Second(s) coming

The clivia is a plant whose bloom comes early. Around mid-February a crown of bright orange flowers shoots up from amidst its long, dark green leaves. It’s the perfect plant to have around the house. It’s easy to care for and its early blossom is a reminder that spring, no matter how bleak the February afternoons may seem, is coming.

Spring is always coming. It’s just a question of when.

And so we patiently wait for spring. And we wait. And the weather warms up and trees start to green. And then it goes cold again. A blizzard on April Fool’s Day! Spring proves more elusive than that first blooming promise would have had us believe.

But in order to reach spring, we first have to make it through Easter. Next Sunday is Easter and we are nearing the middle of Holy Week. Here in Spain, Semana Santa is often a veritable Second Coming. The skies darken and rumble. Rivers run over their banks. Mountain passes are cut off with snow. Bridges freeze and seas rage. More people die on the road during that week than all the rest of year.

Many compare it to the apocalypse. Which is strange. After all, Easter is supposed to be about the celebration of life. It is the mother of all Christian holy days. Everyone knows how the story goes: Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. His death helped to establish Christianity as a religion based on deity sacrifice and symbolic cannibalism. His resurrection is a promise of everlasting life and is a key belief of Christians all over the world, as is the belief that he will one day return to judge the living and the dead and establish the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Maybe the Second Coming is at hand afterall.

Sadly for those who are still waiting for the return of Christ, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Easter is what is known as a moveable feast – a holiday that is not set to a certain date, but that changes from year to year. The date is determined on a lunisolar calendar. The basic rule of thumb is that ‘Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox.’ It is said here that this relation between Easter and the lunar cycle is responsible for the apocalyptic weather conditions around Europe each Easter. One full moon past the first day of spring, winter celebrates its last hurrah before it finally yields to swim club memberships and barbeques.

These last few days of rain and wind that seem to point to the Second Coming are merely the last vestiges of winter, the final days of dreariness that will have us welcoming spring with open arms. And they are the final days before warm stews and roasted winter veggies make room for fresh salsas and potato salads. The following Second Coming recipes will have those celebrating with you coming for seconds.

Second(s) Coming Lamb Stew

This recipe, adapted from Cook's Illustrated, is a perfect bridge from winter to spring. Here fennel seeds add a delightful kick to the otherwise humble stew...

4 ½ pounds shoulder lamb chops
Salt and fresh ground pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 medium large onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup unbleached white spelt flour
2 teaspoons whole fennel seeds
4 cups water
6 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
¼ cup minced fresh parsley

Trim and reserve fat and bones from lamb. Cut meat into 1 1/2-inch pieces. Season lamb with salt and pepper.

Warm 1 tablespoon oil in a large Dutch-oven over medium high heat. Working in batches, add lamb to pot; sauté until brown on all sides, about 6 minutes per batch. Using slotted spoon, transfer lamb to plate. Use additional oil, if needed

Add bones to pot; cook until brown, about 5 minutes.

Using tongs, transfer bones to plate.

Add onions to pot; stir to coat with drippings, and sauté for five minutes. Add the flour and fennel seeds, and stir until the onions are evenly coated. Return meat and bones to the pot. Add 4 cups water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover pot tightly; simmer until lamb is tender and vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally, about 1 1/2 hours.

Add potatoes to the top of the pot, cover pot tightly, and simmer until lamb is tender and vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally, about 1 1/2 hours.

Discard bones. And serve.

God is a Big Happy Chicken

In Shalom Auslander's story "God Is a Big Happy Chicken" God shows up as a chicken. A big happy one. A character protests: "But the bible..."

The Archangel Gabriel (Gabe) answers: "Don't worry about the bible. We've got the joker who wrote that thing down in hell."

Auslander's story makes perfect sense to me. It also feels perfectly Jewish to me, not because Auslander was raised as an Orthodox Jew, but because god shows up as a chicken. To me, being Jewish is loving chicken.

I think about my Jewish family. I think about my father's mother, Francis, gnawing on a chicken bone. I think about the chicken schmaltz she used to flavor her white rice. I recall only a few meals from my childhood and my favorite is this: roasted chicken and white rice with schmaltz.

I ate this meal about once a year, every year, on the very first night of my visit to my grandparent's house in Sherman Oaks, CA. I'd sit down, eat, gnaw on the bones, and for a very, very brief moment feel utterly Jewish.

My Jewish ancestry did not bequeath me religion. Instead, it gave me chicken.

When I gnaw on a chicken bone, when I revel in the darker parts of the bird, the skin, the wings, the weird little bits of spectacularly flavorful meat surrounding the back bone, I feel my Jewish heritage. I gnaw and I'm with my grandmother, in Sherman Oaks, and then something weird happens--this Jewish thing, this blood I have coursing through me: it speaks to me, in chicken. Suddenly, I'm an immigrant, I'm my Aunt Pauline (she lived to 103) walking with her mother and older brother, from Novgorod through Moscow to Odessa and the Black Sea and, ultimately, to Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

This excursion, undertaken on foot before the first World War, during the summer of 1913, brought the Polansky's to America. My grandfather, the first Polansky born in America, was called Moisha. Later, he changed his name to Maury Pollins.

Around the time I got married, I called my grandfather up and told him I wanted to change my name back to Polansky.

"No, please no," he said.

He assumed, with a name like that, that I would be barred from jobs, from opportunities. Polansky, I suppose, is too ethnic.

So I'm still Seth Pollins, feeling remotely weird about my name, feeling a little lost. And it's weird to say, even ridiculous, but I actually find a bit of myself in chicken.

Perhaps this is why I love sharing chicken so much, why I love cooking it for my Jewish father, and why I love watching him attack it like a madman. I take after him: we do not eat chicken, we brutalize it. This brutality is not an act of violence; it's an act of love: for flavor, for our blood.

With my grandmother I share this: a taste for dangerous, undercooked chicken; we know that chicken is most tasty when it perilously close to killing you.

(Actually, I probably just picked this up from eating my grandmother's unintentionally undercooked chicken. She probably prefers fully-cooked chicken. Whatever, I shape my own memory.)

Recently, I've been sharing whole roasted chickens with my wife. It's become our Sunday thing. I buy a whole chicken, brine it, brush the skin with olive oil, and roast it. I'm so happy too: Karen's moved from a zone of boneless, skinless breast to chicken wing. She doesn't attack it, just yet, but she does eat it, with gusto. That's good, because she's married to a Jew.

I was never bar-mitzvahed. I don't fast on Yom Kippur. I'm hardly religious. Most importantly, for some I suppose, my mother's not a Jew.

I do have this part of me though, this blood.

Being a Jew, of course, is not just about your relationship with god. Admittedly, I have no relationship with god. I could care less if god is a chicken. In fact, I just might start believing he is. Why not? I appreciate the blasphemous sensibility behind that belief.

To me, and perhaps only to me, being Jewish is eating like a Jew.

I love the famous, almost offensive Jewish eating culture: the loud, hand-waving, argumentative meal, foods flying here and there, across the table and out of our mouths. There's groaning, eye-rolling, and plenty of laughter. There's hot tears, shouts.

Stick a bottle of wine on a table. Stick a whole roasted chicken on a table.

That's it: no cups, no silverware, no plates.

Me and my dad would handle this situation quite easily. We'd sit down and tear that bird apart. We'd eat out of our hands. We'd sip from the bottle. We'd talk, raise our voices, and laugh.

And that's when I'm Jewish.

This is weird, idiosyncratic, but to me it's Jewish.

Seth's Brined & Roasted Chicken

Don't make this recipe unless you're going to brine the bird. Don't come to me and say, "I made that recipe, I didn't brine it, but it was good!" Bullshit. You don't need a recipe to roast a chicken. The brine is the key...There's nothing especially Jewish about this recipe except for the fact that a man with about 50% Jewish blood is writing it.

6 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons pure cane sugar
One 3-4 pound organic or free-range chicken
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon plus two teaspoons olive oil
2 teaspoons dried thyme
fresh ground black pepper

To make the brine: dissolve the kosher salt, sugar, and 4 cups water in a gallon bag. Place the chicken in the bag and brine for 2 hours (can be brined up to 8 hours; for crispier skin, allow the bird to air-dry after brining for at least 4-8 hours and up to two days.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Take the bird out of the brine, rinse, and pat dry. In a small bowl mix 1 tablespoon olive oil and thyme. Brush the olive oil mixture over the chicken and then season with fresh ground pepper.

Toss the carrots, celery, and onion with remaining olive oil. Place half of this mixture in the cavity of the bird. Scatter the remaining vegetables over a roasting pan.

Place the chicken, wing side up, on a rack over the roasting pan and put the chicken in the oven. Roast for 20 minutes. Take the roasting pan out of the oven and carefully flip the chicken so the other wing side is up. Roast for 20 minutes.

Turn the oven temperature up to 450 degrees. Take the roasting pan out of the oven and carefully place the chicken breast side up. Roast for 25 minutes, until a thermometer inserted in the breast registers 160 degrees.

Let the chicken rest for 5-10 minutes on a cutting board.

Cut it up, into pieces: legs, wings, breasts. Or just put it on the table and rip it apart.

24 Preludes for a Fugue: The Cook as Composer

Arvo Pärt has the face of a saint. If he were not the great composer he is today, he would be Saint Peter, smiling down from the frescos of Russian Orthodox churches, serene. And in his right hand he would have a paperclip, you know, like a metaphorical key or something.

Arvo Pärt just may be a saint. After all, he has the power to grant the gift of tongues; a hypnotizing parsimony that makes you believe you understand every word he says, even though you speak no Estonian.

Pärt describes his music as tintinnabuli - like the ringing of bells. It is characterized by simple harmonies, often single notes, or triad chords, reminiscent of ringing bells. In an interview in 24 Preludes for a Fugue, Arvo Pärt explains the philosophy behind his piece Für Alina. The introduction is comprised of two simple triads, each neutral, but which together create something more complicated “like two people whose paths seem to cross and then they don’t.”

He says: “I had a need to concentrate on each sound so that every blade of grass would be as important as a flower...a blade of grass has the status of a flower. To see in this tiny phrase, something more than just the black and white key...It’s not the tune that matters so much here. It’s the combination...It makes such a heart-rending union. The soul yearns to sing it endlessly.”

Can the grace and loving simplicity with which Pärt composed Für Alina be brought to my kitchen? Of course! His music shows us that simple need not imply a lack of complexity; accessible is not a synonym for lack of depth. Everything matters! Each ingredient is important; none takes precedence over any other. Every blade of grass has the status of a flower. Timing and rhythm are essential. Mood is important. What you did that day. The music you’re listening to or the TV in the background. The sounds and smells floating in through the window. For the cook is the prism that will create the rainbow on the plates set before those seated round our table.

Kitchen noises make a kind of tintinnabuli. The cook is a composer. There is tempo on the stovetop. Allegrissimo boils. Andante simmers. A percussion section on our cutting boards. Instrumentation in our choice of ingredients.

So, I wonder, what kind of cooks would different composers be?

Mozart writes best-selling cookbooks. He prepares food everyone loves and can even get kids to eat to their vegetables. (In fact, it has recently been shown that kids who eat Mozart are considerably more intelligent than those who don’t.) And he does so with class and grace. He tosses broccoli with butter and fresh lime juice. He glazes carrots and makes sweet tomato jam. Teriyaki salmon and hummus, both made with toasted sesame seeds. He occasionally puts pineapple on pizza. Everyone loves Mozart. We feel at home in his dining room. Every meal we spend at his table we ask ourselves: Who knew genius was so accessible?

John Cage is a vegan chef. His dishes are like a prepared piano, one is never sure what he’s going to get. He serves up chile con carne without the carne (the bulgur wheat gives it texture). He bakes tempeh and molds tofu into bun-sized patties. You'd swear that was chicken in his seitan stir-fries. And his table conversation is impeccable. He radiates a warmth that makes you forgive his playful ernestness. He talks of veganism and organic farming; of a return to the earth and reincarnation. Yet there is always a glint in his eye (was that a wink?) and you often wonder if he's just puttin you on. Sometimes he holds dinner parties in the bedroom, everyone gathered round the bed piled high with plates and glasses. Every person makes a toast, some with tiresome wit, most with passion and life, and the food is served, deconstructed, in the middle of the bed, serving bowls sprawled across the expanse of white sheet. It’s always make-your-own. Sometimes steamed vegetables mixed and piled and drizzled with peanut butter sauce. Or tofu tacos with plenty of toppings. Sundae bars for dessert. There is individual creation and imagination with each bite. The plates are cleared and the wine flows. We all pile into bed, peel off our clothes and make love among the crumbs. Then we go home and we feel different and excited and somehow empty. Because it is hard to love a concept, and sometimes, when you sit down to eat with him, you feel as though that is what is being served.

Miles Davis is the king of improvisation. He has worked with some of the world’s most renowned chefs and it shows. His soufflés rise expertly and his salmon is cooked to perfection. But his real art is that of creating something from what’s there, however frugal the pickings might be. Where another sees an empty pantry, Davis finds magic. He is also the king of recycling. Lunch’s leftovers may appear again at dinner or, even better, at breakfast. But it’s been changed, added to, stripped down, served with something new. He knows that leftovers are not merely re-heating. In fact, Miles never serves the same dish twice, at least not in the same way. And he never disappoints. He moves with such ease and elegance in his domain that he makes it look easy, yet those who truly understand him know that they are witnessing the impossible. With each dish he serves we exchange looks of ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ And we know that its perfection is not meant to be repeated.

Rachmaninoff’s wedding cakes are notorious for their thick layers of buttery icing, the intricacy of the candy roses that adorn them and the sugar high that follows. Though his bakery in Villa Senar is long closed, he still creates elaborate dessert trays for the wedding receptions of Europe’s decaying aristocracy. At its pinnacle his patisserie was reminiscent of Ladurée at Champs-Élysée, down to the chubby cherubs dressed as pastry chefs painted on the ceiling and the matching celadon color on the walls and facade. Everyone remembers his buttery brioche with figs and cherries and lemon-cream tarts topped with rose petals cream puffs; and the dramatically rich éclairs; the cappuccino mouse cake and Chantilly cream horns topped with chocolate lace and burnt sugar. And who can forget the puffs – cream puffs, vanilla puffs, chocolate puffs, cappuccino puffs; the mille-feuilles’ puff pastry with sweet cream and jam, glazed with royal icing or fondant. And, of course, the assortment of petit fours glacés, each adorned with Rococo sugar embellishments. Oh, how we loved the hot chocolate. Yet, something about the pastries always left us hungry for less pomp and more substance.

Pärt will the lead the revolution of simple foods. And I will be there with him. Together we will spread the word. The word being simple, that minimalism is bigger than you think. That fresh, simple ingredients lovingly prepared create a masterpiece of flavor that will leave no one indifferent. We will borrow from Mozart and sway to Miles. People will flock to their farmer’s markets. They will throw out their microwaves. They will invest in a good bottle of olive oil and a quality frying pan and need little else to satiate themselves and their loved ones. They will discover that love is easier to make than Ferran Adriá would have us think.

What kind of composer are you?

How to Have Your Friends Over For Dinner

You'll have to get used to giving everything away: your food, your wine, your time, and your love. Your friends will come over. They'll mill around. They'll bring wine, maybe. They'll stand there waiting. They'll feel anxious. You'll feel anxious. Put out some strawberry avocado salsa.

Give your friends small tasks to perform.

Say to your friends: Fold this napkin exactly like this; pinch this string bean exactly like this; good, now pinch every string bean exactly like that.

Don't be so anal-retentive.

Never, for example, use the word "exactly".

Your friends will get nervous. String beans are a casual affair, after all, and so is your little get-together. On the other hand, positively do not let your friend fuck up your string beans. Choose the right friend for this task. The best is your Mom. If she's not around, try Henry.

Let your other friends perform small tasks. Sure, Cogan's terrible at string beans, but he's a master conversationalist. He's an epic wine-drinker too. Put him on the couch. Set a bottle of wine and two glasses in front of him. He'll fill the first glass. Soon Someone Else will come along. Surely Someone Else will sit down and fill the second glass. The two will get along marvelously, Cogan and this Someone Else. Someday, maybe, they'll get married, and have a beautiful baby girl. They'll always remember that one time, your little get-together, when they met on the couch, over a bottle of wine. To thank you for this memory they'll name the baby girl after you.

They'll say: I'd like you to meet our new baby girl, Seth.

By the way, if you expect this sort of honor, you're going at it all wrong. This night is not about you and your weird, fanatical obsession with having your friends name their babies after you. This night is about your friends. So when you sit down to eat, and everyone's still a little anxious, and that initial great, quiet hum of people eating joyfully is finally interrupted by Jackson, who, it just so happens, loves the string beans, you'll know exactly what to say.

Oh, you'll say, Henry made the string beans.

And everyone will applaud.

But what if the string beans, actually, suck?

Oh, you'll say, My bad.

Next time, you'll do better.

And then give Henry a wink. Make it so the wink says: Good job, man. They'll never know we actually wanted the string beans to suck.

But what if you really didn't want the string beans to suck? What if you really fucked them up, just like you fucked up the chicken that one time, and everyone moaned and complained: This chicken is raw.

Remember: Wine helps.

Say: Fuck, this food sucks! But life is short. Let's toast life!

Order take-out. Promise you'll do better next time. Luckily, happily, there will always be a next time. You'll discover that it's the only way to stay afloat. You must have your friends over. You must continue to give everything. You'll discover that, weirdly, the more you give the more you receive. Sure, you spent three laborious hours in the kitchen, but notice how the next day you wake at 10:00 am only to discover it's 7:00 am. The day spreads out before you like an enormous canvas! Paint it blue, with your hang-over.

Also, random checks will appear in your mailbox. The government will send you an official letter.

Sorry, we forgot, the letter will say, but we owe you $10,000.

If you expect this, though, you're going at it all wrong. This night is not about giving and receiving. It's about your friends. And besides, that massive account-book of give and take between you and your friends will always remain balanced, because Karen was there for you when you almost died, and because Brad tried to fight that entire house of people because they called you that bad name, and because Pyle made you laugh so hard you remembered that you actually did like being alive, and because Charlie offered to help you pick up that log in the middle of that terrible rainstorm, and because Henry always pinches the string-beans just right, and because JJ loves you so much you always feel adored, and because Cogan is some sort of mythical idea of a perfect friend, except for his girlfriends, and because Princey, although he doesn't come over much anymore, would jump off a roof to save your life.

So, really, what's a chicken?

And anyway, soon enough you'll become a Magician at this sort of thing. Your friends will continue to come over and mill around anxiously. But notice how the strawberry avocado salsa calms them. Then, notice, how, at the table, magically, the anxious feeling dissolves. Suddenly, everyone is cozy, the wine bottles are overflowing with air, and the conversation has become one long riff on possibility--the possible excursions you'll share, the possible trips you might take together, the long days at the beach, the possibility of summer cookouts, and the strong, vibrantly drunk possibility that everything will be getting better and better from this moment onward.

Possibility

And it will get better, actually. This meal will heal you, a little. It will bring you closer to the people you love the most in the world, and since those people actually live in your heart, your heart will grow, a little.

Soon, things will start to change for you.

Cleaning-up, you'll realize, is incredibly fun.

You'll put your I-Pod on shuffle. You'll enlist one of the drunker friends to help. You'll get down on your hands and knees and scrub the floor. And while you're down there, you'll thank life for this opportunity you didn't squander, the time you could have spent alone, wallowing in what you've been able to hold onto, but instead you spent with your friends, the time you let everything go: your food, your wine, your time, and your love. And what is all that stuff even good for, if it can't be given away?

Strawberry Avocado Salsa

I've already published this recipe on-line, elsewhere. That recipe is good, but I'm changing it a bit, below, in an attempt to "reclaim" the recipe for FoodVibe. Consider this recipe below the definitive Strawberry Avocado Salsa recipe, straight from the source. This recipe is about gentle, exquisite preparation. I suggest taking your time, following the recipe precisely...

1 pound strawberries (local, of course, is best)
1 jalapeño pepper, minced
1/4 cup scallion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
1 lime, quartered
1/4 teaspoon sugar, optional
sea salt
2 firm-ripe avocados

Remove the green stems from the strawberries. Gently chop the strawberries, using clean, swift knife strokes so that each chopped piece is only touched briefly by the knife. (If you do not have the patience to cleanly chop the strawberries please do not make the recipe.)

In small bowl, gently, very gently, toss the strawberries with the jalapeño, scallion, and cilantro. Squeeze a quarter of lime onto the strawberry salsa and season with sugar, if desired, and sea salt.

Half the avocados, remove the pit and the skin. Finely, and very smoothly and carefully, dice the avocados and place into a small bowl. Squeeze two quarters lime juice onto the avocado and gently toss.

Pour strawberry salsa in the bowl with the avocados. Gently toss. Season with additional salt and lime juice, if desired. Serve...

Breakfast and the Power of Beginnings

A new moon appeared this week. The Jewish calendar calls this day Rosh Chodesh, "the beginning of the month." My thoughts turn female.

The moon's mystic qualities are overtly feminine. Cyclical and gestational, the moon waxes and wanes to be reborn each month. In most times and cultures, women have been associated with the moon through ceremony and ritual. In Judaism, Rosh Chodesh is recognized as a women’s holiday dating back to late antiquity.

The new moon also holds the secret of beginnings—how beginnings contain (yet purposely conceal) the entirety of what lies ahead. Beginnings are microcosms: the seed to a tree, the ember to a fire. In a microcosm, we see the meaning of essence, that the nature of the whole is contained in its parts, infinitesimal in size. Like love.

The Jewish calendar is lunar, assigning unique spiritual qualities to the different moons of the year. Each Rosh Chodesh is a microcosm containing the essence of the month to come. The days emerge from it as a child from a womb. For this reason some are careful about the day, knowing it is a tenuous time, fraught with potentiality. The things we begin on Rosh Chodesh can grow into fixed patterns affecting our lives and psyches for the duration of the moon cycle. Like the moon, they grow in strength and potency until they peak. As the moon wanes, they slowly fade until they are gone. With the next new moon comes renewal—a clean slate and the chance to start again.

The moon, women, and beginnings share a commonality to most men: their ways are concealed, inscrutable, shrouded in secrecy.


On the subject of women and beginnings, my thoughts turn to morning, to breakfast—another beginning, another microcosm. Breakfast can be seen as the womb from which our day emerges. Our thoughts at the time, along with the food we eat and the energy it provides, establish the rhythm and pattern of the day to come.

It is important to start the day off right. It is important to have a good breakfast.

Merri and I eat the same breakfast every day: boiled whole oats with diced Granny Smith apple and cinnamon. Coffee. Later, a handful of almonds on the way out the door. These things are the raw materials of my day.

I wake each day to the voice of children. Akiva, the baby, stirs in his crib. Six-year old Zev tugs my foot.

“I’m hungry,” he says.

My mind snaps alert. A thought rises, fades. A significant part of the day’s pattern is immediately established—I will be surrounded by children in need. I teach in two schools each day.

I fix Zev’s breakfast: 2 scrambled eggs (sometimes waffles). A bowl of fruit, usually frozen grapes. A glass of almond milk. Vitamins: a chewable multi, a probiotic, three capsules of fish oil.

Zev sits to eat. I begin preparing my own breakfast. In doing this, another quality of my day is brought into being. As a parent and teacher, each day depends on how delicately I balance the act of placing others’ needs before my own.

Oats simmer over a medium flame on the stove. Bending over a dish, I slice through the apples. Purposeful, deliberate and slow, my knife is a morning prayer. It seeks to penetrate. Soon the apple collapses into a hundred tiny green cubes. When the oats are done cooking, I turn off the flame, stir in the apple and cinnamon.

The pot sits on the stove, delphic steam still rising from within. Looking inside, I hope to see something I can read, some insight into the day ahead amongst the oats and apples. I imagine seeing slight shadows inside the pot coalesce and shift together into imagery I should recognize. The random scattering of apples is not random at all. I know somewhere inside the pot is the pattern to my life, the secret to my days. I see nothing. The heavy padding of feet comes down the hall. Four-year old Sivan enters the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

"Abba, I have to pee," she says.

Oat reverts to oat, apple subsides to apple. The pot sits on the stove, the air fragrant with the scent of cinnamon.

"Good morning," I say.

Merri arrives in the kitchen carrying the baby and places him in the high chair. Sivan is finished with her breakfast of yogurt mixed dry cereal and now plays in the living room. The baby sits quiet, content. This moment is ours. She gets the bowls. I get the mugs. We eat. She takes oatmeal, coffee with a bit of milk and agave nectar. I take plain oatmeal, black coffee. Our conversation sifts through the lingering emotions and detritus of yesterday. Together, we move forward.

In this way the last and most important pattern is brought into being. My wife and I meet for our meals together during stolen moments at the poles of the day, always by early morning or late at night. Except weekends, rarely do we meet in between. Our breakfast is like the early morning moon, still visible in the pre-dawn sky. She disappears during the day. We reconvene at night.

A Perfect Pot of Porridge

This recipe takes cues from both Cook's Illustrated, who suggest using longer-cooking steel-cut oats and Peter Berley, who suggests soaking the oats overnight in a souring agent, such as yogurt, to promote lactic-acid formation. This ultimately makes the oats easier to digest. The final dish is delicious and creamy with a slight tang: perfect. Steel cut oats take longer to cook than rolled oats, but much of the cooking time requires minimal attention.

1 cup steel cut oats
3 1/2 cups spring water
1/4 cup plain full-fat yogurt
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh sliced apples, yogurt, or nuts for topping

In heavy saucepan, combine the oats, water, and yogurt. Cover the pan and soak overnight, 8 to 10 hours. This is called FoodVibing the oats.

In the morning, put the saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a lively simmer. Simmer gently for 20 minutes. Add the salt and stir lightly with a wooden spoon. Continue simmering, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until oats have absorbed most of the water and the porrdige is thick and creamy, 5-7 minutes.

Let the oatmeal stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Serve topped with fresh apple slices, yogurt, or crushed nuts.

More on Coconut Milk and Sex

I condition my hair with extra virgin coconut oil. At the end of summer, I buy coconut Surf Wax and smell it all winter. I eat coconut milk in one form or another with almost every lunch and dinner. It's in my lunchtime butternut squash soup (recipe pending). It's in my dinnertime mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes. Lately, me and my wife eat the exact same vegetable side-dish every single night: Coconut Braised Greens. In this way we go through five or six cans of coconut milk every week.

That's a lot of fat.

For years coconut has been derided as unhealthy because of its high saturated fat content. My coconut milk has 10 grams of saturated fat per serving; that's 50% of the daily fat intake. I probably eat 20 grams of fat from coconut milk every day. Anyway. The coconut: unhealthy theory is bunk. Current research shows the fatty acids in coconut, the medium chain triglycerides, do not raise serum cholesterol or contribute to heart disease. Also, coconut is easily digested; it's not deposited as fat in arteries because it is easily metabolized. If you're skeptical or thinking of becoming a fanatic yourself, I suggest reading this thoroughly documented, well-presented article from Dr. Mercola's site. I offer this instead of boring links to studies.

Lately, as the winter enters its most hateful phase (football is over; baseball is yet to begin) I'm relying on visions of summer. The smell of coconut conjures lotion; skimpy bathing suits; an outdoor shower at a crowded beach house: the perfect little spot to steal away for a quickie.

No doubt, coconut is sexy.

Lately, on Saturday evenings, me and my wife make coconut-infused dishes.

Then, sometime after eating, we flop on the couch. We do not watch television. We do not fall asleep. Our place becomes crowded with all the things we do not do. The dishes in the sink. The laundry on the floor. The cellphones, unanswered. We just stay on the couch and pretend it's summer: We're staying in a crowded beach house; the couch is our outdoor shower.


Chicken and Mushrooms in a Lemon Coconut Broth

I've spent all week developing this recipe at home and at work. Then I made it last night for my brother's 40 birthday party. It's freakin' delicious. Serve it over a Perfect Pot of Rice.

6 tablespoons kosher salt
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, tenderloins removed, fat trimmed
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
16 ounces assorted fresh mushrooms--cremini, shitake, or white button--sliced thin
1 15 ounce can full fat coconut milk
1 teaspoon juice and zest from one fresh lemon
1 garlic clove minced
2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

Dissolve the salt with four cups water in a gallon-size zipper lock bag. Add the chicken breasts and seal the bag, pressing out the extra air. Brine in the refrigerator for one hour.

Remove the chicken breasts from the brine and pat dry with a paper towel. Season with fresh ground pepper.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm one tablespoon olive oil. Add chicken to skillet and sauté until almost cooked through, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer chicken to a cutting board. When cool, slice into thin strips.

Add remaining two tablespoons olive oil to skillet. Add mushrooms and saute. Season lightly with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Saute, stirring frequently, until mushrooms have released and absorbed excess moisture, about 8 minutes. Add coconut milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, and reserved chicken. Simmer until chicken is cooked through. Stir in parsley. Season to taste with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Serve hot.

The Joy of Dishwashing

Lately, I've been re-reading one of my bibles: Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. This is the fourth or fifth time I've read the book and just like the other times I'm getting myself all up in a tizzy. Suddenly, I'm feeling incredibly nostalgic for my days in the restaurant business.

Just the other day I said to my wife: I want to go back, work in a restaurant.

She then reminded me that I am currently enrolled full-time in graduate school, already have a full-time gig, and that I hardly have time to take a daily shower let alone re-commence my old, doomed career path.

I suppose she's right, but still. I go to bed, dream of fine-dicing carrots. I wake up, immediately think of demi-glace. In the kitchen, at home, I'm getting impatient and joyfully hostile. It's the sort of loving kitchen attitude I cultivated in the restaurants but it doesn't really fly at home, with my wife.

Recently, family came over for dinner. She was in a good mood, laboring over her spectacular risotto and a few composed salads. I was all hopped up on Bourdain and red wine so I walked in the kitchen, looked at her slightly overdressed salads, and said: Mmm, seaweed. She nearly broke down in tears.

Bourdain writes:

"If you are easily offended by direct aspersions to your lineage, the circumstances of your birth, your sexuality, your appearance, the mention of your parents possible commingling with livestock, then...professional cooking is not for you."

My wife is a beautiful home-cook and she makes no pretense to wanting to be a professional cook. I'm just an asshole.

The weirdest recent behavior, though, is my recent craving for dishwashing. I started in the restaurant business, like a lot of people, washing dishes. I was fourteen and I didn't break out until I was nearly eighteen. By then, I had learned to hate dishwashing with an all-abiding passion.

I distinctly recall my final night washing dishes. I walked up to my boss, told him I was finished. He said: Did you hose down the carts? I did not. So I went back and hosed the carts. Midway through, my boss walked up and surveyed my work. I gave him a little squirt. He was shocked. So I said: "You come back here, you're going to get wet."

Then I pointed the hose directly at him and pulled the trigger.

For five tumultuous, roaring seconds, I was King of the World.

I had never felt so liberated. It was the most glorious way to quit a job. And don't think that bastard didn't having it coming. He treated us dishwashers like degenerates (which we were, but still.) Among other things, he refused to give us gloves to handle the piping-hot plates, he paid us next-to-nothing, and he made me stay an hour late on my eighteenth birthday because he was unsatisfied with my mopping work. (I did a stellar job; he was just a mean bastard.)

It was always a sore spot for me that Steve worked at the same place as a waiter. The ethic, promoted by the boss, was that us dishwashers were sub-human and were to be treated as such by the staff. Steve candidly obliged.

So I suppose it's odd that after we finished our recent meal, I joyfully skipped into our kitchen and washed all the plates, all the pots and pans, cleaned the counters, and mopped the floor. I then made a stock for another risotto (my wife was going for a double-shot), melted chocolate for chocolate-fudge brownie sundaes, and brined two chickens, thereby necessitating a whole new round of dishes. Whatever. I didn't care at all. I was in love--with dishwashing!

I love people who don't mind washing dishes. I always think about a great anecdote from Bill Buford's New Yorker article "The Secret of Excess" about Mario Batali:

"One of my last recollections is of Batali around three in the morning—back arched, eyes closed, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his red Converse high-tops pounding the floor—playing air guitar to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Batali had recently turned forty, and I remember thinking that it was a long time since I’d seen a grown man playing air guitar. He then found the soundtrack for “Buena Vista Social Club,” tried to salsa with one of the guests (who promptly fell over a sofa), tried to dance with her boyfriend (who was unresponsive), and then put on a Tom Waits CD and sang along as he went into the kitchen, where, with a machine-like speed, he washed the dishes and mopped the floor."

That last simple, elegant sentence pretty much sums it up for me. Nobody really wants to do dishes. Dishwashing is real work. So you just put on a CD and, like a machine, do it. Today, years away from my early dishwashing travails, I love the sense of accomplishment I feel after washing a night's worth of dishes. I love going into the kitchen, sweating about two pounds off, and dropping to my hands and knees to scrub the floor. That's real work, something to be proud of. Perhaps that's why I hated it so much when I did it as a young man for money. I love dishwashing so much that I was corrupted by the cash. The promise of riches took all the joy out of it. Still, if (big if) I do go back to the restaurants, don't think for a second that I think I'm too good to wash dishes. To find no task to low or demeaning--that's the attitude I like.

Roasted Acorn Squash with Squash Risotto

I always get depressed in January because squash season is almost over. So I grasp at the last of season and try to make something immaculate. I originally published this recipe here.

4 acorn squash
3 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt to taste
6 cups water or gluten-free vegetable broth
1 cup finely chopped leeks
2 1/2 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash
2 cups uncooked Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped sage, divided
2/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
Method

Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut each acorn squash lengthwise in half (from tip to stem) then scoop out and discard any seeds and stringy flesh. Brush insides of acorn squash with 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oil and season with salt. Place acorn squash, cut side down, in a baking pan and roast until tender but still firm, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, start the risotto by bringing the broth just to a simmer in a small pot over medium high heat. Heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy 3-quart pot over medium heat. Add leeks and cook, stirring often, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add butternut squash and cook for 3 minutes. Add rice and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes, or until grains are fragrant. Add wine and stir constantly until almost completely absorbed, about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the hot broth to rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is almost completely absorbed. Continue adding broth, 1/2 cup at a time, making sure that most of the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Continue until rice is almost tender, but still firm to the bite, about 20 to 25 minutes total. Stir in 1 tablespoon of the sage and season with salt.

Meanwhile, put pine nuts into a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Stir in thyme, remaining 1/2 teaspoon sage and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

When acorn squash is cooked, remove from oven. Reduce heat to 300°F. Carefully turn squash over and fill each cavity with about 1/2 cup of the risotto. Gently press about 2 tablespoons of the pine nut mixture on top of the risotto in each squash half. Return squash to oven and bake until topping begins to brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to plates and serve.

Pasta: a love story

We moved to Barcelona in December, 2001, in the wake of 9/11. We were leaving Argentina in the midst of the economic, and eventually political, crash. It was a tumultuous time. South, people were losing their homes, their livelihoods. North, they were planning a war. Here in Barcelona, Andrés and I spent those first months wandering the streets alone. We had nowhere to go, no here to call home.

We decided to get married. When you’re far from home and sharing your life with just one other person, you do crazy things. You form a family. A family of two. And you create your own home. You stuff your home with things you love: noises, smells, words, texture--things that remind you where you come from, where you are, where you’ve never been.

Sunday in Buenos Aires means one of two things: asado or pasta. Pasta used to mean homemade; for some houses it still does. For others, however, it means the pasta factories. Each neighborhood has its own. Every Sunday, neighbors queue down the block and around the corner, looking to buy tallarines, spaghetti, tagliatelli and linguini by the kilo, ravioli and sorrentini by the dozen. The barrios bustle. Neighbors hurry home with tallarines carefully wrapped in paper, raviolis lining boxes like petite-fours, to tuco simmering on the stove.

Sunday in Barcelona means five-on-five football matches and the cañas that follow. It means the book fair at the Sant Antoni market. It can also mean a coffee at Caelum. It rarely means church and it never means pasta. Spain means rice, paella. Spain knows nothing about pasta.

Sunday is a day of ritual. In many European countries, shops and shopping centers close on Sundays. People infuse their Sundays with meaning--we spent our first few years here looking for one.

Last Christmas, I finally gave Andrés a new Sunday: A pasta maker.

Now, each Sunday, he engages in the same ritual his grandmother used to, kneading love into eggs and flour, transforming the resultant sticky mass into food. And so, as it does for millions of other porteños so many miles away, Sunday in Barcelona now means fresh pasta. It means spaghetti and homemade meatballs. It means linguini and cream sauce. It means penne and sun-dried tomatoes. And lots of fresh basil. For two.

Sunday Pumpkin-Ricotta Ravioli (for a Family of Two)

Pasta
300 grams fine flour (about 1 1/3 cups, or 10 ounces; Andrés uses 00, though 000 is better)
2 eggs
Fresh Spring Water

Filling
500 grams roasted pumpkin or butternut squash (about 2 cups)
1 tablespoon tightly packed brown brown sugar
250 grams ricotta cheese (about 1 cup)
1 tablespoon fresh sage

1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (for drizzling)

For the pasta:

Measure the flour out on your kitchen scale. Then transfer to a clean surface.

Make a small crater in the pile of flour with your first. Crack the eggs into the crater and beat them with a fork. Once the egg is beaten, use the fork the mix it into the flour, gently bringing flour in from the sides. It will soon have a consistency similar to that of cornmeal.

Once all the flour has been mixed with the egg, it is time to knead. You may need to add water to make this process easier. To add the water, merely dip your hands into a small bowl of water and knead. Repeat this as often as necessary to create a workable blob. Knead.

Wrap the dough in a damp kitchen towel and let sit for a short while. Meanwhile, set up your paste maker and prepare the filling.

For the filling:

In a small bowl, mash the roasted pumpkin with fork. Add the brown sugar and mix well. Now add the ricotta and mix well again. Add sage and turmeric, and salt and pepper to taste.

Divide the dough into smaller bowls. Roll each one out with a rolling pin and send it through the pasta maker till you have the desired thickness. (Andrés says his grandmother did this by hand--she had no pasta maker. She would roll the dough out and then cut it to the desired width with a knife. It's a bit easier with the machine.)

Once you've got the dough where you want it, add the attachment to the machine. In this case, we added the ravioli one.

Spread the filling on two sheets of pasta dough. Crank it through the pasta maker.

Boil 4 quarts water in a large pot. Throw in some salt and a laurel leaf for good measure. Add the pasta and let it cook till it rises to the surface. This should take less than three minutes. Drain.

Add freshly grated parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.

The Queen Bully of Garlic

In an old FoodVibe post Steve asked: Is it worth trying to juice garlic?

I'll answer this question, unequivocally: NO.

I juiced garlic, once. At the time I was twenty-two, bursting with bravado, and inspired by the heady writing of one of my early heroes, the juicing extraordinaire, Dr. Norman Walker. (Warning: Do not follow that link lightly...) In his famous Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices this is what Dr. Walker has to say about garlic juice:

"Metaphorically speaking, garlic itself is bad enough but garlic juice by itself may cause devastating social ostracism for the one who drinks it. It is very beneficial, if one has the mental fortitude to overcome social handicaps, and the intestinal fortitude to endure the general discomfort which accompanies the more or less rapid house cleaning of one's system."

Around this time I smuggled fresh garlic into restaurants. I cut the cloves raw onto my food. (Suzanne will attest to this fact.)

I had the mental fortitude. Unfortunately, I did not have the intestinal fortitude. One cup of garlic juice and I was walloped. I drank the garlic juice, mercifully mixed with carrots, on a Friday morning in July. I was due to go to the beach for the weekend. I never made it. I spent the weekend in bed, immersed in one of the most intense and ridiculous detox experiences of my life. I smelled like garlic until September.

Garlic is intense. At the very least, it inspires intense emotion. I for one love it. Before I became humbled by life and love, I used it in my own cooking like a battle axe. Don't like garlic? Too bad, here's my Risotto with 40 Cloves of Garlic.

Suzanne and I once made Risotto with 40 Cloves of garlic. It was a balmy summer night. We shared the risotto and three magnums of red wine with my brother. Then we went bowling. That sweaty night, as the garlic and wine seeped from our pores, as our friends moaned and complained about the obnoxious smell, we winked at each other and laughed conspiratorially.

No amount of social ostracism could overcome the deep and loving pact we forged over massive amounts of red wine and garlic.

I'm a Garlic Bully. I throw my garlic love in people's faces. Rarely have I met my match. I suppose though when you're a bully you always get your comeuppance.

Once, in Barcelona, I met The Queen Bully of Garlic.

When I lived in Barcelona I made a habit of visiting the fruit and vegetable markets every day. Most days I was so enthralled by the shapes, colors, and smells of the fruits and vegetables that I literally wasted up to an hour, simply browsing the aisles. On one of these occasions I was awakened from my spell by a short fat women whose cheeks were plump and red, and who offered me a clove of garlic speared on the end of a small pocket knife.

“Queries?” she asked.

Then, as if preparing for a sudden burst of song, she proclaimed in rapid fire Spanish that her garlic was the most powerful in Barcelona. As she spoke she waddled back and forth with sincere pride, inhaling deeply, throwing her hands in the air as if to prove that the garlic was responsible for her robust posture. Seeing my doubt, she implored me to bite into the clove and taste for myself.

I accepted the challenge with my bravado, throwing the entire clove into my mouth. I chewed the garlic as if it were an apple, but before my second bite I realized that I was experiencing the real deal: the garlic to end all garlic, a perfect, peppery slice of the beautiful, ugly, power of The Stinking Rose.

I continued chewing with a twisted face, as if it were a matter of pride, like taking a shot of whiskey. The taste, however, was too strong. I spit the clove onto the sidewalk in defeat. The small crowd that had gathered burst into laughter. The fat women smiled. She was chewing on one of the cloves for pleasure.

For the rest of that day and onto the next, wherever I went the smell of garlic followed. Garlic seeped out of my pores like a renegade sweat, like a battle scar.

Moroccan Charmoula Tempeh

This is a close adaptation of the great Peter Berley's recipe from the outstanding book The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen--my all-time favorite vegetarian cookbook. Four garlic cloves make this dish garlicky; six make you a "garlic bully." Serve with rice.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup water (yes water)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons fresh ground cumin (Please tell me you grind your own spices?)
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground chile powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
4-6 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
1 pound tempeh, cut into one inch squares

In a blender or food processor or blender, mix together olive oil, water, lemon juice, spices, salt, garlic, and cilantro.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Arrange tempeh squares in a single layer in a baking dish. Pour on marinade and cover securely with foil. Bake for 45 minutes, until tempeh has absorbed the marinade. Uncover and bake for a few more minutes to brown.

Serves 4

My son Zev eats cucumbers at night

It's been over a half hour now. You still sit with furrowed brow and tight, pursed lips. Elbows on the table, your chin rests in your hands.

I watch you across the room from the couch as I read the fiction piece in the December issue of Harper's. It arrived weeks ago. I haven't had time to read it yet. I put it down, walk to the table. I should know better than to try reading during dinner time.

"Let's go big boy," I say.

"No."

I knew you would say this, yet I have few options in my arsenal. I am resourceless, but not defeated. We stare at each other. We often reach this impasse.

I come home late everyday from my second teaching job. I only have an hour or so with you and Akiva and Sivan before you go to bed. I don't want our time to be spent like this.

First were the fishies with a bit of ketchup, a side of frozen grapes. You did a great job, devouring the fishies in minutes. I expected that. They're your favorite. Then came the finely chopped cucumbers, mixed with vanilla probiotic yogurt. This is the only way you'll eat cucumbers, which the doctor says you must.

Stalling for time, you play with your hands, pretending they are wild animals fighting each other. You frequently play like this. I did the same thing when I was your age. I feel a strange sensation. Not sure what it is, I push it down. Maybe to examine later.

Now is not the time for such things. I'm all business. You must eat your vegetables.

The cucumbers turn the yogurt into a watery mess. I don't blame you if you don't want to eat them. I fix it: Pour out the watery yogurt, replace it with a newer, fresher batch. It returns to its original consistency.

Placing the bowl back in front of you, I scruff your hair affectionately.

"Mmph," you say gruffly and move you head away from my hand.

The doctor says you have to eat vegetables--they will help your condition. Sometimes you don't poop for days. You choose to hold it in--an incomprehensible act of childhood power and defiance. Once when you were three, it went on for two weeks. I used to find you hiding under the dining room table, your face a twisted mask of discomfort as your tiny stomach muscles worked to close your bowels like an iron clamp.

"Why, Zev?" we would ask. Then we would beg, "Let's just go the bathroom, please!"

The doctor said your bowels must be swollen with constipation, that it must painful, that perhaps you can no longer feel the proper time to go. Then came the accidents. Sudden and unexpected, they were a seeming validation of the prognosis. The doctor said avoid dairy, wheat, anything that binds; he said we have to give you daily doses of fresh vegetables with copious amount of olive oil. This would somehow produce the desired effect--that your colon would shrink and allow you to feel the proper sensation again, that you would poop again, regularly and normally.

I try to explain this to you.

You dismiss it all.

"Zev," I say, "You're being unreasonable!"

I know how ridiculous this sounds. You are five years old, far beyond reason.

You still sit there. I get desperate. I begin to think of bargains, the requisite if/then deals. How can I snatch compromise out of the jaws of defeat?

Sometimes the defiance is legendary, as it is tonight.

But so far the cucumber yogurt treatment has yielded small successes. No accidents for a long time. No more holding it in. Good reports from your school in Manhattan.

At home, you will often be on the floor playing when suddenly you'll look up with a crazed look in your eye: "Poopy!" you yell, and run to the bathroom.

"Yay, Zev!" we all yell in unison.

Don't let the smile fool you. He hates red onions and tomatoes too

Now it is later. All the cucumbers have been eaten. Previous angers and tempers drain away like warm bath water from the tub. After drying off and getting into your pajamas, you ask me to lay in bed with you as you fall asleep--a small, conciliatory act of remorse from the five-year old mind, a desire to clear the slate.

I say, "Yes, of course." I am glad you asked. It doesn't always happen.

You are asleep within five minutes. Turning over, I look at the soft rise and fall of your chest. Tomorrow brings another day of school for you, with its social maze. Later, high school, girls, politics. I suppress a shudder, lay my arm across your waist. The fuzzy feel of your winter pajamas, the slight smell of stale urine, rekindles distant memories of my own childhood bed.

What did my father think as he watched me sleep? Was he as lost, as spinning as I am tonight?

In the haze of consciousness between waking and sleep, I have an image of us walking together, hand in hand through an enormous field of cucumbers that stretches for miles in all directions.

Flanking the field on all sides rise buildings of dizzying heights. Still beyond them, mountains, then deep blue sky. Still further beyond, space. Coming from everywhere, the sound of people talking, laughing, rushing. Somewhere overhead, airplanes zigzag the sky. As we walk, I ask you to stop, wait a moment.

Bending down, I pluck a ripe green cucumber from the ground. Kneeling to meet your height, you look into my face as I hand it to you.

"Here, take this," I say. "They taste good."

Spinach, Goat & Cottage Cheese Tart in a Potato Crust

With the green color of spinach and the tangy taste of goat cheese, this recipe is sure to be one that adults love but kids hate. Seth originally published the recipe here.

6-8 medium Yukon Gold potatoes
2-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
1 bunch spinach, stems removed, and sliced into thin strips, washed and not dried
8 oz. fresh goat cheese, crumbled
1 cup cottage cheese
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ cup basil, chopped
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Peel the potatoes and slice into 1/8 inch rounds. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add a layer of potatoes to the pan and cook, turning once, 3-4 minutes per side, until golden and easily pierced with a knife. Set aside on plate lined with a paper towel. Repeat with remaining potatoes.

When potatoes are done, add 1 tablespoon olive oil to the pan. Add garlic and cook until light gold, about 1 minute. Add the spinach (with water clinging to its leaves) and cook until bright green and tender, 2-3 minutes. Transfer the spinach to a bowl and gently add fresh goat cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice, and basil. Stir gently. Season to taste with sea salt and ground pepper.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To assemble the tart, lightly butter a 9-inch springform pan. Line the pan with potatoes, covering the bottom and sides, covering any empty spaces. Pour in the spinach-goat cheese mixture. Bake until firm and golden, about 50 minutes.

Release the spring from the pan and gently left the side. Set the tart on a plate, slice, and serve.

6-8 servings

Fat Should Inspire Sex

I recently calculated my daily fat intake. Since I eat essentially the same foods every day, my calculations are probably pretty accurate.

For breakfast, I typically consume 3 tablespoons raw extra virgin olive oil. That's 42 grams of fat, 360 calories--66% of the daily suggested intake.

Lunch, I consume 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (baked, in tempeh). That's 28 grams of fat, 240 calories.

By dinner, I've exceeded my daily fat intake, simply by consuming olive oil.

Is this healthy?

One prominent study suggests two tablespoons daily is a healthful dose. But I cannot find any studies on excessive olive oil consumption. I can say, though, that as a type-1 diabetic, I'm prone to an increased risk of high blood pressure, as well as heart and cholesterol problems. And yet, I'm healthy. I get blood tests several times a year. I check my own blood pressure monthly. My levels are healthy, normal.

Also, at 5' 11", 150 pounds, I'm slightly underweight.

Keeping this in mind, consider my dinner: I typically consume two tablespoons raw extra virgin olive oil, about 27 grams fat from chicken, and about 1/4 cup coconut milk. After dinner, I eat a little chocolate, about 6 grams of fat worth.

In one day, I consume:

7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil: 98 grams fat ; 840 calories.
2 chicken legs: 27 grams fat; 464 calories
1/4 coconut milk: 12 grams fat; 120 calories
Chocolate: 6 grams fat; 80 calories

That's 143 grams of fat--more than double the daily recommended value.

Again, can this be healthy?

I'd say, possibly. I rarely eat dairy fat (I eat raw butter and goat cheese occasionally.) I never, ever eat trans-fats. My animal fat intake is not excessive. (I take fish oil capsules every day, but the capsules do not increase my fat intake.)

Still, 143 grams.

I don't care. I love fat, with wild abandon.

Without fat, cuisine is unimaginable. Fat provides immense flavor and an impossible to match smoothness. Fat tenderizes food. Fat allows for high-heat cooking--the domain of crispiness and robust flavor. To me, low-fat cuisine is lifeless, boring, just plain stupid. Thousands of studies have proven the health benefits of fats--fish oils, extra virgin, olive oil, even saturated fats such as extra virgin coconut oil. People who eat low fat diets in pursuit of health or weight-loss are simply moronic. To me, low-fat dieters seem as boring and lifeless as their boring, lifeless diets.

No doubt, some chefs might say the same thing about me. I typically eschew the classics of gourmet cooking, cream and butter, in my own manic pursuit of "health." (I do use some animal fat, such as bacon, on special occasions, and when absolutely called for.)

Well, I challenge any chef to make my mashed potatoes. They're delicious; they're also healthy.

I think cuisine should provide taste and nourishment and vitality. Any chef can whip up a great-tasting mashed potato, with cream and butter. But how do creamy, buttery mashed potatoes make you feel after you eat?

I want my diners to feel satisfied, but I also want them to walk away from the table feeling light and sprite. I don't want my diners to moan, to lay around, devastated by my food. I want my diners to dance in celebration. I want my diners to kiss without fear of burbing unhealthy burbs. I want my diners to feel like making wild, winey-love. I want my diners to feel sexy, before and after eating.

Towards this end, I use the sexy fat: coconut milk.

Coconut milk (unlike coconut oil) does not dramatically alter the taste of a dish, if used in correct quantities. (My mashed potatoes do not taste at all like coconut.) And yet, coconut adds the silky luxuriousness that's missing from many dairy-free recipes. I use coconut milk in many recipes where cream might be called for, and usually the result is terrific.

Try mashed sweet potatoes. Try chocolate truffles.

Recently, I've been making variations on what I call "Healthy Creamed Spinach." It's basically greens, simmered with coconut milk. Try it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Coconut Braised Greens

I originally developed this recipe for Whole Foods Market; if you like it, you can rate it here.

1 large bunch kale or collard greens, trimmed and teared into small pieces
1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, very thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh coconut milk
1 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper

In a large dutch oven over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the onions and a pinch of salt and saute, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, 6-8 minutes.

Add the coconut milk and lemon juice to the pan. Add the greens. Gently toss. Simmer over medium-low heat, covered, until greens are just tender, 3-5 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Dear Alcohol

Dear Alcohol,

By the time you read these lines, I’ll be gone. It may shock you, but I've been thinking about leaving you for months—since that day at the beach last summer. But let's not go there. Not now.

Over the last few years, you slowly began to demand more of my time—time usually spent with friends or family. I was dependent on you, at a period in my life when I needed to be independent. I feel sad admitting I won't be able to be with you anymore. But I know I'll be a more complete person as a result. You will be angry. You will resent me. You have that right. I cannot stop that.

Alcohol, we have been through a lot together. Our romance was a whirlwind romance. When we first met in high school, you validated me in ways that no one had before. With you in those early days, I felt a sense of belonging--a belonging I had never felt.

In your murky depths, I saw a reflection of myself. You allowed me to be whomever I wanted to be. You listened. For a while, our relationship worked well for me.

But you changed. I changed.

By the end, we were all wrong for each other.

I just felt betrayed by you one too many times. The false hopes. The empty promises. I slowly came to realize that your smiles were placating and sycophantic. You turned into my enabler. Perhaps I was the real betrayer. I acknowledge this. I betrayed myself by allowing you into my life. You never forced yourself upon me. It was I who sought you out.

I don’t blame you for anything. I have no resentment. I only want to move on.

You may ask, "What about all those late nights? All the times we made love?"

My answer is that, in the end, I was just going through the motions. I faked it. I lost pleasure in our encounters a long time ago. Yes, I can admit that now. I don't feel good about it.

But I do remember the good times. I'll miss the laughter, the mirth. I'll miss our circle of friends- scotch, bourbon, beer.

And who could ever forget wine? Yes, wine with her purple eyes, her long, sleek neck.

But there is someone new in my life. Her name is Coffee. She is hot, lovely. She's also black. Does this surprise you? Coffee picks me up in ways that you never could. By the end of our time together, you could only bring me down.

Coffee and I are beginning to create more of a life together than I could ever hope to have with you.

I hope you can one day understand and come to terms with what I have done. I can only thank you for our time together, and for everything you have taught me about myself.

We'll always have college.

Please, don’t try to find me.

yours,

Steve