A new staple

If I could rewrite Thanksgiving tradition to include something a little more convenient and versatile than stuffing—a more colorful, more nutritious mixture of ingredients that really did stay perky overnight—it might look something like this fallish grain salad. Spiked with lemon and rounded with olive oil, it’s a colorful hodgepodge that comes together in about 20 minutes and passes as almost anything in my kitchen: as lunch on its own, as a bed for grilled tuna or roasted chicken, or as a nest for a poached egg in the morning. It’s wonderful warm, but equally delicious at room temperature, when the more subtle flavors of the parsley and pecans shine a bit brighter.

Of course, if this were served in place of stuffing at Thanksgiving, there would be gravy, and while this salad is many things, I don’t imagine it making friends well with gravy. Which is why someday soon, I will make both.

Warm Quinoa and Radicchio Salad with Pecans, Parsley, and Goat Cheese (PDF)

Note: You can toast the pecans on a baking sheet at 350 degrees F until sizzling and a shade darker, about 10 minutes, but in a rush I toast them by simply cooking them in the microwave for a minute or two.

TIME: 20 minutes
MAKES: 4 to 6 servings

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock (preferably homemade)
1 cup raw quinoa (any color)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, plus more for seasoning
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Half of a medium (3/4-pound) head radicchio, chopped
Stripped zest and juice of 1 large lemon
1 cup toasted pecans
1 loosely packed cup Italian parsley leaves, roughly chopped
3 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
Freshly ground pepper (optional)

In a small saucepan, bring the stock to a boil over high heat. Add the quinoa and 1/2 teaspoon salt, stir to blend, then reduce the heat to low and cook, covered, until the quinoa has absorbed all the liquid, 12 to 15 minutes, stirring just once or twice during cooking. Set aside.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, then the chopped radicchio. Season the radicchio with salt, then cook, stirring occasionally, until the radicchio softens, about 5 minutes. Add the lemon zest and the juice of half the lemon and cook, stirring, for one minute more.

Transfer the quinoa to a large bowl or serving plate. Layer on the pecans, parsley, goat cheese, and cooked radicchio. Drizzle with the remaining 1/4 cup olive oil, the juice of the remaining 1/2 lemon, and additional salt (and pepper, if desired) to taste, and toss all the ingredients together a few times. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The salad keeps well, covered in the refrigerator, up to 3 days.

Beat.

It hardly seems appropriate to say Happy New Year, but here it is, 2014. Thinking retroactively, here’s what was on my winter to-do list:

• Finish edits on a cookbook
• Take a time-out
• Gather every preschool germ Graham brings home and filter it through my system
• Pitch stories to magazines I’ve never worked with before (some Not! About! Food!)
• Do my taxes
• Finish details of our basement remodel
• Take a writing class
• See a kid through two surgeries
• Apply to private and public kindergartens for said kid

In my mind, two months in, the last thing is the only thing that really happened.

“It’s not the school that’s bad,” soothed my husband one wintry morning. “It’s the system that’s bad.” I sniffed over the phone, and tried to compose myself on the damp bench outside my gym, where an impromptu conversation with the principal of our local elementary school had reduced me to tears and snot and hiccups. My purse sagged open into the dirt of a giant potted plant. But Jim was right. The principal had never met Graham. And he hadn’t, as I’d insinuated, actually told me that my son didn’t belong in his halls. He’d just said he wasn’t sure, and refused to speak with me further, because I hadn’t followed the (totally top secret) prescribed order of operations.

In Seattle, where public schools are arguably better than those in many spots across the country, the process of enrolling a child with special needs in a typical kindergarten classroom requires patience, time, and emotional stamina. In the past week, I have been told to enroll, not to enroll, to fill out the special education form, not to fill out the special education form, that the special education form doesn’t exist, to fill out the school choice form, not to fill out the school choice form, that I need to appear in person to enroll because of the choice form, that I shouldn’t have appeared in person to enroll, that my special ed form will be shredded, that I’m already enrolled, and that RIGHT NOW I’ll be enrolled anyway even though I shouldn’t be standing where I’m standing and don’t need to enroll.

Now, Graham is officially enrolled in our local public elementary school. Will we end up there? Time will tell. At least we have a back up plan. Does that mean the system beat me? Or did I beat the system? This parenting thing is not for the weak.

Out of the blue this morning, when I was getting whiny over all this school nonsense, Graham decided to take the stairs to into his current classroom for the first time. A friend put him up to it and offered to take his walker to the top, and he just agreed. Like it was the most normal thing in the world. Like in his little way, he was saying Mom, I got this thing beat. See?

(Thanks, kid. You sure do.)

Grilled Beets with Herbs and Preserved Lemon (PDF)
In my house, beets make excellent decorations, but they’re rarely the main event—mostly because I tend to chop them up and shove them into salads more quickly than they can stand up for themselves. Here, they shine between layers of crème fraîche and fresh herbs, punched up a bit with preserved lemon.

If I haven’t made my own, I buy preserved lemons at Picnic in Seattle, because the owners, Jenny and Anson Klock, do a consistently excellent job. To use them here, cut them into quarters. Push the lemon’s meat out of the fruit and discard it, then use a small knife to trim the thin white layer of pith away from the peel. Once you have just the yellow peel, it’s ready to chop and use.

Serves 4

3 fist-sized red beets, roasted, peeled, and cut into 3/4-inch rounds
2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons crème fraîche
1/4 cup lightly packed fresh herbs (leaves only)
Peel of 1/4 preserved lemon, pith trimmed, very thinly sliced
Chunky sea salt, for serving

In a large bowl, mix the beet slices together with the olive oil and salt until well blended.

Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. (You can use a regular heavy-duty pan instead, if you prefer.) When hot, add the beets, and cook, undisturbed, until well marked on both sides, 6 to 8 minutes total, turning the beets once during cooking.

Meanwhile, smear the crème fraîche onto a serving plate. Pile the beets on top, then scatter the herbs and preserved lemon on top. Drizzle the beets with additional olive oil, sprinkle with chunky sea salt, and serve.

These chips are good for you

This, friends, is a cucumber dish with an identity problem.

It started as an appetizer. I’ve been eating these mini English cucumbers by the bagful – locally grown they are not, but they’re adorable, which is almost as good – and at the top of the list, just above the variation on a Greek salad, there’s been a quick pickle. I’ve been salting, rinsing, and sprinkling with rice wine vinegar. This time, I wanted to jazz it up a bit, with a good dose of garlic and a bite from red pepper flakes, but I didn’t want to wait. So I didn’t. I just chopped the cucumbers up, threw them into a bowl, and mixed them together with the garlic, pepper flakes, ginger, rice wine vinegar, and a sliced shallot. The idea was to set them aside until friends came for dinner.

Trouble came when I picked one up, five minutes after I made them. Even though they’d brined for such a short time, the flavors sang – so I ate, and ate, and ATE, the way you eat a salad, until I had to chop more cucumbers and remake the salad, because there weren’t enough left to actually fill the bowl.

Later, with friends, we agreed they’d be right at home on top of a flank steak flavored in a Vietnamese-style marinade, made with maybe some rice vinegar, fish sauce, ginger, and cilantro. Or atop a pate-smothered cracker. Or even in a taco, with spicy seared salmon.

I hesitate to call these pickles, because none of the things I associate with making pickles – boiling, sometimes salting, and usually waiting – are applicable. “Salad” is too boring. But “chips” – in one word, that encapsulates ultimate snackability, addictiveness, and deliciousness. So chips they are. (But I swear they’re healthier.)

Garlic-Marinated Cucumber Chips (PDF)
Dunked in a mixture of garlic, red chili flakes, ginger, shallot slices, and rice wine vinegar, sliced baby cucumbers become infinitely snackable. Eat them alone, serve them in tacos, or use them to top a simple salad.

TIME: 10 minutes
MAKES: 4 snack servings

5 baby English cucumbers, cut into 1/2” rounds
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 small shallot, very thinly sliced
Big pinch red pepper flakes (to taste)
Pinch salt
Pinch sugar
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar

Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Let sit at least 10 minutes, and up to 4 hours. Serve at room temperature.

Why does your garden grow?

When we lived on Cape Cod, we had friends with a huge tomato garden. I remember a cantankerous gate, and in the heaviest part of the summer, the vines, which didn’t seem too prone to organization, spiraled up and around each other, racing toward the sunlight in one big viral, vegetal tangle. I remember how when we walked among them, picking and tasting, the strays popped beneath my flipflops.

Toward the end of one summer, these friends decided they needed help eating tomatoes. One Tuesday, they had us over for a tomato-themed happy hour. The idea was to munch and chat and have a beer, but with the help of some good Parmesan cheese, a tub of sea salt, and a dipping bowl of great olive oil, we frittered the whole evening away, eating our body weight in ripe, warm-colored fruits, feeling the beer melt our day away.

From then on, when convenient, we celebrated Tomato Tuesdays. It was the sort of thing that became a tradition well before we had done it long enough for it to deserve “tradition” status, like when you vacation somewhere two years in a row, and it becomes The Mother’s Day Place, or The Memorial Day Place, or whatever, simply because you enjoyed yourself so much. But Tomato Tuesdays ended, for us, when we moved to Seattle.

Truthfully, I don’t miss very much about Cape Cod. I’m not particularly fond of the ocean, or of sandy beaches, or of grey hair or bad hats or bad drivers, but when we moved, I did miss Tomato Tuesdays, almost immediately. But just weeks after we arrived in Seattle, a guy from a couple houses down knocked on our door. He introduced himself—here, I call him The Tomato Neighbor—and foisted two manhandfuls of sunny jewels upon us. At the time, our belongings were caught in a painfully long moving truck fiasco, so these glorious, colorful tomatoes, which required nothing more than the knife and cutting board and table and chairs we’d borrowed from other neighbors, were just the thing. I remember eating them alongside burritos from the freezer section from Trader Joe’s, thinking that even though Tomato Tuesdays couldn’t reinvent themselves in Seattle, we’d most likely find something equally terrific here.

Summer after summer—this will be our fourth here—the Tomato Neighbor plants his tomato garden. In a space about as big as our living room, with a carefully crafted vine-rigging and watering system, he plants upwards of 20 varieties each year, more than 50 plants in all. Each May, as little fuzzy, weak-leaved starts appear at the farmers markets, he brings home infant Black Krims and Mortgage Lifters, Purple Cherokees and Green Zebras, little children to be fostered and spoiled throughout the summer. As they grow, we tell the histories of the ones we know, like the tomatoes are actually people—what, you hadn’t heard that a guy actually paid of his mortgage selling seeds for his new tomato variety?

What I’ve noticed, over the years, is that our relationship with The Tomato Neighbor ebbs and flows with the tomato season. All winter long, we hardly speak. (It’s not that much of a coincidence, really. We don’t have a lot in common.) But when the days get longer, and the sun starts peeking out a little more, we see each other. He’ll show me the start he’s about to put in the ground, or tell me which new variety he’s testing this year, and I’ll promise, like I did last week, to give him some of my leeks and show him how to clean them. In a way, when he plants his tomato garden, he plants a little community for our neighborhood. As the fruit comes forth, we see each other daily, the Tomato Neighbor and I, and Vicki, and Gail, and whoever else happens by—maybe Susan from across the street, or Kris, or whoever. There are lots of shouts through open windows, and slices to try, and people stop knocking on doors.

The other day, when The Tomato Neighbor popped in to tell me he’s got 44 plants in the ground already, I realized that as much as I love the food that comes out of his garden, it’s not the tomatoes I miss in the winter. It’s the community his tomatoes bring. It’s calling a different neighbor to show her the Greek salad I’ve done with his tomatoes, and explain to her why it would be perfect for her mother’s birthday party. It’s having friends from around the corner, and their two dogs, over to taste the tomatoes, with salt and olive oil, the same way we did on Cape Cod. It’s having a garden of my own, but also knowing that in a way—and I hope not a selfish way—the gardens on my street are all mine, in the same way that my garden belongs to all of them.

So when I went to plant a garden this spring, I started by asking myself a question: What do I want to get out of this square of land, besides food? Not How does my garden grow?, but Why does my garden grow? Okay, so actually, I cheated: I asked you on Facebook, too. You’re good. You said yours give you really dirty fingernails, and healthy dandelions, and an excuse to spend money, and—my favorite—a “forgiving place to remind me that mistakes are how we learn.”

But me? My garden grows because it gives me a sense of community. It feeds my second most immediate family, this little group of people on First Avenue, in a way that’s much more tangible than anything else I do. My garden’s problem—or my problem, really—is that I don’t feel like I have enough to give. I mean, is knocking on someone’s door with four blueberries really an act of kindness? I rarely have enough lettuce for a salad, and beets come out two at a time. I’d be kidding myself if I thought my little city space could produce enough food to feed us (or, ahem, if I thought my limited gardening skills could actually make that much food grow), much less have enough to really share, the way the Tomato Neighbor does. So this year, instead of planting a little of this and a little of that, I decided to plant mostly one thing: carrots. In September, I want to have enough to share with everyone.

I think carrots are the perfect garden vegetable: You can plant them early, when the digging itch strikes, but you can’t really put them in too late (in Seattle, anyway). In fact, you don’t even have to plant them, if you don’t want to—last year, I just flung the seeds into the patch and walked away, and everything turned out fine, except for the fact that my carrots came up in a sort of semicircular spray of green, like a bad eyeshadow job, instead of in neat little rows. In any case, the seeds morph into waving little green feathers almost immediately. You can thin the little sprouts, to make them grow bigger, but you don’t really have to. They grow below ground, instead of above, so my dog doesn’t eat them. They don’t go bad if you don’t pick them at just the right time, the way tomatoes do. And if, hypothetically, you’ve been known to forget all about them and leave them in the ground for, say, six months too long, they’re quick to forgive you.

I know. You garden people are balking, but you can keep your comments to yourself. I plant. They grow. I’m doing it right enough for me.

(Well, okay. They usually grow. I might have gotten a little bold and planted carrots in late February, but only a few came up. Mistakes are how we learn, right? So last weekend I planted again.)

Anyway. Last weekend, I announced to The Tomato Neighbor that I’d planted enough carrots for everyone, thinking I was doing my share. I’m proud of my carrots before they’ve shown even the smallest sign of success.

“Oh,” he said. “I got a whole bunch of carrot starts to put in, too. I meant to tell you that.”

So. I suspect we’ll have a few carrots around this fall. This little salad is my mental preparation.

Carrot and Hazelnut Salad (PDF)

I’m not normally the kind of girl who eats a bowl of carrot salad and calls it lunch. (I make fun of those girls.) Tangled together in a mixing bowl, though, this combination of freshly grated carrots (the pre-shredded kind really won’t do), spunky vinaigrette, and earthy, crunchy hazelnuts makes me think twice about adding a sandwich.

Use good-quality sea salt, vinegar, and oil for this recipe.

TIME: 25 minutes (including toasting nuts)
MAKES: 4 servings

1 cup hazelnuts
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons champagne vinegar
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup hazelnut oil
1 pound carrots, peeled and grated
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh parsley

First, toast the hazelnuts: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roast the nuts on a baking sheet for about 10 minutes, or until the skins begin to darken and peel away from the nuts themselves. Rub the nuts in a textured tea towel to remove the skins, roughly chop, and set aside.

Whisk the mustard, vinegar, and a little salt and pepper together in the bottom of a mixing bowl. Add the oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking until the oil is fully incorporated. Add the carrots, hazelnuts, and herbs, along with additional salt and pepper, if needed, and toss to coat.

Time change

Time baffles me. My father, an engineer, always said you need three things to conquer a new math concept: milk, cookies, and two hours. The first time he told me that, when I had to really study for a math test once, two hours seemed like an ocean of time. I’m pretty sure I cried before the clock started ticking, scared that my little boat of concentration wouldn’t make it to the other shore. But I’ve just spent two hours – that same increment – trying to sweep the debris off my browser and get to the screen now in front of me, and it hardly seems like I’ve had time to breathe, much less take a drink of milk.

Almost two weeks ago, I had lunch at Picnic, a little “food and wine boutique” near me in Seattle that sells mean European-style sandwiches, great soups, and a variety of creative little deli salads. I was with my oldest Seattle friend (someone I went to college with) and my newest Seattle friend, a woman I’ve only recently started getting to know. In round numbers, I’ve known one for ten years and one for ten weeks. Yet somehow, cuddled around the end of the table together, the difference, and the fact that they were meeting for the first time, didn’t seem to matter. We bantered and relaxed like we’d been having lunch together, the three of us, for years.

We all ordered soup, but before it came, one of Picnic’s owners, Jenny, came out with a little tasting plate of the curried chickpea salad we’d all been eying. “New Dehli salad,” said the sign, which made me laugh right out loud. It was spot-on – you certainly wouldn’t find a bright yellow legume mixture studded with golden raisins in the old-fashioned deli of my grandmother’s childhood.

It was the kind of salad that sits in the middle of the table and beckons, its little carrot arms waving wildly. Me, they say. Pick me. Every time my fork wandered toward the plate, I had a little moment of decision anxiety, a tiny panic over which scoop looked tastiest. (The truth: they were all pretty much equally delicious.) I’ve been meaning to tell you about it this whole time, but it’s taken until today – with a green tea latte, a muffin, and two hours – to get it all down.

My own version came together with a bit of serendipity, as we were pulling out of the driveway on our way to Portland, Oregon last week. Jill had sent me a bag of sexy black chickpeas from Montana. They’d been flirting with me the entire month of February, all pearly and exotic-looking, from behind the pantry door. I also had two pounds of gorgeous carrots from my garden – carrots I’d planted last June, forgotten about in September, remembered in November when they were hibernating under two inches of mulch, fretted over in January, and pulled just that morning – waiting patiently for the just the right use. (Carrots are pretty much the perfect vegetable for my current lifestyle: Can’t harvest today? Wait six months. They won’t mind.)

Quite literally, my husband was buckling our son into the carseat while I sautéed shallots with ginger, and yellowed them with curry. I stirred the mixture into the cooked chickpeas, along with toasted pine nuts for a bit of texture (because I didn’t think I had time to soften the raisins in hot water), fresh chives, lemon juice, and those carrots, all grated up.

“We’re ready,” said my husband. “We need to go.”

“Wait. Just a sec. I have to take a photo.”

He stood in the entryway watching me shovel the salad in, not 30 minutes after breakfast. Time stood completely still for three or four bites. I felt the chickpeas rolling over my tongue, and imagined their black skins cracking opening my mouth, revealing creamy insides really not much different from the interior of a regular chickpea. I felt the chives scrunch between my molars, felt the pine nuts collapse beside them. It was a snack for pressing pause.

“Are you going to take one?”

Right. The photograph.

“Yeah,” I muttered, foggy. “I’ll be right there.”

(And yes, of course regular canned or dried chickpeas work fine for this. I used the same amount you’d find in a can.)

Curried Carrot and Chickpea Salad (PDF)

Based on the “New Dehli” salad at a Seattle food and wine boutique called Picnic, this snacky salad combines chickpeas (regular, or black, if you can find them) and carrots with curry, ginger, chives, lemon, and toasted pine nuts. Either canned or dried chickpeas will work.

TIME: 15 minutes active time
MAKES: 4 servings

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (divided)
1 large shallot, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon coarsely grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 cups cooked chickpeas (rinsed and drained, if canned)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Add the shallot, season with salt and pepper, and cook and stir until very soft, about 6 to 8 minutes. Add the ginger and curry powder, then the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil and let bubble for another minute or two. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.

Combine the chickpeas, chives, pine nuts, lemon juice, and carrots in a mixing bowl. Pour the curry mixture over the top, stir to blend, season to taste, and serve at room temperature.

The food fairy

***PLEASE NOTE*** The name,”The Food Fairy,” is federally trademarked by North Carolina personal chef Terri McClernon. For more information about her business and services, please visit her site here.

Today, I’m on KUOW talking about how preparing great food ahead of time makes me feel like there’s a food fairy in the fridge. It works like this: I get hungry, I open the door, and boom – there she is, all twinkles and glitter, handing me the perfect mayo-less pasta salad.

Unlike more typical pasta salads, in this one, it’s the vegetables (and a good hit of vinegar) that shine. Crisp corn, juicy cherry tomatoes, and summer’s best green beans compete for attention in each bite. Instead of the usual dairy component, the salad gets its creaminess from white beans—which means it’s also packed with protein.

Oh, how I love the food fairy.

If you listened in, here are the other make-ahead recipes I mentioned:

Quick Bulgur Salad with Corn, Feta, and Basil (PDF)
Sausage and Summer Vegetable Strata (PDF)
Lulu’s Carnivore-Friendly Vegan Banana Pancakes (PDF)
Basil-Champagne Vinaigrette (PDF)

Bean and Bright Vegetable Salad (PDF)
TIME: 20 minutes active time
MAKES: 4 to 6 servings

1 cup orzo or other small pasta
1/4 pound thin green beans, trimmed and chopped into 1/2” pieces
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
1/4 cup champagne wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Kernels from 1 large ear corn
1 (15-ounce) can white or Great Northern beans, drained, or 1 cup dried beans, soaked and cooked
2 cups baby tomatoes, halved or quartered
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

Cook the orzo for 7 minutes in a large pot of boiling, salted water. Add the green beans, cook 2 more minutes, and drain them both together.

Meanwhile, whisk the mustard, shallot, vinegar, olive oil, and a bit of salt and pepper together in a large mixing bowl. Add the hot pasta and beans as soon as they’ve been drained, then stir in the corn and beans. Let cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, then fold in the tomatoes and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve. (Salad can be kept in the refrigerator, covered, up to 5 days.)

A quickie, for the fridge

My tomato neighbor – the one who replaced his backyard with what could seriously be called an urban tomato farm – is at it again. He’s been working all year, really, planning and plotting, digging and watering. But unlike the Little Red Hen, he’s generous to those of us who have sat idly by, doing nothing – which means this time of year, every third day or so, a new crop of tomatoes rainbows across the windowsill on my front porch.

He doesn’t just grow regular tomatoes. He grows celebrities. At least, that’s how they sound to me. They all have names like movie stars from the 20’s: Paul Robeson and Jean Flemme (which is actually Jaune Flamme, but would make a great name nonetheless) are the current favorites. And like famous people, the tomatoes look best wearing very little.

Lately, in my house, “very little” has meant a basil vinaigrette. I’ve been making it in big batches, and storing it in a Ball jar in the fridge, giving it just the quickest of shakes before dousing anything within arm’s reach – grilled chicken, sliced mangoes, you name it.

It’s the simplest thing to make – just a dollop of mustard, a scoop of yogurt, a glug of good Champagne vinegar, and a big stream of extra virgin olive oil, whizzed in the blender along with as much basil as I can tear off the basil plant with one hand. On paper, it hardly looks like a recipe at all. But I promise, it’s just the thing. Try it on a mixed green salad, with avocado slices and crab cakes, or mixed with some freshly-boiled new potatoes. Drizzle it over a simple salad of Bibb lettuce and hazelnuts. Or pile your favorite tomatoes on a plate, sprinkle them with feta, and drown them in the vinaigrette.

When you’re done, a nice slice of baguette should help you mop up. Of course, I much prefer to just use my fingers.

Basil-Champagne Vinaigrette (PDF)

MAKES: About 1 cup
TIME: 5 minutes

1/4 cup (packed) fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup Champagne wine vinegar
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt
Salt and pepper, to taste

Whirl all ingredients together in a blender until smooth.

Corn and bulgur

It’s not a conversation I’ll ever be able to live down, so I might as well tell you about it. It went like this, a few Junes ago, when we lived on Cape Cod, where there is no corn in June:

JIM: Wow! Corn on the cob!? Really?
JESS: Yup! Doesn’t it look great?
JIM: Where did you get corn this time of year?
JESS: (Looking sideways to see where her smart husband went.) The store.
JIM: No. I mean what country. Where did it come from?
JESS: Ohhh. California, I think.

There are a number of problems with this conversation: First, California is technically not a country. Second, corn usually tastes way better when purchased out of the back of a truck. Third, I was buying corn in June. Guilty. It’s just one of those things. Some people can’t stop themselves from buying Chilean cherries in January. I always buy corn before I should.

It’s become a bit of a joke between us. Anytime I bring something seasonal home – fat, drippy apricots, or heirloom tomatoes, or fava beans, say – Jim asks where it came from, and I tell him I got it at the store, even if I’ve just come straight from the farmers’ market. It’s our way of reminding ourselves that we can all be idiots, sometimes. We have a good laugh.

Last week, I spied soft, creamy cornsilk poking out from behind the bell pepper display, and couldn’t resist. At eight for $5, it wasn’t exactly cheap high-season corn, but I figured two ears were better than none in terms of satisfying my early-season craving, and better than buying a whole bushel, in terms of food miles. Into the cart they went, without a plan.

Then came the bulgur binge.

Last year was the summer of quinoa. We piled beans and avocado and tomatoes and corn atop big bowls of the stuff, or mixed it with vinaigrettes of all types, along with myriad summer vegetables, making glistening summer salads we could scoop in at all hours of the day. This year, though, I’ve decided my grain of choice is bulgur.

Bulgur has the unluckiest of grain names. Quinoa may be hard to pronounce, and even harder to spell, but it’s saved by its q; I’d love it on the basis of its Scrabble potential alone. Being easy to cook and delicious to eat seals the deal.

But bulgur. In a bag, it doesn’t look like much more than squirrel food, and what’s sexy about a food that rhymes with vulgar?

Lots, I think. Great nutty flavor, for one. And it’s cheap; I buy it in the bulk section of my local supermarket. It falls into the whole grain category, which means you can preen your feathers in nutritional self-congratulation while you’re standing in line at the check-out counter. Bulgur also bridges the gap between crunchy and yielding between the teeth, and accepts almost any flavor, like that rare woman who looks good in absolutely any color. (If I think about it too long that way, I get a little jealous, but I do love a food with flexibility.)

Recently, I’ve learned that bulgur can also stalk a person as well as any convicted sex offender. It’s been following me all spring, in fact. A couple weeks ago, my cousin Julia sent me a video of the tabbouleh dance:

I don’t really care if you think it’s funny (or not), or completely inappropriate (or not). It’s become clear to me that no one I forward it to seems to laugh as hard as I do. Which is fine. I never did have a normal sense of humor. The point – besides the fact that from now on, I will think of chopping a shoplifter’s hand off when I hack the stems off a bunch of parsley – is that the song is now deeply enough engraved in my brain that I’m singing songs to my son about changing his diapers in the same tune. Yes, the tabbouleh song has entered my nursery rhyme repertoire. And my husbands get-a-beer-out-of-the-fridge dancing soundtrack. And, it turns out, my kitchen psyche.

This video made me realize I’ve never actually made tabbouleh, that classic middle eastern mix of bulgur (which is cracked wheat, cooked by simply soaking it in hot water), parsley, tomatoes, and whatever else one likes to use. I wondered if I was missing something.

The day after Julia sent me the video, my friend Jon brought over a most delicious tabbouleh – one with the usual crunchy bulgur, parsley, and some mint, I believe, but instead of tomatoes, he’d folded in gigantic white beans. I took a modest portion at dinner, then focused on raving over the rest of our meal, partly because it very much deserved raving, and partly because I wanted to distract the others so there would be more tabbouleh leftover for me to snack on at midnight. It worked.

Then my mom got to talking tabbouleh. She even sent me photos. (See? Stalker.) This weekend, when I needed a side dish for a barbecue with friends, I put some water on to boil.

My bulgur salad was even faster to make than I suspected it might be. I soaked the grains, then sawed the kernels off a couple corn cobs, chopped some herbs, and crumbled feta. Into a bowl it all went. My husband grumbled something about salad for squirrels, and after being indoctrinated by the video, he insisted I couldn’t in good conscience call it tabbouleh since there aren’t tomatoes in it. A spoonful later, he was as smitten as I was. I won’t call it tabbouleh, but I will call it delicious.

Tomorrow, I’m going to make another version, this time with tomatoes and little chunks of mozzerella cheese, and perhaps balsamic vinegar instead of the lemon juice I used here. Maybe the next day, I’ll make another bulgur salad, with the fresh chickpeas coming into markets in Seattle. I see a creamy bulgur side dish in my future, too, and muffins studded with bulgur and fresh raspberries.

And oh, yes. Someday, there will be fresh local corn, and I’ll make this one again.

Quick Bulgur Salad with Corn, Feta, and Basil (PDF)

Though it satisfies like a pasta salad, bulgur salad requires a lot less attention (and less time near a hot stove, when summer weather hits). It’s also cheap, a bit healthier, and seems to get tastier after a day or two in the fridge.

To make the bulgur, you simply dump it into in a mixing bowl, add hot water, and let it soak for half an hour.

TIME: 30 minutes
MAKES: 4 to 6 servings

1 cup bulgur
1 cup boiling water
Kernels from 2 ears of corn
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
1/2 cup finely chopped basil
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice from 1 large lemon
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Place the bulgur in a small mixing bowl. Add boiling water, stir, and let sit 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, blend corn, herbs, feta, olive oil, and lemon juice in a medium bowl. Add bulgur, season with salt and pepper, and serve at room temperature.

Never enough time

I didn’t mean to help. I didn’t have a choice, really. I was shimmying back up the airplane from the lavatory, and she was just there. Our eyes met, and we started to do that little aisle dance. This time, I remembered my belly. Only, before I had a chance to turn baby into the space between two seats, the woman leaned into me, fainting. She had time to grab a headrest, but the other hand flailed. I grasped it, and we sank together to the floor in a slow motion hug.

She came to right as we reached the floor. She opened her eyes, bewildered by what had happened.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’ve never fainted before. But I think I can get up now.”

“No,” I countered. “I think you’re just fine right here. Let’s just hang out for a few minutes.”

So we sat.

She seemed young and fit, but she was clearly frightened. Her second hand went to mine, and we just looked at each other, all four of our hands resting on my knees, down on the carpet near everyone’s feet. It might have been five minutes before a flight attendant arrived with water, who knows – but in that span of time, the woman stopped shaking, and her head seemed to clear, and she just looked at me, thankful.

Eventually, I realized that I was still in a low squat, and my legs were screaming, and baby was squished. The flight attendant had fetched someone with better credentials than being in the right place at the right time, so I excused myself, stepping right over my new friend, and that was that.

It was a good reminder that we are, all of us, simply human, first. That we can’t always explain why we come together, but sometimes just have to be thankful that we do. And that sometimes, a touch says what words can’t.

Our trip to New England wonderful. It was snowy, and then warm, and then really good and stormy, and delicious, the whole way through. We walked on wintry beaches, and made lobster stew, and went snowshoeing, and cooked with friends, and held babies. I didn’t even bring my computer, which meant time reading, and – on someone else’s machine – joining (gag) Facebook. And we even had a little surprise baby shower. I got to whack the head off a duck-shaped pinata.

But in most cases, we never got to see the people we love quite as long as we wanted. Each visit ended with a rushed, sort of sorrowful hug, and pledges for the year to come, and in each case, we had to be satisfied with the assurance of that touch. You can guarantee long-distance love, but it’s hard to promise time.

Still, gosh, was it good to come home. Ten days is quite a long trip. And almost as soon as we landed, Seattle reminded us that we belong here. My mother drove my sister back up for college, so we saw them. Kate stopped by with Ric, and Dave and Kelly officially moved into a house just down the street from us, and Melanie and Kevin came to stay the night during the snowstorm. Here, too, we saw each of our friends for too little time.

That’s just the way it works, though. There’s never enough time.

But however precious little there is, I appreciate spending visits in the same rhythms life normally offers. I don’t like the pomp and circumstance of How are you?, and Oh, it’s been ages!, and Do you really have to leave so soon? I’d much rather ignore the distance, and help myself to a cup of tea. I like going straight to where I know the teabags are in a house I haven’t stepped foot in for months, and plopping down as if I’d been there the day before.

I had lunch with Melanie and Kevin, before they left, and it was like that. I came home from a morning working, and they’d cleaned our kitchen, like they might have in their own house. We made lunch together, six hands pitching in. It certainly wasn’t fancy, but it was healthful, and tasty, and as they walked out the door, heading back to California, we hugged, and hoped to see each other soon.

That’s all you can do, I guess.

Warm Quinoa, Vegetable and White Bean Salad (PDF)

Arugula, grape tomatoes, zucchini and Parmesan cheese make this a nutritious lunch or dinner that’s perfect for wintry weather.

TIME: 20 minutes
MAKES: 4 servings

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup quinoa
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 zucchini, chopped into 1/4” half moons
1/2 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 (15-ounce) can white beans, rinsed and drained, or 2 cups cooked beans
2 lightly packed cups arugula
1/4 cup heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup roughly chopped parsley

Bring the broth and quinoa to a boil in a saucepan. Cover, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed. Set aside.

While the quinoa simmers away, heat a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the oil, then the onion, and cook and stir for 5 minutes. Add the zucchini and tomatoes, and cook another 5 minutes, until tomatoes are soft. Add the beans, arugula, and cream and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the arugula has wilted and the beans are warmed through. Stir in the cooked quinoa, 1/2 cup of the cheese and the parsley, and season to taste.

Pile the salad into bowls, top with remaining Parmesan, and serve immediately.

The Chickpea Chronicles

I have news for you:

I am going to give birth to a chickpea.

I’m not actually kidding. I’m pregnant, due in May, and I have blood tests that prove that the person growing inside me will come out with a can opener in his or her tiny little hand, because instead of breast milk, this baby will only be eating chickpea salad. At least, that’s the trend thus far.

I know. I should have told you earlier.

But it was so boring early on, in the food department: Toast. Saltine crackers. Cereal. More toast. More crackers. More cereal. Rice pudding. Saltines in bed. Saltines on the sheets, and in my husband’s hair. Dog jumping on the bed, snorting saltine dust. Toast.

Around here, you’ve seen an awful lot of desserts recently, if you hadn’t noticed. That’s because meat and I have not been friends. In fact, food and I have not been great friends, and for me, that’s sad. I thought I’d never meet a Bolognese I didn’t like, but I did, twice, and I can’t talk about it yet.

But all that nonsense seems to be over, finally. (Whoever said nausea ends at 12 weeks is full of shit. Try 15.)

But back to beans.

If they’re at all gussied up, I can down a can of chickpeas – garbanzo beans, whatever you want to call them – in a single sitting. Like now, at 10:17 a.m, when I’ve already had a piece of toast, an egg, and a smoothie for breakfast. In fact, I’m beginning to consider myself something of a chickpea salad expert.

Let me enlighten you.

The average chickpea salad takes four to six minutes to make. This takes into consideration my simplest version (and the one I make most often), which takes just under one minute, if I can find the can opener quickly – it’s just chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper – and the luxe version, which requires boiling water for some sort of grain, chopping herbs, and getting out a proper bowl and perhaps, in a moment of leisure, a napkin.

But yes, on average, I’d say four to six minutes. The version that was in the bowl in front of me just moments ago was a good proxy of my typical mid-morning snack. I mixed a can of rinsed, drained chickpeas with chopped cucumber, cilantro, and olives, plus the juice of half a Meyer lemon and some olive oil, salt and pepper. I crumbled in a handful of goat cheese, and stirstirstirred until it melted into a dressing, which meant chickpea salad bound by a silky white sauce that really probably wasn’t meant to fall into the little indentation between the space key and the raised framing on my Mac laptop. (No, silly, that’s for your thumb.)

The most exotic salad, thus far, was very misleading. I went to a party recently where we were all instructed to bring a favorite dish from childhood. Tea brought tuna noodle casserole (with peas, of course). Shauna made tomato soup, updated with chipotle peppers and red lentils. Traca brought homemade salted peanut butter caramel ice cream, and a chocolate version made with coconut milk, which must have been meant as a stand-in for ice cream in general, unless I missed that her mother is related to Martha Stewart. Barbara brought Oreos and milk, and Megan (I think!) brought rice krispy treats. (Just try spelling that with a “c.”)

But me? I brought the chickpea salad I made a couple weeks ago, which was based on the salad at How to Cook a Wolf. Not because I loved chickpeas as a child. (In fact, I refused to try them, because my friend Sari loved them, and how could I possibly have liked something she liked?)

No. I brought the salad because I couldn’t imagine getting through the afternoon without chickpeas.

And what did I find, there on the buffet table? Another chickpea salad. Apparently Brandon really did have a chickpea childhood. His salad seemed plain enough – to the naked eye, why, it was just a bunch of legumes, looking shiny in a bowl. But they were dressed with some combination so close to Caesar salad – with great olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and plenty of garlic – that I stubbornly refused to ask him what he’d put in the mix, lest he dared mention a raw egg out loud, and Hey, aren’t you pregnant? Should you be eating that? squeaked out from someone across the room. I made that one again, too, but (sigh) without the egg he may or may not have used. (I am such a wuss.)

And yes, about about that chickpea salad from Wolf? Oh, people, it gets better. Mix that one with 3/4 cup cooked orzo pasta, juice of another half a lemon, another glug of olive oil, and 1/2 cup crumbled feta, and you’ve got an eat-over-the-sink-til-it’s-gone-able pasta salad.

Then there are the warm versions, which may take slightly longer: A red quinoa and chickpea salad, with feta, sundried tomatoes, olives, and corn. That one was for a party, too, but by the time my spoon found it, it was only mostly for a party.

Then there was a warm one where I sautéed onions, red bell pepper, and broccoli, and added the chickpeas with a touch of cumin and apple cider vinegar. That one was delicious, but not as shovelable as the others. I actually had leftovers, that time.

So yes, thank you for asking, I am especially thankful for something this year. I’m thankful for this little chickpea, even if it does make me cry at Walmart commercials. (Yup, you’re right. I don’t own a television. It happened at my gym, right there on the elliptical machine.)

I’m thankful for you, too, dear reader. It’s nice to have you along.

I can’t promise that hogwash won’t change in the months to come. I’ve always written about life, and if there’s one certain way to make life change, we’ve smack dabbed ourselves into the middle of it.

I will promise, though, that I will eventually move beyond chickpeas.

At least, I do hope so.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Red Quinoa, Chickpea, and Feta Salad (PDF)

TIME: 20 minutes
MAKES: 8 to 12 servings

1 1/3 cups red quinoa (white works just as well)
1 cup chopped Kalamata olives
1/4 cup chopped sundried tomatoes (the kind packed in oil)
3/4 cup corn kernels (from a large cob, or cooked frozen corn)
1 1/4 cups crumbled feta cheese (from a 7-ounce brick)
2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Cook the quinoa in water according to package instructions. (You should have about 3 1/2 cups cooked quinoa.) Transfer to a large mixing bowl, and stir in the remaining ingredients, through parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve at room temperature.

My New Noodle Soup

New Noodle Soup. Say it.

(Out loud, I mean.)

New Noodle Soup. Fun, isn’t it?

I know why. It’s because somewhere in there, you get to say “noo-noos,” like a two-year-old. Who can resist the sound of a food whose pronunciation requires the same mouth shape as its eating?

But clearly, noo-noos are not what one orders in mixed public adult company. Even I couldn’t do that. How unfortunate, especially this time of year, when traveling sniffles have most of us fighting hard to pretend we don’t have fall colds, and noonoos are just what we need.

But I do. I have a cold. And I’m going to be on the radio today, so last night I started hitting the liquids hard, trying anything to bring my bedraggled voice back. For dinner, it had to be my own version of the terrific chicken noonoo soup I had last weekend.

When I sat down at ART, the restaurant at Seattle’s new Four Seasons Hotel, I was a little shocked to find chicken noodle soup on the menu. It reads like such a pedestrian choice for an appetizer. Not exactly the sort of thing I’d expect to order in a room where the bar counter is backlit by ever-changing shades of fluorescence. But the soup – fine filaments of spiced vegetables, twisted up with soba noodles and black silkie chicken in a deeply flavorful broth, and topped with a poached egg – was anything but plain.

I didn’t have any desire to recreate the exact same soup. The carrots, cabbage, and squash were sliced micro-thin, for starters, and the presentation was far fancier than anything that happens in my house—the gorgeous ceramic bowl, the fanfare of a waiter pouring the broth over the noodles, yadda yadda. And I didn’t have time to hunt down a chicken that looks like it belongs in a Dr. Seuss book. But I couldn’t ignore the way the egg yolk glided into the broth, infusing it with a richness that makes chicken soup feel even more healing than usual.

I thought I tasted a hint of miso in the broth at ART – but when I asked, I was assured that I was just tasting the richness of a stock made with silkie black chicken, whose meat is known for its deep, almost gamey flavor. Once I got the miso in my head, though, I couldn’t get it out – so I spiked our soup with a dollop of miso paste.

Course, the plan was to eat half of it, then take it out of the fridge this morning, pop a newly poached egg on top, and take a few slightly more attractive photographs for you, in the daylight. But when I went to take it out of the fridge, I discovered my husband had taken the entire container for lunch.

Guess I’ll have to make more noo-noos.

Chicken Soba Noodle Soup with Miso and Poached Egg (PDF)

At ART, Chef Kerry Sear poaches the eggs for 8 to 10 minutes wrapped up in a layer of plastic wrap. He lines a ramekin with the wrap, cracks an egg in, twists the ends to seal, and puts it right into a pot of boiling water. His method worked perfectly for me, but poach using whatever method you like best.

I found the timing worked well if I put the chicken stock, water for the pasta, and water for the eggs on the stove at the same time.

TIME: 25 minutes
MAKES: 4 servings

8 cups rich homemade chicken stock
1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 3/4 pound)
2 large celery stalks, thinly sliced on a diagonal
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced on a diagonal
1 bundle soba noodles (about 1/3 pound, or the diameter of a quarter)
1 tablespoon yellow miso paste
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 large eggs, poached
Shichimi togarashi (Japanese seven spice mix, optional)

Bring the stock to a bare simmer in a large saucepan. Add the chicken breast, celery, and carrots, and cook for about 10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Shred the chicken and return it to the pot with the vegetables.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to boil for the noodles. Cook until al dente, according to package instructions. Drain, rinse with cool water, and set aside.

Add the miso to the soup, and stir the noodles into the soup to warm. Season the broth to taste with salt and pepper, if necessary. Using tongs, divide the noodles between four soup bowls, then add vegetables, chicken, and broth to each. Top each bowl with a poached egg, and serve with a few sprinkles of shichimi, for a bit of spice, if desired.

—

For those who have come from KUOW, here’s a PDF of the chickpea salad recipe I mentioned, from How to Cook a Wolf (pictured above), and here’s the vanilla-olive oil cake.

A little pinch of ridiculous

A few weeks ago, Frank and Michelle made me the most hilarious birthday gift, meant as a form of encouragement for my renewed enthusiasm for biking: They took a Specialized advertisement starring Tom Boonen and put my face where the professional bike racer’s head once was, atop a bike significantly faster than mine. It’s a scary clip, and makes both me and poor Tom look quite ridiculous. Like the wolf in Grandma’s clothing, only in my case, it’s my little bobble head on a significantly more athletic body. My, Jess, what strong legs you have.

In my lexicon, “bicycle” and “racing” only really meet each other when I’m talking about getting those damned shoes off. When we rode with our friends again last weekend, though, I started to feel strong on a bike for the first time in years. (Or ever, maybe.) Michelle chatted me up the side of Queen Anne Hill at a whole mile an hour faster than I’d gone the previous weekend. I took a hit of one of those carbohydrate gels without making a face, even.

Now, I’m no Tom Boonen, but I’m getting closer. Michelle took off near the top of the second hill, to finally get her muscles warmed up, and I came to an almost dead standstill, to breathe again – but I didn’t get off that bike, and that felt good. And at the end, as we headed up Fremont toward the zoo, I didn’t think of crying.

It’s one thing, to have someone say you can do it. But it’s another thing entirely, another great, wonderful, life-preserving, heart-filling thing, when the people you’re with say you are doing it. I’m being dramatic, I know, reading so much into a single bike ride, but resting at the top of the Lighthouse hill (which measures a 22% grade at one point, thankyouverymuch), having hauled my ass up the thing in a painfully slow sinuous pattern at a crowd-pumping 3 miles per hour, I sure didn’t feel like I was “suffering from lupus.” Or anything, for that matter, except a little touch of sunburn. I just felt like the old Jess, trying to get back into shape, doing the biking thing in a way I sometimes thought I’d never do again. Oh Tom, I thought, pain is your enemy. But do you know how nice it is to feel the most normal pain, as opposed to one you can’t control? Maybe he does. Good for him, too, then.

That husband of mine? He’s doing his best to make the whole thing a positive experience, also. (Smart man. He’s the one who taped my handlebars pink, which thrills me to the core, and encouraged me to get a good bike jersey, because he knows I subscribe to the fashion-equals-fitness exercise mentality.)

On Saturday, he hopped right off his own trusty steed and into the kitchen, bike shorts and all, to whip up some huevos rancheros – my favorite brunch, if the rumblings my stomach is now making are any indication – to refuel us.

While he cooked, I stretched, and putzed around in the refrigerator for something to tide me over. I found the cucumber salad I’d made a few nights before, and again, obsessively, the previous night.

Then, it had seemed so perfect – crunchy and light, almost fizzy-tasting, with that celebratory champagne vinegar, and sharp, with that little dab of mustard. I made it because it seemed like such a shame to hide fresh cucumbers in a salad, or put them aside for pickles, when I could taste them just for themselves. The cucs were sliced thin, so we got all the good green flavor of the skins, but none of their sometimes-leathery texture. (Really. “Leather” and “cucumbers” should never be used in the same sentence.)

But when I opened the container after the bike ride, I just about laughed. Cucumbers? Pointless. I traded them for a piece of bacon, and sat down to wait for the rest of breakfast.

Sunday, we went for an easy hike up near Mt. Rainier, in the glowing September sun. (Oh, yes, a full weekend without work! Maybe that’s why I feel so good.) We took it easy, and my joints were more or less happy.

That wolf? I guess she’s all bedded down in grandma’s pajamas, these days. I know she’s there, and I know she’ll be back with the rains, all huffety puffety, but boy, is it nice to have some silence, for once. I do hope it’s a positive feedback loop.

Now that I’ve recovered a bit, my appetite has been correctly recalibrated, and I want another batch of those cucumbers, to celebrate Indian summer, on the porch. There are still a couple left from Friday.

Between us? They’re getting a little soggy, three days on. But that second day, they were still surprisingly crisp.

Champagne-Chive Cucumber Salad (PDF)
Here’s a recipe for cucumbers you won’t have to wait months to enjoy. It’s a simple, spunky, refreshing salad, the kind of thing you can eat standing up without feeling guilty. It’s also the perfect counterpart to rich fish, and would make a great sandwich ingredient. Slicing the cucumbers ultra thin means you get the flavor of the peel without its objectionable texture.

TIME: 10 minutes
MAKES: 4 servings

2 small cucumbers (not pickling cucumbers), or about 2/3 pound
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Champagne vinegar
Salt and finely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

Slice the cucumbers as thin as possible on a mandolin, and transfer to a mixing bowl.

In a small bowl, whisk the mustard, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste, until blended. Add the olive oil, and whisk until emulsified. Add the dressing to the cucumbers, along with the chives, and stir to coat all the cucumber pieces, using your hands if necessary to separate the slices. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper. Serve immediately, or refrigerate up to 4 hours and serve chilled.

iDon’tProgram

This is my lunch, with my new telephone. (I know. That’s a telephone. I have trouble believing it myself.)

I was on the fence about the iPhone. Or so I thought, until someone showed me Urbanspoon’s new application. It’s ohso fun. You shake your phone, and it tells you where to eat dinner. Don’t like what it tells you? Shake again. The best part? It works in more than 50 cities, which means the next time I go to London, I don’t have to scribble fifteen thousand restaurant names and their respective addresses into my A to Z map. (That’s pronounced “zed,” you know.) I can just hop off the tube, lock in a neighborhood, and shake away.

The only problem is that no one goes out to dinner every night. At least, no one I know.

Which means someone, somewhere, needs to tap into a giant list of really good recipes (Cookthink? Epicurious? Are your coders on summer vacation?) and plop them into an iPhone app. Call it iMarket. iCookDinner. iWhatever. Or, God forbid, call it something without that poor i, which is so overused it’s beginning to look more like punctuation than an actual letter.

Imagine: You walk into a grocery store, or a farmers’ market. You lock in your parameters – a season, say summer, or an ingredient, or an ethnic cuisine, or “under 20 minutes” – and you shake. It comes up with dinner for you, complete with a shopping list and a pretty picture. Maybe a few serving suggestions, too. No typing. No searching. Just dinner.

This is, effectively, what my brain does every time I walk into a grocery store. The other day, when I walked into my local co-op knowing I wanted to make a tasty, packable lunch for a friend in the hospital, I left with ingredients for a red quinoa salad with tomatoes, olives, feta, and herbs, easy as that. Maybe your brain does it, too. But not everyone is born pre-programmed for dinner decisions.

I can hear you: Keep that idea to yourself, woman! It’s genius! You could make a killing!

It is, if you ask me. And I could.

But it’s so not my bag. So, uh, you coder people. Get moving.

Herbed Summer Quinoa Salad (PDF)
Think of this as a summer salad template. Add anything you can dream up – I’d have added marinated artichokes, if I’d had them, along with chopped leftover green beans and zucchini, or even chickpeas. It’s the kind of thing you want to be in your refrigerator every time you open it, hungry, at 3 p.m. I believe it tastes best sitting in a chair on a sunny porch.

You can use red or white quinoa; I think red is simply more interesting to look at.

TIME: 20 minutes active time
MAKES: 6 servings

1 cup red or white quinoa
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1 pint assorted baby tomatoes, halved
1 cup pitted nicoise or Kalamata olives, chopped
3/4 cup crumbled feta (about 1/3 pound)
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a small saucepan. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt, and boil for 5 minutes. Cover the pot, set aside, and let rest for 15 minutes, or until all the water is absorbed. (If there’s a little extra water remaining, just pour it off.)

Transfer the quinoa to a mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients, stir to blend, and season to taste. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Beets, for me

I got a voicemail from Florida the other day, from a woman I’ll call Tracy. She’d read a piece I wrote in Arthritis Today, something that grew out of a post here about how cooking and lupus collide. She was calling to relate.

It was the strangest thing, having someone ask me for advice on how to manage the disease. My first instinct was to tell her she had the wrong girl.

On Sunday, I called her back. I knew I could listen, but didn’t think I’d have much to say.

Tracy’s a personal chef, like I used to be. She has lupus, like I do. Only, she has an incredibly complicated case, a fat folder stuffed with the details of multiple autoimmune diseases. She’s had unusual reactions to all the medications that seem to help me, can’t find a doctor she likes, and doesn’t have health care. She’s lost three friends to severe lupus in the last year, and oh, friends, she’s so angry.

Talking to her reminded me how lucky I am, and how far I’ve come since 2003. I remembered how much I wanted an explanation, at first, like Tracy still does, even after living with lupus for 30 years – she wants a reason, a cause, a more accurate diagnosis.

It surprised me a little when she told me her story, and I actually felt I had advice to give. I wanted to articulate how I stopped being so mad at my body. (-ing, rather. How I’m stopping.)

There’s a calendar by my bed. Every morning, I mark it when I take my medication, and every evening, I keep track of the day – there are little notes about whether I’ve napped, how I’ve exercised, how I feel, plus any other little thing that comes to mind. It’s filled with complaints, too. (Left wrist hurting. Right knee snapping.)

The calendar keeps me honest. If I haven’t been napping, it tells me. If I’ve avoided exercise, it knows. And when I do something great for myself – get a massage, or paint my toenails, or pick flowers and arrange them in the heavy terra cotta vase my sister made – it tells me I’ve done a good job.

But no matter what the day brings, the calendar’s principle function is that of a constant caretaker. The physical habit of uncapping the pen each night reminds me that I’m in control, and that what I do every day – how I eat, how I sleep, how many Advil I take or don’t take, how much time I spend in the sun – has a direct impact on how I feel. I transfers the responsibility for my disease from some big, scary, overpowering force directly to moi.

I told Tracy about it, and asked if she did anything for herself.

“For myself?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” I said. “For you, and only you. Not for dinner. Not for your clients. Not for your husband. For you.”

She didn’t understand.

I suggested she find a notebook, and make a list, over the course of a week or so, of things that make her happy, and to try to hold herself responsible for doing one of those things each day. We talked about chair yoga, and slow walks, and sitting in sunbeams, and taking a cut flower to a neighbor. As I wandered around the house, listening, my eyes grazed a greeting card my friend Beth gave me, years ago:

Oh, I do believe it’s true. No one else can make you happy. And from my experience, no one else can make you completely healthy, either. That’s up to you.

I’d never made a list myself, but as we chatted, I thought it sounded like a darn good idea. I realized how much more I’ve leaned on the little things, these last five years, to mask my frustration – just today, I obsessed about way a handful of cold cherries feels in my palm, and how the garbage can clatters across the asphalt when I bring it back in. Maybe it’s a convenient way to explain my OCD tendencies. But if you listen to them, I do believe life’s little pleasantries can begin to sound bigger than the worries.

When we hung up, I felt lighter. (I hope Tracy did, too.) I meant to make a list, but I didn’t.

This morning, though, trying to water the plants before the sun hit them, I found a beet in my garden. (My first beet ever!) Half the beets had bolted prematurely, so I pulled them all out, finding a good handful of little ones by the end. I was going to put them aside for dinner, for friends. But they called back.

I’ll just cut the tops off and wash them, so they stay fresh for a salad, I thought. My husband was heading off to work, and there I was, elbow-deep in a sink of cold water, playing with beet greens, enjoying the way the water iced my joints.

I’ll just trim them up a bit now, too, I decided. No sense in washing the cutting board twice, right?

I whiddled and sliced until they looked ready for a roast in the oven, but when I set them aside, they called me right back, loud as their stripes. Now, they insisted.

My deadline begged to differ. It’s been a crazy week (with not much cooking, if you hadn’t noticed), and the last thing I needed to do was make beet salad for elevenses.

But I thought of Tracy, and my nonexistent list. I could roast now, when I was really enjoying it and reveling in my garden’s newfound productivity, or later, tired, with dinner looming. So I roasted beets, at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, simply because they were pretty. It meant that the beets weren’t for dinner, they were for me.

It felt like skipping class.

Sitting on the porch with the roasting pan, I started my list in a string-bound journal someone gave me months ago. I topped it with “sometime,” to separate it from the to-dos with actual deadlines. It only took five minutes, but it made me feel fantastic. I wrote things like rub the rosemary plant, and sit on the porch for five minutes on a sunny day. Nothing too intricate, nothing that takes too much time.

As I closed my book, I decided that while Tracy had been an excellent inroad for my own list, the journal would be good for any body, in any health. And sitting there, as the fog lifted off the Olympics, I almost felt luckier for not having perfect health.

I vowed to try to do something from the list, for me, each day.

So far, so good, I thought. But I might need a bigger calendar.

Roasted Beets with Oregano and Sherry Vinegar
There wasn’t much too it, really. There’s nothing fancy going on here. Just a half pound of trimmed baby beets, sliced up and tossed into a baby pan. (The skins seemed so fresh, I didn’t bother to peel them.) A sprig of oregano, stripped and sprinkled over the beets, along with a bit of sea salt and a crack of pepper. A drizzle of olive oil, and a dash of sherry vinegar. And time – oh yes, these beets need a bit of time, too, but not nearly as much as whole beets. I roasted them at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, until soft when poked with a fork, then hit them with a tiny bit more vinegar before eating them straight out of the hot pan, with a fork, in the sun on the porch.

Fantasy Vinaigrette

I haven’t really felt like talking much, recently. Not here, anyway. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the nice weather. (These days, I am not feeling what I would call driven.)

Maybe it’s that the things I’ve been “discovering” have felt awfully simple: Bacon. Salad. Eggs.

(Have you ever made an egg quesadilla for breakfast? Heat the tortilla up on one side, flip it over, and crack the egg onto the hot side. Use a fork to break the yolk and spread the egg around on the tortilla, like Anita does with her savory crepes. Add shredded sharp cheddar cheese. When the egg has set, fold the tortilla in half: Breakfast burrito effect, without the egg pan. I just had it for lunch. Right now, I want to make it again tomorrow, but it certainly doesn’t qualify as exciting.)

Or. Maybe it’s just that there’s not much to say.

I have been meaning to say thanks, though – to my neighbor for watching the dog, to friends for having us over for dinner. . . I’ve found just the thing. It’s my fantasy vinaigrette. From now on, I’ll be making it by the gallon.

Maybe you have such a vinaigrette in mind, too – it’s creamy without being too fattening, tangy and interesting but not clingy or cloying, flexible but never pedestrian. I found mine at American Flatbread in Burlington, Vermont, on a mixed green salad served with goat cheese. When I asked the server what was in the dressing, she rattled off an ingredient list – tahini and ginger, she said, and the tang is raspberry vinegar. (Really? Raspberry vinegar and tahini? Oh, yes.)

I’ve recreated it, with even more success than I hoped for. I’ve already found a home for it on an easygoing Bibb salad with avocado, tomato, and cucumber, and also on a simple plate of arugula. We slathered it on grilled salmon, and frankly, with today’s second batch, I plan to make a habit of eating it on a spoon, for snack. That is, unless I have a second quesadilla. In that case, I’ll wait until dinner.

Fantasy Vinaigrette (PDF)
with tahini, ginger, and raspberry vinegar

Serve the vinaigrette as is, over anything that’ll hold liquid, or use it as a dressing for pasta or chopped vegetable salads. I can’t wait to try it on a carrot salad, with scallions, cilantro, and a dash of cumin.

TIME: 15 minutes
MAKES: About 3/4 cup

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
1 small garlic clove, smashed
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons (well stirred) sesame tahini (I chose the roasted kind)
1/4 cup raspberry vinegar
1/4 cup canola oil

In a blender or food processor, whirl the first six ingredients until smooth and well blended. With the machine running, add the oil in a slow, steady stream, and process until emulsified. The vinaigrette keeps, refrigerated, up to two weeks in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature and whisk before using.

A quick salad, for skiing

I know. “Salad” and “skiing” don’t usually go together. But someone told me it’s supposed to hit 70 degrees in Seattle this weekend (hallelujah!), and we’re going skiing, which means a picnic, which means portable edibles. I will be ready.

Besides being delicious, this little salad is the perfect solution to a refrigerator full of fennel fronds.

Beet and Fennel Wheat Berry Pilaf (PDF)
You could substitute dill for the fennel, if you’d prefer, or add any variety of crumbled cheeses, but I like the way the simple combination of lemon and fennel leaves a clean, bright taste in my mouth.

TIME: 30 minutes active time
MAKES: 4 to 6 servings

1 pound baby beets (about a dozen 1 1/2” beets), trimmed
1 cup raw wheat berries
2 teaspoons salt, plus more, to taste
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped fennel fronds (the soft, green tops of one big fennel bulb)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1/2 cup roughly chopped toasted pecans

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Trim the beets, wrap them in foil, and roast for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until tender. Cool slightly in the foil, then peel and quarter.

Meanwhile, place the wheat berries in a large saucepan. Add about 6 cups water and 1 1/2 teaspoons of the salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to a simmer, and cook for about an hour, maybe a little longer, until the berries are al dente. (Some of the berries may begin to open up.)

In a large bowl, whisk the lemon juice, olive oil, remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a good grinding of pepper together to blend. Drain the wheat berries and stir them into the bowl when they’re hot, so they soak up the dressing. Fold in the warm beets, fennel fronds, chives, and pecans, and season to taste with additional salt and pepper, if necessary. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Since fresh fennel fronds don’t wilt very easily, the salad keeps well in the refrigerator, covered, up to 3 days.

A salad that plays pretends

Yesterday, I wanted a nice summer salad. A sharp-dressed pasta salad, maybe, or a creamy potato salad, something playful and flavorful and easy to scoop up with a spoon.

But in case you haven’t noticed, it’s not summer yet. (I do have arugula sprouting in the garden, though.)

Here’s a salad that plays pretends. It’s warmth comes not from the garden, but from last summer’s sun (and, well, from California), so it’s sort of an imposter. But it shouts with summery color and flavor in just the way I needed to hear, and it also happens to be quite healthy. I topped mine with toasted, chopped walnuts, for good measure.

Warm Red Quinoa Salad (PDF)
Sweet butternut squash and crunchy red quinoa make surprisingly good panfellows – as the quinoa cooks, the squash steams, and releases its soft edges into the grain, like it does in risotto. Spiked with the bright flavors of grape tomatoes and feta cheese, the salad makes for an easy, nutritious lunch.

TIME: 15 minutes
MAKES: 1 to 2 servings

1/4 cup red quinoa (white would work just as well)
1/2 cup water
Pinch salt
1/2 pound chopped, peeled squash (about 1 1/2 cups of 3/4” chunks)
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
8 grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup loosely packed chopped fresh basil
Freshly ground pepper

Combine the quinoa, water, and salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over high heat. Reduce heat to low, stir in squash, cover, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the quinoa has popped and the squash is soft. (You may need to add another tablespoon or two of water, depending on how juicy your squash is.)

Remove from heat and fold in the olive oil, tomatoes, feta, and basil. Season to taste with freshly ground pepper.

Your turn

Oh, December. This is really happening. I think I’m going to finish this project. I won’t stop blogging, of course. But I will stop writing a recipe every day. Good heavens, it’s getting old.

I was going to make you a list. You know, favorites, of the 334 recipes I’ve given you in 2007. (You guessed it: 31 to go.)

But then I got an email about the Food Blog Awards, and it occurred to me that maybe you should give me a list. What have been your favorites this year? What have you liked reading about? Anything from hogwash that you’ve made over and over? Anything (Eek, do I want the answer to this?) that’s been a total failure?

Do tell.

Radicchio, Apple, and Pecan Slaw (PDF)
Recipe 335 of 365

Over Thanksgiving, I had a wonderful wintry radicchio salad, with apples and walnuts, and a creamy dressing I guessed was made with goat cheese. It was delicious, but the flavors were too separated: I’d get a hunk of apple in one bite, then a whole walnut with an awkward wedge of radicchio, then four more apple pieces. I wanted all its flavors to meld together in my mouth at once; I wanted a fantasy bite every time.

Here’s a slaw that gets the job done. Serve it as is, or wrap it into tortillas with leftover roasted chicken.

TIME: 10 minutes
MAKES: 4 servings

1 head radicchio (about 1/2 pound), outer leaves removed and cored
1 tart apple, like Granny Smith, cut into wedges
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
2 ounces (about 1/4 cup) crumbled goat’s milk feta
1 tablespoon Meyer lemon juice (or regular lemon juice)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Grate the radicchio and apple in a food processor. Transfer to a mixing bowl, stir in the remaining ingredients, and serve.

A recipe for more leftover mashed potatoes

Spinach Salad with Peanuts and Pomegranate (PDF)
Recipe 318 of 365

Here’s a simple, festive salad that will go a long way to counteract the more predictable flavors on most Thanksgiving tables. Its crunches are great, too – there’s the soft, fibrous munch of scallions, the satisfying pop of pomegranate seeds, and the dull crack of roasted peanuts. Made with lime juice, soy sauce, Dijon mustard, and sweet-tart pomegranate molasses, the dressing also packs a whollop.

TIME: 15 minutes
MAKES: 4 servings

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon pomegranate molasses
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 big handfuls baby spinach
1/4 cup sliced scallions
1/4 cup roasted, salted peanuts, finely chopped
Seeds from 1/2 large pomegranate

Add the mustard, soy, lime juice, and pomegranate molasses to a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking until all the oil is incorporated.

Place the remaining ingredients in a salad bowl. Just before serving, add dressing to taste, and toss.

Figs and Verjus

Last weekend, at a wine tasting party, I met a woman named Barb over the cheese plate. We chatted about the merlot as we cleaved moist slabs of Red Darla and crumbling Black Creek Buttery off the serving platter with small knives. I picked up a small, ripe fig and absentmindedly opened it, stuffed it with soft, fresh goat cheese, and popped it into my mouth.

Barb – I think it was her – looked at me in confusion. “What was that?” she asked. She’d never seen a fig before, and admitted that she’d assumed they were some sort of teardrop-shaped grape.

I picked up another one, rolling it around between my thumb and forefinger to show her its natural softness. I picked the stem off, held the fruit between the fingertips of both hands, and broke it open with my two thumbnails, revealing the nest of pink flesh and white seeds inside. She looked closer. “You can eat that?” You can, and you should, I said. I taught her how to stuff them with cheese, and drifted along to another conversation.

Ten minutes later, I heard someone squeal with delight from across the room. There was Barb, still standing at the cheese table, showing a gaggle of forty-something women how to do the same. I smiled, happy to see the experience propagate, listening to them coo over the figs like they were babies.

This morning, I found ripe, sweet, healthy figs at the market, and brought them home for lunch. I nestled them into a salad, and topped them with a vinaigrette made with the tangy, slighly sour verjus I brought home from the wine tasting.

Verjus is the unfermented juice of unripe grapes. You use it like you would a vinegar, for dressings or marinades, or even for poaching fish or chicken. But though I’ve tasted it at restaurants, it’s as new to me in the kitchen as the figs were to Barb; I think I bought it because I wanted to remind myself how many discoveries still await every cook, no matter how experienced.

As I ate, enjoying how the small fig seeds made tiny, weak pops between my teeth compared to the assertive crunch of the granola I sprinkled on top at the last minute, I thought of Barb, and hoped she’d find more figs.

Sweet Cress and Fruit Salad with Grapefruit-Verjus Vinaigrette (PDF)
Recipe 303 of 365

Here’s a vinaigrette recipe that has lots of sass – for kick, it relies on verjus, plus some of the grapefruit vinegar I found recently at Trader Joe’s. Use it to dress a salad with soft, sweet leaves, figs, and the first small oranges of the season, so there’s a contrast to the sharpness of the vinaigrette.

TIME: 10 minutes
MAKES: 4 servings

1 bunch watercress or Bibb lettuce
8 small, ripe Mission figs (the purple kind), sliced
2 Satsuma tangerines, sliced or sectioned
2 teaspoons grapefruit vinegar
2 tablespoons verjus
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Granola, croutons, nuts, and/or crumbled bleu or goat cheese, for garnish

Arrange the watercress, figs, and tangerines on salad plates.

In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar, verjus, and mustard to blend, season with salt and pepper, and whisk the oil in until emulsified. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad, and top with granola and bleu cheese, or whatever you have on hand.