Category: Food

Food Poem -A Quiet Life by Baron Wormser

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fc83kt071-02_xlg.jpgWhat a person desires in life
is a properly boiled egg.
This isn’t as easy as it seems.
There must be gas and a stove,
the gas requires pipelines, mastodon drills,
banks that dispense the lozenge of capital.
There must be a pot, the product of mines
and furnaces and factories,
of dim early mornings and night-owl shifts,
of women in kerchiefs and men with
sweat-soaked hair.
Then water, the stuff of clouds and skies
and God knows what causes it to happen.
There seems always too much or too little
of it and more pipelines, meters, pumping
stations, towers, tanks.
And salt-a miracle of the first order,
the ace in any argument for God.
Only God could have imagined from
nothingness the pang of salt.
Political peace too. It should be quiet
when one eats an egg. No political hoodlums
knocking down doors, no lieutenants who are
ticked off at their scheming girlfriends and
take it out on you, no dictators
posing as tribunes.
It should be quiet, so quiet you can hear
the chicken, a creature usually mocked as a type
of fool, a cluck chained to the chore of her body.
Listen, she is there, pecking at a bit of grain
that came from nowhere.

Poem from the http://writersalmanac.org/

Image from http://www.finecooking.com/articles/how-to/boil-eggs-perfectly.aspx

Food Poem – On the Back Porch by Dorianne Laux

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Notice how a bowl of soup in this poem evokes a sense of comfort and love. Makes me want to make a “simmering pot of soup.” Just wonderful. Enjoy.

The cat calls for her dinner.
On the porch I bend and pour
brown soy stars into her bowl,
stroke her dark fur.
It’s not quite night.
Pinpricks of light in the eastern sky.
Above my neighbor’s roof, a transparent
moon, a pink rag of cloud.
Inside my house are those who love me.
My daughter dusts biscuit dough.
And there’s a man who will lift my hair
in his hands, brush it
until it throws sparks.
Everything is just as I’ve left it.
Dinner simmers on the stove.
Glass bowls wait to be filled
with gold broth. Sprigs of parsley
on the cutting board.
I want to smell this rich soup, the air
around me going dark, as stars press
their simple shapes into the sky.
I want to stay on the back porch
while the world tilts
toward sleep, until what I love
misses me, and calls me in.

from http://writersalmanac.org/

 

 

Goan Fish Curry – Testing Saveur Recipe

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Every region thinks that their cooking is the best. Despite being Bengali, I concede yesterday’s Saveur recipe of the day of Goan Fish Curry was…… excellent. Two things make it both satisfyingly hearty yet bright in flavor.

  • The recipe promised vinegar to be the magic ingredient. It was. I was skeptical about the coconut milk and vinegar combination. Now I want to add vinegar to everything!
  • The second trick that I’ll use in other fish dishes is marinating the fish in lemon juice and salt for a half an hour before cooking. It starts the cooking process and makes the fish taste fresh and “less fishy.”

I used catfish, instead of cod. Had about pound and a half instead of two. And, may have added more vinegar than the recipe called for.

Here is the recipe. Try it.

Enjoy!

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Brussels Sprouts and Chocolate Cake

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No…………. not baked together, silly.

This was a savory sweet accident. At Target, I found assorted chopped and bagged vegetables that include sugar snap peas, shaved brussels sprouts, cubed sweet potatoes and pumpkins, etc: two bags for $5. Sounded like an easy experiment.

  1. Placed the cubed sweet potatoes and shaved brussels sprouts on a sheet pan.

  2. Tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and paprika. A drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

  3. Bake 425 until sprouts become like crispy onions. Drizzle more balsamic vinegar. Enjoy.

My oven is not working well and is unable to maintain a steady temperature. Ahhhh….old age. So, the vegetables were in the oven much longer than usual. My new favorite. Really. Even suspicious of brussels sprouts, Jim liked it. I would have it over rice, toast, or even nachos, like at our local restaurant Restauration that serves fantastic brussels sprouts nachos. In fact, this recipe was probably inspired by that recent post- volunteering dining experience with Atiya.

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Friday was devoted to paying forward all that I eat. A dinner for 30 at Lafayette Urban Ministry’s homeless shelter. For less than $60! Embarrassingly easy and affordable. Made Beef Stew (having tired of making chili the past few times). Also, I’d like to include more healthy vegetables to the mix. Taking a vegetarian meal seems insufficient. I don’t know. Maybe I should ask the coordinator. Thoughts?

Happy to report, another successful weekend experiment was Patti’s Chocolate Cake. Yay! Mine was not much of a looker but it tasted ALMOST as good as Patti’s.

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Her chocolate icing recipe is surprisingly simple but it may take some practice to get it just right. I don’t mind practicing a few times.

Here is Patti’s recipe. Ava and Lucy this is for you:

Chocolate Cake

Make layers using 2 boxes Duncan Hines Cake mix. The make sure layers are not too sweet, use beer in place of water when making the layers. Bake in three 9 inch pans. When the layers are cool, slice each layer in half.

Icing – Make two batches

½ C. Butter

4 T. Cocoa

6-7 T. milk

1 box 10X Powdered Sugar

In a double boiler melt the butter. Stir in 4 T of cocoa. Add milk and cook for about a minute while stirring. Pour over powdered sugar. Mix slowly until combined, add another 2-3 T of milk, and beat on highest speed until frosting is creamy. Pour over the each layer, allowing chocolate to soak into each layer. This should cover about three half layers. Make an additional batch of icing and finish cake.

I hope your weekend included tasty experiments, sharing and giving things that are broken more time.

Wishing you a wonderful first week of February,

Hungryphil

 

Sunday Clean-Up Dinner

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Like so many of us, Sunday, is the day for weekly groceries: A day of accounting for leftovers and unused fresh ingredients from the week before. Will I eat this? Can I still cook this? Does this smell? Can I transform this? It requires honesty and creativity.

Here’s how I did on the scale of efficient mindful eating:

  1. Two packs of chicken wings having waited in the fridge for two weeks, smelled and perished. [Thank you Jim for throwing the stinky chicken out] Yuck.
  2. Used this week’s leftover pumpkin curry to make vegetable koftas (veggieballs). Its a good way to use up any cooked leftover vegetables. Mix leftovers with mashed potatoes, bread crumbs and egg.  Add enough of each in order to form small balls. Fry or bake. Wednesday I’ll make a quick tomato cream curry sauce and simmer the koftas.
  3. A head of cabbage evolved into veggie egg rolls. A great way to use up any “shreddable” vegetable. I added the last three scrawny carrots in the bag, half a head of cabbage, onions, cilantro and mushrooms.
  4. With brown bananas: Bananas with Chinese five-spice Eggrolls. Froze the last brown banana for smoothies later this week.
  5.  Leftover fresh spinach became an easy spinach garlic saute.
  6. A package of skinless chicken thighs became Thai red curry [red curry paste, fish sauce, brown sugar, coconut milk and lemon grass]
  7. Leftover scrambled eggs from Tuesday’s winter weather two-hour school delay become Sunday’s toasted breakfast sandwiches with spinach, tomato and swiss cheese.
  8. I still have kale in the fridge. I trust it will make it to my plate this week. Kale is strong in so many ways.

So begins a new week with re-purposed leftovers, fresh veggies and a few lost items (sorry stinky chicken wings). On the whole, I’m glad to say I enjoyed more than I wasted. The redcurry, spinach and rice, although not much of a looker (few curries are) was filling, bright and gently spicy. The sweet banana eggroll was decadent drizzled with honey, crunchy and smoky sweet. I really liked the Chinese five-spice with the bananas. I might even make this when I don’t have to save bananas from the trash bin!

Now I have red curry, spinach and eggrolls in the fridge. The virtuous cycle of left-overs continues…

Hoping you had a mindful and delicious weekend too,

Hungryphil

 

 

Kheer – Rice Pudding with Jaggery

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Dear Atiya,

Here are two recipes for the kheer you enjoyed in Fort Worth. The first recipe is the original, your Mimi’s, the second is my inauthentic version you tried recently.

Moli’s Original Kheer Recipe

1/2 pint of Half and Half
1/2 pint 2% Milk
1/2 Cup Soaked Chinigura rice
3/4 cup Jaggery
1/2 cup Coconut
Simmer rice and liquids until soft.
Gradually add jaggery.
Add shredded coconut.
Enjoy.

Mom’s Inauthentic Kheer Recipe

2 1/2 cups of whole milk [had some left over from Mac and Cheese the other night]
1/2 cup Jasmine Rice [I was too lazy to open a fresh bag of Chinigura rice]
3/4 cup Jaggery [bought in Dallas, use poor substitute brown sugar if unavailable]
1/4 cup Shredded Coconut
I heated the milk and rice with 1 cinnamon stick, 3 cardamoms and 1 bay leaf [because I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to because it competes with the jaggery flavor]
Be sure to simmer on low otherwise milk will boil over. This takes a while, about 30-40 minutes. Don’t rush it. The milk will thicken and the rice will soften.
Once the rice was soft, I added the jaggery and the shredded coconut.
Your done! Enjoy warm or chilled.

 

I’m sure you’ll find your own version when you make it.  Basically milk, rice and sugar. The key is the low and slow simmering.

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Wonders of Waffle House

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It wasn’t until Anthony Bourdain extolled the virtues of the Waffle House during a show about Atlanta that I took the humble roadside eatery into consideration. The squat square building capped by a yellow awning and the stark  self-explanatory words “Waffle House”  would be easily overlooked if not for the tall yellow scrabble-tile looking road sign. An Eater.com story by Khusbu Shah explains, Bourdain’s fascination with the place, as exotica,

“Bourdain revealed that while he did try local delicacies like hominy and hoppin’ john, he was most blown away by one discovery in particular: “The glories of the Waffle House.” Bourdain explained: “Talk about exotica, I’ve never been. It’s apparently a place you can go no matter how wrecked and obnoxious you are or how late at night… they are nice to you.” Amused by Bourdain’s admission, Colbert reveals his favorite part about the 24-hour chain: “The nice thing about the Waffle House is that the menu is all pictures, you don’t have to read.”

Yes, yes, I know those of you in the southern states and Indiana [southern in spirit] are rolling your eyes at Yankee anthropological attempts to understand and appreciate “the south” with a mocking undertone. I confess, I myself, entered the with an unacknowledged sense of judgment that quickly evaporated.  First of all, the waitress put  Jim and I at ease by making light of our misguided attempt to enter the diner through the front (where there is no entrance), “I was wondering where you were going?” she sweetly chuckled. Menus were on the table. Coffee soon followed. This was the first time I could choose to have my hash browns: smothered (with onions), capped (with mushrooms), diced (with tomatoes) and peppered (with jalapeno peppers). It was strangely satisfying to personalize otherwise standard and uniform potatoes. Even in the morning light the atmosphere was welcoming as Bourdain claimed. It didn’t take much to imagine what an oasis it would be in the darkness when everything else is closed and one is hungry, hungover, high or just sad and lonely. This is not a Edward Hopper painting of modern alienation rather a calming place  at the counter, watching the eggs sizzle, catching the wafting scent of waffles and allowing oneself to be held in the dance of hardworking cooks and waitresses around you. You are not alone, even if eating alone.

I happily had good company during  the post-holiday weekday morning rush.  Perhaps because of my low expectations or maybe the food WAS really just good, I don’t know, but I found the hashbrowns light and flavorful (not laden with grease), the eggs gently cooked sunny side up and the toasted (and buttered!) biscuit a perfect platform for strawberry jelly.  The line of people waiting against the entry wall made sense.

Just like the signage and building, the food and experience held no pretensions of grandeur, competition or beneficence. I suppose that honesty and simplicity is one of the wonders of the Waffle House [open for 60 years, year-round, including Christmas].

Here is a recent article shared on facebook about Waffle House (Thank You, Rachel!). Note: They take Valentine’s reservations. Despite my appreciation, I don’t think we’ll be attending.

Wishing you all happy roadside eating,

Hungryphil

  
  

Food Poem-Everybody Made Soups by Lisa Coffman

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After it all, the events of the holidays,

the dinner tables passing like great ships,
everybody made soups for a while.
Cooked and cooked until the broth kept
the story of the onion, the weeping meat.
It was over, the year was spent, the new one
had yet to make its demands on us,
each day lay in the dark like a folded letter.
Then out of it all we made one final thing
out of the bounty that had not always filled us,
out of the ruined cathedral carcass of the turkey,
the limp celery chopped back into plenty,
the fish head, the spine. Out of the rejected,
the passed over, never the object of love.
It was as if all the pageantry had been for this:
the quiet after, the simmered light,
the soothing shapes our mouths made as we tasted.

“Everybody Made Soups” by Lisa Coffman from Less Obvious Gods. © Iris Press, 2013.

From the Writer’s Almanac

Rooted Cosmopolitanism of Nested Travelers

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Last post I had causally asked if there was a way out of the seeming dichotomy between local farm to table eating and cosmopolitan global eating. Food philosopher, Lisa Heldke, asked the same question in an insightful essay entitled,”Down-Home Global Cooking: A Third Option between Cosmopolitanism and Localism.”Relying on Kwame Anthony Appiah’s idea of “rooted cosmopolitanism,” she asks the same questions far more eloquently than I had and even offers a possible option in the “nested traveler” and writes:

“What kind of philosophy can underpin and advance the development of food practices that value both local food and ethnic cuisine swapping? That can acknowledge the legitimate rights of communities to cultivate deep and long connections to the soil, while also recognizing and valuing the insights that come from newcomers? “

According to Heldke, the third option must achieve the following aims,

“First, it will manifest literal “groundedness,” a nonarbitrary, nonoptional, earthy contextuality.

…

Second, this alternate option will recognize that no place is too small, local, and homogeneous to escape us/them thinking, nor is any connection between two people too tenuous to preclude the possibility that they will share a sense of being from the same tribe. That is connections and disconnections are never simple matters of location or dislocation.

…

A third option will also exhibit greater concern with the cultural than displayed by many agrarian forms of localism, and more concern with the agricultural than most versions of cosmopolitanism manifest.

…

A fourth aim of this third option is that it ought to help us think about how food practices could enable us both to conceptualize and to enact justice and sustainability — two sociopolitical aims toward which many eaters are attempting to aim our forks. Note that cosmopolitan options tend to emphasize that they alone are capable of safeguarding global justice, while localist options tend to suggest that they alone are concerned about environmental (and other forms of) sustainability.”

 

New Year’s Blackeyed Peas

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Eating black-eyed peas will bring you money in the new year, according to Southern tradition. Owing to this tradition, Rachel, my mom-in-law, made us a New Year’s lunch of collards, black eyed peas and cornbread. We also added leftover coleslaw and chicken wings. The bitter greens and the buttery beans soaked into the crunchy warm cornbread, and together became a hearty meal. I especially enjoyed the pepper sauce with the greens. The vinegar and spice of the sauce bites the bitterness back. A collision of strong angry flavors.

This was my first time eating black eyed peas in celebration of a New Year. I’m waiting for the money to start ringing in.

What are your New Year Celebration food traditions? Any favorites?

http://www.southernliving.com/food/holidays-occasions/new-years-recipes-traditions

http://www.epicurious.com/archive/holidays/newyearsday/luckyfoods

http://www.rd.com/food/fun/7-lucky-new-years-foods/