I'm about to pick a major bone, so if you're not in the mood—and I'm not talking about steak for dinner—turn away now. There's been a media pigpile on Paula Deen this week and I've got to get in my licks. It's not just that she has consistently used her Food TV show to promote unhealthy (and foul) food and been a longtime paid shill for industrial-meat giant Smithfield (whose inexcusably raised products are proven to increase the risk of diabetes), but now she's a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk's diabetes treatment Victoza (the 2010 FDA approval of which came amidst powerful evidence of a link to thyroid cancer), after disclosing that she was diagnosed with the disease three years ago. I find this all so deeply disturbing. And then I read a review by Nigella Lawson on the Piglet, Food52's wonderful Tournament of Cookbooks, where she writes about being suspicious of Heidi Swanson's excellent Super Natural Every Day "because I always fear a certain smuggery, and words like 'my natural kitchen' set off the alarm bells." How have we come to this place where natural and healthy are deemed "smug," and doughnut burgers for breakfast are the order of the day? As I used to say in junior high, gag me with a fork. I think you know where I stand on all this. Bacon and kale are both welcome in my kitchen...
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The opening of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco in 1979, under the auspices of the San Francisco Zen Center, forever changed the image of vegetarian food in this country. I began cooking from The Greens Cookbook in 1989, during the year I returned home to Santa Cruz as my father was dying from stomach cancer. It opened my mind to a new kind of cooking based upon vegetables, of which there was a constant, seasonal stream from our garden and local farmers markets. I also had a chance to eat at the restaurant, a beautiful spot overlooking the bay where a subtle message of health and harmony was offered in an elegant organic environment. The restaurant has since evolved toward a lighter, leaner cuisine, and I think the latest edition of the cookbook also differs somewhat from the one I have, but the essential philosophy of founders Deborah Madison and Edward Espe Brown remains intact. I have misplaced the book now (hopefully it's in storage somewhere), but I recall many of the dishes: saffron custard with eggplant; butter-fried potatoes with curry; baked polenta with tomato and gorgonzola; and a simple recipe for dried apricots poached with ginger and served cold with a dollop of crème fraîche.
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TO HELP STOP THE INTERNET CENSORSHIP BILLS, SOPA & PIPA, CONTACT CONGRESS NOW.
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Even though it may seem like I am the most organized kitchen bitch on the planet, there are definitely times when I reach for something and it's not there. Although once I was not above keeping canned (or boxed) stock in my pantry, I now resist that easy (and nutritionally challenged) out. Tragically, my source for chicken feet dries up in the winter and though I'll make stock from whole birds, it's just not as good. Dashi, the Japanese broth made with kombu and bonito flakes is one option, but its flavor is very specific. So when I came across a recipe in The River Cottage Preserves Handbook for a homemade vegetable bouillon, I got very excited. It's basically just a bunch of vegetables ground into a paste and preserved with salt. You stir a bit into hot water to make an authentically flavored stock for soups, stews, curries, whatever you like.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 83 yesterday. Today is the day we honor him with a national holiday that, little by little, is actually being observed. Ronald Reagan signed it into law in 1983 and it was first observed in 1986. At first, some states resisted observing it by giving it alternative names or combining it with other holidays. It was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time in 2000. If you are off work today, or even if you are not, I hope you will take at least a few moments to consider and pay tribute to this great man, who helped change our country for the better. If you have never read his "I Have a Dream" speech, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination, maybe you'll take the time to do so now. (Or listen to him here.) It was delivered on August 28, 1963, to more than 200,000 civil rights supporters, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.
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What a week. I'm not one of those people who's constantly posting on Facebook about how much they hate Monday or how excited they are that it's Friday. I don't live for the weekend. But I kind of want this Friday the 13th to be over so I can leave the week behind. Let's just say the highlight was emphatically not spilling tea on my laptop and melting down into what can officially be called an adult tantrum. In the end, thanks to the quick thinking and soothing ministrations of my husband, it all turned out OK. What did I learn? That my laptop IS MY LIFE. (Also, not to have teetering cups of liquid near it...but I've "learned" that before.)What, then, was the week's highlight? I'd have to say it was another great day in the city. Truly, New York City at its best. I've been finding it rather energizing these days. From Howard, above, who sells his collection of foraged driftwood from a tarp near Union Square; to the lovely people at Marni in SoHo, who helped me find the perfect shearling jacket on sale; to the über-talented Lior Lev Sercarz, mixing up radical spice blends in his gallery/atelier on the West Side, the whole place seems to be pulsing with good creative energy.
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Hoary old chestnuts. Those are well-worn aphorisms and anecdotes, close kin to the cliché. Curious as to the origin of this phrase, I searched online and found a long-winded reference tracing it back to an English play of the mid-19th century. I had thought it would refer to the fact that chestnuts, encased in their hard shells, last a rather long time. Did you know the chestnut is also called chinkapin or chinquapin? By any other name, it's still the nut of a tree that belongs to the same family as the beech and the oak. I'd never prepared chestnuts, nor particularly enjoyed eating them on the rare occasion they appeared on my plate. They're always so dry and chalky. People do seem to love them, though—Americans in their Thanksgiving stuffing, the French obsessed with their marrons glacés. Vendors with carts full of roasting chestnuts—a romantic throwback to sweeter times—are still a common sight in many cities (London, New York, Rome), but I have to confess that acrid and sooty smell has never been my favorite. So it's no wonder that the jar I convinced myself to buy last year sat forlornly at the back of my cupboard these long months, getting hoary. Then I came across a recipe for chestnut and parsnip bisque. A vegan recipe, no less.
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I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that the firm white head of the cauliflower is referred to as "the white curd," for it looks like nothing so much as a big virginal cheese. Of course it comes in other colors—orange, green, even purple—but it is the white that is the most common, the most classic and perhaps the most invitingly pristine. It's lovely baked with cheese sauce, pureed into a creamy soup or steamed whole and dressed with a caper vinaigrette and toasted breadcrumbs, but it's also a rather surprisingly capable foil to far more assertive flavors. This Indian "dum," a type of steaming done in a tightly sealed pot, traditionally over a wood or charcoal fire, transforms the cauliflower into a velvety heap cloaked in a fragrant and highly-spiced sauce. You can make a simple meal of it along with a pile of nutty basmati rice, or serve it as part of a larger repast with braised lamb or grilled chicken. Either way, it's certainly no wallflower.
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I am officially obsessed with black walnuts. It may be some sort of genetic thing. As far back as I can remember, my mother was always craving black walnut ice cream. It used to make an occasional appearance at our local ice cream parlor in Santa Cruz, but since that heyday it seems to have completely fallen off their still impressive roster of flavors. Were she still alive, I could now proudly present my mom with a bowl of the stuff, made by me from walnuts gathered on a friend's land. This particular wild-crafted version may have been a one-time thing, though. Why? you ask. Well, that would be because of the incredibly labor-intensive ordeal it is to process black walnuts. After we'd endured it, we discovered that these nuts can actually be purchased at nutsonline for a mere $13 a pound. Shelled. By hand. (They must have some illegal Guatemalan children doing the work.) Anyway, G doesn't agree, but I think it was worth the effort. Full disclosure: He did most of it. But the ice cream was incredible. Divine. The best yet. Made with a recipe from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, of course.
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A while back, I believe I mentioned a desire to explore some lesser-known ingredients with you. I've been keeping a running list—including pickled tapioca, sorghum molasses and dried Persian limes—so do let me know if there's anything you're curious about. This is kohlrabi—from the German "kohl," meaning cabbage and "rabi," meaning turnip. It's a brassica, like cauliflower, kale and collards, and has all the same nutritional benefits: low in carbs and calories, high in fiber and antioxidants. It also comes in a deep purple color. Slightly sweet and fresh, with the faintest peppery bite, kohlrabi can be eaten raw or cooked. If raw, it needs to be peeled, but after cooking the tougher outer skin softens up plenty. With all the cozy soups and hearty braises we're eating at this wintry time of year, it's nice to have some cool, crunchy salads as a counterpoint, (here's one with celery root, and another with radicchio and grapefruit), so I used my kohlrabi in a crisp, sprightly slaw.
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