The accompaniment of food

I've meant for this blog to be devoted to food, but I've found that I haven't been writing much about food lately (or writing much at all). I think the problem is this...I'm not a cook, but rather someone who appreciates the systems and communities that surround, support or control food. I've spent much of the last 8 months re-thinking how I eat, where I buy my food and how I make my food, to the point that much of what were first new practices have now become habits.

I regularly shop at the farmer's market--every week we buy farm eggs and raw, grass-fed milk from farmers whose practices and ethics I trust. I incorporate raw honey, coconut oil, whole grains, cod liver oil, raw butter and grass-fed meats into our diet regularly. My most recent goal has been to incorporate whole beans into our menu weekly, because I recently read that beans are the most effective cancer preventer (more so than medical treatment). In short, I'm not trying many new things because I'm happy with the diet we've developed. I'm not a food artist, I don't want to regularly try out new combinations, new ingredients and new methods. I just want healthy food. So my focus on food has now become, rather than the leading role of my thoughts, instead an accompaniment to our lives. Micael and I make a good meal on a Tuesday night, perhaps soaking rice or beans the night before and planning our schedules so that we can fit in a trip to the market and a 3 hour bean cooking, all so that we can sit down together and be, together. We're planning our wedding, often talking about logistics and details, often getting excited about family and friends coming to Seattle in August. We're talking about work and school, and our minor excitements or boredoms with either. We're dreaming about the future, about sleeping in on Saturday, about a new record he wants to buy, or a new book I want to read. Food is our accompaniment to all of this.

In reality, I'm also feeling the need for a new challenge. I will graduate from UW in December and I'm ready to be done. I'm ready to move on, but I don't know to what. I want, like we all want, something to make me excited, something to motivate me. I thought, for awhile, that I would do something related to food. But I'm realizing that's not what I want. I appreciate food as the backdrop for our lives, for its essential role in creating physically healthy lives, but it is only one element in a life well lived. I want to continue to explore those other elements--mental, emotional, spiritual, even other aspects of the physical. I want to stop being a student and objectively analyzing how others promote 'the good', 'the moral' or 'the healthy'. I want to dive in and practice what I, after studying so much, truly believe to be the good, the moral, the healthy. I want to stop analyzing, and start believing, in something.

For now, here is a photo of our most recent accompaniment. Black beans and brown rice, chard sauteed in butter, olive oil and lemon, and spicy lamb sausages from Pike Place. All shared eating on our living room floor (we have no space for a table) on a Tuesday night.

Around the house with Bri and Micael

Crushing garlic in our mortar and pestle

Reaching into the spice section for some crushed red pepper

Double tulips I bought at the Ballard farmer's market last week

Sour cream, dill, paprika, cayenne, jalapeno...all for a delicious fish taco sauce

Micael listening to music on his new turntable

Portuguese fado

Micael and I are trying to figure out what music to use for our wedding ceremony. We both love Spanish guitar, flamenco and fado--basically any music from the Iberian peninsula. We spent hours last night on grooveshark.com looking up music. We listened to the Beatles, Santana, Ricky Martin...we also re-found Mariza. She's a fado legend--beautiful, 6 foot tall Portuguese woman that sings with the most amazing, soulful power.

Here is Mariza singing 'Primavera'...

Culture at work in religion

I'm a TA at University of Washington again this quarter. This is my second year teaching this series of classes, so I'm pretty familiar with the material, but they still manage to challenge my own thinking about life and issues I find important. I'm currently teaching a class in the International Studies department titled 'Intercultural Relations in an Interdependent World'. The premise of the course is to challenge students to understand their own cultural presuppositions and those of other cultures by learning social theories (a la Max Weber, and others) to interpret how cultures are built and reinforced.

An example: Max Weber. Weber says that systems of ideas (such as religion) have the power to shape other institutions, such as politics and economics, rather than, as Marx says, religion is used to *justify* societal institutions such as politics and economics. Basically, do we believe that ideas have power in and of themselves to make huge social shifts, or are ideas only used to back up our sociopolitical and socioeconomic needs? For anyone that is religious, spiritual, philosophical, mystical, you probably tend to believe that ideas have the power to shape institutions. But there are other groups that are a bit more cynical and believe that humans have base instincts toward power and survival that instruct their behavior, and ideas are used only to reinforce the systems that serve these power-seekers.

Being a student and TA, I go back and forth about what I believe. Having studied religion academically for 3 years, I'm now more skeptical about religion's pure motives. I see how religions change shape over space and time to adapt to local needs, to adapt to sociopolitical and economic realities, to adapt to emotional anxieties. But, after studying this so much, I've also come to believe that humans do more than just seek survival, that they can appreciate an idea for its own sake, can introduce a new idea when the old system has become defunct. So I see religions doing both things: justifying ideas for the sake of a political, economical or emotional need, and also introducing new ideas simply for the sake of changing the system for the better.

The most recent example I encountered was yesterday: Rene Girard, his theory of violence, and his conversion to Christianity. Girard says that humans desire what their enemy wants, then fight with him over it, leading to an unending cycle of violence that is interrupted only by a ritual sacrifice (scapegoat). When Girard started studying Christianity, he was an atheist. But after coming to the conclusion that the purpose of Christ's death was to teach his community that this cycle of violence and revenge was pointless, and that innocent scapegoats were often sacrificed, Girard decided to become a Christian. He was impressed by this idea that religion could teach men how to transcend their base instincts.

I'm also impressed by that idea. But the next question that comes to me is this: how can I practice a religion using these interpretations of its meanings, when so many in the same religion have different interpretations (i.e. Christ was a sacrifice for our sins--something I do not believe) that really turn me off? There are so few that practice faith in a way that I find inspiring, and even those who do often can slip into using it to justify or advance certain purposes. This is one of the many reasons I've backed off from any practice for the last few years. How do we have faith in a God beyond ourselves when all our rituals of worship struggle just to get past our own mundane needs and limitations?

I don't know the answer. I don't know how to have faith in so many things that used to inspire me (philanthropic orgs, religion, NGO's, environmental movements) when I can now see many of the motivations behind these movements as well as their downfalls. Aid to Haiti right now is a great example--there are those that argue that foreign aid is actually crippling to other countries because it props us corrupt governments and keeps these countries reliant on wealthier countries and their handouts. So then, what the heck do we do to help Haiti?

Even without answers, I think I'm past the worst of my cynicism. I'm coming into a place where I can have faith in ideas for their own sake, even given their limited ability to solve problems or given their potential for ulterior motives. Actually, reading Mark Helprin gives me faith in ideas and beauty for their own sake. If you've never read him, you need to. He writes about beauty in the midst of the most horrible, devastating situations, such as war, and he gives you hope that if not reason and order, then there is at least hope and beauty always around us, always possible. I'm going to keep reading Helprin, and keep believing in the possibility of Good.

Beef Stock and French integration policy

Those are the two things I am working on today. Finally--finally!--I am inaugurating our stock pot. I know, I said this would happen at least a month ago, but I'm just now getting to it :)

So I pulled the 8 or so pounds of beef bones out of the freezer, let them thaw in the fridge and started soaking them in cold water and vinegar this morning. I browned the meaty bones (ribs and whatnot) in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, then added them to the stock pot and started boiling the water. In went 3 chopped onions, 3 chopped carrots and 3 chopped celery stocks and then I waited for it to boil. At least 40 minutes later (dang--16 quarts takes a long time to boil!) I've got the pot boiling. I scrape the scum layer off the top with a wooden spoon, add thyme and crushed peppercorns and lower it to to a simmer. Now it has to sit like that for 12-72 hours--yeah, seriously, up to 3 days.

After getting the stock going, I left the house and came to Caffe Vita just down the street to get some work done on my thesis. I can't tell whether I think it's no big deal or a little bit foolish to leave the stovetop on while I'm not in the house--but for today I'm deciding that it's no big deal. Not being in school right now, I have no reason most days to leave the house, which means I stay on the couch, do wedding-related research and read books on Islam and Integration in France. I get things done, of course, but it gets pretty stuffy in that apartment all day. So today I opted for the coffee shop. The barista is playing horrible music and people watching is semi-distracting, but at least I see some sunlight, and I'm out of the house!! (Obviously the fact that I'm writing here means I'm not being super-productive, unless I decide to add 'write on blog' to my list of things to do--then I'm being very productive, indeed).

So I'll work on thesis reading, then return to the house to monitor the stock and make some dinner tonight. I haven't been writing as much about elaborate recipes and preparations in part because some of them are becoming so regular (soaking rice and beans, using raw dairy and grass-fed meats, long marinating, making my own dressings, etc) and also because I'm enjoying eating well while eating simply. Many nights we'll make a carbonara pasta (pancetta, raw parmesan and egg sauce with fettuccine) or a lamb and olive pasta. We often eat farm eggs over medium with sourdough from a local baker toasted with raw butter. And a recent favorite has been grass-fed lamb burgers (marinated for an hour or two with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper) with raw blue cheese, shallots, dijon mustard on sourdough with a salad or sauteed chard. All of these things are pretty simple to prepare, take maybe a half hour in the kitchen (as well as an hour or so in advance for marinating, if you choose) and only cost a fraction of eating out for a good meal.

We're hoping to get a food processor soon, which means all sorts of new projects--I can start fermenting garbanzo beans (soaking with boiling water for 12 hours plus 12 hours) and making falafel at home, as well as dips like homous, and mayonnaise for chicken salad sandwiches. It definitely takes some practice to get into the rhythm of thinking ahead to make these things, but I'm getting more used to it, which means that even when I start back to school at the end of the month I'll be able to maintain this--it doesn't take that much more time, just more thinking ahead.

Visionalizing

Like I said in my last entry, I attended a conference over the weekend. The upshot of the whole thing was applying cognitive psychology principles to our daily actions to realize how to be more effective, more goal-oriented and more visionary. It was inspirational in a way, but more than that it required a shift in thinking so that you recognized your long-term ability and potential to effect change in your life. It's been energizing to think about the many projects I am currently working on, as well as future projects and goals--how do I want to, how will I, make these things happen, make them happen well, and then set and realize my next set of goals? For now, my goals include working on my thesis and my upcoming teaching assistantship with full focus and appreciating the process of these projects. I don't want to only complete them, but I want to pay attention to the details, be thorough in my research, enjoy the experience rather than treat them as projects to finish and check off a list. Learning how to effectively research and analyze sociological data, write clear papers and convey those skills to undergraduates will serve me in my next projects, whatever those are. But these skills will serve me more effectively if I give the time and attention to learning them well.

Beyond that comes the visionalizing process (yes, I know this is not a word--if you'd like to make fun of me for it, you can join Micael...:). What comes next?! I don't know, but this can be energizing rather than frightening or frustrating. This conference taught us to set our goals without being concerned about how they will be realized. The 'how' will come if we are committed to making the end goal happen. I know Micael and I currently have the goal of moving to France for at least a year. This has been a frightening goal for both of us, not knowing where we'll find jobs or how to support ourselves or where we'll live (and with what furniture?!). But if we want it, which I think we really do, the 'how' will come. And the 'how' we will reintegrate to life in Seattle and eventually buy a house, find or create jobs and get a dog already (!) once we return from France will also come once we get to the point to set those as our next goals. But for now, the next steps are taking shape as are the ideas of how they will come...

Think Weird

I am attending a conference this weekend and this is the advice I received just before we let out for lunch--Think Weird. Get outside your box, think differently, experiment, play, shake and shout and sing and do a funny dance. Obviously the man delivering this advice had no qualms about doing any of these things in front of an audience of 200, yet still, even without his comic fearlessness, one could still do these things...in their own way. Think weird.

The way I am translating this is, essentially, don't be afraid to be different. Think outside the box of what is possible, probable, likely or even desirable. It's not usually difficult for me to do this, but I can get stuck when I get so set an idea (that I imagine is outside the box) that I'll run that idea into the ground rather than invent a new idea. I know when I get stuck. We all do. I get stuck when I keep thinking in circles without coming up with any new solutions. I'm in a place like that right now. My vision is pretty shortsighted and I'm scared of things 'not working out'. Where did my courage go? I'm not sure, but I'm feeling pretty determined right now to find it.

I'll let you know when I discover my new vision. For now, back to the conference and getting more comfortable with weird thinking.

It's almost March

I'm having breakfast (a glass of raw milk and a chocolate croissant) at 1:30pm. It's Sunday. There are black beans simmering on the stove. I have a fresh baguette and eggs on the counter. It's quiet. It's nice.

My life has been consumed the last several weeks with trying to plan a wedding. I feel so cliché writing that, but there's no way around it. Wedding planning is stressful and life-consuming, at least for a little while. In order to coordinate 60 of your closest friends and family all arriving in the same place on the same day (most of them flying in, nonetheless) and have a great celebration there waiting, it takes a lot of work and planning. Planning. They say I'm turning into my mom ;)

It is true--I am seeing the light! There are benefits to planning ahead and being prepared and not just 'winging it' as I may have once liked to do. So I'm planning.

We've decided on a date--August 7, and a place--Kirkland. Despite the fact that most of our friends and family are spread around the country and the world, it seems like most can make it--I'm thankful for that. We're getting catering and lodging into place, and I've started to organize invitations, decorations, rentals, etc. The more I can do now, the better, because I'll be starting back at school again in March, and when school starts, school dominates--no way around that. So I'm checking things off the list now, and planning ahead for what can wait til this summer. That's all the practical work. Then there's the personal side--thinking about what this really means-for both myself and for us as a couple--and thinking about what this means for our families and friends. I liked it when we didn't think about anyone else's thoughts or opinions about our lives, our plans, our wedding, our future. It was simpler. But. I am getting used to people now weighing in--I won't yet say I like it, but maybe I'll grow to. And even if I don't want the opinions, I appreciate the love and concern--and the people from which it comes.

Despite the all-consuming-ness of the wedding, we are actually thinking about our lives beyond it. I should-finally-be done with school by December. I'm writing my thesis right now--on State Policies Toward Religion in France. It sounds really intense, but basically it's 50 pages about how the French government deals with religious minorities--mostly Muslims, and why. I love this stuff. I love political philosophy, religion, sociology. I love understanding how and why people conceive of citizenship and their belonging (or not) in a community. It's fascinating. It excites me so much it actually makes me a bit sad at the thought of leaving school--imagine that!! So, graduation-December. check. After that, Micael and I have talked about moving to France for a year. He's wanted to move back there for awhile to be closer to his dad's family, and when I get past both my romantic notions about living in France, and my fears about living in France, more than anything I want him to be able to be close to family and figure out what 'France' really means to him. So, most likely without jobs and without plans we will move there next January, and see what happens. Don't expect any Julia Childishness on my part, however. I'm already embarrassed about the references to Julie/Julia movie and the blogging and whatnot. I don't think I'm a chef or an aspiring chef, I just like to know about food, where it comes from and how it's good for us. Probably I'll talk a lot about cheese. And sausage.

For now, my next food projects...hmm. Well, the other night we made lamb burgers with blue cheese on sourdough, and served them with delicata squash--amazing. Also really easy. Grilled the burgers, added blue cheese, raw shallots and dijon mustard onto sourdough bread. The squash we cut in half, placed cut side down in a baking dish for 30 mins at 300 degrees, then took it out, scooped out the seeds, put in a bit of butter and ate with a spoon.

This week I'll be making fish tacos and rice and beans. Will write about that soon...

the stock pot

Yes! We finally have one! A stock pot, that is.

Thank you 'Santa' for a 16 quart stock pot you left beneath the tree this year. I considered an 8, then a 10 quart, but ultimately decided (after my attempt to make turkey stock after thanksgiving and had to split it up into two separate pots) that we should just go for the Big Guy. So 16 quarts. It's huge.

Santa also left instructions on how to season the pot, so today, many weeks after Christmas, it was finally done. We coated the entire thing with peanut oil--actually not we, Micael--and put it in the oven for an hour. This is supposed to fill in the nooks and crannies so that food doesn't stick as easily to the surface of the pot and keep it from rusting.

Next task: beef stock. I have had, lemme see...7 or 8? pounds of beef bones in our freezer for the last several months. All different kinds--knuckle bones for gelatin, rib bones for meat and flavor, and other kinds that I forget the purpose of now because it's been so long since I bought them. But you get the point--lots of different kinds of bones because they add different nutrients and tastes. I'll be making this stock tomorrow or the next day. Then can have it on hand for soups, cooking grains or just drinking as a broth.

So excited about this pot!

South and back again

Haha! We are back from Mexico and beyond. We did eat fruits I did not know the name of (although we did see plenty of Washington apples), tortillas, local cheese, mole and tacos al pastor. Mmm. Tacos al pastor. Spiced pork slow-cooked on a rotisserie and then served in little yellow corn tortillas with onions, cilantro and pineapple, add green salsa. That was probably my favorite meal of the trip. Especially with a Negra modelo beer.

Overall the food was pretty good. We ate plenty of fresh fruit, tomatoes, onions, and avocado. Lots of fresh, local cheese, beans, tortillas, coconut. My only (unanswered) questions, were: what kind of oil are they cooking in, and where is this meat coming from? The grocery stores were stocked with canola and soy oil, and the taquerias (taco shops) used this oil for frying, so I'm assuming that we probably consumed our fill of those oils. As far as the meat goes, I have no idea. I read before we left that Mexico has adopted many of the US policies on animal production, including feedlots. Oaxaca state is *supposed* to rely on its local food supply more than most areas in Mexico because it has small farmers rather than large agribusiness. But after asking many people where the cows were raised and what they were fed, I gave up on a clear answer. It seemed that the cows were raised somewhere up north, and fed, more or less, cow food. The first time that I asked the dairy stall in the market what their cows were fed, I was met with such a strange look I almost gave up right there. As if there might be different things that cows eat, or that it might matter...huh.

Another oddity to me was the nonexistence of coconut oil as a cooking oil. The coconuts were so abundant on the Pacific coast that you could buy one, freshly picked and cut in half with a straw for about a dollar. It would make so much sense to make use of all these coconuts for their oil, given how healthy it is for the body, inside and out. But there was none to be found. We had brought coconut oil with us from the States and took teaspoons regularly to keep our immune systems strong while we were traveling. But that was the only coconut oil I saw.

All in all, very good food. I loved the use of chiles for spice--the dozen chiles (maybe I exaggerate...) in the black mole sauce, the different salsas at each taqueria. So good. But some of the more complex elements of cooking--like braising, stocks, and whole grains--were absent. I was especially aware of this as I was reading Julia Child's memoir while we were traveling. I believe that that woman can make anyone excited about cooking technique--bring on the sauces...!!

Last but not least, Micael and I got engaged while away (and yes--I was completely surprised!) :) So, although we have known we were already committed to each other for better or worse and for everything in between, it is now official, and officiality brings with it all sorts of new experiences, emotions and family relationships--all joyfully welcome. I can't say how much I look forward to a life with him. And with our stocks, pots, sautés and gazpachos. Our first day home from Mexico we got up early (this was an incredible feat), went to the Ballard farmer's market, and bought fresh, raw cheese, a damn good french baguette, farm eggs and raw milk. We came home, ate, and although I don't remember, I imagine we got back into bed and stayed the rest of the day that way. So, here's to the man I love...and a lifetime of bumping into each other in the kitchen.

Finals ate me

It has been a month to the day since I last wrote anything. That is because I have been grading term papers and final exams and writing term papers and final exams for more hours than I want to think about right now. But that seems to be the problem--here it is, 3am, and I can't turn off my brain. So, I'm writing. Why not.

Cooking becomes less of a priority during finals, but we've still managed to experiment with a few new recipes. We tried making grass fed sirloin steaks, marinated in olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, garlic and black pepper and grilled--those were good. We also bought some raw cheddar cheese from a farm up north, sprouted mung beans for mung bean pancakes (a korean dish), and got a mushroom log as an early xmas gift--so I see a lot of mushroom eating in our future.

Thankfully, despite all the stress and madness of finals, I haven't been sick at all. Tired, yes, but not sick. I've been taking cod liver oil and bee pollen (almost) daily, and I think I owe it to that. As well as lots of grass fed butter. I'm not kidding. Eat butter.

Micael left for Mexico early on Saturday, so I won't be cooking much this week until Christmas, when we'll be braising--oxtail. Right after that I'll be leaving for Mexico myself--meeting Micael in Mexico City. And then we will eat.

I'm looking forward to the outdoor markets, beans, tortillas, molé, potato croquets, salsa, spicy peppers, fresh fish, molé, fruits I don't know the name of, street vendors, molé. I'm also excited for the music, the architecture, the anthropology museum, Frida Kahlo's house, the textile markets, the salsa dancing...I'll stop with the lists now, but you get the idea.

Fermenting Chickpeas

My Dad's birthday was coming up and he requested homemade falafel for dinner. So, I soaked chickpeas with whey for 24 hours, then gathered together cumin, corriander, cayenne pepper, parsley, garlic and onion to make the falafel dough.



Everything is mixed in a food processor then chilled for an hour before forming into patties. then fry in olive oil and serve in pita with tahini, tomatoes, olives, lettuce...whatever you like.



VERY easy to make and tastes really good. We had so much left over, we ate falafel all week--just fried a few up for lunch each day. I'd love to post the recipe here, but I can't because its copyrighted. So--go get Nourishing Traditions! It's only $17 and I love it.

Pate Number Two

So, folks, we tried making the pate again. Here goes...



First step: melt a stick of butter. A whole stick.


Here are the chicken livers, washed, dried and ready to saute.


A pan full of sauteing onions, butter, bacon and chicken livers.


Add in the white wine, parsley and rosemary...


Happy boyfriend :)

Food makes me crazy

In a good way, yes, food does make me crazy. I love it. Who doesn't? But also, recently, in a bad way--food makes me crazy. I'm careful about which kinds of pots to use, not to heat them up too quickly in case the glass cracks, not to cool the food down too quickly or to let it sit out too long and grow things. I never thought this much about what to do with food. And--I'll admit it--I'm a perfectionist. Despite all my efforts to come across as laid back and go-with-the-flow, I am, at heart, a perfectionist.

So I freak out. I freak out when I drop the dutch oven we just bought in the sink and the handle chips. I freak out when I don't know why my mushrooms aren't getting properly browned but rather steaming in the moisture they keep giving off. I freak out when I don't have parchment paper and when I don't know what parchment paper is, and then I decide that parchment paper is stupid and I hate recipes and I give up anyway. Yes, as well as being a perfectionist, I am also melodramatic. I freaked out the other night because we had been cooking black beans all afternoon and then needed to leave for a dinner party. The beans were just barely done and they were hot. Where were we going to put them? We couldn't leave them out to cool, right? We'd be gone for several hours. I poured them into a glass pyrex and then--freaked out--that the glass would crack from getting too hot too fast. So I poured them back into the (hot) dutch oven. Then I refused to pour them into a steel bowl because I didn't want to get ONE MORE thing dirty--ONE MORE thing to wash later. So I freak out and tell Micael to leave me alone so I can storm to the market and get a bottle of wine. Then I storm back. Then I have a partial realization that everything is going to be okay--somehow. The beans will survive. But really I owe this realization to Micael who is the level-headed one in all of this. I promise him that I will learn how to not freak out so much.

Maybe writing about it is part of that process. I want to learn how to not freak out so much. I'm sure it will get better as I learn how to do what I'm doing with food. But it also means taking time to be aware of what I'm feeling and choosing to be the one to manage those feelings. Especially when I'm facing something challenging and I feel overwhelmed by it. Especially because I want to do it right the first time, and learning how to accept that that won't always happen is a more mature perspective.

The first time we made chicken liver pate, I freaked out. Because we didn't know how to time everything, we didn't know whether to wash the livers, we didn't know how long to cook them or how long to cool them or how to do anything, really. Yesterday we tried making it again. This time we talked beforehand about which job each of us would do, how we would time everything, what we wanted to do differently. We learned from that first experience. It was still tense in the kitchen as I was trying to decide what "opaque" chicken livers should look like, but I think, without doubt, that it was an all-around better experience. And the pate tastes better too.

Who would have thought--learning how to cook is turning out to be a growing experience for me...