them.  I should stick googly eyes on them and punt them into Duboce dog park half a block from my front door.  If anyone knows what to do with a trio of zested lemons, it's a pampered urban maltipoo and his friends pug and sheba inu.

     I have taken the recipe for my dough from Alice's magnificent book The Art of Simple Food.  Alice is my niggie.  I think this book is magnificent and recommend it to the earth.  Come two pm, the dough exits the refrigerator and gets set on a table to warm to room temperature, two hours,  before shaping into flat discs one foot in diameter.  Here is a jpeg of an orchid bud in our sun room.  The bud is opening:

     Find below also three jpegs of our resident ferns.  We joined the local fern kick only recently.  Neighbors in the surrounding Victorians I suspect joined this kick long ago.  We are just now discovering the simple beauty of the local fern.  These three fern came from Cole Hardware store, in Cole Valley.  Aside from ferns, this store vends portable grills and screws of various shapes, sizes, and metals.  Do not forget to think of them after your next Ikea run.

Sunnyside Street

    

      Is it the second, or third, day of my unemployment?  Sit quietly, try to remember.  It has been a mysterious week.  [Moving forward]  A puzzling week-not because I have a puzzle of objectivity set before me and am unable to solve it.  I am within the puzzle, suddenly.  So early this week, on the first of a month, in a morning on the sixth floor of a glass and steel pediment, before a crackerjack woman bejewelled in as seen pure precious metals, whose pauses are emptying, stretched out in time, enigmatic, with silence that is not eloquent, not morose.  I did not blink, and then at once see that I am in Caracas, or atop Mt. Apu, or in a Polanski film, or in a buried coffin.  My objective view did not change.  I blinked, observed the formalities set down neatly on a table, signed, signed, initialed, signed.  She rose and led me down a naked hall to the elevator, would not shake my hand I had a cold, and I was swallowed up and descending.  The world remained the same, continued with its day, and that Roland continued with it. I shall never discover what will become of him. Puzzle entered.  Puzzle has made his bed in my apartment today while I wasn't looking, while I turn pages on the sinking couch, my toes pawing the threads of our woven oval rug.  I am  five again, but i my little hands this church organ has been broken into much more than five thousand pieces.  It's pipes are played in pillow buns, the breath shallow, even, inaudible.

2 June 2011

     The view through windows of our apartment on Walter St. facing the cottage out back.  I like this view.

     Morning tea in my favorite mug that was made by my cousin Lester in Chicago.  
    

Oil

Here is very useful information for those who deep fry with cooking oil.  Wonder what to do with all that used oil and grease?  Recycle it, it's a radical act, dude! >>

http://sfwater.org/detail.cfm/MC_ID/17/MSC_ID/401/MTO_ID/NULL/C_ID/4894

Adobo

     Simmering chicken adobo at the moment.  I'm trying a new recipe pulled from the nytimes website article about a restaurant in Brooklyn that makes it with coconut milk and hot peppers.  1 cup of coconut milk, to be exact, and a chili called bird's eye that I've never heard of before.  I'm interested.  The recipe as well asks that I use 12 whole garlic cloves.  Now I've seen an entire stinking rose used in a pork adobo with great success.  To use this amount in chicken adobo will indeed be an adventure.  Heat from chili is another novelty that I'm mildly skeptical about, yet willing to try.  Instead of 3 chilis, however, I opted to add 1 chili, and chose a serrano.  I'll have to do some investigating about this bird's eye chili.  Perhaps this type of pepper in found in Pacific island nations like the Philippines, for instance.  It's all going to be a big surprise.

     The chicken is cooked and appears to be a success.  I have taken the pieces out of the pot and am not cooking down the sauce in order to thicken it into a creamy gravy.  I think this may take about 20 minutes or thereabout.  Vinegar is the prevalent kitchen smell at this moment:

 

     My conclusion - chicken adobo made with hecka garlic and coconut milk is delicious.  You get the same vinegar based sauce made rich by the added fat from the coconut.  It indeed retains the taste and smell of the national dish of the Philippine Islands, and then some.  The only thing I would do is add more chili peppers.  One was not enough.  Three would be a good number.  I must discover what these bird's eye chili peppers are.  This was a very simple dish to make, all told.  I of course marinated the bird overnight, but I did not taste much of a difference from the long marinade.  2 hours would work just fine.  I like the pictures I took, with white balance.  Looks almost exactly like what the eye sees.  I like writing about cooking.  I think I'll do this more often, with the added benefit of pictures.  Feels right.  I'm stuffed, like chicken.

     A bit before the end of lunch here.  Blue skies and white caps in San Francisco.  I can see the froth clearly from 14 stories up in the air.  Flags whipping about.  There were leaves, branches, depris shrewn across the bike path on my a.m. commute thanks to the storm.  "It rains on the just and the unjust."  You see them everywhere today, clinging to their collars, shoulders bend toward the wind.  No one likes being pushed around.  But are you a pusher?

Penny Farthing

     As I was pulling out a fistful of coins to pay for my sub par bagel at Lee's this morning, I noticed a shiny new penny in the pile.  I took a closer look and discovered that the penny had been newly minted in 2010.  What's more, the design was also brand new, hence to me unfamiliar.  When did this occur?  I'd like to take a picture of it, macro, a penny instead of the stamen and pistil of an orchid, for once, but alas I do not have a working digital camera.  "A king without a sword!  A land without a king!"  
     I like the new design, something reminiscent of either the Roman Phalanx or the US Olympic Skiing logo.  I haven't seen the penny's design modernized in my lifetime, so it is indeed a Major American Event.  I salute the American government!  I salute the U.S. Mint!  I spent the other coins on my onion bagel toasted with butter from Lee's around the corner from Embarcadero 1, but I held on to my shiny new copper penny.  Good luck charm for challenging times in American society.  I will try to post a picture soon.  Everyone should have a look.  It may provide much needed perspective on the Present Day.
     Breakfast for me early this morning consisted of a thick slice of my homemade Right Bread, toasted and buttered, and spread over with organic apricot fruit preserve.  I picked up a new brand of preserve yesterday afternoon at Rainbow Coop Vegetarian market, my favorite spot for produce and dairy, cheese, salsa, dry goods, tea, soap, chocolate, nuts, olive oil, honey,  etcetera.  I love this store.  It's great.  I typically spend much more time than originally planned meandering about the co-op, looking at this vegetable, investigating that instrument, sniffing fruit, weighing bulk heirloom beans, or just look-seeing.  Generally milling about the nutritional supplement or kitchen utensil aisles.  It is indeed a cherished SF pastime, to get lost in Rainbow Coop.  Time well spent out of the wind, cold, rain, away from the red meat chewing general public. I'd like to post pictures of my purchases along with other lists and measures.  Perhaps once I have the proper instrumentation.