cook pot stories

The Tea and Sage Poem  by Fady Joudah At a desk made of glass, In a glass walled-room With red airport carpet, An officer asked My father for fingerprints, And my father refused, So another offered him tea And he sipped it. The teacup Template for fingerprints. My father says, it was just Hot water with a bag. My father says, in his country, Because the earth knows The scent of history, It gave the people sage. I like my tea with sage From my mother’s garden, Next to the snapdragons She calls fishmouths Coming out for air. A remedy For stomach pains she keeps In the kitchen where She always sings. First, she is Hagar Boiling water Where tea is loosened. Then she drops In it a pinch of sage And lets it sit a while. She tells a story: The groom arrives late To his wedding Wearing only one shoe. The bride asks him About the shoe. He tells her He lost it while jum...

Like 68% of Americans, I am overweight and have been for most of my adult life. It's been an ongoing source of shame and frustration. I am fully aware of the health and societal consequences and yes, I've tried and continue to try to do something about it with mixed results. I exercise regularly and eat a moderately balanced diet.  But I've encountered what all the weight loss fads prefer not to admit: Losing weight is really hard. For many of us, our bodies like to hold onto fat because, in the whole of human history, we're more likely to have too little than to have too much. And "bad" foods just taste so good. We are programmed to crave and enjoy carbs and fats, the very things that make us fat. It makes sense, evolutionarily, that our palates are tuned for the sources of nutrition that most effectively keep us alive when food could be scarce. It's our very abundance that's killing us. In all of my weight-loss success and failure, what's b...

I'm in Los Angeles for a few days, visiting family. I'll bring back some food adventure stories for next week, I promise! I'm sorry for the delay in yumminess, but I decided I'd rather be honest with you and give you higher quality content later than just churn out something now. Thanks for understanding.

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on. We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it. It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women. At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers. Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table. This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial h...

I love winter squash. I love the determination of the shell, the clever slippery seeds, the surprising variety in its taste and texture. It is one of my favorite winter comfort foods. Late in autumn go to the farm stand. If you can’t get there, go to the supermarket, but be prepared to lie and tell everyone you went miles out of your way to find these lovely, eccentric squash. Pick out a few beauties. Butternut , with its smooth, sultry skin. Acorn , with its seductive ridges. Dumpling , small and endearing. There are so many to choose from. Don’t let your squash lust run away with you. And only buy a hubbard if you have a good, sharp ax. Cradle them like children in the back seat of your car. If you have a spare baby seat you may want to buckle the larger ones in. Bring them home. Store them in a cool, dry, dark place. They will wait for you. When you’re ready to cook one, try this. Pick your sharpest knife, for both safety and mercy. With as much s...

Here in New England winter has been slow in coming. Following a freak October snowstorm that brought down trees and powerlines, we had weeks of unseasonably warm weather that have been both lovely and unsettling. Warm days mean we’ve had a chance to spend more time outside, but we’re walking in early winter dark at 4:30, when it’s 65f amongst leafless trees. At night we see cold weather constellations but there are swarms of moths that cling to cars, follow headlights and flutter in confusion, thinking it must be spring. I’ve been confused too. By this time of year I’m usually deep in cold weather cooking, making the things that bring me the most comfort against the chill dark. In this unexpected warmth I’m not quite sure what to do, but the dark, oh the dark calls for comfort. Brightly colored squash and rich soups . Yeasty breads and roasted chickens. All of these speak to me of home and hearth, of warmth through the long winter, of companionship in the dark. The process of preparing...

I’ve decided to try to blog more regularly for the month of December. Really what I’ve decided is to blog and write more frequently, but sometimes setting a BIG but specific goal seems more achievable than a smaller, less specific goal. Here is what I hope to accomplish from this experience: Better writing habits More engaged readers (you) A better understanding of my own relationship with food and cooking. To help me do this I’ve come up with an editorial calendar. Not to give too much away (hey, I need to keep some things surprises, right?) in general I plan to do the following: Thursdays: Short takes (not short cake!). Links, quick observations, etc. Today is an exception, because I’m stating my intention to write more. Saturdays: An observation about food, culture, my own life. Sundays: A recipe that I have cooked. Tuesdays: Someone else’s writing about food.  I’d really love to have your feedback. Please let me know what you think of any of these...

As you know, I have a cookbook problem. I've written about this before , about my tendency to buy cookbooks and not use them. Sometime ago I set a goal of cooking from cookbooks weekly. I completely failed. Instead I'm trying to cook from cookbooks regularly. Sometimes good enough is good enough. The Yankee Cookbook by Imogene Wolcott is one of several I acquired from my partner's mom. She loved to cook when younger and all of her cookbooks are well used. It's copyright 1939 though this edition is from 1963. I especially love the subtitle: An Anthology of Incomparable Recipes From the Six New England States and a Little Something about the People whose Tradition for Good Eating is herein permanently recoded. Lovely! I am charmed by the interstitial comments in this book, including attribution and other cultural notes. I made corn chowder, more or less following the recipe in this book. Here it is, with surrounding recipes for your use and amusement: I replaced...

Today is World Food Day , a worldwide event to raise awareness of hunger and food supply issues. You may think this has nothing to do with you directly, but you'd be wrong. Ask your elders. Look around your city. Take notice of who watches you eat. You can make a difference in your community and around the world. Sign the petition , volunteer in a  soup kitchen, get educated , give a hungry person a meal. There are so many ways you can help. Nourish your soul; help decrease the impact of hunger worldwide.

A quick note: I love eating alone. It's a great sensual pleasure and an opportunity to remind myself of my own value. Here Anthony Bourdain reads "How to eat alone" by Daniel Halpern . Watch it, then go have a meal by yourself and enjoy the pleasures thereof.

I have lately been feeling fairly stressed. While I'm doing what I can to mitigate it (exercise, meditation, talking with friends and trying to address the underlying causes) it feels somewhat inevitable that I'm drawn to comfort foods. I'm trying to at least eat relatively healthy comfort food, so that means I'm eating a lot of watermelon. I've written before about watermelon before, so I won't repeat myself. Instead I'd like to share someone else's watermelon wisdom with you. Clearly, if I'm eating a buddha I can't help but find peace from them. No wonder they are my sweet, cold comfort. Watermelons by Charles Simic Green Buddhas On the fruit stand. We eat the smile And spit out the teeth. (c) 2011 Laura S. Packer

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!" The Walrus did beseech. "A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each." - Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and The Carpenter Today is National Oyster Day . I have lately had a passion for oysters, raw and glistening on the half shell. Their brininess seems like the purest possible taste, the sea in my mouth, a gentleness against my tongue and palate that vanishes and leaves only a memory of the ocean. Yet I find them troubling, or, more accurately, I find my consumption of them troubling. Let me say here that I eat meat (and if you read this blog then this is no surprise to you). If that offends you please stop reading now; I am not interested in converting you or being converted. I eat meat mindfully; I have been a vegetarian. I find I am healthier and happier if animal protein is part of my diet. I am grateful for the animals I have eaten and will eat. Equ...

I love spring cooking. My garden is sending up fresh shoots, the things I forgot about from last winter are surprising and delighting me. One of those is sorrel. I had no idea, when I planted it last year, that it would come back this year with such a vengeance. I've been at something of a loss as to what to do with it - I feel like a fool saying I have too much sorrel, when it's one of those things that is fleeting and delicate, but there you have it, more sorrel than I really can eat. Then I remembered. Sorrel has a tart, fresh taste. Fish is complemented by tart things. Scallops, with their sweetness, benefit from tart accompaniments. And a dish was born. My ingredients were: butter (not shown) about a pound of fresh, creamy sea scallops. If you've not cooked scallops before, or are worried about it,  this video  has good tips on selecting and preparing them garlic scallions, fresh from the garden - another spring surprise 6 or 7 big sorrel leaves pepper to t...

I'm about to break one of the cardinal rules of blogging and talk about why I haven't been posting much lately. Stick with me, there's a point to this. I have several unpublished posts ready to go. Meals in Tuscany, bread given as a gift, Passover foods, food related poems and link lists; all kinds of things. Each time I settle in to polish one to post, I get stuck, not because I don't care about the topic but because I have a friend who has an eating disorder. She reads what I write because she loves me and wants to support me. I'm concerned that something I write about food will be upsetting to her. Friend, if you're reading, please remember that I love you and this post is about my feelings, not about anything you've done. My concern about upsetting you may not be realistic. Loving someone with an eating disorder is like loving anyone else. You ache for them when they are in pain. You long to help them. You celebrate their successes. Loving this fr...

cutting greens BY  LUCILLE CLIFTON curling them around i hold their bodies in obscene embrace thinking of everything but kinship. collards and kale strain against each strange other away from my kissmaking hand and the iron bedpot. the pot is black, the cutting board is black, my hand, and just for a minute the greens roll black under the knife, and the kitchen twists dark on its spine and I taste in my natural appetite the bond of live things everywhere. Lucille Clifton, "cutting greens" from  The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton . Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.  Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd. Source:  Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir  (BOA Editions, Ltd., 1980)

Here are some of my current favorite sites in the food world. I'd love to know what sites you enjoy, please let me know in the comments section! Chowhound is my first stop for restaurant info, wherever I may be in the world. This is a lively community with highly opinionated posters. It also has cooking and general info boards. Chowhound is a subsection of chow.com , a broader food site with curated recipes, articles, videos and so on. It's also the home of Ruth Bourdain  the bastard child of Ruth Reichl and Anthony Bourdain.  Like so many, I mourned the loss of Gourmet Magazine. The Gourmet website is great, with well written articles and luscious recipes. It's a bit sales oriented, so you do need to slog through, but I have found some real gems here. Foodgawker is food porn at its best. Lovely pictures entice you to make even lovelier recipes. food52 is a food community, with recipes and articles submitted by users and vetted by chefs.  101cookbooks is a love...

My friend Ilene hosts an Oscars' party every year. It's a lot of fun - witty people commenting on clothing, presenters and award winners. There are two contests at this party. You can win a cash prize (everyone chips in) if you guess the most Oscar winners. Or you can win the dubious Urn of Shame for your pot luck contribution. Everyone brings a dish related somehow to one of the films or people nominated. I am both proud and dismayed to report that my partner Kevin Brooks and I won this year. We brought (may I have the envelope please) Natalie Port-man in Black Flan, a pun on Black Swan . A bottle of port wearing a tutu and tiara carefully nestled in cocoa dusted flan. You can see it for yourself. I had feared flan would be really hard to make, but to my delight it was actually easy. I also think I'll continue dusting it with cocoa - the bitterness balances the sweetness quite nicely. The recipe I used included cream cheese, which makes it a bit more stable (appropri...

As you know, I've decided to give some things away. You've always wanted to know how to make a Hot House, right? (It's limburger cheese with butter on toast.) How about Pumpkin and Cheese pie? Or Flamenco Veal Chops? All of these recipes and more are in this set of cookbooks. As you may know, I've been helping a friend clean out his mom's house . We've found quite a few amazing things there, including a trove of cookbooks. She enjoyed cooking in her younger days and would pick up every free cooking pamphlet she could find. I love cookbooks and so have taken many of them for my own collection. There is no way I will ever use all the cookbooks I have. This selection of cookbooks is from my friend's mom. You might enjoy the recipes, you might enjoy the astonishing 1960s and 1970s illustrations. I can't wait to see how dated our 2011 graphics look in 40 years. This package includes: 100 Ways to Be Original In All Your Cooking (by Lea & Perri...

I rarely post restaurant reviews here. I keep meaning to, thinking a food blog should include commentary on the places I eat as well as what I cook and the stories triggered by the meals, but I usually forget. Today I remembered. I had lunch with my friend Elsa today. We often spend Thursdays together in what we call "play dates." We'll each set a few goals regarding what we want to get done, work in the same house but not necessarily the same room, check in and help each other stay on track, and go someplace for lunch. Today we went to Spice n Hot Indian Restaurant in Malden, MA . We walked, since it's a lovely day and the air is finally starting to smell like spring. As we walked we admired the temporary streams and springs from the melting mounds of snow. We smelled the earth, listened to the birds and agreed that it was a good day to be alive. Spice n Hot is next door to  India Bazaar , an Indian grocery. I've been a regular customer at India Bazaar f...

Oh, I love seasonings. It's a bad habit, really, I pick up spices whenever I'm in a shop with ingredients new to me, regardless of whether or not I know what they are or how to use them. I'll close my eyes and luxuriate in the scent of a new blend, the texture on my tongue. I'll imagine how I can use it. Sometimes I'll take the time to look it up, but honestly more often than not I plunge ahead and try it. Often it works. Occasionally it leads to a spectacular failure. When I moved into my current home, I first unpacked my books. Then I unpacked my spices, stacking them and organizing them. Soon my kitchen smelled right, the spice cabinet a chamber of mysteries, unlabeled bottled and bags clustered with store bought tins. The organization quickly fell into a tumble, the most frequently used items eclipsing the others, but I still venture into the cabinet, reach towards the back and find treasure. Every time I open the spice cabinet I imagine I'm an explorer,...

A few days ago I picked up some lovely bay scallops at Whole Foods. I wanted to honor their loveliness, all creamy smooth and shining, and I had lemongrass in the fridge, so I did some digging for some kind of recipe that combined scallops and lemongrass. I found a recipe from Caprial and John's Kitchen , a cooking school and catering firm in Oregon, but I didn't have quite the right ingredients in the house. I improvised. Boy, did it turn out well. I am grateful to Caprial and John for sharing the recipe that inspired me. If you've not used lemongrass before, try this tip. Bend the entire stalk. Cut it at the point where it bends, the same way you would asparagus. Cur off the botton quarter inch or so and peel off the outer layer. Smell it, close your eyes and savor the incongruity of the finest lemon you've ever sniffed from a woody stalk. Imagine it growing. Be grateful. Now take the flat of your knife and whack the stalk a few times until it cracks a bit; this so...