You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, Know when to walk away, Know when to run.
Kenny Rogers
I once was required to take a psychological test as part of an employment application. Maybe I was in my late thirties. While discussing the results with me, the male evaluator mentioned that I would keep hitting my head against the wall to get something done. “You just won’t give up,” he said, shaking his head.
I beamed with pride. “Got the job,” I thought to myself.
“That’s not a compliment,” he quickly added.
“What a jerk,” I thought to myself.
End of the Story: I got the job and succeeded. Head. Wall. Banging.
Crab-Avocado “Ravioli”
Admittedly, despite my success, he wasn’t all wrong. I understand the need to sometimes give up or give in. I’ve just never learned to do that well. This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, Crab-Avocado Ravioli, put me to the supreme test. I glanced at the recipe and then heard that my colleague, Diane, had already drawn blood. I folded. Readers, it was the fastest “fold” of my lifetime.
Amy Butler’s 2013 Galaxie Rosé
Crab-Avocado Ravioli is a deliciously divine crab salad mixed with lime zest/juice, minced shallots, cilantro and olive oil. I used Pasolivo’s California Blend olive oil and also added Penzey’s Sunny Paris seasoning. The avocado-part of the recipe is when it gets “twicky”. Dorie suggests slicing avocados on a mandoline without peeling or pitting them first.
(Memo to Ms. Greenspan: Now, Dorie, you know me well enough to realize this could just not happen in my kitchen.)
During our birding field trip this week, we watched a very noisy House Wren and a determined Tree Swallow duke it out over a excavated tree cavity nest originally chiseled out by a woodpecker!
Despite going rogue on this recipe, I enjoyed a lovely lunch of Crab Salad embellished with avocado and washed down with Amy Butler’s Ranchero Cellars 2013 Galaxie Rosé. The next day I turned the remaining salad into a mouth-watering Crab Roll, my picnic lunch during an all-day Audubon field trip. My blogging companions, Susan and John, can always turn leftovers into spectacular main entrées. See their magic, Crab Risotto with Artichoke Hearts, here.
Tomorrow, June 14th, is National Flag Day, a celebratory nod to our Stars and Stripes. The first official flag – the blue canton contained 13 stars – was approved by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. For the past 237 years it has stood (and, fallen) as a symbol of hope and glory and gratefulness throughout the world. Bravo to the Red, White and Blue and may we sometimes just remember and honor all that is right and good about this country.
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s Around my French Table. You can grab this week’s recipe from Liz, another Dorista. To see which flags my FFWD colleagues from around the world fly, go to our link here.
This week’s French Fridays recipe choice is Hélène’s All-White Salad, a bunch of crunch created by Dorie’s friend, Hélène Samuel. She has loved this salad since first eating it at Samuel’s cafe, Délicabar Snack Chic, located in Paris’s renown Le Bon Marché department store. Built by Gustave Eiffel in 1852 and now owned by the luxury group LVMH, the store still exists.The cafe does not. Luckily, Dorie asked, Helene shared, and the all-white salad still survives in Around my French Table.
This salad seemed comfy, a thumbs up. I located every ingredient at the tiny Cookie Crockery market in Cambria. The priciest item was organic mushrooms but the rest, celery, Granny Smith apples, Napa cabbage and Greek yogurt, cost less than the gas to drive there.The preparation was simple.The dressing, Yogurt Vinaigrette, parading as a light, low-calorie mayonnaise, went together easily.
Earlier in the day I baked Irish Soda Bread, using a recipe from Dorie’s Baking: From my House to Yours cookbook. My wine was Patelin de Tablas Blanc from Tablas Creek, one of many local vineyards focusing on grapes and blends traditional to France’s Rhone Valley.
Readers, sometimes hits turn into misses. The Vinaigrette was bland. After one glass of vino and half-way through another, still tasteless. I liked the salad ingredients, however, especially the apple/Napa cabbage/celery combo. For lunch the next day, I used the leftover “whites” and made chunky blue cheese dressing for the pour-over. Bingo. Blue is the new White.
FIGURE IT OUT, MARY
Today’s Post marks three years of turning my lights on bright. Disappointed the salad was not the celebratory recipe I envisioned, the birthday candles went back in the box. Then, an Aha moment. The past three years have been all about hits, misses, thumbs up and never agains. Let me explain.
Irish Soda Bread – It’s Almost St. Paddy’s
This blogging adventure began shortly after my husband, Michael, was moved to the Memory Care Unit with Hospice joining the private facility to assist with his care. The good news was my day-to-day caregiving responsibility was no longer needed. The Pros wanted and insisted upon taking over. The bad news was my day-to-day caregiving responsibility was no longer needed. I was undone. “Go out and make a life, Mary,” a nurse insisted.
This was not new advice. I had tried and been spectacularly unsuccessful at the new life-thing. As usual, with each crisis, I ran wailing to my professional counselor, Paige. This woman does not suffer histrionics. She is also maddeningly unemotional. After calming my waters, she asked, “Mary, what are the two things you do best?”
After some thought, I responded, “Writing and being a good grandmother.”
Well,” she answered, “your granddaughters are nearby and you see them often. Check. That leaves Writing. Go figure it out.”
Visit over. I didn’t even get my hour.
2012 Patelin de Tablas Blanc
THE BIRTH OF A BLOGGER
After some months of thought, I decided to blog. WordPress was beyond me so I found a web designer on Craig’s List. He put together the site you are now reading, albeit not without disaster. Within five minutes of my site going up, I totally obliterated it. I blogged about politics and hobbies and caregiving. Nothing worked. An article in Oprah’s magazine introduced me to FrenchFridays with Dorie. The dye was cast. FFWD created the structure I needed in my life.
Yes, Michael-visits were still unbearable but cooking the book with my fellow Doristas was salvation. Better yet, it framed my week. Here’s how it goes: 1) Read the assigned FFWD recipe; 2) Shop for ingredients; 3) Make the recipe; 4) Photograph, eat and share the food; 5) Write my piece; 6) Post on blog each Friday; 7) Link on thirty or forty of my colleagues‘ blogs to read/ comment on their sites.
You thought the life of a food blogger was easy?
My FFWD virtual friends became reality at the International Food Boggers Conference in Seattle. Our Dorie was the keynote speaker. Fall, 2013.
Michael spent two years with round-the-clock care and I launched a new life. When he died, I had a framework in place as I began to build a lifestyle alone. In addition, I had met an entire family of virtual companions who joined with my family and friends to assist me. Now, with 228 Posts under my toque, I think I’ve been spectacularly successful in doing just that.
CAN “LIGHTS” GET BRIGHTER?
Today I completed Melanie Faith’s five-week online food writing class. Her nuts and bolts course was immersion at its finest. Our class waded through a 300-page text, Will Write for Food by Diane Jacob and submitted five in-depth writing assignments. Every morning, w-i-t-h-o-u-t fail, I woke up to an e-mail prompt, our exercise-of-the-day. Writers need editors. I am pleased to have Melanie in my back pocket.
After months of deliberation I just hired a young Denver firm, Peak Solutions Marketing, to completely redesign my site. Sorta excited. Kinda nervous. (No pressure, Zoe & Kenneth) It appears I’m committed to keeping my lights on. The brighter, the better.
The High Priestess of French Fridays, Dorie Greenspan
French Fridays with Dorie is an international cooking group working its way through Dorie Greenspan’s “Around my French Table, more than 300 recipes from my home to yours.” If you would like to look at our group link, go here.
As the lyrics say, the celebration is happening tonight.
This week begins the fourth year of French Fridays with Dorie. We’ve been cooking her book since October 2010, and are halfway done. I know we can. I know we can. I know we can.
Salade Niçoise. Although I would prefer Haricot Verts, I bought my green beans at the local farmers market.
For our anniversary week Betsy Pollackwho blogs at APlateful of Happiness and I picked the recipe. We’re the week-to-week administrators of FFWD and the iconic Salade Niçoise seemed to jump out and say, “Choose me,” as we thumbed through the book.
With Dorie’s directions, which are here, we stick with authenticity, using canned tuna preserved in oil and stinky anchovies. I chose Tapenade Vinaigrette but use your own favorite to dress the salad. This was a perfect dinner. Leftovers, tomorrow.
The four apples I used in this cake were Delicious, Fugi, Gala and Braeburn. Be sure to buy different kinds for a unique and special taste.
I also baked Marie-Hélène’s Apple Cake, a make-up recipe that most Doristas made in December 2012. Why did I wait so long? “This apple cake is more apple than cake, rather plain but very appealing in its simplicity,” Dorie explains.
Candle #6 perched upon this cake reminds me that I have now been back in Aspen for six months. Although it’s been a hectic and chaotic 15 months since Michael died, my motor running primarily on adrenalin, I’ve done what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be.
With apologies for this presentation, I enjoyed 1/3 of this apple cake before remembering to take a picture. Mmmmmm, it’s tasty.
You see, I have a birthday this month. Did you peg me for a Libra? They say we need to stay on an even keel. We abhor conflict. It’s that scales of justice, striking the right balance thing. I also just read that “the Libra-born are keen strategists, organizing groups with poise and getting the job done.” (Hey, does that mean we’re bossy?)
Who believes that stuff anyway?
www.bluelightlady.com Genevieve Vierling
While I am 69 years old this year, I am actually embarking on my seventieth year………..and, that gives me pause. Because the past ten years have been so difficult for my family, I wanted to figure out how the next ten could be better. Giving it my best shot. And, I was determined to accomplish that by this upcoming birthday.
To that end I made lists, asked myself questions and pondered over ideas, plans and decisions. In the end my experiences guided my priorities. Since my kids had circled the wagons the past ten years to help me first care for Michael and then find my footing, I wanted to relieve them of me. I was determined that their life no longer revolve around my needs. Quite honestly, I also needed to flap my wings.
Returning to Aspen was the obvious choice but that presented, to my mind, insurmountable obstacles. My condo in Aspen, less than 1,000 square feet, was never meant for full-time living. What would I do with our belongings, years of memories, stuff? Do I sell our house in Nevada? The real estate market was in the tank. Most importantly, didn’t Thomas Wolfe remind us that you can’t go home again?
That was then and this is now. House sold. (Don’t ask. The answer is, “Alot.”) Our belongings are gone and my load is lighter. Make that, non existent. Surprisingly, I love everything about living here at The Gant. Aspen is just as I remember but better and without question, it’s where I belong.
Happy is sublime………especially when you’re turning sixty-nine.
If you’re interested in how my FFWD colleagues are celebrating our fourth year together, go here.
Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad (I substituted Israeli Couscous for the elusive Wheat Berry)
This Post almost didn’t meet the Friday deadline because I was waiting for this feed back.
“Oh, Mrs. Hirsch, that salad was great. We all loved it”
“Do you think I could have the recipe?”
“The dressing was just right, not too much. So often there’s too much dressing on a salad.”
“The tomatoes, avocados and hard-boiled eggs were perfect with it.”
It’s America’s Fourth of July Weekend. The Gant, where I live, is bursting at its seams with all 140 condos occupied by owners or paying customers. It’s a demanding weekend for the young people who work the front offices. That’s why I decided to make this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad, for their lunch today. Keeping in mind that hungry kids will look favorably on almost anything that’s freshly homemade (think of Mom), they do take seriously the responsibility of critiquing my “Dorie” recipes. No negatives this week, however. This hearty-meal-in-a-bowl, is a true winner.
An Aspen Food & Wine Festival classic coversation,”The Chef & the Rancher”, with (l to r) Chef Chris Cosentino, businesswoman Anya Fernald, Chef Mario Batali and Editor Dana Cowin.
One adaption. Not only was there no fireworks display on Aspen Mountain this week (too dry), there also was no wheat berry to be found in local grocery stores. I easily substituted Israeli Couscous for Wheat Berry. Other grains, like quinoa and farro, would work also. What makes this extra-delicious is the Dijon mustard vinaigrette. Besides the tuna and grain, the many veggies – celery, onion, bell pepper, greens, tomatoes, avocado – in addition to an apple and hard-boiled eggs, make for a substantial and colorful salad.
Food & Wine Magazine’s Best New Chefs, hard at work during the Grand Tasting at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival.
Just because I have not written about Aspen’s 31stFood & Wine Festival, which took place in mid-June, doesn’t mean I won’t. During the next few Posts, I will comment – providing my goods, bads and uglies.
Let me start by saying the two most impressive, forward-thinking speakers/chefs I heard were Anya Fernald and Marcus Samuelsson. No one else, to my thinking, came close.
Following Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s cooking class entitled “Meatball Master” at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival
Fernald is the CEO of several innovative agricultural companies in California, Belize and Uruguay. As the San Francisco Magazine wrote earlier this year, Belcampo, one of those companies, is “the retail arm of a larger operation unlike any other in the United States — one that includes not just a storefront but also a 10,000-acre farm in Shasta Valley and a slaughterhouse designed by animal welfare expert Temple Grandin. As chief executive officer of this multilayered business, Fernald enjoys a luxury unknown to other sustainably minded meat producers: control of every step in an animal’s march to market. Forget farm-to-table. Think of it as pasture-to-processing-to-plate.
‘We’re pretty much going balls to the wall here,” Fernald says. “But if you want to do the right thing while delivering a consistently superior product, that’s the way to do it. You’ve got to own more of the supply chain.’ ”
Chef Marcus Samuelsson talking with food writer Corby Kummer at the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival 2013
I knew little about Samuelsson, the owner and executive chef at Red Rooster Harlem. In 1995 he became the executive chef at Aquavit, the famed Scandinavian restaurant in Manhattan and went on to win numerous culinary awards including being crowned a champion on both TopChef Masters and Chopped (which, unfortunately, I don’t watch so am clueless about these honors).
Samuelsson was arguably the most accessible celebrity chef at the F&W, willing to hang around after his appearances to answer questions, sign autographs and pose for pictures. No fan was left wanting. He also participated in a one-on-one conversation at this week’s Aspen Institute’s annual Ideas Festival 2013. He was interviewed by Corby Kummer, a Senior Editor at the Atlantic magazine and one of the most widely read, authoritative, and creative food writers in the United States. The topic was “Cooking and Eating Your Way to a New Community,” which was an underlying theme at the F&W Festival also and one I will discuss often. I encourage you to read, Yes, Chef, Samuelsson’s bestselling memoir. Called “One of the great culinary stories of our time,” by Dwight Garner of The New York Times, I just received a copy, my bedtime reading tonight.
Chef Thomas Keller being interviewed at the AllClad Booth at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival
Hopefully you’ll make Wheat Berry and Tuna Salad for your friends or family this summer. To see how my colleagues felt about this week’s recipe, go here. This salad was an assignment for French Fridays with Dorie, an international cooking group working its way through Ms. Greenspan’s Around My French Table.
The Palisade peach trees are being ambushed by the grape vines. The Grand Valley of Colorado, as this area is called, is the heart of Colorado’s ambitious and growing fruit and wine industry.
For me, carottes râpées and céleri rémoulade are the quintessential French bistro cruditiés, the fancy French word for raw salad. I’ve made these two recipes for years. Just take two rather ugly garden root vegetables, peel and shred, toss in a few extra ingredients and you’ve gone all exotic with your upcoming dinner menu.
A pound of newly-minted carrots just purchased at our Sunday Farmers Market.
Or, so I thought, asa young, rather Plain Jane cook in my kitchen. This week’s French Friday With Dorie recipe choice is Dorie’s delicious and versatile take on that café-style grated carrot salad. Serve it as a starter, side or snack. Slip it in a lunch box or pack for a picnic. It’s nutritious, filling and quickly made.
I needed a quickly-made something this week because I finally am making that long-anticipated move, at least until Thanksgiving, back to Colorado. For the past eight years my trips have been in the necessary flash-and-dash mode. I’d drive the ten-hour trip, stopping only for gas, in one day, stay in Aspen for three, and return the long albeit beautiful 510 miles the next. Each journey would end with my thinking, “Too old for this.”
This journey, no pressure, I could savor and enjoy. I left the still-darkened Henderson/Las Vegas area, as usual, at 5 A.M., the temperature was already 87 degrees. Since I lost an hour, due to the Pacific/Mountain time change, I arrived hungry in Green River, Utah at 1 P.M. While this community of less than 1000 residents may be a mecca for white water rafting (the Green River is the chief tributary of the Colorado River), the town itself is pathetically depressed with a boarded-up, for sale or rent, decapitated and delapitated main drag.
What’s not to love about Ray’s Tavern, a well-worn fixture in Green River, Utah.
Except for Ray’s Tavern. The destination-of-choice and only legitimate hang-out for, to quote Emma Lazarus, the tired, poor, hungry and huddled masses, Ray’s is a model for small town-institution. As one blogger put it, “The place is so authentic it doesn’t even have a website.” It’s a Jane and Michael Stern, Guy Fieri sort-of-place. It didn’t disappoint. Still crowded, authentic and hilarious, I sat at the 18‘ long community table to enjoy my teriyaki chicken sandwich, skins-intact fries and homemade slaw. As another blogger put it, “If for some godforsaken reason you happen to end up in Green River, Utah, then you might as well go to Ray’s Tavern.“
Two hours laterI reached my overnight destination, the tiny, vibrant Colorado community of Palisade. Population, 3,000. With its 78% sunshine average and 182-day growing season, it’s proudly billed as “The Peach Capital of Colorado”. This week-end, Palisade is strutting its fuzzy stuff with their 44th Annual Palisade Peach Festival.
Writing this, I have just checked into the Wine Country Inn, a lovely, faux-Victorian 80-room, wine-themed hotel built in 2007**. (**Nope, no perks, not free, always pay retail.) Set at the base of the Bookcliffs and next door to two wineries, the Inn is packed with Colorado peaches-on-their-mind tourists. Tonight I head to Main Street for the kick-off event, an Ice Cream Social and Street Dance. The peach sundaes are free, the Peach Queen will be crowned, recipes judged, pie-eating contests to begin, and the band will play on-and-on. Reminiscent of Manchester, Iowa, where I was raised, this is small town America at the ultimate and I couldn’t be happier. This year’s theme? “Life’s a Peach”. That’s true.
Let’s first return to this week’s recipe which can be found here. As I was saying, it’s simple. I made it Sunday to join an American hamburger and British ale for my international supper while watching the Olympics closing ceremonies. My only suggestions:
It’s easy to grate the carrots in a food processor.
One pound of carrots makes an ample supply of delicious carrot salad. The French like it plain, Dorie says, but she suggests we may add raisins, nuts and parsley. If one’s good, three is better. I added everything!
An All-American hamburger and French salad and………..
Pub Ale for a perfect supper to close the Olympics and salute the Brits for a job well done.
If possible, buy Farmer’s Market carrots with a little dirt still clinging.
In a hurry? Use the processor to grate the carrots and make the dressing.
If the carrots weep, don’t you cry, just wring them dry.
Although the French eat this “naked”, I added, at Dorie’s suggestion, raisins, roughly-cut walnuts and chopped fresh parsley this time. More nutritious. Yummy.
One pound (5 large carrots) makes “beaucoup de” (lots of) salad. It took the neighborhood to get me packed and loaded for my Colorado trip so I shared with them.
Palisade, Colorado
Wine Country Inn, Palisade, Colorado
To see what my other French Friday with Dorie colleagues grated up this week, go to this Site.
Being Foodies, we all know the Games of the XXX Olympiad cannot officially begin until we have our menu planned for tonight’s opening ceremonies. Luckily this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe choice, with a tweak or two, fits nicely into my All-American lineup.
The star is Barley, which Dorie calls “an odd-man-out kind of grain” in the French (and, American) kitchen. Also called “groats”, barley is a hardy, earthy grain, commonly used for animal fodder and beer. This week we’re using its most polished version, Pearl Barley, to create Lemon Barley Pilaf. Since we are still suffering 110 degree temperatures here, I preferred Dorie’s Bonne Idee and made a cold Ham & Barley Salad.
A delicious cold Summer entrée: HAM and BARLEY SALAD.
I cooked the barley, as suggested, and let it cool to room temperature before putting it in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, I cored, seeded and cut one red bell pepper into small cubes and sliced a dozen black olives. I tossed that together with 3 cups of diced ham (a 1 1/2 pound center-cut slab) and refrigerated it also.
A look at the butter, finely chopped onion, salt, pepper and pearl barley as it initially cooks before the broth, water and bay leaf are added.
For the dressing, I made a lusty whole-grain mustard vinaigrette:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons whole-grain Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1-2 teaspoons salt (since the ham is salty, back off a bit, if you wish)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3-4 drops of Sriracha
Directions:
In a small bowl, whisk together all the ingredients until thoroughly blended. Chill. Just before serving, pour lightly over the combined barley, ham and vegetables until thoroughly coated and to taste.
This salad will make 4 ample servings. I plan to add sliced heirloom tomatoes (seasoned), chunks of American swiss cheese, and crusty country bread to the plate. Beer, wine or soda all compliment this menu.
After adding the broth, water and bay leaf, everything comes to a boil and then simmers, covered, for 45 minutes (longer than Dorie suggested).
You can’t miss the Olympics, even if you try. NBC will broadcast 272 1/2 hours, starting with the opening ceremony tonight (Friday). MSNBC has 155 1/2 hours with NBC Sports picking up 292 1/2 hours of team sports. CNBC has 73 hours of boxing. Bravo has 56 hours of tennis. There’s more: NBCOlympics.com will live stream every event for a record total of 5,535 hours.
With memories of and honoring the Israeli athletes murdered forty years ago at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, my wish is for a safe, harmonious, and peaceful global competition during the next two weeks.
I’ll be hooting and hollering for my country’s athletes just as other FFWD bloggers, Paula, Andrea, Mardi, Rose, and Cakelaw, to name a few, are cheering for theirs.
