Happy Saint Honoratus Day! Fatty and I are sharing a ginger cookie to celebrate the patron saint of bakers. Huzzah!
Eight limbs.
A few years ago I had a job working from home for a food research company. I would go into the office about once a week to “check in” with my boss, which amounted to us sitting across a desk from eachother, tick tacking on our computers and looking forward to having lunch together. Much of the time spent with Boss consisted of him reminiscing about his childhood in Cyprus. I learned many interesting facts about his homeland, which mostly centered around food (as that was the epicenter of our orbits).
Fun facts about Cyprus:
– It is so warm in Cyprus that they can harvest almonds twice a year there
– They used to distill rosewater from the gorgeous roses that grew along the road
– He lived in a really small village and had to walk down a mountain everyday to go to school (which meant walking up a mountain everyday to go home)
– The secret to living longer is eating very little, very slowly, as evidenced by an older relative who lived by this philosophy
– It hardly snows in Cyprus, and if it does it melts by the afternoon except in the mountains
– The local population is grossly outnumbered by tourists
– If I ever want to visit I can meet up with Boss’ sister who lives there (!!!!!)
As Cyprus’ history is deeply intertwined with its Grecian neighbour, so is its food. Boss had a habit of repeating himself, especially when it came to recipes he liked. One dish was Greek octopus stew, which he raved about due to its ability to deliver deliciousness with marvellous simplicity: “Octopus, red wine, tomatoes, onion.” In his consistency, he made it for a staff potluck. Standing next to the potato salad drowning in mayonnaise and the veggie sticks lonely without ranch dip, the steaming dark red concoction seemed utterly out of place: its somber brooding tempted to drown your insides with its profundity, while its distant companions on the table stared blankly back. I recall that much of it was left over by the end, which pained me because I knew how much he loved his octopus stew and brought it to be shared. In hindsight, I think Boss probably was quite pleased about getting to take it home and enjoy it himself.
Last week I discovered some frozen baby octopus at the supermarket, and bought it with no cooking plan in mind. I figured that something would dawn on me, and as my mind rifled through its folders of stored away recipes, those days of eating cafeteria tuna sandwiches while learning about Cyprus’ almond harvest patterns returned to me. Funny that.
Here is my homage to Boss’ octopus stew. My version goes well with white kidney beans and toast.
Octopus stew
1 onion, diced
1-2 kg baby octopus, thawed and cleaned, cut into pieces
1 large tin of diced tomatoes
a few tbsp of tomato paste
1 bottle red wine (1 cup in the stew, the rest to be drunk at your leisure)
Parsley
Cook onion in olive oil over medium heat in a saucepan until slightly soft. Throw in everything else in except the parsley. Bring to a boil and then slap on the lid. Let it simmer for about an hour until the octopus is tender. Add more wine if it seems to get dry. Just before serving, throw in some diced parsley and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
Boss would say to eat slowly, and not too much.
Going green.
Along the river where I live, there is a little path where the Muffin Man and I like to walk in the early evening. As the sun gets low in the sky, it glitters on the river, flashing iridescent winks of light to mask the murky stew that slooshes by. It is a nice little path, a momentary and convenient respite from the concrete and brick. However, the path is dotted with reminders of human influence: debris left after nights of debauchery carried out by squatters and young students bent on rebelling against society’s oppressive expectations in the most stereotypical fashion.
Upon closer investigation of this sight, I felt depressed. I felt annoyed. I felt the way I felt when my brother would leave bits of hardened toothpaste in the sink that we shared through childhood. I would fastidiously rub those white splotches down the sink.
While my ostentatiously sanctimonious piety has diminished with age (feelings of moral and hygienic superiority can only get you so far), old habits die hard. The other day I slipped on some rubber gloves and filled up three full garbage bags of things from along the river.
I found: old beer cans/bottles, hard liquor bottles, candy wrappers, pieces of styrofoam and cardboard, unused condoms (uh oh?! Still can’t decide if I would have preferred finding used ones), women’s underwear (leaning towards used condoms now), a broken purse, pizza boxes, paper coffee cups, a golf ball, and more. LOTS of plastic bags. LOTS of cigarette butts. It was actually hard to pick out the cigarette butts; I realized that I was so used to seeing them that they had blended into the background of reality.
While I was out there a young man came and sat in the path to pluck quietly on his bass guitar. He spotted me and said, “Thanks for doing that. I’m sure you have better things to do.” An old man out for an afternoon walk inquired about my activities and applauded me with a quiet, “Good for you.”
I felt very uncomfortable. I wasn’t doing this to seek recognition. And I’m not writing this for that either. Sure a pat on the back is nice, but it struck me as nonsensical to commend something that so obviously needs to be done. When did we think we had a choice whether or not to care? When Bass Guitar said that I probably had better things to do, I thought of saying, “You mean things that would obviously benefit me.” And that seems to be the problem: we have forgotten that we are all connected, that your garbage is also my garbage, and that the rejected parts of us cannot be buried in the ground and ignored, because they do not go away.
“But I don’t litter,” the dear reader protests. Indeed, Dear Reader. But we are all interwoven into these strewn bits of refuse. I’m thinking that it is not a choice, but our duty to take care. I’m thinking that rejecting the parts of our character, our society, our possessions that we have deemed undesirable is an unhealthy practice. I’m thinking that the real art of living is becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable, and that means embracing the whole, not just the parts.
I don’t know how this translates really. Should we all quit our jobs and become “activists”? Should I wear hemp, and only hemp? In these moments I feel great camaraderie with Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock.
Once in a while things happen that send loud reverberations to disturb the timidity of my daily life’s rhythms. It is time to reset and rethink.
*************
If comfort cannot be found in the moral and ethical sparrings of the mind, at least I can find it in my kitchen (as long as I don’t think too hard about it). There isn’t a dish more loving and reminiscent of Mother than buttered green peas. With the formation of mandibles there is no need to puree them, unless you want to get really nostalgic, in which case put on a bib and get someone to feed you in a high chair (good luck squeezing into one of those). I have yet to get my hands on some fresh green peas, but I hear they will BLOW YOUR MIND, so I wait quietly to pounce on some. In the meantime, I will be consoled by their commercial cousins, the frozen green pea, whom still possess a faint shadow of summer vitality, or so I convince myself.
Comforting green peas
A giant pat of butter (as much as you can bear, and then some more)
A couple large handfuls of frozen peas, washed of ice and drained
Salt
Heat butter gently. When it starts to lightly bubble, add the peas. Swirl gently until peas look warm and cuddly. Add a few generous shakes of salt and tumble into a bowl. Eat with a spoon, under a blanket. When the bag housing the peas in their icy coffin is empty, consider reusing to store other edible delights or as a garbage bag.
New beginnings
A fresh batch of homemade granola sitting on the counter: sturdy and dependable, it waits diligently until morning to ease you into the day. And there is something very reassuring about the jar being full: you know that for at least a week or so, there is minimal danger of not having enough granola in the morning to mix into your yoghurt and tumble strawberries on top. A full jar connotes anticipation, possibilities: as long as the jar is at least half full, it seems to impart that optimistic philosophy upon all of life’s potentialities.
Sometimes I wait a few days before cracking the lid open so that the jar can remain full a little longer.
Optimistic granola
Even as you pile ingredients to the mixing bowl you become more carefree and convivial in your additions.
2-3 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raw whole almonds
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
generous sprinkle each of sesame seeds and flax seeds
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup agave syrup
few shakes of salt
liberal dashings of cinnamon
slurp of vanilla extract
Mix thoroughly, with smooth, measured strokes, so as to impart your own steadiness upon the concoction. Spread evenly on baking sheet and bake at 300 F until brown, about 20-30 minutes. You might want to gently stir the granola halfway through baking to ensure even cooking. Let cool completely before spooning into a jar. Allow granola to sit triumphantly on the counter.
Coconut curry dinner for the Muffin Man and I.
Lunchables, all grown up: Havarti, Breton crackers, prosciutto, mesclun.
Grilled cheese: breakfast of champions.
One day I would like to live in a world where I can take a nap on a plush meadow of mini muffins and then have a swim in a lake of coconut milk.
Yes.
Busy busy
Some weeks are so busy that there’s not really time to turn out some splendiferous meal to take sexy, food porn-y photos of and gush about how it was just the Best Thing Ever.
Some weeks you are just making something to eat. It’s default mode. Brown rice, canned lentils, and frozen peas. And that’s ok – a bit of frugality is nice to balance out all the lushness.
Well, as long as there’s some cheese involved. No cheese would just be masochistic!
Ways to reduce chocolate consumption
These aren’t tips. These are strategies.
1. Hide chocolate in a really unorganized pantry so they get lost in the clutter. You will find them later and heroic music will play and it will be like Indiana Jones finding the Covenant.
2. Get a tall person to hide chocolate at a higher altitude. If a tall person is unavailable, this can be achieved with the help of a chair. Remember to always put the back of the chair flush with the wall or cabinetry, so in case you fall backwards there isn’t the added complication of your foot getting caught in the chair. Remember kids: safety first, middle, and last.
No. YES.
This strategy works best if you are short. If you are tall, I suggest an even higher altitude, or, hide the chocolate somewhere really low. Tall people usually do not bother bending down to the floor because it is so far away.
The “high altitude” tactic is an excellent method as it will require you to conquer your laziness to achieve the target by either:
a) cajoling a tall person to help you
b) finding some apparatus to enhance your reaching abilities, or
c) climbing the counter like a squirrel.
If laziness is overcome, then at least you got some physical exercise (in which case, I highly recommend the counter-climbing. It adds a tinge of thrill to the whole matter).
3. Last strategy: find someone to guard the chocolate.
Watch out for Barry. He can get pretty feisty.