Feist streaming

it's so good.

Feist / NPR

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Organic Food jpeg

Plastic, via the Surfrider Foundation

Peck of Pickled Peppers

I straight up used this recipe. I used yellow bell peppers, serranos, gypsy, poblano, although this awful picture is of a jar with just yellow bell and serrano.

Melon Jam

This one I don't remember where I got the recipe from. The ratio is 4:3 trimmed melon:sugar, by weight. As per usual, I made it over quite a few days, which does positive things to the flavor, but makes the sugar more caramelized so it is more brown than orange -- kind of a boring color. I used a cantaloupe from Sara's garden, half of a leftover green honeydew from the co-op, and half of a cantaloupe from Givens.

Melon Jam
65 oz melon flesh (trimmed of outside skin and inside seeds)
36 oz sugar
a vanilla bean
1t citric acid

cook, cool, repeat

Spiced Fig Orange Jam

Love this. Going to make more for sure. Kind of combined 2 recipes I, II. Threw in a vanilla bean. Honestly the directions are pretty imprecise/inaccurate. I actually took about a week to make this, kept cooking it up a little bit each day. You shouldn't do that. But the fruit/sugar ratio is right.

Fig Orange Jam:

17 oz figs
1/2 t citric acid
10 oz sugar
a vanilla bean
water from rinsing out a jar of orange marmalade
juice/pulp from 2 oranges
diced rind from oranges
ground cinnamon
ground cloves

combine everything but sugar and spice and let sit overnight
add sugar and spices, cook it up, and let sit overnight again
cook it up and put in jars

Homemade Hot Sauce

#2, #3, #1

I've made some before, with a different Emeril recipe, this Emeril one is magic. I've made it 3 times, once straight up following the recipe, the other 2 times I used more chilies by weight, but they were fleshier peppers so I think I'm good. So, first batch was with 10 oz of green serranos, 2nd was 22oz of a green bell pepper looking chile that was surprisingly hot, grown by Sara's friend Erin, 3rd was 28 oz of yellow bell peppers, 2 red serranos, and 1 cherry bomb for heat.

Homemade Red Hot Sauce via Emeril

20 tabasco or serrano chiles (about 10 oz), stemmed and sliced
1.5 T minced garlic
3/4 c sliced onions (6 oz)
3/4 t salt
extra virgin olive oil
2 c water
1 cup white wine vinegar

saute the veggies for a couple of minutes
add salt and water, simmer till it is almost gone
cool, add vinegar, let steep overnight
stickblender
heat to a simmer again, put in jars, let cool before putting on the lid
let it rest for a couple of days in the fridge, there's an initial vinegar harshness that goes away
will last in the fridge for 6 -12+ months

update:
this version with pimientos and canned chipotles is gooood

2020 update!:
Patagonia has a recipe, a little bit more salt, less acid, but it's still supposed to keep ok

Jalapeños en Escabeche

Made this in August, had some last night. Really good, though I really like the carrots and wish I had distributed them equally in the jars. Amy gave us a jar of it that Jacob from Roots made that was amazing, this is in the ballpark, but I might have to contact him.

Jalapeños en Escabeche:
from Recipe of Memory by Victor and Marry Valle

3 lbs jalapeños
1 head garlic
1.5 c extra virgin olive oil
2c sliced carrots (2/3 lb)
1 onion
2c cauliflower (skipped, used more carrots)
4.5 T salt
3T oregano
1T black peppercorns
5 bay leaves
6c white wine vinegar

sterilize jars
wash chilies and cut slits in them
heat oil in a stainless steel pot, add garlic and chilies, cook 3-5 min
take off heat, add veggies and spices, add vinegar when it has cooled a little
heat another 2 min
put in jars, allow to cool before putting on lids

supposedly this will keep 2 months not refrigerated, longer if refrigerated. I go fridge all the way.

Cool Iceland Video

Where I Was on 9/11 Map: NYT

this is a pretty cool project

Mel Brooks / Onion AV

nice interview

Coulda Soulda Woulda

Last year I made a little bit of loquat jelly, and then a ton of apricot preserves (20 quarts). The trees were nuts. This year I got lazy and skipped the loquats, and then the apricot trees only yielded up a little over 1Q. I'm bumming. Plus I'm finally eating last year's loquat jelly and the stuff is great. Kinda like pomegranate molasses.

Something Missing Curry

There's a great recipe in the Tassajara Bread Book for Something Missing Muffins. Basically Ed Brown breaks down a muffin recipe, taking one ingredient out at a time, to make recipes that aren't quite right, but do work. This one is me messing around with a thai curry. The "curry paste" was turmeric and a chili powder. Eggplant, red okra, garlic and some peppers from the garden. Coconut Milk. With sacred basil. Tasty.

Vietnamese Sockeye

Nice wild sockeye, fried skin side down in a little safflower oil to crisp the skin, then flipped for a minute or so. With nuoc cham and a salad platter. We overcooked the rice noodles, but still a good meal.

Bon Iver / NPR World Cafe

Pretty sweet, 30 min interview + songs. Holocene is with the full band, maybe only soso, I love the album version. Beach Baby sounded amazing. The live version of Beth/Rest he does is cool, solo piano, and he starts it out not singing in falsetto.

Fresh Air Food Week

A couple of re-run/compilation episodes of Fresh Air, the links are to the original full length interviews. The Harold McGee one is interesting. I actually thought I'd linked to it when it was on, as it occurred during the early days of the blog, but no dice. He's a food scientist. Well, he explores the science of cooking, he isn't a fuddy-duddy in some USDA lab... I listened to a Michael Pollan one today that wasn't in the re-runs, but it's great. It was from the Omnivore's Dilemma press tour. I knew 'free range' was sketchy, but his explanation of it made that clear: Free range means after 5 weeks of life in a factory farm hen house, a door is opened at each end of the house and the chickens could go outside. But they don't. They are then killed at 7 weeks. He signed off with this nugget: I don't think you can call yourself an environmentalist if you're thoughtless about what you are eating.

An old interview with Julia Child was great. The Bittman one is good but short. I quite liked the other food science-y one -- the bit on onions/sweet onions was interesting. The banana one is super interesting. They played segments from a couple of Ruth Reichel interviews, only 1 of which is available in entirety online, I did mention it on the blog way back in 2009.