Great Food Website

If you're like me then sometimes you trawl food blogs and websites for dinner ideas.  Check out this genius food site; they list their recipes in the perfect possible medium: photographs.  Warning: do not look at this site hungry.  You might just eat your laptop.

Thanks to Claire for the tip.

Feeling Centimental?

I'd like to trumpet the SECOND world-altering event of this week, after a lovely inauguration last Tuesday: this is my 100th blog post!  If you were here, I'd pour you a glass of champagne and feed you canapes.  But as it stands, the only people around who actually read this blog are Adam my husband-to-be and my dog Cally.  And it's a toss-up between those two as to who actually reads my posts on a regular basis.  So no champagne for them.

Speaking of Cally, here we are emerging from a nap today.  (And she wonders why I yell at her for getting on the couch.)  It's been a snowy day, perfect for lounging at the coffee shop, the briefest of walks along the river, and cuddling on the bed... not very good fodder for a celebratory blog posting, I admit.  But sometimes 'homey' is the name of the game on a Sunday in late January. 

Dinner actually turned out to be a little exotic: I whipped up a really yummy batch of Pad Thai, that pink-hued noodle dish with shrimp, bean sprouts, and peanuts.  Only my grocery store didn't have bean sprouts and if I was going to spring for shrimp I didn't want to spring for peanuts (I'm trying to buy a house here, people).  The irony of the thing is, peanuts do not sell for peanuts.  Nor do any nuts, really.  It turned out well anyway, though I'll definitely try both stores in my 'hood for bean sprouts next time.  It was missing that fresh, juicy crunch.

It's fun to make, and has some rather unconventional ingredients.  You cook shrimp, green onions, and garlic in a hot saute-- would 'stir-fry' be the appropriate jargon here?; then add ground dried shrimp (sounds grody, but it adds great flavor), fish sauce, chili flakes, sugar, and ketchup (is that what they use in Thailand?!).  Stir for a few minutes, then drag the mixture to one side of the pan, and pour two beaten eggs in to the other side.  Let the eggs cook un-disturbed for about a minute, then scramble them up with the other ingredients.  Dump in the rice noodles (which have been drained after you soaked them in very hot water for 15 minutes), and stir for a couple more minutes over high heat.  Garnish with cilantro and lime wedges (and bean sprouts and peanuts).  Very delicious flavors, though next time I'll probably cut back on the noodles to allow for more sauciness.
Then Adam devised a very scrumptious hand-held dessert.  Homemade (by Adam!) chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with a heavy dousing of Tillamook vanilla ice cream on top.  Mmm.  That's cause for celebration right there.

Thanks for reading, my friends.  If you continue to do so, I promise at least one hundred more.

The Improvisational Kook

So when you're fourteen and a freshman in high school and you're looking around at all the candidates for your life-long best friend, my advice is that you choose someone who is very creative and generous.  Trust me, it really pays off.  After many years of hard work, you can actually trick this person into thinking that you're worthy of her attentions, and she'll start to give you some incredible stuff.

As if walls full of art work, and several rad pieces of handmade or hand-silkscreened clothing were not enough, my well-chosen friend Hilary sent me this book for Christmas.  It is, as usual, handmade-- and when I say handmade, I mean bound and designed by HAND.  This ain't no gussied up storebought sketchbook.  Anyway, in the words of the author, here is the thesis of the creation:

A cookbook!  Or should I say Kookbook?  I have always enjoyed the syntax of Hilary's recipes-- I've got a few treasures from years past, and it's really fun to laugh while cooking at phrases like "splashies of tamari" and "lemon of 1 juice."  This book is no exception in the creative descriptions department, but it is also so so much more.  Look at these pages for example.
Beautiful!  In her characteristic style, she mixes and matches drawings and prints.  How appropriate that recipes are the newest addition to her amalgamation of media; if any of you have ever eaten something that Hilary has cooked, chances are you've swooned and asked, "What's IN this?"  But like any true creative, Hilary shuns precise measurements and instructions.
There are as few numbers and quantities as possible, which can be a bit unnerving for a Virgo cook like me.  But the principle is sound: she wants you to trust yourself and your ability to think of the meal as a balanced composition.  Why should some recipe-writer miles away from one's own town and life and tastes know any better how to assemble your dinner?

And so I started with two of the recipes and ran with them.  It's what Hilary would have wanted.  I made the "Marinated and Baked Tofu" (soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sesame and olive oils, pepper, chili flakes, lime juice-- that was my version, not Hil's) and cubed it up and threw it on top of "Taylor's Favorite Salad," which is now also Megan's Favorite Salad as well.  (Hilary, was this inspired by The Bangkok from Savor?)
It's a pretty basic salad-- lettuce, tomatoes, cukes, carrots, lots of cilantro, green onions, but it stands out in three ways.  One, the aforementioned tofu, especially if it's eaten while still warm.  Two, a lovely and spontaneous sweet and salty Asian-flavored salad dressing composed of orange and lime juices, soy sauce, oils, ginger, honey, and other stuff probably too that you can find if you rummage around.  And three, a crunchy nut topping akin to crack cocaine in its addictiveness.  I got a little wild with my nut topping too-- I threw some honey roasted peanuts, coconut, and cashews into the mortar and pestle and pounded them into a rough crumble.  And as you can see, I did not use sparingly.
It was so delicious!  Adam wasn't feeling well and only ate a bite or two of his before going to bed early, so after inhaling mine I polished his off as well.  I'm not proud to admit it, but I mention it as a testament to the deliciousness.  There are lots of leftover salad makings, so tonight I'm going to make it again, only this time I'm going to top it with Chili/Tamarind shrimp.  Drooling yet?

Here's one last excerpt from Hil's book.  Don't forget the peeper!

The Existential Mess. Dirty Dishes.

Well, it has been a day.  When I imagine my best self-- you know, that productive, talented person that each of us wishes to be and somehow imagines we will become-- I picture a Saturday spent reading copiously, writing semi-copiously, and then procuring in a mere twenty minutes the dinner of a lifetime.  I'm sure you all have your own best imagined selves too.  Maybe you spend three hours in the garden on the ideal weekend day, or perfect your latest screen print, or paint the deck of your boat.  And these projections get so near to our hearts don't they, so important to our senses of self, that when we realize that we are not spending our spare time quite realizing our ambitions, it can be a bit of a crushing blow.

I received that blow a little bit today.  I don't read a book a weekend, and I haven't brought myself to write the sparkling, social commentary-saturated book reviews that I visualize myself being so good at.  But life was wearing big cushy boxing glove because when it hit me that there are probably not enough hours or days to accomplish every item on the Great To-Do List, it then occurred that I might spend my energy enjoying what I do do.  I mean, in other words, life is too short to fret over unattained goals.    

And so what did I do today?  I cooked!

First, Adam and I whipped up a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  They are seriously easy, sinfully good, and outrageously fattening.  2 cups of sugar and 1 1/4 c. vegetable oil!  But worth every drop.  Anyway I've heard that applesauce is a good substitute for oil.  But as you can see, I've never bother with such healthy shortcuts.  Case in point: you see that round maroon mound on the bottom of the above photo?  My belly.  Find the recipe here.
Later, after finding three cookbooks on my front doorstep, thanks to a gift certificate to Amazon courtesy of my lovely Grandma, I got inspired to go whole hog and just spend the rest of the evening in the kitchen.  Without the hog, of course.
I wish this red chard translated better on screen.  It was a glistening ruby bouquet.  Inspired by Alice Waters and her Chez Panisse Vegetables, I sauteed some shallots, and then tossed in the chopped chard and braised it, covered, over medium heat for twenty minutes.  When it was done it got a little squeeze of lemon, salt, and pepper, but that's all.
Meanwhile, at the direction of Mollie Katzen in her famous Moosewood Cookbook, which it has taken me five years as a vegetarian to finally buy, I made mushroom strudel and was inordinately pleased by how easy it is to make something with filo pastry dough.  Or is it phyllo?  Katzen spells it filo, the box said phyllo.  Tomato, tomahto.

Saute chopped mushrooms, and mix them with goodies like cottage cheese, yogurt, dill, scallions, bread crumbs, lemon juice, etc. and roll it all up in a log.  Bake, and then slice, as below:
Notice how the chard looks almost black.  Quite a meal.  I'll probably make a few adjustments to the filo next time I cook with it-- you need more oil between "leaves" than you'll probably want to use in order to avoid a thick, cardboard-like material; and next time I won't spend so much time draining the precious juices from the mushrooms, like Katzen directed me.  But, as you can see, the campers were happy.  And there were muffins for dessert.

So, life is short.  If I can't review novels for the New York Times, then I'll review cookbooks and my imagination for my blog.  I'm already happy anyway, so it's all the same.

Food Blogs and Kale

During a long and lovely chat with my sister Claire last night, she told me that on a list of the best foods, the number one healthiest ingredient you can put into your mouth is Kale.  The formidable, tough, weedy, crunchy but very lovely and sometimes purple-hued KALE.  To give you an idea of how hardcore of a veggie it is, it's Hilary's favorite food.  To give you an idea of Hilary, well, lets just say that Hil would rather eat raw cremini mushrooms than dessert.  So.  I believe I have made my point.

Therefore I would like to devote today's post to kale, and the multitude of-- Ok, two, that I know of-- ways that you can transform it so that it is edible and even yummy.  But first I will make a brief detour to another topic.  Why?  Because I can.  

Usually, when I sit down to write a post I try and get some research in first.  My research is of your standard, Google-variety.  I don't have a whole lot of cookbooks, and plus I'm lazy.  So but whenever I type in a foodstuff into the little google searchbox, I'm always rewarded with the discovery of at least one new food blog.  Today I found two terrific ones.  One of them, 101cookbooks.com, has a list of recipes by ingredient along the left side, so I checked out the Kale link (here it is).  It looks pretty good-- there are about six or seven recipes using the intimidating green-- and two of them that looked especially lovely are the Chickpea HotPot, and Kale & Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes.  Now this woman, I'm led to believe, has got a LOT of cookbooks, unlike me, so maybe her recipes are really good.

As I continued to skim the site, I came across the inevitable Food Blogs link, and browsed it for catchiest title.  cook eat FRET.  Perfect.  I clicked on it.  This blog is great-- the author is wry and funny and fully admits that all cooks are cooking to impress that one mythic cook in her mind.  In cook eat FRET, the imaginary cook-judge was a toss-up between Gabrielle Hamilton and Mario Batale.  I don't know who mine would be.  The mushroom-munching Hilary, perhaps.  So thanks to my two new food blog finds, forever immortalized in the column on the right, I will now be re-titling that column.  It is no longer called Food Blogs I Like, but will now given the heading that is far more appropriate... (see right).

Ok.  Kale.  The simplest way to cook it is in a saute pan.  This is perhaps the best way to introduce yourself to the vegetable if you are unacquainted.  You will get to know the flavors and textures that kale is capable of-- to know it in its pure form, you can put it to good, creative use in the future.  So, chop a couple or three cloves of garlic per head of kale and toss the garlic into your pan with a good smattering of olive oil.  While the garlic sits in heat just high enough to sizzle SLIGHTLY (garlic burns all too easily, so watch it), chop your kale into ribbons.  Some people like to chop the stems up and toss them in too, but don't pressure yourself the first time around.  After the garlic has sizzled for a minute or two, toss the kale in and stir till its coated with the garlicky oil.  Cover.  Come back in five minutes or so, and stir it till its tender.  Now, a word.  Kale will not become as tender as spinach.  It'll still be crunchy and will take several more chews than you might be used to (think steak, here).  This will grow on you, I promise.  Soon you'll feel like Popeye, after he has just guzzled a can of spinach.

Next recipe.  This is for a Kale Pesto, and its lovely.  It reuses the water the kale is steamed in for the pasta too, so you don't waste any of the plant's nutrients.

-1 bunch, kale, washed, drained, de-stemmed

-8 oz. penne pasta

-1/2 c. whole almonds, toasted (dry in a small skillet till aromatic and slightly darker in color)

-as many cloves of garlic as you can stand (it will be essentially raw)

-1/4 c. Parmesan, plus more for garnish

-1/2 tsp. salt, 1/8 tsp. salt

-2 Tbsp. evoo, 1 tsp. evoo

-juice of 2 lemons

-1-19oz. can cannellini or Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained

-1/4-1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

-s&p

1.  Steam kale over 2 quarts of boiling water for 5-7 minutes, till tender.  Transfer with a spoon or tongs to a colander to drain.  Don't toss the water, but boil your pasta in it until al dente.  Now you can drain.  (Hell, see if you can use the water one more time-- let it cool and water your garden with it.) 

2.  Chop your almonds in a blender or food processor until well-chopped (but not a butter).  Add garlic, cheese, 1/2 t. salt, and juice of one lemon.  If you haven't already done so, cut the thicker parts of the stems from the actual leaves of kale, leaving leaves with slits halfway up the middle.  Chop roughly.  Process till all ingredients are finely minced.  If the ingredients are too dry for the blender to process, and even if they aren't, add 2 T. oil till paste forms.  If still too dry, add another T. oil, and after that a little water or milk (spoken by the person with a very crappy blender).

3.  In a medium bowl toss your beans with juice of the other lemon and 1/8 tsp. salt.  (Don't forget to rinse beans first Claire, or else they taste like can.)

4.  In a large skillet or pot, fry your red pepper flakes in 1 tsp. evoo for a minute.  Add the pesto.  If still too thick, add a little water. Stir till hot, then add pasta and beans and toss gently till heated through.  Garnish with parmesan, salt and pepper.

Unless you've got a couple football playing teenage sons, you'll definitely have leftovers for lunch the next day.

Just Call Me Prawn Jeremy

"Many of [M.F.K. Fisher's] successors see food as an end in itself-- and end up producing something like food porn-- but the most successful memoirists write about food and the self in order to write about the human condition."

--Molly O'Neill, Introduction to American Food Writing

"Thanks for the lovely food porn, dear."

--my friend Berkeley, in reference to the blog Armchair Foodie

After reading Molly O'Neill's luscious introduction to the best collection of writings since... well, maybe ever, I vowed to be the food writer who falls into the latter of the two types she above describes. What lofty ends these writers attain, all while scribbling about eating! Food as metaphor for freedom, as Frederick Douglass writes: "The odors [of cooking] I shared with the winds, but the meats were under a more stringent monopoly... ." Or food as a re-introduction to nature, as Thoreau points out: "Our diet, like that of the birds, must answer to the season." Or even food as an illustration of a culture, like George C. Foster's Old New York: "The chief merit of these establishments is that they are kept open all night, and that hungry Editors or belated idlers can get a plate of biscuits with a lump of butter in the belly for three cents, and a cup of coffee for as much more... ."

And what do I do? I manipulate, then flaunt and exploit my groceries so that they become like maidens, made up and thrown across a bed, stripped all too young of their innocence. My food-- I can't help it-- is an end in itself. When I returned from the sweltering August Farmer's Market today there was nothing I wanted to do more than to lay my bounty across the table in as decorative a way as I could muster, and drool over it, fondle it, photograph it. I eyed it and thought long, lascivious thoughts about just what exactly I was going to do to it as soon as I could get it inside. Sigh. What else can I say, but: Hello. My name is Megan, and I am a food pornographer.