Category Archives: Uncategorized

Fried green tomato pakoras and cilantro, tamarind, almond sauce

Posted on by
1

Fried green tomato pakoras

September 11, 2001 was a perfect golden day, just like today. We had just moved to the town we now live in from Boston. It felt like coming home. I felt as glowingly hopeful as the weather. And then, of course, everything changed. So much has been written and spoken about that day – I feel like there are no more words for it. Everybody has a story of where they were, and how they heard, and friends that they lost. It’s impossible to forget the dizzying feeling of standing in a bright green world, with a vast, clear blue sky overhead, thinking about the horror occurring so nearby. And what a tangled mess in the years that followed, when the tragedy was cynically exploited to keep us in a constant state of fear, to build support for a war that caused so much more death. Our world changed, and it kept on changing, with all of the lies, and mistrust, and disappointment. And little did we know, in our own small world, how soon our life would change – Malcolm was born exactly ten months later. And, to be honest, half of his class was born around the same time. September 11 babies. Because it’s also impossible to forget the feeling of clinging to life and love and hope. It sounds trite and saccharine now, as I write it, but it was such a strong, renewing feeling at that time. It’s discombobulating to think about Malcolm’s life, sometimes, to think about his bright, strong, creative spirit, and to think that his whole life we’ve been at war, or preparing for war.

Little Malcolm

Phew, I was not going to go on like this! There are no more words, she says, and then she rambles on and on! I was going to talk about tomatoes. Tomatoes – they have such a lovely life cycle, where we live. They grow all summer, the little sweet ones ripening early, a delightful promise of more to come. The weighty, ripe, beautiful late summer tomatoes come all at once, so warm and sweet and juicy, and they continue on into autumn, as their leaves wither around them, and the fruit glows like bright stained glass. I went picking last week, and I got a lot of green tomatoes, because I find them an inspiring challenge. As I was picking I got very excited with the idea of making these fried green tomato pakoras. Hooboy they were good! The batter perfectly crisp and tasty, the tomatoes inside soft and just the right amount sweet. The sauce was good too – cilantro and jalapenos from the farm, brightened by tamarind and tempered by almonds.

Cilantro almond tamarind sauce

Here’s Talib Kweli’s The Proud, which is one of the most honest and intelligent songs about 9/11 and how complicated it was (and it samples Nina Simone!)

Continue reading →

Roasted rosemary fries and spicy tomato hummus

Posted on by
Reply

Roasted fries & tomato hummus

When I was in high school, I used to come home from school, heat up some frozen french fries and read Tintin. The bright, beautifully drawn world was such a perfect escape from the confusion of reality. I loved those books, from when I was little, with a sort of attachment I don’t feel for inanimate objects any more. I loved the perfect ink-lines – they’re so pleasingly precise – exactly where they should be. I love the colors – the various blues that Hergé uses resonate like few other colors in my memory. I loved the way Tintin dresses. I’m ashamed to think how much time I’ve spent trying to decide if I prefer the short-sleeved yellow shirt and black sock combination, or the one with blue sweater and white socks. I love Snowy – so smart and funny – the perfect comic foil to Tintin’s earnestness. I like Tintin himself, and his little pale apartment. He’s a boy, but he has his own place, his own job (he’s a journalist, but he never writes anything, does he?) He’s so calm, and kind, and curious, and fearless, and surprisingly strong! He’s such a rational, average sort of person in many ways, but he’s surrounded by a universe of eccentric friends. The disappointingly racist and xenophobic books weren’t available when I was younger (or maybe my parents wouldn’t let us have them) so that didn’t cloud the lovely clarity of the pictures and stories. I love the light, deft style and subtle humor, so thoroughly stomped on by Spielburg’s gruesomely heavy-handed, Hollywood platitude-laden mess. He shouldn’t have done it!

Well! I have to get to work, so I’ll stop chattering on about my lifelong affection for the boy reporter and his best canine friend. This is my sort of version of french fries and catsup, except that it’s a sweet and spicy and smoky hummus instead of catsup. Fear not! If you don’t like catsup, you’ll still like this (at least David did, and he won’t eat catsup!) It’s a little sweet, and it has some sweet spices (cinnamon & allspice) but it also has smoky savory smoked paprika, and garlic and shallots. Hummus and french fries is one of our favorite simple meals, with a big green salad. It’s sort of a tradition that when we’re out for the day, and we start to feel our energy lag, we’ll stop for a glass of red wine, and a plate of french fries and hummus!

Tintin catches a train

I don’t really know of any songs about Tintin, but one of the things I love about the books is the effortlessness with which he travels all over the world, so here’s Donald Byrd with Places and Spaces.
Continue reading →

Gorditas with roasted salsa and pigeon peas

Posted on by
1

Gorditas

So it’s the first week of school. I ventured to the CSA this morning to pick some vegetables – easier, quicker, and much less fun without my boyish entourage. On the way home, I heard a man on the radio talking about raising successful children by teaching them grit and character. (I realize that I am very badly paraphrasing the words of this man who sounded both reasonable and intelligent, and I apologize.) His words really struck home, as we send the boys back into the uncertain waters of a new school year – by turns bright and clear and uplifting, and dark and murky, full of fascinating silt and weeds. They learn from it all, of course! I think it must be impossible for a parent to hear somebody talk about this subject without turning it back on themselves. Am I doing enough to teach them grit and character? How do you even do that? What the heck is grit? What’s character? Secretly, part of you thinks, “Of course I’m doing a good job! Just look at my brilliant boys!” And part of you thinks, “My god, I’m failing completely, they’ll be gritless and lacking in character and scarred for life!” Somebody phoned in a question about I.Q. and academic success – assuming a correlation between the two, and the man said that in fact self-control was more important than I.Q. in determining academic success. Oh dear! I thought…parent-teacher conferences for both boys tend to run, “Your son is so smart and creative, but he’s just got too much energy/he calls out too much/he can’t focus on the assignment…” Sigh. We hit a strange patch last year with Malcolm, when his first “real grades” report card came out, and it was very different from the straight s+ report cards of years gone by. Oh dear! Well, this is when it always helps to take a step back and widen the picture for yourself, and think about the meaning of “success” and how varied and subjective it is. (Of course I want my boys to be successful in every accepted conventional sense, of course I do – life is so much easier that way!) But when you ask the boys what they’re good at, what achievements they’re proud of, they’ll say: jumping off of things, finding an antique bottle in a creek, drawing dragons and robots, running very fast, climbing steep hills. They feel good about these things! And, honestly, any of them can lead to every kind of success, if they’re not discouraged. And I’m glad that they like writing and reading, too, and that Malcolm’s favorite subject is math. They both love school, and that makes me feel very lucky and very happy.

Roasted salsa

And, of course, they’re good little cooks!! These gorditas were very fun to make, and even more fun to eat! I have to thank the proprietess of Hot Spicy and Skinny for drawing them to my attention, when she read of my struggles making tortillas without a press. I’m not sure if I made them authentically. I sort of combined a bunch of different recipes that I saw, and I used a combination of butter and olive oil rather than lard. They turned out so tasty! Crispy, chewy, flavorful. We split them in the middle, but it might have been easier to pile the peas on top, or even break off pieces and use them like naan. The salsa is the result of my preference for roasted garlic, onions and peppers over raw. I decided to roast everything (well, broil, really) and then mix it all together. It’s yummy! Smoky, a little sweet, a little spicy. You can use any combination of sweet peppers and hot peppers that you happen to have on hand, and you could easily use onion instead of shallot. And the pigeon peas match their earthy meatiness with bright sweet corn, tomatoes and cilantro. We ate everything mixed together, with basmati rice and grated sharp cheddar.

Pigeon peas and corn

Here’s Expectations by Belle and Sebastian.

Continue reading →

French cake a week – Gateau au chocolat

Posted on by
2

Gateau au chocolat

In which Claire, who doesn’t speak French, bakes her way through the cake section of a 1962 french cookbook. Well! Today was the first day of school. You know I could talk about the ache of time passing, and how fast summers go, and days and months and years go. You know I could talk about regret for every wasted moment this summer, regret that I did anything but play with my boys, or take them places you can only go in the summer – creeks and rivers and wild wooded trails. I could talk about my trip to the doctor with Isaac yesterday, when they did a simple ultrasound of his belly and neck, but the technician let him see his heart beating, and it nearly did me in, with its strength and fragility, nestled in his beautiful rib cage, in his beautiful pale growing body. I could talk about how last night he was up a lot in the middle of the night, worrying about the first day of school and spiders crawling through the hole in his screen, and how I cuddled with him for a few minutes, and liked the feeling of his little hands holding my ears for comfort. But then I needed sleep, so I kissed him and left him whimpering in his bed. And then I had nightmares about leaving the boys to sleep in the basement of a horrible apartment building, while David and I slept upstairs, scared of our neighbors. I could talk about the rich, hot summer passing, and how we long for sharp smoky autumn. But, oddly, I didn’t have any time today, despite the fact that I had seven hours all to myself for the first time in months. So I made a playlist of Antoine Forqueray and Marin Marais, and I’ll let them tell you about it all. This is what I grew up calling Late French Viol Music. It’s from the 18th century. It’s ridiculously beautiful. Wistful, hopeful, like late summer, like autumn. They know about time passing.

This music has always felt like red wine and dark chocolate, to me. Which brings us to our French-cake-a-week. I’ve been trying to do all the simple ones, so this week I did the simple Gateau au chocolat. It’s a lovely flourless chocolate cake. But it does have quite a bit of corn starch, which I found surprising. The cake is extremely simple – and like the last few cakes, it has no leavening, but it got tall and puffy anyway. David said it’s crispy on top, then moist, then cakey. It’s like every good kind of brownie mixed in one cake. I don’t have a bundt pan, so I invented one with a quart-sized souffle dish with a little souffle cup, open-side up, buttered into the bottom. I made a strange looking cake! But lovely and tasty. We ate it with vanilla-flavored whipped cream, but it’s a cake that would be perfect for any of your simple cake needs. With berries, with creme anglaise, in a trifle…

Gateau au chocolat

Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray, as played by Jordi Savall, the genius.
Continue reading →

Spicy zucchini-corn risotto with toasted pumpkinseeds, and Risotto burgers

Posted on by
6

Zucchini corn risotto

Happy labor day! It strikes me as funny that many of the laborers in our workforce don’t actually get to call labor day a holiday, so I’d like to take a minute to thank the doctors, nurses, waitresses, cooks, grocery store clerks, gas station attendants, shop clerks…anybody working this rainy monday. I’ve been thinking a lot about work lately, because I’m looking for a job. Oh, I have a job, of course, but I need what they call a “real” job, because, as everybody knows, waiting tables is a completely surreal job. And everybody also knows that raising children doesn’t count as work, it’s more of a walk in the park, really. I’ve been thinking about what defines something as “work,” and it seems to be money. If you get paid to do something, it becomes work. And the more the work is valued, the more money you’re paid to do it. Some things that certain people do for fun, like playing baseball, making music, painting pictures, or writing, other people get paid to do, it’s their job. Some of them get paid quite a lot to do it. They’re very lucky! Sometimes I imagine an alien race drifting down to observe humans as we labor away in our wide array of jobs. I wonder if they would be puzzled to see that certain jobs are rewarded over others. If they’d scratch their bright green heads with their long frog-like fingers to see that, say, the CEO of a company that makes weapons that kill people is given much more money than the nurse that cares for us when we’re at our most vulnerable, scared and, probably fairly sickening, in our time of sickness. I videotaped a remarkable lecture, once. (I was paid to do it! It was a job of work!) The man speaking, and I regret that I can’t remember his name, said that the idea that there aren’t enough jobs, and there isn’t enough money to go around is a myth. If everybody worked the same hours – not a forty-hour work week, but a shorter one – and if we were all paid a more balanced amount for the work that we did…well, we could all live comfortably. Everybody could. That sounds nice to me. I wish it was possible. America has always been a country that values hard work, it’s part of our myth of who we are as a people. We work hard, we’re proud, self-sufficient, we are entitled to certain things, but only if we work hard enough to deserve them. The problem, of course, is that plenty of people work incredibly hard and still don’t get those things. Many of the jobs that require long, unforgiving hours doing work nobody else wants to do aren’t well-paid, don’t come with health insurance, paid vacations, job security, or any benefits at all.

Risotto burgers

Here’s a kind of work I call fun! Making risotto. It’s just the right amount of hands-on stirring and mixing. You feel involved! But it’s not finicky or incredibly time-consuming. You stir a bit, you wander away, you stir a bit more. My pet name for this particular risotto is “taco risotto.” It’s got oregano, smoked paprika, cumin, sage, and jalapenos – so it’s a bit smoky, a bit spicy. The zucchini is grated, so it blends in with the rice. The corn retains its bright sweet qualities. Risottos are soft by nature, so I thought it would be nice to add a bit of crunch in the from of toasted pumpkinseeds, which also bring their lovely and mysterious flavor. And I made some crispy toasted tortilla strips to scoop up the risotto.

The next day I turned the ample leftovers into big juicy burgers, which we ate on buns with tomatoes and lettuce. If I’d had an avocado, I would have sliced that to go along with it.

Here’s a playlist of work songs for labor day.
Continue reading →

Roasted eggplant stacked with french lentils & chard and Malcolm’s spicy sauce and Isaac’s carrots & capers

Posted on by
1

Eggplant, chard, and french lentils

Here at The Ordinary, we’ve developed a new secret serum to make your cares and worries melt away. After a great deal of research that involved many bottles of wine, a few dark-and-stormy-mojitoes (that’s rum, ginger beer, mint and lime), and the occasional cup of mint tea and honey, we have learned that we were searching in the wrong direction altogether! We are, at this time, prepared to unveil our secret discovery. It turns out, the answer is toad pee. Not taken orally, of course, but applied to the hands. Here’s how it all came about.

Let us say, hypothetically, that a mother might have an incredibly cranky day. She might find herself in a foul mood, unable to get anything done that she needs to, and faced at every turn with sassy, rude and constantly needy children. (Not you or I, of course, we’re speaking of an imaginary person here.) Let’s say this mother’s throat hurts from so much yelling, and she feels terrible about it, because obviously, it doesn’t work to yell, or she wouldn’t be doing so damned much of it. Let’s say this bad mood continues even when the boys spontaneously and beautifully break into a rendition of Shake Your Tail Feather at the exact same time as she sees a goldfinch in a puddle shaking his tail feathers. Let’s say this bad mood continues while she makes dinner, and gets worse after when she’s folding stupid laundry. And then the whole family decides to go for a walk. They start down a nature trail. It’s very dusky among the trees, even though it’s barely eight o’clock. Everything is green and bright and glowing in the evening light. Somebody says it’s a good time of day for screech owls. So the whole family tries to call them by imitating their wavering downward cry. They scare off every living thing for miles. It gets so dark they decide to leave the trail, and they walk up into the park. The oldest son says let’s walk over and look at the river. The dad says, “It’s a Magritte sky!” And it was! Pale as day above the trees, but the branches and trunks are black and shadowy, and across the river the lights of cars and buildings shine as if at night. The world is shifting, as they watch, from light to dark. They pass a giant elm tree – it would take all of their arms to circle it. And suddenly there are toads everywhere! Everybody catches at least one for each hand. The cranky mom is smitten! A toad pees on her hand, and she doesn’t care. The feeling of the tiny toad hands brushing against hers, and the soft toad nose butting against her palms as it tries to push its way out makes her so happy that she doesn’t mind anything any more. They walk over to the bridge, which is surrounded by bright sky but stretches into blackness, suspended between day and night. And then they hear the screech owls crying deep in the dark pool of trees.

Malcolm’s spicy tomato sauce

Well, I have no idea who that cranky mom was, but one thing that always makes me feel better when I’m irritable is cooking with the boys. The other night I had this whole meal planned out. Planned out to the last little pine nut, I tell you! And as I stood slicing my eggplant, Malcolm ran in determined to make a sauce with shallots, peppers and tomatoes. Okay, I said, that sounds good. Then Isaac jumped around saying, “What do I get to make?” What do you want to make? I asked. He peered in the vegetable drawer. “Carrots,” he replied, “And flavor dynamites.” He smelled a few spices. And these…(he had thyme, sage, smoked paprika and turmeric lined up.) Well, okay, I said, let’s get cooking. Malcolm’s sauce has cumin, smoked paprika, cilantro and fresh basil, so it’s a bit like Moroccan chermoula. As for the eggplant – I keep making it the same way, and I decided to try something a little different. I sliced it thicker, and cooked the slices slowly so they became quite soft. Then I stacked them with french lentils, made my favorite way, and with chard sauteed with golden raisins, garlic, and pine nuts, which is one of my favorite things to eat on the planet, and a slice of mozzarella. Delicious with Malcolm’s sauce and Isaac’s carrots and a salad. And some rosemary focaccia, which I made in 1 1/2 hours! All time record! I should note that the boys arranged their food and took the pictures themselves.

Isaac’s carrots and capers

Here’s The Five DuTones with Shake Your Tail Feather.
Continue reading →

Grilled PB&J

Posted on by
5

Grilled peanut butter & jelly

Today’s a busy catching-up-day after working on the weekend, I didn’t sleep much last night, and my little one has strep (again), so I can’t ramble on and on as is my wont. You’re spared! I’ll just tell you a quick story I remembered while food shopping this morning. One day last winter I was trundling down the aisle of the supermarket with my shopping cart. It’s just a regular supermarket. Not one of those nice ones with mood lighting and gelato bars and shoppers in velvet yoga pants. Just a grey, dreary fluorescent hangar of a place. Everybody was in their own little get-the-shopping-done-and-get-on-with-the-day bubble, focussed on their shopping lists and looking for the lowest price. Everybody Plays the Fool by the Main Ingredient came on the store loudspeaker. It was as if the whole rhythm of the store changed. Everybody started singing along, under our breath. We all knew the words. We’ve all played the fool. Nobody really looked at each other, but you could tell everybody thought it was funny that we were all singing. And it seemed as though everybody suddenly moved in time to the music. I half expected everyone to break out in a choreographed dance number, the can-stackers and floor moppers stacking and mopping in time to the music, people sashaying from shelf to shelf and aisle to aisle. Of course that didn’t happen. But it was a nice moment – a memorable moment.

Here’s the simplest recipe ever. We eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly around here. David’s eaten a pb & j for lunch almost every day since I’ve met him. The boys take them to school in their lunch boxes. We had a morning of pouring rain, so I thought I’d warm it up a bit. My mom and dad used to make these for us when I was little. The salted butter adds such a lovely twist, and the outside gets toasty and crunchy, while the inside gets soft and gooey. I realize this is a sort of silly recipe to post, but some days you just need a sandwich like this!

Here’s Everybody Plays the Fool by The Main Ingredient.
Continue reading →

Chard and artichoke tart with a crispy eggplant crust

Posted on by
14

Eggplant-crusted chard tart

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about, in a very confused fashion, for the last half a day (and night!) We all know the myth of Icarus – his father, Daedalus, fashioned him a pair of wings made of wax and feathers. He warned him not to fly too close to the sun, but he was so giddy with the joy of flight, that he forgot his father’s words, flew too close to the sun, the wax melted, he continued happily flapping his arms, but without feathers he could no longer fly. He fell into the sea and drowned. And we all know the painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, attibuted to Bruegel. It’s a beautiful painting of a beautiful landscape, with people going about their business, unaware of Icarus’ fall, which is small and on the edge of the painting. And people have written poems about the painting. Auden’s Musée des Beaux-Arts, in which he describes how suffering “takes place/ While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.” And William Carlos Williams wrote a poem by the same name as the painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. So that’s the “evidence” and here are the questions… what does it all mean? Is Auden suggesting, as the word “dull” implies, that the ploughman and the angler are too coarse to take note of the tragedy of loftier men? Or is it that, simply, things go unnoticed. We’re so taken with our own lives and concerns that we don’t have the time or energy to commiserate with others? Is the original myth really a warning about excessive hubris? Or, was Icarus just enjoying the feeling of flight to such an extent that he forgot to be careful? People suffer all the time – ploughmen and anglers and painters and poets and master inventors. I suppose all the suffering is equally important (or unimportant) whether somebody paints a picture of it, or writes a poem or about it, or doesn’t notice it at all. The painting itself is so gorgeous, the people walking along with supposed dullness are so vibrantly portrayed. And, as the poets say, spring is in full glory, the sea is cool and pretty, the sun is hot and strong, and all of this will be true no matter what the fate of the men passing through the landscape. And then I can’t not think of Stephen Dedalus, with his suggestion that ‘The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.’ Surely not, Joyce. Surely not! That quote has always bothered me. I’d love to have a meal with Pieter Bruegel, and Williams Carlos Williams, and WH Auden, and maybe even Ovid, and drink some wine and talk it all over.

Chard tart with crispy eggplant crust

Maybe I’d make them this eggplant crusted chard and artichoke tart! I think it turned out quite pretty, and it certainly tasted good. The “crust” is made entirely of pieces of eggplant, dipped in egg, then dipped in pecans, breadcrumbs and a touch of flour, and then roasted in olive oil. I used a lot of bread crumbs and a small amount of flour, but if you used only pecans and gluten-free breadcrumbs, you’d have a gluten-free crust! The filling is soft and flavorful and savory, and the pine nuts add a nice toasty crunch on top. I served this with a smooth smoky, spicy, sweet sauce made with fresh tomatoes, green peppercorns, olives and raisins.

Tomato-raisin-olive sauce

Holy smoke! I forgot to post a song yesterday! Horrors. Here’s Alec Ounsworth with This is Not My Home (After Bruegel)
Continue reading →

Eggplant jalousie (and nut-roasted eggplant)

Posted on by
Reply

Eggplant jalousie

There are two quotes about photographer Eugene Atget that I particularly love. The first: After his death, the doctor asked his neighbors what he had died of. They replied, “He was an eccentric.” The second: “Atget never realized that he was Atget.” He never understood (or didn’t care to understand) the weighty place he occupied in the history of photography, or the influence he had on other photographers. He didn’t think of himself as an artist. He didn’t care for artistic movements and labels. He saw his job as utilitarian. He documented the world around him, and created photos of objects that painters could use as a resource. He lived from 1857 to 1927, and he documented the streets and homes of Paris. He photographed shops and alleys, he photographed staircases and parks and monuments and trees. His subjects were the ordinary, everyday haunts of Parisians: wig stores and litter-cluttered alleys, dingy rooms and the spaces in back of restaurants. His photographs are hauntingly beautiful. They’re beautifully focused and composed; beautifully light and dark. Because his purpose was to photograph a thing, or a place, the movements of the people in the space didn’t concern him. As a result people and animals become a ghostly blur – a transitory spirit biding time in the solid iron and stone buildings. I find Atget’s photos wonderfully cinematic and inspiring, and I could pore over them for hours, looking for the stories behind the facades.

Similarly, you could glance at this eggplant jalousie and look deep into its slanted “windows” to find the lovely nutty-roasted eggplant. (Segue!) This version of eggplant is a slight variation on my eggplant anyone can love. I chopped it thinner and smaller, and rather than dip each piece in egg, I stirred the egg right in. And then I added a coating of chopped nuts. I used pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds. And then I roasted it in olive oil till lovely and crispy. The first night we ate this with grilled vegetables and a sauce made of capers and pine nuts. (Still perfecting that one, I’ll tell you about it later!) The next night, I made a rough puff pastry, and I stuffed it with these eggplants and with a smoked paprika, ricotta, fresh basil custard. It was delicious! Nutty, crispy, creamy, yum.

Nutty roasted eggplant

Here’s Nina Simone’s I Can’t See Nobody, because it’s killing me right now, and because it could describe Atget’s view of the buildings in his photos!

Continue reading →

Lemon pine nut chocolate-covered cookies

Posted on by
5

Pine nut cookies


My ex-sister-in-law used to talk about totem animals. I’m not sure precisely what she meant, (I’m simple!) but to me it’s always meant the animal that you’d be, if you could be an animal. If your spirit could leave your body (at night, say, in your dreams) and slip into a body that felt more comfortable, what body would that be? For me, it’s always been an otter. They used to live around here, but they were hunted out of existence in this area. It makes me sad that you can only see them in zoos, but when we do visit zoos, I find the otters mesmerizing. I saw this video yesterday, and I can’t stop watching it! I think I’m losing it! I’m not a person who LOLs and posts cute things. But this video kills me. I love Nellie’s ridiculously beautiful otter belly, and the sound the cups make when she hits them against it. I love her speaking face and paws – every expression and gesture is so perfect. I love how slick and cool she is. I love her otter friend, who’s just kicking back, happy to be with her. I feel bad for her that she’s in a zoo, and that she’s performing for fish. But I love how she looks at the zookeeper, when she’s given the cups in the wrong order, with a sweet look that seems to say, “There’s no fish in here, and you got the order all wrong. Sheesh.” I love that when she holds her friend’s paws, which she’s told to do, she half-closes her eyes.

What’s your totem animal?

Holy Smoke, I’m waaaaaaaay behind on telling you about recipes. I’ll never catch up! I won’t make it to everything. Some recipes will get left behind. These were nice, though, so I’ll tell you about them. I wanted do make a sort of shortbread cookie with pine nuts. I realized that I always think of pine nuts in a savory setting, but they have such a smoky sweetness that I thought they’d be nice in a cookie. And they were! I could have probably left it at that, but I felt that they’d be good with a touch of lemon zest. And everything’s better with a coating of bittersweet chocolate, right?

Here’s Jean Redpath with Song of the Seals

Continue reading →