Merry Christmas!

I read an article in a health magazine a few weeks ago that said one way to really get the most out of the holidays was to keep it simple; do less. I tried to keep that in mind over the past two weeks, and one result has been that I haven't posted to my blog.

Last weekend, D. and I pickled. We pickled a lot. As I suspected, it was a clash of the cultures in my kitchen. We both knew that, so he stayed in the living room prepping his vegetables, while I started with the pickled beets. I got the recipe from my friend's girlfriend who said they used to serve it in the restaurant where she worked. You cook the beets (I roasted half and boiled half just to see if they'd be different), and then put salt, black pepper corns, whole coriander, caraway seeds, mustard seeds, and cumin into a mixture of apple cider vinegar, water, sugar, and salt. I got impatient and opened a jar of them just hours after I made them and put a tablespoon of them on top of a wilted arugula salad with feta cheese. They were really good--and they were only half-pickled! I'm thinking of calling them Peace Beets, because she gave me the recipe on the anniversary of John Lennon's murder.

The kitchen was an absolute disaster when I was through and I had to spend quite a bit of time cleaning it up before we could start the major pickling endeavor: 2 dozen quart jars of pickled carrots and pickled roasted veggies.....a mixture we've dubbed "snackles."

D. assembled a mixture of roasted shallots and brussel sprouts, green beans, garlic, and carrots into a dozen quart jars and used my standard dill pickle recipe with a little turmeric. Truth be told, they didn't turn out as good as we had envisioned, I think it's because we used regular distilled white vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar. He also said that maybe we should have used a really high quality vinegar. Maybe I'll try that with a small batch.

Anyway, they were surprising gifts for people for the holidays....some people loved them immediately, others were a little skeptical. If you were one of the recipients of our pickled carrots or snackles, let us know what you thought.

Happy Hanaukkah!

We hit the Farmer's Market early this morning (but not as early as we'd wanted!) for vegetables to pickle for presents. We bought some carrots, brussel sprouts, and beets. They didn't have some of the other vegetables we wanted, so we had to resort to the grocery store for the rest. We're pickling tomorrow....I can feel the energy. Although I have to admit, I'm a little worried about working my pickle magic in the kitchen with D., who is very particular about his cooking style and recipes....he's a scientist; me, I'm more of an artist.

Last night was uncertain because I had conflicting plans, but it turned out that I ended my day near Union Square after having a drink with a friend at a cafe I'd never been to: 71 Irving. I stopped off at Whole Foods before jumping on the train to Brooklyn to get some fish and vegetables. I had an idea from the Bon Apetit magazine that I had just gotten in the mail. There was an article about how eating farm-raised fish is better for the environment than wild ones, and after just seeing Happy Feet, I was all for contributing to the well-being of penguins (and everybody else). The article said that tilapia, in particular, is a good farm-raised fish because the water it's raised in is rich in nutrients that are good for us, too.

I didn't remember the recipe exactly, so I just picked up a few things that I thought I would need and headed home. I cut up some carrots and elephant garlic and started roasting them in the oven. Then I flash-fried two pieces of tilapia with salt and pepper and set them aside. I sauted a bunch of broccoli rabe and set that aside as well. I simmered about 3/4 cup of balsamic vinegar with some chopped up garlic and set that aside. I also decided to fry some shallots to put on top of the fish. I called D. and told him the only thing I was missing was butter, so he brought some over. I put the broccoli rabe in the casserole dish in the oven with the roasted carrots and garlic, and put the fish on top. I popped it in the oven at 350 F and stirred 1/2 c of butter into the balsamic vinegar mixture, which I reheated.

I served the fish on top of the vegetables, drizzled the balsamic-butter vinegar on top, and then sprinkled some fried shallots on top. What a great meal! And it paired nicelyl with a wine called Echelon (2005 Pinot Noir, Central Coast, Sacramento, CA, hints of cherry and clove.

D. and I wondered whether ginger might have been a good spice to add. Next time.

"I never get tired of turkey"

That's what my mother used to say after Thanksgiving.....and twelve nights of croquettes, soup, sandwiches, etc. etc. etc. Well, I did get tired of turkey, so I threw all of our leftovers in the freezer and wondered if I'd ever have the stomach for them again. I knew it would be a late night, so I took out the leftover breast from Thanksgiving yesterday morning to eat last night for dinner. All I can say is I will never NOT brine poultry. I could not believe how moist it was! A few slices with some toasted pita, babaganoush, and olives made for a light tasty dinner.

Now....onto the subject that really matters: pickles! Friends keep sending me recipes and websites of homemade pickle sellers. One company had even SOLD OUT of their pickles for the holidays! So is there or isn't there room in the market for a novice start-up pickle maker with a lot of passion? I've got about 6 recipes I've made so far, and ideas and recipes from friends that will give me 6 more--a dozen products in my catalogue! Well, we'll see how the Christmas pickling goes, and maybe I'll ask all of my recipients to post their comments to this site. Tomorrow D. and I have promised one another we will get up super early and get to Grand Army Plaza for the Farmers' Market to see what kinds of great pickling produce we can score. Wish me luck!

Eating Out is No Good For You

So the past two nights I've eaten out, I haven't posted to my blog, and I'm out over $100. I also haven't gone running, and I probably gained 10 pounds. So I'm deducing that eating out is no good for you. In an effort to remedy at least one of these things right now, I'll just say a word about where we ate.

A friend was visiting from out of town, and we went to a seminar on HIV and Incarceration in the West Village. Afterwards, a group of us went to Cafe de Bruxelles, a restaurant right around the corner from the Venue. The space specializes in Belgian beer and mussels, so that's what we had. We started with Duvel beer, which was surprisingly good, and then the waiter made the mistake of bringing a basket of bread, which we all inhaled immediately, and which was immediately after that filled again, and so on....The bread was really meant to sop up the juice from the mussels, but it was yummy all on it's own. One of my friends and I ordered curried mussels, and they were very good. I'm not big on shellfish, especially the kind I have to extract directly from it's shell, but this stuff was good. We must have each eaten a loaf of bread between us sopping up the yummy sauce. The mussels came with pomme frites ("Freedom Fries," as our French waiter told us), and they too were yummy and really bad for you. All in all, very tasty, great company, terrific service. Cost: $40 each, with an additional $15 for the cab fare back to Brooklyn. (Too much beer = reluctance to take the train)

The next night, D. and I wanted to try Max Brenner's Chocolate by the Bald Man that opened about 6 months ago at Union Square. We decided to go after seeing Happy Feet at the Regal theatre across the street. We really wanted to go because of the amazing chocolate desserts, so we shouldn't really have ordered dinner. The food was okay--we shared a prosciutto sandwich with cheddar cheese and a spinach and asparagus crepe--but we were both too full and fed up with the service to really want dessert. Instead, we went back to Brooklyn, shared a piece of dark chocolate, and decorated the tree. I don't think we'll go back to Max Brenner's....too trendy, and the prices weren't that great.

Mystery Sauce

I’m not sure whether it was the wine, the new Sufjan Stevens Christmas CD I just got from iTunes, sweet D. and his antics, or the vegetalis, but the mystery tomato sauce I found in the freezer tonight paired with some pasta and garlicky asparagus was almost magical tonight. I started to dethaw it yesterday because I thought there might be one night this week when I didn’t want to cook and I wasn’t going out. Tonight was that night! I got stood up for dinner by a colleague, and D. had an office holiday party. So I was on my own. With my Christmas tree, fresh from the country this weekend and naked as the day it was born. So I went home and starting compiling a Christmas playlist on my iPod. I had a bunch of Christmas CDs that I hadn’t loaded onto my computer yet from years past, Christmas on Death Row, Cocteau Twins, A Jazz Christmas, and A Soul Train Christmas, so I spent some time importing the CDs to my library.

While I transferred my old music, I took the stems off of some asparagus that had been in the fridge for a few days. I needed to break off a substantial piece of each stalk—they had already started to go. I set them aside and chopped three cloves of garlic. I opened a bottle of wine that I had just gotten at Trader Joe’s, a Carinena from Spain called Abrazo Del Toro (The Embrace of the Bull?) and poured myself a glass.

I jumped onto iTunes and searched for some holiday music that I had just read about in the magazine I’d been reading: The Week, that claims to be the magazine that contains “all you need to know about everything that matters.” (how could I not read it?) I downloaded Sufjan Stevens’ Songs for Christmas, Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong, and James’ Taylor at Christmas. What beautiful music! And what a nice night on my own. D kept calling from the party, he sounded like he was having fun, and I was happy puttering about on my own.

I heated the olive oil in the pan, and when it got really hot, I threw in the sliced garlic cloves. I think I cooked them too long, they were really brown, but when I added the asparagus, the smell was amazing.

Another glass of wine, and I took out some ornaments. The sauce was getting hot, the pasta was ready, and the garlic and asparagus were still sizzling. The review in The Week said that although McLachlin’s CD was “probably the prettiest CD of the season, [she] is not the best bringer of holiday cheer,” and I thought that was a bit unfair. I’ve always found her music to be unflinchingly real, and appropriately sad. Her song "Hold On" that came out in the mid-90s, which was, I thought, about a woman who was caring for a lover, or a friend, who was dying of AIDS and looked to God for help towards the end was one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard. The review in the magazine said that “Christmatime Is Here" was a tearjerker, but I didn’t find nearly as sad as "Song for Winter’s Night," which I can only imagine is about a woman whose loved one is in Iraq or Afghanistan. Oh my god.

Sufjan Stevens was more whimsical, but just as beautiful. And James Taylor was, well, James Taylor. Very nice. So against that backdrop, I made a small plate of pasta with the tomato sauce I’d found, but didn’t remember the origins of, some asparagus with very brown and gooey garlic, and freshly grated Romano cheese. Yum. There’s nothing wrong at all with a night on your own.

Finding Baby Carrots

I’m experimenting with pickling carrots. The first time I tried, I used a standard dill pickle recipe when I found a lonely little bunch of fresh baby carrots at the Farmers Market at Grand Army Plaza one Saturday afternoon in September. They were so cute! About 2-2 ½ inches long, with friendly green leafy stalks, they fit perfectly into those 8 oz. canning jars. One bunch made about three jars, and they looked so appealing standing up amidst the dill, garlic, peppercorns, and other pickling spices. I kept my eyes open for another bunch of baby carrots in the weeks after, but didn’t see any. Unfortunately, I rarely get up early on Saturdays, so I never get to the Farmers’ Market before noon. I usually bring a collapsible shopping bag and wear it in a zippered bag around my waist while I run from the 9th Street entrance to Prospect Park all the way to Grand Army Plaza. Then I stop to catch my breath, sample the wine and fresh free range turkey, and start my weekly produce shopping.

I realized that if I wanted perfect baby carrots fresh, I’d have to get up earlier and get there before the run. I haven’t been able to do it yet, but I did get there by 10:30 one morning before Thanksgiving because I wanted to bring a festive jar of carrots to friends as a thank-you gift for letting us use their country home for our holiday weekend. I hit the jackpot. I found three stalls that were selling tricolor baby carrots! I’d never seen anything like them. They were bunches of yellow, red, and plain ol’ orange carrots. I brought about four bunches home and prepared three for canning. I made 3 big jars, and 3 little jars, of dilled carrots in cider vinegar. I actually forgot to give them to my friends, so they’re sitting, sealed, in my guest room, but I did bring a jar with me to a work event the weekend before last and my colleagues loved them!

We’re thinking of making jars of pickled carrots for our friends and co-workers for Christmas this year, and I’m dreading having to get up before 9 am on cold Brooklyn morning next weekend. But I think it will be well worth the sacrifice, and we can always come back and go back to the warm and cuddly bed!

Global Warming Extravaganza

My best friend and her partner hosted a party that they called the "Global Warming Extravaganza" in Valley Forge, about 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia. The drive from Brooklyn wasn't too bad, it was only about 2 1/2 hours (not counting the two wrong turns we made!). The best part was when we drove through Valley Forge National Park, full of deer--silouhettes and shadows in the moonlight.

The party was a nice mix of people and generations, classes, cultures. I don't know why they called it the Global Warming Extravaganza; they actually used the occasion to announce their commitment to one another!

But for me, it was the first time my boyfriend met my best friend, which was really important (and went very well, by the way). It was also the first party of the season, so I started looking around for an exciting recipe. Things were a little hectic at my place the day before we left. I was having my guest room painted by a friend, so there was paint and furniture everywhere. Amidst the clutter, I found a recipe online on my laptop for a butternut squash dip. I went to Sahadi's for the ingredients: walnuts, goat cheese, and olive oil. There's a great vegetable place next to Sahadi's where I get fresh spices, squash, veggies, and garlic, too.

Unfortunately, when I got home, I couldn't find the recipe again! I searched Epicurious.com, cookinglight, com, allrecipes.com, and cooking.com to no avail. So I found a recipe that was somewhat similar on the New York magazine website, but it didn't have the goat cheese. So I made this one up and it worked out pretty well. Here's how I made it:

Garlicky Butternut Squash dip with goat cheese and walnuts

1 medium butternut squash
garlic head
6 oz goat cheese
1 cup of toasted walnuts
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp paprika
Bag of whole wheat pita bread

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cut the butternut squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place on a baking pan. Wrap the garlic head in aluminum foil and place on the pan with the squash-halves. Bake the squash and garlic.

While these two ingredients bake, place the goat cheese, 1/2 cup of walnuts, salt, pepper, olive oil, and paprika in a medium-sized bowl. No need to mix, as the hot ingredients that you add later will melt the cheese and allow you to mix them more easily.

Check the garlic after about 25 minutes by unwrapping the foil and seeing if the garlic is the consistency of a paste. Pop out the garlic cloves onto the cheese and wait for the butternut squash to get soft. Once you can scoop a tablespoon out of the center of one of the halves, take out the squash. Don't turn the oven off 'cause you'll use it again.

When the squash is cool enough to touch, but still warm, scoop out the insides into the bowl with the cheese mixture. I used a hand mixer, but I suppose you can use a blender, to mix the ingredients. Spoon into a decorative dish, and wait for the mixture to cool.

Toast whole wheat pita bread in the oven and cut into wedges. Once the pita is cool, cut the wedges into a bag and seal.
Pack up a bag of ½ cup of toasted walnuts to sprinkle on top when you get to the party. Sprinkle the walnuts on top of the spread.

I put a sign next to the spread so that people knew what it was, and those that were brave enough to try loved it. I'd definitely make it again!

Forgetting the Cranberry Chutney

D. and I decided to spend Thanksgiving away from family and friends at my friends’ country house in Pennsylvania. Neither one of us was up for any family drama, and we were anxious for some time out of the city. The house is beautiful—my friend is an architect and he remodeled an old house that sits right on a small river. You can hear the river rushing by in the morning through closed windows, and a group of wild turkeys often come to visit. He brought his guitar, and I packed tons of cooking supplies to create our feast. But before heading up there, we decided to stop and visit his mother. This would be the first time I would meet her, and I was excited about it, up until the day before we were leaving. I turned into a nervous wreck. Didn’t know what to wear, wasn’t sure what to do with my hair, etc. etc. D. told me that she was nervous, too.

Just after dark the day before Thanksgiving, we pulled up in front of her house and D. looked at me reassuringly. We got out and went into the back seat to pull out the dried flower and herb centerpiece we’d bought for her at the Farmer’s Market, and the jar of cranberry chutney I’d carefully prepared days before. No cranberry chutney. I’d forgotten to bring down the canvas bag with the chutney for his mother, our chutney for the next day, a bag of onions, and a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold Tequila—which we’d planned to drink as an appetizer while we cooked the next day. D. was not perfectly chill about it—he didn’t understand how, despite all of my lists, which included such obvious things as his guitar and the massive turkey in a cooler, I could have forgotten the chutney. But he was ultimately pretty forgiving. As for the visit with his mother, it was lovely. She was so grateful for the centerpiece, and just insisted that I send her the recipe.

After a few hours, we got back on the road to the house. On the way, though, we had to stop for onions, Tequila, and, of course, the makings for cranberry chutney: celery, raisins, cranberries, vinegar, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, apples, and ginger.

It was terrific with our Thanksgiving dinner of roast turkey, pureed cauliflower (instead of mashed potatoes), glazed baby carrots, brussel sprouts, sausage and cranberry cornbread stuffing, wheat rolls, and butternut squash soup. And it was great on sandwiches the next day!

Last night I made dinner for my friend who had spent the day painting two rooms in my apartmen, and his girlfriend who used to be a caterer. I marinated three pork chops from the local butcher with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary and thyme. I pan-seared them, and then baked them in the oven, and served them with garlicky spinach, brown wehani rice, and side garnishes of my homemade applesauce and cranberry chutney. The chutney was the star again. (By the way, the dinner went well with a bottle of Punto Final Malbec (Argentina).

Vinegar and the TSA, or “computer says no.”

I was away for a few days staying in a house in Florida with a few work colleagues, and I had brought small jars of my pickled carrots, relish, and cranberry chutney with me to complement some of our home-cooking. We had a lot of food and ingredients left over, so I shipped most of my clothes back to New York, and packed the leftover food, including a half-used jar of cider vinegar, in my suitcase, which I had planned to check. For reasons not entirely within my control, I was a bit late to the airport. I returned the rental car at about 3:45, and got to the Delta ticket counter at around 4:05. My flight was to leave at 5 pm, but since I’d changed my ticket that morning from a 12:30 pm flight to this one, I wasn’t able to access it at the kiosk. So I stood in a very long line, nervously checking the time and watching the two Delta counter people help what seemed like endless streams of clueless families with too much luggage.

I was finally called to the counter at 4:17, and the man told me that I was too late to check my baggage. I said I was only TWO MINUTES late, and he looked at me helplessly and said, “The computer won’t let me do it.” Any of you familiar with the British comedy show Little Britain will recognize this normally hilarious, but this time infuriating, response. So I had to carry on my suitcase. He told me I would have to throw away any liquids in my carry-on, or fly out the next morning.

There was absolutely NO WAY I was staying in Oakland, Florida for one minute longer (too many creepy Mickey Mouse faces everywhere!) so I just ran to security to get to my gate. I figured, let these jokers earn their paycheck and ferret out all the liquid in my suitcase. In fact,, I thought, this will be a good test for this crazy TSA.

I dutifully removed my shoes, bracelets, and sweatshirt, and placed my laptop, handbag, and suitcase on the conveyor belt. When I went through the metal detector, a TSA guy was standing with his rubbed gloved hands on my suitcase. I nodded and said that’s mine. I tied my sneaker laces and watched as he opened it. My travel toiletry bag was on top, so easy I bet he thought, and he started to throw things in the bin for disposal: about $35 worth of stuff! I zipped up my suitcase and got to the gate with 10 minutes to spare.

I hate being such a conspiracy theorist, but it has just GOT to be the case that the feds have some kind of a deal with the cosmetics company. Tons and tons of money will be spent replacing stuff like this. I’m trying to temper my frustration with Delta (One, why weren’t there more counter people; and two, why wasn’t there someone there herding people who were running late through the line like American Airlines does?) because it’s in bankruptcy and the employees own the airline. Does anyone think that the TSA will change with the Dems in power?

And finally, how lazy can these TSA people be? They looked in the most obvious place and found what they were looking for. It was almost with sadistic joy that this guy pulled my stuff out and threw it away. But just underneath the toiletries bag were four jars of very suspicious-looking liquids—my leftover pickled carrots, chutney, relish, and a half a bottle of vinegar! How safe does THAT make you feel?

Homemade Christmas presents: Brandied fig compote

Last year during NYC’s transit strike, I was lucky enough to have the kind of job where I didn’t have to actually risk freezing my ass off or being hit by a car in the ungodly crush of traffic that ensued, and I stayed put in Brooklyn. I spent my days doing research, listening to NPR, and making my own Christmas presents for friends and colleagues: brandied fig compote in little 4 oz. jars. I shopped at Sahadi’s for the figs, and fished out a few recipes from the Internet. I stewed cut up and de-stemmed figs in juice and brandy with raisins, and after about an hour, I had a mixture that was the consistency of jam. I’m not really into using pectin, so I called it compote instead. I made little labels for each jar in the shape of holly leaves, decorated them with silver glitter, and brought them to my office’s holiday party. They were a hit.

I’m still using some of the compote myself on crackers and toast. This year, I thought I’d try to teach a workshop on how to do this to some neighbors, but I haven’t had the time to make the hand-made sign that I’d planned. I wanted to advertise my workshop by hanging my signs in Brooklyn’s two Tea Houses, but I took the lazy route and posted an ad about it on Craigslist. Sadly, I haven’t gotten any responses yet. If you’re interested in joining the workshop, leave me a comment with a way to get in touch with you, or visit Craigslist and search under classes and workshops for “homemade” and “fig” and “compote.” A $75 registration fee gets you into the 2-hour workshop, and you’ve leave with the know-how to do it yourself, and 12 4 oz. quilted canning jars filled with fig compote. I provide all of the supplies, except the brandy. You can sauce it up, but it’s BYOB.

Five Little Scotch Bonnets

One of my best friends from law school lives in Queens now, and I’ve only ever seen his apartment three times in the eight years we’ve lived in New York: once when he moved in—we’d rented a truck together from Buffalo and drove down with all of our stuff, but I was only there for about a half and hour stropping off his stuff. The next time, he cajoled me to come out to Queens for dinner when his partner was out of town. He’d told me back in July that he and L., his partner, grew Scotch Bonnet peppers in their apartment over the summer, and there they were in his kitchen: 4 huge, beautiful plants! L. is from the Islands, so he made all kinds of delectable sauces and oils with the peppers (and put them in really cool jars, too!) Now I like hot food, and I can really dig me some hot sauce, but they were all too hot for me. From what I’ve been told, Scotch Bonnets are really the hottest, but I seem to remember being told that habaneras are hotter….hmm?

As I was running out the door to the taxi after a chill evening of beef stew and red wine, my friend handed me a plastic baggie with five little Scotch Bonnet peppers.

I didn’t have time over the next few days to do anything with them, so in my fridge they sat. One Saturday afternoon, I decided that I wanted to make hot pepper relish, so I looked through my favorite websites, Epicurious.com, chef.com, and my favorite cooking bible: The Joy of Cooking. When I cut up the Scotch Bonnets, my whole kitchen was infused with the vapors from the peppers. My eyes were literally watering by the time I was done. So I ran out to the store, and bought some tomatillos, poblanos, and some more green bell peppers to add to the mix. I simmered the little flecks of yellow and red S.B.s with the bell peppers, onions, poblanos, tomatillos, in their own juices and little bit of water. I poured the mixture out 10 4 oz. quilted canning jars, and then poured a just-starting-to-boil mixture of cider vinegar and sugar over the pepper mixture. I sealed the jars, and then placed them all in a pot of boiling water to seal them for about 10 minutes. Voila! Hellfire Hot Pepper Relish!

We’ve used the relish on fish, in a mayonnaise-based sauce for salmon, on sirloin burgers, and on chicken. I brought a little jar to a cocktail party at the home of a doctor friend, and people spread it on crackers with hummous, cheese, and olives. I’m in Florida on a work trip right now and I brought a jar down in my checked luggage, and I plan to use it on steaks we cook on the outdoor grill. Yummy! I am definitely adding this relish to the list of products in my future line….

how i got started making pickles, and why making pickles matters

My boyfriend and I were at grand army plaza in Brooklyn one Saturday in September and I spotted a barrel of little cucumbers and I had a flash of memory of watching my mother making dill pickle spears in our kitchen in Mechanicsburg, PA. He’s a trained chef, and so I always turn to him for culinary answers. I said, “Do you think I could make pickles?” He said “sure!” I asked him what I needed and he said I probably had everything in my kitchen. I have a really well-stocked kitchen because I cook and entertain a lot, so when I went home, I consulted my Joy of Cooking and the internet, and by 7 when he came over, I had a batch of sweet and sour pickle slices, and a batch of dill pickles—all in old jars I had gotten from my mother, filled with her homemade jam or spaghetti sauce. They were beautiful (see picture). And, in a few days, I found, they were delicious. I was hooked. The next week, D. showed up with a Brooklyn magazine, Edible Brooklyn, with an article about two guys who started their own pickle businesses in Brooklyn—in their own small kitchens very much like mine. There was a recipe for dill pickles generously provided by one of the guys, and for my next few batches, I used it.

I used to be such a workaholic--I never spent any time on things that I enjoyed apart from work. There was a time that my only hobbies were work-related. So it's been really precious everytime I find something that is so far from work related that I love to do. I also love the fact that it was a childhood memory that got me pickling, and I love the fact that I’ve been finding great fresh local vegetables in my own neighborhood in Brooklyn to make them.

My first blog

This is my first attempt, and I'm wondering whether blogspot is appropriate for mac users because I can't seem to post a picture. Anyone have any feedback?