split pea coconut curry soup

I have a confession. I only made this soup because I fell in love with the color of the yellow split peas in the bulk section of the Columbus Avenue Whole Foods a few weeks ago. They were such a warm buttery orange-y color that I found them absolutely irresistible. They've been hiding in one of my cupboards until this morning.

Split pea coconut curry soup:
1.6 pounds of yellow split peas
1 can coconut milk
a whole lotta ginger, finely chopped
a whole lotta garlic, finely chopped
1 jalapeno, finely chopped
2 tablespoons curry powder
a tablespoon or two of tomato paste
some butter
pinch of saffron
broth/water/bullion cubes
cilantro and lime wedges for garnish
salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the split peas, then cover with water or broth, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and let simmer for 30 minutes or so, until they come apart and the liquid thickens. (I used water but added a couple bullion cubes.)

While the lentils are cooking, toast the curry powder in a dry pan until it just begins to smoke but not burn (a few minutes over medium heat). Transfer powder to a bowl and then melt some butter in the pan and add the ginger, garlic, and jalapeno. Cook until soft, stir in the tomato paste, curry powder, and saffron. Add this mess to your soup pot, stir, and let simmer for a few more minutes.

Shake your can of coconut milk and stir that into the soup.

Serve over quinoa or rice or just on its own, with lime and cilantro. Scallions would be delicious too. And you could add things like diced sweet potatoes, bell peppers, whatever.

Will definitely be making this again. Yum.

kefir (it's oh so easy)

Back in December I was pondering what to do with all the maple syrup I have somehow accumulated. Then Evan started making kefir every week and now I'm in the habit of making sure we've got some around myself.  Most mornings now I have a little juice glass of kefir with a spoonful of maple syrup before heading out the door by quarter past seven. Yay calcium, and yay maple syrup!

Here are Evan's instructions on how to make kefir. Let me know if you want a grain (we have two looking for homes at the moment):

It's as simple as combine Part A (milk) and Part B (kefir grain), and wait. But for some more detail.

1. Put milk in a container (glass bowl, jar, food-safe plastic, etc. I use a 1qt. jar)
2. Put kefir grain in container with milk
3. Lightly cover container (ie. just set lid on top, or rubber band paper towel or coffee filter over top)
4. Leave at room temperature for 24-36 hours. The longer you leave it, the more it will ferment, and the more tart it will become.
5. Remove kefir grain from container, and place in a separate container with fresh milk (I use a 16oz jar and drink the milk that it was stored in after each batch)
6. You'll see it separates, kefir at the top, whey at the bottom. You can either spoon out the kefir at the top and use that (it'll be thicker, like thin yogurt), or shake the jar and reincorporate the whey back in and it'll be like a buttermilk consistency.

If you don't make a batch after 3-4 weeks, replace the milk in the storage container and it'll be fine for another 3-4 weeks.

I'd recommend getting some fruit syrup, honey or maple syrup to stir into the kefir to drink. Or just pour over granola/cereal instead of milk. Use in recipes in place of buttermilk.

best dinner

I found myself grinning over dinner this evening, and wishing my legs were short enough so that I could swing them back and forth with glee.

What had me grinning and feeling like a grade-schooler was what I found in front of me after a long day at work: a little glass plate holding a simple egg-salad (a la Mark Bittman, with less egg and lots of mashed up celery and carrot and a dash of salt and pepper and a splash of vinegar and a dollop of  mayonnaise) sandwich made with Evan's all-the-flour-in-the-cupboard (buckwheat, all purpose, whole wheat) just-baked bread; a big glass of Nestle Quick chocolate milk (because oh how I love chocolate milk); and finally a bowl of sliced apples.

I couldn't help but grin and chuckle at this, our elementary-school-lunch-for-dinner, and it was delicious and delightful and everything a girl could ask for almost half-way through a long week.

how to survive a hurricane, washington heights style

(a very biased view from a neighborhood on a hill)

High Water Everywhere (Charlie Patton)*

It began, for me, with a worried phone call from Lisa late Saturday afternoon. I was working all day at the library and she, our Sunday supervisor, had just read that the city was leaning towards calling for a transit shutdown starting early the following evening. We started making staffing contingency plans: what to do if the library closed, what to do if the University demanded we stay open.

 Wind & Rain (Garcia & Grisman)

That night was my Nick's bachelor party, and quite the party it was. Intimately small and filled with such warmth and affection, but involving copious amounts of alcohol and karaoke caterwauling until 3am and dragging ourselves to bed a mere hour before dawn Sunday morning.

Sunday morning, it was gray and damp but not yet raining, and we had guests coming over for brunch. After our ridiculously late night we were both feeling a little worse for wear and it wasn't until nearly noon that I started putting together our brunch and Evan ventured out to the store for a pack of veggie sausages.

 (Apple German Pancake: slice and saute a couple apples in a little butter, with a bit of cinnamon, chopped candied ginger and brown sugar; mix 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 6 eggs, 2 tablespoons melted butter, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; spread apples into a greased 9x13 pan, then pour batter over the apples and bake at 450 for 20 minutes. Serve with maple syrup.)

Evan texted me saying the stores were out of bread and the lines wrapped around the aisles. All that afternoon we chuckled (scoffed, really, it must be confessed) at all these people hauling around cases of bottled water and armfuls of hummus and baked goods. Oh these hysterical urbanites, we thought, and patted ourselves on the back.

 Like a Hurricane (Neil Young)

The University finally announced that all classes and events for Monday had been canceled. Moments later the call came through that the libraries would be closed too. (I don't know that my staff have ever been so happy to get a call from me before as they were this week.)

We ventured back to the store early that evening, pleased with our purchases of half a pound of whitefish salad and a couple pumpernickel bagels for breakfast the next morning. We cooked up some black beans and rice for dinner, with enough leftovers for lunch the next afternoon.  Lisa stopped by with a pomegranate.

And then there was this peculiar moment Monday morning, as the clouds thickened and the air started to feel oppressive, when we looked at each other and said, almost simultaneously and with a certain embarrassed anxiety, "What if all those people know something we don't know?"

Call It Stormy Monday (Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan)

I pulled out our largest stockpot and filled it to the brim with tap water, set it aside just in case the water went out. We started going through our refrigerator and cupboards, pulling out bags of greens, a couple squashes, a bag of beans that my brother had given us for Christmas last year and that had been lurking in the back of the cupboard ever since. We decided we better cook up whatever we had.

(Back-of-the-Cupboard Bean Soup: In a 5-quart pot, rinse the beans, cover with water and bring to a boil for a couple minutes. Turn off the heat and let soak for an hour. Dump out the soaking water, rinse, cover again with fresh water, bring to a simmer. Peel and smash a head's worth of garlic cloves, toss in the soup pot.  Also toss in a handful of sun-dried tomatoes, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, a couple bay leaves, a dash of cayenne pepper. Let simmer for a couple hours, stirring occasionally, adding water or broth as needed to keep the beans covered. We added a couple of Evan's vegetable stock ice cubes (you can use any broth you want or just water) and some juice from a can of tomatoes. Add salt and black pepper to taste, serve over rice. This made enough soup for days and days.)

We munched on pumpernickel bagel and Franks Market whitefish salad while Evan cooked up all the bunches of greens and I set the soup to simmering. Early in the afternoon we went for a walk up to Fort Tryon park and back. It was just beginning to rain and the wind was picking up. The bridge, my beloved bridge, looked gorgeous and haunted in the diminishing noonday light.

Storm Music (Gil Scott Heron)

Later that afternoon we stocked up on a couple bottles of wine and a bag of popping corn, and Evan dashed down the hill to Buddha Beer Bar for a growler of PumKing. (Clearly we had our priorities straight.) Early Monday evening we cooked up some white rice and Evan's pumpkin stir fry. I spent most of the evening watching old Law & Order on Netflix, knitting, drinking wine, and eating the pomegranate Lisa had brought over the night before.

(Pumpkin Stir-Fry: peel and cube pumpkin and steam till tender; while pumpkin steams, lightly beat a couple eggs; fry pumpkin cubes in oil over high heat, adding a dash of soy sauce, a little fish sauce, and a handful of coarsely chopped scallions. Serve over rice.)

We waited and waited, perched up on top of this hill not far from the northernmost tip of the isle of Manhattan and one block away from the highest geographical point in the borough, for things to get bad. And strangely, eerily, they never really did.

The rain picked up a bit but then tapered off. The wind rattled the windows for a few minutes and then tapered off. The cat freaked out, of course, and kept nosing into the vents in the air conditioner in the bedroom as if she could sense something strange, something malevolent, seeping in.

Mighty Storm (the Dukhs)

We waited and waited, chatted with our west coast relatives, reassured them all was well. The news started to darken though, both literally and figuratively. Friends on Facebook started posting about losing electricity everywhere: downtown, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts. Eventually, getting on towards midnight, our lights began to flicker occasionally. I decided it was time to go to bed.

Storm Cloud (The Upsetters)

I kept jerking awake that night, sitting up in bed and straining to hear anything at all -- pounding rain, gusting winds, sirens wailing in the dark  -- but mostly there was just silence. The university had decided to batten down the hatches one more day but I woke up pretty early Tuesday morning anyway. The eerie quiet continued, exacerbated by the profound silence of a city without traffic. No garbage trucks, no shrieking kids, barking dogs, blaring car horns. I crawled out of bed, walked out to the kitchen, listened to the humming of the refrigerator with an uncomfortable mixture of gratitude and guilt.

We had a quiet stay-at-home morning. Cups of tea and hours of the guilty pleasures that are Nashville and the Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. Beans over rice for lunch (oh the ridiculous amounts of beans and rice we had!). Eventually we decided to venture out for a walk down towards the river. It was misting out, and the air felt heavy and damp and clean.

Wash Out in the Rain (Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes)

Water dripped from everything and we sloshed our way through downed leaves and branches and puddles of mud. Perched by the river, the little red lighthouse seemed to glow in the surrounding gloom. And the river itself, well, it had retreated mostly back to its rightful path but was broiling and  muddy and inconsolable.

We wandered down by Columbia-Presbyterian and looped around and headed north. Eventually, 5pm, we met up with a couple neighborhood friends for happy hour drinks and shared horror and dismay at the pictures coming out of neighborhoods to the south. Friend Zak, fearing the morning commute sans reliable public transportation from his neighborhood, made his way up to join us at the bar, and then came home for dinner and a night's sleep on our couch.

Harlem River Blues (Justin Townes Earle)

The next morning, Wednesday, the M4 was running, if packed to the gills, and it took no longer than usual to get to the library. What seems shocking, frightening, to me is how normal things were, and have continued to be, in the face of so much devastation mere miles away.

To get a sense of it abstractly, one need only take a look at this map from the MTA, wiping out access to huge swaths of New York City. But even this doesn't describe the feeling of otherworldliness as we stand on subway platforms listening to announcements that there are no trains south of 34th Street, as bus operators announce that all transit fares are being waived, as stories come out that gas is running low throughout the tri-state area. (Yesterday, as I passed a gas station on my walk to the train after work, there were cars lined up around the block and police vans closing in with megaphones blaring instructions to disperse, the gas had run out.)

Hurricane Season (Trombone Shorty)

This Sunday Nick is getting married in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It sounds like quite a few of their guests will not be able to make it after all this craziness, and I can only imagine how heartbroken he and his Sarah must secretly feel about this. But I asked him today how he was doing and he, in his ever succinct way, said there's a certain romance in getting married in the wake of disaster, of "love among the ruins and all that."

I have been stressing out all week about getting to the garden from way up in Washington Heights, enduring the lines for shuttle buses and stumbling along Atlantic Avenue in my fancy strappy shoes. But if Nick can be so pragmatic about carrying on, (and yes, if thousands of patient New Yorkers can so calmly carry on), the least I can do is get myself to my best friend's wedding on time.

Here Comes the Sun (The Beatles)

 *Music (mostly) thanks to Evan and his hurricane playlist

easter table, 4.8.12

oysters & new yorkers

What you definitely don't want to be? The guy throwing up on the subway platform at the end of the night. Alas I was that guy last night, after what was otherwise a lovely evening of raw oysters and expensive drinks in some fancy schmancy oyster & absinthe bar in Williamsburg. But New Yorkers are nice! Several good folk stopped to ask if I needed help, one woman patted me on the back and asked if my apartment was close by, one little old lady offered to call 911 (please, God, as if this weren't humiliating enough already) and the most practical: a man came running back down the stairs with a handful of paper towels. (Where he got paper towels in the subway station I have no idea -- perhaps the toll booth workers keep cleaning supplies on hand?)

Anyway, I made my way home and took a long hot shower and went to sleep and today am feeling much refreshed. (If also ready to go to bed despite its being only half past eight, and slightly squeamish at the thought of oysters, and also expensive drinks).

zucchini 'bisque'*

2 tablespoons butter
1 yellow onion, chopped coarsely
2 largish zucchinis, diced coarsely
1 box chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (or fresh grated to taste -- I happen to love nutmeg)
salt & black pepper to taste

Saute the onion in butter until softened. Add some nutmeg, a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper. Add zucchini, let cook for several minutes, then add broth and enough water to cover the zucchini in the soup pot.  Let simmer for 15 or so minutes until the zucchini is tender, then let cool, then blend in the pot with a stick blender. Taste, and add salt and pepper and more nutmeg to taste.

I've been eating this slightly warm today, but will probably eat it chilled tomorrow.  Would also be good hot.  Probably also delicious with a dollop of yogurt or sour cream and a piece of crusty bread. If only Evan were here to work his magic, it would be even more delicious if the bread had home-made butter on it, but I'm too lazy for those shenanigans. Besides, there's knitting to do. And three more zucchinis to figure out something to do with.

*I admit it: I kind of hate zucchini. But I love this soup. Oh CSA, bring it on!

decadence (also product placement)

One of the best things in the world? Ben & Jerry's Bonnaroo Buzz: coffee & malt ice cream with whiskey caramel swirls & English toffee pieces.  Even better? Dipping UTZ sourdough extra dark pretzels in it.

(And no, just for the record, I am neither pregnant nor PMSing nor stoned.)

avgolemono, aka greek lemon & rice soup, sort of

Avgolemono:

5(ish) garlic cloves
2(ish) tablespoons olive oil
a dash of hot pepper flakes
some white wine
a box of vegetable broth, plus some water and bullion if not enough liquid
some cooked rice
3 eggs
3 lemons
large handful raw spinach

-Chop up the garlic and saute in olive oil with the hot pepper flakes.
-Add about a quarter cup of white wine and let cook down.
-Add the broth and rice and bring to a simmer.
-Juice the lemons and beat the eggs and lemon juice together in a bowl till mixed.
-Slowly pour a cup of the hot broth into the egg mixture, stirring constantly, then pour this mixture slowly into the soup pot, stirring constantly.
-Throw in the spinach and let simmer for a few minutes, then serve with crusty bread and dipping oil.

Perfect for the end of a rainy May day.

(This is traditionally made with chicken broth, but given the boy's pescatarian diet, I used vegetable broth instead.  You can use uncooked rice and let simmer (before adding the eggs) until the rice is tender, I just had some cooked rice in the fridge.  Some folks add diced or shredded chicken to the soup.  The spinach worked out well.)

egg salad

There used to be, on the east side of Broadway just north of 110th Street, a hole-in-the-wall place called Columbia Bagels.  Counter running up the left side, drink cases running up the right side, cash register by the door.  No tables. No frills.  Just bagels, and all that goes with them. All day, every day.

Oh how I loved that place.  Especially their egg salad, which was mustardy and delicious and cheap:  $2.10 for egg salad on an everything bagel, with lettuce and tomato.

I would duck inside, get my coffee (large, with milk and one sugar) and egg salad bagel, and then walk up Broadway to 112th street, hook a right, and fall in love all over again with the view of St. John the Divine as you head east towards Amsterdam Avenue.

I'd walk over to the cathedral and find a shaded spot on the steps, or in the little park next door with the ridiculous fountain, and eat my bagel and drink my coffee and smoke a couple cigarettes and keep an eye out for the wandering peacocks and read whatever book I was using as a procrastination device from doing actual school work.

Funny and sad to think that no one else will ever have this experience again.  Columbia Bagels is long gone, and soon smoking in almost all public places in New York City will be a thing of the past. (I have mixed feelings about this, though I won't get into that now.)

I found myself thinking fondly this morning of all those egg salad sandwiches and Marlboro reds because I had failed to notice I was on an M4 Limited instead of an M4 Local and missed my stop and had to walk up from 110th Street to get my bagel (everything, with vegetable cream cheese and tomatoes) at the not bad but frustratingly expensive Nussbaum & Wu.  Where the egg salad is too mayonnaisey and not good at all, and costs more than $5.

mom's marbled cranberry mousse

This is one of those recipes that regularly put in an appearance on Thanksgiving, and one that we kids (us McNeil kids and the Crow girls) looked forward to every year.  Thanksgiving just wouldn't have been right without it.  Now it seems like such an odd, old-fashioned recipe.  Jellied cranberry sauce from a can? Jell-o?? Seriously?  And yet it is SO good.  Trust me.

Mom's Marbled Cranberry Mousse:

1 3/4 cups cranberry juice cocktail
1 package (3 oz.) raspberry jello
1 can (16 oz) jellied cranberry sauce
1 cup whipping cream

In medium saucepan, bring juice to a boil.  Remove from heat and stir in jello.

In large bowl, beat cranberry sauce on high for 1 minute or until smooth.  Stir in gelatin mixture.  Chill about 2 hours until mixture mounds when dropped from spoon.

Whip the whipping cream.

Spoon half of cranberry mixture into bowl, then half of whipped cream.  Add remaining cranberry mixture, then add rest of whipped cream in dollops.  Run long knife blade zigzag through mixture to create marbleized effect.  Cover.  Chill for 4 hours until set, or overnight.

Eat with great gusto alongside all the other Thanksgiving necessities.

bon appetit & shrimp, or, wishing bygone eras adieu

It's pretty ridiculous sometimes, the things that can make you sad, the things that cause a certain fleeting pain somewhere at the core of your self.  I got my December issue of Bon Appetit in the mail yesterday.

I have been getting Bon Appetit since Christmas of 2002, the first Christmas I spent with ex-boyfriend Chris's family.  They exchange wish lists in his family, and gifts are purchased accordingly.  There is a certain logic in this.  As an outsider whose family doesn't partake in such logic but rather enjoys (usually) the unexpectedness of the unrequested gift, I both appreciated this tradition and felt intimidated by it.  And as an outsider, I never knew quite what to ask for:  something inexpensive, something easy, nothing to make waves or cause anyone any trouble.  Later I settled on Amazon-available book titles, but that first year I asked for a Bon Appetit subscription.

Chris's parents kept renewing my subscription, year after year, even after we broke up four Christmases later.  But this year they didn't renew it, and yesterday's issue, this year's Christmas issue, marks the termination of this rather strange ongoing relationship.  Chris is married now and I am quite happily partnered with a new man, and yet pulling this magazine out of my mailbox last night brought a momentary collapse, a momentary indrawn breath and yearning for Christmases past.

The holidays are hard in general, sometimes, and of course not just for me.  So idealized by our culture, and yet so much a reminder of people and places and times we've lost.  I get indescribably excited by the holidays, and want so much to live them in the perfect way I imagine them, but of course the real world inevitably intrudes on that imaginary perfection.

Evan and I are hosting Thanksgiving this year and I asked Susie Crow recently for her mother's shrimp recipe.  The one she made every year as a pre-dinner snack at our families' combined Thanksgiving celebration.

I am not going to make them for Thanksgiving but Mom & Nate, equally excited by the shrimp re-emergence, have requested them for Christmas.  I am pleased by this idea, this re-appropriation of a beloved old recipe in a different and new context.  Those shrimp won't bring back Thanksgivings or Christmases past, of course, but they will be delicious, and really what more can you ask of shrimp anyway?

And what the hell, maybe I'll subscribe to Bon Appetit myself.  It is, after all, only about $15/year.

tentatively talking turkey

Evan and I are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner this Thursday for a motley crew of neighbors, relatives, dear city friends looking for a welcoming place to go, a pair of upstaters, and a pitbull pup thrown in to the mix for good measure (much to the Llama-monster's dismay -- she does NOT like dogs, to put it mildly).

Theoretical menu:

Appetizers:
cranberry polenta cakes (#27)
cheese plate courtesy of the Chelsea & Inwood Farmers Markets
Zabars olives courtesy of Nate & Shanna
Evan's full-sour pickles (currently fermenting next to the fridge)
roasted rosemary cashews
Update: Also Andrew's famous deviled eggs!

Main course:
Alton Brown's roast turkey
cornbread stuffing
flax rolls
Thomas Jefferson's sweet potato biscuits (thanks to Andrew!)
raw sweet potato salad, though probably with butternut squash instead (#66/67)
garlicky chard with olives, pine nuts, & brown rice (Food Matters)
roasted sweet potatoes with garlic & rosemary & buckwheat honey (my own dreaded concoction)
mashed potatoes (thanks to Andrew!)
fresh cranberry sauce (thanks to Jessica!)
Mom's famous cranberry mousse

Desserts:
Pumpkin & apple pies (thanks to Andrew!)
chocolate chip meringue cookies

Drinks:
Home-fermented apple cider (currently fermenting on top of the fridge, because really, what's more American than that?)
Various wines
After-dinner port

bribery

I eat a fair number of bagels (as evidenced of course by my svelte and girlish figure), and miss them horribly when I am away from New York for any length of time.  Quite honestly, they are pretty much a mainstay of mine.

Which is why it strikes me as particularly symbolic that my boy is dedicating himself to mastering the art of this particular (and largely geographically specific) baked good.

You can take the girl out of the city, but only if you can buy her off with a decent bagel.

e's (unintentional) flagel bagels

(See Serious Eats)

csa goodness, 8.26.10

'everything but the kitchen sink' soup

Too lazy (and cheap) to go grocery shopping yesterday so found myself ransacking the refrigerator for last week's CSA remnants.  This soup is weird but tasty, and even better the next day served cold.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink Soup:

Cooking oil
Bunch small purplish/reddish onions, chopped
Red pepper flakes to taste
A small eggplant, diced
Green beans, chopped into 1-inch lengths
Some unknown greens -- really thick stems and frilly curled leaf edges -- torn into small pieces sans stems
Most of a head of lettuce, torn into pieces
Chicken broth
Some parsley
Some mint
2 itty bitty cucumbers

Saute the onions and red pepper flakes in oil over medium-low heat.  I've been using coconut oil lately and it's subtle and delicious and smells really good.  Add the beans and the eggplant and cooked till softened.  Add a little bit of broth and the unknown greens and stir, then leave covered for a little while so the greens wilt.  Add the parsley and the mint and the lettuce and enough broth to cover, and let cook for a little while.  Add the cucumbers and blend in the soup pot with a stick blender.  Refrigerate long enough to chill, add the bit of cream or milk or yogurt, salt and pepper to taste.

Like I said, this turned out rather strangely.  But it has the potential to be delicious.  I would cut way back on the mint, add some garlic at the beginning, and maybe put through a food processor to blend to a smoother consistency.  And of course the joy of it is that none of my CSA goodies went to waste this week, and are now in a form that could either be frozen indefinitely or at least keep in the refrigerator for another few days.  Maybe I'll even bring some to work tomorrow for lunch.

small pleasures

Got a bag of peaches as part of our CSA share last week.  Have spent the last several decades thinking I did not like peaches -- at least whole and fresh and uncooked.  Something about the skin, the feel of that peach fuzz rubbing across my teeth, my gums, my tongue.  Like nails on a chalkboard.  Years ago Jessica Snyder and I would take the canoe down towards the Lockharts' farm, paddling through clouds of sapphire dragonflies, keeping an eye out for turtles sunning themselves on deadheads, hissing over lily-pads growing up in clumps against the surface of the lake.  We would pack a couple cans of soda (Grandma's discount Shasta in strawberry or pineapple or grape) and a couple nectarines.  Always nectarines because I hated peaches.  That fuzz.

Got a bag of peaches the other day and thought about making a cobbler or a chilled summer soup or a sauce to serve warm over vanilla ice cream.  Instead left them in a bowl on the counter and have found myself snatching one up on passes through the kitchen, biting into them while leaning over the sink to catch the juices dripping from my teeth, down my chin.

The peach fuzz seems not to be bothering me, and the deep pleasure of eating them whole in random moments on my way from bedroom to closet to front door and back again is one I had not expected.

*********

Another Jessica and Andrew and I met for brunch yesterday afternoon, and then afterwards meandered our way back to their apartment for an afternoon of watching Black Dynamite and going through Jessica's handbag collection to see if there was anything that struck my fancy (girlish things again -- there are simply situations in which my trust old messenger bag just won't do).  Andrew started feeling ill and went off to lie down for a bit but when I turned to Jessica and quietly said that perhaps it would be best if I left, she shook her head and said, "No, no need -- you're family!"

Other than missing Andrew's company it was a lovely afternoon and it warmed my heart to be thought of as such.

evan's calzones

(Lake cabin dinner, 6.15.10)

paul's green stuff

Paul's Green Stuff
(aka Fresh Coriander Cashew Chutney)

Put in a food processor and chop:
1 cup fresh cilantro*
1 hot green chili pepper, chopped
3 tablespoons lemon puree
1 tablespoon water

Add & chop:
1/2 cup cashews

Put above in a bowl and add 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, and salt & pepper to taste

*This recipe is from Paul, obviously, via the little notebook of family recipes that Mom gave me a few years back. Mom included a note at the bottom that they usually double or triple the recipe -- because it's just that good. I would also include a note to be sure to rinse the cilantro THOROUGHLY. Cilantro tends to hold a lot of grit -- dirt, sand, whatever. Poor brother Nate made a huge batch of this for my birthday party one year and forgot to rinse the cilantro. Needless to say, we had most of it left by the end of the party. I refrigerated it anyway, though, and discovered a day or two later that most of the grit and sunk to the bottom of the container and so was able to eat the rest. Good for me, bad for the party guests. Rinse that cilantro. A lot.