Fresh Cracked Pepper

I could do the cucaracha right now. Problem is, I don’t really know what the cucaracha is. But if I did, I’d clutch these granola bars in my hands and shake them like marakas. 

You see, I’ve been wishin’ and hopin’ and dreamin’ about creating the perfect home-made baked granola bars: toasty brown on the outside but with just the right chew factor that (some of) the bought ones have. I’ve managed with the chewy ones and the rolled ones and the fudgy ones, but the good old fashioned baked version has eluded me.

Part of the problem is pickyness. I’ve tried over 15 recipes, tweaking and re-tweaking. I’ve meticulously recorded every substitution and result. Most of the bars have turned out quite edible — something to be proud of even. But there’s always been one tiny problem. Too sticky. Too crispy. Too crumbly.

To add to my dismay, I desperately wanted crispy rice cereal in these elusive bars. Just a wee bit of that airy crunch you can hear in the back of your head when you chew. But no: whenever I’d add the sticky ingredients, those rice puffs would soak it all in and mush up like aforgotten bowl of cereal. I wasn’t about to make Rice Krispy squares, laden with butter and melted marshmallows. I wanted something good for you. 

Eventually I gave up and bought some, just like normal people do. But after the 18th disappointing, too-sweet bar with a novel-length ingredients list, I went back to my oats and my coconut. I begged them to co-operate. I needed them to get me through the last two weeks of school without putting up a fight.

I guess I did something right. Sometimes I think ingredients, like people, just need to be loved. People talk to plants, horses, babies — why not craisins and pumpkin seeds?  As I wax poetic about something that was probably more luck than oat-whispering, I beseech you: Quaker and Kashi got nothing on homemade bars. Unless, of course, it takes you months to get them how you like them.

Good granola bars depend on the right proportion of ingredients, a sticky binder, and the right baking time and temperature. After many trials, I think I’ve found the right bar to usher me into a new season of triathlon training. 

Wherever it is you play, take a little sunshine. (This is why I’m not in advertising!)

Continue reading ‘Homemade Energy Bars IV: Sunshine Bars’

Sure happiness might be a warm gun to the Beatles, but to me, it’s a piece of halva the size of a brick. I’ve been asked for more food pictures from Israel, but alas, I’ve shared them all.

A short post with no recipe — how dare I? Yet I write not just to be useful, but for poetry: for the love of food, and simply because it brings me joy.

This is the freshest halva in Syracuse. Light and studded in perfect proportions with pistachios. It’s so good, it’s worth waiting in line for (especially when the line runs next to about 15 open buckets of olives.  Today I was caught, thank goodness only by a mischievous old lady.)

When life sends those  sudden sweet cravings, halva comes in swiftly to the rescue. When I’ve got this much of it on hand, I know that things will be just fine.

I tried to come up with a more clever name for this amazing Monday night surprise, but knowing that few could resist such an alluring combination, decided to tempt away. I came home at 8 p.m.  to the fruits of Mark’s unlikely domestic day: fresh pizza dough and israeli couscous salad for tomorrow’s lunch. Not to mention the new 15$ box of wine sitting in my cupboard, happily plump.  

Even when it comes to life’s finer things, sometimes I’m not afraid to admit to a cheap streak. Drinking wine with pizza on a cold and rainy Monday night would otherwise seem too indulgent. That’s the short story of how boxed wine became my best friend. 

Let me walk you through this creation we’re just on the brink of perfecting. The first time we made it we used too few onions, and our blue cheese wasn’t blue enough. Add our too-toasty walnuts to the mix and we had ourselves a disappointment. But I wasn’t prepared to give up on such robust ingredients, waiting there as if to beg me to bring them to justice.

This time we ramped up the caramelized onions, spreading them thick and sweetly gooey over olive-oil brushed dough rounds. (Next time I’d do even more than the picture shows!)

Then we added the walnuts, in chunks big enough to be surprising but small enough to blend in. If you’ve never had nuts on a pizza, you’re in for a treat. Pine nuts could work well here, too.

After about 7 minutes in a firey hot oven, we dotted them with cubes of perfect gorgonzola, and placed them back in the oven 5 more minutes.

The result? A crisp, yet chewy pizza dough (we used this month’s Bon Appetit recipe because of its large, freezeable yield), teeming with flavors that almost seem to good to be hanging out together on a pizza. I almost felt guilty finishing mine, but then I remembered how stressed out I am, and how food tends to make medium-sized sorrows turn to extra-large joys.

Even if for only 30 sweet, candle-lit minutes.  

Continue reading ‘walnut, gorgonzola and caramelized onion pizza’

If only there was something yummy and exotic that made itself. Something you could just quickly cut up, stir, and plop in a container, only to turn out 5 days later in a delicious new guise.

Wait! There is! It’s called kimchi, and for it’s tart and tangy goodness we can thank the Koreans.

I’m seeing Korean food turn up everywhere. On the pages of Bon Appetit, on food blogs, and even in the New York Times. It’s even gone fusion, with a Twittering taco truck that brings mobile eats to its loyal followers. Kimchi is so important that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute even developed space kimch. Why? To accompany the first Korean astronaut to the Russian space ship, Soyuz, of course.

I can’t remember when I first tasted kimchi, but it wasn’t too long ago. I then started buying some locally-made stuff, available at the Central New York Regional Farmer’s Market, in all sorts of shades and styles. Being the fermentation freak that I am, my next thought was  ”OK, my turn.”  Anyone who’s been to my apartment has seen the various fermenting things lying around my house. And before you run away scared, know that each one of them is darn delicious.

Food that is fast, easy, healthy and given to leftovers is manna for me right now. Finishing up my masters leaves little time for poring over new recipes (sad face #1), therapeutic vegetable chopping (sad face #2), and zen-ful stove-top stirring (sad face #3). To this sorry state came my new friend kimchi.

The fabulous ferment did not only arrive to a dire, time-crunched situation, but to a household with a brand-new mandolin. Picked up for a steal of a deal on Amazon with Christmas money, this Japanese slider-knife is a miracle in a drawer. With this little beauty and a far superior recipe, my second batch of kimchi turned out much better than my clunky, over-garlicked first batch.

What, you may ask, is kimchi? It’s a Korean side dish with an inimitable taste. Crunchy ribbons of daikon and carrot folding over each other between layers of ruffled Napa cabbage. Korean spices melding with garlic and ginger, fermented to perfection. Served at room temperate beside fried rice or a plate of egg rolls, or just eaten out of a jar, kimchee is a great snack full of healthy probiotics.

Just make sure you don’t spill it all over your gym bag.

But best of all, the do-it-yourself kind almost does it itself.

Continue reading ‘the chi of kimchi’

I didn’t intend to post on this, but it begs to be shared. Born from the need to make lots of healthy food to sustain us through a busy week, it emerged one afternoon between work sessions. The recipe is from a former roommate, and it’s the kind of thing you’ll almost always have the ingredients for. 

Usually when I think of mung beans, bean sprouts jump to mind. But this showcases them as the meaty, chewy legume they were born to be. OK, maybe beans don’t have destinies, but we can pretend. You can find them dried in Asian grocery stores, and all they need is a couple hours’ soak.

You start off by frying some fragrant spices in oil, add your beans and rice, top it with some water and set it to simmer. It’s that easy, and it all happens in one happy wok. It’s incredibly low-maintenance, great for a busy work day.

It’s hard to get sick of this (even after day 5) because you can dress it up in so many different ways. By adding sweet caramelized onions, a sliced hard boiled egg, and a side of yogurt, it becomes like an Indian curry—a platform for all sorts of tasty additions. You could make fried rice out of it one evening, and wrap it up in some flatbread with slices of baked tofu the next.

Sometimes a bowl of beans and rice, redolent of mild chai, can remind you that it’s good to be alive. Perhaps that’s a stretch, but it makes me appreciate the simple things.

Continue reading ’spiced bangladeshi mung beans and rice’

One of my fondest school days memories is a grade four geography project. Our teacher put us in teams and gave each team a country to research and report on. At the end of the unit, we put on a cultural fair for our parents and other classrooms. Each team hosted one of the booths set up around the perimeter of the classroom.

What country did I get assigned to? France. Trying to ignore pangs of jealousy for the kids on the African, Asian, and South American teams, we began to brainstorm. One thing on the list was which French food we would provide samples of. My vote for fries was quickly bulldozed by the safety issues of a deep fryer in an elementary classroom.

The next best thing? Pea soup. As if France wasn’t bad enough. Now nobody would come to our booth.

I was a naive child. In the end I was proud of us, decked out in berets. I was also proud of the booth we ran, with its red-and-white checkered tablecloth and café atmosphere.

But oh, the soup. I can’t remember whose mom made it, but it was silky-smooth and a bright crayon-green. Sweet, with a gulp of robust legumes. Fresher than chili but more satisfying than your average, pedestrian vegetable soup. Parents were passing up  chow mein and strudel for our soup.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t eat pea soup again until a few months ago at a friend’s house. It was one of those simple suppers — one I’d never think of making, but that delighted me with every slurp. Pea soup went back on the back burner.

And then I bought a cookbook that convinced me to try it for myself. With one success down, I decided to go for it. After all, the first day of spring passed on Friday with nary an offering from me—how could I be so ignorant? A new season, one of my favorite things, and a warmer, friendlier one at that.

To you spring, I offer this bowl of pea parmesan: surpassing my expectations with its richness, the heartiness of a passing winter and the freshness of new green.

Good thing seasons don’t eat soup, because I’m a selfish sparrow.

*bracelet by Rachel Sudlow

Continue reading ‘give peas a chance’

I’m back home, but still dreaming.  Travel will do that. Linger relentlessly, populating your dreams, disturbing your sleep patterns. Syracuse is folding into spring rather reliably, but I am slow — crawling, not skipping, back into normal life.

Here are some of the things that stick. I know I owe you a recipe or two, but please, let me indulge for just one more post.

Pistachios rolled in light crispy nests that crumble between your teeth and have just the perfect amount of sweetness. I didn’t take the chance to ask their name, I was too busy digging in my pockets for more shekels. 

In North America it seems our sweets are always trapped behind glass, meticulously arrayed on delicate plates and boasting of extravagance. In many of the places I’ve visited — Africa, India, Israel, to name three — sweets play a different role. They’re part of everyday life, not an “sinful indulgence.” Vendors display them in the open air, as if making offerings to the gods. For less than a dollar you can buy just enough to satisfy, and on you go.  

Dried things and bins of mysterious staples. Everywhere food mingling with the everyday. Walking to work between buckets of olives, children playing beneath tables of butter-smooth dates, women stopping to stock up on wine and Challah bread for Shabbat.

Paradoxical strawberries: huge, but tasting of the tiny field berries of summer. Bananas sweeter and fresher than any others I’ve tasted. 

Rugelach and pastries decorate the night. Laughter spills out of cafes, and piles of poppyseed, cinnamon, cheese, and chocolate-filled pastries tempt. Sesame seeds stick to your lips as you walk back to your hotel.

Nuts and fruit of all colors, dried kiwi and pineapple and salty almonds, still in their shell. Crystallized figs and all manner of tea and spices tower like make-believe mountains. My bags bounce against my hip as I swerve to avoid a motorcycle zipping down an alley in the Old City. I stop to buy a piece of fresh, soft halwa, its texture like dense cotton candy. It dissolves instantly on my tongue — sensation becomes memory.

I’m back in the land of sprawling grocery stores and incredible variety. Mexican for lunch and Chinese for dinner? Why not. Lemongrass and peanut butter and whole grain bread, all within a few feet from each other.

A walk through a distant land has once again reminded me of all that I have, and of all that I take for granted. It’s good to be home, but sometimes I wish my streets were lined with such bounty. I guess back home we just have to look a bit harder for the things that delight.

…so I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Exodus 3:8

I’ve been in Israel now for almost 5 days.  It seems strange to write about food when so much else is going on in my heart and mind.  I thought it important, however, to share what’s been on my plate.

Our first meal in Israel (spent at an Jewish/Arab intentional community kibbutz called Neve-Shalom/Wahat al-Salem —”Oasis of Peace”) was a sensory feast that seemed to set the stage for the coming trip. Baba Ghanoush so smoky and fresh, hummus as smooth as melting ice cream and drizzled with olive oil, fennel and pepper sliced thinly and dressed in lemon juice and parsely. Fall-off-the-bone chicken, Mejadarra, ground lamb in pine nut cream, green beans, and pita.

It’s very hard not to overindulge when everything is so new and somehow fleeting.

On the third day here I did a morning run with the Sea of Galilee as my backdrop. The air smelled like jasmine, and I returned to what’s become my usual breakfast: a boiled egg, tangy fresh yogurt, tomatoes, cucumbers and feta.

I’m always amazed, when traveling, at breakfasts across the world.

On the fourth day,  I had my first Israeli falafal in a small town outside of Nazareth. The corner shack was packed with people, and the the men moved in succession behind the counter, flipping fresh, cripsy falafal into the soft, chewy-sweet pitas I’ve never tasted anywhere but here. The bar behind them was a spread of purple cabbage and marinated eggplant, firery red tomatoes, and all manner of toppings. We stuffed those pitas until they were dripping with tahini, and ate them in the sun beside armed Israeli soldiers.

Sometimes a simple lunch, when eaten next to a complicated symbol, seems heavier than it really was. A piece of baklava, eaten an hour later on the bus as we passed by Jericho, dripping with honey.

Tomorrow we will visit the Garden of Gethsemane, where olive trees have been dated to the time of Jesus Christ. This land is dotted with them, and the streets overflow with buckets of their fruit. Like shiny black stones lining the cobblestone walkways, they fill the city air with their pungent aroma.

Everywhere I turn is something new. Some religious site crying out to be significant. A manger covered over with centuries of stone and conflict. The little town of Bethlehem (beth: “house” lehem: “bread”)—where people go hungry every day. My heart is full and my mind teeming, my plate full to overflowing.

I must say though, with all that I’m experiencing here with regard to food, Nescafe and I aren’t getting along so well.

There’s two kinds of people in this world. Those who take best befores as expiration dates, and those who take expiration dates as a supper idea. I’ve lived with both over the years, a family member who will toss a whole container of yogurt past it’s best before, and roommates who’ll scrape the moldy skin off the top of sour cream, give a little sniff, and dollop away.

A bit of mold or natty spinach leaves don’t bother me much. I believe that when it comes to food, the nose knows, and the tastebuds will tell.  That doesn’t mean that when you come over for dinner next I’ll be secretly poisoning you, it just means that I use my senses, not a “MAR 5-09″ stamped on white plastic. 

Being frugal is also important these days, and as a student, I’m always looking for ways to eat well on a budget. Imagine my delight when I came across a new website called  Still Tasty, tips on how to keep your food fresh, and how to spot when it’s not. 

This is the ultimate resource when your Mom’s not around to tell you if Saturday’s stir-fry is still safe. Still Tasty offers guidance on how to keep fruit gorgeous, how to defrost safely, and the best ways to store your staples. Storage tips can be lifesavers. When I learned how to store herbs from Simply Recipes, I went from someone who never has cilantro or mint to a veritable herb garden.

So next time you find yourself unsure of how to care for your fresh chervil or tamarillos, get clicking!

Since I last posted, I don’t  really have much to say for myself,  food-wise. Late nights in the lab learning advanced digital editing software, long meetings trying to plan the production of a satire magazine, early-morning swims and hours studying Media Law result in meals of bannanas and hummus-cucumber roll ups.  Save for a chocolate cake made with last summer’s frozen zucchini (will post on that one, soon) and a pretty ordinary Mexican Pizza, I haven’t been cooking up any show-stoppers lately.

And that’s OK, isn’t it? It’s these times when I’m glad I wrote blog posts months ago and stored them up, like little jars of oats, for a bleaker tomorrow. It’s also interesting how some things you think are toss aways come back and speak squarely to the present.

On a stifling day last summer I made an Israeli salad in a kitchen that had sumac, a spice I’d never cooked with. Now, nine months later, I’m going to Israel. I put the pictures  on the back shelf to share with you sometime when it seemed right, and now here it is, newly appropriate.

It’s called Za’atar Salad, and is a dish often deemed Israeli but eaten all over the Middle East. If any of you have seen the film The Visitor, Mouna makes this salad for Walter when he first joins her for dinner. It’s the most sensual salad-making scene I’ve seen in a long time — the way she juices the lemons by hand over the bowl of glistening primary colors.

I leave a week today for Jerusalem, a place that has existed largely in my imagination. It’s the place where my faith has its roots. I am imagining it will feel strangely familiar, almost enveloping. I know it will seem alien, too, separate and distinct from this North American Christianity I have been nurtured in. Sites might seem like felt board scenes or picture Bible pages writ large.

A Barn Birth. A Good Samaritan. A road in Damascus. Anger in a temple-turned-marketplace. A goblet of wine and some bread. A betrayal and an ear, cut away from a cheek. One man’s death, and a cold stone tomb. All these stories swirling in the dust, suddenly louder than words.

It will likely be touristy, politically charged, mystical and commercial all wrapped up like a gyro, and yet I can’t wait.

My companions will be thirteen other students and three of the chaplains from Syracuse University’s interfaith chapel. Like this salad, we will be a colorful mix of personalities and stories, flecked with the new flavors of a place we might not have been able to visit in another time. Muslims, Jews and Christians we will share our stories and play their colors off  each other.

As this simple salad did, maybe we’ll show each other a new way of experiencing the ingredients of the three Abrahamic faiths.

And so while I prepared rather poorly  for Lent this year (yoga followed by free pancakes at IHOP), a visit to the Holy Land seems like a good way to kick-start my journey toward the joy of Easter. I think it would be so easy to feel pressure regarding a trip like this, especially if you’re a person who derives part of their spiritual identity from the place. You know, pressure to see the right things, feel profound emotions, that kind of thing.

I think I’ll just try to take it all in—slowly, and making sure to chew after every bite.

Continue reading ‘za’atar from afar’