Maté Weather

It's a gray day, no longer winter, not yet spring. Is it warm? Uh-uh. Cold? Ish. On Sunday it was sixty degrees, on Monday it snowed three inches. If Macbeth were here he'd surely proclaim it "foul and fair" (Act I, sc. III).

When it's that hard to get a fix on the weather, nothing feels better than suddenly deciding what it is you want to eat or drink. I imagine this is how some women (or men) feel when they know exactly what shoes to wear. Today, I slid my feet into some warm maté.

The world outside is muddled, but in my apartment I'm drinking maté, and everything is warm and clear. Like the final act of a Shakespeare play, just one sip turned chaos into order.

I'd dabbled for a few years, but it wasn't until last summer that a Chilean friend fully inducted me into the cult of maté (not to be confused with the maté cult). Whenever I drink it I dutifully practice his method, and now so can you.

How to Make Maté Like Gabriel Sepulveda:

1. Fill the gourd halfway with yerba maté leaves. (You could use a less exotic vessel, but you could also drink champagne out of a rusty tin can.)

2. Shake the gourd with your hand covering its mouth, then blow off the dust that gathers on your palm. Repeat until there is no more dust.

3. Gently insert the bombilla (metal straw) into the leaves at a 45 degree angle. Never move it.

3. Cover the leaves with cool water.

4. Fill with near boiling water (between shrimp eyes and crab eyes) by trickling it down the straw.

5. Let steep about four minutes. Drink!

6. Continue filling with hot (but not boiling) water for several more infusions.

Cured Duck Breast à la Ruhlman

In December Michael Ruhlman blogged about how incredibly easy it is to cure your own meat, here and then again here. The original post was entitled "Salt!"

And those are really the only two ingredients you need: salt and enthusiasm.

I couldn't imagine that it was as simple as Mr. MR said, so I decided to test his most basic recipe. I took a duck breast, wrapped it in salt for 24 hours, rinsed it off, and hung it up in a red bandanna not unlike one you might find dangling from the stick of Emmett Kelly.

Pre-salting it looked like this:



Post-salting it looked like this:



The flesh had darkened to a deep, almost purple red, as though somewhat cooked (which is what the salt does). I realize these photos would have a stronger before-and-after effect if I had shot the same side of the breast each time, but I didn't. So shut up.

When the appropriate length of time had passed (one week), I sliced off a piece, giddy with anticipation. It was disgusting.

Elise pointed out that it may have been the way I cut it. If you think of biting into a thick hunk of prosciutto (or prosciutto Americano), you can imagine it validating the too much of a good thing theory. I tried slicing it thinner, a difficult task for someone with knives like spoons. It wasn't bad, which of course means that it also wasn't good.

Once I trimmed the fat (saving it for rendering), I found that a thin slice was quite palatable. Still, it seemed like Ruhlman was right about being able to cure with nothing more than salt, but not about having it be something that you're particularly interested in eating. When I fried some up, all that changed. Crisped in a pan like bacon, the cured duck was extraordinary.



Ruhlman was dead on. With nothing more than salt, meat turns from a ticking time bomb of expiration to a delicious treat that you can keep enjoying from the time you cure it until the time at which you become neurotic about how long it's been since you cured it.

The duck bacon performed best when slivered, crisped in skillet, and served with something of contrasting texture and flavor. For instance, on top of a root veggie mash, as pictured at top.

In addition to tasting great, Ruhlman's simple salt cure provides an extremely low tech solution to making food last. No doubt this is an ancient answer to a problem we now counter with machines that require massive amounts of ill begotten energy.

How convenient that nature provides fixes to its own problems. God made meat that goes bad quickly, but god also made salt. And Michael Ruhlman.

Quote of the Day

From a recent article in Mother Jones:

"According to a 2008 report from Carnegie Mellon University, going meat- and dairyless one day a week is more environmentally beneficial than eating locally every single day."

If I Made a Commercial for Trader Joe's: A Waltz With Mortality

I have mixed feelings when it comes to Trader Joe's. Actually, I take that back: my feelings aren't mixed at all. I love some things that they have and hate the rest. That's cheap alcohol and excessively packaged, dubiously ecological dry goods, respectively.

The creator of the viral video posted below seems to share some of my negativity towards the store, though for different reasons. Regardless, the film is an interesting new breed of commercial, one which the maker made of his own volition, though it clearly does the work of TJ's marketing board for them. And that's the idea. In his own words from an interview on NewTeeVee:

“I’m interested in the idea of creating a new genre of advertising, the heartfelt commercial, that really expresses how you feel about a product or store,” he said. “It’s a whole new area of advertising, where there’s much less client involvement — they can just say yes or no.”

Still, I have my doubts. It still reads like a fake in the way that the subjects comply with the narrative, from managers who aren't supposed to let the guy be filming to the accommodating yoga moms. Everyone knows that yoga moms are actually really mean.

But viewed as an artistic statement, I like it. Whether it's a new media ploy or not, you'll notice a dark, nostalgic undercurrent, a dance with temporality against a backdrop of life giving juices and bran muffins.

In other words, no matter where you shop, you're still going to die.

Bear With Me

Don't worry, it's the verb form of "bear."

Just a heads up that I'm in the process of consolidating the labels on previous posts, so if anything looks funky in that section, it will be fixed by tonight.

In the meantime, here's a picture of a butternut squash seed that stayed on my dog's butt for a surprisingly long time.

Again, Silk Oolong Formosa

The last time I wrote about the silk oolong formosa I picked up at Red Blossom, I marveled at its milky quality despite the absence of actual milk. I was wrong. Vegans beware, this tea is not for you.

Some s.o.f. actually does contain dairy. Apparently a "milk oolong" can fall into one of two camps. The milk flavor can occur naturally, from a combination of the variety of tea, climate and conditions, or it can be literally infused with milk. Like from a cow, which is what gives Red Blossom's version its warm, caramel aroma and flavor.

I can't tell if that makes me like this tea more or less. It reminds me of my dad's search for the perfect stereo equipment. When surround sound debuted, he saw it as cheating, and wanted a pair of traditional speakers made so well that they could achieve a similar effect. He wanted naturally milk scented sound.

My hunch is that the milk-infused variety has taken the place of the more rare (and expensive) original, in much the same way that "liquid smoke"-infused lapsang souchong has largely replaced tea that has actually been cured over a fire.

Using milk instead of a balletic synthesis of natural elements does seem like cheating, and it is, but if it produces a better result that more people can enjoy, then why not? Because it also threatens a time honored tradition and the livelihood of those who practice it.

But do I enjoy my silky, milky tea? God, yes.

Yogurt Pancakes

Like silly putty, this recipe was stumbled upon completely by accident. Like America, I'm sure someone else had stumbled upon it first.

I wanted pancakes, but didn't have milk (be it cow, nut, grain, or bean) or eggs, and I was in a fluffy mood. I cast about the refrigerator and paused when I saw the yogurt. Yogurt: kind of like eggs and milk mixed together, right?

Wrong. It's better. These pancakes were so light and fluffy that I had to tether them down. I'd previously thought that MB's beaten egg white pancakes were the fluffiest, but these have those beat. Yes, these beat Bitten's beaten ones.

Sure they were poofy, but were they also moist? As moist as the day is long, and I'm not talking about the day of the winter solstice. I'm talking about about that sprawling summer solstice day. In other words, they were extremely moist. The yogurt also imparted a pleasant, savory tang.

On Sunday I skated across Walden Pond and found myself on top of a body of water I had only previously been in or under. The yogurt must have had the reverse experience when mixed into the pancakes. Used to sliding around on top, it suddenly found itself deep within them.

The only downside is that the cooking process probably nullifies the probiotic content of the yogurt. But you know the old saying: you've got to break a few billion bacteria to make pancakes.

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Recipe: Yogurt Pancakes

1 cup mixed whole grain flours (I used barley, spelt and corn)
1 cup plain yogurt (or whatever it takes to look like pancake batter)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon

Gently mix all of the above, leaving it lumpy. Marvel at its fluffy nature.

Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased skillet (I used a non-stick pan, no oil at all, and they really didn't stick.) Once bubbling, flip, cook briefly on the B-side, and cook again until golden.

Mourn bacteria.

My Dog Makes Orange Juice

Oli, my adopted Puerto Rican mutt, sometimes gets excited when he sees tropical fruit. Perhaps it reminds him of his days rummaging through the streets of San Juan.

The first time he saw me peel a banana he begged as though it were steak. Yesterday I gave him a clementine that was past its prime, and this is what happened.



Eventually, he did eat it.

Miso in the Morning

Continuing on the theme of savory breakfasts, this dish fits into my miso+1 theory. The variable in this instance was millet.

I very nearly OD'd on millet a few years back while suffering through a highly constrictive diet for health reasons. The way I ate in those days is why the thought of slightly steamed kale still makes me shudder, and the only way I can choke it down is cooked to death in soups with lots of sausage. But I just couldn't stay angry at millet. After all, there's nothing to be angry about.

Millet is a plain, inoffensive grain. There aren't many reasons to eat it, but there are even fewer not to. If nothing else, it will help you escape from the rice-is-the-only-grain-on-earth paradigm.

The first time I had millet was probably when I was kid, sampling birdseed. But now I like to pair it with miso for a breakfast that somehow feels both light and substantial. Simply boil millet as you would any grain, add a little miso slurry (this time I used red), and slurp. Millet can be nice and fluffy, but for some reason I'm liking it best when soupy.

Why? Why not?

Food for Breakfast

Mark Bittman's post on savory breakfasts seems to have struck a chord with many of us. For some, it might be novel: having food for breakfast instead of breakfast food.

A longtime proponent of starting the day with salt, this morning I made a variation on the ever present theme of savory oats, with eggs, garlic, collard greens and plenty of whisk-crushed black pepper.

If you prefer things like pop-tarts, saying "I could eat you for breakfast" simply becomes an empty threat. But if you eat breakfast like I eat breakfast, the phrase is nothing short of menacing. All the more true if you're talking to a vampire (garlic).

In all seriousness, eating real food first thing in the morning makes me feel invincible. Like I can slug my way through the day's tasks undaunted, my stomach full of power. I've been around a lot of sick folks lately, and I can't help but feel that my healthful savory breakfasts have helped me escape the wrath of their pathogens.

This has been a cold, snowy, flu-inducing winter, and in response I've upped my intake of the hot stuff (black and chili pepper, ginger, and garlic). Their bracing, medicinal qualities have gone a long way, and they rival coffee as an eye-opener.

I feel as healthy as a horse. And what do horses eat for breakfast? Savory oats.

Eating the Sun

As I poured eggs over some repurposed truffle salt French fries from the Franklin in Gloucester, this minuscule splash reared up, freezing mid-leap from the radiant heat of the skillet.

It's just a little drip, yet it conjures images of the most spectacular celestial activities, like comet trails and solar flares, giving new meaning to the phrase "sunny side up."

And why shouldn't it? As Pollan reminds us, we are essentially sunshine eaters. The chicken that laid the egg ate the grain, which had in turn consumed the sun. It's all very chad gadyah.

It also brings to mind the words of John (Fire) Lame Deer, a Lakota medicine man who has had a tremendous impact on my thinking about most things, food included.

He said:

What do you see here, my friend? Just an ordinary old cooking pot, black with soot and full of dents.

It is standing on the fire on top of that old wood stove, and the water bubbles and moves the lid as the white steam rises to the ceiling. Inside the pot is boiling water, chunks of meat with bone and fat, plenty of potatoes.

It doesn't seem to have a message, that old pot, and I guess you don't give it a thought. Except the soup smells good and reminds you that you are hungry. Maybe you are worried that this is dog stew. Well, don't worry. It's just beef -- no fat puppy for a special ceremony. It's just an ordinary, everyday meal.

But I'm an Indian. I think about ordinary, common things like a pot. The bubbling water comes from the rain cloud. It represents the sky. The fire comes from the sun which warms us all -- men, animals, trees. The meat stands for the four-legged creatures, our animal brothers, who gave of themselves so that we should live. The steam is living breath. It was water; now it goes up to the sky, becomes a cloud again. These things are sacred. Looking at that pot full of good soup, I am thinking how, in this simple manner, Wakan Tanka takes care of me. We Sioux spend a lot of time thinking about everyday things, which in our mind are mixed up with the spiritual. We see in the world around us many symbols that teach us the meaning of life. We have a saying that the white man sees so little, he must see with only one eye. We see a lot that you no longer notice. You could notice if you wanted to, but you are usually too busy.

The Tale of Niman Ranch

Brendan here, with a word about meat. If you're familiar with Niman Ranch meats, you probably know that it was recently taken over by Natural Food Holdings, a bigger company not founded by hippies (probably). Bill Niman isn't impressed by what they've done with the place, and won't eat the meat that still bears his name. On the other hand, the company is now showing a profit, for the first time ever. A synopsis of Niman Ranch's founding, rise and buy-out can be found here.

I think people should raise animals the way Bill Niman does. But if you can't show a profit that way, forget about the business. Raise the animals, eat them, barter with them, and find another way to pay the bills.

Sichuan Gourmet in Framingham

Anyone who has meticulously scoured Chowhound for the best Chinese restaurants in Boston (guilty!) has surely heard of Sichuan Gourmet in Framingham. Anyone who hasn't just did, and everyone should go there.

Pictured above is what I couldn't finish from my leftover smoky hot shredded chicken with cayenne. I loved it, but no one who grew up on "barbarian pepper" could ever eat (or digest, I should say) equal parts chili and chicken, which is how the dish is served at S.G.

Zoe's in Somerville is still my top pick for one stop shopping Chinese food (range, price, location, jellyfish), but at Sichuan Gourmet I tasted the single best Chinese dish I've ever had within 416 miles of Boston (the distance to Grace Garden, the best Chinese food within 7,000 miles, the distance to China). That dish was Dan Dan noodles.

The chef had expertly combined sesame, garlic, and chili, all present, none overpowering. The noodles were dressed with the perfect amount of sauce then topped with crispy ground pork, and for the first time I understood why Fuchsia Dunlop is so crazy about them.

While I haven't made a completely exhaustive search of Chinatown, so far I generally agree with the notion that the best Chinese food in Boston lies in the burbs. But if you're like me and Ezra Klein (favorite political blogger!), and you really like Sichuan cooking, go to Framingham.

If you can't make it there, the stuff in Chengdu is probably good too.

Happy (Tree) New Year!

I just wrote an article about Tu B'Shevat, a holiday which is known as the Jewish Arbor Day and the new year for trees. The date coincides with the blossoming of the first fruit trees in Israel, a fact which is hard to register given how numb my hands are as I type due to the eleven degree windchill that I just walked the dog in.

My Tu B'Shevat menu synthesized Middle Eastern fare, Israeli tree crops, and local, seasonal New England foods. Every dish contained at least one ingredient from a tree, even if it was just cinnamon. For instance, sweet potatoes glazed with palm sugar, naan with carmelized onions, goat cheese and dates, and banana cream pie.

For those of you who object because the banana is not a true tree, don't worry, the pie also had lemon curd. We washed it all down with hard cider and pine tea, both tree products and both locally made/foraged, even now in the dead of winter.

While it might seem strange to celebrate spring in winter, there is a convenient connection for those who wish to find a relevant, tree themed event currently happening in the U.S. Here, Tu B'Shevat also marks the start of maple syrup season.

Coincidence? Yes. See here for the article.

My Other Pepper Mill is a Whisk

One of the reasons my kitchen implements are so crude is that I believe that much can be done with very little. Another reason is that, like Konstantin Dmitrich Levin and ice skating, "I wanted to achieve perfection."

I won't buy a good knife until I decide which knife is the right knife, and in the meantime I'm still using an un-honed garage sale find with the sharpness of a spoon. By holding out for something better, I'm sticking with something bad. That same stubborn hesitation has left me without a peppermill for years.

For a while I used my (awful) knife to crush peppercorns as one reader suggested. When I first heard of cracking pepper with a knife, I didn't believe it could be worth the effort. In the hierarchy of pepper, I thought that anything that didn't come pre-ground was tops, and that a knife could not improve on a peppermill. Otherwise, waiters at fancy restaurants would walk around with kitchen knives instead of grinders.

Little did I realize that freshly milled pepper and freshly bashed pepper are almost as different as freshly milled pepper and the limp, pre-ground pepper languishing on supermarket shelves around the world. If milled pepper is dust, then cracked pepper is... never mind, milled pepper is just dust.

Using the side of the knife to bludgeon peppercorns was an improvement on using a mill, but it still wasn't jumping off the ice from the steps. So I cast about my kitchen for the right implement, and somehow I landed on the whisk. I can't remember how I made the connection, but the butt end of the whisk is the PERFECT tool for crushing a peppercorn, and I'll never use anything else.



It has the right weight, the indentation is the perfect depth to contain and smash the pepper, and the little bit of lip on the bottom ensures that nary a piece of pepper escapes your wrath. The fallout from the impact also tends to make a perfect circle, looking like a tiny, spicy galaxy.

Heck, maybe god wanted to make our universe out of something better, but you've got to use what you have.

Un-American Cheese

See here for Adam's latest rant, including some mind-boggling government literature defining nacho "cheese."

You're Welcome, Mark Bittman

After months of posting about the wonders of savory breakfasts, especially oatmeal, my contributions to the culinary world have finally been recognized by none other that Mark Bittman. In his latest Minimalist column, Bittman publicly thanks me in no uncertain terms. I quote:

"Here are a few more fast ideas for savory, mostly whole-grain breakfasts some of which come from readers of my blog, Bitten — for these I say a general “thanks”.

You're welcome, Mark.

True to form, today began with savory oats. Salt, barely cracked pepper -- more like quartered peppercorns -- and a seriously fried egg on top. In fact I don't think I've ever fried an egg as hard as I (accidentally) did this morning, yet the yolk remained soft to the point of spilling out over the oats. It was quite possibly the best oat and egg combo I've tried yet, and on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from whipping them together as I usually do.

Why don't I make oats and eggs like that every time? Because I'm stupid. Nothing else could explain it.

Let me know if you need any more pointers, Bitty.

Finally, Something That Does Grow on Trees

As I pulled into the driveway last night, I caught two interesting objects in my headlights. One was my dog Oli, chewing a stick twice his size while on a walk with Elise. The other was a plastic gallon jug that clung to the trunk of our neighbor's maple. If you're from New England, you probably know what that means: syrup season.

Turns out that our neighbor, a retired engineer, started tapping all the sugar maples on the block about two years ago. When I inquired about the presence of the many floating milk jugs, he gave me a tour of the trees and explained the process, which he kept describing as "really easy" and "so simple!"

Though legally blind, he can still make out the sugar maples by their bark. He drills two to three inches into them, inserts a short metal tube, and sticks a milk jug on it. The sap flows when you've got freezing nights and warm days, and on a good day he might get a gallon of sap from a single tree. Of course this has be cooked down to about one fortieth its volume, but the (clean) plastic trash can in which he stores the sap already has about 30 gallons in it, and the season has just begun.

When I came home last night, I was hot, tired and cranky after an eight hour cooking shift. I parked the car, saw the jug on the tree, and didn't think twice. I walked over to the maple, lifted the jug off the tap, and took a swig. The tree filtered sap tasted like the cleanest water I'd ever had, with an unmistakable maple flavor. It was ice cold, it was delicious, and it was straight out of the tree.

Of course that's one-fortieth of a mouthful of syrup we won't get, but it was worth it.

I Made Corn Stock. Now What?

All summer and fall, Elise and I added our corn cobs to a bag in the freezer with the hopes of making a stock come winter. (Okay, we both added the cobs, but only I had the hopes.) But now that I've done so, I don't know what to do with it. Suggestions?

For months the cobs lay dormant beside goat kidneys, the tougher bits of chicken of the woods mushrooms, and other such ingredients I had not yet figured out what to do with. Yesterday, while working from home, I finally freed the cobs from their icy slumber and filled up the stock pot I had originally found on the curb in Somerville.

I let it simmer with nothing else but a fat pinch of salt for a few hours until the amount of liquid had reduced by half, the other half now clinging to the insides of the windows as condensation (corndensation?).

The stock was thick, rich and golden in color, and it tasted as sweet and grassy as you'd hope it would. But such a summer flavor now seems out of place, and I can't quite think of what to pair it with.

Ideally I would use it with actual corn to accentuate the flavor, but I didn't save the corn, just the cobs. I like wringing flavor and nutrition from something I've already finished, and would just as soon make stock out of something I could eat as I would support growing edible crops for biodiesel. In other words, I wouldn't.

Egg drop soup? Grain-on-grain risotto? Take a corn stock bath? Your thoughts are most appreciated.

Accidental, Occidental Fried Rice

For most of us, fried rice means Chinese style fried rice. I used to love the stuff as a kid (and before my 14 years of not eating un-kosher animals), and would pick out the red bits of pork and eat them first, just as I did the chips in mint-chip ice cream. But now the only time I have fried rice is when I ask for brown rice and mistakenly get it instead (though technically it is both brown and rice).

If you've ever had risotto cakes, you know that, unlike a restaurant that only serves penises, the concept of taking rice and frying it is not exclusively owned by the Chinese. (If you didn't click that link, know that it won't disappoint you.)

I recently did so with leftover, cooked Carolina Gold rice that I bought in the Lowcountry. I fried it up into little rice cakes that turned out about a million times better than the airy health food snack that bears the same name. But when I took my first bite, I realized that I had accidentally added seafood stock instead of chicken. As a result it tasted like a shortcut to using a full blown seafood risotto. In other words, the happy kind of accident.

Depending on the texture of your rice, you might be able to fry it as is. I added a dash of spelt flour and the aforementioned stock, plus plenty of black pepper. The cakes were crispy on the outside and as moist and lush as a Lowcountry summer on the inside. But best of all, they weren't a penis.

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Recipe: Fried Leftover Rice

Note: Depending on the consistency of your rice, you might need to add more or less liquid or flour, or nothing at all.

1 cup cooked rice (any kind)
1/4 cup stock (or water)
2 tbsp flour
black pepper
canola oil

Mix the rice, stock, flour and pepper.

Coat a skillet with sufficient oil for frying and set the burner to high.

When the oil is hot, drop in small handfuls of the rice batter. Once the crust begins to creep up the edges of the cakes, press gently to flatten, then flip and repeat on the B-side.

Serve hot and eat plain or with warm red sauce, which provides a welcome acidity.

Sustainable Shrimp

See here for my latest post over at the Chefs Collaborative blog. I recently attended their "Shrimp and Sazeracs" meet and greet with the folks behind Four Winds Seafood, a sustainable supplier from outside of New Orleans.

If nothing else it whetted my appetite to return for a full meal at Hungry Mother, a Cambridge restaurant that serves Southern food better than most of the food in the South.

My apologies for the poorly exposed photo - it was after a few Tabasco martinis.

Clean Your Plate, And Your Leftovers

For the second time in my life, I recently had take-out food so bad that I actually washed it off to make it better.

The offending dish came from a local Chinese restaurant that, despite its horrific, gaudy exterior, I desperately hoped would be good. I hadn't even thought to eat there until examining the dinner menu while having a (flaming) drink at the bar with some friends from out of town. When I saw the Yu Shiang section, my spirits lifted, or perhaps I was being lifted by the spirits shooting up the long straw from the scorpion bowl. In either case, I decided to go back for dinner, and I'm sorry I did.

I ate as much as I could while at the restaurant, choking down rubbery pieces of meat, the omnipresent (in bad Chinese restaurants) bell peppers, and a thick, cloying brown sauce that seemed composed of equal parts sugar and corn starch. I know that would just be powder, but that's how it tasted.

To make matters worse, while eating I was reading Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Peppercorns: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China. The contrast between the dishes in her pages and the one before me was depressing beyond the help of any cocktail, no matter how on fire it was. I took most of it home.

There I dumped the slop into a strainer and ran it under water until the sauce broke free and it once again resembled food. I dressed it with nothing but the contents of the two bottles in the photo at top, soy sauce and toasted sesame oil, and the improvement was shocking. The food now tasted more like food and less like the food version of the restaurant's facade.

Still, I'll be going back for cocktails.

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Recipe: Washed Yu Hsiang Pork

1 takeout container of bad yu hsiang pork
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
running water

Dump the "food" into a strainer and hold under running water until the sauce has been rinsed away. Spit down the drain in contempt.

Shake the food until relatively dry.

Dress with sesame oil and soy sauce.

What My Dog Ate For Lunch Today

A raw goat kidney and kale.

But before you lump me together with people who buy clothes for their dogs, know this: the kidney was from a locally raised goat, it was cheap, I think it's healthy for dogs to eat raw organ meat, and I tried to eat one myself (cooked) but just didn't like it. Also, it was just the ends of the kale.

It seems to have given him the energy needed to chase the splash of light created by the sun reflecting off my laptop, which he is currently doing.

No Cheese Pizza

A good relationship has countless advantages. Among them is pizza.

By now some of you know that Elise often delights me by whipping up several pizzas, of course from scratch. Last night's batch included a butternut and an anchovy-tapenade pie, both featured above. (Her halves also had cheese, a dab of which you can see on the slice above right, but more on that in a moment.)

She'll be working diligently from our home office and then suddenly peer over the screen of her laptop to declare "I'm going to make pizza tonight," as though possessed by some other power.

I'm an ardent feminist, but that doesn't stop me from observing that there's something about women and baking. Sure it might be the result of thousands of years of patriarchal oppression, with men demanding that women stick close to the oven for fear of them voting. On the other hand, maybe they just like it.

Among several modern, feminist-leaning, liberal couples that I know, the old gender divides often play out in the kitchen, if nowhere else. The men man the stove top (and of course the grill, fiery phallus that it is), the women the oven. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but there does seem to be a trend.

Perhaps on some subconscious, symbolic level, women relate to the womb-like quality of the oven, a warm chamber from which life sustaining offspring are born. Then, like a male lion, the man eats those offspring.

Regardless, Elise likes to make pizza. And lately she's been indulging my shockingly effective sabbatical from dairy (so long, allergy induced asthma!) and making no cheese pizzas, aka tomato pies. While that might sound as unfulfilling as abstinence, I've actually come to prefer them over the standard, cow secretion covered alternative.

Sure I've had great pizza with cheese, but there's something clean and elemental in the simplicity of just crust and sauce. Without the rubbery, fatty cloak of cheese, it's just you, a little sauce, and the crust. There's nowhere to hide: the sauce has to be good, the crust has to be great.

Now if only a man could figure out how to do it.

Homemade Tortillas

For no good reason, in all of my 28 years I've never made a tortilla. Pita, crepes, pancakes, yes. Tortilla, no. (That last sentence was in Spanish.)

And I still haven't, but last night Elise did, and the results were transformative. If only the standard, suburban "taco night" style dinner would replace packaged tortillas with the real deal, that horrible imitation of Mexican food would become less wooden puppet and more boy. If you then improved on ground beef with "taco seasoning" and shredded iceberg lettuce, so much the better.

But even if you're having DIY burritos or fajitas and you've assembled the world's finest fillings, relying on the contents of that telltale slim ziplock bag for your wrapper can still undo all of your efforts.

Last night I realized that there's nothing like holding a homemade tortilla in your hand. It's durable, yet pliant. Soft, yet firm. It's like holding the hand of a trusted friend, and then eating that hand.

We (Elise) also poached a couple of chicken legs and made a simple sauce with a can of diced tomatoes, dried poblanos, and a splash of the cooking liquid from the chicken. We rolled up the meat from the chicken with a hearty dose of the red sauce and a spear of romaine and were in heaven.

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Recipe: Tortillas
From the More-With-Less-Cookbook
(makes 8-11 tortillas)

Combine in mixing bowl:

2 c. unsifted flour
1 t. salt

Cut in with pastry blender (or a fork or your hands):

1/4 c. lard or shortening (we used butter)

When particles are fine, add gradually:

1/2 c. lukewarm water

Toss with fork to make a stiff dough. Form into a ball and knead thoroughly on lightly floured board until smooth and flecked with air bubbles. To make dough easier to handle, grease surface, cover tightly, and refrigerate 4-24 hours before using. Let dough return to room temperature before rolling out.

Divide dough into 8 balls for large tortillas or 11 balls for common 8-inch size. Roll as thin as possible on a lightly floured board, or between sheets of waxed paper. Drop onto a very hot ungreased griddle. Bake until freckled on one side. (Takes only about 20 seconds.) Lift edge, turn, and bake on second side.

Lemon and Eggs

If you haven't tried lemon on eggs before, do so. Just a squeeze can transform a plate of eggs from the normal salt and pepper profile into something much more stimulating. Yes, stimulating.

Eggs with lemon wakes up the mouth. While chickens aren't known for their ability to fly, lemon allows the flavor of the egg to soar. Eggs are so often served with heavy, earthy foods likes potatoes and bacon that you could almost forget how light they can be. Lemon will help you remember.

Pictured above is a dish of twice cooked noodles with scrambled eggs, a must try if you've got leftover noodles lying around, which you do. Neither noodles nor eggs nor egg noodles have the same effect on their own, but put them together and something magical happens.

I heat a small pan with oil, sprinkle a few flakes of crushed chiles, add the pasta, then scramble in the egg until it sets. Salt or soy sauce help to develop the flavor, but it's that bit of lemon that will brighten your day.

This isn't necessarily a winter dish, at least not in New England, and that's exactly why I like it. In fact, I like it so much that sometimes I even use once-cooked noodles.

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Recipe: Twice Cooked Noodles With Lemon and Eggs

serves: as many as you want
prep time: inconsequential

1 & 1/2 cup leftover noodles (per person)
1 egg (ditto)
2 tbsp olive oil
a dash of chile flakes
a dash of salt (or soy sauce)
the juice of 1/2 lemon

Heat a pan, add the oil and chile flakes.

When the oil is hot but not sizzling, add cooked pasta and salt (or soy) and stir to coat.

Add egg, stir with a fork until flashes of cooked white are visible.

Remove from heat and sprinkle with lemon.

The Latest Health Craze: Worms?

I cannot believe this sentence exists:

"And pig whipworms, which reside only briefly in the human intestinal tract, have had 'good effects' in treating the inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, he said."

Yet it hails from the NYT, in an article about how things that you think are bad for you (dirt, worms) are actually good. (The "he" refers to Dr. David Elliott, a gastroenterologist and immunologist at the University of Iowa.)

That takes probiotics to a whole new level. Thanks to Ruhlman for pointing it out.

More On Palm Oil

I received a rather lengthy and well informed comment on my recent Smart Balance post, so I thought I'd give it a little more exposure. This thread really encapsulates what many of us are trying to figure out in a post-modern food world: what the f*ck should we eat?

There are several points here that I really enjoy. One is the lesser of evils approach when it comes to the environmental impact of food production. Perfection is great, but elusive. I also like the idea of replacing an animal fat with real food, like macadamia oil, instead a food product (like Smart Balance). Our ancestors didn't need text-heavy plastic tubs to tell them what to eat, so why should we?

Thanks to Adam for sending this in:

1) Oil palms yield more oil per acre than any other oil plant. Greater productivity = greater environmental efficiency = more land left untouched by modern agriculture.

2) Oil palms aren't an annual crop, like soy, canola (rapeseed), etc., so less violence is done to the land with the constant tearing-up of the soil to plant and yearly re-plant. Less aggressive (chemical) fertilization is used and less pesticide since it's a tree crop growing in its natural habitat.

3) Yes, oil palm plantations take habitat away from orangutans and the like (although a lot more wildlife can survive in a tree plantation than a monocultured field full of annuals). But let's not throw that stone in our glass house. Until we tear up our wheat fields to let the bison back in, let's not get on our high horse about a poor, poor country trying to make some money off their own agriculture. Almost all large-scale agriculture is inherently, ecologically violent. Oil palm plantations much less so that the alternatives.

4) On a nutritional basis, a distinction ought to be made between palm kernel and palm fruit oil. The kernel oil ain't great for you -- but it's not nearly bad as you've been told. The palm fruit oil -- brilliant red -- is actually one of our healthiest, most heat-stable fats. Like other fruit oils (olive, avocado), it's very rich in antioxidants, and can stand up to long storage and high-heat cooking without a whole lot of lipid peroxidation.

5) CSPI are a bunch of scare-mongers. That "Dying for a Cookie" ad they ran full-page in the NYT was kind of bullshit. I wrote them to tell them as much. They wrote me back to (mostly) agree with me -- or at least, to agree with my individual points, not the final assessment...

6) Finally, if you want vegan "vegan" butter for pancake frying, may I suggest straight-up red palm fruit oil, avocado oil, or macadamia oil.

Pacman or Flatbread?

Answer: flatbread.

A few months ago, Bittman wrote of the wonders of socca, a chickpea flatbread that is both versatile and facile. I believed he called it "instant starch." He and Conan (the food writer) then revisited the dish, and since then I've been hooked. Incidentally, the titles of both pieces are extremely pleasant to say: "The Saga of Skillet Flatbread" and "A Street Treat from Nice."

Thanks to their plug, socca has become an absolute staple in my kitchen. And why wouldn't it? It meets all of my criteria for perfect food: quick, easy, cheap, nourishing, and kind of weird.

I throw one together anytime I've got a meal that feels like it's missing something. I've baked, baked and then broiled, and simply broiled, and all are perfectly acceptable. If you're really going for speed, I suggest broiling and flipping. In my mind, the perfect socca is crispy on the outside and still moist and somewhat hummusy on the inside.

Luckily, the flavor of chickpea flour is generally more sweet and pea-like than with a canned garbanzo, so you've got that going for you too. I eat most of my socca straight up, but of course you can add anything you like to the batter or on top during or after baking. I imagine grated cheese would look nice and help ensure a good crunch.



By far the best socca I've made was one topped with the tomato sauce we put up at the end of the season. Each jar is a time capsule of summer, an explosion of flavor from a forgotten temperature.

So don't be a suckah; make a socca. And if you want to go all out, eat it in a sukkah.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Recipe: Socca (aka Farinata aka Chickpea Flatbread)
-adapted from Mark Bittman

1 cup chickpea flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 to 6 tablespoons olive oil

Put a skillet under the broiler and set oven to "broil."

Mix chickpea flour with equal parts water, then add the salt and pepper. Whisk until smooth. Stir in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Cover, and let sit while oven heats, or as long as 12 hours. Batter should be about the consistency of heavy cream.

Pour 2 tablespoons oil into heated pan, and swirl to cover pan evenly. Pour in batter, and broil about 5 minutes on each side. If it looks dry, brush the top with more oil.

Cut it into wedges and serve hot.

High Fructose Corn Thermometer

It seems American consumers are playing a big game of Sesame Street's "one of these things is not like the other thing."

But instead of a plate with the wrong number of cookies, the thing that doesn't belong is now within the cookie. Like E. Coli in spinach, salmonella in peanut butter or raisins in rice pudding (not a fan), now there's something scary in foods with corn syrup, besides the corn syrup itself. And that's mercury.

The Washington Post reports that "Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products."

Guess the dumbfounded skeptics in recent ads by Big Corn Syrup will now have something to say.

Homemade Granola

I can't remember the first time I had granola, but shortly afterwards I wrote it off. As a kid, it was too healthy. As an adult, it wasn't healthy enough. What began as a wholesome, grain based snack had at some point morphed into candy for rich hippies. Until I made it myself.

Ah, the power of "homemade." After years of eating a food dictated by popular consensus, in your own kitchen you finally gain the satisfaction of unchecked creative control. Want a salty granola? It's your call. Granola dotted with marrow croutons? Yes, we can.



Making your own version of a commercially available food is deeply satisfying for any home cook on a budget, especially if you have control issues. When I made my first batch of granola, and I've made more since, it finally tasted how I've always wanted it to and it cost what I've always wanted to pay: next to nothing.

While it might seem like a specialty snack, I didn't even have to buy anything to make it. If you feel the need to load it with acai and gogi you'll have to make a trip to the obnoxious store, but otherwise you can make do.

I adapted Bittman's recipe to what I had on hand, combined with observations from having watched others make it in the past. My version is not candy, but I do eat it as though it were. And it makes the house smell like winter should.

-------------------------------------------------
Recipe: Tons of Great, Cheap Granola

6 cups (real) oats
2 cup sunflower seeds (or whatever)
1 cup dried currants (or whatever)
1 cup dried coconut
1 cup honey
2 tbsp canola oil
pinch of salt
dash of cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 325. Combine everything but the currants and oil and mix well.

Spread the oil on two baking sheets, divide the granola between them, and toss lightly.

Bake until brown but not burnt, stirring as often as necessary (about 4 times, about half an hour.)

Let cool. Feel cool.

Hi-Rise Bakery Potato Bread

Humans are such repulsive creatures, especially foodies. We never want the same thing twice no matter how good it was, always searching for the next thrill, be it the latest obscure grain (farro) or the cheapest tongue mulita (Tacos Lupita).

For instance, how often did I go to the fantastic Hi-Rise bakery during the years in which I lived a few blocks away? Twice.
Now, through the eyes of others, I've seen the error of my ways. This first happened in the Ferry Market in San Fran, pretty much the last place you'd expect to feel good about your own town's food. But when I mentioned that I had come from Cambridge, the cheesemongers at Cowgirl Creamery started gushing about the H.R., and I couldn't help but blush. I felt like a supermodel had told me that I was beautiful.

Then yesterday I took an out of town guest there to secure provisions for his flight back to Ithaca, which of course is the San Francisco of Tompkins County, New York. As soon as we set foot in the door, I saw the expression on my friend's face, the drool seeping from the corners of his gaping mouth, and I realized how numb and ungrateful I had become. I crossed out the existing words in my thought bubble ("Ah, the place with expensive sandwiches") and instead wrote in my highest compliment to any Boston area eatery: "Wow, this is the kind of place you can find in New York!"

I'm eating a slice of their potato bread right now, and its sheer splendor has shaken me out of hunting mode. Why look elsewhere when you've got something this good right in front of you?

Thin, crunchy crust, moist and fluffy interior, deep potato flavor. Those Cowgirls were right: I am beautiful.

-------------------

Hi-Rise Bakery

56 Brattle St
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02143
(617) 492 3003

208 Concord Ave
Cambridge, MA 02138

(617) 876-8766

Help The Human Rabbit

My friend is undertaking an intense, almost all-veggie diet, and he came to me for ways to make it palatable. Here is his regiment, as I understand it.

There are milk days and veggie days. On milk days, it's just whole milk and yogurt. On veggie days he can have two fruits and 1.5 pounds of veggies, so it's obviously more about what you can't eat than what you can. No oil, grains, nuts, alcohol, vinegar, and in his words, he's desperate for anything that tastes good, or "tastes at all." (And I'm assuming there's no beans if there's no grains.) Obviously he could use some help, so please comment if you've got any bright ideas.

I have three bits of advice. The first is to favor starchy, filling veggies. If all you can eat is vegetables, baby arugula will only go so far. I'm thinking baked acorn squash (or any winter squash), roasted sweet potatoes, whole baked eggplant, mashed potatoes or mashed anything like a potato. If avocados fit the criteria, I would eat as many as possible, with just a squeeze of lemon and lots of salt and pepper. If coconut milk is cool, I would mix in a few spices and use it to turn plain old steamed veggies into curry.

Still, if you find something you like, you'll soon hate if you don't vary the preparation, especially the texture. That way you can trick yourself into thinking that you're eating a greater variety than you actually are. This is how a lot of raw foods people do it: "lasagna" that's just thinly sliced layers of different vegetables and so on.

In keeping with the first idea, I think spaghetti squash could go a long way here. It's filling, it's flavorful on its own, and it's fun. I would also suggest purées, since you can cook and blend almost any veggie with a little water and salt and suddenly have a satisfying soup. Since you can do spices, might I suggest carrot ginger. I haven't done it, but I bet baked latkes made with any grated veggie wouldn't be bad.

My third suggestion is to hit the blogs. There are a ton of people out there with specialized diets, and they're often the same folks who are compulsive enough to tell you about every little thing that they consume. 101 Cookbooks is queen of the veggieblogosphere, and I bet you could find some inspiration in raw foods; just the fact that you can use heat might make your options look decadent in comparison.

I will say that it's surprising how much we can alter our diets just by changing the ratios of the kinds of things we eat. I grew up with meat taking center stage in every dinner, and I still eat it, but I've also learned that if I up the amounts of other stuff, like grains and veggies, I can not only adapt but also do better.

That said, it sounds really tough, so good luck. Anyone else?

Teatulia's Tulsi Tea

I've had a few readers complain that Tea and Food is much more food than tea, and they're right. One reason is that it's more important to eat food than drink tea, so one tends to overshadow the other.

Another reason is that I might focus on the same variety of tea every day for a month, but I'm not going to blog about it more than once. But rest assured that when I try something new, unless it's Lipton French Vanilla, you'll hear about it. For instance, Teatulia's Tulsi Infusion Tea.

You might recall Teatulia (then known as Tetulia) from my two-part post back in June, but if you're too lazy to click on the hyperlink, here's the short version: they're an extremely socially and environmentally conscious company, and they make great tea. Support them.

This morning I finally had the chance to try their flagship blend, an infusion of the Ayurvedic herb tulsi with their standard black tea, both sustainably grown. It's a tea unlike any other that I've tasted, and its unusual flavors drew me right in. Tulsi is also known as holy basil, and in some parts of India it is considered to have almost magical properties, as this excerpt from the blog Health is Wealth will attest:

A few leaves dropped in drinking water or food-items can purify it and can kill germs. Even smelling it or keeping it planted in a pot indoors is said to prevent the whole family from infections, cough and cold and other viral infections. It has been an age old custom in India to worship it twice daily, water it and light lamps near it, once in the morning and once in the evening. It was, and still is, believed that it would protect the whole family from evils and bring good luck.

On this ten degree day, it certainly did have a warming and uplifting effect that went beyond the usual warming and uplifting effects of c.m. The flavor of the herb was similar to that of the sweetest, most licorice-like Thai basil, and it was nicely balanced with the earthy pucker of the black tea.

There are so many cloying herbal blends out there (again, Lipton French Vanilla), so it's refreshing to taste one that has some real umph. Think I'll go brew a second flush right now.

If you'd like to try some for yourself, see here. And yes, I know I need to oil my cutting board.

Smart Balance or Stupid Balance?

I recently, and mistakenly, bought a tub of Smart Balance to use in pancakes for some vegan friends. While its cousin Earth Balance is indeed suitable for vegans, it seems Smart Balance is not, as it contains whey. Clearly the distributor thinks that people who don't eat dairy are more earthy than they are smart.

Though both Balances have been widely embraced as healthy stuff, they violate several of Pollan's rules for good eating laid out in the climax of In Defense of Food. For instance:

-Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

-Avoid products that make health claims.

-Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar, B) unpronounceable, C) more than five in number.

In looking over Smart Balance's ingredients, which are both numerous and alien, I paused when I came to palm oil. I had just read an article in Nat Geo about deforestation in Borneo, caused in large part by supplying the growing demand for, you guessed it, palm oil. (For a rebuke of the article, see the very suspiciously named Palm Oil Truth Foundation, which seems like something out of communist Russia. It also calls the article's style "meandering" and states that "there has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming." Red flag!)

Without seriously researching the subject, I can't say that the palm oil in Smart or Earth Balance comes from Borneo, though the odds seem good, since most of the world's supply does come from there. Palm fruit plantations now cover much of the island, replacing habitat for the local indigenous people and the orangutans and pygmy elephants they share it with.

The deforestation necessary to create the plantations also helps Indonesia to rank third for greenhouse gas emissions, just behind the U.S. and China (!). I don't know about you, but that's not something I want to spread on my pancakes.

Again, I can't comment on how direct the link is (unless any editors out there want to pay me to), but here's something I can say.

It sure seems a lot more simple to just buy butter from your local dairy farm. It has one (two if there's salt) ingredients, and your great grandmother would definitely know what to do with it.

The Best French Fries I've Ever Had

Until now, the best fries I'd ever had were in Ithaca, NY. It's no secret that I have a soft spot for the town, but it's with good reason.

A friend of mine who is also a former Chez Panisse employee is considering moving from the Bay Area, and Ithaca is near the top of her list. Partly because she's interested in a grad program there, but partly because it's one of the few towns in America that won't make a former Bay Area foodie feel like they live in the desert outside of the house in Beetlejuice.

So it was no surprise that I had great fries there, especially because the region is also known for something called salt potatoes. But yesterday, all that changed. Elise had a rare free night now that her new show is up, and there was only one thing on her mind: making fries.

They were the perfect fry, with crisp skin and light and creamy guts. She admittedly has a heavy hand with salt, but in this case it was just right, going toe to toe with the surprisingly sweet taste of the taters. Crispy, fluffy, sweet, salty - may my epitaph be so kind.

We have three guesses as to why they were so ethereal. First was her general skill, including the decision to steam and then fry. Then there was our luck of having the right potatoes chilling in the hallway thanks to our winter CSA. But the third and most unusual reason was the choice of fat, or fats, rather.

We just so happened to be low on all oils, so she made a blend of peanut, canola, and olive. We wouldn't have done so for any other reason but necessity, but it just might have been the killing stroke that made these the best fries of my life.

Now who's gorges?

Not At All Vegetarian Broccoli

You might think that it would be difficult to make a vegetable unsuitable for a vegetarian, but it's not. In fact, if you order a vegetable dish at any French, Cuban, or Southern restaurant, there's a good chance that it will have equal parts vegetable matter and pork or duck fat. Is that wrong? Not necessarily.

I sautéed the above broccoli in bacon fat and then finished it off with a quick steam in reduced chicken stock. Before you ask yourself what kind of monster uses two different kinds of animals to make one vegetable, allow me to explain.

First off, like all meat that I make at home, both animal products featured here came from reliably sustainable sources, one just down the road. Second, you'll notice that there isn't any actual meat in the dish, just a couple natural remainders of a meat eater's kitchen: I make stock from chicken bones that I freeze over time, and the bacon fat came from what else but making bacon.

Using animal products as a teaser rather than a feature presentation could go a long way in improving the health of our planet, as many have already pointed out, most notably Mark Bittman. This is especially true when the animal product in question is leftover from a previous dish and might otherwise have been discarded.

I eat meat, but I eat way more vegetables, and in fact many dishes that I cook are either deliberately or coincidentally vegetarian or vegan. Straddling both worlds as I do, I am familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of both camps. But one thing is clear: when you cook broccoli with a little bacon fat and chicken stock, you'll want to eat a whole lot more broccoli.

Slight Exaggeration

A new video from The Onion about the way we eat. If it were any more true, it would be true.


New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less

The Thaw

Perhaps the only downside to locally raised meat is that much of it comes frozen. Unless you're vegetarian, in which case it's nothing but downsides.

Personally, I'd rather get my protein from a happy local cow than a soybean grown in Iowa. But this doesn't mean that I possess the forethought to thaw said cow before wanting to eat it. Hence the above photo, which captures my effort to simultaneously thaw and brown a frozen block of ground beef.

Actually, it worked. When one side of the meat-ice was done to my liking, I'd flip it and do the same to the B-side while using the spatula to shave off the finished portion. I continued doing so until the block had disappeared, at which point I turned up the heat, cooking off any remaining water and giving the meat a final toast. This served as the basis for a sauce to go with leftover (and also frozen) lasagna noodles. It was great, it was hearty, and it was local.

If you really want to eat seasonally in the winter, eat food that's as frozen as the hard, cold earth.

Kimchee Pancake

In damp, cold, snowy weather, a hot, crusty, kimchee pancake seems like the perfect food. It also makes sense seasonally, since this is the time of year when fermented veggies are the only kind available, excluding root vegetables and Chilean green beans.

A pajeon is also a good way to use up kimchee if you've got more than you can handle. I've started buying mine at Little Pusan, our local Korean restaurant and home of the best food in town. When I realized that they sold their excellent homemade kimchee in bulk, I had the following conversation with the owner, a charmingly opinionated woman:

Me: What size does the kimchee come in?
Her: Eight-fifty, six dollar, twelve.
Me: I'll take an eight-fifty.
(She disappears into the kitchen, returning with a five pound jar.)
Me: Whoah, that's a lot of kimchee!
Her: Not a lot.
Me: How long will it last?
Her: (Huff!) Three month. Six month.

It lasted me about one month, which helps me structure my visits to the restaurant. I always want to eat there, but don't want to get to a place where I lose interest or take it for granted. But now when the jar runs out, I know that it's time to go back for a meal and a reload.

I'd include my recipe but it's not quite there yet. I basically mixed kimchee with an egg and enough flour to bind, then fried it in hot oil. That wasn't bad, but see Wandering Chopsticks for a little more precision.

Quote of the Day

From Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry in an Op-Ed for the Times:

"For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake."

See here for the full piece.

A Complete Waste of Apples

One of the reasons I was excited to move to my current place of residence was the apple tree in the front yard. I can't pin down the variety, but it seems to fall somewhere in the red delicious family. They aren't the best eating apples, but they bake like nobody's business.

So you'd think I would have used them for baking. Nope! I decided on cider, despite the fact that I didn't have any of the necessary equipment or know-how. This was also right before I learned that good cider contains a carefully blended mix of different apples selected for complimentary flavors. Instead, I just took all the scraggly ones left at the end of the season, ran them through my neighbor's juicer, then used a piece of an old pair of pajama pants for a filter.

The flavor was all wrong, the texture somewhat chalky, and I lost a high percentage of the liquid due to the inadequacy of my filtering setup. What would have made loads of fantastic crisps, tarts and pies made less than one wine bottle's worth of cider.

"At least I'll have alcohol made entirely from my front yard," I thought. Wrong again. It went moldy. It was, as the title of this post suggests, a complete waste of apples.

That said, I did dump the cider/vinegar/mold onto the ground by the tree, figuring that it might at least be appetizing to the bacteria which colonize the dirt. In doing so, I performed a rather tradition wassail.

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RECIPE: Ruined Cider

Take lots of apples that would be great in something besides cider, and make cider from them.

Incorrectly ferment the cider, rendering it useless.

Romanian New Year's Cake

Just moments ago I answered a gentle knock on the door to my apartment to find the little girl who lives downstairs (with her parents). She was clad in Nemo slippers and holding an intriguing napkin wrapped bundle. I desperately hoped it was some sort of holiday pastry from Romania, her father's country of origin. It was.

I opened the napkin to find the thick slice of marbled cake pictured above. When I asked her what it was called, she said something that sounded like "Koozelnacht," and when I asked her to repeat it she said it faster and angrier, and therefore even less intelligibly. From a brief google search, I'm guessing that it's cozonac, also called Romanian walnut panetone.

The cake is light and faintly sweet, the crust a gorgeous, smooth golden brown. I'm not sure of exactly what is in the marbling, but I taste walnuts, spices, liquer, and perhaps cocoa, and it's faintly reminiscent of charoses.

It's fantastic, and serves as a reminder of the many culinary traditions that sometimes bubble up in our culture's otherwise corn syrup filled melting pot.

In exchange for the cake, she stuck around to play with Oli, who recently fell asleep on my face.



My New Year's resolution: more shamelessly cute pictures of my dog that have nothing to do with food.

Aged Egg Nog

Michael Ruhlman takes charcuterie so seriously that he's even doing it with cocktails. See here for his thoughts on aging egg nog, which sounds spectacular.