Happy 2013!

 Happy New Year! I hope everyone reading this stayed safe last night and had a great time. My new year started out with a big mess this frigid and blindingly bright morning. I stayed in at my daughter's house on New Years' Eve, watching cable TV and eating pizza while she went out to a party with her work friends. She spent the night at their house, so I was on my own to begin the day. My daughter's coffee making apparatus is decidedly different from mine at home. I struggled and fiddled and finally ended up spraying ground coffee all over the kitchen. After a few frustrated texts, I got it all under control. This event was much funnier later, after the drama was over and I finally had my caffeine fix.

 

Rollin' home on the Badger bus later this afternoon from Milwaukee to Madison, WI gave me time to ponder lots of things. I reflected on the good and the bad of the year just past, and contemplated the hopes, dreams and uncertainties of the year ahead.

Black eyed peas, greens and rice for good fortune.

 

The holidays came and went so quickly, and tomorrow will be spent undoing the decorating and getting rid of the Christmas tree already. After that will be goal setting and organization. This is going to be my year to get it all together and get on top of it, and stay there. Plant my flag and declare victory. I may never be an efficiency expert, but I can get better. It's a promise to myself that I will do all I can each day to keep moving in that direction.

*Foot(ball) note: The Wisconsin Badgers made it to the Rose Bowl for the 3rd time in 3 years, but lost to Stanford today. 

 Recipe: Violet's New Year's Black Eyed Peas

(Normally, you'd have cornbread to represent gold, but I added turmeric to the rice instead.) The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity; the greens symbolize money; the pork (I only had bacon fat available), because pigs root forward when foraging, represents positive motion.

Peas:
A cup or two of dry black eyed peas
Twice as much water
One jalapeno pepper, seeds removed, chopped
Half a leek, chopped
Large clove of garlic, smashed and minced
Chicken bouillon, 1 - 2 tsp. (I use this)
 T. or so of rendered bacon fat
T. or so apple cider vinegar
Cup or so of chopped spinach
Creole Seasoning to taste

Rice:
Cup or so of Basmati rice
Twice as much water, but a little less
teaspoon of turmeric
salt

Black eyed peas require no presoaking. Throw all the peas ingredients in together. I used what I had on hand. You can substitute kale for the spinach, add smoked meat, do whatever sounds good to you. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on med-low for 45 min or until tender. Watch them, they can go too mushy if you cook them too long.

For the rice, put all in the pan, bring to boil, turn to low, cover, take off heat after 20 min, let stand covered 5 min, then fluff with fork.

Super healthy, super yum, and super good luck in the new year! Peace.

Home again home again jiggity jig!

My daughter, that is. She moved to South Dakota to make a difference in the lives of school children on the Rosebud Indian Reservation right after college. After three years she continued that journey and calling in New Orleans, at a higher level in her organization. Now three years after that, she is finally home, or close to it, in Milwaukee, having moved up again. I am beyond overjoyed to be able to see her more that 2-4 times a year for the first time in wayyyyy too long. I can hop on the bus and be there in an hour, or she can drive here in the same amount of time. I visited her new home there for the first time this past weekend, and I love it. We had a great Memorial Day weekend, visiting places we frequented years ago when she was a baby and small child and I was a young single mom who just needed to get out of town and see new faces and places every other month or so. A favorite destination was the Grand Avenue Mall, which was quite the cutting edge place to be among malls back then. Glass elevators in the central courtyard, glass ceiling, and a huge food court were among its novel innovations of that time. Food courts weren't yet a "thing" found in every mall. I looked forward to the exotic (to me, at the time) Greek food at a place called Grecian Garden. I would get the lemon chicken and garlicky orzo soup...heavenly.

Unfortunately, the mall has fallen onto hard times now. There are barely any businesses left, and the glass ceiling, once so grand, leaks badly, crumbling the pillars and flying buttresses supporting it. Still beautiful, though, and I hope it comes back to its former glory in time. It's a real downtown treasure.

 

I may have left my heart in San Francisco.

The last time I visited the city was about ten years ago. I really only spent a day there, and didn't see much of the city, unfortunately. However, I DID drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, all by myself, in a humongous SUV. Anyone who knows me well knows I hate driving across bridges in general...so I was not expecting the ethereal experience of driving through a misty golden cloud-shrouded dream. Now I think it may be time to go back. And maybe...to stay. A piece of my heart lives there now. Time will tell if it's meant to happen or not...but for now, it's giving me something nice to ponder instead of how endless a Wisconsin winter can be. I'm so ready for a change, for new surroundings, for a new world to explore. I'm not really seeing any downsides to the idea.

Do try this at home.

India is home to the oldest civilized culture on earth, dating back some 3,000 years. In all that time, an amazing wealth of knowledge was amassed, from spirituality to health and everything in between. I've become increasingly interested in the time-tested healing power of Indian foods, which usually incorporate potent, colorful, fragrant and delicious herbs and spices. Turmeric, a relative of ginger, is included in most dishes, as are onions, garlic, cloves, cardamom, cayenne, ginger, tamarind, fenugreek and many others, dependent on regional cooking styles. It's become a fascinating journey for me, and I have only scratched the surface so far.

My good friend has recently shared his family's recipe for spicy fish curry with me, and although he is in the UK and I am in Wisconsin, we cooked it "together" through the magic of Skype video chat (love my new Mac laptop!). It was my first time cooking with tamarind, and shopping for the correct form of it was a new and fun experience for me. Luckily we have an amazing Asian food store in Madison which carries all types of foods and products from Mexico, the Philippines, Iraq, India, Morocco, Israel, China, just about every middle eastern or Asian country. Surprisingly, I even found a can of my favorite Cafe du Monde coffee and chicory there, which hails from my beloved New Orleans...may all her precious sea life now rest in peace... But I digress. Tamarind has a rich, savory and slightly sour taste; it's one of the main flavors in Worcestershire sauce, so for those of you who have never tasted tamarind, that might give you some frame of reference for how delicious this dish is. Here are the photos of the finished result, which was, I must say, amazing. (My dear friend is home in India for two weeks visiting his family, and I am missing him and our daily Skype chats just a wee bit. I can't wait til he comes back and brings new recipes from home to share with me via our Skype "cooking classes".) ॐ

Click pictures to see larger in more detail...and yes, those are Mardi Gras beads still sitting on my table from my birthday trip there in February. They make me smile every time I see them. 

Here is the recipe, paraphrased. The fish that is normally used for this dish in Hyderabad is not one I recognized or could locate a translation for, so I used my favorite fish, catfish. One large catfish should feed at least three hungry people, or one very lucky empty nester mom such as I for three days...plus the leftover sauce, which made a nice vegetarian rice dish on the fourth day. For a side dish, I made some simple saffron rice (basmati rice cooked with a couple of pinches of good saffron, a few dashes of cumin powder, and a handful of red lentils just for added texture). This is sooooo good! I hope you'll try it and tell me your impressions.

Spicy Fish Curry

Cut one good sized catfish into 1 - 2 inch thick slices (I don't like the deboned fillets; the bones seem to help keep the fish moist and impart more rich flavor). Wash the cut fish pieces and rub with salt and turmeric two or three times.

Put the tamarind pieces* into hot water and let soak, we will use the juice.

Cut one medium onion into small pieces. Chop green chilies (I used serrano, I think; they were just labeled green chilies at the Indian market) one or maybe two, if you want it spicy. I used one. You may want to remove some or all of the seeds if you don't want it too spicy. (I love spicy!).

Place the cut fish pieces into a medium size frying pan with the onions, green chilies, a tablespoon of turmeric powder, salt depending on how much fish you have, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon red chilie powder if you want it even more spicy, a tablespoon of dhaniya powder (coriander powder), and 2 tablespoons of garam masala powder (available at Indian and sometimes other stores). Add three tablespoons of olive oil. Mix all of the above with your hands (I used disposable plastic kitchen gloves because of the hot peppers) so that the spices infuse the fish well. Pour in the tamarind water*.

The tamarind water should be enough so that all the fish pieces are slightly floating; the fish will steam in that liquid. Place the pan on the stove on high heat until it reaches a fast simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low and continue to simmer about 15-20 minutes. Remove the lid and cook until fish is cooked through and the tamarind water is much reduced into a gravy-like sauce. Do not overcook fish. Serve with rice (traditional) or your favorite side dish.

*This is the correct form of tamarind to buy for this recipe:

It comes wrapped in a block like this; you just break off a few hunks and soak them for awhile in hot water. Maybe half an hour, until they are very well saturated and soft, and can be broken apart easily. For this recipe, we used nearly half a block, and probably 3-4 cups of hot water. Once it's well soaked, you stick your hands in there and squeeze it all up a bunch of times, separating the tamarind fruit flesh from the fibrous parts. Then you press it all through a sieve, and compost the stuff left behind. It doesn't take long. The end result is tamarind water.