In the Dark

They say that strongest stars burn brightest when circumstances are at their worst. It's a curious concept. Inspiring, to say the least. Still, there's a touch of irony when circumstances in question refer to the fact your apartment has lost power to 60% of it's regular functions, and as such brightness isn't quite an option. Indeed, the only things that could be illuminated was the light over the kitchen vent and the bathroom upstairs, both generating a slightly putrid yellow glow that my roommate and me despised but were now appreciative for. One must remember to find the silver lining in clouds, the good in all situations, carry on and so forth.

Still, fumbling through the dark parts of house cursing every dark aeon in whatever corrupted pantheon I could think of, stumbling over Eat Beast and bitching over why on earth I never just bought a damn book of matches doesn't make for good reflective ME-time. Eventually I located the little light on my key chain and Danielle was able to unbury a stray lighter. Lighting the one candle we have (between a gay man and a ex-pat sorority girl, that has to be breaking some sort of cosmic law of interior design) we meandered over to the kitchen.

Due to whatever strange pattern the fuse box had been set up in, all major devices in the kitchen were still on and active. We flicked on the oven light and I made a phone call to my landlord. After many, many attempts at flipping fuses, switches, and more fervent swearing we finally had to admit to ourselves that we were indeed stuck in the dark for the night. Assured that an electrician would come to our rescue the next morning we relented ourselves to our dim dining table.

"Look at that," I gestured towards the wall. The flickering candle light, its quivering flame dancing erratically in a struggle for oxygen and fuel, began to cast peculiar shadows across the wall through the wire baskets, flowers and fruit on the table. The simple shadow show acted out a curious, nonsensical story that neither of us seemed to know but none the less were entertained with by the blurred and dark figures.

As our eyes followed the shadows on the wall we were able to really take in our space. Over the past few months we had put in plenty of work and time designing the apartment, choosing colors, shapes, and textures that wouldn't make the place a roof over our heads but an actual home for once.

"Our place is actually looks like adults live here."

"Holy crap... you know, it does." It was true. After years of moving from apartment to apartment, living in places that looked like college students lived there, I had graduated from matchy-matchy Ikea furniture and cinder block shelves to something that resembled a home tour on Apartment Therapy. "Still, we have those mirrors and a few pictures to hang."

"We could do it now."

"In the dark? We only have candle light and no measuring tape to keep things on an even plane. It'll come out funny."

"Well, if we just be slow and steady we can get it."

I mulled it over. I had ordered some mirrors from Crate & Barrel, and had an assortment of pictures that needed to go up here and there to fill in the blank walls, green and white canvases begging for some sort of eye drawing pop to complete the scene. "Okay. Why not? Hell, the oven's working too. I'll whip up some brownies-" the Sara Lee kind, on sale for a $1 so how could I say no, it's a weakness, don't judge me, " - and we can have something to eat after we work."

"Ooo, brownies!" Danielle cooed.

After whipping them up and into a pan with a splash of Kahlua I had sitting on the shelves since 2001 and a few cacao nibs I found from some forgotten project, I threw the pan into the oven and we set to work.

Using an old non-mechanical tape measure, we were able to execute a few perfectly aligned nails. Hammering and measuring by candle light, we started to laugh and joke. We talked about past relationships, commiserating about the bad, blasting each other over the worst, and laughing about the good memories they still held. While each giggle and sigh made me have to squint harder in the dim flame's light we somehow, successfully even, got the pictures up without any injury or property damage. Take that history of being accident prone to a point near constant fatality! (Edit: I shit you not, Eat Beast's tail just knocked my skin graft inducing hot tea all over my leg as I finished writing that. Fuck with the universe and this is what you get.)

As the timer sounded we took out the brownies and allowed them a bit of cooling time, with which we teased the cats unmercifully with a laser pointer, sending Cid skidding into walls on the kitchen tile and Eat Beast into frustrated kitty frenzies as he attempted to bite the mocking red dot.

In a short while we were filling ourselves with chocolatey goodness and towering glasses of milk. We laughed in the dark and amused ourselves further with our handiwork, amazed we had pulled something off we could be so proud of. We spent the next few hours debating and chatting over things of no real consequence, and relegated each other with plans for the future by the day and years; wistful ideas that I suppose all twenty-somethings have since we may not know better.

The electrician came the next morning and fixed the breaker though warned it may happen again, as such is the case with old duplexes. Still, it's not something I fear or become apprehensive about. it forced us to shut our lives down for a while. No internet, no TV, no anything. No way to do our homework, stress about our jobs, or idle away the hours on YouTube and Wikipedia.

Just us, a hammer, and brownies.

Toasted Seeds and Other Things

Ah yes, the seeds, here they are. Six cups of them to be precise. I used Elise's recipe, which always works like a charm. They were, to be succinct, delicious.

I also got in some new vanilla beans that were grown in India. The beans are huge and very oily, with a very muted, woodsy quality. A good vanilla that would stand up well to spices with a more heady comportment in a dish, where the presence of cloves, rosemary, cinnamon, or thyme (and other such flavors with a dominating flavor) may threaten to eclipse other vanilla varieties. I updated the Vanilla Varieties page as well, if you wanna check it out.

I have taken to putting some in small vials with brandy or rum to create some cleverly flavored extracts for Christmas gifts. I look forward to tasting the results.On another completely unrelated note my friend Paige, who works over as Vosges as one of their marketers, and I were chatting. We set up a special little dealie-o for all you Vanilla Garlic readers. If you want to try some of their wares you can get 10% from now till the end of November by using this code during the point of purchase online at their website. The code is: 2810WB1. I'm not getting anything for this, just something for you guys if you're interested.

Hope that you all find your November starting well, the next few days are going to be crazy. Time change and elections! For those living in CA, please vote No on 8. Don't deny me the right to wedding gift registry in the future. ;)

Pumpkin Banter

"Time to die for your crimes, Jack!"

*Ssshlunk* In plunges the knife, hilt deep, into the pumpkin's personified skull.

"Jesus Christ, Garrett, can't you just carve the damn pumpkin like a normal person?" bemoans my coworker as she details a sketch of my victim's future face with Monet-like perciscion.

"No. And technically I just want the seeds to I can toast and eat them. Jack here is just a by-product of that."

"So you don't want to carve a jack-o-lantern?"

"No, I didn't say that. Honestly, I could care less about lanternizing with a squash. I mean, I think the whole process of hollowing and illuminating disfigured winter produce is creative and whimical, but for the most part this is a culinary venture for me," I note as I begin to furtively whack away at the strings that attempt to keep the pumpkin's stemmed top on.

"Whatever, just skullcap him already so we can remove his brains." Cue the eyeroll.

"Yeah, I'll remove your brains in a second."

Ah, holidays.

Happy Halloween everybody.

Apocalypse, Nowish (In Regards to Wine, That Is)

Wow, it's been a while since humanity really had a good show of stupidity in my presence and I guess that, like the dollar, our morals and economic views are depreciating as well. People are becoming a bit more frugal with their spending and (god forbid) now attempting to live within their means. As such, we're resorting to old budget meals we haven't used since the college days, adding a bit more water to our soups, clipping coupons, and aiming for leftovers. Indeed, it has been a while since I broke out doing fried eggs with green onions and soba. An oldie, but a goodie, and at around 25 cents per serving a damn fine bargain.

Furthermore we're choosing our wines from shelves that are much closer to the floor. A economic vertical shift (one of many in the wine industry as of late) that has forced most wine drinkers to take a southward glance when it comes to their selections at the store. I believe 2-Buck Chuck is going to make a resurgence in popularity, and home grown viticulture will probably take more root. Still, for those of us not inclined to brew our own wine we have to resort to blue light specialty wine. I would attempt to make my own, but my innate lack of self-preservation and general clumsiness would lead me to distill some sort of burgundy colored swill requiring two priests and a hazmat team to clean up.

So while at the Whole Foods checking out their specialty low price wines (read: < $7), I noticed a couple price checking a few bottles. She was a ex-pat Orange County woman; bleached hair, boob job (even I know God doesn't make breasts like that), Monolo Blah-nik personality type. He was about 30 years her senior, Armani loafers retiree and seemingly self-taught wine snob; the kind that probably sniffs plastic corks and abhors wine in boxes or with screw caps (Viva la Screwcap!).

Anywhose, back to eavesdropping, I sort of listened in on their conversation. It was a practical discussion of what wine to have with dinner and it seems they were able to afford shelling out a few twenties so good for them. As I don't really know much about wine I moved on to selecting my bottle, a simple white wine for dinner that was going for $6. I knew it went well with spicy food, and I prefer white anyways so it was a happy occasion for me.

"OH! You should try THIS Pinot Grigio, it's really TO DIE for."

I turned to find the woman looking at me with her Trish McEvoy laden face and gesturing towards a bottle on the wall. I glanced and noticed the $22 price tag. Looking back to her I cordially replied in earnest, "It's allright. I actually really enjoy this wine. It goes well with curry and it's more in my budget," in which I laughed to suppress my financial pain and to end the conversation.

"OH! You should NEVER buy a gris that's less than $15. It's just BOUND to be tacky." Unsure where she found this bit of fortune cookie knowledge and unclear as to what exactly defines a wine as "tacky" I smiled back.

"Well, you know, bad economy and all. Have to cut costs somewhere. Could be worse, could not be able to afford a bottle of wine at all."

"OH! OH! I TOTALLY understand. We stopped buying THIS brand," pointing with a well manicured french tipped finger to a $50 bottle of red wine. "It's fiscal TRA-GUH-DY! Like the money-world-apocalypse-NOW of wine!" Older husband looked over and nodded in agreement and then, I shit you not, grabbed a bottle of it anyway and popped it in his basket along with the non-tacky, previously mentioned white.

So I guess, for them, it's not quite the end of the world. Some thought must go into the purchases now before going along with them regardless.

Edible Sacramento & Waterboy Dinner

Be sure to check out the new issue of Edible Sacramento, the piece I worked on made cover so yay! It talks about the use of fresh, local ingredients in cocktails and highlights Lounge on 20, HAWKS, and Paul Martin's American Bistro. The pics with the article are by the most awesome Holly, and her shots are worth checking out. It's definitely, on the whole, one of the best issues we have ever put out. If you enjoy it I hope you'll look into purchasing a subscription and supporting local food writers. *cough cough*

Also, a special note, Edible Sac is co-sponsoring a special dinner at The Waterboy. Four course meal with pairings from Kunde Estate Winery. Very shnazy. Plus you can meet our swanky ES editors and talk to them about the magazine and give 'em your input!