Height Eats' Immunity Soup

This was a sickly weekend, which is why I put down more than one post. My daughter and I were both sick, and my husband was going by the name Florence N. As such, I decided he should make me the immunity soup from Heights Eats. We did make a few changes. I had read about Chickpea Noodle Soup in the Veganomicon, so we added pureed chickpeas. We also added turnips and parsley root. As with Heights Eats, we had no astralagus root. (Go to their post for a discussion of this ingredient) Finally, we didn't use salt, but instead added salt preserved Meyer lemon (1-2 tsp). The soup was delicious, and I do feel a little better today, so panacea it might be.

Sweet Potato Waffles

Belle was under the weather; it is starting to be her hobby. She wasn’t very hungry all day, so I finally enticed her to eat by making third generation sweet potato waffles. They are third generation in that the recipe originated in Vegan with Vengeance and was then updated by Spice Island Vegan and then I made it but changed it—took out the margarine and then only used 2 t brown sugar. The result was savory and yummy. Topped them with cream cheese and almond butter. They were a dinner treat for a sicky.

nami-nami Beef Stew

I have a new resolution—even if I don’t have time for a long-winded post, I will write up something quick—just so I can get the dish up. So, while I would like to write about how enticing the culture of Finland seems (at least through movies) or about how Bar Cento moved me to cook with beer, I really just need to go to sleep. But, I wanted to post this meal—Finnish beer stew. The original recipe was eaten in a fantastically romantic setting. (Read the original post from nami-nami.) Ours was eaten while watching Anthony Bourdain in Jamaica—that part was a little jarring. We decided to use tiny potatoes as we had them and we added carrots. Great recipe, thanks nami-nami.

An Embarassment of Glasses: A Beer Paired Meal at Bar Cento

I hate to drive. More accurately, I love to be driven. As such, my husband is always the designated driver, which is severely unfair because I don’t really drink much either. (This really makes me seem like a terrible date, huh?) So, when I read about Chef Sawyer’s Beer Dinner, I knew it would be a great topsy-turvy night. It was a 7 course food and beer pairing event.
It was held in the back room that connects Bier Markt to Bar Cento. Its wood paneling, track lighting, and deep red flowery rugs give the feel of a den, which served the masculine menu well. The appertivo was a beautiful sour champagne (Cantillon Kriek)—beautiful for both its taste and color. I love sour, citrus, lemon, sweet tarts, pickles, vinegar…so the appertivo was up my alley. But, for my husband, he couldn’t taste any flavor but sour.

Then the pairings began with pretzels and popcorn. My only complaints were that I wished there were more of each and I wished that the pretzels were on the table when we arrived. Cheeky chef Sawyer left tubes of Thomy mustard on the table for the customer to apply at will. I really could have eaten the whole tube. (In fact, my husband entertained stealing it, but as I had introduced myself to the chef, it would be embarassing for him to know that this was the blogger who also dabbles in petty theivery.) Nonetheless, to start a $50 tasting menu with beautifully crafted low-brow fare really sets a tone; this will be a fun and surprising meal.

The tongue in cheek menu meant to work on memory and substitution—that which you remember only different. There was double entedre/ in joke nature to the meal; that is to say, reading the menu, one expected something, and then when you received the dish, and then reread the menu, you got the joke. And, in fact, this humor really added to the experience for me. Beer is not stuffy; why should its tasting menu be?

Honestly, there seems no way that this restaurant could be stuffy. The staff is so normal, in the best sense of the word. In fact, the evening struck me as proof of the chef’s business sense. He came out after every course and spoke to the diners. His demeanor was slightly self-effacing yet confident and interested in his customers. His staff was responsive, respectful and interested. Clearly someone at the establishment, assumably the manager and chef/owner, focus on service—because every staff member I have met there was excellent. And, during the evening of the tasting, there were plenty of them milling around, if only to deal with the embarrassment of glasses that continued to multiply on our table.

This is not to say that the staff didn’t clear the glasses in a timely manner, but instead that we couldn’t complete or release our beer glasses before the next course. The meal was served at a leisurely pace. My husband finished the first beer quickly, actually, before the popcorn from the pretzels and popcorn course came out. After this, he became slower, deliberate in his beer drinking (and fuller), but we couldn’t really let the server take away half-finished glasses. (I only tasted the beers and turned my glasses over to him.) But, our approach really allowed us to appreciate the gradual changes in beer from lighter to heavier, from crisper to bolder.
The best pairing to me was in the second course-the Coney Island Crudo. The beer was a Jolly Pumpkin BAM, Saison Sour Ale from Michigan. The beer lacked the color of the sour appertivo and, after one or two sips, my husband and I were left unsatisfied. Then the food pairing came out. The crudo was oyster, clam and scallop with radishes, Tabasco, horseradish mayo, and mignonette (pink peppercorns and champagne) on the side. This course changed my feelings for the beer completely. It is not that the beer lost its sour, but instead that the undertones of the beer served as a counterpoint for the seafood (sort of as citrus elevates seafood.) I did not prepare a little salad of radish and mignonette upon my seafood though, because there was no need, and instead ate the radish and accompaniments after consuming the seafood. The mignonette was very tasty on its own. The course that we are still talking about was the third. Beer-battered quail (beer paired with beer) and a wonderful remoulade, which even drew in someone who doesn’t enjoy mayo. It was a sort of an Ohio nod to a pub fish and chips. This course was paired with a flavorful Orval Trappist Ale. (My husband and I did praise God for the Trappists by the end of the evening, by the way.) The batter was so scrumptious I would have eaten a cardboard box covered in it. While this was in part because of the texture of the batter, but it was also because the course was served PIPING hot and perfectly salted.
The next course also featured the great state of Ohio, but in this case its bovines. The hand-ground steak tar tar was a little difficult for some of the diners because on texture. Sawyer said he had meant to keep it coarse in order to maximize the beefy flavor. For me, the course was a little difficult in terms of presentation. It was paired with cornichons. I have always loved them with beef and use them in gravy for pot roast. There were also diced pepper and potato gaufrettes (crinkle cut potato chips). But, the focus of the plate was the sort of brown mass of tar tar. My husband had some amusing characterizations about its appearance, but suffices it to say, this course really could have used a ramekin in which to confine the meat. But the flavor and texture were really enjoyable. I spread the meat on the chips and added some cornichon. Yum. I would have finished the course, but ran out of chips. This course also had the beer that I would most likely order on its own. A man who I came to assume was Dr. Brian Kelly, the beer guy, told us that loving the beer, Brother Thelonious, was philanthropic because the California company gives a portion of its proceeds to a jazz foundation.
The next course, braised meat pies, had a bistro feel with its use of beef cheeks and boudin noir. The crust was buttery yumminess. My husband loved this course and felt that the criss-cross of dough was just the right amount to set off the flavorful meat. This was paired with a La Chouffe that was good but frankly a little alcoholic for me.
The next course was a Trappist love-fest—“Three Monks Beer & Cheese Fondue.” It was this course for which the in-joke on the menu was the least successful. I am a cheese lover and a fondue enthusiast. As such, I anticipated a small bubbling pot of cheese. In fact, I half expected the communal table concept in which a small fondue pot, 70s style, would be shared amongst the patrons. Instead, we received a cold cheese fondue with a buttery rusk , a beer-marinated shallot, and chunks of poached pork shoulder. The tasty shallot could not redeem the course. The meal was then completed with gingered blood oranges & dates, which my husband ate in a quiet moment of contemplation.
In total, I felt the evening was so enjoyable. The service, food and libations made for rich but casual conviviality. I know that next month there is a tasting with wine—but I am looking forward to another beer tasting.

Vegan Rhubarb Cupcakes

Rhubarb. It was such a pretty bright red color when I saw it in Heinen’s. I had just read in something or another that it was in season in February and then there it was just sitting there in the grocery store. I grabbed a stack without really thinking about what I would do with them. At home, I thought about displaying them in a glass vase like flowers. In the end, I came across the recipe in Coconut and Lime. I had to make a gift for a friend, so I made one batch of her recipe and one veganized recipe for Belle. The recipe was easily and fast—even a novice baker got the desired results. If I make them in the future I think I will make a sort of rhubarb sauce that I will fold into the batter so that I get a marbled red color through the cupcake.

I wanted to make a festive box of pink goodies for my friend, as it was the week of Valentine's day, so I also made some pink meringues. I made a simple syrup and added rhubarb. I folded the red syrup into the meringue. The result was a lovely dusty pink. My husband ate an army of these tiny meringues and said the rhubarb flavor was faint and tasty.

I baked the vegan ones in little brioche pans so that I could discern the difference easily. Belle loved them. They had a sort of muffin consistency with a sour bite. For hers, I served them unfrosted, but I think next time I will make a rhubarb tofutti cream cheese topping for hers. After all, it is so cute to watch her lick and then relick her lips.

Now, I am not much of a baker because I hate to measure. It is the first time I have improvised a baked good. I tried to measure what I used, but in the end, I put it a small dollop of apple sauce (about 2 t) and I know that I didn’t use the full ¾ cup of flour—I used in between ½ cup and ¾ cup flour. Precision is a skill I will learn.

Recipe:
Vegan Rhubarb Cupcakes--Wait for an updated correctly measured recipe (hopefully next week)
(a combination of recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, the Schoomed Food blog, and Coconut and Lime)

Ingredients:Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tins with nonstick spray

Mix dry ingredients:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

In a separate bowl, mix wet ingredients
1 TB apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup diced rhubarb
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
¼ cup oil
1 t apple sauce, unsweetened

Add the wet to the dry and beat in a blender. When combined fill the muffin tins halfway up and bake 10-12 minutes in the convection oven (or a little more in a regular one.)

Nonna's Lasagna Pats and Braciole

This was an exceptional eating month for me. In fact, should it have been even day longer, I would risk getting gout. Actually, as it is a leap year, so there is still a chance. I have been eating multiple course meals frequently this month. Though, with all that eating (plus Belle and working) I haven’t written about all of these meals but I shall. (I did write about the kaiseki-style meal.) The first, and I know my favorite, was the one lovingly created by my husband last week. We were having guests over for dinner and my husband decided to recreate a family meal that he had never actually eaten.

My husband was raised on the East Coast outside the reach of his large extended Italian-American family that lived in Ohio. This means a lifetime hearing about Italian food interspersed with moments of actually tasting his family specialties. His grandmother had left Italy, because it needed to be left—that is if you felt that you needed to eat and support your family. Whole villages left Italy at the beginning of the twentieth century and reformed anew in America. Like so many immigrants, for his Nonna, America meant hard work and small quarters, but also, eventually, prosperity. The providence of this success resulted in many children and grandchildren who would come to equate pork chops, meat ravioli, meat balls, and roast beef with her love.
How do you build a meal that you have not tasted and also only know third hand? Luck and sense-intuition. My husband used the Big Night cookbook (Stanley Tucci’s family recipes), and then improvised. He knew that he wanted to make braciole. The meal is to be served with homemade pasta as the first course, the meat as il secondi, and then a salad, before a finish of cheese. We had hoped to start dinner at 6 so that Belle could join the adults for food. Sadly, parenthood has stolen our watches and we no longer do anything on time or as planned. We ended up serving the antipasto of cheeses and salamis, all from Gust Gallucci’s, and finished cooking while the guests milled amongst themselves. (Martha would cringe.) Luckily, my husband had decided to break the bank with many, many cheeses and a few meats. There was a Piave Vecchio, Sicilian Fresh Pepato, and Spanish Romao.

We also ended up serving the next three courses (pasta, secondi, and salad) together. In having the party, we were hoping to entertain rather than serve, as Nonna would have. No one cared. The pasta was the best my husband had made—it was smooth but with a bite. The braciole was tender and rich. I was responsible for the roasted potatoes for the secondi but I got lost making dessert (lemon, orange and blood orange tarts) so instead we had baked potatoes tossed with Meyer lemon, olive oil, and kosher salt. Really people only ate the potatoes to prepare themselves to eat more of the meat. We also had a plain arugula salad with fennel, meyer lemon supremes, orange supremes, grapeseed oil and black pepper. Dinner was wonderful. Who knows how it was supposed to be, but I thought my husband got it right.
My husband never ate enough food according to his Nonna. As a new mom, I am starting to adopt the “food pushiness as love attitude” that his Nonna practiced (perfected.) So, there was not just stilton with mango and ginger for dessert, but also three types of tarts and chocolate cake from Heinen’s. That the guests left dazed and full proves to me that it was a great meal.

Icebox Experiments: Lunar Eclipse Kaiseki

I have been thinking about where seasonal eating and living in Cleveland intersect since I read Mark Bittman’s Jan 23 Minimalist column. In it, he says, “The days when late-fall vegetables had to last through the winter are long gone, but eating summer vegetables in midwinter doesn't make much sense, as most people recognize now.” (Emphasis mine) For some people, Mexico and other destinations have negated seasonality; for others, environmentalism, food politics, elitism, and/ or taste have reignited/ issued the call to seasonal eating. But, what does all this mean in practice? What does a Clevelander, who does not live on a farm and fears botulism too much to can food, eat in the middle of winter? If you searched by blog, you will find that I use carrots & onions extensively. I love winter squash in, well, winter. Some seasonal fruits, citrus, can hold with them other environmental problems. (Beware, there are cases of clementines coming very fast towards Cleveland from Spain burning lots of carbon along the way.) That is the problem—one solution, or one stance, causes another problem. Local but not organic; seasonal but large carbon load. Where are the right choices? I don’t think anyone has the “right” answer, or more accurately, all answers (and answerers) come with them their own agendas. So, in Cleveland, in winter, you do your best—walk by the asparagus, buy the red peppers once in a while (because the lack of diversity in the seasonal diet can be depressing.)

The awakening national consciousness about food production and having summer veg in the winter has triggered the American memory of the seasons. Sometime in the 20th century we forgot the connotations of preparation and preservation that the words (and concepts) spring and autumn had. This awareness of the seasons is acute in Japan and China, where blossom viewing and moon viewing are points of celebration and eating. I have been in Asia for mid-summer’s festival—the joy and tradition are palpable.

When my husband called and said he would like view the lunar eclipse with me, after working late, it felt like the perfect time to recreate the feeling of moon viewing—if slightly out of season. (Sorry Bittman, I am inherently insensible.) In full disclosure, I was also inspired by a meal at the restaurant Ame in San Francisco, a sort of Japanese fusion place that is a slice of heaven. And, I had been reading a cookbook called Kaiseki recently. So, while Belle slept, and my husband worked, I attempted to turn my bare fridge into a five course moon-viewing meal.

Kaiseki and moon-viewing are two separate things. Moon-viewing parties celebrate the harvest moon in the Autumn; rice dumplings and cracked eggs are commonly part of this celebration. Kaiseki is the meal that is associated with a Japanese tea ceremony. The tea ceremony, a manifestation of Zen Buddhism, is just as much about meditation, performance and ritual as it is about tea. The rarified culture of the chanoyu, way of tea, includes with it an appreciation of aesthetics, from the serving dishes to the food. Food might be as simple as a mochi sweet to a full meal. A typical kaiseki meal has many courses, and the consumption (and creation) of the meal could be considered a meditation. The courses might include a small amuse, a sashimi course, a warm course, a vinegared vegetable, and rice course. My meal was more likely an evocation of the concept of kaiseki and the seasonal meal—I had 5 courses with no fish or even rice.

I wanted to focus on citrus as the flavor that unified all the elements—this is the season and the pantry was replete with an assortment. My love of citrus has softened as my stomach and taste buds have aged, but I still enjoy good citrus once in a while. For the acidic first course, I made a fennel slaw with meyer lemon supremes, black pepper and olive oil. In homage to the tradition moon-viewing dumplings, I used rice flour to make small dumplings filled with apple and turnip pouched in vegetable & white wine broth. For the broiled course, I grilled pears and served them with manchego and honey. For the substantial part of the meal, I made an egg pouched in water and white wine served with julienned fennel, carrots and fennel infused salami. For dessert, I also wanted to summon up some of the food from Ame. He had a great buttermilk panna cotta, and I thought about making a buttermilk/ condensed milk rice pudding. Instead, I made a simple plate of condensed milk and brown sugar topped by Satsuma orange supremes. (I remade this meal this dessert this evening but put everything under the broiler—it became a nice remake of the 50’s grapefruit.)

When my husband came home, the eclipse has already started. We stood and watched the moon for a while, and then began dinner. I had my husband’s dinner on a large tray. Like a Japanese tea hostess, I had eaten prior to his arrival, and I sat quietly as he consumed each dish. Between courses, we snuck out in the cold for a gaze, and then returned to our seasonal citrus meal. Not quite moon-viewing, not quite seasonal, but lovely nonetheless.

Icebox Experiments: Baby Tapas

I have been traveling for work until the night before last, and my heart broke with longing to see Belle. I rushed home from the trip keen to see the baby—but also to make her dinner. Apparently in my four days away she had a high starch, low diversity diet. There were vegetable offerings (green beans and rice were dinner last night), but nothing drew her in. Spoiling by her grandparents was a likely contributing factor in her disinterest in dinner, but my husband also mentioned that he finally understood the difficulty and thought required in creating dinner each night.

I wasn’t here to do grocery shopping this weekend, so when it came to making dinner, I just pulled anything from the fridge. I also wanted to spend as much time with the baby as I could, so I tried to figure out something fast. Dinner was started and completed in the 1 hour of naptime. I took out the random assortment of veg from the fridge and couldn’t really think holistically enough to create a unified meal. I knew that I wanted to do stuffed butternut squash. Veganomicon has a great chapter on the mix and match vegetarian dinner. As they say, and I paraphrase, bring the side dishes to the fore—or elevate them to be the meal.

I also knew that I wanted something fun. We had family friends who did theme dinners—fondue night, Mexican night (more Pancho Villa knock off than Bayless), dessert-first night. I loved the idea of having dinner party style meals within the family, where the action of the meal is part of the experience of the food. This is not to say that I plan to be the mother in the movie Mermaids, who only makes appetizers for dinner. The abnormal every day becomes the normal—but when the appetizer night punctuates square meals…

I have never been to Spain, so I only know tapas as the urban small food phenomenon that exists in the States now. While my husband enjoys Spanish (Spain) food, he always feels hungry and cheated for money when we have gone for tapas. Instead, I have had a few tapas parties from Jose Andres' book and Penelope Casas' book. They are a wonderful excuse to lavish olives, pimenton and chorizo on your friends. Of course, Americans as we are, these parties end up with a group of people seated around the table displaying the food, usually the girls, and then boys in the other room, sending someone back and forth to replenish their rations. At least the food is good.

We ended up with purple carrots steamed and then dressed with pomagranate molasses, mushrooms sauteed with garlic, pears sauteed in olive oil and dressed with balsamic, kale sauteed with garlic, tomatoes, red pepper and macaroni. (This dish was heavy on veg and light on pasta. It could easily be made in the reverse and then call it macaroni with kale, garlic, tomatoes, etc. It is sort of like the difference between the blue-green crayon and the green-blue crayon.)

Now, this is all slightly early for Belle. We are just working on spoons. But, I decided to break the rules and have a meal where walking is part of the eating. I made 5 small dishes and poured her a glass of soy milk. (*Note: she did not get the glass pictured, but instead an unbreakable sippy.) The one thing about babies is that promenading in between bites of dinner is their natural state. So, we snacked and ran and snacked some more. In the end, the stuffed squash and sautéed pears were both very successful. The mushrooms were not so loved, but there is time for all tastes.

Recipe
Stuffed Butternut squash
Roast at 425
1 small butternut squash that has been rubbed with olive oil and pimenton

Sautee in olive oil
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/4 cup shitake mushrooms
1/4 diced red peppers
black pepper and salt to taste

After the butternut squash is tender, add the rice stuffing and top with vegan mozzarella cheese and then broil quickly

My Thai is just My Kind of Thai

Why do you go to a restaurant? I was thinking about Nancy’s post about Chinese New Years and the New York Times article about authentic Chinese cuisine. Adventure and the unexpected have become rare in our contemporary wired society. In this atmosphere, it is natural to attempt to stalk the best, the most authentic, the coolest of whatever it is that you love. For foodies, this quest for ideal food means patronizing the best restaurants or even better finding the unknown gems. But, it is not just the food—it is often the status or coolness that this find confers on the eater. These know-it-all eaters, ergh, treat food as if it is an ivory tower. The tone of the New York Times article was exactly that. Since the late 19th century, we stupid Americans have been eating non-Chinese food and the media even supports these misconceptions. The argument is so simplistic and it misses two big points: immigrancy results in hybrid cuisine and restaurants are about their audience. The Chinese have been in America since the 19th century—railroad builders, laundry men and restaurateurs, amongst them. I would think that food that has been made for more than ¾ of a century is a cuisine in and amongst itself. There has to be a Chinese-American cuisine, and while there are some practitioners who are more skilled than others, the good ones should not be disparaged for not being authentic. They are authentically Chinese-American. And, while I would welcome a Shanghai-nese meal, I would also enjoy a meal of perfectly prepared Kung Pao Chicken. Some of us eaters, like Nancy, understand the beautiful in the hybrized. After all, a restaurant is about the audience’s needs and tastes.

This brings me to the point of this post. (Long-winded much?) We went to My Thai in Chesterland on Mayfield Road near Chillicothe Road. The restaurant had piqued my interest the other week because it had the loveliest neon “open” sign. It seems likely a silly detail to choose when picking out a restaurant. But, the sign, which was all in lower case d'nealian, signaled to me that someone had taken care to make very conscious choices. If they care this much about their sign, they likely care more about their food.

The restaurant was pleasingly small and intimate. Instead of Thai tourist art, the walls were a deep red and yellow that were vibrant but not oppressive. A couple silk brocade curtains and a rattan ring panels added a subtle exoticism. It was bright and airy; the climate was family friendly, happy, and tasty. In essence, it fit our needs in terms of price-point (teens) and atmosphere. Hell, the restaurant's name says it. It is a restaurant that aims at being "my thai."

It was Valentine’s Day, so maybe the restaurant was busy with the special occasion crowd. But, the restaurant was packed. The wait-staff was young and energetic; they seemed like local high school students. We were meeting my parents for dinner, so we had 4 entrees—Duck Curry, Tofu Yellow Curry, Chicken Eggplant and Beef Sesame. Are these dishes served in Thailand? Maybe not. I don’t know? Does that matter to me? No. I loved the Chicken with Eggplant. It had big chunks of Japanese eggplant that were caramelized and sauced. It was fresh and not over-sauced. The sesame sauce was yummy and not too thick. I am already planning what to eat when I return; and I am tempted to ask Fred Feretti to join me.

Memories: Woolworth

Last night, my husband used the expression “penny candy.” He was not raised in the Great Depression; he just acts like it sometimes. After laughing at him, I started to think about what elements of the early- and mid- century American culture persists today. We don’t go the “5 and dime” anymore, but we do “dial” the phone.

For me as a child, the specter of the Great Depression and World War II, through grandparents and family friends, informed a great deal of my consumership. I frequently heard, “back in my day, we just cut off the burnt piece of the toast…” For my parents, boomers as they are, this must have been an unquietable refrain of their childhood, because now they are a marketers dream. It was not until college that I realized that there was not an electric can opener in each and every household. This ying and yang of consumership helped shape my sense of how much I NEED to own. This introspective turn is to explain that while my grandmother makes every meal she eats (and always makes complicated meals), my mother thinks if it is purchased, it must be better. Though she was a good cook and made dinner every week night, I also ate out most weekends of my childhood. So, if we needed to stop by Richmond Mall and I was somewhat puckish, even though dinner would be in an hour, she would buy me a whole meal at the Woolworth’s.

This was not the ubiquitous Woolworth’s lunch counter. This cafeteria used dark wood, atmospheric lighting, deep-colored carpeting (red, I think) and leatherette chairs to create a Mid-Western rendition of a swank dinner club. You would walk down a long tiled path to get your tray, still damply warm from the dishwasher. And, then you would be able to purchase a meat and two sides—there was always a roast turkey being carved. But, for me it was the roast chicken. Its seasonings of paprika and tarragon was so All-American and comforting. I always paired it with mac and cheese (I think it was the stove-top kind.) I often completed the meal/snack with a bowl of J-E-LL-O.

For an immigrant’s kid, this was the height of American-food as exotic. This is perhaps how I came up loving the high and the low of food.(Who needs therapy when you can blog?) But, thinking about it, it is my guess that few of my friends were eating at the Woolworth’s on a Saturday afternoon. Instead, they would be sitting down for their American food dinners, either prepared from fresh ingredients or from a box.

When a Stew gets Curried: Frozen Tofu Curry

I finally got around to making M—‘s curry. When I told her that today, she said what curry it is a stew. Then I admitted I had turned her wonderful wonderful stew into a curry. It just happened. I was standing by the skillet as the coconut milk simmered and I couldn’t imagine sitting down to stew. I knew my family would love it as is, but I couldn’t do it. So, I changed an already perfect recipe. I added two teaspoons of tamarind dissolved in warm water, a crazy shake of curry powder, only part of the coconut milk, ½ a can of chickpeas and ½ a red paper.

Tea for Me

What are the tangible moments in love? Embraces, kisses, whispers, sure. But, what about those special dishes that you prepared for a loved one? These edible embraces are such sensory manifestations of love. My husband is a wonderful cook. He will retry recipes until they reach perfection. When we met, a tea drinker with a coffee drinker, he began to prefect tea for me. These days, he creates the perfect cup of tea for me every morning, set on my bedside as I awake. Is he not the perfect husband?

Baby Thali

Even though I have been bizarrely, overly blog-productive this month, I haven’t posted all the meals that I wanted to track. How can that be you ask? Well, we don’t always eat leftovers for lunch. And, we do eat lunch.

On Sunday, I wanted to make a feast for the baby. She was so hungry and I wanted to meet her needs in a pretty way. I have been so inspired by Vegan Lunchbox and Vegan Bento. I am not there yet. Who knows maybe blog called vegan tiffin might be in my future. But, on Sunday, I wanted her to feast, so I made tandoori tofu, quick chole and gosale. The rice was from the day before and the chappati was store-bought. The chole was a big hit. While Belle like the tofu, the spice was a little love for me.

Baby Tandoori Tofu
Marinate the following for 1 hour
1 cup soy yogurt
1 block tofu, sliced into triangles
1 T cider vinegar
1 T garlic paste
1 T ginger paste
1 T ground cumin
1 t ground coriander
¼ t cayenne pepper
¼ t turmeric
1/8 t ground cloves

Use a spoon to brush off some of the yogurt from the tofu. Pan fry in a cast-iron grill pan. Serve warm. (You can simmer and reduce the yogurt with vegetable broth to make a sauce.)

Baby Chole
Saute over medium heat
½ small red onion
1 T tomato paste
2 t ground cumin

When the onions have softened add
½ can organic chickpeas
2 T unsweetened apple sauce
½ cup water
salt to taste

Serve with rice or bread or both

Chaat Potato Salad, Husband Style

Chaat is an Indian snack food. Often eaten on the street, it involves potatoes, onions, tamarind or date sauce, coriander sauce, and an assortment of fried crunchy bits. In essence, it is fried, unhealthy, escapist eating on small stainless steel plates. So, why has chaat not caught on in America? This is after all the land of unhealthy snack food. As the combination of saucy and fried requires immediate consumption, it is not tasty when placed on an Indian buffet—the most common way for most to experience Indian food.

There was a place in Berkeley called Vik’s that made perfect chaat—like Aloo Chaat (boiled potatoes, crunchy disks of fried dough, raw onion, piquant tamarind sauce, and coriander) and Samosa Chole (rich, spicy chickpea stew over a fried samosa). The restaurant was basically a converted garage with plastic spoons and café tables. But it was always packed, and with two or three people behind the counter turning out food to order everything was fresh.

Chaat offerings in Cleveland are singularly unsatisfying, so usually I just dream of the snacks. About once a year, I succumb to my cravings. It involves making two to three sauces, boiling potatoes, and frying stuff. While each of these tasks are easy when taken alone, the sum total of tasks, all for a small plate of food that is available on every street corner in India, smacks of futility. I just read a great post about making pani poori, so in a few months I will likely get up the energy to make chaat.

But tonight, my husband perfected our new short cut—Potato Salad, Chaat style. We made a seriously more mannered version the other day. We had a brown curry on hand, so this would be a great recipe to use up those Indian leftovers. We had store bought mango chutney and a homemade coriander one on hand, but store bought would be fine. The result was tangy, cool, salty, vinegary, sweet and refreshing—this was clearly one heck of a potato salad. It is also my final recipe for the potato contest.

Recipe
Potato Salad Chaat Style
Combine in a large bowl
2 T finely diced onion
2 T brown curry sauce
3 T vinegar
pinch of salt
¼ cup red pepper diced
1 T & 1 t chaat masala
1-2 t Major Grey’s Chutney
2 T Coriander Chutney
2-3 large baking potatoes, cooked (Ideally still warm)

After everything is combined, let the mixture rest a room temperature for at least 1/2 hour to let the flavors mix. Serve topped with sev (available at Indian grocery stores.)

Chaat Masala
Combine
1.5 teaspoon cumin seed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon ajwain seed
1 teaspoon black salt
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon ground asafetida
2 teaspoon amchur
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Brown Curry Sauce (This will make enough for a dinner of curried tofu and leftovers for the potato salad)
Sautee in olive oil
3 medium onions diced
1-2 T ginger paste
1 T garlic paste
1 T cumin
2 t turmeric
2 t coriander seeds
1 t cinnamon
1 t red chili flakes or chili powder

When the onions have browned, put in a blender until lumpy but not watery. Return the mixture to the pan and add
1 T tomato paste
½ cup crushed tomatoes.
salt to taste

Simmer until it the tomatoes have blended into the onion paste.

During the simmering phase, add sautéed tofu, boiled potatoes and boiled carrots. Serve with white rice and something acidic like pickled jalapenos or fukujinzuke.

A Potato for Every Man, Woman and Child: Rosti Sliders

All the way home today, as my husband focused on the roads, I contemplated the dinner I was going to prepare. I had been thinking about the potato contest and had already had two tries at it earlier this week. Neither was that satisfying. Tonight was to be my night making my clearest expression of potato ardor.

Of course, potato love had to be subsidiary to Belle’s dietary needs. I have been worried about her fiber intake, but I also wanted to create a dinner that would fill her up. We have had some midnight parties in her room this week, and I was hoping that a full belly would prevent hearing the words “mama” in the middle of the night.

The potato is not one of Belle’s favs. She doesn’t mind hashed browns, but mashed & boiled have not been hits. So, my goal was a meal that included maximized the starchiness of potato and then only used fried potatoes sparingly.

I wanted to make Belle sliders. I love the little, the miniature, the scaled down. But, with this meal, I wanted to have all of the accompaniments to the tiny burgers to be made of potato. Actually, the potato was part of every element in the meal—down to the burger. I combined the fries and buns together by making tiny rosti, the Swiss shredded potato cakes. While I broke out the food processor for part of the shredding, I got my husband to cut them very finely. (He has great knife skills.)

The burger was a blend of recipes from a 1000 Vegetarian Recipes from Around the World cooking book, using potato, and my dear Veganomicon. In the latter, the ladies used black beans, but I wanted to introduce Belle to adzuki beans. The result was a surprisingly filling and “meaty” burger. Last time, I made veggie burgers the result was a little watery and I couldn’t get rid of them. This time the result was so good that I didn’t have any left. None for lunch tomorrow, sadly.

I wanted to have topping options for the burgers. We had the Soy Kaas cheddar but I have been meaning to try the bacon recipe from The Vegetarian Compass by Karen Allison. The only way that I could get inari or yuba at Whole Foods was to buy it at the sushi bar. I trimmed them into strips and marinated them in vegetarian stock, bouillon, tamari, and braggs liquid aminos. If I had any nutritional yeast, I would have sprinkled some on the fried yuba. But, the result was very tasty—not bacon, but wonderful. I would also pair it with avocado on a salad.

Disclaimer: While the picture includes tiny fries, a chocolate shake and a top and bottom rosti bun, Belle’s burger was only one bun, burger and yuba bacon. After she went to sleep, I spoke to M— and made some fries, twice fried mind you. If you want to know why you should twice fry them taters, read How to Read a French Fry. And, then I got crazy and tried to make a homemade Frosty. This evening, after the whole adventure, I found out that Frosties don’t actually have potatoes in them. My milk shake was pretty. The shake itself was vegan, but for the picture I topped it with whipped cream. I didn’t love the recipe, because the potato made it slightly gritty. I was going for a milkshake texture without having to buy vegan ice cream. I will clearly have to revisit this recipe.

Recipes:
Vegan Adzuki Burgers
Saute in olive oil
½ small onion, diced
1 carrot, diced finely
1-2 cloves garlic, diced finely
¼ cup brown rice (cooked)

Mash together in a bowl
½ cup adzuki beans (cooked)
¼ cup tofu
¼ cup baked baking potato

Add to the mashed concoction the following :
1 T Braggs Liquid Aminos
2 T Soy Sauce
1 dash Vegetarian Worcestershire Sauce
1 T Herabamare Original Organic Herb Seasoning Salt

Add the sautéed veg to the bowl, mix and then form in patties.

Bake at 375 until medium well. (Broil on high for the last 5 minutes.) Makes 10 sliders (2 inch wide)

Potato Rosti “Buns”
Shred
3-5 medium cooked yellow potatoes (I do not peel them)

In a very small skillet placed on medium heat, add olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan (this is not a low fat one) and then 1 palm’s worth of shredded potatoes and salt, stir to mix the oil with the potatoes. Cover the pan. Cook until the edges of the cake look brown. Flip and cook covered. (I had to peak to see if the flip-side is browned.)

Makes 6-10 “buns” (if you are serving them open-faced, then use 3 potatoes)

Chocolate/ Banana/Potato Milkshake—BE WARY THIS WASN’T THAT GOOD
Warm
1 cup vanilla soy milk

Dissolve in the warm milk
2 T unsweetened cocoa
1 T raw sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Blend with
1 banana, cut into bite size pieces and frozen
1 T boiled potato

Potato Salad—Chaat Style

I have a rocky relationship with potato salad. I don’t love mayonnaise. And, it pains me as a centrist, but I can’t even comprehend the appeal of store-bought potato salad. But, a boutique potato salad can be quite appealing. I love a Japanese potato salad. I sometimes even enjoy a vinegary potato salad. So, the other night, I decided to combine the powers of Indian chaat with potato salad. I had a brown curry sauce from a chicken biriyani. But, it could easily be made just for this purpose and that would make it vegetarian. I then made a quick coriander chutney. I finished it with chopped onion, chopped red pepper, Major Gray’s Mango Chutney, and sev (fried noodles made of chickpea flour.) Puffed rice would have been nice, if I had it on hand. I decided to go overboard with display. But, the flavors were nice. Perhaps I need to make this in a more potato salad format. Stay tuned.

The Luck of the Draw

Luck is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a force that brings good fortune or adversity.” (I would have quoted the OED but they charge.) Today was a day where I wondered if this force was against me today. This is what I deliberated while my husband drove in a blizzard towards dim sum. We were motivated by memory, an extremely powerful emotion. Valentine’s Day, commercial as it is, holds in it a cultural imperative to express something special to a certain someone. Our first Valentine’s Day, my husband and I ate Mamma Santa’s pizza and watched TV. This might not seem romantic, but had we had decided as a couple that this was romantic to us.

With Belle around, I decided to make Sunday all about my flu-free husband in lieu of the actual Valentine’s Day. I decided to make it a double-header—dim sum for lunch and chicken biryani for lunch. Each of these meals has strong memories for us.

And therein was likely my problem. The taste, the smell, the texture of food can be such a powerful trigger for memory. Expecting food to live up to a memory is a fool’s errand. The weather on Sunday, with its white out’s and high winds, definitely attempted to tell me that my plans were foolish. But, I am not particularly attuned to nature or the stars or anything intangible, and so we still endeavored on to get dim sum.

While my mom babysat, we ran into Li Wah just before 3pm (1.5 hours after we left home). The restaurant was definitely winding down. There were families sitting around round tables with small round empty tins sitting on the table attesting to the revelry that had just occurred. There restaurant seemed to be in a collective food coma. And, then there was us—full of expectation and memory of happy Chinese New Year’s past. Three dim sum carts rolled up post-haste and we said yes to everything. There were a very nice shrimp in green pepper and some nice spare ribs. We ate quietly remembering all the good times while listening to a Chinese Language program on the flat screen TV in the corner.



On the way home, I attempted to resurrect the afternoon with baked goods, but alas, Sunday seems to be the day that the baker’s rest and all of the places on the way home were closed.

When we got home, I was still confident enough to make the biriyani. I have never really perfected the dish. It requires par-cooking the meat and the rice to a certain point and then baking them so they finish together. We had a great time cooking, but the resulting dish was not particularly good. It wasn’t inedible, but the rice was overcooked.
So, after luck kept foiling our many attempts at the ideal meal, we ended up eating apples and a valdeon (a Spanish blue.) I would like to say this was the happy ending, and the cheese was quite good. But, the unsatisfying day was not easily mitigated, even by a good cheese.

M--'s Wonderful Thai-ish Wonderful Stew

As I said last week, my friend M-- is a great cook. I didn't say that she is also a wonderful person, but aren't they linked? All the people who I know who are great cooks are also enjoyable people. Food lovers are fun. This friend also has a great sense of humor, makes pysanky like nobody's business, and has there for me for a couple of decades. In that time, we have discussed food constantly--tamari or soy sauce; molecular gastronomy; caramel cake.... And, so if you see a recipe posted through by M-- in my blog not only know that it was originated by a great cook but also a great friend.

Recipes:
M--'s Thai-ish Tofu Stew...Vegan!!!
1 block firm tofu, frozen, defrosted, drained, and cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 a butternut squash
1 sweet potato
12 shitake mushrooms
3 tbsp tamari or soy sauce
3 tbs oil
1 can premium coconut milk
cilantro, washed and chopped - maybe 1/4 cup?
1 lime, quartered
6 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger
1 inch galangal
2 stalks lemongrass
10 lime leaves
1 tbsp oil

1) Grate garlic, ginger, and galangal. Add to a medium pot with oil. Fry gently on medium low heat.

2) Chop sweet potato and squash into 1/2 to 3/4 inch pieces. Chop mushrooms into quarters (I like to remove the stems and chop them finely). Add vegetables to pot. Add water to cover, and add lemongrass (cut each stalk into about 4 pieces and split down the middle if you like...makes it harder to pick out when serving but gets more flavour out) and lime leaves. Simmer until vegetables are tender, adding more water if necessary to keep them covered.

3) Heat oil to medium heat in a good frying pan. Dry tofu thoroughly with dishcloth or paper towels. Fry tofu chunks until nice and golden, turning over once. It will probably take 2 or 3 batched to fry all the tofu successfully. Add more oil if necessary. After draining, sprinkle tamari over fried tofu.

4) Add tofu to the stew, and pour in the coconut milk. If you've bought a lovely, rich, premium brand, it may be mostly solid in the jar. Scrape it out - it will melt in the stew. Add cilantro. Cook the stew for a few minutes longer to make sure it is all hot and the flavours are beautifully blended.

5) Serve over broad rice noodles or jasmine rice with lime wedges and cilantro garnish. If you're feeding guests or children, pick out the lemongrass and lime leaves - neither is fun to bite into. If you aren't vegetarian, you might like to season the stew with fish sauce, although I didn't. This recipe made enough stew for dinner for two, and about 5 lunches. Personally, I would double the tofu next time, because I love it so dearly, and I wanted more of its chewy goodness in each serving. Enjoy!!!

Potatoes in Duck Fat

I didn’t know potatoes are not vegetables until I was an adult. That is to say, I understood that they were tubers so not biologically vegetables. But, I didn’t know that the fell into the carb portion of the food pyramid. As a child, I often ate potatoes and bread for breakfast and potatoes and rice for dinner. There demonization of potatoes as party to the fattening of America. But, when I was pregnant and unable to keep anything down, the nurse reminded me that the potato is rich in vitamin C.

All this aside, when I read about a contest for potato dishes. What is the ideal way to showcase this food? I love it as aloo paratha, samosa, gnocchi, pierogi, but in all of those the potato is not highlighted for its flavor but instead for its substance. For me, it must stand on its own to showcase its yumminess.

So, tonight, while the sick ate chicken soup, I dined on hashbrowns browned in duck fat. Yes, I am way off the vegan bandwagon now. Why duck fat? If you must ask, then move onto another entry. I browned the potato so it was crispy. When it was piping hot, I sprinkled it with kosher salt. Then I refrained from demolishing the potatoes for long enough to take the picture.

I probably would have eaten it alone, but decided to make a dipping sauce, just to make it legit. I wanted to create a sort of Thousand Island dressing. The concoction was so haphazard that I wouldn’t say there was even a recipe. I had started out thinking about those French fry restaurants which offer a myriad of mayonnaise-y dip. As I don’t like mayo, I didn’t have it on hand, and while I had just gone through the trouble of making my own udon noodles, I was not committed enough to the meal to make my own mayo. Frankly, I always use plain yogurt as a replacement for mayo, so I did so last night too. To it, I added 1 squirt catsup, 1 smidge tomato paste, some mustard seeds and curry leaves warmed in hot oil, and finally a large dollop of Indian hot lime pickle. The result was creamy, salty and piquant. It held up well to the meaty fries. Writing this now makes me think, why I am writing when I could be eating more home fries.

Chicken Soup, Again?

When left alone, I cook (or shop.) As it was a day at home without any playmates, what else was there to do? Reading, crosswords, television, exercise, those are not for me. I had read a recipe and an entry about homemade noodles, and somehow they called out to me. The recipe suggested and even depicted the kneading of the noodles with one’s feet. It seemed like a perfect way to harness Belle’s infinite energy and would help me avoid the hard labor of hand-kneading. But, in the end, neither of us enjoyed the kneading process. Apparently for her walking is about getting somewhere (preferably somewhere where there is trouble to be had.) For me, I didn’t like my feet being so close to something I was planning to consume later. I guess I would feel the same about foot-stomped wine too.
I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. The noodles didn’t rest for 3 hours (just 1.5). And, I used whole wheat and all purpose flour instead of bread flour. But, the result was good—substantial and smooth with a nice bite. They held up to the rich stock of the soup. (The roasted carcass of yesterday's chicken had become a brown stock. ) I topped off the whole soup with garlic-sautéed bok choy and sauteed shitake mushrooms. I will definitely do it again, with the homemade noodles and the toppings, but only when my husband is well to hand-knead the suckers. (I should probably start subtly mentioning how strong he looks right away.)

Will there be chicken soup tomorrow? I doubt it. Everyone is feeling well enough to protest. But, as we still have chicken stock and meat, expect at least one more chicken meal.

Feeding Baby

This blog is mostly about the food I make for Belle (with some smaller portion about the food I eat when I am away from her.) But this afternoon, when she was running out of the room, stolen dosas clutched in each chubby fist, I started to think more about cooking for one’s child. When I was a child, my mother often cooked the food I loved, but every once in a while she would make things that she loved. It is my guess that she made them in hopes that one evening I too would say, “broiled eggplant and asofoetida, YUM.” Belle is still in the honeymoon period of food tasting and I want to encourage her to eat and taste everything, if only so that I don’t have to cook buttered noodles for life.

A friend recently asked me if we are raising Belle according to any particular child-rearing philosophy. We are raising her with the best of our childhoods. For me, it was food. We discussed food (and ate) constantly. My father used to call me in college just to make sure I had eaten. When we think about family vacations, I never want to go to a beach; I want to go to a land of restaurants. For my husband, food was not central. But, the family meal was. Everyone ate dinner together and everyone ate the same thing.

And, that is what we do. No separate food for Belle. We eat things that everyone can eat. 2/3 of the time, we make the tried and true with meat-less protein most nights and poultry every once in a while. But, then we make new things and see how they go. Chicken soup is fine apparently if it tastes of coconut and has no meat in it. And, then for snack time, I cycle through the most successful items--dosas, bread with almond butter, veg rice.

But, that doesn’t really say what is happening when I cook for her and eat with her. There is the fun of introducing your baby to the world—the slurping of long noodles, the eating with one’s own spoon, the family room picnics. Today, she really wanted to eat her snack off a plastic platter she had found in a drawer. So we sat down to wait for the dosa to cool. She reached out tentatively, and looked at me as if to say, still hot. And then she reached out again to grab a small bite. After an approving smack of the lips, she grabbed her snack and ran. It was apparently so good she wasn’t going to share.

M—‘s "Soup Group" Coconut Chicken Soup

As my convalescence home is at rest again, so I am posting. Before lunch I had a long period of rest, where I posted (as you might have read) and I then made another type of soup. My friend M— is a great home cook, either because she has nimble fingers or because she has a rarified palate. She makes a mean Pavlova and the loveliest petit fours with homemade candied violets. If she were ever to get a digital camera and decided to blog, hers would be the great blog to read. (I do have the camera phone pict, to the right, courtesy of her friend C--.)

The other day she had mentioned that her work has started a “soup group” where they cycle through staff-made soups each day of the week. This week she made a sort of tom ka gai/ chicken pho soup.

Elements of it sounded very appealing to me (she lives ½ a continent away, so I rarely eat her food.) I was particularly drawn in by the self-serve nature of her presentation. She took in a coconut chicken broth and allowed her coworkers to add their choice of rice noodles, bean sprouts, steamed carrots, steamed squash, coriander leaves, spicy peppers, lime juice. This ability to empower the audience to top their soup, in the opposite vein from some restaurants “no substitution” policy, is what drew me into Vietnamese food. So, that was the good of M—‘s recipe.

The bad of her recipe was the tom ka gai-ness of it. I hate coconut. I want to like it, and my dislike has truly softened. Ten years ago, I would probably say I DESPISE coconut. It is fine when the spice level is so high I don’t really taste it—Thai, Malaysian, and South Indian curries for instance. I understand its function in these cuisines—a milk-free creaminess in cultures where fresh milk is not readily available. But, in any recipe where the coconut is the star, where it is being showcased for its own properties, well, those are not really for me. But, I am alone in the house with this aversion—so when my sick husband asked me to make the soup, I went for it.


The result was nice for Belle and for my husband. And, for me, I took one for the team. I didn’t have coconut milk, so I used some old coconut power that I had in the pantry. It gave the soup a coconuty flavor, but it wasn’t as creamy as the milk. I also didn’t have lime leaves, so I just omitted that. Finally, I love raw onion, so I make the quick pickled onions that I add to everything.

Recipe
M—‘s "Soup Group" Coconut Chicken Soup
In a small bowl combine
¼ medium red onion, sliced fine
1 T white vinegar
Pinch of kosher salt

In another small bowl combine
½ green chili, slice so incredibly fine
1 T white vinegar
1 t fish sauce or soy sauce
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar

When a sauce-pot of water comes to a boil turn off the heat and add
1/3 package thick rice noodles

In a separate sauce-pot, add
2 T olive oil
3T sliced ginger
2T sliced galangal
2-3 lime leaves (if available)
1 pinch Chinese 5 spice

When the aromatics are just that, add
3-4 cups chicken broth
½ can coconut milk OR
3 T coconut powder

Simmer the broth while you julienne and steam
1 carrot
an equal amount of butternut squash

Serve with pickled onions, pickled peppers, limes or lime juice, coriander leaves, steamed veg, pulled chicken meat, rice noodles.

Does the Size (Shape) of the Bowl Matter?

I love the plain white round plates and, for that matter, white linens. This is not to say that I am not into adorned china too. But, in a restaurant, where a man/woman has been paid to make my food appealing, I don’t want them to be undone by wacky-shaped, brightly-colored plates. This is not universal. There was a wonderful breakfast place in Madison, Wisconsin that served everything on mismatching china. The casual elegance, mix-match aesthetic works well at a place where the point of the restaurant is not just the food but also that the diner is cool enough to know to eat there (but usually not as cool as the waitstaff.) But this is an aside. Generally, I want my fancy dinner to be served on white, round dishes.

But, last night, when my whole family was sleeping off a fever (it was a lonely Friday night), I decided to pay this topic a little more attention. Does the shape of the plate make the food tastier? Yesterday, one day after vegan glory, I went to the other extreme and prepared a whole animal. I made Chicken Soup. My friend M— made a lovely Asian chicken soup with coconut milk on Wednesday and I went to Heinen’s full well meaning to make that. When I got home, the situation was much more dire than I expected— both baby and husband had the flu. So, I threw some kosher salt on the chicken (washed and dried) and stuffed the whole chicken in the oven. In a pot, I browned some chicken bits and backs and bony parts of a turkey, along with onions, carrots, and celery. I had a full mind to add some fennel seeds, pepper corns and a bay leaf—but there was really no time. I added cool water to the pot and went on to be Florence Nightingale.

Sometime later, when the chicken smelled cooked, and everyone was dozing, I went to prepare the soup. I boiled some egg-free noodles, microwave steamed some butternut squash and purple carrots, and got to my food-styling. I took out two bowls that seemed like polar opposites. One had a wide rim and shallow bowl. The other was all bowl-no rim. One was high-dining by way of Crate and Barrel outlet. One was Korean import store. The only things that the two had in common was that they were white and that some time in the past I had seen fit to purchase them. After I got my bowls sorted, and began to photograph, Belle woke up. So, I made third bowl for her. I am not so affected as to have pure white porcelain bowls for her yet, so the closest I had was a peter rabbit bowl from my friend G—.

So which one made the soup taste good? I would like to say all did, but it’s not true. The pasta bowl did not—it accommodated little broth and I couldn’t curl up on the couch with it. The baby bowl might have been a hit, but Belle refused the chicken and was suspect of the celery. In the end, I put some broth in a glass and she drank it that way. (Glasses are the ticket to high sophistication and adulthood according to Belle.) It made me really wonder what vegans do for Chicken Soup.

So, the bowl mattered. I was reading my friends blog about Octopus balls and the special pan required to make them (click over for ridiculously good pictures), and it made me think about much of material culture, that stuff that humans make, is a reaction to specific needs from food. If you have a grapefruit knife, a gravy boat or a shot glass, you are party to this. So, perhaps this spate of square and oblong dishes at restaurants is just part of this mechanism. (How many of them will last the test of time is still up in the air? How many of us register or marrow spoons this days?) Will I stop noticing the non-round plates at restaurants? Probably not. Maybe.

Recipe:
Nightingale’s Chicken Soup
Roast at 400
1 chicken (free-range, pasture-raised, happy-lived, if possible)

In a stockpot, sautee
Carcass parts of 1 chicken or 1 turkey (love this more)
2 carrots, sliced
1 celery stalk and leaves, sliced
2 small yellow onions

Add enough cold water to cover. Cook at medium.

When you remember that you are actually making soup, take the bird out of the oven and let it rest. Turn off the broth. Boil some egg or no egg noodles. Strip the chicken of its meat. (Save the carcass for the next family plague). Assemble the soup in the most comforting bowl you own.

Disclaimers and Ethics

At the Spy Museum in DC, there are any number of portable cameras (and incidentally a ring with a gun on it). Is there a similar store for bloggers who wish to photograph their meals for later posting? Do bloggers just whip out their cameras and therefore their identity when they sit down to eat? At home the problems with photographing your meal are fairly small—you might burn the onions because you are waiting for the perfect shot or you might piss off your spouse because you are, well, waiting for the perfect shot. But, at restaurants, there are a whole host of other problems. You might affect your experience of dining with friends. I took the camera to Bar Cento, because the birthday girl requested that I do so. But, there was more than one time when I asked a friend to stop eating so I may take a shot. This was annoying for my friend, but it also meant that instead of interacting with my friends I was thinking about taking a perfect photograph. Photographing can be detrimental to your social health. But what is the balance? This is likely a personal choice. Fun Playing with Food seems to have a wonderful time eating and taking lots of pictures, kudos Nancy. Others take no pictures. Which I will be remains to be seen.

And, then what about if the meal sucked? I am not a paid restaurant critic. But I have always believed that “word of mouth” is most powerful critic as it is a collective amplification of the public’s feeling about a restaurant, and as such more important than what one guy, who is a capable eater and writer, might write. (Still love you though, Frank Bruni.) Is the land of blogs not a persistent, tangible form of this “word of mouth?” So, what is the ethics of writing about restaurants? I feel particularly sensitive writing about local restaurants. They can already be at a disadvantage in terms of costs and marketing. Since I started this blog, my husband and I have been to two local establishments that we didn’t like. (And, I did take a surreptitious picture in one.) Do I write about them? What is the likelihood that the restaurant’s owners reading my blog and make the restaurant better? What is the likelihood that a potential diner reads my blog and takes me at my word? And, who the hell am I to do so in the first place? Right now, I think I will feel out taking pictures. If I don’t feel comfortable doing so, I could always only eat at places where Nancy has already gorgeous posted pictures. But, will I post about restaurants that I didn’t like? Who knows.

Vegonomicon has Landed...Warn the neighbors

Oh, Isa Chandra Maskovitz, how I love you. This is not a “raise the red flag security guards” love, but just a sincere “I have a couple hundred more ways to feed my baby” respect. (If you need to meet the authors virtually, watch their cooking shows online.) Today I received the best birthday gift I can remember in memory from my friend A—. I received the Veganomicon, a cookbook not a counter-insurgency plan.

What I love about the book is its accessibility. I hadn’t really read the entries/essays in the book until now, because there is only so much mooching that you can do in a bookstore. The authors have a cheesy sense of humor (well faux-cheesy, I guess) that I not only appreciate but in fact practice. Beyond that, they are not preachy. And most importantly, they give you the sense that they aren’t sadists in their meat-less ways, but instead food-loving animal lovers.

These are ladies who seem to feel like the guides to the land of vegan culture. And, obviously taking this role seriously, they describe minutia that might be uninteresting to the long-time vegan, but essential to those of us just beginning this path. I have this sense that Isa or her co-author Terry Hope Romero (love you to) must have all their punk 7-inches alphabetized and then sorted by color, because the recipes are indexed and re-indexed. As I have owned the book for less than 10 hours, I have yet to have need of these aids, but hell, they might come in handy soon enough.

It also comes with menus and most importantly the goal of the book is “that you won’t even need to look at the recipe again after making it a few times.”(Moskowitz and Romero, xv) And it is this last part that I love the best. They are not only recipes but also ideas and guides to make your own recipes.

The other night we were watching Tom Colicchio on a Chef’s Story. He had become a chef through the apprentice system rather than through the CIA path. He started his self-planned education by going through Jacques Pepin’s book and perfected every technique in the book. He felt those techniques were his culinary institute. This seems to be good advice for the home cook. Perfection of technique and understanding of your ingredients is the best way to ensure a good meal—not a recipe.

So, what did we eat for dinner? I made couscous with kale and carrots (not from Isa, but inspired by her quinoa pilaf. Oh quinoa, why did I not buy you last weekend?), roasted eggplant with tahini dressing, and broiled tofu. The tofu was scrumptious. It was rich in flavor but soft. Next time, I might spray the top with a little olive oil, and then put it back under the broiler to make it a little crunchy. But, otherwise, great hit. This book has not put an end to the icebox experiments, but instead enlivened them.

Memories: Korean Restaurant

I have decided to a series of posts over the year about restaurants that I have loved and lost. The first will be the Korean Restaurant, Ararang, I think it was called, on Mayfield Road. My love for Korean food began when I lived in Chicago. There was a restaurant called, Korean Restaurant, yes, that was the name. It was open very late, perhaps all night. The spicy meat paired with warm white rice, the shear excess of the portions, and the inexplicable side dishes were all revelations.

After we started dating, I brought my husband over to the love of the Korean restaurant. Korean food is meat and potatoes Asian according to him. This Lyndhurst Korean restaurant, whatever its name had been, was enormous; it is now a Turkish restaurant, Anatlya Red Square. We often went in on the weekdays, and we would be the only people in the restaurant.

I can’t quite remember when I started eating at this restaurant, though I do remember patronizing the restaurant brought serious consternation to my father, a usually calm man who actually threw a small fit every time I suggested Korean food. I never understood his aversion—meat and rice are 2/3 of his favorite food groups (coffee is the third.) But, early in my experience with this restaurant I settled on my favorites, anything grilled, jap chae (stir-fried glassy noodles), and bi bim bop (fried rice-ish).

Then, my husband joined the family and started to rock the boat. With him, we branched out. There was one evening when we went with an excellent ex-vegetarian friend and a tall man. I ordered a jap chae for all and bi bim bop for me. The other three decided to test the veracity of the menu. The waitress returned with what the management promised: pork chops and tofu, a plate of many pork chops and many slabs of tofu, crab soup with the legs poking out of the bowl, and fish soup, heads and all. All the dishes were spicy and excellent, but completely unexplained by the wait-staff. All we really understood was when you read “chunks of fish” on a menu, you will receive just that.

The restaurant was undone by the lack of front of house skills—when the server leaves everything unsaid (a sort of lie of omission), foreign food always seemed more foreign. And, of course, as time went on, with so many struggling restaurants, the food started to wane in quality.

I decided to write this memory entry first as a beam into space, in hopes that someone would open another Korean restaurant on the east side—a small restaurant where the rent is actually doable and with staff that is capable of answering questions and explaining the cuisine.

Icebox Experiments: Sloppy Joe's and Tater Tots

Belle was sick tonight. She was lolling around in a rather uncharacteristic manner. We gave her a little Motrin and waited. When she finally started to perk up a little, I broke away to make a dinner that would only take 10 minutes of prep at most. And so, experiment number two began. I decided to plumb my memory for the fast dinners that television moms made; when my mother cooks it is rarely quick (though always tasty.) Ever susceptible to advertising, my memory is full of old commercials for quick dinners consisting of cans of condensed mushroom soup, catsup, and some other packaged goodie.

My mother never delved into the land of instant meals. In fact, I experienced the casserole or ham steak and potatoes meal in childhood so infrequently that they actually held some amount of cachet. While I don’t love every one of these American dishes, some, like turkey tetrazzini, can be wonderful. I pride myself on being a middle of the road person, who can love the good despite the situation.

Many, especially those raised by very good cooks, have a palate that cannot handle packaged potatoes and American cheese. Others fear anything different. Still others enjoy, truly appreciate, the store bought and processed. In all these categories, the points of contention are all about taste, acceptance, and experience. They are also about proximity to good cooking, and I think they are about childhood. It is the rare person who has grown up with good food, who doesn't enjoy good food in adult, and it is a person I don’t think I would dine with.

Going back to my centrist palate, I would like to impart to my Belle the love of good food and the ability to find it in unlikely sources. I want her to enjoy the instant food for its instant-ness, just as I enjoy the gloppy Japanese “curry,” and I want her to enjoy the well-made for its perfection, just as I love a perfect Chicken biriyani. While I have detailed, and will continue to detail, the complicated means by which her meals are prepared (next week, homemade rice noodles), I also enjoy meals that lean heavily on prepared sauces.

Condiments are often high in salt and other bad stuff. But, in small amounts, I like the flavor that they add—and the convenience. I could grind prunes and add vinegar for tonight’s dinner. But instead, in the 2 minutes that I had by the stove, while my husband cuddled our listless baby, A1 worked just fine. For me, the problem with those “use one can of this brand soup…” recipes was that they gave busy housewives the hope that they would never have to use anything fresh, except a spring of parsley perhaps. Fresh ingredients and some effort will not be ruined by a dash of catsup or A1.

Recipe:
Sloppy Joes
Sweat in very little oil
1 small onion diced
1 carrots, washed and diced

Add
½ log Gimme Lean fake meat

Once the “meat” is browned, add:
1 T catsup
1 T and 1 t A1 Steak Sauce
1 splash Braggs Liquid Aminos
¼ cup unsweetened apple sauce
salt to taste

Serve on toast and with store-bought tater tots.

(I didn’t want Belle to have too much acid. In the future, when she can handle more tomato, I will add 1 more T catsup and a little tomato paste.)

Icebox Experiments: Spaghetti Squash Primavera

Still haven't implemented the planning for the week thing. Ideally on Sunday, I would get the baby ready after her nap and go to the grocery store to look for what looks good and seasonal. Instead, this weekend, we went to Whole Foods for the vegan lot. I hate buying actual groceries there. But, I still haven't had the time to run to Heinen's. So, today, I sorted through what was in the icebox. The most old veg was a spaghetti squash, purchase date unknown. So, we went with spaghetti squash primavera. This was met with the same concern as fake meat tacos and vegan mac and cheese. This was bold forgery of a good old Italian recipe.

This experiment, like so many, had unexpected results. The adults loved it and the Belle didn't. She ate some of the vegetables out of it, but just spit out the squash. Alas, failure is part of playing the game.

Recipe:

Spaghetti Squash Primavera

Roast at 400

1 small spaghetti squash, halfed, de-seeded, and oiled

Sautee lightly

sliced carrot
sliced zucchini

sliced asparagus

To the veg, add
1 t meyer lemon zest or

1 t preserved meyer lemon

Toss in the spaghetti squash

Make a sauce by adding

1 t vegan margarine

3 T soy milk

squeeze of meyer lemon

(Can be completed with a few dollops of goat cheese, but of course we didn't.)

Zen Mountain Tofu Soup

Well, actually Shingon Mountain Tofu. As it was 40 degrees today, I was tempted to make freeze-dried tofu. Apparently the monks in a monastery outside Osaka freeze-dried 2 by 2 inch blocks to create a perfect camping food. Alright, perhaps I skimmed the articles too quickly. What got me in them is that there is a special range of freeze/thaw temperatures that are needed to make this delicacy. Isn't Cleveland all about wildly changing temperatures. Well, I didn't make it, but we all need dreams.

But, there is a whole chapter devoted the use of it in Belleme’s Culinary Treasures of Japan. In it there was one recipe for a New England Boiled Dinner using this power food. I didn’t have it on hand, but I did have a couple blocks of frozen-frozen tofu. The difference is that the Japanese stuff is not frozen when used, but instead preserved through a process of freezing and unfreezing. Mine was just hanging out in the freezer. If I took it out and left it on the counter, it would eventually spoil.

So why freeze tofu? The tofu changes texture completely. It becomes a made of flaky layers and has the texture of chicken. (kind of.) Frozen tofu is enjoyed in Chinese cuisine, under the moniker thousand layer tofu.

I came home full well meaning to make this boiled dinner using red potatoes and squash. But, when I got in, I couldn’t find the cookbook and I really wanted something with a little flavor. So, instead, I sautéed my tofu without oil and made a thai-ish soup. The soup was so satisfying for Belle that I was moved to give up buying Veganomicon. I love Isa; don’t know her, but love everything I read. Yet, I wonder if the cookbook will stifle my cooking creativity. I love cookbooks, but almost never bring them in the kitchen. I started to rethink them when my methodical cousin asked me for suggestions on 3 cookbooks for the new cook. I gave him my three and my husbands three (not the same, incidentally). After that, I decided I would start cooking with measuring spoons and recipes. It didn’t last too long. The recipes were right; what the author wanted me to create. But, the cooking of that food just didn’ t do it for me. I like the chance of failure, the creativity, and the use of whatever I have on hand.

This evening I wanted to use the galangal that I bought at Whole Paycheck. And, so we ended up with Tofu soup.

Recipes:
Frozen Tofu Noodle Soup
Defrost and squeeze dry
1 block frozen tofu

Sautee in very little oil
½ inch of galangal, peeled and sliced

Add tofu and continue to sautée until browned, at which time add any vegetables including:
Sliced carrots
Sliced squash
Sliced zucchini
Slice mushroom

Before the vegetables are fully cooked add
2 cups water
1 cube frozen mushroom stock or vegetable buillon (follow package directions)
½ a package of thin rice noodles

Cook until the noodles are tender.

Abruzzi At Home

Family is important to me, my husband’s cousin told me this afternoon. Sure it is. My husband has 4 times as much family as I do; what a blessing. Those that live in town come to the house a few times a year to cook. I won’t cite hard numbers as that would make me face the fact that we don’t see them as much as we should. Prior to marriage, apparently these meals, always Italian food, were complex. Now, they are almost always homemade pizza—kid-friendly and fast.

On pizza day, there are always caramelized onions on at least one pie. It is my husband’s favorite. And, while I tease him on the ubiquity of this topping, I have come to expect them. We paired them with a Spanish goat cheese. After Bar Cento the other day, I really wanted local goat cheese, ideally Lake Erie Creamery. But, apparently Whole Foods has a hard time sourcing that due to something or another. The second pizza was again my husbands attempt at recreating our Bar Cento night. He hadn’t tasted the egg and meat pizza that I ate that night, so he made his own. We used turkey Canadian bacon and asparagus. The look of the pizza was lovely when it appeared from the oven, but I don’t know if I loved the egg. This kind of pizza showcases the egg and I am not always an egg-lover. But, the Canadian bacon was enjoyable.

Belle, of course, likes to eat along with us, so we made her a soy cheese and asparagus pizza. I didn’t let her pizza brown like ours, only because there is one more little tooth coming in. The pizza was an enormous hit. Belle is after all a little Italian.

Baby Masala Dosa

There must be at least 4 Asian import stores on Mayfield Road (mind you it is a long road.) But, I have always wondered if there is a market for them, but they do persist, and I try to help them along. I love to wander through a grocery store, even if I can't read the writing on any of the wares. Until Belle, and her potential allergies, I would be happy to try anything at least once. Now, I am more careful and ask more questions, but the purveyors are usually very capable of helping with any questions. Many of these establishments sell Asian convenience items--homemade toppings so that the busy Korean housewife can make a quick bibimbop, etc. The Indian stores have frozen chappatis and even dosa batter.

Dosas are a South India fermented rice crepe. They have an airy texture that is not nearly as spongy as injera. The flavor of the dosa is fairly plain. It is the fair counterpoint to spicy fillings. While it can be eaten plain or with chutneys, when stuffed it is usually, perhaps always, filled with spicy potato filling (masala).

Belle's constitution was starting to mend but I wasn't about to push it. So, I made a very mild filling for the dosas.

Recipe:
Potato Masala (for a baby)
Roast or microwave and then dice

3 red potatos

In a separate skillet, sauté in very little oil
½ small red onion, diced
¼ t cumin seeds
¼ t finely diced green chili

Once the spices are aromatic, add potato and continue to sautee. After the filling is completed, cook the dosas to order and fill. Eat when very hot!

The Rice Mutiny (or the First Battle of Independence)

Belle has been sick (or is it allergies?) So, we have been on a bland food diet for the last few days. I love rice--jasmine, sticky, black, basmati. I love it all. It has been striking to me how much my child is not me or my husband but a third wholly different being. Her tastes take from mine and from my husbands (and from food availability in our home). But, in the end, her tastes are her own. She alone loves bread. This weekend she had a colossal tantrum when told she could have no more than 1 slice of bread for breakfast. And, she has never really enjoyed rice. So, after feeding her potato bread, potatoes, and bread for a day, I brought out the rice. First, just plain white jasmine rice.

Enjoying white rice by its lonesome to me is the equivalent of savoring perfectly blanched asparagus or roast chicken—it is about appreciating the flavor of a basic element of food. The love of white rice is not endemic to America, with all its chicken a la king and Uncle Ben’s Instant Rice culture. So, most people think of rice as an accompaniment to be doused with soy sauce or buttered up. Belle doesn’t know about those things, and so, it is apparently easy for her to eat rice in its plain glory—or so we learned this weekend. It started with one bowl of white rice for lunch. When I turned to get the phone, and turned back—1/3 of the bowl was in her mouth, much of the rest was in each fist, and the remainder on the floor. Apparently rice is good.

For dinner, I upped the ante. I made quick Kichidi, the Indian rice and daal concoction, made famous/ co-opted by the British Raj. It is an iteration of beans and rice with daal, often moong daal, that is frequently eaten for breakfast. The British fortified their version, Kedgeree, with hard-boiled eggs and fish, usually smoked haddock. My version uses brown rice and masoor daal (which cooks quicker than other daals.) Usually, I would add more spices, but as her belly was tender, I made a less spicy version.

Recipe:
Kichidi (for a baby)
Boil until tender
1 cup cooked masoor daal
2 cups water

In a separate skillet, sauté in very little oil
1 bay leaf
2-3 black pepper corns
1 pod cardamom
½ t cumin seeds

Once the spices are aromatic, add and continue to sautee
2 cups cooked brown rice

Add the cooked lentils to the spicy browned brown rice. Serve with soy yoghurt.

My New Dairy-Free Pantry

We went to Whole Foods/ Paycheck to get our vegan staples, and I saw some parents staring into the dairy case. I had been there so recently myself. The world of food allergies and sensitivities was a new rabbit-hole for us intrepid omnivores. Vegetarianism was not new at all, and something many friends and family have subscribed to for generations. While the Internet is a veritable land of allergy information, it is hard to know what is right and what to do. So, I couldn’t help but tell them about our findings—the better cheese, the better fake meat, the problems with some soy yogurt. And, here is what I said…

I basically shop at Heinen’s. I have a strong love for my locally-owned grocery store. They have a number of parve items; and they are receptive to the needs of their community. They will order items and see if there is a market for them. I buy my tofu there. I vacillate between Cleveland Tofu and the organic national brand. I like the Cleveland better, but it isn’t organic. I usually buy it every other time.

Then there are the more esoteric ingredients like nutritional yeast. I used to buy that from Wild Oats, because I think the merger between Whole Foods and Wild Oats created a monopoly. Now that they are one, I buy it from Whole Foods—way to be political, eh?

Looking at the vegan recipes, I think there is a divide in that community—those who are attempting to continue their dairy life through substitution and those who have looked for recipes that focus on other ingredients. I would say we eat from both types—vegan mac and cheese and vegan tacos to ramen and kichidi. One of the problems I have with the former though is the processed nature of meat substitutes. So we have decided just as I wouldn’t want Belle to eat baloney everyday, we don’t give her fake meat everyday either. Also, I haven’t tried all of the possible egg-replacers that are available, and instead make recipes that don’t require egg.

I have learned that what I need to have on hand is:
Soy yogurt—Be careful to look for dairy free, because much of the live active cultures used in the States is grown on milk
Soy cheese—We buy SoyKaas brand. I don’t work for them, I swear. But, everyone recommends that brand, so that is the one I buy.
Tofu—I usually have a block of firm and sometimes a block of silken on hand. I sometimes have 1 in the freezer too because it is nice textural difference from fresh.
Margarine—I have never like the flavor of Margarine. I use VERY little in Belle’s cooking, but I have it on hand, to finish foods.
Sugar-free Applesauce—serves as an egg-replacement in some baked goods

What I enjoy having on hand, but don’t necessarily need:
Gimme Lean (beef flavor): While we are not a lover of fake meat, this one doesn’t taste like meat, and so it is very good.
Tempeh & Seitan—For a break from the tofu.
Nutritional yeast—We use this for milk-free mac and cheese.
Tofutti Cream Cheese—Belle loves bread and this adds some extra nutrition. I don’t usually buy it, and instead put hummus or white bean spread on her toast.

One Enchanted Evening as a Barfly ( Bar Cento )

Work had put me in an uncharacteristic mood. But, as we drove down Carnegie, in the snow, Cleveland looked so familiar. Office Max moved out because their exec’s couldn’t live here—they apparently hadn’t been let in on all the open secrets of Cleveland. I realize I am one of many voices hailing Cleveland. But, for me, it isn’t about others thinking the city is cool; instead, it is about loving it, pure and simple. And, snowy nights are some of the loveliest.

So, this snowy night, we drove to the West Side, as I had done so many times before, for evening entertainment. Since high school, I have always identified the West Side with the nightlife. (The Phantasy on Cure Night, anyone?) We were meeting at Bar Cento to celebrate the Aquarians and Capricorns amongst us. Running down the brick street and into the restaurant in my wildly unseasonal shoes, I was struck by the continuity with history of Bar Cento. Its décor and feel built upon Market 25 and upon the retail space before it. My friends were seated in the “lobby” portion of the restaurant in three of the six or so lounge-y spaces. It felt as if we were having a late night party just outside the make-up department of Higbee’s. On my quick trip through the actual interior of the restaurant to the bathroom, the décor was unobtrusive (a compliment for a restaurant interior.)

As I said, I was unsettled, so I moved from table to table chatting, but didn’t settle in to eat my own meal right away. Instead, I mooched off my friends. I ate a nice pizza with egg and prosciutto that had been ordered by a women known for her breakfast naan-egg pizzas. I ate a potato pizza that my other friend was apparently have a hard time giving away. I don’t know why they were being so averse to it—as a starch-lover potato on bread sounded good—and tasted good, too. Hell, Belle, had eaten potato bread for dinner just last night. Then, I moved on to the other tables. One innocent bystander had a Pizza Puttanesca. While the body of the pizza was enjoyable, the orange-rind flavor (I believe) of the crust was inexplicable. Another friend had the cod, said to be good, but we know that I am off fish these days. And, then onto my meal…my husband and I shared the antipasto platter and the lamb.

At this point, my night to a turn for the festive as our server continued to bring out very nice wine (C—what was it?) and claret-colored lambic. While she will go unnamed, as is the policy of my blog, she was an excellent, responsible server, who even confirmed that we had designated drivers (or husbands as it was last night.) In this now-festive mood, I enjoyed the cheeses, fennel and sausage bites of the antipasto platter, the pairing of goat cheese with the lamb, and the French/ Belgian(?) fries. Next time, I hope to eat the roast chicken, such a test of a restaurant to me. What struck me most about the restaurant, the food and the menu was how perfectly it seemed to fill a niche. There are so many restaurants that go high-end or even worse expensive casual because the chef or owner thinks that is where the glory and the profits exist. But, here Chef Jonathon Sawyer looked towards a need—mid-price bar food (interestingly, a Mediterranean/ Belgian ikazaya)

By the end of the evening, fully festive as I was, I decided to buy dessert for all—Nutella macaroons and a cheese plate. In the hustle bustle of it all, when I asked our server for the specifics on the cheese, she excused herself and reappeared with Chef Sawyer. At which point, my friend C—, my constant supporter, mentioned this blog. Mr. Sawyer was informative about the cheeses, discussing them in terms of their origin and his tastes. After eating his food, I wasn’t surprised that he was down-to-earth and normal. When asked by C— if he ate the cheeses with accompaniment, he said no, but offered to send out some bread. We then talked blog a moment—I am a lurker on his, he reads a number but doesn’t always comment. When he returned to the kitchen, he sent out toasted bread and his card.
The assortment of the cheese plate was global and extremely enjoyable—though for me it was the Lake Erie Creamery goat cheese that I loved most. I had come here for the local and the connection between the farm and the plate. My husband and I have wondered constantly why more local restaurants don’t see to use or advertise our local farms. I don’t know if many restaurants think, like so many Clevelanders, that things from somewhere else are better or if the audience has grown to expect food that is flown in from far away. This restaurant shows how local can be affordable, enjoyable and a marketing tool—we drove across town for the locally grown and got out with dinner, drinks and dessert for only 60 bucks and change.

Landerwood Plaza

The charm of Landerwood Plaza was lost on me as a child. I don't quite even remember what was in it, but it lacked the chain stores that Beachwood Mall promised. Mostly we ran into the drugstore--which very sadly closed this year. More often we drove by the plaza to go to Heinen's. Even now, I rarely shop at the Plaza. I love Knuth's, but alas my compensation scale (and my husband) suggests that I should only visit once in a very long while. With Belle and her sweet little cousins around, we have spent some time at Playmatters (They have mugs emblazoned with boutique names, if you are looking). This is not to say that we are not in the Plaza that often. I would say I go to that Heinen's two to three times a week. (As you have read, I can't plan ahead.) And, when we feel flush, we have been known to go across the street to Metropolitan Market, but that is another post.

It was my dismission (and maternity leave) that meant that I missed out on the short-lived Tannour. I would like to think that the restaurant's existence was like a 60's Performance Art happening. These restaurant as happening things are big in London, and there are clear similarities in, well, precipitation between Cleveland and London...Alright, so that’s a stretch. While I have heard the story of the retooling of Tannour through the grapevine, without substantiated information, I will stick to the facts. The restaurant closed and reopened with a new name and concept.

Last night, I was feeling guilty about making my less that enjoyable experience at Peppermint potentially public. Since there was no potato bread for me, and I had had such an unsuccessful day completing work at work yesterday, I convinced my husband to get Peppermint take-out. Having been with the sick Belle much of the day, he looked dog-tired--actually much more tired than our dog. All he could handle was take-out. As we went to park, the Peppermint side of the lot was full, so we parked half-way down the plaza, directly in front of Knuth’s (was that a sign to do some quick shopping, I ask.)

After a peak and a purchase at Knuth’s, we decided to take a look at the menu of Joe Foodie’s Tavern. I hadn’t read anything about the restaurant, but the self-conscious name had turned me off. There was no menu posted outside, but instead information about live music, I think. We went in to read the menu. The restaurant, with its pictures of old Cleveland and the Gods of Transportation and medium blue walls, had the feeling of 60’s Cleveland or the Bob Newhart Show. It was sort of retro-lite; a hint of the past but not so much that you could put your finger on it. The hostess, and my guess owner, asked us if we wanted a table, and when we said we wanted to read the menu, I asked her if this is the same owners as Tannour. Yes, she said, amiably, and promised the food to be as good.

This kind service moved us to have a drink at the bar, and maybe taste an appetizer. My only complaint was that all of appetizers were seafood-related. (I didn’t bring home a menu, so I am writing from memory.) Like Ruhlman, I only buy fish according to the safe-ish for the environment chart. Though, really, I try to avoid it all together, because what will the seas be like when they are empty. And, quite frankly, having been the brief, but not brief enough, owner of a red fighting fish this week (mazel tov, L--), I was also off fish for a less noble reason, as well.

That said, we chose to increase the methane gas in the breathing environment—ah, these choices are so hard. We decided to share a burger. I think a good simple burger is a good test of any meat and potatoes restaurant. I would actually call the restaurant an American bistro, if forced to classify it. (We overheard the bartender tell another patron that the chef came from Lola.) I felt as if whoever drew up the menu had watched a few episodes of the British version of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and memorized his mantra—do only a few things and do them well. The menu was just one-page front and back. There was something for everyone, except a vegan, perhaps. But, they could go to Peppermint.

The burger was nice on a whole wheat roll served with homemade fries served on a non-round plate. They offered me a mesclun mix to top my burger, which really seems a little affected, but otherwise, it was very enjoyable. The person seated next to me had a fish sandwich with cole slaw. As stated above, I was in no mood to even look at his fish. But, his cole slaw looked so good that asked the bartender for a little taste, and she obliged me. It was really nice, and I don’t usually like coleslaw. I liked it because the cabbage was not soggy and the dressing was not gloppy. This is a restaurant my father could get behind, so we will be back.

After our Sofia sparkling wine and Great Lakes beer (guess who got what), we went into Peppermint. I asked the woman at the counter what her favorite dish was—do as the locals do, after all. We ordered Chicken Yellow Curry, Chicken Hot Basil (a favorite from my college days when I lived amidst a glut of Thai restaurants), and her favorite the Chili Duck. The food all came out in less than 10 minutes. I was already fairly full and sudsy from Foodie on the ride home, when I talked to M— about the vegan tofu curry she had made for her dinner guest on Wednesday. If she emails me the recipe, I will include it here eventually. After which, I made a plate that included all three entrees. This food was everything our last experience wasn’t. The food was cooked well and most importantly it was flavorful. The Basil Chicken was spicy, as it should be. (Oh, I should have paired it with a Thai Iced Coffee.) The Yellow Chicken was full of meat, onions and yellow squash. (The curry sauce was good, though I think I will pick a different curry with more seasonal vegetables and use tofu next time.) The Chili Duck was nice. My husband loved it, because he loves duck. I prefer almost duck, beef, pork, salmon slightly underdone or even completely underdone, on the other side of walking my husband says. So, next time, I would ask for it less well-done. But, the flavor of it was good. I have been to other places where they turn this dish into the atomic red Thai equivalent to Chinese Sweet and Sour. Here, it was very nice. Again, I have never been to Thailand, so I have no idea how authentic it is. But, it was flavorful and enjoyable. Next time we take Belle, I will talk with my waitress/ waiter to find something flavorful/ not spicy. And, thinking about it, it will be fairly easy to eat vegan there. Ah, it looks like Belle is back in business for tofu and rice.