Arugula salad with Avocado, Cherry Tomatoes and Sunflower Seeds

I've avoided arugula since an asparagus-arugula wrap made by the only vegetarian restaurant in Providence, RI made me sick six years ago. Lately I've decided that if I call it rocket, arugula and I can wipe the slate clean. Rocket, it turns out, is splendid. At least these peppery, baby leaves of it I bought in a plastic clamshell the other day.

This salad balances the assertiveness of the arugula with the toasty crunch of the sunflower seeds, the creaminess of the avocado and the acid of the tomatoes. I also made a vinaigrette for this that was comprised of red wine vinegar, olive oil, cracked pepper, and small amounts of garlic, honey and Dijon mustard. I think the proportions of oil and vinegar was 2 tblspns vinegar to 1/4 c. oil. I never used to tip the vinaigrette so far in the oil's favor until I read an article in the NY Times about it being the key to the perfect dressing- that and tossing to ensure all is well coated without a pool of extra dressing forming on the bottom of the bowl. I've taken both such tidbits to heart and can attest to the effectiveness of both.

Post T-day dinner party

Fresh off my victorious turkey day cookathon, I spent nearly all of Saturday cooking up the too much produce I bought earlier in the week, uncertain just how much food a feasting 12 individuals could reasonably consume.

I had 2 pounds of brussels sprouts I never even got to. So into the oven they went for a good roasting yesterday. Also, a pound of baby bella mushrooms left over from the green bean casserole making. And some leftover roasted butternut squash in the fridge. And the trimmings of all the veggies I prepared two days ago went into a pot to make several quarts of veggie stock for this or some other day.

Finally, a night to get together with M & L, who we've been trying to make plans to go out with for two months now, but one or more of us is always working, having a performance or is out of town. Now here they were coming over and I decided all of this added up to risotto, certainly one dedicated to mushrooms, but M hates mushrooms, so a second risotto of butternut squash and sage. Again, time from meal completion to company's arrival to plate was minimal and did not permit photo taking, but my mental postcard moment will be the deglazing of my pan of mushrooms that had cooked down in a bit of butter and shallots. Once that white wine went it I felt like a gymnast who had just stuck the landing. Like all good maneuvers, this one had no witnesses!

T-Day

As we enter our thirties, J and I are making gradual progress in finally wresting control of a holiday or two from our mothers. Part of this year's negotiations that vaulted me to several courses of Thanksgiving- a great leap forward from the Mother's Day brunch slot I've tenaciously held on to for three years and running now- is that the feasting would occur at my parents' house with M handling all cookery of beasts, cranberries, stuffing and yams; grandma doing her ravioli and meatballs; and other guests encouraged to bring desserts.

The way I figured it, this still left me:

-antipasti of marinated artichoke hearts, crusty bread, Sicilian olives, tomatoes, and chickpea bruschetta
-winter squash and apple bisque (a sneaky vegan version at that!)
-green bean casserole (from scratch)
-sauteed rapini with garlic
-roasted root vegetables (carrots, turnips, parsnips) with garlic, fresh thyme and pine nuts
-roasted beets with an orange and pomegranate glaze
-J made a Vesuvius of mashed potatoes with whole milk and loads of butter (which started our saying "one stick or two?")
-lemon ricotta cake with fresh fruit

A day and a half of preparation and pre-cooking made this movable feast go off without a hitch. Somehow all of this food was able to be cooked, finished or reheated in the limited oven space and four-burner real estate available in M's kitchen. Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of the finished smorgasbord because I was still aproned and managing the last of the fires when guests with plates formed a buffet line and dug in. This pleased me to no end though.. I'm beginning to understand the grandmotherly compulsion to love people with food, and feeding two table's full of in-laws, aunts, uncles and cousins was my way of expressing how much treasure everyone who was there that day.

Things calmed down long enough between dinner and dessert for me to snap this picture of the dessert buffet, though you can discern an eager eater already standing by the apple pie. On display we have: apple pie, pumpkin pie, rum cake, lemon ricotta cake and fruit salad, and in the foreground, one of my favorite indulgences of the day, a gooey pecan pie.

Okayu

I first heard of okayu two years ago when I was B's houseguest in Brooklyn and she served me a steaming bowl of it for breakfast. I had never before tasted such a salty, calming porridge and have since made this at least monthly, for breakfast, lunch or dinner, whenever I crave something comforting but also fresh and light. It’s a great way to use up leftover rice. In its most Bauhaus form, this porridge is little more than rice reheated with a warm dashi broth. Dashi, as I’ve learned it from S, is made by boiling kombu and bonito flakes and then straining the parts out, but I know I’ve encountered vegetarian renditions as well.

I'm only slightly embarassed to admit here that lately I’ve turned okayu into my version of fast food by using a packet of Kikkoman Wakame soup as the brothing agent. I know, it’s full of salt and msg, but man is it good. Give me a break, look at how healthy the rest of it is. Anyhow, from this base you can add at will. Pictured here are all of my favorite toppings: hard-boiled egg, black sesame seeds, umeboshi (pickled plums), scallions, and pickled burdock root.

Nebraska, possibilities...endless

Indeed. Not only was our weekend in the Plains a good relax among friends, it offered a gamut of tasty treats beyond any assumption I may have harbored about this red (meat) state.




Saturday afternoon we explored the Old Market section of town and wandered in to the intimate azure of Ahmad's. When in Omaha, have Persian food of course. I had never had poloe [sic], a savory stew spooned over saffron rice. I need to find a proper recipe online. An initial glance is just giving me "rice, butter, salt and pepper" and this does not even begin to tell the story of the layers of spices that were going on my plate on this day. There was lemon, garlic and a bit of spice for starters. The dressing on the salad was a toasty tahini-informed delight and the slices of banana ringing the side of the plate are offered to balance the palate, or so I was informed. Our server was helpful in giving us some insight into the menu, which was really only slightly different from the Middle Eastern cuisines we’ve eaten our way through in the past, but she tolled a tone of caution when I inquired about “doog.” This was a beverage I had never heard of before. “It’s a sour, yogurty drink, but not sweet like a lassi. People come in here and order it thinking they’re being all adventurous, but then they don’t like it and the owner gets pissed because it’s kind of a pain in the ass to make it.” I took this as the double doog dare and ordered one. As if on cue, the owner emerged from the back to holler something to his wife who was sitting across the restaurant folding napkins and wouldn’t you know he was wielding a three-foot long spear on which he was molding some sort of meat. But yelling and wielding a spear… did give me pause about the doog.

So when the innocuous-looking icy beverage arrived, I sipped with only slight trepidation. And behold- it was a watery version of kefir. A nice slightly sour, slightly astringent compliment to the creaminess and warmth of the poloe. I need to remember that it takes more to give me the gastronomical willies than soured yogurt.

Hmm- diversion: a list of foods that HAVE given me the gastro willies. The smell of my grandma A’s duck’s blood soup boiling on the stove; the fermented soybean stuff that S once pulled out of her roommate’s fridge and said “I’m Japanese and even I can’t stand the smell of it.”; menudo; in fact, much of the cringe-worthy are animal in origin, except for the fermented soy gunk.

After eating at Ahmad’s we poked around some used bookstores and then hit the road for Lincoln. A short distance west of Omaha, a regatta of hot air balloons arced over the highway which was pretty breathtaking. Arriving in Lincoln, we had time enough to shower and grab a cup of coffee at The Mill, or Mills, or the coffee shop that came with the endorsement of writers and grad students. Sugar and caf enough to wire me for my reading, which I think went well and was such a joy to give in what I think was the first Philip Johnson building I’ve ever set foot in.

After the reading, the organizers led us to Yia-yia’s, a pizza-serving public house with a bewildering beer selection. J and I decided to drink local, at least for starters, which in Lincoln means Fort Collins, CO.





Enter 90 Shilling Ale. I’m typically an IPA kind of gal, but this balanced ale gave me a lesson in all the other flavors that can balance out a hoppy brew if given the opportunity.







J followed up with a Levity ale, from the same brewer as the Shilling, while I pulled my usual Rachel Ray and left my next selection up to the fancy of the Yia-yia proprietor. After assessing my likes and dislikes- and that I didn’t want to spend 20 bucks for a pint- she plucked down a medicinal looking bottle of an English persuasion. T'was St. Peter's IPA. Reporting back to the table to the approving nods of the beer aficionados, I confessed that I was under the guidance of the woman at the bar. She, they divulged, has an oracle-like sense for matching people with beer, made possible, in no small part, by her encyclopedic knowledge of ales the world over. Ironically- and perhaps this is nothing more than a grad student yarn- this woman who is the buyer for this, a comprehensive beer establishment, has no personal inclination to drink beer. Is this a form of objectivity? I wonder.

--

Sunday morning- after a bracing jog that criss-crossed the University of NE campus and most of downtown Lincoln, we walked over to the Green Gateau at the recommendation of a professor friend. Even if it weren’t nestled on a block of strip clubs and auto repair shops, this little French country-inn themed spot would be a delightful gem. We were seated in reverent wooden booths, cozily tucked in the back of this home-like eatery. As it turned out, I was flanked by a George Bernard Shaw quote painted on the wall: “Everything ends this way in France— everything. Weddings, christenings, duels, funerals, swindlings, diplomatic affairs—everything is a pretext for a good dinner. There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”





For the love of food, J enjoyed eggs benedict over crab cakes and asparagus with an herbed potato pancake. Fresh fruit and multigrain pancakes for me.




Later in the day we ended up back in Ahmad’s neighborhood for a nosh before our flight and popped into a bright and spacious coffeehouse-looking place called Delice. Next time I’m in Omaha I’m coming back to this place when I’m not still full from a hearty breakfast because their homemade soups, quiches and sandwiches looked and smelled like meals that belied any other take away counter I’ve bellied up to in recent memory. I had a bite of J’s soup, a jazzy Hungarian mushroom number all aglow with fresh dill. This is one I intend to try to replicate at home. The savory offerings at Delice are, I think, intended to play second fiddle to the bakery, which someone has seriously devoted themselves to. While I sat drinking coffee and eavesdropping on the indie-rock kids at the table behind us pining about a possible move to Chicago, J snuck off and returned, to my surprise, with an irresistible pumpkin ginger tart. The crust was pure crumbly, buttery goodness, and the interior was pumpkin’s best impression of velvet I’ve ever tasted. The main ginger component was in the crumble topping where bits of candied ginger mingled with the butter baubles indigenous to the crumb pie lot. I have a notion to replicate this one at home as well, perhaps bumping up the pumpkin interior with a bit of soy.

To Nebraska!

Going to Omaha for the weekend, with a brief foray to Lincoln. I was really looking forward to going to Maggie's Vegetarian Vittles as a food destination (even though semantically "vittles" has the curb-appeal of "slurry"). Putting my word fussiness aside and checking out the menu, I can tell this place is big on mouth appeal. But what kind of establishment in what kind of city keeps zero hours on the weekend? Bullocks. Maybe I’ll see what the deli at Open Harvest is dishing up instead.

While I' m kvetching.. I never get anything at a S'bucks that I don't see deriving from actual ingredients I can recognize before my very eyes.. a friend in the know once scared the bejesus out of me with stories about what goes into the flavor sprays and premade syrupy mixes. So I had all last night as I lay twitching in bed at 1 a.m. to reflect on the "chai" I was surprised to see distilled to some liquid essence and dispensed from a plunger that I nevertheless consumed. Exactly how many parts per million caffiene was that Monsanto cocktail?

Chocolate Always Wins

Yesterday was the opening day for the ice rink at Millennium Park. Reminded that one of my favorite Chicago winter pleasures is eating at the Park Grill with its vantage point of the skaters- a veritable kaleidoscope right outside its window- we headed over there on this blustery evening. I’ve never had a bad meal at the PG. Since we’ve been in the loop, it’s our old standby. Last night I had a red pepper soup and roasted fillet of salmon with a pomegranate sauce and pomegranate seeds on top of a purée of spiced butternut squash brightened up with a little crunch of fresh chervil sprinkled around the sides. The colors, the textures, the mingling flavors were mmm. J had a skin-on roasted salmon with some kind of lobster-stuffed mushrooms that I never got a taste of because it went too quickly! I was trying to keep it light because at the PG I always save room for dessert. Pastry artiste Christine McCabe makes it hard to choose just one indulgence. We split the gianduia which was creamy, nutty and berryful with an unflappable flourless chocolate foundation. The dessert offerings, like the rest of the menu, reflect the season—we were tempted to go for a squash confection, but in this house chocolate always wins in a toss-up. In the past we’ve swooned over the crème brulee, an apple-rhubarb crumble, and a nearly effervescent slab of carrot cake. It’s a treat to skate it off first and then pop in just for coffee and a sweet.

Back to the main fare.. the menu is not very pretentious since they’re appealing to tourists and suburbanites as well as the theater crowd. It looks like a lot of people use it as a burger and fries kind of joint, but fishetarian foodies-in-training like us always find interesting options. The salads are amazing, especially one they’re currently doing with roasted beets and watercress. The pumpkin soup is velvety with a hint of cream and maple. And the seared scallop appetizer—lekker! Food this good deserves to be as far away from a TV as possible. Unfortunately, there are a few at the bar which are within eyeshot of most of the rest of the place. It’s my main beef with nearly all restaurants… if I wanted to watch TV I’d stay home. Dining is a meditation for the senses, not something to do in the glow and din of college football.

Interesting article in the Times today about the growing interest people are having in knowing where their food comes from and that it isn't being adulterated by some needless industrial process. I have to admit, it hadn't occured to me until last month that a pre-washed, pre-packaged bag of spinach was just as processed as a hamburger.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Months ago I signed up to bake for the monthly observance of co-workers' birthdays. Since the person who animated this tradition left the company the practice has all but died. One administrative assistant occasionally sends a desperate mass email looking for volunteer bakers, lately making the appeal, "you don't really have to bake!" And truly, if anything is contributed at all, it's a hydrogenated bakery cupcake or two, looking like the made-for-TV version of a true and lovingly baked good.

Strategic baking was clearly called for. What would inspire a return to this one humanizing gesture that makes cubeland that much more bearable? Nothing too fancy, or avant. This was not the time for rosewater or candied ginger. No, best to call on the comfort of an old friend. Peanut butter cookies it is-- may these fork tracks be the resting place of dreams.

I'm not sure I've ever made old-fashioned PB cookies from scratch. This one I did by the book. Or, more appropriately, by the website. I scarcely changed a thing, only a slight reduction of the white sugar. I'm pleased to follow the letter in this case, because I would not have intuited the need for extra rounds of refrigeration to ensure chewiness.

1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
>1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 c. peanut butter
1 egg

Cream butter and peanut butter together in mixer. Add sugars. Once sugars are incorporated add egg. In a separate bowl sift together salt, baking soda and flour. Add this mixture gradually to the butter mixture. Mix until a sturdy dough forms. Remove dough and double wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 min. Form chilled dough into balls and flatten with fork. Refrigerate the pressed out cookies again for 15 minutes before baking in a 300 degree oven for 18 minutes.

Makes 2 dozen.

**

They came out OK.. I achieved the chewy texture I was looking for, but I don't think they're peanuty enough. I would bump the peanut butter up the 3/4 and reduce the white sugar to 1/4 cup or none at all.

Next up, cranberries

After the pho lunch, I walked to the Art Institute for one of the final events of this year's Humanities Festival, a performance of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time. The Shostakovich piece had been arranged for a brass ensemble instead of strings, which initially put me off, but the trumpets, French horn and trombone were able to render the mournful piece with delicacy and sensitivity. The Messiaen piece, which I've admired for years but seldom seen performed, proved to be an exquisite fifty minutes that gave me goosebumps and received a standing ovation from the auditorium.

Walking home through Grant Park in a chill dusk I looked forward to something warm. And sweet. My recent Traditional Chinese Medicine workup has advised me to avoid sugar, and while my sweet tooth is a modest one by American standards, it is something that needs to quelled in some manner or another on a nightly basis. I had been looking forward all week to doing something with the fresh cranberries I bought earlier in the week and I figured a low-sugar fruit crumble with the added challenge of remaining wheat and gluten free would offer an interesting experiment.

I peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces 4 Gala apples and 2 pears (I'm not sure of the variety.. they were deep red). Into a bowl I tossed the fruit with a 1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch, about a 1/8 cup of a sugar and cinnamon mixture I had in a baggie on hand from a previous concoction. In another bowl I assembled the crumble topping: about a cup of chopped pecans; about a cup and a half of Enjoy Life cinnamon crunch granola which is a low-sugar, gluten free (and honestly not very flavorful) granola consisting of brown rice flakes and rice bran; a scant tablespoon of sugar; about half a cup of oat flour; and about 3 tablespoons of ghee. Stirring all of this together, the ghee did the job of binding agent, moistening the whole dry melange into a harmonious mass. I think I could have used oil instead and kept it totally dairy-free, but I'm still experimenting with ghee and wanted to bake with it and see how much butter flavor it would impart.

I spread the fruit mixture into a glass baking pan sprayed with canola oil spray and then spooned the crumble topping over it. Into a 325 degree oven this went for 45 minutes, or until I saw the fruit bubbling, the cranberries broken open and the pecans in the topping nicely browned. We each ate a bowl of this hot out of the oven with a scoop of vanilla So Delicious soy ice cream on top of it. It satisfied my sweet tooth and delivered both crisp and velvety textures and a rich flavor overall, in spite of the gentler caloric and fat profile.

What the Pho?

Yesterday I set out to make a vegetable broth from scratch for the first time. This is more or less the same recipe that Andrew Weil gives in The Healthy Kitchen. I started by sauteing 4 small onions (chopped), 2 leeks, 6 carrots, 3 stalks of celery and a small bunch of parsley in a tablespoon of olive oil. To that I added 3 bay leaves, 2 teaspoons of dried marjoram and 1/2 teaspoon thyme and filled the black soup pot with water. This simmered for over an hour and then I strained it before I had to run to catch a reading by a Ukrainian fiction writer that a friend of mine was hosting.

He read an interesting story about a man who buys something he can't identify at a flea market, but is thrilled nonetheless with netting something for the bargain price of $1.90. It was shaped like a loaf of bread and wrapped in an old Russian newspaper. Through a process of deductive reasoning, he determines it to be Lenin's brain. The man, who is not Russian and never knew much about the dictator, slowly transforms into a middle age reincarnation of Lenin, his psyche filling with the dictator's memories cinematically as the brain- wholly preserved all these years- begins a process of decomposition. The crowd was subdued in spite of the deadpan hilarity of the writing. I wish I were better at being the person in the room with the infectious laugh.

When I got home I put the broth in the fridge for the night without much of an idea about what kind of soup it would become.

This morning I woke up with a notion that the soup would become a spinach and black-eyed pea number. So I got an onion going in some olive oil in the pot and a clove of garlic, then two, then five. It would be garlic-spinach-black-eyed-pea I decided. The spinach, the remnants of a bag of frozen Trader Joe organic that I've been craving since the big spinach "scare" a few weeks ago, danced on the surface in bright green ribbons. As I waited for the flavors to cook together, I started peeking online to see what other spinach and black-eyed pea soups did, and I nearly got swayed to add a can of diced tomatoes since that appeared by my survey to be du jour. Going one better, I thought to add some of spicy chipotle salsa to give it a kick, but I wavered at covering up the flavor of the broth I had worked so hard for. J seconded this after a taste test, remarking that the mildness of the broth reminded him of pho. "What do we need for that?" he wondered out loud.

Chili! I delved into an unopened bag of mystery frozen chilies I had gotten Patel grocery on Devon Ave. a few weeks ago. Tiny little nuggets of fire, the exact species of which went undocumented on the packaging. I threw a dozen of them in there for starters. Then it was off to the local Jewel- whose selection isn't great, but I knew they would at least have some organic broccoli and rice noodles to round out my burgeoning pho-like substance.

I also recalled from the freezer a tofu experiment from earlier in the week.. pre-pressed nuggets frozen in a baggie that I thawed in a pot of boiling water. This is the key to tofu I've been missing all these years. When I finally unzipped the baggie, the warm nuggets of tofu had a firm texture I'd often eaten in restaurants, but had never been able to replicate at home. I reheated a baggie of extra shitakes I had frozen earlier in the week too. I chopped a few scallions, put out a bowl of chili paste, a.k.a. "rooster sauce." Quickly steaming the broccoli florets and giving the nest of dried rice threads a quick boil for about 10 minutes, we had the build-a-pho set-up pictured above.

In the Beginning...

With the poetry blog in hibernation, I"m starting this place to acknowledge the degree to which cooking has taken over my creative energies n the past few months. Having long been a by-the-book cook, requiring the security of exact measurement and published recipe, it's astonishing to find myself venturing off from the printed instruction and experimenting (with so far yummy results!). Something recently clicked when I realized that ingredients are media of form, texture and color just as the art I've spent years in conversation with. That language too possesses a physical and sensual dimension that the analytic nature of postmodern poetry seems too distant from, and that these qualities build a process of composition partially by accident, partially in reference to well-known tropes, mingles the creative act in the kitchen with the creative act on the page to me. As I've joked to people who've asked me how my writing's going lately- it's not, but I'm cooking, and more people seem to "get" my cooking. I wish more of us could undo our training as readers to "get" contemporary poetry, as process of getting that I would argue is in no way dissimilar to eating a meal.

So off the page it is. The first glimmer of this step came a few weeks ago when I thought to use up some whole grain couscous leftover in the fridge by using it to make a rice pudding. Having never made a rice pudding before, I scooted around online to see what the basic parameters of rice pudding are.. and was delighted to discover that it is a dish that nearly every culture around the world claims and makes its own: with coconut milk and mango in Thailand; with aborio rice and candied citron in Italy; with pistachios and rosewater in the Middle East; with cardamom in India; and arroz con leche throughout Latin America. My North African version featured dates, cinnamon, honey and almonds. It was also made with skim milk since I cook a low-fat bias.

Constraints are a useful part of an artistic process, I've found.. continuing to put one in a place that forces choices and innovation. In the gasto realm, J and I start out as vegetarians who make an exception for fish. Add to that the desire to eat low-fat, organic and seasonally. In the last few weeks, I've been cooking with an eye toward omitting wheat, gluten and dairy as well, at the recommendation of my acupuncurist. So what to eat? Plenty! And I've got a weekend of catching up to do.