Brush Valley Brewer

Gretchen signed us up for a half-year individual share in the CSA at Tait Farm yesterday.

Breakfast was two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, half of a white grapefruit, and a bowl of pineapple and banana slices. I weighed 156 pounds.

At work this morning I had a cup of green tea with a cinnamon stick.

I bought a Nature Valley Apple Crisp Granola Bar from the vending machine as a snack.

I went for maybe a four mile walk around campus over lunch.

I got a bag of Middleswarth potato chips from the vending machine as an afternoon snack.

Dinner was two bowls of lo mien and a glass and a half of Bolla Sangiovese Di Romagna with a hand full of mixed nuts for dessert.

Breakfast was two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, a bowl of pineapple and banana slices, and a piece of toasted Italian bread with home made strawberry jam. I weighed 155 pounds.

At work this morning I had two cups of green tea with a cinnamon stick.

It is spring break here at Penn State and most of the students are gone. As a result, almost nothing is open on campus. I walked over to the HUB — two miles — and the only thing that is open is Panda Express. So I had kung pao chicken with mixed vegetables on fried rice and a fortune cookie for lunch.

Patience is the key

to joy.

Lucky Numbers 3, 6, 12, 34, 36, 42

Dinner was a salad made with some of the spinach, carrot, and bacon we got the other day, a slice of Gretchen’s Italian bread and a glass of Bolla Sangiovese Di Romagna with a hand full of mixed nuts for dessert.

Shiok!
I would just like to take a moment to thank Renee Kho over at shiokadelicious! for adding me to the Food Talk section of her site.

I mentioned a little over a week ago, that there was going to be another “Is My Blog Burning?” event whose theme was to be the Tartine. “A tartine is a popular Parisian dish, in which different ingredients are arranged and served on a slice of bread — a sort of open-faced sandwich if you will — usually on a bed of greens,” according to Clotilde. Well, today is the day.

This particular event has seemed to me to be much like the battles on Iron Chef: talented cooks thrown a curve ball and trying to make a hit. I had no idea what a Tartine was. Even given an explanation with photographs I was still at a total loss. Ultimately I decided to employ the philosophy put forward by George Polya in his work How to Solve It.

If you can’t solve a problem, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it. — George Polya

On Iron Chef, when confronted with an unfamiliar theme, the chefs look to their own culture for inspiration. So I started by looking at the problem and trying to put it into the context of my culture. Here is the problem:

Originally, “tartine” means a slice of bread, toasted or not, with something spread on it, usually eaten for breakfast : butter (tartine beurrée), jam (tartine de confiture), cheese (tartine de fromage)…

For a few years now, the concept of tartine has been recycled into an easy but delicious main dish : one or two slices of bread on which ingredients are laid, creating a sort of open-faced sandwich. [Clotilde]

So the problem is actually quite simple: Create a main dish that consists of ingredients laid on bread.

I looked at the etymology of tartine as beginning as a breakfast food and thought about what my experience was with breakfasts of ingredients laid on bread. I first thought about Eggs Benedict. I thought about a favorite variation of them called Eggs Maryland which substitutes crab meat for the Canadian bacon. I thought about Welsh Rarebit. Finally I thought about recipe number 210 from the 1910 Manual for Army Cooks, Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast (alias Shit on a Shingle). However, none of those seemed appropriate, but they did get me thinking.

I realized that I did have experience with ingredients laid on bread — regardless of whether they be tartines. I needed to somehow tie my entry in to my culture. My mother always said that the most American dish is Thanksgiving dinner — roast turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, all kinds of good stuff — but the best part is the leftovers. I had found my inspiration.

My entry would be this: tartine à la dinde chaud avec sauce (somebody check my French) — an open faced hot turkey sandwich with gravy on a slice of home made bread — an old family favorite — with roasted winter root vegetables on the side — a fringe benefit of our visit to Tait Farm the other day.

There are only two of us in our household and a good sized turkey will easily feed many more but Gretchen and I do not let that stop us from enjoying roast turkey. Whenever we roast one, we carve the whole bird at once and make up freezer bags containing about two cups of mixed turkey chunks. That way, whenever we want to make a dish like this, we can just thaw out a bag and we have instant roast turkey. To go with our instant roast turkey, we make instant gravy. In a sauce pan, take a little “better than bullion” chicken base, water, stock if you have it, sherry, corn starch, and poof… instant gravy. Take the now-thawed turkey pieces and add them to the saucepan and let them warm up in the gravy. Make up your favorite hearty bread, toasted if you prefer, and lay out a slice or two as a base and then spoon the hot turkey and gravy over it.

The roasted vegetables are based on Delia’s Oven-roasted Winter Vegetables using parsnip, butternut squash, rutabaga, potato, carrot, onion, and celeriac.

Breakfast was two cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, half of a white grapefruit, a cheese omelette, three strips of bacon — using the grass fed bacon we got the other day which was very nice and fresh tasting — and a toasted piece of Gretchen’s whole wheat raisin bread. I weighed 155 pounds.

During the afternoon we had a snack of a slice of banana bread.

Dinner was an open faced hot turkey sandwich with gravy on a slice of home made bread with roasted winter root vegetables on the side and a glass of Bolla Sangiovese Di Romagna with a snifter of Harvey’s Bristol Cream as a digestive.

Breakfast this morning was three cups of coffee, a glass of orange juice, half of a white grapefruit, and three buttermilk biscuits with home made strawberry jam. I weighed 156 pounds.

Lunch was one and a half quesadillas made with our own frijoles refritos and some grated cheddar cheese, green chilis, and a little screaming hornets hot sauce, along with a glass of Bolla Valpolicella.

Dinner was two bowls of multi-bean ham soup, three refrigerator biscuits, and a glass of Bolla Valpolicella, with a slice of banana bread and a hand full of mixed nuts for dessert, and a snifter of Harvey’s Bristol Cream.

The crocus…

…and the daffodil…

…seem to think so.

Breakfast this morning was half of a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee, and a bowl of steel cut oats with brown sugar, and milk. I weighed 156 pounds.

At work this morning I had two cups of green tea with a cinnamon stick. Apparently somebody had a meeting this morning for which they bought donuts but did not eat them all, so I grabbed a left-over cream-filled chocolate iced donut. Oink!

Lunch was the Panda Express orange chicken with mixed vegetables on chow mein noodles with hot and sour soup, a small sierra mist and a fortune cookie.

A sense of humor is one

of our greatest assets.

Lucky Numbers 10, 15, 17, 19, 28, 35

I had to stop by the call center to get some help with a conference call this afternoon. They had a bowl of pretzel rods out, so I grabbed one. Oink, oink! On my way out, one of the operators asked if I wanted a soft taco that they had left over from their lunch, so I had that, too. Oink, oink, oink!

After the conference call, I left work early — with approval — so that Gretchen and I could stop by Tait Farm. We spoke with Sara — sorry, last name unheard — about their CSA program. That would be Sara Eckert. We also got to sample some of their organically grown winter root vegetables — carrots, parsnips, celeriac, and rutabaga — and some greenhouse grown spinach. We also spoke with Sarah Rider from Blue Grass Beef about her grass fed meats. We also got a Delmonico steak, some beef cubes, and some bacon. The cows are raised in a field down the street from us… in a field we once kept our horses in. They are butchered in a shop a few miles the other direction down the valley.

Dinner was a salad made with some of the spinach and one of the carrots, along with some apples and romaine, cheese and chow mien noodles that we were going to have anyway. The spinach was tasty, with a good texture. The carrot was sweet, not bitter. Good. We had a glass of Bolla Valpolicella with our salad, a slice of banana bread and a hand full of mixed nuts for dessert, and a snifter of Harvey’s Bristol Cream as a digestive.

Breakfast this morning was a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee, half of a white grapefruit, and two slices of toasted buttermilk white bread with homemade strawberry jam. I weighed 155 pounds.

This morning at the office I had a cup of green tea with a cinnamon stick.

Over lunch I went for a four mile walk through the neighborhood north of campus. While I was out the temperature rose from 43°F to 52°F. I started out wearing a sweater, jacket, and hat. I ended up shedding all of them and having to carry them back.

When I got back I bought a Nature Valley Apple Crisp Granola Bar from the vending machine.

Dinner was two bowls of multi-bean ham soup, three refrigerator biscuits made using the dough we made the other day, and a glass of Bolla Valpolicella, with a slice of banana bread for dessert, and a snifter of Harvey’s Bristol Cream.