Making Jam at Happy Girl Kitchen

There are many benefits to living in Northern California. There's the fabulous weather, stunning scenery, lively food scene, numerous farmers markets, and countless small businesses that use the abundant produce that is grown here, much of it organic.

I enjoyed a muesli with maple yogurt and a Blue Bottle Coffee latte before the workshop

I discovered one of these businesses when I went to Pacific Grove last month. Happy Girl Kitchen is a cafe with a difference: the business is focused on sustainable practices and is single-handedly trying to revive the art of preserving the harvest. Jordan and Todd partner with local family farms, connecting the harvest with home preservation advocates. To further their efforts, they offer canning workshops. Five hours long, attendees learn several recipes hands-on, and get to take home a couple of jars of each recipe they make. They throw in a delicious lunch to boot.

Jordan uses the oven to make the apple butter, eliminating hours of stirring

Happy Girl recently opened a store in San Francisco's Ferry Building, yet all of the products they sell there, in Pacific Grove, and the farmers markets they sell at are made in a relatively small kitchen in their Pacific Grove location. It was here that I recently attended a workshop on apples, quince and pears. We learned how to make apple butter, apple chutney, quince jelly and can pears in a honey syrup.

Many hands make light work - ten of us were able to cut up pounds of quince in minutes

One of the reasons I've never canned is I'm afraid I'd do it wrong and kill someone. It turns out I'm not alone in that fear, but there's not too much danger of that if you follow some simple rules. We learned the importance of having a perfectly clean rim on the jar (a tiny bit of fruit or an herb interferes with the sealing of the lid), of processing the filled jars in a hot water bath for a long enough time to heat the center of the jar to a safe temperature.

Even the quince cores are used for their pectin. Wrapped in a cloth, they boil with the fruit.

Quince were new for me, and although they have a lovely aroma, they are tough to love. They're a bit wooly on the outside, and taste a bit too tangy. They're best when cooked and they are ideal for jelly. Jordan told us how to make membrillo with the quince pulp after we cooked it down and strained the juice for the jelly. She even let us take it home so we could make membrillo ourselves.

Straining the pulp to extract all the juice to for the quince jelly

That was something I enjoyed about my day at Happy Girl. When Jordan grabbed a jar of pickled beets to serve with lunch, she poured out the pickling liquid, ditto with the bread and butter pickled zucchini. The mixture smelled amazing, and Jordan explained that she'd save it for making a vinaigrette. At Happy Girl, they strive to use, and reuse, everything they can. Food scraps and paper products are composted so very little goes to waste.

The whole time we were there, Jordan was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable ambassador for canning. She encouraged us to experiment with herbs and spices by dividing a batch in several parts so that if something wasn't successful, you haven't spoiled the whole batch.

We've already sampled the pears (preserved in a bath of honey syrup with a cinnamon stick) and the quince jelly, and both were fabulous. Even the quince pulp (for the membrillo) was delicious. If the byproducts of the canning process are delicious, what's stopping me from taking up this almost lost art? Not a thing now that I know how to do it without victims.

I plan to make the trek to Pacific Grove in a few weeks for another canning workshop. Jordan and Todd will be doing one more tomato workshop and I plan to be there to learn to make their fabulous salsa.

Revisiting My Dirty Little Secret

Back when I first told you (and showed! yikes!) my dirty little secret, I can admit now that I was frightened and overwhelmed by the prospect of where to start. It seemed so daunting. I was paralyzed.

If the longest journey starts with a single step, then the messiest pantry clean up starts with a single shopping bag.

What?

That's right. It was the little shelf stuffed with shopping bags that got me off the sofa and into toss it/give it/use it mode. I literally couldn't jam one more shopping bag into the narrow vertical shelf most use for storing cookies sheets but I use for shopping bags. One weekend afternoon, I looked at it with exasperation and thought "Enough is enough!" I pulled them all out and piled them on the ottoman, then I sat down and got brutally honest with myself.

What exactly am I planning? To be nomadic, with all our possessions in shopping bags? I hope not, but the truth is even if we were, there's a limit to how many we can carry at one time. I love seeing the shopping bag from the duty free shop in the New Delhi airport, the one from the grocery store in Gilleleje, Denmark. Multiples from bakeries, chocolate shops, and cookware stores both here and abroad. They bring back memories. It would be one thing if I used them, but I seldom do. Ruthlessly, I cut handles off, recycled paper bags, and limited myself to just one or two of my favorites (Pierre Herme, Laduree and La Maison du Chocolat). The rest - gone. Bye bye.

The resulting look of order and restraint in that little slot in my big pantry was an epiphany. IF I DO MORE OF THAT, THE WHOLE PANTRY COULD BE TRANSFORMED!


So I did, and still am.

It's a work in progress, but everything is off the floor, unused serving pieces have a new home at the thrift store or Salvation Army, and like things now live together.

I did the majority Sunday evening of the July 4th weekend, and I stood there for about half an hour staring at the transformed space. Don't get me wrong, there's still work to be done, but I can easily get to things. I don't have to move the stack of bundt pans and a large serving tray to access the sheets of parchment paper.

Baking is now easier, packing lunches is easier and I'm not embarrassed any more when someone comes over and the pantry door is open. There aren't enough shopping bags to contain the great feelings I got from doing this.

Another benefit of my pantry epiphany is it carried over to the kitchen cabinets. I used to collect old Spode china, and I still had several sets that I never use because it doesn't go in the dishwasher, yet my formal china was still in boxes in the garage where it had lived since it was boxed up for the kitchen renovation. I felt ready to let go of this beautiful old china so it could be enjoyed by someone who would use it. That made enough space to bring in our formal china.

A few things I learned:

• I had eight shopping bags from some stores, mostly small or impractical shapes. I kept the two I was most likely to use and recycled the rest.
• We rarely entertain large scale because our home is small. The large serving dishes I had for that once-in-a-decade party were taking up valuable real estate. I can borrow from friends the next time we have 30 people over.
• Keep the things you use all the time in a convenient spot. I put my steel cut oatmeal (fabulous overnight recipe here) in wide mouth Mason jars, but stashed the jars way back in the pantry and frequently knocked them over when reaching for other things. They're now in a cabinet, directly over the spot where I prepare my oatmeal each week.
• Consider how you use your kitchen. I bake a lot, so having a variety of mixing bowls easily accessible is more important to me than a variety of sippy cups, but if you have kids, put the sippy cups directly over where you prep your child's drinks.
• If letting go of something you've collected is hard, keep one or two pieces that you particularly prize and let the rest go with love. Imagine someone's thrill at finding that perfect object they've been searching for. I kept one place setting from one of my sets, and a simple square luncheon plate from the other. 
• When you're packing things up and letting go of something just feels wrong, allow yourself to keep it. Just don't feel that way over every single object. When I was boxing up my Spode, I couldn't make myself give up the third set. It turned out that was the favorite of the seven patterns (yes, seven) that I used to collect. I couldn't bear to let it go, so I didn't. I may at some point decide I'm ready but for now I look forward to using it on weekends when I don't mind hand washing as much.

Because I didn't acquire this stuff in a day, the pantry won't get cleaned in a weekend. This is a project that, for me, has to be done over time. I still have two ice cream makers and more containers for storing leftovers than any three families can use. Those things will change in time, but for now I am thrilled to open the pantry door, reach for something, and not have to cover my head. We'll revisit the pantry when it's done. And now if you'll excuse me, I want to go sneak another peak.

*******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. I will be responding to comments but not keeping up with my Google Reader or visiting bloggers other than those who leave comments. I'll be back around August 31st with a spirit refreshed by this blessed month of fasting and prayer. Peace.

My Dirty Little Secret

Although I'm basically a person who thrives in a neat, organized environment, that's not always how my world looks. In the past year, I've made a concerted effort to tame my propensity for letting a little clutter gather. My desk at work has been organized (and completely free of paper each night before I leave) since July. The kitchen counters have been clear and the sink has been free of dishes for a couple of months. Even after Thanksgiving's pie production, I cleaned the kitchen completely before I fell into bed.

This kind of self discipline isn't easy for me but it reduces my stress level and makes it easier to keep the rest of my world in check. And so it is that this area of my home is still a train wreck. Behold, my pantry (think dramatic horror movie music):

Well, this is what it looked like a few months ago. I've been slowly whittling away at it, taking boxes to charity and trying to use up what I have before buying more. I now run out of the things that I used to buy multiples of, but it is helping me reclaim my pantry and my sanity. In time, it won't be a dirty little secret anymore, and I can once again enjoy opening the pantry door to grab ingredients for baking.

I never appreciated how much my surroundings impact my mood before I started cleaning off my desk before leaving work each night. I find I am more productive because the open space on my desk encourages me to work rather than seeing the mounting pile of unfinished work and feeling hopeless. It's that epiphany I hope to carry to other areas of my life (home office desk - check; kitchen counters - check).

What area of your home is getting you down? Could you spend an hour or two this weekend to recapture that closet or desk and reclaim your inner peace? I encourage you to do it. It has helped me to be focused and calm at work, no matter what is swirling around me, and I am already reaping the rewards at home as well. Give it a try!

Ad Hoc Book Signing

Yesterday, my friend Susan and I waited in line in 41 degree weather for almost two hours (OK, we were indoors half of the time) to buy Ad Hoc At Home and have it autographed by Thomas Keller. Even though we were told he wouldn't do personal photos, yadda yadda, he was delightful in person and insisted on personal photos. If you bought Ad Hoc at Williams-Sonoma, he would sign it and any of his other cookbooks, regardless of where they were purchased. As you can see above, his signature is a beautiful addition to a fantastic cookbook. He was gracious and kind, and as down to earth as his food is ethereal.

How do you say "thank you"?

Recently, I've been thanking the ones close to me with these decadent chocolate toffee cookies I first saw on Smitten Kitchen. But that made me wonder, how do YOU thank the people near you, whether it's your landlord for fixing your backed up kitchen sink on Thanksgiving or your favorite baby sitter for agreeing to take care your kids three nights in a row. If you want to give them an extra special thank you, do you bake something, cut roses from your garden or buy a small gift at your favorite boutique (like Target)?

For me, it's almost always baking. Sometimes it's killer chocolate cake or brownies. Or cranberry bread. Or a very special Dorie cheesecake. This weekend it was these delectable cookies. One bite and you'll be hooked. I used Skor bars this weekend and much preferred them to the Heath bars I've used in the past.

Please weigh in on how you say 'thank you' when the words alone don't seem adequate? Feel free to include or link to recipes! And if you can think of a way I can thank Deb Perelman, the force behind Smitten Kitchen, for all of the joy, good food and inspiration she has given me, I'd love to hear that too.