the drive back

On the way back from the Berkshires last weekend, Rachela and I almost ran out of gas. And when you’re looking for a gas station, you inevitably can’t find one. And then the gas light goes off and says you have another 30 miles to go before you should panic. And then you drive another 5 miles. And you’re told you should really panic in 7 miles. And those extra 12 safety miles? They disappeared. Of course, when you finally find someone fixing his tractor at the side of the road and inquire about a station, he points you to the top of the hill where you can see a Gulf sign peeking out behind a church.

After we filled the tank, we began our search for farmers markets. We had seen loads of them throughout the weekend, but didn’t want to buy anything to have it sit in our room or the car in the sweltering heat. So when we were finally ready to load up the car with fresh fruits and vegetables, none were to be found. We drove by a wigwam. And an Indian circle dance. When I read the word dance, I jumped out of the car, ready to join in. Until I saw a half-dozen pot-bellied men in loin cloths and feather headdresses stomping their feet around a bonfire. We were back in the car and on the road fast. Really fast. So fast that we had to do a quick U-turn after we passed a sign for fresh-picked corn. U-turn accomplished, we rolled into the driveway and found a makeshift table set with ears of corn, plastic bags, a metal box and a sign stating,

Corn.

Picked this morning.

$6 a dozen or $0.50 each.

Please leave money in the box.

We promptly picked a pair of ears each, deposited our dollars in the box, and waved at the proprietress as she stepped onto her front porch to shuck.

We then passed a larger farmers stand with a greater variety of produce. I grabbed a few tomatoes, a handful of small cukes, and several large zucchinis.

And they sat in my fridge for almost a week while I toiled away in the office, ordering dinner in to sustain me during my late working hours. And then, only this weekend, did the vegetables come out to play. An Israeli salad. Corn roasted in the husk, eaten over the sink. And simple roasted zucchini with Mediterranean spices.

Roasted Zucchini

Adapted from a recipe for Roasted Zucchini with Ricotta and Mint from this August’s Food & Wine. 

Additional note 7/10/12: after salting the zucchini, make sure to rinse off all the salt. You can always add more salt to taste, but it’s pretty hard to remove it! 

Preheat oven to 450ºF. Dice 2 large zucchini into a medium-sized dice (1/3 – 1/2 inch). Salt generously and let sit in colander for 5-10 minutes until some of the zucchini’s liquid is released. Rinse zucchini and dry well. (The salting helps prevent the zucchini from getting soggy.) Toss with 1T olive oil, salt, and pepper. Shake onto a baking dish and roast for 25-30 minutes until zucchini starts to brown. Add 2 t cumin and a few pinches of crushed red pepper and roast for another 2-5 minutes until the spices are fragrant. Scoop into a bowl and sprinkle with the juice of half a lemon. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a few mint leaves and a scoop of labane (or leave off the labane for a non-dairy option).

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a random walk

I was going through my food photos and came across a few that I thought would be fun to share. These are ones that somehow got lost in posts I meant to write or got caught up in the dilemma of having nothing to say except that this tastes really good or got thrown to the wolves as just too basic to share.  But, let’s take a short trip through some of my archives and see what we can come up with.

So this is simple syrup infused with dried roses. I’ve made simple syrup here before, and while the mint version is fabulous, the rose variety is lovely to look at but that’s where the loveliness ends.

This here is rainbow challah — my standard recipe filled with sprinkles and formed into a round challah for Rosh Hashana. This tradition was passed on to me by part of my extended Atlanta family.

These are some vegetables that I tossed with a balsamic reduction vinaigrette. The star here was clearly the vinaigrette. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I found the recipe that I used as my starting point. I remember reducing the balsamic by about a third, mixing with olive oil, salt, pepper, and mustard. And tossing it over sliced peppers and blanched asparagus.

Mmmm…yet another quinoa recipe. Actually, this one is worth sharing.

Lemon-Tahina Quinoa

Inspired by 101 Cookbooks’ Lemon-scented Quinoa Salad.

- 1 C quinoa (I used a mix of white and red quinoa)

- 2 C water or amount called for by your quinoa package

- kosher salt to taste

- 1 garlic clove, chopped

- 1/4 C tahina

- 1/4 C lemon juice

- 2 T olive oil

- 2 T boiling water

- 1 can garbanzo beans

- chives

Make quinoa. Prepare quinoa as directed on package, or bring water to a boil, add salt and quinoa and return to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cover for ~15 minutes. Remove from heat when the water has been absorbed and allow to cool, covered for 3-5 minutes.

Make dressing. Whisk the garlic, tahina, lemon juice, and olive oil. Add in boiling water to thin and salt to taste.

Assemble salad. Toss quinoa and garbanzo beans with dressing. Cut chives over top of salad before serving.

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last of the season

As Winter so dutifully introduced itself to us here in the Northeast the day before the solstice with almost a foot of real snow in Boston (as opposed to the sprinkling earlier in the month), last week I found myself with a small surplus of Autumn fruit that I felt the need to use up. Persimmons and pomegranates nearing the end of their season beckoned to be used up before they perished. A potluck lunch for which I had committed to make a vegetarian protein main dish (what, no meat???) proved the perfect excuse.

Quinoa was to be the instrument, and if you may recall, I like mine well-dressed. Challenged to find a dressing that would incorporate the fruit without being sweet, I lucked upon a fabulous recipe that fit all my requirements and allowed me to test out some roasted walnut oil that I recently bought (wait until I tell you about the avocado oil I’ve been throwing on all my salads for weeks…)

Fall Quinoa

Adapted from a recipe in the Seattle Times and serves 12-14 as a side dish. (Sorry folks, I just can’t think of quinoa as a main dish.)

- 2 C quinoa – I used a mix of red and white quinoa

- 4 C water

- 1 can (16.5 oz) chickpeas

- 2-3 persimmons (should be firm)

- 1 pomegranate

- 5 green onions

- 1/2 cup walnut pieces

- 1 T pomegranate concentrate

- 1 t Dijon mustard

- 1/4 C tablespoons red wine vinegar

- 1/3 C walnut oil (or olive oil)

- Kosher salt, to taste

- Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Prepare quinoa. Put  2 C quinoa, 1 tsp salt, and 4 C water  in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover pan and cook for 13 to 15 minutes, until water is absorbed. Fluff with fork. Turn off the heat and let the quinoa sit covered until it has cooled completely. Or just follow directions given with your quinoa (including whether it needs to be pre-rinsed).

Roast walnuts. Roast walnuts in a dry skillet over low heat until fragrant (<10 minutes) — watch carefully to prevent from burning.

Prepare remaining ingredients. Peel and dice persimmons. Remove seeds from pomegranate. Thinly slice the green onions.

Make dressing. Mix together pomegranate concentrate, mustard, and vinegar. Slowly whisk in the walnut oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Throw it all together. Once quinoa is cool, add chick peas (rinsed), walnuts, persimmons, pomegranate seeds, and green onion (reserving a few for garnish). Lightly toss with 1/2 dressing, adding more to taste.

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tweaking tradition

Tradition is good. Family memories. In my bedroom, the chair that Bubbie once rocked me and my sister on.

The hat pins that she used to keep next to her sofa.  They were her mother’s.

I like holding onto these things. And sometimes too many things (I have a friend who keeps threatening to come to my place with 5 contractor bags and to start the “clean-up” process by discarding something with sentimental value). And while food no doubt creates memory — strong memories — every so often there is the need to recreate new traditions or update old ones..

Growing up, I recall that almost every time my mother  entertained she would make what seemed to me to be a quintessential Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, roasted potatoes (or some variation thereof — sweet potatoes, or maybe mashed potatoes), green beans almondine, “dirty” rice with mushrooms and onions, and apple pie or chocolate chip pound cake. Now, I have never made a turkey and this menu is relegated to my mother’s kitchen and glass dining room table (having always been assigned to clean the fingerprints off the table before dinner and any food remnants after, I now only buy wood furniture). This menu tastes to me like family coming together.

As much as I like to hold on to tradition, I also try to create some of my own. Anything from a few variations to turning the world upside down. This recipe is about tweaking and in my mind, improving on a classic. It started with some yellow beans that I got from my CSA.

I reinvented my mothers green beans almondine and turned it on its head from methodology to ingredients. Whereas growing up we boiled or steamed green beans (to keep things lower fat) and threw on some sliced or slivered almonds, here I substituted yellow beans for green and sauteed them, toasted some hand-chopped whole hazelnuts, and added lemon juice and a lush slightly sweet drizzle of sweet hazelnut oil.

Haricots Jaunes aux Noisettes (Yellow Beans with Hazelnuts)

This recipe can easily be be made with green beans and almonds — just leave out the hazelnut oil (which truth be told can be difficult to find). Haricots jaunes – yellow beans - taste just like haricots verts, the green ones, though to the best of my knowledge haricots verts normally refers to the really skinny green beans. When I did a summer exchange in France (in Mont-près-Chambord in the Loire Valley) during high school, I was taught to choose the skinniest of the bunch while still plump, and to pick les haricots one-by-one rather than just grabbing them by the handful. To this day, I still pick my haricots comme ça. I received these haricots jaunes from my CSA.

I always toast the nuts first for a few reasons. First,this enables a dry roast. Second, it makes it less likely to burn them. Finally, if allows me to make some extra for things like topping chocolate ice cream. Oh, what a perfect dessert. Actually, I’m thinking gelato.

Serves 2-3.

- 1/4-1/3 C hazelnuts

- 1.5 C yellow beans

- 1 shallot

- kosher salt

- 2 t olive oil

- 1 lemon

- 2 t hazelnut oil: I use Philippe Vigean brand (OU; info in Resources tab); La Tourangelle also makes a hazelnut oil, but theirs is not kosher.

Prepare ingredients: Chop hazelnuts. Remove tips from beans. Thinly slice shallot.

Toast hazelnuts: Using the pan you plan to use for the haricots, dry toast the chopped hazelnuts with a few pinches of salt over medium heat until fragrant (5-7 minutes). Remove from pan.

Cook beans: Pour olive oil in pan and heat over medium heat with sliced shallots. Add yellow beans and toss in oil for 2-3 minutes. Add juice of lemon to  pan and cover to allow beans to steam another 3-5 minutes (depending on how crunchy you like your beans). Uncover and add toasted hazelnuts (you don’t need to use all the nuts) with hazelnut oil, continuing to toss beans in the mixture, adding more salt to taste.

Serve beans immediately. And don’t forget the throw any leftover slighty salty toasted hazelnuts on your ice cream.

Some of the toasted hazelnuts fall to the bottom of the plate — I love this part.

The hat pins that she used to keep next to her sofa.  They were her mother’s.

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csa lunch box

After a bit of hemming and hawing over the winter, I took the plunge and went with a CSA for the summer. I picked up my first share last week and it included several vegetables that were a bit foreign to me.

According to the Heaven’s Harvest website, the share this week consisted of: scallions, Hakurei turnips, summer squash, sweet potatoes, red chard, romaine lettuce, baby bok choi, collards, lemon balm, chives (boo – no chives for me!), and strawberries.

As I was heading down to New York for the weekend, I prepared a little lunchbox for my trip using the fresh bounty that I had.

I researched the white hakurei turnips and learned that they don’t require peeling. Recalling the first time that I made jicama cilantro slaw and inadvertently bought a large turnip (yes, this was well before I had developed into the sophisticate that I am today…I kept exclaiming, “my, this tastes quite earthy!”), I figured a modified slaw would work well with the delicate turnips. So, I did a quick 45-minute marinade of julienned turnips in lemon juice, salt, pepper, extra-virgin, and chiffonaded lemon balm, and then threw the mix over hearty romaine lettuce.

I next prepared some chard, also chiffonaded, and then quickly sautéed in olive oil with salt and thrown atop a whole wheat wrap slathered in hummus.

Finally, I rinsed and dried the strawberries and repacked them in their container.

And then I threw everything into an old salad greens container next to a bottle of water, and rushed off to South Station.

As I was heading down to New York, I prepared a little lunchbox for my trip using the fresh bounty that I had.I researched the white _____ turnips and learned that they don’t require peeling. Recalling the first time that I made jicama cilantro slaw and inadvertently bought a large turnip (yes, this was well before I had developed into the sophisticate that I am today…I kept exclaiming, “my, this tastes quite earthy!”), I figured a modified slaw would work well with the delicate turnips. So, I did a quick 45-minute marinade of julienned turnips in lemon juice, salt, pepper, extra-virgin, and chiffonaded lemon balm, and then threw the mix over hearty romaine lettuce.

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predictably unpredictable

I’m still a little bit confused by New England weather. I mean, I lived here a few years ago when I went to The College (how’s that for subtle?), so I was ready for a long Winter. I was even prepared for the little peek of early Spring followed by a couple more snow storms. But I keep trying to figure out Summer, and I want to compare it to places that I am familiar with. I thought perhaps summer might be a little bit like LA’s “June Gloom”. Or San Francisco where the fog rolls out every morning. But I think it’s just unique with its own, er, charm. I’ve decided that it’s just predictably unpredictable.

All I know is that when I pulled together a last-minute potluck picnic last weekend to celebrate my friend Marina’s coming to town and fully anticipated that it would be held on my living room floor, I awoke last Saturday morning after a week of drizzle to a gorgeous sunshiny day. I even cleaned up my place anticipating a toddler’s grabby hands (or at least took care of the things that reached about waist-level for me).

So my friends and I were blessed with a beautiful day, an outdoor picnic, a bounty of food, and of course a fun afternoon with each other (and I got a relatively mess-free home…at least up to toddler-eye-view).

Here’s the menu, and like I did for my last dinner party, I’ll try to fill out the recipes as I go along.

the prettiest Challah I’ve ever made thanks to a new braiding technique

Guacamole (below)

Corn Edamame Salad (below)

Mayo-free Egg Salad (below)

Quinoa-Mango Salad with Lime-Cumin Vinaigrette (made with Spinach)

Pomegranate Chicken Kabobs (below)

Simple Chocolate Cake

Contributions from friends (feel free to send recipes or include in comments): Green Salad, Wine, Fruit Salad, Halva

Here are the salads that I made.

1) Guacamole

I normally add tomatoes to my guac, but I didn’t have any this week. However, I did have a jalepeno so this one came out nice and spicy.

Mash together flesh of 2 avocados, 1/2 finely diced jalapeno = ~1t (seeds removed – and don’t attempt to put on your contact lenses after dicing like I did!), 1T grated onion (optional), 2-3 generous pinches salt, and 2-3 T lime juice. You can also add some cayenne pepper or cumin.

2) Corn Edamame Salad with Pink Salt

This is a very easy salad that I threw together with things I had in my fridge, freezer, and pantry, adjusting and tasting as I went along. This made about 4-5 C salad and there was about 1/2 C remaining for me to take a picture of the next day (but my pic came out blurry).

Roast 3 ears of corn in oven as directed a few weeks ago. Cut kernels off of cob.

Cook 1 bag (10 oz) frozen shelled edamame — I microwaved in a bowl with 3T water and a pinch of salt for 1-2 minutes. Drain water.

Mix corn with cooked drained edamame and add some quartered baby tomatoes (15-20).

Dress with  rice vinegar (2-3T), toasted sesame oil (2T) and a pinch of salt. Serve with Hawaiian pink sea salt. I bought this pink sea salt at Target (I can’t seem to find it on their website any more) and its ingredients are sea salt and Hawaiian Alaea. A quick online search revealed that alaea refers to a harvested Hawaiian reddish clay that contains iron oxide; alaea salt is traditionally used in ceremonies to cleanse, purify and bless tools and canoes and imparts security on the item being blessed, and in healing rituals for medicinal purposes.

3) The Baking Architect‘s Egg Salad with Mushrooms

Ellie, aka, The Baking Architect, serves this no-mayo egg salad before many of her lunches. She forwarded me this recipe guide in the middle of a busy Friday to help me prepare for my picnic when I realized I had no mayo and was already boiling my eggs. I have put in my own measurements, but you can obviously adapt for whatever sized crowd you have.

Boil 8 eggs. The fail-proof method I learned for perfect boiled eggs is as follows: Prick a hole in the end of each egg with a clean pin. Place eggs in pot and cover with cold water. Bring water to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer for 10 minutes. Drain out hot water and refill with cold water to stop cooking. Shake eggs around in pot to crack eggs. Shells will come off easily when cool, and yolks will be creamy.

Sautée sliced mushrooms (I sliced about 10 cremini mushrooms) with 1 diced onion and a pinch of salt and some garlic powder — or minced fresh garlic (1-2 t) — in plenty of olive oil (3T).

Allow eggs to cool and then dice the eggs in two directions on an egg slicer. Add the mushroom-onion sautée and mix well. Serve cold or at room temperature.

~~~

And now for the chicken:

4) Pomegranate Chicken Kabobs

Since this was a last-minute picnic, I tried to avoid doing a major shopping trip and used as much food as I had in my kitchen as possible. I remembered that I had a fair amount of dressing left over from that salad with beets and ruby red grapefruit that I made for my dinner party the prior week and figured it might make a good chicken marinade. It did and this chicken would also  be great thrown atop the salad if you decided to make the two dishes together. This is a really easy dish to make on a grill, grill pan, or my old stand-by, the George Foreman.

Make pomegranate marinade (see original post for more detail): Whisk together 1/3 – 1/2 C pomegranate juice, ~1T sugar, 6T orange-flavored olive oil, and salt, and taste. Adjust seasoning as necessary.

Cut 4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts into bite-sized chunks. Soak in marinade in fridge for at least 2 hours.

Thread onto bamboo skewers (I put 4 chunks per skewer and made a dozen skewers, putting a beet on the end of each) and grill a few minutes on each side until fully cooked.

I let the kabobs cool a bit before packing them up in an rinsed out salad container for easy transport the next day (I was still hoping for nice weather, and my wish was granted).

These kabobs were a favorite of Mo’s — Jamie and Brad’s toddler — as he wandered around the mini Japanese zen park down the street from my place, navigating the huge “upside-down wok” and fake grass (that we were happy to discover does not seem to retain rain water from previous nights).  They were also a hit with Lola, Dani’s puppy, who kept sniffing at our licked-clean skewers after gobbling up the one chunk that slipped through Mo’s fingers.

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city living

One of the perils of city living is that when the temperature rises, there is little respite. I have lived in most of the major cities along the northeast coast, so I can officially attest to this. Growing up in the suburbs, we could easily escape to our neighborhood pool where my sister and I spent many summers on the swim team. Or just sit on the deck in the sun. And while I love the excitement of living in a city, the hundreds of options right outside my doorstep, the (relatively easy…well, in NY) public transportation, the culture, the art, the vibrancy, I do miss having a large kitchen and easy access to an outdoor grill.

Granted, I fully believe that like washing dishes and taking out the trash, grilling should be largely relegated to men. But miss it nonetheless I do, or at least the authentic flavors. I have made do in many of my apartments, and I think I’ve done a decent job adapting. I once actually made an entire Fourth of July barbecue on a collection of George Foreman grills (culled from friends and neighbors).

While it’s not quite corn season yet, I have recently been making corn-on-the-cob in my oven and if I may brag, it might not be grilled  … but it’s really pretty good.

Oven-Roasted Corn-on-the-Cob

 The technique here is similar to grilling in that I use a high heat in the oven and steam the corn in its husk. After dousing with some butter and salt, cover the corn with grated cheese.

The cheese that I’m loving right now is 5 Spoke Creamery‘s Tumbleweed. This kosher (Kof-K) artisanal dairy had caused a bit of a stir in kosher and non-kosher circles, being mentioned in articles here (along with Sugar River Cheese Co.) and here, and in a recipe for cheese croutons featured in the New Yorker magazine a few months ago by Dirt Candy (a vegetarian restaurant in NY) chef-owner Amanda Cohen. I can’t wait to try her salad recipe, though I’m not sure I’ll actually candy the grapefruit. I’ll leave you to read what others have written about the Tumbleweed, but I would describe it as creamy, European tasting (probably because it is made with raw – aka unpasteurized – milk) if that makes any sense, and with a strong tangy slightly earthy flavor. It has a nice melt-in-your-mouth feel and it spreads well without being too soft. Let it come to room temperature before eating (but if you’re going to grate it, feel free to pull it right from the fridge).

Serves how ever many cobs you make.

- Corn-on-the-cob

- Butter (optional)

- Salt

- Cheese – such as 5 Spoke Creamery’s Tumbleweed

Preheat oven to 425ºF and put rack in middle of oven.

While oven is heating, pull the husks back and remove silks from corn. Replace husks over corn and wrap end of corn with aluminum foil if necessary to seal so that the corn will steam in its own little packet. Cobs don’t need to be completely covered – the burnt parts are nice…you just don’t want everything to completely dry out.

Place cobs directly on the oven rack and cook for ~20 minutes until corn is tender but still crisp.

Allow corn to cool a bit and then unwrap, peel back husk, and use one or two husk strands to tie the remaining ones together, creating a handle of sorts.

Slather with butter if you’d like, throw on a pinch of salt, and generously grate cheese over the top. Eat immediately.

http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2008/04/09/features/food/12989246.txt

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playing hooky

I was supposed to go to a dance class last night (my new Wednesday evening ritual…yeah!), but after a few too many days of forgetting to wear sunblock (1 day is too many and I really should know better!) and then relishing in the sunshine that had been hiding from us here on the East coast, I realized that I was just a little too pink and weary to make it through a 2+ hour fabulous but exhausting and requiring-full-concentration modern jazz class.

Of course, I had already prepared a light veggie dinner in anticipation of a hungry return from class on which I gladly munched away  as I readied myself for an evening of dancing that would be a little less about concentration, technique, positioning, and placement. My friend Tammie and I decided to kick back and check out a live Brazilian band at Beehive. Complete with caiparinhas (the national drink of Brazil made from Cachaça [a sugarcane alcohol], sugar and lime that I first tried at my friends’ wedding in São Paulo), a demonstration of the  steamy Rio-style partner dance called Samba de Gafieira (followed by our own feeble attempts at emulating some of the hip-swaying fast-and-fancy footwork), an ad-hoc capoiera circle, and good conversation with friends new and old, the evening provided a wonderful respite from the sun.

Rejuvenated and armed with two different kinds of sunblock (yes, they are both from Europe – Piz Buin and La Roche-Posay Anthelios), I’m ready to spring/summer smarter and return to the Wednesday dance classes that I have quickly grown to adore.

Marinated Zucchini Salad

Many marinated zucchini salads call for cooking your vegetables first, but in a heat wave, I try to do anything to avoid turning on my oven or stove. This salad, drawing from a Greek-inspired dish from Saveur and an Italian recipe from RecipeZaar, is a great use for zucchinis that are in abundance starting this time of year through the end of summer. Some of my other favorite recipes for zucchini include zucchini bread and zucchini parmigiana (instead of eggplant).  Choose zucchinis that are firm and dark green and not too large.

Serves 4-6.

- 2 medium-sized zucchinis or 3-4 small zucchinis

- 6-8 white mushrooms

- 1 bunch spring onions (4-5)

- fresh dill

- juice of 1 lemon (~1/4 C) or 1/4 C white wine vinegar

- 1/4 C extra virgin olive oil

- kosher salt or other coarse salt

- pepper

Cut zucchini into thick matchsticks. You could use a mandoline or a julienne peeler, but I don’t have the former and the latter makes strips that are far too thin for this recipe. I just hand slice everything.

Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel to remove any clinging dirt or debris. Don’t submerge in water or the mushrooms will become water-logged and soggy. Remove ends of stems and slice lengthwise.

Slice whites and light greens parts of the spring onions into thin circles.

Rinse dill, pat dry, and finely chop. Add as much as you’d like. In the batch I made without mushrooms, I added a few T. In the batch I made with mushrooms, I added a large handful.

Toss all vegetables  and dill into a large bowl.

Make dressing: juice one lemon into a medium sized bowl (should yield ~1/4 C) and then pour in an equal amount of extra virgin olive oil while quickly whisking the mixture to make a quick emulsification (this is pretty cool when you realize you can do it yourself and it’s really easy — it took me about 30 seconds). Add salt and pepper to taste (~ 1-2 t of salt or more, 5-6 grinds of pepper) and whisk again. Taste by dipping a thin slice of mushroom.When the dressing is to your liking, pour atop the veggies and dill and toss everything together.

If you’re feeling particularly lazy, you can just drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice over the veggies and throw salt and pepper on top, then toss everything together. I was feeling a little fancy.

If you don’t have a lemon, or want a slightly different flavor, you can use white wine vinegar as your acid, or even try a mixture of the two.

Refrigerate at least one hour or overnight. The salad gets better with time. After a few hours, I usually taste it and find that I need to add a little more salt (much better than it being too salty).

Enjoy after a dance class, while dressing for a night out on the town, or at a picnic with friends.

***

Since I did indeed miss my dance class to go see a Brazilian band, I wanted to share a video of the great contemporary Brazilian dance company, Grupo Corpo, that I saw a few years ago at BAM. Lau had come to visit from London, and the infamous foursome – Jeremy, Thierry, Lau and me – was reunited for an amazing non-date evening. Here is a video of one of the pieces that we saw that night. What I love about this number, besides its infectious music, is the choreography’s playfulness and freedom, the use of light and shadow to make it look almost like there are extra dancers, the simplistic costumes so the audience can focus on the purety of the dance, and how the dancers incorporate the unique back curtain into the entrances and exits.

What I love about Grupo Corpo is the incredible variety of their numbers and their musicality, their pulling from folk dances and rhythms from their local environs and the broader cultures (Asia, Africa) that make up the melting pot of their own home. Below is a trailer to a documentary with excerpts from many of their numbers, showing off their versatility.

Another one of my favorite numbers is Lecuona – a series of duets filled with longing, desire, and passion (of all types) danced to music written by Cuban Ernesto Lecuona, including this sexy tango…

… culminating in a waltz of 6 couples (starts at 3:25) that looks like a black-and-white movie.

I want one of those white flowy dresses with the open backs!

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darling spuds

Almost everything I own has a story. Part of that is because when I travel, I love to shop.  And I don’t just shop for clothing and shoes… I usually bring home an extra bag of local (kosher) food that I can’t find at home so that I can extend the experience of my trip and share it with those back home. I hope to share some of these finds with you in the future, as the spirit moves me.

I spent a few weeks in South Africa in 2003, mainly in Cape Town, working on a health care project with some classmates for the city of Cape Town under the direction of the late Ivan Toms. We worked hard in city health clinics  every day (my team was charged with uncovering the cause of an 8 million Rand increase in drug costs) and had the opportunity to explore different aspects of Cape Town live in the evenings and on the weekend.

After my first weekend spent in Seapoint, I was fortunate enough to befriend a local, Tali, who showed me around much of the local scene beyond tourist spots. We ate out, went to bars off the beaten track, shopped beyond the V&A Waterfront, and I met people whom I imagine I would have been friends with had I lived there.  We even went to grocery stores and this is where my habit of seriously bringing home  local ingredients began. Besides sweeties (mmmm….Sally Williams nougat), one of the most interesting things that Michal introduced me to were uniquely flavored salts. I bought one such salt mixture that Tali recommended called “Darling Buds” made by The Cape Herb Company that contains coarse sea salt and various dried flowers – rose petals and buds, lavender, cornflowers, chamomile, and calendula. The smell is heavenly and I often use it in place of regular salt. There are many other varieties with interesting ingredients and most, if not all, are kosher. The bottles are refillable and you can easily adjust the grind size.

Luckily, these salts and many of the spice mixtures made by The Cape Herb Company have made it stateside, and I have seen (and purchased them) in Fairway (see Resources for further info). They can also be ordered online at Chelsea Market Basket.

Floral Roasted Potatoes

This recipe actually has nothing to do with South Africa; it just uses the “Darling Buds” salt to accentuate the herbes de Provence spice mix with lavender to give regular roasted potatoes a delicate floral scent and flavor. I love lavender and use it as often as I can!

This is just a good guideline for roasted potatoes. Here I used all-purpose russet potatoes that I purchased for potato peels. The crunch comes from the high heat. You can cut the potatoes into larger chunks, but I chose more of a  home fries-size; bigger chunks = roast for longer. You can obviously use any spice mixture you want — good traditional alternatives include garlic, rosemary, dill, or some heat from red pepper flakes or cayenne.

Serves 2-3.

4 potatoes

1-2 t Olive oil

Herbes de Provence (with lavender)

Salt and Pepper (I used black pepper and “Darling Buds” made by The Cape Herb Company)

Preheat oven to 450°F

Cut potatoes (can peel for a more delicate look) into 3/4- to 1-inch cubes. Soak in water for at least 30 minutes (or longer) to draw some of the starch out, keep crisp, and to make sure the potatoes don’t turn turn color from air exposure.

Drain water and lightly pat the potatoes dry. Spread potato chunks out onto a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. Drizzle with a few splashes of extra virgin olive oil (~1-2 T) and toss with herbes de Provence (~1.5 T), 5-6 grinds of Darlings Buds floral salt, and freshly ground pepper to taste.

"Contains chevril, basil, rosemary, tarragon, garlic, lavender, marjoram, savory, thyme, and parsley"

Bake for about 30 minute or until edges are golden brown and crisp, shaking the sheet occasionally to free up any potatoes that are sticking.  The smell of the lavender and other flowers is divine as the potatoes are crisping up in the oven.

Allow to cool a few minutes before eating (if you can…I always burn my tongue and the roof of my mouth). These are great anytime.

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shake it off

Hangin’ around

Nothing to do but frown

Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.

That Carpenters song is sometimes hard to kick when the beginning of the week goes something like this:  rainy Monday, rainy Tuesday, rainy Wednesday, rainy Thursday…

I like songs that go with my mood, but there’s a problem when that mood sticks around for too long. And, I don’t need to tell you how hard it is to get a song out of your head once its stuck.

But then there’s the power of music to change your surroundings. My friend Tammie suggested a song yesterday when we were chatting, and I liked its title, “Shake It Off” and its chill beat. (Apologies for not embedding, but Mariah’s business team seems to be blocking all embed abilities – which I can respect – protect those artists’ dollars!).

The best part of yesterday was my decision to take a modern jazz dance class. And it was a great class. Just what I needed and long overdue. The teacher (more info below the recipe) focused on technique and positioning and placement. Her warm-up and choreography were organic and felt good. And there was no rush to end class – the 90 minute class ran well over 2 hours. We finished the evening with a several minute cool-down and stretch. I returned home feeling great.

Knowing that I would be ravenous after class, I was thankfully prepared. I made a salad that required several hours of marinating. So it was waiting patiently to replenish my body after the music and dance class had replenished my spirit.

Panzanella

Panzanella is a bit like a savory Italian version of pain perdu (French toast) — coming up with a use for one- or two-day old, stale bread. I make it with baguette because that’s what tends to go stale on me these days. There are endless varieties and I found a few that I’ve tucked away in my files, such as an artichoke version from Sam at Becks & Posh and Giada De Laurentiis’ traditional version with capers, olives, and peppers in addition to tomatoes. I just stuck to what I had in my fridge and pantry – the cucumbers give it a nice crunch. This can be tossed atop a bed of greens, or eaten as is.

Makes 3-4 servings, depending on how hungry you are. All measurements are very approximate.

Slice stale baguette and then cube (~3/4 inch).

Toss in olive oil, salt and pepper and toast in oven for 5-10  minutes (250ºF).

Prepare remaining vegetables that you will add to salad by cutting into bite-sized pieces. I decided to use 1 cucumber for crunch, 1 yellow tomato, and about 3/4 C of slow roasted tomatoes (the remains of a pint that I had roasted the other day – directions here). Chiffonade some basil as well.

Place the toasted bread cubes in a large bowl with the cut vegetables and basil. Toss with ~ 2-3 T extra virgin olive oil and ~2-3 T good balsamic vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste. Allow to marinate for 1-3 hours at room temperature, adding additional oil and vinegar (in equal quantities) if necessary to help bread soak up (but not drown in) the vegetable juices.

***

As usual, in any post that mentions dance, I must leave you with a video. I chose my class carefully based on location (so that I could hopefully return) and the reputation of the teacher. Andy Taylor-Blenis teaches at the premier Boston jazz dance school – the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio where I took classes when I was in college (I only took with Jeannette) — so I knew she was quality. She is a senior company member with Prometheus Dance and has a history in folk dance which I explored last year when I performed with Nishmat Hatzafon. This seemed like a great blend of where my dance has come from and where it’s heading, since I want to start a Nishmat-like group up here mixing lyrical jazz, emotion, Jewish and Israeli themes, hopes of peace, and a rich sense of history. I found this excerpt of some Prometheus pieces to share.

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