The Best Caramels. Ever.

About a year ago, I was perusing the Ballard Farmers Market and stumbled upon the best caramel ever made. If you are unfamiliar with the Ballard market, I highly recommend you make the trip. I have discovered many small start-up food companies by just browsing the booths at this market. When it comes to high quality vendors, Ballard has the best of the best. So while strolling the street with my mother, enjoying a slight drizzle of rain and spicy chai tea, I spotted a small unassuming booth with sample bits of caramel. One bite and I wanted to leap over the table to get to the rest of the caramels. Jonboy Caramels are soft and buttery with the perfect amount of salt. It literally melted in my mouth. I was completely blown away. I love these caramels so much that I ordered a huge box to be given away to the guests at our wedding. Jonboy Caramels come in multiple flavors including Fleur de Sel, Molasses Ginger, Absinthe with Black Salt and a seasonal blackberry variety. Last Sunday on Father's Day, I brought Mike and Jacob with me to the market and loaded up with a couple boxes. I admit, both boxes are already empty. I ate ALL the caramels myself. I don't share.

Get your own Jonboy's here.

You can see the caramels in the pictures from our
wedding. Photos by Brooks Scribner.

Pinterest Propaganda or Why I Should Use Common Sense

Don't you just love Pinterest? It is a perfect storm of pretty pictures and clever ideas. Posting little thumbnails of other peoples' creativity gets me all warm and fuzzy inside. Occasionally, I even actually do the activity/recipe/design posted in that adorable little picture, though not nearly as often as I just repin it and give all of my followers a little insight into who I am. Look at this adorable outfit that I have no idea where to get it and I don't actually look like the gorgeous model wearing it. Truthfully, you can usually find me at home wearing stretched out yoga pants and my husband's old tee shirt. Say it with me guys, hot.

Damn Pinterest Strawberries.

Tonight I put my post where my mouth is and tested out a Pinterest recipe. Has anyone else been captivated by this picture floating around Pinterest lately? And the oh so tempting caption to go along with it? Tastes just like candy! So easy! Dried in the oven! Did we mention candy and easy?!? Now this should have been where common sense came into play. Listen up pinners, this photo has in fact been photoshopped. That's right. Go ahead and take a moment to collect yourselves. Let me back up a little. This is a pin attached to a simple recipe for dehydrating strawberries in your home oven. The directions are this simple: heat in the oven for three hours at 210 degrees and voila! Chewy little rubies from strawberry heaven.

My Dead Strawberries.

Here is my final outcome and I won't even bother editing the picture as I want you to know what an utter disaster this recipe truly is. I followed the instructions to a tee and the end result were wilted, gray bitter balls of misery sweating in their own rancid berry blood. Turns out, my Dad was right. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. This recipe is the Enron of all recipes (is it a few years too late to be referencing Enron?). My point is, there is some a-hole out there on Pinterest using his fancy Photoshop to dupe you into ruining your perfectly plump fresh strawberries. Don't fall for it!

Salmon is my frienemy. Watch us feud on TMZ.

DISCLAIMER: If you are wondering why I am blogging the crap out of you lately it is because I have been stuck at home, immobile for days with a bad back. Feel free to send me flowers, gifts, and cold hard cash. I'll wait. Now, standby for an awesome recipe.

If you choose this brand of salmon
there is a good chance it was caught
by my husband.

This may surprise you, but I don't really eat seafood. I simply wasn't raised on it and the only fish I ever ate growing up was canned tuna laden with Miracle Whip (Zing!) slapped between two slices of Wonder bread. Now the smell of Miracle Whip is enough to make me gag. Which is odd, really, you'd think whipped miracles would be heavenly. Whoever came up with that genius marketing ploy should be both praised and slapped. Talk about false advertising. Don't even get me started on that Wonder bread. I'd love to say that I have since evolved into an oyster slurping fiend, but that would be one big (omega-3) fatty ass(id) lie. Maybe it is the texture, or smell, or just the way seafood looks. It just doesn't ring my culinary bell. I did, however, marry a commercial salmon fisherman; proof alone that God has a sense of humor. Thanks for that, big guy.

Being the nutrition and wellness weirdo that I am, I can't really deny the benefits that wild Alaskan (and Washington) salmon offers our bodies. A can of salmon has four times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids than that of a can of tuna. The low down on omega-3's: good for your heart, brain, bone, joints and a whole list of other body parts. Why am I talking about canned? Because I take baby steps, people, baby steps.

I am happy to report that this particular land-food only girl has found a way to get my salmon and eat it too. Here is a kick-ass recipe that I know you will love. If you are a salmon virgin, this just may be the meal you need to pop your salmon cherry.

Black Bean & Salmon Tostadas

From EatingWell:  January/February 2010

Pickled jalapeños, cilantro and avocado perk up convenient canned salmon for a quick tostada topping. Skip store-bought and make your own crispy shells in the oven. Serve with: Brown rice cooked with diced tomatoes and onions or salsa.

4 servings, 2 tostadas each | Active Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 6-inch corn tortillas
• Canola oil cooking spray
• 1 6- to 7-ounce can boneless, skinless wild Alaskan salmon, drained
• 1 avocado, diced
• 2 tablespoons minced pickled jalapeños, plus 2 tablespoons pickling juice from the jar, divided
• 2 cups coleslaw mix (see Tip) or shredded cabbage
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed
• 3 tablespoons reduced-fat sour cream
• 2 tablespoons prepared salsa
• 2 scallions, chopped
• Lime wedges (optional)

Preparation

1. Position racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven; preheat to 375°F.
2. Coat tortillas on both sides with cooking spray. Place on 2 baking sheets. Bake, turning once, until light brown, 12 to 14 minutes.
3. Combine salmon, avocado and jalapeños in a bowl. Combine cabbage, cilantro and the pickling juice in another bowl. Process black beans, sour cream, salsa and scallions in a food processor until smooth. Transfer to a microwave-safe bowl. Cover and microwave on High until hot, about 2 minutes.
4. To assemble tostadas, spread each tortilla with some bean mixture and some salmon mixture and top with the cabbage salad. Serve with lime wedges, if desired.

Nutrition

Per serving : 319 Calories; 11 g Fat; 2 g Sat; 6 g Mono; 16 mg Cholesterol; 43 g Carbohydrates; 16 g Protein; 12 g Fiber; 352 mg Sodium; 670 mg Potassium

2 Carbohydrate Serving

Exchanges: 2 starch, 1 1/2 lean meat, 1 1/2 fat

Tips & Notes

• Kitchen tip: Look for convenient preshredded cabbage-and-carrot “coleslaw mix” near other prepared vegetables in the produce section of the supermarket.

No sun? No dirt? No problem.

Yep. This is how I picture the future.
Gardening in a haz-mat suit.

I don't know about you, but it seems everywhere I look nowadays people are growing their own food. Suddenly, we have become a culture obsessed with home farming. I have to admit that I, too, have fallen victim to this home economics epidemic. There is something about spending an afternoon up to your elbows in soil, planting tiny seeds and starters and then anxiously awaiting the harvest. I love the feeling of snipping fresh veggies from my very own garden. So, when I heard about the various chefs and entrepreneurs in staunchly urban environments cultivating their own gardens in basement apartments and city rooftops without the use of actual soil or sunlight, I was intrigued. Hydroponic gardening uses nutrient and mineral rich water to grow plants of all kinds without a single smudge of dirt. And with artificial growth lamps, who needs the sun? Hydroponic gardens allow for less space needed and the elimination of common garden pests which mostly come from the soil used in traditional gardening. Sounds fabulous, right? Still, there is something about the idea of hydroponics that conjures images of Kevin Kostner in Waterworld or Cormac McCarthy's, The Road - which, if you haven't read it, is basically a book about living through an apocalypse. I don't know that I can give up my hours of weeding, composting, soil spreading, cursing at the aphids and slugs and dodging of bees. The back to basics feel of home gardening makes me feel triumphant when I can make an entire salad straight from my backyard. What do you think? Has anyone tried hydroponic gardening?

Friday Finds

Sporting our gear on Mt. Rainier.

I am starting to feel like flash sale websites are the Costco of the internet. Each morning I check my email and eagerly read about the daily deals of the likes of Groupon, Living Social, AmazonLocal, and some of the more specialty sites like Haute Look, Zulilly, One King's Lane and Gilt. Yes, I am on each of their mailing lists. However, none of them have given me quite the excitement of my latest flash sale site discovery: The Clymb. This site is all about outdoor recreation gear. I. Love. It. Being a self-professed 'gear head' I scan the website and virtually toss anything and everything into my cart. "It's on sale! It's a good deal!', I tell myself. Just like my visits to Costco when a ten pound bag of pretzels and a three pack of 1-gallon jugs of mayonnaise seem like a must when really I've come in to the store for...what was it again? Oh well, I've got mayo to last me the next five years.

Check out The Clymb.

I used to be a writer.

Here is a fact that will shock you: I graduated from college ten years ago. I'll wait for your jaws to come back up off the floor. Well, okay, maybe that little known fact doesn't shock you as much as it does me. Today, I was looking at the itinerary for the upcoming Port Townsend Writer's Conference. I've never been, but my current favorite author is teaching one of the clinics so I started rolling the idea around in my head about attending. Not long after reading each syllabus, I was more than intimidated. Oh, I thought, this is for 'real' writers. Yikes, that's not me. This got me thinking. When can you call yourself a writer? Which led me to a Google search on 'when to call yourself a writer'. Isn't it funny how we put so much faith in the opinion of others? Because really, that is what a Google search often is, a consensus of a million other people's opinions on one topic or another. And then I thought, maybe the better question is, when did I stop thinking of myself as a writer? 

When I was in college, I was writing every day. I have pages and pages of my writing saved in a file cabinet from my five (yes, five) years of college. At this time, I couldn't even tell you where my actual framed degree is, but I know exactly where the culmination of works to earn that degree are stashed. Today, I realized that I stopped thinking of myself as a writer the day I stopped having my writing critiqued and validated and have since been solely judged on the simple existence of my degree. And now that I am a stay-at-home mom, I'm not really even judged on that. 

Me, circa 2002.

So after all that, I decided to jump back in time and dig out my English 101 syllabus from my freshman year of college. After smoothing out the creases from a bad filing job and laughing a little at the archaic word processing, I read through the class assignments for that first collegiate writing class from so long ago and decided to start all over again. My first assignment was to look at a picture provided and write the opening sentence to a story based on the photo prompt. I sat down on my couch with my macbook in my lap and crafted a first sentence. Then a second. And a third. And then it came like a flood and the words have been pouring out of me all afternoon. My thoughts and ideas rush in and around my head and I have to stop to switch over to an outline because the story keeps developing out of sorts and without a timeline. And then it hit me, I used to be a writer because someone told me to be a writer. Actually, a lot of someones. Each professor, each assignment, each paper I had to write all told me, 'you are a writer'.

 It has been ten years of writing (and not) to remember why I went to college in the first place. Because I loved writing. And today was the first time I have ever sat down to write without some reason. Not for work, or to send an email, or for an article or a blog post, but just to write. Because I love writing.

Seattle shootings are making us crazy!

Three years ago, I moved out of my Seattle comfort zone, an hour drive south to the town of Gig Harbor. I really thought I would literally die of boredom. My whole life seemed to move in slow motion and the adjustment to less 'culture' was enough to make me question my insanity. But I was a new mother, in a new relationship and when everything was laid out on the table, making the move out of Seattle made the most sense.

Isn't she lovely? Maybe not.

For three years, I have pined away for my beloved Seattle, taking frequent trips north just to get my fix. But something has shifted in the 'culture' of Seattle since my absence, causing me to wonder if I should be missing her at all. The recent uprising in gun related violence has a city literally running scared. Yesterday, a mother of two was gunned down for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Innocent patrons at a U District coffee shop were also murdered. Not to mention, a string of drive-by shootings, killing of police officers, and numerous other gun related violent incidents within the last two years. 20 homicides in 2011 and another 20 homicides already this year. Even more perplexing is the shootings are often being blamed on the gunmen suffering from lifelong mental health issues, often times with a friend or family member being quoted as 'not surprised' their acquaintance went off the rails.
After yesterday's shootings, a jogger was interviewed after being seen out for his daily run with a gun strapped to his side. Another mentally ill potential gunmen? Not so, says the jogger. He simply doesn't feel safe on the streets of Seattle any longer unless he has his gun with him. Exactly when did we become a city packing heat? The crazies are making us crazy!
For the first time in three years, I don't miss Seattle. When I look at the innocent face of my beautiful little boy and think of all my fears and worries just in being his mother, I'm so glad I don't need to add 'purchase gun to protect family' to my list. I just hope Seattle figures out a way to get control and take back our incredible city before more residents pack up and move out.