orange you glad

Okay, I know I said Italy but we've been re-routed. That’s modern travel for you. I just hope our luggage catches up.

When one of my children was about six, and she had at that point been to some pretty choice dining establishments despite her tender years, I asked her one day where she would like to go for dinner. “Can we go,” she asked hesitantly, “to the place where the golf is?” Since I was thinking about restaurants, at first I didn’t get that she meant the snack bar at the mini-golf park. “You know, the place where you tell them what you want, and then they give it to you through the window. That,” she said in a wistful tone, “is my FAVORITE kind of restaurant.”

A hundred or so years before that, I was in my 20’s and living in New York. I worked at a community organization in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and right in the middle of my route between that building and the elevated platform of the M train was a little diner with a short-order window that opened on the sidewalk. You could stop there and order a fried egg sandwich, or some chicken and rice, from the fellow on the other side of it. According to a hand-lettered sign on the window, you could also order a drink called a Morir Soñando, which roughly translates to “a dreamy death.” This was off-putting, to a degree, until a co-worker walking past with me persuaded me to try one. Reader, I married it. Lots of ice, orange juice, something milky and something from a little brown bottle that looked suspiciously like poison. The drink was delicious--kind of like a creamsicle, which I hesitate to say because I don’t even like those.

I lost touch with the Dreamy Death when I stopped working in Brooklyn, but every so often I would think about it and wonder if the little diner was still open. I was sure it was a secret recipe that belonged to the big, smiling man on the other side of the window, and was lost to me and to history by now. Then, about a year ago, it occurred to me to employ the internet on this matter. Morir Soñando turns out to be the national treat of the Dominican Republic, where it is apparently common to name foods after things you might not want to do or eat.

When you are walking from an un-air-conditioned building to an un-air-conditioned subway on a sidewalk spongy with summer heat, this is what you want. Alternatively, if it is winter and all you crave is citrus to rehydrate your body, dessicated from too much indoor air, or if you live in a citrus grove and are trying to think of just one more thing to do with the gusher of fresh orange juice spouting outside your window, you might be barking up the right tree here as well.

There are as many recipes for it as there are stars in the sky, it seems. Some of these recipes will instruct you to make a smoothie out of the ingredients. Some of them may suggest you add a truckload of sugar, and a good number of them will tell you it doesn’t matter if the orange juice is fresh or not. We all know an internet scam when we see one, right? Some people will tell you to wire a lot of money to Uganda immediately, but you don’t do that, either.

morir soñando

Per serving, you will need:

1c fresh squeezed OJ (you can buy it, just fork it over for the fresh stuff and refuse the carton's siren call)

a drop or two of bitters or vanilla
2-3 t of agave or simple syrup

enough ice to fill your designated serving cup

¼ c evaporated milk (NOT condensed milk)

In a jar with a secure lid, put the OJ and the the sweetener and the bitters or vanilla, along with the ice. Secure that lid and shake vigorously. Divide the ice and icy-cold juice among the serving glasses. Pour the shot of evaporated milk over top and insert a straw (absolutely essential) and serve immediately. Don't mix it. For the full creamsicle effect, let the slurping take care of that.

The fine print: Don't make it in advance, or the milk will go funny from the acid in the juice. I made a dairy-free version for a hot pal last summer using soy creamer, and I bet coconut milk would have some merit for that application as well.

Cheers.

she'll be waiting in Istanbul

Without meaning to, I’ve taken you to Turkey two days running. It’s good to get out and about, I guess. Tomorrow, depending on how tonight’s dinner pans out, I think we’ll be in Italy so pack accordingly.

In yoga this morning the instruction as we stretched (or lurched, in my case) was “melt your heart.” The hamstring area was impacted directly, as well as the psyche. If your Monday calls for comfort food--something I always associate with a spoon--then this may be the heart-melting ticket to heaven you are after.

A few caveats are in order here. First, the recipes I looked at called for blanched almonds, which I didn’t have and was unwilling to make. What I had in abundance was unsalted, toasted almonds with their skins on, and having used those once I don’t think I would try anything else. The flavor was stupendous. Second, the amount of sugar indicated was too much, so I reduced it. If you like things very sweet, try 2/3c. The suggested garnish was chopped pistachios, and I can see the merits there. I just didn't have any. If you do, and possibly also have access to a handful of pink rose petals gathered in the dew, I think that would be the right way to go. Almond extract was suggested as an ingredient, but I like the pure flavor of the food here so I skipped it. You might want to steep some cardamom pods in the milk along with the almonds, if you aren't in the mood for the straight, mild flavor of almonds. If dairy is a concern, I can’t see any particular reason why you couldn’t make this with soy milk. Finally, a recipe or two that I consulted instructed me to knead the ground almonds before steeping them in the milk, and as near as I can tell that may help you feel more Turkish, which could be a goal of yours, but won’t really affect the flavor of the final product.

turkish almond pudding

keskul

½ c almonds

1 quart of milk, divided

1/3 c basmati rice, or 1/3 c + 1T rice flour

½ c sugar

a pinch of salt

Grind the rice in a blender or food processor until it is quite fine. Remove 1/3 c of the rice powder and put it in a 4-cup glass measuring cup or a medium bowl. Pour ¼ c of cold milk over the rice powder, stirring to make a paste.

Put the almonds in the blender with the remaining T of rice powder, and pulse, pause, pulse, pause, until they are ground up too. (Running the machine consistently will create almond butter). Pour and scrape the almond meal into a small bowl or measuring cup.

In a medium saucepan, scald 1 c of the milk (heat until there are bubbles at the edge of the pot, but don’t boil). Pour this over the almonds and stir to combine. Set aside to steep.

Scald the remaining 2 ¾ c milk in the same pot, and pour this into the rice slurry, stirring constantly. Return this mixture to the pot and heat over low to medium heat, stirring all the while, until a strong simmer is reached. Add the pinch of salt and continue to stir and simmer for about ten minutes, until you have something like cream of wheat. Turn off the heat a moment.

Pour the almond/milk mixture through a fine mesh strainer into the cup you had the rice slurry in. Press with the back of the spoon to extract the liquid, and discard the solids. Add the strained almond milk to the pot, along with the sugar, and bring back to a simmer. Stir and simmer about another 8 minutes, until the cream of wheat consistency is restored. Pour into small dishes, garnish as you like, and maybe get a raspberry involved if you can get hold of a few.

super savor

Today I met a stupendous baby in the grocery store: about a year old, all smiles, and shopping for pals as her mother shopped for food. The baby had a little jar of snacks with her that she proudly held up for me to admire. Her mom opened the jar and handed her one of whatever was in there (goldfish crackers, from the look of things), and when she put it in her mouth the taste of it thrilled her so that a jolt of pleasure seemed to pass from her rosebud mouth all the way down her round little legs to her toes. A small squeal of happiness followed.

When was the last time you tasted something so completely, and felt (or allowed) the pleasure of it to reverberate through your whole self?

In these early days of a new year, I am ferreting out all the restorative pleasures I can, looking for any little moment in the day to connect doing and being, inner life and physical body. Cooking and eating are so grounding in that way, for me: driven by appetite, using my hands, my brain, and the fruits of the earth and air and water, taking this food in to make it possible to keep on keeping on. Alleluia.

Of course I sometimes eat a frozen waffle, or burn the soup, or even burn the frozen waffle. Not every calorie is forged in the furnace of the gods. But it feels right to be making a little room, here in the January grace period for Big New Ideas, to appreciate that feeding ourselves has the potential to be more than merely fueling the flesh-and-bone taxi that our brains ride around in. I don’t know if we are what we eat, but I do know that we aren’t if we don’t.

New ingredients can wake up your senses, but so can novel ways of combining or deploying things that are very familiar. In the first offering here, dill--usually a garnish or accent--becomes an actual vegetable, its intensity mellowed by the mild taste and melting texture of cooked spinach. It comes from Madhur Jaffrey, who is reassuring to cook with because she very confidently tells you exactly what to do. “You may serve this with this, or this. It is all you need.” There are days when it is relaxing to be instructed in this way. The yogurt sauce may seem like too much to bother with, but it takes about a minute to assemble and rocks your 2011 tastebuds into the new year nicely.

The second recipe is for the emergency salad I concocted when I noticed that spinach cooks WAY DOWN, farther than a person expects--even when, every time he sees a leaf of it, that person’s husband likes to say “never underestimate the power of spinach to cook down.” There were 7 of us for dinner and I had hardly enough of anything to constitute a whole salad with which to supplement the small and very flavorful bowl of spinach, but when what little of each thing I had got together in the bowl it worked out fine--so fine that I thought I would tell you about it.

sautéed spinach with dill and onion

(zeytin yagli ispanak)

adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian

serves 4 (do not underestimate the power of spinach to cook down, my friends)

3/4 pound baby spinach leaves, or 10 oz frozen spinach, thawed, or a combination

2 T olive oil

1 T butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 c finely chopped fresh dill

1/2 c water

salt to taste

yogurt sauce

1/2 c plain yogurt

1/4 t salt

1 small garlic clove, mashed to a pulp

optionally, a grating of lemon zest

1/4 t paprika

Put the oil and butter in a large pan (spinach may cook down--see above--but it starts out demanding lots of space), and heat it up. Add the onion and garlic and sauté over a low to medium flame for about 5 minutes, until the onion is soft and translucent. It should not brown. Add the spinach, dill and water and simmer gently, uncovered, for about ten minutes.

Make the yogurt sauce: combine the yogurt with the garlic, salt and optional lemon zest, and sprinkle the paprika on top. Serve the greens with a dollop of this on top.

emergency salad

1 heart of romaine lettuce

1/2 head of napa cabbage

1/2 an English or hothouse cucumber

1/2 c toasted almonds, chopped

2T toasted sesame oil

1T flax oil (you could use olive oil instead)

2 t tamari or shoyu

juice of half a lime (HA! you thought I was going to say lemon, but that would make a fine substitute)

red pepper flakes, if a little heat is desired, to taste

Slice the lettuce crosswise into 1/2" or so pieces, and cabbage similarly, maybe a little thinner. Quarter the cucumber lengthwise and slice it up into 1/4" pieces or thereabouts. Toss this in a salad bowl with the remaining ingredients, taste for any needed corrections in seasoning, and there you go.

stock response

In January it's so nice
While slipping on the sliding ice
To sip hot chicken soup with rice
Sipping once, sipping twice
Sipping chicken soup with rice

-Maurice Sendak

A tip from the very divine mastermind of Glutton For Life sent me scurrying over to Michael Ruhlman’s website the other day, and once I had thoroughly alarmed myself about the possibilities of committing involuntary manslaughter with homemade chicken broth and taken a Solemn Vow Of Immediate Refrigeration, I stumbled into the embrace of Ruhlman’s essay on reviving Americans' interest in cooking for ourselves. It was a perfect antidote to the Alarming Broth Report, as well as a welcome encouragement to keep yabbering on in this space about what I make for dinner. Here is a snippet:

Americans are being taught that we’re too stupid to cook. That cooking is so hard we need to let other people do it for us. The messages are everywhere. Boxed cake mix. Why is it there? Because a real cake is too hard! You can’t bake a cake! Takes too long, you can’t do it, you’re gonna fail!

Look at all those rotisserie chickens stacked in the warming bin at the grocery store. Why? Because roasting a chicken is too hard, takes FOREVER. An hour. I don’t have an hour to watch a chicken cook!

Mindset, mindset! Exactly! Once more I found myself nodding vigorously enough to dislodge a molar. Life is full of drains on our time and distractions and pressing commitments, it’s true. But we have to eat, and often. All five senses are involved, whether they are rewarded for it or not. You don’t have to make trouble for yourself in order to excite them, although there is certainly infinite room to do so. We get several opportunities each day to thank our bodies with a good taste, pleasing fragrance, satisfying texture--maybe with no grander a gesture than a squeeze of lemon (okay, I am a little bit obsessed with lemons) in our water or, heaven, over the soup.

chicken soup with barley

1 whole boneless chicken breast

to season the chicken:

2t finely chopped or smashed preserved lemon, or substitute 1T of lemon juice, a scratch of lemon zest and a pinch of coarse salt

1 clove garlic, finely minced or pressed in a garlic press or run through a microplane grater

about a half inch of fresh ginger, grated on the microplane or other fine grater (about a teaspoon)

1T good olive oil

a few twists of the pepper mill

for the soup:

1-2 carrots, peeled and diced small

1-2 stalks celery, diced small

1 medium potato (Yukon or bliss) diced small

1 T olive oil

2.5 quarts of chicken broth

1 c pearled barley

optional garnish:

1-2 T finely chopped fresh dill

lemon wedges

Pound the chicken breast to about half an inch thick (I did this in the plastic bag the chicken breast came in, with the base of the olive oil bottle that was on the counter, just by way of indicating how refined a process pounding a paillard de poulet can be for those of us in street clothing)

Season the flattened chicken with the lemon, garlic, ginger, pepper and olive oil (I threw them into the bag and mashed it around).

Plop the chicken onto some broiler-proof apparatus and broil it until it's lightly browned and cooked through. Let it cool enough to handle, and chop it up.

In a large pot, sauté the vegetables in the olive oil until they begin to soften at the edges a little, about three minutes. Add the broth to the pot, and the barley, and bring to a steady simmer. Throw in the chopped chicken, and simmer it all until the barley is tender, about 30 minutes.

When you dish it up, sprinkle a few teaspoons of dill and a squeeze a little lemon on each bowl.

key chain

When I was pregnant with my second child and nearing the baby’s launch date, a friend asked me an odd question. It was not odd because it was intrusive--for one thing, I have been asked so many intrusive questions in all of my pregnancies that it would hardly have been worth getting my knickers in a twist over another one at that late date, and for another it was not intrusive. Or, it didn’t seem like it was. What she asked was “who’s doing your food?”

From time to time, when chatting with another person in one’s native tongue, one can encounter a sentence made up of words that are entirely recognizable, but whose overall meaning remains elusive. This was just such a time. When she perceived the mental echo on my part that her question had set off, she re-phrased it. “Your meals, I mean. Who is in charge of your meals?” We edged a hair closer to a shared understanding, but only a hair. These, too, were all words I knew well, but I still couldn’t make the gist of the question out.

Eventually, using a combination of patience and semaphore and monosyllables comprehensible even to my gestational brain, I was introduced to the concept of the food chain. When our first baby arrived four years before this, we stumbled along eating what we could throw together quickly with one eye open and one arm free, and when our families came around, we ate better. Baby: The Sequel opened the door to a whole new world. Kind Feeding Friend set up a schedule, and every few days, hot food prepared by other pals came to the door right at the time the baby and the preschooler and the parents began warming up for the evening sonata of crabbiness. It was heaven. When we had our third baby, his sisters were in two different schools, and we had TWO chains. "Is it only for babies that we get this?" asked my husband, briefly considering a fourth.

Since that initiation we have been links and we have been recipients many times over, for times of joyful arrivals and sad departures and lingering maladies. I think it is one of the proudest accomplishments of civilization, this simple act of putting nourishment together in one home and taking it to another. When you are unable to easily feed yourself, you get fed; when you are fluttering around unsure of how to be of use to others in need, you have an action plan.

Some friends of ours had a baby right before the holidays, and it’s a good-looking baby. I had a look at it the other day, when I brought them this food. I put some of the food, the part I am telling you about in detail, on a stick, because there are toddlers in the house, and even toddlers who aren’t adjusting to a new sibling like food on a stick--as do parents grabbing food with one hand as they blow by the kitchen en route to the changing table or the washing machine. It was all food that could be eaten at its arrival temperature, or chilled now to heat up later, or just eaten standing up in front of the fridge. You don’t need a new baby to look favorably on a meal like that.

Don’t be alarmed by the lemongrass. It is not hard to find or to deal with. Mindset, mindset. Or the sticks, because you can just skip them entirely, which is how we roll around here when it’s not for company.

sort of satay

In the jar of your blender or in a cup that your hand-blender fits into, put:

½ c coconut milk (about a third of the can; I used light because that was all I had, but regular would work just fine, too)

a quick scrape of a lime’s zest over a microplane

the juice of that lime

1 ½ T fish sauce

a handful of fresh cilantro, leaves and stems, chopped

1 stalk of lemongrass, outer husky bits removed and tender core finely minced

Blend all these things for a half a minute or so.

If you are using them, put 12 bamboo skewers to soak in a dish of warm water. Really. Otherwise you will set them on fire.

Get a bowl or baking dish ready to marinate things in, and put into it one of these things:

• A sirloin steak, sliced across the grain into ½ “ slices and fat trimmed off
• A chicken breast, treated the same
• A pork tenderloin, as above
• 1# firm tofu, drained, cut into 2” cubes and pressed in a towel to get it dry

All of the animal options slice much more cooperatively if your knife is very sharp or if they are partially frozen.

Pour about half the coconut milk mixture over the protein, toss to coat, and let it all sit for a half hour or so. Reserve the remaining sauce.

Thread the meat onto the sticks in whatever arts-and-crafts way appeals to you. Set the sticks on a broiling pan (if you have no grilling apparatus, like me) in a single layer, tucking exposed sticks under an opposite-facing row of skewered meat to help prevent forest fires. Broil the first side until browned to your liking, then flip. The slices are thin so it all cooks in a snap. You can also grill it, if you have the technology. Serve with the reserved sauce for dipping.

I packed these in a basket with a big pot of fried rice, made with brown rice (which is good for you) and plenty of nourishing but not alarming nubbins mixed in, like baby spinach and corn and peas. In related news, I made Mollie Katzen’s baked custard with the remainder of the coconut milk, but that has to get through the 2.0 version before I foist it on an unsuspecting public. Watch this space.

in a parallel universe

look what someone else is doing in their fruit bowl!

hop to it

I wanted to make hoppin’ john today, it being the first day of the new year, but I didn’t have any black-eyed peas and the only grocery store open today in town didn’t either, so I made these instead, substituting navy beans for the pois pigeon, letting the bright green parsley in the gremolata stand in for the traditional collards, and giving the gremolata a Persian cha-cha with preserved lemon in place of the straight stuff. Ooh, look, so many different cultures living happily together in the bowl. Has to bode well for the year.

lucky beans

2c navy or great northern beans (a pound)

6 slices of bacon, diced as fine as you can stand to dice it (almost-frozen bacon dices very peacefully, while raw bacon resists dicing vigorously)

3-5 cloves of garlic, one clove whole and the rest finely chopped

½ t cumin seed

½ c finely chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley

2 T finely chopped preserved lemon, divided

1/3 cup excellent, fruity olive oil

pinch of red pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

Quick-soak the beans by covering them in plenty of water in a medium pot, bringing it to a boil, then letting the beans sit off the heat in the hot water for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350. Drain the beans, and place them in a dutch oven with the single whole garlic clove and water to cover by about two inches, and bring this all to a low boil over medium heat while the oven heats up. Put the lid on the pot and stick it in the oven, turning the heat down to about 300, and leave it there for about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally, until the beans are quite tender. Test at least 11 of them, from different areas of the pot, before you decide they are done. If you don’t, approximately 94 rogue undercooked beans will lurk in there and make a nasty surprise for you later, and this dish is supposed to be about your lucky new year and you wouldn’t want that. When you are satisfied that you have a nicely cooked pot of beans, remove it from the oven and set it on the stove.

While the beans are simmering in the oven, put the diced bacon in a heavy skillet and turn the heat to medium. Once things are sizzling, bring the heat down as low as it will go and let the bacon render its fat completely, leaving completely crispy bacon nubbins. This may take about 15 minutes, but do not think it is a good time to nip into the next room and check your email. You will burn it then, if you are anything like me. So stay nearby, stirring occasionally, until you have a nicely even mahogany color and total crispiness throughout. Use a slotted spoon to remove the bits of bacon to a napkin-lined plate.

Pour off most of the fat, leaving a slick in the pan, and turn the flame up slightly. Put in the cumin seeds, and stir once. Put in the chopped garlic, and stir again until the fragrance rises (do NOT let it brown), then turn off the heat and add all but about 2t of the preserved lemon. Stir once, then scrape the garlic, lemon and cumin into the pot of beans. Add all but 3T of the bacon bits to the pot as well, and a few twists of black pepper and some salt to taste. Stir all this in, and add a splash of water or broth if the beans seem thick. Simmer this a moment to marry the flavors.

In a small bowl, combine the remaining bacon and lemon with the parsley, olive oil and pepper flakes.

Serve the warmed beans with a dollop of this mixture on top, over rice or with nice bread for dunking, and have a peaceful and tasty year.