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!

An evening in Leicester Square

Most days, it’s actually relatively easy to forget that we live in a huge, global city.  We wake up in our quiet neighborhood, I go off to the archives (I’m at the National Archives these days, which means I’m never near central London), Becca goes to her office (or works from home), and we’re back in our quiet neighborhood at 7 or 8 o’clock at night.

But then there are days when you come across this:

 

Those are flames, by the way, not just over-exposed bright lights.

(See here for far better photos.)

I don’t think we would have made a special trip to Leicester Square just for the premiere, but a friend of a friend was in London for the red carpet festivities, so we figured we’d go along and see what all the fuss was about.

If anything, I was struck by how small the whole thing was.  For the world premiere of the latest installment of a film franchise that’s already made more than a billion dollars, I’d expect teeming masses.  But instead, it was probably no more than a few hundred people, maybe a thousand.  The terrible weather surely had something to do with that.

But among the fans that were there, there was passion.  Every few minutes a cheer went up for yet another minor character.  Outside of Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Felton (aka Draco aka Stuart Broad) probably got the biggest cheer of all.

A few more thoughts:

• Emma Watson – shouldn’t she be in class?
• Ian McKellen – We’re not sure why he was there.  But, as Becca put it, perhaps he simply has lifetime wizarding credentials.  UPDATE: As Kathy points out in the comments, this is, of course, a picture of John Hurt.  But in our defense, the Guardian had it wrong initially, too.
• The Brothers Phelps – Glad to see they’re not pushing the identical angle too hard.
• Tom Felton was really pushing the English country gentleman look.  Apparently he wants to study fishery management (when was the last time you heard an American actor say something like that?), so I think he can just pull it off.

England...the Land of Beer and Tea...kind of

Random photo from September. We went to 0 Longitude!



When American's think of England, then tend to think of stereotypes (terrible teeth made up for by adorable accents, polite queing, adoration of the royal family except for Charles), many of these stereotypes coming from Hollywood ("I feel like I'm living in a Hugh Grant movie" - Kirsten, our most recent awesome houseguest). Some, but not all, of these turn out to be true (newsflash! In London, no one forms a queue). However, the stereotypes about beer and tea are absolutely true. The pub is completely central to English life, and tea is completely central to any work or social gathering, or really any personal encounter (I was recently offered tea when I went to pick up my new suit jacket from the tailor). However, both of these come with caveats that I feel are worth explaining.

I was so excited for drinking beer in England. Finally, a land not ruled by Budwiser and Coors and Miller! Going to a pub with multiple beers I'm excited about drinking! Not having to listen to Danny whine about what a terrible word "drinkability" is! While the first and third of those statements have proven to be correct, I've been disappointed in the beer selection, both at pubs and at beer stores.

Okay, so first a little background. There are two kinds of pubs here: "free houses", which can serve whichever beer they want, and pubs owned by a brewing company (generally one of the big English companies, like Youngs or Greene King). Most free houses will have two or maybe three "real ales," and then a selection of continental favorites like Amstel and Heinekin. (And always Peroni. Why do the Italians even bother making beer when they do everything else so well? well, except politics.) Now don't get me wrong, I'd much rather have Heinekin than Bud Light, but it just leaves something to be desired. Pubs owned by a brewer will whatever range of beers that brewer makes (which usually includes something darkish, several ales, maybe a lager), which is okay, but I always feel like I'm buying beer from The Man when I end up at one of these pubs. What's curious is that our trips to the lake district and several CAMRA beer festivals have shown that the UK makes lots of delicious beer, it just doesn't tend to show up in London pubs. I guess this is just my way of saying that I miss Sam Adams and Harpoon and Smuttynose and Brooklyn Brewery...

However, I should add that I still really enjoy our local pubs - we consider ourselves lucky enough to have five pubs close enough to be "local" - The Star, The Dartmouth Arms, The Lord Palmerston, The Bull and Last, The Southampton Arms. Here's the quick rundown of each pub, complete with the nickname that Danny has given each one. Points if you can figure out how each one was derived! (Sorry for the repetition from one of Danny's earlier posts, but I think that speaks to how great English pubs are!)

The Star - no nickname here. This one is just around the corner, so it's our go-to pub for a weeknight pint. It's quiet during the week, but it serves great food and is a trendy place to be come the weekend! The only pub where we know the manager by her first name.

The Dartmouth Arms (aka Al's Posse) - The less trendy heart of Dartmouth Park, this place shows football, has board games, and does an amazing plate of chips. It also has really funky pink flowered wallpaper, and we're just dying to try out their breakfast.

The Lord Palmerson (aka The Tap) - We walk by it every day on the way to the tube/bus, so when it's time for a drink we're less inclined to head back in that direction, but it also has a casual, local feel.

The Bull and Last (aka the Cow and First...okay that nickname's not as complicated) - we've only ever been once, and it has a fairly typical beer selection, but it's the menu that really got us excited to go back. Lots of yummy-sounding veggie options, and they've written all their local food suppliers on the wall, which is a good sign. We tried to go for lunch last Sunday and they said they weren't taking new food orders because the kitchen was too busy. It's a good sign for the quality of the food, but what is that supposed to mean? Aren't you in the food service industry?

The Southampton Arms (aka The Attempt) - Danny was singing the praises of this one in an earlier post about our pub crawl, but I'll repeat. This is where the real beer is. All from small breweries, all real ale and real cider (though real cider is actually pretty gross), and the staff really knows their beer. When Mark asked for "the hoppiest beer you've got", they knew exactly which ones to recommend. Unfortunately, when it comes to hoppiness, English beers just can't compete with American ones. Such is the plight of those brought up on Harpoon IPA.

But back to the main point about generally limited beer selection (The S.A. not withstanding)...the phenomenon is curiously repeated when it comes to tea. Tea is everywhere. At work, no one shows up to a meeting without a cuppa, and everyone who couldn't bring their own is immediately offered one (and never in anything other than a proper mug). Every tense situation on soap operas is accompanied with a plea along the lines of, "Don't leave! Let me just put on the kettle and we can discuss this!" And it's also totally normal to order tea in a pub. But the English are not really into fancy tea. I would guess that most households just have a stock of unremarkable English Breakfast, and that's it. And you'll rarely even hear people refer to it as English Breakfast. To them it's just...tea. I was doing fine with this model for a while (plus mint tea to have at night), but recently I've gotten desperate for something more complex, and we've gotten some earl grey and chai.

I guess I would say that when it comes to tea, it's really much more about the experience of tea than the flavor of tea. Something that makes you feel calm and safe, something to warm up those blustry English days, something that makes you pause for a moment to appreciate a curling whisp of steam rising off a milky lake. and that's tea I can believe in.

Cheeses of England #4: Ash-coated goat cheese

Random photo: recycling is run!



I know, we haven't posted a new cheese since August (!), but don't think for a minute that we've been depriving ourselves of cheese since the last post. We've been enjoying lots of unpasturized cheddar, more blue vein cheddar, some more Romanian cow's cheese, we just haven't written about any of those.

But today I want to share with you our new favorite, Nut Knowle Farm's award-winning ash-coated aged goat cheese. It's super creamy with the bite of an aged cheese and the smokiness of, well, ash. We enjoy it spread on crusty breads (like the walnut levain featured here), crumbled into soups or stews, and in salads (well, I do, anyway). If you can find something similar near where you live, I'd definitely give it a try!

From the National Archives

It’s true.  The British do love their sausage.

Recent photos

Our friend Lianna threw a Halloween party.  Following Becca’s genius inspiration, we went as the Man in Black and Princess Buttercup.  From, of course, my favorite movie.  Those of you who are also Star Wars fans might enjoy this.

Becca at Lord’s, the home of cricket.  The pavilion is behind her, and if you look closely, you can see the famous slope.

Regent’s Park has some gorgeous flowers, even in October.

From the gorgeous to the… not-gorgeous.  Bonus points to those who can identify my mustachioed companion.  Photo credit to Becca, who had the patience to put up with my insistence that she take dozens of pictures of me in this ridiculous get-up.

Primary Care Across the Globe! part 3

Return of the random photo, this time from from the Queen's Wood (N10), last Saturday. Sadly, this is about as dramatic as the fall leaves are here in London. Growing up in the Northeast spoils one for fall colors!


Okay, this is the last post in the current series about primary care clinics. I did visit a 4th clinic last week, shadowing a GP I met at the Oxford conference on health policy, but nothing to report about that. Well, okay, two things to report. 1) It was awesome to see patients again! and to use my stethoscope! 2) It still gives me a thrill to be introduced to patients as "a visiting doctor from the United States", and to be able to provide "two doctors for the price of one," as she said (the price of one, of course, is £0).

But the main focus of this post is my experiences in Denmark, when I went with my host mom to the GP clinic where she works as a nurse. The clinic has 4 GPs and 2 nurses, all of whom were incredibly friendly and welcoming. Danny spent the morning reading in the conference room, and it seemed like one of the GPs was popping in every 20 minutes to chat with him, mostly about the only place in the US he had been (Boise, Idaho). I think I would be a pretty happy GP too if I had a 20 minute scheduled mid-morning break to enjoy a cup of tea and some fresh bread with cheese. Whether this is standard practice in Danish general practice or just happened at this clinic I don't know, but I could certainly get used to it. Just two main points about this visit.

1) The casual nature. I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but no one in the UK wears a white coat. Not because they don't like to, but because they've been banned. The white coat, with it's dragging sleeves and lack of regular washing, essentially turns the wearer into a walking drug-resistant bacteria petri dish, and no about of gravitas is worth that. But it Denmark they take to a new level. Not only do they not wear white coats, or ties, but they are perfectly comfortable wearing jeans and sneakers. In fact, most of the male GPs were wearing black jeans and plaid short-sleeve button-down shirts. It was pretty sweet. The relationships between the staff and the patients was incredibly jovial and relaxed; I don't know how much of this is due to the Danish sense of humor, lots of longitudinal relationships, but some of it could be due to a lack of pretense that the doctors emitted (while still emitting confidence).

2) Freestyle, as needed health care. I think there is a fear in this county that with a government-run health care plan would come scores of regulations about the services that physicians have to provide, how often they have to provide them, and demands that patients "consume" health care in a certain way. And the UK is moving in this direction - all patients over 40 are expected to be seen once a year, and certain "screening" data is supposed to be collected (cholesterol, BP, weight, fasting glucose, etc). Of course, the ironic thing is that this is already the norm in the US, even without regulation. Because of the defensive and perhaps excessive way medicine is practiced in the US you can't walk into a clinic without getting a full range of vital signs taken (I just heard of a friend who had an EKG done as part of a routine checkup as a totally healthy 24 year-old!), whereas in the UK blood pressure is only measured if it is related to the presenting complaint (or now as part of scheduled screening or follow-up).

But in Denmark, which is even more of a scary Socialist country, these regulations are close to zero. No rules about how often you have to go in for a checkup (my host father hasn't seen a doctor in 20 years), no rules about checking cholesterol and blood pressure on patients that the doctor has no concerns about. At first I couldn't believe this. What about public health?! What about screening for "silent" diseases?! But I think the chart below, which I posted as a comment to an earlier blog, says it all:



Better outcomes for less money? Um, yes please. Interestingly, Denmark is "behind" much of the rest of Western Europe when it comes to life expectancy, so there is clearly room for improvement, but the point is that it's not lagging behind the US (in fact, it's marginally higher), and for much lower expenditure per capita. Of course, life expectancy is not the only measure of health outcomes, but I think it's a good place to start, no?

My point here is mainly that even within "socialized medicine", there is lots of variation in what a program can look like, and more specifically, it doesn't have to mean that the government is telling you or your doctor how to make every health decision. Besides, private insurance companies already do that, so it really shouldn't be such a scary idea for Americans...

Primary Care Across the Globe! part 2

2. Luton. When I say the Detroit of England, I mean that it used to have several industries based in the area (car manufacturing and hat making) that have since left. What they've left behind is a huge problem with unemployment, homelessness, and drug abuse. But what Luton has the Detroit doesn't, is a large influx of recent immigrants. While most of them are young and relatively healthy, their presence adds an added complication to being a GPs in Luton, because many of them don't speak English (and for GPs to learn a bit of Urdu AND Bengali AND Arabic AND Polish is quite a tall order), and as I recently learned, because many of them are young and healthy, there has been a huge demand for more maternity services. And between the homeless population and the immigrant population, this clinic has decided that a dedicated TB nurse is necessary. oy. But this is what I love about general practice - you have to be ready for anything.

I shadowed a GP for the morning, then spent the afternoon chatting with some folks at the clinic - the practice manager (deals with $$ and staffing issues), the information system expert (deals with the medical record), his trainee (the equivalent of a 2nd or 3rd year primary care resident), etc, and there were some interesting things that I thought were worth sharing.

Electronic medical records. They're becoming the norm in the US and the UK, but for the most part they're only available within the clinic or hospital system you practice in. Well, England is making a go of a national computerized medical record - the Summary Care Record. So far, the plan is that it will contain some demographic information, a list of medications, and a list of allergies. So, the story goes, if you were rushed to the Accident and Emergency (ER, for us) anywhere in the country, the doctor could easily see "Hey, she's on insulin!" or "Hey, this guy had heparin induced thrombocytopenia!", even if you were unconscious and had no one with you. This ideal has been talked about for a LONG time in the US, but we're not really getting any closer to it. People are very concerned about privacy and security of records, which is reasonable, and it's obviously imperative that security be a cornerstone of the project. That fear is here as well (there is the option to opt out of the summary care record, just like you can opt out of chlamydia screening), and I read a recent letter in the British Journal of General Practice, by a GP, urging all other GPs and patients to opt out due to security concerns. nice. So it will be interesting to see if/how England really pulls this off, if they will be adding more information to the record in the future, and if America will follow suit.

Private insurance, and why you might get it. All right, I'll admit it: people here do wait longer for non-emergency surgeries, and sometimes there are more stringent criteria for who is allowed to have a procedure. The IT woman I was talking to gave the example of her father-in-law. He was old, he wanted a hit replacement, but the NHS wouldn't cover him because he was too overweight. I guess the assumption is that a hip replacement isn't absolutely necessary, and more importantly, being overweight that would greatly reduce his chances of a good result from the surgery (recovering from a hip replacement is a lot of work!). Now, some people would argue that this is the government making a moral judgment, that maybe the NHS is saying that this person got their hip problems because they are overweight and now they don't deserve a replacement. Some people would call it rationing. The NHS, I believe, would argue that they are just trying to only pay for procedures that will lead to better health outcomes (imagine that!). But at any rate, the father-in-law was able to buy private insurance that would help him pay for his surgery, and soon. Because he had just purchased the insurance for the sole purpose of the surgery (wait, isn't that an underlying condition???), he had to pay more out of pocket for the procedure. If he had been paying for a little extra insurance for many years, he would have paid less for the surgery. This whole situation with private insurance does lead to a situation where the wealthy get more access to some specialty care, that's true. But the point of the NHS is that everyone receives basic, necessary, high-quality care for free or cheap.

Foreign MDs. At Swarthmore, there was an orthopedic surgeon who working in the dining hall. No joke. He was from South Asia, and he was serving up our tacos, pizza, and other delightful entrees of college dining while he studied for his exams to get certified as a doctor in the US. There was an Indian resident on my surgery rotation who was repeating most of her residency (!!!) in the US so she could practice there. Now, I don't know what the exact rules are for coming to either country, but talking to this trainee (who was from India), it was clear that it is fairly straightforward to come to the UK to practice from other countries. She has started her residency in India, then came to the UK and started right up again where she had left off. Maybe it's because their education systems are similar, maybe it's Colonial guilt, maybe it's the honest recognition that doctors from other countries can also have exceptional training, but I was stuck by the simplicity she recounted in getting qualified as a doctor in the UK vs. in the US. And this actually works out well in terms of having doctors and patients who speak the same language.

Lastly, I had lots of conversations with people about healthcare in the US. First of all, except for those people who have made a career of studying it, they have no idea what it's like (even most people in healthcare in the UK don't really get it. Who can blame them?). And when I explain it to them, they are horrified. People go into debt for medical bills? They had debt collectors calling them daily? 45 million uninsured? even kids??? I think that a lot of Americans imagine that the English are jealous of our fancy healthcare in the US, with our abundance of MRI machines and slews of specialists, but in my talking to people one thing has become clear: they would NEVER give up the NHS to have any of that. Just something to ponder as states amend their constitutions such that they won't have to follow the new healthcare reform legislation...

Primary Care Across the Globe! part 1

Okay, so across the globe is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did have the pleasure of observing and talking to people in three primary care clinics in two countries in the past month or so, and I have some thoughts. The first clinic was in our neighborhood, and I was there as a patient (just routine stuff). The second was in Luton, a city north of London which I now affectionately think of to as the Detroit of England. The third was in the aformentioned "Socialist" country of Denmark, where my host mom is a nurse in a GP clinic. We'll take them in order, and I'll try to keep this interesting to people who don't want to spend their lives studying primary care organization and delivery (which is I think all but one of you).

1. Parliament Hill Surgery (in the UK, "surgery" is both the profession of slicing people open, and the physical building in which doctors work) is just your average GP clinic in London. A handfull of GPs, two receptionists with dodgy mastery of English, and a few nurses who give flu shots, see patients with minor illnesses, offer smoking cessation advice, take out stitches, and follow-up with patients with stable chronic diseases like diabetes and asthma and hypertension (did I mention my mad respect for nurses? I have mad respect for nurses.).

There are a few notable things I got out of this experience (well, notable for an American, anyway). One is, and this is what many people imagine and fear when they think about "Socialized Medicine", is that you don't have unlimited choice of which doctor you see. In the US you are limited by who takes you insurance, and of course the extent of this limitation depends on what your insurance is. In the UK, you are limited by geography. In the original incarnation of the NHS, every GP was given a list of patients that lived around them, and they were responsible for the health of these people. Everyone on that list had to go to that local GP for healthcare (or, free healthcare, anyway). And if you needed the care of a specialist or a hospital, they would tell you where to get that care. As the system modernized, "choice" got added to the NHS. Now there are multiple surgeries that will accept you as a patient, but it is still limited: many clinic websites have a map of the area they serve, and you have to bring proof of address when you first show up to the clinic. There is now choice in specialist or hospital care as well, although if you live in a rural area that choice is probably more theoretical and real (but that's the same for any rural area, with any healthcare system).

In addition to having to give proof of address, you have to "register" with the surgery, which means going in and filling out forms. These forms, in addition to the standard questions one finds on registration form of all sort, include information about family history, personal medical history, as well as questions about smoking, alcohol, drug use, and the option to opt-out of routine chlamydia screening for women 18-25. I found myself contemplating whether I wanted to opt out or not ("Well, I'm really not at risk for chlamydia, but then again I want to be supportive of their public health efforts...") when I realized that I'm too old to be considered "high risk". Which I guess is a good thing? Anyway, it got me thinking about these written tools we use to screen for problems as diverse as asthma, depression and alcohol abuse. Even when problems can be quantified, as in alcoholic drinks/week, how do we pick a cutoff of 7 drinks/week for women as the difference between "normal" and "problem" drinking? I know, I know, these tools are validated, tested on a larger population, tweaked, and tested again. But despite the fact that screening tools like this fall into the realm of what I am studying this year (GPs delivering public health), filling out these forms for myself made me realized the impossibility of it all - how can we decide just from a form who might be depressed, or who may be in an abusive relationship? The answer, of course, is that these forms will never be the only method of diagnosis - luckily we still have caring, thoughtful GPs to care for our patients.

Whew, I guess that wasn't really specific to healthcare in the UK, other than the fact that the NHS loves for GPs to gather data about patients. In fact, the biggest quality measures (upon which hefty payments are based) for GP are just based on keeping good records of patients with chronic diseases and keeping up to date with regular health checks for healthy adults. But more on this later, if you're interested.

Okay, for both my sake and for yours, I'm doing to break this post up into 3 different posts about primary care. I should point out that you should feel free to ask questions about the UK healthcare system (or the American healthcare "system", for that matter), if you have them. After this series I promise we'll get back to the fun stuff, like cheese and beer.

Stay with us...

Where have we been?

Hi folks,

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I wish we had a good excuse, like we were traveling Europe for 15 days or were just so busy with our research that we couldn't stoop so low as to write a simple blog post. But no, our departure from blogging has been due to 4 mundane things:

1. Danny's computer has been being repaired for the last 2 weeks. The saga has been much longer and more complicated than that, but we'll spare you the boring details. Just know that when they finally returned his laptop after replacing the motherboard, they neglected to also return the power cord. Laptop - powercord = desk decoration. And obviously he can't possibly write a blog post on a Mac. Good heavens, no.

2. I had a cold and spend a few days doing nothing but putting my head under a towel over a pot of steaming water. Another good sinus-clearing option that I've never had the guts to try is the Neti pot.

3. I've just finished a really excellent novel, called White Teeth, which kept me unable to concentrate on anything else for a while. It's the impressive first book by Zadie Smith, and it delves into the lives of first-generation Londoners, trying to find their place in the swirling mass of ethnicities that is London, all with their own history and family circumstances. It's a vague description, I know, but the book tries to do so much (and succeeds!) that's it's hard to sum up. Suffice it to say, if you're looking for a really good read and are keen to better understand London, this book would be a good place to start.

4. Umm... I'm embarrassed to say this, but Danny and I have finally broken out our 2-person card game version of Settlers of Catan, and we're hooked. For a while it was looking like every game would be be a nail-biter, but lately I've been running up the score. We'll see if Danny can recover tonight!

We did manage a trip during all that, up to Glasgow to visit our friend Barnie. You can check out our facebook photo album (if you haven't already) to get a taste, but the short version is: it was shockingly sunny and warm, the city is surprisingly nice, we didn't eat haggis or hear bagpipes, but we did drink whisky. And there was much rejoicing.