I will not apologize

The title needs an explanation.  But first, here is my kitchen print in its new home.  The owl clock, which I received for my birthday is from Decoy Lab.  I love how the fabric makes the owl pop…makes those owly eyes even more buggy.

The title refers to this quote from the late, the wonderful, the rather witty Julia Child:  “You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.’”

Today’s luncheon adventures made me think about this quote.  I have not been able to cook regularly since I’ve been pregnant.  Food has been often repellent to me, a lot more things make me feel sick, and I’m completely wiped out physically and mentally after teaching.  This has been a great point of sadness for me because I get so much joy out of cooking.  I also often have apologized to my more than understanding husband about what feels like a failure on my part.  Silly perhaps, but I don’t think I’m along among women who feel inadequate from time to time.  Feelings aside and feeling physically good today, I decided I’m going to make lunch…really make lunch.  What follows requires a bit of background…

A couple of years ago, I stopped using teflon pans after an incident that involved toasting chiles in what turned out to be a superheated teflon pan…the combo of the teflon fumes and the chile gas that resulted was a noxious, painful situation that certainly would have killed any canaries in the vicinity had there been any.  Since then, I’ve not really missed my non-stick pans with one exception…for making Tortilla Espagnola–Spanish Omelet.  It involves cooking potatoes in oil until they are soft and a little brown and then mixing them into eggs.  You pour the whole contents back into your pan and cook until the bottom of the tortilla is set.  Then you flip it and slide it back into the pan and cook the bottom side.  This is not an easy operation without some non-stick help. 

But Spainards have been making this dish since the dawn of time–or at least a long time before teflon, so what to use?  Thankfully, Nathan bought me a paella pan on a business trip a couple of years ago.  This pan is lightweight and very capable of holding seasoning much like a cast iron skillet (which is unfortunately too heavy for the flipping process).  So this morning, I went about seasoning it.  It looked pretty good and black by the time that I finished, so I proceeded.

Tortilla Espagnola–adapted from My Kitchen in Spain by Janet Mendel–serves 4 for a light meal or 2 if you’re like me and don’t particularly feel like sharing at the moment

2 lbs potatoes, peeled and sliced about 1/8″ thick

1/2 cup olive oil (okay, it’s a lot of oil, but trust me, you want all of it)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp smoked Spanish paprika–sweet or hot

1/4 onion, chopped in small dice

6 eggs

Warm the oil in a non-stick pan over medium-low heat.  Add the potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes. 

  Things are going well so far.

Add 1/2 tsp of the salt, the onion and paprika.  Continue to cook the potatoes until they are tender throughout and if you like as I do, have some brown crispy edges to them.  Scrape the bottom of the pan really well with a wooden spatula to release any potato particles. 

Beat the eggs with the remaining 1/2 tsp salt in a large mixing bowl.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the potatoes and mix with the eggs.  The remaining oil in the pan should coat the bottom of your pan.  If it doesn’t, add a little more.  Pour the egg mixture back into the pan and cook until the edges are set–about 5 minutes.  Shake the pan as you do this to avoid sticking.  If you’re a little hesitant, run a long spatula under the omelet before you do the next bit.

Take an inverted pizza pan or cookie sheet and flip the tortilla out onto it so that the cooked side is up.  Slide the tortilla back into the pan and cook until the bottom is also set.  If you’re lucky, you will have quite a pretty omelet.  But it’s okay if, like me today, your omelet looks like this:

  The truth is is that all the love you put into letting those potatoes cook all that long time will still shine through in the final flavor of what now looks like a pile of hash.  If your tortilla also looks like a pile of hash, remember Julia and don’t apologize.  Plunk it down on a plate under some parsley and your family will still enjoy it.  You can work on your flipping technique later (or season your pan better).

As for me, I ate like 1/2 of the thing for lunch.  It was delicious.

Teatime

If I haven’t mentioned it before, without tea, I just might die…not actually, but mentally.  My brain goes zip zip zip all day long and I’m VERY bad at taking a break because I convince myself that I just have to finish __________ (fill in the blank).  Thankfully, in high school, I started drinking tea and soon found that having a cup of tea on nice pretty china (yes, thank you Mom for giving me a good eye for a pretty plate) with a wee snack was a rather nice way to make my brain turn off temporarily.  Having had a restart, my brain is then ready to get back to zip zip zipping.

Tea for today looks like this:

New pretty teacup and tablecloth that I found treasuring hunting with Mom.  Tea itself is raspberry leaf which tastes okay, but I look forward to drinking real tea when I’m not pregnant.  10 more weeks to go!

A new banner is coming starring my teacups…Nathan has to unzip a new font for me.

Reading Cave

Valentine’s Day at our house was a quiet occasion…on purpose.  We decided that we didn’t want to battle all of the people out at some restaurant where the staff is probably paid extra to be nice to you and the kitchen staff is rather annoyed that you’re making them work extra hard.

So Nathan got me some beautiful yellow roses (because I think red are boring) and we built a reading cave in our living room. 

As a kid, I loved making little tents in my room with lights and pillows and blankets.  I disappeared in there with a fat stack of books and rarely emerged for the entire day that the structure was up.  We often bemoan the pitiful state of education, and though we haven’t and probably won’t make a final decision for a while as to how to deal with it in relationship to our own kids, one thing Nathan and I both agree needs to happen is that we need to teach our kids to LOVE to read as reading really is the gateway to further education in any subject.  What better way to do so then to build a little blanket fort?  It certainly was a nice way to spend the day with the man I love all stuck in this nice warm cozy den with The Silver Chair, and a couple of books on children I checked out from the library.

I emerged to make us a rack of lamb with some sauteed asparagus and stuffing. 

We decided lamb needs to be a more regular part of our lives. 

We also made smores over our electric stove. 

It was a good day.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies, Day 9

It just occurred to me that this is a lot of cookies.

#9 Double Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

These taste a great deal like Oreos, but they have a finer texture and aren’t so cardboardy.  Dutch process cocoa seems to give things a very sandy delicate texture I’ve noticed.  Regardless, these cookies certainly make you want to grab a stack with a tall glass of milk (a delight I bitterly mourn as I write–I shall drown my sorrows in a cup of very overpriced Mariage Frere Casablanca green tea with bergamot and mint that I bought in NY in April…it takes away the sting of my milk loss).

You can still add pictures of your own Christmas cookies here.

Sweet Song

This week at school (and the previous 3) have been WACKY!!!  I had a program on Tuesday night for all of my kids–that’s 1st through 6th grade–with each grade presenting something plus Kindergarten.  Everything went really well, but I can’t say that I’m not happy to do be done with that.  The kids have been awesome through all of it which can be evidenced in how they sang their little hearts out.

I say all of this because I took a break from having choir rehearsals this month until today to prepare for this program.  I’m glad to be back having choir.  I was so glad, I baked a truckload of chocolate chip cookies for all of them.  I started doing this for my choir a couple of years ago to (ahem) “encourage” people to join choir, but I’ve kept doing it because it’s such a neat community building time.  After everyone had had seconds, there were still about a dozen cookies left, so we looked through their new music and I asked questions mostly relating to them having to physically read the octavo (ex: how many measures of rest are there before part 1 comes in?).  It was like Jeopardy! with cookies.  One of my 6th graders offered to give up a second cookie that he might win if he could give it to his 4th grade brother and sister.  I had no idea a little bit of baking would foster such amazing good will. 

Jar of Joy

Perhaps one of my favorite things about going to college with my parents in another state was having little care packages sent to me periodically.  My Mom would always pack funny little post-its with faces on them along with good food, and my aunt would send bizarre things from international grocery stores–this being hands down my absolute favorite:

 

It’s this eggplant/red pepper spread from the Baltic world called ajvar.  I’ve tried making my own, but I’ve decided I like the consistency of the jarred stuff better.  I cannot tell you how many sad meals of dorm food were made happier with a generous helping of this lovely condiment.  You’ll think about using ketchup once you’ve had it.  After college, I found it once or twice, but all my sources had run out and I haven’t seen a jar in maybe 3 or 4 years.  So to me it’s funny that during the week that we’re doing boxes for Operation Christmas Child, I should very randomly find a similar jar of something that I used to receive in a little box of goodies that gave me hope and joy.  What’s your jar of joy?

Montreal Food Recap

As I said, food in Montreal was marvelous.  We did not have a bad meal–and by and large, it was quite affordable (bonus!).

Montreal has this lovely little specialty–smoked meat.  I’m sorry if you’re a vegetarian.  It’s beef that has been heavily spiced and smoked until it’s somewhere between really fatty pastrami and Texas-style brisket.  This might be a totally wrong description, but that’s the one that makes the most sense to me.  It completely melts on your first bite; at once you are struck by how on earth something can be so scandalously juicy and savory when it’s only adorned with yellow mustard and rye bread.  After losing our luggage and spending a day muddling around feeling dirty, this sandwich started to make things better (sorry about the picture–the lighting in there was less than optimal, and I didn’t want to get thrown out for taking a picture–I’m not sure why I was worried about that, but I was–there’s a better picture of smoked meat at Wikipedia).

We ate many many more delicious places, but of course my camera was not with me.  I did manage to remember to take the camera the night that we ate at a little Pho place in Chinatown.

Pho is the one really good ethnic food we can get in Denver that’s pretty authentic, although I haven’t gone taco-trucking in this town yet…  There’s a pho place that we go to probably once a month.  Everyone’s a regular there, and there’s as many Vietnamese people who eat there as there are people of every other race and station in life.  When the weather is cold, we go eat pho.  When we’re tired of eating really heavy food, we go eat pho.  When I’m depressed and the notion of cooking anything makes my head want to explode, we go eat pho.  For someone who really doesn’t like or eat a lot of red meat, I really love pho.  Lucky for us, there was a place around the corner from our hotel that was recommended in our guidebook.  We ordered some spring rolls before the pho that were packed with fresh mint–a refreshing change from the cilantro that I’m used to in spring rolls.  Then the beauty came:

We went here the same night that I went to have tea at Camellia Sinensis, which was the kind of cooler, rainy sort of day perfect for pho (but I need little reason to go eat it).  I tore up a mess of basil leaves into my soup and put some oyster sauce and what appeared to be homemade chile-garlic sauce into my soup and commenced to thoroughly enjoy my rice noodles.

Many more tasty things happened in Montreal, but without photos to help me describe what was going on, I will save them for my food journal.

I love Montreal

After the luggage fiasco, Montreal has been increasingly kind to us.  I’ve walked around a lot, drank some fantastic tea (this is a tea town–how could I not love it!), eaten some wonderful food and generally had a good time.  More on food later when I’m not blogging in my hotel room…

Today I tried to go the museum of fine arts.  They have an exhibit on Yves Saint-Laurent’s clothes.  I’ve been quite excited about seeing them, but Google maps proved less than accurate–actually EXTREMELY inaccurate when it came to directions–it was off 4 subway stops!  So, after wandering and checking the map, I decided the walk that would compensate for the bad directions was far too far for today.  It was time for tea.

So I went here :

 

How bad could a tea house with the botanical name of tea be?  Not at all.  Actually, it was fantastic.  I sat down in this beautiful place (oh that I were a student in Montreal–I’d never leave) and was greeted by the sweet staff with a wee cup of Indian Assam tea while I browsed the menu.  I was also given a tiny little bell to ring when I was ready to order.  Given that the menu was in French, I just went with the name of the tea, Perles du Dragon.  Dragon Pearls green tea.  I also decided to get some chocolates from a local chocolatier.  They were out of those chocolates, so I had 3 matcha covered truffles instead.

The tea came, and I felt my blood pressure instantly drop.  I love that about tea–it’s so relaxing, and it FORCES you to slow down–particularly good for me who doesn’t really ever stop moving or thinking.  The owner told me the tea had jasmine in it, which explained the amazing fragrance of flowers.  But this was very subtlely flavored with jasmine.  The truffles were a lovely accompaniment too, but I think a chocolate lover would have appreciated them more.  I loved the gooseberry that was a garnish.  It was tart like a kumquat but also flowery tasting like the tea.

Good Day

Yesterday was our anniversary!  What a wonderful year it has been.

To celebrate, I made a small 5″ replica of our wedding cake.  I made the original as well (I didn’t feel like paying $1000 for a cake made from a box mix and bucket icing no matter how beautiful it looked–I really like to EAT cake, not just look at it–and certainly not for that much money).  It is coconut chiffon with raspberry filling and ganache.  The outside pattern is a chocolate transfer sheet–much simpler to make then it appears.  The sheet itself has a cocoa butter design on a piece of heavy plastic.  You melt pure chocolate (ganache does NOT work for some odd reason)–either white or dark depending on the color of the design, and then you pour it over the design and spread it gently in a smooth, thin layer.  Then you put that on the side of the cake, and once the chocolate has hardened, you peel off the plastic and you’re left with this beautiful design on the side of your cake.  I love this cake.

We also went out to a lovely restaurant in Denver that we spent our first V-day together at.  It was a lovely day.

Green Guacamole

I had the bevy of avocados (I like them with eggs in the morning, so I bought a bag, but they weren’t ripe, and we got some others in our vegetable share, but they also weren’t ripe, so by the time they have all become ripe, I come to realize that I can’t possibly eat them myself), so I decided to make guacamole which I haven’t made in a really long time.  This recipe is a very slight adaptation of Rick Bayless’ from Mexico One Plate at a Time (still my favorite Mexican cookbook).  All the ingredients are green (except the garlic)!

4 ripe avocados

4 small tomatillos

1-2 green chiles of your choice (poblanos are my favorite for this, but New Mexico green chiles or anaheims are a good sub–or serrano or jalepenos if you like)

3 cloves of garlic

juice from 2 limes

1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

8 green onion tops, sliced

salt, to taste

Roast the garlic, chiles, and tomatillos until nice and black under a broiler in a non-reactive pan (don’t use glass!  I busted a nice piece of Pyrex that way once. )–or line a baking sheet with parchment (it will burn, but it’ll be okay if you watch it) or a silicone mat.  Peel the chiles and pulse them with the garlic and the tomatillos until chunky-smooth.  Half the avocados and scoop out the flesh with a spoon into a mixing bowl.  Smash the avocados with the spoon.  Add the chile puree, lime juice, green onions, and parsley.  Add salt to taste (start with 1/2 tsp. and then see if it needs more).

Mmm green.