Cheryl Katz

Especially if they’re Peking Duck from your favorite authentic Chinese restaurant.

On a totally unexpected date night with Ben last week, we took ourselves for Peking Duck at the Golden City Restaurant in Kearny Mesa. (We also got soup, which was totally unnecessary given the two course duck presentation easily serves four people alone.)

Needless to say, we came home laden with crispy duck skin, plum sauce, rice buns and of course more than half our chopped duck and jicama lettuce wraps.

With Passover coming up and a lot of food shopping and preparation to do, on Thursday I was looking to empty out my refrigerator. Everyone ate something that needed minimal cooking from the refrigerator.

Shockingly, the duck skin was not gone by Saturday morning, which made it completely fair game for breakfast! I thought, and Sami and Grandma agreed, that crispy Peking Duck omelettes sounded like just the thing.

I placed the duck skin crispy side down in a hot pan and rendered out the fat, returning all the crisp that the refrigerator stole. Then I reserved the skins, allowing them to dry on a paper towel while I quickly poured the beaten, salted and peppered eggs into the pan and allowed them to cook. When the top of the eggs were still soft but starting to firm, I replaced the skins and folded the eggs into omelette shape. Another minute, and then I slid the eggy, ducky deliciousness onto a plate and shared it with my family.

Super delicious with the leftover plum sauce and toasted rice buns. And not a crumb to waste!

Michael Ruhlman has been addressing an important question on his blog (Ruhlman.com):  Why do we cook?

I’m cooking a lot now because I’m in culinary school, but what led me to finally make a real career choice and seek training in culinary arts was that after I stopped working, and left to my own devices, I failed to make any other choice, but found myself cooking on a daily basis.

What drove me to cook then, and the basis for choosing a life that will without question revolve around food, is a question with so many answers that I can hardly decide which one to describe first.

I started cooking after I left my job because I didn’t have any reason left not to.  I didn’t cook as much while I was working because I felt always rushed for time, and to satisfy the time vs. hunger balance I wound up making a lot of quick and easy meals  – from scratch as I was able.  Being a full time stay at home mom afforded me the time to plan and explore, which resulted in more elaborate food adventures and a constant expansion of my skills and knowledge.

I was motivated to cook once the time was available because I viewed it as my new job description – feeding my family well was part of what I understood to be my contribution to family life in lieu of money.  I wanted to eat well, and I wanted a kid who doesn’t throw a fit when you feed her something other than chicken tenders and PB&J.  While these are simple goals, they require a lot of food-focused effort.

My friend Elizabeth Willse recently posted a review of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant.  This book of reflections from writers and foodies about what they eat when they’re alone is now on my plan-to-read list.  Her review got me thinking about the things I like to cook, and the completely separate category of what I like to eat when I have only myself to think of and/or don’t feel like cooking.  I eat more bread and Camembert or triple creme cheeses than any one person probably ought to, but then even the cheeses I choose often have identities defined by where they come from or what they are made of.

If it were just about the food, I wouldn’t have pursued a structured culinary education, and I wouldn’t be writing this post today.  By now my constant search for patterns and meaning is no secret to anyone who would be reading this entry.  A fellow student once asked me, “Can’t you just be cooking food?”  I can’t.  I cook and I eat not for the love of food alone, but because I became aware of the experience of food, beyond the flavor to the story that starts in the ground and ends on my plate, through eating; I’m here learning what I learn, doing what I do and planning my future moves because I want to be an active author in that story.

When is a carrot just a carrot?  It never is.  It’s always a note in a chord in a song, no matter how simple or complex a song, and it’s a note with context and history and endless lifetimes of associated meaning that is viewed from different angles when used in different ways.

I cook because when I do, I feel connected to what I eat, to the environment that produced it, to who I am and who I will be as a result of the eating and the cooking.

In the first five minutes of wakeness, I don’t have much to offer in the way of basic human coordination. Let’s just say I can’t handle large, round items without dropping them. A child’s easy to grab toy would wind up on the floor without doubt.

About five minutes on, I have come around enough to perform the four-minute manual labor of brewing a pot of coffee, for which I am thankful.

Before I even get the coffee, I’ll be running at nearly full steam, though my fingertips will still be a little bit dull and fumbling.

Which is why I hope that I will get the coffee *before* I’m quite awake enough to notice that I ran out of beans a scoop or two too early.

Nothing worse than a weak brew to get you off on the wrong foot.

with the list of things I haven’t been writing about lately.

Folks, I’m running on empty at the moment, enjoying a lot of my time and cursing the low moments of parenthood when I might otherwise be sleeping for the rest of the time. (Night time is the worst, longest part of potty training by far, I think.) Needless to say, I could stand to sleep a lot more than I have been lately, but the exhaustion is largely rewarding so I am merely stating the case, and not complaining.

I’ve made a lot of amazing things at school, and I’m surprised by how many skills I never thought much about but that once learned are immediately accessible to me at all times now. I haven’t cracked a cookbook at home in a while (save for homework), which is what allows me to continue enjoying cooking at home – I can be both unstructured and successful, and therefore also relax.

I have some upheaval that I am not inclined to write about at the moment, entirely separate from any practical career consideration. I suppose that emotional occupation is as much a factor on my full plate as any of my daily routines, obligations and responsibilities. This will likely have met resolution before I ever write about it here, though in the interest of being truly honest about why I don’t post often, I felt it needed to be mentioned.

In sum, I’m a student, a mom and human. I’m carrying a lot right now and it’s only going to get harder, although the balance will change. I haven’t been faithfully writing anything of interest here on the blog, but even that will change one day when I have more time on my hands. If you’re actually reading this, I thank you sincerely for that.

In case you were wondering, everything you read on the Internet is true. Like the following definitions of “Cheryl”:

c/o www.urbandictionary.com

1. cheryl

A person of true beauty. A girl with such a kind personality that anyone will simply fall in love with. A Cheryl will help anyone out without hesitation. They have trusting blue eyes and large bussoms.
“That Cheryl just saved 100 children!”

2. cheryl

buy cheryl mugs, tshirts and magnets
a perfect girl, someone you can always rely on, kind caring, a great sense of humor, and just amazing
“Cheryl is amazing!!”

3. Cheryl

A compromise..
A girl with a kind personality who will poop on your windshield if you get on her bad side
“She seemed kind, but shes just a cheryl”

…”is a Jungian term, created by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung to describe the alignment of “universal forces” with the life experiences of an individual.” www.amorillum.com/page3.htm

Synchronicity is how I’d describe how I’m feeling at the moment. Yesterday was my first day in the classroom for my culinary program, and due to a number of elements I just had the oddly resonant feeling of being in the right place at the right time.

Subconsciously, I’m not prepared for this feeling of active engagement on a positive path. I’m sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop, because isn’t everything supposed to involve a little bit of suffering?

Perhaps I will sing a different tune when exams are looming.

In the meantime, I’m tethering my mind to the uplifting resonant feeling and pushing the mute button on the little voice that wants me to sabotage myself with doubt and embroil me in unproductive thoughts, like how to involve more stress in my life.

Let me not create stress where there is none, and enjoy the beginning of a new and positive path.

Dishwasher broken
Some are still left to be washed
But I’m defeated

Welcome!

Originally uploaded by cinediva

This is a shot I took into the room next door while housekeeping was in there. I couldn’t resist the perfectly framed “Welcome!” chalkboard message.

This and a series of others are taken at The Kennedy School, a converted schoolhouse that is now a hotel containing a movie theatre, restaurant and a handful of bars. Each guest room is a converted classroom – we are staying in ‘Mrs. Francis Room’, which is one half of the classroom. The other half is that neighbor’s room, the ‘Cherry Tree Room,’ named for the art inside (not pictured.)

Other pictures include light fixtures, a phone, water fountain, and art from all around. I’ll try to take a picture of the front of the building before we check out tomorrow.

In other news, this morning we had waffles at the Waffle Window, the much-acclaimed tiny waffle vendor we found on Yelp. We were not disappointed by my Farm Fusion waffle – sauteed mushrooms, spinach and a lemon-thyme marinated chevre cheese over a sweet belgian waffle – nor by Sami’s pumpkin pie waffle (imagine a slice of pie on top of a waffle and you begin to get the drift. Yum), nor Ben’s bacon, brie and basil waffle, which looked great but I did not try.

Here’s a picture!

Yelp has been a phenomenal tour guide so far on this trip, thanks in no small part to my iPhone app. We highly recommend walking on the wild side and using the “nearby” function to scope out what’s good wherever you are.

Cheers!

Voodoo Donut

Originally uploaded by cinediva

You may have surmised, by now, or by reading my tweets, that I’m on vacation.

High time I posted a little something here, eh?

Well, here you go. We’re in Portland, OR, presently, having driven up the coast of California in the first week. Portland kind of rules, not least because of these tasty treats from Voodoo Donuts. (Yes, one has bacon. You best believe I didn’t eat that one. All other considerations aside, the bacon looked like cardboard!)

My Voodoo Doll donut was complete with a pretzel stick through the heart, and gooey jelly blood in the middle. I only ate the head and shoulders before I stopped, lest I risk sugar coma. I feel satisfied that my enemies have been duly decapitated.

Many more photos to come, so please enjoy my Flickr photostream. I’ll be home nigh Tuesday, ready to pick up normal life where I left off, and start school on Friday!

Cheers!

Or, notes from the rest of yesterday.

Took my poor, injured computer to the Apple Store without an appointment and actually managed to be seen within half an hour.  Had fun with Sami on the kiddie macs in the meantime, and we tested all of the headphones on display with the tester iPhones.  And I do mean all of those headphones.  Whenever Sami didn’t like whatever song I’d picked out, we’d move on to the next iPhone.

The Genius at the Genius Bar reset my hardware settings, which resulted in a return of full iSight camera functionality – yay!  What I have since learned is that now my wifi card also works more predictably AND the problems I was having with viewing my own website on Firefox have also been resolved.  Hooray for kicking the butt of the ghost in the machine!  Maybe Google could have saved me a trip to the Apple Store, but whatever.  It was a fun outing with Sami, and cost us absolutely nothing.

The crack along the side of my computer would actually not result in the battery falling out – the magnesium inner case wasn’t damaged in the trauma, so the crack is actually purely cosmetic.  Nothing a little duct tape or Krazy Glue couldn’t fix.

After all that excitement, I made a simple black beans with wild rice dish, which was loved by all – in the end.  Sami swore up and down that she doesn’t like beans (whatever.)  She wanted rice only.

Oh, this one was so well played, it gives me glee just thinking about it.

She demanded a bowl of “just rice.”  So I got her an empty bowl, put in about 2 tbsp of rice, and told her that if she wanted more, she had to then eat from the rice/beans bowl I originally had given to her.  Inevitably she wanted more, and upon realizing that my promises are fulfilled, promptly declared herself “ALL DONE.”  I negotiated her into three bites.  By the time she was on the third bite, she’d lost count, and kept saying, “Two more, two more,” and so I of course obliged her without correcting her math.

She ate about half the bowl, into which I’d truthfully put a little too much for her, and was spared the indignity of reversing her “dislike” statement of earlier in the meal.

Well played, momma.  Sometimes I surprise myself with parental strategy.