Citrus-Coriander Roasted Yams

Yams are one of the top choices of Nutrition Action for vegetables because of the vitamin A. Outside the south, they are often served only at Thanksgiving or Christmas and then in buttery dishes. I put together this recipe from various ones I've found on the Internet and modified it to exclude salt, brown sugar and butter.

Ingredients: 2 medium yams, brushed clean, dried, sliced 1/4 inch thick; 2 Tb. each, orange and lemon peel; 2 Tb. ground coriander (for added flavor start with freshly roasted seeds); freshly ground pepper and virgin olive oil in a mist-sprayer; chopped parsley for garnish.

Directions: Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray jelly roll pan or cookie sheet with olive oil. Lay yam slices in pan in one layer. Sprinkle tops with peels, coriander and black pepper. Spray with olive oil and bake for 30 minutes or until the centers are tender. They also turn dark orange. Sprinkle with parsley and serve hot.

Mabo Tofu

I fixed this for the first last Sunday when eM, Luz and Yoichi came for dinner after our morning meditation and  yoga. I went to Asia Mart this evening after the gym to pick up the ingredients to cook it again for these photos.

This is cheating on a grand scale but the resulting viand is grander still, worth using a store-bought sauce! "Chinese Mabo Tofu Sauce" is distributed by House Foods Corporation of Tokyo, Japan. The ingredients list contains about thirty items including soybean paste, palm oil, corn starch, ginger, garlic, "fermented seasoning," red and black pepper, sugar, sesame oil, leek, soy sauce and salt.
For tonight's dish, having had last Sunday's taste experience, I decided to "doctor" the recipe with quite stunning results!

First I heated 1 1/2 TB canola oil in a wok until very hot. I fried finely chopped garlic, ginger and crushed Chinese red pepper until garlic is golden. I added half a pound of ground pork and simmered until no longer pink.

Then I poured in the store-bought sauce and cooked for two minutes before gently folding in 14-oz or one package of silken (firm is not as good) tofu cut into 1-inch cubes, along with 3 scallions cut into short pieces. I cooked this until the tofu is just heated through then poured into a bowl.

This would taste great with Japanese white rice but I used Japanese medium-grain brown rice which was chewy and nutty, making for an awesome supper tonight.

I checked out several recipes on the Internet. Not one included the ingredients I would use if I made the sauce from scratch. I would use fermented black beans, Sichuan hot chilli paste, red soy bean sauce (optional), and maybe saki, rice wine or sherry. Chinese oyster sauce might help, too, but I would try to cut back on the oil since ground pork exudes oil when cooked and not add any salt. And, no MSG!

Baked Sole

After Thanks

After Thanksgiving I normally subsist on leftovers the next few days. This year I didn't have as much food leftover. I had ordered an 8 1/2 lb. smoked turkey from Marsh and only cooked the minor accompaniments: roasted yams and red cabbage, Basmati rice with cardamom pods, and whole-wheat bread.

Tonight, after an unusual workout at the gym (I haven't made it there for weeks now), I came home and started putting away what was left. I tore the turkey into portions to freeze and portions to eat at two more meals and started putting out new items from the freezer that I would cook for other meals. I have a lot of frozen stock. I took out cod fillets that I plan to bake with some herbs, lemon and olive oil.

For supper tonight, after a heavy lunch at 8 China Buffet (I missed the seafood extravaganza the restaurant puts out on Sundays and went for the first time since my visit with Kevin), I felt virtuous. I made myself a healthy platter of leftovers and ate while watching Pavarotti and The Rape of Europa, the PBS program on Hitler's pillage of European art objects during his invasion of surrounding countries. He devastated Poland. No wonder that when my neighbor, Linda, visited Warsaw four years ago all she saw were unsightly gray apartment complexes. The Polish invested their money in rebuilding their ruined monuments including the royal castle.

Thanksgiving Whole Wheat Bread

This is a recipe from King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, scrumptious and healthy. I restrained myself from adding more fold-in ingredients, limiting myself to walnut pieces but raisins, dried cherries, roasted pine nuts or pistachios would have been great, too! Of course, you could add less wholesome but tantalizing morsels of Spanish dry sausage or tiny pieces of salami or Philippine chorizo, celery, carrot, and Spanish onion bits to make it savory and less wholesome.

Henceforth No More Salt!

For Linda's and my birthday dinner I decided to roast a chicken without using salt or pepper. The result was wonderful! The chicken, marinated in fresh lime and lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper, whole, uncrushed garlic, and fresh rosemary leaves was moist, tender and aromatic. It was an eye-opener, or should I say, tongue-enhancer? Here's the recipe:

Ingredients: 1 4 lb. chicken; juice of 1 lemon; juice of 1 lime; freshly ground black pepper; 1 Tb. fresh rosemary leaves, chopped; 7 large garlic cloves; about 1 tsp. virgin olive oil in a mister; 3 celery ribs with leaves cut into 3 inch lengths; 1 carrot, cut into strips the size of celery stalks; and 2 medium onions, peeled, halved.

Directions: 1. Trim chicken of as much fat as you can. Dry with paper towels. 2. Rub with lemon and lime slices, black pepper, rosemary. Crush 3 garlic segments and rub on chicken. 3. Place chicken in bowl just large enough to hold it, squeeze juices and stuff garlic into its cavity. Surround chicken with fruit slices, cover and marinate at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours. 4. Preheat oven to 450°F. 5. Stuff chicken tightly with vegetables and place in roasting pan, preferably one with a spit onto which the chicken is strung. Spray with olive oil evenly. 6. Roast for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350° and cook until joints move easily. Total cook time is about 20 minutes per pound of bird. 7. Let rest under foil for ten minutes before serving with vegetable stuffing and slices of orange. Heavenly!

Mung Bean Stew

Mung beans or monggo in Hiligaynon is a common ingredient in native foods in the Philippines. Here is my interpretation of it.

Ingredients: 2 C. mung beans, washed, drained; 1 1.5 x 1.5 inch piece of salted red snapper or red fish; 1/2 C. prepared tomato sauce (use your favorite recipe or check a later entry for my favorite basil-plum tomato sauce); 4 C. Chinese broccoli, washed, drained, cut into 3-inch pieces; freshly ground black pepper.

Directions: 1. Add about 6 C. water to the beans and bring to a boil. Turn off heat and let sit for an hour or so. 2. Turn on heat again, add salted fish and simmer until beans are tender. 3. Stir in tomato sauce and broccoli and cook another 3 to 5 minutes until broccoli is fork-tender. If you are not watching your sodium intake, correct salt. Add pepper to taste.

Chicken Potpie

I had leftover pie crust from when we baked the fresh peach pie. I hate throwing things away so decided to use the scraps for chicken potpie, one of Tony's favorite meals.

I brought in some of my potted herbs so still had Vietnamese basil and thyme. I accompanied the savory pie with dry-roasted (or nearly dry, I used Misto to spray the nonstick skillet with extra virgin olive oil) slices of end-the-season zucchini and Roma tomatoes, preceded by a wonderful Romaine lettuce-Gorgonzola cheese-balsamic vinegar salad.

Ingredients: 1 whole chicken breast, two wings, back and neck; 1 carrot; 1 celery stalk; 1 small onion; 1 sprig, Italian parsley (optional);  1/2 recipe pie crust; 6 Tb. unsalted butter; 1 small onion, diced; 1 large carrot, diced; 1 celery, diced; 1/4 C. whole-wheat flour; 3/4 C. low-fat milk; 1/2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves, chopped; 2 Tb. sherry; 1/2 C. frozen petit point peas, defrosted; 1 Tb. curly parsley, minced; salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste; 1 egg with 1 Tb. water for wash.

Directions: 1. Simmer chicken with enough water to cover, carrot, celery, parsley and onion, skimming off the scum as the parts start to simmer then cooking about 45 minutes. Remove chicken parts and cool. 2. Remove chicken meat from bones and separate into small, bite-size pieces. Return chicken bones to stock and boil vigorously until reduced to 1 1/4 C. 3. Preheat oven to 400°F. 4. Melt butter in skillet and cook onions, carrots, and celery about 10 minutes until onions are translucent. Add flour and cook, stirring, another minute. Add stock and milk, stirring steadily. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. 5. Meanwhile, roll out pie crust to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out four rounds 1/2 inch bigger around than circumference of your ramekins. 6. Spoon still warm filling into 4 ramekins, careful that filling does not reach above line of sides. Top with dough circles, folding excess dough under itself, and use tines of fork to press dough against the edges firmly. Cut 1-inch vent in the center of each pie. 7. Bake at 400°F for 25 minutes or until pastry is golden and filling is bubbling. Cool at least 5 minutes before serving.

Oven-Fried Chicken

I hate frying food at home because the exhaust fan is faux. It does not blow the oil and odor out of the house. Each time I fry, the jars on top of my kitchen cabinets are covered with grease.

Moreover frying uses up lots of oil even when the food is drained on paper towels after being taken out of the oil. Frying results in larger consumption of fats even when I use polyunsaturated Canola and olive oil.

So I was delighted today to find baking does a fine job in place of frying. Here's the recipe for these simple, oven-fried chicken thighs.

Ingredients: 2 lbs. chicken thighs and drumsticks; 4 medium cloves garlic, crushed and peeled; juice of 1 lemon; 2 Tb. dark Chinese soy sauce (Pearl River, for example); freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste; 1 1/2 Tb. olive oil.

Directions: 1. Marinate chicken in all ingredients except oil at least two hours or better yet overnight. 2. Pre-heat oven to 400°F. 3. Drain chicken parts before arranging on grill. 4. Cook for 30 minutes. 5. Using brush or Misto non-aerosol spray, brush or spray oil sparingly on the chicken and return to the oven for 15 minutes. 6. Turn chicken and bake another 15 minutes. You should not need to spray with oil again since the oil would have dripped down to cover the bottom of the pieces. 7. Take out when chicken is cooked through i.e. inside no longer pink but outside is brown and even crisp. 8. Serve hot.

Apple Raisin Dessert

This is a simple, easy-to-fix elegant dessert.

Ingredients: 3 Tb. raisins; 2 Tb. Kahlúa or Tia Maria coffee liqueur; 3 medium Gala or sourish sweet crisp apples, chilled; 1/4 C. whipping cream; 1 tsp. vanilla extract; 1 tsp granulated sugar.

Directions: 1. In microwave-safe cup, cook raisins with liqueur 1 minute. Set aside but keep warm. 2. Whip cream with vanilla and sugar until medium stiff. 3. Slice apples just before serving and arrange in four remakins or fruit cups. Top with whipped cream and raisin sauce.

Egplant Parmesan

Preparation time: one hour.

Ingredients: 2 medium eggplants, sliced horizontally 1/2 inch thick; 2 eggs, lightly beaten; 4 Tb. milk; Italian breadcrumbs; 1/4 C. Olive oil; 24 oz. nonfat Ricotta; 1/2 tsp. Nutmeg, grated; 1 Egg; 2 Tb. Italian parsley, chopped; 1 C. Chianti; 12 oz. Tomato paste; 1 tsp. oregano; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 1/2 lb. Mozzarella sliced; 1/2 C. Parmesan cheese.

Directions: 1. Wash eggplants, wipe dry, slice horizontally 1/2 inch thick. Layer in colander and sprinkle both sides with salt. Allow to set at least an hour. Pat dry with paper towels. 2. Preheat oven to 400°F. 3. Brush olive oil on cookie sheets, enough to lay eggplant slices in one layer. Dip eggplant slices into mixture of egg and milk. Roll in breadcrumbs and lay on cookie sheets. Brush with more olive oil and bake 15 minutes. Flip and bake another 15 minutes. 4. Mix ricotta, nutmeg, lightly beaten egg and parsley in bowl. 5. In a small saucepan, simmer Chianti, tomato paste, oregano, salt and pepper for 10 minutes. 6. Spoon half the sauce on bottom of shallow baking dish. Cover with ricotta mixture. 7. Arrange eggplant slices on ricotta layer. Spoon remaining sauce over eggplant then cover with mozzarella slices. Sprinkle top with Parmesan cheese. 8. Bake 20 minutes at 400°F or until top is golden and center is bubbling. 9. Let stand 5 minutes before serving, with more tomato sauce if desired. 

Asparagus Quiche

Preparation time is an hour if pie crust is made beforehand.

Ingredients: 2 Tb. unsalted butter; 1 C. yellow onion, chopped; 1 tsp. dry thyme or 1 large sprig, fresh; 1/2 tsp. salt; 1 C. whipping cream; 3 eggs, lightly beaten; 1/2 C. Parmesan cheese, grated; 1 C. Swiss cheese sliced into strips; 1 can, 12 1/4 oz. giant, white asparagus, drained, halved lengthwise; 1 recipe pie crust for 10" quiche pan; 1-2 Tb. unsalted butter.

Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Line quiche pan with pastry, prick with fork, weigh down with rice or beans, and bake for 5 to 7 minutes. Cool. Reduce oven temperature to 350°. 2. Sauté onions in butter until translucent. Add thyme. Set aside. 3. Mix cream, eggs, Parmesan cheese and salt in bowl. 5. Arrange asparagus pieces on pastry-lined dish. Spoon onions around pieces. Pour in cream mixture. Dot surface with pieces of chilled butter. 6. Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Surface should be slightly golden. Serve hot with good, chilled red wine like a cabernet.

Peach Pie from Scratch

Tony and Audrey made the crust for this two-crust peach pie. I did the filling and finished the pie while they were watching a movie.

Filling: Ingredients for a 10-inch pie. 3 C. fresh peaches, peeled, large cubes; 2/3 C. granulated sugar; 1/3 C. melted unsalted butter; 1/4 C. lemon juice; 2 Tb. lemon zest.

Glaze: One egg mixed with one tablespoon milk or cream. Mix and brush on pie crust before baking.

Optional Topping: 1/2 C. whipping cream, whipped with 1 Tb. granulated sugar and 1 tsp. natural vanilla extract. Or, good vanilla ice cream.

Directions: Arrange peach pieces on pie plate with bottom crust. Mix remaining ingredients in a bowl and pour over peaches. Cover with upper crust and bake pie at 400° for 15 minutes, at 300° for 50 more minutes or until center starts bubbling and crust is golden. Top with cream or ice cream.

The Best Lunch Yet

I didn't leave for the gym till nearly one so my workout extended to two. I wanted to get a whole chicken from Marsh to make chicken stock for more risotto and got held up in traffic. By the time I got home, it was three and I was famished!

My refrigerator is always full but what I hastily assembled for lunch today was the best ever. I thought to myself, "Lunch in Italy could not improve on this!"

In a thick-bottomed small saucepan, I poured less than a tablespoonful of extra-virgin olive oil on high heat. I quickly seared tomatoes cut in half, laying the cut side down and added thin slices of chicken breast. Both cooked quickly. When the chicken was golden on one side, I turned it over and carefully put a dollop of Trader Joe's Thai cooking sauce on top.

On a plate, I arranged the chicken and tomatoes with a red-leaf lettuce salad topped with a cheesy dressing and Greek kalamata olives. It was heaven!

Risotto Palermo Style

Ingredients: 2 large eggplants; coarse sea salt; 1 large onion, thinly sliced; 6 Tb. extra-virgin olive oil; 2 Tb. finely chopped Italian parsley; 1 C., chopped celery stalks; 4 to 5 fresh basil leaves, torn; 3 C. cubed Roma tomatoes with skin; salt and freshly, coarsely ground black pepper; 2 C. Arborio rice; 3 1/2 C. homemade chicken stock or canned stock; 2 Tb. homemade pesto (optional); 1 C. freshly grated Provolone (or Caciocavallo cheese, if available); 1/2 C. King Arthur white or natural whole-wheat flour; extra-virgin olive oil for frying. 

Directions: 1. Slice eggplant thinly horizontally. Place in colander and sprinkle coarse kosher salt on each layer. Leave to stand for at least an hour then press between paper towels to dry. 2. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, sauté 3/4 of the onion in  3 Tb. olive oil for 2 to 3 minutes or until soft. 3. Add parsley, 2/3 of your basil, tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste and simmer over low heat for 20 to 25 minutes. 4. Pre-heat oven to 425°C. 5. In heavy-bottomed Dutch oven, sauté remaining onion in 3 Tb. olive oil till soft and golden. Add rice and cook stirring continuously until grains are well coated with oil. 6. Add boiling stock half a cup at a time, stirring rice continuously. As stock is absorbed, add more up to about 3 1/2 cups. This should take 20 to 25 minutes. 7. When rice is al dente (not soft like Chinese or Japanese style rice), turn off heat. Mix in pesto or half of the grated cheese until melted into the rice. Set aside. 8. Coat eggplant slices lightly with flour and fry in hot olive oil. Drain. 9. Line bottom of medium oven-proof casserole with fried, drained eggplant slices and cover with half the risotto, half of the remaining cheese, and almost half of the sauce. 10. Sprinkle half of remaining basil over the sauce, cover with half the remaining eggplant, remaining rice, sauce and basil. Top with remaining cheese. 11. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes. Serve very hot.

Chicken and More Chicken

Sometimes cooking is a chore but days like today, brimming with sunshine and the good energy that comes as grace (in other words, unannounced, unplanned for, completely its own), cooking is joy.

I took the drumsticks from the package of dark-meat chicken I bought on sale from Marsh last week and marinated them in just soy sauce, lime juice, garlic and ground black pepper. Fried in vegetable oil with plenty of space between them so steam escapes and leave the cooked parts crisp, the result was a nice change from chicken breast. My captive guest, Tony, eats no seafood nor pork. I've had to really come up with new ways to cook and serve chicken. Since he does not object to veggies I might explore veggie recipes for a while.

The beauty of cooking is sweetest when what comes off the skillet after the brainstorm is a delectable surprise as this concoction of fennel and celery strips quickly fried in olive oil with wild mushrooms and walnut halves. 

This is why I cook. When once in a while I come up with a masterpiece like this, I keep cooking, like one addicted to drugs keeps looking for that high he had once had with it. I think we call this "hope."

Culinaria

I have started a now photo set at my Flickr site (flickr.com/photos/karuna711) called culinaria for the photos of food and food presentation I've been taking at lunch when my friend, Tony, comes. You might say I am a photographer in search of his subject: My photo interests are legion!

Three Beans

In the last 48 hours I've identified another bean in my salad: cooking! 

Of course, this is not really a surprise. My refrigerator is full of jars and containers with which on a spur I can concoct a unique meal when I have a guest to share it with. I save chicken bones and make broth with thyme and flat-leaf parsley I grow on the deck. I always have a supply of fresh lime, my most recent addictive additive. 

What is a surprise is that I have never verbalized how important cooking and eating are for me, and how "gourmet" cooking (I so hate this label!) is one of the activities that shall highlight this phase in my life (again, I hate to call this "retirement").

Spending Saturday afternoon and evening cooking the chicken-and-pepperoni stew (braising is the correct term, cooking meat, usually inexpensive cuts, in a small amount of liquid until it begins to fall off the bones) was one trigger for the insight. The fun I had with the outdoor picnic suggested by Minda and which was held yesterday afternoon triumphantly, even gloriously, under the big ash in front of Kelly's deck was another. My new neighbors were in the water with oxygen tanks and snorkels, an illegal activity in our lake but one that I hushed John, another neighbor, from commenting on as verboten. I never socialize with John but in my frame of mind  yesterday after Sunday meditation, I invited him to join us and his presence actually enhanced the "picnic" experience.

Tony came after excusing himself from the last "gathering" I had invited him to. I had suggested he make something for dessert. He came with exquisitely baked lemon bar that he told us he made with "European butter." He had bought it at Jungle Jim's, a huge food emporium in Fairfield, Ohio where he and his girl buddy, Cindy, have been taking pilgrimages to a couple of times a month. The pastry indeed tasted intensely of butter. I used to make my own pâte brissée back in the days when quiche was popular. I also baked fruit pies. Blueberry pie became my favorite because a favorite friend liked it. Tony's creation brought back memories of wonderful pastries that had come out of my kitchen in the past.

If you come into my house, immediately to your left is a French-style bureau with exotic-wood burls whose drawers are full of place mats, tablecloths, napkins, napkin rings, and other accoutrements of table service. In the last 15 years years I'd been using only two sets of napkins and have used a runner or two on occasion at one of my gatherings. I have a dozen sets of dishes and three services including a silver setting I have not used in 25 years! All of these stare me in the face and I have been oblivious to what they signified.

The final trigger was a visit to Sichuan for lunch last Saturday before embarking on my own kitchen adventure. Feng's food evoked paeans I was only able to conjure dimly on last Saturday's blog entry. But that experience brought back the indescribable pleasure of the palate, for me, surely a worthy object of what now appears to be my "retirement."

I have decided to apply for social security and hope to start receiving a government check before the year is out. I shall be limited in how much I can earn for the next four years when I can then earn as much as I can without risking penalty. Four years is perfect time for me to learn the new skills for my next career. Photography, still and moving, is certainly going to be one part of it. The others are writing and cooking, my three-bean salad!

The Mara of Taste

Colanders of summer vegetables cover the countertop of my kitchen. The people who sit with me on Sunday morning are joining me for a Labor Day lunch tomorrow. Two couples that I had wanted to join us couldn't make it so this morning I revised my grocery shopping list. With Thakor not coming I don't have to have a strictly vegetarian menu.

At lunch I went to Feng's Sichuan restaurant in Carmel. I have been assiduously eating meals at home and had not been there in a month. 8 China Buffet re-opened a month ago and it was great having their Saturday special lunch buffet to indulge in again. Their Sunday seafood dinner is wicked cool, the best seafood treat in the city, Asian or otherwise!

The recently concluded Olympics in Beijing has filled us with images of a resurgent, vibrant new China. The marathon raced through the city's avenues lined with impressive buildings old and new, and landscaped with trees and shrubs. The games were an explosive coming-out party for the most populous country in the world that appears now to have caught up with the industrialized West. China moreover has the advantage of its massive human resources and a socio-political history of a strong-armed central government. The people however seems to have sincerely bought their government's perception of the rest of the world. They are no longer just automatons. They have assimilated the politics of Mao while the country's opening to Western ideas in the last 15 to 20 years combine with that recent history of restraint and control has combined into what perhaps is the most dynamic socio-economic force in the world today!

These two Indianapolis restaurants embody for me the new China.  There are still dinosaurs of Chinese-American restaurants in the city like Chinese Ruby with its old-style menu items. These two new Chinese restaurants are much more inventive while also, because of the availability of authentic Chinese ingredients, expressive of China's incredible culinary heritage.

8 China reminds me of the coastal fast-paced Chinese cities like Shanghai and Hongkong. Sichuan food to me is food I would encounter if I toured the inner towns and villages of the country. The 8 China buffet is a magnificent display of hundreds of dishes including specialties we only usually expect at specialty restaurants—shio-mai, lotus-leaf-wrapped sticky rice, white-cooked, cold cuts of chicken breast, tiny chive pockets, pig knuckles in brown sauce, etc. 

Having just sampled the Sichuan offerings celebrating that restaurant's food is the reason for this blog entry. Eating there turns me into a food poet. Tiny morsels of food embody delicacy and elegance of flavor that makes me grateful for human civilization. Mara or no Mara, the gustatory experience for the moment defeats what aspirations I might have to reduce craving! A sliver of green onion is a veritable taste sensation. That tiny piece on my tongue invokes all the richness of Chinese cuisine. There are the usual flavors of garlic, chives, fermented black beans, ginger, hot chili peppers, and the more unusual flavors like that of star anise, but all are seamlessly combined for what I can only describe as heavenly and ambrosial!

After Mike and I come back from Lowe's, I'll start cooking. My menu is not Chinese. This being the official celebration of summer's end in Indiana, my eyes were drawn to summer vegetables when I shopped at Wal-Mart this morning. I have two kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, acorn squash, and celery. I plan to make an Italian stew of my own devising, a Midwest American three-bean salad (to evoke summer picnics), tomato-Jalopeño pepper salsa, corn tortillas, and, if I get around to it, Mexican pinto beans cooked in fried garlic a la Philippine mung-bean soup.

Sunday Turkey Supper

Today was one of my most enjoyable Sundays. For lunch I went out with three people from the Sunday sitting group to 8 China Buffet. I was not really craving Chinese food but we had agreed two weeks ago to go out to lunch today so we did.

We were at the restaurant three hours! Minda dropped off her eight-year-old son, Ken, at Chucky Cheese before joining us at the buffet. She is quite a gal, animated, open, and obviously sincere. Very nice company. Frank spoke up a little with Audrey not in our company. She had bowed out of this morning's sitting after not being able to sleep last night.

Back at home, I worked on learning more techniques on Photoshop. It has a less effective tool for straightening photos than Aperture. The Photoshop routine is serviceable but disappointing. I went to the gym and then walked around the lake four miles before dropping in at Borders to get a Blu-Ray copy of the BBC production, Wild China.I'm looking forward to watching it after being wowed by the BBC series, Planet Earth. The cinematography on that series is simply stunning!

I was not going to have a thoughtless supper after such a great day. I cut up green onions, a stalk of celery and the breast remains of a turkey roast from last Thanksgiving. I heated olive oil in a stick-free skillet, quickly fried the veggies then added the turkey that I cooked until the edges were golden crisp and the skillet gave off a surprisingly bewitching aroma. I added dollops of my home-made basil-tomato sauce and removed the skillet from the stove. I toasted half a foot of Marsh baguette, laid red-leaf lettuce on the open halves and piled up the re-cooked turkey. Two slices of bright red, ripe tomato were a perfect garnish for a feast, and with such miniscule effort! On the TV was the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

Going out with the two Filipino women was what I think made the day so enjoyable. It's not something I normally would do but I am learning how to spend my days now that I am into the eighth month of my sabbatical. No clinic work tomorrow, and only the movie on China to look forward to as an apt ending for a great weekend.

Quick Kitchen Art

Late yesterday I went to purchase a few ingredients for lunch with Tony today. Marsh had a pound of raspberries for $4.49. 

Throughout the year, despite storesin Indiana now getting their produce from as far afield as South America, we still experience seasonal abundance and consequent cheap prices that I like to take advantage of—whether it is asparagus or Florida oranges or Mexican mangoes or, in this case, Michigan raspberries! I like the idea of my diet corresponding in some way to the seasonal cycle of the part of the earth I inhabit. It also lends creativity to my cooking.

Anymore I cook without recipes. For lunch I fixed the raspberries with hand-torn, red leaf-lettuce, lightly dressed with aged balsamic vinegar, olive oil and fresh squeezed lime juice and a few grindings of fresh pink, red and white peppercorns. I've dispensed with salt altogether and don't miss it at all. 

For the hot part of the one-platter lunch, I made a simple stir-fry. I reheated chicken-breast nuggets I stir-fried the other day. Having ingredients like this in the refrigerator makes putting together whole meals a snap. I added strung fresh snow peas, sliced green onions, and shelled whole peanuts and a couple tablespoonfuls of Trader Joe's Thai green curry simmer sauce. 

TJ simmer sauces are a quick way to make something special. I ignore the directions on the bottle and use them as part of my flavoring armamentarium. A shelf-full of dried spices, fresh herb cuttings from the garden, a supply of various sauces, kitchen stocks of pre-cooked ingredients, and, of course, imagination: this must be how restaurants manage to serve the variety of dishes on their daily menus!

Duende Graces Edible Art

Even for average Joes like us there can be duende in workaday routines like eating.

8 China Buffet re-opened yesterday after a fire that put it out of commission for two months. Its closing came on the heels of another Chinese restaurant in the north side of Indianapolis shutting down without notice on Tet, the day of the Chinese New Year, this year. Both restaurants fed the Chinese and other Asian residents of the city who met there on the weekends, whole families lunching together in Asia-style, noisy, chaotic fun.

I was delayed at home talking to my sister in KC. By the time I arrived at the restaurant a queue of people was already shuffling its collective feet at the door waiting to get in. I drove back home and fixed myself lunch.

Food ingredients are, despite recent price increases in basics like rice, eggs, and milk, still cheap compared to other parts of the world. I had a container of chicken breast I had salvaged from soup I had made the other day. I had cooked the breasts with just some ginger. I split them with my fingers into long, thin pieces and threw in leftover onion-garlic-and-chili dip sauce. Fresh lime juice came next. I am still enamored of lime juice since I discovered a Cuban mojo sauce at Trader Joe earlier this summer. I think lime is more fragrant than lemon, or maybe my nose has just gotten inured to lemon. A few grindings of black pepper, salt to taste, a couple dashes of ground dried cilantro seeds, and a handful of sliced, fresh scallions (I love onions) and the chicken slivers began to come to life.

Adding the vinegar and lime juice, I only added half the amount of full-cholesterol mayonnaise to give the chicken salad a creamy, moist finish. Heaped on toasted whole-wheat American bread with red-leaf lettuce, a bowl of mung bean soup, a heap of seedless, green grapes and I had lunch fit for a king, or, in my case, an average Joe. The fresh scallions added crunch to the salad. They are not as hot on the tongue nor linger in the breath as people expect them to do. Fresh vegetables and herbs always wake up canned or frozen vegetables.

For a treat, I added half a hopia or Chinese sweet black-bean cake. How's that for homestyle fusion food? One comes to a point in life, I think, when we can cook delightful meals without consulting a recipe book or searching the Internet. We develop a sense of what goes together and how to bring out what characteristics in the ingredients to create the effect we want in what we put into our mouths. 

Eating is more than supplying nutrition to our body that it can repair, maintain and grow itself. Eating is one of life's graces. It is as much art as non-edible paintings or literature or photographs. We can live much of our lives, with practice, even all of it, with duende!