La Serenissima

All of this gushing about how wonderful the first two episodes of Brideshead Revisited are has been making me think about Venice a lot.

(picture from Carol Gerten’s Fine Art)

Venice was the capital of La Serenissima, or The Most Serene Republic of Venice. Isn’t that wonderful? It has some of the loveliest architecture in the world, all the glories of Italian food and aesthetics, it has Burano lace and Murano glass, it was serene, and of course… the canals. The Venetian canals are something that must be seen to be believed. One can know, intellectually, that the city was built on the water, but the gut punch of knowing it is a completely different experience.

Murano glass is a difficult thing to resist. So colorful, so fanciful, so sparkly. Since I was in Venice in 2003, I have had a vague intention of someday buying one or two Venetian chandeliers for my own. The charms of millefiore glass need not be expounded upon, I’m sure… and the shelves and shelves of darling little glass animals in every shop. So tempting, so pretty, such pointless little toys. And of course, it’s all so very expensive. Well, at least I can play with my Venetian solitaire set, pictured above. It was ordered from the internet, incidentally, not bought in Venice.

These beads, on the other hand, I did bring home from Venice. They are the one souvenir you can buy that is wholly affordable; in fact, you cannot buy the loose beads for less than the cost of these necklaces, never mind the spacer beads and findings. I know, I’ve tried a good alternative, many a late night when my lovely amber sommerso beads just weren’t enough to be going on with. One has to go to Venice to get these darlings, I’m afraid.

Not Venetian–made by my aunt

I was there with my mother and my aunt, who were both as charmed by La Serenissima as I was. Our hotel was off a street that was barely shoulder-width wide. Our hotel room was papered with silk jacquard. We looked in every shop, even though they all sell the same things. My mother bought watercolor prints. My aunt let herself be haggled with by a street vendor selling designer knockoff purses. We ate hot paninis and drank cold lemon soda for lunch; we sat in a blessedly cool back garden for dinner. We walked from one end of the island to another, and had gelato on the Rialto. We fell in love with San Marco. We fell in love with the Doge’s palace. We took a gondola ride that took us everywhere a gondola ride is supposed to take you, under the Bridge of Sighs and down quiet back canals. We took a hotel speed boat to Murano. We took a very slow ferry to Burano. We took the vaporetto up and down the main canal.

Venice is everything it’s supposed to be. I promise.

Zucchini fritters

I wrote about zucchini fritters in my two entries about the Turkish meze party I gave a few weeks ago. That party was the first time I had attempted to make them, and since then, they have become quite a thing here. I make a batch almost every week, now, and though I’ve been fiddling with the ingredients, they are always delicious.

I first had zucchini fritters, or kabak mücveri, at Turks And Frogs in Manhattan on a hot August afternoon when I had been up and down the island and was, as usual when in New York, feeling disoriented and slightly ill. They were served beautifully, two large fritters criss-crossed with delicate stripes of sour cream, and I ate them up but was too preoccupied by the bewildering city outside to notice just how good they were. Fast forward a year and a half to my mezze party, and you find me–in the midst of all that chaos–hearing multiple other people say they were good, and deciding myself that they were quite good, and worth making again. And again. And again.

I got the recipe guidelines out of Sultan’s Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook by Ozcan Ozan. I have never followed Ozcan’s recipe faithfully, only in spirit. The most basic ingredients are:

* Shredded zucchini. I usually use 2-3 for a batch of fritters
* An egg
* Milk, perhaps half a cup
* Flour, perhaps 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup
* About a teaspoon of baking soda
* A hefty pinch of salt, plus a bit more

To these basic ingredients, I have tried adding:

* Black pepper, by which I was sufficiently underwhelmed that I have left it out subsequently
* Sliced green onions, which are very nice
* Crumbled feta, which is also very nice

I am sure that Turkish beyaz penir, or chevre, would both be very good in these, and I am told that cream cheese is nice too.

Make a nice sloppy batter with your ingredients of choice, and then cover the bottom of a large skillet with oil, heat it up, and start frying the fritters until they are nice and toasty on both sides. Drain on paper towels, and eat.

I always eat these hot, preferably straight out of the skillet (though one batch is usually 3-4 servings), and with a dollop of sour cream. They are absolutely heavenly, lighter than their latke cousins and with a wonderful, delicate flavor of zucchini that is beautifully enhanced by green onion or feta or both. Yum. Do try.

Anything for my readers

Dear readers, I hope you know that I am willing to make any sacrifice in the interest of good blogging. So, when not one but two separate comments on my chocolate post told me to try Dagoba bars, well, I had to do it.

I bought these at lunch time, and kept them untouched in my purse all afternoon so that they would be in pristine condition for this photo. Gee baby, ain’t I good to you?

Okay, you were right. It’s quite good. There isn’t much acid aftertaste and the bars are pleasant un-sweet, a rare quality that I highly esteem. The xocolatl bar has only chili and not cinnamon. The eclipse bar is, indeed, quite a high cocoa-content chocolate with lots of earthy, bitter undertones to prove it. These bars are a good, relatively cheap alternative to Michel Cluizel, should I ever hit a dry spell. Where they fail is in texture. This chocolate is very chalky; it crumbles in your mouth, rather than melt. All in all I prefer chalky to waxy, but MC hits the best of both worlds.

Thanks for the input!

In other news, I have plantage. This is my order of perennial flowers, hooray! You see two clematis, shasta daisies, hardy mums, hollyhocks, lavender, English daisies, lupines, pinks, and delphiniums. I didn’t really know what I was doing when I made this order, so there are some things here that would have been much better bought at the local gardening center or even started from seed–but it’s still all good. I will put them in the ground tomorrow. The bunnies will be so happy.

Wabi-sabi

Wabi-sabi is… something you’d do better to read other people’s explanations of, but it is a guiding principle of Japanese aesthetics. Something is wabi-sabi if it “isn’t perfect, isn’t finished, and won’t last.” While I’m generally very cautious about using foreign words that don’t translate directly into English, I think that the Spring right now is wabi-sabi.

Snapdragons warrants: chocolate

I’ve said before that my graduate school advisor taught me to take chocolate seriously. Before he schooled me in its ways, I was a mere ingenu in the world of cacao and its assorted, wondrous products. No more. No, I’ve got the goods.

I’ve made it clear in previous posts that the holy of holies in the world of chocolate is Michel Cluizel. That’s all the substance there really is, to this post. Michel Cluizel is the best. Everything else is second-rate. End of the practical part of the discussion; everything else I have to say is Decadence and Decay.

Michel Cluizel chocolate has very little acidic aftertaste to it. It also has an ideal texture, not too chalky and not too waxy. A piece of it will melt into a gooey little puddle of delight in your mouth in a way that no other brand of chocolate will. Another unique and wonderful feature of this brand is that it is not, for the most part, oversweetened. At 85%, the chocolate can scarcely even be called candy.

I worked my way from 60% to 72% to 85% cocoa content. Michel Cluizel is famous for making a “sinister” little 99% bar–the only real 99% I’ve tasted, and I’ve tasted lots of fakes–but I have never found my way to enjoying it, not when my advisor wanted me to, not when co-workers were sycophantically pretending to like it, not when very drunk on Kirschwasser and homemade beer and being coached to “let it melt on my tongue and taste it in my sinuses.” 85% it is. It can be ordered in the US for slightly less from Chocosphere, and on a good day, small 85% bars are available at World Market. Their bonbons are delightful, too–I’m especially fond of the walnut ones.

My favorite Decadence and Decay are the Vosges flavored chocolate bars, and my favorite of those is the Red Fire, with ancho and chipotle chilis and cinnamon. There are certain flavors that, when I taste them, make me feel strongly connected to ancient civilizations–beer takes me to Mesopotamia, and chocolate + chili takes me to Mayan temples. Some of their other bars (like the ginger, wasabi and sesame bar shown) take a lot of concentration to taste and enjoy, but Red Fire is upfront and undeniable. Yum. I should note that Vosges is also notorious for making a hard-to-find bacon chocolate bar. Hmm.

Lindt has a very unpleasant acid aftertaste, but the cocoa strengths (up to 85%, anyway) are not exaggerated (though oversweetened), and in sad and desperate times when Vosges Red Fire bars aren’t available, I make do with their chili pepper bar.

Finally, Green & Black. Well. I’m also a sucker for oranges and mulling spices with chocolate, and this is my best alternative in that game, currently. Otherwise, the chocolate is unpleasantly acidic and has a cheap, chalky texture.

In the end, I am issuing Snapdragons warrants for chocolate to:

Michel Cluizel, and
Vosges

Spoilage & earthquakes

Well, everyone, what can I say. I was awoken at 4:37 a.m. CDT by the earthquake. People who were awake already at that time (bless their hearts) report that there were small shakes leading up to the few seconds of serious shakes that woke me up. I felt, or thought I felt, little shakes for a good twenty seconds after the big ones stopped. There was no damage, no pictures fell off my walls, even my reading lamp stayed standing. So both the real quake, and the aftershock in the late morning, were more fun than otherwise.

This afternoon, a little self-created spoilage was waiting on my doorstep when I came home. You see here a pair of Indian wedding slippers which may prove to be unwearable, and if so will be put up on a wall to be admired. Also some random goodies from Caswell-Massey, their women’s cologne sampler, apricot kernel massage oil, and orange blossom olive bath oil. Yum. And so pretty, too. I like products with pretty packaging.

The earthquake has come as a strange punctuation to two or three particularly pleasant days, full of pleasant weather and pleasant friends and a pleasant bellydance session (we did a tribal circle at the end of class, what fun!) and pleasant dreams at night and the discovery of possibly the most pleasant song ever, Temptation from Hotel, by Moby.

Happy weekend, everyone.

Oh, up down, turn around
Please don’t let me hit the ground
Tonight I think I’ll walk alone
Find my soul as I go home
And I’ve never met anyone quite like you before

Treasures in the garage

This weekend wasn’t one bit suited to outdoor gardening, but last weekend was. I bought those flats of pansies and, after carrying them as well as several very heavy bags of compost and peat from my garage to my back yard (no really–it seems like 75% of gardening consists of carrying heavy stuff around), I returned to my garage one last time to gather up my gardening gloves and my trowel.

The trowel, I’m sorry to say, seems to have absconded itself over the winter. I searched high, I searched low. It isn’t on any of the garage shelves. It isn’t in my tool box. It isn’t on or under the back deck. It simply isn’t anywhere. Alas. I dug up the tiny holes for the pansies with my fingers (after all, that’s why God invented nail brushes) and bought a new trowel the next time I went to the garden center.

What I did find while searching my garage shelves was a single cardboard packing box… with stuff in it. I had no idea what could be there, which is astonishing, given that I’ve only lived in this house for eight months. I peeked in and saw… china. And glass. Goodness.

These are pieces of china that have lived in my mother’s china cabinet since time immemorial. You may remember that my parents also moved house this summer, and got rid of really an awful lot of stuff. They must have brought this box on one of their visits, and deposited it on that garage shelf. Did they tell me they had? Did they intend to bring it in later? I don’t know. But I had some serious antiques sitting out there, these few months.

Most of these pieces don’t have notes with them. The pink glass candy dish is Depression glass, I know.The salt and pepper shakers come from the same great-great-aunt who gave me a toy creamer (fantastic lady, aunt Madge, incidentally. Had rheumatic fever and polio less than a year apart and had to learn to walk again; never married; was a newspaper reporter, living alone in downtown Indianapolis… pretty gutsy for a lady born circa 1900). The lovely gilt dish with roses is a complete mystery.

And this ironstone plate, so the note says, belonged to a grandmother, though I don’t know how many greats should be attached to her. Between two and three, anyway. The pattern is of bleeding hearts and seems to have been hand-painted.

So the little collection of elegant clutter atop my dresser has been augment. Everything looks so pretty–I quite like it. It’s wonderful that it mostly has meaning and memories, too.

Though some of it is just pretty trinkets I picked up on eBay.

Pudding has opinions about what, or who, the real treasure around here is.

Rain and late frosts

This weekend is disgusting. The temperature at night flirts with freezing, and the days are gloomy, windy, cold, and rainy. There’s just nothing to be done outdoors–nothing at all. Indoors, we can sit and plan, and peek hopefully out of windows into the mostly-empty garden beds that hold so much promise, but that are so very far out of reach…

And those of us who are naughty, greedy, and/or ill-advised can take ourselves to the garden center to buy plants anyway. That’s what I did yesterday. The gardening center is putting out lots of plants far before their appropriate season, and paradoxically, the plants are being sold at an astronishing rate. The veined pink petunias I like so much are practically gone, the English daisies wiped out, and I grabbed the last two of the deep blue pulmonaria shown above. Aren’t they lovely? I just adore bicolor flowers. Sorry the pic is a little fuzzy, my camera couldn’t quite pull in close enough to get a full-screen shot of those tiny flowers.

I also, very much against my better judgment, bought this year’s lot of snapdragons. They will live near the window in my garage for a few days, until things seem to warm up a bit. Ditto the pulmonaria.

Aren’t the snapdragons fabulous? I think you’ll agree that it was worth buying them early to make absolutely sure that I got some of them. I thought that I had the best snapdragons ever last summer, but now I know that I was wrong. I have the best snapdragons ever this summer.

Too close for comfort

You, bunny, are too close for comfort.

I know you’re cute, with your little waggly nose and cottony bottom and disapproving stare. You’re disapproving of me photographing you in my own garden, incidentally, outdoors where you have no “reasonable expectation of privacy,” so stop it with the disapproving.

But I digress.

You are too close for comfort. Someone–and no, I’m not saying you specifically, just someone–has lopped off all of my tulips already this season, and all we’ve got are bulbs, there aren’t even any rooted perennials blooming yet. Do you understand how very naughty that was? And do you understand why I have such trepidations, such fears, why I am (and I can hear you thinking it!) profiling you? Let’s hop in the Wayback Machine, shall we.

Last year’s first, triumphant poppy blossom. It’s the most gorgeous flower I’ve ever grown from seed. There was a second, and a third. Then there were no more. And do you know why?

Because a BAD BAD BUNNY nibbled them off at the bases and cut their stems into tidy 3″ pieces.

So don’t act innocent. I know what you’re thinking. You know I know what you’re thinking. I know you know I know what you’re thinking. Let us not play games. I’ve got capsaicin spray and whoa bunny, you’d better believe I’m not afraid to use it.

More progress

Everything progresseth, here.

Pudding the Perilous can get to the top of my chest of drawers all by herself now, and sleeps up there most days. Yay Pudding!

Aaaaaaaand… do you know what that is? Do you know do you know? I know! It’s a baby sweet pea! Yaaaaay!

AAHHHHH!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (deep breath)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I have daffodils and hyacinths! Well… I have one daffodil, that was supposed to be pink, but is yellow, and the hyacinths are frost-damaged and ratty lookin’, but… AAAAHHHH I have flowers!!!

And we’re getting thunderstorms tomorrow and mixed rain/snow showers over the weekend. It’s lovely today, though.

To answer questions about the cupcakes: first, yes, you do want one. Second, they were made with a Betty Crocker boxed chocolate cake mix, and frosted with a jar of Betty Crocker fluffy white frosting. Sorry to disappoint, but I’m a firm believer in boxed mixes for the basic kinds of cake. One just can’t make one from scratch that will be so light and fluffy.

Cupcake

Cupcake?

Cupcake.

Cupcake!

You want a cupcake.

Hope in April

There is Hope In April, already. This weekend has been absolutely glorious–sunny, still, and in the sixties. It’s so gorgeous I could cry. I think it would be lovely to have weather like this all year ’round. Of course, it is gardening weather. Unfortunately, it still isn’t quite safe here to plant very many things. It is still going down into the forties at night and we could easily have frosts or even snow, still. Our frost-free date is May 15.

Pansies are all right, though. I know this because this morning, when I made the mistake of going to the garden center unescorted and was about to buy pails of English daisies and pulmonaria and forget-me-nots, I had the presence of mind to call my mother and have her talk me down from it. She gave me the firm NO! I was looking for about all of that, but agreed that pansies were okay. And if my mother says something is okay, it’s really okay.

Violas are the same thing as pansies, really, aren’t they?

I own half of a small garden tiller (though generally, the owner of the other half and I get on well enough that we keep the two halves together, and trade them back and forth). Isn’t it cute?

Today, I used it to work four bags of compost manure and a bale of peat moss into my disgraceful flower bed. Here is a picture that shows the line between the empty half that I worked, and the half with a few scraggly bulbs and perennials that I planted last Autumn and haven’t the heart to dig up.

I really ought to get it all covered in mulch. And I will. Someday. Just, probably, not today. I’m exhausted.

Oh well, even though there aren’t many flowers blooming outside yet, there are paper flowers blooming inside,

And I’ll always have my Clementine.

Goat Cheese Mind Trick: pizza

What, exactly is the Goat Cheese Mind Trick? I have alluded to it before: to make any recipe that prominently features chevre, because any such recipe is destined to be delicious.

This is my original Goat Cheese Mind Trick–pizza.

Early in the day, set out one package of frozen leaf spinach to thaw. Crush or mince a heaping tablespoon of garlic, drown it in olive oil, and put that aside to marinate.

When you’re ready to make the pizza, preheat your oven to 400F. Halve and gut a pint or more of cherry tomatoes.

Onto a full-size ready-to-bake pizza crust, smear the entire garlic and olive oil mixture. Thoroughly squeeze out handfuls of the leaf spinach and spread it evenly on top. Distribute the gutted tomato halves evenly on top. Slice four or eight (pictured, eight) ounces of chevre into coins, and put on top. Lightly salt the whole thing. Bake until the goat cheese is turning brown at the edges.

Enjoy with a glass of red wine.