Cooking With Ideas

Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook

I was wandering through the Seminary Coop Bookstore some time ago and saw something that I often have spied on the shelf near the information desk: a beautiful book about food. This time, it was Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook. The book cover is an incredibly beautiful dark dark blue with much of the typography in a lighter more turquoise blue. And, th typography is both roman alphabet (is that what we call the alphabet used in American English?) and beautiful (and incomprehensible to me) arabic. I have no idea if the latter is arabic for sure but assume so based on remarks in the introduction. In any case, this is a particularly beautiful book qua object.  Here is a visual of the book for all to see: 

Yes,beautiful -- and equally beautiful inside the covers. Published by New York University Press, in their Library of Arabic Literature collection, edited and translated by Charles Perry and Reviewed by David Waines, the book includes both an opening section of historical and contextualizing information (including commentary on the processes used to transliterate Arabic terms following various accepted protocols) and page upon page of recipes. In the latter regard, the left page has the original and the right side english translations. 

 On the historical and contextualizing introduction, a few comments. The book is mid-13th century Syrian in origins and written in middle Arabic. The introductory discussion opens with a very short precise of the history of cookbooks, noting the importance of Arabic examples to that history, including the book presented here, which was an early (medieval) version with 635-700 recipes (depending on the manuscript version form which one translates). The cuisine is notable for a variety of reasons, including (memorably for me) an explanation for why the "cookbook" focuses on scents as well as flavors. (Turns out there is a whole protocol involving scented washing prior to dining, and the religious washing protocols are thee in part to ensure that one's own scents do not interfere with one's enjoyment of the meal and its scents and flavors. The book is presented in the rough order of a banquet of the era, with its pages long table of contents moving from perfume to beverages to tail fat to chicken dishes and then sautes and related dishes (much of this long chapter devoted to lamb), to sweets and baked goods, to pickles of various sorts and then to hand washing powders and soaps and "distilling waters and perfuming the breath." In describing the characteristics of the cuisine, the author reminds us that in "those days" and in that culture or set of cultures, folks ate with their hands, meats were not terrible well preserved, and more than we might imagine was made from processes of fermentation. He also comments on various ingredients with which his reader might not be familiar -- and also absences given the region for which the cookbook was intended (most clearly the absence of fresh fish). The final section of the introduction focuses not the history of the book -- including the various editions (with varied lists of recipes and interpolations of various sorts), the unknown author, and conventions used in recipe books of the era. After the introduction, there are notes on the translation and related matters. 

I should note: I found this all fascinating. 

On the recipes: At some point in history (and yes, I once knew it, but have forgotten) the format people in the US assume for recipes was created -- a list of ingredients and directions for how to cook, laid out in step by step precision. This was long after this cookbook was created -- and so the many many recipes here are neither presented in that format nor, I have to admit, entirely clear to me. Neither the length of cooking nor the heat to be used nor quantities are always specified. The recipes kind of read like "get some meat, boil, add parsley and mixed spices, continue to cook til done." (YEs, I made that one up and, hence, it is a little shorter than some. Add a few completely unknown=to=me ingredients and voila!). 

Having said this, I find this book really interesting to read slowly, paging here and there, trying to figure things out. I imagine dishes that . . . I cannot imagine. 

In some ways this is a totally frivolous and useless luxury purchase for me with no utilitarian value. And yet, I am increasingly fond of the book. Yes, I bought it for its beauty. I admit I also bought it as a tiny nod in the direction of the horrifying politics surrounding Syria and, in particular, Aleppo. It is not enough, not even faintly enough. but learning a bit is always one way I try to resist the political nightmares of our time. 

You can always borrow my copy. But do return it! 

For some other views of the book, try here for pre-publication comments and for the cook in you, click here. Most crucially, if you, like me, want to figure out how today's foodies can help us make sense of this amazing book, try this site where Food and Wine "looks inside the best selling cookbook of 13th century Syria." 

Food and Religion with Philip Tite

I "met" Philip Tite years ago when he was a student at Wilfrid Laurier and I was a faculty person at Hobart and William Smith Colleges appearing via videoconference (yes, it was well pre-Skype) in a class he was taking. My role: discuss Mary Daly. And voila -- a friendship was born. We met in person because he saw me wandering a reception or ballroom or something at the American Academy of Religion a few years later (at most) and . . . we have stayed in touch ever since. Phil is author of multiple books (including: ) and is currently Affiliate Lecturer at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle). He is author of multiple books including Conceiving Peace and Violence: A New Testament Legacy (2004),  The Apocryphal Epistle to the Laodiceans (2012), and editor with Bryan Rennie of Religion, Terror and Violence (2008, truth in advertising -- I have a bit part in the book!). He is, and he is indeed my friend, thoughtful in both senses of the word and very good at the act of friendship.

Here is an interview with him, and I can say this: the most fun in ages tweaking this and adding links!  Hurrah. 

Bibliochef: So, I have known you for what seems like decades, and somehow I did not know that you were interested in food. I learned it in part by seeing your food comments on FB and . . . Could you say how that came about?

Phil: Ah, great to see I can still surprise my friends! Yes, we’ve known each other for ages and I’ve long admired you as both an academic colleague and a friend. It’s nice to see that we are both foodies! Food really is wonderful, not only because it meets our physical need for nutrition, but also because of its broader cultural impact on who we are and how we understand the world around us. For myself, the journey into food likely goes back to my graduate days at Wilfrid Laurier University. I was so afraid of cooking that when it was my turn to supply a snack for a class session, I was convinced that everyone was going to die horribly after eating what I had made (I think it was a soufflé). I had never cooked for another person (when I wanted to learn to cook, my mother would swoosh me out of the kitchen so she could get dinner ready). But my classmates (and even our professor, Ron Grimes) survived and even seemed to like the dish. I learned an important lesson: one of the greatest stumbling blocks for a cook is simply being afraid. We need to realize that cooking is always experimental and that means that a flop is okay. Fear is always our worst enemy.

But it was really when I was a doctoral student that I really fell in love with cooking. My then life partner, Colleen, is a real foodie. Her brother is even an amazing chef here in Seattle. We used to love cooking together, often taking turns cooking and reading classical literature to the other person. We were geeks. We were in love. And we were making awesome food. One of things I gained from that relationship was a passion for food, along with a set of culinary skills, and even a philosophy of food (i.e., experiencing food engage all five senses situated within commensal moments). We both loved to experiment with food, often using recipes only as beginning points or reservoirs for ideas. Eating out, we’d always try to brainstorm how we could adjust or change the dish and how such a change would impact the dining experience. Being lovers of ancient Rome, I still remember when she spent an entire day preparing a reconstruction of various dishes from a critical edition of Apicius that she was preparing a book review on. Through that relationship I developed a lot of confidence playing in the kitchen. And I found that I really loved cooking and playing with food and even thinking about food as part of our cultural identities.

Bibliochef: I can see the start of the answer to my next question but would love to hear more. So: how did this interest come to be connected to your intellectual – and pedagogical – passion/vocation in religious studies?

Phil: For years, I resisted linking my love of food with my love of religious studies.

Bibliochef: So did I!

Phil: Anyway, as a scholar, I’m more a social historian that focuses on textual analysis. So, food wasn’t a natural connection for me. I was also trying not to imitate one of my former professors, Michel Desjardins, who has had a huge impact on my life and my intellectual journey, but rather to be my own person in the academy. Michel had switched to “food and religion” as his main research topic years ago. I had already followed in his footsteps with the study of ancient Gnosticism and studies of religious peace/violence. And, Michel has always been a role model for me as to what a good teacher should be. So, I resisted following him into his love of food and religion. Imitation can be a great thing, but eventually we need to step out from our mentors on our own.

But my own journey eventually led me to an interest in the topic. Like I mentioned, Colleen and I loved to explore food together. And we are both academics and, to be honest, we embraced our inner geek on a very regular basis! Thus, thinking about food was just a part of my life. Back in 2010 or 2011, I did a little volunteer work for a local inner-city school, working in the after school program. I ran a weeklong thematic program that I called “pie camp”. I had about a dozen kids (roughly kindergarten to grade three) and, after first making our chef hats and aprons (they looked so adorable!), we made pies from scratch. There were glitches, flops, and successes. It was a fantastic week!

A couple years later, however, I was asked to design a course for a university core program (a general education requirement at the Jesuit university I was then teaching at) and the chair gave me complete freedom to design whatever course on whatever topic I wanted. A key goal, however, was to come up with something that would really appeal to students, especially students being forced to take a religion class that they really didn’t want to take. That evening I was browsing my collection of cookbooks while making dinner and I started flipping through my two world religions cookbooks. The thought hit me: why not use these as textbooks? It’s all cultural data and, just like other religious data, it’s open to being theorized beyond just the surface. Let’s design a course on food and religion! I found food-as-topic in religious studies ideal for shattering assumptions as to what is religion and how is religion played out (two interchangeable goals that underlie all my teaching). I’ve run the course a few times and it’s consistently been a hit with students, though, alas, I’ve not had a chance to run the course since leaving Seattle University

Bibliochef: Aha -- I now know you have done a course on religion and food. (And, I have to admit it was great to hear MIchel's name! I am out of touch. . . ) In any case, a few questions on the course;  Can you describe it? Why do you think this is a worthy topic to explore? How does treating the topics together lead you (and/or your students) to see food differently? To see religion differently? Or am I wrong in these assumptions?

Phil: Sure. It was a fun course to design and, I like to think, for my students to consume. And I think your assumptions are dead on. The course description runs as follows:

    This course offers a cross-cultural inquiry into the role of food within various religious traditions. Every culture shapes how food is produced, cooked,     consumed, and symbolized by its members. Although often overlooked in religious studies, food serves as a focal point for the construction of religious     identity as it is an integral ingredient for rituals, shaping social spaces (and roles within those spaces), social interactions both formally and informally, and     a key element in marking sacred times and festivals. Human relationship with the gods or God is tied into both literal and symbolic uses of food: sacrifice,     liturgical worship, martyrdom images, and even soteriological metaphors (e.g., in dietetic medicine). In this course students will be exposed to a range of     ways that food, cooking, and consuming serve in establishing, shaping, and maintaining religious communities. We will explore such topics as dietary     restrictions, gender roles and the demarcation of space, embedded values (as socialization process), celebration and feasting (including secularization of     holidays), and the metaphoric image of food. The course is designed along key themes in order to facilitate comparative analysis of various religious     traditions (e.g., Christians [Catholic, Protestant], Judaism, Jain and Buddhist traditions, Native American, Sikhism, Baha’i, and Hindu traditions). Our focus     is global, both geographically and historically (though the focus is largely on modern cultures), with an emphasis on the lived, experiential role that food     plays in religious communities. By taking a global perspective, it is hoped that students will develop an appreciation for the contingent, ever-changing     nature of religious groups. Food plays a role in such identity negotiation, especially within diaspora communities (what is increasingly being studied as     immigrant religions). Here food practices migrate with people, and, like those individuals, are transformed within their new context as they are used to     preserve or modify identities. We will also look at the very construction of “religion” as a commodity, such as we find in tourist objects (e.g., cookbooks),     a construction that reinforces and normalizes the “world religions” model that has dominated Western understandings of “religion” since the     Enlightenment.

Let me highlight a few things that I think are central for this course and why it is so unique and valuable for students to study, especially perhaps students who are not religious studies majors.

(1) This is not a course on religious traditions in the typical sense of “the big five” or “the big eight”. [A comment from Bibliochef: this is, for those of us in religious studies, shorthand for various lists including some combination of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, etcetera). In fact, much of what we do is to challenge the category “religion” as a self-evident category. Yet, we are not simply deconstructing “religion”, which is what I keep seeing in so many theory circles these days, but rather to look at how social actors (“people”) build and use religion in their cultural and social engagements. This course, therefore, is far more thematic than tradition oriented.

(2) Food is not treated as just an object, but rather as a site for cultural engagements and identity negotiation. A few months ago, a colleague and friend of mine from the University of Toronto, Aldea Mulhern (who is a religious studies specialist in the study of food and foodways), stressed to me that foodways encompass ideas and values along with processes and objects. It’s not just consuming food, it’s all the other stuff around food that we need to look at as well. The course was very much a cultural studies course rather than a typical “religion” course.

(3) The first time I taught this course I learned a lot about religion and food (and culture more broadly). One thing that come out for me was that there is an informal and formal use of food within religious contexts. I jokingly asked my students, “What is more important or central for people going, for example, to church on Sunday? Listening to a sermon on some obscure theological point or going for coffee and donuts afterward and complaining about the sermon?” And, to add to that question, is the recognition that often people will assign greater significance to the formal religious contexts and activities, but will really center their identities within the more informal moments of commensal interaction. Sometimes food does function (literally or metaphorically) in formal activities, such as in Buddhism, so it is worth looking at how social actors use food to define space, identity, and all that jazz.

(4) Food tourism, colonialism, and migration all came to the foreground in the study of food and religion. Again, I learn with my students—and in this course I kept learning day in and day out! How does food function in maintaining or challenging cultural self-understandings when one migrates to another place? Are stereotypes of diet more readily played out, resisted, or transformed? Does food link immigrants to both the host culture and the home culture? Is the effort to maintain such a link ironically a step in creating greater distance rather than proximity to the home culture?

Does “authentic cuisine” play a role that it wouldn’t in the host culture. For example, if I were to ask you to join me for lunch and we wanted to do Chinese, we would have particular ideas of what “authentic Chinese food” is. But if we were to qualify “authentic” as “what actual Chinese people eat”, then, as one of my students who had studied abroad in China noted, going for McDonald’s would constitute Chinese food.

And we talked about food tourism, both the tantalizing experience of food while traveling abroad and, perhaps for most of us on a more regular basis, eating “exotically” on the local level (e.g., going for Indian food at the restaurant just down the street). Exotic cultural experiences are a legacy of colonialism and a continuation of Orientalizing other cultures.

In other cases, immigrant communities would adjust foodways to fit new social and cultural contexts, yet still advancing the values that the community sees as central. We noticed this in both the langar meal among Sikh communities in Vancouver, BC and among charitable work by the Hare Krishna communities in London, England.

(5) One article we discussed looked at the question: who owns recipes and when does “plagiarism” of culture occur? Does it occur when a recipe is in print or does it occur when it is taken from people in the local cultures? Again, this is about power relationships played out through food and foodways. Food can be a site for cultural appropriation and cultural assimilation due to the negotiation of social boundaries. It’s really very fascinating.

(6) Power relationships and social roles are central in the study of food and religion, at least in my course. Gendered roles were particularly significant in our discussions, in part due to the course readings we worked through. What I gained from that was the insight that people would use food to shift centers of community power, sometimes while challenging patriarchal structures and, more often, in affirming those structures yet shifting power to kitchen from the sanctuary (i.e., the sites where “real religion” takes place). Again, food is more than food. It’s part of broader socialization processes: we learn how to be gendered and what values and behaviors are expected of use through food and things related to food. I’m reminded of Emily Bailey's wonderful study of American Victorian cookbooks and Pamela Klassen’s fascinating article on Russian Mennonite women’s use of cooking to establish authority within a patriarchal context. And let me repeat: the informality of food, I think, adds greater influence to food for religious identity than perhaps some other, more formal, aspects of a religious community (such as sacred texts, theological debates, etc.). I think the fact that with food people just do it as an everyday thing, that it becomes an inscribe part of who they are and how they see the world around them.

Bibliochef: I love the way you set up the themes in your course -- wow -- and also around restrictions, life transitions etc. Do you have a favorite theme? A favorite reading?

Phil: Thanks! As I mentioned above, I really didn’t want to teach this course along a tradition-by-tradition approach, but rather around themes. I think teaching thematically allows us to tackle more theoretical and interesting questions about religion, food, and human communities. Doing this not only helps shatter the world religions paradigm, but it also helps students see the relevance of the course beyond just the compartmentalized discipline of “religion” or a given religious tradition. And doing that both helps motivate students to learn and encourages them to think more critically about the world around them, seeing people, communities, policies, etc. in a new light and with new eyes.

My philosophy of education, as I put it on my personal website, is: Access to knowledge – Freedom to think – Empowerment to Choose. I tried to design this “Cooking Religion” course to follow that pedagogical philosophy.

As for a favorite theme or reading, that’s a tough one! Most of them were awesome to work and each time I ran the course, new themes and ideas would grab me. I guess one key theme that has resonated with me is commensality, the “eating with”. The article we read dealt with both hierarchal and egalitarian social relations through commensal moments. But it also touched on health (on the issue of obesity), comparing European and North American contexts. Often in North America we focus on healthy eating as biological or physical, whereas Europeans tend to stress social moments as part of healthy eating. As someone who sees himself as a social historian, I love that idea: we are social creatures and how we eat—in isolation or in social interactions—will shape how we are impacted through food.

Bibliochef: Nicely put. And now, for something more speculative -- you can invite anyone living or dead to a meal that you cook. And, you are unconstrained by budget. Who would you invite? On what might you dine?

Phil: That is such a tough question! Hmm… one idea is Jesus. I’d like to host the last supper and spike the punch just to see what happens. But likely I’d be bored. I think there would be other historic figures that would be more interesting. Oscar Wilde definitely. I’d love to spend an evening listening to his voice, hearing his amazing words flow as I keep refilling the wine glasses and we dine on roasted goose with a maple glaze, served with caramelized shallots and carrots (with diced dill and rosemary along with sprinkled roasted pine nuts), pickled pears, and pumpkin polenta, preceded by a rabbit noodle dish that had been slow cooking all day, with either a caramelized apple tart or rich chocolate mousse with a lovely Ontario ice wine for dessert. He’s one of the most beautiful and eccentric figures of history.

But if I were to go “ancient”, then I think I’d like to meet (someone I mentioned before) Apicius—if, that is, he even existed. I have a feeling we’d end up experimenting in the kitchen, reworking many of his collected recipes. Being a good Roman, we’d have lots of dipping sauces, with lots of lovage for seasoning, and I’d like to cook ahi for him with a delicious balsamic vinegar reduction poured on top. I might even get one of my ad hoc roasted duck recipes into his cookbook for all time! Ah, if only I could time travel, how I would change culinary history. 😊

But if I chose someone living, then I think I’d love to cook for Ina Garten as part of a larger dinner party (you’d be invited!). I love her cookbook, Barefoot in Paris: Easy French Food You Can Make at Home (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2004). I think I’d take some of her recipes, tweak them, and see what she thought of the new dish.

Bibliochef: My answer on the invite: yes! Now: You can travel anywhere in space/time for a religious event focused on food. Where/when/why?

Phil: Another tough one! Thinking about it, I think (if the legend is true) that I would love to be there when the Mughal emperor, Akbar, in the late 16^th century lowered himself to the status of the common person to participate in the langar feast. What an amazing moment that must have been not only for him but for his subjects. That in this context, in this moment of commensality, through this meal, all were seen as equals—as human beings tied together through eating. I admire the four basic Sikh principles embodied in the langar: equality, hospitality, service, and charity. And seeing those principles at play in that historic moment, if the legend is true, would have been an awesome moment and a powerful comment on humankind.

Bibliochef: Ok, I had to look this one up; I had no idea what langar feast referred to! (Readers: you can click the link for some background, but do know I went further than Wikipedia and you should too!)

So: from events to texts. If you were creating a cookbook, focused on one ingredient what would it be? Why?

Phil: Hmmm… In kicking this one around, I keep coming back to basic ingredients I like to use or wish I could use. My passion for garlic (yes, I’m madly in love with garlic!), my strawberries (I grow seven kinds of strawberries on my balcony), quail eggs (I raise quail on my balcony—yeah I’m weird. 😊 ), lovage (a standard Roman seasoning now very hard to find), duck (seriously one of my favorite meats), rhubarb (I do wonderful things with rhubarb), or even beer (living on the west coast I have access to amazing beer! Wouldn’t it be cool to develop an entire cookbook on beer recipes?) all come to mind. And “fat” would be a good one, but there’s already an amazing book out there on fat (yes, fat is actually a good thing).

Yet, as I consider the option, I find myself thinking of one of my favorite scents: lavender. Lavender, rosemary, and roses are my favorite scents—and they all grow in abundance here in Seattle. But wouldn’t it be cool to learn more about different types of lavender? To figure out how to work it into sauces, drinks, teas, etc. Yes, I think that if I were to do a cookbook—a cookbook with lots of background research focused on one ingredient—it would be lavender. 😊

Bibliochef: I love the various answers here and that you rise strawberries and QUAIL!!! I have to admit as I edited and added links, I tried to imagine a dish with many of the ingredients you mentioned!

So: if you were recommending one essential gadget for everyone to own, what would it be? (I leave it ambiguous re religion or food?)

Phil: There are so many things I could list! I think of my cast iron pans, my collection of Le Creuset pots, my mixing boils, my various cutting boards (wood and bamboo), and my favorite wooden spoon (silly but true; I actually develop emotional ties to my kitchen tools). But I think that the most important thing for me is a good, well-sharpened chef’s knife. I love my knives. I have a few Mac knives, but my favorite knife is my Wüsthof chef knife. This is the most versatile of the knives and it is the one that a person (myself at least) develops the closest relationship. I used to have a Dick chef’s knife, which I think is an even better knife, but that went with Colleen. I spent a long time choosing a new knife. The key is not to select what another person likes, or even to follow the price tag (as if cost equals quality), but rather to find a knife that works for you. The chef’s knife should be an extension of your arm. Finding a knife that fits your own style of chopping or cutting is important. I tend to do a lot of rocking cuts, so my knife (an Epicurean style Wüsthof knife) is perfect for me. I remember when I bought this knife. Although I’d already made my decision, on a whim I tried a very high-end Japanese knife. It was gorgeous, but it wasn’t for me. After accidentally slicing deep into my thumb, and the store personal rushing around to stop the bleeding and find a band-aid, I realized that this was not the knife for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing knife. But I didn’t have the feel for it.

Oh, and beyond second to chef’s knife, the most important thing to have in a kitchen is a playlist of Queen music! Seriously, I love cooking and dancing to Freddie Mercury while getting tipsy. Who doesn’t?

Bibliochef: Well, that was wonderful. I may have to pursue you for the questions that I always ask everyone -- but for now -- loads of food for thought. Thanks Phil. Lovely to meet you -- again! 

 

For a much earlier interview on Cooking with Ideas with a scholar of religion, Lynn Poland, on teaching about religion and food, click here. 

Peaches Are In

This year I made three batches of peach chutney, using peaches I actually picked from a tree. I have written about peach chutney here multiple times and so will merely redirect you after a few comments.

First: this year's peaches (red Haven) seem early if deciding that based on the months on prior years' chutneys. They were often September and I did this in mid-August 2017. 

Second: I hate fruit flies. They come with fruit, I know, when you have the fruit in large boxes. But still. 

Third: Picking peaches is a bit like going out into the woods for a Christmas tree. The sense of scale is gone entirely (at least if you are me) and thus you end up with a huge tree (or a tiny one possibly, though the sole time I cut down a tree it risked being to tall even for a home with huge, tall ceilings). In the case of peaches this means you pick too many peaches . . . and thus make 3 batches. 

Fourth: My sense of history is totally distorted, Until I read some of the earlier bits on peach chutney here on the blog, I had no recollection of buying seconds from Red Jacket. Hmmm. 

Here are links to elsewhere on the blog with both recipes and reflections:

From September, 2015, with the actual recipes: Peach Chutney

From 2008, try this bit entitled Chutney, Chutney, Chutney 

 And yes, there are many other sorts of chutney. See below for examples.  

Related articles

Coriander Chutney - RasoiTime

Tamarind Chutney - RasoiTime

A Meal to Remember: Confluence

So, I often volunteer to do things for people and then am a kind of louse (I whine and resent the very activity that I volunteered to undertake). Just remember that: it is a subtext here which I am overcoming -- because I truly loved the meal that came as a result of supporting someone I love. I speak of the amazing meal at an event called Confluence, which the Corning Museum of Glass (which had a glass barge on the canal in Seneca Falls) undertook to support the National Women's Hall of Fame. There were tickets and there was fear of rain (yes there was a deluge before and after -- but not during!) -- and there was a silent and a live auction -- and there was music. But mostly: there was food, drink and an amazing meal overall. It was weeks ago now, perhaps even a month, but Confluence is still worth commenting upon. 

Featuring women everywhere - from women carpenters and glass blowers to women chefs, Confluence was a fascinating exercise in feminism and food (and more). The two chefs were:

Christina McKeough from Graft Wine and Cider Bar in Watkins Glen. Christina, and her husband Jonah, are best known for founding the popular Hazelnut Kitchen in Trumansburg. She is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a chef dedicated to sourcing local products whenever possible.

Karen Gilman from Dano's on Seneca Lake, where she is pastry chef and manager. (If you have never had dessert at Daon's you are truly missing one of my favorite things in the Finger Lakes: mohn torte.)

The menu was fully locally sourced (thorough the hard work of Jessica Giles of the National Women's Hall of Fame) and donated, and included an amazing array of items. I, for example, learned that radishes with a glob of butter on top is a delightful thing. Who knew?

I do not have the menu in front of me (and nor can I find the link), so you will have to be satisfied with what I can do in terms of descriptions. And, you will need to show up in 2018 for Confluence 2). 

First: there was a huge spread of cheese, charcuterie and noshes ahead of the meal where among other things I discovered the wonderment of radish + butter. I had a sparkler but cannot tell you whose it was. Alas for it was terrific as were all the pairings.

On food:  

Ahead of the meal there was a huge spread of local cheeses and meats, as well as pass around hors d'oeuvres. The latter included (the only bit I had): radishes with a dollop of butter. I am amazed to say that this was terrific. 

Vichyssoise with smoked fish -- terrific, smooth, and just the right temperature, which I find amazing given we were outside seated at a single (very) long table

Watermelon tomato salad w pickled onions and local feta from Black Pearl Creamery

    A comment on the salad: the darn thing has been described by my partner as "the best watermelon feta salad ever. Why is this a quibble? While I agree with her entirely, I also think mine is terrific. 

Sausage and pork belly with spaetzle and collard greens and apricot mustard: this was amazing. In fact, the group around liked it so much that we had to get a second plate (it was served family style). I love spaetzle so was particularly taken with that and, of course, the pork belly. The belly was succulent and served exactly like I like it in terms of the portion size. 

Desserts were made by Pastry Chef Karen Gilman as noted above. There were two desserts available and, I admit, I had several of the goat cheese cake with blackberry compote. Yum. I also had (piggy?) several of the layered apricot dessert. Both were terrific. The only thing conceivably better would have been Karen's Mohn Tart. 

On drinks -- Both the opening reception and the pairings that came with the full menu featured local wines and ciders. I feel guilty for not knowing who all donated -- because everything was donated both for the drinks, the food, and the chef's time and expertise. I know Hosmer and Atwater both donated liquids but cannot say for sure others. Mea culpa! I can say that there were lovely roses, white and reds -- and that the dessert one was an apple based ice wine. Amazing. 

So: if you hear of confluence happening again in Seneca Falls bringing together the Corning Glass Museum and the National Women's Hall of Fame -- and I think Confluence 2 will be September 2018 -- buy a ticket and come with your checkbook. Why? There was also an auction with amazing items including Corning glass blown right on the glass barge, and much, much more. 

As a final side note: the Hall is a worthy charity. Please join me in donating to them through their website. And/or come along to this Fall's Induction -- which, if you are a foodie, should be a blast since Alice Waters is one of the ten inductees. 

 

 

 

In the Kitchen with Bibliochef Reborn

I have indeed been in the kitchen an enormous amount since returning home. It has been delightful. ( I could, though, do without washing dishes or even loading the dishwasher. Am I lazy or what?) In any case, in addition to a renewed desire to peruse cooking magazines and cookbooks, I am, in fact, cooking. Part of this is inspired by our CSA micro-share and the need to use what I pick up. Part of this is because I prefer not to cook only for myself and so more or less abandoned it in Chicago, and part is just. . . because. 

Here are a few things I have been cooking:

Vietnamese Pork has long been in our dining repertoire, originating in one of my favorite cookbooks. The book is an amazing -- dare I say shocking -- pink, which means it is easy to find on the shelf, and focuses on a variety of curries. Yes, it is Madhur Jaffrey's From Curries to Kebobs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail. You know when a recipe is well loved when a cookbook opens to that page or when there are loads of smears on the page or . . . and all of that is true of this recipe for us. (This, by the way, is why you should be amazed when you find a rare used cookbook that is pristine. These are books to be used -- though I have to admit that some of mine are basically bookends and some are picture books I peruse -- so the inspiration is less immediate.) In any case, inspired by the recipe "Vietnamese Pork with Lemongrass" on page 66, here's what I do: 

1. Buy a pork loin -- or on occasion boneless chicken breasts. Both work and the latter gives some variety to the tale if you make this recipe often. Make sure all ingredients (see below) are on hand (or improvise as noted). 
2. Use the rice cooker to make rice -- often red rice but any rice will do. 
3. Place pork loin in freezer for a while (30 minutes verges on too long). This is to help ensure you are able to slice it very thin. It is less necessary if you are making the chicken version. 
4. Make a marinade as follows: (a) 1 Tablespoon of tamari or soy sauce (I often put in a bit more); (b) 2 teaspoons fish sauce (again, a splash more is ok); (c) a teaspoon cornstarch (sometimes I just don't do this but it does enhance the sauce eventually); (d) 1 finely minced stalk of lemongrass; (e) 3 tablespoons -- or a small handful of finely minced onions or shallots; (f) 2-3 chopped (usually without seeds but this is all about how heated you want the dish) bird chilis (and I use whatever I have to hand from the freezer); (g) a swirl of ground pepper; (h) 1 teaspoon of sugar; (i) 1 tablespoon of oil (usually canola but occasionally something else I have on hand); (j) around 1/2 teaspoon of hot curry powder. 
5. Thinly slice the meat and stick tin the marinade in the bowl, using your hand to squish it all around. Stick to the side for a minimum of an hour. 
6. Think slice either shallots or onion -- the recipe calls for 1/2 cup but I just go with the flow.
7. Stir fry the onion/shallot in a few tablespoons of oil -- and then add the meat. The recipe says to add it all at once; only do that if you are using a fairly large pan as you do not want to inadvertently stew the meat. Sometimes this means doing one batch of meat, taking it out, doing the second batch and then recombining them. 
8. Toward the end add a very large handful of cilantro leaves. 
9. Serve happily with rice -- and one of the cucumber salads listed below. 

 

Hard Boiled Eggs and their many variations are not something that I usually turn towards, but these days they seem to be a mainstay. How do I make them and what do I do with them? First: make sure you have the best eggs you can obtain from your CSA or the grov=cery store or, in our case on more than one occasion, from your partner's yoga teacher. Then: place as many eggs as you want to hard boil in coolish water and pop that pan over a hi flame. Once you see signs of boiling, turn the flame off, put a top on your pot and wait 12 minutes. You won't be sorry. And, by the way, fresher eggs are definitely harder to peel. 

What to do with them once you make hard boiled eggs? Make deviled eggs (for my views on deviled eggs generally -- and a book about them -- you could click here for an older blog entry) or egg salad (which in my case means mash the darn things with a fork, add mayo and hope for the best), cut into quarters and place alongside the freshest tomatoes you can find, grate over a salad (to be honest, I finely mince the white and push the yolk through a mesh strainer), or. . . whatever comes to mind! If you want to link your hard boiled eggs up to murder mysteries, try clicking here for other reflections from bibliochef, including another recipe! 

As for me, my best deviled eggs incorporate some store mouth HOT mango chutney into the yolk along with mayo and. . . . 

Pizza (gluten free): My partner tends to keep certain things around in case she (or we) arrive(s) home and are too tired to do something serious for dinner. One of the basics is a frozen gluten free pizza shell (brand name? Against the Grain) Add to that the fact that we have home made tomato sauce in the freezer and . . . well, pizza at home is always delicious even when made with (as it always is) whatever is around. Bacon? Mushrooms? Pea shoots? Arugula? Eggs? All of them can be part of an amazing pizza.

Add to that this approach my partner's tendency to do the same thing with D'Artagnan duck confit legs (that is, have them around in case of emergency) and. . . voila! Here's the best pizza idea ever (well, it is always best to involve bacon or prosciutto, but this does not).  

*Cook the duck confit by placing it in a dish and sticking it in a 375 degree oven until it is crisp. Don;t over do it. Then remove the meat from the duck confit (snagging a few pieces of totally amazing skin but trying to control yourself.)

*Cover the pizza shell with a cup or so of your home made sauce (or store bought if you must -- a kind of thick sauce works best). 

*Then cover with a mixture of grated mozzarella and grated parmesan. 

*Distribute duck confit meat and either argulula or pea shoots (if the latter, do so AFTER you cook the pizza for a bit or they shrivel too much). Perhaps include a few red pepper flakes. 

*Cook for a while -- maybe 15 minutes -- and then let it rest briefly. 

*Consume. Smile. 

Tuna Salad I actually love tuna salad made from tuna in cans. Well, perhaps I do not love it, but I have a strong, more than occasional liking for it. This is not that. This, instead, is a nice piece of wild tuna (the recipe I started with called for albacore, but hey, I already had the tuna and . . . it was not albacore. Here's what I made (which is rooted in a recipe found here but tweaked by preference and by absences in the available ingredients. 

*Dump a cup or so of olive oil (one that tastes good not just some junk) into a sauce pan and add fennel seeds and black pepper corns (the original recipe called for green ones but hey. . . you do what you can). Warm the oil up for a while to infuse with the seeds. Let cool. 

*Warm the oil up again (Or just never cool it completely if you are like me) and add the tuna to it. I used a single tuna steak, about 1/2 pound. Cook it for a bit on each side and ensure that the edges are also poached in the olive oil. 

*Voila: olive oil poached tuna. Remove tuna, and cube or rip up. Retain the oil as you will use it later in this recipe and in other contexts. 

*Toss together: mayonnaise (about 1/3 cup?), two tablespoons capers (drained in my case, but not rinsed), squeezing of one lemon, finely diced red onion (some is all I can say on quantity), some chopped black olives (again, no help on the quantity as I just used what I had). Add tuna and lightly toss. (the original recipe called for celery. I had none. Ditto with anchovies.)

*The original recipe asks you to serve this in avocado halves. Indeed, it suggests 2 avocado halves per person. I disagreed. What I did was slice an avocado and artfully distribute the slices on a plate. I then topped the avocado with the tuna salad and drizzled with the fennel/peppercorn oil and some lemon juice. 

Amazing. Original source: Food and Wine on line. 

 

Cucumber Salads are something we fell for as a result of a cookbook called Hot Sour Salty Sweet, reviewed on this blog but yet again I simply cannot find the review. Yes, I should have planned better in 2006 or whenever. Not only have I reviewed the book but I have reviewed many of the books she has done and own many as well. So: whether i can find it or not, it is her book that inspired many of our cucumber salad adventures -- and we are also inspired by parental cucumber salads (one with vinegar and sugar and one with cream and black pepper, but I digress). Here are two I have been making lately, one from the aforementioned book and one from a google search on my phone.  

      Basic Asian Cucumber Salad inspired by Hot Sour Salty Sweet. This salad is accomplished in various ways, but here are the basics. First: if you are using a European seedless cucumber, just cut in half; otherwise, cut in half and seed. I often use a peeler to make it so the halves are kind of striped. Then: cut very thin crescents of cucumber. Place in bowl. Add: around 3 Tablespoons of vinegar. The original recipe calls for black rice vinegar and rice vinegar. I have been known to use only unseasoned rice vinegar. And, to be honest, if you use another kind you will not be making anything Asian, but it will still taste good. Then add a smidgen of sugar and a bit of salt. Let sit. Sprinkle minced ginger on top when you serve. Variations include: add some sxechuan pepper corns. Or.  . . whatever you want. There is another recipe which makes a kind of oil with spices in it at the very end and tosses that on top. Tasty too. 

      Cucumber Ribbon Salad was an iPhone discovery and was par of a recipe for a full dinner which involved salmon as well. You can find the recipe for the whole darn thing here. Yes, salmon and herb salad and cucumber ribbons. What I did, instead, was simply make the cucumber ribbon salad as I a) had no salmon and b) had no herbs to make herb salad. TO do what I did: a) using vegetable peeler, and seeded cucumber, make long very thin ribbons; b) make lemon grass ginger dressing which consists of 1 minced lemon grass stalk; 1/4 cup oil; 2 tablespoons rice vinegar; 1 tablespoon minced ginger; and 1 tablespoon soy sauce Tamari). I can say this: looks different, tastes different, expanded my repertoire, and I like it. Plus, cucumber ribbons for some reason are more impressive than crescents despite the knife skills required of the crescents to be close to identical. 

 

So: back to the kitchen! 

 

 

 

Related articles

Deviled Eggs

Spotted Duck

Oh my god. DIscovering something wonderful nearby is a great thing. And, when it involves food -- even better. Then, it involves ice cream (sorry Dana Bickford Cree, I found ... something you should know!) and yes, it is nearby. (DId I say it is near by? Fortunately, there is no delivery service and I need a car to get there and . . . do not have immediate access to a car.)

So: Spotted Duck Creamery is located on Route 54 in Dresden, NY -- and is a tiny little ice cream custard place which makes ice creams (see below) entirely with their own ingredients. If you are thinking Dairy Queen frozen custard: wrong. (I love Dairy Queen but this is not the same phenomenon.)

Custard ice cream is an entire genre of ice cream, involving (of course) eggs and, in this case, duck eggs. This is part of what distinguishes their ice cream and their . . delights. Yes, you can indeed visit the ducks, chickens and turkeys they raise. 

And, Spotted Duck . . . well, there is no other word for it: Spotted Duck Creamery makes spectacular ice cream. Perhaps what is best about them is that they offer FLIGHTS OF ICE CREAM -- which involve scoops of 4 ice creams for $5.95. The presentation is delightful -- a wooden holder for small preserving jars, each of which comes with a scoop. This is what it looks like, swiped from their website:

View this photo

My own looked slightly differewnt form the photo as, of course, I did not have the exact set of scoops they picture! instead, I had: (a) Tad's Java Junction (yep, coffee ice cream with dark chocolate bits and hazelnuts); (b) Hot Mud which includes jalapenos along with dark chocolate and more; (c) a pinkish cherry ice cream with chocolate flecks called Dark Forest; and (d) a mint chocolate fleck ice cream (which is, delightfully, green) with the name Ditch Mint Chip because, I assume, it uses wild mint leaves. At first, I thought there was no chance that I could eat four scoops. I was wrong -- and not entirely because I am a glutton -- the ice cream is well made and aimed to fill you but not overwhelm you. The scoops are appropriately sized. As I said to my friend with whom I shared bits, I preferred the mint (my favorite in any case), and the cherry came in second (now beating out my love for Cherry Garcia), and the other two were delightful but not as amazing. I advise, if you get the Hot Mud (which is still the best spicy chocolate ice cream I have had in ages) be careful about the order in which you taste -- the jalapenos will make other subtleties in other ice creams somewhat more difficult to discern. 

Perhaps worth knowing, Spotted Duck is the ice cream served by Kindred Fare in Geneva. But the flavors are more varied if you follow the directions and go there! It is a seasonal joint located at 999 State Route 54, Penn Yan. NY 14527. They are open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.  

Go now. 

Rasam

I have been known to cook. And, in fact, I am cooking pretty often now that I am in Geneva. I make brunch (something I did when my partner was in Chicago as well ) and dinners, and yes, I cook. It is actually fun, and I am renewing my love for the kitchen. I am also renewing some part of the adventure of discovering new things to make. This is partly because I am the designated go-to-CSA person and have been buying things I have no idea what to do with -- and partly because I have been unpacking and rearranging many items, including cookbooks. (I have even been giving some away, but that is another story entirely.) 

So: one evening I was reminded while perusing a cookbook from Ireland, of rasam. The cookbook title: Cafe Paradiso Seasons by Denis Cotter.  I particularly love this cookbook for a recipe for risotto which involves arugula, avocado and hot chili oil. And, as a result, have perused it over and over again. And yes, it is somewhat ironic that I re-discovered Rasam in this context given I do in fact own Indian cookbooks. But, hey, what inspires cooking is not always obvious. 

First: what is rasam? According to the land of google, rasam is "A thin soup of southern India, typically made with tomatoes, tamarind, and various spices including turmeric, coriander, cumin, and red chilies, often served with steamed rice." (Citation from http://www.yourdictionary.com/rasam ) It even has a wikipedia article located here.

Part of what attracted me over and over again to the recipe until I finally made it is the visual in Cotter's book. The recipe is a two page spread with diagonal corners (bottom left of the left page and top right of the right page) featuring a beautiful white bowl (not the whole thing) with tomato rasam in it and spices -- clearly fennel seed,  for example,  floating in it. The photographer and designer knew how to ensure anyone flipping through the cookbook stopped right there. And I did. Again and again. 

In any case, here is what I made/did: 

Buy a pound or so of tasty tomatoes. We had them in the house because . . . well, we did. And I used every last one of them to make this soup. Make sure you own tamarind (I always do) and spices like fennel seeds and turmeric (I always do) and some ginger root (again, always). Buy some cilantro if you are out of it. ensure you own red lentils (apparently my partner always does).

Steps to actually make the soup (adapted from cookbook noted above):

(a) Simmer circa 3.5 ounces of red lentils over very low heat for about 20 minutes. After cooling, drain into a large pot or bowl. You can hang on to the lentils if you want and use them for something (including returning to the soup if you want to) or waste them. 

(b) Roast 2 pounds of tomatoes coated in olive oil and lightly salter in a moderate oven (I picked 350 degrees) for 15 minutes. Add chopped ginger (circa 1 inch piece chopped) and some cloves of garlic (Cotter calls for 8; I am getting less and less into garlic as I age so I did not use 8. I used fewer cloves but cannot recall how many.)  Continue to roast for a bit longer. Total maximum time 20 minutes. 15 will do it, in which you could add the garlic and ginger at 10 minutes. I did not. 

(c) Remove tomatoes form oven, stir in 2 chopped fresh green chilis (I admit I used some bird chilis that are frozen and they worked fine), 2 teaspoons of turmeric, and a small bunch of what Cotton calls fresh coriander and we call (well, I call) cilantro. Then: put it all into a food processor and process away. 

(Side note: you could just put the tomatoes into the processor and add the chilis, turmeric and cilantro there. Yep. 

(d) Put tomato puree into the pot holding the lentil water. 

(e) Mix some tamarind goo (turns out Cotton means tamarind when he uses the term tamapeel) into about 25 ounces or so of warm water. Add it to the pot with lentil water and tomato puree. 

(f) Simmer for circa 15 minutes. 

(g) In a frying pan with three TABLESPOONS of olive oil, fry up some green pepper corns (I had none so was missing this ingredient -- he calls for 1 teaspoon), mustard seeds (i used 2 teaspoons brown), fennel seeds (he calls for 2 teaspoons and I used a tad more as I was missing the peppercorns), and cumin seeds (1 teaspoon). fry til mustard pops. 

(h) Serve soup with a dollop of the oil and seeds on top. 

And, there you have it: rasam. Tart, tomatoey and I love the crunchy spicy oily top.

Also: this should serve as a recommendation for Cotter's book. IT won the world cookbook award for best vegetarian cookbook in the world in 2003. Every recipe I have made from it has been superb, reasonably easy to make, and tweakable without ruining it.  So there folks who think there is no excellent Irish cooking. 

Coming Soon

(Thanks to blog.magisto.com for the image!) 

Keep an eye out for the following posts:

Do you know what a Spotted Duck is? Why does it have anything to do with this blog? 

Do you know what food and the National Women's Hall of Fame have in common (other than inductee Julia Child and soon-to-be inductee Alice Waters)? 

Do you know what rasam is and why it is peculiar to attach it to Ireland?

What might religion and food have to do with one another and how does that relate to . . . Seattle? 

Please comment and help us anticipate upcoming posts! 

 

 

 

Fellenz Family Farm: CSA

The creation of community supported agriculture (CSA) was a very good thing some 25 years ago, providing some financial stability for farmers and a commitment by community folks to eating/cooking locally. (For an overview, try this site or the appropriate page on the Fellenz Family Farm website, here.) These allow those of us who are not farmers to purchase directly from farmers and, at least in my case, allows me to try a few things that I have neither eaten or cooked with before. (SO far, this year: baby kohlrabi and purslane). 

In the case of the kohlrabi: I made kohlrabi chips with them (somewhat unsuccessfully in my view) and then served them thinly sliced raw. I did discover a whole range of salads I might try in the future. 

In the case of purslane, I made a green sauce by pureeing and served it with halibut. I give this a B- as I failed to really get it pureed and somehow the substitution of 2% milk for cream . . . well, you can guess. Having said that, the halibut was wild and wonderful. 

Now, back to the particular CSA: Fellenz Family Farm. The farm is in Phelps, NY and is certified organic. Their ground has been farmed since the early 19th century -- though they themselves began farming their in 2002 (with their organic certification following shortly thereafter). The CSA -- which includes various sizes -- we get the micro! -- can be picked up at the farm or, delightfully for those of us in Geneva, right on Main Street at Trinity Church. If you check out their website, you can find additional locations in Brighton, Pittsford and Canandaigua where you can pick up your share.

Our microshare extends through the fall, and I cannot wait to see what that means! Meanwhile, the pickings are delightful and . . . I am successfully ignoring the fact that it is pushing me toward vegetarian meals. 

I love going to pick up our micro-share. We get four items (and they tell you when you arrive -- just take a certain number of zucchinis or of cucumbers or whatever). (The small and large shares get a higher number of items and/or quantities.) And, of course, you can purchase additional items (including eggs). Last year, I enjoyed the visits rarely as I was only home on Wednesdays occasionally. This year, I go to the transfer station with recycling early in the day (I hope not every single Wednesday for the foreseeable future) and then later in the day to the CSA! 

Hurrah for Erik and his family farm! I am grateful for their work and for the vegetables that I have come to love. It reminds me that the kitchen I used to love can be more than an obligation and much more of an adventure.