remedial eating

on a roll

Some people fall into a groove.  I fling.  

Then I reach for a spade, really put my back into it, and digdigdig until I can't quite see the light.  I love it there, in the deep underneath, earth dark and cool and fantastically dank.  But it has been pointed out to me, once or twice, that I might maybe sometimes overdo.  

Take Poppy.  In January, I concluded the Poppy (pattern here) I made for Zoë's 3rd birthday was overdue a new wardrobe.  She had just the two dresses she arrived with, and Zoë was coming up on another birthday herself, and, well. Two dresses.  Two years.  Surely you see it, too?

I set to work.   

I cut out one smock, and another, and then another.  Because making things in multiples is so simple, you know?  Same pattern, same seams, autopilot territory.  

And then I cut out some pants, one-two-three.  Because smocks without pants are like chocolate without peanut butter.  

And then, I made the happy discovery that pants cut for five-year-olds from one-yard lengths yield scraps perfectly sized for Poppy pants.  Sweet!

More pants.

And more tunics to go with. 

(To give you a sense of where we're at, were I a mouse, I'd be asking for a straw about now, but would not yet have trimmed my hair, or swept, or fetched crayons, or napped.  Or, asked after another cookie.)

Let's just say Poppy scored.  

She wound up with pants which matched most of Zoë's, pears and polka-dots and paisleys.  She has smocks cut from pajama scraps, and old quilting cottons from my childhood, and tiny 2T dresses once worn by my girl, re-purposed to rag doll proportions.    

There were white pants of thick Irish linen, cut from an old hole-riddled $1 runner.  A Downtown Abbey-era bit of lace I've had since high school, and adored, and admired, and wondered what on earth to do with, raised its hand and suggested itself for a little blue, brass-buttoned smock.  I accepted.  The antique pink tea towel with extraordinary appliqué—and the pox of indelible spots—finally found its purpose in life.  Cut carefully, add buttons strategically, and voilà!  Wee sailboat smock.  

And so it went.  The final count was, well, unknown, as I don't prefer to quantify my excesses.  I do know the new duds handily filled an old Samsonite overnight case.  And that putting scraps to such small, delicious uses evokes a certain thrifty indulgence.  

And that although no stuffing-headed little girl (or for that matter, red-haired real girl) actually needs a suitcase thick with doll clothes, it was great fun for me.  And if we're honest, such projects are really more for the makers than those they're made for.  And if I'm going to get on a roll, fast and furious, with no exits in sight, it had better be an innocent, upstanding roll.  You know where I'm headed with this.  

Salad.  More salad.  Every day a salad.  We went through six bags of greens, last week, and had to buy more, to patch us through.  Half of them went to this salad, here.

This here salad is a relatively new addiction for me, which is why I've only made ten (twelve?) times, over these past three weeks.  It began when the library notified me that I could pick up Lucinda Scala Quinn's new book.  When it will end is anyone's guess.  Although, knowing my track record...

Enough about me.  You.  You'll want some fresh spunky greens on hand, something with crunch and character.  Mizuna's been in regular rotation in our CSA, and I've loved its juicy crisp, here.  Quinn suggests mostly escarole, with a half head of raddichio.  Sounds good, too.  To this, and to Quinn's original, you'll add slivered celery and smashed hazelnuts.  (Yes, that's me, digging deeper, deeper, into the excellent crunchy groove.)

You'll also want some parmigiano reggiano, or pecorino romano, either/or.  I've tried both.  Declared both best.  Then re-negged.  You decide.  Either way, get your hands on a wedge, because you'll want slivers, substantial, toothsome, salty alter-egos to those crisp leaves.  

And, you'll want dates.  Yes, dates.  I know.  I never wanted dates, either.  In all my life, I've never understood the appeal of this sticky cloying gacky brown lump.  I finally understand.  (And by finally, let's be clear: we're talking forty-years of date confusion, people.)  Dates exist for this salad.  

Toss sliced dates with smart greens and toasty filberts and a serious hit of gritty-creamy parmesan schrapnel and oh. my. stars.  They make sense. Against all these other tastes, bitter/salty/umami/sharp, they come to life with all kinds of complexity.  Like bits of brown sugar, the dark stuff, muscovado, maybe, but also caramel's kissing cousin, and a mysterious swarthy something that try as I might, I can't put my finger on.  I sliced some kumquats over this last go around, which added another, wonderful sweet-tart dimension. But don't let lack of kumquats stand in your way.  This salad is stand-alone wonderful, as is.  The dates make it so.  Which is why I, lifelong loather of dates, recently bought a pound of Medjools at Costco.  I'm down to eight ounces, maybe six.  I'm on a roll.  Best step aside.

An Anytime Salad of Greens, Dates, Pecorino + Hazelnuts
inspired by Lucinda Scala Quinn, Mad Hungry Cravings
Costco's Medjool dates are phenomenal, plump, rich, profoundly fresh (yes, there is fresh and stale dried fruit).  Wherever you buy them, make sure they are rich shiny brown and soft, not white or wizened.  Great dates are impossibly sticky to slice.  Work with it.  Their flavor overcomes all.  On hazelnuts, I'm ever and always a Holmquist girl.  

for the salad:
6 ounces (8 cups) mizuna, or one head of escarole + half a head of raddichio
2 ounces pecorino or parmigiana reggiano (from a wedge)
8-10 dried medjool dates, pitted and sliced
generous 1/3 cup toasted* hazelnuts, roughly chopped
3 stalks celery, thinly sliced
15 kumquats (optional), sliced and seeded

for the dressing:
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 1-2 lemons)
1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Prepare Salad:  Roughly tear or slice greens into generous bite-sized pieces. Place in a large, shallow salad bowl.  With a paring knife, shave cheese into thin tiles, slightly thicker than what a peeler would yield.  You want toothsome bites of cheese, thick enough to have presence, thin enough to go around.  An inch across, say, and thick as a dime.  Add to greens, along with sliced dates, chopped hazelnuts, sliced celery, and kumquats, if using. 

Make dressing:  In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine lemon juice, syrup and salt.  Swirl to dissolve salt.  Add olive oil, attach lid, and shake vigorously to emulsify.  

Drizzle 3-4 tablespoons dressing over salad, and toss gently and vigorously to combine.  Munch a handful, and add more salt and/or dressing to taste.  (You will have leftover dressing.  You will be happy about this.)  Try to share.

*To Toast Hazelnuts:  Preheat oven to 350°.  Lay hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheets, and toast 10-12 minutes, until the white nuts turn ivory, the skins begin to curl, and deeply fragrant.  There's much fuss about peeling hazelnuts. Buy good ones (order from Holmquist; you'll never look back), and the skin is as sweet as the meat.  

 

maybe you, too

I've needed many a reminder of this, this week.

 

 

And this.

 

 

Also, this.

 

 

All of the above.

 

 

Especially today.  Maybe you, too.

 

And still, I've needed to eat.  I am rarely without motivation to cook, more rarely still, without appetite.  It's been a rare week.  These are the weeks when I need food that reminds me to eat, what to eat, why to eat.  Food that comes together in fifteen, including breaks to wipe crumbs and talk about odes and discuss nuclear power and spell S-U-S-P-I-C-I-O-U-S.  Food that demands only knife and flame, plus a few pantry stand-bys, and zero effort.  Fast, easy, fantastically nourishing food.  Bonus points for mindless.  Preferably dazzling. 

I don't think that's too much to ask.

Neither, apparently, does Fuschia Dunlop.  This dish is a serious riff off one in Dunlop's exquisite Every Grain of Rice.  My copy is bristling with post-it notes marking dishes I intend to get to, soon.  Right after I get past this.  

What began in her book as a crisp, cold bar snack, evolved in my kitchen into a sweet, fiery stir-fry.  Common to both are small cubes of smoked tofu, diced celery, and roasted peanuts.  These three are stir-fried, fast and hot, in a splash of peanut oil already acquainted with dried chilis.  When the celery's gone see-through but still has bite, and the tofu's gained a bit of color at the edges, and the peanuts have darkened a shade or two, a flick of sweet chili sauce goes in.  It stays on the stove just a minute or two more, but that final stretch is a doozy.  The vivid red sauce melts on impact and turns into a glaze, a sweet-hot veneer.  The key players absorb a wisp of its fire.  The sugars caramelize at the edges.  Ten minutes have passed.  Hello, hunger.

It's a fascinating dish, too easy to be true, too addictive not to repeat.  A real part of its charm is size, each player—celery, tofu, peanut—equal in stature. The appeal of this is irrational, and huge.

The combination of ingredients is inspired, a trio I never would've thought to assemble, and which I now can't imagine apart. The celery, sweet, grassy, retains its snap, but goes a little silky at the edges.  The tofu, already pressed and smoked, brings a marvelous sultry chew.  And those peanuts, plain old peanuts, earthy roasty crunchy peanuts, feel like they finally get their due.  

One batch feeds me well for two lunches.  (Unlike most stir-fries, it's a reasonable re-heat).  It's plenty solo, and wonderful with brown rice, and absolutely smashing with slow stir-fried peppers, their sweet silky selves a grand foil for the crunch and chew of their bowl-mate.  

If you start the peppers first, then get going on the tofu, you'll have everything ready at once, twenty minutes, start to feast.   I know this, because I've done this, a dozen times in half as many weeks.  If I'm to get to the other post-its, I'll have to be stern.  But seeing as I smuggled home more smoked tofu this week, it may be a slow, soft-pedalled stern.  Because even when I've no motivation and less appetite, I tend to fall hard for quick, thrilling riots.  Maybe you, too?  

A Sweet Fiery Stir-Fry of Smoked Tofu, Celery + Peanuts
adapted from Fuschia Dunlop, Every Grain of Rice
Yield: 2 servings, with vegetables and rice 

Pressed tofu is avaialable at large supermarkets, natural food stores, and Asian markets.  I buy this smoked tofu at Whole Foods.  Five-spice is a good alternative, if you like it's flavor (I'm not partial).  Ordinary white tofu is too tender to work, here.  Heat varies by brand of sweet chili sauce.  I have both this and this in my fridge door at the moment, and find one good glug (2-ish) teaspoons just right.  Adjust based on your brand and taste buds.  

1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 dried thai chilis
4 oz. smoked tofu
3 large-ish stalks celery
1 ounce (scant 1/4 cup) roasted, salted peanuts
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons sweet chili sauce, plus more to taste 

Cut tofu into 1/2" dice.  Slice celery stalks lengthwise, into three long batons, then slice cross-wise, into small dice to match the tofu.  Squeeze peanuts lightly in your hand, to separate into halves.  Set aside.

Heat a wok or medium heavy skillet over high heat, until smoking, 30 seconds. Add the oil, and heat until wisps of smoke appear, 30 seconds.  Add dried chilis and celery, and stir-fry 1 minute.  Add tofu, and stir-fry 2 more minutes.  Add peanuts, salt, and sugar, and stir-fry another 3-5 minutes, until celery is transparent, tofu caramelized, and peanuts a shade darker.  Add sweet chili sauce, and stir-fry 1-2 minutes, until it has melted, glazed everything, and begun to caramelize.  Check for seasonings, add salt, sugar, and/or more chili sauce to taste, and enjoy.

 

shameless

Once, three hundred years ago, or at least three lifetimes ago, I was traveling by train through the Pyrénées.

We were somewhere between Barcelona and Madrid, barreling through the stark hills which the locals called mountains.  It was hard for my Northwest self to see "mountain" in the modest peaks out either window. They looked more like foothills, like Issaquah, like Snoqualmie, than like Rainier, which was my mountain archetype.  But semantics aside, they were mesmerizing, so scrubby, so rugged, so different from all I knew.

I remember riding with my nose pushed up against the chill glass, playing with that funny focus that trains invite.  Pick a point well ahead, affix your eyeballs, and follow it with your head until fwoop!, it's all gone. 

The prize in this solitary, high-speed game was the spying of villages, rare and sudden.  We whizzed through tiny, anonymous towns by the dozen, small congregations of gray roofs, incongruous as toadstools.  They were enchanting, mystifying, a little terrifying, stubborn little outposts against all that stone.  Up each main street, without fail, plodded a few elderly women, market-bound with net bags.  Backs curved with age, coats invariably black, hair always encased under waterproof scarves.

I remember how unwittingly they resembled their surroundings: concave huddled clusters, pointy-topped, pewter-hued, the women, the mountains, the both of them.  I remember being impressed they all wore the same uniform.  Mostly, I remember those identical plastic rain scarves, tied tight under absolutely every last chin.  And nothing but sunshine, not a raindrop in sight. 

Weird.

(By now, you serious students of Spain, and those with any passing knowledge of geography, will have noted that there are no Pyrénees between Barcelona and Madrid.  They run, of course, due North of Barcelona, dividing Spain from La Belle France. 

I know this.  I do.  I even spent a good hour, re-visiting Spanish topograhy, trying to square my memory with reality.  I had a serious talking to with my recollections, pointing out that in all liklihood, we were traveling through the Sistema Ibérico.  It was unyielding: Barcelona, Pyrénées, Madrid.  Memory's funny that way, able to move mountains.)    

But the main thing I remember was the teenage girl across the aisle.  She was beautiful, lean, lanky, like all Spaniards of a certain age, her hair deep and glossy as a good oil-cured olive.  She was sixteen, maybe seventeen, perhaps five years my junior, which seemed like a lifetime to my newlywed self.  I was amused by the way she lay strewn across the seats, arms here, long legs there, hair tossed back into the row behind.  Somehow, she stretched her ninety-two-pound self over three rows, and across the aisle, also.  

All this, I likely wouldn't have noticed, were it not for the singing.

Mostly, she chatted quietly with her friends, in rapid-fire Spanish, not one word of which I understood.  But she was also plugged into a walkman (three hundred years ago, like I said), and every now and again, in that hushed train car half-full of strangers, she would open her lips and without warning, sing, "IT'S MY PAAAAARTY, AND I'LL CRY IF I WANT TO, CRY IF I WANT TO, CRY-Y-Y-Y IF I WANT TO, YOU WOULD CRY TOO IF IT HAPPENED TO YOO-OU..."

Out loud. 

Really out loud. 

Singing's a misnomer.  Belting's better. 

In perfect English, Lesley Gore gone brunette.  Utterly un-self-conscious.  Shameless.  Excellent.

All of which is my roundabout road to what's above, and what's to follow: 

More winter love. 

More salads.

I've already admitted my affection for winter's gauzy light, barren beauty, and endless indoor play.  Though I don't think I've mentioned that the Best Play-Doh Toys Ever can be found in the foot massage section at Daiso (Westlake Center and Lynwood, for you Seattle folks).  After the kitchen drawer, of course.  And since I know I'm in the minority:  Do you see, you Spring Peepers, all the infant shoots, buds and signs? 

But three salads in as many months?  With March just begun?  You bet.  Because it's my blog, and I can dwell if I want to.  And I do, I so do. 

Thing is, I collect salads the way some women collect shoes.  Like wedges and espadrilles and thigh-high boots and gladiator sandals, I go giddy over the permutations, the possibilities.  I trot out salads for every season, soul and mood, and this next one sits resolutely in the Still Awaiting Spring camp.  (My footwear assortment, for the record, is downright disreputable.) 

Equal parts celery, romaine, and Asian pear, it's a concession to March, when fresh is still far off.  In Elsa Beskow's Around the Year, March is an Old Man, a metaphor I'm pretty sure she stole from late-winter's produce aisles.  Because that is how everything feels right now, grizzled, a little wizened, past its pull date.  I am never as grateful as I am in March for those hardy souls that manage a smile, even after a long-haul.  

Concession, wizened, manage a smile.  That wasn't a ringing introduction, was it?  Let me put it this way: I cannot stop eating this salad.  I meant to get an Asian pear picture for you, but blazed through half a dozen before snapping one.  So I bought two more, just for this purpose.  Then inhaled two more bowls.  I am helpless.  Imagine.

Concession, please note, is not spelled c-o-m-p-r-o-m-i-s-e.  This tastes like celebration, makes March look good.

The Asian pear is important, here, a sentence I never thought I would write.  Asian pears are odd ducks.  Technically a pear, with the texture of an apple, an ungenerous soul might call them wet, dull and bland.  Mostly, I have avoided them, because mostly, I've been that ungenerous soul.  But March is not mostly.  I somehow brought home six.  And discovered they have a soulmate in celery.

I've always been fairly celery ambivalent, also, keeping it on hand for soups and stews and little else.  But one night, the two found their way into my salad bowl, and by golly, if they aren't fruit-vegetable doppelgängers.  Both bursting with water, which translates as C-R-U-N-C-H, they are, sliced thin, a most excellent ensemble.  Ordinary apples won't do here.

Romaine goes in also, albeit as a minor player.  I do love a salad blueprint, flexible, democratic, but this is not one of those.  This is a salad of particulars, and proportions.  Many salads are mostly lettuce, and many of them are lovely, but lettuce can be a bit bossypants.  We're doormats that way, we Americans, thinking lettuce a synonym for salad.  It is not.  In this one, the lettuce can be left out entirely, and I've made it that way often, and liked it, very much.  In the end, I deceided I liked it better with, but do not let your lettuce get out of line. 

Because the soul of this salad, it's come-hither finger, is the riveting conversation between celery and Asian pear.  It is, in my humble opinion, dreamy.  They have an identical taut juicy crunch, celery's saline snap yin to the pear's crisp sweet yang.  They get along famously, and in equal measure, should make up the bulk of the salad themselves. 

As for the balance, think lemon and nuts, great lashings of the both of them.  Hazlenuts are my very favorite here, earthy and mysterious and softly sweet, but only if they're good hazlenuts.  I don't say this to be precious, but because hazlenuts are troublesome, turning coat faster than any nut I know.  Fresh, they are glorious.  Rancid, ghastly.  Taste several, and if any strike a wrong note, speak your condolences and chuck 'em, post haste (and freeze your next batch, to save their sweet souls).  Toasted pecans or walnuts will stand in nicely.

As to the lemon, don't be alarmed by the quantities.  I often invert the classic acid:oil ratio, opting for 3 times as much acid as oil.  Not because I'm fat-shy (um, hardly), but because I'm tart-friendly.  I have a ferocious sour tooth, as well as an abiding fondness for produce flattered by citrus.  And as it happens, lemon loves celery and apple pear.  Somehow, lemon makes celery sparkle, and turns up apple-pear's ordinarily mild-mannered personality.  In return, they somehow nudge the lemon toward sweet, like sugar's been added, like a miracle berry.  I don't undestand it.  I can't explain it.  I am only the messenger, here to tell you, toss these stalwarts together and the whole gang stands taller, prouder, livelier, perkier, than five minutes earlier.  As do I, eyes tilted toward spring. 

P.S.  Turn your eyes to the horizon, also.  This one's not much of a looker.  But boy, it's an eater. 

P.S.S.  Did I mention I've more salads waiting in the wings?  And I'll just keep belting them out, when I feel like it.  I'm shameless that way.  Forewarned, forearmed, FYI.

Celery, Asian Pear + Romaine Salad with Hazlenuts + Lemon
Serves 2 hungry souls, on the cusp of spring
(or 4 reasonable sorts, as a side)

This salad would be more beautiful if everything were bigger, the pear slices larger.  But I like the bite-a-bility of it, and find the celery and Asian pear benefit from a sliver-thin slice.  Even with this fussing, which you can take or leave, it is, at most, a five-minute affair. 

6 plump, long stalks of celery, sliced 1/4" thin
1 Asian pear, sliced 1/8" thick, then cut into thirds
1 heart of romaine (pale interior leaves), sliced 1/3"
1 cup sweet, fresh hazlenuts, toasted 10 minutes in a 350° oven, roughly chopped
3-4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, from 1-2 large, plump lemons
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
several grinds black pepper

Place sliced celery, Asian pear, romaine and hazlenuts in a wide bowl.  In a jam jar, squeeze lemon, then add salt and swirl to dissolve.  Add olive oil, cover, and shake well to combine.  Pour over veg, and toss well to coat.  Add pepper, taste for salt, adjust as needed, and dig in.