Jennifer Jeffrey, Writer & Editor

Apples Don’t Pair So Well with Tea

Several weeks ago, staring at my 3-year-old Apple keyboard, I experienced a fit of shame: its formerly gleaming white QWERTY keys were stained by the grime hiding in the swirls that decorate my index and middle and forefinger, the digits that depress the keys hundreds of times each day. Worse, the clear plastic cover that looked so stylish when it was new was now marked with the mundane details of my life: cracker crumbs hiding between the keys, flakes of chocolate nestled down deep, a stray Petra hair – all impervious to the corner of a business card, or a Q-tip, or my fingernail.

This is the life of a writer: tap, tap, tap, translating thoughts into words, ideas into sentences, imagination into paragraphs, one letter at a time.

Dreams and dirt, residing together.

Then I came across this wonderful solution, and one afternoon, I gleefully removed all the keys with the blunt edge of a butter knife, stuck my soiled keyboard into the dishwasher and turned the cycle to ON.

Making It Up As I Go

Though I've never attended a TED conference, I've long been in love with the idea of an event at which visionaries from many different disciplines gather to exchange thoughts, dreams, travelogues and stories. When the TED crew began to post the conference talks online, I was beside myself with excitement. Since then, I've spent many enjoyable hours watching and listening to the talks.

This morning I discovered another gem: Maira Kalman. Maira is an incredibly talented illustrator and creative thinker who gives herself permission to be fully... herself. She makes up words, admits to numerous idiosyncrasies, doesn't have a specific narrative arc to her talk, seems totally at ease in her skin. She describes starting a company based on the premise of knowing nothing.

"Good things come out of incomprehension," she says, and I find myself wishing I could invite her to tea.

As a writer, I struggle to balance careful planning with letting go and allowing things to unfold around me. I realize that being open to life's serendipities requires a sense of trust that the ideas and projects and people I need will appear at exactly the right moment. Even knowing that, I often find it difficult to consciously release my expectations and open myself to the unknown. Watching people like Maira strengthens my sense that the effort to be effortless (does that make sense in some  kind of crazy way?) is worthwhile. 

"I daydreamed through my life," she says, with complete confidence.

I won't try to distill it further; you can watch it yourself:

One last thought on this topic: over the summer, I kept an audio CD set in my car of a talk given by Thich Nhat Hahn, in which he described a conversation with a friend about his poetry. The friend told him that she greatly admired his poetry, only there wasn't enough of it.

"If you would spend less time gardening," the friend said, "you could write more poems."

To which Thich Nhat Hahn replied: "The time I spend growing lettuce is indistinguishable from the time I spend writing poetry. You cannot have one without the other."

This is a loose paraphrase from memory, as I finally had to return the CD set to the library, but I'm still thinking about it, reminding myself that the time I spend aimlessly wandering or taking an afternoon nap  will in fact make my work better, that my conscious mind is but a small part of what I know, and that surrendering to the mystery is a form of intelligence.

Here's to dawdling and daydreaming and humming when you can't remember the words. Here's to not knowing what is going to happen in the end.

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

October. The crows circle the park where Petra and I walk, serenading us with hoarse, croaky verse. We step on the acorns scattered in our path, scattering leaves with our feet, walking fast to stave off the chill. I drink a whole pot of tea in the mornings, wrapping my hands around my cup, hoping that its warmth will penetrate my hands.

There is something magical about this time of year; something mysterious, mist-soaked and obscure. This is the season when we honor death, pausing to reflect on the inevitable ending of everything we hold dear, of the richness found in decay and detritus, the promise of newness contained in every fallen leaf and withered stem. I'm planning to make my way back to a little shop I found in Petaluma at this time last year, where they set up a display in their courtyard with the names and pictures of lost family and friends; melty candles flickered around the photos, and rocks and shells and bones clustered around the edges. It was lovely.

October doesn't have the breathless charm of spring, or the bright, blowsy, girl-next-door good looks of summer, but then I've always found beauty in strange places. Just look at the walls in my office, festooned with lithographs of fleas and spiders and a grim-faced eel, next to a set of rusty skeleton keys and a bat skull. No wonder I've  always loved this month...

Here's what else I'm noticing right now:

Purple vegetables. Everywhere I turn at the market, my eyes are falling on gorgeous vegetables in deep, bruised shades of aubergine and amethyst and violet, that shimmering intersection between crimson and blue ~ purple tomatillos, shiny eggplants, crackly-skinned onions, purple basil, cabbage. Full Belly Farms had purple Chinese long beans last Thursday, and I couldn't resist. I haven't cooked them yet; they're so pretty that I can't decide what to do with them. For a quick dinner last week, I made a sauté of purple cabbage, Italian sausage, purple onions and pine nuts, covered with a flurry of basil. Mmm.

Other purple things. Like this flickr shot.

My adventurous readers. Every now and then I get a note from someone who stumbled across my post on making yogurt in a Crock Pot, with a question or two. A few days ago, I got an e-mail from a reader who had the great idea of installing a router to act as a reostat on the Crock Pot instead of splitting the cord and patching in a dimmer switch, like I did.  Brilliant!

My gluten-free readers. I'm astounded by how many people find my blog because of my post on being occasionally gluten-free. If you're in the restaurant business, you might be amazed to discover how many people type in "gluten + free + restaurants + San Francisco".  Celiac disease doesn't appear to be going away, and I hope we'll see more  gluten-free options on menus in the future.

French fries. The crispy, salty French fries at Spruce just might be the best fries in the city.  They're so good that, in the hypothetical  instance that you and I went to Spruce together for a meal, you'd have to order your own, because I wouldn't want to share.

On the chalkboard of my mind today: "When you make that deep internal shift from your problem-solving mind to your truth-knowing mind, you don't need to search for the answers anymore. The search for answers is over and the process of more fully accepting and owning what you already know has begun. All that is not authentically "you" falls away, and you have a new center of being that allows you to see very clearly what is needed to affect changes in your life. You stop trying to fix yourself and start being yourself." - Baron Baptiste, from Journey Into Power.

Happy October.

Got Crab? (the cookbook is out!)

Guess what just hit the shelves? The CRAB cookbook!

CRAB: Buying, Cooking, Cracking was just released by Ten Speed Press. I'm delighted with the production quality - the photos are beautiful, and it contains just 35 recipes - enough to give you lots of options, not too many to make you feel overwhelmed.

I'm a huge crab fan, especially since Dungeness crab is sustainably harvested, and therefore doesn't provoke spasms of guilt upon consumption. Over the next few weeks, I'll post a few crab tips & recipes & a photo or two. In November, I'm going to sail out on the Bay on a crab boat to see how these rosy pink critters are hauled in and brought to shore.

In the meanwhile, I've got three CRAB cookbooks (signed by Andrea Froncillo and myself) to give away to the first three people who e-mail me with the name of your favorite crab dish. Go for it!

The Inside Scoop on San Francisco Chefs

Last night, I pressed the send key on the last write-up of the last chef I was assigned to cover for the upcoming issue of San Francisco Chefs. I felt a tinge of sadness hitting that key; the project was one of the highlights of my summer.

Last year, when I read about the publication on Catherine Nash’s blog, I asked for a copy, and eagerly read it from cover to cover. Due in no small part to Catherine’s sharp, witty writing, the pieces were engaging and distinct, a window into the life stories of our local chefs. Even better: the piece benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one of the finest institutions dedicated to helping children and their parents cope with life-threatening diseases.

I felt like a kid in a candy store when I got to be involved in the publication this year. Sit down with some of my favorite chefs and talk to them about the creative process? Twist my arm!

From Corey Lee at the French Laundry to Cal Stamenov at Marinus in the Bernardus Lodge in Carmel to Xavier Solomon at The Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, every single person I sat down with was gracious and engaging.

One of my favorite moments occurred when I was chatting with Ron Siegel at The Dining Room (you know how much I love TDR; big balloon hearts everywhere!), and I got to ask him about how they made my favorite amuse – a perfectly poached quail egg perched atop a glass dish of wood smoke and garnished with brioche croutons and caviar – and he animatedly described the whole process. It was far more involved than I had guessed, and now I’m an even bigger fan, if that is even possible.

You can have a complimentary copy of this year’s edition if you’d like – just send an e-mail to info@sf-chefs.com by October 5 with your name and full mailing address, and you’ll get to read about what inspires these men and women in the kitchen, and what they do when they’re not slaving over a hot stove.

Fear not: your name and address will not be given away, sold or shared. Not for any reason, ever.

If you need a bit more convincing, here’s the full list of chefs included in this year’s edition:

• Acquerello – Suzette Gresham
• Aqua – Laurent Manrique
• Auberge du Soleil – Robert Curry
• Bernardus Lodge – Cal Stamenov      
• Boulevard – Nancy Oakes/Pam Mazzola
• Dry Creek Kitchen – Charlie Palmer/Mike Ellis
• Manresa – David Kinch
• Michael Mina – Michael Mina
• Myth – Sean O’Brien
• Piperade – Gerald Hirigoyen
• Quince – Michael Tusk
• Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay – Xavier Salomon
• Silks Mandarin Oriental – Joel Huff
• The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton (SF) – Ron Siegel
• The French Laundry – Corey Lee

Go ahead, ask for your own copy... 'cause I'm not parting with mine!

Chocolate love on tuttiefoodie

If you arrived at my blog via the tuttiefoodie hot sheet, welcome!

If you haven't yet subscribed to tuttiefoodie, you might want to take a minute to check it out.  I always look forward to seeing it pop up in my Inbox; these twice-weekly e-mails always contain something delicious, from recipes to food-themed events to information about culinary destinations around the globe.

As if you needed further motivation, today's edition contains my recipe for Chocolate-Dipped Brownies Rolled in Chili-Cocoa Nib Crumbs! This is my go-to chocolate recipe for occasions of all kinds; I made them again a couple of weeks ago in preparation for the article, and suddenly had a surplus of these sumptuous treats on my kitchen counter, so I had to play chocolate fairy. To everyone who said: "I can't; I'm on a diet" - you missed out. Seriously. These are capital-A-mazing.

Tuttiefoodie is currently sponsoring a Chocolate Adventure Contest together with Scharffen Berger... what better excuse than to pull out your favorite chocolate and play?

P.S. I know it looks funny to have a fresh juice post next to a decadent chocolate post, but hey:  it's all about balance, people.

Hiatus

Days pass, and still I don't put up a new post.

I start them, but don't finish.

I ask myself: am I writing about things I'm truly excited about, or am I just posting for the sake of putting something out there?

Hmm. It's a question that I need to contemplate a bit, so I'm going to take a short break from blogging for the remainder of August.

I'll still be here ~ working, writing, gathering inspiration, gazing at the moon. Walking on the sand at Crissy Field; eating salt-flecked peanut butter bonbons; reading good books; taking Petra out for sniff adventures.

Until September...

The Feminist in My Kitchen (Part 2)

When I first began to wonder whether the slow-organic-local food movement is sustainable for and friendly to the larger community of women, I started to notice everything about it that wasn’t.

I started thinking about how we as women feel such tremendous pressure to stay svelte, balance our budgets, keep a journal, send birthday cards, raise brilliant children, work on our relationships and keep our pedicures fresh, and now we must also research, procure, and prepare food that is sustainably produced, locally grown, and in season.

It didn’t seem fair. It made me feel cranky.

Then I asked myself: why do I feel this way, and what is causing it? Over the course of a couple of weeks, this is what I came up with:

The System is Broken. It’s not the fault of the farmer’s market that I feel overstressed. Rather, the game itself is rigged. The workforce rewards people who are willing to put in ridiculous hours and disregard personal health and long-term wellbeing. It does not reward self-nourishment or play or rest. Even more insidious is the fact that our buy-more culture has lured us into a devil's bargain with debt. Even if we’re working at a job we love, it requires an insane juggling act to live a balanced life. That there aren’t enough hours to nourish ourselves properly, or that we have to make a choice between eating well and building our careers is just… craziness.

Convenience Has a Dark Side. Convenience has been our friend, but not a trustworthy one. We can put dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less, but those cans and jars are slipping us toxic additives and chemicals on the sly. Like the friend who keeps borrowing money but never pays it back, Convenience has become a liability. The fault lies with us: we haven’t set proper boundaries. We need to speak out, vote with our dollars, and support products that are healthy and safe.

The Feminist in My Kitchen

One day during the Pennywise Eat Local Challenge, as I was dashing between meetings and wondering how on earth I was going to create an evening meal composed of local ingredients within budget with almost no time to shop, this thought flashed through my head: this whole eat local concept is so not friendly for women who work.

I’m a woman who works, but I have an edge in that I work at home (most of the time), and can therefore  dash out to my local farmer’s market on a Thursday morning without having to get permission from the Boss. I can put beans on the stove to simmer in the mid-afternoon. I can flip through my cookbook collection when I need a break from the keyboard.  I have the luxury of choosing between my corner mega-grocer and other, healthier options.

My flexible schedule is no small advantage when it comes to putting locally grown meals on the table (heck – even meals on the table at all), a fact that becomes crystal clear on weeks when I suddenly have more projects than I can handle, and What To Make For Dinner is the very last thing on my mind.

If eating local is still a challenge for me, what about women who, voluntarily or not, log 8 to 10 hours a day, five or six days a week, in an office or hospital or courtroom? What about women who, in addition to working long hours and commuting back and forth, also have children at home who need love and affection and help with homework? What about women who, in addition to work and kids and a significant other, also think it might be nice to hit the gym two or three times a week? Or have a social life? Or read a book or take a judo class or become a better photographer?

How do those women get it all done?

How does the laundry get washed and folded? How do books get read and dental appointments made? How on earth do these same women have time to plan balanced meals, let alone meals composed of organic, in-season ingredients… grown locally?

I wonder. I wonder if the slow-organic-local food movement is truly sustainable for and friendly to the larger community of women.

I wonder if our little blogsphere sits here debating the provenance of our nectarines while the larger community of women – most of whom have no time for surfing blogs, let alone writing one – head out to work feeling more guilty than ever before, as the mountain of expectations and unattainable standards grows ever higher.

Can we call ourselves feminists (simply defined here as people who desire the equality of all women, everywhere) and still suggest that an ideal dinner consists of handmade ravioli and slow-simmered marinara from vine-ripened, hand-picked tomatoes and a salad composed of vegetables that (let’s be honest) are Not Available at Safeway?

I Can't Teach You How Pitch to Gourmet

Towards the end of last year, in preparation for our big trip in January, I contacted two people I wanted to meet and asked if I could sit down with them when I came to town. One was Richard Näslin, executive chef at the Ice Hotel in Sweden, and the other was Choumicha, the foremost food television personality in Morocco.

They both agreed to meet me. Our meetings (one in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, and one in Casablanca) were delightful; both Richard and Choumicha were warm and smart and engaging. They graciously responded to all of my questions. I typed furiously on my laptop as we spoke, and snapped a few pictures before we said goodbye.

I’ve been feeling guilty about it ever since.

See, I told them I was a freelance writer, and that I was going to turn our chats into articles that I would then send to magazines, with the hope of getting something published. I didn’t promise them anything, and neither of them seemed to care one way or the other.

But I cared. I really, really wanted people to know about these two. I felt like they were special, and that there was a compelling story in both of them.

Story or no story, there was the pesky issue of getting through to an editor who felt the same way. The whole business of magazine article writing has always been something of an enigma to me. Several years ago, when I decided to write for a living and not just as an incidental part of a job, I naturally thought that I would write for magazines. Isn’t that what writers do? Write articles? I envisioned opening up the latest issue of Saveur or Food and Wine or Vanity Fair and seeing my name in perfectly set type, nestled among pretty pictures and riveting words.

Then I sent out a few queries. I waited.