Nice and Easy

If there’s ever a season in which one should embrace creamy, steamy bowls of oatmeal, I’d say winter is the season.

I’m not really sure what to expect from winter this year.  I was surprised to start wearing my winter peacoat down here in Texas, and I was even more surprised to find myself wrapping a scarf around my neck, stepping outside, and then wishing I’d worn my matching hat as well.  It gets cold down here, people!  Cold and windy, just like the city I left behind.  The wind is the killer, though, because it just cuts through me like an icy knife, slicing the warmth right out of my body.  I’m tough enough to deal with the cold, but the wind makes me whimper like a baby.  Waah!  I hate winter.

Oh, that’s not true.  I don’t hate winter.  I love the sweaters and the cookie-baking, the mugs of hot chocolate that taste heavenly as your skin turns pink and toasty after a nice romp in the snow.  I love how winter gives us permission to relax and rest after working hard all year long.  Winter is the season of dreaming, of planning for the new year, of gazing out windows at delicate snowflakes falling softly to the frozen ground.  I can’t see snow now without thinking of Matt and those first few sweet visits we had together, the ones where his flight touched down in Chicago in the middle of blizzards.  I remember trudging through ankle-deep blankets of snow, so excited to see him again and yet still slightly irritated that something was dragging me out of my cozy apartment into a damn snowstorm.  But his smile, his hug, his joy—those are the things that reminded me why I feel so lucky that we met and why I don’t care if we have to find each other in snowstorms.  Then there was my favorite part, after we trudged through the snow to my apartment, teased each other about the snow (“Why did you bring me a snowstorm?”), stripped off the wet clothes, and settled down on the couch together.  We lay on Big Blue (the couch) and watched the snow fall, thickly and steadily, and I listened to the sound of his breath and his heart beating.

I will miss the romance of winter this year because Matt and I won’t be finding each other in the middle of blizzards in January.  There may be a few specks of snow, and it may be chilly, but I have a feeling those cozy snowbound weekends are a thing of our past.  They were beautiful and sweet, and they were sad too, because there’s no place colder than an apartment in winter after your lover has left.  It’s so much easier for me if, after Matt has hit the road, I can lace up my sneakers and go for a run.  In the bitter winter cold, all I want to do after he leaves is curl up on the couch where he slept and cry into his pillow.

I’m relieved not to have to face another long awful winter, even if it means I miss cuddling with my favorite Southerner.  I think a mild Texas winter might be just right for me: I’ll get to show off my sweater collection, drink my favorite hot teas, roast potatoes for dinner, and by the time I’m starting to get a little tired of winter, it will gently fade away as spring’s warmth infuses the air.  I’ll also have just enough time to get my hot oatmeal fix, which is good because I’ve fallen pretty hard for a new spin on oatmeal: creamy and porridge-like, with a generous tablespoon of pure maple syrup stirred into the oats while they cook.  It’s nothing fancy, but I think it’s delicious.  Sometimes, I think that when I stick with a particular recipe for a long time, like my go-to oatmeal recipe, Daphna’s Banana Oatmeal, I forget that there are other ways to enjoy the same food.  I still love D’s recipe for its thick texture and sweet fruity flavor, but in the wake of all those banana oatmeal mornings, a new oatmeal recipe feels utterly refreshing.  This Maple Oatmeal Porridge has a simple, rich flavor and it goes down nice and easy on cold, dark winter mornings.  I’m so happy to share it with you.

Maple Oatmeal Porridge

Serves 1

Meticulous readers of this site may wonder if this oatmeal is derived from other oatmeal recipes.  The answer is yes, of course.  Many, many of my recipes are tweaked versions of other recipes that inspired me in text or in taste.  Nigella Lawson once wrote that originality in cooking is highly overrated, and I’m tempted to believe her.  I often think that the real purpose of food writing and sharing recipes is just to remind the reader that she should make this really tasty thing that she already knows about but maybe hasn’t thought about making recently.

Nevertheless, I’m always curious about the details behind someone’s cooking, so that’s why I like to write detail-oriented recipes.  It’s not because I believe you must make my recipes my way, OR ELSE!, but rather that I love the little things about cooking.  Once you understand the basic framework of a recipe, there’s so much room to play!  Cooking should be fun.

Back to the recipe at hand.  I’ve gotten in the habit of soaking my oats overnight, mostly because it means less work in the morning.  Some say that overnight soaking makes them more digestible—I don’t know if that’s true, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to do it.  With an overnight soak, the oats don’t need much cooking time.  I just bring them to a bubble and cook for maybe a minute longer, which means less stirring (perfect for a lazy cook like me).  If you don’t soak overnight, your cooking time will be longer.

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk (I’ve been using 2% milk here and it makes for a really nice, creamy oatmeal)

2 pinches of salt

1/4 tsp. of vanilla

1 tbsp. pure maple syrup

Toppings, such as peanut butter or this fruit-and-nut (and grain-free) granola (I like both here)

1)  Pour the oats, water, and milk into a glass measuring cup.  Stir, cover, and leave out overnight for the oats to soak.  (Don’t worry—the milk here won’t spoil if left out overnight.)

2)  Pour the soaked oats and all the liquid into a small pot.  Add the salt, vanilla, and maple syrup.  Heat over medium-high heat and bring to a bubble.  Turn the heat down, stir, and cook for another 30 seconds to 1 minute until the oatmeal is hot, smooth, and creamy.

3)  Scrape the oatmeal into a heat-proof bowl and top with peanut butter, granola, or anything else you’d like.

Don’t Miss It

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by a recipe’s mediocrity.  I never set out to cook mediocre food, so I’m genuinely perplexed when I end up with a vat of something that wasn’t bad enough to throw away but isn’t good enough to make me excited about the leftovers.  Trying new recipes is a lot like dating: most of the dishes (men) are not truly awful, but there’s an awful lot of them that don’t make it onto your repeat list.  This is the sad, sad truth about cooking and dating.

Fortunately, a recipe won’t put your phone number into its speed-dial and harass you until you agree to go out with it again.  You can just…throw it away!  It’s so easy!  That’s exactly what I did with the remaining cup or so of that horribly mediocre red cabbage dish I made a few weeks ago.  It felt good to get rid of that stuff!  I threw it out because I needed the container in which it was stored, but I feel so free without that icky sour-sweet and caraway-heavy cabbage hogging my fridge space and my dinner plate.  Be gone forever, mediocre recipe!

In the wake of a cooking disappointment, it can be tempting to retreat behind a wall of trusted recipes.  I gave into temptation, making a batch of my Seasoned Black Beans and baking a few sheets of my Toasty Oatmeal Cookies.  I love the recipe archives of this blog because they serve as a sort of “off-shore memory,” as my wine-blogging friend Asmodeus once said.  Perhaps it sounds hopelessly narcissistic, but I love reading my old posts.  It’s like reading my diary, except the contents are more polished and entertaining.  My feeling is that if I can enjoy what I have written, then that’s good enough for me and I’ll keep writing.

The comments on old posts can also be great reading.  For example, on this post, my friend Nicole pointed me in the direction of an EatingWell recipe for Mexican Coleslaw, a simple slaw to be stuffed into tacos or accompany enchiladas.  It called for a few cups of cabbage, finely sliced, some coarsely grated carrots, a handful of cilantro leaves, a modest pour of olive oil and rice vinegar, and a pinch or two of salt.  Mix everything together in a big bowl and add this garden party to your fiesta.  The recipe sounded delicious, so simple and fresh, and I just had that feeling that it was going to be great.

And it was.  I bought the smallest green cabbage I could find at Albertson’s and made Nicole’s Mexican Coleslaw the very same day.  After the incident with that red cabbage recipe, I was skeptical about making an enormous batch of anything with cabbage, so I made a two-serving batch of coleslaw, playing it a little loose with the proportions and leaving out the cilantro.  Like many salads, this one is pretty forgiving about that sort of thing.  Its most endearing quality, however, is its wonderful balance of flavors: the cabbage dances crisply, bittersweetly across the tongue, while the carrot is its usual bright, fresh, sunshine-sweet self.  The dressing is rich without overwhelming: the rice vinegar is tangy-sweet and mild, the extra-virgin olive oil grassy and full.  When all the components are tossed together, the combination is sprightly, fresh, surprising.  Don’t miss it.

Nicole’s Mexican Coleslaw

Adapted from this recipe by EatingWell

Serves 2

Mexican food (or anything remotely related to Mexican food) is one of my favorite cuisines.  It never fails to put me in a festive mood, and it’s great cooking party food because there are all those little bits to prep—the seasoned meat or beans, the shredded cheeses, the chopped tomatoes, the little bowls of sour cream and salsa.  The list goes on.  This recipe should be added to your list of side dishes for your next fiesta.  And if you’re shopping for a new taco filling, I tried and loved this chickpea taco filling from the famous Happy Herbivore.  I made my chickpeas a little differently, using water instead of tamari, and next time I’ll use a little less of the taco seasoning, but the oven-roasting method she suggests is genius.  The chickpeas become soft and utterly infused with all that spicy flavor, and unlike my roasted chickpeas, they make for good leftovers too.  Three cheers for chickpea tacos!

There’s one more thing I want to tell you about the coleslaw.  The dressing here is a little heavier than I usually make—I usually use what seems like just a whisper of dressing on my vegetables.  Here, because the slaw is intended to go into a larger dish, like a taco, I use more dressing because I want to be able to taste the sweet, grassy flavors over the spiciness of the taco filling.  Feel free to use more or less slaw dressing here as you like.

1 heaping cup of finiely sliced green cabbage

1 coarsely grated carrot (about 1/2 to 1 cup)

1/2 tbsp. best-quality extra-virgin olive oil

1 tbsp. rice vinegar

A shake or two of salt

1)  Place the cabbage and carrots in a mixing bowl.  Add the oil and rice vinegar and use your hands or a spoon to toss them all together.

2)  Season to taste with salt and serve.

Thanks, Nicole!

Start Something

Hi again.

It’s already past my 9 PM computer curfew, but I’m nothing if not diligent about keeping my word.  I promised four Thursday posts about gratitude and such, and this post is #3.  (Not that I’m counting or anything…)

I’m completely exhausted tonight because I’ve been running up and down stairs all day.  The situation at work right now is complicated, and I’m not going to bore you with the details, but suffice to say that it takes a lot of energy for me to get anything done.  It’s harder for me to work out when I’m doing molecular biology experiments because I’m on my feet and moving almost the entire work day.  It’s a little like working out, all day long.  I came home from work tonight with the intention of going for a short run, but the couch called my name and I went from reading the new Vegetarian Times to napping before dinner.  I ended up skipping my run.  But tomorrow!  Tomorrow I shall run.  Tomorrow there will be less stair-climbing, I hope.

But I’m grateful for the exhaustion because it means I’m starting to get stuff done.  It can be so hard to start something new because you have no momentum for the task.  I think I deserve oodles of praise anytime I manage to start something, whether it’s dinner, a conversation, a job search.  It takes guts to start something, and while I’m not the boldest person, I’d like to think I’m getting better at figuring out what I want and going after it.

Along that theme of energy and momentum, I’m feeling happy about many things tonight, not the least of which is you, here, with me.  I keep finding blogs that appear to have been abandoned or “retired,” and they make me sad.  I realize that for some people, it’s probably a relief to cease blogging because it can be a lot of time and work, but I really like my little blog.  I can’t help but feel a sense of loss for others who stop writing theirs.  For me, because my blog is already in full swing, it’s easy to keep writing it because there’s a certain momentum.  It’s a project in motion, and I just keep it going.

Other things that make me smile:

* The weather forecast!  We have a SNOW PREDICTION for tomorrow!  In Texas!  How funny is that?  I had more than one person tell me that it does not snow in Texas, but my very first December here may prove them wrong…

* In the face of a snow forecast, it’s important to have a well-stocked pantry.  Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of oatmeal to see me through this avalanche of snow.  (Accumulation of less than one inch!  I may be snowbound in my apartment!  Everything’s going to be closed!)  This week I’ve tried two fabulous new oatmeal recipes, and I’ll just give you a sneak preview in the form of ingredients.  Maple syrup.  White chocolate chips.  Bananas.  Cream cheese.  Pecans.  Brown sugar.  Now that is my kind of pantry.

* Getting things done.  I sent off an electronic application for a new writing gig, and all I can think is, Ooh, pick me!  Pick me!  But the thing I tell myself after I send off anything I’ve written is that it’s the experience that matters and that I did the best job I could.  And now it’s out of my hands.

* Pecans.  I know I mentioned them just a few lines up, but pecans are so, so good—rich and buttery and festive.  They’re a holiday nut, but they’re good year-round as well.  Texas grows pecans, and I’d love to buy some truly local nuts, so I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open for that.

* My Christmas mugs.  I don’t do much in the way of holiday decorating (though I’d like to change that trend—maybe this weekend I’ll work a little holiday magic around my home), but I do have a pair of Christmas mugs, one of which is a snowman mug, complete with a spoon topped with a fat ceramic snowman.  Around the rim it reads, “Bless us one and all.”  Amen to that.

* Texas skylines.  I love how wide open the sky feels here—it feels bigger than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.  We have the most beautiful sunsets down here, all streaky pink and blue, strewn with clouds.  The sun burns fiercely golden in the dusky skies.  The views are phenomenal.

* Tacos.  Who doesn’t love tacos?  Crunchy, creamy, chewy, all in one bite—tacos are a textural work of art.  My New Year’s resolution should be to eat more tacos.

* On-line shopping.  I cannot even imagine trying to do my Christmas shopping now without the help of Amazon.com.  Great prices, free shipping, clicky ordering—Amazon makes my December spirits bright.

Have a merry weekend, dear reader!  If you get some snow, go outside and play in it, then come back inside and bake cookies.  That’s my perfect winter day in a single sentence.

Very Soothing: Nigella and Squash

After the collective feasting around the nation on Thursday, I don’t feel quite right showing up here today to talk about food.  If your belt buckle is still straining against your belly, you might want to read a fitness blog or, better yet, step away from the computer and run.  I don’t care where you run, just run!

If you’ve given up on wearing a belt altogether for the next month, you can stick around because you are obviously in the mood to indulge this holiday season.  I can’t blame you.  I hear up in the northern parts of the country, the weather is actually starting to feel like late fall—perfect for cozying up to Christmas cookies and wrapping paper.  Here in Texas, it’s 70-something degrees today.  Balmy!  I feel like I should be trying on bikinis, not buying Christmas presents on-line.  I have a feeling it’s going to be a very pleasant winter this year!

I actually didn’t cook much on Thanksgiving Day.  I didn’t feel like it, and with no one to entertain but myself that day, it was fine.  I had the lamest dinner ever: a casserole composed of leftovers, tossed with jarred spaghetti sauce and heated in the oven.  It didn’t sound too bad in theory—pasta, steamed kale, roasted cauliflower, tofu, topped with some Parmesan—but it was terrible.  The pasta had gone chewy in the fridge and it didn’t soften in the oven, and I didn’t heat up my casserole enough, so the whole dish was disappointingly lukewarm.  Don’t feel bad for me, though, because the whole thing is my own fault.  In fact, that I spent Thanksgiving alone is also my fault because there were offers galore on craigslist for people looking for others to split the gas bill for a trip to Austin.  I didn’t see these offers until it was too late, and I’m not sure how I feel about getting into a stranger’s car and driving for several hours, but still.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and my will was for some serious time alone, nesting and listening to the hum of the refrigerator.

After Thanksgiving, I recovered from my cooking lethargy quite nicely and cooked a heap of food in the following days.  I want to tell you about at least three things that I made, but I like to take things one step at a time, so we’ll start with the entree.

I’ve been on a Nigella Lawson kick lately.  She exudes such a warm, homey vibe that I feel better just thinking about cooking something from one of her books.  I love her style so much that I’m able to skip lightly past all those meat dishes and find the soups, the salads, the appetizers, and (heaven help me!) the desserts.  Oh, I do love me a good dessert, but I’m very disciplined and I always eat my supper before dessert.  Well, unless the dessert is left over from lunch, in which case I’ll call it an evening appetizer.  In any case, I feel better when I eat good meals, and I felt great eating Nigella’s Butternut Squash and Pasta Soup, a quick, small-pot slurper of a soup which, when combined with a nice salad, makes a perfect dinner for two.  It’s heavy on the squash and rich with flavor from olive oil, wine, onions, and good vegetable broth.  I can see this soup becoming part of my regular weeknight rotation because it’s satisfying to make and easy to eat.  Also, it’s the kind of soup that would comfort during times of distress, and we all need food like that sometimes.  Maybe this soup should be required eating in December, when we’re all plunged into the collective madness of holiday shopping/cooking/cleaning/traveling/merry-making.  Soup may not be as effective as pharmacology at soothing, but it’s a mighty fine place to start.  Besides, I’ve taken Xanax before and all it did was make me sleep for several hours.  I’m going to stick to cooking as my relaxant.  You are welcome to join me.

Butternut Squash and Pasta Soup

Adapted from How to Eat by Nigella Lawson

Serves 2, perhaps with a little left over

The original recipe gives its ingredients in ounces, which I ballparked into cup-based volumes here.  I figured I could get away with that sort of imprecision with a soup, and indeed, my pot of soup was delicious.  But I have a feeling I may get scolded later by one of my readers for my inability to follow recipes…he can be very hard on me sometimes!

You’ll notice that I’ve suggested the juice from half a lemon as an optional ingredient.  I haven’t made up my mind about the lemon.  I like it, but I think a little can go a long way.  You might try adding a little lemon and tasting before adding more.  Much will depend on your choices for wine and vegetable stock, as you have a lot of options there and the flavors vary enormously.  Keep all of this in mind while you are tasting and adjusting the flavors.

One more thing: I think Sarah’s suggestion to eat this soup with some chile oil drizzled over it sounds fantastic!  I want to try that with my next batch.  Yum!

1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 small onion, diced

2 heaping cups of diced butternut squash (diced into 1/2-inch pieces)

1/4 cup dry white wine

2 1/2 cups vegetable stock

1 bay leaf

1/4 cup orzo or other small pasta

Salt

Juice from half a lemon, or to taste (optional)

Cheese, if desired, such as Parmesan or feta (optional)

1)  Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a medium-sized soup pot.  Add the onion and cook for 5-10 minutes or until the onion is softened, fragrant, and maybe even a little brown.

2)  Add the squash to the onion and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring frequently.  Pour in the wine and let it bubble.

3)  Add the stock and bay leaf.  Bring everything to a boil, cover the pot, and let the soup simmer for 10 minutes.

4)  Add the pasta, bring the soup to a boil again, and then turn the heat down to an active simmer.  Cover and cook for 10-12 minutes or until the pasta is cooked to your liking.

5)  Taste the soup and add salt if needed.  Add some lemon juice if you’d like.  Keep adjusting the seasonings until it tastes good to you.  Note that if you’re going to eat some salty cheese on top of your soup, you might want to use a light hand with the salt.

6)  Serve in deep soup bowls, along with some crusty bread and a great salad.

Comfort and Connection

Happy Thanksgiving, dear lovely readers!  It’s a good day to be alive.

I am spending Thanksgiving by myself for the first time ever.  It sounds sad, and I was feeling rather sad about it until last night.  My niece called me and we had one of our best phone conversations yet.  Lydia is three and a smidge years old, so talking on the phone with her is a pretty big deal.  I find almost everything she says or does to be unbearably adorable, such as when she asked me when I’m going to be there (December 18th!) or her response to my telling her that I’ve already bought her Christmas present (“What is it?”).  I told her I was wearing a pink sweater, and she replied, “Ooh, I really really really like pink.”  I love that she loves pink.  And I swear I had nothing to do with her pink obsession!

Talking to Lydia cheered me up and today I’m not sad about being alone.  I feel fine.  I suppose I consider myself lucky that I enjoy my own company so much.  I’ve always been a bit of a solitary creature, one who needs to retreat from the hubbub of busy, noisy life.  I like to joke about my hermiting, the hours I spend alone, reading, daydreaming, walking, cooking, writing.  In theory I should be miserable right now, alone on Thanksgiving, but I sit here on my blue couch, sunlight streaming through the blinds, the refrigerator humming, a faint trickle of water through pipes, my belly gently gurgling in anticipation of the afternoon snack, and I feel anything but miserable.  I feel calm, happy, and a little bit hungry.  For all of that, I am grateful.

While the oven preheats, let me tell you about a few other things that have made me happy lately.  Feel free to borrow any or all of them if you aren’t feeling the Thanksgiving spirit as vigorously as you would like.

* Big birthday wishes this week.  Tuesday was my 28th birthday, and in the past couple of days I’ve received a steady stream of phone calls, e-mails, birthday cards, and presents, bringing me happy thoughts.  I love birthdays—and not just my own.  To all my friends and family, thank you.  You guys are the best!

* Fingerling potatoes, roasted with Aleppo pepper and a few stiff needles of dried rosemary.  Rosemary, with its almost overwhelming piney scent, is an herb with which I take a light hand, but when combined with kicky Aleppo pepper and roasted on olive oil-slicked potatoes, it is marvelously good.  I thank my big brother Charlie for the cooking inspiration last night.  He’s Lydia’s da-da.

* Pugliese Artisan Bread, found—of all places!—at the grocery store just blocks from my apartment.  Have you tried pugliese?  My loaf was delicious, the crumb soft and chewy, the crust a little crisp with the same chewiness as the crumb.  The whole loaf had the flavor of good French bread with the delicacy of a softer, rounder texture.  I really liked it and I’m crossing my fingers they’ve got another loaf for me this weekend.

* Nigella Express reruns, watched on youtube.  I find Nigella Lawson’s books to be very comforting; her prose have the same calming effect on me as a mug of hot chocolate.  She’s just as comforting when she’s cooking on TV—almost addictively comforting!  In the spirit of actually making something from this newfound internet pleasure…

* Nigella’s Red Pepper Hummus, from the Storecupboard SOS chapter of Nigella Express.  This recipe makes a vat of hummus, so I’ve got to find a lot of ways to use it!  Luckily, it’s delicious, light and permeated throughout with that unique, smoky, bright flavor of jarred roasted red peppers.  My favorite way to eat this hummus is on top of thin slices of pugliese bread that have been toasted and slathered with cream cheese.  The warm chewy bread, the rich tangy cheese, and the hummus come together to make one heck of a piece of toast.  Yum.

* A kitchen ritual, remembered.  I’m not a religious person, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the comforts of ritual.  Three or four years ago, my friend Shawn Marie and I went down to the shores of Lake Michigan, where I found a small stone for my kitchen.  The stone was a gently tapered oval, a dull red with black speckles and a tiny bit of glitteriness.  I went back home, scrubbed it off, and dabbed vanilla extract and cinnamon powder on it.  At the time, I was deeply immersed in the prose of Witch in the Kitchen: Magical Cooking for All Seasons by Cait Johnson.  I loved all the ideas for infusing your cooking space with magic and power; the whole thing resonated with my deep-seated need to nest.  My Lake Michigan stone, properly blessed after its vanilla-and-spice anointing, made me feel happy and connected to my new home, inside and out.  Yesterday, I walked to a park in my neighborhood and found my Texas stone.  It’s smooth and oval-shaped, with speckles of purple and beige throughout.  If you catch the right side in the sunlight, it sparkles.  It feels heavy in my hand.  Since last night it’s been hanging out on my stove, absorbing all the good Thanksgiving cooking vibes, and tonight I’ll give it a ritual of its own and place it next to the Lake Michigan stone.

The stone ritual isn’t really about magic in its supernatural form; it’s about emotional nesting and a sense of place.  I make my place in the kitchen because that’s where I like to be.  For now, I make my place in Texas because that’s where I’ve pinned my future hopes.  The kitchen stones connect me to my past along the shore of Lake Michigan and my present in Texas.  Without my knowing it, they may even connect me to my future.  The Lake Michigan stone actually matches the countertops of my Texas kitchen!

* Cornbread, even tastier the second time around.  Did y’all make your batches of White River Cornbread?  Please do, because you are in for a treat.  Those cornbread leftovers are perfect for Daphna’s Baked Apple French Toast.  Their corny, toothsome crunch melds seamlessly with the sweet custard base and meltingly soft apples.  I used one and a half cornbread wedges from a six-wedge batch for the French toast, replacing the wheat bread with cornbread.  Really, I think many cornbreads would be great in this recipe, but I’m especially partial to the White River Cornbread because its texture is so lovely.  This weekend, when you are staring at an army of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, remember this post and bake some French toast for brunch or an afternoon snack!

* The evening routine, revamped.  I’m about to confess something really embarrassing: I am addicted to the internet.  I feel comfortable saying it here because I suspect a lot of you struggle with the same habit.  I find the internet to be very soothing—it fulfills a lot of needs for me in one fell swoop, which explains its power over me.  I can’t exactly quit the internet cold turkey because my job relies on it, but I can attempt to reclaim my evenings from endless hours of clicking and staring.  My new routine: computer curfew at 9 PM, followed by something calming, like yoga.  All clean and ready for bed by 10:30, lights out at 11 PM.  Now, my new routine hasn’t exactly become routine yet—I broke my curfew last night—but it is making me quite aware of my absorption in electronic media.  More importantly, I’m noticing a striking difference in the quality of my sleep when I do obey the curfew: I feel much more rested and energetic when I wake up the next day.  I’m going to keep working on making my new routine a set of habits.  I feel better just thinking about it!

Dear reader, I wish for you peace, comfort, and joy this holiday season.  May you always have enough of everything you need—vanilla, cinnamon, love, whatever.  Take good care of yourself.

Perfection is October in Evanston

Nobody loves a city like the people who live in it.  I haven’t yet fallen in love with College Station, but my affection for my former city runs deep.  I try not to think about Evanston too much these days because it makes me too sad, and it distracts me from the task of settling into my new place.  It’s not that different from starting a new romantic relationship after ending another: if you spend too much time thinking about your ex, you’ll never give a new person the chance to love you.  And I say this as someone who takes a long, long time to get over a break-up.

Luckily, Evanston and I didn’t break up, so I’m welcome to visit any time I want.  I was rather charmed by a city-themed meme that I first saw on Monna McD, Twelve Hours in Dot Dot Dot, in which the blogger’s task is to fantasize about the most perfect way to spend a final twelve hours in their beloved city.  For me, it’s like writing a to-do list for the trip to Evanston that I’ll be taking in the spring of 2010 to visit Daphna and Ian (and their two little bundles of joy!), Ammie, Daine, and anyone else I can sweet-talk into spending time with me.  It’s going to be a busy trip.

But until then, this is how I would spend my twelve hours in Evanston.  Because this is a fantasy, I’m going to take the liberty of assuming that I can add people to these adventures as I see fit.

My perfect Evanston day would take place in October.  It would be a sunny day with the crispness of fall and the smell of leaf tannins permeating the air.  I would wear my favorite pink turtleneck sweater, and my hair would look fabulous.  The day would start at the Evanston farmers’ market, where the tables would be loaded with freshly picked apples and pumpkins.  Daphna would meet me at the market at 11 AM, like we did so many times before, and we would cruise around in circles, tasting this slice of pear and that paper cup of cider.  We would stuff our bags full of the harvest’s best offerings and then head to lunch at Dixie Kitchen, a wonderful Cajun restaurant on Church Street.

At Dixie Kitchen, I would order the green goddess salad and a cup of the jambalaya.  The salad comes with cornbread croutons and fried green tomatoes—those two items alone are reason enough to try the salad.  The jambalaya is thick and spicy and so good that I make an exception for it in my otherwise vegetarian diet.  To me, this is a perfect restaurant lunch—full of flavor, a reasonable amount of food, and it even includes a salad!

By this time, I’m ready for a walk, so I miraculously stash all my farmers’ market goodies somewhere, say good-bye to Daphna, and then meet up with Ammie at one of the train stations.  From there, we walk down to the parks that line the edge of Lake Michigan and we stroll north to Northwestern University’s campus.  We talk the whole time, except for those comfortable silences that are the signature of two people who know each other well.  When we reach campus, we pause to admire the view of Chicago, which looks like this, only it’s even prettier in person.  We turn around and head back south to downtown Evanston.  After a visit to Argo Tea for some hot tea, we stroll down to the fountain and stop to rest.  From her bag, Ammie pulls out a little container of her famous Orange Shortbread Chocolate Chip Cookies.  We drink our tea, munch on her cookies, and tell each other how glad we have found our platonic cooking soulmate in the other.  Then we both giggle and gag over the word “soulmate” and reminisce about our past and present lovers.

By this point we’ve finished our tea and we’re brushing cookie crumbs off our sweaters.  We have a bit of time before dinner, so we walk over to Whole Foods to fondle the produce and discuss baking supplies.  We find ourselves practically parked in front of the bulk spice section, discussing the relative merits of marjoram and tarragon.  We fill a few baggies with spices because it would be a waste to not buy a few new spices while we are here.  I drag Ammie with me to buy my favorite Whole Foods items—their organic peanut butter and tiny oatmeal cookies and a few bars of Chocolove chocolate.  I sigh wistfully as we leave the store because I miss Whole Foods very much.  We head across the street to Dave’s Italian Kitchen, where Matt, Daine and his wife, and Daphna and Ian join us.  The seven of us head downstairs into the cheerful buzz of Dave’s.

We’re seated immediately and Matt shows off his palate by ordering a bottle of red wine that tastes like driving up the California coast in a convertible.  Ian orders garlic bread for the table, and I urge everyone to order a calzone because Dave’s makes the best calzones I’ve ever eaten.  We feast on bread and salad, calzones and pasta, and we sip red wine until it’s time to order another bottle.  After the dinner dishes are cleared away, Daphna, who always gets her way, persuades us that we still have room in our bellies for chocolate mousse, so we order one for the table and take turns spooning up the rich, silky chocolate confection.

And because one can never have enough chocolate or laughter in this life, we head over to Kaffein for a little sweet something.  As always, I’m torn about ordering a full-on dessert or the Mexican hot chocolate, the latter being my favorite item on the whole menu.  A friendly compromise is struck: a few people order ice cream and a few of us order drinks.  We pass spoons and glasses so that everyone can taste everything, and somehow, despite the chocolate mousse at Dave’s, we eat everything.  I’m practically beaming with pride at our vigorous appetites.  It must be all that autumn air and the smiling and laughing that made us so hungry.

Night has fallen by now.  We stagger out of Kaffein and look at the stars, twinkling above us in the clear dark sky.  It’s peaceful outside, despite the cars zipping past us on Chicago Avenue.  My magical day in Evanston is almost over.  As we all head our separate ways, I look up just in time to see a shooting star, and I wish for one more perfect day with all my favorite people.  My vision is getting blurry with sleep, but I could almost swear that the night sky winks at me and I know that everything is going to be all right.

Two Dollars a Bunch

Imagine, for a moment, that you are me.  Your favorite green vegetable is kale.  Back when you lived in Evanston, before all this Texas hoopla began, you used to find the most beautiful bunches of kale at your neighborhood Whole Foods or, even better, the Evanston farmers’ market.  But everything changed when you left Evanston to head south, very far south, all the way to College Station, Texas.  You find that the kale in College Station is usually wilted and limp, its dusky green faded to yellow at the outer edges of the leaves.  This kale is too sad to be brought home.  Without your kale connection, you feel distraught and useless.

One Friday night, after bravely walking under electrical wires upon which hundreds of blackbirds are perched, you enter HEB and find gorgeous, gorgeous curly kale for just two dollars a bunch.  You gleefully pluck two bunches from the pile and saunter smugly to the cash register, ready to be reunited with your lost love.

Two bunches is a lot of kale, so you stuff them into the refrigerator and realize you have no idea what you want to make with your vegetal treasure.  You steam a few leaves for dinner and chew each bite thoughtfully.  You let the rest of the kale hang out in the fridge until late Sunday morning, when you finally know exactly what to do with that kale.  Nothing says weekend lunch at home like a composed salad crowned with a tumble of hot, crispy oven-roasted potatoes.  You get to work.

First the potatoes—a mixture of fingerlings and little red ones—get sliced into half-moons and tossed with a fragrant mixture of olive oil, Aleppo pepper, salt, and black pepper.  Into the oven they go.

Then you turn your attention to the kale.  Steaming is such a nice, easy way to relax kale into tender yet chewy mouthfuls, so you steam some more kale.  The now-soft kale is plated. 

You wander off to check your e-mail and glare at the boxes that are still not unpacked in your study—ahem, writing studio (that room has been renamed!).  To punish the boxes for not unpacking themselves, you give them the silent treatment.

You wander back into the kitchen, breathing in the rich scent of roasted potatoes, now crispy and bronzed.  Out of the oven they come.  You slip them into place on their bed of kale.

Finally, to top this glorious plate of vegetables, you spoon some pinto beans and fling a handful of shredded cheese around the plate.  You pour a glass of water, tuck a napkin into your lap, and taste the first bite.

The kale tastes like the color green: earthy, a tiny bit grassy, mellow.  The potatoes are perfect: spicy, salty, crunchy-creamy.  The pinto beans are little neutral morsels, more texture than flavor.  And the cheese—a mild cheddar today—is lovely as usual.

A really great Sunday lunch is not complete without dessert, so you brew yourself a mug of herbal tea—mint or mandarin orange spice, your choice—and make a mixed dessert plate with a ramekin of still-warm homemade applesauce, topped with a few spoonfuls of cold, creamy yogurt, and an orange shortbread chocolate chip cookie.  The applesauce has been coarsely mashed, so it still has chunks of tender apple amid a velvety puree, and the tart yogurt is the perfect foil for the sweet fruit.  The cookie is soft and buttery, with big bittersweet chocolate chips studded within it.  It’s a cookie that can hold its own against a dreamy composed kale salad and a ramekin of applesauce that contains all the sweetness of home within it.

A Sunday lunch like that, alone, would be enough to call it a perfect day.  But in a state of food-induced joy, you catch the #12 bus to campus, find a library copy of Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, and are instantly transported to writers’ paradise.  The whole thing makes you so happy that after you get home and settle into the couch to read, you fall asleep for an hour, the fat raindrops from a sudden storm tapping a lullaby as you dream about fields of kale.