Solstice Salads

Dorothy frequently made a Tomato - Cucumber salad this time of year. The cukes were peeled and thinly sliced. The tomatoes were cut in wedges. A bit of thinly sliced new onion and green pepper for texture and flavor. The dressing was just vinegar and freshly ground pepper. Refrigerate for an hour or so.
I don't bother peeling the cuke. Some think the skin bitter. It seldom is in my experience and usually those are the long traveled winter cukes.
solstice party? A potluck of fresh seasonal salads including gazpacho!

--ml


Technorati Tags: summer Salads, Solstice

Who 'Them' Are

From The Economist.

Filthy rich

There were 8.7m people with liquid financial assets of more than $1m in 2005 and whose total wealth reached $33.3 trillion, according to a report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. Two-thirds of these “high net-worth individuals” are in North America (2.9m) and Europe (2.8m); most of the rest (2.4m) live in the Asia-Pacific region. But the report warned against breaking out the Clos du Mesnil just yet: it expects the growth in the number of super-rich to continue slowing over the next few years.

The mind reels.

--ml



Technorati Tags: The Rich

Skagit June

The Berries begin their season so Dum Luk's is a jam session.
Set the containers to boil.
Top and slice a quart of field fresh berries into a wide pot.
Add one cup of sugar and heat, stirring.
Bring to a boil and seethe for three minutes.
Add a half cup of sugar and stir as it boils for another three minutes.
Add a half cup of sugar and stir as it bubbles away for another three minutes. Sometime during that three minutes, or shortly after, it will be done. Test it by dripping off a spoon (see any basic cookbook for illustration) or by dripping onto a saucer that has been kept in the freezer. This cools the syrup rapidly enough to show how thick it will be.
Fill your jars and seal. Makes about 24 oz. of jam.
Note that no pectin is used. The commercial operations like pectin because it is quicker and gives you more jam per quart of berries. But it dilutes the strawberry taste. Once tasted you will accept the greater cost as worth it.
Also there is a third less sugar in this version than in "Sally's Strawberry or Raspberry Jam" in Fannie Farmer which is my original model. You can vary the sugar to suit your taste and the berries. But considering how over the moon American's are about sugar, less works for me. Maybe for you to?
Once cool you can transfer the jam to a plastic bag via a vaccuum sealer for shipment to far flung relatives at far less weight. Use a sturdy corrugated box.
This recipe works for any berry you like jammed.
--ml

Technorati: recipes, strawberry jam, Skagit

All this Brains and Beauty Too

A new addition to the links list is mediatinker.
A designer, writer, filmmaker, cook, costumer, creator of tutorials that quickly get the student up and running, who lives in Tokyo.
And she's beautiful.
There were only two possible reactions: pure jealousy or abject admiration.
I chose the latter.
--ml

Daily Snark and Mystery

This past week I had the very great pleasure of reading the current draft of a first novel that promises to be very fine. It is a gritty, bitter crime noire featuring a heroine of small stature able to confusticate FBI, CIA, KGB and corporate goons single handed. And she does it very engagingly. Present title is The Fixer. the author is E. L. Green who blogs as Badtux the Snarky Penguin. His blog is now on the link list.
--ml

What Were We Doing?

Tom Allen, host of CBC's Music & Company, just remarked to the effect of:

Man has been farming for 7,000 years. Life began three and a half billion years ago. What the heck was he doing all those years before he started farming? We don't know.

Perhaps. But it sure looks like it took a couple of billion years for us to get stupid enough to belive we had to work for a living.
--ml



Technorati Tags: Tom Allen, CBC, farming, hunter-gatherers

New-Born Fresh Gaijin

Coping with the other.
We all do it.
We all remember hating it.
Except that it was so exciting ...
We loved it.

Imagethief

My grade school French has long since deserted me

reminds me:
Less than a month in Japan:
I stood, totally confused, on the platform of the Yokoama station looking for the Tokyo train. I was trying to find Ginza.
It was empty. The most recent train had left minutes before.
Overhead was a table-sign which offered gibberish and so did not register.
A sweeper appeared.
Hurriedly I consulted my faithful "Japanese - English" dictionary (I have it by me today) "Tokyo train wa doku desu ka?"
Which I thought meant: "Where is the train for Tokyo?"
He looked at me quizzically.
"Ou est la chemin de fer au Tokyo?" I blurted (Before the jargon was annotated).
Why did I think my inability to speak French would help me in my inability to speak Japanese?
The sweeper pointed to the sign board, which had appeared to be gibberish. There, clearly, in what had appeared to be gibberish, was the word 'Tokyo" followed by a list of times.

Subsequently I learned that 'Tokyo' was Romaji -- a rendering of Japanese vocables into symbols Latin familiars could read.

So I made it to the Ginza and much good followed.

But why did I try French? And why did the sweeper point to the sign -- which suddenly made sense -- in response?

--ml





Technorati Tags: Cross cultural, Asia, Japan, gaijin, Japanese

Marketing and ...

Eschaton comments:

STFU Amanda's been hitting this theme for awhile and it's good one. The idea that anything which is "natural" (whatever that means) is inherently better because... well, I don't know why, is just stupid.

Mostly it is marketing: a battle of the titans of Madison Avenue.

Yet: Take wheat flour. If you grind wheat grains without separating the germ and hull from the kernel you will get a nutrient rich but perishable, oily, coarse flour. It is very good for making a hearty, dark, "peasant" bread. In inexpert hands it may also closely resemble a brick -- the ones without straw that pharaoh demanded. For delicate pastry, it is not the first choice.
Sifting -- or bolting -- removes the husks and lightens the flour considerably. The absence of fiber makes the result better suited to cakes and pies, and less suited to your colon's health. But the nutritious oils from the germ still cause rancidity problems and heaviness in the product. The flour millers avoid this by removing the germ before they grind. Now the flour is "white", light, keeps well, and is practically valueless as a food. So the Flour manufacturers "enrich" the stuff. But they return only a scant amount of the nutrients they removed. That small amount is mandated by federal regulations. Enriched sounds better than not -- the opposite is true. That's marketing
So to some 'Natural' means a grown product that has not been deconstructed to improve its shelf life, or manipulated by man to improve its characteristics such as ship-ability at the expense of its consumer value such as taste -- think tomatoes.
--ml

Technorati Tags: natural foods, marketing

The Chef's Secret Recipe

My father was a chemist cum executive in the food industry. The corn milling firm he worked for was in the middle rank of a small industry: third or fourth in a field of seven. In the forties he invented instant corn starch pudding. Eventually the product was reproduced by the number one company in the trade. Their deep advertising pockets took the market away from Amaizo.
In later years when we spoke of this, Dad was quick to point out that much effort was required to maintain product consistency. Customers were not interested in a pudding that was too thick one time or too thin the next -- a variation caused by the difference in starch levels in the corn from field to field and year to year. So the formula -- the recipe -- was a matter of constant adjustment to insure uniformity. This process was a matter of precise measurement and careful control of equipment after thorough analysis.
When I returned from Japan in the late 60's I made a 'yaki soba' out of the ingredients I could find in the local stores where my Mother lived. These did not include any oriental specialties beyond the standard La Choy line. Naytheless I managed to produce a tasty meal which had no trouble disappearing. The problem is that I didn't follow a recipe beyond this: Yaki Soba is a stir fry of meat and vegetables in a light sauce served on noodles. I know onions, garlic, mushrooms, celery and peppers were in it. Chicken stock and a little soy sauce made the sauce. Possibly there was ginger(powder, not root which was hard to find in the heart land in those days). I think I put in canned bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and water chestnuts. Can't remember if the meat was beef or pork, or chicken. Shrimps, too? Some years later my Sister-in-law asked for the recipe. What a head scratcher! I made yaki soba for her, but it wasn't the same as her memory. That was all that would suit. *chagrin*
For these reasons I don't worry about keeping recipes secret. Reproducing a taste experience is exceedingly difficult, and, ultimately (eventually?), boring(IMHO). Naturally other cook's differ and I have no problem honoring their refusal to share a recipe. If I like it well enough I will make my own version. If it is very nice to eat but... That's a good reason to tend the friendship. Else I'll head on to the next culinary event, be it delight, disaster or blah. I like the risk and the challenge to my memory when I succeed. That pays for the failures which are needed for contrast anyway.
-- ml


Technorati Tags: Shared recipes, Secret recipes

Feast Our War Dead

Kraut Slaw:
Drain a pound of sauer kraut well.
Chop fine a pound of cabbage, a bit of colored sweet peppers, and a spring onion. Mix with the kraut.
Add a tablespoon of sugar, a teaspoon of mustard (powder or prepared), half a teaspoon of celery seed, cayenne, pepper, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. Toss thoroughly and refrigerate over night.

The Kitchen Sink:
Make four "hard boiled" eggs.
In a mortar grind a tablespoon of caraway seed with a teaspoon of celery seed and a half dozen pepper corns. (Dill seed is also good.) Fill a pot with water and heat. Add the spice mixture and some salt.
Cube six medium red potatoes. When the water boils add the potatoes. Boil until potatoes are done but still firm -- like al dente pasta -- about 10 minutes.
Make aioli sauce. In a blender pour a quarter cup olive oil. Add a half teaspoon of celery seed, a half teaspoon of mustard seed, cayenne, a whole egg and blend at a high speed. Slowly drizzle in a narrow stream of olive oil until you have about a cup of mayonnaise. (if the mess is not thick, pour it into a container with a pour spout. Crack an egg into the blender and whizz. Add the failed mixture in a slow-w-w-w stream of dribs until it is thick.) Add a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice. Pour another third to half cup of olive oil into the mayonnaise until you have: 1.) as much as you would like; 2.) As thick as you would like; or: 3.) Both. In which case you don't need me to tell you how to make mayonnaise. Stir in a tablespoon or more of crushed garlic.
When potatoes are cooked, drain and put into a bowl -- the big bowl. No, the really big bowl -- with as much of the seeds as you can manage. Add the aioli sauce and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Add, in no particular order, as much or as little (or not at all) of the following as you like: Peapods, celery, peppers, olives green & black, capers, pimentos, parsely, carrots, zucchini, red onion, sweet onion, scallions, artichoke hearts, cabbage, lettuce, pickles, et. cetera.

This is why it's called 'the kitchen sink'.

Add a tablespoon or more of whip cream and a cup of sour cream. Mix thoroughly. Smooth the top. Slice small tomatoes into wedges. Slice or quarter the hard boiled eggs. Slice some baby cucumber. Cover the top of the salad in whatever fancy your whimsy takes you.

Bag Chicken Breasts:
Pick a bouquet garni of fresh herbs: sage, thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, savory, whatever. Use dried if needful. Chop, crush or rub as required to release the aroma. Add to a small paper bag with salt, pepper, a quarter cup of flour and a tablespoon of almond flour.
Add four chicken breasts, one at a time, and shake. Place in a pan with sausage or bacon fat skin side down and saute for 25 minutes.
Turn over and continue frying until done. Ar bake in 3500f. oven.

Take time to remember our fellows who fell. Think of what they gave. And think of what they -- and we -- lost.

And pray that this war is -- forever -- the last war.

-- ml
Memorial Day, food, salads