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Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Tag Archives: food-n-cookin

Souper Bowl Sunday

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, Community

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Tags

events, food-n-cookin, this-moment, winter

That’s right. I said it: SOUPer bowl. At Roxbury’s very own community-boosting Haley House Bakery and Cafe, the sport isn’t how far you can run with a synthetic pigskin, but how much soup you can spoon before gastrointestinal collapse.

Heather helps herself to some soup

For me, in case you wondered, that’s about six or seven bowls filled to 1/4 full.

An event originally organized by now-retired Boston Localvores, the non-profit Haley House has taken over inviting chefs to create soups using wholesome, locally sourced ingredients to raise funds for its programming that addresses homelessness, joblessness, and hopelessness.

At the first Souper Bowl I attended, (Souper Bowl III, I believe), my companions and I picked up our hand-thrown ceramic bowls by MassArt’s Clay for Change and waded into a full-house of soup-lovers.

For my second Souper Bowl experience, I promised myself to work the room strategically but promptly fell for a soulful seafood chowder that blew me and my companions away. Skipped the bread, was careful with the water, but still my stroll home at the end of the evening looked more a waddle. Souper Bowl V, you won, but there’s always next year!

Under the Souper Bowl sign

MeiMei serves up carrot soup

MeiMei Street Kitchen staff serve up carrot soup

Bowls - for keeps

Hand-thrown bowls for keeps, seriously

Stopping by Egleston Square Winter Farmer’s Market

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Community, Green Life

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city-farm, community, food-n-cookin, winter

Many years ago, visiting friends in Manhattan, I got my first taste of a non-growing season farm market.

You know how the wind whips around New York City?

Walking on the High Line, NYC

Well, that was going on. December. I remember I was out by myself at the time, just drifting, and I chanced upon a market where some streets came together to create a place were people could be together. In this small stand of stalls, there were apples, greens, roots, and a fish vendor. I was impressed. I was jealous. Man, I wish we had this sort of thing back in Boston!

Home: the years marched the way they do and I observed the formation of a collection of winter markets via our area’s robust farm-to-table and food justice scenes. I heard rumors of this organization and that, trying to bring  indoor markets to the old, cold city.

Finally the markets revealed themselves like crocus. Enter Somerville. Enter Cambridge. Enter Dorchester. Enter Brookline.

Enter Jamaica Plain.

Egleston Market at a glance

Egleston Square, to be more precise. Despite spending many hours at a cafe just around the corner, I hadn’t been quite aware of this neighborhood-within-a-neighborhood.

Egleston Market sign

But now I know of a lively farmer’s market that sells, among other items, outrageously delicious salsa by NoLa’s Fresh Foods, a Main Streets program, and a neighborhood church served by a well-spoken and thoughtful pastor.

Urban Hydro Farmers

Music at the market

Children's activities at the market

Stillman's Meat at the market

So, New York, we’ve caught up. Now what you got?

A Taste of New Orleans in Boston

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, With Friends

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

food-n-cookin, winter

My partner and I are lucky to have friends who prioritize traveling. Even luckier to have friends who appreciate a good meal, food adventures, feasts of unusual (for us) tastes and smells and methods for moving food from plate-to-mouth.

Mint Juleps

Recently, these gracious friends threw a Mardi Gras party, albeit slightly tardy due to the blizzard that arrived in Boston before the crawfish could.

Purple and gold

But once the snow cleared, and the “fishes” arrived, we set down around our friends’ big, round table to gobble up.

Fish hit the pot

Crawfish feast

And many bites later, roll on home.

Masks

Pets for Jesse James

Whole Heart . . . Blizzard?

11 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, Home

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

arnold-arboretum, as-we-are-living-it, food-n-cookin, hikes, jamaica-plain, winter

A blizzard will most certainly reset a person’s weekend plans.

Instead of crawfish at a friend’s Mardi Gras party and a charity dinner hosted by Haley House called the Souper Bowl (yes, pun intended), we enjoyed sleeping in, snowshoeing at Arnold Arboretum, reading, shoveling with neighbors, and -because we were lucky enough to have power throughout- cooking/baking. Lots and lots of cooking/baking.

Outside-blizzard-2013

Jade vs snow

Gluten-free cranberry muffins

Poached egg breakfast

Cat chills

Snowshoeing - taking a rest

The hard part was standing up again!

Arbs sledders

Holding out under the snow

How did you take advantage of the opportunity to do a little less?

Each One Teach One

16 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Learnin'

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

book-love, color, food-n-cookin, nyc

Each one, teach one is a phrase from my childhood. Always, it was in association with the black community; a kind of close-knit striving to bring every person out from the abyss of isolation and fruitless struggle. In this phrase: hope, determination, looking back at a dark history, leaning forward toward success, the idea that each individual has value, despite society’s contrary claim.

I haven’t been that little girl for a long time, eavesdropping on grown-up conversations about the-way-things-are when I should have been sleeping or minding my own. Each one, teach one and it’s cousin, each one, let one (uttered by my mother on the highways of New Jersey when one car refused to let another merge), had virtually disappeared from my lexicon. Lucky for me, other people have better memories.

Snowy branches and leaves

Yes, Chef, the memoir of chef Marcus Samuelsson, born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, cooked his way through Europe and landed in America’s famous Harlem, surprised me by cracking open the black experience and laying bare his impressions. Samuelsson’s succinct summary of why so few high-end kitchens employ chefs of color (and women of any color), his brown-outsider’s experience of racism in Sweden, the US and aboard, his desire to contribute, his vulnerabilities, eccentricities, drive and artistry all impressed this reader. Though perhaps I was most moved by his respectful recounting of each one, teach one, pulling it from the past into the future.

No Crystal Stair was another surprise excursion through the heart of black American history. This fictionalized “documentary” by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson shows its effort in the best way; I could feel the hours spent researching -the phone calls, the sudden dead-ends, the victories- in Nelson’s account of her great-uncle, Lewis Micheaux, owner of the famous National Memorial African Bookstore, also of Harlem. Again each one, teach one painted a central theme in the life of Lewis Micheaux, who contributed via his passion for reading, for understanding, for bringing people along.

Snowy boughs in the Arboretum

My mind likes to create connections. Perhaps it’s just human. Unearthing the same theme in two books I chose at random -coincidence?

For the Pie (in the Sky)

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, With Friends

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

events, food-n-cookin, giving, volunteering

I used to do it for the pie.

Back nine or so years, as part of the annual public service efforts of my dotcom job, I started volunteering with Community Servings, an organization that prepares healthy meals for individuals and families struggling with life threatening illnesses. As a group, we first did a stint in the kitchen -to my memory washing pounds and pounds of broccoli. Then we discovered Pie in the Sky, an enormous bake sale that raises thousands of dollars each year. Some of us fell over heels for the pie hospital (can you guess where some of those “sick” pies end up?)

Pie Hospital at Pie in the Sky

Now days, I do it for the tradition. For the moment of walking into whatever enormous warehouse the pie quality-checking and packing operations are set up in. The refrigerator-chill and boxes of pies stacked higher than our heads.

Pecan pie boxes

I do it for time with friends and “ex” co-workers.

Mary and Lori

I do it for the music pumping through the speakers of that excellent lady DJ, spinning beats that keep our feet moving as we honor our imaginings of all of the people who will continue to receive much-needed meals as a direct result of just a few hours of our labor.

Yutien dances

Boston Food Swap – A Review

28 Monday May 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

events, food-n-cookin, giving

I’ve been to clothing swaps, to potlucks, and food festivals. I’ve Freecycled, sold or given items away on Craigslist. I provided and received services from a time bank. I’ve mended and paid professional tailors to repair my clothing. I participate in a gift circle. I’ve volunteered for nine consecutive years at the same charity event because the gig includes all-you-can-eat pie.

It makes perfect, practical sense, right, that a person like me who trusts and enjoys and flits around in “alternative economies,” would fall in line with a food swap? Which begs the question: why the heck did it take me so long!?

Some theories:

  • I’m lazy. (Okay, that’s not fair.)
  • I don’t like to cook. (Mostly true.)
  • I’m not that good a cook. (Also mostly true.)
  • I have too many things going on in my life at once. (Dingdingding!)
  • It’s not about me. (Hmm . . . )

Suffice it to say that, when I walked through the door at Space with A Soul and sighted my very first Boston Food Swap, I knew I’d met my match.  Three very efficient organizers, a room full of the cutest and most elegant handmade food packaging, serious-looking cooks sampling well-turned out baked goods, roasted nuts, kimchi, jellies and jams, fruit compote, chocolate covered strawberries, chai tea, flaky meat-filled things, rice pudding . . . whoa!  Intimidating.

After I saw the spread, I was a little concerned no one would want my bread (ignore that rhyme.)  But then four people did.  Phew.

Checking out the goodies

Basket o yum

Sighted: one of my little breads in this basket!

{This Moment} Fresh Baked

25 Friday May 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

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Tags

food-n-cookin, giving

{this moment} – A Friday ritual (joining Soulemama.) A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

fresh baked breadlings

Quiet Weekend

22 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Home, With Friends

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events, food-n-cookin, potlucks

Sometimes there is a sweet simplicity to being a family of two (or three if you consider the non-contributing, four-pawed, fur-child who lives with us): simple, quiet weekends. Though, occasionally what at first pass seems simple can grow a fringe of busyness, seemingly out of nowhere.

Last Friday I thought to myself, Oh goody! This Saturday I’ll spend the day cooking for the Boston Food Swap on Sunday, and also I’ll get a haircut. Then, on Sunday, I’ll hang with friends at a brunch potluck and go to the Food Swap.

Simple. Meandering. Quiet. Sort of.

Saturday:
10 AM Paul Gore Street Yard Sale
12 Noon Lunch at Blue Nile Cafe in Hyde Square
2 PM Book Sale at our local library branch (oops, missed it!)
3 PM – Midnight Bake bread, prep contribution for Sunday’s brunch

Sunday:
9 AM Bake gluten-free vanilla scones for brunch
11 AM Drop off 35mm film
12 Noon-2 PM Potluck brunch
2 PM Race out door to Food Swap (luckily find ride)
2:30-4 PM Attend Boston Food Swap with friend
5 PM Clean house
7 PM Go to the movies with D (a rarity!)

Yardsale

Waffles and eggs

Chocolate marshmellow yum

Local Maple Sequel

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Home, With Friends

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

city-farm, food-n-cookin

What we did with all that local maple syrup  . . .

Pancake batter

Pancakes in the pan

Tea for pancakes

Gluten free pancakes

Golden brown, gluten-free pancakes courtesy of our good friend Heather.  Pancake flipping skills and strawberry slicing courtesy of our friend Alice. Tea and fair trade coffee brewing courtesy of my partner David.  Local syrup courtesy of Natick Community Organic Farm.

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