How do you pass that up? The little hand-written piece of paper says, "Box pears $4." "This box?" I ask. "Really?" And then I hand him four dollar bills and run as fast as I can before I'm caught. It must be stealing. Right in the middle of the farmer's market, I must have somehow just pulled off the heist of the century. Or at least of the fall fruit season. I took it home, and there was no way my food scale was going to help me here. I put it on the notoriously inaccurate bathroom scale, which said nine pounds.
Oh my god...what have I done?
The only answer, of course, is pear butter. I looked up two recipes, because this was going to take both crockpots. Of course, I messed up a bit. So one is pear butter with rosemary, white wine, and white pepper; and the other is pear butter with orange zest, nutmeg, vanilla...and white pepper. Oops. But how can it be bad, right? The whole house smells like the most amazing pear perfume, like that one white wine that smells like pears and flowers.
I wonder if there's a book that's specific to crockpot canning? Because this whole "make pear sauce on the stove, then put it in the crockpot to make pear butter" thing is far too many steps and too many dishes. I just tossed everything in the crockpot, and after a day at work, I came home and ran it through the food mill and put it back in. But then the whole thing looks like it will ultimately take somewhere between 15 and 20 hours, and I have no idea when it may start to scorch, or whether I'll be at work when instead I should be at home prepping canning jars.
After a fairly cool summer, I was fearing for the tomatoes, but they're going strong now. They made an amazing sauce with white wine, basil (from the garden too!), and garlic (also from the garden!) for steamer clams. I would be happy to make that sauce and put it on everything until there are no more tomatoes. Though tonight, instead, I combined them with some farmers-market chiles, cheddar cheese, and canned black beans to make burritos. Delicious.
I've been aiming for low-calorie-density food, tons of vegetables and grains with only a little meat or cheese, since I got home from vacation. Traveling always means eating like crap. I mean, sometimes I eat an amazing meal or two, but I regret it the next day. Probably the best thing I ate all week I was on the east coast was the bacon and cheese omelet with tomato and avocado salad that my little brother made, though. Simple, but made by a damn good cook. "Boston is not a food town," he told me, and from my experience, he was sorta right. I'm sure there are amazing places to eat there, like any city, but I sure didn't eat there. The food was fine, and there was a little coffee shop in Cambridge that did simple things that were usually pretty delicious. Quiche, pastries, sandwiches, that sort of thing.
Bumbershoot, Seattle's big music festival, was pretty much a total bust on the food front. In Portland, a big to-do like that would have some kick-ass food, with the best food carts duking it out to be a part of the event. Seattle's laws don't make food-cart culture easy, though, so the options were standard festival crap like the yakisoba stand, the falafel-and-gyro stand, and the corn-dog-and-elephant-ear stand. The pelmeni stand was a relative highlight, and discovering that there was a burrito stand hidden away in a corner was kind of a revelation (oh, there are beans here!). Deep fried sweets on a stick was a mistake. No matter how curious you are, the deep-fried pudding is NOT a good idea. While in Seattle, however, we did discover this damn good ramen place called Samurai Noodle. The half-shoyu, half-tonkotsu broth is the most amazing liquid ever to touch noodle. I've been a ramen fiend since Lucky Peach #1 came out, and this was both remarkably creative and deliciously authentic (these two things do not always go together).
Speaking of ramen, Portland has exploded in marvelous places to get a bowl of alkaline noodles or whatever other small Japanese plate strikes your fancy. Biwa pioneered the pan-Japanese perfection, several years ago, and has cornered the market for a long time. A few izakayas have come on the scene, but haven't seemed to have the foodie cred that Biwa pulls. But then, a few months ago, Mirakutei was born, and got the buzz like mad. And I've got to tell you, I have never in my life spent a dollar that has made me as happy as the dollar I spent to get an egg in my ramen there. Delicious ramen, for sure, but that boiled egg...I have no idea what they do to it, but it was the most amazing thing I have put in my mouth. And then, just a few weeks ago, Wafu hit the scene. It doesn't even have a website (restaurants not having websites makes me want to cry). The Lovely Boyfriend and I hit the D Street Noshery cart pod looking for a light snack one night, and almost nothing was open. We ended up in a long, friendly conversation with the Oregon Ice Works guy (go try his frozen astoundingness!), and he noted that this place had opened just a few blocks down the street, and we gave it a shot. We weren't hungry enough for ramen, so I'll have to report back on that later, but everything we did eat was just about perfect. Onigiri stuffed with shrimp and rolled in bonito flakes...utterly inspired!
Perhaps the perfect melding of my own personal zeitgeist right now would be for me to make my own ramen, featuring my garden produce. Though I'm not quite ready to make my own noodles. Or onigiri.
Okay, back to reality and two bubbling crockpots of not-quite-yet pear butter.
