Birchermüesli

So yeah, I’ve been making muesli. What can I say, I’m caught up in the muesli craze. It’s not a global phenomenon or a new Bay Area breakfast trend, it’s more of a hyperlocal fad centered around our apartment and along the famed Muesli Belt that I imagine roughly follows the Switzerland-Germany border.

The traditional recipe calls for oats soaked in water with lemon juice, cream, diced sour apple and nuts. Some people use orange juice.

In my version, yogurt becomes the acid. I toast some oats and coconut, add vanilla yogurt, plain yogurt, and almond milk in a ratio that balances sour, sweet, and overall fluidity. I add a bunch of dried fruit and nuts. By the next morning it has softened up and turned into a sloppy paste, to which I add more almond milk and whatever fresh fruit I can find. Serve with butterbrot and coffee for a Birchermüesli complet. Or just eat it.

Heath Ceramics tour

Karl and I toured Heath Ceramics last weekend. They’ve just finished their best year ever, producing around 275,000 pieces. They’re still in their original factory space in Sausalito. It’s an interplay of handmade work, slow chemical processes, and large-scale efficiency: It takes a piece of pottery at least a week to go from clay dust to final product.

The Bees of Crockett

Here’s an opportunity to get your hands on some extraordinary honey. A friend of mine, Earl Flewellen, has started a Kickstarter campaign to expand his backyard apiary in Crockett, CA.

This honey is serious. Definitely the best I’ve tasted.
And Earl is so passionate about beekeeping.

A jar of Earl’s honey, shipped to your door, is 10 bucks.
Pretty amazing.
I mean, you can hardly buy a piece of paper for $10 anymore.

You won’t get the honey in time for the holidays this year (it’s winter, after all).
But as you build anticipation, you’ll be helping Earl build capacity.

Here’s the project; go get some honey!

Not stinky. Aromatic.

Whatever it is, give it to me brewed, yeasted, cured, affinaged, pickled, brined, vinificated, fermented in rice bran, wrapped in banana leaves, and buried in mud for the winter.

Karl started brewing kombucha to feed his addiction. His first batch, made with green jasmine tea, was amazing. Here he is with his mother:

Return of summer eats

The CSA Karl and I signed up for has been great. Terra Firma Farm. And Pablito the farmer writes an an illuminating commentary each week that goes out with the boxes. I definitely feel more agriculturally aware. Anyway, here’s our latest take:

Summer eats

I’ve eaten way more than I’ve photographed this summer. But here’s some stuff I happened to capture:

Dean’s Spanish chorizo and queixo tetilla pizza, in Bushwick.

Apricot jam time series

leftovers

What can leftovers become? How can we turn them into an unrecognizably different but also lovely meal? That’s been my challenge lately, and it has inspired a few experiments.

The things we did and didn’t eat

We moved. From here:

To here:

We saw a lot along the way.

Peaches and cream

I’ve become a morning person. After months on the west coast, I still sleep on an east coast schedule. This morning I woke up at 6am, it was still dark outside, and the apartment had an early morning chill. Inspired partly by this article and by the prospect of a warm kitchen, I decided to bake something. I got up and found a great recipe I haven’t made in years: baked oatmeal.