thanksgiving cranberry sauce!
aah so perhaps i am procrastinating writing a paper, but what better a way to do it than to write a bit. it's been a looong time, and i have lots of photos and food to write about, but tonight it's all about cranberries.

my sister julianna and i had a plan when we were younger. we were going to use a tiny bit of lake baikal (what an amazing lake!) in siberia to start a cranberry bog that could compete with ocean spray's cranonopoly. times have changed a bit since then (i don't think either of us is going into the cranberry industry) but we have retained our love for these odd little orbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranberry). this thanksgiving, my housemate ivy and i made cranberry sauce the way my mum does, and ivy so enthusiastically approved, that i thought i would post the recipe here (along with our picture of a miniature lake baikal aka the kitchen sink.)

ingredients: 2pkg. fresh cranberries, washed and sorted (we were very lucky and had local maine berries!), juice of 4 (+/-) oranges, zest of two of the oranges, 4 and a bit cups of apple cider (again we were spoiled - tasty organic maine cider!), and optional 1 tablespoon honey.

bring liquids to a boil, add cranberries, and stir constantly until they pop. (it's an amazing sound, bursting cranberries...). keep stirring until much more mushed. add orange zest and let it cool. i think it is plenty sweet with just the sugar from the apples and orange juice, but if you want it to be sweeter, add the tiny bit of honey. i imagine if you wanted you could strain out the cranberry skins and other little bits, but i like it as it is. the brilliant thing about making cranberry sauce this way is that you don't need to add sugar, and yet it is absolutely delicious and beautiful! thanks mum. :-)

our dinner was... a mess.

"well, were you in good spirits about it?" maya asked.
"umm... yes?" i responded. :-P
"well, you guys are rather elitist about your cooking... so it was a good reality check!"

thank you maya. there is a bit of honesty left in this world!

saturday i trekked down to boston (a non-trek actually, i get on a bus and get off a bus. whoo. basically, nap time.) to visit gravling and see the decemberists in concert. the concert, was amazing. john was in reasonable spirits. the days wanderings were pleasant. dinner, on the other hand, was probably the closest thing i've experienced to a nightmare in recent memory. i say this and laugh, because it was alright in the end, but as i like to remind myself, humans are... human. (the self-critic in me is forcing me to also write that while i laugh etc. the mistakes made in this dinner were entirely avoidable and as such, i should go punch myself and not laugh. silly flavia.)

moosewood cookbook has an interesting recipe for a winter curry-ish stew with squash and potatoes, garbonzo beans, black mustard seed, and tomato. the weather was called for a hearty stew-ish dinner, so we agreed to give the recipe a try (this was early in the afternoon... probably 2ish.) aand here begins the story of the end. haha. drama. gravling wrote down on the ingredients we needed on a little piece of colored post-it note and on our way out the door he put it in the canvas grocery bag we were bringing along to save the environment. i generally like organization and mentioned that if we left the sticky in the bag, it would be the best way to insure that we lost it. haha, we laugh... i put the sticky note in my wallet, and we're off. fast forward to 5:30ish as we stand in the grocery store happily contemplating dinner, when i realize i've lost the shopping list.. i don't think john thought i was serious at first. awkward chuckle, "no seriously flav... what do we need?"

we gathered what we could remember best from memory - potatoes, squash, spices (not necessarily the right ones), yogurt, cucumber, onion... oh minimalism. at the time, i thought that it could just be an adventure. after all, we should be thankful that we generally have access to everything our hearts could imagine... what is one dinner without everything, right? back at gravling's apartment, we realize that a few key elements are missing - notably black mustard seeds (shaws didn't have them) and tomatoes. still, things are ok. we get chopping, peeling, boiling, sauteeing, and time comes to add the garbonzo beans. john looks at the can and says, "flavia, didn't you ever learn not to buy dented cans?" GAH! awkward chuckle. we open the can, and it smells funny. i look at the lid: expires 09.2002. WHAT?!?!?! i swallowed my heart just a little. 4 year old chickpeas!?! the good thing about chopping onions is that you can mix in a few "oh god this sucks" tears with the "wow onions hurt my eyes" ones. (i'm only joking, no tears involved. thank goodness) :-)

in the meantime, the rice cooked beautifully, the wine was tasty (gravling has good wine taste - even though he allegedly bought this one because of the bottle. or perhaps i thought it was so good because it was something i couldn't spoil. anywho, it was good) and our "curry" came together. sadly, out dinner was really monochromatic. save for the little chunks of squash, everything was WHITE. in a tiny bit of desperation, we tried to defrost john's experiment in frozen basil. unsuccessful green slime water resulted. (good mental picture?). the dinner didn't taste bad, in fact the ginger/garlic/curry aspect was ok. it was more the energy behind it that was lacking. once one thing goes wrong, you aren't really inspired to continue. haha the image that comes to mind as i type this is dick button and scott hamilton commenting on figure skating. the poor kid keeps falling on his or her behind and by the end of the performance, the curtsy/bow is half-hearted. :-) that's how i felt eating dinner.


(the "beautiful" wine bottle.)

i agree with maya that it was a reality check (but not that we're elitist. for heaven's sake! where would "hungarian peasant" fit in there!?!). most of all, i like the fact that this dinner may shatter gravling's perception that i don't screw up food. hallelujah! i just hope it doesn't mean we don't cook well together again in the near future, because that might just break my heart.

this wonderful comedy of a dinner behind us, i have to reflect on how absolutely wonderful the concert was. i have been looking forward to it since august, and it was everything i'd imagined. i'm sure if john were writing this entry, he'd have a much more nuanced critique of the sound system, costumes, venue choice, etc. but i was just happy to be in boston, with one of my best friends, listening to an absolutely delightful band!

chinatown in boston

bitter melon and lotus root stir fry

this morning as i wandered around china town i was in an interesting people watching-ish mood. as soon as you enter the main archway, you see lots of people walking around with interesting groceries that you simply can't find at shaws or even whole foods. vendors on the street were selling little persimmons, massive pomellos, taro potatoes and the like. i really enjoy watching how people pick their produce. it is a very determined process, i think. anyway, i went to a little grocery store and (with a tiny bit of hesitation) started wandering around. it reminded me a lot of uwajimaya in seattle, only waaaay smaller. the cooler section had various fresh tofu species (i was very tempted to buy some, but then i thought of the mess i could potentially make on the bus. next time!), frozen dumpling wrappers, surimi, etc. i felt a bit like a kid in a toy shop as i walked through the vegetable section because before me were all the crazy foods i grew up on but haven't had access to in maine. before i entered the shop, i had told m+p that i was looking for a few persimmons and asian pears. by the time i left, my list was somewhat longer: three persimmons, three asian pears, a daikon radish, one lotus root, and fresh water chestnuts. this should make for interesting meals over the next few days!

tonight's dinner was a bit of a dream for my chinese side. i love bitter melon. i don't know when i started enjoying it, because i distinctly remember being wary of its lumpy green exterior and positively bitter taste, but these days i really enjoy it. it is an interesting plant in that you don't eat a substantial portion of its mass. you cut it in half, scoop out the insides, and what remains is a shell about 1/4 inch thick. you slice it into the little half-moon shapes and sprinkle with a tiny bit of salt and let them sit. that way some of the excess water comes out. anywho. in the meantime, i pealed and sliced four water chestnuts and half of my lotus root. the lotus root has an amazing shape. i'm not quite sure what the evolutionary reason for all the holes is, but perhaps it was a fashion conscious vegetable and just wanted to look cool. perhaps. for my stir fry, i also used 3 cloves of garlic, olive oil, soy sauce, and chili paste.

the fun thing about both bitter melon and lotus root is that they don't require much fussing. you don't need to pre-boil them, or speak nicely to them, just slice and saute. so: heat oil, add minced garlic, then the sliced water chestnuts, and finally the bitter melon. (i did the lotus root separately, but only because the pan wasn't big enough. hmm.) it doesn't take long for either to become tender. at that point, add a bit of soysauce and the chili paste. because the pan is so hot, the liquidy soy sauce will help cook the vegetables. particularly the lotus root needs to be sliced thinly enough so that it cooks quickly and doesn't burn in the oil. aand what else, oh, white rice. yum!

on my way back to south station, i stopped at a little chinese bakery on behalf of julianna (sesame ball queen) who used to send me packages of these little delicacies from chicago (in the regular mail, so you can imagine how wonderfully difficult to chew they had become!) as soon as i got home, i put them out in the kitchen for my housemates to try. verdict: coconut-rice dumpling was too chewy for most (though it is my favorite), julia loved the coconut bun (not pictured) because it was the most similar to things she'd tried before, maya liked each one for its own merits, but noted that the sesame ball tasted like doughnuts. no response yet from chivy. :-) so noonie: the pastries are mentally for you!