Socially Distant Cuisine

Serves 4 Cabbage Curry 1/4 cup dry red lentils 2 tsp vegetable oil 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp yellow or black mustard seed 1 tsp curry leaf 3-4 green chilis, minced (more or less to taste) 2 cloves garlic, minced 100 gm onion 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp ground turmeric 700 gm green cabbage Rinse the lentils and pick out the duds. Thinly slice the cabbage and onion (I use a mandoline). To begin, fry the cumin seed, mustard seed, chili, garlic and curry leaf in oil until the seeds begin to pop. Add the drained lentils and onion and cook until the onion is soft. Add salt, turmeric and cabbage plus 2 Tbsp water (it's easiest to add the cabbage in batches) and stir fry until the cabbage is tender, about 10 minutes. Serve with raita to cut the heat. Cucumber Raita 135 g cucumber 20 g red onion 230 g (1 cup) plain nonfat yogurt Juice of half a lemon 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 tsp cumin 2 Tbsp cilantro (if desired) Grate or thinly slice the cucumber and onion....

Delicious either warm or cold, mixed with quinoa or brown rice. Serves 4. 2 tsp olive oil 1 cup uncooked scallion(s) 1/2 cup cilantro 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp table salt 1/2 tsp garlic powder 1/4 tsp black pepper 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1/4 tsp ground turmeric 16 oz chopped frozen spinach 16 oz extra firm tofu Instructions Heat oil in pan. Add finely chopped onion and cilantro, and all spices. Cook unil onions are wilted. Add frozen chopped spinach and 1/2 cup water. Cook until begins to thaw. Add chopped tofu, stir to combine and cook until heated through.

Best potluck idea ever? An all-pie meal, appropriately titled Piefest! Guests each bring a savory or sweet pie, and the gluttony will commence. This was my addition to the spread. I have been craving beef empanadas, those little, meaty hand pies from across Latin America. To stick with the Piefest theme, I decided to modify the presentation to 9" pie plate style. Wikipedia says that this is the preferred presentation in areas of Spain, so I'm not the first to venture there, which was reassuring. Enough ground beef to fill a pie plate seemed like overkill, so I decided to round out the filling with spiced, diced potatoes. While I was riffing on the empanada filling from Mexican Cooking for Dummies , I kind of made up this recipe as I went. The following is a list of the ingredients for posterity, rather than exact measurements... tweak at your will. Beef and Potato Empanada Pie First: steam fry the potatoes In a frying pan, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil When hot, add: 1 lb pota...

Spiced, roasted disks of sweet potato topped with sweet potato mousse. A delicious one bite appetizer! The mousse would be a great use of leftover mashed sweets, and a great topping for crackers. 2 large sweet potatoes Salt, cayenne pepper Bake sweet potatoes for 20 min at 400 degrees, until soft enough to easily cut. Let cool. Slice the potatoes into 1/2 inch slices, and using a small (1 or 1.5" diameter) cookie cutter, cut small circles. Reserve scraps, peel, and wrap tightly in a foil packet. Spray a roasting pan w/ pan spray and arrange potato disks in a single layer. Spray top of potatoes, as well. Sprinkle lightly with salt and cayenne pepper. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, until slightly brown and crisp. Flip disks and bake for an additional 10 minutes. During these 20 minutes, also bake the scraps in their foil packet. Remove disks from oven, and turn off the heat. Leave the scraps in the oven for 20 more minutes, or until they are very soft. Cool disks on a p...

I had a half an avocado, a box of mixed sprouts and a ton of roasted beets left from my fruit and veggie box this week, and decided to experiment! The resulting sandwich and beet salad turned out great, so I decided to document them. This sandwich was inspired by the classic Monte Cristo my mom used to make when we were kids, a kind of toasted ham, turkey and Swiss. No jam necessary here-- a spontaneous combination of cream cheese and spiced deli chicken resulted in a tasty sandwich! The beet salad is a fall twist on a summer favorite of my old roommate, Simone. A nice change from my usual walnut-and-goat-cheese preparation. Enjoy! Savory, Spicy Monte Cristo 2 slices whole wheat bread 2 oz Dietz and Watson Buffalo Style Chicken Breast 1 oz cream cheese Dijon Mustard 1 egg Avocado Thinly sliced white onion Fresh sprouts--I had a combo of alfalfa and radish No-stick spray or 1 tsp butter. Spread one half of bread with a thin layer of cream cheese. Pile on turkey, and close sandwich...

DISAPPEARING CARROT-BRAN BREAD (modified to halve butter and sugar from cooks.com ) 6 Tbsp butter, melted 6 Tbsp no-sugar added applesauce 3 eggs 3/4 c. 100% Wheat Bran 1 3/4 c. flour 1/4 c. brown sugar 1/4 c. white sugar 2 tsp. baking powder 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. baking soda 1/4 tsp each: nutmeg, allspice, cardamom 1 1/2 c. coarsely grated carrots 1/2 c. raisins (or chopped dates) Wisk butter, applesauce and eggs until blended. Stir in Bran. Let soak 5 minutes. Combine other dry ingredients. Add to bran mixture. Add carrots and raisins. Bake in 9"x5" loaf pan at 350 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack. 12 servings: 200 cal (7.5 g fat, 4.1 g sat), 34g carbohydrate, 3 g fiber 38% RDA Vitamin A, 30% Manganese, ~10% Folate, Riboflavin, Selenium, Thiamin

During the summer, I love meals that don't require heating up the oven. I also love throwing random things together. And so this dinner was born, and it's quickly become one of my favorite things to eat on a hot summer night. At a dinner party awhile back, my friend Deirdre made this great cucumber "salsa," and while I love to scoop it up on chips or eat it by the spoonful out of the container, we decided that the mixed-veggie goodness of it would be great as a salad. Enter quinoa. I want to love the stuff, since it's so good for you, but I always struggled with it tasting a little too bland. Once I discovered that cooking it in a light broth really jazzes it up, I was hooked. My favorite is Better than Bullion veggie flavor, which comes in a jar rather than as a powder. I use it at about half strength, rather than full. Finally, my mother makes these really delicious chicken tostada salads. The chicken is poached, and then dressed with a red wine vinaigrette...

My mom baked me an amazing blueberry pie for my birthday last week when I was in California, so when the actual day came around, I was all set on the dessert front. But that didn't mean that I was ready to go without a birthday treat! Tonight, I had friends over for dinner and the star of the show was Herb Peel-Away Bread, one of my family favorites. It was just as delicious as I remember, plus it's got star-power: it looks far more impressive than the simple preparation it takes. Herb Peel-Away Bread 3 1/2 cups flour, divided 2 packages of Rapid-Rise yeast 1/3 cup sugar 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese 1 tsp salt 1 tsp dried thyme 1/2 tsp dried rosemary 1/2 tsp dried basil leaves 1 Tbsp dried parsley 1/2 tsp dried dill 1 cup water 1 egg (room temperature) 6 Tbsp butter, divided Set aside 1 cup flour. Combine 2 1/2 cups flour, yeast, sugar, cheese, salt, and herbs. Heat water and 4 Tbsp butter until hot to touch. Stir into dry mixture. Add the beaten egg and only enough re...

I'll call this one "Summer Succotash Couscous." I desperately needed something to do with the frozen bags of edamame and corn hanging out in my freezer... a little mix-and-match of googled recipes turned out delicious! I ate this as a main dish, but it would be great as a side dish if you left out the beans. You'll see kidney beans in the picture, as they were what was in the cupboard, but next time I'll use something milder, like cannellini, so that the butter and mint aren't overwhelmed. 1 box of couscous, prepared following box directions (I used Near East Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil) 1 1/2 Tbsp butter 1/2 small red onion, diced 1 Red bell pepper, diced 2 cups frozen corn 2 cups frozen edamame 1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed 2 Tbsp white wine 1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar Salt to taste 10 leaves of fresh mint, chiffonade Prepare the box of couscous first. While it is resting, melt butter in a large pan, stir in onion and red pepper and cook unti...

Good thing Mark Epstein tells stories he's written about in articles, since we weren't allowed pens or paper on retreat... "I can no longer remember our question, but Ajahn Chah's response still lingers. Before saying a word, he motioned to a glass at his side. "Do you see this glass?" he asked us. "I love this glass. It holds the water admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. Yet for me, this glass is already broken. When the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shelf and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, 'Of course.' But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious."

Stir-fried Sweet Potatoes with Browned Butter and Sage (Bittman, NYT) Chocolate (15) Little Layer Cake (New York Times) Egg Salad Sandwich (101 Cookbooks, plus capers, April 2007) Kale and Potato Spanish Tortilla (Gourmet, February 2003) Spanish-style Shrimp with Garlic (NYT, May 2009) Two-bean Chili (My own recipe) Simple Cauliflower (101 Cookbooks, May 2009) Huevos Rancheros with Spinach (My recipe) Classic Grilled Cheese and Cream of Tomato Soup (America's Test Kitchen, via Smitten Kitchen, November 2006)

Modification combining several recipes and to make veggie rather than meaty... delicious! Mapo Tofu (Modified from The Washington Post and the Gourmet cookbook) 4 to 6 servings Ingredients: 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 4 chopped scallions (white and light-green parts only) 1 Tbsp minced ginger root 2 cloves of garlic, minced 1/4 cup broadbean paste (I use Lee Kum Kee Chili Bean Sauce) 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce 1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine 1/2 teaspoon sugar 1/2 cup water 12 to 15 ounces (1 package) soft tofu, cut into 1/4-inch cubes cornstarch for thickening, if needed. 1/2 teaspoon crushed Sichuan peppercorns Bring a small pot of water to a simmer, add cubed tofu and simmer for 10 minutes, to firm it up. In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, cook scallions, garlic and ginger 2 minutes. Add broadbean paste and cook 1 minute. Add soy sauce, rice wine and sugar, and stir until dissolved. Add water and simmer until slightly reduced, adding a bit of corn starch for t...

Another great family recipe... currently rising in the oven! 2 cakes compressed yeast (you MUST find the "active" yeast bricks next to the butter in the grocery store. Active dry packets do NOT taste the same) 1 cup milk 1/2 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 cup butter 1 tsp salt Crumble yeast cakes in a little bowl. Add 1 tsp sugar and a little of the milk (warmed, but not too hot). Cream butter, sugar and salt. Add well-beaten eggs and yeast mixture. Add half of the sifted flour and remaining milk, and beat well. Mix in the rest of the flour with your hands. Knead gently in bowl until smooth Place in a well-greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size. Remove dough from bowl to a floured board, and cut in two. Roll out each piece to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut like a pie into 16 pieces. Roll up each into a croissant shape, beginning at wide end of triangle. Roll tightly, and pull each roll out longer by gently tugging on the ends. Let rise about 1/2...

After looking all over the web, I haven't found this particular recipe, so I decided to share it after a nice evening of baking. It is my grandmother's recipe, and one of my dad's favorite Christmas cookies. They are very best after they've aged a few weeks (up to a month) in an airtight container... the icing gets really nice and hard, and the cookies are awesome dunked in tea or coffee. They're so good, though, it's hard to make them last that long! Pfeffernuesse-- Makes about 4 1/2 dozen 1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temp 2 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar 4 eggs Zest of one lemon 3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice 1/2 cup finely chopped candied lemon peel 1/2 cup finely chopped candied citron 1/4 cup finely chopped candied orange peel 1/2 tsp almond extract 4 cups sifted flour 1 Tbsp cardamom 1 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp allspice 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ground aniseed 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking soda Lemon Icing 1 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar 4 to 4 1/2 ts...

I have been on a book buying binge recently. Amazon.com's Amazon Prime is a killer, I tell you! And I am not alone... talking about which book his book club should read next, a friend explained his dilemma: Calvino's novel If on a Winter's Night a Traveler describes the "abundance of a bookstore" this way (I put the categories into list format): 1. Books You Haven't Read 2. The Books You Needn't Read 3. The Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading 4. Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written 5. The Books That if You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read but Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered 6. The Books You Mean to Read but There Are Others You Must Read First 7. The Books Too Expensive Now and You'll Wait Till They Are Remaindered 8. The Books Ditto When They Come Out in Paperback 9. Books You Can Borrow from Somebody 10. Books That Everybody's Read So It's a...

As painful as this particular retreat was for me, it opened my eyes to the extraordinary amount of time my mind spent in monitoring and evaluating my success or failure, and in making reality match my ideal image of myself. With my newfound awareness, I would notice how there seemed to be an endless tape-loop in my mind that evaluated my progress: "Okay, now I've accomplished this, and this, and this. I'm doing alright." This compulsive internal dialogue is quite normal in a culture that rewards achievement, wealth, beauty and success above all things, and especially in a culture that rewards the achievements of the highly individuated, separate "self under its own power." In this milieu, the internal dialogue is actually a form of self-soothing, of reassuring ourselves that we're really okay. When we can stand back from this compulsive internal dialogue just a bit, we can see the intensity of the craving for solidity and security that drives it. .St...

But the poetry of that kiss, the wonder if it, the magic that there was in life for hours after it--who can describe that? It is so easy for an Englishman to sneer at these chance collisions of human beings. To the insular cynic and the insular moralist they offer equal opportunity. It is so easy to talk of 'passing emotion' and to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We recognize that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for an electrical discharge. Yet we rate the impulse too highly. We do not admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be shaken open. .E.M. Forster. Howard's End.

All the new thinking is about loss. In this it resembles all the old thinking. The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea. That the clown- faced woodpecker probing the dead sculpted trunk of that black birch is, by his presence, some tragic falling off from a first world of undivided light. Or the other notion that, because there is in this world no one thing to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds, a word is elegy to what it signifies. We talked about it late last night and in the voice of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone almost querulous. After a while I understood that, talking this way, everything dissolves: justice , pine, hair, woman, you and I . There was a woman I made love to and I remembered how, holding her small shoulders in my hands sometimes, I felt a violent wonder at her presence like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river with its island willows, silly music from the pleasure boat, muddy places...

"The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation--it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him." Ian McEwan. I supplemented the widely sweeping pans of the camera during the film with McEwan's lovely prose, nearly from memory. If you can do that, you should see the movie. If you haven't, you should read the novel.

Coser's analysis of Simmel here is perfectly fitting for so much of first semester of grad school: "Modern man finds himself in a deeply problematical situation: he is surrounded by a multiplicity of cultural elements, which, although they are not meaningless to him, are not fundamentally meaningful either. They oppress the individual because he cannot fully assimilate them. But he cannot reject them because they belong at least potentially to the sphere of his own cultural development." See? It's structural! Occasionally, there are flashes of very deep meaning. Even if they come in the form of secondary sources cross-referenced from undergrad.