Apple pi, originally uploaded by zannect.

Dave and I had a few people over last night to celebrate Pi(e) Day. Pi(e) Day can only be properly celebrated with lots of pie. We had lots of homemade pizza by Dave, including margerita, pepperoni, roasted garlic & ricotta, artichoke & sundried tomato, and pesto mozzarella mushroom, and I made apple pie and chocolate pudding pie. The chocolate pudding pie was a recipe invented by my friend Sonny, and it was awesome. The apple pie looked perfect, but for some reason the apples came out a little underbaked, so it wasn't my best pie ever. Next year! Or, maybe next week.

Read more about Pi Day on Wikipedia.

See lots of photos of our pie and pizza making on Flickr.

Eat some leftover pie: our house!

I know, I've been terrible about posting anything this month. What can I say....February is a hellish time of year, in which all I do is complain about the never-ending winter and hibernate, and worship my new fake-sunlight lamp. It is now, according to the calendar, March, but it's also snowing and we are forcasted to receive another 8-16 inches over the next day. Yes, I know I was excited about the snow back in December, but that was before we'd gotten 17 feet of it. I'm seriously considering moving to...somewhere else. Anywhere else, as long as it's warmer.

Enough about that. See, I haven't posted in weeks because really that's all I've had to say, well, that and funny cat pictures, and how much of that would it take for everyone to stop reading my blog forever? Not very long at all.

The one exciting thing that did happen this month was that my brother's girlfriend Shannon's dance company, zoe|juniper, came to Boston to perform at the Institute for Contemporary Art. We got to see one of the performances of the piece, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, and it was amazing. I don't think I've seen a dance performance since college, so it was an unusual treat. The performance combines modern dance with video work and music and it's beautiful and weird and creepy all at the same time. We also had the chance to talk about the performance with Shannon afterwards, and hearing about the piece from one of the dancers added a lot to my understanding and thoughts.

Here's a clip of a section I liked; there are lots more on youtube:

We're switching site hosts!

This is just a test post to see how it all looks. Pardon any site weirdness for the next day or so.

CSA Vegetable Box, originally uploaded by zannect.

Dave and I joined a Winter CSA a few weeks ago, and it's been awesome. It's all organic produce from farms on the East Coast (including a citrus farm down in Florida), collected and boxed by a farm out in Western MA. Every Wednesday we pick up an 8-10lb box of fruits and vegetables. The photo is last week's box; this week (no pictures) we got eggplant, kale, green beans, onions, sweet potatoes, apples, cherry tomatoes, rutabagas, yellow summer squash, lettuce, and a green pepper. We both enjoy opening the box and seeing what we get every week; I can definitely see how some people might not be into the surprise of figuring out what you're going to cook for the next week, but we find it fun. We've already tried a new vegetable (celeric; we both really liked it) and discovered that we like parsnips a lot more than we thought. Also, the produce is in much better shape and is much more affordable than the grocery store in our neighborhood. We've signed up for a different CSA for next summer, which starts in June. I can't wait for all that wonderful summer produce....I had a little taste of spring earlier this week when it hit 47 degrees for a day and I seriously can't wait. Especially on nights like tonight, when it's zero degrees.

And since this is totally turning into a food blog, it's time to talk about coffee! Dave and I have given up on finding good coffee beans around here that sells for less than a dollar an once, no joke, so we ordered a bunch of coffee beans from our Brooklyn fave, Gorilla. It's even better than I remembered, and it's less expensive, even to have it shipped! Good coffee definitely makes it easier to get out of the house on a frigid February morning; it's probably the only thing that makes that even possible.

Dave and I went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History yesterday to check out the special exhibit "Sea Creatures in Glass". The HMNH is most famous for the Glass Flowers, an incredible collection of botanical models made in glass.

The sea creatures and the flowers were all made by a father-son team, Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, in Dresden, from 1887-1936. They are so detailed and accurate it's hard to believe they aren't real. They worked from specimens and drawings, and built over 3,000 models. It's well worth a visit when you're in the Cambridge area!

We also checked out the fossils, the preserved specimens, and the rocks and minerals. The museum is very old fashioned in some ways--there are halls and halls of slightly moth-eaten taxidermied animals in antique glass and wood cases--but is also really up to date--one of the other special exhibits was on climate change. A friendly staff person pointed out this neat photo op, of a right whale and a porpoise skeleton:

And finally, they have a preserved specimen of one of my favorite fish, the Coelacanth, aka the living fossil:

It's just so weird! I love it. I've been fascinated by them since I first read about them in the fourth grade.

Full set of photos on Flickr!

I haven't posted enough pictures of Olive and Leo lately.

Cats in a basket

Boston Molasses Disaster, originally uploaded by zannect.

I've been away for a bit due a cold, some problems with our site host that had my site down for a few days, a relapse into my junior high days of inhaling trashy fantasy novels, and just plain winter laziness. Sorry about that! So, here's a tasty link for you and some food news.

I love love love kale. I haven't always, but in the last couple of years, it's become my second favorite green vegetable (just after spinach). However, this dish may be pushing it into my top spot: boiled kale with a fried egg and toast, from Orangette. It's super easy--maybe 20 minutes of prep work and another 25 minutes or so just to cook by itself; it's quite healthy; and it's tasty far past what you would imagine. I keep meaning to take a picture of it, but I always forget when it's in front of me, because I start to eat immediately. Even if you're not a huge kale fan it's worth checking out.

In other food news, one of my favorite Christmas presents this year was a guided tour of the produce section at Whole Foods, led by Steve, who has just finished a season working on an organic farm. Dave and I came home with a slew of new vegetables that we never cook, including delicata squash (amazing!); fennel (raised soup to a whole new level!); and collards (his suggestion that we braise them with sweet potatoes turned out awesome), as well as some new ideas for stuff we make all the time. We also came home with some new spices to try (rice plum vinegar and gomashio) and some new types of rice (forbidden rice!). I've been cooking a lot more since we moved, and my cooking skills are improving rapidly, so I'm pretty excited to have some new things to try.

And in the sort-of-food-news and sort-of-bizarre-historical-anecdote-leading-to-public-reform folder, today is the 90th anniversary of the Boston Molasses Disaster, in which 2.3 million gallons of molasses flooded the North End after a storage tank burst, killing 21 people and injuring 150. The wall of molasses that exploded out when the tank's rivets failed was moving at 35 mph and was between 8 and 15 feet high, with 2 tons of pressure per foot. The disaster eventually lead to better building regulations. I learned about this as a small child, but I'm not sure it made it into history books outside of New England. You can read about it at a historian's site and on Wikipedia.

2008, originally uploaded by zannect.

It's hard to believe the end of 2008 is just a few hours away! To quote one of the most overused phrases of the year, this has really been a year of change, for me personally as well as for this country. Even though it was a year full of fun times with friends, travel, and good food, and a year of personal milestones, it was also a year of much upheaval, and I can't say I'm all that sorry to see it go. Even positive change can be challenging!

I will be ringing in the new year this evening in my favorite way--with old and new friends and a lot of good homemade food. Here's to a wonderful 2009!

Happy New Year!

2008 in Food, originally uploaded by zannect.

Looking back over 2008 in Food (and comparing it to 2007 in Food), it's obvious I'm eating more local foods, more fresh food, and more homemade food. I've been cooking much more since I moved to Somerville! And wow, I can't wait for next summer and all the amazing fresh fruit and vegetables we'll be receiving from our CSA. As I look out the window at another six inches of snow, brand new this morning, I am longing for a fresh local peach or a tomato that actually tastes like a tomato....

Cookie making, originally uploaded by zannect.

I woke up this morning and it was snowing AGAIN. We have something like a foot and a half of snow out there. AND it's the shortest day of the year. So I decided to stay inside all day, take some pictures of the snow through the window, and make cookies.

I made Strawberry Tart Cookies from Gourmet (best cookies of 1993!), Brown Butter Brown Sugar Shortbread from Smitten Kitchen, and Chocolate Crinkles from Bread & Honey.

I was going to make Vanilla Meringues, too, but I got hungry for real food so instead I made braised lamb for dinner. Yum!

Happy Solstice. Happy Hanukkah. I'm so excited the days start getting longer TOMORROW.