Garlic Scapes

courtesy jayirwin via flickr

Peppery, garlicy, crunchy, divine. I cut mine up and sauteed with onions and MORE garlic, then added green squash and tinned tomatoes to make a sauce. Per a friend's advice, I got rid of the bulbous bit at the end, which looked something like an artichoke heart.

They taste fresh, like a hit of spring. The feeling you'd think you'd get if you carried around mint leaves in your mouth. Adventerous and 100 percent yum.

The Flip Side of Eating: Orthodoxy and Exercise

courtesy wallyg via flickr

For me, growing up, exercise was important. But not in the way that it seems to have been in secular, Christian, or non-Orthodox communities. Rather than working out, the emphasis for us was on the brain.

For evidence, I offer that, when it came to sports, my Jewish school competed in a so-called yeshiva league. That was the rule for basketball, soccer, and hockey. By contrast, we faced secular schools for such "brain"-oriented competitions as mock trial, model UN, and the like. You'd have an ice cube's chance in hell at seeing my yeshiva compete against Dalton in track.

You can see the evidence of this kind of hard living -- really, hard eating -- in the faces, skin, and bodies of many an Orthodox or charedi person. Making too much of the body in traditional cultures has been taboo, understandably so. Often, in the U.S. at least, vanity is antithetical to modesty.

But there seems to me nothing about not taking care of yourself that honors God.

Today -- some 15 years later -- it's different. Attitudes seem beginning to change. In Prospect Park, I see Orthodox and charedi women out walking, rollerblading, riding bikes for exercise. Sometimes, they're accompanied by another female friend. Other times, women are accompanied by their husbands.

The still-surprising and wonderful times are when charedi women are out on their own. Walking, skating, huffing it through the park. Grasping a water bottle in one hand. Striking out, on behalf of their bodies, alone.

Fruit soup 2.0

They say it will be 98 degrees tomorrow. The only thing keeping me from throwing up is my beloved box fan and the vat of fruit soup I just made.

A lot has changed over the past 12 months. Soon I'll be departing Brooklyn for greener pastures. And colder winters. And a horrible mall called Destiny.

Most important, I'm now making the fruit soup with plums.

Which sound like a vaguely Shakespearean term for testicles.

Why eat bacon if...

You can eat spiced marcona almonds? They are spicy, salty, addictive, and delicious.

Epicurious has a great recipe for them here.

Do yourself one better and buy packs of the suckers from the Park Slope Food Coop.

Cooking Makes a Comeback

So much promised for the new year. Handing over private information you wouldn't share with a stranger at a bar (thanks, census); the Dubai International Arabian Horse Championships (book early!); and, of course, waiting with baited breath to see if residents of Vancouver, Washington, tired of playing second fiddle to British Columbia, change the town's name to Fort Vancouver (a civic initiatve launched at no less hallowed ground than Tommy O's).

And, of course, the blog. I've been inspired by the discovery of some of my grandmother's recipes (long thought lost) and this New York Times story, which features non-Jewish chefs who cook their spouses' kosher favorites on the holidays.

As my friend points out, the article is "amazing because basically every couple is jewish woman-goy man... quite a change for the shiksha-loving NYTimes... when did this happen? "

Thanks for getting with it, NYT.

Your moment of zen:

“I would love to cook the Seder meal,” one famous non-Jewish chef said of Passover dinner with his in-laws. (He asked to remain anonymous to avoid their wrath.) “The food has got to be better.”

Clearly he's been married long enough to anticipate the wrath. Good job, anonymous.

This Soup Will Save Your Life

I've been living without air conditioning, either because I'm a masochist or lazy, or some combination thereof. (Though I do have a mighty fine box fan in the window.)

Anyway, as a result, I've been making this cherry soup like crazy. It was the star of the first-ever Brooklyn Kosher-Test Kitchen. It's inspired by Mark Bittman, but I've changed it. It is also as parve as you wanna be.

Ingredients
1-2 pounds sour cherries -- one bag or plastic container should make about 4 servings
1 tsp cornstarch mixed w/ 2 tsp water
pinch salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tbs canned cream of coconut (to taste)

Directions
Pit the cherries -- a messier ordeal than you might imagine. (At least, for this slob it is.) Put them in a saucepan with water to cover. Add cornstarch, salt, cinnamon. Cook on medium heat, until the cherries are very soft. Depending on how ripe they are, this could take anywhere from 20 - 30 minutes.

Add the lemon zest, then the canned cream of coconut. Puree with an immersion blender. This can also get messy! I wouldn't puree all the way - it's more interesting that way.

Chill.

Serve with ice cubes, sprigs of mint, yogurt (which makes it not parve, fyi). I particularly like it with fage and sprinkled with crushed walnuts.

The soup can be a first course, dessert, breakfast -- depending on how much you sweeten it. In that way, it's like those versatile dresses that get popular every few years, that you can wear in 101 stupid ways.



Difference between soup and dress? Soup you can eat. And it is considerably less complicated than the above.

FYI: Bittman calls for sugar to sweeten, but I think we all eat too much white sugar as it is. And this cream of coconut -- which you can freeze, by the way -- is kosher, and keeps the dish extra fruity.

Long, Strange Trip + turkey kebabs and mint chutney

It wasn't strange at all, or very long. I journeyed, among other places, to the land of Lewis and Clark. This was pretty thrilling for someone who grew up playing the Oregon Trail video game at day camp.

Anyway, prior to this, I held my first Brooklyn Test Kitchen: Cheeseburger-a-thon at my apartment. The goal was to create a beef burger with blue cheese. The result was a turkey kebab with a strange cheese "sauce." Or rather, because the cheese was parve -- made with vegan ingredients -- a "cheese" sauce. Also, because it was the nine days -- the period of time before Tisha B'Av, a mournful day of fasting on the Hebrew calendar, and a time when one typically, or traditionally, does not eat meat -- I couldn't find beef anywhere in all of Brooklyn. Only ground turkey.

In the end, I made delicious kebabs, served with sour cream and mint chutney. The kebabs, or sausages, are quite hearty and delicious, and taste like red meat (but for way less calories or environmental impact, for that matter). The "cheese" sauce is still in the test area; I'm going to experiment with nutritional yeast for the next go-round.

Kebabs/Sausage Patties

1 pound ground turkey
1 egg
2 - 3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
handful minced dill
handful minced chives
pinch ground ginger
2 tbs (or more) chicken curry (powdered)
1/4 cup breadcrumps (optional -- for a Pesach version, leave it out; the worcestershire sauce too)
splash worcstershire sauc

Mix all of those ingredients in a bowl -- but do not overmix. Then form into very small - about 1.5 - 2 inch patties -- and grill, either outside, on a stove-top pan, or in the broiler. Truly delicious. I served them with Tofutti sour cream, which is parve. To go with it, you can also whip up a super fast mint chutney.

Chutney courtesy Epicurious.com
1 cup packed fresh mint leaves
4 scallions, coarsely chopped
1 small fresh green serrano chile, coarsely chopped (1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons), including seeds
1 large garlic clove, chopped
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon salt

Blend ingredients a food processor, and you're done.

The take-home of the whole event was that cooking is so much like writing. You think you're going to make one thing, and in the end it's something else. The trick of it is to figure out what you've done, and what to do with it.