Twisty Potato

There is apparantly a market for certain odd veggies. This was in a basket of sweet potatoes from the market. It does not feature Elvis or the Virgin Mary so I will probably have to settle for having it for dinner, but I thought it was rather nifty anyhow.

Itchy Feet

The threatened turn in the weather in coming days set me off this weekend on seasonal housecleaning binge, which in my case means finding room for the houseplants that grew too much during the summer on the porch and shaking out\off travel collected textiles and images. Which gave me a small case of itchy fet (made worse by just having finished The Great Railroad Bazaar).

In lieu of pulling out my pack, I settled for cooking new parents a batch of a Moroccan lamb stew: lamb marinated with garlic, lemon zest and lemon\orange juice. Browned onions with saffron, coriander, cumin and thyme. Pinenuts, tomato and raisins. A splash of red wine and cooked and cooked and cooked. And an Indian themed lunchbox for myself this week. Which is very good, but makes me want to take a nap in the afternoon.

Fashionable Dining

When I was in college many of my favorite clothes were based on the notion of dressing like a 1950's Juvenile Delinquent: a vintage black cardigan with appliquéd roses, leopard print heels, gray pedal pushers, rolled jeans, wide skirted old dresses accessorized with red lipstick, silver cat's eye sunglasses, and my hair in a ponytail.

My mother bit her tongue.

I find myself having a similar reaction as I watch the trendy young 18-20 years olds on the train with their leggings and plastic jewelry and big earrings.

I think fashion's basic rule is that if you thought it looked cool in junior high, it's dead to you forever.

I'm not sure if food trends work the same way, but I'm having a bit of 1970's food lapse here. Maybe it's backlash to the retro 80's thing that keeps popping up or maybe it's just because it's fall. Today I made a nice, albeit unfashionable, batch of an autumnal granola:

• 3 cups oats
• 1 cup almonds
• 1/2 unsweetened flaked coconut
• maple syrup
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Dried cranberries (with some orange in them courtesy of Trader Joe's)
  

Preheat the oven to 300F. Put the roasting pan on the burners toss the first three ingredients adding one at a time until you can smell them. Drizzle with maple syrup and add cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir stir stir! Put in the oven for 20 minutes (stir twice). Take out and add dried fruit and let cool.

Ghee, that was easy.

Oh, that's a mighty bad pun right there. Sorry (but not very).

Anyhoo, I've been continuing my little Indian cooking project here and there and even did a little class last week. In the cookbooks I've picked up and in my poking around everyone talks about critical ingredients and how it's a different set of things than most Western cooking. And people talk about how you can't make India food without ghee and make it sound like you have to take a special trip to Little India on Devon to get it.

This is silly. Know what ghee is? Butter without the 14% water of most American butters. Know how to turn your butter into ghee? Melt it. When it stops sputtering take it off the heat, let it cool and pour in a jar.

Some Pig! Or, Happy Pigs Make Good Eating!

As I mentioned, I picked up a ham hock at the market recently. It was sold to me by a sweet Mennonite couple with an array of happy creatures that eat well and wander freely before meeting their demise.
Well, I defrosted it for this weekend for a batch of split pea soup and wowza! I mean, look at that thing! It looks like some magazine cover roast. Typically, you don't get much out of a ham hock except some smoky notes and a few grisly bits. But this was a whole seperate deal. This guy was unsmoked, but bursting with flavor. Two pounds total weight with a high ratio of tender pork that fell into the soup. The meat dealers come but once a month with their wares so I'll have to get a couple more of these for the freezer.
Thank you pig!