Hometown Delicacies

You know it's fall when the fair is in town!

Yes, it's that time of year. And whew, what a wild ride these past 12 months have been. As if I didn't already feel old beyond my years, a couple weeks ago I attended my 20th high school reunion. 20 years - yikes!!!

Since the kids were born, I haven't gone back home as often as I used to, which made this visit a rare treat in many ways. First of all, it was truly delightful to see my old classmates. I hadn't really kept in touch with people and didn't make it to the 10th reunion, so in almost every case, it had been 20 years since I last saw them. Not only did everyone look really great - let's hear it for southern Californians taking good care of themselves - but it was awesome to find that personalities hadn't changed one bit, or voices, or facial expressions. These last two probably sound a little silly, but it really touched me that 20 years melted away so easily while we stood around chatting. I tried to get some dancing going but somehow grooving to 1992 hits by Color Me Badd, Bobby Brown, UB40, etc. felt a bit awkward in the year 2012 and nobody did it with much enthusiasm. Come to think of it, those songs made for pretty awkward dancing back in the day, too...

The one picture I managed to take at the reunion - too much fun visiting with everyone!

In addition to seeing old friends, I got to spend lots of time with my hilarious family. The kids were in seventh heaven, hanging out with so many fun cousins and relatives. Me too. Having grown up in a close-knit family where teasing was a sign of love, it's always seemed strange to me to be an adult and not get ribbed all the time. Plus, what's not to like about being able to have an outdoor pool party in October? And the tumbleweeds, don't get me started on all the fun you can have with tumbleweeds! Apparently now people even stack them up and spray them white to look like snowmen at Christmastime - Martha Stewart must have come up with this one. When I was a kid all we did was roll them as we ran alongside and hit them with sticks. I finally got around to looking it up and tumbleweeds come from the Russian thistle plant, by the way.

Cousins!

On top of all that excitement, there was the food. There are certain things that my hometown really excels at food-wise, and I was so fortunate to be able to enjoy nearly all of them during this visit. Several were sweet treats: Dewar's chews, Dewar's peppermint ice milk, and Smith's happy face sugar cookies. As far as I'm concerned, they have no rivals and I have never even tried to replicate any of them, which makes visits home that much sweeter.

In the savory category, we have two broad categories: Mexican food and Basque food. If you know anything about California agriculture - my hometown is at the center of it - the Mexican food specialty speaks for itself. To this day, I judge any Mexican restaurant immediately by its salsa. (Nearly every one I've been to on the East Coast has failed miserably.) As for the Basque food angle, I didn't know that a majority of Americans of  Basque descent in the U.S. are in California, many of them in the central valley. I mean, growing up I either knew or knew of plenty Basque families and there were tons of Basque restaurants, but I just didn't realize how concentrated the population was in our area. So while I've never tried Basque specialties like pickled cow's tongue, as a child I had plenty of opportunities to become a connoisseur of what's known as "the set-up" - a family-style spread of nearly all vegetarian dishes that make up the first course of any Basque meal. It's a rather odd-sounding assemblage, but take my word for how delicious it is in combination: cabbage soup, beans, salsa, sourdough bread, cucumbers, cottage cheese mixed with mayo, boiled veggies in a white sauce, and lettuce salad. The sourdough bread+butter+salsa combination alone is phenomenal. Beans I usually dump in the soup, which is kind of bland until you pour in a bunch of salsa... you get the idea. It's very filling in and of itself. And interestingly, after all the meat-based entrees that follow the set-up, meals usually end with big hunks of blue cheese and sherbet. Really. I would love to do a food anthropology study of Basque restaurant food, which would of course give me a great reason to visit the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France in the hunt for its origins.

Cabbage, carrots, potatoes, broth, beans, bread - the food that revolutionaries are raised on.

Last but certainly not least, there is a longtime restaurant in my hometown called Cafe Med which makes two Turkish dips that are very dear to my heart. Yes, I said Turkish. (Turn head to the side and spit in disgust for their treatment of Greeks during the war.) The red dip is simply called "Turkish Salad" on the menu, but from my research I believe it's an adaptation of "Ezme", a traditional Turkish condiment, minus the pomegranate syrup. The green dip is "Zehog" and its ingredients are nearly identical to the red dip, but spicier and without tomato. The dips are served with the most flavorful, softest white pita rounds that I've ever had, always straight from the oven. I usually eat so much of this appetizer that I honestly cannot name any other item the restaurant serves.

Fresh pita with ezme & zehog

The pita recipe I got from here: http://momgrind.com/2009/02/26/pita-bread-recipe-homemade-soft-and-fabulous/ - and they were pretty amazing. We'll see how they are tomorrow after sitting overnight.

And below is my approximate recipe for the dips - all I had was the ingredients list to go on, but I have to say, I think I got pretty close on my first try. My mom introduced me to the idea of serving them with hummus also, and I think she nailed it - the creamy coolness certainly helps with the heat.

Ezme - Turkish Salad
In a food processor, blend:

• 1/3 cup yellow onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1/2 anaheim chile or 1 small jalepeno, chopped
• 2 T canola oil
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
• 1/4 cup tomato paste - more if you like
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Zehog
In a food processor, blend:

• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1 anaheim chile or 1 small jalepeno, chopped
• 2 T canola oil
• 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Lately the weather has been mostly rain, rain, rain, which does nothing for one's spirits, but it certainly has given me lots of practice in fire-making (I still stink at it but I'm blaming the situation on wet, hard wood). And it makes me appreciate days when you can get a shot like this:

A beautiful day on the Appalacian Trail

Feminism, Fingerlings & Fun

So...I know I wasn't planning on having time to blog during the school semester, but this weekend turned out to be so inspiring that I just had to share a bit. This morning I completed my first triathlon! Which now makes me a triathlete!

The race itself was surprisingly fun, probably because I've been training solo for the past three months and this felt like a huge group training session. Not to mention the fact that the Berkshire hills basically kicked my butt all summer long, making the short hills of the actual race course feel easy-peasy. Since I wasn't in too much pain, I had plenty of time to reflect on the event and what it meant to me and possibly, to the other competitors.


Before the race...



...and after. Hurrah for Dad's idea to make t-shirts!



This wasn't an ordinary triathlon. It was a women's-only race, part of a Title 9 series held each summer in various parts of Massachusetts. In past lives, I've been a spectator at many a race, both triathlons and running events alike. Always cheering for a guy. While I love to cheer others on, this was the first time I was on the other side of the equation, and it felt really great. Even when I got passed on the bike (I have a really clunky, heavy mountain bike that got clobbered on the downhills), it still felt really great, because all the women passing me were at least my age or in some cases, much older! (They marked our ages on our calves for some reason - I'm not sure why but it turned out to be an inspiring piece of info as the race progressed.)

The other cool thing was that most of the spectators were men and children! For me, that sure felt like a switch. Every time someone shouted, "Go Mommy, go!" I felt like it could be for me, and that was wonderful. Like all the mommies of the world were being cheered for in that moment.



I hadn't given the feminist angle much thought initially; it just seemed like a cool idea to race with women only for my first tri - but when we arrived at the event, Sophia shocked us by observing, "It's neat there are so many ladies here - usually it's only boys who do sports." HUH??? We are still scratching our heads at this comment. I mean, we don't have a television so she wouldn't have noticed the unequal coverage of women's vs. men's sporting events. And though her dad cycles fairly often, I'm the one who cross-trains six morning a week and sometimes plays team sports in the evenings. Where on earth did she get this idea that women don't compete in sports?

When I was growing up, Title IX was still a fairly new thing. A federal education amendment passed in 1972 to prevent sex discrimination in educational programs supported by federal dollars, in the area of athletics this law required that schools: (1) provide male and female students with equal opportunities to play sports, (2) give male and female athletes their fair shares of athletic scholarship dollars, and (3) provide equal benefits and services (such as facilities, coaching, and publicity) to male and female athletes overall. Almost 20 years after its passage, I was a student in high school. Though barely aware of Title IX, I clearly remember grumblings from both parents and school staff about how boys' programs had to be "cut back" in order to make facility time, coaching staff, uniforms, etc. available to girls' teams. Yikes. But for girls today, the playing field (pardon the pun) should appear fair, right?

For me, the biggest accomplishment of the day was afterward, when I asked Sophia if she'd like to do a race with me sometime, and she said yes. She said no when I asked her before the race. I am so lucky to have role models in my mom - super Master's-level swimmer, nationally ranked - and in my sister - super mom, triathlete and runner. Today I wore one of my mom's old swimsuits for the swim and pulled on one of my sister's racing outfits for the bike and run. I also borrowed Stephen's baseball cap for the run, reflecting that after all, he's one of the biggest feminists I know. And that counts for a lot in marriage, at least if you ask me.

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Now onto the food. When we arrived home this afternoon, all of a sudden it hit me that THE TIME IS NOW for eating our recently harvested veggies, so everyone got involved in picking herbs, topping and de-stringing beans, scrubbing potatoes, picking flowers and peeling cucumbers. This was the result:



Roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes; braised garlicky green beans; cucumber--mint-yogurt soup; tomato-basil salad.

A hearty meal to finish off a very hearty day. Hurrah for women and girls competing in sports! Hurrah for summer vegetables! And hurrah for our amazing government that, if we wait long enough and fight hard enough, usually does the right thing by its citizens!



14 lbs of fingerling potatoes





English cukes



Purple bush beans

Dragon's teeth pole beans

Raviolis + BIO101 = Time

This is likely going to be my last blogpost for a while. The one thing I have had most in abundance this past year - free time - will soon be greatly reduced, and I don't like to do things halfway. But you know, that's the thing about abundance: often you can't predict when it will appear on your doorstep, and you don't usually get to decide how long you'll have it. It is a gift, and as I've been reflecting lately, the gifts we tend to appreciate most are the fleeting ones. Things (and people, and experiences) apart from the ordinary, are less easily taken for granted. Of course our daily challenge is to try to take nothing for granted, for there are no guarantees in life. At any rate, this week, likely to be my last one for a long while where the only thing I really have to do is take good care of my family, I finally dug out the bag of semolina flour that's been sitting in the pantry for oh, about a year now. A year during which I've had plenty of time to use it but never did. I guess that's just how these things sometimes go.

Red Pepper and Goat Cheese Raviolis with Creamy Spinach Walnut Sauce

It was my first experience making pasta and all I had to go on was the recipe on the back of the semolina bag, but I have to say it was pretty darn easy. Made extra easy, actually, by a recent hand-me-down gift of the sort I've long coveted: a KitchenAid stand mixer with dough hook! I wasn't totally sure how much use I'd actually get out of this kind of appliance but it performed ten minutes of kneading while I cleaned up the dishes, how cool is that? After that, I tried to roll out the dough using a nifty little device we found left behind in our new house about seven years ago. It never saw the light of day in my kitchen, yet I carried it with me to two more houses, determined to use it eventually. Well today was the day. Maybe I did something wrong, but the pasta just didn't want to come out of the place it should have, making a gooey mess on the rollers. So I resorted to the old rolling pin and in the process, found out that durum wheat is pretty cool to work with, thanks to its extra-high gluten content - it just stretches and stretches...



Away to the transfer station with you!

See the blue mixer peeking out its head - love it!



This really was a fun project. I should have started making raviolis years ago - why didn't I ever try it before? Fact is, it's the one menu item that ever gets me into Italian restaurants, since everything else they have that's vegetarian is something I could just make at home. Ricotta-stuffed manicotti, lasagna with bechemel sauce, pasta e fagioli, garlic breadsticks: easy. Light little pillows filled with tasty insides sitting in a creamy sauce: not so easy (or so I thought). And I can't stand the raviolis sold in the grocery store, frozen or fresh. They are such a disappointment if you really love fresh ravioli. But that's all behind me now. I've made two batches (froze the second one) and am never looking back.

FYI - all in all, it takes about an hour to make the dough and filling, form the raviolis and cook them if you work straight through. And this recipe serves maybe 3 hungry people, so double it if you want leftovers! You could always just make little orecchiette (ear-shaped) pasta if you don't want to roll it all out. The girls did that with the leftover bits and had a grand time eating them with butter after I threw them in the pot with the raviolis.

Pasta Dough:

• 3/4 cup semolina flour
• 3/4 cup unbleached white flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Mix the flours and salt with a whisk. Stir in the oil, water and eggs until fully incorporated. Turn out onto a floured board or using a dough hook or paddle on your stand mixer or food processor, knead the dough for about 10 minutes, or until springy. It will retain a certain stickiness that ordinary bread dough doesn't after kneading. Form the dough into a ball and wrap in a kitchen towel. Allow to rest for 10 minutes before rolling out.

Sprinkle flour onto your largest cutting board and roll out half the dough into a rectangle 30 by 7 inches. It should be symmetrical so that when you fold it in half, the two sides match fairly closely. Lay one half on the cutting board and fold the rest out of the way (it will hang off top of the board). In rows about a half-inch apart, place teaspoon-sized dollops of filling. The dollops should be about 1/2 inch apart going down. Make sure there is about 1/2 inch of dough clearance along the outer edges.

Carefly fold the top half of the dough over to meet the bottom half. Use your fingers to press around the filling, eliminating air pockets and creating a seal on all sides. Cut the raviolis into fairly equal-sized squares and lay on a clean towel until you are ready to cook them. To cook, slide them into a pot of boiling water to which you have added 1/2 tsp oil. Cook until al dente, which will depend on how thick your dough ended up being. After about 5 minutes, I took one out and nibbled on its edge, then let them cook another couple minutes.

I ended up using a different filling for each batch. The first was the red pepper/goat cheese (see below) that I topped with a creamy spinach walnut sauce. The second was a kalamata olive/spinach/feta/Greek yogurt filling (didn't note the proportions, sorry!) that also turned out to be very tasty. With that one I will serve a marinara sauce.

Pepper Goat Cheese Filling
Puree in a small food processor:

• 6 oz goat cheese
• 1 whole roasted red pepper (from a jar)
• 10 fresh basil leaves

The little sauce dish is actually the glass top from an old canning jar that I bought from an antique dealer (25 cents!). Each one has a star in the center, so sweet.

Creamy Spinach Walnut Sauce:

• 1/2 onion, chopped finely
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 large clove garlic, pressed
• 1 cup chopped frozen spinach
• 1/4 cup ground walnuts
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/3 cup finely grated parmesan/romano cheese
• salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat the butter on medium and add onion. Saute for several minutes, then stir in the flour, cooking it for a minute so there will be no raw flour taste. Add the spinach and 1 tsp water, then cover and turn the heat to med-low. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a bit more water if needed to keep it from sticking. Gradually add the milk, stirring thoroughly to combine. Add more milk if necessary to make a smooth sauce. You could also puree it with an immersion blender at this point if you want. Stir in the walnuts and cheese, tasting for salt at the end.

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And as for what will be going on in the next phase of my life that will make it harder to have time for blogging, I offer a quote and an image:

Just like Alice (in Wonderland), "Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

and,



Guess which one I want to be. (And which one I'd like to take home... ;-)

Finger Food: Summer Rolls

Just what is it about summertime and eating with our hands? Maybe it's part of the general informality of the season - wearing fewer clothes, going barefoot, having meals outdoors, roasting things over the campfire. Eschewing utensils, we use our hands to hold corn on the cob, burgers and dogs, chips and dip, cookies, watermelon slices, and drippy stone fruit. The garden hose (or lake, or sea) is right there for rinsing off and it just feels right to engage with our food like this in the summertime.

And though we may be sandy and sweaty and sticky, I also enjoy the fact that there is more personal touch this time of year. Playing with the kids in the lake, their knobby knees and pointy little toes digging into my legs and back... running around kicking the soccer ball and slamming into each other on the grass... jostling to pick berries and smearing the over-ripe ones on each other's cheeks... holding hands as we tramp through the forest in search of wild treasures. No mittens or gloves or long sleeves and pants to separate us from each other. Just sun-kissed, mosquito-bitten, epidermis on epidermis.

Likewise, whether you all gather at the kitchen table or set up the fixings out on the deck, summer rolls are best enjoyed as a full-contact activity. 'Cause where's the fun if someone just presents you with a platter of them, ready-made? For children, there are carrots to be shredded, herbs and greens to be picked and torn apart, bean thread noodles to be cut up with scissors...and then there is the actual spring roll making. Even for the youngest kids unable to roll them up while still keeping the filling inside, there is dipping to be done. From experience, I can vouch for the hygienic and aesthetic benefits of setting out individual bowls of peanut sauce. :-)



Ready to roll...



... now dip!



The making of summer rolls (or spring rolls, as we like to call them the rest of the year) isn't rocket science, but it can be frustrating for the perfectionists among us. As someone who often overstuffs, the approach I've developed is to just relax and eat them as they tear (and many will). That way when all is said and done, you have a full tummy and a plate of beautiful summer rolls to share with a friend or enjoy the next day.

A few technical points of note:

Depending on where you live, these might be hanging out in the Asian foods aisle at the supermarket!

The spring roll wrappers are quite stiff out of the package, but as they are basically just rice starch, slipping them individually into a cake pan or baking sheet filled partway with warm water softens them up in a few seconds. Likewise, the bean thread noodles, which are made from mung bean starch, become soft enough to use shortly after you've poured boiling water over them.

The basic method is to set out all the ingredients ready in little bowls, including the drained noodles. Then you boil a kettle of water and set it out near the cake pan or baking sheet so that as people are busy filling and rolling, a new wrapper is always ready for the next round. You can make a bunch and then eat, or you can make and eat as you go. It can be quite a messy process, with tofu chunks falling into the bowl of carrots, bean thread noodles flying everywhere, and participants crowding each other to get what they need from the bowls.

One person will surely emerge as the designated 'wrapper', as this is a specialized task and ultimately, people won't want to have their rolls break every time. But it may surprise you who turns out to be the most naturally gifted - at our house it's the 7-year-old who exercises the most restraint when filling and therefore never tears her wrappers. The other key to wrap fairly tightly, but not so tight as to force the filling to puncture the wrapper. Loosey-goosey wrapping will result in a noodle salad explosion; it's best to keep several forks handy for this possibility.

When you've run out of ingredients or stuffed yourselves to the point where you can't look another spring roll wrapper in the eye, it's time to abandon the whole mess and go play badminton. Rock paper scissors determines who does dishes!

Fresh Summer Rolls

• 1 package spring roll wrappers
• 1/2 pound of firm tofu, diced into 1/2" cubes
• 2 tbsp Braggs liquid aminos, soy sauce, or Soyaki sauce
• 1 bundle mung bean thread noodles, soaked in hot water and drained according to pkg directions
• 1/2 cup fresh herbs/edible flowers, such as cilantro, Italian or Thai basil, mint, lemon balm, nasturtiums - a mixture is nice
• 2 cups torn salad greens, any type
• 2 medium carrots, shredded
• 1/2 cup peanuts, chopped finely
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

Peanut Dipping Sauce

• 4 tbsp natural peanut butter
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp Braggs or soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 tsp grated fresh ginger

To make the sauce, heat peanut butter and water together in a microwavable glass measuring cup for about 30 seconds, or in a small pot on the stove, until they can be easily stirred together. Add the other ingredients and mix well. Taste and add more of any ingredients it may need (this part is highly personal and I cannot tell you whether you like your peanut sauce sweeter or more tart, just as I cannot guess your preference for creamy or crunchy peanut butter. For the record, I prefer crunchy but am overruled in the house, so creamy I must use). Also, do add more water if needed - the goal is to have a sauce that's not too thick, because it will be harder to dip your spring roll that way.

Jer gan mai! (I'm not entirely sure if spring/summer rolls are considered Vietnamese or Thai, but this is one of the few Thai phrases that has stuck with me over the years - it means, see you later!)

Rat-tat-a-touille!




It’s 8:30 at night and I’ve just returned from work. There’s chicken juice inside my watchband, roast beef blood on my shoes and liverwurst bits down my shirt. But despite all that meaty nastiness (sorry, carnivores) I’m super hungry and have been ever since a tough workout early this morning. I see leftover oatmeal on the stove – the finale of a ‘backwards food day’ where dad fed the kids lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch, and breakfast for dinner – but oatmeal just isn’t going to do the job.

So right now I’m thinking: it’s time to cook up a storm. A quick, tasty mess before I collapse for the night. Have you ever seen the PBS kids’ cartoon ‘Word World’? There’s this great little chant they always sing when it’s time to make a new word. “It’s time to build a word, let’s build it, let’s build it now!” Well, that’s the song in my head at this moment. “It’s time to make some food, let’s make it, let’s make it now!”

Between our own garden and the neighbor's farmstand down the road, our kitchen is brimming with  vegetables - squash, beans, garlic, peppers, onions and tomatoes. With this in mind, what I’m aiming for tonight is a fast, easy ratatouille.

Ah, ratatouille: the simple vegetable stew that is invariably the only vegetarian-friendly item I can find to eat at fancy French restaurants. Well, there is also the cheese soufflé, but that dish always reminds me of a story for another day, one that involves the Champs Élysées on New Years' Eve, a tiny table squeezed next to a swinging kitchen door, a large statue against which people were throwing full bottles of champagne, and a bunch of drunk U.S. Marines, one of whom decided to steal a kiss and got punched for his audacity. Like I said, a story for another day. Besides, not being a big egg-lover, I'm not such a fan of cheese soufflés.

Anyway, by now I know how I like my ratatouille. I don't use the typical eggplant (I'm a weird vegetarian that way; I hate both eggplants and mushrooms). Also, my version it isn’t strictly French. French Mediterranean perhaps, with a nod to North Africa from the chickpeas and green olives, and sometimes there is an Italian flair, depending on what cheese I throw on top and whether I serve it over pasta. Tonight, after I’ve enjoyed this hearty veggie stew with a little parm grated on top, a crusty slice of bread, and a full-bodied glass of red wine, I know I’ll go to bed satisfied.

Note: The main thing which makes this veggie stew 'ratatouille' is basically the use of herbes de provence. Herbes de provence may not be something you’ll find in the spice aisle at your typical grocery store, but it’s worth a look. You could order it from Penzey’s and any French bakery might have some bags piled on a shelf near the back. To me, herbes de provence tastes quintessentially French. The hint of lavender, maybe? Or is it the savory? I first encountered this mixture years ago in Belgium when a friend’s father threw a several teaspoons into a thick soup meant to satisfy a hungry vegetarian backpacker. I was instantly hooked.

Not-So-Classic Ratatouille

Saute for about 5 minutes on medium heat in a large skillet:

• olive oil
• 1 onion, rough chop
• 1 bell pepper, rough chop
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Add and cook 5 minutes more:

• a handful of haricot verts (small green beans), topped - if using larger beans, remove strings and break in half
• a heaping tablespoon herbes de provence, ground finely with a mortar and pestle or spice grinder
• 3 large tomatoes, chopped - even better, a 15-oz can whole tomatoes in juice, broken up with your hands or roughly cut with kitchen shears
• 1 medium zucchini, rough chop
• 1 medium yellow squash, rough chop

Stir in, then cover and turn heat to low, cooking for an additional 5 minutes:

• a 15-oz can chick peas, drained and rinsed
• ½ cup green olives, pitted and sliced
• salt and pepper to taste

To serve, sprinkle with cheese - grated Gruyere or parmesan reggiano. Have some good bread on hand for mopping it up. Ratatouille is good served the next day at room temp or even a bit chilled. It's also nice alongside or stuffed into an omelette if you're trying to hide the egg taste. :-) Bon appétit!

And to close, a few action photos highlighting our summer fun as of late...



Watch me Mommy! Are you watching? Watch me!!!

 

Our one-time scaredy-cat now loves dogs, go figure. And chickens.



Attempting some Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon action...minus the computer hocus pocus.