Not Perfect

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

My favorite day of the year is tomorrow and I am coming down with a cold.  I’m at the kitchen table trying to clear the fog from my aching head while next to me steam is rising from a hot cup of tea with honey and lemon.  Another dose of Sudafed waits for me until after I’ve eaten a piece of pumpkin bread.  The baking and cooking is done – one apple pie, one pumpkin, cranberry sauce, pumpkin bread (2 loaves; one to eat now and one to share tomorrow) and pumpkin-corn bread.  This is the holiday that kicks off the baking season for me and for so many others, I’m sure.  I’m already thinking about Christmas cookies.  January and February, I have determined, will be devoted to baking bread and making pizza crust.

Just this week I feel like I got over my fear (rather lack of self-confidence) when it comes to making pie crust.  After reading a few books on Julia Child and then watching an old episode on PBS where she showed her viewers the French technique for buttery, flaky crust, I decided the reason why I like her so much is because she was clearly having fun baking and cooking.  Even her recipes didn’t always come out perfect, but her belief was we become better cooks/bakers when we learn how to fix our mistakes.  And she never apologized to her dinner guests when the meal hadn’t quite turned out as she had hoped.

With the official start of the holiday season, I propose we drop the word “perfect” from our vocabulary.  Instead how about the “mindful” pie crust, cookie dough, bread dough etc.  Rather than trying to achieve perfection, we give what we are working on our full attention.  Use our hands to blend, to knead and to feel how the dough changes and to know when it’s ready…to know it in your bones.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Wonder Woman, Where Are You?

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

This post is dedicated to my friends and family who have only temporarily lost their power.

When I was seven years- old I wanted to be Wonder Woman for Halloween.  Do you remember the plastic costume of the seventies that came in a box with a small window of cellophane on the lid that showed the super-awesome plastic mask inside?

The one with the sharp-edged eye cut-outs, nostril-size holes and an opening outlined with painted red lips – just wide enough for a small mouth to peek out from but not big enough for a Babe Ruth to easily fit into? Do you remember forgetting to let go of the elastic band behind your head nice and easy when pulling it over your face?  I don’t.

My mother scoffed at these cheap, flimsy, highly-flammable, dime-store costumes.  Year after year, she made mine.

One year I was Mickey Mouse with a white crocheted sweater vest, the next, a sad little clown in baby blue gingham and white ric-rac, another year, a witch in a black dress and black cape, trick or treating half-heartedly in a wig made of thick bright- orange yarn stiched into a pointy witch’s hat.  I do, however, remember fidgeting all through the measuring and re-measuring of my head as I twisted this way and that way every time It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown returned from commericals.

Each year, as soon as the maple tree in my front yard began dropping its skirt of red leaves all over the lawn,  I was overcome by that same irrepressible longing to be Wonder Woman for Halloween.    The straight-out- of- the- box kind and definitely not the pinned- to- a- pattern kind Mom would begin working on in the beginning days of long nights of October.  I can still see the shape of her hunched over the sewing machine beneath the bright light above our dining room table.

The world needed the protection of a second-grader turned super-hero who swishes around in synthetic red, white and blue with an extra-majestic eagle’s wings fanned out over breasts drawn too large for a sixty-pound girl missing her two front teeth.  No matter, the red patches at the bottom of the legs where her tall stiletto boots should be seemed just as reasonable.

Bad guys beware on Halloween because your bullets would be no match for my gold – plated titanium bracelets and crown!   Quick! Right arm up! Ching! Quick! Left arm up! Ching! I would stop them all!  The whoosh – whoosh of my lasso twisting the air into a cyclone above my head would be the last sound you’d hear before feeling the gold rope tighten around your chest, pinning your arms to your sides -you’d flail about like a crazed boa constrictor desperately trying to break free, spitting out the word “Drats!” at the sudden jerk and tug as I spun you towards me and to justice!

Ker – Pow! I, Wonder Woman, had just foiled your evil plan!  There would be no Halloween candy for you.

This Halloween I wish my friends and family in New Jersey and New York the spirit of Wonder Woman.  In keeping with the culinary nature of this blog… May you find the ingredients you need to create your own super hero recipe during the tough weeks ahead as homes are repaired, giant trees are cleared from the roads and power lines safely put back in the sky.  And as the water returns to the ocean from this perfect storm, may your own super hero powers shine beneath a waning Harvest moon in a perfect balance of fierceness, strength and compassion.  Finally may there be trick or treating for your children on Halloween night.

Waiting for Tofu

~ Katherine ~ 4 Comments

There is a message on my phone from my doctor asking me to call her back at lunch today to discuss the results of my recent cholesterol lab work.  Mastering the Art of French Cooking lay open on my kitchen table turned to the page on pastry crusts.  Yesterday, since heavy rains gave me the permission I needed to abandon all outdoor plans, I decided to perfect my pie crust for Thanksgiving.

Today, the sun is shining again and Sunday’s big pasta leftovers are waiting for me in the fridge, along with a pretty good half-eaten pumpkin pie.  Every time I open the door I get a whiff of heaven.

Since I listened to my messages this morning, two pots now sit on my stove, one simmering wheatberries, the other, a wild brown rice mix.  Fresh broccoli is cut up and soaking in a bowl of water.  There’s a block of tofu waiting for me to do something to it to make it taste good – make it taste as good as yesterday’s fettuccine in Bolognese sauce.

And now I sit here feeling like I have to choose.  I just know there is room for both: Julia Child’s buttery flaky way of enjoying life and good, wholesome food – fresh from the earth and unprocessed.

Besides, who knows?  Maybe the doctor just wanted to call to congratulate me. “Wow, I have never seen such good cholesterol numbers in my entire career!  Keep up the good work!”

In the meantime, just to be safe, I’ll eat my brown rice and broccoli for lunch and freeze the pasta leftovers for the cholesterol-lowering celebration.

Til Death Do We Part

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

Fifteen minutes left until I have to pick up the kids from school…..

I used to pray to God that I would not die until my children were grown and on their own.  Now I pray for that, yes, but also that I don’t die before I finish writing this book!  In the spirit of longevity, I have scheduled my overdue annual physical and mammography.

Tang has accused me of secretly trying to kill him.  He surprised me yesterday when he came home for lunch.  I was in the middle of cooking carrots, celery, onions and garlic which I normally saute in olive oil before putting the fresh veggie mix into a turkey meatloaf.   This time I had a little bacon fat leftover so, I don’t know why, I thought I’d use that.  Actually, I do know why I did it, I was going for smoky, bacon-y flavor.

Well, he put the kabash on that, claiming we are both working our a’s off to stay healthy and in shape, so why in the hell would I go and put bacon fat into his turkey meatloaf!

“And”, he’s pretty upset now, “you’re not even giving me the actual bacon meat (what little there is), just the fat!”

So in an effort to restore his faith in me, I have taken a solemn oath, to never, ever use bacon fat when I cook unless I check in with him ahead of time.  That and at least for a little while, until he cools down a bit, I should probably lay off asking him questions about his life insurance policy.

The Laundry Can Wait

~ Katherine ~ 7 Comments

ImageI am frozen.  I thought I was getting so much time now that my three children are all in school all day.  But I am drowning in goals I’ve set for myself.  Writing goals, cooking and baking goals, volunteering goals.  My kitchen is a mess.  There are dirty dishes in the sink.  Deadlines are swimming like sharks around me.  So much laundry and dust.  New recipes are pinned to the refrigerator.

In the meantime, I’ve made zucchini muffins, eggplant parmigiana, giamobotta (pronounced jum-bought if you are from Jersey) with peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes and eggplant – all from the Farmers’ Market – all during my private afternoons and all of which my family won’t even taste.

I learned how to make a proper roux and bechamel sauce thanks to Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and from there made a deliciously creamy homemade macaroni and cheese with aged Wisconsin cheddar and smoked gouda (thumbs up from my middle child and from my husband. Although Tang, as I will lovingly refer to my man from here on out, shook his head saying that dirtying three pots for mac n cheese is too much work.  He also added up the cost to make sure it wasn’t cheaper just to buy a couple of boxes of Kraft.  It wasn’t.).

I am writing a food memoir and am working with a teacher/author at the University of Wisconsin through a memoir writing course.  Is this too much personal information for a blog?  I don’t know.  But I will say that I have decided to Go Big or Go Home – to take the Big risks when it comes to criticism or worse, indifference.  I am setting out to either make it as a writer or Fail Big.

And if I don’t succeed?  Then I’m going out in a Blaze of Glory.  Nothing small anymore.

I want fireworks.  I want everyone to know me as the girl who keeps trying, who may be a little crazy and that’s fine with me, because no one ever remembers the girl who always got her laundry done.

Fudge

~ Katherine ~ 14 Comments

I spent the last ten days of August at my parents’ house in New Jersey.  They have a mother-daughter home with a fully furnished apartment in the basement, with a kitchen nicer and larger than the main one upstairs.  They bought this home shortly after my grandfather died and it is where my grandmother came to live, surrounded by her family, with weekly visits from her grandchildren and great-children until she passed away a little more than two years ago.  She was a role model for me in so many ways (compassionate, patient, generous) but especially in the kitchen.  The meals she prepared were not gourmet by any means, however they were good and hearty – the kind of suppers that put “meat on your bones!”

I grew up at her kitchen table – the same table that sits in the kitchen in the basement of my parents’ home.  Though the location has changed in the last 12 years or so,  the table, sturdy enough to have survived the lifting and dropping by some big, gnarly-fisted moving men in bad moods and sharp turns in a rusting van, has not.

During visits back “home” my husband, kids and I always stay downstairs in Grandma’s apartment where I continue to sit at her kitchen table, though no longer with her across from me, arms folded while her fingers smooth the crease of a folded napkin.

My last night in New Jersey, while my little family slept, my father snored upstairs and presumably my mother had drifted off to an old black and white movie in their bedroom, I sat at my Grandmother’s table and began to carefully unwrap a piece of fudge I bought on the boardwalk that week on a trip to the Jersey Shore.  It was my grandmother who first introduced me to such indulgence and she did it without apology or concern about whether or not it would wind up on her ample hips.

My grandmother taught me that food is good!  That ingredients should be real- real butter, real sugar and real meat.  Rich foods are to be enjoyed- every bite – all in moderation and most importantly, that guilt is a huge waste of a woman’s time.

So I sat there in perfect solitude and I enjoyed the gift of fudge.  Fudge from Shriver’s, 9th Street and Boardwalk.  Chocolate fudge, not chocolate with walnuts, not chocolate – marshmallow, not double-chocolate and never Peanut Butter and Jelly flavored or Maple.  As for white chocolate?  Why bother.

Just plain, smooth chocolate since 1898 – a quarter-pound the size and shape of a stick of butter.  Slicing my third pat with the plastic knife the professional staff at the candy store thoughtfully included inside the white paper bag, I was achingly aware that one more after this and I’d be sick.  Slowly I savored the richness and darkness of that last soft bite.  Pulling a piece of pure joy off gently with my teeth,  I flattened it to the roof of my mouth with my tongue, spreading it over every eager tastebud until it disappeared in my mouth, becoming part of me.

Every summer – fudge from the boardwalk, fresh from the Jersey Shore, steps from the ocean.  Every summer, like fudge, I savor my family, my childhood friendships, my memories.  I celebrate my roots and my grandmother.  Because without her I would never know fudge.

My Mother’s Advice, 50 Shades Wrap-Up & Arugula, Spinach, Strawberry Salad

~ Katherine ~ 3 Comments

My mother and my biggest fan texts me the following after reading my last review of 50 Shades of Grey, ” Keep reading.  You’ll change your mind about Christian Grey at the end of the book. ”  And then she adds, “Who knows?  Maybe it will put a little excitement into your marriage…if it isn’t there already.  Wink.”

Ugh.

And finally when I don’t think I can take much more and am considering going off-line with my writing forever, she completes her motherly advice with, “Oh, don’t be such a prude.  I’ve read all the good scenes to your dad at night when we’re in bed.  It’s fun!”

Ewwww.

Final Thoughts on 50 Shades….This is a dark romance, a deep-down psychological challenge – a game.  Before reading this book I would ask myself the following:

Do you want to play?  Will you be honest with yourself and consider how you too might feel about riding pain to the edge – maybe way beyond your threshold for a chance to feel a rich pleasure you’ve never known?  Are you willing to take that risk?

Will you allow the author, E.L. James, to twist and bend your psyche, tighten your belly every time she puts her two main characters in the same room together?

Are you ready for James to show you who you really are?

Ana will let Christian spank her if he agrees to tell her more about who he is.   I can’t imagine giving up my ass so easily.  Here’s my offer to my husband-  I’ll let you spank me if, for one week,  you clean the house, do the laundry, wash the kids, go grocery shopping, make dinner, bake me a chocolate cake and listen with an abundance of interest as I tell you all about my day.  Oh and throw in a week’s worth of uninterrupted naps for me as well.

After a few days have passed, my mother calls me.  “I’ve made the Arugula, Spinach and Strawberry Salad and it is delicious!  You have to give your readers the full recipe.”  We are done talking about 50 Shades and back to talking about food.  Whew.

So here it is – Mary Ann Esposito’s recipe for Arugula, Spinach and Strawberry Salad.  Eat this salad and pick up a copy of 50 Shades of Grey before the last of summer’s heat is extinguished. Oh, and feel free to use my mother’s advice while I go make another appointment with my therapist.

from the June 2012 issue of Taste of Italia

1 tsp. unsalted butter

1/4 cup pine nuts (my mother used walnuts instead)

2 cups arugula leaves, washed and dried

2 cups spinach leaves, washed and dried

1 cup thinly sliced fresh strawberries

2 Tbsp. honey

2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1/4 tsp. salt

In a small saute pan, melt the butter and toast the pine nuts (or walnuts) until they are lightly browned.  Transfer the nuts to a small bowl and set aside.  Tear the leaves of the arugula and spinach and put them in a salad bowl.  Add the strawberries.

Heat the honey and balsamic vinegar together in a small saucepan just until the honey melts (I wiped the butter out of the saute pan that I browned the nuts in and used that one instead of having to wash two pans later).  Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and whisk in the olive oil 1 Tablespoon at a time until an emulsion is created (I added an extra Tablespoon of olive oil to cut down on the sweetness a bit).  Stir in the salt.

Just before serving, pour the dressing over the salad and toss gently.  Sprinkle the nuts over the top and serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings.

* To make this a delicious Autumn salad I’ll use thinly sliced green apples in place of the strawberries, toasted pecans in place of the pines nuts and add a sprinkle of gorgonzola cheese.

Enjoy!

We’ll Have Crepes for Dinner

~ Katherine ~ 1 Comment

– I will jump with you, I say.

We are lying on our stomachs, stretched out on the wing of a small airplane flying low over a white sandy beach, over a tropical island.  The water is blue and clear waving ripples of morning sunlight towards the curving lines of shore.  He comes to his bare feet, gives me an “I’m serious about this” look.

-I’m ready, I say, and try to steady myself as I push up on my hands, bend my elbows, sit back on my knees.  I thrust one foot forward and grasp at the smooth metal with my toes.  Wobbly at first, I let my fingertips brush off the wing as I stand to meet him in the moving sky.

Wrapping my fingers around his, I squeeze his hand and we step off.  Falling, falling, softly like Winter’s first snow, we land feet first somehow safely on the beach and catch our breath – a new breath that takes in salt and pineapple.  We build a small outdoor cafe – an Artists’ Cafe and lay planks of wood flooring over the warm sand, over our first footprints.

I make crepes for the locals and delicately paint each one with hibiscus flowers in red, orange, pink and green sugar.

A Change in the Weather and Summer Pasta

~ Katherine ~ Leave a comment

There is still a good month left to this summer.  We are finally getting rain in this part of the Midwest.  Thunder and lightning wake me in the middle of the night.  Thunder roars differently out here, I think.  Something with big meaty fists pounds our roof and then rolls away slowly, clumsily over its knuckles, glaring at me over its fat shoulder.

It snorts-Take that, Jersey Girl.

Lightning is fantastic in the big, big sky.   In an instant and without warning, white fills my eyelids like a camera’s flash, transports me right out of a dream and back into the blackness of 3 am.  Hopefully all this rain hasn’t come too late for the farmers who are relying on their corn crops.  After living here now for two years and reading the local papers, this is what I think about.  Maybe the farmers actually sleep better to the sounds of a storm.

Amid all the heavy roar and sharp cracks outside my window, I begin to drift off again.  There’s an old farm house out here somewhere waiting for me.   There’s a hot, orange sun beginning to set over a field, a wrap-around porch painted white wearing pots of lush ferns like earrings, a brightly-colored woven hammock sways gently in the corner.  And just outside a squeaky front gate, there’s a country road that goes on and on.

In the meantime, there is our apartment, a hub this summer for all our coming and going.  A place to hang up damp bathing suits and pool towels, a place to drop off the bass guitar after lessons and a dusty baseball bag after a night game under the lights.  An almost too big table that just fits on an almost too small back deck where we share our summer supper.  Where I notice the dirt still lingering beneath small fingernails and think to myself – Another good day.

A place for me to write, a place for my books and shelves for my cookbooks and food magazines.  A place to make a quick, small meal last night, that-turns out- has big flavor.

It begins with pasta – small penne cooked al dente then tossed with bite-size pieces of fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh basil and juicy tomatoes all from the garden – chopped.  A clove of garlic from the farmers’ market – minced, a bit of salt and pepper, a drizzle of olive oil.

Summer in a bowl.

Recipe adapted from Giada DeLaurentiis

Try Again Tomorrow

~ Katherine ~ 2 Comments

Today’s the first day in awhile that I feel like making something wonderful to eat – light and healthy.  Today’s the day I get myself back to the Pilates studio for the first time in almost three weeks.  Today begins with my June issue of Taste of Italia.  On the last page Mary Ann Esposito offers her recipe for Arugula, Spinach and Strawberry Salad.  Knowing I have a whole flank steak grilled and leftover in the fridge, I think this salad will be the prettiest thing to accompany thin slices of cool steak on my dinner plate.  Yes, this will be tonight’s healthy and tasty meal to celebrate my return to yoga pants.

I took the kids to the Farmers’ Market where we bought the spinach – small, tender leaves so young and fresh – they taste like sun and earth.  Then off to the store for a bunch of peppery arugula and dark red strawberries.  Finally, we head over to my neighbor’s for four pounds of honey that she just extracted from her tens of thousands of bees.  I only need two tablespoons for the honey and balsamic vinegar dressing, the rest will hopefully last me until Thanksgiving.

I washed the spinach and arugula and placed it all in baggies in the fridge to wait for me until this evening.  My man – amor de mi vida – is working late and so I decide to let the kids pick what they would like to eat for dinner.  Next thing I know, I’m slinging Bagel Bites from the oven and cutting Nutella sandwiches into fours and then allowing two – not three- brownie bites for dessert.  Every time I opened the refrigerator door to reach for the gallon of milk (More milk, Mom!) I looked longingly at the fresh greens and strawberries waiting patiently for me.

Guess what I ate for dinner?  Yep.  Bagel Bites and brownie bites.