Category Archives: bread

Tender folded whole wheat flatbreads

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Whole wheat flatbread

Whole wheat flatbread

I have to be at work very early this morning for the dreaded brunch shift. So I woke up at the crack of dawn, and then I Made Wise Use of My Time. I Made Smart Choices. That’s right, I sat on the couch and played lego star wars with Malcolm. I was Boba Fett, which is cool, because I had a jet pack (!) but it was very discombobulating because all of a sudden I was fighting Boba Fett, and I didn’t know which one was me, and then Malcolm was Boba Fett. What a tizzy! And now, since my scheduled start time draws on apace and I’m way too old for a tardiness scolding, I’ll keep it mercifully brief. Much as Boba Fett has many incarnations, as we go through life we progress through stages of being. From mewling and puking infant through reluctant schoolboy and to, well, I can’t remember all the rest. And all of these stages can be brought back in an instant with a few notes of a song. Our history folds in on itself at the sound of a melody we listened to incessantly in our younger days. People and parties and jobs and long days of school all come crowding back to us in the form of a familiar refrain. So for this week’s interactive playlist, we’re asking you to pick one song from each decade of your life. Don’t over think it! It doesn’t have to be your favorite song, or the one you listened to the most. Just the song that first comes to mind when you think of a certain time in your life. Leave it in the comments, or add it to our playlist, here.

These flatbreads are partially made with whole wheat flour. They have a nice consistency – tender inside, crispy outside. Buttery and yummy. They’re folded over, so you can tuck things inside of them. Which is the most fun way to eat!!

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Pita bread flavored with za’atar

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za'atar flavored pita bread

za’atar flavored pita bread

I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night, and for some reason my mind wandered back to the time I met Seamus Heaney. I was twenty years old, a student at Oxford. He was reading our poems, and giving us advice. He said my poems reminded him of Basho, which was a very kind thing of him to say. (I used to write poems! I wanted to be a poet! I had sensibilities! I was moved by things most people didn’t even notice! We can all laugh about it now, but at the time it was terrible.) I don’t write poetry very often any more, but I still read it from time to time, and I spent the better part of this morning reading the poems of Seamus Heaney. I’ve decided that he could be another of our Ordinary Poet Laureates. Consider this quote about him, “And his is the gift of saying something extraordinary while, line by line, conveying a sense that this is something an ordinary person might actually say.” His subject matter, too, is frequently ordinary people going about their daily activities. Like Robert Burns and William Carlos Williams he recognizes the grace and worth of each person, and of the work that they do. His poems seemed washed in the affectionate, melancholic light of memory, so that everything he touches quietly glows. We all cast mythical shadows in his poems, we’re all the gods and goddesses of our own creation. However humble our labors may seem, they become honorable in his words. And while he’s generously making our work worthy, he’s constantly questioning and reestablishing the value of his own work – the value of poetry and of art. “Heaney wants to think of poetry not only as something that intervenes in the world, redressing or correcting imbalances, but also as something that must be redressed—re-established, celebrated as itself.” Here’s a poem named for Heaney’s childhood home that describes the work of a woman in the kitchen, it’s a poem filled with love and grace and light, and with the poignance of passing time.

Mossbawn

1. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose’s wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith’s scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

I like making pita bread. It’s so simple and pleasurable, and so fun to eat when it’s done. I’ve always liked za’atar bread – middle-eastern flatbread crusted with za’atar spices, so I decided to bake some of them right into the dough of this pita bread. I used a red za’atar spice mix, and added thyme, but za’atar comes in many blends, so you could adjust it to suit your taste. These little breads were soft and puffy inside, so you could pull them apart and fill them with delicious things. The next day we toasted them, and they were lovely and crispy.

Here’s Heaney reading Mossbawn Sunlight

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Tender buttery rolled-up rolls

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Rolled up rolls

Rolled up rolls

Ezra Jack Keats seems like somebody I’d like to spend some time with. Like Ozu and Tati and Vigo, he seems like somebody that has a lot of answers but wouldn’t feel compelled to tell you about it. So you’d just have to spend some time with them, to listen and learn. He is, of course, the author and illustrator of The Snowy Day, as well as 21 other books. The Snowy Day tells the story of Peter, a little boy who wakes up to find that it has snowed. And then it describes his day – walking through the snow, making foot prints, making tracks with a stick, wanting to join a snowball fight but understanding that he’s too little when he gets knocked down with a snow ball, trying to save a snowball and surprised when it disappears in his pocket in the warmth of his house. It’s a perfect book. The language is simple and haiku-like, the illustrations a jumble of color and movement. The Snowy Day was published in 1962, which also happens to be the year the name of a crayola crayon was changed from “flesh” to “peach.” Peter is black, but that’s never mentioned in the text, and the book is not about that. In our literary history black characters had frequently appeared as caricatures or background figures, but Peter is just a little boy, just Peter, so full of personality and charm, so fully conjured with so few words. Keats has said, “My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along.” The book is about the wonder of walking in a world transformed by snow… “I wanted The Snowy Day to be a chunk of life, the sensory experience in word and picture of what it feels like to hear your own body making sounds in the snow. Crunch…crunch…And the joy of being alive…I wanted to convey the joy of being a little boy alive on a certain kind of day—of being for that moment. The air is cold, you touch the snow, aware of the things to which all children are so open.” Like all of Keats’ books, the problems facing the boy are small and real – not as dramatic as being chased by death eaters, maybe, but all the more compelling for being universal and recognizable and honest. All good books and films about children are not about having children – not cynically appealing to what some focus group has suggested would sell to a certain age group. They’re about being children, about always being a child in certain situations, like when the snow falls. or when you feel inadequate or disappointed, or left out of a crowd. Keats has said that discovering collage made him feel like “…a child playing…I was in a world with no rules.” And it feels exactly like my boys’ lives and their creativity…pulling a bit of something from here, a scrap of something from there, and piecing it all together in their teeming, colorful little brains. It’s a good way to experience the world and connect everything you see and hear and feel…aware of the things to which children are so open. Keats understands.

tender rolled up rolls

tender rolled up rolls

These rolled up buttery rolls turned out really delicious! The perfect thing to eat after coming in from the snow! I wanted them to be really really soft and tender, so I added milk and butter and an egg. And I wanted them to be fun to eat, so I flattened them and then rolled them up. They were fun to eat! We could pull apart each soft layer. We could fill them with greens and beans, or with scrambled eggs the next morning. They’re very versatile, too. I added a bit of pepper in the layers, but you could add herbs or nuts or cheese. Or cinnamon sugar, if you want them to be sweetish. Or chocolate chips, if you want them to be really sweet!

Here are two songs by Elizabeth Cotten, another of those people who seems to have all the answers.

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Colcannon bread (kale and potato bread)

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Colcannon bread

Colcannon bread

Here at The Ordinary, we’re not quite well. Isaac has an actual fever, and the rest of us feel crummy in the head, throat, and spirits. Add to that the chilly drizzliness of the day, and you have a general idea of the mood here. Actually, I quite like a day off with Isaac, as long as he’s not miserably ill. He’s such a little chattery singer, and even as his fever rises he continues a cheerful warble. We’ve cuddled on the couch; made a paper sea-dragon from a book; drawn mixed-up animals, (which Isaac decided he could name any way he wanted to, and he could spell the name any way he wanted to, because he invented them. They won’t be on the test!); discussed the philosophical and moral implications of the statement that it’s hard to be mad at Clio because she’s so cute; made a pancake with cinnamon (Isaac wanted me to tell you about that!); and watched a movie. I’m going to keep it brief so I can get back to the cuddle-couch, but I want to tell you about the movie we saw, because it was remarkable and beautiful. It’s a short, wordless, animated version of Peter and the Wolf made by Suzie Templeton. Technically and aesthetically, it’s wonderful. The film takes place in a bleak and dingy village on the edge of the woods. It’s a modern setting, replete with graffiti and chain-link fences, but even the dreariness is gorgeously rendered. The characters – a boy, a runner duck, a hooded crow, a fat cat, a blue-eyed wolf, and a grumpy old man – are full of personality and glow with inner life. The film brings a real sense of compassion and soul to the familiar story – it’s about friendship and forgiveness, cruelty and kindness. You understand, as you watch, that prey can easily become predator, bullies can be bullied, and cruelty and aggression may be valued and rewarded, but that doesn’t make them right. Everybody wants to live, and empathy extends to all creatures. I can’t wait to watch it tonight with Malcolm and David!
kale and potato bread

kale and potato bread

I’m very very excited about this bread! It’s the oddest thing, but I dreamed about it two nights in a row, and then I woke up and spent the rest of each night trying to figure out how to make it. Colcannon, of course, is an Irish dish that contains mashed potatoes and kale or cabbage. In my dream I made it into bread, and so…in real life I did just that! It’s a lovely, light but dense, pale green bread with darker green flecks. The flavor is very subtle – you don’t actually taste kale, just a nice savoriness (which means small boys will like it!). I added plenty of freshly ground pepper for flavor, and an egg and a bit of milk to make it soft inside. It’s got a nice crispy chewy crust. I made one huge loaf, which is very seussical looking, but it probably would have been more practical to make two smaller ones. Maybe next time!

Here’s REM with Wolves, Lower, appropriately, live in Ireland!

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Spinach and mozzarella cake

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Spinach mozzarella cake

Spinach mozzarella cake

“I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one’s own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.”- James Baldwin
Well, I love this quote! I’d been thinking about these things – the mutability of morality, the shifting quality of truth, the unreliability of words. It struck me as so similar to Emerson’s “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day” (Thank you, universe, for making everything connect.) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’m a very vague person, I’m blurry at the edges, and I see the world this way. I think it’s dangerous to decide the world is a certain way, and that we have to act in a certain way in the world, according to a strict set of rules. The idea that morality should come from within – that we need a core of strength despite the fact that the outlines are shifting – is so hopeful about humanity, but it’s a little frightening, too. It would be a comfort to believe that there’s some larger system to decide right and wrong – to reward the good and punish the wicked. But how often have these ideals been corrupted by the people that claim to interpret them for us? How dangerous it is to stubbornly hold onto conclusions to the point where we act out of habit, thoughtlessly, without consideration. How much better to constantly question, to actively seek answers, even though they might not exist in any definitive form, or they may shift and change the moment we catch up to them. And to struggle to express ourselves and share our thoughts, even though the words themselves are as transparent and mutable as water. The world is constantly changing, time is streaming by us, we’re never grown-up, we’re never done. It’s a silly notion, but I have a dream-like image of people as spirits, moving through the world, with some sort of light of truth inside of them, burning strong. What nonsense I’m spouting today! What extra-special foolishness! Happy shrove tuesday! A day that we confess our sins and eat pancakes! I like the idea of pancakes as absolution. I know it doesn’t quite work that way, but it’s a nice notion, anyway. I believe the original habit of pancake-eating on shrove Tuesday began as a way to use up all the fat and sugar in the cupboard before then lenten fast began. Or, more likely, it was because it was February, and everybody wanted something simple and comforting. Like this Seussically green, fat, cheesy pancake! We had some saucy chili left over, and I wanted something to eat it with. Something the boys would like, that would contain vegetables and protein, but in a non-objectionable way. And so we have this cake. It has some almonds, for flavor, texture and protein. It’s got flavorful herbs, it’s got a bit of cheese. And it’s BRIGHT GREEN for spring. After all, supposedly “lenten” comes from the old English for long, because the days are getting longer at the moment, and have such a hopeful light about them!

Here’s The Meters with Mardi Gras Mambo.

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Honey oatmeal walnut bread

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Oatmeal walnut bread

Oatmeal walnut bread

Today, friends, I’d like to talk about one of the most singular applications of ordinariness that I’ve come across. I refer, of course, to Ivan Karamazov’s devil. Here he is…

    This was a person or, more accurately speaking, a Russian gentleman of a particular kind, no longer young, qui faisait la cinquantaine, as the French say, with rather long, still thick, dark hair, slightly streaked with grey and a small pointed beard. He was wearing a brownish reefer jacket, rather shabby, evidently made by a good tailor though, and of a fashion at least three years old, that had been discarded by smart and well-to-do people for the last two years. His linen and his long scarf-like neck-tie were all such as are worn by people who aim at being stylish, but on closer inspection his linen was not overclean and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The visitor’s check trousers were of excellent cut, but were too light in colour and too tight for the present fashion. His soft fluffy white hat was out of keeping with the season.

    In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitened means. It looked as though the gentleman belonged to that class of idle landowners who used to flourish in the times of serfdom. He had unmistakably been, at some time, in good and fashionable society, had once had good connections, had possibly preserved them indeed, but, after a gay youth, becoming gradually impoverished on the abolition of serfdom, he had sunk into the position of a poor relation of the best class, wandering from one good old friend to another and received by them for his companionable and accommodating disposition and as being, after all, a gentleman who could be asked to sit down with anyone, though, of course, not in a place of honour. Such gentlemen of accommodating temper and dependent position, who can tell a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion for any duties that may be forced upon them, are usually solitary creatures, either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children, but if so, the children are always being brought up at a distance, at some aunt’s, to whom these gentlemen never allude in good society, seeming ashamed of the relationship. They gradually lose sight of their children altogether, though at intervals they receive a birthday or Christmas letter from them and sometimes even answer it.

    The countenance of the unexpected visitor was not so much good-natured, as accommodating and ready to assume any amiable expression as occasion might arise. He had no watch, but he had a tortoise-shell lorgnette on a black ribbon. On the middle finger of his right hand was a massive gold ring with a cheap opal stone in it.

This is Ivan’s devil, who may or may not be a figment of Ivan’s fevered imagination. He’s an extremely ordinary fellow! He doesn’t have the decency to wear horns and a cloak, like a devil should. He’s shabby, and dull and embarrassing. Ivan hates him with a passion, he represents everything Ivan despises – everything within himself he hates, facets of his boorish father and elements of Russian society that Ivan disdains. Ivan calls him stupid and foolish, which is the worst thing a person could be, to Ivan. And yet his devil is not stupid at all. He’s extremely clever, of course, because he’s part of Ivan, he shares Ivan’s brilliance. He’s articulate, even witty, and it’s obvious that Ivan has a strange delight in talking to him – in testing him and trying to catch him out, in trying to untangle his devilish riddles. Ivan has met his match, and it is piquant to him, it pierces him almost to madness. He’s sure this devil has the answers to all of his questions, all of the questions that won’t let him rest. It’s such a strange, nightmarish, beautiful passage. The devil has Ivan tied in desperate knots, trying to understand if he is real, or merely a figment, and in the end, it seems he’s both. “Yet such dreams are sometimes seen not by writers, but by the most ordinary people, officials, journalists, priests…. The subject is a complete enigma. A statesman confessed to me, indeed, that all his best ideas came to him when he was asleep. Well, that’s how it is now, though I am your hallucination, yet just as in a nightmare, I say original things which had not entered your head before. So I don’t repeat your ideas, yet I am only your nightmare, nothing more.” In an odd way, it makes you understand and love Ivan better. He’s depressed, and he’s not sure why, but you know that he feels love as well, which is something he would deny, and that he’s almost frantcially hopeful despite his cynicism. I wonder what my devil would be like, made up of all of the parts of myself and the world around me that I hate and fear. Maddeningly ordinary, no doubt, but very dull as well. Probably better not to think about it!

Honey walnut oatmeal bread

Honey walnut oatmeal bread

This bread was very nice, I thought! Subtle. It has walnuts and oats, both toasted, but they’re ground to a fine crumbly consistency, so they don’t overwhelm the bread. It’s got a touch of honey, a touch of black pepper, so it’s a little sweet and a little spicy. Very good with soup, very good toasted the next day with cinnamon sugar, and lovely made into savory french toast, which I’ll tell you about another time.

Here’s Andrew Manze playing Tartini’s Devil’s Sonata.

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Collards and red beans with smoky masa harina pudding-bread

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Masa harina bread and collards

Masa harina bread and collards

So I seem to have brought some sort of stomach bug home from work this weekend. Ug. I feel better now, but I’m tired. I spent yesterday morning in bed with my eyes closed feeling like a big ball of nothing but sick-feeling pain. And then as I started to feel better, I watched the reflection from the windows on the ceiling, and the way it changed like rippling water every time a car passed the house. I felt like I was rocking a little, and the cars sounded like waves as they crashed by in the wet street. Did you know that the word “nauseous” comes from the latin which comes from the Greek for “ship”? I felt like I was on a bright ship lurching along on clear, light, choppy waters. I thought that this would be a good time to really think. Not just about all of the odd figures I saw in the brown patches on our cow-print curtains, but to think about big things, about everything. To form thoughts and connect thoughts, and try to sort things out, and try to remember, and try to plan. It turns out lying in bed fighting off nausea is not a good time to think. I felt very old and not strong enough to fight off a creeping feeling of dispiritedness, and now I feel very tired. And that’s all I’m going to say about that! I’ll talk instead about Joan Aiken, because I love Joan Aiken, and I find her incredibly comforting. Joan Aiken was a writer of brilliant children’s books that never caught on in America, which I think is a crime. Her characters are so lively and engaging, her settings, with their invented historical epochs, so appealing. I love her vast knowledge on small and eccentric subjects – fabrics and styles, music and paintings, nautical matters. And food. Joan Aiken’s books are delicious. She brings her characters into situations of great deprivation – they’re cold, wet, hungry, poor and miserable – and then through some gracefully wrought turn of events, they suddenly find themselves in warmth and comfort, with something tasty and toasty to sooth them. Even the names of the dishes bring solace – pipkins of soup, hampers of pies, and hot possets for all! In the way that certain foods can bring comfort when you’re ill, once you’re well enough to think about food at all, and certain books can bring comfort when your head isn’t so achey you can’t read, Aiken’s warm and timely meals strengthen and console, not just the characters, but the reader, too. Viz: Bonnie and Sylvia are ice skating through the grounds of Willoughby Chase when they find themselves impossibly far from home, with snow falling thick and fast, and wolves gathering in the shadows. What do they do? Take shelter in Simon’s cave, of course! Once they’re snug with his bees and his geese, our lithe and bright-eyed Simon makes them little cakes in the fire. “The boy had separated the fire into two glowing hillocks. From between these he now pulled a flat stone on which were baking a number of little cakes. The two children ate them hungrily as soon as they were cool enough to hold. They were brown on the outside, white and floury within, and sweet to the taste. ‘Your cakes are splendid, Simon,’ Bonnie said, ‘How do you make them?’ ‘From chestnut flour, Miss Bonnie. I gather up the chestnuts in the autumn and pound them to flour between two stones.'” As they’re leaving the cave, “The boy Simon dug in shallow sand at the side of the cave and brought out a large leather bottle and a horn drinking cup. He gave the girls each a small drink from the bottle. It was a strong, heady stuff, tasting of honey. ‘That will hearten you for the walk,’he said. ‘What is it, Simon?”Metheglin, miss. I make it in the summer from heather honey.'” OF COURSE HE DOES! Of course Simon gathers chestnuts in autumn and heather in the summer, and makes lovely restorative cakes and tinctures with them! And I love him for it! I could make a list a mile long of scenes such as this…spice cakes and plum brandy, ginger bread and applesauce, thick comforting chowder. But I’ll give you this bittersweet example, instead. I love Aiken’s Go Saddle the Sea trilogy. It’s so dark and wild and richly imagined; the characters so strong and complicated and bizarre. The central figure, of course, is Felix. He lives in Spain with his cold and unloving grandfather and great aunts. His only friend is Bernadina the cook. Her bustling kitchen is a haven for him, and she shows her love with special treats she prepares for him. When she dies, he visits her kitchen…”It looked as if she had been making herself a merienda just before she had taken ill. A pestle and mortar stood on the big scrubbed table with some chocolate in it she’d been pounding, and a platter held a pastry cake sprinkled with salt, my favorite food. Maybe she was going to sneak it up to me in my room. Now I couldn’t touch a crumb of it.” Poor Felix! One of my very great pleasures, here at The Ordinary, is to bring attention to books and movies and songs that I think should be better known. Joan Aiken is one of those things, in America at least. Put down your sparkly vampires and your derivative wizards, and discover the mad, wild, dark and beautiful world of Joan Aiken. It’s like a warm, restorative, complexly-seasoned posset!

This meal was very comforting in its way. The masa harina bread was soft and dense inside, which is why I think it’s pudding like, and it has the lovely mysterious flavor of masa harina. I love collards! They’re quickly becoming my favorite green. I don’t know why they’re not as popular as kale, but I’d like to announce my campaign to make them so!! Here they’re sauteed with red beans, tomatoes, and lots of lovely spices, like ginger, smoked paprika, and cardamom, to make them spicy, smoky and a tiny bit sweet. Delicious!

Here’s Bessie Smith with Thinking Blues.
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Pumpkin bagels

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Pumpkin bagel

Pumpkin bagel

There comes a point in every chef’s life when he or she understands that it’s all about the journey, that the process is more important than the product. Yes, they’ve been telling us this for years, and now it suddenly all makes sense. Invariably, this moment occurs when the chef’s ten-year-old son says, with a beaming smile, “This is so much fun!” while they make pumpkin bagels together. That’s right! Malcolm and I made pumpkin bagels. I was somewhat anxious at first about the outcome, especially after tipping in the better part of a bag of flour. “What if these don’t turn out? What a lot of ingredients I’m wasting.” Then along came my sous chef, who cheerfully agreed to wash his hands twice in hot soapy water, and then helped me punch down the dough, and form it into balls, and poke holes in it, and shape it into bagels, and put them in a water bath, and time them in the water bath, and take them out of a water bath. Good times! Malcolm has been so sweet lately. I grumbled about my stomach-ache and he surprised me with a big hug. He shared his red licorice shoelaces with me, and I didn’t even have to ask. I get so distracted with chores and nonsense that I forget to spend a lot of time with the boys, and he hasn’t been letting me do that lately. He made me cuddle with everybody on the couch to watch a movie. And he made me play a video game with him. Listen to this – this is how well he knows me!! Each of us controlled an airplane floating over an island with castles and caves and such. We were supposed to be shooting each other, but he said, let’s just fly around. So we did! We just flew around, exploring the terrain, at a nice leisurely pace. We were in split screen, and sometimes we could see each other, and the computer would encourage us to fire on each other, but we’d just drift along, seeing the sights. I worry so much about Malcolm. He’s ten, but he acts like such a teenager sometimes. They all do! All the ten-year-olds. (It wasn’t like that when I was a lass.) I want him to stay sweet in a world that doesn’t always value sweetness, especially in boys. I want him to stay interested in interesting things, and not succumb to pretending to like what other people think is cool. I’ve seen him with older boys who thought it was funny to hurt birds or bugs or other animals, and I want him to be strong enough to know better. It’s a powerfully powerless feeling to lie awake in the middle of the night, thinking of all that my boys will have to go through in this world, all the ways they’ll have to prove themselves to themselves, all of the convictions they’ll have to form and keep. It would be easy to panic about it, because there is no instant solution. But it’s probably better to remember about the pumpkin bagels, about the journey – the process, not the product. You put every good thing you have into it, you have fun as you go, you remember the lessons you’ve learned, and you trust in the quality of the ingredients. Because, guess what? The bagels turned out absolutely delicious! David declared that they were the best he’d ever eaten. And when we ate them with curried chickpea and cauliflower, nobody said, “what a weird meal.” They said, what an American melting-pot of a meal, and said they went well together! And the boys have taken bagels and hot chocolate for lunch all week, to warm them in this freezing weather.

pumpkin bagels

pumpkin bagels

I’ve always wanted to make bagels, but assumed they’d turn out stodgy little rock-hard lumps. I’m glad I tried, because it was so easy and worked so well that I think I’ll make them myself from now on. I’ll whip up a batch at the beginning of each week. I decided to make pumpkin bagels because, obviously, everything is better with pumpkin. You could spice them any way you like. I wanted them to be versatile, not definitively sweet or savory, and so I chose to season them with a pinch of nutmeg and a pinch of allspice. Cinnamon seemed like too obvious a choice, so I left it out, but I know they’d be good with cinnamon, too. I like them precisely as they are, though! Toasted with a generous layer of melty butter. Take that, 11 degree weather!!

Here’s the Menahan Street Band with Make the Road by Walking

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Red bean, sweet potato & hominy stew and Olive oil rosemary biscuits

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Red bean & hominy stew

Red bean & hominy stew

Well, it’s been a day of catching up after working all weekend. A day of laundry and grocery shopping and trying to get the boys to clean their room. It’s been a day of thinking about Martin Luther King Jr, of driving on the grey wintery streets, listening to fragments of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech on the radio, moved to tears. Obama’s first election was fueled by hope, it was buoyant with hope. And despite snide comments about hopey changey stuff, despite the sort of fatigue and discouragement that four hard years of dealing with Bush’s financial crisis have brought upon us, at this moment I feel more hopeful than ever. It’s not a hope as bright and far-reaching as that of the first election – but it’s a stronger, fiercer hope, based in reality and hard work. I don’t agree with all of Obama’s decisions, I don’t love every action that he’s taken, but I feel so grateful to him for starting conversations about health care, gay rights, women’s rights, gun control, climate change. Of course we should talk about these things! It’s remarkable to me that in 2013 these are issues we still need to address, let alone issues that take extraordinary courage to address. I think it’s difficult to understand just how brave Obama is for speaking publicly and openly about gun control and gay marriage. Despite petty political squabbling, despite ignorance, hatred and fear, we are taking small steps in a good direction, towards a world that must be inevitable if people are as kind and thoughtful as they have the potential to be. Martin Luther King spoke of non-violence with these words, “In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.” I hope that this is true, with the deepest weightiest and yet most buoyant hope imaginable. Obama ended his speech with these words, “Let each of us now embrace, with solemn duty and awesome joy, what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history, and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.” And that birthright is not a possession or privilege unique to Americans, but a natural or moral right possessed by everyone, the world over – to work for freedom from the darkness of fear, ignorance, and cruelty.

I felt a little silly posting a recipe today, (and doing laundry, and cleaning, and all other trivial chores). But, maybe that’s part of what it’s all about – about the freedom to get on with these things. These chores are trivial to me, but are luxuries for some people. To buy healthy, nourishing food for your family, to cook it up in a way that you feel good about. To have a safe, warm home to serve it in. Everybody deserves these things! In that spirit I present to you a recipe for a warm, comforting stew full of flavor. I bought pomegranate molasses for the first time, and I’m having fun playing with the sweet/tart continuum. I decided to pair it with a tiny bit of mustard, balsamic, sage, red pepper flakes and smoked paprika, to make a spicy, sweet, tart, smoky sauce. And the biscuits are incredibly easy to make, and very tasty, too. They’re butter-free, and the taste of olive oil in a baked good is always surprising and pleasant.

Well, there are quite a few songs I could choose for today’s post, but I’m going to give you Mos Def’s Fear Not of Men. It’s based, of course, on Fela’s Fear Not For Man, the lyrics of which go thus…

    Brothers and sisters
    The father of Pan-Africanism
    Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
    Says to all black people
    All over the world:
    “The secret of life is to have no fear”
    We all have to understand that

Mos Def’s song isn’t explicitly about Martin Luther King’s Day, but the lyrics have always resonated on this day of all days. He says, “A lot of things have changed, and a lot of things have not.” And there’s no doubt that this is true, for better or for worse. But the song is about courage in the face of danger, courage to work towards something that’s bigger than all of us. And it’s about a universal rhythm that beats through all of us, surely leading us inevitably in the same direction.

    All over the world hearts pound with the rhythm
    Fear not of men because men must die
    Mind over matter and soul before flesh
    Angels for the pain keep a record in time
    which is passin and runnin like a caravan freighter
    The world is overrun with the wealthy and the wicked
    But God is sufficient in disposin of affairs
    Gunmen and stockholders try to merit your fear
    But God is sufficient over plans they prepared.

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Millet, red lentil, and sweet potato dal and pumpkin ricotta flatbreads

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Millet dal and pumpkin flatbread

Millet dal and pumpkin flatbread

Yesterday around mid-morning, I spent ten minutes sitting on the couch in my pajamas, with Clio half-on/half-off my lap. I petted her velvety ears and watched people rush by in the rain. They seemed so busy and productive, and I could just imagine how the world smelled like rain to them, and how they felt icy drops trickling into their collars, and how their cars had that feverish chilled-but-warming feeling. And here I was, so toasty and still and unproductive. I felt like I was in a Basho poem. I thought of the quote from the Hagekure (and Ghost Dog!)

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. By doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to all things.

I found that I didn’t feel quite so unproductive, because my mind was busy, and then I felt foolish for thinking that. Then I thought about writing about thinking about writing about sitting there. And then Clio said, “Man, you’re cramping my style. I’ve got some napping to be getting on with.” The mail came, but I didn’t bring it in because it’s only bills and advertisements. Then I went up to clean the bathroom, and thought about writing about that, but luckily for you I won’t do that. When I was little, I used to narrate my actions in my head in the third person. Not all the time, because that would be crazy! But often. “And then Claire sat on a bench in the middle of the room. She always got through with looking at paintings before everyone else. She did everything quickly. And now she sat and watched the people looking at the paintings…” And on an on it goes! I feel like I’ve been doing that again lately, because of The Ordinary. Not in third person now, so it’s slightly less eccentric. But when I cook, I’ll think about writing about it, and aboutexplaining how it’s done. And sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and try to occupy my brain with whatever I might say on here the next day (explains a lot about the quality of the work, doesn’t it?) and I’ll find myself writing in my head. And, yes, this might seem crazy, but I think this is a good thing!!! I firmly believe that the more you write, the more you write. The more you think about writing, the more you’ll write, and hopefully it will become a habit. (This doesn’t guarantee good writing, mind you! It just makes it easier to get started.) I think this understanding extends to all things. The more you draw, the more you’ll draw. If you want to make movies, you should watch movies, talk about movies, take photographs, write movies, make shorts. The more you cook, the more you’ll think about cooking, and the more you’ll want to try new things and experiment with new ingredients, until you’ll get sick of it all and go out to dinner. If you want to make music, the more you listen to songs, and practice making music, and think about music, the more life will present itself to you as a song. Because even if writing and making movies and drawing aren’t important, which, arguably they’re not at all, I’d still like to go through life looking for things to write about (or sing about or draw pictures of.) Just as the actors that work with Jaques Tati started to see little comic pieces in everyday exchanges in the world around them, you’ll start to find that even small things are worth noticing and remembering and examining, which in some way makes life worth living.

And now I feel foolish for writing about writing, so let’s talk about this dal instead. It’s made with red lentils, millet and sweet potatoes, and it’s cooked for some time, which makes it dense and soft and porridgey. Red lentils are nice because they cook quickly, but if you cook them longer, as (I believe) Indian dals are cooked, they take on a whole different life. I added spinach and peas to pep things up and provide a little texture. And I used beautiful black cardamom pods, which are so smoky and sweet (but watch out for them when you eat the dal, you wouldn’t want to bite down on one!) I decided that cumin was too obvious in this dish, so I left it out in favor of other sweet and smoky spices, like cardamom, nigella seeds and smoked paprika. The flat breads were quick and easy to make – they have a little pumpkin puree and a little ricotta, which gives them a nice flavor and texture, and they were just crunchy enough to provide a pleasant contrast to the soft dal.

Here’s Station Showdown from the Yojimbo soundtrack, cause it’s all about the millet. Golly, this soundtrack is brilliant!

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