May Wrap-up

End of the month... time to review the news out there.



(Left: picking rhubarb from the backyard garden. Rhubarb is in season here in the Front Range. Check this out to find out what's good in your neck of the woods.)


First up, another blog to add to your list: Dr. Phil Maffetone's In Fitness and in Health. Great recipe for home-made energy bars in there (the original version of the mass-produced Phil Bar).

The Internet Food Association brings us a quick piece about the new Supreme Court nominee from a foodie perspective.

The New York Times finally notices everyone's favorite chile sauce.

(Odd... Blogger's spellchecker says "chile" is spelled incorrectly. They want to make it "chili," the Americanized version of the Spanish word for peppers.)

We road-tested two of the four dinners on NPR's "How Low Can You Go?" challenge (dinner for four for under $10). The Moorish chickpea stew was great, but we made a spicier and quicker version here. The fried rice was also wicked easy and should be on everyone's emergency back-up dinner plan list, as all you need are rice, eggs, and whatever else you want to throw in there. The Neely's mac-and-cheese looked like a run-of-the-mill attempt, so we're going to try to improve it a bit later next month (hint: going to do it on the grill).

Need to spice up your gym workout? Have you been doing the same dozen exercises, over and over, and need something to change your routine? Check out the list at the Mountain Athlete (or their sister sight, the Military Athlete). You'll find lots of different ways to use the same old gear, or no gear at all.

And finally, as everyone surely knows, it's officially grilling season. And for most people, grilling means meat, meat, and more meat. (Or, like a buddy of mine says, vegetables are what food eats.) But there's so much more to life than that, so over the next few weeks we are going to explore fruits and vegetables and introduce them to our friend, the open flame. In the meantime, you all have some homework. The best stuff to grill is always the best stuff, and the way to get the best stuff is to get stuff when it's in season. So check out the stuff that's currently available in your area of operations, using this little app from Epicurious.

Memorial Day in Nebraska

The Z Monster has been looking a bit on the string bean side, so we decided to spend part of the Memorial Day weekend in Nebraska so he could put a few pounds on. If you are ever in danger of blowing away, then run don't walk to M's mom's and do whatever it takes to get her to make her world-famous fried chicken and gravy.

Z's been a bit picky in the meat department. He has scarfed down baked ham at the major holidays, but even that he won't eat all of the time. Doesn't seem to like beef in any form. And up until this weekend, he has never allowed a piece of chicken to sneak into a spoonful of anything. (He will eat my chicken noodle soup, but it is puréed beyond recognition, I suppose.) He wouldn't even try my peanut butter and herb fried chicken, which sounded about as kid-friendly as a main course comes. Z's a fruit and bread man, and prefers eggs and cheese as his protein sources. But all of that changed this weekend, and getting a taste of Western Nebraska fried chicken and gravy. The danger now is that we may have spoiled him. He may come to expect that dinner always should taste like this, and every time he needs a decent meal we'll have to drive two hours east.

Z feels right at home on the farm. He pointed at the cows and horses on the drive there, and he instinctively made engine sounds every time he saw a tractor. His vocabulary is in the twenty word range, but he added the sound effect "moo" as soon as he saw the cows up close.







And he could have stayed in the barn with the kittens all day long if we would have let him.



Zebb on the Farm Slideshow

Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, we hope you're with the folks you care about this Memorial Day.

First Haircut

The Z-Man has been looking a little ragged lately. It was hard to tell whether he was just getting ready for hockey season or if he was planning on joining a reggae band, but his dreadlock/mullet combo had to go. So after getting permission for this major medical procedure, we hauled him down to the kinder-salon for his first haircut.

(Left: Pre-haircut)





Now, you know dads: they love their kids, but hate being embarrassed by signs of weakness, such as crying on the football field after a compound fracture or not being able to handle a few shakes of the 500K Scoville habanero sauce on their oatmeal.





And I've seen those kids wailing in the barber's chair before, squirming like a sack full of cats and screaming their lungs out when the electric shears come at them. Using the military principle of "train like you're going to fight," I got him ready for the big day. For the last couple of weeks, every time I shaved with my electric razor, I held him in my arms and got him used to the sound. And after a couple of goes, I'd give him a quick touch of the buzzing Braun so he'd know it didn't hurt.





When show time came, he was a pro. Acted like he does it all the time. In fact, when the stylist asked us what kind of cut we wanted, he butted in, saying, "It's Memorial Day weekend... a high and tight would be appropriate, to show my solidarity with all of those in harm's way tonight and those who came before them."




After the haircut, we wanted to take him some place fun for a reward, and since it was raining a bit, the indoor playground at the Cherry Creek Mall seemed like a good choice. It's a simple operation, an assortment of breakfast-themed, foam rubber, climbable objects like fried eggs and a bowl of shredded wheat, with a soft floor for the inevitable falls. Z current holds the US record for the banana climb and put up a new route with a free solo up the north face of the sausage links.

First Haircut Slideshow

Spice, Spice, Baby

As a Gaelic, haolie, druid of sorts, I have to be careful with any spice that packs a whollop. My people consider a shake of black pepper on a boiled potato to be getting crazy with the spices. For as long as I could remember, I was always the first one at the table to burn his tongue or start sweating.



(Left: everyone needs a little helper in the kitchen.)



One time in Korea, I became particularly infatuated with a slow-burn garlic sauce that we were using with the pork and chicken kabobs grilling on our table-top hibachi. The sauce had zero mouth-burn, but after about five minutes in the belly one could feel the body heat. After a couple of bites, there was a light mist of sweat on my brow. Ten minutes later, I looked like I had just finished a 10K, which prompted the waitress to bring me more napkins. A few more bites and my head was dripping, and she brought me a cloth napkin and another glass of ice water to dunk it in. By the end of the meal she had positioned a table fan behind me and was sitting to my left, wiping my head with her iced cloth and fanning me with a menu.

Hard to get that kind of service at Appleby’s.

M. has always had a higher tolerance for Asian and Mexican spices than I do. At a Thai restaurant, she’ll order a 4 and I’m heading for the exits if I go higher than 2. She can cover a Chipotle’s burrito with the red chile sauce, their hottest, which I can only stand if I dilute it 1:10 with sour cream. But recently we made a Moorish garbanzo bean stew, and not having pimenton (Spanish sweet paprika), I substituted smoked Spanish paprika, at half the required amount. I thought it was just about perfect, but M. was on fire after a couple of bites. And the same thing happened not long ago with an Indian veggie dish. So, is it a male / female thing? Are our tolerances changing as we get older? Is there a hotness difference between Asian, Mexican, Persian, and Indian dishes? We can measure relative hotness with the Scoville scale, but is there a way to measure the difference between mouth-hot and belly-hot, the kind of heat that burns your lips and tongue vs. the kind that slow burns and makes you sweat ten minutes later?

And why is it that this pasty-faced who grew up on Heinz ketchup now can’t get enough Sriracha on just about everything?


Moorish-style chickpea and spinach stew


From NPR’s How Low Can You Go series – dinner for four for under $10

(The stew's on the left, and on the right you have peanut butter and herb fried chicken.)


Chef Jose Andres’ stew is super-easy to make but takes a day and half to make. The day before, you soak the chickpeas, and then the day of, you slow cook them, constantly watching them, and adding water by the cupful until they are done.

We used canned chickpeas and made the whole thing in about twenty minutes, start to finish.

Using canned chickpeas also meant we had to swap around a couple of steps, because the spice concoction should have been added to the simmering chickpeas. But this also serves to shave a few minutes off of the process, making it a better weeknight option. However, because the broth isn’t flavored by the chickpeas, we had to add about two cups of chicken broth to the equation.

Full recipe here, and modified recipe below.

6 garlic cloves, peeled and whole
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 slices bread
2 Tbs pimenton (Spanish sweet paprika)
(We used smoked paprika for a hotter stew, and only used one Tbs)
1 pinch saffron
1 tsp ground cumin
2 Tbs sherry vinegar
1/2 pound spinach, washed and cleaned
1 can garbanzos (chickpeas)
2 cups chicken broth or 2 cups water

Salt and white pepper to taste


To make this a one pot dish, sauté the garlic in the same stock pot that you’ll use for the stew. Add a splash of olive oil, maybe a sliver of butter, and sauté for about five minutes over medium heat, stirring frequently to brown it evenly. Remove the garlic to a cutting board or mortar, and then brown the bread in the same stock pot. Smash the garlic into the bread using the back of your chef’s knife, the bottom of a mason jar, your mortar and pestle, or what have you. Make a thick paste and set aside.

Add the sweet or smoked paprika, saffron if you have it, and cumin to the stock pot, and then the chickpeas, and stir to coat. Add the broth and water and bring to a boil, then reduce to a slow-rolling boil and cook for about five more minutes. Add the spinach and cook for five more minutes. Finally, add the bread-garlic concoction and simmer for five more minutes, stirring to create a thicker sauce.

Serve with flatbread.

Speaking of Chef Jose, check this out: Ezra Klein in the WaPost.

Defining Happiness

Kevin sent in this article:

What Makes Us Happy?

by Joshua Wolf Shenk
from the June Atlantic

An inside look at an unprecedented seven-decade study of a group of Harvard men suggests that one thing, above all, truly makes a difference.

What is that "one thing"? Curly knew what it was, but he wasn't telling.

The Taste of Victory

Maybe this is the next Texas Hold’em?

The Sizzle of Competition in Cook-off City.


A Fondue Takedown, a Risotto Challenge, a Chowder Slam. A Cassoulet Cook-Off and a Ramen-derby. And you can’t go wrong with the old stand-by, the chili cook-off.

The common denominator here: emphasis on fun, not so much on culinary expertise.

Given the state of our economy, the idea of getting with some buddies and losing a couple of hundred bucks playing poker doesn’t sound all that good right now. (And what’s the saying? If you’re not sure who the sucker at the table is, then it’s you.)

But spending $10-20 on grub and sharing it with a bunch of friends? That sounds like a much better return on investment.

Don't count your chickens before they are hatched

Like Yogi said, it's not over until it's over.

Last week we thought we had some good news. Turned out, it was way too early to be placing any bets just yet.

Just when you think you have something figured out, you find out the rules of the game have changed.

Oh well...

Nothing we can do but sit back and keep our fingers crossed.

The Mother of All Cobblers

Blackberries were on sale this week, a buck for a tray that normally went for $4.99. So you know what that means: blackberry cobbler.

Now, lots of folks prefer to make this with frozen blackberries. It's typically cheaper, and the frozen berries can be easier to work with. But when you have fresh available, you gotta go with it.








O, blackberry tart, with berries as big as your
thumb, purple and black, and thick with juice, and
a crust to endear them...with such a taste that will
make you close your eyes and wish you might live
forever in the wideness of that rich moment.
—Richard Llewellyn, Welsh novelist

Filling:
8 cups blackberries fresh or frozen (thawed slightly if frozen)
1 cup sugar
¼ cup instant tapioca
Juice of ½ lime
Pinch of salt

Topping:
1 cup flour
1 cup coconut
¾ cup sugar
½ cup pecans, coarsely chopped
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup cold butter, cubed
1 egg

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, toss berries with sugar, tapioca, lime juice and salt. Spoon into a 2-quart rectangular baking dish. Don’t be afraid to mix or try other fruits too—peaches, raspberries, blueberries, etc. Use a little more tapioca with frozen fruit or expect the juices to be a bit thinner.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, coconut, sugar, pecans, baking powder and salt. Knead in the butter using your fingers. The mixture should resemble coarse sand; avoid overmixing. Blend in egg with your fingers; dough will be sticky. Spread topping over berries in clumps, covering evenly.
Bake for 45–50 minutes or until golden and crisp and filling is thick and bubbly. Place a cookie sheet under the dish during baking to catch spills.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for 1 hour. Serve warm with
vanilla ice cream.

Great News!

Just can't talk about it here...

Birthday and Easter Pix

Should be the last of the indoor pix... after this weekend, we need to get outside a whole lot more.

(Not just a lot more, but a whole lot more. One entire lot unit, or unit of lotness.)

Easter and Birthday Pix

Dancing Boy

A quick compilation of dancing clips. We never have the camera handy when he's really busting a move, but these couple-of-second clips will give you the basic idea. (His big thing now is to turn on the clock radio, wait for a song to start, and then break into a new routine.)

Rocking out to Steve Earle





Getting started with Ryan Adams

Børk! Børk! Børk!

A few years ago, secretary and receptionist Julie Powell attempted to break out of her emotional and existential rut by taking on the daring project of cooking all 524 recipes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, over the course of one year. The result was a wildly popular blog and a best-selling book, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. And this August, the movie version will hit the screens, starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Stanly Tucci.

What a lot of you may not know, however, is that the blog, book, and movie are all blatant rip-offs of my own similar project. Julie's idolization of Julia Child mirrors my own experience as a student of one of the greatest, and one of our least appreciated, celebrity chefs.

Julie and Julia is nothing but a cheap imitation of my book, Steve and the Swede.

Before I joined the Army, I spent a year under the tutelage of the great master, the Swedish Chef. He taught me everything I know but only a fraction of what he knew, and I have spent the last few years trying to retrace those lost steps and find my way once again in the kitchen.

Sensei Swede, as I called him, was a demanding task-master. Part Obi-Wan Kenobi, part Priest Pai Mei, and part Gunny Sergeant Hartman, he would dispense sage advice by the gram, usually cloaked in obtuse koan-like riddles. "Be one with the clarified butter." And, "Heat cannot be measured by a marking on a dial, but must be experienced by he who seeks to control it." He banned Crocs in his kitchen years before they were even invented. His answer to nearly every question was "Børk! Børk! Børk!" and yet, each "børk," through intonation, pitch, and volume, meant something completely different.


But before my story could be told, Hollywood swept down and turned Julie and Julia into household names. Fate can be so cruel.

I mean no disrespect to the late Julia Child, and I'm sure Julie Powers is a very nice person. But to compare Child's coq au vin to the Swedish Chef's chicken in a basket is like comparing your child's refrigerator art to Seurat's Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte.

See for yourself and decide:

Moving on up... to the east side... to that dee-lux apartment, in the sky-eye-eye...

Z-ster graduated from the infant room to the toddler room at daycare this week. It was a moderately traumatic event for a day or so, as he went from biggest fish in the small pond status to little, little fish, getting eaten by the big, big fish.

(Okay... what does that last metaphor have to do with the subject line? Ten extra credit points to the first one to make the connection.)

For most of the last four months, Z's been the biggest kid in the room, surrounded by kids who can't talk and don't walk nearly as well as he does. As a result, most of his interaction has been with the adults, with the folks supervising the room. They all love him, and he loves them right back, but we've been pushing to get him moved up so he can play with kids his speed.

They finally made room for him in the bigger kid room, so he packed up his things and moved on up. What we didn't realize, though, was that now Z was the littlest guy in the room. Not a big deal, I though, since he's a tough guy who can take care of himself.

The teachers in the new room had prepared the rest of the class, so everyone knew his name and was ready to welcome him. Sounds good, right? Well, the way it played out was, Z walked in the door, and a dozen bigger kids surrounded him, calling out his name over and over. So instead of the welcoming greeting they had intended, it felt more like Night of the Living Dead, with a room full of zombies chanting as they formed a circle around their victim-to-be.

He got over that in a day or so, though, and now he loves his new room. The kids are more mobile and active and can keep up with our little bugger. He's the smallest kid in the room, but he's the best climber and pretty quick out on the playground where there's a race to a ball.



Chowing down on Pappy's almond-blueberry pancakes.








Four wheels and two legs are okay, but when will I get something motorized?













Can't wait to start digging outside.

Mango Chicken Chutney

It's no longer winter soup and stew season, but maybe it's not quite summer grilling season. What to do, what to do...?

How about going with some Indian spice until you're ready to fire up the Weber?

This one takes about an hour, but there is very little hands-on.

Mango Chutney Chicken

3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons curry powder
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ cup dry white wine
2 pounds boneless, skinless
chicken breasts
1½ cups jarred mango chutney
2 tablespoons shredded coconut
1 tablespoon snipped fresh chives
½ cup golden raisins

Preheat oven to 350°. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Add curry powder and cardamom and cook 2–3 minutes. Stir in wine until well blended and remove from heat.
Place chicken pieces in a casserole dish. Pour butter mixture over chicken and bake 30 minutes. Spread chutney over chicken and continue baking an additional 30 minutes, basting frequently. Sprinkle with coconut, chives and raisins.

Serve with Carrot Jasmine Rice Pilaf and Oven Roasted Cherry Tomatoes.



Oven Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

2 pints cherry tomatoes
1½ tablespoons olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried orange zest
3 cloves garlic, chopped
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

Preheat oven to 425°. Put tomatoes in a 9 x 13-inch glass dish or roasting
pan. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, orange zest, garlic and cardamom. Roast until dish is fragrant and tomatoes are fully cooked—about 20–25 minutes— stirring once halfway through.

(If you're making this with the mango chicken, you can put it in the oven at 350° and cook for 40-45 minutes.)

Carrot Jasmine Rice Pilaf

1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup finely chopped shallots
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1 cup uncooked jasmine rice
2–3 carrots, chopped
3 teaspoons dried grated
orange zest
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
a shake of crushed red pepper
2¼ cups chicken broth, heated
½ teaspoon honey
a dash of salt


Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and pine nuts and cook 4–6 minutes.
Stir in rice, carrots, orange zest, cardamom and crushed red pepper. Stir and cook for 2 minutes.
Add chicken broth, honey, and salt. Cover pan and simmer 12–15 minutes, until liquid is absorbed.

Børk! Børk! Børk!

A few years ago, secretary and receptionist Julie Powell attempted to break out of her emotional and existential rut by taking on the daring project of cooking all 524 recipes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, over the course of one year. The result was a wildly popular blog and a best-selling book, Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. And this August, the movie version will hit the screens, starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, and Stanly Tucci.

What a lot of you may not know, however, is that the blog, book, and movie are all blatant rip-offs of my own similar project. Julie's idolization of Julia Child mirrors my own experience as a student of one of the greatest, and one of our least appreciated, celebrity chefs.

Julie and Julia is nothing but a cheap imitation of my book, Steve and the Swede.

Before I joined the Army, I spent a year under the tutelage of the great master, the Swedish Chef. He taught me everything I know but only a fraction of what he knew, and I have spent the last few years trying to retrace those lost steps and find my way once again in the kitchen.

Sensei Swede, as I called him, was a demanding task-master. Part Obi-Wan Kenobi, part Priest Pai Mei, and part Gunny Sergeant Hartman, he would dispense sage advice by the gram, usually cloaked in obtuse koan-like riddles. "Be one with the clarified butter." And, "Heat cannot be measured by a marking on a dial, but must be experienced by he who seeks to control it." He banned Crocs in his kitchen years before they were even invented. His answer to nearly every question was "Børk! Børk! Børk!" and yet, each "børk," through intonation, pitch, and volume, meant something completely different.

But before my story could be told, Hollywood swept down and turned Julie and Julia into household names. Fate can be so cruel.

I mean no disrespect to the late Julia Child, and I'm sure Julie Powers is a very nice person. But to compare Child's coq au vin to the Swedish Chef's chicken in a basket is like comparing your child's refrigerator art to Seurat's Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte.

See for yourself and decide: