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Eggplant & chickpea flour croquettes

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Eggplant and chickpea flour croquettes

I like strange people, I always have. I’ve been drawn to the eccentrics and outcasts. The self-proclaimed rebels that say, “If you don’t like my attitude, screw you.” The kids in choir and band and theater. The ones who wore black and listened to the Smiths (like everyone else who wore black and listened to the Smiths.) The kids who pretended they didn’t care about the prom and were witty and dismissive about school spirit day. They might not have been the most popular, but they were (almost) convinced that they were the most cool, and they had that familiar combination of arrogance and insecurity you never really grow out of. I’ve always been proud to be different, and felt that my strangeness was one of my most winning qualities. There’s always going to be somebody prettier and smarter and nicer and better at everything, but there will never be anybody strange in quite the way that I am strange. Like everything else in life, having children seems to have shaken me a bit, in this regard. The other day Isaac wanted money for a popsicle at snack time, because everyone else got one. And I said, “Well, we don’t do things just because everybody else does.” Which I firmly believe. But then I thought, maybe we’re different enough already. We’re vegetarians, we don’t have cable or a video game system or a microwave. Malcolm made my heart ache with his sweetness once, on a play date. I offered to make popcorn and he proudly announced, “My mom makes it from scratch on the stovetop!” How long before that embarrasses the hell out of him? I want them to be happy with themselves, and I want them to feel good about all the ways they’re unique. I want to encourage the rebel in them. But I don’t want to impose that on them. On a rainy morning last week, I dropped Isaac off at school, and I saw Malcolm at his safety post. I’m always tempted to go up and give him hugs and kisses, of course, but of course I don’t. I had this discombobulatingly self-conscious moment, completely foreign to me as a mom – this idea of him watching me walk away in the rain. It felt weird to be a person and a mom at the same time – it feels strange to me to worry about feeling strange. Luckily we live in a town that celebrates eccentrics, most of the time. My boys are strong! They’ll be what the need to be. And we’ll keep up with those things I’m passionate about, like being a vegetarian. But we’ll try not to be witty and deprecating on school spirit day, and we’ll try not to make snide comments about LMFAO. Because, after all, what a joy to watch them dancing to those silly songs!

And we’ll keep eating strange vegetarian food like these eggplant and chickpea croquettes! I roasted and pureed the eggplant, so the croquettes were quite smooth. Like savory cookies, almost. Which is how we sold them to the boys, who liked them quite a bit. I made a fresh-tasting salsa of tomatoes, roasted peppers and tamarind to have with the croquettes, but you could use any salsa or sauce that you like.

Here’s Strange by Screamin Jay Hawkins.
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Roasted butternut & portobello tart with a pecan crust

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Butternut and portobello tart

I talked to a woman the other day who told me that her son had lost everything in the horrible foreclosure nightmare. They’d lost their home, and they sold all of their possessions. They have nothing, she said, and… you know…they’re happy! I laughed and said that we have so much stuff. Piles and piles of stuff. Every surface of our house has a big pile of stuff on it, that we “go through” from time to time, but that we can’t get rid of. We’ve said that we should have a yard sale, but a) we don’t have a front yard (we live in a city, man, we have a stoop) and b) nobody would want any of our stuff! What we have is piles of drawings – I find it hard to get rid of the boys’ drawings, and Isaac, alone, produces several books’ worth each day. All of their little notes and doodles and ingenious inventions of tape and cardboard. Every little Halloween costume they’ve ever worn. Every report card. And we have books, piles of books. Books too big for shelves. Books we can’t put away because we might need to consult them at any minute of the day. Books you just like to walk by and see, because they’re inspiring. And David and I have presents that we’ve made for each other over the years. They’re unspeakably valuable to me, but they’re crazy! And it’s just possible that nobody else would see their worth. Clay birds and felt birds and drawings of birds. Paintings and pictures and cards. Little films, beautiful boxes and books and painted film cans. On and on it goes, this jumbled portrait of our love and friendship! I’m notoriously terrible at finishing things, so I’ve given David a lifetime’s supply of nearly-done projects. I’ve almost finished embroidering some deer onto a piece of linen. Someday I may finish sewing a poor felt deer who has wire legs sticking out in an alarming fashion. The best present I’ve ever ever ever gotten, though, was for my 32nd birthday. David made me a chair. And it’s such a Claire-y chair. It’s got secret drawers and compartments. It’s green. It’s got a writing desk built on. It’s solid and graceful and elegant. It’s inspiring and hopeful and sweetly encouraging, and sweetly inscribed. I love it so much! And, at the moment, it’s covered in drawings that Isaac has done. But I love them, too.

My green chair

And I’ve taken to making presents I can finish, presents that don’t collect dust, presents that feed the family! Such a one is that butternut tart. It has a crispy pecan crust. It has meaty balsamic roasted mushrooms, it has a sweet, sage-and-nutmeg flavored custard, and it has smoky smoky smoked gouda. It’s like autumn in a tart! It’s like a savory pumpkin pie! We had this for David’s birthday dinner. It’s transient, but full of love!

Here’s Cee Lo Green’s sweet All Day Love Affair.
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Collards with spicy soft potatoes

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Collards and potatoes

We had a slow weekend at work, and I passed the time by reading some of the free publications in the lobby. Welladay! One particular publication had me in such a tizzy that I stood in the wait station banging my forehead against a shelf and muttering aloud, to the amusement of my co-workers. It was an editorial about honesty, and in particular about the value of honesty in politics. (Aha! I thought, he’ll discuss Paul Ryan’s little flight of fancy at the Republican National Convention.) I knew I shouldn’t start reading it. I knew I should have stopped reading it. But, I tell you, it was like a verbal train wreck. I couldn’t look away. As a former copyeditor, reading this editorial gave me the vapors. The author’s style is very distinctive. He begins by stating an opinion. Generally a far-fetched opinion, and one designed to offend as many people as possible. Then he says, “You might not agree with this, you probably don’t agree with this. But you can’t dispute it. It is a fact, an indisputable fact. They’ve done studies.” Does he say who has done which studies, or tell you where to find them? He does not. He’ll do this several times in his little essay, and you can feel him shivering with delight at the idea that he’s making so many people angry, but that they can’t dispute his incisive reasoning. And then he makes lists. Halfway through a sentence he’ll stop and try to define something and he’ll tie himself in so many knots that he gets lost and wanders for half a paragraph, and then he’ll try to find his way back into the sentence, and bring it in for a landing, but it’s too late. Ironically, this week he derailed himself by attempting to define the word, “ignorance.”

Oddly, I was thinking about honesty on the way to work this weekend. I remember discovering, when I was little, that telling a lie was a lot more trouble than it was worth, because you had to remember the lie that you told, and it generally spawned more lies, and you had to remember those as well. Oh, what a confusion! I value honesty in human beings, of the not-telling-a-lie variety. And I value emotional honesty, as well, in art, and music, and film, and literature. In my opinion, all of the cleverness and skill and talent in the world are worth nothing if they’re not backed by emotional honesty. It’s a difficult quality to define, but you know it when you see it. For me, it’s closely connected to soulfulness and grace – two other indefinable but necessary qualities. And, as I was thinking about it this weekend, I realized that part of the reason I love certain hip hop artists is that they contain high levels of these particular elements. It’s a fact. You might not agree with me, but you can’t dispute it, because it’s indisputable. They’ve done studies. So many studies.

For instance, Goodie Mob’s Soul Food, which I know I’ve mentioned before, is, to me, full of honesty and, well, soul. And they mention collards, which allows me to gracefully guide this train of thought into the station. We got some collards from the farm, and I was thrilled. I thought about preparing them in a similar style to a dish we have at our favorite Ethiopian restaurant. Flavorful, but simple, with soft, comforting boiled potatoes. So that’s what I did. I really loved this dish! I think I practically ate the whole thing all by myself, and growled at anybody that tried to take a spoonful.

Here’s Goodie Mob’s Soul Food. (again!)

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French cake a week – gateau aux amandes

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Gateau aux amandes

In which Claire, who doesn’t speak French, bakes her way through the cake section of a French cookbook from 1962.Last week I rambled on and on about how much I like songs about ramblers. Specifically those of Robert Johnson. The truth is I’m fascinated by books and films about drifters and wanderers as well. Perhaps the fascination stems from the fact that I’m such a homebody myself, and I really can’t imagine what it feels like to be completely rootless. I’m so deeply entrenched in a routine, so deeply involved with my family, so fond of my house, and my garden, and my own bed. Sometimes I feel as though I’d like a break from my routine. Sometimes, in spring, I get the urge to leave town – to just go – with no plan and no purpose. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just take off – no ties, no cares, no possessions or responsibilities. But I never feel that way for long, and I can’t imagine needing to be on the road, being uncomfortable in a room, or in one place for long.

Somehow the idea of a wild wanderer takes on more strange significance for me when the rambler in question is a woman. One of my favorite films on the subject, by one of my favorite filmmakers, is Agnes Varda’s Sans toit ni loi. It’s a bleak but beautiful film that tells the story of Mona, a vagabond who travels through French wine country in the icy, lonely off-season. She’s a complicated, thorny character, and we learn about her through her encounters with others – some who are cruel and some who are kind. Some feed her and give her a warm place to stay, some reject her and the way she’s chosen to live, some abuse her. It unfolds slowly and beautifully at a quiet, deliberate pace, punctuated by moments of human interaction – brief pockets of time in which Mona finds food, and warmth, and conversation.

Gateau aux amandes

One of the ways in which people show Mona kindness is by feeding her, or preparing meals with her, but I doubt they make anything like this gateau aux amandes! In complete contrast to last week’s French cake, which was very mild and plain, this one is quite rich and sweet. It’s a no-bake cake, consisting of a layer of ladyfinger cookies surrounding a center of ground almonds, sugar and creme fraiche. It’s very delicious, but not for the faint of heart. I decided to try to make my own ladyfinger cookies, based on the knowledge that the batter is very similar to the gateau de savoie recipe, and based on some notes scribbled in my cookbook that I assumed were a secret recipe for biscuits cuiller. It’s quite amusing, really, how much of a fail this was! I can laugh about it now! The cookies are supposed to be piped onto a tray. I don’t have a pastry bag, so I used a spoon to make the finger shape. After two minutes, I looked in the oven and saw that everything had grown together into one big lake of batter. Ha ha ha!! How we laughed! So I decided to run with that idea, and I baked some on a small jelly roll pan. Then I cut out pieces the size of a lady finger cookie. Not the prettiest thing ever, but very very tasty! The recipe says to serve the cake with vanilla cream, but I think it’s sweet enough as it is. It’s nice cut into thin slices, served with fresh fruit, or a tart-fruit compote.

Here’s Claude Francois with Reveries. I love this crazy video! I want to be one of his soave back-up dancers.
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Chickpea stew with tomatoes, chard and castelvetrano olives

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Chickpea, chard, castelvetrano stew

Isaac wants a baby orangutan for a pet, and so do I. Actually he just asked if I’d rather have an elephant, and I think I might rather. He’ll get the orangutan, and I’ll get the elephant. So we’re going to head down to the local animal shelter and see if we can find one of each. He’s home sort-of-sick from school, and watching a show about orphaned orangutans and elephants. They’re raised by humans and then returned to the wild. They’re all so beautiful you could cry! The shot of a herd of baby elephants, red with the dusty earth, running, eager, giant ears held high, following people with soccer balls, threw me for a loop. A loop, I tell you! The film centers on the two women that run the retreats. Rightfully so, I suppose, they’ve given their lives and probably lots of their money to these animals. David and I were thinking it would be interesting to see a movie about the people that work there, and care for the animals every day, as well. Orphaned animals can’t sleep alone. In the wild they cuddle with their mothers, and in this strange environment they have too many bad memories of why they became orphaned animals. There’s a shot of a man trying to sleep, with a baby elephant cavorting all around him. I well remember days of trying to cuddle a toddler to sleep. Can you imagine if the toddler weighed several hundred pounds?! And a scene with a woman cuddling a tiny baby orangutan, singing to him, and rubbing his tummy, as he frowns and struggles to keep his eyes open – well it kills me. I wonder what the lives of these people are like. Do they have children of their own? What strange hours they must work. What a demanding but rewarding job it must be! What kind of dreams do you have when you care for orphaned animals all day and night?

We’re back to stew season, here at The Ordinary! The evenings are drawing in, and it’s time for warm saucy meals. This particular stew extends the bridge between summer and fall. It’s full of fresh tomatoes and basil, chard from the farm, and a sweet roasted red pepper. And it has castelvetrano olives, which I love so much. They’re lovely and bright and juicy, and they’re very pretty with the tomatoes. I had mine with bulgarian feta crumbled on top, but if you leave that (and the bit of butter) out, you have a good vegan meal. Serve it with a salad and a loaf of crispy bread, and you’re golden.

Here’s Elephant Gun by Beirut. It’s a beautiful song, but it’s a sad story of elephant hunting, and it’s why these baby elephants are orphans.

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French cake a week – galettes du vexin

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Galettes du vexin

This morning, after walking the boys to school, I came home and sat and listened to the silence. I was still feeling sleepy – both boys had been up through the night, and then somewhere nearby a screech owl had been calling. So this morning, I had a lovely feeling of sinking into the silence. Our house can be so noisy when both boys are in full, loud, little-boy mode. It’s nice to rest your ears, from time-to-time. I love quiet moments – in films, in conversations, in music.

Of course, there’s no such thing as real silence in our life, and the more I listened the more I heard. Our house it attached, and I could hear small sounds from our only neighbors, two stories up. We live on one of the few big streets in town, and it was as close to rush hour as we get around here. (Which is more likely to mean lots of dogs walking by, than lots of traffic.) Our house is old, it creaks; the birds sing outside; appliances hum; people call to one another out on the street. If you’ve ever made a film, you’re familiar with the noisiness of rooms, because you’ve recorded “room tone.” You’ve recorded the noises that each room makes. And these noises fill in the wordless moments of the film, because pure silence would be shocking. It would seem unnatural, and you’d know you were watching a movie. A fact Godard demonstrates delightfully in Bande a Part. You can’t really tell from this clip, but it’s a beautiful scene. And maybe, sitting in the cafe with Anna Karina, at the next table, perhaps, somebody was eating these Galettes du vexin. These little cakes are like a moment of silence in the teeming dessert section of my french cookbook. In a chapter filled with sugar and butter and icing and creams and cookies and jams and rum, these are barely sweet enough to be called dessert. They’re more like buttermilk biscuits! Or even scones. They contain creme fraiche, which is lovely, and was very fun and easy to make. I was smitten with its beautifully creamy appearance. The little cakes are tender and mild. They seem very simple, but they have a distinctive flavor, if you take the time to discern it. It’s like listening to the silence! The more you pay attention, the more you notice.

Here’s Anna Karina singing La Vie est Magnifique.
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Malcolm’s double decker tomato pie (with the surprise filling!!)

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Malcolm’s tomato pie

I talk a lot about Malcolm, so lets let him speak for himself, for once! This is a poem he wrote for class:

I Was—slow, an infant, a scooterer, funny, strange, a kindergartener, dumb, adventurous, curious.
I am—a climber, big and tall and strong, a brother, an athlete, a player of basketball, a free runner, a lover of nature, cool, rough and tumble.
But still—a question asker, a skateboarder, a vegetarian, a TV liker, a liker of junk, I won’t stop eating, a liker of toys, an inventor.

I love that! I love him! I’m so happy that he knows he’s strong, that he believes he’s cool and funny. And that he eats a lot! And since he won’t stop eating, I’m glad he helps me cook! I love when Malcolm describes something he wants to cook. He describes it with his hands – showing the exact dimensions and specifications. And he’s very sure about what he wants to make. He’s decisive, he’s decided. I’ll suggest something that might be easier or more traditional. And he’ll say, no, I want it like I just said! So that’s what we try to do. I fire questions at him, trying to establish the practical details, and he has an answer for everything.

Malcolm’s tomato pie

He wanted to make this tomato pie for days, and was disappointed each night at dinner when I forgot and made something else. So finally we made it. I had to work all day, so we started the dough in the morning, and just let it sit and rise all day long. It’s basically a pizza-dough crust. He wanted a double crusted pie, with “a quiche” inside – eggs blended with tomatoes and roasted peppers (and smoked paprika!). And on top of the top he wanted a layer of thinly sliced tomatoes and grated cheese. It turned out very good. Malcolm loved it, which is one of the nicest feelings in the world.

The secret filling!

I let Malcolm pick the song to go with this pie, and he picked Brianstorm, by the Arctic Monkeys.

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Buttermilk lemon balm ice cream

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Buttermilk lemon balm ice cream

When I was in college, my friends used to call me “little miss sunshine.” I’m sure it was ironical, at first, but somehow it stuck. Yesterday I felt more like “little miss tornado warning.” For no real reason I felt discouraged, I felt cranky, I felt like going back to bed till late May. Funnily enough, there was a tornado warning yesterday! The day was wild! It was dark and broody, with strange patches of bright sky, and just when you decided to walk out the door, brief heavy squalls of rain. The clouds raced over head, the wind rattled everything in its path. The storm is always forcast to hit right at the time I walk over to get the boys from school. But it didn’t. And we were all safe in our house, with the world wilding all around us. The boys made masks out of paper and cardboard – just because they felt like it. David and I shared a scottish beer and ate punjabi mix. I made a good dinner, and David liked it. At every little thing, my mood lifted – it’s always the little, every day things that make a person feel better. I think that must be true, no matter who the person is. No matter how stressful and important their job may be. I forget that sometimes, and it takes an effort to notice the moments that are like balm to a sore – that comfort and soothe and restore. And then…Isaac made a giant lizard mask for David. It fit him like a hat, and he wore it pushed back on his head. He stood in our small yard looking up at the dark racing clouds, at the wild, tangled branches that swayed in a pale frenzy, showing the pale undersides of their leaves. Isaac came into the kitchen to look out the window and giggled. We made two kinds of ice cream. The rain came suddenly, in a dark downpour, and we headed upstairs to read books.

I’m crazy about this ice cream!! It all started when we got a bundle of lemon balm sprigs from the CSA. No – it started farther back than that, when I got a brand new ice cream maker! I’m so excited. It’s almost exactly like my old donvier, except that it has a little cage that goes round, and a motor. I decided to turn the lemon balm into ice cream. And I decided to use buttermilk to make it, because I had just bought a big container to make something else, which I’ll tell you about another time. Buttermilk is so lovely and creamy, with just a tiny tang. It curdled when I first put it on the heat, but it all came together beautifully when I added the eggs, sugar and flour. I steeped the lemon balm leaves in the buttermilk. So there’s a lovely lemony flavor, a slight buttermilky tang, and a beautiful creamy texture. You could easily make this with other herbs – mint would be nice. I’ve heard of tarragon ice cream, so I might try that. I’ll let you know!

Here’s Nina Simone with Balm in Gilead

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Kale “lasagna” with tomatoes & roasted red peppers

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Kale “lasagna”

I’ve always had a habit of becoming irrationally fond of inanimate objects. An oddly shaped twig, a little sketch I made, a blank book, a pen, an acorn. The list goes on and on. I would imbue them with importance, with personality, with magical powers, almost. At the moment it’s a little quince. I’ve said in the past that I love everything about quinces, and that remains true. I love their flavor, their scent, their name, their name in french (coing), the fact that you need to give them a lot of attention to make them palatable, the fact that they start out quite drab, but become lovely and rosy when you cook them. We have a little quince bush in our backyard. It’s a cutting from a tree by David’s aunts old house. We didn’t think it would live, but it’s doing quite well. It even produced a few little fruits this year, its second year with us. The fruit didn’t ripen, though. It fell to the ground – tiny, pale and very hard. It smelled nice, so I held onto it. I put it beside me on the desk, and there it sat for a few days. I worked all weekend, and Monday morning I thought about the quince. I couldn’t see it anywhere, but I could smell it, unmistakable and sweet. David had moved it to the top of a nearby bookshelf to save it from the boys, who had been playing at my desk all weekend. The poor thing is smaller, shriveled, soft, starting to turn brown in spots. But it still smells intoxicatingly good! The uglier it gets, the sweeter it smells. And I’ve become fond of the wrinkled little thing. I feel like a swooning lady with her smelling salts, I hold it to my nose and it elevates my spirits. It’s like autumn in a tiny rotting bundle.

So…kale! We got some kale from our CSA, and some red peppers, and some eggplant and of course, some more tomatoes! I decided to boil up the kale, and treat it like lasagna noodles. I washed it and removed the stems, but kept the leaves long. I boiled them for about twenty minutes, so they were quite soft, but still bright, and not falling apart. And I stretched it out like lasagna noodles, layering it with ricotta, roasted peppers, fresh tomatoes. I had some leftover eggplant anyone can love, so I added a layer of that. It was delicious, but if you don’t have it, or have time to make it, this dish will still be very delicious! I broiled a red pepper, let it steam in a covered bowl, and then removed the skin and seeds. you want to be sure to let it sit for a while, and discard any moisture that collects. As with any lasagna that contains vegetables, you want to be sure the veggies are quite dry before you add them, or the lasagna will form a broth. This broth happens to be quite tasty, though, so if you have some bread to sop it up, you’re golden!

Here’s Bill Withers with Ain’t No Sunshine, because it’s a beautiful song, because it’s a rainy day, because I miss my dog.
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Coulibiac of eggplant & mushrooms

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Coulibiac of eggplant and mushroom

My mom is cleaning out her bookshelves, and she found an old New York Times cookbook from the late seventies. I find it oddly inspiring to look through these somewhat dated, mostly meat recipes. You can discover seasonings and techniques that aren’t often mentioned in vegetarian cookbooks. You can find an appealing lack of concern for healthiness or ease of preparation. These aren’t lo-fat, five-minute, two-ingredient meals. These are dishes invented by chefs! Named after those chefs, who lived decades or even centuries ago. Here at The Ordinary, we sometimes imagine that we might dream up or stumble upon some technique the seems crazy at first, but becomes standard, a staple, a classic.

My attention was first caught by the name: Coulibiac. I always want to make dishes with funny names! No matter what they are are what ingredients they contain. Coulibiac…I read on…I was charmed by the strangely elaborate recipe. Craig Claiborne describes it thus, “A coulibiac is a celestial creation, manna for the culinary gods and a main course in and of itself. A coulibiac admittedly demands patience, time, talent and enthusiasm, and if you are possessed of these, what a magnificent offering to those invited to your table.” Well, a challenge! I have time and enthusiasm, and I can fudge the rest! Of course, I don’t eat salmon or vesiga, which is a ropelike, gelatinous substance made from the spinal marrow of a sturgeon. Would this stop me? No it would not! The dish also calls for rice, and I happened to have some leftover. I began to think of my coulibiac as the most elaborate use for leftover rice a person could devise! A very small amount of research has revealed that coulibiac is a russian version of a french dish. It seems they very sweetly added any remotely french thing they could think of, and stuffed it all inside of brioche dough. (Apparently russians would stuff anything inside of pastry, and Hey ho! So will I!) I’ve simplified this dish considerably, because somehow my day folded up on itself, and I ran out of time to make the crepes. That’s right, inside the brioche dough, you’re supposed to have a layer of crepes. Someday I’ll make it like that! And I didn’t add the stick of melted butter that you’re supposed to pour through the hole in the dough at the end. And that I may never do! But I did make a brioche dough. And I made a paté of mushrooms, eggplant and white beans. And I glorified my leftover cooked rice by mixing it with parsley, basil and a hard-boiled egg. This was fun to make, and not as complicated as it seems. It was large and delicious, and looked quite impressive. I think it would make a good party dish, a magnificent offering to those at your table!

Here’s Mississippi John Hurt with Blue Harvest Blues. It feels as though so much is ripening right at this moment!
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