Zero to Hero

Tags

blogging challenge, writing, Zero to Hero challenge, zerotohero

Upon the suggestion of a blogger friend, I decided to join the Zero to Hero challenge. You know why? Timethief is my blogging shifu (teacher/master, in case you don’t know what that means) and what she says, I do. I jest, but seriously, she is absolutely right. I think it’s a good idea, very good idea actually, for everyone to join, especially new bloggers. You might learn a thing or two about blogging basics you didn’t know before. Clueless bloggers like yours truly should benefit from the exercise, too.

I’m already 5 days late, so I have to catch up quickly. Luckily, most of the first 5 assignments involve either tasks I’ve already done or creating parts of a blog that are pretty much already in place here at The Novice Gardener. Oh yeah, about that name, The Novice Gardener. I may have to revisit it one of these days. Not too sure it still fits. What do you think if I change it to “The Novice Gardener, Or Not”? You think anyone would want to read it?

If you read my about page, you would know why I picked the name. But over time, this blog seems to be taking a direction of its own. Have you ever felt that way about something? Or your life? It feels like things are happening beyond your control, and you’re just in it for the ride. That’s how I feel sometimes about this blog. It’s become a beast! It is consuming a good deal of my life and time, all unplanned.

Truth be told, I’ve been enjoying the ride, but I’m also anxious about where all this leads to. And I have a hard time sticking to a theme. What’s this blog about? Gardening or cooking or storytelling or ranting? Or all in one? What do you call that kind of blog? A diary?

Anyway, just want to let you know I’m joining the blogging challenge. Partly because of timethief’s suggestion, and partly because I seem to experience a case of the blahs lately. You know how I know that? Hubby bought a box of donut munchkins and Red Velvet Latte to start my morning yesterday, and I just said,”Oh, thanks.” Not,”Wow, honey, thanks!” Now that’s just not me.

I’ve cooked a bit, written more, photographed a lot, but haven’t been able to bring myself to find time to edit and publish. Of course, the movie marathon hubby and I have been doing and the premiere of Downton Abbey 4 (A bit of a dud. Hopefully it’ll pick up.) don’t help. Maybe the challenge will motivate me. We’ll see.

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A Tale of Two Tarts

Tags

food, recipes, story, tomato recipes, tomato tart, tomato tarte tatin, tomatoes, writing

One is sweet, not cloyingly so, but in an elegant understated way. She was introduced to me only recently. The other is the salty kind, not too bitingly so, but in an interesting-personality kind of way. She has always been a favorite of mine.

No, I’m not talking about two loose women who like to wear sexy clothes. I’m talking about two tomato tarts, one sweet, the other savory.  What, you don’t refer to food as he/she? Trust me, if you’re making tomato tarts, all of a sudden they’re she!

It’s hard to believe, by the way, that they both use the same main ingredient. The end results are startlingly different in taste. Which shows that you should look at tomatoes in an entirely different way, with more respect, much more, for their versatility.

(Sweet) Tomato Tarte Tatin
It shouldn’t be a surprise that tomatoes make good desserts. After all, technically they are fruits, berries even. This recipe comes from Bon Appétit Magazine. I just added cinnamon and used cherry tomatoes.

1 3/4 pounds plum tomatoes (8 large)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 sheet frozen puff pastry (half of 17.3-ounce package), thawed, corners cut off to make very rough 9- to 10-inch round
Lightly sweetened whipped cream

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Bring large saucepan of water to boil. Cut shallow X in bottom of each tomato. Add 4 tomatoes to boiling water. Blanch tomatoes just until skins at X begin to peel back, 15 to 30 seconds. Using slotted spoon, transfer blanched tomatoes to bowl of ice water to cool quickly. Repeat with remaining tomatoes. Peel tomatoes. Cut out cores, halve lengthwise, and remove seeds. (I used cherry tomatoes, so I skipped this step altogether.)

2. Spread butter over bottom of 9 1/2-inch-diameter, 2- to 3-inch-deep ovenproof skillet (preferably cast-iron). Sprinkle 3/4 cup sugar over butter. Arrange tomato halves, rounded side down and close together, in concentric circles in skillet to fill completely.

3. Place skillet over medium heat. Cook until sugar and butter are reduced to thickly bubbling, deep amber syrup (about 1/4 inch deep in bottom of skillet), moving tomatoes occasionally to prevent burning, about 25 minutes. (I also added a cinnamon stick.) Remove skillet from heat. Immediately drizzle vanilla over tomatoes. Top with pastry round. Using knife, tuck in edges of pastry. Cut 2 or 3 small slits in pastry. Place skillet in oven and bake tart until pastry is deep golden brown, about 24 minutes. (I made smaller tarts, so I cut my puff pastry to fit the small pans. They needed barely 20 minutes in the oven.)

4. Cool tart in skillet 10 minutes. Cut around sides of skillet to loosen pastry. Place large platter over skillet. Using oven mitts as aid, hold skillet and platter firmly together and invert, allowing tart to settle onto platter. Carefully lift off skillet. Rearrange any tomato halves that may have become dislodged.

5. Serve tart warm or at room temperature with whipped cream. (Or vanilla ice cream. Perfect for a day like today. We’re having summer all over again!)

Tomato Tarte Tatin with vanilla ice cream

***

Tomato Bacon Tarts

(Savory) Tomato Bacon Tart
This recipe should be a good idea for those of you who grow a garden. I’m assuming that many of you will be left with green or under ripe tomatoes by the end of the growing season. They are perfect to use in this tart.

The pastry crust
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp sugar
Pinch of salt
2 sticks cold butter
1/2 cup cold milk

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Using a fork or a pastry blender, cut butter into flour until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (Very coarse crumbs. I like to see a few chunks of butter in mine. I think it makes for flakier crust.)
2. Sprinkle cold milk one tablespoon at a time. Toss and mix with a fork, until dough is just moist enough to form a ball when pressed together.
3. Divide dough into two portions. Shape each into a ball, then flatten into a disk. Wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
4. This recipe makes enough crust for 8-9 tarts (4.5 inches). You can halve the recipe, if you prefer. I like to make extra pastry, and freeze the extra.

The filling
2 medium-size green or under ripe tomatoes or several small ones, sliced thinly
1/2 small onion, diced
5 slices of bacon, fried until crisp, then crumbled
1 cup shredded cheese (I used smoked gouda)
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp half & half
Fresh herbs (chives, parsley, thyme), chopped finely

Making the tarts
1. Pre-heat oven to 375° F.
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to a 1/4 inch thickness. Cut pastry to fit your tart pans. Try not to stretch pastry because it’ll cause it to shrink in the oven. Work quickly to avoid pastry to become sticky. If it does, return it to the refrigerator. I like to refrigerate my lined tart pans, too, prior to baking. Cold pastry creates flaky crust.
3. Poke pastry several times with a fork, then bake for 10 minutes, or until pastry is set (partially cooked) but not brown. If it bubbles over, just push it down with a spatula.
4. Put a layer of bacon on the bottom of the crust, then the tomatoes, then onion. Mix beaten eggs with half & half and pour it over to reach just below the top of the tarts. Sprinkle the grated cheese, and fresh herbs.
5. Return to the oven for another 15-20 minutes, until golden brown and the centers of the tarts have puffed up.
6. This is a recipe for 4 (4.5 inches) tarts.

***

The Tomato Debate
I once was caught between two people arguing about how to best enjoy fresh tomatoes, with salt or sugar. I was a green tomato then, with very little experience in gardening and cooking, so I couldn’t offer any help with the debate. If only I knew what I know now about tomatoes, I could have achieved world peace. Not really, but maybe I could have prevented an awkward dinner.

Professor Dan always invited his graduate students to an end-of-semester dinner at his house. As a way of recognizing their hard work, I suppose. After all, graduate school was very demanding and rigorous. I wasn’t a graduate student, but I was a guest of one of his invitees.

Sitting across from me were two impressive graduate students. Hiromi was from Japan, and Jin Nie was from China. As far as I could tell, they were friends and had no prior animosity toward one another, at least before the dinner.

I had no idea how the debate started. As I recall, there weren’t even tomatoes on the dinner menu. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the one who brought up the subject of tomatoes, even though I remember now that I was starting to grow a garden at the time. At any rate, I refuse any degree of responsibility and deny any level of culpability. The only thing I was guilty of was the inability to moderate the debate so it would end in an amicable way.

So, anyway, according to Hiromi, a little salt would bring out the true flavor of tomatoes. She was adamant and was noticeably shocked to hear a disagreement coming from Jin Nie, who happened to think that Hiromi needed to think outside the box and give tomatoes laced with sugar a try, before declaring salt to be the best substance to accompany tomatoes.

Then, they both turned to me and asked me to make the final call. Salt or sugar? Jin Nie looked at me with her eyes wide open, imploring, so I said sugar. Now Hiromi screeched her voice a little, threw her hands in the air, and said,”What?! That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!” She made me feel I was being preposterous. Yes, I started to feel it. It was ridiculous to eat tomatoes with sugar, so I said salt.

Now, they both looked at me with obvious exasperation. I looked at Hiromi, then at Jin Nie, and I made the final call. “I eat my tomatoes with both salt and sugar, really,” I said, very unconvincingly. They looked at me for a second, didn’t offer any more words, then went back to their dinner. Thankfully, next to me sat Kathy, who was now just inquiring what was my major. But the scene in front of me continued in awkward silence, and there was nothing I could say to remedy the situation.

Of course you all know, as I now know, that tomatoes taste great with either salt or sugar, but really the best with both salt and sugar. What, you’ve never enjoyed tomatoes that way, splashed with a little bit of cream? Well, you need to give it a try, because that, ladies and gentlemen, is truly the best way to enjoy a fresh tomato!

Links:
Clever Chicks Blog Hop #55
Saturday Sparks Link Party 32

An accidental find, unusually good

Tags

blogging, inspiration, photography, post ideas, postaday, writing, writing prompts

My little one ordered escargots last night, and actually liked them and would have ordered a second serving had her entrée took a second longer to arrive.

Escargots. Would she have eaten them had they come in their shells?

Could it be that all these years of introducing her to new and unusual foods has finally paid off and she is now becoming a less picky and a more adventurous eater, who will stay away from the junks that she normally lives on?

Her brother, however, wasn’t interested in venturing outside his comfort zone, ordering once again, steak and frites, his other choice food next to burgers. This one’s addiction to junk food is even worse, I think. If I don’t cook or serve any meat, he would rather eat chips all day, sigh … (No picture for the steak, bur we all know what it looks like.)

The husband was another “non-venturer,” staying with the tried and true classic beef bourguignon that in hindsight I should have ordered instead.

Beef Bourguignon served with buttered noodles. I ate my share of it even though I didn’t order it.

Instead of the one I did, which on paper sounded amazing, and upon arrival did look amazing, but when I started slicing into it and took my first bite, I also took a whiff of the white anchovy fillets garnishing the dish, and it immediately turned off my appetite for it. When will I outgrow my childhood aversion to fish?

Veal Schnitzel with white anchovy fillet. Looks good and tastes good, if not for the anchovy. But the hubs liked it, and loved the anchovy, so he had his share of it even though he didn’t order it.

Thankfully the couple of appetizers the hubs and I shared, and the warm, fragrant baguette that came in a paper bag (oh, sooo … good that I forgot to take a picture, but we all know what a baguette looks like), were there to save the day for a starving mom.

Sweet Corn & Bacon Tart. How could you go wrong with corn & bacon? I’ll definitely try making this at home.

Calamars Frites. One of our favorites, but one I have trouble cooking at home, so 9 out of 10 times we’ll order this whenever we eat out.

Plus of course, there was always too much roasted chicken on the daughter’s plate, and she was looking for takers, but by that time everybody had enough.

Roasted Chicken. It started with half a chicken. It was half a chicken at the end of the meal. Did she even eat any?

Aquitaine Bar à Vin Bistrot is highly recommended by this reviewer, if not for anything else, for the baguette alone. The service was above par, the prices fair, and the wine selection will not leave you wanting.

Most accidental finds usually don’t end up so well, but this one did. We really went to Legacy Place for P. F. Chang’s, but without a reservation the wait was 1-2 hours, we were told. Utter craziness! Who could wait that long when you were starving? Luckily for us, Aquitaine was just around the corner.

If you happen to be in the area,
Aquitaine Dedham
500 Legacy Place
Dedham, MA 02026
(781) 471-5212

***

Our eating pleasure was amplified perhaps by the scene playing in front of us. An older couple seemed to be on a date night. I have to be careful here. I never said they were old, just older. I learned my lesson from the admonishment I received from a co-worker. I was describing someone as “old, old, like 60″ and she turned to me and said in her gravest voice,”Thanks a lot, I just turned 60!” I was embarrassed beyond relief. How could have I been so uncivil!

I would describe the couple as in their mid-70s. A good-looking couple and very happily attached it appeared; they were deep into each other practically the whole dinner. Except for one brief moment when she took a phone call, and only after inquiring with him if it was alright for her to do so.

Her hair was dark and long, with a few flecks of grey, which reminded me of my grandmother’s that stayed dark even as she entered her late 60s. She (the woman) would bring his hand every now and then to her lips. He would tear pieces of baguette and buttered them to give to her. It was just so touching and lovely to watch.

I would imagine that they would go home right after dinner, declining dessert at the restaurant for they knew they had some apple brown betty left from her baking yesterday. He would make her a cup of tea, with a touch of honey, just the way she likes it. Then he would join her on the porch, to enjoy the blue moon, I would imagine. And then she would shiver just a little in the cool night breeze and he would gallantly draw her big overflowing shawl just a little tightly around her petite frame.

She would remind him that the grandchildren would come for a visit next weekend and asked what he thought of her plan to make homemade noodles and dumplings. And he would say it was a brilliant idea, for he too loves noodles and dumplings. Wouldn’t the young ones enjoy helping with that, he would excitedly agree.

He does love watching and hearing her and the children busy together in the kitchen. She is happiest when her hands are occupied and the children adore her and her cooking. There’s no other place he would rather be than the room his wife of fifty years is in, especially when the grandchildren are in it, too.

I would imagine that she, too, feels the same way about him. Because it would be too sad if that’s not the case and I wonder whether they’re still sexually active or not …

“Quit staring and being so obvious … and purge the junk out of your mind!” my husband whispered. Er … what? I may have been staring and I probably was being obvious, but junk in my mind? I beg to differ and how did he know?

The art of accepting blogging awards

Tags

blogging awards, humor, Liebster Award, opinion, postaday, writing, writing prompts

Yes, there is such a thing. It’s akin to what to do when someone compliments you. You can say thank you and move on. Or you can say thank you and compliment back. Or you can start pointing out negative things about yourself, essentially declining the compliment. Or you can completely blow the compliment off by just walking away without saying anything. See, there’s an art to doing things just right.

And so it is when it comes to these awards. You can make it what you want to be. You can view it as a compliment, say thank you, accept, and move on. You can see it as an opportunity to recognize other blogs, accept, follow the rules and pass it on. Or you can treat it like an annoying chain-letter spam, and ignore it like it never happened. The choice is yours.

Lara of NomsTheWord has kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award. I’ve come to know her only of late. I plan to dig in deeper into her blog and get to know her better. It’s taken me a while to get around to accepting it because I just received 2 other awards in the same week. Plus this one comes with questions to answer and questions to pose. And to be honest, at first I thought it was starting to get a little silly getting all these awards. At first.

But, then, it dawned on me. Why did I blog? Sure, it was just for fun, just for the heck of it. I already had an account, and a few entries, but kept private. Then one day, my finger got itchy and decided to push the “publish” button. No harm done, I thought, for the first few days. Then, comments appeared, and conversations flowed. Then, followers dribbled in. Then, more ideas formed and more posts published. Like they say, you’re in too deep to back out now.

Some of you may have had the same thing happened to you. You are what you call yourself “accidental bloggers.” You didn’t mean to be full-blown ones, you just wanted to test the waters and things progressed beyond your control. So, now you have a hard time accepting awards, because  

a) You don’t think you deserve it or
b) You don’t know what to say. You barely even understand what blogging is all about, let alone accept awards.

Then, there are those who say that they blog because they wanted to make a record of all their recipes, their harvests, their thoughts and observations, their daily musings, etc. I, too, include myself here. But I could have done it privately or publicly to only select audience if I wanted to. But, no, I pushed the “publish” button for everyone to see and read, didn’t I? There’s no going back. With those first two words I uttered, “hello world!” I’ve invited the entire internet universe into my life. Ask WordPress or Tiger Woods if you don’t believe that.

Going public means that I want the world to know me, perhaps anonymously for now, but I’ve invited it in nonetheless. And I want it to recognize and acknowledge me. I want readers. I want them to take a good look at my work, and tell me: well done, bravo, keep up the good work! (Criticism will be deleted! Just kidding! I welcome conversations, pleasant or not, as long as it’s done without malice.) I remember how happy I was when I received my first likes, comments, and followers.

Now, isn’t getting awards similar to that? Isn’t it just someone telling me: well done, bravo, keep up the good work? Well then, if that’s the case, why refuse the awards? Is it because it entails extra work, like copying and pasting? Is it because it was too hard to select more nominees? Yes and yes happen to be my answers, too.

It feels like a chore having to do these tasks, because they were forced on me. I wanted to write about my garden and my food, gosh darn it, not another acceptance speech. But to be fair, the person who nominated you just went through the same trouble. The least you can do is extend her or him the same precious hour of copying and pasting. Is it really that hard?

And what if that person was just doing it to get publicity? Using your blog as a way to gain more readership. Well, this is what I’d say,”If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” Use your judgment and go with your gut feeling. Besides, weren’t you just given the same opportunity to gain publicity by being nominated? And unless you’re Martha  Stewart or Ashton Kutcher with millions of followers, you need the publicity.

So, make what you want out of these awards. In the end, though, my advice to you is to accept. Accept these awards as part and parcel of the blogging world, the one you entered of your own accord.

But, if you’re not convinced, then I’d suggest that you just sit on it. Thank the person giving you the award and then just sit on it for a while. If you still feel opposed to accepting it after several days or weeks of thinking about it, then by all means, decline the awards.

But in those several days or weeks, you might change your mind. You might come across a blog that so impresses and inspires you that you too feel like giving that blog an award. Here’s your chance.

Maybe during those days and weeks, you might come across a start-up blog that you feel has potential and you want to encourage it to keep going. What better way to do it than including it in your list of nominees.

Maybe there are bloggers you’ve come to connect with in a powerful way, and you wanted to tell them how much you delight in that connection. Include them in your list.

See, how wonderful it is to be able to pass on the awards to these people in your list? That’s why I called it spreading the love around or pay it forward. Doesn’t it feel good to do it? Trust me, you’ll feel that way.

Having said all that (Whew, that was long. I hope it didn’t read like a rant.), here are my nominees for the Liebster award, in alphabetical order:

1. Alongthegrapevine
2. Gardenblog2013
3. Gardening with John Steedman
4. Jalan Jalan with Bu Cathy
5. Lavish Living
6. MyFoodTapestry
7. Mkununu
8. Pay Dirt
9. tasteandlight
10. The Green Thumb 2.0

No pressure at all to accept, by the way. I was just giving you my take on these awards. That’s all. Feel free to not accept or do anything about it. Like I’ve said before, I just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you and appreciate your work, your readership, and above all your friendship. That’s it!

Liebster rules:
1. Thank the person that nominated you and link back up to their blog.
2. Answer the 10 questions which are given to you by the nominator.
3. Nominate 10 other bloggers for this award who have less than 200 followers.
4. Create 10 questions for your nominees to answer.
5. Let the nominees know that they have been nominated by going to their blog and notifying them.

Lara’s questions and my answers:
1. I’m sure it says in your “about” page, but remind me and your other readers.  Why are you writing your blog? I think I’ve already answered this in my long acceptance speech.

2. What does your ideal evening look like? Husband cooking dinner for me, consisting of finger food. Then, he’ll pour me a glass of wine, put on a movie (he gets bonus points if it’s a comedy or musical), and then we watch and eat. Hey, I’m a simple girl with simple pleasures! But it’ll never happen, ’cause he doesn’t cook.

3. I know I’m stealing this one, but what is your favorite cocktail? Apple martini, margarita, mojito, sangria, shandy … oh, just one?

4. What is your #1 comfort food? French Fries.

5. It’s summer time, what would you most like to be doing? Gardening and traveling.

6. What was your most memorable vacation or travel experience? Bali, 2009.

7. If you could make one change towards self-betterment, what would it be? Be more patient, more organized, more hard-working, less impulsive, less argumentative … oh, just one? But I have so many flaws!

8. What do you want to be when you grow up? Pass. As fickle as I am, I change daily. My answer today will not stand tomorrow.

9. Do you get out of bed when your alarm goes off, or are you a hit the snooze kind of person? This is easy. The second one.

10. You’re attending a pot luck dinner, what are you bringing? Appetizers, 2 kinds. 

My questions to you:
1. Tell me something about yourself that is not obvious from your blog.
2. Tell me more.
3. Which do you consider is your best post, the one you’re most proud of, the one you worked the hardest on, and you think it deserves more attention than it got. I will read it and tell you what I think.
4. Can’t pick just one? Pick 2 more.
5. A relative once said to my mother that I had a wild streak in me because I peppered my wall with Gauguin, unnecessarily worrying her. Can you all agree with me that he was crazy?
6. Do you have any hidden talent that you haven’t shared with us? (Mine is making jewelry, believe it or not.)
7. Tell me, who is more inspiring? Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., or Mother Theresa, and why?
8. Coffee or tea?
9. Red or white?
10. Five Guys, In-n-Out, or Shake Shack? If neither, name your favorite burger joint. 

See, I gave you easy questions to answer, didn’t I? Now, make what you want of the award. Or tell me your own take on these blogging awards. I’d love to hear it.

Link: Daily Prompt: I’d Like to Thank My Cats