Covid Cafe: Memorial Day in Memorium

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NYT front page yesterday listing 1000 names of people who died of Covid-19

(1% of the total)

modified to make a point 

source unknown

Music

Neko Case 

This Tornado Loves You

 

Covid Cafe: Madoline Practice Continues

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Gwen's practicing with her new mandoline, chefs, and she returns today to update us. Just FYI, she did not cut the cedar slabs below...

Gwen writes: My first attempt with my Super Benriner Mandoline was a french-fry cut (apparently a plus as far as my husband was concerned). Unfortunately, the potato did not cut well. But I’m not throwing in the tea towel just yet. I've decided the problem could have been that the potato needed to be cut smaller or in some way differently.

In the meantime, I was able to slice eggplant and beets without a problem. The thin shave, creating a different shape of vegetable, is a nice alternate texture and not something I could have done with a knife.

Dinner was:

--Beef with onion, allspice, olive oil, lemon and garlic

--Falafel

--Grilled eggplant with olive oil, tomato and, feta

--Rice with chickpeas, lemon peel, onion, garlic, parsley and olive oil

--Yogurt with cucumbers, garlic, olive oil, mint and, lemon and...harissa (hot sauce)

?

Another mandoline success: apples shaved to top a cherry tart and that worked well.

Looking forward to more practice!

(I am standing outside your back door with a dish for leftovers...)

Rob walks Chicago: spring morning

Poetry

From Chinese poet Li Po 

On Drinking Alone by Moonlight

Here are flowers and here is wine, but where’s a friend with me to join

Hand in hand and heart to heart in one full cup before we part?

Rather than to drink alone I’ll make bold to ask the moon

To condescend to lend her face the hour and the scene to grace.

Lo, she answers, and she brings my shadow on her silver wings;

That makes three, and we shall be, I ween, a merry company.

The modest moon declines the cup, but shadow promptly takes it up,

And when I dance my shadow fleet keeps measure with my flying feet.

But though the moon declines to tipple, she dances in yon shining ripple,

And when I sing, my festive song, the echoes of the moon prolong.

Say, when shall we next meet together? Surely not in cloudy weather,

For you my boon companions dear come only when the sky is clear.

Still planting

Video

The Aurora Australis in Antarctica

Showing a full aurora and the Milky Way simultaneously

Covid Cafe: Sopa Terra and Pickled Beets

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Good day, chefs. I awoke exceedingly early today with a decidedly unseasonable taste for vegetable curry. I use this Mark Bittman chicken curry recipe to start, slicing and sauteing the onions with garlic and fresh ginger before adding double the tomatoes, double the coconut milk, triple the curry powder, and a whole host of chopped vegetables, today cauliflower, carrot, cabbage, and zucchini. No chicken.

Red cabbage makes pink curry

Make what sounds good to you. It's a holiday after all. Today Connie bring us an intriguing soup that you could make with things from a decently-stocked pantry and Rob gives us a quick lesson in pickled beets.

Sopa Terra

 

Connie writes: Years ago, a friend gave me a recipe for a “brown soup” she called sopa terra. It could easily be converted to suit vegetarians by using vegetable stock, though I can’t imagine it without the bacon topping. Fast and easy yet deeply satisfying.

In food processor, chop onion and garlic. Sauté in saucepan in melted butter until limp. 

Purée tomatoes in same processor (no need to clean it first) and add to onions and garlic, cooking over high heat for about 5 minutes. 

Blend beans with a bit of stock in processor and add to tomato mixture. Cook 5 more minutes. Add remaining broth and chili powder (I like a bit extra) and cook 10-15 minutes longer.  

To serve, place cubed or sliced cheese in bottom of bowl. Add hot soup and top with bacon. The hot soup melts the cheese. I like it with a few tortilla chips. 

(Ed note: and clearly with a lot of bacon!)

Sopa Terra

1 clove garlic

1 onion

3 T butter

2 med tomatoes or one can, partially drained

2 cans pinto beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups chicken stock

1/2 tsp chili powder or more

Fixings

1/4 pound Munster cheese, sliced or cubed

Bacon pieces

Yesterday I inter-planted these

Bumblebee cherry tomatoes with the greens

Pickled Beets

Rob sent us these pretty pix with a note: 

Fresh out of the steamer, ready to be peeled and assembled.

 

Beets, orange slices, sprig of rosemary, sweet vermouth, red wine, cloves, and ginger. 

Rob used a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, which requires a subscription, but you can find numerous iterations online. 

These beauties are ready for the fridge and will last a month.

Poetry

Bath

By Amy Lowell

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
       The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
       Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

Music

Mana 

Rayando El Sol

Covid Cafe: It's All About The Slaw

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How do we celebrate Memorial Day in a pandemic, chefs? Maybe same as we always have, with ribs and chicken, a gin fizz and slaw. Anyone making one of those sheet cakes decorated with fruit like a flag? Or is that fourth of July food? I'm losing track...and for some reason I have a hankering for chocolate pudding. 

Show us what you're making this long weekend...

Fetal beets,

for planting out today

I flat-out love this slaw and it's because of the dressing. Like most slaws, this one is eminently adjustable, but I recommend trying the dressing as written the first time. Our good pal Rob has been making this for 10+ years and we're always delighted to have it on the table.

For the bulk,

cabbage or a variety of chopped veggies

Blackberry Farm’s Sweet and Spicy Foothills Coleslaw (aka Rob's Slaw)

For maximum crunch, this zippy variation on classic coleslaw should be made no more than 2 hours before serving.

 Ingredients

• 3 Tbs. Dijon mustard 
• 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 
• 3 Tbs. malt vinegar 
• 1 1/2 tsp. mustard seed oil or very spicy mustard such as English or German 
• 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, plus more, to taste 
• 1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper, plus more, to taste 
• 1 cup mayonnaise 
• 3 cups thinly sliced red cabbage 
• 3 cups thinly sliced green cabbage 
• 1 1/2 cups shredded carrots 
• 3/4 cup shredded red onion

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk together the Dijon mustard, brown sugar, malt vinegar, mustard seed oil, the 1 1/2 tsp. salt and the 1/4 tsp. pepper, whisking until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in the mayonnaise. 

Add the red and green cabbages, the carrots and onion and toss until the vegetables are coated. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. 

Strain the coleslaw (ed note: or just increase the veggies to ten cups so you're not draining). Taste and season it with more salt or pepper if desired. Serves 6.


Adapted from The Blackberry Farm Cookbook, by Sam Beall (Clarkson Potter, 2009).

Well, it’s not all about the slaw. Oven baked spare ribs too. I’m heading out to plant 100 vegetable starts. Thanks for reading today's abbreviated Covid Cafe...

Covid Cafe: Ravioli Nation

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Chefs, please stay at a masked distance if you're with people outside your bubble. There's a lot about this virus we don't know. Today Holly returns with a multi-day ravioli effort based on the recipe of Rich's dear mother (and our friend) Anne...

Salad from our garden

Holly writes: This is a big process because you make the filling the day before and dough the day of. Then you cook the ravioli in boiling water, layer with sauce and Parmesan, and bake in the oven. 

The money shot first,

because I'm hungry

Anne's recipe is a little bit vague on the ingredients (meat?) and amounts of spices. She  used to date everything, so...8/8/88.

Crimping

Boiling

Look what Kay made for dessert...and it's not ice cream.

Kay says: For my granddaughter’s 21st birthday. Got to see her, but sadly no hugs.
It’s made to look like ice cream, with cake layers of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry…same for the icing. It's aptly named Neapolitan. The decoration on top is a rounded scoop of Neapolitan ice cream, frozen and dipped in chocolate.

 (A perfect finale to that ravioli lunch!)

Rob walks Chicago: lilacs

Poetry

Sheltered in Place

By Richard Levine

You watch your boy struggle with giving

up the turtle, returning it to the pond

where he’d found it on a walk—

first time you’d all been out in days.

How thoughtful he thought he’d been,

making it a home in the home

where the family...

Music

Julieta Venegas

Limon y Sal

Covid Cafe: Kimchi Kitchen

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One of six apple trees we planted:

Duchess of Oldenburg

 

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world

John Muir

Good morning, chefs. What are you making today? Are you grilling or sauteeing or planning on having egg salad later on fresh greens (that's us)? Rob's back today with an undertaking he'd been putting off. Our cafe kitchen smells veddy spicy...

Rob writes: I’m challenging myself to make stuff I always thought I would make but never did.  Today, it’s kimchi. I was attracted to a recipe by a Korean gentleman who wrote about watching his mother make kimchi.

This is a hands-on process that calls for first massaging the salt into the cabbage.

Then cover with water and place a plate on top to weigh down the cabbage for the two-hour brine.  Nothing better than the large Costco olive oil jug I stole from Heidi and Art while watering their plants.

Then a triple rinse to wash off the brine.

 Next make the spice paste. Here ginger, garlic, gochugaru, some sugar, and fish sauce.

Stir that around while the cabbage dries a bit more and add the other vegetables, daikon radish and scallions.

Time to put on the gloves, add the cabbage, and massage the paste onto every surface of every ingredient.

The slaw has to ferment for about five days, with a push down each morning to release fermentation bubbles.  I’ll let you know how it all comes out.  

Find the recipe here.

Poetry

Moss-Gathering

By Theodore Roethke

To loosen with all ten fingers held wide and limber

And lift up a patch, dark-green, the kind for lining cemetery baskets,

Thick and cushiony, like an old-fashioned doormat, 

The crumbling small hollow sticks on the underside mixed with roots, 

And wintergreen berries and leaves still stuck to the top, —

That was moss-gathering. 

But something always went out of me when I dug loose those carpets 

Of green, or plunged to my elbows in the spongy yellowish moss of the marshes:

And afterwards I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road, 

As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;

Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,

By pulling off flesh from the living planet;

As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration. 

Mallow

Music

Fkj & Masego - Tadow