tomato_kumato

I know that title is going to get me into trouble with someone. But isn’t it so appropriate for the picture? And in my mind, it’s at least quasi-true… except maybe for Keith’s… and Murphy’s… oh heck. Beer is just good.

I was never one of those girls who turned up her nose at a glass of the cold stuff, even that awful American “beer” (Coors Light, anyone? Milwaukee’s Best?) I’ve liked beer ever since my mother popped open a Corona, stuck a lime in it, and scooted it towards me, saying, “Mexican food isn’t worth it without beer.” (I got really, really lucky in the mom department.) Ever since then, not only have I embraced beer as a nice way to spend an evening, but also as an appropriate accompaniment to Mexican, Indian, and Japanese cuisine. Oh, and good old fashioned burgers and fries. In fact… I think I might have to start a series on beer. Hmm…

But back to Guinness. This summer, on my whirlwind tour of Europe, we made a stop in Dublin. And what good college student goes to Dublin without at least a peek into the Guinness factory? The whole thing smelled like hops and radiated steam… it felt a lot like some of those Disneyworld rides where you are supposed to feel like it’s foggy out. But the best part was at the top.

On the eighth floor of the Guinness factory, there is a huge bar with glass windows all around, a perfect panorama of Dublin’s fair city. And with your ticket into the factory comes a free pint of the good stuff.

Guinness is like a meal. It’s very, very filling, and that day, we did have our pints as our dinner. It’s difficult to drink a pint of Guinness and then continue your night out at the bar, but I think it’s better that way… you really get to appreciate the complexity of the taste. Guinness is very sweet for a beer, and it tastes strongly of hops. Dark stouts like Guinness taste nothing like their cousins, the lagers, or even like ale. Stout is a whole different category, and I don’t care who hates me for it… Guinness is the king.

Oh… and I kind of stole my glass. Shh… don’t tell.

Whoa… found these pictures archived from the day I got to Paris and forgot about them.

The day I got to Paris, I tried, as I always do, to avoid jet lag by acting as though it didn’t exist. I walked around my new neighborhood, the 7th arrondissement, getting a feel for what was around. I found Rue Cler, my new foodie home, which is a pedestrian street within spitting distance that has all variety of foodie shops. I picked up a few things… some bread, cheese, pâté, the ever present tomatoes, onions, and garlic, and of course some wine, before walking back to my new apartment… and crashing.

For some reason it didn’t work this time, and jet lag crept up like the bad guy in a slasher film. I woke up around 8, disoriented, groggy, and starving. I walked over to the fridge and filled a plate with pâté and goat cheese, grabbed jars of cornichons and mustard, broke my baguette in two, and poured myself a glass of wine. And there, on my new couch, I had my very own French picnic.

So I’m sorry for the quality of the pictures of my first dinner in France, but I was too tired to adjust the lighting to make them pretty. What counts is that it was all delicious, and I liked the wine so much that I’m keeping the bottle. I am a walking stereotype, and I love it.

“I used to hate magloubeh, but Gram instructed me never to say ‘hate,’ so now I just don’t care for it instead.”

Diana Abu-Jaber may not care for magloubeh, but I’m certainly glad she still included the recipe in her book, because I love it. This is the first recipe I tried from The Language of Baklava. I had considered progressing through the chapters in an organized manner, sampling each recipe. But the first recipe was shish kabob, and I don’t think my little Paris kitchen has room for that. Besides, the story doesn’t really go in chronological order anyway, so why should I? Instead, I paged through the book until I found a recipe that interested me. The one I found included eggplant and chicken, both of which I had on hand.

Magloubeh, as Abu-Jaber explains, means upside down in Jordanian. This part had me a little bit worried… I was supposed to turn out the huge dutch oven onto a plate at the end. But she cautioned that her version was not supposed to stand up like a timbale, so that was good enough for me.

The recipe started out simply… sauté some onions, fry cauliflower and eggplant… but pretty soon I had several different dishes waiting to be combined. My tiny kitchen almost couldn’t handle it, but I managed (it involved balancing things on the edge of the counter and in the sink), and I’m so glad I did.

The final product had to steam for 40 minutes, and then another 10 after I added the couscous (I replaced the rice in her recipe. I don’t like rice. I don’t keep it in my kitchen. I don’t eat it.) I could barely keep from lifting the lid… the smells of cinnamon, black pepper, and allspice wafted through the house. (Note: Allspice is called “4 spice” in French… wish I had known that. I stood like an idiot in front of the spice rack at the supermarket before picking up vaguely brown bottles at random and inspecting the ingredient lists).

When I finally turned out the pot, a little bit of the chicken stuck to the bottom, but I had no problem dishing it out and placing it on top. Not perfect, but I’m learning. Abu-Jaber suggests serving this with yogurt. Her version also includes sumac, which I couldn’t find… but the last time I bought it I used it once and then the rest sat around forever, so maybe I tried not to find it. She also says you can use either lamb or chicken. Maybe next time… this time I was so entranced by the spices that I couldn’t think of adding a thing.

Magloubeh

In a heavy saucepan, heat two tablespoons of olive oil. Add one large onion, chopped, and sauté until soft and browned. Add 8 ounces of boneless chicken, cut into chunks. Cook, stirring, until evenly browned. Add 1/8 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, ground coriander, and ground cumin, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice. Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Add one and a half cups of water (note… she suggests broth, but the only broth I could find in the store had MSG, to which I am highly allergic. If you can find broth, I suggest it, although the dish did not suffer with the water), and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for one hour, until the meat is tender.

In a frying pan, fry one half of an eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch half circles, and one half of a small cauliflower, cut in half and then into 1/2 inch pieces, in olive oil. Remove and set on paper towels to drain excess oil. Coat the bottom of a large dutch oven with olive oil (about 2 teaspoons). Arrange the meat in an even layer in the pot. Cover with the eggplant, then 1/2 cup of couscous, then the cauliflower. Pour the broth from the meat over the entire thing. Cover the pot and simmer until the couscous is cooked.

Meanwhile, saute 1/8 cup of pine nuts in butter until lightly browned.

When the meat and rice are done cooking, invert the pot over a serving dish. Top the meat with the pine nuts.

So… last night, I was a little bit depressed about fall. I know I posted all happy and excited about baklava, but the truth is, in comparison with last summer, this summer was pretty amazing (actually… three months in Europe and one basking in the sun is better than most summers…), and so I’m kind of sorry to see it go.

This morning, I woke up too late for breakfast, and instead had to vault out of bed and go directly to my cousin’s house, where I had stored my suitcase for the summer. By the time I got home, I was cold and hungry, so I decided to go for one of my favorites: scrambled eggs.

I’m usually a coffee and toast kind of person in the morning. Very low maintenance. Sometimes just the coffee. I’m high maintenance about coffee. But sometimes, when I don’t have time for a real breakfast, and I don’t notice until lunch is rolling around, I’ll make myself some peppers and fried eggs, or else scramble a few with lox, cream cheese, and shallots. This morning, however, all I had were the shallots. Grumbling about my empty fridge, I fried up the shallots in some olive oil, added salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper, and then reached for the eggs. I cracked one in the bowl and stopped short. This egg was bright, fluorescent orange. How curious. I cracked the second, and it was the same. As I beat them with the only dairy product I had, some 1% milk, I watched them turn from bright orange to a pale, agreeable orange-yellow. I added them to the pan and slow-cooked the whole thing together. I moved them to the plate and realized what I had made myself for breakfast.

A plateful of sunshine.

I had expected to have a little bit more time. I wanted to experiment with some corn butter recipes I’ve been putting off since last summer. I hardly had my fill of summer ripe tomatoes. I’ve half a mind to stuff my mouth full of nothing but basil before it all withers and dies. Yes… summer is over, at least for me. In New York, they’ll get a few more weeks, but here in Paris, it is undeniably fall.

Yes… I have finally made the move. I have my own tiny kitchen in my tiny apartment in a tiny building on a tiny street. And all of this is in the huge metropolis that is Paris. My new home. I broke it in (finally) today, by making my ceremonial “new home” tomato sauce. The recipe is secret, but it’s very labor intensive, so I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want to know it anyway. I’ll be making a few more batches before the fresh tomatoes are off the produce stands.

Fall is bringing in yet another exciting new thing: my new (and first) food book of the month: The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber. I cheated a little by picking a book that I’ve already read… it’s a memoir of an immigrant’s journey between upstate New York and Jordan throughout her life, and her relationship with the two places. The story is punctuated with recipes, mostly from Abu-Jaber’s food-obsessed father, Bud.

In the book, while making baklava, Diana and her aunt have a discussion about food as a way to remember: to Bud, it is the only way he can remember his homeland of Jordan. Her aunt’s theory, however, negates this concept: she thinks that food is a way to forget. By cooking the same things he ate at home, Bud is forgetting how they were originally. Now, he can never truly go back to the way things were.

I only recently understood this concept. I have tried again and again to replicate my mother’s tomato sauce, putting hers on a pedestal and knowing that mine can never equal it. The more I try, the farther I get from the original, until I can’t even remember what was right. Luckily, I still have Christmas to taste my mother’s and to remember why it is so special. For Bud, though, this is impossible.

Luckily, these recipes don’t hold any history for me, so I am free to enjoy them. It seems strange to start my life in France by experimenting with Jordanian cooking, but I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you all are excited about baklava, shish kebab, lebneh, hummus….