Cooking
September 26, 2008
Wikipedia defines a foodie as a particular class of aficionado of food and drink. Foodies differ from gourmets in that gourmets are epicures of refined taste who may or may not be professionals in the food industry, whereas foodies are amateurs who simply love food for consumption, study, preparation, and news. Gourmets simply want to eat the best food, whereas foodies want to learn everything about food, both the best and the ordinary, and about the science, industry, and personalities surrounding food. For this reason, foodies are sometimes viewed as obsessively interested in all things culinary.
I am a self declared foodie. There are days I feel I hardly fit the definition as I wolf down a box of mac and cheese or swing by McDonald’s for a horribly indulgent sausage and egg mcmuffin. Oh well… we all have our weaknesses right? More recently though I can’t seem to get enough time in the kitchen and pour over cookbooks like they are best selling novels.
This obsession I believe began with the tv show Hell’s Kitchen (which I would rock at by the way). Gordon Ramsey was forever screaming at the poor chefs’ inability to make a simple risotto. In my mind I decided that a mark of a good chef was the ability to make a risotto. When I attempted risotto for the first time I had never even tasted it but was still determined to figure it out. Now my friend Ryan, who lived in Italy for a time, declares that I make the best risotto he has had outside of Italy!
My repetoire now extends beyond just risotto and I have taken to experimenting in the kitchen. Let me recap this week-
- Sunday I attempted to make a cauliflower and broccoli gratin with mixed results. I love Ina Garten’s eggplant gratin and tried to use the same cream mixture on just plain veggies. It was tasty but the texture was weird.
- Monday I tackled quiche for the first time! Julie and I mixed feta, broccoli and red pepper into some eggs and milk. It was delicious and an instant hit. It made Nathan’s “do again” list which is the highest compliment I can get from him.
- Tuesday I wasn’t willing to give up on modifying Ina’s gratin so I replaced the eggplant with zucchini, doubled everything else, and baked it in a 9 x 13. Again, success! Halsey, Becky, Nathan and I wolfed down almost the entire pan.
- Wednesday was quiche take two. Julie and i substituted the broccoli for spinach and messed with the egg to milk ratio. Again tastiness ensued but I think I liked the broccoli version better.
- Thursday (last night) I made Nathan cook and boy was it tasty! Not very healthy though… He made a recipe called toad-in-a-hole out of our comfort food cookbook. Basically it is a British pudding (like Yorkshire pudding) with sausage. Yumm… I like to think I am rubbing off on him but I am pretty sure he was a decent cook before he married me!
- Tonight there were plans to attempt a new risotto but now dinner plans are up in the air and I don’t know if I am going to get to cook…
When cooking I operate under the theory that the fewer ingredients the better and I try to use only the best ingredients hence my obsessions with gourmet grocery stores. Nathan and I visit Marche Provisions at least once a week. The manager there knows me by name, probably because I spend way too much money there. Market of Choice is dangerous too with its irrisitable cheese counter and aisle upon aisle of fascinating food I would love to try. I really want to visit Jenny in Seattle so we can peruse all the tasty stores up there!
Nathan wants me to blog more about the food I make so I will be trying to take pictures on a regular basis and post my recipes. I can’t wait for Sunday night since I get to cook for all my friends. Now if I could just decide what to make. Suggestions anyone?
100 things every good omnivore should have tried at least once
September 18, 2008
So I shamelessly stole this post from a blog I recently found called The French Fork. According to her the Omnivore’s Hundred list was created by food blogger Andrew at Very Good Taste. It’s a compilation of 100 things “every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life”. Items highlighted in green are ones that I have eaten. Some items have a link to Wikipedia.
The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (does alligator count?)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho (my favorite part of Vietnam!)
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (not only have I eaten the I grow them!)
22. Fresh wild berries (I live in Oregon for crying out loud)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans (Yumm!)
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (Ok how did I make it through marching band and can’t add this one to my list?)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat (last week!)
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini (this sounds delicious… anyone want to make this with me?)
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
I am not willing to make tasting everything on this list a life goal. Some of these things are just a bit much for me… Maybe someday I will be willing to try them all! What about you? What is the weirdest thing on this list you have eaten?
My First Contract Employee
September 18, 2008
I officially paid my very first contract employee today!
The bill came to $36 for 5 hostel reviews, 3 with images, and a volume bonus.
I am expecting 5 more articles to arrive shortly and I may have another writer that is staying at a hostel writing an article for me. We will see…
Now to run the articles through an editorial review and then on to publishing them.
The New Office… Hummmmmmmmm…
September 16, 2008
Yesterday was my first day in the new office. I have had a lot of mixed feelings towards the move as change has a tendency to bring both good and bad.
With this move, I now have an office to myself which is a first. So far my concentration is up and so is my productivity. Before the move I was worried about how this would impact the social nature of the office. The developers are a bunch of social butterflies which is great for morale, but not so great for productivity. Fortunately, we still move about in the afternoons.
Although my assigned office leaves something to be desired, I am finding that I can live with it as it is better than a cube. My office is definitely the smallest and suffers from the frequent drone of the HVAC on the roof. The ventilation duct for the two lower floors cuts through the left third of the room.
Most of the time the hum isn’t so bad. There are a few places in the office that resonate in such a way that I get disoriented! To work around this my desk is awkwardly in the middle of the room which actually works for me. I would have the desk next to the window but my extension cord doesn’t reach… 
So aside from the quircky environment, I think this new private office will be a good thing. I have the ability to close my door and get down to work as needed.
Business in a New Way
September 11, 2008
This week I have done something new and exciting. I have crossed a new boundary in my entrepreneurial efforts: I have willfully taken steps to part with money!
I have looked at hiring contractors in the past for things like web design and every time I run into a major dilemma. Why pay someone else when I can do it myself. I am a firm believer in bootstrapping, especially when starting something new. Since don’t pay myself it is a difference of $0 to $2k-$3k… hard to compete with free for right now. The real cost for me of course is time.
Earlier this week I added two new pages to TheViewFromHome.com, King Estate Winery and LaVelle Vineyards. After adding these pages, I spent some time considering my growth strategy trying to determine how I could make the site more profitable.
Currently theviewfromhome.com has been monetized through the sale of pages, as well as various forms of advertising. As a content publisher, I benefit from AdSense and various affiliate offers. In this model income directly correlates to traffic and traffic directly correlates to content.
I have been eying an affiliate program for some time that has a strong conversion rate and pays out well. The trouble being that I currently don’t have any content related to the program. No content means no traffic which means zero earning potential.
My options are to write content myself or to hire someone else to do it. Having no experience with the subject matter (in this case hostels or travel), writing it myself would be a bad idea. It would be a little like pulling teeth for me, not to mention my readers.
I posted on the London Craigslist that I was looking to hire freelance bloggers and landed two responses within 24 hours. Each of the two writers responded with the list of hostels and I have assigned each 5 to start with. I should have my first set of articles on Friday and the next set on or around the 17th.
I am incredibly excited about this. It is kinda like gambling for me as I am not totally sure If the pages will generate enough revenue to pay for themselves. What I do know is that this first run will add ten new pages to theviewfromhome.com. Ten new highly targeted pages that will help pull in new traffic from the search engines. Ten pages that I can stick adsense on and which will help market the affiliate program which has the potential to seriously pay off.
Current state of being: Giddy Nervous Excitement!
If this works out, it has opened the door to a new way for me to grow my business.
Oregon ducks housing anyone?
September 9, 2008
We had the studio booked for all the home games and I just got an email from our guests saying they won’t be coming back. They said twice that is has nothing to do with Nathan or I or our sweet little guesthouse it is just that they found another place with 40 acres and since they bring their two big golden retrievers they prefer to stay somewhere where the dogs can romp and play.
So… The studio is available for all the home games again! Actually right now it isn’t booked past next week so if you know anyone who wants to come to Eugene and is looking for somewhere to stay please send them our way!
A Series of Upgrades: Complete
September 7, 2008
I am about to get really nerdy, so be forewarned…
Computer Upgrade and Re Installation: Success
I recently entered upgrade mode again for my computer because the harddrive was full. Well, after 500gb and several days of reinstalling everything I have just about reached a point of satisfaction.
I have 1 more piece of software to install, and a point in time backup to make so that I don’t ever have to go through this again… well… not for awhile anyway.
The best part is the blazing speed I am experiencing since my computer isn’t all gummed up yet.
Website Upgrade: Success
The other success that I am excited about is that I have managed to upgrade my website, www.theviewfromhome.com I recently made the move to start integrating Ajax, which I love, and to start preparing the website to act as the base for several applications I am developing.
In order to make the upgrade possible, I had to add two new dlls, migrate servers, and rely on a new framework.
To get there I spent all weekend configuring a tool called SVN (Subversion) which basically helps me track what changes between versions. now that my application is well over 90 pages and growing, this tool really really helps me by preventing stupid mistakes.
Now that all of this is out of the way, I can move forward with the projects that are likely to generate some revenue (at last!)
Canning
September 2, 2008
I love canning. Alot…. this is what I have done so far this summer.
The summer after I got married I had a wonderful friend who introduced me to the wonders of canning. I had tasted Jaime’s applesauce and home canned peaches and knew nothing I could buy in a store would parellel. That first summer we tackled cherries, applesause, corn, green beans, and of course peaches. Lots of peaches.
Last summer I canned with Jaime again and tackled some on my own. Nathan bought my very own water bath canner. Well… we originally bought the canner to brew beer but knew we would also use if for canning. I took on small projects last year like applesauce and some extra peaches.
This year I think I have figured out how much food we will go through and am almost done with my canning. I bought my own pressure canner this year to do things like green beans and make homemade chicken stock I freeze.
I made jam for the first time ever. I had previously made freezer jam with mild success and though “how hard can canned jam really be?” Luckily I was right and it was a piece of cake. So far I have made raspberry, strawberry, and blackberry jam. Over labor day weekend I canned close to 60 lbs of peaches and 50 lbs of applesauce. Julie and Jenny helped immensely and I am so thankfull for their help!
Aside from canning I have frozen some summer bounty as well. I have bluberries, a few blackberries, and lots and lots of zuchinni for fresh zuchinni bread in the middle of the winter.
I hope everyone gets to enjoy all these yummy treats as much as I will! When are you coming over for dinner?
