I think each of these readings is 3 minutes or so. Hope you have time for a listen. Merry Howdy, Jean

if you’re inspired–and I hope you are–you click over to the cookbooks page and take advantage of the December sale–all told with the free domestic shipping it’s a 20 percent savings

More, these books are kitchen companions that forge new ground in poetic prose designed to lure us back into our kitchens. Here’s a snippet from the introduction to Hippie Kitchen’s Winter Chow chapter. I hope it resonates as much with you as it did with the crowd gathered at the Blackbird Wine Shop reading I did last night.

Winter Chow

If there was ever a culture of people who need to hook up with winter, it’s mainstream Americans. Us non-siesta-takers. Us independent, highly mobile, multi-taskers who have bought the more-is-better, time-is-money line.

I know the rush-rush vibe has dogged me more than I ever dreamed it would. Like one time in 1982 when I lived up on Second Mesa in Hopiland. You could see forever from the pueblo that day. Out across Navajo where dusty roses and muted purples were a mere
suggestion of weavers in pleated velveteen shirts decorated with silver liberty head dimes and buffalo nickels. West and south where the winds came from the San Francisco Peaks, home of the masked gods, the katsinas. I, however, saw little of that on this particular day. I was in a hurry doing something, going somewhere.

That’s when one of the neighbors piped up and said, “Oh you’re such an efficient white lady.” He smiled and everyone tee-heed compassionately most likely remembering the times they had been ribbed in their turn. Indeed, joking and teasing is one way tribal people hold a mirror up, helping each other to at least try and keep the bubble in the middle. What a relief to live in that society. To not have to pretend you have it more together than you really do. It was like The Band’s “take a load off Fanny” line from Big Pink.

So that’s what the gentle but firm nudge did for me that day. Got my attention. Reminded me that kicking back now and then is cool. I can’t say I’ve been all that successful, but the winter kitchen does help bring one back. It’s warm in a winter kitchen. You can turn on the oven and bake focaccia. You can smell the fresh yeast bread. You can make soup. You can feel the hardy winter roots in your hands. Hear the rush of steaming water when the broccoli hits the heat. Taste how fun chile and sugar are together in buttery cookies. You can create a very Zennish moment in your winter kitchen—in your hippie kitchen in winter.

If you got this far, you might be about ready for a listen to this cool cat.
Come on into your kitchen!
We don’t have to go to Tuscany to have a sexy food life!
It’s right here. Right now. All we have to do is turn on the lights….

Yes, indeed. A good twenty fledgling and not so fledgling pie makers took home creations to bake–and all organic too from the apples to the butter to the 100 percent whole wheat pastry flour used for the crust. Thank you Friends of the Library for helping to make it all possible.

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Little Aunties (and  a Little Pardner) ushered into the world of homemade pie making by the Big Aunties of the family.

The Little Uncles came too.

And we even did a video!

We call this one: Pie St. Helens.

And the Big Aunties sure weren’t going to miss out the action even.

Thanks all you nice people at Stevenson. Linda and Eldie and me loved coming up to make pies with you. If you get on line to see the pictures let us know how your pies turned out–and especially, if like me, you find pie tastes even better the second day. All best, Jean

We’re holding a two-fer sale on Cooking Beyond Measure ($17) and Hippie Kitchen ($18). Get a signed copy of both books for the price of one—for a total of $17.50 plus shipping.

This deal ends when our limited supply of sale books (100 copies) is gone or on Mothers Day, whichever comes first.

Maximum of 4 books per order. Exchange rates on international transactions apply. Click here to access our Crazy Mama offer:

April 24 update: The sale was a rousing success and the 100th books were snapped up today. Glad people got that chance to get in on a very sweet steal-deal!

We’re expecting it to get scooped by all the society pages–and for book sales to be brisk.

Just remember, you saw it here first!

PS–If you’re wondering why the frog stuff on a cooking blog, it’s about lightening up and having fun. About leaving our measuring cups behind and taking back our kitchens for our health and our wealth. So you decide. Are you up for a subversive hurrah?!?

Also a variation on the theme in a video at the bottom of this post. “Tostadas: So Easy an Old Stoner Can Make Them”

Here’s a take on a taco salad that goes light years beyond iceberg and draws on the bounty of an early season garden. If you’re like me and want lotsa veggies, just pile the mount way high and grab your chopsticks or fork. Then once you graze off the main heap, you’ll have a nice warm bundle of food to pick up and eat.

On A Fresh Herbaceous Kind of Spring—

The thing with spring is that oftentimes there’s not much to eat in the garden. Lettuces are young yet and peas just beginning to grow. But no problem, the grand seasonal cycle seems to tell us, there’s plenty of herbs.

So, what better time of year to graze on fresh herbs. To turn them into your vegetables. Their pungent mystique powerful enough to gaily chase winter mugglies away.

So especially in spring, consider using herbs as vegetables. Perhaps not exclusively, but still in significant green proportions. They skinny up to lovely advantage things like cabbage in a Tostada Salad or Levantine-style with whole grains in what we call Red Quinoa Tabbouleh.

Why the combination of parsley, summer savory, thyme, mint, tarragon, and chives? That’s what was looking good in the garden when these two recipes came together. A lovely combo I thought, although one sure to change with the seasons.

So grab you basket and go gathering—keeping an eye out for the occasional flower. Once back in the kitchen, snip the chives into bits with your scissors. Strip the summer savory and thyme off the stems in one fell swoop of your pinched fingers. Give your parsley and mint as much chop as you have the patience for.

You’ll wind up with a fabulous heap of herbaceous green. A beautiful spring green that will hold its color as long as it doesn’t spend too long under the spell of much heat.

The fabulous aroma of thyme, mint, and parsley makes this approach to working with fresh herbs so worth it. They remain innocent until the leaves begin to bruise when you strip the thyme off their woody stems and chop the parsley and mint with your knife. A rather lovely treat for the cook. No need to go out and buy aroma therapy when you’ve got this kind of action going in your very own kitchen.

You heard it here first. Straight from Hippie Kitchen, p. 44.

On the Cook Counts Too—

Fussing with cooking vegetables by the singleton is something I do less often than not. That’s because when you’re going for a quick meal, it’s easier to get a bunch of veggies onto the heat to flash cook together, warm salad or soup style. Between that and leftover grain and protein waiting in the fridge, you’re there.

The singleton scene could be that’s why so many of us spend forever in the kitchen—sometimes resenting the time and trouble. We think we have to make picture perfect meals every day with these separate little piles of whatever.

Contrast that with the spirit of one-bowl meals popular around the world. Ethnic cooks from Asia to Latin America to Africa know how to combine an enticing array of vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes into easy meals. They know that the cook’s happier and the food’s better when they keep things simple.

It’s the same thing on how much of this and that to put into what you’re making. The cook needs to count. The cook does count. It’s the cook’s call.

That’s why one day when journalist, Laura Marble who took to measurefree cooking instantly, asked how many tomatoes I knew to put in some dish or other, I came back with a reply that made us chuckle. “I don’t know?” I said gearing up for a flip but seriously radical remark. “Like when I’m tired of chopping.”

Here’s a bit of my own story that I included in Hippie Kitchen (page 81) so people just coming to the world of real food might know that most of us have been newbies in our time. So here’s the vid, or if you’d rather just read the page, scroll on down.

It was a spring day at Spaceway—Safeway if you must—back in the 1980s in Flagstaff, Arizona. There was this nice looking couple on the taller side, quiet as they waited in the checkout line, carrying themselves with a comportment that caught my eye. The fresh garlic and lemons they held in their hands looked like sedate jewels that only the
privileged got to enjoy.

I felt chagrined over the garlic powder and plastic bottle of faux lemon juice back in my kitchen. Worse, I fretted that someone like me not only wouldn’t take the time to use fresh ingredients, they probably wouldn’t taste the difference if they did. I turned away from the well-heeled couple and tossed a couple candy bars in my basket.

Yet I wasn’t a complete stranger to the world of real garlic and well remembered my mother making her own garlic oil for her Caesar salads. She had a bottle just the right size to contain some oil, and she’d put several cloves of peeled garlic in before letting it steep in the cool safety of the refrigerator.

So it was that somewhere along the line after my epiphany at Spaceway, I started buying fresh garlic to make garlic butter for sourdough bread. These days, I think nothing of mincing up a clove of garlic for soups and salads. There’s almost always a bulb or two sitting out handy where I slice and dice. That plus some braids hanging about from the winter crop.

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Down to the two daze of signing books at Whole Foods Market Fremont–a half dozen copies of Hippie Kitchen still hoping to get asked to dance plus an ample stack of her older sister (wherein lies the coveted recipe for Thai Slaw and Rolled Ups). If you want a signed book for Christmas and are in Portland, cruise over. I promise to feed you very well–and the store is totally cool, with it’s support of local hipsters firmly in place. Thanks Whole Foods, Fremont. You people are the best.

(Thanks too, to Beth for coming in yesterday and scooping up an armload of books. Here’s to the delicious revolution! Besides that, it was very very excellent to see you.)

PS: Have you found me on Twitter and Facebook yet under HippieCook?