Beginnings and Endings

It really wouldn't be fair to skim over the last few weeks, as much as I like to keep this blog current. Those days deserve better. After all, they marked the end of my time with Foodzie, an internship and life in San Francisco that I will always treasure. They hosted a reunion with a childhood friend from my years in New Zealand; this reunion took the form of a road trip down the winding, cliff-hugging Pacific Highway to Santa Barbara. There the days were spent revisiting memories from a life that seems so long ago, but in fact only three years ago laid significant foundations in my art education.

And that education has officially ended! As of Thursday, I have completed all my course requirements and am awaiting my final grade and then my diploma.

Here are some pictures to chronicle the endings and beginnings in the past two weeks...



Ending of life in San Francisco (my last breakfast, eaten on a bench by the ferry building). Beginning of my love affair with Blue Bottle cappuccinos and Frog Hollow fruit...



...the sunlight was brilliant that morning.



Beginning of road trip.



Nearing end of road trip...in a much drier climate.



Beginning and end of Santa Barbara photo shoot, just a detail from an antique wagon on the sidewalk in Summerland. I was not in tourist mode.



Beginning of a happy return to Washington food. A peak at my fig danish, still inside its bag and fresh from Columbia City Bakery on my first morning back in the Northwest. I'll be around here for about three weeks.

The Closest Thing

Over the weekend I was able to obtain a pan for my faulty little stovetop and last night cooked my first meal in this apartment - a little space that truly is the closest thing to home I currently have on this earth. I'm very grateful to have it, and now that it's been warmed with the scents of marinara sauce and browned butter over the past two evenings, it carries a certain comfort and ease.

Oh but please don't start thinking that I'm spending all my time within these walls. In fact, this weekend I got to spend an hour or so on a sailboat beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, which was shrouded in fog. It is so wonderful to live near the water again.

On Sunday I walked up one of San Francisco's many hills to Grace Cathedral and lay on the grass of a small park across the street to do some reading. The views from there were spectacular, and the sun was shining warmly on grateful locals and tourists alike.

Since then the sun has disappeared, and I'm still figuring out how to gauge the weather each day. I love getting to wear scarves and sweaters and crave hot tea but find that it's still warm enough that whatever layers I add become too warm in my twenty-minute walk to work. However, they're perfect once indoors and sitting beside a window that looks out to the overcast sky.

I'm continuing to enjoy my internship, especially getting to know the people better and catching the vision of Foodzie. I've lost track of the number of hours I have stared at photographs of food in the last two days! At least eight, surely.

Surprisingly, all those pictures of buttery shortbread and chocolate truffles haven't sent me on a sugar spree. Largely it has to do with my budget, of course, and also knowing I have enough things in my fridge that I should be eating. Fava beans, for example. I bought about seven fresh pods at the farmers market on Saturday, and have been itching to try them, since I've only ever eaten them dried.

Tonight's dinner came together around the concept of coating them in a bit of brown butter, and so I took my small batch of blanched and shelled legumes and tossed them in brown butter on half of my single pan while an egg cooked in the other half. The vibrantly green favas only needed a small amount of time in the pan, so I soon replaced them with a slice of Acme Bread's Whole Wheat Levain, to toast, and sprinkled Broncha goat cheese over the egg. Granted, it's not much to look at, but its homeliness holds a certain charm, I think. And, if at all relevant, it was quite tasty.

Here are a few shots taken inside my apartment as well as with half my body out the window.

Thanks for following in this journey, dear reader. I hope you enjoy the photographs and get something more from this blog than the narcissistic journal of a nomadic twenty-something year old. Certainly, that is not what it's supposed to be.

A New City

It is quite difficult to backtrack just a week in my life and try to remember those sensations and activities because they are so very different from what I'm facing at present.

I spent last weekend wading through my belongings, sorting and simplifying, until I was down to two suitcases and a small box of winter clothes that got shipped to my mom's garage for future convenience. I struggled to enjoy this process, knowing I was missing precious time with friends who I needed to share some indefinite goodbyes with on Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon I arrived in San Francisco, which I am embracing as my new home for the three weeks that I am here. This city is entirely different from Abilene, Texas, and I really don't think that statement requires any elaboration. You understand what I mean, right? Where are the gas-guzzling Ford pickups? And where did all the ethnic restaurants come from? All in all, I love it. I love that I can use my own two feet and the sidewalk to do errands or simply get from place to place and have innumerable companions. I love that I constantly hear snippets of conversations in different languages and, like tonight, encounter a man in full pirate attire - a plastic handled sword and all - simply crossing the street with his ordinarily dressed friends.

There are so many small details of my time in just the past three days that I would love to share, but I mainly want to talk about food and then close my eyes and get some sleep. Hopefully I'll be able to update this blog frequently to share the little moments too, but tonight you simply get an overview, my friend.

Foodzie has been an incredible place to intern and earn my last three university credits. I get to shoot photographs of food and help artisan food producers make their products available online, and through all of this, work with an incredibly intelligent, fun team. My first photos posted on a producer's site were granola bars by Olympic Granola, and they were easy to shoot because of their naturally aesthetic appeal (check out the strip of chocolate in the middle of the Mocha Mint one!) and delightful to sample in their post-photo-shoot state. I'd love to have a stock on hand for those times when a snack or breakfast on-the-go is necessary.

The Foodzie team and I went out for a spontaneous dinner at Delfina last night and enjoyed sitting outside on a gorgeous evening with good wine and satisfying pizza (my favorite was the broccoli raab). We also stopped by an event hosted by 18 Reasons, where I got to meet some more food-loving people.



The night was concluded with famous Bi-Rite ice cream, and I couldn't resist trying Sam's Sundae: chocolate ice cream with bergamot olive oil and sea salt on top with a dollop of whipped cream.

This evening we concluded the workweek at the ferry building over Humphry Slocombe's Salt & Pepper and White Miso Peach ice creams. They were both delightful in my opinion, possessing plenty of intrigue without sacrificing a fresh, subtly sweet flavor.

Tomorrow I'm taking my ol' 35mm to the farmers market bright and early and hoping to build up some good multiple exposure shots from my two rolls begun last week in Abilene. Fresh local fruits and vegetables seem like the perfect glimpse of San Francisco to add to these rolls of film that are traveling with me for the next two months. Can't wait to share the results!

Just melt and flake and crumble

Last weekend I got one of the best gifts ever. It was especially, well, special because the Foodzie mail I was expecting was a work assignment. Though that was still an exciting prospect, finding a note of thanks and encouragement from my team over at Foodzie and an assortment of goodies was a wonderful surprise. They had sent me a finals week care package full of treats from La Cocina!



Just an recap if you missed my post a while back...I've been interning remotely for Foodzie, a San Francisco based company passionate about seeing artisan food producers and growers succeed while also helping food lovers find the unique items they're looking for. I love what they do and who they are, and apparently others have noticed too because they were recently recognized by BusinessWeek among the Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2009!

So, when I opened the box and zig-zaggy strips of stuffing began to fall out and reveal cookies, preserves, and glorious nuts, I stopped to grab my camera. I knew this would be a blog-worthy subject.

I spent the next half hour (at least) opening each package and placing its contents on my coffee table facing the afternoon sunlight. Sometimes nibbling was required to get a more interesting photo, so I got to try a little taste of each treat as I went.

I hope to share with you many of these delicious goodies available from La Cocina, but tonight I only have time for one. It is the one that ended up disappearing completely by the end of the photo shoot. Though everything was memorable in its own right, I kept coming back to this buttery shortbread cookie.



So much more than a cookie, Clairesquares' take on Millionaire's shortbread, or a Wellington -- its name in her native Ireland -- is addictive to say the least. Each layer could stand on its own (if you're into dipping your finger into straight caramel or licking a surface of pure Belgian chocolate). The shortbread might be more polite to consume alone. Just snag some fresh off the cooling rack in Claire's kitchen. I wish I could myself; it really did just melt and flake and crumble all at once in my mouth like truly decent shortbread should.

This cookie is available in each of La Cocina's sampler boxes, which are perfect for treating yourself to a variety of artisan producers' creations or expressing a heart-felt thank you to a friend. From smallest to largest, you can choose the Teaspoon Box, Half-Pint Box, Quart-Sized Box, or Stock-Pot Box.

Glimpses from a holiday

I planned to blog this weekend. But then, I also planned to go to class today. Neither happened, and I don't have any fabulous reasons for you as to why it just wasn't possible. But, because I didn't blog -- and because I didn't go to class -- I got to spend some valuable time with friends on Saturday night, check off my to-do list, and, today, still had the energy at 5:15 to grab my yoga mat and go workout at a time when I'm usually ready to flop on my bed and close my eyes for a few minutes of precious rest. Sometimes trade offs are worthwhile, even if there is now a big paint canvas calling my name from the art building.

I'm going to go ahead and backtrack a couple weeks and fill you in on the rest of my spring break. It's worth remembering and sharing. Like I mentioned before, I started out in Lubbock and got to soak up time with my uncle and his family, whom I rarely see. I just can't get enough of those little cousins. They put up with my annoying photo-op demands quite well.



The second half of the week was spent in San Antonio. While there, my adopted Hispanic grandmother threw a birthday party for my friend's dad, and it was an event to remember. With all the cheek kissing and margarita drinking and endless streaming of people into the house (all claiming to be related to each other) it was a naturally chaotic, enjoyable time.

I baked a Guinness Chocolate Cake as my contribution, and it disappeared so quickly that even the 51-year-old birthday boy missed out. But, then, it did have an amazing Guinness Buttercream just begging to have a finger dug into it. And then, with evidence of a greedy finger on a slice of cake in full view, you can't very well just leave it sitting there. It belongs on a plate with a ready fork in your fist at that point, right?

On the morning of the party day, I made a quick trip to Austin and got to meet the people behind Foodzie. Despite the distracting location of our rendezvous, I was so glad to make face-to-face contact with those I work with on a daily basis via my computer. I'm still interning for them and find my culinary imagination whirring as I copy, edit, and write about chocolate truffles and intriguing pickles and olive oil infusions.

So, between my hours seeking out free wireless connections around San Antonio to "be a foodzie," eating homemade Puerto Rican rice and beans, and hitting up the shops that Abilene will only ever dream of having, I still managed to pull out my camera. I had a very willing model on hand, so I sent her out into the cold with a pile of scarves around her neck and bare toes on concrete one day.



Another day I grabbed some eyeliner and headed beyond the corner of her eye, onto her cheek and down her neck with the freeing feeling that I was finally able to do what I always got in trouble for growing up (I have a distinct memory of a friend and I drawing on our faces with cheap, bad-smelling make up once...her mom officially drew the line when nail polish started going on the cheeks and nose).



So, this was my spring break. Somehow the Guinness Chocolate Cake never made it into my camera's viewfinder, but this just leaves an excuse to make it again sometime. You know, for official documentation.

That canvas is still calling me, but it's too late into the night to respond now. I think I'll give some love and care to the blank sheet of linoleum on my bedroom floor. I swear it's sending messages of neglect my way.