Summer Feasting, Greek-style

I always love an excuse to cook up a storm. Maybe it’s someone’s birthday, or we have an out-of-town visitor, or maybe I just scored a huge bunch of beets at the farmer’s market and feel compelled to create a whole meal around them. It’s funny to me that people sometimes seem overwhelmed by my efforts, almost guilty even, when they see me busy in the kitchen. I wouldn’t go to the trouble if I didn’t love doing it, I say, but still they seem rather uncomfortable. Maybe it’s just that people don’t want to expend so much energy in the kitchen anymore? Personally, I love the challenge of getting five dishes going at once, making substitutions and adaptations on the fly, rotating burner and oven rack space, orchestrating it all to be ready at the same time.

Anyway, yesterday we had a couple of our favorite people over for lunch and to celebrate, I decided to channel my inner Greek village mama. You know, the one that puts out way too much food and then exhorts you over and over again to Eat! Eat! Well, eat we all did, and somehow still managed to find space for an impromptu dessert (no, I didn’t think that far ahead in my meal planning). Below is a picture of the savories: Kale spanikopita, squash patties (kolokithokefthedes – say that 3 times fast!), fava beans in tomato sauce (gigantes), lemon-garlic-dill green beans, roasted beet/Vidalia onion salad, plus liberal helpings of feta cheese, kalamata olives, and bread. Scrounging for dessert, we came up with French vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate shavings, thawed strawberries and their juice, plus a sprinkling of Amaretto liqueur on top. Yep, we pretty much rolled away from the table after the meal.

Greek feast!

I’ve posted the kale spanikopita recipe before – I call it kalepita – but wanted to share how to make gigantes and kolokithokefthedes, as they are both super-easy and high on the yum scale. These are classic Greek bar appetizers – vegetarians visiting Greece fare best by ordering mostly appetizers, in my experience – and the fresh herbs in both dishes, plus a little squeeze of lemon juice, really shout summer.

Gigantes (Fava Beans in Tomato Sauce)

• 1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 15 oz cans fava beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
• salt and pepper to taste 

Combine all ingredients in a medium-sized pot, bring to a boil and then turn down to a low simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve at room temp alongside brown bread for mopping up the sauce, or with rice pilaf.

Kolokithokefthedes (Squash Patties)

Note: Any stage of making the batter can be done beforehand and refrigerated overnight, since it needs to be refrigerated at least an hour anyway.

• 4 medium zucchini squash, cut into 3 chunks each. Place in a medium pot with several inches of water in the bottom. Bring to a boil and then cook until tender (about 10 min). Drain, mash with a fork and set aside.
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped. Saute in 2 T butter until soft (about 5 min).
• ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 handful of fresh mint, chopped
• ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
• ½ tsp salt
• pepper
• 2 eggs, beaten lightly
• 1 cup bread crumbs (1 piece fresh bread, toasted and whirled in processor) 

Combine all ingredients to make batter. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Place ½ cup flour into a bowl. Heat ¼ cup olive oil in a wide bottomed pan until it’s hot enough that a little bit of the batter sizzles when you drop it in. 
 
Scoop up about ¼ cup batter at a time, loosely forming it into a flat circle and then dredge it in the flour before sliding into the oil. Cook until light brown on each side.

Squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the patties before serving.

And just for fun, a few of my other favorite summer things...

Adirondack chairs



Straw sunhats



Waterfall hikes

Painted toenails

Happy Summer!

Scapes, Strawberries, Stories

Whenever I'm visiting with an old friend or getting to know a new one, I usually find that it's in the old-fashioned sharing of stories that our real connections are forged. And in other people's stories I sometimes recognize my own joys and struggles in life, giving me the wonderful feeling that not only do we have something in common but - huge relief! - I'm not alone in it all. Recently I've begun to realize something else about story-telling: when I tell my own story to someone, I'm also telling the story to myself.

It might be assumed that I would already know what my story was, and it's true I've met a number of people who are blessedly conscious in that way, but sadly I am not one of them. Not yet, anyway. For many years, I have told my stories to others but never truly listened to them myself. This habit is to my detriment, for sure. Lately though, my ears have perked up, perhaps because for a while now I've been telling the same story about my life to everyone I talk with. It's not a particularly uplifting story as stories go, and once I finally started hearing myself, really hearing the negative story that I always seem to tell, I decided that certain things have got to change.

Most of the changes won't happen right away, but the first thing I can change is my attitude about where I am now. Giving thanks is a big part of that. So is trying to take the long view, the high-altitude view, or any view but the one I usually have - the down-in-the-trenches view. Better to not take the rear view, either - looking backward hasn't done me much good, that's for sure. So there's a change in perspective that I want to effect. And then there will be changes in situation, actual changes in my reality. Of course changes inevitably happen, whether we do anything or not, but I hope to find the energy, creativity and strength to ensure that those changes will be the ones to help me have a better story to tell. More on that to come.



Need to be like the beaver and get busy



For now, it's officially the start of summer! And that is a change I've been waiting for all year. Welcome strawberries, welcome beans, welcome squash (hot East Coast temps lately, yikes). Best of all, welcome garlic scapes! Scapes are the tops of garlic when it flowers, and growers cut them off this time of year to help the bulbs develop fully beneath the ground. Besides my huge love of garlic flavor in general, it's the aesthetic beauty of curly, unruly scapes that speaks to my heart. Their very short season - usually just a couple of weeks overlapping strawberry season - forces me to wait patiently each year. I'll always remember the farmstand we stopped at a few years ago on the way home from a windy day at Crane Beach, MA. They were selling little bundles of scapes and offering samples of two dips made with them. I took the scapes and the dip recipes home with me and promptly fell in love.  



Sculptural garlic scapes



White Bean Dip

I like to serve this dip with whole wheat pita bread, toasted whole

in the toaster oven and then broken into rough pieces.

• In a food processor, blend: 1/3 cup sliced scapes, 1 T lemon juice, 1/2 t sea salt, 1/8 t pepper
• Add and pulse 1 can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
• Add and pulse 1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
• Add and pulse 2 T water
• Add a little more lemon juice or salt if it needs it. Process until the dip is smooth, but not runny. If you leave it in the fridge overnight it will thicken up a bit.

White Bean Dip w/Pita Crisps

Garlic Top Pesto

This is not only great over pasta, but also on crackers and as a dip for crudites.

• Pulse until smooth: 1/4 c extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 c unsalted peanuts
• Add and pulse 1/3 lb coarsely chopped scapes
• Add and pulse 1/4 c finely grated parmesan, adding a little extra olive oil if needed. Check for salt.

And now on to what most people think is the star of the early summer season, strawberries! This shortcake made a brief appearance before disappearing into our tummies...the recipe came from here.

We ate nearly the entire shortcake - 2 weeks later, I think I still feel full.

And what would a warm summer day be without refreshments? Ever since we picked nearly 20 pounds of strawberries at a local organic farm a few weeks ago, I've been eyeing the bags of them stacked up in our freezer and contemplating the possibilities. Strawberry shortcake, yes. Strawberry waffles, yes. Strawberry daiquiries, now we're talking! No official recipe for these, I just filled the blender about halfway up with frozen berries, added a couple jiggers of rum, a few spoonfuls of sugar, and enough water to make it all blend up nicely. So, so good...



Summer Strawberry Bliss!!!



Finding Abundance - Even in Collard Greens

Only recently have I woken up to the fact that I still have the child's habit of seeing the world in zero-sum terms. Win/lose, gain/loss, give/receive. Years of dieting have probably made it worse. With ample time unaccounted for these days, I sometimes drift off into tallying mode. Given that most human beings are far better at remembering the negative than the positive, and given that I am more human than most, this tallying activity is not a productive one. I count up dollars earned and dollars spent this month and come up...negative. I count up friends made and friends lost for various reasons in recent years and come up...negative. I count up favors extended and favors returned and come up...well, you get the picture.


Do elephants remember more of the bad stuff, too?

Writing this, I look out the window and see my children playing in the yard. They are clearly having a blast wading through the brush-pile, squelching through our fern-filled swamp, and clambering over the boulders that line the yard. My brain fills with images of impossible-to-get-out grass stains, new tennis shoes filled with mud, pants ripped at the knee and seat. As if reading my mind, the girls have now thrown their shoes and clothes into a heap. I keep quiet, wanting them to enjoy their freedom from self-consciousness as long as they can. But already I imagine Lyme-disease-carrying ticks, swollen mosquito bites keeping them awake at night, bloody scratches that are sure to deplete our Bandaid stockpile. This very well may be my last summer home full-time with them. How can I focus on the abundance and not the lack?

Tree-climbing in a long skirt on the last day of school...with me cringing.

This is a tough practice. And a moment ago, as if to taunt me even further, all my words just disappeared from the computer screen when I swiped at the touchpad to get rid of a tiny bug. Fortunately, my first reaction to hit control-Z was the right one and all was restored. What about the times when I first react wrongly? Yelling at the kids, who in every case, are just being kids after all. Lashing out at my spouse, who cannot be held responsible for the frustrations that plague my heart. Silently fuming at other people, who are only acting within their own limitations, just as I act within mine. Regret and apologies pile up like dirty laundry.



Oh, to have the perspective of a tree...

I come back to the idea I've been pondering lately of seeking grace by giving constant thanks. Stopping time for a moment to notice the miracle of a bean seed breaking through moist soil. My daughter's once-chubby legs, now growing long and (so soon?) looking rather shapely in last year's shorts. Humidity rising from the grass after morning's rain. Birdsong and breezy-leafy-treesong. Unguarded smiles when the girls see that I am not going to yell at them for playing naked in the yard or chase them down with sunblock. Not this time, anyway. And thoughts of our well-stocked pantry, freezer full of delicious, organic, local strawberries, and fridge bursting with bags of local collards, kale and salad greens. So much abundance, everywhere I look. And where there is real lack, real sorrow, a reminder to have faith that everything happens according to Plan.

Wild strawberries growing behind the house.

Tiny roses at the edge of a hiking trail.

Tonight I will begin dinner early by boiling a pot of collard greens. Their bitter, rotting smell will permeate the house, even with windows open. As the dinner hour approaches, I will chop garlic and squeeze lemon juice, pour out a little olive oil and saute those greens, replacing the nasty aroma with a luscious one. And everyone, even my super-picky child and her skeptical daddy, will ask for seconds. Fortunately I will have cooked two bunches' worth. An abundance of one of the healthiest vegetables around.

I will serve the collards with an old stand-by - Tomato Sauce with Beans Over Cheesy Polenta. It is a 15-minute dinner solution that for our family, means both sustenance and balm from whatever the day has wrought.

Cheesy Polenta
Bring 6 cups water to boil. Slowly whisk in 2 cups of polenta and a healthy pinch of salt. Cover and turn heat down to a low simmer. After about 10 minutes, remove from heat and stir in 4 T butter and 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese. Check for salt.

Tomato Sauce with Beans
In a medium-sized saucepot, heat up a jar of your favorite marinara sauce or a 32-oz can of Italian-style chopped tomatoes, along with a 15-oz can of rinsed black, kidney or cannelini beans. If you like, stir in a pinch of red chili flakes. Grate some extra Parmesan cheese to serve on top.
Serve the sauce on top of the polenta, alongside a mess'o'greens.

Thankfulness (and it's not even Thanksgiving)

I've been reading the most wonderful book, given to me by my mom during a lovely, recent visit. It's called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and it's all about finding grace in the midst of life's challenges - even in the face of significant loss. The dare is to live fully, right where you are. Voskamp learns how to do this by giving thanks in the form of a daily list. Her goal is to reach one thousand things, and bit by bit, the gratitude she practices each day becomes internalized and develops into a fairly ongoing state of grace. A grace that heals her deepest wounds and puts a totally different slant on the life she lives. I still have much of the book left to read but so far all I can say is, Wow.

I feel so fortunate that books always seem to come to me just when I need them, whether it's a gift or something I pick up on the free table at the community center or the local food coop, or find propped open on a shelf at the library. For a long time now, I've been struggling to find my place in the world, trying to determine my right relationship to others around me, attempting to reason my way through it all but with little success. Voskamp's approach strikes me as fundamental and true. We are given just one life here on earth (at least according to my faith tradition) and since there's no way to know how it will all come out in the end, the only thing we can know with certainty is what's here and now. To identify and appreciate the small things, the insignificant things, is to be fully present to our lives in this moment. And if we're living fully in the here and now, we have no time for what I call the "couldawouldashoulda's". We all have them: the missed opportunities, the regrettable actions by ourselves and by others we care about, the "if only that story could have turned out differently." We may rail against God, against each other, against ourselves. Making us unable to see the small graces all around us right now.

In a nod to Voskamp and in an attempt to begin my own "one thousand things," below are a few images to help me begin this journey toward grace. Perhaps it will inspire you on your journey.