Stormy Comforts - squash & mushroom risotto

We're in for another snow storm. It seems like we're getting snowed in once a week so far this year. I don't really mind - I've needed some good time by myself at home these days. I've been going through too long a season of transitions. I needed some space to get myself grounded again. For me that space is always standing in front of the stove. When I'm cooking I'm finally somewhere where I can think clearly, get rebalanced, and really feel like I'm doing something just for myself. When I really need some quiet time I turn to risotto.

Risotto is a beautifully simple dish with one of my favorite qualities in a food - lots of flexibility. I'm always trying new ways of making things. Tweaking recipes forever. It's not always a success, but it's always inspiring. This time I'm adding squash to my normal mushroom risotto. I was thinking about making a soup when I bought the squash but today is a risotto kind of day.

The bright orange dices looked so pretty on my cutting board that I ran my hands through the little pieces. I reach in and breathe in a handful. My squash smells like carving a pumpkin as a kid. When the gourd is still huge, bigger than your whole head, looming over you on the table making your eyes widen at the monumental task ahead. When your whole arm fits inside as you get to scoop out the slime and seeds. It's the first time you are allowed to use a knife on your own. It's your first moment of a food being an adventure. It smells clean and sweet like dew on grass.

The thing is... you have to put your whole face into a bowl of freshly sliced flesh to even get a waft of it. The fragrance disappears after only a sniff or two, like a flower who's pollen has been smelt away. It will stop you in your tracks for a moment if you catch it. I'm so glad that today was reminded to stop and notice my ingredients. I'm sorry for all the memories and stories my food had been trying to tell me that I've missed.

Have you ever cooked with something just because it's so pretty? I do that sometimes with mushrooms. Add pretty mushrooms just for the joy of using them. I can admit that this dish is easily overpowering for an oyster mushroom. I really should have saved them for a simple broth soup or something, but they smelled like Jacobsburg Park after the rain in the Fall and I couldn't resist them.

Though they don't have much aroma to speak of - for flavor I think baby portabella mushrooms are just perfect for winter cooking. Sauteed with thyme and butter they are the perfect hearty nuggets to fold into your risotto.

Risotto is one of my go to dishes. Even if it does need to be stirred constantly for 30-40 minutes it's simple and creamy and therapeutic to make. There are many debates on how to make risotto (as any honorable dish with such a long tradition should have), but I'm sure I'll be writing about it again soon, so that can wait for another time. For now - the mushrooms and thyme are always a success. The squash? Well I think I'm going to try roasting it next time for more flavor and I need to caramelize the onions further too. But just because an experiment isn't a full-blown success doesn't mean it's not an experience still worth writing about. I promise when I get it just right I'll give you a recipe.

Kuba Kuba

It has all the textures of a true dive spot. The small local restaurant that people will regular no matter what. It's the food they come for. The food, the atmosphere, and the waitress that will remember your name.

The owner is a Cuban man with a wild mane of curling black hair and an equally unruly beard. He's put pictures of his family in Cuba in the 1950s all over every wall. He's even had a mural of his family painted on the wall above the bathroom doors. His parent's on their wedding day, himself at the age of seven with thick rimmed glasses and a chubby smile, and his sister at carnival.

They've made covers for each of the ceiling lights out of coffee cans. Cut to look like dresses, Barbie legs hanging out of them - Bustelo brand coffee. None of the chairs match and almost all of the tables are made for two. My table - the one I always hope to get - has been painted with a rooster on top and the label "Pelea de Gallo." The thick varnish has chips and dents in it, and you can still see the pencil marks sketching out the bird before painting it.

I come for the Cuban sandwich. Pulled pork, pickles, ham and Swiss grilled into Cuban bread. The fried plantains are a must, and they'll always sprinkle dices of tomato, yellow peppers and red onion on everything no matter what you order.

I know when I walk in the door already what I want. My list of regulars is short. The Cuban sandwich, huevos rancheros, the avocado salad or black bean soup with an extra piece of corn bread. Then there's always a fresh squeezed lemonade and a piece of tres leche cake for dessert. I don't even need a menu - I know what else is on there too. 

I come to write. This is a place where writing comes easily to me. This is a place where I can think clearly. It always relaxes me to eat here. I almost always come by myself now. I just sit and  watch people, eat and write.

Behind me the wall is filled with shelves filled with Cuban canned goods, coffees, and candles of the saints. It always looks like an old grocery store, fully stocked and dusted, but not touched in 25 years. If you get a candle for the guardian angel it will have a painting of a blond angel watching a small Hansel & Gretel pair crossing a bridge while a shining cross hangs in the sky over them.

This is the prayer from that candle:

Spirit protector who gives constant protection to me, my loved ones, and my friends, who helps me give guidance to those who assist me with answers to my life's problems and gives comfort to my soul. Reveal to me what I must do tomorrow and give me strength and courage to my afflicted spirit. Make my problems disappear and restore my faith. (concentrate on your desires.)

Amen.

The (almost) Secret Recipe of the (almost) Famous Ginger Snaps

Have you ever noticed if someone calls their dish "famous" it is inevitably a secret recipe? I don't know why this is so true but it's an easily observable phenomenon. If it were to preserve the marketability of a recipe brand that would be one thing, but typically no one has actually heard of this "famous" dish - nor is anyone trying to market it. This is the case with my mother's ginger snaps.

 

A holiday tradition in my family that is possibly a more important part of Christmas than gifts. These cookies deserve to be famous. They are not. Not really anyway.

We eat so many of them that my mom's only willing to make them a few times a year (and always only between November and January).

 

My mother got the recipe while in college. She was in a sorority (hoped for a long time I would follow that path too - crazy.) and the house "mom" made them regularly. When my mother loves something it is no small love. Her basic recipe is a double batch, and we typically double that every time, so it's a load of work to keep our house supplied. Now that we all live out on our own it's 5xs more work to keep all of our houses full for the season.

 

These cookies are sooo worth it.

Mama's Ginger Snaps

11/4 cup margarine (softened)

21/2 cups sugar ….. PLUS 1 cup to roll the dough balls in.

2 eggs

½ cup molasses

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cloves

Beat the butter, sugar, eggs and molasses in a large mixing bowl until smooth. In a second mixing bowl mix your baking soda and spices with your flour (I am very heavy handed with the spices).

Add the flour to wet ingredients slowly, about a cup at a time. 

Roll into balls about ¾” in diameter. Roll the dough balls in the reserved sugar. Place well spaced on the cookie sheet, as they spread. 

BAKE at 375°

Bake until done (about 8 minutes). That is up to you, my mom likes hers almost burnt ("extra crunchy" as she calls it).

Let them cool very slightly before removing from pan, but not too much or they don’t come off.

Calamari: it should be served with tentacles.

Our family was too big to fit around the kitchen table, so we ate every meal at a picnic table outside (thank god for the California weather). My mother fed us fearlessly - there was no tip-toeing around vegetables or picky eaters in our household. With five children it wasn't the most expensive fares, but no one was allowed to leave the table until everyone was done so there was more than enough peer pressure to keep us from being fussy eaters. So she had room to play.

A favorite dinner was probably calamari. Before it was widely fashionable you could buy just the tentacles of the calamari for less than the price of chicken. My mom would fry it up in large batches and bring it outside hot and crispy to her waiting brood. My brother David would pretend he was being attacked by the octopus creatures as he scarfed them down. I remember after moving to the east coast being served calamari for the first time in a restaurant. I was sure that it was processed food, as I'd never seen calamari in golden rings with nary a tentacle in sight. There was something terribly wrong about it.

I soon forgave the east coast for it's lack of tentacles and ate calamari whenever I got the chance. After all, it was one of the only fried foods I grew up getting to eat. My calamari life was changed forever while I was in college in Richmond, VA. I grew to love a restaurant called Bacchus, and it was there that I had my first sauteed calamari.

Their recipe was simple, but I guessed it completely wrong the first few times I tried to recreate it. They were willing to just tell me the whole time too.

Hot olive oil
Red pepper flakes
Garlic
Capers*
Calamari splashed with white wine as it hits the hot oil.

With the beautiful soup of a mixture at the bottom of your bowl I realized it was far better to serve calamari with hot bread (for sopping) rather than coating it in bread for a dipping sauce. I have since discovered many beautiful variations of sauteed calamari - with tomatoes, with olives, with lemon and herbs... each of them wildly surpassing it's fried relations. But however it ends up being served, one thing remains true, calamari is always better with a large portion of tentacles in it - otherwise how are you supposed to feel like a kid again when you eat the octopus-like creatures?

Calamari with tomatoes and black olives

from Pepperoncino in Park Slope Brooklyn

*This might just be the start of my love affair with capers as well.

Nourishing

I am exhausted. I am drained. This past year has been a hard one for a lot of people - the economy has been in the dumps, jobs have been lost, raises have disappeared. My story is not more special than anyone else's, but I have found myself starting a new chapter. I left my life behind and ran off to New York to begin again. By the time I arrive here I feel brittle, like my bones have been drained of marrow.

My new apartment is beautiful and I hoped to be inspired to continue my potluck grocery night parties and cook for my new roommates in our open kitchen. For the first time in my adult life I have a dining room. I have used it once. I could be inspired. I should be inspired. I feel lonely and almost never hungry. I have orange juice for dinner most nights after coming home from working at a restaurant. A swig straight from the carton.

I have never liked to cook for just myself. I do not feel inspired to cook  now - but food is still my inspiration. When I taste something sharp and vinegary it's like a magic potion. I feel alive again - even if it's only on my tongue. I cling to that part of me that feels life, and have fallen in love with the hot pickled vegetables that Brklyn Larder puts on their salami and provolone sandwich.

So I have decided to spend this year nourishing myself, quite literally, back to a spiritual balance. I am going to feed myself healthy again. So I am spending an exorbitant amount every day on my sandwiches (convincing myself that I can afford it because it is my only real meal each day), and investing in that which makes me feel alive. I am going to write about what I find that is inspiring enough to my palate to bring be back to life.