Aug 29

Swimming as a Social Activity

At first glance, swimming is the ultimate introvert exercise. It’s just you, the water, and the clock (or your waterproof digital activity monitor). For most of us, swimming means sharing a lane in a public pool with other people and showering in a shared locker room. This is where the socializing comes in.

When I first started swimming seven years ago, I divided my training sessions between two public pools in Seattle. The Medgar Evers pool is down the hill from my workplace, and I used to go down for a mid-day swim. My current position doesn’t have the flexibility for mid-day swims, so I hit the early morning lap swim at the Meadowbrook pool in my old neighborhood. Since Meadowbrook opens at 5:45 am Monday through Friday, I can get in my 24 or so laps twice a week, shower, and still be in the office by 7:30. This includes spirited locker room discussions of local politics, spouses, children, cats, and travels.

The social aspect of swimming has actually kept me doing the laps. At Medgar Evers, I met a number of retired women who frequented the mid-day water aerobics class. Many of these women had conditions that precluded lap swimming, but they could move to classic Motown tunes in the pool. The early-morning crew at Meadowbrook is mostly a younger, working crowd. Several of my former triathlon teammates are regulars. The highlight of the year is the annual holiday breakfast for the early morning lap swimmers. After swimming, we converge on the Burgermaster at University Village to refill our carb stores and chat. The lifeguards often join us. It’s a chance to get to know our lane-mates better, and celebrate another year of chlorinated water activities and locker room conversations.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/29/swimming-as-a-social-activity/

Aug 22

Figgy Goodness!

We managed to score some fresh figs at a reasonable price last week. This is no mean feat. Fresh figs are quite perishable. This is why they’re usually $6 per pint box in Seattle, whereas you can rarely find them in the Northeast or Midwest.

Other than devouring them at one sitting, what can you do with fresh figs? Desserts are one obvious answer. This is a fig-almond cake from the New York Times I made a couple of years ago for one of our Friday night gatherings:figgygoodness

Figs and cheese are a good combination. I stuffed some figs with Explorateur cheese (the love child of Brie and cream cheeses) and brought it to our French class on Tuesday night. We’ve also baked cheese-stuffed figs, which amps up the flavor. Figs and prosciutto are classic in Mediterranean cuisine.

By far the favorite thing we do with figs is a pan sauce for chicken, lamb, or pork that we call Figgy Goodness. While the meat is on the grill, sauté some chopped shallots (or onion) in a large skillet until soft. Then add some stemmed and halved figs to the pan. When the figs start getting soft, pour in some port or red wine and add your herb of choice (rosemary is classic, but you can also use thyme) and reduce the sauce until it’s syrupy. If you cooked the meat in the pan, you can make the pan sauce after you’ve finished with the meat so the sauce takes on the flavor of the meaty juices.

Although fig season is short and they’re not cheap, they provide an interesting change from or an addition to plums, peaches and berries this time of year.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/22/figgy-goodness/

Aug 16

More Words to Live by

Life is too short to eat bland food. I didn’t come to this conclusion early in life. My upbringing was strictly meat and potatoes. It was only when I moved to Dallas and got exposed to Mexican and spicy Asian cuisines that my palate was piqued by peppers. Luckily, Julian is also fond of spicy food. Our refrigerator door has a collection of hot sauces, also known as the Arsenal of Democracy:

Practice safe eating, always use condiments.

Practice safe eating, always use condiments.

This is only part of the Arsenal, but you get the idea. None of these is a pure capsaicin bomb, but the fire sauce on the lower shelf is pretty close.

We prefer our chiles with some flavor balancing the heat. The larger padron peppers featured in the last post accumulated some capsaicin, the active heat molecule in chiles. We’ll occasionally cook with hahañeros, but that’s as hot as we get.

Research is accumulating that consumption of spicy food has beneficial health effects, as outlined in this article. As with everything, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Spicy food eaters may have other habits that are more linked to longevity. In the meantime, pass that Tabasco, please.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/16/more-words-to-live-by/

Aug 09

Today’s Harvest

Padron peppers off just one plant.

Padron peppers off just one plant.

My padron pepper plant is working overtime. This is what I picked off it today. These are destined to be pan-roasted as a tapa tonight.

Padron peppers are a Spanish variety. They are sweet, although random ones will pack a little heat. I bought the plant at the Spanish Table at Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. We shop there often for wine, paella rice, and the occasional cookbook. For those of you who don’t garden, the store usually carries these peppers during the summer and early fall.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/09/todays-harvest/

Aug 08

It’s a Miracle!

I’m not sure what I did right, but this is the formerly green tomato from last week:

In the homestretch...

In the homestretch…

I’ve already harvested about 10 cherry tomatoes off the other plant. Moving the plants may have helped. It also cooled down a little from last weekend. (According to the Burpee website, tomatoes don’t like really hot temperatures.)

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/08/its-a-miracle/

Aug 06

The Votes Are In…

And there was a whole lot of crack-smoking by those ten candidates in Cleveland, based on their answers. My second hypothesis was correct: The average score for each candidate was closer to 4 on my scale. Nobody had a 1 in his column, and only two candidates uttered anything that merited a 2. Only one candidate escaped without a 5 in his column, whereas another one was all 5’s all the time. Next time I think I’ll play Buzzword Bingo.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/06/the-votes-are-in/

Aug 05

The Debate Dance Card

Friends, the die is cast for tomorrow night. Thanks to being on the West Coast, I’ll be at work when the also-ran forum is broadcast. However, I’ll be home for the main event. Here’s my dance card:debatedancecardOn the X axis I put the 10 candidates in order of their poll numbers. On the Y axis is a 5-point scale, where 1 = talking sense; 3 = dubious; and 5 = Is this guy smoking crack?!? I’ll rate each utterance by an individual candidate on the scale. Recall from a previous post that I’m theorizing that the candidates at each end of the X axis will say more outrageous things than the crew in the middle. Then again, given recent headlines, they all may be up in the smoking crack category.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/05/the-debate-dance-card/

Aug 02

Okra on the Menu

Okra gets a bad rap. It’s usually cooked beyond dead, and the result is a mucilaginous mess. When I lived in Texas and North Carolina, I developed a taste for okra in its many forms: Fried, pickled, in gumbos, and stir-fried. The latter is what I did for dinner tonight, as a Cajun dish called maque choux.

Okra pods are hard to find in the northwest because the growing season is often too short to get fruit to set. Luckily, our friends east of the Cascades have the climate that allows okra to thrive. So I picked up some good-looking pods yesterday at the Yakima Fruit Market, along with the apricots immortalized in the previous post. I had most of the other ingredients on hand for the recipe, including corn, onions, peppers (off my plants), and tomatoes. I started by sizzling the corn kernels in a little butter until they started to get caramelized. I scraped them into a bowl, then started sautéing the onions and peppers. I added in the okra pods, cut into 1-inch lengths, as the onion pieces were beginning to get translucent. I let everything cook for 5-10 minutes until the okra pieces got tender. I added some Cajun seasoning during this time. Finally I added the corn kernels back into the pan along with some red and yellow tomatoes, halved. Once everything was heated through, it was time to eat. I’d also made some country-style ribs on the grill. The maque choux was minimally slimy, and the dish complimented the barbecue sauce on the ribs. We drank unsweetened iced tea with the meal, although beer would also be an acceptable beverage.

Should you want to try this dish, pick okra pods that are bright green and unblemished. Size isn’t critical, since you’re going to cut them up anyway. If you live in the northern US, chances are the vegetable was shipped from far away and may not be particularly fresh. If you’re anti-slime, you should choose small pods and keep them whole; however, you’ll want to trim off the stem end. I used frozen corn because I am dubious of any corn on the cob that I haven’t picked myself. If you’re unencumbered by farm girl genes, go ahead and buy corn on the cob and cut the kernels off before or after grilling. Go ahead and use any tomatoes you have handy, even a small can of whole or diced ones. If you don’t have chile wimps in your household, you can even use a can of Rotel tomatoes with chiles. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/02/okra-on-the-menu/

Aug 01

Yakima Apricots

Not only does the Yakima area grow good peaches, its apricots are awesome. Alas, the season is coming to an end. I bought a bunch of them today at the fruit stand for our regular potluck with friends. I poached them in sweet white wine, and received rave reviews.
This is what I did: Open a bottle of inexpensive (but drinkable) sweet white wine and pour it into a large skillet. I used Moscato, but you could use Riesling or Gewürztraminer. Add 1/2 cup sugar, three long pieces of lemon zest, and a vanilla bean, split open. Bring this mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Meanwhile, halve and pit 10 ripe apricots. I didn’t peel them because I wanted the halves to keep their shape. When the poaching mixture comes to a boil, slip in the apricot halves so they fit in one layer. Turn the heat down to simmer. Place a piece of parchment paper on the surface of the apricots, then cover. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Scoop the apricots out with a slotted spoon, then turn the heat up and boil the poaching liquid until it’s the consistency of a medium to heavy syrup. Let the syrup cool slightly, then pour over the apricots and refrigerate until ready to serve. Put one or two apricot halves in a dessert dish, scoop in ice cream, and top with some fresh raspberries or blackberries. You can drizzle a little syrup over.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/01/yakima-apricots/

Aug 01

The Annual Question

tomato

When will you ripen, little one?

It has been the hottest June and July on record in western Washington, and among the driest. Yet the same annual lament arises from gardeners from Longview to Lynden: “When are my *^#$ing tomatoes going to ripen?!?”
When we lived in Seattle, only a patch of the front yard got much direct sunlight. Most of that was occupied by a huge rosemary bush. I tried growing tomatoes once in the front yard and failed miserably. Our current home has two south-facing decks. The upper one gets scorched by the Sun all day year-round. Finally, I thought, I can have an edible garden!
Two years ago I grew bumper crops of basil and other herbs. Last year I supplemented the herbs with a banana pepper plant that provided plenty of fruit. This year I got Cubanelle and Padron pepper plants. In addition, in the ultimate leap of faith, I got two tomato plants. The peppers are very prolific. So are the tomatoes, but I have yet to see so much as a blush of pink on any of them.
I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. The plants get watered nearly every day. I doubled down on the watering on the 90°-plus days. Today I rearranged the deck so the tomatoes are on the brightest corner, where the herbs were. If this doesn’t work, I’ll think about making my mother’s green tomato pie with what’s currently on the plants.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/08/01/the-annual-question/

Load more