Textured Flavors of Food and Friend, Sarahndipity

Well, I’m closing in. Recipe 33. 18 recipes and more than thirty days left. I think I can do that. Whew. Man, I’m glad the pressure’s off. Now I can really take my time in planning the recipes and get more into quality versus rushing it in!

Last night’s recipe was Tomato, Rapini and Spring Legume Salad. A fabulous recipe, I recommend it. Crunchy beans, ever-so-slightly peppery rapini (broccoli rabe), tomatoes which are in their prime now, sweet fennel strands and a delicate and perfect mustard vinaigrette. See comment for recipe.

I’d like to dedicate this here recipe of many textures, colors and flavors, to an amazingly multi-textured, colorful, many-flavors of a woman I met about 15-16 years back who has made a remarkable impression on my life. She’s truly the smartest person I’ve ever been friends with; or who would even consider being friends with me, oh-one-of humble IQ origins. She has taught me how to look differently at life in a way no one else ever has. Because of her, I know have an astounding new template for this Universe, seeing connections and building my spirituality to new bounds. She is an artist, philosopher, writer, avid reader, lay-naturalist, self-taught scientist, book author, computer nerd, creator, cheerleader of all that is inspiring and good, and dreamer…boy, is she a dreamer!

Have you ever met a person who affected you on a deeper level than you ever imagined? It’s like how you feel when you catch the sight of a shooting star. It is spectacular and wondrous. That’s how I feel about Sarahndipity. She is my shooting star.

To see some of Sarah’s projects: http://www.graceartgroup.com/

I am the Queen of…

Yes, I am known as the Queen of the Pterodactyls but those who are closest to me know the bare truth that I am more notably known as the Queen of Bodily Functions. Let me just say that the raw food diet so harmonizes with my body that I am in danger of losing my latter title.

The heart of live food, Roxanne Klein writes, is enzyme preservation. Cooking food kills enzymes. Live food is loaded with them. Enzymes help us digest and they act as catalysts for every metabolic reaction in your body. Cell division, energy production, brain activity, all need enzymes. Vitamins and hormones need enzymes to do their work, as does our immune systems. The hormone part is close to my heart as I begin my journey on pausing menses, with the byproduct of the urge to tear my clothes off, especially at night.

Temperatures higher than 118 degrees kills enzymes, vitamins and nutrients, that's why we use dehydrators over long periods of time to get the texture, without losing all the healthy stuff. When my body is dealing with such functional, alkalizing fuel, I don’t heat up. Unprocessed foods are cooler and that’s good for a Queen with lively bodily functions.

Take raw cheese for example. In raw food-making cheese is nut cheese and is “cured” with rejuvelac, a fermented grain berry juice that’s loaded with enzymes and naturally occurring acidophiles which is a well known probiotic that promotes production of niacin and folic acid in your body, good digestion and is also considered an immune booster. Lactose intolerant like me? Delicious nut cheese is the answer! No longer do you have to look to dairy to get your acidophiles. Click here for information on rejuvelac and how to make it: http://www.hishealingways.com/rejuvelac/makerejuvelac.html

Today’s recipe is the Mediterranean Cheese Salad. The cashew cheese was rolled in tomatoes, basil and olives. The spicy pine nuts were my favorite surprise in this salad: soaked pine nuts tossed with chile, cumin, salt and onion and then dehydrated until they were crispy. The salad is served with live flax crackers (pure omega-3 fatty acids).

I don’t think I should lose my title over this. I am still the Queen of Bodily Functions. They’re just quiet, gliding vibrant functions now, that’s all. Ahaa, Ahaa.

Cherries Sabayon and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

My sister Susie has been galavanting the country, completely ignoring me. OK, it’s true, she’s one of the few dedicated blog readers, but still. How dare she go on two vacations and have a good time without me? But yesterday I got a few precious hours with her alone, so made the Cherries Sabayon as an afternoon dessert. Fitting, because my sister Susie is: a bowl full of cherries! And, also affectionately described by my husband as a Mary Hartman act-alike. But even though she has some really genuine Mary Hartman mannerisms, Susie has that cherry-bowl thing going on.

She teaches me how precious life is. She’s someone who drinks in every moment of life’s experiences like a rare elixir. Biologist, teacher, adventurer, mother, violinist? and now grandmammy of twins. There is no one I’d rather travel with. She makes me do things. Dangerous and wild things like hiking in a tropical forest with only my flipflops and no bug spray (can you say 37 bug bites in the face?) or like spending the night on an open 300’ high platform, exposed to the elements in a strange and tropical country. I won’t go into the details behind the weird slurping sounds I heard as I laid awake pretending to be asleep.

Susie mirrors some piece of my adventurous self that crawled back into it’s safe little crevice. She is bold and brave and wonderful. She is German too, and hard-headed, that one, but still, a bowl full of cherries.

And so Michigan Sour Cherries with Vanilla Cream and Orange Sabayon. Minus the Michigan Sour part of it. Cherries are coming to the end of their season so I was anxious to use this recipe while they are still so deliciously dropping. What are Michigan Sour cherries, anyway? I probably would have had to order them online or something. I wielded my hatchet again so that I could make the cream and sabayon, whose bases are pureed young coconut (I know what that is now).

I hate to possibly add a speed bump to all you potential raw foodies out there, but in order to really get into the raw food thing, you’ll eventually break down like I have done and purchase a better blender than your house blender. I just spent $400 on a Vita-Mix blender and I expect it will be well worth it. The problem is, soups and sauces, like this sabayon, for example, just aren’t as smooth and velvety as you want them to be. Use the Cuisinart you say? Nope. I thought the same thing--the Cuisinart does a lot of things well and does puree, but it does not get it that smooth, velvety consistency. So I’m down $400 and am anxiously waiting my new purchase to arrive any day now. I ordered a red one. Like cherries.

Mrs. Cleaver Meets Young Thai Coconut

Bought my first cleaver today. And, finally, finally found out what the hell she means by “young Thai coconut” in so many of her recipes. In the past, I just used dried coconut but last night I attended Elaina Love’s class on a Detox Diet at Café Soulstice, and it was wonderful. She not only had a young coconut but used it in the class and demonstrated how to open it.

So when I found the “young Thai coconut” at a local Asian grocery AND a cleaver at my other favorite Asian market to open it with, I decided it was a Good Day. I just adore being in the kitchen, it’s my new favorite thing in life. I could do this every day, but only as long as I didn’t have anyone telling me what to do, or what I am doing wrong (everything). Anyway, dessert was to be Fig Napoleon with Honey Pastry Cream.

First I started early this morning with the “Baklava Tuiles.” Golden flaxseeds, maple sugar, fuji apple, cinnamon and vanilla. I was supposed to spread that onto the dehydrator tray, but really I poured it onto the tray. Then I realized the problem: I had used maple syrup instead of maple sugar. It was too runny. Damn! Good thing I was getting started early, now I would have extra time to dehydrate it several more hours to get the tuile to the crisp texture it needed.

Deb dropped by so I decided it would be safest to try the new cleaver with a guardian standing by. I wielded the big axe and actually did a fair approximation of what I saw Elaina do last night. Deb was impressed. I was shocked that I still had my fingers.

Now that I had opened the coconut, I could make the “custard” for Star Thistle Gelato (young thai coconut meat, coconut juice, honey, cashew milk, honey, coconut oil and vanilla). From that base I added agar agar and some cashews to supposedly thicken it up. Into the blender as directed. Whirl, whirl. Still like water. Whirl, Whirl. Not thickening.

Checked the tuile and flipped it. Hours later it was still not crisp. This is when I started multi-tasking. This is what I do when I'm nervous. I put in the remaining star thistle custard into the ice cream maker. Why not make it gelato as intended? Intermittently running the blender trying to thicken the cream. Also cutting, chopping and mixing ingredients for the main entrée. Washing dishes. Re-reading the recipes. The kitchen is getting more crowded with produce scraps, dirty cutting boards and measuring cups. Crash! One of the pitchers I have drying turns over and breaks in the sink. I rummage through the dirty dishes and retrieve the broken pieces. Goodbye, pitcher. I puree up the fig sauce for dessert. It is 8 p.m. Husband sizes up situation and announces he is going out to buy us dinner. Check tuile, still pliable. I turn the dehydrator up. Fuck the enzymes and nutrients, I want it crisp! Gelato done, voila! I put in freezer. Now to focus on entrée.

After my tirade about not eating raw mushrooms in the previous post, I would be damned if I would eat the Portobello Mushroom Pave recipe raw. But I still wanted to do the recipe, afterall I have vowed to do every recipe in the book. So I decided to broil the mushrooms. Let me just say I’m glad Daniel went out to buy dinner. And also that cooked mushrooms aren’t too friendly about being cut “paper thin.” I did get good at it though. When Daniel came home and complained the salmon skin had been left on, I said “No Problem!” and whipped out my knife and slicked off the skin pretty well, I’ll admit. But I have to say, folks, this is the first recipe I’ve done in this book that I really disliked, and I like portobellos. Even the sauce, (tahini, shallot, garlic, oil, rice vinegar and water) was yucky! Nope, this one didn’t turn out. Pictured here is my dish with the photo from the book behind it. See how nice hers looks? Mine looks like sliced dead frog. Ribit. Maybe if mine were raw they would have had more flavor and been more attractive on the plate, but like I said: I won’t eat mushrooms raw anymore.

So the entrée was pretty much a failure, but I still had hopes for the Fig Napoleon. I checked the dehydrator, still the tuile is not crisp. It’s 9:30 p.m. Screw it. You can’t tell in the photo they’re not crispy, I reasoned, and they still taste good, so that’s the way it will be. It was pretty delicious, even though the sauce never thickened and the tuile was soft. Daniel doesn’t like figs, or so he thought, because he ate almost all of his dessert even though he wasn’t hungry (as if hunger ever had anything to do with enjoying a dessert…men!) After the photo, I put the tuile back into the dehydrator. Just to punish them I am going to keep them in there all night. We’ll see if they defy crispness then.

Shrooms aren’t Vegetables, so Don’t Eat ‘em Raw (right, even those little white ones they serve in your salad)

After my weekend hiatus am back eating raw again and feeling as energetic as ever. Have found that my stove top makes a good drain board, so it’s useful for something.


Yesterday I made Mushroom Ragout. Now we can have a serious talk about when raw foodies take it too far. I put my trust in Paul Stamet, see http://www.fungi.com/front/stamets/index.html. I consider him the foremost authority on mushrooms in this country, if not the world. Well, at least he’s the one I’ve heard of anyway. He has discovered that mushrooms can clean up toxic waste in our environment far more effectively than any conventional methods ever used, and in his studies he advocates using mushrooms medicinally to stimulate your immune system and treat various diseases. But one thing Mr. Stamet is clear on, is that raw mushrooms do not have nutritional or medicinal value for us. Mushrooms must be cooked for our bodies to commune with nature, so to speak. In fact, mushrooms can have a slight toxicity when eaten raw. In short, it’s not good for you.

My question was: how cooked do they have to be? So I called the helpful staff there at Fungi Perfecti and was told mushrooms need to be cooked to at least 160 degrees. Portobellos need an even higher temperature: 400 degrees. Apparently mushrooms (not a vegetable, they are fungi, so they are their own animal) have very large proteins (and other compounds too) which our bodies can’t break down. Cooking reduces their size, making us able to assimilate the mushroom’s great qualities, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-bacterial, reduces cholesterol, and immune enhancer just to name a few (see the chart at: http://www.fungi.com/mycomeds/info.html).

The danger in eating them raw? Well unless your diet is really high in fiber, they’ve been know to cause colon impactions. Our bodies just don’t know what to do with them raw. Thank you, Julia from Fungi Perfecti, for sharing your valuable time and knowledge with me.

Which brings me to the Polenta with Wild Mushroom Ragout recipe. Turned out lovely and tastey, and my colon did not have a fit…have a look at the list of mushrooms it called for:

• Lobster mushrooms


• Pom Pom


• Shitake


• Cinnamon cap


• Portobello

The recipe called to dehydrate them, which I did, but if I ever make this recipe again, I will pull out the old frying pan and convert my stove top from it’s dish draining duties and give it back it’s old job.

PS: go to this link to see something that will blow your mind!
http://www.fungi.com/info/articles/luminescent.html

Putting the Tomato Right

Truthfully I haven’t felt that great lately. What could it be? It’s true I’m meno-pausing. Or could it be the back and forth between raw and cooked…the real world that I still have to live (and eat) in and the at-home world where I can control my meals? It is also likely that eating raw is detoxing me, and every time I go back to cooked foods, I am more sensitive to the toxins in those foods. With a hot flash or two for emphasis.

Life is like that. Think of the toxic people we have to be around. I’ve arranged my life intentionally to exclude the types who don’t harmonize with me, but I still have to run into them from time to time on the outside. Frankly, because I’ve held the distance from them and protected my space, it’s given me a greater capacity to not feel so threatened by them, and to even have compassion (from a safe distance!). Hopefully this not-feeling-on-top-of-the-world thing that has come on in the last days is just a movement forward to the next whatever good thing I’ll be experiencing, like delicious heirloom tomatoes!

Today’s dish is Heirloom Tomato Terrine. What better summertime dish than this one when tomatoes are coming into their peak. I’m not a “cut out the seeds and peel” kind of gal. I think tomatoes are so delicious nothing should be cut off, except the navel, but for this recipe, since it would be a stacked dish, in a terrine (vs. a tureen, Justine), I followed the directions and peeled the tomatoes and removed those delicious seeds. I slurped up a few as I went and saved the peelings, etc. to juice and pour on the dog’s head. Yes, the faint aroma of skunk lingers yet.

Here’s the dish on a bed of spinach pesto (w/cashews, garlic, salt and olive oil). She wanted me to salt and pepper each layer of the tomatoes but I love the naked flavor of tomatoes so much, I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Of course when I went to flip it over onto the dish, there were a few runaway tomatoes sliding out, trying to ruin the photo. So just like how I’ve been feeling, I’ll pull myself back in…slide the tomato back into the space where it belongs, let it all marry together, and then cut a slice of life and enjoy how delicious it tastes, even if I’m not feeling on top of the world.

Titanic Kitchen

Does it make any sense that I’m so busy cooking that I don’t have time to make anything to eat? For Daniel, losing weight is a good thing. For me, not so much. Frankly, I was suprised to learn I have dropped almost 4 lbs. So tonight after whipping up (see the state of my kitchen if you want to see the aftermath) Stuffed Chiles with Mole Sauce (yum!), I ate that, a burrito (thank you Alane, it was delicious), the fruit salad, a bite or two of pizza and a few bites of a hot dog and a beer. There. That ought to do it.

The Stuffed Chile recipe looked insane, but once I got into it, it wasn’t so crazy. The stuffing was made of walnuts, cashews, almond butter, veggies and spices. The delicious mole (a la maurine) I had to alter. She (the great Roxanne) wanted to have all these chiles included:

1 ancho chile
1 chipotle chile
1 mirasol chile
2 guajillo chiles
1 pulla chile
2 pasilla chiles

what is she, a dragon? ? It reminds me of my friend Rosemary. We call her the Goddess.
Most times she has cooked for me, my mouth went ablaze with the firefull peppers she likes to season her dishes with. She is Italian and she is Hot. We call her the Goddess for a reason. She’s one of these remarkable people who never stops if she wants something. A college professor, world traveler, book author, speaker, consultant in the business world, and one of those rare people who are so incredibly beautiful on the outside, it’s surprising to find they are flawlessly beautiful on the inside. Maybe if I ate spicier food I could be like her, but this is what I put in:
a few small pieces of 1 Anaheim chile
and that was enough, it had just enough heat.

I mean, really. If I would have put all those chiles in there it would have set off the fire alarm in my kitchen! But all the other ingredients made a beautifully delicious mole! Especially the chocolate sauce, made with almond butter…yum!

I brought the stuffed chiles to Music in the Park night tonight. Everybody liked them, but they went wild for the mole.

NEW: I will have an attachment with all the good recipes and my notes on them linked to this site…COMING SOON!

The Savory Fruit Salad was an interesting balance between the sweet melon and nectarine and the shaved fennel and red onion, then with a fennel vinaigrette with shallot and fennel.

So, the dishes are piled up. The kitchen is a ship wreck. Where is Daniel? I hear the great guru say “go to the TV and you will find your husband.”

At least I’m not going to bed hungry.