From My Little Kitchen to Nursing Home Admittance

I live alone.

This means that one day I will have to go into a nursing home, that is, unless some kind soul takes me in. It's not that I wouldn't like to live my days out in my own house, defiantly driving my old car slow, going to get my own mail in my own mailbox, and baking cookies for little neighborhood girls who are scared to eat them because of all the crazy ingredients in jars lining my kitchen ...

In short, it's just that packaging is going to send me there. That's right, packaging.

Now, at my vibrant age (no snickering back there!), it's already come to this: I can't open most chip bags, block cheese, shredded cheese, coffee bean bags, milk containers, and assundry other products. So how do I survive? The knife.

I use the tip of a knife to break the seal on the gallon of milk, cut open the chips, block cheese, and shredded cheese, and get out the scissors for the coffee beans. I even take off wine foil with knives. I need a glass of wine, ok? Well, one grey-haired day, one of my neighbors will walk in on me wielding a chef's knife against a small package of cheese and will decide that I could be a danger to myself.

And he will be right, because it's not like I can store anything either. I can't close the zip on a zippie bag (if it's torture watching, trying being the one watched). Only Hefty one-zips please, and yes, those do get stuck too. I use old hummus containers and Parmesan cheese containers to store everything, but the lid matching can make everyone feel like we're playing a sad game of matchmaker that doesn't quite match.

And let's not even mention Saran Wrap. Let's just not.

Coupons for Creativity

One of the ways life in the Little Kitchen stays exciting is through creative shopping. Grocery shopping, that is.

To me, the heart of being creative is shopping the sale. Buy it, and figure out a delicious way to use it. One of my newest ways to do this is a weekly coupon for something free from Earthfare. I signed up on the website, and each week, I receive a coupon for something awesome. Chicken (my favorite meal!). Bulk items. And this week, cherries.

Friday was a day at the Little Desk, lots of writing, lots of research, and not lots of time for food. But lunch was a 5 minute drive away.

The Flying Pig Turkey Wrap, potato salad, and the cherries, all from Earth Fare

Everything was delicious, and I fell on it like a pack of hyenas. You know what this looks like. I did not take a picture of it, k?

However, I am not being creative with the cherries. I am eating them straight out of the fridge, cool and sweet on my tongue. My friends Lindsay and Joe brought some to my house last week, and I ate all those too. This is cherry-time, sweet candy direct from the tree. 

A Basil Rekindling

Last summer, basil and I saw each other a lot. In fact, you could say that we were "going steady." I bought one of those living basil plants from Earth Fare and planted it in a pot by the front porch. It was in full sun, and it rewarded me by basically becoming a small bonsai, trimmed at least twice a week by my not-so-expert hand for pesto, salads, and garnish.

Seriously, I froze nine batches of pesto last summer, not counting the batches I made fresh and served that night. I went a little overboard. I got tired of pesto (watch your sassy mouth, you say!). But I did. I  treated my aroma-filled kitchen as just another room in my house.

My ambivalence lasted through the winter, through dinner with friends who gushed over it; in fact, my "over it" attitude was still around last week.

I had dutifully planted another basil plant this year in my new place, employing my "Go With God" method*.

As you can see,  poor 2012 edition is limping along.

There hasn't been any pesto, any Caprese Salad, and frankly, I was still feeling mostly ok with that. Until last Thursday.

It was a blazing sweaty-degrees at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning when I visited City Roots Urban Farm in Columbia. The farm shed was filled with the heady scent of basil when we arrived, and we walked through and continued to the fields, the greenhouse, the beehives, the chicken coop, and rows of basil.

Just picked basil, gone to flower

Rows of basil at City Roots

I swooned a bit.

Regaining my composure, I continued my writing research in SC's Capital City, but basil was ready to rekindle our relationship. He knew the way to my heart -- through a well-fashioned cocktail.

My first brush with him came at The Vault with a St. Germain-laced concoction garnished with basil and lemon. You had me at hello.

But then, things got serious at The Whig. We drank City Roots Basil-infused vodka cocktails, simple and as brightly green as the rows of plants from which they were derived. Oh, how I've missed you, my lovely, I thought. You with your heady licorice scent and taste of green.

The next morning, I bought a bunch to take home and fill my kitchen with the smell of pesto once again, pulling out my recipe stained with olive oil:

the simple recipe copied from Food.com

The delicious results are summer and sunshine and all things bright. And beautiful.

Just blended pesto

And after my dinner tonight, there's some to put in the freezer. I doubt we'll tire of each other again.

*"Go With God" method: Plant plant. Water plant. Check plant for the next couple of days. Talk nicely to plant. Water one more time. Cross yourself, and wish plant well. "Good luck, you now have to adapt in this ecosystem. No babying for you. Go With God."

Beach Days and Brandywine Tomatoes

Years ago, I knew Guillermo. He was from Miami. He was kind, always ready with a smile, and we sometimes talked food. He loved to cook for his boyfriend, and I loved to hear about Cuban food. One day I casually asked for his gazpacho recipe, and the next time I saw him, he handed me this:

From Memories of a Cuban Kitchen

In the world of emailed links, he'd taken the time to transcribe by hand a recipe with lots of ingredients (and I love the added comment: "I substituted cilantro instead, mmm-mmm"), and in such readable handwriting to boot.

Every time I make it I think of him and his easy smile. When I spotted this buxom Brandywine beauty at Kings Market on Edisto Island on Sunday, I knew her highest and best use -- Guillermo's gazpacho.

I counted this as three tomatoes and added a Cherokee Purple one I had left over

I had the rest of the ingredients at home -- really, it's pretty easy to have these on hand this time of year -- and so after a long beach day, I got to chopping.

The best part about this recipe is the smell of summer: cucumbers, onion, tomato, sweet pepper, cumin and garlic. It filled my kitchen with a cool freshness that still lingered the next morning. The tomato's pink flesh did not make as deep red of a finished product, but nevertheless, I think it made the recipe proud. "mmm-mmm."

An Instagram Intervention

Over the weekend, my friends staged an intervention. It wasn't for Cheez-It's, K? I've gone through the 12-step program there ...

It was for Instagram.

Marcus said to stop taking pictures of food. I said, food is all I am taking pictures of right now, unless you count new eye shadow techniques, which I promise I do not post anywhere. He said, well, fine, I'm going to unfollow you on Instagram.

Holly said, I'm not sure all of these pics are in focus. I said, but I put a filter on it. She said, That chorizo picture of it draining on a paper towel cannot be fixed by a filter. Or that picture of kale. I got a little nauseated at looking at it. I liked that picture of kale, I said. It was like an art piece.

My kale art

She just stared at me silently. So this is what it felt like.

Back when I worked at Lowcountry Living, I distinctly remember thinking on a holiday food shoot, Good God, Why is this taking so long? I mean, the food is NOT moving. It's just sitting there. How hard can it be?

Of course, since then, I have come to understand that photographing food is one of the hardest things in the photography biz. I have seen the work of amazing photographers. I bow down to them, not just because it's hard for me to do, but because they have beautiful work. They are artists. It's obvious I don't have it ...

Back to the discussion. Well, Marcus, look at this fish I made recently. It was fresh mahi, and the recipe was from Garden and Gun. It was delicious.

He chuckled, then got serious. OK ... he said, really looking at my phone in the dark. That kind of looks like caveman food. I am not really even sure what that means, but I know this -- whatever it means, he is right.

Cavemen mahi with a buerre blanc

So, while I cry in the corner, read some tutorials, and decide not to post pictures of chorizo in any form, here are some food blogs where the photography will make you swoon:

• Tartelette
• Family Fresh Cooking
• Steamy Kitchen
• Not Quite Nigella

It looks so good; wouldn't it be awesome to cook it?

The temptation of plums and a Wednesday night veggie feast

I love summer. I love it for the heat, the humidity (yep), the sound of tree frogs late in the evening, the smell of vanilla ice cream melting, and of course, the veggies.

On Sunday, I drove to Cottageville for a story. It's going to be a great story, yes, but on the way back, I hit a farmstand -- I simply had to stop. It's in my blood. Okra, plums, fresh corn, oh my. I couldn't help it. The farmer wanted me to taste the plums, and I did and threw a pit into the field of brush beyond the tent. He knew what he was doing, out there on 61 way past Summerville on a Sunday when everyone out there was out to church but me. He knew I could be tempted.

He was right. I bought more plums than one person should buy.

On Monday, Holly called and said she had veggies if I wanted. Boiled peanuts, squash, the sweetest little Persian cukes ever. And suddenly, here we are.

And so it's Wednesday. I am in the middle of a very heavy workweek, and yet, I'm hungry. I need food, although I don't want to take the time. (It's amazing to cook, but even for me, without distraction, sometime it is too much.) But when you really aren't eating processed food, there's not much of a choice. You have to do something.

I did. I threw some potatoes in the oven, sliced some tomatoes, breaded a bit of okra, and can we call that even cooking? Suddenly, I had one of those bounty dinners, those summer bounties, where you know that you gotta eat it up or it's going to go bad.

And here we are, the sound of tree frogs high after the rain, and Summer upon us with its tomatoes and cucumbers and okra that I wait for all year. I am just lucky that my boyfriend Beets didn't decide to join the party; I might not have been able to handle it.

Presence of the Knife

Last night, my friend Kris asked me how I got into cooking, why I like it. I took a moment, and remembered a (paraphrased) point from Ruth R.'s Garlic and Sapphires:

"Cooking is dangerous. You have to pay attention, meditation on the edge of a knife, and it gives me solace."

That's what I feel, and sometimes why I cook the same foods over and over. It's not so much that the eating of them is comfort, but that the making of them is. I love chopping. I like peeling. I have another job away from this desk where sometimes I get to use a chef's knife and cut romaine lettuce, and really, that ups my happy for the day.

At that moment, all I am focused on is how wide to make the cuts and how to make sure that my fingers are not in the cuts. And that present, that presence is pure bliss. I'm not thinking about deadlines, bills, relationships, or anything. Not anything but lettuce.

It's like those guys that mow the grass and make it almost a zen practice, or the woman that vacuums when she's anxious (you know who you are).

That being said, I cut myself sometimes, burn myself sometimes still and generally am on occasion extremely clumsy, especially when a glass of wine is in reach of my elbow. It's a practice, ok?