Culinary Jazz on the theme of life

The lowly ham hock

2005-12-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

Today I am indulging in what I consider to be a guilty pleasure -- bean soup with a ham hock. Ham hocks are humble things -- not the height of aethetics. In soup, they devolve into a glutinous mass of jellied skin, fat, and a few scraps of salty meat.

Yum.

It's just that kind of texture food that so many American children cringe from -- yet in many parts of the world, this is the focus of cuisine itself.

In the very early 80's, I got a reputation at the Asian Studies department of UMass/Amherst for enjoying truly traditional Chinese peasant cooking -- organ meats, dishes with sugared pork fat laid over dried-fruit studded rice.

One of my professors, surrounded by a knot of colleagues, stopped me in the hall one day. He had heard that I was doing an independent study on Historical Chinese Gastronomy, and was sometimes eating lunch with the Wang family, who ran a local Chinese restaurant, and much enjoying the slow cooked casseroles they saved for the 2:30pm break.

"You eat this stuff?" he asked me. "You enjoy it?"

Very much so, I assured him.

"Hmmm..." he narrowed his eyes and examined me, as though for subtle signs. "I think maybe you were Chinese in a previous lifetime." He stood up straight. "What did you do wrong?"

I always took that as a compliment.

The ham hock -- probably more associated with the American south -- is an element of cuisine that would be enjoyed by the Chinese. It's peasant food, with its own delights, a model of efficient use of the animal. In China, no doubt, some star anise would be added -- I just add it to the bean soup. Great northern beans, succulent and marrowy, kale braised with soy sauce and lots of garlic and ginger, some sliced jalapenos, a slosh of sherry.

But once the house is perfumed with it, and the beans are tender, I will remove the hamhock, dice it for the meat, and then invoke cook's privilege and indulge a bit in the parts that cook down, fat and tendon and tender skin, the "inedible" bits, the delicate parts, the humble delicacy.

Finnigan, begin again!

2005-11-18T10:19:00.000-08:00

After over a year gone from this originally election season blog, I'm returning to working on it in a new place, a new time, and a new life.

I am in Cambridge, MA now, living with my son and a man I love -- who doesn't really know how to cook. He doesn't have a lot of motivation to learn, and very little time.

And my son has even less motivation to cook -- he wants to cling to the pampering that remains from his childhood in the face of our many transitions.

How to tempt these beloved nerds into the kitchen to get their hands dirty? That will encompass the theme of many of the future postings. Theory, framework, and a seduction into the culinary arts.

Winter Squash Soup

2004-09-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Split and roast one 2.5 lb butternut squash 400 degrees, 45 mins
Seed, scoop, and lightly mash (there can be some chunks)

Meanwhile...

1 red onion diced
1 in of ginger root, in recognizable slices (i.e. ones you can fish out later)
2/3 t mace
5 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 star anise cluster

saute above in a little olive oil until onion is soft

Add
1 qt organic chicken broth (we get ours in the "soymilk" packs -- aseptic packs)
1 C marinara (homemade by Andrea!)
1/2 C sherry
1/2 t cinnamon
3 squirts Bragg's aminos
1 13.5 oz can coconut milk
1 t black pepper

Simmer until squash is ready.

Blend in lightly mashed squash, simmer as long as you can to blend flavors

Just before serving, blend in:
1 C sour cream
1/4 C Braggs cider vinegar

Adjust salt/pepper

Beef loaf

2004-09-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

I won't quite call this meat loaf, as the proportion of fillers to meat is higher than the traditional, and there are two less eggs (substituted tapioca, which absorbed the juices nicely too). However, this was very tasty!

1.5 lbs ground beef
1.5 C oatmeal, uncooked
1/2 C breadcrumbs
pkg Knorr Leek Soup Mix (which I will use when I can instead of onion soup mix)
1/3 C garlic flakes
1 C tomato sauce
1/4 C tapoica starch
1/2 C sherry

Whisk tapioca into sherry, blend all ingredients together

Bake 45 mins in 350 degree oven

Serve with ketchup, salsa, or your favorite condiment. I think bbq sauce would have been nice.

Salmon Salad for Sandwiches

2004-09-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

This beats the heck out of traditional tuna salad sandwiches!

1-2C flaked poaches salmon (see previous recipe) cooled
3 T capers
1 T dijon mustard
1/2 C mayonnaise (we use vegenaise for egglessness)
1/2 T Spike seasoning
1/2 C leftover canned corn

Blend and let sit in the fridge for an hour or so if you have time...

Note that the leftover veggies could be just about anything with a bit of tooth to it. You could even use something like leftover quinoa. I bet diced fresh jicama would be terrific. Use your imagination!

Poached Salmon

2004-09-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

"Poached" sounds so much better than boiled!

Salmon should be eaten fresh -- but when you have more than you can eat in a night, cook it all in a way it will hold best.

Poach 1-1.5 lbs of salmon in:

1 C sake
1/2 red onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, sliced
water to cover

It only takes a few minutes. Use the thin parts immediately, and the thick parts (which will bear reheating better, and can be left a bit rare in the middle) for the next day.

Ginger/White Peach Jam

2004-09-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

6 large white peaches
3 slices (quarter-size, a bit thicker) ginger root
3 cardamon pods
2 C sugar
1 t fresh lemon (or to taste)
1/3 C crystallized ginger, cut to a small dice

(adapted from Gourmet Preserves Chez Madeleine, pg 68)

scald peaches and peel them (I eat the peels, myself, as I peel them)
Cut peaches into chunks and whiz briefly with short bursts in the food processor
Put peaches, ginger and cardamom in the jelly pot
Add sugar so as to mix throughly -- no lumps!
Cook VERY SLOWLY to jam stage (test by temperature or sheet test) -- you should end up with 4 cups or less in volume.

Meanwhile, mix fresh lemon juice with diced crystallized ginger, set aside

When jam is jammed, take it off the heat and stir in the ginger/lemon mixture

Process in 10 min hot water bath -- and remember, whatever you will eat soon needn't be processed! Just eat it as fresh as possible!

The state of the kitchen

2004-09-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

Several things have conspired to slow me down in the last couple weeks on this blog. First, I had a bad setback with my asthma a couple weeks ago, and that set necessaries before pleasures, so cooking became rudimentary and online writing went by the board. And then, our Gavin has gone off to the wars, so to speak, and is working far more than full time for Carry Oregon, the consolidated campaign for the democrats in Oregon. Joseph has started middle school. The idyll of the regular dinner table is in interruption.

I will try to post things here more regularly, whether or not we are cooking full meals, however, and I have notes from past days to transcribe over the next while.

Wine-poached steelhead fillet in dill/parsley cream sauce

2004-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Today at the local farmer's market there was a native American gentleman selling Columbia River steelhead, gutted and head off, from the back of his truck, $4/lb. I got the smallest fish he had, at 4 lbs. At home, I boned and skinned it, and put the scraps into simmering water to make cat food and aspic for us two-legged folks for tomorrow lunch.

With the tail halves of both filets -- probably a pound of the filleted meat -- I made this:

cut the fillets in half again across the length of the fish, producing four 1/4-ish lb. portions.

1/2 onion, chop
4 cloves garlic, chop
1/4C butter
melt butter, soften onion/garlic

add
1/4 C of fresh dill
1/4C fresh parsley
pinch cloves
(I'd have added a 1/2" slice of ginger root, but we were out)
1C sake
white pepper to taste

Add fish, cover. In 3 minutes turn fish, cover.
In two more minutes check the fish for done-ness. Go by minutes checking often.

Remove fish to serving plate. Put in barely warm oven.
Add 1C of heavy cream to the pan, let come barely to a boil
Add 3T of tapioca starch, stir energetically.
When it starts to thicken, add 1C heavy cream, bring to steaming (not boiling) kill the flame.
Stir in the juice of one large lemon to incorporate.

Spoon sauce over fish. When you spoon it over the fish, let the onion/garlic herbs sit on top of the fish, and the sauce run off the sides.

Thursday, August 26, 2004 Dinner

2004-08-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

Wine-poached steelhead fillet in dill/parsley cream sauce
Butternut squash a la Vermont (see previous mention from last Saturday-ish)
hummos/pita
salad, arugula and mixed baby lettuces with walnuts and feta and tomatoes

Wednesday, August 25, 2004 Dinner

2004-08-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

Shrimp sorta Scampi
Ratatouille
Polenta
Green Salad

Shrimp sorta Scampi

2004-08-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

Shrimp Scampi is an oxymoron -- "scampi" meaning "shrimp" in Italian. So, when we make Shrimp Scampi we are making Shrimp in the Style of Shrimp. Interestingly you find this in other languages, even consistently in that language. Yu Shiang Fish is Fish in the Style of Fish in Chinese (where they would say, I suppose, something like Shiang Yu Shiang or somesuch).

While Joseph is away, we decided to use those frozen shrimp in the freezer -- he's allergic, poor guy, and gets hives at least. It's a potentially very dangerous allergy.

While the cat's away!

Shrimp sorta Scampi

1 LB package, 70-110 count shell-off frozen shrimp
1.5 T crushed garlic (yes, the kind you keep in a jar in the fridge! for this you want the garlic to incorporate in the sauce -- if you like the texture, us minced and increase to 2T to account for the extra air...!)
1/4C salted butter (add a smidge of salt if you use unsalted)
1/2C sake
5 squirts Bragg's Aminos (available at health food stores -- I have a little in a spritz bottle and refill it from a big bottle -- better than soy on some things, less coloring)
1/8t Cayenne
white pepper to taste
1.5T tapioca starch (optional!)
Juice of a large lemon

Rinse and crack apart shrimp, set aside in a colander while creating sauce.
Melt butter over med/low heat.
Combine garlic, sake, aminos, cayenne in pan over medium heat until the area is redolent with garlic.
Add pepper to taste (remember there's lemon coming!). White pepper preserves the blond-ness of the sauce.

Rinse the shrimp again, as they will have frozen back together. Add them to the pan. When they are thawed but still a bit crisp, they are done. This requires you to snack on a few while cooking -- poor you!

If you have someone in your house who thinks that butter sauces are greasy, or who can't deal with sauces that migrate across the plate, remove the shrimp from the pan with a slotted spoon and stir in the tapioca starch. It will make a creamy sauce without adding much flavor or calories.

Add fresh squeezed lemon, and combine all in a serving dish. Invite smiles to the table!

Microwave Polenta (no really!)

2004-08-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

Polenta is merely a corn porridge made with coarse cut cornmeal. But it is "mere" in the same way that fresh made bread is "mere" -- but with far less work. Although associated with Italy, you can find polentas from France to Romania, and variations throughout the Americas (which is, of course, the botanical home of maize).

When you make polenta on the stove, you need to stir constantly and watch it like a hawk. Either it will be too runny -- or it will, guaranteed, stick to the pan (and probably scorch).

This is where the microwave is a godsend to even the slow foods cook.

Microwave Polenta (serves 4)

3.5C water
1C polenta or coarse corn meal
a dash of salt

Stir polenta into water in an 8C glass measure (always good for microwave projects!
cook uncovered on high 5 minutes
stir
cook uncovered on high another 5 minutes

Depending on what you are using it for, when you take it out you can treat it like this:

Add 3T of butter, stir

or

Add 4 oz of shredded cheddar (sharp white is best) stir

or

same deal, try 3 oz asiago

or

stir in butter, put it in a mini-loaf pan, chill in fridge. "Decant," cut into slices, fry in a little olive oil

There are many other treatments, too! Try stirring in leftover veggies or sour cream. Try serving hot with maple syrup for breakfast (YUM!). Polenta is a raw material much underutilized.

Almond Hummos

2004-08-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

I invented this hummos because Gavin's allergic to sesame, and I just couldn't give hummos up! This is about a quart or so of hummos -- enough for us to munch on for days, or a great potluck dish or party dish. It gets better in following days.

juice of two large lemons
1t salt
4-6 garlic cloves, to taste and size

1C (scant) almond butter
1/4C olive oil or more

36 oz of canned garbanzo/chickpeas

Whiz lemon juice, salt, and garlic in food processor, using the spatula to get the garlic down near the blades and rewhizzing at least once. No big chunks!

Add almond butter, whiz, and drizzle in the olive oil until the almond butter flows and is a bit creamy, rather than chunking. Depending on the almond butter, this can take a little or a lot!

Add chickpeas, whiz until smooth.

Wasn't that easy? Serve with warmed pita bread, cut in wedges of sixths after warming so the edges don't get dried out. (I warm the pita for about 10 minutes at 300 degrees, I think...)

Raita

2004-08-24T19:24:00.001-07:00

Raita, as I make it, is the salsa of Indian cooking. Served with many meals, it partakes in the nature of salad, pickle, and sauce. Raita is good on rice, on savory veggies, and you can make a very simple salad by serving raita over alfalfa sprouts.

1.5C yogurt
2-3C diced veggies
1T roasted cumin
1T roasted coriander
at least 2t salt
pepper to taste

Diced veggies will usually include:

1/2C cucumber
1C tomato
1/2C small diced onion or sliced green onion

To me, these are basic. I may also include:

minced hot chilis
diced sweet pepper
fine chopped thai basil
fine chopped parsley
fine chopped celery leaf

To roast cumin and coriander, just put them in a dry pan over a high flame, tossing constantly, until they become fragrant. Crush them to near powder in a mortar or suribachi.

Mix yogurt, veggies and seasonings. Be sure to use at least 2t salt, but a tablespoon or more to taste is not amiss. The salt pulls moisture from the veggies, speeding the marinade and creating a sort of fresh-veggie-juice-plus-yogurt sauce that is remarkably thick. You'll think it's just yogurt.

Keeps in the fridge for days, probably a week. I don't think it lasts that long for us! After a meal, you'll have less than a quart left to store in the fridge.

Ratatouille

2004-08-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

Serves 4 as a main dish, 8 as a side. Takes nearly an hour, but you can do other things in the meantime.

Ratatouille is basically a stew of all the late summer vegetable fruits. There are a variety of ways to cook it. Here's one variation:

medium eggplant, cut and prepared as below
1/2 large purple onion, diced (white/yellow is fine, but purple is a nice color in this)
4-6 cloves garlic, sliced
a little olive oil
1/2t marjoram
1/4C sherry
medium zucchini, quartered lengthwise and sliced 1/2" across
1/2 sweet green pepper
12 oz canned crushed tomatoes
water as necessary

Take the eggplant and cut it in half lengthwise, leaving on the cap. Cut each side in half parallel to the cut. Lay the flat side down on the cutting board and cut in 1/2" or so slices from the base of the cap to the blossom end. Starting at the blossom end, cut in 1/2" slices, producing a sort of big dice. Discard cap. The cap helps keep the eggplant together which you cut it, and makes the work faster!

Put the eggplant in a colander, and sprinkle liberally with salt, and toss. Leave for about 15 minutes while you do other things. Take your hands and squish the living daylights out of the eggplant, leaving it translucent and flaccid. You'll produce a lot of brownish bitter liquid which is why many people don't like italian eggplant. Very little salt remains in the eggplant, so don't worry about using 1/4 C or so. If you want to skip this stage, use the equivalent in Japanese Eggplants, diced, maybe 3 or so. Slender Japanese eggplants don't have the bitter undertone of the standard large Italian eggplant, but lack a certain depth for this dish in my opinion. Leave eggplant while you saute other veggies, thus:

Onion, garlic and oil in large pan over med flame until soft. Give the eggplant a final wringing out, rinse briefly, and add it to the pan. Add marjoram, sherry, zucchini and green pepper and eggplant. Toss to distribute juices, and then pour in crushed tomatoes.

Reduce flame, and simmer for about 30 minutes, adding only enough water to the pan to prevent sticking.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004 dinner

2004-08-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

Salad of pea shoots with walnuts and feta
Raita
Almond Hummos
Pita Bread
Ratatouille
Olives
Relishes

Malt vinegar

2004-08-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's a lovely thing to take an evening off from the kitchen and go to a pub with friends. Near us, there's a McMinamen's pub -- a local "chain" of brew pubs -- that serves Oregon Country Beef burgers and good fresh beer -- not to mention awesomely huge baskets of good fries. On every table is a bottle of malt vinegar.

The smell of malt vinegar always reminds me of a wonderful French Canadian fish-and-chips place in Montpelier, Vermont during my childhood. Not only was the fish and chips good, but they must have gotten malt vinegar by the cask. It was in a carafe on every table. When they cleared, it was used to wipe the table down. The place never smelled overwhelmingly of grease like many fish places do. It smelled like malt vinegar and salt air. Very inviting.

Malt vinegar is a good neutral vinegar. It's not quite as mild as rice vinegar in character, but not so aggressive as cider vinegar -- which is far from the extremes such as balsamic, which dominate any dish.

Consider malt vinegar on vegetables, not just fried things. Use it on salads with a light oil and a little sugar and salt, and chopped thai basil. Instead of using more costly wine vinegars, or merely sour white vinegar, consider the fawn-colored malt vinegar as a base for herb or spice infusions. Tarragon malt vinegar, I'm sure, would be transcendent!

Tuna in Blackberry Sauce

2004-08-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

two quarter pound tuna steaks, frozen, thawed
1/3 large white onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 oz sherry (not cooking sherry, but decent sherry or amontillado you might drink)
1T turmeric
pinch allspice
pinch cinnamon
3 drops of Brother Bru-Bru's hot sauce
1/2 C vegetable broth
1C cooked blackberry puree
1T tapoica starch moistened in a little vegetable broth

soften onion, garlic in a little oil. Add sherry and spices. When the aroma of alcohol is gone from the sherry, add the tuna, turning often. When the tuna is about half cooked through, add blackberries, vegetable broth, and stir in hot sauce.

(If you don't have blackberry puree, just put a little water in a pan, and add a mounded cup of blackberries, heat, and mash with a potato masher. You'll get about a cup.)

When the tuna is done to your taste (rare tuna is fine, but don't let it get TOO dry!), remove it to the serving dish. Take the tapioca starch mixture, and add it to the sauce. When the sauce is thickened, smother the tuna with the sauce, and serve.

Dinner, Sunday August 22, 2004

2004-08-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

Tuna in Blackberry Sauce (see recipe)
Stuffed Summer Squash (see recipe)
Yellow Finn Potatoes, boiled with skins on and mashed with butter/salt/pepper
Salad of Pea Greens, dressed in good olive oil, with marjoram, pan-roasted walnuts, feta cheese crumbles

Try a new spice!

2004-08-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

"I hear that there is a spice they use in China that numbs the mouth," said Gavin.

"I know that spice. It lives in your kitchen!" I told him. "It's called Szechuan Pepper, or Szechuan Peppercorn, and before hot peppers made it to Asian from the Americas, it was one of the most popular spices in Asia."

I pulled out a little jar of the brown seedpods. The outside are brown papery-wood half-shells, embracing a kernal of polished mahogany, and the tiny pod trails a bit of stem, generally. They are no larger than a red lentil.

I have a pan, an old heavy aluminum thing left by an old housemate, that I only use for roasting spices, seeds and nuts. The aluminum is a great roaster, distributing the heat well, but anything acidic or wet gets the aluminum oxide into food, something I consider a poor risk.

But I sprinkled a half tablespoon of the little seeds into the pan and turned up the flame on gas stove. The aluminum pan makes a merry bell as you shake the spices in it, too. You need to shake these seeds every few seconds, really, or they stick horribly. In a bit, the first wisps of smoke rose from the pan, and I dumped the seeds into a small suribachi.

Suribachis are Japanese mortars. Traditionally brown glazed on the exterior and lip, the clay interior is unglazed and combed into ridges. A wooden pestle makes short work of spices and wet mixes.

The small bit of spice ground to powder, I take the results to Gavin, and indicate he should lick a finger and take a taste. His gaze grew intense as the flavor hit him, and the odd numbness -- not entirely but almost unlike a tingle from strong mint -- left him intrigued.

Find szechuan pepper at an Asian grocer, and add it sparingly to savory dishes. It's a classic flavoring in the filling for wontons, and adds interest to glazes for meats, and a subtle undertone to savory vegetable stews.

Roast only what you can use in a day or two and compost the rest. Once roasted, the flavor is volatile, and old szechuan pepper may as well be gritty straw.

Stuffed green summer squash

2004-08-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

OK, so these squash from Andrea's grandmother are not quite zucchini, but they are longish, green-with-creamy-streaks, oblong summer squash. Here's what they experienced:

Split the small squashes (about 8" long, perhaps 4, 4.5" across) in two lengthwise.

Putting the squash in an 8 cup glass measuring cup covered, for 12 minutes, to partially cook and soften them. Set aside to cool.

In a pan, saute in a little olive oil:
a bunch of green onions, all the white and most of the green, cut in 1/8" rounds
1/4 green pepper, diced
1/2 jalapeno minced
1/3 beefsteak tomato (or a small tomato), diced
3 small cloves of garlic, minced
1/2t marjoram
1/2t black pepper, ground

When the veggies are starting to soften, the squash should be cool enough to handle. Scoop out the seedy/pulpy middles carefully (it's easy to go through the squash wall as they are soft and cooked), and chop the middles up with whatever spoon you are using to stir the saute. Add middles to saute.

Mash 4 oz of chevre (I like Silver Goat plain, from TJ's) with 1C cooked rice to distribute it. Add it to the pan, and stir until the cheese and rice are evenly distributed and the chevre is sticky and flowing.

Oil a baking sheet, and set the scooped squash shells in it. Scoop the filling into the squashes. Depending on the squash you may have some left over. Sprinkle with paprika, and bake at 350 degree about 20 minutes, until the tops are a bit browned and dimensional.

VERY YUMMY. I approve.

Damson and chevre

2004-08-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

With one car for the household, sometimes logistics get interesting. I'm grateful on a rainy day to get a chance to use the car to buy a few things for what I'm cooking today. Gavin need the car back soon, though -- and we're expecting my friend Cory to come get Joseph for a birthday party several-day-sleepover in Eugene. So I fly away to put gas in the car, hit Trader Joe's and perhaps the Coop, and home in 45 minutes. The horses are on the track -- and out the gate!

At TJ's, the parking lot is packed, and shopping carts are full. I realize that I won't be able to hit another store for anything significant before heading home, after these lines. So in line, I strike up a conversation with the woman behind me.

"Busy today!" we agree. It's the first rains of the incipient autumn this weekend. Yesterday, Joseph and I lay belly down on my bed, heads out the bedroom window, soaking up the wet smell like some nutrient we'd forgotten we needed, feeling somehow softer and tender in the susserating patter of leaves and rain. "Everyone decided if the rains are here, it's time to nest and cook!"

Recently, I forget where, someone reviewed Portland as a city on the top 20 list in the world for food. With the richness of our natural setting, our great agriculture, the ocean, the Pacific stir-fry of cultures -- we are a remarkably homogenous and homey cosmopolitan center. We love food, and we also love to run it off -- our outdoor and health focus sets us apart, I feel, from other urban food meccas such as NYC or Rome.

On the way home, I frantically stop at Fred Meyer's for small-mouth jar lids and rings, having not found my own. I'm making blackberry jam this afternoon from the first six cups of the two gallons Andrea brought back from Sauvie Island yesterday. I know we have jars, but not where lids and rings may be.

I call Gavin as I run into Freddie's -- I'll be ten, maybe fifteen minutes late. Shortly later, I'm running out again with the jar lids and a Sunday Oregonian.

Home, I make myself a sandwich on sunflower/spelt bread, with damson jam and Silver Goat chevre from TJ's. Feeling clever, I point out to Gavin (who can't eat high whey cheeses) that this nutty but bland chevre makes a good substitution for cream cheese. His eyes go a little wide at the thought -- the food allergy testing was just a few months ago, and he's still adjusting.

Gavin and Andrea go to Sauvie Island again, to help their friends clear the site where their wedding took place yesterday. They'll be home for dinner.

My sandwich sits on the plate as I set up the jam, and also heat milk in a bain marie for the yogurt maker. A bit later, Cory arrives, and the sandwich is barely touched. I show Cory through the new house and he's enthralled. On the way through the kitchen, I hold up the sandwich: "Bite this!" My friends trust me when I say that. He's appreciative, even more so when I tell him about the damson jam and today's chevre revelation.

Joseph and Cory out the door, I inhale the steam from the jelly pot, and think about this post. The sandwich is still on the plate. But the jelly should be just about cooked. Time to can it!

You gotta break a few eggs

2004-08-22T15:47:00.000-07:00

Breakfast eggs are one of the simple things in life. Today, Annie and I were cooking our breakfast side by side -- she, with a mix of lovely veggies, some cheese, and a bit of pesto I'd made a few weeks ago. For myself, I was making a southeastern/western omlet -- onions, peppers (green and jalapeno), tomato and southern "smithfield ham" cured sidemeat. We have so many dietary restrictions in the house. She won't eat pork, Gavin shouldn't eat mushrooms.... In the evenings, we eat together when we can -- which we try to make all the time. I plan meals ahead a week. Everything is planned to accomodate the allergies, preferences, neuroses and tastes of the inmates, for the common meals. No major element of a meal excludes anyone, but perhaps a side might, and often condiments (for example, a splash of toasted sesame oil added at the table).

Our breakfasts were different, but we cooked side by side. Both were delicious. We all make sacrifices in the house, and puzzle at each other's food foibles. On a good day, I think of it as cooking in sonnet form -– the restrictions and formalities making an interesting framework. Or perhaps more, with the some folks regretfully giving up eggs or shrimp to allergies, I should think of it as playing the blues in pots and pans. On bad days, I just remember, you have to break a few eggs to make an omlet.

Why shy away from jams?

2004-08-21T21:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't can the damson jam.

Jams from a pint or three of fruit are going to be used before they can spoil, in my house. A hot water bath is a pretty easy process, and home made jams can make amazing gifts.

If I don't have time or inclination to can the jam, I'll freeze it -- often in the decorative half pint jars, just remembering to tell the recipient it needs to be used in the next month or so.

It's not like when I was young and you felt you "only" had a jar of homemade jam to take as a hospitality gift. Now it's a big deal.

Making jam is easy. Just give the gift, and tell your friends it's *fresh*, and they have to use it soon. They'll think it's all the more special than the stuff they buy in the store.

Easy as pie, jam is...

Oysters in black bean sauce

2004-08-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

Every week, just about, I get between 4-6 large pacific oysters from a woman who raises them out at the coast. The large pacific oyster is a monster, 8-10" long, and the ridges and ripples on the shells give them a truly other worldly look. I place the oysters rounder-side down on a baking pan, and roast them at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. By the time they are done, they have spit oyster liquor on the hot pan and filled the house with the heady scent of roasted oyster.

When the oysters are cool enough to touch (and watch out -- remember the liquid inside will feel even hotter!), run a knife into the steam vented crack, and cut the muscle holding the shell -- or just turn the knife, stick your fingers in, and carefully pull the shells apart, trying not to spill the liquor.

Put the oysters and remaining liquor in a cup, trying to avoid bits of shell. The oysters can now be used in a variety of ways.

Roasting the oysters, like roasting garlic, is a way to give depth to the taste of the thing. Raw oysters are good in oyster stew. Roasted oysters are divine. Plus, for those of you wary of oyster knives, the critters are far easy to open once they are dead and cooked.

Here's what I made for my dinner tonight:

six large pacific oysters, roasted as above, with liquor from shells and pan
1/2 onion, chopped
small jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
a bit of peanut oil
splash of sherry
2 T chinese preserved black beans

Saute onions and peppers in oil over medium heat in pan until they start to brown. Add sherry and stir to prevent sticking. Once the smell of alcohol is gone from the sherry, add oysters and liquor, and the black beans. If there is too much liquor, add a teaspoon of tapioca starch to thicken the sauce. Serve over rice.

Buttercup Squash

2004-08-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

There is nothing I love quite so much as an oven-roasted, slightly carmelized and smoky, chestnut flavored, mealy winter squash. Although my favorite is the Japanese Kuri, the Buttercup -- a green turbanish squash -- will do as first fruits.

My favorite method for these orange-fleshed beauties is to hack them in half, roast them for an hour at about 375, then discard the seeds and pulp and get the meat in a bowl. Mash in butter, sour cream if you like -- or even heavy cream, a good grating of nutmeg (or a bit of mace), and about as much maple syrup as you put in butter.

This, to me, is huge comfort food.

Ode to a Chanterais Melon

2004-08-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

These melons pulled me in from a distance with their perfume. The smell of a fresh ripe chanterais is heady, floral, musky. I imagine a French woman in her forties, tres elegante, with two young men half her age at her table on the Rive Gauche competing for her attention. The sun is shining on the flowers on her hat and the jewel enamel on her nails, and her lips are in shadow. That is what a chanterais smells like.

Damson Plums

2004-08-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

I missed these small gems on the first pass of the market, and by the time I got back, I was just in time to find the last pint available. Once common on the east coast, these spicy little cooking plums have more in common with beachplum and juniper in flavor than with their large snack-fruit cousins. Damsons to me evoke memories of England and jampots, or a glaze for pheasant.

A jam of damsons is no more complicated than softening and mashing the fruit in a minimum of water, sieving out the seeds and skins. I used a sieve, and then squished the remains through a jelly bag to get the last good pulpy bits -- my hands were blazingly red and sticky, but I got another half a cup, I think, out of a what yeilded about a cup and a quarter of jam from a pint of fruit.

Cook the crimson pulp to about 216-218 degrees with a proportion of 4 plum to 3 sugar. Stir it a lot at the end -- you'll swear it's trying to turn into fruit leather. Damson makes a thick and naturally spicy jam that is good with savories, but not beyond a dab with cream cheese on crackers.

In China, flavors are analyzed: sweet, sour, savory, salt, hot, and hsien. Hsien isn't fresh -- it more speaks to the essence of the thing. In shrimp, the freshest shrimp, still tangy with seawater, pink, and crisp are hsien. For damsons, which are hardly palatable off the tree, a jam brings out the hsien and delivers it, jeweled and intense, to the palate.

August 21, 2004 PSU Farmer's Market

2004-08-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke with a muzzy throat -- not only was it a bit sore, but my voice sounded bad enough that Joseph, my 11 year old son, asked me regularly to clear my throat. It hurt him to listen to me.

So, it seemed, phone banking for John Kerry was right out. I had signed up for a noon to three shift at Azumano, but we stopped there on the way to the farmer's market, and left a note on the door in apology.

Secretly, I am thrilled to have more time for cooking. Cooking! This is a passion in my life -- one that I've rarely shopped out. Like sex, it seems to me that cooking for utter strangers as a job would be a sad diminishing of a truly amateur art. Cooking is about offering the destruction of life for the sustaining of life. It is about sacrifice made art. It is an offering to the gods. It is the maintenance of the bodily temple. It is the ritual of family, of friends, of bonding.

Every dish has a meaning. Each day of cooking is sacred.

So, it is in that intention -- to bring a message about how to feel and think about the food in one's life -- that I put forward this blog and eventually the cookbook or foodie-book from it.

Leaving the office door where I was to phone bank, Joseph and I head for the bus mall and wend our way to Portland State where on Saturday we love to go to the market. Portland, Oregon has farmers markets nearly every day of the week. For us, the major markets are Saturday at PSU, Wednesday at People's Coop, and Thursday evening at Hinson Church -- the last a bare three blocks from our house.

Farmers markets provide a connection between the food grown and the food prepared that is bidirectional. Cooks chat with farmers, and trade them recipes for intelligence on the crops coming in the next weeks, allowing us a sense of delighted anticipation. This week was a wonderful week at market. Besides dill and parsley, a leek, jalapeno and anaheim peppers, an eggplant, red and yellow cured onions (this is to say, with clean dried onionskin, vs the ones fresh plucked from the earth meant to be eaten today), and my weekly order of some large oysters from the coast, we hunted up Damsons, Chanterais Melon, and the first Butternut Squash of the season.

I'll try to address each day's cooking, and I suspect I'll have material for a cookbook in no time.