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Category Archives: Food

The Simple Things

When the world has gone mad – and by all indications it has – it’s a good time to go quiet and focus on what is immediately at hand. It’s a form of mindfulness that, for me, puts the present moment (and whatever small task or action you are doing) into your brain, thus eliminating the empty space that worry and stress and doubt might otherwise occupy. In this manner, mindfulness can become a constant form of meditation throughout the day.

A couple of days ago, I set my evening focus on the pictured dish of linguini with red clam sauce, which Andy had lovingly made for a Friday in Lent. I thought of the care and preparation that went into it, the way he increased the recipe so as to send a batch to my parents, the repeated tasting he did to make sure it was progressing as it should (I always forget to taste what I’m making, which is basic Cooking 101 and why I’ve never truly excelled at it), and the delicate way he draped the pasta onto the plate so I could get a photo of it for this very post. 

From there, I focused on the visual feast before me – all delectable scarlet against cream with accents of fresh green, all backed by a plate of Robin’s egg blue. Watching the gentle ribbons of steam unfurl upward, and noticing the chip that seems to now be part of every plate we own, I took it all in, without judgment or annoyance (even the chip) before moving onto the scent. One eats using all the senses, and scent is one of my favorites. The earthen wheat-based coziness of the linguini melded with the spicy tomato into a familiar cocktail called dinner, and I paused, as much to appreciate the fragrance as to let it cool. A side of garlic bread completed the culinary cologne – all these gourmand fragrances coming out lately are no accident. 

Finally, there was the indulgence of eating – the way the fork felt in my hand, the way the plate was warm to the touch, the way the pasta wound around the fork – and finally the way it tickled my tongue, gave way between my teeth, and traveled into my stomach. All the magnificent taste sensations, all in the most mundane actions for human survival. The simple act of eating dinner, when performed mindfully, can be a soul-enriching experience, offering moments of gratitude and appreciation, and occupying the mind with the goodness of what’s presently happening. Does it make the reality of the world go away? Not at all. Soon enough, the news cycle re-entered consciousness, the social media nonsense continued its endless scroll, and the concerns of elderly parents re-emerged, but the mind was slightly more at ease, and a little more equipped to handle them.

That said, I won’t pretend I’m always this mindful, as much as it’s a goal. Take this chocolate chip cookie from Stacks Coffeehouse in downtown Albany. The other day I popped in for a quick lunch break and just scarfed it down, without being the least bit mindful. I was hungry, and it was sweet. End of story. 

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Cake of a Cup

A comfort post for the tumultuous start of March.

A cupcake from Andy.

A plate by Marimekko.

Glimmers of giddiness, reminiscent of summer with this cheery plate and sugary treat.

Perfect for the month in which spring returns, however she may return. 

A cupcake cannot cure the ills of the world.

And how many more ills seem to be dropped upon us with each passing day. 

Yet for a moment, for a brief spell of suspended day, I’m going to pretend.

The subtle thrill of a mid-day sweet treat.

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The Sweet Heat

My ongoing obsession with Tara Kitchen and their Moroccan recipes finds me making a valiant effort in capturing the essence of their Chicken Tagine with Pomegranate, Carrots and Harissa. This is the dish that Andy ordered on our first dinner at Tara Kitchen, and it was a wonder. The delicious trick at the heart of what makes it so good is the balance of sweetness from the pomegranate molasses and honey with the spicy heat from the harissa – and the end result is a wondrous experience for the mouth and tongue. Hats off to Chef Aneesa Waheed on another glorious tagine recipe. I’m slowly making my way through the ones she has posted on the Tara Kitchen website, and eagerly awaiting her cookbook…

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A Hug From the Inside Out

The best dinner dish is one that makes you feel like you are being hugged from the inside out, and those meals are usually one part comfort food, one part elegance, and one part spice. In these winter months, the spicier the dish, the more indulgently warm and welcome they are. For this Moroccan chicken recipe from Tara Kitchen, the make-up employs preserved lemons and olives with raisins and spices for its opening flavor and kick. 

Opening up with a more lasting and resonant warmth, the Moroccan spice mix Ras El Hanout lends it a complex heat and sparkle, with some additional cumin, coriander and black pepper adding another layer of flavor to the mix. This is the ideal winter comfort food meal – hearty and spicy, but not overtly hot, with delicious pops and accents of acidity with the preserved lemons and olives, tempered beautifully by the handful of raisins and some fresh parsley. 

Certain dishes dispel the cold and darkness of winter, and I’ve already made this one twice in as many days because it does that so well. 

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Dazzler of the Day: Aneesa Waheed

Those who understand the magical alchemy between good food and good company inherently know how to dazzle just about everyone. As such, Aneesa Waheed is named Dazzler of the Day for her inspired enthusiasm for sharing good food with the world. She’s opened three local establishments of her creation, Tara Kitchen, and I was fortunate to finally have dinner with some dear friends at the Troy location. The website for her culinary creations can be found here, and is worth several deep dives – the blog alone offers videos and recipes for some amazing dishes. While there, you can also delve into Waheed’s marvelous story of how she came to craft such delicious Moroccan-inspired fare, with elements of all of her world-wide journeys adding delectable accents and unexpected delights to the global comfort food forming the basis of her menus. And speaking of those menus – they are worth a slow and teasing read-through before your visit, when you can request a detailed explanation of your favorites. We have just begun our Tara Kitchen journey, and I can’t wait to visit again. 

(Be sure to scroll down to her video recipe of chicken with preserved lemons and olives, a dish I just made, and it was simply insane.)

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Moroccan Hygge

Our friends Gloria and Meredith treated Andy and I to our first dinner at Tara Kitchen the other night and it was an absolute revelation. Unsure of whether the giddiness was from the company or the delicious food, it made for an evening of joy that had me scrambling to find out more about Tara Kitchen, and trying out some tagine recipes, starting with this Vegetable Tagine as seen in full here.

The main thrust of flavor comes from the Ras El Hanout, which I did my best to assemble from scratch – about 12 different spices that combine into one magical mixture that you can keep on hand. I made a big batch since I intend to try out several recipe in the coming weeks. Moroccan tagines are the perfect accompaniment to the season of hygge – warming and hearty, comforting and pleasant, and spicy enough to heat things up in the most frigid of winters. When the spices were mixed well together, this was the beautiful result:

Once they hit the heat, all sorts of delicious aromas broke out, and the kitchen was filled with hope and happiness just ready to dance on the tongue. This veggie tagine was a lovely introduction to Tara Kitchen, and I strongly recommend you give them a try. Check out their website here, which comes complete with recipes and items for purchase (in case you don’t want to make your own Ras El Hanout). 

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Lemon Cardamom Life

After conquering my fear of yeast and dough with this ensaymada moment, I turned my attention to a recipe that Suzie brought to us a while ago – a recipe that she has made for us twice already at my relentless urging. It’s a sweet Lemon Cardamom Roll that is simple of ingredient (the only things you may not have on hand are the lemons and cardamom and buttermilk, maybe the yeast if you’re like me) and relatively simple of assembly. The main thing I had to come to terms with in these yeast recipes is the double rise that is integral to puffy and light results. Before that, their appearance can be a little scary, and the first look at how they fill (or don’t quite fill) the prescribed 9″ x 13″ pan had me panic-texting Suzie. 

It’s an exercise in patience and method, inhabiting and experiencing every step of the process, not rushing, and trusting in the yeast and the rise. The mindfulness that can be a part of baking has only just started to reveal itself. It’s something that Suzie has enjoyed for years, and one of the reasons her work turns out so well. 

As for the second rise in this instance, it worked! The rolls spread out and filled their pan, and they weren’t done yet…

Swirls of sugar and lemon zest and cardamom, delineated by a layer of butter, is the perfect embodiment of hygge, and a lovely, cozy, comfort food designed for sharing. And still, it wasn’t quite done…

A cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon juice frosting is the decadent touch that puts it right over the top. That only three ingredients could lead to such spectacular flavor is a marvel that never fails to thrill me. Baking is good for the soul

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Of Soup and Sustenance

Getting enough fluids in the body on a daily basis seems to be a challenge for most people. (I’m decidedly not in this camp, as I luckily love water and get in at least 8 glasses a day.) For everyone else, making sure to receive enough of the wet stuff is a burden, and the only way others seem to make it happen is through soda and juice and other questionably-healthy alternatives. To ensure that we get as much as possible during these arid and dry air months, soup is a lovely option, doubling as a source of heat and coziness. Like a cup of hot tea, a bowl of soup seems to warm everything, from the heart to the mind to the body. Cradled in one’s hands, it is a comfort on the cold days at hand, and can be assembled in as simple or complex fashion as one deems worthy. 

For the soup pictured here, I just put together a basic broth and added a hefty dose of greens (kale and spinach and boy choy) to get some of the vitamins we need. From there, the options are without limit – for some protein I used a seven-minute egg. If you’re looking for something slightly heartier, the addition of rice or noodles would work wonders, as would chicken or other poultry (turkey soup is an unheralded joy). And all the while you are getting some of that essential liquid to keep the body running well in the winter. Sip well. 

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A Magnificent Cider Doughnut

My parents enjoy a doughnut for breakfast, so I’d been making weekly deliveries of the fresh cider doughnuts that George’s Landscaping was offering, right up until the end of the calendar, when they informed me that the cider doughnut enterprise was going away for the winter, to return in the spring. It was a let-down, as they were the closest and easiest way to get fresh doughnuts to Amsterdam, but there are more doughnut options in the area, as evidenced by this glorious specimen from Cider Belly Doughnuts, which is right in downtown Albany.

The parking in downtown Albany is questionable on a good day, and right after a winter storm it’s a veritable nightmare, but I braved it on a recent Sunday morning and got the goods to get my parents through the next few days. Of course, the delivery guy got a couple for himself in the process, as it should be. Biting into a fresh and warm cider doughnut on a cold winter morning is hygge at its best. It warms the entire heart and soul. Check out Cider Belly Doughnuts if you need a fix.

 

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Chocolate Chip Giddiness

It’s been a week of comfort food, starting with this bruschetta, moving on with a chicken curry and a bowl of pho, and now we complete a meal with this chocolate chip cookie plate. Winter is made for cooking like this, with the oven doubling as a pricey space heater, and the results warming the stomach and the heart. 

This chocolate chip cookie was my standard go-to version as seen here. After making my wy through the yeast and dough process for ensaymada, returning to this simple recipe was a quick and easy joy. I made enough for Andy and myself, our parents, and even Suzie’s family. Sharing is caring. 

Feeling slightly whimsical and crazy, a condition brought about by the unexpected absence of the full two cups of nuts the original recipe calls for, I added shredded coconut and white chocolate chips in their place – a switch that tastes just as decently as walnuts would have. Sometimes a substitute is the best way to try new things. 

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Andy’s Winter Antidote

This is merely an almost-bite of Andy’s perfecting of a chicken curry dish which has taken over two decades to reach this blissful state of warmth and deliciousness. It is the perfect antidote to a winter’s day, and even better during the early arrival of a winter’s night. This dish rivals that of Mom’s beef stew, to which Andy has also added his special touch. Comfort food to warm the heart. 

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Bruschetta Bravado

Not so long ago, the main deterrence from me trying a recipe was the amount of chopping and cutting involved, along with the amount of bowls and utensils used. I’ve since come to find the simple enjoyment in the process – and in every step of the process – a component of mindfulness, and a way of clearing the head form distraction and worry. That’s not an easy feat with everything going on, and so I keep busy with something like bruschetta.

This version is an easy one – just some garlic and olive oil heated to the point where the rawness is gone, but no browning is happening, then the diced fresh tomatoes, finely cut ribbons of fresh basil, and some sliced scallions. A healthy dose of salt and pepper, and a few chili flakes complete the flavor index. 

Andy found these toast rounds at The Fresh Market, which makes this so much easier to assemble. As much as I just claimed to be embracing every step of something like this, if there’s an easy fix, why not go for it? It allows for more serious meditation time later on. 

These are just a little too crunchy at the start for my liking, but the time it takes to put the tomato mix on the toast and drive them over to Amsterdam for dinner with the family is just long enough to soften them up. Tutti a tavola a mangiare!

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Snow Pho

Acknowledging that the correct pronunciation of ‘pho’ does not work as well in this blog post title, not enough people know that to take offense. On the day that the big blizzard hit the Northeast coast, bypassing us for the most part, I took time to make a batch of pho from scratch, broiling the bones and onions, then boiling them with the aromatics for a few long hours – long because I was eager to devour the broth and its accompanying noodles. 

Just as important as the bones and aromatics are the fresh accompaniments – basil and cilantro and scallions and bean sprouts. I can’t find Thai basil anywhere, which is the only shame about this situation.  A drizzle of sriracha added to the heat, a buffer against the descending temperatures. While the storm skirted us this time, winter remains. A dish like this almost makes winter worth the while. 

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The Enjoyment of Ensaymada

The kitchen day started in decidedly inauspicious fashion. After loosely reading of some online hoax of hard-boiling an egg in the microwave, I decided to try it, figuring that it couldn’t explode in thirty or forty seconds, the prescribed length to make it happen. And for that first attempt, it did not explode. In fact, as I peeled it open, it hadn’t even cooked anything other than the shell, and the raw egg spilled into the garbage, where it belonged. Undaunted – an attitude that I made a promise to hold throughout whatever happened in the kitchen that day – I tried again, popping another egg into a bowl and covering it with a paper towel. Yes, a paper towel. And just a paper towel. Since thirty seconds didn’t do anything the first time, I let it whirl for a full minute. 

And in the event that anyone was contemplating this, don’t: an egg will explode in the microwave in less than sixty seconds. Somewhere around the 45 second mark, a muted explosion startled me from my motions by the oven. I knew what had happened instantly and was afraid to look. Andy, somehow, hadn’t been signaled by the noise, as I peeked in to see him watching television, unaffected. Once I got most of the mess cleaned up, I yelled in to him that it wasn’t possible to hardball an egg in the microwave, just so he knew. 

“You’re kidding me, right?” he asked. 

“No, you really can’t. It doesn’t work. It exploded.”

And then Andy exploded in laughter.

Luckily, I didn’t need a hard-boiled egg for the ensaymada recipe I had planned on making. While Suzie has been nudging me to try baking some buns, such as the exquisite lemon cardamom buns she made for a brunch many moons ago, I’ve usually shied away from it (except in this one surprisingly successful instance). The idea of dough – and the rising and cutting and rolling out of said dough – frightened me. That was it – I was afraid. While Suzie didn’t trust the yeast part of the process, afraid it wouldn’t rise, I was afraid of the consistency and stickiness and stubbornness of the dough. When I can’t get something off my hands, I get easily annoyed. 

On this day, however, Suzie and I texted our new mantra when it came to being afraid: fuck it. (I think it was something we said in relation to something completely different, but it has become a catch-phrase we use for everything, including the hesitation of a yeast-based dough.) I went into the kitchen with an open mind and the intention to enjoy the process of making dough, no matter how challenging or disappointing it might be. Considering the planned recipe, I’m rather surprised I was able to keep that mindset.

Ever since visiting the Philippines in 1997, I’ve been a fan of ensaymada. It was what I had for breakfast most days there – a seemingly simple light and flaky roll, topped with a sweet butter topping and a layer of shredded cheese. Yes, cheese, which sounds weird, but ends up working better than I ever believed it could. When I returned home, I’d occasionally pick up some plastic-wrapped ensaymada rolls every few months to get my fix, and then they stopped being available at the local Asian markets. Looking online, I found a couple of recipes for how to make it, and with some brioche baking forms, a new packet of yeast, and an emboldened spirit of adventure and fun in the kitchen, I got to work with Suzie’s encouragement. 

For that first attempt, I used the recipe found here from Foxy Folksy. I liked the way the dough worked, but in my haste and enjoyment of the process, I was less careful than I usually am, forgetting the salt (oops!) and then neglecting the second rise (double oops!) and it turns out the second rise is key to the light and fluffy consistency that is essential to ensaymada. Those first rolls went into the oven uprisen and dense, and when they didn’t puff up to triple their size, I felt a tinge of disappointment, but went on undaunted. That was, after all, the theme of the day. And since I’d only put in half of the dough, I inadvertently gave time for the second half to rise a bit. When that batch went in, they were serviceable. Not great, but decent enough, and Suzie came by to try it out. The flavor was there, even if the consistency was not. We sat on the attic floor, surrounded by candles and light, and had a moment of hygge with this first try at ensaymada. Denmark and the Philippines were colliding in Loudonville, New York, while old friends met for a new experience 46 years into this life. 

The next day, fortified by a new confidence in dough, I tried a different ensaymada recipe from Riverten Kitchen. This time I added the salt, and did the second rise properly, and they turned out much better. I’m still going to experiment a bit more to get that chewy yet flakey consistency, but these are pretty good, and the fear of dough has been conquered.

A beautiful new practice to see us through the winter. 

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On the Winter Sauce

My winter sauce is soup these days, and on such frigid days soup is the only sauce I need. Here are glimpses of the making of a Tom Yum soup, with a variation of chicken instead of the traditional prawns. (Prawns not being readily available in upstate New York’s tundra at the moment.) While substituting the chicken for the shellfish changes the flavors decidedly, the other ingredients remain true to the Tom Yum spirit, and its spicy origin. 

Fresh ginger, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves, along with a hefty dose of chilis and chili sauce and chili oil add the requisite heat – and that’s precisely what this winter needs. 

I made a batch for my parents to stave off the wintry weather and keep the cold at bay. It is said that this is one of those soups that aids any ailment. Not sure how true or scientific that is, but soup is good for the soul, especially if there’s chicken in it. Or noodles. Consider it my bastardization of the traditional Tom Yum soup. 

This colander of udon noodles added some heft to the soup I had left, and made for a cozy dinner. A seven-minute egg never hurt any bowl of soup either. 

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