January Soup

Eat In for Japan!

2011-03-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

Wow! I haven't posted in quite a while... well, I have good cause to do so this week: check out Eat In for a Cause on Facebook! This isn't a formal non-profit or anything like that - just a community concept that I'd love to see catch on beyond my little circle.

I woke up at 4 am on March 11th (the number 11 has had bad juju of late - wonder why??) to the clock radio BBC reporter's story of a massive 8.9 magnitude (now known to be 9.0) on the east coast of Japan, and the subsequent tsunami. I groggily got to the airport to catch my flight to San Francisco, and obsessively watched CNN on the airplane tv the whole time. I'm still thinking about this tragedy constantly - as I thought on that flight, and since, if Japan isn't ready for a huge earthquake tsunami, who the heck is??

The photos of people looking out at the devastation really hit me hard - when would they be able to have another decent meal? It's still cold/wintry - how will they stay warm? And let's not even get started on the pending nuclear disaster - too much to comprehend.

Maybe it's also that I've been wanting to go to Japan lately - love the food, the people, the bath concept (was at Ten Thousand Waves in Santa Fe last year - amazing!), and work for a Japanese company (Hitachi Consulting - a subsidiary of the "big Hitachi" in Japan - who's "Hitachi City" is on the east coast of Japan!). Most recently, I learned to love sake at Sake Nomi - a great little sake shop in Pioneer Square in Seattle, owned by friends of friends... basically, I guess Japan has been on my mind.

All in all, I've felt the urge to DO something - more than Haiti, more than the tsunami a couple years ago (although I did donate then)... how can I make a bigger impact? Little ol' me??

Well, what about asking my friends to make donations at my next Tuesday Supperclub? Easy enough - so I did! We had a Japanese themed Supperclub (sorry, Irish - should have been corned beef this week), and all in all raised $1,010!!! that's about 10x what I able/willing to raise on my own... which made me think - WHY DON'T I TRY TO TALK OTHER PEOPLE INTO HOSTING A DINNER PARTY WHERE PEOPLE DONATE MONEY TO JAPAN OR WHATEVER CAUSE THEY CARE ABOUT MOST??????

Sorry for the shouting - it just hit me like a runaway nuclear reaction (sorry for the bad image - can't help it!)...

So - this post is all about HOW to make this happen (at least how I've done it), WHAT you should make (see recipes below - or other posts for easy "feed a crowd-able" recipes), and WHEN you should do this (for Japan - right now!).

The Scene:
Having Akane help set the tone with some delicious, beautiful homemade inarizushi (eaten faster than photography), and a MASSIVE bottle of sake from the affected region in Japan (as she put it, probably the last time in a long time, due to the devastation and potential radiation that we'll be tasting this sake). For newcomers, I host a weekly, Tuesday (usually) night Supperclub where the rules are: bring some cash to cover expenses (usually $7-10), and a bottle to share. I buy the ingredients, everyone helps cook, we eat later than we should for a Tuesday night, and have a fantastic time! See other posts on this blog for more details/examples.

The Menu:
- Appetizer: Inarizushi (Akane, can you post a recipe, please?)
- Sake-Steamed Chicken with Ginger and Scallions that had been featured in the NYT just last week. Only deviation from the printed recipe is that I doubled it to feed 12 (two 4-pound chickens, let them steam for about 20 minutes longer), and spatchcocked the chicken to make it fit in my steamers better (I didn't bother to remove the breastbones, just leaned on them to crack them and flatten the chickens - and of course kept the backbones to make stock!)...
- Spinach with Sesame Shoyu Dressing - one of my favorite ways to eat spinach - and yes, I bought 4 1 lb. boxes of baby spinach, leading the cashier to comment on my love of spinach :-)
- White rice (come on - you're eating low-fat chicken and a ton of spinach, cut yourself some culinary slack!)
- Cucumber and Daikon Sunomono - I added about 1/2 as much daikon to the cucumber in this recipe - but used the recommended amount of dressing
- Mochi ice cream (store bought)

People seemed to enjoy the dinner - AND donated lots! :-)

Remembering our Teta Ole

2010-06-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

My great-aunt died on June 17th, and my sister Nida and I wrote and read the following at her memorial service this past weekend. She will be missed and not forgotten.

Remembering Teta Ole

As a child, I remember being very confused about our great aunt’s name. I was surprised for instance that her neighbors called our Teta Ole, Alice, which seems so strangely conventional and American that it simply didn’t ring true. Then I found out that she wasn’t Ole at all, but that her name was actually Aleksandra, which seemed amazingly regal for someone so absorbed in an endless stream of daily work, and so eager to get her hands dirty. But I see now that she occupied the entire expanse of those names, and perhaps one of the most valuable lessons she taught us was the transcendence of being occupied, that work, in a sense, was life itself.

That type of paradox defined her life. The contentment she felt working in the garden, kitchen or her sewing room belied the fact that she had lost her real home, lived through the atrocities of war, and suffered the indignities of being a refugee and an immigrant. Upon meeting her, most people would simply see a sweet, accommodating woman. But in fact her experience taught her to be strong, to seek direction in chaos by focusing on meeting the needs of the people around her. By humbly taking it upon herself to simply do what needed to be done, she was an anchor for us all, and a subtle example of how to live.

Watching Teta Ole work was like seeing something magical. I always knew who my fairy godmother was, and made room in my closet whenever she came to visit, because she never arrived without having sewn us each some new, beautiful dresses. When something was lacking, she seemed to pull things out of thin air, producing exactly what you needed before you had a chance to imagine it. She loved to recount the story of being 3 years old in Lithuania and shocking the neighbors when they found her expertly working the loom. She told stories about how, when her mother was sick in the hospital, she took it upon herself to make bread for the day with her two younger brothers, which in the village where they lived involved stoking the fire and mixing and kneading the dough by hand. She couldn’t have been more than 7 years old at the time. And so she lived her life, meeting hardship, loss and difficulty and responding with her ingenuity and a bit of effort.

That early skill at the loom and in the kitchen served her for a long, full lifetime. Teta Ole was generous to a fault; she was the kind of person who couldn’t sit down while others were eating – she had to make sure that we were all well fed and satisfied. She lived to serve others – everyone near and dear to her – her family in particular, but also to her friends and neighbors. She didn’t have a husband or any children of her own, but the people in her vicinity inevitably benefited as though they were her own family. Teta Ole helped her sister-in-law, our Teta Brone, when Brone was a brand-new mother fleeing Lithuania in a horse-drawn wagon. Brone told her that her own sisters would not have cared for her so well. She raised our mother, her niece, when our grandmother died in Germany. She never left her mother’s or her two brothers’ sides, always vigilant to their needs, selflessly helping them all through illness, old age, and death.

Understandably, she found life to be much more difficult when her abilities waned late in life. She would apologize and explain to us that she used to work really hard, that she could make anything, and that people praised her resourcefulness and efficiency. The fairy godmother who used to feed us 3 meals in 5 hours, who sent lasiniuociai and her special deviled eggs to us homesick college students, who could always be counted on for help, was slowing down – and she didn’t like it one bit.

But, Teta Ole will live on not only through all of our memories, but also through the more tangible gifts she left us. The high-quality clothes she made for us when we were children (all matching for us 3 sisters and our brother), have been handed down to other families in the community. We will remember her in the kitchen whenever we make her recipes – or even food that reminds us of her cooking (which has become very fashionable – seasonal, local, fresh flavors with an old-world thriftiness). I recently made a dinner in her memory for friends in Seattle who had never met her, and felt myself tapping into her spirit as I made her Viennese Walnut Torte, her version of kugelis and saltibarsciai – making sure we had a fresh salad from the garden. She will be remembered in the gardening tips she handed down, in her patience at showing us beginners how to knit and sew, and her strength in keeping the family together in hard times. We all have benefitted from these gifts during her lifetime, and the best way for us to remember Teta Ole is by sharing her gifts of generosity and service (and her Viennese Torte) with others.

Viennese Walnut Torte

Notes: you can also make this delicious dessert using ground almonds - that's actually how Teta Ole preferred it, but she started out making this with walnuts, and the flavor of the nuts really took me back at least 20 years. Also - I accidentally doubled the amount of salt I put into the crust when I made this, and it actually perked up and modernized the flavor - I would recommend adding maybe an extra 1/4 tsp. of salt and see how you like it! The instructions were a little cryptic, so I'm not going to give you the recipe verbatim (it's in Lithuanian, anyway), but try to give you a little more direction! This cake also freezes well, if you want to make it ahead of time. Finally, this will easily feed 12-16 people, but if you want to make it look even fancier and/or want to make it for a crowd, use the same springform pan, but increase all the ingredients by 1/2 - so you're making 1.5 times the original recipe. You'll need to increase the baking time for the filling to set up properly (start checking it at 40 min. and keep checking it every 5 afterwards).

Ingredients:

For the crust -

1/2 cup unsalted butter (cold)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt (this is where you can add a little extra to taste - start with 3/4 tsp. total)

1/2 cup (or more - I used about 1 cup) apricot or plum jam (I actually used homemade peach jam, because that's what I had in the house)

For the filling -

3 Tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature)

1 1/4 cups sugar

6 eggs, separated

1/2 lb. ground walnuts (or almonds - grind in a food processor, but be careful not to make nut butter! Better that they're a little chunky..)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F - have a 10-inch springform pan ready (don't need to butter it).

For the crust - mix the flour and salt in a bowl, then cut the butter in with a pastry cutter or 2 knives (or a food processesor) until the mixture is uniformly crumbly. Press the crumbly mixture into the springform pan so that it covers the bottom and 1/3 of the way up the sides of the pan evenly (don't worry if it's not perfect - that's part of the charm). Bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes or until the crust is golden - don't let it brown too much! Reduce the oven temperature to 325 F.

Take the crust out of the oven, and while it's warm, spread the jam evenly over the bottom on the crust, then set aside while you make the filling.

For the filling - in a standing mixer on medium speed, beat the butter and sugar together until they are fluffy. Add the egg yolks, 1 at a time, and continue beating until the entire mixture is light in color. Turn the mixer down to slow and add the nuts.

In a separate, clean bowl, with a clean whisk beater, beat the egg whites until they are stiff. Take 1/3 of the egg whites and using a spatula, mix them into the nut mixture to lighten it up. Then add the remainder of the egg whites and carefully fold them in until the batter is mostly uniform in color - don't overmix!

Pour the filling into the prepared crust over the jam. Bake it at 325 F for about 35-45 minutes (depends on your oven) - or until it's lightly browned and the center is only slightly jiggly. Cool completely on a wire rack before removing the springform pan and serving.

Blogging is harder than eating...

2009-08-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here we are, 5 months after my last post, where I vowed to keep up to date on Supperclub and other food-related happenings in my life. Well, I guess I've been busy and probably a little lazy, because although I've been cooking and eating well, no blog posts.

So - let's work backwards. Today I want to tell you all (ummm - I think that's just you, Tete), about the last couple Supperclub dinners, because they were memorable. First, let's talk about last night.

Tuesday, August 18th Menu:

Maui potato chips with beer (love it when someone else brings snacks!) - we had a Banana Bread Ale from England that was surprisingly good... not sweet, good flavor - check it out.

Grilled corn on the cob with butter and salt (husk the corn, let the kernels caramelize but be careful not to burn them!)

Grilled bring-your-own steaks (just salt and pepper and olive oil-seasoned)

Black Kale Salad (a Supperclub favorite)

Roasted new(ish) potatoes with rosemary and garlic

Grilled peaches with salted caramel ice cream

It was such a simple and delicious summer menu - the corn and potatoes and peaches were all bought in Eastern Washington on a weekend impromptu road trip, and were exceptionally sweet and fresh. The kale came from my garden. The Salted Caramel Ice Cream was some of the best I've ever had (better than Molly Moon's, I have to say, which is highly addictive but too rich). I thought the recipe was a little too fussy, and fudged some of the steps (you can skip heating the milk in a separate pot, and just pour it all on the caramel, dissolve the caramel, and then slowly incorporate with the eggs. Back on the heat to thicken slightly (coats the back of your spoon) and then strain it before chilling to get any caramel chunks or milk/cream skin out. And the company was lovely, as usual!

Last week, we had a special Sunday Supperclub, in honor of Laurie and Phred from E lemental (one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle). Because of the weekend timing, we had a huge crowd (22 people!). The weather was perfect for cooking - not too hot - but lovely and sunny and let us all sit outside and enjoy summer without freezing after the sun went down (well, as long as you were dressed for a Seattle summer evening!).

Sunday, August 9th Menu:

Curried Pistachios

Port Madison Goat Cheese with crackers

Grilled butterflied leg of lamb rubbed with fresh herbs and garlic (thanks Laurie!)

Green peach chutney (labor of love peeling all those green peaches - thanks Heidi! - recipe based on Green Mango Chutney by Julie Sanhi)

Tabbouleh with tomatoes, parsley, red onion and pomegranate molasses

Lettuce with balsamic vinaigrette

3 pies: peach with honey caramel, sour cherry, and huckleberry apricot (see photo)

Lavender lemon ice cream

I went a little nuts with dessert - but the only thing left of the pies were a few cherries that I ate on my yogurt the next morning! The farmer's market this time of year is so amazing - fruit this year in particular is stunning - very ripe and sweet and flavorful. So when I found myself with peaches and apricots and sour cherries and huckleberries, the only thing to do was bake! The peach is on top in the photo, sour cherry has the lattice top, and the leaf-top is huckleberry apricot (which was my personal favorite - just made up the recipe - it had a little cinnamon in it). I also wanted to experiment with lavender, so made a mostly lemon-y, somewhat ethereally lavender-y ice cream (just used 1 lavender flower head's worth of blossoms and zest from 1 lemon). Much better to be restrained - I've had seriously soap-y lavender ice cream in the past!

I wish I had photos of this event, and the food - I know others took some, so if you're reading this and have some, please post or send them my way!

Mardi Gras Supperclub!

2009-03-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

Lots of great holidays and events have fallen on Tuesday in the past few months - Election Tuesday, Inauguration, and, of course Fat Tuesday! I was getting back from a training in Dallas last Tuesday evening, so Mary hosted Mardi Gras at her place. I got there around 9:45 and things were still hopping - had some great Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, bacon-y Greens, Rice... and Bananas Foster for dessert.

It's great when time changes due to travel let you eat extra meals!

Also, Leroy hooked up his laptop and shared a lot of great cajun and zydeco - which meant that we needed to dance, of course!

Mary or Leroy, if you have any recipes that are post-able, please do so...

I [heart] Supperclub!

2009-03-01T20:34:00.000-08:00

The Tuesday after Valentine's Day was a classic Supperclub experience - and reminds me of why this has been such a wonderful weekly event! There were a lot of people in my little bungalow - more than really fit around the table (11? 12?) - but it was ok because a lot of the action was taking place all evening in the kitchen...

The Menu:

Pizza - homemade, with various toppings (the recipe is linked to the left - in it's prototypical Prosciutto and Arugula format)

Salad - arugula with dried cherries, red onions and toasted pecans, with a balsamic vinaigrette

Chocolate Pudding (found in Best Recipes)

Chocolate Torte (a heavenly torte with meringue and cake layers - Heidi, can you post the recipe?)

Everyone had a hand in creating a pizza - see the photos below for some sense of the process:

... and in making dessert...

Soup's on!

2009-02-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

Last week's Supperclub was a soup potluck - a fairly random selection of soups that worked together quite nicely... we also had quite a crowd, so the potluck concept worked well! I made 2 kinds of bread, and we had 5 soups altogether... plus some chocolate chip cookies for dessert that we whipped up at the last minute. Mary brought the wine because she wanted to create some tasting notes for a blind tasting she was hosting later in the week, which added to the festive and fun nature of the evening.

The Breads:
- "No-Knead Bread" from Mark Bittman's Minimalist column in the NY Times (He's also done a much shorter version, but I opted to figure out the timing and let the bread do a nice slow rise overnight - it was delicious and the crumb was excellent, although next time I'm going to try baking it in a hotter oven to get a denser crust - it turned out fairly delicate)
- Oatmeal-Wheat Bread - a recipe I've been making fairly regularly for a few years

These two breads couldn't be more different - the No-Knead bread uses only a 1/4 tsp. of yeast and all white flour, while the Oatmeal-Wheat Bread uses 2 Tbls. and oats, whole wheat and white flour. The huge amount of yeast (and honey) in the Oat Wheat makes it rise quickly and have a nice light texture despite the dense whole grains. The tiny amount of yeast in the No-Knead bread lets it rise very slowly without using up all the nutrients in the flour, developing more flavor in the process. It was fun to make them both side-by-side and watch the biology in action! (I'm such a geek!)

The Soups:
People brought cold beet soup with sour cream (a beautiful, jewel-colored, clean-tasting pureed beet soup), curried cream of broccolli, veggie pho made with chicken broth, and Portuguese potato, chard, leek, sausage soup.

I made a cream of roasted cauliflower soup with chorizo that was inspired by a soup I had had in Paris a couple years ago... I was walking down the street after work on Monday, right past The Spanish Table, an awesome store near Pike Place Market in Seattle that features all things Spanish and culinary - amazing wines, cheeses, sausage, condiments, saffron, etc... so anyway I was trying to figure out what kind of soup to make, and as I walked past The Spanish Table I was hit with a very visceral memory of this soup - completely out of nowhere! So I ran in and bought some Basque chorizo and some marcona almonds, and concocted this soup:

Cream of Roasted Cauliflower with Basque Chorizo

- 2 heads of cauliflower, trimmed of outer leaves and sliced crosswise into thin florets
- 6-8 cloves of garlic, smashed lightly and peeled
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1/3 cup (or so) olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 F. Combine above ingredients in a roasting pan, then roast in the oven, stirring once or twice, for about 40 minutes, or until cauliflower is tender and carmelized.

- 1 qt. chicken stock
- 1 cup heavy cream
- additional cream or milk to taste/texture
- additional salt and pepper to taste

Warm the chicken stock in a large pot - add roasted cauliflower and garlic. Puree with an immersion blender (my new favorite gadget!), or in a regular blender of food processesor (you'll probably need to do a few batches). Once fairly smooth, stir in heavy cream and additional liquid until the desired consistency is reached (should be fairly thick and will probably be a little chunky - that's ok unless you want to get all fancy and run it through a sieve). Check for salt/pepper and adjust as needed.

Garnishes:
- 6 links of chorizo, sliced and fried until brown in a little olive oil
- 1/2 cup of marcona almonds, chopped

To serve:
Place 2-3 pieces of chorizo in the bottom of your bowl, ladle the soup over them, then sprinkle with chopped almonds.

If anyone has links to their soups - please comment on this post and share them with us!

Mexican night

2009-02-08T17:14:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday was Mexican night - we seem to have been doing a world tour lately! I used Rick Bayless' "Mexico One Plate at a Time" cookbook and made a really good Roasted Poblano Guacamole (actually kindof combined both of his guacamole recipes - roasted 3 poblano peppers on the stovetop, let them sit in a paper bag, peeled the skins, then pureed them with 3 roasted (in a skillet, skin-on, then peeled) garlic cloves, 4 avocaodos (mashed), 3 tomatoes (diced), cilantro (chopped) and lime juice (freshly squeezed from the cutest little organic limes). It was inhaled by all with some chips!

We also tried making homemade corn tortillas, with only marginally successful results. The end product was a little thick and mis-shapen - it's definately not an art form I grew up with! But get me started on making koldunai (Lithuanian dumplings) - that's a whole 'nother story!

The turkey in mole came out delicious and tender - braising turkey breast definately makes it stay moist. The mole was good - but needed more salt (and a little more zing - a friend added chipotles to some leftovers and thought it was quite tasty - will have to give that a try next time). I also sauteed some kale with garlic on the side. The plate was quite lovely to look at with all the intense colors!

We drank beer with all of this - various kinds that folks brought, and I debuted the second beer I've ever made - a very hoppy (kindof grapefruity) pilsner - which was well received.

For dessert - a simple flan to which I added some roses - but which mostly tasted like vanilla... all in all, a good meal!

Kenyan Kidney Bean Stew (Seattle version)

2009-02-01T20:59:00.001-08:00

I first had a version of a recipe had about 18 years ago (eek!), made by an ethnomusicology grad student and his wife - they had been to Africa for fieldwork, and made this for me and my now-ex-husband... I have no idea how authentic their version was, but the one that we developed over the years has a decidedly vegan-hippy-Seattle vibe (added tofu and veggies):

Kenyan Kidney Bean Stew
- 1 lb. extra-firm tofu, cubed (about 3/4 inch cubes) and patted dry with paper towels (or you will suffer the splattering consequences)
- Vegetable oil for frying

In a heavy saute pan, heat enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan, then add the tofu, in batches if needed - let fry on one side for about 3-4 minutes, then flip carefully to brown at least 1 more side (I usually do 3-4, then get bored). Drain on paper towels and salt lightly.

Start some rice - about 2 cups dry is good - I usually use jasmine or whatever is available.

- 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 medium or 1/2 large onion, chopped
- 1 Tbsp. turmeric (powdered - never tried it with fresh)
- 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (completely optional)
- 1 15 oz. can chopped tomatoes
- 1 can coconut milk (not "lite" - a waste of money since you can water it down yourself if you're worried about calories)
- 1/2 head (if it's big) cauliflower, washed and separated into florets
- 1 bunch black kale (or other leafy green), chopped
- 1/2 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed (optional - but tasty)
- 1 15 oz. can kidney beans (not drained)
- Salt to taste

In a heavy soup pot, heat up the oil, then add the onions. Saute for a few minutes until soft. Add the turmeric and cayenne (if using), and let it warm up in the oil, stirring, until you start smelling it - about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes, and let them cook, stirring, until they have warmed up. Add the coconut milk, drain the kidney bean liquid from the can into the pot, and let the liquids come to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Add the vegetables (cauliflower, kale and squash, if using), add a little salt (I never measure the salt, and consequently usually make it not salty enough). Put a lid on the pot, bring the heat down to medium-low, and let the veggies cook through for about 10-15 minutes, until they're soft but not mushy. Add the tofu and kidney beans, taste for salt and add more if needed.

Serve with rice - makes about 6 servings.

Supperclub Update - Continued

2009-02-01T16:30:00.000-08:00

But wait, there's more! Now we're getting into the holiday season, and amazingly enough a ton of snow here in Seattle - we had close to 2 weeks of snowy weather, which is unheard of. Here's my backyard before I snuck out to the balmy midwest for Christmas - apparently, it snowed another 7 inches the day after I left!

We had a 1-week hiatus because of Christmas, then had a small Supperclub the day before New Year's Eve, featuring Carribean food, since Rita and Shane were on a cruise in that neck of the woods:

12/30/08: Jerk chicken (baked, not grilled), sweet potato fritters, greens, and an odd coconut bread (it wasn't very sweet - I thought it would be more cake-like - should have paid more attention to the recipe!) and fresh mango for dessert.

1/6/09: The New Year was celebrated with a Provencal-style beef stew (from Cook's Illustrated about 13 years ago), homemade sourdough bread, warm cabbage salad with peppered bacon and roquefort (that went great with the beefy stew), and Anne's awesome pannetone-based bread pudding with caramel orange sauce. That was one good meal... and everyone was in a particularly festive mood, since we hadn't seen each other in a few weeks (see silliness at right). We also realized that it was our official 6-month anniversary - we've been meeting every week except 2 (when I was out of town) since early July! Yea Supperclub!

1/13/09: Brazilian night! Our own International Woman of Mystery was recently in Brazil, and smuggled in various and sundry smoked pig parts and made us all an awesome pot of Feijoada (black bean stew - with piggy bits), Couve Refogada (collard greens - I think Heidi took liberties with this recipe), and rice, which we washed down with Caipirinha cocktails with hand-imported cachaca (delicious but lethal - especially on a Tuesday night - they were carefully rationed). For dessert we had home-made mango-passion fruit ice cream and coconut macaroons - all fantastic! And all I had to do was mix drinks... and drink them... and eat... ahhhh...

1/20/09: Inauguration Party! Supperclub this week was an expanded version to celebrate our new President - in his honor we had a potluck of (sortof) Obama-themed food... so I made Kenyan Kidney Bean Stew (my enhanced version - I'll put the recipe in a separate post since I've gotten many requests), and people brought vaguely-Hawaiian or Kansas-themed foods... like Hawaiian pizza or chili in crock pots... we all watched the recording of the inauguration speaches, and I read from my 9-year-old niece's eye-witness report.

1/27/09: Finally catching up here! Last week was Thai food night, and it was almost Ladies Night, until Tomas crashed the party... and then he felt like he was on the Phinney Ridge version of The View.

We had: Tod Man Pla (Thai Fish Cakes) with what my sister calls "Thai ketchup" (Mae Ploy Sweet Chili Sauce), Kao Moke Gai (Chicken with Crispy Shallots in Yellow Rice) - one of my favorite dishes from Nancie McDermott's Real Thai cookbook - the shallots alone are worth the price of admisison, and Chinese Broccolli stir-fried with fish sauce and brown bean sauce. For dessert we had Mochi Ice Cream balls - chocolate and mango flavors - since it is the Lunar New Year and it's just not a party until someone chokes on the mochi!

Ok - I promise to be better about posting now - but at least I'm caught up! Until next week...

Supperclub Update

2009-02-01T16:02:00.000-08:00

I've been horrible about keeping the blog up-to-date on the Supperclub menus - sorry! Somehow time keeps getting away from me... so, here's a quick-and-dirty recap:

12/9/08: Bari Meatballs and Braised Vegetables over polenta (recipe altered slightly to include brussel sprouts as well as chard), with my favorite chocolate ice cream (you make a caramel base, then create basically a pot de creme, then chill and freeze) for dessert. Meatballs and polenta pictured along with most of the usual suspects... I can't figure out how to upload PDF, so email or post a note if you want me to send you the recipe for the meatballs!

12/16/08: Cassoulet & Capuccino biscotti. Leroy made this amazing quick cassoulet with lots of delicious roasted veggies and beans and chicken - the secret is in the spice rub! I made some biscotti that I was going to bake everyone for Christmas anyway... wish I had photos of this one!

To be continued...

Alaus. alaus duok dieve daugiau...

2008-12-26T07:36:00.000-08:00

I owe a few posts on the Supperclub menus, but I need to get home and upload photos and recipes for those...

In the meantime, let's talk beer (alus, in Lithuanian). I recently made my first batch of beer - a red ale from a simple recipe from the brew shop - and it's tasting pretty good! A lighter lager-style beer is currently doing its thing in my chilly basement (Seattle has been very cold for the past few weeks - perfect for lager yeast, which likes cool temperatures for fermentation).

When I cook and bake, I'm not one to get too caught up in the details - I tend to not pre-sift flour, or measure goopy substances like honey or sour cream. I figure it'll work itself out somehow, or I've got enough experience to either fix my sloppiness or live with a failure from time to time and learn something from my mistakes.

When I started baking bread using a natural sourdough starter a few years ago, I found that the attention to detail that professionals put into their baking really pays off - measuring flour by weight instead of volume ensures that your bread is not to dry or to sticky, for example. But mistakes teach you the most about how things are actually working in there; when my original sourdough breads weren't rising properly, some trial-and-error with higher-gluten flours taught me that wild yeast needs a little more help to rise properly.

Making beer seems like a similar enterprise, although the yeasts I'm using are highly specialized creatures that you buy for specific flavor development and brewing characteristics. More experienced brewers warned me that sanitation is the number one issue for home brewers, so I've been scrupulous in that department, and have generally tried to follow the recipes fairly strictly until I'm familiar with the processes. Ruining 5 gallons of beer is a pricey mistake, so I'd rather avoid that if at all possible.

But the urge to experiment and better understand the little organisms that I'm working with is always there for me. Yet homebrewers seem to be a fretful bunch, worried about all the little details (The Art of Homebrewing doesn't dispel this fearfulness, despite its incessant cajoling not to worry and have a homebrew). One person I talked to was almost appalled that I was trying to make lager at home without a dedicated refrigerator; the way I see it, people have been making beer for a long long time in sub-optimal circumstances. Since I'm not doing this professionally, I can afford to mess around a little - no need for strict quality control and repeatable processes (I get enough of that sort of thing at work, thank you very much).

Back in the day (and I'm talking 80+ years ago - because I've been talking to my 94-year-old great-aunt this Christmas season), brewing beer was something you did yourself - along with everything else (growing flax, spinning thread, weaving cloth, making clothes, etc.). My great-aunt and father told me how beer was made in Lithuania "down on the farm." Barley was briefly soaked in warm water, then spread out to start sprouting - this increases the available sugar, as my aunt reminded me. The sprouted grain was then dried thoroughly, then lightly cracked. A barrel with a stopper at the bottom was lined with clean hay (how's that for sanitary?) and then boiling water was added along with grains. Once that cooled down (just like when you make bread), yeast and hops were added and the whole works fermented for a day or two. The barrel was then drained off (the straw worked as a filter to keep the grain in the barrel), and a second (and even a third) batch of beer was made from the same malted barley - decreasing in quality with each batch (my father said they referred to these as the "premium" batch, the "good" batch, and the last which was just "fit for drunks"). The batch of beer was moved to another barrel, aged and rotated in the hayloft (that was my father's job when he was a kid) and tapped for special occasions - like the post-harvest party, when they'd slaughter some sheep, make massive quantities of kugelis (without the modern convenience of the Kugelator), and feed all the people who came to help bring in the rye.

So I guess beer-making is in my blood, at some level - but the genes for sewing clothes were definitely not passed down! I'm going to keep experimenting and see what happens - and keep you posted!

Thanksgiving leftovers

2008-12-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my brother, Rita and Shane, and Rita's parents - the turkey came out great, despite my lax approach (as in, rub it down with butter and lots of salt and pepper, stuff it lightly, and throw it in the oven for a few hours and forget about it). We also had 4 desserts, thanks to Rita! I contributed an apple pie, but she brought pumpkin and pecan pies, as well a pumpkin chocolate layer cake that was in the NYT a few weeks ago. They were all delicious!

I came down with a stomach flu on Sunday, so we had Supperclub on Wednesday last week, which made the week seem much shorter (especially since I was home sick for 1/2 of it!). By Wednesday I was feeling mostly better, and some friendly Lactobaccilli were helping take care of any residual weirdness... (ok - probably more info that you needed).

The menu was leftover-inspired, with a little extra in the dessert department to celebrate Anne's birthday!

To snack on:
Leftover Cranberry Black Pepper Chutney with a delicious sheep's milk cheese on La Panzanella's Rosemary Croccantini crackers (my favorite)

For dinner:
- Arugula salad with a balsamic vinaigrette (my sister Nida's recipe - squeeze a clove of garlic into a jar, add balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and a little sugar - screw on the lid and shake to disolve salt and sugar, then add olive oil to match the volume of the vinegar mixture, shake again to emulsify)
- Turkey pot pie with leftover turkey, fennel, peas, pearl onions, carrots and parsnips with tarragon buttermilk biscuits for the crust (this is also a recipe I concocted with Nida years ago when she was visiting for Thanksgiving). I use the Joy of Cooking for the biscuits (use the Buttermilk Biscuit recipe, but increase the liquid to a full cup or so, and add chopped fresh tarragon - they'll be a thinner, drop-biscuit consistency, which means you can just drop large spoonfuls over your pot pie). I made a gravy base with shallots, butter, flour and chicken stock, added a little leftover turkey gravy, and then added a little cream at the end to one of the pot pies. All in all, quite tasty!

Dessert was Upside-Down Pear Cardamom Cake, in honor of Anne (who loves seasonal fruit desserts) as well as the almost over-ripe pears sitting on my counter. This was so good I made it again for friends who came over on Friday night! I used Bartlett pears both times, and quartered them since they were on the large side. The second time I made it I pretty much doubled the cardamom - a spice that I love! I've made upside-down cakes before which failed to neatly disengage from the pan, but I think the enormous quantity of butter in this recipe really helps ease the journey from pan to cake plate! On Tuesday, we ate the cake with a little leftover vanilla whipped cream... on Friday we had homemade limoncello that a friend brought - a surprisingly tasty combo!

Pre-Thanksgiving "light" eating

2008-12-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving was designated as "hippie food" week - we thought that something a little lighter and nourishing before the annual overindulgence was in order. I made a multi-grain seeded bread with my sourdough starter - it came out tasty, but the dough was very wet, which made the bread flatten out a little like a ciabbata - not bad, just not quite what I was expecting. I've been using Nancy Silverton's Breads From La Brea Bakery for sourdough starter care and feeding insights, as well as her recipes. I'm generally amazed at the quality and attention to detail of her recipes, and the results have been great!

We also made Anne's Lentil Soup with Kale and Sausage - see her blog for the recipe. It was great, and the Italian sausage made it a little less "good for you" and a little more just plain good... A simple mache salad with walnut oil vinaigrette (just walnut oil and lemon juice and some salt and pepper) and toasted walnuts rounded things out and upped the health quotient.

For dessert we had Butterscotch Pudding - an old favorite from Amanda Hesser. It's a great combo of caramel with just a hint of salt in a rich custard... hmmm - I guess our dinner wasn't so light after all!

Korean night

2008-11-23T20:14:00.000-08:00

Last week's supperclub was a Korean food fest:

- Scallion pancakes with dipping sauce
- Broiled kalbi short ribs
- Jap Jae (yam noodles with veggies and mushrooms)
- Rice
- Kimchee and many other side dishes (most store-bought except for bean sprouts blanched and dressed with sesame seeds, sesame oil and scallions - yum!)

We also had a couple Korean beers - OB and Hite - OB won the taste test, but the branding is a little unfortunate...

Dessert was mango gummy candies from Japan!

Lithuanian comfort food

2008-11-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

With all the depressing economic news swirling around these days, and the darker days post-daylight-savings, I felt a need to make some serious Lithuanian comfort food for last week's supperclub: soup and cepelinai (aka "zepelins"). We also whipped together an Anarchy Cake with some nice French Prune-Plums from the farmer's market (I love this recipe - it's the easiest and goes with any fruit, pretty much).

A recipe for the soup was requested - I made it up, and it went something like this:

1) Ruin some perfectly good homemade organic beef stock by using super-bitter celery from the farmer's market (I should have tasted it first!) - it tasted like Chinese herbal medicine :-(
2) Fix the stock by making consomme with it using egg whites, ground beef and a can of tomatoes (this totally worked - hooray!)
3) Make the soup using the corrected stock, more or less like this:

1 quart (or so) beef stock
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 kohlrabis, peeled and cubed
1/2 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1/2 head of cabbage, thinly sliced
1 cup leftover soup meat, shredded (from the bones you made the stock with)
a little butter
salt & pepper to taste

Saute the onion in a little butter on low heat - let it caramelize a little. Add the rest of the veggies and the stock and the meat - bring back to a boil, then lower heat and let it simmer for about 1/2 hour. Season to taste.

Cepelinai are a Lithuanian delicacy - and a great way to use up leftover soup beef! I talked to my great-aunt over the weekend to make sure I got the proportions right, and here's more or less how it works:

Per person (so 10 lbs. of potatoes will feed about 6-8 people, depending on how Lithuanian they are):
1 1/2 lbs. peeled russet potatoes (keep them whole in cold water while you work)
1/4 cup (or less) leftover cooked soup meat, shredded, that's been sauteed with a little butter and onion
salt to taste

Take about 1/3 of the potatoes, cube them, and boil them in salted water for about 15 minutes, or until soft. Drain and mash the drained potatoes well.

Grate the rest of the potatoes using either the smallest-holed "star" grater you own (the kind you grate lemon zest with - a regular Microplane won't work - it make the potatoes too stringy) OR (preferably) with a Kugelator - an awesome "tarkavimo masina" from Lithuania that my sister found in Chicago and gave everyone for Christmas one year. As you grate the potatoes, a little Vitamin C mixed in (make sure it's not flavored - or use Fruit Fresh) will help keep them from turning black.

Once you've grated all the potatoes, you need to drain all of the liquid off, reserving it and letting the starch sink to the bottom of the bowl. To drain it well, the optimal solution is a bag that you just happen to have around to make cheese with... or, if you're lame like me and foolishly lost the bag that your great-aunt gave you years ago, you can use a clean flour-sack kitchen towel (I decided regular cheesecloth would break on me). The idea is to squeeze all the liquid out until you have a pretty dry, pasty-looking potato mass in your towel... and remembering to save the liquid in a bowl. This should give your hands a work-out - if it's not, you're probably not getting enough liquid out, OR you're losing a lot of potato mass through too-porous a sieve/cloth.

Back to the starch - let the drained potato liquid sit in the bowl for a few minutes (you don't need to get all of it out of the water for 1 recipe - but you could if you wanted to keep it). Drain off most of the liquid, until you are left with just a few tablespoons of water with a white sludge of starch at the bottom of the bowl.

Mix the mashed potatoes, the grated, squeezed dry potatoes and the sludgy starch in a bowl, add a little salt, and you're ready to shape the cepelinai.

The cepelinai should look like little blimps when you're done - hence the name. Actually, they look sortof a lot like potatoes after you're done, which is pretty ironic given the abuse you've just put them through!

To shape, take a small handful of the potato dough and pat it into a thick round in your hand. Put about 2 Tbs. of the meat and onions filling into the center of the round, then bring the sides of the disc together and pinch it shut. Slap it around in your hands a few times until it has a nice, uniform oval shape. So cute! Finish shaping the rest of the cepelinai, lining them up on a lightly floured pan as you work.

In the meantime, boil a lot of water in a big pot with lots of salt, like you would for pasta. Once the water is at a rolling boil, drop the cepelinai in carefully (using a slotted spoon is a good idea), one at a time - you'll have to boil them in batches of about 3-4, most likely. Keep the heat on high until the water comes back to a boil. The cepelinai will slowly start bobbing at the top of the water - turn your timer on for about 5-7 minutes after this happens, and fish them out with a slotted spoon to a waiting serving dish (preferably with some melted butter in it). Finish cooking the rest of the cepelinai, and serve with spirguciai (basically bacon bits with all their grease cooked with onions and finished with sour cream) and sour cream on the side.

Skanaus!

Yes we did!!!

2008-11-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

Last week's Supperclub was an extended Election Night version! We featured "Real America" food (because we're real Americans, damn it) with a few liberal elite touches:

Homemade Corn Dogs, including "New Mexico Swing-State Chorizo," "Vermont Liberal Weenie Tofu Pup," "Ye Olde Nebrasaka All-Beef," "Louisiana Conservative Andouille" and "Pennsylvania Bratwurst"
Mac-n-Cheese (made by "chefty" Anne - delicious and a huge hit!)
Arugula Salad with goat cheese, toasted walnuts, cherry tomatoes and asian pear - beets on the side, with Nida's famous dressing
All-American Apple Pie (thank you Rita!) - with homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (courtesy of pastry-chef extraordaire Heidi!)
Obama cake - chocolate cake with the Obama "Hope" poster spray-painted on the frosting (how do they do that?? ink-jet printer technology?)

And lots and lots of bubbly beverages and celebration! Given the political leanings of the crowd, the "Liberal Weenies" and Arugula salad were big hits... although the Adouille was quiet tasty!

Here's to a new era!

Indian food

2008-11-03T19:07:00.000-08:00

Last week's supperclub was Indian Night - and it happened to occur on the first night of Dewali, almost like I planned it or something! We had:

- mango lassis
- mattar paneer
- red lentil dal with cabbage
- cauliflower with black mustard seeds and cumin
- rice
- raita
- carrot halva
- delicious pear gingerbread cake courtesy of Anne - which went surprisingly well with the halva!

I made the matar paneer ahead of time, so it could sit overnight - everything else came together pretty quickly - we'll have to add more Indian nights to the mix...

This week is Election Tuesday - come on over for Obama cake and "Real America" corn dogs if you're around!

Camping Supperclub

2008-10-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

This week for supperclub we had a camping theme, since several of the usual suspects couldn't join the weekend trip.

In honor of the woods, I made Marcella Hazan's Mushroom Lasagna (but with butternut squash rather than ham). It's got porcini mushrooms and lots of regular mushrooms in a lightly tomato-y sauce that you mix with a bechamel. Because there were a few lactose-intolerant folks for dinner, I also made an almost-vegan version with a vegan bechamel that I adapted from the link here (almost vegan because it did have a little butter in it). I was pretty impressed with the vegan version - the mushrooms gave the soy-based sauce a lot of rich flavor! Also, Supperclub regular Anne made a fantastic fall salad - roasted figs, goat cheese, walnuts and prosciutto over mixed greens with a honey vinaigrette - delicious!

We also carved a few pumpkins:

And made s'mores in the fireplace - with regular and chocolate marshmallows, and high-end chocolate - pretty great! As someone said, "it's just like camping, but without the tarps."

Here's a photo of the Supperclub - I think this was roast chicken night... I need to try to remember to take pictures of some of the food, since this is a food blog!

Political Supperclub

2008-10-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Meeting with (mostly) the same people every week has been interesting. The conversation rarely repeats itself, and often has themes. Last week turned into Political Supperclub - lots of heated discussion about whether conspiracy theories are true or not - both in general, and several specifics... and why we should care about them either way!

While the debate was animated, the food was a little more sedate: I made a beef ragu from Sunday's pot roast (I felt like an Italian grandma), and we all made fresh orrechiette together. I also served a caesar-esque salad (without the croutons) and for dessert made a Crepe Cake - using the linked recipe, but with a brulee crust on top just for an excuse to use the blowtorch my brother got me for Christmas last year! It was tasty... although the whipped cream kinda melted on the top layer, thanks to the flaming action. I also tried my hand at a Walnut Bread recipe with my pet sourdough starter - I was delicious and dense with rye and whole wheat flour, and a ton of walnuts! Really good toasted with cream cheese for breakfast.

This weekend, I went camping and had a great, if chilly time - more delicious food, less political convo - more about the nature of the universe and life as we know it (that tends to happen in the woods). I made Chicken in Riesling ahead of time to heat up for dinner - a fricassee, basically, with riesling to which I added pearl onions (some from my garden), black kale and butternut squash. We also had a great, hearty camping breakfast that I just got to sit back and enjoy - bacon, eggs and cinnamon-raisin bread french toast!

As my sister keeps saying, "Life is delicious!"

As Emily Dickinson said (I just found this quote on a card): "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."

Thanks to all who are keeping my life startlingly interesting these days!

For Adam

2008-10-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

Teta Ole's Lithuanian Rye Bread

The sponge:
2 cups rye flour (T.O. has been using dark rye flour lately, but it's too corse for her tastes, so she's going to try adding light rye flour)
2 cups boiling water
-- pour the boiling water over the flour, mix together, then let cool to room temp--
2 cups warm water (I'd say around 70 degrees)
1/2 cup honey
3 cups rye flour
1 Tbsp. salt
starter (rye is preferable, but T.O. says you can try it with white or whatever you have)
-- mix together and let sit at room temp for 12-14 hours--

The next day...
6 cups rye flour
5 cups white bread flour
1/4 cup honey
1 Tbsp. salt
3 1/2 cups water
1 can evaporated milk
yeast (maybe 1 packet?)
-- mix in to the sponge, then set aside some of the dough as a starter for the next batch before you start kneading --

Then you make it like any other bread... at least that's what the lack of further instructions would imply :-)

If you try this out, let me know how it goes and what other tweaks you made to the recipe!

Also - this makes about 6 standard-loaf-pan-sized loafs - so T.O. advises me not to make the full recipe...

Good luck!

Harvest time makes me happy!

2008-10-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

This time of year produce is barely waning, and the cool crisp weather we've been having is so lovely for cooking! Had some great meals this week, including:

Tuesday Supperclub - this week was roast chicken with roasted beets and sauteed black kale, and cupcakes for Rita's birthday. I also made bread for the first time with my new sourdough starter - it came out really well - maybe the best I've ever made! My only tweak would be to work on getting the crust a little crisper/flakier - probably will try to pull it a little tauter when shaping, and try to get a little more moisture in the oven next time... but regardless, it was delicious and otherwise perfect!

I also had a great food day yesterday - started the day getting a winery tour of Baer Winery in Woodinville from a friend who is their cellarmaster - he took a bunch of us around and showed us what happens on a crazy-busy day during the harvest. Really cool to watch grapes getting crushed, helping "punch down" the grapes that are already fermenting (reminds me of bread), and tasting just-fermented wine... all this in the beautiful cold fall sunshine!

Then several of us went up to Whidbey Island to make dinner with our friends Laura and Eric, who live in a great little house perched on a cliff overlooking the Sound. After gathering produce from two competing farmer's markets (you know there's a sad tale of woe in there somewhere), crab from Larry's Crab Truck and a bunch of wine and supplemental groceries, we spent a relaxing afternoon walking on the beach, checking out their renovated beach house, and cooking and eating:

At the beach:
Apple Cider Cocktails
Freshly caught steamed Dungeness crab with lemon butter

"Upstairs" for dinner:
Spinach dip & baguette
Creamy pumpkin soup with fresh crab
Tomato tarte tatin
Beet, goat cheese and lettuce salad
"Father-in-law-caught" king salmon grilled with a porcini mushroom and pepita rub and chantrelle gravy
Roasted brussel sprouts with balsamic reduction
Beet greens sauteed with chantrelle mushrooms
"Neighbor's tree" Apple pie

A fine example of Whidbey Island's harvest!

Supperclub!

2008-10-05T21:57:00.000-07:00

Long time no post - but lots of cooking has been happening in the interim! I've been hosting a sort of supperclub on a weekly basis, which started because I was trying to offload some paella leftovers after my birthday - and thought how fun it would be to do this with friends who live in the general vicinity on a regular basis. It's after work, so the menus are fairly straightforward - but we still can't seem to sit down to dinner before 8:30! It's been a lot of fun, and I will be posting our weekly menus here for posterity.

To catch you up on the action - here's what we've been eating:

7/1 - Paella and other party leftovers (canapés, cake)
7/8 - Vietnamese salad bowls with caramel pork and chicken, dessert (that Anne made?)
7/15 - Syrian beef kebabs with Lemony Cucumber Salad & Cilantro Mint Chutney; strawberry brown sugar sour cream swirl ice cream
7/22 - Fish tacos (grilled fish with chipotle sour cream, shredded cabbage and cilantro in fresh corn tortillas)
8/12 - Grilled pizza (toppings included sausage, grilled zucchini, arugula & prosciutto)
8/19 - BBQ Pork (and tofu) burgers with cole slaw, grilled veggies
8/26 - “Green Egg” grill-roasted chicken on beer cans, jicama cole slaw, blueberry almond green salad, peach pie
9/2 - Homemade pickles & Danish pickled herring; grilled spice-rubbed pork tenderloin with grilled peaches and radicchio; peach-brandy ice cream
9/9 - Savory pistachio/chorizo “cake,” garden veggie lasagna, ice creams
9/16 - Spice-rubbed grilled pork tenderloin with peach chutney, walnut-sauce on bruschetta, broccoli salad, Anarchy Cake with figs and plums
9/23 - Minestrone Soup with homemade focaccia
9/30 - “icky” (store bought) shrimp snacks; chicken satay with peanut sauce & cucumber salad; black pepper cauliflower; rice; nectarine basil ice cream with coconut lime cookies

Where I've been able to easily link to recipes, I have.

So anyway - stay tuned for more updates on the Supperclub!

White shoes - no soup - after Memorial Day

2008-05-24T21:10:00.001-07:00

Hello! Long time no blog...

I don't think it's appropriate to talk soup after Memorial Day weekend (just like you can now wear white shoes)... although I'll have to dedicate a future blog post to Cold Beet Soup.

Maybe it's time to talk bbq? Tonight, I grilled some:

- baby garlic shoots (they're kindof like mini-leeks) with olive oil, salt & pepper (skewered so they don't disappear into the embers)
- asparagus wrapped in pancetta (on skewers)
- fresh halibut with olive oil, salt and pepper

It was a very "fresh" dinner, onto which I sprinkled a little high-quality Balsamic Vinegar

Eaten with a nice Pinot Noir rose in the backyard to the sound of what I think are starlings making wacky sounds - delicious and simple!

Eulogy for my Grandfather, Stasys Salkauskas

2008-03-01T05:48:00.001-08:00

My grandfather died on Wednesday, and I thought I'd share this eulogy that my sister Nida and I wrote:

Our grandfather, Senelis, was the second youngest of 8 children. His strong will and determination were apparent early in life. At the age of three or four, he badgered his mother to let him go to school along with his older brother Olius and sister Ole, and when she couldn’t stand listening to his complaining any more, she told him—just go. So he went, walking by himself for a couple kilometers to the school. Teta Ole (our great-aunt) remembers that day, when the school door opened, but no one could see who or what had opened it. When Senelis finally appeared and demanded to be taught, the teacher offered him a seat, and from then on he began his studies.

He relished learning and knowledge his whole life—he continuously challenged himself and others by engaging them with ongoing debates and discussions about politics, current events and world affairs. He was the only one in our family who actively encouraged Nida to discuss my work with him. And, unlike everyone else, his eyes never glazed over when Nida launched into details about international rule of law initiatives or governance models. He had strong opinions on almost every subject and was eager to discuss almost anything. Yet, the point of these conversations was not necessarily to convince me or others of his point of view, but rather to test the accuracy of his principles to make sure that his arguments were based on accurate information and that they reflected the truth. These principles and convictions were what kept him so deeply rooted, despite the many upheavals in his early life.

Senelis was younger than I am now when he fled Lithuania after the war. I wonder if I would have known how to deal with such a big decision. There was a story he sometimes told about when he was teaching in Giedraiciai. He and his colleagues would gather in the teacher’s lounge to discuss and debate politics, and he often made jokes about Stalin. One day, the phone in the lounge rang—it was a colleague from the high school across the street, calling to warn them that if he could hear their conversation from the telephone, then so could the authorities, and they might not be so amused by his jokes. Senelis needed to live life without fear and in line with his beliefs.

Throughout the decade that followed, in refugee camps and resettling in the United States, Senelis found solace and even joy in the beauty of daily life and in his interactions with the people around him. He learned several languages during his travels, and used them to good end—in Germany, he and his brother talked some German soldiers into giving them a couple old Army accordions that were on top of a big pile of loot. One of the accordions made it all the way to the States, and knowing of my love of music, he gave me the accordion a few years ago. I learned to play it (sortof), and love its old-fashioned, out-of-tune sound. Last Christmas, I brought the accordion back to play for him, since he and I had enjoyed singing together on previous visits. He would sing a few bars of a song, and I would pick it out on the accordion. The old songs brought back so many memories for him, mostly of happier, more carefree times when he was a young man. He sang well and remembered many lyrics, including alternative lyrics to popular and classical songs that he learned during his military training.

He was creative in many ways—through music, his clever turns of phrase and jokes, sometimes injecting poems into his conversations, growing beautiful vegetables in his garden in Pittsburg, making his own wine in the basement. He was a master of using his resources to their best purpose, and spared no energy or time to leave a job well done. “Ka darai, daryk gerai” —whatever you do, do it well —was a common aphorism he would relentlessly repeat to us as children. He would also tell us “nepasiduok” —don’t give up—whether it was learning how to sew from Teta Ole (hopeless in my case), or finding my way through my career. He and Teta Ole would send us care packages when we went away to college—lasiniuociai and cookies from Teta Ole, and an encouraging “Nepasiduok” in a card from Senelis.

There is no single grand narrative that would do justice to the life he lived. In his last years, we often contemplated the many twists and turns together. From one perspective, we would be astounded at all the pain that people can cause one another. At another moment he would proudly boast about his daughter’s PhD or that our sister Lile’s children speak perfect Lithuanian, even with such a tenuous connection to his homeland. He respected our brother Tadas for the long hours of hard work he has put into pursuing his goals. He had strong opinions, but in the end he was humble about insisting on his way, as he himself knew that it is better to reserve judgment, that the right answer is elusive, that all the careful plans that we make can be swiftly and easily undone, leaving us to use our remaining resources to rebuild. His love of life and family have taught us all to cherish every moment, each individual task, of this precious and short life.

He loved poetry a much as music, and he found meaning in this one by Marcelijus Martinaitis, which speaks of the ambiguity of life:

Is trumpo gyvenimo
mokaus ilgai gyventi.
Juokiuos - vargdamas,
Verkiu per svente.

Toli gyvenu,
arti vaziuoju
ir nemoku dainos,
kuria dainuoju.

Rough - very rough - translation:

From this short life
I learned to live long
I laugh - while suffering
Cry through a holiday

I live far away
I travel close
And I don't know the song
Which I am singing

Back to chicken noodle...

2008-02-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

Having roasted a chicken the other night (using my favorite recipe from the NYT - Mark Bittman's "30 minute" high-heat version), I've come full circle to chicken noodle. Normally (as in, before last month) I would have just made plain old chicken noodle, but the pressure/pleasure of sharing the results in a blog got me thinking about other variations. Also, I had a very satisfying bowl of wonton soup at Thaiku (in Ballard) yesterday, which made me think about Asian noodle soups, which led me to concoct the following variation on a theme:

1/2 med onion, sliced thinly
1/2 Tbs. butter or vegetable oil
3-4 slices of fresh ginger, peeled
1 bunch black kale (or any green, really), thinly sliced
2/3 of a leftover chicken, bones used for stock, sliced
1 1/2 qts (or so) chicken stock
1/3 lb. (or so) udon noodles or fettucine, cooked according to package instructions, drained and rinsed with cold water
1/2 tsp. sesame oil
Salt to taste

In a large pot, saute onion in the butter until it's slightly carmelized. Add ginger and kale, saute for a few minutes, then fill pot about 1/2 full with stock. Bring to a simmer and let simmer for about 10 minutes (time this step to coincide with cooking the noodles). Add chicken and let soup come back to a simmer. Add noodles, cook for a few minutes to re-warm, then stir in sesame oil. Check for salt. Serve in a big bowl with chopsticks to slurp up the noodles with!

Random funny things...

2008-02-14T16:52:00.001-08:00

This blog is hilarious - very Seattle - um, very me :-)
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

AND - the McCain spoof on the preachy-but-inspiring Obama video (watch the Obama first for best effect):
Obama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
McCain - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzd5nLzZjcc

More blogging this weekend - promise!

Beet red

2008-02-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

I had a craving for beets yesterday - probably because my stomach has been bugging me in the last few days, and beets usually help balance my digestion...

Oddly enough, I don't remember eating borscht at home as a kid - at least not hot borscht. We often had saltibarsciai - cold beet soup - in the summer, a pepto-bismal-pink, buttermilk-based soup that's delicious and refreshing when you don't want to turn the stove on. That said, I never ate it when I was younger because I hated beets. Now they're one of my favorite vegetables - I love their earthy sweetness. I think they taste like dirt, but in a good way!

So I wanted to make barsciai (to use the Lithuanian) yesterday, and poked around in various cookbooks and online to find a recipe that looked good. A lot of recipes called for beef broth - either canned or homemade - which I didn't have, nor did it make sense to me to make broth outside of the soup-making process, especially since I had time to invest in cooking. I wound up following this recipe for Ukranian borscht, more or less: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/6008 - key differences being: adding the meat back in with the potatoes (the recipe leaves it cooling on the counter) and swapping out the raw garlic for sauteed. I also was agressive about skimming the fat - I put the broth in the freezer until the fat had solidified. I find fatty broth totally unappetizing.

The results were great! Sweet, meaty, tangy from the lemon juice - and plentiful leftovers. The allspice in the broth reminds me of my great-aunt's soups...

Yum!

2008-01-27T23:02:00.000-08:00

Ok - it worked! The roasted cauliflower soup turned out quite well - very tasty with a some crusty bread from Macrina on the side... here's the recipe:

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

1 med. head cauliflower
5-6 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced in half
3 Tbsp. olive oil
salt & pepper

3 med. leeks, green parts removed, rinsed well and sliced crosswise
1 Tbs. butter
1 Qt. (or so) vegetable stock (not a tomato-y one)
1/2 lb. yellow potatoes (I used Russian fingerlings), cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup cream
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375F. Remove leaves and tough bottom stem of the cauliflower - slice the cauliflower lengthwise into 1/2 inch slices, then break up the florets. Spread the cauliflower in one layer on a baking sheet - scatter garlic, and drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper.
Roast for about 15 minutes, then flip the cauliflower and roast for another 15-20 minutes. Cauliflower should be tender and browned in spots.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium-sized pot over med-high heat - add leeks and saute until wilted and slightly browned. Add the stock, bring to a boil, then add potatoes. Cook until potatoes are done (about 15 minutes). Let cool for at least 10 minutes.

When cauliflower and potatoes are done and slightly cooled, put all into a food processor or blender - carefully (use a potholder or dish towel) pulse/blend until failry smooth (it will have some texture, since you didn't peel the potatoes). Return soup to pot and add cream (more, or less, or milk, or none to taste). Bring to barely a simmer, check for salt & pepper, and serve!

--------------------------------

This was inspired by Nida's "leftover soup" recipe that she posted a few weeks ago, as well as by a description of a pasta served at How to Cook a Wolf (new restaurant on top of Queen Anne, not the MFK Fisher book, although must have been inspired by it) - which I thought sounded good but was too full to try.

making it up...

2008-01-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

Long time no post! It's been busy in these parts, and although I cooked up a storm last weekend, I just didn't feel like soup. I made Indian food one night, and lasagna another - both good, the Indian food a little more on the soup side, fortunately!

But it's Sunday night, and I'm concocting a roasted cauliflower soup with leeks and potatoes and a little cream - so far, the cauliflower is roasting with some garlic and olive oil (and salt & pepper), the leeks have wilted in a little butter on the stovetop, and I'm waiting for the vegetable stock-cicle to melt before I put in the potatoes. Stay tuned - I'll post later with the results!

Pizza is kindof like soup(?)

2008-01-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

So, I know you've all been waiting anxiously to hear what kind of soup I made Sunday night - the emails and phone calls have been non-stop since my last post (haha)... well, Sunday night I actually opted out of cooking altogether and after going for a lovely walk in Discovery Park in the late afternoon, I went to IKEA where I spent more money than I thought I would (as always) and then came home all excited to construct my new end tables and watch Jane Austen on PBS... so I ordered a pizza! Zagi's Pizza is my personal favorite for local delivery and yummy New York style pizza with great toppings like carmelized onions and really good sausage, etc.

Anyway, I did wind up making the Bean/Barley/Swiss Chard soup last night (after finishing all my pizza leftovers - finally) - here's the recipe, adapted from one I found in a magazine by Marcella Hazan:

Bean/Barley/Chard Soup

1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, diced
1-2 carrots, peeled (or not) and diced
1 bunch Swiss Chard (or red Chard), washed and thinly sliced

1/3 cup canned chopped tomatoes (or more, if you have a whole can and don't want it lingering in your fridge)

1 19 oz. can canellini beans
2/3 cups barley
5 cups water (or so)
salt & pepper

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot, saute onions for a few minutes, then add the celery and carrots. Saute until slightly soft (about 5-8 minutes), then add the tomatoes - lower heat slightly and let all simmer together for about 10 minutes. Stir in the chard and 1 tsp. salt, then cover and lower heat to barely a simmer. Simmer with lid on for 40 minutes (check and stir occassionally).

In a separate pot (and this is good to start while you're waiting on the tomatoes), boil the 5 cups of water with lots of salt (as if you were making pasta). Once it reaches a boil, add the barley (which you may want to rinse - when I made it last night it was a little dusty/silty). Boil barley for 35 minutes. Skim any floaty stuff off if needed, then drain the barley, reserving the cooking water (or scoop the barley out of the water directly into the soup pot with a holey spoon or small sieve).

Once barley and veggies are both done, combine all in the veggie pot and add the can of beans. Add about 2 or so cups of the reserved barley water (or more or less based on your desired soupy-ness). Bring to a low simmer, add more salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with grated parmesan on top!

This should last me a few days... anyone up for cooking stew or Indian food or cassoulet (yikes!) this weekend?

a few brief comments

2008-01-13T12:03:00.000-08:00

Guilty pleasure: Campbell's tomato soup made with milk and a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch on a cold day... ideally after playing in the snow, but we have to imagine that part in the NW. I picked up this kid-food in college, since my mother was partial to Bean with Bacon soup when we were growing up... either way, the cans themselves are such classics!

Miso mystery: Anyone have a good recipe for miso soup? I was having a nice Japanese lunch on Friday, and was reminded of how good miso soup is, and also of all my failed attempts to make it taste that good. I usually get the wrong kind of miso and/or the proportions all wrong and/or a huge vat of soup that I never finish. Please post!

Sunday night supper: is either going to be a quick bean/barley/chard soup or some sort of garlic "cooked water" soup, depending on how much time I feel like spending inside today - it's actually sunny in Seattle today!

New Year's Resolutions

2008-01-10T17:39:00.000-08:00

It looks like my sister's friends in DC are not really following their resolution about eating only soup in January... but then again, I can't blame them - I'm not a big fan of resolutions in general, especially the kind that restrict something you like :-)

My sister started to give things up for Lent in the past few years, but they've been things like, "give up feeling sorry for yourself" - much more to my taste! So this year, I've come up with a New Year's resolution that will be both hard to follow at times, and always make me feel better when I do it (unlike those delayed-gratification things like "don't eat cheese")... and so my resolution this year is to Play More - as in "be more playful," not "play video games" (although that would still be in the spirit of things).

This all started to come to fruition in my head over the past few months, during which I've been taking things WAAAYYY too seriously - at work, at home, with friends, family, etc. (hmmm - I think maybe I've been a pain in the ass in the process!).

Then something in my head insisted that I do a few key silly things that have started to make me less serious - like buy a "One Laptop Per Child" computer (and donate one to a kid in the developing world at the same time with their G1G1 program), and read "kids" books (the Golden Compass movie started that), and start a silly blog about soup... And so I'm going to just try to think of life as Play and see where that takes me...

Playing has it's pros and cons, of course, as anyone who was ever a kid remembers (so does the cute "baby laptop", btw - Linux is kindof fun but also kindof time-sucking!). Playing may "waste time" - but on the other hand, you discover real things when you play, like what it's like to be on Battlestar Gallactica (or could morph into animals), or what's actually interesting about a piece of music that you're noodling with (what a grown-up example). Playing shows you who the bullies are, who the fun kids are, what you might like doing more (be a mermaid) or less (play dodgeball).

Ok - enough philosophizing... talk amongst yourselves...

This weekend - more soup!

Leftovers!

2008-01-07T20:40:00.000-08:00

Boy, this is just about the most exciting blog ever! Soup! Leftovers! woo-hoo!

So, let me tell you about the Sunday soup - the cinnamon/pork one... it came out great,and I'm have that for dinner tonight. Also had the last of the chicken noodle for lunch, so it's an all-soup day. This I see as the biggest drawback of soup, unless you're cooking for a crowd - the leftover situation an get a little out of control.

That said, the bowl of soup from last night is sure looking and smelling good, sitting next to me to cool down a little as I write this.

A few notes on the recipe, since I'd never made it before - the broth and pork turned out fantastic, and made the whole house smell good! That said, you need to skim a LOT of fat off - made me wish I had one of those fat-skimmers - would have saved me some time. But once that was done, the soup came together quickly - I just threw in about 1/2 bag of spinach, and used rice stick noodles that I happened to have in the cupboard (although cellophane or those cool Korean yam noodles would be even better). So, this is definately a keeper recipe.

And there's more in the pot! I'll have think of other topics until I eat this all up and make the next pot of soup...

Sunday soup

2008-01-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

Sunday soup should take several hours to make - simmering away on the stove while you putter around the house... I think I'm going to try this one today - come on over for dinner around 7-ish if you're in the neighborhood! I'll probably add spinach or chard...

pork noodle soup with cinnamon and anise
Gourmet | December 2007

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Last Touch

Maggie Ruggiero

2 1/2 pounds country-style pork ribs
6 cups water
2/3 cup soy sauce
2/3 cup Chinese Shaoxing wine or medium-dry Sherry
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 head garlic, halved crosswise
3 (3-inch) cinnamon sticks
1 whole star anise
5 1/2 ounces bean thread (cellophane) noodles

Garnish: chopped cilantro; sliced scallions

Gently simmer all ingredients except noodles in a 6-quart heavy pot, covered, skimming as needed, until pork is very tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Transfer pork to a bowl. Discard bones, spices, and garlic. Coarsely shred meat. Skim fat from broth, then return meat and bring to a simmer. Rinse noodles, then stir into broth and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until noodles are translucent and tender, about 6 minutes.

The post-holiday 'diet'

2008-01-05T17:52:00.000-08:00

Hi all - now, an actual diet is not my style, but after multiple conversations in the last few years with friends and family about the restorative power of soup in the bleak midwinter (especially in Seattle - having just returned from 'sunny' Cleveland and DC, I can't believe how DARK it is here), I thought it might be nice to talk soup.

Most recently, my sister's DC 'family's' resolution to stick to soup (or was it no snacks?) plus a really annoying cold+sinus infection led me to thinking - chicken soup!

So - here's my recipe for chicken soup:

1-2 qts. chicken broth (I usually use homemade frozen)
1-2 qts. water (use more water if you don't have enough stock)
1.5 lbs. cooked & diced/shredded chicken (leftover roast chicken is best - or poach some in the stock/water+salt)
2 Tbs. butter or olive oil
1/2 onion, choppped
2-3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 bulb celeriac, peeled and diced
1 bunch (lb.) black kale (aka Tuscan/dino kale) sliced in thin strips (chiffonade?)
salt & pepper to taste
1/3 lb. slightly under-cooked egg noodles or pasta (take it out 1-2 minutes early)

In a large pot (5-6 qt) over med-high heat, melt butter and add onion. Saute until golden, then add carrots and celeriac. Saute a few minutes, then add kale. Saute a few more minutes, then add broth and water. Let simmer together (lower heat as needed) for about 10 minutes, until all veggies are soft. Add the chicken and noodles, and let it all come to a simmer for about 5 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper - season to your taste.

That's it! It's good for what ails ya'.

So, I'm new to blogging, but I think it might be nice to share soup recipes - what have you been making?