Fit to Print

For years now, T's been talking about learning how to screen print t-shirts, and I'm happy to report that this past weekend, he finally got to scratch that itch. 

I booked us two spots for the "Screen printing for Newbies" class at workshop in San Francisco.  If you want to learn to knit, sew, bake pies in a jar, build a terrarium, or do anything else handmade/diy/from scratch, this is the place to go.  It's a crafty person's paradise, with evidence of craftiness everywhere.

Nico was the instructor for the eight of us that afternoon, explaining from beginning to end the process of getting an image onto a t-shirt (or paper or a hanky or a tablecloth or whatever).  We learned how to burn an image onto a screen, but there were pre-made screens for us to use, along with plenty of ink, squeegees, paper, and a Gorillaz Pandora station soundtrack in the background.  You could even pop a dollar into the jar and grab a beer from the beer fridge.

We brought in our own materials to screen print on, and T came prepared with a t-shirt.  He did a practice run of his image on paper first...

...and then he made the finished product:

It's the height of crafty coolness!

Coached by Nico, who was so helpful and informative and good-humored, I printed an irresistibly cute kitty onto an apron.

I should have made more of these Tapatío bottles on paper bags, though I'm not sure what I'd do with them other than look at them and think, "How cool!"

It's clear T and I are both now bitten by the screen printing bug, so hide your t-shirts or you might find soy sauce-wielding cats printed on them!

And take a class at workshop!  They're nifty.

Urban Eye Candy

This is one section of the Tiny Superheroes mural by Keb, Wand, and Buter of ICP Crew on the northwest corner of 19th and Mission Streets in San Francisco.

I unintentionally-- but quite luckily-- shot this photo with the fire escape and the pigeon in the frame;  they're the perfect urban accents to the artwork.

 

The KinderCluster

For years and years and years, I have resisted, with excruciating difficulty, taking pictures of that urban* phenomenon I call the KinderCluster.  The KinderCluster is that group of little kids, often from a daycare or preschool, that you spot walking down the street en route to or from the park or just out for a change of scenery.  Usually they are paired up in two parallel lines (think:  Madeline), often holding hands or sometimes on either side of a rope, gripping it for security.  One teacher usually leads them while another teacher acts as caboose.

By definition, the KinderCluster is so cute it hurts me in my gut.

And of course I have resisted taking photos of my favorite public sighting because, well, taking pictures of strangers' children can result in someone coming over to break your camera over your head.  So I don't normally do it.  Except for today, when I came across this:

Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

This was a variant of the KinderCluster as the kids were, in fact, clustered around the body of a hand-crafted Chinese dragon made of crepe paper.  Hailing from a neighborhood public preschool, they were staging their own tiny Lunar New Year parade, walking laps around the block, taking turns wearing the dragon head and leading the pack.

As they chanted "Happy New Year!" in English heavily accented by Spanish and Vietnamese, a teacher rhythmically banged on a small drum as they stopped periodically to readjust the dragon head, which seemed to keep slipping off the wearer.  As they beamed at pedestrians and proudly showed off their dragon, the excitement was palpable. And really freaking adorable.  

While I could no longer contain my photo restraint, I did try to be subtle, which is why the pictures aren't so great. And they don't capture a fraction of the cuteness I witnessed.  But trust me:  there was a whole lot of cute parading around the block this afternoon.

Happy Year of the Dragon!  May it be filled with joy, prosperity, and frequent KinderCluster sightings!


__________________
*I think of KinderClusters as urban phenomenon because I only ever see them in cities, but I imagine they might be in the suburbs, too.  Or even rural areas!  And if not, they should be.

Thundersticks!

I was having lunch with Joel back in August, telling him about the menu I was planning for an upcoming baby shower.  I needed one more appetizery dish, and while I was thinking maybe a crudité platter or stuffed endive leaves, Joel described his family's go-to potluck dish.


It's basically meatloaf baked in a hollowed-out loaf of sourdough, he explained.  You bisect the loaf, yank out the insides, pack the bread shell with meatloaf, bake it, and then watch party guests elbow each other in the eye to get to the most delicious dish on the table.


There are a few tricks to making it, he made clear.  First, you have to use Soy Vey to flavor the meat.  It's a bottled teriyaki-like marinade, and it makes putting this dish together fast and easy (and tasty).  Second, you use the bread innards in the meatloaf.  And third, you've go to bake the loaves directly on the oven rack, tempted as you might be to use a baking sheet.


Them's the rules.

Beyond that, I put my own spin in interpreting his family's signature dish.  I used ground turkey instead of beef and added in a healthy heap of cilantro and squirt of sriracha to take the Asian flavors a little further.  And since I needed finger food for my spread, I used a baguette to yield ideally portioned two-bite pieces.  I also made a simple dipping sauce of mayonnaise and sriracha which you can make as spicy or not to your liking.

It's a dish that's fairly easy to make, has a certain intrigue ("How'd that meat get in there?"), and is mighty tasty;  all it was lacking was a name.  I was considering "Bullseyes" or "Benjamine Bites" (in honor of the family who inspired the recipe).  But that first night I made and served them, as I was in the kitchen cutting up and arranging a plate of them, party honoree Jed casually strolled through.  

"I think you should call them 'Thundersticks'," he said offhandedly.

Thundersticks!

And so Thundersticks! were born.

I allow a generous 3/4 pound of meat per baguette, so if you use a particularly thin baguette like I do (I use Acme bread whenever I can), you'll probably have leftover filling, which you can fry up l like a burger (use the sriracha-mayo sauce with it, or mix a little miso paste and lemon juice into mayonnaise for another great condiment), or make meatballs and enjoy them with noodles in broth.

Thundersticks! are the gift that keeps on giving.

Thanks to Joel for the inspiration and Jed for the name.  And to everyone who's bellowed "Thundersticks!" at the mention of them.  It's kind of hard not to.


Thundersticks!

makes about 48 pieces

2 baguettes (sweet or sour, but I always prefer sour, and as narrow and hard-crusted as you can find)

1 1/2 pounds ground turkey (dark meat is better than light)

2 large eggs

1 small white onion, grated on the large holes of box grater, juice reserved with onions

1/3 cup chopped cilantro leaves

1/2 cup Soy Vey

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2-3 TB sriracha (or more to taste)

2 cups mayonnaise

Trim the ends off the baguettes and cut them into quarters so you have 4 short baguettes.  Gut them, digging out the soft part with your fingers and saving it in a large bowl.  Set the baguette shells aside.


 

Chop or shred the bread innards into small pieces.  They don't have to be crumbs, but they should be small.  Add in the turkey, eggs, onion, cilantro, Soy Vey, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of the sriracha.  Mix thoroughly;  mixture will be a bit loose and wet.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.  Tear 8 lengths of aluminum foil slightly longer than the length of a baguette shell.  Use your fingers to stuff each baguette with the filling, pushing it in from both ends of the baguette and packing it as densely as you can.  

Wrap each baguette piece tightly in a piece of foil.  Bake in a single layer directly on the rack (not on a baking sheet) for 40-50 minutes, turning once about 20 minutes into cooking.  The Thundersticks are ready when the internal temperature reads 165ºF.  

Remove them from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes.  Carefully unwrap the hot sticks and allow them to cool for another 10-15 minutes to allow for easier cutting.  Cut each stick into 6 equal pieces about 1 inch wide.

Mix the mayonnaise with 1-2 tablespoons of sriracha and serve alongside the pieces of Thundersticks.

West Side Story: The Sing-Along

I can't pass up an opportunity to see "West Side Story" on the big screen.  And when it's at San Francisco's historic Castro Theatre, and when it's a Sing-Along to boot?  Well, just try and keep me away.  Or don't.  Because you can't.

The goody bags we got upon entering the theater were filled with several tools to help us participate fully in the Sing-Along experience.  A clicking noisemaker to anticipate action.  A tiny American flag to wave about during "America."  Exploding streamers to release when Maria and Tony have their first kiss.  And inflatable bats to whack each other with whenever Officer Krupke and Lieutenant Schrank appeared on the scene.

In fact, before the movie started, Krupke and Schrank themselves coached us on just what we needed to do, including hissing whenever someone was mean to the androgynous character Anybodys and whistling "My Country 'Tis of Thee" along with the Sharks.  And then, accompanied by the Mighty Wurlitzer, we ran through a round of "I Feel Petty" to get warmed up.  

So I have this minor problem whenever I see "West Side Story":  I cry convulsively through pretty much the whole thing, starting at the overture.  The sight of the changing colors of the background of a very abstract Manhattan sends me right into sobs, which can work against you when it's a sing-along.  But since I can't sing, I guess it kind of works out.

My friend Ted was seeing the movie for the first time.  And at the Castro of all places!  We had a great participatory audience that whooped and hollered and snickered tried to warn Tony not to stop the rumble.  I think Ted would have been easily converted in any case, but the Sing-Along surely guaranteed that he'll have the soundtrack in his head for days.

During intermission (remember when movies had intermissions?), Ted got popcorn, and some folks in the audience bopped each other with the bats between texting and snack bar visits (the bopper is way in the back and hard to see, but she's there!).

When Tony and Maria got fake-married, we blew celebratory bubbles supplied in our goody bags. The ones I blew don't show up in the picture;  it was quite a feat of coordination to blow bubbles and take a photo in a dark theater at the same time while trying to shield the light from my live-view screen. 

And cry simultaneously, of course.

Each time I see "West Side Story" I want to learn every last step of Jerome Robbins's choreography.  And that urge has only become more intense over the years, ever since I was six and wanted to be a Jet or a Shark. It never mattered which, so long as I got to carry a comb in my back pocket and chassé into a tourjeté on the sidewalk.

The sun had set when we left the theater, and with the music and choreography so fresh in my head, I wanted to scale Cyclone fences and do grand jetés all down Castro Street, and I might have, had I not been so worn out from all the crying.  Seriously.  It takes a lot out of you.  So I took a picture instead.  

It's how I got my kicks tonight.

The Beet Goes Bundt

It occurred to me recently that for a blog named "the beet goes on" there isn't much talk of beets.  There hasn't been much talk of food in general, come to think of it, and I haven't posted a recipe in a very long time.  

But today is going to be different!  It turns out that Tuesday was National Bundt Day, and with some incentive from The Food Librarian and her incredible 30 Days of Bundts, I am seizing this opportunity to say something about both beets and bundts.

Oh, beets!  I do love a good beet.  Red beets, yellow beets, chiogga beets.  Raw beets, roasted beets, even boiled beets (just please, not the canned ones).  I know there are people (including someone who shares my genetic material!) who hate beets in any form.  These folks say that beets taste like dirt.  I just think they taste beety.  And sweet.  In any case, I think my favorite thing about beets is peeling the cooked red ones with my bare hands.  I know I can use gloves or a dishtowel, but I love walking around with red hands for the rest of the day.

Oh, bundt cakes!  Last year I bought my very first bundt pan, and I made a persimmon olive oil cake that was my favorite thing to bake that fall.  Like the Food Librarian, I'm not a fan of frosting, so the appeal in bundt cakes is the abundance of cake with little or no frosting, which I usually eat around.  I just want good cake.  After all, cake is my favorite food.  Give me a tender crumb and a nice hit of vanilla or chocolate, and I don't need one drop of frosting.

See how's there's barely a sheen of ganache on that slice of cake?  That's my kind of cake.

Do you also see how there's a little piece missing from the bottom of the back end of the cake?  I ate it.

So beets and bundts?  A few months ago, the folks at tiger in a jar posted a short film about baking a chocolate-beet cake, and I've had the dreamy sequence in my head ever since.  Go pop over there right now and watch it.  (I'll be here when you get back.)  That film was so gorgeous I wanted to recreate the exact same ethereal experience for myself.   The cascade of vanilla extract.  The smooth stirring of the batter.  The snowy confectioner's sugar.  Ethereal.

Alas, in my kitchen, life is a little less ethereal and a lot more clunky, and without all the delicate dishes and antique utensils.

But I took on the recipe-- even thought I don't have the jaunty French sailor shirt nor the mysterious feather sitting on my non-existent rustic, reclaimed-wood table (really, go watch the video)-- and and made three minor adjustments:  I used bittersweet chocolate instead of semi-sweet because it was what I had on hand, and I had to use the bundt pan or else why would I even baking a cake on National Bundt Day?  Also, I made chocolate ganache to finish the cake, mainly because I needed to use up some chocolate. Other than that, I followed the recipe, which is a rarity for me, even when baking. 

Their recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar.

In the video, the cake maker fondles the brown sugar, letting it tumble from her fingers.  I didn't do that though I did think about it for a minute.  It seemed a bit gratuitous without someone there to film it.

I was pleased with the cake and the process of making it, though it is a wee bit labor-intensive, what with all the cooking and puréeing of beets.  The batter, which I sadly didn't get a photo of, is a deep but vivid red, and I was surprised the cake didn't turn out redder than it did.  

Here's the whole cake.  This picture makes it look like a doughnut, but believe me:  it was a big ole bundt.

That'll learn me to throw a fork in there for perspective.

The cake was gently sweet, incredibly moist, and had a lovely texture.   If I thought really, really hard about it, I could taste the beets, but I wonder if one of those beet haters would be more sensitive to the flavor.  This is a cake I would make again, maybe next time with a little more salt and and couple tablespoons of cocoa powder, just because it's always nice to find an excuse to use cocoa powder.

The recipe is right there under the video that you watched.  You did watch it, right?

I hope you had a good National Bundt Day 2011!  Mine couldn't be beet!

Read Me a Story

It took over eighteen hours of training, a few more hours of research in the library, and a good deal of flop sweat, but it's now official:  I'm a fully trained volunteer for the Books for Wider Horizons program through the Oakland Public Library.  That means that soon, I'll make weekly visits to a public preschool in Oakland where I'll read and sing songs with the kidlets.

Cultivating a love of books and reading to children?  Could there possibly be a better volunteer gig out there?

No.  Nope.  Negatory.  I really doubt it.

But eighteen hours of training?

Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of time, but I wish it had been twice as long.

And here's why:

This is Gay Ducey, our trainer and storytelling mentor.  She's the children's librarian at the Rockridge Library and an acclaimed storyteller.  She's also modeling the tote bag I got as a graduation present from the program.

And I am her newest fan.

This woman knows her way around a children's story time.  She doesn't just teach us how to choose a book to read but she also shows us how to hold that book for maximum effect.  She is a endless source for songs, rhymes, fingerplays, and folklore.  She teaches us to entertain, breathe through the fumbles, let loose, and, above all, have fun.

And in the moments when we feel doubt, when we wonder if we are really cut out for the job, if we are engaging enough or animated enough or if we can carry a tune, Gay will say repeatedly and earnestly and with complete sincerity, "You are sufficient as you are."  That we need no embellishments, adjustments, modifications.  That just our showing up is what is important.

Tell me that's not better than therapy!  I found myself having to resist the urge to crawl into her lap and ask her for cookies.

So after many hours of learning the finer points of story reading, Saturday was our last day of training, when each of us performed an abbreviated story time for the group.  In preparation, I spent the week prior listening to Raffi CDs and reading picture books out loud to the cats.  I scribbled out some crib notes and had my book ready.

There were some tummy butterflies, I have to say.  I have no illusions of being able to sing, and back in my nannying days, a three-year-old screaming, "No, Nessa!  No, Nessa!  Don't sing!" only served to confirm my suspicions that I should not, in fact, be singing in the presence of others, even if I'm only trying to sing "Bingo." 

I've had a bit of a complex ever since.

But I had the best adult audience I could have hoped for that day, a room full of fellow trainees who were all in the same boat that I was (though some of them actually could sing).  It was nice to look out and see Rachel and MB, for example, who brought Hello the Hippo and The Big Hairy Spider, respectively, to assist in their story reading.

And Irene, who sang "Good Morning" from "Singin' in the Rain"-- my all-time favorite movie-- as her opening song. 

She rocks a puppet, a book, and a funny hat (not shown) like nobody's business.

At the end of our day, we were gifted children's books to take home.  I got a book and CD of Latin American songs and fingerplays.  I'm practicing reading and singing in Spanish, which can't be worse than my singing in English.  Wait.  Can it?

The lesson of the day:  It really doesn't matter if your voice cracks or you forget the words or you're a little out of tune, so long as you're having fun.  The fun part is what matters.  I will keep telling myself this, even when the kids start screaming in Spanish, "No, Nessa!  No cantes!"