Thanks for Thanksgiving

Photo courtesy of Joe Duran a.k.a. Uncle Joe

I’m sitting by the window on a rainy autumn day.  The leaves have fallen from the trees, save for a few stragglers, and I already miss the way the vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds look against dark branches and blue skies.

This is comfort-food weather and a homemade soup is gurgling on the stove while I listen to a talk radio show about the origins of Thanksgiving.  One of the guests is food historian Andrew F. Smith who dedicates a chapter of his book, Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine, to the real Thanksgiving story.  I hear him say that the Pilgrim-centric Thanksgiving story is a complete myth (no surprise) but I'm flummoxed when I realize how little I know about the holiday I've celebrated every year since I can remember.

It is true that in 1621 the Pilgrims and a group of local Indians shared a meal together, but it was unplanned.  The colonists had just harvested their crops and the then-governor declared it a holiday.  This happened concurrent with a treaty signing between the English colonists and local Native American tribe of which ninety members paid a surprise visit to the colony and shared in the festivities to consummate the treaty.  But this was not a regular occurrence and it was not referred to as Thanksgiving.  Rather, the Pilgrims celebrated many days of “thanksgiving,” a tradition with religious underpinnings that the Europeans brought with them to the New World and which entailed spending the day in solemn worship.

Over the course of the next two hundred years, the religious tradition of giving thanks to God after the fall harvest became more secularized.  In 1841, Alexander Young, a Unitarian minister, published a research paper about the colonists, adding commentary in a footnote that the 1621 event was the first of many Thanksgiving feasts.

Twenty-two years later, Sarah Josepha Hale, a writer who believed that if the nation celebrated a holiday together (at the time there were only two national holidays, George Washington’s birthday and the Fourth of July), its people were destined to be united in all things.  She thusly published a novel in which she wrote a scene about a quintessentially festive dinner of roasted turkey, cranberries and pies, the model for the modern-day Thanksgiving meal.

Hale gained notoriety and became an influential writer and editor with a broad readership.  Over the years, she successfully lobbied Congress and other politicians to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday.  In August of 1863,  at the height of the Civil War and just after the battles at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, victories for which the North was surely thankful, President Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday.

All of this makes me reflect on how traditions and cuisines evolve over time, shaped by socio-political trends and cultural milieux like beach glass smoothed by ocean waves.  I think about how this happens when immigrants arrive and assimilate in any new country.  According to Smith, the

[r]apid adoption of the Thanksgiving myth has less to do with historical fact and more to do with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  In the face of this great wave of immigrants from so many lands, the public education system’s major task was to Americanize them by creating a common understanding of the nation’s history, in particular an easily understood history of America.

America is a melting pot, as the saying goes, and I'm thankful for its diversity of people and ideas, important ingredients in an open and democratic society.  I'm also very grateful to be the product of two cultures and for all the perspective that this affords me.  And while Thanksgiving isn't the result of two different communities coming together in appreciation of their cultural differences as we were taught in grade school, I nonetheless appreciate the evolution of a holiday that brings people together to share a home-cooked meal.

So, this year, I say thanks for Thanksgiving!

A Salsa Challenge

In the U.S., most restaurants serve a variation of salsa ranchera and sometimes salsa verde, but there are many other exquisite and nuanced salsas to explore.  Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico contains recipes for over twenty different salsas, including a fiery salsa de chile habanero.  She writes

It would be unthinkable to sit down to an authentic Mexican meal and not find a dish of sauce or some pickled jalapeños on the table; they are as common as salt and pepper.  I suppose it is not surprising given the great variety of chiles that are cultivated--and some grow wild--throughout Mexico.  There is a great difference, too, in the heat level, color, taste in chiles both fresh and dried.  The ways in which chiles are prepared, and the ingredients with which they are combined, are highly regional...I doubt that any other cuisine has such a variety of "condiments."

I enjoy making homemade salsas.  I find that the taste tends to vary slightly with each batch, the outcome dependent upon the ripeness of the tomatoes, the types and amounts of chiles I use and whether the vegetables are roasted or blended raw.

Homemade salsas, whether green or red, raw or roasted are utterly fresh.  Which is why it's hard to understand the seemingly huge demand for bottled salsas sold in stores.  (Some even claim that salsa outsells ketchup as America's favorite condiment!)  It takes very little time to blend the vegetables raw or roast them first and throw them into a blender.

Readers are hereby challenged to reach for the fresh tomatoes, tomatillos and chiles in lieu of who-knows-how-long-they've-been-on-the shelf bottled salsas!  Here are a few recipes to get you started:

Salsa Three Ways

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Recipe Type: Salsa

Author: Gilda Claudine

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients

• 5 Ripe Tomatoes


• 5 tomatillos


• 2 avocados


• 1 habanero


• 2 Jalapeños or chiles serranos


• Cilantro


• 1 small onions


• 1 clove garlic


• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. On a comal or cast iron pan without oil, roast the tomatoes and chiles.


2. Once the vegetables charred, cool and remove some of the burnt skin.

Salsa de Habanero

1. Place 1/2 of a habanero (de-seed for less heat), 1/2 clove of garlic, 1/4 raw onion and 3 large tomatoes in a blender or food processor.


2. Blend until the ingredients are smooth.


3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Salsa Roja

1. Place 2 jalapeños, 1/2 clove of garlic, two large tomatoes, a bunch of cilantro in a blender or food processor.


2. Blend until the ingredients are smooth.


3. Add salt and pepper to taste

Salsa Verde with Aguacate

1. Place roasted tomatillos, roasted serrano peppers, 1/2 clove of garlic, a bunch of cilantro, 1/4 onion (optional) and 2 ripe avocados in blender or food processor.


2. Blend until smooth.


3. Add salt and pepper to taste

Notes

A few things to keep in mind:
The jalapeños and serranos can be used interchangeably.
Adjust the spice level accordingly by using more or less chiles in each recipe.
The salsas may be stored in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.

Chila-Migas

There is quite a bit of debate about the differences between chilaquiles and migas.  They are both considered Mexican comfort foods and are made with some combination of corn tortillas, salsa, cheese and eggs, depending on whom you ask.  Some argue that it has to do with the way the tortillas are fried and when the salsa is added.  Others contend that chilaquiles are made with eggs and baked while migas are simply fried tortillas with onions, cheese and salsa.  Is this a regional dispute?  A case for a panel of Food Network judges?  The stuff that family feuds are made of?  Even Gilda "La Madrina" and I can't seem to agree.

During a recent discussion about this, Gilda remembered that she had written down my mother's recipe for chilaquiles while my mother dictated it to her over the phone--when they were teenagers!  Gilda dug around and found the recipe.  Written in pencil and the page now yellowed, the instructions are vague and fail to settle the question of whether chilaquiles and migas are different interpretations of the same dish.

I remember my mother frying triangles of corn tortillas with onion, then adding salsa and scrambled eggs.  She called this dish chilaquiles, not migas.  I have made the dish pretty much the same way over the years.   But in honor of the recipe as dictated and written by two best friends over 40 years ago, I have deviated from my usual practice.  This is the result and, as is the prerogative of a daughter/ahijada, I have renamed this dish Chila-migas.

What is the tradition in your family?  Are you a chilaquiles purist or a migas connoisseur?  Enlighten us!

Chila-Migas

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Recipe Type: Breakfast

Author: Gilda Claudine

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup of Canola oil


• 1/2 chopped onion


• 1 tomato, diced


• 1 serrano or jalapeño pepper, chopped


• 5 corn tortillas


• 6 eggs


• Salt and pepper to taste


• Queso fresco or queso cotija, about 1/2 cup or more

Instructions

1. In a heavy skillet, heat half of the oil.


2. Sweat the onions, tomato and pepper and set aside when done (about 10 minutes).


3. Cut 5 tortillas into triangles.


4. Add the rest of the oil to the skillet and, when hot, fry the tortillas.


5. Remove the tortillas with a slotted spoon/spatula and drain on a paper towel.


6. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.


7. Return the tortillas to skillet, layering the bottom with them.


8. Add tomato mixture and another "layer" of tortillas.


9. Whisk the eggs and add to the skillet, allowing them to cook.


10. Add salt and pepper to taste.


11. When the eggs are cooked halfway through, remove from the burner.


12. Add the desired amount of cheese and place skillet in the oven.


13. The chila-migas are ready when the cheese is melted and the eggs are cooked through.


14. Serve with slices of avocado, red or green salsa, and garnish with chiles.

Notes

I chose to sauté the onion, tomatoes and chiles and did not add salsa to the dish. Adding a red or green salsa when layering the tortillas in the skillet is optional. If you choose not to add salsa at this stage, serve the dish with a side of salsa.

A Quesadilla Commentary

I can't figure out why restaurants offer quesadillas on their menus so different from those found closer to the border and in Mexico proper.  I am not opposed to new twists on traditional foods or even so-called fusion foods (unlike La Madrina, who is much more of a traditionalist than I am), but why mess with a good thing?

Dear American Restauranteurs, a quesadilla is not baked in an oven like a pizza.  It is not cheddar and monterrey jack and mozzarella cheeses layered between two flour tortillas and grilled like a panini.  It is not even a prodigious serving of cheese, chicken and onions stuffed in a flour tortilla.  And it is most definitely not goopy, make-believe cheese (read: nacho cheese sauce) in a cripsy flour tortilla and deep-fried.

Quesadillas are quintessentially uncomplicated, which is why it seems almost absurd to include a recipe here.  Of course, in Mexico some variations are found, perhaps the addition of huitlacoche, a corn fungus and delicacy, for example.  The essence of the quesadilla remains the same, however: simple and savory.

As a parent, quesadillas, are my go-to food.  They are easy to prepare and children really do love them.  But I usually make them with corn, not flour, tortillas and just a sliver—not mounds—of cheese, either Mexican asadero or queso fresco when I can find it. This is the way my mother and grandmother made them, always with a spill of salsa or a heap of aguacate (avocado) on the side.  For my kids, I skip lo picante (the spice) but serve with avocado or fruit instead.

Mexican Quesadillas

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Recipe Type: Appetizer, Snack

Author: Gilda Claudine

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 1 - 2

Ingredients

• Corn tortillas


• 3 slices of cheese, preferably Mexican asadero or queso fresco.

Instructions

1. Heat the tortillas on a comal or in heavy skillet over a medium flame.


2. Place a slice of cheese on one half of the tortilla.


3. When the cheese begins to melt, fold the tortilla over.


4. Flip the tortilla to the other side.


5. The quesadilla is done when the cheese is melted.

Notes

There is no need to use oil in this recipe.

Eye-of-the-Storm Enfrijoladas

Beans.  They’ve been on my mind.  Specifically, pintos that, in a refried state, rank high on my list of comfort foods.  This is probably because my grandmother always had a pot on the stove.  Always.

She served them with everything: with fried eggs for breakfast, mounded next to enchiladas at lunch, slathered across a tostada for a snack and dolloped on a milanesa-dominated plate for dinner. But my favorite variation? My grandmother’s enfrijoladas, corn tortillas warmed on a comal, then dredged through mashed, refried beans and topped with a crumbling of queso fresco.

As I’ve mentioned before, I spent my summers and different periods of my life living in Laredo with my grandmother.  I wish I’d paid closer attention to the world then.  I didn't know until years after I'd left Laredo, for example, that my grandmother's house was located in the "El Cuatro" section of Laredo, west of downtown.  The battered barrio has historical significance and recently caught the attention of The National Trust for Historic Preservation.

As a child growing up, I probably knew on some visceral level that most of the buildings on Lincoln Street were dilapidated.  But I was oblivious to the fact that the area was home to some of Laredo's poorest families, including my own.

A Spanish colonist founded Laredo in 1755.  Laredo remained a part of New Spain until the land port was ceded to the United States in 1848 at the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.  Another historical tidbit that I learned on one of my visits to Laredo as an adult:  in the late 19th century, Fort Macintosh (now the site of the Laredo Community College and one of my childhood "playgrounds") was home to some of the first peace-time, African American U. S. Army units known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

El Cuatro was another early barrio which sprang up west of the centro. The name, El Cuatro, was derived from the city voting precinct in which the barrio was located - the "Fourth Ward." Many early residents were employed with the railroads, and their box-shaped board and batten houses are still present throughout the neighborhood. Due to its proximity to Fort McIntosh, the neighborhood attracted a small enclave of blacks. For a short time in 1865, the post was manned by a company of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry. Since that time a number of black units were stationed at the fort, including Company K of the Black Twenty-fifth U.S. Infantry in 1906. The soldiers' families and their descendants made their homes in El Cuatro and the small barrio across the tracks called El Tonto. Saint James Tabernacle and the Grayson school remain as the only architectural relics of Laredo's black history. (http://tiny.cc/xlyx5)

I don't recall learning about Laredo's rich history while I was in school there and I wonder now whether it was taught at all.

Also out of my intellectual reach at the time were the complexities of life.  My grandmother was the matriarch of a sprawling family and ran a household that was made for a high-ratings reality show.  There was always a stream of visitors, old friends from Mexico, cousins from California or my assorted aunts and uncles and their children, some of whom also lived with us.  There were borders at the house from time-to-time.  A man named Cecil who parked his car in front and stamped out social security cards from the back of his camper. The boy with liquid-green eyes who lived around the corner, one of my first childhood crushes who, years later, was stabbed in a bar fight.

Along with a bustling, busy household came the concomitant family crises and commotions, garden variety goings-on whose meanings I did not comprehend at the time.  Those were the long, hot summers of my innocence and I observed it all from the center of my grandmother's universe.  There was always so much activity that I now realize my grandmother was a quintessential multi-tasker.  She could negotiate a great deal on a used appliance while strategizing about its resale.   Listen empathetically to a neighbor whose son was in serious legal trouble while watering the lawn and tending to her plants.  Yield to the demands of her large family while shopping and cleaning and cooking for them—from scratch.

There were rare moments of quiet.  The old house was without air conditioning most of the time, the little window unit in the front room turned on only for special visitors, if it worked at all.  This meant that the windows and doors were always open.  The oscillation of stand-alone fans provided a relaxing rhythm for a summer borderland soundtrack: the cooing of pigeons, trains rumbling by, the thwack of a neighbor’s screendoor, cicadas in the trees and crickets in the grass, the clucking of chickens in a nearby yard.

And I am ten again, sitting at the oval, formica table top in my grandmother's kitchen.  I notice the way the sun spills into the window above the sink and how the light dances in the sudsy water.  I’m sorting tomorrow’s beans, separating the shriveled and broken ones and the bits of sediment from the rest.  Meanwhile, my grandmother stirs freshly-squeezed lime juice, water and a little sugar in a plastic glass because she knows a limonada is my favorite drink.  I take a sip and watch her at the stove, turning the dial and perfecting the gas flame.  I smell the oil warming in the pan and hear the spit of onions in the moment before they succumb to sizzling.  She ladles beans from yesterday’s batch into the pan and effortlessly squashes the macerated and formerly-speckled seeds into a brown pulp.

I’m done discriminating against imperfect pintos and my grandmother thanks me with a kiss, placing in front of me a plate of earthy and savory enfrijoladas.  A little something just for me in the eye of the storm.

Eye of the Storm Enfrijoladas

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Recipe Type: Breakfast/Desayuno

Author: Gilda Claudine

Ingredients

• 1 lb pinto beans


• 1/2 small onion, finely chopped onions


• 2 or 3 slices of bacon, cut in pieces or diced


• Salt to taste


• 1/2 cup of Canola oil


• Corn tortillas


• Queso fresco


• 1/2 avocado (optional)

Instructions

1. Soak the beans in 4 cups of water overnight.


2. In the morning, drain the beans.


3. Over medium heat, warm the bacon until it yields some fat.


4. Add half of the onion and simmer.


5. When the onions and the bacon are almost cooked through, return the beans to the pot.


6. Add another 3 or 4 cups of water.


7. Add salt to taste and cover.


8. Allow the beans to cook at a low temperature for several hours or until they reach the desired consistency.


9. The beans should be soft and easy to mash.

Refried Beans

1. In a skillet, heat the Canola oil.


2. When the oil is hot, add the rest of the onion.


3. Sweat the onion until it is completely translucent.


4. Add three or four ladles of the beans in their liquid.


5. Raise the temperature and when the liquid begins to bubble, mash the beans.


6. Add water as needed to keep the beans from drying out.


7. Once the beans are mashed to the desired consistency, turn down the heat.


8. In a separate pan or on a comal, heat a corn tortilla. (Optional: warm the tortilla in a bit of oil here).


9. Using tongs, place the hot tortilla in the pan with the refried beans.


10. Dredge and/or coat both sides with the bean mash.


11. Using a spatula, remove and place on a plate.


12. Crumble the queso fresco on top and add avocado.


13. Serve hot.

Food is Bond

Food binds us to each other on an intimate level.  This is undeniable.  So-called “comfort foods” remind us of our childhoods when we felt safe, perhaps enveloped in a grandparent’s affection.  Sometimes the dishes we prepare remind us of loved ones we’ve lost, their once palpable enthusiasm for a homemade meal now relegated to a bittersweet memory.

When we spend the day kneading dough together or drawing a new family member closer by sharing an old family recipe.  When we puzzle over a recipe and wonder how the art of cooking came so easily to those who came before us.  Well, these are the ways in which we deepen our relationships to one another and uphold our traditions.  Food lies at the heart of it all, as something we need for both physical and spiritual survival.

Case in point.  I’ve spent the entire day making empanadas.  The recipe is simple but the assembly arduous.  Gilda (la Madrina) and I made the first few together while we sipped wine and contemplated the chemistry of pastry.  But this recipe belongs to an auntie I acquired, along with several other lovable and adoring family members (most of whom hail from Argentina), when I married The Saint.  My Tía Raquel and her sister (my mother-in-law) recently treated me to a talk about their childhood memories of Argentina:

Like the gift that keeps on giving, a discussion about food resulted in my Tía Raquel sharing her recipe for empanadas, a “comfort food” staple in many Latin American countries and Spain.  Now, forever a food that will remind me of her and of this moment.  The gesture of remembering together, sharing a recipe, cooking and talking — these are profound ways we strengthen our ties to one another, almost without even noticing we're doing it. Beautiful, isn't it?

Raquel's Beef Empanadas

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Recipe Type: Appetizer

Ingredients

• Filling


• 1 pound ground beef


• 1 cup chopped onions


• 1 cup chopped tomatoes


• 1 cup chopped green peppers


• 1 clove finely minced garlic


• 1½ teaspoons corn starch


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon sugar


• 1 teaspoon black pepper


• A “touch” of red pepper


• 1 cup of water


• 2 hard boiled eggs (optional)


• 1 egg yolk, beaten (optional)


• Dough


• 3 cups of flour (I used whole wheat flour here)


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Instructions

Filling

1. Brown the beef over medium heat.


2. Add the onion, green pepper, tomato and garlic.


3. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally and until the onions are transparent. Stir in the corn starch, salt, sugar, and pepper.


4. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Here, I also added two chopped, hardboiled eggs, something I really like in empanadas.

Pastry dough

1. Stir together the unsifted flour (I used whole wheat flour, different from my aunt's recipe.), salt and baking powder.


2. Combine ¾ cup of olive oil and ½ cup of water and add to flour mixture.


3. Stir until dough is soft and cleans the side of bowl. (Note: I used a food processor to mix the dough.)


4. Roll the pastry and use a cookie cutter to cut out circles more or less the size of your palm.


5. Place about 1 tablespoon of the beef mixture in the center of each circle (more if circles are larger) and fold the dough over, gently pressing the dough at the seam.


6. Seal the edges (In a pinch, use the tines of a fork, as I did here.).


7. Place the empanadas on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush each with a beaten egg yolk.


8. Also, don't forget to poke a few small holes or make small slits in the dough to allow the moisture inside to vent.


9. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Google Recipe View Microformatting by Easy Recipe

1.2.4

If and when you embark on the mission of making homemade empanadas — well, let’s just say there’s ample time for bonding.

Postscript:

After my Tía Raquel read this post, she sent me these additional tips:

I should have mentioned you can add almost anything you like to the filling.  In Argentina it is common to add eggs (as you did) as well as olives and raisins.  It’s just a matter of taste.

I always roll the pastry between sheets of waxed paper instead of on a floured surface.  You will find that by not adding additional flour the crust is crispier and flakier.  The olive oil in the dough mixture is not absorbed with additional flour which makes the empanadas “fry” in the oven.

If you like a juicier filling, don’t cut slits to vent; enough vapor escapes from the edges to prevent them from splitting. You do need venting slits if you make a pie instead of individual empanadas.

Our mother used to make a beautiful braided edge to seal. I can flute the edges but I haven’t been able to master the braid. When I was little, I used to eat the crust only. I wasn’t interested in the filling and to this date the crust is my favorite part.

A Jícama Happy Hour

What would you do if all of the Doritos and Fritos and various brands of potato chips suddenly disappeared from the planet?  Would you season some cardboard and call it a day? You could make your own totopos, of course.  Or you could throw together a tasty jícama treat for your next happy hour.

Jícama, from the Nahuatl word "xicamatl," is a vine cultivated in Mexico and other Latin American countries, the root of which is edible.  The tuber's texture and crunch make it a pleasantly cool addition to many dishes, including salads and salsas.

Cooking with Chef Gray and St. Albans Boys

Living in the Nation’s Capital has its perks.  Among them, the springtime.   A variegated season whose spectrum of color is highlighted for a few weeks by cherry blossoms that sprout across reaching branches and then blanket entire neighborhoods in cupcake pink as the blossoms flutter to the ground.  There is also the magnificence of the historic monuments scattered around the city.  Especially notable at night is the Washington Monument, a chalky-white obelisk rising to the heavens to pierce a midnight-blue sky.

But, as the seat of American government, Washington can be a formidable place to live and work.  Lobbyists work lengthy hours when Congress is in session and working parents remain “plugged in” while they read nighttime stories to their kids.  During rush hour the collective mood on the Metro can be dour, as worker bees make their way to windowless offices in numerous and vast government buildings.

Yet, lying beneath Washington D.C.’s austerity is a bedrock of magnanimity.  Tireless advocates routinely descend on the various branches of government, steadfast in their quest to effect change for the greater good.  Countless non-profit organizations are headquartered here and serve citizens in need of clothing, shelter, food and much more.  If there are any per capita statistics, I’d like to know, but it seems there is also an abundance of successful entrepreneurs who endeavor to give back to the local community.  Though I suspect few do it quite like Chef Todd and Ellen Kassoff Gray, a dynamic husband and wife team who, among other things, own a sparkly gem of a restaurant called Equinox.

Located just a stone’s throw from the White House, the restaurant caters to a clientele consisting of Washington insiders and K Street lobbyists.  When they are not seating and serving diplomats, the Grays are busy giving back to the community in a myriad of ways. Since they opened Equinox in 1999, the Gray’s have held cooking demonstrations at local schools, teaching young people about where food comes from and instilling in them the notion that we are what we eat.  Chef Gray also collaborates with White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass to broaden the reach of the Chefs to Schools Program, an initiative to partner interested chefs around the country with elementary schools in an effort to combat childhood obesity.  The Grays have adopted D.C.’s Murch Elementary School, for example.

The Gray’s are also known for opening and managing farmers’ markets in Washington, D.C., supporting the humane treatment and slaughter of animals, and serving as volunteers on boards, including the Washington Humane Society and the Northwest Little League.  They do all this while raising their son, running Equinox, and starting up new business ventures (e.g. a catering business and a second restaurant called Watershed that is scheduled to open in April 2011.)

Gilda and I have had the privilege of observing Chef Gray cooking with elementary school children in Equinox’s bustling kitchen.

Recently, he graciously taught the children how to make a Dos Gildas recipe (guacamole and totopos) and also showed them how to grill chicken on the line, side-by-side seasoned chefs during a busy lunch hour.   And while we waited for the students to finish their lesson, Ellen Kassoff Gray (who manages the “front of the house” operations) treated us to a plate of delectable risotto arancini and eggplant frites with a spicy rémoulade.

We then sampled the children’s cooking: grilled chicken served atop mascarpone cheese grits infused with adobo chiles and served with haricot verts.  For dessert, a nibble of vanilla bean brioche bread pudding topped with toffee sauce.

Like I said, there are many benefits to living in Washington, D.C.;  namely, good food and good people.

Black Beans for the Young and Restless

I have a friend, Liz, who is a half-Egyptian, half-Cuban beauty.  Tall and fit, she more like glides when she walks, ever mellow but always in step with the world around her.  The color of her eyes exactly matches her burnt-caramel skin.  The corona of springy, black curls that frames her face is her signature feature. She is blithe, guarded and possesses a disarming, sardonic wit.

And she reminds me of beans, so hard and stoic until you cook them down, slowly.  Patiently.  What is impenetrable at first eventually becomes velvety smooth, full of texture, hearty and dependable.  Also, we ate a lot of black beans and rice together when we were low-budget law students living in Baltimore.

It was 1995.  Our first year of law school.  We spent time on campus feigning self-confidence, eating free pizza and drinking cheap beer in the student lounge, and surreptitiously stalking the cutest boys.  Sure, we studied.  But we had a hell of a lot of fun—probably more than law students are supposed to have—running around Charm City.   And in between the parties and the lawyer preparation, we cooked.

Liz, a vegetarian, introduced me to lentils and Cuban-style black beans, soaked and simmered in hand-me-down pots on her microscopic gas stove.   We might spend an entire Sunday in her small Mt. Vernon apartment, complete with a rectangle kitchen reminiscent of the vintage, die-cast-toy variety.  We were two young women, gossiping and listening to Wu-Tang Clan, Albita and the Fugees playing in the other room, the boombox too big for the kitchen counter.  Without an island on which to alternately strand ourselves, we took turns chopping, stirring and leaning against the one-door jamb.  We drank red wine, feeling too hip to play the role of a stereotypical 1L.  In the next room, Liz would insert an incense stick into the soil of a lonely houseplant.  Its coco-mango smoke swirling into the air, mixing with the aroma of stewing legumes and carrying away our twenty-something laughter.

Those were the days.

Hipster Black Beans Inspired by Memories of Being Cool

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Recipe Type: Side Dish

Author: Gilda Claudine

Prep time: 2 hours

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 2 hours 45 mins

Serves: 4 - 6

Ingredients:

• 1 lb black beans


• 3 tbs olive oil


• 3 to 4 slices bacon


• 2 cloves garlic


• 1 small onion


• 2 or 3 serrano peppers (optional)


• 1 or 2 tomatoes


• 4 cups of chicken (Vegetarian option:  use vegetable stock or water)


• Salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste


• 1 1/2 tsp cumin


• 1 tsp ancho chili powder

Instructions:

1. Use fresh beans.


2. Sift through the beans and remove any broken pieces or sediment.


3. Soak them in water either overnight in a pot or cover beans in 2 to 4 cups of water (allow enough liquid for the beans to be completely cover and then some), bring to a boil and then allow to soak for 2 hours.


4. Once the beans have absorbed most of the water, drain and rinse in a colander. Set aside.


5. In a medium or large-sized pot, heat the oil, add the bacon and cook over medium-high heat until softened.


6. Add the onions, garlic, serrano peppers.


7. When the onions are translucent, add the tomatoes and cook for another few minutes.


8. Add the beans to the mixture, coating with the oil and bacon fat.


9. Add 2 cups of chicken stock, cumin, ancho chili powder, salt and pepper.  Cover and cook over medium-low heat.


10. Check on the beans and stir from time to time.  If the beans absorb most of the stock, add the remaining amount.  Taste for flavor.


11. Cook for several hours until the beans have become velvety smooth.


12. Serve over brown rice and top with some chopped red pepper, onions or nothing at all.

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1.2.4

Answer: Totopos

From time to time, too-far-away cousins email me questionnaires that solicit information about my favorite things, likes and dislikes and other random trifles. What socks are you wearing right now?  Great Dane or Chihuahua?  When was the last time you cried?  I take these inquiries very seriously, knowing that my relatives are trying to bridge the distance between us. None.  Great Dane. When I chopped onions this morning.

Then there are the questions about my favorite book, movie or food. These stump me. I agonize over the answers.  These questions are like asking me to choose between my children or to decide what I want to be when I grow up.  It’s much easier to articulate answers about the books I have no interest in reading, the movies that put me to sleep in the first twenty minutes or the few foods that motivate my gag reflex (e.g. liver).  There is, however, one exception.

My answer to the food question would be chips and salsa, but not the kind you find in the grocery store.  I’m talking about homemade fried or baked tortillas, called totopos in Mexico and a fresh salsa verde.

In The Art of Mexican Cooking, Diana Kennedy offers several variations for making totopos: fried, salted, baked, whole. raspadas or thin pieces.  I made last night (It's so easy!) and served them with some salsa verde.  Here’s what I did:  (Diana Kennedy’s directions are a bit more detailed than mine, but you may also want to consult her cookbook.): I cut 15 blue and white corn tortillas into triangles and heated about a cup of canola oil in a medium-sized frying pan.

I dropped the triangles into the oil (Test the oil by putting only one triangle in the pan; if the oil bubbles around the edges of the tortilla, it is hot enough.) and let them fry on each side for about a minute and a half.  I then scooped them out with a slotted spatula and placed them on three or four paper towels to drain the excess oil.

Next, I tossed them with some coarse salt and served with GVC's salsa verde.

Here also is my extremely simple guacamole recipe; this will make a nice dip for totopos

Guacamole

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Recipe Type: Appetizer

Author: Gilda Claudine

Prep time: 15 mins

Total time: 15 mins

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients:

• 3 to 4 ripe avocados


• 1 small tomato, diced


• 1 small clove of garlic, mashed and minced (optional)


• 1 or 2 Serrano or jalapeño peppers, cut in thin slices or minced (optional)


• A pinch of coarse salt


• The juice of 1/2 fresh lime

Instructions:

1. Mash the avocados with a fork into a chunky pulp.


2. Add the tomato and the garlic (and chiles), the salt and lime.


3. Top with cilantro and a couple of the totopos.

What socks are you wearing right now? Great Dane or Chihuahua? Your favorite totopo accompaniment?