Hummus...Interrupted

It’s been a while, and sometimes I wonder if coming back to this is just silly. Grad school, life and daily distractions keep me from writing, and, for that matter, cooking. I haven’t made a fine sauce or a pesto from scratch and I certainly haven’t written much that didn’t end up with a grade attached to it at some point.

Given my present state of artlessness, you may wonder what I have to share. Well, I’ll tell you. After more than a year, there’s a recipe that’s been steeping. There’s a story that’s been growing. After all this time, there’s a blog post that’s ready for posting. You be the judge of whether or not it’s half-baked.

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I used to come home from a long, hard day with fresh veggies, a few remnants of wits in place and a plan. What wits I had would slowly multiply as the flavors of oregano and lemon melded with a little Marsala and some cayenne. By the time I turned off the stove and poured the last glass of malbec, I felt back to normal.

I could taste my daily struggle in that meal. Whether I’d made an airy summer quiche with zest winding through everywhere or a savory soup featuring lentil and cumin in the slow cooker, I could see my direction. My voice came through in the meal I made.

Where’s my voice today? I can still make a pairing that sends my mom off to work with envy-drawing leftovers. I can talk for days on end about why Obama inspires and we need to end the lies that bind us to Iraq. I can prattle about the past and what got us to this point. I can dig my heals in and draw on the wounds of the questioning few who asked if our need to police the world was really brave, or just foolhardy pride.

I can watch polls and bite my nails over the news. But what have I done for world peace lately? I see myself, my recipes and my words as flat. Have I become a crocodile cook, lamenting the horrors of packaged crusts, while I open up a can of marinara?

In the absence of solutions, are we all part of the problem?

Today, I come home after a hard day and cook a meal and pour some wine and don’t feel rejuvenated. I don’t hear the answers I always knew but couldn’t quite reach. I clean up the kitchen and I feel just the same. Floundering and without peace.

The painstaking process of sautéing and stewing and stirring is lost on so many. It’s just easier to use what's in front of you at the grocery store. And there’s no humiliation in taking tomato sauce from a jar, of course. But there is a moderate helping of shame in using ready-made minced garlic and there's out and out disdain in grabbing a can o’ mushrooms and chucking them blindly into your end result.

The problem is that each of these items makes things simpler, easier. The flavors make immediate sense and aren’t hard to understand. Like a party-line idea, they require little or no decision and far less depth of understanding than their homemade counterpart. Simplicity, not to be confused with clarity, is also more foolproof. You know you’ll see eye-to-eye, or stem-to-stem in this case, so why bother challenging yourself?

Why not go with what works and you can just pour into a pan, heat and serve? The old stand-by seems like a viable option, so why would you waste your time cultivating a flavor that has never been in or around a vat?

Because the smell of simmering sauce wakes you up in the night. Because the tester spoon burns your lips, but you can still taste the garlic more than the last time. Because, when all’s said and done, you’ve made something unexpected and true. You’ve taken fresh, independent ingredients and blended them together into something you can truly call your own.

Now’s the time to say that the same is true in life. Simple and easy is boring. Stagnation is bad and everyone should challenge themselves. The problem is that everyone doesn’t live a homemade life. In fact, it might just be me and old Sofia Petrillo slaving over our stoves until the flavor peaks and all is right in the world.

Perhaps the one-dimensional folks and flavors just mix better with the masses. Undoubtedly, Joe Average would walk right by fresh-made mushroom-kale marinara to hit the Prego in a heartbeat. Every now and then, they’ll stop and taste the former, but inevitably return to the flavor they know and feel so-so about. At least it instantly makes sense. Who even knows what kale is, anyway?

So what’s the problem? Should we throw complexity into the mainstream? Should we muddy the waters with kale and creminis? Sometimes I think that I should just give in and follow that recipe, but then I remember the true bliss that just creating can be and know I’ll never give in to the norm.

Smothered Chicken, in fact. Eatin’ good in the neighborhood gone wrong.

At this point, chicken has become the most commonly eaten, mass-produced, homogenous and boring food item in existence. Closer to Spam than its original scavenging self, chickens spend the bleakest existence possible – beakless and jammed into sad little caged lives without choices, options, happiness or much to cluck about at all.

This lot, a life of sadness and stink, is made more depressing by the smothering agents. Covered with boring mushrooms and onions, slathered in the Apple Spec quantity of butter, salt and pepper – definitely not a combination grown in Pennsylvania, the mushroom capitol of the world.

But what, you might ask, completes the feeling of smothered sadness as your plate is laid on the table, steak knife at the five o’clock position? Mild, velveta-style cheddar, that’s what. Derivative cheese atop some boring onions, reposing amid perfect diamondback grill-marked chicken.

The cheese really completes it all, like someone making a plan for your day, leaving you without say. You know the feeling in the pit of your stomach might just be caused by powerlessness over what you’re eating. The feeling that your meal, even with two side choices, has been spread before you in the exact same way as it was for the person one table over. You know now, more than ever before, that your meal is not original, not a reflection of your tastes. Rather, your meal is just a focus group away from every other meal on every other table.

At the end of this silly meal, you find yourself identifying more with the chicken you’ve just eaten than anyone else. You feel cooped up and caged, searching for something real to sustain you. Your mind races. “Get me to the nearest farmer’s market!” you rail. You need something natural, something fresh, something free range. You might even need some Gruyere to offset that flavorless goo you just ate.

Throwing your money on the table, running from their neighborhood to yours, you run in search of something new. You might be the only person running from that hood, but you’re not afraid to carve your own path, past menus of microwaved delicacies towards a freshly stewed mushroom chili. Or maybe a spinach quiche. Whatever you’re running towards, it has to be better than that smothering chicken.

This story is nothing new. Running away from something people tell you to want and towards something your soul craves. Something natural and sustaining. Something with flavor and freshness. Will you ever find the perfect meal? Probably not, but it only takes one, so I’ll go ahead and wait. Waiting for something perfectly blended, grown with care and stewed to a heavenly combination. It’s not so bad to be hungry, waiting for the meal of your dreams.

Would you go back for more of the best Indian in town after finding a hair?

When I say the best Indian, I mean it. The samosas are like a good kiss, smooth and sweet and an underlying spice that keeps you in the moment. And if those samosas are like a kiss, then the Baigan Bharta is something inappropriate for this blog. For an eggplant lover and leaver, the Baigan Bharta is something amazing, revered and feared.

Bad Baigan Bharta can leave you unable to so much as look at an eggplant. But this Bharta was far from bad. It was something wonderful and sweet, cinnamon and cumin mixing together to keep you coming back for more. Chase it with a cool, post-meal Taj Mahal and you’ve wrapped this little tryst up in perfection.

Just like no restaurant is without flies, no person is without flaws. The result is what you do with that realization. Do you forget the meal, the restaurant and the man as easily as you used to forget your homework? When you’ve found a hair in your Bharta, should you write off the restaurant?

Everybody’s instincts vary, but mine is typically to run. Slam down the plate, throw out some money and get the Aloo Gobi outta there. Whether he’s too into me, jobless, Republican or a liar, the proverbial hair will always send me packing. And I won’t be taking a doggie bag. So now that I’ve sworn off the imperfection, what happens when taste brings me back, peering at that same menu, looking for flavors of the past?

You won’t catch me back at the same restaurant after a bad tasting meal. So what’s so different about a good meal gone bad? The difference is the kind memory. The memory of eggplant lovin’ and a samosa kiss stays. Forgotten was the feeling of run-walking out of the restaurant knowing in my heart of hearts that I would never ever taste that eggplant again. Only the fondness of good meals, Kingfisher and friends remained.

By now you can guess that I’ve gone back. The flavor was just as sweet, smooth and spicy as before. I’ve returned for the piquant goodness that was. It’s different now because no matter what the flavors, I’m wise to it. I’m wise what can be reduced to a restaurant in desperate need of a hairnet.

The bad is never forgotten, only accepted or overlooked. The bad comes to us right next to the good. Since no matter where we go, there will always be flaws and flies, we have to decide, what’s worth forgetting and what is a memory worth.

I used to bike around the neighborhood. I used to party with the girls on the way to the bars, under-aged, it didn’t matter. Mistakes get made and you realize that you’ve spent way too much time thinking, not knowing. Just when I’ve accepted the passage of another year, that year has passed. I know, I know, the best is yet to come, but what about today and yesterday?

I bought sweet corn and grilled those Silver Queens out in the DC sky. Some friends, the sun, the birds and I sat, looking, watching for the city to surprise us. We didn’t find much, just the amazing smell of cooking sweet corn and garlic cloves. We found tradition and nothing that you find in a pot of boiling water. We found the flavor we hoped for.

Laughing, probably with corn in my teeth, I said again, “We’re not getting any saner.” Maybe it was a story about a kid and her dad singing Roy Orbison on the way to school or maybe something about a lost shoe on 7th Street. They’re all the same story, really. A perspective and an impulse. Maybe a little smile and some embarrassment.

With every passing day, there’s a new quirk, a new thing. The oddball kids have grown into zany girls who more typically entertain for a growing season, only to let yet another field lie fallow. Girls who’ve gone from spinning in the backyard to spinning on the dance floor, maybe even a spinning class. Nothing expected except the unexpected.

Dog days, hot fun, hot dogs, whatever it is, the cliché is nostalgia. I look back and know that I’m not necessarily looking back at days or weeks, but rather time spent being entirely me. Sure, subtract a few forgettable years in junior high and probably one or two nights in high school. Always being me and true to my flavor is something I won’t shrink on.

So, when I look back on corny memories and cookouts, I know that the common thread isn’t the husk or silk, but the person instead. We’ve all got these quiet memories within us, poignant kernels that get sweeter with the passage of time. Silliness of childhood Kick the Can fests mixed with the seriousness of hare-brained schemes cooked up and served.

An afternoon riding around the neighborhood now is just as sweet as it was then. And an ear of sweet corn now takes me on the same light, airy, fresh route today as the first time. This is what summer is for, I guess, with flavors so distinct. Each summer is a little of the past and a touch of the future. Knowing and thinking don’t matter in the summertime, it’s the experiencing that counts.

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door

Making a good meal can be liberation. Whether you’re carving out a new recipe or constructing something simple and time-tested, the final product can make you feel a sense of accomplishment (even if that accomplishment is over hunger alone). The construction of traditional lasagna is all about weaving some staples of Italian cuisine together into a tasty, juicy, saucy, cheesy mess of heaven. Building a non-traditional lasagna involves much of the same, but calls on some not-so-staples to be complete.

Not unlike Lady Liberty, my oven called, “bring me your zucchini, your swash, your marinated tofu.” And just as diversity enriches heritage, my lasagna was made better, more complex, by the addition of new flavors. Grilled zucchini, eggplant and squash combined with tasty, summer-basil sauce adding a wisp of open air. The most surprising flavor of all, however, was the entrance of peace and diplomacy.

Yes, I pulled that Swiss cheese across a border, through the Alps and beyond, shredding it atop a layered pan of goodies. I wasn’t sure how it would taste, if I would be good or unsettling. What if it was a cross-border mix that didn’t fuse, but co-habitated like angry neighbors, rather?

This “neutral” cheese ended up bringing something far from middle-of-the-road to my palate. It added a remarkable, yet understated flavor. While at first bite, the gourds had taken hold of the dish; slowly, like a new idea creeping into your mind, the Swiss’s resolve came through to be the most resonant moment of that meal.

Sometimes, when new ideas creep into your mind, they stick around longer than expected. That peaceful cheese, with its resilience through the acidic tomato and flavor-grabbing basil-oregano combo, made me feel inherently diplomatic. Without a doubt, I could stop a war, a battle, or at least a small, embittered argument.

And there it was, laying like a knife in my inbox. Angry words that couldn’t be taken back, only responded to or forwarded on. Spread the negativity? No, I tried something new. Sticking one’s neck out to prevent disaster can be hard, even scary. But the bottom line is that cooler heads will prevail, but only once the temperature has been lowered. Sure, the emotions expressed were honest, possibly valid. They weren’t kind or very well-thought out, though.

How do you explain that the intervention is being acted out on two, equally respected, equally accomplished individuals? How do you de-escalate a situation from diplomatic suicide and make it something salvageable? You stick your neck out and take the blame. Fun? No. But maintaining the peace never is. Neither is standing by yourself on an island, holding up a torch to welcome the masses. You do what you have to do to make it work.

Lasagna Alpine

Please keep in mind that I feel my way through any recipe, making adjustments based on availability and whim. So, follow the following with caution, passion and wit. Don’t box yourself in and know that, like life, not every recipe has to be hard, but it does have to be interesting to be worthwhile.

In this recipe, heavy-hitters like eggplant and oregano abound, but the true star is comes in last. It brings this nearly non-dairy treat up a notch and deserves a marquee all its own. Swiss cheese will surprise you and enrich the flavor here. Try it, enjoy it and make it your own.

Ingredients
1 package lasagna noodles
1 large pasta sauce jar
1 package extra firm tofu
2 eggs
3 tbs olive oil
2 medium summer squash (cut in half inch strips lengthwise)
2 medium zucchini (cut in half inch strips lengthwise)
1 eggplant (cut in half inch strips lengthwise)
¼ lb Swiss cheese
4 garlic cloves (minced)
¼ tsp chili powder
1 tsp oregano
½ tsp basil
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper (cracked)
vegan Worcestershire to taste
soy sauce to taste
extra salt and pepper to taste
dry red wine/red wine vinegar

1. Begin by preheating the oven to 375 degrees and salting the eggplant pieces and placing them in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
2. Construct your marinade for the vegetables by combining the oil, wine, salt, pepper, garlic, chili powder, oregano and basil. Mix in strips of zucchini and summer squash. I have a lean, mean grilling machine, so I also preheat that and begin placing the gourds on the grill (let the seasonings stay on, they’ll cook into your gourds).
3. When the vegetables have just softened, take them out and cut them into bite-sized chunks.
4. By now, the eggplant should be ready to be blotted and grilled as well. Mix them into the marinade as well and place them onto the grill repeating the steps used on the gourds.
5. Follow the noodle cooking directions on the box.
6. Begin warming the sauce in a large pot.
7. Stir in bite-sized eggplant, summer squash and zucchini. Make sure to stir in the garlic, oregano, oil, etc. Let simmer.
8. Open the tofu and drain. Crumble into a bowl and add two eggs. Stir together adding a splash of soy sauce and vegan Worcestershire.
9. In a 9 x 13 pan, layer noodles, sauce mixture and tofu, repeat until all ingredients are used.
10. Shred Swiss cheese and layer over the top.
11. Bake, uncovered for 45-50 minutes.
12. Let stand for 10 minutes and relax as the sense of peace and happiness washes over you with each taste-testing bite.

In a world full of choices and chances, do we have too many? We ride through life, hungering for a path. But, in our quest for sustenance, has the buffet ruined us for commitment? Today, we can go through life, love and meals never having to choose and always able to go back for more. Will we ever buckle down and choose a dish?

Between mac n’ cheese, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes, the typical meal is one big speed date. We go along, moving from one sterno pan to the next. If we’re waiting for one, mass-produced dish to jump out from under that sneeze guard to please us ‘til death do we part, we might be waiting forever.

Each time that we step up to the plates, taking a new one and maybe even a fresh fork, we really aren’t starting fresh. Just because your plate is fresh, you’ll always have a few crumbs from your past lingering in your mind, and your plate, for that matter. The memories of a stale roll or maybe a little too much thyme in the stuffing will go back with you time and time again.

As we step up, without being able to step back and survey, is it possible to make the right decision? Just a meal, maybe, but do all of these options, bombarding us result in a complete lack of viable options? When we sit between a staffer and a meathead, what can we choose?

I’m consistently underwhelmed by the options presented. Sure, I think to myself, with all of these choices, I can’t help but find something I like. Then, after a meal of fillers, soggy vegetables and brownies of questionable origin, I’m really only struck by the indigestion that remains.

But then, choices can be good. I mean, how can you know what you want unless you know what you don’t? Checking out the buffet of life makes it possible to know that you’re really there for the cucumber salad. I mean, it’s chill, fresh and has just enough vinegar to challenge your tastebuds.

I may end up at the Indian buffet tomorrow. I may be too hungry to wait and just rush up and try everything right away. But after that initial run through dosa, lentils and eggplant, I’ll know what I want my second trip around.