Gluten-Free Girl

Monday mornings are for waffles

2008-05-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

Mondays are Sundays around here.

I don’t mean that to sound as Alice-in-Wonderland-down-the-rabbit-hole as it does. (I can’t wait to read that book to Little Bean, but I’m counting on it being perplexing the first dozen times.) We just don’t live days like most people do.

Most people think of Friday night as the great release. When I was teaching full-time, Friday afternoon felt like summer vacation starting, like the beginning of a long break. Anything seemed possible. I sat outside, at beloved restaurants with friends, chatting slowly and hoisting glasses to the weekend. Back then, I never realized just how hard the chefs and waiters were working, or that Friday night was crunch time for them.

Friday night is generally the busiest night of the week for the Chef.

Waking up Saturday morning used to feel like decadence, with warmth pouring through the windows onto my feet in the bed. Two days lay before me. And even though I knew those days would fly away as fast as early spring warmth in Seattle, I still believed, every Saturday morning: this weekend I could fully relax and achieve everything I thought I needed. Coffee in bed, reading the paper, dreaming of longer vacations — Saturday morning.

On Saturdays now, we read the paper in bed together, and feel the warm cups of coffee in our hands. And watch Jamie Oliver, of course. But Saturday mornings mean another work morning around here. We climb in the car and drive to the farmers’ market, never being able to linger long and talk to farmers the way we like. We’re gathering food for the restaurant, and it’s time to go. The Chef has just dreamt up a fish special with pea vines, pickled asparagus, and petrale sole. We drive to the restaurant, say goodbye, and he starts another ten hours of working without once sitting down.

Saturday nights are pretty darned busy these days, too.

By Sunday morning, I could feel the dread slip in, the palpable sense that the weekend was coming to an end. After an entire day off from grading, I traded plans for languishing and laughing with friends for hours hunched over the kitchen table, marking up papers. I rarely made it through them all. No matter how hard I worked, I could not keep up. I sipped juice and watched episodes of Sex and the City to bribe myself back to working. Cooking was my only release, the evening place where everything else turned off, and I could just be.

I hated Monday mornings.

But now, around here, Sunday is usually our Saturday morning. We languish and laugh, read the entire paper slowly, and still make it out of the house sometimes to meet people for brunch. Our first day of the weekend intersects with our friends with regular jobs, like those circles we had to study in high school algebra. Sunday is the circle on the left, Monday the one on the right — and there’s a small semi-circle where our Sunday meets other people’s with the day off.

And Monday? It feels like real decadence. You see, I keep the same hours as the Chef. I don’t stand in the kitchen ten hours in a row, creating food and feeding people. But I spend his work days doing work as well: writing, researching, coming up with new recipes, running errands. My weekend is with him, on Sunday and Monday.

By Monday, most everyone else has gone back to work. We can go to the movies in the middle of the afternoon and be the only two people there. We stroll through the Market in the late morning without having to sidle through hordes of tourists. We can drive on the freeway in non-rush hour traffic and not have to battle other cars. No matter how hard I work or how long I write, I’ll always feel a little bit like I’m playing hooky by having Monday off.

Lately, however, we haven’t had two days off in a row with each other. Poor Chef. He’s utterly exhausted. For reasons that are the purview of his work, and not this site, his former assistant turned duplicitous and left him in the lurch for weeks. Without any help, he turned to friends, and even me, to come play sous chef for days, while he searched for someone better. (Working with him for three weekends was a glorious experience, but it’s not one I would recommend to anyone else who is six months pregnant.) This has meant he worked Sundays again, the last six Sundays. His hours increased to twelve hours a day, most of the time not sitting down once and forgetting to eat. And for the first few of those weeks, his only day off, Monday, seemed to fill up with making decisions about the baby, childbirth classes, and the cooking classes we have begun to teach together again.

The siege is over. He found a tremendous sous chef this week. Soon, he will sleep again. Soon, we’ll have an entire weekend together.

But in the meantime, I am making Mondays as filled with rest and good food as I can, for him. He has rediscovered naps, like a small child with his favorite blankie. We sometimes stay in bed for hours, just watching movies and holding hands. And we remind each other — this is the restaurant business. Life moves in phases. This too shall pass.

And this Monday, to feed him, I made us waffles for breakfast.

There’s something deeply satisfying about waffles. Fluffy pockets, crisp to the first touch of the fork, soft inside with warm dough, the little indentations filled with melted butter and thin syrup, ready to be topped with rhubarb compote or whipped cream. Something about waffles feels like a slow Sunday morning, even if we do eat them on Monday mornings.

When I was a kid, my favorite night was Breakfast for Dinner. Even if we had eaten well for breakfast that morning, I never grew tired of the excitement of eating scrambled eggs, plump sausages that gristled under the fork, and a little pool of maple syrup, well into the evening. And in my family, the best Breakfast for Dinner event was waffles night.

Mom made up a huge batch of waffles with Bisquick. For one course, we had the traditional waffles, with margarine and Mrs. Butterworths. After I had cleared my thick brown Pfalzgraff plate. I received the savory course: waffles with chicken, sometimes with green chiles from a can, and sour cream. Last — and the most anticipated — were the chocolate waffles, evenly brown and crispy on the edges, topped with ice cream and chocolate syrup. To my memory, the vanilla ice cream gleamed a rich yellow color, and it came to us in a rectangular package, which meant we cut squares onto our waffles, and watched them melt under the weight of the cloying chocolate syrup.

God, we loved waffles night.

It didn’t matter that the waffles came from a mix, or the syrup from a can, the brown liquid flowing from a tiny triangular opening in the top. We felt well fed. We felt loved.

So this Monday morning, when the Chef and I had a few hours together before he would need a long nap, to prepare for our cooking class that night, I slipped into the kitchen and made up a batch of waffles. I played with flours, opened a can of coconut milk, and gently warmed some maple syrup. The first waffle emerged, fluffy, with a thickness I had never seen in gluten-free waffles. I walked into the room where he sat, at the computer, and placed a plate of waffles in front of him, butter melting, syrup filling all the indentations.

He looked up at me, surprised, the sleepiness leaving his eyes. “Hey! Thanks, sweetie.”

I turned toward the kitchen, happy to pass on this tradition. Monday mornings are for waffles around here.

GLUTEN-FREE CORNY WAFFLES, adapted from Joy of Cooking

As much as the Chef liked these waffles, he said he would probably like them more as a savory dish. When I mentioned barbequed chicken, cheddar cheese, salsa, and chiles, his eyes grew wide. I might make those later this week.

But I happen to like the fact that these are slightly savory. I’ve been making so many corn tortillas lately that I threw in some masa flour to the mix. I’ve noticed that all the Italian gluten-free baked goods I love have corn flour in the flour blend. Why not? They have a distinct corny taste, and some of you might not like that. That’s okay. I’m the one who used to eat movie theatre popcorn with Milk Duds melting among the kernels. I love that sweet and savory combination.

I will say, the masa made these waffles the thickest yet fluffiest waffles I have ever eaten. Try them. See what you think. Also, I made pretty thick waffles, which called for stiff batter. You might want to thin these out and make them stretch more. And feel free to play, entirely, with the flour combinations. Waffle nights should be your own.

1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup teff flour
1/4 cup millet flour
1 cup masa harina
2 teasoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dried buttermilk powder
12 ounces coconut milk
5 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs

The dry ingredients. Combine all the gluten-free flours together. Sift them into a large bowl. Add the baking powder, salt, and dried buttermilk powder.

Meet the wet ingredients. Whisk all the wet ingredients together. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in all the wet ingredients. Stir until the waffle batter is coherent.

And become waffles. Heat the waffle iron. When it is hot enough to go, brush canola oil on the surface, and then plop enough batter onto the waffle iron to cover 2/3 of the surface. Put the top down and wait for the waffle to be done.

Feeds 4.

rhubarb

2008-05-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

The Chef grows dreamy and nostalgic when anyone mentions rhubarb. “Ohhhh, rhubarb,” he almost growls, his face softening into a smile. He grew up in a large home that everyone in the family refers to as Big Brown. (It’s painted blue now, but that hasn’t changed the name at all.) In the side yard of Big Brown grew a large patch of rhubarb gone wild, like a teenage boy in need of a haircut. No matter how much rhubarb his mom cut down, more grew in its place. She made rhubarb pies and crisps all summer, apparently, but still there was more for the taking. He tells me that one of his favorite ways was to eat rhubarb was sliced as though for pie, with sugar dusted on top, and mixed up to make a little syrup. He just sat at the table and ate it straight out of the bowl.

Perhaps I might have discovered the beauties of rhubarb before now if my backyard had grown the fruit like a weed. However, rhubarb didn’t sprout in the dirt of southern California. (Don’t feel sorry for me, though. We had an avocado tree and pomegranates too.) To me, rhubarb always sounded like a fussy grandmother’s food, the kind one hoards and uses in place of sweeter, more expensive fruits. My grandmother grew up in the Depression, and she made rhubarb pie, reportedly. I never did eat one. Grandma rarely cooked for us. I heard rhubarb and thought thrift, sourness, and not so good.

I’ve seen the light, lately. The Chef is making a strawberry-rhubarb tart for the restaurant, and I want a piece every day.

Rhubarb is tangy and kicky, like strawberry’s spunky cousin. Raw it has a crunch like celery. Ruby red on the outside like slippers, the inside slips into a more demure greenish white. But when you cook it down, in a sweet stew, the slices slide into softness, mushy enough for a baby without teeth.

This week, at the farmers’ market, piles of bright red slices enticed me to stop. I didn’t know what I would make with that rhubarb, but I had to have some. For days, they languished in the refrigerator, waiting to be touched. For a time, I dreamt of making pie for the Chef, with a lemon custard on the bottom, and rhubarb on top. Fatigue set in, and the pie didn’t happen.

On a lovely walk with Molly on Friday, we talked about food as we circled the lake. Of course. The two of us talk and buoy each other, illuminate our lives for each other, and laugh. Much of it has nothing to do with food. But sometimes, in glancing, we dance across an idea for food on the way to the next topic. This week, she mentioned rhubarb compote, and moved on. It stayed in my mind, though.

Today, when the rains threatened outside, and the Chef took a nap, Molly and I talked on the phone. Needing to go — we could always talk more — I stopped her. “Wait, how do you make that rhubarb compote?” She talked me through a recipe she had adapted from someone else, and then I went into the kitchen and made my own. A pound of sliced rhubarb, half a cup of sugar, generous pats of butter, the zest of a Meyer lemon (the last soft and squishy one of the season), and the juice too. The hard slices relented into the juicy syrup and became soft and liquidy. The smell of it woke up Little Bean, who started kicking.

When that compote cooled down, I spooned some into thick vanilla yogurt.

Oh rhubarb, you’re my new best friend.

And so, dear readers, what do you like to do with rhubarb?

frikadeller is my new favorite word

2008-05-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

Long before I became pregnant, I was curious about other women’s food cravings. Popular culture says that we’ll all slaver over pickles and ice cream. But I don’t actually know any women who were desperate for either when they were pregnant.

Not me, certainly. I’ve always loved pickles anyway, but I’m much more excited by other pickled vegetables than cucumbers. Pickled sunchokes, red onions, asparagus spears? Yes. But mostly during this pregnancy, I can’t eat enough of anything with brine. This kid is going to be half made of olives, as far as I can tell. But ice cream? Eh. I had some marscapone gelato with Sharon last weekend, in Los Angeles, sitting outside in the warm air, stretching my feet in flip-flops toward the sun. That was good. But I don’t really need any more. Not yet, anyway.

Still, the cravings are real, even if they don’t happen at 3 a.m., as fast food commercials seem to suggest. I knew this had to be a biological truth when I heard about my sister-in-law’s one urgent craving, six years ago.

Pregnant with my dear nephew Elliott, Dana was rational and even-going. No sudden bursts of pregnancy hormones, at least that I know about. But she has never been like that anyway. However, one day, apparently, she needed food. She turned to my brother and said, “We have to drive to IKEA.” For no reason that either of them could discern, Dana needed Swedish meatballs from IKEA. Luckily, the vast furniture store wasn’t far away. They drove there, she ate a plate full of them, and then they went home.

This always made me laugh before.

But on Sunday, during dinner at Lucques with dear friends, I understood.

A Sunday supper at Lucques is an exquisite experience. Everyone gathered in the dining room, and the ivy-covered-walled patio space, sits patiently waiting for the same three-course meal. Suzanne Goin decided long ago to put the principles of local food from farmers’ markets into real restaurant working order. Meals here are made of simple, earthy food with fantastic tastes. And even with the most advanced techniques and unusual ingredients, the meal still manages to feel like a family gathering, Sunday slowness and everyone together. Good luck trying to get a reservation. It’s worth the work.

Luckily, Rachael (a peach of a woman) made reservations for us, weeks before. She also informed them, long in advance, that I would need to eat gluten-free. “No problem, natch,” she wrote me. That’s my experience as well. Choose a restaurant where everyone involved truly cares about food and how it is made? They will be able to make a gluten-free meal for you too.

The only (small) downside of eating a Sunday supper at Lucques, instead of a weeknight dinner, is that they serve a set menu. That makes the gluten-free options limited at times. Oh heck, I didn’t really need the cumin flatbread that accompanied the chickpea puree and roasted beet salad. And even though the vanilla custard tart with rum and candied kumquats looked great, my sorbet was more than adequate. However, when the waiter put the plate in front of Judy, my heart sank.

I wanted that veal frikadeller.

Frikadeller. Doesn’t it sound like a terrible insult? Sharon and I have decided to adopt it: “Geez, he’s such a frikadeller!” I had never heard of this dish before I looked up the Lucques supper menu online Sunday morning, already anticipating. Frikadeller? What? Turns out it’s a Danish meatball, made with any kind of mixed meats, flattened a bit, substantial. I love trying foods I have never eaten before.

Unfortunately, frikadeller is also made with bread crumbs. So when the plate arrived before my dear friend Judy, I started craving that crusty meatball on top of green risotto, with English peas and nasturtium butter. But I couldn’t. Breadcrumbs. No thank you. So I simply listened as Judy moaned, and then pushed her plate to the center of the table toward Sharon and Rachael so they could take tastes. Sympathetic to my plight, Judy wondered if I could take a taste of the risotto, away from the meatball. Not worth the chance. And besides, that’s not what I wanted.

I just had to imagine the taste.

That is, of course, until I reached home. “Hey sweetie? Have you ever heard of a frikadeller?”

I’ll never be able to go to IKEA and indulge in Swedish meatballs. And maybe it’s better that Lucques couldn’t serve me a gluten-free version. I might insist we drive all the way to Los Angeles for one more taste. This is where it helps to have a chef, if you’re a pregnant woman. Thanks to him, I can have these any time I need them.

And believe me, I need me some frikadeller, right now.

Veal and pork frikadeller

Thanks to the Chef's generosity, you don't need to have one around the house to eat these too.

I’m pretty sure this recipe is only a template. As is always true of loved recipes made by hand, passed down from one mama to another, everyone adds a slightly different touch. We liked the taste of rosemary here, as well as a touch of nutmeg. Some of the recipes I looked through called for club soda, or milk, as a way to bind together the meats. The Chef doesn’t think you need it. The large frikadeller he made for me this afternoon, so that I could take photographs, and then have lunch, is pretty plain. And delicious.

The crust that forms on top from searing the meatball crunches with the fork. The meat inside tasted tender, like soft cloth. The combination of ground meats made my mouth keep guessing.

And by the way, if you make larger versions of these, they make unbelievable burgers on the grill. That’s what we’ll be having for dinner tonight, right around 11:30.

1 pound ground veal
½ cup pound ground pork
1 medium onion, chopped fine
¾ cup gluten-free breadcrumbs
½ teaspoon rosemary, chopped
½ teaspoon each kosher salt and cracked black pepper
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 egg
1 tablespoon canola oil

Preparing the frikadeller. Combine the meats together. Add the onion, breadcrumbs, rosemary, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and egg to the meats. Mix well with your hands. (Don’t be afraid to get those hands messy. You can always wash them after.) Stop mixing when the ingredients have become coherent.

Cooking the frikadeller. Preheat the oven to 500°. Bring a large skillet to heat. Add the canola oil. Take a large chunk of the meatball mixture (about the size of your palm) and roll it into a ball. When you have formed a perfect ball, flatten it a bit, both top and bottom. You should be able to fit four of these flattened balls into the skillet. Sear the meatballs for at least one minute, or until the bottom has browned. Turn the meatballs and sear the other side. Slide the skillet into the hot oven and allow them to cook until they have reached an internal temperature of 160°. (This should be about six to seven minutes, depending on your oven.)

Remove the frikadeller from the oven and serve, in any way you wish.

Feeds 4.

bananas

2008-05-05T22:38:00.001-07:00

This morning, about 8:45, I took this photograph of bananas at the Casbah Café in Silverlake, Los Angeles.

At breakfast, I sat with my dear friend Sharon, who was born and raised (until she was 11) in Hot Springs, South Dakota, then moved to Claremont, California, went to college in Poughkeepsie, NY, lived in New York City, Ashland, Oregon, and now in Los Angeles. I was born in Pomona, California, moved to Claremont (where I met Sharon), lived in London, moved to Vashon, Washington, lived in New York City (where I lived with Sharon), London, and now in Seattle.

For breakfast, Sharon ate poached eggs with brioche toast, wrinkled black olives, and tomatoes. Where did the eggs come from? Perhaps from California, as well as the tomatoes. The brioche? The wheat could have come from anywhere in the Midwest, the yeast from somewhere not clear, the water imported from Colorado or Washington. And the olives were probably from Morocco, because the little café is Moroccan inspired, but both the women preparing our food were from Mexico, originally. And mine? The strawberries were from Southern California, the sweetness far more full than that of the strawberries I ate a couple of weeks ago, because they were local and in season. The yogurt, I would guess, came from Greece, given the thickness and particular taste. And the bananas? Perhaps from Ecuador?

Right now, about 9:45 in the evening, I am writing this in our bedroom in Seattle, a little weary from traveling and full of memories. The man I love — born in Breckenridge, Colorado, went to school in Vermont, cooked in New York City, Denver, and now lives in Seattle — is with me, eating beef stew. The beef is local, raised about 60 miles from us. The potatoes were grown on the other side of the Cascades from us. The carrots are probably from California, since we bought them from a supermarket, and it’s not carrot season here. The kalamata olives were from Greece, the canned tomatoes from Italy. The red wine I used to deglaze the pan came from Napa Valley, and the mushrooms from California as well.

Is there really such a thing as eating local?

I am struck, once again, by how odd airplane travel truly is. After we ate our breakfast, Sharon drove me to Burbank airport. From the time I stepped inside that airport, until I walked out of the Seattle airport? Three hours and ten minutes. Now granted, that time went fast, because I had a fabulous conversation with an unexpectedly familiar stranger in the seat next to me. But really, are we supposed to be able to move that quickly? This morning, I woke up on Sharon’s couch in Silverlake, and tonight I’ll be sleeping in the bed I share with the Chef in Seattle. Believe me, I’m grateful, but I don’t think my body will catch up for a few days. Do we move too quickly? Do we want too much?

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how excited I am that local asparagus is finally in season. Some readers wondered what the big deal was. A few anonymous readers even suggested I was being a snob by waiting. But really, have you eaten asparagus grown in Chile, purchased in Seattle in January, at $8.99 a pound? Withered, spindly, and no real taste. The taste alone makes the wait worth it.

But does that mean we only eat locally grown produce around here? Nope. As much as we try, we find it near impossible, all the time. If I never ate any foods grown or made outside of the radius of Western Washington, how could I ever make something with teff flour? Or eat the health benefits of red quinoa grown in Bolivia? Even more simply, olive trees don’t grow in Washington. Nor do any of the ingredients necessary to make any kind of oils. And what would I do without avocadoes?

I heard a beautiful piece of advice recently: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” That covers most of the faux ingredients that fill out packaged processed foods that don’t seem to do us any good. But I’m certain that my great grandmother never ate shiso leaves, macadamia nuts, or balsamic vinegar. Isn’t the tremendous variety available to us, because of the food revolutions of the past forty years, better for our health, and our understanding of the world? But they’re not local.

We don’t have any answers around here. I certainly don’t think that anyone has to live the way we do. And every day, I make decisions as to how to spend our food dollars, and I’m never entirely sure I made the right decision.

But what we try to do around here is this. When there’s a piece of produce that grows naturally, abundantly, in the Pacific Northwest — fat blackberries; sweet peaches; wild salmon — we wait to eat it until it’s in season. That makes the produce cheaper, and it tastes better, as well. I love buying food directly from farmers. These next few months will be a bonanza of berries, pea vines, and soft green lettuces. I can hardly wait.

But when it comes to foods that will never grow here, we buy them sparingly, and with deliberate decision. My great-grandmother probably ate everything locally. I have the chance to know more about how the rest of the world eats.

And besides, I’m really not willing to give up bananas for the rest of my life. (And for Little Bean’s, either. Bananas are the perfect portable kid food.)

So I’d love to know: how do you approach this?

And for that matter, how do you like to cook with bananas?

celebrating with lemon-poppyseed cake

2008-05-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

There have been plenty of reasons to celebrate around here.

It’s the first of May, and the world seems to have awoken. This afternoon, pulling into our driveway, I saw a few purple buds of wisteria draped over the patio trellis. Right now, a single bird is chirping out its rhythmic call, a little warble after all those regular beats. In the mornings, the sun comes in our windows earlier than I remembered. The magnolia tree in the front yard is dropping its pale pink petals onto green grass.

May, it seems, is when spring truly begins this year.

The end of April wasn’t bad, however. Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the first day I started eating gluten-free. Three years ago yesterday, I finally had my blood drawn for the celiac panel. After months of struggling with recalcitrant doctors who speculated that I had ovarian cancer, but never asked me about the food I ate, I found someone who listened. Anemic and withered with little energy, I still found the presence of mind to fight for myself. After the blood draw, I drove to the grocery store, bought fresh produce and meats, rice and cheese. The next day, I sautéed a small pile of spinach. The green gleamed off the white saucer, and I had to take a photograph — it was that beautiful. How would I know I’d be taking photographs of food for the next three years? By the time the blood results came back, ten days later, I already knew my fate. And I embraced it.

In the last three years, I have never deliberately eaten anything with gluten. There have been a few accidents, places I never suspected. They have all taught me. But it has never occurred to me to reach for a croissant, or grab a bagel on the run. Why would I make myself sick? Instead, my life has bloomed open since I stopped eating gluten, and I started saying yes. Everything has changed, and for the better. I am constantly in amazement. And I am so grateful.

So April 30th always feels like my second birthday. That’s what finding out I have celiac sprue and going gluten-free has meant for me: I was reborn.

And April 26th will always be our anniversary.

Two years ago this week, I met the Chef. A cup of coffee in the late morning, a slap on the arm, a friendly conversation about food and family, and a hug that felt like enveloping love — that’s all it took to start this life we have been laughing through together for two entire years. Can it really be that little time? So much has happened between us. What I have been able to write here has been like the fingernail-crescent light of the moon, early in its cycle. So much lies behind these words.

I adore him. But you know that already. More, he is my closest friend, my true companion, and the one who makes me laugh so hard I nearly stop breathing. Intertwined, our lives have grown into something we never expected. I could write for an entire day and never place the words on the page in the right formation to say it. We are a team. With him, I feel safe in the world.

And for us, the biggest celebration is nearly three months away now: Little Bean will be born into the world.

Talk about having no words.

And so, even though I was momentarily overwhelmed last week, by exhaustion and pregnancy hormones, I quickly remembered how blessed I am. And how much living there is to do.

And now, how much writing.

We have this good news to share, but we have been a little silent for awhile. We are both so humbled and honored that we decided to sit on this momentous news, our hands in our laps, instead of waving them wildly in the air. Really, we still can’t believe it. And we were more than happy to do the work, and dive into the process, and make announcements later. But official publications have mentioned the news, and some of you have been asking pointed questions. It feels like time to tell.

The Chef and I? We just signed a two-book book deal with Wiley, the publishers of my first book.

DANCING IN THE KITCHEN will come first. DANCING is a cookbook, a lavish beautiful cookbook, with 100 recipes, all of them gluten-free. But it’s more than a book with headnotes, recipes, and photographs. This is the story of love and food, and how they intersect. Blessedly for some of you, our personal story will only be a part of the book. (You know the gist of it if you read this site anyway.) Instead, the story I want to tell is what life is like if you dance in the kitchen as a chef.

Chefs work hard. They have scars and burns on their hands. They are frequently exhausted. They are working-class heroes, with jobs entailing searing foie gras and mopping the floors, all in one shift. They aren’t paid well, certainly not well enough to eat the meals their companions make in other high-end restaurants. Chefs are a band of brothers (men and women both) who have a work ethic, and a code of ethics, most people never have to approach. Most of us eat in restaurants as a means of escape. But for chefs (as well as servers and dishwashers), the restaurant is not theater. The restaurant is home, a grungy labor-of-love home, never completed, always capable of more. Chefs love food. Chefs are artists. But they’re not the people you see on television, in clean white coats and a cocky grin. Chefs are far more complex than that.

And my Chef? He is one of hundreds of thousands in this country, all across the world. But his story is the one I have been watching, and the story I want to share.

So DANCING IN THE KITCHEN will be a cookbook with narrative, pithy essays about feeding each other, shopping at farmer’s markets, and waking up early to make it to the seafood purveyor for the freshest fish. It will be a book about food, and how it can inspire us to live more awake some days. It will be a book about what inspires us, and how we eat late at night, after the last of the shift has finished. It will be funny (oh goodness, that’s the intention), sometimes moving, and also practical.

For every four or five recipes, there will be a chef technique, tricks of the trade that chefs know but us home cooks don’t. When you chop an onion five hundred times, you know how to do it, precisely. When do you salt food? How do you create a fish special? What’s the trick to cooking gluten-free pasta so it doesn’t fall apart? The Chef will attempt to share (with photographs and my words) the most fundamental techniques of cooking food well, so you can feel more comfortable in the kitchen.

And it will all be gluten-free. But gluten-free won’t be the first focus of the book. Food will.

When we had known each other for about four months, I looked up from typing the latest menu for the first of the month. Astonished, I said to him, “Sweetie, I can eat everything on this menu.”
“I know,” he said.
“Well, that’s fantastic, but how did that happen?”
He looked at me kindly, and said, quite plainly, “I just realized that if I make something with gluten in it, I can’t share it with you. And so, I’m just not going to cook with gluten again.”
(I married him.)

At the Chef’s restaurant (and in the rest of our lives), the first focus is on great food. Meals that ring out with seasonal ingredients and flavors that are clear, not competing. This is food that tastes like itself. That it is all gluten-free is fantastic. But neither one of us has been interested in eating food just because it’s gluten-free. It has to be good. Sometimes, that’s a pan-roasted rib-eye chop with potatoes gratin, broccoli, & white cheddar. Sometimes, it’s a plate of nachos at midnight, shared in bed while watching South Park. But we want every bite to be memorable.

That’s what DANCING IN THE KITCHEN will be. (Hopefully.)

Every recipe in the book will be new, never published on this site. Nearly every essay will be too. (There might be a couple of passages that feel familiar, but no more.) There will be recipes for curried red-lentil puree with cucumber and lemon-yogurt dip, tagliatelle with duck confit, sun-dried tomatoes, and a cabernet sauce, seared lamb chops, and a blue cheese cheesecake with a fig crust. All with enticing photographs to make you hungry.

We are writing this book together, and we love creating it, side by side. The recipes are all his. But without me, he would never be able to put them down on paper in a way that makes sense to those of us who aren’t chefs. We want food to feel accessible. We want everyone to eat well. And we love writing recipes, and stories, and talking about food. We’d like to share that with you.

The manuscript for this book is due at the end of the year. December 31st, 2008. Those of you paying attention may remember that we’re having a baby in the middle of the process. How are we going to do that? We’ll find out.

But with our love of food and writing, and for each other, and both of us with powerful work ethics, I think we’ll be okay.

DANCING IN THE KITCHEN will be published in the early spring of 2010. (Perhaps even on Valentine’s Day.)

And after that?

FEEDING US.

As early as my 8th week of pregnancy, I knew I wanted to write about it. My relationship with food changed dramatically, seemingly overnight. And I don’t just mean the fact that I spent three months being nauseous, all day long. Instead, I felt for the first time that food was immediate and visceral. My body knows what I want to eat, right now. When I don’t eat — letting the day run faster than my chance to sit down and savor — Little Bean is the one who suffers. Every bite of food I eats helps to grow a human being. How is that possible?

FEEDING US will be a funny, touching community memoir. My essays will be the backbone of the book, but throughout will be a plethora of quotes and stories from other pregnant women, doctors, nutritionists, doulas, mamas, papas-to-be, etc. I’m amazed by how most pregnancy books leave the father out, other than a small section devoted to the dad, and how to calm his oafish nerves. The Chef will be throughout the story. This is a team effort.

Most pregnancy cookbooks, and standard lists given out by doctor’s offices, list foods forbidden to the pregnant woman. This book will explore the science behind those guidelines, and why most of them are worth questioning. (We have a team of doctors standing by.) Instead of avoiding certain foods, perhaps we can learn more about our food, where it comes from, and the people who make it for us. Most pregnancy books seem to suggest that the pregnant woman will suddenly develop a fondness for pastels and eat only pickles. But what if you love beef tenderloin done rare, arugula salads with caramelized pears, and warmed Luques olives with lemon zest and garlic before you decide to bring a baby into the world? What if you decide that, after a lifetime of eating junk food on the run, this time is the chance to finally learn how to eat well? Is it possible to be pregnant, aware that every bite helps to develop a baby, and still eat with relish and joy?

So of course, FEEDING US will be about food. But really, it will be about so much more.

FEEDING US will be not only filled with tips on what to eat and how to approach food, but also recipes for easy-to-make, healthy, appealing food. We will give guidelines for how to make your own baby food. How to cook together even when your stomach is so big you can barely reach the stove! FEEDING US will be funny, informative, and welcoming. And of course, the book will be entirely gluten-free, with certain essays dedicated to the joys of negotiating morning sickness with restricted foods. And how do you know if your baby can tolerate gluten? (Or another food to which you are allergic?)

And as is true for the cookbook, all the material in FEEDING US will be new. No repeated recipes or essays from this site. This one will be published in 2011. (And for those of you might ask, it is slightly terrifying to be working on a book for which I haven’t lived the ending yet. But exhilarating too.)

As you can see, we have our work cut out for us. And we are grateful and singing.

Reasons for celebrating around here? You bet.

LEMON-POPPYSEED CAKE, adapted from a recipe by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Celebrations sometimes require cakes. When you're gluten-free, you might think your options are limited to boxed mixes that don't taste that good. Not true.

The Chef is unafraid to play with gluten-free cakes. He had so much baking experience before he encountered gluten-free flours that he throws his hands into the work, fearlessly. Last month at the restaurant, he served a lemon poppyseed cake, to much approval. The last week of the month, he switched to this recipe based on one by the amazing woman who created The Cake Bible. What's not to trust?

The esteemed Ms. Beranbaum suggested that this cake be made with a loaf pan (to be precise, a 8-inch by 4-inch by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan). I'm sure she's right, because the tight squeeze of the loaf pan would encourage this pound cake to rise higher. I used a round cake pan, because I baked it at the restaurant, and that's all the Chef had. As you can see, it's quite lovely, but also quite flat. No harm in that. Better for toasting the next day.

The cake itself is only faintly lemony, a little tingle at the back of the throat. If you wanted the cake to simply dazzle with lemon, add more zest and a bit of juice to the mix. We covered this cake with a tart lemon syrup (you can see the proportions for that here, in the original recipe), and it added a slithering puckery bite to the cake, which I quite liked. You could also try creme fraiche, whipped cream, or a fresh berry sauce.

You decide what best suits your celebration.

3 tablespoons heavy cream
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/2 cup sweet rice flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest
3 tablespoons poppy seeds
13 tablespoons softened butter.

Preheating and preparing. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees while mixing the batter. Butter the bottom of your cake pan and put down parchment paper to keep the bottom of the cake from sticking.

Mixing the liquids. Whisk the cream, eggs, and vanilla together, briskly. Set aside.

Blending the dry ingredients. Put all the dry ingredients into a Kitchen-Aid (or a bowl waiting for a hand mixer), including the lemon zest and poppy seeds. Make sure you blend them well.

Making the batter. Add the softened butter and half the cream-egg mixture to the dry ingredients. Let them blend together well for at least one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add one-half of the remaining mixture and blend. Scrape. Add the rest of the cream-egg mixture. Turn off the Kitchen-Aid.

Baking the cake. Slowly pour the cake batter into the cake pan. Smooth the top with the rubber spatula. Slide the cake pan into the oven. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, depending on your oven. You'll know the cake is done when a toothpick (or butter knife) comes out clean.

Feeds 10. (if they take dainty pieces)

eggplant

2008-04-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

I spent at least an hour this morning, photographing eggplants.

Ah, the joys of a day off, after feeling so pressed last week. After writing that piece on Thursday, my mind has eased, my muscles slowed down. Having felt so shaky, I wondered if I should publish it. But I remembered again what my Buddhist teachers helped me to see: true warriorship is allowing yourself to be vulnerable. So the fact the piece exists is its own reward. Your kind-hearted comments and compassionate letters helped too. I never expected such an outpouring, and I thank you. Writing is an act of catharsis, a release of its own kind. Having a few days to breathe is another.

And pregnancy hormones really do have a swarming-like-a-hive-of-angry-bees effect sometimes. There are moments when I feel Little Bean kick at me, and it's as though my entire stomach is dropping down into my body. I stand there, and gasp, and hold my belly for a moment. Those are the times I remember -- pregnancy is hard work. When I impose my old order on this new world, that's when the hormones take over.

Much better to give over part of a morning to photographing eggplants.

The Chef was in the kitchen, roasting potatoes and whistling away. Outside, the light played like a small child on the grass. Sprightly and laughing, sunlight spilled over all of us. Lambent. Luminous. Leaping. I had no choice but to grab the camera, to capture the white pear blossoms dancing against the sky, the frail chives still alive after the long winter. And two Japanese eggplants the Chef and I had bought at Uwajimaya a few days ago.

I never did capture them the way I imagined, but that's fine. Just the sight of those lustrous purple skins was enough to make me smile.

So did imagining bowls of smoky eggplant raita, the spicy moussaka I learned years ago from the Moosewook cookbook, silky baba ganoush, and of course, ratatouille. (A dish made even more famous by the cartoon movie with the rat, which we already know we want to buy for Little Bean someday.) As I tried to make the light play with the eggplant nicely, I could almost taste heaping spoonfuls of warm eggplant parmigiana: thick slices of tender eggplant sauteed in good olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and handfuls of basil, soaked in plum tomato sauce, and covered in breadcrumbs (gluten-free, of course).

"Honey, when is breakfast going to be ready?" I called out, suddenly hungry.

But there are so many more possibilities with eggplant. Tomorrow, I think I'll finally use these beauties, on the grill.

(We finally set up the barbeque! After writing about how much the pieces strewn across the kitchen bothered me, we just sat down and finished it. It may have been nearly dark when the entire contraption sat on our grass, and we may not have eaten our barbequed t-bone and asparagus until nearly 10 pm, but no matter. It's finally done, in working order.)

I'm imagining a marinade of tamari, honey, rice vinegar, and ginger. (That, of course, after I salt the eggplants and let them sit, then squeeze the water out and pat them dry. It turns out that step really does matter. I used to skip it before. No more.) We'll let you know how it tastes.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear: what are you imagining with eggplants?

the sweet surprise of strawberries

2008-04-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

“Hey sweetie?” I called from the couch into the kitchen. I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up.

“Yes, my love,” he said as he stood in front of the coffee pot.

“What day is it?”

“Thursday,” he said, coming toward me with a cup.

“Danm.” I reached for the warm cup he stretched toward me.

“What’s the matter with Thursday?” he plopped down on the couch and reached for the newspaper spread out on the coffee table.

“Blog post day. And I don’t have anything. I just completely forgot.” I could feel the tears rising from my throat.

“It’s okay, love.”

I gulped them back, these tears that had nothing to do with a lack of recipe. “It’s just that I’ve been thinking more about the post I’m putting up next week than the one for today. I’ve been reading asparagus ideas, and making more arepas, and I just don’t have anything for today.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, hon.” He put his hand, warm and strong, on my shoulder.

I put the heels of my hands on my eyes to shrug back the tears.

“Sweetie?” he asked.

I sat there, silent for a moment, feeling overwhelmed.

“What is it?”

I stuttered and stumbled, always comfortable with him. “It’s just that….there’s so much going on. I have the appearance at Met Market tomorrow, the speech in Lake Chelan this weekend, the writing class on Tuesday, the reading on Wednesday, and the conference in LA next weekend.”

He blew air through his lips, slowly, feeling for me.

“And I’m happy about all of them, honored really. But I’m tired.”

“You’re pregnant,” he said, putting a hand on my belly.

“I love that.” I put my hand on top of his. “I just wish I could slow down a little more.”

“You will. Start saying yes to that,” he reminded me.

“I will.” I felt better, just letting the tears come.

“What else?”

“Well, there was another nasty review on Amazon. And I know I shouldn’t pay attention, but some of them are so vitriolic, and personal.” I shook my head, not wanting to let it bother me. No use in pretending. It did.

“Oh man,” he sighed. “I hate that.”

“Me too. And this one went on and on about how I’m a food snob, because I said I want to eat local asparagus, in season, instead of through the year.”

“But sweetie, you know that’s ridiculous.” He leaned in for a hug, his arms folding me in.

“I know. And I hate truffle oil, and people keep claiming that I’m espousing a life in which everyone must buy some. I just don’t understand.”

He held me for a moment, close.

“You’re just like me, you know. A dining room full of happy people, and one person wants her fish cooked more well done, and I’m convinced that everyone hates the food.”

We laughed at ourselves, the vibrations in his throat trembling the top of my head.

“What else?” he said, waiting for me.

“Oh, I don’t know. I mean, the house is a mess, and we never got time to finish putting together the barbeque so it’s sitting in pieces in the kitchen, and I haven’t had time to do laundry in days. And I don’t know if we’ll ever get to Little Bean’s room. I mean, I’m 25 weeks tomorrow, and LB will be here in 14 weeks, and fuck, that’s just around the corner.” I stopped for a breath, my head ducked into his chest.

He breathed, without talking, waiting.

“And, it’s grey outside again, and reading the newspaper is all doom. The aftermath of Pennsylvania primaries, and stabbings in south Seattle, and the world is running out of food.”

He pulled my head up and looked at me.

“And then I just feel dumb for complaining about any of this, when people are starving for lack of rice. I sound ridiculous right now!”

He held me again, trying not to laugh at my hysterics and my doubt of it all. At least he resisted tickling me. Because he didn’t say anything, I heard myself.

“Wow,” I said, pulling away to look at him, wiping away the tears. “I really must be hormonal, right?”

“Probably,” he laughed softly. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not real. You just need some time off.”

“Actually, I just need another hug, and some breakfast.”

He hugged me, of course. And then he stood up to put some asparagus in to roast.

I breathed. I try to live in gratitude. In that moment, I was swept away by the gratitude I felt that he was in the house with me. How long had I lived without him?

“Hey you,” he said, settling down again. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” I said as I put my feet up on his lap.

“Good.” He leaned down for his coffee cup.

I reached for the paper again. And then stopped. “But I still don’t have a blog post.”

“Oh yeah,” he giggled. “It did all start with that.”

“Are you making anything at the restaurant I could share?”

“Well, there’s the crab salad, and the blue cheese cheesecake…”

“But we have to save those,” I said immediately.

“True.”

“Hm….” We both sat and thought for a bit. We had been eating homemade corn tortillas all week, lots of cheese, asparagus at nearly every meal, roasted chicken, poached eggs, black bean soup, salads with goat cheese and sunflower salads, oatmeal with prunes (that one was for me)….. All of it too mundane to share, or done before.

“Did you get anything in from Charlies’ that inspired you?”

His eyes went wide. “Strawberries. First of the season.”

My nose perked up. I could almost smell them. And then I stopped. “Oh, but they’re not in season here yet.”

“They are in California. At least it’s not Chile.” He taunted me with this, his little teasing voice.

“But I so much prefer when they’re from Skagit Valley. You know that I just like supporting local farmers…”

“Shauna,” he stopped me, his voice commanding. “I agree. And we’ll eat those all June. But sometimes you have to bend. You need strawberries.”

I laughed. What a funny thing to be rigid about. And we always seem to cheat a little, about a month before fruits and vegetables arrive in the farmers’ markets, and have a single plum in April, or strawberries from California, just as a taste of things to come.

“Okay,” I said laughing. “But what are we going to do with strawberries?”

“You leave that to me,” he said, as he leaned his face down to my belly. “Let me surprise you.”

I surrendered. I trusted him.

“Besides, Little Bean needs some strawberries too.” And he put his lips near my belly button and shouted out in his silliest voice. “Hi Little Bean! Would you like some strawberries?”

I felt that kick inside me, a pulse like a gulp, somewhere near my bladder.

“I guess that means yes,” I said, laughing.

“Well that solves it then,” he said. “Strawberries.”

He kissed my belly and rested his head there for a moment, eyes closed in pleasure.

I put my hand in his hair and patted his head. In that moment, everything felt like a yes again.

STRAWBERRIES, BLUE CHEESE, AND BALSAMIC REDUCTION SAUCE

When I came back to the restaurant after buying him a cup of coffee, he flourished a martini glass at me. “Here you go. Strawberries.”

I looked down in amazement. He had been right. It was just what I needed in that moment.

Pt. Reyes blue cheese is one of the few artisanal blue cheeses I have found that’s gluten-free. Funny that the Chef doesn’t care for blue cheese, and he can eat any of them. And me, who hungered for it, went without it for years because of the gluten. Bless you Pt. Reyes cheese people.

The longer I cook, the more I realize — with the Chef’s help — that it’s just about the ingredients. A smidge of good cheese, ripe strawberries, balsamic vinegar reduced down to a thick syrup: tangy sharp bites with sweetness and a prickle of seeds. It’s not intended as snobbery. This really doesn’t cost that much. But such a distinctive taste. It sweetened the rest of my day.

½ cup decent balsamic vinegar
1 cup ripe strawberries, tops off
¼ cup blue cheese

Put the balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan. Simmer it gently on medium-low heat until it has reduced to 1/8 cup. Remove from heat.

(If you happen to own some aged balsamic, the great stuff that is already its own syrup, use that instead.)

Chop up the strawberries and put them in a bowl. Crumble the blue cheese above them. Drizzle with the balsamic reduction sauce.

Serve.

Feeds 2.

asparagus

2008-04-21T20:34:00.001-07:00

Finally. Finally.

The other morning, when the Chef and I were driving to work, we stared out at the window at the prickles of snowflakes hitting the ground. We looked at each other in confusion. And then we laughed.

There’s no explaining this fickle, freezing spring. These past few weeks have been like a small tired child, changing his mood every few minutes. He’s tired, and he just doesn’t know what to do. And so, it hails, and then snows, and then the sun breaks through the clouds with one of those smiles that make you stop moving and just breathe it in. And then the grey clouds lower, and in the distance, black rain moves over the hills and starts falling on the neighborhood next to this one. From what I have heard, Seattle has not seen this kind of weather — and especially this cold — since the 1920s. Winter, we really want to be done with you. Why don’t you just surrender and lie down for a nap?

Before we left the house, we had been watching that week’s episode of Jamie Oliver’s show. For more than twenty minutes, we sat and watched that ebullient man grow even more joyful for sitting outside in a summer garden. Enormous lavender plants, paths of thyme and oregano, and solid sunlight shining down — oh my, the world really does look like that sometime. Little Bean kicked and kicked (you won’t believe this, but LB really does kick during his show, every single week), and we beamed, thinking of what is coming this summer. And all show long, the lovely man made lovely concoctions with asparagus. Oh, we sighed together. Maybe someday asparagus will show up here.

That afternoon, as I walked into the grocery store where I was making a public appearance for the book, the Chef called me. “Guess what I have?” he taunted me.
“What?”
“Locally grown asparagus.”
“Oh thank goodness. We can finally eat it.”
And when I hung up the phone, and walked through the produce section, I spotted some. Stalks of green, bunched together with purple bands, their woody ends resting in an inch of water. Almost as far as my eye could see — asparagus.

The snow flurries outside no longer bothered me. Spring is here, dammit. Asparagus has arrived.

The Chef and I, we’re a little stubborn. California asparagus has been in the store for weeks. If we lived in California, we would have celebrated weeks ago (and probably have tans instead of pasty white skin). We both happen to think that asparagus grown east of the mountains in Washington tastes better than that grown in California. At least it does here. Eating asparagus that has been picked only a day or two before? Its bright green taste, the fibrous texture, the way the tips are tender and the stalks need a fork and knife to cut right through — these are best when the asparagus has only recently left the earth.

It’s here! It’s here.

Later that afternoon, I stopped by the Chef’s restaurant to say hello. He swooped a plate down before me: crispy seared halibut with soft white meat inside, lying on a bed of roasted asparagus. Drizzled on top of it all a thick balsamic reduction sauce in Jackson Pollock spatterings. Need I say how good it tasted?

Oh, but I’m not focusing on that meal, as much as it lingered. I’m just excited about every possible way I can eat asparagus for the next two months, now that it is here.

(Of course, asparagus has not shown up yet in the farmers’ markets. Snow keeps the farmers’ away. But soon, oh soon, I’ll see what I saw in this photo I took last year — stalks and stalks of asparagus in a white plastic tub. And since I waited until the end of the day to take a photograph of the bunch we have sitting in our kitchen, I was thwarted by the dreary rain clouds again. So let this photo be something to dream by, for all of us.)

What will you be doing with your asparagus soon?

leapfrogging from food to food

2008-04-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

When we were kids, my brother and I loved playing word games with our parents. I always loved one called The Minister’s Cat, a Victorian parlor game we learned from the Albert Finney version of Scrooge. Everyone in the room claps rhythmically and chants, “The minister’s cat is a _______ cat.” When it was your turn, you had to quickly shout out an adjective that began with the letter of that round. A cantankerous cat! A comical cat! A caring cat! And inevitably, someone would grow flustered and tongue-tied, and end the round with “…a c… c. cat?”” There was much roaring and applause, and then we began again. I loved the idea of searching my brain for adjectives that fit, fast.

Of course, we played Mad Libs until all the spaces of every puzzle were filled with slightly naughty nouns and body parts. I think that I have never laughed harder than at certain games of MadLibs when I was eight years old. There was a towering stack of word games to play: Scrabble; Boggle; word searches; crossword puzzles; hangman; jumbled letters; anagrams. We never ran out of words.

But one of my favorites was easiest in the car. Rolling the words off our tongue in time with the scenery rushing by, we played a game that piggybacked words and led us places we never expected to go. It’s simple. Start with story. The next person must say a word that begins with the last letter of the previous person’s. Story becomes yellow. Yellow becomes waning. Waning becomes giggle. And so on, round and round. Sometimes, after the first ten rounds, we were stumped. Sometimes, I just couldn’t think of another word that began with y. (Yes, Shauna. Yes.) But inside that green VW rabbit, we were imbibing words, swallowing them whole, learning how to describe our worlds.

Cooking feels like that to me these days.

The first year I was gluten-free, I wanted to try a new recipe every day. Every afternoon felt like an Adventure. I can make jam! I can create chimichurri! Braised lamb shanks are not beyond my reach! That time dazzled me, and I recorded most of it here. Without really knowing it, I felt compelled to come home and create, knowing that I would put everything up on the blog. Quickly, I began cooking for the internet. Every day, I felt compelled to seek out new ingredients and make dishes that had nothing to do with each other. The refrigerator groaned with the weight of wasted food. I lived at home, alone, and I had friends who were happy to eat my food, but really, I was cooking for you readers.

At a certain point, however, it was like a culinary game of Minister’s Cat. “The Gluten-Free Girl is cooking… ah, uh, ahhhhh, ugh.” There was no round of applause and laughter then.

And then along came the Chef.

Food flew into the house and onto the site again. He and I made veal goulash, and I had something to photograph. Everything he taught me, the techniques and the recipes, felt like fodder for this place again. We shared our love through food on this place, and we were too excited to stop. The recipes grew much, much better. (Honestly, I’d say now that you should take every recipe before May 2006 with a big grain of salt. I didn’t really know what I was doing then, not like I do now. This is why some of the recipes in the book feel like repeats from the blog. They’re not. The Chef made every one of them better.)

But after awhile, the game comes to a halt. As you have probably noticed, I post far less often here these days than I did that first year, or even the first year of loving the Chef. But now, everything is deliberately chosen. I love the ingredient posts on Mondays, because I’m not the expert. Oh my, do I grow inspired by people’s suggestions for beets, avocadoes, and Savoy cabbage. (This week? A salad of raw, julienned golden beets and carrots, with cilantro, walnuts, golden raisins, and a brown rice vinegar vinaigrette. Oh yes.) I hope you are too.

Mostly, what I notice now is that our food life feels like that leapfrogging word game. One dish leads to another, round after round of new bites that help me learn how to describe this world.

And mostly, now, I’m cooking for the three of us: the Chef, Little Bean, and me.

Man, that’s a lot more relaxing.

We pay attention to the seasons around here. As much as I love asparagus, I’ll wait until the end of May to experience the fat, green stalks of locally grown. The anticipation makes a simple roasted stalk, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and a pinch of Parmesan, the most beautiful food in the world. If we cook in season, however, we’re going to end up using the same ingredients, over and over, in every dish. By the end of June, I’ll be exhausted with asparagus again.

This way of cooking is a cozy settling in, a chance to drop into deeper muscle memory. Those quotidian foods don’t make for a scintillating daily blog entry. But they’re much more satisfying to eat.

The other day, I was at the Market with our dear friend Nina. We both, somehow, had a couple of hours to wander and talk. (Life is moving full pace these days.) Over coffee and lentil soup, we caught up in person. And then we wandered through shops, not knowing what we needed, but knowing we’d recognize it when we glimpsed it.

We walked into a little Mexican grocery store and looked up at the neat rows of dried hominy, Jarritos sodas, dangling chiles, and coconut candies. I needed a new bag of P.A.N. flour, to make more arepas. She wanted to try some too. Nina glanced over at the bottom shelf and spied something silver. “A tortilla press!” She owned one already. Somehow, even though I have been making fresh corn tortillas since the summer of 2005, I had never bought one. Fifteen dollars. That’s all it cost. I picked it up.

If I was going to make tortillas, I needed maseca. What else? I spotted Goya black beans at the other end of the store. When I lived in New York, I lived off Goya canned beans for weeks at a time. Much juicier than other canned beans, the black ones are especially flavorful. All right, dinner that night would be black beans and tortillas.

Nina had to leave, when she realized with a jolt that the meter on her car was winding down. I wandered through the Market by myself, dawdling at Sosio’s. Hm, red peppers. Glowing yellow grape tomatoes. Cilantro. Fresh garlic. A fat yellow onion, its papery skin peeling. Cumin and ginger nudged into my head, and I walked down to World Spice.

That’s how I came up with the recipe you see below. My goodness, we ate simply and well that night.

The Chef liked it so much that we ate the leftover beans, with fresh tortillas, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. He never likes leftovers.

Left the next afternoon with the makings for more tortillas, and our mouths hungry for more, I looked around the kitchen to see what we had. A roasting chicken in the refrigerator. Some grape tomatoes still in the blue pint box. An avocado growing soft on the shelves.

Tortilla soup. I just needed to make stock, and find some lard, and we had dinner on our hands.

And next? Well, some of the stock is growing richer on the stove as I simmer it again. Red quinoa is calling my name. Simmered in stock, and topped with fresh cilantro, toasted pine nuts, leftover seared chicken breast, and local goat cheese? That’s going to be a fine meal at midnight.

Tortilla and beans to tortilla soup. Tortilla soup to red quinoa. I’m sure that the rest of the goat cheese will yield something more.

The Gluten-Free Girl is eating ___ tonight?

I don’t know yet. I’m less inclined to blurt out an answer fast, these days, in order to win that round.

SAVORY BLACK BEANS

I can hardly call this a recipe, since it came from dicing and tossing, trying and liking. Many of you already have a way with making black beans that works for you. But all I can say is the Chef sat up in bed at nearly midnight, ecstatically happy in his groans, after eating these. And this morning, he wanted the leftovers for breakfast, with scrambled eggs. That rarely happens around here.

Play with these. Make them your own. But if you hewed pretty closely to the dish these words could build, I think you'd be pretty happy too.

1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large red pepper, chopped
2 teaspoons fresh-ground cumin
1 teaspoon fresh-ground ginger
1 tablespoon brown rice vinegar
2 cans good-quality black beans
1/2 teaspoon each kosher salt and cracked black pepper
1/2 cup water
10 yellow grape tomatoes (or whatever you like)
1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese

Sauteeing the vegetables. Bring a deep skillet to heat. Add the canola oil. When it swirls around the bottom of the pan like water, add in the onion pieces. Listen to them sizzle, and then give them a stir. When they have softened and become translucent (about 10 minutes), add the red pepper and garlic. Saute them all until the smells rush to your nose.

Playing with spices. Spoon in the cumin and ginger and stir. When those spices entice you with their smells, splash in the brown rice vinegar. Stir it all up.

Cooking the beans. Add the contents of the two cans of beans into the skillet. Stir it all around. Season with salt and pepper. Let it all bubble around together.

Break it down. If you want the final dish to be thick and somewhat dry, leave the beans to cook as they are. If you'd like a little more of a stew feeling, add some water to the mix at this moment. Stir it all up, occasionally.

Let the bean mixture simmer for a couple of hours, for full flavor. When they are done, serve them up in bowls.

Topping with tomatoes and cheese. In a super-hot pan (I use the one in which I grill the tortillas, and it's smoking hot), add a bit of oil. When it is hot, toss in the tomato halves. let them bubble and sear until they have almost melted. Throw them on top of the black beans. Immediately, grate Monterey Jack cheese on top. When it has melted, serve the beans with fresh corn tortillas.

Feeds 4.

beets

2008-04-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

I wanted so much today to write about a light, crunchy spring vegetable.

We had high hopes on Saturday. The day bloomed brightly, the sunlight entering the bedroom before our eyes awoke. For half an hour, we just wandered around the backyard, breathing in the smells of bushes bursting with flowers. Every spring, I notice this new: the earth has a smell again. For months on end, everything lies under damp and grey soil, hiding. When spring begins, everything gives up its smell.

Walking to the farmers’ market, the Chef and I held hands and laughed. He was in a short-sleeve shirt; I was wearing a sleeveless maternity blouse. Everyone looked happy, even the street kids slouching against doorways. The Ave is nearly as scrungy as it was fifteen years ago, all the edges scuffed. But on days like Saturday — the temperature a startling 79* — everything looked beautiful as we walked into the farmers’ market.

Musicians played fiddles and guitars, small clutches of children dancing before them, a man coming forward from the crowd to launch into a harmonica solo. Three times as many people shuffled between stands as a few weeks before. Children ran from mother to vendor, eager for treats. We all convinced ourselves, for a few moments, that spring had passed us by, and we had landed in the middle of summer.

And then we looked at the produce available at the stands.

Rutabagas, red kale, Savoy cabbage, and sunchokes. Oh my.

The sun went behind the clouds.

It makes sense. Heavens, only a few weeks ago, the skies rained down hail and sleet on the befuddled citizens of this city. It’s never winter this late in Seattle. The ground full of spring vegetables must have been confused as well. We simply have to wait.

But oh goodness, for a moment, everything deflated. More winter root vegetables?

And so what choice did I have but to buy more beets?

This derisive passage about beets in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book (At Table) made me laugh out loud: “It is not an inspiring vegetable, unless you have medieval passion for highly coloured food. With all that purple juice bleeding out at the tiniest opportunity, a cook may reasonably feel that beetroot has taken over the kitchen and is far too bossy a vegetable. I have never heard anyone claim it as their favourite.”

For years, I would have agreed with her. I’ve written about this before, how I hated beets. The acrid tangy smell of canned pickled beets put me off their possibilities for years. Since I went gluten-free, however, I am now a committed convert.

However, other than roasting beets and using them as crackers for goat cheese, or enjoying them in salads, I still haven’t explored them fully. Really, I can’t believe this fact is true and that I’m admitting it: I’ve never even eaten a bowl of borscht.

So let’s help each other out here, folks. It may be spring by the calendar, but it’s not yet spring in the markets. And today, the weather was in the 40s, aggressive raindrops splashing in puddles once again. Like it or not, we’re still going to be eating beets for awhile.

How are you still eating your beets, impassioned?

arepas

2008-04-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

One of the gifts of going gluten-free, continuously, is discovering foods I never knew existed.

This strange paradox strikes me, nearly every day: when I thought I could eat everything, my diet was fairly limited. I ate the same twelve or fourteen meals, in some semblance of order, over and over. Restaurant experiences provided me tastes that puzzled my mouth until I figured out what they were. But that's where adventurous eating stayed: restaurants and visits to other countries, occasionally. At home, I ate tentatively, safely.

(I never felt well enough to dance in the kitchen.)

Now, knowing that I cannot eat any gluten, I reach out my hands for foods I may never have seen before. If I know a food does not have gluten, I'm trying it. And how my world has broadened.

Sometimes people write to me and say, "Your recipes sound lovely. But sometimes they just seem so...exotic. And extravagant. Why do I need all those extra ingredients?" Well, you don't need ume plum vinegar or teff flour or pomegranate molasses to live well. But once you've had a taste, you might never return to that narrow place you were sitting.

And the funny thing is — once you taste the foods that seem "exotic," you realize that some of them are so simple in their preparation that can't imagine how you haven't been making them all your life.

Like arepas.

I heard about arepas first through Matthew, who remembered a visit to Caracas with his grandfather. Corn cakes? No gluten? I want some. But I couldn't quite picture them, having never eaten one. I stored the idea in the bulging file closet in the back of my mind, and moved on.

And then, a few weeks ago, our friend Karen placed a basket full of oven-hot arepas before us when we went over for dinner. The warm corn smell, the steam rising to my nose, and the thick little hockey-puck shape made me lean toward that basket, willing dinner to be ready, now, so I could eat some.

A single bite with butter and cheese made me hunger for one of these, every day.

Yesterday, Karen kindly invited me into her kitchen again, and allowed me to take photographs as she prepared some arepas. She and I both agreed: everyone should be eating these, and not just those of us who are gluten-free.

(Except, of course, for the folks who cannot eat corn. Sorry about that one.)

Karen's mother is from Venezuela, where people eat arepas with every meal. These little cakes made of white cornmeal show up on every table, all day long. Karen spoke eloquently of little roadside stands with a perpetually fresh batch of arepas, where people who need a little hit between meals can stand outside and sigh in that smell.

When Karen's mother moved to New York from Venezuela, when she was about 10, she hungered for her daily arepas. But her family couldn't find the pre-cooked cornmeal needed to make these, the way their hands remembered. Karen's mother only ate her arepas when her family came from Venezuela for a visit. And as she grew older, and she returned to her home, she always come back to New York with a suitcase stuffed full of foods she needed for meals to feel familiar.

Luckily, now, the pre-cooked white cornmeal is fairly easily available in the US now. Karen told me to advise you: look for P.A.N. in Latin markets in your town, and online. If you like what you see here, I suggest you find some. (Here in Seattle, the little Mexican market in the middle of Pike Place generally carries this brand.)

So, how do we make them?

"Start with 2 1/2 cups of lukewarm water," Karen told me. "Not so hot to burn your hand, but not at all cold."

Add a pinch of salt, a burble of vegetable oil. And then start pouring in the cornmeal.

"Why are you mixing it with your hand, instead of a spoon?" I asked her.

She looked at me over her shoulder, with a devilish grin. "You know already. You're the same kind of cook as me. You need to feel it."

With your hand, you can feel the lumps dissipating into the water. Just get in there and do the work.

"Ladies, take off your rings. This is messy work."

Be sure to keep one hand out of the water while you're mixing, so it's not sticky with dough as well.

"I'm just guessing this," said Karen, "because I don't know the scientific reasoning. But I just know from my hands that you don't want to overwork the dough."

You don't want the dough too dry and starchy, because even when it seems to be entirely mixed, it stiffens as it sits.

The final mound that you pat into place should feel like wet clay, but a bit grainy.

And if your dough is too wet, it will stick to your hand, like this.

Avoid that.

If you want, you can allow the dough to sit for awhile before making the arepas. (I don't really know why you wouldn't eat them right away, however.) Be sure to lay a wet cloth over the top of the bowl, so it doesn't all dry out and crackle.

This dough will keep in the refrigerator for up to three days. But no longer. After awhile, you can smell it fermenting, and that's rarely appetizing.

Once you start making them, says Karen, you will eat them every day. So it's good to have a mound of ready dough within easy reach.

When you are ready to make the arepas, form a small ball in your hands, about the same size you see above.

And then flatten the ball into a little puck, like the one you see above.

If the dough is too dry, the edges of this cake will start to crack. Start again, add some more water, and form a coherent and easy-to-work-with ball this time. If the dough is too wet, add a small amount of flour, just a touch, and mix it in. "If you add too much, you'll have to add more water, and then more flour, and then more water. You could go that way all day long."

"It takes practice," said Karen. "It really does. You might not get this the first time. Don't worry. Try again."

"It took me until I was in my 20s until I started learning how to make these well. I was always intimidated by the process. And I knew I could always get my mom to do it, if I was hungry."

Karen told me this as she deftly smoothed the edges of the arepa with the side of her hand. I just loved watching the care she took, how slowly she paid attention to every inch of the edge.

Making food by hand like this? It's an entirely different process than eating convenience food.

This one is ready.

The finished arepa cake should be nice and round. "Not too thick, or it will take you a million years to cook the damn thing," Karen laughed.

Put them on a griddle pan, if you have one. "My mom uses cast-iron, with just enough oil to wipe the bottom of the pan." But if you don't have one of those, a good non-stick pan will work fine.

Make sure you use something that can go into the oven. Oh, and turn that on, at this point.

The heat of the burner should be mild, no more than medium. Too hot and the arepas will scorch. You don't want that. The outsides should form a little brown crust, a firm surface, but the insides need to cook as well.

"Be patient," Karen said. "It's worth it."

When the bottoms have become firm and lightly golden brown (on Karen's stove that was about seven minutes), flip them over, carefully.

The second side will take awhile, too. Perhaps another ten minutes. If the arepas are starting to smell strongly of corn, turn the heat down. You need those insides to cook as well.

And then the arepas have to cook in the oven for awhile. (Oops. I forgot to tell this. Set the oven on 350°.) Sigh. There's that patience thing again.

While they are baking, sit down at the table with your friend. Karen sliced up tomatoes and covered the juicy redness with fresh garlic and basil. The sun appeared outside, from behind clouds. Life was fine.

Especially when she put butter and cheese on the table.

Finally (okay, they were probably fifteen minutes in the oven), the arepas were done. Karen sliced one open with a small, sharp knife. (I think it's possible she only uses it to cut open arepas.)

See how the insides are slightly doughy? Enough that just a bit sticks to the knife? That's what you want. Baked any more and the rest would taste dry.

And you can tell when the arepas are done by tapping on them. If they sound hollow, it's time to eat.

"I always, always put butter on them," said Karen. "Not matter what else I put on top, it's butter first."

Really, you could stuff your arepas with anything you want. The morning after we ate dinner with Karen and Shawn, the Chef and I filled our leftovers with the corned beef we had intended to eat for St. Patrick's Day. Oh god. We also dipped these into cumin-spiced black beans that had been simmered for hours. Karen said her mom makes a sweetened version of arepas with anise seeds and brown sugar. "It will rock your world." So, apparently, will the traditional tangy chicken salad with avocado called reina pepiada.

But really, the possibilities are limitless.

"Arepas taste like crispy fluffy pockets of joy to me," said Karen, laughing at her inability to express it in any other terms. "When I eat one, I think of all my visits to Venezuala with my mother. They taste like those visits, a reminiscence. Every visit comes out in each bite."

Watching her face settle into calm as she talked made me want to visit Venezuela, with her, as soon as possible.

"I'm so satisfied by the fact that I can do this for myself and other people," Karen told me. "I've very recently become proud of my ability to make them."

We both hope that, soon, you will be proud of your ability to make them too.

AREPAS

2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups pre-cooked white cornmeal (Karen recommends P.A.N.)

As far as the technique goes, oh, I'm not going to write it all out again here. Check out the photos above and follow along. This is a physical experience, not one of words. Try these, and then try them again.

You won't be disappointed.

avocado

2008-04-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

Look at that avocado. Really, do I need to write anything else?

I heart avocados. I realize that using heart as a verb in that sentence leaves me sounding like a seventh-grade girl from Southern California. Ah well. I don’t mind. Avocados do that to me.

In the backyard of the house where my family lived for most of my childhood, an avocado tree loomed over the dry dirt we stamped down with our feet. The pomegranate tree I wrote about in my book lived by the patio. But the avocado tree stood as the centerpiece of everything around it: pyracantha bushes; eucalyptus trees; and the remnants of the tiny replicas of Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm that my brother and I made out of mud. The tree arched to the smog-covered sky, two twin trunks that formed a broad V. One of those years, my brother whacked the heck out of the base of the trunk with a croquet mallet, which left a permanent dent in the poor tree. But the fat black fruits that rained down in the summer? They never suffered.

I can’t believe now that I grew up with ripe avocados in my own backyard. What I wouldn’t give for that now.

If I could, I would eat an avocado every day. It’s not that I hesitate for health reasons. Contrary to popular belief, avocados are actually healthy for us. No, it’s the expense. This year in particular, avocados are higher in price than they are in fat. Have you seen the prices? Some of the pebbled-black-skinned beauties are $2 each. The California wildfires earlier this year wiped out much of that state’s avocado crop. I feel great empathy for those who lost their houses. But the avocados? That’s not fair. [And here, I want to clarify. Of course those homes are more important than the avocados. This is meant to be a disparaging comment on my own selfish thoughts, really.]

There’s nothing like the flesh of an avocado. Creamy with green exuberance, pliant as the knife cuts down, soft as pap and as comforting as mother’s milk — avocados could make me write for pages, and still never allow me to describe them right.

Sometimes, I don’t need anything else but a perfectly ripe avocado — the one that gives to the fingers but doesn’t squish — and a sprinkling of salt. For a more decadent snack, I splash a little balsamic vinegar into the cup left by the removal of the pit. That’s satisfaction.

Small slices of radishes, shreds of mozzarella, a few corn chips, some fresh fruit, and segments of avocado, splayed out on a white plate — that may be the perfect lunch.

And of course, there’s always guacamole. This afternoon, after I took the photograph you see above, the Chef and I smashed up the avocado, smooshed in some salt, mixed in some startling pico de gallo, and a dollop of sour cream. Our fingers pushed against each other, fast, in a race to finish that bowl full of green goodness.

But avocados are meant for more than simple slices and guacamole. This month, the Chef is making a kick-ass salad for the restaurant: Dungeness crab, cucumbers, avocados, and papaya, with a tarragon vinaigrette. Everyone who eats it moans.

And one of the best ice creams I have ever eaten was the one my friend Traca made last summer: avocado ice cream, from David Lebovitz’s recipe. Oh yeah. You really do have to try this.

So here’s the question for you. What can we do with avocados, beyond eating them fresh and making guacamole?