B: Spring....it's actually a season

Not to rub it in for our friends in the Pacific Northwest and other temperate climates, but down here in mediteranean Sacramento : ) it is spring.  Right now it is pleasant....78 degrees...low humidity...getting ready to grill some hand ground burgers tonight

Sure it will be 100 soon enough, and nothing can make Sacramento not Sacramento, but right now things are pretty fucking great

and no, not that kind of piece

.
I've had a crappy Ikea dining room table for years. I think I bought it for less than $100 when I moved up to Seattle and realized I didn't have any furniture to put in my apartment. It's been moving around with me ever since. When we moved into the house here in Sac, we wanted something a little more unique and ended up buying a nice picnic table to have in our dining room. It was fun, but not quite what we were going for and if you sat too close to the edge of the bench you'd fall over when the other person on the bench stood up. Not so good.


About a month ago we stumbled on a very cool furniture store in Sac and were walking around looking for bookshelves/toy storage when I saw it. I immediately turned to B and said "that's our new dining room table." There's something about the dining room table that needs to be big and sturdy and welcoming. We love to eat. Good food and a good place to eat it is important. We need a good table. A table that you can sit around with your family and eat good food for 100 years. A table that our children can grow up on and eat Thanksgiving dinner with grandma and aunt 'chele. A table that looks as good on Christmas day as it does covered with homework papers. But unfortunately they don't make those tables anymore.


Oh but we found that table. Built in the late 1800s out of solid French Oak. Can't you just picture it living in a farmhouse in the french countryside?

We're pretty happy with it. It could probably seat 8, but we got 6 chairs with it. It's definitely got personality, and it could use a little bit of love, but we can handle that.

The only problem with all this is now we've got this beautiful oak "piece" in our dining room and the rest of our furniture is still mostly ikea-ish. I suppose this means we're going to have to start looking for more "pieces"? This sounds expensive.

B: The tastiest of jew wieners

M and I have come to the conclusion that Hebrew National All Beef Franks crush most other hotdogs on both taste and girth. We have been doing some tastings lately and they are clearly better than Ball Park franks and several others. To me, the Ball Park frank taste like bologna in tube form. Gross. I also don't think they grill up real well, as opposed to the delicious Hebrew dog which has enough fat in it to get wonderfully brown and delicious.

The only thing the Hebrew Dogs are missing is the snap. I really do like that snap that the boutique "Old Fashion" style hotdogs have. Unfortunately, the old fashioned style dogs are so skinny that you end up with significantly less meat than bun in your mouth and they are tough to find.


M and I were making hotdogs the other night when we were feeling lazy and tired and "The hotdog system" came up. I realized in that discussion, that most people aren't anal enough to have a hotdog assembly system. The hotdog system is really both an outline of my hotdog assembly system, and an exercise in a set of beliefs about caring about your food preparation and flavor profiles regardless of how simple or meager.

The hotdog system:

1. Start with a tasty dog such as a hebrew national all beef frank or some other quality dog and an equally quality bun of your choice. Just beware of overly large buns. I am assuming that you are in this for the dog, not the bread. If I am using a big polish or something else that is so big that it threatens to overwhelm and split the bun, I might consider splitting the sausage and using a sandwich rolls. Unfortunately, a split sausage becomes more of a sandwich, which to me is not truly a hotdog experience.
2. Second, grill or steam your wiener to perfection. I far and away prefer grilled to steamed or boiled. I think you get way more flavor out a browned piece of meat rather than one that has been been soaking in boiling water. If I am grilling, I like to brown (ie char) the buns a bit for extra flavor (mmmmm pyrene!)
3. Third, apply your condiments. This is where the system really comes into effect.

• Ketchup - Apply in a strip down one side of the bun. Don't apply too much. You want to avoid putting on so much that you get drips and you overwhelm all of the other flavors with sweet cloying tomato. If I have fresh delicious summer tomatoes available, I might skip ketchup entirely and just do very thinly sliced tomato down one side.
• Mustard - I like a spicy brown, but any variety will do. Again apply just enough to taste. If you want to eat mustard coated bread, you can do that at costco for $0.99 and feel gross, or you can use good mustard and delicious bread and feel way better for it, but that ain't the point of going to all of the trouble of making a hotdog at home.
• Pickle - Always dill, I like Klausens Koshers. Aways buy the whole pickles and slice them your self. Pre-sliced pickles get soggy and overly briny on the inside and lose their snap. I like to cut thin planks of pickle that can be slipped between the dog and the bun. The pickle shouldn't be too thick such that all you taste is pickle. The most important point of the pickle to me is that it should always be placed on the ketchup side to avoid too much vinegar on one side of the dog. The pickle should be used to form a harmony with the ketchup and balance the mustard.
• Relish - I never buy the stuff. I will use it at the ball park or costco if that is all there is, but I find sweet relish to be one dimensional and overly sweet. Your call, but I wouldn't.
• Onion - Either diced or very thin strips. I like red, but any color will do. I find nice fresh onion to be pretty sweet, therefore onion goes on the mustard side. Again the onion complements the mustard and balances the pickle and ketchup. I feel it is difficult to apply too much onion, but strive for balance.
• Peppers - Jalapenos or salad peppers go down the middle if used. I prefer to rinse the salad peppers to cleanse them of the brine and try to make sure they are adjacent to something sweet to balance. Jalapenos should be minced and applied sparingly. Too much of that grassy flavor will muck up you dog.
• Kraut - I don't eat the stuff, but if you are going to, I might suggest that it is so strong by itself that you really ought to consider a very strong flavored dog and limited condiments. Maybe just a nice strong stone ground brown mustard like Ploughman's.
• Chili - See the kraut discussion. I like a bowl of chili. I have no need to get a wiener involved because you just can't taste it.
• The key to assembly is balance. Try to make sure that any bite you get, even if you don't get everything at once will be balanced and complimentary. You don't really want one bit to be all mustard and pickle because that will be really briny and vinegar and then your next bite will be all onion and ketchup and overly sweet. Balance those flavors and make a harmony in your mouth.

For beverages, beer is always traditional and a great pairing. I go light in color and flavor with a hotdog and usually prefer something a little hoppy but not a big IPA. I don't really like porters and stouts with a hotdog unless they are dry and not too smoky. I find a more interesting pairing with hotdogs is white wine or even better, sparkling white. Hotdogs and champagne pair super well as do dry'ish Reislings and other fruity white.

The thing here is that so many people treat hotdogs like they are throw away food just because they are cheap and easy to prepare. I feel that with some care and proper attention to ingredients and details we can fix a hotdog in 15-20 minutes that rivals some of the truly great hand held food experiences. You don't have to be rich to have a great food experience, you just have to put in the work and care. Why would you save 2 minutes and $3 or less on quality hotdogs and fixings just to gulp down something that tastes no better than a bologna sandwich instead of something that tastes like an authentic and desirable food made with care and passion?

B: P to the D to the X...whaaaat!?

I don't know...

I am in Portland today, and it is like I jumped into a shitty time capsule programmed for winter. The weather today is barely spring in Portland. It is rainy and barely 50 and I got to bust out my overcoat which may never get used again except for trips to places that have weather. It is fun in a way, especially because I get to go home to 70 degrees and sunny. Suckers.

You may have a beautiful city full of culture and interesting people and an urban development plan that is semi-rational and sustainable, and green trees and sufficient water to supply your needs, but we've got sunshine. Score 0 Pacific NW, 1 Sacramento!

I am basically burning time and trying to get out some nervous energy before attending a public meeting for one of my remediation sites. I am not even presenting, so I have no reason to be nervous, but I am. It may all the coffee and apple cider I have consumed today.

Actually, funny thing...Somebody told Amanda and I that apple cider has as much caffeine as a cup of green tea. We exchanged glances, nodded and smiled, and redirected the conversation because it felt totally false and poorly informed but we didn't actually know for sure that it wasn't true. Well I have looked and so far as I can tell, apple juice and cider are caffeine free. Has anybody else actually heard this??? I don't remember who told us this, but in case you are reading, I don't think it is true. If you can find a resource that says it is, please post a comment. Rich in Vitamin C? Yes. Delicious apple goodness? Yes. A terribly inefficient use of our apple resources? Yes. A source of caffeine? I don't think so.

B: Lame Friday post

I have two blog topics for today. First, I just found this blog again after several years, and it is funnier than I remember. Oakpark Mastermind, Thank you. Here's a quote to give you an idea of how lowbrow and witty she is. Background, she is a making an alphabetical list of things not to be thankful for:

K. ky jelly commercials. have you ever seen one of those commercials? they
are all filled with people who look like they have never had sex in their life.
people that are like 'try a massage with this new ky warming liquid!' UH, THAT
SHIT IS NOT FOR MASSAGES, THAT SHIT IS FOR FUCKING. how come commercials for shampoo are all about fucking and commercials for ky jelly are about wholesome activities such as massage therapy?

A rational critique of the hipocracy of our puritanical policies within media. Certainly well trodden territory but well aimed. I choose to give some possibly undeserved credit and assume that the entire blog is a satire. It is more entertaining and droll that way. Plus it allows me to be in on the joke and feel smart and use the word droll which I totally love.

mishief managed.


Secondly, I am bringing back an old cumulus tradition of a puppy on friday.




So heres a puppy! Let's hope this puppy finds a nice loving home that will change it's name from Elvis to something that doesn't suck. I hate people names for pet's. I think we ought to have a new class of names assigned specifically to animals. I personnally like naming animals after food, but sandwich never really stuck for kitty, and I didn't come up with the idea until after we had Luna for a while. If we were to get a new dog I would call it salsa. There now I got dibs.

B: HURRY UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now wait and wait and wait...

We have been doing some cooking in the ghetto-Apartment. Despite working conditions I would not wish on Rachel Ray (the Barney of celebrity chefs), things have been turning out pretty good. Mandy is on a soup kick. It has been good cuz we are both reading In Defense of Food and trying to follow the guidelines.

Eat food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants.

Which means we are trying to remove ourselves from the meat centric A1B2 western plating format. Yay Soup (and salads)! Here's valentines day Split Pea Soup, Salad, and el cheapo sparkling white mimosas.

We have also been finding some pretty yummy wines.

When you are trying to not catch somebody's face in a picture, but want their outfit and the wine glass, what you really end up with is a picture that appears to be focused on their chest. I have lot's these, to the point that is a little ridiculous.


We still don't have the keys to our house despite signing the final papers three days ago. It is absolutely no wonder there are so many foreclosed homes on the market. Banks make them so difficult to buy that nobody wants to deal with it. It is frigging ridiculous! Because of their inability to reacte in a timely manner, we are losing a full weekend to work on the house before we leave the apartment. This is delay is reeking havoc on our schedule. We probably won't have a furnace by the time we have to sleep there, so we may all end up camped in the living room around the fireplace. At least it has been pretty warm lately.


Because we won't be able to paint or do anything else at the house this weekend we might drive down to Santa Cruz. We haven't been there since our wedding, so it should be fun.

B: Holy brialliant orb in my hand!

Mandy, L and I decided to get out of the house on Saturday to round up some of the wonderful local citrus. Decmber and January are prime Satsuma months!! Thanks to Edible Sacramento we found the Miller Citrus Orchard, but unfortunately we didn't find anybody to sell us fruit. It was a sad sad moment. I mean we went to Penryn and everything!

As luck would have it, we decided to take our alegorical bitter citrus and make a tasty beverage by going on up to Auburn to play at the park. As we drove into town, we all but stumbled upon the Auburn Farmers Market. The market wasn't anything special, but oddly enough there was a certain farmer Miller there selling mandarines of several varieties out of the back of a 1970's era Chevy pick-up.


















All I can say is DAMN!!!! They are good. I think I prefer the Satsuma to the Clementine, but both are good. Either would make a killer screw driver or mimosa. That is of couse if we could avoid eating them long enough to juice them.

B: It's still raining.

Where the hell is all that fucking sunshine I was promised!?

Mandy and I are struggling to cook meals in our shizzy little apartment without our knifes or pots or anything good and quality and not tainted by the general crapiness of the apartment. Seriously we are tired of that apartment and want our house.

I know we are snobs, but the pots just suck and the knives are not anything close to sharp. We are resisting the urge to go buy things like a sharp knife because good knives are expensive and we don't need anymore, but it is painful. I feel like I am on a really crappy camping trip that I just want to end. Tonight I think we are making chicken noodle soup. Yum. Hopefully Mandy isn't on the verge of losing her sanity from not having a proper dutch oven.

We ate Suzie Burgers last night. It was fun. Burgers aren't that great but you can get hot peppers or cheese wiz or pastrami added to your burger. Next time I am getting a cheeseburger with pastrami and a fried egg. Take that heart!

B: wilted greens

We recently made a pasta dish from the JOC using spicy italian pork sausage, and rapini (broccoli rabe) from the farmers market and it was so amazing that we had to make it again, but we decided to try it with mustard greens instead. Wow! Was that ever a difference. The greens were tougher and so mustardy spicy that it clashed with the sausage. I haven't used mustard greens in the past and we weren't expecting it to be that strong!

This got me wondering, how does one do mustard greens properly?



On other fronts, the tomatos are rocking this year. I have some greens on the vine and hope to have ripe fruit by late july at the latest. We largely boycott those awful red orbs one buys at the supermarket because they are so bad. Waiting for the awesome home grown tomatoes makes this time of year paticularly enjoyable. Dreaming of the bruschetta to come...

B: length of superfluous text in speaking or writing aka rhubarb

A just recently made our collective 1st (and 2nd and 3rd) strawberry rhubarb pies. I can't believe I have never had this before, except at Lyon's. I thought it was gross when I had it at Lyon's, but homemade it is the shit! Tart strawberry deliciousness!

According to the Che Panisse fruit cookbook (I know it's a vegetable, but go tell that to the foodies)some of the best rhubarb in the nation comes from our own Skagit valley. There are two major crops, the first is in April and May and the second is later in the summer in July. Stalks should be finger thick and deep red for best flavor and texture. Larger stalks will be fibrous and require peeling but still work just fine. Rhubarb is slightly fruity, but mostly as the JoC puts it "the embodiment of tart".

Pie season is on and I strongly reccomend getting down to your local farmers market and buy some rhubarb when it is again available locally. While you are there, some early cherries are already available and more and more local produce is showing up every weekend.

This weeks favorite Redmond Farmers Market vender: Magana Farms.
Last summer Magana Farms had the best jalapenos along with a lot of other great fruits and vegetables. They are usually very helpful and conversational, and always offer you a taste, even if it is a hotter than hell late summer jalepeno. Check them out!

B: Break it down y'all

I had a bit of an emototional collapse the other day. It wasn't any real big deal, but I think my body finally just said "enough"! My job on Friday went to shit and rather than stopping to re-group and make the project manager think up a new plan and go to the client for more money, I simply ran myself into the ground trying to make it work.

I did this because I have been working too hard for too long on too little sleep. I stopped thinking for myself and became a robot because it was easier. I haven't really taken a day of vacation since my paternity leave over 6 months ago and I finally just broke down. The mental physical and emotional exhaustion over took me and it was all I could do to force myself to drive home. I called work when I left the site and told them I wouldn't be in for a few days. They were good with that and that is nice because they really didn't have a choice.




We made the America's Test Kitchen enchiladas for the second time last night. I think it is a pretty good recipe, but lacking in the spicy department. I think people from the northeast don't really do spicy, and the recipe reflects that. We are goin to look into some ways to kick the flavor up a notch next time we make it. It will be jalapeno season soon, so maybe we will get some hotter than hell Yakima jalapenos and give that a shot.

Overall that ATK cook book is pretty good. They missed some of the best recipes from the magazine such as the all beef meatloaf (north-easterners know their meatloaf), and the oatmeal cherry pecan chocolate chunk cookies (yum). I highly recommend buying it or better yet, getting it as a gift.