Fondly, With Cheese

I just set my alarm for 6 am… in order to bake myy first loaves of bread using my very own sourdough starter. And I am ohsososo excited! (No sarcasm included)

Why haven’t I purchased one of these?? I discovered a wire-cheese slicer at a friend’s house and couldn’t be more ecstatic about the perfectly sliced rectangles of cheddar it produced! Pretty mundane, but seriously, it will change your [cheese] life.

Tried a Cabernet soaked white cheddar and a brie with walnuts…both are highly recommended. The Cab-cheddar would be most excellent used in a panini and the brie could have been even better accompanied by some fig spread.

Thank God for Lactaid.

Tonight, I watched Biz Markie eat fried chicken.

And oh what a marvelous sight it was! It’s pretty awe-some to watch people, or animals even, gorge themselves on a food which is obviously a favorite. The Biz has HUGE lips. HUGE. He’s a big man. And that tiny chicken leg didn’t stand a chance. His lips smacked and chewed; with two or three swift bites there was nothing left but bone. Really, truly, an incredible eating feat. An act of beauty… and this is coming from a vegetarian.

After a long week of work, and a wobbly bike ride home (my backpack was off-kilter & jam packed with baking supplies and on my front rack, tied down with what had been my belt for most of the day, were parts to construct a picture frame), it was quite THE surprise to fnd a package from my mom.

Mom’s pretty notorious for her oddities wedged into mailed goods and tonight’s was no different.

Ziploc bags, Easter napkins, four Kit-Kat bars, two loaves of bread from Costco, an already open bag of coffee, an already open box of pancake mix, Peeps, a dress (whch I’m pretty sure belonged to her at one point and she decided to pawn it off to me)!

My favorites:

The one legged-bird-reindeer pen came in a box around Christmas and the bird came in the latest; he lights up when the pen is pushed down!

AWESOME sticker.

On a more practical note, she did include a food chopper (great for garlic, onions and whatnot), as well as a bundt cake pan & springform pan. Thanks Mom!

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Thursday evenings have turned into baking time. I think the last two weeks have been consumed by cupcakes and this week…PIE!

I tend to shy away from pie when baking, simply because pie dough still intimidates me, but for Greg’s birthday, I decided to attempt pecan pie, his favorite. I must say, pie making wasn’t too difficult. The slight extra effort I put into baking these treats over my staple cookies or cupcakes was worth it just by the smells wafting through my house!

For an added bonus, I also took the extra dough for the crust and cut it into small bite-sized pieces, dredged them in cinnamon & sugar and baked them alongside the pies.

I have loved including blueberries in my baking lately and tonight was no exception.

I am a sucker for cute-ly packaged goods. Stationary, pencils, socks, mugs and countless other unnecessary things. And as soon as I laid eyes on this I knew it was a must have (Look how wonderful those cupcake liners are??!) I even decided to try out one of the recipes which comes along with the kit, of course tweaking it here and there to my liking. I generously spooned blueberries into the batter and eagerly awaited the twenty-five minutes of oven time to be up.

Disappointment…those cute little liners pretty much fade away onto the baked cupcake and their delicate designs are completely invisible.

I whipped up a quick frosting, squeezing juice from a fragrant lemon along with some of its zest and was VERY pleased with the tangy-sweet result.

I frosted the cupcakes, added a single blueberry and a tad more zest. Then I took a bite and was
BLOWN
A
A
A
AWAY!!!

So good!! The sweet of the cake batter and the slight tartness of the oozing blueberries complemented the frosting oh-so well.

I am now off to put the front rack Kevin gave me onto my bike. Who needs front brakes?? I’m going to ride around in the sun tomorrow handing out cupcakes!

Lately, the above is what my meals have consisted of. Sourdough roll, Jarlsberg cheese, avocado, soy-naise, lots of pepper, sprouts and Romaine lettuce are the make-up of my sandwiches. Slightly boring, I know, and definitely lacking in any sort of color other than leafy greens, but exactly how I like my sandwiches. My mate, I’ll take hot or cold, recently the latter due to my recent purchase of…ice cube trays! Oh how I love ice in my beverages!

I am heading up to Washington in a few scant days and absolutely cannot wait to spend time on the couch, with the ‘rents, my cat and one or all of the three cheeses my father has told me he’s purchased. Greg’s venturing with too and the Swendsons might even get Cryptacize(d)!

This will be my Bible for the next few months:

I am lucky enough to have a large backyard and I have been wanting to grow some goods for some time now. I will admit, I have a minuscule  amount of knowledge  when it comes to gardening, but I am ready and willing to learn.  I am  one who likes to  cut corners and oftentimes I fail to follow directions, believing I can get to the same result in my own terms. However with my  near-future garden,  I will be following directions  as best I can.  I am not entirely sure  what I will be planting, but  I plan on keeping it simple. Some herbs and carrots are the things I  know will be  planted.  I will keep you updated…

Also, I discovered a new cafe of sorts near my home. HOLLOW (on Irving Street at 16th Ave) is a tiny place run by a husband-wife combo. They don’t serve drip coffee, but their espresso drinks are quite incredible. All of their beans are from Ritual Coffee Co. and Ritual made sure the owners of HOLLOW know how to use their beans correctly. They also carry a variety of sweet treats, both non-vegan and vegan and the aesthetics of their cups, heavy spoons and even their sugar cubes are amazing. HOLLOW also has a lot of interesting, weird, stuff for sale…cards, lanterns, matches. There are only two tables inside creating an extremely cozy atmosphere.

It’s been awhile…

With the cold weather in abundance, my yearn for staying indoors has also increased. I’m sitting in my nook of a (still fairly new) room, staring at my half-haphazardly painted “wall” (drywall which was put up by yours truly and my housemate, Stephen) trying to decide if I actually like the shade of yellow I’ve begun to slather on its surface.

Now that I am not working insane hours at the good ol’ apple, I am wanting to spend more time cooking. Though I’ve had limited time to devote myself to the stove, oven and spatula, there have been some good eats lately:

The day after Christmas, despite all three of us suffering at different stages of the flu-cold bug which has been plaguing Green Apple employees and San Franciscans alike, Stephen, Aaron and myself conjured up a pretty incredible feast. Latkes, Matzeball soup, green beans, mashed potatoes, and I even made Chiffon pumpkin pie. It was quite the spread; I only wish I wasn’t so congested so I could have tasted and eaten more!

I had a yearn, a need, to make gingerbread a few weeks ago. I found a recipe from the Tartine Bakery cookbook and tweaked it a bit. The end result were -crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside with a super spicy aftertaste-gingerbread rounds. One of the best I’ve made, and actually, probably tasted. The layers of sweet, salty and spicy made my tastebuds pop.

While my parents were snowed in up in the Pacific Northwest, without me, I did follow one Swendson Christmas tradition and made popovers. Flour, eggs, milk and salt. So easy! And so fluffy. Pops, you woulda been proud of the height of the pop!

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Would you like a hat? I am very into knitting hats at the moment and have an enormous amount of unused yarn, yearning to be knit into something for you!

[This post is dedicated to ClarkClark, who has been hounding me on my poor blogging skills]

In the midst of moving into a new apartment, birthdays birthdays birthdays and the busy-ness that is fall, I have been lagging, bigtime, in the cheeseland. Oops.

November has blown many things my way. Since Cape Town, since my old apartment on 18th avenue (which I occupied a little less than two years ago) I finally have found myself a new home. In my cozy nook of a room, I feel content. A positive living space is really quite nice.

I have been cooking as much as possible, with the highlight of the week being Wednesday, when a small gathering of close friends lounge in my sparsely furnished living room over a warm meal. I am looking forward to the weather staying cold so comfort foods (pot pies, stews and soups) can be created more consistently.

My latest sweet creation was a heart-shaped red velvet cake I conjured up in celebration of my dear Amara’s birthday. I recently tasted the most incredible red velvet vegan cupcake which reminded my tastebuds that red velvet is one of my favorites. TWO full bottles of red food coloring were used and looking down at my newly stained red fingers while waiting for the cake to finish baking, I was doubtful of my would-be creation. But the cake turned out velvety smooth, with a hint of coconut, which was odd because there wasn’t the slightest bit in the cake.

(Buttercream frosting and blood-like icing completed the cake nicely!)

I have found myself at “home” in Washington for Thanksgiving; the first visit I’ve had in about a year! The weather is icy cold and it’s strange to sleep in a bed, in a room, which has never been mine. In total, I’ve probably spent three weeks (over the span of 5 years) in my so-called room. One of my cats, Pilot, was put to sleep while I was in Cape Town and seeing the other (Kitzer) roaming the house by his lonesome proves to be a sad and nostalgic sight for me. I finally was able to see what my father meant by his stylized lion tattoo being “one that you wouldn’t find in the wild”. Nonetheless, there is something comforting about being up here. I also had the chance to dig through old photos and came up with some pretty good ones:

With a new bike and the yearn to get lost while traveling far, it’s no wonder I got a lot of sun this weekend. A trip to the east bay on Saturday was wonderful! A farmer’s market overflowing with incredible, edible produce and fresh eats, pedaling around in the warm weather, lounging in the grass of a park; I also witnessed the arrest of homeless men who were shooting each other with BB guns shaped like machine guns. I ate tasty Jewish food at Saul’s (Latkes, tofu schnitzel with matzo crumbled on top, washed down with (and yes I ordered it by name) an Arnold Palmer) and then was lucky enough to hear Haruki Murakami speak at UC Berkeley. 

A picnic on Sunday in Pac Heights was nothing short of perfect (could have done without the Blue Angels though…) Cupcakes and mudpie and cookies. Zesty pasta salad, grilled sandwiches, tofu pups and endless cheese at a bbq in the Mission later on. a lime popsicle and steaming nachos at El Farolito rounded out the eating frenzy that was my twenty fourth birthday. 

Manymanymany thanks to those who made it quite possibly one of the best birthdays I’ve had thus far <3.

[P.S. I stole most of those photos from Diana and Louie]