Scenes from the Big Summer Potluck 2011

I didn’t plan to stop blogging for an entire month.  It just worked out that way.

I could tell you that it’s because I was busy with my move or my summer class or my thesis.  Or that my new place has a very old stove with two ovens that are covered in splattered grease inside, which doesn’t make for pretty, appetizing photographs.  Or that I write for work and for school and that writing for the blog sometimes feels like a bit too much writing.

All of these reasons are true, but at the same time they’re excuses.  I stopped writing here because after two years of blogging, I’m unsure where I want to go next with My Morning Chocolate.

Back in 2009, a few months before I started MMC, Kenny and I were ready to leave New York.  (I apologize if you’re already heard this story…)  I was trying to decide between going to grad school for journalism in Chicago or nonfiction writing in Baltimore.

The one-year Chicago program was expensive, and the admissions counselor told me that many alumni nabbed communications positions in nonprofits after graduation.  Nonprofits were and continue to be my sector.  I’ve been working with them for more than a decade, and I didn’t think I needed to shell out $80,000 only to graduate and get a full-time job in the same field.

So I chose nonfiction and Baltimore.  But I was still interested in journalism.  I read several advice columns that said you don’t necessarily need a grad degree to be a journalist, but you do need to know about a couple of subjects that interest you.  I like food.  So I started this blog to learn more about it.

Fast forward two years.  This past weekend, I was in Pennsylvania for the Big Summer Potluck, a three-day food blogging event hosted by Maggy, Pam, and Sharon from Three Many Cooks and Erika from The Ivory Hut.  (A big thank you to all of them for the work they put in organizing the event, as well as the wonderful Baltimore bloggers Wendi and Beth for being kind enough to give me a ride; and amazing sponsors like Pop Chips, Green Valley Organics, Kerrygold, KitchenAid, and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.)

Friday night was a group Mexican dinner with spicy enchiladas, a bright corn and tomato salad, raspberry mojito sorbet and much more; Saturday was for photography, writing, and recipe workshops and savory sausage and chicken jambalaya; Sunday for a breakfast of gluten-free muffins, yogurt and granola, and smoked salmon with capers and cream cheese.  Sixty bloggers attended.

It was a lovely event, even for an introvert like me who has a tendency to turn mute in groups of people that are larger than four.  I was so inspired by what I saw that I’m working on a piece about the food blogging community, that just may end up as a multi-series post some day.

But that’s down the road.  At BSP, Shauna Ahern from Gluten Free Girl and the Chef said so many things that stuck with me during her workshop, “Writing in the Moment.”  (Partly because I wrote her quotes down in my notebook, but still…)

She said that we shouldn’t feel like we have to force writing simply because we feel like we should post a certain number of times a week.  (Guilty. See this post on salad as an example.)

She said that we don’t always have to make impressive food.

And she said this:  “I just want you to be you in your writing.  And I probably want to eat your food too.” 

I was so happy to hear this.

I get caught up sometimes in what I think I should be doing.  I should be taking better photographs.  I should write more recipes.  When really, I didn’t start this blog to become a better photographer or recipe writer.  I just wanted to write about experiences surrounding food in the hopes that you, MMC’s readers, would be inspired to get in the kitchen or out in the world to experience food your own way.

Thinking about this, I’m reminded of New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin’s take on the subject.  He tells stories about food.  But, in Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Reviews, Memoir, and More, author Dianne Jacob says this about his style:  “He adamantly refuses to describe his work as food writing.  He calls it “writing about eating” and doesn’t distinguish it from any other nonfiction.”  I like this description.

My friend Julia at Wordsxo suggested I could make this blog a hybrid, focusing on food, life observations, and nonfiction pieces.  It’s a great idea.  Perhaps this is where MMC is headed next.

Now, if you’ve read this far through all of my navel-gazing and you too have a blog, have you ever thought about tweaking or completely changing your focus?  What keeps you coming back every day to write?  What do you want you readers to take away from you blog?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.     

Yesterday Culinate – an online magazine that “helps people put food at the center of their lives” – published my story on eating adventurously on a budget.  Head on over to Culinate to read the full story.

Mexican chocolate ice cream (made with a vanilla ice cream base and chocolate sauce)

My time in grad school is quickly coming to a close. I’ve already started revising the stories I’ve written over the last year in preparation for my final thesis class in the fall. But of course a few pieces won’t make it to thesis.

One of them is an exercise I did in a travel writing class last summer. We went to Fell’s Point, a waterfront commmunity in Baltimore, and had to find some kind of story there. I hung out in a soft serve yogurt store and a gelato shop and practiced listening in on conversations. (Hearing is my worst sense, so I really needed that practice.)

I wrote two short narratives, but never figured out an effective way to tie them together. So here they are, snapshots of life at two frozen dessert stores in Fell’s Point.

****

“Can you tell me which one I want?” a boy, about five, dressed in a plaid shirt and khaki shorts asks his Dad. The boy is walking back and forth in front of a glass case at Mr. Yogato, the frozen yogurt store that advertises its products as “lighter and tangier than ice cream.”

“You want the tangy one, buddy?” Dad asks, also in khaki shorts. But the boy has wandered over to the drink case, just past the yogurt counter. He looks inside.

“Daddy, can I have some water?” he asks, looking up because the waters are stacked higher than his head. He pulls on the door. “From there,” he says, pointing to the bottles.

But Daddy is ordering his healthy frozen yogurt, a small tangy, with the boy’s requested gummy bears and M&Ms. The boy is still walking back and forth between him and the water case.

“Daddy, can I have the wah-tawrrr?” he asks again.

Dad hands him his yogurt instead, and the boy heads over to the sundae bar – a turquoise desk with shelves above and below stacked with condiments like caramel, olive oil, balsamic glaze, Old Bay, red pepper, and California lemon peel – and tops his sundae with honey and a squirt of chocolate syrup. Daddy helps. Then the boy takes his treat to a table next to his family and sits, alone, on a padded black stool.

He never sits for long though. Instead he walks back to the sundae bar three times to get more toppings – rainbow sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, more honey, caramel – for his tangy yogurt. Daddy always follows to help.

The boy never gets his water.

****

“Ya’ll want to try a sample?” asks the young saleswoman in Pitango Gelato. “You can try as many as you want.” She dolls out samples on tiny plastic spoons to two young guys and a girl, all of whom look younger than 21.

“We use milk instead of cream so it has less fat and it turns slower,” she explains while handing one of the guys an organic mango sample. Instead of using fat to make the treat fluffy like ice cream, she continues, gelato has a different churning process that incorporates less air. “You know what I mean?” she asks. “So as a result, it’s better for you and it tastes better.”

“Let’s do bourbon vanilla, espresso, and mango,” guy one says, requesting the large size. His friend, guy two, also orders a large, saying he “definitely” wants the bourbon vanilla flavor.

They walk out the store eating their bourbon vanilla gelatos, made with a type of organic vanilla bean and no bourbon whatsoever.

****

Let’s talk about ice cream, gelato, and yogurt.  Tell us about your story, flavor, factory tour, whatever comes to mind in the comments.   

I’ve never been an urban gardener. Without a backyard or much light in the apartment, I didn’t think I had the right conditions to even grow an herb garden successfully.  

But my next door neighbors are much more creative. Like me, they have a small space out back, which is just a slab of concrete between their parking space and their back door. There, they have two long clay planter boxes, one for tomatoes and the other for herbs; two large circular clay pots filled with herbs; and four small clay pots with gold, red, and burnt orange plants. They even sit outside sometimes, cramming folding metal chairs next to their makeshift garden.

I love that they’re making the most of the space they have. It’s made me realize that I’d like to have my own little urban garden someday. A few herbs and salad greens to start would be nice.

In the bookstore the other day, I came across Urban Gardener, a fun magazine for garden hobbyists that I’d like to explore more.  With words like hydroponics, trichoderma, and botrytis, many of the articles seem to be written for gardeners who know what they’re doing. But hey, that could be me someday.  

Do you have an urban garden? Have you a figured out a creative way to use space in your garden, even if you don’t live in an urban environment?

Thanks so much to everyone who played along!

Email your answers by 5:00 p.m. eastern time to mymorningchocolate@gmail.com, and I’ll announce the winner on Monday. Thanks for playing!

To play, fill out this food-related crossword puzzle and email me the answers at mymorningchocolate@gmail.com by Friday, June 3rd at 5:00 p.m. eastern time.  (Crossword hint:  You can find the answers to most of the clues in the titles or bodies of May’s blog posts.)  The crossword and clues are below, or you can use this pdf of the puzzle.

Among those who send in the correct answers, I’ll announce one randomly-drawn winner on Monday, June 6th.  The winner can choose his/her favorite book package below, which I created based on some of your favorite food book recommendations.  If the winner lives outside of the U.S., I’ll send a gift card instead. 

For an extra entry, leave a comment below telling me about the best thing you ate this last month.  It could be a dish you cooked, a meal at a restaurant, or a food you tasted for the first time. 

Have fun!  

Across
3. “Long green spears” describes this spring vegetable
5. Make a quick Indian-inspired sauce with coconut milk and this “spice”
7. There are five of these classic condiments in French cuisine
8. Smoke and pull this meat for a summer barbeque
10. Cake and icing mixed together, rolled, and dipped in chocolate
13. Milton Hershey first mass-marketed this type of chocolate in 1900
14. Vegetarian protein source
15. James Oseland is editor-in-chief in this food magazine

Down
1. Cream and eggs poured in a pastry shell and baked in the oven
2. First name of the author of Around My French Table
4. French pastries filled with cream
6. ______ cheese, another name for chevre
8. ______ Lakshmi, host of Top Chef
9. A barbequed bird, Hawaiian-style
11. Amuse-_______
12. An egg cooked for this long leads to a runny yolk

The Prize!  (Winner chooses one package.)

1.  Fiction Package:  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender and Book 1 and Book 2 in The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.  (Recommendations from Shana and Julia.)  

2.  Travel and Food:  Beyond the Great Wall:  Recipes and Travels in the Other China by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.  (Recommendation from hg.)     

3.Cooking Package:  How to Cook Everything and Food Matters:  A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes by Mark Bittman.  (Recommendation from Julia.) 

4.  Memoir and Recipes:  Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen and More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen, and Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard.  (Recommendation from Betsy.)

Turkey legs aren’t just for the Renaissance Festival and Disney World.  Apparently they’re also the perfect reward after running through thick, sticky rivers of mud, dashing up cargo nets and through rows of tires, and jumping over fire.

Last weekend my family – my parents, Jessie, Kenny, and I – did the Warrior Dash in Mechanicsville, MD.  If you haven’t heard of the Warrior Dash, it’s a 5K race along a shady, wet, and sludgy trail, then over obstacles like walls and hay balls and under barbed wire (which was always conveniently strung over muddy ditches).

Everyone was covered in mud aftewards, so much so that there was a mound of old shoes, each pair tied together and tossed on top of the pile, near the entrance.  (We also were taking pictures with a disposable camera, which Jessie was nice enough to buy. But that explains the photo quality.)

And afterwards?  There were turkey legs.  There is something very warrioresque about gnawing on big slab of meat.  This was the first time I bit into a turkey leg, so I was surprised that it tastes a lot like ham.  This could be because turkey legs are smoked for hours at a high temperature, much like ham is often cooked.

Regardless of their taste, though, seeing the tukey leg gave me a little boost.  It means summer with its festivals and food cooked on grills is here.

What’s your favorite festival food?

What I appreciate most, though, is that the site includes substitutes for each food.  For example, it says equal parts of cinnamon and nutmeg can be used in place of cardamom in a recipe.    

Do you have a go-to online resource for cooking information?