Nasturtium pesto

I posted ages ago about foraging nasturtiums and mentioned how a recipe or two might be helpful. One of the best uses of nasturtium I've found is making pesto. It's a little different from the familiar basil stuff, spicier finish but welcome anywhere other types are used and it can be substituted in any recipe that calls for pesto.

You will need:

A blender

2 cups (packed) nasturtium leaves
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts or toasted sunflower seeds
4 large cloves of garlic or a 1/2 cup (packed) of fresh garlic greens
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated Italian hard cheese, Parmesan or Romano work 

Gather enough nasturtium to fill a paper grocery bag most of the way. That'll really only give you about two cups of packed leaves. I don't use the stems and I avoid the larger leaves in favor of more tender and mild tasting small ones. Be sure to wash them well and remove most of the stems. You can throw in some flowers if you like the color or use them for garnish. (The flowers are also slightly less spicy and can soften the flavor if you like.) Once the leaves are washed and dried add them to a blender with the oil, garlic, nuts/seeds and cheese. Blend until the consistency is even and the ingredients are well blended.

It's that simple, tastes great and will keep for a couple weeks or so in the fridge. I made this batch to go with gnocchi, miner's lettuce and roast quail. Looking forward to more.

Pickled herring

Lovely.

It's always interesting working with Chef Iso at Forage SF and my most recent kitchen adventure was no different. Iso netted about 60lbs of herring and a few of us pitched in to help and learn how to pickle fish.
It was a messy job but we got about 300 servings into the jars. This sort of thing is a different kind of experience compared to my work as a personal chef where I rarely get a chance to feed more than a dozen people. Given the level of hand crafting, it's also different than when I've run bar and restaurant kitchens, so it's something I look forward to. Also helps if you like the people you work with and Iso is one of the best.

Cleaning was relatively easy. We basically removed the heads, gutted them, took off the smaller flippers and then scaled them with spoons and our fingers. The scales on herring come off pretty easy. They sat overnight in brine and then were packed into jars with vinegar, sugar, onion, mustard seed, bay leaves, lemon and onions. Most recipes agree that the fish pickle and are edible after just 24 hours but I'd give them a couple weeks. There are numerous recipes online. It's an old preservation method with countless variations.

Before cleaning.

The pickling solution.

Ready for pickling solution and lids. 

Wear your helmet

All stitched up and ready to go? No...

It was a typical Saturday and I was riding across town after a great morning of yoga and climbing at Mission Cliffs. It was about noon and I was riding the correct direction on a wide one way street when a van sped out of an alley and hit me from the side. The driver got out, pulled me to the curb, got back in and took off leaving me unconscious and bleeding from a head wound and my left knee. I suffered a major concussion, a large cut over my left eye and a had a large puncture wound on my knee that went all the way to the bone. I don't remember most of what happened before the hospital and things for a while after are pretty spotty as well.

Infection!

After my initial visit, I was "ok" for about a week if supported by a lot of pain killers. Unfortunately the following weekend found me back in the hospital with a staff infection in my knee that left me in a hospital bed for about a week. It wasn't fun. I am now a poster child for helmets and other bicycle safety gear.

Almost normal again.

The infection was the most scary, more so than being hit in the first place. It went from nothing to swollen like a grapefruit in about four hours, really just came out of nowhere. I was lucky to not only keep my leg but to live through it all in the first place.

Since the accident I've been a bit more timid and certainly more "defensive" in my riding but I'm back on my bike as well as a couple other project bikes. With the whole thing months behind me now, other than gaining eight or ten pounds, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal. I'm even regaining a degree of tolerance for cars. Though vans still spook me a little. This was a very different accident from the one early in 2012 where I broke some ribs riding fixie after someone stole my brakes. 2012 was a challenging year.

I missed a season of sailing but I've made a few climbs and will hopefully keep my sponsor. I thought long and hard and hesitated about posting this but in the end I think we need to see in very personal ways what can happen in a fraction of a second when cars don't see pedestrians and bicyclists. Ride safe and WEAR YOUR HELMET.

A reluctant fixie rider

I'm a big supporter of bicycle transit. Since selling my last car half a decade ago, I've done mainly bicycle commuting or simply walked. I'm more healthy, fit and generally less stressed for it.
I'm a fan of English roadsters, mountain bikes, cross and standard road bikes. My current machine is a great green and white single speed from Globe. Clean, simple and efficient, its a very well done bicycle.

With a flip-flop hub in the rear, riders can choose to go fixie if they like. Or as in my case at the moment, someone can steal your brakes while you're at work and choose for you. At least I had the option.

Only having played around with the interesting but ultimately impractical fixie fad, I'm finding for the most part, I'm not a fan for just getting around. I tackle a lot of hills in a given day, carry heavy packs and need to stop just as fast as I go.The translation of energy from human to road is great but I think I'll be replacing those brakes as soon as I lay hands on new ones. In the mean time I'll do my best to not be a danger to everyone else on the road and enjoy my all day spinning class.

Wabi Sabi

Working with little ones can be tricky. As artist in residence at a preschool and pre-k child development center means I'm not only responsible for doing kid friendly projects but making sure the little ones come away feeling good about it.

Very loosely translated, wabi sabi is a Japanese concept that embodies the appreciation of the flawed, imperfect and "real" over predictable and more obvious beauty.

Little hands can make useful and beautiful objects but the smooth beauty of a perfect piece of stoneware is likely years away if it will ever be part of their lives. Wabi sabi as a teaching tool helps them not only accept but revel in creations that might not match their imaginations.

Ceramic Venus

I know, I'm gettng a little obsessive with these but it was a worth while exploration and the recipient seemed pleased.

Shibori Scarves

 So, the scarves turned out well. A little less precise than I've accomplished in the past but I've typically had the proverbial "all the time in the world" and only done a couple of pieces at once. Most of shibori is in the prep work, something that can be done over time if you plan ahead but after a summer of it in Japan and a bit of it now and again I'm not sure I want to devote a ton of time to it, and that's pretty much what it takes.

I do love indigo and I'll likely find further reasons to do dye batches of one kind or another. Between the "developing" effect of the dye when it hits oxygen and the stunningly deep, organic blues, it's really hard to beat real indigo. Somewhat endangered, imagine that another heirloom technology, it's still fairly easy to obtain. Something, I think ought to be taught in schools, it'd make a fantastic chemistry project, art or home economics; not to mention History (note the capital H).

The next thing I'd really like to approach is woad, another ancient plant dye. I've found the materials but it looks to be a bit more complex than indigo and certainly more so than something like Rit dye that can simply be mixed in a bucket or washing machine without a lot of fuss.

This batch of scarves will be up in the Susan Howell gallery at 1987 Hyde St in Russian hill for another month or so and then I'll either find them homes in a little more personal way or put them up on Etsy, who knows?

If anyone is of a mind, let me know and I'll run an indigo workshop where we can explore the dye itself as well as basic shibori.