Myself As Another

Readers, if there are any of you out there, I need some help. I’m being over-run by tomatoes. I know, I know, I can always give them away, but for various reasons, I really would like to see if I can can them all. But boy are they beautiful on a sunny morning! I’ve included a pic. That’s how many have become ripe in just one week. There’s plenty more on the way.

Here’s the problem. Last week, I made salsa. The recipe called for peeled tomatoes, but I skipped the peeling. The salsa is still good, but apparently, leaving the skins on can alter the PH as well as the taste? Not good for canning. Alters the taste. Waste of time. But I’m also averse to the blanching-peeling-coring-seeding-chopping process. So… a food mill.

I know that I want one. I’m just not sure what to look for. I’m not rich. (Grad student, remember?) I’d like a plastic one, if it will do the trick, but I could see myself using it quite a bit for stuff like this, and potatoes, etc. Is there a big difference between the metal and the plastic ones? Can someone recommend a brand or specific model they like or don’t like?

I’ll post my solution soon.

Jelly… I think of toast. Peanut butter. Pastries. Not last night. Think pork. Onions. Mustard. Maybe this is old hat to you, but for me, this was an adventure.

I tried two recipes, actually. Peach-Glazed Pork Chops. Basil Banana Pepper Jelly. Incredible.

I had a couple of buddies over to grill some pork chops. Eric is leaving town for Bulgaria for a couple of weeks, and Matt was curious about the menu. Peach-glazed Grilled pork chops. I’m trying to be more adventurous in the kitchen, and I knew I had heard that meat could be pretty good with glazes, so I thought I would make this my first attempt. (Also, I’m trying to work my way through a bottle of red wine vinegar, so that I can use the bottle for counter top olive oil-it’s beautiful.) I’ve included the recipe at the end of the post. I’ll try to keep these observations short and simple.

First, this is a glaze, not a jelly. I don’t know why I got confused. I guess I just “wanted” it to be a jelly. Further more, it’s actually the peaches that get glazed, not really the pork. Per the recipe, I brushed on the glaze with a minute to go for the meat, but I don’ think that did much. I all honesty, though, I probably slightly over-cooked the meat, thus sealing it fro absorbing much of the glaze. But I digress. What ended up happening was that the pork and peaches became two separate elements of the same meal, rather than the same dish. Disappointing, but…

The peaches were quite good. I’m really starting to get more interested in the combinations of heavily spiced sweet dishes. The peaches were a good start. The peaches tasted like peaches, for sure, which is important to me because I like peaches. I wouldn’t have wanted the spices to overwhelm. But the mustard really emerged after a second or two of chewing. I didn’t have dijon mustard, so I had to use deli mustard. I think deli mustard has more horseradish. We could certainly taste it. Even thought the other flavors faded a bit behind the mustard and peaches, the dish was actually quite good.

My recommendations: Don’t over-cook the pork. I think we missed out on the interaction of the flavor of the pork with the glaze. I’ll get better on the grill eventually.

The other dish was the Basil Banana Pepper Jelly. Oh my goodness. I hesitate even to write much about it, but…

You must, must, must try this. Onions. Basil. Banana Peppers. Chilis. I figured it would only be good on some sort of meat or vegetable, like asparagus. But we were out of anything like those. So toast. Weird. I had forgotten how much sugar this recipe called for (see below). I know banana peppers and onions have plenty of sugar already in them. But using them in this jelly brought that out to the forefront. The basil and green chilis were really just there to shape the taste of the other major flavors.

I’m starting to get a sense for the different aspects of flavors. How flavors are constituted by different levels and different types of sour, sweet, bitter, salt. Combinations of foods are really just ways of coaxing different aspects of those flavors to the front of the experience. Letting some of the flavors or ingredients take much of the attention, while letting other ingredients add a specific variation or direction to that taste. It’s really quite beautiful. (The image I included is someone else’s, but this is exactly how mine looked. It’s overcast here this morning, so I can’t get a decent pic. Sorry.)

I’ll try to think about this approach to my taste descriptions as I continue to figure out this blogging thing.

Also, I’m not comfortable, yet, copying someone else’s recipes from a book or subscription site. So, mostly I’ll just be posting ingredients. I will, however, tell you where to get these recipes, so you can try them yourself.

Peach-Glazed Grilled Pork Chops

1 c. peach preserves

¼ c. red wine vinegar

½ tsp. Minced fresh thyme leaves

1/8 tsp. Cayenne pepper

16 oz. Bag of frozen sliced peaches

1 tsp. Dijon Mustard

4 bone-in rib or center-cut pork chops, about 1-inch thick

Salt/Pepper to taste

(Apparently, not everyone hesitates to lift someone else’s recipe. Here’s a link to the exact recipe from Cook’s Country. Enjoy.)

Basil Banana Pepper Jelly

½ c. Sliced Banana Peppers

¼ c. Green Chili Peppers

¼ c. Chopped red onion

3-4 Large basil leaves, shredded.

¼ tsp. Dried basil

¾ c. White Vinegar

3 c. Granulated sugar

1 pouch liquid pectin.

(This recipe is taken from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (Kingry and Devine, eds.)

Before this weekend, I’d never made an apple pie. Now I’m still not sure if I’ve made an apple pie. Y’see, the thing is every time I find a new Cook’s Illustrated in my mailbox, I get preoccupied with at least one of the recipes. This time, apple pie. But it’s a different kind of apple pie. It’s called a skillet apple pie.

Apple pie has always been one of those foods that didn’t really interest me for two reasons. First, it seemed like a lot of work. Getting the crust right. Finding a filling that tastes just right. Lot’s of time involved. And so on. Also, I had never really found apple pie to be all that interesting. Always on the menu. Always mentioned as the Americana cliché. At least in North Dakota, it wasn’t all that uncommon to order a slice with cheese. Well, it’s American cheese, and from what I understand, that’s not really cheese. But I digress. Apple pie. Yawn.

There seemed to be something different about his apple pie. Something masculine. Stop laughing. Yes, I know that’s weird. Seeing those spiced apples all caramelized and bubbling sweet syrup up through a flaky crust makes my mouth water. But all of that goodness resting in a big, heavy cast iron skillet that almost takes two hands to life as a whole extra element of cool. Sort of like a monster truck of apple pie.

My friend Chris and I cooked up a version and brought it to a party this weekend. It was a big hit. And Cook’s Illustrated was right. Filling with great texture. Flaky crust. Fast. Easy. Yeah.

Maybe what’s most important here, though, is that I found out just how interesting apple pie can be. Red apples don’t work; it’s the green ones. But there are so many varieties (thus the term “variety,” right?) with such a wide range of flavors. The website recommends a sweet green apple mixed with something more tart. Also, the filling can get pretty complex, too. For instance, I didn’t know that some apple pies have maple syrup. What about substituting something like a strong honey or one of the specialty preserves I make?

I knew about the cinnamon, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there could be substitutions here, too. I’m going to have to look this up, but I’m curious.

Although we didn’t try any of these variations with our first attempt, we did add an extra little something. Raisins. I know, not exactly shocking, but we were a few ounces short with the apples, so we just added raisins to make up the difference (about two ounces, I think). We could definitely taste them.

The recipe is so good that I’d love to post it, but I just don’t feel okay about it. However, I’d be willing to send a pdf to anyone who asks. Better yet, either subscribe to the magazine (beautiful) or the website (media rich with recipes and videos of hundreds and hundreds of recipes). Neither one is all that expensive, and it seems like a great magazine to support.

Regardless. Get started learning how to make this stuff. It could really become a signature dish. Something you could really make your own.

MSNBC has a reported that Fox News frequently receives “talking points” fed from the bush administration, according to former Press Secretary Scott McClellan. See the story here.

The bush administration, on countless occasions, has defended and championed the “fair and balanced” orientation of Fox News. The whole time they were doing this, they were feeding that same company “talking points” to further its own agenda and to frame the terms of political discussions so that they would be favorable to the bush administration. Fair and balanced. Not only is this “feeding” practice unethical (and likely illegal), but in doing so, the administration itself creates an environment which makes a blatant lie out of their own defense of Fox News as fair and balanced. Once again, as so often is the case with this administration, we can only choose from one of two possibilities: the intellect guiding this administration is too ignorant or blind to recognize it, or they were willingly perpetrating and perpetuating the situation with disregard for ethics or the law.

So the administration lies to us, spends money on a war we don’t want to be fighting, pays their closest business former and current business associates to wage that war, and calls into question anyone’s patriotism who calls for a change in those policies or momentum?

Read: morality = simple and unquestioned patriotism necessarily informed by dogmatic christian traditions.

Conclusion: To be conservative in all things requires great opposition to growth and opportunity; it also requires a willful disregard for problems associated with established institutions.

Ugh. I’m so angry I can’t even argue these points.

It’s like arguing gravity.

(Also, I’d like to note that I will never, personally, capitalize this president’s name again.)

Ahhh. The dentist. Sort of. Dental school, actually. Is it possible for the truly scary to get scarier? The joker as a dentist, maybe? Ten years since I had last sat in the chair. I guess after it had been three years, it was guilt and fear that kept me away. The longer I waited, the worse they got.

Ugh. So I know I need some work. My teeth aren’t exactly falling out of my head, or anything. But I do have one molar with a pretty good sized hole in it.

Also, it can’t have been good when my dentist, looking at a set of dental x-rays, mumbled something like “I’m not sure what to make of that…” He was pointing to some dark spot (that I couldn’t really see) somewhere near one of my sinuses. Might be nothing, he said. Some kind of cyst probably. They come and go. Usually nothing.

Shit. Nothing? Apparently, I’m supposed to ask my doctor about it. I’m due back at the dentist in a few weeks for more exams. They should know more then. Makes me kind of sick.

Anyway, after ten years, I’m back on speaking terms with the dental community. I’m guessing I’m also going to be on speaking terms with their accounts receivable department, too.

Ugh. I hate wasps. I always have.

I strolled out into my back porch today, in full gotta-clean-the-house-on-Sunday-morning mode, and I hear a loud buzzing sound. And I mean this wasn’t your typical big yellow bumble bee or house fly banging against the screen. I looked up into the corner of the window sill and I say the biggest bug I’ve ever seen. A cartoonishly huge hornet. I’m talking raised-on-a-superfund-site huge. I dropped the soda bottle and cans I had been taking to the recycling bins out there, and sprinted back into the house. In a single motion, I slammed the door behind me and locked it. As thought the little monster could turn the door knob or something. Shit.

I looked out the window and I could see him crawling around the screen, trying to figure out an escape. Then he started up his wings again, like a little lawn mower or something. I could hear him through the window! He drifted back from the screen like some murderous Tinkerbell.

I knew that I would never be able to go into the porch again, unless I knew he was dead. After watching for a few minutes, I got up the nerve and found a long enough broom, to go out and kill him. I figured that if I let him go, he might decide that this would be a perfect place for a new radiation-free nest for him and all his freakish buddies. Nope. That would be a disaster. So, I very slowly (have you ever seen the movie Sniper?) tiptoed out into the porch and very slowly (like a tulip opening slow) raised the broom only inches from his back. And then…HA! Squashed him under the broom.

I could feel the stiff bristles grinding away at his wings, crippling him. I pushed and twisted the broom until I thought it might go through the window. Then, slowly… slowly… I dragged the broom to the side, hoping that I might roll-up whatever was left of him into a little ball to drop safely, albeit heavily, onto the sill. From under the bristles emerged a wing, antennae, and then HOLY CRAP! He was still alive, and pissed! He shot himself to the right banging into another screened window, only to angrily bang himself against it again. I’m sure I was already behind the locked kitchen door before his second impact. Shit.

Back in the kitchen, I watched him again, stairing in disbelief. Really. This was like one of those horror movies where a character runs across a huge version of some insect and kills it. Not thinking much of it, she sweeps it up and drops it into the garbage can. Ten minutes later she’s “bee-ing” carried off across the neighborhood by a swarm of vengeful yellow jackets. I was terrified. But I didn’t lose my cool. Gotta be the hero of my own story, right?

I watched until what I figured was some sort of wasp adrenaline (b-drenaline?) seemed to subside, and the big guy stopped crawling around on the screen. Slowly (somehow, impossibly slower than before) I managed to sneak back out into the porch and strain to pick up the broom again without getting too close to the little monster. Soon enough I had him under the bristles again, but this time I wasn’t taking any chances. I picked up the snow shovel. As I slowly rolled the broom to the side again, I squashed him as he struggled to get out from under the broom. He looked like Jessica Lang flailing in King Kong’s fist. (GROSS ALERT: skip to the next paragraph to avoid it.) This time, though, I could hear him crunch underneath the blade of the shovel. He won’t be flying anywhere anytime soon. When I moved the shovel back from the window, he was still struggling, which freaked me out again, but I managed not to run. He clung to the shovel blade, and somehow I thought he might leap down the length of the shaft onto my hand or into my face. Nope. I dropped the shovel and hustled back into the porch. Unfortunately, the handle landed on a trash bag full of plastic bottles, apparently dropping him down into it somewhere. I’ve since gone back out to look for him, but I can’t find him. I’ll wait until later. I’m still sort of spooked.

I did however get a pretty good idea about how big he is. I could see that he reached halfway across the window handle. The handle is five inches across. That means that this wasp from his huge eyeballs to his pointy stinger is at least 2.5 inches. Oh my goodness.

I looked him up. I’ve now had a chance to find him on the internet. He looks to be a Cicada Killer Wasp. Yep. Apparently not that uncommon in these parts. Here’s a link. Here’s another.

Turns out that the big lugs are totally harmless and docile. Now I feel guilty.

Still, I can’t wait to move.

I wish I could explain why this brings me to tears. Just so pure. So good.

Please watch.

Picked up one of my jars of Mocha Cherry jam this morning, and it was… um… runny. I told you I was a rookie at this stuff. Luckily, it looks like it only happened to one of the two batches.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t drain the cherries when I measured them out. I guess I’ll have to remember that. I figured I would just boil the batch again and add more pectin. However, my fried Eric (donator of the cherries) told me that it even happened to his mom a couple of times. She just called it syrup and saved it for pancakes.

Perfect!

Postmodern ecology. Not a great subject to start the day’s reading. Much better to procrastinate. I’ve been meaning to raid my friend’s cherry tree (with permission) for some cool jam. Maybe canning is a form of postmodern ecology.

There’s something I’m really attracted to about jars of food. Low-tech-traditional. A craft to learn. Creativity. Making foods I can’t get anywhere else. All good reasons to boil-and-seal.

Cherries are not easy to pick. Abrasive branches. Thick foliage. Eric and his roommate had already picked a bunch of the “gettable” cherries, leaving mostly those hard-to-reach varieties. I’m so thankful for the cherry-charity, and the cuts and scratches were actually totally worth it. I picked for two hours. Beautiful morning. Sunlight through branches. Thought of Robert Frost’s poem “After Apple Picking”:

… and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I’m still a huge rookie when it comes to canning (or anything with food, really). I’ve made some memorable treats, though. Cinnamon ketchup. Ginger-Pear Jam.

I had already settled on a recipe for Almond Cherry jam. It’s recommended as a spread for the holidays, but for the life of me, I’m not sure why. Key ingredient: almond liqueur (I hate saying that word). But guy helping me the liquor (ah, that’s better) store was only “pretty sure” Amaretto is an almond liqueur. The last thing I wanted was a $20 bottle of zuchini liqueur (two ugly words) above my refrigerator. Something else, then. Something original and interesting. What goes well with cherries? Chocolate. Coffee. Ice cream. So… Kaluha? Close. Perfect! Mmmm. Kaluha “Mocha”.

Picked cherries are beautiful. I’ve included some pics below. However, to my eventual horror, it seems that picked cherries are not pitted cherries. And there’s really no short-cut to pitting them. Apparently, using a straw is a great way to get them out. I didn’t have one. After a few disastrously messy attempts with my fingers, I chucked the old-school sensibility and hit the internet. Cook’s Illustrated. Best cooking site ever. Great mag, too. Anyway, it turns out that a needle-nose pliers works wonders. Just so happens… Wow. That’s cool. Like I was doing arthroscopic surgery or something. Nose in. Open. Grab pit. Pull. Minimal ripping and tearing. I guess I’m not an arthroscopic surgeon. Luck for the injured. I prefer words. To pitting, then.

So I might have been a bit overzealous with my harvesting. It didn’t look like that much in the bucket. Two big bowls worth. I can promise you one thing. Pitting cherries takes a long time. Even if you’re genius enough to use a needle-nose pliers. I spent an hour at the sink. Only made it through half. When I measured the post-op fruit piles, I had a half-gallon. (Another half gallon still awaits pitting even now.) Lots of work. Lots of jam.

At this point, the story of my canning is pretty standard. Boil the cherries with pectin, lemon juice, and Kaluha Mocha(!). Then add sugar. Boil. Rolling boil. Fill some canning jars with the goodies. De-bubble. Clean. Lid. Band. Water bath. Boil. Boil. Pull and cool. Get this: fifteen pints. And I still have to pit and can the other half tomorrow!

I always leave one jar unsealed so I can cool it and taste immediately. All this wholesome-traditional-old-school-low-tech culinary coolness hasn’t exactly improved my sense of patience. So I wait an hour, toast a slice… and take a picture.

My dog, Rilke, is excited. A new smell. For me, too. The taste? Cherry, coffee, cream, chocolate, lemon. Mostly cherry. This might be a bit rich for breakfast, but I think it could really bring out the coffee-ness of coffee. Helpful if, like me, you eschew the expensive stuff for store brand breakfast blend. This spread is probably best consumed on toasted sourdough after dinner, just before that second glass of Shiraz.

If you’re curious (and happen to be reading postmodern ecology) I’ve included the recipe below. If you’re a friend of mine, bring over a cup of cheap coffee or a bottle of Shiraz. I’ll indulge you. I’ve got fourteen pints to go.

Mocha-Cherry Jam

36 oz Sour Cherries
1 pack powered pectin
¾ c Mocha Liqueur
4 ½ c Sugar

Finely chop cherries. Combine cherries, powdered pectin, mocha liqueur and lemon juice in a large sauce pot. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Add sugar. Stirring until dissolved. Return to a rolling boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner. (Originally called for sweet cherries and almond liqueur. I substituted same amounts.)(Recipe from: Ball Blue Book of Preserving)

Two phone calls tonight. I didn’t pick up either one. First, my friend Daniel. Then my sister. I still haven’t checked the messages. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It makes me sad to think about talking to people. Not just any people, though. I love my sister, and I love Daniel. But there’s something about them wanting to know what’s going on in my life that makes me really sad. I don’t want to talk about my life. I don’t want to work through this depression with anyone else. I don’t want to tell my friends that I’m lonely. I can tell them in an email, or write it on this blog. I don’t know why that is.

My friend Alanna called tonight. I took that call. She and her husband are going to watch a movie with me tomorrow night. But most likely they’re not going to ask me how it’s going. They will, but they won’t mean it in the way that my sister or Daniel would mean it. My sister lives in Fargo and Daniel lives in Denver. They both have families. They are both part of my past lives. Lives I look back on with some fondness and some sadness and some regret. I miss them. Maybe talking to them makes me miss them more. Makes this loneliness more real here, so far from where they are.

But Alanna and Chris (her husband) are here in Louisville. And my friends Dowell and Scott are here, too. But they don’t ask me how it’s going in the way that I can really tell them. I don’t know if I could explain it to them anyway. It’s not that they don’t want to hear it. I have complete faith that they would listen like good, close friends. But I don’t push for that. Neither do they.

I had a great workout this morning. Then I spent the rest of the day working in my yard weeding and mowing the lawn and patching the sidewalk and pulling up some old fence. I fried some potatoes and made a chicken sandwich. I started working on my project for DMAC. I was having a fulfilling and productive day. I was doing everything I should have been doing. Not because people tell me I should be doing these things, but because they feel right. Then something happened. I started to feel really lonely. My house got quiet. Now that I’m writing this, I wonder if it’s that I miss Lisa. I don’t think so. The last thing I want is to have her back in my life. Horrible. But I miss having someone around. That’s for sure. And it’s this absence that I feel. Like there’s always something inhabiting my consciousness. Another person sometimes. But sometimes an absence. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s a present absence. My parents. My sister. My brother. Old lovers. Old friends. Pottery. Poetry.

Love, I guess. Someone’s love for me. My love for other people and things.

But in a present sense. In the sense of dedication. In the sense that someone or some thing is rooted in my physical, everyday life. Not just the one made of words over the phone. Not just in letters.

Some sort of passion.

Wouldn’t even have to be the firey kind. I’d be happy even with the kind that just wittles away at you like a ticking clock that you just have to reach out an touch to keep from being reminded about it. Even something to do to keep the demons away. To keep memories out of my head. To keep despair at bay. But I don’t know what that is.

I talk to my therapist, but there’s not much there yet. That’s never seemed to work for me. I’m trying to invest in my own life. Caring foods. Exercise. Time with friends. Intellectual projects and challenges.

But they just can’t keep away nights like this. Nights like this always wait to be felt. These sadnesses and lonelinesses are patient ones. I, too, am patient. I am trying to be still. To wait without hope. But I don’t know what it is I’m waiting for.