Sunday, August 25, 2013
DIET
True Confession: Every now and again I step off the scale, groan, determine that the time has come again when I have to turn to Jenny Craig. I know, but it worked before, once, for a while. And nothing else has stopped the forward march of poundage. Not my conviction that I know how to eat properly, scarcely, appropriately, because apparently I don't.
The center I once patronized having closed, JC offered me the option to have Jenny-at-Home. No ghastly visit during which to be weighed, no lectures, no questions. It did mean a weekly phone chat with a friendly counsellor, which, though the woman assigned to me seems perfectly pleasant, funny, kind, was still a moment to be dreaded. And every two weeks came a large styrofoam box of frozen and otherwise packaged food stuff. More-or-less food, that is. I quickly learned, again, which "food" I could tolerate, which I could not.
Life, of course, continued to get in the way. I'd have house guests. I'd be a guest of some other house. There were dinner invitations, trips, impossible temptations. Like the time when Larry, thrown into the kitchen to feed himself, created a grilled chicken dish with roasted potato salad. Okay, just one bite of the salad, but I had to eat that chicken, I had to.
Now it has been some 5-6 weeks. Larry is out of town for 5 days and I have had nothing but Jenny Craig for those 5 days. No alcohol. And here's the thing. I do not feel good. I mean it. Bad stomach. Headache, and I never get headaches. Phycho thoughts. I have a freezer-full of "food" to chew through, and I by God will, though I will not order more. I've "lost" 6 pounds or so.
And, this being August, it's pickle season. Yesterday my kitchen buddy and I went to The Pumpkin Patch out on Sauvie Island to get our cukes. This place is a huge old barn with bins and bins of newly harvested everything you can imagine in August, which in Oregon, is so bountiful you have to take a moment and just be grateful. Seriously. Fresh peaches. Pears, tomatoes, green beans, melons, apples, and 10 and 25 pound bags of cucumbers. We couldn't resist one bag of tiny cukes, they are just so cute! I like this place better than the Farmers Market downtown, not sure why except that it is in the country and there is growing corn all around and the river is just over the berm and there are just the right number of people.
For lunch we stopped at the Dockside which Vik wanted me to see as the paradigm of a Larry spot. Old tavern with the locals there in their faded gimme-caps, sassy waitresses, menus that have been velveted by the many hands looking for their favorite sandwich. Jenny Craig be damned and I ordered a cajun burger with chips. And laughed to see Vik struggle to contain all the add-ons she'd requested on her burger.
At home, we washed the cukes and laid them on towels to dry. Into the refrig and Tuesday evening they'll get brined and processed on Wednesday. Vik left and I contemplated dinner. Some damn frozen thing, but I made a really good salad and had all the blueberries I could eat for dessert. And then I was overwhelmed with longing for soup. My own soup. I had a surplus of celery and one baking potato and some onions. In the freezer are blocks of chicken broth I've made, frozen, and bagged. Bay leaves in a pot on the deck. Cream, gorgeous cream in the refrig, which really had to be used now. I made the soup and left it in the pan overnight to mellow and this morning, used the stick blender to make it nice and chunky. Salt and pepper. It's so easy, and it's in 2 jars in the freezer now, a promise I will keep when that stupid JC "food" is gone.
I don't know the moral to this story, except to say that it is surely good, once in a while, to be really, truly hungry. To understand the importance of national food policy, to re-read Michael Pollen, to care. And to appreciate the life time I've been able to enjoy in the kitchen preparing real, honest food for my family.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
KUMQUATS
Here's how it happens:
Peter has a kumquat tree at the edge of his patio in Altadena, and I fall in love with the little tree, decorated with citrus-y sunshine -- a thousand ripe mini-oranges -- and we don't have kumquats growing in Oregon. Peter and his kids oblige me, suddenly I have bags-full, and I take pounds of them home after Andrew's high-school graduation festivities.
But I don't know what to do with bags-full of kumquats.
Seems you can just eat them, rind and all, but my supply won't last until next October when we might possibly have worked our way through the bounty.
So, on to the web. Ah. Kumquat salsa. This is delicious. Doesn't make a dent. So, marmalade? It's a bit tedious, this recipe, as you have to get the seeds out, thumb off the flesh, put seeds and flesh in a cheesecloth bag, slice the rind into slivers, and cook the whole with a lot of sugar for a long time until it turns, magically, into jam. And I mean only two or three tiny half-pints per hours of labor.
Delicious. But . . . I cook up some of the fruit with an orange I had on hand and use the result to decorate a custard pie. A very good idea.
Then, a phone call from Charlie, who would like me to send him a bottle of Hot Lips Cherry soda that he will give as an end-of-year gift to a favorite teacher. (Sometimes, you just don't ask.) In return, Charlie says, he will pick more kumquats for me. Who can resist Charlie? And soon the soda is on the way and I receive another several pounds of this erst-while mysterious fruit.
I give some to Vik, and am inspired when she returns a jar of kumquat-olive oil-rosemary-garlic condiment. Hmm. How about preserved kumquats ala preserved lemons?
A trip to the coast and a discovery of a cooking shop in Nye Beach, where we find a cookbook called A Month in Marakesh, with pages of preserved lemon recipes. Couldn't resist, and we came home to play with a new cuisine. (New to us, not, of course, actually new!) And so we find Mechoui Lamb. Looks fabulous. Larry will execute. Soon the smell of a paste called Smen is maddening us, but the lamb takes 3 hours to cook. Fine, we'll go for a walk.
The Terwilliger is beautiful in this season, and we are gone for an hour and a half while the lamb is roasting. Come home to, well, the technical term is shoe leather, but that's overworked. What? Well, we were making but a half the recipe, forgot to calibrate the time in the oven correspondingly. So. We chopped the stuff, made a quick yoghurt-cuke sauce, chopped lettuce and tomatoes and put the lot into the pita bread we'd purchased to go with the Mechoui. Good enough, but . . .
We'll try again with the second half of the lamb now waiting for us in the freezer. But here's the recipe for you: (Don't be afraid, it's really, really good. I think.)
MECHOUI LAMB serves 6-8 from A Month in Marakesh
3 lb. lamb shoulder/leg
7 1/2 oz cold water
Smen paste:
6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 oz fresh ginger, peeled and chopped ( but I love those tubes of Gourmet Garden flavors instead)
1 TBS ground ginger
1 TBS ground cumin
1 TBS ground coriander
2 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. paprika
1/2 bunch flat-leaf parsley
1/2 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped (of course I leave that out!)
3 1/2 oz butter, softened
sea salt
freshly gound black pepper
Crushed Roast Potatoes and Tomatoes (we never got this far, unfortunately, but you should try it)
2 lb. baby potatoes
5 tomatoes, some halved and some quartered
1 1/3 cup bolack olives, pitted
sea salt
2 TBS ex. virgin olive oil, for drizzling.
For Smen paste: place all ingredients in food processor. Season with salt and pepper and blend to a fine paste. Transfer to a bowl.
Slash lamb with sharp knife and rub the Smen paste all over lamb. Place lamb in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Par-boil potatoes in saucepan of salted, boiling water. Drain and roughly crush with a fork. Combine potatoes, tomatoes and olives in a bowl. Season with sea salt and drizzle with oil.
Remove lamb from refrig and allow to come to room temp. Preheat oven to 430 degrees. Transfer the lamb and any remaining Smen paste to a roasting pan, pour water around the lamb and roast in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
Turn oven down to 350 and roast for 3 more hours, (or not, of course, if you're not making the whole recipe!) basting occasionally until meat is tender. Make sure the water does not boil dry, if so, add a bit more. Scatter crushed potatoes, tomatoes and oil around the lamb 45 minutes before you take it out of the oven.
Remove lamb from oven and let rest, covered with foil, 15 minutes.
That's it. Serve it up.
It surely took me longer to type this recipe than it did for us to prepare it! But where, you may ask, are the preserved kumquats? Still in the jar. I did make up a batch and they look very beautiful. Maybe soon I'll try another middle-Eastern recipe that can use them, and then let you know. And that mix of cooked kumquat and orange in the refrigerator -- I chop tablespoons of it an add it to salads. Kumquats are the gift that just keeps on giving!
Peter has a kumquat tree at the edge of his patio in Altadena, and I fall in love with the little tree, decorated with citrus-y sunshine -- a thousand ripe mini-oranges -- and we don't have kumquats growing in Oregon. Peter and his kids oblige me, suddenly I have bags-full, and I take pounds of them home after Andrew's high-school graduation festivities.
But I don't know what to do with bags-full of kumquats.
Seems you can just eat them, rind and all, but my supply won't last until next October when we might possibly have worked our way through the bounty.
So, on to the web. Ah. Kumquat salsa. This is delicious. Doesn't make a dent. So, marmalade? It's a bit tedious, this recipe, as you have to get the seeds out, thumb off the flesh, put seeds and flesh in a cheesecloth bag, slice the rind into slivers, and cook the whole with a lot of sugar for a long time until it turns, magically, into jam. And I mean only two or three tiny half-pints per hours of labor.
Delicious. But . . . I cook up some of the fruit with an orange I had on hand and use the result to decorate a custard pie. A very good idea.
Then, a phone call from Charlie, who would like me to send him a bottle of Hot Lips Cherry soda that he will give as an end-of-year gift to a favorite teacher. (Sometimes, you just don't ask.) In return, Charlie says, he will pick more kumquats for me. Who can resist Charlie? And soon the soda is on the way and I receive another several pounds of this erst-while mysterious fruit.
I give some to Vik, and am inspired when she returns a jar of kumquat-olive oil-rosemary-garlic condiment. Hmm. How about preserved kumquats ala preserved lemons?
A trip to the coast and a discovery of a cooking shop in Nye Beach, where we find a cookbook called A Month in Marakesh, with pages of preserved lemon recipes. Couldn't resist, and we came home to play with a new cuisine. (New to us, not, of course, actually new!) And so we find Mechoui Lamb. Looks fabulous. Larry will execute. Soon the smell of a paste called Smen is maddening us, but the lamb takes 3 hours to cook. Fine, we'll go for a walk.
The Terwilliger is beautiful in this season, and we are gone for an hour and a half while the lamb is roasting. Come home to, well, the technical term is shoe leather, but that's overworked. What? Well, we were making but a half the recipe, forgot to calibrate the time in the oven correspondingly. So. We chopped the stuff, made a quick yoghurt-cuke sauce, chopped lettuce and tomatoes and put the lot into the pita bread we'd purchased to go with the Mechoui. Good enough, but . . .
We'll try again with the second half of the lamb now waiting for us in the freezer. But here's the recipe for you: (Don't be afraid, it's really, really good. I think.)
MECHOUI LAMB serves 6-8 from A Month in Marakesh
3 lb. lamb shoulder/leg
7 1/2 oz cold water
Smen paste:
6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 oz fresh ginger, peeled and chopped ( but I love those tubes of Gourmet Garden flavors instead)
1 TBS ground ginger
1 TBS ground cumin
1 TBS ground coriander
2 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. paprika
1/2 bunch flat-leaf parsley
1/2 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped (of course I leave that out!)
3 1/2 oz butter, softened
sea salt
freshly gound black pepper
Crushed Roast Potatoes and Tomatoes (we never got this far, unfortunately, but you should try it)
2 lb. baby potatoes
5 tomatoes, some halved and some quartered
1 1/3 cup bolack olives, pitted
sea salt
2 TBS ex. virgin olive oil, for drizzling.
For Smen paste: place all ingredients in food processor. Season with salt and pepper and blend to a fine paste. Transfer to a bowl.
Slash lamb with sharp knife and rub the Smen paste all over lamb. Place lamb in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Par-boil potatoes in saucepan of salted, boiling water. Drain and roughly crush with a fork. Combine potatoes, tomatoes and olives in a bowl. Season with sea salt and drizzle with oil.
Remove lamb from refrig and allow to come to room temp. Preheat oven to 430 degrees. Transfer the lamb and any remaining Smen paste to a roasting pan, pour water around the lamb and roast in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
Turn oven down to 350 and roast for 3 more hours, (or not, of course, if you're not making the whole recipe!) basting occasionally until meat is tender. Make sure the water does not boil dry, if so, add a bit more. Scatter crushed potatoes, tomatoes and oil around the lamb 45 minutes before you take it out of the oven.
Remove lamb from oven and let rest, covered with foil, 15 minutes.
That's it. Serve it up.
It surely took me longer to type this recipe than it did for us to prepare it! But where, you may ask, are the preserved kumquats? Still in the jar. I did make up a batch and they look very beautiful. Maybe soon I'll try another middle-Eastern recipe that can use them, and then let you know. And that mix of cooked kumquat and orange in the refrigerator -- I chop tablespoons of it an add it to salads. Kumquats are the gift that just keeps on giving!
Friday, June 28, 2013
IN WHICH I HAVE CATARACT SURGERY
We're walking down 14th at 8:12 in the morning exactly. The Lovejoy Building is three blocks to the north.
Larry: "I thought you were supposed to be there at 8:30"
Jane: "I'm supposes to get there 10 to 15 minutes early."
He looks at me, knowing better. But he lets it pass. Yes, I made that part up, because even though I knew it wouldn't take 20 minutes to travel three blocks, I made us leave at 8:10. I'm anxious, not really scared, but I feel as if I'm about to board a plane, and you know you always have to be early to the airport. There may be traffic.
Cataract surgery is a "non-event," says Martha. "Susie had her surgery in the morning, went home, took a nap and gardened all afternoon." Or so Peter tells me. (Susie wasn't telling us the whole truth, of course, but it's a good story.)
And now I'm telling you the whole truth, sitting before my computer with my right eye, my new eye, clenched shut. More about which later.
At the clinic, I check in, and immediately the nurse holding a chart calls my name. I look at Larry with an I-told-you-so smirk and follow the young woman. But she is only going to take my blood pressure and put dilating drops in my eye. Of course my blood pressure will be dangerously, disapprovingly high because I haven't had time to breath deeply and relax before the band goes on my arm. And it is too high, it always is when I'm anxious and don't have time to calm myself down.
"Back already?" Larry might say when I rejoin him on the couch, but he's better than that. "You'll be fine," he says, returning to the sports page. I watch as the people (all of them old, by the way) are called to the double doors. These are the real doors, and it takes maybe 15 minutes more before it is my turn.
Many of the victims are accompanied by a spouse, I suppose, or, it turns out in three cases, a translator. But I set Larry free. Neither he nor I is interested in having him, god forbid, watch, and I will face whatever with my usual m.o. in these cases. That is, I, Jane, take this body I live with into an opening in time, wish it well, and leave the premises.
This time, I join a group of people sitting in a semi-circle, variously attended by technicians who administer documents to be signed, a curly elastic band with a key to a locker into which purses, and especially cell phones, are tucked. A green net hat is placed on the patients' heads, by which we can see who of us are the patients, who the support staff.
"Would you like something to relax you?" my attendant asks. Now there's a silly question. The stuff doesn't taste bad, nor am I appreciably relaxed. The minutes go by. As a single on this conveyor belt, I'm asked three or four times to move to another chair so that a couple can sit together. I smile at one of the Asian translators when I rejoin her after one of my moves. "Back again," I say. She does not respond. Oh well.
Larry has been told that this will last 2 hours. When an hour and a half have gone by, it's finally my turn to go into the anesthesia room. Here ensue the only truly unpleasant moments of the entire event. More numbing drops, and then, a hypodermic needle. In my eye? Yep. And it does hurt, but then it's over, a tennis ball is pushed against the now-closed eye and taped into place. "To soften the eye," it is explained.
So I return to the conveyor belt to wait some more. The tennis ball is removed. I wait. And finally, it's my name called by another nurse with a clip board. Into the operating room. Onto a reclining chair, which conveys me to a flat-on-my-back position. A mask is put over my face. And the surgeon, a Dr. Chung, who, it develops is doing this surgery on every one of us in the queue, asks if he may say a prayer.
I had been asked earlier if I would object. Would anyone object? Any atheists in foxholes? Wonder if Vik would decline. Anyway, if it helps this guy, no, I don't object, and he asks if God will guide his hands, and so on.
Seems my now immobile eye is taped wide open and the surgery proceeds. Strangely, I can see out of the eye, at first, before they remove the original-equipment lens. A new lens in inserted. This whole operation takes, including the prayer, no more than four minutes. No wonder he can do fifty of them a morning.
They assist me to my feet, my eye now taped shut, and I wobble out to the waiting room where I am given my choice of two "gifts!" How strange. But since I have been so accommodating in moving about the room earlier, I may have both gifts. A coffee mug and a velour vest.
I have had my share of surgeries, and have never before been given a mug or a vest. It makes me laugh, but I take them. Out the door and there's Larry to walk me home.
Now I'm sitting at my computer, as I said, operating with my left (old) eye because I need my glasses to see to type. But while I will need reading glasses with my right eye, not with my existing prescription. And I have two more things to say at this time:
1. It's true that everything suddenly seems brighter, colors more intense. But what's odd, is that the colors have acquired a new hue. Take away the yellow tone and what was taupe becomes gray. The coverlet on our bed, which I feared was the wrong color, turns out to be the correct color. And I'm entertaining myself by closing the good eye, looking at an object, then changing eyes and admiring the new effect. This little play will last only another few days, before I have eye number two repaired, and I suppose I will forget how the bathroom tiles changes color, the building across the street, the geraniums in their pots on the deck.
2. Well, it is a miracle, all right. Everything well-defined, everything clear. I can't read just now, it's too hard to keep one eye shut, so I listen to a book I've downloaded from Audible. I can knit with both eyes open, can watch tv (Wimbledon) and am astonished at how clear the picture is, even with both eyes, no glasses. But I can't type any more, so this report will have to do. One last remark: I discovered this morning in the bathroom mirror, that my hair isn't actually taupe.
Larry: "I thought you were supposed to be there at 8:30"
Jane: "I'm supposes to get there 10 to 15 minutes early."
He looks at me, knowing better. But he lets it pass. Yes, I made that part up, because even though I knew it wouldn't take 20 minutes to travel three blocks, I made us leave at 8:10. I'm anxious, not really scared, but I feel as if I'm about to board a plane, and you know you always have to be early to the airport. There may be traffic.
Cataract surgery is a "non-event," says Martha. "Susie had her surgery in the morning, went home, took a nap and gardened all afternoon." Or so Peter tells me. (Susie wasn't telling us the whole truth, of course, but it's a good story.)
And now I'm telling you the whole truth, sitting before my computer with my right eye, my new eye, clenched shut. More about which later.
At the clinic, I check in, and immediately the nurse holding a chart calls my name. I look at Larry with an I-told-you-so smirk and follow the young woman. But she is only going to take my blood pressure and put dilating drops in my eye. Of course my blood pressure will be dangerously, disapprovingly high because I haven't had time to breath deeply and relax before the band goes on my arm. And it is too high, it always is when I'm anxious and don't have time to calm myself down.
"Back already?" Larry might say when I rejoin him on the couch, but he's better than that. "You'll be fine," he says, returning to the sports page. I watch as the people (all of them old, by the way) are called to the double doors. These are the real doors, and it takes maybe 15 minutes more before it is my turn.
Many of the victims are accompanied by a spouse, I suppose, or, it turns out in three cases, a translator. But I set Larry free. Neither he nor I is interested in having him, god forbid, watch, and I will face whatever with my usual m.o. in these cases. That is, I, Jane, take this body I live with into an opening in time, wish it well, and leave the premises.
This time, I join a group of people sitting in a semi-circle, variously attended by technicians who administer documents to be signed, a curly elastic band with a key to a locker into which purses, and especially cell phones, are tucked. A green net hat is placed on the patients' heads, by which we can see who of us are the patients, who the support staff.
"Would you like something to relax you?" my attendant asks. Now there's a silly question. The stuff doesn't taste bad, nor am I appreciably relaxed. The minutes go by. As a single on this conveyor belt, I'm asked three or four times to move to another chair so that a couple can sit together. I smile at one of the Asian translators when I rejoin her after one of my moves. "Back again," I say. She does not respond. Oh well.
Larry has been told that this will last 2 hours. When an hour and a half have gone by, it's finally my turn to go into the anesthesia room. Here ensue the only truly unpleasant moments of the entire event. More numbing drops, and then, a hypodermic needle. In my eye? Yep. And it does hurt, but then it's over, a tennis ball is pushed against the now-closed eye and taped into place. "To soften the eye," it is explained.
So I return to the conveyor belt to wait some more. The tennis ball is removed. I wait. And finally, it's my name called by another nurse with a clip board. Into the operating room. Onto a reclining chair, which conveys me to a flat-on-my-back position. A mask is put over my face. And the surgeon, a Dr. Chung, who, it develops is doing this surgery on every one of us in the queue, asks if he may say a prayer.
I had been asked earlier if I would object. Would anyone object? Any atheists in foxholes? Wonder if Vik would decline. Anyway, if it helps this guy, no, I don't object, and he asks if God will guide his hands, and so on.
Seems my now immobile eye is taped wide open and the surgery proceeds. Strangely, I can see out of the eye, at first, before they remove the original-equipment lens. A new lens in inserted. This whole operation takes, including the prayer, no more than four minutes. No wonder he can do fifty of them a morning.
They assist me to my feet, my eye now taped shut, and I wobble out to the waiting room where I am given my choice of two "gifts!" How strange. But since I have been so accommodating in moving about the room earlier, I may have both gifts. A coffee mug and a velour vest.
I have had my share of surgeries, and have never before been given a mug or a vest. It makes me laugh, but I take them. Out the door and there's Larry to walk me home.
Now I'm sitting at my computer, as I said, operating with my left (old) eye because I need my glasses to see to type. But while I will need reading glasses with my right eye, not with my existing prescription. And I have two more things to say at this time:
1. It's true that everything suddenly seems brighter, colors more intense. But what's odd, is that the colors have acquired a new hue. Take away the yellow tone and what was taupe becomes gray. The coverlet on our bed, which I feared was the wrong color, turns out to be the correct color. And I'm entertaining myself by closing the good eye, looking at an object, then changing eyes and admiring the new effect. This little play will last only another few days, before I have eye number two repaired, and I suppose I will forget how the bathroom tiles changes color, the building across the street, the geraniums in their pots on the deck.
2. Well, it is a miracle, all right. Everything well-defined, everything clear. I can't read just now, it's too hard to keep one eye shut, so I listen to a book I've downloaded from Audible. I can knit with both eyes open, can watch tv (Wimbledon) and am astonished at how clear the picture is, even with both eyes, no glasses. But I can't type any more, so this report will have to do. One last remark: I discovered this morning in the bathroom mirror, that my hair isn't actually taupe.
Friday, March 8, 2013
A CHANGE OF PLANS
This blog was supposed to be about cooking, and so far it has been. But From The Rooftop doesn't actually comprise a mission statement, does it? So today I was going to talk about salads, and I still may, but it's raining and the city looks beautiful from here. I wanted to take a photo, and of course, find that the battery in my camera has died -- no big surprise. Well, I'm just going to write about this day instead.
Feeling strange because I heard from Anja about my web site, and what having a web site will be. Me, a writer? Do I even want a web site? Do I want to hire a photographer for a "head shot?" If this blog was meant for my family and there will be a link to the Rooftop from the web site, who is my family now? Shall I assume that the public may read this, and now I have an obligation to write about salad?
Today, being the off-Wednesday banjo/guitar lesson-wise, was house-cleaning day. Several months ago, we inadvertently fired our cleaning service (yes, you can accidently fire people) and have undertaken the chore ourselves. Made a little chart, which quickly became useless. But this morning we divided the jobs, powered up with a green smoothie ( frozen banana, a cup of homemade yogurt, a mango, handful of spinach, milk, a scoop of protein powder and a good spoonful of frozen orange juice) and launched the festivities. I'm the official duster, and cleaning the bookshelves has caused me to question the whole concept of bookshelves. The books have to be stored somewhere, but as decorative items, they're pretty labor intensive. The fact is, though, that in the dusting, I keep finding a book to set aside to re-read, or even read for the first time, and pretty soon there are little stacks on the dining room table, the piano. I know that if I re-shelf them, I won't remember what I'd selected next off-Wednesday. In fact, I do re-shelf them, but leave certain titles slightly sticking out. No one will notice. Probably not even I.
Speaking of books, the March NY Book Review book arrived: Pitch Dark, by Renata Adler. Looks great. A blurb from Anne Tyler! I look at the "head shot" of Renata Adler -- I like to see what my writer looks like. Well. jeans, a camp shirt, hand held just so, and an arresting long braid over her shoulder. I would love to look like her. Serious, penetrating intelligence.
I am, however, stealing moments to read Larry's book on Machu Picchu, by Mark Adams, as it seems I will be going there next fall. It's very entertaining, but seriously, Peru? Also Miami and Chicago? Doesn't anyone remember that I don't like to fly?
Okay, salads:
Q. Who wants to bring the salad for the party?
I never, never want this assignment, so always try to get in for the dessert or appetizer option. I'm so tired of salads. Chop up some lettuce, toss in some random bits of vegetable, pour on the dressing? Yum.
But then, a miracle.
Kale is everywhere now, even raw in salads. Really? Okay, I'll give it a shot. OMG. You're supposed to massage your kale, but I just chop it fine and move on. I'm talking about the curly variety, either red or black, here. Stems removed, of course. What makes this work is the salad dressing I found in a Williams-Sonoma catalog. (If you don't get this document, you might want to sign up -- it has some pretty cool recipes, as you're about to find out.)
So, the W-S Creamy Lemon Dressing.
1/2 cup mayo
2 TBS water
1 1/2 TBS fresh lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced (you be the judge here)
1 tsp anchovy paste (and you'll remember not to use sardine instead)
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp lemon zest
ground pepper to taste
Whisk all ingredients together. This is supposed to serve 4, and if there aren't 4 of you, make this much anyway because it's really good on Romaine lettuce also.
Toss the kale with the dressing and start adding. I love chopped filberts, a good spoonful of Brewers Yeast, Parmesan, orange segments . . . this is really good!
And if you can eat raw kale, why not raw bok choy? Sure. I like to use the babies, sliced thin, and use the following dressing, which comes from a fabulous little cookbook Allison gave me called Little Flower from the cafe of that name.
Here's their Carrot Ginger Dressing.
1 shallot peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped
3 TBS fresh ginger, peeled (about a 3 inch knob) chopped
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/2 tsp ground mustard
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
3/4 cup oil (the recipe calls for canola, but I prefer grapeseed oil)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt to taste
The recipe would have you puree the ingredients with an immersion blender. Fine, but instead I toss the shallot, ginger and garlic into the blender. Add the rest of the ingredients and whir until smooth. I can't believe anyone would have an immersion blender if they don't have the stand up variety, and honestly, I'm not clever enough to use the immersion system without at least twice allowing the spinning blade to poke out of the liquid -- uh huh. All over my good shirt. But use whichever you prefer. Orange segments and filberts are great here, too.
That's it. If you have other ideas, call me, mail me. You can be my next guest contributor.
This blog was supposed to be about cooking, and so far it has been. But From The Rooftop doesn't actually comprise a mission statement, does it? So today I was going to talk about salads, and I still may, but it's raining and the city looks beautiful from here. I wanted to take a photo, and of course, find that the battery in my camera has died -- no big surprise. Well, I'm just going to write about this day instead.
Feeling strange because I heard from Anja about my web site, and what having a web site will be. Me, a writer? Do I even want a web site? Do I want to hire a photographer for a "head shot?" If this blog was meant for my family and there will be a link to the Rooftop from the web site, who is my family now? Shall I assume that the public may read this, and now I have an obligation to write about salad?
Today, being the off-Wednesday banjo/guitar lesson-wise, was house-cleaning day. Several months ago, we inadvertently fired our cleaning service (yes, you can accidently fire people) and have undertaken the chore ourselves. Made a little chart, which quickly became useless. But this morning we divided the jobs, powered up with a green smoothie ( frozen banana, a cup of homemade yogurt, a mango, handful of spinach, milk, a scoop of protein powder and a good spoonful of frozen orange juice) and launched the festivities. I'm the official duster, and cleaning the bookshelves has caused me to question the whole concept of bookshelves. The books have to be stored somewhere, but as decorative items, they're pretty labor intensive. The fact is, though, that in the dusting, I keep finding a book to set aside to re-read, or even read for the first time, and pretty soon there are little stacks on the dining room table, the piano. I know that if I re-shelf them, I won't remember what I'd selected next off-Wednesday. In fact, I do re-shelf them, but leave certain titles slightly sticking out. No one will notice. Probably not even I.
Speaking of books, the March NY Book Review book arrived: Pitch Dark, by Renata Adler. Looks great. A blurb from Anne Tyler! I look at the "head shot" of Renata Adler -- I like to see what my writer looks like. Well. jeans, a camp shirt, hand held just so, and an arresting long braid over her shoulder. I would love to look like her. Serious, penetrating intelligence.
I am, however, stealing moments to read Larry's book on Machu Picchu, by Mark Adams, as it seems I will be going there next fall. It's very entertaining, but seriously, Peru? Also Miami and Chicago? Doesn't anyone remember that I don't like to fly?
Okay, salads:
Q. Who wants to bring the salad for the party?
I never, never want this assignment, so always try to get in for the dessert or appetizer option. I'm so tired of salads. Chop up some lettuce, toss in some random bits of vegetable, pour on the dressing? Yum.
But then, a miracle.
Kale is everywhere now, even raw in salads. Really? Okay, I'll give it a shot. OMG. You're supposed to massage your kale, but I just chop it fine and move on. I'm talking about the curly variety, either red or black, here. Stems removed, of course. What makes this work is the salad dressing I found in a Williams-Sonoma catalog. (If you don't get this document, you might want to sign up -- it has some pretty cool recipes, as you're about to find out.)
So, the W-S Creamy Lemon Dressing.
1/2 cup mayo
2 TBS water
1 1/2 TBS fresh lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced (you be the judge here)
1 tsp anchovy paste (and you'll remember not to use sardine instead)
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp lemon zest
ground pepper to taste
Whisk all ingredients together. This is supposed to serve 4, and if there aren't 4 of you, make this much anyway because it's really good on Romaine lettuce also.
Toss the kale with the dressing and start adding. I love chopped filberts, a good spoonful of Brewers Yeast, Parmesan, orange segments . . . this is really good!
And if you can eat raw kale, why not raw bok choy? Sure. I like to use the babies, sliced thin, and use the following dressing, which comes from a fabulous little cookbook Allison gave me called Little Flower from the cafe of that name.
Here's their Carrot Ginger Dressing.
1 shallot peeled and roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped
3 TBS fresh ginger, peeled (about a 3 inch knob) chopped
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/2 tsp ground mustard
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
3/4 cup oil (the recipe calls for canola, but I prefer grapeseed oil)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt to taste
The recipe would have you puree the ingredients with an immersion blender. Fine, but instead I toss the shallot, ginger and garlic into the blender. Add the rest of the ingredients and whir until smooth. I can't believe anyone would have an immersion blender if they don't have the stand up variety, and honestly, I'm not clever enough to use the immersion system without at least twice allowing the spinning blade to poke out of the liquid -- uh huh. All over my good shirt. But use whichever you prefer. Orange segments and filberts are great here, too.
That's it. If you have other ideas, call me, mail me. You can be my next guest contributor.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
BACK TO THE MEAT GRINDER, and some GUMBO
To demonstrate where my heart lies: Several months ago, seduced by the gorgeous, re-planted Williams-Sonoma up on 21st, I swapped out my Nordstroms Visa for a W-S visa. Now, instead of the little $20.00 coupon from you-know-who, useful only for purchasing something else from Nordstrom, I amass points which I can convert to a W-S coupon or use to pay down my bill. Or give as a gift. (It could happen!)
Got busy and put my gym membership on my new card. Use it to support my Eileen Fisher addiction.
Groceries. And by January, I was able to trade in my points for a hundred-dollar coupon.
Which brings us to the meat grinder. I wanted to return the unsatisfactory KitchenAid grinder for a shiny, stainless steel model from W-S, using my coupon.
But I had done my due diligence, and found that every model available on the Web was strongly disliked by folks who take the time to write a review on these things. Couldn't find the W-S model on line, but learned at the store that it is manufactured in Italy. Called TRE Spade. Aus rostfreiem stahl! (stainless steel).
A thing of beauty, heavy, serious, serious tool. Yes, pretty expensive . . . but I had the coupon . . .
Now the question is, will this be another toy or will I really use it? First attempt, I ground some cooked ham to make a sandwich spread with cheese and sweet pickle. In the processor, neither the cheese nor the meat is evenly ground, which isn't a huge problem, really, but my new Spade was perfect. Good.
Now what? What with one thing and another, I haven't gotten it down again. But I have plans!
I suspect we all have our recipes for gumbo, won't bother sending you another. So this is just a story. We were at Black Butte, enjoying the mountains, the sunshine, the snow. Wake up to Three Fingered Jack turning pink, slight cloud cap on Washington, and you feel that in this new day you will be the person you have always been meaning to be.
Larry wanted to cook, and gumbo seemed just right. The recipe we were using called for chicken thighs and andouille for the meat component. He chose to use chicken breast plus the sausage instead, and sauteed the chunks in oil before adding them to the stew. It was so delicious that it didn't really matter that he'd caught the pot holders (yes, both of them) on fire. See, by now we're so accustomed to our induction stove top that we forget that electric burners stay hot. Must remember to buy replacement pot holders. At Williams-Sonoma.
To demonstrate where my heart lies: Several months ago, seduced by the gorgeous, re-planted Williams-Sonoma up on 21st, I swapped out my Nordstroms Visa for a W-S visa. Now, instead of the little $20.00 coupon from you-know-who, useful only for purchasing something else from Nordstrom, I amass points which I can convert to a W-S coupon or use to pay down my bill. Or give as a gift. (It could happen!)
Got busy and put my gym membership on my new card. Use it to support my Eileen Fisher addiction.
Groceries. And by January, I was able to trade in my points for a hundred-dollar coupon.
Which brings us to the meat grinder. I wanted to return the unsatisfactory KitchenAid grinder for a shiny, stainless steel model from W-S, using my coupon.
But I had done my due diligence, and found that every model available on the Web was strongly disliked by folks who take the time to write a review on these things. Couldn't find the W-S model on line, but learned at the store that it is manufactured in Italy. Called TRE Spade. Aus rostfreiem stahl! (stainless steel).
A thing of beauty, heavy, serious, serious tool. Yes, pretty expensive . . . but I had the coupon . . .
Now the question is, will this be another toy or will I really use it? First attempt, I ground some cooked ham to make a sandwich spread with cheese and sweet pickle. In the processor, neither the cheese nor the meat is evenly ground, which isn't a huge problem, really, but my new Spade was perfect. Good.
Now what? What with one thing and another, I haven't gotten it down again. But I have plans!
I suspect we all have our recipes for gumbo, won't bother sending you another. So this is just a story. We were at Black Butte, enjoying the mountains, the sunshine, the snow. Wake up to Three Fingered Jack turning pink, slight cloud cap on Washington, and you feel that in this new day you will be the person you have always been meaning to be.
Larry wanted to cook, and gumbo seemed just right. The recipe we were using called for chicken thighs and andouille for the meat component. He chose to use chicken breast plus the sausage instead, and sauteed the chunks in oil before adding them to the stew. It was so delicious that it didn't really matter that he'd caught the pot holders (yes, both of them) on fire. See, by now we're so accustomed to our induction stove top that we forget that electric burners stay hot. Must remember to buy replacement pot holders. At Williams-Sonoma.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
GUEST WRITER TODAY:
I'm happy to introduce you to one of my favorite people in the world -- Herbert Piekow. He's a wonderful friend, a brilliant floral designer, and a gifted novelist. Several years ago he moved to Mexico from our beloved, rainy Oregon, and the transplant seems to have worked very well.
I'm quoting from a letter he wrote to me, and as you see, among his other talents is cookery, dear to this bloggers heart! (And I will get back to the meat- grinder on another day.) P.S., for many years, he and his partner Jack Richardson did indeed provide the floral displays for the Academy Awards!
This weekend is the BIG wedding in my Mexican
family. Ramón, or Junior is getting married fulfilling his mother´s
dream, and I hope his as well. His bride is lovely and we all truly like
her. My covered terrazzo looks like the prep area for the Academy Awards,
it is filled with buckets of red and white roses, lilies and other
flowers and greens. Martha, the mother, has been busy prepping for the
main dish, which she will cook over an open fire in her back yard. She is
making bieria, a type of stew, she will cook it over an open fire.
Already she has stemmed and seeded about 80 pounds of chilies. Today we
start boiling about 150 lbs of tomatoes, that they need to be skinned and
run through the liquidora to turn them into pulp. Usually bieria is made
with goat, but we bought a cow which has been slaughtered and after being
cooked she and the four daughters will shred by hand. Earlier we bought
about 20, or more, gallons of tequila, other family members bring other
foods and things. We have made at least twenty trips to Guadalajara,
about an hour away, to buy specially decorated tequila bottles, party
favors, have the wedding dress made, this required about five trips. We
went to the wholesale jewelry district and had the rings made and I don´t
know how many other trips for various causes, my poor Jeep needs a rest.
the wedding was perfect in every way. After the wedding Mass
the priest commented, from the altar, about the floral designs. We did
run out of tequila, which is a good sign, we went out and bought more.
There was just enough food for all 400 guests, the following day, Sunday
we ate left over rice with bieria sauce, no meat left.
The mariachi band played for three hours, then Uncle Juan had a sound and
light show followed by the Banda that played until nearly 4 AM. I danced
so much I wore a blister on my ankle.
This is Jane again: I won't bother asking for the recipe for bieria -- the scale is a little formidable -- and this must be one of those cases in which you simply had to be there. But I did find a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Authentic Mexican, by Rick Bayless: Birria de Chivo o de Carnero, kindly translated for us as "Slow-Steamed Goat or Lamb" in the event you are hosting a wedding sometime soon. No, I'm not going to print it here, but you can get it from the library, or probably on line.
Many thanks to you, Herbert, and I hope to have you on my blog again soon!
I'm happy to introduce you to one of my favorite people in the world -- Herbert Piekow. He's a wonderful friend, a brilliant floral designer, and a gifted novelist. Several years ago he moved to Mexico from our beloved, rainy Oregon, and the transplant seems to have worked very well.
I'm quoting from a letter he wrote to me, and as you see, among his other talents is cookery, dear to this bloggers heart! (And I will get back to the meat- grinder on another day.) P.S., for many years, he and his partner Jack Richardson did indeed provide the floral displays for the Academy Awards!
This weekend is the BIG wedding in my Mexican
family. Ramón, or Junior is getting married fulfilling his mother´s
dream, and I hope his as well. His bride is lovely and we all truly like
her. My covered terrazzo looks like the prep area for the Academy Awards,
it is filled with buckets of red and white roses, lilies and other
flowers and greens. Martha, the mother, has been busy prepping for the
main dish, which she will cook over an open fire in her back yard. She is
making bieria, a type of stew, she will cook it over an open fire.
Already she has stemmed and seeded about 80 pounds of chilies. Today we
start boiling about 150 lbs of tomatoes, that they need to be skinned and
run through the liquidora to turn them into pulp. Usually bieria is made
with goat, but we bought a cow which has been slaughtered and after being
cooked she and the four daughters will shred by hand. Earlier we bought
about 20, or more, gallons of tequila, other family members bring other
foods and things. We have made at least twenty trips to Guadalajara,
about an hour away, to buy specially decorated tequila bottles, party
favors, have the wedding dress made, this required about five trips. We
went to the wholesale jewelry district and had the rings made and I don´t
know how many other trips for various causes, my poor Jeep needs a rest.
the wedding was perfect in every way. After the wedding Mass
the priest commented, from the altar, about the floral designs. We did
run out of tequila, which is a good sign, we went out and bought more.
There was just enough food for all 400 guests, the following day, Sunday
we ate left over rice with bieria sauce, no meat left.
The mariachi band played for three hours, then Uncle Juan had a sound and
light show followed by the Banda that played until nearly 4 AM. I danced
so much I wore a blister on my ankle.
This is Jane again: I won't bother asking for the recipe for bieria -- the scale is a little formidable -- and this must be one of those cases in which you simply had to be there. But I did find a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Authentic Mexican, by Rick Bayless: Birria de Chivo o de Carnero, kindly translated for us as "Slow-Steamed Goat or Lamb" in the event you are hosting a wedding sometime soon. No, I'm not going to print it here, but you can get it from the library, or probably on line.
Many thanks to you, Herbert, and I hope to have you on my blog again soon!
Friday, February 1, 2013
A SARDINE IS NOT AN ANCHOVY: A Cautionary Tale
It all started with a short sentence in a cooking mag -- famous chef said he liked to grind his own meat, but the food processor was not the correct tool. Lightbulb! I'd tried "grinding" chicken and pork with my processor, but managed only an uneven shredding. Hmm.
Flashback to my mom's kitchen and the sturdy hand grinder she used, not for meat, so far as I remember, but nuts and dried fruits for our Christmas cookies. To my own earlier grinding attachment to my Kitchenaid, which I'd passed along to my son-in-law.
Enough to propel me to Williams-Sonoma in search of the hand-grinder mentioned by famous chef. Wow! A hundred and fifty dollars? But there was a shiny new Kitchenaid attachment for forty-nine or so. Deal.
Took it home, it was useless for the pork shoulder Larry had acquired from Cash and Carry for the freezer, and the ragu we'd planned for that evening's dinner. The knife blade was unable to slice through the meat that worked it's way through the turn screw, and a most unpleasant mess of mashed meat was all the thing could accomplish. And yet, it did a great job on some citrus and on those nuts and dried fruit.
On to the web, where a hundred sad stories of hand-grinder failure littered the screen. Haven't solved this yet, but now we move on to the main theme. Sardines.
Larry had expressed a desire for the sardine sandwiches old Doc Peterson across the street from his childhood home ate. Always willing to help, I'd ordered some sardines along with other frozen sea food from a purveyor I'd found out of an Alaska fishery. Alas, the reality didn't live up to the nostalgic longing, and it became clear that the last sardine in the first tin he'd opened would live in the refrig until I could toss is some dark night when he was away.
But there was that mashed, mangled pork for the ragu. Obviously we went on with the all-day recipe, which promised to be gorgeous. Until I had my bright idea.
We've learned from Marcella Hazan that many an excellent dish can start with a bit of anchovy mashed in the skillet with some olive oil, which melts into a delicious undertone -- giving up its own identity in service of the greater good. Well now, why not employ that lonely sardine in the same fashion. One tiny sardine in several quarts of ragu?
Here's why not. The damn thing took over, not just the sauce but the kitchen. Hours later, we'd walk in and be smitten with that awful sardine smell. And taste! No giving up for this fish.
Okay, what to do? The recipe had included hot Italian sausage, which had completely surrendered to the sardine. But it has fennel in it, and so I added a hefty teaspoon of the spice. Nada. More red pepper. Oregano. Lemon juice. Even milk, thinking to turn this into a Bolognaise. Nope.
But lying in the drawer next to the fennel was fenugreek. I don't think I'd ever used it, don't know why I had it. But it smelled lovely, said it was to be used in Indian cookery. Might as well. To my eternal surprise, it did the job, almost. The sardine was still there, but at least not on the front of the fork.
It's my hope that some tenure in the freezer will continue the process the fenugreek started, because we have a boat-load of the stuff.
I'll let you know what happens with the meat-grinder in the next post.
Flashback to my mom's kitchen and the sturdy hand grinder she used, not for meat, so far as I remember, but nuts and dried fruits for our Christmas cookies. To my own earlier grinding attachment to my Kitchenaid, which I'd passed along to my son-in-law.
Enough to propel me to Williams-Sonoma in search of the hand-grinder mentioned by famous chef. Wow! A hundred and fifty dollars? But there was a shiny new Kitchenaid attachment for forty-nine or so. Deal.
Took it home, it was useless for the pork shoulder Larry had acquired from Cash and Carry for the freezer, and the ragu we'd planned for that evening's dinner. The knife blade was unable to slice through the meat that worked it's way through the turn screw, and a most unpleasant mess of mashed meat was all the thing could accomplish. And yet, it did a great job on some citrus and on those nuts and dried fruit.
On to the web, where a hundred sad stories of hand-grinder failure littered the screen. Haven't solved this yet, but now we move on to the main theme. Sardines.
Larry had expressed a desire for the sardine sandwiches old Doc Peterson across the street from his childhood home ate. Always willing to help, I'd ordered some sardines along with other frozen sea food from a purveyor I'd found out of an Alaska fishery. Alas, the reality didn't live up to the nostalgic longing, and it became clear that the last sardine in the first tin he'd opened would live in the refrig until I could toss is some dark night when he was away.
But there was that mashed, mangled pork for the ragu. Obviously we went on with the all-day recipe, which promised to be gorgeous. Until I had my bright idea.
We've learned from Marcella Hazan that many an excellent dish can start with a bit of anchovy mashed in the skillet with some olive oil, which melts into a delicious undertone -- giving up its own identity in service of the greater good. Well now, why not employ that lonely sardine in the same fashion. One tiny sardine in several quarts of ragu?
Here's why not. The damn thing took over, not just the sauce but the kitchen. Hours later, we'd walk in and be smitten with that awful sardine smell. And taste! No giving up for this fish.
Okay, what to do? The recipe had included hot Italian sausage, which had completely surrendered to the sardine. But it has fennel in it, and so I added a hefty teaspoon of the spice. Nada. More red pepper. Oregano. Lemon juice. Even milk, thinking to turn this into a Bolognaise. Nope.
But lying in the drawer next to the fennel was fenugreek. I don't think I'd ever used it, don't know why I had it. But it smelled lovely, said it was to be used in Indian cookery. Might as well. To my eternal surprise, it did the job, almost. The sardine was still there, but at least not on the front of the fork.
It's my hope that some tenure in the freezer will continue the process the fenugreek started, because we have a boat-load of the stuff.
I'll let you know what happens with the meat-grinder in the next post.
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