Latest Articles by Sarah Canice Funke
This summer, Evan, Heidi, Laura and I made the fun investment of a share in the Food Project. For a mere $450 (divided four ways), we get a box of fresh produce every week. It's like Christmas because they give you whatever they've got. I love opening the box each week and discovering an eggplant (which made a delicious parmesan dish), or a tomato, or the type of salad greens my mom refers to as "weeds." We also get exotic stuff like swiss chard and some stuff that looks like cabbage. We've also been getting gallons and gallons of scallions. There is only so much you can do to keep pace with the scallions before giving up and reaching for the breathmints in defeat.
This week we got peppers and summer squash and beets and cucumbers and green beans in addition to the ubiquitous scallions. But we also got a whole bunch of dill, mint, cilantro and some other herb that might be parsley. Yikes! I'm not sure what to do with all these herbs, short of drying them. I have one cucumber, but I'm not sure that's enough to make pickles. I guess I could make one pickle. Or perhaps some dilled deviled eggs. I wish I were used to cooking with so much abundance.
A gang of select few celebrated Evan's 24th birthday by attempting to find some 18 year old scotch at Jacob Wirth. It was tradition, as Evan had been there for his 23rd and I had been for my 26th birthdays. But unfortunately the kitchen was in the final throes of closing as we arrived, so we hunted down the excellent Thai restaurant in the vicinity and made do with Lotus wine instead (an amazing white with nearly no tannic bite).
We attempted to find some scotch at Dorchester's own Blarney Stone, but the world was inside the bar attempting to watch the Celtics win the championship. We didn't get our scotch and the Celtics didn't win. But nevermind, Evan and I managed to finish I'm Not There at my place.
I'm none the wiser regarding meaning of the film, but at least I know that Cate Blanchett did an amazing job.
Do you find yourself making cakes that your family eats but not with hearty enthusiasm? The secret to baking perfect, delectable cakes is....
~A line from the cookbook we saw at the castle in the clouds.
*********************
It is probably not a good idea to make a pumpkin pie from scratch when the only instrument you have to puree the pumpkin with is a fork. If you don't have a blender, you are better off walking down to your local QuickieMart, picking up a can of Just-Add-Milk-and-Eggs filling, and starting all over again. Sigh. Sometimes my culinary aspirations outstrip my skills....
EDIT: I looked at the pie and realized that the problem was not in the pumpkin puree consistency. That fork seems to have worked. The problem was that I used this weird substitute for evaporated milk that didn't work very well. So I still have some of the pumpkin left and I will try a pie again later this week. For now, though, my pie-in-a-can looks pretty sweet.
Ruth has connections who tell her about Things. So last night, we went exploring Denver's downtown in search of exotic adventure. We found it at the Ethiopian Restaurant on Colfax.
My sketchy knowledge of Ethiopia is made up of entangled bits of Coptic history and Rastafarian diaspora. But I had no idea what Ethiopians ate.
This is not our plate, but looks close enough. First a large platter came to us. The platter was covered by a flat, very spongy bread smelling strongly of vinegar or pungent sourdough. The waiter then poured over the flat bread a variety of meats (pork, lamb, chicken) and legumes (lentils, split peas). We each had our very own hard-boiled egg. We were so full that we nearly forgot our cabbage and potato dish, but that would have been a culinary tragedy. The pseudo-Irish dish was really the best part, with tender potatoes and flavorful steamed cabbage.
With the exception of the bread, Ethiopian food is not very intense in flavor. Even the "spicy" dishes were a bit on the bland side. But the experience was interesting enough that I might be tempted to try it again. It's no Indian curry, but flatbread and lamb could be a dish I might grow to love over time.
After our Ethiopian foray, we browsed The Tattered Cover, a sizable bookstore also on Colfax Street. While in search of the bathrooms (using the large suspended Harry Potter broomstick as a navigational landmark through the giant store), we inadvertently crashed a book reading. Or rather, we tried to sneak quietly past, but the bathroom door creaked in a very conspicuous fashion.
Then we walked across the way to Twist and Shout, an independent music store. I stocked up on selections ranging from Bob Marley to Modest Mouse.
1 bottle of white wine
1/10 lb. of horse radish
1/20 lb. of iron filings
1/4 tsp. ginger
"As a remedy in anaemia or stomach troubles, this preparation will be found efficacious."
The Art of German Cooking and Baking: Genuine German Cooking and Baking, by Lina Meier
Note: no recipes found for Pearl Jam, although in season, an easy substitute might be made with Pears.
Detailed instructions for "Who Could Skin a Rabbit" follow the section on Pork.
To someone fascinated by history, interesting artifacts can be found within one's own family. I was browsing through my grandmother's cookbooks and she brought out a volume of German cookery that had been owned by her great-aunt. I was somewhat amused by a chapter devoted entirely to "Cooking for Invalids," complete with detailed instructions on appeal and heath:
"Meals should never be prepared in the sickroom, because the air becomes vitiated, and the noise and activity inseparable from the work itself is annoying to the patient, and is apt to diminish whatever appetite he may happen to have...Never bring more victuals into the sickroom than are necessary to supply present needs, because the air in the room and the exhalations from the patient act deleteriously upon the food and may prove dangerous."
The book cautions against soliciting a patient's desires regarding food, but I'm not sure I would be clamoring for Fried Calf's Brain on my sickbed...
Back in 1922, when the cookbook was published, the care of invalids took place largely in the home. (Only the poor went to hospitals...now it seems to be the other way round?) My great-grandmother contracted tuberculosis and had to be nursed back to health in a glass-paned room, quarantined from the rest of the house. Illness was a common element of life. Reminds me of Victorian parlor songs, in which numerous children or young mothers are always dying. At first the sentimentality seems maudlin, but death was always a present reality to the singers of these songs. And in the days before funeral homes, the young women were often the ones responsible for laying out the bodies.
The cookbook also elicited stories regarding my grandmother's three spinster great-aunts. Tales of parlors and servants evoke worlds I can only imagine.
A Facebook group for people whose parents used history books as motivation towards proper nutrition...
There is no such group, but the thought of it makes me laugh. My gums were bleeding as I brushed my teeth last night and I worried I might fall apart at the seams, literally. So I went to the grocery store and stocked up on orange juice and vegetables.
...the chinook is blowing. Aslan is on the move. It might as well be spring.
And I achieved a tremendous amount of domestic production today: cookies, bread, and potatoes au gratin.
My family likes to call the latter Rotten Potatoes (not to be confused with the film critic site Rotten Tomatoes). Somewhere in our distant past, when one or all of us were young, a certain member of my family thought my mother was saying "the potatoes are rotten" when she set the dish before us. And so the name stuck.
I had a Paradise for the first time last night. Some friends spent Reading Week in Cuba and discovered them. It's all about the Banana rum. Coconut rum ends up tasting like suntan lotion. Hmmm.
(The version I had contained banana rum, banana liqueur, and sprite. I don't remember the measurements, though. Other versions call for Malibu rum, but like I said, it's not as good.)
An epistolary approach to luddism...
Sarah C. Funke wrote:
Dearest Mother,
Would you mind sending me Nixie's recipe for chocolate chip cookies (or maybe it was not her recipe). But anyway, the recipes I get off the internet turn out too cakey and not good and chewy AT ALL. What am I doing wrong??
Signed,
Dejectedly Disappointed with her Cookies....
Joan C. Funke wrote:
Dear Dejectedly Disappointed,
You may be putting too much flour in your cookies. When they are too flat and gooey here we have to put flour in them so they are not wafer thin with choc-chip bones sticking out of them. Also, the recipe calls for baking SODA, not baking POWDER. If you used the latter it could have caused caky cookies.
Here is Nixie's famous Choco-chip cookie recipe:
Cream together:
[removed to protect secret family recipe from internet dispersion]
Add and mix thoroughly:
[removed in the spirit of great-grandmother who would deliberately withhold key ingredients in recipe exchanges, for the sake of maintaining secret knowledge of fabulous culinary arts.]
Add and mix thoroughly:
21/4 Cups all purpose flour
1tsp baking SODA
Hand mix into batter:
120z pkg. chocolate chips (2 Cups)
Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes
Love you,
Mums
Sarah C. Funke wrote:
aHa! The recipe not from Nixie but from the internet had me use THREE cups of flour, a circumstance I found a trifle odd at the time because I had to add water to get everything to mix together, but that is what you get for using the internet instead of tried and true family recipes. Thanks!!! And after I finish off my two dozen rather cakey cookies, I will try this anew.
Love,
Heavenly Hopeful
Joan C. Funke wrote:
Three Cups O' Flour. That's way too much. Maybe you could dunk the cookies in milk before you eat them. Like for 2 days.
Kiss, Kiss
Mums
I ran across this today and determined to make one for myself over the holidays. I might also try my hand at the fifth-northian ipod cozy thing as well.
Ah, I love great ideas that are easily copy-able.
Also, the reason my sidebar got messed up was that I attempted to add this to the sidebar:
And it (the resulting image) was too wide.
Calvin (of the comic strip variety and not, as my fellow Reformed friends might think, the theologian) once said that Mother is the necessity of invention. He was referring to the creative ways in which a mischievous six-year-old explains broken lamps. However, for me, the phrase should be modified somewhat: the lack of mother is the necessity of invention. Getting ready to leave for the summer means that I am reluctant to buy any more food, because it will all just go to waste anyway. Which means that I have been surviving on some rather interesting meals scraped together from the remnants of the rapidly diminishing kitchen supplies. Some of it was, shall we say, dining not catered toward attracting guests. Other meals have been surprisingly good; I might even try making the chile rellano with tuna fish and tomato sauce-based dressing again sometime. I am now eating the last of my lentils and some fried bread. I am beginning to be a firm believer in the value of fried bread. It works wonders for stale and otherwise unappealing grain products; all you have to do is line a pan with a douse of oil and fry the offending object away. Since only a smidgeon of oil is needed, the fat content is probably less than that of a buttered slice of toast. And it reminds me of the taste of home-made doughnuts, fresh from the griddle, without the lead-like feeling one gets in the stomach from indulging in such heavy fare. Plus, it uses my oil up, since I seem to have purchased the widow's supply. I've had this same particular bottle since September and no matter how close I come to finishing it all, there is still one drop left. I still have enough for a couple more panfries. Finally, since the cinammon on my hands appears to have no reliable source of expenditure, I decided to see what happened when I put some in my tea. Quite delicious. I recommend the new method to all and sundry.
If you'll excuse me, my Simon and Garfunkel is nearly done burning...with enough music to last unrepeated for 3.7 days straight, I am about done with the important bits of the "pop" music section of my collection...my heart faints at the sight of my classical section...but can I really survive the summer without all 32 of Beethoven's sonatas and nine of his symphonies to say the least?
6:06pm
I received a friend request from a random person on last.fm. My initial reaction on reading the notification email was "Oh great. Some teenage boy who does nothing but read Catcher in the Rye all day and listen to Dinosaur Jr. wants to be my friend." I made this prejudiced statement because apparently this is what quite a lot of last.fm users do. While all the teenage girls go to xanga, their boyfriends set up last.fm pages. However, the offer of friendship came from a Canadian art history student who was a reasonable 23 years old. I reciprocated. Time will tell where this relationship will lead. At least I was flattered that someone above the age of 15 was interested in reading my journal entries.
Because some people seem to like White Russians, I am drinking one and watching The Godfather. I liked the merlot I had for dinner better. I am just not cut out for cocktails.
On second thought, the ice just added to the drink has enhanced its quality immensely. Maybe I really do like vodka, kalua, and cream after all.
I saw this today at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center:
It was inspired by Beatles' music. I approve.
Peter Max. Creator of 60s Psychedelia.
Today marks the success of two hitherto untried culinary attempts (at least, in my apartment kitchen): whole wheat rolls and homemade apple sauce. Someone in my family used to call the latter dish apple socks. It was probably Christa, but time has passed into legend and legend into myth. My memory fades. But the rolls and socks are good.
Although you don't have to live in Flint to appreciate this.
I am eating a dinner of beef, potatoes, and peppers.
Now, normally food costs a lot. Especially meat. How does one make a dollar (especially if it is Canadian) stretch further?
Filler food: the Irish discovered it (we won't say first, because I believe they got it from the Native Americans) in the form of the potato. Buy a 20 pound sack. It will last a while (unless you happen to be feeding 12 mouths, or something).
Then, fry up your beef (you can get ground beef fairly inexpensively). Microwave your potatoes for five minutes or so. Throw them in the pan when the beef is thoroughly cooked. Chop up some peppers (I've been finding day old packages on the bargain shelf in the back corner of the produce section. The produce is just fine, usually). Throw them in as well. If you want your peppers cooked more, just start frying them earlier, in a seperate pan, and add them later when the beef is cooked.
Presto! Voila! If you add enough potatoes, then the meal expands from two servings to three to four.....
The meal is not fancy. But it tastes good. It's easy. And it's cheap.
Enjoy!
If one can't be a domestic goddess, then one can at least avoid becoming a domestic gargoyle. And so I offer these oft overlooked but extremely practical tips that help any culinary prosletyte attain the Fields of Elysium.
*Do not remove the lid from the popcorn pan whilst the popcorn still poppeth. Not unless you are one of those leisured souls who has tired of 52 pick-up and wants to try something different.
*If microwaving a potato, as I highly recommend all potato chefs to try, as the method is quite satisfactory, remember to puncture the skin with the cut of a knife, prior to commencing the heating process. If the building steam finds no escape route preordained, it will accordingly exercise its own free will in the matter. The results are, again, of the sort that only leisured souls might care to indulge in.
*If preparing a chile relleno, read carefully whatsoever labels do identify the chosen peppers. Do not take for granted that simply because the pepper is long and green, it is therefore an Anaheim and not a Jalepeņo.
*If, in the event that the previous hint was peremptorily ignored, and one's upper palate and tongue are suffering for the arrogance of the mind, simply douse a moderate amount of salt upon the dish. Salt cuts the fire quite effectively.
*When baking bread without a timer, mark the minutes by chatting online, and placing the whole burden of memory on the shoulders of the Other. Choose a time 15 or 20 minutes into the future, and ask the participant in the online conversation to remind you to remove the bread before the house burns down (since you have already calculated the time that such an event would require, you communicate the necessary details at this point).
*Capitulate to the modern necessity of measuring cups. If you possess not these vital culinary utensils, purchase them immediately. Cookies that resembleth cakes are palatable to no one.
I went to the famer's market today on my way back from invigilating a test. The market sells organic foods under a little tent pitched close to my bus stop. I purchased not the head of a wild boar, but rather a ham. I cooked it with potatoes and peppers and served it with salad. All it needs is a nice merlot. But I haven't a wine opener. So I imagine.
My milk glopped into my cereal bowl this morning. I glopped it into the sink. I went to the store this afternoon. I bought my milk by the pint, something I've never had to do before ("they come in pints?").
Last night we ate out, in a little restaurant called The Old Stone Church. The building's original function had been the care of the soul, but recent economic conditions have transformed that telos into a care of the body. We were seated in the choir loft, but under explicit instructions NOT to grace the rest of the patrons with any attempts at psalmody or antiphony. And I was so looking forward to testing those acoustics.
My grandfather ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir. I enjoyed half of a half duck (those birds are bigger than they look), and took the rest home for further enjoyment. I briefly considered elk ribs or venison tenderloin, being in an exotic mood, but finally decided that duck was daring enough for one evening.
Cooking brings out the inner resourcefulness in us all, such as when we find out halfway through preparing dinner that we don't have all the ingredients for the dish and must change what we do have into something else before it burns to a crisp on the stove. Fortunately last night, such a trick was fairly simple. We were going to have taco salad. I open the fridge to retrieve the lettuce in order to give it a thorough washing, and discover only a single, wilted head. Very sad. A quick check of the fridge reveals that we do have tortillas, so we have plain tacos instead.
My grandfather is visiting us this weekend. He is able to come for the first time in 12 years because he no longer has to care for my grandmother. The occasion? My youngest sister is giving a farewell piano recital before heading off to school (she's going to Cedarville, darn it). Speaking of piano playing, I need to work on my hand exercises again. I have gotten lazy about doing them. I was able to play a little Chopin the other day, and was encouraged by the sign of progress.
I spent the greater part of the morning organizing my photos from Oxford. Apparently, I had taken quite a few pictures of St. Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny, Ireland. My last weekend in the UK was spent on a pilgrimage of sorts. My grandmother's name was Canice. My middle name is Canice. Even as a little girl, I wanted to have an obiturary that reads like hers, to carry on the legacy. Perhaps I felt that visiting the Cathedral would help me process her death. I can't figure out where she is exactly. My imagination is a little taxed when I try to come to terms with the logistics of how she remains a part of my life still. Heaven is a very fine designation, but how geographic is it? I want to know.
Went to Sainsbury today, because it is closer than Tesco.
Within the walls containing sundry examples of UK comestibles, I purchased the following:
2 packages of mini Cornish pasties
2 containers of cherry tomatoes
4-pack of Guiness Original, St James's Gate Dublin
1 loaf four-cheese bread, fresh baked
2 packages of milk chocolate digestive biscuits
Apple and black current juice drink
1 bar fruit and nut plain (i.e., dark) chocolate bar
1 jar Nutella
Hmm...
Out of curiosity, I checked on the peanut butter, since I am now out of all the stuff I smuggled in from the States...such sorry, sickly, yellowish, greasy paste I have never seen...hence the addition of Nutella to my shopping basket.
An excursion to the Cotswald today took me through the quintissential English countryside, complete with stone cottages, wooden gates, trimmed hedges, sheep, church spires, large estates, one-way lanes used as two, and spreading trees. Our winding drive took us to Chipping Camden, notably to a little tea shop entitled "Badger Hall." Quite cozy in its dimensions, the cottage sat six tables, perhaps, and the family dog watched us from the stairs just to the side. Being under six feet tall was an advantage today; the dark-timbered roofs were rather low.
Creamy carrot soup, brown bread, scones, tea, lemon drizzle cake, and chocolate curl sponge comprised our meal. Stirring milk into English Breakfast while sitting in a cottage while the dog watches makes one feel both elegant and homey. A nice combination of affects. Prior to our repast, we had toured the old book shop, and I added to the growing collection of "Things That Will Make My Suitcase Heavy When I Return." Oh well. If I must leave some of my clothes behind when I return home, so be it.
