Mersydotes

Summertime.  Locusts, fireflies, corn fields.  It has a certain magic.  A season with clear edges, challenging you to take advantage of every last moment.  We'll miss the sunshine, and the warmth, the birdsong, and the  foliage, but they're here now for the taking.   And for me, summer also means choosing a theme.  I'm not sure how it started, but for a long time, I've chosen an overarching theme for my summer reading- once, it was happiness, once the grand classics of Russian literature (yes- that was a reallllllly depressing summer!), and this year it's Japan.  I've never gone into it with a theme already picked out, but once summer hits, I start "chain-reading", starting with one book, then reading another that was somehow mentioned or alluded to in the first or stumbled upon in the same section.  It's taken me on some pretty fun and rambling trips.  And then, when summer is drawing to a close, I can ...

Growing up, I was fortunate enough to be very close with my maternal grandparents, and when I was in junior high and high school, I would see them every day.  Entering old age and adolescence are both difficult transitions, but there was a certain solidarity between us, and I knew my grandparents understood me more than anyone else.  All day long I would quietly glide through the school day hoping no one would really notice I was there, and the thought of coming home, seeing my grandparents, and then heading off either to my after school job or to my mother's old room to do my homework was the light at the end of the tunnel.  I could be me, and the world was suddenly bigger and more real than at school. I'm only just now realizing that food played quite a role in our relationship.  There was the summer I managed to grow exactly three peas and a single green bean under my grandmother's kitchen window, and the popcorn the three of us would munch as we watched Whe...

I used to think that there was a big secret to cooking that only a select few ever figured out.  Some "perfect" technique for each food that was the only way to do it justice.  How to roast the "perfect" carrot.  How to make the "perfect" strawberry jam.  But then one evening, I sat down with my family to steaming baked potatoes that had taken me hours to make but tasted just like every other baked potato I'd ever eaten, and I thought to myself, "Isn't it all about making something simply taste good?  Why should everything have to be complex and 'perfect'?"  If you can bung a potato into the oven, forget about it, and transform it into deliciousness, then that's good cooking! So here's my latest obsession: an iconoclastic one-pot pasta that doesn't care about perfection.  So what if it isn't al dente?  So what if the sauce isn't an all afternoon project?  Every ingredient tastes tasty- isn't that the p...

Warming spices...cinnamon, cumin, coriander, cardamom.  Isn't it funny how they all start with a "C"?  Anyway, the other day I saw a post from Bon Appetit on Instagram about how to make caramelized cinnamon toast, and it reminded me of the piping hot cinnamon sugar donuts my mom made in the eternal autumn that was my childhood.   On cold, gray days, she would take cake donuts, split them in half, add butter, and then sprinkle each half with cinnamon and sugar.  It was always my job to mix the cinnamon and the sugar, and I loved stirring the mixture in a little bowl, watching the two colors swirling together with every turn of the spoon.  They would come out of the broiler piping hot, with the sugar caramelized and crisp.  The very best, warming treat! The video from Bon Appetit combined everything together with the butter and prepared toast this way on a hot griddle, which is perfect for Mr. Mersy, since it means we can make the toast...

This Christmas was a special one- it was different: not the end of the year or even the beginning of the new one, but a unique time at the end of the countdown towards something really special coming in February.  We cooked cranberry bread and pulled pork and roasted potatoes- all those warm dishes for cold weather.  But we needed something bright to make it a true celebration.  Thank goodness citrus season comes in the winter.  As Mark Bittman says (click here ), a good citrus salad "may not make you forget it's winter, but will relieve some of the pain." This is my version of his sunshine salad.  I didn't make the dressing for it- somehow salt and red onions seemed a betrayal of the citrus.  Instead of grapefruit, we included oranges and kiwis, and topped everything off with pomegranate seeds.  Is there anything cooler than preparing a pomegranate?!  It's such a cool fruit- like opening the chambers of a heart!  Back in Illinois...

Acorn squash reminds me of my childhood- it was always autumn, my hair was always in braided pig tails, and the house always smelled of squash and cinnamon.  Mama Mersydotes is a great cook and seems to instinctually know exactly what to do with every kind of produce you can imagine- apple crisps, potato salad, stuffed peppers, everything.  In my mind, this is exactly how acorn squash should be- just like it was when I was wee. Step 1: All that's needed is a bit of butter and brown sugar. Step 2: Trim off the stem and turn the squash upside down so that it's stable on the cutting board. Step 3: Slice through the squash until you meet the stem, then just split it the rest of the way by bending the two halves outward. Step 4: Now it's time to scrape out the seeds with a spoon, just like you would for a pumpkin.  I don't know if you can roast them like pumpkin seeds or if these aren't edible- does anyone know?  I'd love to find ...

There's so much to share about our recent escape to Canada, but it will take me a while to put it all into words- it was a lovely time!  In the mean time, I thought I'd share a bit of what we've been eating recently.  For all sorts of reasons, I've had a bunch of tummy aches, and I've only wanted to eat a few, very specific things- yummy, comforting dishes cooked up in the afternoon and enjoyed all day for lunch and dinner.   Some of these recipes I've blogged about before, and some are new, from the "Cook the Perfect" podcast from BBC Radio 4.  I like to listen to it while I'm in the kitchen, just for a bit of company. Nutella Mochi Rollups   Red Lentil Dal & Spiced Potatoes and Onions Jasmine Rice with Roasted Sweet Potatoes & Miso Tahini Sauce What have you been cooking recently? Lots of love, ~Mersydotes

I recently read a quote from T. S. Eliot :  ********************** "We shall not cease from exploration  And the end of all our exploring  Will be to arrive where we started  And to know the place for the first time." ********************** It made me think of the great big leaps in life as well as the smaller steps of the everyday.  All that we see and learn and feel and explore swirling into a deep appreciation of who we are and where we stand on the Earth. So here are some snapshots of the smaller steps that we took this week- the place where we started and which we are trying to know for the first time:  (New street art in our neighborhood in Queens)  (Busily crocheting an absolutely gigantic rug with t-shirt yarn)  (A pasta sauce jar covered in washi tape, some flowers, and a card from "mi media naranja")  (A happy puppy with a milk mustache) (hors d'oeuvres for dinner, and an awesome...

Isn't peanut butter a wonderful food?!  Gluten-free and scrumptious, all three of us eat an awful lot of it around here (especially the puppy!).  And while making it at home doesn't save a great deal of money, it does save a bit, and we thought it would be an adventure.  So, we decided to give it a try!  The Smucker's all-natural that we buy runs about $3.50 a jar (which is one pound), and we discovered that we could buy two pounds of peanuts for $6.00 at the local fruit stand.  We started by roasting the peanuts in the oven and then ground them up in the food processor.  Here's what happened:  There was a pivotal moment where everything suddenly emulsified and became wonderfully creamy- it was pretty magical!  After we had hit the right consistency, we tossed in about a quarter teaspoon of salt, and we've been living off the stuff ever since!  It has a deeply nutty, meaty flavor that is really delicious with a sliced ba...

Do you every worry about standing still?  Stopping growing and thinking and discovering and wondering?  I think about that sometimes when I feel like I've gotten too stuck in my familiar day-to-day patterns.  Sometimes I want to bust out.  So I'm trying to challenge myself a bit more these days. About a month ago, I took advantage of an special offer from a blog that I read for a 3-month subscription to Skill Share for just 99 cents.  I'm not usually the technologically adventurous type, but I was really intrigued by their cooking tutorials from around the world.  And I have to say, it's been really fascinating. I started with chopping veggies.  The chef who taught the class took me through dicing, mincing, and julienne for onions, peppers, garlic, etc. Needless to say, we had stir fry and veggie burgers with rice that night- had to put all those chopped veggies to good use! There was another awes...