O, Juicer, Juicer, Juicer (or, why i dont want to go to organic avenue anymore)

Dear Mouse,

Namaste, from Kentucky.

A bit of local news. 

"You have to be reductive to talk about your life. Otherwise you would have to explain every single detail of your history just to try and make a tiny point." - Lila, 'O Guru, Guru, Guru' by Mallery Avidon
                           (my current project and return to THIS wonderful theatre festival!! Opening 3/22)

Just a community of like-minded individuals.

Oh my god it has taken me forever to post. It is embarrassing, and so I'm going to confess it up front: I have been slacking for none of the reasons you might think. I mean, yes I am in rehearsal for a project that is proving emotionally and mentally rigorous in the greatest of ways. It is true that at the end of the day I am left with only enough brain space to evaluate "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and a strong desire to go to bed at like nine thirty. It is true that I've been floating in a strangely cloistered world with ten other women engaged in beautifully intense and particular discourse about the nature of happiness, god, family,  the search for meaning in one's life, and the correct way to wrap a sari. I could easily claim I'm just way too distracted/ drained to talk about food. (As if that could ever be true.)  But really, I've had enough down time to post what I want, which is just a simple food-related discovery and isn't going to be hard to explain. AND honestly, the reason I haven't yet is that I've been SO  hung up, somehow,  on how it has to be THE PERFECT BLOG POST (funny! educational! insightful!) (Really- this from the woman who posted the marmot video), that I have for the first time given myself blogger's block - !! -  ie, have become too paralyzed to write anything at all.  WTF.

Pause to note that, once again, I may have let my character start bossing me around.

So, deep breath.

All I really want to do is just say

That I bought this ...

... and it has literally changed my life.

Accidentally deleted original photo, had to take a screen shot of instagram version,

 it's too boring to explain, it will never happen again.

Now you know - as does everyone else who has talked to me for longer than ten seconds recently -- that I have gotten really "into juicing" of late. This past Yom Kippur  I decided, mostly because you were doing it, that I would give fasting a go. But because I'm me, "fasting" was not going to mean anything so crazy as Not Ingesting Anything, oh no. I settled on a "juice cleanse" as a way of making it through the daylight hours, took myself straight to Organic Avenue and dropped let's say $27 on 3 (delicious) 16-oz juices (yep). It was so much easier than I expected that I thought, why not keep this going for five days. After I emerged from the experience energized, clear-headed, and a few pounds lighter, I was hooked, and decided I wanted to make liquid fruits and vegetables a permanent part of my diet.

I'm sure you're way ahead of me at this point, but there's at least one problem with this plan for a working actor living in NYC.  (Multiply the cost of those three juices by five....)

They say that when the mind is ready, a teacher appears.  

Just stay with me. 

About a month ago, I found myself on a Suburban Transit Bus, traveling back to the city from New Jersey. I had been to see my Fairy Godmother in a play there (a production now running in Seattle FYI), and I'd decided to take the bus back with some of the cast members. I was chatting to one of the actresses when she pulled a neat little plastic mug with a fetching handle and a gray screw-on lid out of her knapsack . It was full of an enticing and familiarly green frothy mixture.  I eyed it enviously and asked her where she got her green juice, already wondering if I could manage to justify the $9 for an OA smoothie in the AM.  Which was when she said the four words I most needed to hear: 

"I Have The Nutribullet."

I hear there is an infomercial for this product that's been in circulation for a while now, but I'd never seen it. Uninfluenced by advertising, following only her recommendation and my own intuition,  I went home that night and ordered it from Amazon, shipping it to Louisville ahead of me. When I arrived, it was waiting at my door, and it's pretty much been Love at First Blend. This user-friendly, no-mess,  petite-but-powerful blender/extractor/whatever has already paid for itself probably three times over and I am not looking back. I'm not juice-cleansing or fasting, just starting my day with one of these for breakfast. (I should note here that it's not a juicer - it's pulverizing whole fruits and vegetables, not pressing juice from them, etc.) The basic proportions are: 50% leafy greens, 50% fruits, throw in some seeds or nuts of your choice (or don't),  add water to the 'max' line, and let 'er rip. As I type, I am preparing myself for rehearsal with a delicious concoction of chopped kale, frozen mango chunks, and fresh ginger, with a little bit of cinnamon and agave syrup. It is really good. 

(If anyone has the 'Bullet, another favorite Boo recipe is: 50% baby spinach leaves, then: one small apple, 1/4 avocado, squeeze lemon, cinnamon, some walnuts, 1/4 coconut water, then regular water, blend.) 

I'm very excited about this. And I'm aware that I might sound like I've joined a cult or something. But is it really that? Or just a community of like-minded individuals who may have stumbled on some useful knowledge that they wish to pass on to others, and if so, is there anything inherently wrong with that?

Ok, back to work.

Can't wait for your visit! 

Love,

The Boo

Sacral Chakra Sunshine Soup (say that 3x fast)

Dear Mouse,

** Warning: New Age Discourse Ahead**

What do you get when you take one Boo and add the following:

one aggressively renewed yoga practice with teacher given to standing on people

one bedtime-use mp3 of Deepak Chopra intoning chakra meditations over sitar music

several minor health issues that all seem to be localized in the, say, 'hips' area

a broken toilet

financial woes

...and a personal life that is beginning to resemble an Advanced Douchebaggery Obstacle Course?

This sentence:

"I think it's time to admit that I'm having some Second Chakra Issues."

(OK does anyone not know what that means? Pause for wikipedia visual aid...)

They have the numbers backward! Sigh. But I like this diagram.

The second, sacral, or svadisthana (thank you Deepak) chakra, is associated with the color orange, the huh come to think of it sense of taste, the mantra VAM, issues of creativity/sex/power/control/blame/guilt/finance, and is pretty much what it looks like as far as the physical body is concerned (hips, lower back, unmentionables, kidneys).

Since as usual my aim here is not to teach everyone about something esoteric and fascinating, but instead to talk some more about myself, I'll stop there. (Recipe below! Read on.)

I heard myself say the aforementioned sentence last week to visiting poet friend MM, while pensively chomping on one of her sugary, gummy-bear prenatal vitamins (what? she has a whole bag.) That night, I had a dream. In it, I was sitting by the Hudson River watching a fleet of fast-moving boats, all jetting out to (somehow) the open sea, one after another. The soundtrack (because there was one) sounded very Bollywood and synthesizer-heavy, with a female voice singing a chorus that went "Go find your water.... Go find your water", over and over. I remembered those words upon waking, and mulled them over constantly, until the day after THAT, when, an hour into yoga class, deep in pigeon pose, I heard the teacher say, "This is for your kidneys. Your kidneys are your water."

I went home, consulted google, found out that the kidneys are associated with the sacral chakra, and thought "It's on." The cure would begin with... food. (Natch.) Apparently Svadisthana responds well to liquids, sweet fruits, nuts, and of course anything orange.

Today, I made this soup and I heartily recommend it no matter the status of your Second Wheel. It's spicy, sweet, hearty, delicious, and looks like a bowl of sunshine. Loosely based on Ina Garten's "Roasted Butternut Squash Soup", it's a great way to spend a winter's lunch hour. I'd say add a loaf of crusty bread, but I'm pretty sure that's for your solar plexus.

VAM.

Love,

The Boo

The Boo's 2nd Chakra Sunshine Soup

Ingredients

1 pckg (1.5lbs?) butternut squash cubes

1 bag (1lb? I think) baby carrots (or 1-in carrot pieces)

2 Macintosh apples

2-4 C chicken broth

1/2 tsp curry powder

1 onion

olive oil (2-3 tbsp)

salt, pepper

orange juice (to taste)

Preheat oven to 425. Chop onion and apples to one-in pieces. You can also chop the squash/carrots if they're looking too big. Put apples, squash, carrots, onions on a baking sheet (you may need two) in a single layer. Toss with olive oil. Roast for 35-45 min. Bring chicken stock to a simmer in a soup pot on the stove. When the veggies are done roasting and are very soft, puree some or all (I like a mix) in a food processor with some of the broth, then add it back to the soup pot. Add curry powder, salt, and pepper. Then add a splash of orange juice, taste, see if it needs more salt/pepper. Add more chicken broth if you want, more orange juice, whatever, to desired volume/consistency. I would caution only against adding more curry powder as it will be too much of a muchness. I also recommend a few drops of sriracha just before serving, to heat up your bowl of sunshine even more.

Apples to Apples

Dear Mouse,

OK this is totally my third post in a row but A) this gives you more time to prepare The Honeymoon Post (!!) and B) I'll just be a second. Consider this a Breaking (or, Baking) News Flash.

Every once in a while I am lucky enough to discover/assemble/fall into something in the kitchen that sends me literally scurrying to the laptop like one of your kind to share it with the world.

It's the thick of autumn, and that means apples. And if you're lucky: apple picking.

Hard-Won Macouns.

This was a remarkable two-time orchard excursion week for me, with visits to Solebury Orchard in NJ and I-can't-remember-its-name in NY on Sunday and Monday. To pace myself, I decided to leave all the beautiful Solesbury winesaps and topazes with my friends in NJ... and then found myself cursing this restraint while shaking and climbing the nearly-bare NY trees for the paltry few Golden Delicious and Macouns still hanging on. (At least I know I can still climb a little, with the right incentive.) So.. the moral I guess is... gather ye winesaps while ye may.

Synchronized Fujis

I still brought home probably a good five pounds of rosy speckled globes. And the very first thing I made with them is, quite simply, the best apple-related dessert that I, personally, have made...

Rosemary-Apple Crostata. You heard me.

.. and made UP! On the fly!

Ok I am certainly not the first person to think of this flavor melange. However, while it there is nothing new under the sun and it turned out there was already in fact a recipe for 'Rosemary Apple Tart' on the very splendid Splendid Table web site, I didn't yet KNOW that when the thought of rosemary flitted across my brain. So I still feel a kind of proud ownership.

In the end, I conflated two recipes: the Splendid Table Tart with its bewitching rosemary-lemon-rubbed sugar, and the simple, rustic form of the Apple Crostata from Ye Olde Ina Garten. And let me tell you ... it works. Not only does it work, it makes me never want to eat apples baked without rosemary again. It's homey, sweet, classic, appley . It's woodsy, perfumed, autumnal, intoxicating.

And now I just need to do something with the other 4lbs.

Love,

The Boo

The Boo's Rosemary-Lemon Apple Crostata

(with love to Lynn Rossetto Kasper and Ina G.)

CRUST

Ina's recipe sets you up with a crostata's worth of extra dough in your freezer! I rolled it out quite thin and wound up cutting away some of it, which I liked a lot ... but I'm not really a thick-crust kind of girl.

2 C all-purpose flour
1/4 C sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound very cold unsalted butter, diced

1/4 C ice water

Place the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. **Note: I approximated this by hand as I don't have a food processor.** Pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter and pulse 12 to 15 times, or until the butter is the size of peas. With the motor running, add the ice water all at once through the feed tube. Keep hitting the pulse button to combine, but stop the machine just before the dough becomes a solid mass. Turn the dough onto a well-floured board and form into 2 discs. Wrap with plastic and refrigerate one of the discs for at least 1 hour. Freeze the rest.

FILLING

1 lb (ie, 3 med apples or 2 large), peeled, cored, chunked

TOPPING

1/3 C sugar

2 tsp loosely-packed fresh rosemary leaves

zest from about a third of a lemon? Maybe a half, up to you

1 tsp cinnamon

somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 C flour

5 tbsp (a little more than a half a stick) cold unsalted butter, diced

Preheat oven to 450. Roll out crust to an 11 in circle and lay it on a parchment-lined baking sheet or in a sprayed/floured pie pan (I liked the pan). Arrange the apples in the center of the circle leaving a 1.5-in border.

Put the sugar in a small mixing bowl. Grate the lemon zest directly into it and rub it in with your hands a bit (it will smell fantastic). Add the rosemary leaves and maybe squnch again (again with the fantastic). Add the butter and flour and rub in with your fingertips til it starts holding together. Sprinkle/distribute it evenly over the apples.

Fold in the edges of the dough in a circle, all around the apples, leaving it open in the middle a la the picture above.

Put it in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until crust is golden and apples are tender.

Let it stand for 5 minutes after you take it out. And then I suggest pouring a bit of cream over

the slice you cut for yourself directly afterwards.

Eat This Poem

Dear Mouse,

In honor of apple season, I wanted to share this poem. My friend Famous Poet Guy was commissioned by this organization to write about kids' health and nutrition. Good message, good to remember in a time when it's easy to get conned into thinking "it isn't a problem if they can't sell you the cure".

Plus that kinetic typography just looks cool.

I'm going to eat a freshly-picked apple for breakfast right about now.

Preach it, Eat it, Reheat It, Repeat it.

(See? I'm a Slam Poet Too!)

Love,

The Boo

PS. Fresh cranberries are finally in the grocery store!!! Making muffins right now.

Soup Season: Come and Peel It Tonight

Dear Mouse,

I have fought a formidable enemy, and won.

 

                                                                                   You should see the other guy.

There's something about this season. Pots, pans, simmering, bowls of savory goodness. I'm fixating.

It's not just me. The Date has informed me twice in one week of exploits with carrots and ginger. I have a Stew dinner plan with a playwright friend. And I recently logged on to a social networking site that shall remain nameless and irritating, to find my friend Helena's status update:

And She said, "Let there be sexy vegetarian pumpkin chili"; and there was sexy vegetarian pumpkin chili. And She saw that the sexy vegetarian pumpkin chili was good; and then she roasted the sexy pumpkin seeds.

Mmmmmm. It is Fall, the Season of Soup. (/Stew/Chili).

On Saturday I found myself at home in Sunnyside, a whole rainy afternoon spread out before me, all signs pointing towards my recently-neglected kitchen.

The night before, lured by the status update, I'd gone up to Heavenly Small Town to visit Helena and her Roomies. As I've mentioned, our friendship began in the kitchen and we always cook/eat together. This time, the Household was preparing a Pumpkin Party Extraordinaire for Saturday night, and because I couldn't attend, I came to participate in Pumpkin Eve cooking. My task: mixing a batch of corn muffins with maple butter which H planned to serve with the Chili (recipe, I hope, forthcoming).

Roomie #1 was busy creating a tomato vinegar he found in an all-Vinegar Cookbook ("I got this for a dollar!"), and Roomie #2 was bravely attempting her first pie - double crust!! You would have been proud of me. I had already climbed into bed (foolish, foolish Boo) when R2 asked, "Do you think I should make the crust tonight? Any tips? Oh - No, I dont have a rolling pin. Why?" Bang - I'm in the kitchen in my PJs, up to my elbows in butter & flour, providing what I hope was sage advice such as "remain calm", and "yes, always READ the whole recipe to begin with, but I think we'll be fine without the shortening" (we were).

You know your friend has forgiven you for missing her party when she ends the evening of manual labor by drawing you a bath and handing you a glass of maker's mark.

So it was with these festive thoughts in my head that I came back to Sunnyside in the morning, looked in my fridge and realized I had the following, nearly all from the farmers market:

* 1 voluptuous butternut squash

* 2 yellow onions

* bag of cortland apples

* curry powder

* apple juice

* Recipe for "Butternut Squash and Apple soup" from Her Majesty Ina Garten

Now if I didn't know better I'd say there was a small conspiracy in the food world around this sunny root vegetable. WHY does no recipe EVER cop to the difficulty of peeling butternut squash? They all innocently begin "Peel and seed a butternut squash", without so much as an asterisked acknowledgement that the skin of this thing is so tightly welded to the fruit that it might as well be a coat of paint. I imagine home cooks everywhere, like myself, putting their peeler to this task and giving up.

Yes, I cut myself. But you don't have to. (Remain Calm). There IS a way to do this, and it's worth it. Because like a cheap date, once you get the outer layers off this baby, the rest is easy. (And warm and delicious.)

Take your skinny vegetable peeler in one hand. Look at it, shake your head, and throw it over your left shoulder.
Pick up your squash, and with a Big knife, cut it crosswise in half (or 3, if it's really big). Just plunge it on in and wrestle it through.
Then, holding a piece cut side down, just make slices down the sides with SMALLER knife, slicing off skin in big strips. It's ok if some flesh comes off with it. Better its than yours. Don't get crazy trying to skin it flawlessly.
Then, chop up squash into chunks, retrieve your skinny peeler and use it on the apples.

On a related note, the Peeling Issue came up at Helena's while R1 was struggling with his bag of tomatoes. The vegetable peeler was doing more harm than good and each tomato was a project unto itself (1 min or more). The solution: Boil a pot of water. Drop each tomato in, count to ten. Remove with a slotted spoon and, under cold running water, slide the skin off easily with your hands. Trust me on this.

Oh and the Pumpkin Party? From Helena:

missed you last night! corn muffins were devoured
Jesse put the maple butter into the gravy
around 11pm i was finishing the turkey with men 3 deep around the oven
turkey came out at 11:30 and disappeared completely-- people sucking on bones-- by midnight. this morning i made pumpkin pancakes and drenched them in maple butter. goodness. your food was put to good use. mwah!

Love,

The Boo

PS I just found this picture online. Talk about seasonal!

Turnover the Season

Dear Mouse,

Happy Fall!!!

This was quite the feasting weekend. Friday and Saturday I went to TWO separate Rosh Hashanah dinners at two very food-savvy homes (my friend EKT, who did a Persian-themed menu, and our family's.) Now, while I did eat like a Queen, I feel we have already rhapsodized at length in this blog about our family's seasonal showstoppers. It's beyond the reach of my pen to describe them further. So, I will just say this: leftover cold beef brisket on a toasted English muffin spread with Nervous Nellie's tomato chutney. You're welcome.

For this post, I will instead turn to the other holiday meal that rounded out a weekend of seasonal reflection and munching: the Fall Equinox dinner that I always host at my place. It usually involves a roast chicken and something with apples. I based the dinner on that idea and on what was at the local Sunnyside Farmer's Market*.

from left: kale w/chopped bacon* & red wine vinegar, chicken baked in a bag w/mushrooms & thyme, roasted new potatoes w/pesto*, cheddar & apple* turnovers w/walnuts & dried cranberries.

Let's just revisit that last one.
from the exciting, apple-centric Fall issue of Bon Appetit
(Thanks for the subscription, Mouse!)

I am not exaggerating when I say I HAD to make them, because I read the recipe and couldn't stop thinking about them for a week. Sharp cheddar and golden delicious apples? With dried cranberries & walnuts, encased in flaky puff pastry? Also, it started a lively FaceBook debate, a first:

The Boo, via iPhone: Is phyllo the same as puff pastry?
#1: yes :-)
#2: Yep. Just a fancy schmancy way of saying it! :)
#3: It's the Greek version.
#4:you can get some handmade premade phyllo in the freezer section of the greek bakery on 9th and 45th
#5: Actually, unfortunately that's not true. They are different recipes and different handling procedures. Puff pastry is infinitely easier and less temperamental. Phyllo dough is a nightmare to work with. But yes, you can get frozen versions of both at the supermarket.
#6: Yeah, they're actually not the same thing at all. You can sometimes substitute one for the other, but not automatically.Both are basically ways of producing multiple layers of dough with butter in between, but that effect is achieved differently. Phyllo comes in individual paper-thin sheets, and you assemble multiple layers of it, brushing each sheet with melted butter and stacking them. Puff pastry starts as a relatively thick layer of dough topped with a layer of softened butter. These are folded (usually in threes) and then rolled out; the process is repeated and you eventually end up with multiple layers of dough and softened butter. When you buy puff pastry at the store, it is thus essentially "pre-assembled," whereas with phyllo you generally must do the layering yourself....
#5 again: Yes, and also, Phyllo doesn't "puff", hence the naming distinction.

Thanks guys! I think we all learned something here. In the end, I spent like $11 on a fancy kind of PP at Whole Foods when I KNOW (because Ina Garten told me) that Pepperidge Farm makes it for like half that. But I had a turnover schedule to keep. It was golden delicious all right -- puffy, flaky, very, very rich. A Fall Equinox croissant in savory clothing. I'd like to try a phyllo version next and see how that goes. They are very easy and good. I will say that I like more filling than the recipe yields. It's supposedly enough for 8 turnovers, and I made four with almost all the filling. But to each his own.

The Fall Equinox is a harvest festival, known in some traditions as Second Harvest (first being Aug 1), also known as the Wine Harvest. After the 'grain harvest' of August (which is all about home-baked bread), the focus turns to the last of the fruit crops before the winter...ie, apple mania. We had some great dinner conversation about this, the idea of the Harvest in our lives. Looking back over the year, what did we gather, both good and bad? Can we be thankful for both, and use both? As a wise woman once put it, "Poo is also Fertilizer". Oh, right, that was you. :-)

I like to think we can take our, ahem, 'fertilizer' (our mistakes, our misfortunes) and from them draw richness of experience and new beginnings. Take, for example, the truly terrible quinoa salad I made last week. I didn't let it cool before mixing the black beans, corn, and lime juice dressing into it, and it was a soggy, bewildering mess. BUT it made great burrito filling!! One package of tortillas later, I had a week's lunch in my freezer.

Happy composting,

The Boo

Hacklebarney Cider Sunday

Dear Boo,

This weekend, Jeff and I took one of those old fashioned Sunday drives out into the country on what has become a nearly yearly field trip to this place:

You and I used to take drives to the Hacklebarney Farm Cider Mill with mom and dad back in the day when I would stand outside the open garage door on the side of the main building, peeking in at the gears and presses of the big cider mill that crushed crate after crate of apples into pulp and juice. Then a couple of years ago, a friend and I were talking about pumpkin picking and when researching where we could go, I came across this place again (where during September and October, they also open up a pick your own pumpkin field). We came for the pumpkins, but discovered the bakery store and lunch options and vowed we'd return.

When I was about 8, someone told me that hot dogs had pig hooves in them, and that was IT for me. I refused to eat any for years to come....Except on one visit to the cider mill where I tried one of their dogs boiled in cider and declared it to be a singular treasure--the ONLY hot dog I would eat. Now, an avowed hot dog lover, the cider dogs keep bringing me back to Hacklebarney.

Jeff and I pulled up to the cider mill on a cloudy, windy, very cold day around 2:30, ready for some lunch. The whole farm seems to be permeated by a fog of sweet baking smells which just adds to the beauty of the place. We headed past the main house with the bakery store, and straight to the little shack where lunch is served. A young guy came out of the smaller house which holds the bakery and asked what we wanted. Cider dogs with cider and apple sauerkraut, and cider baked beans, please. We stood, stamping our feet against the cold, savoring the hot tasty lunch. The beans are syrupy and thick with chunks of apple and the sauerkraut is crunchy and sweet and sour and plentiful. And the dog--well, let's just say I still think this place is onto something major by boiling them in cider. I love a charred grilled hot dog as much as the next guy, but that's for summer. For a crisp fall day, I'd take this ANY day.

The drive to the Cider Mill is beautiful. Once you're off the highway you'll find yourself on back country roads along a babbling creek with old stone homes tucked into the hills along the path. If you make it out earlier in the season you'll get a lovely sampling of the leaves turning. The Mill is on the edge of Hacklebarney State Park which is full of beautiful paths through the woods if you're feeling adventurous. We, however, were cold and lazy, it being a grey sunday, and stuck to the warm inside of the bakery store where they sell pies (600 to order for thanksgiving, to be precise), apple dumplings, puff pastries, hot cider, mulling spices, and gallons of cider to take home. Oh, and cider donuts--powdered, cinnamon powdered, and pumpkin (the place was pretty quiet while we visited, but don't be deceived--the pumpkin donuts had sold out around 11am):

The donuts are light and fluffy--the kind you can plow through a few of before realizing the damage you've done. The cider taste is mild and not overly sweet--the dusting of sugar is all it needs. I bought a dozen. The Boyfriend was very appreciative.

Before we headed out, I also bought some cold cider and a basket of apples, the Mill's "Pie blend" of winesap, idared, golden delicious and a few others, good for baking or eating.

If you're looking for a jaunt out of the city one sunny, cold afternoon, I can't recommend this enough. Going earlier in the season is probably your best bet if you want to walk around or get a pumpkin, but as you can see, any time is worth it for lunch and some goodies, and petting the farm golder retreiver or cat.


And if you're Jeff, you might have the foresight to locate a Trader Joe's in Jersey on the way back so you can enjoy the other attraction of suburbia--normal sized supermarkets. Ahhhh. All you people who scorn Jersey--just give me an afternoon and I'll have you eating your words.

Also, give me a couple of days and I'll have an apple pie for you. Well, maybe not the pie itself, unless you're very lucky, but a forthcoming entry with the recipe and photos to drool over until you make your own. Til then...

Love,

The Mouse