I forgot to mention (as Sue pointed out in her comment), that Reisenthel baskets make great gifts. More than just gifts, they make great gift baskets. For example, here’s a photo from Tom’s birthday present from a couple of years ago.

If you look closely at the contents, you’ll notice this basket is how Tom came to know harissa. 1.5 years later, we’re still going strong on this jar.

The gift focused around Claudia Roden’s The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. In the section on “Flavorings, Aromatics, Condiments, and Oils,” Roden discusses and defines many ingredients that are key to Middle Eastern cooking but perhaps not typical in the average US kitchen:

Harissa. This very hot chili-pepper past flavored with garlic and spices is much used in North African cooking. It can be bought ready-made in tubes and cans but it will not have the special perfume of the homemade variety. To make your own, see page 464.

I pulled items from this list and filled the basket with them, knowing that a lack of hard-to-find ingredients might inhibit Tom’s creativity when looking through the book for inspiration.

If you’re purchasing a new cookbook for a friend, consider throwing in some key ingredients when you give the gift. I remember the hunt for all of these items being a lot of fun, especially once I discovered a gold mine in Yasmeen’s Mediterranean Foods in Saginaw, Michigan. They don’t appear to have a website, but you can reach them by phone at (989) 791-3082 or visit their location at 3545 Bay Rd in Saginaw, MI if you’re in the area. If nothing else, pick up a bag of dried limes and make yourself a pot of Chai Hamidh, as Roden says, “made by breaking open dried limes [with a hammer] and pouring bowling water over them” (p. 483).

Also in the basket: Bodum’s Assam tea press, a mint plant, roseflower water, dried limes, orange flower water, pomegranate syrup, Mustapha’s Moroccan Harissa and Olives, Gilway Demerara Sugar Cubes, Urban Accents rice, and several large containers of spices including sumac and whole fenugreek and nigella seeds.

We keep our bikes in the basement… but I wish we had two of these.

CYCLOC Bicycle Storage, $135 at Design Public and available in three four excellent colors.

*Image source: Design Public

I’ve talked before about trying to do good for the Earth. Maybe “Trashing the Fridge” is a bit extreme, so here’s something you are probably doing already: carrying reusable bags to your localorganicsustainable grocer. I’m big on reusable bags (as mentioned in the above post). Sometimes canvas totes, sometimes IKEA beach bags, sometimes nylon bags that can be squished into tiny sacks so as to fit absolutely anywhere, sometimes just regular paper sacks used again. When I find myself at the grocery  store *without* a reusable bag, I think about those tiny squished nylon pouches and feel a twinge of guilt. Why didn’t I just throw one of those in my bag assuming I’d be buying something somewhere that day?

Guilt-inducing aside, nylon sacks are great, but have you ever felt like a bit of a shoplifter carrying one around and throwing food in instead of using a basket or cart while you’re shopping? Maybe I’m out on a limb on that one, but just the same, handier still are these collapsible baskets. 

They do double duty—basket for shopping, basket for carrying the goods home. They take a little more forethought, true. But I assure you everywhere you go women (and men) will stop you and ask where they can get one too (this post is meant in part as a public service announcement). For those who regularly take the car to do the shopping, just keep them in the trunk!

If budget is not an issue, you can reliably find one at Garnet Hill’s website or through their clothing & home décor themed catalog. If you have a more conservative budget, try a trip to Marshall’s where they’re often available for $9.99. As always, you pay for what you get; the color choices at Garnet Hill are much more varied and so far it seems to be a steadily offered item. Reisenthel, the brand behind the Garnet Hill bags, offers a number of fun patterns as well. I also purchased the covers at Garnet Hill (to go w/ Marshall’s bought bags… bringing the total to $21/ea.).

And for your monthly (err, weekly) wine shopping, try Reisenthel’s 9-bottle carrier available from reusablebags.com. Trust me, you’ll be the talk of Trader Joe’s with this one.

Images: Garnet Hill (top 2), reusablebags.com (bottom)

A friend recently asked me how I choose items for the apartment. I didn’t have a very good answer—and I still don’t, but part of one is this: As most people are with clothing, etc. I am drawn to certain brands and more broadly to certain countries’ aesthetics. After making a mental list, I realize you could probably describe my tastes as very Eurocentric. I’m also drawn to a wholelottathings that are all very much out of my reach because of their cost. Let’s just say I have a long list of bookmarks in my web browser of the *sale* sections of various modern housewares companies. Sometimes a purchase is knee-jerk—this is true particularly for estate-sale or thrift-store finds for obvious reasons. Other times I have admired an item for a long time before finally going for it (and/or saving for it). Much of the time though, I want something or I get something because it just goes nicely with something else that I already own. This is why I get myself into color ruts. Many of you know of my love for red. There was a black phase (over. so over). Here is an instance where two lovely greens were brought together:

While at the Lansing Volunteers of America Thrift Store as a Michigan State student, I discovered a set of four green enamelware bowls. 

These are a great size; each fits in the palm of your hand. I love to serve sorbet in them. Made of metal, they can be placed in the freezer to chill which makes for an even better treat. I wish I had a picture of the raspberry sorbet (Talenti’s Roman Raspberry) we ate in them the other day. The color combination was amazing.

From what I have found, they are either actual Cathrineholm bowls or decent enough knockoffs; they lack any imprint on the underside as many pieces from the actual line would have. This is not that important though—I didn’t buy them for resale purposes. I think I paid somewhere between $0.25 and $1 per bowl… a bargain either way. You can see more examples of Cathrineholm designs on Flickr. An older post from H is for Home also details a bit more about enamelware, its Norwegian origins, and offers more photos of Cathrineholm pieces.

So… this brings me to my point. I own these bowls. Yesterday I found this at the downtown Minneapolis Salvation Army Thrift Store:

Having easily figured out the maker of my bowls, right away I wanted to learn of the possible origins of my new green pot. This has not been so easy (I haven’t found anything exactly like this), but I have a few clues. I think the wooden handle is teak. Scott Lindberg of sllabs studios identified a similar red enameled pot as a Jens Quistgaard design (1956) part of the Dansk Købenstyle line. He even found it in Bloomington, MN (to the immediate south of Minneapolis). This gentleman had one advantage over me… an actual manufacturer’s mark with designer’s initials. No such markings on mine. Plus, the lid bears no resemblance to the typical Købenstyle lids.

Will we actually cook with this pot? Another blog author is horrified by the idea. Enameled cast iron, of Le Creuset fame, is fantastic for cooking in because of the wonders of cast iron; enameled steel apparently wins no awards for even cooking, conduction, etc. The important question for the moment is: is it lovely and squatty and nice? Yes. I like to think we might at least serve food in it. Perhaps it would make a nice planter…

Oh! The price? $1 (that includes tax…). Can you identify this pot? What would you do with it?

Rarely do my sambo (read: sahm-boo) and I have corresponding days off. My work keeps me busy Thursday–Monday, sometimes Tuesday and Wednesday, sometimes evening hours, etc. while he enjoys a standard Monday–Friday, 8:30–5:00. This means that what would be three-day weekends become celebrated Mondays-only holidays for the two of us. This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day we were determined to seize the opportunity to go adventuring together despite the cold, the snow, and the limited time only! special offered by our employers.

We got started a little late as the day had to begin with a two-month late oil change. This meant we headed straight to the first food we saw upon reaching Red Wing’s Main Street. A straight shot from the 9-hr. free parking lot was a choice of a restaurant/bar in the basement of the city’s former Armory and Liberty’s. Tom’s only requirement after driving 1+ hour from the cities was “I need a beer,” and Liberty’s seemed to be able to live up to that requirement. We had sandwiches and indeed a beer each—I a short and Tom a very tall. And, of course, being so close to Wisconsin we started off with a basket of cheese curds with the liberty’s “special” lemon-peppercorn ranch.

My sandwich was a new item on the menu, the turkey-chipotle sandwich served on cranberry rye bread. The spicy/smokey chipotle flavors paired nicely with the occasional cranberry in the toasted bread. Tom discouraged my knee-jerk toward the burger list as he’s planning on making burgers tomorrow. Then, for some reason, he ordered a patty melt (Which is, IMO, a burger on toast.). We both upgraded ($1.25) to what Tom described as “Sysco-cut fries.”

Our conversation was fun and full of excitement about our new web page and my occasional laughter at the sight of Tom’s hair after removing his wool hat:

We finished, declined dessert, and moved on.

After lunch we wandered and found a number of shops closed, but I remained optimistic as I’d expected this. I expected this because it has happened before. That’s the trouble with taking daytrips on national holidays. We browsed the Scando-bric-a-brac at Uffda! and then found ourselves in an antique store. Either a good sign that he’s come around to shopping/antique gawking or a sign that the trip itself was uneventful and *maybe* a little boring, this was Tom’s favorite part of our visit. I purchased some antique Red Wing Pottery mugs in a lovely deep-blue as well as some long-forgotten lead type (an M and G specifically, $1 per!).

In the basement level we separated, poking around and picking up various items. I noticed some cookbooks at one point and was very excited to find a portion of the TimeLife set recently mentioned in Bon Appétit magazine. Not only did I find part of the set, but the exact volume (out of 25+) that Tom said was the only one worth owning when I read him the article last month—Terrines, Pâtés & Galantines, for the low price of $10 (see link). He was especially excited to find when we got home that the book references multiple Elizabeth David recipes—the subject of his senior thesis in the Michigan State history department.

Once through with the antique store, Tom wanted to sit down with his new find… so we headed to Lily’s for coffee and (I) found the pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting too good-looking to resist (I was a little too full to enjoy it, though). Also too full, Tom did not eat his entire half as he’d begun to feel a bit ill from the earlier cheesecurd/pattymelt/beer extravaganza, but he did mention it reminded him of his mom’s applesauce spice cake, which is a big compliment indeed. I insisted that we were both beginning to feel sick from just looking at the very very very vivid photography of pigs stuffed with turkeys stuffed with chickens stuffed with rabbits in the book, so I made him put it away.

Finished with coffee and water from a jug which Tom described as soft-tasting, it was time to head home. The drive was uneventful except for the shocking blackness that occurred once the twilight faded. Despite what the opthamologist said, I don’t think “bad night vision” is just something his patients make up. Coming in on I-94W was also reminiscent of our drive 1 year ago with all of our belongings in tow, and I commented to Tom how different it felt to be driving “in the city” this time. The fast pace seems natural now, even a bit slow. “I know,” he said, “you change lanes when you need to, you just signal, and you just go…”