Monday, February 22, 2010

A Little Tenderness (Lots of Revision)


Knowing that I am going to write about what I cook, what I'm listening to and what I'm thinking while I cook/listen makes it significantly harder to relax and enjoy the process. Suddenly, I'm not just doing; I am cataloging thoughts, frantically attempting to photograph food, and trying to remember songs. Saturday night cooking and music has become it's own kind of workout. This past Saturday, for the sake of simplicity (I was too lazy to think hard about what I was in the mood to listen to), I turned on Twine Time. 

The episode was a compilation of R&B songs that remained at the top of the Billboard charts for the most weeks in history. When I turned on the radio around 8:30 (yeah, I got a late start), Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay" was playing. Here is an NPR interview with Steve Cropper, who co-wrote the song. In the interview, Cropper discusses the song's origins, and he comments that it had lasting mass appeal because it touches on a widely shared feeling that, "I'm working my can off, and it seems like nothing is going to come my way."

If you read my previous entry, you have an inkling that I went into the night feeling just that way; it didn't escape me that the first song I heard captured my mood. Part of the bad mood came from job frustrations, but another part of my mood sprouted (like fungus) from a fiction workshop. Friday, I workshopped a story with Francine Prose. Do you know of her? She's incredibly smart - meet her in person and that much is obvious. The issues she pointed out in my story, almost all of which I agreed with (yes, I am arrogant enough to have disagreed wholeheartedly with one comment) were spinning in my head. How to solve this story to which I I feel unyielding dedication?

As I listened to Paul Ray play all of these songs that sat stubbornly and triumphantly at the top of the charts for weeks on end into months and years, I started thinking about the concept of adapting to challenges in life so that a person creates staying power.

There were many revisions to dinner. I planned to adapt butternut squash and sage risotto by substituting turnips and basil. The recipe called for an onion. I didn't have one, so I used green onions and a healthy-sized shallot.

I realized that my one bunch of turnips was not enough (the recipe called for 1 lb. of squash). I added a couple of sweet potatoes to fill out the turnips, which worked perfectly. Next time, I'll be sure to have plenty of turnips.

Growing up, I was not a fan of turnips, but these turnips were the best I've tasted. I am convinced that the market roots were packed with flavor that grocery store turnips simply, and entirely, lack. Though the risotto contained slightly less turnips than sweet potatoes, the sweet turnips out-shined the sweet potatoes.

I also noticed that homemade vegetable stock rocks. Using it added depth to the overall flavor. If I'd used a boullion cube or plain water, the risotto would surely have fallen flat. With the stock, it seemed like little tasty fireworks were popping off in my mouth. I'd pick up one flavor, and pow - another flavor shot up just as the first was flickering out. Then pow, pow, pow - another flavor and another.

Here is a picture (by Chris) of the stock and risotto in action. You can also see oyster mushrooms sauteing. I cooked them in an olive oil/butter mix with salt and pepper, and I folded them into the risotto before serving.

This weekend I started a stock bag. I've got a plastic bag in the fridge, and as I cook throughout the week, instead of tossing vegetable trimmings, I'm putting them in the stock bag. At the end of the week, I'll rinse it all in a colander and make new stock. (This week, I've even included tangerine peels. Mmm. Citrus-y stock.)

I've never made risotto before, but the finished product was robust and impressive. It tasted like it came from a good restaurant, and I am not exaggerating. The great surprise (to me): As impressive a dish as it is, it is equally easy to make. Take one more look at the recipe posted a couple of entries ago and give it a try You can find it here.

In this image, you can see Chris flash frying basil for garnish. In the bowl at the front of the stove is garlic that he cooked until it is just golden and crisp. We added the garlic to the greens before serving.

There was another quick revision to last night's plans. I originally planned a side of kale and turnip greens. As it turns out, I didn't have kale, but I did have kohlrabi. I trimmed off the greens from the turnips and kohlrabi and cooked them together. Honestly, the kohlrabi greens were a nice change of pace from spinach and kale.

For a long time, I have prided myself on my atility to create a good meal when I am down to my emptiest fridge. My fridge has seemed empty for too long, as if I may have exhausted my resources.

After dinner on Saturday, replenished, I spent three hours revising my story (the 7,348th revision, or so it feels like). I won't say it is perfect, but the work is stronger and that much closer to what I know it has the potential to be. After revising, I felt more charged. My excitement reminded me that I am on the right path, regardless of what obstacles I encounter.

Before starting in the kitchen on Saturday, I hoped for ingenious inspirations. No ingenious inspirations came about, but I did remember that I can think quickly, adapt to circumstances, revise plans as necessary and still create plenty of nourishment and comfort.

It isn't "Dock of the Bay," but "Try a Little Tenderness" is a mighty good song. Otis Redding live, Stax Tour, Europe, 1967:

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Stuck in My Head

This Of Montreal song has been stuck in my head all day.


To Market, To Market 3 and 4

Market 4
Today, we picked up a dozen eggs, turnips, basil, oyster mushrooms and purple onion shoots. After heading to the market, we stopped in at Whole Foods and bought a couple of 99-cent French country loaves and Arborio rice from the bulk section. All in all, we spent about $22.

Tonight, I am using the vegetable stock I made last week and today's ingredients to prepare turnip and basil risotto (adapted from a recipe for butternut squash and sage risotto). I'll mix in sauteed oyster mushrooms at the end. I'll also make a side dish of crisp garlic with sauteed turnip greens and kale. Comfort food. And as my head is heavy with thoughts about the seemingly impossible-to-infiltrate Austin job market, comfort is what I am after.

On the way to the market today, Chris and I talked about how we really could (and should) ride our bikes instead of drive since it's so close.  Then one of us declared, "Baby steps." Committing ourselves to preparing 1 local meal a week feels like an impressive step 1 (and really, it turns into 3-5 market meals a week when we divvy up our purchases and are thoughtful about what to prepare.

These steps seem easy compared to the steps (and patience) required of us when it comes to settling into this city. How long does it take to find a secure job in your own field in a city like Austin? A lot longer than we had expected. Last week, Chris responded to a job posting, and this week, when he called to inquire about the timeline for responding to applicants and setting up interviews, the woman told him they'd received 125 resumes. The challenge of finding full time, steady employment feels daunting at best.

As you no doubt heard, a man here in Austin set his house on fire (with his wife and child in the house) and then smashed his plane into an IRS building. His actions are irrational, selfish and inexcusable. Particularly, I keep wondering why this man wouldn't sell his private plane (Hello, Mr. Broke, you own a plane?) to pay the IRS, rather than burdening his wife with his debts, leaving her homeless and attempting to kill other human beings. But deep down inside, there is this frustrated part of me that empathizes with the the overwhelming level of frustration the man might have felt. It's not his actions that I empathize with, to be clear, but with the feeling of constantly treading water, knowing that your body is simply incapable of treading forever.

Here is the Risotto with Butternut Squash and sage recipe I am using tonight. It's from The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook by Jack Bishop (Houghton Mifflin, 1997). By the way, we love this book. And Jack Bishop appears regularly on America's Test Kitchen. We love that nerdy cooking show too.

Ingredients
6 cups vegetable stock or 1 vegetable bouillon cube dissolved in 6 cups boiling water
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
3 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 medium onion, minced (we are substituting challots and green onion)
6 large sage leaves, minced, plus 8 leaves for frying (we are substituting basil)
1/2 small butternut squash, pulp and seeds discarded, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes (we're using turnips)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano chees
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation
1.  Bring stock to a simmer in medium saucepan. Keep warm over low heat.
2.  Heat oil and 2 tbsp. butter in heavy-bottomed medium pot. Add onion and saute over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in minced sage and cook for 30 seconds. Stir in squash and cook for 2 minutes, stirring often.
3.  Add the wine and 1 cup of warm stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until squash is tender, about 25 minutes. (If the pot runs dry, add more stock as needed.) Uncover pot and cook off any extra liquid.
4.  Using a wooden spoon, stir in the rice and cook for 1 minute. Add 1/2 cup of the warm stock and cook, stirring frequently, until the rice absorbs the liquid. Continue adding stock in 1/2 cup increments, stirring until the rice is creamy and soft but still a bit al dente, about 25 minutes. (Add hot water if you run out of stock.) *During this step, you'll need to pretty much stand over the stove stirring and adding liquid the whole time.
5.  Remove the pot from heat and vigorously stir in the remaining 1 tbsp. butter and the 1/2 cup cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish servings with fried sage leaves. Serve immediately.

As for music tonight? And my thoughts while cooking? We'll see what comes, but I am hoping for ingenious inspirations.

Market 3
I nearly forgot to fill you in on last weekend's market trip. The East Austin market that takes place on Sundays from the blessed waking hours of 11am-3pm is awesome. It is an indoor-outdoor farmers/arts market. While it isn't heavy on produce, one of the main produce vendors touts itself as "beyond organic" for using seeds that are not genetically engineered and for using farming methods that do not kill good insects. (There was a whole list of reasons given, but I cannot remember everything I read.) From this vendor, we purchased broccoli, cauliflower (purple and white) and kohlrabi.

That night I made something so easy and delicious - mashed cauliflower. I trimmed off the leaves and stem and cut the florets. I steamed the florets and the stem (1st I peeled off the outer layer of the stem). After the cauliflower was good and soft (10 minutes?), I threw it into a food processor, added a tbsp. of plain yogurt, a tbsp. of olive oil and a tbsp. of the water I had used to steam it. I also added salt and pepper and pureed it until it was smooth. I added some extra water to make it creamier.

As I was trimming and cutting the cauliflower, I had a really lovely surprise. I found this little guy (pictured on Chris' finger):

He reminded me that much of my food lately has been coming from gardens instead of grocery stores.

Next time I make the mashed cauliflower, instead of first steaming the cauliflower, I'll roast it in the oven with garlic and olive oil. But steaming it is certainly a quick way to go. Pictured below, along with salad and hanger steak, is what the mashed cauliflower looked like. I wish you could taste them.

A few last words. About the hanger steak - if you force yourself to eat with your stomach instead of your eyes, you can serve it to 4 people. When we're lucky enough to score a hanger steak (usually 3/4-1lb at appx. $7/lb), we cook half and split that half between us so we can spread it over 2 meals.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Leaves, Peels, Stalks and Stems



A while back (which could mean a year ago or 2 years ago or 6 months ago), I caught an episode of Oprah on which Dr. Oz made a green smoothie with apple and spinach and a bunch of other stuff.

Sometime in January, I started saving the stems and leafy tops of root vegetables, and in the mornings, I’ve been making my own green smoothies. 

This evolved when I was making them with spinach alone and I ran out of spinach. It occurred to me to use turnip greens. The experiment grew from there. Kale is a strange green to add – it almost makes the smoothies taste a little salty. 

Ingredients
2/3 cup of tart cherry juice
1 banana (sometimes I use ½ banana and ½ green apple)
1 handful of fresh blueberries
1 stalk celery
2 hearty-sized handfuls of leafy greens (I’ve used spinach, kohlrabi leaves, turnip greens, beet greens and kale – sometimes, I’ve mixed; other times I’ve stuck to one type)
appx. 1 tsp. parsley leaves
fresh ginger (1/4” thick, half the size of a dime? I like a lot.)
fresh squeezed lemon juice (from 1 wedge)
1/2 to 1 tsp. honey
3-4 ice cubes.

Preparation
Throw it all in a blender and blend!

I’ve tried making smoothies with no banana and a whole apple, but I cannot get behind the texture of the apple/leafy green version. It tastes gritty each and every time, whereas, with the banana, the texture is (drum roll) smooth. Go figure. I’ve also tried them without, the ice, and I have to say – especially while your taste buds are adjusting to the general concept of the green smoothie – the cold from ice makes them more palatable. Ice also improves the overall texture. One last note, the thicker your greens, the less you need to add, and the longer you need to blend.

When I drink a green smoothie, I feel like I am instantaneously imbibing servings of fruits and vegetables that I otherwise would not eat that day. I also like the taste, although the first time I made the Dr. Oz version, using a recipe from the internet, it had the texture and taste of grass clippings. Playing with the proportions of ingredients helps get it right. But the really big, happy discovery about green smoothies is that, the weeks when I manage to make one every day - which does happen now and then, I notice that my skin looks better. That might sound insane, but it's a true observation. I have always had big dark circles under my eyes; mostly, this is my general coloring. However, the circles become less pronounced those weeks when I have a green smoothie every morning - so something healthy must be happening inside my body too.

I was convinced that I could find more interesting use for these trimmings than stock, but I didn’t try hard to find those interesting uses, and the smoothie is all I came up with. So tonight, I’m saying, Hello stock! I piled cauliflower trimmings, a broccoli stem, kohlrabi stems and leaves, fennel stalks and leaves, ginger, lemon, used tea leaves, half of an unused sweet potato (peels and all) and green onions into a pot. I plan to portion it out and freeze it. I’ll let you know when I get around to using some of the stock.

Anyone out there have other suggestions for how to use leafy greens from root vegetables? I have a feeling that the farmers markets hold the promise of roots and greens for a while to come. 

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Land of Plenty

Tomorrow, I’ll head to a Sunday market in East Austin that keeps the hours 11am-3pm. Do they know about me and my weekend mornings sleeping in?

After visiting the museum last night, we rented Food, Inc. At the video store, Chris said, “You're SURE you want to watch this? It might change the way you think about food for the rest of your life. And you like food.”

Among many vital questions, the documentary poses this one:  Shouldn't we, in the US, strive to make a bunch of fresh carrots or a dozen eggs, more affordable than a bag of chips? I found myself struggling again with the relationship between nutritionally-dense, healthfully-farmed food and its affordability to the masses (as opposed to double-income, no-kid couples, etc.). The end of the film included a "What you can do now" list that suggested:  shop at farmers markets. Farmers markets that accept food stamps. 

I remembered living in Baton Rouge and shopping at Calandro's, one of the few truly local grocers in town (not to mention one of the oldest). On the one hand, Calandro's prided itself for being locally owned and for stocking an apt selection of Louisiana-grown and packaged products. On the other hand, I used to nearly get hives standing in the check out line where, staring me in the face, there were signs stating that WIC and other food subsidies are not accepted [read: Poor people, you are not welcome]. Was I to feel pride for supporting this local business, or contempt toward this establishment and myself as a consumer? 

I've noticed that the Austin Farmers Market accepts food stamps, and the Red Stick Farmers Market, to their many credits, also welcomes patronage by human beings who rely on food subsidies. Watching the film, I wondered what the hell is wrong with us as Americans for feeling disdain toward government subsidies that aid individuals for basic necessities such as food, when the government is systematically and grossly subsidizing major corporations that utilize these subsidies to mechanize the production of food to the point that it is no longer nutritious sustenance, but merely a set of objects that possess the visual likeness of actual produce and actual meat. 

The film was informative and thought provoking, and it left me with some questions. For instance, where do the likes of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and Fresh Market fit into this efficiency-driven model of food production? The interview with Gary Hirshberg, the Stonyfield Farms founder and CEO, began to chip at this subject, but in no way did it offer an answer. FYI, most  big brand organic products readily available for purchase today - Kashi, Stonyfield Farms, Gardenburger, and others, have been acquired by corporations like Kraft, Kellogg, General Mills, Heinz. When Hirshberg was asked whether these organic producers can maintain their "soul," their commitment to healthful and responsible food production, he answered, dimly, that the verdict is still out.

While I slept, I dreamed that my body had become swollen and yellow because I consumed more corn than I could handle. I also dreamed that I opened a bag of Ruby and Basil’s dog food, and it too was filled with corn kernels. When I woke up, Chris asked, “Do you want to go by some Tyson chicken?” No Thank You.

I have sufficient motivation to make it to the East Side slacker market tomorrow. I also now have sufficient motivation to familiarize myself with every chicken, hog and cattle farm in my vicinity, as well as with the methods by which I can purchase animal products from humane, organic and clean growers. Corporate meat, again, No Thank You.

Consider this my emphatic recommendation to rent this movie: A small part of me did not want to watch Food, Inc., but the part of me that won out is the larger part that believes ignorance by choice is inexcusable.

I am leaving you with two New York Times articles on the subject of food subsidies use by families in the United States today. I hope you will take a moment to read them and contemplate their relevance to your own lives. Here is the first, published in 2008. Here is the second, published just after Thanksgiving last year.

*I pulled the posted photo from the official Food Inc. website, to which I have linked above.

Land of Plenty



Tomorrow, I’ll head to a Sunday market in East Austin that keeps the hours 11am-3pm. Do they know about me and my weekend mornings sleeping in?

After visiting the museum last night, we rented Food, Inc. At the video store, Chris said, “You're SURE you want to watch this? It might change the way you think about food for the rest of your life. And you like food.”

Among many vital questions, the documentary poses this one:  Shouldn't we, in the US, strive to make a bunch of fresh carrots or a dozen eggs, more affordable than a bag of chips? I found myself struggling again with the relationship between nutritionally-dense, healthfully-farmed food and its affordability to the masses (as opposed to double-income, no-kid couples, etc.). The end of the film included a "What you can do now" list that suggested:  shop at farmers markets. Farmers markets that accept food stamps. 

I remembered living in Baton Rouge and shopping at Calandro's, one of the few truly local grocers in town (not to mention one of the oldest). On the one hand, Calandro's prided itself for being locally owned and for stocking an apt selection of Louisiana-grown and packaged products. On the other hand, I used to nearly get hives while standing in the check out line while signs stating that WIC and other food subsidies are not accepted [read: Poor people, you are not welcome] stared me in the face. Was I to feel pride for supporting this local business, or contempt toward this establishment and myself as a consumer? 

I've noticed that the Austin Farmers Market accepts food stamps, and the Red Stick Farmers Market, to their many credits, also welcomes patronage by human beings who rely on food subsidies. Watching the film, I wondered what the hell is wrong with us as Americans for feeling disdain toward government subsidies that aid individuals for basic necessities such as food, when the government is systematically and grossly subsidizing major corporations that utilize these subsidies to mechanize the production of food to the point that it is no longer nutritious sustenance, but merely a set of objects that possesses the visual likeness of actual produce and actual meat. 

The film was informative and thought provoking, and it left me with some questions. For instance, where do the likes of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and Fresh Market fit into this efficiency-driven model of food production? The interview with Gary Hirshberg, the Stonyfield Farms founder and CEO, began to chip at this subject, but in no way did it offer an answer. FYI, most  big brand organic products readily available for purchase today - Kashi, Stonyfield, Gardenburger, and most others, have been acquired by corporations like Kraft, Kellogg, General Mills, Heinz. When Hirshberg was asked whether these organic producers can maintain their "soul," their commitment to healthfully and responsible food production, he answered, dimly, that the verdict is still out.

While I slept, I dreamed that my body had became swollen and yellow because I consumed more corn than I could handle. I also dreamed that I opened a bag of Ruby and Basil’s dog food, and it too was filled with corn kernels. When I woke up, Chris asked, “Do you want to go by some Tyson chicken?” No Thank You.

I have sufficient motivation to make it to the East side slacker market tomorrow. I also now have sufficient motivation to familiarize myself with every chicken, hog and cattle farm in my vicinity, as well as with the methods by which I can purchase animal products from humane, organic and clean growers. Corporate meat, again, No Thank You.

Consider this my emphatic recommendation to rent this movie: A small part of me did not want to watch Food, Inc., but the part of me that won out is the larger part that believes ignorance by choice is simply inexcusable.

I am leaving you with two New York Times articles on the subject of food subsidies use by families in the United States today. I hope you will take a moment to read them and contemplate their relevance to your own lives. Here is the first, published in 2008. Here is the second, published just after Thanksgiving last year.

*I pulled the posted photo from the official Food Inc. website, to which I have linked above.

Music on Paper


Some friends invited us to accompany them to the Austin Museum of Art last night. The current exhibit is a collection of Hatch poster prints and some of the original wood blocks used for the images. It's an impressive show. Particularly, many of the prints are oversized, and it's interesting to see up close how each sheet of paper is pieced together, as well as to see the large, pieced together wooden blocks carved with the original images. 

Hatch, based in Nashville, is one of the oldest working printing presses in the US. Two brothers started the press around 1870, and the company’s prints continue to evolve today, though they are indeed still printed by hand. In addition to producing graphics for other kinds of advertising, a large part of Hatch’s work over the years has been the creation of country music concert posters.

The exhibit included old posters for Bob Wills, Loretta Young, Willie Nelson and Elvis. But it also included contemporary posters for Beck, Wilco, Elvis Costello, The White Stripes and many others. The most beautiful, if I consider them exclusively as pieces of art, were the giant "make ready" images. Essentially, printers test run inked up blocks on large sheets of newsprint. The same sheet of newsprint might be used multiple times to test multiple blocks (i.e. various carved images). So the effect is surreal-looking layered images that, by their layers, provoke a sense of depth - foreground, middle ground and background all there on the page, but they develop their individual compositions purely accidentally.

The show also included fun vintage ads for coffee, wrestling matches and state fairs. There were also some not so old (depending, I suppose, on how old you are) state fair posters. 

Before leaving, I perused the gift shop and came across a cookbook called Music in the Kitchen (University of TX Press, 2009). I've linked to the Austin Chronicle review. The cookbook pulls together favorite recipes that Austin City Limits performers contribute. Go figure, the basic idea for my blog is remarkably unoriginal a timely delight.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Belated Recipe, etc.

Lemon-Mustard Dressing (This is what I used for the pomelo and daikon radish salad)

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp grated lemon zest
1/8 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1/8 cup fresh lemon juice (1/4 cup might be too much, but add more than 1/8 if you want more zing)
1 to 2 tbsp finely chopped green onions or chives (I used green onions from the market)
3 tsp spicy mustard (I used Chinese style hot mustard; you could probably substitute Dijon)
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preparation
Whisk it all together!

I used these measurements for a 2 to 4 servings of salad (depending on the portioning). It would be easy to double the recipe and keep some for another use.

Etc.
On Thursday, I plan to spend some time with She Eats Beats. I'll post the meat pie recipe. I'm also hoping to synthesize some of the suggestions and recommendations that have come my way. There are so many! If I'm very lucky, I'll have a new Super Bowl post to share. And this weekend, I should be back on track with a Saturday night meal. Hmm. A Valentine dinner?

Finally, be on the lookout. I'm hoping to have a guest-post up before the month-end.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Bitter-Sweet and Savory


Dinner the night after the Yo La Tengo show. We ate pomelo and daikon radish salad with homemade Louisiana meat pie (I bastardized the filling to incorporate elements of an Argentinean recipe and also to make the home-town recipe healthier). I confess that I made the meat pie on Friday, not Saturday, but I also confess that it tasted better the 2nd night. The meat pie, made with whole wheat pie crust (that I prepared from scratch, which amazed me because it's not the kind of thing I do), was sweet and savory. The salad was bitter-sweet and had a kick to it. I highly recommend the salad - it was super easy. And the meat pie was just plain comforting. I thought this would seem like a hodgepodge meal, but it came together nicely. There are no recipes up, but I'll try to get them posted tomorrow or Sunday (pre-Saints game!).

Meet the pomelo. It is the size of a cantaloupe, but a relative of the grapefruit. Chris is not crazy about grapefruit, but he genuinely enjoyed this salad. The pomelo (at least the one we had) has a slightly milder taste than grapefruit - both in terms of bitterness and sugar content. Notice how thick the rind is. I used half of the fruit in this salad, but if you needed to serve more than 4 people, I'd go with the whole fruit. Also, though I wasn't careful to make pretty slices, I was careful to remove every bit of rind (the inner rind that covers each segment) to ensure that we didn't have any unwanted bitterness. (That's my hand removing the rind; Chris shot that photo.)

Here is the pomelo and one peeled and sliced daikon radish. As you can see, the combination looks spring-like, clean and pretty. Just as pumella tastes like a mild grapefruit, daikon tastes mild considering it's a radish. It provided a nice crunch, complimenting the pomelo in taste and texture.

Here is the romaine that I forgot to picture earlier. I used half of this (one rooted bunch) for the salad. Without a doubt, this romaine tasted cleaner and crisper than supermarket romaine. It was a smaller bunch than what I normally see at the store, but it also seemed younger. Again, if I was making this salad for more than 4 people, I'd have used both bunches (as well as 2 instead of 1 daikon radish).

The last ingredient in the salad is those micro-greens I was excited about tasting at the market. I noted earlier that I spent $3 on a sandwich bag portion. I have had 3 uses out of the one bag (for 2 people). I used 1/3 of the bag for this salad, but would have increased to 1/2 of the bag for a larger salad. My friend Bobby commented that $3 might be steep since they are only early shoots, but I have to say, they really packed a punch, and alongside the dressing, they unified this salad in terms of flavor and appearance. (Chris's photo again.)

Voila. A meal. 
If I was not a meat eater, I might have tried to make a savory pie filling with diced sweet potatoes and Quinoa. If I was making the meal as is, but I felt I needed a side dish, I might still have made diced, oven-roasted sweet potatoes. In fact, to spread the salad among 4 people, I'd advise adding a side dish. Ultimately, 1 piece of pie and a healthy portion of salad filled up both me and Chris. We did indulge in sponging up the dressing with slices of the rosemary ciabatta we purchased at the market. 


The last bite. As I prepared the salad, Chris was playing George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. There was a time years ago when this album was in my constant rotation. I was peeling and chopping the daikon radish, and I heard myself think: I bet my mom would have liked this album. Then: I wonder if she had ever heard any of it? In the nearly four years since my mom's death, I have never paused to wonder what she experienced that I may not know of. In the back of my mind, there are always fears: that I will forget her voice, her laughter, her facial expressions, the way her hands looked and the way her touch felt. To ponder over what she had known, unbeknownst to me, and to know that I cannot simply pick up the telephone and ask, "Mom, have you ever heard this song?" was a startling and unsettling moment. Perhaps I will never forget her voice, her laughter, her hands. But as I continue to age, I might accumulate an attic of unanswerable questions about who my mother was, even as I believe I knew her.





Bitter-Sweet and Savory







Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Dancing in Place


Hmmm. This guy Andy Pareti (obviously, that is not him pictured) and I had a totally different experiences at the Yo La Tengo show. Here is his review of the show.

The first time I saw Yo La Tengo, I was 24. My big sister who was a big fan, took me by subway out to Hoboken, NJ to a tiny club where they played a hometown show. I observed the crowd dancing inside of their shoes while their shoes remained plastered to the concrete floor we were standing on (or was it wooden?). The dance in place thing people do. I had just left BR for NY, and I was struck by how 'cool' the crowd played it at shows, struck by people's lack of uninhibited enjoyment. Dancing inhibitions anywhere in south LA were a foreign concept.

As we headed back into Manhattan, my first late-night subway traveling, my sister said, "Don't they make you want to dance?" Yo La Tengo didn't strike the right chord with me until several years later, but I got how they could strike that chord in others. I could appreciate the noisy, electric energy that Kaplan, McNew and Hubley put out. I appreciated it enough to wonder why the majority of the audience, presumably more dedicated fans than I, weren't moving more.

That was 11 years ago, and now, I often find myself inhibited, dancing in shoes that won't lift off the ground. Occasionally, I stumble upon a show where the band's music thrashes off the stage and out of amplifiers, reaches under my skin and into my bones.

Sometimes, I still move.

Friday, I expected the music to creep inside of me, to move me with greater pleasure than it does when Yo La Tengo, through a pair of earbuds, is my running partner. Seeing the 8 or so guitars racked up beside the stage, I felt certain I was in for greatness. But through the entire set and the encore (a cover of Bob Dylan's "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and my favorite moment of the show), I found myself doing that drab dance in place thing.

They started with a lengthy, psychedelic spewing of guitar and drum cacophony that quieted the crowd and prepared us for something bouncier, more upbeat, still guitar-heavy and just as energetic, but, in terms of the emotive sensation, with less underlying intensity and more underlying fun. Like, "Okay crowd, we've commanded your attention, now get ready for elation." Instead, the set didn't flow. Yo La Tengo continually moved from feedback-heavy and distorted into quiet crooning and back again into distortion with no rhyme or reason.

Pareti says there was a "deliberate progression to the set." I agree with his overview of that progression (guitar-heavy to synth-heavy to acoustic). However, within this progression, the particular song selections didn't flow, and the transition from one style to the next was nonexistent. Here is a mildly academic and anecdotal comparison: In freshman composition classes, students' essays will sometimes contain all of the right organizational components- an intro paragraph, 3 body paragraphs and a conclusion. But the sentence arrangement within each paragraph is not as logical or nuanced as it needs to be. Likewise, transitional statements are either awkward and choppy or missing all together. Here is a more crude simile, and what I found myself thinking at the show: It was like not finding the right rhythm with a parter even though you are both desperately trying to find it. Bad sex, both parties totally self-aware.

Yo La Tengo played a majority of songs off of their new album Popular Songs. I'll admit, I haven't found it to be my favorite, though Pitchfork's review can't stop praising the new album. I do love the first track "Here to Fall" which echoes back to, and seems a more pulsating, electro-ethereal and more optimistic continuation of "Our Way to Fall."

I fully expected to hear live, what wasn't yet coming through to me in stereo. I expected to be hitting repeat on Popular Songs 100 times after seeing Yo La Tengo perform the album. So is my take on the show tainted by the fact that I haven't entirely fallen in love with Popular Songs? Do I have a bad ear? Who am I, after all? Music lay person. Opinionated music lay person.

A few obscure highlights from the show.
Overheard:
Statler (5'6, 300 pounds, 65-ish, gray crew cut): I could get on your shoulders.
Waldorf (5'7, 150 pounds, 50-ish, gray pony tail): Be a good view for about a second and a half.
Both: HAW-HAHR-HAR-HAHR-HAR-HAW
Statler: You might have to get that knee replacement surgery.
Waldorf: How do they do knee replacement? You know they replace hips too.

Internal Dialog:
Everyone here looks 12. 12 is the new 21.

Conversation with Chris:
Me: Look at that guy's mullet.
Chris: Oh yeah. That's the Swayze.

I leave you a promise to report on dinner tomorrow and videos for "Our Way to Fall" and "Here to Fall."