Somewhat lacking in photos

I blame the raspberries in gin.

My book group met last week and I had my camera long enough to photograph the appetizer and drink and then I misplaced the camera...

The book we were celebrating was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. It was my second time reading it and, unlike some re-reads, I enjoyed it just as much as the first time I read it, a few short months ago.

Here's the one photo I managed to take:

That's some tasty beef suya in the foreground and you can see the dregs of the sparkling water mixed with raspberries in gin in the background. The recipe for the suya can be found here.

The rest of the meal was also pretty terrific. I made a chicken, peanut and yam stew, there was jollof rice, fried plantains with garlic and cilantro, a salad with avocado and grapefruit and a wonderful desert of coconut vanilla panna cotta with mango lime sauce accompanied by coconut tuilles. I wish I had a photo of the desert in particular because it was so wonderful--rich without being heavy and almost like eating a cloud. But you can find it here along with the recipe. I'm thinking that panna cotta will be great with raspberries or strawberries once they are in season.

A few more ideas

Last week my book group met again to enjoy each others' company, eat and drink well and discuss a lovely book. I had already read Tobias Wolfe's Old School (and blogged about it here), but was happy to read it again.

Actually, this time I didn't read it so much as listened to the book on CD while driving out to MA (while the critters were plugged into the portable DVD player with endless episodes of Pee-Wee's Playhouse). This time, I was laughing out loud at the telling of the Cow-Sci-Fi story that Ayn Rand chose as the winner of the school writing contest. The critters even pulled off their earphones and wanted to know what was so funny at which point in time I spluttered an incomprehensible summary which they promptly tuned out.

I still think this is a lovely book and the reader, Dan Cashman, did a fine job.

We accompanied our brisk discussion with food that felt like a celebration of the season.

Beverage and book (and Meg's elegant table)--ahhhh.

I brought a pitcher of peach basil sangria made with basil from the back deck and Red Haven peaches from the Farmer's Market. It was lovely, and the little pieces of peach bobbing in the glass soaked up the alcohol so they were like little boozy bombs when you got down to the bottom of the glass.

To keep us from getting too tipsy on them, I also made some eggplant caviar to go with sliced baguette. (It would be an excellent way to use up this week's farm share, come to think of it.)

I love eggplant caviar (recipe below) and don't remember to make it often enough--I usually just go the baba ganoush route but this dip/spread is more delicately flavored and really brings out the floral tones that eggplant can be convinced to release when treated with a slow roasting.

Then we moved from the front yard to the table and enjoyed Marilyn's beautifully composed salad with nasturtium blossoms, roasted beets and shaved Parmesan.

Our main course was broiled trout with basil sauce--a perfect homage to the Hemingway hero-worship by the boys in the book.
It was served with a corn flan that Ami made which was airy and sweet, and Jen brought an asparagus, roasted red pepper vegetable side dish.

Sarah and the mostaccioli

Then we wrapped it all up with Sarah's intense Chocolate Hazelnut Spiced Cookies (recipe here). One of our members is heading off to Germany for a year on sabbatical and while we're all a little envious, we will miss her greatly (and are maybe trying to figure out how to finance a visit...). She also has the strongest sweet tooth of the bunch of us so Sarah's cookies were a fine send off: nutty, spicy, chewy and most of all, Chocolate.

Eggplant Caviar
This makes a lot so you can easily cut the recipe in half.

2 large eggplants (globe type) or equivalent number of smaller ones
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut lengthwise into slivers
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 C olive oil
1 T soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1 small tomato, chopped
1/2 of a red pepper, chopped
1/2 C chopped basil leaves
1/4 C chopped flat leaf parsley leaves
1/3 C toasted pine nuts
1/3 C dried currants or golden raisins

preheat oven to 400.

Slice the eggplants in half lengthwise. Cut long slits in the flesh and stuff with the garlic slices. Place cut side down on an oiled baking sheet and cook for at least 1/2 hour or until collapsed. The remove and set aside to cool a bit.

In the serving bowl mix together the lemon juice, olive oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Then take the cooled eggplants and scoop out the flesh from the skins (along with the garlic) onto a cutting board. Chop coarsely then dump in the bowl with the dressing and mash with a fork.

Stir in the rest of the ingredients and taste for seasoning (you might want to add a dash of red wine vinegar if you like it a bit sharper). Refrigerate after making--it's good to make it a little in advance to let the flavors meld.

Serve with sliced baguette or as a spread on sandwiches.

Soup for summer

Ahhh book group. It has been a while since I posted about book group--I think I spaced out on bringing my camera a couple of times, but this past Wednesday I found myself at Meagan's with my camera and a hearty appetite. I wasn't terribly thorough in the photography department so missed out on taking pics of appetizers (fig-goat cheese tapenade) and dessert (fresh strawberries and alfajores) but I got the food that was served in the middle!

Ami adapted a vichyssoise recipe to make this gorgeous cold potato garlic soup. It was velvety and rich, but also refreshing--not an easy juxtaposition to pull off (recipe below).
For dinner, Meagan made grilled trout stuffed with herbs and butter--both delicate and full of flavor. And there was a salad with strawberries and chive blossoms, watermelon feta salad, sauteed garlicky greens and bread. Ooof.
Oh yea, and there was a book! I confess I didn't re-read Monsters of Templeton despite enjoying it a great deal the first time I read it. So my contribution to the conversation was pretty minimal. After some intelligent sounding discussion of the different "historical" artifacts in the book and an agreement that the stories of the past were more compelling than the life of the main character in the present, I commandeered a copy of the book and forced everyone to sit quietly while I read the monster's epilogue out loud (I'd had a few glasses of wine which, as you can see, makes me a bit of a bore.) The sweet people in my book group tollerated my behavior and perhaps looked on a with a little amusement as I got all choked up when I read about the monster giving birth and dying--so beautiful.

Ami's Cold and Creamy Potato Garlic Soup
adapted from Vichyssoise

2 C finely diced raw potatoes
4 tablespoons butter
5 T minced garlic
3 C chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
a dash of nutmeg
1 C heavy cream
3/4 C sour cream
1 C of milk
Chopped chives

Cook the potatoes in salted water to cover until just tender. Drain. Melt the butter in a skillet and add the garlic, cooking until fragrant. Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes to the broth and season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Put this mixture in the blender (you will need to blend it in lots) and blend for 1 minute, or until smooth. Chill. When ready to serve, whisk in heavy cream, sour cream and milk. Garnish with chopped chives.

Catch Up #2--taking it up yet another notch

Remember how I mentioned that at our last book group meeting Ami took it up a notch? Well Meagan hosted in July and damn if she didn't take it up yet another notch. I seriously don't know how I'm going to host after these displays of elegance...ah well! Luckily I haven't got a competitive bone in my body so I'll just serve food at my dinky table with my mismatched glassware and still have a grand old time!

But I am very happy to go to the homes of friends who are generous enough to include me in their celebration of good taste! Meagan set up this elegant table on her back patio:
While inside Meg used her muddler to great effect:

Ta da! Pomegranate mojitos!

That's how I imagine the elixir of life should look. Oh man, I want one right now...

And it just got prettier from there. Ami made a lovely, labor-intensive appetizer from the French Laundry Cookbook.
Let me see if I can remember all the components--the base is made up of a chopped tomato compote and the green pool around it is chive oil. The next layer up consists of blanched green beans in a thickened cream vinaigrette and it is all topped off with frisee tossed in olive oil and a little sea salt.

There was also a lovely summery fresh mozzarella salad, chlodnik (cold buttermilk cucumber soup), redskin potato salad and an amazing array of gorgeous grilled vegetables with a fresh herb vinaigrette.
And what was all this culinary and decorative splendor in honor of? Thankfully a really good book. We read Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses and it is fantastic. (Warning to all relatives--you'll probably get a copy of this for your birthday or Christmas!) Stylistically the novel is very quiet--even shocking events are related with a lack of histrionics. And the plot of an old man remembering the most significant summer of his youth is contemplative without ever getting sentimental. What amazes me still when I think back to the book is the subtlety with which the author told his story and how much he left out. This is a book that trusts its readers to fill in the gaps--there isn't one moment I can think of that is obvious and there were many times where I re-read a scene to make sure what I thought was happening was what was really happening. I also loved how every question wasn't answered--there were plenty of gaps in the story, particularly in the part told in the present, that are never explained. But then, this is a book that exemplifies the "show rather than tell" dictum of good writing. Like Meagan's gracious and elegant hosting, this book is a hard act to follow.

Taking it up a notch

Well now she's done it. That Ami. She took it up a notch.

To what am I refering?

Why, the hosting of our book group. I hosted last month and I gotta say I'm glad that I'm not the person who has to follow Ami (Hi Meagan! Thanks for stepping up to the plate!) Don't get me wrong, the evening at my house was perfectly enjoyable: we talked about The Welsh Girl (which I was happy to read again) and ate a combination of British and German food that actually went together rather well:

Sole with creamy leek sauce, minted pea puree, German potato salad and red cabbage, with white wine and beer to drink.

But we were all crammed around my small dining room table that seats 4 comfortably, 6 in a pinch and was really too cramped for the 8 people in our group...I had a little music playing and had cleaned up the worst of the crap around the house, but that was about it when it came to ambiance.

The exquisite evening at Ami's complemented the book we read: William Trevor's My House in Umbria. Trevor's prose is so subtle and the untrustworthy narrator, Mrs Delahunty, is so complicated that we spent a good deal of time discussing what was real and what was imagined in the story. Trevor's ability to write cringe-worthy scenes while maintaining your sympathy for the main character raises complicated feelings which we discussed while gathered in Ami's backyard, drinking Gin and Tonic's (in honor of the main character) and icy homemade Limoncello and Orangcello from Lea's sister:
The weather was perfect as we gathered around the table--a little breeze to keep the mosquitoes away but still sunny enough for us to imagine ourselves in an exotic locale. And Ami set a beautiful table:

Peonies and party favors! Ami photocopied some of her favorite Trevor short stories for each of us to take home. (photo courtesy of John Baird)

And of course the food didn't disappoint (I'm wracking my brain for a time when a book group meal failed to live up to expectations...). There was chicken diavolo cooked on the grill, a beautiful salad from Marilyn's garden, sauteed vegetables, Italian bread and of course, plenty of good red wine.

Here I am helping myself to some more of that good red wine. (photo courtesy of John Baird)

I made a dessert from a cookbook that I had neglected for very petty reasons: La Tavola Italiana is a perfectly decent book that has suffered the sin of acquaintance. I bought the book shortly after TAing for a man who had to be the worst Shakespeare professor I have ever witnessed. I was put in the awkward position of having to serve as his apologist to kids who were clued in that their $20,000+ tuition should have offered them better than what this guy was presenting. What does this have to do with the cookbook? The professor was friends with the authors of the cookbook and they mention him by name in the introduction to a few of the recipes. Once I read that a recipe came from his kitchen, well, it just turned my stomach. But thankfully after owning this book for at least 10 years, I have (mostly) recovered from my grad school experience and can once again open the book without gnashing my teeth. So I finally made something out of it!

Ricotta cake with sweetened almond ricotta and strawberries.

It was pretty decent. The cake wasn't anything mind blowing; I liked the pine nuts that studded it and it had a pleasant spongy texture. But it was a fine platform for the consumption of sweetened ricotta and strawberries and tasted particularly good with one of John's expertly pulled espressos. The ricotta (whole milk, not skim) had a few tablespoons of amaretto and a few teaspoons of powdered sugar stirred in. I pressed it through a sieve to make sure it was creamy and not lumpy. Simple, but really nice.

The whole evening was leisurely and graceful and none of us was in a rush to get back in our cars and leave such an enchanted place.

Happy women. (photo courtesy of John Baird)

A perfect photo of Marilyn--she is always able to get us to smile! (photo courtesy of John Baird)

Well, the food and company were good...

I haven't finished the last two books that my book group selected. Naughty naughty Kate. But seriously the last two books have bored me to tears. The first no-finish was Kiran Desai's novel, The Inheritance of Loss, which has very pretty writing but nothing happens and the latest was William Poy Lee's memoir, The Eighth Promise, which is so unfocused that I'm still not sure whose memoir it was supposed to be (Lee's? His Mother's? His younger brother Richard's? Unfortunately, I think it was supposed to be his and his was the least interesting of the three possible stories).

But hey, the food and company were good! For the Desai book we gathered at Meg's and ate some lovely Indian food. To start were some addictive Sev Puri that Ami brought. Ami's co-worker, Sangeeta, coached her in the assemblage of these flavorful mounds of potato, chili's, onion and various chutneys (assembly instructions/recipe below).


Then we moved on to plates loaded with stewed chickpeas, turmeric spiked cauliflower, raita and biryani rice.



And we finished our meal with cardamom creme brulee. I'm pretty happy whenever I get creme brulee, but the cardamom imparted an even lovelier finish to the richness.

For The Eighth Promise we indulged in a massive quantity of Chinese takeout from Tk Wu, because none of us has a big enough wok supply or stove space to do the cuisine justice (ok, it was also March and we were sick of Winter and just needed a damn break.) I know, the picture to the right looks like a mess, but it was a tasty mess, particularly the tofu with black mushrooms. I also love their dumplings which are served with a vinegary, non-soy based dipping sauce.

And then for dessert, I made something that had nothing at all to do with the book: puff pastry with almond cream and winter fruit compote. The picture in the NY Times magazine was so appealing that I was willing to simmer, steep, whip and bake up the various components. The most limiting factor for most people to make this recipe is the requirement that the winter fruits (kumquats, dried figs and dried apricots) be simmered in verjus, which is sour juice from unripe wine grapes, which retails for about $18 for 25 oz. Tightwad that I am, I don't often spend that much on a bottle of wine, much less on the juice from un-ripe, un-fermented grapes. But then I hit Wikipedia and found out that verjus is also called husroum in Arabic and is used in place of vinegar or lemon juice in Middle Eastern cuisine.
So I trotted off to one of the many Middle Eastern grocery stores in our area and poked around until I found, for $4 for 32 oz, Momtaz Sour Grape Juice!

It did impart a nice level of acidity to the compote, though I still don't think I'd spring for $18 bottle. I'd probably eliminate the sugar in the recipe and substitute white grape juice and a good squeeze of lemon juice. I still have a significant amount of verjus left in the bottle so I think I'll freeze it and when summer comes around, I may use it in this recipe for verjus mint sorbet.

The next book we will gather around is one I've already read and which I know is good, Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl (my review from last year here). I'm hosting the meeting so I need to try and figure out what to cook for the main course. Welsh cuisine? Is there such a thing? Suggestions welcome!

Sev Puri

Flat Puris (thin crackers) – 1 bag
Fine Sev (thin lentil crunchy stuff) – 1 bag
Small chili peppers – a handful
Sweet chutney (made of dates and imli) – 1 jar – preferable Swad brand
Cilantro and chili chutney – 1 jar – preferable Swad brand
Cilantro chopped fine
Chaat masala
Garam masala
Roasted cumin powder (optional)
Red chilly pepper (optional)
Yogurt (optional)
Potatoes (boiled)
Onion chopped fine

1. Boil potatoes until soft, cool, remove skins and mash.
2. Add to potatoes a teaspoon or so of chaat masala and garam masala and pinch of salt. Set aside.
3. Chop all cilantro, peppers and onion. Set aside.
4. Mix up cup or so of yogurt with chaat masala and garam masala and salt (season to taste)

To assemble:

1. Spread crackers on a platter.
2. Add tablespoon or so of potato (as Sangeeta told me, don't skimp on the potato) on top of each cracker
3. prinkle chopped onions and peppers on top of potato mound (careful with those peppers!)
4. Spoon generous teaspoon of sweet chutney and cilantro chutney on top of potato mound
5. Spoon generous tablespoon of yogurt/masala mixture onto potato mound
6. Sprinkle lots of Fine Sev on top of everything
7. Sprinkle cilantro on top of everything
8. Enjoy

Thanksgiving(s)

Thanksgiving dinner went pretty well--the kids ate a little of the food I made (though Ian insisted on a cheese omelet for dinner...), the crunch factor helped me enjoy the meal, and best of all we didn't burn down my parents' house or burn ourselves with the deep fried turkey:

I made him wear the face shield...and yes, our turkey was rather wee.

But rather than dwell on a meal that even at its best is never going to be my favorite, I'd rather talk about a meal that is way more my kind of Thanksgiving, namely what we ate at the latest meeting of my book group:
We got together the week before Thanksgiving to discuss The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea and eat Mexican food. First off, the book is wonderful and I'll be sending it to British relatives for Christmas this year (since The Welsh Girl--the book I had been planning to gift--was nominated for the Booker Prize I'm pretty sure my relatives will have already read it.) Urrea has the unique ability to write about religion, mysticism, and miracles without getting the least bit pompous or excessively reverent in tone--not an easy thing to do in in a book chock full of commentary on leftist politics, class, revolution, national identity, faith, and love. It helps that the book is over 500 pages so it can pack in a hell of a lot, but the thing that struck me even more than many instances of lyrical beauty of the writer's prose, is the humor in the book. I'm having trouble remembering the last time a piece of literary fiction made me laugh out loud as much as this one did. And a lot of the humor is centered on the stupid things that men do. Urrea makes his male main characters sympathetic, flawed and hysterical at the same time and the female characters, particularly Huila, powerful, warm and cantankerous.

There is plenty to say about magical realism and history (the main character, Terisita, was a real woman and also the author's great aunt) but what struck me most about the book was the number of times that I thought we were headed to a somber scene and instead finding myself surprised by laughter. I doubt that anyone can read the letters between Terisita and the self-proclaimed "Pope of Mexico" and not crack a smile.

Enough of your blathering, Kate! Get to the food!

We started out with a large quantity of guacamole and some homemade roasted tomato salsa (adapted from Lynne Rosetto Kaspar's version) that I brought along with wonderful tortilla chips from Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory (available at both Morgan and York and Arbor Farms), and Lea brought out some (non-Mexican but really tasty) green olive and pomegranite tapenade with pita chips:Then we had some creamy-spicy butternut squash soup that Ami picked up from Prickly Pear Cafe,followed by chicken with pumpkin seed mole sauce, rice, tortillas, plantains, and salad.For dessert we had coconut sorbet, two kinds of ice cream (dulce de leche and chocolate) and pineapple with chile powder.The pineapple with chile came straight from the book--Don Tomas buys paper cones of tropical fruit sprinkled with chile a number of times--and each time I read it, I wanted to try it. And the result? Terrific! Something so simple, but really lovely. You could swank it up a little if you made a pineapple, mango, papaya salad and topped it with slivered mint and chile powder, but for ease simply cutting up a ripe pineapple and sprinkling on a little chile powder can't be beat. I highly recommend stocking the house with pineapple and chile so you can snack on it while reading the book.

Re-reading

I used to be a dedicated re-reader, but until this past month, I've been forging on ahead on my endless "to read" list without much back tracking. But September proved to bring together some circumstances that allowed me to enjoy a couple of re-reads.

In the first place, the kids started up school again and that requires a hell of a lot of brain power on my part. Getting them into the routine again, meeting the teachers, staff, parents and new kids and helping ease the transition from the looseness of summer into the more-interesting-and-yet-more-stressful atmosphere of the school year has left me with few spare brain cells to devote to paying attention to new fiction. I've started and abandoned a number of books this month.

But a couple of things came to my rescue. The first was my wonderful book group chose to read Suite Francaise (which I read last January). Last time I read the book, I neglected to read all the author's notes at the end of the book which really was a disservice. Sarah emphasized that I really needed to read them to understand the scope and trajectory of the book that Nemirovsky had intended to write.

The notes are heartbreaking in a different way from the book. The stories in the book are exquisite and it is hard to believe that they are not her final draft. But the notes in the back reveal the urgency of the writer, the pressures (if you can call Nazi occupation and being of Jewish ancestry merely a "pressure") under which the composition took place and the purpose with which she embarked on creating her fiction.

I read the notes and then went back and re-read some of my favorite parts of the novel--particularly those sections about Lucille. And this time, thanks to the notes, I had some idea of what would or could happen to the character in the intended, but unfinished at the time of the author's death, final three parts of the book.

We got together last week to eat French food, drink French wine, and talk about this wonderful book.
Clockwise from upper right: Daube Provencal, sauteed greens, mushroom gratin, and salade vert. And for dessert I made chocolate orange creme brulee:
My favorite item in the meal was also the simplest--Lea made the perfect salade vert. I love a good salade compose with complex mingling of varied ingredients, but there is something about the purity of a salade vert that I crave in a totally different way. Simple, tender butter lettuces dressed with a perfect tarragon vinagrette make a convincing argument for less is more. Lea shared the recipe with me (listed below) and I'm going to make it again this week.

The other circumstance that lead to a re-read, or more accurately a re-visiting though this time in audio CD format, was the amount of work that needs to be done getting this house prepared for the change of season. The library kindly delivered up to me the full audio CD set of Harry Potter 7, all 17 discs worth, and I have downloaded it onto my MP3 player while I caulk and patch and prime and repaint chunks of the house. I have discovered that I'm not as fond of audio books when I haven't read the book version already. Call me a dinosaur, but the words are more real for me if they are on paper and first enter my brain in this format. But I do love a good audio book as a re-read (or whatever you call listening to fiction) and I think the Harry Potter series are remarkably well read by Jim Dale.

Now that we are (sort of) settled into our new routine I think I can spare some brain cells for new fiction again and our next book group book won't be a re-read for me: The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea.


Salade Vert
adapted from Epicurious

Large bowl of washed and torn butter lettuces tossed with the following dressing:

1 1/2 Tbsp tarragon vinegar
1/4 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp finely chopped parsley
2 tsp finely chopped tarragon
1 tsp finely chopped chives
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/3 cup olive oil

Whisk together all the dressing ingredients except for oil. Then add oil slowly while whisking to emulsify the dressing and toss with butter lettuces.

Flight

While many people think of summer as a leisurely time to tackle long books, the opposite is true for the majority of the women in my book group. Summer is a pretty crazy time, especially if you did what I did this summer and scoffed at the cost of day camps and decided that "Mommy-Camp" would be just as much fun and cheaper (I did send them both to camp last week--Ian full-day and Fiona half-day and man was it nice to have a little break from each other). Coming up with interesting stuff for a 7 and 4 year old takes a hell of a lot of time and energy, so a good, fast moving book is always appreciated.

Flight, by Sherman Alexie, was a really wonderful book which was also really fast read. Zits is a really compelling character--funny and perceptive, but wild and scary in the way that only a lost adolescent can be. This mix makes the massacre at the bank all too easy to understand. Without Zits' voice--bewildered, funny, smart, hurt--the book could spiral into a depressing soup of the worst humanity has to offer: oppression, deception and violence. But instead, throughout the time travel incidents, Alexie manages to show Zits' longing for contact and trust, while never dropping the defenses and suspicions of a damaged adolescent.

The group all agreed that the relatively happy ending helped a lot and we could have seen a totally different ending plunging the book into despair. But Zits' sharp sense of humor kept it from feeling too sentimental when things do seem to work out.

We also had some interesting questions about what we guessed was the writer's process. Ami and I felt that the book might have come in a rush and wasn't cut much from draft to draft; the voice felt so pure and consistent, I could only imagine Alexie inhabiting this consciousness for a finite period of time to keep it from being watered down. But Meagan thought the original manuscript was probably4 or 5 times the length of the book, with many more time travel incidents, and then Alexie pared it down a great deal. Obviously, we don't know the answer to these questions, but it was fun to talk about the process of writing and not just the product.

Food-wise there wasn't a lot to go on--a couple of references to gloppy oatmeal in a foster home and a guy picking through a garbage can for food. Zits' quest is about his identity as half Native American and half Irish so we figured that was an open ended invitation to focus on the bounty of summer and go with a kind of local, fresh vegetable and fruit based cuisine. And here is what our groaning table looked like:
Counter clockwise from the top left--trout and wild rice with ginger, scallion, sake sauce, tomatoes stuffed with goat cheese, olives, pine nuts, basil and bread crumbs, calabacitas (summer squash and roasted chilies sauteed with sharp cheddar), a salad with lots of peppery arugula and beets, pasta salad and a bowl of cherries.

And not pictured on the table is the sweet corn and hominy chowder:
and the peach black raspberry crisp:
It was all fabulous (of course!) and we ate and drank a lot of wine until the mosquitoes descended (though it was nicely mosquito-free for most of the night).

The next book we plan to read is Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. I read the book back in January and loved it, but haven't had anyone to talk it over with and there is lots there to talk about.

What is up

What I'm reading:

I just finished Flight which was fantastic, but I will save my comments until after my book group meets in late July to talk about the book here. I started Michael Chabon's latest, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and it is terrific, too. The alternate reality of a temporary Jewish homeland on an island off the coast of Alaska where the primary language is Yiddish takes some mental adjustment; the prominent humor is very, very ironic and Jewish. I was snorting with laughter when I read this passage in which a gentile reporter who learned Yiddish from "some pompous old German" and whose Yiddish is described as "like a sausage recipe with footnotes" tries to talk to two hardened (Yiddish) homicide detectives:

"A need to repeat the rash threats of yore does not, I assure you, exist, Detective Shemets....Evergreen and ripe with the sap of their original violence they remain."

Which later gets him the response:
"Brennan, please, I beg you to speak American....What the fuck do you want?"

How can you not love dialog like that?

But the book isn't just funny. Though I'm only on page 99, it already has moments of beauty that are sad, in a wasted, persecuted Jewish sort of way. To say this book gives me great insight into my father and his predecessors is a bit of an understatement.

What I'm knitting:

I finished the Branching Out scarf and it looks like it will be the perfect length--not too long for a partly decorative, partly warming piece of neck wear. Here it is being blocked:
The Artfibers Ming yarn was luscious to work with--Thanks again to Deb for the treat! I actually had someone in a doctor's waiting room ask if they could touch the yarn because it gives off that kind of glow.

I sticking with sturdier stuff for the Pea Pod Baby Set I just started knitting for my kid's pre-school auction this fall. I have no patience with the yarn called for in the pattern: a Debbie Bliss yarn with cashmere that is supposed to be dry cleaned. That strikes me as a recipe for a baby sweater that never gets used; I don't know about the babies the designer has met, but my kids copiously urped breast milk all over their clothes (and mine) pretty much every ten minutes and cashmere was not a part of our wardrobe.

What I'm tasting:

I tried the Cold-brewed iced coffee method from the NY Times and thought it was ok. The way the writer, Cindy Price, described the resulting beverage in the article made it sound dramatically different from the "normal" iced coffee I usually make (that is, chuck the leftover coffee from hubby's morning brew in a jar and shove it in the fridge until mid-afternoon when the caffeine is absolutely necessary to keep the kids from making mincemeat out of me before Brian gets home. If I'm desperate I swill it straight from the jar; if I have a little more prep-time I actually pour it in a glass with ice cubes! and maybe a little splash of milk!) Price describes "hints of chocolate, even caramel" coming out of the cold-brewed version. Well, I made a batch of the cold-brewed stuff (1/3 C ground coffee mixed up with 1 and 1/2 C cold water and left overnight to steep, then strained through a coffee filter). It was fine, but the angels neglected to play their trumpets over my head. I couldn't tell the difference between that and the stuff I usually drink. It was kind of nice not to have to heat up water for coffee that you want to drink cold, but as I am one of the few, the proud, the non-garbage disposal owners, cleaning the coffee grounds out of the jar was a messy chore. If you do have a disposal and can just swish it around and dump it down the drain, then this method might be good for you.

However, the angels were in attendance on my birthday when I tasted best red wine I've ever had the privilege of drinking. Brian and I went up to the Five Lakes Grill for their monthly theme dinner; this month was "A Taste of Spain". The food was good, but not mind blowing--there were some tapas, a nice gazpacho, some garlicy big shrimp, a fancified paella and an orange creme brulee. Everything was very nicely prepared, but none of it rocked my world. What did set me spinning was the red wine that was paired with the "Modern Style Paella": 2001 Remelluri Rioja. It was so ripe and rich and smoky and fruity I just about ran out of wine adjectives to describe it. It was this wine, and not the food, that Brian and I talked about on the way home. I've found it listed on-line on sale for $22.99/bottle, but I'd rather find a local source for it.

I have a new favorite platform for summer berries--the basic French yogurt cake, Gateau au Yaourt.
The cake is very springy and moist and the small amount of vanilla and rum in the batter give it a big boost of flavor. The strawberries pictured above were the very end of the Michigan crop (at least around here). Fiona and my mom and I went out and picked berries at Rowes earlier this week. The berries required sunstantial work--there weren't many per plant and they were small. But the small size was due to the stressed-out nature of the plants at the end of their fruit producing season and stressed-out, tired plants produce incredibly sweet and perfumed berries (if only all stressed-out, tired entities had such lovely results...). These berries are about as close in flavor to a wild strawberry as I've ever tasted coming from a cultivated plant. And they pair wonderfully with the yogurt cake and a big dollop of whipped cream.

What I'm writing:

I have an idea that I don't want to curse by talking about it. Sorry.

And now for the good stuff...

I may not have cared for the book we read for our book group, but once again, the food was fantastic. Coming up with food that you want to eat based on a circus theme is not the easiest task. Hot dogs, popcorn and cotton candy? No thanks. So we went for riffs on the circus food theme. Sarah picked up the peanut trope and brought some fantastic curried peanut and tomato soup:
And I decided that rather than greasy burgers, I'd make thai-spiced pork burgers, topped with nappa cabbage doused in lime mayo and red onions. Meg brought sweet potato fries rather than the normal variety and we welcomed Marilyn's salad even though it had nothing to do with the book...I think the closest to greens was a scene where an elephant stole into someone's garden and ate a cabbage.
For dessert, Ami made a wonderful key lime pie (in honor of the clowns that throw pies at each other) which was anointed generously with whipped cream:
I loved the soup Sarah made so much that I made it again for dinner last night. It is really terrific and really fast to make. Definitely a keeper of a recipe.

Curried Peanut and Tomato Soup
adapted from Gourmet, February 2006

1 medium onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 (14-oz) can diced tomatoes in juice, chopped if large, reserving juice
1 can (14-oz) cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup hot water
1/4 cup chunky peanut butter
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 limes--one juiced, one cut in wedges
whole roasted peanuts for garnish

Cook onion, salt, and pepper in oil in a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 5 minutes. Add curry powder and cook, stirring frequently, 2 minutes. Add tomatoes (with their juice) and broth and simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes. Stir hot water into peanut butter until smooth and add to soup. Add juice of one lime. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes. Stir in cilantro before serving.

Serve with a wedge of lime and sprinkling of roasted peanuts.

Circus books

I know it is a little strange to read fiction about the circus life back to back, but that's what I did. While I haven't done an exhaustive search, I don't think the circus is the most popular topic in contemporary fiction. The first book was one that my book group chose, Water for Elephants and the second book was one that an anonymous commenter recommended back when I was asking for books of linked stories (thanks anonymous!), The Circus in Winter.


My book group met last night (food post to follow) and I was definitely in the minority in not liking Water for Elephants. I admit that after the last book our group attempted (an apt verb since no one actually finished the book), Snow by Orhan Pamuk, I was relieved when I started Water for Elephants. Hey, there were characters! And a plot! And prose that didn't make me feel numb! But that relief soon wore off as I started to get more and more annoyed with the characters, the melodrama, the predictability of it all. So last night grouchy-Kate, the buzz killer (though Diane's spiked lemonade soon brought the buzz back!), bitched about the book while everyone else recounted their favorite parts.

I don't really want to spend the energy here recounting my objections; I'd rather turn your attention to a vastly superior (in my grouchy-Kate opinion) piece of fiction that happens to be about a circus. When I first started Cathy Day's book, I was worried that it would just be a bunch of stories behind the side-show freaks. There were a few of these, but the chapters/stories built on each other to present a portrait of a performing culture that had depth and emotion. Set in the circus' winter quarters in Lima, Indiana, it is also a view of a small town that just happens to have a large portion of the population who talk about elephants rather than their pet dogs. That is to say, the exotic is not the attraction, rather the humanity underneath the "sawdust and spangles."

Many of the chapters were published as short stories before being drawn together in this book and I can certainly see how they can stand on their own. But when read together they gain power from each other and turn into a novel. I'm really impressed by this fact--that a writer can take the fragments, which are fine on their own, and stitch them together into something that becomes whole. It is a beautiful and memorable book.

The next book our group will read is a book I'm really excited about: Sherman Alexie's Flight. I've read a few of Alexie's short stories and loved them--aggressive, shocking prose, but also funny and beautiful. He has a really unique voice. Here's a little excerpt taken from the Amazon review to tempt you to read it too:

Zits [the main character] meditates on the nature of profanity, deciding even a harmless word can be profane when delivered with punch:

'Don't you look at me that way,' [the foster father] says. 'Don't try to stare me down.'

Of course, I keep staring at him.

'Stop staring at me,' he says.

'Plop,' I say.

'What did you say?'

'Plopping plop.'

Jesus, I sound like a pissed-off Dr. Seuss character. That thought makes me laugh.

'Are you laughing at me?' he asks.

'You bet your plopping ass I'm laughing at you.'

You bet your plopping ass I'll be reading this as soon as it comes in the mail.

Just what I needed

My book group met yesterday evening and it was just what I needed.

I'd been having one of "those" days. The three year old kept shouting at me "I'm taking you to jail, but you have to drive!" every time I asked her to do something (it's cute the first time or two that you hear you have to drive yourself to your own incarceration; it gets less funny the 30th time...). The six year old has been obsessed with the computer lately and cares more about it than any humans; yesterday was no exception and included some epic battles of wills with his teachers. He followed that up on the way home from school with one of those confusing/disturbing declarations: "I was too sad to go to my focus study so I got to go spend time with Kit (the librarian) who is always really kind to me." I tried to dig and find out what the hell that sentence meant--why was he sad? had someone been unkind to him? Kit is a lovely person and I can understand why he'd want to spend time with her, but what was the problem with his focus study (which is this really cool two week long mini course that the kids get to do three times a year at his school)? But it was like talking to a wall: I couldn't get any information out of him.

By 4:30 I felt like I had been banging my head into a post for a few hours--dazed, confused and with my confidence in my mommy-skills totally shot. There were moments yesterday when I thought about handing the kids off to Brian and just going upstairs and crawling into bed, but somehow I got myself into the kitchen to make my contribution to the book group feast and Sarah and Lea picked up my sorry ass and drove me out to Ami's house.

It took 3 large glasses of wine and some pretty potent chocolate, but after an evening with these culinary therapies, and the best therapy of all, the company of some wonderful women, I felt a whole lot better.

We talked about Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (which I raved about here) and as the narrator reflects back on her upstate New York adolescence from her present location of Paris, we had French food. Well, sort of French...Everyone else made French food and I brought an Italian antipasti that I'd been wanting to make since I was given this book for Christmas.

We started by sipping (or in my case, swilling) a really nice wine that Marilyn brought which, despite its rude name, Fat Bastard, is from Languedoc grapes (look at the cute hippo on the label!) With it we had my antipasti:

warm Gorgonzola custards with an arugula, pear, and walnut salad

The custards didn't come out of their ramekins as nicely as I'd have liked and so looked a little like a pile of scrambled eggs, but they tasted fine. The combination of the cream and eggs mellowed the bite of the Gorgonzola and the pear, arugula, walnut salad was the perfect bit of sweetness and freshness to keep the custards from being overwhelming. The dressing couldn't have been simpler, a little walnut oil and some balsamic, but I used really good balsamic, an 18 year old one from Morgan and York ($18 for 18 years, seems like a good deal to me!) and it really made a difference.

Then Ami served a gorgeous, huge, juicy, roasted chicken and made some smashed-then-roasted potatoes that were fantastic (must get the January 2007 copy of Fine Cooking for the recipes).
Sarah brought a classic salade crudite with matchstick beets, celery root and carrots in a shallot vinaigrette:
The sharpness of the vegetables cut through the richness of the chicken and potatoes--really a lovely pairing.

And then it was on to chocolate therapy provided by our favorite sweet-tooth of the group, Lea:

pots de creme with an ample dollop of whipped cream

John came in an pulled an expert intense espresso to go with the dessert. I decided to also have a little more wine...

my kind of triumvirate: red wine, chocolate and espresso

I got myself into a blissful groove of alternating a sip of espresso--a bite of pot de creme--a sip of wine--a bite of pot de creme--a sip of espresso--a bite of pot de creme, etc.

And by the time Sarah delivered me back to my door, with a full belly and a buzzy brain from the wine/espresso combo, I felt like I could face another day, no matter how flawed it may be.