Queer Flours

April 20th 2012

Yesterday I drove all over the hill country on a FIELD TRIP. That’s right, you get to go on field trips in graduate school, at least if you’re studying Southwestern literature. We hiked up Enchanted Rock and ate the most glorious meringue pie in Blanco. I did not partake heavily because, duh, gluten, but I did scoop the sweet, fluffy meringue off the top.

On my way back, I listened to NPR’s new food segment The Salt. The premise - food reporting that looks at our supply chain while celebrating the pleasures of cooking - sounded interesting, but the listening experience was surreal. First came an extensive story about how it is impossible to ensure that industrially produced lettuce is “safe.” After a detailed discussion of all the different kinds of poop that can contaminate salad greens and the different chemicals used, with mixed success, to disinfect them, the show switched to offering tasty salad recipes from Orangette. No mention was made of how fucked up it is that “organic” salad greens are washed in chlorinated water in an unsuccessful attempt to kill e. coli. Plus, on a gut level, I had just spent ten minutes hearing about how salad is covered in deadly poop. I was not ready to start fantasizing about butter lettuce.

I’m sure that the disconnect was so pronounced in part because this is the first segment. The show is attempting to do something tricky: report on where our food comes from while keeping listeners from plugging their ears. But I was reminded when my mother told me about workers in a microwave popcorn plant whose lungs were shredded by breathing in all the fake butter chemicals. She advised me to stand further away from the microwave when the popcorn was popping. And I was like, MOM. How about I just stop eating microwave popcorn?

One’s chances of lettuce death are up there with, like, lightening death, I’m sure. The thing that pisses me off here is not the fact that I have some tiny chance of contracting disease - it’s that salad greens are washed in chlorine and other chemicals to kill the diseases. No wonder eating them feels like punishment. I’m angry about what industrial food has done to one of our basic pleasures because that’s what I’m in it for: the pleasure. If my salad greens from Tecolote did not taste like a secret healthy heaven I had not known existed, I would not be so virtuous.

CSAs are an undertaking. I’ve been uttering phrases like, “Jen, we’ve both got to eat salad every day or we’re not going to make it.” Very few of us are neurotic enough to change our consumption habits around based on health concerns alone, and you know what? That’s for the best. But a spicy, crunchy, fresh forkful of greens doesn’t taste “healthy.” It tastes decadent. For that kind of pleasure, I’ll happily eat a salad every day.

Lazy Lunch Salad with Poached Egg

You will definitely need:

1. greens, preferably from your farmer’s market, trust me

2. Oil and vinegar (remember: lazy)

You will probably also really enjoy:

1. a poached egg. These are also way better when they come from a local farmer. The salad above is pictured with a duck egg! It’s the little things that make me feel fancy.

I like to mix lots of cooked ingredients into my salads. There’s more variety of texture and taste that way, and you’re not doing quite so much virtuous crunching. Here are some good things to keep in the fridge:

-cooked beets (wrap ‘em in foil, thrown them in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour, throw them in fridge until it’s beet time)

-shredded carrots

-radishes

-dates

-oranges

-strawberries

-olives

-marinated red peppers

-anchovies in olive oil

-any kind of wonderful cheese

-leftover meat, especially from a roast chicken

-leftover cooked beans

-ANYTHING YOUR HEART DESIRES

Steps:

1. Let’s assume you’re poaching your egg. Fill a small pot with water at least halfway and start it heating on the stove. I like to cheat a little bit and heat at medium-high, then turn down the heat.

2. While water is heating, pull out your ingredients from the fridge. For example, today I pulled out my lettuce mix, some curly endive, a cooked beet in foil, some marinated peppers I bought to put on pizzas weeks ago, and some fresh mozzarella that I got for the same reason and probs shouldn’t have eaten because dairy and I are not THAT good friends but damn it was delicious and worth the farts.

Anyway. Throw some lettuce in a bowl. Chop the endive roughly. Slip the skin off your beet and slice it however you like. Ditto the peppers. Ditto the cheese.

3. Meanwhile, your water should be just on the edge of simmering. I define “edge of simmering” as “tiny bubbles on bottom of pot.” Am I right about that? Who knows! Turn the heat down to at least medium, and crack your egg into a small bowl. Slip the egg into the water. You do not need vinegar, or a vortex, or any of that jazz. You just need the water to be hot enough. It will take practice. My best advice is to make sure the water is really JUST about to simmer. You could also practice with duck eggs - they seem to hold together better than chicken ones. Leave your egg in for 2-4 minutes, depending on your runniness preferences, then scoop it out with a slotted spoon and deposit it on your salad

4. Sprinkle salt and pepper on your salad, and drizzle with some vinegar, and then about twice as much oil. Break the yolk with your fork, enjoy watching it spread over your beautiful salad, and then dig in.

Posted at 4:16pm.

April 7th 2012

Reblogged from youcanteatbread|1,358 notes |#

I love a good visual aid.

lacuisine:

Know Your Peaks!

1 - Souffle: You want whites that have gained volume and are just firm enough to hold a peak.

2 - Meringue: Most meringue recipes call for stiff peaks, which will stand up straight.

3 - Oops! If your whites are clumpy and grainy, you’ve gone too far.

(Thanks to Bon Appétit)

Posted at 1:18pm.

April 3rd 2012

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Sunday night we had a feast in honor of the Game of Thrones premiere, after I discovered the insane, wonderful food blog Inn at the Crossroads. I ran out to the hardware store to get some plywood and sawhorses to extend our table, and we asked friends to bring extra plates and chairs. In my apartment in L.A., we’d had a mexican oilcloth “tablecloth” over our card table, so I picked up a couple different patterns to spread over our new makeshift seating area. In another universe, I would have gotten all fancy with flowers and some attractive serving dishes or somesuch, but in instead I was in the kitchen, making a shitload of pies.

I am working on pie, so it was actually great to make four pies in quick succession, because I could see what I was doing well, and what needed work. First set of crusts? Too dry. Next set? A little too wet. I didn’t want to work the butter too much, but I didn’t want to work it too little, either. Also, let me tell you, making crust the night before = a great idea.

When I send out an invite email with the subject line “FEAST OF THRONES,” I am not kidding. We ended up with four pies in total: a pork pie, a pease pie, and two strawberry galettes, which were basically “spread out some marmalade on the bottom of the crust, toss strawberries with sugar, fold the crust around the strawberries, oven at 375, go!” so there’s no recipe to link to on that one, they were just a delicious mess with some homemade vegan ice cream. Add to that to some honeyed chicken, a farmer’s market greens salad, some lovely cabbage brought by one of our three Jess’s, and two dishes prepared by my friend (and co-editor) Allie: leek soup (made from the giant leek I am holding in the picture) and “dornish” stuffed peppers, if the people of Dorn (is that how you say it?) had cream cheese, which they wish they did.

The chicken was banging, the sides were scrumptious, and the pies turned out delicious, if not the most gorgeous things you’ve ever seen. My main issue with pie is that, lately, my crusts get too soft at the edges by the time they’re rolled out. Not even all the edges - often just one edge. So they break, or I toss them in the freezer with one layer of parchment paper still stuck on and then they are not very pretty. Perhaps my kitchen gets too hot? Perhaps I’m making my crust a tiny bit too wet? Perhaps I need to learn important lessons about speed and precision?

That said, I feel pretty good about the recipe I’m using at the moment, so I will share that, and whatever rudimentary things I know about preparing crust. I owe a big debt to Gluten-Free Girl’s recipe, as well as Smitten Kitchen’s extensive pie tutorial. And, of course, my beloved Ratio.

Gluten-Free Pie Crust, Queer Flours Take #1

-7oz whole grain GF flours - I did a mix of sorghum, millet, and teff

-5oz starches/white GF flours - I did potato starch, white rice flour, and glutinous white rice flour

-8oz butter, frozen or very cold*

-2oz ice water, though you will not use it all

-1 medium egg, cold

*you can also mess around with using lard. My pork pie was about 1/3 lard - if you’re in Austin, Dai Due has great lard, a sentence I never imagined myself typing.

1. Measure out your flours and whisk them all together until combined

2. If your butter is frozen, get out your box grater and grate it on the big holes, like it’s cheese. Slippery cheese, so be careful. If your butter is just cold, not frozen, cut it into small cubes.

3. Work butter into the flour with the tips of your fingers until the dough looks like sand, and there are a great deal of big “chunks” still visible - these are what make your dough flaky, so be gentle with them!

4. I like to use an egg as another binding agent, since gluten-free flours can be a little fussy. This might be superstition, as normal pie crush is not worked in a way that would activate any kind of gluten-binding, but. Crack the egg in a bowl, whisk quickly, and pour it in. Stir flour with spatula until it is evenly incorporated.

5. Your dough will probably still look fairly dry and “sandy” at this point. Add in the ice water, a little bit at a time, stirring to incorporate each time, until the dough “comes together.” To me, “comes together” means sticky enough to stick to itself and form large-ish chunks, but not tacky to the touch. You will probably not get this perfect at first, and that’s okay, because it will still be pretty good.

6. Split the dough in half (use your scale of you’re feeling neurotic, which I usually am), roll into a ball, wrap up in plastic wrap and smush into a disk. Put it in the fridge for at least 15 mins, or overnight. Or a couple of days. Whatever. Eventually, you’d just want to freeze it, but I like to be relaxed about these things.

7. If the dough has been in the fridge for awhile, take it out and let it soften up a bit, maybe as much as 15 mins, but perhaps less if you have my dough-related issues

8. Roll out dough. I do it between two sheets of parchment paper, which quickly revealed itself to be wasteful after I did it six times! But it is nice not to have to worry about dusting it with more flour, especially because I can never decide which gluten free flour is the best for dusting. But I don’t think I’m really in the department of giving out rolling suggestions, since I run into trouble here. Thin. Fast. Go.

9. If you’re doing the parchment method, gently peel off one layer, then invert dough into a pie pan, preferably one you’ve chilled in the freezer. Trim dough of excessive overhangs, and if you need to, use them to patch up whatever messed-up pieces got messed up. Roll the rest of your overhanging dough under, so that it makes a nice fat border, which you can crimp if you’re not putting another crust on top. Then pop your crust back in the freezer for a few minutes before filling it and putting it in the oven. All this freezing is designed, btw, to keep those butter nuggets whole. Protect that butter nugget!

And huzzah! You will have a pie. And even if that pie is not perfect, guess what? Doesn’t matter, because it will still be pie. And if you’re anything like me, whatever you’ve made yourself always tastes extra-delicious.

Posted at 5:51pm.

March 19th 2012

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Right after college, I spent a year living in L.A. On St. Patrick’s Day, homesick, I set off to find the usual staples of my family’s celebration: Irish soda bread and Irish potatoes. The soda bread took a little doing, but I found some at Whole Foods. But no one anywhere had heard of Irish potatoes. I called various bakeries and grocery stores, quizzed the two people at work I actually talked to. “You know, they’re covered in cinnamon? With cream cheese and coconut in the middle?” I got horrified looks in return.

I’m pretty fucking Irish. When I was a kid, I didn’t think this amounted to much. My grandmother cooked 1950’s-via-the-Depression, the relatives born in Ireland were long dead, and we weren’t the kind of family that went in for any kind of interest in Gaelic culture. Sure, I went to Catholic school, but everyone I knew went to Catholic school. There were seven other Meghans (or Megans or Meaghans) in my small high school class. Two other Meghan Elizabeth’s! My online handle, megmccarron, is a private joke with myself, because in high school you could never say, “Hey, Meghan!” Way too inexact. I was always “McCarron!” or “MegMcCarron!”

When I went off to college, I learned that just because I didn’t notice my Irish-Americanness in my thirteen years of Catholic school, that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. When a professor called on my in class, they gave me a weird look if I said “Me Meghan?” There were no other Meghans anymore.

When I was a kid, every St. Patrick’s Day, we built leprechaun traps out of shoeboxes and popsickle sticks. They never caught anything, much to my bitter disappointment, but the leprechauns always left us chocolate and green sparkly confetti (thanks Mom). We ate sweet soda bread, American-style, and made what I later discovered was a Philadelphia specialty, Irish Potatoes. (I have no idea if this is some sick/ignorant reference to the potato famine, in the classy tradition of Irish Car Bomb douche drinks. But they’re over 100 years old, and I’m choosing to believe in innocence.)

Irish Potatoes are basically a candy. They’re rich and sweet. But the spiciness of the cinnamon and the tanginess of the cream cheese pairs nicely with the sugar, and I love their texture cold, right out of the fridge. Think of them as Irish-American truffles. Kind of.

Recipe Notes

With a standing mixer, these are extremely easy to make, but even by hand it’s very simple. T his recipe (complete with Catholic school kids!) worked wonderfully, so there’s no real reason to copy it here. I did cut the sugar in half, because that much confectioner’s sugar alarms me. To mix things up, I added some finely chopped chocolate to part of the batch, and some Jameson’s to another portion, and then Jameson’s and chocolate together. I HIGHLY recommend the Jameson’s, but add slowly, because it tends to make things mushy if you add too much. Since dairy and I are not BFF, I used some vegan cream cheese, which was sacrilege, as was adding chocolate or whiskey or whatever other airs I’ve picked up since leaving Philadelphia. As my mother would say, do as I say, not as I do. This is no time for being a food hippie: use Philly.

Posted at 5:54pm and tagged with: recipe, st. patrick's day,.

March 18th 2012

Reblogged from wcfoodies|5,259 notes |#

I have a friend who could decode a bottle of Heinz Ketchup in a similar manner, but this is much more useful.

wcfoodies:

Those annoying fruit stickers can, apparently, be quiet informative:

A 4-number code denotes conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables (pesticides used);

A 5-number code beginning with 8 means, organic or not, the fruit or vegetable was genetically modified (GE or GMO);

And a 5-number code beginning with 9 means the fruit was organically grown without genetic modification.

Posted at 3:13pm.

I have a friend who could decode a bottle of Heinz Ketchup in a similar manner, but this is much more useful.
wcfoodies:

Those annoying fruit stickers can, apparently, be quiet informative:
A 4-number code denotes conventionally-grown fruits and vegetables (pesticides used);
A 5-number code beginning with 8 means, organic or not, the fruit or vegetable was genetically modified (GE or GMO);
And a 5-number code beginning with 9 means the fruit was organically grown without genetic modification.

March 6th 2012

AWP Trail Mix + Weird delicious dinner #1

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I am back from a weekend in Chicago, where I didn’t eat anywhere particularly fancy or trendy but damn did I eat well. OK, I also ate some profoundly shitty thai food and several oranges while sitting at a booth (I was there for a conference). Also, the whole crew of Unstuck magazine subsisted on the giant amount of trail mix I brought with me:

AWP Trail Mix

-One cookie sheet worth of pecans

-One half cookie sheet pistachios

-One half cookie sheet hazelnuts

Toast ‘em in a 350 degree oven for about 10-12 minutes, until fragrant and browned

(If you are smarter than me, put the hazelnuts in a kitchen towel and roll them around to get their skins off so they don’t pile up in the bottom of your baggie and make a mess.)

When the nuts have cooled, toss in:

-golden raisins

-regular old raisins

-wolf berries

-other delicious dried fruits if you have ‘em

-chocolate chips

-carob chips

-peanut butter chips

(You could also toss in some salt and cinnamon if you like. It made the golden raisins taste odd and savory but people kind of liked that.)

Don’t go crazy with the chips or you will no longer feel responsible and semi-healthy. I have no idea what kind of proportions I used on anything; I just added and mixed until everything looked about right. Throw a giant baggie in your luggage, put some in a smaller baggie to take to the conference each day, and get through those hunger pangs and shitty Thai meals.

******

I’m back in Austin by myself, since my girlfriend is still galivanting around the Midwest for work. Cooking dinner for yourself can be kind of a bummer. When I lived in Brooklyn and was on my crazy acupuncture diet, which I will blog about sometime I promise, I cooked for hours several nights a week, but I did that in order to make myself exciting lunches for work. For dinner I usually ate an omelet, while the roast rested or the veggies cooled. Friends often ask me how I fit in all my cooking, and the answer sometimes is: keep a bunch of sundry delicious things around for when you come home from travel and are lonely and hit a wall.

Tonight, after guiltily cleaning some forgot-I-was-going-away-for-five-days purchases out my veggie drawer, I made myself a plate of the five olives left in the tub, a couple beet quarters I’d pickled back in my CSA times, some sliced up spanish chorizo that had been sitting in the back of the meat drawer, and some brussel sprouts sauted in butter, then lightly steamed.

Simple Delicious Wonderful Brussel Sprouts

-As much brussel sprouts as will fit in your saute pan/you will eat. If you have the tiny ones from the Austin farmer’s market, you’re in luck! Throw ‘em in as-is. Otherwise, halve or quarter them, depending on your preference/laziness level

-A generous amount of good butter

-salt

-pepper

Heat your pan over medium heat or so. Melt the butter. Toss in the sprouts. Saute them for at least five minutes, as long as ten, until they get nice and brown. Add salt and pepper as you saute. When the sprouts are adequately browned, add enough water to almost cover the bottom of the pan, and cover your pan. Raise the heat a little if you like. Cook them until the liquid has cooked off, another five to ten minutes. Serve.

I have been indulging myself by buying the various fancy butters at Central Market lately, and let me tell you, whatever French business was on my brussel sprouts made them divine. I enjoyed my mis-matched meal while falling into the internet hole of Ballymaloe Cookery School blogs. They are basically like Clarion blogs, but with more food and advice about how not to gain 20lbs. Also it does not cost 10,495 euros to go to Clarion.

Posted at 10:14pm.

March 6th 2012

Reblogged from wnycradiolab|188 notes |#

Alert: canning friends

wnycradiolab:

npr:

Why Napoleon Offered A Prize For Inventing Canned Food

“Napoleon offered 12,000 francs to improve upon the prevailing food preservation methods of the time. Not surprisingly, the purpose was to better feed his army ‘when an invaded country was not able or inclined to sell or provide food’. Fifteen years later, confectioner Nicolas François Appert claimed the prize. He devised a method involving heating, boiling and sealing food in airtight glass jars — the same basic technology still used to can foods.” -Stephen Schaber

Well, I’ve never had occasion to say this before, but…thanks, Napoleon!

Posted at 2:00pm.

Alert: canning friends
wnycradiolab:

npr:

Why Napoleon Offered A Prize For Inventing Canned Food

“Napoleon offered 12,000 francs to improve upon the prevailing food preservation methods of the time. Not surprisingly, the purpose was to better feed his army ‘when an invaded country was not able or inclined to sell or provide food’. Fifteen years later, confectioner Nicolas François Appert claimed the prize. He devised a method involving heating, boiling and sealing food in airtight glass jars — the same basic technology still used to can foods.” -Stephen Schaber

Well, I’ve never had occasion to say this before, but…thanks, Napoleon!

February 1st 2012

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I took another run at this recipe this weekend. Forgot to take a picture, as always! I think my dough was a little too wet. I had a tremendous first rise (I put my dough in the microwave with a steamy hot cup of water), maybe it over-rose? But the final product was fairly flat and dense. Oh well. It still made a pretty good medium for some homemade Nutella. I altered this recipe a bit - will post mine soon - but oh man. I recommend it.

Posted at 2:02pm.

January 31st 2012

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Two moments from a weekend of Texas food

1. We drove out to Snow’s in Lexington on Saturday morning. There were lots of cows along the way, and also some very Texan graffiti that said “Hi Toni! : )” We got there around 11, and the line wasn’t bad. They have a very serious set-up out back, at least six smokers. The sauce comes in ozarka water bottles. We ordered everything we could order: sausage, chicken, brisket, pork ribs, potato salad, coleslaw. The pulled pork had just sold out. The pork ribs were a little soggy, but the chicken and the brisket just kept getting better, and no one can ever go wrong with sausage. The potato salad and cole slaw came in giant styrofoam cups and were each the perfect incarnations of their kind. Was it so much better than lockhart? Nah. But it was a meal whose charms were many, and one of those charms was driving through the country to get there. Afterwards we hit up some sad thrift stores in Bastrop and I bought a mug with a unicorn and a rainbow that said “Charles Unique.”

2. I went to a party for some Mexican science fiction writers. They had two observations to offer about Tex-Mex and/or Mex in Tex. They thought queso was genius, though the orange cheese rendered it anglo. For queso to be mexican, it would have to be made with white cheese. Also, they talked about how La Michoacana on 7th. st. was a simulacrum of a mexican market. “Like, everything is almost right. It’s 90% there. We could find what we needed but - total simulacrum.”

Posted at 2:03pm.

Two moments from a weekend of Texas food
1. We drove out to Snow’s in Lexington on Saturday morning. There were lots of cows along the way, and also some very Texan graffiti that said “Hi Toni! : )” We got there around 11, and the line wasn’t bad. They have a very serious set-up out back, at least six smokers. The sauce comes in ozarka water bottles. We ordered everything we could order: sausage, chicken, brisket, pork ribs, potato salad, coleslaw. The pulled pork had just sold out. The pork ribs were a little soggy, but the chicken and the brisket just kept getting better, and no one can ever go wrong with sausage. The potato salad and cole slaw came in giant styrofoam cups and were each the perfect incarnations of their kind. Was it so much better than lockhart? Nah. But it was a meal whose charms were many, and one of those charms was driving through the country to get there. Afterwards we hit up some sad thrift stores in Bastrop and I bought a mug with a unicorn and a rainbow that said “Charles Unique.”
2. I went to a party for some Mexican science fiction writers. They had two observations to offer about Tex-Mex and/or Mex in Tex. They thought queso was genius, though the orange cheese rendered it anglo. For queso to be mexican, it would have to be made with white cheese. Also, they talked about how La Michoacana on 7th. st. was a simulacrum of a mexican market. “Like, everything is almost right. It’s 90% there. We could find what we needed but - total simulacrum.”

January 30th 2012

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The Bo Ssam Miracle

Now that Olga’s made this, I need to get on it. But first: make some kimchi?

Posted at 2:02pm.

“

A tight and salty caramel crust sits on top of the moist, fragrant collapse of meat, and juices run thick to pool beneath it, a kind of syrup, delicious in its intensity. It is pork as pommes soufflé.

”