Food, Photography and Bon Mots
I was recently at a restaurant in downtown Santa Ana where I foolishly let myself be talked into ordering the house’s kale salad. I’m usually a hard sell when it comes to kale, but I liked the young waitress’ enthusiasm as she assured me that…
You know how it is when you just plain crave baked beans. This rich baked beans recipe will satisfy your cravings and throws in healthy sweet potatoes to boot. And, then there is the complex smoky flavor of chipotle peppers. What’s not to love…
At dinnertime, my mother always placed a bottle of salad dressing on our kitchen table next to a bowl of pale iceberg lettuce pieces. Always Wish Bone. Always Italian.
I’m an unrepentant foodie. I love food. Cooking is a delight for me. I love phographing food. I love reading (and writing) about food. I love exploring international markets in search of new foods and new recipes. Travel, for me, was always as much about food as it was about anything else.
I didn’t grow up that way.
My mother, who grew up on a rural farm in the American South, did a lot of things very well, but she had a lot on her plate and had very little time (or money) for food and cooking. She did bake exceptional holiday pies, but our everyday fare was pretty plain–white bread, Campbell’s soups (tomato and mushroom), Wish Bone salads, and a mystery meal she called “goulash.”
When I grew up and started exploring the world of food, I was amazed by what was out there. (Brie! Who knew????) Homemade minestrone. (No way!) Artisanal breads.( You’ve got to be kidding me.) Salads that combined textures and interesting ingredients and that were dressed with homemade dressings. (Wow! Wow! Wow!)
Here is a recipe for a wonderful salad and homemade salad dressing. The dressing is a garlicky Caesar-wannabe. I clipped it out of Gourmet Magazine back in July of 1981. The recipe appeared in a column in Gourmet that printed reader recipes. In this case, it was Trudy Hamm Reid and she was submitting her husband’s recipe under the title Neil’s Romine Salad with Garlic Vinaigrette. Trudy was pretty proud of Neil’s recipe, saying that he made “the most fantastic salad.” I agree. Way to go, Neil!
Save RecipeIngredients
Instructions
Today is Pi Day. (Today also is Einstein’s birthday, if you have forgotten.) So, of course, there was no question what type of recipe should be featured on Blue Cayenne. Pie. Make that a delicious peach pie. If you’ve forgotten your math, Pi…
I was out of vodka. For years I’ve relied upon my neighbors to loan me a little of this and a little of that–a couple eggs or a cup of milk. But…it is an entirely different thing to call a neighbor and ask…
This recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Salad with Chickpeas, Tahini and Avocado has everything–good proteins, healthy cruciferous cauliflower, peppery watercress, and beautiful Cara Cara oranges. Did I mention there are avocados, too?
And, oh! those Cara Cara oranges!
I’ll admit that I’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with Cara Cara oranges of late. Sweeter and more nutritious than a regular naval orange, their intense pink color is spectacular. I don’t exaggerate when I say that you will gasp when you first cut into one. They are that pretty.
Cara Cara oranges have only been around for a short time. The orange was discovered in 1976 in Venezuela where an enterprising hybridizer crossed a Washington navel orange with a Brazilian Bahia navel. They were first imported commercially into the U.S. market in the 1980s and for awhile were available in very limited quantities. Now, however, they are grown in California, Florida and Texas and they are shedding their “boutique orange” label.
The flavor and beauty of this orange has not gone unnoticed among foodies. One website describes the Cara Cara this way: “…notes of berry flavors similar to blackberries and raspberries but overall taste like orange candy.”
I confess that quote about Cara Caras made me giggle. It reminded me of the florid prose you find on bottles of wine. You know the ones: ” Blessed with a bold, mouth-filling style and a concentration of ripe fruit flavors and silky supple tannins, this seldom-available cuvee boasts lush lingering jammy black cherry flavors complemented by the warm spicy notes of toasted oak, marshmallows and rich custard pie. With notes straight from the earthy wooded forest floor, this wine is blessed with an exceptional gout de terroir. There are no hard edges here but definitely a long, 35-second finish.” What?
Cara Caras have a relatively short season, winter to spring, so you need to buy them now.
And, trust me; this orange has absolutely no hard edges and a spectacular smooth finish that you won’t soon forget. Its gout de terroir? Words escape me.
Here is the salad recipe:
Save RecipeIngredients
Instructions
Here is the Amazon link to Melissa Clark’s book, Dinner-Changing The Game: http://Amazon Link to Melissa Clark’s Book.
Oh, we strategized. We’d be at our computers at 9 a.m. sharp, fingers poised to click the button that read “buy Hamilton tickets” the moment the digital clock struck nine. Then, The Segerstrom Theatre would place us into a “virtual waiting room” where the…
I lost it. Well. No. Not “lost it” like lost my mind. I lost a treasured recipe. It happened several year’s ago. Somewhere, out of the blue, I remembered a wonderful sour cream apple cake that I used to bake for parties. I had…
What does it take for quinoa to get a little respect?
There is a strong case to be made for quinoa. The United Nations, after all, proclaimed 2013 “The Year of Quinoa.” Nutritionists extol quinoa’s nutritional virtues. It’s a complete protein and The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that quinoa is as nutrient dense as mother’s milk. Food scientists, worried about world cereal crop yields in the face of increasing soil salinity and water scarcity, see quinoa, which flourishes under adverse growing conditions high in the Andes, as one remedy for potential world food shortages. NASA has considered quinoa for inclusion in their astronauts’ diets during long-duration space flights. And, let’s not forget taste; Quinoa has a nice nutty flavor.
Clearly, we need to open our minds and, with apologies to John Lennon, ” give quinoa a chance”.
But…right away, quinoa gets off on the wrong foot.
Scientists classify quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) as a pseudo-cereal. We all know that being called pseudo anything isn’t usually a compliment. It usually means that you have “pretensions.”
In the case of quinoa, however, the use of the term pseudo-cereal is pretty benign. It means that, while quinoa is technically a non-grass grain-like seed, it has many of the same dietary applications as the true cereals. You can cook it like rice. You can add it to soups, as in the recipe posted here. Or, you can pop it. It also can be ground into flour and is used in a number of flatbreads.
There are hundreds of types of quinoa. My Trader Joe’s carries a Bolivian red quinoa and a tri-color mix, but the pseudo-grain grows in a rainbow of colors and strains. The gold standard of quinoa’s many varieties is the large-seeded quinoa real that only is grown in the Bolivian highlands.
Here’s the history lesson.
Historians believe that quinoa was first cultivated 5000 years ago. There is, however, a disagreement about where exactly quinoa was first grown for food. While South American scientists claim quinoa is uniquely their own crop, some American food scientists suspect that quinoa originated in North America and was then carried to Central and South America by birds.
Historians most often focus upon quinoa’s cultivation by the Incas between the 14th and 16th centuries. Incan leaders called it “the mother of all grains” and its cultivation was of such dietary importance (both for the general population and for the storied Incan military) that each year the first quinoa seeds were planted by their emperor using golden tools. According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking, quinoa was a staple food that was second in importance only to the potato in Bolivia, Chile and Peru during this period.
Quinoa also carried spiritual importance for the Incas. They believed that God sent them a beautiful messenger, Nustra Juria, during a period of drought and desperate suffering. Nustra Juria descended from the sky and began a journey along the shores of Lake Titicaca. From there, she walked across the salt pans of the Southern Altiplano (highlands) and eventually ascended back into the heavens near the Tunupa volcano. Once she was gone, her path miraculously sprouted with brilliantly-hued quinoa and the population was saved from starvation. Nourishing quinoa, then, was sacred food– a gift from God that could withstand drought and cold.
When Pizarro and the Spanish conquistadores arrived in the area in 1532, orders were given to burn the prolific quinoa fields. Only small fields of quinoa survived in the high mountains.
Today’s Andean quinoa crops are descended from those surviving plants and the world’s major quinoa producers are Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.
If you haven’t tried quinoa before, or if you were introduced to quinoa through Conan O’Brien’s monologue diss, this soup would be a delicious way to get to know the “grain.”
Save RecipeIngredients
Instructions
This recipe is adapted from one that appeared in The New York Times. Here is a link to Jeff Gordinier’s recipe: Hearty Quinoa and White Bean Soup
Pythagoras was so convinced that beans had souls that their consumption was forbidden among his followers. Don’t get me wrong. I love beans, but I’m not so sure about the soul part. Tiny little bean hearts, maybe. Truth be told, however you fix ’em, I…
