Starting something new. Writing about Books.

Since I am no longer blogging every week about food I have decided to take the other week and use it for writing about books. These posts are not necessarily about current books so don't look at these as reviews-- think about them as being an old fart talking about good friends he occasionally meets either again or new friends he is meeting for the first time. There might be new books and they might not be.

Two things inspired this. First is a small group of bookish folks who share books they love on occasion. One of these folks is someone I have known as a friend of a couple friends for a number of years without knowing that he enjoyed fiction. Another of these folks is a woman that, the first time we met, one of us mentioned “A Confederacy of DUNCES.” Since we both liked it a the conversation just bounced forward. “A Confederacy of DUNCES” is one of those books that you either love or find incredibly over-the-top and dull. I have known folks whose taste in books I love that have held either opinion. When I first meet someone who loves DUNCES the conversation turns to why you love the book. When I meet someone who does not love (but has read at least part of it) the first conversation is a matter of finding a book that we both have read and loved. (Bring up “To Kill a Mocking Bird” helps.)

The second reason is somewhat odd. I enjoy Morris West, I have read the entire Vatican series and found them fun but simple books. One of the last books of his I read was Master-Class. I found it fun and like it the most of West's books. I loved the way he develops Max Mather-- he is a cad that becomes a good person.

I loaned this to two friends and they were blown away by it. My take on it was it was the best book by an enjoyable writer. I was somewhat taken aback by their reaction and reread it not in the idea of reading Morris West but by reading an author I had not read before. It is an incredibly good book and I missed a good deal when I read it because I was reading it with a background of other Morris West books. Charmingly I loaned one of these folks West's “Clowns of God”. She is slugging her way through it and not enjoying it at all. Had I started with a loan “Clowns of God” it most likely it would be an enjoyable read. I discounted “Master-Class” because I had read a number of Morris West's books-- she is slugging her way through “Clowns of God” because Master-Class was so good.

Which is why loaning books is great. On one hand I am reading books other people whose tastes I admire love and I would not be likely to find much less read. On the other I am getting different prospective on books I like or love. In a slight way you can do with friend's of the heart but most likely they are going to suggest books that, since they know you well, are good books but likely offered through a filter of your known tastes. “Ciderhouse Rules” is a good example of this. I enjoyed the book but person who suggested it to knew me real well. The person who loaned me “The Story of Mr. Y” and the fellow who introduced “The Nine Dragons” might or might not.

So I hope this will be enjoyable and readable. I will offer books that are loaned to me that I at least like and offer books that I like and have loaned to other people.

Garlic Spears or Garlic Scapes? Who Cares?

Wherein Mr Ullman shares his passion for garlic spears.

This week's box brought with it garlic spears (a.k.a garlic scapes). I was looking forward to them, a friend told me about them last year and I was waiting for them to come back into season. I had a recipe in mind and it worked. Note that this isn't all the involved but it does use a good number of ingredients. The recipe uses noodles so make some.

Cut up pork into squares following the grain of the meat. Take a couple of garlic cloves and chopped them fine. Add some grapeseed oil to a wok and cook the pork and garlic for about 10 minutes. Once it is cooked drain the oil and retain it. Put the pork and garlic off to the side and add a couple of splashes of vinegar to the retained oil.

Now it is time to workover the veggies. Start by chopping up a green pepper into chunks. While somewhat tricky julienning the garlic spears. Take some kale and a tart parsley and rip these into small bits and then chop them together into small bits. Place all the veggies into a bowl and toss.

By this time the pork should be cooled. Using you fingers rip it into smaller pieces along the grain and toss it into the bowl. Add a generous spoonful of cream of celery soup and fold in the oil/ vinegar mixture. Add the noodles and toss everything again.

Transfer all this into a casserole dish and cook at 350 for twenty minutes. Add a dusting of tarragon and thyme and digin.

Garlic spears are simply great. I got ten of them and ate them raw, fried with asparagus and mushrooms, with fish and used them up in a Mac and Cheese dish.

Stuff cabbage with shrimp and lots of other stuff.

Wherein Mr Ullman gets a good meal of the cheap

This is easy and quick. Stuff cabbage with shrimp, spring onions, normal radishes, rhubarb, avocado and rice. Throw in some grape seed oil and some flavored vinegar and life is good.

You start it by making the rice per instructions and putting it off to the side. Steam good sized leafs of cabbage making sure you steam an even number. The cabbage should be steamed long enough to it easy to wrap around something.

Slice the onions and radishes in a food processor and chop up some rhubarb with a knife. Chop up a garlic clove and quickly stir fry some shrimp in the grape seed oil just long enough to firm it up. Pay attention.

Once the shrimp is cooked put it into a bowl. Take a leaf of cabbage and lay it on a plate. Add four or five shrimp on it. Add the onion, radish and rhubarb in measure. Crumble some goat cheese and grated Parmesan on top.

Fold the cabbage leaf over the stuff and fold another cabbage leaf over the top. Get out a casserole dish, cover the bottom lightly with the flavored vinegar. Heat the oven to 250 degrees, put the cabbage rolls into the dish and cook long enough to melt the cheese and heat the vinegar enough to give up its taste. Ten minutes works for me.

Spread the rice on a plate and lightly dust it with paprika and a pinch of cinnamon (go light here). Put the stuffed cabbage on top of this and place a generous plop of avocado on top.

Plan on two stuffed cabbages per person.

Sunchokes would be good here (not for me, that's a food allergy of note for me). A mild sausage or pulled chicken might work in place of the shrimp.

By the way, Parmesan cheese sold in the US is the poor relative of an Italian cheese called Parmigiano-Reggiano. Check it out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmigiano-Reggiano

Pork/chicken/shrimp cooked in a Veggie Broth (Select any two as long as one of them is shrimp)

Wherein Mr Ullman announces that he will be slacking off

I don't know a number of the ingredients that went into making a part of this dinner. My crock pot runs full time making a veggie broth. Whatever I don't use veggiewise-- be it stems, overly-enthusiastic chopping or things that are not going to last much longer-- I add. I strain it every other week and start over when necessary, usually with regret.  This also adds a permanent wonderful smell to your kitchen.

So this recipe uses the broth. A store brought veggie broth and a bit of experimenting with spices should do the trick.

The recipe also includes rice so make some. I used brown basmati but any short grain should work.

Oh, heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Since I am cool I strain about a cup of the homemade broth.

Cut up a goodly sized pork shoulder or chicken breast, slightly more then you would use if you were going to eat it whole. If nickles were square that would be the size you are looking to achieve. Put the pork off to the side.

Take some citarto (it does not taste like soap!) and two sharp greens (I used red dandelion greens and kale) and chop somewhat finely with a knife. Don't use a food processor since you don't want the greens extremely fine.

Put the pork or chicken in a Pyrex pie pan and add enough broth to cover the meat about 2/3s of the way. Add the greens and mix everything around. Add some Allspice, tarragon and a bay leaf. Add a splash of apple cider vinegar. Cover with aluminum foil shiny side down (no clue if this is important but it was something my mother believed in) and put into the oven. Cook for twenty minutes.

Take about ten medium sized shrimp and remove the tails and , if necessary, devain. Smash a good sized garlic clove.

Once the oven buzzer sounds remove the pie pan, add the shrimp and garlic, cover again and cook for seven more minutes.

Put the rice in a strainer. Pore the concoction in the pie pan over the rice (I recover the broth and return it to the crook pot). Toss and serve. I put a sweet relish on the side and used it as a dip.

This was very good with pork and chicken but next I am going to try a variation of this with a fish.

This is a one of my favorite “Do it quick” recipes. Another nice thing is that it is a versatile as a stir fry so you can do it with damn near anything you have in the fridge.

A Note:

Thinking about this blog over the last couple of weeks I decide that trying to do this weekly was to ambitious. I have been cooking for something to write about rather then the joy of screwing around with food. Therefore I am going to try doing a cooking entry once every two weeks for a while. Might end up doing this only once a month.

A Curious and Largely Untrue History of Bluffton Indiana

As told to me by my basset hound of the time

Howard Lucas Miller died of a massive heart attack at the Main Cigar Store in 1979. He was not a happy or well liked man. He had taken lunch at the Main Cigar Store ever since he was kicked out of the Snug in 1956.

Howard was something of a Christian but that is beside the point. Howard could have been a Satanist and his god would still not welcomed his company. Mr. Miller was fated to haunt this realm until such point in time that the Gods (Protestant) figured out who should have him. They did not seem to be in any hurry to decide.

So Howard had to spend his time haunting Bluffton. For the most part he was content to annoy Frank Sr. by turning his Main Cigar's Store's Heyerlys'-ham-purchased-slightly-before-the-use-by-date rancid. This wasn't much of an issue-- one no ever purchased an uncooked sandwich from the the Main Cigar Store and the restaurant's rush time was shortly after the bars closed. Diarrhea was dismissed the next day as being caused by alcoholism rather then food poisoning.

Howard occasionally got bored and ventured further afield. Murphy's went out of business largely because someone there had managed to piss him off shortly before his death and then he became deeply offended by the end of the line 8 track selections they were selling for a dollar. Howard had opinions about music and Captain Beefheart, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and the Greatest Hits of Olivia Newton John were not to be found on the plus side of that ledger. By the end of the decade Murphy's was gone and the Dollar Store was selling nothing more offensive then a lonely cassette tape of Benny Goodman's Greatest Hits.

Howard caused other problems. The Kiwanis booth at the 1985 Street Fair paged both Jack Meoff and Wanda B. Laid because their list went mysteriously missing. Ten year old boys went on a rampage with much more success then their fourteen year old brothers had ever achieved. .

However, Howard's major haunt remained the Main Cigar Store.  Things were not going well there. While the food wasn't a cause of much concern other issues came to the forefront. For one thing Howard was a keen pool player when his was alive and liked to hang out around the pool table. That section of the of the restaurant became unnaturally cold and Frank Sr. was accused of turning down the heat back there.

Howard's presence also caused the pool table to become more warped. Three generations of pool sharks had learned how to shoot pool on that table at their father's drunken side. They could no longer count on the geometry of the table to sink a ball and this offended them deeply. They started to go to a new place called Cowboy's which offered, briefly, unlimited soft drink refills.

Finally the Main Cigar Store had to shut down. Since all of Frank Sr.'s kids had went into the military, and did well by the GI Bill, there was a not an heir to the throne. More to the point the bacteria on the grill was beginning to show signs of intelligence and the health department was becoming scared enough to consider calling in the EPA. So Frank Sr.. reluctantly closed and locked the door for the first time, leaving all the unpaid bills inside.

Howard was left inside too.

So should you be in the alley between Market and Wabash streets (certainly on your way to place a classified ad in the News Banner and just taking an unusual route) and peer at the dirty windows of the Main Cigar Store note with joy that those dirty windows no longer mean that Frank simply hasn't gotten around to cleaning them. Should you hear someone pounding on the windows say a quick prayer for Howard and wonder when the hell the Eagles are going to do something about him.

Donuts

Wherein Mr Ullman announces a brief break from Blogging. 

Have a donut.  Really, take two.  They are fresh and yummy.  

This is the start of the silly season at work.  For the next couple of weeks I will be creating 20 + program CDs a day, answering support questions that, to the user, seem dire but are actually quite easy to solve and trying to convince a couple of captains who spend $50,000 on P & I insurance to replace their goddamn six year old PC and not to buy a $600.00 piece of crap from Dell or HP.  I short, I won't have a great deal of time on my until the middle of June.

So unless I manage to get real lucky an make something outstanding I won't be blogging again until the 17th of June. This will also give to time to do some thinking about about this and maybe give it some sort of structure.  Maybe not.

A Good Sweet and Sour Sauce

 Wherein Mr Ullman, having been defeated by a sweet and sour sauce in the past, stumbles upon a good one while Mr Broman attempts to plant subliminal messages onto these pages.

This is a tale of a sweet and sour sauce that, after a bit more refining, will likely becomes a staple for a white fish dish.

I am not a real fan of beef simply because it doesn't interest me. While a nice steak is good with some mushrooms and what not I usually just broil beef and look for fun things to do with the salad and side dish.

Anyway, I got some chuck shoulder with the idea of cutting it up and messing around with cooking with acids. I didn't get around to it and I hate to waste food. Broiling it is then.

So I put it in the oven and spent some time trying to figure out a sauce. It was going to be a cold sauce , not one that would be cooked along with the meat. I also had a half avocado that was starting to go brown on me. What to do?

I occasionally make a salad dressing from my favorite mild horseradish sauce, some soy sauce and olive oil. In a one cup bowl I add a couple of squirts of the horseradish, four or five splashes of soy sauce and then add olive oil to get the mixture up to about ¾ of a cup. You then stir vigorously.

I made this and then added the avocado. Stirred very vigorously so that everything mixed well.

Once the shoulder chuck was cooked I spread the sauce on the meat and let it stand for a few minutes. Very tasty and worth playing around with. Served with baby spinach, snow peas and side salad.

A note from the author 

As I stated in my first post the point is not to present recipes to follow but rather to start you folks on the path to tasty combinations. Someone emailed me and pointed out that a lot of what I post here is stuff that I made on the fly. That's true and sort of the point. I do eat both regular meals that are planned and do a fair amount of what if cooking. The what if cooking is what I am writing about. While few of these things become formal recipes that all go in notebook of things tried and will be used on purpose in some future meal.