Benishoga’s Birthday

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With grand aplomb I am pleased to announce another installation of Zukémono’s Adventures Beyond Culture.  Thanks to Andy Gladstone for this magnificent piece of creative prose.  Andy took some of my own memories and remixed them into his maybe-not-so imaginary heroine’s creative endeavours.  So please enjoy the following perhaps-rather plausible series of indomitable events.

 

 

Zukemono awoke (as if that begins to cover it) with the dawning of the day.

eagerly bounding from her bed refreshed, excited, energetic, imbued with the dream she had so smilingly snoozed into reality.  a dream which ceded no ground, paid no credence and proffered no nevermind to the alleged duality of awake/asleep.  holistically speaking, our girl could never be bound by the unwholesome restraints of a black/white, “this is it & that’s all there is” seriousness of a culture that has confused wisdom with the ability to jam a round world into ever shrinking square containers, regardless of the damage done.  sure those boxes could be neatly stacked, and, from a full frontal view, do indeed appear to be ever so properly & logically constructed.  however, a quick peak behind those frigid boxes (& whom who knew would not expect Zukemono to pull back the curtain) reveals our precious spirituality oozing out the back.  the infinite and ever expanding laws of the universe cannot be so easily constrained by the transient powers that be, those purveyors of modern rationale, no matter how strong their current tenuous grasp.  their folly no different than the oft repeated myth that all we paid was trinkets for the island of Manhattan, when in fact the cost included an ever increasing diminution of our decency, the further sacrificing of our soul, and the additional ravaging of the richness & depth of the knowledge that we are all one.

 

Benishoga awoke, just as his cousin Zukemono had seen in her dream.  rocking to & fro, at one with the clattering of the iron horse along the steel tracks, softly drifting his gaze out the massive window into the world of wonder which is deepest China.  a potpourri of brilliant images filled his head, overwhelming his senses.  towering glaciers miraculously rising over desert sand, tattooed with ancient cave paintings deep within their frozen bellies, five hundred year old marketplaces framed by thousand year old city gates, a town linked by terraced grapevines and ancient waterways along which groups of women slowly simmered horseshoe crabs.  yes, horseshoe crabs, biologically more closely related to spiders than crabs, categorized as “living fossils” for their status as the last remnants of a once proud & enormous biological family, dating back over 250,000,000 (some say 400,000,000) years and whose rare blue-blood (calm down you jealous red-blooded european noblemen, a fact’s a fact) is today considered a medical miracle with properties which may, dear reader, one day save your very life.

 

a deep thirst welled up inside Benishoga, as if; blazing desert sun had parched tongue and throat, fiery desert sand had infiltrated each & every breath, glistening waters cascading off majestic glaciers were an isolated unknowable delight.  he did not yet suspect that his desiccated longing was a mere magical prelude to the manifestation of a dream.  he reached around his seat feeling for his tea jar, wrapped within a ball jar cozy which had been lovingly crocheted by Zukemono as a bon voyage gift.  securing the jar, he headed towards the front of the rail car and the old-fashioned thermos of steaming “kai shui” (open water) to add to the tea leaves in his jar.  as he lurched forward he suddenly felt quite hungry.  this mysterious hunger appeared as swiftly as had his overwhelming thirst and still, he remained unaware of the mirthfully magical powers at play in his longings.  he slowly poured the scalding water into his jar, fully appreciating his cousin’s cozy which permitted him to hold the jar with no discomfort, and made his way back to his seat.  he sank down with a welcome sigh & closed his eyes for a moment.  a vision of his favorite boyhood treat danced in his head as with sight gone, hunger, for the moment, ruled the roost.

as Benishoga opened his eyes, his mouth too opened wide with surprise.  on his small table, built in to the railcar, next to the open window, adventure had surely begun.  a gilded platter of brilliantly colored (and beloved) umeboshi (pickled plums) danced beside his freshly poured steaming tea.  slowly, a smile of loving recognition spread across his face.  with the dawn of the day came the dawn of the realization that Zukemono was making merry magic.  at that very moment, as if she sat beside him, he heard her whisper “happy birthday cousin” and felt her kiss his cheek.

 

his silent thank yous echoed off the glaciers, majestically rising above the dry arid desert, and rode the four winds to simultaneously arrive at Zukemono’s door.

 

 

 

It Burns So Good… Amazing Apple Pie

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I had a bucket of apples in my kitchen.  They looked delish, well I thought so and so did a bevy of teensy little flies.  In the past I would have just gone on autopilot and gone into the zone, the peel, core, slice zone, then thrown the lot into a heavy pan with a dab of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice and badabing – applesauce.  I wanted something different for my apples this year.

My lunch today: Apple Butter, olive oil, salad greens and goat cheese.  It was amazing.  So I settled on apple butter and apple pie.  But more first on the apple butter.

The process is similar…  now for applesauce I leave the skins on cos I’m a little lazy and cos someone told me to keep my veggies and fruits as close to their original nature as possible for the full spectrum of nutritional benefits.  For the apple butter you simply must remove the skins.  It’s a texture thing.  So my apples denuded were thrown into my heavy cast iron skillet with a little more butter than i would normally put in applesauce…  I know they are going to cook a lot longer.  I put them on medium low heat, and kept an eye on them…  for a bit.  Well for a little bit till my daughter told me to come and check this cool thing out on the internets…  half of an hour later…  my husband comes home from work and I wake up from singing Beatles songs with Kailee and there’s a rather sweet and slightly burnt smell coming from the kitchen.  The bottom layer of my apples had burnt themselves onto the pan.  I gave them a good stir and tasted…  and what a surprise….  burnt caramel apples.  I let them cook for another 20 minutes or so put in a dash of sea salt for good measure and transferred the apples into the crock pot to simmer on low all night long.  What a treat…  perhaps I’m mellowing in my age, perhaps I’m assuming some grace but in the past i would have used the burned treat as an opportunity to self flagellate and give my naughty inner beatle maniac a serious dressing down.  Instead I allowed curiosity to get the better of insecurity and my result was I think the most complex and magnificent apple sauce ever which transformed into a complex, sweet and intense apple butter that I’ve put on pork chops, ice cream, buttered bread, cheese and salads so far.  I’m sure I’ll think of a couple more applications before the jar runs out.  Now of course I can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to perfectly duplicate these results…  how can one encourage oneself to be forgetful?  I don’t know.  Personally my spirit animal is the goldfish so I have an advantage in that quarter but I wish you luck. 🙂

As for the apple pie I’d like simply to share a recipe with you.  This recipe is from the New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins.  I love this cookbook as it breaks down each topic and gives useful information, cuts, varietals, pairings…  good stuff.  This recipe is for an apple pie with cheddar and mustard in the crust.  Salty sweet perfection.

Apple of her Eye Pie

Pastry

3 cups of unbleached all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon dry mustard

Pinch of salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold

1/3 cup solid vegetable shortening, cold

3/4 cup sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

6 to 8 tablespoons ice water

 

Filling

8 tart apples, such as Granny Smith

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Topping

1 teaspoon sugar

Pinch of ground cinnamon

Prepare the pastry dough: Combine the flour, sugar, mustard, and salt in a mixing bowl, and toss well to blend. Using a pastry blender, two knives, or your fingertips, cut in the butter and shortening until the mixture forms small clumps. Then add the cheese, and work it in until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle the water, 2 tablespoons at a time, over the mixture and toss with a fork until the mixture can be gathered into a ball. Knead it once or twice in the bowl and divide it into slightly unequal halves. Wrap both halves, and chill in the refrigerator for 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350.

Prepare the filling: Core, halve, and peel the apples. Cut them into 1-inch chunks. Combine the apples and melted butter in a large bowl. Add the remaining filling ingredients, and toss until the apples are evenly coated.

Roll the smaller portion of chilled dough out on a lightly floured surface to form a 12-inch circle. Transfer it to a 10-inch plate, and press it into the bottom and sides of the plate. Trim the dough leaving a 1-inch overhang. Reserve any excess dough.

Roll the larger portion of dough out to form a slightly larger circle.

Fill the pie plate with the apple mixture, mounding it slightly. Brush the edge of the bottom crust with water. Then transfer the top crust over the apples, tucking it slightly inside the rim. Trim off any excess, allowing a 1-inch overhang. Seal the edges of the crusts together with a fork and crimp decoratively. Trim away any remaining excess pastry.

Prepare the topping; Mix together the sugar and cinnamon. Prick the top crust with a fork in several places, and cut a small vent in the center. Brush the top lightly with water, and sprinkle it with the cinnamon sugar. If you like, cut out shapes, such as leaves or apples, from the dough trimmings and decorate the top crust with them.

Bake until the filling is bubbling and the top is golden, 1 1/4 hours. Serves 8.

A drink for Safia… and everyone

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This drink is in honor of my cocktail hour-loving BFF and her birthday this week.  She is a vodka Martini girl and did turn my gin Martini rule into more of a preference.  Then I tasted the pickled ume plums from Zuké and knew that they were perfect cocktail garnish.  They would also be great in a salad dressing, but that can wait till after cocktail hour.

Safia Sake-tini

1.5 oz of good local Vodka **
1.5 oz of Sake
ice
2 ume plums pickled by Zuké

If you are a stirrer go ahead and ignore the directions.

1)   Measure the Sake and Vodka into a cocktail shaker.  Add the ice.  Large cubes work better as chipped ice makes a slushee.  Shake them up until the spirits get really cold.

2)   Pour into a Martini glass.  Add the ume plums as garnish.  It may take more than two – they are so good I ate a jar of them while developing the recipe.

** For Vodka, I would choose something local and more mellow like Syntax Vodka from Greeley.  Their nice vibe perfectly compliments the Zuké lusciousness.

Further adventures of Zukemono

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We know you have all been waiting for it- folks, Andy Gladstone….

they force their way up through hard crackling ground, desperately seeking the scorching nutrients of a dazzling New Mexico Sun.  each aspiring seedling carries the genetic design of the entire universe within its miniscule cellular walls.  for those that succeed, in this ultimate of Darwinian contests, there’s no doubting the breakthrough moment of their herculean effort.  as they first feel the fiery wall of dry heat, capable of searing the struggling lungs of active breathers, the chilies reflexively relax, & passively, cellularly, absorb the carbon dioxide-laden atmosphere and oooommmmm out the most delicious of oxygens.

Thus commencing the life-long symbiotic journey of chili peppers and their far more rapacious pre-existing lung-powered earthly cousins. These chilies, imbued with the natural, life-sustaining forces of Mother Earth herself, smolder in the blazing sun.  capturing the heat, absorbing that fearsome passion, and permeating all foods fortunate enough to rest even momentarily by their side, with their scorchiocity.  they bring such green, they bring such heat, they bring such a spicy tango of exotic flavor that chili-heads frivolously ignore the protection racket threats of rattlesnake venom, tarantula strikes, wild boar charges and gila monster bites to select the finest of these amazing fruits.  small wonder that Peter Piper (once he’d learned to pickle these prized peppers), jumped over the moon, came tumbling down and couldn’t be put back together again.  but wait, softly, is that brightest of lights, discernible to the east, even under the most brilliant of suns, not Zukemono, exploding into oblivion the shade beneath yonder chili plant?  what creative culinary synapsual firings have led her to pursue, plant by plant, the finest available offerings to be had under this crackling heat?

In an instant, Zukemono dematerializes and softly vanishes from the leathering, anhydrous desert.  within that self-same moment she’s comfortably ensconced in her cool moist overflowing playground of a kitchen.  her movements are testimony to a powerful and loving embrace of the all-encompassing reality of Now.  The picked, being pickled, peppers are mostly just bobbing in fragrant fermenting juices, though, a concentrated focus reveals that several seem to be enjoying a leisurely swim (freestyle, naturally) around their bottled pool.  splashing, laughing and simply celebrating their escape from the fearsome forces of the blistering desert.  Exhaling their celebrated capsaicin chemistry, into the breathtakingly flavored pickle bath and inhaling the remarkable emanations from their briny basin.  A partnership of flavors and natural wholesomeness thus accomplished, these playful frolicking capsicums relax into family form; dry off, slip into their pajamas, and don their ever-present nightshades.

 

 

 

Easy Beer Cocktails

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Even Cocks with Tails Appreciate a Good Beer

Even though my dad was a true blue East Coast American boy and mom a Hong Kong Temple Street original… I must admit that there was a lot of Euro-flavor to my early years.  Stories of boarding school atrocities told in a tight circle when my friends and I would “nick out” at night and congregate in the dark safety of the general’s grave.  (Graves of important people in China were massive concrete affairs with tables and chairs and fruit trees to lounge amidst and hide behind) I heard stories of UK M1 rave culture and listened one walkman ear pod per person to mixed tapes with curious throbbing beats in my early teens.  And above all I would be offered booze at dinners when we had guests long before I was of legal age to drink.  Wine and water or shandies.  A shandy is a very delicious lemon lime soda pop mixed half and half with lager.  Hong Kong beer drinkers were all about either San Miguel or Carlsberg back then, both well refined lagers…  easy to drink but still bitter enough to put one or two hairs on your chest.

Alright, the weather has been warming and I did a hike two days ago above Boulder Res and we forgot to bring enough water.  The only thing I could think of on the way home other than willing the clouds to cover the sun was beer.  There is a thirst quenching quality that beer has which is unparalleled and I also remember from my Hong Kong days another simple beer cocktail that seemed to push that instant refreshing feeling into the golden zone.  Lime and Lager is so simple.  1 oz of Rose’s Lime Cordial in your beer.  The back of my neck is tingling just thinking of the mouth filling, fizzing gulpability.

Of course there are many versions of the Beer Cocktail even though strangely enough it’s not something that we often think of.  Mexico has it’s Michelada, lime juice and hot sauce in your cervesa: yeah!  There’s the Black and Tan of course.  The Snakebite and Black from my UK college years, that’s half lager, half hard cider and a shot of blackcurrant liquor: those were oblivion makers which I suppose is just about right for those years, young, dumb and full of…  you know…  willful pizza mistakes.  My fave from my sushi chefing years was the Chocolate Stout.  Murphy’s Stout with a shot of vanilla vodka and a shot of Godiva Chocolate liqueur.  After a hard night of working my tail off it was nice to have dinner, drink and dessert all in one glass.

This post was inspired by my creation of a brand new beer cocktail tonight.  OK I’ve had two of them and I’m a total lightweight these days hence my loose lipped languid lambic prose.  My beer goggles, the whiff of bacon, beans and my husband’s hard work in the kitchen are making everything look like one of those instagram iphone pictures.  Mangoes and Wit.  Yep I said it.  I made some mango simple syrup for my son’s birthday circle yesterday (hawaiian shave ice treat).  First round… Leftover simple syrup from candying orange peel and mango puree mixed with Left Hand Polestar Pils, and second round with Upslope Belgian Pale Ale.  I’m looking across the table at my husband’s Avery White Rascal but I don’t think I’m going to go there, unless I’ve decided that 7.30pm is my new bed time.

Please comment if you have any other good Beer Cocktails you would like to share with me. Night night 😉

Nettles to the rescue

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For the past few years my eldest son has been suffering from seasonal allergies. We have tried lots of things but one of the most effective remedies has been nettles. We have been wildcrafting them in the summer and then drying them for teas in the spring. It is a wonderful, potent metaphor to take a stinging plant and use it as a medicine for stinging, itchy eyes. Thinking maybe we should consider a summer nettle pickle…

If you also suffer from allergies try making some nettle tea with a bit of local honey- it is calming, soothing to the throat and the prettiest light green color.

 

Good Medicine and Digestion

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Often in the depths of winter I get hit with a serious humdinger of a flu and this year was no exception. I returned home from a lovely holiday with my family and after a few days I had the distinct feeling of being pulled down by a heavy weight that has kept me in bed for three days now. Being sick is not all bad. It seems to be part of a ritual of renewal  that happens for me at this time of year, usually around the Celtic festival of Imbolc.  Having some time to rest and think about ones life and ones health can create an odd sort of inspiration- just the thought of walking around and feeling good seems a true blessing and it makes you want to continue to realize that blessing and take good care of the carriage. I have (along with a stack of long neglected New Yorkers, Harpers, and Atlantics) been re-reading Green for Life, Nourishing Traditions and some other oldies but goodies that encourage balanced, sustainable good health. I also cut out a page from an old NYTimes Magazine by Mark Bittman about going mostly vegan as a way Ozuke Shirtto boost your energy and improve the state of the planet. I have been reading about pH balance in the body and as it turns out food protein, which is vital for maintaining your health, can also create an acidic condition in your body’s pH balance.  An acidic body pH condition facilitates accelerated aging, system degeneration and increased susceptibility to sickness and disease.

What else affects pH and causes it to become unbalanced? A mild acidosis condition (an overabundance of acid in the blood) can be caused by improper diet, but also by poor lifestyle habits or toxic emotional states. The amount of acid in the body can increase through ingestion of acid-forming foods, but it can also be affected by an abnormal metabolism or kidney malfunction. As we age, our body’s systematic removal of excess acid has begun to slow down which is why you sometimes feel like you need a new carburetor.
Although it seems a bit illogical, our bodies metabolize acid foods as alkaline and metabolize alkaline foods as acid. Acid foods (citrus fruits, vegetables, vinegar and other fermented foods- zuké!) all become alkaline when consumed and metabolized and so are called “Alkaline-forming foods”.On the other hand, alkaline foods (meats, flour, sugar, soft drinks, alcohol, aspirin and various medications) are metabolized by the body into “acid-forming foods.” That’s why the average American diet of hamburgers and processed food can and usually does contribute to a condition called “mild acidosis.” Although eating some acid-forming foods is okay, it is best if we consume 60-80% alkaline-forming foods for optimum health.

So, there you have it- along with a new found addiction to Downton Abbey  and a pile of used handkerchiefs I have a renewed resolve for revitalizing with more simple pH balanced foods, plenty of deep breaths and a healthy dose of gratitude.

Art meets Process

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sheep-pig

Andrew Plotsky’s film on pork butchery. Caution: Some images may be graphic for some viewers.

“His favorite cut of a pig? The trotter, or the foot. “If you have a trotter on a plate, you should feel blessed and not say ‘Ew,'” he says. “They’re kind of everything a chicken wing dreams of being.”

I simply had to share this film.  I found the following article this morning on NPR.  This work is inspired and inspiring.  Connect, create and feed the future.  Thank you Andrew Plotsky.

NPR: How One Former Vegan Learned to Embrace Butchering