Caroline Fidanza, Diner Journal

Caroline Fidanza, Diner Journal by Anjuli

Posted on 03-09-09

“A perfect bunch of radishes is almost too pretty to eat. A freshly cured head of garlic is a world apart from a dry Chinese clove. A leek split in half along its length. I believe that this moment, recognizing beauty and curiosity of what is before you ready to be cooked is an essential part of the cooking process. It’s also why it becomes harder and harder to eat conventionally grown food. In addition to being questionably grown and nutritionally inferior, it is positively unremarkable.”
- Caroline Fidanza, “Ribollita” for Diner Journal No. 10

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Traveling Monkeys

Digital polaroids documenting the daily life of two traveling monkeys.

This means “I had a good birthday” in sleep speak.

We’re going to Jackson (Hole) and we’re taking Harvey with us. As a PI he’s accustomed to traveling in stealth.

And the jury says? It’s toasty and pillowy soft. It’s so smooth you almost don’t realize what your eating is cold. Matt ate his toasted marshmallow custard ice cream with his eyes half closed.

Just made toasted marshmallow ice cream w/ homemade marshmallows and an egg custard base. Wow. It reminds me of my first real egg custard in Maine.

Mom says if you’re going to make your own ice cream, you just *have* to do it up right with custard. Next up, sugar punkin’. Holiday cooking rules. And since I seem to have started off with one of the most complicated recipes possible, it’s all easy breezy from here on out. Two hours and I’ll be tucking into ~~a big bowl~~ a spoonful from Matt’s bowl, says he (after we licked the whole machine clean). Who doesn’t love ice cream in winter?

The snow storm on October 24th devastated Simsbury. My mom had around 100 trees down on the path around the property, including a couple of treacherous Old Maids (cracked but still attached branches that hang vertically). So we’ve been walking around the property as much as we can, pruning and clearing and macheting and chainsawing.

We can’t really fathom how a bunch of heavy snow can take down all these trees and limbs, but we’ve seen the results firsthand. It feels good to be out in the woods, breathing in the leave dust and feeling the chilly November air of New England. We can’t complain. It is good to be home.