Food, Photography and Bons Mots
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.”
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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…
Nana was my grandmother. When I was a little girl, I would spend long happy weekends at her house. She always had a stack of books for me to read–young reader mysteries, as I recall. Sometimes she would take me to the tiny beauty shop improbably…
Virginia Woolf said of soup: ” Soup is cuisine’s kindest course.”
That is certainly the way I feel about soup. I confess that I enjoy making soup often and find comfort in eating it. I almost always begin a dinner party–even a casual one– with a soup course. I think a bowl of soup eases my guests into the mood to enjoy a meal.
This Carrot and Cauliflower Soup is a keeper. It is pretty and it is flavorful. And, of course, you get a good serving of a healthy cruciferous vegetable in every bowl. Cauliflower, as you know, is low in calories and carbs, so it is an easy fit into a healthy diet.
This soup is creamy, too–even if you don’t succumb to the temptation of add a bit of cream or half-and-half to the finished product. I found that I enjoyed a pretty swirl of heavy cream stirred into my soup at the last minute, but I’m not sure whether it was a flavor enhancement or an aesthetic one.
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Here is the link to the original Melissa Clark recipe upon which this recipe is based: Melissa Clark’s Cauliflower and Carrot Soup.
Today’s plat du jour on my table is ratatouille, a classic French vegetable stew that is a specialty of cooks in Provence and Nice. Apparently, a lot of other Mediterranean countries claim some version of this dish, too, so you may have encountered ratatouille under…
This tart is so super rich I suspect it got a big tax cut! (OK. I am bitter.) It’s easy, too! And, it makes a pretty impressive presentation. (Who among your guests needs to know that it was a cinch to make?) The richness…
Quick! Hand me a jar of my neighbor Sarah’s etherial tangerine marmalade.
I have two warm-from-the-oven loaves of sourdough bread sitting on my kitchen counter. Warm sourdough bread. Bitter-ish marmalade. It doesn’t get better than that.
As you may know if you regularly read this blog, one of my cooking goals in life is to make the ultimate sourdough loaf in my own oven.
Why am I so fixated on perfecting my baking game with a sourdough loaf?
Maybe it’s the history teacher in me. (I taught high school history for 33 years.) People have, after all, been enjoying sourdough bread for a very long time. Who in the world wouldn’t be interested in knowing the backstory of that? (Don’t snicker. I know I’m a history geek.)
Historically, there is evidence of bread making in neolithic times. (For those of you who dozed through history classes, that period began about 10,000 B.C.) Researchers also have identified a sourdough loaf found during a Switzerland dig that dates back to 3500 B.C. Bread is old.
Historians also have pretty substantial evidence of sourdough bread-making in Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians were big into beer making and they used the natural yeast from that project to make leavened breads. For Egyptians, it was, apparently, always time to party–beer or bread, it didn’t matter. Even young King Tut must have been affected by the leavened bread and yeasty beer craze. Speaking of King Tut…for those who are reading this and who might have missed it on other venues, Steve Martin’s vintage and inspried funky King Tut portrayal is absolute genius: Steve Martin’s King Tut. Just watch it!)
As the centuries passed, bread making became a part of the culinary traditions of the Greeks, the Romans and the Medieval Europeans with sourdough starter being the chief leavening agent for bakers.
Then….bam!…the development of commercially-produced yeast in the 19th century damaged the sourdough market and ushered in the modern bread era that has produced such culinary disasters as Wonder Bread. Julia Child deplored the decline in the quality of bread with her infamous remark: “How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?” How, indeed?
But…back to a really good bread…This loaf is my adaptation of a recipe from King Arthur Flour.
This bread has a a nice sour flavor enhanced by the use of not only a “fed” starter (my “Kellyanne” from a previous post here) but also with a couple of tablespoons of King Arthur Flour’s sourdough flavoring here.
Try it. I think you will enjoy it.
Here is the recipe:
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Here is the link to the original King Arthur Flour recipe from which this recipe was adapted: Rustic Sourdough Bread.
This healthy Middle Eastern soup is wonderful. It’s spicy–flavored with a robust harissa paste. It’s full of flavorful and protein-rich Rancho Gordo Marcella white beans. It’s filled with good-for-you greens. It’s just what you need to warm your soul–whether you are caught in…
