on the night of my ten year reunion

until just a few years ago when my grandmother was hit by two cars outside her house by the caspian sea, my grandparents ran a huge citrus orchard with rice paddies in the back. i remember my grandmother coming to visit us when we were kids--she'd unload from her musty suitcases edible bits of nostalgia for my mom and dad: sour lavashak, or plum fruit rolls, ambrosial orange blossom, quince and carrot jams, and ghar o ghourout, a strange black concoction made of fermented yogurt.

the trip from iran being so long, she'd stay at least a month or two with us, and she'd spend the bulk of her time making things: sewing us clothes, curtains, halloween costumes, knitting blankets, scarves and sweaters, building and planting raised beds in the backyard, making torshi, incredible persian pickled vegetables that are traditionally cured for seven years, and of course, cooking us meals and sweets.

my mother, raised by this tour de force of a woman, is a champion of homemade goods in her own right. my father, too. i remember a lot of homemade hummus for breakfast years before my friends even knew what hummus was. my dad also had a special love of the kabob, and all of the ridiculous work that goes into building your own grill (now, that energy is aimed at pizza ovens).

in a lot of ways, i feel that my past ten years, the bulk of which i have spent in berkeley, cooking, have formed me and led me to value what i value--farms, crafts, friendship, a sense of community, knowledge, and generosity. but when i look to where and who i come from, it's clear that my family is an equal source of my self.

these days, the highest compliment i can often think of is that something is made from scratch, or handmade. the people i love to work with and be around share these values. i dream of a life where i can make everything i could want or need.

one of my favorite parts of my job is that we try to make everything for ourselves, from our pickles to our pasta. i even made mustard once last year. we make ice cream and creme fraiche, fry tomatoes and can tomato sauce, tomatillo salsa, jam and marmalade, ferment smen to rub our couscous with, candy nuts and citrus peels, and fry our own potato chips each morning. our boss spends countless hours making cured meats, and if we can make the time, we pull our own mozzarella (i spent a summer at cp obsessed with making mozzarella and ricotta from scratch. i mostly learned that you need a very accurate pH meter for cheesemaking, and that it's very difficult to use straus milk for such pursuits. it's a testament to the idealism of that place that they let me waste many, many gallons of straus milk in a fruitless effort to make mozzarella from scratch when you can just buy perfectly good curd in berkeley). i often tell the prep cooks to channel their inner nonna, and at times i feel like the farmwife, spending hours of each summer week canning, pickling, and drying.

and so, as i sit here on this night when so many people from my high school class are probably busy comparing themselves to see who is more on the map, i'm trying to come up with more and more ways to get off the grid.

ted vids

i love the ted talks.

the other night i was bored, so i started to browse the videos, and i ended up watching a couple i hadn't seen before. something in the eve ensler one really stuck with me. i even wrote it down on a scrap of paper and i carry it around with me now:

when we give in the world what we want the most, we heal the broken part inside wach of us. happiness exists in action, in telling the truth, and in giving away what you want most.

and here is another great (not ted) video: malcolm gladwell at the new yorker conference.

there's also part of this talk with dan barber (and others) that is semi-interesting.

a few things i love right now

--lake champlain organic chocolate with sea salt and almonds

--memory foam!

--cherry plums, boysenberries, and alpine strawberries from cannard farm

--the first tomatoes of the season

--the incredible peach leaf ice cream i had yesterday

--salty-sweet japanese rice crackers

--blueprint magazine

--sleep

i heart blue van meer

has anyone else read this book? i am caught in the throes of it, and i am in love. i really wanted to hate this book, having read all of the stuff about its beautiful author last summer, and how it mustn't be any good with her being a former model and all, but i succumbed. i love love love it.

other books i've recently read and enjoyed include:
eat, pray, love by elizabeth gilbert
on beauty by zadie smith

i'm in the middle of:
never let me go by kazuo ishiguro

and i just bought:
karma by rishi reddi

mark your calendars

alright my friends (specifically two redheads who live in the city who i never see anymore), time to pencil me into your blackberries or sidekicks or moleskines or whatever--i'll be at the ferry plaza farmer's market making something delicious with dirty girl's amazing dry-farmed early girl tomatoes.

get out those pens:

saturday, june 30th
11:00 am
ferry plaza market in san francisco

yum yum yum!

from today's nyt

"Ms. Bass also pointed out that the new strain of entertaining anxiety extended well beyond food. “You can’t just serve purslane,” she said. “You have to serve purslane on Limoges you found in a Connecticut consignment shop with a fork that has a carved ivory handle you found in a flea market somewhere.”"

My sentiments exactly.

pali lookout

flip-flop at shark's cove

i'm back from oahu

clouds, moon, rainbow and cook's pine