Yikes, I have been so blocked with both of my blogs this past week. I can not put my finger on exactly why but that is the way writing is. For me its a double block because its both writing and shooting. Part of the problem, I think, is that the baby is starting to fight one of his naps so my writing time has been severely curtailed. Now the baby goes to sleep just as the middle child comes home from preschool. *sighs* I also am finding that shooting is more difficult because the baby and the middle one have decided that they must throw tantrums when I set up for a shot and that they need to scream the entire time I am shooting. I have said this before, while other photographers have to worry about the food looking stale in their shots, I have to shoot as fast as humanly possible in fears of hyperventilation and loss of 1 and 4 year old mental competence. Peace returns when the setup is put away. Gotta find a way around this problem. So, all excuses aside, I am trying to fight my way out of the double block, lets hope this post comes off ok!
On top of all of THAT, I am resisting this massive urge to write this post-modernist post-feminist paean to how my life has been impacted so utterly by the karma of the 1960s and the 1970s. I just watched the season finale of “Mad Men“, my favorite show, and I feel twisted up with conflictions around who I wanted to be and who I AM and who I want my kids to be and worry about what they may turn out to be. I won’t write it here, its off topic. But I do have to say that food plays a part of it but I am more concerned about the messy state of my kitchen and what that says about me than my ability to make puff pastry.
Back to the food.
We are finally starting to dig up some of our homegrown straw bale organic potatoes. I think next year we will be planting them in the ground because the straw doesn’t protect the tubers from the rodentia so we are getting some losses. We have also not gotten nearly as as many potatoes as we should have per plant.
If you have never eaten fresh out-of-the-ground potatoes then you have never eaten potatoes, period. They taste so fantastic, so perfect, the true realization of potato goodness.
I decided to make an autumn themed breakfast sort of celebration of potatoes.
I heated some olive oil, added some turmeric and salt, added some sweet onion, and then the sliced potatoes. Sauteed them until they were crispy and brown.
For the egg, I separated the yolk from the white. I heated some olive oil to about low medium and then submerged the yolk in the oil. Its a sort of yolk confit I guess. I put the white in a pan with olive oil and allowed it to harden on a low heat. I used a leaf cookie cutter and cut out some egg white leaves for garnish. I am not so sure I like the yolk preparation, I like mine much less done.
I served this all on one of my all time favorite things that are not really that good for me, a Nabisco Crown Pilot Cracker. I can not explain WHY I like these crackers so much, they just have this satisfying flavor. I had no idea that they were a New England obsession until I googled it. Check it out.
Technorati Tags: photographer, post-modernist, post-feminist, paean, karma, Mad Men, puff pastry, homegrown, straw bale, organic, autumn, breakfast, potato, olive oil, turmeric, sweet onion, potatoes, egg, white, yolk, Nabisco, Crown Pilot Cracker
13 comments for this entry ↓
1 Curt // Oct 19, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Nika, I saw that on Flickr, waiting to see it here… I think the egg thing is great. I’d never think to cut out egg ‘leaves’.
I thought the rum you had in another post was to help with the tantrums… either the kids settle down if you give it to them, or you don’t notice it so much if you give it to yourself!
2 Hillary // Oct 19, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Those are adorable in the pictures! Very creative!!
3 Lydia // Oct 20, 2007 at 6:02 am
I’m always afraid to bring those crackers into the house, because they are delicious and they call to me…. And what a fun thing to do with egg whites! So creative, Nika.
4 ilva // Oct 20, 2007 at 7:55 am
do I recognize this “post-modernist post-feminist paean to how my life has been impacted so utterly by the karma of the 1960s and the 1970s” and “conflictions around who I wanted to be and who I AM and who I want my kids to be”, Nika, I could talk about that for hours…
5 Glo // Oct 21, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Nika,
Everything you describe about the kids is normal…believe it or not. This happened to me when my kids were that age. It’s very frustrating not to be able to do your own thing, but it will change when you finally get them all into school! You’ll have lots of time during the day!
6 Nika // Oct 22, 2007 at 9:05 am
LOL, no the rum has not been used for either purpose. Its in my pantry now. It might stay there for a few YEARS at the rate that we drink the stuff. Maybe some rum cakes… hmmm.
7 Nika // Oct 22, 2007 at 9:06 am
Hillary: Thanks! I am thinking maybe some cut-out jack o lanterns or such for holloween around there..
8 Nika // Oct 22, 2007 at 9:08 am
Lydia: thank you ma’am! Egg whites are surprisingly tenacious so they stood up to the cutting out part.
9 Nika // Oct 22, 2007 at 9:09 am
Ilva: wouldnt it be nice to be able to sit down over coffees and chatting about this for hours! Maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle.. say.. on a sailboat in the Atlantic?
10 Nika // Oct 22, 2007 at 9:10 am
Hey now, you KNOW thats not happening! You should not taunt your relations suchly.
11 Nikas Culinaria » Autumn Chunky Cheddar Cheese Potato Soup // Oct 24, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[…] as I have mentioned before, are definitely tasty. I just wrote previous to this post in “Homegrown Potato Satori” about using them in a simple […]
12 Steamy Kitchen // Oct 26, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Great idea to use little cutters on egg whites. I have a frog shaped cutter from Japan that I’ve been wanting to use but haven’t found much use for. Will try tomorrow morning!
13 Nika // Oct 26, 2007 at 2:12 pm
That would be too cute .. egg yolks will be their lily pads?
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