Beet Generation

"Ah Sal you are all right.", said Remi Boncoer as Dean and I walked into his house. He patted me on the back, and avoided eye contact with Dean, who looked hurt, but only for a second. His expression was replaced by swaying and longing for the last fifteen dollars we spent at the bar that night.

Lee Ann came around the corner from the kitchen. She saw Dean and halted and sped backwards back into the kitchen. Remi glared a Dean and followed her into the kitchen. They began arguing in whispers, but not quietly so I could hear everything and so could Dean. I looked back at him and his eyes returned to normal. He rubbed his belly and sweat was beading on his sunken cheeks. He paid no attention to the hisses around the corner.

Dean walked over to the set table, talking on the way "My pa made this for me, back in Denver." The idea that his wino father ever cooked anything surprised me. I thought of boyhood Dean kneeling over the trashcan fire in an alley of Larimer street, hiding from the rain under his father's coat. I was so tired and broken, so beat that I couldn't think of anything else.

My eyes must have glazed over because Dean walked towards me and stopped when his face was only a few inches from my face and he yelled with a full mouth, "Try this - you have to!". Remi's French accent was still audible two rooms away now, and I knew I would have time to try some without him noticing. Using two fingers so as to not make a mess I tried one of the red cubes. The taste reminded me of dirt, or earth, but it was also tart, and it was such a beautiful color. It was the first real food I had eaten in two days.

"What is it?" I asked and sneaked another piece, but Dean was already gone. I heard his footsteps walking towards Remi and Lee Ann and his booming voice "Hey Lee Ann! My pa made this all the time! Lee Ann! How do you make it? Lee Ann!"

It took longer than I thought to find the kitchen, since the floor was moving from the booze. I sat down on a chair by the door and must have passed out for a second, since by the time I caught up to Dean and Remi and Lee Ann they were all quiet and leaning on the counter. There was blood on Dean's hands - he was peeling beets and cubing them. Remi saw me walk in but said nothing and turned his gaze back to the cutting board. It wasn't blood as I thought; it was the juice from the beets.

Lee Ann was dictating her recipe: "Not so big, or they wont cook. Okay now just add olive oil and salt and put them in the ov-" but she couldn't finish because Dean had left the room and we heard the front door slam. I had found a chair by now and we had nothing to say to each other, but Remi looked happy staring at Lee Ann.

Dean walked back in with the bottle of Chablis wine from the car that we couldn't bring ourselves to finish and forgot in the trunk. It had been open for months. He uncorked it and the entire kitchen smelled like rotting vinegar and before Lee Ann could protest he poured a little on the Beets. "My pa did this I remember because he said he never wanted to waste the wine, even when it was bad."

I was happy the oven was already on, and Dean opened it and the gust of warm air made me shiver more than anyone else has ever shivered in San Francisco. He singed his arm hairs putting the beets in the very back of the oven - it must have been hundreds of degrees hot. I began feeling feverish and I fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up at noon and I felt alright, and Dean and Lee Ann seemed to be getting along. He made the beets again that night and I tried some again and he was right it tasted delicious and we talked about starting a beet farm. Dean's hands were permanently stained red. At the end of the second day in San Francisco, Remi was concerned that he was getting old and Dean spent two hours talking about how excited he was about life and the things he was going to do.

Later that night Remi caught Dean trying to make with his girl. Lee Ann was not that kind of girl but it didn't matter, Dean's hands were red. I never saw Remi that mad and he told us to leave his house, even though it was Lee Ann's house. I told him I would come back without Dean but it Remi said he didn't want me to. We never unpacked the Buick so we got back in and started driving. The car was really quiet and Dean knew I was angry so he said "Now Sal, Lee Ann was the one who started it. I was trying to get her to stop but you know I miss Denver and anyway we were out of Chablis. There was no reason to stay without those beets." He started rubbing his belly and driving with his knees. We were driving back to Denver.

Cook Pasta as Risotto : Asparagus Pastotto

So there's been a recent interest going around about cooking pasta as one would risotto. I first read this advice in this season's Cook's Illustrated, but apparently it was also written in the NYT recently. In both places, it was just a two-sentence snippet with no recipe to back it up. Was this just another far-fetched excuse to add (even more) butter to pasta, or a treasonous disfigurement of Italian culture?

So I took the advice to its fullest meaning - after finding a suitable recipe for Asparagus Risotto (from NYT), I added a sprinkle of Ctrl-f Ctrl-v, I had myself a de-bonafide Pasta-Risotto recipe.

A quick google search confirms that I am not the first to test this recipe, or to coin "Pastotto". Still this recipe came out pretty darn delicious, and I hope you give it a try! I added at least one family secret, and tested the dish's robustness as left-overs.

Asparagus Pastatto

Ingredients
+ One bunch Asparagus (it's in season!), cut into 1-inch pieces
+ Chicken or Vegetable Stock - 4 cups
+ One pound of your favorite pasta - I used Fusilli
+ Splash of white wine - I used Pancake Cellars 'Big Day White'
+ Two tablespoons butter
+ One Onion, diced
+ Salt and Parmigiano-Reggiano to taste

Preparation
Add the stock to a small pot and keep it warm under low heat.

Boil half the asparagus for five minutes in two cups of water. Drain the green water into the warming stock pot. Blend the boiled asparagus with a food processor, blender, or hand blender. Set aside.

Melt half the butter in a large pan with rounded edges and high walls. Once the butter has stopped bubbling, add the onion and let it soften, five minutes. Add the pasta and coat it as evenly as possible with the butter and onion, for two minutes.

Add a splash (half cup or so) of white wine and let it boil away while constantly stirring. Don't forget to pour yourself some wine to drink slowly throughout the cooking process.

Now, start adding about the broth a cup at a time. Also add the other half of the uncooked asparagus, as well as the pureed asparagus. Continue in this fashion until the pasta is cooked - watch out! Pasta takes significantly less time to absorb the water and finish cooking - it took me about an hour.

Finally, once the pasta is tender, add a half cup of grated Parmesan, another tablespoon of butter, and cover the pot. Do not touch the pot for five minutes.

Uncover, mix thoroughly, and serve immediately.

Pastotto Pancakes

As leftovers, you can always panfry your risotto/pastotto with a little butter. The pasta does not hold together as well as risotto traditionally does, but it's still quite tasty.

Here is the finished product. Enjoy!

Kumquat Marmalade Recipe

Just around this time last year, I binged on kumquats from the farmer's market. The sweetness of the kumquat rind and acidity of its pulp made my teeth unbearably sensitive for the next week. Just looking at my left-over kumquats made my mouth ache. Instead of throwing them out, I made a really successful marmalade! Unfortunately, the season was over before I could make more.

I've been waiting all year to make the recipe again, and this time I took some photos with which to share the recipe. I've listed the ingredients in terms of how many kumquats are used.

Warning: This recipe should be started the night before...

Kumquat Marmalade

Ingredients
+ Kumquats (as many as you have!)
+ Sugar
+ Water

Preparation
Wash all the fruit and remove any green stems. The photo above shows the kumquats without the stems. Don't worry about removing the seeds in this recipe - they're mostly harmless.

This is the most labor intensive part. Start slicing each kumquat thinly. I usually cut them in half length wise, and mince them like I would some garlic cloves, as in the macro shot below. It takes about 1 hour for me to slice 100 kumquats. I had blisters by the time I was finished.

Now soak the rinds and pulp in three times their volume in water for twelve hours, or over night. The next morning, bring them to a boil until all the rinds are very tender. This takes up to an hour.

Like this! See that film on the top? You're going to want to remove that at this point.

Now it's time to add the sugar! Add the same volume of sugar as you have fruit, and bring it back to a boil. At this point, I start bringing out spoonfuls of the liquid (be careful, it's kind of hot) and putting them in the freezer to bring them to room temperature quickly. Every 15 minutes, check the consistency using this method until the desired spreadability is achieved.

Then fill sterilized (or at least clean) jam jars 90% and close them tightly immediately. As they cool, the warm air in the 10% remaining will cool and form a vacuum inside.

See for yourself:

Career Goals

I have a pretty hands-off upper-division writing professor at UCI. That doesn't stop said professor from assigning menial chores to keep us busy and out of his hair. In particular, last week he decided that we should write up our career goals, and our qualifications for those goals. Here are mine - enjoy!

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(click for bigger pdf version)

If this elicits a response from the professor, I'll post an update. To be clear, I've been completely transparent with the professor about my dissatisfaction with his absolute lack of feedback.

I've been pretty terrible about keeping this blog food-centric. I'll post something about food before the end of the weekend. Maybe it'll be my Dad's Marmalade Jam recipe:

Calories and Growth

We finally got around to planting seeds in the Ants in your Plants garden today. We had a really great crowd! You can check out more photos here.

Now that we're well established, and that we have a regular schedule, there are a few projects I want to complete (...and start) at the garden before the end of the Spring. We need a rodent fence, maybe a live webcam, some picnic tables, composting, and a pizza oven!

But what's interesting is that we worked really hard to plant every thing today! I can hardly believe that humans can maintain a farm and still reap net positive calories from the land. It's especially relevant for me: tomorrow I am biking 200km (124 miles) around orange county tomorrow. On these long bike rides, your body is limited by the rate at which your body can digest calories. In fact - you have to be eating constantly - the average human body can only digest about 300 Calories an hour. Moderate biking is about 500 Calories an hour - see a problem there?

I want to give a shout out to my dad, who I'll be joining tomorrow morning on the tail end of his 600-km bike ride. Yes, it takes more than 24 hours to ride. Yes he sleeps - but not more than a couple of hours. Yes, he has to eat A LOT. Here's the route that I'll be joining him on. Feel free to him positive vibes.

Oh man that's cruel. He'll have finished this route before starting the one up there. No carbon fiber bike can make 600km even remotely easier. Most of the gear that they do have is to help carry food. The wife of the late Sheldon Brown (famous for his online bike articles) rode 1200km with an entire roasted chicken. Classy.

Anyway, as the garden grows, I'll keep posting photos of the seeds as they start sprouting. We planted over 50 varieties in all! That's so many!