Class is in session (literally)

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The glorious untouched nature of filled supply kits, August 2014.

For all of you who have been wondering where have I been? (Yes, all zero of you. Hush, a girl can dream.)

The short answer is? Busy.

The slightly longer answer is I've been working (and sleeping and eating and sometimes even dreaming) my job. I'm a teacher. More importantly, I'm substitute teacher who is the unofficial "Maternity Leave Sub" at my school. This means for the past four semesters in a row inclusively, I have been working as a long-term sub for a teacher that has left to have a baby or some other reason.

As a long-term sub, you have most (if not all) of the responsibilities that you have as a full-time teacher and less of the pay! without the security of a permanent position. Fun times.

Still, I hope to talk about some of the hilariously tiring--and tiringly hilarious?--things that make teaching the largest part of my life. And to start blogging again, because I miss it.

So watch this space for teaching stuff, baking stuff, and anything else that comes to mind.

Happy Easter!

Glad to know that the Easter Bunny gives all kids (big and little) a basket!

Worth 9,000+ Words: Fall 2012 in Words and Pictures

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If you are a frequenter of my blog (granted, that would usually be if I updated frequently, which I sort of don't) you might notice there are several new entries that seem to have magically shown up in the past. Basically, I am trying to get into more of a normal blogging schedule--we'll start with any kind of schedule, normal or not and work from there.

But also, I have recently started to exercise more. While I have been playing pick up ultimate frisbee once or twice a week with the same group of crazy engineers-and-those-who-love-them (I use the word "love" loosely here. My friends are hilarious, yes, but the kind of odd only another odd person could love. ;o) ) since 2009, I've never been what you would call an exerciser. Part of the reason I enjoy ultimate frisbee (besides the hilarious people, the fun parties we throw, and the potential for hot gossip on the sidelines) is that the exercise has a purpose, the game of throwing and catching the frisbee makes all the running and dashing and soreness bearable.

Post-Dirty Girl. Ew.

However, one of my friends from college sent out an email a couple months back about participating in the Dirty Girl Mud Run, a 5K with obstacles and mud (shocker) that is all-girl, all athletic abilities, all mud, all the time. And I did it. And it was awesome.

My newest challenge? I have started the Couch to 5K running program, which basically pieces out a training regime in nine weeks that starts at running for a minute at a time... to the whole time.

Because I think that cooking and exercise often can go hand in hand (not literally, please do not run while baking, chaos will ensue), I'm thinking I will integrate my stab at healthy habits into this blog. If nothing else, it will give me more material to write about.

So never fear! The same hilarious write-up of recipes and Foodie Penpals will continue. I just might share random healthy/exercise/life tips as well. Cool?

Now, on to the promised pictures after the jump!

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: August Foodie Penpal Reveal!

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Note: This entry is back-dated as real life has intervened. My apologies!

This is the shortest entry ever (in my attempt to catch up to the present day, I didn't want to totally short shrift the awesomeness of Foodie Penpals in August. Here, in brief, is the awesome box that Ione gave me!

*The most adorable strainer ever. It's so cheerful and now sits on top of my microwave.

*Somersaults are these cracker type things that are made from sesame seeds and awesome. Super addictive, I give them to everyone who gets assigned to me as a Penpal now, it's hiliarious.

*Delicious cupcake mix and scone mix.

*Raspberry explosion of fun! Otherwise known as dark chocolate with raspberries, raspberry licorice and the aforementioned scones.

Interested in signing up? Here's the details:

Here’s a detailed explanation of the program:

-On the 5th of the month, you will receive your penpal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your penpal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.
-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your penpal!
-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!
-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)
-Foodie Penpals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you can choose to write a short guest post for your penpal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.
- Foodie Penpals is open to US, Canadian residents & UK residents.  Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa. So, I’m going to keep two separate lists and match US w/ US and Canada w/ Canada!

Click here to find out more from Lindsey herself!

Happiness in a Box: July Foodie Penpal Reveal!

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I was reading the blog of my friend and fellow SF blogger Ariel (Having My Cake and Sharing It 2) and discovered this awesome food blogger "penpal" food swap, where every month you give and receive a box of food goodies from a blogger or reader. It's all set up by Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean, click on the image above to see more reveals and also learn how to join in the fun!

This was my first month and I got to send a bunch of funky stuff to Emily at The Vegtress, so I got to learn lots of cool things about finding healthy vegan foods to send. Go check out her blog, it is awesome!

I was lucky to get matched with Jessica who writes Fit Talker and wow, so much good stuff!

Breaking the Radio Silence

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I have a post in the works that actually involves food and the creation thereof that I will post today or worst case tomorrow. Apologies forever about the lengthy silence. If you've wondered what I've been up to, here's my life in visual form:

So there has been sadly little in the way of cooking, but the weather's warm, the stress is lessening, and hopefully my urge to write/bake/blog will start cranking back up again!

Stay tuned!

Mom, there’s a Kitchen in my Apartment!: Conquering Leftovers Anxiety

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When I was kid, meal time just happened: it seemed sort of this instantaneous event where my mother would summon my sister and I from our rooms and there would be delicious food sort of miraculously at the table. As I got older, I realized that this seemingly magic trick actually required work, whether it was chopping vegetables for a stirfry, cooking the meat, washing and ripping lettuce for a salad, etc. 

Now that I’m even older still (I’d say “grownup” but as an elementary school teacher, I still retain enough enthusiasm for things like Sesame Street and Disney that I don’t know how “adult” I actually am) it sometimes seems like such a vicious cycle: but I already ate dinner yesterday, why do I have to decide again about what I’m going to eat? So time consuming.

No Such Thing as Too Many Cooks: Bake Sale Snapshots

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Yours truly deep in some apparently serious conversation about brownies, or whoopie pies, or maybe explaining about Tomato Spice cupcakes. Hard to say. Pic taken by Irvin at Eat the Love, (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackhonky/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Yesterday, I was out all day selling delicious, delicious goodies to raise money for Share Our Strength, goods all made my some tremendously talented food bloggers who can clearly both cook it as well as write about it (I was trying to make some metaphor here about putting the mixing bowl where their blog was, but it didn't quite work out. Imagine it successfully written here.)

I was so involved in writing up receipts and harassing engaging with customers that I sort of forgot to take any pictures. I'm new at this, ok?

Fortunately, others were much more on the ball, so you can see the amazing desserts and sweet treats that you missed out on. Speaking of missing out (or the opposite) I totally scored a new muffin tin at the bake sale! It's made by Chicago Metallic and I am soooooooo excited to use it. I love the weight of the pan--I can tell it will last me many muffins. Anyone have a suggestion of a recipe with which to christen my tin?

Who Doesn't Love a Bake Sale?

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Food is an important part of a balanced diet.  ~Fran Lebowitz

49.1 million Americans - including nearly 17 million children - lack the means to regularly put enough nutritious food on the table . They are food insecure and struggle with hunger.

* Children who struggle with hunger are sick more often, recover more slowly, and are more likely to be hospitalized, at an average cost of $12,000 per pediatric stay.

* Hunger impedes our children’s ability to learn and perform academically. Undernourished children under the age of 3 cannot learn as much, as fast or as well.

* Children who regularly do not get enough nutritious food have have more behavioral, emotional and academic problems and tend to be more aggressive and anxious.

SHARE OUR STRENGTH HAS RAISED OVER $265 MILLION AND PROVIDED SUPPORT FOR MORE THAN 1,000 NONPROFITS WORKING TO END HUNGER.

(Source: Share Our Strength)

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It's important to remember that while many of us eat (or often eat to excess) whatever or whenever we want, there are many people (and most importantly many children) in the United States that go without food. Projects like the Share our Strength Great American Bake Sale raise funds that go towards: reduced/free lunch programs in public schools, summer meal programs to insure those same children are fed on school breaks, and many other different food assistance programs for children and adults.

Anita Chu (who wrote the awesome Field Guide to Cookies, which I got for Christmas in my flurry of baking-related presents) is organizing a SF Food Blogger bake sale (though you don't actually have to be a blogger to help out) at Omnivore Books, an amazing cooking/food love bookstore in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. Her blog, Dessert First--so cute! I always wanted to eat dessert first!--has lots more information (and you can email her if you'd like to bake or help out) here.

I'm going to make brownies (omg, the best brownies ever, that will be a soon post) and something else. Maybe espresso chocolate shortbread? I want to make Anita's recipe for Apple Crumb Bars, it's a great excuse to go to the farmer's market. Oooh, I could get cider too... yum.

If you're in the San Francisco area and want something sweet from 12 until 3pm on Saturday, stop by Omnivore! You'll get to try my brownies ;o) Not to mention if you stick around, you'll hear Rose Levy Beranbaum talk about her new book, Rose's Heavenly Cakes. Mmmmm, cake.

Portrait of the Writer as a Young Chef

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Pin It Now! Growing up, I always enjoyed cooking in the abstract. Singly, the most sophisticated my cookery got was making chocolate chip cookies from scratch; brownies were always from a box (of the Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker variety, I fully confess). I come from a family of cooks, though of the "pinch of this and then mix that in if you want" school, which I personally find a bit stressful. Apparently I do much better with guidelines. Still, as a child, my role in baking was solely observational, with minor stints as assistant peeler and chopper.

There was only one experience that deviated from this. I recall with fondness and some sense of bemusement the babysitter who watched my sister and I for about a week when Mom was away (a highly uncommon occurrence) when I was 12 or 13. I remember deciding that we were going to bake... so bake we did: we made several apple pies during her tenure and (bizarrely) popcorn balls.

Why I was gripped with this sudden fever to create pies, I have no idea. Sadly, I don't think I had any actual role besides the important task of peeling apples. Either that or my fingers and brain have lost any key pie-making muscle memory. Pity.

I've been living in San Francisco for the past almost-two years, yet my "accidental foodie" tendencies sort of snuck up on me. Yet today, here I am, a every-two-weeks recipient of fresh farm veggies and firm enthusiast of farmers' markets; a multi-cookbook owning, flour-smeared apron-wearing, food blog reading (and, finally, writing) cook. Weird, huh?