Hi!!

I’m alive!

I know, it’s been rather… a while. But there have been oh so many reasons for it. And I mean many.

I’ve semi-permanently-for-the-time-being-at-least-the-next-year-maybe-more relocated to Northern California for my dissertation research. I’m staying at my parents’ house for the foreseeable future, as a broke grad student sometimes must, since I still have my apartment in Southern California. I’m away from my own kitchen, with its familiar appliances, equipment, accoutrement, and the perfect light in which to take photographs. I’m not cooking and baking only for myself nearly as much, or for me and one other person, but instead for me and my parents (as a token of my undying gratitude for their endless generosity) or for me and a very large group of friends. My routine and my own “way” have been totally thrown off. My stomach has been… well, you can guess how my stomach has been. And there have been some other, bigger, more personal changes that have kept me quieter and sadder than I might normally be.

But I’m still around, and I think it’s time to call it a comeback.

I don’t have too many photos of food for you at the moment, but I do have a few tales to tell. Of the 300+ cookies I baked for a reception for a friend’s new chamber music recital at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Of the collard greens in bacon recipe I made up for my parents. Of the eating out I’ve been doing now and again, here in the land of endless restaurants (but sadly, no sushi that compares to the sushi of Orange County). Of the “family” meals my friends and I have here, on a fairly regular basis, when we come together to cook, eat, drink, and laugh.

The other tales, the more personal and less food-related ones? I’m telling some (but not all) of those too, over at Oh Hey Great.

So let’s not waste any more time. Last night I went for dinner with my folks at a restaurant in West Berkeley my mom’s been dying to try. It’s called Maritime East and is the East Bay sister restaurant to Café Maritime in San Francisco. Like a total boob, I left my camera at home, which was a huge mistake because it was one of the better meals I’ve had in recent weeks. Not as good as, say, Riva Cucina but faultless and delectable just the same.

We shared most everything. This included what may be the single best burger I’ve ever had in my life, a cheeseburger with Neuske’s bacon and avocado and shoestring onion rings, loaded onto the ideal bun–soft but substantial enough to withstand the burger and all its juices without disintegrating, perfectly toasted, and just the right flavor to complement the burger. Which, did I mention, was cooked perfectly medium rare. The burger also came with fries (onion rings AND fries!). The onion rings were meant to be eaten as part of the burger, but my dad took them off and we shared them with the fries. By shared I mean inhaled.

We also had the “deviled” Dungeness crab linguini with a poached egg and Meyer lemon confit. The sauce was both rich and delicate, tomato-y and zesty, and had a kick of spice to it that came in at the end. It was creamy without being heavy, not coating the tongue but bewitching it with a complex layering of flavors.

Finally, we shared one of the small pizzas from the wood burning oven–a disc of chewy, blistered dough topped with artichokes, goat cheese, tomatoes, and za’atar. There may have been a few golden raisins nestled amidst the white puffs of cheese. Unfortunately, it was hard to slow down and examine it at length: TOO GOOD MUST EAT NOW. (I admit, we took half the pizza home and I had it for lunch today. It was just as good cold. Any remaining raisins had sunken in and once again, I was too entranced with the pizza to pull it apart.)

Oh. Did I mention? The side dish? That we should have gotten two or three orders of? Brussels and pea sprout hash. Please read those words again one more time: Brussels. And. Pea. Sprout. Hash. Let me explain that for you: Pea sprouts! (Or pea tips, if you prefer.) With Brussels sprouts! That have been all chopped up! And then sautéed together with maybe some garlic and I don’t know what else except maybe magic.

So in conclusion, friends and readers and anyone else here, if you live near Maritime East, you should go.

Meanwhile, I’ll be here, reading the comments you’ve left (they totally make my day, by the way, and make me wish I could go out for coffee with some of you), forcing myself back into a healthier dietary regimen (regime!), writing again, and most likely baking up some treats for my friends and neighbors along the way. If you happen to be one of those, drop me a line. Hell, drop me a line anyway.

xo

In the rush of getting ready to fly up to Berkeley (to see my parents, my dog, and some wonderful friends, and to do some research), I plum forgot to write anything. I’ll be back later tonight, or maybe tomorrow!

Mmm, Berkeley… and Oakland… and San Francisco.

Well, friends. I did it.

I advanced to candidacy! I am officially a PhD candidate – also known as ABD, or “all but dissertation.” Sure, I still have years of research and work ahead of me, but this is a major milestone. It means my committee liked my proposal enough to approve my project (with some alterations, of course) and send me on my way to do my own research. It’s the real deal, now.

To be honest though, I don’t think it was me or my proposal that won them over. I think it was Luisa’s version of Teddie’s apple cake, which I made last night with apples from a certain someone’s mom’s yard. Not only did the cake make the room we were in smell wonderful, it drew raves from everyone who tried it. Which means you should try it too.

I wish I had more to write about, but I’m exhausted, so instead I’ll give you a pretty picture or two of some apples. And tomorrow I’ll be up in Los Angeles all day, so who knows how much I’ll be able to write then (although you never know). I promise though – we’ll be back on track with recipes I’m not swiping from other blogs soon enough. Thanks for all your positive thoughts and for sticking with me.

But now, I’m going to go celebrate. And sleep.

I feel like a heel. You’ve all been so friendly and excited about the posts I’ve made lately, and I want to keep things rolling! Keep the excitement (well, I think it’s exciting) going!

But I can’t write anything good tonight. You see, dear friends, I am defending my dissertation proposal at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. If all goes well, I will be an official PhD candidate by some time tomorrow afternoon, what is known as “ABD” (all but dissertation). So tonight I am going to attempt to bake this lovely apple cake (I love the smell of bribery in the morning), get taken out to a surprise super-quick meal by the most wonderful certain someone, prepare the paperwork, review my materials, and go to bed at a relatively decent hour. So there’s no time for blogging. Not really.

I’ll be back tomorrow, though, on day 14 of NaBloPoMo. I hope I have good news. If not, I’ll try and at least have something good to eat. Wish me luck!

On Sunday night I felt kind of like an addict.

It was about 11:00 p.m. I was in the throes of a long night of work – I’d end up working until 4:30 a.m. and starting back up around 9:00 a.m. – and I was hungry. Not just any old hungry, but food-craving-hungry. The kind of hungry when you know exactly what you want but you won’t let yourself have it. Maybe because it’s fattening, or it’s too much trouble, or it’s expensive, or it’s not in the diet you’ve created for personal choice reasons, or you know, it’s going to make you really sick because you’re not supposed to eat it. Silly reasons like that. Silly, silly, silly reasons. So you eat other things, maybe an apple or some carrots or some nuts or a piece of cheese. Maybe even a whole meal that has nothing to do with that one thing that’s still planted firmly in your brain, its little food-arms akimbo, refusing to budge. You eat and eat, and you pronounce yourself satisfied.

Three minutes later you’re staring at the open cabinet again, trying to figure out how you can be full yet still wanting to shove food in your face and what on earth are you going to eat to get this craving OUT of your head.

Oh come on. Like you’ve never caved.

Sometimes I’m so good. Like those three weeks on that diet. I was a paragon of steely will and had a graceful, finely honed “No, thank you” when anything forbidden crossed my culinary path. I was able to say no to such killers as an entire bag of Cheez-Its, two batches of chocolate rads that I made myself (and let me tell you, standing over that batter while pouring in liquid bittersweet chocolate and not being able to eat any of it was… let’s just say I’m pretty sure I could withstand any sort of torture now), piles upon piles of French fries at various dinners with friends, pastas and pizzas and all things tasty and good. I even found that the longer I went without such things as sugar and refined carbohydrates, the less I wanted them. In fact, the first day off the diet, I tried one of those very chocolate rads (I froze a few for myself, okay? I’m not that strong) and it was too sweet! Sugar, that demon, had been vanquished!

Three weeks later and I had to have chocolate every day again. In fact, that bar of Valrhona is calling to me right now.

Where was I? Oh right. I was in the kitchen, on Sunday night. I was hungry. I was fussy and crabby and I wanted exactly what I was craving and nothing but. And with all the logic of a 5-year-old, I declared that goddammit (a 5-year-old who swears), I was working very hard and would be up all night and surely I deserved a little macaroni and cheese. Just a little. How I’d missed it, macaroni and cheese, and how it would be just the right thing to keep my chin up and anyway, nothing else would satisfy me so I might as well.

At least I only made one packet of the Annie’s microwavable kind. At least. I get some credit, right?

I ate it. I did. I even burnt my tongue on it. It tasted exactly how you imagine it would, and it was sort of vaguely satisfying. And then, as I was about to cram that last spoonful into my mouth, I looked down into the bowl and I couldn’t do it. My stomach had already turned.

Partly I was disappointed in myself. All my declarations of eating right and taking care of myself and keeping IBS at bay and hey everyone, I’m not eating carbohydrates or any of these things and I’m sure cutting out a lot of sugar! Out the door. Plus I’d gone and wasted the very rare treat of pasta on microwavable mac & cheese. (Well, waste is a strong word when it comes to mac & cheese, but you know…).

But partly my stomach was already kicking around the pasta in a state of panic. WHAT! it yelled up to me. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU KNOW I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS STUFF, AND THE LOWER INTESTINES ARE ALREADY ON STRIKE BECAUSE OF IT.

Then my digestive system had a meeting and there was collective uprising. I sat for the next few hours in my chair, squirming and whimpering, stuck in my own self-made misery. Not only was I having to be up almost all night, my guts were writhing to and fro chanting HELL NO YOU CAN’T GO. The only thing I could be grateful for was that I was alone, so at least I didn’t have to torture anyone with my whining or complete and utter grossness. Instead, I saved that for my blog. Lucky you!

By about 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. things had quieted down a bit. I was somewhat better, but I still felt gross and uncomfortable, and I knew my whole intestinal tract was in for trouble over the next few days. I promised to be better, to start over the next day and do right by myself.

Did I learn my lesson? No. The next night I ate an entire Havanna alfajor. Someone, please. Kick me.

The other day a friend commended me on having such high spirits when it comes to digestive problems. I wanted to hug her for that, but I also wanted to burst out laughing. Of course I’m able to find humor in all of it – I’ve had more than 30 years to bitch about it first. And finding humor in really ridiculous things is in my blood. Plus, it’s easy to be in good spirits about it here – but you should see me sometimes on this end. A complaining, blubbering mess who’s sitting there like an idiot, eating precisely what she knows she’s not supposed to eat. The magic of the Internet, friends.

But really, when it comes down to it, good spirits are the only things that will get you through sometimes, when nothing else seems to work. So here’s to tomorrow. I’ll be better, I promise.

Just don’t put any French fries in my way for a little while, okay?