A Beautiful Evening and Lovely Meal with a Friend of Twenty-Five Years
Almond flounder meunière is today’s FFWD recipe choice. It couldn’t have been a better one for me. This week my friend Kent Harding, who lives in Toronto, is visiting Las Vegas. Every year he joins his colleagues for a golfing junket here and always spares time to see me. He and his wife Jean, one of North America’s preeminent portrait painters, also own a home in LaCadière, a tiny village located in the far western sliver of the Cote d’Azur. We have known them for the past 25 years, since first meeting on a bicycle tour in Provence. Friends ever since, over the past 8 years I have often enjoyed their extraordinary French hospitality and been welcomed into their expat community of friends there.
What better dish to serve him than the Dorie-version of sole amandine and sole meunière rolled together into Almond Flounder Meunière. If we wanted to wring out a few precious French memories, this would be the perfect meal for it.
Unfortunately, flounder doesn’t come easy, sole is trés chère and I needed to cast a wider net to haul in an acceptable substitute.
Skai Fish Farm, photograph courtesy of koi-bito.com
The good news is, according to experts, skai is a white-fleshy fish with a sweet mild, taste and light flaky texture that can be broiled, grilled, or coated with bread crumbs and fried. The bad news, for me at least, is it is a river-farmed catfish (with a wink, wink, to river-farmed) harvested from the Mekong River in Vietnam. Whoops. The more investigation I did, the more I questioned whether I should take the bait and buy Skai.
There was all kinds of Internet chatter about this fish because it is a cheap alternative to pricier swimmers. I scanned the comments. My thinking was that Skai was kinda French, being from Vietnam which had been a part of the French colonial empire until 1954! Reason enough. However, what locked in my decision to buy Skai was a comment left on a food blog forum. Regarding Skai, the commenter wrote, “I have other things to worry about killing me before the Skai will.”
I took the bait.
I purchased 16 ounces of the Skai which was maybe river-farmed but probably just caught out of the Mekong River which flows through Vietnam which used to be part of the French colonial empire until 1954. Two pieces, available in fillet form, no bones. On sale – $2.99 per pound.
Almond Skai Meunière
It’s a simple process to fry the fish in browned butter. The coating mixture is ground almonds, flour, lemon zest, salt and pepper. The next time I make this I will use almond flour rather than grinding my own almonds. After brushing the fillets with an egg wash, coat one side of each fillet. I fried the skai 4 to 5 minutes on each side since it was a fleshier fish than either sole or flounder would be. Toss some toasted almonds and parsley over the browned fish, squirt a shot of lemon on top and, viola, skai became Almond Flounder Meunière.
What a wonderful combination, Asparagus, Leeks, & Parmigiano Reggiano
To accompany the fish, I made a simple recipe of sautéed asparagus and leeks, both purchased at the Farmer’s Market. The recipe, compliments of Kate who blogs on Savour Fare can be found here.
No one has died from eating my Skai…….yet. The meal was delicious and the fish, tasty. Of course, what about “fried in brown butter” doesn’t spell heavenly. The cautionary note is I will do more research before serving Skai again. And, truthfully, this recipe really belongs to a fish in the sole or flounder family.
To see what other Doristas reeled in this week, go here.
Hungarian Shortbread Bars with Blueberry Preserves Filling
For the record, I spent four glorious days in Budapest last Fall. Cruised on the Danube. Stuffed myself with pierogi. Hiked up Gellert Hill and crossed the Chain Bridge. Nowhere was I offered Hungarian Shortbread.
Those Hungarians don’t know what they’re missing!
Mise En Place, The Ingredients and the Box Grater
This week our TWD/BWJ group is baking shortbread bars. These delicacies are delicious and a bit of a smile to make. Have you ever grated cookie dough? For this recipe, we needed to pull out our box graters, choose the side with the largest holes, and go crazy. If grating is your technique of choice and you wish to make this bar cookie, find the recipe directions here or here. This week’s hostesses, the gals who did the heavy-lifting, are Lynette and Cher. We thank both of you.
Instead of making the traditional rhubarb jam filling, I used a jar of organic blueberry preserves. Although there’s nothing unusual about putting together the dough mixture, the next chill-and-grate step may give you pause……. but charge right ahead. The filling goes in the middle and is covered by more grated dough. Immediately after baking, dust the top of the shortbread heavily with confectioner’s sugar.
Grating the first ball of frozen shortbread dough into the pan
After carefully spreading blueberry preserves over the shredded dough, I grated the second frozen dough ball on top.
Although my batch was delicious, they were a tad chunky because my baking pan wasn’t large enough. This is a rich cookie. My portions should be smaller. I think I’ll perfect this recipe and use it on my cookie platters during the upcoming Christmas holidays (okay, still 8 months away). If the filling were homemade raspberry or cherry preserves, it would look very festive.
After slipping it into a 350 degree oven, I just had to catch a picture of the preserves seeping through the dough.
Do we think I was a bit heavy-handed with the confectioner’s sugar?!?
Use your Imagination. Apple does not allow use of their icon.
Of the technical variety.
My first computer, bought thirty years ago, was a Mac. Since then I’ve loyally trudged through Mac-Land. I now own a MacBookPro. And, an iPod, iPod Touch, iPad, and, after next week, an iPhone. Except for my son-in-law, I’ve successfully converted my family from PC’s to Apple products. He’s a lawyer. He’s a holdout. It will happen.
If you are technically challenged, and, I am, the learning curve, with each new product, is Mt. Everest. That’s why I belong to Apple’s One-on-One program. For $99 a year, I can take a weekly private lesson to get set up, get trained, and get going on each new Mac device. Admittedly, there are some why’s and wherefore’s to this program, but, let’s just say, I have tenure.
The Apple employee/tutors in this program are amazing, patient, kind and young. How can they be so computer literate at 12 years of age? Which brings me to Troy, a One-on-One tutor at my local Apple store, and the reason for this Post.
During the last presidential election, we were both involved in the campaign. “Fired Up” would be an understatement. I’ve always been a political animal, but this was a new and exciting world for Troy. Being engaged in the democratic process lends importance to being an American and Troy, for the first time, felt it.
Fast forward to three years later.
Following a recent One-on-One session, referring to politics, I asked him, “What do you think?”
In a flash, he responded, “I think I don’t make a difference.”
Subject closed.
His response has haunted me. He’s too young, too smart and too vital to this country’s future to think he doesn’t matter.
His response also begs the question, for me at least, about making a difference. Do I? Beginning in 2011 and continuing for the next 18 years, between 7,000 to 8,000 Americans will be turning 65 years of age everysingle day. We’re in the fourth quarter. So it occurs to me, many Baby Boomers will be asking themselves that very same, legitimate question.
This past week I have had time to ponder this. My husband Michael, who lives in a nearby memory care facility and is under Hospice care, developed Shingles. Not good. Luckily, I had been vaccinated, could ignore the quarantine, sit by his bedside as he slept, and conduct a one-way conversation with myself (if you know me, that’s not all bad).
I liked my answers. Does Relevance still live at my house? Yes. Do I make a difference? You bet. The difference in my now-differences as compared to my past-differences is the key (one more time) difference.
In the past I’ve made a difference not only to my family but also to my students, my employees, board members, and everyone dependent upon me for one reason or another. My students needed a class grade to graduate. As an editor of a small newspaper, operating on a barebones budget, I hired young reporters and trained them well before kicking them up to better reporting opportunities. On charity and nonprofit boards, I organized fundraisers. Girl Scouts? Leader and Cookie Mother. Perpetual Room Mother – cupcakes for every occasion. Sunday School teacher. The list goes on and on. I am no different from millions of others heading into retirement. Like so many, I think I saw myself as more important than I ever was.
As for now, my universe for making a difference and being relevant is smaller but is, and this is my premise to all of you, just as necessary. It may be even more important to you women, like me, who live alone by choice, death, divorce, or health reasons.
First, I am fortunate to have many communities of friends. To every extent, they make a difference to me and I, to them. Friendships must be nourished and treasured, there’s joy and value in each one. Second, while sadly I don’t make a difference to Michael anymore, he does not remember our life together, I make a huge difference to the professionals who care for him. Every patient needs a ferocious advocate and I am his. Ironically, his caregivers appreciate that.
Lastly and what struck me as surprising, is how important I feel I am to my family. Besides loving me, which they do, they make me feel necessary and important and relevant. America is not a country that has ever valued older people. I suggest to you that phenomenon is changing and it’s this Sandwich Generation*, our kids, who are making this occur. So now, I believe, it’s up to us. It’s how WE handle this attitudinal change that will make the difference in our lives and theirs.
Please understand, my children are smart, capable, self-sufficient and very good parents.They both work and are successful. And, more often than not, a helping hand needs to be extended my way rather than theirs. I’ve concluded their lives, albeit happy, are far more complicated, difficult and challenging than mine ever was. That’s why sometimes my role is to listen, not my greatest virtue, offering unconditional support. More often, because I’m able to see the forest, I can suggest a quick-fix. Done. At times, I anticipate bumps and can smooth them out. Many a moment, it’s just the, “Hang on, this, too, shall pass,” advice that they have to hear.
We all need to feel valued rather than tolerated, appreciated and respected rather than ignored. For Baby Boomers, life has been all about goals, accomplishments and providing not just good but better and best for our loved ones. To slow down our train is difficult, to climb off, even harder. That’s why, as we step aside and Life continues barreling down the track, we each need to ask ourselves these questions, find our niche and honor who we are.
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* The Sandwich generation is a generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children.
Traditional: those sandwiched between aging parents who need care and/or help and their own children.
Club Sandwich: those in their 50s or 60s sandwiched between aging parents, adult children and grandchildren, or those in their 30s and 40s, with young children, aging parents and grandparents.
Many of you would not put Easter, Springtime and slowly, braised lamb stew, in the same sentence. This would be a wintertime all-in-one meal at my house. Perhaps, first snowstorm, crockpot and slowly, braised lamb stew fits better.
According to Ms. Greenspan, our leader and author of Around My French Table, this week’s recipe is a classic and a staple of the Easter season in France. The lamb is meant to be paired with freshly dug spring vegetables, tiny onions, carrots, turnips, potatoes and peas. I was able to buy all the vegetables but the peas at our local Farmer’s Market. (I used frozen peas.)
Farmer’s Market Spring Vegetables
I cut a three-pound boneless lamb shoulder into 1 1/2-inch cubes. Be sure to remove the excess fatty pieces. The cooking method is a classic braise, perfect for my 7 1/4 quart Creuset cast-iron dutch oven. Brown the meat. Add broth and other seasonings. Simmer.
Mise En Place – The Fixins’
Next, prepare the veggies and brown in butter for ten minutes. After the meat has simmered for 45 minutes, add the vegetables. A caution, the peas stand alone, unable to play with others until the last moment.
Browning the lamb pieces
Brown the vegetables in butter. No peas, please.
While the stew simmered and still having 1 pound of fresh carrots left, I decided to make Dorie’s café-style grated carrot salad (p. 107). Carottes râpées is also a French classic and served everywhere, from the toniest restaurant to the cheapest student café. Buy it at any take-out place or local grocery store. It’s arguably the favored raw salad of France.
Dorie’s Café-style grated carrot salad
For dessert, I baked Brown Sugar Bundt Cake, a recipe from her Baking: From My Home to Yours. This is a versatile cake, not choosy when it is served, and is perfect for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or bedtime snack. The leftover cake made its way through the neighborhood to very good reviews. Find this recipe here and here.
Brown Sugar Bundt Cake
It’s Springtime. The farmer’s fresh vegetables made this all-in-one-meal quite special and tasty. A winter dish? Wasn’t mentioned. I heard no complaints.
At 26 years of age, unprepared and alone, Strayed spent 3-months hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650-mile national scenic route running from Mexico through California, Oregon, Washington and into Canada. Her decision to do this was impulsive. Following through on an impulsive decision was foolhardy.
“WILD” by Cheryl Strayed
“Strayed’s journey was as transcendent as it was turbulent,” writes MarjorieKehe who reviews books for the Christian Science Monitor. “She faced down hunger, thirst, injury, fatigue, boredom, loss, bad weather, and wild animals. Yet she also reached new levels of joy, accomplishment, courage, peace, and found extraordinary companionship.”
Amazon named it a Best Book of the Month for March 2012 and it’s been on the New York Times best-seller list for the past four weeks. WILD has been optioned for film by Pacific Standard, actress Reese Witherspoon’s production company.
This book could share a shelf with Aron Ralston’s Between a Rock and a Hard Place and Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Into The Wild.
I couldn’t put it down. Read it, cover to cover in ten days.
Also on my bedside table………
Shantaram by Gregory David Robert
Ruhlman’s Twenty, 20 Techniques, 100 Recipes, A Cook’s Manifesto by Michael Ruhlman
