Menus, July 2, 2014

All nations are immediate to God.... every country has interests real and fictitious concerns generous and selfish, motives honorable and squalid. We too are a part of history's seamless web.

Arthur Schlesinger

Which has been a point of argument since 1604, when the first dictionary was published, and people could be absolutely sure that a point of argument was, in fact, the word for what they were fighting about. The thing is, that if we're all pretty much the same, there is no "them". 

And where there's no them, it gets harder to find an us.

Which would not be a problem, except we're pretty much all the same. We want to be unique, we want to fit in. We want to exist independently, we need love and community. We want rules, just not someone else's.
And the department of mind blowing circular ironies brings you the following fact: The desire to celebrate the unique character of one's own nation is so wonderfully human that every nation on the planet does it.

Every nation but one.
That would be Great Britain, the progenitor of many nations.

When the THEM gets larger and farther away, the US tends to get smaller and  tighter,

No, not tighter that way!
Well... not only that way....

Until the us decides that we don't really need the them and the us gathers itself together 'round the rallying cry "We are many and we are one and we are awesome!"
Although that is not a direct quote of the rallying cry heard round the world one July afternoon two hundred and thirty-eight years ago. The actual rallying cry of the American Colonists was more like,

"We are brilliant and brave and can totally rock satin breeches

while you, sir,  just wear really silly outfits."

and so in the banding together of one diverse group in a violent differentiation from its diverse group of origin,  

a new us is born. 

But here's what I especially love about the great big coast-to-coast us that I was born into. When we shoot the works on our National Day, we do it with a melting pot of food that is just like us- food that's come from all over the world to find itself on one plastic coated paper plate. Hamburgers and hot dogs from Germany, Corn from Central America, Potatoes from Peru (by way of Europe). Then there's fireworks from China, giving us a spectacular excuse to just sit and watch the night sky for twenty minutes. And a Summer's night sky? 

Well, that comes from everywhere,
and belongs to everyone.

One of the things that makes us modern Americans us, that is, the ever-looming threat of heart disease and diabetes, means few if any of the traditional Fourth of July feasties are going to wind up on plates over here. But that's okay, because of another thing that makes us us- the optimistic ability to adapt. We are champions at turning lemons into lemonade,

and turning lemonade into a multi-owner profit sharing beverage conglomerate.

The lemons here are a doctor's (very strong) recommendation to stick to a gluten-free version of the Mediterranean diet, and here's what I hope will be the lemonade: 

Thursday: Mediterranean Beans and Rice

Here's a new flavor spin on an old favorite. Ground turkey...hmm. What is it about ground turkey that seems to lay on your fork whispering "I am a substitute for the meat you'd rather have"? I think we'll leave it off entirely and go for all-vegetable protein.

Friday: Grilled Chicken and Artichoke Provecial

Look for bags of frozen Artichoke hearts in the weird vegetable section of the freezer case- they're much tastier and much cheaper than canned. The link here isn't really a recipe as much as a tutorial on how to grill a chicken breast that does not taste like chicken jerky, and it's a great one.

Saturday: Grilled Salmon and Roasted Red Pepper Salad

Again, a tutorial here on grilling salmon, and given my past history of nearly inedible fish, I need it. Costco, if there's one near you, is a good place to start for good salmon fillets at a reasonable price.

Sunday: Barbecued Chicken Salad 

Here's a great and tasty way to use up that leftover chicken and any leftover bean- and it won't be too hard to modify that dressing into something a little healthier.

Monday: Salmon Salad Nicoise

Another main dish salad, this one will use the leftover salmon. Salad Nicoise...sigh...so cool and so filling. One of my favorites.

 I have three times in these past days heard shop keepers and customers cheerily wish each other a "safe Fourth of July"... which is funny. Because we don't wish each other a safe Christmas, or a safe Easter, now do we? But I suppose it makes sense that we celebrate the happy outcome of a violent and costly struggle in ways that mix fun with a little danger....

or a lot of danger...
(yikes! that kid is about to become independent of his
arms and legs! children, do not try this at home...)

So I hope you have a safe and happy Fourth.

I hope that nothing important explodes,

and that nothing important is burned.

I hope you're with people who welcome you 

into an us.

people who value your independence

without leaving you all on your own.

And I hope you know that it matters-

every time you try to make your us

a little wider, a little wilder, 

a little more welcoming.

Because love that can hold out affection

to someone on the other side of otherness?

Well, that's the sort of spark

that can light the whole world.

Weekend Update, May 25, 2014

"One lives in the hope of becoming a memory."

Antonio Porchia 

Have you ever done that thing- that thing when you run into the grocers for just a few things, a very very tiny number of things, less than three things, really, so you don't even need a cart.

Pot roast and hot dogs. Two things. That's it.
Wait. Do we have potatoes and hot dog buns?
And I think we may be out of ketchup.
And potato chips. okay. Six things...

And before you know it, those one or two things that didn't even need a cart are 9 or 10 things that are ooching out from under your elbow and held precariously in place by your chin. Not to mention your arms are starting to hurt and that gallon of milk is really cold.
There are of course several things that could be learned, each and every time this happens.

One could learn to bring along someone
with large and willing arms.

One could learn to always get a
cart. Even for one or two things.

Or, if you're like me, you could forget learning any of that practical stuff, and as the eggs slip a little further out from under your elbow, you could stand in the middle of an aisle, thinking that groceries

are like your brain.

That is, sometimes we ask our brain to hold so many things, that one or two things inevitably drop off.  You remember and remember and think and think and plan and plan and get to the end of the day only to remember that you forgot. And the most frustrating thing is that you don't get to tell your brain ahead of time which things are too important to be dropped. You remembered the groceries, and you went to work, and you mailed that package, and you picked up the prescription, dropped off things at the cleaners..... but there's something....wait. Why is it so quiet in here??

You forgot to pick up the children. 

Such a human thing, forgetting. And such a human thing to wish to remember. Maybe that's why all over the world, humans set aside a day for remembering wars and those who died in them. If that seems a particularly human oddity, to memorialize war, remember that relatively few people have died while waging peace.  

though there are some...

The funny thing is, that on a week set aside to cook traditional meals of Memorial Day, I forgot. One day, I forgot to cook at all. Then on the day set aside to try the Mediterranean Farro Salad, I forgot to get red peppers and chives and who knows what else...

but it was okay anyway.
There it is next to the Rosemary Salmon.
Which would have been better if I'd remembered to take it
off the grill before it overcooked.

I forgot to only use half of the farro for the Mediterranean Salad, so the Chicken Farro Salad  which was to be made with the other half lives on not in memory, but in possibility.
Here's a plate of Grilled lime and chili chicken and vegetables, and some of you may think that you spot right off a thing I forgot:

that charry stuff in the foreground is a pile of grilled leeks.

But it's not forgetting if you didn't know. Here's what I learned: Leeks, which are wonderful almost all the time, go tough and stringy on the grill. If you love grilled onions, try grilling slices of regular onions or the smaller green onions. Save leeks for things that get them all sliced up into little chewable bits before they're cooked. 

If you're looking for a low-fat high flavor burger, and no one in your crowd is allergic to mushrooms, try these Buffalo Portobello Burgers

The lid and cheese are off so that you can see how much it
does not look like a mushroom burger.

The thing is, what lean meat sacrifices in fat it loses in flavor, and a carnivore is then left with two choices: eat delicious fatty meat, or eat lean meat and find a way to boost flavor and moisture. These mushroom burgers do the trick without looking too suspiciously like they took a walk on the veggie side. 

And yes, that is Alton Brown's potato salad next to the burger. The best basic potato salad ever. Serve it simple, or dress it up with more pickles (though those tiny cornichons in the recipe pack a super pickle punch) hard-cooked eggs, green olives, bell peppers...It's just a great blank canvas kind of recipe. 

Our go-to start here potato salad recipe from now until forever.

And if remembering a potato salad recipe is a worthy goal, then so is remembering a whole lot of other things. 

though sometimes remembering isn't just hard, 

Sometimes remembering hurts.

Still, it matters. 

What you remember. 

Who you remember.

Why you remember.

and what you do with what those memories give you.

It matters. 

Just like it matters every time you try to leave in

this warring world a memory of peace.

a memory of hope.

a memory of love.

True, you may never become famous. 

But who knows?

maybe, if you leave enough memories, 

you may become immortal.

weekend update may 4, 2014

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do;

 the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

Andrew Jackson

And then there's the fun of having lots to do, doing some of it, and watching someone else do a better job than you could. Especially if that someone else isn't out for your job, or out to reveal to the world your inadequacies. Especially if that someone is only aiming to give you a break, and not

aiming to break you.

All of our dinners this week were supposed to be an allergic reaction. That is, I had planned a week of allergy and inflammation fighting foods:  tomatoes, salmon, onions, and a veritable forest of dark leafy greens. 

so that navigating the fridge felt a little
like taking a jungle cruise.

Then, on a day that proved the truth of Andrew Jackson's aphorism, on a day when the only thing that sounded fun was finding a way to not to any of the things that needed doing, we had a visitor from far away. 

No, not that far away.
Only as far away as Texas A&M University.
(Though there are those who would say that the
Aggies spend most of their time on another planet.)

Our eldest son Danny's unexpected visit happily coincided with the unhappy, really truly dead, too rusty to even be used as a charcoal grill, death of our gas grill.

it had become the this of grills.
Not so great to begin with, and after that things
went downhill.

 And so it was that our eldest offered to initiate our new grill.
Perhaps you have a grown-up child of your own, and so perhaps you know how it feels to realize that your own passions have been transferred to your children and amplified. The feeling of seeing the things you were on a good day good at being the things they are everyday great at. For me, it feels like this:

You guys are amazing!
How did you get so amazing?!?
How did you all get to know so many cool things?!?
Will you teach me some of your cool things?!?
Plus when did you all get taller than me?
Because that is hilarious!!!!

I have in the past used a grill  as the sort-of stove that lives outside for days when it's to hot to use the stove that lives inside. But those days may be over. My eldest grown up son has a particular passion for cooking outdoors- put that passion together with curiosity and a lot of practice, and our eighty-eight dollar Big Lots grill somehow produced this:

grilled papaya, pineapple, ribs, corn, onions
and eggplant.  Gosh.
I have a lot to learn.

When a meal like this starts the week, food chosen merely for it's allergy fighting powers loses any glamour it might once have held. Take for instance, the Chicken and apple salad.  It seemed exciting enough on Tuesday, but by the time it was on Thursday's dinner plate, things had changed a little:

"Here."
"Here's a salad. I thawed some frozen chicken
for the top of it. Sorry, there are no leftover ribs"

The dressing of this salad is worth repeating though. It's a basic honey-mustard dressing that works well on many different vegetables. And the idea of apples and pecans on a salad is an idea that works all year round.
Here's a tip learned from the Kale Salad . Rubbing the kale between your hands AFTER dousing it with a little oil and sprinkling it with salt does wonders to make it tender enough for salads. True, it's an extra step, and it takes a little time, but when you consider how long it takes to chew a bite of raw kale, it sort of evens out. Plus, look what a deep pretty green the greens turn after a rub down:

Really good....for a salad.

Since nothing else could compare with the meal that started the week, it seemed safe to experiment a little with a weekend Tomato Pie.   A trip to a Farmer's Market hadn't happened but a trip to Trader Joe's had, so I decided to see how a nice grocery store tomato would do, even though the internet warned against it. To cut out a few empty floury calories, it became a one crust pie, with the pastry on the top of the pie only. Here's the haul from the grocery shop:

pretty nice stuff, even if they aren't
roadside stand fresh.

And here's the finished product, next to the second-day kale salad:

not a great grilled feast, but not bad either. 

Two things to remember for next time:

1) Kale salad really does hold up well overnight! It doesn't go all weepy watery limpy gross the way many lettuce salads do, and it doesn't go mushy black-green the way a spinach salad does. Edibility of leftovers alone just moved kale up into favorite salad green position. 

2) There are recipes for tomato pie that advise placing sliced or diced salted tomatoes in a colander to drain for at least an hour, and squeezing out the rest of the moisture. I wish I'd linked to one of them. Because what happens when you only drain the tomatoes for the quick five minutes it takes to cut the corn of the cob and get the cheese out of the fridge isn't a juicy pie-

it's a downright watery one.

The taste was good though, and that bottom crust would've been super soggy anyway. So, tomato pie? If you've got a good grocery store, all summer long, and not just on those weeks when you can get to a farmer's market.
So, a week of learning new things, and learning about things I'd like to learn.
And being fed a fantastic meal prepared by a person who grew up being fed by me. Which kind of blows my mind, in a very good way....
And I hope this week you know that it really does matter.
The way the things you do to nourish and nurture
the people you love.
The way you feed the world the best of you
and somehow keep it from eating you alive.
And I hope that this week 
once or twice
the good things with which you feed the lives around you
come back

and give you what you need too.

Menus, April 30, 2014

You better pay attention,

 cause this world we love so much

 might just kill you

 Randy Newman

Fans of  Randy Newman or of the defective detective Adrian Monk.will recognize his theme song. and those who are pollen prey will recognize the message. Spring is beautiful, spring is lovely spring is...

Terrubul, Dus Terrubul

Or, as a well beloved allergy victim explained to me today-

In the past, I considered myself exempt from this sort of suffering. I wandered blithely along, the last Texan standing at the end of an allergy apocalypse, breathing through my nose, without a tear in my eye. Well, not counting the sort of tears prompted by genuine emotion. I mean, even if she doesn't have allergies, 

a girl still has her feelings.
A girl has ALL the feelings.

But seasonal allergies may be responsible for more woes than we imagine. Those two or three of you who thought yourself allergy-free simply because you don't spend  April and most of May accessorizing your look with crumpled tissues may not have escaped as cleanly as you had supposed.
Did you know, for instance, that migraines can be triggered by seasonal allergies?

That  ice pick in your eye?
it might have been thrown in there by a cedar tree.

Here's a funny thing about headaches. Have you ever noticed that sometimes just thinking about a headache can start that sort of tightness behind the eyeball, and if you start talking about them, that little throb in the temple can...

Ok.  Time to change the subject.
And find the Excedrin.

Instead of talking about allergies, let's talk about what may make them if not better, then maybe not-so-bad.  Let's talk about dinner. Because there are foods that can actually help you block the histamines that send you into a full-body revolt against invading allergens.  One of those may or may not be local honey (Web M.D. lands on the not side) but it's hard to make a meal of honey, isn't it?  It's no big surprise that the foods that help you fight allergies are foods that keep you healthy in other ways too- foods full of vitamins and antioxidants, like tomatoes, citrus and leafy greens.

That's what we'll be eating this week, unless we have an allergy-induced week of takeout. Here's how I hope it will work:

Wednesday: Slow cooker Lasagna

Tomatoes are weapons against all kinds of sniffles- the kind cause by germs, and the kind caused by allergens. That's because they're packed with all sorts of goodness, including vitamin C. Really! And what's extra nice is that when you smash them and combine them with cheese and pasta, you get lasagna.
I love the inclusion of dark leafy greens in this recipe, and I'll be experimenting with using wonton skins as the pasta. Lasagna and experimentation in one slow cooker meal! 

Thursday: Grilled Chicken and Broccoli and Brown rice

Not a big surprise to find broccoli on the list of allergy-fighters, is it? I'll be firing up our new grill to do both the chicken and the broccoli, and cooking up a batch of brown rice. Any leftover chicken can go into Saturday's main dish salad, and leftover broccoli and rice may make it into this chickpea, broccoli and brown rice salad next Monday.

Friday: Lemon Salmon and Greek Summer Pizza

Onions, lemon, spinach, salmon- I dare any feelings of unwellness to stick around for seconds of this meal. Both the pizza (which you can easily make on pita bread rounds if you don't want to bother with pizza crust) and the salmon bake at about the same temperature, for about the same time. 

Saturday: Chicken and apple salad

Combine allergy-fighting apples and onions with the first warm days of early summer, and what do you get? Main dish salads like these. The leftover chicken from Thursday will be great in here, but so would the meat from a rotisserie chicken or roasted turkey breast. To boost the nutrition power, we may  have this over shredded kale or baby spinach instead of leaf lettuce.

Sunday: Tomato Pie and Kale Salad

Notice that the first tomato pie of the summer comes at the end of the week. That gives me lots and lots of time to get to a farmer's market for some real tomatoes. If you can't find fresh, about-to-pop-their-tender-skins-with-flavor tomatoes, try something else with this great kale salad. Because a tomato pie is not fast food; it's only the huge fresh tomato flavor payoff that makes it worth the work (and the cheese and pastry calories). If you don't like the tough chew of a raw kale salad, try giving it a little salt massage first. This link  will give you the how and why. It will also give you an irritating and unasked for ad and video, you can mute the ad, and click to stop the video.


Wherever you are and whatever you're doing,
I hope this week gives you some breathing space
between the blues of winter
and the sneezes of spring.
And I hope you know it matters-
the things you do to stay strong.
I hope you know that everything you do
to put more life in
 your life matters.
And I hope this week those efforts are met
and rewarded with  strengths
that let you embrace every day

exactly the way you want to.

  

menus, March 5, 2014

“THE HUMMING STATE OF NOT-QUITE-THIS-AND-NOT-QUITE-THAT”

Lisa Pearson

That's the fantastic phrase that editor Lisa Pearson used to introduce her anthology of pictures that are almost text, and written words that are almost pictures. It's the sort of thing I was thinking on Monday, as I crunched through a sleet-covered front yard

to pick daffodils.

It's the sort of thing I was thinking, but my mind wasn't saying it nearly so well. Instead, my mind was tossing around ways to fuse the word winter to the word spring...

Sprinter, or Wing....
I can't decide which I like better.

It's not quite Winter, but it's not quite Spring either. It's as if March decided to take a walk on the edge of spring,

just for the fun of falling back into winter.

Or it's  like March is a bike rider who's forgotten how to change gears

and stalls on an unfortunately placed patch of ice.

And that little metaphor makes me wonder...when a weather front stalls,

who does it get a lift from?

It looks as if for the next 6 days the weather here will remain undecided, throwing down one wintery spring day after another, and since it's so difficult to decide what to cook up for a week full of these wingy sprinter days, it seemed fun to let dinner dither too- even if it does go almost oxymoronic.

(Which makes me wonder- have you ever wished that the word oxymoron

had something to do with dimwitted cows?
Me too.)

That is, this week dinner is a collection of warm salads and  springy soups that will have me grinning through these days that seem to be stuck in the transition from one thing to another.
Here's what I mean:

Wednesday: Roasted chicken and Lemony pea soup

I've linked to the America's test kitchen roast chicken recipe, which is one of the best I've found, but we might be settling for a grocery store rotisserie bird. Desperate times call for desperate measures my friends, and its a desperately busy week. Home roasted or store roasted, we'll be using chicken twice more this week. this soup looks so bright and happy! I can't wait to give it a try.



Thursday: BBQ Ranchero chicken salad

Here's a super-hearty one-dish meal salad. If there are any nice tortillas hanging around the grocery store, I might invite them over and turn this salad into soft tacos, or if the day is really cold, a plate of nachos along with this salad would be amazing.





Friday: Salmon and Butternut Squash salad

Here we are, way into March, and the not-really-resolution to try maybe to have fish once a week is still in place. If only I could consistently cook tasty fish, Fridays would be a lot more fun. This pan-fried Salmon recipe from instructables lays out a step by step process that may help me out. This salad is terrific as is,  though if you don't like or don't want to pay for arugula, fresh spinach is a good substitute.



Saturday: Chicken Stroganoff and broccoli

This is the use-it-up dinner for any leftover cooked chicken, and I haven't committed myself with a picture of the broccoli because I haven't actually committed to the broccoli. I'm not so secretly hoping that the last-of-winter first-of-spring asparagus will be on sale somewhere, and if it is, that's what we'll be having. 





Sunday: Easy Pho and Asian Slaw

If there's a soup that's good for all-weather comfort, it's pho. Warming broth, crispy veg, and light rice noodles. Combine that with a summery salad made with a winter vegetable, and you have the best of both worlds

And I think it would be wonderful if this week
you have all the best of all possible worlds.
I hope that the most difficult choices you make this week
are between one good thing
and another.
And I hope that in the times between times-
the times that are not quite an end
and not yet a beginning-
that those you love remember 
just the right way
to keep your wheels from coming off
and keep your gears from grinding
and that you find yourself pedaling 

straight toward something wonderful.