One Year Since Brooklyn

It was kind of funny timing that we flew back into Spokane from our honeymoon on June 30 -- a year to the day since we finished out our lease and hit the road towards Pullman. 

So much of it felt similar to last year. We came in late at night, kind of disoriented, back into the quiet town after a few weeks of craziness and disorder. When we got home, it had that smell of no-one-living-in-old-house. I felt sad things were changing, or rather, that things were over.

But the better part about coming home to Pullman was that feeling that we weren't completely alone this time.

Our well-fed and well-loved dog came to greet us after being taken care of by friends. People we didn't know existed a year ago and who we didn't think twice about handing our house keys to. And a list of dog instructions. 

Over the past few days, there has been welcome-home drinks and looking at wedding photos and reading guests books and dinner out and just general so-happy-for-yous that so genuinely match those of our long-time family and friends that its impossible not to feel proud of finding our way into a good crowd out here.

And while last summer it was kind of a lonely waiting game for September, with new job and new classes, now we're in a groove with what we have to do and try to juggle it with fun things -- trips to Portland, lunches out, drinks on porches, walks through parks.

It's kind of like being a townie, but in someone else's town. One minute you consider yourself a somewhat professional New Yorker and now you're cruising along the road to Idaho throwing snappers out the window. Because it's the Fourth of July and all.

Did I mention that it's my favorite holiday? Simple celebration of summer, patriotism and BBQ. No pressure, no presents. And no matter what we end up doing, it will be more fun than the hotel bar in Chicago we were stuck in last year.

Anyway, tonight I am feeling blessed, patriotic, town-ish and married. Finally, officially married. Things are feeling merged and settled and finalized and good.

It's been quite a year.

We Made it to May!

Here we are: We have made it to May! I can't believe that after this year, this super long year where I thought I felt every minute of every day, is just about a full notch in my belt. Rob finishes his finals next week and then he's on vacation. We are getting married next MONTH. I guess the most confusing part is that this has crept up on me. How could it creep, when I stared at the calendar every single day? But it did.

I've been too busy just getting through each day -- work, wedding planning, gym, yoga, cooking, cleaning, dog walking, sleeping -- that I haven't written in this blog in awhile, and I feel bad about it. That post about tofu was from March and I was too lazy to upload the pictures until now. That's how busy I've been! I think about blog writing and video game playing and novel reading and then I get to the end of the day and I'm too tired to do any of it. 

Now that the days are a lot longer -- it's light til 8pm! -- I feel like my brain is coming up from hibernation and my consciousness is slowly pouring back in. And with this big school-related milestone coming up next week, I gotta piggyback on the success that Rob has earned and pat myself on the back too, because we made it through year 1 of 4! This was the hard year, where we had to make friends and I had to find a job and we had to settle in and make a home in a remote town that was nothing like Brooklyn NY. And we did it! I am pretty proud of us, and so grateful for the family and friends that have helped us through it. Those that remembered us, flew out and visited us, sent us air-mail treats, wrote us postcards from home. Thank you guys. It means more than you'll know.

One of the things I've prided myself on was adjusting to the slow rhythm of the Palouse. My favorite part of New York was riding that energy wave, knowing what was open when, knowing which bus was coming next and the best path from A to B. It's harder out here with so few things to do and very few different ways to get there. But I've found a rhythm of sort. It's not the same, but it's mine.

Saturday mornings: Sage bakery is open. Only Fridays and Saturdays, but since I work Fridays, then Saturdays it is. If I'm headed to Lewiston, I stop for a soy latte. Or maybe I just go for the sake of it. It's 20 minutes down the road in the two-horse town of Unionville. You blink and you pass it. So it's almost like those bars that were hidden behind fake barbershop fronts. You had to be in the know. And I'm in the know! One of my favorites is the savory scone with pancetta and cheese and rosemary. Their sandwiches are fabulous -- roast beef with gorgonzola my favorite. Cinnamon buns. Macaroni salad. It's all amazing! No table service, just a nice lady or two behind the counter.

You would think that everyone would rave about a BBQ place that was just a few miles away over in Moscow, right? I mean, house-smoked meat! The stuff we would wait in line forever for back in Brooklyn! They have it here in Moscow and no one even freaking notices it. I don't get it. We'll head over on a Friday night and by the time we're done eating the place has cleared out and it's 8pm and they're ready to close up. I don't totally understand it but as long as they're open I don't really care. It's called CD's Smoke Pit and it's just a little tiny bit off the beaten path of Main St./6th St. Moscow. They have beer on tap that they serve in Mason jars. We always get the Animal Farm, which is like a big meat combo with chicken, ribs, brisket, 2 kinds of sausage links. The cole slaw is pretty fantastic too. The dinner rolls are terrible but they're free so I'll forgive it.

 

There aren't a lot of events out here. Pullman has the Lentil Festival and that's seriously it for Pullman. But if you know the right people, they know when worthy things are happening in the Lewiston/Clarkston area. There was this beer festival that, despite the complete lack of ambiance, had a pretty okay beer selection. I texted this to a friend and she asked if I was at a PTA meeting. It made me drink more beer than I was expecting to. Maybe this was part of the Lewiston brewmeister's mastermind plan all along.

Then last weekend was the Lewiston Dogwood Festival, with artisans on a green and food trucks! Actual food trucks. Sometimes doing things that remind me of home make me miss home more. Snoop Dogg last weekend and all the kids left before the encore so there was no encore and nobody knew it except me and Rob and like five other people. I get on the bus and I get a wave of nostalgia but only 3 other people are on the bus and it cost me a quarter. This is another example. I missed the quirky crafts and funky eats of Smorgasburg and only being in a place like this really reminded me of how much I missed it. But I bought some handmade soap from a girl with an Etsy shop and had a huckleberry lemonade because where else can you get huckleberry anything and I felt a little better about it.

And now we do it all over again. Summer will come and we'll hopefully get to play a little like last year: tennis and basketball and jogging, only with friends this time! Maybe we'll go camping, and fishing on the river, now that we know where to go. I'll show Rob around Lewiston because he's never been, and I'll take him to Sage Bakery, because he's never been there either. We'll hit the Lentil Festival to mark the start of a second year here and start all over again. I'll buy snow tires when winter comes and I'll go the back roads way to town on extra slippery days. I'll keep an eye out for robins in berry trees when spring comes and I'll celebrate at the dogwood festival that isn't anything like the cherry tree fest in Brooklyn and isn't supposed to be. 

All the locals love to tell me that I'll fall in love with the Palouse and will abandon my plan to move home and will never want to leave. They are wrong. But I am confident that we can ride out another three years out here, and I can entertain visitors or occupy myself for a few days when Rob has fallen into another Psychology book. It's a pretty good feeling. So even though I don't have final exams next week, I'm gonna celebrate with the best of them when they're over. One school year down, three to go. It's an accomplishment worth a pancetta scone and huckleberry ice cream, for sure.
 

Homemade Mozzarella & Hand-Squeezed Tofu

I don't know where I got the idea that I'd start making cheese and tofu and other things out of curds. There's really nothing that appetizing about taking a liquid and turning it into a solid food. Maybe it's all that money I'm spending at Winco and Trader Joe's and at the Moscow Food Co-Op that screams that these items are too expensive and easily enough made at home. 

Well, a few weekends of experimentation has taught me a few things. Making mozzarella is fun and relatively easy. Making ricotta is not easy and not fun. Making tofu is harder work and lesser fun. So, mozzarella wins!

It's actually pretty surprising how easy it is to make your own fresh balls of mozzy goodness. The hardest part is finding rennet and citric acid. Luckily for me, Moscow Food Co-Op had both! But they're both kinda pricey, especially the citric acid, which makes you rethink the whole economics of it. But it's an art! And curdled milk is your palette.

You can get the whole step-by-step right on the Kitchn, which has nice pictures that guides you through the whole daunting process. I'll give the Clif's notes version. 

You warm up about a gallon of milk, which seems like a lot, but it yields very little actual cheese. On the other hand, you end up with about a gallon of whey, which at first you wonder: what the heck do I do with this? I fed some of it to the dog, who loves it, but then she had to pee every five seconds all night. I boiled it and cooked pasta in it. That was a better choice. I also tried using it to make ricotta, but it didn't take. The tiny curds that formed just went straight through the cloth that was supposed to catch them and down the drain.

I'm getting off topic.  


Okay, so to make mozzarella, you warm up the milk with the citric acid, then you add some rennet, and watch the curds appear. When they hit the right temperature, you sift up the good stuff, microwave them, and stretch with gloved hands. Such glee to stretch your own mozzarella! It's easy to get carried away and overstretch them to the point where they get rubbery. That was my problem. But it was still very good baked into lasagna, stir fried in a scramble, and chopped up in salads.

Be warned that homemade mozzarella doesn't really melt very well. The top of the lasagna looked more like roasted marshmallows than cheese. But it wasn't awful.

The tofu endeavor was not as much of a success. And it was way too much work! To do the whole process in its entirety, I started with whole soy beans, which I soaked overnight and then turned into soy milk. From there, making tofu is an exhausting process of blending, un-frothing, heating and reheating and separating and squeezing and in the end, I didn't even get whole blocks of tofu. I got what I guess you would call "silken tofu," or, "watery messed up tofu". 

My neighbor came over for our Sunday night dinner & Girls episodes ritual and asked "is that the tofu?" and I was like YEAH don't wanna talk about that, I'm just gonna fry up some burgers with goat cheese and arugula and honey mustard dressing and forget about the tofu. No one argued.

Later I wound up just scrambling it up with some eggs whites and serving on toast with some avocado. I'm nothing if I'm not being crafty in my nutrition. 

(Says the girl that hides caramels behind dog treats and grabs one at every chance).

The tofu-making wasn't a complete loss, though. On the first sift-through, you wind up with all the pieces of soy beans ground up in the food processor. According to this website article on tofu making -- and I can't vouch for the validity of a site called La Fuji Mama -- this junk is called okara and you can use it to make a sort of granola. Baked with a little cinnamon, agave and vanilla, it's tolerable. I've been stirring it into my yogurts in the morning. I try not to think about how its basically a weird soy cereal. 

I might as well buy some Birkenstocks and call it over. New York keeps feeling farther away. 

But Spring is here, the lease is resigned, and we've almost made it a year! That's a win for sure. Definitely worth celebrating with cheese and caramels.

Strange Signs of Spring and Red Velvet Cupcakes

At work the other day, the tree outside my window all of a sudden became full with fat, feathery robins.

"Look, look!" I exclaim to my coworkers. "Robins are here! Spring is coming!"

They just looked at each other and laughed. I guess every single day I'm going to say something that sounds like common sense and learn that over here, it is pretty much the opposite. 

"Where do you think the robins were back in December?"

I don't know where they went, but I'm pretty sure they weren't around here. I mean, I think I would know. I watch out for birds a lot. But I didn't say anything.

"Come here. Let me show you something." Now my self-doubt has moved to full on coworker-skepticism, but I follow him into the office next door. He points to a tree full of red berries. "You see that tree? When spring is REALLY coming, all the robins will start eating the berries off that tree. They aren't eating them now, because the berries aren't ready. They need to be fermented to a certain degree. The robins eat them, get drunk, and lay around on the ground. THAT'S when you know spring is coming."

"So you're telling me that seeing robins alone is not an indication of spring, its a group of robins getting collectively drunk."

"Yes."

I was fairly certain he had made the whole thing up when wouldn't you know it, a day or two later the woman from the next office -- who wasn't there the day of our discussion-- shouts out: "They're eating the berries! They're doing it!"

I guess it's really going to take at least a full year before I can start to understand the strange norms and traditions of the Palouse. Also, I'm less inclined to believe them now that it's been snowing for the past 14 hours.

Anyway, I like hanging out with the girls in Rob's program because they all come from seemingly more normal places and can understand the adjustments it takes to live out here. So when it was a new friend's birthday, obviously I felt inclined to make some cupcakes, something way better than what you can get at the town's only bakery, Sweet Mutiny. 

I did some research into what would make the perfect red velvet cupcake. I wanted a recipe that had a good technique for making that bright red color. I liked the idea of making a paste from cocoa powder, vanilla extract and red food coloring to get the chocolate nice and bright before adding red to an already-chocolatey-brown cake batter. Only a scant amount of white vinegar. Buttermilk was fine, but I'd have to make my own with lemon juice and milk. No other weird ingredients aside from the sugar, eggs, flour basics. I decided on this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker, which came out great. 

As for the frosting, I didn't want the cream cheese kind. I read that the real traditional frosting for red velvet cakes were "cooked", but I didn't know what that meant. So a little further investigation proved that indeed, you cook down milk and flour into a non-buttery roux, cool it completely and add it to a whipped butter-sugar mixture. It's alluring because it winds up super fluffy, like whipped cream, and only slightly sweet, as the milk/flour tempers that pure sweet flavor of regular icing. I went with this recipe because I liked the pictures and the step-by-step instructions, which I needed because I was doing this on my lunch break and needed these done stat.

Anyway, I sort of botched this whole thing because after one batch of cupcakes I realized I'd need to make another, but I didn't think I had any more red food coloring, so I made them regular. Of course I found more red food coloring tucked away a few days later. And as for the frosting, all my butter was frozen, and I'm not the best at defrosting the proper way. So the consistency was all wrong. But boy I know the potential is there. 

Don't let my semi-failure deter you and try this cake+frosting combination out! Because regardless of what the drunk robins are telling you, spring's not here and bikini diets can wait.

Snowy Befuddlements and Homemade Candles

I know I've already done that blog post ranting about how bad the roads are here in the winter. But the winter's still not over and I'm still not done complaining about it.

"You made it!" They might say when I huff into the office in the morning, looking like an angry Eskimo wrapped in way more winter gear than anyone else. "Yeah," I'd grunt. "I'm a little late because I got stuck behind a zamboni on my way here." They'll look at me funny because they don't quite get my humor yet, and I don't make it any easier by not smiling.

Obviously, there is no street-zamboni. But after it snows and melts a little and then freezes again, the roads are about as slippery as the skating rink I could never stay upright on as a teenager. And when everyone lives on a steep hill, they close down the super steep ones and you just have to pray your way down the lesser -- but still very scary -- ski jump of a neighborhood road.

Last week I learned that it's not even safe to leave the parking lot for lunch! Because they don't shovel or salt the parking lot. Well, they don't salt ANYTHING, because salt might ruin the crops in the springtime, and we can't risk not having wheat or garbanzos come spring! We must risk every human life in favor of a few more legumes, lest the Lentil Festival become just another lackluster day! But I digress, the parking lot was iced to this fun degree where the harder you break the faster you move forward? So as I'm barreling towards the road there is, of course, a very unaware pedestrian walking down the sidewalk, minding his own business, maybe playing with his phone, maybe looking at his shoes.

And I can't stop!

BEEP BEEP BEEEEP.

Frantically tapping on the horn is all I can think of to do, since the whole pumping-the-brakes thing doesn't seem to stick.

He hops out of the way just in time, and my car brushes his side on his warpath back to the street. I gain control of the car and check my rear view mirror. He's waving me on as if to say, I'm fine, this happens every day, don't worry about me. Kind of like the British guy in European Vacation who acts like everything's kosher even though blood is spurting out of his wrist. In England and in Pullman, before all else, you gotta be polite. 

The whole townwide and collegewide refusal to handle snow here will probably never stop baffling me.

But to prove I'm not all moans and groans, here's a fun soy candle recipe to try! Because if you're not a fan of ice, might as well make a little fire.

HOW TO MAKE SOY CANDLES

You'll need:

• Soy chips
• Thermometer
• Essential Oil
• Wicks
• Jars

Put jars in the oven at 125 degrees to pre-heat them. I like squat mason jars.

 
Set up a double boiler. Pour in the soy chips into the bowl and stir as they melt. I've found that measuring or weighing gets confusing, and who has time for that anyway? So instead, use the jar or container as a measuring cup and multiply by about four (so four jars of soy chips would equal about one jar of melted wax). Better to overestimate than underestimate. You can always put the extra wax in tea light candles, if you have those laying around.

Melt the wax to 185 degrees. In that time, the wax will go from melted and soapy, to clear with dollops of cloudiness, to straight up clear liquid. It's all normal.

Now turn off the heat! And take the bowl off the double boiler to bring it back down to temperature quicker. Now is when you want to add your essential oil. They usually say about an ounce of fragrance per pound of wax, but if you ask me, that's not enough! Pour that stuff in with a confident and steady hand. Some of it will evaporate anyway, even though you aren't still heating the wax. I used orange, which doesn't have the medicinal stink of teatree or eucalyptus. 

Wait til you're down to 125 before you pour wax into the pre-heated jars. Stick the wicks in. It's hard to keep them centered, but before you buy something dumb like a wick bar, just place scissors and pens and other miscellany around them to keep them in place. 

Let dry overnight, and hurray! A little ray of light to keep you warm until spring. Just make sure you cut down the wick so you don't burn the house down.

Stay tuned! Your favorite Brooklynite-turned-Pullmanite might try cheesemaking next.


*If you noticed that I was going for four candles and only had enough wax for three, maybe you'll remember why I said its best to overestimate a tad.

Brunch in Spokane

If there's anything I need to really stress about living here, it is this: It is REALLY tough to be a food-loving transplant living in Pullman. All the Chinese restaurants here in Pullman are oversauced and undersalted, the Thai places mess up on balance, even the simple sandwich places slog through with underwhelming deli meat (which, considering the lack of decent meat around here, isn't entirely their fault, I guess). I've been getting better at cooking at home and it's certainly become more natural. 

But I miss brunch. I miss that big heavy meal that I eat early in the day to fuel the shopping and running around that lies ahead on the weekends.

Thank God that Spokane is only about an hour and a half away, a drive that seems to get shorter and more reasonable the longer I live here. I'm starting to understand that time is a totally different thing out here in the middle of nowhere. I'm reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time right now and maybe I can explain it soon. But for now, all I can say is that having restaurant eggs less than two hours away is suddenly not unreasonable.

The other weekend we finally made it to Sante, one of the more highly recommended restaurants in the Spokane area. It's as close to Brooklyn as it can be with its nose-to-tail, farm-to-table approach to food. Everything we got was heavy and creamy and made us just a liiiittle too slow for me to make it back for my gym class in time, which was just fine with me. 

We started with a latte and a mocha. The caffeinated indulgence necessary to any decent brunch.

Then we got a shared a heavenly gnocci dish with guanciale, sweet potato and sage. The creamy sauce made it even more disgustingly delicious.

I had a benedict of some sort, which despite the presence of another heavy topping in the hollandaise, was much welcomed after a canned hollandaise at the (sadly much-loved) Breakfast Club in Moscow the weekend or so before. Rob had some kind of shirred eggs which were really tasty but also strangely fishy considering they didn't list anything seafoody on the menu. Hrmm.

Well, it was like old times again, heading off from brunch and walking straight for some shopping, albeit in a mall and not Bedford or the Brooklyn flea. It was better for the wedding shopping we needed to do, anyway.

Before heading home we did a crazy free-for-all spree at Trader Joe's, as we usually do when we're in Spokane. It always seems indulgent at the time, but I thank myself weeks and weeks later as I'm making awesome berry smoothies or snacking on vanilla bean flecked yogurt or reheating frozen pizza when we're in a pinch. And this time we've discovered something amazing, thanks to a tipoff from some Pullmanite friends: Trader Joe's frozen chocolate and almond croissants! Look how they puff up overnight and then bake into buttery perfection!

This morning we noshed on these puppies as we perused online stores for registry items in our PJs. Not quite as good as a brunch/shopping weekend in Spokane, but pretty close.

From Bumpkin to Brooklynite and Back Again

The first trip back to NYC after a long absence was a funny experience. In some ways it was like I hadn't left at all. I'd picked up right where I'd left off and was back to speedwalking and running for trains and just riding the energy of the city. And then I'd realize that my bed was on the other side of the country and my Brooklyn apartment belonged to someone else now and it stung my heart. But then I'd sip a fantastic mocha and feel blissed out all over again. It's a confusing thing to feel like you're right where you belong and yet not really have a place there anymore. I kept saying it's a good thing I have a dog back in Pullman waiting for me or else I might never go back.

Because c'mon, how could I ever abandon this face.

Well, feelings of belonging and confusion and whatever else aside, I got to fill up on some great food while I was back in the city. I'd been deprived of so much -- bagels, oysters! -- for months, that the things I loved when I had them every day were appreciated so, so much more.

There was the spicy bowl of Akamaru Modern at Ippudo, with a seasoned soft boiled egg that added creaminess to the bone warming bites of thin noodles and fatty pork. The spicy soppressata sandwich from Faicco's with fresh mozzarella and artichokes, and the BLT from Murray's with burrata cheese and bacon that we're pretty sure was fried in butter. Around the corner I had my favorite dish at Annisa, the miso sable with silken tofu in a bonito broth brimming with roe. In the mornings I alternated chocolate croissants with almond croissants and a cup of Stumptown coffee with plenty of cream. At Bagelsmith, I alternated smearing fresh bagels -- egg sesame, pumpernickel --  with jalepeno cheddar cream cheese and hot butter.

At Sripraphai, I piled crispy basil pork onto coconut rice, crunching the porky shards into the sweet scented rice. At Cull & Pistol and of course at Maison Premier, I threw back freshly shucked oysters with tiny squeezes of lemon, keeping the shells level with salty liquid while the tiny fork did its job. I bit into a perfectly greasy double cheeseburger at Shake Shack and had a celebratory New Years waffle from the Waffles & Dinges truck parked in Forest Hills. 

In Jackson Heights, I had Nepalese food in the middle of a blizzard, warming up with some spicy chickpeas and beef dumplings. Another night I joined the vegetarians for dosas and spicy soup. In Long Island City, I savored the French trifecta of crepe: Swiss, ham, egg on top.

As I toured the city for my familiar favorites and sought out new specialties, I realized how lucky I was to have at my disposal the array of all types of cuisines, low end to high end, fast food to slow dine to elbowing at the bar. I immersed myself in it and tried to forget that the Thai and Chinese restaurants in Pullman aren't even sort of palatable.

I had a nice high end lunch with my family at Union Square Cafe and indulged in hours of omakase at Momo Sushi Shack. I got a ceremonious hug from Phil, the owner, and Rob got a print of Phil one on of his travels. 

I miss the randomness. I think it fed my creativity. Now I have to rely on endorphins from Jillian Michaels videos.

Anyway, this being New York, I had to stay on top of what's new and visit a highly recommended small plates spot in Nolita, Pearl & Ash. 

I really have missed the whole experience of dining out on a Friday night. Making a last minute reservation, rushing the train to get there on time, sliding across the sidewalk and trying not to get sidetracked by glorious things in windows -- like chocolately rice pudding at Rice to Riches. I miss taking in new atmospheres and people watching and overhearing ridiculous things that boys say to girls on dates because we're all squeezed into our tables shoulder to shoulder.

I didn't take many pictures while I was in the city, but I couldn't help snapping a few crappy iPhone pics when each new dish came. It's old habit, I guess.

Ahh. New flavors. Exotic ingredients. One plate after another of eyes-rolling-back-in-your-head bites. 

From top left:

Fluke crudo with cucumber -- a nice palate cleansing start

Dessert of blood orange, pistachio and graham cracker -- so much more than the sum of its parts. 

Diver scallop with green tomatillo and crispy corn nuts on a creamy white sauce... revelatory.

The BEST crispy sweetbread I've ever had, warm and crunchy with sherry and heart of palm.

Not shown: 
lamb belly with black garlic, gamey and fatty
cod as soft and mild as butter, colored by Thai flavors: coconut, Thai basil, lemongrass
butternut squash with mascarpone

Long story short, it was great to be back. It fed my desire for new things and familiar things simultaneously. Seeing old friends and joining them for brunch and beers and other normal things helped remind me that I'll still have a place in Brooklyn when I get home, and that I can jump back into things pretty easily.

For now, I'm back to homecooked meals and liver cleanse tea and couch snuggling with the above mentioned pooch. I think I'll be okay for another six months.