use real butter

Recipe: mocha truffles

Last night I had some grand plans. Jeremy was observing from 1-4am (in case you are confused, some radio telescopes can now be operated remotely by the astronomer who logs in from a computer in their office or their home) and I thought I’d wake up with him and get a little night photography done. But by 10 pm, a friend tweeted they were getting snow down on the flats. I took Kaweah outside and sure enough, snow on the ground. I looked up for that gorgeous full moon I had seen earlier in the evening and – nothing. Just a blanket of dark gray clouds stretching across the sky while snowflakes rushed down at my face.

By daybreak, a familiar and long overdue sight greeted me. Kaweah develops a certain jauntiness to her step when she runs out into the snow, shoving her snout into the powder, emerging with a sugar-dusted muzzle, and then sneezing so that every bit of her furry self shakes and wiggles out to the tip of her tail.

it’s cold this morning!

kaweah’s modus operandi in winter

I was only disappointed in missing out on my photo shoot for a millisecond. Okay, nanosecond. Because we’re all about the snow here. My world isn’t complete without the snow. December can’t call itself DECEMBER without the snow in these parts. Now I’m finally in the mood for the holidays. Time to bust out the chocolate! Back in October, I received my dear Anita‘s second book right around the time Scharffen Berger sent me some samples of their chocolate. Who in their right mind is going to say, “No thank you, I don’t want any of your fabulous free chocolate”?!?

the geek in me just loves these field guide formats

holiday baking is in my future

Full disclosure: The Field Guide to Candy was a complimentary copy sent to me by Quirk Books. Scharffen Berger shipped me an assortment of their dark chocolates and a 2-gigabyte jump drive (it’s so cute!).

I’ve hosted a chocolate tasting party before. When I was shopping for the chocolates, my hand hovered over Scharffen Berger and then decided to try Green and Black’s Organic. What a mistake. I should have chosen the Scharffen Berger then. Imagine how happy I was as I contemplated what to do with this beautiful stash of chocolate. I don’t eat much chocolate, but I use a ton of it as I enjoy making chocolate goodies to give to people (because PEOPLE like love chocolate). So flipping through my new Field Guide to Candy, I settled on some simple mocha truffles.

espresso powder and cream

let’s use a 62%

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: candied calamansi limes

There is so much going on here at urb and the holidays are poised just around the corner like a prank waiting to smack me in the face. It’s GREAT! Who doesn’t love being a frenzied mess? I get so much more done that way. Let’s quit with the chit chat and get to brass tacks.

this one is from the heart
Giveaways here, giveaways there. I wasn’t planning on a giveaway right now because we have a big one coming up to celebrate a certain black dog’s birthday. However, with Thanksgiving around the corner I’ve been thinking less about planning a giant meal (um, I still don’t know what we’re having for dinner and I’m not really caring at this point) and thinking more about what I’m thankful for. After this last trip to California where I sat in the back of the bus with some of my favorite food bloggers and talked about… BLOGGING, I was saddened to hear about the hateful comments and emails these fine people occasionally receive. In general, food blog readers are quite supportive. I have to say I felt a warm glow inside when I thought about my readers – you guys. I’m thankful that I have this awesome online community of fun, witty, creative, and caring people. And because you give me warm fuzzies, I’d like to give you a warm fuzzy in return.

one i made for katie in manos del uruguay wool (sage multi colorway)

Everything I’ve given away on the blog has been out of my pocket thus far. Today, I’m announcing a little giveaway that is from my pocket, my hands, and my heart. It’s a scarf. I haven’t made it yet! That’s because I want YOU to pick the colorway of the yarn. I’ve already selected the pattern: My So Called Scarf because um… it has to be something that I can actually knit and it’s a pattern that works for a man (all two of you) or a woman. Even if you don’t want a scarf, it makes a lovely gift for someone else. The winner will get to select one of these gorgeous yarns. I recommend choosing a multi (variegated) yarn because it looks particularly nice with the pattern. So here are the rules, kiddos:

1) Leave a comment on this post and share what Thanksgiving is about to you. Even if you don’t celebrate Yankee Thanksgiving, what does it mean to you? No novels, please :)

2) You have until midnight Mountain Standard Time (GMT minus 7 hours) on Wednesday, November 25th to enter (so 12:01 am will be Thanksgiving Day here).

3) Multiple comments from same person will be disqualified.

4) The winner will be selected at Crazy Random by The Dog and The Astrophysicist and announced on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2009.

5) I will ship worldwide.

6) Good luck!

Not too long ago, my dear friends Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple shipped me a package of sharp objects I couldn’t fly home with from BlogHer Food 09. They included several precious fruits from their yard in the care package. [Okay, Diane told me last week that the passion fruits were bought because their passion fruit vines weren’t producing much – this does not diminish my gratitude one iota.] I ate the dragonfruits, froze the passion fruit pulp, and then what to do with those calamansi limes?

remember these?

i like that the lime is orange

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pepita brittle

********* PLEASE VOTE FOR MY CHARITY *********

It’s finals week! I mean, it’s the week where all of the semi-finalists from The Awaken Your Senses Challenge go head to head for $10,000 for their favorite food charity. Living in a cave? Need a recap? Twelve food bloggers described their favorite food memories and Chef Dave of Good Bite recreated those memories using Quaker instant oatmeal. Every two weeks, viewers voted for their favorite of four food bloggers’ creations to select a semi-finalist. This week, voters determine which of the three semi-finalists’ charities will win the $10,000:

1) Catherine McCord of weelicious championing Stone Barns Center For Food and Agriculture

2) Jen Yu (that’s ME!) of use real butter (this blog!) championing Farm to School

3) Laura Levy of Laura’s Best Recipes championing Food for the Poor

I’m in the finals, yo! I SO TOTALLY NEED YOUR VOTE! Only with your help can we win $10,000 for Farm to School, a wonderful organization that “…brings healthy food from local farms to school children nationwide. The program teaches students about the path from farm to fork, and instills healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime. At the same time, use of local produce in school meals and educational activities provides a new direct market for farmers in the area and mitigates environmental impacts of transporting food long distances. More than 30 million children eat a school lunch five days a week, 180 days a year. If school lunch can taste great, and support the local community, it is a win-win for everyone.”

Think about it – feeding children healthy food, helping local family farms, educating children, strengthening the community. Won’t you please do me the honor of voting for my charity? It’s as simple as four clicks!

Click #1) Go to the Quaker Talk site

Click #2) Click on “Vote” or “Watch & Vote”

Click #3) Click on Cherries Jubilee video

Click #4) Click on the GREEN THUMB to vote for my charity, Farm to School!

********* THANK YOU! *********

Hey, I hope everyone had a nice weekend! Mine was jam-packed full of friends, time-sensitive clandestine plans, work, rejoicing in cooler weather, and a few epiphanies. One of those epiphanies: this weekend was use real butter’s five year blogiversary. My plan was to have a big blowout of a giveaway, but… you’ll have to wait a little because 1) I am deciding on a good giveaway prize and 2) there’s just too much going on (for me) in November. So please be patient with me… you always are :)

Five years. You could call five years a long time, a short time, whatever. It’s enough time to see a pattern in what urb has become for me. urb has always been a personal blog with a good bit of talk about food. When I went public with it in August 2007, I had to clean it up – clean up my language, censor what I say (oh, you didn’t think I was censoring anything? ha!), move a good fraction of old posts to the other blog, put recipes up in a format that someone other than myself could follow. I spent several months finding my groove in my posting frequency – basically how often I could post without turning it into a chore. My photography evolved with the blog. It is still evolving which I take as a good sign.

The food blogging community has changed a lot in the past two years from when I went public to now. Some for the better, but I feel most of it isn’t for the better. Notice a lot of burnout lately? There’s some unspoken (well, actually it’s probably spoken all too often) mantra about HOW TO BE A FOOD BLOGGER which makes me throw up a little in my mouth every time I hear about it. One of the best ways to start a food blog is to be yourself. It’s like dating. If you present yourself as something you are not, you’re going to attract the wrong kind of partner and you’ll probably be unhappy. And if you’re just in it for the money, well – there’s a name for that too. I’m all about the love here.

I found myself swearing up a storm this weekend because I wasted four hours and a lot of ingredients trying to make a recipe that flopped. WHY? Why was I even making those? For the blog? Right. Well, no more. I don’t want that. I never wanted this blog to be a chore and it’s starting to feel like one. And once I announced that urb was not the boss of me, I felt better. Much better. urb was never solely a dedicated food blog and I don’t want it to be. It’s my creative space for sharing food, photography, my opinionated rants, and random bits of life. Anyone looking for a recipe source in a vacuum has likely left this place long ago.

So, five years – plenty of learning and a little adjustment here and there. I have met so many wonderful people and made some incredible friends through this blog. True love, I tell ya. Thanks for sticking with me. Now on to the food.

pepitas, flaked salt, baking soda

**Jump for more butter**