morsels & sauces

Risotto is such a delightful dish. Comforting, creamy, simple, stable.   And I am a huge fan . As in, I will make me a risotto any chance I get, with any sort of ingredient you can imagine. It doesn't matter--any season.  Spring--lemon and peas;  Summer--tomato and parmesan;  Fall--mushroom;  Winter--butternut squash and pancetta.  If it's in your fridge, you can put it in this Northern Italian rice dish. However, you will want a very specific kind of rice--a high starch, medium- or short-grain rice--in order separate this delicacy from any other rice dish. The high starch means that as you cook it, it releases its starch, making that requisite creamy smoothness to risotto. The most popular risotto rice in the United States is, hands down, Arborio rice. This short-grained rice isn't as starchy as some of its popular Italian counterparts, but it is the most easily procured. However, a...

Shall I tell you all the plans I had for this past weekend?  They included a run with my dear friend last Friday, a fabulous fortieth birthday party for a pair of dear friends on Saturday (which would have included baby holding), and many hours watching Giants baseball on all three days (thankfully, they seem to have gotten out of their slump with this Dodgers series!).  Instead, my weekend was spent in bed, beneath a mountain of blankets and beside an equally high mountain of kleenex. After almost two years of avoiding one, I got a cold. And not just any cold. A spring cold.  The only thing worse than a spring cold is a summer cold. Remember that fortieth birthday party I was scheduled to attend? Well, it was an outdoor one in a park complete with potluck dishes. There were to be babies that I could hold and nuzzle. Instead, I opted out of it, because I didn't want to hold and nuzzle babies and subsequently pass on this cold. Further, this fabulous lima bea...

I have a habit I cannot kick, and it is Ottolenghi's cookbooks.  This is the sixth recipe I have cooked from either Plenty (2011) or Jerusalem (2012), and for Valentine's Day, the husband bought me Ottolenghi (2013).  In the past three years, Ottolenghi's prolific cookbook writing has only fueled the fire. Now if only Ten Speed Press or Chronicle Books would recognize how much I love Ottolenghi and send me advance copies of the cookbooks gratis.  I wait patiently and without expectation. Here's what I have made from his cookbooks (and I'll have this one and even one more after this entry to add.  Clearly I have a serious problem.):  Multi-Vegetable Paella   Raw Artichoke and Herb Salad Roasted Cauliflower with Hazelnuts Salad   Salmon Steaks in Chraimeh Warm Glass Noodles and Edamame I love these cookbooks mostly for their vegetarian fare.  In fact, the only recipe that I have made that includes an animal is the salmon, which was...

This week, I am spending my time in Fort Bragg—or to be more precise, about four miles north of Fort Bragg—where I am watching sunsets, grading, and prepping for my spring classes.  This weekend came at just the right time, as I was feeling the perennial Funk of February.  For as long as I can remember, every February, I descend into The Funk.  The days feel too short for the too many things to do. Thankfully, I now teach in California, where most schools are granted what is often abysmally entitled Ski Week (I call it pedestrianly “February Break,” for I would never have been one of those students, nor am I truly one of those teachers, who could afford to take a week off just to ski). February Break not only coincides with The Funk, but it also marks the end of our second term, so I am often holed-up grading final papers and writing comments.  However, I get to perform such activities in my pajamas, and this week, in a cabin in the woods.  Two ni...

And we're back. Back to Plenty , which is fast becoming my go-to cookbook for all things vegetarian. And this recipe is a fast, healthy, and easy one. I will be heading back to Illinois in a month. Illinois--or at least the rural part of Illinois from which I come--is, quite simply, the land of soybeans and corn. Growing up, we would spend the summer riding bikes, sometimes to retrieve something from the little downtown, other times for no reason at all.  We lived on the outskirts of our town, and we, my brother and I (him on his BMX, me on my red banana-seat bike with tassels on the handles and a white wicker basket) would cut through the cornfields to get out of the little (and only) subdivision we lived in. I still remember that prickly smell of corn in the heat as we cut through the rows at top speed, digging deeper ruts into the mud, especially as we rounded the corner to avoid the barbed-wire fence.  Every couple of years, the farmer would rotate the corn with soyb...