what I'm reading

I just got back from spending an amazing few days with my family back on the farm. My dad being a pork producer, I grew up on pork. We had the pork that my dad raised and had butchered for practically every meal. A sunday brunch was never without bacon and not until I was older did I figure out that hamburgers were actually beef as we had them all the time, but I guess in all actuality, we should have been calling them pork patties. Which to this day I think it is a bit confusing, as we all know that “ham” comes from a hog.

Well, during my trip home, I come to find out that the hogs my dad cared for where no longer his own. So now, my mom has to go to the meat counter at the grocery store to purchase our meat. As things continue to change in how a small farmer can raise livestock, my dad has also begun to care for cattle for the Family Farm Cattle Association.

So all in all, these changes have affected the meals that are eaten at the Loutsch family table, which of course became a topic of conversation. So while my mom has been exploring new cuts of meet to try, and my sister complaining about having beef instead of pork, my brother Joseph educated us all a bit as he now has a part time job behind the meat counter at Faraway.

While I understand this is probably not a normal subject for table talk, especially as it gets into the details of how much care my dad needs to give cattle, especially when they become bloated and he needs to “pop” the bubble. I realized that I was actually learning a lot.


Becoming interested in preparing meals for myself and wanting to try new recipes I come across, I decided it be best too if I became a bit more aware of what makes a cut of meat. So I looked to my shelf of collected cookbooks and decided to start reading the one I love most for how well it was designed (yes, the cow on the cover is actually wearing shoes!).

So thanks to these gals, I now know that minute steak is from the chuck and a filet mignon is a short lion that is best prepared with the sauce. Now I just need to remember these things as I too go to the meat counter to buy my meat, or as the book suggests, I should just become really good friends with the butcher.

cookbooks

I have a shelf full of a good variety of cookbooks, many I’ve gained as a benefit from working at food magazines like Bon Appétit and Better Homes and Gardens. Others I’ve found and bought at antique shops or bookstores as anyone who knows me, I can spend hours just flipping through the pages of a well-designed book. This is true especially with cookbooks, probably because I find comfort in food and cookbooks are filled with ideas of how I can play in my kitchen. Often it’s the design of a cookbook that will intrigue me to make the purchase, the unique illustrations of a book published years ago or the beautiful photography of a well-styled dish of the books today.

When an urge to bake comes a long, if I already don’t have something in mind from one of my favorite magazines, I’ll go to my shelf of cookbooks for ideas. Sometimes, I’ll find myself becoming enveloped in flipping through all the books, tagging recipes that would be good for another occasion, that I really don’t have the time to bake something anymore, but still feel satisfied. I do sometimes wonder if I’ll ever actually make many of those recipes with doggie-eared corners or post-it note bookmarks.

Interesting enough though, when I want to satisfy my urge to bake, with nothing particular in mind and not much time to make a run for ingredients or attempt something labor intensive, I’ve discovered the best book to go to. No it’s not Better Home’s Big Red Plaid or Barbara’s 50th Anniversary Bon Appétit, it’s none other than the classic hometown cookbook. It’s full of all the stables. For example, tonight, I made Carol Ritz’s banana bread. It was simple and quick and while there were ten other banana bread recipes, all with slight variations, hers had just exactly what I had in my cupboards. I would have gone with Mary Jane’s, as everyone in town knows you can’t go wrong with anything she makes, but she uses buttermilk which I didn’t have on hand. I guess in a certain sense, I actually adjusted Carol’s recipe as I used wheat flour and added a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon and topped it with a streusel of crushed walnuts and brown sugar. Which according to an editor from Better Homes and Gardens, as long as you change three things, it can be considered your own recipe. ( I’ll let you know how mine turns out. )

Considering I work with food editors and understand how much is considered in how a recipe is worded and written, I find much joy in the fact that all they have to say in the home town cookbook is mix and bake. Oh how I appreciate the simplicity of it. The ones I enjoy even more give a simple tip on how grandma does it a bit different. So while my hometown cookbook isn’t much to flip through, with no pretty pictures or design sensibility at all, one can find comfort not only in the food but the simple words that remind me of home.

nice clothes

the other day at work, one of the gals I work with made the comment that I had nice clothes, as the previous day she said she liked my skirt. I very much appreciated her comment, she herself is very trending and dresses well too. I’ve noticed that since I’ve been out in LA, I’ve come to look at my closet a bit differently. I’ve found more ways to pair various things together that originally I never would have thought of.... (which is a good thing as I haven’t felt obligated to by new things). In a certain sense, I’ve allowed myself to be even more creative with how I dress. I’m not saying that I didn’t have a good sense of personal style before I came to LA, but now I don’t question something I put on, if it fits and feels good, I go with it. No pressure, no rules.

As I look at the collection of empty frames that I just hung on my wall, I often thing about painting and photographs that I can create or find to fill them with. But then I realized that the things that I visualize for the frames often change from day to day due to my mood and various inspirations I may encounter. So for now, I'm going to leave them empty and leave it up to my imagination for what they frame inside.

toes

the other night I was over at the girls' pad on Sierra Bonita ( where Laura lives with 3 other Iowa girls) and the evening ending with us five girls in party dressing sitting on beds talking about toes. It was such a pleasant moment and I realized that no matter how old I get, I hope there are many moments of being giggly girls and conversations about silly little things like our toes...

home

"everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons."

through painted deserts, d miller

D.I.Y.

I realized today... I am very much a do it yourselfer. This is my third apartment in three years (crazy to think about) and with each one of them, I've picked out colors and painted, went to the hardware stores and bought boards and dowels to add more space in my closets, along with other small projects as such to add charm and function to the space and make it my own. In one regard I question the work I put into a place that I'm not fully committed to, especially the little studio I just moved into as I very well may only be here six months, but I do enjoy the reward of making a place that much better for me to live in and enjoy. I have to say too, I'm very much my father's daughter as I work on such tasks in such similar craft and skill that I have many of times watched him do around our home....that idea of knowing if I do it myself it will get done right or as I need it.

wide open spaces

Throughout the drive along the ol'route 66, the landscape is ever changing, from rolling hills, golden grass with sage bushes and purple plateaus to red rock and mountains covered in pine trees. One has to marvel at the wonders of the land and all it's shpaes, only God could paint such a beautiful scene.
Through our conversations, Bo realized how she has this great appreciation for the mountains, where I've found that the wide open spaces are what I love.... there's something about seeing for miles this vast world that is in front of us. I guess that explains the love I have for looking across a body of blue water or green corn field and now the sun rising over the Arizona desert or the golden praires of Oklahoma.