SARAH STUDER

Its not quite what I had envisioned, but it’ll do (pig).

Well, they certainly don’t look like these, but they’ll do. Practically perfect.

Katey and I (mostly Katey) made these blue macaroons with chocolate ganache last night, and they were successful except that I accidentally grabbed milk chocolate chips and the ganache totally didn’t work. I left a bowl of it out overnight and it kind of hardened, making this photo possible but not really lending anything to the taste.

Determined to try again, I made chocolate macaroons with peanut butter filling tonight, all by myself. It was nerve-wracking. Every time I thought it wouldn’t work, it would. And these are what I came up with:

Cute, huh?

Here’s the recipe I used. I figure you can’t go wrong with Martha, right? But I think there’s a lot of room for improvement and I need a couple more tools (a better pastry bag attachment, for example) in order to make them perfect. I’ll probably be bringing future variations to an event sooner or later… maybe yours?

Just woke from a dream in which I mis-used the word “literally” in casual conversation with President Barack Obama. Of course he called me out on it and I was completely humiliated, but then he said he liked my style and offered me a job.

After reading The Help, I grew curious as to how my grandparents raised seven children without lots of help. I called my mother immediately to ask- wondering if there was some element of that story in our family history.

Turns out, my mom and my aunties and uncles weren’t raised by African-American Southern domestic servants, but my grandmother was. That prompted the question, “Then how did she ever learn to cook?!”

My mom says that when my grandparents got married, my grandfather told my grandmother that if she could read, she could cook – and he bought her a cookbook.

Brilliant. And so true.

That’s just something I’ve been thinking about as I ponder my upcoming macaron adventure, and as I’ve been scouring TasteSpotting for dinner ideas. I’m roommate-less this week and have been literally fending for myself for 48 hours. It’s not THAT fun to cook for yourself, but there is fresh produce all over our kitchen, literally dying to be cooked.

This week’s eggplant and zucchini were nearing their expiration dates, but thankfully, Smitten Kitchen just posted a recipe for eggplant salad toasts and I found this recipe for zucchini and summer squash risotto. The toasts are just a great alternative to a tomato bruschetta and would be GREAT for entertaining. The risotto was also delicious- and I’ll probably be eating it for the rest of the week because it made a ton!

Just kidding. End credits of the latest episode of Hung. This video matches the episode perfectly.

I can’t decide if reading 13 books in one summer is a lot or a little. I also can’t believe that I’ve spent the summer reading about serial killers, disease, and maids.

“Genre” #1: Serial Killers

• Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris – I picked this up because Eliz had loaned it to me, saying she had read it multiple times and that she wanted to re-read it again. She’s my best friend and so I take her recommendations seriously (with the exception of Veronica Mars), but I was a little bit nervous because horror/crime/murder/gore isn’t really my thing. And because it’s not my things and because I’m a fool, I started to read it before going to sleep each night and would have nightmares… so I finished it by the light of day, and won’t be picking up any of the author’s other works.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Steig Larsson – I’ve already written about how I couldn’t stop reading this book. It’s true. I couldn’t stop. I also couldn’t stop marveling about how much coffee the characters drank and how many sandwiches they made and ate. Overall, I enjoyed the first book of the series and was anxious to move on to the next…
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Steig Larsson- I marched right out and over to Elliott Bay Books to purchase the second book in the series, and started reading it immediately. Slower than the first, but still exciting… and then I finished it and picked up Dana’s copy of…
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, by Steig Larsson – and I can’t even remember what happened, except that they ate a bunch more coffee and sandwiches and boxed pizzas and now the series is over and I’m kind of glad, because really – the story is quite ridiculous.
• And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts – this book is being included in the “serial killer” category because AIDS has killed an awful lot of people… and I’m going to be honest, I actually didn’t finish this book. It’s like, 700 pages long and after about page 250 and a whisper that the theories of Patient X being responsible for spreading the virus had since been disproved, I took matters into my own hands and did a bit of my own research instead. HOWEVER, I would recommend this book to everyone, because I think it’s important to get a sense of the scope of HIV/AIDS  in the United States, and what the toll on the gay community was- because it’s truly  astonishing.

I wish that had wrapped up the list of morbid tales, but unfortunately, it does not. We now move over to the second genre, but if I consider HIV/AIDS to be a serial killer, then I suppose The Plague should also be in that category…

“Genre” #2: Servitude (through the ages)

• Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, by Geraldine Brooks – boy oh boy do I not want to die of the Plague. That is all I have to say about that. Read it and see for yourself.
• Lady’s Maid, by Margaret Forster – this one is about the love story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, as told through her maid, who helped the couple to elope and then spent the rest of her life sacrificing her own life and family for the good of her employers, and then was turned out in the cold. Boy oh boy, I do NOT want to be a maid.
• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett – I loved this book! Read it in a day. Loved it. It’s about two African-American women who work as maids for white families during the civil rights era in Mississippi, and one white woman who wants to find the maid who raised her. Need I say more? Jim Crow. The Terrible Awful. A baby named “Mae Mobley”. Just read it.

“Genre” 3: Miscellaneous

• L.A. Candy, by Lauren Conrad – uh, yeah. You can judge me, but then you’d also have to judge Kendall for purchasing it and Eliz for also reading it. Total fluff. Totally curious as to who is who in this book, though it’s pretty transparent. But wow, it’s cheesy. Even the names of the characters are ridiculous. Jane, the goody-tw0-shoes, and Scarlett, the badass? Come on.
• Radical Sanity: Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Women, by Elizabeth Wurtzul – sent to me by my OTHER good friend Elizabeth, who declared that this book is her Bible, and it is now also mine. My favorite piece of wisdom? “Don’t get up to clear the dinner table unless the men do too.” Sound advice, wouldn’t you say?
• For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide / When The Rainbow is Enuf, by Ntozake Shange– apparently people get assigned this book to read in high school and college. I’m surprised I managed to escape it- it’s really, quite good (although NOT my style whatsoever).
• The Egg & I, by Betty McDonald – yeah, so my roommate Heather is not allowed to read this book because Betty McDonald’s opinion of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest is… not very nice. But! she writes about her experience on a chicken farm in the PNW and it’s funny, so the rest of you should pick it up.
• Oxygen: A Novel, by Carol Cassella – this one comes recommended from Karyn. It’s a story of an anesthesiologist and a medical malpractice lawsuit and it’s based in Seattle, which is always neat. Not too much medi-jargon and it moves at a pleasant pace, though I can’t STAND that the protagonist is apparently one of those people who has a deep thought about every single person she lays eyes on. I mean, I certainly don’t think about the soul of every random person that passes me by… but then again, I’m selfish and nasty.

In conclusion, here are the major takeaways:

1. Do your best to avoid serial killers.
2. Swedish people eat too many sandwiches.
3. Stay healthy and pray that the Plague doesn’t make a comeback.
4. And on a personal note, my vocabulary has improved and I surprise myself by using words like “lackadaisical” in everyday conversation.

I have said this once, and I’ll say it again: if you’re going to volunteer at events for organizations you don’t know very well, it’s best to sign up for the ones that are based on food and that feed you.

Last night, Heather and I volunteered at the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance’s annual fundraiser, “The Incredible Feast: Where the Farmers are the Stars“. The event paired some of Seattle’s best chefs with local farmers who provided the raw ingredients for all the dishes.

We were assigned to help out with the “Celebrated Chefs” booth, enrolling people in the free program and giving away free cookbooks! Celebrated Chefs seems like a pretty cool program: sign up and every time you dine at one of the participating restaurants, 5% of your final bill is donated back to the NFMA. Plus, recipes from all the participating  restaurants are featured in the free cookbook- which is this really nice yearbook-sized hardcover.

We managed to sample just about everything that the 28 chefs were serving up. We ate fish eggs, tuna pate, duck galantine (served by the very very cute owner of Rain Shadow Meats), roasted fingerling potatoes and Foraged & Found mushrooms, a really delicious rice pudding with peaches, an awesome lamb kabob, a yummy roasted corn and cucumber soup with a hot pepper,  an heirloom tomato panzanella (you know how I feel about a good bread salad) and a beet salad that ended up being my favorite- probably because we were stationed right across from it and were forced to stare at it for two hours.

Also of note: the guys serving up the food from Marjorie (newly relocated to Capitol Hill) were super cute – as were the reps from Tiny’s Organics. Also, there are still people out there who don’t own computers, and I think that’s fantastic.

A lot of delicious stuff has been coming out of our kitchen lately. I have no pictures to prove it, so you’ll have to trust me.  Here are a bunch of the recipes that I’ve enjoyed- maybe you will too!

• This blackberry cobbler.
• These blackberry muffins. I personally feel like the batter was better than the final baked product, but they’re still good. I also suspect that Heather cut down on the sugar.
• Blackberry popsicles.
• Chicken, with 40 cloves of garlic. This was delicious but peeling 40 cloves of garlic is a painful, arduous process that I do not suggest undertaking unless you happen to have 10 heads of garlic like we did. I guess they sell peeled garlic for a reason, but I am never one to take a shortcut unless I truly understand why. And now I do.
• Eggplant rigatoni
• Pesto, eaten atop baguette slices
• Spicy quinoa salad with cucumbers and tomatoes
• My very favorite carrot salad with feta, harissa and mint
• Tilapia, wrapped in swiss chard and baked in a lemon-thyme butter- we couldn’t find halibut, but the tilapia was a perfect substitute.
• Parmesan-encrusted tilapia (made from the leftover filets)
• Garlic mashed potatoes with spinach
• Green beans with harissa and tomatoes. I tried to replicate the amazingness that comes out of the Tango kitchen, and of course, it just wasn’t the same.
• Green beans with shallots
• Kale chips

Bon appétit!

On another note, I have been remiss in my blogging- mostly because I’m feeling uninspired but ALSO because I have been devouring some really great books, which I will post about soon in a recap of my summer reading list.