Vanessa Barrington

Scenes from a Photo Shoot

Toast shot

Ok, so the book is pretty much done. All that remains is copyediting, galleys, and other little details. Directly on the heels of turning in the manuscript, we went right into shooting the photos.

We did it with a crew of 4 plus me over 5 long days right here at the house. It was fun, intense, and a very exhausting. Kind of like catering a 5 day party.

But it paid off and we got some gorgeous shots. Here's a little photo essay of mine documenting a few of the moments. These, of course, are not Sara Remington's photos but mine on my little Sony Cyber-shot. But my photos do benefit from the food and prop styling of Nani Steele and Kami Bremyer respectively. Props also go to Sara (of course) and Stacy Ventura, fab photo assistant. Thanks Ladies! While I'm thanking. Thanks also to Emunah, Rachel, Haven, and Susan for all your help during the shoot and to all the parents and kids who modeled at the picnic. You know who you are.
Sourdough Buckwheat Pancakes with Caramelized Apples

Donut Run from Dynamo Donuts. Oh Yeah!

Tofu Soup with Homemade Kimchi

Kami with Root Beer Day 5

Sustainable Seafood Stew with Meyer Lemon Parsley Aioli (not pictured)

Sara and Nani valiantly trying to make brown cookies with browner filling look appetizing

Let's celebrate! It's a wrap!

What to cook when there's nothing to eat

One of my favorite MFK Fisher books is How to Cook a Wolf. The wolf, of course, is hunger. The point being that a resourceful cook is one who can find something to eat when the larder is empty and the wolf is at the door.

I cooked my own wolf the other night. True I was hungry, but the wolf at my door was no ordinary wolf. It was a book manuscript. I hadn’t been out of the house in days, and was still in the throes of copying, pasting, looking for inconsistencies, and italicizing foreign words not found in Merriam Webster’s 11th Edition. I was hungry and needed some serious comfort. I didn’t have time to cook or food in the house, but it didn’t seem right to go out until it was time to celebrate. And since the entire book is about getting people to make food at home rather than relying on packaged food and restaurants, what could I do but follow my own advice?

My wolf was garlic-scented and covered in dirt. I went outside and yanked my small garlic crop out of the ground. This was the garlic I’d hastily planted in early December just before getting on a plane to Guatemala. I didn’t even know if would work. I just shoved some cloves from the farmers’ market in the ground and went inside to pack.

I also had exactly 3 potatoes. So, I took 2 heads of garlic, peeled and sliced the cloves thinly and sautéed them gently in butter. I added 4 cups of water with a little concentrated chicken stock (I know I know) and the three potatoes, peeled and sliced. I cooked all until soft and pureed it and served garnished with dill and yogurt. My wolf was banished. Well, at least the wolf of hunger was. The other one was still on my desk. I've since banished that wolf too (at least for now) but I carry fond memories of the soup I made from practically nothing.

Plum-Verbena Jam

In a way, this jam is what started me on the road to writing this latest book. It happened last summer when I noticed a family member's plum tree was laden with fruit--pounds and pounds of delicious plums about to go to waste in the worst way possible, by rotting on the ground. We harvested the whole tree and got so many plums. We gave many away, we made plum jam, we froze a lot, I met Asiya from Forage Oakland and some of the plums ended up gracing the giant Eat In at Dolores Park during Slow Food Nation. You can see some of the photos in this post.

Here is the jam cooking. About halfway done.

Testing for the gel point. Not yet.

Getting the jars ready.

I don't, as a rule, process my jam. Shhhh! don't tell the USDA, but I wanted to test the recipe without a canner for people who want to process and don't have one. It worked beautifully. Just put a dish towel on the bottom of a large stock pot and go to it. I processed for 5 minutes.

Homemade Buckwheat Pasta with Cabbage, Bacon, Brown Butter, and Sage

You wouldn't know it was June from what we've been eating around here. It's cold in the Bay Area this week. Creepily so. So Sunday night I figured why not test a recipe from the book that fits the "season"? Sorry about the heinous picture in bad light but I wanted to get down to eating and couldn't stand to make a fuss over the photo.

It definitely tasted better than it looks. Buckwheat noodles rolled and cut by hand, bacon bought from Prather Ranch, cabbage and onions browned in bacon fat. Sage fried in browned butter, all topped with Parm shards. I'm about to say something I'll regret that starts with a Y. So I'll just stop here. Oh Yeah a nice bottle of O' Reilly's Oregon PInot. Not only does the dog on the label look like Flynn, it's a tasty wine. 

A Photo Essay from the Grain Chapter

I'm all out of words. Three weeks to manuscript and I don't feel like writing. So here are some photos taken over the last few months.

This is the wood-burning Alan Scott oven at Headlands Center for the Arts. My friend Eduardo Morell has generously shared his sourdough bread baking skills and methods with me for my new book. This is a photo of Eduardo at work on a Friday night before the Saturday Berkeley farmers' market.
 
This is a loaf of sourdough half wheat shaped with Eduardo at his house the day we adapted his recipe down for the home cook. Baked at my house. It turned out perfect!

Preshape phase of my Cornmeal Pumpkinseed loaf developed on my own from my starter with Eduardo's method. This bread is superlative toasted!

Rolling out a flour tortilla.

Action shot!

The tortilla in the pan just after flipping. Look at those nice air pockets!

The tortillas made into a quesadilla with homemade cheese and salsa. These were great. Light, crisp, great texture and flavor from a small amount of whole wheat flour. Wonderful the next day with butter and cinnamon sugar. No more store-bought flour tortillas full of additives!

Parmesan-Poppyseed Crackers. Easier than pie!

Whole Wheat Sesame Crackers: I wasn't trying to knock off my favorite Ak-Maks but it seems I did.

All my Pretty Pickles and a Happy Announcement

It's been pickling pandemonium around the homestead these last two weeks. Why, you ask, am I making pickles with not-quite-in-season vegetables when summer is just around the corner? Yes, they look delicious, but definitely out of character. The reason is because I'm working on a new book and deadlines don't care what's in season when.

You may have noticed that my recent posts have had a distinctly DIY character (and been somewhat irregular). That's because the focus of the book is resourceful, no waste, make-it-yourself deliciousness. Restoring the lost arts, building blocks for the kitchen and all that. Publication is scheduled for fall 2010 with Chronicle Books (with photos by the talented Sara Remington, who also did the photos for Heirloom Beans). The manuscript is due in exactly a month!

We're still settling on the final title but in the book you'll find plenty of pickles as well as basic dairy products, homemade beverages, all manner of grain-based goodness, condiments for your pantry and fridge, and meal building ideas utilizing all your homemade products.

I hope you find this as exciting as I do. I will tell you this: I've been having a lot of fun in the kitchen and am really starting to see the book take shape. I hope to help people avoid unnecessary packaging and additives, save money, have a lot of fun, and gain confidence in the kitchen arts and sciences. I don't want this book to be aspirational. Large sections of the book will be tips and ideas to demonstrate how to use and combine the different homemade items to make quick, healthy, everyday meals.

Pickle Key

Clockwise from upper left:
Wild fermented half-sour dills
Spicy table pickles
Lacto-fermented baby beets
Bread & butter pickles
Spicy pickled green beans
Cucumber garlic relish (center)

Homemade Cultured Butter

I love the tangy, complex taste of cultured butter, but I rarely buy it since it is pretty expensive. It's pretty easy to make regular butter (just overwhip some cream) but that seemed too easy. When I started researching how to make cultured butter, I realized that the technique for culturing it is the same as for making homemade creme fraiche. (another expensive product that's much more economical homemade) Since I'd just made homemade creme fraiche (pictured above with Sourdough-Buckwheat Pancakes with Caramelized Apples) I thought I'd try making butter out of some of the creme fraiche. It worked out better than I could have dreamed. Too bad we had already eaten our pancakes with regular store-bought butter before I got around to it. Yes, we put butter and creme fraiche on our pancakes. Something wrong with that?

So here's the process: Make creme fraiche (We'll get to that in another post and there are many ways to do it. All excellent and easy)

Begin beating it with a hand mixer at medium low speed. Turn it up as it begins to reach whipped cream consistency. When it goes beyond cream and starts to look more yellow and curdled, you'll want to turn it down again because you don't want to splatter buttermilk all over. It took me about 8 minutes to get to this point.

When the buttermilk separates as much as it seems like it will, pour it off and save it. Trust me it's delicious and I never understood why people drank buttermilk until today.

Push the butter into the sides of the bowl with a spatula to get as much buttermilk out as possible.

Once all the buttermilk is drained off, add cold water and work it around and through the butter with a spatula. If you skip this step your butter is likely to sour quickly. Do this about three times until the water is fairly clear.

Drain off the water and transfer the butter to a piece of parchment. This is where you work in your salt (if wanted) or any other flavorings. I made a small amount of lavender butter out of some of it. I'm thinking biscuits with honey!

Chill your buttermilk and enjoy! It's good for you! My dad would be proud.

Spring Potato Salad with Asparagus and Peas

River Dog Farm Potatoes, Asparagus, and Spring Onions, County Line Radishes, Swanton Shelling Peas. Chervil, Parsley, Chives, Green Garlic-Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette. I think this was the best potato salad I've ever made.

Water saving tip: Steam the potatoes whole (makes them more consistent too) Use the same steaming water to steam the asparagus (2 minutes, then plunge in ice water) and then the peas (1 minute or less)

Homemade Red Wine Vinegar

So I got a line on a 100 year old vinegar mother from the old Cribari wine family. I got my instructions and I'm ready to go. Truth be told: I was a little apprehensive about the wooden barrel. They are expensive, require curing, and though picturesque, they're not the best thing for vinegar. The cute little spigots get clogged up with mother and the bung hole in the top isn't big enough to actually get the vinegar out. They make them with lids especially for vinegar, but those cost $200. I'm so happy I found this glass, Italian-made cask at Oak Barrel Wine Craft on San Pablo in Berkeley. $36 and I'm in business. Ready to make my vinegar. It's picturesque in its own way don't you think?

This is the cask out of its casing.

This is the straw-lined basket it nestles in to control temperature and encourage air flow.

Here's the set up ready-to-go.

Here I am pouring in the mother. Now, we wait.......

Pinto Bean Fattoush Salad

I'm doing a piece for the magazine Eating Well. The concept is one pot of beans; many meals. It will be published in the September/October issue, but it's due soon, which explains the obviously out of season ingredients in this salad.  This one was so good I had to share. I don't know how the idea of pinto bean fattoush came from the depths of my brain. I'm pretty sure I've never seen it before, but it's one of the better ideas I've had recently. This was so delicious we were practically licking the bowl...sorry I can't give you the recipe, but you can certainly take the idea and run with it, if you're so inclined. It will give you something to look forward to during tomato and cucumber season!