food therapy

Just before Christmas, my mom and I flew down to Albuquerque to spend a few days with my grandfather surrounding the one-year anniversary of my grandmother's death. This trip was a homecoming, but to a home that is different without Granny B around. I was born in Albuquerque and spent much of my childhood at my grandparents' home, so when I stepped off of the airplane and into the house, I was struck with how similar it felt...and how different. The house smells the same and my grandmother's imprint is felt almost everywhere as her crafts and thrift store finds - including a stuffed duck that quacks at eerily random times - are scattered around every room. Walking in, I expected to see her wander out of her craft room and greet my mom and I with her distinct southern accent (ever-strong, though she hadn't lived in the South since her early twenties). The craft room had been turned into a guest room and the southern accent was sadly absent.

After the initial shock of seeing the house without 2/3 of its former inhabitants (my grandparents' long-time dog, Bernie, also passed away this year), I began honoring my grandmother in a way that, for me, seemed fitting. While I don't believe she would have considered herself a chef, my grandma's food has had a profound effect on my life. I can trace much of my early love of food to her hand - boiled peanuts at her dining room table, fried fresh-caught catfish for breakfast, her famous Velveeta macaroni and cheese (I know, I know, but I stand by this one), pimento cheese sandwiches, and garden fresh tomatoes eaten like apples with salt (come on, this makes up for the mac & cheese, right?). She even taught me great life skills like how to peel grapes before eating them (not one I've kept up, but I'm sure this will be very useful when preparing those gooey "eyes" on Halloween) and how to store gravy for later use (Ice trays! I swear, she could have marketed this one).

The first day we were in Albuquerque, I spent a few hours pouring over her many cookbooks, searching for a few remnants of her to take home to my kitchen. I chose a South Carolina cookbook with check-marked recipes and page numbers of favorites on the front cover, a book of New Mexican cooking, and a few handwritten recipes (she didn't write down many, but I managed to find a few scraps of paper here and there). Then, of course, I ate. Lunch one day was BLT's, a sandwich I had countless times at her home. The day of the anniversary we ate posole, cooked with pork she had purchased just before her death (frozen!) and earmarked specifically for this purpose. I know this probably seems a little strange and maybe, to some, morbid, but it felt truly right to turn this meat into soup - a way of following her wishes, I suppose.

While silently toasting my grandmother with foods that reminded me of her, I felt periods of sadness. But, writing this post I can't find myself feeling anything but joy. I am so grateful that I lived near her as a child and that I saw so much of her as I grew older. And, I am eagerly looking forward to trying out some of the recipes that she cherished, as if in some small way to get closer to my memory of her.

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Of course, I could not have returned to New Mexico without sampling the quintessential meal, at least once. A bowl of green (chile, that is), warm, fresh flour tortillas and a sopaipilla for dessert. This is the New Mexico that I long for and that I cannot quite re-create, no matter how many "hatch" style chilis I buy at the Portland farmer's market. It's comfort food at its finest, despite the fact that the green chili burns the tip of your tongue and everywhere else as it makes its warming trek through your body. In New Mexico, I find satisfaction in the ever-present burn. The distinct spiciness of a bowl of green brings me back to a womb-like state of calm and delight the way that chicken and dumplings or mashed potatoes may transport a more northerly American (though, of course, I do not deny these foods their virtues).

I had my bowl of green at Cervantes, a family favorite blocks from my grandfathers' house. The video below is already my favorite video of all time - instructions for all who may wish to properly eat a sopapilla. Isn't my granddad amazing? Notice the elegant camera shakes as I can't help but laugh...


How to eat a sopapilla from stumptownpanda on Vimeo.

I stumbled onto jars of Cervantes hot green chile sauce at a grocery store in Albuquerque and cradled my own jar home with me. P and I tried our hands at making a bowl of green a few nights ago and, while it was delicious, it did not totally measure up to the original. Not quite spicy enough, not quite rich enough. I am starting to check our calendar for dates to return to the Land of Enchantment. Besides, P has never been and who am I to deny him this unparalleled satisfaction? I think my grandmother would agree with me there.

PS. We've enabled open commenting for everyone (even without blogger registration) - thanks Leenie for letting us know! Now don't rush all-at-once to put in your two cents.

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The number of cookies and chocolates we made this weekend? The number of times that A played "Cheer Me Up, Thank You" by New Buffalo? I think it might have been both. Needless to say, it was a frantic productive weekend. Amidst a slew of busy weeks and A's trip to New Mexico, we figured out that we had about four and a half hours in fifteen-minute blocks of free time spread between three days last weekend in which to accomplish all of our holiday gift-making. That, and A decided she would squeeze in recording a song for a friend's year-end compilation.



It actually worked. And what do we have to show for it?

50 Shortbread
65 White-Chocolate-Dipped Cocoa Candy Cane Cookies
75 Buckwheat Cocoa Nib Cookies
62 Dark Chocolate Mendiants with Figs, Candied Orange Peel and Marcona Almonds
7 Bottles of Limoncello
1 New Buffalo Cover

I'm not sure whether or not I want to share this recipe - sometimes it is nice to wield the power, to have something for which other people depend on you - but these buckwheat cookies are just so good that I feel like I need to spread their gospel. We came across the recipe on Orangette, who found them in Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert. True, their name sounds deceptively wholesome, but when you bite into them, they are nutty and toasty and rich. Addictively so. Medrich's approach to desserts - simple preparations that have the concentrated flavors of their ingredients - has bumped her cookbook up on the next-to-own list. Try the recipe and you'll be in line for her cookbook, too. The cookies were good, but next year we'll be making hand-crafted ponies for all of our friends and family.

The other great weekend accomplishment was A's first go at recording. Yeah, this may have opened up whole new avenues for inane reels of her giggling to herself as she makes funny sounds, but who am I to deny her of her fun? A's friend at infiniteregress.org started up a year-end project to get folks to record cover versions of their favorite songs from 2007 for a compilation CD. With limited time, no instruments and zero knowledge of the recording equipment, A put together a really beautiful, lilting a capella take on "Cheer Me Up Thank You." While you're there, you should listen to Day 1, when A's brother Brandon (B) posted a great version of a Menomena song and Day 7, when Tim, who runs the site, performed a fantastic cover of "Saltbreakers." Seriously, my wife is good at what she does, isn't she?

Now, on the subject of music, can we all just agree on how great this song is?



Just another stock "band-in-the-recording-studio" video, right? And then come the kittens and unicorns and balloons! And rainbows! Its like a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper exploded out of their amps; Los Campesinos! are literally overpowered by their own twee-ness. They just moved up my list to be the '08 album release I am most looking forward to. Or the only album release that I know of. Either one. But how can you not love a band who puts out songs like this and who all take Campesinos! as their last name? I feel like I missed out on something - everyone seems to be forming these new family-like groups by recasting themselves with a new last name and here, A and I got hitched and kept our names. It seems sort of cult-ish, but I think they are all too hip to be creepy. Adopting collective surnames is the new black.

sunday suppers

Sunday evenings have never been our strong suit socially. Around our home, Sundays are usually accompanied by a good deal of whining about the return to work and a throw-in-the-towel refusal leave our place or start new projects. We like to think that we are "preparing" ourselves for the coming week, but it is more likely just moodiness. It is a night to organize ourselves and get a start on meals for the week, making doughs and soaking beans, but that doesn't excuse us for behaving like shut-ins.

The pleasures of a simple Sunday supper may be just enough to shake us out of our reclusive habits. It is the perfect excuse to brush aside any thoughts of the next week for another few hours and just share in good food. When we invited two of our friends over this last Sunday for an early dinner (which it didn't end up being - sorry, guys!), we looked at it as a chance to make a warming, simple, seasonal meal. Now, I didn't say easy, because that would frankly be out of character, but our Sunday approach did mean we avoided the intensive multi-course meals we try to pull off on other weekend nights. A soup, a salad, a bread and some cookies. What could be more satisfying on a night that was just barely holding back flurries of snow?

I'd been looking at recipes for gougeres for quite some time now, namely because of a New Year's sandwich from the Zuni Cafe. Their photo was seductive - crackling crisp crust with bits of cheese oozing out. It didn't hurt that Judy Rodgers chose to stuff them with bacon and pickled onions, either. Knowing that I am not the baker in our relationship, I'd never gotten around to the recipe, but after having finally tried some at Beast, I had just been waiting for the right occasion. It certainly helped my confidence to have just read an eloquent explanation of gougeres on Michael Ruhlman's Elements of Cooking site - a blog filled with many other lyrical and edifying descriptions of the foundation techniques of the kitchen. At their heart, gougeres are founded on a pâte a choux - a cooked dough that is among the more interesting bits of culinary chemistry that I've seen. Essentially, the steam of the cooking and the addition of the eggs develops a gluten structure that puffs up grandly in the oven. Add cheese to your basic dough and you have gougeres; sugar, and it becomes an eclair.

Supper:
Chanterelles on Toast from Chez Panisse

Radicchio, Mint, Apple, and Asian Pear Salad with Buttermilk Dressing from Lucques

Apple and Chestnut Soup

Gougeres from Zuni Cafe

Cocoa Nib Butter Buckwheat Cookies from Pure Dessert with Fig Cake and Gorgonzola Dolce
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New Year's Eve Gougeres
Adapted from Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers

Rodgers has an amazing voice that runs throughout her book - a quality that all good cookbooks should have. From her, I have perfected cooking dried beans and shelling chestnuts - reading it is like having Rodgers in your kitchen. I have been known to read this cookbook for fun.

For 20-24 Three-bite-sized gougeres:
1 cup water
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoons salt (a little more if using kosher)
4 ounces all-purpose flour (1 cup)
4 large eggs, cold
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
2 ounces Gruyere, cut into 1/4-inch cubes (about 1/2 cup) [If you are planning on piping the dough into shapes, I would recommend coarsely grating the cheese, rather than cubing it.]

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a 2- to 4- quart saucepan, bring the water, butter, and salt to a simmer over medium heat. Add the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture masses and detaches itself from the sides of the pan. Reduce the heat to low and cook, beating constantly, until the batter is very stiff and almost shiny, usually a few minutes. Off the heat, add the eggs one by one, beating thoroughly with a wooden spoon to completely incorporate each egg before adding the next. The mixture will initially resist each addition; you'll find yourself cutting through and slapping together slabs of slippery, warm paste until it gradually absorbs the egg and becomes sticky again. [Transferring the dough to a stand mixer prior to adding the eggs will develop a better consistency and save your wrists - believe me, when Rodgers says "stiff," the dough puts up quite a struggle. Each egg will make the dough slough apart into slippery sheets, but just as quickly, it will become a thick paste.] The final mixture should be no hotter than tepid. [We found they even benefited from brief refrigeration.] Add the pepper to taste and stir in the Gruyere.

If you are proficient with one, transfer the batter to a pastry bag, and pipe 2- to 3-inch long bands onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Otherwise use a spoon to scoop out a heaping tablespoon of batter per gougere and a second spoon to scrape it into a peaky mound on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake until firm and a rich golden brown, about 25 minutes [They will likely need the full time to get crisp and retain their height - any of ours that we prematurely removed deflated quickly.] Inevitably, some bits of cheese will ooze and form a delicious, crispy bib on the edges of the gougeres. To check doneness, remove 1 gougere and pry open. The interior strands of dough should be tender and moist, but not mushy; if they are, close the gougere and return it to the oven to bake with the rest for another few minutes. If you are concerned that they may overbrown, simply turn off the oven and leave to finish cooking in the ambient heat.
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Perhaps we should make a habit of such Sunday evenings.

gingerblaze of glory

A few weeks ago, my co-worker, Nancy, stopped by my desk with a flier in hand. A local art school, PNCA, was hosting a gingerbread contest (Rip City Gingerblaze 2007) and a team from Ecotrust planned to enter. Would I be interested in joining the team? Faster than you can say gingerhaus, I had agreed and even threw P's services into the deal. (I like to think that in speaking his vows to me, P intimated his cheerful willingness to go along with any hair-brained scheme I managed to hatch or get us into.)

It was another week before team Ecotrust had its first formal meeting, during which we accomplished roughly the following:
-We would make the Natural Capital Center.
-We would build it out of gingerbread.
-Some of us had gingerbread recipes that *might* work.
-We would need candy.
Beaming from what we imagined to be a thoroughly successful meeting, we all proceeded to tuck the idea into cozy corners way (way) in the back of our minds. Mine slept soundly there, snugly sandwiched between "learning guitar" and "writing a food-based memoir," until it was rudely awakened by Nancy's panic-stricken voice. The contest was a week away. We had not even begun planning (much less building) in earnest and Ecotrust's very reputation was at stake.

Meeting number two was frantically arranged, at which we accomplished the following (in summary):
-We would make the building in a 2:1 rectangular shape.
-Some of us would make gingerbread over the course of the week.
-We would gather to assemble the Natural Capital Center on Saturday, exactly one day before the deadline.
-We would need candy.

When Saturday arrived in dreary drizzle (this was the day the clouds let loose, signaling the most intense three days of rain I have yet to experience in Portland) I hoped for the rain to turn to a blizzard into which I simply could not venture. Unfortunately the weather, though irritating and more than a little wet, was not enough to justify playing hooky. I dragged myself to our gingerbread construction site and prepared myself for disaster - crumbling gingerbread, garish candy designs, total disorganization, even a food fight or two. I would have been happy leaving the event still on speaking terms with all of my co-workers.

In 7 1/2 hours, I was amazed by the transformation. Like the gingerbread, I was covered in many-colored frosting, seeds, wheat grass, licorice and bits of seaweed; but, believe me, I looked far worse than my architectural counterpart. Furthermore, we merry workers were laughing and joking, not arguing over the sour straws and jellied eyes. Towards the end of the evening, I declared without hesitation that this was, in fact, the best thing that I had ever done. Better than graduating college. Better than getting a job at Ecotrust in the first place. Better than our wedding? P inquired. Maybe. This pronouncement may have been induced by the thin layer of candy dust in the air, or perhaps it was pure exhaustion. Whatever the cause, there was something magical about that afternoon of construction and creative energy. I only pray that the magic holds on just a little longer and cements that gingerbread in place through to the end of the competition.