Rue le Sel

complete overhaul

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:17:00 +0000

I have news.

Rue le Sel is getting an update. And a new name. And a new space.

It's been a few years here, and though it tried not to, this little space began to feel a little tired, its wrinkles started to set in. And since we (read: I) are a big proponent of change around here, I thought a complete overhaul would only be appropriate.

It's still unfinished; there's a temporary header, and a whole lot of kinks to work out with formatting, but I figured, as long as I'm posting, you may as well be reading.

The blog and I can now be found, disguised entirely under a new name and look, here. You'll recognize us, though. We're still, in spirit anyway, the same old blog.

A month

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Fri, 06 May 2011 18:35:00 +0000

I am having a month. Is that an expression? It’s like, oh, I am having a day, one of those days. Except for it’s a month.

Here’s a good example: this morning I walked outside, and my car was gone. Just not there, at all. And then I realized, after many moments of reflection, that I had almost certainly parked directly in front of someone else's driveway. Smack in the middle, blocking any hope of them leaving this morning, unless their car was actually a plane.

I would have towed my car too.

And that's what I feel like these days; to be honest I wasn’t even surprised that I had done that. I’m having a month, my brain is having difficulty perceiving driveways, and I’m going around parking right in front of them, without even asking.

The details of the month are better left glazed over, like most root vegetables, and in fact, I would like to pretend - at least here, in this little space - that I went on a lovely little vacation. These days I’ve been enamored with the idea of Northern California, so let’s settle on that, shall we?

I had a splendid time, beautiful weather, many, many hikes and too many avocados to count. But now I’m back, and am faced with not only the reality of my month (as we shall refer to it), but also the reality that there are many things we still have not covered on this little site. Beets, for instance. How have we not gone over beets? They are a lovely root, beets, and I (surprise surprise) have a lot to say about them and their beety ways.

As soon as I retrieve my car from the impound lot, I will have my camera, and will make photographing beets my first order of business. I already have the beets. Soon, you will too.

No known segue

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:29:00 +0000

So, meatballs. There is really no known segue for them, and I have tried to think of one, believe me. My best attempts were a clever introduction involving recollections of Lady and the Tramp, or somehow working with cloudy with a chance of. Having failed with the segue business and with no other graceful way to launch into this:

Meatballs.

Well, chicken meatballs, if that makes it any more interesting.

There’s nothing terribly romantic about ground meat. We still eat it, quite a bit: burgers, meatloaf, pate, yet meatballs often come up last in that race. Or at least are never talked about in any real, laudatory way. They are the creamed spinach of ground meats: traditional, old even, liked by everyone - but no one wants to really admit it. They’re silent members of the recipe box, tucked away as some kind of 1950s peasant food.

But I will say, we all can’t roast whole chickens every night, or stir risottos, and if you’ve got a box of pasta and the ingredients lying around (which you probably do), this won’t even seem like a second-best dinner once you’re finished.

I left out the pancetta in this recipe, simply because I didn’t have it. Do not do as I did. These were good, but would infinitely benefit from some salty fat, as most things do. We ate these with just some roasted vegetables and a salad, but they would be great with pasta; you could do as lady and the tramp do, with a rogue version of spaghetti and meatballs.

Chicken Meatballs
(Adapted from Gourmet)

The original recipe called for three ounces of pancetta, chopped, which you render with the onion and garlic in the first step. I would strongly advise (nudge, urge) you to do that.

I cup Italian bread, torn into small bits
1/3 cup milk
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 large egg
1 pound ground chicken
2 tablespoons tomato paste, divided

Preheat oven to 400°F with a rack in the upper third of the oven. Soak bread in milk in a small bowl until softened, about four minutes.
Cook onion, and garlic in one tablespoon of oil with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a large skillet over medium heat until onion is softened, about 6 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

Squeeze bread to remove excess milk, discard milk. Lightly beat egg in a large bowl and combine with chicken, 1 tablespoon tomato paste, onion mixture and bread. Form 12 meatballs and arrange in another 4-sided sheet pan.

Stir together remaining tablespoons of tomato paste and oil and brush over meatballs then bake in upper third of oven until meatballs are just cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes.

Get in the kitchen already

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:27:00 +0000

I’ve been thinking about the art of repetition lately, of routine, about how it is less than an art sometimes.

Or, about how if it was an art, it would be akin to medieval madonna and childs, the ones that dominated thirteenth century Christian art with reds, and yellows, and the hard lines like Modigliani’s, but less inspiring and about 800 years older. And it would be the Madonna by the guy who was only copying the important guy who painted it first.

In short, we’ve seen it before, and it has its place, but it’s not really worth a special trip, at least not once you’ve seen it before.

Every morning, I shuffle to the coffee machine and fill it, my eyelids still half-mast and my hair settling into its three new cowlicks. (Now, this is an art. The cowlicks and the blind coffee-making both.) I let Luke out, feed him, sit down at my computer: email, times, orangette, smitten kitchen, the wednesday chef, maybe npr, maybe eater.

Repeat.

Lately, this routine has grown to include peanut butter sandwiches and other simple (read: boring) foods. Eaten invariably between noon and one, with water from the mason jar with the star on it, the sandwiches are the very definition of routine: bland, boring, same.

Do you see where I’m going? Routine can be a lovely, comforting thing, certainly if there is peanut butter involved. At least in respect to my morning coffee, I rely on it heavily every day. But when it leads you to contemplate a peanut butter sandwich for dinner on your night off, when you have a full fridge, well then, then it has betrayed you, gravely.

And so it was last night, while I was talking about which peanut varietal would suit twelve grain bread most favorably, I met a demand, a sharp Kenzi, go cook something, cook something now.

Because the people who love us know us best, right? They know that even at the risk of sounding chauvinistic and slandering women everywhere, sometimes the right thing to do is to tell me to just get in the kitchen already. Sternly. I was nearly yelled at.

I am very thankful for that. After some vague, mumbling comments about how there was nothing to cook, I found myself soon slinging pots, pans, chickpeas, spinach. I made two lovely olive oil fried eggs. I roasted potatoes, rosemary, Vidalia onions. And I felt so much better.

This surely doesn’t need to be your breakthrough recipe after a stint out of the kitchen, but it was mine. For your sake I hope you’ve been in the kitchen all along. This can just be your next one.

Spinach and Chickpeas
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Note: This recipe is very adaptable, which is fun. Feel free to play with the spices, depending on what you have on hand. Use a little less spinach, a little more. It’s up to you.

½ pound dried chickpeas, cooked until soft and tender or two 15 oz cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
6 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound spinach, washed
½ cup diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
½ teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt, black pepper

Place a large saucepan over medium heat and add half the olive oil. When it is hot, add the spinach with a pinch of salt and stir well. Remove when the leaves are tender, drain in a colander and set aside.

Heat remaining olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Saute garlic, cumin and red pepper. Cook for 1 minute more or until the garlic is nutty brown. Add the chickpeas, tomato sauce and paste. Stir until the chickpeas have absorbed the flavors and are hot. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar.

Add the spinach and cook until it is hot. Check for seasoning and serve with paprika on top, with crusty bread. An egg on top is also excellent.

The love affair

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 17:23:00 +0000

This food is the holy grail of food. It’s almost like the culinary world’s femme fatale, disguised neatly in a power business suit.

But then, then you look down, and there are red, six-inch heels. Bright red. Just the perfect amount of flair to make it no longer just neat and professional and technically executed, but creative, slightly mysterious. And suddenly, the food has the power to make you do strange things, like buy a twenty-six dollar glass of sparkling wine.

Does that make any sense? Probably not. It’s all to say, really that the food at this place is unreal. In the way that makes you try and compare it to high-powered businesswomen with red stilettos - because in reality, there aren’t many other words fit to describe it. In the way that makes you think you may as well stop cooking now, and resign yourself to meals of potato chips and frozen pizza, because once you’ve tasted this, everything else will drastically pale in comparison.

And when they take you back into the kitchen (the kitchen!) for reasons unknown - to see the chefs and make you edible Old Fashioneds (edible old fashioneds!) – the whole experience just gets better, crazier, even harder to describe.

And so the love affair with New York continues.

Me and this little site

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:52:00 +0000

I suppose this took long enough.

(Drum Roll)

Rue le Sel now has an about / FAQ page.

(Cymbal crash)

Just in case anyone reading is not my mother, or father, or brother, or another such close blood relative, you can learn all about me and this little site. You might even learn about things painted on my bathroom wall.

It's over there (Right now I'm pointing to the right side of your browser), listed with the Recipe Index. Check it out.

Have a lovely evening, and talk to you soon.

A little of this

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:51:00 +0000

So I got this new job. Same field. Only now, instead of research about confit, and Black Prince tomatoes, and saddles of rabbit and what have you, the focus has switched.

Now, it’s all about copper stills, and distillation proofs, and bisongrass versus Russian standard, and things the likes of which I’m not even legally allowed to be well-versed in, since my age is somewhat limiting in that particular, alcoholic field.

I’ve been feeling slightly inspired by all of this cocktail business, and so tonight, I started juicing my own citrus and pouring it all into my little-used shaker. It was reminiscent of my childhood concoctions, minus the booze: a little of this, a little of that, a lot of ambivalence and mostly no idea what I was doing.

It wasn’t half bad. I’m sure my new boss would have his own opinions; I’ve probably messed infinitely with the balance of spirit to bitter, sweet to rounder. Either way, here it is:

Equal parts vodka*: cointreau
1 oz. each lemon juice, grapefruit juice
splash simple syrup

and remember,

I have no idea what alcohol tastes like. (Read: I might have an idea.)

*If I’ve learned anything so far, I think I’m supposed to tell you that a vodka like bisongrass mixes very well with fruit juices, so that would be the best choice here.

Also, I have a feeling this drink would be awesome with a heat component – jalepeno infused something? Chili flakes? I’m still learning.

Hop on over here

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:30:00 +0000

This is potentially shameless. I am aware.

But, in an effort to equalize the disadvantage that our small-town chefs have, I'm posting this everywhere possible. I would paint it on my building, if I had paint, or if I wouldn't get evicted for doing it. Hop on over here:

to vote

for Kara Brooks - for Food and Wine's People's Best New Chef - my wonderful boss and the executive chef of Still River Cafe.

Then hop on another computer, and do it again.

(Kidding. Maybe.)

Thanks so much to all of you who vote, I'll keep you updated!

A bunch of extra carrots

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:18:00 +0000

I have this book sitting on my kitchen counter, as though, in a pinch, I could open it to help me find that one missing step from my torchon of foies gras, or my locally foraged hearts of palm dish.

It’s a beautiful, beautiful book, but I always think of the recipes within as being so complicated, so finicky in that lovely French Laundry way, that I forget those little anecdotes written before the hearts of palm and after the torchon - the ones that are applicable to all normal ingredients, locally foraged or otherwise.

In these interim pages, the little intermissions before the real recipes begin again, Keller offers simple advice over and over again: how to big-pot blanch correctly, “the importance of hollandaise,” how to make the best soups.

For soups, verbatim: “identify your ingredient, cook it perfectly, and adjust the consistency.” So, if you happen to have a bunch of extra carrots lying around, as I did: carrots, glazed, adjust consistency with chicken stock. (Remember when I talked about the glory of not following recipes and ignoring finicky baking? This is it, in it’s finest.)

I added ginger, and a bit of onion, because I’m into being rogue when I make soup. Now I probably can’t call it something like essence of carrot, fit for the vegetable tasting at the French laundry, but it’s still lovely, every bit as warming and carroty as a winter carrot soup should be.

Below is an approximation of the recipe, but again, adjust it to your liking: more liquid, less, wing it if you’re feeling into that; this soup is very forgiving. In that way this recipe, or the rough blueprint of it, is a great confidence builder. Oh yeah, and buy this book, if you ignored my first urging.

Carrot and Ginger Soup

3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
¼ cup peeled and finely chopped ginger root
6 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
Salt & ground pepper

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add onion and ginger; saute for five to ten minutes until softened and fragrant. Set aside. Warm stock in a saucepan over low heat.

In a large pot of salted boiling water, blanch the carrots until tender, about ten minutes. Drain and shock in ice water to stop the cooking process and retain their color.

Puree the blanched carrots with the onion and ginger with an immersion blender or in batches in a blender or food processor, adding liquid to your desired consistency. You’ll need six cups of stock if you like your soup still fairly liquid, but if you like a thicker soup, use less. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

This soup refrigerates and freezes well, and is even better on the second day. Serve with crusty bread, if you can.

Mental kryptonite

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 21:06:00 +0000

I’ve lost all ability to euphemize snow. The first snowflakes were fun, nostalgic even, New England’s frosty reminder that the next months ahead were going to be a little colder, a little whiter.

Four (five? six?) feet later, I am experiencing a vast change of heart. I curse the stuff. It’s likely the only weather pattern that, to date, has had the ability to seriously screw with my head. Snow, in these proportions, is some kind of sick, mental, kryptonite.

It’s given me a lot of opportunity for potential stove-front time, yes, but even that I can’t properly appreciate. Butchering my first rabbit became an experience slightly jaded by the fact that I was inside again that day. And then it was soured by the fact that a rabbit ragu was even seasonally appropriate. Because that meant it was cold outside. Then I went outside, and it was actually freezing, not just cold. Later that night it sleeted for six hours.

See what I mean? This much snow is terrible for the mind. And also for the windshield wipers, which by this point I’m pretty sure are permanently frozen.

All I’m saying is that I’ve had enough of winter, and that there becomes a real problem when even rabbit ragu can’t make me feel better. (That’s backwards, right?) I hope it works for you.

**Thanks to my mother for this picture, taken at the house where I grew up.

Rabbit Ragu
Adapted from Gourmet

Note: I made polenta with this, which worked really nicely, but have also been eating leftovers with pasta, and even spaghetti squash. I also substituted bacon for the pancetta and it came out just fine, so feel free to do that as well.

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 (1/4-lb) piece pancetta cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh sage
1 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 (3-lb) boned, butchered, cut into 1-inch pieces (1 1/2 lb boned)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
1 cup light dry red wine
1 14-oz can diced Italian tomatoes
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet (2 inches deep) over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then add pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, 2 minutes. Add sage and rosemary and cook, stirring, 30 seconds.

Add rabbit and cook, stirring occasionally, until rabbit is no longer pink on outside, 2 to 3 minutes. Add onion and carrot and continue to cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add wine and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to about 1 cup, 10 to 15 minutes.

Add tomatoes, sea salt, and pepper and simmer, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened, 5 to 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Plain Jane

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:12:00 +0000

I haven’t been cooking a lot lately. The idea is, presumably, if you're the kind of person with a recipe-centric blog, that the recipes you share ought to be good, intricate, impressive. The idea is also that you should be cooking these, often.

Do I have the wrong idea?

Clearly, when I make something that fits into the above criteria, I want to share it with you. But what about everything else? I do tend to eat more than once a week.

Today I made an awesome kale salad, made more complex with a kick from lemon juice and crispness from apples, and for once eating raw kale didn’t feel like the meal was better suited for a grain bin, or a troth, or a pasture.

Tonight I made risotto with poached eggs, but forgot I didn’t have any stock on hand, so I just used water. It was a little bland, not my best.

During the down time in between the rice absorbing liquid and the mushrooms browning, I looked out my kitchen window at the apartment building next to mine. My window matches up with another one, shrouded in lace curtains and giving a near perfect view of the stove. My neighbor, whoever she is, was cooking too, bouncing between three different pots on her stove. Stir one, put lid on, check the next, adjust the heat.

We stood there, in separate buildings, stirring and checking and adjusting in what felt like some kind of weird, Hartford-apartment-harmony, and it occurred to me that a lot of people make dinner, often. And what we make, what is permanently in our repertoire (for better or for chickpea-spaghetti-worse), shouldn’t be skipped over because it isn’t grandiose, labor-intensive, blog-worthy.

And so it is that I tell you about my kale salad, involving only five ingredients, tasting like it involves more. I tell you about my boring lunches and bland dinners, bulked up by whole foods bread that I didn’t even close to make, but still enjoyed just as much. Another confession: I ate boxed cereal for breakfast. (The horror.) My food is, for the most part, normal, even plain Jane, and I don’t care who knows it.

Kale Salad with Apple and Red Onion

Note: This is even better with avocado, but you don’t need it. Which is to say this salad is flexible, a kind of culinary free-for-all. Be creative. Also, the ingredients listed here is to serve only one, but I would just eyeball everything based on how much kale is enough kale for you.

2 large leaves kale, washed and ribs removed
1 lemon wedge
1 teaspoon olive oil
A few rings of red onion, diced
1 tart apple, sliced very thinly

Coarsely rip the kale into strips. Squeeze lemon wedge over, and add olive oil. Here’s the important part: massage the oil and lemon into the kale for a few minutes; enough to kind of break down the kale a bit. It will reduce quite a bit in size. (If you can, do this step early, as the kale is best after it has sat for twenty minutes or so.) Gently fold in apples and red onion, and serve.

Caution to the wind, potato chips in your cookies

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:52:00 +0000

Christina Tosi is brilliant. This is a fact, of course, that has long been established. I’m saying it again though, compost cookie in hand, just as you would if this cookie was in your hand.

One cookie, all of your favorite snack foods. Imagine. (If you haven’t already gotten one at milk bar.) It may not be the healthiest snack in the book, but in my opinion, if you’re making cookies, especially birthday cookies, you might as well go balls to the cookie wall. By which I mean include potato chips, and pretzels, and popcorn, and mostly anything else you have. This cookie can handle it.

I can think up the process of creating these devilishly good cookies: snacking on potato chips, pretzels, throwing caution to the proverbial wind, throwing a handful into the dough for good measure. It is the recipe that conjures up all childhood memories, mad scientist experiments, potions, and all. It's the one baking recipe to which you can add in a little of this, a little of that, recklessly concoct, and the result will still be successful. Wildly successful. It is the cookie recipe to end all cookie recipes, to make a convert of all self-professed baking-haters.

It seems that the compost cookie is an exercise only in channeling your inner child, but it really all makes sense: sugar with salt, savory with sweet, all muted slightly by the standard slurry of flour and butter. And even better, the recipe never has to be the same twice. If you really wanted to, you could switch up the add-ins every time. Which makes this not only as brilliantly successful as a cookie can be, but also ever-changing, adaptable, never boring.

Go on, empty your pantry into cookie dough. It’ll be wonderful, I promise.

The Momofuku Milk Bar Compost Cookie
recipe by Christina Tosi

Note: The only thing I left out here was the corn syrup (to be precise, one tablespoon of it), because I didn't have it. The cookies still came out great, but adding it in is up to you.

1 cup butter (two sticks, unsalted)
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 1/2 cups your favorite baking ingredients, crushed if too large (I used chocolate chips, chocolate covered pretzels, some shredded coconut)
1 1/2 cups your favorite snack foods, crushed (I used potato chips and smartfood)

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter, sugars and corn syrup on medium high for two to three minutes until fluffy and pale yellow in color. Scrape down the sides with a spatula. Add eggs and vanilla to incorporate slowly.

Increase mixing speed to medium-high and set a timer for 10 minutes. The mixture will become an almost pale white color and will double in size; this is what you want.

On a lower speed, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix 45 - 60 seconds just until your dough comes together and all remnants of dry ingredients have been mixed in. Be careful not to over beat the dough, and scrape down the side of the bowl every once in a while.

On the same low speed, add in the hodgepodge of your favorite baking ingredients and mix for 30 - 45 seconds until they evenly mix into the dough. Repeat this with the snack food ingredients.

Portion cookie dough onto a parchment lined sheetpan. (The original recipe calls for a 6 oz. scoop, but I just eyeballed it.) Wrap scooped cookie dough tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of one hour or up to 1 week - You'll need the dough to be chilled in order for the cookies to hold their shape when baked off.

Heat the oven to 400 F. Take the plastic off your cookies and bake 9 to 11 minutes, or until browned on the edges and barely beginning to brown in the center.

Indication of greatness

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:15:00 +0000

There I was, writing you last week’s post, talking wistfully about high oven heat and the wonders it works on root vegetables, and then, without warning or permission, I went ahead and took a wildly sentimental turn.

That doesn’t seem quite fair.

Lucky for you, I find that one of the best things to do after such emotional matters is eat to bread pudding. Well, make it. Then eat it.

I made this a little while back, and then two days after that, I made it again. Which normally isn’t saying much, but if you know me, you know that in matters of making new recipes, to repeat one is to be missing out on another, newer one, entirely. There are just too many things out there I have yet to try.

So take that as an indication of this recipe’s greatness, and then try not to pay much mind to the amounts of egg yolks and cream. It is bread pudding, after all. If it helps, you can blame it all on me – things just got a little too heavy, and sad, and well, the only sensible cure at this juncture is a cream-laden savory bread pudding. Totally understandable.

I will gladly take the blame.

Mushroom Bread Pudding
Adapted from epicurious.com

1 loaf crusty country-style white bread
1/4 cup olive oil
4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
1 large garlic clove, minced

6 tablespoons butter
1 pound assorted fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups finely chopped onion
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced celery
1 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

3 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
8 large eggs
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Cut bottom crust and short ends off bread and discard, or use for toast. Cut remaining bread with crust into 1-inch cubes (about 10 cups loosely packed). Place cubes in very large bowl. Add oil, thyme, and garlic; toss to coat. Spread cubes out on large rimmed baking sheet and season with salt and pepper. Bake until golden and slightly crunchy, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes, depending on your oven. Return toasted bread cubes to same very large bowl.

Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms, onion, celery, and bell pepper. Sauté until soft and juices have evaporated, about 15 minutes. Add sautéed vegetables and parsley to bread cubes and lightly mix.

Whisk heavy cream, eggs, salt, and ground pepper in large bowl. Mix custard into bread and vegetables. Transfer stuffing to prepared dish. Sprinkle cheese over.

Bake stuffing at 350, uncovered, until set and top is golden, about 1 hour. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

A lot

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 17:12:00 +0000

A lot has been going on around here, in the kingdom of Rue le Sel (and hereby referred to as such), and that’s besides the whole birth of Christ ordeal and the slurry of presents that come alongside.

So (belated) Merry Christmas to all of you, readers, I hope your stockings were stuffed to satisfaction - but really, (really), I’ve been meaning to introduce you to someone, a little man that has taken up the majority of my time and sleep for the past week and has been more than welcome to do so all along. This little man:

His name is Luke and he’s a mut just like the rest of us, loves to eat, and loves even more to sleep curled up in the nook of your lap while you sit on the couch. He will live up to being a cool hand one of these days, just as soon as he acquires some appropriate-sized legs and a bit more coordination. Just you wait.

Introductions over with, I wanted to give you a short list of some of my favorite things over the past few weeks. (Other than Luke. Sorry.) In no particular order, these things have made me very appreciative. Now you can be appreciative too:

1. High Oven Heat

I can’t recall ever having thanked an appliance for correctly doing what it is hardwired to do, but I’ve decided that all needs to change. Cranked up to four hundred, four twenty five, it turns out the most delicious vegetables, just this side of burnt, coddled into carmelization. It makes it look as though those carrots on the Christmas table were a morning-long labor, when really, the oven deserves all the credit.

2. Arizona Dreaming

The spice. It’s made by Penzeys, and if you don’t have one near you, order it online. Soon. Smoky from paprika, spicy from ancho chile, this blend is good on mostly everything, but especially good on those roasted carrots I was just talking about. Seriously, if there was one lesson learned this Christmas dinner, it’s that high heat plus Arizona dreaming plus carrots equals a recipe in itself.

3. Family Heirlooms

This may sound trite, but hear me out. I remember looking at my grandmother’s silver when I was a girl. After the Doxology was sung, I would glance at it from the kid’s table, rickety and near the hutch, at Thanksgiving. It was pretty at best, but I imagined it completely useless. Later, holding an eighteenth century sterling coffee pot - five generations old - in my hands, I realize that functionality is not the point. I imagine how it held coffee after dinner all those years ago, and how now, to have it is not to hold coffee or afternoon tea, but to hold a small piece of history on your shelf, to continue in a small, sterling silver way, some kind of family lineage.

The holidays and their meals always make this lineage clearer, a glaring, twelve-place-setting reminder to be appreciative. The carrots and the spices play their part, too, helping guide generations to the same table, if not in person, than in the song sung immediately before the meal.

Mother Bear and brussels sprouts

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:56:00 +0000

So I got this email the other day, from Pete. It had an attached document, “motherbearmenu” - presumably a menu, presumably of a restaurant named Mother Bear. The body of the email was simple, concise:

Check it.

The menu read like a Southern gastropub, heavy on the pork. It sounded awesome. I was beginning to wonder why I had never heard of this place before, when I reached the end. *We apologize but our stereo is broken and cannot be turned down,* highlighted in bold, finished up the menu. It was a tip-off.

It’s not a real restaurant. It should be, but it’s not. Well, yet, if we’re all lucky (and hungry and in need of pork fat popcorn, which everyone, always, should be).

This is all to say that I completely forgot to tell you about something I made a few weeks ago, something that made it onto motherbearmenu: brussels sprouts, these amazing, amazing little brussels sprouts, transcendent in a way you never thought something with fish sauce could be.

They’re a Dave Chang original, altered a bit by my own lack of red Thai chiles and Indian puffed rice and shichimi togarashi. Make them now. If you wait, who knows, you could see them on a menu near you sometime in the distant future.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts
Adapted from Dave Chang

For brussels sprouts
2 pounds Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved lengthwise
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

For dressing
1/4 cup Asian fish sauce
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons finely chopped mint
1 garlic clove, minced
1 (1 1/2-inch) fresh green chile, thinly sliced crosswise, including seeds

Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in upper third. Toss Brussels sprouts with oil, then arrange, cut sides down, in a 17- by 12-inch shallow baking pan. Roast, without turning, until outer leaves are tender and very dark brown, 25-35 minutes. Add butter and toss to coat.

While the brussels sprouts are roasting, stir together all dressing ingredients until sugar has dissolved.

Put Brussels sprouts in a serving bowl, then toss with just enough dressing to coat. Serve remaining dressing on the side.

Every mother's recipe box

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:43:00 +0000

Somewhere within every mother’s recipe box, or within the mind’s memorized equivalent of such, there is a recipe for split pea soup. It’s there, in the familiar repertoire, the regular rotation of recipes: split peas, onions, carrots, stock, and the unmistakable, iconic ham hock. A few things made me wary of this creation as a child, but none more than that large, meaty, bone-in piece of ham, waiting to be boiled all together in a melting pot of pale, yellow green. The name wasn’t the easiest to swallow, either: ham hocks. My horse, a loving companion and very much alive in the back yard, had hocks. This association was unsettling.

Texturally, the soup was a nightmare. Entirely too viscous (as compared to my familiar Cambell’s chicken noodle), muddy, slightly grainy. To pour it into a bowl was to make a sound vaguely similar to mud squishing beneath your feet, or moving sludge, or on a bad day, both. The color on its own, a green paled and yellowed as if with age, was never encouraging. I could never understand the particular way this soup was able to endure generations, the culinary heirloom of (in my opinion) far too many families.

I made a lentil soup the other day that bared too close a resemblance to the split pea soup of years past. You almost feel bad for the legumes; cooked up into a fragrant soup, with warm spices and coconut milk, they yield what is perhaps one of the ugliest dinners of all time. It certainly does not give the best first impression.

This soup is actually quite good, especially in cold weather, with its warm spices and a bit of heat, tempered and made creamy by a good dose of coconut milk. It’s even better with an egg on top - as most things are. It fails miserably on the beauty contest front, but if I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that you can’t, in good conscience, judge a soup by it’s color.

Lentil Soup with Coconut Milk

A few notes: the amount of red pepper flakes listed here is what I used, but it can really be to taste – if you like a little more heat, adjust what I used. Also, the recipe that this is adapted from called for French green lentils. I used red lentils, because that is all I had, and it came out great (the color just suffered a bit).

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
6 cups vegetable stock
1 ½ cups lentils, picked over for stones and other debris
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
A pinch of nutmeg
A few grinds of black pepper
1 ¼ cups coconut milk
¼ tsp. fine sea salt, plus more to taste

In a soup pot, warm the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is translucent. Turn the heat down to medium, and add the garlic, thyme, and the rest of the spices. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is lightly browned and very soft.

Add the stock and the lentils, bring to a simmer, and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the lentils are soft and tender.

Add the coconut milk, and salt and pepper, and stir well. Cook for about 10 minutes more. Taste, and adjust the salt as necessary. Serve warm and with a fried egg (awesome but not necessary).

The whole, sentimental enchilada

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:55:00 +0000

Hi there. I doubt most of you are on your computers today, with things like turkeys and simmering cranberries occupying most of your free moments, but in case you are:

Happy Thanksgiving to you. May your turkeys be perfectly brined and your potatoes perfectly mashed.

I've always been a bit of an introvert when it comes to matters sentimental. Going around the table and saying what you're thankful for in perfect turn always seemed to me, as a child, akin to brute punishment.

But, since the day beckons for it, at a very fundamental level, I will say that I'm thankful for being able to cook for going on four days now. In a row. I've been eyeballs-deep in piles of mushrooms, onions, cubed and toasted bread for days, and it's been glorious.

So, then, I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for a day devoted simply and only to food. (If you're me, you will cleverly stretch this one day over the course of a week, organizing and participating in, at minimum, three different dinners.) I'm also thankful that pictures involving ceramic dishes with potato gratin can be semi-seductive. They deserve that.

And cake. Who isn't thankful for cake? If you're in need of a last minute Thanksgiving dessert, give this one a try. It's not pie, but traditionalism is a bore anyway. I baked it last week for a friend's going away party, and it was eaten so fast I never got a picture of it. It's that good.

I apologize to those Thanksgiving purists, those of you who would have me saying I'm thankful for love, and life, and faith, and that whole, sentimental enchilada. For now, I've done my part; I've gone around the metaphorical table. Plus, I'm giving you cake.

Over and out. Have a lovely day, readers.

Spiced Pumpkin Layer Cake
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Cake
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger (I used fresh, but you could substitute ground)
1 3/4 teaspoons ground allspice
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
4 large eggs
1 15 ounce can pure pumpkin
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut plus additional for garnish

Frosting
1 8 ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla paste
3 cups powdered sugar

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 1/2-inch-high sides. Dust pans with flour. Sift 3 cups flour and next 7 ingredients into medium bowl.

Using electric mixer, beat both sugars and oil in large bowl until combined (mixture will look grainy). For this step, I was without my mixer, and did everything by hand. Your arms will burn, but it will work just fine.

Add eggs 1 at a time, beating until well blended after each addition. Add pumpkin, vanilla, and orange peel; beat until well blended. Add flour mixture; beat just until incorporated. Stir in raisins and 3/4 cup coconut. Divide batter between prepared pans. Smooth tops.

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool cakes completely in pans on rack. Run knife around cakes to loosen. Invert cakes onto racks. Turn cakes over, rounded side up. At this point, you can trim the tops of the cake with a serrated knife if you like. I left mine just the way they were, for a slightly more "rustic" cake.

Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter in large bowl until smooth. Beat in orange peel and vanilla. Add powdered sugar in 3 additions, beating just until frosting is smooth after each addition (do not overbeat or frosting may become too soft to spread).

The recipe calls for the frosting to be divided in two parts, and spread just in between the cake layers and on the top. I found that there was more than enough to do the sides as well, so that's what I did. This part is up to you. Sprinkle with remaining coconut and serve.

The tomato's version of black tie

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:37:00 +0000

This stuff is all over the internet.

I’ve been reading about it for a while. I read about it here, and then here, and then I saw it here. It’s like the internet’s version of the food world’s foam. It’s everywhere, on everything, with reckless abandon.

Up until now, I had really never intended to talk about tomato sauce on this site. My experience with the stuff was limited to quick dinners and staff meals at the restaurant where I work. Pasta with red sauce, as it is so vaguely referred to as, tasted, to me, as bland as the name suggested. It was strictly fuel, which is a tragic, tragic way to approach dinner.

Since this sauce quite literally stirred the blog world, it seemed worth a try. Even if it was reminiscent of my pre-work meal, at the very least the name – tomato sauce with onion and butter – was a vast improvement on plain red sauce. Plus, I had all of the ingredients, all three of them. So there was that.

It was, in a word, genius. Which I suppose is not news at all, since people have been reporting just that, just about everywhere for a while now.

With just three ingredients, you wouldn’t really expect much from this sauce. Its simplicity is one of its best attributes, though; the lack of spice, or much of anything else, really allows the tomatoes to sit up and sing. This sauce is canned tomatoes in their absolute best incarnation, all dressed up, the tomato's version of black tie.

The main theory proved, yet again? That butter, in all of its glory, makes everything better. Well, that half of a stick of it makes tomato sauce better. It acts to soften, round out the whole sauce, calming the tomato’s acidity while giving it a bit more depth. The kind of depth hardly worthy of a title like red sauce.

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter
Adapted from Every blog, ever.

If you haven’t been making this for years already, you should start now. Marcella Hazan, apparently, really knows her tomatoes. Also, I found that this sauce makes about enough for three servings (or four small ones); I used about ¾ of a pound of pasta.

2 cups whole, peeled, canned plum tomatoes, chopped, with their juices (about one 28-oz. can)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut in half
Salt, to taste

Combine the tomatoes, their juices, the butter, and the onion halves in a medium saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer.

Cook, uncovered, at a steady simmer over medium low heat for about 45 minutes, or until some of the liquid has reduced and a nice, thickened sauce has started to form. Stir occasionally, mashing any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon. Salt as needed, and remove the onion halves, before you serve.

Radishes, and no known theme

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:53:00 +0000

This shall be random. Preemptive apologies.

I tried to think of a slightly cohesive way of tying together all of my thoughts this morning, but it’s just not in the cards. Not today. Or, really, this week.

This morning, I ate a handful of cereal, drank a cup of coffee. Went back for some cucumber slices. Read a few pages of The Fountainhead, jumped in the shower, washed a coffee mug, turned the sofa cushions.

You can see what I mean.

So today, you get more pictures of Europe. French breakfast radishes from the Raspail farmer’s market in Paris, some of the biggest sand dunes in Europe, Katherin. (This could be anywhere, yes, but it’s not, it’s Bordeaux. This one fits, at least in this tangent.)

You get announcements, about me, and my new job at a wine bar. This is important to you, of course, because now I’ll be able to tell you about great wines, my palate willing, and maybe even ones with more pronounced fruit, or black fruit, or red fruit, or no fruit at all. (I’m still learning.)

You also get table-building. Every night after work, I come home to something different: a new wall color in the kitchen, IKEA putting its Swedish touches on the living room, a puppy mural. Last night it was a table, built in the living room and taking up residence in the kitchen. It’s a beautiful table, beautiful and tall; it looks almost like a gangly adolescent boy, skinny and tall, still unsure of it’s legs.

In keeping with my completely unsystematic week, I went to Whole Foods the other day and ransacked their bulk aisles. I came home with a bag of what looked like bird seed deconstructed, in no particular order: red lentils, navy beans, quinoa, and what may or may not be wheat germ. Suggestions on what to do with this would be greatly appreciated. Clearly I need to get myself back on track. Arbitrarily, and with wheat germ, is no way to cook.

On the apple uptake

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:58:00 +0000

I’m a bit late on the apple uptake, I know.

While I’m giving you recipes for tarte tatin, the recognizable orchard bags full of the season’s best Macouns and Empires are slowly being replaced by mounds of their less fresh, less crisp cousins.

You know the ones – they kind of disappointingly dissolve instead of that emblematic crisp on first bite, the fruit equivalent of a wet dishrag. Think the few apples you always got in your Halloween pillowcase (no one ever gave out the good ones, as if too precious to pass out to the ghost and the pirate on the front stoop), the ones that you dreaded getting and that your parents wouldn’t let you eat. Think red delicious, dining hall style.

But you can still find the good ones, you can. So let’s get on with it then, here is your tarte tatin – not fresh from the oven, but not far off – as promised.

To be perfectly honest, you could probably make this with the less-than-fresh apples that will soon take over; you’re cooking them quite a bit in this dessert, carmelizing them until they are at their very slouchiest. But try for the good apples, at least try; there’s nothing wrong with a little apple snobbery, especially this time of year.

Apple Tarte Tatin
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Note: This recipe makes you chill the butter, the flour, and the food processor blade in the freezer before you make the crust. Sounds ridiculous, I know. But I advise you to do it: I followed the directions and this was probably the best pastry I have ever made. Also, after you’ve arranged the raw apples in your pan, make sure you’re not too shy to crank the heat after you return it to the heat. If the heat isn’t high enough, your apples won’t carmelize; otherwise, they will start to disintegrate on you.

Crust
1 stick plus two tablespoons cold salted butter, cut into cubes and chilled in freezer
1 tablespoon sugar
1 ½ cup flour
3 to 6 tablespoons ice water

Filling
7 medium apples
1 stick salted butter
1 cup sugar

For the crust: Pre-mix the flour and sugar in the food processor container, and cube the butter on a plate. Then put the dry ingredients and the butter in the freezer for a while. Prepare about 1/3 cup ice water and refrigerate. Chill everything for at least 20 minutes, then add the cubes of butter to the dry ingredients and pulse until the largest pieces of butter are no bigger than tiny peas. Add the ice water a little at a time, processing just until the dough starts to come together into a mass. Be careful not to over-process it.

Turn out onto well-floured surface and pat together into a ball. Don’t handle the dough too much, or the warmth of your hands will start to melt the butter. Flour the top of the dough and use rolling pin to quickly press and roll the dough out into a 10 to 11-inch circle. You want the circle to be about the size of the pan you’re cooking the apples in. It will seem a little thick, thicker than your average pie crust. Move the crust onto a piece of parchment paper or onto a floured rimless baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

For the filling: Preheat oven to 375° F. Peel, core and quarter the apples. Don’t cut them into smaller pieces than quarters–the quarters shrink considerably during cooking.

Over low heat in a heavy, ovenproof skillet measuring 7 to 8 inches across the bottom and 10 to 11 inches across the top, melt the stick of butter. Remove from heat, add the sugar and stir until blended.

Shake the pan a bit so the butter-sugar mixture distributes evenly across the bottom. Arrange apple quarters in pan, first making a circle inside the edge of the pan. Place them on their sides and overlap them so you can fit as many as possible. Then fill the center of the pan; you may have some apple left over. Keep at least one extra apple quarter on hand–when you turn the apples over, they may have shrunk to the extent that you’ll need to cheat and fill in the space with an extra piece. This one piece won’t get quite as caramelized as the other pieces, but it will still cook through.

Return your pan to the stovetop on high heat. Let boil for 10 to 12 minutes or until the juices in the pan turn from golden in color to dark amber. Remove from heat. With the tip of a sharp knife, turn apple slices over, keeping them in their original places. If necessary, add an extra slice of apple to keep your arrangement intact. Return to the stovetop on high heat once more. Let cook another 5 minutes and then remove from heat.

Place the crust on top of the apples and brush off excess flour. Tuck edges under slightly, along the inside of the pan, being careful not to burn your fingers. Bake in oven until the top of the crust is golden-brown in color, about 25-35 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool on a rack about 30 minutes.

Run a sharp knife along the inside edge of the pan. Place a plate or other serving dish on top of the pan and quickly flip over the whole pan so the Tarte Tatin drops down onto the plate. The pan will still be hot, so be careful while doing this. It’s not as hard as you think, but you may have a few stragglers left in the pan after the tarte flips over. No worries, just put them back in their rightful tarte tatin place. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Get this thing going

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:32:00 +0000

Let’s get this thing going, yeah?

This is the longest I’ve left you before, I think, and it feels a bit strange. Words are a bit difficult to locate; how do I describe more than a month in Europe, living out of a backpack. How do I quantify the baguettes, the rounds of chevre, the bottles of Bordeaux. Or the days spent on trains and nights spent in hostels, the greves, courtesy of Sarkozy’s new retirement bill.

Exhausting, down to my bones. Lovely, gratifying. Absurdly picturesque. I’m between places right now, in all senses of the phrase, but those are some words that I can muster to answer the question everyone’s asking me these days: How was it?

I’ll miss France, but I’m glad to be home.

I will never take a shower for granted again. Or, as it happens, a stove. Or an orchard apple, or fall in New England. I’ve lived here all my life, but when October hit in Spain, I remember getting anxious about missing the trees, the leaves, the apples.

So, first order of business, barely unpacked and still with mounds of unfinished laundry, I made a tarte tatin.

Stay tuned for that, that’s up next. For now, these are some photos from Across the Pond.

Let’s get this thing going.

Across the pond

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 17:46:00 +0000

Hi, there.

I guess I've been so busy lately, with making granola bars and dreaming about road trips, that I've forgotten to tell you all that I have a trip of my own planned. I'm off and running, destined for good food and good wine and better company, to Europe.

...Tomorrow.

...For six whole weeks.

I'll be back in November to tell you, (fingers crossed), about the culture across the pond, and about how to successfully navigate the bay of Biscay coast depending solely on vineyards as landmarks. Like I said, fingers crossed.

Until then, stay well, and stay hungry. Talk to you soon.

Until you get to wherever you're going

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:25:00 +0000

Every family has their vacation traditions.

There are those two weeks in late August where the old Bronco is packed up to it’s sturdy if not slightly rusted brim, trunk nearly bursting with towels and folding chairs and the stuffed animals that just can’t be left behind. Bikes are strapped precariously to the back, the cause for checking the traveled highway every hour or so, making certain there are no two-wheeled casualties.

The drive is always unthinkably long. The distances covered seem to grow exponentially to the rate at which your sibling’s hair pulling and screechy sing-alongs increase. You know the ones.

For my family, the drive was always to Maine. Interstate 495 North was, to me as a child, vaguely akin to Sunday mass: it dragged on for much too long, exhausting all potential excitement within the first few minutes. It was cramped. I always needed to stretch my legs.

My family vacations always held the promise of good snacks, though, something to make the ride a little less, well, long. We had this trail mix, called Gorp if you’re my Dad, which seemed to appear only on road trips. It almost became a Pavlovian response of a kind. Gorp: Maine. Gorp: road trip. Gorp: endless expanses of highway.

Not surprisingly, I am and always have been a firm believer in good snacks when traveling. Which is why, last week, I made a bunch of them for Katherin as she left for a two week cross-country road trip. And here I thought 495 was endless.

Once you’ve made these, it’s advisable to drive somewhere. (It is what they’re meant for, after all.) A spontaneous road trip, if you’re into that. Hopefully they’ll make the drive until you get to wherever you’re going a bit more bearable.

Road Trip Granola Bars

Note: I know I’ve given you a recipe on here for granola before, but these are different. Think of them as granola’s more convenient, travel-friendly cousin. The recipe below is also highly adaptable – feel free to substitute any nuts and dried fruit, really, maybe even crystallized ginger if you’re feeling wild.

Oh, and also, keeping these cold works best to keep them together. I stashed them in the fridge until I was ready to give them away.

2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup sliced almonds
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup flaxseed
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
2/3 cup honey
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 ½ cup dried fruit, or a mix of dried fruit (I used chopped apricots, and two kinds of raisins)

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter an 8×12-inch baking dish and line it with parchment paper.

Toss the oatmeal, almonds, and sunflower seeds together on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ and the flax. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F.

While the mixture is still warm, stir in the honey, vanilla and salt until the mixture is well coated, then the dried fruit. Pour the mixture into your prepared baking dish and press it in until the mixture is packed as tightly as possible. Note: this will be annoying. And messy. And it will take a little while – just go until you feel like you can’t press anymore. The payoff will make it worth it.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool for 2 to 3 hours before cutting into squares with a serrated knife.

On religious pretzels and lovely western Africans

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:36:00 +0000

Sometimes, I feel wholly justified in sleeping for eleven hours.

At the moment I’m writing this, I just crawled out of my own bed for the first time in weeks, and I’m currently yawning, confused, and desperately trying to remember how the coffee routine in my house works.

At least I’m well-rested.

I just got back from a study tour of major American cities with an international program I’ve been working for. It was two other recent college grads and I, along with twenty lovely, if not easily distracted, western Africans. Add to that a crowded Times Square and luggage issues and vans with flat tires, and you’ll start to get an idea of my logistical day-to-day.

But there was also so so much fun. And lots of Senegalese dancing from a fantastic lady named Marguerite, who could move her hips in more directions than I think even exist. And patient French lessons from beautiful Ivorian boys, particularly on the pronunciation of vegetables, particularly concumbre. And some of the best soft pretzels I have ever tasted. (That’s where you come in.)

We were in what they cleverly call the Valley of No Wires – otherwise known as Amish country in Lancaster, PA. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel blasphemous for listening to an Ipod while driving through. And for owning a phone which is, safely hidden in the confines of a bag, deviously and sacrilegiously searching for 3G. Or at the very least, it makes you feel like some kind of technological tease, much like it would feel to eat a giant slab of chocolate cake in front of someone on a diet.

But, these pretzels. They almost make you forget about religion and blasphemy and all the man-upstairs rest for a moment. That is, until the woman at the pretzel stand tells you that the three open spaces in the dough actually represent the trinity, the twist in the center, arms crossed in prayer. But they also make unbelievable ice cream, which, in addition to being either vanilla or raspberry, happens to be completely secular.

The program is over now. I’m currently down twenty friends and trying to figure out the going rate for calls into Mali, but this is one of my favorite food memories from the trip: us sitting at picnic tables smack in the middle of Amish country, alternating bites of homemade pretzel with raspberry soft serve, racing the blaring sun as it melted cones and sundaes with reckless abandon. I don’t think I could go back without them, but you should.

Where I wish I could be

noreply@blogger.com (KenziW) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:10:00 +0000

I have so many new things to tell you. So so many.

There are Amish pretzels, and twenty new lovely African friends, now come and gone, there are sixty five foot chartered schooners called Extrapolation. I think there's pesto somewhere in there, too, and a chana masala adaptation.

But while I'm sorting all of that out in a way that's at least slightly cogent, have a look at these. It's where I was yesterday, and where I think I wish I could be nearly every day. (Don't worry, I was at least thinking of food to tell you about, I promise.)