It really goes to show you, it is best to wait for summer to enjoy such fruits. Its just that, I could smell their sweet fragrance as I passed them in the aisle and thought to myself, Oh my! What a delightful mid-winter snack! A fresh nectarine! Their aroma was sweet, but the texture was all wrong, as if they had been simultaneously softened and dried on the inside, no juice dribbling down my chin and elbows. It had that quality shared by the flesh of many apples, a chalky texture with no crisp juiciness. Anyway, I took no more than three bites. What can you do with such a fruit? Perhaps see if Shiloh would take a stab at it? I don't imagine I can fool her either. I can't believe I fell for it. A nectarine in January, Psshhhh . . .
Well this is an important message about Seasonal Living, one of my favorite topics, but secondary to the purpose of this post. THIS POST IS ALL ABOUT MINESTRONE. Minestrone means, "Big Soup" in Italian (according to Alice Waters) and it is not surprisingly she who I get this recipe from. I chose to make this soup because I am trying out as many of her recipes as possible. Why hers? Because I really enjoy her philosophy of simplistic, wholesome, artistic cooking that treasures each ingredient, never over-doing anything. It also stresses using the freshest ingredients available, which often means Local!
Another cool aspect of her cookbook is that it makes it very clear that there are really only a few basic combinations of ingredients that one needs to be familiar with in order to make a large variety of dishes. So I think that is awesome and after trying her very simple recipe for Carrot Soup (which was SO delicious), I now venture on to the Minestrone. These two recipes, and a recipe for Chicken Broth are the only three listed under the "Soups and Broths" section of the cookbook. The rest listed in the end of the book are variations upon the very simple bases that make these soups so good. It is genius!
Currently, I have the beans soaking and some dough for bread rising. I haven't started anything else yet, but I will be making the "Winter" version of her Minestrone which actually calls for turnips, potatoes and cabbage instead of the standard zucchini, tomatoes and spinach which is described as the summer version. I am deciding to not forgo the spinach in favor of cabbage, however, because I couldn't part with it once I started thinking about it floating around in my soup. Plus, we need some greens even in winter/especially in winter.
There is an exciting addition to the bread this time, since it was somewhat dense (perhaps due to over-rising and over-kneading) last time I am following the recipe's optional suggestion of adding dry milk to the sponge. In an interesting twist of which Matthew will not be privy to (unless of course he reads my totally public, published on the internet for all to read blog, of course) there will be a necessary substitution of goats milk for the powdered milk. Whole Foods did not have regular powdered milk, only powdered goat milk, yea . . . I will refrain from going on about Whole Foods at the moment since they are still in my favor despite the nectarine which so quickly fell out. I think it will be good, anyway. It sort of smells like parmesan cheese though. I am a little nervous about Matthew actually becoming upset with me about this substitution due to his strong aversion to anything, "goat" but something tells me I could be on the verge of a great discovery and can't afford to not take this risk. Plus, I think its sort of funny. Actually, I really hope he doesn't find out. Dry milk, anyway, is supposed to add lightness and texture to the dough that might otherwise be heavier and grainier. (Still following the Tassajara Recipe)
Let's take a moment to dwell on an observation I've made in regards to Goat Products, and I'd like feedback on this . . . Why do so many people dislike them? In my experience as a server I've noticed that predominately males dislike Goat Cheese in particular. Matthew despises it. What gives? (insert acting cool face) I've also observed many men liking Goat Cheese, so I don't understand the occasional, yet often enough to be noteworthy aversion. This is something I've wondered about for a while now. What about women? Occasionally women I waited on didn't like it. Less often but always an interesting case. I realize this is ridiculous now but I just think its suspicious that anyone wouldn't like goat cheese. But, to digress even further, there are many things that some people may find offensive and the fact thereof offends other people! (not sure I used "thereof" correctly) I bet there are even people who are offended that people are offended that people are offended by something. Perhaps even the people themselves who are originally offended, and so forth do many arguments continue onwards. Here I am, waxing philosophical about this silly little question, I promise I did not introduce it for that purpose. It is a Friday afternoon and I am "firing on all cylinders" to borrow a phrase from the Gioia's. I am also sort of acting cool so I'm going to back off.
Back to Minestrone! I just noticed the beans had been boiling over for the entire duration of my goat-cheese-rant but I think they will be alright. This recipe called for a white bean or cranberry bean. I could only find Cannellini, Great Northern and Navy Beans (which are all white beans, no cranberry beans to be found) and I went with Great Northern simply because they had the highest Andi Score, which is a very interesting thing to look into. Pasta is another addition which Ms. Waters makes optional. I chose to get some just in case, at least for the second serving if not the initial and went with orecchiette, a small ear-shaped and thus-named pasta. The pasta and the beans are both cooked separately and then added close to serving time to avoid getting overdone.
Anyone who has been reading my writing up until now will notice I have a severe tendency to indulge in hyphens and parenthesis. I really like them. I will defend the dependance upon hyphens as irrevocably instilled by the reading of Martin Heidegger during my senior year of college (I may have mentioned and apologized for this before) and the parentheses on the inability to add footnotes (as far as I know) in a blog. That doesn't really justify it though, does it? Well, I just like parentheses too. I tend to think in various voices, constantly checking myself. This whole paragraph should be a footnote. I'd actually like to blame the oh so sweet, J.D. Salinger for taking such artful liberties with his prose that a lasting impression could not help but be made upon this consciousness. I see that I am thoroughly reflective today and relatively lucid. I am on the cusp of completing George Eliot's, Middlemarch, and love it. It was tough getting going but SO worth it! And now this is apparently a literary blog. Love it. Love everybody, felt like giving the whole world a hug today. As they say in the South, "Have a Blessed Day!"
Friday, January 28, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Snowy Night in Mississippi
Well, here I am in Mississippi. Post-holiday, early January stillness which I so look forward to every year. It's supposed to snow today . . . enough to cancel stuff, so people are pretty excited and aflutter. Supposedly the first few flakes have begun to touch down but the sun has just set in time to conceal the magical image of flakes floating through bare tree branches and onto our dry yellowed grass. I must admit I would be very pleased to see this whole place blanketed in snow. It would feel somehow satisfying, as if, being a Northerner at my roots, I had some influence upon this weather. As if, finally, I could enjoy the effects of my Northern-nish and watch it affect the lives of others in such an omnipresent force as the weather, rather than feel it is something to set me apart as an individual. As if my personified Northerninity could retaliate against suppression, and manifest in its most well-known characteristic, Snow.
"Sorry, Mississippi, it just followed me down here."
Or, even better, I magnetically attracted it. Ah, to see this world blanketed tomorrow morning would feel good. As if, I could for an instant, mute it, and make it my own playground. There would be something familiar and estranged about it at once. Let's hope it actually happens!
I'm baking bread this weekend. The Tassajara Bread Book recipe for Whole Wheat Bread by Ed Brown. I am particularly interested in seeing if baking bread at this lower altitude will be easier than in Santa Fe. I've only made it there and always have a little trouble with the recipe, mostly because the timing is so difficult with all the rising and estimation involved, and labor! It really forces you to have a feel for the dough and the process which, although it is difficult and frustrating, impresses me. It is a challenge and forces you to learn and use your senses and feeling, a sort of intuition. The recipe is elaborate and detailed yet calls for the baker to know on their own when the dough has reached the right consistency, with helps and clues but no ultimate measuring yard. It is truly a recipe that is most likely only mastered with repetition and the level of repetition with which you ultimately forget the recipe itself, you've followed it so many times. Only then does the sense for cups of flour and levels of salt arrive innately and devoid of any measurement.
Of course, this is how it is with most cooking, or any art or skill for that matter. Learn the skills, study them hard, climb the ladder, only to ultimately kick it away (as Wittgenstein says of the limits of language) forget all you learned and follow your heart. With this notion of, "following your heart" understood to be more than following desire, but following a carefully developed keenness for where one's "heart" truly "wants" to go. It's written in a quieter language, and subtler to the ear and not really about "going" somewhere. But M pointed out to me recently, when talking about this very same topic, that people may often confuse "following one's heart" with following something else, like desire, or an image of ourselves. It is difficult to say what exactly because everyone has a different path so it is impossible to describe what a particular misunderstanding of it would look like, but I am talking about "following your heart" as not allowing the clutter of information that is constantly pouring in to obscure the plain and simple understanding of things as they are, or prohibit the appreciation of our subtler selves and lastly, as confidence in spite of error. I find that "following my heart" has been a process of remembering even more than learning. Its something I always knew but forgot, and now must traverse the landscape of my convoluted thoughts to remember, while so many things try and distract me and convince me to want them (mostly fashion-related items).
In other words, its once I've memorized and come to understand the rhythm of a process, that I could begin truly experiencing freedom with it. As in, improvisation in a jazz song, or incorporating nuts or some other variation into this bread recipe. For example, I never look at a recipe when I make beans, I've done it so many times that now I just wing it every time and welcome variations. While, before I became familiar with cooking beans, I strove to make every pot the same, perfect quintessential pot of beans.
So hopefully, making bread will one day be an experience beyond straining my neck to read as I knead, getting flour and oil all over my precious little bread book as I struggle with unwieldy dough and I can eventually begin to, you know, "have fun with it." Like when I walk into my kitchen, turn on the music, roll up my sleeves and say, "Alright, it's bean-cookin' time!" So, we shall see how these loaves that have been patiently waiting to be baked for almost 24 hours now come out. I'll have to find an especially warm spot for them to rise in their last stage before going in the oven as it has begun to snow and stick outside! Forecast says up to 8 inches! Beautiful, thick, fluffy flakes appear out of the darkness when headlights of cars pass by.
"Sorry, Mississippi, it just followed me down here."
Or, even better, I magnetically attracted it. Ah, to see this world blanketed tomorrow morning would feel good. As if, I could for an instant, mute it, and make it my own playground. There would be something familiar and estranged about it at once. Let's hope it actually happens!
I'm baking bread this weekend. The Tassajara Bread Book recipe for Whole Wheat Bread by Ed Brown. I am particularly interested in seeing if baking bread at this lower altitude will be easier than in Santa Fe. I've only made it there and always have a little trouble with the recipe, mostly because the timing is so difficult with all the rising and estimation involved, and labor! It really forces you to have a feel for the dough and the process which, although it is difficult and frustrating, impresses me. It is a challenge and forces you to learn and use your senses and feeling, a sort of intuition. The recipe is elaborate and detailed yet calls for the baker to know on their own when the dough has reached the right consistency, with helps and clues but no ultimate measuring yard. It is truly a recipe that is most likely only mastered with repetition and the level of repetition with which you ultimately forget the recipe itself, you've followed it so many times. Only then does the sense for cups of flour and levels of salt arrive innately and devoid of any measurement.
Of course, this is how it is with most cooking, or any art or skill for that matter. Learn the skills, study them hard, climb the ladder, only to ultimately kick it away (as Wittgenstein says of the limits of language) forget all you learned and follow your heart. With this notion of, "following your heart" understood to be more than following desire, but following a carefully developed keenness for where one's "heart" truly "wants" to go. It's written in a quieter language, and subtler to the ear and not really about "going" somewhere. But M pointed out to me recently, when talking about this very same topic, that people may often confuse "following one's heart" with following something else, like desire, or an image of ourselves. It is difficult to say what exactly because everyone has a different path so it is impossible to describe what a particular misunderstanding of it would look like, but I am talking about "following your heart" as not allowing the clutter of information that is constantly pouring in to obscure the plain and simple understanding of things as they are, or prohibit the appreciation of our subtler selves and lastly, as confidence in spite of error. I find that "following my heart" has been a process of remembering even more than learning. Its something I always knew but forgot, and now must traverse the landscape of my convoluted thoughts to remember, while so many things try and distract me and convince me to want them (mostly fashion-related items).
In other words, its once I've memorized and come to understand the rhythm of a process, that I could begin truly experiencing freedom with it. As in, improvisation in a jazz song, or incorporating nuts or some other variation into this bread recipe. For example, I never look at a recipe when I make beans, I've done it so many times that now I just wing it every time and welcome variations. While, before I became familiar with cooking beans, I strove to make every pot the same, perfect quintessential pot of beans.
So hopefully, making bread will one day be an experience beyond straining my neck to read as I knead, getting flour and oil all over my precious little bread book as I struggle with unwieldy dough and I can eventually begin to, you know, "have fun with it." Like when I walk into my kitchen, turn on the music, roll up my sleeves and say, "Alright, it's bean-cookin' time!" So, we shall see how these loaves that have been patiently waiting to be baked for almost 24 hours now come out. I'll have to find an especially warm spot for them to rise in their last stage before going in the oven as it has begun to snow and stick outside! Forecast says up to 8 inches! Beautiful, thick, fluffy flakes appear out of the darkness when headlights of cars pass by.
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