On brownies and Brussels sprouts

Three days before my twenty-seventh birthday, I woke up at nine, had brownies for breakfast, and read Harry Potter on the living room couch. Somewhere between spilling chocolate crumbs down the front of my shirt, and reading about a giant bank run by goblins, I became very self-aware -- that this was probably not, by proper standards, a very adult-like way to start one's day.

To be fair, I'm reading Harry Potter in Spanish, in my third novelistic attempt to improve my second language skills. I first started with Gabriel García Márquez's El General en su laberinto (The General in His Labyrinth). That proved to be too ambitious, no matter how much I carried the book around in my bag, from subway to Spanish class to museum. I decided to try something I'd read before, then, in English, so I picked up El Americano impasible (The Quiet American) by Graham Greene . . . but that too fell by the wayside, on the nightstand, collecting dust.

Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal is proving to be much more fun for me to read -- the only genuine reason I am eager to pick up a book, anyway. I understand, on average, about ninety percent of the prose, and continue to learn as I go along. In addition to developing a deeper understanding of the subjunctive, and the various uses of the various past tenses, I am learning vocabulary words like "varita" and "lechuza" and "hechicería" ("wand" and "owl" and "sorcery"), which I'm sure will be very helpful when I go back to the States and start looking for a job.

I came across a part this morning, though, that made me frown. It's the bit where Harry and Ron have just met for the first time, on the train ride to Hogwarts, and the snack-selling lady stops by their cabin with her cart. Harry is enticed by the Every Flavor Jelly Beans and Ron warns him that the candies are, truly, every flavor -- even spinach, and liver, and tripe. Ron picks a green one, and bits into it gingerly: "See? Brussels sprouts."

While I fully concur that it would be very weird to eat certain foods in jelly bean form (including jelly beans), why oh why are things like spinach, and liver, and tripe, considered gross from the get go? I think the author picked these foods not because they would be unsuccessful candy flavors, but for the gut reaction they get when mentioned at all. What's JK Rowling's beef with liver?

There are some foods that, even as children (as evidenced by children's books), we are supposed to just not like. We're supposed to cringe at the threat of cabbage, of spinach, of beets. Liver, though it comes in so many delicious sizes and shapes and flavors, is simply pictured as chopped, stranded and forlorn. And while it's true that many of these flavors may be a bit strong for children's tender taste buds, we so often grow into adulthood without giving them a fair chance.

So, I say, in defiance of brownies-for-breakfast and Ron Weasley, I will have beets for dinner. I have a dish already in mind: sticky, creamy risotto finished off with roasted beets and crumbled blue cheese. Not food strictly for adults, of course, but it will certainly make me feel grown-up.

A short study in duality: two partings/greetings

Less than a week before I left the States to go live in Buenos Aires, Argentina for an undetermined period of time, I had two very memorable partings with two people who had been, for a long time a long time ago, my closest friends. I use the word "partings" because these visits were effectively brought about because of my great move, my big goodbye. In actuality, though, I hadn't seen either of these two people in such a long time, that the visits felt like more of a welcome home than a sending-off.

I give you, then, two brief pictures of two good people, great women, best friends. Through food, of course, as it always has been and always shall be.

Liz

I can't remember if I told Liz directly about my move to Argentina, or if she found out through her mother. Liz's mom, Honi, and mine have been close ever since they met as working middle-aged, middle-class moms, sending their nine-year-old daughters to a daycare off of one of Pennsylvania's saddest excuses of a main street. Though growing apart once college rolled around, Liz and I have managed to stay more or less connected through our mothers' mutual hobbies of daughter-pride and familial gossip. Either way, when I left Liz a voice mail about Buenos Aires, she called back within hours to say, "I can come up tomorrow. Is that okay?"

Because she knows (Pleasant Valley High School Anatomy Honors aside) my heart is buried deep somewhere in my stomach, Liz came bearing a giant bag of soft pretzels from the factory in Philadelphia. For those of you souls unfortunate enough to be unfamiliar with the Philly pretzel, I give the following as a somewhat inadequate description. The Philly pretzel is a perfect street food, inexpensive and deceptively filling. The Philly pretzel is different from, say, the classic New York variety primarily in shape: instead of a stand-alone twist, the Philly version is smooshed up along a long line of neighbors. This makes it extra fun to pull apart, releasing hot steam -- gustatory experiences so often start with other senses. The pretzel is great plain, or, even better, doused with a fat line of tangy yellow mustard, the perfect contrast to the soft, slightly sweet dough. I also find the Philly pretzel to be a bit softer than street pretzels in other cities; its crust, somehow, is less crusty, its dough more doughnut than bagel.

When I opened the door to Liz, she had a big brown bag in her hand. "Chris and I visited the pretzel factory this morning," she told me, and I knew, just like she must have, it was going to be a good day.

We spent hours on my parents' living room couch, catching up, in between mouthfuls of pretzel and mustard. She told me the company she worked for was moving from Philadelphia to Atlanta, and so she was looking for other places to work. We discussed the merits of New York, of Boston. Of traveling for work, of traveling for pleasure. Of marathons and yoga. (I learned Liz is at, maybe even beyond, the stand-on-your-head stage! And I can barely stretch to reach my toes.) We talked about boyfriends, and about books. Later, we played cards with my parents, eating cookies my mother had made, the Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker ready-made dough kind, with the colorful shapes in the middle, which get squished as the knife slices down.

Liz left me with: a few good book recommendations, a present in the workings, and a big bag of pretzels I hid out in our garage, from which I would sneak snacks throughout the rest of the week, a treat I relished because I knew, dough and thought alike, there would be none of its kind where I was going.

Courtney

It's hard for me to think of a time when I haven't eaten when I've been with Courtney. We're either on our way to get food, or in the middle of stuffing our faces, or resting on our stomachs to help heal the bloated-stomach pain (and help hurry along the next round of feasting). My memories of Courtney always seem to involve laughing with my mouth full, or spilling food on myself as I try to describe something with my hands, or spitting out a giant gulp of Coke when she says, well, almost anything.

So it was only appropriate that on my drive down to Courtney's apartment in Pennsylvania, just three days before I left the country, I got a phone call: "I'm at Dunkin' Donuts. You want anything?"

I showed up at her door with a bottle of Malbec, in celebration of my moving to Argentina. She in turn greeted me with a giant bag of Tostitos and a big jar of spicy salsa, in celebration of my arrival in Allentown. We tried, as best as two old friends could, to cram a few years into a few hours. We spoke quickly, leaving out certain details that may have been more important to those less in tune with one another, mortaring our broken pieces with hand gestures, and facial cues, and "ya know?"s -- laying a solid foundation, really, as any.

I drove away from Courtney's place very late, but much earlier than I'd wanted. Time, of course, nagging me all the while -- for what little time I had left, driving home a few hours in the dark, I spent thinking about how much time I had lost.

A plane ride

Or, These Are The Kinds Of Letters I Write

I wanted to clarify my story of the Portuguese girl on the plane. The phone just wasn't right.

I was sitting at the end of a row of five seats, and the girl was two seats away. I was translating a play of Garcia Lorca's (Bodas de Sangre: Weddings of Blood!) into English, when she leaned over and asked, in Spanish, what I was studying. I explained. We talked for almost three hours. Her Spanish was slow and sparkled with that slightly rough sound of Portuguese (I am enamored of the language because they have a sound that seems to me vaguely Slavic: kind of like schkkkah). We talked about the differences in Latin American and North American attitudes towards strangers, the Three Brazils, Mexican food. She complimented my Spanish. She seemed genuinely impressed and thus I was genuinely flattered. Most people who say, "Your Spanish is so good!" are either being polite or have only had short, simple conversations with me. You can easily wow a person by being able to master the present tense and phrases like, "I love Argentina!" and "The day is so pretty."

She told me that she can never sleep on planes, but after three hours of conversation, around one in the morning, over the sea, we decided to try and sleep. She put up the arm rest and laid down and curled up. She was a tiny girl, with very curly hair. She put pillows behind her head but she wound up resting in the crook of my arm (if you could see me, I am making a motion to the inside of my elbow). I don't know if she realized she was sleeping against me. It was nice, though, the simple intimacy of it. Her curls on my skin and me, being careful not to breath too deeply. I didn't want to wake her up.

So that's what I was trying to tell you. Also, there was a guy reading Nietzsche in Portuguese in the aisle across from me. His wife probably thought I was checking him out, but really it was just the situation that was making me smile.

Garbanzos, ahoy!

Buenos Aires is getting hot.

It's happened quickly, and without warning. Two weeks ago we had the windows open to let in fresh, cool air, and we were wearing light jackets at night and in early morning, and I was asking Bennett if he was sure he didn't want to put a long-sleeved shirt over that golf tee he was wearing out for the day, I mean I know it's sunny but it's still brisk and shade can be deceptive, right, honey?

Then everything changed. From the low seventies, the climate has jumped to the high eighties. With the seemingly spontaneous jumps in temperature and time (for some reason, part of Argentina decided not to do daylight savings this year, but all the computer clocks and half of the cell phones jumped an hour ahead, anyway, two weeks ago; I've changed my laptop clock twice but my computer, each week, keeps edging ahead on its own on Monday mornings), Buenos Aires is starting to take on a whole other other-worldly feel.

Clothing in the city hasn't changed much, with women still in tight jeans and high heels, and men still in dark suits and button-ups, but it seems to me there are lines of desperate sweat breaking out along everyone's foreheads. Each person who has been here for at least one summer has told me how brutally hot and humid the city gets, but thus far, I've just nodded and attributed their descriptions to the standard porteño exaggeration style. Though I'm used to sweaty, swampy DC summers, it's been over a year since I've been in true heat, and I am beginning to get a little scared.

Anyway. The point of this all, really, is that today for lunch I wanted to make oeuf cocotte, which sounds very dainty and fancy, all dressed up in italics, but really it's just baked eggs, topped with a little milk or cream to keep them moist. I was planning on a version with smoked salmon and cream cheese and shallots, and fresh baguette for dipping into the runny yolks, set up on our little table in all manners of rustic elegance.

Well, after I did my shopping in the hot hot heat of the early afternoon, and dropped the grocery bags onto the kitchen counter, I realized there was no way on earth I was going to turn on the oven. So, the eggs went into the refrigerator, and the salmon went into a sandwich. And as I had more time to play in the kitchen, I started my slow attack on our full vegetable drawer: the first victim being a head of slightly droopy romaine lettuce.

One of my favorite simple dishes is made up of garbanzo beans, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. I've tried throwing raw greens into the mix from time to time, but the leaves never seem to fit right on the fork, especially when you are chasing the slippery little beans around. I needed to use the romaine, though, before it started to get brown and slick and all sorts of bad things that rest on your conscience, if you think about that sort of thing. So! What's a girl to do, using a minimum amount of heat in a minimum amount of time? She wilts a few leaves on the stove, on the lowest of settings in the littlest of broth, and feels ridiculously proud when her greens, once cooked a bit, are greener than before.

The garbanzos and romaine are happy partners; the beans provide the slightly sweet, nutty base, and the lettuce provides a pleasantly bitter contrast. Everything comes together quickly, and can be eaten warm, fresh out of the pan, or barely cooled, after sitting in the fridge for an hour or so -- perfect for whatever weather is thrown at you.


Garbanzo Beans with Wilted Romaine

I didn't try this today, but I'll bet this salad would also be very good with some thinly grated Parmesan cheese added in, at the very end.

1 head romaine lettuce
1 shallot, chopped
1/3 cup chicken stock (I used 1/3 cup water, and 1/2 a bouillon cube)
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
juice of 1/2 lemon
olive oil, to taste

Clean and separate the lettuce leaves, and tear into medium-sized pieces.

Meanwhile, heat the shallot in the chicken stock in a pot over low heat. Once the water has come to a simmer, toss in the lettuce. This may look like a lot at first, but the leaves cook down quickly. Stir occasionally, until the romaine has wilted and taken on a bright green color, not quite five minutes.

Strain the leaves from the broth. (I saved this, today, and drank it. It was delicious, and filled with all sorts of nutrients, I'm sure.)

Put the wilted romaine and drained garbanzos together in a bowl. Mix in the lemon juice, and drizzle over olive oil, to taste. A little salt and freshly grated pepper, and you're done!

Gateway blue cheese

Blue cheese, I wasn't always a fan of you. I would watch as my mother dumped you on top of burgers and steaks, and cringe with involuntary taste remembrance. You would show up, without warning sometimes, stuffed in pastas or topped on salads, rendering otherwise good foods inedible. It didn't make sense to me; my palate was otherwise accustomed to strong tastes: dark chocolate, coffee, shellfish, even from a young age. Fans of yours would gush and goo, as if you were some kind of very addictive drug. But you, blue cheese, did nothing for me.

But then, one day, two years ago, maybe three, that all changed for me. I don't remember the exact moment, but I remember the exact salad: one with roasted baby beets, and endives, and bacon vinaigrette, and Bayley Hazen Blue. Bayley Hazen is a mild, dry cheese, gentle on the palate and a good supporter of other flavors; a beginner's blue: I call it gateway blue cheese. Because, now, just like all the blue cheese fans before me, I'm addicted.


Blue cheese, I adore you. I love putting you with all sorts of things: beets, carrots, figs, pasta, empanadas, burgers. With a slice of thick toast and a heavy hand of honey, there's no better treat. You can be fancy, all long silk and black gloves, served after an elegant meal, with a sweet reduction of port and a dash of pine nuts. You can be casual, ripped jeans and scuffed sneakers, mixed with mayonnaise and served with hot saucy chicken wings. You even allow for typos, bleu or blue, you blew me out of the water!, you silly old thing.

Even better, perhaps, is that instead of turning me off of foods I like, you turn me onto foods I'd rather not eat. Coleslaw, for instance: raw cabbage swimming in mayonnaise is something I tend to decline, at picnics, at barbeques, with burger orders. But! Mix a little blue cheese in, and something rather lame starts to sparkle. Every crunchy bite of this salad is rewarded with a proper tang from blue cheese, and a certain sweetness from the carrots. Last night, after a few forkfuls, Bennett swore: "This is the best coleslaw I've ever eaten."


Warning: this makes a lot. The two of us ate it all in less than twenty-four hours.


Blue Cheese Coleslaw
Adapted from The Boathouse: Tales and Recipes from a Southern Kitchen

1/3 cup mayonnaise (I used Hellman's light; I'm not sure if this makes a difference)
4 tablespoons light sour cream
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
6 cups white cabbage, thinly sliced (about 1 pound)
2 medium carrots, grated
1 small onion

Combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, vinegar, and cayenne pepper in a large bowl, mixing until smooth. Add the blue cheese, folding into the mixture.

Add the vegetables, and mix until well incorporated. Keep refrigerated until serving.

An oversight of an evening

We threw our first dinner party this Saturday.

Oh, dinner party, such a fancy term, smacking of long candles, crystal glassware, elaborate courses. Perhaps, for those a bit less formal, the immediate imagination still brings up basics such as tablecloths and enough chairs for everyone eating.

Ours had none of that, not even matching glasses, or enough of the same type of plates to go around. What we had, instead, was a mismatch of foods and flatware and languages, a sofa-turned-two-seats-at-the-table, seven liters of beer and four bottles of wine, and a hell of a good time.

The great thing about dinner parties in Buenos Aires is that people eat late here. Like, 8 pm is the earliest most places open for dinner, and it's not unusual to see little kids running around in restaurants at 1 am. When I was studying abroad here, oh way back when, I once asked my host-lady to have dinner at seven. She laughed and said, "Oh, just like the country folk!"

So, why is this great for you, throwing a dinner party? It means that you can wake up at 6.40 pm from a late and way too long nap, say "Shit!", go to the grocery store and pick up all your necessities, shower at eight, blow dry your hair at eight twenty, and not even finish putting away all the groceries when your first guests ring the doorbell. By nine, you are sitting at a table with a couple of bottles of beer and wine, and a lovely, artisan cutting board heavy with salami and olives and cheese, nibbling and chatting and all of that, just like you would be doing had you been a much better planner and experienced host.

I love those old memoirs, where people keep list of their menus, each line designating a course. I'm speaking of fancy recordings of Junior League balls, of wedding cards, of the ones thrown in, occasionally, in Alexandre Dumas' Dictionary of Cuisine. Such menus are brilliant keys into social and economic history, if you keep in mind the author and the time. They also, inevitably, make me hungry.

So, for posterity, I give you an oversight of an evening:

Picada (black and green olives, fontina, provolone, and
blue cheese, pate de foie, roasted garlic, variety of cured meats)
Empanadas de morcilla (blood sausage, apple, onion, parsley)
Fideos con salsa de limón (linguine with lemon and cream sauce)
Pan artisanal con aceite de oliva (artisanal bread with spiced olive oil)
Torta de crema y frutilla (crustless whipped cream cake with strawberries)
Mandarinas y chocolate (mandarin oranges and dark chocolate)

Isn't that fun?

I had other things planned, too, like a big green salad and a fig tart and coconut macaroons, but those fell by the wayside as the night stretched out and more bottles were opened. I chopped onions and apples while Danny and Augustín told each other bad jokes in Argentine-Colombian-Puerto Rican Spanish. Bennett and Gimena took cigarette breaks, leaning out of our living room window, smoke going out and cool air coming in. Nacho came later, and Bennett cried laughing as Nacho told us all about Mongolito ("Little Mongoloid"), the Argentine version of E.T. We were well-fed, but most of all we were in good company. Which is probably the most important part of a dinner party, even more important than proper seating.

The only bad turn of the evening, really, was when I was throwing together the sauce for the linguine. At that point, I'd had a little too much beer, and a lot too much wine, and was getting a little sloppy in the kitchen. As I pulled the cream out of the refrigerator, I knocked over an open bag of olives* and spilled its contents all over the place. I cursed, something like "Aceitunas de mierda!" ("Olives of shit!)** What bothered me wasn't so much the spilled olives, as the fact that I'd just given my refrigerator a healthy, hour-long cleanse two days earlier. The next day, I spent twenty minutes on my knees, cleaning the shelves and walls yet again, albiet in a good mood. I thought about why I was happy, as I scrubbed and scrubbed. I think it's because, had this been me a few years earlier, I would have ignored the mess and hoped that someone, real or perhaps some great god of household fairies, would come along and clean up my mistake. Instead, I was being a very responsible adult, even if only in the form of fixing a little spill -- I liked the thought of refrigerator cleaning as being a symbol of Growing Up.

__________________________

*It's weird to me, how the all the condiments are available in bags here. And olives are, in Argentina, most definitely a condiment. They go on, and in, almost everything.

**This is a common way to curse in castellano, and is applicable to almost anything: "_________ de mierda!" Try it! It's a lot of fun. It cheers me up just to say it, which is more than I can say for any curse in English.

Afternoon nap cake

An introduction, by way of a quick note: I've been reading a few things on food photography, and one of the important aspects stressed is to avoid shadows (and use natural light, and use mirrors, and invest in a good camera, oh my). These two photos are ripe with shadows, but that's part of my point with this recipe: this is a good cake for the afternoon, to savor just after a long nap, when the shadows are stretching and you're in need of a bit of sugar to make it to your next meal.

This loaf cake was inspired, originally, by this Everyday Cake -- I'd had the recipe bookmarked for over a month. It was in the long, lazy hours of this October afternoon, spring finally asserting itself, the weather softly warm and the sun taking its sweet time to set, that I at last got around to heating up my oven.

Though I give credit to Molly Wizenberg for the skeleton of the formula (who in turn got it from the late great Edna Lewis), I twisted and I tweaked, until the flesh is quite my own. Oh, and what good cakey flesh it is: soft, and tender, and crumbly. Be prepared to scoop up crumbs between your thumb and forefinger, preferably between sips of iced coffee. Enjoy it, nap or no, but I think that sometimes even relaxation should be rewarded.


A segue, by way of a quick note: this cake has a strong scent and flavor of nutmeg -- if you're not a huge fan, I'd recommend cutting it back to a teaspoon.

Afternoon Nap Cake

1 cup self-rising cake flour
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 stick butter
2/3 cup granulated light brown sugar (it's called "rubia" down here)
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1/2 cup light sour cream
2 tablespoons milk

Preheat your oven to 375°F. Grease a large loaf pan (I also lightly floured mine with a half cinnamon, half flour mix).

In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

In another medium bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one by one, beating the mixture between each addition. Add the vanilla extract, and beat again.

In a small bowl, blend together sour cream and milk until just combined.

Now, for the grand mixing. Add a quarter of the flour mixture to the beaten butter, and blend well. Then, add a third of the sour cream mixture to the butter and blend again. And so on, until you've added all the flour and the sour cream to your big bowl of butter and sugar.

Pour the batter (which will be thick and goopy) into the greased large loaf pan, and bake for 35 to 40 minutes. The cake is ready when a red chopstick comes out clean.