Friday Breakfast!

Now that Books@Cafe has reopened we can finally get the Friday Breakfast we've been craving these long weeks. 7.5 JD gets you more than one, even two people, can reasonably eat, and it's all absolutely delicious. An omelette, manakeesh, pancakes or french toast, fruit salad, toast, juice, and tea or coffee are all included and everything in generous portions. They skimp on nothing and thank God because we are some hungry girls...

Yom Kippur

Tonight began Yom Kippur, holiest day of the year, and infamous day of fasting. As usual, got started late - finished dinner around 7:30, a solid hour after sundown. Whoops! Tomorrow will also be the first day in my life I've ever gone to school on Yom Kippur. That should be interesting or, more likely, really not fun at all. All's fair in love and the Middle East, though.

Food. Finally!

I learned (by watching) how to make my first dish – although I don’t know the details. I did learn a bunch of important vocab, however. Like cardamom (hill) and almonds (louz), both of which are integral components of ouzi, currently my favorite, maybe second favorite, Jordanian dish. Picture a huge mound of rice and shi’iriyyah (short noodley things), topped generously with ground meat sautéed with onions, garlic, and peas (and something like pounds of cardamom), then that topped with chicken cooked in cardamom, and all that topped with just a few handfuls sprinkling of toasted shelled almonds. Zaki kateer jiddan! Serve with a side of salata (guess) – cucumbers (khayaar), tomatoes (bandura), parsley (ba’adunis), salt (malaH), lemon (limon), and oil (zayt) – and I challenge you to find me a better meal anywhere.

Oh, and I forgot that iftaar always begins with dates (tamar) and soup. Now that’s a challenge.

Nearing the end...

It's almost the end of Ramadan and I have yet to get any awesome recipes. I really need to get on that... Mansaf itself is basically worth the trip to Jordan, and I really want to be able to cook all of this stuff when I get home. Then, of course, you all will benefit, too.

Iftaar Rocks My Socks

Definitely some of the best food I've eaten and some of the craziest iftaars I've experienced. Thursday night iftaar in Irbid with the host family's extended family. I ate sheep tongue AND sheep eyeball. Gross, but actually, the eye socket was pretty decent. I wish I had a picture of the ouzi, though, because it was a sight. A huge mound of rice with almonds, meat, lamb, and the crown jewel, the SHEEP'S HEAD. Ahh, Jordan.

Ramadan, Part Two: Ahh, Saving Grace

Thank God (or Allah?) for Books@Café. It is the American/British ex-pat haven and is the only place I have yet found who both sells, serves, and permits consumption of food and beverage on its premises. Not only that, but it’s darn good, too. From Friday breakfast (a 7.5 JD prix-fixe meal that feeds three) and Saturday lunch (a traditional Jordanian offering) to the super-thin crust pizzas, Green Mountain (New England, baby!) coffee, and juices (when in Jordan, do as the Jordanians do and get a Lemon with Mint), anything and everything here is worth the price.

Especially the free wireless. And the bookstore downstairs. But mostly the free wireless. And the outdoor patio, and two bars (with alcohol. Duh. Ex-pats.). But, obviously, I really just came for the wireless. And the food, because Ramadan makes you hungry.

Ramadan, Part One; End of the First Week

I’ve now done a week of iftaars, a week of fasting (…or not), and a week of not getting up for suhuur in the morning. Seriously, 4:30 am? I don’t think so. Although I will have to do it at some point; I told my host sister to surprise me one time by waking me up for it, so we’ll see when that happens.

Ramadan in Jordan is tough. Not going to lie, I’m not that good at fasting, and when it’s pushing 40 C and sunny, not drinking water is just not happening. Finding food and beverage for sale is difficult, and a place to consume said contraband even more so. It’s been a week of sneaking into corners, elevators, empty rooms, and dark alley ways for a mere sip or snack.

That said, iftaar kind of makes up for all the difficulties. Begin with three dates, then some soup, then a generous portion of a main course, followed by some sort of dessert and, of course, tea. But that’s just the beginning. A couple hours after iftaar, you get hungry again and go in search of fruit, leftovers, or even better, a cocktail from Lubnani Snack (think smoothie or fruit juice, no alcohol involved). Sleep a few hours, wake up before dawn, eat, sleep more, watch TV, then do it all again. That, in a nut shell, is Ramadan.

Some beginning's end

The end of the semester is always so gastronomically frustrating. You can't buy anything new to cook, there's nothing in the fridge, it's raining and delivery options are usually limited to shitty pizza or overpriced crap. I finished my peanut butter, my almonds, cashews, raisins, fruit, vegetables, had eggs for lunch, and Gia doesn't deliver. When you're stuck with campusfood.com, what's a girl to do?
After eliminating the 23 pizza choices out of 56 total, and the 6 chinese, and the 5 indian because I had that two days ago, and all the other bad choices and closed restaurants, you're left with basically nothing to choose from.
So of course, despite the fact that I kind of wanted a salad (and I had two yesterday...I guess my body might be trying to tell me something?), I opted for Phoebe's Bar-B-Q, a South Street mainstay. I've had it once before, but didn't have the meat (long story) so tonight I got one of their combo plates: 2 sides, 2 meats, and a piece of cornbread. I'm currently anxiously awaiting my mashed potatoes, sneaky spicy greens, brisket, ribs, and cornbread. And contemplating running over to Greek Lady for a salad as an appetizer. Crazy? Might be. I'll let you know how it is.

Cheers.

Just Like My Mother Used to Make

What could be better in the middle of finals week than a home-cooked meal?
I'll tell you: nothing.

I and several others were invited to the home of a prestigious campus figure for Friday night dinner. Food and conversation (and wine?) were all delicious. Yes, conversation can be delicious, but that is besides the point.

You can get good food a lot of places, especially in a city, but nothing says "good meal" like, well, a good meal. Cooked in a real kitchen by real people, and eaten around a table in a totally relaxed atmosphere, there's really nothing like it. This is especially true for college students (and particularly during finals), when the majority of our meals are shitty and more than most of the time in a disposable container. Not to mention the harm this does for the world, it is neither socially for gastronomically satisfying.

So close to the end of the year and so close to mom's cooking you can almost taste it, there's nothing like a sit-down, laugh-out-loud, home-cooked meal. Find a few friends and a few hours and try it yourself. Trust me, you'll love it.

Why We Shouldn't Use Economics to Solve Problems

The Economist from a few weeks ago seemed to be all about the food crisis. It also proposed a solution - use SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY to breed specifically high-yielding crops. Sounds a little like GMOs...and a little like a bad idea.

Lack of diversity in agriculture, much like in the human gene pool, increases susceptibility to diseases and pests and tends to favor the less nutritious varieties. This solution also causes a loss of traditional crop varieties and seeds (amaranth, anyone?).

There has to be a better solution, but I'll think of one later.

Ironic...

Standing on oil and gold to get food ... interesting perspective on this global food crisis we have going on these days.

More commentary on economic perspective of the crisis to come ... need to organize thoughts.

Something about an Apple

Something about apples and peanut butter really does it for me these days. You get your fruit, and you get your fats and proteins all at once. Delicious and Nutritious! And somehow it ends up being a whole lunch, once you finish the apple and start eating spoonfuls of peanut butter. How do you know when to stop? Well, when you can't breathe because of the peanut butter smeared all over the back of your throat, it's probably a good time to call it quits.
But boy, is it worth it.

Love - in a tiny blue cup

Dear Capogiro,

Thank you. Thank you for creating Rosemary Honey Goat's Milk Gelato. Thank you for creating Cioccolato Scuro Gelato. Your existence has defined mine. You have made my life, and the lives of many others, worth living. Words are not enough.

I am infatuated.

I'm going to a picnic, and I'm bringing...

Seen:
On the banks of the Schuylkill, 1 p.m., group of girls with a picnic lunch. Yellow blanket on the grass and plastic bags of food. How cute. I might be jealous.

Heaven in a Tin Box

Here is what addiction looks like:
The infamous Almond Kiss is a Passover staple for basically every Jewish family.

Gooey, not-milky chocolate-caramel blob encasing two almonds. Eat it slowly, make it last, savor the chocolate caramel goodness. Bite your almonds, don't eat them all at once. Relish the taste and the experience and realize that, no matter how bad the rest of the food might be on Passover (dry, crumbly, tasteless cakes, undercooked eggy matzoh brei, rock-solid matzah balls, the lingering aftertaste of matzah meal and potato starch in EVERYTHING), salvation is found in the colorful tin box full of deliciously perfect Kosher for Passover candies.

"Now everywhere you go someone is chewing on Bartons Almond Kisses - even in New Jersey."

Fruit: The New Atkins

I have successfully abstained from eating matzah since last weekend. I feel this is some sort of record or achievement which deserves special recognition. I also have not missed eating bread at all, which is unexpected. Perhaps that is because I am slowly but surely overdosing on fruit.

Fruit is my bread replacement and the new sugar, the new vice, in my diet. Sure, it is arguably healthy than eating cookies or cake, but pounds of fruit every day can't possible be that good for me. Everything in moderation, after all.

Although there is one sure benefit: I am free of the gastrointestinal problems inherent in eating matzah.

In anxious anticipation

I anxiously anticipate the return of the Headhouse Square Farmer's market in less than two weeks. Not only does it mark the season for delicious local food, but it makes a weekend full of farmer's market goodness in Philadelphia. Saturday features the Clark Park Farmer's Market from 10-2 and Sunday (beginning May 4) boasts the Headhouse Market from 10-2.

Fresh, locally farmed vegetables, fruits, poultry, meat, and eggs and locally produced wines, breads, and so many other goodies await. But I can't!

Mmm..

Passover! Faves. What could be better than nothing leavened, nothing that rises, and nothing that could possibly inflate or increase in size when cooked? I feel like I am on the Atkins diet.

That said, there are only five forbidden grains: wheat, oats, barley, rye, and spelt. I have decided to invent my own Pesach rules and avoid only these five grains, maybe beans and legumes for a while, and also corn because corn syrup is bad for you and the world.

Ahh, to eat bread again...

Although homemade Kosher for Passover food rarely disappoints.

I am apparently easily convinced.

I have been vegetarian, more or less, for about a year now. I don't have a very good reason, and I'll be the first to admit it. It's a matter of convenience on some level. I don't want to deal with having meat sitting around that I have to cook, and food tends to be cheaper if you get the meatless options. But yet another book I'm reading is starting to convince me to go back. Not that it should be hard, I don't have hard and fast ideas strongly supporting vegetarianism, other than vague health, environmental, and societal concerns. If anything, the book, Nina Planck's Real Food reinforces my ideas about the importance of eating locally and as minimally processed industrially produced food as possible. She focuses on real food, and her arguments are convincing. I am particularly swayed by her praises of saturated fat. She claims it is good for the immune system. It could be because I am currently feeling a bit under the weather, but a hefty (healthy?) dose of grass fed raw milk butter certainly does sound good right now.

To Farm or Not To Farm

Dilemma:

Remove farmland from Conservation Program in order to produce more food?

Food prices are high: farmers will make more money farming this land and selling the crops than they can make through the government program paying them to preserve the land for environmental reasons.

But the Program has been successful: duck populations are high. Hunters like ducks, and duck-lovers like ducks. And a sudden influx of crops into the market will likely drive prices down and the farmers will be worse off than before.

Who will win? Immediate increase in income for farmers but potential for future decrease? Erosion-prone prairie lands currently being protected as wilderness and wildlife refuges?

Maybe the answer is for people to eat less, so the demand goes down and the environment gets preserved. However this still leaves farmers in the pale. And then what about the next industries in the chain, the bakers and others who turn raw crop into consumable good? They need money, too.

I completely understand the farmer's position. Assuming costs would not subsequently drop, it is more financially sound for them to remove their land from the program and turn it into production land. But are these really the farmers we want to support; are they the small-time guys, or the huge corporate farms? Further, if everyone removes their land from the program, that would be a huge loss of conserved and protected lands.

I don't think there is a good answer. Perhaps certain farmers - those small guys - should be given priority in de-conserving their land. That would control future price fluctuations to some extent and would also promote family or small-time farms. Because let's be honest here - I doubt big-time cattle ranchers and huge corporate wheat-growers really NEED that extra money. They could probably also use the morality lesson associated with dedicating their unused land to environmental preservation.

A Penny for Your Foods

Why is healthy food so expensive? I don't mean "health food." I mean real, live, down to earth healthy food. Yes, a banana at 50 cents at your local fruit stand is no bank breaker. But think about it like this:

1 bagel = 1 dollar, 300 calories (guesstimate) and limited nutritional value
1 banana = 50 cents, 100 calories, and a plethora of nutrients

To get the same amount of straight-up energy, you'd have to spend 50% more on the healthy food (bananas) than on the less-healthy option (a bagel).

This is obviously a very basic, overly simplified algorithm. Less healthy things like croissants and muffins are usually more expensive than something like a bagel. But then again, more elaborate (the reason croissants are so expensive - and delicious) or "exotic" fruits are more expensive. Silly little containers of fruit salad that consist mostly of days-old, over- or under-ripe honeydew generally run between three and five dollars. For the same price, you can get a small soup (which is of course fairly healthy, depending). But you can also get at least two muffins or three to five bagels! And this is all so far without taking into account fast food, where at McDonald's one can partake of a Sausage Egg McMuffin for a mere 450 calories - running only a couple of dollars.

No wonder this society is so unhealthy. When you can get a more filling (or disgusting...), higher energy meal for a roughly equivalent price, it's only logical to choose that option when eating based on financial reasons alone.

But I wonder why this is the case. I don't think I need to argue that a Sausage Egg McMuffin, or even a croissant, muffin, or bagel takes more time and money to produce. Aside from shipping costs, which make tropical and exotic fruits legitimately more expensive (but really, the "sausage" in the McMuffin did NOT come from the pigs next door), it has got to be cheaper to get an apple on the shelf for consumption than it does a baked good or especially something involving meat. That doesn't even take into account the costs - financially, agriculturally, and otherwise - of raising animals for slaughter or making muffins. (I'm probably being a bit hard on muffins...)

Yes, fruit is perishable. Yes, some of it comes from far away. But meat is perishable too, and I don't even want to know how long some of that McDonald's stuff has been sitting around. Plus, that meat had to travel, too. Here's where I think the difference lies: fruit is unprocessed. Thus, because processing involves labor and therefore wages, as well as machinery and factories and therefore huge amounts of energy, foods that are processed should by all rights cost MORE than unprocessed foods in equivalent quantities based on caloric content and nutritional value (better should be cheaper - deterrent!).

Then there's the whole issue of how you can't find fruit anywhere hardly. (Restaurants, coffee shops...)

....Don't get me started on vegetables.

Why Capitalism is Bad for Food

"People are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states."

It makes you think about what kind of world we really live in. Food, like water, is a necessity for life. But both resources have turned into profit-driven corporate machines. Why should people all over the world be starving, without access to water? The world couldn't always have been this way. People just don't live where they can't get water. It's that simple.

Water should be free, with unlimited access for everyone, everywhere, all the time. At the risk of being too political, only a hard-hearted hard-core capitalist could disagree with that.

But food is a tougher question. People have been trading in food for millenia, but somehow these days entire countries are full of starving populations. Why is this? Oh, the people we could blame. Colonists and colonialists, the industrial revolution, subsidies... the list goes on. Yes, these are sources of the problem but the real problem here is not what happened back then but why it isn't working now. And why isn't it working? Like Krugman says, it's because of the cost of raw materials and basic foodstuffs. And who's to blame? The American system, oil, biofuel, and the Chinese.

Top Food Myths, Facts, and Contradictions (Do you know the truth?)

1. Bananas are binding.
2. Red wine prevents cancer.
3. Dietary cholesterol is bad for you.
4. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
5. Chocolate is good for you.
6. Chocolate causes pimples.
7. Bread crusts make your hair curl.
8. The Food Pyramid.
9. White bread.
10. Soy products.
11. Beans, beans, are good for your heart…
12. McDonald’s salads.
13. Menstruating women crave chocolate.
14. Diet soda.
15. Celery is negative calories.
16. No red wine with white fish.
17. No cheese with seafood.
18. Goat cheese is lactose free.
19. Caffeine is dehydrating.
20. got milk?

Tough Love

It's been a long time...

I've now been trying this pledge thing for a couple weeks, and let me tell you, it's TOUGH.
How can you avoid refined ingredients and sugar and soy and dairy and non-local eggs? It's really hard. Finally I've kind of figured it out, though. At least I hope so. I'm eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, pretty much abstaining from carbohydrates when I eat out of my house because it's so hard to find 'healthy' stuff. It's sort of turning into a whole foods-esque thing, although I don't think the raw food thing is really anywhere I want to go with this.



The tempting vice aspect of the things I'm avoiding is also hard. One thing I have discovered is Alternative Baking Co.'s 100% Vegan cookies. They're pretty good, actually, except for the fact that they're packaged so I now know how many calories are in a giant cookie. It's a lot...yikes.

It's a hard "diet" (although I don't like to use that word - maybe lifestyle?) to follow, but every day I figure out something new that makes it easier and better. And it's worth it - I feel generally healthier and no longer get that gross feeling you get when you eat too many nasties. All in all so far a success, we'll see if it lasts.

A Promise

This is my pledge:

To be a “fair-weather” vegan, in the following manner:

I will not eat dairy because I am lactose intolerant.

I will not eat meat unless it was killed by a hunter, and killed and butchered by the same person or someone they know. Read The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine if you have any questions.

I will not eat fish unless it was caught locally by a small-time fisherman. We’re talking in the morning, off the pier type of fish-purchasing here. No tuna nets for me.

I will not eat eggs unless they are from a family farm or personal chickens, and preferably raised organically. There is a reason egg baskets exist, after all.

I will not eat highly refined food products if avoidable, with the exception of maybe sugar because it’s really hard to get around.

This might not sound like veganism, but when you’re stuck in a city with extremely limited access to farms and local sustainable agriculture, it might as well be. I want my food to have a personal connection to the earth, to where we all come from. I believe that is the socially and environmentally responsible and sustainable way to eat and consume.

You can hold me to it.

Strawraspraisinana Oatmeal. What?

First of all, I need to start out by saying I hereby rescind all previous oatmeal-hating sentiments previous espoused. I am a convert. No thanks to Cereality. I have now mastered its preparation and oatmeal with a banana, maybe some strawberries, cinnamon, and brown sugar is now a necessary part of my morning routine.

Today was no ordinary day, however. Instead of staring my day with oatmeal, I am ending it with oatmeal. I have crafted, from the depths of my shelves and freezer, a decadent yet nutritious (unfortunately) dessert oatmeal. A handful of frozen raspberries, a handful of frozen strawberries, a small handful of raisins, and the better part of a banana makes up the fruit quotient. Then there’s the oatmeal. Oh, and then my secret ingredients: a seriously generous “dash” (and I use the term quite liberally) of cinnamon, nutmeg as I like it, and – to mix it up a little – cardamom! At first I hesitated over the addition of the cardamom, but then I realized that I love cardamom strawberry shortcake, and I figured since there were strawberries in my oatmeal, why not add cardamom? Then of course, the requisite spoonfuls of brown sugar on top … mix it all together … and voilà!

Seriously pink and full of complex flavors - the cardamom really came through – this dessert oatmeal is one for the ages. Although there’s no reason why it couldn’t be for breakfast. I just happen to be eating it at night.

And in the Morning, I'm Makin' Waffles!

I experienced a heartbreaking culinary disaster yesterday.

I really wanted waffles, because it was Saturday, which is clearly a weekend breakfast kind of day. I have a fancy-pants Belgian Waffle maker from Williams-Sonoma and it came with a booklet that has some waffle recipes, so I figured I would try one of those instead of doing what I usually do, which is make it up as I go. (Although in my defense, that tends to work out pretty well.)

So this recipe was one of those annoying ones where you have to whip your egg whites until they’re stiff. And being the lazy personal that I am, I decide I don’t want to dirty my hand mixer so I opt to whip them by hand. BIG MISTAKE. Yeah, I got them to whip up, but they weren’t exactly stiff or firm. They were more of what we in the business (ha) might call soft peaks. But my arm was tired, so I stopped. My other problem was that I tried to combine water with melted butter, and when I realized the idiocy of this I attempted to rectify my mistake by adding milk. But that didn’t really work either. Anyway, I decided to just go for it and mixed it all together.

When I poured the batter into the hot waffle iron, it rose immediately, like it was supposed to, but then after a couple of minutes of cooking it collapsed. I guess my waffle iron was too heavy for the not-quite-stiff-enough egg whites. I figured I should probably just let it keep going. I wasn’t about to start cooking a whole second breakfast at this point, after all. After a few more minutes, I started to smell burning, so I peeked (oops). It was getting a little burned, but it also looked a little uncooked – so I took a little piece and lo and behold, the insides were totally wet! I let it finish its cooking cycle and smothered it in brown sugar and fresh banana slices to try to mask the mushiness of its innards, and it kind of worked.

It didn’t taste terrible, it actually was pretty good, it just didn’t exactly work out the way it was supposed to. Alas, now I know for next time. I am just better at experiments than I am at recipes, at least in the morning when I am tired.

WWOBPs...yum!

Today’s Experiment: Whole Wheat Oatmeal Banana Pancakes



Purpose:

To make healthy and delicious pancakes using ingredients on hand. (Honestly, who has time to run to the store on Saturday or Sunday morning before pancake cooking time? Not me.)

Materials*:

¼ c. whole wheat flour
¼ c. oats, presoaked to soften them
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
Dash of sugar
Dash of cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg
1 egg
½ c. orange juice cut with water or water cut with orange juice, depending on your taste**: this amount can be increased or decreased depending on your particular batter
Banana (or some portion of a banana), sliced
Butter or oil for pan

Procedure:

1. Mix whole wheat flour with baking soda and salt and stir to mix.
2. Lightly beat egg. Add orange juice/water mixture.
3. Preheat and grease pan/skillet/griddle over medium-low heat (on my gas stove … yours will probably be different).
4. Add soaked oats and egg mixture to flour mixture, stir until incorporated: about 10 stirs. You don’t want to overdevelop the gluten in the flour because you will have tough pancakes.
5. Spoon your desired pancake size of batter into your skillet and put some banana slices on top.
6. Cook for a few minutes, until lots of bubbles develop, and flip. Cook for another minute or two.
7. Garnish with sliced banana and brown sugar. Enjoy!



Results:

Definitely one of the most successful pancake experiment recipes I’ve created. Soaking the oats before adding them to the rest of the ingredients is a clutch step – otherwise they will be tough. I might have added too much nutmeg, but they were still very good. The spices add depth to the sweetness of the banana, which is sometimes bland on its own, although obviously those should be altered according to your personal taste.

Conclusion:

Delicious! Highly recommended, and definitely to be made again.


*Recipe from which I adopt other pancake recipes is a buttermilk pancake recipe.
**You need an acid in the recipe to chemically react with the baking soda. Think baking soda and vinegar volcano circa third grade.

My Favorite Place in the World

Raw and Guilty

My Guilty Pleasure:

Raw Cookie Dough

I make cookies basically for the sole purpose of eating the raw dough. Regular cookies are great and everything, but there is nothing as finger-lickin’ good as a fresh batch of raw cookie dough. Why bother turning the oven on, scooping, scraping, and cooling when you can get an even better treat 15 minutes sooner?

Sometimes people get a little put off by the whole raw egg thing but to tell you the truth it doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s a bit of a sumo wrestler complex: raw eggs make you strong. But also if you think about it, there are only two eggs in an entire batch of dough, and it is doubtful one will eat the entire thing in one sitting, which is a pretty small amount of raw egg. However, if you can eat an entire batch of cookie dough in one sitting, well, I might marry you.

I am partial to chocolate chip, but really any cookie dough will do. Although oatmeal tends to be a little iffy because of the toughness of the oats, a delicious blend of cinnamon and brown sugar often redeems raw oatmeal cookie dough. I am currently slicing off a frozen log of snickerdoodle dough. It’s addicting. Slice after slice, chunk after chunk. I can’t stop. It might be a clinical disorder, I’ll have to check on that one. Don’t let me go back for more.



Before I make myself sick…

How to make (edible) raw cookie dough if raw eggs freak you out:

Make it like normal (“as directed”), omit the eggs and any ingredients like baking soda or baking powder, whose chemical leaveners are unnecessary if you aren’t baking the dough. It should be about the right consistency – you might have to use a little less flour because the lack of eggs means less wet ingredients. Also, sometimes when I bake I use oil instead of butter: this is a NO NO when making raw cookie dough. Because you can’t cream oil and sugar, the dough ends up oily and separated and generally disgusting.

Raw cookie dough, with or without eggs, is the most guilty of my guilty pleasures and the only one I could never give up. Eat it. I will convert you.

On Caffeine

I hate coffee, I like tea.

Why coffee is gross and tea is delicious:

1. Coffee is bitter, while tea can be sweet or tangy or fruity or spicy.
2. Coffee has much more caffeine than tea.
3. Coffee drinks are very unhealthy. Tea is delicious even without milk or sugar.
4. Coffee is only good hot. Even room temperature tea is still delectable.
5. Coffee is only worthwhile because it has caffeine. Decaf teas are yummy too.
6. Coffee is for everyone. Even Dunkin Donuts. Tea is so much more refined.

I made a spectacularly energizing (a.k.a. probably very high caffeine) tea blend the other day. It was a Tazo Maté Tropic teabag and a Stash Green and White Fusion teabag. The complexity of flavors from the three different tea leaves as well as the flavor additives in the Maté Tropic created a tea which was both delicious, invigorating, and mood-enhancing (or I could have just been having a good day).

Try it.

Pearlicious

I just invented the best dessert. Ever.

I often have that problem where I want something sweet yet satisfying, but ordinary desserts don’t cut it. I’ll wander through my kitchen (mentally – it’s not that big) and have a nibble here, a nibble there, and before I know it I’ve had several cookies, a handful of chocolate chips, a few spoonfuls of sorbet or ice cream, and probably a handful or two of cereal. But this impromptu tapas-style desserting fails to satisfy.

Read a food or health magazine and they’ll tell you there’s nothing as satisfying or as delicious for dessert as a piece of fresh fruit. Fruit? The dessert connoisseur in me scoffs. But on some level they are right. The nights when I grab an apple for dessert I find myself feeling fuller, more satisfied, and healthier than the graze-and-eat-whatever-sugar-I-can-find nights. Then again, there are the days – most days, that is – when an apple or an orange just won’t cut it, when you need something just a little sweeter and a little heavier. Pure decadence.

Tonight was one of those nights. I began the graze. A handful of chocolate chips. A scoop of goat’s milk ice cream (to satisfy the ice cream-loving lactard that I am). And then I stopped and reevaluated my methods. Neither healthy nor satisfying, and much too processed for my crunchy, back-to-nature lifestyle. (Ha.) And then I remembered the crazed fruit addict who spent $40 on oranges bananas and pears at Whole Foods the other day. Those barely underripe pears hanging out in the fridge – maybe I could do something with them.

First let’s realize that I am not much of one for delayed gratification, despite my love of baking. I am the one who fills up on raw dough or batter and then doesn’t care much either way for the finished product. I didn’t want to have to wait to roast or poach or bake or whatever it is you do to pears to make them deliciously dessertified. But what is it about a baked pear or apple that really makes it so good? Not the warm gooey smooshiness. So not my style. It’s the brown sugar caramel goodness and spicy cinnamon that really gets me going.

Hence my spectacular dessert invention:

No-Bake Baked Pear:

1 D’Anjou pear, cut into thickish slices (1/2”)
Small spoonful of brown sugar sprinkled over slices
Generous shaking of cinnamon sugar over slices

Let sit for a couple minutes to allow the sugars to juice and sweeten the pear, which should still be firm.

Then gobble up, making sure to clean every last crumbly crumb of brown sugar from the plate with pear slices, finger, and/or tongue. (Manners? What?)

I ate in. In about two minutes. It was amazing. I am full. And I am going to eat this every day for the rest of my life. Or until I run out of pears, which will bring me to … two days from now.

Oatmeal Schmoatmeal

What is it about oatmeal, that ubiquitous breakfast food? What is so attractive about a smiling old Quaker caricature? Why is it so appealing to everyone? Well, almost everyone. Until yesterday, I had never had oatmeal. In my entire life. Don’t believe me? You should. I don’t lie, not about my food.

And you know what? It’s not that bad, but it’s not that great either. To me, it tastes a little bit like Passover food, which makes me think I’m eating it about two months early.

Here’s how it happened. I decided last night, during a brief period of insanity, that I wanted a late night (10 p.m., I’m such a rebel) snack. I had already had approximately 3 Thin Mints (I love Girl Scout season), 2 Brussels cookies, a couple handfuls of cereal, and some raw cookie dough, all of this after dinner. For some reason I was convinced I still needed that little something else before I would be really satisfied for the night. So I said to myself “tonight is the night I like oatmeal.” To be honest, oatmeal actually disgusts me. It’s all gloopy and smooshy and wet and lumpy and warm. I think it’s the warm that pushes me over the edge, because very few other textures actually bother me. But I decided to put all that behind me and convince myself that I liked oatmeal.

So I grab Mr. Quaker Oats in his funny columnar canister off the shelf (well obviously I own oatmeal, I have to make cookies after all) and read the directions on the back. I decide to go with the heart healthy (denoted by a <3) serving size and measure out my cup and a half of water (wouldn’t want to waste precious milk on a science experiment), which along with a sprinkling of salt – it calls for a dash – I set to boil on the stove. I measure out three-quarters of a cup of old-fashioned rolled oats and watch impatiently as my pot of water finally boils (ha! take that, old wives). As directed, I put the oats in the salted water and stir occasionally for closer to ten minutes than the five that are called for. I decide it’s probably done because it looks abhorrently mushy and I taste it gingerly before adding any of my pre-selected mix-ins (banana, cinnamon, brown sugar, and A LOT more salt). It tastes like – well – warm splooshy Passover food. In a word, disgusting. Despite this initial letdown I decide to proceed with my experiment (bananas are cheap, not such a waste) and add an entire banana in slices, a generous dosing of cinnamon, and about half a handful of brown sugar. Mix, mix, mix, mix, taste …. blechhh! Needs salt. Salt, salt, salt, salt, mix, mix, mix, mix, cinnamon, cinnamon, mix, mix, taste, alright! Tastes okay, not great, but I don’t really like this kind of thing anyway. I have three bites, and I’m full. No wonder they say eat oatmeal to lose weight. It is the densest, heaviest, most filling breakfast I could possibly imagine. I had three bites and I was so full I was nauseous.

After picking out all the bananas and eating them (I guess it would have been a waste after all), I decide it’s a waste to throw out all that perfectly good, fresh, hot oatmeal, so I consult my resident oatmeal guru and housemate Hillary, who eats oatmeal practically everyday (although she makes her in that funny thing called a microwave) if she thinks it would still be good tomorrow (today) if I keep it in the fridge. She thought it would be fine, so I covered it up in Saran Wrap and stick it on the top shelf, next to my precious milk, and promptly forgot about it and went to watch the Daily Show.

This morning, I thought I would try some cold oatmeal. Hey, it couldn’t have gotten any worse, right? Again, I had two bites, was a little nauseated, and decided to have some peanut butter toast for breakfast instead. Always a good idea, peanut butter toast. But still I stuck it back in the fridge. I would not throw it out until it was all gone or gone rancid.

But tonight again I was in the mood for a late night snack and the first thing I think of is my cold oatmeal. It couldn’t have been as bad as I thought, right? At this point it is cold, cinnamony, full of banana flavor but with no banana pieces, and infused with delicious brown sugar. Sounds delicious – what could possibly be bad about that? Oh, the whole OATMEAL part. The mushy gooey slimy Passover food just wouldn’t taste GOOD. No, it wasn’t bad, just not as good as I wanted it to be. But I ate it. All of it.

I am sitting here with an empty oatmeal bowl next to me, and you know what? Maybe I’ll make it again, but save it in the fridge for a day because cold oatmeal really is the only way to go in my book. Or maybe that’s a waste of oatmeal, and I’ll use the rest of my oatmeal (can’t call it a box…) silo to make cookies or something more rewarding than HEALTHY breakfast gloop.

Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Dessert

If you ask, I might tell you I have no career goals, and that’s a semi-truth. Everyone is so absorbed by their obsessions with finance and Wall Street and you just can’t get away from it. That’s so not my style. I don’t want a job. Ever. I just want to run away and hide. Now, all I need is a hiding place …

Luckily I have one, sort of. My haven, my sanctuary, is my kitchen. And as much as I’d like it to be, it’s not my (convenient) kitchen here at school but my (seven and a half hour inconvenient) kitchen at home. I love my granite counter tops and propane stove and the wonderful cookware my parents have amassed over their last twenty-six (twenty-seven?) years together. It far surpasses the Ikea (at best) and left over from two occupants ago (at worst) mismatched pots and pans that occupy our cupboards here.

But it’s fine, it’ll do, I’ll make it work. I might make it work a little too well, as there are definitely times when my hours in the kitchen are maybe a little distracting from the homework I should be doing. Like those times at 10 or 11 p.m. when, instead of wasting my perfectly good ten dollars on ordering Insomnia Cookies I decide instead to bake cookies. Even though I am an exceptionally experienced and speedy cookie-baker, it still takes a good hour to an hour and a half to mix, scoop, bake, clean, bake, eat, clean, and eat the cookies. And then of course you have to travel ALLL around the house offering them to everyone else, which inevitably leads to another good half hour of chatting and commiserating over tests and homework and classes and lack of sleep. Basically, I just lost two hours of homework time. And I’m not even a chronic procrastinator. Usually. Except for now.

No worries though, it’s all in the name of the career goals that I apparently don’t have. In reality I just don’t like to admit to them because maybe someone will copy me or try to sabotage me or something. Or I don’t like to recognize them because of a fear of disappointment…

Basically, I like to think I am that girl from Stranger than Fiction. I wish I had such cool tattoos. That’s me, at my Ivy League university, doing what I can to stay focused on my academic life, when really what I like to do is make those experimental whole wheat oatmeal-craisin-chocolate chip cookies (think what you might, they are DELICIOUS) that provide much-needed sustenance for my hockey team, or the impromptu (and actually quite disgusting but addicting at the same time) raw eggless chocolate chip cookie dough for late night study break snacking. (Be extremely careful when making those with oil instead of butter, because it separated on me and we were eating spoonfuls of Canola Oil-drenched chocolate chips. Mmmm…)

Someday, hopefully, it will be my job and my life to do this for other people. Bake, not post on blogs, obviously. Unfortunately I am a product of my society and I know (or I think I know) I have to learn some stuff, work for a while, and make some money before I can pursue my dream of having my own bakery. That’s where the whole job depressive thing comes in. While everyone I know is applying for their summer internships at the Goldman Sachs and the McKinseys and the Bear Stearns of the world, I am pondering whether I should beg for work at the bread bakery or the pastry bakery or maybe go for something a little more adventurous and challenging to my burgeoning culinary talents (so I like to think).

At the risk of doing myself a disservice, I’m trying to be realistic and recognize that I probably won’t own my own bakery, at least anytime soon, and I’ll have to settle down as the soccer mom I know deep down I’ll end up being. I have in fact been planning my privileged suburbanite’s kitchen for several years. At least I’ll force my experiments down the throats of my children. And I always know my dad is good for a few slices of mangled chocolate cake.