Travels With Tormenta

2011-01-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

I have just created a new blog, called Daughter of Tormenta, which deals with a broader subject range: everything. Here is the link: http://daughteroftormenta.blogspot.com/

2010-11-04T07:34:00.001-07:00

COME AND GET IT

Show me a kid who has never spent time in the kitchen turning innocuous basic pantry staples into elaborate mixtures of disgustingly inedible potions, and I’ll show you a kid who has sorely missed out on an essential ingredient of childhood joy. I can clearly remember the sense of unbridled glee that took over when we emptied the cupboards of baking soda, hot sauce, herbs and peanut butter, added the lot to a cold, inviting glass of milk and dared each other, or maybe the kid next door, to taste it.

My sister and I called those things concoctions, for want of a less obvious term. Whether from age or nausea, I fail to recall the laundry list of components that made a complete concoction. Nor do I remember ever actually drinking one, but the anticipation brought on by merely thinking about it was enough to set loose a migration of butterflies in my belly.

What first incited us to this bizarre mixology in the first place? I think I’ve wasted a good deal of time trying to suss that one out. Most likely there was no reason greater than the fact that we had, as do most children, a natural fascination with possibility. Unsurprisingly, just about everyone I've interviewed on the subject has acknowledged having played the same exciting game, or a close variation thereof. Concoctions are simply part of the juvenile collective unconscious.

My own four children, with absolutely no coaching from me, were in on the game at an even younger age than my sister and I. Their potion-making activity was called, ingeniously, Come and Get It. The name alone cracked me up—and still does—but observing the activity was the height of hilarity.

Being New Agers, my kids’ wholesome drink always started with a glass of plain soymilk. They would add things like soy sauce, vanilla, oregano, Brewer’s Yeast, peanut butter, this, that, the other, and, of course, the essential Tabasco. When they were satisfied with their handiwork, they would call out to nobody in particular, “COME AND GET IT!”

They never had to look far for a taste-tester. No matter that he was aware of exactly what went into it, little Simon, four years old, would always pipe up, “I'na tase it!” Amid giggles and groans of “Eeuww!” Simon would pick up the glass and take an intrepid sip. Then he’d say, “It’s good!” and we’d fall over laughing.

When Simon was twenty years old, I reminded him of the old Come and Get It days. He told me he and his twin brother, Daniel, had revived the fun with a couple of their buddies when they were thirteen. Their particular variation was to have each one of them invent a potion for one of the others, who had no choice but to sample it. Simon remembered exactly what he put in his: milk, honey, ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, yogurt, chocolate syrup and—naturally—Tabasco. His pal, Aaron, was the target. It is a testament to their friendship that Aaron still gives him the time of day.

My guess is that thirteen is pretty close to the cutoff age for engaging in acts of deliberate culinary sabotage. Puberty and the ups and downs associated therewith begin to take precedence over the goofiness of making your best friend drink condiment-flavored milk.

Yet I think we can’t help but miss the utter freedom that comes with the antic behavior of our youth. And the more we age, the stronger come the feelings of nostalgia for the ridiculous and silly things we used to do.

I still couldn’t let go of the urge, in my early thirties, to feed garlic-laced chocolate chip cookies to my husband, for absolutely no reason other than sheer mischief. I had my day, quite by accident, when I brushed a panful of homemade granola into a container and inadvertently swept some slices of garlic off the counter along with the crunchy oats and nuts. He TOTALLY gagged. It was great.

I’m certain that my early fascination with kitchen alchemy played no small part in my decision to become a cook. There is a gestalt to cooking that consistently amazes and charms me, wherein the final product becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The utmost satisfaction comes when a combination of the most random ingredients turns out the tastiest dish. It is the allure of Come and Get It made respectable. Think of a healthy dollop of chutney—comprised of tomatoes, ginger, golden raisins, vinegar, sugar and chili peppers—over a filet of fresh cod. Or olive oil ice cream (trust me) served atop a wedge of dark chocolate cake spiked with cayenne. These discoveries never cease to thrill me.

Some years ago, after nearly two generations of experience in culinary shenanigans, I discovered what just may be the ultimate in legitimate adult Come and Get It. An everyday sort of condiment in its completion, Worcestershire Sauce is a startling hodgepodge of strange bedfellows. Who in her right mind would brew together—among other items—molasses, garlic, vinegar, cloves, peeled lemons, horseradish and jalapeño peppers? I would, for one, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this sentiment, which is why I am passing the recipe on to you.

My particular recipe for Worcestershire Sauce is a variation on the standard version. When I developed it, I was compelled to change some of the ingredients for the Natural Foods Deli I was managing. The sauce was ultimately to become a component of dishes meant to satisfy eaters from all walks of life. Thus it was necessary to come up with a vegan adaptation. This is something of a pity, since the replacement of anchovies with soy sauce takes it down a step, in my opinion, from the superb to the nearly superb.

Nevertheless, the intensity of the combined remaining ingredients is such that one item more or less is ultimately negligible. Be warned, however. Although the final result of this devilish infusion is surprisingly divine, the bouquet of it when it is simmering on the stovetop is absolutely eye-searing. In our little Co-op kitchen, even without the anchovy addition, the preparation was so pungently powerful, members of our crew were given to searching in vain for evidence of an extra hood fan that they might have overlooked. It soon became a running joke that the initiation—i.e. the first major task—of any new hire would be Trial by Worcestershire.

After I left that job, the Deli took to ordering Worcestershire by the gallon from an outside source. My guess was that the new manager probably hadn’t grown up with concoction consciousness.

I had occasion only once to make the Worcestershire in my home kitchen, and I have had to sign a pledge never to do it again. As my cauldron was bubbling merrily away on a back burner, out strode my husband from the rear of the house, asking some version of, What are you making? by which I mean it may have been, “What are you making?”, “What are you making?”, or, “What are you making?” I replied, appropriately, “Come and Get It!”
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For those who miss making concoctions—and those who have, sadly, never had the opportunity—I encourage you to take advantage of this recipe. It’s never too late:
Vegan Worcestershire Sauce

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil (any type or pressing will do)
¾ lbs. Fresh Horseradish, peeled and chopped OR
1½ 5 oz. jars Prepared Horseradish
4 medium Yellow Onions, diced
4 Jalapeño Peppers, seeded and finely diced
2 Tbsp. Garlic, minced
½ tsp. Coarse Black Pepper
1 qt. Water
½ gal. Apple Cider Vinegar
2 c. Blackstrap Molasses
1 qt. Rice Syrup (Corn Syrup may be substituted, but Rice Syrup is the superior product)
1 c. Shoyu or Tamari Soy Sauce
25 Whole Cloves
2 Tbsp. Sea salt
2 Lemons, peeled and chopped (peels discarded)
3 Tbsp. Tamarind Paste

➢ Turn kitchen hood fan on to high setting.
➢ Heat the oil over a medium flame in a 3-4 gallon stockpot. Add the horseradish, onions, jalapeños and garlic and sauté until the onions are translucent.
➢ Add all the remaning ingredients to the pot.
➢ Mix thoroughly and bring to a boil. Simmer over low to medium heat for 1 hour, or until the mixture coats the back of a spoon.
➢ Strain through a fine sieve into a medium saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil once more, then simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours on medium heat. The sauce should have a slightly syrupt consistency. As it cools it will thicken.
➢ Recipe yields more than a quart of Worcestershire Sauce.

2010-02-03T08:48:00.000-08:00

EVERY POTATO

When I was 7 years old, my mother and grandmother conspired to feed me calf's liver by telling me it was fish. As if.

I'm pretty sure they didn't really believe in their power to convince me of the lie. My guess is that, because their motives were entirely altruistic, they thought I might trust them enough to take the bait. After all, their goal wasn't to trick me, but to cajole me into doing something that could only be a beneficial experience for me. "It's fish! Just taste it!" It was like a good cop/good cop routine.

Even if I had fallen for it, the thin fabric of their ruse would have been rendered entirely see-through after the very first bite. Because here's the truth: You can dress up a calf's liver but you really can't take it anywhere.

I may have been only seven, but I wasn't an idiot.

I was a good kid, though. Therefore, I humored them by chewing one, single forkful. I spent the next half hour washing out the inside of my mouth with water and a napkin. Wet paper was infinitely more appealing.

To their credit, they didn't force me to try more or to eat it again, nor did they promise me a marvelous reward for finishing off the entire dish. I have since eaten liver and onions and, though I can't claim it to have been a gastronomic high point, it has been far less than a negative experience. There is a correlation here.

One of my good friends--we'll call her Bonnie, because that is her name--tells me that her mother was a fairly awful cook. One of the things she cooked fairly awfully was liver and onions because Bonnie's dad loved it. Being a devoted wife, Mom was only too delighted to commit this culinary crime on behalf of her beloved at least once a week. It wasn't enough for him to love it, however. He insisted that Bonnie sit at the table until she'd finished every last bite on her plate, every time. She cried all the way through it. No surprise that the mere thought of that dish traumatizes her to this day.

This is where I start to get so angry I could spit. What kind of parent does this to a child? At best, one with a misguided sense of what's right, at middle, a power tripper, at worst, a sadist. A parent with no ingenuity at all might simply be repeating the lessons from his or her own miserable life experiences, which makes the least sense of all, and puts him or her right back into the "at worst" category.

My daughters were made to eat green beans by their dad during their summer visit one year. When I found out he'd done this, I wished we were still married so I could redivorce him. The girls gagged down the beans until Dad and his girlfriend left the room. One of them fed the rest to the dog. The other one buried hers in the dirt of the planter next to her chair. I applauded their sneaky ingenuity.

I can't recall ever having said to my kids You will not leave the table until you've eaten everything heinous before you. I did encourage them to take only as much as they could eat of the things they liked. I did ask them to taste first before passing judgment. I didn't offer to make something they would prefer instead. I did tell them that if they hated what was for dinner, the alternative was to get up and make themselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Get a clue, parents. If you wish to plant the seeds of eating disorders into your children, or instill in them lifetime aversions to otherwise enjoyable experiences, by all means, force them to finish that food.

Or you can lighten up. Tell them what my mom and her mom used to tell me: Eat every potato and pea on your plate. OK, now repeat that, with a comma between the potato, and. This is where you're supposed to laugh and, if you don't, repeat this step until you do. If you never do, send your kids to me. At least I'll show them where the peanut butter is.

2009-05-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

Oh, god, I can barely face this page for the guilt of neglect. So many marvelous blogposts have languished by the wayside since my last visit here. So much inspiration has blossomed and died without ever having seen beyond the confines of my mental cabinet. Am I pathetic enough?

I've created the perfect recipe for inertia.

My lack of action has precipitated a remorse (see above) which has, in turn, caused me to feel the need to invent something extraordinary in atonement for my shameless slackery. Obviously, as nothing adequately extraordinary has cropped up, I have been forced to push the next blog post back, thereby creating an almost irreconcilable chasm between thought and action. The longer that gap between posts, the more amazing the post is required to be.

Well, I just have to be done with all that. Get over yourself, little lady. Only the people who got sent the link are reading this anyway.

In the months since my last post, I have MEANT to: write about the North American Specialty Food Trade's Fancy Food Show in San Francisco (replete with illegally snapped photos), discuss the merits/drawbacks of numerous recent restaurant experiences (more photos), and offer recipes from my latest cooking classes, among other great plans. Since I failed to materialize any of those plans, here I sit, writing about...something...but it isn't guilt. It's inspiration.

Waiting for inspiration is a big lie. No matter if you are a writer, painter, musician, choredoer, garden planter or you hold any of a number of roles that require thought and action, inspiration is the process of doing what needs to be done until you get into its groove. Sometimes the groove precedes the action, thereby smoothing the way somewhat for the task at hand. Nevertheless, the task is rarely easy, which explains all the dawdling and procrastination in the first place.

In my case, the groove is a brand-new MacBook that I can tote along with me wherever I wander, anywhere to avoid the distraction I call home. Bustling cafes are the best places for stirring my creativity. This post, in fact, was originally going to be a review/commentary on Ashland's newest gift to cafe society, Noble Coffee. Noble Coffee turned out to be my muse but not my subject matter. Perhaps next time. I'm satisfied with having cracked the nut.

Cooking Without a Net

2008-12-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

Being Jewish is a lot about eating. In the words of one of my favorite comedians, Judy Gold, it goes something like this: They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat. Hilarious. True.

I could fill an entire page with descriptions of foods designed to grace specific holiday plates, but I'll spare you the reading. This time of year there is only one holiday in which I am interested, along with its accompanying edible, and that is Chanukah. Chanukah, aka the Festival of Lights, celebrates the Maccabees' rededication of their destroyed temple with the lighting of an oil lamp in which a minuscule amount of oil miraculously burned for 8 days and 8 nights. And if that lamp hadn't burned its thrifty way to glory, we might never have been given the gift of potato latkes.

How to describe latkes? Crispy, potatoey, oniony, oily, delightful, addictive morsels that make a mess of your stovetop (not to mention your favorite shirt, should you forget to wear an apron) and send you running for the aloe vera to cool the hot spatters that dot your hands like an outbreak of measles. Although not confined to once-a-year eating by any means, one doesn't often stop and say, "Hey, I think I'll make some potato latkes tonight to go with that roast beef dinner."

They are an ordeal. I'll be honest and say that I almost dread the approach of Chanukah and the inevitable request by one of my children or friends for a latke party. I suppose this might be an ideal example of a love/hate relationship because what comes next is this: by the time I sit down at my dinner table with a platter heaped high, I am in eye-rolling ecstasy. How could I have even considered for a moment avoiding the unavoidable?

I learned to make potato latkes from my mother's mother (my bubby). There was no recipe, as was the norm with anything Bubby created. In her kitchen, culinary instruction was imparted by show-and-tell. I continue to make them the same way, mixing a heaping spoonful of tradition with a large pinch of instinct, like so:

Take four medium russet potatoes. (Here is the only place my recipe diverges from hers, as she peeled before grating. I leave my spuds fully jacketed). Now, both my mother and my bubby had graters that resembled something like the grid of a metal tennis racket. These more or less pulverized the potatoes, rather than grated. A latke is not a hash brown, and I chafe at the sight of shredded latkes. Thus, I have had to punt in my inability to track down that rare grater, and have opted for the food processor as a very passable substitute.

Excuse the diversion. Back to instruction. Take four medium russet potatoes and 1/2 of a medium-sized yellow onion. Cut in 1" to 2" squares. In 2 or 3 batches, pulverize potatoes and onions in a food processor, stopping to scrape down the sides when necessary. Pour into a largish bowl. Crack in two large eggs, add about 1 tsp. salt (measured in the palm of the hand), grind fresh pepper over the mixture, and shake in enough breadcrumbs to make a thin layer to cover the entire surface of the latke mix. Stir vigorously to incorporate all ingredients.

Turn on oven to 225 degrees. Place a large baking pan lined with a brown paper bag on the middle rack.

Lay a plate down next to your stove with a double layer of paper towels on it. Place a couple of large skillets over medium-high heat. (You may alternate turning the heat up and down during the process, but the latkes must start in very hot oil). Pour about 1/4" of oil into each pan and heat until very hot, but not smoking. Test by dropping in a teaspoon of latke mix. It needs to sizzle and bubble on contact, but not spatter wildly. Using a large serving spoon, or a scant 1/4 cup measure, drop latke mix gently into the hot oil, then flatten slightly. Cook until bottoms are very well-browned, but not burnt. Turn and fry other side until equally dark. Transfer to paper-lined plate and lightly press out some of the oil on both sides. Place in oven on paper bag to keep warm while you cook the remaining latkes.

Now, this is very important. Keep a stash of paper towels by your plate and KEEP THAT OIL COMING. Potato latkes DRINK oil. It's been jokingly said that if you light one it will burn for 8 days and 8 nights, which is exactly the reason latkes are the food mascot of Chanukah.

It is equally important to know in advance that you should not attempt to do any of this if you're not a supreme multi-tasker or if you don't have a second pair of hands in the kitchen. Between adding batter, replenishing oil, flipping latkes, dabbing and transferring, changing paper towels and adjusting the heat, you will have, please forgive, a lot on your plate.

When you have finished, you will have 20-25 latkes (not counting the ones you've eaten while cooking). Enjoy heartily, dipped or topped with apple sauce and/or sour cream, served as a side dish or a main course. DO NOT eat with ketchup.

Also--my advice--do not air out the house. It will be imbued with latke perfume for at least two days. Do reheat them as leftovers the next day.

If you have made it this far, you probably understand why I hesitate to get involved each year. However, if you act upon what you've read, you will know why my anxiety turns to bliss time and again.

This year, yes once more, I thought I might manage to escape the task if I neglected to mention it, but last week my daughter, Alexis, sent me a text message: When are you making me latkes? Silly me, what was I thinking? I texted back immediately: how about Tuesday night?

So it was that yesterday evening I laid out my skillets and paper towels with a fresh bottle of safflower oil and my bowl of latke mix. When all was fried and done, with a mountain of oily paper towels on the kitchen counter and a stack of crisp, savory pancakes on the platter, we sat down to dine. My 18-month-old granddaughter ate them for the very first time. She stuffed her tiny face. I plan to teach her someday to make them the same way I learned, without a net, as it were. I know I will have done it right if, when she takes the first bite of her first latke, she does what I do: remembers her bubby.

Why Tormenta?

2008-12-18T13:46:00.000-08:00

This site has been dark and dormant for far too long. It was originally set up to log a trip I took to Mexico with my husband, sister and brother-in-law, during which I took numerous photos and experienced more than your average share of great good times.

I was new at the blogging thing, however, and becoming increasingly frustrated by the quirkiness of the site--my pictures were getting cut off in the middle no matter how many times I dumped and reposted them--I abandoned the project. But now, two years down the road, I'm willing to give it another go.

Though the title "Travels With Tormenta", appears to be fraught with a sense of noire, it derives from the name of the adorable, feisty, clawing, cat-in-residence at the Jardin Botanico de San Miguel de Allende. I was warned before I touched her that her name was Tormenta and that I would quickly understand why. No sooner had I put my hand to her fur than she wrapped her paws around my palm and stuck in her cute little talons. I enclose her picture so that you will see the sexy little beauty mark on her left upper lip. Says it all.

I choose to keep the title "Travels With Tormenta" because, even though this is no longer the original travelogue, it is still a travelogue of life and life inevitably comes with un poquito de tormenta. I'm convinced that a little torment keeps life sweet.

As for the theme of this blog, now that it's lost its initial purpose, I find it difficult to narrow my scope. I am a cook and pastry chef, photographer, painter and writer-- in no specific order--and have two cents with which to weigh in on any of those subjects. Additionally, of course, there are passions and pastimes too numerous to mention, so let's just see where Tormenta takes us...