Admiring: French Chef

Laura Calder
(picture from Chez LaFleur in Manhattan)

In case my last post sounded a little too Calvinist, let's get to know another hero of mine, Laura Calder. She is known for her cooking show French Food at Home, where she teaches viewers about the joys of eating good food.

What makes me admire her is her wild career arc: linguistics, public relations, cooking... And her rather interdisciplinary explanation of food:

"I'm interested in stories, what food does for you, it’s almost a language in its own right."
   —Laura Calder, interview for York University

"I really love studying languages even just to keep my brain going, but I think it’s an obsession with my mouth, I love everything that goes in and I love what comes out and I love listening to different ways people speak. I love poetry, I love literature, I love accents, but writing was my first love and I wanted to write about food."
   —Laura Calder, interview in FrenchRevolution

Also, I love her playful, relaxed approach to food. She has her opinions on how to serve water (see French Taste), but she also knows that very few people want to master a cuisine to be able make a good chocolate mousse.

So, cook a good, happy, lovely meal and enjoy it, if you feel like it.

Food for the Soul: Stew Deep and Dark

Moonlight in a Forest. Winter, by Arkhip Kuindzhi

As days grow darker, I start looking forward to rich, slow foods like beef stew. These meals remind me to sit with what is potential for a while, to watch as meat breaks down and flavors meld, rather than to expect completion in a flash of a pan.

Start by browning some beef chuck in a large dutch oven, and then remove it from the heat. Add some sliced onions, then some garlic. Then a generous amount of red wine and tomato paste, and once everything is combined and warm, transfer this mixture, plus meat to the slow cooker for 6 hours on low.

The last, and most important step is to add all the magical spices that make this stew special: bay leaf, paprika, marjoram, cumin, lemon zest. (Just typing those beautiful words makes me happy.)

I think we served this over egg noodles last time, but you could also just soak up the juices with crusty bread. This beef goulash is a summary of the one found in Michele Scicolone's Italian Slow Cooker. You should check this book out. 

When you sit down to eat your stew, give thanks for the many forms of life that went into it. Ponder where that life has gone, and what you will do with the energy you receive. If you find yourself exploring your own dark spaces during these dark days, I hope this food will give you some comfort and nourishment along your journey.

Food for the Soul: Roasted Beets

Beetroot, by Maria Livings and Marie Rodgers of Lush Designs

Let's celebrate autumn with the vegetable that is surely the juiciest, most autumnal root—the beet!

"The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies."

    —Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins

Beets aren't the friendliest things to cook, but you can be rewarded with candy-flavored little jewels of food if you're willing to put into some slicing and roasting time. 

Slice them up (wear an apron but enjoy the way your hands turn a lovely hot pink color). Toss in a few sliced carrots and let them get a little pink, too. Sprinkle some rosemary over beets and carrots. Roast at 400 or 425 until they're tender—about 45 minutes. 

You can make salads with roasted beets (red cabbage, walnut, red apples, and red wine vinegar is a good one), but after waiting for them to roast, I'm usually to impatient to do anything but eat them! Try roasting them at the same time as you roast a chicken.

Remember to save your beet greens, too, for a light reminder of the end of summer. If you have a juicer, the beet greens make a lovely pink foam for the top of your orange-carrot juice.

Food for the Soul: Sunshine Sandwich

Sunsnap, by Jayn Foley

Why not enjoy summer's sunshine finish with a cheery golden sandwich? Boil eggs, mix with mayonnaise, minced shallots, and tarragon for a reminder of summer fields. Pile on bread, and garnish with a slice of yellow tomato, straight from the garden. Pause, and soak in the sunshine; then gobble it up while it's fresh!

Food for the Soul: Soup from the Sea

Mermaids by Carlo Chiostri
via Melusina Mermaid

The year I lived in Korea, I ate seaweed soup (미역국; miyeokguk) many a morning. Returning to the states, breakfast cereals seemed so insubstantial by comparison, so from time to time I've made myself seaweed soup for dinner/breakfast. I recommend making it for dinner and then recycling it for breakfast one morning. You can always eat it with an egg if soup feels too much like dinner on its own.

Once you find the seaweed (usually packaged dry), the soup relatively easy to make. Grab a handful or two or seaweed and soak it covered with water in a mixing bowl  until it grows back into its luscious silky state (20 to 30 minutes), and then rinse. (This is important! I sometimes rush this step and end up with gritty soup; this is not a play of textures that you want.)

Boil water or beef broth or fish broth in a pot, and season with garlic and soy sauce or fish sauce. Add in the seaweed to cook, and maybe add some rib eye sliced into tiny chucks or add mussels or leave it plain. You don't have too cook it long, just 30 minutes or so.

Add sesame oil at the end, to further heighten the silky texture of the seaweed. Serve with rice.

Give thanks to the ocean heart for its nourishment.

"[The sea is] the blue heart of the planet—we should take care of our heart. It's what makes life possible for us."
    —Sylvia Earle

Food for the Soul: Black Beans and Bananas

from Be Here Now, by Ram Dass
via Good Rhythms

Here's another dish that comes from Jacques Pepin: black beans with bananas. The beauty of the dish is the harmony in opposites: dark and light, savory and sweet, traditional and unexpected. The black beans are slightly tart with the addition of some hot sauce and vinegar, and the bananas add a sweet counterpoint, like avocados only more delicate. It may sound weird to garnish a dish with bananas, but you really should try it! 

Cook your black beans with some bacon and onions, maybe a bell pepper and some chili pepper. We used dried ancho chilis. Then, when the beans are cooked, you can add some olive oil, hot sauce, and some vinegar along with salt, to make the coming contrast with the bananas more poignant. Garnish with sliced bananas tossed in some lemon juice and pepper, and some cilantro.

Enjoy eating your opposites! And look for something green to grow from your polarities!

Food for the Soul: Spring Onions and Eggs

Plate V, by John Ridgway
 from Charles Bendire's Life Histories of North American Birds, 
With Special Reference to Their Breeding Habits and Eggs
via Classic Nature Prints

This past Saturday, our farmer's market opened up for the spring. At this time, there isn't much available for us besides greens of different sorts—lettuce, broccoli, spring onions. I think one of the best ways to celebrate early spring is to make a simple dish of sauteed spring onions and poached eggs. (It works best with spring onions that have grown bigger than the regular scallions you get at the grocery story and with orange-yolk eggs that have come from healthy chickens.)

All you do is halve the onions length-wise and sautee them until they're carmelized and tender. In the meantime, poach two eggs for each person. (We have a handy egg-poacher that my father-in-law got us after I had a slight melt down in the kitchen one breakfast . . . Word to the wise: don't try to poach eggs at altitude—they'll never set!) Go ahead and toast some bread to soak up the egg yolk when you're done with the main event.

The beauty of this dish is that the flavors are sweet and delicate, and the textures are also soft and tender, so the final combination is a celebration of all that is new this season. Eat it and give thanks for all that's new and tender and just beginning to grow in your life.

Ritual for a Bad Day

Cherry Blossom, by Kirra Jamison
via Black Eiffel

Some days just throw it all at you, and all you can do is go with the flow. Here is my ritual for a bad day:

1. Listen to Joni Mitchell sing about laughing it all away.

2. Look at art that looks back at you. Looking at Kirra Jamison's art is like having a conversation with all the magic in the world.

3. Cuddle your dog after a good walk, and trade your worried human mind for calm dog mind. 

4. Eat the most colorful food you can find.

Music, art, food, love are the things that can reorient your whole day. I'd seek these types of "rituals" out even on a good day, but there's something about having a bad day that makes you cling/take refuge to those things you know to be good for you.

Lent and the Conditions for Happiness

by Jose Manuel Ferrater
via Sebastian

We're now in the second week of Lent, for those who are counting. Growing up, I learned that Lent was a time for sacrificing something (usually, something that gave me pleasure, like chocolate) and that somehow my abstaining from a bit of food was like Jesus's temptation in the wilderness.

But since the onset of adulthood, I've found this practice of fasting to be unhelpfully negative. Wouldn't it be better to commit to a positive practice, like an increased regimen of prayer and meditation?

Enter in my latest thoughts on Thich Nhat Hanh and conditions for happiness. Over and over again, he stresses the joy that can be found in the breath, and in simply noticing all that is well with your body. His view is a rather dramatic opposition to figures such as Augustine, who are so sure that the body is the way of sin.

So this Lent, I'm practicing the joy of the body, not in some hedonistic, let's get drunk and have orgies kind of way, but in the simple way of noticing my breath and noticing my body and taking pleasure in that. Will you join me? I think it might prepare us for a fantastic rebirth on Easter.

Food for the Soul: Almond Pancakes

by Angela Eata
via el Baul que no tenia mi abeula

Use this recipe to get a little levity in your world. Our first try at almond pancakes yielded some pretty dense cakes, but these are light and fluffy.

Mix: 1 banana, 4 eggs (or 3 jumbo eggs plus a little milk), a cup of almond meal, and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. Add a little cinnamon and sugar if you need some extra spice or sweetness.

Cook the batter like normal pancakes, and eat like normal pancakes, too. Remember that life doesn't need to be heavy all the time.

Food for the Soul: Bibimbap

via Mrs. Ryeong

Bibimbap (빕임밥; "mixed rice") is a beautiful dish to look at, with colorful vegetables arranged in a wheel around an egg in the middle. It also happens to be really healthy, and good comfort food.

You can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, over white rice, cooked a little drier than the usual Asian-style rice. I like to use carrots, spinach, zucchini, bean sprouts, cucumber, and, if I can find it, fernbracken (고사리).

The key to beautiful, tasty bibimbab is cooking each vegetable separately. Carrots get cut into matchsticks and are seasoned lightly. Other vegetables can get paired with garlic and some green onion. Add sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds to the vegetables, or to the dish as a whole for a lovely warm flavor. (Don't skimp on the sesame; it is truly divine.)

Add some Korean pepper paste (고추장), mixed with water and more sesame oil until it's a nice saucy consistency, plus a fried egg.

Then, destroy your beautiful arrangement by mixing. Eat with a large spoon. Life is good.

Food for the Soul: Fried Plantains

Plantain by Nicole Margaretten

I was lucky enough to spend the holidays in Costa Rica with my husband's family, and we ate a lot of local food. My favorite breakfast became fried plantains, gallo pinto, tortillas, and eggs. (Yes, that's a lot of food, but breakie is the most important meal of the day.) 

Now that we've returned, we'll be enjoying more plantains as a replacement for potatoes. They're sweet, and they are very nutritious.

The best part? Making fried plantains is so easy! Choose very ripe plantains. Slice in coins, minus the peel, of course. Heat oil in a pan. Fry. If they're ripe enough, they don't need a single thing extra.

Food for the Soul: Harvest Soup

Polka Dot Pumpkins via ShopTalk
originally via Better Homes and Gardens

One of my favorite things about fall is that all sorts of lovely winter squashes come into season.

The beauty of winter squash is, you really don't need to do a lot to make a tasty dish. They take a while to roast, but they already have lovely, complex flavors.

Here's my favorite squash soup recipe:

1. Quarter two granny smith apples and divide two squash into eight pieces each. (Use butternut for a sweet soup or acorn squash for a more nutty soup.) Roast until soft.
2. Puree.
3. Combine with stock (I like turkey stock), nutmeg, and cinnamon, and give the flavors a chance to meld together.
4. My favorite part: serve with toasted nuts, dried cranberries or cherries, and diced apples. Yum!

The Joy of Pies

Join me in celebrating my birthday with a slice of pie today!

Have you seen the movie Waitress? If you have then you may understand why pies have become symbol of joy and fairy tale endings for me. If you haven't seen it, you should definitely check it out! (And if you get the DVD, you can get pie recipes, too!!)

Keri Russell and Andy Griffith, via the New York Times

Part of what made the movie so lovely was that Jenna (Kerri Russel's character) expressed herself through her pies. There was the "falling in love chocolate mousse pie" and the "naughty pumpkin pie," for example.

"I can't have no affair because it's wrong and Earl would kill me pie"
vanilla custard with banana . . . hold the banana
via Girl in the Afternoon

Coming up to the big 3-0, I'm looking back over the year with some pride and joy for how my life has grown: I've worked on my personal myth project, I've gotten a new job that I'm really excited about, and I've started this blog. I've also had another fairy tale year with my husband. Life is good.

If I made a pie, it would be the "a dream is a wish your heart makes" pie, and it would probably involve a raspberry and strawberry filling topped with honey-flavored meringue.

What about you? What would your pie be?

via Delicious Magazine UK

Food for the Soul: Fried Eggs over Lentils

This dish, for me, is the ultimate comfort food. Eggs? Check. Bacon? Check. Mushy, flavorful base? Check. (Wait, don't overcook the lentils! But they're still nice and soft when you cook them well.)

Eat this and imagine you're in a French cafe. 

Hotel La Perla Dining Room, ironically in Italy, not France

Fried Eggs over Warm Lentil Salad with Lardons

Gourmet, October 2000

Ingredients

3/4 cup lentils (preferably French green lentils)

6 oz thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick strips

2 leeks (white and pale green parts only), finely chopped

2 celery ribs, finely chopped

1 large carrot, finely chopped

2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar, or to taste

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon

1 tablespoon olive oil

8 large eggs

1 cup baby spinach

Preparation

1.      Cover lentils with cold water by 2 inches in a saucepan, then simmer, uncovered, until just tender, about 20 minutes.

2.      While lentils are simmering, cook bacon in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until crisp, then transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain, leaving fat in skillet. Add leeks, celery, and carrot to skillet and cook, stirring, until just tender. Add vinegar and boil until most of liquid is evaporated. Remove skillet from heat and stir in tarragon, half of bacon, and salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to a bowl and keep warm, covered, reserving skillet.

3.      Drain lentils well in a large sieve. Stir into vegetable mixture and season with salt and pepper. Keep warm, covered.

4.      Wipe skillet with paper towels, then add oil and heat over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Fry eggs in batches until whites are just set but yolks are still runny and season with salt and pepper.

5.      Divide lentil salad among 4 plates. Top with spinach, eggs, and remaining bacon.

Slow Food Challenge

Slow Food USA is challenging everyone to participate in the $5 Slow Food Day on September 17. The idea is that delicious, healthy food can be made for the same price of a fast food meal.

We happen to eat like this most nights. In fact, one of the first meals I ever ate with my husband could qualify for the slow food challenge. One night, he served me his famous turkey chili. It was like a love potion: so hearty and so healthy. It's also easy to make, so let me see if I can describe it.

Tomatoes, by Pragya Kothari

Gather a bag of beans (white, mixed, etc. it doesn't matter, although if you use kidney beans, make sure you boil them first, because they have a toxin that won't disappear in the slow cooker), a can of tomatoes, some ground turkey meat (or not if you're going for veggie bliss), chopped bell pepper, and chopped onion. Maybe add some garlic and some good red chili powder for some extra flavor.

Dump the ingredients into a slow cooker, and add about 4 cups of stock. (You're making your own and freezing it, right? It's so easy and so good.) Let everything cook on low for at least 5 hours. The longer you wait, the better it tastes.

Serve over rice, or with corn bread. Yum! A perfect summer-to-fall transition meal that's cheap and creates enough leftovers to last a week.

Food for the Soul: Green Monster

I just made my first green monster. It's a delicious smoothie invented by Angela of Oh She Glows, and it's so easy to do. Go read the story of how she came to invent her green monster. It's really inspirational!

Small Green Monster, by Amanda James

Here's the basic formula that I follow:
a couple handfuls of spinach (you can't taste it; don't worry!)
thickener: frozen bananas, ice, yogurt
liquid: milk/soy milk/almond milk/juice

optional additions:
protein: nut butter, seeds, protein powder
additional flavors: frozen fruits, chocolate, honey

I use the measurements on my blender to help me guess how much I'm making and then add thickeners or liquids to get the consistency I want.

Small Green Monster, by Amanda James

I've been making smoothies for a while, but never thought to add spinach. What a great way to care for yourself! Sometimes caring for ourselves simply means eating food that will make us feel good on the inside and glow on the outside.

Food for the Soul: Simple Spiced Okra

At this point in the summer, our farmer's market is overflowing with okra. One of my favorite ways to eat it is sauteed and dusted in curry powder. It's easy, delicious, and much healthier than the classic fried okra!

Abelmoschus esculentus, by Diana McElwain
via Green Currency

Our recipe is based on the one by Kevin Gillespie of Top Chef fame, but we're lazy. We slice the okra in half, sprinkle on our curry powder du jour (along with salt and pepper) and saute it a single oil-coated skillet until it's crispy enough for our taste. We like to eat it with salmon, seasoned with a little Old Bay, because we're fancy like that.

by Frances Janisch, via Food and Wine

Mindful Consumption

A recent conversation has me thinking about what I choose to consume. This blog is in part a response to a desire to consume information more mindfully on the internet. But it is easy to passively allow all sorts of degrading messages to flood into the mind via the usual outlets: television, radio, computer, and one's one inner monologue. Thus, I'm posting Thich Nhat Hahn's Fifth Mindfulness Training, to remind myself of one way to be healthier.

"The Mist," in Dreamer of Dreams, illustrated by Edmund Dulac
via Sue du Jour

"Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practising mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I am committed to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practising a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society."

    —Thich Nhat Hahn, on the Five Mindfulness Trainings, via The Big View

"Dreamland," by Edmund Dulac, via Art Passions

Food for the Soul: The Alchemy of Chile

I'm away in New Mexico for a few days, so the next few posts will be related to all the beauty that can be found there.

Chili a la Mode, by R. C. Gorman

When you go to New Mexico, it is impossible to avoid the glory of red or green chili sauce. When you order just about any dish, the server will ask you, "red or green?" Red is a little more floral, green a little more citrusy. If you can't decide, you can always say, "Christmas."

At home, we make our own red chili sauce, and it can transform many dishes into something magical: enchiladas, slow-cooked pork (carnitas), bean stew.

Recipe for red chili sauce:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 medium onion, minced

3 garlic cloves, minced

¾ cup ground dried mild New Mexican red chile, preferably Chimayó

4 cups water or beef stock

1 teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican

1 teaspoon salt

1. Warm the oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat.

2. Add the onion and garlic, and saute until the onion is limp.

3. Stir in the chile and then the water, a cup at a time.

4. Add the oregano and salt, and bring the sauce just to a boil.

5. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and cook for 20 to 25 minutes. The completed sauce should coat a spoon thickly but still drop off it easily.

For pork carnitas, simply add a cup or two of the sauce to a pork roast, and let it slowly transform in the slow cooker. Remember, the key to juicy meat is "slow and low." (For 5 or so pounds, cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 8-9).

For bean stew, simply add a tablespoon full to each bowl of cooked beans.

La Chilera, by R. C. Gorman

You'll find that many dishes are transformed by a little heat from the chili sauce, and you'll feel great, too!