June 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Hippie drink du jour
You’ll need:
2 bags organic roasted dandelion root tea (teabagged in Canada if possible)
2 cups cold water (or so)
couple teaspoons Grade B maple syrup (or so)
“Decoct” the tea by simmering it in the water for about 10 minutes. Remove teabags, let cool. Stir in maple syrup to taste. Pour into an old Ball jar for storage. Refrigerate and drink cold, straight from the jar,...
3 tags
Discovery of the summer: goat's milk gelato →
Insane. I have no idea how those goats do it.
May 2010
5 posts
4 tags
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Kasha, kasha, kasha
Twice, maybe three times a year I develop a non-negotiable craving for kasha, race to the store to purchase a fresh box, cook a giant pot of it and eat some every day for at least a week.
I attribute this phenomenon to several factors:
My pseudo-Polish blood (great-grandmother Mary Jedlicka grew up in what was then Bohemia, but implied in her later years that the family may have been Polish or...
2 tags
Persimmon granted
If your eyes interpret “persimmon” as “permission,” the recipe suddenly becomes a lot more interesting.
April 2010
5 posts
1 tag
homemade corn nuts
That’s not a suggestion. That’s a promise.
3 tags
5 tags
Regarding sardines
Once a staple in lunch boxes of blue-collar workers, sardine cans now collect dust in pantries and cupboards — the last resort in a power outage, perhaps.
Nation’s Last Sardine Cannery Closing
Sandwiches
1. Rye or pumpernickel bread, red onion, slices of hard-boiled egg, sardines, mustard and/or mayonnaise to taste.
2. White or whole-wheat bread, sardines, mustard, a couple drops of...
3 tags
An old family recipe
Mashed Squash with Vicodin
1 squash (kabocha is good)
1 Vicodin, or to taste
Roast the squash. Mash the squash. Serve with Vicodin. Go to sleep.
5 tags
Pine mouth flashback
The procedure happened yesterday morning. Sadie was right, it could’ve been a lot worse (which is not to say it was pleasant). I’d never experienced Novocaine before, and it turns out Novocaine makes your heart speed up and your breath shorten, which in my world signals a panic attack, an asthma attack or both — so I began panicking and gesturing at the corner of the room, a...
5 tags
Fish and spaghetti
On Friday morning a friendly German man is going to slice out a section of the roof of my mouth and sew it to a portion of my lower gum. “Eet ees not un uncommon pro-see-dyure,” he told me when we met last month. “Very seemple.”
There is a certain logic to it: the lower portion of my mouth needs more tissue, the upper portion of my mouth has tissue to spare. I appreciate...
March 2010
3 posts
3 tags
Things I ate yesterday, in various shacks in the...
A piece of maple taffy (recipe: get a trough of snow and a large metal pot. Boil some fresh maple syrup in the metal pot, then ladle it in long thin streams across the trough of snow. Let it cool for a moment, then whack it into pieces using whatever implement is handiest.)
Two pieces of maple sugar candy (recipe: boil some fresh maple syrup until it reaches some special candy-like temperature,...
5 tags
A perfect day in New York
Black coffee, two cups
Absolute Bagel, fresh, untoasted, eaten in Central Park with a friend
A Levain chocolate-chip walnut cookie, fresh, epic, eaten on the bench outside the shop with a friendly stranger — note to Levain, if two ladies sit on your bench in the sun whilst licking chocolate from their fingers and smiling at passersby, the passersby will stop, turn back and buy your...
February 2010
2 posts
6 tags
sweets & beets
Take one bunch of knobbly golden beets and that sweet potato that’s been languishing. Scrub, pare root ends and slice off the eerie alien hair-growths. Reserve the beet greens for soup tomorrow. Cut the beets and potato into cubes and toss with some olive oil. Spread on a baking sheet and roast at 400 for about 30 minutes, until the vegetables start to caramelize around the edges.
You may...
7 tags
What I ate in Greenville, Maine over the course of...
Map for reference.
Lunch #1: A granola bar and an apple in the car, because I was running late.
Note #1: If you’re packing an apple from home, always wrap it in a napkin and tuck it in a plastic baggie — that way you can wipe your fingers and dispose of the core without making a mess. My mother taught me this when I was very small.
Supper #1 after a long day of travel and research:...
December 2009
3 posts
3 tags
“2010 is all about the spätzle.”
– Overheard in my kitchen.
7 tags
You say tourtière, I say toochay
It is almost Christmas and that means it is time to make tourtière, the French-Canadian meat pie that’s served at réveillon or any time thereabouts. Apparently the proper pronunciation is “tou’-tYARE,” with the rolly R, but in my homeland of central Maine we say “toochay.” I’ve heard that there are $30 tourtières for sale in my former/adopted homeland of...
4 tags
guess I'll add a hash tag to this post (ugh!)
HASH, best ever
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 large yellow potato, peeled if you want, and diced
1 mediumish onion, diced
1 knobby little green bell pepper, very pungent, diced
About 2 cups leftover cooked meat, diced (in this case: turkey)
A heaping tablespoon of tomato paste
A couple tablespoons of leftover gravy, or something gravy-ish… roux? White sauce? Alfredo? There...
November 2009
10 posts
3 tags
16 pounds of Porridge
Me: I think we should name the turkey.
Accomplice: What? Why?
Me: It weighs as much as the cat! The cat has a name!
Accomplice: ...
Me: ...
Accomplice: We could call it Porridge.
Me: ...
Accomplice: ...
Me: Okay, sure.
5 tags
hey lactard, it's your birthday
A recent baking endeavor for a friend and fellow lactard: vanilla birthday cake with lemon filling, vanilla frosting, and cats.
Part one: Lemon curd filling.
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice (this took about 4 huge lemons)
1/2 c. + 2 TBS granulated sugar
2 eggs
8 TBS Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks
Cut your Earth Balance into small cubes and let it come to room temperature. Whisk together lemon...
2 tags
lazy lunch in nyc
At Khyber Pass, because it was there.
For me: Fesenjan, side of stewed pumpkin, Turkish coffee
For my companion: Large platter of meat mantoo, pot of shir-chay (tea with milk, sugar and cardamom)
Shared: A basket of that Afghan flatbread that’s pliable and delicious when warm, crunchy and flavorless when it cools. A conundrum during lazy lunching, but we managed.
4 tags
supper concept
Lentil-pumpkin curry with cranberry chutney.
So crazy, it just might work.
3 tags
“This was always said mildly, as an observation, not an insult. Imagine if you...”
– From an email I wrote this morning, to a friend who’s raising a young child. I couldn’t think of any other way to describe this thing people used to say to me.
It’s lunch time.
6 tags
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two hot tips
1. If you are making a teff rendition of Bittman’s Easy Whole-Grain Flatbread, and you follow his instruction to preheat the pan in the hot oven, but you lack a 12” ovenproof skillet or pizza pan, so you substitute a 10” vintage glass pie plate that you have treasured for years, and you pour the room-temp teff batter into the hot glass dish, you will cause an explosion and it...
3 tags
2 tags
where is the ground. here is the ground.
Sometimes the best thing to eat is a slice of bread. Untoasted, unadorned, lacking nothing.
3 tags
an army marches on its stomach
Things volunteers, donors, friends and families brought to No on 1 headquarters in the final week of the campaign:
A basket of oranges
A couple bags of local Maine apples
A couple bunches of bananas
Homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, individually wrapped
A separate tub of Skippy peanut butter and a plastic knife
A jar of homemade raspberry preserves
A few extra loaves of bread
...
October 2009
17 posts
2 tags
FREAK PEAR
Here are the facts as I know them.
On Monday, October 19, I purchased two d’Anjou pears (organic). I placed the pears in a small ceramic bowl on top of the CD player in the kitchen so they could ripen.
On Wednesday, October 21, the pears were still rock-hard. I left them alone and ate an apple.
On Thursday, October 22, I was hungry for fruit so I began slicing one of the pears. As I did...
7 tags
everything I ate in NYC this weekend when I snuck...
Saturday
Peanut granola bar from Hudson News at Port Authority, consumed on the downtown A platform as I was running to catch the train, an hour late because of the stupid bus, which had gotten in late, and I had been on the bus all day, and my only snacks there were a vegan green foods bar and a large Fuji apple — oh, and a bunch of Gin-Gins ultra strength candies
Whiskey ginger at the...
3 tags
fig brandy: update
Remember this?
It’s been a month. I tasted the fig brandy with a spoon and found it good; a glug of pure Maine maple syrup (extra dark amber) and another 24 hours in the fridge made it even better.
But that’s where my fig brandy story ends, because the following evening was my friend A.’s 30th birthday party so I decided to be that person who strolls into the party bearing a...
3 tags
comfort food
It dawned on me just now as I struggled to close a narrative loop: food is comforting because its conclusion is certain. The bread will be eaten or it will be thrown away.
2 tags
locked out
Monday! You sleep through the alarm, stagger through the first blog post of the day, then force your unthinking carcass into running clothes. You zip up your hoodie, pat the pocket, ascertain the presence of the ipod, and stumble into the sunshine. You leave your inner apartment door unlocked, because the front door locks automatically, and the upstairs neighbors aren’t going to rob you...
3 tags
yankee humidifier
Not a recipe as much as DIY home/apartment-maintenance, but it does involve spices, so, on the food tumblr it goes.
You have:
A chilly (or “freezing”) home/apartment
Dry skin, chapped lips, static electricity
Yankee pride that prevents you from a) turning up the thermostat and b) purchasing one of them newfangled plastic humidity-generating appliances
You need:
A large pot...
2 tags
soup kitchen supper menu, 10/14
White sandwich bread brushed with melted butter, cut in triangles
Tossed salad (iceberg, peppers, onions, tomatoes)
Ham slice with optional brown sugar glaze
Mashed potatoes (instant)
Peas (canned, swimming in buttery water, slotted spoon necessary on the serving line)
Dessert selection: donated day-old cookies, puff pastry tidbits, miniature cupcakes
We kept explaining that the ham glaze...
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hailstorm'n'honey
After the drenching I endured last weekend I’ve been feeling a bit sniffly, so I decided to run to the market down the street for a jar of raw honey. I know some people say the health benefits of raw honey are a hoax, but it’s always been an effective remedy for me, not to mention a tasty snack.
I had just put on my jacket and sneakers when the sky opened up and unleashed a torrent of...
4 tags
value added
Dates: Useful in baking/raw dessert applications. Tasty on their own, but rarely eaten in groups larger than three.
Dates chopped into nubbins and coated in oat flour until they resemble fossilized animal droppings: I can polish off half the container for “lunch,” no problem.
5 tags
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menu from this year's sacred & profane
(See here for an explanation, sort of; this year’s event was exhilarating, but much wetter and colder than last year’s.)
Amuse-bouche: Candies wrapped in brown paper, labeled ‘strychnine,’ eaten in the depths of Battery Steele after climbing a ladder through a pile of branches
Heath bar
Andes mint
Beverage: Hot spiced tea in paper cups, served from a pot
Main meal:...
1 tag
pine mouth, day 4
Pears taste like licking grapefruit juice from a metal spoon.
This is not entirely unpleasant.
2 tags
pine mouth update
Things I can stand to choke down:
Raw lettuce or spinach tossed with copious amounts of apple cider vinegar and Bragg’s
Cold azuki beans with the same dressing
Peanut butter (it tastes completely unlike peanut butter to me, and I wouldn’t say it tastes good, but it also doesn’t taste quite like poison-coated soap, so I’m eating it)
Leftover smoked salmon
Sour fruit...
3 tags
September 2009
11 posts
2 tags
diagnosis: pine mouth! →
Whoa. So this explains the horrible bitter taste I’ve had in my mouth for the past two days. I hardly ever encounter pine nuts, but while I was out of town this weekend I ordered a salad that came covered in them, and I was hungry, so I ate them.
The symptoms began late Monday night, and until Google saved me I was convinced I had something terrible, like a hernia, GERD, tooth decay, a...
4 tags
hairnets, veils, brown orthopedic shoes
An excellent slideshow of photos from a school cafeteria in Queens.
My strongest school lunch memories go back to elementary school, because junior high involved unremarkable pre-wrapped sandwiches and unremarkable sandwiches from home, and by high school I was spending lunch breaks in the library or in the stairwell behind the social studies department.
Our elementary school cafeteria was the...
3 tags
on jerky
Beef jerky is difficult to chew and also difficult to photograph in a manner that makes it look appealing, even if you dig out an old copy of The Maine Woods to use as a backdrop.
Still, this “blackstrap jerk,” smoked over pecan shells and free of nitrates, preservatives, and artificial coloring, has a flavor that’s easy to appreciate: sweet, umami, primal. It came from a...