serendipity

It was Wednesday. Food section day. I ventured into Hudson, New York, to one of my favorite little coffee places. Realizing I hadn't picked up a copy of the Times, I went inside, but unfortunately no one had a left a paper behind for my reading pleasure. I asked the gal behind the counter where I might find one. With a nice smile, she directed me up the street.

I went back in the shop, paper in hand. She greeted me with another great smile. “It’s Wednesday, the best day to read the paper,” I said. She nodded in agreement, “yes, it’s the food section day.” I commented that the Sunday paper usually has some good reading too. “I was in the Sunday paper five years ago. I was working in a bakery in Brooklyn and they did a little feature about me.” Given the positive energy she radiates, it wasn't hard to see why someone would want to write a story about her.

About a year ago I found a great granola recipe on a food blog; I can’t remember which website but I do remember the bakery that was the source. It turns she worked in that very same one. I told her how much I love their granola; it turns out it was her recipe. We talked about food and New York for a few minutes, and then I asked her how she got her culinary training. Of course - she was in the Navy! She joined when she was eighteen to become a cook, then known by the rating denominator Mess Specialist. ("Mess" being a reference to the area in which sailors eat; about five years ago the Navy changed the job title to Culinary Specialist to better reflect the professionalism of this cadre of Sailors.)

As if her having served in the Navy wasn’t enough of a coincidence, it turns out she served in the same maritime patrol squadron that was deployed in Puerto Rico when I was stationed there. Turns out she was giving sustenance to the group of rowdy pilots who used to keep me awake late at night in the Bachelor Officers Quarters! But I guess now that I have a great granola recipe, all is forgiven.

Over the course of the past year, I’ve tweaked the granola recipe I found a bit. Who knows, after having been revised by the bakery owners (who put together a prize winning cookbook), then by the writer of the blog where I found it, and then by me…well it may just be Keira’s original recipe. Except her energy and light is a secret ingredient that may be hard to match. My version of the recipe is below.

This granola is great in a parfait with homemade yogurt (more on that later), or simply plain when you’re in the mood for a little natural sweetness.

Easy Homemade Granola
adapted from an original recipe by Keira the Sailor

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder and a pinch of cinnamon (or just cinnamon)
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (maple sugar crystals make a great substitute)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup slivered almonds
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/3 cup dried cranberries or cherries

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, toss the oats with the spices and salt.

In a medium bowl, stir together the oil, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla. Whisk until completely combined.

Pour the honey mixture over the oats mixture and use your hands to combine them: Gather up some of the mixture in each hand and make a fist. Repeat until all of the oats are coated with the honey mixture.

Pour the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet. Spread it out evenly, but leave a few clumps here and there for texture.

Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and use a metal spatula to lift and flip the granola. Sprinkle the nuts over the granola and return the baking sheet to the oven.

Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and use a metal spatula to lift and flip the granola.

Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven. Let cool completely. Sprinkle the raisins and cherries over the granola.

commemoration

For the past several months I have been sharing a house upstate in a little village on the Hudson River. It's been mostly a weekend getaway, but with fall in full bloom I decided to immerse myself in the area and am spending most of my time upstate. In a way it's fulfilling my dream, like that of so many, of moving to a charming estate in Tuscany - only without updating the passport, learning a new language and eating way too much pasta and bread. The time spent upstate has yielded a new set of sea stories, and I'll share a few on this blog, but now I'd like to record where I went and what I saw yesterday.

Eight years ago my father was invited to attend some events commemorating the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Saratoga, a turning point in the American Revolution. He'd invited me to join him and my mom in making the trip. I was looking forward to the trip, probably for escaping the Pentagon as much as for spending time with my folks and learning more about our nation's history. Unfortunately as the date drew closer my dad wasn't feeling well, so we decided to postpone the trip. We were never able to reschedule. Yesterday would have been his 84th birthday. I decided to commemorate his day with a drive through the Battenkill Valley to the Saratoga National Historic Site.

As so many days this time of year, the weather was perfect - bright blue skies, gently floating white clouds, a light breeze and sunshine bathing everything in a beautiful golden sheen. I'd mapped out a route and used GPS to navigate through the tricky twists and turns outside of Albany, where I'd planned to take a major county road up through the east side of the Hudson. The GPS had a different idea, sending me on a side road, where I came upon this gorgeous view at the Tomhannock Reservoir.

After a loop up through the area on the east side of the Hudson, I crossed the river and then drove down to the western area, arriving at the Saratoga National Historic Site and battlefield in mid-afternoon. A park ranger greeted me at the visitor center and after a brief orientation, invited me to view the short video about the battle. The film opened with a quotation from Major Henry Dearborn, who summed up the spirit that led our rebels to stand tall against the British, achieving a key victory in the road to independence. One of the rangers was nice enough to copy the pages from his journal so I could have his words: "...we who had Something more at stake than six pence per day kept our ground...." Simple words but a depth of meaning behind them.

I headed out to explore the battlefield on the driving tour. Despite having been friends with a lot of infantry officers while stationed in Korea, I've never had a great understanding of ground battles, this flanking motion, that charge. After a great discussion with the rangers in the Visitor Center, I was skeptical about what I'd take away from visiting the ten spots outlined on the map. But it is a one-way route and once I set out, I was committed. Stop One is an overlook at Freeman's Farm, where most of the fighting occurred on 19 September 1777. I looked out over the field and tried to imagine what it was like that day, with smoke and blasts from the artillery and rifles and muskets filling the air. After a few minutes I returned to the car to head to Stop Two.

About halfway down the road a marker on a hill caught my eye, and I backed the car up, parked and walked up the hill to learn more about this short obelisk standing by itself on a hillside.

With the sun's angle and a dying camera battery, I got only this photograph. But I copied the inscription:

Here Morgan, reluctant to destroy so noble a foe, was forced by patriotic necessity to defeat and slay the gentle and gallant Fraser.
To commemorate the magnanimity of Morgan’s heroic nature and his stern sense of duty to his country, this tablet is here inscribed by Virginia Neville Taylor, Great Grand Daughter of Gen. Daniel Morgan.

I came upon this simple memorial on a day that I was remembering my father, who was also imbued with a stern sense of duty to his country. I'm not exactly sure when Virginia Neville Taylor lived or exactly why she erected this historical marker to her great grandfather. But I hope to find out.

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

the stuff that dreams are made of

It's been a few months since I last put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and recorded anything here. I have a few things I want to write about, but tonight life jumped in the way, so here is a new post, on a topic that has little to do with the Navy or with food. Or maybe everything to do with it.
I've just returned from a benefit for a non-profit called Our Time, which helps kids who stutter. They use the arts to help kids improve their confidence and communications skills. Tonight's honoree was Carly Simon, who wrestled with stuttering as a child. As we sat in the theater before the show began, they piped in her music. Many familiar tunes filled the space, and filled my memories. I remembered being a kid listening to my sisters' James Taylor albums on which Carly Simon sang background vocals; I remembered being in high school and listening to "That's the Way I Always I Heard it Should Be" oh maybe 30 times a night. And then they played "It's the Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," which came out in 1987, the year I began my career in the Navy, and I remembered everything.
Today I took the train uptown and worked in a cafeteria kitchen on the Upper West Side, preparing a healthy cole slaw for the salad bar and doing some other things for the lunch. Then I went downtown and picked up ingredients and headed back uptown, this time to the way Upper East Side, in the area where the million dollar apartments give way to the projects. I taught a class in the after school program that I've been part of since last fall. As I walked up Madison Avenue to the school, there was a special thrill in passing some of the students from one of the classes and having a moment of recognition on the street. After the clas was over, it was back downtown and on to the concert.
In these posts I'm trying to chart the transition from sailor to culinarian, what I wanted to do when I left active duty. As I sat in the theater tonight I realized that the big things that I've always wanted - to be involved in a philanthropy, to be a teacher, to have a cozy home and to be happy - are what I have right now. This post is a simple thank you to the universe for giving just what Carly describes in her song, the stuff that dreams are made of.
PS, I write this with deep apologies to Mrs Wiser, teacher of 11th grade English, who had us keep a journal and who would mark "DD" on entries that smacked too much of Dear Diary. All I can say is, What's a girl to do?!

Say cheese!

When I decided to retire from the Navy, I also decided to do some exploration before launching full throttle into a new career. Among other things, I’ve been very fortunate to do a lot of travel during this “gap year.” An unexpected discovery from these trips has been cheese.

During a short stay at Blackberry Farm in eastern Tennessee this summer, I took a class on cheesemaking. I spent a good couple of hours with Adam the cheesemaker, walking through the process. We started with how they milk their beautiful flock of East Friesian sheep and then how that milk is transformed into curds, whey and eventually into lovely cheeses, which we enjoyed in a special tasting with complementary wines. It was fascinating. A culinary tour in Santa Fe this fall culminated in a visit to South Mountain dairy, with a good lesson about their goats and how the ladies there lovingly create an incredible chevre and wonderful marinated feta.

Continuing my cheese education, I recently paid a visit to Saxelby Cheesemongers in the Essex Market in the Lower East Side here in New York City. The gal behind the counter and I talked about sheeps milk cheeses, and I picked up a new one to try, Brebis Blanche, a fresh (soft) cheese from Three Corner Field Farm of Shushan, NY. (I also added to my French vocabulary, learning that “brebis” means “sheep.”) The February Eating Well magazine has a recipe for a goat cheese and honey-filled fig muffin. I decided to try the recipe, but using the Brebis Blanche instead of the goat cheese. The recipe also calls for buttermilk, but I decided to try a liquid yogurt from Milk Thistle dairy at the Union Square Greenmarket instead.

I tested the recipe with a culinary school classmate. It had been ages since we’d been in the kitchen together, and it was great fun to chop, stir and fold with Andrea again. We were thrilled with the results and also found that they are even better the day after baking.

Here’s the recipe, with hopes that you will enjoy your own discoveries in cheese:

Cheese and Honey-Filled Fig Muffins
Adapted from Eating Well magazine

Yield: one dozen muffins

¾ cup crumbled soft cheese (goats cheese, Brebis Blanche, cream or farmers cheese)
2 tablespoons honey
Freshly grated zest of one lemon
¼ teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 large egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup liquid yogurt, or low-fat buttermilk
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 ¼ cups chopped dried figs (preferably black mission figs)
3 tablespoons turbinado or granulated sugar

1. Preheat oven to 425 F and prepare muffin pan with paper liners or by lightly coating with oil.
2. In a small bowl, combine soft cheese, honey, lemon zest and ¼ teaspoon vanilla.
Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a medium bowl, beat eggs and egg white; add brown sugar, remaining vanilla and whisk until the sugar is dissolved, about one minute. Gradually whisk in the yogurt and oil until smooth. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing until just combined. Use care not to overmix. Fold in the figs.
4. Fill each muffin cup about a third of the way. Add 1 very generous teaspoon of the cheese mixture to the center of each muffin, and cover with the remaining batter. The filling shouldn’t be visible. Sprinkle the muffins with the turbinado sugar.
5. Bake the muffins until the edges start to brown and the tops spring back when gently pressed, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool in the pan before turning out on a wire rack to cool.

Souvenirs from Travels Abroad

During the mid-90s I served on the staff of the Admiral in command of the US South Atlantic Force. There have been several changes to areas of responsibility since, but in those days my boss' area included the west coast of Africa. During my time in that job we made two trips, by plane, to West Africa, travels that stretched from Cape Verde (which is neither truly a cape, nor very verde), along the Gulf of Guinea and down to Namibia and South Africa. We visited twelve countries over the course of the two two-week trips.

It was an incredible learning experience. Although our stays in each country weren't extended, we did get to see a great deal. It was fascinating to go from French-speaking Senegal to the former Portuguese colony of Guinea Bissau and on to anglophone Ghana, and then to see the Dutch and German influences in the southern part of the continent.

The other night here in New York, I got in a taxi driven by a Ghanaian gentleman. As we drove downtown we had a long talk about his country and the cuisine. He recommended Ghana's peanut soup as a nice warming tonic against the bitter cold we're having right now. When I got home, I pulled out a couple of cookbooks that I picked up back in the days of the West African travel. "Ghanaian Favourite Dishes" by Alice Dede was a special find during a visit to the national museum in Accra.


Her soup chapter begins with beautiful "rules for making soup": use everything perfectly fresh and as little fat as possible; use sufficient seasoning but not in excess; cook ingredients well."
That said, her recipe for "Nkatenkawan" (groundnut -or peanut - soup) is pretty spare by US standards, simply listing water, tomatoes, pepper, onions, fish or chicken, groundnuts, and salt as ingredients, and the cooking instructions are just slightly more specific. This is a vegetarian version that is inspired by Alice Dede and her recipe. You can try it at home one day when you feel like doing a little armchair traveling:

West African Peanut Soup
Serves 6-8

1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 tablespoon minced fresh gingerroot
1 clove garlic, minced
Canola or extra virgin olive oil
pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 quart vegetable stock
1 cup tomato puree
2 cups sweet potato (peeled and cut in large (1 inch) chunks)
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (chunky or plain)
2 cups spinach leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

1. In the bottom of a 5 quart saucepan, saute onion on medium/medium-high heat, 5-7 minutes, in oil. When translucent, add the gingerroot and garlic, lowering heat to medium, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Be sure not to let the garlic burn. Add the cayenne pepper and chili powder, stir to incorporate in the vegetable mixture and cook for a minute or so more.

2. Add the stock, tomato puree and sweet potatoes to the pan, and raise the heat to bring the liquid to a boil. Once it boils, reduce to a simmer and let it cook for 15 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are soft. Add the peanut butter. Turn the heat off and using an immersion blender, puree the soup. (See notes.)

3. Once the soup is pureed, return it to medium heat and add spinach leaves. Cook for an additional five minutes. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as desired. Serve, garnishing with finely chopped chives or scallions.

Notes:
- Immersion blenders make easy work of pureeing hot soups. If you don't have one, you can puree in a regular blender, but use extra care in handling the hot liquid (among other things, place a dishtowel over the lid and hold it down tight while pureeing). Alternatively, you can skip the pureeing and enjoy the flavors with a chunky texture.
- Recommend checking the seasoning throughout the building of the flavors in this soup.
- The sweet potatoes should yield a nice sweetness that complements the ginger and tomato and plays off against the peanut taste, but if you like you can add some sugar to to the soup as desired.