Chicken n Dumplings

Chop:

4 stalks celery

1 medium onion

3 full sized carrots

2 cloves garlic

saute the above vegetables in a small amount of 1/2 butter and 1/2 olive oil until onions are translucent.

Remove vegetbables and saute chicken pieces in oil until golden, lightly browned.

Add 2 boxes low sodium broth and the equivient of 1 box of water. Add 2 fresh bay leaves, 6 crushed black peppercorns, pinch salt, a few sprigs of saffron or sprinkle of smoked paprika.

Allow chicken to simmer for about 90 mins until tender to the bone. Don’t boil as the meat will get tough. Skim any foam that has collected on the surface. Can be made ahead to this point.

Dumplings:

1 egg

2/3 cup flour

1/3 cup corn meal

1/2 cup milk

1 TB butter

1/2 tsp salt

pepper/parsely/red pepper flakes to taste

Mix the ingredients quickly and lightly, allowing a few lumps to remain so dough stays light. To save time,  use a teaspoon to drop and smooth dumplings unto waxed paper.

Have your pot of chicken or broth simmering and hot. Drop 4-5 dumplings into hot broth. Do NOT allow dumplings to touch each other. Do NOT add so much that the temperature goes down.

Dumplings will sink at first, then raise to the top as they cook.

She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes

Shirley and Kay

I can picture the mountains with a wagon circling round the bottom, my sister Shirley driving a team of gleaming chestnut horses. When she arrives, we will take off again, for a long-days drive and many days visit to our Grandma’s white cottage in an overgrown garden of hollyhocks and rambling roses gone wild.

She won’t, of course, be coming round the mountains but flooring it on the straight shot down 94 from Milwaukee, the road flat and boring as the billboards we pass touting Wisconsin Cheese and American Insurance. But sing we will, about coming round the mountains, girls named Susannah, rivers called Swanee and orders to not fence us in.  In between the songs come the stories about the songs, stories about the people in the songs, or who wrote the songs, the stories about the people we are going to go see, the stories about the people not in the car – keeping up the family tag line to any invitation: “If you don’t come, we’ll talk about you.” (Though, take it from me, coming didn’t stop them either).

Jo and Shirley

Shirley was a master storyteller.  Two hours, a box of photos and a bottle of blackberry wine gave me enough family stories to create a shelf of books involving all sorts of antics from siblings now hiding behind the veneer of adulthood and parents settling into middle age respectability.

No surprise, Mom asked her to give me “the sex talk” (you would think after 8 kids, mom would have this down but then again, she claimed it took till her third kid to figure out herself what was going on…another storyteller). Her ability to enjoy all aspects of life, of people and their quirks infused her stories with a softness that kept them funny but forgiving, memorable but never mean.

She had time to think of these stories. When she was 14 (15?), she was in an awful car wreck that broke her back. The rest of her life would be a series of surgeries, pain, painkillers, full body casts, limited mobility and more pain. Yet she kept smiling and reaching out to the world. 

Her love of life and family helped her endure the difficulties to bear 4 children. She traveled with our widowed mom to Australia, she held court from her bed when she could do no more. The older siblings called her Queenie.

Shirley and Harry

She was not only my biggest sister but my god-mother.  I still have tucked away my collection of white french poodles she brought me for birthdays, Easter, etc.  She longed for one herself but her husband was allergic. However, one day, after a brutal 8 hour surgery, her husband visited her and a small white head popped out of his coat pocket…finally her own tiniest teacup sized white poodle.

She was so often late that we routinely told her holiday dinners and departure times were a full hour ahead.  All the same, she left us too early, last November, leaving a husband of 57 years, numerous offspring and a legacy of love.

We would sit in the car and sing, “she’ll be  coming round the mountain when she comes….and we’ll all have chicken and dumplings when we come.” And often, as Mom and Shirley traded off driving and we traded of pokes in the back seat, that is just what Grandma had waiting on the stove for us…with a porch swing made for telling stories.

What’s Black and White and Red all over?

Italy, after all, also gave us the marachino cherry and green spumoni ice cream. So this bright red aperatif should be no surprise.  Sunbrella’s in Italy spout blue and white stripes labeled “Campari” in fancy script and its hard to picture drinking this when the sun is not bleaching pastels to mere shadows. Campari is an acquired taste – both oversweet and overbitter on its own, it is enlivened by a splash of lemon over ice that stimulates the taste buds and adds an impetuous color to many cocktails.  The Tall Bloke developed his taste for Campari while a student in Rome and for years, a bottle was tucked among the pale Easter eggs.

Negroni: I was always told this meant “black” in Italian – which never made sense to me, being a bright red drink. It turns out there was an Italian family that ran a distillery – and they were the Negronis. Black moods will be dispelled, however, with enough of these.

A simple drink, easy to make and lethal, despite its summer bright color. I had my first Negroni at the top of the John Hancock and soon enough felt as high as the clouds I sat among.  Lemon peels balance the bright red.

2 oz. Campari, 1 oz gin, one squirt lemon, serve straight up or over ice. For variety, try muddling cilantro into this.

White Lady:

The name speaks of dark bars, heady gardenia perfume and smoky veiling the flirtatious winks. Another simple and classic summer drink, lighter in color and taste as the Negroni but equally potent.   This however, can handle a good dose of club soda to lighten it up.

1 oz cointreau, 2 oz gin, squirt of lime – this stays pristine clear until the lime is added, when it achieves a smoky white tone. Garnish with sprigs of rosemary or lime curls.

Biycyclette:
Simple as summer, as bright as the summer sun, as childishly bright as a child’s beach bucket.   Freeze some berries to float on top of this drink or spiral some lemon peel.

3 oz dry white wine, 1 oz Campari.

The Cocktail Hour….

The Cocktail Hour.

Happy Hour.

L’heure bleu.

That magic hour between work realities and dreamy nights, between whom we must be 9-5 and whom we get to be after dark.

So much pressure on one little hour.

Whether its the 19060’s executive dad, tie loosened but still hanging on, mixing himself a martini with one eye on the evening news (remember evening news? – when it too came, like the cocktails at a set hour) or the hip young professionals looking to tie one on after they stream from square cubicles to round stools, the cocktail hour is about raising spirits as we raise the glass.

It is the icebreaker over ice tinkling in your glass at the cocktail party; it is so critical it even gets its own outfit – the cocktail dress. Are you flirty? serious? classic or trendy? What is in the glass signals the world what is inside you your head. When I was single again, pink Cosmo’s were the drink of choice for the dancing divorcee’s crowd, inspired by “Sex in the city” (never saw the show, never got the drink). Younger singles scooped up appletini’s by the barrel and despite all the strides of gender, anything chocolate is still labeled a “girly drink.”

My prior whirl on the dating dance floor including an awkward moment back when people cared about these things, really – it mattered in that odd way the label on your shirt matters to some people) when the waiter brought our drinks and with a flourish put the pale pink and icy-sweet daiquiri in front of me and the somber amber sea of a Manhattan with its cherry island in front of my 6’4” date with a straightforward plod. As soon as the waiter left, we switched drinks with an awkward giggle for stepping outside of expectations. A simple moment but yet, even now it signals some undercurrent of who we were and who we tried to be.

Growing up, cocktails were simple and straightforward: a tom Collins, a gin and tonic, Cuba Libre whenever the gang got together and played cards around the kitchen table – a drink that to this day takes me once again to being 8 and sitting on my relative’s laps sipping rum and cokes and liking how it smoothed out the sweetness of the syrupy coke while my older sibling got distracted by cards and chips and gossip. Or my mother’s favorite dinner out drinks: a dry gin martini or a vivid green grasshopper which in those days were served even to us kids at the better places in town…hmmm. Back then, people assumed parents knew how to raise their own kids and let them at it. Maybe that is why that generation craved the cocktail hour.

One thing we never had in the house was vodka. My dad insisted there were only two kinds of vodka drinkers  – Russians who grew up on it and alcoholics who favored it for its stealth qualities – unlike whisky or rum it did not give itself away in flavor or on the breath. Exactly why its so good a friend said to me recently – it’s the perfect mixer but I still hold onto that childhood idea….if you are drinking something because it has no flavor, admit you are drinking to get drunk. Even now, I bypass the “flavored” vodkas (there is no craft or skill in adding a few drops of lemon flavoring to a bottle, unlike the craft of bourbon or bathtub gin) for authentic means of meeting my hours.

My dad’s work schedule was too variable for the cocktail hour. However, we could provide that bathtub gin with a quick run to the basement. The real McCoy…aged since Prohibition. My widowed grandmother ran a tavern in Wisconsin till prohibition came around, followed soon by the sheriff, who followed her around besotted and blind to the “family medicine” on the shelves, followed by a cuter beau when prohibition was repealed. Keep your happy hours. Our cocktails and hours last through the years.

(Editor’s Note: this introduces a new category for drinks, cocktail and wine. No, I have not given up eating for drinking, but during law school, cocktails trump cooking after a 12 hour final!).

Plenty of…Plenty

Another person for dinner? There’s plenty, pull up a chair. Kids don’t want to go home? Plenty of room to spread pallets on the floor. Another kid on the way? Buy bunk beds and there is plenty of room.

Plenty.

Not “sufficient.” Not “enough”.

Plenty.

Eight kids and yet there was never concern about not being loved. There was not just “enough to go around.” There was plenty to go around. Plenty of hugs.

We grew up on a vocabulary of abundance and sharing. My sister Sue and I shared: a room, many toys, and  – in true Irish twin fashion – almost shared a birthday and did share our birthday parties since our friends were the same kids down the block anyways. (But always we each had our own cake. Even if they both were chocolate….maybe especially if they both were chocolate.)

My big sister rescued me many times on the playground – shy, bookish, and small, I retreated in the face of taunts from the “cool kids,” and they retreated when she stood in front of them and stood her ground.

My big sister also rescued me from parents, older brothers, and from my own social gawkishness – arranging my first “real date” with a friend of her boyfriend’s. She let me take the upper bunk for years and I let her take the lead.

I repaid her with typical little sister behavior – I adored her, looked up to her, wore her clothes behind her back and when I wanted to know how our dolls would look with a new hairstyle and make-up, used the scissors and the markers on HER dolls.

This last year brought some difficult transitions to my life and I wound up spending my birthday “alone in a crowd.” When my sister called a few days later, she must have picked up on something in my voice and invited me home to her home for Christmas. “But your own kids will be coming home – your house will be full.”

“Don’t worry, there is plenty of room.”

And a few days later “If I come, my son is coming”

“Oh good, there is plenty of room.” And there was.

On Christmas morning, guest rooms were full, the sleeper sofa in the basement had a daughter and two visiting cats, the back porch became another room, and there was someone sleeping on the Living Room floor. But there was, in true family tradition: Plenty. Plenty of room, plenty of food, plenty of love.

I am still amazed that my sister, who works a demanding full time job in the medical field, pulled off a house decorated with vintage detail, bake cookies, take care of an ailing dog, feed a crew of visitors that wandered in and out, and stay gracious and calm.

Which is why it was no surprise to find that on Christmas morning, we not only had plenty of presents but one was a cookbook called “Plenty”. This quick, nutritious and affordable meal is adapted from this book (and leftovers pack well for brown bag lunches).

This recipe is adapted from that book by Ottolenghi.

Chard and Chick Saute – serves 4

Ingredients:

1 lb swiss chard (about 9 cups) (other greens can be used, of course)

1 can small chick peas (drained)

3 TB olive oil

1 1/2 tsp caraway seeds

3 clove garlic, chopped

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 cup chopped mint

juice of 1/2 lemon – fresh

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup Greek yoghurt

1 tsp olive oil to garnish + caraway seeds + drizzle of pomegranate molasses if you have it.

Thoroughly was the chard.  Heat a pot of salted water, meanwhile chop chard and separate the stalks from the leaves.  Blanch the stalks for 5 minutes and then add leaves and cook for 2 minutes.  Drain well.

Heat olive oil on medium heat and add the caraway and garlic and cook 3 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.  Stir in the greens and chickpeas and sauté for 5 minutes till heated through. Add back in the seeds, garlic and stir in lemon juice, herbs, salt and pepper. Cook one additional minute.

To serve: place on plate. Top with yoghurt, drizzle with oil and pomegranate,  sprinkle with seeds.

Serve with crusty bread or pita wedges.

Twelth Night, Three Kings, One Year, Many Traditions

Mushroom and Leek Soup with Spaetzle

In the here & now of America life, Jan 6^th is just another day in that drab back to school/work/reality/diets first week of the new year. Once, though and elsewhere, it is the Twelfth Night of Christmas that ends the great holiday season by commemorating the arrival of the 3 Wise Men.

As a little boy, my Dad spent Christmas Eve itchingly waiting for the parlor doors to open for his first view of the splendidly decorated tree, shimmering with real candles clipped to the branches and buckets of sand nearby on the floor. His German mother kept the tree up until Twelfth Night, when the extended family would gather for a last feast marked by special cakes and little gifts for the children.

Never one willing to see the season end, I tried to emulate this tradition. My trees, however, usually dropped their leaves and drooped by then – creating their own fire hazard. But I would leave the nativity set out…some years following the European tradition of waiting to place the 3 Wise Men near the stable on Twelfth Night. The Christmas dishes would be the last items packed, also on that day.

Americans, in our rush to get to the holiday – any holiday – sometimes forget how to savor it. The occasional friend would make the occasional remark s like “you haven’t put those away yet???” implying laziness. We all juggle our past with our future; our desires with the desire to fit in, but those who emigrate from one country to another do so in an escalated fashion. Holidays define us – their familiar rituals sustain us but what is familiar to us marks us as outsiders to others and so we balance the past we hold within our hearts with the present we move within.

Still, life turns around on itself as much as it marches forward. “What?” my son says as he sits in front of his laptop in Chicago. “ I  guess I have to learn German holidays. I tried to schedule a meeting. They emailed and said – don’t you know that is a holiday? No one works on Jan. 6.”

It was the 7^th day of Christmas. By the 9^th day of Christmas, he was on the flight to Germany, where he will live for at least three years. By the 12^th day of Christmas, he would be sitting around a table in Germany, only a short distance from my Grandma’s hometown, sharing a Twelfth Night feast with his lab director’s family. Completing the cycle of the season, the circle of return.

And with this post, I also celebrate one full year of this blog. That post was also about my German Grandmother.

Time is many things but linear? Never.

This is a soup that captures the flavors and styles of her homeland of Bavaria.

Ingredients:

For Soup:

1 1/2 cups water

3/4 ounce dried wild mushrooms (don’t cheat and use button or brown mushrooms…the dried wild ones give the soup most of its flavor….like stirring leaves on a forest floor

3  tablespoons virgin olive oil

6 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound crimini  mushrooms, sliced

2 tsps fresh thyme and oregano

salt

4 tablespoons marsala or white wine

1 cup chopped onion

4 cups thinly sliced leeks – the lower end of the stems

8 cups chicken broth (sure you can make your own….make some for me too)

Pinch of Italian Red Pepper

For Little Spaetzle:

3/4 cup ricotta cheese

4 tablespoons butter, room temperature, divided

2 large eggs, room temperature

½   cup all purpose flour, divided

¼ cup cornmeal

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

Pinch of ground nutmeg

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

3/4 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

pinch nutmeg

Soup’s On:

Pour hot water over the dried mushrooms and let soften for 30 minutes. Save the water and drain.  Heat 1/2 of the oil in a heavy skillet or stockpot.

Saute garlic till golden and then add the mushrooms, herbs and salt. Saute till brown,  lower heat and stir in wine and let the mushrooms absorb the wine.

Set aside the mushrooms. In pan, heat remaining oil and saute leeks and onions till translucent and just starting to carmelize. Sprinkle with salt and saute for several minutes till a soft near golden color.

Bring broth to a boil. Pour in reserved soaking liquid, add remaining soup ingredients of pepper, onions, mushrooms.ng broth to simmer in large pot over medium-high heat. Simmer till hot, about 2 minutes.

My little spaetzle:

Mix eggs and ricotta with fork and finish with mixer. Add butter, eggs and parmasean cheese. Stir in flour, salt and nutmeg and parsley.

Set another pan to boiling while you cook. Then, using two spoons or your fingers, shape them into ball about the size of cherries. Cook until they re-rise to the surface of the broth. Set aside, drain.

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium heat. Working in 2 batches, add dumplings to skillet. Cook until brown in spots, 2 to 3 minutes per side.

·

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad…

In our town, most dads lived by the whistle. Even if you couldn’t hear the 3 pm whistle, you would know the time by the stream of cars drifting into driveways, bringing dad’s home for dinner each Monday-Friday.

Our Dad worked by the whistle too, but it was just as likely to have him leaving before dinner or arriving just before breakfast. Dad worked on the trains but did not work for the train. He oversaw the Railway Mail, riding the long haul between Minneapolis and Chicago. They had their car on the train. At each stop, the men tossed the sorted mail bags onto the platform and picked up gunny sacks of mail from a hook. Like those heroes of the Pony Express and old westerns, my Dad carried a service revolver in case someone tried to rob the train. In those pre FedEx days, the RRMail transported bank deposits, gold, even diamonds from Tiffany’s.

His returns 3 or 4 days later would feel like small homecomings, which they were. We would jump into the car and drive to Kenosha or Waukegan or occasionally Zion and wait to hear the train whistle announcing the arrival of the CN&N. Peering through the green tinted windows, we would try to be the first to spot Dad through the window.

We also looked to see if he had treats in hand – we would send him off with a brown bag lunch and a few loaves of tea bread like the one featured below. We hoped for returns with white bags from various small Wisconsin and Minnesota towns…Swedish tea cakes, Danish rings, German cruellers, polish rye, Ukrainian nut horns, Austrian sacher tortes, north woods cherry strudel, venison jerky. (Until today, it never occurred to me to wonder where he stayed, where he ate on those 3 and 5 day trips – he was home or he was gone – such is the way children see parents as only parents.)

The last time he took the train, he was long retired. It was snowing, blustery and cold. The infamous Lake Michigan wind on the Evanston platform cut thru my down coat. My classes at Northwestern had ended hours earlier and I could have taken an earlier train,  but Dad had gone to downtown Chicago to take care of some business and would be on this train. The silver commuter train pulled in and I scanned the windows again, looking for him. I spotted him in the smoking car, his black Cossack hat noticeable on the upper level. I climbed aboard and he told me I could find another car, I didn’t have to stay in the smoking car with him.

It was late November, 1982. The snow was coming down faster and harder than memories and the brightness of day was growing distant and dark. I looked at his thin pale face under the heavy black wool cap, saw the snow piling up outside and sat in the smoking car, silent the long journey home, the train’s light casting shadows on the falling drifts of snow as we passed, leaving it dark once we had gone.

The last station came too soon.

Two weeks later he was gone.

In honor of Da, who died 29 years ago today.

This bread was one of his favorite breads to take on the train.  Not quite 20 years later, it became THE care package item of choice for his namesake and grandson at his studies at Caltech. From sorting the mail to being mailed, this bread goes the distance.

Classic Cranberry Bread (based on Ocean Spray package recipe)

3 7/8 cups flour
1 ¾  cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½  teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cup orange juice (can substitute cider – not apple juice)
2 tablespoon grated orange peel- dried OR peel of one large orange
4 tablespoons  butter
2 egg, well beaten
3 cups or more Cranberries, ½ of them chopped, ½ whole
1 tsp cloves, ½ tsp cinnamon

1 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease 2 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Dust with cornmeal.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda and spices in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in orange juice, orange peel, butter, eggs. Mix until well blended. Stir in cranberries and nuts. Spread evenly in loaf pan.

Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely. Wrap and store overnight. Makes 1 loaf (16 slices).

December 4, 2011