sisig

Well, sort of sisig.
This is the story.
Last week, on our final night in San Francisco, we went to eat at the food trucks at Fort Mason.  I know I've already told you this part, but I've got to set the stage.
This is my uncle, Gary.
Gary was at the heart of why I was there with my mother, and why I traveled up to San Francisco after Naya and Oliver's sweet wedding in Carmel. It was a fortifying sort of weekend that left me full of love and hope and good food. Joey went home after the wedding, and I met my mother in San Francisco. In the interest of time, and of getting to talking about that bowl up there, I won't give you all the details, but I will tell you that we were there to do some work on a family rift (you know that rift that most families have in some shape or another? this would be ours), and that long ago, before the rift was so severe, it was Gary and his wife, Sondra, who taught me a whole lot of what I know about how to cook, and how to eat, and how to love food.

And so, on our last night in that full-bellied city, Gary took us to the food trucks. And as he admitted that he had been there several times that summer, we took his recommendations as to how to prioritize. With so many choices, we had to eat wisely in order to draw out the appetite. It was necessary to imagine with each choice that we were eating the very best thing there- the pork buns with pickled daikon (the best!), the fish tacos on homemade tortillas (also, the best!) and finally, the pumpkin and mushroom dumplings (again, the best!). But sitting in my little black folding chair in the middle of the parking lot, one truck kept catching my eye.

It's the brown one there. And finally, at the end of it all, I asked Gary the question that had been humming in my all night.
"What, exactly, is Sisig?"
I take a fair amount of pride in knowing my road (and food truck!) categories, and this one was utterly new to me.
"Oh, it's good!" he told me. "But you'll never be able to fit it in your stomach now. It's brisket over coconut rice with an egg on top."
Yes. I know.
Brisket over coconut rice with an egg on top? Have you ever heard of anything so exciting? I thought (okay, I obsessed) over the combination as we packed up and made our way to the plane. I dreamed of it while I dozed over Kansas. I cursed the 2 feet of snow that fell within hours of our return- I cursed it because it prevented me from getting to the store to buy brisket so that I could create my own sisig NOW.
But then on Monday, I went to The Meat Market, our very own new and wonderful local butcher, and Jeremy gave me the brisket that would become my very own sisig.




After I had the brisket safely in my possession, I did a little research to get more details on this new food. How should the brisket be spiced? Are there any other elements I need to include in there?

I went through at least 10 obscure and cloudy websites on Filipino food before I entirely believed it- there is no brisket or coconut rice involved in sisig. The main ingredient that I needed was actually pigs ears.

I have no pigs ears, although I know of a few places I could get some.

As far as I could tell, I needed some pigs ears and some chicken livers, and a really really hot plate. It would ideally sizzle together with peppers and onions and ginger and a the juice of a fruit called calamansi. Then I would eat it on a street corner in the Philippines with a cold beer, and that would be sisig.



I don't know if Gary had it wrong, or if the food truck was actually selling a version of sisig that the obscure cloudy Filipino food websites weren't aware of. Either way, I had brisket, and I knew what I wanted.

Brisket over coconut rice with an egg on top.

I'm stubborn when it comes to cravings.



And so I'll call it sisig, because that's how it came about, but it's really not quite. It is, however, really, really delicious.  It did not disappoint. And although it might look like a lot of steps, active time is pretty minimal. Very very worth it.


Sisig, sort of
serves 6 to 8


For the Meat:
2 tablespoons olive oil
One 2 lb brisket
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
5 cloves minced garlic
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chili garlic paste (fabulous stuff! It looks like this:

but if you don't have it, combine about 1 tablespoon of chili powder with 2 cloves minced garlic, adding a drop of soy sauce and a bit of water to get a thick paste
1 red onion, minced
1 bottle dark beer
4 cups water or beef broth
1 dried d'arbol chile

For the rice:
2 tablespoons coconut oil (or butter if that's what you have)
2 cups Jasmine rice
2 tablespoons shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 15 oz. can coconut milk
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the final bowl:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chopped sweet peppers (add in a bit of hot peppers here too if you can)
1/2 onion, sliced
1 tablespoon grated ginger
salt and pepper
1 egg per person

Some sort of sliced pickle, for garnish

Make the brisket:
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
Combine the soy sauce, garlic, vinegar, sugar, salt, and chili paste in a small bowl. Rub the mixture over the brisket.  Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or roasting pan over medium high heat. Cook the brisket for a few minutes on each side so that a nice brown crust develops on the meat. Take the meat out of the pan and set it aside on a plate. Add the red onion, shuffle it around for a few minutes, and then pour the beer in the pan. It will bubble and sizzle- scrape all of the brown bits from cooking the brisket into the beer.  Put the brisket back into the pan. Add the water or stock, and tuck the chili pepper into the liquid. Cover the pan with a lid if it has one- otherwise cover it with tin foil.
Put the pan into the oven and forget about it for the better part of the day. Cook for at least 4 hours, but it could be 6 or 7 if that's what works for you.

Make the coconut rice:
I did this in a rice cooker, but if you're making it in a pot instead, you'll need to increase the liquid. Essentially, you'll need as much coconut milk as you usually use water when you cook white rice.
So- in the rice cooker, first melt the coconut oil in the rice cooker bowl. Add the rice, stir to coat it with the oil, and close the lid. Let it it cook for 5 minutes. Then add the coconut milk, dried coconut, water, and salt. Close the lid and set it for the regular cooking cycle.

Then, when the brisket and the rice are ready, finish it up!
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the peppers, sliced onions, and grated ginger. Stir stir stir until it's all shiny and starting to brown. Transfer the mixture into a bowl, keeping the pan hot. Add a bit more oil or butter if the pan needs it--then fry one egg per person.

Now the pickle- I leave this one up to you. Do you have a fridge pickle languishing in there from August? This is the moment. I had these beautiful pickled baby squash inspired by Marisa, and they were perfect. You can also make a quick carrot or daikon pickle- this one would be nice here too.

And now... the bowl.
First the rice, then the peppers and onions. Lay a few slices of the brisket over that. Then the egg on top of the brisket. Pour a bit of the spicy fatty sauce from the brisket over the whole lot of it. Then the pickle gets tucked in where the bowl needs a bit of color.

white bean soup with garlic, kale, and sausage

 

There was a bakery in Santa Fe that I used to go to when I was in school, a place called Sage Bakehouse. It was all concrete inside, big and cavernous and always warm from the ovens.  They had a few little tables and a counter up front, and I loved to sit there and eat a muffin and just inhale the smell of it all.  They had fantastic coffee, and this was before there was wireless everywhere, and you wouldn't bring your computer- and their muffins were good enough that you didn't even need another activity besides enjoying the muffin.

The primary draw of Sage Bakehouse was their bread, and they made big mushroom-top shaped loaves of sourdough, not with a crunchy crust that would cut the roof of your mouth, but with a soft crust that sliced well, and it was so good for sandwiches and even better for toast.  If it wasn't a day for a muffin, there was always a toast basket, and they would give you three kinds of toast with a little ramekin of strawberry jam.  It was a princess breakfast.

I went there a lot over my four years in Santa Fe, and I almost always went alone.  It's one of the only places that I used to go in that wonderful town where I don't have a memories of being with other people. It was college, and most places hold some undertone of a dramatic conversation or a heartbreak or something.  But I went to Sage Bakehouse to smell the bread, and that is all I ever did there.

 

For lunch there were also sandwiches, all ready made, and always the same kinds.  They were on these big ciabbata type of rolls, and there was a tuna with pesto, and some sort of ham and cheese. They were great, but I usually had the soup.

There was a day when I was there, alone before an afternoon class, and the soup was white bean with garlic and rosemary.  I had the soup, and it was a revelation.

I only mention it, because it struck me that as I made a big pot of this soup this week, altered with the variations that the week required, that this soup is the first thing for which I ever asked the recipe.

I finished the bowl of soup, and I mopped up the creamy white broth with my sourdough bread, and when the bowl was absolutely empty, I stood up, and I walked to the counter, and I said, "Please tell me how to make that soup."

And the the lovely woman with the apron and her hair tied back in a kerchief said this:

"1 pound of dried cannellini beans, covered with water that extends at least 4 inches over the top of the beans.  Bring them to a boil, then cover and simmer, along with 5 peeled, unchopped garlic cloves, 1 bay leaf, 3 sprigs of rosemary, and a whole lot of salt and pepper.  Cook for several hours, or until the broth turns creamy. Add more water as you go if it seems to need it."

That's it. That was the recipe.

 

And what happened then was that it became the first soup that I made that my mother had never made.  It became a soup that I made for dinner, and then people asked me for the recipe.  It was the recipe that made me feel like I might be able to cook.

Over the years, there have been endless variations, but the basic soup is good enough to make over and over.  But this week, there was a half can of crushed tomatoes added to the cooked beans.  There were several chopped leaves of curly kale.  There were three garlic sausages, chopped in little slices.  And instead of rosemary, there was fresh chopped sage. 

There could also be chicken broth instead of water.  And olive oil drizzled on top is a good idea.  And parmesan cheese, too, if you've got a nub of it around.

And that, friends, is the entire recipe.  Until you add something else, that is.

Happy Spring.  Judging by the two inches of snow on my car, we still have a good amount of soup weather left.

salmon fish cakes

I'm totally that mom these days.  I'm the one who sighs when you ask me how I am, and then I say, "busy!  crazy!  but good!"  Then I run, literally run, to my next thing.
Sadie asked me this morning if I have a meeting tonight.  "Nope, I'm with you."  I told her.  "Yay!"  she put her arms up and Rosie joined in too.
But it all comes in waves, and this one just might be breaking.  I got my draft into my editor the other night (yay, arms up!)  and now I'm taking a few weeks off from that while I wait for final comments.  Town business has been, well, let's just say challenging, and also inspiring me to swear more often, and probably making parts of my brain work that haven't quite been exercised before.  That part of my brain that figures out how to communicate with people I really don't agree with--it's getting buff.
And then?  There's the move.  Today, I move into my new kitchen.
I know, I know!  For lack of a better word, totally awesome.
I'll introduce you to the new kitchen soon, but I'll tell you now that it has orange walls.  And open shelves.  And two sinks.  And two ovens.  We're going to make some magic in that kitchen, you and I.  It's going to be (oh, dear, here I go again)...totally awesome.



The other night, I made salmon cakes.  I wanted to make something exciting for dinner as a break from all that soup, and I wanted to have something to tell you about, and I also wanted to get over my juvenile and without-grounds prejudice against Jamie Oliver.  My step father Chris brought a book of his home for me from the library, and so here, yes, I'm cooking out of Jamie Oliver.  I made this beautiful salad with greens topped with old and still-perfect beets from October, and I made salmon fish cakes.  Except mid-way through frying, I had to go to... you guessed it, a meeting, and so Joey had to take over, and I burned my hand and my mouth shoving a newly fried fish cake into my mouth as I scraped snow off my car and I left the rest of the family to eat the beautiful dinner while I sat in a tiny conference room perfumed with the essence of my fried salmon that pulsed off my clothes.  (Hence, also, no photo of finished fish cakes)
But when I got home hours later, the kids were asleep, and Joey was upstairs, and there was a plate sitting there for me on the table, and it was so lovely--it was art.  I dropped my coat on the floor, picked up the fork, and I dined alone, and in bliss.

Salmon Fish Cakes
from Jamie Oliver, Jamie's Food Revolution

Sea salt and pepper
1 1/4 pounds potatoes
1 pound salmon fillets, skin on, scales and bones removed
olive oil
a small bunch of flat leaf parsley
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 large egg
2 lemons

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil.  Peel the potatoes and cut them into 2-inch or so chunks.  Rub the salmon fillets all over with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper.  Add the potatoes to the boiling water and bring the water back up to a boil.  Put the fish into a large colander that fits over the pot without going into the boiling water.  Cover the fish loosely with foil, and place it over the pot to steam it while the potatoes cook. Lower the heat, and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and the fish is cooked through.  Remove the fish from the colander and set it aside.  Drain the potatoes in the colander, then return them to the empty pot.  Pick the greens off the parsley, and roughly chop them.  Mash the potatoes in the pot-- you want them to cool quickly.  Remove any skin from the fish, and flake the fish into the pot with the mashed potato with 1 tablespoon of flour.  Add the egg, chopped parsley, salt and pepper, and the zest of the two lemons to the mix.  Mash up the whole thing and mix it well.
Lightly dust a plate with flour.  Pat the mixture into small patties, dusting them with flour as you go.  Depending on the size of the cakes, this recipe will make between 8 and 12 fish cakes.  Pop the plate in the fridge for up to an hour (but for me it was 5 minutes, and that was okay)
Put a large frying pan over medium heat and add several glugs of olive oil.  When the oil is hot, add the fish cakes and fry about 3 minutes on each side, or until they are golden.  Cook them in two batches.  Serve with wedges of the lemon that you zested.

pasta with lemon, sardines and capers

How's the cookie making going over there?   Maybe some candy happening on your counter? Dipping something in chocolate?  Caramel in your hair?
Good.  Good.  I'm glad it's all coming together. And if it's not, it will, it will.  And if it doesn't, it's okay!  We'll all forgive you--we've got enough sweets anyway. Put your feet up and watch an old episode of Buffy or something.  You deserve it.
This is the time for all of that sweet inspiration--the internet is filled with cookies that will amaze and astound you.  There are whole magazines on the news stand right now devoted entirely to the marriage of butter and sugar and flour, and then of course there's that new book I've had on request form the library for a while now.  It is a blogger's responsibility to fill the month of December with giftable and sendable sweet inspiration, and I take that responsibility seriously.
Except that I have some idea about what might really be going on over there.  Maybe you are on top of your holiday baking and gifting, and you've knocked out 400 fleur de sel caramels today.  Or maybe your days have just been filled with all of that stuff that December seems to be filled with--parent teacher conferences and holiday parties and days when it takes really long to get places because no one knows how to drive in the snow.  Whatever you did, I'm guessing it kept you busy, and now it's 5:30, and what the hell is for dinner? 
How about some pastry ends and left over cream cheese frosting?
I wouldn't recommend it.
We need some decent dinner ideas, and we need them fast.
I was talking to my friend Meg last week on the phone.  Life's been a little crazy for her lately, and a little more stressful, and she's been having a bit of a time getting dinner out.  We were talking about those fabulous things that involve ingredients that we almost always have, that are cheap and take 20 minutes and are so delicious that everyone is so excited that it's that night, you know the night you didn't have time to make something else.
You know I'm talking about carbonara.  And I said so to Meg, like well at least there's carbonara, and
said, yeah there's definitely carbonara, and then of course there's pasta with lemon, sardines and capers, which is cheaper and faster and really truly only uses one pot.  And I said, yeah, totally, like I knew just what she was talking about, like I had eaten it a million times.
I was just going with the flow of the conversation.  But afterwards I started thinking, and it kept repeating over in my head...pasta with lemon, sardines and capers.
That's right, PASTA WITH LEMON, SARDINES AND CAPERS.
How come I've never thought of this?

 

For days, I thought about it--it was in the back of my head like a little song, repeating over and over in a rhythm of ease and craving and dinner planning.  Pasta with lemon, sardines and capers, pasta with lemon, sardines, and capers.  And then it was dinner.

PASTA WITH LEMON, SARDINES AND CAPERS!

It's possible that I've lost you with the sardines--I know it can happen.  But if that's the case, let me push a little on this one.  Do you really not like sardines?  Or are you confusing them with anchovies?  Or do you just think you don't like sardines?  This would be a time to look deep inside yourself and  get some answers.

Because I'm offering you a dinner plan here, and it can be ready by six.  I think it's in your best interest to give it a try.  Because I bet you have a jar of capers in your fridge.  And a lemon too.  And maybe, just maybe, there's a tin of sardines in your pantry that your cousin from France left when he was visiting last summer. 

I've always thought of sardines in the context of a sandwich.  When I was a teenager I was handed my first sardine sandwich on white bread with butter and I never looked back. But this?  This takes it to a whole new level.  Besides being so so tasty, sardines are high in omega 3's, low in mercury, and inexpensive to buy.  In this age of dangerous fish eating, it's a good idea to stay small--sardines and anchovies and smelts and those fish that are low on the food chain are your best bet.  And on white bread with butter? Hoo-ray.  And on pasta?  I'm adding an exclamation point.  Hoo-ray!

PASTA WITH LEMON, SARDINES AND CAPERS!

(with thanks to Meg)

1 pound fetuccine, spaghetti, or some other long and skinny pasta

2 tins sardines (about 8 ounces), can be in water or olive oil

juice of one big lemon

1/4 cup capers

olive oil

salt and pepper

optional: 2 tablespoons fresh chopped rosemary

Cook the pasta as usual.  Drain, and toss with sardines, lemon juice, capers, rosemary if you're using it, a few good glugs of olive oil, and a flurrying of salt and pepper.  Taste, and either adjust the seasonings or keep on eating.  Dinner is served.

fall vegetable chicken pot pie

This might be my favorite dinner to bring to people who need it.
Birthed a child lately? Dealing with illness? The world just conspiring in a way that could be fixed by a warm dinner whisked into your kitchen?

I'm bringing you chicken pot pie.

I have a lovely friend who's husband is dealing with a serious illness. She's parenting her girls and keeping it all together. Everyone wants to help, and so a friend created a dinner schedule to feed them into next year.
Food trees saved us after both the girls were born. Whenever someone asks me what to get for a friend about to have a baby, I say get on the phone and make a dinner schedule. Four weeks of dinners every other night might be thing that saves a family from post baby overwhelm. These are amazing for new parents, but sometimes even more helpful for families who are dealing with illness or stressful transitions. Sometimes just taking the question of what's for dinner out of the equation makes all the difference.
Yesterday, it was my time to cook. I structured the day around this chicken pot pie. The girls were home for the holiday and I was determined to get that dinner out the door by 5:30.
Then we went canoeing.
We have, recently, come into temporary inheritance of a perfect family canoe. It was one of those days yesterday--blue sky, orange leaves, sweater. Joey looked at me with big eyes, like a man who was raised in the high desert of Colorado. "Family canoe ride!" That was all it took.
Cider in the thermos, crackers and cheese. We paddled our way around that lake, directed all the while by the girls in the middle, grabbing lily pads and pointing us toward the tiny and uninhibited islands in the center of the lake. When we finally got home it was almost 4, and near tears, I handed Joey a knife and a nubby globe of celeriac.

I ran out the door at 6:15, ashamed of my inability to do anything on time. I swore to myself that I would get more organized, that I would stop rushing yet still do everything peacefully and exactly when I should. I swore that I would be more perfect.

It takes about 15 minutes to get to Tonya's house. The light was just petering out, and the gold and red of the trees gave the image of the loveliest flame lining the road. The chill had come in, and as I got into the car I could smell someone's wood stove. I turned on the tail end of All things Considered on NPR, and I drove at a rational speed. I hoped that the bubbling chicken pot pie wouldn't melt my rubber floor mat, and the scent of that pie filled every inch of the car.

It was an amazing drive.

When I got there, Tonya and her girls were already dancing around in their pjs. This woman is amazing--I had called to say I would be late, and still profusely apologizing as I walked in, I got laughs and hugs and nearly dropped the pan on the floor. Tonya shoved some of yesterday's leftovers in my arms--her refrigerator is overflowing with friends' generosity, and I was back off into the coming blue night, heading towards my own little plate of pot pie.

Someday, I will be better. I'll get dinner out on time, and that will be good for us all. I'll be a calm center of speed without a moment of rush or panic--I'll think back on this time when I was always late, always attempting too much in too little time.

Someday.

Until then, I'm still bringing you chicken pot pie. Just have a snack first...I'll be there soon.


Fall Vegetable Chicken Pot Pie
(with thanks to Joey for vegetable cutting and for peaceful and loving response to panicked requests of "will you photograph this? And well? It will be dark when I get back!")

1 whole chicken, 4-5 pounds
2 bay leaves
1 onion, diced
3 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
1 leek, trimmed and cut into 1-inch slices
1 small celeriac root, peeled and cut into chunks (cut into discs first, then cut off peel)
2 cups cubed winter squash (anything will do!)
1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
salt and pepper to taste

For the biscuits:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, cubed
1 egg
2/3 cup buttermilk

Put the chicken and the bay leaves in a stock pot. Just cover with water, cover, and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam on the surface. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Then, add the all of the vegetables except for the winter squash. Cook for 20 minutes more, then add the squash. Cook the mixture until the chicken is cooked through and beginning to fall apart a bit. Remove the chicken and let it cool on a plate.
Uncover the broth a vegetables and cook for 30 minutes, or until reduced by about a quarter. Meanwhile, when the chicken is cool enough to touch, pick off all of the meat and shred into bite-sized pieces. Set aside for a moment.
Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Skim off 1/4 cup of chicken fat from the top of your broth and whisk into the butter. Add the flour and continue to whisk until it starts to go slightly golden. Dip a measuring cup into your broth and scoop 3 1/2 cups of broth into the pot. Keep whisking until the sauce begins to thicken and it is not lumpy. Add the chicken and stir in the sauce to coat. Strain the vegetables out of the broth with a slotted spoon and add those as well. Stir in the parsley and thyme and a bit of salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference. Turn off the heat.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Rub the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or your fingers. Beat the buttermilk and egg together in a liquid measure or small bowl. Stir wet into dry with a few strokes. The mixture will be wet and sticky.
Pour the chicken vegetable mixture into a 9x13 casserole dish. Scoop the biscuit mixture onto the chicken in eight rounds (imagine biscuit on each piece). Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden.

Serves 8

And yes! It's fall fest day! This week we're cooking up pumpkin and winter squash, and it looks like it will be a warm and toasty table. Squashes lining up on your counter? Here are a few things to do with 'em...

• Gilded Fork: Butternut Squash Bisque with Nutmeg Crème Fraîche



• Caroline at the Wright Recipes: Roasted Pumpkin and Winter Squash with Labneh and Skhug



• Alison at Food2: Pumpkin Donuts



• Toby at Healthy Eats: Pumpkin 5 Ways (Including Seed-Studded Pumpkin Bread)



• Kirsten at Food Network: Best Pumpkin Recipes



• Michelle at Cooking Channel: Pumpkin and Squash Recipes



• Food Network UK: Praise the Gourd



• Cate at Sweetnicks: Baked Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar and Butter



• Caron at San Diego Foodstuff: Clay Pot Winter Squash



• Paige at The Sister Project: Pumpkin, Roasted, Stuffed and All Grown Up
  

pasta with greens and prosciutto

My own unwillingness to do the things that I know that I should and want to do continues to amaze me.
Every day, I feel like I have to start again. I walk through the work and interactions of my day, and, for the zillionth time, I gently remind myself of those aspects that someday, maybe possibly will become habit.

Think before you speak, honey. Weigh the meaning in your words. Make every interaction meaningful. Remember that everyone is going through their own stuff today. Have compassion, and even empathy. Don't talk too much when you get nervous. And don't be so hard on yourself either. We're all going through it.

When everyone is complaining in the kitchen at 5:00, give them all kisses, especially the husband.

When the girls ask to be read to, say yes. Time is not there, it is created by you when you decide it is needed. Don't worry about the mess in the living room. Take a walk. Then, lie down on the floor for a few minutes.

Tell people how much you like them. Don't use the word "but" in the middle of a sentence. Stand up straight. Don't speed. Be on time because you made enough time to get there. Don't even touch your cell phone when you are driving.

Eat greens for breakfast. You don't need coffee at 1 in the afternoon. Plan meals. Take meat out of the freezer two days ahead of time so that you don't have to soak it in water. Make pie for dessert.

There is time to make real food. Roll out pasta, regularly. It's better than the boxed stuff, and a lot more fun.


I guess if there wasn't so much work to do, life wouldn't be so exciting, right? As hard as I work, I seem to be heading more and more towards utter imperfection. Let's call it something else. Let's call it rustic! That sounds a little better, I think.

You wouldn't know it to look at those hard little "noodles" in the box, but pasta making in itself is a messy and imperfect process. Pasta making is the finger painting of cooking.

Chasing an egg around the counter with a bench knife--now that is a mess. As long at it doesn't hit the floor, you're golden. And as you cut the egg into the flour, the miraculous incorporation will soothe and amaze. But the kneading of the hard and impermeable dough? All your strength will be needed to soften that one. As you toss that dough against your counter, be rough on the dough but not yourself. Pasta dough is never perfect. Don't even try.

So, flour in my hair and dough encrusted in my wedding band, I roll the pasta through my pasta roller. Every sheet is a different length, and I hang them all over the kitchen, wherever I can find a perch for them.

My friend Eilen bought me this shiny little pasta roller for my birthday a few years back. Here and there in the midst of her travels, we have had the opportunity to make pasta together. She really is the one who taught be about the joy of a messy moment in the kitchen in the first place, and I like working this machine with her. She is one of those people who plans a dinner party with 17 different courses that she picked out of the latest Bon Appetit, and then she starts cooking at 4, and just laughs when she looks at the clock. By the end, it's 10:00, and it's just soup and homemade rolls and some little fancy thing to start--everything else has been abandoned over the course of the afternoon. Eilen stays calm and full of laughter and she's my hero for that.

The mess always turns into something that tastes good.

So, I keep reminding myself to laugh when I look at the clock, and to discard the menu items that just aren't happening. If at the end of all this, I've got soup and homemade rolls, that's enough.

Pasta with Greens and Prosciutto

For the pasta:
1 3/4 cup (9 oz) all purpose flour
scant cup (5 oz) semolina flour
pinch of salt
4 medium eggs

For the topping:
4-5 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups thinly sliced onions
1 cup dry white wine
1 pound kale or swiss chard, cleaned, de-stemmed and thinly sliced
4 oz. prosciutto, in 1-inch strips
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
salt and pepper, to taste
parmesan cheese

Make the pasta dough: Mix the flours and salt and make a well directly on the counter. Pour the eggs into the well, two at a time. With a bench knife, incorporate the egg into the flour. When you have a loose dough, knead firmly for 10 minutes, or until the dough becomes smooth. It might seem like this won't happen, but stick with it- you'll get there. With the bench knife, cut the dough into 6 or 7 balls. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

In a large sautee pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the onions and cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until caramelized, about 30 minutes. Remove the onions from the pan and add the white wine. Bring to a boil and scrape any lovely brown bits off the surface of the pan. Let boil for about 3 minutes, then pour liquid over the onions.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Set up your pasta roller and make your pasta. Add the greens to the water and boil for about 4 minutes- then remove with a slotted spoon, squeeze out excess water, and add the greens to the onions. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook for 2-3 minutes or until just cooked. Drain and rinse. Toss the pasta with remaining olive oil in a large bowl. Add the greens and onions and a bit of salt and pepper to taste. Top with prosciutto, shavings of parmesan, the red pepper flakes, and a final drizzle of olive oil.

masa harina-beef casserole

I miss New Mexico today.
It hits me without warning, and usually the missing gets in my nose first. My memory creates a smell and it gets stuck there. The most common is roasting green chile, but of course there's also pinon. And there is the smell of the tamale.
There are a lot of reasons why I miss New Mexico, and even more reasons why I left. But there is no other place that makes me hurt when I miss it.
There was this little place up by school called Johnny's Cash Store. They sold jumex juices, and milk and eggs and cigarettes and twinkies. The whole place smelled old and dusty because it was old and dusty. But on the counter, there was a steam table filled with tamales that someone's mother had made. For a few dollars, you could have a red chile pork tamale and a green chile chicken tamale tucked in a little wax bag. That bag, along with a few napkins and a mango jumex, made a lunch that could turn anyone's day around. There was a little splintery picnic table outside, and I swear that picnic table was one of my favorite places to eat in Santa Fe.
Those tamales tasted like love.

It's vacation week around here, although I've taken off to New Mexico in my mind (and nose), I'm home with the girlies while Joey works at the school setting up his new classroom. We're all doing okay together- luckily we have the garden and my sister's handed down American Girl collection to keep us entertained. But yesterday, we all started out on the wrong side of the bed. There were early tantrums, and by the time I was trying to coax Rosie across the parking lot to get to the supermarket at 12:30 (Rose: Ow, Mom, you're hurting me! Me: I'm holding your hand! We're in a parking lot!), I thought I might just go ahead and lose it altogether.

Thank the lord for the playdate.

By 1:30, our friends had arrived. A playdate for me, and a sister for each of the girls, with a bonus two year old to eat cheerios at the table. We drank beer in the kitchen, I turned my mood around, and the girls, well, the girls, mostly just stood on the cars.

Every time I looked, they were each wearing different dresses. Then they would trade dresses, or pull out new ones, and get back up on the car.

They stayed until bedtime and then the girls fell into the mess that had accumulated in their room and fell asleep. It was a good day.

But of course, there was dinner. And although Johnny's Cash store is 2,000 miles away, I needed something that smelled right, even if it contained canned green chiles and no one's mom had made it. Oh, wait, hold on. Something really has changed since New Mexico.

Someone's mom did make this.


We ate every bite.

This recipe is from a cookbook that I have talked about before, Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way. This book is an amazing resource, and it will tell you everything you need to know about how to cook, clean, and store whole grains. If you feel a little overwhelmed in the bulk section of your store, this book will open up your world.

It also has phenomenal recipes. Every recipe I have made from this book has been a success; Lorna Sass is both deliciously creative and looking out for the home cook. A lot of the recipes are meat based, which is unusual in a whole grains cookbook. For some reason, whole grains and vegetarian seem to get paired more often, but this one is for the healthy meat eaters.

Masa Harina is a corn flour that is used in tamales, as well as in making corn tortillas. It is combined with lime, and has a very specific smell to it, that is the smell of of Johnny's Cash store tamale, or as I like to call it, love.
You can find Masa Harina in most grocery stores, and of course all Latin Markets. The brand I most often see is called Maseca. If you absolutely cannot find it, you can substitute cornmeal for the masa in this recipe.

Masa Harina-Beef Casserole
adapted from Lorna Sass, Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way

for the filling:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chiles
optional: 1 additional small can diced green chiles

for the topping:
1 1/4 cups masa harina
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 large egg
1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup jack or cheddar cheese
1 cup fresh or forzen corn kernels

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and put a rack in the bottom third of the oven. Have ready a rectangular baking dish, about 11x7 or thereabouts. Lay it on a baking sheet and set aside.
Heat the oil in a large skillet. When it is hot, add the onion and pepper and cook over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes.
Stir in the beef, garlic, oregano, cumin, salt and pepper. Cook over medium high heat, stirring and breaking it up into small bits. When the meat begins to brown, stir in the tomatoes and green chiles and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered while you prepare the topping.
Pour 4 cups of water into a heavy saucepan. Whisk the masa harina into the water until it is smooth and thoroughly blended. Stir in the salt and chili powder. Bring the mixture to a boil. stirring almost constantly. Lower the heat and keep stirring until the mixture thickens to the consistency of batter, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
In a small bowl, beat the egg. Stir in the sour cream or yogurt and a cup of the hot masa mixture. Stir the egg mixture and the baking soda into the pot containing the remaining masa mixture.
Taste the meat and adjust for seasonings. Transfer the meat to the baking dish, leaving any liquid behind. Pour the masa batter over the meat. Sprinkle with the cheese, then the corn kernels.
Bake until the casserole is bubbly and the top is slightly browned, about 45 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

orange soy braised pork ribs

I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately.
Maybe it was Turkey. She loved to go to interesting places, and while her friends would go hang out at their condo in Florida, she and my grandfather would be off on a folk dancing trip to Bulgaria. When it came to travel, she was a woman looking for real experience.
Or maybe it has something to do with what has been going on since I got back. A few days after my return, Joey and the girls and I went out to be part of a group photo to support a local library which may soon be extinct. As we were leaving the library and heading over to take Sadie to dance class, a few friends called me over.
"You know how you were thinking about running for the town select board a few years ago?"
It was true. I had considered it, but it just hadn't felt like the right time.
"Well," one friend said, "it's time."
So here I am, running for the select board of my little town. Although I usually end up frustrated when I attend town meetings, I'm going to attempt to step away from apathy and see what happens if I can get a seat at that table. It's a small town, but it is my town, after all.

My grandmother loved Great Barrington with all her being. She and my grandfather moved up here in the early 70's to start their bed and breakfast, and they both lived here until the end of their lives. They were all about participating in their community- between the two of them, they were centrally involved in everything from arts organizations to adult literacy, to the formation of our local co-op market.

I grew up here, and I never thought I'd come back after college. I was at the middle school when the occurrence of knife fights and eighth grade pregnancies was at its highest, and I just couldn't roll my pants or fringe my bangs the right way. But it turns out that as an adult and a parent, this is actually a pretty great place. My children were both born here, and this is their world, too. I'm here for good, and like my grandparents, I'm feeling inspired to put some time into it.
Still, I must say, seeing my name on the ballot at the caucus last night was totally surreal. We went into the fire station after dinner, and the girls cheered that we were "going to vote for mommy!" I know it's a small thing, but I'm just getting used to the idea. The final vote will be on May 10, and I'll be doing my best to refrain from holey jeans when I walk down main street until then. And when people question my sanity for getting into this process, I just think to myself that I'm channeling my grandmother, at least a little bit.

If I'm going to be doing my grandmother's work, I need to be eating my grandmother's food. I think that I've shared this with you before, but it bears repeating: My grandmother was a vegetarian who ate ribs. She never cooked them at home, as my grandfather was a vegetarian who did not eat ribs, but when ever she had the opportunity to sit down in front of a messy stack of ribs, she would roll up the sleeves of her button down shirt and get to work. There was not an ounce of squeamishness in her when it came to ribs- she would suck every thing off those bones, gnaw on them a bit, and then go back to being an avid vegetarian. It was her way.
The night before I left for Turkey, I made these ribs. We ate them with rice and a big pile of greens, and as Sadie sucked on the bones just like her great grandmother Shirley, I knew that they would nourish her through the ten days ahead of pizza and grilled cheese and whatever else lay before her.


Orange Soy Braised Pork Ribs
adapted from Gourmet, January 2005

serves 3-4

2 1/2 pounds pork ribs, separated
2/3 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons grated ginger
a tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 tablespoon freshly ground pepper
1 cup water

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and place rack in the middle of the oven. Sprinkle ribs with salt.

Bring orange juice, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, garlic, and pepper to a boil in roasting pan over medium high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add ribs in to the pan, using tongs, turning to coat, and cover pan with a lid or foil.

Braise ribs in oven until very tender, about 2 to 3 hours.

Before Serving: Reduce oven temperature to 200°F.

Transfer ribs to a baking dish, arranging them in 1 layer, and keep warm in oven. Make glaze by boiling liquid, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until syrupy and reduced to about 3/4 cup, about 15 minutes. Brush glaze generously on ribs.

stuffed cabbage a la chatelaine

Do you ever find yourself in the kitchen, confused and full of questions? What is this that I'm making? Why did I start so late? How will I possibly finish making it before I have to go pick up the kids? Do I even want to? Shouldn't there be some liquid in here? 2 hours in the oven? Maybe we should just eat hummus for dinner? Who wrote this recipe? Why didn't they give me a picture? Am I lame to want a picture? If I were fabulous and French would I understand it? Should this cabbage be cooked all the way through? Maybe I should have cut it before I blanched it? Will my children touch this? Will Joey grumble about cabbage week all through dinner? Will I have to skip a day of cabbage week and keep this one to myself?

And then, even though I have about ten minutes to pull this together, I have to stop and take a picture. It turns out this whole cabbage week might just be an excuse to take a lot of pictures of cabbage, perhaps, I'm beginning to think, the most photogenic vegetable there is. Tell me this, have you ever seen anything more lovely than a whole blanched cabbage? I swear, I would make a dress out of the leaves if people wouldn't complain about my perfume. Look at that color, would you?

Like life itself, that color. Just gorgeous.

I wanted to make something new for you today, something I've never tried. I wanted something fancy and interesting involving whole cabbage leaves and meat and cognac. Today is stuffed cabbage.

I'm finding that to say you are making stuffed cabbage is as specific as saying that you are making a pasta dish. Sometimes the actual whole cabbage is stuffed. Sometimes the leaves are rolled around the stuffing and you have cabbage rolls. Or every so often, as in this confusing dish, the leaves are layered with the stuffing. Sometimes the stuffing is meat. Sometimes there is rice. Sometimes there are vegetables. I had to narrow down the category.

For stuffed cabbage inspiration, I kept wanting to come back to my new and satisfyingly hip book, I Know How to Cook. I've talked about this book a few times since my friend Alice sent it to me for my birthday, and it continues to make me feel fancy just by holding it in my hands. It's a new version of an old book of generally simple and classic French cooking, and it's one of those books that is a mix of useful and timeless recipes along with weird old recipes that you would never want to try but love to look at.
I know there are these two categories, because I heard it on NPR, but because everything usually sounds like a good idea to me, I can't really seem to tell the difference. I'm just as likely to attempt the "gayettes" (if only I could find the requisite pig's liver, lungs, kidneys, and caul) as I am to make the timeless "coq au vin".

As I layered cognac soaked meat onto whole cabbage leaves, I started to think that I might have made a mistake. But in my thirty-one years I have yet to abandon a recipe, so I soldiered on.

In the end, I'm really not sure if I made this the way it was intended. People must have been more intelligent in 1932 when the book was first published. They must have just inherently known whether one would cut a cabbage before blanching or not. My confusion continued to lead me through the whole process, and in the end, it seemed outstandingly simple. Cabbage, meat, breadcrumbs. I was instructed to top it off with tomato sauce, and I whipped up a batch of this, which would be good on absolutely anything. I know it's cabbage week and all, but make this tomato sauce, even if it's only to pour over your cabbage.

All was well in the end. I thought it was quite tasty, and enjoyed my small square of stuffed cabbage from the corner of the baking dish. Joey however, ate the entire rest of the contents of the pan, save for the few bites that Sadie sampled. He was quiet, and sighed a lot, and he closed his eyes for the greater part of the dinner. This is amazing, he said. And with that, Joey embraced cabbage week.


Stuffed Cabbage a la Chatelaine
loosely adapted (or perhaps we should just say inspired) from Ginette Mathiot, I Know How to Cook

serves 4

1 green cabbage (about 3 lbs)
12 ounces ground pork sausage
1 tablespoon cognac
1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs (stale bread toasted and chopped finely by hand or in the food processor)
salt and pepper
1/4 cup water or stock

about 3-4 cups tomato sauce

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Remove any of the damaged outer leaves from the cabbage and trim the bottom stem, removing as much as possible while keeping the cabbage together. (If you know a better way to prepare cabbage for blanching the whole leaves, by all means do it, and teach me how too). Submerge the cabbage in boiling water. It will float, so hold it down with a serving spoon. Cook it for about 5 minutes, and then submerge in ice water. Separate the leaves of the cabbage from the stem and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine the ground sausage, cognac, parsley, salt and pepper. In an ovenproof casserole dish, lay out a layer of cabbage leaves. Then a layer of stuffing. Repeat until you have run out of stuffing. End with a layer of stuffing, and then all of the breadcrumbs. Pour the 1/4 cup water or stock over the whole thing. Cover with tin foil and put in the oven. Bake for one hour, then remove the tin foil and bake one hour more. Serve topped with tomato sauce.