“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” Dorothy Day

I may have mentioned in past posts that my friend and roommate Heather has been preparing to leave NYC for the Peace Corps in Latin America (with a stop in her hometown of San Francisco).   A week ago, she left the city, a place where she has lived for the last 8 years and the environment in which (in her own words) she has grown from a girl to a woman.  I feel so blessed to have had Heather as a roommate over the past two plus years.  She sure is a whirlwind of energy—a force of nature, as I like to say.  You know those people who are full of big dreams and wishes and idealism but never really seem to know how to set out to accomplish them?  Well my dear friend is definitely not one of them!  I’m excited for her to begin this new chapter and I can’t wait to see the adventures and excitement that await her.

My other roommate Danielle and I threw Heather a going away party for friends, but to say goodbye to our little Bronx community, we did something that felt special but not out of the ordinary.  A few days before she left, we hosted Heather’s last community dinner.  As we try to do almost every week, friends from our building and neighborhood gathered together to eat, drink, and talk.  We shared stories from work, commented on politics and issues in the neighborhood, talked about spouses and children and the babies we are waiting to meet (there is a bit of a baby boom in the building).  In short, we were present to each other for a few blissful hours.  A few things we did were a little bit out of the ordinary for community dinner though—we toasted Heather and she toasted us.  

It was very moving and I can’t think of a better way to formally close out Heather’s time at Rochambeau.

For the farewell dinner, we decided to make pizza.  Heather cannot eat gluten and she had some gluten free pizza mix lying around just begging to be made.  For those who can eat gluten, I made the with-gluten dough.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I have to say that this was the best dough recipe I’ve ever made!   I’m not the one who stretched it our baked it—we delegated tasks and I was assigned to putting the dough together.  So I can only take credit for finding the recipe and mixing up the ingredients, but this one is a winner that I will use over and over!

I found this recipe on 101cookbooks.com, my old standby site, but I was pleased to read that this is actually based off a recipe in The Breadbaker’s Apprentice, a book my mom got me almost a year ago!  So it comes from my favorite recipe website and a beloved book, all rolled into one!

The recipe via 101cookbooks (from Peter Reinhart's book):

White Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe

This is a very adapted version of Peter Reinhart's dough using white whole wheat flour. There are a few corners that I'm in the habit of cutting with this dough, all reflected in the following recipe instructions.

4 1/2 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 3/4 cups water, ice cold
a few tablespoons chopped herbs (optional)
Semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting

Stir together the flour, salt, and instant yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer. By hand stir in the oil and the cold water until the flour is all absorbed. Add the herbs. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for 5 to 7 minutes, or as long as it takes to create a smooth, sticky dough. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl (to me it looks like a tornado). Add a touch of water or flour to reach the desired effect. The finished dough will be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky.

Transfer the dough to a floured countertop. Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces and mold each into a ball. Rub each ball with olive oil and slip into plastic sandwich bags. Refrigerator overnight.

When you are ready to make pizza (anytime in the next few days), remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator at least 1 hour before making the pizza. Keep them covered so they don't dry out.

At the same time place a baking stone on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees (you can go hotter, but I like the results I get at 450). If you do not have a baking stone, you can use the back of a sheet pan, but do not preheat the pan.

Generously dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with semolina flour or cornmeal and get ready to shape your pizza dough. Uncover or unwrap the dough balls and dust them with flour. Working one at a time, gently press a dough round into a disk wide enough that you can bring it up onto your knuckles to thin out - you should be able to pull each round out to 12-inches or so. If the dough is being fussy and keeps springing back, let it rest for another 15-20 minutes. Place the pulled-out dough on the prepared sheet pan, and jerk the pan to make sure the dough will move around on the cornmeal ball-bearings (you don't want it to stick to the pan).

Add your toppings (less is more!) and slide the topped pizza onto the baking stone. Bake until the crust is crisp and nicely colored. Remove from the oven. I always finish with more freshly grate parmesan and a small drizzle of good quality extra-virgin olive oil.

Makes six 6-ounce pizza crusts.

And some pictures!

No Yesterdays on the Road....

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” Cesare Pavese

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” Jack Kerouac

 “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” Mark Twain

 “He who does not travel does not know the value of men.” Moorish Proverb

 “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” Freya Stark

“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” William Least Heat Moon

"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable.  It is designed to make its own people comfortable."  Clifton Fadiman

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” Mark Jenkins

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” Maya Angelou

To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” Bill Bryson

 


Here I am, back on solid ground and just starting to feel reacquainted with my New York life. There is a lot that has been said about traveling, much of it probably more eloquent than any words I can put together at 11 on a Monday night.  Those quotes and the few pictures (of many!) express a lot of the emotions I feel when thinking about the trip I took.

But how can I describe in words that feeling of sitting outside in a cafe in Amsterdam?  The heat of the sun shining on my face, the sounds of the nearby canal, the taste of the cappuccino I'm drinking....haven't I experienced almost all of this before? But somehow it is not the same elsewhere.  Somehow it's more magical, more special.

I kept a journal while we were going from place to place and I can tell you that there were two themes to all my entries. 

One, the people.  Traveling makes you vulnerable and no matter how prepared you are, you will still find yourself in need of help at some point (or many points!) during your trip.  Allowing yourself to be open to the beautiful kindness of strangers (even if you can barely understand one another) has got to be hands down the the most important, and rewarding, skill to cultivate.  The vibrant cast of characters we met along the way is what I will cherish most about the experience.  From the older Romanian man who hung out in my and Heather's train cabin having a very one-sided but lovely conversation in Romanian with us, to the Peace Corps volunteer who let us shower at her apartment because we didn't have a shower at our room in the orphanage, to the fun French, German, Spanish, British people we had dinner with at various guest houses and hostels, to the children and nurses at the orphanage who touched my heart, and the countless kind hearted souls who gave us directions in all different languages, the trip would have been half as wonderful if it weren't for the generosity of so many human beings!

Two, FOOD!  Though Heather and I had a rough few days food-wise while at the orphanage (we had no kitchen and had to eat in odd Romanian restaurants), overall I've never eaten better in my life.  The trip reignited my love for mamaliga--the Romanian staple of corn mush (kind of like polenta), German pretzels (and bread, and beer, and chocolate), and English tea.  Heather and I got to sample real, home cooked Romanian food when we stayed at a guesthouse in the mountains.  We even got to see the farm where lots of the food was produced (and perhaps a cousin to one of the animals we were eating, but I won't go into details!).  In a few of the hostels, Heather and I got to cook together and enjoy all the comforts of a home kitchen.

So there it is--no matter where you go, the two most important things in life truly are people and food. 

One last thing I wanted to note, I've been quite busy lately getting back into the swing of things ( I'd really like to get back into posting on a regular basis) so I missed the opportunity to say........happy first anniversary to the blog!  I can't believe it's been a year.  I've really enjoyed this project of mine, regardless of who continues to follow loyally, I love reflecting back on the fun things I've done and I think it's special to document so that I have it for the future.  And, just in time for the 1 year mark, last week our CSA delivery from the week prior was still hanging around, starting to wilt away in the fridge.  Thinking back to about a year ago, I remembered making a yummy "everything but the kitchen sink" type of soup.  I decided to make it again and then saw that indeed, it was almost a year to the day that I made this soup!

Thanks for taking this blog journey with me, I love having you along for the ride.

Cincinnati is more than chili, but the chili is pretty good.

"Life is partly what we make it and partly it is made by the friends we choose."

I had a fabulous time in Cincinnati.  Although the last leg consisted of canceled flights, plane de-icing, and taking a train instead of a plane at one point, I refuse to let the craziness of the journey home color the wonderful extended weekend I had.  What a joy to spend time with Carin, Chris, her parents, and their animals.  It was a nice mix of relaxing and sightseeing and of course, there was plenty of eating!!  Remember when I said I rarely eat meat? That went right out the window, especially since I had to try the famous Skyline chili.  Oh and of course trying it meant eating it on top of a mini-hot dog.  I can't remember the last time I had one of those, but laden with meaty chili and cheese, it tasted pretty good!  Here I am, eating a "Coney" (after coney island I believe).

 

I decided to make chili tonight not only to honor Cincinnati, but because while I was there, Carin gave me her friend Kate's fabulous recipe for vegetarian chili which Kate made while I was visiting St. Louis a few years back.  I've honestly had that chili in the back of my head since then.  There are just countless recipes for chili--I've made oodles of different versions over time but I've never truly loved a recipe.  I think this particular recipe will become my go to chili recipe because it is so unique.  Also, I made some cornbread that I've been wanting to try from 101 cookbooks called "Firecraker Cornbread" which I have eaten before but never made.

Both recipes are fairly straightforward.  Follow the above link to find Heidi Swanson's cornbread.  I followed it as is, except I didn't have buttermilk on hand (who ever does??!!) so I substituted plain yogurt.  You'll just fall in love with it--yes, Jiffy mix is super easy, but this bread isn't all that difficult and the taste is worth it!  

 

 

And here is Kate's recipe.....you need to play around with the spices a lot since it's not exact.  The spice amounts listed here are a starting point--play around with it and add more as you go and according to what your tastes are.  OH! and also there is a secret to the recipe--beer.  Today all I had in the fridge was Sam Adams Cherry Wheat (which actually tastes nice) but you can use whatever you like.

(Yes that is basil from my Mom's garden, bottled with love)

Kate's Great Chili:

  

3 celery stalks

1 green pepper, 1 red pepper   

2 medium onions

a bunch of garlic

First chop up everything and saute them in a little oil in the bottom of a big soup pot.  When they look like they're getting soft, add the following to the pot:

2 16 oz. cans of dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed 

2 16oz. cans of white (great northern) beans, drained and rinsed

2 32 oz. cans of chopped tomatoes

2 tsp cumin

3 tbsp. chili powder

dash cayenne pepper

2 tsp basil

2 tsp oregano

2 bay leaves

1/4 c cider vinegar

 

 Let this mixture simmer with the lid on for about an hour and a half, then add a can or bottle of beer, and simmer for half an hour more.  Throw in some whole cashews just before you serve it, as well as some cheddar cheese.

Enjoy!!

Holden Caulfield is my* ideal boy!

(*Not my ideal boy.  My mother's ideal boy. ) Well, not even really my mother but rather the teenage version of my mother.  You see, the copy of The Catcher in the Rye that I have was actually my mom's copy when she was in high school.  That alone would make it special; however, it is practically invaluable to me because her personal notes and thoughts are penciled in it.  Yes, my mother inscribed the inside cover with, "Holden Caulfield is my ideal boy!", in her curly, cursive, teen-aged handwriting.  Diving into the text, you will find other little notes she wrote, as well as the pencil markings of her favorite passages.

I just couldn't let the death of J.D. Salinger slip by without mention.  Of course I am sure he would be appalled by a blog entry written about him, but I'm not here to write about him or judge his seemingly strange actions after he became successful.  I mean, I sort of understand why he would want to become so reclusive.  Heck, sometimes I want to run away to a farm and escape modern life altogether too.  I definitely don't blame him for shunning the spotlight.  I do want to say that I am thankful for his writing (I was going to put his picture up here, but I read an article that reported how disgusted he was at seeing his picture over and over on the jacket of Catcher and so he asked the publisher to take it off!).  Anyhow, all this news about his death has unearthed my submerged affection for Holden Caulfield and Catcher.

1.5 bags, part I

I love crafts!  I can't believe it's taken me this long to write about them.  Making bags is a relatively new endeavor of mine.  I was lucky enough to receive a lovely corduroy and suede handmade bag from my aunt for Christmas.  Right now I am in possession of 1.5 bags I made myself.  One of those I made by felting and the half-bag is an ongoing labor of love, but more on that later......

What do I love about handmade bags?  Hmmm, well, I love that they have stories.

Waving Goodbye to '09

As this year draws to a close, I can't help but pause to reflect on the ups and downs it has contained for me.  Echoing my first post here on this blog, it was the exploration of my hobbies/pastimes/loves that served to sweeten the pleasures of this year and temper the tough times for me.  Everything posted here (and much more!) has kept me sane and joy-filled.  I would never have survived the difficulties of unemployment or the challenges of graduate school that in many ways defined my 2009 if I did not continually take up cooking, baking, reading, crafting, and other things I love.  One of my New Year's resolutions is most certainly to continue this exploration of these things that I am passionate about--in other words, I hope to never forget love.

Season's Greetings

It's that time again.  We are in the midst of Advent and Christmas is right around the corner.  I know there are many people who do not celebrate Christmas and many partake in a non-religious way and I am definitely respectful of that.  But I think everyone can agree that the essential, beautiful messages of Christmas are needed more now than they ever have been.  As our nation continues to escalate the wars we are involved in, as children in the cities we live in continue to encounter violence every day, and as friends and neighbors suffer because of the economy, I think everyone needs the hope, light, peace, and faith of the Christmas message.

As for me, I have always loved this time--the waiting, the expecting, the hoping.  I love the preparation for the big day.  For me, it is more than just the material preparation.  I make sure to take extra time each day for myself--to enjoy quiet reflection.  It is that time that helps counter some of the commercial craziness that inevitably comes with Christmas.  This is not to say I don't enjoy some of the material preparation!  I have a mini-tree in my living room, a pine wreath hanging in the hall, and a snowman angel on our table. 

Also, I am currently reading the Martha Stewart Living Christmas Cookbook.  I absolutely love it!!  It was an early Christmas present from my mother and I've been up at night reading it in bed.  This is more than just a Christmas cookbook--yes, it has beautiful, wonderful, yummy holiday dishes and treats, but it is much much more.  Any kind of holiday party food you could want is all there in one book.  My only problem is that I can't decide which recipes I want to make.  I have a few holiday parties coming up and on Friday I am hosting book club here with my roommate so I do have some opportunities to test out the recipes.   

I will keep you all updated as my Christmas preparations progress.  Aside from making food for parties, I will be making treats to give as gifts and making some crafts for loved ones and tonight I am working on some holiday cards. 

How are you preparing for the holidays?  Whatever you do, don't forget to take time for yourself and remember why we do all of this preparation in the first place.  Enjoy!

Adventures in Pumpkin Flan

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving everyone!!  I hope yours was as relaxing as mine.  I enjoyed some time in Connecticut.  It was nice to be out of the city.  I never thought the suburbs were quiet until I lived in big cities.  Now every time I am getting ready for bed in the room I grew up in, the quiet is so pervasive it is almost difficult to sleep. 

Over the holiday, I had the pleasure of introducing one of my roommates (who is originally from San Fransisco) to a Connecticut Thanksgiving with my family.  Since she is allergic to gluten, we decided to make a special gluten-free dessert to share.  Lo and behold, the December issue of Martha Stewart Living had a recipe for Pumpkin Flan.  The actual recipe comes from the book Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala Quinn. 

 The result was a beautiful, spicy, sweet creation I think you will enjoy. 

 Now, don't let this seemingly fancy dessert fool you!!  Here is the recipe, it is actually quite simple and your guests will be more than impressed. 

1/2 c granulated sugar

3/4 c light-brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup cooked pumpkin puree

1 1/2 c half-and-half or cream (I used low fat half-and-half)

5 large eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

-Preheat oven to 350. 

(Ok now comes the only complicated part, more on this below)

-Put the granulated sugar in a pie plate, set on the center rack in the over, and bake until the sugar is caramelized 8-12 minutes.  Swirl to cover the bottom of the pie plate with the caramel.

-In a large bowl, whisk together the rest of the dry ingredients.  Then stir in the pumpkin.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the half-and-half, eggs, and vanilla.  Then blend the egg mixture into the pumpkin mixture.

-Set the pie plate with the caramel bottom in a large roasting pan then pour the custard over the caramel.  With care, pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to reach halfway up the side of the pie plate.

-Bake until custard is set, about 1 hour and 10 minutes then cool and set in the fridge to chill.  Once it has cooled off, run a knife around the outside edge of the flan and invert it onto a plate. Scoop out and serve with whipped cream.

 So, about that complicated part....carmelizing the sugar took much much longer than the 8-12 minutes from the recipe.  I'm not sure if the oven needed to be higher or if the recipe was wrong.  I also have to admit that I wasn't feeling well while we were making the recipe, so a lot of the work fell to my roommate.  She probably knows more about what happened with the sugar.  Anyhow, eventually it worked out but it was tricky so just note that when you try it.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!! 

Caramel Apples, Spooky Ghosts, and Candyland!!

I don't know about you, but I had a fantastic Halloween.  We had lots of friends here with great costumes (my sister even made the trek from CT to join in on the fun).  We also had so much fantastic food!!  My roommates and I were planning and prepping for the day for so long, it is hard for me to believe it is over.  In the lead up to the big day, I got quite nostalgic for the Halloweens of my past.  Although Christmas may have been the number one most highly-anticipated holiday of my childhood, Halloween came in at a close second.  This is for good reason--I have a Mom who helped me put together lovely, well-planned costumes.  She also made spooky treats and taught me silly Halloween songs.  I also have such fond memories of carving pumpkins with my Dad and then roasting the seeds in the oven.


So, with that reminiscing aside, let me get back to the point of my post here.  On Halloween I made some treats that were not only fun to make but very fun to eat!!  My roommates and I also got very crafty with our costumes so I wanted to share some photos.  Of course a party is not complete without some goodies made from my favorite online recipe journal, 101 Cookbooks.  That links to Heidi's collection of Halloween recipes.  I tried the caramel apples and the spooky ghost meringues.  Both were a bit on the long side to make, but totally worth it!! 

Here are some photos of the apples.  I decided to use sliced apples instead of whole apples and they came out nicely.  The experience of making homemade caramel was so wonderful and fun (but can be dangerous since the caramel gets hot hot!).  The only problem was that my kitchen window was open and three bees flew in!!  They must have smelled the sweetness of the caramel and decided it was worth a chance.  This put the process on hold for a bit; moral of the story is--close the window when making sweet treats!

Now for the ghosts.  This was my first time making meringues and it was very fun!  The only issue was that the coolest setting on my oven is 260 and the temperature for meringues is around 200.  I managed to make it work and they ended up very cute.  In addition to what I made, my roommates made vegetable pate, spring rolls, and roasted potatoes and celery root.  Our friends brought lots of other yummy things--it was quite a feast!

Now for the costumes!!  We decided to be characters from Candyland--one of my favorite childhood board games.  I was Queen Frostine and my roommates were Princess Lolly and Lord Licorice.  For my costume I bought a dress and added fabric and tulle.

Happy Halloween, make sure to make some fun and spooky treats for next year's celebration.