Pecan, coconut, chocolate chip cookies and Cornmeal almond cinnamon cookies

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Cornmeal almond cinnamon cookies

Cornmeal almond cinnamon cookies

Last night we watched Au Hazard Balthazar. I found it incredibly moving and beautiful, but I need to think about it more before I talk about it, so I’ll talk instead about something that it reminded me of. Which is, of course, Zola’s Germinal, which takes place in the same part of the world about 100 years earlier. Au Hazard Balthazar is the story of a donkey, a working animal in rural France, who faces abuse and cruelty at the hands of his many masters. Germinal tells the story of a community of miners in rural France whose world is awash in casual and thoughtless cruelty, at the hands of their masters and amongst themselves. Of course this cruelty extends to the animals who live with them, who work for them, and whom they eat, it’s all part of a cycle of violence and poverty and need. And this cruelty is a source of tension and anxiety in the novel, it adds to the suspense of a situation that is becoming unbearable, which is about to violently explode. Souvarine is a young Russian revolutionary who believes the entire world needs to be razed clean with blood and violence. He cares for nothing and nobody, except for a fat rabbit that has the run of the house where he boards. And she loves him, too, she loves to sit on his lap while he gently strokes her ears. It’s a scene of real affection and peace, and it’s followed immediately by a scene in which the entire town feasts on rabbits. We worry for her, for Souvarine’s friend. Just as we worry for the finches tied sightless and motionless in cages for a singing contest at a fair, and for the horses who spend their entire lives in the pit, five hundred meters below the earth. On Etienne’s first day in the pit, he’s horrified by the hellish conditions there, and his journey back to the surface is delayed by the nightmarish scene of a horse being lowered into the pit.

    Meanwhile, however, operations were proceeding in the shaft, the rapper had sounded four times, the horse was being lowered. It was always a worrying moment, for it sometimes happened that the animal was so seized with terror that it was dead by the time it arrived. At the top, trussed in a net, it struggled desperately; then, as soon as it felt the earth disappearing beneath it, it remained petrified, and as it vanished out of sight, with its great eyes staring, it didn’t move a muscle. Today, the horse was too large to fit between the guides, and, once they had strung him below the cage, they had had to bend his head round and tie it back against his flanks.
    …
    Soon, Trompette was laid out on the iron slabs, a motionless mass, lost in the nightmare of the dark and bottomless pit, and the long, deafening fall. They were starting to untie him when Bataille, who had been unharnessed a little earlier, came up and stretched out his neck to sniff at the new companion who had fallen from earth to meet him. The workmen formed a wide circle around them, and laughed. What was it that smelled so good? But Bataille was deaf to their mockery. He was excited by the good smell of fresh air, the forgotten scent of sunshine in the meadows. And he suddenly let out a resounding whinny, whose happy music seemed muted with a sorrowful sigh. It was a welcoming shout, and a cry of pleasure at the arrival of a sudden whiff of the past, but aslo a sigh of pity for the latest prisoner who would never be sent back alive.

There’s more about the horse’s fall into hell, and Zola continues to imagine the horses’ dreams of the pastures and sunshine of their youth. In a book as gritty and factual as Germinal, it’s a rare flight of fancy. It’s this empathy that makes you feel more moved by the plight of the humans, and gives you hope that they will learn to be kinder to each other. If you can understand the suffering of a horse, and can sympathize with the animal, you can’t be blind to the suffering of your fellow humans, you can’t have turned yourself off and resigned yourself to the cruelty of the world. You can allow yourself the euphoric pleasure of dreaming of a day when everybody is equal, and justice reigns, and “all the populations of the earth are totally transformed without a single window being broken or a drop of blood being spilled.”

Pecan chocolate coconut cookies

Pecan chocolate coconut cookies

I’ve been making lots of cookies, lately, so I thought I’d tell you about two kinds at once. They’re both very easy and quick. I made them both entirely in the food processor, but if you don’t have one you could make them by hand. One is a pecan coconut chocolate chip. It’s chewy and crispy and very sweet–like a candy bar almost! But irresistibly good. The other is cormeal, almond cinnamon. It’s more of a cakey cookie, soft and dense. But it has a built-in crunch from cornmeal and finely ground almonds. I said almond and cinnamon remind me of Christmas, and David said he could eat these all the year round.

Here’s Odetta with All the Pretty Horses.

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Pistachio basil curry with crispy pistachio crusted eggplant sticks

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Pistachio basil curry

Pistachio basil curry

Well the moon is broken
And the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see
Is all that you lack
Come on up to the house

All your cryin don’t do no good
Come on up to the house
Come down off the cross
We can use the wood
Come on up to the house

So goeth Tom Waits’ Come on up to the House, and so goeth our interactive Sunday playlist. We’re looking for songs about strange and intriguing places. They could be hotels, houses, islands, parks, churches, but there should be something mysterious about them, something that makes you want to explore them. Maybe they’re sheltering, maybe they’re scary, but they’re the stuff of local legend.

Pistachio crusted eggplant

Pistachio crusted eggplant

Wasn’t this a green meal? It’s a curry with chickpeas, red peppers and cherry tomatoes in a sweet spicy sauce of pistachios, baby spinach, and lots of basil. And I made thinly sliced crispy pistachio-crusted eggplant to go with it.

Here’s a link to your interactive playlist.
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Mint leaf and chocolate chip cookies

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Mint leaf and chocolate chip cookies

Mint leaf and chocolate chip cookies

I think I’ll change the name of The Ordinary to Tales of the towpath. Today’s tale is my favorite kind of story, seemingly uneventful and yet somehow significant. Here’s how it all began. Last night David’s beautiful sister and her beautiful wife and their beautiful 5-week old daughter came by for dinner. After, we wanted to go for a walk, because the air was perfect. Of course I thought of the towpath because I always think of the towpath, and because the town was rapidly filling with tourists here for the fire works. At first it was bright enough…there were few trees and the way was lined with porch lights and street lights. After about a block the streetlights stopped and a tunnel of trees arched over the path, making it shadowy and dark. The boys raced into this, laughing and gleaming. Clio pulled my arm off trying to reach them, so I asked Malcolm to slow down, but he just laughed and said “You can’t catch us!” Well, obviously I can’t, but Clio can, so I let her go! (I told you this is an uneventful story!) She raced into the tunnel of dark trees, and then all three of them adventured through together: Clio of the sea-grey eyes, Isaac with the sun-bright hair, and fast-swimming Malcolm. They flew to the next island of light, further down the path, and danced in mad circles, trying to catch Clio. I walked into the tunnel of trees at my own slow pace. It wasn’t a frightening darkness, here in the tunnel, it was the good kind of darkness that transforms something well-known into something mysteriously beautiful. The branches were dark as night, but the sky reflected in the water had a lingering lilac lightness to it. Behind me walked my family with a brand new life, and ahead of me danced my life…life I had made and life that has made me. When I reached the light I caught Clio’s leash and we all went into town and got ice cream. It was fun. The end. (In literature, this is known as an Isaacian ending.)
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Malcolm had the genius idea to make mint chocolate chip cookies with fresh mint from our garden!! He wanted them to have extra sugar and extra vanilla in them, so they do. They were surprisingly delicious. I didn’t know how the mint would like being baked, but it seemed to like it just fine. Perfectly minty, if you know what I mean. I used the mint growing wildly in our garden, and I’m not sure what kind it is, but I think any fresh mint would do. I made these completely in the food processor, but you could chop the mint finely with a knife if you don’t have one.

Here’s Whistling in the Dark by They Might Be Giants, which is Malcolm’s favorite song at the moment.
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Crispy potatoes with peppers, tomatoes, and pine nut chipotle aioli

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Tomatoes, yellow squash and peppers

Tomatoes, yellow squash and peppers

Every day lately, Malcolm has wanted nothing but to go to the river. The river! He wakes in the morning and thinks about walking down to the river, he wants to spend the long hot afternoon there, he wants to go back after dinner when the sinking sun makes a bright path on the darkening water. He and Clio splash in like some sort of mythical dolphin-otters, she bounds after sticks, and he dives for stones. When we walk home he’s bright and wet and barefoot, and he has an armful of rocks swaddled in his soaking shirt. Our house is full of stones! River stones, creek stones, pebbles from the seaside. Smooth black stones, dusky grey stones, pockmarked stones, and craggy striated rocks, stones that were slick and beautiful when wet, and now seem dusty and plain, but still worth keeping. We have a wooden bowl on our kitchen table spilling over with stones of every size. Our outside table is piled with stones, my desk has little heaps of small smooth pebbles, Malcolm’s desk is covered with a ruckus of rocks, and he’s got boxes heavy with many more of them. The washing machine is piled with stones from boys’ pockets. We all collect them, we all bring handfuls into the house. They seem full of meaning and life, with all their weighty calm; they’re so silent and still, but surely they hold old stories and myths and spirits inside of them. I love the cairns throughout our house, marking our paths, showing us where to go and where we’ve been, spelling our time here, commemorating our adventures; so hard to clean around, such a sweet testament to our collective madness.
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pine nut chipoptle aioli

pine nut chipoptle aioli

This meal is like a mound of stones! Well, if the potatoes were stones, and if they were covered by a fresh, juicy spicy sauce, and a smooth very tasty aioli on top! I was thinking of the tapas dish Patatas bravas when I made this. So it’s got crispy sage-roasted potatoes–I used the ones from the farm and they’re tiny, only about half an inch across. If you have larger ones, just cut them into smaller pieces. Atop this we piled tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers and yellow squash–all from the farm. And my favorite part was the pine nut chipotle aioli. Simple but with a smoky haunting flavor. It would be good with any other kinds of roasted vegetables as well, I think.crispy-potatoes

Here’s Bill Evans with Milestones.

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Leeks, potato & french lentils stew … and burgers

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Leek and lentil burgers

Leek and lentil burgers

This morning Clio and I tried to go for a walk on the towpath. It had been raining for hours, and on one side the sky was as bright as day, but on the other, it was dark and purple-grey. I stood for a while uncertain about whether to go on or be safe and turn back. Across the canal a little green heron stared at us suspiciously, his tufty head the color of the weeds streaming beneath the muddy water. It felt good to just stand for a while, watching the heron, watching the clouds in the teeming sky, feeling the relief of cool winds and spatters of rain. Clio looked up at me with a sweet confused face, and then resigned herself to grazing on the long grass that grows against the stone wall. I’d been thinking about the story of Cupid and Psyche, which has always been one of my favorite myths. It’s a long, remarkable story, and it has a million meanings and interpretations, of course. But I was thinking about the part where Psyche, though perfectly happy, is persuaded to doubt whether she’s perfectly happy. She’s had a lot of strange and wonderful adventures, and she’ll have plenty more. Every time she’s tested she feels hopeless and wants to throw herself off of something or into something else, but everybody she meets seems to like her and wants to help her, even the bugs and the reeds. And eventually she goes back to the place she’d been happy all along. Aside from all of the other things “psyche” means, apparently it meant “life” in the sense of “breath,” formed from the verb ψύχω (psukhō, “to blow.”) Derived meanings included “spirit,” “soul,” “ghost,” and ultimately “self.” With a name like that it’s hard not to turn Psyche’s story into some sort of allegory for our own sense of well-being. It’s hard not to think of Psyche when you feel discouraged or disgruntled and, provoked by doubt, you step aside for a moment to look at your life as it actually is, at all of the skills that you have and the people who want to help you, or who need your help. Clio and I decided to play it safe and walk back home. She woke the boys, which is her favorite thing to do, and she’s spent the whole rainy day since running away from them when they try to pull her ears. The sky was bright for a while, we could have gone for our walk. And then it poured and thundered, and now it’s bright again, but the heavy clouds are rolling in, and that’s probably the way it will go all day.

Lentil leek and potato stew

Lentil leek and potato stew

I always think of leeks and potatoes as sort of wintery, but we got them from the farm this week, so that makes them summery. This stew was amazingly tasty. We topped it with fresh chopped cherry tomatoes and fresh basil, which was a nice sweet contrast to the savory comforting stew. We turned the leftovers into burgers, and I made soft smoked-paprika buns for them.
smoked paprika buns

smoked paprika buns

Here’s Horace Andy with Rain from the Sky

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Rum cherry chocolate ice cream

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Rum cherry chocolate ice cream

Rum cherry chocolate ice cream

I may have mentioned (a few hundred times) that I’ve been reading the boys’ copy of D’aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. The other night we were talking about the myth of Prometheus and Epimethius, and I find that I can’t stop thinking about it!

The story is well-known, I think. After the warring gods have wiped out every living creature on earth, Prometheus and Epimethius are charged with repopulating the earth; they make humans and animals out of clay, and they’re granted a certain amount of gifts to bestow on them. Epimethius makes the animals, and Promethius makes the humans, but Epimethius uses up all the good gifts on the animals, and the humans are left weak and defenseless. So Prometheus, worried about his creation and sorry for mankind, steals fire hidden in a fennel stalk. He’s punished by Zeus and an eagle eats his immortal liver every single day, and Pandora is sent to marry Epimethius and we all know what that leads to!

Both brothers have been adopted as political metaphors over the ages. Prometheus represents the human quest for knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge; he symbolizes a thinking man’s rebellion; he suggests the dangers of overreaching ambition. Epimethius is seen as slower and more foolish. Promethius is a forward (pro) thinker, and Epimethius, who uses up all the gifts on the animals is seen as a backwards thinker…he doesn’t have the foresight necessary to save some gifts for the humans.

And this is where the myth becomes especially fascinating to me! I’ve always been troubled by mythologies or religions that place man in the center of everything, as a sort of representative of god’s image and god’s will on earth. If you look at the workings of the world, of the universe, of nature, of every vast and incomprehensible concept of time, place, and space, humans start to seem fairly inconsequential. We’re part of the process, certainly, but we’re not the center of it. In most versions of the myth, Promethius lovingly and skillfully crafted the humans to be objects of great beauty, but Epimethius rushed through his work on the animals, throwing them together without foresight.

But this doesn’t fit with Plato’s description of Epimethius’ process. “There were some to whom he gave strength without swiftness, while he equipped the weaker with swiftness; some he armed, and others he left unarmed; and devised for the latter some other means of preservation, making some large, and having their size as a protection, and others small, whose nature was to fly in the air or burrow in the ground; this was to be their way of escape. Thus did he compensate them with the view of preventing any race from becoming extinct. And when he had provided against their destruction by one another, he contrived also a means of protecting them against the seasons of heaven; clothing them with close hair and thick skins sufficient to defend them against the winter cold and able to resist the summer heat, so that they might have a natural bed of their own when they wanted to rest; also he furnished them with hoofs and hair and hard and callous skins under their feet. Then he gave them varieties of food-herb of the soil to some, to others fruits of trees, and to others roots, and to some again he gave other animals as food. And some he made to have few young ones, while those who were their prey were very prolific; and in this manner the race was preserved.”

That sounds very carefully planned to me! He balanced the gifts of all of the creatures on earth so that they could live together in a sort of harmony! That’s not slap-dash! That’s not sloppy and ill-considered. Meanwhile, the humans begin to hunger for everything the gods have. And when Zeus sends down lies, deceit, scolding, despair, accusation, envy, gossip, drudgery, scheming and old age to put them in their place and make them meek and biddable once again, he finds that his actions have the opposite effect, and people become completely horrible to each other and disrespectful to the gods.

Promethius, with his foresight, can literally predict the future, so why did he let this happen, why did he bring this about? Maybe he enjoyed the conflict, or saw that it was necessary to somehow make us human, because our scheming, deceit, and gossip, and constant warring have certainly distinguished us from the animals over the centuries. And maybe Epimethius wasn’t so slow or foolish, so backwards. Because “epi” also means upon, beside, about. Maybe he was thinking of the world aside from the struggle of gods and mortals. Maybe he was wisely thinking around that, beside that, of the rest of the world, which can continue with balance and equilibrium from day to day, regardless of the torments that gods and men bring upon themselves.

Rum cherry chocolate ice cream! If you think I’ve exhausted all of the possible combinations of chocolate and cherries this summer, I’m sorry to tell you that it is not so. I’ve got a few more up my sleeve. This was a good one, I thought. I made a vanilla-rum ice cream, with just a touch of rum because too much alcohol keeps the ice cream from freezing. And then I processed some fresh cherries and bittersweet chocolate chips so that they were just sort of broken down and jammy, and I mixed this in as the ice cream was freezing. A nice fresh, juicy flavor.

Here’s Soul Fire by Lee Perry.
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Yeasted chickpea flour cake with crispy eggplant and pecan pesto

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Chickpea flour cake with eggplant

Chickpea flour cake with eggplant

One of the things I’m going to miss most about this summer is grocery shopping with Malcolm. I know! Fun summer adventures, right? Every child’s dream holiday! Don’t you worry, we also went backpacking in the Andes, slept under a bridge in Paris and watched the sun rise over the seine while we ate croissants and played the accordion, took a paddle-boat up the Amazon and an ancient Egyption warship down the nile. You know, all the typical summertime stuff. So it’s not a testament to how dull our summer was, but a testament to how contrary my idea of fun is, and to how pleasant it is to be with Malcolm. It all started as part of a divide-and-conquer philosophy. One boy came with me to the store, one stayed with David. In this way they got a small break from each other (they’re hyper-bonding this summer) and we got a small break from the constant bickering, the hysterical giggling that inevitably ends in tears, the screams of delight and terror. And now I honestly look forward to this once-tedious chore, I look forward to a short trip out with Malcolm. Part of the poignance, as ever, is in the passing of time, is in thinking about how much things have changed. When Malcolm was little he was a terror in the grocery store, as are most toddlers. I’d get home frazzled, dazed, with nothing I’d gone to the store for and plenty of things I hadn’t. But now…now it’s all changed. Malcolm puts his own shoes on, without me asking twice, because he’s glad to go with me. He sits in the front seat and he’s the DJ, so we’ve been listening to a lot of Ramones, which is the perfect grocery shopping music. He doesn’t talk a lot, but he’s sweet and funny. He pushes the cart, he helps pack the bags, he helps put them into the car and take them out. He helps me remember where I left my car keys and wallet and phone, because he hates when I lose them, which I always do. As he’s growing brighter and more responsible and capable, I’m sinking into forgetful ineptitude! Honestly, it’s a sign of my late-summer fragility of mood that I could almost cry when I think about our trip to the store on his birthday. The day was endlessly grey and misty, and he was very serious, but not unhappy. I wanted to buy him a dozen balloons, because I love balloons, but he said, no, it’s a waste of money and plastic, because they only last a day, and they wilt all over the floor the next morning. They’re sadly fleeting and impermanent. It’s an ordinary thing, going to the grocery store, and yet you’ll likely find me in September all wistful and teary about it, once my shopping companion returns to school

Chickpea flour cake with eggplant, tomatoes and mozzarella

Chickpea flour cake with eggplant, tomatoes and mozzarella

Well, I’ve made yeasted cakes, and I’ve made chickpea flour cakes, but I’ve never made yeasted chickpea flour cakes. Until now!! I made a simple batter with half wheat flour, half chickpea flour, some rosemary and black pepper, and I topped it with basil-pecan pesto, slices of crispy eggplant, fresh cherry tomatoes and mozzarella. I used pecan crusted eggplant, to go with the pesto, but you could use any kind of pesto you like, and you could use flour or breadcrumbs of a mixture for the eggplant.

Here’s The Ramones, with We’re a Happy Family, with the disclaimer that we’re nothing like the family described in the song! We rewrote it with these lyrics, “Isaac never eats, Malcolm’s eating sweets, Clio’s upstairs, tearing up our sheets.”
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Leek, potato & butterbean stew

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Leek, potato and butterbean stew

Leek, potato and butterbean stew

    “His little treat, when he was nice and clean…was to leave his chest bare for a while. His pale skin, as white as that of an anaemic girl, was covered in tattoo marks scraped and scored by the coal, “cuttings,” as the miners call them; and he displayed them proudly, flexing his strong arms and broad chest, which gleamed like blue-veined marble. In summer, all the miners sat out on their doorsteps like this. Despite the day’s wet weather, he even went outside for a moment, to exchange ribald remarks with another bare-chested neighbor, on the other side of the gardens. Other men came out too. And the children, who had been playing on the pavements, looked up, and laughed with pleasure at the sight of all this tired flesh released from work and at last allowed to breathe in some fresh air.”

I’ve been reading Germinal by Emile Zola. I’ve never read anything by him before, and I’m so happy to have discovered him. It’s like Dickens with more sweat and pee and nakedness. Germinal is the tale of French miners in the late 19th century. They work more than five hundred meters below the earth, in cramped, dangerous, miserably hot, miserably cold, horribly dark and dangerously coal-dusty conditions for less than a living wage. They live crowded together into a cramped two-room house where they have no privacy and little peace. Their cupboards are literally bare, and their breakfast is hot water poured over yesterday’s coffee grounds. They’re all tired and anaemic and tubercular. And yet they’re very much alive, and full of humor and affection and desire. The story of their day-to-day life, the work the men and children do in the mines, the work the women do in their homes, is told in detail so rich and gripping you’ll find yourself hanging on every word, waiting impatiently to see what happens next. All of the characters are described with such warmth and generosity that I feel I’d like to know them, though I’d have trouble justifying the comfort in which I live, in which I expect to live.

Potato, tomato and leek stew

Potato, tomato and leek stew

When La Maheuse finally manages to beg and plead for some supplies, she makes a soup of potatoes, leeks and sorrel. We just got some leeks and potatoes from the farm! So, of course, I had to try to make a French coal miner’s stew. I added herbs and butterbeans and wine and red peppers tomatoes. I don’t have sorrel, so I used lemon juice to attain that lemony flavor. I thought it turned out very tasty! I made a big round loaf of bread to go with it, but you could always just buy a baguette.

Here’s Driver 8 by REM, because the passage I quoted above reminds me of the line, “The children look up all they see are sky blue bells ringing.”

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Chocolate oatmeal crisp cake

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Chocolate oatmeal crisp cake

Chocolate oatmeal crisp cake

Yesterday I wrote a story that involved a sailor. He was partly inspired by this guy.

And I’ve been reading the boys’ cross section book of ships, which I love. This isn’t from that book, but it’s fascinating.
17th-century-merchantman cross section
And there’s this epigram by Anyte of Tegea, which I also love, and which takes place by the hoary grey coast…

    I Hermes stand here at the crossroads by the wind beaten orchard, near the hoary grey coast; and I keep a resting place for weary men. And the cool stainless spring gushes out.

So today’s Sunday interactive playlist is about oceans, seas, shores, sailors, ships, wrecks…Add the song to the playlist yourself, or leave a song in the comments and I’ll try to remember to add it.

Chocolate cake with coconut oatmeal crisp topping

Chocolate cake with coconut oatmeal crisp topping

When I started out, this was just going to be a french-style chocolate cake. Then Malcolm suggested that I add an oatmeal crisp topping, and it became something very special! Almost like brownies, but way better. Very good with coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon and wine after dinner!

Here’s a link to the interactive playlist.

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Spicy coconut milk, cashew, & basil pesto

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Coconut milk & basil pesto

Coconut milk & basil pesto

Hey, kids, it’s Saturday storytelling time! It’s summer sporadic schedule Saturday storytelling time!! As I’m sure you’ll recall, each Saturday we post a found photograph, a vernacular picture, and we write a story about it, and invite everyone else to write one, too. It’s edifying! It’s fun! It’s addictive. Here’s this week’s picture. Who is this boy and where is he going?
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As for this sauce, I’ve decided to write a cookbook called “Cement-colored sauces.” And it will probably have a chapter called “Concrete-colored dips.” I had the bright idea of putting spicy purple basil leaves in this, but somehow it all turned grey, so I added some green basil leaves, so that it looked like I’d done it on purpose. It was actually a pretty pale green by the time I was all done. And very tasty! A little sweet, a little spicy with the jalapeno, and rich and nutty with cashews. We ate this with crispy roasted eggplant and croquettes, but it would be good with any roasted vegetables, or on pasta or rice.

Here’s The Pogues with Sea Shanty.
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