Recipes from the heart

This weekend some of my husband's relatives are in town for a family reuion. Although we had decided not to join the reunion activities, we did have a chance to get together with a handful of relatives yesterday afternoon. One of the many topics we covered was food. It was delightful hearing this group of older African American women recount memorable dishes by their mothers and aunts.

There was the story of how one woman who grew up in a rural Missippi town was happy that her older sister who had moved to town to work had come back one weekend. Their father had just bought some beef stew meat. The older sister woke up early in the morning and cooked the stew down, really down low, getting the meat all tender and flavorful. It was so good that the other sister still remembers the dish and the love the sister poured out on it more than six decades later.

There was another story about how one woman can bake anything. Moist cakes, crisp biscuits, and ooh she would make biscuits and then use the biscuits to make pie crust for the yummiest peach pie. Sounds great, especially if the peaches were picked from the backyard too.

The lady who hosted this gathering was of course herself a good cook. Even though she had just "gotten something together quickly", the food she served at this gathering was again honest down home cooking with no cheating--baked sausage, jerk chicken, creamed corn, spaghetti salad with tomatoes and imitation crab meat. And she served her famous pound cake for dessert--buttery, moist, sweet but balanced with a slight lemon flavor. A little piece hits just the right spot after dinner.

It gets me to thinking that these Black grandmother on my husband's side of the family are cut from the same piece of silk as the Chinese grandmothers on my side of the family. OK neither of my grandmothers were good cooks because of their particular circumstances. But my great-grandmother was a passionate cook just like these other ladies we talked about yesterday. She made the dessert soups ever--red bean soup, sweet potato soup, etc. She made them whenever she felt like it, whenever I felt bad, and just because.

After hearing about all these recipes that warms the stomach as well as the heart, I decided to make some county food myself. No, not African American county food the ladies were dwelling on yesterday, although I make some finger licking corn bread myself too. But I thought about the movie The Road Home (2001, starring Zhang Ziyi) in which the young girl kept making Green Onion Pancake to send to the school, hoping to get the young teacher's attention. In the end, it did, and they were married for many, many years, running the little village school together.

So I made Green Onion Pancakes (it's actually not a pancake but a savory flatbread). Here's the very simple recipe:

2 cups flour
1 tsp sale
1 cup water

Mix together to form smooth dough. Knead on floured surface for a few minutes. Divide into 12 balls. Flatten each ball into a thin circle using a rolling pin. Heat over oil in skillet for 3-5 minutes each side. Serve warm. Goes very well with soy milk.

Feels good to close the loop on yesterday's conversation with a good country biscuit from my own tradition.

Back to food, and more

Back to food, one of my favorite topics.

Yesterday I made pasta with bay scallops (the tiny kind, 60-80 count), brocolli, and a yummy pesto I made on Sunday with parsley and basil. I like making pesto with a 50-50 mix of parsley and basil because the parsley stays green with refrigeration whereas the basil turns black after a while. It doesn't affect the taste, just the asethetics, but I must remember to balance all three senses--color, fragrance, and taste--in my cooking so as not to offend my Chinese ancestors. Anyway, the pesto was great with the pasta. I still have a jar enough for at least 2 more similar sized meals, or maybe one good dinner with friends. Guess I should pull up that address list on my Yahoo mail before the summer is over.

Tonight's dinner was broiled chicken breast with a balsamic glaze. OK, I confess, the glaze was from a bottle, and a free sample from Peapod no less, but it was good stuff. Talking about friends, the last time I used it was almost a whole year ago when an old friend visited from LA with her fiance. She's a teacher and he's an artist. We had great fun and got several very creative original prints a few months later as thank you gifts.

After dinner, I played the piano for a while. Yes, after one's filled with good food, one needs food for the soul as well. I picked up this volume of 68 piano classics from Borders the other day for under $8. It contains a wide range of pieces from Bach to Shostakovitch. But unlike the other 3 or 4 compilations I own, I haven't played at least half of these songs before. It promises to be a fun summer of piano adventures.

Here's what I played tonight: Beethoven's Ecossaises (sounds vaguely Asian, very delightful tune); Beethoven's Minuet in G (heard this before, didn't know it was Beethoven); the intro and Var. 1 of Beethoven's Six Variations from the opera La Molinara (never played this before, will try the other variations later in the week); Brahms' Hungarian Dance (a bit heavy fingered, hey I was sight-reading after all); Chopin's Prelude Op. 28. No. 7 (a short three liner); Caesar Franck's The Doll's Complaint (or Le Plaintes d'une Poupee); and finally Mendelssohn's Venetian Boat Song Op. 19. No. 6 (which I practiced for months years and years ago for music festival competition). It felt good to pour my feelings on the keyboard for a while at the end of a work day.

Language Research

I'm participating in a language research project by U Penn, http://mixer.ldc.upen.edu. Basically folks are recruited to call into the line and have a 10 minute conversation with another caller in theri native language. Usually you just dial in and see who is around who may speak your language. If not, you continue the conversation in English. Earlier today (I know it's past midnight, but I haven't gone to bed for the night yet...) I talked to two different Cantonese-speaking women. Very fun. And of course I fell asleep with the full intention of dialing back in at 9 pm EST for another round of conversations. The purpose of the research is to gather a large speech corpora recorded over the phone to help telephone sound technology deliver high quality speech sounds for a large number of languages. Hey only an ex-linguist would understand the significance. My conversation partners this afternoon were totally in the dark with respect to why anyone would want to record Cantonese phone conversation.

A new look and feel

I decided to retitle this blog to "Not By Bread Alone". This is a reference to Matthew 4:4, where Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God". I thought, how appropriate to frame my interests in exactly these two categories--food and words. Food of course refers not only to food that we eat, but also food for thought (i.e. ideas, learning) and food for the soul (i.e. music, art, etc). And word of course is expression of thought (again not just in written and oral expression, but also as expressed in culture, in emotions, and in spirituality.) In other words, food can also sometimes be word and vice versa.

But now onto some real words about some real food...

Here's the list of entrees I made last week: Broiled Salmon with Lemon and Soy; Lemon-Oregano Chicken (a fantastic organic chicken from Peapod, with fresh lemon and fresh oregano from my Angelic Organics boxes); Beef Stir-Fry with Broccoli and Cauliflower (the garlic tops from my Angelic Organics box give a mild and fresh garlic flavor) ; and Portabello and Tomato Pasta (at which my husband gently suggested, "This would taste good with Italian sausage in it") Humph, carnivores!

Unfortunately because I had to work late on Friday, hubby ordered Edwardo's. Good hearty all-meat pizza for the rest of the family and a wimpy chicken caesar salad for mommy. Saturday again was another order out day, because I came home after a long day of shopping with my oldest daughter. Knowing that I wanted more flavor for dinner, I ordered from Noodles, etc (www. noodlesetc.com), a very cute, woman-owned Pan-Asian noodle shop in the neighborhood. I think everyone else enjoyed their selections, but I especially enjoyed the Pancit, a nice mild blend of flavors very reminiscent of the luscious terrain of the Phillipines.

After having to taste other people's cooking two nights in a row, tonight I made a pork tenderloin with Charlie Trotter's Thai BBQ sauce. The guy may be a primadona, but he sure makes good food. The pork was accompanied by roasted yellow squash, very tender and yummy. I also roasted some beets too, but haven't yet figured out what to do with the roast beets. They'll probably make an appearance in a salad within the next couple of days. Right now, bread is being baked in the bread maker for the kids to make sandwiches to take to day camp tomorrow. Hey my mother never did this for me. :)

That's enough talk about food (even bread). Tomorrow I shall turn to other kinds of things that feed my soul.