Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires

I reread Ruth Reichl's memoir Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise. I had read it years ago and liked it, and when I found it in a Little Free Library box, I brought it back home again. It recounts her experience as the New York Times' restaurant reviewer. She had been at the LA Times and was reluctant to move back to New York (where she grew up) at first, but took on the challenge. When she realized that restaurants all over New York had her picture and were on the lookout for her visits, she started wearing wigs and creating characters so she could have anonymous dining experiences; early on she got to see what it was like to be poorly treated when staff perceived her to be an older woman on her own.

 

The book includes some reviews and recipes at the end of each chapter. Before this book she had already published Tender at the Bone, about her childhood and experiences with food growing up, and Comfort Me With Apples, about her early years as food writer and critic. She's an excellent writer, able to entertain and communicate so effectively about the experiences of cooking and eating. I will have to read her story of her ten years as editor Gourmet before the magazine was so stupidly closed down by Condé Nast. Here's a really great interview:

Top Chef season 17

 During my pandemic year, I watched 16 seasons of Top Chef. That's a lot of salmon, scallops and ceviche. Now I have discovered that last year there was a season 17 All Stars, in which all of the chefs were returning contestants--I remember all of them! Season 18 is the most recent one, and I will have to wait until it gets put on hulu to watch it.

I really really miss going out to a good restaurant and having a complete indoor dining experience. So many restaurants have closed, and the few meals I have had with take-out or outdoor dining have just not been that good. Yesterday and today, my mother and I had lunch outdoors at two restaurants on Fillmore street--a burger joint and a fish place. Both of the meals were way overpriced, but at least my fish and chips meal had decent french fries, unlike the burger place's sad mealy fries. But they were not chips! I want wedge style hand-cut chips, not skinny little frites. The fish however was perfectly cooked with a light delicious batter, a good dipping sauce, and a perfect little cole slaw side dish. I will go to Berkeley Bowl and get the ingredients for a cole slaw. 

I've already been spoiled as to who wins season 17, but that's fine.

Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles

 Yotam Ottolenghi (whose cooksbooks are as notable for their design as for their recipes) got invited to do an event at the Met for their Versailles show in 2018, and he recruited some amazing pastry chefs  (Dominique Ansel, Ghaya Oliveira, Dinara Kasko, Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, Janice Wong) to create elaborate displays and desserts.  The documentary Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles (directed by Laura Gabbert) gives us just a glimpse of the logistical challenges involved in realizing the ambitions of each chef: a pump for a "whirlpool of booze" that doesn't work; a batter that starts to curdle; wheeling the half-assembled displays from the kitchen to the galleries, setting off a fire alarm on the way. 

There's some attention to the role of Versailles as center of power and how it displayed to the world France's new technologies and aesthetics, but the film isn't interested in a corresponding inquiry into the role the New York culture industry plays with its gala events. The only tastings we get are of recipes Ottolenghi is testing at his home base in London. But the stories of how each team manages to pull off their culinary experiences are delightful.

Baked tofu

Here's the thing about eating salad every day when you live alone: you have to scale down your prep or there will be a lot of leftovers, and they will spoil. Even after living alone for a little over two years, now that my nest is empty, I still make enough food for two (or four) when I cook.  Before I make anything new, I must make sure these do not go bad: 2 cooked beets, a large bowl of raw mushrooms, cooked beet greens, salmon that needs to be cooked today, the rest of those beans I cooked in the slow cooker, the last serving of kale salad. On top of that, in the fridge I have: lots of carrots, too much daikon, parsley, a napa cabbage, green onions, fingerling potatoes, oranges and lemons, tofu, fresh ginger.
I will make a napa cabbage salad, and something groovy with the tofu.  I have not done much cooking with tofu, so I will explore some of these marinade suggestions for baked tofu to add to my salads.


For the last two days, my breakfast has been an egg fried in olive oil. Even though I am working on losing weight (and feeling energetic from my shift to a mostly veggie diet of about 1200 calories), I need a good shot of protein in the morning, so I don't get the blood-sugar-drop shakies at 11AM.

Salade de carottes râpées

Salade de carottes râpées (grated carrot salad)


We got back from Spain very late Sunday night. Yesterday I went to my co-op, The Wedge, to stock up on fresh vegetables for my 2015 salad crusade. I ended up using the carrots I already had in the fridge to make the carrot salad. David Liebowitz's recipe serves a large group, but I was just making enough for me so I didn't follow his quantities. His recipe uses a little bit of sugar, but prefer to leave that out.

Mix up:

2 large carrots, preferably grown nearby, grated. Mine are from my CSA farm, Featherstone Farm, and are fat and sturdy.

parsley, chopped. I like flat-leaf parsley better than the curly stuff.

juice of half a lemon

a few glugs of some really good olive oil. I have some Koronciki oil (made in Crete from Koroneiki olives, a Greek cultivar) that I bought in Northfield at the olive oil store.

salt ("Une belle pincée de sel") and pepper

Fresh, fresh, very fresh! As Liebowitz says, don't over do the vinaigrette. It shouldn't be swimming in it, just lightly coated.

I first had this salad when I was in France for my junior year of college. The student restaurants ("Resto U") in  France are very cheap and the food they serve was so incredibly good and healthy compared to the dorm food I was eating back in the States. I fell in love with this modest little salad.  Variations include using orange juice instead of lemon; throwing in some raisins;  adding cumin or pressed garlic to the vinaigrette. Some recipes call for chives (ciboulette) but I prefer the fresh taste of good parsley.

2015 food inspiration: more green salads!

We have been eating the best green salads every day here in Zaragoza. Nothing fancy, just good ingredients. So I'm resolved to eat a good green salad every day at home. There are lots of salads with grains or that are really what I would consider cold vegetable side dishes, but I'm craving salads that are some mix of greens, dressing and garnishes. I especially love bitter greens.
I made myself some kale salads before we came to Spain, and they are great, but there are some common mistakes to avoid and recommendations to avoid digestive overload: slice it thinly, don't tear; use an acidic dressing; massage your kale; then let it sit some to break down; give it some buddies; prefer lacinato kale.

Bookmarking these recipes and sites for green salad inspirations when we get home:

the kitchn is apartment therapy's companion site, and a site search comes up with over 6000 hits for "salads"!  I would like this lemony green salad with radicchio and pepitas.


The Splendid Table, the public radio show with Lynn Rossetto Kaspar has a great salad section. This arugula salad with feta, walnuts and pomegranate combines some of my favorites.

Frisée salad with shitake bacon! from The Delicious Life, looks so good! Also Shitake Bahn Mi Salad from Isa's post-punk kitchen.

Jamie Oliver has lots of "hearty salad" recipes that look terrific, but here's his chopped salad.

David Leibowitz, a favorite food writer, has a great post on one of my favorite things from France, salade de carottes râpées (grated carrots). I first had this magical dish when I did my junior year abroad in Bordeaux, in the student restaurants, and reading his site gives me my shot of vicarious Paris living.

Finally, not a salad, but gorgeous food photography from Shutterbean for this ultimate veggie sandwich.

Ramen, again

 First, a visual tour of noodle dishes, a little overwhelming.

Ah, ramen! making it right takes a lot of time and attention to ingredients.


Lately I have been making ramen at home using a recipe from a magazine. Not the instant kind with the dubious flavor packets, but something quite easy using chuka-men noodles.

A visit to the Nishiyama ramen factory in Japan, where fresh noodles are made:


Recipe for home-made yakibuta ramen from Cooking With Dog, showing a simplified version of the days-long, labor-intensive ways to make everything from  scratch: pork broth, dashi stock, seasoned soft-boiled eggs, etc:



The right way to eat Ramen (from the movie Tampopo)

Anthony Bourdain goes to Sapporo, in northern Japan, to eat miso ramen (from his show No Reservations).


Another NHK video on ramen, this time a serious ramen shop tasting tour:

All about ramen (ラーメン) Journeys in Japan documentary

All you want to know about Japanese ramen in this documentary by NHK World.

Nochebuena

Christmas Eve menu in Zaragoza:

• Assorted canapés with spreads like mousse de bacalao, oliva, anchoa, langosta. 
• A very large crab called buey de mar 
• razor clams (navajas) with a green sauce. 
• Largish sea snails called canadillas.

 Not pictured because my camera battery ran out:

•  langostinos, 
• champiñones rellenos,  
• lomo embuchado, 
• ensalada de quinoa,  
• cardo en salsa de nueces, 
• lubina al horno con salsa, 
• macedonia de frutas, 
• turrón, champán.

Life list #3: New recipe every week: Aloo Gobi

I'm getting a box from my CSA, Featherstone Farms, every two weeks this winter. In the past, I've always done the summer share, and I love it, but I'm a big fan of winter root veggies and the kind of greens that you can get in the late fall. I'm interested to see what kinds of crops we'll get. So far in the first two boxes I have received cilantro, parsley, delicata squash, beets, kale, spinach, potatoes, red and white onions, radishes, tender cauliflower, fabulous broccoli,  cabbage, and napa cabbage. Oh, and a pumpkin!

I can tell I'm going to have to make sure I don't get behind on cooking all the vegetables! Today, I roasted some of the carrots and potatoes with olive oil and salt, roasted the beets in their jackets, steamed the spinach, and baked a kabocha squash I had from before. For my new recipe of the week, I made a cauliflower curry from the slow-cooker cookbook. All the vegetables were from the farm except the garlic and ginger.

Slow-cooker cauliflower curry (Aloo Gobi)
Chop a red onion, super fresh cauliflower and sweet crisp carrots. Throw in a few small potatoes, garlic and ginger, some chopped cilantro. Season with Garam Masala, salt, pepper, cumin. Add two T of good tomato paste (in the absence of fresh tomatoes) and a splash of beer to moisten. Mix it all up in the slow cooker, then cook on low for 4-5 hours. Everything gets melty and permeated with the sauce, and the whole thing is yummy.

The carrots are not typical, but I couldn't resist. I could have added a sliced jalapeño or serrano pepper, some turmeric, maybe toasted some black mustard seeds, but I didn't have them on hand. One can also prepare this on the stove top, but I LOVE my slow-cooker.

Changing eating habits, or, remembering what I know

The temptation of turrón

One of my favorite Wellness resources starts off with the step "Remember what you know."  So much of making positive changes is not about learning something new, but remembering and applying knowledge you already have, often by overcoming the inertia or other obstacles that have arisen around patterns of behavior. Until I had a child, I never had to diet to keep to a sensible weight, nor did I own a car until I was 34 so I was in reasonable shape just form walking and biking, even after I stopped playing sports like volleyball or softball in college.

After last two weeks of truly heroic holiday feasting (Spanish food is so good!) I was--am-- more than ready to make some changes. I crave salads, greens, vegetables, and feel no appetite for sweets. My new year's resolve to try new recipes and start dancing again are a good start to getting back into my previous good eating habits. From experience, I know that I have to find a new set of habits to latch on to so I don't drift back into bad habits.

The U is on a big Wellness campaign, and has provided some serious incentives this year: if you accumulate 300 points by carrying out a set of wellness activities from their offerings, you can get $300 of your health care plan costs next year.
Comparing my responses to the annual Wellness survey, from over the past few years, I see I have done better at managing the symptoms of my depression AND my back pain.  But I have gained weight and become more sedentary, and I don't like having a menopot. I'm also having a recurrence of the frozen shoulder on the left side, so I need to do some active pain management: this was an incentive to sign up for the phone health coach, and I know that exercise (the right kind) will be key.

My two downfalls, ever since I started taking anti-depressants, have been nervous impulse eating, especially right before bed, and portion control.  I also eat too fast. So, remember what I know: don't skip breakfast; protein with every meal; no refined carbs or empty sugar (no pastries or alcohol); five small meals a day works better for me than three big ones.  In fact, I know that if I plan my food buying, prepare food on Sunday, pack my Mr. Bento, and record my eating for a month or two, I'll be back on track. I also know that returning to my former level of physical activity is possible, but I'll have to take is slowly to not go into a fibro flare.

The "MyFitnessPal" app gives me a way to record what I'm eating and get fairly quick calorie/nutritional information because it draws on a huge database of both commercial products and home-made recipes entered by users. I set a weight goal, get a calorie threshold that will allow me to lose weight slowly and steadily, and then record what I eat and my exercise; it shows me the calorie readouts combining calories eaten and calories burned, and makes predictions as to what I will weigh if keep up with a given day's pattern. So far, it has not been hard to use, either on my phone or on my laptop, and it was free. I want to see how well I can do with this for the Spring semester.

It also warned me on the first day that I was eating too few calories, which might prompt my body to go into "starvation"mode and defeat the slow weight loss purpose. I want to become more fit, not lose weight fast. So I could have had that second piece of 12-grain toast with peanut butter for breakfast, and still kept to my calorie goal.

Paying attention to health eating goes very well with saving money (don't eat out or sit around in coffee shops), so I get to pat myself on the back.

Nochebuena

The table  set, waiting for the family to arrive:


Mr. Lobster.


Quique was the chef for the evening.



Los tíos: Florencio, Blas,  Carmen and Quique.


Los primos: Alba, Rosemary, Rubén


Rubén y el yayo Daniel.

Rhubarb!

Via Forkful of News, courtesy of Heavy Table
I actually have all the ingredients to make this tomorrow:

Rhubarb Apple Crunch
Makes 1 14-inch oval dish.

3 cups rhubarb, diced (about 12 ounces)
1 Gala apple, cored and diced
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons flour, divided
1 tablespoon wheat germ (optional)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter (8 tablespoons), melted
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup rolled oats

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Toss the rhubarb and apple with the white sugar and 3 tablespoons of flour. Pour into a small baking dish (9″ cake pan would work).

Combine 1 cup flour, wheat germ, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and oats in a separate bowl and mix until crumbly. Top the rhubarb mixture with this crumbly stuff and bake for 40 minutes.

Serve hot or cold, with or without generous scoops of ice cream.

Veg-head

This picture is from Featherstone Farms web page) and shows the contents of our latest weekly delivery! Since I've returned from London, I have been eating almost exclusively food from my Featherstone Farm CSA box, with just a few supplements of carbs and proteins. I steamed last week's green beans and have just been eating them cold. The cat likes to eat them, too, in fact he begs for them!

I turned half a cabbage into garlicky coleslaw, using the fresh garlic and parsley from the farm: chopped them up and added a sea salt and pepper, enough mayo to very lightly coat the cabbage and some cider vinegar. I also steamed half a cabbage with some carrots and potatoes, and have been adding these to other dishes I make, such as the baby back ribs in Caribbean-style BBQ sauce (spicy and citrusy) I made in the slow cooker. The sauce is from a local company, purchased at the Midtown Global Market, but one could easily prepare its equivalent with some OJ, lime juice, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, a little brown sugar, a little bit of this and that.
I've been enjoying the cucumbers either raw, or grated and mixed with pressed garlic, yoghurt, and a little dill (Greek tzatziki), or mixed with yoghurt, cumin, and mint (raita). Either of these goes well with the steamed veggies.
The six ears of corn got parboiled and are just as delicious cold as hot. I have collected the summer squash and onions, eggplant and basil, and will cook them up with the last of the tomatoes I froze last year for ratatouille. Ordinarily, one adds bell peppers to this, but I don't have any yet, just two banana peppers. I may throw them in, instead.

This leaves me with a red cabbage, another big bag of green beans, more potatoes and carrots, a few leftover cukes, and some beets. . . I may roast the root vegetables, although it feels too hot to roast anything, and prepare the cukes with a Japanese style dressing (rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame seeds)
Bring on the cavalcade of vegetables, I'm ready! This lovely "vegetable quilt', also from the FF site, gives me so much joy.

"The Perennial Plate" online series about local food

I discovered this great online video series about eating local foods, called The Perennial Plate, of videos via Lee Zukor at the blog Simple, Good and Tasty. This episode gives some lovely ideas for how to use that stuff in your CSA box! I'm going to try the pickling chard stems, the fennel slaw, and making the pesto with carrot tops (I did not know they were edible!!!).

Celeriac is in season

One of the treasures last week in my CSA box from Featherstone Farms was celeriac (also called celery root, or céléri rave in French). It's a round root vegetable, about the size of a softball, maybe a little bigger.
The surface is brown, warty and tough, rugged with rooty knobs. For some reason, it inspires people to think of trolls! The Dutch use it in their hearty soup stammpot, while the French make céléri rémoulade with a dressing that combines mayonnaise and mustard, and maybe capers or cornichons, depending on your taste.

You can boil it whole in the skin, which takes about 45 minutes, but I'm much too impatient for that, so I like to peel it and boil the pieces. Instead of trying to peel it with a paring knife, it's best to remove the tough peel like a pineapple, by slicing from the top down along the sides. Take your sharpest chef's knife, or even better, a long serrated bread knife (I use my Ginzu knife that I bought at the State Fair from that one guy whose sales patter is a tour-de-force of performance art).

Slice off the top and bottom ends so you can sit it flat and it won't slip. Then, slice from the top down along the side to remove the tough outer layer, revealing the pale fragrant flesh underneath. I love the smell!

The texture is not quite like that of a potato or a jicama, and not quite the same as a turnip's. The odor is between that of fresh celery stalks and celery seed. If you use a knife that is not stainless steel, it will discolor faster and maybe take on a metallic taste, so avoid that. If you're not going to cook it right away, or if you are using matchstick sized pieces raw in a salad, in the French style, put the pieces in a bowl of water with a splash of lemon juice or vinegar to keep them from discoloring.

I just chopped it into chunks and put it in a pot of boiling water immediately. It takes about 8-10 minutes to cook through, or, you can wait until the water comes back to a boil, put a lid on the pot and turn off the heat, and let it sit until cooked through while you do something else.

The cooked pieces can be eaten plain, speared out of the pot, but it's commonly dressed with mustardy vinaigrette, mashed with potatoes or carrots, or used just about any way you'd use a potato. Save the broth for vegetable stock or use in a soup for a subtle flavor.

This NPR story by Jack Staub (from the series Kitchen Window) is a loving ode to celeriac, and has a recipe for celeriac french fries! But these recipes look more my style (I'm deathly afraid of frying things in oil), especially the hearty soups. Celeriac also pairs well with green apples or pears. I think I'll use it with some of the fresh tarragon Loren gave me.

Mustard greens

In my CSA box from Featherstone Farms today, there were four kinds of tomatoes (little yellow ones shaped like pears, orange sweeties, a greenish-red heirloom, and several roma style cooking tomatoes), summer squash, bell peppers, basil, red onions, green beans, salad greens, cucumbers, and a bunch of mustard greens. I love my CSA deliveries! Opening the box is like opening a gift every week.
I often crave greens, any and all of them, especially bitter greens. I washed and ripped the leaves off the coarse stems, and cooked them down in the water left over from steaming the beans. I ate some with my salad, and put the rest in a container for later. There was almost a cup of broth left over, and I'm drinking it now. I like the flavor, and mustard greens have a huge amount of vitamins A and C, as well as other nutrients.
Nutrition has always fascinated me, and I just discovered asite called Nutrition Data, a good source of basic information presesented in the familiar USDA label format. An even better site is World's Healthiest Foods because it gives detailed explanations of the health benefits associated with the nutrients in specific foods. The entry on mustard greens explains why mustard greens might be particularly good for the lungs, the liver, and the joints, but not so great for people who have kidney or gall-bladder problems (because of the presence of oxalates). It reminds me of the kind of information that fascinated me when I started using Laurel's Kitchen to cook with, many years ago. The New Laurel's Kitchen is practically a textbook of nutrition as well as a cookbook.

Here is their list of the "worlds healthiest foods," (129) of them, according to these criteria: nutrient dense, whole foods, that are familiar, available, affordable and taste good.

My alarm clock is hungry

Last day of Spring break. I slept in until 11! Well, I got up to feed the cat at 5:30, then went back to bed and slept until 11.

Last night, Krista and Fresca came for dinner and we celebrated Krista's new job, Captian Kirk's birthday, and the coming of Spring! Fresca brought spaghetti and a delicious vegetable-laden sauce, Krista made a ricotta-cake with lemon and currants, and I put out a salad and some cheeses. We took lots of pictures, of course!
Now Garrison Keillor is on, and Rory Block, one of my very favorite musicians of all time, just played two songs. I think I missed her show at the Cedar, but that's OK, I'll put on her music this morning to accompany my Sunday morning coffee.

Brainstorming "Liberal Arts 2.0"

A fabulous and very smart discussion about rethinking education (beyond academia) is taking place at Snarkmarket ("The stomping grounds of Robin Sloan, Matt Thompson, and Tim Carmody, serving up links and dish on the happenings of the day -- or back in the day -- or the days to come").


They started talking about what are the liberal new arts? and moved on to brainstorming the new "liberal arts 2.0". They've issued a "call for comments" which in the academic setting would be like a "call for papers." Their immediate goal is, among other things, a book, but the discussion itself is so exciting, liberated from the inertia of the tanking academic institutions, that I am going to be reading it slowly, thinking hard about all the ideas in the comments, and sharing it with my students and colleagues.

Go to this post to read what their brainstorming commenters have to say. Feel free to contribute your own ideas!


P.S. A byproduct of finding this discussion is the discovery of smart and interesting people and their blogs+
Russell Davies is in London. I need some time to read and absorb his "new schtick" part 1 and part 2 because he has really smart things to say about the evolving relationship between print media, digital media and the love of books, and how people are much more creative than corporations.