The best jacket potatoes

One of the things I love about England is the omnipresence of of jacket potatoes, or, as Americans call them, baked potatoes.  In addition to the different name, one big difference between English jacket potatoes and American baked potatoes is that jackets count as a meal in their own right.  They’re not the standard accompaniment to a juicy steak; they get their own side (typically a rather limp salad).  Since jackets are more of a main dish, there’s also a greater variety of possible fillings.  But, as Felicity Cloake notes in the Guardian, there’s really no reason to ever go beyond beans and cheese.

Homemade jacket potatoes are just as good, and often better, than what you get in cafés.  In fact, after having some subpar jackets this year, I’ve decided to never order jacket potatoes at a café or restaurant ever again.  Unless it’s really cold outside.

So, without further ado, here’s my recipe for the best jacket potatoes you’ll ever have.  This recipe also includes a modified version of the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for homemade baked beans – you can use canned beans, but with the homemade version so easy (if time-consuming), you should really give the homemade version a try at least once.

We made this on Boxing Day.

Homemade baked beans

• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped fine
• ~1/2 cup mild molasses (you can substitute brown sugar here if you don’t have any molasses – you won’t need quite as much brown sugar)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons brown mustard (if you can find whole-grain mustard, even better)
• 1 pound dried small white beans (navy beans or haricot beans are what you’re looking for)
• 3 tablespoons ketchup
• 1 teaspoon cider or red wine vinegar
• Salt and pepper

1) Overnight (or at least 8 hours in advance), soak dried beans.

2) Heat olive oil in large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until soft – about 8 minutes.

3) Add molasses, mustard, beans, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, ketchup, and 9 cups water.  Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.

4) Lower the heat to bring concoction to simmer.  Cover.

5) Cook for at least two hours, stirring occasionally.  Here’s where the mystery of cooking beans comes in.  The exact cooking time will depend on how long you’ve soaked the beans in advance.  After two hours, just check on them every 10-15 minutes checking for doneness.  You want them mash-able, but still with some structural integrity.  If it seems too soup-y, feel free to uncover for the last bit of cooking.

6) Stir in vinegar.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Voila!  Baked beans.  When we made these, I was slightly concerned about the mustard flavor overwhelming everything else, but it settles in nicely after all that cooking time.

Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese

• Two large baking potatoes
• Kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 leek
• Butter
• Baked beans
• Cheddar (here’s the rare case where the milder stuff might be a bit better than extra-sharp cheddar, but you know what kind of cheese you like)

1) Pre-heat oven to 425° Fahrenheit.

2) Wash potatoes, then prick them a few times with a fork (this is to prevent them from exploding in the oven).  Sprinkle the kosher salt over the potatoes until evenly coated.

3) Place potatoes directly on the oven rack.  After 60 minutes, check for done-ness – the skin should be crisp and the potato should give a little bit when you apply pressure (not too much, since you don’t want it to explode!).  If it’s not done, give it another 5-10 minutes, then check again.

4) While the potatoes are baking, heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat.  Halve the leek length-wise, then slice the white parts thinly (you can discard the green bits).  Fry the leeks for a few minutes, until lightly browned – they’ll continue to cook a bit after you turn off the heat, and you don’t want to overdo it.

5) Once the potatoes are done, slice them in half length-wise, but don’t cut it all the way through.  Spoon out the inside of the potatoes into a mixing bowl.  Mix at least one tablespoon of butter (more if you’d like!) and the fried leeks with the potatoes, then mash until well-mixed.  Spoon the mixture back into the potato skins.  At this point, it should look like this picture on the right.

6) Spoon a good-sized amount of the baked beans on top of the potatoes, then grate as much cheese as you’d like on top of it all.  If you like your potatoes as loaded up as I do, it should look something like this:

Enjoy!

Cheeses of SCOTLAND #1 and 2

First, a return to an old tradition: the random photo of the day:

Happy Hannukah! This is an old one, from when I was home in Lexington. Before we ventured into the big city to hear Michael play in the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, we made latkes for dinner, and I tried out my new omelet pan. Breakfast for dinner, if you will. The latkes were, of course, delicious and fried, and I'd say the omelets were a great success. They cooked evenly in a matter of minutes and were incredibly easy to maneuver in the pan. Can't wait to use it more when we get back! Everyone's invited for brunch.


Okay, on to the cheeses. When we were in Edinburgh, we popped into the famous Scotland cheesemonger, I.J. Mellis. We decided to go for some cheeses that were unlike the ones we could buy at our farmer's market: a soft cow's cheese, and a blue cheese.

Here is the Criffel, which was absolutely perfect on these crunchy Scottish oatcakes (ingredients: oatmeal, wheat flour, vegetable fat, brown sugar, salt, raising agents). I was expecting this one to have a slightly stronger flavor - we even left it out of the refrigerator so it might mature a bit and wouldn't get that numb "cold" flavor that delicate foods can get in the fridge - but it remained pretty tame. Quite tasty, but tame.




The Dunsyre blue was absolutely astounding. I'm not sure I can tell the difference between this and other good quality blue cheeses, but this was great. It was wonderful with pear slices, and wonderful in the aformentioned squash, carrot, leek and blue cheese tart that we made for Christmas dinner.

A weekend in snowy Edinburgh

Following the suggestion of Becca’s cousin and aunt, we headed up to Scotland last weekend for the second time, this time to the capital, Edinburgh.  Here’s a rundown of the highlights…

Day 1

Our train from King’s Cross in the morning stopped almost immediately after leaving the station and remained stopped for the better part of an hour.  But I didn’t mind too much, since Becca taught me to play backgammon.  She slaughtered me our first few games, but I started to get the hang of it.  By the point that Becca took this picture, I must have been on a bit of a winning streak.  I’ve started to think about backgammon a lot, so much so that I’m now pondering how to incorporate the doubling die into other games.  The bottom line: 6+ hours on the train to Edinburgh wasn’t so bad.

After our arrival we decided to climb to Arthur’s Seat, a decent-sized hill practically in the middle of the city.  It’s only 251 meters (823 feet) high and has lots of trails to the top, but that didn’t prevent us from getting a bit lost on the way up.  We opted for a more direct route down, scrambling down a ravine.  At this top we saw this bird, which has been expertly identified by our friend Bryan as a Carrion Crow.

We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the various Christmas markets in the Princes Street Gardens and enjoying a tasty dinner at David Bann, an all-vegetarian restaurant recommended by my academic adviser.  As usual, her advice was superb.  The highlight was the starters – I had a pumpkin and sage soup, Becca a tomato and blue cheese tartlet.  It’s always a bit of an odd experience for us eating at vegetarian restaurants; we’re used to searching the menu for the vegetarian option, so it’s a bit disconcerting to have to consider the entire menu.

Day 2

We woke up to snow, which heightened the Christmas-y atmosphere that was already permeating the city.  The initial plan was to pop into some of the Old Town churches for a look.  But, it being Scotland on a Sunday morning, we were generally foiled by services going on.  A rather friendly man at Greyfriars Kirk invited us to come back after the Gaelic-language service for coffee, but it wasn’t to be.

Instead of churches, we went on a short tour at the Museum of Scotland with a guide who, to our eyes, sounded much more English than Scottish.  But given how English a city Edinburgh is, it felt fitting somehow.  After racing through a few millennia of Scottish history (we made it to 1746), we’d had enough and needed some food, so it was off to the Elephant House café, where J.K. Rowling did some early writing on the Harry Potter series.

The afternoon was spent wandering around New Town, popping into shops every so often to warm up.  Once shops and museums had closed, it was back to the Princes Street Gardens Christmas markets for roasted chestnuts and hot mead.  The mead was our second hot alcoholic beverage of the weekend – the night before we had some mulled beer at the German Christmas market.  And the mead wouldn’t be the last…

After dinner at Henderson’s bistro, a vegetarian classic, we made our way to a cinema where we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1.  Becca had already seen it (of course), but she humored me by sitting through a second viewing (she didn’t need much convincing).  After a pretty serious misstep in the film version of Half-Blood Prince, this installment seems to set things right for the finale.

Day 3

The main tourist attraction in Edinburgh is the castle.  Our memories of our visit will always be colored by the fact that it was freezing up there, but it was well worth the freeze.  It’s a rather curious attraction, with a real mishmash of different elements: the Scottish National War Memorial, a tiny 12th-century, chapel, the crown jewels of Scotland (curiously and dubiously ‘lost’ between the Acts of Union and Sir Walter Scott’s ‘discovery’ in 1818), and the mock-medieval Victorian decorations of the Great Hall.  So it doesn’t really present a coherent tone or narrative (beyond, I suppose, some sense of Scottish distinctiveness), but it’s a pretty high-yield attraction.  And, as castles go, it’s awfully defensible, especially when the slopes of the hill are coated in ice and snow.  This photo is looking towards Arthur’s Seat across the Old Town.

Given how cold we were, you’d probably guess that a place called Chocolate Soup would fit the bill.  And you’d be right.  But just so you don’t get your hopes up too high, I have to tell you that the ‘chocolate’ and ‘soup’ refer to different sections of the menu.  Still, we left thinking that every city should have a place serving hot chocolate and soup this good, and with so many variations on hot chocolate.

In the afternoon we walked back up the Royal Mile to Mary King’s Close.  It’s hard to describe the architecture and layout of Old Town Edinburgh.  There are plenty of times when you think you’re at ground level only to reach an intersection and realize there’s another level of streets well below you.  Taking a tour of Mary King’s Close gives you a better sense of how the city is put together, with vertically arranged housing in tenements as the solution to the tricky problem of building on a steep slope – some buildings had as many as fourteen floors.  As you can imagine, this led to some rather cramped, dirty living in the pre-modern era, as the tour made apparent.  Thanks to Emily for the suggestion!

Day 4

As I mentioned at the top, Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland.  In case you’re confused about what it means for Scotland, part of the United Kingdom, to have a capital, you can refer back to Becca’s primer.  Since 1999, the Scottish Parliament has been responsible for certain devolved issues – things like education, health, and justice.  In practice, it seems as if the actual amount of legislation passed by the Parliament is pretty limited – between May 2009 and May 2010, 18 bills were introduced and 15 acts were passed.  Still, every so often there are decisions that garner international attention, like the decision last summer by Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

In any case, the important part for our visit is that the Scottish Parliament, as parliaments typically do, has its own building.  Designed by Catalan architect Enric Miralles, it was completed in 2004.  Here’s a photo of the debating chamber, remarkably informal, I think.  The upper gallery that’s visible here is open to the public.  As it turned out, the main floor also turned out to be open to the public (or at least two slightly confused Asian tourists) while we were there, but that was more a breach of security than actual policy.

As you might recall, the British transportation system ground to a halt on Tuesday.  So while we anxiously waited to see whether we’d be able to get back to London (we did, on a train that cut over to the West Coast Main Line), we made one last stop at the Christmas market to warm up with Glühwein, apple strudel, waffles, and potato noodles [UPDATE: We’ve been informed by a reliable source that these noodles are called Schupfnudeln – a specialty of southwestern Germany.  Thanks Maike!].  Let me tell you, the Germans know how to stay warm at Christmas-time.

For more pictures, you can see our facebook album here.

English Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone! We hope everyone is having a happy, healthy day with their friends, families, lovers, pets, or patients.

I thought I would take this time to discuss the various traditional aspects of English Christmas. If I don't make a list my posts tend to get a little out of control, so I'm going to talk about the top 5 aspects of English Christmas.

1. Mince pie and mulled wine. Even excluding the German Glühwein that populates the Christmas markets, mulled wine is everywhere. At pubs, at concerts, at workplace Christmas parties. And it's a good thing, too: this December stands to be the coldest December in England since they started recording these things in 1910. Just another good reason they started to refer to the phenomenon as "climate change" rather than "global warming". As for the mince pies, this is a sweet pie, filled with cooked fruit and spices. I've mostly seen them as individual sized pies. As a sign of how ubiquitous they are around Christmas time, they were giving them away for free at a concert we went to on the 16th, are there always seemed to be extra pies in the office kitchen last week.

2. Christmas crackers. Not as in, crackers you put cheese on, but crackers that you pull each side and they make a loud "crack!" (or "Boom!"). There's also a paper crown inside each one, that the puller then wears, possibly for the rest of the evening. We got crackers at the concert (in addition to mince pies), and many people were wearing their crowns all night. We watched highlights of Christmas TV last night (see "Television", below), and many scenes involved families in paper crowns. Yesterday on the tube we saw lots of people carrying large bags of presents, many of them with boxes of crackers in them. We've also seen the crackers used as decorations on trees on a few occasions. You get the idea: no Christmas without crackers!

3. The meal. The American food-related holiday of the year is Thanksgiving: in England, it is Christmas. And much like our Thanksgiving, it is much-anticipated, and it usually consists of turkey (or the slightly more old-fashion goose), potato, and several kinds of "veg". Brussels sprouts are one of the traditional vegetables - whether cauliflower is traditional or not is a matter of some debate. Another classic part of the meal is something called bread sauce. I think it's safe to say that it's things like this that give British food a bad name.

4. Panto. It's hard to describe exactly what panto (short for pantomime) is. As a genre of entertainment it's part musical theater, part stand-up comedy, part pop-remix. And there is audience participation. The show is always based on a standard fairy tale (we saw Snow White, and 6 years ago Danny saw Aladdin), but they add in funny characters, such as "Muddles", the court jester who was sort of the "host" of Snow White, or a random old lady called "Widow Twankey" in Aladdin who Danny saw played by the great Ian McKellan. The audience is always meant to Boo the evil characters, to warn people when there is mischief afoot, and to engage in call and reply (as in "Don't you think I'm the fairest in the land?" "Noooo!" "Oh, yes I am!" "Oh, no you're not!" and so on). It's geared towards kids, although there are plenty of double-entendres for the adults in the audience. The songs are always re-writes of famous pop songs, of just pop songs performed straight up (our show ended with "Don't stop Believin'). All in all, it's pretty entertaining.

5. Television. Seeing as the tube is not running (!!! The entire London transport system is shut down today!) and I'm recovering from a cold, we've spent much of Christmas and Christmas eve eating yummy food, drinking tea and watching TV. This has included the Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols, featuring the King's College choir from University of Cambridge. The classically English aspects of this show are the fact that is a religious program on the main BBC channel, and the fact that the King's college choir is made up of only boys and young men. Then perhaps there's nothing more English than the Queen's Christmas message. This year she spoke of the great teamwork involved in writing the King James bible...which is similar to the teamwork involved in sports. And this teamwork can be great for building community atmosphere and self confidence. Naturally. There is also the address of the Archbishop of Canterbury - this year he suggested that perhaps the upper class aren't doing their share to get us through this economic downturn (!). Of course non-religious and non-royal television programming also exists. Just like in the US, most sitcoms have a Christmas episode, and most comedy shows (of which there are more in England) have some Christmas-themed sketches. We had the pleasure of watching the second half of "top-25 TV Christmas moments" last night. Many of them came from soap operas ("Coronation Street" and "East Enders"), some from sitcoms ("The Royle Family" seems to be favorite, as is "Gavin and Stacey"), one was from the classic "The Two Ronnies". Number three was from the much-loved "Vicar of Dibley", when the vicar is invited to about 5 or 6 homes after the service, and she is forced to eat 5 or 6 full Christmas dinners, brussels sprouts and all. Number one, naturally, was The Office Christmas episode, when (spoiler alert!) Tim finally leaves with Dawn. Though no mention of Mr. Bean's Christmas, sadly.


Lastly, I was under the impression that everyone in Britain said "Happy Christmas", though it turns out that, although many people still say this, many other have reverted to the American "Merry Christmas." Or at least, many signs and adverts use the expression "Merry Christmas." Well, that's all I've got for now. We're about to embark on making a carrot, squash and blue cheese tart, as usual inspired by Ottolenghi.

So, Happy Christmas everyone...and don't forget the 4th Ashes test starts tonight - 6:30pm EST!

US visit recap

Well, all good things must come to an end. As fun as it was to wear my fancy suit and heels and to drag my suitcase across southern New England for a month, I am now back in London with Danny and I'm learning all about English Christmas and winter-weather preparedness (or lack thereof). More about the winter in England later, but for now I just wanted to recap my trip to the US.

First of all, a HUGE thank-you to everyone I stayed with over the month, and everyone who drove me around to interviews, dinners, train stations, etc. This includes: Mom, Dad, Jon and Julia, Miya and Lester, Erica, and Marlise. An especially big thank you to my mom, who hasn't chauffeured me that much since I was 16. Thanks, Mommy!

There was also some good eating and catching up with a bunch of other people: it was really great to see all of you, and my apologies to those of you I didn't see enough, or didn't get to see at all. Sorry to people I said I would call and didn't get to - my bad :(

Minor exciting announcement is that our ultimate frisbee tournament was a success - the Happy Hannukah Huckers won their bracket, beating out, um, Lincoln-Sudbury high school for an amazing light-up santa sleigh trophy! Good times. Totally worth the bloody -> dying toenails I am now enduring (though thankfully, painlessly).

More exciting than that was Medicine Lake's EP release concert, which was an incredible show. Medicine Lake is the band my brother is in - as the sax player and occasional (though on some songs not so occasional!) vocalist. Here are some pics of him doing his thing:



In the case of music, though, if a picture is worth 1000 words, then an mp3 is worth a million. You should listen to their stuff here. You can also see them on Youtube, here. Like what you hear? If you want to buy the album you can do it on itunes or from cdbaby. Or you can get in touch with my brother directly (cheapest way to buy the album!) Want more shameless plugging? Also check out Danny's brother's band, The Real Feel, which is also awesome.


Lastly, I just thought I should recap the business-reason for going back to Boston: my interviews. The good news is that I liked all the programs and really think they would all be excellent places for me to train. Everything has something unique that they offer, and each one fits my interests in a slightly different way. Now I just have to weigh all those individual factors and decide which are the most important. Here is the basic philosophy of the places I interviewed, in the order I went to them:

Brown: "Our mission is to take care of the state of Rhode Island, particularly the uninsured population."

Cambridge: "Our mission is to take care of the city of Cambridge, and to embrace our patient population for all of its complexity."

Boston Medical Center (BU): "Our mission is to take care of the underserved population in Boston and to provide trainees with skills in the outpatient setting."

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: "Our mission is to always provide the best possible clinical care, while constantly working on quality improvement."

UMass Medical Center: "Our mission is to create a healthy learning environment so our residents get the best possible training experience."

Brigham and Women's: "We think we offer the best training program in the country. And despite being a cutting-edge, tertiary care center, we also love primary care!"

Well, there you have it. Obviously there's much more to the programs than that, but that was my impression of the main message they were all trying to get across. Lots to think about in the upcoming 6 weeks are so, maybe I'll post some of my thoughts here, but don't expect to find out my rank order...some things are better left unpublicized :)

Next up, a recap of our trip to beautiful, snowy Edinburgh!

Becca’s back!

Sorry for the lack of recent posting.  For the last few days that Becca was still in the US I was frantically working and didn’t have time for blogging.  And once she returned, the desire to sit down in front of the computer and blog was non-existent.

We’re off to cold and snowy Edinburgh tomorrow morning, so we should have some good travel-blogging to do when we get back.  Our hotel has internet in the rooms, so we’ll try to post at least one picture a day while we’re there.

Cheeses of England #5: Nut Knowle Farm ‘new cheese’

At first glance, you’d think this was a small, circular Muenster – the brilliant orange coating is the most striking thing about its appearance.  Cut into it, and it’ll ooze a lot more than any Muenster.

But this is far more interesting than any Muenster.  What really stands out about this cheese is the smell.  Whenever I’ve opened the fridge door the past few days I think to myself, “Eck… what did I leave in here for too long?”  But then I remember it’s the cheese.  So… it’s strong.  And it’s not exactly pleasurable.  But it’s certainly interesting.

As for flavor, it’s actually not as pungent as the smell would suggest, though it definitely has some bite.  The cheese vendor compared it to Langres, but it’s very far from being mild.  The flavor sticks around for a while in your mouth.  That lingering is a bit reminiscent of that feeling in your mouth the morning after you’ve drank too much.  But in a good way.

So… smells like something rotting in the fridge and feels like a hangover?  It’s actually much better than that makes it sound.  But it’s very far from an everyday cheese.  More something to push at the limits of your taste every so often.

(The cheese is so new that they haven’t decided on a name yet.  If you have any ideas based on this description and its appearance, I’ll pass it along at the farmers market this week!)

England 1, Australia 0

England wrapped up their victory in the second Test rather quickly last night.  Here’s what my facebook status updates looked like during the course of play:

• The last time England won a Test in Australia without already being behind in the series?  November 1986.  Today/tomorrow (weather permitting) could be momentous.
• Hussey gone!  Five to go.
• Into the tail!
• One to go…
• 1-0!

It only took England 17 overs (a bit over an hour’s play) to take the final six wickets.

This wasn’t just a key victory for England in the series.  It was absolute demolition.  This comparison probably says more than anything else: in this match, England scored 620 runs and lost 5 wickets; Australia scored 549 and lost 20.  For those of you keeping score at home, that means that England averaged 124 runs for each of its wickets.  Australia averaged 27.

The next Test is December 16 at the WACA in Perth.  If England win, they’ll secure the Ashes for the next two years.  Stay tuned.

Not-the-broadcaster can bat and bat and bat

The dominant figure in the Ashes has been someone who I didn’t even mention in my series preview: England opener Alastair Cook (not to be confused with his near-namesake Alistair Cook).  He’s never been a flashy player.  He was on the verge of being dropped this summer against Pakistan.  And here’s what he’s done so far in this Ashes series.

• Score 438 runs.  That is a lot of runs.  In 2002-3 Michael Vaughan scored 633 runs, widely hailed as one of of the greatest performances by a visiting batsman in Australia.  Cook is already within 200 runs of that, and that’s after only batting three times.
• Got out once.  Thus far, his scores for the series look like this: 67, 235 not out, 136 not out.  This means that he’s averaging a cool 438 runs per dismissal in this series.  We should all be so lucky.  Note that that 136 not out could increase considerably on day 3 of the current Test – England would love to bat for the better part of the day, and Cook would love to be there the whole time.
• Face 842 balls.  A big part of being a successful Test batsman is just hanging around at the crease for a long time.  The longer you stick around –> more balls for the bowlers to bowl –> tired bowlers.
• Bat for almost three days without getting out.  Back in July, I wrote that “Cricket rewards consistency and concentration, the ability to toil and grind your way along to victory.”  Victory is hardly assured for England at this point, but if they do win this match, it’ll be in large part due to Cook’s ability to grind away.

I’ll leave the state-of-the-match analysis to Becca.

What to do with leftover pecans

As you might recall, I made pecan pie last weekend.  As usual, my ability to judge required quantities of ingredients was lacking, so I ended up with about a pound of leftover pecans.  One option (probably the one Becca would have chosen) is to chop them up and put them in oatmeal.  But I have something of a sweet tooth, so I went a different route: candied pecans.

This has got to be the easiest recipe in the world.  So easy that I feel silly using the baking tag on this post.  But there it is.  I can illustrate the whole thing in about four photos.

Here’s what you need: pecans (I had about a pound), white sugar (1/4 cup), brown sugar (1/4 cup), salt (1/2 tsp), an egg, and cinnamon (1/2 tsp).  The cinnamon is not in the picture due to an unfortunate combination of a plastic tub, the plastic bag holding the cinnamon, and our grill.

 

Preheat the oven to 250 F.  Grease a baking sheet.

Separate the egg and put the egg white in a bowl.  Add about 2 tsp. of water to the egg white and beat them until they’re frothy.  Then mix the two kinds of sugar, salt, and cinnamon in a separate bowl.  Stir the pecans into the egg-white mixture until they’re evenly coated.  Then mix the pecans into the sugars/salt/cinnamon combo until all the sugary goodness is coating the pecans.  They should be shiny and gooey at this point.

Pop those suckers in the oven for about an hour, stirring them every fifteen minutes to keep them separate and not sticking to the pan.  They’re going to remain pretty gooey the whole time, but they should start to harden a bit as they spend more time in the oven.

 

Allow them to cool on a piece of parchment paper (so they won’t stick).  As they cool they’ll harden and regain the crunchiness you associate with pecans.  And candy.

Enjoy!

Dispatches from across the Pond!

That's right!

Wondering why I haven't been blogging at all for the past 3 weeks? Well, you probably haven't been wondering, because I think that everyone who reads the blog knows that I've been back in Boston since mid-November to interview for residency. But just in case you didn't know, here's the rundown. Interviews for residency (the training that comes after medical school) run from mid-November through the end of January. I just wanted to make one trip back to the states, so I deliberately scheduled my interviews in one chunk of time. And it just so happened to work out that I could schedule them around Thanksgiving, which was an added bonus. So far I've interviewed at 5 places, and I have one more coming up next. The good news is that I've liked almost everywhere I've interviewed about would be happy to train there, the bad news is I'm going to have a hard time ranking places in order of preference! This is a Good Problem. After the interview , then the family is headed down to Baltimore to see Jason and experience the Medicine Lake EP release concert on December 11th! If you live in the area you should check it out! Other highlights of the visit have included:

• Staying with Jon and Julia in Providence, meeting their dog and cat, enjoying some yummy food, and reminiscing about our Birthright trip.

• Catching up with Michelle about our mutual favorite topics: food, running, and primary care.

• Harry Potter 7a with Kate and Hayden! I thought it was amazing. Interestingly, I think this movie was kind of polarizing - people who are dedicated to the books thought the movie was great, but people who haven't read the books or don't remember them well didn't like the movie.

• Seeing our thespian friend John in a production of Henry IV part 2, which was perfect because we saw part 1 in London.

• Staying with Miya and Lester in The Shire and hearing about their intern adventures and bunny-cage making. Did I mention that Miya baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting?

• Visiting some of my old favorite Coolidge Corner restaurants - Dorado and Dok Bua - with Michael and giving a new board game a try.

• Four days living with the kitties again! I stole Beppe and Nanni away from their very nice kitty-sitters for a few days over the Thanksgiving weekend. I only had them in Lexington for a short time because they had to be cooped up in my bedroom or else our family's dog would have had her way with them. By the end of the 4 days they were getting a little feisty.

• Family Thanksgiving! This year we hosted it at my family's house, so there was lots of prepping and cleaning but it was totally worth it. And notably, despite considering myself a vegetarian for 5 years, this was the first year I didn't eat turkey. But with a dozen side dishes and veggie gravy, who needs turkey?

• My 10-year high school reunion. Nothing too dramatic to report here, it was very nice to see people I haven't seen much lately, and funny to see how some people haven't changed a bit. The reunion was also exciting because Suzanne and Chris were in town from Pasadena, and they dazzled us with stories of mountains, bike riding, sunny skies and fresh produce.

• Staying with Erica at palace of an apartment in Worcester. Added bonus: playing indoor soccer with her for the first time since high school!

• Getting taught how to play Backgammon by my mom, the reigning Pappo-Rogers family champion. Reigning for the last 30 years and still unbeaten...

• Latkes with Ariel and John! Danny and I couldn't host our annual Channukah/Hannukah/Channuka/Hannuka party in Brookline this year, so we had to have a mini-party instead. I left with my hair, sweater and jacket all smelling of fried potato, which means the night was a success.

• Haircut by Maria at Pure hair salon! Maria is a friend from college who now is a stylist who, luckily for me, specializes in curly hair. My head is probably a pound lighter, my curls are much bouncier, and I didn't have to have some awkward conversation with a stylist I didn't know. That's what we like to call win, win, win. Curly-haired friends in Boston, look no further for your next haircut.

There are many adventures still coming up, most notably a trip to Get HoHoHo tomorrow - a cold, windy but always fun ultimate tournament on Cape Cod, then a few nights with Marlise in Brookline during my next interview, and visiting a bunch of people in the Balitmore/DC area. I'll be back in London on Tuesday the 14th, and hopefully Danny and I will get traveling again!

A brief update

Not much time for blogging this week, what trips out to Reading for research at the BBC archives and the added time of having to fend entirely for myself.  But I may as well start the month off with something for the blog, even if it’s just a few quick bullet points.

• I’ve spent the past few days at the BBC Written Archives Centre, probably the smallest archive I’ve visited in terms of number of desks for researchers.  You’d think that an organization with 23,000 employees would have a greater archival presence than a little bungalow in suburban Reading, but you’d be wrong.  What’s nice about the low-key surroundings is the informality of it all: there are no ID cards, no restrictions on the number of items you can have at your desk at one time, etc.  You even have an individual staff member looking after you!
• It’s been a pretty useful few days, but I won’t bore you with the details of the BBC’s policy towards controversy in religious broadcasting (the short version: a bit of controversy is okay and might even serve to get people more interested in Christianity, but let’s not get carried away and give rationalists a platform!).  Instead, an amusing anecdote.  During the later years of the Second World War, the BBC began annual broadcasts of bell peals from across the UK (and often Jerusalem) on Christmas morning.  There doesn’t seem to have been too much religious content to it, just a way of linking together the constituent nations in some good-natured holiday cheer.  But there was always one group of listeners who didn’t take kindly to the bell-ringing: bell ringers.  Apparently the BBC got it all wrong, choosing churches with a poor set of bells or, worse yet, having them rung poorly.  One bell-ringing enthusiastic went so far as to send in a county-by-county list of the best bells in England.  So if you’re ever in search of good bells, let me know.
• How about those Ashes?  For those you who couldn’t keep up, here’s a recap of how the first match went for England.  Day 1: Not so good.  Andrew Strauss, the captain, got out on the the third ball of the match.  An Australian bowler then went on to take a hat-trick: three wickets in three balls.  England were all out for 260 runs.  Day 2: Much better.  Due to some nice bowling from Steven Finn and Jimmy Anderson, Australia were on the knife’s edge at 220-5. Day 3: Outright bad.  Brad Haddin and Mike Hussey spent the better part of the day batting together, putting on 307 runs together in total.  At the end of the day, England were in serious trouble, faced with the prospect of having to bat for two days to save the match. Day 4: Recovery!  Centuries from Strauss and Cook put them in a pretty impregnable position at the end of the day.  Day 5: Rubbing it in the Aussies’ faces.  England ended up with 517 runs for the loss of one wicket.  That about says it all about the Australian bowling attack in this match.  So we move on to Adelaide, site of England’s utter embarrassment four years ago.  This time around, it could be Australia with egg on its face, seeing as it looks as if they’re going to change half their bowling after the first Test.
• It’s been snowing here in London!  Gatwick’s been basically shut down for the past few days, but on the whole I’d say that London’s snow is analogous to London’s rain: basically omnipresent (at least for the last few days), but never exactly overwhelming.  The sidewalks are a mess, which has made running something of an adventure. I had hopped to get some pictures of St Pancras (surely one of London’s most gingerbread-y buildings) encrusted with snow, but I haven’t found myself nearby in daylight.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be up for at least another hour and half waiting for the Ashes to begin, so we’ll see if I can’t think up a few more things to blog about…

Pecan pie, or, Danny can do some food blogging, too

An American friend of ours in London hosted a Thanksgiving dinner last night (I think I may have been the only other American there, so I was very much the native informant), so I brought along a small contribution: chocolate pecan pie.

This was very much a collaborative effort, with the initial idea coming from a version of this made by our friend Lilly at a Thanksgiving dinner several years ago.  Becca’s dad contributed his pie-making expertise.  I also cribbed a bit from a recent issue of Cook’s Illustrated for the crust.  So it was something of an uncertain effort, especially since I couldn’t find any shortening in the local supermarket (I decided to substitute margarine instead (thinking there must be at least some affinity between the various processed-vegetable-fat solids).

 +  =

Bake for 40 minutes and you get this:

I was a bit disturbed by the size of the cracks, but after cooling they shrank considerably.  Besides, I’m not one to care that much about how something looks.  Taste is what matters, right?  If the speed with which people ate this late night is any guide, I’d say this was a success.  So, thanks Lilly and Caleb!

Your Ashes guide

For those of you who have been living under a rock (or are American), the Ashes begins today.  Or is it tomorrow?  One never really knows with events that are occurring in Australia.  If you’re on the east coast of the United States (as I suspect most of you are), it begins at 7:00 PM on Wednesday.  If you’re in England (I know there are a few of you), it’ll be midnight Wednesday/Thursday.  And if you’re in Australia, well then you don’t really need an American to tell you anything about the Ashes, do you?

Right, so what’s the Ashes?  Only the biggest cricket series in the world.  If you’ve been over to our apartment in the U.S., you’ve no doubt noticed the 3-DVD 2005 Ashes box set.  It’s kind of a big deal.  But never fear, reader, I’ll get you up to speed just in time.

What you need to know

• Still unsure about what cricket’s all about?  Can’t tell an LBW from a silly point?  Becca’s wonderful tutorial is the place to start.  The one wrinkle for the Ashes is that all these matches are of the multi-day variety, which means each team bats twice rather than just once.  And by “multi-day,” I mean up to 5 days.
• Every other year, England and Australia play each other in a 5-match series to determine world cricket supremacy.  Or so they like to think – as of right now, they’re ranked 4th and 5th in the world, so it’s more like supremacy within the mediocre ranks of Test-playing nations.  Still, if you gave most England cricket fans a choice between winning the Ashes (especially in Australia) and winning the World Cup, I’d suspect they’d choose the former.
• The winner of the series gets a (replica of) trophy.  And by trophy I mean a tiny urn.  It’s got to be the most ridiculous trophy in sports.
• The 2005 Ashes in England (which England won 2-1 in thrilling style) is widely held to be the greatest series of cricket in history.  It’s no coincidence that I started following cricket at exactly this time.
• In 2006-7, England sought to retain the Ashes when they traveled to Australia.  They failed to do so, losing 5-0 in what turned out to be the farewell series for Australian bowlers Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, two of the all-time greats.  In retrospect, the first ball of the series, bowled by England fast bowler Stephen Harmison, gave a pretty clear sense of how the whole trip would go for England.
  

  This is the equivalent of the pitcher throwing it so wide that the catcher can’t even touch it on a full dive.
• Last summer England took the Ashes back, once again winning the series 2-1 in England (and Wales).  England’s victories never seem to be as resounding as their defeats.
• So that brings us to today (or tomorrow).  England are back in Australia, convinced that this is the year when they’ll finally beat Australia in Australia.  There are some good reasons for thinking this:
  • Australia, once all-conquering marauders with cut-throat instincts, have suddenly forgotten how to close out matches. Test matches are won as a result of five days of intensity and concentration.  If Australia continue to slip up…
  • England have been playing wonderfully.  They’ve been the better team by some distance in all their warm-up matches in Australia, including the one where they didn’t play any of their best bowlers.
  • Graeme Swann.  Clearly a man who does 1,000 push-ups is unstoppable. [Watch all the way through.  Really.]
    

    The best part starts around 7:50.
• The cast of characters.  Here are some of the key players on each side.
  • England
    • Andrew Strauss – England’s South Africa-born captain and opening batsman.  You can spot him by the wedding ring he wears on a necklace.  In true captain form, you can expect plenty of bland cliches about taking each session/day/match one session/day/match at a time.
    • Jonathan Trott – England’s South Africa-born #3 batsman.  Known for the digging trenches while batting.  You can also see him in the video above at 8:35
    • Kevin Pietersen – England’s South Africa-born #4 batsman.  Typically described with words like ‘brilliant,’ ‘mercurial,’ and ‘aggravating.’  Currently sporting a mustache for Movember, though he has some aspects of the pantomime villain, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept it.  Fun facts: middle name is Peter.  Born in Pietermaritzburg.  You can’t make this stuff up.
    • Paul Collingwood – England’s Northern ginger batsman.  Typically described as a ‘nurdler’ and ‘nuggety’.  Which means, more or less, that he’s not very talented.  He’s what American baseball fans would call ‘scrappy’.  Look for him to hang around, as they say.  Also one of the world’s top fielders, although the frequency of his drops is on the increase.
    • Ian Bell – England’s Midlands ginger batsman.  He seems to have recovered from his broken foot.  Known for making very pretty 30s and 40s but then needlessly getting himself out.
    • Matt Prior – England’s South Africa-born wicketkeeper/batsman.  Not too much to say about him – steady with the bat and gloves.  I mostly just wanted to highlight the fact that England have four players born in South Africa.  South Africa, incidentally, also plays Test cricket.
    • Stuart Broad – One of England’s pretty young fast bowlers.  Turns out he can bat a bit, too, though his dancing leaves something to be desired.
    • Graeme Swann – The video above says it all, really.
  • Australia
    • Shane Watson – It is not possible to imagine someone looking more Australian.  As my friend Ivan points out, all he needs is a surfboard under his arm.  In spite of his hulking physique, known for frequent injuries and crying.
    • Ricky Ponting – Arguably the second-best Australian batsman ever.  Has something of a temper, as this clip shows.
      
      If things go poorly, his captaincy could be under threat.
    • Michael Clarke – Another injury-prone batsman who can bowl a bit.  His latest injury is a sore back, and his readiness for the first Test match remains in doubt.  Long seen as Ponting’s successor as captain, Clarke’s been the subject of some discontent in the locker room recently.
    • Mitchell Johnson, Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle, and Doug Bollinger – Australian fast bowlers of various sorts.  All seem to have a distinguishing physical characteristic, so you should be able to distinguish them pretty easily: Johnson has a narrow, aerodynamic face; Hilfenhaus always sports some manly stubble; Siddle just looks mean; Bollinger just looks goofy.  Only three of this group are likely to play in any one match.

• Staying up late watching cricket is hard work – it’s not as if there’s constant action to keep you biting your nails the whole night through.  Fortunately, the Guardian comes through with a guide to how to stay awake.  Apparently bacon and eggs are key components.

How to follow the action

• The classic English way of following the Ashes is listening to Test Match Special and its inimitable cast of characters.  You may or may not be able to listen from the US, but if you are, this is the way to go.
• Follow the ball-by-ball descriptions at cricinfo.  The Guardian’s over-by-over coverage offers a slightly more sedate pace with more jokes.  This tends to work better if you’ve got a handle on the lingo, but you can learn fast if you keep this open at all times.
• For the twitterers out there, @Aggerscricket and @Swannyg66are the ones to follow.
• If you’re really committed, you can even spring for a package from Willow TV and watch the action to your heart’s content.  It’s not cheap, but if you find yourself with a spare 150 hours over the next six weeks, why not?
• Keep reading here, of course.  Chances are I’ll be jotting down at least a few thoughts on each day’s play, especially since Becca’s not here to listen to my daily gushings.  My apologies, in advance, if the terminology rapidly becomes obscure and silly.  Feel free to ask for clarification.

What to look for

• Cricket scores are notoriously opaque to non-cricket fans.  It’s too complicated (how many wickets are down, what’s the pitch doing, etc.) to provide any easy guide, but it’s safe to say that a team scoring 100 runs in its whole innings has done very poorly and is likely on its way to a quick defeat.  Likewise, a team that puts up 500 runs in its innings is a pretty safe bet to win or at least put the other team under severe pressure.  There have been exceptions.  In general, big numbers before the slash and small numbers (say, 0-4) after it are good for the batting team.
• How many players will Australia use throughout the series?  Even on the eve of the first match, they’re basically undecided about who’s going to be playing for them.  If things go poorly in the first match, look for the Australian selectors to make significant changes in the lineup in an attempt to save face.  By that point, it may already be too late.
• If you’re listening to Test Match Special, play some Boycott bingo.  If you’ve ever wondered what a crusty old Yorkshireman sounds like, this is your chance.
• How many posts on cricket can I possibly write in a six-week period?

Churches, Chipotle, and Canaletto

With Becca back in the US securing gainful employment, I’m on my own for the next few weeks here in London.  I’ve mostly just been feverishly working away, but I took yesterday to do some things that Becca probably wouldn’t be all that interested in.  There is, of course, a limit to the number of churches I can drag her along to without prompting a few complaints.

But before I went on my church-hunting expedition, I checked out the exhibit at the National Gallery on Canaletto and his Rivals (come to think of it, a collection of nothing but vedute of 18th-century Venice might also qualify as something of a niche interest of mine).  If you’ve ever seen a painting of Venice (like this one, say), you’ve seen Canaletto, or one of his innumerable imitators.

Assuming you like Venice (it has its detractors, I know), it’s hard not to instinctively like Canaletto’s paintings.  “Look!  It’s Venice!  Just like I remember it!”  This reaction probably has more to do with the fact that Canaletto played a large role in creating what our mental image of Venice is, but no matter.  He seems to capture something of the essence of the city – the brilliant sun illuminating the Rialto, the gentle list of gondolas on canals, and all the rest.

And that’s fine, as far as it goes.  But after half a dozen pretty pictures of canals with St. Mark’s in the background, it starts to get a bit tiresome.  So I was rather hopeful about this exhibition – perhaps it would rekindle my appreciation for Canaletto?

Well, I have to say it didn’t, though it did its very best to convince me of his genius.  If anything, I came away with an even more diminished opinion of him.

That certainly wasn’t the curators’ intent.  Though the audio tour wrap-up insisted that the main point of the exhibition was to demonstrate the variety of ways that painters depicted Venice, the real argument, implicit throughout, was more along the lines of “Look at how Canaletto vanquished all his rivals!”  This might have just been for the sake of marketing – I don’t expect that many people would turn out to an exhibition extolling the virtues of Bernardo Bellotto or Michele Marieschi.  But as the review by Charles Darwent in the Independent notes, it simply treats Canaletto’s work as the norm.  It’s undoubtedly the case that Canaletto set the standard for 18th-century Grand Tourists – there’s a reason why so many works by other painters were sold under his name.  But that doesn’t mean that we have to accept that aesthetic judgment today.

Seeing his work juxtaposed with the alternatives, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Canaletto was a sell-out.  A technically proficient sell-out, to be sure, but a sell-out all the same.  He grasped what English buyers wanted and he gave it to them.  And it wasn’t simply a realistic depiction of the Venice they had come to love.  Instead, compared with other works by some of his supposedly vanquished rivals, Canaletto’s present a rather whitewashed, excessively sunny view of the city.  Even his clouds seem to glow.  If you were using his paintings as documentary evidence for the condition of Venice in the 18th century, you’d think think that the decayed grandeur we so often associate with the city now was an entirely modern phenomenon – every building seems in pristine condition (at least during his mature period; The Stonemason’s Yard, an early work, is much more interesting than any of his canal views).  But if you look at alternative depictions, there’s dirt and decay.  In other words, Canaletto was painting postcards with idealized views of the city for tourists.

That’s not to say there aren’t interesting paintings in the exhibition.  But they’re overwhelmingly from early or late in his life – before he gained fame or after he drifted back to relative obscurity.

So who comes out of the exhibition well?  Francesco Guardi, for one.  As this view of the lagoon makes clear, Guardi was interested in atmosphere in a way that Canaletto simply wasn’t.  At the risk of falling into the trap of favoring artists who seem to anticipate later developments, Guardi just feels far more modern than Canaletto.

I fear that I’ve probably exhausted the patience of my readers with these ruminations on 18th-century view paintings, so I’ll move on to the rest of the day.

So, from 18th-century Venice to 18th-century London, in the guise of St Martin-in-the-Fields.  There are classical music concerts virtually every day there, so I was fortunate enough to step in during the rehearsal for last night’s performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony by the London Musical Arts Orchestra.  The apparent distortion in the window isn’t just an effect of the photo.  It’s a new window, from 2008, by Iranian artist Shirazeh Houshiary.  In addition to incorporating a cross, it also gives the appearance of melting before your eyes, not a bad artistic choice, given that the stained glass was bombed out during the war.  In short, I think it works.

From St Martin-in-the-Fields, it was just a short walk to St James’s, Piccadilly, where yet another rehearsal was going on, this time by the London Orpheus Choir.  The light was starting to fade by this point, but there was enough for me to capture this photo showing the rather elegant Corinthian gallery resting on the rather stolid Doric base.  The church also has a really pretty baptismal font with Adam and Even that I somehow forgot to photograph.  Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can just link to one.

 

 

Next up on my list was Immaculate Conception – you guessed it, a Roman Catholic church.  Let me tell you – Mayfair late on a Saturday afternoon is dead.  There were a few moments where I couldn’t see anyone else on the street I was on – this, when I was just a few hundred yards away from the crush of Oxford Street.  I did wander across a rather lively looking pub, but if you’re looking for a quiet stroll on the weekend in central London, you could do worse than just wandering around Mayfair.  As for the church, there was a wedding about to start, so I couldn’t get in.  In spite of its medieval appearance, it was only built in the 1840s.  Before the 19th century, England wasn’t exactly the most friendly place for Catholics – they didn’t receive civil emancipation until 1829 and there wasn’t anything resembling the standard Catholic hierarchy until 1850.  Catholic revival and Gothic revival went very much hand in hand.

My final church visit of the day was up in Fitzrovia, so I wandered along Oxford Street for part of the way, enjoying some roasted chestnuts.  After crossing up to Margaret Street, I was once again struck by how quiet things can get when you escape the main shopping arteries.  So quiet, in fact, that I had about ten minutes all to myself in All Saints.  You’d be excused for thinking this was medieval, too.  In fact, it’s even later than Immaculate Conception (1859).  That’s right, more Victorian Gothic.  Though not, in this case, Catholic.  At least not Roman Catholic.  The Church of England is, as they say, a broad church, incorporating aspects of both Catholicism and Protestantism, with particular individuals and churches leaning in one direction or another.  All Saints falls firmly in the Anglo-Catholic camp, though this story (from the Wikipedia article on the church) nicely captures how the ‘Anglo’ part of that description remains important:

Fr Cyril Tomkinson (Vicar 1943-51), rebuking a visiting priest who asked for the use of the Roman Missal, said "the rule here is music by Mozart, choreography by Fortescue, decor by Comper, but libretto by Cranmer".

By this point, I was beginning to feel famished, so I made my way over to the sole Chipotle in London.  It was fantastic, as always.  They were especially generous with the guacamole, which can be a problem in particular branches back in the US. 

So there you have it: an afternoon and early evening in Westminster, complete with art criticism and lessons on 19th-century religious history and Anglican churchmanship.  Don’t worry, Becca will be back before you know it.

A Week of cooking - more recipes!

Random photo from our visit to South Kensington last night. Or, as we're now referring to it, Little Paris. South Kensington is where French people in London usually live (we were there to see a French movie that was showing as part of the UK Jewish Film Festival), though it's not clear which came first - the French population or the Continental feel. There are very few pubs in this neighborhood, but rather lots of small cafes and restaurants where the food is based around melted cheese, like these crepes we enjoyed at the Kensington Creperie.

They also do a nice dessert...


Okay, now on to the recipes from this week. First, let me just say that I didn't have much work this week. My project is in a bit of a lull until January, which works out perfectly because I have to be back in the States for a month for my residency interviews, and because no one does any work in December anyway (too busy getting drunk at Christmas parties). So this week I had lots of time to plan and cook yummy things for dinner. And I figure I have to cook as much as I can this year, because when intern year hits I can kiss this cushy, quasi-academic lifestyle goodbye. We'll go by days of the week.

Sunday: Ottolenghi's chargrilled cauliflower with tomato, dill and capers. This was incredibly flavorful and fresh. I made some adjustments to his recipe, which I'll point out.

Ingredients: 2 tbs capers, drained and chopped; 1 tbs French wholegrain mustard; 2+ garlic cloves, crushed or chopped very fine; 2 tbs cider vinegar; 120ml olive oil; 1 small-medium head cauliflower, divided into florets; 1 tbs chopped dill (I actually left this out because didn't have any, and it was still fine); 50+ g baby spinach or spinach chopped small; 20g cherry tomatoes, halved; sea salt and pepper

1. Start roasting the tomatoes. The original recipe says to just throw the tomatoes in at the end, but ever since Laura introduced us to oven-roasted tomatoes we just can't get enough. Mix the cut cherry tomatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper, then put them in the oven (cut side up in a roasting pan) at 400.

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In the meantime, make the dressing by hand or in a food processor. First mix the capers, mustard, garlic, vinegar and salt and pepper. While whisking or processing, add about 60ml olive oil in a slow trickle until the dressing is creamy (mine never became creamy, but it was still delicious).

3. When the salted water has come to a boil, add the cauliflower florets. Simmer for 3 minutes, then drain and allow the cauliflower to dry. When dry, mix with olive oil and salt and pepper.

4. To cook the cauliflower you can do one of two things - either cook it under a broiler or on the stove in a pan over very high heat. Either way, allow the pan to get very hot, then add the cauliflower, in several batches if necessary, making sure that the florets are not too cramped. Turn them the ensure even grilling.

5. In the meantime, rinse the spinach and steam it, using just the water clinging to the leaves. I just brought a small frying pan to high heat and threw the spinach in for a few minutes until it was wilted. Again, Ottolenghi just says to add the spinach, uncooked, at the end, but I think if you're not using tender baby spinach, you'll want to cook it a bit first.

5. When the cauliflower is grilled, transfer to a bowl and add the spinach, dressing, and tomatoes, which should now be cooked and getting wrinkly. Adjust seasoning and serve hot!

Monday: Beans and Rice with assorted veggies. I was really excited about making a red lentil soup, but when it came time to add the red lentils I realized we were out of them. Danny generously offered to go out and buy some, but I was feeling grumpy and thought we should just go with beans and rice, which turned out to be quite good. As I was planning on making soup, I thought I would make a nice veggie stock first, using all the extra green bits that come with farmers market produce.

Ingredients: olive oil; 1 large yellow onion; 4+ cloves garlic; red hot chili peppers to taste; 3 small celery stalks; 2-3 carrots; 1 red pepper; 1 cup brown rice; 1 cup pre-cooked or canned beans of any kind (or, or course, you could use lentils instead of the rice and/or beans); cumin, salt 'n' pepper. Cilantro and yogurt for topping. Assorted veggies/green for stock (see below)

1. Make veggies stock. I have no set recipe for this, but it generally looks something like this: gather all the inedible/tough bits of greenery (the spinach stalks, tops of celery, greens surrounding cauliflower), maybe add some carrots or parsnips, throw into a pot with bay leaves and/or fresh herbs, sea salt and a bunch of water, then cook until the water is green and fragrant and the green bits look like they've have all the vitamins drawn out of them. Discard the solid bits and voila - veggie stock! For the record, I used the skinny, leafy bits of a small bunch of celery, the tough bits of 2 leeks, the green, leafy bits that surround a head of cauliflower, the stems of a bunch of cilantro, and a handful of fresh sage and thyme.

2. Chop all the veggies in advance, then saute everything in olive oil, adding them in this order: onions until soft, garlic for about 30 seconds, then carrots and celery until softened, then red pepper. Add salt and pepper and cumin to taste (about 1 tsp cumin to start)

3. When all the veggies are soft (but not limp), add the cup of rice and stir to coat in oil. Add 2-3 cups of stock, depending on how liquidy you want the final product. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer until rice is cooked. Adjust liquid as necessary.

4. Stir in the beans and season with salt and pepper to taste. Continue to add stock if you want, add additional spices as you wish. Serve with yogurt and cilantro.


Tuesday: Grilled coconut kale and rice noodles with peanut sauce. I discovered this kale recipe in the NY times recently (along with a funny article in praise of vegetables), and was excited to try it - I've spend the last few years trying to figure out a way to cook kale in a way that I *want* to eat, rather than just feel like I *should* eat. Well, this was a winner. Sometimes we're content just to eat a pile of greens for dinner, but after waking up hungry at 5am after eating only cauliflower for dinner on Sunday, I decided that the kale should be accompanied by something, and our old favorite of rice noodles with peanut sauce seemed the perfect companion. See above link for the kale recipe - but just a warning, the kale is supposed to marinate for 4+ hours, so plan accordingly! Also, there will be a lot of extra coconut marinade left when you're done. Save it! I used this extra for the coconut milk in the peanut sauce, and in Friday's dinner (see below). I also saved the kale stalks to use in a future stock (pun?), and ended up throwing them into Friday's dinner as well.

Rice noodles with Thai peanut sauce, from “The Voluptuous Vegan”

Ingredients: 5-7oz rice noodles; 1 cup coconut milk (or extra coconut marinade from the kale!); 2 stalks lemongrass; 3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter; 2 tsp maple syrup; 2 garlic cloves, minced; 1/4 cup soy sauce; 2 tbs fresh lime juice; 1 tsp lime zest; 1 jalapeno; 1/2 tsp salt; scallions; cayanne pepper to taste; chopped peanuts, cilantro.

Additional note - I didn't use lemongrass, and it was just fine.

1. Place rice noodles in a bowl. Pour boiling water over and let sit 10 min.

2. If using lemongrass, combine coconut milk and lemongrass in a saucepan and bring to boil. Turn off heat and let steep for 10 min. Strain out lemongrass.

3. Whisk all other ingredients into the coconut milk.

4. Drain rice noodles and serve with sauce – toss to mix well.Top with chopped peanuts and cilantro, if desired.

Wednesday: Ottolenghi's (again!) Roast potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes with lemon and sage. Yum. Neither of us had ever eaten Jerusalem artichokes before, but they seem to be really big here (ie. our farmers market has them). They are a root vegetable and they have a much crunchier, fresher texture than potatoes, but don't have a very distinctive flavor, which means they absorb flavor nicely (the tofu of the root vegetable world, if you will). Back when I ate meat I really liked the aunt's lemon chicken, and I found that this recipe is a good replacement for it. I think next time I will add some onions at the beginning of the roasting pan, so I encourage you to do the same. The recipe is not difficult, but spends a lot of time roasting, so plan in advance. A simple salad with fresh greens, pumpkin seeds and the ash-coated goat cheese was the perfect complement.

Ingredients: 1 lb Jersey Royals or other small potatoes; 1 lb Jerusalem artichokes; 4 garlic cloves, chopped; 50ml olive oil, 2 tbs roughly chopped sage; 1 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp pepper; 1 lemon; 1/2 lb cherry tomatoes; 1/2 cup Kalamata olive, pitted and sliced in half (I actually used green olives); 2tbs rough chopped flat leaf parsley.

1. Preheat the oven to 400. Wash the potatoes well and place in a saucepan. Cover with salted water and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 20 minutes, until semi-cooked. Drain, cool, then slice into rounds. Place in a large roasting pan.

2. Wash the artichokes well and cut them into slices about 5mm thick. Add to roasting pan. Add the garlic, olive oil, sage, salt and pepper to the vegetables. Mix with your hands, then place in the oven for 30 minutes.

3. In the meantime, thinly slice the lemon and remove the pits. After the 30 minutes of roasting add the lemon slices and stir. Roast for 20 minutes.

4. After the 20 minutes, add the tomatoes and olives, stir again and roast for 15 more minutes.

5. Remove from oven and stir in parsley. Serve hot.


Thursday: Leftovers :)


Friday: Mixed vegetable curry, I guess I'll call it. This dinner was my attempt to use a bunch of veggies that had been hanging around the fridge all week, as well as the leftover spicy coconut milk marinade from the kale. It actually turned out as good as it was in my head! If you haven't made the kale but want to try this curry, you could just mix a can of coconut milk with 2 tbs lemon juice, 1 tbs salt, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, and 1/2 tsp paprika and I think you'd be okay.

Ingredients: 2 tbs vegetable oil, 4+ garlic cloves, 1 inch ginger root, 1+ hot pepper, 1 large onion, 2 zucchini, 2 carrots, 1 red pepper, 1 leek, leftover kale stems (optional), 2 cups water about 1 cup coconut milk marinade; salt and pepper. Oh, and rice noodles!

1. Chopping first: onions into thick slices, garlic, ginger and hot pepper into almost-paste, zucchini and carrots into half moons, leeks into thick strips, red pepper into chunks. Chopping everything first mean that you don't end up overcooking things because you're not done chopping the next ingredients (which has been a problem for me in the past).

2. More veggie stock! I mostly did this a) because I wanted to pre-cook the veggies and we don't have a steamer, and 2) because I thought I would need more liquid to add to the coconut milk. I basically did this: bring 2 cups water to a boil in a small pot. Add the carrots, cook for a few minutes until soft but not falling apart, remove from water with a slotted spoon and let drain. When water returns to a boil repeat with zucchini and kale stem. Now you have pre-cooked veggies and some delicious cooking liquid!

3. Heat the oil in a large pan. When hot, add the onions and stir until slightly soft. Add the garlic/ginger/hot pepper mix and stir until fragrant. Add the red pepper and leeks and cook until softened. Add the rest of the pre-cooked veggies, the coconut milk mix, and as much of the veggie stock as you wanted (depending on how soupy you want it). Save the rest of the stock for future cooking adventures. Simmer until everything is heated through and the desired softness, about 5 minutes.

4. In the meantime, boil water to cook the rice noodles according to their instructions. Usually this is bring the water the a boil, add the noodles and remove from heat. Let sit until noodles soften.

5. Pour curry mixture over noodles in a large bowl and slurp your way to happiness.


Well, there you have it - 5 yummy dinners that I hope you will enjoy, too!