Saucy summer vegetables with lemon, basil, and ginger

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Summery sauce with lemon, ginger, basil, and cilantro

Summery sauce with lemon, ginger, basil, and cilantro

We’re having a heatwave! It’s been one scorcher after another, with little relief even at night. I don’t mind it so much. I like to hole up in our one air-conditioned room and read or write, and then strike out in search of water for the boys to swim in. But it does make you feel a little weary, after a while, and leave you longing for crisp, energizing weather. You might expect this week’s Sunday interactive playlist to be about hot songs, right? But no! We’re going to cool it down with songs about coldness, winter, ice and snow. What’s cooler than cool? Our ice cold playlist to chill out to.

summery sauce with lemon, basil, and ginger

summery sauce with lemon, basil, and ginger

This is a light, bright way to use up some vegetables from the farm without heating up the kitchen too much. I used golden beets, pattypan squash, golden and red tomatoes and fennel, because I like the combination of flavors and that’s what we had, but you can use what you like. It’s very flavorful, with ginger, coriander, basil, cilantro and lemon. We ate it with soba noodles, and it looked very nice and colorful against their slate grey background, but you could eat it with rice, or over greens, or as a sort of side dish.

Here’s a link to the ice cold playlist. Add what you like, or leave a comment and I’ll add it for you.

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Grilled mushroom and white bean dip

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Grilled mushroom and white bean dip

Grilled mushroom and white bean dip

Well my story isn’t done. It’s barely even started. Yesterday I wasted lots of time waxing eloquent about how I wanted to write a story, and it sounded like it was going to be a pretty good one, all glowy and underwatery. And I actually wrote one in my head, or part of one at least. And then I got home all eager to write it down, opened up my notebook, and…naw, that’s no good. And then I spent some time looking for another picture to write about, but I couldn’t even do that, I couldn’t pick one. And I started maybe three different stories, but didn’t like any of them, and I began to feel like Isaac, frustrated and angry, yelling at myself, “I HAVE TO WRITE A STORY! WHY WON’T YOU LET ME WRITE A STORY!” I fear my little writer’s block-clearing exercise is giving me a mean case of writer’s block. Or maybe it’s the heat, it’s probably the heat. Anyway, I thought I’d tell you instead about a storyteller that I admire very much (thanks, Saneshane!). His name is Jeffrey Lewis, and he tells stories with pictures and songs. His songs are musically simple but very sweet and compelling, and his lyrics are wonderful. He tells stories about moments of his life that might not seem all that eventful, but that become memorable and meaningful in his songs. He’s witty, pessimistic, hopeful, honest and philosophical, and all in a lovely confiding conversational style. He’s brilliant but self-deprecating, discouraged but full of life. He also writes comic books, and sometimes he tells stories with pictures and songs at the same time. In fact, he did a whole series of songs for the History Channel on subjects such as the French Revolution and the Fall of Rome.

Here are some songs I like by him.


I like them all, actually, but I’m late for work.

This recipe is super easy! It’s a great way to use up leftover grilled vegetables. You just purée them with some beans and spices, and you’re done! It’s great with crackers or chips or spread on crusty bread. Or serve it with oven-roasted fries and a salad as a meal. It would work really well with leftover grilled red peppers, too.
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Trifle with black currants and cherries and almond custard

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Cherry and black currant trifle

Cherry and black currant trifle

Isaac just walked into the room with a tear-stained face and said, “Do you want me to run away?” Such has been our morning that I didn’t say, “Of course not, darling.” I didn’t even laugh. He wants to go fishing, desperately. And despite the dodgy ethics of a vegetarian fishing, we’ll take him, but first he has to write in his summer journal. It’s torture, I tell you! He drew a brilliant picture of himself imagining himself fishing. I said, now write about what kind of fish you want to catch. How can he be expected to know what kind of fish he might catch? He’s incensed at the absurdity of the situation. (Has he read Mcelligot’s pool? Of course he has.) I said, write about how angry you are that I won’t take you fishing…it’s okay to write about being angry. He burst into tears and said he didn’t want to write about me being mean. And now that he’s done trying to physically wrestle me from my chair and is yelling “I HAVE TO GO FISHING,” from a slightly greater distance, I will tell you that it strikes me as funny that I don’t want to go fishing at all, but I do want to write. What seems like a horrible punishment to him is my idea of a good time. He can maybe imagine a little polluted pool leading to the sea, and all of the strange and wonderful fish he might catch there, and I can imagine a tepid tide pool of my mind, cluttered and messy, holding every little thing that floats on shore. But maybe I’ll follow some bright silvery ideas into the waves, whole schools of well-organized shinily nimble words, and they’ll lead somewhere cool and quiet, with an underwater glow and an echoing resonance. And I’ll capture them all, somehow, without doing them any harm, and I’ll be able to take them and share them with others. “If I wait long enough; if I’m patient and cool, Who knows what I’ll catch in McElligot’s Pool!”

Isaac is finished raging and writing and talking about fishing like some kind of shot glass-sized Ernest Eemingway. And now the story is done and I have a promise to keep. We’ll head to the creek, and I’ll stand up to my ankles in cool water and watch the boys splash through pools of sunlight and shadow. They’ll catch minnows and water-strider spiders, and I’ll write a story in my head with all of the words swimming around there, and when we leave, we’ll let them all go, the fish and the words, and they’ll swim away into the shadowy depths.

Trifle! Why trifle? Because I made Malcolm two birthday cakes, and we couldn’t possibly eat all the cake. So for some reason it made sense to take some sweet thing we couldn’t possibly eat all of, and add lots more sweet things, and make it even bigger. Yes it did. I soaked the cake in rum, and then I added some black currants that I’d simmered in sugar till they were almost like a jam (you could just use black currant jam, if you don’t happen to have a black currant bush in your backyard.) I poured almond custard over all of this, then I added lots of fresh cherries and globs of whipped cream. Globs!! It was really tasty!

Here’s Tread Water by De La Soul
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Pesto potato-crusted “pie” with fennel, tomatoes and olives

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Pesto potato "pie" with fennel, tomatoes and olives

Pesto potato “pie” with fennel, tomatoes and olives

This is my 700th post! It boggles the mind! I should make it very clever and funny and memorable, but I’m not feeling very organized in my mind at the moment, so none of that is going to happen. Instead you’ll get a ramble from my melty brain, and it will start this way: “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately…” As you may have noticed, I’ve been reading some Camus, specifically essays he wrote for Combat magazine as the second world war came to a close and the occupation ended. He’s so hopeful and passionate about starting fresh, about creating a new society, and he’s sorting through his ideas about politics, religion, violence, life and death. It’s an inspiring read, and it’s fascinating to see how his convictions change in response to the world around him. He starts one essay, “We are often asked: ‘what do you want?’ We like this question because it is direct. We must answer it with directness…by returning to the question again and again, we will give our answer clarity.” I love this about Camus! His answer is not entirely specific or practical, but it’s about justice and freedom and purity, and how those can probably never be achieved but they’re still worth fighting for. I’m not often asked “What do you want?” and I’m fine with that, because honestly I don’t want all that much, but I’ve been thinking about my defense of the ordinary, lately, and I have a lot of questions I return to again and again. For instance, I recently described the British kitchen sink films as Ordinary. They are about ordinary people, but they’re also about miserable people, who are trapped by an immoveable class system. And this is not something I would champion. I would not tell someone trapped in an unrewarding hopeless job, “Ah, just make the best of it and think interesting thoughts.” I would encourage them to make a change in their life, and I would hope they’d have the freedom and support to do so. But this is how the cycle continues…their new, more interesting job would become ordinary, and that would be a good thing. Because everybody lives day to day. You could have the most fabulous life imaginable, but you still live it one day at a time, you still move through it from meal to meal and sleep to sleep, from season to season: the sun still rises and sets on you. This is something we all share, and which we can’t escape. This passage through time, with it’s oddly variable, inevitable pace should join us in sympathy with everybody around us, because it makes us all equal, it makes us all Ordinary. But it also makes ordinariness unspeakably precious and not something we should feel stuck with, but something we should value and keep. I want to see a change in the world, I want to see a (peaceful) revolution that brings about the sort of justice in which everybody has the freedom to live their everyday life exactly as they would wish, with plenty and safety and inspiration. The tedious jobs should be shared by everybody, so that we all have the time to be creative and joyful. So that as we’re all stuck on this journey together at the same absurd pace, we all have a beautiful view out the window. Well, it’s 100 degrees and I’m probably not making sense, but by returning to the question again and again, we will give our answer clarity.

Pesto potato pie with fennel, tomatoes and olives

Pesto potato pie with fennel, tomatoes and olives

This is all from the farm! Potatoes, herbs, tomatoes, fennel. I wanted to put it all together with the smallest amount of heat possible. So I cut the tomatoes very thin and cooked them quickly. And I sauteed the fennel and herbs. But beyond that it’s all made (quickly) in the toaster oven. You could use the regular oven and broil it, and everything would be cooked in about ten minutes, so it wouldn’t be hot for very long. It’s kind of like a pizza, except that it’s gluten free! The boys liked it, and so did we.

Here’s Our House, by Madness, because somebody was listening to it as I walked down the street earlier, and I remembered how much I like it, and it’s very cheerfully about ordinary life.

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The Ordinary on NPR…again!!

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Kale and black bean cake

Kale and black bean cake

The Ordinary is back on NPR, for an article about savory cakes! I’ve said, written, and thought the word “cake” so many times that it’s starting to sound really funny. I knew a boy when I was little that would say “cake” or “toast” just randomly, for kicks, I guess, and I’m starting to see why! Anyway, some of these savory cake recipes have been on The Ordinary in the past, and some are brand new. Exclusives!!

Here’s Michigan and Smiley with Nice up the Dance, so we can all have a celebratory boogie!

Arugula salad with roasted carrots, beets, pecans and shaved goat cheese

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Arugula salad with roasted carrots, beets and pecans

Arugula salad with roasted carrots, beets and pecans

“Hey, Claire,” I hear you say, “Why the hell have you never mentioned the ‘kitchen sink’ films of the sixties? Aren’t they perfectly Ordinary?” And then I slap myself on the forehead and say, “OF COURSE! Of course they are! And I love them! They’re some of my favorite movies of all time!” And then I think it over a little more and decide that some are more Ordinary than others, and maybe these are the ones I’ll talk about. The kitchen sink films, for those who don’t know, are British films made in the sixties that are notable for showing working class people going about their ordinary lives. They’re mostly black and white, and though simply, even roughly, shot, they’re gorgeous. They’re often filmed on location with natural lighting, but I would happily save each frame of most of them as a beautiful still photograph. The term “kitchen sink” was inspired by a painting by John Bratby, and this drive for social realism was part of a broader movement that included art, theater and literature.
John Bratby's Kitchen Sink

John Bratby’s Kitchen Sink


The films are also called “Angry Young Man” films, because many of them concern themselves with just such a character, but I find that my favorites are more complicated than this, they’re not always about men, and the central character is not simply angry, but has a conflicted attitude to their home and the humdrum life they find themselves stuck in. One such man is Billy Liar, played with pathos and comic genius by Tom Courtney. This film has an extraordinary balance of darkness and light. Billy works in a funeral parlor, and he woos one of his many girlfriends in a cemetery. His parents needle him to grow up and take responsibility. He dreams of someday escaping to London, preferably in the company of Julie Christie. But the truth is that Billy escapes his dreary reality every day: he has a world in his head, a country called Ambrosia, where he is a hero, or several heroes. Billy’s goal in life is to be a script writer, and through his fantasies, he writes a script for himself, for his life, that helps him to transcend the weighty worries of his real-life. When he’s offered a chance at a actual grand gesture, a genuine adventure, he decides not to take it, and the ending of the film is suffused with a melancholy sense of failure, but once again Billy’s imagination saves him. Billy Liar is a comedy, but it’s a complex one, with layer upon layer of questions about life and society buried deep in each scene. Billy’s world is far from perfect, but seen through his eyes, it’s beautiful and funny and touching. The ending is bittersweet and complicated, just like life. I think Billy has made happiness for himself, and to me that means he’s not a failure at all.

Stay tune for further installments of Claire’s favorite Kitchen Sink films at an Ordinary near you!

Roasted carrot and beet salad

Roasted carrot and beet salad

It’s been too hot to cook, so we’re having lots of salad. But when a salad is your meal, you want it to be hearty, you want it to have nuts and cheese and then you want to try to use up all of your vegetables from the farm, so you add roasted beets and carrots, and then you treated yourself to some special hard goat’s cheese from Spain and some special hard sheep’s cheese from the Basque region, and you want to shave some of that on there as well. And you end up with this big beautiful tangle of greens and everything but the kitchen sink!

Here’s The Decemberists with Billy Liar.
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Roasted potatoes and butter beans with summer savory

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Potatoes, butter beans and savory

Potatoes, butter beans and savory

I have the whole day to myself for the first time since…well, I can’t really remember the last time. “Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of being sometimes alone!” I had such big plans! I was going to get so much work done. I was going to start a novel, and make some progress on pre-production on this movie I’ve been talking about for half a decade. I was going to be creative and productive!

Six hours in, and I’m having such a strangely hard time focussing. I could blame it on the heat, because it is hellish hot, but in truth I think it’s the silence. It’s the complete and bewildering lack of distraction. Why isn’t anybody asking me for a snack, and then ten seconds later insisting on a drink to go with it? How can I possibly be expected to get any writing done if I can’t yell at anyone to stop yelling so that I can get some writing done–if I don’t have the deadline of a trip to the river to motivate me?

I’m actually a big fan of aloneness. I think it’s important to be alone some of the time, so that you can pursue the thoughts in your own head wherever they might lead you, so that you can try to figure out all of those things it’s impossible to figure out. It’s one of my tedious mantras that a person should have such a supply of inner resources that they’re happy alone with no distractions for long periods of time.

But, as in all things, I believe we need to find a balance. We need other people, and we need to be needed by them. It’s important to have an outlet and a reason for your wandering thoughts, so that you have something solid to tether them to. It’s important to have a sense of community, be it local or international. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, the last couple of days. If we know our neighbors, and understand them and care for them, then we’ll trust them as well. We won’t sit in paranoid solitude till we drive ourselves crazy with hate and rage. And we’ll understand why the actions of a few people acting out of hate and rage will be greeted by an ever-growing community of humans caring for strangers as if they were friends, with generosity, compassion and understanding.

Each week I’ve been picking handfuls of fresh herbs from the farm–rosemary, thyme, sage and more sage, oregano, mint, lavender, and summer savory. I generally throw everything together into one big mix of flavors, because this random wildness is part of what’s beautiful about this time of year. But summer savory is a flavor I don’t encounter very often. It’s not as nice dried, and it’s lovely and distinctive–a little lemony and, well, savory! So I decided to use it all on its own in this recipe, roasted simply with tiny potatoes from the farm and big butter beans that were almost as large as the potatoes. I roasted everything in olive oil, and then drizzled some truffle oil on top. If you don’t have truffle oil, you can leave this step out–it will still be very flavorful!

Here’s People Make the World Go Around by The Stylistics

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Greens with pine nuts and roasted beets

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Greens with beets and pine nuts

Greens with beets and pine nuts

“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.” – Albert Camus.

Today was a sad day for justice in America, a heartbreaking leap backwards. I’m sure that wiser and more articulate people than me will discuss it at great lengths, and I hope that before long a change will be made, we will have a new verdict, and we will have the kind of peace that can only come with justice. So today’s Sunday interactive playlist is on the subject of justice. Cries for justice such as Peter Tosh’s Equal Rights or stories of justice gone awry, such as Bob Dylan’s Seven Curses. If you can think of songs about justice being correctly meted out, those would be more than welcome, but I declare that I’m too saddened and discouraged to think of any at the moment!

And a recipe to go with our playlist, because even on a day such as this, we need to keep our strength up and nourish one another. Beets and greens, beets and greens. It’s been that kind of spring. This is a variation on my favorite dish, which is greens with raisins and pine nuts. Instead of raisins, we have lovely little sweet morsels of roasted beets. I used garlic scapes because I had them, but you could use regular garlic. I flavored this with fresh sage and rosemary from the farm. And I used chard and beet greens, but you could use spinach, kale, or even collards, if that’s what you’ve got. If you use kale or collards, you’ll want to parboil them for five or ten minutes to soften them up.

Here’s a link to your interactive playlist. Please add what you’d like, or leave a comment and I’ll add the song.

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Malcolm’s madman cake!

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Madman cake!

Madman cake!

It’s Saturday, so it’s storytelling time, but it’s also Malcolm’s birthday, so I decided to write a story about one of my own photos, for a change. And then I’ll tell you about this cake, but you probably don’t need to know how I made it, because I can’t really imagine anyone else making a madman cake!

Malcolm

Malcolm

The funny thing about being pregnant is that at the beginning it’s the strangest most surreal feeling in the world, but by the end of it you can’t remember ever not being pregnant and you can’t imagine a time when you will no longer be pregnant. So that you think you’ll remember every little strangely passing moment, but you won’t, because it will all be as normal as any other day. But you might find yourself remembering some seemingly uneventful times that will become inexplicably important. And you might find yourself in a friend’s backyard drinking limeade the day before your soon-to-be-son’s soon-to-be birthday, and you won’t think much of it, but later you’ll never forget it, and you’ll never forget driving in the middle of the night through July fields with the moon so bright it looks as though they’re covered in snow, and you’ll never forget the two foxes who race away through the pale fields. And the hospital is the strangest thing yet, so that you’re sure you’ll remember every bizarre second of it, but you won’t, it will all be a blur. Time passes in some crazy rhythm so that it seems not to be passing at all, but somehow the sun comes up, and you know it’s hot outside and the world of people is busy and waking and you know what the city smells like, though you can’t smell it through thick clean glass. And you look out on these streets and think about walking them with David when you first met him, at all hours of the night, walking these streets and falling in love. And look where it got you! Well, you wouldn’t be anywhere else. And some of this is harder and more frightening than anything you’ve done before, but you’ve never felt closer to David or needed him more. And you’re desperate for some ginger ale because you’re parched, but they won’t let you have any, not even a sip. And eventually you find yourself in an operating room, and you see a pair of legs next to you and think, “Who the hell do those belong to? Because she doesn’t seem to be doing too well.” And then you realize, of course, they’re yours, these are your strange legs, and they drift back in focus on your body. And eventually everyone leaves, and you’re alone in a strange room with this small beautiful creature. He’s so new to you, because for the first time you realize he’s not a figment of your imagination, he’s not the person you’ve been dreaming up all these months, he’s a real person all to himself. You expect him to be like you and David, you look for all the ways he’s like you and David. It’s not just that he’s not like the two of you; he’s not like anyone you’ve ever met. And that’s the beginning of constant delightful bewildering frightening wonderful surprises as he becomes the person he needs to be, always connected to you but wild and unpredictable as well. And he grows and changes and you grow and change, and somehow it’s eleven years later, and he’s nearly as big as you and he’s sitting beside you on a misty July 13, in the front seat, helping you with your wallet and shopping bags, choosing a lemonade-flavored donut because he thinks you’ll like it. He’s a distinct individual, who likes good music and has a sense of humor and a sense of style and knows what he likes but still asks David if he thinks it’s cool, too. Who remembers what other people like, and saves their favorite flavors for them. Who cries when he’s been mean, which shows that he’s at least trying. And every time you see him you’re ready to burst with pride because he’s so beautiful and strong. He’s strong enough to announce that pink is a cool color, and he’s strong enough to take on the entire ocean with his glowing pink shovel. And he’s wise enough to dive into the waves when they knock him over, and to come up laughing.
madman Malcolm draws this little man, called Madman. If he was a graffiti artist, this might be his tag. One day, the teacher said she needed to talk to us because Malcolm was drawing a bomb! Oh no, we said, when we realized she was talking about madman…that’s not a bomb, he’s wearing a fez! And we all had a jolly good laugh. I decided to make a madman cake, fez and all, and I was very proud that all of Malcolm’s friends said, “Hey, that’s the guy that Malcolm draws!”

Here’s July July by the Decemberists. July has never seemed so strange!

Roasted golden beet, carrot & cashew sauce (with broccoli, garlic scapes, & tamari)

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Roasted golden beet, carrot and cashew sauce

Roasted golden beet, carrot and cashew sauce

I used the word “keen” the other day, and it struck me that it’s a very Ordinary word. Of course I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and of course I looked it up in the OED. The word has foggy and uncertain origins, and I think this mystery adds to its appeal. It’s had quite a few meanings over the years, and I like almost all of them. Most of them relate to an intensity of sensation or emotion. (Except, of course, in America in this century, when it’s meant something mild and harmless like “swell” or “nice.” Sigh.) In the earliest examples, which I can’t make sense of, even though I studied Old English twice, it meant wise, learned or clever, and then it drifted into brave bold and daring, which edged into fierce and savage, or cruel, harsh and insolent. Something of this fierceness and sharpness remained, and keen continued its career to mean anything piercing, pungent, intense, even stinging. Cold, touch, taste, sound, light, hunger, even love, all of these could be keen or keenly felt. Language could be keen, as well, in which case it was sharp, intense, even bitter…slicing the flesh like sarcasm. All of our senses can be keen–eyesight, smell, taste, which means they’re penetrating, acute and highly sensitive. And we can be keen, or feel things keenly, we can be “Eager, ardent, fervid; full of, or manifesting, intense desire, interest, excitement, etc. Also, of desire, feeling, etc.: Intense.” And we can be keen on someone or something, which means that we have a crush-like fascination with them or it. Of course, keen has another meaning as well, as noun and verb, it describes the singing of a wailing song for the dead, but even this sad meaning is wild and passionate and beautiful. “But Claire,” I hear you ask, “That’s all very well, but what does all of this have to do with The Ordinary?” “Well,” (I respond) “I’m glad you ask!” As it happens, I have an agenda, an Ordinary agenda. And the Ordinary agenda is about engaging keenly in all of the moments of your life…not just the big ones that everybody takes photos of, but the smaller ones, the quotidian day-to-day moments that pass by easily unnoticed. And perhaps this is the time to admit that The Ordinary is not really a food blog, (Shocking, I know!) except insofar as food is part of our daily lives, a necessity for daily life, but also a wonderful opportunity to experiment and be creative. And keenly flavored food tastes better when you’re keen-set for your dinner. And keenly-written books with sharp, clever, keen language read better when you have a keen interest in them. And keenly-played music is keenly felt by people who listen with keen ears. And the keen wild green of summer is only here for a short time before the keen-cold winter months return, so don’t wish it away!

Broccoli and garlic scapes with golden beet, cashew & carrot sauce.

Broccoli and garlic scapes with golden beet, cashew & carrot sauce.

This sauce uses golden beets and carrots from the farm. I grated them, toasted them, and pureed them with cashews, ginger, cardamom, cumin, coriander and lime. It has a sweet creaminess, but it’s vegan. We ate it with broccoli sauteed with garlic scapes, tamari and honey, which was a nice contrast of flavor and texture. But the boys also dipped raw cucumber in, and it would be good over rice, or with any roasted vegetables, or as a sort of curry sauce. Very versatile.

Here’s The Viceroys with Slogan on the Wall. We have an album called Nice Up the Dance, and every time I listen to it I have a new favorite. This has been going on for over a decade. Today, I have a keen regard for this song.

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