Cooks of the Quad

An Extravagant Meal To Feed The Masses

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:13:21 -0400

Will Brown

A harbor of silence, the room filled with forty hungry teenagers and adults was soon to become the scene of transformation for many. The strumming of guitars shattered the silence, and candles flickered all around. Silent Dinner had begun. Plates full of food sat ready behind a thick black curtain. Everyone waited still and quiet as their meals were placed before them, and the musicians played on as rich aromas floated through the air.

A few years ago my father cooked what was to become our traditional family Christmas dinner, instead of us dining with our ‘god family’. For years our particular tradition was to open presents, attend Christmas Day mass, and celebrate the rest of the day with our ‘god family’, my Godparents and their children. This year was different. For the first time our ‘god family’ were going to be out of town during Christmas, leaving us to fend for ourselves. My father decided to take a recipe from The Junior League of Houston’s cookbook, Peace Meals, and prepared it for Christmas dinner. The meal that was more than rich, delicious, and memorable. For me, the memory of this meal is forever timeless, as it was one of the best ever shared between my parents and me.

My father has always been my favorite chef. That being said, who wouldn’t enjoy a meal composed of Beef Tenderloin with Gorgonzola Sauce, joined by Tomato and Asparagus Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette? Unfortunately for our family, we have never been known to dine together without something going awry. Typically, though there exist many variations, it will commence with someone offending someone else via a backhanded comment, resulting with the whole experience ruined. This Christmas dinner was special, for the first time everyone was joyful and happy. Perhaps the warmth of the Gorgonzola sauce, so smooth one could drink it straight, introduced the peace in the atmosphere. For an instance it seemed that we had ridden ourselves of our frustrations. It didn’t matter if gifts that were anticipated were not provided, or who was at fault for causing us to arrive fifteen minutes late to church. If only for a second, there was a moment of perfect harmony. Sitting around our old wooden dining room table we regaled upon fond memories, and shared the impact of the holiday on us individually. Together we all laughed and championed how well the meal was prepared as we devoured our portions. The elements of the meal collaboratively working in such strong accord, aided in making the experience so serene. Yet the meal helped also evoke a greater appreciation for our gift of enjoying such a treasured instance. No one may have placed such a request on their Christmas list, but this meal was the gift most appreciated that day.

In July of 2009 I was elected to be ‘rector’ of Happening 133, and designed an individual Happening spiritual retreat. I knew that this was the exact meal I wanted to be prepared and served to the ‘Happeners’ during the silent dinner. Silent dinner is one of the most important components in the entire retreat. With the focus of the retreat on showing the participants how close they are to God, though they might ignore it, Silent Dinner is one of the most crucial steps of the weekend to bridge them to acceptance. I chose this meal because of its extravagance. For me it represented how God has always been extravagant with the gifts He presented in my life. I wanted the ‘Happeners’ to feel the extravagance of his love through their indulgence in such an exquisite meal with an accommodating atmosphere. Tables were arranged in the shape of a cross, with fresh white linens and candles placed in votives, each having a ‘Happener’s’ name hand painted on them. Christmas lights decorated the walls and ceiling from the beams, and a wrought-ironed cross hanging in the center of the room. The servers, dressed in suits and dresses, served the ‘Happeners’, dressed in T-shirts and shorts. All of the elements portrayed how the evening was made unique for them, signaling motifs of Christ’s sacrifice. The scene represented how unworthy we feel of such an extravagant sacrifice, yet we willingly accept and welcome it.

Logistics involved in preparing this meal for such large quantity of people are certainly discernibly different from cooking for three. My father prepared all of the beef tenderloins at our house during the day, and then transported them two hours away to Camp Allen, where each Happening retreat is held. He purposely did not cook the tenderloins all the way; my father knew that they would be cold by the time they were to be served. Therefore, when the tenderloins arrived, they were to be placed in the oven and cooked till done; only my father neglected to inform the cook on site of this critical part of the plan. Rare would be an understatement to describe the degree of wellness of the tenderloins were. Some pieces were more cooked than others; some pieces had more bloody juices dripping from them than others. I will never forget one of the ‘Happeners’ who approached me later that evening to say, “I could almost feel the heart beating.” Despite the known health hazards of consuming uncooked meat, I would say the faux pas enhanced the silent dinner experience. Emphasizing the idea of sacrifice, perhaps for a few, a little too much.

During the middle of the dinner I delivered a speech regarding forgiveness, discussing personal struggles I’ve had with offering forgiveness, linking it to the unbound forgiveness provided by God. By the time silent dinner came to an end, it was undeniable that we accomplished its purpose. The extravagance of the experience, and richness of the meal combined together to facilitate a transformation for many. Several left the dinner in tears, I included, overwhelmed with joy to have been able to share a meal that once symbolized to me a great deal of happiness existing in my family, now represents the fellowship I share with a greater family.

Arthur King Brown III or Will is a freshman at American University studying Business. He may or may not be stuck in the Letts South Hall elevator.

Beef Tenderloin with Gorgonzola Sauce
Serves 10 to 12

Ingredients for Beef Tenderloin:

1 beef tenderloin (about 4 to 5 pounds), trimmed

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Ingredients for Gorgonzola Sauce:

4 cups heavy whipping cream

2 ounces crumbled Gorgonzola cheese (about ½ cup)

3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

¾ tablespoon coarse salt, plus additional

½ tablespoon freshly ground pepper, plus additional

3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Set the tenderloin out for 1 hour to come to room temperature. Carefully bring the cream to a full boil in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Lower heat and simmer, stirring frequently, for 55 to 60 minutes or until the cream has thickened. Remove the pan from heat and add the cheeses, salt, pepper and parsley, stirring rapidly until the cheeses are melted; set aside. Preheat the oven to 500°F. Place the tenderloin in a roasting pan and pat dry with a paper towel. Coat the top and sides of the tenderloin with the butter; season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave the tenderloin in for 30 more minutes (do not open the oven door). Slice the tenderloin and serve with the warm Gorgonzola Sauce.

Tomato and Asparagus Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette
Serves 6

Ingredients for Champagne Vinaigrette:

1 clove garlic, peeled

½ cup Champagne vinegar

¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

coarse salt

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

dash of sugar

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

Ingredients for Salad:

1 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed and cut on the diagonal into 1-inch pieces

1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

4 ounces crumbled herb feta cheese

coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Crush the garlic clove with the side of a knife blade. Transfer the clove, leaving it in one piece, to a mixing bowl. Add the vinegar, pepper and a dash of salt; allow to sit for 30 minutes. Remove and discard the garlic. Whisk the mustard and sugar; slowly add the olive oil whisking constantly to emulsify.

Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Blanch the asparagus for 1 to 2 minutes; drain and rinse under cold water. Combine the asparagus and tomatoes in a medium bowl. Add the cheese and toss with desired amount of the vinaigrette; season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for up to 4 hours. Toss again before serving and adjust the seasonings as needed.

Recipe From: Peace Meals

Cinnamon rolls and chili, together – at once.

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:13:09 -0400

Markie Franck

Chili and cinnamon rolls are a dish that until a few weeks ago I thought everyone ate. After talking to people in college though, I’ve been unable to find anyone else who eats the two together. I began to wonder, how is it that this meal has thrived in my home town? I reached out to my community through a letter to the editor of our local paper and I also sent out emails to community members.
I reached out to them through this email: “I’m not sure if you saw my letter in the Daily Bee on Tuesday, but I’ve been looking into chili and cinnamon rolls for a paper I’m writing. Originally I wanted to figure out who started the meal in the school district, but it seems that the trend started so long ago that we may never know. Instead I’ve decided to collect people’s memories of the dish. Do you have a memory you would like to share?”

∞

My memories start like this; growing up my mom would often serve chili and cinnamon rolls together on cold winter nights. When she made the cinnamon rolls, my mother would always make my father his own pan of rolls, because he loves raisins in his and the rest of us love ours plain. I remember one night when I was about eleven or twelve when my mom had made her customary two pans of cinnamon rolls – each pan having nine rolls. My mom and brother each ate one roll from the raisin free pan with dinner, leaving seven more in the pan. Throughout the course of the evening, and with my bowl of chili, I managed to eat the rest of the pan. I was egged on by my father who was busily eating his entire pan of cinnamon rolls by himself. We kept going back for “just one more”. Each roll was baked perfectly; they had caramelized in a brown sugar sauce that was drizzled over the top and each roll was still gooey in the center.
After eating seven of these wonderful rolls, I began to feel a bit thirsty. My father, after his nine rolls, was feeling the same way. As it was just before bedtime, we poured two very large glasses of water and proceeded to drink them – very quickly. We then parted ways and went to bed. Fifteen minutes was all it took for the worst belly ache of my life to set in. The water had hit the huge ball of bread in my stomach and caused it to expand rapidly, making me feel like I had eaten about twice as many of the tasty cinnamon rolls. I crawled out of bed moaning, and stumbled up the stairs to find my mother. She was busy trying to help my father with his own belly ache. When I started to complain, she just laughed and told me, “You two belong together”.

∞

Marlisa Keyes, a member of the community who went to grade school in Sandpoint remembers the meal this way: “It was the chili and cinnamon rolls on Thursdays that are still burned into my olfactory memory some 40 years later. The chili was perfect - red beans, chunks of tomato and ground beef. And the cinnamon rolls - heck you could smell them cooking all morning long. They were big, coated with a gooey sugared cinnamon … They were moist, chewy and warm. I always ate mine slowly because I wanted to savor the best part — the tender center.
“Even after Stidwell was added onto the new Farmin school and we transferred from Old Farmin to new Farmin, the cooks continued to serve chili and cinnamon rolls. Although moving to a new school is scary for a 7 year old, the cooks, cinnamon rolls and chili stayed the same, making the transition much easier.
“I don’t think I have yet to come across a bowl of chili or cinnamon roll that rivaled those made by those grandmotherly women. Just writing this makes me salivate!”
Many of other Sandpoint natives agree with Marlisa that chili and cinnamon rolls were an important part of grade school; Mariah Williams, who graduated a year before I did, told me “[chili and cinnamon rolls are] the only thin[g] I remember from elementary school.” As Molly Burgstahler remembers, Thursday school lunches were chili and cinnamon rolls. Barbra Tibbs, who was Sandpoint high school’s valedictorian in 1978 and who has been teaching in the high school for 26 years, grew up bringing a sack lunch every day, but “on those rare occasions when my mom would break down and give us money for Thursday’s hot lunch. How excited we would be! There was seldom food left on any of the lunch trays on those wonderful days.”

∞

I went to a private grade school and I would have missed out on those memories except my mom has been serving chili and cinnamon rolls together for as long as I can remember. I transitioned into the public school when I entered seventh grade, and I quickly fell into the habit of only buying school lunch on Thursdays. My mom’s rolls were just as good as what the cooks served; both made the same caramelized, sticky cinnamon rolls. It turns out my mother got the recipe from the school cooks when she was in high school. She and her best friend loved the cinnamon rolls so much that they spent one whole Saturday learning how to make them from the cafeteria workers in Priest River.
My mom isn’t the only member of my family who grew up eating this dish in school, she and her sister ate it in Priest River; my dad, his brother and his wife ate it in Clark Fork; an aunt of mine ate in Bonners Ferry and my brother, my cousins and I ate it in Sandpoint. I was shocked when I came to college and I realized no one ate chili and cinnamon rolls together. In fact many people thought the combination sounded gross. In Sandpoint, I had never met anyone who hadn’t had the two together and who didn’t serve the two together at home. This is mostly due to the dish being served in the school district for so long. Dr. Meyer, the current principal of Sandpoint High School, who isn’t native to the area, has been told the tradition started in Southside Elementary School. Donna Broadsword, a retired school cook, started cooking at Southside in 1974 and cinnamon rolls and chili was already a staple when she started. In fact her father remembers his mom serving chili and cinnamon rolls in the 1930s before school lunches were invented.
However the meal has continued in other ways outside of the school district too. Aubry Dunn, who was born and raised in Sandpoint, has fond memories of the dish as well, “We grew up very poor, when the pantry was pretty much empty, we could still eat like kings with cinnamon rolls and chili! One of my favorite dishes! [sic]” And Shelby Beck, another native, equates the meal with “… watching the church men play football… and big neighborhood sledding parties.”

∞

I’ve been asking around, and I have yet to find someone not from Bonner County who puts the two together. Helen Parsons, a Sandpoint native summed up how ubiquitous the dish is to most people from Sandpoint: “I didn’t know that people ate chili without cinnamon rolls???”
I baked this meal on Saturday for my floor to expand their cultural horizons. Typically it is my horizons that are expanded, so I was excited to turn the tables on them and to see who would actually try this piece of Sandpoint, Idaho. Baking in a dorm is an interesting experience, and this time was no exception. I had to beg, borrow and steal pots for the chili, pans for the cinnamon rolls, spoons, a knife, a can opener, cutting boards, a rolling pin and dish soap. I enlisted people to chop the onions and to stir the three small pots of chili – I couldn’t find two pots large enough to hold the vegetarian chili and the regular chili; but I took care of the cinnamon rolls myself. Many of my floor mates were drawn into to the lounge by the spicy aroma of the chili. They were bewildered by the idea of eating the two together, but when I told them they could only have a cinnamon roll if they tired the chili, many were willing to attempt it. Those brave souls devoured four pans of cinnamon rolls and three pots of chili in about an hour. I believe I have made a few converts.

Markie Franck is a freshman at American University. She comes from a small town in Northern Idaho and loves to expand her cultural horizons.

Iva Harrison’s Chili

2lbs ground beef
1 onion chopped
4 to 6 cloves garlic, minced
3 1/2 tsp cumin
3 1/2 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 paprika
1 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 (14 oz) can tomatoes
1 (14 oz) can tomato sauce
2 (14 oz) cans chili beans

In a soup pot, brown meat with onion. Drain off excess fat. Add garlic, all seasoning, and UNDRAINED can products. Simmer for 2 hours. (Sometimes I use a chili seasoning pack instead, that way you would not have to buy all the spices.)

Recipe From: the Philadelphia Church Cookbook, Kathy Walker Submitted it.

Caramel Rolls

DOUGH
1 Cup Warm Milk
2 eggs
1/3 cup margarine, melted
4 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 tsp yeast

FILLING
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 cinnamon TBS

Place the ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order. Select dough cycle; press start.

After the dough has doubled in size turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll dough into a 16X21 inch rectangle. Spread dough with 1/3 cup butter and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll up dough and cut into 12 rolls.

Before you place your rolls in a 9x13 pan Melt 1/4 cup butter and place it in the bottom of pan. Add a 1/4 cup light caro syrup and 1/2 cups brown sugar to the melted butter. Stir well, and then place the rolls on top of the caramel mixture.

Cover the rolls and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Bake rolls in preheated oven set to 375 for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. As soon as rolls come out of the oven, dump them out onto a cookie sheet and scrape the extra caramel on

How Bootlegged Booze Brought a Family Together

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:12:46 -0400

Brendan Agnew

Antioch, West Virginia is more or less just a mountain. It sits just a few wooded miles south of Route 50, In West Virginia’s panhandle, seemingly light years away from the mines and mills and small towns that compose the rest of the region. If you’re the kind of person that swears by maps or sticks to roads with asphalt on them, there’s little chance you’ll stumble across this Appalachian gem. It’s gravel alleyways and bright yellow signs reading “no trespassing” would suggest that it may not want to be found. Coincidentally, most of my family hails from this little hamlet. Save for a few hermits who presumably retreated to the hills to be alone with goats or guns, every residence here bears the name “Agnew” on its woodsy-themed decorative mailbox. My father grew up here as his did before him, the difference being that my father left as soon as he was of age, whereas my grandfather now lives at the very peak of the mountain, overlooking the valley from a ranch-style home.

Every so often, my family decides to convene at the summit of Mt. Agnew for a summer feast. Quintessential meat and potatoes affairs, with turkeys, stuffings, biscuits, and copious amounts of gravy. A movable feast on an entirely Wal-Mart budget. I expect be inundated with calories and “how’s-school-treating-you” small talk with aunts I haven’t seen in years. Each year, I meet this Saturday with a mix of nerves, boredom, and voracious appetite.

Among this side of my family, food is an unspoken, yet sacred language. Recipes are seldom written down and, in the rare case they’ve been transcribed, it is on a Depression-era scrap of notebook paper, in the inscrutable scrawl of one of my great-great grandsomethings. My late grandmother, Ruby, owned a series of diners in the town of Keyser, just a few miles away from Antioch. Some of my earliest memories are mired in the thick heat of bacon grease that emanated from her kitchens. On Sundays, I would wait anxiously for stacks of flap jacks at the counter, just before the outpouring of churchgoers from Keyser Presbyterian would swarm the booths in their worship attire. Food is the only grounds on which I can relate to this side of my family.
The Mecca-like pilgrimage to Antioch from Pittsburgh comes with its own tense unspoken ritual. It involves waking up shortly after sunrise on a Saturday, hastily and groggily stuffing a duffel bag with toiletries and a change of clothes, and piling into the SUV for two or three hours of waking up at intermittent rest stops. As one edges toward West Virginia on Highway 50, the last pop radio station for miles around gives way to static and occasional snippets of old country western ballads that I imagine reverberate from hillside to hillside on infinite loop. This usually lulls me to sleep until I can feel the gravel road my grandfather lives on grind beneath our wheels.
As we at long last crest the top of Mt. Agnew, we enter a feast already in progress. My grandfather and his wife, Diane, are already putting out food in aluminum foil trays. They set the table that faces west over the side of the mountain, overlooking rolling hills and a labyrinthine network of power lines. The simmering, buttery aroma of deep frying greets me as I step out of the car. If it weren’t for the abundance of food, I would almost feel I was scavenging by showing up too late to help with the preparations. Still, without hesitation, I grab an iced tea can from the cooler beside the table and take my seat in the circle my cousins have formed with green lawn chairs.
They begin to talk as if they’ve missed one another much longer than they have. Most of them live within an hour or so of one another, scattered about the Maryland and West Virginia panhandle. I become an obvious outlier with little to say. I traveled the farthest to get here and it shows. I throw my voice into the conversation of vintage cars, guns, and West Virginia University football as often as I can. Otherwise, my comments are few and far between as I stare intently into my drink. I focus, instead, on the syrupy consistency of the last few sips of sweet tea, which I down cup after cup of in the sweltering heat. My stomach is far more vocal. It, too, is impatient for a warm meal and an exit from the uncomfortable small talk.

Today we’ll be having roast turkey, a pit barbecue staple. My “uncle” Wayne, a relative of mine more inexplicably distant than his title would suggest, tends to the bird. Wayne is a man of few words. When not manning the grill, he sits in a lawn chair several sizes to small to accommodate his weight, can of gradually warming Budweiser in hand. He saves any frivolities he has in him for his grilling. Every 5 minutes or so, he injects the turkey with a hastily-mixed concoction of lemon and lime juice, Worcestershire and soy sauce. This hodgepodge of salt and bite always yields perfection. Always. In fact, it almost seems that the less premeditated the mix, the tastier the result. The fire sends billows of delicious-smelling smoke rippling over the edge of the mountainside, almost rivaling the output of the paper mills and coal mines in the distance. For a few moments, I become transfixed on the crawling revolutions the turkey makes on the spit, before Uncle Wayne again closes the hood of the grill, enveloping our meal-to-be in rusty cast-iron. When the turkey is finished, the meat can hardly cling to the bones. It is tender and practically perspiring with salty flavor.

I often worry about running out of conversation material at these get- togethers. Although I’m only one generation and three hours of highway commute removed from this side of my family, the divide always seems much wider. I seldom interject much after as the evening goes on. Today I feel oddly talkative. Maybe it’s the onset of the tryptophan that lulls me into a talkative stupor, the same stupor that brings drowsy families together for collective naps around television every Thanksgiving . Maybe it’s the bite of the salt and the soy awakening my dead tongues, making for more lively conversation. Something about fresh food breathes life into stale small talk.
Over shoveled mouthfuls of turkey, conversations strike up all down the series of foldable tables. On one end of the table, my Uncle David laments the discontinuation of the old body style of the Pontiac GTO, his favorite car. At the other, my grandfather, the preacher, shares some inappropriate joke about a peacock. My cousin Adam and I transition seamlessly from talk of vintage cars to Star Wars. Before, there was scarcely reason to talk. Now, we barely pause to chew. The steam rising from our paper plates hangs in the air, dissipating as dusk sets in and the temperature starts to cool..
After dinner, stomach pleasantly overfilled, I take a seat near my Uncle Craig, who is never short on great conversation. Uncle Craig is a mortician and veteran of Operation Desert Storm. Despite his long history of dealing with and dealing out death, he’s the proud owner of a sunny outlook on life. He still has the constant mischevious glint in his eye of someone who’s never faced a consequence or counted a loss coupled with the subtle wisdom of someone who’s done both. Today, he’s brought a gift for everyone. One he’s particularly excited about.

He unveils a tightly-sealed mason jar filled with peach moonshine. Likely distilled in a car radiator somewhere, the stuff has an overpowering smell of stinging sweetness. Bits of withered peaches drift lazily through the sepia-toned liquid. The jar looks like something that wouldn’t be out of place on the shelves of a mad scientist from an old horror film. My father and uncles pour themselves glasses, watered down with healthy doses of tonic. Occasionally, my cousins and I are granted a few nervous swigs of the peach concoction, when Pap is otherwise occupied. Even diluted beyond recognition, it makes me wince.

As alcohol has done since the dawn of civilization, the moonshine loosens the jaws for conversations. one-by-one, my older relatives shuffle indoors and the sun is swallowed by the adjacent mountaintop.
Looking over the lay of the land, my father lights a cigar. If I were given only one frame of memory by which to remember my dad, smoking a cigar with a drink in hand and Appalachia splayed out before him would probably be it. He glares at his glass, swishing it around. At this point, the drink is just for visual effect. After its initial sweetness, the moonshine gets increasingly miserable with each sip, burning every inch of throat it comes across and settling with a sickly thud in the stomach. It’s also not ideal for anyone that plans on walking any distance in the near future.
We sit in silence looking over the valley until the sky is checkered with constellations. Eventually, my dad speaks, exuding puffs of earthy smelling cigar smoke. “This place was something. I don’t think I could have stayed, though. Would have driven me crazier than I am.” He muses mostly to himself, but partly to me. “People here get too caught up in the small picture. Part of me is glad we got out into a bit of a bigger pond, so to speak.” It’s clear that a day of reminiscence about hunting seasons and church group outings past with the family has taken a little bit of a toll on my tired father.
“Yet, it is kind of pleasant. As an escape, though.” He takes a liberal drag from his cigar and reflects.
I take a final uncomfortable sip and do the same. Until today, I had always been preoccupied with distance when dealing with my father’s family. We lived at the end of a 3 hour, 200-plus mile drive, in environments that hardly seem like they could share the same planet. At reunions in the past, I would often daydream of retracing route 50 northbound, of restarting this balmy Saturday in my bed in Pittsburgh. But today was different. All that anxiety over not fitting in gave way to good food and good feeling. I stayed on the porch for a few hours after my dad retired for the evening, eventually sneaking inside to claim my space on a couch in the living room, for the first time not anticipating the ride home.

Brendan Agnew is a freshman at American University from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He enjoys doing some activities, but not others.

Smoked Turkey

Ingredients:
1 whole turkey, neck removed
1 20 lb. bag of charcoal briquettes
1 cup sweet onions (sliced)
½ lb. of apples

For marinade: roughly 1 cup olive oil, 1 cup soy sauce, ½ cup Worcestershire, ½ cup lemon juice

1. In a small bowl, whisk together, the olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice and the mustard. Add all of the rest of the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to blend before marinating the meat. Use 1/2 of the turkey marinade at first then marinate twice more while smoking.

2.Fill the cavity of the turkey with apples, oranges and sweet onions. Put the turkey in a pan on the grates. Smoke at 250 degrees F. to 300 degrees F. until the internal temperature reaches 180 degrees F

In a small bowl, whisk together, the olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice and the mustard. Add all of the rest of the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to blend before marinating the meat. Use 1/2 of the turkey marinade at first then marinate twice more while smoking.
Fill the cavity of the turkey with apples, oranges and sweet onions. Put the turkey in a pan on the grates. Smoke at 250 degrees F. to 300 degrees F. until the internal temperature reaches 180 degrees F

Peach Moonshine
10 Peaches
¼ cup chopped golden raisins
15 limes (use juice only)
25 cups of sugar
5 gallons of water
wine or distillers yeast

Extract the juice from watermelon and peaches, saving pulp. Boil pulp in five quarts of water for 1/2 hour then strain and add water to extracted juice. Allow to cool to lukewarm then add water to make five gallons total and all other ingredients except yeast to primary fermentation vessel. Cover well with cloth and add yeast after 24 hours. Stir daily for 1 week and strain off raisins. Fit fermentation trap, and set aside for 4 weeks.

Transparency of Food

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:12:00 -0400

Dana Alswyan

I never really had a clear relationship with food. I always looked at food as an essential necessity for humans to live: nothing more, nothing less. Most of my emotional attachments to other people were built in the same way. People who played different roles in my life were mere characters that I had certain obligations towards, and in return I get what I needed from them emotionally. I will also confess that cooking was never one of my favored or practiced skills. My family meals were never crowded or filled with bizarre dishes. I either had my meals alone or with my younger brother. The food was cooked by the maid and specifically chosen by my mother, who made sure that the meals were nutritious and balanced. If my mother joined us, she would usually have her own dish which was different from ours. She had a specific diet plan that was tailored by her dietitian. During special holidays, we would meet other family members, such as my grandfather, my uncles, and my aunts. There wasn’t a specific dish that we shared yearly as other families do, again food was picked by my grandfather and it reflected his diet choices; the whole family had to comply with such selections. We would all gather around a bulky, rounded, granite dining-table. The table was cold at all times and the food was always far. No one asked anybody to pass the food around because the round table had a moving serving platform attached to the top..
After I graduated from high school, I moved to another city to attend college, and changes began to occur. Food culture changed around me. I started noticing that a lot of people gathered around meal times. They laughed and held discussions while having their meals. They shared plates and passed food around like they passed words that come out of their mouths. I started meeting people and I began to share food with them. I tasted food in a different way, relating each dish to a certain person I met. Sometimes I liked a dish because I shared it with someone I liked; other dishes I hated because they reminded me of people I despised. There was specific food that I developed a craving for, because every time I remembered the taste of it, I got a tingling feeling within me; reminding me of whom I shared it with, the crazy things we did, and the place where we enjoyed that meal.
I met my best friend, Asma, in college. The first thing we ate together was ice-cream. Asma is as lousy as I am when it comes to cooking, so we rarely stayed home and cooked together. Maybe because we shared the perspective that cooking in the kitchen and staying home would mean binding our freedom like the other girls in our society. If you are a woman in Saudi Arabia, you can’t leave the house anytime you want. Thankfully both Asma and I have understanding families that don’t follow the rules of the society that we live in. So we started going to random restaurants and trying international food: Japanese, Indian, American, and Egyptian food. Dining in these restaurants didn’t just mean eating food; it became more of a social activity that we did regularly together.
We found a tiny Italian restaurant that was fairly unknown at the time. The place is small yet cozy, six tables and hardwood chairs. When we go there we are usually alone, but sometimes we end up inviting other friends to join us. And when they come, three different tables are brought in and we can all hear our voices because the space seems so crowded with our presence. You can hear the crackling sound of spoons, forks, and knives, forming its own presence and the sound of champagne being poured into glasses. The clatter of the glass when placed on the table announces the satisfaction of the drinker. And the laughter that echoes within the space of the restaurant when one of our best friends tries to make a funny face with bread sticks.
The Italian Bread Bowl Soup was our regular dish that we always order whenever we visit the restaurant. It consists of a bread bowl that is made from white bread, thick and crusty to hold the soup inside of it. You can never use a thin bread bowl because it won’t be capable of holding the soup. The Italian Halibut Chowder is the main and the most important part of the dish. It contains halibut steaks, red bell peppers, minced cloves of garlic, dried basil, and mashed tomatoes. The first time we tried it we ended up ordering two separate dishes and then we had one of those unexplained historical laughter moments, where we felt content and completely happy for no reason to the point that the chef came out of the kitchen to check on us, because the waiter couldn’t understand what was wrong! At that period of time in my life, I changed the way I viewed food and my lifestyle. It didn’t just consist of a simple meal that I needed to consume to live. I altered the way I viewed people in my life because of food. I started exploring other social and psychological aspects in cuisines that I never knew that they existed before. Adelle Davis once said “We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.”

Arthur King Brown III or Will is a freshman at American University studying Business. He may or may not be stuck in the Letts South Hall elevator.

Italian Bread Bowl
Ingredients :

2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
7 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornmeal
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water

Directions

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
Add salt, oil and 4 cups flour to the yeast mixture; beat well. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well with an electric mixer at medium speed after each addition.
When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes.
Punch dough down, and divide into 8 equal portions. Shape each portion into a 4 inch round loaf. Place loaves on lightly greased baking sheets sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in bulk, about 35 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a small bowl, beat together egg white and 1 tablespoon water; lightly brush the loaves with half of this egg wash.
Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Brush with remaining egg mixture, and bake 10 to 15 more minutes or until golden. Cool on wire racks.
To make bowls: Cut a 1/2 inch thick slice from top of each loaf; scoop out centers, leaving 3/4-inch-thick shells. Fill bread bowls with hot soup and serve immediately.

Recipe From: allrecipes.com

The One Time of Year

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:11:58 -0400

Aviva Kamler

The thick green, floral covered recipe book sits at home in the overly packed bookshelf, beside the Julia Child and Ina Garten cookbooks. This cookbook is different, it is old, it is special, it is in no other home throughout the world. Cursive writing is streaked across the cake-battered pages that fill the book. This green recipe book has stood the test of time, it has been passed down four generations of women; it is something I turn to every year for special occasions. This green recipe book has provided the recipe for my very special double chocolate birthday cake, the famous egg rolls my mom makes, and the legendary banana nut bread. This cookbook is important because it is a symbol of my family and spending time with one another.

My mother, born and raised in Chicago, was given this recipe book by her mother who was born in Ireland and raised in Chicago, who was given this book by her mother who was born and raised in Ireland. The tradition is that when someone gets her first home, that the eldest daughter receives the cookbook. My family is not particularly sentimental, and does not have many material items that are particularly meaningful, except for this cookbook. All the recipes are handwritten, dated, edited with side notes and are family traditions. For example, the banana nut bread is made every Christmas for our neighbors. That is what my great grandmother used to do and that is what my mother continues to do. This book keeps tradition within my family.

Although I do not particularly like banana nut bread, because I don’t like bananas, I love my mom’s banana bread. It tastes special and different than anyone else’s, partly because it signifies Christmas is soon and because I know this recipe is something that has been in my family for years. There is something special about knowing that over 50 years ago my great-grandparents ate the same bread during Christmas. Banana nut bread is something I cherish because it reminds me of Christmas.

My family is distant; with my sister living in New York, my mom working for the government and traveling throughout the country on a weekly basis, and my dad living in California; our family is spread thin; however, Christmas is one holiday we always get together for. During this special time, anywhere between 20-40 loaves of banana nut bread are made, wrapped, and delivered to neighbors. Everyone helps in creating these wonderful gifts, even my dad, making it an even more special time.

Food is not something that is considered to be special or memorable. Food is to be eaten and to fill ones inherent need to eat, but for me, banana nut bread is a food that has a greater meaning. It is something that brings my family together, which is rare occasion for the Kamler clan. I used to make banana nut bread when I was little with my mother and grandmother; it is something that I will always see as more than just something to eat. It makes me happy and helps me remember where I come from.

Recipe books are often overlooked and seen as a set of instructions, but family recipe books, especially the green one that stays on the wooden bookshelf in my kitchen, is a set of memories. It is ageless; in fact as the years go by, this cookbook becomes even more valuable. From Ireland, to Chicago, to San Francisco, to wherever my older sister decides to reside, this recipe book will follow. It will continue to impact future generations within my family, just like it did me.

Aviva Kamler is a student at American University studying International Business and Public Relations. She plans to graduate in 2015 and return to San Francisco.

Recipe for Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for preparing the pan
1 cup sugar
3 very ripe bananas, peeled, and mashed with a fork (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces

Directions:

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl, set aside. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a liquid measuring cup with a spout, set aside. Lightly brush a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan with butter. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with an electric hand-held mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually pour the egg mixture into the butter while mixing until incorporated. Add the bananas (the mixture will appear to be curdled, so don’t worry), and remove the bowl from the mixer.

With a rubber spatula, mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the nuts and transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan and let cool completely on the rack. Wrap in plastic wrap. The banana bread is best if served the next day.

Recipe From: FoodNetwork.com

Crepes

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:11:36 -0400

Shekinah Hoffman

The early morning light pours through the bay windows, casting shadows of rhododendron flowers across the linoleum floors of the kitchen. It is a Sunday morning: the perfect, easygoing morning after a night out to make crêpes. It’s a recipe I know by heart- although the stained, ripped page 212 of the Joy of Cooking would tell you otherwise. Crepes aren’t picky, they don’t require exact measurements. A dinner spoon substituting a tablespoon here and a water glass acting as a measuring cup there. So long as the dough is the perfect consistency. Too thick, then the French delicacy will just be American flop. Too watery, and they will taste like grease.

I smear the stick of butter against the hot skillet. The perfect crêpe pan is the key to a thin, airy crêpe. A wide, thin iron pan is best. I watch as the butter bubbles and sizzles against the hot skillet, eagerly awaiting the cool splatter of dough to calm its nerves— the sudden flash of a childhood memory.

It was a hot, July night in Wisconsin. The pungent smell of manure and sweat hung in the air. For a twelve-year old, it was just another dreaded night away from what could have been the perfect summer with friends. The house still looked the same. The classic mid-western farmhouse: slabs of white hardwood hammered together by hand, white shutters, quaint, little vegetable garden bordering miles of cornfields far as the eye can see. On the inside, the house reeked of mildew and mold seeping through the deteriorating floorboards- eau de old people to me.

It was one night where most of the ten children were home: my aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins, most of which I had conveniently never met before, gathered in the living room. My mother, much to my embarrassment, boasted to my aunt my new-found love of making crêpes. My aunt. A woman, who in early twenties moved to France, taught English to young schoolchildren, met the man of her dreams, got married, and eventually raised three dual-citizens outside the streets of Paris. And now, many moons later, she spends the bitter months of winter safe in her home on the shores of Normandy and the warm summers gardening on the Wisconsin farmhouse. Not someone I wanted to try my pathetic attempt at the French staple. She laughed at my shyness and agreed. She was to make the crêpes, and I to make the chocolate sauce.

I watched her expert hands, aged with wrinkled skin and dark spots, begin to crack the egg and whisk the batter, straight from memory. I admired the beauty of those hands. Hands that graced the edge of each bowl and pan as if she were writing upon the blackboard in her perfect calligraphy. I watched the creases around her husky eyes light up as we talked of France, cooking, love, and crêpes. One day we would open up our own crêperie, she promised. Her the master crêpier, and me the humble chocolatier.

But it is her personality I saw the most. It shined through her thin coral lips and husky eyes like a glimmer of gold. This was a woman with more compassion than I could ever dream of. She put her heart and soul into everything she touched—including the crêpes. She could turn an overgrown patch of thorns into a blossoming rose garden. And she would never forget to send a birthday card or care package—hand-crafted, of course. A woman with the strength to raise three children on her own yet would hide behind her rosy cheeks at the slightest of compliments. She always gave, and asked for nothing in return.

The crêpes were done. She presented a plate of thin dough folded around fresh blueberries topped with homemade whipped cream and drizzled with milk chocolate. For me, it was the beginning of a love affair to last a lifetime. I don’t know if it was the look of the plate or how I drooled at every word spilling from my Aunt’s lips that began mon amour. But it hit me full force. A fiery lust like Tristan and Isolde— without the man. I fell in love with all things French.

I too, wanted to wander alone down the cobble-stone streets of Paris in my best pleated skirt, a pair of ballet flats, and a très chic scarf tied around my neck; nibbling away at a crusty baguette lathered with creamy brie. I wanted the rich aromas of the open-air markets to cling to my nostrils and seep into my soul. I wanted to see the real water lilies of Monet’s gardens. And then be sweep off my feet by some gorgeous Frenchmen. Like Carrie, in her romantic espionage as an “American in Paris” in those few episodes of Sex and the City. But better. I wanted to be like my Aunt.

A crêpe is more than just a thin pancake to me. It is my Aunt. For now watching the butter sizzle in the skillet, I see my Aunt’s face in the dough smiling at me from distant lands. I hear the whisper of her mousy voice complimenting my perfect golden-brown crepe. And I know that one day, I will visit her in her charming home in Normandy and together we will walk down the Parisian boardwalks linked arm-in-arm to our little crêpier by la Seine.

Shekinah Hoffman is a freshman at American University. She loves reading, writing, and swimming.

Crêpe Sucrée
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp double acting baking powder
2 T white sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp vanilla or 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
Butter (to grease pan)
Confectioner’s sugar (garnish)
Whipped Cream (garnish)

Blend eggs, milk, and water. Add flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Blend well.
Refrigerate batter 30 minutes to an hour.
Heat a 5-inch skillet. Grease well with butter.
Add a small quantity of batter. Tip the skillet and let the batter spread over the bottom in circular motion.
Cook the pancake over moderate heat.
When it is lightly brown underneath, flip it, and brown the other side.
Add filling and roll.
To serve: add a dollop of whipped cream, drizzle chocolate sauce, and sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar.

Filling (Berry Sauce)
3 cups mixed berries, fresh or frozen.
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup orange juice or concentrate
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the fruit just begins to fall apart, roughly five minutes. Transfer mixture to a blender or food processor and puree until mixture is blended to desired texture. Let cool.
Once cool, spread sauce over pancake.
Filling can be substituted with jam, jellies, Nutella, fresh fruits, etc.

Serving Size: 15
Adapted from the Joy of Cooking
Chocolate Sauce
3 ounces Baker’s Semisweet Baking Chocolate (3 squares)
2 Tablespoons Butter
⅔ cup heavy cream
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt chocolate and butter in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once melted, pour in heavy cream. Add white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Whisk sauce to eliminate sugar lumps.

Serving Size: About 2 cups.

Recipe From: California Kosher

An Edible Mentor

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:11:00 -0400

Stefan Platteau

Since I was little I have been somewhat of a “sweet tooth”. Chocolate, candy, cake, cookies, you name it. As long as it’s edible I will be delighted. For many years though, one special treat has reached far beyond others to satisfy my palate and has led me to surprising experiences and valuable lessons which you would not expect to gain from a simple cookie. Yes, my favorite food is a cookie, but not just any cookie, it’s a stroopwafel. A stroopwafel is a hybrid of a waffle and a cookie filled with caramel syrup in its middle. It is originally Dutch and is sold in most supermarkets and vending machines. Unfortunately though, the regular packed stroopwafels are no match for the original, homemade ones. Those just have that special factor that makes you crave them whenever you think about them.

My first encounter with what I call a “real stroopwafel” occurred when I was seven years old. At the time I lived in Holland and had just moved to a new house on Zanglijsterlaan 92, The Hague. One of the first days in our new house the neighbors came by to meet us. They were an old couple. The man, named Roelof, was tall but looked very fragile and had difficulty walking without help. His wife Gerda seemed more lively and seemed very happy with the prospect of having new, better company. She carried a tray which held several unimpressive looking stroopwafels. They came in and I did not mind them much after the routine greetings. The lady probably thought I was cute or something along the lines because she sat down on a chair next to where I was playing with my Legos and tried to feed me the stroopwafel she had baked herself. It was an uncomfortable situation because at the time I was not very fond of old people. The concerns of a seven year old: they smelled funny and looked wrinkly. Regardless, a vicious gaze from my mother made me reluctantly accept what she was offering. I did not regret it and after the first small bite I eagerly finished the remainder of the waffle. The texture and tastes were marvelous. The outside of the cookie felt crunchy and consistent, while the syrup on the inside felt sweet and warm and melted on my tongue with every bite. I was shocked as to why I would ever have rejected such a treat, and with a sheepish look I took another one. Gerda smiled satisfied.

For the next three years I lived in the same house. Gerda’s husband died a year after their first visit and my mother encouraged me to go spend some time with her since she appeared quite fond of me. The first time I knocked on her door she opened the door I asked “can I come play and eat your cookies?” She was surprised, I could tell by her face, but she smiled and answered “my house is your house and you can come any time you like”. Since that day I often went to her house to keep her company, partly because she had toys that used to be her son’s and she would happily bake me those delicious stroopwafels. I did not feel like visiting her was a duty or some kind of favor. Actually, she became like a grandma to me, and instead of treating her like an older person I treated her as a friend. Regardless, the recipe of the stroopwafels was kept secret. Sometimes I wonder if she did that to avoid losing the lure of the cookies to go to her house. For me it would not have made a difference.

After five years in Holland, my parents decided to move to Rome, Italy. Stroopwafels and Gerda stopped being a priority. I started spending more time with friends instead of at Gerda’s house because I wanted to be like other kids. A few days before I left, she came to visit . I just quickly greeted her and left for the park. I don’t blame myself; I was trying to enjoy my last days in Holland. A few days later, on the plane to Italy, I felt miserable. “Loosing” my whole life just because of my father’s employers was frustrating. My mother tried to cheer me up and pulled out a piece of paper from her agenda. Its title read: “De Geheime Wafel recept” which in Dutch means: “the secret waffle recipe”. At the time it was not really comforting since I had forgotten how good they were. I just looked at it as a sweet but irrelevant gesture. When we arrived though, my mother baked some for me and I remembered their magical feeling. Those cookies became the most vivid memory of my home.

I entered school in Italy and everything was normal during the first few months. Eating stroopwafels was a sporadical event, so one day I asked “mom, can you make me some stroopwafels for school?” She said “here you go” And turned over the page with the recipe on it. Despite not being a proficient cook I gave a try to make my own delicatessen. The results were probably not as good as my mother’s and especially not Gerda’s, but I felt proud about my stroopwafels. I decided to bring them to school, mainly to show off. It worked like a charm. The people in my class loved the waffles and requested more. I was clearly somewhat naïve at the time and obliged the day after. All the popular kids would flock around saying ”can I have some? Please?” In those moments I was the one who could decide who would get a cookie and who would not. I felt like I had a position of power. The people who received one of the treats would usually walk away saying things like “thanks man, you are awesome”, and this was a nice feeling. I felt included in the “cool” group of my class because people were so much nicer to me than usual when I had waffles with me. I only realized the coincidence later.

At a certain point I got tired of baking so often so I started to do it more sporadically. My mother, who sometimes helped, did not want any part of it anymore. I naively expected everyone to act the same with me as in the past days. Initially it was like that. People were nice, perhaps perfectly coined with the term sycophant. As the days went on and they started realizing that I was not bringing any stroopwafels anytime soon, things went back to normal and they began disregarding me again. It taught me a valuable lesson about people. I did not make the same mistake again though, and the next times I made stroopwafels I enjoyed them with the people I could really trust.

When after five more years I went back to Nicaragua I stopped making stroopwafels. I felt like I was too old to be baking and would rather go out with friends instead. Besides, I had the excuse that a couple of necessary ingredients were not available anyways. I forgot the recipe which I had known by heart for years and barely remembered the homemade stroopwafels. Not long ago though, my mother gave me the sad news that Gerda had passed away. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I was surprised about how much it shook me since I had not seen her since for more than ten years. I realized though, that the stroopwafels had always been a memory of her and Holland in some way, and I decided to bake another batch with my friends, using the available ingredients. Despite the “oooooh’s” and “oh my God, so good” that my friends exclaimed, they did not taste as good as the one’s Gerda used to make. It made me regret how much I disregarded the relationship with her during my last weeks in Holland and the years that followed that.

I started making stroopwafels again since then. Not really for myself as I don’t enjoy them much anymore. I do it for the feeling of baking them and seeing other people appreciate them; like how Gerda used to do with me. A few years back my family and I visited Holland during summer. We visited Gerda’s resting place and instead of flowers I left a piece of paper on the site; the same piece of paper I once read on an airplane. I knew I would never again forget that recipe and the lessons it taught me.

Stefan Platteau is a Dutch-Nicarguan student at American University studying economics and international relations. He enjoys playing soccer and basketball and misses Nicaraguan cuisine.

Stroopwafels a la Gerda

Ingredients*:

For the waffles:

500 grams flour

150 grams of caster sugar

250 grams melted butter

Lukewarm milk (enough to make the mixture have a yogurt-like texture)

50 g yeast

1 egg

For the syrup:

500 grams of syrup

300 grams dark brown sugar

75 grams unsalted butter

One teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation: Make the waffle ingredients into thick dough by kneading all of them together. Keep mixing and add some milk until it has an adequate texture (more or less like cake). Let the dough rest around 45 minutes. Knead the dough again and then divide it into balls the size of ping pong balls.

Heat the syrup and mix the other ingredients with it. Place the balls of dough in a waffle iron and cook on both sides until done (dark brown color). Cut the waffles in half while they are warm and spread them with syrup. After this replace both halves together with the syrup in the middle. Voila, Stroopwafels a la Gerda.

*One ingredient has been omitted from the recipe to keep it somewhat secret. I’m still protective about it! Also the brands for the ingredients haven’t been specified, which for the syrup is quite important. The amounts of each ingredient are approximate and depend on personal preference.

The Tri-Tip Trifecta

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:11:00 -0400

Samantha Banks
It is the absence of something that makes you realize just how important it is to you. When something is regularly there, it can be an unknown comfort to you—a rock in your life that gets you through the rough times. However, it is often hard to appreciate these things until you are forced to realize just how important they are. But how do you come to this realization? When the regularity has gone away, is no longer available to comfort you—that is when its importance becomes clear to you. My rock was a meal. A hearty, mountain made meal eaten at my mother’s house each time we went to her house. Mom would make a regular Sunday meal: tri-tip steak, mashed potatoes, and three-bean salad. It was what we called the trifecta of meals—the three dishes came together to make a meal we all loved. But what did the meal mean to us as a family? My sister and I had to learn the answer to this question the hard way.

It is our first real meal together as a family after more than a year—grace brings tears and the meal brings us comfort, love and the communion we need to feel. The preparation of the meal plays a crucial role—it is a time for us to come together as a family, in each other’s presence without any restraints or missing pieces. We can now truly spend each second of preparation laughing, loving and enjoying each other’s company. No football playing in the background—although it is recorded for later in the evening—instead we are a family, cooking a tri-tip together, mashing potatoes together, savoring each second together just as we savor each bite of three-bean salad later that night. My sister and I have now witnessed the food changing into a meal. Our family dinner turned from a meal to a communion. Our family is whole again. The absence is filled, and its place had been expanded with the newfound love we found from each other, and from our family dinner.

My sister and I only learned the importance of this family dinner, and the true meaning of “only loved once lost” after a 14-month absence of both our mother, and her cooking. One day we were a family; tri-tip was every other Sunday, with no more meaning than delicious food to fill our stomachs while watching the Niner’s game. But then it was gone—Mom had to leave us. She had committed a white color money crime, and had to go to what we called prisneyland: a federal women’s detainment facility two hours away. We spent our last Sunday meal together dwelling, moping even about the idea of a year apart—it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t going to be easy, it just wasn’t what any of us wanted. But what we did not expect is that the distance brought us closer.
With regularity, the tri-tip was just meat—marinated and seasoned, cooked first in the oven, then browned on the barbecue, and finally served and eaten on the table on the back porch. Of course, while the meal cooked we laughed, talked and watched the 49ers play that week’s opponent. The mashed potatoes were my job—whether it was pre-made mashed potato powder, or boiling and mashing potatoes myself, I made them, spiced them up, and took the bowl to the table. Mom threw together the three-bean salad while my step-dad, Bob, barbecued the meat, and my sister, Zoe, set the table. Once it was all set out, Mom would round us up, sit us down, and it was dinnertime. Grace was recited, varying in speed depending on just how hungry we were, and upon our family’s added last line, “God thy will be done” it was chow time. Often times it was a silent meal, everyone would eat their food, shovel down seconds, and dinner was over. Bob, Zoe and I would help mom bring the dishes into the kitchen, and that would be the end of our night. The tri-tip, mashed potatoes and three-bean salad was just food—it filled us up, made us sleepy, and sent us to bed with the satisfaction we needed. However, we had no idea what these nights, what this family meal really meant until after our year apart.

For the next 14 months, my sister and I were restricted to visits every few weeks, and none of Mom’s cooking at the prison. We would be allowed to see Mom, under the supervision of someone over 17, and the rest of the women whose families had come to see them. When lunchtime rolled around, we prepared our luxurious vending machine meals: easy-mac with a side of sun chips and a soda. These meals would spark conversation of more food—“What are you guys eating at your Dad’s house?” The response wouldn’t vary too much; we answered, “I don’t know. Potstickers, tacos, pasta and goulash?” Mom knew we were not eating the extravagant meals she would make, and she would jump on this chance to reminisce on her good ol’ Sunday dinners. As soon as the tri-tip, potatoes and three-bean were brought up, the drool was practically running down our chins and into our microwaved meals. The memory of smoky taste of the tri-tip, the smooth, creamy potatoes doused with extra sauce off the tri-tip, accompanied by the garlic filled three-bean salad teased us, and somehow magnified the wonder of the meal. Withdraw was setting in—we were addicted, and hadn’t gotten our fix in too long. We longed for the day we would sit back down on the porch, and delve into the meal we all knew too well. The absence of the meal was doing its job—we realized that this tri-tip trifecta was our rock, and we longed for it.

When the day came for Mom to come home, my sister and I could not wait to get into the mountains and spend the day in real time—no more memories from a year ago holding us in the prison of our minds. Sunday rolled around, and it was time to make our meal. It was time to be a family again, preparing our private feast of protein, carbs, and delicious flavors. When the steaming potatoes, sliced tri-tip, and saucy three-bean salad was laid out on the table, we saw not just a meal. Our family saw its togetherness—we saw our tender love and care put into our favorite feast. Grace was said, and we each began the meal we had been waiting for—it was not only full of sighs of happiness for the delicious food, but the day was also an emotional experience for us all. Tri-tip turned into love, mashed potatoes turned into care, and three-bean salad turned us into a family. We now knew that this meal meant more to us than just nutrients—it was our rock. We have not let go of our rock, and each Sunday we spend together is now a ceremony—it is the ceremony that praises our family, and is solidified in the communion that is the tri-tip trifecta.

Haley French is a freshman at American University studying International Relations and International Business. She loves culture, reading and eating.

TDR: American University’s version of the Hunger Games

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:10:47 -0400

Victoria Bera

If you have read Suzanne Collins’ acclaimed trilogy The Hunger Games, you might know that it consists of a competition in which adolescents compete to the death in a government- arranged tournament. For this competition, each competitor’s name is drawn at a reaping, and once they’re selected they are known as tributes who are thrown into an arena to compete for their lives. As a high school senior and fan of the books, I believed this type of carnage could only exist in novels. But, as an American University college freshman, I now realize how mistaken and naive my beliefs were.

The Reaping

The day I chose to attend American University, I focused on creating expectations for my courses. I vowed to myself to be the best student I could be and get the best grades I could get. These self-promises were based on the idea of challenging myself, competing with other students, and sharpening numerous skills that would surely help me later in life. But what I didn’t expect was to put these expectations to the test on a day-to-day basis when getting a meal. This is because I didn’t realize that once my name was selected out of the thousands of applicants, I would be chosen as tribute to compete in one of the most primal and expensive competitions the university had to offer. At fourteen dollars an entry, this competition is known for making students compete to the death, not for excelling grades but rather for the basic human necessity: food. From experience, I have learned that we have to swipe into the Terrace Dining Room and use our best survival skills in the arena. Once we’re in, hunger is known to dominate over companionship and only one thought can go through each tribute’s mind: may the odds be ever in my favor.

May the odds be ever in your favor

Once I enter the arena, I am faced with the primal task of feeding my hungry stomach. All around me, tributes from international districts run to be the first in line to the sources of fresh food. These sources are what I like to call a college-versioned Cornucopia, and are either the Comfort Zone, the Firewok, or the Grill. My first tactic is to acquire my weapons, which in my case are plates, forks, and knives. Considering this is the Terrace Dining Room, these necessary eating utensils are a scarcity and a rarity. It is therefore no wonder that in order to acquire them, I have to battle to the death with another tribute. This first combat of the day usually entails a menacing glare and agile grasp on the weapons. Once I am done, the failing tribute admits its defeat and moves on to another weaponry source.

After my first success, I move on to my second survival technique on my to-do list. This consists of skimming over the food displays before getting in line. I have learned that this is the wisest decision because I get time to be in my favor in case my taste is not attracted to what is being offered. On a good day, I can manage to wait for at least fifteen minutes for a fresh piece of grilled chicken. But, if this is not the case, then I proceed to my third and last check on my to- do list. The last check consists of making my way to my safety net: the pizza ovens. Once I reach the pizza ovens, I let the delicious smell of fresh pizza invade my senses. After a minute or two of being in trance with the enticing aroma, I greet the man who has made this delicacy a reality. Said greeting usually consists of me smiling at the chef, who I consider my sponsor.

Nevertheless, the smile of appreciation is cut short when I catch sight of another tribute making his way to my prize. At that point, my survival instincts kick into gear and I snatch the spatula away from the tribute’s grasp. But before I am successful on acquiring my pizza, said tribute uses another spatula from another pizza plate and battles me for my desired slice. It is at that moment in time that I decide to use my most lethal stare and literally shove the tribute out of the way. This tactic is quite successful, for I manage to pick up a slice or two of cheese pizza and leave the scene.

The Victor

The moment I collect the pizza slices on my plate, I make my way to my usual table. This table is one I share with my closest tributes on a regular basis. When I reach it, I realize that some other students have positioned themselves on it. For this reason, I approach my territory with a predatory stance and literally stand by it staring at them. After a minute, my allies join my sides and we successfully manage to scare the invaders away from our terrain. Following the duel, I take a seat and I survey my prize with hungry eyes. Next, I take my weapons and cut into its fluffy depths. The reason why I cut my pizza into tiny pieces is because I decide to give these hunger games an air of civility. I believe that by eating properly, I subtract some of its primal building blocks, and succeed in retrieving my lost dignity. Nevertheless, regardless of my attempts at formality, I can’t help the instinctual reactions I express. My mouth waters every single time I successfully cut a piece and see how the steaming cheese dances a tango between my fork and the dough. It is as if it is struggling my power and attempts at breaking it apart. Next, as my fork travels the distance between my plate and my mouth, the smell of tomato sauce and cheese yet again invades my nostrils and gets me ready for the final kill. It is at this point that I think that the battles and techniques have been worth it. It is at this point that I think about how in these games I have polished my critical thinking skills by deciding which decision favors my final outcome. It is at this final point that I realize that a competition fueled by hunger is one of the fiercest competitions I’ll ever encounter. With these thoughts in mind, the moment the pizza piece is engulfed by my lips and broken down in my mouth, I not only savor the ingredients.

I savor victory.

*The following recipe was taken from Epicurious Pizza Margherita?Gourmet | January 2009?by Melissa Roberts and Maggie Ruggiero

yield: Makes 6 servings?active time: 35 min?total time: 1 3/4 hr (includes rising time)?The secret to a great pizza Margherita is to use the best ingredients you can find—and to approach them with restraint. (Just because a little cheese… more ›?Ingredients?For dough:?1 (1/4-ounce) package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoon)?1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, divided, plus more for dusting?3/4 cup warm water, divided?1 teaspoon salt?1/2 tablespoon olive oil?For topping:?1 (14-to 15-ounces) can whole tomatoes in juice?2 large garlic cloves, smashed?2 tablespoons olive oil?4 basil leaves plus more for sprinkling?1/4 teaspoon sugar

Birthday Dinner

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:09:50 -0400

Sarah Van Bemmel

These days, birthday dinners are last minute. We have to conform to everyone’s schedules. At least for the past three years my birthday dinner has been held at a restaurant. For some people this may be a special treat or a valued family tradition, but restaurants are not part of our tradition. I enjoy a home-cooked meal and, in particular, a home-cooked dessert.

Having an entire evening focused on you is a large ordeal to undertake. Birthday lists, menus, etc must all be chosen – and it can be a lot for an eight, ten or even twelve year old to think about. Choosing the meal, and especially the dessert, is what becomes the most challenging assignment. Do you simply choose all your favorite dishes? That could be a quick fix but what if those foods do not compliment and mesh well? Do you choose food that everyone is going to like? That becomes quickly complicated with the number of picky eaters and acquired tastes in such a small group of people. A balance must be achieved between selecting foods that you enjoy as well as foods that the guests will find delectable.

These dinners were mostly for my sister and I as we grew older; I hardly remember any birthday dinners for my mom and dad, let alone my grandparents. The dinners would usually take place in our dining room. Mom would prepare most, if not all, of the dinner food items, and my grandparents, who live about ten minutes away, would prepare the dessert. My grandfather, after retiring from his engineering work at G.E., attended cooking school and worked on Saturdays preparing desserts with the pastry chefs at Le Bec-Fin in Philadelphia. The French restaurant founded by Georges Perrier is highly regarded, especially while my grandfather worked there, and is often awarded five stars. He would bring samples and leftovers home for our tasting pleasure even though we were probably too young to appreciate the flavors. My sister was not yet tall enough to see the desserts resting on the counter, but she would jump up and down in order to select the one she wanted. While my mom and sister prefer desserts packed with chocolate, my dad and I enjoy the contrast of sweet sugar and sour lemon in lemon-flavored treats. With only a few minor exceptions, my sister and I would select birthday desserts from Le Bec-Fin recipes to be prepared for us by our grandpa. The occasional dessert was prepared by grandmother, for although she was not a pastry chef, she had specialties of her own. Her cheesecake is one of my favorites and she can often be heard boasting about her piecrust. I occasionally chose Crème Brûlée but my consistent favorite birthday dessert was the Lemon Tart. The tart has a special taste when the chilled, sour filling mingles with the sturdy, sugary crust. Ice cream, whipped cream and other toppings are not necessary and would only soil the balance of the flavors – the zesty lemon taste mixed with the sweet sugar of the dessert. My sister would choose Chocolate Mousse, Fallen Chocolate Cake or other chocolate concoctions. “Birthday cake” was not a part of our young vocabulary.

Among all the elaborate desserts came one mistake that my grandmother is still repulsed by to this day. One year, when my sister was probably around seven or eight years old, she requested a dessert that would most certainly never be approved of by Georges Perrier. For her birthday dessert, she wanted a blue cake. And somehow, my grandma was the one charged with completing this task – creating a blue cake coated with a thick layer of blue icing. I am still unsure where this ridiculous idea came from and why we heeded her request. Fortunately, we are all able to laugh at this absurd choice now, though my grandma still shudders at the thought of it. Food is not meant to be blue, she says.

Leftovers, if they existed, were fought over and rarely lasted more than a day or two after the main event. We are a dessert family. We pride ourselves in handcrafting our own desserts. So it seems strange that we have been having birthday dinners at restaurants for the past few years, ending the meal with someone else’s desserts. Although it is fun to have everyone order a different dessert and get to try several sweets, that is not our tradition. Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes are enjoyable and there are many flavors for everyone to choose from, but for my birthday I prefer my grandma’s original cheesecake. Are we too busy to prepare a special dinner and coordinate a day when everyone has free time?

This year was my first birthday away from home. We had dinner at a restaurant in Philadelphia about a week before my actual birthday before I returned to school at the end of winter break. Dad did not come or was not invited, I had dinner with him a separate night. There were several catastrophes that night. First, the traffic getting into the city was horrendous. Then there was the issue of Grandma not wearing the sweater I had recently gotten for her, causing a brief argument between my mom and her mom, lasting for a few weeks after I had been back at school. Finally, and most importantly, the food was disappointing. I did not enjoy my meal and the dessert options were anything but exciting.

Back at school, on the day of my birth, I longed for a home-cooked meal. I missed my favorite side of steamed artichoke with garlic butter. I would have given anything for just a few bites of lemon tart or my grandmother’s fabulous cheesecake. Instead, I ate another poorly prepared meal and went without dessert. Instead, presents were not opened with family gathered around in the living room, watching the look of surprise on my face as I opened gifts from each one of them. Presents came in brown cardboard boxes to be picked up at the package room and opened as they came, days after my birthday.

Although there were often disagreements, mistakes and messes surrounding birthday dinners with family, it had become part of the tradition. Small arguments and misunderstandings were part of the organization of a special occasion and are bound, if not expected, to arise. Overall, these little discrepancies are rarely remembered and do not seem to affect the cheer and celebration of event. Restaurants seem last minute and the mood is more easily dampened. The sad attempt at a week early dinner at a restaurant does not replace the celebratory homemade meal of my choosing followed by a rich, classic dessert.

Sarah Van Bemmel is a freshman studying Graphic Design and Marketing at American University. She is from Wayne, Pennsylvania and enjoys eating sweet and salty foods together.

Lemon Tart

A Le Bec-Fin Recipe

For the 11 inch plate

5 eggs

5 egg yolks

375 g sugar

250 g lemon juice (6 lemons)

125 g unsalted butter (1 stick)

Cook in yellow pot

Zest from two lemons

400 degree oven.

Bake pie crust for 15 minutes with pie weights, remove weights and bake until lightly golden. Prick bubbles if they form.

Let cool to room temperature.

In medium stainless steel or enamel pan over medium heat, combine eggs, egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. Whisk until light and whisk leaves track in the foam (about 10 minutes) (coats silver spoon). Remove from heat and whisk in the butter. Pour filling into the prebaked pie shell. Chill before serving.

THE Lemon Bars

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:09:42 -0400

Michelle Kiefer

When I think of a Jewish mother one word comes to mind - FOOD! For some reason most Jewish mothers have the burning desire to feed anyone who walks into their house. Who knows why this is, it is just the way they are. I have been told that my great grandmother was this way and my grandmother and mother seem to follow the trend. They feel that it is their duty to offer you something to eat, anytime of the day. Consequently, they always have food in the house. Every time I visit my Grandmother she will greet me and then immediately ask the same question, are you hungry? Even if I say no she will go proceed in listing the food she just bought for me, and how I should eat something. Although my mom is not this extreme, she still is known for always having food, among my sisters and I’s friends. She always keeps snacks in stock, so there is never a time she can’t offer you something. However, her biggest hit is her lemon bars. These lemon bars strongly represent characteristics of my mother.

The recipe is for the lemon bars are from a Jewish community cookbook from Newport News, Virginia, where my mother grew up. When growing up Judaism played a big role in my mom’s life. She has a large family and they all would get together during the Jewish holidays. These memories are really important to her and she really cherishes the time she had spending with all of her family. Because she has such fond memories of the Jewish holidays, she has always tried to make sure we have great memories around Judaism as well. Even though the lemon bars don’t really have to do with my mom’s specific memories, the cookbook they come from has symbolic memories of my mom’s past.

The recipe for the “Lemon Squares” is very simple. The crust of these bars include a half of a cup of margarine, one cup of flour, and a fourth of a cup of powdered sugar. The lemon filling is made from two eggs, one cup of sugar, two tablespoons of flour, and three tablespoons of lemon juice. However, my mom has tweaked this recipe as she has made it. Now she adds a little salt to the crust and instead of the three tablespoons of lemon juice, she squeezes two large lemons and gets about one-third of a cup of fresh lemon juice. Finally instead of cooking the bars for twenty to twenty-five minutes, she cooks them for about eighteen minutes. The tray comes out of the oven covered in yellow gooey and sticky filling with a layer of pastry dough on the bottom to keep them together. Once cooled she sprinkles powdered sugar over the top and then cuts it into individual square bars. Even though she has made this recipe probably over three dozen times, she isn’t always satisfied with how they come out. Sometimes she thinks they are too sticky or the crust is too thick, so she will either try to fix them or make another batch.

Over the years I have come to realize that my mom would like everything to be perfect. She obviously knows there are a lot of things in this world that she can’t control, so when there are things she can, she wants them to be perfect. Wanting the lemon bars to be perfect is a great example of this. She always is complaining on how she wishes she had more time to clean the house and so on, however, she will spend hours on sending emails. Because these emails are something she has complete control of, she wants them to be perfect. The same goes for the lemon bars, if one of my sisters wants to make them themselves, she insists on helping (more like making them for us). By making the lemon bars for us, she has the ability to try to make them perfect.

My mother mostly bakes the lemon bars for our friend’s birthdays. Every once in a while she will just make them when we our having friends over. Even though I know she has a bunch of other tasks to take care of, she still feels the desire to bake up a batch of them. I know her love for my sisters and I is endless, but we don’t need her to make lemon bars to show us that. I think she makes the lemon bars to show us she loves us and wants to not only make us happy, but our friends happy as well. Making these lemon bars is just one of the many ways my mom tries to show my sisters and I her never-ending love for us.

Michelle Kiefer is a student at American University studying Graphic Design. She is planned to graduate in 2015.

Lemon Bars

Temperature: 325 degrees

Pan: 9-inch square

Crust:

· ½ cup of unsalted margarine, softened

· 1 cup of flour

· ¼ cup of powdered sugar

· 1/5 teaspoon of salt

Filling:

· 2 eggs, beaten

· 1 cup of sugar

· 2 tablespoons of flour

· 1/3 cup of lemon juice (2 fresh large lemons)

Mix crust ingredients and pat into ungreased 9-inch square pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Meanwhile make topping by mixing ingredients well. Pour mixture over hot baked crust; return to oven and bake for an additional 17 to 20 minutes. Cool; sprinkle with powdered sugar. Cut into squares.

Recipe From: Newport News, Jewish Community Cookbook. Recipe from Mrs. Thomas W. Sale (Betty)

Remembering Beans Makes me Think of Beans

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:08:28 -0400

Elaine Haykin

Growing up, my mother was always known for her cooking skills. People always commented on how good the food she cooked was. With all her friends, a common topic that would arise was discussing different recipes and how each of them would approach cooking that specific recipe. Listening in on their conversations I was able to realize how talking about the way each of them approached a recipe reflected a lot from their personalities; their individual approaches were as different as their personalities. The process of making foods in households always have different steps, tricks, or certain tweaks that are passed on and followed in a similar way. For example, when making a dish of rice and beans, no matter what dish it is, one might say, it’s always important to soak the beans in water extra long so that the beans are extra soft. Another might say, it’s important to always boil the beans until they get soft but not too soft. Whatever the case may be, whatever the food that is being prepared, the traditional recipe for a certain dish will always be tweaked in a certain way by different people. That’s what makes a recipe unique. There was one particular friend of my mother’s who is known in my family for her famous rice and beans recipe. When remembering this recipe, it reminds me of this woman’s unique personality as well as her belief that her rice and beans were better than that of my mother’s.

When my mother cooked rice and beans, the beans were always cooked separately from the rice. My mom would prefer using cannellini beans; she would boil them until they were soft and then would set it aside. In another pot she would fry onions, tomato, bay leaves, a maggi cube, and some form of meat whether it was beef, pork, chicken or fish, in vegetable oil. Once that was done she poured the cannellini beans and the water it was boiled in, into the pot and left it to cook for 15 minutes. Coming home from school, entering the kitchen and smelling the subtle aroma, my favorite dish never failed to tantalize my taste buds. This dish was the only bean dish that I ever really appreciated, until one day this particular friend of my mother’s brought me a bean dish that she often cooks in her household. I was a bit iffy about tasting it, however when I did, I loved it just as much as I did my mom’s dish.

My mother’s friend had two ways of cooking her rice and beans dish. She either cooked the rice and beans separately or she cooked them together. Both the recipes reflect her dynamic personality. She was always very particular about using fresh red kidney beans and having them washed and soaked overnight. She would then rinse the beans and have two cups of them boil in six cups of water until they were soft making it clear that salt should be added only when the beans are completely soft, because if they are added ahead of time, some of the beans will be soft and others would be hard. While the beans were still cooking she added two tablespoons of vegetable oil and one bay leaf. In a frying pan she made sure to first fry five to six pieces of smoked bacon then set that aside. Next, she fried one large chopped onion and five to six cloves of fresh chopped garlic. It was only after the chopped onion and garlic was well cooked that she added a tablespoon of tomato paste, five to six pieces of finely chopped parsley, salt, black pepper, a bit of cayenne pepper, and finally, red pepper. She then drained the beans from the liquid and added them to the sauce and said “The liquid should not be dry, but about consistency of spaghetti sauce, that’s how I like it.” She loved to make sure what she cooked was more than perfect and was always satisfied when seeing the smile on my face as I would feverishly devoured the dish.

Having observed my satisfaction with her dish, my mom’s friend started to bring her dish for me more often. It started out as her sending me some rice and beans once and awhile to once every two weeks. That soon turned into once every week, until it got to the point where it was twice a week! My parents, sister, brother and I now expected her to bring rice and beans every time she visited. It got to the point where my brother nicknamed my mom’s friend “Beans” and it became a subject of laughter within the family. My family and I really appreciated her acts of generosity towards us. However, in addition to bringing rice and beans all the time, she started offering us other dishes such banana cake, which I also liked a lot, and eggplant, which I never liked so much. It started to give us the impression that she was in some way trying to prove something to my mother, as if she were trying to prove that we liked her cooking better than my mom’s, which was not the case.

In the end my dad, brother, sister, and I liked Beans’ recipes just as much as we like my mother’s recipes. Both my mom’s and Beans’ personalities came out when the cooked. My mom was more laid back about the ingredients she used and the way she prepared her beans, whereas Beans on the other hand was more precise in preparing her beans and always made sure all the ingredients she needed were included. Not one recipe is better than the other; they are both a dish of rice and beans that are cooked differently but with just as much love and history. I saw Beans’ personality through her recipe and remembering the recipe and dish is a way of remembering her. Since then, Beans always reminds me of beans.

Elaine Haykin is studying Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at American University. She loves food and is always open to new and different experiences.

Beans’ Rice and Beans Recipe (explained by Beans herself)

Salt
6 cups of water
2 cups of red kidney beans
two tablespoons of vegetable olive oil
on bay leaf
5-6 pieces of smoked bacon
one chopped onion
5-6 cloves of fresh chopped garlic
one tablespoon of tomato paste
5-6 pieces of finely chopped parsley
black pepper
cayenne pepper

Wash and Soak the dried beans overnight. Rinse the beans and cook them with no salt. Salt is added only when the beans are soft, otherwise some beans will be soft and others hard. you will need about 6 cups of water for 2c of red kidney bean. Add two tablespoons of vegetable oil and one bay leaf. If necessary at more water..When the beans are soft, you are ready to season them.

In a frying pan, fry 5-6 pieces of smoked bacon, when done remove from oil and set aside. Add one large chopped onion and 5-6 cloves of fresh chopped garlic. Fry until soft, then add One tablespoon of tomato paste,5-6 pieces of finely chopped parsley, salt, black pepper, a bit of cayenne red pepper if desired. Add one and a half to two cups of water and cook until sauce slightly thickened. Correct season if needed.

Drain the beans from the liquid, and add the beans to the and sauce. The mixture should not be dry but about the consistency of spaghetti sauce, that’s how I like it. Add cooked cold rice to sauce. You may add as much rice as you like but the mixture at this point should be a bit dry. Allow mixture to fry until it resembles Chinese fried rice.

If you want to make beans and rice separately. Cook the beans following directions above. Make the sauce following the directions above but use the liquid from the beans plus enough water to make about about two cups of liquid. Cook for about 15 minutes medium heat til bean mixture thickens. Correct seasoning if needed. Serve with white rice. ENJOY!
Good luck.

My Mother’s Rice and Beans Recipe (Explained by my mother’s sister)

Salt
Bay leaves
Water
Canellini beans
Maggi Cube
Tomato
Onions
Vegetable Oil

Boil white beans in water. Take out when soft then put it to the side. Then take another pot and put oil (it doesn’t matter whether it is vegetable oil or olive oil) cut onions, tomato and fry them. When that is ready, you can add fish, beef, pork, or chicken, maggi cube, salt, and bay leave. Once all is ready add everything that was fried in the pan to the pot with the boiled beans and it’s water then leave it to cook for about 15 minutes.

Plastic Beads, Plastic Ovens

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:07:02 -0400

Taylor Richards

It was the defining moment when I realized what exactly my mother would allow me to get away with. It was the mess in the kitchen sink and the burns forever imprinted on our red laminate countertops for which I should have received punishment. I wouldn’t realize until years later, though, that the moment had occurred many years earlier, as I stood in the kitchen as a small girl with my mother, as she set flame that night’s food and almost the kitchen, too.

“Shit!” She’d burnt herself trying to pull something out of the oven, and scrambled over to the sink to coat it with water.

I howled from behind her. “Shit!” Like mother, like daughter. I probably didn’t stand any taller than the stove itself, trying to look as cute as possible, in a 100 Dalmatians t-shirt and pink shorts, with plastic beads swirling my neck. That was the beginning of a long, arduous affair of “do what I say and not what I do” that would (whether they liked it or not) benefit everyone my mother and I knew.

I’m a lot like my mother when it comes to cooking edible food. (I’m not very good at it.) But I try, and despite that I never seem to get any better. I can bake a mean cake though. I knew this at age five. So in the interest of benefiting everyone I knew, I forced them all, ever so politely, to eat my Easy-Bake Oven creations like I was a great, albeit undiscovered, pastry chef. I’m beginning to think that Easy-Bake Oven was the road to my salvation. It saved me from a lot of scorn from my mother, introduced me to my staggeringly strong sense of independence, and reminded me that my mother will always catch me if ever I feel I am falling.

She set me up at the edge of the sink, my Easy-Bake Oven positioned perfectly in case I happened to set anything on fire (which was a perfectly valid concern.) She plugged the cord in and my eyes flashed to the clock. As always, it read 12:30; AM or PM, I never knew, and never really cared. Time forgotten, I started mixing my cake batter or rolling out my cookie dough. That’s where it got messy. After dragging my wooden stepstool up to the sink, I looked around and found myself surrounded by bowls filled with different dry ingredients, several measuring spoons, and water all over the counter. Sometimes I’d get a little adventurous, joining my Easy- Bake Oven pre-mixed ingredient package recklessly with another. My mother would watch quietly from the other room, probably rolling her eyes when I wasn’t watching intently for her approval.

I’d keep mixing, though. Mix the batter, pop it into the oven for 12 minutes, and pull it out using some kind of contraption that came with my Easy-Bake Oven kit. I don’t know how I maneuvered those tools. They were half my size and not well made; if you didn’t line the ridges up perfectly with the edge of the bowl, you’d lose your creation to the floor. On this particular day, I don’t remember having lost any of my masterpieces, but I do remember crowding what little counter space I had left trying to get them to stay in tact. It was the process that taught me independence, messy and arduous as it was. It was my prerogative to produce and sustain these pastry masterpieces until they were fit to be eaten. A little of my mother’s help and then I was on my own. Once or twice I got caught climbing up on the counter to reach the top shelf where the bowls could be found or digging through the cabinets to find the mixing spoon I wanted.

After having made several creations that day, I felt pretty successful. Enthused at my abilities, even. I promptly called the family into the kitchen to enjoy what I’d labored on, keeping a little sweet stuff for myself. Never did it cross my mind that I’d be growing up going through the same motions with perhaps different results. Now I’m mixing up the ingredients, popping it in the oven, forgetting to set the timer, and hoping, when I do finally remember, that it’s still edible.

This happens more than I’d like to. My first year of college in art school, I found myself standing over a large bowl of pancake mix with the word “liquid” spelled out on a skillet, wondering what I was doing with that project, and more importantly, my life. College was rough. I’d learned by this time, and with my mother’s help, to operate normal sized ovens. But, suddenly I was without my mother’s hand over mine, operating foreign stoves all on my own. Sometimes I’d perfume the apartment with sweet chocolate chip cookies, thinking back to my Easy-Bake oven. I’d remind myself that there’s an optimal time at which I should retrieve my goods from the oven, praying to god that I wouldn’t forget. I’d set the timer on my phone, only for my mother to call (the perfect time to do so), thus resetting the timer, leaving me to try to remember what time I had put them in the oven. Thankfully I inherited my mother’s ability to catch my food just as it was about to (or started to) burn, and my cookies were usually all right, if not a little crisp.

This year I dropped the cookies and gained a habit of calling my mom from outside ritzy cupcake shops in Georgetown, usually with a red velvet cupcake in my hand. It isn’t so much that I need my mother’s hand in making food now. It’s mostly that I need my mother’s assistance in leading me toward good food (“no, Taylor, you cannot have cheeseburgers everyday, even if it is protein!”) Food is like the gun whose trigger I’m about to pull and my mother is the first and last resort (don’t worry, she always saves me.)

That Easy-Bake Oven, I think, is probably one of two reasons I’ve learned to survive. The other would be my mother’s excellent advice to take care of myself by whatever means necessary. So even when my mother doesn’t quite agree with those means, all I have to say is “well, I am my mother’s daughter.” Usually I respond to stressful situations with copious amounts of raw cookie dough and cupcake batter abounds. She understands. She’d rather me furiously beat together two large eggs, a cup of vegetable oil, a cup of buttermilk, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract, and some food coloring than furiously beat on the person with whom I’m actually frustrated. I started this alternative therapy when I mixed together the quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract and six teaspoons of milk for my Easy-Bake cake recipes, and though the formulas and environments have changed, I’ve held onto it since and forever will.

Taylor Richards is a sophomore at American University studying Peace and Conflict Resolution. She really enjoys cake and other sweet stuff.

Easy-Bake Oven Yellow Cake*

6 teaspoons flour
4 teaspoons Sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Dash of Salt
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla extract
6 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons Shortening
Frosting of choice

1. Grease and flour two Easy-Bake Oven pans.
2. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla extract, shortening and salt. Add milk. Stir until batter is smooth.
3. Pour into prepared pans. Bake in Easy-Bake Oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until sides separate from pan.
4. Remove and cool.
5. Frost and serve.

Recipe from: http://www.eborecipes.com/Recipes/R185.htm

A Southern Belle’s Red Velvet**

For the cake:

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ounce (usually 1 little bottle)
red food coloring
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

For the frosting:

6 ounces cream cheese - two packages
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans and set aside.
2. Make a paste of the cocoa and red food coloring.
3. In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together oil and sugar. Add eggs, one at time, beating until incorporated. Whisk cocoa paste into the buttermilk and stir to combine. Add buttermilk cocoa mixture to the sugar and oil, and continue beating until all is incorporated. Add vanilla and stir. Fold in the flour, and transfer batter evenly into the pans.
5. Bake cakes for 30 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let them cool in their pans for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto wire racks. Allow them to cool completely before frosting.
6. To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar, and beat until fully incorporated. Add vanilla - and you’re ready to frost your cakes!

Recipe From: http://dixiemockingbird.hubpages.com/hub/Red-Velvet-Cake-Southern-Classic

The Best Dish of My Life

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:04:53 -0400

Keyi Zhou

In China, families get together and have a big meal to celebrate with each other in some “big day”, such as festivals, especially the new year.

Different families have different traditions on preparing the meal of the day. In my family, pearl-shaped balls, a traditional Chinese dish, are made from sticky rice, pork, and tofu. On every special occasion, my grandpa would cook pearl-shaped balls for us. This dish tastes better when my grandpa cooks it. Time goes by, my grandma usually cooks all of the meals except for the pearl-shaped balls. It has become a tradition that grandpa cooks the pearl-shaped balls, and grandma cooks others meals.

When I was young, I love to look at my grandpa every time he made the pearl-shaped balls. He looked so serious and careful once he began to prepare the dish. I can feel that how happy my grandpa was because he always smiles during the process. It just like grandpa’s love were put in the pearl-shaped balls. In addition, one thing I noticed is that grandpa was expertly when he shaped the meat ball, which I thought is really funny. That is one of the reason why I love to watch the process of doing the pearl-shaped balls.

For me, pearl-shaped balls is not only a delicious dish, but it holds different meanings at different ages.

When I was 12 years old, pearl-shaped balls was the only delicious dish I looked forward to eating. The thing I remember is that this dish tastes good and is cooked by my grandpa. Whenever we got together, I always would eat more pearl-shaped balls than other members of my family.

My love for pearl-shaped balls continued when I was 15 years old. It was delicious as ever, but meant something different.

At the day of new year of the year I was 15, we were supposed to eat the pearl-shaped balls as usual. However, when we all arrived grandpa’s home, we realized nothing was prepared for the pearl-shaped balls. When we all tried to figure out what happened here, my grandpa began to talk: “I think we should prepare the materials together one time to let you see how the balls were made and develop the relationship between our family.” Although I cannot understand why grandpa did this, I still worked on it with my cousin. We were told to first wash the sticky rice. We were not serious about the task. About 3 minutes later, we came out with a bowl with rice in it. Grandpa was not happy with our attitude and the way we did it. He said we should rewash the rice. We were surprised and entered the kitchen to rewash the rice. This time we were very serious and washed the rice very carefully. We realized we have the same purpose and we must complete the task together by working hard to achieve this goal. In this case, I learned one should collaborate, otherwise, one could not achieve anything.

To be honest, I was confused with the words said from my grandpa. I did not know why we should do this together? Was it easier for him to do all these things ny himself? But soon, I realized I was wrong. In the following time after my grandpa did that, I am appreciate for what he did every minute in my daily life. The preparing process thought me the importance of collaboration and made our members felt more related with each other.

Later, when we finished our first task, grandpa let us shape the ball with him. We all did this job carefully and had a great talk during the process. We had a great time when we preparing the dish with grandfather. I thought we were developing our relationship between our family members. The process of preparing the dish made me feel closer to my family members. During this time, I felt warm.

Nevertheless, the happiness that pearl-shaped balls brought us was not last for a long time. In 2010, when I was 18 years old, my grandpa left us. It would be the pain in my heart forever. That time was my first time experience the death of a relative. I was upset by the sudden events. I almost cried for a entire week. At least for me, I had never thought about how life would be without my grandpa. During the following month after I lost him, my family got together to eat dinner together. It always reminded me of my grandpa. His kindness, his knowledge, and his experience often came to my mind. After he left us, I realized how much I loved him.

With the left of our grandpa, the pearl-shaped balls made by grandpa left us as well. I would not eat that dish made by my grandpa anymore. Although we would not eat the dish in the future, pearl-shaped balls will live in our mind forever. I will always remember this is a dish made by grandpa’s love. I will also never forget it is a dish to teach me collaboration and make our family members feel more related with each other. Therefore, our family will live a better life with my grandfather and the meaning of pearl-shaped balls in mind.

Pearl-shaped balls could be rewarded as a dish accompany with my growth. It was coming with my grandpa’s love, and coming with a lot of big meaning for me. I will always miss it just like missing my grandpa. This meaningful dish could be the best dish I have ever had in my life.

Keyi Zhou is a sophomore studying Business Administration in the Kogod school of Business at American University. She enjoy eating and cooking.

Pearl-Shaped Balls

1 cup sticky rice
1/2 cup pork minced meat
1 tofu
1/3 cup pulverized Lotus root
2 spoon flour

Wash the sticky rice and put rice in the water for 4 hours.
Remove sticky rice and drain well.
Fry the pork minced meat with oil.
Put the fried meat, tofu, lotus root, and flour together, fully mix.
Make the pearl-shaped balls as the size of ping-pong ball by hand.
Wrapped with sticky rice.
Put balls in cauldron, steam with big fire for 8 minutes.

Recipe From: www.beitaichufang.com/recipe/2305

The Search for Buried Treasure

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:04:26 -0400

John Bitetto

My grandmother was famous for making the best desserts of all time. No matter what the occasion was, if you invited her to an event, you were sure to get a mouth-watering piece of heaven. The local priests and shopkeepers knew this from the Christmas gifts they would get. All family friends of hers knew that she was the one to go to on any special occasion. Even strangers would hear of her skill and would ask her to make some sort of dessert.

However, it wasn’t just the taste of the desserts that was impressive, but the variety of treats that she had homemade recipes for. There were cakes, cookies, pies, cannoli, and anything else one could imagine. Each recipe represented one reason she was known to be so good at this hobby. Due to her age, she now is no longer able to whip up these desserts on her own; each one of these recipes has been passed along to my mom and aunt so that the tradition would be continued.

Each of her recipes is written on an index card in a little box with all the ingredients and instructions; all, except one. My favorite of my grandmother’s desserts was a certain type of cookie, of which no one knows the name. I can recall exactly how they looked and tasted. Small balls of dough with a white glazed that looked like a shell of frosting, covered completely with little sprinkles that were every color of the rainbow. They tasted so sweet that some would say it was a bit too sweet for their taste, but not for my childhood sweet tooth. Every holiday, I would eat only half of what I could for dinner just to devour these special cookies.

One holiday, I was helping my mother prepare for the family to visit and we started to make some desserts. This initiated a conversation about my favorite cookie because it had been such a long time since I last had one. I suggested to my mom that we attempt to make them, but she had no idea what I was talking about. After describing the cookie to all of my family members, some of whom we needed to call on the telephone, we determined that this recipe had been lost. No one in the family liked the idea of losing a part of our family history, so a hunt for the recipe began.

First, kitchens were torn apart looking for any scrap of paper that could have writing on it. After many houses were searched, nothing was found. Then we decided to go try different bakeries to see if we could find out what the cookie was called, hoping that could spark a memory about the lost recipe for those who did not remember the cookie. This process took years with no luck. Since I was the one that remembered the cookie, I was the taste tester whenever we thought we might have spotted it. We tried every single bakery we ran into on our travels, stretching from New Jersey to Florida, but nothing quite matched the taste that I remembered. With many tasty disappointments, we began to give up hope.

My family eventually called off the search, even with my stubborn objection, and we returned to cooking as if no one had ever mentioned that the recipe was gone. No one liked to talk about the missing recipe, as if it was a case filled with embarrassment and regret. As time passed, it became harder and harder to remember the taste of those once so delicious cookies. Each holiday would be a joyous occasion until dessert rolled around. Everyone would continue as if nothing was wrong, but I felt a deep hole where my grandmother’s cooking use to be. It is one of the worst feelings I know because those cookies were the symbol of my childhood connection to that wonderful woman. To this day, I wish we found the exact recipe just to have one more bite of the original cookie that started it all.

It was Christmastime during my senior year of high school, a long time since all of the searching and looking, when my mom started bringing home gifts from her job. As a preschool teacher, my mother always receives plenty of gifts and desserts from her students, most of which I end up eating throughout the winter and spring months. One day that year, I came home to a few cartons of cookies on the table. I was tired from a long day of school and play rehearsal so I decided to try a couple cookies while telling my mom about my day. Everything was going like normal until I got to the third cookie. When I bit into it my taste buds went crazy. This was the closest thing I have ever tasted to my grandmother’s cookies. They were not exactly the same, but they were so close to what I remembered that I screamed. The sugar filled frosting, the chewiness of the dough, even the size of the cookie was spot on. My mother and I rejoiced that we found something similar to my grandmother’s creation.

Thankfully the owner of the recipe was willing to share her secret with my family that way our holiday table will have the closest thing to my original favorite dessert. They even gave me permission to anonymously pass the recipe to whomever I liked. I am glad I can share this recipe with you for a couple reasons. First, you can experience the joy that I had when tasting this delicious treat, and feel what I felt to get a lost dream back. The second reason is my grandmother’s cookie is still just between her and I. Although I will never have that exact cookie again, nothing can break the bond that we have over that dessert. That will forever be my family’s recipe, and I can be happy with that.

John Bitetto is a student at American University studying Political Science in the School of Public Affairs. Originally from Northern New Jersey, he enjoys anything to do with sports.

Italian Knots

6 eggs, room temp. to equal 1 1/3 cups
1 cup sugar
6 level teaspoons baking powder
3 cups flour, sifted or whisked
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) (not melted)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Beat eggs, add ingredients, mix well
Bake on greased cookie sheet (or parchment paper) until golden brown approx. 10-12 minutes.
When cool, ice with 2 1/2 cups confectioner sugar, 1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla, 2 pats of butter and thin with water or milk until spreading consistency.
Best to make the dough the day before, then bake using 1 rounded teaspoon of dough.

Family Heirlooms

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:00:00 -0400

Kevin Keane

      Summers in New England are short and hot, two months of days filled with ninety-degree heat and blistering sun, “scorchers” for short. The growing season in Massachusetts is similarly short, starting in late April and coming to a close early in September. Not many vegetables or fruits grow naturally or particularly well in the New England climate, but my grandfather seemed to have a knack for growing the most beautiful, succulent beefsteak tomatoes in the hot summer months. Grampy had a green thumb and what seemed like a magical ability to make everything we planted grow into the biggest, tastiest vegetable possible. From a young age my summers were spent barefoot in the dusty, dry brown dirt of his garden tending to the tomato plants and the multitude of other vegetables in the garden.
        Summer mornings began early as I rode my bicycle to Grampy’s house, my bicycle tires soaked with the sweet morning dew of the grass. As I arrived at the house I would sprint around to the backyard on the uneven brick trail to the garden, barely keeping my balance as I ran. Each and every morning without exception Grampy would beat me to the garden, making me wonder at times if he ever left it. From behind the six-foot tall wall of pole beans I would hear “Hey-a Kev!” usually followed by “Grab that bucket up there and bring it down, its time to pick!”
Kicking my shoes off so as to avoid my mother’s aggravation at another pair of ruined sneakers, I would run through the damp grass into the dry, soft soil of the garden, covering my feet and turning them one shade darker than before. In between the tall bushes of tomatoes I could barely distinguish Grampy’s rosy cheeks from the ripe tomatoes hanging on the vines.
        Each summer the tomatoes were planted in late May. Grampy and I would spend hours on our knees in the dirt. With the end of a broomstick, Grampy would poke a hole and behind him I would follow popping one tomato seedling in each hole and covering it up with dirt. For months, the tomatoes would grow only as vines. The long fuzzy green stalks would rise until they fell over on themselves, at which point Grampy would grab a ball of twine (seemingly older than him) and we would tie each stalk up to a pole. These were the hardest weeks to stay focused and visit everyday as nothing ever seemed to change and no tomatoes could be seen growing. Some days I wouldn’t make it over to the garden, getting caught up with my friends from down the street or it would be too hot to go out into the sun and work in the garden. When I was young missing a day in the garden seemed of no consequence to me, but as the years passed I realized that these were some of a very precious few days I had to spend with my grandfather.
        As August rolled around and the air seemed to hang heavy with humidity, small green tomatoes began popping up on the vines, barely distinguishable from the vines themselves. Excitement rose from both Grampy and I as we anticipated the fruits of our labor finally becoming ripe. Each day Grampy and I would eagerly look through the garden, scampering from vine to vine searching for the first shade of orange or red to catch our eyes. Everyday we seemed to wait with bated breath, imagining the tangy, juicy flesh of the first red ripe tomato. Year in and year out the process never changed, even when we had learned enough that we could predict the harvest accurately within a day or two.
        On those late August days when the first beefsteak tomato, hanging heavy on the vine finally turned fire-engine red, Grampy and I were there, waiting, ready to pick it and savor a tomato so far superior to store-bought tomatoes that it would make eating tomatoes during the winter completely unsatisfying. Grampy would grab his old, worn cutting board from the house and a knife from the drawer and slice into the tomato. With each stroke of the knife, the tomatoes juice would flow like a river and the slices as thick and heavy as a cut of steak would fall onto the cutting board with a slap. Grampy and I would pull up a bench to the table by the garden and sit down to a one-ingredient feast. With a sprinkle of salt the feast was ready. Sitting in the hot, sticky heat Grampy and I would slurp down the juicy slices of tomato, barely taking the time to chew as we gorged ourselves on tomatoes the size of softballs.
        While a tomato, sliced and seasoned with salt may sound like a very weak example of a recipe, the true ingredients of this dinner are measured through time and patience, not tablespoons and cups. The complex flavors of a perfectly ripe, fresh from the vine tomato must be experienced to fully understand and appreciate its beauty. The time spent growing the tomatoes, and more importantly the time spent quietly working in the garden next to my grandfather, add a flavor all their own to this very special meal. The tomato seeds my grandfather and I planted year in and year out are called beefsteak heirloom seeds, heirloom meaning they have been saved from past crops and passed down from generation to generation in my family. Like the seeds the experiences and wisdom of planting and nurturing a garden are also heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation through precious time spent together. Like the tomatoes, my time with Grampy could not last forever and as with the end of the harvest, so too did our time together come to a sad but inevitable end . And while sorrow and dissatisfaction may set in with the absence of home grown tomatoes or time with Grampy in the garden or in general, each and every year the tomatoes bloom again from small seedlings to tall stalks and heavy fruit. And with each growing season and harvest Grampy’s rosy cheeks come out again in the bright crimson skin of the ripe tomatoes, making his presence forever felt.

Kevin Keane is a freshman at American University studying international relations in the School of International Service. He enjoys cooking, eating, and anything to do with Boston Sports.

Caprese Salad
Prep Time:
10 min
Level:
Easy
Serves:
4 to 6 servings

Ingredients
•                3 vine-ripe tomatoes, 1/4-inch thick slices
•                1 pound fresh mozzarella, 1/4-inch thick slices
•                20 to 30 leaves (about 1 bunch) fresh basil
•                Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
•                Coarse salt and pepper
Directions
Layer alternating slices of tomatoes and mozzarella, adding a basil leaf between each, on a large, shallow platter. Drizzle the salad with extra-virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Recipe from: Rachel Ray via foodnetwork.com

Chicken Eggs

Fri, 04 May 2012 10:54:51 -0400

Haley French

“Number one granddaughter, would you like some chicken eggs for breakfast?” my grandfather greets me as I shuffle in the kitchen on a Saturday morning. I can’t help but chuckle at his quirky mannerisms and endearing nickname. “Of course Pop Pop, you make the best chicken eggs,” I reply as I grab the glass of orange juice he has left for me. I slump into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and patiently watch him prepare my chicken eggs. “Why do you call them chicken eggs?” I ask, partly playing along with his joke. “I just want to make sure you know what type of egg you are eating!” Pop Pop says with a laugh as he heats up the skillet. He and I both know there is more behind his joke; something deep within his mind, a memory suppressed and half forgotten. Underneath his eccentric personality and playful spirit is the memory of a life long ago, a childhood lost and riddled with pain and hardship. However, sometimes he lets his façade of happy memories fall away when he cooks and shares stories of his childhood with me. These are my favorite times spent with my grandfather where I learn about his most guarded memories and the life that he keeps close to his heart.

Pop Pop has taken great time and care into making sure all his ingredients are ready to be transformed into my chicken egg omelet. He picks the Chinese chives and thyme from his garden, washes them gently and chops them into tiny morsels on a cutting board. Along with the herbs, he cuts slices of cheese into strips – the last preparations before the eggs hit the skillet. Into a small bowl he cracks the eggs one at a time. He tells me, “Make sure each chicken egg is good; you don’t want to ruin the whole omelet with one bad egg.” The Pop Pop whisks the eggs together until they are pale yellow and heats olive oil in a pan. The olive oil, he claims, creates a lighter, fluffier and healthier chicken egg omelet than using butter. As my grandfather pours the egg mixture into the hot skillet, the familiar sizzle and smell of Pop Pop’s chicken eggs omelets fills the kitchen. Thus begins his stories of his time in the hotel kitchen in Malaysia.

My grandfather was born in 1931 in the Hainan province of China as the second eldest son of six children. When he was an infant his family relocated to Kulau Lampur, Malaysia to escape the invading Japanese forces. The Lim family bought a hotel and opened up for business. As fate would have it, Japanese soldiers took over the hotel as their regional headquarters. From here, the story gets fuzzy with only bits of detail here and there during our time spent together cooking. The next definite chapter of Pop Pop’s life is his journey to America. Fortune smiled upon the Lim family when my grandfather was eighteen; a Methodist missionary from Pennsylvania paid for my Pop Pop to travel to the United States to attend university. Through the kindness of this woman my grandfather studied engineering at Pennsylvania State University and started a new live in America. The rest of his life story I have heard countless times; Pop Pop is always ready to talk about his work as lead engineer on the Three Rivers Stadium or how he worked in the World Trade Center Towers in the 90’s. My grandfather’s life before America is often left to our family’s imagination or the bits of information we collect from older family members. My mother has tried countless times to get him to write his memoirs, but somehow he gets out of it or forgets. As my grandfather gets older, he becomes more set in his ways of life and often forgets details of his oldest stories and memories. My mother and grandmother begin to fear that he will never divulge his life story in its entirety. Lucky for me, I have the opportunity to learn from him while he still remembers and sometimes I can get him to divulge a little more detail than before.

The one side of the omelet is cooked and Pop Pop flips it over in the pan with a flick of his wrist. He lays the cheese strips gently onto the fluffy egg pancake then sprinkles the herbs atop the omelet. “I used to cook omelets just like this in the hotel, you know,” my grandfather says pensively. “Yup Pops,” I reply, “How old were you again?” I keenly ask, hoping for more detail than my last attempt. “I was about your age when I worked in the kitchen, making omelets and other dishes for the guests of our hotel.” Of course he and I both know these so called guests were Japanese soldiers, an unspoken understanding. According to my grandfather’s younger brother, the soldiers essentially took over the family hotel and forced their family to move into the jungles where they ate and slept. My grandfather and his family’s life in the jungle was not easy. Their mother sewed a special pouch in onto the pants of the boys to sneak rice from the hotel kitchen to feed the family each night. She also collected the leftover tobacco and hair grease from the discarded cigarettes and hair tins of the soldiers to sell on the black market for a meager income. I can tell by watching my grandfather flip over the omelet one last time that he is thinking about these times. As he slides the omelet on to my plate he thinks about the hardships of his childhood. He must be drawing the parallels between serving the Japanese and his number one granddaughter the same omelet just fifty plus years later. I can read his eyes; they are sad with memory and heartbreak.

Just as soon as I catch this moment, it passes, and my Pop Pop is smiling at me once again as he hands me my chicken egg omelet. I cut into my omelet, and he begins to make his own. The first bite of my omelet is magical, warming my heart and bringing a smile to my face. I know the love and care my grandfather has put into this simple yet special meal. Each time my grandfather makes an omelet he relives the part of his past he does not talk about. I feel honored to be let into the sanctuary of this memory. “How do you like your chicken eggs, number one granddaughter?” Pop Pop questions me. “They are the best chicken eggs I ever had Pop Pop,” I reply. We smile at each other, and I can’t help but think that he knows exactly what I am thinking.

Haley French is a freshman at American University studying International Relations and International Business. She love culture, reading, and eating.

Classic Omelette
SELF | May 1998

Yield: Makes 1 omelette

1/4 to 1/3 cup filling
1 teaspoon butter (or 2 teaspoons if sautéing filling)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk or water
salt and pepper to taste
herbs (optional)

First, prepare the filling. A basic rule of thumb is that you need one quarter to one third cup of filling for every two eggs. If you are using a filling that needs to be cooked — such as apples, mushrooms, onions, peppers, leeks — quickly sauté in a small frying pan with 1 teaspoon of the butter. If you are making a cheese omelette, either slice the cheese thinly or grate it finely and put aside.

Crack the eggs into a small mixing bowl. Stir gently with a fork until well-beaten. Add the milk or water, salt and pepper, and any herbs, and set aside.

Heat a 6- to 8-inch omelette pan over high heat until very hot (approximately 30 seconds). Add the butter, making sure it coats the bottom of the pan. As soon as the butter stops bubbling and sizzling (and before it starts to brown), slowly pour in the egg mixture.

Tilt the pan to spread the egg mixture evenly. Let eggs firm up a little, and after about ten seconds shake the pan a bit and use a spatula to gently direct the mixture away from the sides and into the middle. Allow the remaining liquid to then flow into the space left at the sides of the pan.

Continue to cook for another minute or so until the egg mixture holds together. While the middle is still a little runny, add the filling. Put in sautéed vegetables or fruit first, near the center, then sprinkle any cheese on top.

Tilt the pan to one side and use the spatula to fold approximately one third of the omelette over the middle. Shake the pan gently to slide the omelette to the edge of the pan.

Holding the pan above the serving plate, tip it so the omelette rolls off, folding itself onto the plate. The two edges will be tucked underneath.

Recipe From: Epicurious

Is Rainbow Jell-O A Sin?

Fri, 04 May 2012 10:37:00 -0400

Megan Higdon

It occurred every Sunday. We would sit and wait for the prayer from my best friend. He’s gay. He always gives the best prayers, he says them with confidence, pride and humor, “Hey, God! It’s me, Scott!” And then at Sunday dinner he would proceed with a phrase about how thankful he is to have all of us together, and something along the lines of how great the food looked. He would end with a snarky, flamboyant laugh that would echo throughout the dining area. He was rewarded with the first place in line, but before he would take his helping he would come give me a big hug and a kiss on the forehead and then proceed to fill the entire room with his personality. He could be himself in the church, and no one would judge him. It was people like Scott that let me love food again. He’s one of my Methodists. No longer did I have to count my calories, analyze my consumption, or avoid my feelings. He embraced me with warm, filling, heavy Polish food, and made me love my heritage and myself. He was just one entity of the Wesley Foundation that nourished my roots and helped me grow.

The Wesley Foundation is a United Methodist student organization found on many college campuses across the United States. It is dedicated to keeping open doors and open minds while guiding its students through their spiritual journeys. When I describe Methodists, I describe them, as the golden retriever of Christian denominations. They are people pleasers, they are strong and they love to eat.

It was the Wesley Foundation “Coming Out Party.” We, as a college ministry opened our doors and reconciled. We declared that being gay was not a sin and that God loved you for who you were. It was a monumental day. Scott was talking about all the people he knew that were coming from campus to celebrate with us. I was excited, too. I wanted to give our guests the best impression of us. So I decided Rainbow Jell-O was the only way to do just that. And it fit the occasion fairly well. I decided to be creative and use my dorm refrigerator to make this Jell-O. It was a fail. I didn’t let certain layers set enough and they oozed into each other. Rainbow Jell-O is awful looking if not made properly. It turns brown on the outside and if it’s in an aluminum pan it looks even less appetizing. I had to rescue it. I found relief in the church’s basement. I scoured through the cupboards looking for something to brighten the sad looking treat. To my relief I was able to find a few sugary condiments to add to its presentation. I found sprinkles, chocolate sauce and whipped cream. I added the whipped cream on top to give it a “cake-like” appearance. Then, I added the chocolate sauce, for whatever reason, I am not quite sure. After the whipped cream and chocolate sauce began to saturate the Jell-O, I added the sprinkles.

The sprinkles began to dye the whipped cream. I was not pleased, and quite embarrassed by what I was about to share with a good portion of the campus community. I carefully carried my dessert up the steps from the basement where I almost took a tumble. I would have been fine with its demise, but I kept trekking on. I made my way into the sanctuary. All my friends were laughing and hanging decorations. I decided that the Jell-O deserved attention and held it up in the air, and shouted, “Look what I made!” Scott looked at it and with an obnoxious nostril laugh, asked, “What is that?” I couldn’t help but laugh and set it on the table. No one touched it, except for me. I tried tempting my friends that they shouldn’t pay attention to the oozing chocolate sauce mingled with red food dye. It didn’t work. I would occasionally take scoops throughout the party to make myself feel better. But I realized that it didn’t matter what I made or how I made it, I put my effort into the community I shared. By the end of the party, I covered the Jell-O up and placed it in the church’s refrigerator, hoping someone might give it a chance.

The Methodists are always sharing food. It doesn’t matter what event you go to, you will always be fed. They’ll love you unconditionally, and there’s always room for you at the table. I made my best friends in the basement of that church through cooking. I joined the Methodists to fight against social injustices and we used cooking to do just that. When we wanted to raise money to fight against genocide, my friends and I from back home had a bake sale. Michigan is freezing in the winter and on the West side it’s about ten times worse. My brownies froze, I forgot to put sugar in the sugar cookies, and the Rice Krispies had to be chiseled out of the pan. They shared a fate like my Rainbow Jell-O but my messages about the injustices I cared about were still received. The community that had formed around me empowered me to create change, to build my character, and to spread the love of eating with each other. My dessert faults were accepted for what they were. They weren’t brilliant masterpieces, but they were something that I could bring to the table to share.

Megan Higdon is a student in the School of International Service at American University. She enjoys sunshine and long walks.

Rainbow Jell-O

Ingredients:
•    2 (3 ounce) packages lemon Jell-O gelatin
•    2 (3 ounce) packages lime Jell-O gelatin
•    2 (3 ounce) packages strawberry Jell-O gelatin dessert
•    2 (3 ounce) packages orange Jell-O
•    24 ounces evaporated milk (3/4 cup for each flavor of Jell-O used)
Directions:
You can use any variety of Jell-O you want and as many as you want.
Use 1 box of lemon Jell-O with 3/4 cup boiling water and 3/4 cup cold water.
Mix well and pour into a 9x13 Tupperware container.

Let set a little awhile.

The next layer consists of the other box of lemon Jell-O, but this time combine 3/4 cup boiling water and let that sit for awhile and when a little cool, add 3/4 cup evaporated milk and mix together and pour onto the 1st layer in Tupperware pan (that gives it a slightly different color and taste).

Continue with the other colors of Jell-O as you wish

Feel free to add whip cream, chocolate sauce, or sprinkles to your liking!

Recipe From:“Food.com”