Sweet, sweet smack.

I am, as of this writing, 72 hours into kicking an addiction that has plagued me for years.

My name is Jonathan, and I’m a coke fiend. A Coke Zero fiend, to be exact.

It actually started as a massive Diet Pepsi habit that fueled my largely sleepless college and med school years, and only picked up in the past few years as I discovered the far superior product that is Coke Zero.  How many a day are we talking about here? Suffice it to say that I’m embarrassed to count it up, but it amounts to a nearly constant infusion during most of my waking hours. It’s not pretty.

So why am I getting this particular monkey off my back? That’s hard to say. It’s certainly not good for you, but I remain skeptical of diet soda’s most vehement opponents, who like to say it’s “OMG the WORST thing you can put in your body”.  (Sorry, Alton. You’re still my patron saint.) It’s far from the worst vice anyone can have; I don’t want to make light of or stack myself up next to people who have kicked truly destructive addictions.  If I just wanted to give up something, I’d probably be better off health-wise by going cold turkey on, say, potatoes.  The excess caffeine can’t be good, but at this point I’m not sure I even notice it. (We’ll find out, I guess.)  My dentist, who is probably reading this, will certainly be happy.

In a nutshell, I have to start somewhere.  Journey of a thousand miles, and all that. I want to be a healthy person, and whatever might be said of my Coke Zero addiction, it’s  certainly not healthy.

So I’m pretty much giving up soda entirely. (“Pretty much” because I’m not turning down the occasional good ginger ale or Ale-8.) Coffee or tea can replace the caffeine boost in the morning, and water can keep me wet through the day.  It also leaves more room for beer and wine, which is a good thing. (Lest you think coffee and booze are probably worse substitutions, I know for a fact I can enjoy those things in moderation. Coke Zero, not so much.)

Is this a Lent thing? No; for one thing I decided to do it before I even realized Lent was coming up, and for another I’m not Catholic.  (I was raised Southern Baptist. They believe that anything worth giving up is worth giving up all year.)  But I’ve always believed that religious rituals are created around natural tendencies, and since springtime is a natural time for rebirth, the 40-odd days leading up to Easter is a good time to tear yourself down a little. Giving up something that means something to you is a great way to take a new look at things and get ready to remake them.

How am I holding up? Surprisingly well. No major withdrawals yet, not even a caffeine headache.  So far, the satisfaction of kicking the habit is making up for the dissatisfaction of being without the sweet, sweet smack. I don’t think I’ve been as hungry, which I hope lasts. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.

Jonathan is always bugging encouraging me to post more often, but it’s rare for the feeling that anything I’m cooking or eating is worth blogging about to coincide with the actual time to write about it.  But today’s lunch has inpired me to post a quick little observation and a not-quite-a-recipe. 

Lunch matters to me.  I spend way more time than I should on making lunches that are both appealing and healthy, and I berate my co-workers about their unhealthy habits (when you’ve had a couple of heart attacks,  maybe say NO to the fried onion rings, right?) and in general spend a lot of time I should be spending grading papers or doing something work related on preparing and eating lunch. 

Recently, however, I’ve been trying to eat more simply (and more lightly) at lunch so I can focus on work (I’ve also cut back on my Facebook time, but that’s another story).  So this morning, I was looking for lunch, and there were a couple of nice sweet potatoes on the counter that I’d considered using for supper last night (I was going to make a shepherd’s pie with chipotle sweet potatoes and lamb, but ended up doing a lamp/spinach/feta pie).  I tossed them in the oven, thinking they’d make a nice lunch for Professor Husband and me. 

But man can not live by sweet potatoes alone.  Or at least, I don’t want to live by sweet potatoes alone.  And my lamb pie was good last night, but I kept thinking about those  Chipotle Sweet Potatoes of Jonathan’s.  At the last minute, right before I left the house, I mixed up about 2 tablespoons of cream cheese, a big dollop of chipotle peppers (see Jonathan’s post on whirring these up in the blender with the sauce and keeping the resulting deliciousness on hand), about a quarter cup of fat-free Greek yogurt, and the juice of half a lime.  I put this on the potatoes when I served them, and it was delicious!  And quick.  And healthy.  But the flavors were still complex enough to satisfy me.  Because lunch matters to me.  Food matters to me.  It’s not just fuel.  If I can take the time to make and eat a really nice lunch, then the world must be okay.  Now, back to grading papers…

When I was in high school, my good friend Lori’s grandmother used to invite us over for enchiladas.  Nano was a tiny, energetic, perfectly coiffed woman, and her enchiladas had New Mexican roots.  They were delicious.  Nano would make us all sit at the table, ready to eat, and she’d load our plates with short stacks of corn tortillas, layered with creamy, melty cheese and bathed in a richly colored, complex tasting mole, and best of all, topped with a perfectly fried egg.  Nano insisted that we start to eat right away when she put our plates down, and not wait for everyone to be served, because the eggs would get cold.  I can remember the way the tines of my fork would break the egg so that the bright yellow yolk would run down into the mole.  It was delicious. (I wish I had a picture of Nano to post here, and the picture I wish I had is one of her taken within an hour of giving birth to Lori’s mom, Andee.  Nano was in full, unsmudged make-up, with a perfect little bouffant, complete with a velvet bow.  When I asked her how she looked so good, she said, “Oh, honey, it was 1946!  They just knocked you out and you woke up with a baby!”)

Years later, I started dating a man of Mexican/Polish descent.  I ended up marrying him.  As I got to know his family, it became clear to me that the Mexican half of his heritage had influenced his family’s foodways far more than the Polish half.  When we’d visit, we’d go out to little VFW’s or little hole-in-the-wall places for pierogies and kraut and fried fish.  I loved it.  But at Christmas, his family would order dozens of tamales from “The Harbour,” the largely Mexican area in East Chicago/Indiana.  And for big family get-togethers during the holidays, his family would make enchiladas.  This was the only time they made them, and when I witnessed Lucero-style enchilada production for the first time, I could see why.  It seemed very complicated and created not a small amount of tension in the kitchen.  But they were worth it–tender corn tortillas rolled into cheese-filled cylinders nestled in a rich mole. 

I shyed away from making enchiladas for a while, because it seemed like such a big deal.  But as I got to know my in-laws better, I realized that any time they cooked for more than two people it was a big deal.  So Scott and I experimented with a few different recipes and techniques, and I have to say our enchiladas are as good as any I’ve eaten.  We don’t eat them often, not because it’s a big deal to make them (especially if you have a batch of mole in the freezer), but because they’re so rich (read: greasy) we don’t want them often.  But we love them, and we especially love them for an early lunch, with wine or beer, before we sprawl on the bed to watch a movie, which is Scott’s favorite thing to do to celebrate his birthday, and which is exactly what we did this year.

The key to enchiladas is the mole, and there are as many different moles as there are cooks.  Making mole can be a little time-consuming.  But making a huge batch of it is just as easy as making a small batch, and it freezes beautifully, and is good on all sorts of things besides enchiladas, so you can make it ahead and have it in the freezer.  Here’s how to make it:

Buy a few bags of anchos.  These are dried poblanos, and I can get them in the Mexican section of Food City.  I got some really nice ones that seemed meatier at Good Foods Co-op not too long ago, though, and they did seem to have a brighter flavor. I’ve also tossed in other peppers with good results.  Put the anchos in a large bowl and cover them with boiling water.  Weight them down with a plate so they stay submerged and soak them a couple of hours or until they seem soft.  Pull the stems and seeds out and put the peppers in a food processor with a little of the strained soaking water (I pour it through a coffee filter) and puree the whole mess.  You should have something more liquid than a paste, but not too wet–about the consistency of applesauce, maybe.

Put the pepper puree through a seive, or even better, a food mill.  The lovely Liz Long Buchanan gave me one, and it makes making mole a snap. Hopefully, once you’ve strained your peppers, you have about 3 cups.  But it doesn’t matter–you can figure out how to adjust if you have more or less. 

In a heavy pot, make a roux–equal parts fat and flour.  I prefer lard for this dish, but I’ve used a really good corn oil, too.  You want about a tablespoon of fat and a tablespoon of flour for every cup of liquid, and you’re going to add equal parts broth to your pepper puree, so you do the math.  (I’M not going to do the math.  I’m an ENGLISH teacher.)  You want your roux to be pretty brown–as Jonathan is fond of pointing out, browning is where a lot of flavor comes from.  Have another pot of broth simmering as you brown your roux.  You can use chicken broth, or vegetable broth, for that matter, but pork broth is particularly nice in a mole, I think.  Of course, I think pork is always nice.  I adore it. 

When your roux is nice and brown, whisk the simmering broth in a little at a time until you have a nice sauce.  Then whisk the strained pepper puree in.  Taste for salt, add it if you need it.  Maybe toss in a little cumin if you want.  Peppers vary greatly in the amount of heat they provide.  If you want your mole spicier, add something spicy–some cayenne pepper, maybe.  At this point, you can either freeze your mole or use it–it’s really nice on chicken or pork, or any meat.  Or you can make enchildas.

Once you’ve got your mole made, enchildas are all about the assembly.  Decide if you want yours rolled or stacked–stacked is easier, and I like it better.  Be sure you have all your materials ready–the oil, the mole, the cheese, the tortillas, the chopped onion, and the dish or plates for the enchiladas.  The eggs if you’re using them–for Scott’s birthday enchiladas, we had eggs from Cluckingham Palace, and they were the perfect touch.   I like my enchiladas cheesy, so I plan about a quarter cup of cheese per tortilla.  You want a Mexican melting cheese, or good old Monteray Jack, and you want it grated.  If you’re serving stacks, plan on about 4 tortillas per person.  This is one too many, but you’ll eat it all anyway.

Heat a skillet of oil to almost smoking (don’t use olive oil–you want something like corn or peanut oil.  Or lard.)  Pour the mole in a pie plate or other shallow dish.  If you’re going to roll your enchiladas and reheat them, the mole doesn’t have to be hot, but obviously, if you’re serving stacks, you want it really hot.  Using tongs, dip a tortilla in the oil just long enough to soften it. Blot the excess oil on paper towels, then slip the tortilla in the mole until both sides are coated.  Lay it on a plate if you’re serving stacked or in a dish if you’re rolling it.  Put about a quarter cup of cheese on the tortilla and either roll it (using two tongs or having very heat-toughened fingers makes this easier) or spread the cheese over the surface.  Repeat this until you’re done.  These frankly don’t sit well–the tortilla soaks up the mole and they get sort of mushy.  But you can hold them in a warm oven for 20 minutes or so.  Before you serve them, sprinkle them with raw chopped onion, and if you like, a fried egg.  You pretty much have to drink beer with this, although we’ve found that a very dry rose is nice too–bonus if it’s a sparkling rose.  Also, if it’s someone’s birthday, the stacked enchiladas are the perfect platform for birthday candles.  I wish I’d thought of that on Scott’s birthday…maybe next year.

You will need a nap after this.  Enjoy.

This past weekend I spoke at the inaugural Believers in Better Beer, Bites, and Blogging Conference in Cincinnati. My talk was about our experience doing the radio show and the lessons we’ve learned from it, mostly about how to work with your medium to improve your content.

Unfortunately I was up against some terrific panels, and the way we billed it people probably thought its appeal would be limited to podcasters and potential radio hosts. I thought the more philosophical part of the talk went especially well, so here it is in written form. (Sorry it’s kind of long-winded.)

Continue reading »

This was my first experience with Bacalao, the ubiquitous salted fish of Spanish and Caribbean cooking.  I can’t imagine why I haven’t embraced this fish before–it’s salty and intense, everything I love in a dish.  And now I can’t wait to try some more recipes.  Ricardo Nazario y Colon sent me a poem titled Bacalao, and I considered several dishes.  But my instinct was to put it on a salad.  I had in mind something like a cerviche, but with bacalao instead of raw seafood.  I was a little unsure about this, but then Ricardo told me his mom made a delicious cold bacalao salad, and I was off.

My bacalao was actually pollock, and it was frozen.  Cod is so overfished that most bacalao is now made from other fish.  Instructions call for soaking bacalao anywhere from one to three days.  I soaked mine about twenty-four hours, and then simmered it for about forty-five minutes in a mixture of milk and water–some recipes call for using just water, some call for using milk, which will draw out a bit more salt.  I drained the bacalao and cooled it down in the fridge.  Jonathan hates it when I say this, but there really isn’t much recipe here.  I’ll list what I used, but you could certainly use other vegetables.

First make a dressing by whisking the juice of one or two limes (you want about a half cup of juice) and a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic with about a half cup of olive oil.  These are not classic dressing proportions, but I like the dressing for a salad with fish to be much more citrusy.

Chop your vegetables–I used red and yellow bell peppers, one of each, a cucumber, a quarter of a red onion, and a bunch of watercress.  Toss the vegetables with enough of the dressing to just coat them.  Crumble the fish over the salad and drizzle it with more of the dressing.  Taste for salt–you may need to add more, or the fish may be salty enough on its own.

On our February 1 show, we read five poems from Affrilachian poets. Find out more about them by visiting their website, http://www.affrilachianpoets.com/. First, here’s Frank X. Walker’s classic poem “Affrilachia,” from his book of the same title.  The Collard Greens in Garlic Cream Sauce were inspired by the mention of fresh greens in this poem.

Affrilachia

(for Gurney and Anne)
thoroughbred racing
and hee haw
are burdensome images
for Kentucky sons
venturing beyond the mason-dixon
anywhere in Appalachia
is about as far
as you could get
from our house
in the projects
yet
a mutual appreciation
for fresh greens
and cornbread
an almost heroic notion
of family
and porches
makes us kinfolk
somehow
but having never ridden
bareback
or sidesaddle
and being inexperienced
at cutting
hanging
or chewing tobacco
yet still feeling
complete and proud to say
that some of the bluegrass
is black
enough to know
that being ‘colored‚ and all
is generally lost
somewhere between
the dukes of hazard
and the beverly hillbillies
but
if you think
makin‚’shine from corn
is as hard as Kentucky coal
imagine being
an Affrilachian
poet
Frank X. Walker

We also read the poem “Comfort Food,” by Glenis Redmond.  Jonathan’s Salmon Croquettes and Cheese Chipotle Grits were inspired by this poem

Comfort Food
Upcountry Southern
we fry fish for breakfast,
pat salmon into patties
drop into hot oil
in the black cast iron skillet.
Cook until golden brown.
On the other eye a pot sits
mama slow stirs the grits.
They bubble and quake thick
like her love, an ingredient
she puts into everything.
Under this heat, we,
like her butter biscuits, rise.

Glenis Redmond

Ricardo Nazario y Colon sent us a completely hot poem called “Bacalao,” which was great because Jenny happened to have some on hand and had been looking for an excuse to cook it.  I love that this poem, in addition to being really sexy, contains the basic instructions for preparing the fish, which Jenny crumbled into a fresh, colorful salad.

Bacalao
Let me gather a pound of you
fill you half way in my water
have you soak for a couple of hours
bring you to a boil with my high flame
separate you into small pieces.

Ricardo Nazario y Colon

Our good friend Kelly Norman Ellis sent us a poem called “Bread” from her upcoming book Offerings of Desire.  We made classic butter biscuits to go with her poem.

Bread
The smell of oranges and cilantro
folds into the grocery bags
attaches to my fingers and follows me home
from the market where I buy
naan. In my kitchen,
I warm the bread
and spread a thin layer of ghee
on its bubbled skin.
I think
of a woman somewhere
who makes her own
bread pressed against an earthen pot.
Is she as fragrant as my hands?

I am the woman who bakes biscuits
when days are short and dark. My daughter
smothers them with preserves and butter. Scoops
out the warm middle. She soaks up hot
lentil soup with the soft insides of banquettes I toast
on winter Saturdays. I
am the handler
of warm bread

And I think of my mother and grandmother
who taught me to hoard the broken crumbles of cornbread
for dressing. Green onions, bell pepper, eggs, the broth
of a hen becomes the bread of sage and thanksgiving
memory of Eucharist
sacrament from my hand
to your lips.

Kelly Norman Ellis

We finished up with a poem Frank X. Walker sent us titled “Dessert.”  We didn’t cook anything from that poem.  We didn’t think we could live up to Frank’s mother’s banana pudding.  So his words stood as the only sweet finish the show needed.

Dessert
mamma taught us all to be light on our toes
in the kitchen. She passed down family staples
from the cookbook inside her hands, one on one
on the dance floor surrounded by the gas stove,
a too often empty refrigerator, and the second sink
where the turnip and collard greens would soak.

a pinch of this, mixed with a cup of that,
tea and tablespoons full of something basic
was all thrown into magic mixing bowls, before
disappearing into deep glass dishes and pie pans
that birthed sweet potato dreams, blackberry cobblers
and plain yellow or holiday jam cakes with caramel icing.

but none of my sisters ever mastered
her signature dish, the best banana pudding ever
a secret she only taught my daughter after age and allergies
stole nuts and all its magic butters and cookies from me

so at least twice a year on special occasions
mama’s best moves dance all over my daughter’s kitchen
and i all but cry through every bite as soon as I realize
I can still taste her smile.

Frank X. Walker