I saw a funny book today at Barnes and Noble. I kid you not, it was called Found Grocery Lists.

And it was scanned grocery lists, in their crumpled glory, with scrawls of notes from disparate homes. Some had large punctuation, some the 4 year old was told to add CHIPS in barely legible print. Some included lawn fertilizer and cat food and pounds of crab meat. Specific wine names appeared, along with peanut butter and detergent. Lists were scratched and scribbled on every torn up surface, from back of receipts to a torn edge of the last grocery bag to extra white space on that cover fax sheet—rarely did a normal sheet of paper suffice. Torn, perforated but insisting on Crest toothpaste, these lists were amusing to say the least.

I always chuckle at my own, random, currently turquoise sheets of paper, magnetized to my fridge. It separates Costco from my Trader Joe’s list, and has another column for another, closer market. Even the drugstore or Target show up non-grocery items. My list now contains pecans, milk, kitchen garbage bags, tea lights and face wipes. Eh, not all things are table-worthy. I always tell The Husband that ‘grocery’ as a line-item budget number is a very loosely held term (hey, do half-price culinary books count?).

I thought I had lost this particular list yesterday, but found it today:

small vaseline
bandaids
honey
dijon
vegetable oil (canola)
mouth bands (for son’s braces)
bread
milk
kid juice
2 lemons
avocado
balsamic
olives
colander
large drinking glasses

This list basically says: we are on vacation and forgot a few things, a few ingredients are still required to attempt putting my deep-fryer to use (and to make the honey dijon sauce for the chicken), my turkey sandwich really does need an avocado, my pasta needs to be strained and these glasses are just too small. And the band aids? Well, long story, but my finger is going to be just fine.

Next week’s list includes snail bait; they are eating my herb garden. I will also buy reams of Roma tomatoes and vats of mozzarella balls and pounds of Italian sausage and red pepper jelly. The large quantities will be necessary for feeding the masses (family reunion); the red pepper jelly the start of my latest quick assembly appetizer (stay tuned).

What I love about grocery lists? They tell a story. Sometimes practical, sometimes funny, sometimes about ‘places to go, people to see, things to do.’ A grocery list often reflects the season, might be a well-organized list that boasts a week of planned meals, or simply covers those few items that ‘fills in the blanks.’

What story does your current list tell?

To sit by the pool? To read a good book? To get a tan? To enjoy good wine?

These are all very legitimate goals and vacation-worthy agendas; my objective is nowhere near these luxurious means to a relaxing end. My goal is to deep-fry food. My single goal for a week-long vacation on a nearby island is to tote along my “for residential use only” deep-fryer—and finally learn to use it.

I brought it on a similar island vacation last year (I have owned it for two years and it keeps getting packed into boxes and unreachable shelves and pantry crevices)—and it stayed in the car while I got a tan and drank wine and read books (see? my priorities are not so askew).

But this year I am determined to make goodies in my counter-top deep fryer. I am one step closer than I was last year: I have a specific recipe I am gunning to try…

… well days later I am on vacation only to find out I forgot my recipe at home. But ever determined, I leaned on the expertise provided in the little deep fryer pamphlet and made 1. calamari, 2. french fries, 3. chicken tenders and 4. beer-battered onion rings.

All I can say is: mission accomplished. We plugged in the little box, full of vegetable oil (slight cringe, since this detracts from the healthy side of eating, but I ignored this knee-jerk response and pressed on), on the porch (who wants to stink up the whole house?). And we lifted and tucked the basket into its pool of oil, cut and dipped the goodies, and made condiment sauces and aioli to accompany our fried up agenda.

Now that the oil has cooled and the chicken and fries have been consumed, I really should resume traditional vacation-like behavior and pour myself a big glass of vino. And with that, a salute/cheers/toast to all of you who have figured out the table top, deep fried, food battered, oil smoking techniques of humble home-sized deep-fryers. Well-done!

p.s. I love giving you recipes, but only if I love them. While these recipes were ample, they were not amazing. If you are determined to deep-fry for your first time, my pamphlet probably looks a lot like yours: give those recipes a go. I simply figure, in the very least, pamphlet quality recipes are a good “101″ place to start, and ultimately contribute to my/your [eventual and expert] deep fried food recipe assessments.

How ironic, how absolutely hilarious yet awkward: my little peeve of knife sharpening. Here I am, front and center, a new culinary student and one of my personal fingernails-on-the-chalkboard [sends chills down my spine] is the noise of knives sharpening. Ask my parents, they will tell you. As a little girl if ever the knives were scraped against steel, I would clamp my ears shut as quick as a mouse grabs cheese (and likely scamper out of the room).

So you can imagine my secret concern, my fear of the time when knife skills rocked my world and every peer near my shoulder would be obsessed with sharpening, honing and otherwise scraping their knives at every opportunity. In the least, it showed they were serious about their agenda in the kitchen. Like giving a permit-driver a race-car; a new culinary student, just learning to wield his or her sword, is a sharpening fiend.

I have been in school for 8 weeks and still have not sharpened my knives. Eh, don’t cringe, I haven’t been using them yet. I am still in the lecture class and baking, remember? But I HAVE noticed how insanely dull my knives at home are (small glitch—! still haven’t figured out how to clamp my ears closed while sharpening my knives), and it is beginning to annoy me.

Ha, so when the dullness annoys me more than my loathing of scraping sounds, then I will sharpen my knives. And that is my plan. And guess what finally pushed its way to the top of my list of things to do? Sharpen my knives. I think it was reading Anthony Bourdain go on and on about knives in his book, Kitchen Confidential (refer to page 76 if you are so inclined). My favorite is when he rants on about garlic… but that is another story for another time.

Here is what you need to know: the ‘knife sharpener’ that comes with your knife set (the long steel rod with a handle) is actually a knife honer. Eh? It keeps your knife at the ready and straight in between sharpenings. It doesn’t actually sharpen your knives—it simply maintains your sharpening efforts. Which means, if that is all you have ever used, your knives aren’t sharp (though to be sure, they are well honed). So when I recently bought my knife sharpening stone, the manual provided instructions ‘… or for previously improperly sharpened edges’—how kind. I had no idea political correctness went so far as to not offend those of us with ‘knife sharpening avoidance syndrome.’

You actually need a stone to sharpen your knives: a whet stone (pronounced ‘wet’) or sharpening stone of some kind. Usually they come in coarse, medium and fine stones. Coarse are for those sad, pathetic knives that are beyond dull, with nicks or damage. Usually you just use the medium and fine-tune with the fine stone. Then, you hone it a lot in between. You don’t sharpen it each time you use it (you would wear down your knife, especially if you are an over-zealous knife sharpener… probably another syndrome of another kind…). Instead, you sharpen it periodically then hone it in the meantime to keep it sharp and straight longer. Got it? I do:

Because today, my friends, was no small feat: I sharpened 7 knives, without even cringing… no doubt, the chef hat helped.

One of my goals for this summer is to fit in a pile of culinary reading. I just finished the book, The Sharper your Knife, the Less you Cry. Fun rendition of a gal taking a hard right from her life and pursuing her culinary dreams. Huh, and she is a writer besides. Sounds oddly familiar…

Just started a regularly recommended culinary read: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. I have told you once and will tell you again: my humble little family has one show we watch together religiously and that is Top Chef. And whenever Anthony Bourdain is on as a guest judge we are completely tickled and await his prowess. Be warned: he is blunt, bare, ballsy. He throws caution to the wind; restraint is not his friend.

I learned to hold back, train my thoughts, not say certain things. Not so with Bourdain. He is out there, says it all, shares all in his closet and more. He is lucky charm is on his side; his sincerity is as real as his glaring honesty and you cannot help but listen and be amused, coming back for seconds. He is the friend you have that both shocks and entertains you, but all the while maintains whit and insertions of culinary intelligence that you cannot resist hearing.

A perfect pal for vicarious indulgences.

But I did say shock, don’t get me wrong. He represents all I was taught not to say, lest I be rude or hurtful. He is all I was taught not to do, to the demise of my health. Yet intrigue remains, as with many of my friends who push the envelope so I can peek.

He hosts a series called No Reservations on the Food Network, and has a blog. He puts great effort into describing the underbelly, what is gross and inappropriate, giving you candor and sparing you candy-coated truths. In one breath, he is both vulgar and refreshing. Note: you have been warned.

So my lab class this quarter is Introduction to Baking; the hardcore cooking classes kick in come fall. Which means summer, whilst not learning about safety and sanitation in the kitchen, I will be practicing my culinary skills—especially knife cuts and sauces—and generally trying to beat/whisk/slice/pound some cooking info into my brain before fall practical kicks in.

In baking, we have been learning about breads and last week we attempted to make made tart and pie crusts. Out of the multiple pie crusts made, it was Julia Child’s that was best loved and most flaky.

Voted the best crust of the week (by the way, for this recipe you need a scale. I would convert it but in a bow to my culinary pursuits, lets not. The scale is god at culinary school… well at least in baking. Invite the kids: they love to weigh little smatterings of butter carefully on the scale).

Julie Child’s Pie Dough (Pate Brisee to all of us snobs)
Pastry Flour 15 ounces (Okay, this is b/c it has less gluten which translates to less structure; all purpose flour has more gluten and therefore more structure. Now you know one of the reasons why the pie crust is more tender—and quite different—than bread).
Kosher Salt 2 tsp.
Butter 3 ounces
Shortening 6 ounces (why butter? why shortening? Someone probably has an entire thesis on this… and you and I are just trying to make pie dough. Suffice it to say the butter adds more flavor and the shortening is sans flavor but less persnickety. Butter makes you earn that heavenly flavor by demanding ice cold everything and under mixing and chilling and and… back to the dough):
Water, COLD 1/2 cup (or 4 fluid ounces)

Measure butter, put back in fridge.

Make ice water (you will remove ice later and re-measure). Measure salt and flour—place in mixing bowl; cut in the fat. This means: use the pastry blender to roughly combine the chilled butter (and shortening) with the flour. If you use your hands instead of a pastry blender, ice then dry your hands or wear rubber gloves. I kid you not: warm hands are devastating to the perfect flaky crust. Deal with it. (Sorry for the attitude: it comes from my current read, Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential).

Now you don’t want the butter waking up since it left its cold hibernation, so get moving. Take out the ice cubes, measure half cup water and trickle it in. And by trickle, I mean well-flowing waterfall. It should take you 5 seconds to get the water in. Mix: barely. It should look unmixed. I mean, the trick is: it shouldn’t look right. This dough should be ‘thinking’ about coming together—it should look wrong. Did I mention? Don’t over mix.

And for Pete’s sake, get that dough back in the fridge. We don’t want the butter getting soft.

Aggressively grab your saran wrap, plop on dough and—using the wrap as your aid—form the dough into a disk and get it back in the fridge. Let it chill for an hour (or overnight)—don’t skip this. Take it out, roll it (floured surface), line your tin and proceed with whatever you plan to grace your guests with. But a hint? Make it quick… you really, really don’ t want that butter touched by warmth, even slightly aware that room temperature is beckoning (summer vacation after a long winter?). Think of it as a quick baton pass: from the fridge—BATON PASS (roll, fill, shape, lattice, glaze, whatever: but quick)—to the oven.

Note: the dough freezes brilliantly, but roll it out first, put it in a pie tin THEN freeze it.

Note: okay, notice the ‘rustic’ pie in the photo? That is my excuse for making a crust without a pretty edge—something I am still working on. Thank goodness ‘rustic’ is considered a deliberate category for baked goods. Lots of rustic going on here: rustic rolls, rustic bread, rustic scones and now this rustic pie. Rustic is a good theme for now… chuckle.