to beet or not to beet....

I read on a food blog recently that the First Lady has admitted that neither she nor the President are fans of beets. The mainstream media doesn't seem to have taken much notice of this, compared to the many articles/op-eds/features generated when it was revealed that the first President Bush had a strong aversion to broccoli. In my opinion, both Commanders in Chief suffer from seriously flawed palates.

I have to admit that I came to enjoy beets fairly recently myself. The first time I remember eating them was about ten years ago, on vacation in Maine. It may have been simply because everything is better in Maine, but I took a bite of my sister's pickled beets and have been hooked ever since. Beets can be prepared and enjoyed in a variety of ways: roasted, pickled, turned into a soup. I recently had fun using the whole beet - greens and roots - in two different preparations: in a grilled flatbread with roasted beets and goat cheese and in a savory pastry with sauteed beet greens and feta.

The grilled flatbread was easy -- whole beets (w/skins) were sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil and roasted in a 400 degree oven for about an hour, until soft. Then they were peeled and sliced thinly on a handheld mandoline. Next I layered them with fresh chevre (goat cheese) on a flatbread/tortilla. Then pressed them and enjoyed with a fresh veggie soup and a salad of avocado and beet with redwine vinegar and olive oil.

The savory pastries were a fun twist on a Greek classic. Spanakopita, made with spinach, is relatively popular in the US. The name comes from the Greek for spinach (spanaki) and pie (pitta); it's a 'hand pie' of spinachy goodness. The dough from which it is made is phyllo, very thin sheets of pastry called phyllo (Greek for "leaf"). There is a Greek bakery in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan that is known for their phyllo dough; I was in the neighborhood a few weeks ago and decided to pay a visit and check out their wares. I picked up a small package of their dough and decided to use beet greens to make little pies. Patzaria is the Greek word for beetroot. I hope you'll enjoy these little patzapitas.

Beet Green Pastries (Patzapita)

1. Tear greens from a bunch of beets and wash thoroughly by dunking in cold water and swishing around to loosen grit. Recommend rinsing three times. Shake dry. Roughly chop.

2. Heat about two tablespoons of olive oil in a large saute pan, adding one smashed garlic clove to flavor the oil. Saute the greens for about five minutes, until soft. Season with salt and pepper; remove greens to a bowl to cool. Stir in a quarter cup of feta cheese, crumbled.

3. Prepare counter space for making pastries. Roll out phyllo dough and cover with a damp towel to keep the pastry from drying out. Place one sheet of dough on countertop and lightly brush with olive oil. Fold dough in half lengthwise and brush with oil again. Place a large spoonful of the greens and feta mixture in the corner of each rectangle. Fold the corner over to make a triangle and continue folding until you have a filled triangle -- just like you are folding a flag or making a paper football.

4. Place on a cookie sheet and once all the pastries are made, place in a preheated 375 degree (Fahrenheit) oven. Bake for approximately ten minutes, until the pastry is a nice golden brown.

Given the variety of ways to enjoy beets, it's really a simple question....to beet or not to beet?

sliders!

While walking around the city this week I've seen several signs for places advertising "sliders" - a current culinary trend. For most Navy people, sliders are simply part of the delicious bill of fare offered in our galleys at sea and ashore. I was introduced to sliders at Officer Candidate School (OCS), the sixteen weeks of training that turned recent college graduates like me into officers ready to go into job-specific training in nuclear power (submariners mostly), surface warfare ('ship drivers'), and a range of engineering and specialty positions. The OCS curriculum consisted of a lot of physical training combined with a pretty good amount of classroom hours on everything from navigation to ship's engineering and damage control to Navy customs and traditions.

Naval Warfare introduced us to the basic principles of missiles, torpedoes, guns; anti-submarine warfare, anti-air warfare, etc. Our class was taught by LT Phillips, an aviator fresh off a fleet tour, filled with great sea stories. He'd stand before us in his leather aviator's jacket, collar upturned, mustache neatly trimmed, covering all the objectives required in the class outline, but also imparting his special insights. He gave us a pretty good sense of what to expect of life out in the fleet, the camaraderie and culture, the things to know and do and say so that we wouldn't look too entirely green when we got our commissions and went out to serve.

It was from LT Phillips that we learned about food at sea. Wardroom; where officers eat and congregate on ships. (Also used collectively to describe the officers within a unit.) Bug Juice; Navy for koolaid or fruit punch. Midrats; the meal made available to those serving the midnight to 0400 (4am) watch. Sliders; cheeseburgers so named for the way they slide through the digestive tract. LT Phillips made it clear how stupid we'd feel if we went out to the fleet and asked a fellow officer if they wanted to go to the dining room and get a burger. "Wanna grab a slider?" were the keywords that would help us fit in and bond in our new community.

Recently I had the opportunity to bond with a new community of friends here in the city. I fixed lamb sliders for our potluck dinner. Unfortunately I didn't write out the recipe in a correct culinary format, so here it is as a a narrative:

Lamb Sliders

- Preheat oven to 300F. Rub a lamb shoulder (bone-in or boneless) with a mixture of spices such as paprika, cumin, cinnamon, black pepper. (The Moroccans call this spice mixture 'ras al hanout'; my friend Kiki has a great post about it at www.cheffancypans.blogspot.com). Place lamb shoulder in a Dutch oven, cover and place in preheated oven. Roast at low heat for 7-8 hours, until the meat is fork-tender and falling off the bone. Pull the meat off the bone with a fork or chop into small pieces. Mix with the drippings in the pan.

- Assemble sliders by filling small rolls with the meat; mini-brioche rolls work especially well. Serve with assorted sauces: tzatsiki (plain yogurt with shredded cucumber and minced garlic); tahini-miso (a few spoons of sesame seed butter (tahini) mixed with miso (a fermented soy compound) and lemon juice; pomegranate-harissa (pomegranate juice reduced to make a molasses, mixed with a spicy Moroccan paste that you can find in many specialty food stores).

Enjoy over good conversation and good beer with friends1