I was craving my Turkey Mushroom & Rice Casserole, but the original recipe required 3-4 cups of milk-based white sauce. I tried just serving the turkey-mushroom sauté over rice with a little gravy, but it just didn’t have that comfort-food feeling. [I also learned the hard way that potato starch is NOT a substitute for Wondra flour in making gravy . . . thickened turkey gelatin is what I got . . . yuk!!]

I decided to just try a small batch of very basic white sauce: 2 Tbls fat, 2 Tbls “flour”, 1 cup “milk”, but used Spectrum® Organics Shortening (made from palm oil), the Food Philosopher’s® Brown Rice Flour Blend for the flour and Edensoy® Unsweetened Soymilk (which is just soybeans and water) for the milk. And Voilá ! Nice, thick (though admittedly rather tasteless) white sauce. Adding salt, pepper, and thyme perked it up just right.

So, for the record, you melt the fat, stir in the “flour,” cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, then gradually add the “milk” stirring until thickened.

I have yet to try the complete Turkey Mushroom & Rice Casserole recipe (I just fixed a small lunch-sized portion of the rice, turkey-mushroom sauté, and white sauce), but I’m thrilled by the result so far!   Ah (*sigh*), Thanksgiving leftovers become gluten-free, dairy-free comfort food.

Yes, I stole this theme idea from boingboing.net (who got it from Stuart Brown at Modern Life) . . .

I never followed Steve Jobs and his great ideas very closely, but I have owned a Macintosh Computer since 1985. I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad, but I do enjoy my iPod (though I refuse to buy my music via iTunes)   I won’t store anything in somebody else’s iCloud . . . though I understand why that might be handy for others.   (And I wonder why most people today seem totally unconcerned about the loss of privacy which is bringing us MUCH closer to 1984 and Brave New World than the IBM parodied in that famous 1984 commercial ever dreamed of imposing.)

And yes, the first Mac had NO hard drive.   It operated via those little 3-1/2 inch “hard floppies”.  At the time I was writing a dissertation on music perception.   My grad school research had used:  (1) a Radio Shack TRS-80 (with a cassette tape drive!), (2) a Commodore 64, and (3) an IBM mainframe (8″ floppies).   I had programmed in BASIC and FORTRAN and C (and a few other languages I’m forgetting right now).   But I wrote about it on my Macintosh.   And eventually I even made music on that little box that I could carry around.   And I saw plenty of those little “bombs” that appeared when I screwed up the programming (scroll all the way down to the footer to see the little bomb, which was still friendlier than the DOS “blue screen of death”). Yes, I added a hard drive, eventually traded it in for a Power Computing Mac Clone and then a G4 and finally my Mac Mini.   I was never the “target audience” for the Mac . . . I wasn’t afraid of computers or programming them or figuring out how they work.   I didn’t really want “a computer for the rest of us” . . . but I did appreciate an interface that allowed me to SEE what was on my computer in a more intuitive way than I got with DOS and command lines.

Yes, Steve Jobs knew what we needed and wanted before we did . . . he didn’t believe in letting the consumers drive innovation (he knew if he asked we would all just stick with the same old, same old) . . . but he didn’t just change things to change things (are you listening Mark Zuckerberg?).   No, I’m not likely to run out and buy an iPad or iPhone just to honor Steve Jobs (I can’t afford them) and I wish that his notion of “democratizing technology” had found a way to do it at “a price for the rest of us”.  But I do appreciate his work and am sorry that his life ended so soon.

Today many people are quoting from Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address; many include this important quotation:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

but the part of the speech that caught my eye/ear was this [emphases mine]:

“Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

You can find a full transcript of Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford speech here.

So today I am trying to listen to my gut/intuition . . . which right now is saying it’s time for lunch . . . and hoping the dots will eventually connect.

Peace.

For a gluten-free version of these flavors, I just layer the rice, beans, etc. in a bowl.

Grilled fish with a chili powder rub also works well with these beans & rice.  Earlier this summer I used the beans from my Black & White Burritos in a recipe I found for Chipotle Tilapia Tacos with Mango Salsa and Chipotle Mayo . . . FABULOUS!

adapted from the ingredient list at Seward Coop

Samosas are a vegetable- (or meat-) filled pastry usually served as an appetizer at Indian restaurants. Now that I’m mostly gluten-free, I was interested in a version without the pastry.  Ate several from the Hot Bar at Seward Coop and they were so good I went back later to get the list of ingredients.  Then I made my own modifications.  The first attempt turned out amazingly well.

Makes 12 hamburger-size patties, or 18 smaller appetizer-size patties

The complete recipe can be found here.

Katharine Hepburn’s Brownies

redux:the gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free edition

I learned of this recipe in Laurie Colwin’s lovely literary cookbook More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen and have used and adapted it for years. Now that I’ve tried a version without gluten, corn, or dairy products, I figure I’ve altered it enough to post here. BTW, technically there’s a bit of corn in the alcohol & sugar in the vanilla extract (but I’m already researching recipes for homemade vanilla to get around that in the future!).

Ingredients

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or shortening [I used Spectrum's Organic Shortening which is made from palm oil]
• 2 squares (2 oz.) unsweetened baking chocolate
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract [corn-free if you can find it or make it]
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup flour or gluten-free substitute [I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Flour]
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp guar gum or xanthan gum [if using GF flour]
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional) [I left these out]

Directions

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Grease and flour the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square pan. [For easier brownie removal, especially when making gluten-free brownies, grease the pan and then line with parchment paper wide enough to cover the bottom of the pan and long enough to come up above two sides of the pan. Once the brownies are cool, you can just lift by the paper handles and remove the whole thing to a board for cutting.]

In the top of a double-boiler (or over very low heat) melt together the butter/shortening and the chocolate. Once both are completely melted, remove the pan from the heat.

Stir in the sugar and vanilla. Mix well.

Stir in the eggs. Mix well.

Stir in the flour and salt. Mix well. [If you are using gluten-free flour add 1/4 tsp of guar gum or xanthan gum.]

Add nuts if using.

Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before removing, cutting and eating.

Enjoy!

Copyright © 2011, Lucinda DeWitt

Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games

A book that makes my expensive liberal arts education seem worthwhile!

It seems a bit odd to be writing an “early review” of a book published in 1989, but I’m pleased that Bloomsbury chose to reissue this classic, originally a series of lectures, adding a foreword by Jon Meacham and a touching afterword by Marcus Giamatti (son of the author).

Take Time for Paradise explores leisure activity, including sports in general and baseball in particular, using the tools of philosophy, classics, and literature.  Giamatti invokes Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Homer in his explorations of “Self-Knowledge,” “Community,” and “Baseball as Narrative.”  If this description has you rolling your eyes and yawning, imagining an “ivory tower” analysis of your favorite activity, think again.  Giamatti was a scholar, but he was also a die-hard baseball fan—two characteristics which made him a good National League President and (briefly) Commissioner of Baseball; they also allow him to analyze baseball in interesting and thoughtful ways.

The first chapter/lecture, “Self-Knowledge,” sets the stage by examining the meaning and purposes of “leisure” as “not-work.”  Leisure is all about freedom; how we choose to spend our time when we are free to make that choice.  Leisure is how/when most of us seek fulfillment, aspiring to our vision of paradise.  To me, the most interesting passages in this chapter addressed the idea that sport is (like) religion.  Giamatti acknowledges the similarities in terms of sacred connections, rituals, and notions of paradise, but maintains that the self-transformation of leisure/sport need not be described in religious terms.

The second chapter/lecture, “Community,” explores sport as inherently connected to cities, rather than rural/garden/suburban contexts.  Here Giamatti addresses several sociological issues related to sports including drug/alcohol/steroid use, the danger of the cult of the young athlete, various forms of cheating, and the role of the spectator.  He also foreshadows many of the “modern developments” (e.g., giant scoreboards) and the need to accommodate both new and old fans.

“Baseball as Narrative,” the third chapter/lecture brings the themes of leisure, freedom, and community together in showing how baseball is about story.  The “plot” becomes a literal “plot of soil” in a whirlwind tour of the geometry and details of baseball fields.  The meditation on “home” manages to include family, Homer’s Odyssey and Romance.  Giamatti ties the series of lectures together by ending with a story of a hotel lobby during the World Series.

My favorite passage in the book provides an elegant response to those who view baseball as repetitious or boring:

“The game on the field is repetitious—pitch after pitch, swing after swing, player after player, out succeeding out, half inning making whole inning, top to bottom to top, the patterns accumulating and making organizing principles, all around and across those precise shapes in and on the earth.  Organized by the metric of the game, by the prosody of the play, is all the random, unpredictable, explosive energy of playing, crisscrossing the precise shapes in lines and curves, bounces and wild hops and parabolas and slashing arcs. There is a ferocity to a slide, a whispering, exploding sound to a fastball, a knife-edged danger to a ball smashed at a pitcher—there is a violence in the game at variance with its formal patterns, a hunger for speed at variance with its leisurely pace, a potential for irrational randomness at variance with its geometric shapes.” (p. 79)

In other words, all that repetition provides the framework for the quirky, unique story that is any particular baseball game.  Once you know that framework, and its rhythmic comforts, you can sit back (or on the edge of your seat) waiting for today’s story to unfold.  Giamatti goes on to compare this energy within rules to how the language of sonnets works: “The point being that freedom is the fulfillment of the promise of an energetic, complex order.” (p. 80).

I wept all the way through Marcus Giamatti’s afterword, a son’s tribute to and appreciation of both his father and the connection forged by a love of baseball.

If you find the most compelling thing about baseball to be statistics and fantasy teams, this probably is not the baseball book for you.  On the other hand, if you appreciate how scholarly analysis can combine with genuine enthusiasm to provide insightful musings on almost any activity, you will enjoy this book.

My Nine Lives: A Memoir of Many Careers in Music by Leon Fleisher and Anne Midgette, New York: Doubleday, 2010

As a former musician currently struggling with a hand/arm/shoulder injury and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I found much to relate to in this memoir: the endless search for “cures;” the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and (limited) acceptance of one’s “new” body/life.  (Unlike me) Fleisher was a child piano prodigy, student of Schnabel, and Outstanding Young American Pianist who later morphed into “the Bohemian” and “the young lion,” until “Catastrophe” (inability to use two fingers of his right hand) and its aftermath as conductor, teacher, left-handed pianist, and finally “renaissance man.”  And yes, those ten chapter titles capture the essence of Leon Fleisher’s story.  The joy and inspiration in what could have been a “woe is me” memoir come from the details and anecdotes that make up that arc of an 80-plus-year life.  Most of the stories are about music-making, but the personal stories (of famous musicians, of wives, children, god-children, students) reveal the truth of how one makes it through to the other side of a devastating “catastrophe” in life . . . “with a little [or a lot of] help from your friends.”

The writing style is very accessible (most musical concepts are clarified in everyday language so even non-musicians can follow along).  I particularly appreciated Fleisher’s ability to look back on some of his less-than-admirable times/behaviors with both wisdom and wit.  The photos at the beginning of each chapter and in a separate center section provide the reader with a glance into the full span of the author’s life.  My only criticism would be that there is some repetition of points and stories, which seemed unnecessary as I was reading the book cover-to-cover, but in this age of reading excerpts and single chapters, I suppose they will be helpful to some readers.

I would recommend this book to anyone struggling with a career ending/changing injury as well as to any up-and-coming young musicians out there.  The five “Master Class” sections inserted amongst the ten chapters are also helpful and interesting.  Each is a brief (almost too brief) but insightful commentary revealing one musician’s way of thinking about a particular piece: Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58; Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major; Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503; Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major.

I only wish I had read the book before Fleisher came to town a few weeks ago.  I would have made sure to get a ticket.  Instead I will have to make due with listening to some of his many recordings (a selected Discography is included at the back of the book).

Preparing for the next rhubarb baking, I discovered an omission from my earlier recipe for Rhubarb Cake.  [I left out the step where you spread the batter in the pan!]  Corrected now.

Enjoy!

Roasted Winter Root Vegetable Soup

Roasting some of the vegetables before making them into soup really brings out their sweetness.  Use your imagination with this recipe: substitute other root or winter veggies (yellow beets, butternut squash, white potatoes, leeks, etc), roast more or fewer of them (or none at all), and/or swap in other spices (curry powder goes great with this type of soup).

Ingredients
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 3/4″-1″ pieces
1 medium turnip, peeled and diced into 3/4″-1″ pieces
1 large parsnip, peeled and diced into 3/4″-1″ pieces
2-4 Tbls. olive oil, divided
1 large onion (or 2 small), very thinly sliced
2 ribs celery, diced
5 medium carrots, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 tsp. thyme (or 1 fresh sprig)
1 Tbls. minced parsley (or 1 fresh sprig or 1/2 Tbls. dry)
1 large bay leaf
1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper, or to taste
6-8 cups vegetable stock or water (or a combination)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

While oven is heating, cut up sweet potato, turnip, and parsnip.  Spread sweet potato, turnip, and parsnip pieces out on a baking pan.  Coat with 2-3 Tbls. oil.  Place in oven to roast while you prepare the rest of the veggies (40-60 minutes).

Heat 1 Tbls. oil over medium heat in a large, heavy soup pot.  Add the onion.  Cook, stirring frequently, until it begins to soften, 3-5 minutes.  Add the celery.  Cook, stirring frequently, 3-5 minutes.  Add the carrots.  Cook, stirring frequently, 5 minutes.  Stir in the garlic and ginger.  Don’t let anything brown/burn.

Remove the roasted vegetables from the oven and add to the pot.  Stir to combine everything.  Add bay leaf, thyme, parsley, salt and pepper.  Stir to combine.

Pour in stock/water.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer one hour or until everything is nicely cooked and soft enough to blend.

Turn off the heat.

REMOVE bay leaf (and thyme sprig if used).

Blend the soup until smooth with an immersion blender.  Taste to adjust seasonings.

Serve and Enjoy!

Yield: approx. 2 quarts.

NOTES

• More obsessive chefs than I would tell you to leave the seasonings (garlic, ginger, bay leaf, thyme, parsley) whole, wrap them in cheesecloth, tie to make a “bouquet garni”, and add to the pot.  This process does make it easier to remove them before blending, but I can’t be bothered.  Just make sure you use a big enough bay leaf to be easily found and removed before blending.
• There are other ways to purée soup if you don’t have an immersion blender, but why not just buy one?  For smoothies and puréeing cooked veggies the cheap ($9.99) versions work just fine (though apparently you can spend up to $40 bucks on the super-duper motor-a-boat versions).  If you MUST purée your soup in a food processor or blender, just be careful, let the soup cool a bit before blending (or things might explode), and do only a little at a time.
• Even more obsessive cooks would tell you that after puréeing, you should put the soup through a sieve to remove any possible remaining celery strings, or small chunks of vegetable.  As you may have guessed, (1) I can’t be bothered with that and (2) I consider those strings and bits to give the soup added character.  But if you are serving your soup to the Queen or something . . .

Copyright © 2011, Lucinda DeWitt

[Updated on March 23, 2011 to include the bit about sieving and add correct punctuation to the word purée.]

After many requests from friends, I finally made my first attempt at Red Velvet Cake.  I intended to make the Dark Chocolate Red Velvet Cake from the All Cakes Considered book by Melissa Gray, but after reading some negative reviews (e.g., http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/food-drink/red-velvet-cake/ ) and noticing that the ACC recipe used much more butter and sugar and many more eggs than any other recipe I could find, I decided to do one of my “recipe-mergers” where I combine the ingredients and techniques from several recipes into one that makes sense to me.  Links to the three recipes I ended up combining are at the end.  The only thing I retained from the All Cakes Considered version was using sour cream instead of buttermilk (because I had already bought sour cream for the cake and didn’t want to waste it).  You can find both the cake and frosting recipes here.

[Yes, I know it is not the blood-red cake some of you are expecting.  For that, you need to reduce/leave out the chocolate/cocoa.  A full explanation of the cocoa/food coloring balance is contained in the recipe.]

Enjoy!

Madagascar, Carnet De Voyage (France), a journey diary that redraws the trip of a European traveller confronted with Famadihana customs (a funerary tradition of the Malagasy people in Madagascar). [My love of artist's books bumps this one to the top.  It is a travel journal/artist's book "come to life".  Add music and rituals and new friends and you have the kind of scrapbook we all wish we could make when we get home from a trip.]  Filmmaker’s Official site:  http://www.bastiendubois.com/ Best on the big screen, but also viewable at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaWEzsLVGiA

The Lost Thing (Australia/UK), about a boy who discovers a bizarre-looking creature and sets out to find “place” for it.  [If you saw something that looked "lost" would you try to find its home?  Lovely story.  Fun animation.  I went back and forth between this and Madagascar about which to list first.]  Official site: http://www.thelostthing.com/

Let’s Pollute (USA), a modern satire on how pollution is our heritage and keeps our economy growing strong.  [Totally fun though horrifying at the same time.  Great satire.]  Official site: http://letspollute.com/

The Gruffalo (UK/Germany), the magical tale of a mouse who takes a walk through the woods in search of a nut.  [Pretty sure this one will win.  The longest of the "shorts"; Lots of famous names doing the voices.  A story kids might love, but which I found rather old hat and boring.  Some of the animation techniques are rather beautiful, but the whole thing left me rather cold.]
Movie Trailer available at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq1ddK-Rlng
More information:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pk64x
Official site for the book:  http://www.gruffalo.com/

Day & Night (USA), the story of the sparks that fly when Day, a sunny fellow, encounters Night, a stranger of distinctly darker moods.  [Sorry Pixar, this just wasn't up to snuff.  Imitation of old-style cartoons.  Story not very engaging or original.]  Official site: http://www.pixar.com/shorts/d&n/index.html

The two bonus shorts were:

Bill Plympton’s The Cow Who Wanted to Be a Hamburger (USA), a children’s fable about the power of advertising, the meaning of life, and ultimately the test of a mother’s love. [Rather horrifying and hilarious at the same time.  What would you do if you were a mother cow and your child dreamed of becoming a hamburger after seeing a billboard ad? . . . 'nuf said ]  Official site: http://www.plymptoons.com/

Urs (Germany), the story of a son who carries his aging mother up a dangerous mountain to find a better place for both of them. But she wants to stay at home. [Heartbreaking story of the need for change and what can get lost along the way.  The animated rock climbing was rather impressive.]  Official site: http://www.urs-film.com/

I should mention that these films are being made available in theaters through Shorts International. Their website has links to their iTunes channel where some of the films are available for $1.99.  Some of the films (and/or trailers) can also be found via other familiar sources (youtube).