Best of 2009

Following the list of questions at Chocolate & Zucchini... I skipped a couple of hers because I haven't bought that much new stuff, the kitchen seems to be working pretty good.

Favorite new kitchen pet
The kombucha mushroom Traves and Keely gave me. I'm still drinking the 1st batch, and still brewing the 2nd, so a pretty small sample size, but it's tasty. The blog is a nice pet, too.

Favorite new cookbook
I recently got the Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden and have made a couple of things out of it, a Yemeni cilantro/chilies dip/spread was super good. From scouring the wilds of IV/the free bin a nugget was No Man Knows My Pastries, a semi joke cookbook by some jack mormons in Utah.

Favorite new pieces of cookware
My mom gave me a nice little copper/stainless steel lined saucepan that she found in a thriftstore in Oregon. It's a nice size, and cute.

Favorite new pastry challenge
My dad made pies when I was a kid. And I liked them alot. Something about rolling out dough has always scared me though, so I skipped pie making and went straight to tarts, using the Jamie O press in tart dough recipe. Lately though both Keely and Sara have made pies and it doesn't look too hard at all, so maybe...

Favorite new staples
I've made a ton of sorbets and sherbets this year, closely followed by popcorn made in a cast iron dutch oven. Whole roasted winter squash, cooled, cubed w/ skin, sauteed with fennel/cumin/corriander, garlic, a chile is super good, too.

Favorite blogging moment
Starting it has been fun (started last January). In general, the Eliza as the gopher that has been tearing up my garden running gag has been fun.

Favorite new DIY projects
I'm not sure that Peach-cello counts, as I brewed in in 2008 but didn't start drinking it till this year (I blogged about the 2009 batch). Also, I've been making hot sauce. Have only posted one recipe, and it's not the one I eat the most. Problem is, I don't really know the recipe for what I eat the most. Vanilla sugar is pretty great, and so easy I haven't bothered to post about it. Kombucha mentioned above is good.

Favorite food adventure
Picking apricots in IV, picking persimmons in various places, picking the volunteer arugula at the garden that came up where I put the cuttings of the seed stalks.

Favorite (non-food-related) reads
I don't keep a list of books I read, but there are piles all over my apartment. East of Eden, perhaps.

Arrgh, I just read more of her year-end best of posts, and see that she tailored her categories to what she liked blogging about. So, a couple of seth categories:

Favorite free bin find (t-shirt)
'Absinth makes the heart grow fonder'

Favorite Neko Case peculiarity
She got 7 pianos off of craigslist and put them in her barn, great story.

Best tasting/worst picture
Easily this polenta dish.

Favorite weird food experience
No lutefisk this year. Or durian. Miracle fruit.

Favorite movie post
About surf movies.

Favorite white-trashy food post
Chocolate sauce, pretty basic stuff, but the pics are cool

Favorite thing I had forgotten about but was reminded of as I scrolled through the blog
Candied blood orange is epic. Better than other citrus.

Favorite sorbet
No clear fave, alot of good ones. Chocolate sorbet using the Lebovitz recipe, but adding crushed red chilies was great; blood orange sorbet, also using Lebovitz was great; lime + buttermilk was great; lime + basil + coconut milk; vanilla + persimmon was epic, and maybe should be the winner.

Favorite by-product of the Julie/Julia movie
That I found the pic of her 'dancing' with a turkey to illustrate a post, and also that the DVD had footage of the Dan Akroyd as Julia SNL skit.

Favorite DIY post
Apricot preserves. The pics were taken in real light, and I thought the excel graph about yield was particularly inspired :)

Favorite totally random post
Blue

Favorite american food post
Definitely not stuffed cabbage, which we tried twice. Fried green tomatoes lived up to the hype.