http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog A Californian Explores New England - Cooking and Culture Shock Mon, 29 May 2006 23:35:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Just found a sealed package of Mahagastotte Estate Ceylon Pekoe, the good stuff. http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=41 Why is it that New England's birds in spring and summer are so much more melodic than San Francisco's birds? It's certainly not that SF is short on avian life, nor even noisy birds. And yet, the small birds of San Francisco seem to run to "cheep, cheep" ... http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=40 We've been whipping through the marmalade, so we're already in our second round. This time, we have another batch of blood orange (this time at 117 degrees and 1/2C sugar to 1C fruit), Key limes and Meyer lemons. The banks of jars are very pretty. This second batch was ... http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=38 Postings by new folks will need to be approved before appearing the first time, because frankly, the comment spam is getting up my nose. http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=39 It's a long time yet until the greens show up here, but we have consoled ourselves with the fruits of the deli counter. Anchovies, proper Molinari salame, cornichons, a good comte, three kinds of olives, and a couple of baguettes. No jug of wine, but Victory Pils (bought ... http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=37 Do you fancy blood oranges? They're ripe now, filled with staining juice and earthy undertones. Ripe enough to show that blood oranges aren't ... oranges but their own complicated selves. Further, we were out of marmalade, and our jam supplies are running low. We still have ... http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=35 One good sized kumquat produces about a teaspoon of sour, tasty juice. A number of uses come to mind, but one does feel a trifle ludicrous. Other culinary constatations today - We still don't hold with New Hampshire maple syrup, though we admit that the product reserved for natives is not ... http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=28 Hi all -- just to let you know that I'm dealing with an influx of comment spam; while dealing with this, I've set the system to only accept comments from logged-in users. If I can figure out a better way of dealing with the spam, I'll change the system ... http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=27 We recently ordered a bunch of tea, in hope of finding some replacements for sold-out favorites. So we spent an afternoon tasting Ceylon tea. We found some OK stuff, but no real winners. http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=25 I know the name of the Michelin man. I didn't know I knew that. http://www.bostoncalifornia.com/blog/?p=26