Twas the Night Before New Years

As a direct result of my age, the year has flown by.  There were a number of highlights to reflect upon, the biggest of which was a college graduation, but all the boys were in school and that is a good thing.  We had a trip to two less visited continents (for us)--Africa and Asia, and I very much hope that 2015 holds more travel to places that are new and fun.

The overall situation in the world at the end of 2014 is somewhat tenuous.  The Republicans rule Congress in the United States, so there is very little chance of movement on issues like climate change, race relations, health care reform,  or modernizing the infrastructure of the country, to name a few of the critical issues that we would be advised to make progress on over the next two years if we want to remain on the cutting edge.  There are rumblings of war about.  The hoodlums who fight under what they call a caliphate in the Middle East but who have very little in the way of a religious community about them are terrorizing a war torn region, the solution in Syria is nowhere near, nor is a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict (which I heard someone say about that, "The Hundred Year War ended, this will too."), Russia is encroaching on it's neighbors territory and so much more.  I read an op/ed piece by Paul Krugman that I wish everyone with dictatorship in their heart would read before mounting an armed response.  His bottom line is that war in unprofitable in the 21st century, and it has been for quite some time.  I would love to be here writing a year from now and have something positive to say about the progress towards peace on earth, good will toward men.

Million Dollar Arm (2014)

This story, based on a real one, is not so straight ahead happy as you might expect from something Disney put together.  JB Bernstein (played by Jon Hamm) is an LA sports talent agent who had a high paying job with a talent management group and decides to go out on his own.  That is largely a failure and he is about to fold when he comes upon a gimmick.  How about a contest in India to find a cricket player who can pitch at Major League Baseball speed?  Bring them to the US, have them work with Tom House (played by Bill Paxton), a pitching coach with a reputaion for breaking all the rules successfully, and get them a MLB tryout.  He gets a sponsor for his idea, and off he goes on a tour of India with Ray Poitevent (played by Alan Arkin) as his pitching scout in tow.

JB is a very shallow, largely unlikable guy who is quick with the witty comebacks but very short on heart.  He plucks two Indian boys who have some talent from small villages who speak no English and plops them down in the middle of a high stress situation in LA.  They are Dinesh (Madher Mittel, who was Dev Patel's criminal brother in "Slumdog Millionaire") and Rinku (Shuraj Sharma, the star of  "Life of Pi"), who play their parts to perfection.  JB does eventually have his cold heart melted, but it takes most of the movie to accomplish it.  The good news is that the story and the Indian scsenery make the movie work watching.

Eatery A, Des Moines, Iowa

We were driving back to Iowa City from Kansas City, as we often find ourselves doing, and we stopped here for a bite to eat.  Des Moines is a solid hour and a half away from us, so we do try to stop to sample the culinary offerings when we are driving through, because we are unlikely to make a special trip.  This was a good choice.

This is a bar and Mediterranean food restaurant, which has happy hour prices for beer on tap and pizzas in the middle of the day.  The pizzas have usual topping combinations, like olives, feta and preserved lemon, or figs, dates and honey, as well as some closer to traditional topping combinations.  The pastas are handmade, and include stuffed options that I almost always opt for because they are hard to make at home.  There are meats and sea foods (including octopus), as well as a number of vegetable side dishes, all of which look delicious.  The menu is extensive and inviting.

Cold Peanut Noodles

From the new Mark Bittman cookbook How to Cook Everything Fast, this one is a keeper.  While I am not one to shy away from a recipe that takes a bit of time, the cookbook is great for preparing weeknight food after a long day at work.  Everything is labeled as taking 15, 30, or 45 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients
Stir in  ingredients: 1-1 1/2  pound cooked meat, fish, tofu, or any cooked or raw vegetable
1 cup peanut butter
2 T sesame oil
2 T honey
1/3 c. soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
Dash of hot sauce (or chile oil)
salt and pepper
a piece of ginger about 2" long by 1 " in diameter, peeled and cut into little slivers (slice length-wise, then slice each slice into match-sticks)
16 oz Spaghetti noodles
3 scallions, sliced into 1" sections

Instructions
1. Cook noodles in salted boiling water until a little bit chewy but definitely done
2. Make sauce (in bowl big enough to mix in the noodles): combine peanut butter, sesame oil, honey, soy sauce, rice vinegar, hot sauce, and sprinkle of pepper. Stir until blended, then mix in a little hot water (up to 1/2 cup) until sauce has consistency of heavy cream.
3. When noodles are done, drain well, then add to sauce, mix well, add ginger and mix again, add scallions and mix again.
4. When serving, can top with a little toasted sesame seeds if you'd like.

Jersey Boys (2014)

This is Clint Eastwood's homage to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. It begins in the early 1960's in a Jersey neighborhood where the chances of mobbing up were far better than escaping, and Frankie, Tommy, and Nick are in and out of trouble, and in one scene Tommy is getting out of jail when Nick is going in.  Incarceration interferes with the trio's ability to make progress musically, but they manage.  The turning point for them is the addition of Bob Gaudio, who wrote the songs that made the Four Seasons famous.

Whether they’re singing or fighting, “Jersey Boys” is at its best when it focuses on the band members’ chemistry. The actors know their characters’ voices well enough to effortlessly plow through as many Four Seasons songs as the original musical contains. They sound spectacular, and there’s enough of each song to satiate fans and newbies alike.  There is enough music to keep the fan viewer happy, and for days afterwards the tunes will be playing in your head.  The movie is definitely 45 minutes too long, and it may be that Eastwood is too much of a fan himself to make the perfect fan movie.  He does have one scene where Bob is in a room by himself after a show watching, you got it, a Clint Eastwood movie.  So the director managed a cameo.  He couldn't resist.

Massage, Culture, and China

I totally do not get the attraction of massage, and my trip to China did not illuminate the allure for me.  If anything, it left me more confused.  Massage in Mandarin is 'an mo' or 'tui na', and it is part of the much greater body of knowledge referred to as traditional Chinese medicine, and it works through 'jing luo' to improve the passage of energy throughout the body and improve or maintain health.  The earliest record on massage is in the inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty (16th -11th century BC). During the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC), a story that a miracle-working doctor Bian Que healed the faint prince through massage was written down, illustrating the amazing effect in such an early time. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties (386 - 589), six techniques of hand massage evolved and became more professional, such as to strand, shake, twine, twiddle, knead and roll, which are still widely used.  Acupoints are also involved.

And then there is the Sole Massage--where Chinese guppies with a voracious appetite for scaly skin eat away at one's feet in the open storefront pictured above.  I did not try this intervention, but knew that I was far from home when I saw it.  Just another great view from the Yunnan Province!

Chana Masala

Merry Christmas!  My family always does a Thanksgiving redux with a ham thrown in for Christmas dinner, but in the interest of internationalism, I am posting a good basic Indian recipe.  I am not usually a proponent of using a spice mix, but for making super easy chana masala, I recommend the Vindaloo spice mix from Penzey's as a way to get a rich complicated and spicy flavor in no time at all.

1 cup dry chickpeas
1 onion diced
6 cloves of garlic minced
4 slices of fresh ginger root
1-2 tsp. Penzy's Vindaloo spice mix
28 oz. crushed tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste
chopped cilantro for garnish

Rehydrate the chickpeas by soaking them overnight.  Add salt and gently boil on stove until the are soft, then drain them and set aside.  Saute the onion in vegetable oil until soft, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and ginger root and saute another few minutes, stirring occasionally to keep it from burning.  Add the Vindaloo spice and stir several times.  Add the tomatoes and chickpeas, turn the heat down and cover.  Cook for 20 minutes or an hour, depending on your time frame.  Serve with rice and the chicken tikka masala recipe I posted recently.

Ordering Food in China

There are many adventures to be had when one does not know either the language nor the written representation of words, and that happened to us almost daily when we were in China this summer.  One way to approach such a situation is to play it completely safe--eat at the restaurant in your Western hotel and while you will pay a high price for your meal and you may not get the very best representation of the regional cuisine, you will be unlikely to get any of the three things that I very much wanted to avoid on my first trip to China--blood, intestines, and feet.  I am sure those all have delicious renditions and I might very much enjoy them someday, but I wanted my first trip to be filled with food that I liked and hoped that I could make at home some day.  To come home with good memories and maybe a little bit of inspiration.

Mission accomplished (when you set the bar low enough, you are more likely to be satisfied).  We had a phrasebook, a dictionary, and I had the concierge at our hotel write out the symbols for chicken, beef, pork, and lamb so that we would be able to either figure it out for ourselves, or use the universal method for last resort communication--pointing.  The concierge was very skeptical that we would be successful, but he underestimated our love of spicy food and the willingness of his people to help non-Han people get food that they would enjoy.  We were also aided by the custom of the waitress seating you and then waiting at your table until you are ready to order--we quizzed her, and anyone who was willing to help, and almost always got something that we recognized, and often exactly what we were looking for.  menus with pictures were better than those without, and that is where I would recommend starting, but we had outstanding food at local restaurants that often cost under $10 a person. 

The Hundred Foot Journey (2014)

 True, the movie is predictable from start to finish, which did not diminish my enjoyment of it.  An Indian family had a restaurant in England that was burned to the ground in politically motivated riots, and they decide to immigrate to another European country.  One of the sons, Hassan, is a talented chef, one who cooks intuitively and beautifully.  They travel around Europe looking for the perfect spot, and stop in a quaint but closed-minded French village to set up shop, shaking things up with an enticing array of culinary delicacies. This new enterprise happens to sit across the street from a conservative and revered building that’s a town treasure.  Helen Mirren stars as Madame Mallory, owner of Le Saule Pleurer (The Weeping Willow), an elegant and expensive French restaurant that’s the winner of a prestigious Michelin star.  She is quite unwelcoming at first, but is swayed to their side after her head chef firebombs the competition and Hassan's hands are burnt.  She hires him to work for her, he brings her a second star, and she launches him into the highly competitive world of Parisian restaurants.  The movie could have ended there and then, after loads of luscious food has been prepared and pictured, but it veers back to a love story for the ending.  Predictable yes, but very enjoyable.

Honey Roasted Carrots with Tahini Yogurt

We worship all dishes Ottolenghi and this one is no exception.  This one comes from his cookbook 'Plenty More' which my wonderful friend Nancy gave me and I love it already.  It is easy to prepare and quite delicious.

Tahini-yogurt sauce:

• Scant 3 tablespoons tahini paste
• 2/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, crushed

Carrots:

• Scant 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, toasted and lightly crushed
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and lightly crushed
• 1 tsp. thyme
• Salt and black pepper
• 12 large carrots, cut into 3-4" segments and halved or quartered, depending on the diameter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Place all the ingredients for the tahini sauce in a bowl with a pinch of salt. Whisk together and set aside, or put in food processor to mix.
Place the honey, oil, coriander and cumin seeds, and thyme in a large bowl with salt and black pepper. Add the carrots and mix well until coated, then spread them out on a large baking sheet and roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes, stirring gently once or twice, until cooked through and glazed.
Transfer the carrots to a large serving bowl or individual plates. Serve warm or at room temperature, with sauce on the side, scattered with the cilantro.