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!