Irresponsibility, Both Predicted and Fulfilled

Dear TT,

I forgot to bring the cord that connects my camera to the computer, so I won't be able to post any of the foodgasmic pics I've taken on my Texas trip until I get back home to Richmond! And I'm scrambling to get my Fulbright stuff in (AGAIN, arrgghhh) by Friday. But I promise to write soon.

Despite all that, I wanted to wish you and B the best of times in California - can't wait to hear all about the fabulous meals and adventures you have!

More soon, and much love,

TF

World Travel

Dear Tia Fia-
How was Austin? Where did you go- Polvos, Magnolia Cafe for the Mag Mud, Guero's for the margaritas? My mom was thrilled that y'all went to visit her; she told me she had so much fun playing with the baby.

B and I are preparing for our trip to California tomorrow morning. Somehow he agreed to pack the bags while I wrote this letter. I think he hopes that in return I can calm down and maybe wrangle some of my free-floating anxiety into submission.

I love to travel, but I have a hard time believing things will go smoothly. It is my strongly held personal belief that if I do not wake up in the same bed, at the same time, drink coffee from the same cup, touch my nose to the glass table a certain way when the cat meows that my life will going spinning out of control. These life-out-of-control fears cover a broad spectrum. Ranging from the mundane to the fantastic, each worry has an explicit daymare to illustrate the havoc or sadness it would bring to my life. The following concerns have all found me in the last 24 hours:

1. Fire. The cat leaps onto the stove, accidentally turns it on, and then runs around the house in fear lighting furniture on fire with its tail.
2. The plane will crash.
3. I will lose my job because they didn't actually take me off the schedule.
4. Pretty Girl Earl (who has alot of hairballs) will choke while we aren't here and we will not be able to save her.
5. Somehow that fantastic meal I ate out will cause me to bloat so much that I won't be able to wear any of the clothes I brought for the trip and I'll have to run to Wal-Mart for a sweatsuit.
6. Our apartment will be burglarized. (This one doesn't bother me much- we don't have anything to steal.)

There you go. I'm completely normal. Right? So with all these worries, I don't have much brain space to plan meals- meaning, this evening found me staring at 2 lone chicken breasts, frozen peas, a box of macaroni and cheese, a tomato and a cucumber. Put it all together and what do you get?


YUM. Kinda.

Gotta go. It's late and we've got an early flight. I can't wait to hear about Austin.

Love
Tia Tay

Self-Absorption

Dear Tia Fia-

So I just got done reading your letter. While reading, I took the liberty to infer your reasons for feeling bad. "I know why she's down", I think to myself. " She's in a transitional state. Will she be awarded the Fulbright or will those Fulbright people make an idiotic mistake and reject her? Will she get to jump up and down with glee or does she have to revise her plans and take another go at it?" I'm thinking all of this and then suddenly it hits me SMACK! (that's the sound of my palm hitting my forehead) I'm not thinking about you I thinking about myself!

Ashamed that I had the audacity to psycho-analyze others, I had to lie down and put a cold rag on my forehead. A trick taught to me from my mom, a cold rag can be a balm for a wide range of ailments. It helps with hangovers, a 103-degree fever, or to provide the illusion of sickness when wanting to avoid certain chores.

This particular solace under the washcloth helped me realize I am in no state to craft complex meals requiring difficult instructions. It is a period for simple no-nonsense stuff that can be easily re-heated when I get home from work, it's time again for Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff For Your Oven.

Because I still had eggplant left over from my first CSA Surprise! and I wanted to hide the texture and taste I chose this recipe:

Eggplant Casserole



2 cups of cornmeal
2 cups of water (or broth)
1 jar tomato sauce
2 eggplants
3 eggs
1 cup of ricotta
1 cup of cream
1/2 cup of parmesan
Enough fontina or mozzarella to cover the top of the casserole

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bring to a boil the two cups of water or, if you don't want to be a vegetarian, the broth. When water is boiling dump in the 2 cups of cornmeal. Stir together, off of the heat, until everything is mixed in and not lumpy. Set aside until cool and thick.

2) Slice eggplant. If you don't like the flavor make it very small. Heat a large pan with olive oil and then fry the eggplant in batches. Make sure to flip the eggplant to each side so both sides are brown. Flavor with salt and pepper as you go along.

3) In a separate bowl, mix 2 eggs, 1 cup of cream, 1 cup of ricotta (if finances don't allow use cottage cheese) and some Parmesan. Mix together.

4) Open bottle of tomato sauce.

5) Mix into prepared cornmeal (really it's polenta) 1 egg and some Parmesan. Make sure to add some salt and pepper. Spread into the bottom of your casserole dish. Then spread a layer of your eggplant down. Next goes the cheese mixture and then a layer of the tomato sauce. You used all of your polenta with the first spreading, so starting with the eggplant do the whole thing again. Everything should be used up and you top the whole thing with the mozzarella. Put in oven for 45 minutes to an hour. Covered. After the hour, remove lid and brown cheese on top to your liking. I like mine really browned and chewy, but others like theirs just melted. It is up to you.

This casserole was great because the eggplant was well hidden. J might even go for it if you don't tell him the ingredients.

Well, I keep wanting to say I hope you feel better soon, but that's not quite right. If you're writing alot and you like the results this period of introspection and seeing the world in a new way is probably kinda good. I'm not trying to sound insensitive, I just don't have the adequate vocabulary.

I can't wait for updates on your Austin trip. I hope you have so much fun.

Love,
Tia T

P.S. I've turned B into one of Pavlov's dogs. Every time he hears the camera click he asks in anticipation "dinner's ready?" Even if I'm just taking pictures of the cat.

Moody Stews

Dear Tia T -

I've been having one of those weeks where I feel so raw the slightest thing could catapult me into sobbing into my soggy morning cereal (is there anything worse?), so I was thrilled to have your most recent letter distract me into laughter. I did, of course, immediately ask J what planet parmesan was from, and he, of course, immediately smuckled and said "Uranus." Ain't it grand when the right questions have the right answers?

I do two things when I feel raw: I write poetry, listen to sad music (how cliche, right?), and obsess over food. Okay, to be fair, I do those things anyway (especially the latter), but there's a particular kind of force that I feel barreling through me that leads to some furious writing and and cooking. I feel suddenly awake and affected by every little thing I see - every little thing seems to remind me how simultaneously beautiful and awful the world can be. It reminds me, actually, of how you and your mother pay attention to plants and flowers as y'all move through the world - each petal and stem and leaf matter, and each have their own unique way of being present in the world. I've learned from y'all that plants are certainly more than just garnish along a city sidewalk.

So a couple of afternoons ago, I was writing at home and thinking about what to make for dinner. I wanted something bold, filling, comforting - something that would rise rich in the air, something tangible. I also wanted to make use of 2 pounds of chuck roast J bought, inexplicably, while I was in Brooklyn, and the last of the peppers that my friend Keith had given us.

I found this recipe on a Texas Monthly message board, and it totally fit the bill. The stew did fill the air with deliciousness all afternoon and early evening, and staved off, thankfully, more self-deprecating behavior. I served it alongside a spinach and bell pepper salad and some leftover parathas. It was a nice East meets West kind of meal - I felt like I was honoring both my heritages at once. It also warmed up really nicely, so J and I ate on it the rest of the week without once getting tired of it.

Also, I wanted to tell you - my Kentucky friend M is in town for the weekend, and I knew he was going to drag all the boys into a long night/morning of poker, so I decided to make a couple of those delicious looking beef and spinach pies you made to sustain their erstwhile efforts. The girls came along too and we stayed in and chatted after they left for their game, making it two! official girls' nights in between the two of us. Represent!

Your soup looks absolutely delicious, and perfect for both my recent obsession with slow cooking and the onslaught of cooler weather. I love the idea of a submerged sprig of rosemary - how cool a word is sprig, by the way? I wish we could have sat in your lovely apartment next to the window and dipped chunks of bread into it together.

By the way, I feel as though I should apologize for how depressing my recent letters have been - I'll be in Texas next week, so hopefully I'll be blogging about being cheered up by some serious Tex-Mex instead. My friend Kate is meeting me in Austin with her baby girl - be prepared for some serious baby gushing. Any ideas of baby-friendly places or things to do while we're there?

Hope your injury is better too - I'd advise using it as an excuse to B not to wash dishes - it might get infected!

Much love,

Tia F.

Big Bros and Spaghetti

Dear Tia Fia,

I've heard childhood memories are different for each sibling, but apparently J and I share the spaghetti one. Ask him this for me, "What planet is Parmesan from?" If he answers "Uranus" with a doubled-up belly laugh he's for sure my bro. His joke was a favorite repeat on nights my mom labored over her seriously good spaghetti sauce. Ignoring the joke and the green-canned Parmesan, spaghetti nights were always a plus because they made me feel more sophisticated and loved than our jarred-sauce-eating rube neighbors. Now though I join them- not once have I ever made homemade spaghetti sauce. Hanging my head in shame, I hope to redeem myself by making your recipe. It looks easy and yummy.

As a Texas native, I've been pleasantly surprised that Fall is my favorite season. In the past, it's been marked only by school opening and Friday Night Football- a sweaty event with everyone wearing their new autumn school clothes and the temp still reaching 90 degrees. In Chicago, I look forward to the leaves changing, the actual need for a sweater, and being able to cook a soup without my kitchen getting too hot.

Not for dinner, but to reheat for lunches and snacks I enjoyed my cool kitchen by making this soup last night. The recipe calls for kale, but because I have excess arugula I just threw a whole bunch of that in.





Tuscan Bean Soup (adapted from Cook's Illustrated Website)



1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
6 ounces of pancetta, cut up (I always use bacon)
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium celery ribs, chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
8 medium garlic cloves, minced
3 cups of chicken broth
2 cups of water
4 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed well
2 medium bay leaves
1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
1 pound kale or collard greens (I've used lots of different types including spinach and arugula)
1 sprig fresh rosemary



1. Heat oil and pancetta in Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally until pancetta is lightly browned and fat rendered, 6 to 10 minutes. Add onion, celery, and carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened and slightly browned, 10 -16 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in broth, water, beans, bay leaves, tomatoes, and greens. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Reduce heat and simmer until veggies and greens are full tender. 20-25 minutes.



2. Remove pot from stove and submerge rosemary in stew. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes. Discard bay leaves and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper. If desired, use back of spoon to press some beans against side of pot to thicken stew. Serve lightly drizzled with olive oil.

I hope you're lip is doing better. I'd advise to stay away from chips and salsa. We'd make a great team. I too am injured after having a little accident with the vegetable peeler. It slipped when I was trying to peel Granny Smiths and ended up peeling my skin off.

I hope you're having a great day.

Love,
TT

Borrowed Childhoods

Dear Tia T -

The awkward purgatory between summer and fall always leaves me feeling strangely bereft and filled with longing for something I don't understand and can't name. I think part of it is the schizophrenic weather we've been having: super-warm days followed by lightly cool ones. Perhaps it's also that I'm accustomed, still, to the feeling of a school year. As a child, summers seemed endless, indolent, filled with fat novels I couldn't wait to read. It always ended more quickly than I expected, and ever since I graduated from grad school in May, I've been dreading the end of this particular summer, because it's the last one I'll have as a student.

What's fall like in Chicago? I know it's already cooler there, and I'm envious. Though it's still warm here, already the evenings are darkening earlier and earlier, the leaves are beginning to color, and I am drawn more and more to slow cooking, hoping to force fall into its leaf-swirling, cardigan- and scarf-wearing potential.

Apparently, I'm in too much of a hurry for fall to get here, because I fell down the stairs in our apartment building and busted my lip open this past weekend. Though impossible to eat elegantly or pain-free with a busted lip, I wanted, for some reason, spaghetti: plain old, tomato sauce-laden spaghetti. Food of childhoods, of a pot filled with magic stirred and simmered and stirred some more.

Except my mother never really made spaghetti. I realized this when J and I sat down to eat, and I said, "This really takes me back." Except, it didn't really. When I thought about it, I ate South Asian food at home, almost always. I must have eaten it at friends' houses, or in the cafeteria, but I don't actually remember any specific time when I ate a bowl of spaghetti as a child...but what about the pot, and the smell in the air, and the children's voices, and the wooden spoon tipped with red sauce? Stuff of dreams (though J, apparently, has memories of y'all's mother making spaghetti sauce that way, so maybe I just borrowed his) and Ragu commercials. Who says advertising doesn't work?

Anyway, made-up childhood aside, this sauce tasted pretty magical, though it's a more grownup version of what I "remember" eating as a child. Fall, take notice! Slow cooking season has arrived.

Adult-erated Tomato Sauce (adapted from Giada de Laurentis' Everyday Italian)

2 tbls olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 pinches crushed red pepper flakes
1-2 pinches dried sweet basil (though you could use any amenable herb)
1 28-oz can tomato puree or crushed tomatoes
3-4 ripe tomatoes, chopped (optional, but my friend Katie gave me some from her garden that were about to go bad, so I thought I'd throw them in there)
1/2 c. pecorino romano
salt and pepper, to taste
1-2 tbls unsalted butter

1. Cook onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add crushed red pepper flakes and dried or fresh herbs; cook until fragrant.

2. Pour in tomato puree and a few glugs of cooking wine, chopped tomatoes, and let simmer all afternoon, stirring occasionally.

3. When almost ready to serve, stir in pecorino romano, and let sit for a few minutes.

4. Stir in butter until melted. Pour over spaghetti. Swirl onto fork and try to avoid getting tomato sauce in the open wound on your lip.

It would have been great to have some of your arugula for a salad to accompany the pasta! I'm going to think about what else you could use arugula for besides that marvelous looking pizza - inspired, perhaps, by that amazing pizza place near your house you took us to this past spring? I love arugula because it's so peppery, and I can't imagine a single recipe that calls for fresh spinach that you couldn't renovate with arugula.

We haven't gotten our CSA stuff yet, but when we do, I'll let you know. J, the economist, was also reluctant (birds of a feather, you eggplant haters, you), but I think I brought him around. (It's good and good for you! It's actually cheaper than our usual groceries! I'll make it worth our while, I promise!) Though if there are lots of eggplants and cantaloupes, I may have a problem, since J isn't a fan of either.

Oh, also - the idea of a CAT fills me with joy and delight. I want to go to there, please! Let's make that happen. When I was in NY, we mainly ate in Brooklyn, which was so fun because I was born there but have never had a chance to really explore it. The pics: 1) tapas at this place 2) brunch at this place (I was so starved for good Mexican food that, yes, I ate Mexican food in NYC - the chilaquiles, I promise you, were divine) 3) and finally, a sampling of West Indies delights at the Brooklyn West Indian Carnival, a mere 5-minute walk away from my friend Laurel's place.

I'm anxious to hear from you about what else you're doing with that arugula - I'll let you know if I find something fun to make with it. Hope you and B are well, and much love to you both -

-TF

Arugula Glut

Dear Tia Fia,
Your pictures from New York look amazing- I am SO jealous. Did you go to a favorite restaurant? Eat in China Town? I'm dying to know. Maybe the two of us should organize a Culinary Adventure Trip (CAT) and go! We'll say it's a business expense and eat our little hearts out.

Have I ever told you that B is really into things like sustainable gardening, organic fruits and veggies, and eating from local/regional producers? And that, on the other hand, I really like CHEAP? Politics in our house get tricky as I debate in realistic (B just asked me to change that to "short-sighted") terms like "Have you seen our bank account?" and B debates from the lofty idealistic "what's better for the whole of us is better than what's good for the two of us" stance.
In October we'll hit our 5 year anniversary, so we'll have had this argument for, oh let's see, 4 1/2 years.

Now I'm thanking you from the bottom of my stingy little heart, your mention of a CSA saved B and me from at least ONE perpetual row. We looked close to home and found Farmer Tom's. For 24 bucks a week we get a 1/2 bushel of organic fruits and vegetables that've been grown by a local farmer. The one down side- that 1/2 bushel is a grab bag and you don't know what you're going to get. This week was our first CSA Surprise and it included apples, pears, cantaloupe, eggplant, broccoli, potatoes, tomatoes, nanners, and parsnips.



And 2 POUNDS of arugula.



What do you do with that much? I mean the peppery bitter green is good, but I can't eat that many salads in a week. I guess I'm thinking a soup, frozen pestos, and this pizza:


Prosciutto Pizza with Arugula
2 par baked personal sized doughs
1/4 pound of prosciutto thinly sliced
4 slices of provolone
olive oil (if you have it use truffle oil on the arugula instead of olive oil)
garlic
as much arugula as you can stand
Parmesan
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes according to taste


Preheat oven to 400. First, mix minced garlic with some olive oil- brush over pizza crust. Lay prosciutto over pizza crust (1/4 pound was enough to cover both my par bakes, but you could use more or less). Cut up provolone into matchsticks (I used 2 thin slices per pizza) and arrange evenly over the pizza. You don't want it like a traditional pizza- just the suggestion of cheese.
Place in oven for 6-7 minutes.

While pizzas cook, mix arugula, Parmesan, a glug of olive oil, and salt and pepper in a bowl- like it's a salad. ( You could add lemon. I wanted to, but B had thrown mine away earlier in the day.) When pizzas are done (cheese just melted) just place the arugula on top so that it covers the prosciutto so much you can't see it. Use red pepper flakes to your discretion.

If you have any ideas for arugula please send them and what are you getting in your CSA Surprise?

Love,
TT

Postscript

Tia T -

Those are bitter melons. I had to ask my mom what they were in English, because I know them as "teeta karala." My mom likes to slice them in half lengthwise, then again into little moons, if that makes sense. She then cooks them with olive oil, spices and potatoes until they're crisp and until I mix them into a big pile of white rice and eat the sh** out of them.

But now I'm interested in how else they might be prepared...I'll do some looking and asking around!

L,

TF

No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

Dear Ms. Tay,

After a whirlwind weekend in New York, I'm ready for a night in myself. I'm a little too frazzled at the moment (laundry! unpacking! what will i make for dinner? what will i eat for lunch? oh, god, we don't have anything to eat but frozen chicken thighs. is that a banana? yes! oh. no. grocery store first, or gym first? laundry! unpacking! reading in bed...no, bad tia fia.), but I thought you might like to see some gastronomic highlights from my trip:







I'll write more later. I hope all is well with you...fall is almost here! I can smell it, feel it in my bones.

Love you,

TF

Girl's Night In

Dear Ms. TF
Oh Girl, you don't have to tell me about four different laundry receptacles. My most favorite is the corner that holds balled-up damp towels employed for face shaving. It's carefully hidden behind the bathroom door and is usually discovered when I'm scrubbing the floor. That would be semi-okay (meaning not yell worthy), but it's always the good towels- the ones saved for COMPANY. Seriously, the only reason I don't actually BUFAD (break up for a day) is that B is the ONE who does the laundry. For this reason I get down on my knees, thank God and then go make dinner-

I baked a toothsome Beef and Spinach Pie this evening. Not allowing the pedestrian name fool me, I chose it from the cookbook Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven by Emily Farris. A gift in the mail from my Mom, I've always turned to it when I want something "oh so good, but bad for you".

B was late at work and was going out for drinks afterward- so I wanted to make something new, something that I'd love, and something that would taste good to B after he had been drinking. Also, I was hoping that I could mix it all together, stick it in the oven and then watch an episode of My So-Called Life while it cooked. It worked out exactly as I wanted.

Beef and Spinach Pie
1 pre-made 9-inch frozen pastry
1/2 large white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup sliced baby portobello mushrooms
1/2 pound lean ground sirloin
pinch of cayenne powder
pinch plus an extra of chili powder
1 teaspoon of oregano
salt and pepper
1 cup of pureed tomatoes
2 tablespoons of fresh chopped basil
3/4 cup of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 cup ricotta
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Bake pie shells according to package directions. I used whole wheat 365 brand.

In a large skillet over medium heat, saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are translucent. Add the mushrooms, beef, cayenne, chili powder, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste. When the beef is cooked through, add the tomatoes and 1 tablespoon of the basil. Set the heat to high and cook stirring occasionally, until the sauce is boiling, then reduce heat to low. Let simmer 5 to 10 minutes.

In medium bowl, mix the spinach, ricotta (I used cottage cheese because it's cheaper and better for you) and 1/2 cup of the mozzarella. Spoon the spinach mixture evenly into the bottom of each cooled crust, then cover evenly with the meat sauce. Top with the remaining mozzarella and basil. Bake, uncovered, for 35 to 40 minutes or until the mozzarella begins to brown and the pie is hot throughout.

Let stand 5 to 10 minutes before serving.


Sadly, we didn't have leftovers and I had to take veggies for my brown bag lunch instead of a piece of pie.

I will send you a surprise in the mail if you can tell me what these are? and what do you do with them?


B needs the computer so I gotta go. Let me know when the application process is over. B and I just started our "Bangladesh Here We Come" savings account.

Love,
TT

Chile Con Quesadilla

Dear Tia Tizzle,

I must be having a whip cream kinda day myself - it's only 10:30 in the morning and I'm ready to tear someone's head off. Some of it seems to do with the fact that, unbeknownst to me, there are apparently four different receptacles for dirty laundry in our house. Silly me, I thought laundry went only in the one laundry basket...

So far, none of my usual self-soothing rituals have worked out. I'm going to wait until noon (it seems too decadent to have whipped cream before noon on a working day) to make some of that whipped cream for a bowlful of blueberries, and maybe that will calm me down enough to allow me to continue working on my Fulbright application. How many more times can I say "Fulbright application" before you are completely sick of it?

At least dinner last night was satisfying. After reading your letter, I was visited by a rush of homesickness so swift and so lethal, I went scrounging around to see if I had anything to make some comfort food. Though we're scraping the bottom of our weekly groceries, we had everything I needed to make us a temporary antidote for the Tex-Mex blues: flour tortillas, pepper jack cheese, a can of Ro-Tel, and of course, cow, in ground form.

While it's no Polvo's, the modest table at Casa F looked pretty good to two homesick Texans. J took one bite and closed his eyes before saying, "Somehow, you managed to make chile con quesadilla."

Chile Con Quesadilla

1 lb. ground beef
lots of shredded pepper jack cheese
cumin, ancho chile powder, cayenne pepper
1 can of Ro-Tel tomatoes, drained
flour tortillas

Brown the beef over medium heat until no longer pink. Add two minced cloves of garlic and up to a whole chopped onion to the beef, and cook until soft. Add a drained can of Ro-Tel tomatoes and a glug of red wine (R, there is a magical relationship between wine and tomatoes, there is!), and cook for a few minutes longer. Then add the spices. You could add anything, but I added a few thumbfuls each of cumin, ancho chile powder, and cayenne pepper. Continue cooking until juices from tomatoes are mostly gone.

Put the meat to one side, then warm a skillet, preferably iron-cast, over medium heat. Add a little butter to the pan. When the butter is melted, place a tortilla in the pan. Cover the surface of the tortilla with ground beef and as much shredded cheese as you wish. Place another tortilla on top, then wait a minute or two. Flip the quesadilla, then pull of the top tortilla and add more cheese. Cook until cheese is melty and tortillas are slightly browned.

Repeat to make as many as you want. I took a can of black beans and cooked it with some butter, onions, garlic, and spices, then mashed all of it up to make refried beans.

While there was little to no nutritional value in last night's dinner, it did hit the spot, and made me feel a little less lonely out here on the East Coast. What do you like to eat when you're feeling sad or homesick?

Oh, also, the most interesting ingredient: I'd have to say whole fennel. I wanted to try to recreate this salad I'd had once in San Francisco, but it was a major fail. The fennel overpowered the rest of the ingredients, unfortunately, and I haven't tried to use it again. Oh well.

Alright, lady - I'm going to try to muddle through my day and hope I don't freak out and snap at someone. Hope you and B have a terrific weekend - can't wait to hear all about it!

L,

TF

A Whip Cream Kinda Day

Dear Tia Fia,

The weirdest ingredient I ever cooked with? Hmmm. I've racked my brain, but I can't come up with anything out of the ordinary. As a white girl from Central Texas, I'm really into things like burgers, fried chicken, mac and cheese, enchiladas, beans, and cow. Stepping my sneaker out of the culinary box makes my heart pound and not in a good way. Think J, but with a little broader palette. I mean, B has to bribe me to make a vegetarian meal. By the way, he really thanks you for the Eggplant Pizza, without your influence he never woulda got to try it. I usually detest eggplant, but I loved it drenched in olive oil. What's the weirdest thing you ever cooked with? Were you disappointed or did you like it?

My preferred food group is comfort and today I really needed it. For no apparent reason it was the most frustrating day EVER! It started with the way B picked up his fork at breakfast, continued when my shirt didn't feel right on my clavicle and ended when, just because a customer asked, "How are you?", I had the distinct urge to step on his big toe.

Years past, this exasperation would've been cleared up immediately with a smoke, but since I no longer carry around a pack of Camel Lights and a lighter I had to turn to something different. That's when I said to myself, "it's a whip cream kinda day."

Usually I have fruit after a meal. It's light, sweet, and is good for ya, but if I need a treat I whip some cream to dollop on top. It's easy and if you have company over you can call it Chantilly Cream.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup of heavy whipping cream
1-2 tablespoons of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla

1) Put large bowl, beaters, and cream in freezer for 15 minutes.
2) Pour cream in large bowl and using a hand mixer mix on high for about one minute.
The cream will first have alot of bubbles, but then they will start to dissipate and the cream
will then get fluffy and smooth. Try to make sure there are stiff peaks, but don't be too concerned it still tastes good if they are soft.


Gotta go! I hope you have a good day.

Love,
Tia T

Sriracha Drizzle, Fo-Shizzle

TT,

The temperature started dropping here just a few days ago, too. It's warm enough during the day that I'm still donning tank tops and flip flops, but cool enough once the sun descends that I needed a sweater this evening when J and I went for a post-dinner walk.

Speaking of dinner:

It all started sometime last week, when I made your stirfry for dinner. J ate two bowlfuls of it over rice, then reminisced about a period of his youth making daring and delicious stir fry, apparently inspired by this TV show.

Naturally, I told him to put his money where his mouth was. As an aside, [begin rant] I really hate that turn of phrase. It makes me think of putting dollar bills that have passed through so many hands they're all grimy and wrinkled, and maybe some of them have even been tossed on the stages (at the very least) of strip clubs, or thrown down during a street dog fight, or have been stuck in the sweaty back pocket of some gross dude who favors chili cheese fries over bathing [end rant]. Who wants to put that in their mouths? [obligatory "that's what she said" here]

So, ahem, as the above photograph shows, Tia Fia got served. Literally. Get it? Ha. Ha.

Sigh. Working on my Fulbright application is making me stir crazy. Or is it stir fry crazy? Groan. Anyway, it was pretty delicious. He says he:

Took thinly sliced chicken breast and tossed it with two minced garlic cloves, the seeds of a serrano pepper (courtesy of our friend Keith's garden), one tablespoon each of soy sauce, canola oil, and marsala cooking wine I bought ages ago.

While it was marinating, he sliced a bell pepper and a handful of green onions lengthwise, and pulled the ends off of a handful of snow peas.

He then heated the wok on high until it was "really, really hot," added oil, threw the chicken in, seared it, then turned the heat down. He then added the onion and bell pepper until they were "soft but not soft," followed by the snow peas. During the whole cooking process, he kept adding oil and soy sauce and more cooking wine to keep it "liquidy." When the peas were cooked but still crisp, he threw in a pinch of cornstarch, then served it over white rice.

Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I drizzled my already spicy pile of chicken and veggies with Sriracha. Is there anything better than a numb tongue, watery eyes, and sniffling to accompany your dining experience?

Speaking of dining experiences...that pork chop looks amazing, the flowers beautiful, and the tomatoes incandescent. The only way that streudel experience could be improved is if it were accompanied by a heaping spoonful of Nutella, which, I too cannot keep in the house.

Nature's Way looks like the kind of place I wish was right around the corner from us. J and I are joining a CSA this year, and I'm excited to exchange ideas with you for cooking all the different Fall vegetables. I'm definitely going to be asking J to stir fry at least some of them.

I'll miss you too if we end up going to Bangladesh. If we do, I hope y'all will come visit. Think of all the culinary adventures we'll have! In terms of the Fulbright application: sigh. It's going to be a much longer process than I thought. Basically, over the next few weeks, I have to submit my application at least three times to VCU's Fulbright committee for feedback, and then I have to revise per their suggestions. The nice thing is that VCU takes this process seriously. The lame thing is that I won't be done with the whole damn thing for another month or so.

This has turned into a much longer letter than I intended. What's the most interesting ingredient you've ever cooked with? I've been watching a lot of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations...

-TF