Virginia Woolf said, "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." After five years of shared kitchens, I'm finally back in my own space. One hundred and seventeen square feet of butter-tiled, oak floored hearth on Lexington Street, in San Francisco's Mission district. A Wedgewood stove, eleven Le Creuset pots, a Meyer lemon tree, and the pleasure of breaking my own dishes.
This weekend, May 30-31, 2009, I'll be at my 4th Maker Faire, with a booth all of my own. I'll be testing out Kitchen Talk, a concept where I answer food questions. Here's how I described it:
As part of the Homegrown / FarmAid project, Rachel offers a know-it-all / reference librarian/ Car Talk style booth to answer any kitchen question participants raise. From marmalade to deglazing, from canning to grinding your own flour, this unabashed food nerd will answer all your DIY food questions and solve your "my yogurt tasted too sour" problems.
From knowledge gained from Top 10 restaurant kitchens, 30 feet of cookbooks, countless hours in the kitchen section of thrift stores, running the composting program at Burning Man, and getting fired from two bakeries, Rachel brings her DIY ethic to food.
No burning kitchen questions coming to mind? Ask about the most environmentally reasonable way to drink beer. Or how to whip up ceviche from scratch when you're stranded on a desert island. Or where to find fresh Montmorency cherries.
And I wrote up a new bio:
Rachel Weidinger loves saving the world, binder clips, canning jars, the ocean, and her tiny home in San Francisco. I am a marketing generalist with a fondness for the internet--especially social media. I have worked with nonprofits and social enterprises since 1998. When not writing or covering the walls with post-its, you can usually find me in my kitchen making marmalade or pies. My bookshelf has been sorted by color since 1999 and I read voraciously, no matter the hue of the spine. I am a partner in Stowe Boyd's /Ground project, on localism as a global movement.
Come visit me. I'll be demoing Third Date Eggs Saturday and Sunday at 11am, Apricots in Heavy Syrup Saturday at noon, and Preserved Meyer Lemons (and Naya's Eggs) Sunday at noon. Otherwise you can find me at the Kitchen Talk booth.
One spring, I will host a dinner deep in the forest.
A dozen guests, formal attire, candles, white table cloth, old silverware. I'll serve wild boar and venison, fiddleheads and ramps, piles of buttery mushrooms. Our shoes will get muddy. It's possible that we'll sleep in the bushes.
Recipe: 1.75 litres of Cazadores Gold 3.5 cups of Grand Marnier 2 quarts backyard Meyer lemon juice (about 30 pounds of lemons) 10lb ice.
Plus: 4 dozen half pint Mason jars in original boxes One rolling suitcase, the sort that is the max size for fitting in an overhead bin 40 cocktail napkins
For Garnish: One lemon 2 shallow lidded containers of rim stuff (one 1/2 c salt, pther 1/2 c sugar with 1 tsp fresh thyme mixed in).
Instructions: Mix liquids in Meyer lemon margarita cocktail recipe from above link.
Fill half pint 42 jars completely with ice. (Reserve remaining 6 jars, and bring with you. Pour margaritas into jars and screw on the lids.
Stack boxes of margaritas in suitcase with those 6 extra empty jars, one lemon, and 2 shallow lidded containers (one 1/2 c salt, other 1/2 c sugar with 1 tsp fresh thyme mixed in).
Throw suitcase in Zipcar, drive across town reeking of tequila, return Zipcar to lot by hotel, dash two blocks to hotel, scoop up 40 #09ntc peeps, shepherd them and the very heavy suitcase to Powell BART. Arrive at 16th St BART, brief Taco Safarists that we might get busted by cops, and head to street corner.
Pass out 6 empty jars rimmed with fresh lemon, and give those people instructions to dip jar in either salt or sugar, pour in freshly shaken ice margarita, and pass on now empty jar to new person with salt/sugar/pass on instructions.
