one man's ceiling

i'm out

2007-06-04T11:12:00.000-05:00

for the past seven months, with varying frequency, i have been logging my personal (mostly private culinary) adventures here at one man's ceiling. at the time i created this blog i also created another entirely separate blog which was aimed at my "professional" interests in children's literature.

for the first three or four months i volleyed between the two blogs, posting several times a week on each. my hope was to keep a firewall between the two worlds, where i could remain personal on one site and critical on the other. this probably runs counterintuitive to the blogging world but it was the way i wanted to proceed. and while it was easy to keep the two worlds separated it was difficult to maintain the posting demand for both.

in the end there was very little interest in my personal blog and increasing interest in my professional blog. i suppose having a built-in audience to tap into might have had something to do with it. but as my personal time was limited, when it came time to blog if i had to choose between which to post to i began to defer to the other blog.

i knew this would never take off and become some great cultural nexus. this blog wasn't build for speed or fame or controversy; it wasn't designed to poke, prod or assault; and it certainly wasn't envisioned as some great stepping stone toward something larger. it was my personal little letter to the world, centered around my general enjoyment of food, and it was fun for a while.

there comes a point, however, where a tipping point is reached, where a thing begins to take on a new dimension, a new life of it's own. the amassing of a number of elements -- internal and external, and from a variety of sources and influences -- has made it so that i now feel more compelled to spend my time and energies elsewhere. the other blog is only part of the picture, but an important and integral part.

i suppose i've known for a while this blog was coming to an end. perhaps not an end but a prolonged hiatus, though to be honest i don't foresee when it will be coming back. i've enjoyed my time here, and the occasional feedback from friends and strangers alike, and have never felt it a burden or an obligation. but the time has come to move along.

if you have gotten this far then i have to assume you might actually care enough to wonder what else i've been up to. fair enough. let me know you're truly interested and i'll pass along the name and url of the other blog in my life.

thanks for noticing me.

dlz

2 B or not 2 B

2007-05-20T12:36:00.000-05:00

it's been a while since i've been here and a couple times this week i've been wondering whether or not to continue. yes, i'm considering retiring one man's ceiling.

when i started i was looking to jump into the blog world and see what the waters were like. at the same time i also started another blog that was more "professional" in that it dealt with the field i am hoping to make my full-time livelihood one day. it has absolutely nothing to do with food.

i considered folding this blog gently into the professional blog, a mixture of food, family and work. doing so, however, would take away from the other blog's focus and i could see myself slowly dropping the food and family elements as a way of becoming more "centrist' in my blog.

i have enjoyed having this blog and in having a place where i could talk about food and keep the recipes, and i've certainly enjoyed the interaction with friends and strangers alike.

i won't go out on this note. i'm going to let the decision go another week or so. in the days leading up to june 1st i am open to any encouragement, suggestions or comments from those of you (i see you on sitemeter!) who visit regularly. i may even have a post or two left in me even if i do finally call it quits.

until then...

das Fünftel von Mai

2007-05-05T18:36:00.000-05:00

doesn't really matter what language it is, the fifth day of the fifth month is cinco de mayo. many american prefer to remember this as mexican independence day because, being american, who could find fault another country declaring their independence.

except that mexican independence from spain was declared on 15 september 1810.

no, the deal is cinco de mayo is when 4000 mexican soldiers beat down an army of 8000 french and traitor mexican troops at puebla, mexico, just east of mexico city in 1862.

history lesson's over, let's talk food.

it's been a while since i made enchiladas, and i decided this year we were celebrating with platos mexicano, or at least my version of family-style mexican comfort foods: traditional red and mole chicken enchiladas with sour cream and guacamole, spanish-style rice (couldn't get tomatillos to make the green rice i wanted to make), refried black beans, chips and salsa. i made so little of this from scratch, though i could have made it all. but it's spring, the girls have sports and music lessons on the weekends, they each have had sleep-over playdates and to top it all off we did a jaunt during the day to get some free loot because it also happens to be free comic book day nationwide.

what? you missed free comic book day? mark your calendars: first saturday in may next year. i hear it also happens in certain places around the world -- lambiek in amsterdam? -- but you deal with what you've got. i got some unseen peanuts, some lynda barry, the girls made off with a haul as well. who knew they liked the archies? but i digress.

here's the deal with enchiladas: they really are very easy. you need tortillas, sauce and filling. for the red enchiladas i simmered some chicken in chicken broth and green salsa with red onion and chopped black olives until the chicken fell apart into shreds and the water had mostly evaporated. for the mole, simmered the chicken in broth until it broke down and added enough bottled mole sauce to let it simmer and thicken. again, if i had a full day for prep and a full day to cook i could make the mole and sauces from scratch, but this isn't supposed to be a big stress meal. sure, it might be easier to just go local and eat out, but there's no reason to pay $15 a plate (as is the case in this area) for family style eats like this when you can get it in the barrio for a third that. with soup and chips and whatnot.

there are different kinds of mole (it should have a tilde over the e so you pronounce it "mol-ay") but i'm partial to the mixture of ground nuts and chocolate. it's worth seeking out and trying if you haven't, it's got a smokey, rich, sweet flavor that melds well with the bite of the spices. often when i eat spicy or garlicy foods i almost instantly crave chocolate; with mole that isn't the case (though i'd never turn down a bit of chocolate no matter what the occasion). today, i was working with a very good jar of stuff from trader joe's.

though i prefer the traditional corn tortilla my zuska prefers the flour, and this time i was able to find lower carb whole wheat tortillas that actually worked out very well. i did use corn for the red enchiladas, flour for the mole. they both tasted great.

i hate sitting back and saying aloud (as i did, feeling a bit overstuffed after the meal) "that were some good eats" because, honestly, it's arrogant for the chef to compliment themselves. but i wasn't fishing for compliments, it was good, and i liked it, and i don't see why i can't just say that once in a while.

and now i've crowed twice.

days five and six

2007-04-29T18:45:00.000-05:00

so, a little catching up on the veggie diet week.

so after the garlic soup there was the crazy-hectic thursday night where i worked, my zuska and e went to a book group and j hung out with a friend. on the menu: vegetarian chili, which didn't really taste any different than normal though it was the first time i made it in a slow cooker without meat.

the trouble with slow-cooking is that it basically works so long as you don't lift the lid. but making something that requires spices can make it a bit of a gamble if you can't make corrections until the end. granted, a chili isn't a big deal to fix at a late stage, but given that i wasn't home when the fam ate meant that i had to be rather sure of my spices in advance.

i leaned a bit heavier on the cumin and oregano and doubled up on green chilies. doubling the chilies was not planned; i bought fresh jalapenos not realizing i still had a can of chopped chilies in the cupboard. i added the canned babies to the onions at the bottom of the pot so their moisture would help steam out in the beans and mixed the fresh jalapenos with honey in a can of diced tomatoes to flavor out the sauce.

it was a thinner chili that i'd intended -- more of what that cheerleader calls a "stoup," part stew, part soup -- and totally edible. i took some on-the-verge-of-stale corn chips and crumbled them into the bowl, dumped some shredded cheese on top, then the chili. all good.

friday night being movie night usually means a lo-stress, easy comfort meal. my super nachos generally have ground meat (beef or turkey) simmered in cuban style black beans among the cheese, olives, chips, guac, sour cream and salsa. doing the beans alone kept the flavor and still the girls hadn't guessed about the week's meatless options. to be fair, it helped to not introduce super complicated new dishes that required close scrutiny, the only one being the first night's fried veggies and spanakopita which was well loved.

saturday is traditionally sauce night -- a meat sauce with pasta, or some form of meal with a sauce -- and i was all set to go all-veggie but my zuska used her veto power and so it was a traditional sauce with ground beef and sweet italian sausage. during dinner we informed the girls that this was the first meal since the previous saturday that had meat. they blanched at first, almost ready to insist it wasn't true, but then we outlined the week for them.

today, back to our regular omnivorous ways, we did a mango chicken with a quick stir-fry of garlic green beans. the mango chicken recipe comes from coconut & lime, a great food blog that does the sort of things i wish i could do; namely, invent recipes on a consistent basis. i should be (and am) grateful that i can do as much as i do in the kitchen, and don't need a secondary career in the culinary arts. the recipe is easy, and if you've got mangoes in season (they're just starting here) i would strongly suggest giving this a whirl. i think the only thing i would have liked more would have been a thai iced tea to go with it.

veggie week, day 3

2007-04-25T13:38:00.000-05:00

not one of my better stir frys, i must admit. i always have problems estimating the right flavor when using tofu, or rather, making sure it has enough flavor so that it doesn't "bland out" everything else.

in the back of my mind was the idea that i should bake it down in its marinade before adding to the rest of the mix but instead assumed an overnight soak in a soy-hoisen-garlic mixture would do it. wrong.

strangely, the girls haven't figured out we've been meatless since sunday morning. the closest we got was e. pointing out that the tofu was there for j, who decided she didn't like it. sometimes i just wish i knew what the magic formula was for what kids do and don't like to eat. it seems so fluid, so shifting at any given point, and i just don't get it. yeah, like i'm the only parent who ever had this problem.

toward the end of the night i felt a little queasy and wondered if it was something i ate. sometimes kids can be like canaries in the coal mine about food, recognizing something that's off because they're most sensitive. or closer to the ground. or something. but no one else went to bed feeling funny and everyone woke up fine.

not me. i seem to have taken on some cold-fever-like symptoms that i don't recognize. like all the elements of a fever -- slight aches, chills, erratic heart rate -- without a change in body temp. the stomach feels touchy, like it doesn't want food, but it was fine with some toast. i'm overall weak and feeling like i need to do some healing with food and that changes tonight's dinner.

actually, tonight's a bit rough. e has an after school class and then softball practice until 7, which is a long haul for a kid. my zuska is picking her up on the way home tonight and they're going to eat later, so dinner had to be a catch-as-catch-can event anyway. i was going with a sort of appetite assortment before but now i'm doubling back and making soup. garlic soup. with vegies and the option of buckwheat udon noodles.

this was a meal of choice when i needed a healthy pick up at a food court in emeryville, ca i used to frequent. it was a japanese stand that did all sorts of noodle soups and the garlic soup boasted a full head of garlic in each bowl. like this:

only without the chicken. and with buckwheat noodles. and garlic instead of -- what is that, scallops? water chestnuts? anyway. right tasty, and filling, and healthy. i'm hoping to capture some of that genie-in-a-bowl magic and whoop whatever this is in my system back to where it came from.

will the girls figure it out tonight? doubtful. things are going to be pretty scattered.

day 2, something new (and mint pesto)

2007-04-23T21:14:00.000-05:00

day 2 of the vegetarian experiment, salad course. the julliened beets, jicama and carrots on top of the salad with limed avocado and gouda cheese went about as could be expected: the girls didn't like it as much as the adults.

dinner salads have, traditionally around the casa, been large affairs that i nromally call "intermezzo salads" in honor of the cafe intermezzo in berkeley where i first encountered the beast. lettuces, carrots, croutons and celery are tossed with a choice of dressing and then topped with about seven pounds of meats, cheese, hard boiled egg, mixed beans and sprouts.

yeah, i didn't make that tonight.

i used a crisper green leaf lettuce than the usual romaine, went with the usual amount of cheese, topped with the veggies and whatnot, and tossed some pine nuts on top. it was good, light, a bit tart (the dressing was a lime-orange juice vinegrette without the vinegar) and not to intimidating. except the girls had to sort of be put through their paces to finish a reasonable amount.

i'm guessing they wake up starving.

the mint pesto was something that was used last week to top some scallops and i used a little leftover today on top of a bagel. yeah, i'll eat things just to see what they taste like. didn't you read about the cheddar beer chips below?

mint pesto!

one bunch of fresh mint leaves
three tablespoons of pine nuts, toasted
three cloves of garlic
one tablespoon of lime
four tablespoons of olive oil

really, all you do is run these through a food processor until smooh and creamy, adding a little water if it's too thick. it's take more time to clean and trim the mint leaves.

a dollop on a scallop is a wonderous thing. it would probably work wonders on a pasta primavera salad, with the addition of a little cheese on top. and it wasn't so bad a spread on a bagel, but i think it would have been better as the dressing for a sandwich with maybe provolone and marinated roasted peppers. i'm sure roast lamb would also work, if you're into that.

tomorrow: tofu stir fry.

the experiment and the menu

2007-04-22T22:01:00.000-05:00

there are all kinds of issues in the house right now. someone is dieting and exercising, and someone should be doing likewise. someone isn't even officially a tween and beginning to show signs of eating us out of house and home. someone has had an aversion to red meat for a few years now, though just the other night ate three adult portions of ribs, and could easily becomes a vegan within a few years. and someone has gas.

health and diet considerations taken to account, i threw out the idea that we go meatless for the week. i thought i could probably pull it off in a way that wouldn't seem like such a harsh shift in our eating. i'd also like to think that in a very small way it's helping the planet, but i can't really say that was a motivating factor.

so when my zuska and i discussed this we also decided to keep the girls out of the loop, to see how long it would take them to figure it out. if i went whole hog (no pun intended) and went vegan they'd know in a heartbeat, eggs and cheese just being too hard to remove from the house without severe problems with proteins and omegas. if the girls would only eat pbj! but with starches and flours already limited to next-to-nothing the lacto-ovo option needed to be exercised.

despite a lapse early in the day -- eggs with sausage for brunch, i just totally forgot -- the rest of the day went smooth. for dinner i fried some more zucchini with a cucumber yogurt dip, adding onions and eggplant to the mix, with a main dish of spanakopita. despite being a very rachel ray recipe, i loved the spanakopita because instead of a giant pan of feta and spinach pie they are personal sized little logs, like greek egg rolls. baked. okay, maybe nothing like egg rolls, but very nice.

just to be clear, this lack of meat is really only being enforced on my zuska and i. breakfasts won't be affected as we'll all be on our smoothie routines (girls will round out with bagels or mini wheats) and for lunch one takes the hot lunch at school and the other brings her trusy ham-n-cheese or hard boiled egg (or both! hungry tween alert!) and that's fine. like i said, they won't do the pbj option so whatever gets them through the day, right?

tomorrow night is a weird hybrid salad, a sort of a meatless cobb salad with some mexican whang to it. not spicy, just the combination of avocado and cheese and beets and jicama and citrus dressing. it feels a little out-on-a-limb but i'm up for it. and i don't think the girlies will figure out what's up just yet.

by tuesday they might. i'm doing a stir fry but i'm going tofu. one girl loves it and the other is going to pout because there's no beef or chicken. and that's when the dam will break. if they ask we'll tell them, and i suspect it'll all be clear before wednesday. then the only trick will be to see if they really are hankering for some meat come this time next week. we'll see how everyone fares.

beer & cheese & a bag of chips

2007-04-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

fending for myself again tonight because my zuska managed to get herself all invited to a girls nite out with sushi while i worked the late shift. it was apparently extremely excellent. the sushi that is.

so i was thinking maybe tonight i'd have an omelet. (i was thinking at work, thinking about what i would have. yeah, slow night). i knew i had eggs, and cheese, probably not mushrooms. onions? was there ham? sliced ham! wait... is there bread? canadian white bread (which isn't white, it's beige)! and individually wrapped cheese slices? yes! i'm going to have...

grilled ham and cheese sandwiches!

this is one of those things i could eat a lot more of around the house but can't really make as a meal. the girls won't do the ham thing, and it isn't really all that nutritious to eat like, say, once a week. but it was just me and i was going to have what i wanted.

but i was at work, hours to go before dinner. and thirsty. and a little snacky. so i'll run to the liquor store across the street. you know, for a lovely beverage and a snack. and this is what i saw.

cheddar beer.

i not only saw them, i felt strangely compelled to buy them, to try them! how bad could they be? beer and chips go well together, chips and cheese work together, it all ends up in the stomach anyway. what would they look like? would they be dusty with cheese dust, or yeasty colored like dried beer? well, in fact, they looked like this.

which is to say, they looked like chips, normal potato chips. and that's a good thing because when a food is an unnatural color -- like the nuclear colors that doritos come in -- you just know you're ingesting your old 4th grade chemistry set with every bite. so i was encouraged.

and then i tried them.

you know how it is when you're at a pub or some funky joint where maybe it's a little loud, but that's okay, and maybe it's also a little dark, and that's okay, because you're having a good time and all? and then you get all silly and you knock the beer bottle -- whoops! -- nice save! but a little of the beer splashed onto your chips and you mopped it up with a paper towel and, hey, they didn't so soggy. so then you've got a little cheddar that dripped out of your burger in your basket and you use one of those chips to scoop up the cheese and then, pop, right into your mouth.

there's a crunch, but not a crisp crunch. and a salty kind of cheese flavor, like the parmesan dust that's left over in the bottom of a can of that kraft stuff. and then, after you swallow, that husky aftertaste in the back of your throat that you get from a dark beer. only it's not a beer, and it isn't really cheese, and you're wondering why you're getting all this from a potato chip.

yeah, i ate the whole bag. i'm a guy. that's no excuse, i'm just saying.

so the minute i was off work i trucked home and my jacket hadn't even hit the floor before i was heating up the pan and buttering that canadian white bread. beer and cheese and chips may go together well, but only some drunken fool who gorged himself on a burger and chips and is nearly in a coma would come up with such a harebrained flavor as cheddar beer potato chips.

it takes a totally different fool to eat it. i can't even claim i was drunk.

what constitutes a national tragedy?

2007-04-19T08:38:00.000-05:00

a young man took the lives of 32 people and himself on monday. statistically 80 americans die from gun violence every day, but because they don't happen all at once or in the same place that statistic doesn't rate as news. which is the greater national tragedy?

yesterday there were 233 deaths in iraq, one of the largest single-day fatalities, yet the story was pushed aside for day-long coverage of news about our national tragedy.

(supreme court decision? what supreme court decision?)

so far, the estimate for civilian deaths in the iraq war is between 62,000 and 68,000 with no end in sight. the number of american fatalities is just over 3300. what makes one number newsworthy over another?

there's been a fair amount of hand-wringing and discussion in the news these past couple of days over mental health and why a clearly disturbed individual could so easily slip through the cracks. (and they have to keep mentioning how deranged/disturbed he was in order to show that they aren't simply in it for the gore; but they are) yet the nation didn't do any hand-wringing or hold any substantive discussions in the 1980's when ronald reagan's fiscal agenda gutted national mental health care system in favor of decentralization via local funding, community health centers and "block grants" which were designed to expire during his administration.

what gets ignored today becomes a national tragedy tomorrow. or, for those who prefer to have their reality masked in dogma: reap what you sow.

tragedy. you have to get three definitions in before you find an entry that doesn't concern drama in the american heritage dictionary.

3. A disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life: an expedition that ended in tragedy, with all hands lost at sea.

4. A tragic aspect or element.

since 9/11 it seems the news media goes from event to event, sniffing like a hungry dog, looking for the latest tragedy. news stories that provide breadth and scope and analysis have been replaced by expert speculation and professional opinion and a general lack of understanding of what constitutes news.

that is our greatest national tragedy.

top-o-yer-corn

2007-04-15T14:16:00.000-05:00

over at slashfood they've got a story asking people what they top their popcorn with and so far it's pretty pedestrian. the usual culprits are there -- flavored butters and salts, sweet and savory additions, bacon, cheese, hot sauce. what i want to know is" where are all the freaks?

i worked in movie theatres. before the bomb got dropped on coconut oil (what had been used for decades in the theatre biz, dropped because it was supposedly a "bad" oil) people used to request all kinds of toppings. parmesan cheese and brewers yeast were the top requests, season salt at the very least. sodium-free alternatives were also high in demand. eventually the condiment counter looked like a collection of refuge containers from the italian restaurant on the corner with shakers of all different sizes and hole openings. we even had to chain them down as people would take them into the theatres for their own personal use (selfish bastages!) and then leave them there, empty, sitting in pools of soda filth on the floor.

popcorn topping freaks? yeah, we saw them. hot sauce requests were common, and why these people couldn't be bothered to bring their own bottles along was beside me. i remember the one guy who really wanted ketchup and went a few doors down to a deli and got a handful of those little foil packages. mustard came up as well, and that almost intrigued me, because i like mustard on things most people don't.

but the king all-time topper of popcorn toppers came from a woman who ordered a large trough-sized cup of corn and requested we let her season it half way before moving on. people often requested we stop half way so they could salt (or have us add butter to) the bottom half for better distribution. that's not such an unusual request. but what she wanted was for us to sell her a bag of m&m's to sprinkle in the middle, then salted it and then had us add extra butter. to just the bottom half. then we filled it again, she had us knock a little off the top, sprinkled another bag of peanut m&m's on top, salted it and had us give extra butter.

understand this about the "extra butter" question at the snack bar; it may be one of the most expensive items to stock, but the reason theatre's try to go light on the butter is because there is a hidden cost of putting too much butter in the bag or cup -- dry cleaning. after a while a pool of butter is going to settle and either leak through the seams of the bag or through the bottom of the cup. you can't wax these containers the way you do drink cups because the wax will melt alongside the melted butter or when stored in a warming bin, so the best they can be is a coated paper that is resistant but not seep-proof. i cannot tell you the number of times people came out of the theatre with the tell-tale extra butter stain on their clothes demanding we pay for dry cleaning. folks, if you ask for extra, don't expect a theatre to also cover the cleaning bill for your indulgences.

i mention this not only as a public service but because we knew when we loaded up that m&m/butter/popcorn concoction that there would be a mess to clean somewhere down the road. at the end of the show we all swooped in to find the evidence. Like treasure hunters on the beach someone shouted "eureka!" and we all converged. there, on the floor, to our horror, we found it. the bucket was completely empty. she had eaten the entire thing. worse, the butter had melted the candy coating off the m&m's leaving a rainbow swirl of congealed butter about a quarter inch thick on the bottom. furtherworse, it appeared she had dredged her fingers through the butter leaving little furrows were her nails scooped up the candy butter that she would probably be licking off her fingertips for the coming week.

lest you think this was a one-off, may i direct you attention to the following recipe for popcorn cake? or perhaps this recipe? even emeril has a version, thought the recipe link doesn't work you can find the book pretty easy. if you're so inclined.

or perhaps this sounds more to your liking:

Harry & David’s Spooky Moose Munch, a wonderful combination of fluffy, crisp popcorn glazed with almond toffee and tossed with candied orange peels. The best part of this Halloween treat is that some of this divine popcorn creation is dipped into semi-sweet dark chocolate and drizzled over with orange-flavored chocolate. A gourmet treat everyone will enjoy.

people, need i remind you: it CORN! it's what we use to fatten livestock! do you really need further incentive to gorge yourselves on chocolate and sweets to the point of casual obesity?

now, what did i do with those leftover easter candies...

dinner for one, racism for all

2007-04-14T12:32:00.000-05:00

louden wainwright iii (perhaps better known to some as rufus wainwright's dad) was a folkie who had a hit a few decades back called "dead skunk" which you may know about but have never heard. this post isn't about skunks or that song. i bring him up because in the 80's he had a song call "i eat out" that talks about what it's like to eat alone. mostly it's about how pathetic it is that he eats alone.

well you can put at the table
in the corner in the back
unless you got one in the telephone booth
i know, i'm here and i'm alone again
it's sad but it's the truth

no i'm not expecting anyone
is that beyond belief?
give me menu, take away the candle
never mind the aperitif

i get a little like that when the girls are out of town, as they were last night. without having everyone to cook for i'm not as inspired to cook for myself. unless i'm craving something specific that i can get take-out i'll just scrounge whatever's at home. unless it's like old mother hubbard there, and then it's the great divide: buy groceries and cook for one, or take-out?

have we ever discussed my indecision, especially when i'm too hungry to focus?

i got home from work last night, the girls already gone, and found nothing scrounge-worthy. shopping didn't sound fun so i ordered a burger and fries, zoomed on my bike to pick it up, and watched the ever-clumsy news media fall all over themselves on this don imus thing. people, the issues isn't his racism, it's the fact that we still haven't had a discussion about racism in this country because we don't feel like we can be good citizens until we have, and we haven't, and we're not. that is to say, racism exists because people in american believe it won't go away until we have a national dialog and consensus about racism which, if you've every tried to get a committee of people to agree on anything you realize isn't only difficult but sometimes impossible. now multiply that by several million, and not just any several million, but several million americans who equate "free speech" with "what i say is more right, more truthful, more valid than your free speech" and you'll understand my frustration.

basically, racism exists because we can't imagine an america without it. but i digress, and i must admit, i don't remember the meal at all. violation of rule number one: never eat with the television on. i had a perfectly good book, a couple back issues of entertainment weekly, there's no reason why it had to go down like that. at least i didn't get indigestion.

my zuska will be home later (it was only an overnight) but she's off to a party and i just don't see us eat together until tomorrow. so i'll scramble for a bagel sandwich here, maybe a makeshift pasta and sauce there, really clean out the fridge during this vacation week while the girls are away and work on some new menu ideas.

when in new england

2007-04-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

i never really liked fish. growing up i never recall eating any fresh fish except for the occasional trout caught while camping as a boy scout. and while i could appreciate the differences between a fresh-caught fish and the usual fish stix or the occasional fillet-o-fish from mickey d's the idea of eating fish voluntarily as an adult was foreign to me.

or rather, it was slow to take. on a road trip across the country i had roadside fried clams, and had my first new england crab cake, and then back on the west coast discovered that grilled swordfish could hold its own against a steak. it took this california boy a little too long to understand the joy of the fish taco (and i won't say how old i was before i got past the mental block that kept me from sushi) but it's been a long, slow, steady climb.

except for shellfish, which i don't consider fish because they're more like spiders to me than sea creatures. and when i say shellfish i mean scallops and shrimp. big prawns with a spicy cocktail sauce, tiny little guys in the fried rice, regular 18/20 pan seared or on the grill... yum! except that i made a paella about a year ago and there were leftovers and i ate them for lunch and, man-o-man, was i sick! i still haven't gotten to where i can eat them though i can sit in the same room with them staring at me, but just barely.

anyway, i don't consider them fish, so we aren't talking about them.

i'm in new england, my girls like fish, this whole region is buffaloed into believing that the world would end if there was no fish, so i'm figuring i need to get with the program.

i made fish cakes. safe. like fish stix only fancier. 'cause i'm trying to work my way up to crab cakes.

i went with a recipe from the duchess of new england because (a) it was probably safe and (b) because it was nothing fancy. i probably could have found this recipe on the street, it's so basic. i'm not even going to include it.

it was good. i think i would have preferred to have served it with asparagus instead of broccoli but otherwise all went well. that's all.

i wish i had a good recipe for a scallop soup. that might make for a good next step.

tarragon times 2

2007-03-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

it's no secret that among the herb family i'm fond of tarragon. i add it to veggie soups, it works with fish, and when i remember it's a good twist to mix with basil in a pesto. but best of all i like it with chicken. i find it delicate enough that it doesn't overpower but light enough to give food a certain snap of both flavor and aroma.

tonight my zuska was out having a little get-together with her law school buds and i was feeling that dinner needed to be a low-key affair. the girls are great about trying pretty much everything we put in front of them but they are kids and the simple things are sometimes the best.

j likes my chicken salad, e will take anything that's starch. i was thinking that with the recent near-spring-like weather (sunny but not quite warm) i'd try with a simple cold plate, a picnic type offering with the commonality of tarragon. tonight was

bi-coastal chicken salad & honey mustard potato salad

for the chicken salad:

two whole chicken breasts, about 2 lbs
1 cup red seedless grapes, sliced in half
1 cup cashews, coarsely chopped
1 red apple, peeled, cored, chopped
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
kosher salt and pepper

for the potato salad:

3 lbs of small potatoes, red or yukon would be my choice
2 stalks of celery
1/2 cup red onion, chopped really small
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
2 tablespoons prepared honey mustard
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chicken stock
more salt and pepper

the following recipe presumes a cold kitchen with nothing prepped in advance. in all it took about an hour from start to finish and could have been served immediately but i chilled everything for a few hours before serving.

place the potatoes whole in a pot of water and begin to boil them to the tender spot
meanwhile, place the chicken breasts in a pot of water and turn the heat up to a low boil to poach
note: this is as good a time as any to make a fresh chicken stock, and if that's the case add a quartered onion, broken celery stalks, and garlic cloves into the chicken water. the chicken will take on some of the flavor and you'll have a fresh stock for the potatoes and for future use
double note: you can roast the chicken in the oven drizzled with olive oil and salt and pepper instead for about the same amount of time, 20 minutes or so
okay, back to the recipe in progress
in one larger bowl chop and add the celery and onions
in another large bowl add the grapes, apples and cashews
then take a good hunk of fresh tarragon leaves (no stems) and chop them up like mad until you have 6 tablespoons (3 for each bowl)
what about dried tarragon? never for these recipes, dried works best when it can cook
after about 20 minutes the chicken should be cooked, so take it out and let it rest until it cools a little
check the potatoes. tender but not mushy? perfect. drain the water out and cover the pot with a towel to keep them warm-ish.
let's make a vinaigrette in the meantime. in a small bowl whisk the mustard and vinegar, slowly adding the olive oil to mix
remove the skin from the chicken and the chicken from the bone; chop into good mouth-sized chunks
add the chicken to the grapes and apples, sprinkle the tarragon on top, and mix the ingredients
if the chicken is cool enough, add the mayo, otherwise hold off
take the potatoes and cut into bite-sized chunks; warm is okay here, in fact, warmer is better
add the potatoes to the onions and celery and sprinkle the rest of the tarragon on top
drizzle a cup of stock over the potatoes and then give them a toss to mix
now add the vinaigrette and toss again. this should smell good as the heat from the spuds releases the various aromas
back to the chicken; is it cool enough? add the mayo and mix, then drizzle in the honey and mix again
salt and pepper these two dishes to taste and you're good to go

this particular night i laid out a small bed of torn lettuce on half the plate and spooned out some chicken salad on top of it. on the other side i doled out the potato salad. very simple and very spring-y. as expected, j asked for seconds of chicken salad (it's her favorite -- she requested i make it for her birthday last year) and e took more potato salad but neither had any problems eating both.

a final note on the chicken salad's name
the recipe (which is mine) is a cross between a waldorf salad (no chicken, mayo, raisins, apples, walnuts) and what is sometimes called a sonoma salad (chicken, mayo, apples, grapes, pecans). the difference between the two is, obviously, the coast (sonoma, california has the grape vineyards and the poultry farms but the waldorf astoria during the depression had to settle for raisins and nuts) and the twist i add is the tarragon and substitute with cashews. if i'm making the more traditional sonoma version it would have poppy seeds instead but i hold pretty tight to the cashews because i hate walnuts: they tear up the roof of my mouth and generally taste too bitter to me. and i have to be in the right mood for pecans. cashews are kid friendly, add the crunch without taking away from the subtlety of the rest of the ingredients, and i just like them, okay?

not recommended: holding this chicken salad between your knees (see five easy pieces at wikipedia for the reference)

all-my-by-my-self fish-in-a-parchment

2007-03-22T08:22:00.000-05:00

i came at this from a couple different directions. first, my girls like fish a lot more than i do and i was feeling like i owed them some. second, i found a recipe for pan-seared tuna that looked excellent for me and zuska but i wasn't so sure about for the girls; also, the recipe included udon noodles, which i'm currently off until easter. third, recently recipes have been showing up everywhere in my consciousness showing things cooked in parchment pouches.

so, putting all this together we get the meal i made last night. i winged the whole dang thing and it would up very edible (or eatable, as gets said in our house). and a word about the name: the girls used to say "all-my-by-my-self" when they were younger to indicate when they did something they were proud of on their own. hence

all-my-by-my-self fish-in-a-parchment

1.5 - 2 lbs fish steak, swordfish was used, tuna was the plan, salmon was the original back-up (figure 1/2 pound per person)
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 handful of fresh mint leaves, chopped to heck
4 smallish zucchini, washed and sliced into half-inch thick half moons
1 lb shelled frozen edamame
juice of one lemon
coarse salt and pepper
6 parchment squares, as long as the parchment is wide
string

preheat the oven to 400 degrees
pour the frozen edamame in a bowl of hot water and let sit
in another small bowl mix the butter and mint
salt one side of the fish and flip it
on the unsalted side spread the mint butter on the fish then set in the refrigerator to chill a bit while you get the rest of the things ready
in the center of each parchment divide the zucchini equally into six servings
drain the edamame and divide into six serving into the parchment on top of the zucchini
season the veggies with salt and pepper, about a teaspoon divided across all the servings
remove the fish from the fridge and cut into six equal sized pieces; alternately, you could chop into 2 inch sized chunks like stew meat
place equal amounts of the fish atop the veggies in the parchment, mint butter side up
pour equal amounts of lemon juice over each of the servings, about 2 or 3 teaspoons for each
draw up the corners of the parchment and twist; tie the parchment pouch closed with string
lightly oil a shallow baking dish and place the parchment pouches in the dish; be sure they have room around each and are not touching
pour in enough water to line the bottom of the pan and place the pan in the lowest rack of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes
serve at the table in it's pouch to be cut at the table or carefully slide the contents onto a plate

timing can be tricky. the swordfish steaks i got were nearly an inch thick but the tuna i was contemplating was thinner and would have taken slightly less time. about 20 minutes in you will need to open a pouch and test the fish for flakiness. is you need to cook a bit longer you can close the test pouch up and cook without affecting the outcome. if you need to test more than once use a different pouch the second time.

cooking in parchment steams the fish with the lemon juice and vegetable moisture and keeps the smell and flavors contained. the mint butter adds a subtle flavor to the fish and then falls nicely onto the veggies for a nice seasoning as well.

because i made six pouches but suspected we wouldn't eat more than four i froze the two remaining pouches in a freezer storage bag for future consumption. i'm hoping it goes well down the line when we need a quick something to eat and don't have a lot of prep time. i'll report back if there were problems.

all hail king ding dong, still strong at 40!

2007-03-22T07:11:00.000-05:00

dateline: america

hostess ding dongs, those little hockey pucks of chocolate cake-y goodness filled with white creamy stuff and topped with a thin, hard shell of yummy waxy chocolate officially celebrated its 40th birthday.

originally presented to the public on march 18, 1967, these vitamin-fortified nuggets of joy, individually wrapped in a square of micro thin aluminum foil were an instant hit in peanuts and banana splits lunch boxes across the northamerican continent. for a time they replaced the twinkie as the snack of choice until partisan factions broke out among the snack food eating populace. to this day you can still hear arguments from both camps denouncing the other.

those of us fortunate enough to be there the day the ding dong was unveiled remember distinctly how perfectly smooth the foil wrapper was along the top of the cake, showing every slight ripple in the chocolate coating's texture. only in retrospect does foil seem the most obvious choice; the snack was released during the height of the space missions, the mirrored surface serving as an homage to the moon as viewed by lunar orbiters.

according to the official hostess propaganda the ding dong was named after the chiming bell heard in the first commercial. how can this be? how can you name a snack for a commercial for a snack where the name is featured in the product for which the bells are ringing? say what? that's crazy? dingy? ding dong!

ah, the zen of snack food, the yin and yang of it all. stay to the white but remain true to the black; stay to the black but remain true to the white. does the chocolate shell exist to enclose the cake, or does the cake fill the void created by the shell? is it an encapsulated earth, a magma of cream surrounded by a mantle of cake and topped with a chocolate crust protected by an atmosphere of foil?

the secret was the foil. the foil was the secret. without the foil all you had was... a snack cake. ah, but with the foil, what a world! if you carefully unwrapped the ding dong and then proceeded to flatten out the foil you would end up with a perfect sheet of aluminum, as thin as silver leaf. with a little work you could use that foil to wrap ordinary household objects and create unearthly art. wrap a barbie doll and create a scary robot straight out of agerman expressionist silent movie! carefully tear it into half and use the pieces to cover your teeth, a gangsta grill 20 years ahead of its time! paint your finger nails with clear nail polish and attach bits of the foil, trim with scissors when dry and marvel at the glam rock of it all!

now-a-days kids don't get no foil. now you get hermetically sealed little plastic pillow bags with your ding dong sitting on a cardboard insert that looks like the stuff they use to keep a man's dress shirt stiff. nothing you can do with that. no imagination, just a snack cake with a shelf life longer than the memories it will never engender.

greek to me 3a: fried zucchini & cucumber yogurt dip

2007-03-15T20:51:00.000-05:00

this was a side dish that became the main vegetable for din-din last night. yeah, a fried veggie isn't always (ever) the best choice, but i'm gonna justify it by saying the dip had cucumber in it.

for the zucchini:

4 zucchini, at least a pound's worth, washed, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch disks
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup water at room temperature
1 egg, also at room temperature
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
oil for frying - i used 2 parts olive oil and 1 part sunflower oil

for the dip:

1 english cucumber
3 cloves of garlic
16 oz. greek-style yogurt
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
fresh ground black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil

(yeah, there's a lot of olive oil going around)

start with the batter...
make sure the egg and water are at room temperature, probably easiest to crack the egg into the water and let them sit
start with the egg and water in a large bowl, lightly mix them, adding the oil and the garlic
add the flour slowly so it doesn't turn into one bog ball of gooey glue. if it's too thick and looks more like bread dough add water a couple tablespoons at a time until it's more batter-esque
add the salt and pepper and let the mixture sit for at least 30 minutes

now go with the dip...
grate the cucumber into a colander lined with cheesecloth; weight it down with a plate and something heavy to extract the water for at least 15 minutes
(slice the zucchini now if you haven't done so yet)
pick up the cucumber in the cheesecloth and squeeze out all the water you can, then dump it in a blender
add the garlic, yogurt, red wine vinegar to the blend and set it to puree
drizzle the olive oil in while the blender is going
when it's nice and smooth pour it into a serving bowl, grate some pepper on it and refrigerate until ready to serve

ready to fry some zukes...
heat the oil in a deep skillet or (as i prefer) a wok -- less splatter all over the stove that way!
tumble the zucchini into the batter and give it a good mix with the old hands; they won't be totally batter-covered, just dabbled and streaked
fry the zucchini disks in batches making sure not to crowd them.
once they start to brown flip them to brown both sides evenly, about 5 minutes
transfer them to paper towels to drain and set them aside to stay warm

they should be served when the last batch finishes their frying, so timing is everything. if you want them table ready to start (or serve with) a dinner then you need to start your first batch about 30 minutes before plating.

kid tested and approved. you've never seen kids eat this much zucchini.
there will be no zucchini leftover, but there will be dip which will stand for another day or two in the fridge and can be used with carrot stix or even an interesting dressing for a salad.
hey, why not top some kefta with it? probably a little more drizzle-able than the other sauce i tried
you could use half as much zucchini and replace the other half with disks of equal-sized japanese eggplant
probably my favorite thing all week.

zucchini moussaka

2007-03-15T09:48:00.000-05:00

a.k.a. noodleless greek lasagna, a.k.a. zucchini casserole with meat sauce and cheese sauce. it looked and sounded good, but explaining it to the girls in advance was a bit hard. never use the word bechamel when explaining a topping, kids think it sounds like chemicals or something.

of the three dinners for "greek week" that i made this week, this was my least favorite. the spices were a bit too mellow (read: bland) for my palate and i didn't like the bechamel recipe that was provided. i get that the top is supposed to be both cheesy and crusty and not melt into the rest of the dish, but just wasn't my favorite thing. plus, it was a lot more time consuming to make than i would have liked on a weeknight, and a lot of prep in three different directions.

here's the easy-sounding part: layer sauteed zucchini with meat sauce, top with bechamel, bake in the oven. easy.

here's the reality: make a meat sauce that has to reduce because it's very watery and you want it thick; saute zucchini while the sauce is cooking down, because you have a LOT of time for the sauce to cook down; then carefully time your bechamel to be ready the minute you're going to pop the dish in the oven because it will settle into a glue very quickly. at least with this recipe.

the fam loved it, loved it, loved it. ate so much there was nothing leftover. you've never seen kids eat so much zucchini in one sitting. but because the recipe requires three sets of instructions -- meat sauce, bechamel, assembly -- i'm going to make this a "by request" post unless there is a huge outpouring of comments. that isn't me trying to get people to post comments, just me conserving some energy.

fortunately there was another meal during greek week so it didn't end on a sour note. but that's for another post.

greek to me 101

2007-03-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

lately i've been coming across cookbooks themed around various cultures and i've just sorta dived in. a couple weeks ago it was indian home cooking and foods from arab nations, this week it's modern greek. i think it has to do with wanting to open up our menu outside the tried-and-true and maybe brighten up some of the late winter (such as it is) blahs.

i've got 3 different things running this week, but it started off well last night with a think called arni sto harti which is a lamb stew cooked in parchment. i have to admit, growing up the few times my mo attempted lamb was usually around easter, like most meats cooked to a salty leather, and entirely inedible without sides and sauces. in this case it was mashed potatoes (because roasted potatoes were never heard of in my family) with LOTS of butter and the lamb was served with LOTS of bright green mint jelly.

naturally I only liked it for the jelly, the remaining jar would be for my own personal use in peanut butter sandwiches as no one liked mint jelly without lamb. weird.

since then i've had lamb primarily in middle eastern dishes, ground with mint leaves and grilled as kefta or in patties served with yogurt sauces. so doing lamb in solid stew chunks had me a little worried.

worries totally unfounded.

here's the result which can serve six, or easily four who enjoyed it as they did last night. damn easy to prep.

arni sto harti - lamb stew in parchment

3 pounds lamb in large cubes, excess fat trimmed is necessary
1 medium russet potato, peeled and chopped into chunks
4 spring onions (they look like oversized green onions) or 8 large pearl onions, quartered
2 cups fresh peas (and frozen will work, too)
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/3 white wine or white wine vinegar (different flavors, equally nice)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
coarse salt and fresh ground pepper
6 oz. greek cheese like kasseri or fefalotiri or just hard chunk parm, cut into 6 slices
parchment paper and string

preheat oven to 350 degrees
in a large bowl combine the lamb, potato, onions, peas and tomatoes and mix
drizzle olive oil and wine/wine vinegar and mix again
spoon meat mixture equally into the center of 12 by 12 inch squares of parchment
sprinkle oregano on top of meat mixture; season with salt and pepper
top each pile with a slice of cheese
gather corners, then edges of the parchment and twist to create a little bundle
tie the parchment closed with a piece of string
place the parchment sacks in a lightly greased baking dish
pour a thin layer of water into the dish, enough to just cover the bottom of the dish
put it in the oven for 1.5 hours
put each parchment sack on a plate and cut open at the table, eat right out of the parchment

easy to prep, easy to clean up after
kid approved!
great tastes! can probably be applied to beef! swap russets with asparagus! or carrots! or chicken and green beans! fish and leeks! ideas abound!

seriously, i thought this was the riskiest thing i'd put on the table this week and it turned out just perfect. late-winter blahs all gone go bye-bye!

now, let's see what happens next...

question of the week: is corn edible?

2007-03-10T15:54:00.000-05:00

or, as is said in our house, eat-able?

seriously, now, let's think about this. if you swallow a coin (as my brothers often did when they were small) you could count on them coming out the other end just as undigested as can be. seems only natural that anything we pass through our digestive tracts in roughly the same shape as it started is probably something we weren't designed to eat.

you would think, eh?

but we all know about corn. it just keeps coming to mind when i think about what we, as humans, really should be eating. after all, corn is what's fed to beef and pork to fatten them for market, but on their own these are not food these animals would seek out on their own. corn is also the leading cause of illness in cattle, it's what requires them to be fed a diet of antibiotics, it's the feed that separates it from grass-fed (i.e. naturally raised) beef. if it's not good for cows why is it considered good for us?

okay, bad analogy. chocolate is bad for dogs but for humans... well, it can be pretty bad for some humans as well. topic for another day.

the questions is remains: should we be eating corn?

if not, maybe we should take a long, hard look at just how much corn we are consuming daily. yes, we are consuming corn daily. in corn flour, corn starch, corn syrup, corn chips. it's in our preservatives at maltodextrin and dextrose. it's in candy and soda but in places you wouldn't even think to look, like the spice rack. we even have it added to our auto fuels, which means we're breathing in corn fumes as part of the exhaust.

oh, you believed ethanol was a clean burning fuel? clean compared to gas and oil, sure, but it's still there! you think ethanol is the solution to high gas prices? corn is political. there are several reasons why the government continues to subsidize corn growing in this country, not the least of which is that it can be used as a weapon against countries like mexico and venezuela by undercutting their staple export crop -- corn -- thereby keeping them from enjoying the same economic successes here.

but we were talking about eating corn. and eating is never about politics, is it?

with a food source so prominent in a culture it makes me wonder what would happen if that crop were to suddenly disappear. would the united states collapse if corn crops became sterile and died out within a couple of years?

perhaps that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

discuss.

someone's in the kitchen...

2007-03-10T10:12:00.000-05:00

i wake up to the smell of... what is that smell? something slightly burnt, some sort of sugary-starch that's burnt to the bottom of a pan is what it is. it's a bit like parsnips hanging in the air, or maybe some sort of sausage made with something other than beef or pork. or chicken.

where it would be nice to wake up to the idea that someone was making me breakfast it's rarely what i would want to eat. part of it is a case of familiarity; my in laws eat differently than i like or am used to. they don't necessarily eat terribly or unusual foods... i just can't explain it.

during the weekdays i'm up with the famberly and get them revved with (lately) fruit smoothies that have yogurt, apple and orange juice as a base and a mix of frozen fruit, but always red grapes and blueberries. j. also gets a bagel half (she prefers the bottom) with cream cheese and apple butter (my influence). e. supplements her smoothie with either oatmeal or shredded wheat (called fweets in our house) or at the very least a handful of nuts. i consider it a victory if i can get zuska to down her smoothie because for the longest time she could never eat first thing in the morning. i'll usually take the other half of the bagel and a smoothie and that'll hold me until i can get my green tea at work.

weekends are something else. i like to try at least one of those days to make a traditional egg-n-breakfast-meat breakfast. i like french toast. i like doing an egg scramble. i like breakfast burritos and the girls are slowly accepting them but zuska thinks they're alien. what i'd really like is to have a nice traditional huevos rancheros -- a set of corn tortillas topped with chili relleno or spicy black beans, fried eggs, cheese, salsa, the works. i eat lots of things that the famberly thinks is odd: eggs with ketchup~

interlude: i was asked to make breakfast for everyone about an hour ago. i forgot where i was going with the odd things i eat. give me a second while i rethink this post...

yeah, so odd breakfast things i will eat: cold pizza, cold leftover spaghetti with sauce, most leftovers in general, leftovers wrapped in a tortilla, cold spaghetti with sauce wrapped in a tortilla, last-night's nachos, quesadillas with salsa... basically, anything that looks good to me at other times of the day. i don't think of breakfast as being this rigid thing where it's eggs or cold cereal toasted breads, any more than lunch has to be about sandwiches and dinner about some roasted meats.

there's a lot of emphasis on breakfast being the most important meal of the day, breaking the fast and getting the body moving, but i feel way too heavy to work in the mornings if i eat an egg-based breakfast. sure, i feel full, and have enough energy to get me through to the afternoon, but more evidence suggests that we should be eating smaller meals more frequently throughout the day and a big breakfast runs counter to that.

at my healthiest (which isn't now, and was long before i had a famberly of my own) i grazed more. i didn't always graze as healthily as i could or should have but i also didn't over eat when it came to meals. and when the in laws are around there's this sense of meals coming heavy and one on top of the other. zuska's dad started making a chicken cacciatore for tonight's dinner long before we got up, which is fine except that he just announce "another hour and it should be good". unless i misunderstood, that means he'll have dinner ready anytime starting after 1 pm and it's just now noon and we just finished breakfast. i know that there are errands between now and then, and that the dinner can simmer for quite a bit, but i'm pretty sure that by the time dinner rolls around i'm not going to be fully hungry. and politeness being what it is when one has company over (company that's cooking dinner) i'm going to have to eat before i'm hungry.

i guess that's the sticking point, that whether i'm at their place or they're at our place, meals around the in laws means my eating schedule gets thoroughly thrown off.

that smell i woke up to? carrots, in need of deglazing from the bottom of the pot. because zuska didn't have any wine, and because zuska's dad is an emeril lasagge zealot, he insisted on using brandy to deglaze the pan. because that's what emeril says to do; alcohol is required. long ago i learned that one could deglaze a pan using stock with excellent results and not add to the calories in a meal. far be it for me to suggest that emeril isn't the be-all and end-all in the kitchen. i'm sure it will be fine with the brandy, i just wouldn't get all bent out of shape about it.

so that's where my conflicting sides sit this morning. on the one hand i can be very fluid when it comes to improvising when i'm comfortable with my surroundings; when my surroundings become uncomfortable i get agitated. i don't need to be in control, but i need to feel like i still have some control. and with in laws in the kitchen i feel very out of control.

sad leftovers & strange dips

2007-03-07T22:02:00.000-05:00

so due to the hecticedness of our lives here tonight was a leftover night. and if i hadn't called for a leftover night we'd have only been contribution to the gluttony of the fridge while at the same time wasting a lot of perfectly good food.

the girls were about to fight over the remain shepherd's pie until i suggested they split it and supplement with some noodles and sauce. yeah, it's a bit starchy, and they'll probably be groggy or crabby (or both) in the morning from a carb headache, but they ate well and got enough protein and were more willing to deal with leftovers than they have been in the past, so i let the starches win.

zuska arrived after they ate and she had some leftover chili. chili is usually best the next (or two) after it's cooked once the flavors have really had a chance to blend.

i had a quesadilla. then i had some salami with cheese. what i really wanted was some of that sauce with some pasta but, duh, i gave that up for lent. nothing seemed really exciting once i realized what i wasn't having, thus the boring lite veggie-less dinner.

i should be eating better. honestly.

meanwhile, over at slashfood there's a bit about a recipe for a dip overheard from the dick van dyke show. the dip involved avocado, peanut butter and mustard. there's some speculation that the dip was a fabrication (it was a comedy show after all) but also a shout-out to any and all who would be willing to make, taste and report back.

uh, not quite.

but it reminded me of a recipe book i have (somewhere, damn it!) called OLEMALUMA
(Bottoms Up!): The Amateur Bartenders Hawaiian Friend, Exotic and Plain Mixed Drinks and Canapes From the Entire Pacific Area and The Orient by South Seas Scotty. It's from a pre-war era, where the islands were exotic and still relatively untouristed.

among the classic (and not-so-classic) beverages there's a short little recipe that has always seemed strangely compelling to me. I also found it in an 1930's edition of The Joy of Cooking, which leads me to believe it isn't as odd as it seems to me

PEANUT BUTTER AND BACON CANAPÉS
Toast rounds of bread on one side.
Spread the untoasted sides with peanut butter
Cover them with very thin strips of bacon and broil them under a quick flame until the bacon is crisp

okay, that's pretty straightforward, and yet i can't quite wrap my mind around peanut butter and bacon. it's a little like some sort of doggie treat. and i'm the guy who makes himself peanut butter and potato chip sandwiches -- crispy and salty with the peanut butter-y, just not bacon-y. and a quick look on google shows that the paenut butter, bacon and banana sandwich isn't uncommon. not as compelling!

but given some of the recipes i've seen from between the wars in the US -- depression era recipes are, well, truly depressing -- it seems entirely plausible for there to be a recipe for an avocado, peanut butter and bacon dip.

now, if i only had the nerve (and the arteries) to try it.

post-post: pizza related factoid

2007-03-06T19:54:00.000-05:00

according to the lid of e's snapple green tea...

"real fact" #187

there are over 61,000 pizzerias in the US

i'm not saying they're all crap, but that is a lot of crappy pizza out there. divide by a current population of 301,320,146... that's one pizzeria for every 4,000 people. compare that with 7100 "omnipresent" starbucks, which comes to a 1:42,439 ratio.

or micky d's at 1:23,178. (fill your snack hole, indeed!)

like i said, a lot of pizza out there.

delivery pizza, tightwad pizza & something in between

2007-03-05T16:13:00.000-05:00

what a strange and wondrous thing this pizza. it is nothing more than a thin slab of bread, spread with a simple tomato sauce, topped with cheese, spices and whatever meat or vegetable you prefer. simple, inexpensive, potentially elegant, satisfying.

so why are there so many bad delivery and frozen pizza's in the world?

and by the world i mean the united states.

yea, though i once walked in the valley of domino's ignorance and pizza hut bliss i have long since found my way out of that darkness and into the light. granted, the reason a lot of people have pizza delivered it's because of either poor planning or laziness, as it was once for me. but since i have learned that often one simple trip to the store with no other purpose than to stock up on "emergency" supplies can yield many happy meals.

in actuality, i was looking to be more frugal in general when i met zuska. no, it was by necessity that i be more frugal because i had changed careers and was making much less than i used to. in doing so i discovered the amy dacyczyn, the frugal zealot, founder of the tightwad gazette. in her collected articles taken from her zine she shared her world of ditching the convention of it taking two incomes to raise a large family. in turning every assumption on its head and reexamining the economics she discovered that with only a little education and a lot of forethought you could do quite well on a single income and that a lot (but not all) of the notions that life was so expensive it required a double income to survive may have more to do with rampant consumerism than any true economic factor.

*whew* i need to think in shorter sentences.

there is much wisdom in her ideas, much i kinda smirk about, and some i would do if i could convince certain loved ones to go along with. in the struggle of compromises one must choose battles but when it comes to food the choices are easy: home cooked often are cheaper and most definitely better tasting and more satisfying than prepared foods.

to wit: the pizza.

over the years we have become conditioned to the notion that it is a "deal" to get a 16 inch plain cheese pizza delivered to our door for $9.99, plus tax and tip. and on the face of it it does seem like a deal to spend a hamilton to feed 2 to 4 people, depending on the size and appetites of the people at hand. but with a little planning you can make yourself TWO sausage, mushroom and onion pizzas with extra cheese for $10 (tax but no tip!), and if you're really frugal you can make them for even half of that.

for a while zuska and i were of the mind that if she were willing to make the dough by hand (something i truly suck at) that we could make our own frozen pizza crusts ready for impulse pizza nights. they were square and uneven -- i prefer to think of them as rustica -- and were absolutely perfect. but they were work, and setting aside a day to pre-make pizza crusts seemed like a chore after a while. no fun, easy to drift back into old ways...

then i was in a trader joe's (all hail TJ's!) and saw something that helped reframe the problem for me. they carried four different types of plain cheese pizza -- a simple margherita, a three cheese, a four cheese and, in a different part of the store, a non-frozen thick-crust, all of them under $4. after trying them it baffled me that there could be so many unsatisfying, ridiculous excuses for pizza in the freezer section of stores. ya got yer tombstone and di giorno and all the rest and they've got a long list of unappetizing chemical preservatives...

but this TJ's pizza's got all these ingredients that are, incredibly, food products! and they're prepared in wood fired ovens! for the additional cost of a couple of mushrooms, and the scrounged sausage or ham from the fridge, it was still possible to have something that didn't taste like cardboard, was hot from the oven, and didn't feed a corporate entity with questionable political donations.

thus, the chez zuska compromise pizza.

fridays are movie night, a night we all want to unwind and do nothing. i certainly don't mind cooking, but it's gotta be easy. and once a month or so it's pizza night. j. likes plain cheese on her half pizza, e. wants ham, pineapple, onion and cheese on hers, and zuska and i do the mushroom-sausage-onion-cheese dealio on our pizza. we did this last week and the cost was under $11 for both pizzas. and it took less time than ordering out. and if i'd been thinking ahead i'd have doubled the ingredients and pre-made a future pizza night's dinner.

well, maybe next time.

lentil (s)oops!

2007-02-28T17:03:00.000-05:00

yeah, this was brilliant. it's late afternoon, time to start thinking about timing dinner. i pull out the book to see how long this lebanese-indian lentil soup is going to take--

"...allow soup to set for 4 to 6 hours, preferably overnight..."

huh?!

one of the joys of lentils is that they are quick-cooking! 15 minutes tops! what's this mess about setting overnight so it properly thickens?

danger, will robinson! take evasive action! dive! dive!

eh, that recipe wasn't so good anyway. where was the spice, where was the garlic? no, this is no soup for us! time to improvise! replace the cooking water with stock. reduce the amount of water so it doesn't have to thicken. add leftover chopped onions and tomatoes from taco night on sunday. add some chopped carrot. say, this looks good. let's see what i can do about those spices... ah, that's much better!

lentil (s)oops

8 cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 cups dried lentils (i used 1 cup each of red and brown lentils)
1 cupped chopped onion (i used red onion)
2 large carrots, diced
1/2 cup chopped plum tomatoes (optional)
5 or 6 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 whole cinnamon stick
8 whole cardamon pods
1/4 teaspoon white peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 tearspoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste

heat the stock in a soup pot to boiling
pour in the lentils and boil for a few minutes, but don't let it boil over
turn it down to medium heat. see that weird scum? spoon it off.
add the bay leaves
add the onions, carrots and tomatoes
go ahead and add the garlic as well
using a mortar and pestle crush the whole spices together, tie into a small cheesecloth pouch, and toss it in the soup.
don't have a mortar and pestle? lay everything out on a cutting board and crunch it with a rolling pin
don't have cheesecloth? do as i did: toss everything into a loose tea ball
add the garam masala and a little salt and pepper.
this should be ready in about 20 minutes, tops. if the stock boils out too quickly, add a little water.

my zuska requested i not serve this with crostini, or little cheese breads. okay, but i was feeling it was a little weak in the protein department. we had ours with little slices of homemade country kielbasa, cooked and sliced into little disks. i'd like to suggest a nice dollop of sour cream in the bowl when serving. or for a more traditional feel, yogurt and a wedge of lime.

coming soon, to vending machine near you!

2007-02-25T14:44:00.000-05:00

i dunno. could this really be far behind? if you're interested in more like this, take a gander over at cotton and sand.

i'd say you could probably get kids to go with the vegetable-flavored skittles...

or not.

you know, these remind me of those wacky packages that came with a cardboard flavored stick of gum back in the 1970's.

y'know, it isn't like we need more t-shirts in the world, or more vintage ones for mopey-looking hipster kids to wear with their designer jeans and cell phones, but perhaps if kids had more exposure to this kind of corporate mocking they might be less inclined to eat the stuff.

lazy hash browns

2007-02-25T13:56:00.000-05:00

late saturday night i realized i didn't have the makings of a nice sunday breakfast. nothing. so i went to the only market opened after 11 pm and attempted to buy eggs, sausages and hash browns. yes, i could make the hash browns myself from potatoes, but i was being a lazy slug and wanted a shortcut.

because i'm not a morning person (hello! i went to art school! we have diplomas that state quite clearly we do not have to fully functional before noon on any given day) the thought of getting up before everyone to prepare potatoes just didn't sit well with me.

okay, okay, it really is because i'm lazy.

but did this store have any regular old hash brown potatoes in the freezer section? no. did they have home fries or anything of the sort? no. apparently the only kind of breakfast potato people want from their supermarkets these days are those skillet meals with potatoes, meat and other things all mixed in.

just add your own eggs! and we can charge you $5 for a package that includes less than half of a package of hash browns! and charge double for the privilege! aren't you happy for this wonderful convenience we are providing you!

honestly, are americans the dumbest consumers on the planet, or are we just treated that way?

anyway, lazy but undaunted, i decided to make hash browns out of the next best things: tater tots. the recipe follows, but i don't recommend it.

lazy hash browns (not recommended)

1 package of tater tots, thawed overnight in the refrigerator, chopped coarsely
1 onion, chopped small
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried basil
salt and pepper to taste

in a skillet on medium heat saute the onions until soft
add the tater tots and let them sit a bit
add the spices, and flip to mix
let them sit until the start to brown and then flip them and cook another five minutes or so
once they are cooked through (about 15 minutes total) set the heat to low and let them sit until you're ready to serve.

problems
the problem is that the tater tot is meant to be eaten crispy on the outside, soft and potato-y on the inside. that gets messed up once you chop up the tots. once they cook they begin to crumble and then you have a sort of potato gravel that, while good, tends to get a little heavy with oil and become less distinct as potato.

no, i say if you're going to cheat on hash browns use the tater tots as-are, baked to perfection in the oven per instructions on the package. also, if you're going with tater tots for breakfast just toss a few in a tortilla with scrambled eggs and some chopped up sausage. a breakfast burrito is a wonderful thing. salsa is good with it, or just plain hot sauce, but ketchup works for me as well (you have to be a ketchup-with-eggs person, i realize). and don't forget cheese! yum!

stalking the wild burrito

2007-02-25T11:57:00.000-05:00

when you grow up in a culturally rich and diverse part of the country -- or any country for that matter -- you come to take for granted the foods available to you. once you move out of that area, or even your comfort zone, it doesn't take long to realize what is or is not specific to that region and quickly discover what it is you miss.

after a good four decades in california -- half in southern, half in northern -- i was ready for a move across the country. or so i thought. when i sat down and imagined the people, places and things that i would miss i never took into account the seriousness of the geography. yes, having never really known a season i was (and still am) ecstatic to actually know that there are, indeed, as i was taught in school, four distinct seasons in new england. a lifetime of watching the sun set on the ocean had to be replaced with the weirdness of watching it rise over a different ocean, but easily so.

but then came the food.

all over the west it isn't hard to find mexican food in all its many shades of authenticity, style and price. the proximity to mexico and the many workers, documented and otherwise, that comprise a good majority of the population makes it difficult to justify the taco bells and del tacos and other fast-food style mexican eateries to all but the most sheltered. if your introduction to a taco is that soggy 99 cent shell harboring barely-spiced ground beef, processed shredded cheese product, flavorless lettuce and equally tasteless tomatoes with a small foil packet of chemical hot sauce than it becomes a revelation to find a man on a street corner selling 50 cent tacos out of a small push cart or from the back of a truck with chunks of real beef (or chicken) steeped and slow cooked in traditional spices on a pair of warm corn tortillas with perhaps some crumbled mexican cheese on top and a salsa fresca with the strong taste of onion and clilantro.

the same rings true for a quality burrito, enchilada, tamale and anything else you may (or may not) be familiar with as the staples of ouir neighbors to the south.

my first glimpse into the problem of authentic mexican food in the boston area came with the search for a burrito. these are not rocket science, they are simple tortillas filled with simple ingredients, rolled and served up with chips and a choice of salsas. it was a relief to find early on a place called anna's taqueria which reminded me of home; they have the same signage, layout and prices as a place i was familiar with in the bay are called gordo's. a quick internet search shows that they were, indeed, founded by the same person. (i like how the wiki cite for anna's indicates that the info may be biased.)

that said, i was satisfied that i'd found my "base", my bottom rung of acceptability in satisfying burrito cravings. the problem is, once i started doing the research, this was the place people fell all over themselves as calling extraordinary. from various on-line review and restaurant comment spaces the only nay-sayers in the bunch were, well, people who knew better and they fell into two different camps: west coast and southwest. there is a difference between tex-mex and coastal and the rivalries between them are fierce but both sides would have to agree that what gets called mexican food east of the mississippi is a bit disappointing.

i gave up pretty quick in hoping for better because i had to acknowledge the simple fact that the further away from the source, the lower in quality and experience. you can't push off crappy ethnic food where there is a thriving population that not only knows what to expect but what to pay for said comfort foods.

that said, an impassioned, unobjective gringo's guide on what to look for when stalking the wild burrito:

the maximum you should pay for a burrito is $5, deluxe, so full that a grown man has to fight to finish it. anything above that is taking you for a ride. and if the basic, stripped-bare, no-extras burrito is above the $4 mark then you need to proceed with caution.
if anywhere on the menu a cheese sauce is mentioned, leave at once.
if your burrito doesn't come with free chips, then the chips you pay for had better be made on the premises, should leave some oil spots on the paper as proof, and come with enough salsa fresca that it doesn't run out before the chips do.
it's not necessarily a bad thing if the napkins have symbols to show you how to eat a burrito. just like authentic sushi bars serve chopsticks with instructions on how use them and... oh, wait. no, it is a bad thing.
if they cannot carry beer (tecate, dos xx's, san miguel, corona and pacifica are all exceptable) the drink of authenticity isn't mexican soda (jarrito's brand) but a fresh made aqua fresca, including horchada. i can't really stand the stuff, but it's a sign the people know what they're doing.
and if they sell coke bottled in mexico, buy it: it tastes better than the domestic product. maybe because the last time i checked they still used sugar and not corn syrup.
hispanic-looking employees are not to be viewed as proof of authenticity; being outnumbered by hispanic diners, on the other hand, generally is proof.
beware of expensive decor. this is usually funded by sales of a $9 burrito. instead, look for a mexican calendar around the cash register.
you should have a choice of beans: whole pinto, whole black and refried. never order the refried.
a burrito should not be covered in sauce on the outside, or with guac or sour cream externally, or have cheese on the outside melted under a heat lamp. wrong, wrong, all kinds of wrong.
that said, authentic burritos don't have rice or beans in them. try one mexicali style with meat, cheese and salsa (and perhaps an optional guacamole or sour cream) just to see what is possible. and for those watching carbs, it's a boon.
the only choice you should have in tortillas is size, not color.
salsa bars are a newer phenomenon that some of the more authentic places are beginning to include. this can be good, but if all the offerings look watery (like they came from a jar) then they also probably taste like vinegar. fresh salsas -- and fruit salsas can be both good and extremely hot -- should be experimented with. if they're free to take, then try a couple different ones.
a burrito is eaten with the hands. anyplace that serves a burrito with a knife and fork probably gets a lot of requests from people who eat them that way. reason enough to avoid them.
i have encountered many an argument about the open-ended versus closed-ended burrito. the ultimate answer is: it's what's inside that counts.
you'll never find a good, much less authentic, burrito in a food court.
if you can't see them making the burrito then something's not right. this isn't about "trusting" the workers not to poison your food, its that the burrito is an assembly line food and there's no reason it can't be done in real time. order, watch, pay, eat.
chicken, beef and pork, in chunks, either slow-cooked or grilled. never ground beef, and certainly never seafood unless you are in a coastal city where the fish were caught within the same day.

all in all, i'd welcome views from those in other cities and what their burrito experiences have been. any other general "rules" you go by? and for the sake of dog, if anyone in the boston area can hip me to a real burrito hang i'd reatly appreciate it.

the alcohol metabolism thing

2007-02-22T09:47:00.000-05:00

having given up pasta for lent inspired my zuska to give up her much-loved wine for the next 39 days or so. she posted about it here. she mentions that i had long suggested that eliminating alcohol would help in her quest to lose weight as it effects metabolism.

in the comments one of her faithful readers demanded, nay SHOUTED at me to site my sources. it's funny, because you accumulate knowledge over a long period of time and you just get to the point where you accept your knowledge as fact. then one day someone says "oh yeah? prove it, pasta boy!" and then you think hmm, where did i hear that? was it someplace credible, or did some homeless guy on the street shout that at me one day and it just lodged itself into the fact-y part of my gray matter?

this was one of those times where i love the internet.

after a few minutes of searching (something that could have been done in the time it takes to SCREAM AT ME to cite sources) i accumulated the following quick response (if you've zoomed over to zuska's site, or read it already, you can skip ahead):

two general problems with alcohol: it provides empty calories (they have no nutritional benefit) that the body cannot convert into energy and it weakens the liver which is the primary organ for dealing with fat metabolism. in addition, alcohol is full of sugars, stimulates the appetite, and prevents the body from recognizing when it has been sated, especially by fats, allowing for an over-stimulated appetite and excess eating.

all things you'd want to avoid if you were trying to lose weight.

general stuff here on diets and alcohol
www.jrussellshealth.com/alcwt.html

i find dr. weil fairly credible
www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA360805

here the point is that while alcohol itself doesn't add to weight increase in and of itself, the addition of alcohol to a person trying to lose weight is negatively impacted
alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa35.htm

yes, it's thin on supporting documentation, but consistent WITH WHAT MY DOCTOR ONCE TOLD ME
www.bodytrends.com/articles/diet/performnut.asp

here we get a report that says alcohol increases metabolism, but in doing so slows down the ability to burn off fat
www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/alcohol.htm

more of the same
www.drgillianmckeith.com/nutrition-weightloss.php

what i have found is that nay-sayers tend to suggest that alcohol in moderation is fine, and there are those studies showing the medicinal benefits of red wine, but the fact remains that alcohol has more going against it than for it in a person looking to modify their diet and or weight. zuska gets more benefit out of the cup of red grapes i put in her morning smoothie than she would in a glass of wine at the end of the day -- nutritional benefits of the grapes, medicinal from the skin, and lower in calories.

is this enough documentation?

looking over the various sources i can safely say the two primary points (i don't know which came first) were dr. dean ornish's and dr. andrew weil's work. ornish is a physician whose worked at the preventative research institute where he pioneered a study where people lost weight and reversed the effects of heart disease simply by changing their diet. dr. weil is a harvard educated physician who has been espousing the effects of spontaneous healing of a variety of minor and chronic ailments through the uses of alternative medicines, natural remedies and dietary changes as well. ornish initially may have alerted me to the idea that food isn't the enemy, and weil finally broke down my resistance to eastern and alternative medicines.

i hate to take such defensive stances on things, or beat them into the ground, but i was forced. had one harmless error not shouted at me i would never have been compelled to go digging. and as a former twenty-something know-it-all i can remember just how resistant i was to ideas that shattered the very foundations of my long-held (occasionally hyper-ignorant) beliefs. my current stance on such things is to let them brush past with a knowing laugh, but once i get shouted at, well, the gloves come off.

gung hay fat tuesday!

2007-02-20T19:41:00.000-05:00

yes, it is the conflagration of celestial events that pushes the chinese new year up against the end of mardi gras. and being neither chinese nor any sort of practicing christian it may strike some as a bit odd that i tend to observe the forty days of lent by giving up some food item, but there it is: i am that bit odd.

in the past i have gone to extremes. i have given up chocolate (very heard) and all carbs (extremely hard) all meat (not so bad for the first 20 days or so, but then i was living a few doors down from a burger joint...) and once i gave up on giving things up, what you might call a protest against an idea that i really don't find fault with. yeah, i do that as well, protest things in principle that i later have to admit i don't quite believe in.

and just to be fair, i have twice practiced daytime fasting during ramadan just to see if i could do it. you know, it really wasn't so bad, but it also wasn't that hard to slip back into a regular eating schedule either.

this time around the word is pasta. givin' it up in all its many glorious forms until some time after easter. since i'm normally only eating pasta once a week i'm only giving it up for a five or six weeks, but that's not going to be as easy as it sounds. i like pasta.

i also recognize that those are very heavy carbs and i could really use to drop a few pounds.

like maybe forty pounds.

like between now and the end of july. when i'm hoping to go to europe and not wanting to be the ugly american schlepping his lard ass around the great cities of the old world. but that goes into diet and exercise and not what i'm talking about now.

right now i'm talking about the last meal. i'm talking about dropping huge piles of chili with beans on top of spaghetti with two kinds of cheese, 'cause that's the way i roll when the pasta's goin' down.

having consumed more than i should have -- because, yeah, it tasted superfine yummygood -- i now feel bloated and i don't give a damn. the next week will trot by like a breeze and then things will get rough. but i know i can handle it. i know because last year i pretty much cut all high fructose corn syrup out of my diet, with a handful of exceptions. i know because i was once heavier than i am now -- not by much, but enough -- and i know i've lost that weight in the past. and i know that as an american male in his midlife i need to get back down to a more human size if i expect to live to see 92, which i do.

and i know that the journey of a thousand calories begins with a single bite. and that i can cut back on the evil foods of my life if i cut them back ever so gradually. the same way i gained all that weight. and after forty days i hope to find that i don't crave the pasta, and that i can build on that by dropping something else just slightly more significant. like sugar.

so tonight, hey! pasta away! and tomorrow, when i wake up groggy with the carb hangover i'll know i partied about as hard as i wanted on the eve of lent.

cookbook: arabesque

2007-02-12T13:36:00.000-05:00

in case it hasn't been obvious, there's been a certain middle eastern influence in the kitchen lately. and i blame this book.

arabesque: a taste of
morocco, turkey & lebanon
by claudia roden
knopf 2006

i've probably got a dozen pages marked with post-it notes and i'm only half way through. the book is broken down by geographical region and there is some overlap with recipes, but the duplicates are all slightly different either in ingredients, spicing or proportions.

each section begins with an overview of the country and its relationship with its food. festival and restaurant menus are discussed along with examinations of staples both common to westerners (couscous and breads) and not-so-common (preserved lemons, regional alcohol).

unless you eat a lot of middle eastern food there is much newness to be discovered here.
never before have i been tempted by a quince in so many ways; i don't even have any idea what a quince tastes like! the pairing of meat and fruit isn't new to me, the but the recipe for chicken with plums seems opulent and obscene all at once.

as i write there are beets roasting in the oven for a salad with yogurt and mint, and eggplants soaking in salty water to be stuffed and baked later. some of the recipes invite shortcuts (i could have bought perfectly acceptable prepared beets) but there's something nice about going the slow route when time permits.

as much as i am in love with the recipes in this book, and the way they will no doubt add new members to our meal rotations, i am about to give it a break for a few weeks. i have another book entirely of indian cooking that looks just as promising.

my thanks to the bbc/pri radio concoction the world and their wonderful programming for introducing me to these books. here's a sample from them. check the book out at your local library.

it was supposed to be white bean chili

2007-02-11T21:04:00.000-05:00

but my local whole foods has the lamest bulk selection in town, and it's practically the only bulk selection in town as far as i know.

you buy dry beans and soak them for two or three hours, something should happen. well the "something" that happened was that almost half of the beans failed to absorb any water. most of the others had soaked and split open, or were totally discolored, all of it just nasty.

so i had to improvise.

i found a couple cans of black-eyed peas in the cabinet. i changed the meat to bean ratio. i forgot and later added ingredients. it was originally a crock pot recipe but the way it turned out would have been better on the stove. i should have included the sweet potato i've been meaning to use.

anyway, without further ado

black-eyed pea chili with sausage and chicken

1 lb sausage links, something spicy, casing removed
1 lb chicken breast meat, cut to half inch pieces
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 - 5 jalapeno peppers, diced super fine
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 15 oz cans black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
5 cups chicken broth

heat the olive oil in the bottom of your chili pot on medium, add sausage and break up while it cooks a bit
add the chicken, cook it up a bit as well, about 3 more minutes
add the onion, peppers and spices and heat until everything smells fragrant
toss in the peas and the broth, turn up the heat to medium high until everything boils
then turn it down and simmer for about 20 minutes

it's a very soup-y chili, or a chunky soup. you can thicken it by not rinsing the black-eyed peas before you add them, just dump them in straight from the can, but that will increase the likelihood of gas.

additional possible add-ins: chopped carrots, chopped celery, diced sweet potato (only with drained peas), making sure to add a cup of broth for every additional cup of add-in.

best served with a dollop of light sour cream on top, or perhaps some grated cheese, and a sprinkle of green onions (which i forgot to do last night).

makes 6 to 8 servings, depending on the company
kid approved
leftovers store well for a week, if they last that long

what's up with oily peanut butter?

2007-02-10T12:18:00.000-05:00

Food and Wine isn't normally a mag i pick up because it just feels to much like a big-budget advertising circular for the American Express Publishing Corp. but this month they have a taste-test on supermarket peanut butters, and i was in the market for peanut butter this week, and i got to thinking about peanut butter...

yes, i know why peanut butter is oily. all good peanut butters that haven't been filtered will have oil because it's a part of the separation that comes from processing. the only peanut butters that won't separate have their oils replaced with something to keep them smooth, otherwise they just get dry and taste like cardboard.

i like peanut butter in a bowl mixed up with chocolate chips. i may have confessed that before. just the peanut butter and chips in a bowl with a spoon. it doesn't take much and it beats the pants off of some hydrogenated peanut butter cup candy sitting on the shelf in the store for several weeks.

but here's the thing: you open up the new peanut butter and there's the pool of oil, all the way up to the lid, probably to avoid spoilage. so you dig in and start to gently stir to get the oil mixed, because otherwise the top half of the jar is always going to yield oily peanut butter and the bottom half is going to be dry enough to give you flash cotton mouth.

but there it goes, oil spilling over the top and down the side of the jar. you stir more carefully but it doesn't integrate, so you try dredging from the bottom up and... there goes more oil.

how the hell are you supposed to stir up peanut butter in the jar without losing oil?

any and all suggestions greatly appreciated.

venison burgers, moroccan style (kefta)

2007-02-10T00:23:00.000-05:00

last weekend when the father-in-law visted (official first in-law visit) he brought some venison with the intention of making meatballs to go with a pasta and sause. but he didn't want to cook and i made a meat sauce without the venison and it was all good.

honestly, venison kinda scares me.

but as i was considering menu ideas this week i ran up against a couple recipes for an arabesque ground meatball-burger thing that i tend to like when i can find it in mediterranean restaurants -- kefta. the original recipe calls for fatty ground beef and ground lamb but it seemed like i could swap out the lamb for venison and it would be fine.

it was. mighty fine.

these are going to be smallish mini burgers, each person getting a few. i'm pan frying them here, but you could skewer them like in the picture and grill them up.

venison-beef kefta

1 lb lean ground beef
1 lb ground venison
1 medium onion grated or chopped super fine
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 good sized handful of cilantro, chopped up real good
1 good sized handful of flat leaf parsley, also chopped to heck
1 small handful fresh mint leave, chopped beyond recognition
a pinch of salt
a tablespoon of olive oil

just like with meatloaf, you gotta mix this stuff up with your hands until it's all blended
divide and form into patties about 1.5 inches across; you should get about 20 mini burgers
heat the oil medium-high in a large frying pan
cook as many as will fit at once (probably two batches if pan frying) about 4 to 6 minutes a side

now, about serving these...
you can't just serve these up like regular burgers. the collection of flavors in the meat begs for your attention, the kind of attention that gets squelched with ketchup and mustard. no, for this what you need is a side tabbouleh salad and...

cucumber salad with mint yogurt
you could also have this on the side, but we spread it on top of the burgers and it was fantastic.
also, make this while the burgers cook or risk the over-runny salad monster from leaking cukes

1 large or 4 small cucumbers, peeled, sliced in half lengthwise, then into little half moon slices (3 -4 cups)
2 cups greek yogurt
2 garlic cloves, crushed like mad
2 sprigs worth of mint leaves, chopped, chopped and chopped

you mix the mint and garlic with the yogurt in your serving bowl
you toss in the cukes, mix to coat, that's that

i promise you, it's like a little hint of spring in winter to eat these, like the promise of summer. and a great alternative to a regular old burger night. no reason why you can't make them bun-sized, though i'd still recommend the cuke yogurt salad along side in a mini pita.

kid tested and approved.
mini burgers give dieters portion control (unless they dip for seconds).
who knew venison could be a good lamb replacement?

6 weird things about me (although 5 would be better)

2007-02-04T23:01:00.000-05:00

lyco tagged me on this one. gotta list six weird things about myself. how weird is that?

1. kindergarten. this is where i established my true weirdness. when we were all asked what we wanted to be when we grew up all the boys either said firemen or policemen. i was the only boy who said something different and i said swimming pool builder. can you tell i grew up in LA? what the hell? i think i took that natural boy idea of digging and projected it to its most natural conclusion. another piece of personal weird for me in kindergarten was when i waited outside the bathrooms and when elaine k. came out i kissed her. why? because i liked her. oh, but what a firestorm i created! conferences were had and i was asked repeatedly if someone had put me up to it or if i meant to hurt elaine. hurt her? i kissed her! why was that so hard to understand? but, oh, the trauma, the drama. after that i had kids calling me weird and my response was uniformly "yeah, so i'm weird." i knew it then, i was proud of it, and embracing it early on prevented my enemies from using it against me.

as a side note, i ran into elaine k. at my 20 year high school reunion. she introduced me to her hubby as "that guy i was telling you about." for years, all the way through high school and up until that night in the convention center i had assumed elaine hated me. and she had assumed i hated her because she had spurned me at the tender age of 6. truth was, i never hated elaine, and just assumed her distancing from me was a sort of smugness. but there we were, 32 years after the fact, still talking about that kiss outside the bathroom. that's pretty weird when you think about it.

2. a buffalo once snotted all over my hand. true. i was driving through golden gate park in SF when i noticed they had an enclosed field with a small herd of buffalo in it. i pulled over to an area that had a sort of feeding paddock where there were a couple of buffalo next to the fence. one in particular seemed to have it's eye on me and defying all logic and safety i stuffed my hand through the chain link fence to pet it. the friendly buffalo moved forward and made contact with my hand, rubbing the flat of it's face against my palm, the part right between the eyes. a couple of strokes later it backed up and sneezed, covering my entire hand in buffalo snot. apparently the buffalo had a need for an irritant to make it sneeze and clear out it's nasal passages. extracting my hand through the fence essentially acted as a squeegee, leaving a long ribbon of buffalo snot hanging there for all to see. extract the lesson and moral you see fit, few can say they've pet a buffalo much less had one deliberately sneeze on their hand.

3. in fourth grade i won third place in the state-wide dental health association dental health awareness contest. i don't know if this qualifies as "weird" but it was a total rip-off in the end. everyone in our class made posters for the contest and the teacher mailed them off. i took third place with a poster of a crazy looking monster (it represented tooth decay and bacteria) with the slogan "don't let me get in your mouth." to this day i can't believe that was a third place winner for my division. my friend pat got an honorable mention for his version of uncle sam in the classic montogomery pose saying "i want you to brush your teeth." we were the only winners in our school district in any age group. we were taken to a special awards luncheon at royce hall at UCLA by the school nurse. the american dental health association had just rolled out their new slogan "operation: apple brush" with the idea that eating an apple after a meal was as good as brushing your teeth, if you couldn't brush your teeth. ha ha, how silly we were back in the 1970s. anyway at the luncheon the first place winners got a certificate and a plaque and a t-shirt with the new logo on it. second and third place got nothing but lunch. nothing. how is that any different than honorable mention getting nothing but a lunch? why did i even go to that stupid luncheon. i hated that experience, hated it. don't ever enter a contest where only first place gets something. it's a rip off. it was boring and they served us school cafeteria style salsbury steak and it sucked. no, i'm not still bitter.

4. i have supersonic hearing. a few years back i began having a problem in my ears. basically i could hear things i never used to before, like my sinuses dripping. and if i focused on it the sound of swallowing was like the roar of the ocean in my ears. i went to a dr, then had some x-rays of my perfectly round head, then went to an ears-nose-throat specialist. the ent cleaned out my ears and then did some tests, those kind where you have to indicated when you hear a tone. i'm sitting in a soundproof booth with bone crushing headphones on and poking my finger in the air when i hear the tones. it feel like forever and i'm worried i'm losing my hearing. the dr shows me my results. it looks like a bell curve with the highs and lows sitting on the "normal" baseline. but the mid-range, the top of the bell curve, had been sliced off. "your mid-rage hearing is off the charts. you probably have some problems with sounds in that frequency causing interference with other sounds." yeah, like a television studio's worth of electronic can trigger a migraine and i can walk into an en empty office suite and tell you if there is a single computer on in a cubicle somewhere. or i know when a fluorescent light is starting to die, long before it starts to flicker and hum. because i can hear all these things.

5. when i was a boy, pre- school aged, i thought that if i sat in front of the TV when it was turned off it would swallow me up. this requires a couple of explanations. first, this would be back when we had an old black and white TV that used to take a while to warm up. and when you shut it off the old cathode tube would reduce down to a glowing dot that would fade away. it's not that strange a thought to imagine those people trapped in the big TV box being shrunk into oblivion, and being afraid that, like a bathtub drain, getting sucked into the whirling vortex of the cathode rays. second, anyone who thinks i got this impression from seeing poltergeist as a kid (as some have assumed when i've told this story) you need to understand: i'm old enough to have written the script for that movie.

6. zuska says that i have to write this one: every time i pee i have to go get a glass of water. i must protest this point because it really is only at the end of the night, just before i go to bed. but even if it were every time (as she insists) how can that be weird? you replace what you lost? you're going to sleep for 6 to 8 hours and you're not going to eat, your body's going to perspire, your mouth get's parched. and there's nothing worse than waking up dehydrated. do i occasionally overdo it and need to get up in the middle of the night to pee? yes, but i'm not like some old man with an enlarged prostate like those farts on those TV ads who let a problem get well out of hand before they even go to their doctors.

i forgot what i was supposed to do here. tag some people? virtula t, do you want to take a stab? i can see you all out there on my sitemeter traffic but you don't leave comments or link to me so i can't invite many of you personally. please, feel free to take the ball and run with it. let me know who you are and what you've posted so i can see, too.

the boston hoax

2007-02-01T09:34:00.000-05:00

breaking away from the food and whatnot this time to chat about the little problem we had here in boston yesterday.

it appears that government officials and first responders -- as well as a number of this burg's citizens -- have swallowed the kool-aid of paranoia that the bush administration has doled out over the past five years and over-responded to a guerrilla marketing campaign gone awry. until i see evidence to the contrary i can now say i am living in the heart of urban dumb ass country.

there's a lot of ways to break this down, and everyone's gonna want a parse of the pie in blogland, but the basic fact remains: the city of boston shut the city down for four hours yesterday because, as much as they'd like to tout their homeland security, they didn't have the ability to actually figure out what they were dealing with until it was too late and decided not to lift the web of paranoia until they had a fall guy.

basically, until turner broadcasting came forward they weren't going to look like asses in public.

you can read the timelines and analysis elsewhere but the simple fact is that even once the city realized they weren't dealing with terrorists, even once they had enough clues to know it was a city-wide marketing event, the most they were willing to say was "it's a hoax, folks, don't worry about a thing."

a hoax. implying still that there was an intent to provoke city-wide panic. they're going to have a hard time proving that in court against those two patsies hired to put those things in place.

hoax: an act intended to trick or dupe. that's what the dictionary says. why would the mayor and newscasters call this a hoax?

...because they're clueless.

...because modern news is no longer based on facts, it's based on the same tactics used by the administration: fear. don't believe me? watch you local news for half an hour and count the number of stories that are doom and gloom, meant to make you feel small, bad about yourself, bad about your neighbor, or just plane afraid of the world.

...and because the government as a whole has no mechanism in place for admitting blame or guilt when they overreact.

government and first responders aren't the kind of people watching cartoon network's adult swim. they just aren't. so when they find a little homemade LED display on some public infrastructure the first time they blow it up, just to be on the safe side. that's what happened a little after 8 am yesterday morning. if had electronics, it was attached to a highway structure, play it safe and blow it to bits with a water cannon.

typical american response: blow up what you don't understand.

but four hours later the city is getting calls from people who have spotted more of these little things. bomb squads are dispatched. roads are shut down. public transit is halted. in those four hours leading up to this point has anyone bothered to analyze the first object they destroyed? are they comparing notes in the field? what conclusion are they drawing?

the news stations are picking up that the city is shut down. helicopters are showing bomb squads investigating. wall-to-wall coverage begins.

hmm. it looks like it's a character from a computer game. hey, it's giving us the finger! it's giving us the finger! it's in our face telling us we're fools and asses! that does it! this is a hoax! it was meant to provoke us into overreacting! get the mayor on the horn, we're being made fun of!

pride before the fall and all.

no, the poor little mooninite didn't register with homeland security because it isn't a "known threat" or some sort of symbol affiliated with a terrorist group. it's a cartoon, and had it been a more widely known figure like bart simpson people i sincerely doubt anyone would have given it half as much notice. see, the police couldn't tell reporters "yeah, we've got some sort of light thing with bart simpson on it" all they said was "it appears to be a battery operated electrical device with blinking LED lights on it." that's what one guy said yesterday. doesn't that sound scarier than a lighted cartoon character? but because of their cultural ignorance the emergency crews didn't know the character and took it's meaning personally.

screw you, homeland security.

when turner broadcasting finally came forward and the origins of the "hoax" were explained it was clear that so many people over-responded in such a way that you just had to figure real terrorists were watching the news (a) laughing their asses off and (b) kicking themselves for not thinking about something like this themselves. in fact, i wouldn't be surprised to find the rest of the western world laughing at the city too dumb to know a fake "threat" when they see it. dude, check out boston shutting down the harbour because some hacker dudes put little lights on the bridges! yeah, that makes us look really intelligent.

during the whole ordeal, before there was much info, an "analyst" (and really, isn't that just a fancy title for a person who passes off quasi-educated opinions as facts?) was talking about how this looked more like a dry run by terrorists to see how quickly emergency response teams react and to test their ability to tie up a city.

fascinating. so now we know how easily it is to divert a city's attentions away from real terrorist threats and targets. it's going on 6 years after 9/11 and a city can be crippled by lite brites.

so here we are with all the morning-after quarterbacking. the mayor is promising law suits against turner, hoping to get sanctions against them by the fcc and make someone accountable for a minimum state cost of three-quarters of a million in frosties. the news media continue to refer to the incident as a hoax because they refuse to accept any responsibility on their part for perpetrating the paranoia. and people are rabidly badmouthing the firm that created the campaign by accusing them willfully disregarding how this would all turn out.

but...

if the reports are correct that there were 15 other cities where this campaign was carried out, why was boston the only one to react like this? either the other cities failed their homeland security tests or boston is too stupid to know the difference between a real and an imagined threat. and public response, judging from comment sections on news websites and elsewhere, is 9 to 1 leaning toward blaming the blamers.

the campaign was lame, perhaps criminal in failing to get a permit in advance but of little else. the government responded inanely. the news media fanned the flames. and in the end i didn't hear one word about the terror threat level being raised or lowered.

when you're raised on a diet of fear you can expect this kind of regurgitation. enjoy life, folks, the terrorists are winning. they also happen to be your elected officials and your news media.

steak, on spinach, (with garlic) on noodles

2007-01-31T19:34:00.000-05:00

can't take claim for this one, wouldn't think of it. not my creation. this comes from a recent discovery in the food blog world called coconut & lime. you can click here for the recipe and a photo of what this yummy goodness looks like in the end.

a couple notes about what i did and did not do with the recipe at hand:

i thought we had sesame seeds, but we didn't, and i don't think it mattered that much
before i made it there was a request for garlic to be added to the spinach, so i sauteed it with about 8 cloves mashed into it (everyone's either got a cold or on the verge of one in the house so the garlic and citrus intake is up)
i also add a pinch of nutmeg to spinach. i do it all the time.
the recipe doesn't say, but an 8 oz package of soba will do
next time i'm doubling the marinade to increase the reduction sauce. what can i say, we have sauce lovers in the house

i've also been tagged recently by lyco, and i intend to answer, but not just yet.

anyone got any food/recipe blogs out there to recommend?

best. soup. ever. (according to the fam)

2007-01-29T20:12:00.000-05:00

a week or so ago e. requested i make potato leek soup. had i ever made it before? i couldn't remember. it took a while and then i found a recipe and made it. they liked it, but they didn't love it.

"i thought it was something else, something you made before that i liked."

oh.

after some discussion i came to realize that what was requested was a chicken-leek-tarragon soup that i had made before. it was a soup i had winged, not from a recipe. i wasn't exactly sure of the measurements and such so i winged it again, keeping tabs of what i was using in the off chance it was the much loved and requested soup.

decision: best. soup. ever. here's the recipe:

chicken tarragon and leek soup (oh, and garlic, too)

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 medium leeks, white parts only, cleaned and sliced thin crosswise
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs cut into half inch cubes
coarse salt and fresh-ground pepper
2 teaspoons dried tarragon
6 cups chicken broth (vegetable works as well)
3 small carrots diced small
1 cup green beans, frozen is fine but so is fresh
1 bulb (yes, a whole bulb) of garlic, peeled, run through a press

heat the oil in a soup pot over medium heat
toss in the leeks and cover to sweat them, a couple of minutes until just soft
add the chicken and stir
season a bit with salt and pepper, not too much; add the tarragon and continue cooking for about 7 minutes (seven? why not 8, or 6?)
add the broth and carrots and increase heat to bring to a boil; if using fresh green beans add them now, otherwise wait... wait...
put the garlic into the soup and stir
once soup is boil turn down to simmer for about 10 minutes; drop the frozen green beans in a couple minutes before serving

that's it.
this served 4 people with NO LEFTOVERS, it's apparently that good.
even for kids

shopping etiquette: use some common sense, kids

2007-01-28T20:43:00.000-05:00

because i am the primary cook in the house i am also the primary food shopper. it just makes sense. I like to look at the foods i'm getting and if i need to make adjustments in recipes better at the store than after someone else has done the shopping.

i like going to market and i don't like it. i like watching the produce come and go as the seasons change, picking the ripest and freshest items and spotting when to avoid items that have seen better days and freshness. i like knowing the store's aisle and being able to move about in an orderly fashion, having my little places where i can leave my cart safely for five minutes at a time while i trek in and out of alcoves and crannies for the smaller items, avoiding shopping cart jams.

what i don't like is the time it takes. it doesn't matter how crowded the store (unless i'm in a hurry) i'd always rather be done before i get there. i like cooking the food, not the ordeal of hunting and gathering. if these were neanderthal times i'd be the one who made sure things tasted good to get a dispensation from going on the hunt. picking fresh herbs is about the extent of what i like.

what i really don't like is idiots who can't be bothered to learn how to shop. and i'm talking primarily about college kids who haven't got a clue.

today there was a foursome of college kids. they didn't have a shopping list, they couldn't agree on what they wanted, and they were drifting through the store in the opposite direction of the rest of the traffic flow. i encountered them about half way through my shopping mulling near the meat counter wondering what to buy.

"should we get some lamb?" "uh, okay, sure." "do you know a recipe?" "how hard can it be?" "how much do we need?" "do we want a leg?" "what do you eat with lamb?" "i wonder how long it takes to cook."

and so on. all four of them talking, none of them really listening to one another, all in a clump blocking the walkway and not really giving a damn about other people trying to maneuver around them.

okay, so not everyone goes to the store with a list like i do. fine. i used to wing it a couple times a week and was fine. or so i thought. i sat down and figured out how much i was spending when i winged it and then made the effort to shop once a week with a list and a planned menu.

my spending almost cut to half. suddenly i wasn't prey to building menus around enticing (and expensive) items and was focused on what i could really use, suddenly i had staples, and spices began to get more frequent use. shopping made sense once i had a list, and i didn't mind having the extra jack in my bank account.

still, i understand the freedom of letting what looks good be a determining factor, and i'm fine with that. what i'm not fine with is taking an entire party of people shopping. call it the too many chef's syndrome, but when you don't have a list and everyone's got an idea or opinion you're exponentially increasing your shopping time, your costs, and probably the final result of you meal.

to wit, i got in line and loaded up the belt with my meals for the next four days. quite a haul, feeding four people, but it was easily 2/3 produce and the only processed foods were bagels and buns for sloppy joes. right behind me, the college foursome, unloading a hand basket of items for their meal with individual items each of them had impulsively picked up along the way -- a container of dried fruit, a bottled tea, and so on. i dropped nearly $150. i watched as their total came nearly to $95. i couldn't see that they were going to enjoy that meal very much, but maybe they had some staples at home to bolster their purchases.

maybe i'm being a schmuck about this, but let's lay down some ground rules for shopping. all based on experiences i've had this past month or so:

don't take your whole party shopping for a single meal
if you absolutely must have people with you while you shop, divide and conquer, everyone on task and roaming about the store
if you need to make a group decision, move off to a non-busy part of the store and stay out of the way of the rest of us
ask questions at the meat or fish counters if you have to, but fer cryin' out loud, don't ask them to recommend what you should have for dinner and then ask how it's cooked and then ask what side dishes to make with it
figure out the flow of the store when you first walk in, and then follow it. believe it or not, markets are designed to be experienced in a sequential fashion
if you are only getting one thing and know where it is, go for it, obviously. i'm not talking to you, i'm talking to the chuckleheads out there
have some courtesy when parking your cart in the aisle, or expect it to be moved by others
move up and down the aisles as you would a car: stay to the right (if in the UK stay to the left) and don't stop alongside another cart in a way that people can't get around your little road block

on that note i'm sure there are other pet peeves people have. feel free to add to the list in the comments. or call me out of you think i'm dead wrong.

and to those college kids, whose dinner probably took several hours longer than it should have, i say better luck next time.

the spinach mushroom lasagna thing (and a zuska secret)

2007-01-20T18:11:00.000-05:00

i already mentioned the mushroom-spinach lasagna thing in the previous post which prompted the call to make it again. the recipe below is what i just finished making; it's never the same recipe twice, and its adaptability is what makes it good.

first, it has no noodles in it. my substitution is eggplant, but it can be made simply by layering ingredients like a lasagna. then i guess you can call it a casserole. if you'd prefer a layer of zucchini it would work just as fine, as would the elimination of that layer altogether.

also, this time it was made with sweet pork sausage. i recognize this eating of meat thing may offend some but the carnivores of the house would just as easily eat my flesh if i forced vegetarianism on them so i just roll with it. the dish originally is totally meatless and i've included adjustments if you're eating meat free.

it isn't vegan because it requires cheese. yes, requires. cheese. what donuts are to homer simpson, cheese is to various occupants here at chez frommage.

also, this takes a bit of prep time. almost two hours before i tossed it into the oven, then another 30 to bake. good if you've got the rest of the fam doing something else (and this would be the previously hinted at secret) like playing video games. yes, while i was sauteing and slicing and whatnot my lovely zuska was sitting on the floor in front of the tv playing with my prehistoric playstation. you'll notice there's no number following the word playstation because the original unit had no number. yes, we're in the 20th century gaming stone age here, and it's a marvel that we've kept the game locked up and away from the girls for this long.

so zuska slipped easily into her gaming childhood playing spyro while i was in the kitchen making...

eggplant-spinach-mushroom lasagna

1 pound sweet pork sausage, removed from its casing
1.5 pounds mushrooms, sliced (2.25 lbs. if you're skipping the meat)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon butter
2 packages frozen spinach, about 2 lbs, thawed to room temperature
5 cloves of garlic, run through a press
2 medium sized eggplants, peeled
2x 26 oz cans marinara
1.5 pounds skim mozzarella, shredded
0.5 cups grated parmesan cheese
1 pound firm tofu, rinsed and pressed of extra moisture

to prepare the mushroom mixture:
place olive oil in large skillet and heat to medium
add sausage meat and cook, flattening and crumbing until mostly done, about 7 to 10 minutes (obviously you skip this if you aren't using meat)
add chopped onion and mix until soft, another 3 to 5 minutes
add the mushrooms and mix again
add basil and oregano and salt, mix, and lower heat to medium low and let sit
meanwhile...

to prepare the spinach mixture:
heat butter to a large saucepan on medium until melted
add garlic and saute until fragrant, not too long
toss in the spinach and mix. if the spinach is still a bit frozen (or even all the way) don't worry, it'll still work.
mix occasionally and let the water cook out
meanwhile...

to prepare the eggplant:
fill a large bowl with cold, salty water
slice the peeled eggplant extra thin using a mandoline
put the slices into the water to leech out any bitterness, about 10 minutes or so
remove from the mater and pat dry
finally...

to assemble the lasagna/casserole:
preheat the oven to 375 degrees
drop a half cup of marinara into the bottom of a 9x12 pan.
note: if you have a real lasagna pan that at least 3 inches deep, great, otherwise get out a 9x9 square pan and make a second, smaller dish as you go (this usually ends up in the freezer and eaten the following weekend as a lunch or an emergency meal)
separate the eggplant slices into thirds and line the bottom of the pan(s) with a layer of eggplant
take one third of the tofu and crumble onto the eggplant (this replaces the usual ricotta, with few people ever knowing the difference, which cuts the dairy fat and adds some healthy protein)
sprinkle one fourth of the mozzarella cheese atop the tofu
next layer is one third of the mushroom (and sausage) mixture followed by
one third of the spinach mixture
top with another half cup of marinara and do it again
after the third layer top with marinara, then mozzarella, the the parm

into the oven for 30 minutes, let sit for a couple after it's out, serve to loved ones

10 questions

2007-01-15T19:46:00.000-05:00

my zuska tagged me on this. anyone who feels moved to propel this forward please let me know so i can see. i wouldn't mind a link back as well and would do likewise.

1. If you were stuck on an island and could only eat one cuisine (e.g., French, Italian, etc.) for the rest of your life, what would it be? Why?
i'm presuming, of course, that there's a full kitchen, endless supplies and perhaps a nice kitchen staff stuck there with me. and it would be... italian. sure, i'd miss burgers and fries but in the end i think there's a whole world of pasta and sauces and gellato and all kinds of meats and cheeses that wins me.

i flitted with the idea of german cuisine but only for the beer and bochwurst. that would get tired after a while. and there are plenty of chinese dishes that also gave some pull, but no, it's italian. ask me tomorrow and i might say mexican.

2. What is the most unusual food you've eaten?
i've eaten bugs. deliberately. and not in a foreign country. the first time i was going through some boy scout wilderness training and was offered crickets, sauteed in butter and included in pancakes. not exactly roughing it, but i did eat them. crunchy, like sweet nuts. but don't eat the heads. they're very bitter.

the second time was in college. i was living in a student co-op in berkeley and we had an entomologist phd living in the house. one night he prepared a snack feast that included all sorts of insect goodies, all lab-raised and clean. applesauce surprise cake (the surprise was earthworms), chocolate chip chirpie cookies (crickets again), royal mash on biscuits (bee honey and larvae), and a couple other things i've since forgotten.

3. What is the most unusual food you've eaten and liked?
ah, liked. that's the tricky part. for most people nopales (cactus) might sound unusual, but growing up in california you get used to seeing those flat green succulents in the produce section.
sounds kinda wimpy to say, after the bugs and all, but i do like a good bison burger when i can find it. last time was up in portland, maine, where zuska and i stumbled onto allagash.

4. What foods will you avoid eating (either because of a dietary choice or allergies or just plain don't like)?
liver. brussels sprouts (though i did prepare them recently and they weren't bad, but i really don't like them). okra. rubbery ocean foods like calamari and squid and octopus. it's gonna be a long time before i try paella again. sangria always sits wrong with me.

5. Do you cook (and by that, I mean prepare a meal that you'd serve to friends)?
i cook on average five nights a week. i serve that food to my family. i'd serve it to friends but i'd be anxious about it because i always want for people to have good culinary experiences. i hate the thought that people will walk away from my table thinking something was lacking or that they just choked down what i prepared to be nice.

i have made complete thanksgiving dinners from scratch -- both traditional and vegan, side by side -- to feed my staff when i was a theatre manager.

6. If yes, what is your favorite dish to prepare to impress someone?
i have a basic tomato-based pasta sauce that i think rocks, and another that incorporates chicken and butternut squash. zuska reminds me that i once impressed her on valentine's day with fillet mignon with a cherry sauce. i've got a pasta-free spinach-mushroom lasagna i'm fond of.

7. When you go to a restaurant, what's your ordering strategy/preference?
first, i like to sit facing the door, away from the kitchen, where i can peoplewatch. i try not to look at the prices of main courses until i've narrowed down what interests me, and then rule out anything that looks overpriced -- it usually means it's all about presentation.

for specific items i like to look at things i know i would never try at home, or things i am familiar with if i think the restaurant can show me something amazing. i like traditional fare that's made simply but upscale, or just simply done. i have discovered that a local pub that serves food is more likely to both surprise and delight me than a fancier place because i hate the pretentiousness of most upscale dining experiences. boston is full of people and places that highly prize their upscale eateries but wouldn't last a new york minute in most other metro areas around the world.

8. Have you ever returned a dish or wine to the kitchen at a restaurant? Why?
only when the order was wrong, and even then i've not always returned the plate. returning a wine that hasn't actually spoiled, molded or corked is plain asinine.

9. How many cookbooks do you own?
between a half dozen and a dozen. some aren't practical (i should feature some of the appetizers from a 1950's bar guide) and some are a little dated (the 1930's louisianna rotary woman's cookbook uses odd ingredients and terms) and it really comes down to the bh&g, the whole foods cookbook, occasionally the joy of cooking for reference and a bunch of loose recipes culled from the food network and various web sites like slashfood.

10. What is one food that you wouldn't want to live without?
chocolate. or garlic. i suppose i could live without chocolate, but to have to cook without the option of garlic is unfathomable. could i live without pasta? perhaps, but it'd be a slow death.

potatoes would go great with that!

2007-01-15T16:34:00.000-05:00

that's what it says on our refrigerator.

back in the late 1990's there was a campaign by some potato advisory board trying to boost their image. their attempt was to place this slogan on those advertising placards on grocery shopping carts so that no matter where your cart was parked this slogan -- with an arrow pointing to the right -- would force you to pair up potatoes with whatever you were standing next to. so there you are with a sign pointing to cake mixes, toilet paper, pet food, fruit juice... basically any number of things that potatoes would most definitely not no great with.

there may be a reason this slogan never took off the same way as, say, "got milk" did.

so a couple nights ago i made that stuffed chicken thang and served these potatoes along with. it's a martha recipe, tweaked a bit because i can't really just follow a recipe straight.

potatoes-would-go-great-with-that vinaigrette

1.5 to 2 pounds white new potatoes or small yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed clean
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon german mustard (or similar, something with the bite of horseradish)
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 stalk celery
1 teaspoon dried parsley
coarse salt and pepper

unless you have really tiny potatoes cut the potatoes into 1 inch pieces, quartered will usually do it. you know, potato salad size.
cover potatoes with cold, salted water and cook until just tender, say 12 to 15 minutes
drain the potatoes and set aside to cool slightly.
in a medium bowl combine parsley, vinegar and mustards; season with salt and pepper to taste.
toss potatoes into the mixture.
now...
if you'd prefer a cold potato salad, send the spuds into the fridge for at least 2 hours; then just before serving add celery and oil, toss and serve.
if you prefer a warm or room temperature salad (and i like it best this way) add oil and celery, toss and serve it that way.

serves 4 to 6
kid tested and approved
leftovers (ha!) will keep for a couple of days

c'mon, there's gotta be something asking to be served with potatoes this week!

chicken, stuffed

2007-01-10T20:46:00.000-05:00

there's not pix for this because (a) i made it up and (b) we ate it before i even thought about getting out the camera.

you know how in the butcher cases they have the cuts of meat and then they have the doctored up older bits of meat? you know why they do that? no, it's not because there's a vast army of people out there who do not or cannot figure out how to prep meats on their own, it's a last-ditch effort to salvage older cuts before throwing them out for a loss.

or as one old security guard named john once told me "the more they put in it, the more they don't want you to know about it." hence the origin of hot links and other spicy sausages. but i digress.

so i'm looking in the case and there's a stuffed chicken breast. it's got mushroom stuffing, all ready to pop in the oven. interesting, but my boat's not a-float. then over there they have some flank steak wrapped up in a chopped vegetable and blue cheese concoction. interesting, but not quite right...

a-ha!

chicken stuffed with feta and asparagus!

4 skinless chicken fillets, rinsed and patted dry
1 pound of asparagus
3 oz. cream cheese
8 oz. crumbled feta cheese (with or without herbs mixed in, your choice)
1 tablespoon olive oil
coarse salt and pepper
1 tablespoon dried tarragon

in a lidded frying pan or large pot boil an inch of salted water.
toss in the asparagus, remove from heat and let sit for 4 minutes.
drain the asparagus and rinse with cold water, you only want them slightly blanched.
lay the fillets open smooth side down. you'll need to fold them in half so if they're a little too thick or uneven in width cover them with plastic wrap and smash them flat with the bottom of a cast iron skillet. (our neighbors must love it when i cook).
mash the cheeses together in a small bowl.
use two-thirds of the cheese and divide among the inside of the fillets, nestled down the center.
nestle three to five stalks of asparagus in the cheese mix.
fold the fillet in half and place in a baking dish.
brush the olive oil on the fillets, sprinkle with salt, pepper and tarragon.
bake at 375 degrees for about 30 to 40 minutes.
before they're done cooking, sprinkle the rest of the cheese mix atop the fillets and broil for about five minutes.
hot cheese burns! let it sit about five minutes out of the oven before serving.

serves four, so double up if you want seconds or leftovers for lunch the next day.
kid tested and approved!
goes great with potatoes. doesn't everything?

200 calories

2007-01-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

well, this is a bit of fun. wisegeek.com has this helpful page with photos of food items weighing in at 200 calories a piece. scanning from the top down you can see where you'd get more bang for your buck.

imagine a world where processed food items were packaged in 200 calorie amounts, not oversized packages with a "suggested serving" size in small type on the side. i was reminded of this looking at some fancy vitamin water (the closest thing to lemonade i could find the other day) which i handily downed with my lunch; it suggested the bottle contained 2.5 servings but the only way to get the 100% vitamin c it contained was to drink the entire thing. confusing, deliberately deceptive, and frustrating.

but what if we had snack foods in 200 calorie sizes and the choice to eat was based on that knowledge? people standing at the vending machine looking inside going hmm, i could have 16 gummi bears or 8 hershey's kisses or half a snickers bar.

of course, we're americans. we're not going to let some fascist vending machines tell us we can't eat a bag of chips, a soda, and a candy bar with our lunch! 2000 calories, that's per meal, right?

bologna boats!

2007-01-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

"dinner in 45 minutes? it's possible! the family will think you're a wonder -- and you are, with the help of skip-a-step mixes and canned foods, preparation pared to bare essentials, no-cook ingredients. still delicious? of course! try our wonderful recipes; invent your own --"

so beckons "meals in minutes" one of many books in the better homes and gardens "creative cooking library" titles from 1963. the post-war conversion from city living to urban sprawl was complete, the interstate highways nearly connected, and the idea of cooking wholesome, nutritious meals from scratch had been replaced by libraries full of shortcuts utilizing only the best that the agribiz had to offer. gone were the worries of picking the best cuts of meat or worrying over the ripeness and availability of produce. poof! canned meats with names that don't indicate contents, processed cheeses that require no refrigeration and fallout shelter-ready vegetables made these any-time meals in any part of the country.

i know my mom used recipes like this, if not some of these exact recipes. the following horror taken at random leaves a bad taste in my mouth just reading it.

burgers in bologna boats

1 lb. ground beef
4 thin slices large bologna
salt and pepper
2 to 4 slices sharp process american cheese, cut in strips
4 hamburger buns
prepared mustard

shape beef into 4 patties about the same size as bologna slices
grill lightly on greased griddle, turning once
sprinkle with salt and pepper
slip each patty onto bologna slice
grill till bologna is lightly browned and edges cup around patty
top with lattice of cheese strips
spread bottom half of toasted buns with mustard
top with patties, prop bun tops on edge to show off pretty lattice
offer catsup, pickle relish, and burger relish
serves 4

show off pretty lattice, that really cracks me up. like presentation is somehow going to compensate for the fact that you've cupped a burger in fried bologna and served it for dinner. and unlike other recipes in this fine volume which are served with side dishes (often prepared at the same time) or are shown in garish photos with suggested sides, this is it, kiddo. a burger. that's your dinner. eat up.

then again, after that there were probably few requests for seconds.

i'd love to go back in time with a rachel ray cookbook or one of martha's everyday cooking magazines and show it to the lovely housewives of the civil rights era and see how they'd react. would it have shocked them to see simple, balanced meals with fresh produce taking less than 30 minutes? as these boomers were entering their adult years, would modern recipes assault their process food-deadened tastebuds?

this isn't the most heinous recipe, just the first one i spotted with a title that made me pick the book up off the street and bring it home. yes, my zuska hates it when i go out on trash day because i'm fond of rescuing "projects" in need of some attention that never seems to happen. double-plus bad: it's a book. i'm not supposed to bring any more books into the house.

"can i keep it if i promise not to make any of the recipes?"

what is this american chop suey?

2007-01-03T12:33:00.000-05:00

seriously.

i don't know about the rest of the country, but out on the left coast growing we called this dish chili-mac.

because that's what it is. chili and macaroni. chili. mac.

and what's not to love?

but all over the eastern seaboard i'm seeing this thing called american chop suey. it's in the italian eateries who battle the other italian eateries up and down the drag for the honor of serving the best thin crust. it's in the delis that pride themselves on meatloaf mondays and scrod divan on fridays. it was even a staple at the salad-and-hot-foods bar at my local whole foods until they replaced the bar with islands of soup, roasted chickens under heat lamps and crappy warmed over pannini with bread so sharp from sitting out all day that it cuts a gash in the roof of your mouth.

but there it is, large as day: american chop suey.

there are as many myths about the origin of american chop suey as there are recipe variations on the dish. whether you're cruising wikipedia, the library of congress or any other source the simple reality is that there isn't anything uniquely american or chinese about the dish, other than the fact that it is made and eaten in america.

short version: chop suey means "leftovers, tossed together and reheated with noodles". you run a cafeteria or a restaurant, you got some leftover ground meat, some vegetables, some noodles, toss it together and bury it in a sauce and serve it up.

but what bothers me about the name is the implication that by making it american it is somehow more palatable, or perhaps less offensive. danny down at my local pizzeria isn't about to start loading chinese items on his menu (though he does have an atkins plate menu), and he certainly won't be sullying his italian roots by listing his tossed-up slops on the pasta menu. no, his leftover pizza sauce, his bits of bell pepper, onion, ground beef and sausage mixed with elbow macaroni are going on the daily specials board (which changes so infrequently that when someone bumped into it the dry erase marker had left a permanent ghost image in the whiteboard) and, damn it, they're going to be called american chop suey.

like you'd ever walk into a chinese restaurant and see a special for "american calzone" made from leftover mu shu pancakes and stuffed with kitchen leftovers.

you see what i'm getting at? there's a strange sort of hidden -- is it racism? xenophobia? bigotry? -- that declaring the menu item in question "american" somehow separates it from it's culinary origin in a way that is meant to act as a salve against the unfamiliar, exotic or just plain "otherness" of the original cuisine. if the reputation for chop suey is (or was) seen as strange ingredients slopped together then somehow making it "american" removes the discomfort factor, if not the general construction of the dish.

"oh! thank god it's american chop suey, because you never know what's in that other kind of chop suey." yes, even in this enlightened age i have still heard people refer generically to asian people as dogeaters. ignorance abounds.

america, the handful of you who can hear me, this is a rallying cry. no more will we acknowledge american chop suey. insist on chili mac! tell your unenlightened restauranteers and food service providers that their insistence on using the moniker american chop suey only shows them to be ninnies and fools.

and for the sake of all things good and wholesome, make the dish yourself at home from fresh ingredients and take it to work and school, rather than ordering someone else's leftover slops. you aren't animals, you don't need to pay for the privilege of being treated like one.

cheeseball!

2007-01-01T19:09:00.000-05:00

it's cheese, it's a ball, it's a ball of cheese. what more do you want?

this is something i've made traditionally for the last couple years as a new year's buffet item. i don't recall making it any other time of the year, though zuska may contradict my memory. there isn't really any reason not to make this for any kind of a party. a little prep the night before, a little the next day, a plate and some crackers and you're set.

cheeseball!

3 oz. cream cheese
6 to 8 oz. sharp cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon brandy
1/4 cup chopped nuts (traditionally walnut or pecan, we like cashews)
crackers

have the dairy ingredients at room temperature, then mix them in a small bowl until completely blended.
add the liquids and mix again. it may look a little too wet, but that's okay. trust me.
cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate. 4 hours is the minimum, overnight is best.
take the now solidified cheese out and shape into a ball.
set the chopped nuts out in a thin layer on a prep area and roll the ball over them until the ball is coated with nuts.
take any remaining nuts and set them onto a small serving plate, rest the ball on the nuts.
serve with any crackers you like. zuska prefers carr's water crackers because they are sturdy, bland and allow you to taste the cheese. i am partial to wheat thins (baked, not fried, and that goes for the crackers as well) but a buttery ritz-type cracker is also a good choice.

and happy new year to you working off the roman calendar.

nog toast & the origins of nog in general

2006-12-23T10:29:00.000-05:00

so it's the weekend and i'm hungry. and i've been bad about shopping (what with solstice and whatnot) and i don't have bagels and cream cheese for j. so i offer to make french toast. and i've got the eggs and i go looking for the dairy and there it is:

eggnog.

i love this stuff, though generally find the real thing too thick in the throat. it feels the same as when i had walking pneumonia and had my airways clogged with stuff. a few years back silk came out with soy eggnog and i have found it perfect. the right flavors, not to thick, just perfect. but this isn't about the virtues of soy.

to my zuska has the real stuff in the house, best thinned with brandy. yum. and i'm thinking hey, why couldn't i make nog flavored french toast! which sounds scathingly brilliant as the flavors are already there for the most part anyway.

cut to the chase: the french toast tastes just the same. i tried upping the spice quotient -- a dash of nutmeg and clove into the mix -- but the sweetness is lost, even un-syruped, and so it was either a nice idea or in need of refinement for the future.

eggnog appears to be one of those things associated with the holiday season which, at it's core, retains a sense of that dickensian nostalgia we hold dear to the holiday season. and it seems appropriate that it retains those british roots as eggnog comes from holiday traditions held by british aristocracy a few centuries back. the stuff was used to toast one's health, and coming around the time of year when people were looking forward -- solstice looking toward the return of the sun, new year's celebrations looking into the promise of the coming year's renewal -- it seems strangely appropriate of a drink that symbolically includes an egg (new life) and milk (nourishment of newborns). being liquored up appears to have been part of it's history as well, and given the "medicinal" properties of liquers or the "nutritional" aspects of ales only seems to buttress the idea that the drink was meant to fortify the soul as well.

the the past i have had years where my consumption of the stuff seemed to be based on the idea that i would never see it again. when the soy version arrived i think there was more than a half dozen occasions where i got as drunk as a lord on the stuff. i was living alone in those days and trapped in retail hell and so it goes without saying that i might not have survived to tell you any of this were it not for eggnog to get me through.

oh, and movies.
and chocolate.
and trader joe's pfefferneuse cookies. (and in the house we call them voofermuffins, but that's another story for another time)

& now my fambily keeps me on track. but eggnog is still great.

more eggnog info here:
history of eggnog from whatscookingamerica
and, of course, the wikipedia entry

tagged! the christmas/holiday song meme

2006-12-18T22:07:00.000-05:00

i got tagged by lyco on this one. i am of two minds about this particular meme in that (a) this is the first time i've been tagged, which is good, and (b) i once worked retail. if you've worked large corporate retail during the holiday season then you know what i'm talking about; holiday muzak pumped into your ears 40-plus hours a week while battling the front lines of the consumerist holiday assault.

that said, i've had a few years break and seem to have recuperated from the aural damage. i even managed to put together a playlist of over 3.6 hours of the damn stuff for my ipod. but a quick glance at the list shows that i seem to be avoiding most mentions of jesus and god and all the stuff christmas is about. not to rain on anyone's sanctimonious parade, but my faves appear to be holiday music in the sense that they get played during the "holiday season" but not necessary about christmas per se. it isn't political, it's just my personal bent. don't like it? get bent yourself.

with that, fanfare please...

1. "What Child Is This" Vince Guaraldi Trio from Merry Christmas Charlie Brown
2. "Marshmallow World" Dean Martin (tie with "Baby It's Cold Outside?")
3. "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" Andy Williams
4. "My Favorite Things" either John Coltrane or Grant Green
5. "The Christmas Song" Nat King Cole Trio, 1954 version with small string section

i probably could have made it a top ten list and 8 of them would be truly old oldies. what can i say, the old stuff got stuck in my sticky brain long ago and isn't getting displaced by the likes of some american idol winner. okay, call me a crusty old man, i can take it.

okay, time to tag others
virtual t? mo? anyone else who isn't already tagged?

soy is gay

2006-12-18T08:57:00.000-05:00

or rather, soy makes you gay.

that's not me talking, that this nutter over at the conservative website worldnetdaily.com. i hate linking this story because i'm not really up for giving wackos more traffic but i think this has to be read directly to be believed.

question: if this is true, why isn't china overrun with millions of gay citizens? could his counter-argument possibly be that a communist nation is better at keeping their homosexuals repressed? doesn't seem likely, nor does it explain japan.

no, wait! i get it! china is communist because it's been feminized over the years by soy! yeah! chairman mao was a lady!

i shake my head and wonder. i know there are people that will buy this hook, line and sinker, fearing their socially and dietary conscious friends and families are slowly becoming gay. and you know what?

good.

let the tofu-fearing conservatives live in fear. it'll do them more harm in the long run, health-wise, and if it gives them comfort to say "yeah, well, having cancer and heart disease sure beats becoming feminized by soy" while in the hospital, so be it.

soy bomb, baby! yeah!
(and a side of dylan)

must. make. monkeybread.

2006-12-17T16:47:00.000-05:00

i gotta bundt pan for my birthday a week and a half back. i love it.

love. it.

30 year anniversary reproduction of the original bundt pan in a thick non-stick cast-aluminum. i'd wanted one for years, could never justify the expense of a good one and couldn't stomach the disappointment of working from a cheaper, crappier one, and just let it slide.
no more.

no i could finally make the much-discussed, much-desired monkeybread.

essentially, monkeybread is a pull-apart yeast bread, a cake-sized cinnamon bread drizzled with sugar icing. i first saw it in a cookbook for kids and subsequently from martha, where the recipe i used came from. should you desire to make such a thing let me tell you, the aroma in the house is fantastic and you will want to bring an appetite and some tea along when it's time to eat. there are a few considerations before undertaking the making of the monkeybread:

1. bundt pan. accept no substitutes.

2. time. it takes nearly 3 hours from start to finish.

3. mess. clean as you go, as you will use many kitchen items in the process.

4. yeast. fresh is best, especially if you want a nice, light bread at the end.

and some notes about the recipe itself:

1. i hate using shortening, vegetable or otherwise. i understand in baking that ingredients can make a huge difference but margarine or butter works fine.

2. to hell with rubbing that ribbed pan down with shortening/margarine/butter, use a cooking spray all around. if you've got a spray that also has flour in it use that for turning out the dough into for the rising.

3. we're not that big into nuts around these parts, but if you're using them see if you can find some pecans that are already crusted with sugary sweetness. no harm if they're plain.

4. the recipe says a whole stick of melted butter to roll the little dough balls into, but i wound up using only half a stick and that seemed fine. i say start with half and melt some more if you need it.

5. it doesn't say to, but you might want to use a sifter on the brown sugar and cinnamon. or you can force it through a small wire mesh sieve.

6. use a whisk to make the icing. also, drizzle in a teaspoon of vanilla. a teaspoon of orange extract would work equally, though uniquely, as well.

i think the only drawback is the time. it would be great to wake up on a weekend morn -- a holiday weekend morn even -- to the smells of a nice fat ring of monkeybread, but who wants to get up at 7 AM to start working in the kitchen to make it? i'm not saying i won't get up early one morning and do such a thing...

you don't have to put on the red light

2006-12-15T23:34:00.000-05:00

i don't know how, where or when zuska finds these things, but i got sucked in out of curiosity: just what, exactly, were the top hits the year i turned 18?

These are the rules, if you care to join in; otherwise, this is a legend:

1. go to http://popculturemadness.com/Music/index.html, and find the greatest hits for the year you turned 18 (you'll have to guess the year)

2. select the first 50 (like my zuska, i used the whole list. you'll see why)

3. bold the ones you liked back then

4. strike out the ones you hated

5. italicize the ones you are familiar with but neither like nor hate

6. leave the ones you don't know as is

1. Y.M.C.A. - Village People
2. I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
3. Don't Stop Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
4. We Are Family - Sister Sledge
5. Old Time Rock and Roll - Bob Seger
6. Hot Stuff/Bad Girls - Donna Summer
7. Good Times - Chic
8. Escape - Rupert Holmes
9. Aint No Stoppin Us Now - McFadden & Whitehead
10. September - Earth, Wind and Fire
~~11. Born To Be Alive - Patrick Hernadez~~
12. My Sharona - the Knack
13. Heart Of Glass - Blondie
14. Knock On Wood - Amii Stewart
15. After The Love Has Gone - Earth, Wind and Fire
16. Shake Your Body Down To The Ground - Jacksons
17. Ooh Baby Baby - Linda Ronstadt
18. Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? - Rod Stewart
19. The Rainbow Connection - Kermit (the Frog)
20. Boogie Wonderland - Earth, Wind and Fire
21. Love Ballad - George Benson
22. Rise - Herb Alpert
23. In The Navy - Village People
24. Ring My Bell - Anita Ward
25. Got To Be Real - Cheyl Lynn
26. Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' - Journey
27. Shake Your Goove Thing - Peaches and Herb
28. Take The Long Way Home - Supertramp
29. We've Got Tonight - Bob Seger
30. One Way or Another - Blondie
31. The Devil Went Down To Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band
32. Babe - Styx
33. Fins - Jimmy Buffett
34. You Decorated My Life - Kenny Rogers
35. Sultans Of Swing - Dire Straites
~~36. Disco Nights (Rock Freak) - G.Q.~~
37. Heatache Tonight - Eagles
38. She Believes In Me - Kenny Rogers
39. Video Killed The Radio Star - the Buggles
40. Pop Muzic - M
41. Hold The Line - Toto
42. H.A.P.P.Y. Radio - Edwin Starr
43. Crazy Love - Allma Brothers Band
44. Highway To Hell - AC/DC
45. Street Life - Crusaders
46. Don't Bring Me Down - ELO
47. My Life - Billy Joel
48. Honesty - Billy Joel
49. Take Me To The River - Talking Heads
50. At Midnight - T-Connection
51. You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth - Meatloaf
52. Good Times Roll - The Cars
53. I Go To Rio - Pablo Cruise
54. Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights) - Pat Travers Band
55. Livin It Up (Friday Night) - Bell & James
56. Roxanne - Police
57. Contact - Edwin Starr
58. Rubber Biscuit - Blues Brothers
59. Message In A Bottle - The Police
60. Good Girls Don't - the Knack
61. There But For The Grace Of God Go I - Machine
62. Heaven Must Have Sent You - Bonnie Pointer
63. Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
64. Soul Man - Blues Brothers
~~65. Voulez-Vous - Abba~~
66. Rust Never Sleeps (Into The Black) - Neil Young
~~67. Lay It On The Line - Triumph~~
68. Cruel To Be Kind - Nick Lowe
69. Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
70. I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick
71. I Do The Rock - Tim Curry
72. Hey, St. Peter - Flash and The Pan
73. The Logical Song - Supertramp
74. What A Fool Believes - Doobie Brothers
75. Makin It - David Naughton

first thing you may notice is that i hated a LOT of the top songs that year. and i had to use the entire list to get above 5 dongs i liked (and for the most part still do).

second things of note: i know every. damn. song. on. the. list. my friends, if you were alive and conscious back in the day, you know them as well as i do.

special note on number 71: tim curry was seriously dabbling in becoming a rock star. this was not a success, and if you know the song you kow why. he did okay without rock stardom.

it was a tough time, musically. punk was aching to break, disco was merging into new wave, stadium rock was struggling, led zep was about to collapse, jocks were beating up "punkers" who listened to elvis costello (strangely absent from this list)... it was hell.

i personally would have preferred a year like 1983, or even 1984. i can at least get a couple dozen songs from each of those years i liked. but them was college days.

let me know how your musical flashback panned out.

holiday food blahs

2006-12-11T15:30:00.000-05:00

things have been a little off-norm at the ol' homestead meal-wise. thanksgiving begins the holiday season of irregularity, followed by back-to-back birthdays (mine and zuska's), followed by holiday meals, inter-family get-togethers, crazy nights eating out because we've run out of time, and so on.

the usual.

yesterday it occurred to me that we really didn't have anything in the house, no real meals planned. I was asking everyone for meal suggestions. the young'uns are sweet but if they had their way they'd eat the same three things over and over. then zuska says "i want you to make those cheesy scalloped potatoes you made."

huh? i vaguely remember such a dish, but i couldn't for the life of me remember where i got the recipe. on line? from better homes and garden? so then i check out my own damn blog and there not only is the recipe for cheese-y scalloped potatoes but another recipe for meatloaf.

duh, like i posted that recipe last week thinking i hadn't done it before. and it's different. and the recent version wasn't as good.

like i'm making the same meals over and over again. and not very well.

is it a sign of my advanced middle age that i don't even remember things i WROTE a mere month ago? am i going to become one of those old people who eats the same thing several days in a row because they forget they ate it before? am i going to wake up at 4 am and eat breakfast because the only other thing i have to look forward to is lunch and the early bird senior buffet?

sad.

so tonight we've got kid company and we're keeping it simple -- turkey burgers and salad and tater tots. because burgers require potatoes. and i'd like to get back to cooking but i haven't really been feelin' it, if you know what i mean. nothing excites me and i have a hard time getting excited about meals. i haven't lost the old appetite, nor am i tired of cooking, it just feels like the cooking center of my brain has shut down for holiday and didn't leave the rest of my brain any food for thought.

honestly, the most exciting thing that's happened in the kitchen lately is the arrival of a bundt pan -- a treasured birthday gift. i've made a triple chocolate cake in it and am looking forward to making some monkeybread but it isn't like a bundt pan is going to snap me out of this. not even a meatloaf made in a bundt pan would pull me out this funk.

someday... a home with a separate freezer for all the frozen summer goodness to pull me out of winter blahs; a separate fridge for beverages and ice; and a gas range. fifteen years on electric ranges and ovens and i've managed okay, but nothing beats gas.

in the kitchen, that is.

meatloaf

2006-12-06T15:57:00.000-05:00

i learned to make meatloaf by not making meatloaf.

having survived walking pneumonia i found myself with a weakened immune system and the instructions from my doctor to avoid citric acids, dairy, wheat and red meat. hell, what's left? there goes my beloved pastas, my burritos, burgers and milkshakes. the horror, the horror. and when the horror wore off i set out to try and figure out how to eat to live.

i essentially became a vegan. fortunately this happened in vegan-friendly berkeley where gluten-free pastries could be found, where a request for a burrito in a bowl pre-dated the no-carb diet craze by nearly a decade and wasn't seen as unusual. the long life veggie house served up traditional chinese dishes made with tofu processed to sub for chicken in my kung pao. life didn't seem so impossible, just a little more limited.

but then i got a hankering for meatloaf. red meat, and lots of it. looking around i eventually found a recipe that consisted primarily of equal parts tofu, bread crumbs and mixed nuts held together with ground oatmeal and flavored with mushrooms and celery. it worked, and for a while i didn't really miss meat.

after a year and a half my body was strong and i slowly drifted back into the forbidden foods. my first pasta sauce was a revelation, tomatoes so tart i don't think i ever realy recuperated. meat -- all meat, not just red -- became so heavy in my system that instant food coma became a fact of life. still does occasionally. the weight i had lost on my reductive diet came back but i wasn't concerned enough to do anything about it.

finally i decided it was time to try a real-meat meatloaf.

it tasted horrible.

i tried a couple different recipes, some culled from 1950's magazines, some more modern, just to see if i could get back to a flavor i remembered. or liked. finally i looked back at the meatless loaf and the flavors that i liked, that worked, and tried to meld the recipes into something edible. the results are extremely edible.

loaf of meat

1 pound ground lean beef
1 pound ground dark turkey meat
1 cup finely chopped cashews, unsalted, unroasted if you prefer
8 oz. silken tofu
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
8 oz. mushrooms, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped (pulped is how it looks when i'm done with it)
2 cups bread crumbs or torn pieces of bread
1/2 cup barbecue or hoisen sauce
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon dried parsley (or oregano, or if you're really out there, tarragon)
fresh ground pepper to taste

you mix it all together.
you form it into two equal sized loafs. put them on a baking sheet with a raised edge.
you bake it in a 375 degree oven for about 40 to 50 minutes until the meat thermometer says it's okay.

now, if you're like me, and you like a nice little "crust" of ketchup on top, you spread about half a cup per loaf on top and broil it for about 5 minutes until it starts to darken a little.

you'll notice i don't say to put them into a loaf pan. sometimes i do and sometimes i don't, but i've come to prefer them outside of loaf pans because you get more crust on the outside and more of the moisture cooks out. no, this is good, otherwise you get these loaves essentially boiling in their juices in the pans and while that makes it easy for removal later it's not as satisfying as a slice of meatloaf that is surrounded by a nice little crust. you know, like a loaf of bread.

except it's meat.

i think i'll go make some for my family. they love it.

addenda
i originally posted this with the wrong measurement for bread crumbs and minus the tofu. duh.
i also went to make the meatloaf after posting and found there weren't any mushrooms. no matter, i subbed a diced zucchini and it was fine.
i also forgot the cashews. i'm not feeling well today, scratchy throat and all. i think i'll blame that.

curieux

2006-11-29T12:59:00.000-05:00

i was zooming around, checking up on some favorite sites, feeling i've been a little out of it on the web these days when i came across an article in the NYT concerning big beers. it reads a little condescending to my eyes, as if the NYT was telling new york sophisticates that beer is the new gin, that it's okay now and then to order something other than a merlot. as if new yorkers wrote off beer with ralph cramden, something folks in new jersey "do", but just might be the hip thing this season.

feh.

i used to think fancy was something to aspire to, to become (as i think david hockney once said) "restaurant rich"; wealthy enough to not have to look at the price of items on a menu before deciding on what to order. when i was young i used to think that sophistication came as a price of growing up. beer in college, wine snobbery in young adulthood, cocktails during middle age and beyond. yeah, and we thought we'd have to give up punk rock and dig into jazz when we hit 30, as if our appreciation of such things couldn't co-exist. thus we became the prime demographic for the bad plus, but i digress.

and growing up what other models did i have to judge by? my parents rarely drank, even when visiting my grandparents whose house was overflowing with booze. guys out on the back patio playing five card and drinking tall cans of pabst, ladies in the kitchen doing the same or occasionally mixing up some rum. and stealing a sip of beer from an uncle was only expected if you were to hang out on the patio.

but why, i wondered, would adults turn down soda to drink this cold fizzy liquid that tastes like urine?

college taught me the error of my thinking. some beer from oregon (why can't i remember the name? oh, because i'm OLD!) was making a name for itself, brewed in small batches and sent in numbered editions north to seattle and south to california. it was smooth and clean and didn't taste like shit... i meant, schlitz. then anchor steam beer made a revival in the bay area, and microbrew pubs appeared and all of a sudden i felt like history had finally come around to the origins of beer and in no time we'd be drinking mead from buckets just like they did at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

*ahem*

anyway, it's been a long slog and in the end i find i prefer the relaxed atmosphere of an unpretentious pub that serves up tasty food matched with quality craft beers. cheaper than chi-chi places where an out-of-work actor who can't afford to eat at their own restaurant is doing their best to belittle you for your choice of shoes, wine and entre. do i want to pour over a wine list as heavy as the gutenberg bible, do i want to take classes to learn how to "appreciate" wine? do i want to sniff the cork, approve of the beverage before it's decanted to all? do i need ceremony to make myself feel superior and deserving?

no. i want something with a unique taste that compliments my meal. a beer will do, thank you.

but as my zuska and i have discovered there's a world a beer out there just as complex as the wine world but a lot more funner. yes, funner. take life as it comes and order from the beer list anything that looks interesting. it's how i first tried the allagash white ale on our trip to maine last summer. and that in turn lead me to try the allagash tripel at our local pub. my oh my! what heaven! and more recently...

allagash curieux. it's beer, allowed to age inside a cask formerly used to age jim beam. the carbonation is fine but not sharp. the beer is smooth but full-bodied. and after you swallow, the aftertaste is pure jim beam without the burn. curious indeed!

that same night my zuska tried a brew called interlude, which is partially aged in wine casks. now, here's a beer that tastes like beer, slightly sweet, and with a fine wine finish. more to zuska's taste than my own, but not in any way offensive. except for the price. served by the bottle we got dinged for $30. for. a. bottle. of. beer.

okay, it's a two-person size bottle (or one person if you're used to japanese beer)and we've since discovered that retail is about a third, but that's still a bit pricey. perhaps a beer aficionado with an open mind would like it as a gift? it's definitely a celebration brew.

but it's all really just a beer and, price and brewing techniques aside, unpretentious. you don't have to smell the cork or approve it, you just open it up and enjoy it. i'm looking forward to doing just that sometime in the future. how many beers can do that?

killing four meals with one bird (five counting leftovers)

2006-11-25T20:02:00.000-05:00

i'm going to have to give it up for my favorite founding father here, the national bird really should be the turkey. the national symbol for our thanksgiving meal, traditional or not, the same bird we offer up as an insult isn't only a fierce protector of its territory but a cornucopia of leftover meals!

nothing new to many of you, i'm sure, but i'm just so damn happy with the way the bird turned out this year on so many fronts. first it went through a 24 hour brining process, which i've done before but not with such wonderful results. unstuffed and unbasted, it came out of the oven 3 hours after it first went in moist and juicy as you please.

we ate our fill on thanksgiving and again served ourselves up plates of leftovers the next day. today we took a break from all things thanksgiving while i turned the carcass into (1) a shepherd's pie for tomorrow night, (2) an adobo turkey chili with beans in the slow cooker for the day after tomorrow and (3) turkey stock for a soup-to-be-named-later.

i know in the past i've made grand plans for leftovers, all with the best of intentions, only to get lazy and pick at the bird until i realized there wasn't enough left for anything but the occasional sandwich. which, in the past, was fine. i have no problem with turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches for a week but it always left me feeling like i'd let the turkey down somehow, as if i hadn't really honored this noblest of native foul.

come december 1st i'm not going to want to hear the word turkey for at least a month. i want to roast something else for solstice.

eat up, american children, so that the evil witch can stuff you in her oven!

2006-11-23T13:23:00.000-05:00

yesterday at the girl's school they held a family breakfast, a little pre-holiday get-together for families to share breakfast foods and check out the kids school work and generally wish each other a happy thanksgiving.

my zuska and our youngest made coffee cake muffins from scratch. they were both very proud of their efforts, and rightly so. very tasty indeed.

but while i was scanning the food tables i noticed someone had brought in cereal and milk for kids who would normally prefer such things over donuts and whatnot. and what were brought in were those little single-serve boxes that came shrinkwrapped in a 12 pak. ah, what fond memories of fighting to be the first one up in the morning so you can grab your favorite flavor (sugar pops, as they were honestly called back in the day) leaving behind the raisin bran and special k for the unwary loser. so much fun! punching open the box and carefully tearing open the wax wrapper in order to eat out of the box like a bowl. what a thrill! when someone cut badly and milk leaked out the box all over the table...

wait. what the hell? the cereal boxes... they've grown! they're huge! they're twice as large as they used to be!

and americans wonder why there's an epidemic of obesity among our children.

back when i was a kid, one box was the limit and it was because these cereals were a special treat. early on my parents realized (without scare stories in the news) that sugar and kids was a bad combination and we were put on a diet of wheaties, cheerios and the occasional kix. we could have seconds but we weren't allowed to add sugar and if we were still hungry after that it was on to fruit or juice. with the little boxes we were allowed the one serving and seconds had to be of one of the regular cereals.

but what has changed since those days when a single smaller box was considered a serving while today a larger box is necessary? did they just give in to parental pressure and marketing and double the serving size so kids wouldn't complain that they were still hungry? have parents accepted the fact that even though cereal (as we have been told billions of times in commercials) is only "part of a balance/nutritious breakfast" that getting kids to eat anything in the crush of the morning routine is good enough? sure, let them load up on vitamin fortified empty calories, double the portion to keep them quiet, send them off to schools with a sugar high for the teacher to deal with, and write off the obesity as "baby fat" that they will eventually grow out of because putting them on a diet with give them :food issues" that could scar them for life.

i'm sorry, but the agribiz and food industry in general are going to have a reckoning day when americans decide to stop poisoning and killing their children with food. until then, the witch in the forest is rubbing her hands with glee that hansel and gretel are slowly trundling down the path, ready for a quick gingerbread house break, grain-fed and fattened for the oven.

and now i'm off to produce my own masterpiece of american gluttony. three cheers for the annual tradition of proving that the way to inaugurate the beginning of the holiday shopping season is by getting together (and barely putting up) with family, watching the great american gladiator sport of football on television (because no one would even think of doing anything like exercise on this day) and eating ourselves into a food coma.

actually, that all doesn't sound so bad. for one day.

minnie stronie zoop?

2006-11-21T20:35:00.000-05:00

it's thanksgiving week, i've got a lot of food on my mind. okay, it's just the bird i've got to deal with. and the stuffing. and a token vegetable. i'm thinking about brining and how i need a cooler and get some ice and get the thing soaked before we drive the kiddos over the river and through the woods...

wait, where was i? oh, yeah, so the stuffing. i've gotta chop the bread and dry it out but the girls are hogging up the kitchen making muffins for the family breakfast at the girls school and i'm not going to have enough time...

breathe.

okay.

so i really wasn't in the mood to make a whole lotta food this week knowing that we're gonna end the week with a whole lot more food. plus, what do you make when it's (a) cold, (b) you wanna cook light and (c) you don't want any duplication with thanksgiving?

soup.

this is a memory soup, meaning that i started with a recipe for a minestrone soup that was 15 minutes start to finish but it used the microwave. and i hate the microwave for things like soup. so i decided to stove-top it (not the stuffing mix!) and once i got rolling i started adding things i found around the kitchen (not the dust bunnies at the base of the fridge!) until it became something more along the lines of a regular ol' vegetable soup. i think that's what i'll call it.

a regular ol' vegetable soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
a large red onion, chopped fine
2 stalks of celery, diced
2 carrots, also diced
1 zucchini, sliced length-wise into quarters, then diced
1 yellow squash, same size as the zuke, cut the same
a handful of green beans, ends trimmed, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 14 oz. can of navy or great northern beans, drained, rinsed
32 oz. vegetable broth
2 tablespoons tomato paste
5 cloves of garlic, crushed, pressed or chopped as desired
1/3 cup of pearled barley
2 teaspoons dried parsley
pepper to taste -- don't you dare use any salt!

this is one of those where you can chop and add as you go.
heat your trusty soup pot on medium heat and add the oil.
chop-and-add-as-you-go the first six ingredients, stirring them as you add them.
add the beans, broth and tomato paste and stir to mix. increase the heat until the soup begins to boil slightly.
add the garlic, parsley and barley, stir to mix and bring everything to a nice simmer.

cook until the barley is soft and chewy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
serve with slices of baguette toasted with a nice sharp cheese. i like dubliner chedder or gruyere.
kids really approved: no leftovers!

starbucks, hot cocoa, idiots

2006-11-20T11:45:00.000-05:00

i'm putting on the asbestos suit for this one, just in case someone reads this and wants to use a flamethrower. here we have an incident similar to the hot-coffee-at-mcdonalds-burned-my-crotch story, only this time its starbucks, and it's a kid.

first, so no one thinks i'm a babyeater or anything, kids getting burned is horrible. though you'd never know it to look at me, 60% of my own body was second-degree burned when i was toddler and decided to pull an electric coffee pot down on my backside. i was lucky and was well taken care of and i have almost no visible scars to speak of.

i used to joke that as a result of that early experience with coffee i grew to hate the stuff. the truth is i love the flavor but my stomach can't handle the tannic acids and so i never acquired the java jones. but i love a good chocolate, and a hot cup of chocolate is always welcome to these lips.

ah, but then there's that whole problem i have with dairy. no fear, there's soy milk! oh, what a joy, milk from the bean of the soy!

add it all up and you get a semi-lactose intolerant dude who prefers cocoa over coffee. a perfect customer for starbucks soy hot chocolate.

here's the thing: for the last, oh, seven years or so i've had problems getting my soy hot cocoa. it isn't the soy that's the issue, nor the cocoa, no-no, it's getting a drink that actually qualifies as warm enough to call tepid, much less "hot". it became especially noticable when i moved from west to east coast where it seems the very idea of soy is like a beacon telling the baristas yo, here's another left coastie! customers in line look at me like i've just ordered my beverage be infused with flakes of titanium so that my poop sparkles. must have something to do with the fact that dairy-friendly vermont is next door and massachusians eat more ice cream per capita than any other state, but i digress.

i used to actually complain and have my cocoa sent back for reheating. i even wrote to corporate to complain because i found the problem was consistent all over the downtown area. corporate's answer was for me to give them a phone number so they could call and apologize to me personally. no thanks, just sell me what you advertise: HOT chocolate.

[super-aside: i'm deliberately ordering a non-dairy drink, why do they always offer me whipped cream? "we have to," one barista admitted, "or else we get in trouble." huh.]

so now i'm onto this story where a kid in a car seat is scalded by a hot cocoa from starbucks. let me say this, when you do get a drink that's too hot you know the minute you pick up the cup. anything hot enough to scald skin cannot be held in a paper cup without a protective sleeve. it will even gather enough steam in those plastic sippy lids that the lid is too hot. so how does a parent put one of these molten lava drinks into the hands of a kid?

i'm picturing a drive-thru window, drinks being handed over in a cardboard tray. a mother hands the drink back to her child, carefully holding it by the rim so as not to burn herself? so the kid can grab the cup? she has to be holding it along that insulated edge because that's the only way i can think that she cannot feel the heat of the drink. a drink so incredibly hot that it scalds the child's skin through it's clothes. she couldn't have done what i've seen countless other parents do -- test to make sure it wasn't too hot -- otherwise this story makes no sense.

starbucks policy is that kids drinks are cooler than regular coffee drinks, but policy or no mistakes happen. i'm sure the barista in question who made the drink has long since lost their job, whether they did overheat the drink or not. but is that really the problem here?

burn studies have shown that kids will suffer greater burn injuries, typically from scalding liquids, and at much lower temperatures than an adult would. i've read where hot tap water -- around 100 degrees -- when spilled on a fabric like fleece will both hold and retain the heat of the liquid in question to the point where it becomes like a forced exposure burn. add this all together and you get the conditions where a mild-hot liquid (to adults) can become a scalding hot liquid to a kid.

indianapolis in november can be cold. you might want to bundle a kid up in that weather, take them for a drive to starbucks for a hot cocoa. a sudden jerk out of the drive-thru window, kid spills the drink, clothes insulate the heat, kid gets scalded. these aren't necessarily the facts in the case, just a possibility.

my parents never sued the maker of the electric coffee pot for my accident. they recognized that the error was not in the manufacture of the pot itself, nor did they abdicate responsibility because there was no warning on the package indicating serious burn injury from curious toddlers. you see, my parents were of a generation that took responsibility for their own actions. at 18 months they knew i could toddle my way into all kinds of trouble and should have taken the precautions to prevent me from taking a coffee shower, but they didn't, and the medical bills (and the anxiety of burning their child) was warning enough for me and my eventual siblings.

when i was growing up we didn't have car seats giving us a false sense of security in the car. we didn't even have seatbelts in the first car my parents owned -- that hadn't become law yet. and my parents would never have given us a hot beverage in the car without the expectation that they would get spilled -- because, hey, we were kids! -- so they had to be cool enough to withstand wearing.

parents need to stop acting like idiots so they can set better examples for future generations. these parents who are suing starbucks for a cocoa drink that scalded their child need to include the car seat manufacturer for not including a stabilizing drink holder; they need to sue the clothing manufacturer for not including a large warning explaining how their fabrics might contribute to the scalding of a child with hot liquid spilled on them; they need to sue the car manufacturer for not building a car that prevents and deters accidents by not allowing the car to turn or accelerate in a manner that could lead to injury.

and they need to sue their own parents for not instilling common sense into their children before allowing them to procreate.

i have a lot of problems with starbucks, but if i were to be empaneled on a jury for this case they'd have to excuse me. starbucks gets my support here.

senegalese peanut butter stew

2006-11-19T21:09:00.000-05:00

this one i stumbled onto at npr about a year ago. it was requested by my zuska, and seeing as i hadn't made it in a while i figured what the heck. but maybe i don't make this as often because it falls into the category 'do not attempt unless you have the better portion of an afternoon to make this'. okay, so maybe it only takes about 2 and a half hours. not exactly slow food, but not the 30 minute solutions i generally look for when feeding us in the evenings.

you can get the original recipe with it's story here, but this is my take with a few shortcuts.

mafe - a senegalese peanut butter stew

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 medium red onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped into large pieces
4 cups chicken broth
8 oz can tomato sauce
1 small head of green cabbage, cut into quarters
1 or 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into small cubes
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups of cooked rice

mix together the salt, pepper and red pepper flakes, sprinkle half the mixture over both sides of the chicken pieces and set aside. prepare all the rest of the ingredients while the chicken sits.
heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot to medium high. when the oil is hot add the rest of the salt and pepper mix and stir until they become fragrant (less than a minute).
place the chicken pieces in the bottom of the pot and cook until browned on both sides, about 7 minutes a side.
remove from heat and add onions, garlic and bell pepper, stir in tomato sauce and chicken broth and return to a medium heat.
once the stew reaches a slight boil, turn the flame down, drop the cabbage wedges in, cover and simmer for approximately 30 minutes.
in a small bowl combine the tomato paste, peanut butter and a cup of broth from the stew. use a whisk to make it all smooth and then pour it into the stew.
add the sweet potatoes and give the stew a good mixing, recover and let simmer for 20 to 30 minutes -- until the cabbage and sweet potatoes are cooked.
serve over rice.

if you wanted to swap out tofu for chicken i don't see the problem there. just use extra firm tofu and remove it from the pot once it's cooked, adding it at the end, just before serving.
we don't like bell peppers in this house, but they do add a nice flavor, so i keep the pieces large to enable people to fish them out and not eat them.
the peanut butter will get stuck to the bottom of the pot, so check and stir every so often.
i prefer to cut the sweet potatoes down to a small dice; they cook faster and they end up different than the 20 other times i serve sweet potatoes in a given week. (honestly, these girls of mine and their sweet potato addiction, i've eaten as much of these tubers in a year as i did in an entire lifetime before they entered my life!)
given that this is traditionally eaten by hand i would imagine that instead of rice one could use a soft flatbread or something similar.

screaming "meme me!"

2006-11-14T20:28:00.000-05:00

(that was a fun bit of wordplay i never thought i'd ever get to use)

this one comes from my zuska. she's much more tolerant of these things than i am, but this one's a nice little checklist. as with hers, mine are in bold, italics are things i'd like to try within the next decade or so, plus i added a few at the end.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said "I love you" and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper (x 10,000)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse (won $11!)
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run (junior high counts, right?)
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking (alcohol was involved)
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days (extreme food poisoning will do that)
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an "expert"
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently (i'd like to, but i'm hopelessly monolingual)
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over

101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication (soon!)
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one 'important' author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that youÂre living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didnÂt know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone's life

extra credit (i'm just curious)
151. Stayed up for more than 50 hours without the use of drugs
152. Swam from Alcatraz to San Francisco
153. Been in a bar brawl
154. Started a bar brawl
155. Ridden an elephant
156. Shoplifted an item worth more than $50
157. Streaked/skinny-dipped in front of total strangers
158. Hopped a moving train
156. Eaten an animal most people consider a house pet
159. Given a panhandler more than $5
160. Been arrested at a protest
161. Backpacked for more than a week
162. Been in the studio audience of a TV show (Real People and Hollywood Squares)
163. Deliberately not spoken aloud for more than a week
164. Received or given a lap dance for money
165. Chased a tornado
166. Driven beyond the numbers on the speedometer
167. Had an out-of-body experience while awake
168. Had someone break into your house while you were in it (2x, once in broad daylight!)
169. Touched the Berlin Wall
170. Been carjacked
171. Put a note in a bottle and tossed it into the ocean
172. Held up at knife/gunpoint
173. Dreamed something that later happened
174. Deliberately eaten insects as part of a meal
175. Cheated on an important test/exam

oops-i-forgot-a-side-dish corn & black-eyed peas salad

2006-11-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

for some reason i thought i'd posted this some time back, but there it is sitting in the draft file. apologies if you're getting deja vu (and hopefully not that crappy deja vu ABC is trying to ram down our throats via the "lost replacement show "day break").

like it says. zuska was planning to make her corned beef reuben sandwiches and i forgot to plan a side dish for them. she was on her way home and i had 20 minutes. i looked around the kitchen to see what we had and pulled this together.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons basalmic vinegar (red or white)
1 small (or 1/2 medium) red onion
1 16 oz. can of black-eyed peas
2 cups frozen corn
salt & pepper
1/4 red, green or yellow bell pepper (optional)
1 tablespoon fresh parsley (optional, 2 tablespoons dried okay)

chop the onion and place in an appropriate-sized serving bowl
add the oil and vinegar to the onions and let marinate for 10 minutes
(add parsley and bell pepper to the marinade, if using)
drain the peas in a colander
use the can to measure an equal amount of frozen corn, add to the peas and rinse together
add the corn and peas to the marinade and toss to mix
salt and pepper to taste

makes 4 servings in less than 15 minutes
kid tested and approved

notes

believe me, the corn doesn't need to thaw first, in fact it helps chill the dish nicely for serving. obviously if you're not using immediately it can be covered in plastic and stored as long as 24 hours in the refrigerator.

i know i didn't invent this recipe, but i couldn't tell you when or where i first came across it. martha's everyday food? rachel ray? it really did have more to do with what was in the house at the time (not much) and how much time i had to prep.

i am of the opinion that this could go well atop fish tacos, but i might be alone in this

quesadilla triangles with corn salsa and limed sour cream (and the pumpkin soup, which sucked)

2006-11-09T12:34:00.000-05:00

it seems like lately i've enjoyed eating things on top of other things. meatloaf on top of mashed potatoes. apple-chutney-esque on top of chops. a couple nights ago it was stuff on top of quesadilla wedges in place of cheese toasts.

earlier this week i tried this black bean and pumpkin soup recipe. it sucked. it was bland, lacking in flavor but had a curry-cumin spice that gave it an after kick. you eat something and it's kinda bland and you go eh then you get this afterburn in your throat... you should be able to enjoy both the food and the spice. i am so disappointed with this experiment that i'm not including the recipe, i'm linking to it, i'm not even going to tell you where i found it (and btw i've seen it in three different place this week, and a variation that replaced black beans with roasted corn).

but

with the baby food-looking soup i served up little triangles of tortillas filled with cheese and topped with a corn salsa and a limed sour cream. were it not for those little nuggets of cheesey goodness my sweet, loving family would have starved in desperation.

quesadillas with corn salsa &c.

8 flour tortillas
4 oz. monterey jack cheese, grated
4 oz. sharp cheese, your choice but i used a gruyere
1 pint salsa fresca (store bought, or see below)
2 cups frozen corn
16 oz. sour cream
1 lime, juiced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped super small

if you can find a commercially available salsa that you like -- not in a jar, which is usually cooked, but fresh stuff that's actually chunks of stuff -- by all means save yourself the trouble. otherwise you can make a quick salsa using

1 large ripe tomato, chopped
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/2 small jalapeno pepper, seeded, chopped super fine
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 lemon, juiced

you toss all that in a bowl and chill at least an hour before preceding.

about 30 minutes before you're planning to serve take the salsa and the frozen corn and mix in a bowl and let sit.
heat an oven to 325 degrees.
divide the cheese equally across four of the tortillas, top with the other tortillas and set in the oven on wire racks.
in a bowl mix lime juice and cilantro. add sour cream and stir to mix.
when the tortillas have begun to brown and crisp and the cheese is all melty remove from the oven and cut into 8 triangular wedges each (32 in all!).
top each wedge with a but of corn salsa and a dollop of sour cream and serve.

kid tested and approved.
will feed 8 as an appetizer or 4 whose main dish totally sucked.
there will be leftover sour cream. it is good on baked potatoes. it is good on eggs along with the salsa.
they are addictive. especially when you are starved.

a political diversion

2006-11-08T16:05:00.000-05:00

from the desk of: karl rove
to: donalrd rumsfeld

1 november, 2006

donny,

pay very close attention to what i'm about to say, don't just toss this in the shredder with all those other memos you've received these past few years, especially those security breifings from the pentagon!

it's looking like it's going to be a squeaker this time and we're going to need a fall guy if it doesn't fall our way. dick's gonna blow another gasket on his pacemaker but w says it's your turn to fall on your sword. over your dead body, i believe you said the last time i mentioned it, but if it comes to that don't think for a moment i won't call in a few markers.

if the people want change they won't take a token. you can be damn sure the democrats have already been working the backroom and your name is at the top of their hit list. no scandals this time, we're not going to give them the satisfaction of dragging anyone through the mud. i'd start gathering evidence to destroy now.

you've seen what can happen, you remember nixon's generals, you were there. what was that, six years you were underground before reagan could reinstall you in the cabinet? we're talking two years here, two years for the party of andrew jackass to take the heat for your -- uh, our -- failures in iraq, letting us sweep back into office on '08 to "clean up their mess".

here's the deal: push comes to shove and we have to send you out on your ear we'll set you up. i'll get the RNC to siphon off some campagin funds to form an "exploratory commission" to establish our battle plan for the next election. the chair is yours, you pick the team, stay in the shadows, and we'll play keep-away from the dems in the house and the senate. you draw up the plans and we'll march once we figure out who the next figurehead's gonna be (i'm thinking santorum or allen, unless they blow it. ha ha!).

understand, no missteps. if the GOP goes down on tuesday i want you resignation on w's desk within 24 hours or i call in the special team. don't even thing of looking for dick for help -- i've got him in an undisclosed location and when he's conscious, no matter which way things go, it'll be too late for him to say anything.

as always, i've made sure this memo is on edible paper. i'm trying a new flavor this month: crow. better then that shit you've been using.

regards,

k. rove

apple chutney-esque

2006-10-30T11:10:00.000-05:00

i hated pork chops growing up. i loved pork chops growing up.

i hated that they always seemed too thin, too tough and chewy. actually, most meats in our house growing up were prepared under the broiler until tough and chewy. it wasn't until i was an adult that i actually learned that not all red meat is blackened on the outside and grey-brown on the inside.

but i loved the flavor on pork chops, the gamey-brininess of the meat. i also loved gnawing on the bones, picking them clean, though this turned out to be more a function of starvation as i have since grown tired of having to do that much work.

boneless center cut chops, neatly trimmed, that's my preference now. and instead of broiling them to within a fraction of charred combustion i like to massage them with olive oil, season with a little salt and pepper, pan sear them on each side and then let them slowly cook out in the oven until plump and just losing their pink.

and i like them served with something on top. carmelized onions, mushroom gravy or, best, some kind of fruit.

a few nights ago i was hankering for an apple chutney atop the chops, but i wasn't really interested in doing a complete job of it. yes, the laziness factor. after thumbing through a couple recipes i finally decided on the following ingredients and method for an apple-onion quasi-compote.

apple chutney (sorta)

1 large red onion, sliced into half inch wedges
2 large red apples, peeled and cored, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 tablespoon ground clove
1/4 tablespoon ground ginger
3 garlic cloves, pressed or chopped fine
1 cup sparkling apple cider or apple juice
1/2 cup rice vinegar (or white basalmic)

in a bowl blend the sugars and spices.
heat to medium-high a large frying pan with the butter until it starts to bubble.
toss in the apples and cook to soften a bit, about 2 or 3 minutes.
add the onions and garlic and cook another couple of minutes.
sprinkle in the sugar-spice mix and stir to coat.
when things start getting a little sticky add the apple cider, scraping up any fond that may have built up on the bottom of the pan.
when the liquid begins to bubble turn heat down to medium-low and add the vinegar.
simmer until liquid is reduced to a nice syrup and apples are soft but not too mushy. if the liquid thickens before the apples are cooked add a little water or apple cider.

keep on low until serving, then spoon generously over chops.

if everything is prepped you can do this in the time it takes to oven roast some pork chops and make a side dish of some kind. we like spinach.

kids did not like the chutney. sillies.
survived reheating in the microwave a couple days later.
probably could have survived my initial instinct to add curry powder to the mix.

shepherd's pie & the end of daylight savings time

2006-10-29T21:52:00.000-05:00

my girls love the shepherd's pie. i think it comes down to the simple fact that it's a meal smothered in mashed potatoes. honestly, how can you not like that?

the deal with shepherd's pie is this. well, it's two deals actually. the first deal is that the girls love it so much that they see no problem in eating it once a week. for a good year it was the most requested meal until we had to put a moratorium on it, which is part of the first deal. zuska and i thought it over for about two seconds and arbitrarily decided that shepherd's pie was best suited for colder weather and thus relegated to being made in the fall and winter, roughly, between daylight standard and daylight savings time.

the second deal is that shepherd's pie is something of an ordeal. this really shouldn't be, it's supposed to be a clever way to take leftover meat, vegetables and potatoes and whip up a second life out of it. to do this one must consume a traditional euro meat-and-two-veg (with potatoes being one of the two) and to have enough in leftovers to stretch to another day. we just aren't those people. we could be those people without a second thought, but it's that second thought that pushes us to try new foods, new combinations, often with spices or rubs sauces that preclude conversion into shepherd's pie.

which means i have to make it from scratch every time, which is the second deal.

i have made it with leftovers -- most notably following thanksgiving where turkey and stuffing join the potatoes and veggies -- and when i have the difference is remarkable. it's the twice-cooked aspect that brings out the melded flavors from the original. like the way a chili tastes better if it can sit a day before serving; you can eat them both fresh but that zweibacken really makes them zing.

all that makes it sound like i hate shepherd's pie, or that i find making it a chore. hardly! i enjoy the challenge of making it slightly different but the same each time. like tonight, for instance.

a few nights ago zuska and i had a kidless night where we were able to have dinner out at a local pub. i shied away from my normal burger and had a meatloaf with a beer gravy over mashed potatoes. sweet and creamy, i thought, but missing something if they were to be used for a shepherd's pie. my zuska landed a dome of grilled-fried-roasted little red potatoes that i couldn't stop stealing from her plate. and that's when it hit me: why couldn't they both be in a shepherd's pie?

indeed.

one potato, two potato, shepherd's pie

there's lots of wiggle room in this to make to your taste. follow you gut as you go.

5 pounds small red potatoes
5 cloves of garlic (or more, as you please)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1.5 pounds ground or chopped meat (see notes for variations)
1 medium red onion, finely diced
4 tablespoons butter
half & half
1 pound frozen vegetables, or fresh, your choice
miscellaneous spices, as desired

chop a pound and a half of the red potatoes into 3/4 inch cubes. place the potatoes in a plastic bag with the garlic, olive oil, kosher salt, parsley and tarragon, hold the bag closed and give it a good couple of shakes to coat.
place the cubed potatoes on a baking sheet lined with parchment and into a 375 degree oven to roast. give it 20 to 40 minutes until they're golden and yummy.

while that's going down take the remaining potatoes and boil them up for mashed potatoes. everyone really ought to follow their own family recipe for mashed potatoes, but in this recipe it's simply a case of adding the butter and enough half & half to make them the right consistency. a little salt and pepper, maybe some parsley. nice.

meanwhile, you're cooking the ground meat with the onion. you can spice this up any way you prefer. if you're using ground turkey you might try some sage and butter for flavor. if chicken, why not try a little curry powder? me? i like to use an organic, chemical-free gravy mix, or an onion mix, dumped into the cooked meat with a little water to process. failing that, i just start adding spices until i like it.

construction time. the amounts above make a 9 by 13 inch baking dish, or two square 9 by 9 dishes, which is handy because it can be frozen and brought out a week later when it's dark and gloomy out and you don't want to work at a meal but -- hey! -- i got that extra shepherd pie in the freezer! drop a layer of meat in the bottom of the baking dish, sprinkle on a layer of the frozen veggies, sprinkle the roasted potatoes on top of the veggies, plop some mashed potatoes on the whole thing.

toss it in the oven for about 40 minutes. if the sides are bubbling over but the tops aren't toasted then set the oven to broil for a few minutes until golden and call it a night.

in our house gravy is mandatory. i used to pout it over the veggies before dropping the potatoes on top but everyone complained so i make it separate now. again, this comes down to personal tastes. like that brown gravy in a package? go for it. want to make it from scratch? be my guest.

note on meat:
i've done practically every ground meat, and ground meat combination, in shepherd's pie but beef always seems to get the best response from my carnivore girls. i have made shepherd's pie with chopped up bits of roasts and the aforementioned turkey and i have to admit i prefer them. it wouldn't take much to use a nice cut of beef and chop it up specifically for the purpose, but then it seems too much like a crustless pot pie. by all means, use what you like.

makes enough to feed a small hungry army.
will freeze (if well sealed) for up to a week and still taste like you made it the same day.
kid tested and approved.
90 minutes start to finish -- and you can read your email and coast the web between steps

the nearest book

2006-10-26T14:50:00.000-05:00

absolutely nothing to do with food (because those books are in another room), i came across this at mental multivitamin...

1. grab the nearest book.
2. open to page 123.
3. find the fifth sentence.
4. post the text of the next four sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. don't you dare dig around for that "cool" or "intellectual" book on your shelves. (i know you were thinking about it.) just pick up whatever is closest.

here is my contribution:

But I still find myself daydreaming of an isolated little gang of like-minded people in a temperate climate, in a clearing in a woodland near a lake (an ideal spot, by the way, for a daydreaming maiden to find herself the captrix of a unicorn). My son Mark would help found and bankroll such a commune in British Columbia, and later write about it in The Eden Express. (I said in my own Palm Sunday that sons try to make their mothers' impractical dreams for themselves come true. Here was a case of a son making his father's impractical dream come true.)

way too many hints in there, but if you're interested, it came from this.

tag.

tuna noodle times 2: deluxe and easy-cheesy

2006-10-25T08:26:00.000-05:00

there's a battle raging in our house, a quiet battle requiring elaborate diplomacy. it's all about pasta. my zuska doesn't hate pasta but the carbs just don't agree with her and she feels we can live healthier lives without the added starches. the girls are young and don't have the same issues; noodles are fun, and safe, and pretty much anything that comes with pasta is fine with them.

for me, i had a summer in college where i was once so poor it was all i ate. seriously. i would buy a pound of pasta on monday, open the package, and count out five servings strand-by-strand for my daily meal (weekends i'd splurge and have eggs with toast). each serving was tossed with a single tablespoon of butter, salt and pepper and, if i had any, canned parm cheese. you would think i would hate pasta for that reason, the way some people won't eat the "poor" foods they had growing up after they fell into some money. nope, still love it and could eat it three or four times a week if necessary. if i didn't know better.

a couple nights ago a tuna noodle casserole dinner was proposed and agreed by all, however zuska's caveat was that there needed to be more vegetables involved, somehow, because it tends to be more about the noodles and tuna than anything else when i make it. agreed then, deluxe vegetable tuna noodle casserole.

growing up in the glory days of post-war convenience foods, my mom's version of tuna noodle came straight off the can of campbell's cream of mushroom soup. tuna, condensed soup, frozen peas, noodles, tossed together and bakes with a crust (i kid you not) of crushed potato chip dust on top. my heart is racing from the mere thought of all that sodium. we ate it, it tasted okay, i had no idea that tuna noodle was supposed to taste like anything else.

a few years back i realized i hadn't really explored the possibilities of the classic tuna noodle and played around with the kinds of things i was interested in. after a couple of laborious recipes from various sources i took a look at the things i liked and developed the following.

easy-cheesy tuna noodle casserole

1 pound of noodles, bow ties or whatever makes sense
4 cans tuna
16 oz. sour cream
10 oz. (1.5 cups) frozen corn
10 oz. (1.5 cups) frozen peas (petite are best)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
ground pepper and parsley flakes to taste

cook the noodles according to the directions on the package. turn off burner, drain and rinse.
in the still-warm pasta pot dump the sour cream, allowing some to remain in the container. place the pot back on the warm burner and add the tuna, peas and corn, stirring until mixed.
in the sour cream container add the soy sauce, paprika, flour and half the parmesan cheese. put the lid back on and shake to mix. you might need to whisk it a bit to get the flour blended.
add the mixed ingredients to the sour cream in the pot and turn the burner on to medium low, stirring occasionaly until frozen veggies are cooked.
dump the pasta back in the pot and mix.
add pepper and parsley to taste.

from here you can serve as-is with a little parm on the individual servings, or put it in a casserole dish and bake in a 375 degree oven until the top browns and crusts a bit, maybe 30 to 40 minutes. you can also cool it, wrap it up and freeze it for up to a week, adding 20 minutes to the cooking time if moving from freezer to oven.

nothing fancy, almost a little embarrassing to admit i serve that to people i love, but it's basic, tastes good, is easy and... uh... uses enough sour cream that no one in the house really cares.

except for this week.

this week i had to come up with something a little more nutritionally substantive. onward to:

deluxe tuna noodle casserole

1 medium red onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, diced
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cans tuna, drained, best quality you can afford
2 cups frozen veggies (peas and pearl onions was my first choice, but i had to settle for corn, peas and green beans)
2 15 oz. cans high quality, organic cream of mushroom soup
2 tablespoon soy sauce
5 cloves of garlic
hot sauce to taste ( a couple dashes, optional)
1 pound broad, flat egg noodles
4 oz. monterey jack cheese, grated fine
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bread crumbs (optional)
ground pepper and parsley to taste

preheat oven to 375 degrees.
in a medium saucepan saute the mushrooms, onion and celery in olive oil until they start to get soft, around 3 to 5 minutes.
add the tuna, frozen vegetables, soy sauce, garlic and mushroom soup, stir to mix, and heat on medium low.
cook the egg noodles until almost done, drain and rinse.
taste the sauce, adding pepper and hot sauce to taste. more garlic isn't a bad thing either.
add half the jack cheese to the sauce and stir to mix.
return the noodles to their cooking pot and add the sauce to mix.
pour into a 9 by 12 baking or large casserole dish.
top with remaining cheese and bread crumbs (if using) and pop it in the oven.
20 to 30 minutes later -- or when the top is browned and crusty -- remove and serve.

obviously there's a lot more work involved in this version, and a lot more dirty dishes. i also missed that tang of sour cream from my easy version, so next time i'm cutting the mushroom soup in half and adding 16 oz. of sour cream instead. it's still a pasta dish, not the most diet-friendly at that, but it is, after all, a tuna noodle casserole.

some things just are what they are.

amazing banana oatmeal cookies

2006-10-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

i swear, i have no idea where this recipe came from. i found it one day written on a sheet of legal paper that was folded and tucked away among papers several years old. no matter. i made these recently and again tonight and they had the most amazing banana bread-like consistency -- even better than banana bread itself!

preheat oven to 325 degrees

1.5 cups flour
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1/4 tablespoon nutmeg
3/4 tablespoon cinnamon
1.25 cups butter (2 and 1/4 sticks, yes, that's a lot)
1.25 cups sugar
1 egg (or one tablespoon arrowroot)
3-4 large bananas, pulped and mooshy
1.75 cups quick cooking oatmeal

in a medium bowl mix together flour, salt, baking soda nutmeg and cinnamon
in a larger mixing bowl cream butter and sugar together
add bananas and egg (or arrowroot) to butter and sugar and mix well, the smoother the better
mix the dry ingredients into the wet in thirds. better will be wetter and stickier than most cookie recipes, and it turns out that's okay.
mix in the oatmeal.

drop large spoon-sized lumps of dough onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart, and place in the oven for 10 to 13 minutes. they should be slightly browned on top and bottom and will be very soft when they are done. let them sit on the cookie sheet for a minute or two before transferring to a cooling rack

the place will smell like banana bread for a long time, the intensity matched by the ripeness of the bananas. they will be so moist from the banana that storing them in an airtight container will actually soften them so i'd leave them out overnight (unless you have naughty kittens/housemates/vermin who might get into them). certainly a higher heat and longer cooking time will yield more cookie-like results, but i prefer the way these came out so soft and bread-y.

makes 2 dozen good sized cookies.

grilled cheat and creamy tomato shuck

2006-10-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

i'm currently at a dry spell for what to cook. i look through the recipe file, on line, in the magazines and cookbooks and nothing inspires. even when i've been eating out lately nothing really floats my boat.

i think it must be the switch to fall. the body is trying to adjust, trying to figure out just how thick a layer of blubber to lay down. all i've been craving during the day is pasta, and that just makes me feel bloated. where a few weeks ago i could have been happy with the fresh fruits of the late summer harvest i now couldn't care less about them. prime apple season and i just don't want any.

tonight's dinner was a quickie, and a cheat since it was mostly store-bought: grilled cheese sandwiches and creamy tomato soup from a carton. granted, no growth hormones in the cheese, organic bread, organic tomato soup but it takes no skill to heat these things up, satisfying as they are.

i did doctor the soup by crushing some fresh garlic cloves into it, tapping in some dried basil, and topping the servings off with some grated romano. and if i pan fry a sandwich in butter until it's all gooey, cheesy goodness why is it called grilled?

i know it's just a spell, a patch. soon ideas will be springing out of my head like demented arcimboldo jack-in-the-boxes, and the change to daylight savings time will bring about the ceremonial return of shepherd's pie, and there will be birds to roast and hot cocoa to mix.

but this week i think it's all about the quick and easy. there are, however, some brown bananas that may need to be rescued...

curry peanut chicken

2006-10-12T22:49:00.000-05:00

so i followed up the mac 'n cheese with this recipe last night, courtesy of elise at simply recipes. i don't know why i've shied away from thai-style curry dishes -- fear of culinary failure? -- but this provided a nice entry into the ease of possibilities.

for the record, i used jalapeno instead of serrano chilis and cut the number in half. an untried spicy recipe in this house has to pass the lips of an 8 and 10 year old and there's no sense cooking for kids if they can't/won't eat it. as it stands, they loved it. went back for seconds. everyone did. not a leftover in the house to prove it was ever made.

i'm now on the lookout for a nice green or yellow coconut curry. that and some satay with peanut sauce and i may never order-out thai again.

cheese & mac & cheese

2006-10-10T18:50:00.000-05:00

this is insanely decadent. my zuska loves this mac n' cheese that they serve at our local pub and i've long thought i could take it on. after consulting a couple of recipes for general proportions, i concocted what has to be the most insanely rich macaroni and cheese i've ever made. if you try this i'd love to hear your thoughts.

warning: not for the diet conscious! you can substitute low fat dairy items if you want to, but i'm not going to vouch for the end result!

orecchiette with carmelized onions and many cheeses

3 medium or 2 large sweet onions, roughly chopped into 1/4 in pieces
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound of uncooked orecchiette (little saucer pasta) or any pasta that makes sense to you
8 oz. container of sour cream
1.5 cups of half & half
4 oz. grated sharp cheddar cheese
4 oz. grated monterey jack cheese
4 oz. soft goat cheese
2 oz. crumbled blue cheese
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
1/4 tablespoon ground nutmeg
1/4 tablespoon fresh ground pepper
2 -4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.
in a large skillet on medium-low heat cook the onions in the melted butter, stirring occasionally. it will take 15 to 20 minutes for them to carmelize while you work on the cheese sauce. if they are ready before it's time to compile just set them aside off heat.
boil the pasta according to the instructions on the package. personally, i like to overcook them just a bit for this recipe.
when the pasta is cooked, strain, return to the pan, add the sour cream and carmelized onions and mix. set aside until ready for cheese sauce.
put the half & half in a saucepan and heat on medium heat until it starts to bubble a bit.
using a whisk, stir in the cheeses (except the parm), mustard, nutmeg and pepper until well blended.
pour cheese sauce into the pasta and give a good mix. add salt and pepper to taste.
now pour the mac and cheese into a casserole dish (we actually used a 9" square cake pan) and top with parmesan cheese.
pop it in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until top has browned and cheese starts bubbling out the sides.
let it cool a few moments so you don't burn yourself. around our house it's called "i can't stand it any longer, it smells so good! let's eat!"

additions:
cubed ham, asparagus tips, green peas and anything else you might serve with a cheese sauce can be blended in. pearl onions could be substituted for the carmelized onions, but why?

goes great with beer, especially a bavarian allagash tripel.
works fine with a crisp red wine.
broccoli would go great with that.
feed four hungry adults.
kid tested and approved (except for the onions).
don't expect leftovers.

definition please: stew vs. soup

2006-10-10T13:14:00.000-05:00

lately i've been running across this problem where a recipe refers to itself as a stew and the final product is more of a soup, and vice versa. the american heritage dictionary (via dictionary.com) gives us this definition for soup:

A liquid food prepared from meat, fish, or vegetable stock combined with various other ingredients and often containing solid pieces.

and then turns around and gives us this one for stew:

A dish cooked by stewing, especially a mixture of meat or fish and vegetables with stock. A mixture likened to this dish

so is it all just a matter of how much time is involved in the cooking process? does cooking something longer, essentially to stew it, define what it is? if so, what am i to make of a quick stew that is soup-like, or a chili that sits more like a stew?

n 1: ground beef and chili peppers or chili powder often with tomatoes and kidney beans [syn: chili con carne]

trust me, i've seen chilis and chili recipes that had NONE of these ingredients in them.

the question is: who gets to define what?

donuts (& doughnuts)

2006-10-06T09:04:00.000-05:00

when i was a kid the place to go for donuts was winchell's. despite being a chain, all donuts were made on the premises by the franchise-owning family of fat, happy donut makers. they were a round bunch, pasty white faces with rosy-red apple cheeks and a jolly attitude. honestly, they looked like a family right out of a rankin-bass holiday TV special.

they made the best donuts, in flavors i really haven't seen in a long time. vanila and chocolate cake donuts with cherry, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, maple, banana, pumpkin, orange and lemon icing, some with sprinkles, some with nuts, some with coconut, some with crumb topping, some dusted with sugar and cinnamon. along with the raised donuts, glazed or frosted, round or twisted, you could order two-dozen assorted donuts and never get a duplicate. i don't recall a time where i did show up to their little pass-through order window when i couldn't get a flavor that wasn't still warm.

in high school i had a job in westwood right across the street from an institution, stan's donut shop. stan himself was still there every night, him and his assistant (or partner, i was never sure) making fresh donuts for the next day. unlike the winchell's family who served up large batches of perfectly identical donuts, stan was a donut artisan whose specialties included a blueberry cake donut and what was called (probably in violation of trademark) the reese's peanut butter pocket donut. cradled inside the center of a hole-less donut was a core of real peanut butter topped with chocolate chips melted into a crown of fudgey icing. steep for a donut at the time -- nearly double the price of a regular donut -- it was rich enough too keep me feed for an entire night, which is saying something when you consider i was a teenage boy at the time.

years pass, and suddenly it occurs to me that i haven't really had a good, fresh, enjoyable donut in a long time. was it because i had grown a more sophisticated palate, or did something else happen along the way?

jump ahead to the present, relocated to new england. on the west cost you can stand on any corner of any metropolitan area and see half a dozen starbucks in either direction, but on this side of the country those starbucks are easily outnumbered by dunkin donuts. you can imagine how amused i was to hear the claim "america runs on dunkin" when i know from having traveled across this great land that there are entire time zones who would ask "runs on dunkin what?" ah, that quaint east coast hubris i'd heard about, that sense that nothing real exists outside its sphere of influence. and as proof, when anything from the outside world threatens that cozy little bubble -- say, krispy kreme fresh-made donuts -- it's circle the wagons time, boys, these usurpers mean us harm!

though limited to the glazed donut, the krispy kreme is the closest thing to those roly-poly memories of my youth. hot and fresh, the beat the pants off the "local" favorites by a mile. i say local because i haven't seen proof that a dunkin donut was made on site or even within a hundred miles from where it was on display. they certainly don't taste like they were made within the previous 24 hours, all heavy and stale. and i have seen the early morning dunkin deliveries, rolling racks in the back of a standard truck -- no refrigeration, the racks aren't even closed to the elements -- hauled down a ramp and into the back of the dunkin store where an employee brings out "fresh" arrivals from behind the scenes. this is a far cry from the open donut kitchen of the winchell's (or even krispy kreme) where you can actually see the donut go from fat, to cooling rack, to glazing, to display.

i am told that dunkin is a blue collar brand, a place for basic coffee at a basic price and a stick of dough to go with. i don't drink coffee and couldn't care less, but when your store has the name DONUT covering its second half you'd expect some kind of attention to the item in question. from what i gather then either the blue collar joe drinkers -- which includes easily 90% of the population from what i can see -- either doesn't care about donuts or has been conditioned to indifference over time by a company that threw in the towel long ago and decided the clientele wouldn't give a crap anyway. and maybe they were right.

health consciousness be damned, if you're going to indulge in fried dough with sugared frosting why would you settle for less? why settle for a glob of grease-flavored cake with a sandy consistency, or a spongy, flavorless pillow that tastes only of the acrid glaze that coats it? why make a donut at all if you aren't committed to what it means to make a true donut?

will someone, please, resurrect the donut to its former glory? please?

10 pm snack time

2006-10-04T22:21:00.000-05:00

when i was in college i lived in a student housing co-op where we had snack at 10 pm five nights a week, sunday through thursday. it was a good time for a study break (or a good excuse to call it a night and start socializing) and generally meant something simple and baked fresh. a bad snack night might include a burnt zucchini bread offering, or maybe slightly bitter fruit tarts. a good snack night sent ripples through the building like a wildfire, causing lines to start forming at the edge of the kitchen at 9:30 pm.

the best snack night was always chocolate chip cookie night. once a month, usually a thursday night, it was the one time you could guarantee to see 95% of the house all at once.

i learned how to make chocolate chip cookies during my second year in the house when one of the snack cooks failed to show up for his shift. i was given the sacred recipe for chocolate chip cookies because it was presumed i was too green to suggest my own snack and to keep the natives at bay. that and the fact that the kitchen managers felt even if i burnt them it would go down easier than riot that would ensue if there was no snack at all.

it started with 16 pounds of butter. we had butter by the pound in bulk, but if i had to do that by unwrapping traditional butter that would be 64 sticks. of butter. i had spent the previous 19 years of my life raised on margarine and hadn't seen 16 pounds of butter in the aggregate. that was a lot of butter.

into the massive hobart mixer, along with 32 cups of white sugar, 32 cups of brown sugar and a whole palate of eggs. while that was whipping up nice and creamy i sifted the dry ingredients in. last, a massive box of bulk chocolate chips that had to be at least 10 pounds. from there it was just the process of greasing up pans and rotating them through a double set of convection ovens.

while i was doing this another house member named gretchen claimed to have done time with debbie fields (as in mrs.) before her stores went nationwide and she explained the finer points of cookie making. digging up a dozen 1/4 measuring cups she showed me how to scoop, level, cut in half, and place the dough on the rounded edge. all the cookies would be uniform and bake perfectly round. my first couple of batches, pre-gretchen, turned out like the lumpy dung piles i had grown up eating; post-gretchen, perfect cookies. by sheer luck i had managed to cream the butter and sugar to her satisfaction before adding the flour (and long before she arrived). i had also managed to get the right dough consistency to yield a more cake-y cookie, just the way i like them. by 9 pm the smells had lofted up the four floors of the building and people began hanging out casually in the dining area. i was asked to come back and make chocolate chip cookies for snack three more times before i moved out at the end of that school year.

for years i used to mentally scale down the foodservice recipe for my own needs, never really trusting the proportions in cookbooks and on the backs of the bags of chips. now i just look at whatever recipe is handy for a general sense of the amounts and take it from there. as good as they can be, they're never quite like those times i started out with 16 pounds of butter.

comfort meal -- meatloaf & cheesy scalloped potatoes

2006-10-02T19:51:00.000-05:00

i thought i'd get some resistance when i mentioned the potatoes. trying to cut back on the starches and carbs in the house, donchaknow.

the meatloaf (one word, unless you're talkin about that bat out of hell) is a combination of two separate recipes. you know how it is, you get one recipe down, you make it a few times, then you forget exact proportions and so you go to look it up. but you can't find the original recipe, so you try a new recipe. it's similar, but not. each recipe has good points and bad. then you find the old recipe and make it. hmm, now the other recipe seems to have an edge. finally you go whole hog and merge the two into one and a new family recipe is born

what's odd is that the original recipe was for a vegetarian meatloaf. added to a transmogrified regular meatloaf recipe. final version: brave new meatloaf.

brave new meatloaf

1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground turkey
1 lb. soft tofu, pressed of excess water, crumbled fine
1 cup bread crumbs
1 cup raw cashews chopped extra fine
1 onion diced extra fine
2 celery stalks diced extra fine
0.5 cups steak sauce or hoisen
0.5 cups ketchup or chili sauce
0.5 cups worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons dried parsley
0.75 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

throw it all in a large bowl and mix it up. i do it all by hand, from the chopping to the mixing, though i've gotten a little squishy about actually touching raw meat so i wear disposable latex gloves. it that cheating? maybe, but i have a tendency to chew my nails and the last little surprise i want is a bit of salmonella growing beneath them. use a food processor and a mixer if you want, but the last time i used them with meatloaf it tasted all wrong.

divide the meat into two balls and drop each into a greased loaf pan. yeah, this recipe makes a lot of meatloaf. we like out meatloaf, okay? the leftovers (when there are any) make good sandwiches.

it bakes in a 325 oven for 50 to 70 minutes, depending. use a meat themometer. and when it gets where you want it to be, top each loaf with a half cup of ketchup or chili sauce and set it under the broiler for five minutes or so. yummy tomato-y crust!

cheesy scalloped potatoes

this is so damn easy i don't know why i haven't made it before. maybe i was scared off from a childhood of scalloped potatoes that came out of a box.

5 medium sized yellow or russet potatoes, around 3 lbs. sliced thin
1 small or half a medium onion, chopped super fine
2 cloves of garlic, run through the press
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups whole milk or half & half
4 oz. goat cheese
salt & pepper
parsley flakes

in a small saucepan cook onions and garlic in butter until soft
stir in flour to mix, followed immediately by the milk or half & half.
cook mixture over medium heat until it thickens, then add cheese and reduce to simmer.
add 1/8 teaspoon pepper and salt to taste.

butter the bottom and sides of 9 x 13 baking or large casserole dish.
layer half the potatoes on the bottom of the dish and cover with half the cheese sauce.
layer the rest of the potatoes and cover with cheese.
top with parsley flakes and place in a 325 degree over for around 70 minutes. the top will have nice bits of golden browned cheesy goodness.

now, i probably should have mentioned this earlier, but timing is everything if you want both the meatloaf and the potatoes coming out of the over at the same time. here's how to do it.

first, get all the ingredients together, chopping and prepping and setting things aside in bowls. to keep the potatoes from changing color, place in a bowl of cold water after slicing.
make the meatloaf and set into the pans.
turn the oven on to 325 to pre-heat.
start the cheese sauce for the potatoes.
put the meatloaves in the oven on a top rack. note the time.
assemble the potatoes. when the meatloaves have been in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes put the potatoes in on a rack closer to the bottom of the oven.
when the meatloaves hit the 50 minute mark check the temperature. you're looking for a read of 160 degrees.
when the meatloaves hit the magic mark top them with ketchup or chili sauce and switch things over to broil.
watch the potatoes. if they're looking done when you check the meatloaves, then pull them. if not, let them brown a bit under the broiler as well.
ta da! they should be ready to plate at about the same time.

oh, did you want another vegetable with that? we did frozen broccoli floretes. could have done fresh bit didn't have them. took all of five minutes, started right after i topped the loaves with ketchup.
ta da! meat and two sides ready at the same time in about an hour and 20 minutes, start to finish.

everyone ate seconds.
everyone ate too much.
no leftover potatoes.

the white chili that wasn't really either

2006-10-02T17:09:00.000-05:00

this is a modified recipe from the whole foods market cookbook called "chili blanco with chicken". why they would use to word blanco and not go all the way with the spanish is beyond me. does one foreign word make it seem exotic, but not so exotic as to scare people off?

anyway, the following recipe is modified not because there was anything wrong with the original, but because i just can't help fussing with ingredients. now it's officially mine. oh, and i'm calling this soup because in my book a chili isn't thin and liquidy. and it was more of a yellow-y-brown than anything blanco.

sopa con el pollo y la salchicha

1.5 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken cut into 1/2 inch cubes

marinade

1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed

0.5 lbs. bulk sausage or links, skin removed

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 large leek, sliced and washed
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon chopped chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
1 bottle of beer, a light pilsner will do
2 cups chicken stock
2 16 oz. cans white cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
fresh cilantro
juice from a lime
salt to taste (personally i don't think it's necessary)

first, have all the ingredients ready before you start cooking. if you are using link sausages and you have the time freeze them slightly, remove the casing, and slice into disks before cooking.

after you've cut the chicken plop it in a bowl with the marinade ingredients. give it a good toss and set aside.
in the bottom of a large pot cook the sausage until done. we like ours a little over-done so it's crispy. remove the sausage and set aside to drain on a paper towel. drain the pot of excess fat.
dump chicken into the pot and cook until opaque, about 3 minutes or so.
add olive oil, vegetables and spices and soak until soft, another 3 minutes or so.
add the cooked sausage, beans, broth and beer. bring to a boil then drop to a simmer. if you'd rather not use beer then omit it -- no substitution necessary.
let it simmer 30 minutes.
just before serving chop a handful of cilantro and add it to the pot.
squeeze the juice from a lime into the soup and give it a quick stir.
salt to taste only if you must.

serve hot.
makes enough for six people. maybe more. or less, with leftovers.
good on cool fall or winter nights.
will cause noses to run. in a good way.
drink plenty of water, or more of that beer if you bought a sixer.

kid tested and approved.

mini burgers (& sliders, or slyders)

2006-10-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

is this a new thing? do you really need detailed instructions on how to make mini burgers? i mean, white castle has been making these for a while -- like 80 years or so (though under the term slyder, which was news to me). hell, they even sell disgusting frozen versions in the supermarkets.

you wanna see something really mini? check this out, via craftster. impressive. one way to help shrink calorie consumption; it probably takes more energy to make this meal that to consume it!

on the high cost of movie snacks

2006-09-30T14:11:00.000-05:00

i recently ran into this over at slashfood and have been trying desperately hard to bite my tongue. so many people out there sneaking food into movies, and who can blame them? you drop a day's worth of pay for a two-hour experience that, often, could be better spent going out to a fancy dinner and taking a stroll along some scenic piece of real estate.

as you can read elsewhere, there are economic justifications for the price of popcorn and soda being so high but as true as all this is there is a larger problem that concerns the business model used for determining these prices.

theatres survive by the concession stand. in order to defray operational costs and make enough profit to survive they must increase the retail prices of the items they sell. as with the restaurant business, food prepped on the premises (popcorn and soda) allows for a greater profit than those delivered ready-to-eat (candy, ice cream) due to storage and production costs. a sack of raw popcorn has a shelf life of months where an ice cream treat may have only a few weeks. that raw corn is going to cost around a dollar a pound where a box of ice creams may cost five times that. finally, a pound of raw corn is going to yield up to fifteen large tubs of corn where a pound of ice cream my be no more than four individual servings.

prices have changed since i last checked these things but one day i sat down and made a calculation for two separate concession items: a large 132 oz. tub of popcorn with real butter and a 3 oz. box of plain m&m's. at the movie theatre end of things the popcorn sold for $3.50 and cost a total of $0.08, a profit of astronomical percentages. on the other end the m&m's retailed for $1.75 and were purchased from a wholesaler at $0.43, still a profit but nowhere near as great as for popcorn. this is why theatres are shoving corn and soda down our throats despite the cry for healthier snacks. in truth, there is very little in the snack world that can compete in profits to what soda and popcorn can yield.

the economic problem is that in order to remain operating and profitable theatres must earn a certain dollar amount per person in attendance. depending on the theatre, it's size and relative costs this can amount to around $1.75 per person, often referred to as the ppa, or per-person average. now, if everyone dropped by the snack bar and plunked down $1.75 that would be great but the numbers show that as few as only one in five people makes the pit stop. so in order to hit that ppa you need to be sure that one person is covering four others as well. buy a medium corn and a soda and you've just helped a theatre make it's ppa for those sneaking in cookies and drug store candy.

so the ppa is determined by the number of people attending against the dollar amount spent.

this is all wrong. never mind that a small corn and soda exceeds the rda of calories for two large adults, the problem is in the expectation that 20% of theatre attendees economically supports the rest. one school of thinking is that a surcharge of $2 get added to the admission ticket, eliminating the need for the concession stand or subsidizing it to the point that it can offer snacks at a reasonable price -- after all, it is a business and still needs to make a profit.

another idea is to consider the question of volume, upping the number of units sold and reducing the cost. imagine a theatre selling the same sizes they do now, only a small would sell for $0.50, a medium for $1.00 and a jumbo sized vat of corn with butter would set you back $1.25. sodas for the same price. it's not only possible but still very profitable provided three out of five people purchased an item at the snack bar. i imagine that if people showed up at a movie house right now and saw those prices they'd be settling in with the largest of larges and giggling that they just walked away with a trough of snacks for less than a burger at mcdonalds.

these ideas aren't mine, they come from two sources: david friedman's book hidden order: the economics of everyday life and observations from my nearly two decades managing movie theatres. while i don't agree with all of what friedman says, i am certain that if movie theatres took the radical move toward volume and not per-person averages they'd come out ahead of the game in a big way.

i tried to convince the owners of the theatre chain i worked for to simply try these prices for a special admission midnight show, as an experiment, just to see if the ppa would mirror those of the higher price sales. no dice. the model was too "unstable" for them, there wasn't anything similar to compare it with. in short, they were afraid to break from and redefine the economic model despite the fact that they would stand to benefit from a likely increase in sales and the nationwide publicity of setting a new trend in theatre concession sales.

if ever there was a time for theatres to do something radical to increase attendance, this is it.

personally, i can no longer smell popcorn. unless it's burning. those years in the trenches have made me as immune to the smell as sanitation engineers to the smell of their trade. both of which are similar after a while.

disney dining - part two: meat on a stick

2006-09-29T20:32:00.000-05:00

originally we had hoped to dine at the blue bayou, the new orleans themed restaurant that is actually connected to the beginning of the "pirates of the caribbean" ride, but reservations weren't available until late in the afternoon so we opted try again the next day. so when lunchtime rolls around what sort of semi-healthy family fare does the magic kingdom offer us?

surprise! it's the bengal barbecue grill, located just across from the entrance to the indiana jones ride, probably the busiest bottleneck in all of disneyland. the grill is a counter service deal, order up and take you food to one of a half dozen tables or a nearby standing bar. food is basically x-on-a-stick flame cooked on a grill. there was chicken-on-a-stick (sweet), beef-on-a-stick (regular and spicy), vegetables-on-a-stick (potato, onion, mushroom, zucchini, yellow squash) and a thing called the safari skewer which is asparagus, wrapped in bacon, on a stick (yum!). i was particularly fond of the safari stick, and it took two meat-sticks to fill my protein needs for amusement park stamina.

all good, all around $6 a stick. it adds up when you look at 2.5 sticks per person (sharing veggies) but it was one of the least food service tasting places to pick up a fast bite on the go.

trying to remember the name of the place (the bengal grill? tiger grill?) i hit the 'net which, when it comes to all things disney, is awash in reviews of disney dining (making me wonder if my contributions aren't like spitting into the wind) and recipes for recreating park favorites. the following recipe for the beef skewers appears identically on no less than five different web sites. if it ain't an authentic diseny recipe it's at least consistent among the throng.

1 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoons ground black pepper
3 tablespoons sesame seed oil
1 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
3 tablespoons cornstarch (or arrowroot)
18 pieces sirloin beef chunks, 1 oz chunks (see notes)
6 bamboo skewers (see notes below)

soak the bamboo skewers in water to avoid burning
combine all of the ingredients except beef above and bring to a boil, adding cornstarch to thicken
place 3 pieces of beef on each skewer and cook on the grill 3 minutes on each side or until desired doneness
brush with sauce and serve.

notes

as far as i'm concerned there has never been a time where i felt granulated garlic was preferable to the real thing. unless you have problems with garlic, use it. also, if you really want kick, replace the cayenne with an equal amount of red pepper flakes.

want is sweet and hot? add 2 tablespoons of honey

the recipes all claim 6 portions or servings, but i am a huge fan of thin meat on skewers and that will bump the number of skewers and serving sizes. i think they cook faster and taste better when thinner. i would get the sirloin as a piece, freeze it until just frozen, then slice 1/4 thin strips and skewer once thawed. alternately, you can place the pieces (not frozen!) between two sheets of plastic wrap and whomp it with the flat bottom of a cast iron skillet. i have flattened out chicken this was as well and it's amazing how flat you can get meat with just a few good solid whacks. our neighbors must love us.

and while i'm rambling, a word or two about cornstarch. this binding agent, a bi-product in the production of high fructose corn syrup (hfcs), is really not something i like to use in my cooking unless absolutely necessary (as in, i'm out of arrowroot or agar). when the science finally gets the weight behind it, i am convinced that this country will come to discover that corn-based sweeteners and bi-products are one of the chief causes of many american health problems. i may rant on this more in the future, suffice to say that as innoculous as it seems we really should be looking to remove cornstarch from our diets along with artificial sweeteners.

end of rant. end of post.

update:
my zuska, my love, has informed me that i have the prices all wrong. "they were really reasonable, like $3 or $4 each." since she paid, she'd know, but i was sure they were higher. *sigh* if only i had the photos i took on the digitial camera left behind in that cab...

disney dining - part one: fritters

2006-09-28T17:24:00.000-05:00

the first in a series recollecting dining experiences had while on a recent vacation at disneyland. surprises abound.

from the start i'm going to have to admit that this isn't exactly the post i wanted it to be. for one thing, i had photos i wanted to share for most of the items listed but as my cameras (yes, plural) were lost along with everything else inside my carry-on bag from our recent trip (also lost: cell phone, ipod, brand new tilly hat, personal notebook from the last few months including the original dining notes, favorite pair of walking shorts, a book i was reviewing) i am forced to complete this from memory.

shorter sentences from now on.

deciding not to spend a tonne of money on overpriced, mediocre breakfasts at the resort we brought instant oatmeal that we made in ziploc storage containers with hot water from the coffee machine in the hotel room. it was yummy maple and cinnamon and hit the spot just before rushing out. cheap, easy, all we really needed.

but two hours later your in the park and the snack beast attacks. and you've just gotten off "the pirates of the caribbean" and you're sizing up you options. lo, just at the edge of new orleans square facing the water beneath the overhang of the disney gallery is a hole in the wall joint with a few tables offering disnified pots of gumbo in a bread bowl and fritters with a fruit dipping sauce. as we weren't ready for lunch-type food, or gumbo, the fritters seemed the way to go.

just to interject, about 16 years ago i went to disneyland with a bunch of friends from high school. at the time this little hole in the wall wasn't serving gumbo and instead of fritters was offering a similarly fried dough pastry filled fresh with banana creme. on the counter was a large bubble dispenser filled with several gallons of lumpy banana creme attached to a base with a little phallic rod that jutted out in front. when you ordered one of these things they would take a pre-fried dough blob, shove it on the end of the rod, step on a pedal and there'd be a large hydraulic sounding whomp as banana creme was shot inside, doubling the size of the pastry. my friend dave ordered one and regretted it instantly when he bit into it a got a good mouthful of banana creme. "it's warm," he said. "oh, you mean it doesn't just look like semi-solid snot?" i replied. no one took another bite.

disney must have learned something in the intervening years. the fritters we ordered with the size of large plums, fried a light brown and dusted with granulated sugar. the apple dipping sauce was served on the side, though you could hardly drag a finger through it much less a soft dough as it was cold and thickened with who-knows-what. sort of like apple pie filling, only the apples tasted fresh. well, they were at least a bit crisp. perhaps that was the chilling. zuska and the girls didn't really like the apples that much and i was content to scoop it out with my fingers and wedge it into pieces of pastry.

but the surprise was the fritter. a fried egg batter that was dense but not heavy -- i realize that sounds contradictory. my zuska had assumed there was a rich egg creme in the center but it was nothing more than the dough, steamed in the deep frying process, fluffy and thick like an artisan bread. it was sweet enough to not really need the sugar on the outside but i suspect that's partly presentation: a fried dough ball just wouldn't look as appetizing.

served in bags of three for $5.95, one is enough for a snack so share.

fromage du jour: asiago fresco

2006-09-26T20:08:00.000-05:00

as detailed elsewhere, tonight was cheese night. tonight's cheese was a soft, two-months-aged young asiago cheese made from the same alpine milk as the hard stuff we usually grate over pasta. creamy, full of tiny little holes like a swiss lace, slightly sweet, slightly tangy and yummy.

i dumped a pile of organic apricot and ginger chutney on the top but i think i was the only one who liked it. sorry, no pictures. everyone devoured the cheese too fast, and besides, my digital camera was lost in a taxi recently.

i'm thinking that next week, for cheese night, i'd like to pair a cheese with chocolate. time to do some research!

the birthday candle question

2006-09-26T10:35:00.000-05:00

last night we had a small family birthday celebration for e. after some discussion the night before she had decided on an orange creamsicle cake: orange flavored cake with vanilla frosting. knowing full well the chemical burn of artificially flavored cakes i opted for grating fresh orange peel and adding orange oil into a basic white cake mix. nice and subtle, and no doubt better tasting than the mix i saw in the store that contained a chemical bath that you poured into fork holes of an artificially colored cake.

but just after the candles were blown out and we were getting ready to cut i was struck with a confusion i hadn't remembered having before: what to do with the candles? it was one of those displacements where you've done something a million times before -- entering a PIN number at the ATM, signing your name on a form -- where at first you aren't quite sure what you're doing and then you question what you've done, even when it's correct.

so there i was, wondering what one does with the birthday candles. obviously they don't get eaten (though edible candles might be a good idea) but; do they get removed before cutting? does the birthday person get to lick the frosting off the candles? are the candles saved for future use or thrown away? if they get both licked and saved are they cleaned first before being put away? the cutting and eating of the cake removed the inquiry from my mind but it was still with me this morning, nagging at me.

it's a faint memory, but growing up it seems that there was always jockeying for a piece of cake with a candle in it, meaning it was better than those without. and, of course, if it contained both a candle and a desirous piece of decoration then it was supreme. but in more recent memory i seem to recall candles being removed before the cutting of cake and -- like licking the mixing spoon, beaters or frosting knife -- slurping the frosting off the ends of the candles. but is that the priviledge of the birthday person or does everyone share? in cutting a cake with candles in it the recipient got to lick their own candle, so if there were plenty to go around why wouldn't they be shared?

i'm almost afraid to consider that we licked the candles growing up and that they were saved for future birthdays without being cleaned of saliva or residue. i know at least once, while young, i found a candle with a candied bit of frosting still on it, nowhere near any birthday, and i nibbled it off like a little mousie. who knows how old it was, i didn't seem to care at the time.

yeah, it's a pretty silly set of questions, but the dissonance is there. what say you? candles on or off before cutting? do they get licked, and by whom? do they get reused? cleaned or tossed?

the things i wonder...

salsa, papaya salsa

2006-09-19T08:19:00.000-05:00

certain people make fun of me because i pronounce salsa with a soft 'z' sound on the second syllable. but that doesn't stop those same certain people from devouring this salsa like the ravenous bugbladder beast of traal. this is a summer recipe that freezes well -- perfect for mid-winter blahs -- offered in this final week of summer in the hope you can still find some ripe papaya and enjoy.

1 medium ripe papaya, seeded, peeled and diced
1/2 red pepper, seeded and diced
1/4 red onion, finely chopped
1 fresh (not jarred! not canned!) jalapeno or serrano pepper
1 handful of fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 juiced navel orange
course salt

combine papaya, bell pepper, red onion, serrano or jalapeno, cilantro and orange juice in a bowl
season with salt to taste
best if it sits refrigerated a bit

note

with regards to the hot peppers, if your market carries fresh jalapeno or serrano peppers there's no reason not to use them. i have a box of disposable gloves that i use for handling peppers -- the oils can really sting sensitive areas around the eyes and nose. you need to dice them very fine so the heat get disbursed throughout. serrano are the next step up in heat from jalapeno. also, the heat is in the seeds and membrane, so remove those if you want less heat.

this stuff is good with chips.
it's good on nachos.
it's good on top of turkey burgers.
i would eat it on baked fish.
i would pair it with strong cheese.
i would top grilled meats with this.

i would not recommend it as a smoothie base.

the best garlic press

2006-09-17T10:11:00.000-05:00

i hear people rant and rave about the zyliss garlic press but i found that this is the king of them all. what you can't tell from this photo is that the basket flips out on the same axis that the press backing is on, exposing the entire press for easy cleaning; no special cleaning tool required. it's hard to explain but once you see it you'll know what i mean.

the basket itself is generously large enough to handle two or three cloves at once. i even mashed the juice out of a thumb of ginger in this thing -- not easy, but rugged enough to handle it.

five clams, and worth triple that.

toasty dawgs -- food of the gawds

2006-09-16T16:16:00.000-05:00

part of the impetus for starting this blog comes from the idea that i wanted a more public way to share recipes with friends (and now strangers). an equal influence was discovering slashfood, and in particular a recent conversation about memories concerning favorite hot lunch items from school days.

i said it before and i'll say it again, two words: toasty dawgs. spelled just like that.

i'd like to think that back in the day my school lunch was better than what's being served now, but with so much health consciousness going on it's hard to say. on the one hand i'm certain we never ate anything that was anywhere near close to passing as organic; on the other hand, i was eating school lunches in the days before high fructose corn syrup (which, as a consequence, meant i grew up before there was such a thing as rampant childhood obesity. but i digress). i won't argue that tater tots were healthier, or that fish stix didn't taste like reconstituted paper pulp with a bread coating, but there is no doubt that one of the most beloved items on the menu at my elementary school was the toasty dawg.

simplicity at it's best: a piece of soft white bread, buttered on both sides, lined with a slice of american cheese, wrapped around a hot dog and held together with a toothpick, oven toasted to golden perfection. yes, they even trusted us enough to serve it with a toothpick. can you imagine how many helicopter parents would raise a stink to protect their little babies because they couldn't be trusted to not puncture the roof of their mouths with a toothpick?

but there it was, a meal-sized, low-rent pig-in-a-blanket. if you were lucky you might get a served a toasty dawg whose cheese melted out a bit and browned to a crust clinging tenaciously to the bread. chances are good i missed the news story about how nearly burnt processed cheese causes cancer, but it still tastes good. and the only appropriate accompaniment to the toasty dawg is a potato in fried form, either french or the aforementioned tot. which meant lots and lots of little foil ketchup packets squirted over everything.

as much as i loved them it was decades before i decided to reintroduce the toasty dawg to my diet. at the time i had not only learned about organic foods, i was deep into artisan breads, had sampled dozens of the world's cheeses, and came to prefer unsalted butter made from the milk of cows who had no rBST in their systems. i found a nice, soft potato bread, buttered it with sweet cream butter, lined it with a slice of locally produced yogurt cheese and slapped on a chemically free hot dog and baked until it was melty and golden and smelled just like i remembered.

too bad it tasted like crap.

the crust of the bread had hardened in the oven to the point that when i bit into it i couldn't tell if the crunching sound was the bread or my teeth. the large, open holes in the bread which, under the normal conditions of morning toast would yield nice little kettle pools for melted butter, had grown sharp along the edges and tore deep into the roof and gums of my mouth. cheese continued to melt and ooze and drip long after it was out of the oven and tasted like nothing more than slightly sour milk. and while the hot dog had the right flavor it was still missing something in the spice department that matched those memories long ago. it may be a deep memory of those chemicals, i don't know.

since then, lesson learned. toasty dawgs require the softest, spongiest, least healthy white bread you can stand. currently i'm happy with what's called in these parts canadian bread because it's almost soft enough to wrap without cracking, doesn't look totally like wonder bread, and has the least amount of crap in it. toasty dogs require a processed cheese square, the kind individually wrapped which(fortunately) come in american, chedder and white chedder varieties that do not alter the flavor or texture of the final outcome. toasty dawgs also demand an all-beef hot dog of quality that include nitrates and nitrites. i hate to say it, but i can taste the difference and it makes a difference. i may wake up the next day with a chemical headache but that's the price one pays for a piece of rekindled food memory.

for better or worse, i've introduced the toasty dawg to my loved ones and they have embraced them like a lost food cousin. easy to make and satisfying in a comfort food kind of way. what more could you want?

oh, right. tater tots are a must.