Aw Geez—Not Ruth Reichl…

Last week I started a little game. I asked Lull readers to invite a guest—living or dead, famous or not—to a dinner. The responses have been trickling in and, so far, assure us of an interesting evening of conversation.

However, someone just added Ruth Reichl to the festivities and now I’m anxious. Now I actually have to cook something fabulous.

Yes yes yes: I understand this is only an imaginary construct, but my anxiety knows no bounds. I am NOT a cook.

Did you see the film Toast based on food writer Nigel Slater’s memoir? I’m like his mother who’s so nervous of getting a recipe wrong that, of course, she gets the recipe wrong. Whenever dinner didn’t go as planned/hoped, Mrs. Slater served toast, which her family came to rely on and expect for sustenance.

As the cartoon above notes: “In the kitchen, I’m more of an aggregator than a content creator.” However, I don’t think my superior aggregating skills will pass muster with Ms. Reichl or the Lull reader who suggested her. I must put on a better show.

Sigh. What to do? I suppose I will have to take my cue from Mrs. Slater: If all else fails, make toast.

[Art by Ward Sutton for the New Yorker.]

It’s Coming!

The countdown to the big feast of gratitude means turkeys everywhere are looking for a way out of Dodge. Do ’em a favor and serve a vegetarian menu this year.

“It Has All Been Mush of a Mushness”

I toiled over a new recipe for baked Portobello mushrooms the other night, planned the entire dinner line-up around the special dish. But after one bite of the syrupy darkness it became on my plate, Katherine Mansfield’s journal entry bubbled to mind: “It Has All Been Mush of a Mushness.”

Well, maybe not all. Though the mushrooms were a soggy, inedible mess, I did enjoy the preparation of them—the cleaning and chopping and mixing, the fragrance of fresh herbs. I’ve come to the conclusion (again!) that everything is about the journey.

Whatever we do may end up a mush of a mushness, but more important is how we get there—and our mindfulness along the way.


[Art from McCall’s Magazine, via Vintage Gaze.]

Acorn Follies

Stranger in a Strange Land – No. 25

 

Acorn season has begun here in the Bluegrass. Soon enough, the nuts will have fallen in such abundance to the streets and sidewalks that crushing them will be unavoidable.* Pavement will turn school-bus yellow from their innards.

Park anywhere near an oak tree and you risk damaging your vehicle. Acorns fall so frequently at such a speed that you’d swear someone is high in the oaks taking aim. Take a walk at night in my neighborhood and you risk breaking an ankle on the little buggers.

Just last week on a bicycle ride to the library—as I was gliding downhill and coming around to thinking that the long, hot trek wasn’t so bad—THWACK! Something hit the front of my prescription sunglasses, violently, and bounced away. Worried, I stopped to check the damage. I imagined having to return to Chicago for repairs or replacements, but I got off lucky. No cracks, yet the single acorn had scratched my lenses.

A serious aversion to acorns started to germinate in me at that moment. Thugs! That’s how I was beginning to see the little devils.

After taking a deep breath, though, I countered this irritation by considering the natural beauty of acorns (their color variations, their contrast in texture) and their inspiration for artists. I thought about the potential of acorns to grow into majestic oaks and how squirrels, birds, and some human populations rely on them as a food source. The little devils weren’t so bad after all. With so much to offer, how can I not appreciate and embrace such a gift from Nature?

* Assuming this year’s crop will replicate last year’s, though with the extreme weather conditions of 2012, this may not be the case.
 
[Squirrel photo by Marko Kivelä; felted acorns from lil fish studios. Check out acorn recipes on hunter angler gardener cook.]

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, just select Stranger in a Strange Land from the right of Lull, under “Choose a topic that interests you.”

I’m TRYING to Be a Good Little Vegetarian, but…

Many years ago in an office I was working in, the topic of conversation turned to vegetarianism. At that time, a lot of folks strangely equated vegetarianism with cutting back on red meat consumption. One such person in the office asked a vegetarian friend of mine, “But you eat fish and chicken, right?”

I’ll never forget her answer: “I don’t eat anything that has a face.”

I thought of her the other night as I was preparing a vegetarian meal. I was peeling and chopping potatoes and it was taking much longer than I wanted it to. I wished I’d inherited my mother’s culinary magicianship. She could peel a potato in one long slice—a single, unbroken curlicue of skin the end result. Not me, though. Chop and peel, chop and peel (yes, rather than peel the whole potato, I chopped it into wedges first, and peeled second; it seemed more manageable somehow). Then the next little golden potato I brought to the cutting board was the one in the photo.

Do you SEE its happy little FACE?! It befuddled me. I could hear my friend again: “I don’t eat anything that has a face.” I didn’t know what to do.

What would my friend have done? Not eat that particular potato but have no problem with the other faceless tubers in the bag? Stop eating all potatoes altogether in honor of the happy-faced spud?

Does every vegetable have a face and we just fail to recognize it most of the time?

Oh dear. I must stop pondering this. Otherwise, whatever will I be able to eat?

Eat Like A Horse

I saw a commercial on television last night that showed one young, vibrant, beautiful person after another enjoying mouthfuls of McDonald’s fare. Clearly, the ad campaign intended to make me crave a Big Mac. But those ad-meisters had nothing on a horse I know.

I met M. (the equine pictured) this fall. He stood on the far side of a paddock until he noticed carrots and apples in my hand. He raced to my side for his share, skipping all pleasantries of introductions. I caved to his brashness and he nearly inhaled the treats.

As his person led him to the barn, I followed. We were almost there when M. suddenly detoured toward a pear tree and claimed his space beneath it.

M.’s person tried to steer him back to the barn, but he wouldn’t budge. He wanted a pear and surveyed the ground for possibilities. As luck would have it, a young rider (who had probably witnessed this scene before) came by and offered the core of the pear she’d just eaten. And then a marvelous bit of theatre unfolded for anyone willing to watch.

M. transformed that fruit scrap into his entire world. All else faded from view as he chomped and chewed and squeezed and sucked and savored that castoff pear as if it were his last meal. As if it were a last meal prepared by restaurateur Paul Kahan and drizzled with rare truffle oil.

M. took care and time to process that small bit of pear, making sure to introduce each individual fiber of it to each of his tastebuds. When some juice escaped his lips, M. tried to catch it with a turn of his muzzle.

Had anyone offered me a pear core at that moment, I would have readily accepted it and tried to re-create M.’s gastronomic passion.

As for that Big Mac I mentioned? Like the actors of the commercial, you’d have to pay me to take a bite.

Feeling Good By Doing Good

Earlier this month I asked Lull readers to help send food to animal shelters in tornado-struck Joplin, Missouri. The amount of kibble raised—661,300 pieces, equivalent to 66,130 clicks—wasn’t enough to get the match from Halo, the supplier of the food, but it was probably enough for several days of meals. (I’ve asked FreeKibble for meaningful numbers, i.e., bowls rather than tons or pounds or millions of pieces, but I haven’t heard back yet.)

Since then, you probably heard about the blowout adoptathon for the animals that drew people from across the nation to Joplin. It was a huge success, yet hundreds of pets remain there without a home.

Like the animal shelters in Joplin, every rescue operation in America could use some help in keeping critters fed. So I’ve added the FreeKibble buttons to Lull—beneath the purple paw. Click on each of them daily to donate food (or more frequently if you’re so inclined).

Each site gives something in return: Through the purple paw you can pause to read a short, uplifting rescue tale; through the FreeKibble quiz you might learn some trivia about canines and felines. And, of course, there’s that unquantifiable sensation of having made a difference in the world, which is a great way to either start your day or end it. As Lull reader M. K. wrote to me recently:

“I start my day every morning going to both of the food for animal shelter sites, so even if the rest of the day sucks I know I’ve done something good.”

So go ahead and Make My Day … by feeding the homeless. It’ll make your day, too.

[Pics from Petfinder.com.]

Mmm Mmm Good

I haven’t had a good watermelon yet this season, but it looks like these two found one!

[Pictured are Lark and Fiesta from the Rocky Ridge Refuge.]

Reconsidering A Menu, Reinventing A Routine

grocery-shopped last night. Braunschweiger was on sale and I nearly put a couple of chubs in my cart. But then I remembered: no pooch to give it to.

I cooked salmon earlier in the week and the process ended sooner than usual. I used to set aside and store the skins for the pooch. Now the skins are just waste matter. Same for the French toast I made. I used to cook and serve the last little bit of batter to Bowser. Every meal was planned with the canine in mind.

This wasn’t always the case. Before she entered her geriatric phase, the pooch had no trouble eating her dog food. But slowly, food became a challenge, and I did everything I could—short of playing that airplane game that fools children but doesn’t impress dogs—to entice her to eat. Asiago cheese. Sardines in olive oil. Pork pâté. Smoked salmon. Pheasant. Anything aged, anything “stinky” to add to her raw buffalo, emu, and venison.

Now our refrigerator and freezer have an abundance of space. Now I can cook with spices and sauces that I’d previously avoided for the pooch’s sake. Now I can take back the time it took for her meal productions—which included staying with her while she nosed through her bowl and applauding her efforts if she actually ate. So many adjustments to make—to my grocery shopping, my mindset, my routine.

SHE was my routine. And now she isn’t.

[Pictured: The pooch with a new, temporary playmate—a kitten we found beneath a highway bridge. The pooch is not only displaying her “Happy Tail”—the tail curled upward whenever her mood was upbeat—she’s also smiling. A rare occasion when she didn’t mind having her photo taken. Oh, Happier Days!]

Me & Julia: The Tie that Binds

Hallelujah! I have one less thing to feel self-conscious about this morning.

I don’t like cilantro, and I avoid foods containing it. Sometimes this is especially difficult to do. A few years ago, there was an apparent love affair between restaurant chefs and this herb—regardless of the type of cuisine served—and my options were limited so much so that friends noticed when I ordered the most boring side item on the menu. “Oh, don’t you want to try the [whatever the restaurant was noted for]?” “No, I’m not very hungry. I’ll be fine with the iceberg lettuce bowl.” Even that could be served with a garnish of cilantro.

I tried to keep my disfavor to myself, embarrassed by not liking something everyone else seemed to gravitate toward or, at least, no one else seemed to mind. I’m not a cilantrophobe, nor do I passionately hate it. I just don’t like it.

Today I came across an article in the New York Times about cilantro haters and found that not only are there sound neurological reasons for my resistance to foods containing the herb, but I’m in good company. Julia Child was no fan of the green stuff, either. And so much evidence of people like us exists throughout history that our cilantro-averse natures have been conjectured to have genetic origins.

So now I can stand tall with Julia, ashamed no more. “Yes, I’d like the [whatever it is your restaurant is famous for]. But hold the cilantro.”