1. first up the onions & stuff to cook ribs in:

1 onion
3 gloves of garlic
fresh rosemary
fresh tarragon
brussel sprouts halved.

chop up an onion, garlic, herbs & brussel sprouts. Add olive oil & cook til onions start to get translucent. I added a teaspoon of duck fat for extra fab but you can skip that part. Add one cup of chicken stock (probably could have used beef stock too). Do this in an iron skillet.

2. brown the ribs.
In your second iron skillet turn it up HIGH & brown your ribs about 1 min on each side. I added chunky salt, pepper & balsamic vinegar to each side.

3. add your ribs to the onions. & add about a cup of red wine. I added a Zin cause it’s a bit spicey & more importantly that’s what I had.

4. put into a preheated oven (300 degrees).

cook 20 min & flip the ribs.
cook another 20 min & flip the ribs.
lower the oven to 250 & cook 20 min.

serve with a nice glass of Zin!

I’m still not sure what I did to cause these light leaks. Here’s the only indoor photo where there were light leaks. It’s as close as I could get.

dead flowers

The next photo was of my couch. It’s further away & still inside. Outside of the red blanket, which should NOT have been in the image, I like it.

Red Couch

Then I went to my bedroom. Each shot took me about 3-5 min. My cat Lily really wanted to be in the shot. She sat for 2 of them.  She got the hang of it by the second shot, but after 2 she was done for awhile. I like the second one the best. I love how she folds her paws in all pretty like & looks right into the camera.

Lily and the opera purse

I like going to Mission Creek to shoot at night. Once I was there & had an owl watch me shoot. I went early to set up since I wasn’t familiar with the camera. I went a bit too early so the first shot was still too light. I like this one a lot.

Mission Creek Boat house

Since I already mastered the pumpkin swirl cheesecake I thought I’d make a berry cheesecake. By berry I mean raspberry and blueberry. I put most of the berries in 1/2 cup of port, some splenda (3 packets should have been more like 1/3 cup!) and cooked for a bit. The rest of the cheesecake:

Crust:
1.5 cups of almond flour
4 TBL of melted butter
3 pkgs of splenda
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of vanilla
1/2 tsp of paprika or red pepper
mix up & put into pan. Most people only want a THIN crust of this. I don’t mind it thicker if I use 5 TBL of butter.
put in 375 degree oven for 6 min or until brown. remove from oven.

Filling:
2 8oz pkg of cream cheese
1 8oz pkg of goat chevre cheese
1/3 cup of splenda, 1.5 tsp of vanilla

Beat  until creamy

Add:
2 TBL of creme fraiche or sour cream
4 TBL of heavy cream

Beat until fluffy

Add:
1-2 TBL of lemon zest
1 tsp of lemon juice

Beat more

Add 4 eggs, one at a time, slowly. mix on low speed.

Put 1/3 of the batter into another bowl.

In the 2/3 mixture add most but not all the berry mixture and beat more. Pour into pan with crust. Top with the 1/3 vanilla mixture.

Bake in a 325 degree oven for 50 min. add topping:

2 TBL creme fraiche/sour cream
4 TBL heavy cream
3-4 packets splenda
1/2 tsp vanilla

cook 10 more minutes & add the last of the berry mixture.
Turn off oven for 30 min. with door closed.
Open oven door & leave cheesecake inside for another 30 min.

Rest outside for 2 hours. Then refrigerate overnight. Very yummy.

I’ve loaded my film holders, I’ve figured out the Toyo, I’ve arranged a great model I’ve been wanting to work with and I’m set to go. Right? WRONG! We never worked with film! I have no idea how it works. Thank gawd for google. Youtube didn’t even have a video on how to load the film holders, shoot film, etc! scheesh. I panicked but then found out that photo.net had a post on large format & the general idea of how to do this. Not all that different from my hasselblad but much more dangerous if you forget a step like putting that slide back in but in the wrong direction.

I’ll scan the negs when I get them. I hope to move from B&W to color next week. I’ll have to get some extra film holders for that though. I shoulda thought of that yesterday. Today Rayko is closed. sigh.

Link I got on photo.net: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/

Since it’s the end of the year I’d like to honor those that passed during this time of loss (which started on April 15, 2008):

April 15, 2008: Kathleen Bolton is struck by a tree in Stern Groove and died at the hospital a bit later. She was sweet, with a wicked sense of humor. I enjoyed sharing inside jokes with her. We were new friends and I owed her a phone call. I regret that. I hate having regrets and have very few. This one weighs a bit heavy. At least there was a memorial.

Oct. 2008: Basil Francisco. My step-father passed in his sleep at the age of 92. It was not expected (he’d just gotten new teeth!) It was a blessing that he was not sick and went peacefully.

Nov 17, 2008: Daphne Crockett died of cancer. We never met in person but we were on an email list for lesbians over 40 for 13 years. We used to send each other email about our cats with photos. I miss her stories about her little town in Maine.

April 22, 2009: Rock’n Roll Ramona committed suicide. It was sad but she’d been having a difficult journey of late. I went to her memorial. A reunion of sorts she would have enjoyed.

May 31, 2009: Rose Johnson died in Bali. Mystery surrounds her death. It was tragic and senseless. She was a kooky artist that came to stay at my apt with my best friend Kim Blake. Rose had a bit of a melt down over a guy with a couple of tattoos (an apple on one arm, a picture of the gerber baby on the other). We also hung out with her in Bisbee, AZ. She had bad taste in men. I think of her often.

June 3, 2009: Thomas Paul O’Neill. My dad passed away surrounded by his 3 daughters and wife. It was a very beautiful process and I feel very lucky to have been a part of it. My dad was a foodie who always saw the glass very full. I like to say his WWII experience was like a Bob Hope, Bing Crosby war movie. There were shows! Girls! Houseboys & booze. He learned Italian and art history. He has the pictures to back up his stories.

Sept 22, 2009: Ben Harris was struck by lightening and died. He was my step-sister Geri’s partner, husband, friend for over 30 years.

A lotta loss in a short time. I like to think of it all being book-ended by two freak accidents, with a full range in-between. Some of the deaths have been harder than others. For a long time I just felt numb and sad, but I’ve come out of that into the very cheery times of the holidays. And just when people were about getting ready to bop me one I got a cold. Too sick to do much put an end to all the over-the-top-cheer. I’m just hoping the cold will be gone by the new year.

Happy Holidays! And to a better year in 2010!

The ritual begins like this:

1. heat the kettle. I use an electric kettle because it’s faster and uses less resources. So it’s got a smaller carbon foot print.
2. pour boiling water into the press and TWO large coffee cups. My largest coffee cup has a lid and does not retain heat very well. But it is large. I drink from that one first. My next largest coffee cup is thicker and retains heat very well. I drink from that one second.
3. heat the kettle again.
4. grind the beans.

Ok. The beans are THE most important part of it all. You can not have a great cup of coffee without great coffee beans. And well, great coffee beans is entirely subjective. Really. What I find great you might not care for at all. When I was first laid off Ritual Roasters had the SweetTooth espresso blend. It was near heaven. Then they switched to Lifesavers, which is not nearly as great as the SweetTooth but almost. Then my neighbor and friend brought me back some Black Cat espresso beans from Intelligentsia. The taste was soo chocolate-y sweet with the strong aftertaste of cherries that I had to read the label two or three times to be sure sugar had not been added to the beans (it had not! nothing had). I can buy it online, which will be my treat to myself once I get another job.

5. pour the just off the boil water over the beans (yes, I’m assuming here that you’ve poured out the heating water. I pour it into my dirty tea cup so that it’s not just down the drain).
6. set the timer for 4 min.
7. set up the milk frothing thingie or use a pitcher or cup.
8. after the timer has gone off, heat the milk. In my microwave this is 45 seconds. Your microwave may vary. The trick here is not to overheat the milk or the milk proteins will turn.
9. press the coffee and pour into the two cups leaving the last teaspoon of coffee for the coffee gods that live in the bottom of your sink drains. They like that bitter, gritty shit. Give it to them.
10. add sweetener to milk. This is a problem for those of us that due to health reasons can not eat sugar. Most artificial sweeteners change the taste of the coffee. While good in tea, the only alternative that is good for the body – stevia – changes the taste of coffee too dramatically (in a bad way). I’ve found that splenda does not, so I use that. Telling me that your latte’s do not need sweetener, thus you don’t stock anything but sugar does not make me a customer. Do you hear that Blue Bottle & Four Barrels? No, it pisses me off. So, while your beans may make a delicious cup of coffee, I don’t buy them because as person who can’t use sugar you tell me I’m not worthy.
11. I pump air while mixing the sweetener into the milk and then divide the frothy milk between the two cups.
12. COVER the second cup of coffee so it’ll stay warm while you drink the first cup.

There you have it. The How-To of great coffee making! Lily, my big fluffy cat likes to sit on my lap while I drink my coffee. She believes that is what makes my coffee truly great. She may be right about that….

Goats in Sonoma

When I travel I like to stop and photograph. Generally I photograph animals, barns, old stuff and whatever floats my boat. I love farm animals but usually it’s just cows and horses. This was a cool day cause there were GOATS. My sister, who really loves animals, found it funny that I’d take the time to stop the car, jump out and shoot. HA! that day I only had my digital camera (nikon d50). When I shoot with the Hassleblad it’s a bit more of an ordeal, although having my cool vw gti hatchback means I just have to setup once and then it’s easy.

Remembering the goats, when I went to visit my sister down in Morro Bay she took me to see the elephant seals. This time of year they come up onto the beach and do their thing. She said if we’re lucky we’d see a birth, or if especially lucky a fight. The day was warm (70 degrees in January?!). The beach was FULL of elephant seals. OK there were so many elephant seals they took up more than one beach. I’m not kidding. See!

All quiet on the western front

Kinda boring at this point, except for the flock of seagulls, which signal a new birth. That seems cool but not so exciting and then things just get wild for a good 20 minutes. It all starts when two males suddenly raise up and roar. Trust me, it’s loud. Really loud cause the surf is loud as it is.

But they’re pretty far away from each other so it seems harmless. Really it does. These guys are big boys. Like half a ton big. Maybe even more. Who knew they could move so fast? But they did.

The females with pups were pretty pissed off and voiced their displeasure. So you have the loud smacking and roaring from the males and the pissed off yelling of the females. Even the pups were screeching so as not to get stomped.

And these guys are fierce fighters. Really fierce. I thought they were gonna kill each other. Don’t take my word for it! I have the photos.

Iggy Pop Supervises

I have to say, that as a child the only thing I really enjoyed about Thanksgiving were the pies. My mom used to get me outta school early so I could help with the pies (but by the 7th grade I was just making ‘em!). We’d have a custard pie, a couple of apple pies, a couple of pumpkin pies and a mincemeat pie. My mom and I were the only ones that liked the mincemeat pie, though the apple pie was my favorite. We made a pie crust that used oil instead of lard. My mom was a 60′s health nut so no lard for us.

I continued to make the apple & pumpkin long after I left home, until I had to stop eating sugar and wheat. Like the nerd I am, I searched the web for a good low carb fancy desert. There was cheesecake, lemon cheesecake, pumpkin swirl cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake and cheesecake. Get the theme? I didn’t even like cheesecake! The first cheesecake I made involved some sort of instant sugar free jello/pudding thing. It was my first desert in a year. The first bite was fab. I shoulda thrown the rest out after that first bite.

I went on to try a lot of different recipes. Then I found the “Martha Stewart Low Carb Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake”. I struck GOLD. Man was that thing good. It also had eggs (5-6), sour cream, heavy cream in it that the others did not. But the crust was only so-so (I think I grounded up pine nuts, macademia nuts and almonds). Maybe Martha has the right tools for that job but I did not. We ate around the crust. After two years of using that recipe (and without saving it locally!) it disappeared. It seems someone else modified Martha’s recipe to make it low carb and Martha objected to her name being on it. Back to the internet search.

I now have a recipe I modify at a whim. This year I added 11 oz of Goat Cheese (Chevre — which means Goat in French, weird but it’s that light goat cheese that comes in a log. I got mine at Trader Joe’s.).

Lily just wants to be by my side

Here’s the recipe:

First turn on the oven to 350 with a cookie sheet on the lowest level.

CRUST:

1 1/2 cup of almond flour (Trader Joe’s has this in the baking section).
5 TBL butter (melted) NOT MARGARINE WHICH IS EVIL!
3 packets of splenda (so far this is the only sugar substitute I’ve found for baking)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp nut meg
1/8 – 1/4 tsp vanilla

Melt butter w/3 packets of splenda
add  vanilla

In a bowl add flour, cinnamon (1/4 tsp), nut meg(1/8 tsp), 2 packets of splenda. Stir. Add butter mixture.

Mash into pie pan & up sides.

OK! I admit I added ALL of the splenda to the almond flour (3 packets) and added all the vanilla to the butter. I think you’re supposed to add half to each. I use a very heavy pan to melt the butter so as not to burn it.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 6 minutes with cookie sheet under pan.

Mixture:

2 boxes of cream cheese (8 oz each)
11 oz of Chevre Goat Cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 heavy cream
1 can pumpkin
1/2 cup or (12 packets) splenda
6 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. ginger

In mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, chevre, Splenda and vanilla until fluffy. Add 1/2 sour cream & 1/2 cream. (4 TBLS of sour cream and 2 TBL of heavy cream). beat more.

Put 1 cup of mixture in another bowl and beat in 1 can pumpkin. Beat in spices.

REALLY I should have concentrated on the plain first. Added the eggs and then moved on to the pumpkin mixture. I did not so I had to wash the beaters in between. Next time I hope I’ll remember this.

At LOW SPEED add 3 eggs to the plain & 3 eggs to pumpkin.

Pour the  plain mixture into pie pan. Swirl in pumpkin mixture. Use a knife and swirl the two together into a swirly design.

Bake at 325 degrees for 50 mintues (with the cookie sheet still on the lowest shelf)

Once I didn’t have the sourcream (WTF was I thinking?). But this topping really isn’t optional — it makes the recipe!)

For the optional topping:  OH YOU MUST DO THIS IT WAS YUMMY!
mix up 1/2  sour cream,  2 TBL  heavy cream, 2 packets of splenda, 1/2 tsp of vanilla spread over cheesecake & bake 5 minutes more.

Turn off the oven and leave door closed for 30 minutes.

Open oven door but leave cheesecake in the over for 30 more minutes.

take out for 2 hours. Refrigerate.

yum!

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake

Ritual Cafe

I can vividly remember my first cup of coffee. It was not a pleasant experience and you’d think that would have been enough for me to never pick up the habit. But alas no. You see, I loved coffee ice cream and if I found coffee ice cream there must be good coffee roaming around.

But that night I was looking for something to help me squeak out an extra hour or three to finish a paper. A college paper. And a friend offered me coffee. And just like at my mom’s house, the kettle was put on and a jar with these weird coffee crystals was brought down from the cupboard. I added a lot of milk and sugar. But it didn’t really help, so I held my nose and gulped it down. bleech – that was bad shit. Really bad. I can still remember how bad. I may have trouble remembering my friend’s phone numbers but to this day I can still remember that awful bitter taste. yuck.

I resorted to No-Doze after that. Just water and a white pill! and I could get a couple of extra hours of studying. It wasn’t until after college when a girlfriend turned me onto Italian espresso that I started drinking coffee seriously. She had her own stovetop espresso maker and Safeway carried this Italian espresso brand of coffee. Not instant either. It wasn’t bad. Then I had some Italian restaurant cappuccino. Oh dear, I suddenly realized that our coffee was not so good. It was the coffee! You see, this was a rabbit hole I had suddenly entered into.

I eventually got up to 8 cups of coffee a day. I could get everything done. It was amazing except for the headaches and the jitters. Then I’d quit coffee cold turkey for a month or two. I’d start with one cup a day and work back up to 8. My sister called me rude about it all. Hey, I’m not drinking instant coffee. I mean, is that even really coffee? And it could cause cancer for all I know. So I bring my own coffee AND coffee maker wherever I go. Or at least I used to. Then I quit coffee for good. Yea I know. But for 4 years I only had a cup of coffee for an important meal or occasion (which translated into about one cup a month).

Gone was the morning monster sittin’ on my shoulder until my first or second cup of coffee. Granted I was still getting my caffeine but by black tea. And let me tell you, carrying tea bags instead of coffee, coffee maker, etc was MUCH easier and lighter weight. But then I got the time sucking startup job and my occasional latte turned into a daily event. I did try to be sure the first latte wasn’t until 9-10 am. But even that was a challenge after awhile and soon I was having an afternoon latte.

These days I’m unemployed and I don’t drink coffee everyday. I ALWAYS get a latte for my job interviews. Gotta get jacked up for those. And some days I’ll meet a friend. But mostly I want to take a walk over to Ritual, my favorite coffee place in the world. I can’t remember who turned me on to Ritual Roastery but I was dragged there for the art as much as the coffee. Still, it was the coffee that made me stop in my tracks and just go “whoa”. I mean just like a stoner! I’m not. Ask my friends. but Ritual was overwhelming, the coffee I mean.

Turns out Ritual is part of this coffee revolution. They roast their own. And they’ve gotten so successful that they took out the nice leather sofas in the back to hold bags and bags of beans. The roastery machine looks cool, smells good and makes a kinda cool sound that doesn’t drown out the music they play. Most of which I actually like. The roastery machine is this combo old school and high tech. The operator gets to surf the net while they work and they do have fans to cool ‘em down.

The folks that work there are friendly, nice, and interesting. They take their time and make a great latte. Milk isn’t burned. That’s the biggest bummer with lattes. Turns out that the fast food places of coffee have a min heat temp for the milk which always burns it, even when I ask them to make it not so hot. Now I know that I need to request 120 degrees. They kids act like I’m nuts but I know they haven’t been to Ritual.

Blue Bottle is Ritual’s rival (and 4 barrel is the merger of folks from ritual and blue bottle or so I’ve been told). I went to the Hayes Valley Blue Bottle kiosk. It was my first coffee of the day and kinda late for me (almost 2pm!). I got in line. I waited. I ordered. Well first off they had no large latte — only small and medium. WTF?? Whatz up with that? I want a LARGE cup with 2 shots of espresso in it. Ok. I take my measly medium cup with 2 shots and look for the Splenda.

ASIDE: I have a health reason and can no longer eat sugar. Yea it’s a drag but I’m used to it by now. My family is almost used to it and it’s been eight years. YEARS, not months. And I’ve found that the best sugar substitute for coffee is Splenda. It doesn’t alter the taste of the coffee. Sure, I wish I could find a Stevia that didn’t change the taste. I drink Stevia in my tea, which tastes good. See, Stevia is good for the heart and gums so I’d like to drink it in my latte but it does something funny to the taste of the coffee.

And Blue Bottle only had sugar. I don’t even think it was organic sugar. So, I asked for the Splenda. Wish I’d been prepared but alas I was just shocked while the barrister went off on how they did NOT use, recommend or welcome, artificial sweeteners in THEIR coffee. Stunned I searched thru my purse and found a packet of Splenda. Great, now I could drink the strong coffee they gave me (and for which I PAID).

I found the roast stronger, heavier and closer to a Peet’s taste. It didn’t really have the finase of the Ritual roast (I especially love the sweet tooth roast). No big deal. When I went to 4 barrel to check out their new place and try their coffee, I didn’t realize I was outta Splenda. I order and again they don’t have the larger size. And then I find out — no Splenda or any artificial sweetener. none, nada. And the attitude! The guy tells me he doesn’t think his latte needs sweetener. I tell him I generally can’t drink it without. So he offers to give me my money back if I can’t drink it. Now, I have had the Ritual Sweet Tooth and not put any Splenda in it. Didn’t need it. So maybe 4 barrels was similar. It was not. I got my money back and walked around the corner to Mission Beach Cafe where the hot chick from Montreal makes a wicked latte with blue bottle beans in a large cup. Oh, They have Splenda too.

Now I have two places to get a wicked good cup of coffee.

gah I need pix of Mission Beach Cafe!

The machine

Ever messier desk

I’m a bit surprised at my own grief. It’s so much easier to see it in my mom and my older sister. Maybe because they were so extreme in their grief that first day. And my older sister was so irritating with her righteousness and being in charge but unable to focus or get things done. I managed to read a book. That’s what I do when my family gets all weird. I read.

It’s almost one month since my Stepfather died. He was 92 1/2. He went to bed, got up around 3 am and had some orange juice, went back to bed and never woke up again. He was not in pain like his younger brother who had died 4 or 5 days prior. He hadn’t been sick. In fact he’d just dropped a big bundle on new teeth. I guess they’ll get cremated with him.

I did not have a good relationship with him. He came into my life when I was 8. He was so different from my dad — a carefree, happy, life of the party sort of guy. My dad totally believed in the “Dr. Spock” way of raising kids (he was in a Ph.D program at Stanford to be a therapist, but ditched it to be the swim coach at SJSU where folks tended not to kill themselves). We discussed why behaviors were right or wrong — even how some behaviors would be ok once we were adults. My stepfather believed in corpral punishment and that children should be neither seen nor heard. I was an eccentric child who was both willful and stubborn. I made adults uneasy and sometimes creeped out. Most kids were ok with my weirdness in ways that adults were not. My stepfather thought that he could change me. HA!

It all came to a head that night just after dinner. My Stepfather & Mom at their dinner trays in comfy chairs in front of the TV. All of us 5 kids sitting at the counter finishing up our dinners. My mom couldn’t cook well and I’d yet to take over that task, so I tended to eat as much as I could tolerate and throw the rest out. I was off to read or study or make up stories when my Stepfather stopped me. He ordered me to let the 2 dogs out. I was already in my own world and mumbled yea. It surprised me that he picked me to let the dogs out when all of my siblings were closer to the sliding glass door. And because I was caught off guard I did not speak proper English – something my Dad was working very hard on. So when my Stepfather bellowed “WHAT DID YOU SAY” I went into some alternative universe where my English was being corrected. However, everyone else in that room knew what was going to go down. I immediately said “Yes!”. He repeated his question even louder. I thought my English was not quite right and then said “Yes I’ll let the dogs out!”, quite smug that I’d gotten my English perfect. He got even louder and that’s when it dawned on me. It was NOT my English that was at fault. He really could give a rats ass about my English. In fact he could give a rats ass about me. All he wanted was for me to say “Yes SIR!” and “No SIR!”. But my Dad’s damage had been done and there was no way in hell I was gonna call him sir. My mom married him & I had no choice but to live with him. I wasn’t gonna say it.

ASIDE: I had a notorious potty mouth. It started before kindegarten and my mom & dad told me to never swear in front of adults until I was an adult. I knew swearing was a way to get an adults attention.

My Stepfather was at his full height at this time in his life. He was slightly over 6 feet. And while I was a bit on the tall side for my age I was still under 5 feet. He towered over me and repeated “WHAT DID YOU SAY??!!”. Like I said, I was (ok I still am) willful and stubborn. So trying to match his volume and standing up as tall as I could, I bellowed “YES I HATE YOUR FUCKING GUTS AND NO I WON’T LET THE FUCKING DOGS OUT!” and then I stormed upstairs to my room (which I shared with 2 sisters – we called it the dorm).

It felt like the next day I ended up in play therapy but it was probably more like a week. Then for 2 years I went once a week to play therapy. It did not help me at all. nada. Which is too bad as I coulda used some help (not for the willfulness or stubbornness but for the other chaos in my life). Then I forgot about the whole damn thing. While in a psych class in college (my minor is in psych and english!), the teacher did a lesson on play therapy and in my usual tourettes sort of way I blurted out “OH! I did that until I out grew it”. That’s when I started thinking about how I got into play therapy.

My stepfather tried his best to stay out of my life after that. There were times he’d try to ban me from wearing certain clothing and I’d just give him the usual teenager “are you kidding??” look and ignore him. But we managed after teenage years to be civil. That was until about 8 or 10 years ago and worse as he declined. Then HE got willful and stubborn and took to swearing at me if others weren’t around.

So I’m surprised that I’m going through grief. Sure, I’m releaved I can see my mom without him but I’m still going through grief. weird.

Unmade bed?