Category Archives: food

Food, screens, mediums

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FOOD

Blistered string beans, mango salsa, and spiced salmon. Doesn’t get much better than this, especially when you don’t have to cook it!

(Finn’s wondering if I want that second slice of French bread?)

That was Thursday. Last night a neighbor dropped off lasagne and the most delicious chop salad ever. Oh, and a crunchy walnut-covered pastry filled with chocolate ganache. Let me say it was so rich and tasty that I’m glad we split it three ways.

Tonight I’m gonna try one of Jamie Oliver’s quick recipes. These tubers will get chopped on a cutting board drizzled with olive oil along with feta cheese and cilantro. Thirteen minutes in the microwave was his “cheat.” Also, I might mix in some couscous from a meal dropped off on Wednesday.

KNOWING

Here are two things I’ve recently learned about grief. One I’m glad to know, the other, not so much.

I’m glad to know that loss can and often does cause intense heaviness in the chest. My father died of a heart attack at the age of 54 and I know two people who have had “broken heart” heart attacks. Knowing the commonality of this physical symptom eases my mind.

What I’m less psyched to learn is that many folks observe that Year Two of grieving is much harder than Year One.

To that I say, great. Just great.

Yes, yes, the kind neighbors will move on, the meals will stop, but more what seems to get people is how the aching permanence of the loved one’s absence becomes more real.

I’m not seeking out depressing notions or dwelling on them (well, maybe a little), but things cross my screen and I notice them and sometimes I find myself telling you about them.

MEDIUMS

Just read another book about a local medium. For a person who can barely get through six paragraphs of a Booker Prize-winning novel, it’s very noticeable that I devoured this book in three sittings.

It wasn’t particularly well written but it didn’t matter. The point about the permeability between life and death was made over and over and that’s something I need to believe right now.

rosemary, salad, and root veggies

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I’ve never managed to overwinter a rosemary plant, so I’ve been harvesting the branches for a week or so. Tonight it’s supposed to go down to 32, so I finished up this afternoon.

After drying the branches on parchment paper for a couple days, it’s easy to peel most of the herb off. I don’t worry about getting every single blade of rosemary off because I’ll throw the stalks into stock pots.

Today I made potato leek soup. Good for a raw, rainy day like today.

We’re at the point in our shopping cycle when we’re “eating down the fridge.” Like to see it get fairly empty before stocking up again. It becomes a little bit of a game

Scene from Costco this weekend

This salad from last week was good, unusual for us. Butternut, chic peas, and cauliflower gave it a hearty, main course feel. There’s feta cheese and lots of escarole too. Obviously I used the ingredient list below as inspiration but not gospel.

Here it is served with salmon, rice, leftover coleslaw and peas, but really the salad could’ve been the main course.

Also last week, I tried out a new recipe for a root veggie gratin. Parsnips, rutabaga, turnips, and potatoes mashed up and then baked with Gruyère, Parmesan and some cream. I didn’t really like it maybe because of the texture. A little ick. Unfortunately, we have a ton leftover.

The best part of making that dish, honestly, was the comical grocery store scene. “Charlie! What’s this?” (holding the bulb aloft). Charlie: “Rutabaga! Code ####.” “Charlie! What’s this?” “Turnip! Code ####.” Of course I was naming them too but Charlie could supply the codes.

I often buy vegetables the clerks can’t identify. Endive. Ancho peppers. Broccoli rabe. Not sure if that says more about me or them.

Lamb, microphone, and louvres

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This was a Jamie Oliver recipe from his Five Ingredient series. It was only okay. Lamb, onions, eggplant, curry sauce and yogurt. I’m sure his was better partly because of his excellent fry pan that requires no oil (look at the pools of grease in mine!)

My cold cucumber soups vary in result pretty widely. If I stick to the Love & Lemons recipe, however, the batch tends to be good (a dash of honey instead of a dash of hot sauce). The soup I made two days ago was outstanding. Incentive enough to keep fresh dill in the house.

As Jamie Oliver likes to say, “I whacked it with a little olive oil.”

I learned how to use the microphone on my computer today. Sort of. I guess it needs to learn my speech patterns because so far its mistakes make the text nearly unintelligible. Also — it adds two spaces after periods. Really? Is that because I haven’t upgraded to Windows 11 yet?

I’ll keep at it. It’s more direct than recording a Note on my phone, emailing the Note to myself, and then copying that text into a word doc.

Blah. Blah. Blah. Right? Very minor compared to typepad closing down which, in my humble opinion, ranks as technology cataclysm.

This morning’s swap shop find. “Maybe I’ll cover a few pillows,” is a thing I tell myself.

Ken’s rebuilt doors (all six of them along the upstairs hallway) are a huge improvement to the old grubby louvred ones. Horrible to clean.

As usual, a wall and ceiling repair project grew and grew until it included replacing baseboard trim, sanding and painting chipped baseboards, updating the light fixture, and rebuilding every one of those six doors after cutting out the louvres.

Have a good Saturday! I am shortly off to my library’s semi-annual puzzle swap!

Tucson Chili

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Back when we were touring colleges with our younger son, we had a meal at a place called The Kingfisher in Tucson. An unremarkable place, really, but I was served a delicious and memorable chili. I replicated it as best I could at home. This is what I wrote down.

The TL; DR version of my recipe:

Make a pulled pork dinner one night.

Sometime in the next couple of days, cook up your usual chili and add all the leftover pork.

For my Tucson Chili this weekend, I used regular-old canned kidney beans, skipped the bacon, and added a little ground beef just cause it was in the fridge. I slow-cooked my pork shoulder for longer — at least three hours and maybe four.

My spice rub was homemade and I can’t begin to tell you what was in it, but we keep things on the mild side in this house. Likely cayenne, cumin, salt and some kind of paprika.

I did, however, chop half a dozen jarred jalepeno rings and throw them in. Worcestershire sauce? Three jigs. Red wine vinegar — couple tablespoons. And a few tablespoons of dried oregano. Also: two tablespoons of tomato paste.

For topping, I chose shredded cheddar cheese. Gooey and delicious!

This is high level comfort food, I must say, and given how raw and grey it’s been around here lately (do I live in a terrarium?), it was seasonal as well.

BTW because this stew relies so heavily on spices, veggie substitutions can be made without loosing the depth of flavor.

Veggie version:

Stir a pound of diced mushrooms in with the onions. Add three cloves of garlic. Cut up carrots (two?) into tiny diamonds and add those. Add two kinds of diced peppers. For broth, use jarred mushroom-flavor.

If you skip dairy toppings, this version is also vegan (come to think of it, I don’t know what’s in Worcestershire sauce so maybe skip that too?)

It probably goes without saying that the flavors will vary depending on the variety of mushrooms you select. I’ve used cremini and portobello to good effect. If you like shiitake (I don’t) they would bring a nice smokiness to the sauce. Be sure to add the water in which you soak them to the pot as well.

We walked over to Wegmans this morning. These are instructions on a large piece of machinery near the parking lot.

Easy mushroom bisque

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Last night the house republicans passed their country-torching reconciliation bill. It’s astonishingly bad. Bad for almost everyone except the very rich and not only that, it’s beyond fiscally irresponsible. Today is 5/23/25.

“Fiscally irresponsible” should apply to unfair tax laws that would require an opposing party to tweak the regs later for a course correction and not to a bill that shoves the American economy off a cliff. We’re talking generational damage.

Also: the bill is morally repugnant. They do not care, the GOP, who they kill or how many they kill. They do not care.

So I made soup. And I offer you the recipe. It’s important to nourish ourselves and our loved ones.

Mushroom Bisque

This yummy soup is based on a recipe devised by personal chef Elizabeth Germain’s uncle, Arthur Grasso. Grasso ran a restaurant and wrote a cookbook called, The Tulip Tree Cook Book. Please note that just because a recipe is easy to prepare doesn’t mean it won’t produce an off-the-charts delicious dish.

Because this recipe uses one pot and an immersion blender, prep is streamlined. Rough chopping the veggies allows speed and gives you time to make croutons, an especially nice touch with this creamy soup.

Today’s variation is below. Note that this recipe is forgiving. For instance, today I omitted celery and parsley and it was just fine.

Ingredients

Olive oil to coat the pan and two tablespoons butter.

One big onion, rough chopped

Four cups or so or rough chopped mushrooms, stems included

A fist-sized potato chopped into cubes (no need to peel if using Yukon Golds)

One carrot, chopped (no need to peel)

Chicken stock

Dashes of nutmeg and cayenne

Salt and pepper

A splash of heavy cream in the serving bowl (not necessary) (3 tablespoons?)

Steps

In a mix of olive oil and butter, sauté the onions a little before adding the mushrooms and then the carrots and potatoes. Depending on how much liquid the mushrooms release, you might need to add a little more oil. You want the onions and mushrooms cooked down and covered with the fats before adding any liquid. Add salt and pepper, cayenne, nutmeg.

Pour in your chicken stock. Homemade is best but honestly boxed or bouillon (or a combo) is just fine. Today I used 3/4 of a box of organic stock and 1 and 1/2 cups water with a tablespoon of jarred chicken bouillon.

Also, I threw in the two cloves of garlic and the sprig of rosemary from the crouton-making (see below).

Cook until potatoes and carrots are soft. If you added an herbal sprig, be sure to remove before the final step.

Blend. Adjust for salt and pepper. Always needs more salt in my estimation.

Puddle a little heavy cream in a bowl and add three ladles of soup. Stir. Add croutons. Go to Heaven.

Note: even without heavy cream, the soup is creamy and delicious. Also, sometimes, I add a dollop of cream fraiche at the end instead of cream.

Croutons

I toast sourdough cubes in the oven (crusts removed) and then brown them in an iron skillet with olive oil, herbs (here fresh rosemary), and two cloves of garlic. Stir. Add salt and pepper.

Save the crusts to make homemade bread crumbs at another time.

Note: As Grasso directs, I do sometimes sauté mushroom caps and dice them to add at the end. It adds a nice texture. Not necessary though, especially if you really want to keep it easy.

Today I forgot the fresh parsley. It’s always a nice addition.