Opposing Forces

Even in this sharp weather there are lovers everywhere
holding onto each other, hands in one another's pockets
for warmth, for the sense of I'm yours, the tender claim
it keeps making ? one couple stopping in the chill
to stand there, faces pressed together, arms around
jacketed shoulders so I can see bare hands grapple
with padding, see the rosy redness of cold fingers
as they shift a little, trying to register through fold
after fold, This is my flesh feeling you you're feeling.

It must be some contrary instinct in the blood
that sets itself against the weather like this, brings
lovers out like early buds, like the silver-grey catkins
I saw this morning polished to brightness
by ice overnight. Geese, too: more and more couples
voyaging north, great high-spirited congregations
taking the freezing air in and letting it out
as song, as if this frigid enterprise were all joy,
nothing to be afraid of.

by Eamon Grennan from Matter of Fact

Granny Smith, Fennel, and Hazelnut Salad

Serves 3

The nuts can be toasted, skinned, chopped, and kept in an airtight container up to four days in advance. The dressing can also be made a day in advance. Even without prior prepping, this refreshing salad comes together in no time at all and can easily be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled.

INGREDIENTS:
1/3 cup hazelnuts
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon table salt
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or hazelnut oil
1 - 1 1/2 cup thinly sliced fennel (about 1 medium bulb)
1 large granny smith apple, cut into 1/8 inch matchsticks

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spread hazelnuts in a pie plate or a rimmed baking sheet. Toast for about 8 minutes, or until fragrant and golden. Let the hazelnuts cool, then transfer to a kitchen towel and rub them together to remove the skins. Coarsely chop the hazelnuts and set aside.
2. In a medium-large bowl, whisk the vinegar, mustard, celery seed, and salt. Gradually whisk in the oil. Add the fennel, apple, and nuts. Toss the salad to coat and serve immediately.

Variations: Celery can be substituted for the fennel and Anjou pear or asian pear may be substituted for the apple. You may also want to add 1/2 cup bleu or feta cheese along with 1/2 cup golden raisins.

*** Hazelnuts are often labeled “filberts” in markets. Although these two nuts are closely related, they are not actually the same. The shell of a true hazelnut is smooth and round and holds a plump, sweet kernel. The filbert is thought by some historians to have originated from the Old English name, "full beard," because of the long husk that entirely covers this nut in some varieties.
**Vinegar is a product of fermentation. Fermentation occurs when sugars in a food are broken down by bacteria and yeast. In the first stage, the sugars are turned into alcohol. Then, if the alcohol ferments further, you get vinegar. The word comes from the French, meaning "sour wine." Vinegar can be made many things -- like fruits, vegetables, and grains -- apple cider vinegar comes from pulverized apples. The main ingredient of apple cider vinegar, or any vinegar, is acetic acid.
*Apple cider vinegar is purported to treat numerous diseases and health conditions. It's supposed to kill head lice, reverse aging, aid digestion, and wash toxins from the body. Only some of these claims have been backed by studies, but with the proviso that vinegar may work, but not as well as other treatments. For example, vinegar does seem to help with jellyfish stings, but hot water works better.


Recipe by Cristina Paul

Blah-Blah-Blahg: Food For Nought

Who on Earth invented the magnifying mirror? Isn’t a regular old mirror enough? If we need a good laugh we can go check out a fun house mirror or manipulate pictures on iPhoto. But magnifying mirrors just make me want to weep. They creep me out Dorian Gray style, as if each of my indiscretions has hurtled itself from the ether of All Things Past straight onto my face. I think most people get a secret pleasure from inspecting and picking at their skin. Kind of like when you can’t leave that crusty scab on your knee alone or the feeling of trembling and trepidation you get when you see or touch a really gnarly birthmark or scar. I even thought at one point that I should turn my sadistic fascination with all things epidermal into a career in dermatology. But being confronted everyday by a magnifying mirror in a brightly lit space might make me go hysterically blind or bonkers. When looking into these cold reflectors I get introspective and nervous, like my blood stream has been injected with Nietzschean Teleteubbies. I am mesmerized by the infinitesimal quality of follicles and wrinkles. I ponder what all these flaws will morph into in the future. Then I contemplate the fact that most dust bunnies and, of course, regular old dust are composed primarily of dead skin. So now, I just gotta walk away and start thinking some good thoughts.

Here is a list of a few of those good thoughts:

*Wow, I think hand-beaded moccasins are really impressive and the fact that you can dunk them in water and wear them to bed to coax them into form fitting your feet is COOL



*Cal-Earth's super adobes are awesome (Santa or God if you are out there and listening, take note - I've been exceedingly good this year)





*Gosh, I love listening to podcasts from The Splendid Table – especially when Isaac Mizrahi was interviewed in the June 6th, 2008 episode

*Looking at Spanish moss from below the shade of a tree is really incredible – even though it’s not a lichen or moss. It’s actually a flowering plant, but that’s just me twitching to the deranged hum of my inner obsessive compulsive – back to happy thoughts…

*Gee Whiz, tart apples and almond butter make me smile when you put them together


*Headstands are WOOOOONDERFUL

*Rock chairs are even better than rock-ing chairs - especially when they have a foot rest

*Damn, the French have an awesome President

The Patience of Ordinary Things

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

by Pat Schneider from Another River: New and Selected Poems

Sweet Potato Cannellini Soup with Sage Pesto

Serves 4 – 6

INGREDIENTS:

SOUP:
2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil or walnut oil
2 cups thinly sliced leek (about 2 medium)
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups (1/2-inch) cubed peeled sweet potato (about 1 medium potato)
6 cups chopped Swiss chard (about 1 bunch), chop off bottom of stems
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (19-ounce) can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice


PESTO:
1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated Pecorino Romano or Asiago cheese
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
2 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil or walnut oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

DIRECTIONS:
1. To prepare the soup, heat a Dutch oven over medium heat. Coat pan with oil. Add leek and garlic to pan; cook 8 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently.
2. Stir in broth and bring to a boil. Add the potato; cook about 9 minutes or until potato is tender.
3. Stir in chard, pepper, salt, and beans; cook about 2 minutes or until chard wilts. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice.
4. To prepare the pesto, combine the cheese and remaining ingredients in a food processor; process until smooth, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Ladle soup into bowls and top each serving with a generous tablespoon of pesto.

***North Carolina is the leading state in sweet potato production.
**Many people use the words sweet potato and yam interchangeably, but they are really two completely different tubers. The trouble started when orange-fleshed sweet potatoes were introduced in the southern United States. Producers and shippers wanted to distinguish them from the more traditional, white-fleshed types. Then, slaves in the American South called the orange sweet potato nyamis, because of its similarity to a vegetable of that name that they knew from their homeland. Quickly, Americans adopted the name yam for their orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. This African word, also meaning "to eat", brought the two root vegetables together, despite botanical differences. As aforementioned, there are two popular types of sweet potatoes available in most U.S. markets. The first type is paler and somewhat yellow-skinned with light yellow flesh. This first type is not very sweet and has a texture similar to a white baking potato. The second type of sweet potato is usually labeled a "yam". This darker-skinned variety has a thicker, dark orange to reddish skin with orange, sweet flesh. When cooked, these "yams" (actually darker sweet potatoes) have a more moist and stringy interior than the first variety.


*True yams are also tubers. However, they grow from a tropical vine (Dioscorea batatas) and are not even distantly related to the sweet potato. They are slowly becoming more common in U.S. markets. True yams are more popular in the tropical climates in which they thrive: primarily in South America, Africa, and the Caribbean. They are generally sweeter than the sweet potato and can grow over seven feet in length! The yam tuber has brown or black skin which resembles the bark of a tree and off-white, purple or red flesh, depending on the variety.


Recipe by Cristina Paul

Blah-Blah-Blahg: Food For Nought

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. 
— Plato

Poem of the Week

when one is taken with another,
where does one go?
lying on my side,
with only a window pane to separate me from the trees,
can’t tell if they’re blowing, or the house is moving
maybe the trees are just bending down for a kiss
if I were a tree who would I kiss?
if I were me?
what is subtracted from the equation?
in the economy of love,
how does a sapling grow?
do we (n)ever not get what we didn’t pay for?

by Cristina Paul