Beet "Caviar"

Words cover slightly different concepts in different languages. For example, not every language refers to a "book" of matches using the same word that describes a book that you read. In Russian, "caviar" refers not only to fish roe, but also to cold spreads that can be eaten on black bread much like regular caviar. Vegetable caviars are popular, and they can be made with all sorts of different vegetables (but especially eggplant!). Happily, they are a lot cheaper than fish roe.

For a few years now I have occasionally made beet caviar from a recipe in Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook, but I have never thought it was quite right. However, I decided to give it another try this year because I came home from the farmers' market with a small bunch of beets, and I had already made pickled cooked beet salad three times this summer and I needed to make something else.

The beet caviar recipe calls for prunes, which I'm afraid I simply don't like, so I never put in very much of them, and I still feel like my food tastes like prunes. This time I didn't have any prunes and decided to use dried cherries instead. I was also out of brandy and used diluted sherry instead. The result was scrumptious; I have finally found a beet caviar that pleases me.

Beet Caviar with Walnuts and Cherries

3 large beets, cooked, peeled, and cut into quarters
3 Tbsp. cooking sherry + 1 Tbsp. water + 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup dried cherries
3 cloves garlic, cut in half
1 additional Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2-3/4 c. walnut pieces, chopped
3 Tbsp. mayonnaise (I like Spectrum canola mayo or Nayonnaise)
salt and pepper to taste

Bring the sherry to a boil, then drop the cherries in, remove the pan from the heat, and let the cherries soak for 30 minutes.

Process the beets and garlic in a food processor until finely minced but not pureed. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice, the cherries, 2 tablespoons of the liquid used to cook the cherries, and the walnuts. Stir in the mayonnaise and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 6 hours or longer before eating.

Not everyone would like this, but I melted a little bleu cheese with some beet caviar and spread it on toast, and I thought it was quite good, though not as good as the straight caviar.

Hawes Wensleydale

Every now and then I like to try a new cheese, and this week I saw an appetizing description of a British cheese, "pleasantly nutty," perhaps "tart." Seduced by these phrases, I bought a wedge. I always think I'm going to like "nutty" cheeses, and yet they nearly always taste like vomit. I adore cheeses, but in my opinion all of them have an undertone of vomit taste, and in some it is less subtle than in others. The flavor of the Hawes Wensleydale cheese suggested that it should not be eaten alone, but paired with something smoky and strong such as mushrooms.

Hawes Wensleydale frittata with portabello mushrooms

Saute in a high-sided skillet with a little oil until it begins to turn translucent:
one onion, chopped

Add:
several Baby Bella mushrooms, sliced
four lightly pre-steamed small Yukon Gold or red potatoes, sliced
Saute until the mushrooms soften.

Whisk together:
6 eggs
1/3 c. grated Hawes Wensleydale cheese
1/4 c. milk
1-2 t. tarragon
salt and pepper to taste

Lower the heat on the burner, pour the liquid into the skillet, cover the skillet, and cook until the frittata is set but not overcooked, about 20 minutes.

This frittata was very tasty, and the cheese blended in well with the other flavors.

Cheap Eats

I spent altogether too much time in graduate school. Now that I am gainfully employed, I still keep to a daily budget that is very similar to what it was in grad school, but I spend extra on having a nice place to live, subscribing to cable, and furnishings and the occasional clothing item that I would not have been able to splurge on in grad school.

I still eat very cheaply. I'm now volunteering at the local food pantry, and looking around at their stocks of food reminded me of all kinds of things I've made to eat. I never eat Ramen; I eat a variety of cheap food that offers a greater variety of tastes. The food pantry keeps a book of recipes, and I submitted four of mine to them. Here's one I made up a couple years ago.

Refried Bean Casserole

Ingredients:
leftover tortilla chips
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic
either: one can of Ro-Tel tomatoes, drained a little
or: small can of mild green chilies, drained, with 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained a little
or: one fresh jalapeno, with 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained a little
1 can of refried beans
grated cheese (Mexican "queso" or Jack cheese is good)
salsa, green or red

Directions:
1. Oil a large casserole dish.
2. Pour the tortilla chips into a big bowl and pick out the unbroken ones. Take the broken ones and crumble them into the casserole dish to line the bottom.
3. Saute the onion in oil for about 5 minutes, then add the garlic and jalapeno if using them. Saute until the onion is soft. Then turn the heat off and stir in the canned ingredients: chiles if used, tomatoes, and refried beans. Stir well. Pour this mixture into the casserole dish and spread it around evenly. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4. Take the reserved whole tortilla chips and arrange them around the edges of the casserole so they form a ridge. Form a decorative pattern in the center using some of the chips.
5. Cover the surface of the casserole with as much cheese as you want. Drizzle salsa on top in a zigzag pattern. Bake until the cheese browns slightly.

Gruel Bread

A few years ago I figured out a use for leftovers I didn't want to eat: Bake them into bread. I started with gruel bread made with leftover overcooked vegetables from soup stock. Gruel bread was not actually very good, however. Some leftovers work better than others. For instance, I have a truly nasty hempseed bar that I plan to boil down and use in bread or muffins, and the results might be rather tasty. I may do the same with my Trader Joe's fig cake, which has a strong boozy taste that I don't like, but that might be a good flavoring for bread.

A few weeks ago cauliflower and squash were on sale at the corner grocery store, and I used most of a head of cauliflower and most of a winter squash of some sort to make a vegetable dish. I steamed them, and then I baked them with orange juice, brandied ginger puree, and allspice. It sounded good, but in the end I didn't like it very much. Eventually I concluded I wasn't going to finish eating it all, so I froze the last of it.

After a few days I realized I probably wasn't going to eat the two frozen servings either, so I thought it over and decided to use them as the base for bread. I warmed them up in the microwave, pureed them in the blender with more orange juice, and substituted them for the fruit in the Freshly Fruited Bread recipe in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook.

The quirk of squash bread is that it absorbs flour slowly. At first it behaves as though I were a complete cad for putting in so much flour, and it is resolved to be dry and inedible. Then, as I continue to knead, I find that the dough is actually wet and sticky. I have to continue adding flour, but only a little at a time, and it takes too long, and if there's very much whole grain flour in the mix, it is awfully hard work. I've taken to using mostly white flour for squash bread so the kneading is not tiring. Today I ran out of whole wheat and had to mix in some soy flour and brown rice flour, which has very little gluten, but the white flour should make up for the rest of the gluten so the bread will rise well.

I'm rushing the rise a little because a friend is arriving in 45 minutes for a bike ride.

Granola

Some people, like my friend Ellen and my parents, love "my" granola and want me to make it for them as housewarming presents and Christmas presents and Spring Solstice presents... while other people say "Eh, it's granola," or in other words, they're all the same. In any case, my granola is really Mollie Katzen's Very Crunchy Granola, and the recipe can be taken from her website. All I do to change it is reduce the oil content and soy protein content, reduce the almonds a bit to make it cheaper, leave out the brown sugar, and set the oven 25-40 degrees lower so I don't burn it. I add 1/2-2/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes, which add fat to the granola, and I can't really taste a coconut flavor, but the granola isn't as good without the coconut. I suspect I wouldn't need the cooler oven if it weren't for the coconut, which burns easily. The more coconut I use, the cooler I have to set the oven.

I wrote all that down for Ellen, whose head was spinning from the simplicity of my alterations to the recipe. She ate the granola I left her, and then she made her own, and it didn't taste the same. She called me and told me, and I realized I had a secret ingredient. Of course I promptly spilled the beans: Instead of using raw pumpkin seeds, I make the granola with tamari pumpkin seeds, which are greasy and salty and extremely tasty.

Pie Times My Radius Squared

This week I drove down the Flat Tops Scenic Byway in north central Colorado. There were plenty of mountains and scenic vistas, and it was all very lovely. I started in Yampa after a quick visit to the Finger Rock fish hatchery to feed the trout. As we drove the three-hour route westward from Yampa, my traveling companions and I began to get hungry. We were on a gravel road with no towns nearby, and we had not thought to pack a picnic, which was a bit of a shame since there was a perfect picnic spot at the overlook by 10,300-foot Ripple Creek Pass.

After a couple of hours we were mostly down from the pass but not yet to the first town, Buford. Just as our tires touched asphalt, I spotted a cafe. When my stomach calls, I hate to let the phone ring off the hook, and we hastily pulled off the road. The place was Fritzlan's Cafe, and we were just in time to eat lunch before they closed for a couple hours at 2:00.

I expected the food would be good. The place was clearly frequented by locals, and the decor wasn't the type of stuff that people just pack up and move: antiques, antlers, even a moose head they acquired when somebody from Nebraska shot it by mistake, thinking it was the biggest damn trophy elk he'd ever laid eyes on.

What I did not expect was that when I ordered hot tea, I would be able to choose blackcurrant tea from London, which I would steep in freshly boiled water. Water hot enough for tea is a treat nearly impossible to find in restaurants not specializing in tea. I've even had lukewarm tea water at one place that called itself a teahouse. Here the menu was simple cafe fare, and the special of the day was a chicken-fried steak sandwich accompanied by crunchy, pickly potato salad topped with paprika. I appreciated the attention to detail shown in the paprika sprinkle. Also, the service was fantastic.

I was so impressed that I ordered dessert, guessing I might be able to get a good slice of homemade pie. In fact, their only desserts turned out to be pie: peach, apple, cherry, or blueberry. My hopes rose higher. My pie's cherry filling was very ordinary, but the crust was nice and flaky. Although I very often eat dessert to be polite, there are few ways to tempt me with dessert I will actually want. One of those ways is to offer me pie.

Autumn is just settling in, which means that soon I will be compulsively baking pies. I bake apple-walnut pies, dark brown from the molasses I sweeten them with; chunky, spicy squash pies; pecan pies with bubbling maple syrup; custard pies that bake for hours and are so rich they have to be eaten in small slivers with a cup of black coffee; buttery peach tarts with almonds; savory pies with tender carrot slices. I like pies.

Ricotta Frittata

I did quite a good job of getting in plenty of both work and relaxation this week. One evening, for example, after work I purchased groceries for entertaining this weekend (also entertained last weekend: shark escabeche, tossed salad, Italian bread, cherry-ricotta mousse). At home I tidied a few things, did laundry, and fixed dinner from leftover odds and ends:

Ricotta Frittata Acuna Matata, serves 3

olive oil
2 small Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into small strips
small onion, chopped
1/4 green bell pepper and 1/4 red bell pepper, cut into small strips
4 or 5 eggs
leftover ricotta (approximately a scant cup)
1/4 t. ground cumin
1/4 t. dried oregano
1/4 t. dried French basil
sprinkling of crushed red pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Fry the potatoes in olive oil until lightly browned. Add onion. When the onion starts to soften, add peppers. When all veggies are reasonably softened, arrange them in an oiled shallow pie pan. Beat together remaining ingredients, and pour them over the vegetables. Bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes.

It was delicious.

I spent the rest of my evening reading a newspaper and Bridget Jones's Diary, while polishing off the leftover bottle of chardonnay that I had opened to make marinade for my tasty shark.

Food from the Recent Past

Growing up, I wasn't much of a cook. I had no real interest in anything that smacked of domesticity. I preferred to solve a math problem, write a poem, read a book, or stroll purposefully through the woods pretending I was Clark, my best friend was Lewis, and my faithful dog was Seaman.

In college I learned to microwave cheese tortillas, and that was about it. Even after college my kitchen creations tended to revolve around cheese, except for curried eggs with avocadoes. I still miss those heady times when avocadoes were five for a dollar.

The longer I stayed in graduate school, the more obsessive I became about saving money and finishing without debt, which meant I had to cook. I went through enough times eating lentils and rice that I also was determined to eat not merely cheaply, but well.

Now I am earning money and gradually letting go of my obsessively skinflint ways, but I am still cooking, as I have developed a taste for eating very well. This week a coworker asked for a curry recipe, and while I searched for that recipe, I uncovered a treasure trove of recipes from people I have known over the years.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I collect people. They live their own lives, and they don't take up any space, but I know a few of their stories, and I keep a few recipes from some of them. I have a pickled garlic recipe accompanied by a soundplay poem from a dear friend who shares my passionate love of Moscow. There's the Zen noodle recipe from my geologist friend with the "four-dimensional mind," a divine diablo sauce that I used to make once a week with vegetables from my garden. There are shark recipes that I'm going to try this summer, sent along by a Floridian who knows what's good to make in hot weather.

Most importantly at the moment, I found, misfiled, the wonderful chicken salad recipe that I begged one friend to send to me. A year ago this month, she killed herself. She had already taken pills but had been found before the pills could finish her off, so being a thorough academician, the second time around she took pills and drowned herself. I have her letters, and she published articles, but her chicken salad with sundried tomatoes and pasta seems to me to reflect the way she lived--a shy, invariably kind tenured college professor whom I had known since our own college years, with a bright, airy, lovely home, a sweet husband, and two dynamic dogs. She seemed happy. She had the kind of life I wished I had. And now she doesn't.

Academe has killed or driven mad a smattering of my friends and acquaintances, and I've suffered a couple stinging betrayals. In some ways it's odd that I'm not now a Ph.D., and I still find that many of the most magnificent people I know are in universities, but I love, love, love having an hourly job. I work 8-10 hours a day, and that's all. I finally have an apartment to myself, with my desk in a different room than my bedroom. It's heavenly. Why did my other interviewers ever not hire me? I'm the happiest employee ever.

This summer I plan to have the most fun I've had since 1995 in Moscow. I will attend concerts, I will ride my bicycle, and I will cook delicious meals and remember my friends.

Half Baked

I take my baking seriously. This week on my day off I was in the middle of whipping up some Moldavian feta cheese cornbread when I discovered I had neglected to buy cornmeal. I cursed up a blue streak, slammed around the kitchen in a panic, pulled on sandals and a jacket, and dashed out into the rain to try to buy cornmeal at the Dollar General before my broccoli casserole had to come out of the oven.

Doubtless a little worried by my behavior, my neighbor emerged from his apartment just as I stepped out onto my front step. I grinned sheepishly, "Out of cornmeal," and took off at a dead run.

I'm Green and I'm Proud

I tried some new produce recently, Lacinato kale. Lacinato kale snorts dismissively as it declares that Kermit the Frog is a wimp. It is easy being green, provided you've got the constitution for it.

I did a little research and found out that Lacinato kale is also called dinosaur kale, which explains its attitude. Kale is even tougher than the dinosaurs in one way; it can survive in subzero temperatures. You just suspend a blanket over it to keep the snow off. Then you put on your snow boots, your parka, and your gardening gloves, and you reach underneath the blanket and presto! Vitamin K and molybdenum!

I should cook some for my mother this year. Her doctor told her she should eat kale, so she put some mature leaves in a salad and was sufficiently scarred by the experience that she has never eaten kale again. I don't blame her, either!

There's an absolutely charming website run by people who love kale even more than I do, and are Buffy fans, and also have a somewhat raucous kitchen, in which you cook whatever comes your way. Check out their unconquerable kale logo.

Next Phase of My Life

Today is the last day of my community theatre play! I am very glad. I enjoy my new job, and I often have to be there early in the morning, so the play is wiping me out. It has been a big success, though. We sold out 2/3 of our shows the first two weekends, and now we are in a larger venue in another town. Today we will probably sell out, which is wonderful because it will help pay for the renovations of the town's historic opera house.

Two weeks from now, I will finally host the champagne party that I promised my friends, celebrating my new job. I'm going to try making deviled eggs with caviar, coconut chicken pieces, and fried plantains. The deviled eggs may be odd with the chicken and plantains, but they'll be tasty anyway. I'll give them a test run for Easter, but without the caviar. Fish eggs? My little niecies would be appalled.

Sack Lunch

Lately I leave my apartment at 7:20 and return at 5:05, then leave again at 6:30 for play rehearsal, which doesn't allow me a lot of time to do my usual cooking from scratch. Still, I need to cook things at home so I'll have leftovers to take to work! I work in a crowded building where there's always a line for the microwaves at lunch, so I don't want to tie up a microwave with a frozen dinner.

At my last workplace I used to bring little salads with dressing on the side, and other such elaborate dishes, but here I only have a 30-minute lunch break, so I bring food that I can eat very fast. Last weekend I made eight twice-baked stuffed potatoes and a healthful carrot cake, which is a less sugary snack than a protein bar. During the week I fixed black bean and spinach enchiladas and a dessert that I made up. I thought it might be really terrible, but I actually like it, although it definitely has NO CLASS.

I got the idea from eating pre-packaged rice pudding, which is overly sweet and has no nutritional value whatsoever. I figured I could make my own version with calcium, B vitamins, and fiber. Indian rice puddings can get pretty complex and involve complicated, intoxicatingly delicious ingredients. Not my rice pudding!

I took one cup of brown rice and prepared it, which was almost the entire preparation time. Next, I poured in about 2/3 of a can of sweetened condensed milk and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom, and I stirred it up and stuck it in the fridge.

Delicious. I'll use 3/8 teaspoon cardamom next time.

This weekend I made Armenian lentil and spinach soup, and a quasi-Cajun red bean and vegetable dish with Andouille sausage. Okay, I baked an apple cake too, but we won't talk about that.

Curry Debacle

Tonight I decided to fix a pot of curry from a recipe in a newspaper column that I rather enjoy, "Table Talk" by Anne Kapler. It was a good recipe, and the only problem was that I live in a rural area. I went to the grocery store today, and they didn't carry coconut milk. In fact, the kind stock worker had never heard of coconut milk. The closest thing they had was coconut cream, which is a sweetened coconut designed for making pina coladas. I managed to find a can in which coconut was listed as the first ingredient, rather than sugar, and I decided to try it.

Once again, my willingness to try anything once got me into hot water. I was hoping the jalapenos might counter some of the sweetness, but I ended up with curried cauliflower, potato, and chickpea DESSERT. The worst part was that it smelled absolutely fabulous, exactly the way it would smell if it were made with unsweetened coconut milk. It smelled like I had made something good, and it turned out to be terrible.

When I reheat the leftovers, I will try adding plain yogurt and lemon juice. I think the fat squirrel in the back yard would be the perfect finishing touch for this curry debacle, but I would need my friend Elantu to kill it and dress it for me, because I am too squeamish.

Snow

We just had our first big snowfall of the winter: 14 inches over a 24-hour period, the most in 50 years. We actually don't get a whole lot of snow around here, not like the Sierras! Still, 14 inches is not to be sneezed at, and I have a really long driveway. I was valiantly shoveling away when my friendly neighbor drove up in a John Deere mini-tractor outfitted with a cheerful yellow steel blade, and he cleared my entire driveway and carport.

Needless to say, I was plenty grateful. I decided to bake cinnamon roll bread and take a loaf over to him and his wife, along with a bottle of my dad's beer that I don't drink.

I make this bread by finding any pulla recipe and adapting it. Pulla is a very rich, delectable Finnish bread made with cardamom. My favorite pulla recipe is Elizabeth's high school boyfriend's recipe, but I don't have that one here! I adapted a recipe from the Moosewood cookbook instead. What follows is not a Moosewood recipe, but if you want a sweepingly beautiful pulla braid with some stunningly elegant possible variations, that's a good place to look.

Cinnamon Roll Bread

Dissolve sugar in water, then sprinkle on yeast:
1/2 c. wrist-temperature water
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 packages dry yeast (2 scant Tbsp.)

Let the yeast proof (bubble). Meanwhile, mix, and warm to lukewarm:
2 c. milk
3 Tbsp. sugar
1 t. salt
1/2 t. ground cinnamon

Pour both liquids into a large mixing bowl, and mix them well. Add the following and beat:
4 eggs, beaten (reserve 1 Tbsp. for making glaze later)
1 c. whole wheat flour
4 c. white flour

Now add:
1/2 c. (one stick) melted butter
Leave a little butter behind at the bottom of the cup, and pour it into a very large, clean bowl to use for the bread's rising.

Stir in approximately 4 more cups of white flour, as much as the dough requires. Knead the dough on a floured surface for 5-10 minutes. It doesn't require a whole lot of kneading. When it's fairly springy, place it in the large buttered bowl, and turn it to coat it with butter. Cover it with a damp cloth and put it somewhere warm to rise until doubled in bulk, 1-1 1/2 hours.

Prepare the filling:
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
butter optional

Punch down the dough (this is fun, it deflates really dramatically) and divide it into thirds. Flatten each third into a long oval. Divide the filling among the three ovals. Roll each one into a loaf by starting with the short end and rolling up, then sealing the edges with your fingers. Put the loaves in baking pans, cover with a damp cloth, and let rise again until almost doubled in bulk, 30-45 minutes.

Make glaze by beating together:
1 Tbsp. egg
2 t. milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush glaze over loaves. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden and the loaves sound hollow if rapped with the knuckles.

I gave the best loaf to my neighbors, kept half a loaf out to eat, and cut the rest into slices, which I froze. I'll be able to pull out a couple slices at a time and toast them for breakfast.

Soup

I went to the doctor today, and he confirmed that I have acute sinusitis. I have never been so congested in my life. I'm not even sure this is my life any more. Maybe it's somebody else's. I'm on so much medication, how would I know?

Now, in addition to Maximum Strength Contac, I am on a prescription expectorant. I drive on icy roads in this condition.

I decided to make some powerful soup tonight. I'm sure every corner of the house reeks of this soup, but I cannot smell it unless I put my face directly over the pot and wave the fumes up my nose. It is a basic soup with beans, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, and whatever celery I could rescue from the crisper, but also with a whole bunch of onion, garlic, ginger, and cayenne pepper. I expect it will clear my head even more than my new prescription strength medicine. I will eat it with a box of tissues at my side.

Christmas Season

Right around Christmas, there's almost always some bitterly cold weather in Iowa. I remember one year when it was 20 below out, 60 below with wind chill, racing through the snow and ice to hurl ourselves into the car and drive to Florida!

Yesterday I walked to the mailbox, an enterprise that involves long underwear or tights, boots, sweater, parka, heavy gloves (but not the heaviest), and a supplementary fleece hood under my parka hood. On the walk to the mailbox my body was toasty warm, but the 5-degree F air hurt my nasal passages, and it felt like I wasn't drawing in the full amount of oxygen. However, I did not have to stop walking, and I didn't break into a coughing fit, which was encouraging.

I had a hypothesis that I only broke into coughing fits in the past because I was accustomed to warmer temperatures and moister air; even in Rhode Island the winters were mild. I guessed that if I spent the winter here instead of just visiting, I would be okay. So far, so good.

It is cold, though. Last night a pipe froze somewhere in the ceiling, and we had no water until the sun came up this morning.

Yesterday we had a visit from my niecies (I call them that; in my head I actually call them my niecie-poos, but never out loud as it would be much too silly). The 7-year-old likes to cook, so I supervised, and she made the pecan pie filling for Christmas. However, that was too easy, and she wanted to make cookies or cake. Cookies or cake?!? Good gravy, this house is so full of cookies that Santa Claus himself couldn't eat them all.

The 2-year-old wanted to cook too, so I thought up a bread machine recipe for chocolate bread, and we made it together. The little one poured some sugar on the floor, but otherwise all went well.

Chocolate Bread

Alternating nieces, pour the following into the machine bowl:

1 1/2 t. yeast
3 c. white flour + 1-2 Tbsp.
1 t. salt (1/2 t. per niece)
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. butter
1 1/8 c. lukewarm water
3/4 c. milk chocolate chips

Bake at sweet, light setting.

I put the chocolate chips in late, hoping they wouldn't melt and blend into the bread, but they did anyway, so they might as well go in at the beginning.

Later, when one is stuck with a loaf of chocolate bread, it makes excellent brandied cinnamon French toast.

Dining Out

Friday night after a job interview that amazingly seemed to go pretty well, I was taken out to dinner at a Cedar Rapids restaurant called Vino's (plus a little sitting and sipping at the bar next door, R. G. Books).

We had a basic meal with no appetizers or desserts, but I have to report that my main dish was a delectable hunk of seafood as good as any I've eaten in coastal areas. I will no longer pine so much for Parkside in Providence, unless for the cocktails. My dinner was a thick piece of slightly crisped Chilean sea bass topped with a tiny dab of black caviar, lounging comfortably on a bed of risotto with tiger shrimp and peas. The peas were not as chic as the rest of the plate, but all the seafood was tender and perfectly cooked. It was a solid and delicious meal.

I bought a gift certificate for my brother and his wife. They enjoy good food and appreciate the difficulties involved in locating it.

Tonight I am playing around with the Enchanted Broccoli Forest recipe for mushroom pie. I don't want to make a spinach pie crust, so I'm using a regular frozen crust and putting spinach in the filling. We don't have any fresh mushrooms, so I'm using a can of mushrooms and throwing in a turnip. My friend Elantu advises me to replace half the yogurt with sour cream, so I'll be doing that too. The pie may taste funny, but it will definitely be full of vitamins!

Get the rope!

One thing I have learned: the label "homemade in Iowa" is not a good enough reason to buy a salsa.

November in Iowa

Twice this month I have driven 370 miles in the flat part of Iowa, and it is not half as interesting as it is in the summer when everything is green. It is getting chilly in the Tall Corn State, and everyone I have spoken with has cooked a pot of chili within the past two weeks.

I'm going to share my chili recipe today. I got the idea for bulghur from Jeanne Lemlin's tremendously useful book Vegetarian Pleasures, but my chili differs from hers in several key ways, most notably in not being vegetarian.

Soupy Chili for One to Three People

Start out with a medium-sized saucepan, and put about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in it. Chop up a small to medium onion, and saute that until it is translucent. Add the following:

3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/4-1/3 cup bulghur (or textured vegetable protein if you don't eat wheat, but bulghur is tastier)
1 1/2 t. chili powder
1 t. cumin, ground or seed
1/2 t. oregano
1/8 t. cayenne pepper

Saute all this for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently. Then add the following:

2 cups stewed tomatoes, or thereabouts
1 can beef broth (1.5 cups water if you're vegetarian)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 bay leaf
additional water if you're so inclined

Bring the chili to a simmer, then lower the heat and cook for at least half an hour. Add the following:

1 t. red wine vinegar (balsamic vinegar if you like chili sweeter)
black pepper to taste

At this point I turn the heat off and let the chili sit for about half an hour before I eat it, with cornbread.

Last weekend I got to eat a friend's delicious chili after a University of Iowa football game. Attending a Big Ten game was a lot different from going to Rice games! I am an alum of Rice University in Houston, where our student body was under 5,000 students, yet our football stadium seated 73,000 people. The stadium was never full, and everyone moved about freely. Not so at Iowa's Kinnick Stadium, where there are only 70,000 seats, but 28,000 students and a substantial number of alumni. I was allowed into only the section for which I held a ticket, and I could not enter any other area.

Another way that the Iowa game was a new experience was the incredible crowd noise. One thing about me is that when I do not feel like preserving my dignity, I can scream like a banshee. Never before have I heard anyone over 25 scream like I can. But at the Iowa game, the forty-year-old man in the neighboring seat threatened my hearing. I had to find standing room to preserve what was left of my best ear. When that crowd roared, it felt like I was being levitated. When Iowa scored and I emitted a piercing shriek that probably destroyed part of my friend's eardrum, I could barely hear myself.

Of course it was never 40 degrees at football games in Houston, but attending football games in Iowa's November cold was not new to me. At least I was not wearing a drum major uniform with a short skirt, like I gladly wore in 12th grade no matter how cold it was. And at least there was a hot bowl of chili waiting for me after the game.

Cranberry-Grapenut Bread

Last Friday evening was a party for my aunt's birthday. In the early afternoon my mom asked me if I had gotten my aunt a present, and my response was, "Duh...no." Abruptly, I realized I would be baking bread that afternoon. My aunt's daughters and their significant others were visiting my aunt, so I thought I would bake something they could eat for breakfast.

I checked the cupboard for stale raisin bran, but it had already been thrown out, so I took the last of a box of Grape-Nuts. I had been to the grocery store that morning and bought sweetened dried cranberries, so those were going in too.

However, the first order of business was to make a sponge--a yeasty base that would rise like gangbusters. I started with one cup of wrist-temperature water, dissolved a scant tablespoon of yeast (one package) in the water, added a dash of molasses, and stirred in 1.5 cups of wheat bread flour. I covered the sponge and put it somewhere warm to rise for about 40 minutes.

The sponge: one cup lukewarm water, 1 packet yeast, a little molasses, 1.5 cups wheat bread flour.

Then I heated about a cup of water until it was pretty hot, and I poured it over 2/3 cup of dried cranberries. I added 3 tablespoons of butter so it could melt while the cranberries hydrated, and I poured in another dash of molasses (less than a teaspoon) and a teaspoon of salt.

When the sponge had risen, I dumped 2/3 cup of Grape-Nuts in with my cranberries to briefly moisten the Grape-Nuts, and then I threw the whole mix into the sponge and stirred it down. I added two cups of white bread flour, and then I continued adding wheat flour until the dough was ready to knead.

The add-ins: 1 cup hot water (cooled), 2/3 cup dried cranberries, 3 tablespoons butter, a little molasses, 1 teaspoon salt, 2/3 cup Grape-Nuts cereal, then finally a whole bunch of flour.

At this point bread baking follows a fairly standard pattern. Knead the dough, adding more flour as needed, until the dough is "earlobe soft" and springy. Place it in an oiled bowl, and turn it to oil it so it won't get dry and crusty when it rises. Cover it, and let it rise until doubled in bulk, an hour or so. Knead it again, and form it into loaves, in this case two loaves. Put it in bread pans, cover it, and let it rise again until doubled in bulk, maybe 35 minutes or so.

I baked this bread for about 40 minutes at 375 degrees. I knew it was done because when I rapped on it with my knuckles, it sounded hollow. It more than doubled in size, smelled wonderful, and tasted fabulous.