A Bellingham Foodie Blog Restaurant Reviews Bellingham Washington 98225

March 17, 2009

Irish Soda Bread

Filed under: Bellingham local,local,Pacific Northwest — Bellinghamster @ 9:54 pm

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Kristyn! How’s my neighbor back in Jersey?   I remember our first St. Pat’s Day when you made Irish soda bread and gave me one. It was still hot from the oven and smelled like heaven! It didn’t last 2 days in my house! Here’s the recipe:

Nana Anna Courtney Ginty’s Irish Soda Bread

  • 4 cup flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 stick softened margarine
  • 7 1/2 oz seedless raisins
  • 2 cup milk (soy works for vegans)

Preheat over to 350 deg. Mix all dry ingredients. Add margarine; gently work into flour mixture. Add raisins, combine. Add 1 cup of milk at a time. Mix thoroughly. Put dough in greased and floured 9 in baking pan. Mark with an ‘x’ on top and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 1 hour: 1/2 hour bottom rack, 1/2 hour top rack.  Let cool slightly. Slainte! (health)

Leprechauns, Trolls & St. Patrick

Whiskey and corned beef and cabbage. Slainte! Now that I have your attention…

Did you know leprechauns in the USA are different from the leprechauns in Ireland? I certainly thought they were a cohesive group adhering to one standard of behavior, but I have been educated otherwise. The Irish leprechaun is a short, happy go-lucky guy who loves a party. He’s a cobbler by trade and always carries his little silver hammer. He has much wealth which he accumulated after the Norse raided Ireland (leprechauns snatched up and horded what was left behind). And he always tells the truth. You can get his wealth only if you see a leprechaun and hold his gaze fast and never let it waiver. As soon as you let him out of your site, he disappears along with your chances of getting his wealth.  According to legend, all you have to do is keep a steady gaze on the imp and ask him where his treasure is. He has to tell you.

However, the leprechaun loves riddles, and the trick comes in decoding them. Tom Allen says this is a true story in Ireland and I believe him. I listen to him every day. I think he is originally from NY because he speaks faster than I do) and is in Toronto now.

Tom didn’t elaborate on the USA leprechaun, but I think I can do that just fine having grown up in NYC, NY. And having gone to parochial school for 12 years and marched in the Macy’s St. Patrick’s Day parade for the last 4 of those years. I think I’m qualified.

I believe a USA leprechaun is happy, short and stout. He smokes a pipe and drinks alcohol (except in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom) and hides a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. He is truthful and loves to speak in riddles. He is very good at keeping out of human site. He has to be, because if you see him and catch him and not let go, he has to show you where his gold is. Yes, the USA leprechaun has GOLD not just wealth. His bling GLITTERS. But there is a way to know if he’s crossed your path: he leaves a trail of green glittering shamrocks. So unless you happened to be in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom this morning, or any other place with glittering green shamrock’s strewn about (like my livingroom carpet), you are out of a pot of gold.

Now you ask: How do trolls figure in? Trolls are Norse GIANTS (remember the Norse plunder of Ireland?). Trolls are carnivorous and ferocious. Trolls have accumulated wealth from stealing. They will even steal a baby and exchange it with one of their own (changeling). Don’t try to catch a troll like you would a leprechaun to get his wealth. Don’t feed the troll. The only way known to keep them away is to be Christian. Church bells and a cross will do you just fine because trolls are heathens. They live underground because they fear the light of day. Why? Because it will turn them to stone. And that, my friend, is the only way I know of to get troll’s gold. Shine the light of day on them.

Which brings me to St. Patrick, the point of the day’s celebration. He was a boy from Wales whose father was a deacon, his grandfather a priest. He was stolen and sold into slavery in Ireland when he was 16 years old. He worked in captivity as a herdsman for about 6 years until he escaped. During his time in captivity, he prayed and prayed to go back home to his family. He escaped and found his way back home. From there, he entered the Church and became a successful missionary. He took his faith back to Ireland and preached the trinity (using the three leaves of the shamrock) to a people considered pagan. He was so respected and revered by the Irish, that they made March 17th, the date of his death, his feast day.

So whether it be gold or God for you, Eirinn Go Brach.

March 16, 2009

Discontinued: TJ’s Soy Nut Butter The Trader Joe and Costco saga

Filed under: Bellingham local,local,Pacific Northwest — Tags: , , , — Bellinghamster @ 9:14 pm

Just ask Aaron. He only forgot one thing from his shopping trip to Trader Joe’s: soy nut butter. He went back only to find…it was a discontinued item. Why? Wasn’t his purchasing it regularly creating enough of a turnover? And those peanuts in the shell I had been buying every single week. Gone. Just like that. Do you remember the dark chocolate chess cookies? I bought them every week, too. I asked a Trader Joester where they had been moved to and she told me they never carried it. Are you kidding? I’ll bring you all my receipts for the past year and show you the charges for it. Newbie.

Youtuber “Carl” made his own Trader Joe’s commercial with his smart phone, walking the aisles.  Too funny, and it rings true:

[youtube:www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdB7GDZY3Pk]

I could go on and on about Trader Joe’s, but instead I’ll write about Costco and the asterisk next to the price of an item and what THAT means. It means you better buy ALL of it because they are going to discontinue carrying that item, the one you’ve been buying for 5 years. At least it’ll be a cheaper price than you’ve been paying. Sometimes, like magic, a product reappears after a couple of years. It happened to me last week; the R W Knudsen Blueberry juice was available again! It must have taken a long time to squeeze the berries.

Sometimes you can influence the buyers. At Trader Joe’s they keep a running list of customer requests. At Costco, I made such a stink about the brownie mix back in 2005. I’m revealing a well kept secret, but I don’t care anymore. I use a brownie mix. No one can make the brownies better than Ghirardelli. I’ve eaten tons of brownies and so I have my proof. I’ve been using the mix since the ’80’s when I found it in my Costco in NJ. You know, the famous Ghirardelli chocolate from San Francisco. Well, I move from the northeast to the northwest and expected SOME things in the Costco’s to be different. But, wait. The Costco in the northwest is carrying a brownie mix from Hershey’s.  Are you kidding me? No wonder the mix is so expensive. The California mix has to travel to NJ and the Pennsylvania mix has to travel to Washington. Cross country, just like me!

I’m happy to tell you the Costco in Bellingham, WA now sells Ghirardelli brownie mix. They got sick of listening to this New Yorker flap her trap.

March 15, 2009

Children Cook & Eat

Filed under: Bellingham local,local,Pacific Northwest — Tags: — Bellinghamster @ 6:50 pm

I have another 2 favorite cookbooks. I know I said in a previous post I only need two cookbooks, but these I wanted.

I bought The Kid’s Cookbook by Williams Sonoma for two reasons: I couldn’t cook rice and I had a child (gasp). I figured, if a 9 year old could use this cookbook, so could I.

Williams Sonoma is to me what Cinderella’s castle is to my daughter, so I knew it would be perfect. All the recipes are simple and delicious and easily adaptable to our preferences. It’s a toss up between the big blueberry muffins and the chockfull-of-chips cookies as to which we’ve made the most. My oldest son has been requesting the big blueberry muffins as his birthday treat since he could reason. He still requests them for his birthday and he’s a teenager! And nothing needs to sell a chockfull-of-chips cookie; it sells itself. In fact, the page in the book has flour and sugar pasted on it that I’m brushing off as I type.

All my children have helped me cook and bake most of the recipes. And yes, the ones older than 9 have used the cookbook all by themselves (I want to shout that, but I don’t want to scare you with all the caps).

The cookbook is divided into breakfast & lunch, snacks, main courses & side dishes and desserts. It has a preface simply explaining how to: follow a recipe, mise en place (meez ahn plahs) ‘have all ingredients measured and ready to use as the recipe directs’, how to measure, shapes and sizes to slice, testing pasta – you get the gist. I flipped through the pages and realized we had made all the recipes at one time or another. Now that’s a GOOD cookbook. Do you have a cookbook at home where you have made ALL the recipes? Hmm?

I bought Food Adventures by Elisabeth Luard & Frances Boswell after reading an article in Mothering magazine. It claims to introduce you and your child to flavors from around the world. You have me sold! All the food I grew up with was ethnic. But, then again, all foods and the way they are prepared can trace to an ethnic origin. Oh, they all vie for who did it ‘first’, but that’s like the argument about the chicken and the egg. Elisabeth Luard has won a jillion awards for her cookbooks and regularly contributes to The Oldie. Frances Boswell made her name at Martha Stewart Living and is the food director of Real Simple. Need I say more? They are a MIL and DIL* who wanted to create a cookbook with recipes considered a regular meal to a kid in their own corner of the world. I thought the idea too cool and so did my children. Of course, their favorite meal is palacsinta (‘cs’ pronounced ‘ch’) or crepes, thanks to their Hungarian-American grandmother. And this recipe is found in the book, also.

The book is divided according to a child’s age and ability to eat foods, and tricks for enticing the ever-changing personality of a child to EAT something besides ice cream. For instance, a 6 month old has no teeth and eats mushy food and loves to play with their food. Whereas, a 7 year old can easily manage falafel and would prefer it in a take-out box or seated in the restaurant enjoying the ambiance. There are recipes from every continent with anecdotes and beautiful pictures. It is a functioning coffee table book. Perfect.

* MIL = mother-in-law DIL = daughter-in-law

March 13, 2009

Costco Shopping List

Filed under: Bellingham local,local,Pacific Northwest — Tags: — Bellinghamster @ 10:18 pm

If I just take some extra time to walk all the food aisles in Costco (the other aisles are WAY too dangerous), I find new natural and organic items for my pantry and I save a lot of money. Hopefully, they won’t disappear too soon. Costco and Trader Joe’s seem to operate on a similiar buyer beware strategy: if you become dependent on the item, it will be discontinued. But that’s for another blog post…

Here’s some new items on my Costco shopping list:

PS   They have Teva’s.

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