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May 15, 2014

“Stoner” . . .

“Stoner” is the name of a novel (1965) by a writer named John Williams who taught English literature at University of Denver and who is not very well known among the pantheon of famous novelists. It came to my attention by reading a review of it in last Sunday’s New York Times which you can read for yourself here.

It arrived via my Amazon Prime account and I’m almost finished reading it. As noted in the review, it’s the life story of a man named William Stoner who teaches English literature at the University of Missouri and what happens in his life. What is engaging about reading and thinking about it is that some people in our culture would ask why it’s worth spending time reading about a “loser.” While others see it as a “perfect novel” about an ordinary person’s life, illuminating for readers that things do not always end up well and people do not always end up living “happily ever after” as our Walt Disney culture is wont to press upon us.

In fact, it is this counter-culture kind of attitude and tone that I relished reading about in this handbook of a novel. The writer describes the excruciating viciousness of academia politics which many know firsthand and which illustrates how petty people can be about power. Undoubtedly, these struggles occur everyday in politics everywhere and even in small town civic groups of volunteers which I have some knowledge about myself.

William Stoner was fortunate. He was able to pursue his love of English and literature and make it into a lifelong profession rather than being forced to be a farmer living out a hardscrabble life like his father’s. He loved his wife even though she turned her back on him shortly after they married, keeping his only daughter from being close to him. He cleaned the house, took care of the baby, did the chores and prepared his lessons. His spouse chose to be distant from him while living off him until he died.

He also loved and was truly loved by someone other than his wife. They had a brief time together, one of personal integrity, a triumph over the odds of people bent on destroying them because they were happy. He was full of dogged fortitude in standing up for his beliefs even when it inured his enemy to become even more vindictive than thought possible over a long period of time. And then he dies.

Many of us subscribe to the “happily ever after” model of the American Dream. We think that if we only hope and work hard towards our dreams that eventually they will come true. Along the way are pitfalls, things that happen that become water under the dam that we don’t speak about and sooner or later, we look back to see if we feel good about how our life turned out or not.

If we have been lucky, we will accept what we see in the dry way that William Stoner did. He realized when things did not turn out the way he wanted them to and he kept going. Most of all, he did what he really wanted to do–which was to be a teacher even if he was not the most popular or highly regarded professor. And he was deeply loved by another person even if they were not able to be together for very long.

Life is full of people who take a dislike to us for reasons we don’t understand. It also introduces us to people who love us even when we are difficult to get along with. When I look around at the people who struggle to make ends meet and who look to find some solace in their everyday schedules, I wonder about how many stories like “Stoner” there are or might have been.

If you want to ruminate about what life is all about, you wouldn’t do badly to pick up this book at the library or read it on an airplane when you’re on your way from here to there.

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May 11, 2014

“mother’s day” celebration. . .

a miniature carrot cake . . .

Last Saturday, I picked up in the kitchen, putting pantry foodstuffs together on a large tray for G. to help put away. You know how things pile up during the week on the chairs, magazines, newspapers, books? I emptied out several caches of them stacked around our living space that opens to the kitchen, our great room where we spend most of our waking hours.

I pulled myself onto the old leather couch to take a rest after a couple of hours of light housekeeping, planning to read some magazines before lunch. G. arrived from one of his piano moves and clucked at me to go and take my shower with the bench placed in the tub so that I could sit while washing my hair. But, i protested, wanting to wait awhile until I caught my breath. No luck–as G. nudged me towards the bedroom.

Sighing, I went along, finding myself secure enough to stand partly for the warm water to run down my back and then, sitting on the seat, washed my hair, putting a moisturizing cream rinse at the end. Dripping, I combed out my tangled hair with a wide-toothed wooden comb.

Almost dressed, I heard a light, lilting voice saying, “hello!” I looked up and saw my youngest daughter, C. (who lives an hour away,) walking towards me as though an apparition. She said, “Surprise, Mom! I brought you lunch to celebrate mother’s day today because we’re going to be out of town next weekend at a wedding in Chicago.”

dark purple parrot tulips, orange ranunculus, wonderful ferns . . .

Honestly, I was speechless! It’s hard to surprise me about anything and I realized G. was cued in on the surprise too, hence his shuffling me to take a shower sooner rather than later. With a wide smile on her face, Caitlin brought in bags of food and a gorgeous flower arrangement of dark purple parrot tulips, orange ranunculus and fine-leaved ferns, casually encircling the bouquet. She was an angel who brought this little mother’s day treat, hosted in absentia also by my daughter M. and their partners, plus my granddaughter, J., of course.

Here are photos of this little feast! I am so touched by this thoughtful gesture. It was one of the best mother’s day celebrations ever, especially so beautifully wrought a week early!

And thanks to everyone, especially, C., who was so sweet and thoughtful to enact this mother’s day tribute. The food was fabulous!

shrimp wonton and baby bok choy soup . . .

fresh sushi . . .

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May 6, 2014

spring steps . . .

my granddaughter’s shoes . . .

Sometimes, it feels like time stands still and progress is impeded. Or worse, something happens that stalls or detours what we’d like to see happen. Yesterday or the day before, I was cooking in the kitchen and twice ran the big toe of my injured foot into something–the stove or the fridge as I swiveled around in my wheelchair. So much for my naivete, thinking I could safely get around by myself!

The result was an angry looking, red, swollen joint on my big toe the next day which I gingerly iced for ten minutes at a time. I was also miffed at myself for being careless and not putting on the right side Teva sandal to protect the foot which protrudes beyond the footrest of the wheelchair. Anyhow, it’s better today and so I decided to venture into the pantry adjacent to our kitchen to sort and cull out canned goods for a U.S. Postal food drive scheduled for this Saturday. The only thing is, there’s a step down from our kitchen to get into the pantry.

Normally, we wouldn’t even notice such things that we take for granted. So in order to get in the pantry, the wheelchair footrests had to come off. Then, I pulled the wheelchair gingerly into the pantry, reattached the footrests and sat down in it, pulling things out like lentil soup and chick peas that I didn’t think we’d use. I also put G.’s cans of Coke into the small fridge that we use for drinks so as to free up space in the big fridge we use in the kitchen.

Sounds good, right? Except for the near-fall that I took when I tripped, getting the wheelchair into the pantry, breaking a china cannister that was in the way. I managed to pick up the broken pieces with my handy grabber, proud of myself that I was able to get most of the broken pieces into a double layered plastic grocery bag. I’ll ask G. to sweep up the rest of it up once he’s back home since I don’t want to push my luck any further.

In looking through the foodstuffs, I discovered I had plenty of dried tree ear, shitake mushrooms, dried bean curd skin, tiger lily root and cellophane noodles. When soaked in a bowl of hot water before ready to use, they are then rinsed, and cut up and then cooked with some napa cabbage, resulting in one of my favorite dishes, Buddha’s Delight. I remembered there was a small container of marinated ground pork and shrimp left over from making wontons last week which I’ll defrost and add to our buddha dish, slightly departing from the recipe’s vegetarian origins. No matter, I thought, it will still taste good. So, that’s how tonight’s dinner got decided.

“buddha’s delight” for dinner . . .

Afterwards, I pulled myself onto the couch and looked outside at the beautiful, sunny, early Spring day. Somehow, it reminded me of Beethoven’s “Archduke Trio” which I saved into a playlist from my library on I-Tunes and emailed to my daughters, M. and C. to see if they could download it and enjoy the wonderful piece themselves where they are, working so hard today to study for exams and preparing students for theirs too.

So simple: clean things out; try not to fall (too badly); use what I already have to make supper; look out the window at the beautiful Spring Day, listen to Beethoven; share it with the kids.

That works for me! At least for today.

Postscript: Happy to report the next day, I was shown by a physical therapist how to use crutches to go up and down the steps (bad foot down first; good foot up first.)

We live on the third floor of a large Queen Anne Victorian house so there are lots of steps, and also thankfully, lots of landings on which to rest. Having gotten over my reticence to try it out, I figured I’m going to be on crutches a lot longer while the ankle strengthens and becomes more limber, so going up and down the stairs with crutches (rather than sitting and sliding on my backside) is a logical next step to take.

A supper of mustard/rosemary/garlic marinated lamb loin chops and fresh asparagus made it all worthwhile!

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May 4, 2014

tried and true . . .

One of the tried-and-true favorite dishes i like to make (and we enjoy eating) is teriyaki chicken thighs. I’ve made it using a bottled marinade (Soy Vay.) But it comes out fresher and lighter (less salty) with a marinade I put together about an hour and half before broiling. This goes well for chicken cooked on the first grill of the season too.

In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons Ohsawa soy sauce, 2 tablespoons Billy Bee honey, 2 tablespoons cooking sherry (Holland House); a chopped up fresh green onion and a generous amount of grated fresh ginger root (on a box grater.) It will smell heavenly.

Rinse the chicken thighs under cold water and dry each one thoroughly with paper towels. I always do this and do not take the pieces directly from vacuum packaging to the marinade. No excess water should be left on the pieces because it dilutes the marinade. I cover the marinating chicken with a plate on top of the bowl at room temperature for about an hour or so.

To cook, heat the broiler to high and place the oven rack a third of the way down from the broiler. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil and spray with Pam. The pan should hold the number of thighs you are cooking so that they are close enough for the juices to run together but not so far apart that the pieces dry out during cooking. If the pan is too close to the heat source, it burns rather than cooking the chicken; if it’s too far away, you’ll be drying out the chicken rather than crisping it up. Take a look part way through and check this proportion of space and the level of heat you’re getting from your broiler.

Broiling chicken takes a little closer watching than baking, but with the soy marinade, baking can sometimes dry out the meat too quickly. I just keep an eye on broiling chicken while I’m cooking the rest of the meal.

With it, I like to serve sauteed zucchini with a half an onion sliced diagonally in slivers. I use olive oil and sprinkle the cooked squash with a little Maldon salt. Tonight I’m also going to cook up a packet of Minnesota wild rice (Carolina brand) with big bits of button mushrooms browned in a little unsalted butter, then added on top of the wild rice once the rice has absorbed all of the liquid. It’s Sunday, after all, right? Now, all I have to do is get to my walker in order to find the rice in the pantry.

Even though it sounds like a straightforward meal to put together, I’m lucky to have G. help me with various steps, washing pots and bowls as they are emptied, taking hot food off the burners and serving it onto our dinner plates. He’s had a number of piano moves and tunings today so it’s been a full day of work for him.

It’s nice to finally sit down to a tried-and-true meal together on a sunny, windy Spring night.

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May 4, 2014

magical thinking . . .

Magical thinking may lead people to believe that their thoughts by themselves can bring about effects in the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it.^[1] It is a type of causal reasoning or causal fallacy that looks for meaningful relationships of grouped phenomena (coincidence) between acts and events.

I don’t know about you but magical thinking permeates my life, at least lately. So many coincidental things have happened. It reminds me again of what people call “New Age” frame of mind: that there are Helpers in the Universe and all you have to do is to acknowledge you need help, ask for it even if it’s not out loud so anyone can hear you doing it, and somehow, help arrives in unseen ways.

From last Sunday to today, serendipitous things have happened too numerous to count: a repair was done on my laptop under a warranty I didn’t know I had; something of value that was thought to be lost suddenly reappeared. And greatly needed help surfaced in a situation that was permeated with bad energy and felt like a dead end.

I don’t know what magical thinking may have had to do with all of these situations, but it feels to me like there is a script somewhere that we can’t read ahead of time. In our American culture, it’s easy to think that if only we (fill in the blanks) that things will change for the better in time. Sometimes it takes a very long time. And sometimes, something happens that decimates all the things that you think you can’t solve or change.

That’s what has happened with my ankle injury in February. Suddenly, my priorities were a) how to get a good night’s sleep with a heavy cast on my leg; b)getting to the bathroom when I needed it; and c)making sure that I did everything for my ankle to heal, noticing how touching the caring ministrations of my husband, daughters and friends have been through it all.

Gratitude has a lot to do with the amount of magical dust that sprinkles itself into one’s life I think. Hardship is another factor too. I believe (and maybe this is my own brand of magical thinking,) that no matter how dark it appears to be before the dawn, that it’s important to apply oneself, to be honest with oneself and to do one’s best to get through hard times no matter how bad, sad or bereft one becomes at the seeming hopelessness of it all. Is that what is known as faith?

Help sometimes arrives years later than we wished for it. Timing is not up to us, God knows. In hindsight when looking back on my own life, events took their time coming together before the jigsaw puzzle pieces fell in place and then readjusted themselves.

Being in the moment is all we have. Most of what we berate ourselves about is small stuff in the grand scheme of things. If it has taken weeks of being bedridden to learn this lesson, it has certainly been worth it.

Thanks to all my helpers, seen and unseen!

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April 25, 2014

cast-away! . . .

with new removable boot . . .

Well, I got both my feet back today. The one that I broke badly in February is finely freed from hard casts which have been replenished since February 20th. When the latest cast was removed today, G. and I were relieved to see that the foot, ankle and leg appeared less swollen than they were three weeks ago. What a relief!

The surgeon took a look at the x-rays that were taken today and declared them to be “awesome!” I don’t know if he meant the erector-set like plates and screws that he had fashioned inside my ankle, holding the broken pieces together or how it was healing. We hope that he meant both.

Anthony, the cast technician, then put a removable boot on the leg, and thus well-cushioned, we made our way to the grocery store and then back home again to the eyrie that we live in on the third floor of our Queen Anne Victorian house.

For the next four weeks, I am to be tender to the freed leg, putting only 25% of my body weight on it at any given time. I think I’m going to treat it as though it were still in the hard cast, doing the simple stretching and rotation exercises three times a day. Physical therapy won’t even begin until after the next visit. It will be at least two months before I can begin to think about driving a car!

In the meantime, I’m grateful for what appears to be uneventful healing: that is, no complications and no worries really, except for a few weeks of restless insomnia due to the heavy cast and underlying anxiety about relieving my foot from its armour.

So tonight, we’re going to celebrate today’s positive outcome by sharing a nice ribeye steak, Yukon creamer potatoes crispy in their skin with butter and garlic salt and homemade cole slaw with cabbage, carrots and golden raisins in a ranch-ey salad dressing with fresh lemon zest.

Yesterday, I discovered a cache of photographs from the holidays in my Dropbox, never having paid much attention to it up to now. Here is a photo worth a thousand words of J., the joy of all of our lives, hopping around on the deck of a house that we stayed in Brewster on the Cape after Christmas last year.

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April 20, 2014

easter . . .

French macarons . . .

G. and I are enjoying a quiet, sunny day today. The kids are visiting in-laws and so we will have a quiet day and a simple supper tonight. Right now, I am listening to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” and feeling like snapping my fingers to the music–it’s so much fun to listen to it! Earlier, I went to the piano and played the 2nd movement of the C minor Fantasie by Mozart. The makeshift wooden board that G. placed over the pedal worked well with my leg that still has a heavy cast on it.

Last night, with absolutely nothing to watch on TV (unless you wanted to tune into a four-and a half hour view of the “Ten Commandments”,) we decided to watch “Amadeus” the 1984 movie which won 8 Academy Awards. It’s a little grating to me with the Mozart character’s neighing all the time (from Tourette’s Syndrome)? But F. Murray Abraham (who won an Oscar for best actor in this best picture) plays Salieri, a rival court composer whose works are banal compared to Mozart’s and who is obsessed both by God’s gift of talent to Mozart and his equally strong belief that God has shortchanged him of same. This assignation of “blame” to God for Salieri’s shortcomings is one of the amusing conceits of the film. Reading about Salieri online, he is purported to have taught the likes of Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt so he must not have been as lightweight a musician as the movie, “Amadeus,” makes him out to be.

Anyhow, seeing the period instruments (since G. specializes in all things piano) is a treat to watch. I was also reminded again hearing excerpts of Mozart’s great Mass in C minor with its rousing opening “Kyrie” how great a composition it is. So, I listened to it this a.m. before segue-ing to the more upbeat and laid back jazz of Dave Brubeck’s quartet and Paul Desmond playing saxophone. Did you know that it was actually Desmond who composed “Take Five?” I didn’t until recently when I watched Clint Eastwood’s masterful biographical DVD of Dave Brubeck which we saw on PBS a couple of years ago.

For lunch today, I’m going to heat up some frozen Korean dumplings with chives and make a piquant dipping sauce of Chinese black vinegar, Japanese seasoned rice vinegar, Ohsawa soy sauce, sesame oil, chopped scallions and grated fresh ginger root. Afterwards, we’ll try a tiny sliver of the dark chocolate sour cream cake that I made yesterday afternoon. I had to bake it ten more minutes than the recipe called for and even then, the beautifully rounded middle sunk when cooled so it looked like a miniature tube cake!

I also had difficulty broiling a miso eggplant dish for dinner last night–you couldn’t chew it and it felt and tasted like wet cardboard. I even tried frying it afterwards but to no avail. Then, I remembered the pizza stone the other night didn’t seem hot enough even though heated to 500 degrees. And that instead of the pizza taking 3-5 minutes to cook, it still wasn’t done at 15 minutes and I had to turn on the broiler to finish it. So, dear reader, it occurred to me that perhaps my stove/oven isn’t heating up properly. (DUH!) It’s about a dozen years old and I cook a lot, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s losing its legs, heat-wise that is.

So, I dug out my oven thermometer and will be double-checking whether it preheats to 425 degrees when I get ready to roast the rack of lamb that we’re going to have for dinner tonight. I use Julia Child’s recipe for a mustard (Grey Poupon Country Dijon), olive oil, soy sauce, fresh rosemary chopped and lots of minced garlic–the marinade coating applied for the room-temperature lamb before going into the oven. The lamb on the rack looks miniscule so I’m hopeful that there will be something tasty there when it comes out of the dubious oven.

Yesterday, I don’t know what came over me–perhaps it was re-reading a cohort of British cookery books in the last few days–I decided to cull out and reorganize my bookshelves, one whole section of which is dedicated to food. One of the shelves now includes a set of Terence Conran, Roald Dahl, Jane Garmey and Time-Life volumes on making galantines, terrines, meat pies, trifles and aspic with eggs. In this group, I rediscovered the absolutely wonderful simple and yet appealing recipes in Nigel Slater’s cookery books. Slater’s recipe for roasting chicken wings suffused with fresh lemons and cracked pepper until the wings are caramelized to the baking sheet is one I’m going to try next week, I think.

Even though they were somewhat pricey, I went through some books yesterday that had recipes I know I would never try (too conventional, complicated or took too much work/ingredients) so they went into the carton that will be donated to our local library. That is the only way I can justify ridding myself of books–which is to recycle them at an institution that will either catalog them or sell them in their bookstore.

Back to the reorganization, the revised bookshelves also hold a section of what I call “Celebrity Chefs”: David Chang’s “Momofuku”, Rene Redzepi’s “Noma”,Thomas Keller’s”French Laundry”, Daniel Boulud, Stanley Tucci, Jane Grigson, Judy Rodgers’ Zuni Cafe Cookbook and the River Cottage series by that guy who has an un-spellable name.

On the top shelf (for most usage) are short stacks of cookbooks featuring Asian noodles, tofu, dim sum, Chinese snacks, Bento box and Japanese Zen/Temple cookery. There’s also a smaller section down below on macrobiotic and raw vegetable ideas. Right now, I think I’ll be cooking more recipes out of the Nigel Slater books than anything else. Not only are the books now better organized, there’s now room for more!

The photos above and below are of an order of French macarons that I made and had sent to C. and her husband for Easter. She teaches high-school French so these little treats seemed like the perfect thing for Easter. She’s going to share them with her in-laws after their luncheon today. The funny thing about them is that I ordered them from a baker on Etsy (one of my favorite places to find homemade things,) and in finalizing the purchase, I noticed a Chinese name in their email address. Sure enough, she was trained in France to bake these macaron specialties but like me, she’s Chinese. I meet many artists who are Asian on this site. And in the oddest of places too–like with these macarons. They’re made of egg whites and an almond paste filling–somewhat like marzipan, I think. They arrived in time and C. said they shared one macaron before bringing them to the Easter luncheon and it was delicious!

rack of lamb with mustard, rosemary, garlic glaze . . .

In addition to the mustard/rosemary rack of lamb medium rare (hopefully,) we’re having artichokes with a curry mayonnaise as a starter, the lamb, small yukon potatoes crisped in butter and garlic salt, and parsnips (G.’s favorite vegetable.) And for dessert, the dark chocolate sour cream cake with chocolate frosting.

So, here’s hoping you have also had an enjoyable day filled with reading the paper, Easter egg hunts and some nice wine and tasty food!

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April 17, 2014

shepherd’s pie . . .

Instead of making hamburgers tonight, I decided to make a shepherd’s pie. There are some shortcuts along the way and I thought maybe I’d write them down in this post. First of all, I’ve been learning from watching a lot of cooking shows to keep flavors separate until you want to blend them. So, instead of frying the ground beef with onions, I cut up a whole onion and browned it in some oil and butter after two garlic cloves had been toasted and removed. Then, I cut up three huge button mushrooms into chunks and added them to the browning onions. I scooped them into a separate bowl while I browned the beef in the skillet, breaking it up so that it browned evenly. (Dropped the spatula on the floor, flinging onions around twice!) Then, added the chunky onions and mushrooms, gently folding them into the beef. Sprinkled with Maldon salt and cracked pepper. Finally, I made some mashed potatoes, enriched with milk and butter, smoothed over the top of the meat, onion and mushroom mixture, dotted with butter and sprinkled lightly with parmesan cheese.

Washed and dried my favorite fluted baking dish that I bought years ago in Gloucester. It’s just the right size to hold a casserole dish for two. Plus, it’s so elegant on the serving board when we have dinner. There’s a huge bag of fresh spinach that C. brought from the organic farm last weekend that I’ve been meaning to cook before this. I thought I’d heat up a few garlic cloves and cook a mound of it in the skillet, letting it disappear to almost nothing as fresh spinach is wont to do. Then, drain the liquid out of it, cut it up in the skillet with a sharp knife and add some light cream, a little salt and pepper and freshly grated nutmeg to dress it up a little.

I’ve noticed lately that I’ve been dropping things and finding the logistics of cooking from a wheelchair more challenging these days. Maybe it’s because it is getting near the tail end of the dozen weeks that I’ve had my cast on and I’m impatient to have it off next week. My short fuse might also be due to the many dishes that I’ve been cooking of late–a cumulative culinary journey that has occupied me during these long days sitting on the couch for most days since February when I broke my ankle.

The weather is turning warmer, the light so much brighter and it will be nice to be able to navigate the stairs so that I can go outside more often. G. has been doing heavy lifting for grocery shopping, getting things out of the pantry, raising and lowering the shades, doing the laundry and helping me all day long, with good humor and so much patience. We will enjoy our supper tonight together and, as usual, give thanks for the simple things in life.

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April 16, 2014

homemade pizza . . .

homemade mushroom pizza . . .

For the past few years, I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making home-made pizzas. When we had a winter rental more than two years ago in Rockport, MA., I ordered Jim Lahey’s book on making pizzas along with a pizza stone but never got around to following up. We are still looking for that pizza stone downstairs somewhere, but I ordered a second one which arrived last night. (If the first one turns up, I’ll give it to C.) My interest to make homemade pizza was piqued once again last week when a full page article by Sam Sifton appeared in the NYTimes food section. In the online article, there was a video that showed a Brooklyn pizza maker handling the dough (gently,) putting on tomato sauce (sparingly) that was made just from canned tomatoes, not a prepared salty-full-of-additives-and-preservatives-jarred-pizza sauce; and thin slabs of fresh mozzarella cheese. Fresh basil leaves were placed on top of the baked pizza after it came out of the oven.

an online margherita pizza photo

Simple tomato/cheese pizzas (Margherita) are my favorite kind of pizza, I think–just very simple and clean, chewy but not heavy. So this morning, I followed the NYTimes recipe for pizza dough that combines Italian pizza flour (00) and regular flour with yeast, water, salt and olive oil. Jim Lahey just uses all-purpose flour.

The key to making tender pizza dough is the same instruction for making tender scones, rolls or bread: handle gently and as little as possible. When you push out the dough, or let it stretch to make the pizza later on, you’re supposed to handle it “like a baby.” Gently does it. A very little bit of tomato sauce is added, then fresh cheese. Flour the surface that you make the pizza on so you can transfer it easily onto a wooden or bamboo peel (a flat surface with a long handle.)

fresh basil and pizza dough

In the meantime, a pizza stone is gradually heating up in an oven turned up from an initial heat of 350 degrees to 400 and then finally to 500 degrees. Open the oven, stand back and slide the pizza from the peel to the heated stone. Some recipes say to turn off the oven and turn on the broiler on high to “broil” the pizza (Lahey) if you have an electric stove. Sam Sifton in the NYTimes article says to just let it bake at 500 degrees for five to eight minutes, watching it carefully. When the pizza is baked, use the peel to remove it from the stone and onto a board where you can add fresh basil leaves and cut it into serving pieces.

I guess it seemed daunting to make pizzas from scratch because of the equipment required: having to bake it on a pizza stone so that the crust would be light and crispy; transferring it with the use of a large peel, etc. etc. In fact, dear reader, the stone was about $15 and the bamboo peel cost about $12 on amazon.com with free shipping (I have Amazon Prime.) Oh, and I ordered the special Italian pizza flour (00) last week online too. These three ingredients/tools are what I have been waiting for to make pizzas that will hopefully taste like those $18-$22 babies in specialty pizza restaurants (of which there are NONE in the working-class town that I live in–but I have been treated to them in Minneapolis when I visit family there.)

When it came time to assemble the pizzas, I was surprised (chagrined) to find the plastic wrap sticking to the dough. I had to peel it off and knead the dough a little with some extra flour. Then, the hardest part was getting the “baby” yeast dough to thin out and stay stretched out rather than shrinking back again as soon as you let go of it. So, I ended up with a pizza about ten inches in diameter, not twelve. I added a little tomato sauce made from pureeing San Marzano tomatoes with a little olive oil and salt in the Vitamix. There’s plenty of this tomato “sauce” to use later in the week on cappellini pasta with shrimp or to decorate another round of eggplant parmigiana.

The pizza on the stone in a 500 degree oven didn’t bake as fast as the experts said it would. After fifteen minutes, I turned off the oven and turned on the broiler to finish cooking the mushrooms and cheese on top of the pizza. Meanwhile, there were crumbs, flour and basil leaves decorating the front of my clothes and all over the kitchen floor. By the time G. returned home, I was more than a little cranky, mollified later only by the clean taste of the pizza once we got it off the stone and onto a board. Half a glass of ice-cold Miller Lite beer helped a little too. Was it worth it?

Sort of, I would respond, knowing that there’s another pizza dough resting in the fridge for a second trial run at this sometime later this week!

a slice of mushroom pizza . . .

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April 14, 2014

variations. . .

raw sweet potatoes with peeler . . .

One of the things we most enjoy eating is Japanese sweet potatoes. Have you ever tried them? They have a thick red outer peel and a white/yellow very sweet interior. Once you taste them, it’s really hard to go back to the more commonly found yams, sweet potatoes or even garnet yams. Sometimes these Japanese sweet potatoes are found in smaller sizes, just right for a single serving at dinner. Other times, these tubers come in large sizes and seem too large to bake. All of these comments are by way of introducing the idea that tonight, I’m going to try making Japanese sweet potato FRIES!! Peel the red outer skin off; use the large Samurai carving knife to cut the peeled potatoes into slivers, dress in vegetable oil and sprinkle with Maldon salt. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and bake until crispy, golden brown.

fresh out of the oven!

My daughter, C., also bought some boneless, skinless chicken thighs this weekend which I will dredge in flour, dip in beaten egg and enriched panko crumbs to fry gently in a combination of vegetable oil and unsalted butter.

pan fried chicken . . .

A quick swizzle of fresh cut asparagus in some butter with cracked pepper and fresh lemon juice will complete our supper for tonight. Later, we’ll finish off the key lime pie that we still have two servings of in the fridge.

It’s been a breezy Spring day today. Last night, I tried the occipital bone massage on myself (and G. did too) before I went to bed. I didn’t take ANY sleep tablets of any kind and woke up close to the time we usually do. I must be letting go of some subliminal anxiety about how my foot is doing inside the heavy cast that has been on my leg for almost three months. In anticipation of two feet being available, I ordered a pair of graceful taupe, nubuck Birkenstock sandals that have closed fronts and easy to slip on backs.

I’ve also been toying with what to do about the length of my hair; whether to trim it tight and shorter in the back, tapering longer on the sides to the front. I’ve been tempted to try cutting it myself but caught myself in time from what is clearly foolish thinking! Anyhow, there’s still plenty of opportunity to vacillate back and forth before I can get outdoors to a hair salon next week. In the meantime, my injured foot feels better inside the cast: fewer painful episodes, more freedom of movement when wiggling my toes and moving them back and forth with the cast on.

With the Boston marathon heading our way next week, all the stories on TV about the wounded who lost limbs has reminded me of how marginally injured I have been by comparison and how fortunate I am that it wasn’t much worse. Lots of perspective gained by lessons learned all around. It’s been a quiet transition from Winter to Spring, the white snowdrops in the yard and flowering tulips in the markets a harbinger of more colorful times which are soon upon us.

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