I’d been saying for several years that I knew one day I’d get into canning, but it wasn’t until last summer than I finally took the plunge. I bought a bunch of new canning jars (although I already owned a great deal of vintage jars that I store food and goods in, and ferment things in, and dispense soap from, and drink out of…you get the picture: I had a lot of jars and I bought a lot more jars) and Marisa McClellan’s wonderful Food in Jars. I’d been reading Marisa’s blog for a long time, so I had a good idea of what I was getting into, and I knew I’d trust her recipes to be both tasty and safe. Marisa’s book is a fantastic resource for the new canner, and especially those who might be daunted by visions of 15-hour canning sessions, pounds of fruits or veggies to peel and cook, and tons of finished jars of store…and eat. Food in Jars is great because most recipes yield about 4 pints, which is perfect for trying out recipes with little investment, squeezing short canning sessions around busy schedules, and not overwhelming small households with hundreds of jars of the same thing. Plus, Marisa is personable and very responsive to commenters on her blog.

The first recipe I made from her book, and the first thing I ever canned, was Dilly Beans…which I think is probably the first thing a lot of people try. And for good reason: they are easy and delicious! Since Marisa generously shared her recipe on Serious Eats (it’s actually slightly different than the one in the book in that it makes 5 pints instead of 4, and which worked out perfectly brine-wise for me), I’m going to go ahead and repeat it here with my photos just to inspire any of you out there who are like me and want to try canning but are worried about the initial investment or the time it might take up, or think it might be difficult to do. However, if like me you end up enjoying canning, I strongly urge you to buy Food in Jars or Marisa’s new book Preserving by the Pint, because the recipes are good and easy to understand and there is a ton of info for new canners.

Spicy Dilly Beans
Recipe by Marisa McClellan, shared on Serious Eats

3 pounds green beans (I had 2.8 lbs, all but about 6 green beans I was able to force into 5 pint jars)
2 1/2 cups white vinegar
2 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup pickling salt
5 cloves garlic
5 tsp dill seed (not dill weed)
5 tsp red chili flakes or cayenne powder, or 5 small chili peppers, slit (last year I used fresh chilis that Mark grew), or you can omit this if you don’t want spicy dilly beans

About the vinegar: although I use it by the gallon around the house, I usually don’t cook with white vinegar, preferring a myriad of flavored and homemade vinegars, however, in an unprecedented move I followed most of the canning recipes I used last summer faithfully instead of getting creative, and not only did these turn out delicious, but everyone I’ve served or given them to has raved, so I’m sticking with the white vinegar for now. In an older version on her blog, Marisa uses apple cider vinegar.

The first thing you need to do when getting started canning is purchase or scrounge up the following:

• canning jars and rings – You will need 5 pint jars for this recipe and they will come with rings, which hold the lids on in the boiling water bath until they’ve sealed to the jar.
• lids – Although you can and should reuse the jars and rings for many years, lids can only be sealed once. New jars will come with a new lid for each jar, but if you are reusing jars, you will need to purchase enough new lids for the batch you plan to make.
• a pot large enough to fit the 5 jars (in a single layer) as well as water to cover by a couple of inches, plus another couple of inches head room for boiling
• an insert for the pot that the jars can sit on instead of sitting directly on the bottom of the pot
• small saucepan for warming lids
• jar lifter or some other device, such as tongs, for moving jars into and out of the boiling water bath – Jar lifters are cheap and are a LOT easier than tongs, so I do recommend you pick one of these up if you can
• magnetic lid wand – optional but handy device for lifting lids out of simmering water; you could also use tongs
• dish towel – for setting hot jars on
• clean towel – for wiping jar rims after filling

As much as I love kitchen gadgets and pots, I have no desire to buy a dedicated canning pot (unless I later decide to get into pressure canning, which doesn’t really interest me at the time). I already had this 12-quart Calphalon stock pot and pasta insert that is perfect for up to 5 pint or 4 quart jars. Unfortunately I can’t really find it for sale anywhere; I bought it as part of a larger set years ago. But if you already have a large stock pot, you can easily rig something up without a pasta insert, just by putting a heat-safe trivet on the bottom for the jars to sit on.

The first step in canning is to sanitize your jars. You can run them through a dishwasher cycle if you like, or bake them in the oven at 200 degrees for 15-20 minutes, but since you are going to be boiling water anyway for the water bath, the easiest thing to do is just boil them. So put your insert into your large pot and the jars on the insert, then add water to cover by a couple of inches (I also like to add a glug of white vinegar, which keeps the jars sparkling) …

… then bring to a rapid boil for 10 minutes. Now what you should NOT DO is at this juncture realize you need more vital wheat gluten for the seitan you are simultaneously making and just drive off to Wegmans to buy more, leaving the water boiling on your stove because you are an idiot. DO NOT DO THAT. (The good news is Mark was home the whole time I was gone, although until/unless he reads this, he had no idea!)

Put the lids in a small saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a very low simmer. All you want to do is warm the seals on them so they adhere to the jars later.

Use your jar lifter or tongs to remove the jars from the water (very carefully pouring the water out of them without spilling it on yourself) and place them on a folded dish towel. You can keep the water simmering while you continue prepping.

Prepare the brine by combining the vinegar, water, and salt in a medium pot and bringing it to a boil. Let it simmer until you are ready to use it. I saw this fourth burner pot on Marisa’s blog and yes, I DID have to buy it, but I don’t use it just for canning. You can absolutely use any pot you have that the brine will fit in; I just like this one because it has a spout that makes it easy to pour into the jars later, and also when canning, the stove tends to gets crowded and this pot takes up little stove real estate.

Next, prepare the green beans (or you could do this ahead of time if you are more efficient than I am). I don’t do that whole bean snapping thing. I just do not have the time for that nonsense. I line a bundle of beans up, chop off the ends with a sharp knife, turn the bundle around, line them up again, and chop the other end off. The important thing here is that you make sure the beans will fit in the jars, so what I do is trim one to the perfect size for my jars then lie it on my chopping block as a template. I’m not super fastidious about this, but if you don’t make them short enough to fit, it’s annoying later to go back and trim them down.

It’s easiest to fill the jars if you keep the trimmed green beans orderly:

By the time you’ve trimmed the green beans, the jars should have cooled enough to handle, so stuff each one with as many beans as you can fit, without smashing the beans up. I find it easiest to put a bundle in, hold the jar on its side …

… then shove another bundle on top, then sit the jar upright and fill in any gaps with more beans.

Put one clove of garlic, 1 tsp of dill seeds, and 1 tsp of chili flakes or cayenne pepper or one whole chili pepper into each jar.

Turn the burner under the brine off and pour the brine into each jar, leaving 1/2″ headspace. Carefully (they’ll be hot!) tap each jar on the counter and/or poke a chopstick around the edges to remove trapped air bubbles. If necessary, add additional brine to bring the headspace back to 1/2″. (By the way, you want to add HOT brine to the jars so they don’t go into shock when you later put them in the hot water bath…so don’t pre-make that brine and add it cold to the jars.)

Use a clean towel to wipe the rims of the jars (spilled brine could keep the lids from sealing properly). Next, turn the burner under the lids off and carefully remove the lids from the pot, placing one (seal-side down) atop each jar. Screw a ring onto each jar just until hand-tight.

Jars ready for canning:

If necessary, bring the large pot of water back up to a rolling boil, then use the jar lifter to carefully place each jar onto the insert on the bottom. You will probably have to remove some of the boiling water from the pot now that the jars are full; I use a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup to do this or you could use your small saucepan. Once all jars are in the pot, you want the water to cover them by about 2″ (so they are entirely submerged even when the water is bubbling). This picture is hazy because my camera was looking straight down into the steaming water.

Once the water is at a rolling boil after the jars are in, set the timer for 10 minutes. Let the jars boil (this is what is meant by “process in a hot water bath” that you may have read in recipes) for 10 minutes, then use the jar lifter to carefully remove the jars and set them back on the dish towel (the dish towel helps prevent shock from a cool counter or table top). [Note: Always process canning recipes for exactly the amount of time specified. If you don’t process for long enough, the internal temperature of the jar may not go high enough to create a seal and safely preserve your food, and if you process for too long, you may end up with overcooked food. Use only canning recipes from sources you trust. When in doubt refer to the USDA Canning Guidelines or the Ball website. Do not use older publications as the USDA guidelines have changed over the years and older canning books may be outdated.]

As the lids seal, you may hear a little “ping” from each one. This is a joyous noise because you know the lid has sealed when you hear it, however, not all seals will ping, so don’t worry if you don’t hear it. I usually hear a ping, but none of these five pinged for me and they all sealed. Let the jars sit overnight (or 8 hours) to completely cool, then you can remove the rings and test the seals. There are two tests you can do: 1) push the middle of the lid slightly. If it gives or pops, the lid is not sealed. 2) gently try to pry the lid off with your thumb. If it comes off, it’s not sealed. If you buy quality lids, they should almost always seal, but everyone will occasionally have one that does not. If you have one that didn’t seal, no problem: just put the jar in the refrigerator and use it up first.

Pro tip: always write the name of the contents and the date packed on the lids. These dilly beans will be good for at least a year. Also, store the jars without the rings. Apparently there is some debate amongst canners about storing with or without rings, but I’m firmly on the “without” side because a) rings could get stuck on over time and b) if the seal breaks during storage (a rare but possible occurrence), it’s harder to notice it if the ring is on. (Note: if after storage, you go to open a jar and find that the lid comes right off without being pried, throw the contents of the jar away. They might be okay, but it’s better safe than sorry in this case.)

The Serious Eats recipe says wait at least a week to eat these pickles; the book says two weeks. I’ve always waited two weeks, which may seem interminable, but believe me, it’s worth it!

Some people don’t know how to open a sealed jar. I use the bottle opener hook of my can opener (it looks like this one), but you can also use a church key or dull butter knife or spoon.

These dilly beans are really popular and I bring a jar or two to every party I attend in the summer and throughout the year. There is an ever-growing number of people who love to receive a jar of these or other of my canned items as a gift as well. When I give canned foods as gifts, I tend to stick a ring back on it, so if the recipient doesn’t use the contents in one sitting, they have an easy way to secure the lid and refrigerate the jar. Personally, I save up the standard-sized metal and plastic screw-on lids that come on commercial products like peanut butter, Vegenaise, cocounut oil, etc. and use them for storing jars in the fridge as they are less hassle than a lid + ring, and I toss used lids in the recycle bin as I open jars. If you give jars away, tell your friends to recycle the lid, but to save the jar and ring. I always tell recipients that they are welcome to keep the jar (and ring) if they want it, but if they have no use for it, to return it to me so I can fill it up for them again. 🙂

Dilly beans make any barbecue fare – nay, any meal – many times better, are awesome in bloody marys, and are just great snacks! These are from the open jar I currently have in the fridge, canned last year. The pepper is one of Mark’s, and yes, I will eat that (and the garlic!) too. Pickled peppers, yum! (Pickled ANYTHING, yum!)

If I can be like Bryant Terry and provide a soundtrack for this recipe, or any canning recipe, it would be any (non-annoying) song by Led Zeppelin. Mark and I both consider Zeppelin to be quintessential summer music and I listened to my all-Zep playlist over and over last summer while canning. In fact, whenever a Zeppelin song comes on now, I’m instantly transported to sitting on a barstool in my kitchen peeling, coring, and canning 100 lbs of tomatoes last summer. Which was a really zen thing for me for some reason. (Does anyone want a tutorial on canning tomatoes once tomato season hits? Because as awesome and delicious as dilly beans are, tomatoes are by far the most useful thing I canned: I haven’t bought a single can of tomatoes in a year, and I used to go through a LOT of cans of tomatoes!)

[PS If you feel like Led Zeppelin is overplayed, enjoy one of my other favorite summer songs. YOU’RE WELCOME.]

I’m extra excited about canning season this year because all I’ll have to buy is new lids, so it’ll be much cheaper this year than it was last year when I had to make the initial investment in the jars (which aren’t really expensive, but I bought a lot). And canning just does it for me. I’m as guilty as most other Americans of generating more waste than I have any right to burden this planet with, but I HATE it. I get really, really sick thinking of all that trash sitting in landfills, most of it not biodegrading, and all the plastic floating in our wonderful oceans. It’s true I keep on consuming, but I really try to think about packaging, and purchase as little of it as possible. To me, canning is just so great because I support my local farmers by purchasing everything I can from the farmers market (I’d grow it myself if I didn’t have a black thumb!), and I carry it all home in my market basket and reusable shopping bags, and I can it in reusable jars, and not only do I have a bounty of delicious, local ingredients to enjoy year-round, but I’ve wasted NO PACKAGING. It just makes me deeply happy. And I have LOVED opening my jars all year and enjoying the contents. I’m still amazed every time I open a jar of my home-canned tomatoes and they smell just as fresh as the day I canned them. It’s a scent and sensation I’ve never gotten from commercial canned tomatoes, even the really expensive ones I’d buy because I’m a pizza snob. So if you’ve been on the fence about trying canning, hopefully I’ve given you the push you needed to try it out this year – it’s very rewarding. And it doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

You didn’t think I’d leave without a picture totally unrelated to food, did you? Here is a groundhog climbing a tree:

I bought a pint of peppers at the farmers market that looked perfect for pickling (and no, I can’t stop thinking about Peter picking a peck of pickled peppers), so I made a simple quick pickle brine that included some of my potted oregano, figuring they’d be awesome on pizza. Plus, I’m a plant killer and the oregano is pretty much dead so I figured I might as well use what I can. (It’s a shame; it was a particularly potent variety and the plant smelled strongly of pizza – I was drooling when I bought it. Curse my black thumb.) Though I made it specifically for putting on pizza, I’ve been eating it by itself as a garnish with every meal I’ve had, even stir frys. Unless Mark is ready to harvest a bunch of the peppers he’s growing (he does NOT have a black thumb), I’ll have to buy another pint or two of peppers at the market this weekend. The brine gets spicy and delicious as well.

Italian Pickled Peppers

1 pint hot peppers, like peperoncini or wax
1 large shallot
2 or 3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup white wine or apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
several sprigs fresh oregano
a few sprigs of fresh dill (optional)

Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt and heat until just boiling (in a small pot or in the microwave), whisking to ensure the sugar is completely dissolved. Slice the peppers (seeded if you like) and shallot thinly. Smash the garlic cloves lightly with the side of a knife. Toss the peppers and shallots together to mix them up and put them into a pint canning jar with the herbs and garlic cloves. Pour the liquid mixture into the jar.

This had a good flavor a mere half hour later, but is really best after refrigerating for 24 hours.

A tasty garnish for just about any dish!

I had extra brine, so I added some olive oil, fresh herbs, and lemon juice and made a salad dressing out of it.

Here is a flatbread pizza sporting some of the peppers (and some basil that I haven’t yet managed to kill, mostly because Mark won’t let me near it):

Mark is a big mayo-hater, and although I don’t hate mayonnaise, I do consider it pretty unhealthy, so I usually do vinaigrette versions of salads that are usually dressed in mayo, and honestly, I think they taste much better that way. I don’t usually prefer dressings to be creamy, but this coleslaw recipe uses a little bit of yogurt for a hint of creaminess.

Creamy Mayo-Free Coleslaw

1 small head cabbage (green or savoy)
1/2 small onion
2 green onions, sliced thinly
3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp plain vegan yogurt
2 Tbsp canola or other flavorless oil
1 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp celery seeds

Grate the cabbage and the onion – I use a mandolin for this – and put in a large bowl with the green onions. Whisk together the vinegar, yogurt, oil, sugar, mustard, salt, and celery seeds. Pour the mixture over the cabbage and onions and mix thoroughly; I advise using your hands. Cover and refrigerate at least an hour to allow the flavors to blend.

Last night’s dinner, featuring the coleslaw (and you can see the pickled peppers, as well as some quick pickled carrots):

Mark spends about 10 minutes artfully arranging the food on his plate every night. He watches too much Gordon Ramsay.

Time for book and animal talk. Once again, I experienced a random segue from a fiction to a non-fiction book. Last weekend I read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. It’s about a girl who was raised with a chimpanzee as a sister until both she and the chimp were 5, and how this has impacted her life and that of her family. Confronted by some crows that the narrator is convinced are calling them bad names, one of the characters (who is vegan when he’s not “on the road” working for the Animal Liberation Front) responds, “Crows are very smart. If they say we’re idiots, we’re idiots.”

Well, I had already cued up Gifts of the Crow as my very next read, so I was about to find out just how smart crows are, if not whether or not they think we are idiots. Gifts of the Crow was fascinating; I read the entire thing while at Mark’s chess tournament. It’s very heavy on brain chemistry, so if you’re not interested in that sort of thing, it might not be for you, but I learned that crows:

• Can talk.
• If perched on a ledge from which dangles food on a long string, know to pull up on the string, making loops and stepping on them with their feet, until the food is hoisted all the way up.
• Not only manufacture tools (the classic example is bending wire to make a hook), but will use items they previously proved unhelpful in other endeavors to assist making their tools – they are very innovative and can reassess the usefulness of tools in different situations.
• Will place leaves over bread tossed from humans to geese, so the geese can’t find the bread and leave in frustrated confusion, at which times the crows feast.
• Will chase squirrels into traffic during rush hour, then wait until traffic dies down to eat the dead squirrels.
• Will pull the tails of dogs (tail pulling seems to be a favorite crow activity, by the way) to trick them out of their dog food, either by dropping food they have in their mouth, or by ganging up so that one crow distracts the dog while the other steals its food.
• Are big “cachers” – they hide food and trinkets they don’t need right away – and if they notice a fellow crow watching them hiding their cache, they will fake the other crow out by stuffing the item into its chest feathers or in its beak and pretend to cache it in one location, but secretly hide it elsewhere later. Although they are also so smart that they know that other crows are trying to fake them out, so this is a vicious cycle. Moreover, if a crow sees another crow getting near its cache, they will make a distraction and retrieve the cache before the other bird can get to it…but only if the first crow previously saw the second crow see the first crow hiding it. Calling someone a “bird brain” is supposed to be an insult, but crows come close to OVER thinking things!
• Can count, and understand that even if they can’t see something, it’s still there. Eight researchers in a blind tried to trick crows into thinking a field was safe to land in and not a single crow would leave their high perches until all eight people had left the blind and the field – even when the researchers left the blind in groups of random numbers to try to fake them out.
• Learn from the mistakes of other crows. If a crow sees one of their brethren die or become injured, through misadventure or through human intervention, none of the other crows in the area will make the same mistake. Ever.
• Remember human faces – for years. And they’ll tell all their friends if you are a good or a bad person. If you do something bad to a crow or a crow sees you do something bad to some other crow, that crow will harass you – forever – and so will others he knows. Crows who never even saw the original infraction will harangue you (proving crows have some sort of language they use to communicate with each other) even when the crow you originally slighted isn’t around.
• Know what car you drive. Maybe you should just read the book for an explanation of that one, but yeah. They don’t just know your face, they know your car. And they’ll use your car as a vehicle to show their displeasure with you.
• Remember and reward kindnesses in humans as well as meanness. Crows have been known to bring gifts – often some shiny, human trinket they’ve stolen – to people who have fed them or saved their life.

Basically, crows (and all birds in the corvid family, which also includes ravens, rooks, jays, magpies, and others) are ridiculously smart, rivaling apes and, in my opinion, some humans. In fact, I kind of think the only reason they haven’t taken over the planet is because they’re lazy and are just waiting for us to come up with all the technology we can. Crows don’t want to be bothered by discovering cold fusion for themselves. Once we’ve created everything crows think they need to rule the earth, I think that’s the end of us. To that end, I designed this t-shirt so when our new crow overlords arrive they know that I’m a sympathizer.

There were crows cawing nearby when I took that picture, by the way, although none stopped by. I’m sure they can read English, however, so they’re probably already putting word out that I can be counted on during the great crow uprising.

They are remarkable creatures and I hope to be involved in crow rehab in the future. First, though, the raptors…coming soon.

I don’t really like doing this, but my first recipe tonight is going to call for another recipe from a cookbook, which I’m not going to publish. However, I know a lot of you have Artisan Vegan Cheese (which I am loving), and if you don’t, you can just substitute some other cashew-based, creamy “cheese”. This dish was inspired by a couple of butternut squashes I got before the farmers market closed for the season…and the soft “gruyere” from Artisan Vegan Cheese I had to find a use for.

Butternut Squash Mac & Gruyere

10 oz pasta shaped appropriately for macaroni & cheese
1 small butternut squash
2 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup vegan broth
1/2 cup soft gruyere from Artisan Vegan Cheese, or some other creamy cashew-based “cheese”

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook the pasta to al dente, drain, and set aside.

Peel and chop the squash into bite-sized pieces. To peel the squash, chop off a little off both ends, stand it up bulbous side down, and carefully slice in half lengthwise. Remove and reserve the seeds. Use a sharp vegetable peeler to peel the squash. Slice it, then cut into cubes. Toss the pieces with a little olive oil and roast until soft, about half an hour. Remove from oven and set aside. TIP: put the seeds on a small pan, lightly salt them, and roast them as well for about 5-10 minutes, until lightly browned and crunchy. Let cool and eat them up, or reserve for garnishing the mac & gruyere.

Heat the oil in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat, then whisk in the flour, nutritional yeast, onion and garlic powders, salt, and nutmeg. Cook for a minute or two, then whisk in the broth. Continue whisking as it thickens, then stir in the “gruyere” or other cashew cheese. Stir until well-mixed and thick.

Combine the squash and pasta in a baking dish, then stir in the cheese mixture. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 5-10 minutes.

If desired, sprinkle with the roasted squash seeds. Alternatively, you could top the casserole with bread crumbs before baking. This was creamy and yummy and pairs well with greens and anything that’s smothered in barbecue sauce.

Now, a bonus recipe since I kind of cheated you in that one, although I’ve just stolen this one from David Lebovitz, who got it from Epicurious.

Quick Pickled Carrots

1 lb baby carrots (or regular carrots, peeled and cut into sticks)
1 cup cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
2 garlic cloves, lightly smashed
1 1/2 Tbsp coarse salt
1 1/2 tsp dill seeds
2 bay leaves

Bring a pot of water to boiling and blanch the carrots by cooking them for one minute, then draining and running cold water over them. Place all of the remaining ingredients into a sauce pot and bring them to a boil, then simmer for a couple of minutes. Place the carrots in a quart canning jar and pour the liquid over them. Let them cool to room temperature, then put a lid on them and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before eating. (If you don’t have a canning jar, cool the carrots in the liquid in the pot before transferring to another container.)

It’s hard to make these look very exciting, but they are fun and tasty. I’ll be having them on the side of most of my dinners for a while.

The weather in Northern Virginia was gorgeous this weekend, so today found me at one of my regular haunts, Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I think this is a mockingbird, but I’m a little unsure because his wings seem a little too rounded. Please correct me if I’m wrong!

Eastern bluebird:

Cedar waxwing:

Circumhorizon arc in the clouds:

Time to go home!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I love pickles of all sorts. My favorite food right now is British-style pickled onions, which were inspired by the pints of mixed pearl onions my favorite farmers market farmer offers:

The pickles feature one of my favorite vinegars (well, I pretty much love all vinegars): malt vinegar.

I pretty much followed this recipe, although I was not very precise when measuring. These are excellent; the only problem is waiting a month to eat them!

British Pickled Onions

3 pints pearl onions
1/4 cup salt
2 cups malt vinegar
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp black peppercorns
1/2 tsp whole allspice (for my first batch, I only had ground allspice, which worked fine)
large pinch red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf

Peel the onions. To do this, I first trim both the top and bottom, though you could just trim the root off. Place the onions in a pot of water, bring it to a boil, and let boil for 2 minutes, then drain them. They will slip right out of their peels.

Dissolve the salt into enough water to cover the peeled onions, in a bowl large enough to hold them. Add the onions and cover with a plate that fits into the bowl in order to keep them submerged. Let sit for 2 days.

Meanwhile, bring the rest of the ingredients to a boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

Drain the onions and place them in a sterilized jar. Mine fit in a quart canning jar. Pour the cooled vinegar mixture over them. Refrigerate for one month.

Sooooo good!

The small jar above contains the onions I’m eating now. The jar below has another two weeks to cure.

Also in my refrigerator are some balsamic pickled onions, but I’m only 5 weeks into the 8 week waiting time for these. Look how dark they are!

Mmmm!

And now for some outtakes from the above photo session:

They’re so nosy! I was thinking that I still don’t have any interesting pictures to show you, but it’s chilly here today and so when I settled into my chair to process the onion pictures and compose this post, I grabbed a blanket. Within 10 seconds of spreading the blanket on my lap, this happened:

I had to use my cell phone for the pictures and they are inexplicably terrible, but yes, I am attempting to write this post on my laptop while two cats are hogging my lap. Of course I love it.

Who else is snowed in? We got a mess yesterday, beginning with rain and sleet all afternoon, a slushy mess that washed away all the salt that had been put down to pre-treat the roads, which then turned to a heavy snow, pretty much at the minute they predicted it would – 4 p.m., just in time for the afternoon rush hour – dumping about 5 inches. We’ve still been fortunate so far this year compared to the rest of the East Coast (even to the south!), so I shouldn’t complain, though I probably will because I hate this stuff! I have even less right to complain because from what I’m hearing, I think much of our county is without power right now, and though our lights flickered several times last night, they stayed on.

PLUS, working from home enabled me to bake bread, a treat I don’t usually get mid-week! My lunch today was the Barbecued Tempeh Sandwich Filling from Peter Berley’s The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen on fresh-from-the-oven multi-grain bread, smeared with Berley’s Spicy Sun-Dried Tomato Spread, topped with pickled carrots and a squirt of sriracha. Served with broccoli slaw.

When I sat down to begin this post, I was going to apologize for not having a recipe for you in this post. I have one coming later today, but because it might be photo-heavy, I thought I’d get some other pictures out of the way first. But then I realized I could tell you how I made the carrots and call that a recipe, so I’d feel better about making you look at a bunch of pictures. Berley suggested shredded carrots as a topping for the sandwich, but I’d read Jes‘s Spicy Noodles with Tofu recipe earlier in the day and had been intrigued by the quick pickled carrots it included. I’m looking forward to making that entire dish very soon, but for my sandwich, I decided to make slightly more involved pickled carrots, though they were nearly as quick. So here you go:

Quick Pickled Carrots

2 large carrots, shaved, shredded, julienned, spiralized, or very thinly sliced
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed

Whisk together all ingredients except the carrots, then mix in the carrots, cover, and refrigerate for at least half an hour. I put mine in a pickle press just because I have one, but that’s completely unnecessary. I shaved my carrots into long, thin peels using a vegetable peeler, but since I was using them as a sandwich topping, I wish I had used the spiralizer, which would have made them easier to eat on the sandwich. The shavings are good for using as a little side pickle, though. These were even better the next day.

So. Snow. We’re trapped:

Okay, the Canadians are probably politely trying to refrain from laughing. After seeing Zoa‘s pictures of the snow at her house, it does feel a little pathetic to post that one and whine about it. But there’s a thick layer of ice under that snow that’s making it impossible for this Miata driver to even attempt to leave, especially considering I slid into a ditch after hitting an unexpected patch of ice a couple of weeks ago. (Mark, who was drugged up from his root canals, the Miata, and I were all fine; it was mostly just surprising.) I’m fortunate to have the ability to work from home when necessary, so there’s no point in joining the traffic fracas, with downed power lines and trees, unplowed streets, and numerous non-working traffic lights.

I’m not such a curmudgeon I won’t even go outside, though, and the light was nice when I finished breakfast, so I grabbed my camera and looked for photo ops. My favorite was this tiny icicle dangling from a thin tree branch.

It’s shaped like a music note, which I found appropriate because all around me was a symphony of dripping, melting icicles, and weighty snow plopping to the ground from bowed trees. The music note icicle was only about an inch long. It can be difficult to photograph such small things when you are shooting into the air and it is blindingly bright all around you. I was using auto-focus, but a slight breeze was causing that tiny branch to sway, and at the huge aperture I using in order to blur the background, the tiniest movement by either the branch or the camera would cause the lens to focus at a drastically different distance. Would you believe that icicle is actually right smack in the middle of this photograph? It is that blurriness you can almost make out.

Moving on around the house, here is the patio, where you can also see the outside of my sunroom/library.

Here I am peeping into the sunroom from the backdoor. I’m meant to be in that chair, working!

Whilst I was peeping in, Torticia was peeping out:

Gomez has been looking out a lot, too. This is him watching the sleet yesterday:

And no, they aren’t always so placid. They’re actually quite bad. And they wrestle a lot.

In other news, I know I haven’t been posting much, even though I’ve been home quite a bit. The reason is I’ve been doing this really bizarre thing called sewing. If you’ve read the few craft posts I have sprinkled throughout this blog, you know that I hate and am terrible at sewing (although for some reason, I keep doing it). I think I mentioned a few posts ago that I finally broke down and bought a new sewing machine in December after almost having a meltdown while making gift bags this year. It turns out that I hate sewing much less when I have a machine that works. I’m still pretty terrible at it, but I am becoming more confident.

This is a common view from my seat at the sewing table:

He attacks and chews on the thread at the top. He’s very bad! (Both he and Torticia also try attacking the rotary blade when I’m cutting fabric and are thus banned from the sewing room whenever it’s out.) Anyway, my big project was making my mom a rag quilt for her birthday. She just received it in the mail yesterday, so I can post these pictures now. The kittens were very fond of the quilt.

Here’s what the quilt looked like; I couldn’t get any photos that didn’t involve a kitten.

Would you believe I actually free-motion quilted it? I barely can (believe it). I did tell Mom not to look at the quilting too closely, though, since I’m even worse at that than I am sewing in a straight line. It’s a very weird sensation at first, but it’s kind of fun. If there is any interest, I may be talked into writing up a tutorial on making rag quilts. You don’t have to free-motion quilt them, in fact, I haven’t seen any instructions that even recommend that you do (usually you just sew an X through each quilt sandwich). I’m just insane.

This is what happened when I tried to pack the quilt up to mail it. Sigh.

That’s it for now. Stayed tuned for a post with a real recipe later today. I promise no more snow pictures. I can’t promise no more kitten photos, though.

Wow, have I been busy! I was thinking earlier today that it has been a while since I’ve made a post and lamented the fact it seemed it’d be even longer until I’d have a chance to do so, until I decided to make burritos for dinner and realized I could use and then write up my pickled jalapenos! Which I was trying for the first time and which turned out fantastic! So here goes! (I’m addicted to exclamation points today!)

Pickled Jalepenos

1 pint jalapenos
1 small carrot, sliced on the diagonal
3-4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp peppercorns
white or cider vinegar to (just barely) cover other ingredients (about 2 cups)

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until jalapenos are soft, about 10 to 15 minutes.

Transfer to a clean glass jar.

Refrigerate for at least three weeks.

That’s it! The hardest part is not eating them for the three weeks. I actually ended up waiting four, but they were worth the wait.

Tonight I minced up a few …

… and stuffed them into a burrito. They were REALLY good! I don’t know why I’d ever buy pickled jalapenos again.

The second hardest thing about the pickled jalapenos was getting a picture of them that didn’t involve Gomez, who kept getting between the peppers and the camera. This picture was taken with Torticia climbing atop me as I squatted on the floor. SO MANY KITTENS!

Nona, if you’re reading this, I really do think he looks like a baby Crookshanks.

So. In other news. Boston. It’s full of Australians and vegans! Mark and I accompanied this handsome Australian fellow to Boston:

We stayed with a friend Smucky’s known “since birth”, Nick, and I’ve decided that all the Australians I know are the greatest people in the world. I’ve never met an Australian I didn’t love! And on top of that, I met a vegan! This is very exciting because I’ve never actually MET a vegan in real life, other than Mark, who converted after I met him and probably because I met him, and this girl who lived in the apartment above me in one of my places in Baltimore (who was probably my biggest inspiration when I went vegan because I figured if she lived in the exact same place I did and she could do it, I could do it). I’ve ALMOST met other vegans numerous times but this is the first time it actually transpired. Not only that, but Smucks, Mark, and I knew him through Twitter for reasons completely unrelated to veganism. So we met up with him on Saturday and he took us to The Other Side, where I ordered the raw Mock Chicken Salad:

Zach promised to take us to Peace O’ Pie on Monday, which I was extremely excited about, but then it turned out they are closed on Mondays and I shed tears of pain and grief (as we were leaving on Tuesday). Apparently the entire city of Boston shuts down on Mondays. Smuckalert asked us to walk along the Charles River with him so he could take pictures on Monday and I told him it was probably closed. (It wasn’t, but it was very, very, very hot. I thought Boston would be an escape from the heat?!) Zach mostly redeemed himself by suggesting we go to Addis Red Sea instead, which was conveniently located right down the street from Nick’s place, and although it took forever the food was fabulous (although not quite DC Ethiopian fabulous; that’s one thing DC does right). I LOVE Ethiopian food, so I was about to burst with excitement, as well as hunger. I was so hungry and excited, I quite forgot to take a picture of the grub, but I DID take this picture, which I wanted to submit to The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, but it turned out too blurry.

Not too blurry for my own blog though! (Which may soon turn into the Blog of Unnecessary Exclamation Points.) It says, “Hi! My name is ‘MESOB’. I am serving you as a ‘TABLE’. Please do not lean on, I am very fragile.”

Busy upcoming weekend; it may be another few days before I’m able to post again, but I found a vegan grill cookbook in the library, so I’m looking forward to grilling up a bunch of stuff in the very near future and I’m sure I’ll have my camera in hand. Until then, mates, g’day!

So, the kittens, Mark, and I all survived the weekend, which was an issue because we hosted a party for a bunch of people we don’t know. Which was especially difficult for us as a group because I’m extremely shy, Mark’s a member of the People Who Hate People Party, and the kittens are just baby kittens who’ve never experienced the turmoil of a bunch of strangers invading their home at one time. See, our friend Matty has graduated from college and is at long last on his way to becoming a sign language interpreter. And Matty needed a place to have a party because he lives in an apartment, and as everyone who sets foot in our house feels at home there (something I take pride in, but it’s as much this house just having some crazy great vibe as it is anything I do), he wanted to have it here. Matty has a lot more friends than I do, however, and knows a lot of people I don’t, meaning I knew maybe 10% of the guest list. It also meant this was not a vegan party. I generally throw one or two smallish parties a year, which are completely vegan, and which I completely cater. But I wasn’t about to tell Matty he had to have a vegan party and I didn’t have time to cater it either. So Matty bought a grill and he and his friends made hamburgers, and each of the guests brought a dish. I did buy a bunch of snack foods, though, and I went to the farmer’s market that morning and got a bunch of veggies that I cut up for dipping in my homemade ranch, tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro, garlic, and onions that I made into salsa, as well as tomatoes and onions for the very non-vegan burgers, and I made nacho dip, baked beans (in the crockpot), hamburger noodle bake, sourdough bread, and five grain levain rolls. Oh, and chocolate mousse ice cream. And iced tea. I didn’t intend to make that much food, I just can’t help myself. I didn’t take any pictures since most of what I didn’t make wasn’t vegan and you’ve already seen most what I made. I think I’m going to have to do a post on those rolls, though, because I got a ton of compliments on them. People seemed rather amazed by them, in fact. So maybe I’ll do that this weekend.

Anyway, everyone was very nice and I didn’t have a nervous breakdown or anything. I really am VERY shy around people I don’t know (although Matty and many other people have expressed surprise at this assertion), but I think having the party at my house actually helped because either I was too busy to be shy, or I figured since it was my house, people were obligated to be nice to me. The heat index was 110 degrees (43 Celsius for you non-Americans) Saturday, which made grilling very pleasant, I’m sure. The kittens were a huge hit, and they behaved exactly as I had hoped: too scared to leave the bedroom (and therefore not running outside or getting underfoot), but not so freaked out they wouldn’t come out to play for small groups of people who came to see them. There was a ton of food left over, all of which Matty packed up and took home with him (he won’t have to make himself dinner for a month), but he left the grill behind. So now I have a grill. Which is cool because I’ve always wondered if I’d like a grill, but never wanted to invest the money in case I didn’t.

In typical Renae fashion, I read the grill instructions front to back Sunday morning, then today came home from work feeling like a grilling master. Although I thought Mark might kill me for playing with fire when I’m home alone and have no idea what I’m doing, I decided I was going to grill dinner while waiting for him to get home from work. Today was a mere 89 degrees (32 Celsius) – seems practically chilly in comparison to this weekend; time to unpack the sweaters! – so it seemed like a good day for it. For my inaugural grilling, I made a recipe from the grill instructional manual, which must have been designed to kill anyone who eats it: Stuffed Hot Dogs. Wrapped in bacon. Seriously. You stuff hot dogs with cheese and relish, then wrap them in bacon and grill them. That’s it. I renamed it Grilled Heart Attack, although I don’t think the vegan version is going to cause any heart attacks. I thought I had relish, but I didn’t, so I made some, and a recipe for that follows.

Grilled Heart Attack, or Stuffed Hot Dogs

vegan hot dogs
vegan cheddar cheese, grated (like Daiya)
dill relish
vegan bacon

Keep in mind I have never worked a grill before in my life and I was doing this alone, so I could have been doing this all wrong…. but here’s what I did:

I made a pyramid of charcoal briquets, doused them in lighter fluid, and set them on fire.

I let them burn, then smolder, for about 15 minutes, until they were mostly covered in white ash.

I made a little pan out of aluminum foil, put it in the center of the charcoal rack, then used tongs to move the hot coals into a tight circle around the pan.

I let that smolder while I prepared the hot dogs. I cut each almost but not quite all the way through, then stuffed with relish and a bit of Daiya cheddar.

Then I wrapped a slice of vegan bacon around each one and placed it in my foil pan.

I also put some water-soaked corn (which I had de-silked) on the grate above them, then closed the grill.

I turned the corn a few times, and let it all cook for about 15 minutes, toasting some hot dog buns during the last couple of minutes.

I dressed the finished hot dogs with mustard …

… and served with left over baked beans.

I was unsure if I would, but I definitely did discern a unique grilled flavor in the veggie dog. Mark agreed. I’m not sure it would be worth going through the trouble just to grill a packaged veggie dog, but overall it was a successful foray into grilling and I’m eager to try more exciting things. I don’t think the corn was well done enough, though.

I was hoping to get some input from my wonderful readers – I’ve always gotten great answers when I asked for advice, so: what do you guys grill? Any tips or pointers? I picked up a pretty nice grill wok for $6 at Wegmans; it seemed like something I should have. Obviously I’ll have to make veggie kabobs, but what else is good? The more exotic, the better!

I told you I’d also show you how I made a quick dill relish when I realized I didn’t have any. I might make a fancier one down the road, but I wanted something super fast, so here’s what I did:

Quick Dill Relish

1 small jar dill pickles, minced
1 shallot, minced
3/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1/2 tsp mustard seeds, crushed
1/4 tsp dried dill weed
salt and freshly ground pepper

Grind the coriander and mustard seeds in a mortar.

Mince the pickles and shallot.

Place all ingredients in a small bowl and mix.

Refrigerate for a while to allow flavors to blend.

This is a horrible picture, but here’s what happened when I tried to eat my dinner:

And here are the kittens on a lazy summer afternoon:

It’s hot here in the DC metro area.

It’s been hot for weeks. Personally, I’m loving it, so you’re not going to hear me complain. I’ll take 100 degree temperatures over a blizzard any day. I might feel differently if we didn’t have air conditioning, but frankly, Mark keeps it so cold at home, and our building management keeps it absolutely frigid at work (I actually sometimes use a space heater; how ridiculous is that?), and I’m cold when I leave the pool at the gym, and it’s always freezing in stores, so I actually consider it a relief to go outside. Our pool doesn’t work any more, so I don’t spend nearly as much time outside as I used to, unfortunately. Anyway, although I don’t feel all that affected by the crazy heat (watch our A/C break now that I’ve said this), I’ve been feeling a bit summery in the kitchen. That is, I eat a lot of pickles during the summer so I’ve been making a lot of pickles. Actually, I make and eat a lot of pickles all year round, but I’m trying to make this post topical. Also, I have been making pickles from stuff I get at the farmer’s market, so that’s seasonal. In fact, I have a pint of yellow jalapenos that I think need a vinegar bath. And a huge bunch of radishes. But today I present you two very easy, classic refrigerator pickles that I made a couple of weeks ago and am now ready to eat.

Refrigerator Dill Pickles

1 cucumber (really, 2 or 3 pickling cucumbers would probably be better, but this is what I had)
1 cup vinegar
1 cup water
few sprigs dill
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp pickling spices
pinch red pepper chili flakes
1 small clove garlic, lightly crushed
6 drops stevia or 1 Tbsp sugar

Chop the cucumber(s) into spears and lightly smash the garlic with the side of a knife. I also sliced the majority of the seeds off the cukes.

Put the rest of the ingredients except the dill into a large jar, cover, and shake to combine.

Put the cucumber spears, garlic, and dill into the jar. Top off with water if necessary to cover the cucumbers.

Refrigerate for at least a week (10 days is better).

Eat.

Spicy Pickled Green Beans

1 lb green beans, trimmed
1 jalapeno
few springs dill (optional)
1 1/2 cup water
1 1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp red chili flakes
1 small clove garlic, lightly crushed

Trim the green beans. Lightly crush the garlic with the side of a knife. For extra spicy green beans, make a cut in the jalapeno. Add all ingredients to a large jar, topping off with water if necessary to cover the beans.

Refrigerate for at least two weeks (three is better).

Eat. (Don’t forget to eat the jalapeno too!)

In kitten news, my mother sent the kittens and me a care package. I got a ton of tea and the kittens got exactly what they needed: more toys. They took to the Turbo Scratcher right away. Torticia literally throws herself into playing; she’s so rambunctious and adorable:

Gomez is a bit more laid back, although he does leap around and act just as nutty. I think his philosophy is to sit back and let Torticia tire out their prey and so he can go in for an easy kill later. I don’t have the heart to tell him Turbo Scratchers don’t tire out.

For those of you who didn’t see it on Twitter, here’s my hilarious joke – it’s the Large Cat Toy Collider. We’re hoping to find the Gomez boson.

I don’t know why this surprised me so much, because they sleep together a good 80% of the time, usually in one of their two cat trees, but I was taken aback for a second to find both kittens on the back of my chair. I guess it is because both Tigger and Brachtune liked to sleep there but there is no way in hell they’d ever both be there at the same time. This picture somehow hides the fact that Gomez is now a full 25% larger than Torticia. He’s an enormous giant.

I’m trying to think of a clever or at least remotely interesting intro for this recipe but I’m drawing a blank. It’s pickled radish. It was a quick refrigerator pickle. It is good. Sorry, that’s all I have!

Quick Pickled Radishes

I used “normal” (for this continent) red radishes but you could also chop up a daikon and use that. Adapted from Pete & Teri’s Next Big Adventure.

1 bunch red radishes, halved or quartered depending on size (or part of a daikon, chopped into bite-sized pieces)
rice vinegar to cover radishes (about a cup)
6 drops stevia (or about 1 1/2 tsp sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
1 bay leaf

Remove the leaves from the radishes then halve or quarter them depending on their size. Place in a small jar.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the jar.

Put the lid on the jar and shake until salt is dissolved.

Refrigerate for 48 hours. Actually, they should be ready after 24 hours according to the recipe I based this off of, but I didn’t try mine for two days, so that’s what I’m vouching for.

Oh, was the focus of that photo supposed to be the radishes? I’m sorry.

Is this any better?

Out of the brine …

… and into my mouth! I loved these. I love radishes to begin with but even non-lovers of radishes may like these, if they like pickles. The spicy radish flavor is made milder, but the pickling gives them a nice sour taste. They remain crunchy. This is a nice, fresh tasting pickle that went well with a version of spicy tofu teriyaki.

Mark saw them sitting out last night and claimed they looked like pickled pig’s feet. He refused to try them. Sissy.

While Torticia was helping me with my radish photo shoot, the day I feared would come sooner or later arrived.

Gomez discovered Mark’s chess set …

… and decided it was an interactive cat toy.

Goodbye, pawn.

Screw pickled pig’s feet, this is far more fascinating!

Um, have I mentioned that I love these kittens?

I’m a big fan of tsukemono, or Japanese pickles. Actually, I’m a fan of pretty much anything pickles. But particularly Japanese pickles because they are often quick to make and quite tasty. I have a couple of tsukemono books and this recipe, from Quick and Easy Tsukemono, called Kyuri Amazu-ae, or Sweet Cucumber Pickles, is purported to be “a Japanese version of Western dill pickles”. It also says it reduces “spices and sourness”, although in my opinion, though it doesn’t contain dill, it tastes very much like an American pickle. And therefore happens to taste awesome.

I tripled the original recipe. If you want to just try it out before making a large batch, feel free to halve or third it.

American-Style Japanese Cucumber Pickle (Kyuri Amazu-ae)

15 Japanese-style cucumbers (small, thin ones with few seeds)
5 Tbsp salt (or 5% the weight of the cucumbers)
4 1/2 cups rice vinegar (I just used one bottle)
3/4 cup sugar
4 pods dried chili pepper
3 bay leaves
2 small sticks cinnamon
handful black peppercorns

If you have a scale, weigh the cucumbers. When I’m gathering weights for salt percentages for fermentation, I tend to use grams, although it doesn’t really matter what scale you use.

Measure salt in the amount of 5% of the weight of the cucumbers. (If you don’t have a scale, use the volume measurement above.)

Slice a sliver off the end of each cucumber. I did this on both ends, but mainly you’re concerned about the blossom end, which contains enzymes that can cause softening.

Slice each cucumber in half lengthwise.

Place the cucumbers in a pickle press if you have one, or a crock into which you can fit a plate and a weight.

Stir the salt into a cup of water.

Pour the water over the cucumbers.

Apply the lid of the pickle press and screw as tightly as you can. Alternatively, place a plate on top of the pickles and add a weight to press them down.

Let sit for 12 to 24 hours. The water level is higher because water has been extracted from the cucumbers.

Drain the cucumbers and rinse well to reduce saltiness.

Let the cucumbers dry.

Place all of the remaining ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer until the sugar is dissolved and then allow to cool.

Place the cucumbers into sterile jars and pour the marinade over them. Top off with water if necessary.

Refrigerate. The pickles will be ready the next day and keep for several months. The book says they keep several months at room temperature, but I would and do refrigerate them. The Japanese are fond of eating pickles with both rice and beer, and I can attest both are fine choices. I always add a tsukemono or two to my Japanese-themed meals. This particular pickle, however, is particularly fine with just about any meal and is shown here with the rather American veggie burger.

Now I’d like to share with you a great feature of the tsukemono book from whence this recipe originated:

I love their description of their German-style sauerkraut: “Versatile pickle you can fix with in ’emergency'”. It’s hilarious on so many levels. First off, what exactly constitutes a pickle “emergency”? I’d imagine it involves a friend unexpectedly showing up at your doorstep in dire need of a beer and pickle. What’s strange about this, though, is the books contains many – in fact, mostly – so-called “instant” pickles: those that are ready within an hour or so, all of which would be much more effective at relieving a pickle emergency than sauerkraut, which according to the book takes at least a week and according to me takes at least three weeks. Second of all, what does “fix with” mean? And thirdly, why is “emergency” in quotes? Mostly, though, I love this quote for introducing me to the concept of a pickle emergency, which is something I encounter a lot around here because we’re always running out of them.

In other news, Brachtune saw the vet today and I was extremely pleased to learn she’s gained half a pound. She still weighs half as much as she used to, but when you are six pounds, gaining half a pound in two months is GREAT, so I am very, very happy. For a kitty who is very close to or possibly more than 17 years old, and who might have cancer, The Toonse is doing very well. And therefore, here is a picture of her enjoying great dinner party conversation the other night, when I served an Ethiopian feast and managed to not take any pictures other than of the cat and my friends wearing tiny top hats.