fryday friday

in the kitchen I am happiest when I am frying.  One reason is that frying takes the whole cooking process and condenses it into a continuously visible, uninterrupted sequence.  It resembles those nature documentaries where the camera shows us tiny buds developing into full blooms, compressing weeks of growth into seconds.  One is never out of touch with the food one is frying, even for a moment, and I find that very satisfying….

fried food must be eaten promptly, and cannot be reheated.  In Naples they have a phrase for saying that one thing follows immediately upon another. It is frienno magnanno, which means, literally, frying and eating. And that is how it should be done.

marcella hazan, more classic cooking (1978)

and that is what we did. although the night ended in a resonant and reverential reading of Marcella, it began with Paula Deen.

turns out, our stunning drag performer darling is also a sick fry cook. The night we met, in the back garden of Ginger’s bar at Brooklyn Pride, we talked Paula Deen and fell into the deep fryer of food love. Fry night has been pending ever since. Come to think of it—Paula’s how I baited the preacher eater too. Seems i owe Ms. Deen some gratitude.

our all you can fry event was an appropriate homage to the reigning queen of the deep fryer as well as a revelation to our visiting vegan friend from Sweden, the founding co-chair of the International High End Perverts Society (also the photographer, gratzi). Oreos, as it turns out, are vegan. And vanilla pancake batter, made with almond milk and egg replacer, fries up real nice.

the drag artist manned the fry pot in an old tourist’s souvenir “California” apron. the Texas fairy orchestrated a pile of golden okra nuggets that filled my great grandmothers punch bowl. reshma sprawled at the table—like Alice big from the Drink Me bottle in our kitchen too tiny for all her graceful limbs—dredging pickles with the enthusiasm only possible from a far-from-home Midwesterner with State Fairs in her heart.

fry me to the moon

This is what we fried:

vegan corn fritters

okra

breaded fresh mozzarella rounds

hallumi cubes tossed in flour & cornmeal

potato fritters with broccoli rabe and spinach

pickles

feta stuffed green olives

marinated artichokes

sprigs of flowering broccoli rabe

whole garlic cloves

morning star faux sausage

pineapple

oreos

mini-snickers bars

ring dings

fudge

in our orgiastic feasting, we surpassed ourselves before managing to fry up our marshmallows, cinnamon roll dough in a tube, and frozen butter slices. You can also fry beer, but we drank all ours.

of cabbages and kings (there were shoes in that bit too)

scape handler

Diogenes advised the young man, “If you lived on cabbage, you would not be obliged to flatter the powerful.”  To this, the courtier replied, “If you flattered the powerful, you would not be obliged to live on cabbage. “

we still had a pound and a half of cabbage after the preacher eater’s adventure in kimchi.  The fermenting project netted us a huge jar of fruity-peppery, gingery pickled cabbage and carrots with plenty to gift to the neighbors, but half a head of Savoy and an entire red cabbage began accruing squatter’s rights in the left crisper drawer.

virtuous, humble and reliable, cabbage earned accolades in ancient Rome and held its own among the French Court of Catherine de Medici.  It plays mythical roles from beau diviner to baby-maker to  faerie land wormhole gateway.  Ubiquity and poor handling put this staple out of favor.  Outside of the obligatory 4^th of July coleslaw and a few dedicated sauerkrauters, we mostly avoid cabbage, rumored to generate stink as it cooks and after you eat it.  Like so many misunderstood foods, these unfortunate experiences are not really the cabbages’ fault, yet the stigma remains.

so she was gasping when she called me from the farm share pick-up, Guess what’s in the share? Cabbage!

we almost swapped that cabbage out.  Our CSA site has a box to trade stuff you might not want: hate broccoli?  take your neighbor’s unloved turnips.  One cook’s trash is after all…

we had a cart like that in grade school in the gym turned lunchroom. I kept my much maligned salami sandwiches to myself but always took a cruise around the table for anything interesting.  It was perpetually teaming with inside-out pb&j sandwiches mangled in transit, bashed up bananas, and overly red apples that you knew were mealy despite stiff and shiny skins.  Disappointing.  Although the CSA swap box held far more promise, the farmer was giving us Napa cabbage, a new variety for our growing collection.  Humbled to fate, perhaps, we decided to confront our cabbage surplus head on.

as soon as our newest cabbage arrived home, we went right for the heart, putting away 3 bunches of outer leaves and pulling the central leaves for instant salad.  We also shredded that lingering red cabbage, mixing half with shredded new beets and olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper—jarred this.

for Instant Gratification CSA Salad, combine a quarter of a red cabbage, shredded, with the innermost pale green leaves of Napa cabbage in a huge glass bowl.  Rinse a handful each of the finest of spinach and beet greens.  Stem the spinach and roll the beet greens up like a cigar, slice them and add to the other greens.  Scrub and slice thin three Japanese radishes—not those leg of lamb sized Daikon, these were round like typical red radishes but pure white and milder—and add to the salad.

then come the scapes, wonderfully loopy and green, like bracelets.  Discard the stringy tips at the bulb end then slice the bulb just below the neck then slice it open lengthwise.  Slice a few inches of the green stem the same way, long, elegant, on the diagonal.  Rinse off a handful of pea pods, pop off the stem end if it is tough (ours were utterly edible).  Slice in half if they are long then lengthwise, right through the peas, split their tiny equators.  The cutaway of the inner landscape is pretty like the scapes.  Heat a small frying pan over a medium flame and pour in a few slugs of olive oil.  Toss in the scapes and the peas, salt and pepper and toss them around over high heat for a few minutes, until the peas are bright green.  Dump right from the pan into the salad bowl and toss.  Squeeze half a lemon over the whole thing, toss some more and serve.  This salad accompanied BBQ tempeh sandwiches to our table.

the next night, several bunches of Napa leaves went into a skillet pie reminiscent of stuffed cabbage rolls but far less work:

break dried spaghetti into 1-inch lengths for about a cup of broken noodles; boil and drain them.  Cook a cup of quinoa for about 15 minutes in 2 cups of boiling stock.  While the grains and pasta cook, chop several scapes (or garlic) and shell some peas.  We had about ¼ cup of peas and saved the pods for miso soup.  Toss garlic and peas with the pasta and grains in a big bowl along with salt and pepper.  The stock we had on hand was deep with mushroom flavor, which I think made this the best sort of comfort food, a dish that draws the eater in to pause then wraps you in thick, familiar flavor, smelling really good.

in a big, cast iron skillet, sauté half an onion, chopped, in a bit of butter and olive oil.  Add ½ a pound of tempeh, chopped, along with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and paprika, turning and cooking until it begins to brown.  Ladle in about a cup of stock and a few stalks of spicy basil or other herbs then bring to a simmer, steaming the tempeh.  When the stock has evaporated, turn the tempeh in with the grains and stir.  Let this all cool just a bit then crack in an egg, stir.

preheat the oven to 400° and wipe out your heavy skillet.  Melt 3 tablespoons or so of butter and spread a layer of bread cubes (about 3 slices of bread, cubed) along the bottom of the pan.  Season and toast the bread over high for a few minutes, turning to coat all sides in butter.  Smooth out the bread layer and cover with the grain/tempeh and over that layer several rounds of Napa cabbage leaves.  Crumble fresh feta and shred some parmesan cheese over the leaves; dot with butter and sprinkle with paprika.  Bake the whole thing for about 20 minutes, until the leaves are soft and cheese is melted.  In a bigger casserole, there could be a few layers and, I imagine, delectable.

summer jewelry

we have some of the remaining cabbage earmarked for miso soup, and surely the last bit of red cabbage will go into our daily lunch salads, or maybe this kale and cabbage slaw.  Getting through all this cabbage was originally about conquering it, but this affair turned out much tastier triumphs.  And we still have kimchi.

** with affection to alice & her creator, who gave me so many things to talk about then eat

fire escape salad

come as you are!

the trouble with writing about salad is that making salad is not really cooking but assembling.  Yet, these are essential ensembles.  Consider this your salad reminder— salads make a fine meal from a cool kitchen.  With global weirding subjecting us at random from this day forth to the heat formally relegated to the official months of summer, the oven’s days are numbered.  Even off the shaded garbage courtyard, this Brooklyn apartment kitchen can get hotter than crêpes suzette come summer.  Maybe the possibilities of salad make hot weather an ideal time for wooers-not-cookers to court; salad can be high on haute and low on technique.  What matters most is the freshness of the goods, and the whole rainbow of plantdom is pretty much a candidate. It goes without saying that salad is really good for you.

this salad thrills because it is composed mostly of bounty off our fire escape, where we’re nurturing a container garden of lettuce and herbs, plus catnip for the miraculous flying cat, the K. Pidds.

the k. pidds

in scavenged tubs, two kinds of lettuce are putting out sails of green and red leaves.  After harvesting greens the size of my hand, the still unfurling centers promise more salad to come.  I hope to add Tom Thumb and Little Gem.  If we add rocket, soon we’ll have mesclun.

authorities claim the key to a gorgeous salad is well-rinsed and gently, thoroughly dried greens.  Simple oil and vinegar dressing clings to dry leaf sides.  In Unplugged Kitchen, Viana la Place not only feels “a keen excitement” when she sits down to eat a dish of beautiful green leaves, she writes: “Harvesting lettuce leaves in the garden right before supper creates a romantic vision, but it also allows us to derive the full benefits from each ruffled, fragrant leaf.”

a heartfelt Italian cook, Viana delivers 25 recipes for lovely salads, including beloved veggies: purslane, artichokes, beets, and old fashioned potato and nasturium salad.  As I nod to her here, she gleefully shares “salade fatigue” by 1960s fashion impresario Simonetta, an Italian in Paris and a Snob in the Kitchen:

many of Simonetta’s salads, including this one, call for the salad to “season” for an hour before serving.  For Simonetta, a salad must be fatigué, “tired,” to be good; it must be “mixed, beaten, and drunk with its dressing.”

current food fashions have veered away from greens besotted with dressing but beaten and drunk have a certain camp appeal.  She recommends whacking towel wrapped greens against the counter to tenderize them, also a satisfying way to call forth the essential oils in herbs going whole leaf into salad.

fire escape salad

our herb garden includes spicy or Greek basil, a diminutive cousin of the towering Italian type classically paired with fresh sliced tomatoes and creamy mozzarella in mid-summer.  Also tiny, forest green peppermint.  Lime basil, with slender, petal-thin leaves.  Sage that has since been menaced by the weather and lost its leaves but seems to be reviving.  Creeping thyme, lots of it, my favorite.

rosemary too, which is now only three branches strong but with care will become a bush and burst forth with fragrant purple blossoms.  Those will go in the salad too.  Rosemary needles, with the resiny toughness of an evergreen (though it’s a member of the mint family), are better cooked, even for salad.  Bringing me off the fire escape and into the pantry for staples that made this salad a meal.

cannellini beans cooked with one healthy branch of our little shrub and a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper.  When boiled tender, drain the beans in a colander and toss with a pour of olive oil, salt, fresh pepper and handfuls of fresh herbs.  While the beans cook, slice a red onion very fine and soak the shreds in ice water for at least 10 minutes to take the bite out.  Marinade in balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper for as long as you like.

in your biggest, best salad bowl, gently combine the beans and onions with your greens, including that succulent lettuce and fresh herbs.  Just lift the onions out of their marinade with a fork.  Despite Simonetta’s preferences, the vinegar soaked onions and oiled beans will carry plenty of dressing into the salad.  Croutons are nice, and grated parmesan.  Serve with crusty white bread toasted and sliced, along with a plate of very fine olive oil with a pool of honey in its center, sprinkle with sea salt and a crank of fresh pepper.  Trust me.

the queen of fruit

a bowl of mangosteen

we’ve been celebrating the eruption of spring with fava beans, ramps and asparagus.  Too busy with celebratory eating to write about the cooking, but it is so thrilling when curiosities wander into my kitchen that I had to post these mangosteen photos.

the preacher eater found the fruits in Chinatown, where they landed after a long trip from Thailand or a short one from the rooftop garden of a wizard cultivating in the City’s heart.

sufficiently awe-inspiring to be called “the mangosteen,” the beet coloured fruits appear to be carved of wood, with a stylized flower on their bottoms that would make cheery stamps without all the effort of carving a potato.  These small daisies represent how many sections are within the red globe.

known also as “the queen of fruits,” mangosteen lore boasts it is the only thing Queen Victoria couldn’t serve at her table, despite offering a reward of 100 pounds to anyone who could deliver her the fresh fruit.  Durian fruit is similarly crowned “the king,” but that must be sheer stinky bullying on the part of the Durian, because that stuff is inapproachable, suitable only for gag-scenting novelty condoms.  Mangosteens, on the other hand, are juicy-creamy and demurely flavored.

to eat out of hand, with the sharp tip of a paring knife, pierce the flesh, which are not wooden but leathery and deeper than orange skin.  Cut around the circumference and twist apart the halves, like you would an avocado, to reveal 4-6 white fleshy sections of fruit.  It is like an underwater creature, the soft interior of the pod pink and fine veined.  Pop out the sections and eat; the larger ones have a seed to suck around.

presented with this bagful of pool ball like fruits, i dove on-line for recipes:  salads, chutneys and a mangosteen clafouti, also once described: “there’s a fancy French cake called clafoutis.  It is an eggie batter with lots of fruit spooned on top, like almost half fruit.  So if you make a weird cake, call it clafoutis.”

the mangosteen

the flavor is so delicate and the raw fruit so satisfyingly bizarre to eat that I never did cook it—seemed a shame to cloud the experience with any other flavors.  Then I found a sorbet that looked promising, made with champagne no less, a worthy toast to an exotic guest in my kitchen.  Next time a bagful arrives, I am hitting up my friend with the ice cream maker.

soupe bonne femme avec faggot

“Many recipes call for a faggot.”   — Louis Diat

mais oui—everything is tastier with a dash of faggotry!  I’m not talking buggery— although many of us could use a soupcon of that too, survey says up to half of gay men never do it up the butt anyway — but the joie de vivre, the je ne sais quoi of a fabulous queen.  In the radical muffin kitchen, cooking gusto evokes a certain make-do and then some learned at the hip of sassy men who could out stomp me in their platform shoes and draw suitors to them through the din of crowded bars with their eyes.   Certainly, a femme is better with a faggot.

this is perhaps not what monsieur Diat had in mind.  No, the French born chef was the head at the New York Ritz-Carlton kitchens, where he not only trained many chefs in the U.S. but also made it his life’s work to translate French cooking techniques into English.  In Gourmet’s Basic French Cooking: Techniques of French Cuisine, published for the first time in 1961, he includes among Tricks of the Chef:

Faggot Many recipes call for a faggot.  To make a faggot, cut a stalk of celery in 2 pieces 3 or 4 inches long.  In the curve of one piece, tuck a few sprigs of parsley, folding in the ends, lay on this a bay leaf, and sprinkle with a little thyme.  If the recipe does not include carrots, a small piece of carrot is sometimes tucked in with the parsley.  Place the other piece of celery on top very firmly and secure the faggot by winding a long piece of string closely around it.  Unless you assemble a faggot firmly and bind it tightly with plenty of string, it is apt to roll apart during the cooking.

Soupe Bonne Femme is simply potato leek soup, although all the following “bonne femme” recipes in his magnum opus seem to be “with mushrooms” and how this all relates remains a mystery to me.   The soup would probably be delicious with mushrooms, but as it is or rich with cream, Soupe Bonne Femme is perfect fare for blustery March weather.

scrub clean 4-5 potatoes.  chop them and put them aside in a bowl of cold water.  Slice the greens and roots from 4 medium-small leeks, clean them well in cold running water.  Dice the white part of the leek along with 1 small onion and a few peeled garlic cloves.  Melt a tablespoon or so of butter in a big, heavy pot, add the leeks, onions and garlic, and cook until soft but not brown, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.

drain the potatoes and stir them into the leeks, turning to coat with butter; cook for about 5 minutes.  Pour in 4 cups of hot water or stock.  Assemble and bind a faggot of celery, carrot, parsley and thyme.  Add this to the soup pot along with a dash of salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for ½ an hour to 45 minutes or until the potatoes are beginning to fall apart.

serve as is or…stir in another tablespoon of butter  and 2 cups of whole milk or 1 cup of cream.  If you add the cream or milk, be sure not to return to a boil but only gently reheat.  In the alternative, to go entirely vegan, cook all the veggies in olive oil.

white beans italiana

dear maria,

sorry for the delay in sending the recipe, but I needed to experiment to see how I make white beans.  I made herbed white beans with roasted garlic, and I think it will work for you:

Dried beans generally double in size when you soak and cook them, so three cups dried will come out about 6 cups cooked and that is probably a good amount for a family dinner leaving some for the next day (hooray!).  I used and favor dried cannellini beans, white kidney beans, one of the beans common to Italian cooking, but this will work with any white bean, like navy beans, too.

Bring a big stockpot of water to a boil, turn off the heat and leave your dried beans for an hour to soak.  Drain the soaked beans and bring a fresh pot of water to a boil, about double the amount of water to beans.  Peel a few cloves of garlic and quarter a small onion; add these to the boiling water.  Add a few stalks of rosemary, thyme or both as well.  Add your beans, cover the pot and bring it back to a boil.  Salt and pepper the water and give it all a good stirring.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, for half an hour and check the beans for tenderness.  They may need to cook for up to half an hour more.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400° and strip off the papery outermost layers of three heads of garlic.  Slice off the tough, root end.  Coat with olive oil and bundle in foil.  Stick them in the oven and roast, turning occasionally, for half an hour.  Let cool on top of the stove or out of the way until cool to handle.

Drain the cooked beans and dump into a big serving bowl, picking out the onion, garlic and herb stems.  Chop a few tablespoons of fresh thyme or rosemary or both and stir them in.  Pop the roasted garlic from their skins and stir them in.  Drizzle with rosemary, sprinkle with salt and pepper, stir.  Drizzle again with olive oil, sprinkle with paprika and serve with grated paramesean cheese.

Good hot or room temperature or reheated, so this is a fine dish for making in advance and sitting for a long time at the table.

pumpkin and white bean soup

pumpkin soup

from the Greens cookbook (1987) written by the chefs of the same-named restaurant in California to which I have never been.  So sad.

found the most beautiful Cinderella pumpkin at the Cortelyou Farmer’s market.  It would have made a wonderful carriage, green like patina on copper, frosty white in patches.  Not being a fairy godmother, I made a soup instead.  It was a hefty pumpkin, and I used half, approximately ¾ pound or 4-5 cups when cut in chunks.

halving a pumpkin and skinning it is not for the faint of heart—a serious knife should be employed for the purpose.  If you don’t yet have a beloved blade then ask a friend with kitchen wits and witchery (and a bit of cash flow) to get you a good Chef’s knife for your birthday.  A fine knife will make you more eager to cut up veggies and entices your foodie friends to cook in your kitchen.  Back to the pumpkin: plunge your knife tip into the skin near the stem, the bottom is usually the flattest part of the thing and should sit steadily on your cutting board but having a friend help you steady it is not a bad idea, and carefully bear down along the whole blade, towards the bottom of the pumpkin.  Pull out the blade and start again as often as you need.  Bit by bit is better than a dramatic cleaving and trip to the emergency room.  Repeat on the other side.

scoop the seeds and goop from the pumpkin halves.  if you want, reserve some of the seeds for toasted pumpkin seeds, and pile up at least some of the seeds and all of the pulp to use for the stock.  slice of the pumpkin skins and set aside for stock as well.  cut the pumpkin into slices about an inch wide then across to make large chunks.

wash one medium or two small leeks.  Slice off the greens and set aside.  Slice down the center of the leeks and across into thin half moon strips.  Smash and peel two or three cloves of garlic.  Scrub and chop a few carrots or parsnips (parsnips are really nice) and several ribs of celery.

in a large pot, heat a tablespoon of olive oil.  add the garlic and leek greens and stir to coat and cook a few moments.  stir in the celery.  add in the pumpkin pulp and seeds and a few stalks of parsley.  Salt and pepper the whole lot.  Pour in about six cups of water.  Bring to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes.  Turn off the heat and let cool a bit before draining, squeezing the rich broth from the veggies by pressing them in a colander over a bowl or pot.

in a soup pot, heat a few slugs of olive oil.  add the leeks and stir, cooking over a medium flame until they begin to soften.  toss in the pumpkin and carrots, stirring to coat.  Cook for about 9 minutes, stirring occasionally or often depending on how wide or narrow your pot is.  salt and pepper (white pepper if you have it) and stir in a handful of sage and/or thyme.  Pour in the stock and bring to a simmer.  Cook for about half an hour (sometimes longer) until the pumpkin begins to fall apart.  Stir it every once and awhile.

add a few cups of cooked white beans* and a cup or two of the bean cooking liquid and stir.  Cook for another 15 minutes or so, until the pumpkin is an orange velvet background to the beans.

top with a drizzle of olive oil, chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon or swirl in a spoonful of plain yoghurt, crème fraiche or sour cream.  Serve with piles of warm, excellent bread.

* to make the beans: pick through two cups of dried small white beans, like navy beans, and remove any bad beans or junk.  bring a pot of water to a boil, about three time the amount of beans.  turn off the heat and add the beans and let sit for an hour.   rinse the soaked beans in cold water, combine with fresh water in the pot, add in stalks of fresh or dried sage and thyme and bring to a boil.  cook for about an hour or al dente.  drain, saving some of the cooking liquid.

saffron flat bread

my favorite kitchen witch flew in for fireworks last weekend. We didn’t plan it: on Tuesday we happened to talk; it became possible; then it happened. Joy—it’s been months of missing her face.

in honor of her coming, something must be made with the most precious gift, the unopened box of saffron from my flatmate, recently returned from India. When her purchases finally followed her, she presented yet another lovely gift, the sexiest so far, possibly ever so far, reminiscent of the amethyst earrings and embroidered pillow covers that the Persian kitten brought me back from Turkey: saffron from Kashmir. From disputed territory, she said.

focaccia has been the order of the Sunday in the radical muffin kitchen for at least three months. It is time to share a recipe. This decadent saffron flat bread is a tarted out focaccia, so the basic architecture is below and the variation follows

• basic focaccia

pour one cup of hot water into a wide glass mixing bowl. When the water is hottish warm (books say 38° degrees), sprinkle a packet of yeast over the surface. Take the bowl in your hands and give it all a swirl. Give the wee beasties peace and quiet for three to five minutes.

whisk in about a cup and a half of flour. I use organic unbleached white flour. Cover the slurry with a wet towel, though don’t drape it directly on the surface or it will stick in a big and disgusting way. You could, I suppose, add a layer of plastic wrap, but I imagine it I better for the yeast to have the moisture and the air. Alternatively, pour a thing layer of olive oil over the top.

let this sit for 45 minutes to an hour. Bread likes to rise in a draft free, warm place, so find a cozy spot for your bowl like the back of the stove. My mom used to put rising things on top of the refrigerator. We have a spot in our living room that is often in a sun patch. Think of your rising bread like a napping kitten: where would she like to be? Though, happily, you can pick convenient places unlike, say, the keyboard of the laptop.

times up—get your wooden spoon. Stir in two or three tablespoons of sugar or honey and a slug or two of olive oil (or stir in what you poured on top). Oil a clean baking sheet while you have the oil and your hands are still clean.

add flour next, stirring in just enough to handle the dough, because kneading comes next. You can work with surprisingly liquid dough, and it makes for a light focaccia. Try stirring in only about half a cup more of flour. Have another half cup on the side to add as needed. Oil your hands, and try to pick up the dough.

working over the bowl, hold it in a ball between your hands. Pull your hands apart, letting the dough stretch between them. Clap gently back together and pull back again. Add twisting motions, fitting your hands together while making like talking shadow puppets, left thumb on top then right thumb on top. Envision bread mixers, cotton candy spinners, taffy pullers. It will ooze between your fingers. Scrap it back into the central body. Knead it in the air like this for at least six minutes, and the longer the knead, the more exquisite the bread. You will feel it getting smoother, more elastic. I go for 9 – 12 then my arms start to hurt, but since I’ve been in training, I can go longer. Hey—tastier than the gym, right?

adding more flour, or subbing in whole wheat flour, makes a heartier denser bread. Sometimes that’s just the thing, when it is destined to become of vehicle for wet tomato slabs or partner to winter root veggie soup, for examples.

to knead a heavier dough, stir in about cup and a half of flour and press an roll the dough into a ball in the bowl. Press your fist into it, up against the side of the bowl, stretching it out. Fold it over itself and do it again and again and again. Turn the dough, turn the bowl. With the stiffer dough, you can also turn it out onto a floured board. Visit here for a pretty good kneading description: Choosing Voluntary Simplicity.

transfer the dough to the oiled baking sheet. Drape wet dough. Sort of pour it from your hands, laying it out into a rectangular shape. Stiffer bread-to-be can be pulled into a rough rectangle or rolled out on a floured board. Let it rise on the baking sheet for another half an hour or so, and pre-heat the oven to 400°.

the wet style may be too sticky to take the traditional dimples in focaccia, and it wants a topping or, frankly, it’s kinda fugly. If it is not too sticky, use your fingertips to gently push hollows into the surface of the bread. You can lightly brush the dough with oil or sprinkle with water. Top with generous sprinkling of sea salt or kosher salt. Add any other toppings at this time, and let it rest for another 10 minutes or so.

bake for 20 minutes. More makes for crispier; less makes for chewier. Buona gusta!

• saffron flat bread

use 1/4 cup of the hot water to soak a generous pinch of saffron. Stir the golden liquid and threads into the dough with the second addition of flour.

mix together about a 1/4 cup each of halved dried cherries, golden raisins, and almond slivers. After the dough has rested on the baking tray for 15 minutes to half hour, spread the fruit and almonds over the top. Sprinkle with coarse salt and sugar, about a tablespoon each. Cardamom would be a welcome addition, likewise orange zest.

pasta and fennel meet balls

uncork a bottle of respectable red table wine. Pour a half a cup into a wine glass with a generous bowl, swirl. Enjoying your wine, read this recipe entirely:

slice two yellow onions and one red bell pepper. Smash, peel, and mince five cloves of garlic. Setting aside the rest for your sauce, two of the cloves and a handful of the onion are for your faux meat balls.

mince this onion finely. In a mortar with a pestle, crush two teaspoons of fennel seeds with 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt. In a big bowl, add these spices and a teaspoon of black pepper to the onions and garlic. Add a handful of quick cooking oatmeal and one egg. These are made with egg in a nod toward my grandfather’s original recipe, but you can omit the egg and the oatmeal and have tasty balls (note: the oatmeal or bread or cracker crumbs, is a good extender to make more balls for cheaper). Let this all rest together while you get on with the sauce. Stick it in the fridge if you are neurotic about leaving out egg at room temperature.

in a hot pot—a large stock pot with a heavy bottom, heated over a medium flame—toast a proportion to taste of hot and sweet paprika and red pepper flakes. I used about two teaspoons of sweet paprika and one teaspoon of hot paprika and red pepper flakes. Pour olive oil into the pot, about three tablespoons, bring to hot and pour the red pepper and onion and garlic into the pot. Cover and cook over medium-high for five minutes: in a series of 3 x 5, every five minutes for a cycle of three times cook and stir and cover the spicy pepper mix. Add sea salt and black pepper.

as this base cooks down, rub clean a pound of crimini mushrooms, ranging from a quarter in diameter to fungi the size of an egg. De-stem them, and slice the heads into threes, making fat slices. Add them to the pot, and do another round of 3 x 5 cooking and stirring.

stir in three tablespoons of tomato paste. Pour in two large cans (28 ounces each) of crushed tomatoes. By all means if you come by this recipe in the heart of tomato season then boil & peel and crush a whole pile of fruit, but in early spring in Brooklyn, the cans are fine and preferable. Add a smaller can of diced tomatoes. Bring to a slow, popping simmer and cook for an hour or longer.

about half an hour before you want to eat, put a big pot of water onto boil.

add a tube of ground beef style soy “meat” to the big bowl of eggy, spicy slop, and mix it together well with your hands. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls.

heat a heavy skillet and when it is hot, add a few tablespoons of olive oil. Fry the balls until brown on all sides.

pour a few generous slugs of wine into your sauce and stir. Add your fried meet balls. Bring the sauce back to a simmer.

add a box of noodles to the boiling water: spaghetti is Italian-American classic; fettuccini is seductive; and penne, somehow, feels domestic and family-like. Cook until al dente and drain. Pile noodles on a plate or in a bowl as appropriate, top with sauce. Somewhere in this cooking, maybe put together a nice salad. Now sit down with you, and whomever you dine with if you are dining in company or family, and polish off the wine.

as it simmers, you can also read this blog:

http://thyme-for-herbs.blogspot.com/

and maybe, watch a little more labyrinth:

lentils for anemic royalty

my flatmate who is leaving for India is also anemic, and the Radical Muffin kitchen has been making iron rich concoctions to help! Cook these yummy lentils in a cast iron skillet and serve with steamed greens and a big glass of OJ for maximum metal absorption.

mince one red onion, two cloves of garlic, and 1 inch of peeled fresh ginger, combine in a pile or bowl. Dice 2 medium carrots. Chop 4-5 fresh tomatoes if it’s the season; otherwise, open up a big can, about a cup and a half, of diced tomatoes.

in a hot skillet, for just a moment or two, toast 1 1/2 teaspoons each of sweet and hot paprika, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (unless you are cooking for the kitchen witch who is allergic), and 6-10 cardamom pods, lightly crushed in a mortar or pestle or some improvisation of that tool. Add one teaspoon each of red pepper flakes, coriander, mustard seeds, garam masala, and tumeric.

stir in 2 tablespoons of sunflower or veggie oil. Let the oil get hot then stir in the garlic pile. Cook for 5 minutes or until the onions have softened, stirring occasionally.

add one cup of red lentils. Stir. Pour in 1 2/3 cup of coconut milk and one cup of water. Bring to a boil and stir in the tomatoes. Bring back to a boil and stir, then reduce the heat and simmer for half an hour to 45 minutes. Resist the temptation to stir too often—lentils are delicate, breaking down to mush quickly. Gently swirl and cover and cook over low heat.

slice and 3 scallions. Chop a few fistfuls of fresh cilantro and/or parsley if you have it and set aside.

ladle into bowls over brown rice or jasmine rice. Sprinkle with cilantro and scallions; serve with wedges of lime. Excellent with a drizzle of Greek yoghurt or raita.

And later, much later, the green fairy.