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January 26, 2007
Spandex on the Kalahari?
A reader from Scotland sent this link to an upcoming survivor type reality show called "Fat Men Can't Hunt".
We can only hope that this UK show, like Millionaire and Weakest Link, will find its way to our shores. I would love to see how this cadre of heavy humans fares, not to mention how much of their avoir du pois they shed tromping alongside the Bushmen across the sands of the Kalahari, eating their Stone Aged hunter-gatherer diet.
Leave it to the clever Brits to come up with this concept. Why didn't I think of it?
Posted by mdeades at 11:28 PM | Comments (4)
January 18, 2007
Dressing Up Squash Soup and Tuna for a Lite Nite Bite
Sorry to have been so lazy at the blog desk of late, but we've been on the road and unlike Mike, I don't do well blogging from the airport lounge or passenger's seat of a car. Besides, doing so would require that I wrest control of the laptop and Verizon National Broadband from his grasp. Not an easy undertaking, I can tell you. I do much better from my own little old desk.
On our recent swing through Colorado, we stayed a few nights at the venerable Hotel Boulderado. The last night we were there, we'd been to see our dentist (as readers of Mike's blog will know) and wound up missing breakfast and eating a large lunch late in the afternoon, which made us too full to eat dinner at a normal time.
Thus, we ended up in the hotel's Corner Bar restaurant about 10 pm for a lite nite bite. They had a great Ahi Tartare appetizer on the menu that, when paired with a bowl of their Roasted Squash Soup, was just enough for me. Mike opted for heartier fare, despite the lateness of the hour.
The soup was in consistency and flavor much like the pumpkin soup recipe I blogged on last fall, only made with acorn or Hubbard squash instead of pumpkin. The recipe would work well with an equivalent amount of any winter squash variety. What set the Boulderado's soup apart, though, was a centered dollop of what I took to be sun-dried tomato and herb butter and a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil around the periphery. These additions really augmented the savory flavor of the soup and dressed it up nicely.
The pumpkin seed oil, a dark green flavorful and very healthful oil, you can find at any good health food grocery and I feel sure, on line as well. All you have to do with it is just drizzle it on in a wider circle around the center dollop. As to the butter, I didn't ask about the recipe but I would guess that you could concoct the butter like you would any compound butter. My version would be this:
Sun-dried Tomato and Herb Butter
Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter
3 or 4 whole oil-packed sundried tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon fresh parsley or rosemary leaves
Pinch of coarse salt (natural sea salt if you've got it)
1. Put softened butter, sundried tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic, salt and the fresh rosemary or parsley leaves into the workbowl of a food processor and blend until a uniform soft pink color.
(You could use a soft dollop right away in your own bowl of squash soup, drizzle the pumpkin seed oil around it and voila, you're practically at the Hotel Boulderado. If you're not ready to use it, or use all of it...)
2. Turn the mixture out onto a sheet of plastic wrap or waxed paper and form into a log about the diameter of a stick of butter. Wrap it tightly and let it firm up in the refrigerator for an hour or two.
3. Then unwrap and slice log into 8 or 10 equal pats, wrap it back up, put into a zip freezer bag, and freeze it.
Then you've got it to use as needed (bring it to room temp first) for topping a yummy squash soup or on veggies or meat or fish.
As to their Ahi Tartare, that would be a snap to duplicate:
MD's Ahi Tartare a la Boulderado
Makes 2 servings
Ingredients
4 ounces fresh sashimi grade ahi
1-1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon wasabi paste
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root (or 1/4 teaspoon dried)
1/2 packet Splenda or Stevia
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
1 small bunch watercress, washed, trimmed, and dry
1 tablespoon pickled ginger, if desired
1. Dice the fresh ahi into 1/2" pieces and place them into a bowl large enough to toss them with dressing. (Stick the ahi, wrapped in plastic, into the freezer for about 15 minutes beforehand to make it firmer and easier to cut cleanly.)
2. In a small bowl, whisk together all remaining ingredients except the oils and let them sit for 10 or 15 minutes to marry the flavors and infuse ginger into the liquid.
3. Drizzle the oil in slowly as you whisk to make the dressing.
4. Pour all but one teaspoon of dressing over the diced ahi and toss gently to coat evenly.
5. Divide mixture, centering each serving on a chilled plate, drizzle a bit of the reserved dressing onto each plate and sprinkle on the sesame seeds. Finish the plates with half the watercress and a side of pickled ginger, if desired.
At the Boulderado, they served theirs with three artfully-displayed, herbed-flatbread triangles; I nibbled one, but they weren't worth spending the carb grams on and, besides, it's a beautiful, healthful, and yummy dish without them.
Posted by mdeades at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
January 7, 2007
Tag; I'm it!
My husband's loose lips (or more correctly his loose finger tips) when he recently got blog-tagged by Regina Wilshire and revealed not only unknown parts of his past, but of mine as well, have reaped his (undoubtedly) intended result: I, too have been blog-tagged by Alcinda Moore.
As I'm sure you're aware, when someone visits this chain-letter equivalent upon you (a visitation, by the way, that is spreading throughout the blogosphere like the flu and for many of us is probably about as welcome) you are asked to accept the challenge of revealing 5 things about yourself that other people don't generally know...and then pass the joy along to 5 other unsuspecting souls.
As my darling husband did, I will comply with the former requirement and skip the latter, since I don't really know that many bloggers who won't have already been tagged in the game. But, in my case, the buck really will stop with me, because I won't sneak in a revelation about someone else that puts them on the hot seat. Thanks, dear!
Okay, here goes:
1. Yes, it's true. I was crowned Miss Hot Springs (Arkansas) in 1972 and competed in the Miss Arkansas pageant that year; clearly, since he didn't say I was Miss Arkansas or Miss America, I did not win the state pageant or compete beyond that point. It was my first and only pageant and it was the state winner's 23rd pageant; as my parents put it: experience won out over beauty, talent, and brains!
For my talent presentation, I sang "Yes!" from the Broadway musical 70 Girls 70 , which you've likely never heard of, unless you're a real Broadway trivia hound. The song was of my sister's selection, a number that she really liked on Liza Minnelli's Liza with a Z
I served out my year of ribbon cuttings, performances, grand openings, parades, and assorted other 'duties' and eagerly turned over my tiara the following year to the new winner, a dear friend and high school classmate of mine, Rhonda Kaye Pope, who did go on to become Miss Arkansas 1973 and was Miss Congeniality in the Miss America pageant.
2. Dan is not my maiden name, although most people mistakenly assume so. My first name is not Mary; it is Mary Dan, a good old Southern double name. I am named Mary after my mother (Edith Mary) and Dan after my great aunt, Dan. Actually Dannie. She was my maternal grandmother's sister and possibly the dearest person on Earth to me growing up. Like many foolish young ladies, I went through a phase of not liking my unusual name, partly because of being mercilessly teased by the boys about having a boy's name. I even insisted, for about a year or two in junior high school, on being called just Mary; thus, my junior high school cheerleader megaphone sports only the first half of my name in yellow script across its CJHS Spartan blue surface. Soon, however, it dawned on me that being named after a person so fine, so smart, generous, stoic, loving, and hard-working, so dear to me and so beloved by all who knew her was a great honor that I should (and still do) treasure. By high school, the cheerleader megaphone was proudly emblazoned with my whole name once again...albeit in HSHS Trojan black and gold. (If any man doubts it, see photo from 1970 below). To this day, it is a serious pet peeve of mine to be referred to as just Mary. Those who know me never do.
3. I play the piano for pleasure, however I have a deep and abiding phobia of playing in front of other people (aside from close family) that tracks back to my 4th grade piano recital in which I went blank on the middle two pages of a song called "The Cotton Gin". I sat, eyes locked to the keyboard, for what seemed like an hour to me, but was probably more like 20 or 30 seconds. I picked up somewhere later in the piece and finished it, stood up, took my seat with the other pupils and never ever played the piano in public again. I continued to take lessons for a number of years, but managed somehow to injure my hands in some way (playing kickball or tether ball or dodge ball or softball) and be unable to perform at the recital.
Actually that's not entirely true to say that I never played in front of other people again. Once Mike and I hosted a party at our house in honor of Mozart's birthday. There were probably about 12 or 14 people there--all friends of ours--and we'd had a lovely time with lots of good food and plenty of iced vodka. In my case, it was just enough vodka to get me to agree to play a few numbers on the piano and not so much that I couldn't. I played a little Mozart, a little Chopin, and a little Bach and acquitted myself nicely. But momentary success didn't cure me as momentary failure had scarred me; the phobia persists and getting that perfect titration of ethanol in the bloodstream isn't as easy as it might appear. It's far likelier to get just over the "enough" line and have all your fingers tangle in knots on the Minute Waltz. I'd sing in front of a million people, but play the piano...fuggedaboudit!
4. My childhood ambition was to compete in the Olympics in track and field. I could sprint; I could high jump; I could broadjump with the best of them. I wasn't ever much of a distance runner, more speed than stamina. Unfortunately for me, when I was in junior high and high school there were no Title IX regs that now make sure female athletes get a shot. My high school was large--about 1600 people--and our class graduated 413 kids. We were the state champs in football that year and 7 points from being the state champs in basketball. Our track team excelled, too; a guy I dated back then even set the state record for the shot put. But we didn't have a girl's track team or a girl's tennis team or a girl's basketball team. So now, with 50 receeding in my rearview mirror, the dream has transmographied: I'd just like to go to the Olympics.
5. I once crashed the Oval Office. As some readers may know, I grew up across the street from former President Bill Clinton, who back then was just Billy to us neighbor kids. In fact, one of the parades I rode in during my Miss Hot Springs tenure was the Bill Clinton Day parade during his first close-but-failed campaign for Congress. (He lost narrowly in that race to long-time incumbent John Paul Hammershmidt.)
Not long after Clinton had taken office in April 1993, Mike and I were in Washington for the launch party being held there for a book titled Living in Little Rock with Miss Little Rock
Our friend Jack was on NPR doing a publicity interview for the book and a former student of his (he was a dean at a small liberal arts college in Arkansas then) phoned in during the interview and told Jack he was working in the West Wing and asked if Jack and his wife would like a tour of the White House while they were in town. Jack mentioned that they had friends from Arkansas with them and thus we got invited along on the tour. Jack knew of my childhood association to Clinton and we laughed that it was a good thing that he had connections to get us in the door, since, unlike my siblings, I am totally a-political and didn't have connection one anywhere along the way except at the very top.
We dutifully appeared at the guard house at the appointed time, got our badges, and were escorted in by Jack's student and given the West Wing tour, which ultimately wound up in a good sized antechamber. He pointed to a closed door and said "Shoot. The door's closed; that means the President is in there working. If it were open, I could show you the Oval Office." And I piped up and said, half-jokingly, "Just knock on the door and tell him Mary Dan is here and I'm sure he'll let us in to look around." He chuckled, but I repeated that if Mr. Clinton wasn't with somebody, I felt sure if he knew I was just on the other side of the door that he would open it and at least let us peek in. So the kid disappeared into an adjacent office and in a few minutes, here came Betty Currie to tell us that unfortunately the President had had a number of unexpected commitments added to his calendar and he wouldn't be able to see us.
I, of course, was crushed, no less so because our friend Jack began to tease me: I thought you had connections at the top. Well I guess your connections just aren't as good as you thought they were.
Rebuffed and with my feathers seriously ruffled, we moved on to the Press Room, complete with podium, blue curtained backdrop and oval White House Press Room sign. Everybody else was inside taking pictures standing at the podium and I was sulking in the hall with Jack's student.
Suddenly, just outside the airlock doors at the end of the hallway where we stood, there he was, flanked by secret servicemen, walking in the breezeway between the Oval Office and the residential part of the White House. Between us were only the two doors of the airlock. Totally out of character, I pushed open both doors, stuck my head out and shouted "Hey, Bill!"
Okay, major protocol/ettiquette breach right there, calling the President by his first name, let alone bursting through the door unannounced and without permission. It's a wonder I wasn't 'taken down'' by the Secret Service right there.
Lucky for me, The Prez turned around, recognized me, waved and said "Stay there, I'll be right back."
The kid said, "What do you think we should do."
I said, "I believe the leader of the free world just asked us to wait; we'll wait."
We all trailed back to the antechamber area and shortly, amid a flurry of activity, including a camera woman to record the momentous occasion, we got ushered into the Oval Office for an unscheduled visit with the President.
At that point, we became a hot comodity for this very enterprising young man. He lead us through every nook and crannie of the place, getting us admitted with "These are VIPs from Arkansas who have just been with the President in the Oval Office and they'd like to see (fill in the blank) and the doors magically opened. We were even treated to a personal tour of the residence by the Curator of the White House, Rex Scouten. It was fascinating.
That night, at the big book launch party (at the Washington home of other friends of ours) the talk of the party was of my crashing us into the Oval Office, which got reported in the Washington Post and then picked up back home in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, which carried a caution to other Arkies headed to the capital: please do no expect to get in to see the President without an appointment.
Oh, and here's the photo.
We were dressed for sightseeing and museuming and had no clue that we were going to be able to get an audience with the President in the Oval Office, thus...Mike, jacketless, sleeves rolled up and looking more like the White House gardner than a visiting "VIP from Arkansas".
Posted by mdeades at 9:14 PM | Comments (5)
January 6, 2007
Grilled Fennel and Endive with Anchiode
Fennel, native to the Mediterranean, grows well in the similar climate of the California Central Coast. It grew in abundance all over the uncultivated slopes of our erstwhile avocado ranch, along with prickly pear cactus, both now sadly unavailable to us. But no matter; just as it does abroad, the plant grows wild here, springing up plentifully on roadsides, hillsides, vacant lots, and cracks in the sidewalk.
Throughout the millennia, Mediterranean cultures have reaped the wild fennel harvest for culinary and medicinal purposes. It was a field of wild fennel (marathon) in ancient Greece that lent its name to the place it grew...Marathon...site of an historic battle between the Persians and the Athenians. When the vastly outmanned Athenian army routed the Persians, so the story goes, a messanger named Pheidippides ran the 26.2 miles to Athens to bring them the news of victory. He subsequently collapsed and died of exhaustion, but we still commemorate (and some emulate) his feat, calling the brutal test of endurance by the name of where it occurred...place where the wild fennel grows.
(For more than you may ever have wished to know about fennel, click here.)
Fennel happens to be one of Mike's favorite foods; he loves the bulbs sliced up raw in salads, he loves them braised in stews or rubbed with a little olive oil and roasted in the oven; he loves the chopped fronds as an herby note mixed with fresh greens; he loves the fruits (often called seeds) just to eat a spoonful of after dinner. Thus, I'm always on the lookout for something new to do with fennel.
The something arrived while thumbing through the December 2006 issue of Saveur magazine, one of my favorite food reads. In an article by Nancy Coons called "Provence Noel" (which offers a simply fascinating glimpse of the place and the culture for lovers of Christmas traditions around the world, such as moi) I noticed a recipe for anchiode, which is a traditional Mediterranean sauce made of anchovies and oil. It's usually used, as it was in the Provencal Christmas feast Ms. Coons was recounting, as a dipping sauce for raw carrots or other crudite, but makes a great dressing for roasted or grilled meat or vegetables or even salad greens. Although often made with olive oil, this version, is made with butter.
Mmmmmm.
And that got me to thinking about how good it would be to make a hot salad (since it's winter now) of grilled endive and fennel bulbs, tossed with anchiode. When you consider the healthy fats in the anchovies and lauric acid in the butter, the plethora of antioxidants in the fennel, it's a real feel-good-about-eating-it dish. And thus:
Grilled Fennel and Endive with Anchiode
Serves 4
For the Anchoide:
(from Nancy Coons in Saveur, December 2006)
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 ounce jar or tin of boneless anchovy fillets
1. Combine the anchovies and butter in a small saucepan, heat over medium heat, crushing as stirring the anchovies wih a fork as the butter melts
2. Cook, stirring with the fork until hot through (about 3-4 minutes). Set aside.
*Note: the recipe makes about 1 cup, of which you'll need only about 1/2 cup for this salad. Reserve the rest in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to a week; rewarm for tossing with cooked spaghetti squash or to dress other yummy cooked low carb veggies, such as boiled celery root, roasted peppers, green beans, broccoli/cauliflower,etc.
For the salad:
2 fennel bulbs, washed, trimmed, and quartered
4 heads of endive, washed and split lengthwise
olive oil
black pepper
coarse salt
1. Rub the fennel and endive with olive oil, sprinkle with just a touch of coarse salt (the anchovies will be salty enough) and grind on plenty of fresh black pepper.
2. Grill on hot grill pan (or outdoor grill) for about 5-6 minutes, turning as needed to prevent burning, but allowing the veggies to wilt and pick up grill marks.
3. Remove the veggies to a cutting board and coarsely chop them.
4. Dress with about 1/2 cup anchiode, tossing to coat thoroughly.
5. Serve immediately.
For those who harbor a knee-jerk aversion to anchovies, give this a try. Although flavorful and strong, it doesn't taste remotely fishy. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
Posted by mdeades at 11:44 AM | Comments (3)
January 4, 2007
Acrylamide: Another Reason to Shun Starch
Yesterday's paper brought an interesting article by Libby Quaid for the AP titled:
Cancer-causing food byproduct raises concern: FDA takes heat over natural byproduct in starch.
The article focused on acrylamide, a known carcinogen (at least in lab rats) that is produced by heating starch to high temperatures, such as in baking, roasting, and frying. Therefore, as Ms. Quaid points out
Acrylamide turns up in all kinds of tasty foods, including french fries, potato chips, breakfast cereals, cookies and crackers.
Just looking at that list makes me shudder, when I realize that these foods--plus hot-oven baked pizza dough--make up the vast bulk of what most U.S. kids eat.
Is it dangerous to humans? The jury is still out, but until it's in, for me, it's yet another good reason to avoid a high intake of starchy foods.
Posted by mdeades at 1:05 PM | Comments (1)
January 2, 2007
A Food-filled, Fun-filled Farewell to 2006
As has become our custom, we celebrated the passing of the old year and the coming of the new with music, fine wine, good food, and great friends.
This year, the group organized a progressive party, beginning at the home of two of our close friends, who got the party rolling with the fish course: crab cocktail, smoked salmon blinis, and scallop appetizers and some bubbly to get the evening off to a good start.
Then it was off to the Santa Barbara Symphony's Wild West Pops concert, performing the rousing symphonic melodies of all your favorite oaters from The Magnificent Seven to Blazing Saddles.
Then back to our house (at about 11 pm) to pick up with the soup course and beyond.
My inspiration for this year's menu arrived in mid December from a Julie Powell piece in the Way We Eat feature in the Sunday NY Times magazine: Coffee-Roasted Fillet of Beef with a pasilla cream sauce. The actual rub for the tenderloin contained a combination of coffee, cocoa, and a touch of cinnamon and proved to be quite tasty, although for my money, I think I still prefer the garlic rub we usually use on tenderloin of beef. If I were to use it again, I think I would cut back on the amount of coffee in the rub, up the cinnamon a bit, and maybe even hit it with just a touch of cayenne. Still, I enjoyed the interplay of tastes between the coffee, the warm dark spices, and the bite of the pasilla pepper cream sauce.
The evening went on until the wee hours--long after we'd interrupted our meal between the entree and the cheese to toast the arrival of the New Year with champagne and a couple of choruses of Auld Lang Syne around the piano--owing in large measure to the symphony's going on longer than advertized. I must admit we felt a bit worse for the wear after we'd cleared away the last remnants of the festivities and finally headed to bed; we're not as young as we once were, I guess.
Despite the lateness of the start, we enjoyed a lovely evening of merriment with our friends. For the record, here's the full menu:
Pumpkin Soup, garnished with Fresh Cranberry Orange Relish
Coffee, Cocoa, and Cinnamon Rubbed Beef Tenderloin with a Pasilla chile cream sauce
Butter-sauteed Shitake Mushrooms
Epoisses (ripened French cheese) with a bit of Pecan-raisin Bread
Drunken Rubies
Fingers of Mike's Mother's Fruitcake*
And, of course, wine, wine, and more wine. We enjoyed a Sequoia Grove Chardonnay with our soup, then moved to a Francis Ford Coppola Rubicon Estate red with the tenderloin, a 1996 Reserve Sequoia Grove Cabernet with the cheese, and, of course, more champagne as the big ball dropped.
*It should be noted that Mike's mother makes a killer fruitcake that even fruit cake haters love. Admittedly, it's not low carb, but it's worth the once-a-year splurge. It was a hard sell to get Mike to part with any of the small loaf she sent to us, but the holidays are about sharing, so I finally prevailed. Every person at the table ate every bite of the fruitcake tidbits; if there had been more (that Mike was willing to share) they'd have eaten that, too.
Posted by mdeades at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)