a way to eat mayonnaise.

We are in the shoulder season of spring.  It is not quite warm enough to languidly lay in the sun eating raw salads and taking delicate sips of mint julep, nor does it seem quite right to be hunkering down to a marathon of baked macaroni and cheese and beef brisket, slathering on an extra layer of fat to one’s love handles in an attempt to become immune to winter’s icy grip.  As time tentatively stumbles its way along, some days are warmer, some days are cooler, and the perennial question of what to eat is forever present.

About a year ago we made our first (and hopefully not our last) pilgrimage to New York City – and as I have been recalling the lovely moments spent sipping coffee and wandering its streets, I remembered a particularly delightful raw broccoli salad I had for lunch at a cafe in Jersey City one rainy afternoon.  There was some sort of dried fruit I think, a mayonnaise-based dressing, and of course, crunchy bits of broccoli.  It also reminded me of another favourite salad I used to get at the cafeteria at the university of my youth: raw broccoli, grated cheddar, bacon, mayonnaise.  Decadent and yet somehow a little austere; the unforgiving bitterness of the raw cruciferae cuts through the sweet and creamy comfort of eggs and oil whipped to submission.

It is another rainy afternoon, and I am at home – so instead of hopping on a plane, I am transporting myself via palate, with a broccoli salad of my own: dried cranberries in Jersey’s honour, and with no bacon, chicken breast will have to do this time.  Of course, there is mayonnaise to bring it all together, and to keep my spirit calm and collected while waiting for definitively warmer weather.

Broccoli salad

makes enough for 2 as a main, 4 as a side

1 broccoli crown
1 chicken breast, cooked
1 handful dried cranberries
1 lemon’s zest
juice of half a lemon
a few heaping spoonfuls of mayonnaise

Chop up the broccoli into small, uniform pieces.  I like to go small enough that it is manageable for my mouth to wrap around a floret (nothing is worse than having half a floret hang out your mouth while you attempt to chomp through) but not so small that there is no satisfyingly long period of crunching during its consumption.  Dice the chicken into similar sized pieces.  Throw in a handful of dried cranberries, the finely grated zest of one lemon, and the juice of one of its halves.  Plop a few generous blobs of mayonnaise over, and mix until everything looks well moisturized by the mayonnaise.  Eat on its own, or with a good hearty sandwich of your choice.  A side of iced tea if it’s sunny, or perhaps a dessert of hot chocolate later if it’s rainy.

retreat-worthy: beet and black rice salad.

The key to successfully cooking for other people while they are on a meditation retreat is to think thoughts of love and compassion, so as to channel those same qualities into the food you make, hence providing nourishment that dares to delve into a world beyond physical.  With this intention in mind, I like to think of unicorns and bunnies to facilitate this work.  If I find myself getting caught up thinking whether my imagined unicorn should have a pink mane or a purple one, I resort to softly humming, “Kumbaya” or “My Favourite Things” from the Sound of Music (bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens are da bomb).

Ultimately, retreat-worthy food is nourishing, but easy to digest; tasty, but leaves the palate clean so to avoid distractedly licking one’s chops while trying to meditate.  Here is a vegan salad made of pickled beets and black rice that I served this past weekend at a day of silent meditation – I think it would be an enjoyable lunch, eaten in silence or not.

Beet and black rice salad

serves 4

1 cup uncooked black rice
1-750 ml jar of sliced pickled beets
1 orange
1/4 cup white sesame seeds
1/4 cup nigella seeds
1/2 cup zereshk or chopped dried cranberries
1 heaping handful of fresh parsley
1/4 cup sesame oil
salt and pepper

Cook the black rice in a spacious pot so that it can simmer in excess water (start with adding 3 cups).  By cooking the rice in a loose, dance-y way, it will clump less in the salad.  When the rice is cooked (about 30 minutes), drain in a fine-mesh sieve and rinse with cold water.  Tip the rice into a big bowl.  Now drain the jar of beets and rinse the beets with water – just a little bit is fine, you want the beets to still retain some of their vinegaryness.  Add the beets to the rice.  Grate over the zest of the orange, and squeeze over its juice.  Add the remaining ingredients and toss toss toss.  If it still tastes too sour for your liking, add a tablespoon of sugar or maple syrup to balance out the flavour.

A note about sourcing ingredients: black rice can be found at an Asian supermarket, or substitute wild rice if that’s easier to find.  Nigella seeds are little, dusty-looking black seeds that have a spicy, onion-y taste – they can be found at a Middle Eastern supermarket.  Zereshk is the dried fruit of beriberis, and look like smaller versions of a raisin, but have a sour taste.  They can be found in a Persian or Middle Eastern supermarket as well.  If you happen to live in Winnipeg, both nigella seeds and zereshk can be found at Dino’s Supermarket on Notre Dame.

i like you. here’s some food.

Over the weekend I baked a large carrot cake for my friend’s birthday.  It was served at a party with lots of our friends, and our friends are nice people, so they congratulated me on how delicious and beautiful the cake was.  My outward response was, “Thanks!” but inside I thought, “Well I guess they didn’t notice the lumps in the icing.  Or that the cake had cracked apart on the inside.  Or that a corner of the cake had fallen off and had been patched together again with icing and luck.”  They obviously didn’t notice my vacant stare as I had this inner monologue.

I think we don’t give each other enough credit for being kind-hearted souls that want to support and wish each other well.

I also think we don’t give ourselves enough credit.

Many years ago I made a cake of similar size (chocolate sponge, white chocolate icing) for a friend’s grandma’s 80th birthday.  She asked me to make it because she thought I’d have fun doing it.  When she saw I was so upset at how the cake wasn’t holding together and that there were crumbs in the icing, she said quietly, “I thought this was supposed to be fun.”

Her gentle reminder brought it all home for me, and I realized how awfully dramatic I had been about the whole matter.  It is supposed to be fun – or at the very least, not terrible and tragic.  Making food for others is one of the best ways to show you care, and eating is one of life’s greatest joys.  (I secretly believe that those people who just pick at their food and say blankly, “Oh I’m full” go home and decadently dip apple slices right into the peanut butter jar and chase it with vanilla ice cream and chocolate cookies).  However, being human, things don’t always turn out (it gets a little burnt, it’s too soft, too thick, whatever), so what you make doesn’t always look like it belongs on the cover of a magazine.  But I think that’s okay, because the point was to say, “Hey, I like you enough to make you a cake/cookies/stew/falafel.  Let’s continue to like eachother.”  And the person receiving it will say, “I’m hungry, so ditto” or something like that.  They won’t see the imperfections, they will see the effort and love.  And then you should tell yourself, “I made an effort, I’m an all right human being.”  And then divvy out some portions of what you made so you can enjoy it together.

So, as MFK Fisher says, “Serve it forth.”  And heap on the love.

chocolate sourdough.

Homemade chocolate sourdough, studded with chocolate chips, smeared with butter.  Breakfast of champions.

lentil loaf.

The Internet is rife with hyperbole, but the other day I finally, finally, made a lentil loaf.  Seriously.  I have a page ripped out from a magazine with a recipe for a Curried-Lentil Quinoa Loaf stuck in my food journal (because I’m cool like that), and the footer on the page says, “October 2010.”  Four years.  2014 has been a year of breakthroughs, apparently.  Of course, I did not use that recipe (because following through completely would be just too perfect) and instead I used the Lentil-Walnut Loaf recipe from Angela Liddon’s The Oh She Glows Cookbook.  I know I’m late to the party, but her cookbook and blog are so beautiful and inspiring: you can really feel her passion and dedication to good food.  This loaf did not disappoint!

What I made is a slight variation from the original, simply because I was trying to use what I had.  It was so good that I forgot to take a photo of it until it was half gone.  Also I don’t have a full-size loaf pan; I have only mini loaf pans, which probably sounds ridiculous for someone who bakes so much bread, but the loaf turned out wonderfully in a shallow 9×13″ baking pan.

A slight variation of Angela Liddon’s Lentil Walnut Loaf

serves 4-8

1 cup uncooked green lentils
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 carrots, grated
1/3 cup raisins
1 cup walnut pieces
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs (next time I’m going to try all oat flour)
1 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper

for the balsamic-apple glaze:
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tbsp apple butter
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp maple syrup

Soak the lentils overnight in plenty of water.  The next day, simmer the lentils in fresh water until they are tender.  Drain most of the cooking water, and pulse the lentils in a food processor or blender until it resembles a coarse paste.

Meanwhile, saute the onions in vegetable oil until they soften and take on some light colour.  Add the celery and carrots, and continue cooking until the veggies soften.  Throw in the raisins and walnuts to heat them through.

Stir everything together, and add salt and pepper to taste.  Line your loaf pan with parchment paper, and press the mixture into the pan evenly and firmly.  Whisk together the ingredients for the glaze and spread over the entire surface of the loaf.  Bake in a preheated 325 F oven for 30-40 minutes, so that the loaf dries out and the edges turn a little brown.  Let it cool before slicing so that it can firm up a little bit.  We ate it with coleslaw and wild rice for dinner.  Little slices of the leftovers are an excellent snack, stolen right out of the fridge, eaten cold.