flog: amazing buckwheat dinner crepes

this recipe comes to you via restaurant Balthazar's wonderfully accessible french cookbook. Balthazar is an iconic manhattan restaurant that serves traditional french brasserie food, and though i've never been, i have oggled it from the outside and, as this flog evidences, can whip up their recipes with more than satisfactory results.

john approves.

the book's recipe wants you to fill the crepes with eggs and ham and gruyere, but i was in the mood for something more savory and dinner-like so i've altered the following. caramelized onions, mushrooms, and spinach are one of the best easy, yummy combos that has ever existed. enjoy!

1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk
1 stick butter plus
4 Tbls butter, melted
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups button mushroom, de-stemmed and sliced
2 cups spinach, tightly packed
6 ounces gruyere, finely shredded
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

sift the flours and 1/2 tsp of the salt into a medium bowl. whisk in 2 of the eggs, 1 1/2 cups of the milk, and then 2 Tbls of the melted butter. whisk until smooth. cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean towel and refridgerate for 30 minutes or as long as overnight.

heat a 12-inch pan over a medium-to-high flame. toss in your olive oil and allow to warm. add the diced onion and saute until tranluscent. add the mushrooms and saute until soft. add the spinach at the very end and saute until reduced by about half. set aside this pan.

remove the batter from the refridgerator and whisk in the remaining 1/4 cup of milk.

heat an 8-inch pan over a medium flame. add 1/2 tsp of the melted butter, making sure it is spread evenly over the pan's surface. ladle in a 1/4 cup of batter. quickly tilt the pan to completely cover the surface with a thin and even circle of batter. cook the first side for one minute, until the edges are brown and the center is dotted with air bubbles. use your fingers or a spatula to turn the crepe onto the other side and cook for 15 seconds more. you can either keep the finished crepes warm in a 200 degree over and roll them all at once, or roll them as you go. add a new 1/2 tsp of butter for the pan for each crepe.

spoon as much of the onion, mushroom, and spinach saute as you'd like into each crepe, topping with a healthy sprinkle of gruyere before rolling them up.

i paired these with a mixed greens salad topped with thinly sliced apple, blue cheese, and a plain vinaigrette. the whole meal was suprisingly easy to put together, produced leftovers (bonus), and was good enough that i'd make it again in a heartbeat. eat up!

the month in review

i'm just over a month into training for the upcoming Seattle to Portland ride. my favorite part of riding nearly a hundred miles a week is exploring the far reaches of the city. one of my favorite shorter rides takes me north on route 30 which runs along the west side of the willamette, and then over the st. john's bridge, pictured here.

john and i took the train up to seattle to rendezvous with ethan and visit assorted friends from western for the weekend. the train ride was relaxing and beautiful and was made more so by the accompaniment of smuggled gin and tonics.

this is the view of the st. johns from the train.

our first night in seattle was supposed to end with a late trip to dick's, but instead we went to the ER where i got ten stitches. it's chill, i was about due in for my half-yearly-terrible-bike-fall.

mark and i went to first thursday in the pearl mostly to drink free beer, but ended up seeing some legit art. i don't know the story behind this hand-written typography exhibit, but it was awesome. our favorite art of the night was pretty much everything at PNCA.

on wednesday nights mt. tabor hosts road races where it's chill to drink beer, barbecue, and gawk at the terribly good-looking men who partake in the riding. i did most of the gawking, john did most of the heckling.
mark had never been to montage so after randomly running into each other on belmont one night last week we made plans for a late dinner. our waiter turned my leftovers into an alien from 'alien'. i was impressed.

we've re-named the fire escape 'the porch' and try to eat all our meals, drink all our beers, and read all our publications on it. summer in portland is nice.

finally, i ordered this sweet typography-nerd t-shirt from my design idol, nubby twiglet. nubby is a local graphic designer and fashion fanatic who runs an awesome blog that i read semi-religiously and i was elated to receive my t-shirt with all the accompanying nubby accoutrement. summer's the best.

the quarter century, part II

john joined the ranks of those with twenty-five years under their belts on monday and so in typical caitlin-fashion i made him something. that something was a silk-screened tee, covertly designed, screened, and ironed in the very apartment that we share. he had to have known that something was going on as my screen kept winding up in its drying position in the bathroom and there was a bit of a ring around the tub after i did the black layer, but i think i was reasonably stealthy. introducing john's new favorite piece of clothing:



i really wanted the text of the shirt to be in helvetica (ye ole dell doesn't even have a word processing program anymore, yeesh) so i used the macs at the IPRC to print out the words. in the ten minutes i was there i got to chatting with the guy who was at the computer next to me. he was interested in what it was i was doing and when he found out that it involved silk-screening and t-shirts it took him about two seconds to ask if i could make a set of shirts for a sitcom pilot he's making. how casual. i managed to agree through the goofy smile that had taken over my face and that's how i got my first freelance job. it's nothing fancy, but i give this guy mad credit for networking to the fullest and i'm gonna get my name in the credits! just think, you all can say you knew me way back when, before i started styling famous people and costuming entire movies.

the quarter century

nicole is a year older than me, but our birthdays are exactly a week apart as well as smack-dab in the middle of our friends' birthday season. this was the first year since 2005 that we hadn't celebrated together so we put our faith in the USPS and some magical things happened. nicole was way more on top of her shit and the day before my twenty-fourth i received a wonderful package filled to the brim with wonderful hand-and-farm-made things. it was kind of like opening a miniature (min-ee-a-ture) treasure chest.

when it comes to nicole's birthday presents, she serves as a kind of guinea pig for my newest artistic endeavors and this year was no exception. a couple of months ago i'd stumbled upon a book at powell's that, besides having an awesome cover and adorable hand-drawn instructions, was all about book-making, a medium i had been curious about for some time but hadn't yet dove into. i promptly put esther k. smith's how to make books on hold at the library (my newest portland love) and was rewarded in no time with an e-mail telling me to come pick it up already!

long story short, the book was a letdown. yes, the cover was rad and the drawings cute and whimsical, but between the written instructions and the diagrams i could rarely make heads or tails of how to put together a book. one massive mistake and a couple of smaller fuck-ups later and i winged it in order to get it in the mail before nicole turned 26. it looks cool, and is functional, but i'm sure the frequency with which nicole journals and note-takes and draws this thing will start to get that worn-in look far before its time.


the cover


each signature has a little water-colored hang tag sewn onto it. they were part of a series i did at camp orkila the summer we met and had held onto somehow.

a cute ribbon bookmark sewed in was the finishing touch. we'll see what i come up with next year.

wocketry brewing

not long ago, mark took the plunge and invested in beer-brewing equipment. his first batch was a wonderful IPA that i think rivaled some of oregon's finest. he invited me over to help him bottle his second batch, here's the play-by-play:

the bottling process is also where the beer gets its carbonation, the beer in the big brown bottle is unfiltered and flat.
mark reuses his bottles from batch to batch, but they've got to be sanitized each time.
siphoning beer is way more fun than siphoning gas.
i was a natural.
beer for weeks!

flog: strawberry rhubarb pie!!!

yep. pie. soo good and sooo easy. i swear.

i got this recipe from an article in readymade magazine about pie ranch in pescadero, california. pie ranch uses sustainable farming practices to produce nearly all of the ingredients in their pies and partner with area youth to educate the community on food systems and farming. it's a pretty cool organization, follow the link for more info, i'm just gonna tell you how to make pie.

what you need:
3 cups strawberries, cored and sliced
3 cups rhubarb, washed and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
4 Tbsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup cold butter (2 sticks), cut up
1/3 cup very cold water
2 to 3 tsp butter, cut up

make it:
1. preheat over to 425. in a large bowl, combine fruit, sugar, cornstarch, and 1/8 tsp salt. let stand 15 minutes.
2. meanwhile, in a food processor (in a bowl with your hands is fine), add flour, 1 tsp salt, and the 1 cup cold butter. cover and process with quick pulses until mixture resembles cornmeal with a few large pieces remaining. with processor running, quickly add water through feed tube. stop processor as soon as all water is added. divide mixture in half and shape into two discs.
3. on a lightly floured surface, roll 1 disc of dough into a circle 12 inches in diameter. wrap pastry circle around the rolling pin and unroll into 9-inch pie tin, pressing to remove air pockets. fold under extra pastry; pinch edge all the way around to form a crust. pour fruit mixture into crust; dot with remaining butter. brush edge of crust with cold water.
4. on your lightly floured surface roll out remaining pastry. cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips. lay half of strips across top of pie from top to bottom; lay remaining strips from side to side to form a mock lattice top. trim strips even with edge of pie; press ends into bottom crust.
5. cover edge of pie with foil. bake 30 minutes. remove foil and reduce oven to 350. slip a baking sheep under pie to catch drips. bake 30 to 45 minutes more or until thick juices bubble though lattice. cool.

tips:
- whole wheat flour makes for a heartier and better tasting crust, don't skimp and use regular pastry flour
- the less time you spend working the dough, the better. big 'ol chunks of butter are fine.
- wrapping your discs of dough in plastic wrap and aging them in the fridge for up to three days before rolling them out will relax the gluten and make for a more tender crust. also, keep your pastry dough cold throughout the whole process, things get ugly as soon as it starts to heat up as you're working with it.
- resist the urge to buy a fancy rolling pin, an empty wine bottle works just fine.

this recipe can easily accomodate any kind of pie you'd like to make, the original pie ranch version that was printed was actually a mixed-berry version, the only difference from mine being 5 to 7 cups mixed berries in place of the strawberries and rhubarb. green apples with a healthy dose of cinnamon would be another good substitute. the crust that this recipe produces was fine, it was a good first experience making crust from scratch, but i'd like to find a recipe that was a little more interesting tasting.

shopping locally: blackstar bags

i went a little bike-wild with my tax return this year and dropped a significant chunk of change on a new bike and messenger bag. i consider both legitimate investments as portland is a city for cycling and it's my preferred method of transport (especially for those drunken weekends when i feel the need to cross the river four times in an evening in order to maximize my fun).

my bike was an amazing craigslist find that i'm increasingly happy with, especially now that i'm considering taking part in 2009's seattle-to-portland ride. more on that later.

my new bag is what i'm really here to write about: this thing is the shit. as loyal readers know, i made myself a messenger bag last summer. it turned out great and served me well for a couple of months, until many of the seams made by my simple little singer began to bust and i found myself leaving a trail of receipts and pens and sunglasses behind me as i rode. 'ol purple was swapped for an unwieldy backpack, which was then abandoned for the little timbuk2 bag i used in high school. wearing that thing with no chest strap became so frustrating, not to mention its measly carrying capacity, that a new bag became a necessary investment.

my first thought was to get a reload bag, but they were so entirely unhelpful via e-mail and almost entirely unwilling to do the simple custom work that i asked them about that i scrapped them. i'm also not going to link to them. what now. i wasn't really hyped to wait a month and a half for a bag anyways. see ya, reload.

i think it was fate that lead me past the small storefront on NE alberta of blackstar bags on the very same day i picked up my new bike. i walked right in, spoke directly to the owner, designer, and main constructor of the bags, dave, and was sold. he was way excited about accommodating my custom requests, talked me through my options, assured me everything was guaranteed for life, and promised a three-week turnaround. booyah. check it:








there are more pockets in this thing than i even know what to do with, the engineering and craftsmanship are mindlbowing, and i'm pretty sure i can fit an eighteen-pack of beer in there. or at least pack for a weekend to seattle. but for serious, if you want/ need a legit mesenger bag (he also does backpacks and panniers) i will house you for the weekend while you go and and place an order with dave.