Mitt liv som Tobin

Inspired by my recent (and as-yet-unblogged) trip to Key West, we also decided to make a key lime pie. Though references to this pie were rife in the Keys, I did not actually see a single example of the essential fruit while in the area, nor did I sample any local concoction of the eponymous dessert. At the market here in California we picked up a bag of small limes and a few cans of sweetened condensed milk. After checking out photos of key limes on the internet, I'm not sure these small green limes were really key limes as true key limes are apparently spherical and yellow and taste a bit different.

The folkloric tale of the key lime pie is a believable one. The Florida keys were(are) hot and remote, hence canned milk instead of fresh milk; and these little fruits grow everywhere, or so we're told. Feral chickens roam the streets, presumably depositing an egg here and there. The acid from the limes curdles the eggs, making baking unnecessary. If this apocryphal tale holds true, the key lime pie is a dessert borne of its native geography.



My mom's kitchen proved a treasure-trove of applicable gadgets. A juicer for the limes, a zester for their zest, and a food processor to pulverize graham cracker cookies and mix them with butter and sugar for a crust.

After juicing twenty of the little limes, my fingertips were well-eaten by the acid. The Internet People warn against it, but I see no harm in buying a bottle of lime juice instead. Alternatively, one of those little cast-aluminum lime squeezers you can buy in Baja California would be just perfect.



Here my mom shows off her freshly baked graham cracker pie crust.



The finished product. Should have gotten a pic of satisfied customers devouring it.

It's finally gotten cold here in southern louisiana (hey, it hit 38° one night!). The following recipe really hit the spot:

- soup stock of some kind
- tortilla chips (corn)
- cheese (grated)
- bunch of cilantro (chopped)
- salsa (chunky, spicy)

This sounds like an unnecessarily contrived concoction, but it turned out to be unexpectedly delicious, and perfect for these chilly autumn nights. Heat up the soup (I was told to use chicken stock but instead used a carton of tomato basil soup from whole foods), add the salsa. Put tortilla chips in a bowl, sprinkle cheese on them, and pour in the soup. Add generous helping of cilantro. Warm, spicy, and delicious.

This afternoon at the coffee shop, while paging through my notebook, I came across an old annotation: "paella," as in "try making that delicious spanish saffron-flavored rice dish at home." Coincidentally, cherryspecial had just invited me to a vegan potluck, and so my mission was obvious.

olive oil	generous splash
vegetable stock	1 cup	(omit?)
water	1 cup	boiled
white wine	1 cup	yellow tail pinot grigio
garlic	4 cloves	smashed with a fork
yellow onion	1 big one
rice	2 cups	"Arborio" recommended
tomatoes	5	roma, cubed
bell peppers	1 orange, 1 yellow	diced
artichoke hearts	1 can (14 oz/8.5 oz dry)	drained
baby corn	1 can (15 oz/7 oz dry)	drained
mushrooms	1 box (8 oz)	champignon, quartered
saffron strands	a pinch	let steep in the boiled water
smoked paprika	couple tbsps	i love this stuff

I took a look at a bunch of recipes at epicurious.com and then did my own thing.

One of the exicting things about paella is that it uses saffron, famously the world's most expensive spice. I bought a bottle that contained a paper envelope that contained a cellophane envelope that contained 1.7 grams of saffron for $8 at Albertsons (unit price: $133/oz). Fortunately, a little goes a long way. The flavor of saffron is potent yet subtle. (I first came to love it in the form of saffron gelato at the little ice cream shop in Lund, Sweden.)

The other spice, smoked paprika, is exciting too (and much cheaper). Paprika (powdered dried red bell pepper) is totally useless, as it is completely flavorless. But this stuff is powdered smoked red pepper and has a delightful, pungent smoky taste, in addition to its amazing brick-red color.

First I boiled a cup of water and added a pinch of saffron. Then, in large sauce pan, I sauteed the onions in olive oil, then added the bell pepper, garlic, and other vegetables. Once all this was hot and bubbly, I added the other liquids: the saffron-water, the vegetable stock, and the white wine. Once that began to boil, I turned the burner down to minimum, added the rice, and let it cook as usual.

Delicious!

The big chunks of mushroom work really well. The artichoke hearts and baby corn are good too. These guys are good because they provide interesting textures. Really, it's hard to resist adding shrimp, and I might have to add shrimp to my leftovers. For vegetable stock, I used vegetable bullion, which I think was a mistake because there is that unmistakable MSG aftertaste. I'm not sure the wine does anything, although it is delicious by itself. Maybe omit the bullion so that the wine stands out better; or add water in place of the wine and serve the wine as a beverage.

The potluck was fun, too, though I arrived late, and the other food was delicious. This is a weekly Sunday thing so I might make it a habit.

A couple weeks ago I announced to the summer students, "We should cook dinner together!" With Bree in New York and Jeff an absentee housemate, I'm left to fend for myself. But group cooking (and eating) sounds fun, whether at a co-op or among summer students.

"Okay, you first!" Sonia, one of the summer students, announced in reply. "Cook dinner for us on Friday!"

And so I was immediately roped in to my own scheme.

It went excellently. We departed work early on Friday (7:30 pm!) and quickly descended upon the Armenian grocery store, where, hungry, we eagerly filled our basket with everything that was conceivably related to making pizza. For the pizza substrate, we picked a big round piece of (presumably) Armenian bread--I think it was called "Pourri"--and a couple bags of pita for good measure.

The pizza turned out excellently. This mysterious annular bread made a delicious crust, and we covered it in tomatoes, artichoke hearts, zuchini, garlic, olives, mushrooms, mozarella, and I forget what else. We should have taken a better picture of it.

1. DS and I biked 45 miles yesterday (more impressively: half way to Pennsylvania), to his and DK's cabin at Springwater. The rolling hills of upstate NY are gentle enough, but I think my legs would have seceded had I ask them to pedal another hundred meters. Nonetheless, it's got me scheming about multi-day bicycle-based voyages out into the villages...

2. Burgers tonight were a particular success. Frightening quantities of garlic and black pepper were mixed into the beef prior to cooking. Disturbingly large, 1/3 lb patties were formed from it. Alarmingly hot coals were prepared. Savagely thick slices of cheese were added. Frank's Red Hot sauce was applied to the sizzling beef with reckless abandon. Deliciousness ensued.

1. cook brunch with ross



- norwegian waffles (with powdered sugar + lemon juice, jam, and/or strawberry yogurt)
- fruit salad (apples, oranges, bananas, blueberries, dried cranberries, mint from the garden)
- coffee, orange juice

2. sand floor and apply penultimate coat of polyurethane



3. now going to check out the bike maintenance workshop on campus

We made this soup the other night, and everybody raved about it like they have raved about no other thing. Recommended. It's from page 57 of How to cook everything. (It seems to be a pretty good book. The only odd thing I've found so far is the author's curious loathing of green bell peppers [p.592], which I particularly adore.)

4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
4 ears fresh corn
2 tablespoons butter or olive olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
2 cups cored, peeled, seeded, and chopped tomatoes
2 small or 1 medium zucchini, diced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup minced fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Heat the stock in a big pan
Strip the kernels from the corn--leave the cobs to simmer in the stock
In a separate pan, saute the onion in the butter, about 5 minutes.
Add tomatoes, zucchini, garlic, salt, and pepper, and cook for about 10 minutes.
Remove the corn cobs from the stock; add the stock to the vegetables.
Cook until the zucchini is tender but not mushy, about 5 minnutes.
Stir in the corn kernels and the basil, add the vinegar, adjust seasoning. Serve.

I think the key was that everything was insanely fresh, most notably the corn.

* * *

Tonight we made "Oven-Baked Ratatouille" [pronounciation unknown] from page 616, which is basically a pile of vegetables (garlic, onions, eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes) baked in the oven with spices and olive oil. It was particularly good served with shredded cheddar cheese. Unfortunately we didn't have enough ripe eggplants to make a sufficient quantity; we have something like 30 eggplants growing but only one was ripe.

On Friday Nadia made the Baked Macaroni and Cheese from page 153, from the New York State cheddar that Ben and I bought at the public market. It turned out very well. Served with broccoli and corn on the cob.

I volunteered to cook dinner tonight at the co-op— what should I cook?

I'd told Chris that I had this big plan to make a huge batch of waffles, and today we did it! Making them was pretty fun. Chris whipped up the five eggs, and by the time we added the liter of milk products to the concoction, it really looked like a huge amount of stuff! So I found a waffle iron, and then ran around and found some people to help us eat them. Javiez, Daniel Wallace, Martin/201, Chris, and I sat down to this huge pile of waffles and had a great breakfast. The powdered-sugar-and-lemon-juice style proved quite popular. I think it turned out to be a really nice little get-together.

Here's the recipe as my mom sent it to me:

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• ¾ cup (1.8 dl) granulated sugar
• ½ cup (1.2 dl) melted butter
• 1 tsp (5 ml) ground cardamom
• 1 tsp (5 ml) baking soda
• 1 quart (10 dl) buttermilk
• 3 cups (7 dl) sifted flour

In place of buttermilk we used a mixture of ½ milk and ½ fil, which is a sour yogurt-like product available here. For flour we used rågmjöl, which is... flour. And baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO₃.

Procedure

1. Beat eggs and sugar until thick and creamy.
2. Mix in the rest of the ingredients.
3. Preheat waffle iron. Spray with spray oil, lightly, or brush with oil. Alternatively, put a dribble of oil in waffle iron and close so that oil spreads around.
4. Make waffles!

The ``Norwegian Style'' is to eat them cold with whipped cream and jam. We ate them the ``Fricke style'' with powdered sugar and lemon juice, which I highly recommend! And also orange marmalade.