Sunday, August 31, 2008

Tomato Jam in the New Apartment


Cooking, for me, is a function of mood. I can cook when I'm busy or bored, when I'm tinkering with a story or desire to follow instructions slavishly and eschew thinking altogether. Fever-addled, I once mixed up homemade marshmallows at 4 a.m.; at 20 I nervously roasted a shank of pork to impress my boyfriend's aunt, a Jew, who proved more gracious than I was cultured.

However, I can not cook when I'm unhappy. When I stopped cooking in my last apartment in a sad neighborhood in outer Mission, and would neither invite friends to a meal nor cook for myself, it was clear I needed to find a home that felt more like home.

But now I'm in a new apartment I love. And I'm cooking. And I went to Slow Food Nation.


On a sunny Saturday in front of San Francisco's City Hall, I had the best biscuits I have ever tasted--ever--and tried to shake the recipe out of Scott Peacock, but he was busy turning out a new batch. Curses! Guess I'll have to buy the book.

I decided to check out the scene at the Ferry Building market, where the wait for a Blue Bottle cappuccino looked to be about an hour long. I bought gorgeous Early Girl tomatoes at Everything Under the Sun (which specializes in sun-dried products).

Today I'm cooking a batch of tomato jam, which I've never made or eaten. Recipe to come...

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