What Should I Do with All These Apricots?

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Whilst sitting by the pool today with my good friend Mr. Heineken, enjoying a gorgeous Vacaville day, listening to Danger Mouse's latest disc, Rome (which is wonderful, by the way), it slowly began to dawn on me that if I have something to say about apricots I had best do it posthaste.  Apricot season is short but intense, leaving one with a frantic need to quickly do something with a lot of apricots.  Apricots are my very favorite fruit, but one can only eat so many. So, yes, yesterday I made yet another batch of  jam.   And then I also made a batch of Apricot Chutney.  My mother made this every year when I was a child.  I have only one apricot tree, but the house where I grew up came with about six.  Sort of an embarrassment of riches.  This chutney smells wonderful as it cooks, instantly taking me back to my childhood summers, where the kitchen was hot, the windows were flung wide, and chopped apricots, onions, and limes, as well as little piles of chilies and raisins, covered the counters.  This is a spicy chutney,  and it goes well with Indian food, as well as with your average roasted chicken or grilled pork tenderloin.  Chutney is so much easier than jam--no skimming the foam, no water bath needed. It's a nice change from Major Grey, and makes a good Christmas gift, too.  So here you go.

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Apricot Chutney    

makes 4 pints (or 8 half pints)

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup cider vinegar

1 Tbl. minced fresh ginger

1 tsp. allspice

1 tsp dry mustard

Dash ground cloves

3 small dried chile peppers, crushed

1 small whole lime, finely chopped (peel and all)

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 cup raisins

1 clove garlic, minced

[caption id="attachment_545" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Chutney complete!"][/caption]

4 lbs. pitted apricots, cut into 1/2" pieces

Put all ingredients except apricots in a large pan and bring to a boil.   Add apricots and bring mixture back to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring often to prevent sticking.  Ladle into hot sterilized jars and seal with hot sterilized lids and rings.  Yup, that's it.  We're done.  This recipe is from the '60s--feels very M.F.K. Fisher, n'est-ce pas?

Father's Day Gift Idea (and a menu)

Even if your dad is not a reader, he'll read this.  Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is the amazing true story of Louis Zampirini, an Olympic runner and B-24 bombadier.  His tale of survival during World War II is nothing short of incredible and awe-inspiring.  (As a side note, may I ask why the Germans are so vocally criticized for the atrocities they committed during the war, and the Japanese are barely mentioned?  Their acts were every bit as horrific as those of the Germans.  I was just wondering....)  Boyhood delinquency, triumph in the sports arena, airplane talk, and survival against sharks, the elements, and especially the Japanese are the components of this terrific book.  Really, take a leap of faith and know that even your anti-reading father will pick this up and be immediately engrossed. And hey, it's way better than a tie.

At our house, we will be having a late lunch for our Father's Day celebration.  We are having grilled rib-eye steaks (did you know Costco now sells prime beef, the same grade sold to restaurants?), and for the first time I'm going to try making onion rings from scratch.  Spinach salad with warm bacon dressing, roasted asparagus, and garlic bread will be on deck as well (it's heavy on the veggies because someone in the group--ahem--is on a diet and wants to feel like she's not being deprived when she only gets one onion ring and no garlic bread).  For dessert, cheesecake with strawberries. And of course red wine and lots of Dos Equis amber.  Happy Father's Day!

Funny Ladies

I love being made to laugh.  You don't necessarily have to tell me jokes, although that's good too.  I like a slightly puzzled look at the world, some bemusement in my amusement.  I guess it all just boils down to seeing the funny side of things.  I just finished reading Tina Fey's new (well, only) book, Bossypants. I chuckled a lot and occasionally laughed out loud, like when she talks about puberty and being given the requisite pamphlet "with the vaguely threatening title, 'Growing Up and Liking It.'"  There are a lot of theater camp memories, and family musings, including this one: "How can I give [my daughter] what [my father] gave me?  The gift of anxiety.  The fear of getting in trouble.  The knowledge that while you are loved, you are not above the law.  The Worldwide Parental Anxiety System is failing if this many of us have made sex tapes."

There are bad haircuts and a disastrous honeymoon cruise.  She talks about photo shoots, which really are as glamorous as they seem, and are,  as she says, the FUNNEST.  "Some photographers are compulsively effusive.  'Beautiful.  Amazing.  Gorgeous!  Ugh, so gorgeous!' they yell at shutter speed.  If you are anything less than insane, you will realize this is not sincere.  It's hard to take because it's more positive feedback than you've received in your entire life thrown at you in fifteen seconds.  It would be like going jogging while someone rode next to you in a slow-moving car, yelling, 'Yes!  You are Carl Lewis!  You're breaking a world record right now.  Amazing!  You're going very fast, yes!'"  And then, with the usual foot in reality, it all comes crashing down:  "With the wind blowing on your long extensions, you feel like Beyonce.  The moment the wind machine stops, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and wonder,'Why is the mother from Coal Miner's Daughter here?'"

There's lots more, all of it interesting and lots of it funny.  She talks about her co-stars through the years, the struggles of women in television and in business in general, she talks about parenting and about the future.  Highly enjoyable.  And she dedicates it to her mother, noting that "I made this for you out of macaroni."

The next funny lady that I love is Ann Hodgman.  Her books are for children, and while sweet and mildly amusing, they don't make me guffaw.  What does tickle me, though, are her recipes.  I have two of her cookbooks, Beat This and Beat That.  The directions for chicken gravy (which, by the way, is do-ahead [woo-hoo!], very good, and also works for turkey) include the following:  "When the stock has reduced enough, pour it through a strainer lined with a clean dishtowel into another saucepan. (If I were you I'd wait til no one was looking and just throw away the dishtowel when I was done with it.)  Check the seasoning.  If there's still lots of time before your chicken or turkey is done, let the stock cool.  If it's time to take the damn thing out of the oven, keep the stock warm.  Transfer the bird to another plate, cover it with foil, and keep it warm. Call out nervously to your guests that everything is fine."  That paragraph alone makes Beat This one of my favorite cookbooks.

Roz Chast's cartoons make me laugh a lot.  The Bad Mom trading cards are my favorite.    Sadly, I have committed several of the sins enumerated herein.

I have books I turn to like I turn to comfort food, and two of my favorite authors are Jean Kerr and Betty MacDonald.  They are exasperated by their families (but there is also no doubt how much they love them) and their annoyance is our gain.  Both are funny ladies.  You may have trouble finding these books--they're old, maybe out of print, but the library should have them. Try and giggle about something today.

Here I Go Again...

Before we start to discuss my latest diet, would you like to finish humming that  Whitesnake song?  Are you imagining Tawny Kitaen doing the splits on the hood of a Jaguar?

It's fine, I'll wait.  Okay, you good?  Alright.  I'm not here to discuss Tawny Kitaen, or even hair bands of the 80's.  Rather, I am here to discuss weight loss.  Here I go again, starting a new regime.  I had some slimming success a while ago, and now I have eaten myself right out of that success.  So I am back to work.  (Sidebar discussion:  when do I get to stop trying to lose weight?  Can I be squishy and dumpy when I'm, say, 68?  73?)  I'm on the usual plan of limiting flour and sugar, and any day now I'm going to start exercising.  This morning I went to the library and did what I always do when I start a diet--I got a stack of cookbooks with names like Amy's Bakery, and Deep Dark Chocolate. Apparently I like to make myself struggle. But this time I am trying something new--it's called Stickk.com.  You go to the website, and make a commitment to do something--it doesn't have to be weight loss.  Then you can sign up a referee who will make sure you don't cheat, or you can do the honor system.  You can let your friends know you are doing it.  It's all a little bit of added incentive.  But the kicker comes with the last step:  you choose who will get your money if you don't meet your weekly weight loss goal!  The recipients of that money are known as "anti-charities."  I mean, you can give money through this program to a charity that you like, but I don't find that terribly motivating.  Knowing that if I don't meet my weight loss goal this week, the William J. Clinton Presidential Library will get money from me is very annoying and thus highly motivating.  The site was founded by Yale econ and management professors who studied the effectiveness of "commitment contracts," in terms of getting people to save money.  Turns out commitment contracts work really well for everything!  The fact that not only will I have to PAY if I don't make my goals, but I will have to pay to something I would never give money to is keeping me on the straight and narrow.  So I have a goal, I have a deadline, I have financial ramifications.  When I achieve my goal, I'll post a picture of myself doing splits on the hood of a Jaguar.

Cookbook Review: Food Network Magazine Great Easy Meals

I have what some may call an addiction to cookbooks.  I am somewhat powerless to resist them.  Making space for books is always important in our house, but at the same time, I don't want to feel that I'm drowning in them.  Too messy.  I am getting ready to purge my books of the regrettably purchased, seldom opened tomes lurking about my shelves so that the double stacking can stop.  It makes me crabby.  I go to the library and get cookbooks now, with the intent of copying the few recipes that I am interested in, rather than buying the whole book and thus losing shelf space to something mediocre.  Sometimes, though, I can't help myself.  If I have so many Post-its sticking out of the top of the book to mark pages I want to copy, I figure it is more cost effective (within reason) to go and buy the damned book instead of using up lots of ridiculously pricey printer ink.  The latest addition to be deemed worthy of purchase is Food Network Magazine Great Easy Meals. 

The Food Network website is a great resource for recipes and how-to information.  Their magazine is good too, although I do a fair amount of weeding out of the recipes published therein.  The cookbook, however, has done the weeding for me.  Everything I've tried so far has been very good, with minimal tweaking (but I always tweak recipes, so I don't count that as a strike against it). The nice thing, also, is that the recipes really are very easy.  When I sit down with several cookbooks and plan out my menus and shopping list for the week I often have delusions of grandeur.  "Why, yes, I think making my own pasta (or tortillas or pita bread or...) on a Wednesday night will be completely doable!"  And then Wednesday night rolls around and I've been at a child's sporting event until much later than expected, and so it's quesadillas on store-bought tortillas (which, don't get me wrong, are delicious).  So having these recipes that are quick and easy but also delicious (and made without a drop of cream of mushroom soup) is awfully helpful.  I even made the grilled Rosemary-Mustard Pork Tenderloin with Peaches for a special birthday dinner for company.  So easy, no stress, delicious.

It's good to have a go-to source that is reliable, and that gives me (and my family) a change of pace.  So far I've made the pork above twice, Spicy Chinese Beef, Chicken Korma, the roasted asparagus, and Pork Tenderloin with Eggplant Relish (which was spicy and made with Japanese eggplant, which I would never normally buy, and which even the anti-veggie delegation happily ate, although, to be fair, said delegation may not have known it was eggplant...).  Everything is very flavorful, it's on the table quickly, and ingredients are easily obtained.  The only quibble I have is the "kitchen tips from the stars" that are touted on the cover.  You'd think that meant some...uh...kitchen tips, just say, but not so much.  Melissa D'Arabian telling us how great it is to cook with kids, Ellie Krieger reminiscing about her daughter recognizing the smell of basil on a bus, Guy Fieri building a second kitchen at his house--I'm sorry, I don't care.  But really, that's a small complaint, and a very small part of the book.

I see no reason why the rest of the recipes in Food Network Magazine Great Easy Meals won't be every bit as delicious as the ones I've tried so far.  On Amazon.com it is less than $15, and it is well worth the money.

Gyro Scope

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Let's see...phonetically, it would be "yeero, " not "jiro."  I'm talking delicious Mediterranean food here, not the toy with the string.  One difference: while lamb is usually the meat of choice for gyros, there are people in my house who are anti-lamb (well, really, pro-lamb, if you want to look at it that way), so I make them with pork (why do lambs get sympathy and not pigs?  I don't know--not my issue).  So ANYWAY, if you can't make it to the Athenian Grill in Suisun City for their gyros, these are pretty darn good.  Yes, they are a bit fiddly to grill, but they are certainly not difficult at all.

I have some notes (of course):  I used to use pork loin for these, but have found that pork shoulder makes for much better, much more flavorful meat.  Loin is too lean and thus too dry.  Slice the shoulder thinly by freezing (or thawing) it to the point where it is still stiff, but soft enough to get the knife through, and you'll be able to slice it thinly so it grills quickly.  You don't get the same effect by marinating and grilling the meat whole, which is why all the bitty work.  The red onion in the tzatziki (the Greek yogurt sauce) can be pretty powerful, so after you chop it, put it in a sieve and rinse it quickly under cold water to lessen the bite a little.

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Pork Gyros

serves 8

2 lbs. boneless pork shoulder, sliced thinly into pieces about 2" x 5"

Marinade:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup lemon juice

2 Tbl. Dijon mustard

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbl. dried oregano

Tzatziki:

2 cups plain Greek yogurt

1 large cucumber, seeded, peeled, and chopped

1 tomato, deglopped and chopped (that's how Ann Hodgman describes seeding and cleaning a tomato--perfect!)

4 Tbl. minced red onion (see note above)

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1 tsp. crushed garlic

1 tsp. dried dill

1/2 tsp. salt

8 - 12 pita breads

Place strips of  pork in a large Ziploc bag.  Combine marinade ingredients and pour over pork.  Marinate for 2 to 8 hours.  Preheat the grill.  While grill preheats, stir together all tzatziki ingredients (not the pitas, obviously) and set aside.  Using tongs, remove all those pieces of pork from the marinade, and place them carefully (to avoid incinerated casualties) on the grill over medium heat.  Close lid and let cook for about 7 minutes.  Raise lid and turn pieces of pork over (sorry--fiddly, I know).  Now you have to babysit the meat for about 5 minutes, moving cooked pieces off the flame, moving thicker pieces to the hotter areas, etc.

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You'll know it's done when you see the juices running, bubbly and clear.

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Let the meat rest on a serving platter, covered with foil, for 10 or 15 minutes, in a warm place.  In the meantime, warm the pita bread, either in the microwave (if it's just family and you're eating right away), or in the oven (wrapped well in foil).  Place a serving of meat on a whole pita (see photo, top) and drape with some of the tzatziki.  Gyros are delicious and remarkably flavorful.  And now here are some of my geraniums, sure to rival any in Greece (well, I assume they grow geraniums in Greece, since they grow so well here in our Mediterranean-like climate, and what with Greece having an actual Mediterranean climate...).

Guilty Pleasure Music

I'm kind of holding myself up for ridicule with this list.  Normally I have very particular musical taste, and to say I am persnickety would be rather an understatement.  So I'm not sure how this music sucked me in, but it did.  These are all pretty old songs, but I don't know that a guilty pleasure ever dies. When I talked about music to dance around the house, I suggested you crank it up.  With this music, however, perhaps you should keep the volume a tad lower, and I would certainly keep the windows rolled up in the car.  Your children may pretend they don't know you if you play these songs around them.  Unless they're a lot more tolerant than my children (gee, I just don't know where my kids get their strong opinions...).

Westside Connection:  "Gangsta Nation"

It's just so wrong, a middle-aged woman loving old rap like this.  But you will be tapping your toe, let me tell you.  Consider this an invitation to my gangster nation.  Excuse me.  My gangsta nation.

Justin Timberlake: "Senorita"

I really don't know what to say about this.  I really, really hate boy bands and their former members (although, speaking of members, I do have more respect for Timberlake after his song for SNL, "D*** in a Box"), but I really, really like this song.

Biz Markie:  "Just a Friend"

He can't really sing, he more just talks, and the song screams one-hit wonder.  I originally heard it in a Heineken commercial (the one in the taxi), and that's endorsement enough for me.  Plus it's really fun to sing along to.

Britney Spears:  "Toxic"

I think anything Britney Spears sings that isn't horrible (which I'm not sure leaves too many options...) has got to be a guilty pleasure. And the video (which is where the link for Britney will take you) is great--she gets what a video is supposed to be.  It's like music videos used to be before MTV (you know, MUSIC Television??) got so stupid and stopped playing music videos.

Fountains of Wayne:  "Stacy's Mom"

Same deal--like a throwback to the videos of the 80's.

NeYo:  "Closer"

I'm telling you, your kids are gonna disown you....

Ke$ha:  "TiKToK"

Anybody whose name and song title look like a series of typos may not be high on the intellectual property list.  But this is a great song.  You're going to want to go to a keg party.  Well, if they had them for old people.  But this is guilty pleasure to the nth degree, and an awful lot of fun to sing along to.

Okay.  That's enough for now.