A Little Obsessed

I originally went to Paris in 1994. It was a thrilling trip, and I tried to soak it all up. I loved the cafes and the way that the French really seemed to use the cafes as an extension of their homes. Mostly the cafes were either very low key (loved those) or completely famous and intimidating a la Le Cafe Deux Magots, etc. There were cafes I went to near my hotel in the Marais which were wonderful and to which I would return and be remembered. That part was magical.

One of the things that really stuck in my head was the water carafes used in the cafes. In 1994 the internet was a bit less useful than it is now, and eBay wasn’t the sledgehammer it is now. Now, just recently, I have been able to locate and identify the long lost water carafes. The ones I like best are the 51 Pastis bottles.

Over the tail end of dinner a few nights ago we began to discuss this. As I spoke I thought, WWTFD? The French, they would not even remotely consider buying a cafe bottle on eBay. It’s just not right. To have the bottle there must be a story, a reason, the joie de vivre, the je ne sais quoi… I should have stuck one in my bag when I was in Paris. Or something, anything else, but sadly, purchasing some other history that I was not part of wasn’t how to do it.

The French, they would have the style. They would pick one up at the farmer’s market, or grab Aunt Clotilde’s whiskey carafe at the last minute. In reality, the carafes I have ached for were little advertisements. Fine on one hand, but not something I think most french would likely have at home. And I think part of the soul of french style (emphasis on soul) is having the right thing for the right moment. So, I will use what I have, or somehow otherwise aquire one. But sadly, I won’t be getting a package from an eBay seller this time. I think that’s ok.

image: eBay

When I was growing up something I learned from dad (without him saying anything about it) was that it’s always good to have the right tool for the job. He had a toolbench full of crazy stuff which he was mostly always willing to teach me to use. By the time he bought the thing that filled shotgun shells I didn’t bug him so much anymore about tools. The point is though, there was always a thingy for that project. My mom was a bit the same way in craft-land (something I’ve only truly come to appreciate recently).

When you have a ritual around something, even if it’s something so tiny as appreciating the moment it takes to find the tiny mason jar of bay leaves, it’s really nice to have *just* the right tool. Or maybe it’s just that the right tool spawns a ritual.

Making beans was sort of missing just that one little thing, and I wasn’t entirely sure what, but the oomph wasn’t 100% there. Then one day I saw Steve Sando’s Spoons. Tiny epiphany ensued and I began my hunt for wooden spoons that were not the $1.29 asian grocery sort (not that there’s anything wrong with those, they have their place). I found Jonathan’s Spoons. Christmas came and went without sight of spoons, so I orderded one of Jonathan’s ladles. I was NOT disappointed. There’s just nothing like having the curve of a handmade spoon in your hand when stirring and dishing up beans. Then sweet Mr. Obsessed brought me two spoons (and beautiful chopsticks) home for Valentine’s Day. Coincidentally enough, they were more of Jonathan’s spoons. The narrower spoon I use very frequently and I love it.

I have other tools that are just right. I have a pair of garden trimmers that are wonderful. They were very expensive to me at the time (in reality probably not that much) and I bring them inside and wash them off and oil them. (Saw a Martha Stewart episode or maybe it was Whatever Martha where she was taking apart and fixing her garden shears. I totally get it.) Once upon a time in the days of renting from slumlords I was trying to fix the sprinklers that had been weirdly buried for years. Turns out the tool I needed was a nipple extrator. Who knew. A VERY specific tool, and it makes quick work of broken sprinkler heads. The right tool however doesn’t have to be about speed, but when you find it, you know.

Anyway. Spoons, handmade, wabi-sabi, wonderful real-world goodness. If you read the backstory at Jonathan’s Spoons he started carving spoons because he needed something to eat lunch with. That’s the guy I want to be on survivor with.

As is the case with many of my obsessions, other people have paved the way. I do wish I had a birthday spoon.

Images from Jonathan’s Spoons and Herriot Grace.

I’d like to say I don’t get sucked into things. I would. But that’s just not how I’m wired. There was a graham cracker recipe of Alton Brown’s that I made that I was really annoyed with. I swore a pox on him. And yet, there I was, watching him again. This time it was pizza. In my defense, there are others too.

So, I watched the pizza episode and thought that it seemed like a perfectly reasonable plan to make pizza at home. It looked so simple. I momentarily forgot that all recipes are simple if you have the right ingredients at the right temperature in the right measurements sitting in front of you.

AND I love having the right tool for the job. Of course I had rid myself of the stack of tiles I used for baking stones some months ago since they never saw the inside of the oven after the first try. And I had no pizza paddle. Beyond that it’s just ingredients, right? I did my usual google-fu on baking stones, quarry tiles, what other people used, etc. But wait, Alton Brown said he never makes pizzas larger than 12 inches diameter. Ok. I realize what I want is the expensive one. I’ve become a bit of a nut about avoiding things with weird chemicals when it comes to food, and I just couldn’t be sure a quarry tile from Home Depot was gonna be without some kind of chemical. I knew the stone place would have something, but I did a drive by after another errand and they were closed. OK, screw it I thought. I’ll buy the expensive one if I cook pizza weekly for a couple of months.

I’d blown off the specialty equipment for the moment and was on to the ingredients. The ingredients are extraordinarily basic. Sort of. Apparently it’s more like saying “you can make this entire thing from one egg”. Followed by “the egg must come from a Yak on the top of a mountain living in a blue house next to a monk with a tattoo of said Yak”.

It’s just yeast, it’s just flour. I’ve got a reasonble arsenal of baking ingredients. But AB was adamant about instant yeast and bread machine flour. Ok. So, the flour was just high-gluten, and that can be compensated for a little. But the instant yeast is a yeast that you don’t have to proof and it just goes in the dry ingredients like anything else. SIX markets later and no luck on the yeast. Seriously. QFC, Whole Foods, Metropolitan Market, Central Market, PCC and Safeway (first time I’ve been into a Safeway in over a decade – yuck). Nada. I’d read something in a thread on Chowhound about SAF. So that would have been great, but nothing. Back to googling. Apparently there’s a baking place in town, and it happens to be sort of close. They might have it. Yes, well, they might but it was 5:00 on a Sunday and little tiny stores are closed by then. I contemplate delivery times for online orders (in addition to getting a little fixated, I want immediate gratification, despite the fact that this dough has to sit for 24 hours). Crap. I can’t do it. I thought, well, I’m moving on with SAF Perfect rise, which I CAN find.

So, here we are at the actual prep stage. With none of the specific required items.

And it’s basically fine. Clearly it would be better with a baking stone – more crispy. And I used what I had for toppings. But it really was fine. The toddler nearly inhaled half a pizza, and due to timing it turned into a sort of standing-in-the-kitchen-eating-hot-pizza-as-it-came-out-of-the-oven dinner for the adults. I’m still itchy to find SAF Instant Rise. I was kind of hoping to make more pizza.

There’s no easy way to take this on.  I will simply ask for dispensation.   I have a thing for bags.  Fortunately those closest to me understand this and have their own bag demons. 

This extends to re-usable shopping bags / market totes / call them what you will.   The greenest thing to have done would have been to use the first 3 or 4 I acquired and turned my head away from the siren call of the others. 

This did not happen.

I have many.

The larger early versions from Ikea have mostly turned into laundry totes.  The “stylish” ones from Metropolitan Market seem to come and go.  There are many others in between, including an old canvas tote that stays in the pile of shopping bags despite the severe unlikeliness of use.  That one has blue cats on either side and came from a little store in Key West more than 10 years ago.  I purchased it in the heat of the moment and while it does have nice memories, it’s too….  kittycat for me.  I suspect that were I to use it consistently, eventually I would run across a friendly man who would want to chat about the cat in that store who wore Mardi Gras beads and a hat and had I been there and Key West is better than Fire Island and… well.  Either that or the kittycat ladies would think I’m one of them.  

If you happen to think I’m insane, there are plenty of articles on the web discussing the merits and style of specific resusable shopping bags. 

My best bag, that I love the very most right now is my Pickle bag from London.  It has long handles, it’s from a beautiful shop, the typography is good, there is no URL, and it’s canvas. 

Second runners up: My “vintage” PCC canvas bag even though the purple on it ruined a load of wash, and my Lopez Community Land Trust canvas bag.  And my Rancho Gordo bags, but they’re a slightly different shape so I consider them a slightly different category since they do not have gussets on the bottom and therefore are more suited to either lightweight shopping or a stroll through the farmer’s market. The best bags have a little structure to stand up, are canvas (age well and are biodegradable), have long handles for shoulder carrying, but not so long as to drag when held at your side, have something groovy printed on them but not a URL or a corporate event and ideally if it’s a store name it’s a store that you genuinely are happy patronizing.

The others are…  so… disposable.  Ok, so the Ikea ones… a little too big for regular shopping.  The ones from various stores with the store name… eh.  I’m not a fan of store names unless I’m damned happy with the store.  Which is highly limiting.  URLs on bags like that are annoying.   I’d carry my market basket from Aix en Provence that I drug all over France because I wanted a damned shopping basket, but that might be just a little too much.  There’s a fine line between cute/hip and twee sometimes.  Worse, the line is more blurry between cute/hip and twee and dumb asshole.

Still with me?  So, for much the same reason I generally have ONE coffee cup that I use all the time (oh, we’ll get back to that, don’t fret) I tend to use just the Pickle bag and the runners up.  The others are there for emergencies, trips to Costco, wet clothes, etc.  

If you CAN pick the one that makes you happy, shouldn’t you?

I’m not quite sure how it started with the beans.   I didn’t care about beets until I read Jitterbug Perfume.  So, it’s not like there’s an equivalent for beans.  That aside, awhile back I placed my first order for Rancho Gordo beans.  It spiraled from there.  The beans were fantastic.  Plus, much like the ritual of making tea, the ritual of making beans is very pleasing.  I was hoping that my family would love them too.  Success with the adults… not so much with the short crowd (to be fair, my toddler doesn’t eat all that much variety right now).  

Come to think of it, it might have started with a bean pot needing beans.  I have a couple bean pots.  I use one primarily.  I have a great vintage Monmouth.    I might have found that first.  Beanpots are almost as comforting as teapots.   The one I use I found at a thriftstore.  I will admit to acting dumb and calling it a cookie jar to get a little bit better deal (Ok, it was sitting with a bunch of cookie jars and priced twice what the cookie jars were priced, sometimes the pricers just get carried away and I feel the need to balance it out.  I’m happy to pay, but the market rate).  I think it’s possible that my epic eBay searches for beanpots might have cemented my connection to online treasure hunting.

So, now I had beans, a beanpot, and had to get busy on the beautiful beans.  Of course then I had to try different varieties, more orders ensued.  Friends were also pleased with the influx of beans, so I got on eBay and found a great Monmouth new old stock pot for one of my cook friends, distributed Rancho Gordo to those who would cook them and appreciate them.  Currently I have a long shelf full of Mason jars which are stocked with many varieties of Rancho Gordo legumes.  It’s so happy to look at that shelf.

I usually end up checking for other goodies when I order.  I have a couple of great Rancho Gordo market totes.  A wooden spoon from Mexico via RG, the last time they threw in a great calendar.   The other side note to this is that I grew up on Mexican food.  So, much of what happens with the beans is comfort food.  Which sort of led to reading Steve Sando’s blog, which led to reading more about the Slow Food movement and New World food.  Which led to a renewed interest in CSA.  Which tied in to the shift to mostly organic that started when the child was born.   It pleased me greatly that Steve commented on my bean pics on Flickr and that we’ve exchanged a note or two on Facebook about the time I found the Rancho Gordo page there.

AND don’t forget, these are heirloom beans.  You can plant them.   That might be reason enough to order up a batch of those scarlet runners that are so beautiful.  But I want to grow Yellow Eyes.   Spring is right around the corner.

The joke around here is that we have a chair-chive in the basement. 

When I was small we had these very, very groovy chairs on the patio under the very-southern-california patio roof that dad built.  The chairs allowed one to admire the half wine barrels full of flowers and hanging cymbidiums, orchids and the like.   The chairs left a significant pattern on bare skin, but I’d still love to have them back.  Recently I’ve run across a spate of vintage patio goodness.  It makes me feel nostalgic for the little orchid fingers.

It started when I saw one on the Flora Grubb site, and then Remodelista, and then I had to go looking.  Best google bet is vintage hoop chair.

1. Flickr

2. Remodelista

3. Flora Grubb via Flickr

4. Hoop chairs from plainair.com

And it wasn’t 5 minutes ago.  It was when I was a kid.  I think I thought about having ditto jeans for at least a year.   Stick around, see what I get obsessed about now.