Nov 22

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is still my favorite holiday. While it’s difficult for some to conjure up reasons for gratitude in these times, I’m an optimist. Here is my list for this year:

  • I’m thankful to live in this country. I believe our democracy has the resilience to withstand the current chaos. It’s survived a full-scale Civil War, in which over one million people died (number courtesy of Wikipedia).
  • I’m thankful to live in a beautiful part of the world. When I can see Mount Rainier in the morning from Seattle, I know it will be a good day.
  • I’m thankful for my family, and that my mother’s able to see her great-grandchildren grow.
  • I’m thankful for 29 years with Julian. He’s a great cook and a wonderful traveling companion. His “seedy wry” sense of humor (pun from a  mutual friend) never fails to crack me up.
  • I’m thankful for my friends and coworkers, past and present, who immigrated to this country for education and opportunity. Not only have they enriched my life immeasurably, they’ve made great food for department potlucks – and given me recipes.
  • I’m thankful for my far-flung friends who are only an email away.
  • I’m thankful for my nearby friends and neighbors. We’ve gotten each other through 16 years of living and losses.
  • I’m thankful for my congregation, which has given me the moral grounding to withstand the aforementioned 16 years of living and losses.
  • I’m thankful to be healthy, bum knees notwithstanding. My maternal grandmother didn’t live to be my age.
  • I’m thankful for meaningful work that helps save lives, and the caregivers of our patients. Everyone: Family, custodians, cooks, nurses, dietitians, technicians of all types, and physicians.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/22/giving-thanks/

Nov 18

Take a Knee – PLEASE

Preferably my left one. Thursday morning I stood up and the knee locked. I eventually got it loosened up, but it locked up several more times during the day. A reverse house call to our friend Bruce resulted in a tentative diagnosis of a joint mouse, a small bit of cartilage or bone floating around in the knee and wreaking havoc.

The mouse can be removed arthroscopically – provided I can see an orthopedic surgeon. The next day I tried to get an appointment, but all three I contacted weren’t available. The closest thing I could get was an appointment with a physician’s assistant tomorrow. At least I can get the MRI scheduled. The bigger issue is that we’re leaving on vacation to Paris in less than three weeks. With Thanksgiving in the way, time is tight. The thought of sitting in an apartment in Paris while Julian’s off taking pictures is NOT my idea of a vacation.

The exam and the MRI were done today. The working diagnosis, based on the exam and x-rays, is a torn meniscus. I’m waiting to hear the results of the MRI.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/18/take-a-knee-please/

Nov 18

Hard Times for Food Porn

The consolidation of the magazine industry continues, and food publications are not immune. The personality-driven magazines (e.g., Rachael Ray, Martha Stewart) seem to be doing fine, but more general-interest publications are suffering. An acquaintance of mine lost her job at AllRecipes. Last week I was looking at my mail and noticed the headline on the latest Cooking Light: The Farewell Issue.

Next to Bon Appétit, I’ve subscribed to Cooking Light the longest, My friend Bernie turned me onto it when we were in grad school. At the time, it was a spinoff of Southern Living, the arbiter of taste below the Mason-Dixon Line. The recipes were reliable. It had an excellent stable of contributors over the  years, including Andrea Nguyen and Eleanor Krieger. (My brush with fame: Eleanor was a student in the food science lab where I was a teaching assistant.)

Several years ago, Time-Life bought Southern Living, Cooking Light, and Sunset. All three got homogenized and lost some of their respective identities. Sunset was bought by a Western-based publisher and got some of its regional mojo back. Cooking Light was sold to Meredith, which also owns Eating Well. Two magazines in the same genre wasn’t sustainable; therefore, Cooking Light was axed. My subscription will be rolled over to Eating Well.

This probably won’t be the last magazine to fold up. Adieu, Cooking Light.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/18/hard-times-for-food-porn/

Nov 18

Kitchen Chaos

Some essential item always seems to fail at Casa Sammamish just before we host a get-together. Our first year here, a shelf in the kitchen decided to fail just before the Super Bowl party. This sent a cascade of ceramic and glass flowing to the counter and floor around me. We managed to clean everything up just before our friends arrived. A year or two later, our hot water heater conked out the Thursday before the Super Bowl. The landlord and his son replaced it a day before the game so we could have hot showers and be socially correct.

This week we decided to host the crew for New Orleans cuisine. No sooner had Julian sent out the email invitations than a piece of plastic that allowed the upper shelf of the dishwasher to glide in and out broke. Not only would a new dishwasher be expensive, our kitchen is configured in a way that the range has to be moved out of the way to allow removal of the dishwasher. (The joys of a galley kitchen.) Luckily, Julian ordered the part from Maytag and fixed it himself. A $33 part (with shipping) beats $700 for a new dishwasher.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/18/kitchen-chaos/

Nov 18

Preferred Plonk

You don’t need a high-limit credit card to get good wine these days. Yeah, we saw bottles of vintage 1899 Sauternes in Paris going for five figures, but we’d rather drink wine than invest in it. We rarely spend more than $15 on a bottle. Here are a few recommendations based on our experience.

Origins. Spanish, South African, and South American wines are quite reasonable. However, you can find plenty of bargains from France. The Loire Valley and the Côtes du Rhône produce affordable whites and reds, respectively. California is the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to inexpensive wines. Washington and Oregon also have good wines at popular prices. My home state of New York has numerous wineries that produce good whites. Reds, not so much.

White wines. To be honest, I think chardonnay is boring. Sauvignon blanc and pinot gris/grigio are often too astringent for me. I’d rather drink viognier, chenin blanc, gewürztraminer, or riesling. During the summer, vinho verde is light and low-alcohol. Some of the vinho verdes have a little effervescence.

Red wines. I’ll drink almost any red provided that it’s not too tannic. Spanish garnachas and tempranillos are tasty fruit bombs. Inexpensive pinot noirs from France or the West Coast are easily found. We can occasionally get montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Italy within our price range. One of our favorite inexpensive reds is a Washington state blend, Fourteen Hands Hot to Trot Red.

Rosés and sparkling wines. We don’t drink much of either. Some inexpensive wines in these categories are drinkable. Others aren’t much better than wine coolers.

Do not be embarrassed by preferring inexpensive wines. If you like it, it works. You can spend your money on the rest of the meal.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/18/preferred-plonk/

Nov 11

Tiramisu!

“What if she wants to tiramisu?” – Tom Hanks, Sleepless in Seattle

Tiramisu is one of Julian’s favorite desserts, along with key lime pie and pecan pie. We’ve made it a couple of times at home. Our earlier attempts got extremely soggy after a day in the fridge. However, we needed to use some mascarpone cheese we’d bought for another recipe and our friends were hosting a potluck. So Julian made another attempt. He used this recipe from Epicurious.

Two features set this recipe apart from others we’d tried. First, the recipe called for dry ladyfingers (savoiardi) rather than the usual soft, spongy ones. Second, the mascarpone topping was fairly sparse. The end result was excellent. In addition, the leftovers didn’t turn soggy after several days in the fridge. The recipe’s a keeper.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/11/tiramisu/

Nov 10

Semi-Formal

I received an invitation to our chief cardiac surgeon’s retirement party. The appropriate attire was listed as “semi-formal.” So the physicians and operating room staff should show up in dress scrubs? (I’d rarely seen some of them in street clothes in the five years I’ve worked with them.) Since Seattle is a pretty casual town, semi-formal in some sectors means a clean flannel shirt. My former department chair, an infectious disease doctor, does not wear ties at work because the neckwear could conceivably transmit bacteria from one patient to another. Since the party was at the end of the work day, that meant either wearing the outfit the whole day or changing into it before the party.  As a woman who’s lived in Dallas, where women wear fur coats to the Symphony in July, I had the additional mental baggage of that level of formality.

The solution: I wound up wearing a little black dress with a red jacket over it all day at work. I also wore my pearls and heels. Even though I was stuck in my cube all day, I’m sure some folks walked by thinking that I was dressed up because I had a job interview.  When I got to the party, I didn’t see anyone in scrubs – luckily, nobody had an emergent late-day case. The guest of honor, Dr. B, was in his usual suit and tie.  (He’s from Virginia, another more formal environment than Seattle.) Most of the other men wore  jackets, but not ties. Maybe this is my former department chair’s influence, but more likely because this is casual Seattle. As usual, the women were more dressed up than the men. A good time was had by all, despite the occasionally awkward attire for some. Dr. B was sent off in style with a lot of laughs.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/10/semi-formal/

Nov 04

Trying to Find the Words

The events of the last two weeks have left many folks numb from shock. First there was the series of pipe bombs sent to people and institutions that have criticized the current administration. A white man gunned down two black shoppers at a Kroger store in Kentucky. A man killed two women at a yoga studio in Florida. Then there was the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 mostly elderly people who had gathered for Shabbat services. The usual “thoughts and prayers” do not suffice. We need something deeper, that can nourish roots of compassion and sustain our own Trees of Life.

I believe in the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, to repair the world. You don’t have to believe in the Genesis story that the world was perfect before Adam and Eve ate the apple. You just have to look around. Our nation and our world are bruised and hurting. The list of items in need of repair is long, and can feel overwhelming. You do not need to be the sole savior. These are a few steps that anyone can take.

Step away from the computer and TV screens. This sounds hypocritical from a blogger, I know. Take the time that you’d usually be online to walk around your neighborhood. See what’s going on. Have new places opened, or old places gone away?

Talk face-to-face to real people, don’t just interact with others via email, texts, or Facebook. Do something radical and introduce yourself to the person mowing the lawn down the street. Chat with the woman in the grocery line with you.

Consider community. They can be ready-made, such as your workplace or congregation. If you don’t have one in place, create one by getting to know your neighbors. One of the most important things that happened when we moved to Seattle was participating in the Friday Night Follies with our neighbors. It’s enriched us with good food, conversation, and deep relationships. We’ve seen each other through successes, crises, and deaths in the families. The former “known teenagers” are now well into their 20’s and creating their own lives.

Join in a common goal. Maybe it’s fundraising for a youth soccer team, or working on a political campaign. Volunteer. Serve a cause larger than yourself beyond your own four walls. My favorite story in this vein is of a young girl who asked her friends to donate money to build wells in Africa rather than give her birthday presents. Sadly, this girl was killed before her birthday; however, her request went viral and raised far more money for the cause. How many children are benefiting from the gift of clean potable water as a result of this request?

It is not enough to send “thoughts and prayers”. We need to pick up our tools and get to work. Our efforts are sorely needed.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/11/04/trying-to-find-the-words/

Oct 26

Time to Vote

Washington is a vote by mail state. The ballots arrived last week. While Julian was making dinner Wednesday night, I filled out my ballot and put it in the mailbox. He completed his ballot and sent it the next day. The beauty of voting by mail is that you can fill out your ballot in the comfort of your home, with the voters’ guides as reference. You don’t need to worry about being late for work because of the line at the polling place. It also negates many of the pesky voter-suppression strategies that seem to be in use in other states.

Voting is a right AND a responsibility. People lost their lives to gain universal voting rights. There is a stained-glass window in Sage Chapel on the Cornell University campus that honors Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. These three men were murdered in Mississippi in 1964 for registering  black  people to vote. Many others, known and unknown, were arrested or beaten attempting to vote. Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 for the crime of voting. Anthony and most of her contemporaries in the women’s suffrage movement didn’t live to see the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution passed, which gave women the right to vote.

You may be thinking that your vote doesn’t matter. Let me give you two examples to counter that claim. The 2004 gubernatorial election in Washington was decided by less than 150 votes. This was before Washington adopted vote by mail. If 150 people had not gone to the polls that day, the results would have been reversed. Last year an election for the Virginia House of Delegates wound up in a tie. The eventual winner was drawn by lot.

My purpose in writing this post is not to convince you to vote one way or another. Rather, I just want you to vote. In my opinion, if you abdicate your right to vote, you abdicate your right to complain if the election doesn’t turn out in your favor. Fill out the ballot and mail it in, if you live in Washington. Washington state is paying the postage for you. If you have to go to a polling place, make the time to go. Just vote.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/10/26/time-to-vote/

Oct 21

[Insert Ethnicity Here] Beef Salad

When we grill steak, we usually have leftovers for the following night. One of our go-to preps is Thai Beef Salad. Put sliced beef and any stray fruit (mango, pineapple) and vegetables (cucumber, carrots, tomato) on hand atop a bed of lettuce. Make a dressing with fish sauce, lime juice, and a little water and dinner is served.

The other night I expanded beef salad into a new nationality. Julian had made chimichurri to accompany the steak on the first night. Chimichurri is a garlic, parsley, and cilantro pesto-like sauce that’s popular in South America. This time, I used kale as the green. The vegetables were tomato, cucumber, olives, and bottled piquillo peppers. The chimichurri served as a good dressing on the salad; in addition, the garlic in the sauce assured that we didn’t have to worry about vampire attacks.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/10/21/insert-ethnicity-here-beef-salad/

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