Saturday Haiku: Haiku's for my week

Purposefully Bland?
It is usually chicken.
That's conference food!

Workout while away?
Not really motivated.
Where is the trainer?

(DC Equinox Club.)

Abomination!
Selective Bible study:
Miss Beverly Hills.

.

I Wish I Made More of This:

We had friends over for dinner last week and once again I was not inspired to do anything special for hors d'oeuvres. I'm not an appetizer kind of cook. Never found much inspiration there I suppose. Who sits around and dreams of appetizers to serve at a dinner party? All the action is at the main course and dessert...

I'm on the road all this week, eating on airplanes, in hotels, and at conference lunch tables pretending to be interested in what the others at the table are talking about. The only good food to be had, aside from the the hotel hamburgers, is in my mind! Why is it that a hamburger is always the best thing on the menu at a hotel? Hotel hamburgers are seriously good! I'm also thinking a lot about that last jar of Port Rosemary Jam sitting nearly empty in my refrigerator back home. Did I really only keep one jar for myself? Must be true because when friends came over for dinner last week, and I needed something to make a generic cheese plate pop, only one jar was on the shelf. All the jams and jellies I made in December are gone and its not even the end of February. Did I give them all away? I tend to hoard things (which makes making jams and preserves a fitting endeavor wouldn' t you say?) but I really wanted to give home made gifts this year so I guess this later value won out.

Dammit. When is fig season going to start again? I seriously need some more of this. I bet this jam would be good on a hotel hamburger. Its not too sweet so its definitely not a breakfast jam. Perhaps it would be good to dress roasted pork tenderloin? Or it could turn some sliced pears and Gorgonzola into a amazingly adult after dinner course? Or you could put in a Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus with Port Rosemary Fig Jam for an appetizer! Or make a thin crust Port Rosemary Fig Jam and Crumbled Pork Sausage Pizza.

Mmm.... I hope I can remember that next year! I guess people do sit around and dream up appetizers.

Port and Rosemary Fig Jam

• 2 pounds green or purple figs, stemmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup white port
• 2 4-inch sprigs of rosemary

In a large, nonreactive saucepan, toss the fig pieces with the sugar and let stand, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, until the sugar is mostly dissolved and the figs are juicy.

Add the lemon juice, rosemary sprigs and water and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Simmer the fig jam over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the fruit is soft and the liquid runs off the side of a spoon in thick, heavy drops, about 20 minutes. Remove rosemary and discard. Use an immersion blender to emulsify if necessary.

Spoon the jam into three 1/2-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch of space at the top. Close the jars and process in a water bath and store in a cool place for up to a year or let cool to room temperature and store the jam in the refrigerator for up to 3 months or

I Have a New Salmon Recipe!

I just can't share it with you yet. You see, if I share it with you my mother will see it and then she will make it before I have a chance to make it for her. I really like salmon but stopped making it as it was always, well...always the same. I told my mom I was looking for something new and she said, "Be sure to give it to me. I'm looking for a new salmon recipe too." She makes a mean salmon and while she makes some of the best salmon I have ever had she makes it the same way each time too.

Just about everyone I asked during my search told me they were looking for a new salmon recipe. Salmon boredom must be an epidemic. Well guess what? I have one!

Sometimes when I discover a new recipe and it rates as "dinner party caliber" I can get very possessive and secretive about it until I have had a chance to serve it up to the various groups I like to invite over. "Dinner Party Caliber" recipes aren't too hard to make but they have that certain something extra that signifies it is something "special". The recipe should have enough 'play' in it so it would be unlikely anything tragic will happen and ruin everything in the final moments. (I know those among you who like to entertain you exactly know what I mean, from experience.) So when I find such a recipe, its golden and must be fully exploited before it is shared.

Can you guess that my Mom reads this blog? Mom, you'll be getting an invitation shortly!

"T'aarof Bread Pudding"

Persian culture has a fascinating custom called "T'aarof"that can be somewhat exasperating if you are unfamiliar with its complexities. It is a form of civility comprised of an abundance of polite phrases, language, and behaviors that can get rather extreme if you are not aware of what is going on. At its most artful it is a verbal dance allowing you time figure out the intentions of the other party. If you are at someone's house and they offer for you to stay and have dinner, t'aarof dictates that you immediately refuse even if you would like very much to stay. You are allowing for your hostess to have offered out of politeness. She might not really want you to stay. Get it? She will offer again, but then again you will refuse. This will go on at least three times while each of you figures out the real intentions of the other. If you should actually stay for dinner you will find yourself in an endless round of 'taarof as the hostess offers you more food but you must refuse for fear of looking like a glutton. She will offer again, of course. You can accept on the third offer, if it is made. In the world of 'taarof you have to be careful as you could end up either hungry or overstuffed depending on how you play it.

As you can gather, this is extremely difficult to the newbie or unskilled. And while you are permitted to request no t'aarof-ing ("t'aarof nakonid"), that itself is a suspect request that could be t'aarof! As a westerner just being introduced to Persian culture I was unfamiliar with what was going on. It lead to some unusual, awkward, and often humorous moments while I figured this custom out. You should have seen the looks I got on one of our first dates when I immediately accepted an offer of the hostess to send me home with leftover food! They sure had a laugh at that one while I tried to explain that in my culture it would have been rude to refuse such an insistent request. And imagine my surprise when I once complimented a gentleman on his watch and he very insistently offered to give it to me!

There are other forms of t'aarof but mostly the practice involves saying a lot of things that you might not really mean -- knowing all the time you won't be taken literally because the other party knows you don't mean it. Got that? The overriding value, however, is always about showing proper humility while doing all you can to be hospitable. Eventually, what I at first found to be somewhat annoying and puzzling is now quite charming. I marvel at its masters.

So what does this have to do with bread pudding you might ask? Good question! I realized the other day that I had been way too indoctrinated into the ways of t'aarof when my dear friend Michelle surprised me by taking me up on my offer to bring something to her dinner party.

"We are very excited to see you, what can we bring?"

She quickly responded with, "how about dessert?".

T'aarof would have dictated that Michelle refuse my offer! I totally expected her to say, "nothing!" and I would have brought wine anyway. Even if I had offered again she would have still been obliged under t'aarof to refuse me. I have grown so accustomed to a world filled with t'aarof that I forgot to realize Michelle, my dear friend since college, didn't play by the Persian rulebook. Duh!

Nevertheless, I took this for the huge compliment it was and quickly settled on bread pudding for my contribution. Michelle was entrusting me with the dessert at her dinner party and I wanted to be sure it was something great and deserving of the honor. Now, I have never really met a bread pudding I didn't like but when I saw this recipe on a blog I love I saved it away as a sure hit for some future dinner party I would host. Since t'aarof is all about doing more for others than you would do for even yourself I was quite honored to be making it for Michelle and her family.

I followed the recipe closely but left the bread crusts on as I was after a more rustic pudding. Make this just before your guests arrive and gently reheat just prior to serving. Be sure to go look at Jennifer's blog and the pictures she took of her prep of this wonderful pudding. I'll be making this one again for sure.

Apple Rum Raisin Bread Pudding
Inspired by Bon Appétit

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

⅔ cup raisins
2 tablespoons dark or spiced rum
2 cups whole milk
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla
4 cups packed Challah or Brioche pieces, cut into ¾-inch cubes (you'll need one loaf but you won't use all of it)
1 large tart baking apple such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, cut into ⅛-inch slices and cut in half.

For Serving
Vanilla Ice Cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 11x7-inch glass (or equivalent 2-quart) baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Place raisins and rum in a shallow bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Let raisins soak in rum while you prepare other ingredients.

3. Whisk milk, eggs, sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, salt and vanilla in large bowl to blend. Add challah cubes, sliced apples and raisins with rum and fold together with a large spatula. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish, flatten with spatula and make sure apples and raisins are evenly distributed. Let stand 15 minutes.

4. Bake bread pudding until top is golden and center is set, about 55-65 minutes. Spoon into bowls, top with vanilla ice cream and serve.

Saturday Haiku: The Morning After

Fun dinner party.

I kept refilling my wine.

Hello hangover!

The Valentine's Date Massacre

I don't really have a fondness for Valentine's Day. Its not that I have a problem with the celebration of love in all its forms. Its just that why single out just one of its forms? The focus of the day should be on telling people OTHER than yours significant other that you love them. Don't you think? As a day for one-on-one love it never really worked out well for me. Remember how in elementary school when you were required to make valentines for the whole class? The teachers had the right idea: Valentine's Day is just better when attentions are focused on the many and not just on the one. Focusing on the one has been my downfall with the day, ever since the 3rd grade some smart-ass classmate of mine noticed that I had given my biggest valentine to one of the boys, not one of the girls He made merciless fun of me. (Apparently I had yet to develop the skill-set necessary to keep my secret out of view! I'm not sure I even knew what my secret was anyway.) The day has had a tendency to be unkind to me ever since! My friends, who know all my stories suggest I should write a book. Perhaps.

Contrary to what you might think, the worst Valentine's Days aren't when you are single but rather when you are 'not quite coupled'. In this state you are forced to submit to the pressures of the day and go through the motions even though you (and your date) aren't quite ready for prime time. What should be a regular date takes on new dimensions. Its on these types of Valentine's Days where I have had the most "colorful" experiences. On one particular such date (which my friends now refer to as "The Valentine's Date Massacre") my date, someone I had been seeing for a few weeks and who seemed nice enough, showed up with flowers (nice) and took me to a fancy restaurant close to my home (very nice!) Somewhere between salad and dinner he started to confide in me that he frequently violated the restraining order his former lover had on him by repeatedly calling him on the phone 50 times a day, stealing his mail, and putting nails in his car tires. By the time desert arrived (why did I order that souffle?) he was in tears and I was making plans to walk home in the slight hope that he would not remember where I lived. And that was one of my better dates.

The picture posted above is from what is I'm sure my favorite Valentine's Day. Isn't he cute? (I kept him.) I was so happy to be in love. Real love. No going through the motions for the sake of the day here. I spent days planning the perfect 6 course meal and pulled out all the stops. If you could see the appetizers on that platter you would see that they were heart shaped crostini piped with pink salmon cream. In fact, several of the dishes that night were heart shaped! I decorated the room with a flock of 50 red birds whirling about in an homage to an inside joke that we share. (You can see only a few of them in the photo.) I was in heaven: in love and cooking a special dinner for someone I truly loved. I was so excited, in fact, that I lost track of how many pink cocktails I had been drinking and passed out --waking up a few hours later only to vomit and crawl in bed! Wasn't THAT a special evening? Good times.

Despite that awkward display of love (thankfully he did not take out a restraining order after that) we are still together. I'm not going to tell you what we are doing this Valentine's but suffice it to say it is a much lower key affair these days. Just the way I like it. Also, we try to do stuff for our friends and family and our friends who are our "family" --the people we love dearly but don't get to tell we love as often as we should.

I guess we prefer to share our messages of love with the many and not just the one -- just as our teachers thought was best.

Saturday Haiku: Valentine's Day

High expectations?

Who needs a day to show love?

Halmark Holiday!

Food Porn

For many food bloggers the photograph of their creation is as important as the sharing of a recipe. Posting a picture is the digital equivalent of presenting a meal to an appreciative family. Comments on your post would then be the 'oohs' and 'aahs'. As self esteem boosts go, the Holy Grail is winning the acceptance of The Powers That Be at Food Gawker or Tastespotting. These sites aggregate photos from food blogs (with links to their corresponding posts), selecting what they consider to be only the best quality food shots. (Not recipes!) Food bloggers hate them and love them -- all at the same time. Their decisions can seem arbitrary at times and it is very frustrating when what you think is a great shot gets passed over. The reward for acceptance, however, is a huge increase in blog traffic and the thrill of seeing your photo on their site. Paying these sights too much attention, however, has its down side. Its easy to spot the bloggers who worry too much about the shot and not enough time worrying about the whole post itself. Also, its not good when bloggers start to doubt themselves because their photos get rejected frequently. The photos below were rejected for having "lighting issues, dull, unsharp focus."

Yesterday's photo of corn muffins, however, got accepted at both sites. I didn't really even consider the photo all that great. I submitted it just for kicks after a blog friend wrote about his own self doubt at the hands of these sites. They had rejected several of my photos in a row and I just didn't want to be a glutton for punishment. I cook in a real kitchen after all, not a photo studio. I work all day so I cook at night and therefore do not have great lighting. So most of my photos get rejected. So what? Who cares? I don't. But I do. Its both. If its not important, why did it feel so good still to get accepted?

I will say this, the featured photos at these sites ARE gorgeous and you can spend hours paging through the amazing recipes and photos. I often go there first when looking for a special recipe. Food bloggers are a wealth of information and seeing their step by step photos is much more useful than going to a recipe book. Bloggers are some of the friendliest people around and will usually ALWAYS respond to a comment or question. Just try doing that with a cookbook editor! Use the search function, find a picture that looks good, then jump to the blog. Leave comments.

Ooh and aah.

Corn Muffins? When Did I Eat Corn Muffins?

It was a dark and stormy day and not feeling very creative, I put my 'go to' Chicken Chili with White Beans into the crock pot. Usually I would pull out a few more stops for a good friend visiting from London but all I had the energy for was to pull out the crock pot. Besides, I knew he would be quite jet-lagged and I had all the ingredients at hand. I put two bottles of white wine in the fridge in anticipation of his arrival. (Yes, two bottles. We had a lot of catching up to do.) I browsed the internet while I awaited his arrival. I hadn't dropped in on the beautiful Jennifer at Once Upon A Chef blog in a long time so clicked on over to her and landed smack dab on her most recent post: Savory Corn Bread with Cheddar and Thyme! Now, I'm not a big fan of corn bread. I find most of it way too sweet for my tastes but this one, with only a 2.5 TBS of sugar and loaded with thyme and cheddar seemed a perfect accompaniment to chili. I had leftover thyme on hand so this was a no-brainer. I had newfound energy to cook for my friend! Her recipe turns out a dozen muffins which only need to be baked about 22 minutes.

And check out what she had posted on just one day before her corn bread! White Bean and Chicken Chili. Great minds Jennifer, great minds! (You can bet I'm going to make your version next!)

Make Something, Buy Something...

he best advice comes from Ina (as usual.) When it comes to entertaining: "Make something, then buy something." That was our approach last night when we hosted our dearest friends. We hadn't seen them in so long that neither of us wanted to pull kitchen duty and miss out on the chit-chat. There is a great family owned Persian restaurant a couple blocks away so that became our theme. We made the Shiraz salad and the Maast-o Khiar (yogurt w/cucumber) and ordered the rest. The hardest part of our evening was keeping the cocktail glasses full!

Just because you are ordering out doesn't mean you shouldn't ditch the take out containers and artfully arrange the food. Here we are waiting for the guests (and dinner) to arrive:


Dinner is ready!


Oh, and no, we didn't even watch "The Game". Good times.

Saturday Haiku: Super Bowl

I don't get team sports.

I do not know Saints from Colts.

I just cook the food.

WTF is this "snack"?

So I haven't written about my Zone Diet Delivery plan in awhile. This is most likely because it has become something of routine. Each day brings another day's worth of food but I would hardly call the contents exciting -- or creative. Now, I'm really not a picky eater and I am a realist when it comes to these things. This is a diet after all and not a gourmet chef's tasting. Ultimately, all the diet has to do is provide edible food under The Zone 'prescription' in calories low enough to lose weight. After about 3 weeks saw that 'variety' is not one of the primary attributes I would assign to The Zone Diet Delivery. Breakfasts are usually scrambled eggs with something veggie like tucked in. Twice we have had a blintzy thing. (One was quite good while the other was stuffed with canned corned beef hash, feh.) Lunches are almost always salads made with cheap lettuce greens and some sort of meat protien. Additionally, each day has a Zone Perfect bar as a snack. So far there have been only two kinds of Zone Perfect bars despite their website showing over 20 different varieties. (My guess is that they got a good deal on soon to expire or overstock bars.)

I still really do love the convenience and I have lost some weight (although that has stalled with about 5 more pounds left to go -- despite my near religious adherence to the diet.) Some of the meals don't really seem all that Zone if you ask me so I wonder who is actually certifying these meals as Zone? On the upside, I have managed to stay out of the lunchroom at work, I feel better and I'm seldom hungry.

Which gets us to this snack pictured above! What the f*ck is it? I'll tell you what its made of: A slice of eggplant, a couple slices of cucumber, a dusting of parmesan cheese, some boxed seasoned croutons (the kind that no human should ever eat) and to finish it off, banana chips. (Yes, I said banana chips. )

WTF? I didn't see that one on the sample menu page. In fact, I haven't seen much of what is described on the sample menu page.

I am learning, however, that if I want to continue with this diet on my own, its not going to be that hard. Apparently, no special recipes needed. Or ingredients.