11/02/2024

Sunday Salon - Another Week in Review

 


A Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz,  Recap of my week, wherein I try to remember what all went on.  Some Gardening, collecting produce, reading, and cooking.  Oh and a bit of working at our office.  It does help to pay the bills.

Along with the produce collecting, I sometimes attempt to identify various mushrooms from the garden.  Using spore prints, type of gills, look in the books, etc.  Two I got this week and haven't yet identified.  Mushrooms are so weird and wonderful.


Also from my garden section:  After sitting on the windowsill for several weeks, my chayote is now finally sprouted! I am the proud mother.  Hopefully  it will eventually produce many little squashes.

Funny photo of relatives from the week.  My best nephew's selfie with his nephew and niece.


Delicious new recipe tried: Slow-Roasted Fennel and Red Onions with Tahini and Spices.  From Milk Street Vegetables, a favorite cookbook I may have mentioned before. Adding on some fresh salmon to the mix made it even better. And with more of that black ramen on the side, to absorb all the fabulous flavors.

I re-heated some of the Fennel/Onion Salmon dinner for my lunch today.  Sooo good!



Also, some food on the dessert side, a Gingerbread and Pear Pudding Cake.  Oh yum is all I can say, right along with all those who shared it with me.  Unfortunately I cannot find or remember where I got it from.


Books Read:


 I just finished Crying in H Mart, a Memoir by Michelle Zauner, which is our current Cook the Books selection.  Posted my  Review here.

Now Reading:


The Game is a Footnote, by Vicki Delany, an author I enjoy.  From her series, A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery.

That's about it for the week in review.  Or as much as I have time for today.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend y'all!




Sometimes Eating Helps - For Crying in H Mart

She certainly did quite a bit of both.  Crying and eating in this memoir, which is our Cook the Books Club pick for October/November.  Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner, and hosted by Simona of Briciole, with lots of interesting, some deliciously so, Korean food.  I struggled at times getting through the story of her upbringing.  Some parents can be so overbearing even in their love, wanting to direct every aspect of their children's lives.  Of course, in my case, there were 7 of us, and a different nationality, so not too comparable to an only child in a Korean American home.

From the Publishers:  "#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American—“in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR). • CELEBRATING OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her..."


So the inspirations for cooking were just too many to list.  All Korean food!  And I had only recently posted on that.  Getting Into Jang, by Mingoo Kong, A Whole New Cuisine.  Anyway, I fixed a traditional Korean favorite, and one of mine as well: Kimchi-jjgae.  Which is a stew in which you put some aged kimchi, pork, tofu, and various seasonings.

 Kimchi-jjigae

Yield: serves 4

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp. unsalted butter (1 oz.)
  • 1 large garlic clove, coarsely chopped
  • 1⁄2 lb. skinned pork belly, sliced into 1-inch chunks or ground pork (I used wild boar)
  • 1⁄2 small white onion (3 oz.), coarsely chopped
  • 3 teaspoons Korean red chili pepper flakes gochugaru - adjust to taste. 
  • 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
  • 1/2 cup juice from kimchi if available and 3 cups of water
  • 2 cups kimchi (16 oz.), coarsely chopped and juices reserved
  • 1 cup firm tofu (8 oz.), cut into 1-inch cubes
  • 2 tsp. fish sauce
  • 1 tsp. sesame oil
  • 1 tab. soy sauce
  • 2 medium scallions, coarsely chopped
  • Thinly sliced toasted nori, for topping (optional)
  • Steamed white rice, for serving

Instructions

  1. In a medium pot set over medium heat, melt the butter. When the foam subsides, add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant but not yet browned, 30–45 seconds. Add the pork and cook, stirring occasionally, until some of the fat has rendered and the meat is beginning to crisp around the edges, 4–5 minutes. Add the onion, ginger, gochgaru and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened slightly, about 2 minutes. Add the kimchi and its juices and 2 cups cold water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to maintain a strong simmer. Cook until the pork is just tender and the onions are soft, 10–12 minutes. Add the tofu, fish sauce, sesame oil, and soy sauce, and simmer until the tofu is heated through, 3–5 minutes more.
  2. Remove the pot from the heat. Divide the stew among 4 bowls, and top each with chopped scallions and a pinch of toasted nori. Serve with white rice on the side.

This review will be posted as my Cook the Books Club selection this round.  Also linking to November Foodies Read, hosted by Heather, and to Weekend Cooking, with hostess Marge, The Intrepid Reader and Baker.

10/26/2024

Another Wild Week? Maybe Not.

 A Week in Review

 Hello everyone at Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb Nance at Readerbuzz, Heather at the October Foodies Read, and Marge, hostess at Weekend Cooking, along with anyone else out there.

First off, it's time for bacon!  Yes, we've got a pork belly curing.  Today is Day 1 of a 10 day cure.   Sorry all you vegans and vegetarians!  But, I do love my bacon.  No pictures though.  Who wants to see a slab of pork belly?  Instead, maybe a recipe or two later. 

Favorite Beverage of the Year! 

Some Books


  Lost in Paris, by Betty Webb pretty much lost me, only 1/3 of the way through, with a protagonist I couldn't understand at all, doing stupid things.  And this after I read and absolutely loved all of Webb's Gunn Zoo Mysteries.  The Desert series (synopses and reviews) never attracted me enough to try them.


Currently reading: Death Comes to London, by Catherine Lloyd.  Second in her Regency-era series,  Kurland St. Mary Mysteries.  The debut novel was Death Comes to the Village and was great, I thought and in my fairly humble opinion.  Characters you can relate to.  Flaws and all.


We are presently having a LOT of rain.  But it wasn't that way all week.  Here Bob caught me in the midst 
of a swim, on a nice day.  Let's see, when was it?


And, with all the rain, we have TOADS!!  A lot of them!  Do you see them in there?  They are taking over my pond and I don't like it.  Not at all.  The ong choy is mostly flattened.  And it's such a nice cooking green.  Also the chickens like it.  If this rain will stop long enough I plan on dealing with them.  Said with a grimace! 

Admittedly, the pond badly needed weeding, overgrown as it is with duckweed, water hyacinth and yes, ong choy.  So, when the rain stopped for about 15 minutes I made a wee dent in it all.



You may remember I promised an update on the fermenting soybeans mentioned last week.  They turned out well.  And, some I made into a nice Bean Paté. Lovely with crackers or just as a side with cheese, olives, cold cuts and pickles for lunch.  Which I'm about ready for. Right now.


A few memorable meals:  Do you remember the days of Veal Marsala, well not any more.  Only available at VERY high end restaurants, veal that is.  Here in Hawaii anyway.  But it probably shouldn't even  be mentioned in some circles.  Anyway, I made an absolutely scrumptious Chicken Marsala.  So there.  

Then, after eating too much left-over Tortilla Casserole for lunch, just wanted a soup for dinner last night.   I threw in some fresh ginger and turmeric for good measure.  Floating on top, Texas tarragon leaves & flowers.


That's about it for now.  Happy Weekend y'all.

10/19/2024

The Week of New Stuff



Well, hello all you folks out there in the Sunday Salon, Foodies Read, and elsewhere in the cosmos!  It's been an interesting week!  Wanting to get over various skin issues, I got into a bit of fasting, beginning with  a few intermittent ones and then a 3 day water fast.  This book, Eat, Fast, Feast, was an excellent guide, and very helpful.  Skin things are a bit better and a few more fasts may even finish the job!

10/12/2024

The Zookeeper's Wife and That's Not All!

 What an amazing book!  And, yes a true story, based on diaries and historical sources, The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman.  It's an unusual combination of horrendous war crimes, and humor with all the fascinating human and animal characters.  I was absolutely mesmerized, saddened and amused alternately.  
From the Publishers:
"A true story in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands.

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were Polish Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who managed to save over three hundred people. Yet their story has fallen between the seams of history. Drawing on Antonina’s diary and other historical sources, best-selling naturalist Diane Ackerman vividly re-creates Antonina’s life as “the zookeeper’s wife,” responsible for her own family, the zoo animals, and their “Guests”―Resistance activists and refugee Jews, many of whom Jan had smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto. Ironically, the empty zoo cages helped to hide scores of doomed people, who were code-named after the animals whose names they occupied. Others hid in the nooks and crannies of the house itself.

Jan led a cell of saboteurs, and the Zabinskis’ young son risked his life carrying food to the Guests, while also tending an eccentric array of creatures in the house. With hidden people having animal names, and pet animals having human names, it’s small wonder the zoo’s codename became “The House Under a Crazy Star.”

Yet there is more to this story than a colorful cast. With her exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman explores the role of nature in both kindness and savagery, and she unravels the fascinating and disturbing obsession at the core of Nazism: both a worship of nature and its violation, as humans sought to control the genome of the entire planet."

9/10/2024

The Secret Life of Bees and Some Cake Too!

 


We at Cook the Books Club are currently reading The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, hosted this round by Debra of Eliot's Eats.  This is a novel I had totally missed out on, though it's been around for over 20 years now. Quite an original and fascinating tale. I especially loved the account of 14 year old Lily springing her nanny from the hospital lockdown, after she was beaten up for daring to attempt voting!  

8/17/2024

Getting Into Jang! By Kang - A Whole New Cuisine

 

I just discovered, Jang, The Soul of Korean Cooking, by Mingoo Kang.  Well, it's a new trip for me anyway.  The Jang journey!  And a truly fascinating one.  How they're made, and how to apply to my usual (or should I say unusual) cooking.  I said discovered, but to give proper credit it was due to the Eater post: The 17 Best Cookbooks of Spring 2024, which I've totally enjoyed, checking out many of them from the library and sampling recipes!  In between finding out which type of galangal I'm growing and how to use our Blue Turmeric.  For the ever blooming road of growing and researching plants and their uses is never ending. Anyway, this book is now due at the library, and I need to decide whether to buy it Yikes!  There are so many more recipes I want to try.

The Publishers say:
"Like butter in French cooking or olive oil in Italian, jangs are the soul of Korean cuisine. These soy-based umami sauces—gochujang, doenjang, ganjang—are found in every meal, from soups and stews, to salads, marinades, and even desserts, adding depth and complexity to every dish.

Few chefs understand these ingredients better than Michelin star winner Mingoo Kang, who has dedicated his Seoul restaurant, Mingles, to the exploration of jangs. In his first cookbook, Kang expertly weaves jangs’ history and methods into 60 accessible recipes to bring the sauces to life. Through artisan profiles, sidebars, and step-by-step photographs, Kang uncovers one of the culinary world’s best-hidden secrets... while showing how they can be used to make both Korean and Western dishes more delicious."  

8/10/2024

A Balti Curry for Major Pettigrew



I just finished this delightful novel set in a parochial English village, where everyone knows everyone else's business, and with many of the long held prejudices still in place.  Confrontations are in order.  And here, they happen with some surprise consequences!  I loved this book, and wanted to share the good news!  Here's the Publisher's Weekly review:

"In her charming debut novel, Simonson tells the tale of Maj. Ernest Pettigrew, an honor-bound Englishman and widower, and the very embodiment of duty and pride. As the novel opens, the major is mourning the loss of his younger brother, Bertie, and attempting to get his hands on Bertie's antique Churchill shotgun-part of a set that the boys' father split between them, but which Bertie's widow doesn't want to hand over. While the major is eager to reunite the pair for tradition's sake, his son, Roger, has plans to sell the heirloom set to a collector for a tidy sum. As he frets over the guns, the major's friendship with Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani widow of the local food shop owner, takes a turn unexpected by the major (but not by readers). The author's dense, descriptive prose wraps around the reader like a comforting cloak, eventually taking on true page-turner urgency as Simonson nudges the major and Jasmina further along and dangles possibilities about the fate of the major's beloved firearms. This is a vastly enjoyable traipse through the English countryside and the long-held traditions of the British aristocracy."

7/16/2024

Frosted Maple Bars for Family Tree

 

Our Cook the Books group have been reading and posting about  our current June/July selection, Family Tree by Susan Wiggs, which event I'm also hosting.  I read the book several years ago, and just re-read it for this round.  Delightful both times.  The heroine, Annie Rush, goes through so much loss in her story!  Totally unique and devastating experiences, that would wipe out most of us!  

But, going through them, along with her gave me an insider's glimpse of something I had never thought about, of what it would be like waking from a year long coma, learning again who you are and what had happened.  An entire life lost! The whole recovery process, rehabilitation, then putting the past behind and beginning again!  Not your ordinary cliche story.  Also learning about the whole maple syrup business, how it's done, etc. was a fascinating discovery.  Susan Wiggs keeps it real!

From the Publishers:

"Annie Harlow knows how lucky she is. The producer of a popular television cooking show, she loves her handsome husband and the beautiful Los Angeles home they share. And now, she’s pregnant with their first child. But in an instant, her life is shattered. And when Annie awakes from a yearlong coma, she discovers that time isn’t the only thing she’s lost.