domicile

Breadtime Stories

When I travel, I typically spend a fair amount of my time focused on food. From the oh-so-rich avocado sandwiches in Mal Pais, Costa Rica (you have never seen so many fresh avocados -- and yes I mean more than one -- stuffed between two halves of a bun), to simple pizza bianca from Forno in the Campo de'Fiori in Rome that continues to haunt my tastebuds, I love finding local foods when I travel. My very favourite culinary travel notes have to do with bread. Typically breads that are a specialty in the region and which elude my Vancouver based kitchen. I adore bread -- which I've mentioned before -- and I would by lying if I told you haven't thought about planning vacations around opportunities to return to some of the better loaves/slices I've enjoyed abroad. At the top of my list are: the pizza from Forno in Rome (and experience not to be missed), Danish rye bread (available from any bakery in the country it seems) bursting with whole rye berries and a sour taste that pairs so very well with fresh european butter and raspberry jam, and a baguette sold by one particular alimentaire in the very small and old town of Radda in Chianti. This baguette from Radda is in fact the strongest motivation behind my desire to bake bread. It was a dark, rich multigrain. As dark as a rye bread, but with an almost burnt caramel flavour as well as a very deep nuttiness. It came in small baguettes, and often sold out before my partner and I had a chance to get to that particular alimentaire, but it was prized by us both when we managed to get a loaf. It was perfect as it was, but was particularly lovely with a bit of hard cheese, like a Padano. Oh how I think about that bread.

So yes. My breadmaking, aside from the pleasure it brings me with each loaf I create, is about one day -- and I expect this day to be in the far off future -- being able to replicate that one loaf from Radda. I may need to go back between now and then for another sample as reference, however. I've been progressing in my bread experimentation. I tried the French Bread recipe from the January issue of Living, which made two very successful yeasted white French rounds. A learned a fair bit about dough textures through that recipe. The dough started out really wet on the first knead and I thought it would never hold together, but through patient kneading the texture changed entirely and the final product was quite lovely actually. It is a recipe I'll make again, though it didn't really have the depth of flavour I'm looking for. I picked up a copy of Local Breads, by Daniel Leader, a couple of weeks ago, and Martin has been teasing me for reading about bread before I go to sleep ever since. This is a man whose passion for bread I can deeply appreciate. Part recipe book, part how-to guide for making artisan breads, and part travelogue it is a book for bread lovers and bakers. So far I made Rosemary Ficelle, two long loaves of Italian bread (with a yeast starter) studded with fresh rosemary and coarse sea salt. The recipe was extremely easy to follow and his step by step instructions (with variations catered exclusively to KitchenAid users) include FAQs and notes on what to do if things aren't going according to plan.

It is a beautifully written and designed book, focusing on artisan breads from France, Italy, Poland, German and the Czech Republic. I was originally looking for Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, as recommended by Heidi, but was smitten with Local Breads for two recipes: one for a German whole rye bread that uses a rye starter to ensure that the bread is gluten free and has that distinct sour rye taste that I fell for in Denmark; the second is the recipe for Forno's rustic pizza from the Campo in Rome (both bianca and rosso), which he learned from the master baker there himself and claims to have adapted to work in the average home oven (which can of course never replicate the huge brick wood burning ovens of Forno). Given the reverence and delight with which he speaks about each baker he shared recipes and techniques with, I'm inclined to believe that under his written tutildge one can learn a lot about breads.

My next hurdle is to successfully start and nurture a sour starter. I may start with the rye starter, but as always I need a bit more time and energy to devote to things like monitoring a jar of flour and water. One of the things I find so useful about the book is the photos and illustrations of successful doughs and problem doughs, in addition to well thought out FAQs. When I do give my first sour starter a whirl, I think I'll photograph it for the small segment of folks out there also interested in giving this a whirl, so you can see what a successful (or failed) starter looks like from day 1 to 6 or 7 when it should reveal itself as a winner (or not).

Exciting Things Currently

Cool things on other blogs at the moment:

• Colleen Baran is collecting stories of love for a jewelry series. Collen makes gorgeous jewelry, which you can buy here.
• Felicia's book is now available to be purchased and delivered to your door. Congrats Felicia!
• Heidi Swanson has kicked off a new series of posts with cookbook reviews by style/trendsetters. The first one features the oh-so-talented Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge Online. (Grace is one of the many savvy business ladies profiled in our book; it amazes me just how much she manages to get done in a day).
• This is really a pretty old one, but I came across Cinnamon Cooper's (of Poise Bags) DIY Chalkboard Vase article the other day and think it's awfully swell. I may try to get the time/energy together to make some of these as gifts next holidays. (We also profiled Cinnamon in our upcoming book; such smart ladies).

Food for New Braces

  Lemon Souffles 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Miss P is now the proud owner of a new set of braces. Last weekend was my first chance to see them -- Martin and her mom accompanied her to get them earlier in the week -- though I had heard reports of the all-to-familiar mouth pain she was experiencing all week. I personally had a fair bit of orthodontic work in my day. Everything from multiple tooth extractions to headgear (only worn at night) and many years of braces. Knowing first hand just how nasty those first days feel, I decided to make a meal that would be easy for her to enjoy. We had Martin's mom over as well, so I decided that was enough people to try out the Lemon Souffle recipe I'd been eying in my  Modern Classics Book 2 (Donna Hay) cookbook.

Like savoury souffles, this recipe was deceptively easy to make, but very impressive to serve. The trickiest part was a step that I would actually not bother with next time. The recipe suggests you create little parchment paper collars to tie around your small dishes/ramekins which was a bit tricky to do, and took Martin's mom, Miss P and I a fair bit of fussing. In the end, I ended up filling two extra ramekins with less of the souffle mixture and no collars and they didn't overflow, spill, fall or anything. In fact, they came out much more nicely than the ones that had the collars removed (which you can see in the foreground of the shot there). The recipe claimed to make 4 souffles, I ended up with 6 (4 of which were kind of gigantic) and had to throw some of the mix away. So I'd say you could easily reduce this recipe (though it's hard to divide 5 eggs in half) and end up with a suitable amount for 4 people. Also, it was just a bit too sugary for my and Martin's mom (aka MorMor) taste. Though you use fresh lemon juice (and added zest) which makes it very tart, it could still be a bit less sweet. The recipe suggests lowering the sugar and using raspberry pulp or passionfruit pulp instead of lemon juice. I think this recipe could have had 2/3 the sugar or used a combo of lemon juice and raspberry pulp and less sugar as suggested and you'd still have a very tasty dessert.

Beyond the critique what did I (and perhaps most importantly Miss P) think? It was pretty darn tasty. Kind of like a cup full of the meringue off a lemon pie. It would have also been really great with some shaved or curled dark chocolate pieces. It is also gluten free (assuming your cornstarch is gluten free) though really not vegan. It was an awesome excuse to use my KitchenAid (again) and I can't stress how high the easy/impressive quotient is, if you're looking to impress your dinner guests. You do need to do the egg whipping part just before you pop them in the oven, but the rest can be prepared and chilled ahead of time, making it really easy to put together and bake after dinner. The recipe is after the jump.

Peanut-Free Peanut Sauce!

Ok, so not peanut sauce. But close. For those who don't know Martin and I suffer from a bit of an ironic food pairing. I am an avowed vegetarian (though not a vegan) and, in turn, has a deathly allergy when it comes to peanuts and soy protein (though fortunately not things like tamari/soy sauce which have no protein in them). This means my deep fondness for tofu-y goodness is often only fulfilled at dinners out or when he is not around for dinner (on those nights I will often lovingly cradle a bowl of baked tofu and brown rice in my hands and indulge like a kid in a chocolate factory). I ate a lot of tofu before we moved in together, and much less of it now, though I certainly manage to get my fix when necessary. Peanuts I had quite fortunately abandoned a few years prior in favour of almonds and other nuts. Once you've tried almond butter you're not likely to go back to its lower rent cousin peanut butter, though it does inflate the grocery bill a bit. The one place where I would still indulge in the humble peanut was peanut sauce. I love peanut sauce. In particular a version from the Rebar cookbook that includes cilantro, lime and a bit of sambal oelek for heat. But, given the severity of Martin's peanut allergy, which is more severe than his soy protein allergy and peanuts are more insidious when it comes to cross contamination in the kitchen, we have not had hide nor hair of a peanut in this house since we moved in.

But oh how I have missed the peanut sauciness.

Last night I was making dinner for our current house guests -- my darling god-daughter Djuna, her mom (my dear childhood friend), dad and her new baby brother -- as well as a friend who was joining us and I wanted a sauce to tie together some steamed veggies, brown rice and (depending on which side of the veggie vs. protein allergy spectrum you fall on) coconut prawns/baked tofu. Peanut sauce would have done the job very nicely and I've been meaning to spend some time trying out some alternative nuts to make a similar sauce, so last night I gave it a whirl with cashews and, my peanut eschewing friends: we have a winner.

Here's the recipe (again, I don't use much in the way of exact measurements for these things, so pardon the loose directions).

Emira's Recipe for Cashew (NOT Peanut) Sauce:

- 1 cup of toasted unsalted cashews (I toasted these in a 250 oven for 20 min)
- nearly a whole can of coconut milk
- one 1" piece of ginger peeled and grated
- one large clove of garlic chopped
- about 2 or 3 tbps tamari
- generous handful of cilantro chopped
- juice of one lime
- chili peppers/sambal oelek to taste

Start by toasting your cashews if they aren't already. Then place them in a food processor/cuisinart until they start to turn to cashew butter. This took maybe 4 or 5 minutes? I kept commenting to Kate that they weren't turning to butter then PRESTO they did. So have patience.

Open your can of coconut milk and add about half to the food processor. You can keep adding it afterwards depending on the taste and how coconuty you want it in the end. Add the tamari (start with about 2 tbsp and taste for saltiness to suit your preferences), ginger, garlic and the lime juice. Blend it for a few second until mixed. Wash and chop your cilantro (or leave this out if you're one of those cilantro haters) and add it to the food processor with some sambal oelek for heat. To be honest, I left this out last night as Martin's peanut allergy presents itself as a tingling heat on his tongue, so I didn't want him to freak out. Next time, I'll add about 1 tsp now that he knows this sauce doesn't kill him. Turn it on to mix again and then taste. Adjust by adding more coconut and or tamari as you like. Of course you can also add more of the ginger, garlic, spice or cilantro too.

Transfer to a small pot and gently heat. You're not really cooking this, just warming it to go on your food. I suppose you could microwave it, but we don't have one of those.

And ta da. Perfect with baked tofu, coconut prawns (apparently), brown rice and steamed veggie goodness like broccolis, snow peas, etc. etc.

Marimekko for the Home

  Marimekko Mokki Tray 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Marimekko has always made me think of my darling childhood friend Kate. I think it must be that the nostalgia hit those big over sized prints give me takes me right back to the early days of our friendship circa 78 when running around in terry cloth shorts and polyester t-shirts that exposed our little toddler bellies was de rigeuer. Kate and her family are currently visiting the west coast from Montreal and are in fact staying with us for a week right now (after a visit with her folks for Christmas). Somewhere between the rush of Christmas and the mild chaos of a three year old and a three month old (part of her entourage) we didn't manage to exchange Christmas gifts with one another until last night. She and her partner Adrian gave us this awesome Marimekko tray which Martin is trying to claim as his own (he does this will all things red). It's my first official piece of Marimekko, despite much oggling when we were in Denmark, and it has inspired me to try to take Kate to the new concept store they opened last Fall here in Vancouver. I'm giddy at the thought of the store, as another friend -- Ariane -- described it to me just last night (in a weirdly prescient Marimekko moment) and I'm sure I'll be as overwhelmed as she was by all the yummy fabrics and awesome prints... Oh the anticipation!

Miss P's Room

  Miss P's Room 
  Originally uploaded by emira

I don't know how many eleven year olds your in current contact with, but Miss P seems to me to have pretty much everything a girl could want. For her birthday this year she got a Nintendo DS (a joint gift from Martin, me and his mom) and a cel phone (from her mom) which was then added to her electronic/digital gadget collection with already included a pretty skookum digital camera. Add to that a healthy set of grandparents supplemented by my family who spoil her like the lone step-grandchild she is and she's really generally pretty kitted out for stuff. If that in and of itself wasn't enough, one of Martin's clients opened a new clothing store for tweens this Fall and Miss P was treated some hardcore shopping on credit that Martin had built up over the year. This meant that as the holiday season rolled around we were at a bit of a loss for what to get her until she suggested that we redecorate her room for her as her gift.  And so we set to work.

To be totally honest, Martin set to work. I helped with the prep, the planning, the picking up of paint (Benjamin Moore's Lavender Lipstick in their Eco-Paint), the ordering and pick up of the wall graphics from Surface Collective, but then Martin put in the bulk of the elbow grease. The logistics broke down like this: on Monday, December 17th Miss P went back to her mom's place meaning we could begin the work (the final product was a surprise, she only knew she was getting her room done). The work then needed to be done for the following Sunday, December 23rd. Meanwhile there was the usual working to do all week and of course additional Christmas prep, sewing and baking to be done. It was, to say the least not going to be a slow and considered project. Martin had the Monday off work and managed to get 80% of the painting done that day after breaking down her old room, which then resided in our livingroom (with the Christmas tree) for the rest of the week. Tuesday evening we painted trim. Wednesday evening Martin modified her bed to add two drawers below it to replace the dresser that was in her room (she doesn't keep much in the way of clothes in the room and we were trying to maximize space). Thursday and Friday, we rested. Saturday night the walls were dry enough to apply the decals. As you can see in the photo Martin painted big white circles around the room which continues his circle theme, and has the effect of making the room seem much bigger. We decided to put the decals in the circles and to cut them on the edges to make it look like they were being windblown "through" the circles around the room. The end product is -- I must say -- pretty awesome. And Miss P has declared it a roaring success, in the squealing, jumping, happy way of eleven year olds.

The whole project felt a bit like living a home reno show. With a limited budget and very limited time we were able to pretty much transform the room from a hodge podge of discarded furniture stuffed into a room into a very cool, modern pre-teen girl's room that feels more spacious than our wee house's actual square footage generally affords. You can see more photos here all of which were taken by Miss P herself.

New Year, New Look

I spent much of last year wishing I had time to rejig the design of this here blog, and sadly that time never materialized. Today, on the last day of the holidays I found myself with not enough time to start any of the big new projects on my list, and a desire to spend a fair bit of time in my pjs. Mucking around with Photoshop and Typepad therefore seemed like a swell thing to do. I'm hoping this design is a bit simpler overall (I've removed a number of content elements including most of the ads), and that the banner becomes something I can switch out from time to time. At the moment the photo doesn't include Martin, so that will need to change at some point. Sadly we have almost no photos of the two of us together.

The other thing you'll notice with this redesign/retooling is that I'm featuring my book that is coming out later this year in the sidebar there. The process of self promotion seems a bit strange to be honest, particularly since I've yet to hold the physical book in my hot little hands. This year is going to be a lot about that book. Preparing for promotions over the early Spring, heading out of the office and away from the domicile in May/June for a mini-book tour, and hopefully a decent amount of publicity and public profile to help get the word out. I'll surely be cross promoting it here and ask you to forgive the interruption of domestic goings-on once in a while.

What else does 08 hold? On the home front we have many ideas but little in the way of reserves. We redid Miss P's room as her Christmas gift (photos to follow soon); we have to do a bit of a rush polishing job on our downstairs bedroom in time for house guests later this week; there will liklely be a fair bit of painting (and hopefully not too much drywalling) to redo our livingroom colour, our bedroom and the big looming project of repainting the outside of the house. I'm also hoping this spring and summer will bring me more spare time for gardening and some creative outdoor projects. Last year I spent so much of the spring and summer working on the book in my spare time that not much remained for puttering in the dirt. I'm feeling very inspired by some successes (and some useful failures) in my holiday gift sewing and hope to keep a bit of momentum going with sewing this year (I do still have that awesome Amy Butler fabric to find a home for). I lost a bit of steam with the bread making last year, but have spent today (between photoshop fiddling) on a new bread recipe for a french boule, and hope that the addition of the KitchenAid for auto-kneading might be a bit of a kick in the pants in that direction. And, while it frustrates the hell out of me that this is not something I can control, I'll admit that it is my sincerest wish that by this year's end we'll also have a proverbial bun in the oven over here. And, if I may be so bold I'm hoping the process is a smooth one and not full of the drama and sadness of past years.

At the very least I do hope that this year brings enough spare time for reflection and creative musings in this space. And of course, there will be lots of snuggling, purring and mischief coming from our beloved Pluto the Wonderkitty.

Things Done and Things Undone

Sunday morning
Originally uploaded by emira

It's been a very busy weekend/week/month/year and as I sit here with a lasagne in the oven, I'm overwhelmed by all that is still undone, despite how exhausted I am from all that has been done. Last night I had a dance show (flamenco), for which I performed a mere four or five minutes but the adrenaline rush of performing for a live audience and the preparation for that, added to everything else that is on the list of things to do, has left me floored. Our publishers sent us fully designed pages of our book (yes, it's available for pre-order at Amazon and do feel free to reserve your copy now -- a refrain you'll come to recognize in the new year) to be reviewed for proofing corrections this weekend. Lauren did her round over the first half of the weekend and I dragged my exhausted self (and my Tim Burton-esque post-show, post-hairspray hair) out of bed early this morning to start taking my own run through it. I must say the day when this book will be nothing but a joy seems a ways off from now. While it is exciting to get past each stage in this process -- seeing the cover, seeing laid out pages, eventually getting a galley, etc. -- I do truly wish I had more time to devote to each stage and enjoying it. At this point in time it's hard to think of this as an accomplishment as it seems more like a roadblock in the way of other things in life. You know, "important" things like making gingerbread, finishing off the many ambitious sewing projects I had planned for holiday gifts, painting Miss P's room in her big xmas surprise, etc. I find I have a bad habit of doing this, focusing on the things not achieved rather than appreciating things done. Certainly that has been the case with this year and this book and I'm very much hoping 2008 will see a shift in that perspective.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to be able to stay awake late enough to enjoy decorating the tree with Miss P and Martin this evening. It will be the first real sign of the holidays around here -- aside from the pile snipped threads that keeps migrating upstairs with me.

Quilting Quandry

Oven Mitts
Originally uploaded by emira

Quilting is among the fabric arts that has always fascinated/terrified me. I've been easing into it with my dabbling in Amy Butler patterns and for my holiday gifts I decided to dive in head first. Honestly, I thought I was taking it pretty easy. Turns out: I'm in a bit over my head.

For my grandma I'm making an apron using a modified Amy Butler pattern (actually a bit of an Amy Butler pattern mash up) which I'll post about as soon as it's a bit closer to done. The apron is pretty straightforward (mostly, but again more on this later) just quilted squares really. I borrowed a friend's rotary cutter and mat for that project, and that gave me all kinds of false confidence and joy. If you've never used a rotary cutter you must do so now. Wow does that make things easy. Anyway. That project is coming along alright.

The over mitts? Not so much. I figured they would be pretty easy to toss off and foolishly I was most concerned about the whole "making a quilt sandwich" part, that is: layering fabric and wool and stitching it together. Given that this pattern just has a basic grid quilting stitch that part was easy as pie, much to my delight. Binding, however, not so much. I've unpicked and redone the binding on these three times already and I'm still not happy with it. Argh. Now, I may be making it extra hard for myself in that these are rounded edges, still. What the heck am I doing wrong?

I've got a few ideas and I'd love some pointers if anyone has ideas/tips for building up my binding skills. So, things I see not working quite right:

1. While making the quilt sandwich part is easy, I find that my fabric pulls to the centre so I end up with wool a fairly large (say 1/4 inch) exposed wool border around the edges. The second time I attached the binding I trimmed this off, but it means I've made slightly smaller mitts than intended. In the future should I cut my fabric a bit larger than my wool layers so they line up better in the end?

2. Binding widths. I made this binding to the width specified, but can I make it bigger? I don't even know that that would help. My binding isn't very evenly spread from front to back inspite of my best intentions to line it up. Is there a trick here? What am I missing?

3. Pinning. It's hard to pin curves at the best of times. With binding? It seemed impossible. This kind of relates to things lining up, as described above, but still, do others pin? If I do straight lines should I pin? I did hand baste the binding on the third time I did this and that helped, but it didn't really solve things.

Any and all quilting expertise welcomed.

Bedroom Redux

  Wall Graphics 
  Originally uploaded by emira

When we first moved into our place we had a long list of things that had to be done to make the place livable. Things like tearing out all the carpets and redoing the hardwood floors (hello drum sander!), taking down the oh so nasty window valences and rotting curtains and painting every wall in the house. Now, I knew at the time that choosing paint colours for every room in a house you've never lived in, and while under the insane stress of buying a home and moving into it (while also working full time, and oh yes did I mention redoing all of the floors?) wasn't the wisest way to arrive at colours you want to live with forever. That said, it was much better than the yellowing, dirty white walls with butter yellow trim that filled the house when we got it. As such, we've lined most rooms up in the house for a repaint. We already did the kitchen of course, and next on the winter task list is our bedroom and now Miss P's room.

Of all the colours we painted, I actually really liked hers the best. It was called Pinko and I've often described it as feeling like you're walking into a room made of Hubba Bubba gum. In a good way. But, she's tired of it. And I can relate. I once had a pink room when I was growing up and while I adored it at the time, over the years it grew to grate on me pretty heavily. She brought up repainting her room when we asked her what she wanted for Christmas. Given that it was just her birthday and she, as usual, received a bounty of gifts which now have her decked out with all the electronics an 11 year old could desire, redoing her room seems like a good gift.

The only draw back? Trying to find time to repaint her room and restyle it -- we're going to find some furniture that fits a small room better than what's in there now -- in three weeks. The bit that gives me hope? No plumbing. That makes every reno better let me tell you. And really, this is just paint and some furniture. Likely a curtain or two and maybe a light fixture. Piece of cake.

I've ordered her some wall graphics from Surface Collective, which you can see in the image there. Surface Collective is a local Vancouver company -- so local in fact that I can go pick them up on my lunch break when they're ready -- that have really caught onto this whole wall graphic thang that's going around. We'd love to do more with wall graphics in our house but very few of our walls are smooth, in fact only Miss P's room, the bathroom and the kitchen. So she's the lucky winner of this current design trend.

Now I'm on the hunt for some eco-paint to use. I love Yolo, but she's requested a colour they don't have. I've heard that Sherwin Williams makes a low-VOC paint, so I'll call around this weekend to see how true that is, if it's available in Vancouver and what their colours are like. If anyone has ideas or links to awesome bedrooms for 11 year olds, send along links. We're in the research/inspiration phase, so all ideas are welcome!