Open Foot, Insert Mouth

It was another action-packed and highly eventful weekend in my little world, and it included, among other things, playing three sets of music with my band El Mirage on an organic farm and vineyard in the beautiful town of Healdsburg.

The food was fantastic, all of it locally grown and organic. The wine was lovely, also organic (hey Dad, you'll be getting your bottle soon, don't worry!). It was a gorgeous day and rumor has it that our music was enjoyed by all the merry wine drinkers.

Really, it was all perfect. There was even homemade bread by the owner of the vineyard, who baked it in his wood-fired oven. One of the women who works at the vineyard had earlier in the day told me about this bread, and I was looking forward to enjoying it. In fact, maybe I was just a little too excited, because when I met said baker-of-the-bread-and-owner-of-the-vineyard, I got my words all screwed up and I said to him "I HEAR YOU ARE QUITE THE BED BREAKER!"...to which he replied "Well, I can't guarantee that but I do bake some pretty good bread!"....as my face turned beet red.

Uh, yes, this was before I'd had anything to drink. Fortunately besides baking delicious bread and growing good things to eat and making fine wine and paying the entertainment well, he also has a sense of humor. Ha, and I bet he won't forget me now! And the band thought it was so funny that they've decided to change the name of our project from Val Esway & El Mirage to Val Esway & the Bed Breakers....coming soon to a winery near you!

And the Secret Ingredient is....

Just moments ago, I finished a great book. As a side note, I would add that I finished this great book while sitting at work, drinking a glass of wine. Yes, my job has many great perks! But I digress.

The book, which I read over the course of the last 24 hours, is called Coyote Cowgirl, by Kim Antieau. My friend Sue passed it on to me after I catered a dinner party at her house last weekend (Moroccan food for twelve, and it was sublimely delicious!)

Anyway, this book involves a few of my favorite things - food, and the desert. Without giving too much of the plot away, I can say that I was really struck by the fact that several of the main characters in the book had a sort of spiritual relationship with food. In this book, food is not only something you eat, but it's something that sustains you and nourishes you on a soul level. The cooks in this book put love and spirit into the dishes they created, asking the food to give nourishment to whomever ate it. Yep, the secret ingredient really is love!

It is so satisfying to create and prepare a dish that looks beautiful and tastes amazing, but even more satisfying to share that nourishment. Now I feel inspired to run out and buy beautiful tomatillos, fiery peppers, fragrant herbs and deep dark greens...and maybe call a few friends to enjoy whatever I end up creating with it...and I certainly can't think of a better way to end what has been a very long week.

Sometimes...

... you don't know what you're going to write until you sit down to write it, and the words fly out of your fingertips while you've barely had a chance to think of their meaning or edit yourself.

Sometimes, these are the best kinds of bits, because they come straight from the heart. And sometimes, these are the worst kind of bits, because they reveal parts of you that are perhaps best left inside your cluttered mind, where there is no one to offend or confuse or drive away - except yourself, that is...

But the problem is, you're always stuck with yourself; you can't run away from you! You can confuse yourself, and you could possibly offend yourself. But you can't drive yourself away. But oh, how we keep trying.

Believe me...there have been many times when I would like to find myself 10,000 miles away from myself.

Sometimes, you don't know why you're proclaiming the things that you're proclaiming as if these things were the gospel truth, because you know full well that soon you'll be singing a different tune, possibly even shouting it from the top of some mountaintop. You know this and it pisses you off a little bit to think that you could even be spending this much time pondering this subject. In the time it took you to write what you wrote, life and death and most everything in between circled around hundreds of times, and you sort of missed it.

Sometimes, it's good to remember to crank up your stereo, to be grateful, to keep your heart and mind open and your cup full. And maybe not to think quite so much.

Exhausted...

... thanks to a weekend that included hot sunshine, hot kitchens, hot stages, hot sauces, cool herbs, savory stew, sweet berries, strong coffee, strong beer, spicy wine, sweet friends, saucy music ... and, not nearly enough sleep.

But really, I can't complain. And in fact, I especially can't complain now as I sit here with the Joe Rut song Hole in Space cranked, with it doing to me what it does to me every time I listen to it, which is to just completely hypnotize me and take me to such a perfect place. It is the perfect soundtrack to the stillness of this moment that I have finally arrived at after a non-stop weekend. Thanks, Joe. Your song is a gift that keeps on giving.

Dress up your Greens

And now back to our regularly scheduled progamming...






I'm still enjoying cooking things that are green. Or rather, it keeps working out that I have green things in my fridge that need to be loved, and so I improvise based on little snippets of recipes that I recall from faded cookbooks and magazines of days gone by.

And sometimes, it turns out just right.

The other day I woke up at 7 am and was inspired to steam dinosaur kale, broccoli and zuchinni because I knew I wouldn't be home in the evenings for the rest of the week, and I wanted to make sure that it didn't go to waste. But I didn't have much time before work, so I did this:

Heated a little lemon-infused olive oil in a skillet and added a couple handfuls of pine nuts, several cloves of roughly chopped garlic, and a couple handfuls of currants. Sauteed it all until the garlic was al dente and the pine nuts were golden. Tossed it all over the steamed green goodies, and off to work we went. Although I just used what I had, I bet this would be delightful over basmati rice or pasta. And if you didn't have lemon-infused olive oil, you could use regular olive oil and give a squeeze of fresh lemon juice at the end. Use what you have, including your imagination!

First Impressions and Too Much Information

I was just thinking about first impressions, and how so many of us strive to put our best face forward. Of course, it's human nature, isn't it?

I mean, we all want to present ourselves as having our shit together, being grounded, being desirable and clever and evolved and just all around perfect, don't we? Yes! I do! I want to be perfect, or at least, I want you to think that I am! Or I want to somehow prove to myself that I am, or could be. But damnit, it takes so much work to keep up that kind of charade. Let's hear if for laziness and apathy!

Sometimes, I want to meet a person and say "HI! I'M FUCKING NEUROTIC AND YEARS OF THERAPY HAVEN'T CHANGED THAT! I'VE GOT BAGGAGE! I'M A MESS! WELCOME TO MY MELTDOWN!".

I want to say this and so much more. I want to talk about the qualities you and I may find charming in one another at first but that we eventually will find grating upon our nerves like sandpaper across a chalk board. I want to meet you and disect you and find out what makes you tick and I want to love you and drive you away simultaneously so that I can sit around feeling sorry for myself and blaming you for my problems. And I want it to happen all in my mind so that I never have to risk anything and so that I never have to feel the coolness of your rejection.

I want to rail in that land of Too Much Information with more than just my own issues as entertainment... I want to hear all about yours neurotic ways, and then I want to sit around and psycho-analyze us all to death, so that I can firmly prove to myself that you are just as screwed up as me and then sit around feeling smug.

Yes, that's uh... what the voices in my head instructed me to write about tonight. Those voices are such cranky, buzzkilling little buggers, eh? But at least, they make us laugh. Or, they make me laugh. And in the end, laughter is what gets me through. So let's hear it for the voices! Woo hoo!

p.s. All the names have been changed to protect the guilty, and any resemblance in this story to any persons living or dead is just really tough shit.

This about sums it up for me today...

...

"i need a man
to cook for me
don't need no fancy cars or diamond rings

the path to my heart
starts with the kitchen sink
so come on little daddy bring me to the brink

i got pots and pans
just waitin' for your hands
come on and show me how you're gonna be my man


i need a man
who's not afraid of heat
so come on little darlin' fix me something to eat

i like sugar now and i like salt
so come on my little daddy
show me what you've got

show me what you've got now

i need a man
who wants to jump in the pot
so come on my darlin
give me all that you've got

i got pots and pans
just waiting for your hands
come on and show me how you're gonna be my man"

.... anonymous...

... and on that note, i sure am hungry. now who's gonna feed me???!!

;)

Reno is Not for Sleeping

Yep, it's good to be back. Yesterday I drove a good 650 miles with my lovely dog as a companion. We listened to whatever tunes we could find over the Idaho and Nevada airwaves, which included such hits from the vault as Brick House by the Commodores, Halfbreed by Cher, and everyone's favorite Dust in the Wind by Kanas, which turned out to be perfectly appropriate when we blew through a massive dust storm near Winnemucca, NV.


I was so damn happy when we finally arrived in Reno, dreaming of a quiet place to rest my head for the evening after more than 9 hours of driving.














But see, the Motel 6 where we stayed was not quite spa-like. Oh no.... it was loud and creepy and the kind of place where you find yourself feeling ESPECIALLY grateful for your canine companion. I certainly was. But I still found the need to take the precautionary measures of blockading the door with a chair, and calling my brother and four of my friends to let them all know exactly where I was, just in case the monsters crawled out from under the bed and swallowed me up in the night.



To comfort myself, I wrote a song about a germ-phobic person (gee, I don't know ANYONE like that) who wants to dip themselves from head to toe in Purell in order to protect themselves from the cooties of the creepy Motel 6 bedspread. It was a great way to both distract myself and laugh at my neurotic ways.


There are more pics to come, and tales of beautiful scenery and good times taking place in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. But right now, I have to make up for the sleep I didn't get last night in Reno...

Greetings from Yellowstone, where the skies are endless blue and the sun is hot and the trees are plentiful, and I can already feel my stress levels decreasing. There will be more to come once I have real internet access, which may not happen until I get back to the bay area.. which I am in no hurry to do.

We have our own private swimming hole!

You can't see power lines or hear cars backfiring or fireworks or gunshots in the distance!

There is so much more to report but it will have to wait. For now, I have a cold beer awaiting me and it's just about time to go to the West Yellowstone Rodeo.

Yee haw!

Summer Green Soup for Superfreaks

Tonight's soup was thrown together based upon what I had on hand, which was mostly green stuff - broccoli, asparagus, frozen peas, and fresh zucchini from my neighbor's garden.

When I got in from running errands this afternoon, Miss NoNo had the stereo cranked with a really cool 70's funk compilation, featuring lots of great music by the likes of the Gap Band, Rick James, and so many more. This was about all I needed to get myself inspired to create something that would make me forget about the fowl mood I had previously been swimming in.

The soup was created by first plopping a couple of spoonfuls of clarified butter into the pot, and then slowly sauteing one diced medium sized onion over medium-low heat until it started to become nice and golden brown.

In the meantime, I peeled two medium russet potatoes and coarsely chopped them. I also coarsely chopped three cloves of garlic, three ribs of celery, two zucchini, one medium sized bunch of broccoli, and a half a bunch of asparagus.

Once the onions were nice & brown, I added the garlic to the pot and stirred for a couple minutes. Next, the celery and potatoes joined the party in the pot and were sauteed for another ten minutes or so until they started to soften. After that, in went the zucchini, asparagus and broccoli, plus a smattering of frozen peas that had been sitting around feeling lonely in the freezer. I added enough water to cover it all, plus a little dollop of tomato paste, and brought the heat up to get it boiling, then turned it down to a simmer and let it all mingle for another ten minutes or so with the lid on the pot, till everything was more or less done.











Next, it was time to practice patience while the soup sat on a cooling rack in the kitchen cooling down. What better way to pass the time but to turn the stereo up louder and take a luxurious shower? Worked for me!

It was now time to puree the soup, pour it back into the pan, and season with a little dried oregano, dill and thyme, add a couple generous splashes of half & half, plus one generous tablespoon of pesto. After all, the soup's theme was green, and I just happened to have the pesto lying around.







Finally, it was time to serve the soup, and I also happened to have sour cream in the fridge, a dollop of which was added to the bowl and then swirled into the green goodness. If I'd had fresh herbs, they would've no doubt made an appearance, but sometimes you've just gotta work with what you've got on hand and if you're lucky, everything works out beautifully.

The Devil & Daniel Johnston...

...I just watched this most incredible film The Devil & Daniel Johnston w/ a few friends, and...WOW.

So beautiful and inspiring and painful and raw. Such an amazing story about a real person who is an artist in the true sense of the word.

It made me laugh, and practically cry, and drop my jaw and say "HOLY SHIT" more than once.

I'd been hearing about Daniel Johnston for years and now I finally get it. I love it when that happens.

Soon to be Yellowstone-bound...

... and boy, I can hardly wait! Deep blue skies, shiny stars, clear air, my dear pal Miss NoNo, our dogs, Miss NoNo's mom Ann, no less than 4 gourmet chefs in the kitchen, copious amounts of wine, sleeping late, hiking, and best of all, exploring one of the most beautiful places these United States have to offer (is that correct grammar??!).

Two words: OH YEAH!

I'll probably drop a line or two before then, since I'm not leaving till next week. But damn, I do believe that my mind has already started vacation.....and that's all I have to report tonight!

Greek Meets Italian equals the Perfect Salad for a Summer Night

It's been real hot lately, causing me to have some fleeting moments of feeling totally uninspired to cook. I hate that! Especially when I just spent more than $100 on groceries!

But alas, last night was one of those nights.

So it's a good thing I happened to have all sorts of half-filled jars and containers of this and that in the fridge, plus a few staples like cucumbers and tomatoes, because before I knew it, I had a beautiful, refreshing, delicious salad that required very little effort to put together.

And here is how it came to be:

First, I chopped a few roma tomatoes and half an armenian cucumber into nice chunky bite-sized bits. Then, I emptied the contents of half a jar of kalamata olives and sliced them, sending them on their merry way to mingle with the cucumbers and tomatoes.

Next, I remembered that some time ago I'd made pickled red onions, which have a very long shelf life, because they're pickled, duh! Into the bowl they went.

I was just about to use the last of some crumbled feta that had been sitting around waiting for me to notice it, when a chunk of fresh mozarella obscured my vision and planted crazy ideas in my mind! So instead of the feta, I cut the mozarella into chunks, and added it to the salad along with slivers of fresh basil and mint...because fresh herbs make most everything better, especially salads!

Fortunately, I had a nice big jar of citrus vinaigrette that I'd just made the night before, so I tossed the salad with a little of that, plus a generous sprinkling of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. And now, 5 minutes after I began, my work was done. If only all of life were so simple, yielding such tantalizing results....

Let's get Back to the Spinach & Pluot Salad, shall we?

Howdy!

Last week's festivities just kicked my ass. By the time Saturday rolled around, I was blotto. Gone, daddy gone. It was a day of recovery. Sometimes that is simply what a person needs.

And it's a good thing I rested on Saturday, because by the time Sunday arrived, I was fully ready to spend the day shopping, chopping, zesting, squeezing, pureeing, and grilling the day away.

The day's activities included homemade peach ice cream, vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, steamed beets & beet greens with citrus vinaigrette, and grilled tofu & shitake mushrooms with homemade muhammara*. I made sure to make extra citrus vinaigrette to go with this salad I'm going to be eating a lot of this week.

This salad is an adaptation of a recipe from a recent issue of Food & Wine magazine. I've included the exact proportions for the dressing here:



2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
Coarse sea salt, preferably red
Coarsely crushed black pepper

Now here, the recipe called for drizzling this divine dressing over a combination of baby spinach, basil leaves and plum slices. And it is unbelievably good exactly like that.

However, you can easily substitute arugula for the spinach, and fresh mint slivers for the basil. And it's oh-so-nice with a little crumbled feta. And of course, good old plums are perfectly acceptable, but pluots just put it over the top. So go ahead and be creative! Use what you've got! Make up your own combination! Throw in a light sprinkling of toasted walnuts, go right ahead! Have fun. Eat your greens. Just make sure to save room for dessert.

*More about muhammara later!

Sweet Success

Well, I've only been talking about it for a week. And I finally did it: I made my very first batch of the most incredible...deep...dark...intense...velvety....rich...lovely...




homemade chocolate ice cream.


I've heard it said that once you make your own, you can never go back to the store bought kind. And now, I am a believer, thanks in part to the clear-as-a-bell instructions in the awesome book The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz. He talks about this particular recipe being the one that ended his search for the perfect chocolate ice cream, and now that I've tried it, I can see (and taste!) what he means.








One thing I love about following recipes is that usually, if you follow the directions, you get good results. You get what you expect and hope for. Sometimes what you get exceeds your expectations. I find this so incredibly comforting, not unlike chocolate ice cream.


So much of life is uncertain and comes with no recipe or tour guide. I feel like I spend the great majority of my time trying different approaches and bouncing off the walls, as if my life were taking place inside a pinball machine. Sometimes I hit it just right, and other times, I just bounce around randomly. It's certainly never boring, but I feel frequently bewildered. That's why a single moment of culinary perfection is so utterly satisfying. Sweet success indeed.

Homemade Ice Cream, and Pearls of Wisdom from my Dad...

Dad!

This one's for you. Even though we just got off the phone, I can't help but reiterate that I wish you were here tonight to enjoy my very first batch of homemade ice cream. Knowing that it's over 100 degrees in the Phoenix area right now, I can't help but think that this would so hit the spot for you. I went with the deep, dark chocolate flavor for my maiden voyage with the new ice cream maker. It is churning its chocolate-y magic as I write these words.

There are so many reasons why I am thankful for you, Dad - not the least of which is all the ways you've helped to instill in me a deep appreciation of food. People, you need to taste my dad's meatballs and homemade pasta! How lucky am I that I got to grow up eating this stuff??

Dad, I wish I could enjoy a plate of pasta with you right now, and a glass of spicy red wine. And THEN after that, we could eat the homemade chocolate ice cream!

Another thing you taught me is the simple practice of common courtesy. You taught me to always say "hello, goodbye, please and thank you". This simple but essential practice has stayed with me throughout my life and still serves me well to this day.

I still remember so fondly how when I and my siblings were small and had already gone to sleep, you'd wake us up to eat popcorn and watch Johnny Carson. This was important business! You can't sleep when there's fresh popcorn in the house!

And it wasn't that long ago in fact, that I was whining about my love life (or lack thereof), feeling really lonely. It was you who told me that maybe it was just less complicated that way. Well, the jury is still out on that one, but I sure am glad that I can talk to you about such matters, and always appreciative of the wisdom that you share with me. Hell, I'm happy that I am lucky enough to have two parents who love me and have always been there for me. That is never something to take for granted.

So happy Fathers Day, Dad! The ice cream is still churning, just like the wheels in my head. I do look forward to the day that I can make homemade ice cream for you and Mom, and we can eat it out on your patio on a 90 degree summer evening in the desert, under deep blue, star-filled summer skies.

Until then, I am sending my love...

If I were in Charge...

... people like Joe Rut, the High Diving Horses, and Yard Sale would be famous.

Joe Rut would be like one of those people whose songs get covered by the likes of Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello, and whose own shows would swarm with thousands of rabid fans. And I'd still be performing at his special living room concerts, singing harmony on that beautiful stage.

The High Diving Horses would be like as famous as Beck, rocking the festivals and the airwaves, with every last damn person in the crowd singing along. When they played their hometown gigs, I'd be their special guest bass player and we'd sing in 3 part-harmony.

People all across the world would be baking pies to the sweet, soothing, down home 3-part harmonies of Yard Sale. Denise, Mel & Jill would make tons of money just for being amazing songwriters and delightful singers and entertainers.

Also.... if I were in charge, everyone would have minimal aches and pains, and plentiful home cooked meals with the ones they love. And lots of time to nap. Everyone would have a high quality stereo with Joe Rut, the High Diving Horses, and Yard Sale in their record collection. All of this just for starters. And this is just the tip of the iceburg, my friends!

What if you were in charge? What would we eat, drink, and listen to???? Come on... I know you're out there. Comment anonymously if you wish, but make your voices heard, won't you?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Tamales, Ice Cream, and the Further Destruction of George

...


I'm too exhausted and delirious to write very much. It's been a long and fruitful, sleepless, exciting, draining, inspiring, utterly manic week. I am all too happy to spend Friday night with my butt parked on the couch, reading my newly acquired books: Tamales 101 and The Perfect Scoop,
while Miss Spider happily continues her job of tearing poor old George to bits.

Thanks to Bob & Magali for leaving Spider the gift that keeps on giving!

Summer, Slaw, and a Big Sigh of Relief

My life is like a rollercoaster. When I'm down, I'm WAY down in the bottom of the well. But when I'm up, damnit it's a glorious thing.

Take today for instance. After a long stretch of having lots of physical pain and back issues, I FINALLY woke up feeling good.

And after work, for the first time in weeks, I felt strong enough to take a good, long hike in the redwoods. And suddenly, everything in my world felt right again. This whole day has been like one long sigh of relief.

After my hike, I whipped up a perfect light salad for a summer evening, which I adapted from the most awesome cookbook Super Natural Cooking that I recently picked up (check out the recipe for Crunchy Slaw Salad - I adapted it by using both green and red cabbage, and added a tiny bit of finely diced jalapenos, and a few sprigs of cilantro).

Then, I hauled my sweaty self, along with a bag of food and other treats, over to a friend's house. This friend has been feeling a little under the weather and I wanted deliver a little summertime sunshine (and hell, I gotta do that while I've got it, cause who knows when I'll fall back into the well???).

As I was headed over, the air was warm and blustery, and the sky was pink and grey and blue and intoxicating, and I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be, or anything else I'd rather be doing.

After a short but sweet visit with said Friend (and two other Friends whom I adore and who happen to live there too, one of them being furry and four-legged!), they sent me home with freshly baked brownies. And as I got into my car & drove West, the clock read 9:18 pm, and the sky was just barely turning deep dark blue above me, and ahead of me far in the distance, the sun was just fading away, leaving a beet-red smear on the horizon. I rolled the windows down and let the warm air rush in, and yes, it truly was a glorious thing.

Short Attention Span

As I write this, I've got a strawberry-rhubarb pie in the oven, beets steaming on the stove, Schubert playing on the stereo in the kitchen, and KALX on the radio in the bedroom.

I don't know what to tell you about first - my short but sweet visit over the weekend with Bob Wiseman and his wonderful wife Magalie, or my personal chef gig debacle on Saturday in which I accidentally left the uncooked fava beans that I was using to weight the pastry crust IN the quiche!

And what about that dang recipe for arugula and mint salad with pluots and feta in citrus vinaigrette?

And hell, did anyone even notice this evening that the sky was still light tonight at 9 pm?

God I love summer!

Yesterday I baked apple pie, and tonight it's strawberry-rhubarb. Yesterday's pie was a test...







and couldn't hold a candle to the famous apple pies that Lucio Loud makes, but hell, it wasn't bad either.


Tonight's pie is being baked as an offering to the KALX DJ Meaty Paws, on behalf of Loretta Lynch, who'll be live in his studio tomorrow evening. Tune in around 10 pm California time, and you just might hear some siren sounds.

But, I digress. Pie is tricky stuff, as I am learning. But learning can be so much fun, and so delicious in the process!

Magalie and Bob left me with some lovely parting gifts, one of which was a George W. Bush squeaky toy for my dog Spider to destroy.





Actually, they left it for both Spider and Dean, but Spider was very selfish and simply wouldn't share poor George.









And speaking of short attention spans, I fear the strawberry-rhubarb pie may be burning, and the beets turning to mush, so I better get my ass back into the kitchen.

To be continued...