Merry Christmas! And happy New Year to you ... in jail!

So I'm in California for the holidays, and it turns out, I don't feel like blogging. I've been too busy doing last-minute shopping, wrapping presents with pictures of Madonna, completely missing major earthquakes, eating fishheads, and rocking out to the Grinch song.

So happy holidays until January 4!

Best of 2003: The Pot You Didn't Know You Needed
They say the devil is in the details. Well, if Satan likes to have an occasional cup o' hot chocolate (and I don't see why he wouldn't ... it's pretty chilly in that 9th level of Hell), he'd probably appreciate one of these. The pot only holds about 2 cups, but it has a slick non-stick surface, making cleaning a breeze, a handle that doesn't get hot, and better yet, handy spouts on both sides that allow an ease in pouring unrivalled in the pot world.

You may say to yourself, I don't need it, I can use the larger, more utilitarian pot, I don't mind wiping up spilled milk! I say to you, humbug! It doesn't take much room, is good for a whole range of hot drinks, melting butter, and making chocolate truffle ganaches, and cost $6 at Target. Throw caution to the wind.

Today, I am annoyed.

Is it because Foodgoat has been using the computer every night to work on his new Firmary website, just at the time of day when my blogging powers are at their peak? Is it because of a recent bout of insomnia and a rapidly accumulating sleep debt? Is it because the LotR has ended (and ended and ended again)?

No, it's because Blogger is pitching a fit every time I try to post. It only pretends to save any changes I make, the template spontaneously devolves to a previous version, and the post date is random and utterly incorrect. It's a toss-up whether this will see the light of day. Grrrrr (that's me knashing my teeth). I'm this close to defecting to Typepad.

Best of 2003: That was just a detour, a shortcut ... A shortcut to what? ... Mushrooms!
Who among us can whip up a gourmet dinner from scratch every night of the week? Not Foodgoat. And if it was me who had to cook every night we'd be eating a lot more microwave popcorn. So we stock up on the jarred sauce and dry pasta. But who can excited about the Plan B of worknight meals?

And then we discovered dried porcini mushrooms. Also known as cepes or boletes (and distinguished from other mushrooms by dense pores, instead of gills, on the underside of the caps), these kings of wild mushrooms take the lowly store-bought sauce to another plane of existence (with an extra dimension of flavor!). After growing in oak, chestnut and beech forests, they can usually be found in small packets in Italian shops ("porcini," by the way, means little piglets in Italian), or big plastic cylinders at Costco. A couple of them rehydrate in the time it takes to boil the water for pasta and all you have to do is toss them all into the warmed up pasta sauce with olive oil and a sprinkling of spices to create a quick yet complex, rich yet earthy, meaty yet vegetarian, Italian-peasant dish.

Of course they can be used in plenty of other ways and dishes, too, and the (strained) water used to rehydrate them can also be used in stock, soup, or grain dishes. They also keep forever, making them quite the useful pantry item.

It being the end of the year, I've decided to do a "Best of 2003" series, featuring my favorite things acquired in the past 12 months. Let's start with the newest one ...

Best of 2003: This is Poke. You’ve seen it before, haven’t you ...!


Back when I had a job in Berkeley counting dead babies, my co-worker had what she called a fruit knife. It was a small knife with a wooden cover, and she used it to peel apples and do other lunch tasks. I coveted it tremendously.

So when I saw a similar one at Sur La Table yesterday, I had to have it. Armed with my Joyce Chen bento (which is a Japanese box lunch) knife with a cherry wood sheath (which shall henceforth be known as "Poke"), now I can dice and slice my lunch anytime, anywhere, with impunity!

In a pinch, of course, I imagine the knife could also be used to cut the ropes that bind me should I be held hostage by an anti-government militia group, or to cut my long, flowing hair should a screaming banshee grab it and try to drag me into the very depths of Hell. Which is why I carry around my bento knife in my bag. You never know when you might encounter a terrorist/demon/apple.

A Lot of Background For One Recipe
Down the middle of Cleveland runs the Cuyahoga River, and near its mouth is an area of lowlands called the Flats. Cleveland's earliest (white) settlers initially built their cabins here, but so many fell ill in the swampy environment that most soon migrated to the higher plateaus on the east and west sides, and then out onto the even higher continental shelf, which why the suburbs are invariably called something-"Heights", though there's a nary a hill to be seen for miles.

In the 19th century, the Ohio & Erie Canal and the growth of railroads turned the Flats, with its abundant room for docks and warehouses, into the industrial powerhouse of furnaces, mills, shipyards, oil refineries, and paint and chemical factories that built Cleveland's storied Millionaire's Row.

Alas, the boom times were not to last. Aircraft and roadways would replace water and railroad as the main modes of shipping. By the 1960's, the Flats had become a dumping ground for unwanted waste, leaving the Cuyahoga River so polluted that it literally, infamously, burned. The event lit the flames, so to speak, for environmental reform. But it also left the Flats a grim, post-industrial landscape of abandoned buildings and burned into the American consciousness an image of Cleveland as an urban nadir.

But in the mid-80's, from the ashes rose a new Flats for a new economy, fueled by entertainment and gentrification. Trendy riverbank restaurants by day and throbbing clubs by night. Weekend pleasure boats and high-end condos instead of shipping docks and warehouses. And for a long time things were good again.

Alas, this boom time seems not to have lasted either. It's now 2003, and the local hipsters are instead lunching downtown and partying in the warehouse district, and many a Flats fixture on the East Bank has had to pack it up.

The latest to go is the Watermark, which was located in a pre-Civil War chandlery shop. I myself have only been to the Flats two or three times, and the Watermark never. But we still have their soup recipe: a light, creamy pumpkin soup with the surprising yet delicious topping of cheddar. And it takes all of twenty minutes to make.

Southwestern Pumpkin Soup

3 cups chicken stock
1 cup cream (or evaporated milk)

1 15-ounce can pure pumpkin
3 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 cup (packed) grated sharp cheddar cheese
Chopped fresh cilantro

Bring chicken stock and cream to boil in heavy medium pot. Whisk in canned pumpkin, brown sugar, cumin, chili powder, coriander and nutmeg. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until soup thickens slightly and flavors blend, about 15 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish each serving with cheddar cheese and cilantro and serve.