London Surprise

Wow. We did such a good job of keeping it a secret that I nearly forgot to mention it here. We went to London!

Fish and Chips and - most importantly - Mushy Peas

So now that the cat's out of the bag, I can tell you: our friends Ken and Lindsay are living there this semester and Ken was having a milestone birthday. Lindsay thought it would be a fun idea for Sergio and me to surprise him with a visit. We agreed completely, snatched up some plane tickets, kept it a secret for many weeks, and finally - despite three (!) flight cancellations due to the blizzard in the northeast - landed in London.

Lindsay, Ken, Sergio, me, and Big Ben

After pulling off our transatlantic surprise, we went on to have a fantastic time with Ken and Lindsay - 1 very historic pub crawl (led by an American expat with a PhD in Dickens), 2 thousand-year old churches (Westminster Abbey and Temple Church) several highly memorable encounters with cheese, delicious Indian food, a comedy show, a hilarious Beefeater tour of the Tower of London (also a comedy show), a visit to Abbey Road (Sergio's request - in homage to Pink Floyd, not those other guys) ...

"Raclette" at Borough Market - cheese, recently melted under these little broilers, and scraped off onto boiled new potatoes, served with gherkins and onions. Unbelievably good.

Borough Market on Valentine's Day

Our Beefeater - so hilariously sarcastic. The name purportedly comes from the fact that long ago, because they were the queen's guards, these "Yeomen Warders" would have had rare access to beef. I think they keep up the name because it's funny.

Did you know that London was founded by Romans and originally called Londinium!? Me neither? Not until our pub crawl with the expat. Lindsay, a historian, further elaborated on some of London's history and I found myself completely aghast - I figured everything was around 1,000 years old, you know, just since 1066, right? But the whole city itself is more like 2,000 years old. I come from a town that's only 150 years old, so needless to say, I found these facts to be phenomenal.

Statue believed to be of the Roman Emperor Trajan, AD 98-117 - 'Imperator Caesar Nerva Trajanus Augustus'

As if London's own antiquity we're enough, we went to the British Museum to see even more really, really old things. Like the Rosetta Stone! Which is nearly impossible to get to through the throngs of people clamoring for a glimpse. We also saw the Elgin Marbles which amount to a lot of marbles, and I think I can understand why Greece is so upset.

behind the Rosetta Stone with swarms of people in front

Elgin Marbles, South Metope XXXI

AND, what's more? Besides five days of quality time under the "gray cloud" and "white cloud" of London with Ken and Lindsay, we also got to meet up with another set of friends who happened to be in England at the same time as us. What a treat!

me and Lauren after an afternoon at the Courtauld Gallery

Cheers!

Around the World

I'm making some travel plans for later this year and so I have traveling on the brain. Which flight should we take? How many PTO days will I need to use? What will the weather be like? What should I pack? Will my iPhone work in Baja California? Many uncertainties that I'm still working out for my own travel plans - which put me in a welcoming frame of mind to watch Around the World in 80 Days at the KC Repertory Theater tonight, in which life and traveling seems fundamental and simple.

Especially as portrayed with such a minimally appointed set, the journey of Phileas Fogg appeared to me pleasantly plain in its planning - but exciting all the same. Fogg and his valet, Passepartout, packed light, carrying just two carpet bags, some cash, and a little red book called the Bradshaw which lists time tables for ships and trains. With his penchant for mathematical precision, Fogg makes all the arrangements as he goes, never miscalculating, never erring.

Most welcoming of all, Fogg was so unscathed by the uncertainties of planning, the uncertainties of nineteenth century global travel, no less. I love the character of Fogg, so indefatigable, so constantly poised, so firm. When faced with even the most absurd set backs - an unfinished railroad, a warrant for his arrest - Fogg remains unflapped.

And here I am wasting a lot of energy on worrying that three months from now I might forget to bring the battery charger for my camera.

I'm sure the caricature of Fogg is meant to invite derision - I mean who could be so dry and intent as to ignore all the wonders of the world as they pass you by, no matter what kind of deadline you're on? - but I found his detachment sort of appealing. Of course, Passepartout is his foil - in awe of the sites along the way and inevitably getting into a couple of scrapes along the way.

But wouldn't it be nice to traverse even just a tiny little corner of the world with both Fogg's calm and Passepartout's verve? I think so.

"Grana y Oro" Chili

three vegetarian chilis, mine is on the right, with the 'totopo' (chip)

Tonight was the 17th Annual Chili Cookoff at church - a fabulous event - and I decided to enter the contest this year. This was a last minute decision and with little time to get too creative, I decided just to spruce up my old favorite Red Bean and Quinoa Chili with some fancy beans, some chipotles, and a new name.

Since I was using two kinds of quinoa - the red one and the, uh, gold one - I got the idea to call it red and gold chili. Which was, of course, too boring. So I told Sergio I wanted to name it in Spanish and he directed me to this perfect word, "grana," which means both "scarlet" and "grain."

I forgot to take a picture of my chili, but I was very excited about my sign.

And thus was born my "Mostly local, organic and mild Grana y Oro chili, featuring QUINOA, the ancient grain and complete protein, from South America ... yellow CORN and red TOMATOES from Kansas and Missouri ... 2 kinds of BEANS (Kidney and Anasazi) ... and Mexican CHIPOTLES!"

It tied for second place in the Best Vegetarian Chili category!


GRANA Y ORO CHILI ("Scarlet & Gold" Chili)
based on "Red Bean and Quinoa Chili" from Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair
serves 8-10

2 cups of red beans (kidney or anasazi)
soaked 6-8 hours, simmered in 6 cups of water 60 to 90 minutes with 1 t. cumin and 2 garlic cloves

2 t. olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 t. sea salt

2 bell pepper, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 a small jalapeño (or more to taste)
2 t. cumin

2 t. dried oregano

1/4 t. cinnamon

1/8 t. cayenne *OR* better yet - chipotle chili powder from Planters

2/3 cup red quinoa, rinsed in warm water and drained
2/3 cup gold quinoa, rinsed in warm water and drained

2 cups fresh or frozen corn

1 can tomato sauce
1 pint (or can) crushed or diced tomatoes

32 oz vegetable broth
1/3 cup chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped

Heat oil in skillet on medium. Add onion, salt, garlic, pepper, and spices; sauté for 5 to 10 minutes. Add rinsed quinoa and stir in. Add corn, tomatoes, and broth to onion/quinoa mixture. Simmer 20 minutes. Add cooked beans and chipotles to other ingredients; simmer around 10 minutes.

Drinking Chocolate

Well, last summer I got hooked on snow cones. Really hooked. Then, about a month after the snow cone season ended, when the weather had finally began to get chilly and I was just about ready for a new obsession, I was reminded of Christopher Elbow Drinking Chocolate.

drinking chocolate - that's drinking the modifier, not the verb

This was nothing new as I've been a fan of Mr. Elbow and his artisanal chocolates (strawberry balsamic is still far and away my fave) since he first started up in the tiny kitchen in the back section of the antique store on Southwest Blvd. But this year, since I was ready for my next fixation, I guess, when I was reintroduced to the drinking chocolates, I got hooked. Really hooked. It was a weekly thing at first - on Fridays before each trip to Badseed, just down the street from Christopher Elbow. Now that it's the new year all full of resolutions, I've cut back a tiny bit, but not without significant longing.

There are several flavors of drinking chocolate to choose from - Venezualen Spice, Mocha, Dark, Peanut Butter, and - I think - Curry. All delicious, I'm sure. But the one that steals my heart each and every time is the Peppermint. Truth be told, I could give up chocolate altogether if it weren't for the way that it tastes when combined with mint. And this combination of hot drinking chocolate with cool peppermint is something else.

pepp, indeed

If you're interested in marshmallows, I can tell you that your best bet is one marshmallow only and a lid (which traps the heat which melts the marshmallow which prevents you from having to messily fish the marshmallow remainder out at the end of your drink). Or, if you're marshmallow-averse, definitely go for a bit of Shatto cream. (OR, if you're a vegan, they will make the whole drinking chocolate for you with water instead of milk!)

Truly - you can't go wrong.

Heat in the Cold

No sooner had I gotten a pressure canner for my birthday in August, I decided to make a batch of soup. The Ball Blue Book of Preserving offered one particularly promising recipe that was simple to make and only a bit time-consuming to can, which all seemed worth it to me when I imagined having homemade canned soup during the cold months of winter.

Little did I know just how cold this one winter month would be, and thus how welcome a reeeaaaaally spicy soup would be. (How many jalapeños did I put in there?) Nor did I realize how welcome a minimum-preparation-required meal would be on a weekend when the dishwasher had been broken for 10 days and when I couldn't possibly be persuaded to wash another dish.

Not to worry. Southwestern Soup out of a "can" (jar, really - why don't we call it "jarring") to the rescue. I only got four quarts out of my batch back in August and I want to make them last so I used just one quart for our lunch the other day. I thickened it with a pint of tomatoes and a can of kidney beans. Oh, and spruced it up with lime, cilantro, and plain yogurt. That made it just barely enough for four people, and only a little less spicy.

But it was still probably spicy enough to melt snow.

From the Ball Blue Book of Preserving:
Southwestern Vegetable Soup
Yield: about 9 pints or 4 quarts

6 c whole kernel corn, uncooked
1 quart chopped, peeled, cored tomatoes
2 c chopped, cored, husked tomatillos
1 c sliced carrots
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup sweet red pepper
1 cup sweet green pepper
3/4 c chopped and seeded long green pepper
1/4 c chopped and seeded hot pepper
3 T minced cilantro
2 t chili powder
1 t cayenne pepper
1 t black pepper
1 t salt
6 cups tomato juice
1 cup water
4 t hot pepper sauce ( I used Chipotle Tabasco)

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. Ladle hot soup into hot jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Adjust two piece caps. Process pints 55 minutes, quarts 1 hour and 25 minutes, at 10 pounds pressure in a steam-pressure canner. ("jarrer" if you will)
NOTE: When cutting or seeding hot peppers, wear rubber gloves to prevent hands from being burned.

Snow KC

snow in the sun

As luck would have it, my first Christmas at home in KC was a white one. Well, I consider this luck, but I seem to be alone in this camp; there are as many complaints around this town as there are sullied, gray snow piles. But never mind those - the long clear paths of white are still out there if you look for them and they are lovely to me. AND I made a fantastic snow angel, my first in years.

rain boots in the snow at Christy and Armando's - perfect patch for a snow angel

I'm lucky in that I don't have to shovel my own drive - somebody (maintenance at our apartment? The city of KCMO?) does it for me. And I'm lucky in that my travel plans weren't severely delayed or impeded. Christmas day we took an extra half hour getting ourselves (and fellow stuck travelers) up that back side of hospital hill trying to get to Christy and Armando's. And another extra half hour on our journey to OKC the day after Christmas during which the roads were neither "completely snow packed" nor "ice," as the Kansas Department of Transportation had indicated.

snow family in OKC - note the snow baby in a snow stroller

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day we were back in KC where it continues to be super cold - as cold as Russia. According to the weather app on my phone, we've been neck and neck with Moscow for a few days now. But the festivities continued unhampered - after a birthday brunch for Joyce we all braved the bitter chill to ring in the new year together at Fogo de Chão, which, believe it or not, has a remarkable salad bar. And while the rest of our party enjoyed the highest quality meats carved right at the table, I imagined a restaurant that serves salad table side. "Roasted Chiaggo Beets?" "Hearts of Palm?" "Grilled Carrots?" the servers would ask each time they arrive at your elbow with their serious carving knives and top quality veggies on spits.

Orange Pound Birthday Cake with Orange Glaze and Orange Zest (and Vitamin C!)

I spent New Year's Day, a.k.a. my anniversary, trying to remember exactly how cold it was seven years ago in Oklahoma the day we got married and our guests shivered outside the door of the church and threw lavender as we ran away.

01•01•03

Last night I finally took down the tree and today I'm deflating the air mattresses now that our holiday guests have reluctantly packed up their things and gone home to the DF (where it's 64 degrees). But for us, more snow last night, only 12 degrees here today, and I'm thinking I might make a few snow balls this afternoon before it's back to the daily grind tomorrow.

Sunday, January 3

Christmas at home

I finally have a tree again. In the last few years, end of semester school work and international travel plans have left me with no time for a full blown arbol. But this year, there was time. AND there was a farmer (Laura from Blue Door Farm!) willing to deliver to my door step a native, but invasive, Eastern Red Cedar. I will confess that these trees are sharp and require thick gloves and Benadryl cream. You might find that your house mate or spouse hates them. But I love them. And I love having a Christmas tree again.

A friend told me recently that I reminded him of silent film star Mildred Davis. I think I was channeling her when I topped my tree with this bow.

Self portrait

We had a heck of a time getting the tree to stand up straight. Our Christmas tree stand is woefully inadequate and the tree teetered and tottered as we ran around the apartment trying to find something to prop it up with. We finally settled on empty beer bottles.

"Beer fixes everything," said Sergio.

After Thanksgiving, Mom and Dad sent me home with lots of green and red goods from their yard - holly and something pronounced "you" that I don't know how to spell.

buffalo grass and holiday greens

on top of the piano, too

Sergio's folks brought all our stockings from Mexico - plus a new one for Lil Baby Pumpkin. Sergio adeptly hung them beautifully on our book case. They are half full already.

We're up to 9 now.

Merry Christmas

Paul Mesner Puppets: "The Nativity"

All these years I've lived in here (well, only 8 years but still) and I had never seen Paul Mesner Puppets until today. Our friends were in the show this weekend; Sergio's family is here and we were looking for fun things to do; we had a Christmas fund to spend from Sergio's grandmother. So we all made our way to Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral to see the Paul Mesner Puppets troupe (at last!) in "The Nativity." They were wonderful.

Are they puppets or marionettes? We wondered. But they seem like something unto themselves to me. Greater than full size ... taller than tall ... eyes of unusual size. The arms and fabric billow. The heads bobble ever so gently. The bodies sway in the space above the audience as they walk down the aisle. And for humor the sheep poke their heads into the crowd and go "baaaaaa" and the camels lean over and spit. "Putoey!"

When not being funny, the larger than life characters are mostly surreal and other worldly towering over us like figures in a dream. A good dream. In fact if I could hire the Paul Mesner Puppets troupe to star in my dreams every night and portray the contents of my subconscious, I think I would.

ThanksVegan #6 - The Video

video by Jon Kratz
click here to view in HD on YouTube

ThanksVegan #6

The tradition continues. Every fall for six years we have gathered with our friends Jon and Erin for a completely vegan Thanksgiving. The menu changes every year and gets better every year, too. But some things - like the mashed potatoes and the bonhomie - stay the same.

seitan roulade from Vegan Yum Yum

We were all Tofurkey-eating novices when this began in 2004. By now we've graduated from a processed & boxed main dish, to made-from-scratch roulades - a tofu roulade last year and a seitan roulade this year.

sage, thyme, garlic - for the stuffing

Each year we've been able to get more local, too - although we seem to delocalize things pretty often - driving our Missouri Brussels sprouts to Tulsa - or driving Oklahoma sage and thyme to Kansas City.

Eden Alley's Mushroom Gravy was Sergio's most stunning gravy yet

Our resources this year included the Candle Cafe cookbook, a Nigella recipe cut out of the newspaper, and the newly released Eden Alley cookbook - Stirwell to Heaven. Oh, and Erin, who is a resource in and of herself.

heirloom pumpkins; long island cheese and jarrahdale

The Nigella recipe was for stuffed, roasted pumpkin. I took two elements of my centerpiece - two heirloom pumpkins from Hun's Garden - and stuffed them with rice, cranberries, and saffron and roasted them for ages. Delicious.

steak on our Cosentino's gift cards - not vegan

What I couldn't buy at Badseed on Friday, we bought at Cosentino's on Saturday - wheat gluten, oranges and cranberries, among other things. (Very little soy, though, as this year's meal was virtually soy free.) This trip to the grocery store was funded by a generous gift card from a colleague which I have been holding on to all year. I've been saving it for a special occasion - an occasion like the Sixth Annual ThanksVegan - a very special occasion indeed.

The Full Menu
• seitan roulade (recipe from Vegan Yum Yum)
• roasted, stuffed pumpkin (recipe from Nigella Lawson; pumpkins from Hun's Garden)
• roasted broccoli and cauliflower (from the JCCC/K-State Student Farm)
• sauteed kale and chard (from Badseed and KCCUA)
• mashed potatoes (from Alice, Western Hills Produce)
• wilted spinach salad (from KCCUA)
• mushroom gravy (from Eden Alley cookbook, using Soaring Eagle Farm wheat flour)
• mushroom and wild rice soup (recipe from Candle Cafe cookbook)
• grain travel bread (from Fervere)
• cranberry orange relish (recipe from Erin's grandmother)
• easy tarte aux pommes - a.k.a. Apple Pie (from Vegan Yum Yum)

Salad-on-a-stick

Today was the KC Food Circle's annual meeting and several of us signed up to bring food. I was signed up to bring "something from Badseed." So on Friday I went to the market and bought a few things to bring. But it was mostly salad fixin's and I knew I couldn't bring salad to the meeting because we wouldn't have any forks but I didn't have time to prepare anything else and I really kind of wanted salad and so ... I went ahead and made salad. And put it on a stick.

I ran a some turnips, radishes, and cucumbers through the mandoline; I used a very mild, lettuce-like bok choi on the bottom and arugula on top; and I engineered it so the spiny part of the lettuce on the bottom and the half tomato on top held it all together. A plate full of these drizzled in dressing made for great finger food. If I do say so myself.

Post Thanksgiving Weekend in OKC (a photo essay)

left-over pumpkin pie at Mom and Dad's house - made from fresh pumpkin

Black Friday was a beautiful day to stay home and go for a walk (& scoot & ride).

We also practiced writing with our left hands, Ling's specialty.

On Saturday, Mom and I went to Mema's to plant pansies.

Here's the last rose of the season.

"Your roses may have thorns, but don't forget -- your thorns may have some roses, too."

Dad cut me a big branch of these to bring home for Christmas decoration.

I also brought home green tomatoes; Mom and Dad also cleaned out their garden before the big freeze; half of these came home with me and became green tomato chutney.

The herbs had to be harvested, too - before the freeze - and I brought half of these home as well; they're on stand-by, drying, waiting to be delicious.

Thanksgiving at Home - 2009

Field Roast and Turkey - a syncretic splendid table

I spent a whole day cooking on Thursday and it was lovely. We invited Sergio's sister and her family to come over for Thanksgiving. We made it a BYOT dinner - bring your own turkey. Our "turkey" was our long-time favorite vegetarian grain meat: Field Roast. Christy and Armando brought for themselves some turkey they had slow roasted in the crock pot. And Christy made a pumpkin cake for dessert.

beets me

The rest of the meal was a vast array of vegetables in all their glory. Beets with dill and goat cheese - standard, but no less stunning. Mashed potatoes made more interesting with celeriac and rutabaga. Cabbage and Brussels sprouts (thank goodness for the CSA Thanksgiving share) as usual. And a new recipe this year from my treasured Chez Panisse Vegetables which I will be incorporating as a favorite: Fennel and Leek gratin (recipe below).

leek patterns

The color orange in this meal was brought to you by the squashes from my centerpiece in the form of this Smitten Kitchen winter squash soup recipe, a relatively easy soup to make made even easier by the new immersion blender that I finally bought.

butternut (dark) and acorn (light)

I made a Nigella Lawson Cornbread and Cranberry dressing recipe (a British chef's recipe for a southern dish). It turned out just fine (if a little pink) given that the recipe left out cook time and oven temp. (Such is the vegetarian's fate when using a "stuffing" recipe that you do not intend to stuff into anything.)

carbs and cookbooks

And even though I was already tackling a major, multi-step, advance-planned meal prep endeavor with only minimal help from sous chef Sergio, who was otherwise occupied that day, I decided that - on top of everything else, and even though I had never done so before - I would also bake cinnamon rolls.

In for a penny, in for a pound, right? This is the season of excess. So why not throw in an extra baking-from-scratch project when I'm already cooking for four (more like eight, based on the leftovers). Am I crazy? I wondered midday on Thursday when, surrounded by a mini mountain range of chopped vegetables patiently waiting to be cooked, I was rolling around a big ball of dough and asking Sergio to look up a how-to-knead video on YouTube.

this is my 11- by 15-inch "rectangle"

Remarkably, I got the dough through its two risings and into the oven on time and rapidly wrapped up everything else finally as the last two hours of the day zoomed past. Before I knew it, The Nina was running through the door, squealing, and her mom, dad, and hermanito were following just behind. After the hustle and bustle, everything settled on the table nicely and we toasted a top shelf red wine over our very fine meal, before bustling again out the door and into the cold to head down to the Plaza for the annual Christmas lighting ceremony and more celebrating.

The Nina

Fennel and Leek Gratin
from Chez Panisse Vegetables

6 small fennel bulbs
3 medium leeks
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
salt and pepper
3 sprigs parsley
3 sprigs thyme
1.5 cups heavy cream
1 cup vegetable stock

Remove the tough outer layers of the fennel bulbs, split the bulbs lengthwise, and cut them crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices.
Peel off the outer layer of the leeks, and trim off the root ends and the dark green tops. Split the leeks lengthwise and cut the leek halves crosswise into 1/4-inch slices. Plunge the slices into a big bowl of cold water to rinse off any sand. Lift the leeks out of the water, leaving the dirt to sink to the bottom of the bowl.
Melt 1 Tablespoon of the butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add half the fennel slices and cook until they are soft, about five minutes. Season with salt and pepper and transfer to a large bowl. Cook the rest of the fennel until soft with another Tablespoon of butter and add to the bowl. Then cook the leeks the same way, in two batches with the rest of the butter, and transfer them to a bowl.
Preheat oven to 375.
Pick the leaves off the parsley and thyme sprigs and chop them. Toss the herbs together in the bowl with the fennel and leeks. Taste and add more salt and pepper if necessary. Put the vegetables into a shallow ovenproof dish and pour over just enough of the cream and the vegetable stock to barely cover them. Bake the gratin in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, checking every 15 minutes or so to make sure the cream is still covering the vegetables. If the top of the gratin appears to be drying out, push the vegetables down with the back of a spoon, drizzling a little more cream over the top. The cream will bubble up around the vegetables, and the top will brown nicely. Serve hot.
Serves 6