The Best Fish I Never Ate

In 1987 and 1988, my brother Jerry and his wife Donna were working as missionaries in Kenya.  In October of 1987, their first son, Jonathan, was born there.  Since Jonathan was my parents' first grandchild, we were all anxious to meet this new addition to the family.  So we decided to have our family Christmas in Africa that year, and all but my brother Jeff flew to Kenya for the holidays.

We had a grand time.  I got to visit with some old friends (this was my second trip to Kenya; my first trip had been four years earlier) and meet new ones.  We all experienced the warm welcome and generosity of the Kenyan people and of course saw some spectacular sights and amazing wildlife.

While there, we took a real tourist vacation to the ocean.  About 30 km. south of Mombasa there's a lovely beach called Diani Beach.  We rented a villa there for three days.  It was a wonderfully relaxing time.  We were right on the beach at the Indian Ocean.  There was a coral reef a few hundred feet out, and we took a small wooden boat out there to look at the sea creatures on the reef. 

We were informed that local people could be hired to cook and clean for us while we were there.  So we hired a local man by the name of Sam who worked for us for the princely sum of 50 shillings (about $4-$5 U.S.) for the entire time we were there.  Sam was terrific.  He would show up early in the morning.  If we were not up yet, he would wash the car or do the laundry and hang it up to dry.  And then he would cook three meals a day for us.  We loved the delicious tropical fruits, and had made a visit to a local market to buy some - mangoes, papayas, passion fruit, bananas, pineapples - and we asked Sam to make us a big bowl of fruit salad for breakfast.  Well, we ate the entire bowl.  And we asked for more fruit salad for lunch.  I believe we ended up eating a big bowl of fruit salad at every meal he fixed for us!  Sam seemed a little amused at our love for his fruit salad.  But it was really delicious.  At the end of our time, we gave him 75 shillings instead of the 50 he has asked for.  He seemed overwhelmed by our generosity, but we felt a little cheap.

When we had been to town to pick up the fresh fruit, we had to, of course, bargain in the market for the fruit.  Jerry told us that we got cheated, and we had paid far too much.  It didn't seem like much to us, but Jerry and Donna had long since gotten over the charm of the bargaining system, and of the fact that prices were higher for them than they were for the locals, simply because of the color of their skin.  They had become ruthless bargainers.

And so, one morning, a local boy came to our door, peddling his wares.  And what he had that morning was a single, huge, spectacularly beautiful, deep blue parrot fish. 

If my recollection is correct, the fish he had was even bluer than the one in this photograph.  It was beautiful.  It was obviously very fresh - the eyes were bright, and it looked as thought it had been caught only minutes before.  It was huge - at least a foot long, thick and meaty, and more than enough to feed all of us.  I wanted that fish for my supper.  And Donna came out, and began bargaining with the boy.  He gave her his starting price, and she gave him one much lower.  He came down a little, and she went up a little.  On they went, until the boy reached his limit.  He refused to come down any farther.  And Donna refused to go up any farther.  At this point, they were only three shillings apart.  But Donna said, "No!" and shooed the boy away with a dismissive wave of the hand.  He left on his bicycle, with that gorgeous fish still in his basket.  I was too stunned to call him back and tell him that I'd be happy to pay the 3 shillings.

"But Donna!"  I exclaimed, "You were only 3 shillings apart!  That's A QUARTER!!!" 

"It doesn't matter," she snapped, "It's the principle of the thing."

"But I wanted that fish," I whimpered to myself.

I never did find out how parrot fish tasted.  It was the best fish I never ate.

If I had a fish like that today, I'd probably debone it and stuff it.  As a matter of fact, I prepared a red snapper much this way for the rehearsal dinner for Jerry and Donna's wedding.

Baked fish stuffed with seafood

1 large 3-5 lb. whole striped bass (called "rock fish" in Maryland), red snapper, or parrot fish (if your sister-in-law hasn't driven too hard a bargain)
6 medium or 12 small shrimp
6 scallops (or 1/4 lb. small bay scallops)
1 cup crab meat
2 T chopped parsley
2 T chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped celery
2 cups soft bread crumbs
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Old Bay seasoning (if you can't get Old Bay where you live, use another seafood seasoning, or a combination of cayenne pepper, black pepper, celery salt, and thyme)
Salt and pepper


Debone the fish.  It's not as hard as it sounds, and it makes for easier serving and eating.  Here's how to do it.

The fish will have a slit in its belly where it was cleaned.  Extend that slit all the way from the head to the tail.  Doing so exposes the backbone.  On the front half of the backbone, rib bones extend down the sides of the fish.  Using your fingers and a small, sharp knife, pry those rib bones away from the flesh of the fish, all the way up to the backbone.  Once all the rib bones are loose, use the same technique to loosen the backbone, and pry it away from the flesh of the fish.  Now, grab the fish's head at the gills, and gently snap it backwards so that it separates from the backbone, and do the same thing with the tail.  Now you should be able to lift away the entire backbone and rib bones in one piece.  Carefully feel the fish to ensure all the bones have been removed.  If you find any, pull them out with a pair of tweezers.  The fish is now ready to be stuffed.

Preheat oven to 400°, or fire up the grill.

Peel and devein the shrimp.  If using the 6 large scallops, cut them into halves.  Pick through the crab meat to ensure any pieces of shell have been removed.

In a small skillet, saute the onion and celery in about 1/4 cup of melted butter.  When the vegetables are soft, add them to the soft bread crumbs, parsley and seasonings, and toss until well distributed.  Now, add the seafood and mix carefully so as not to bruise the shellfish.

Spread a double thickness of aluminum foil on the bottom of a long, shallow baking dish, big enough to accommodate the entire fish.  Be sure to use enough foil to be able to wrap the entire fish.  Pour about half the remaining melted butter onto the aluminum foil, and smear it around (this is to prevent the fish from sticking to the foil).

Open the fish and sprinkle the insides with salt and pepper.  Lay the fish in the baking dish and loosely pack the stuffing into the fish.  Fold the fish over the stuffing.  There's no need to tie it, because the foil will hold it together.  Pour the remaining melted butter over the top of the fish.  Now, fold the foil over the fish, and seal it with a double lengthwise fold.  Tuck the ends of the foil under the fish.

Place the fish in the middle of the preheated oven, or carefully lift it onto the grill, and close the grill cover.  Bake for 45 minutes.

Take the fish out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes, still sealed in the foil.  (If you are cooking on the grill, be careful to use two lifters to remove the fish to a serving platter.  Remember, it's boneless, and will fall apart easily.)

Remove the fish to a serving platter.  Carefully open the foil, and use scissors to trim the foil down to the edge of the platter.  Do not attempt to lift the fish out of the foil - it will fall apart.

Cut the fish into slices, and serve.  Serves 6.

Here's a picture of my wonderful sister-in-law Donna serving her famous turkey soup on the day after Thanksgiving.  I've long since forgiven her for the fish incident.

Slime Soup

I spent the first six months of 1977 in Israel.  The first three weeks were on a kibbutz in Galilee, and the rest of the time was spent studying at Tel Aviv University (with lots of traveling about within the country).  At Tel Aviv University, I stayed in the student dormitories, where I had three other flatmates.  Each bedroom slept two people, and the two bedrooms shared a common room.

My roommate was an Israeli, but I did not get along with him particularly well.  The two guys in the other room were Israeli Palestinians, from the Nazareth area, and I got along with them much better.

Khaled and Afu would return home most weekends, and would come back to the university laden down with food that their mothers had prepared for them.  This food always included huge homemade pitas, each one about a foot in diameter, as well as lots of other dishes.  The food always looked very tasty.  Usually they ate by tearing off a piece of bread, and using that to pick up the other food and eat it.

One weekend, Khaled and Afu invited me to come to visit them in their homes.  First I went to Khaled's house.  He lived in a small village on the east side of Nazareth.  Khaled was the eldest of 13 children, and his mother seemed quite young. The Palestinians are very hospitable people, and so his mother served me a lot of food.  It was a little disconcerting to me that she would serve the men, and then leave, and she herself would only eat later, after the men had finished.  But this seemed to be the way they did things.  Most of the food was quite tasty, although a little different than what I was used to.  The Palestinians tend to use spices in their savory dishes that I normally see in sweet dishes, such as cinnamon and allspice.  To my taste buds, it made these dishes seem sweet to me, even though they weren't, really.  But it was all very nice, nonetheless, and I was grateful for their hospitality.

Khaled took me around his village to see various aunts and uncles.  They were all happy to receive this visitor from afar, and they all tried to give me more food, even though I had already eaten.  Clearly, food paid an important part in their communal life.

Now it was time to go visit Afu.  He lived closer to the center of town.  When I arrived at his house, I was introduced to his mother, as well as some of his brothers and cousins.  Now, Afu was the youngest of 11, so his mother was quite elderly.  Nonetheless, she had prepared a table filled with impressive amounts of a variety of different foods.  Again, she served the men, and left.

So we sat down to eat.  Although the table was loaded with many platters of food, we were each served an individual bowl of something that I did not recognize.  It looked like, and smelled like, some sort of green vegetable, like spinach, in a clear broth.  The others at the table were raving about this dish, and called it something that I had never heard of.  (Communication was not the easiest, because the only common language we spoke was Hebrew.)  At any rate, it seemed I was being served a Palestinian specialty.  And so I dipped in my spoon, and put it to my mouth.

As I lifted the spoon from the bowl, I noticed that the broth formed something of a string as I brought it to my mouth.  And then I put it in my mouth.  The flavor was not unpleasant; it did indeed have a taste akin to spinach.  But the broth was a mucilaginous lump of slime.  Imagine, if you will, a mouthful of raw egg white.  That's the consistency that this stuff had.

It was all I could do to swallow.  And I simply couldn't say, "No, thank you; I don't like it." because their feelings would have been hurt.  No, I had to force this stuff down.  And then I had to eat the rest of it.  On more than one occasion, I nearly gagged, but I determined that it was a case of mind over matter, and I soldiered on.  Eventually, I managed to down an entire bowl of this slime soup.

And then they offered me seconds.  Mercifully, the table was piled high with other things, so I was able to point to the rest of the food as tell them that, no thanks, I couldn't possibly, because there were so many other delicious things to try.

Many years later, a colleague of mine who is of Egyptian extraction was eating a rice dish in the cafeteria at lunchtime, and she offered me a taste, telling me it was an Egyptian specialty.  I tasted it, and instantly recognized the taste.  It was this same vegetable, cooked with rice.  This time, however, the rice had absorbed the sliminess in the cooking process, so the texture wasn't offensive.  It turns out that this vegetable is called  molokhia, and it creates a slimy broth when it is cooked, much as okra does.  It is a specialty of several countries in the Middle East, but it is one I can do without.

Don't worry; I'm not going to give you a recipe for molokhia.  Instead, I'm going to give you my recipe for homemade pita bread.  Pita is surprisingly easy to make, and the pocket is formed naturally.  Just be sure the oven is quite hot, and the bread dough is rolled out very thin.

Pita bread

1 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp (or one package) dry yeast

Mix and knead as you would any bread dough. I do mine in the bread machine, but if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, that will work, too, or just do it by hand.

Let the dough rise for about an hour and a half until double in size, and punch it down.  Separate it into small balls (this recipe makes about 10 small pitas), cover them, and let them rest for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile, put pizza stones or cookie sheets in the oven and preheat it to 475°. 

After the dough balls have rested for 20 minutes, sprinkle a little flour on a board, and roll them out with a rolling pin until they are very thin.  Put them a few at a time (how many depends on the size of your oven) onto the pizza stone or cookie sheets, and bake for 3-4 minutes.  No need to turn them.  They will puff up like little pillows.  Take them out of the oven with tongs, and put them on a rack to cool.  Repeat until they are all baked.  After they have cooled, you will have to gently press the air out of them, and then you can store them in plastic bags.


It is fun to make pitas with children, because they like watching the bread dough puff up into miniature pillows.

Food for the journey

I probably won't be blogging much for the rest of this week.  That's because tomorrow morning I'm leaving on Amtrak out of Central Station in Montreal to head down to my brother and sister-in-law's house in Patterson, NY for Thanksgiving.  The train goes straight to Poughkeepsie, and then someone will have to pick me up from there for the half-hour drive to my brother's place.

I love train travel.  And this voyage is exceptionally beautiful.  For most of the way, we hug the shore of Lake Champlain.  On two occasions, while taking this train, I have seen bald eagles soaring above the lake.

The one thing I dislike about train travel (well, travel on Amtrak, at any rate) is the food.  It's not very good.  My solution, of course, is to bring my own!  So this evening I've been preparing my breakfast and lunch for the train.  I'm not one for getting up any earlier than I have to, so I will just make a big thermos of coffee tomorrow morning, and have it after the train leaves the station, along with my Craisin® Scones.  Then, in the afternoon, after we're across the border, I'll have my rice and beans and cauliflower salad.  Here is the recipe for the scones.

Craisin® Scones

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup shortening or butter
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup Craisins® (dried cranberries)
grated rind of one orange
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425°.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder.  Cut in the shortening until it has the consistency of coarse cornmeal.  Add the walnuts, Craisins®, and orange zest, and make sure they are well distributed.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg and milk.  Add to the dry ingredients, and mix.  Turn out onto a floured board and knead a few times.  Shape the dough into a rough rectangular shape, and cut into triangular pieces.  (You could also cut them into rounds using a juice glass.)

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 12 minutes.  Delicious hot or cold, and even better if spread with butter and jam.

A Trifle of a Wedding

I was unemployed in the spring of 1992.  Much like the current recession, jobs were hard to come by.  So I was trying to supplement my unemployment income by doing some catering.

It so happened that two friends of mine from church, Tap and Semaj (the names have been loosely disguised to protect the guilty), were getting married in May.  And they asked me if I would consider catering their wedding, and of course I agreed.

Now, catering a wedding for 125 people was going to be a lot of work, and I wasn't going to be able to do it all myself.  However, Tap had a solution for me - she would provide me with friends and family as helping hands, so I would not have to hire helpers, and could give her a better price.  I agreed to that solution.

Tap and Semaj wanted the food at their reception to celebrate the multi-ethnic culture of Montreal.  There were some ethnic foods that they wanted me to simply buy from the places that make them best - knishes from the Brown Derby (which is now, sadly, defunct), samosas from Tap's favorite Indian place in Park Ex where she had lived - and others that she wanted me to make.  The menu for the reception (which was held in the lovely home and garden of a friend of theirs) was as follows:

Served upon arrival at the reception:
Cheese platter with homemade baguettes (white, whole wheat, and rye)

Served at the meal:
Fiddlehead salad (fiddleheads, cauliflower, and carrots, cooked and cooled, with an olive oil and wine vinegar dressing)
Knishes (Jewish turnover with a savory filling)
Italian meatballs with tomato sauce
Spanakopita (Greek spinach pie)
Samosas (Indian stuffed fried pastry)

Punch:
Cranberry cocktail and club soda with raspberry sherbet  (this was the only thing we ran out of, because it ended up being quite hot for May, and people drank more than I had expected)

Dessert:
English trifle

So although we bought knishes and samosas, I had to bake bread for 125 people, make the salad (and I will have you know that I drove up to Mascouche to the Reesors' farm, and picked the fiddleheads on the banks of their river), as well as the meatballs, spanakopita, and trifle.  And as most of these were quite complicated,  Tap provided me with family members who were in town for the wedding, as per our arrangement.

And so, the day before the wedding, we were making the trifle.  If I recall correctly, I had rented five enormous bowls to make the trifle in.  Now trifle, as you know, begins with plain sponge cake that is split in two, spread with jam, and then sprinkled with sherry or some other liqueur.  (Tap had a bottle of Frangelico, which is hazelnut liqueur, that someone had given her and she wanted to use.)  You then put fruit on top of the cake, cover everything with a layer of vanilla custard and a layer of whipped cream, and then do the same thing all over again, alternating layers until the bowl is filled.

There was just one teensy problem with assembling the trifle that day.  And that problem was that two of the people who were there that day to help us were Tap's mother and sister.  Now, Momma Tap and her sister were Mennonites from the Prairies, and they were both teetotalers.  They would have been horrified to see any amount of booze, no matter how small and insignificant, going into the trifle.  So Tap and I had to come up with a plan to douse the cake with the Frangelico without her mother and sister seeing.

The trifles were being assembled in the dining room, which was down a short hallway from the kitchen - just far enough so that, if you were in the kitchen, you couldn't see everything going on in the dining room.  And also in the dining room was a linen closet, which was not visible from the kitchen.  And there was a shelf in the dining room tall enough for the bottle of Frangelico.  So that is where we hid it.

And now, of course, we had to find a pretext to send Tap's mother and sister out of the dining room.  The fruit we were using for the trifle was bananas and canned peaches, and there were quite a few cans of peaches and a lot of bananas.  So I gave them the task of opening, draining, and slicing the canned peaches, and of slicing the bananas.  I may have given them other tasks, too, like whipping the cream.

And now is when Operation Trifle kicked into high gear.  Tap and I split the cake lengthwise and spread it with raspberry jam, and then cut it into squares, and lined the bottom of the big bowls with it.  Then we called out to Mom and Sister, "How are you two doing in there?" and they replied, "Oh, just fine!"  Satisfied that they were sufficiently occupied, we hurriedly opened the closet door, pulled out the bottle of liqueur, sprinkled it all over the first layer of cake, and then quickly hid the Frangelico back in the linen closet. The whole thing was very frantic, and it was all we could do to keep from bursting into peals of laughter.  As more layers were added to the trifle, the same thing was repeated.  I think the bowls were big enough for three or four total layers.  I'm not sure how we kept Tap's mother and sister busy that whole time, but whenever we were ready to douse the cake with the liqueur, they managed to be out of the room, and we repeated our antics.

At the wedding, people simply raved about the trifle, and applauded Tap and Semaj's decision to forgo traditional wedding cake.  And many of them said, "Your trifle is so good!  What makes is so special?"  I, of course, demurred, and pretended it was a professional secret.  But Tap and I exchanged knowing glances, and a wink or two.  The trifle was perfect, and her relatives never knew why.

English trifle

Yellow Sponge cake, baked in a sheet pan
Raspberry or strawberry jam
Sherry or some other liqueur (such as Frangelico or Amaretto)
Sliced peaches (canned or fresh)
Sliced bananas
Fresh berries, if desired (raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries)
Vanilla custard
Sweetened whipped cream
Slivered nuts (hazelnuts or almonds)

Now, it's hard to give exact proportions for trifle, and it doesn't really matter, anyway.  It mostly depends on the size of the bowl you'll be making it in. You'll want a large, straight-sided glass bowl for your trifle.

Split the cake into two layers, spread the bottom layer with jam, and replace the top layer.  Cut the cake into two-inch cubes.

Arrange the cake cubes in the bottom of the trifle bowl.  Sprinkle the cake with the sherry or liqueur.  (It's better to err on the side of too much than too little - sponge cake can be a bit dry by itself.)  Now, cover the cake with the fruit.  (By all means, feel free to substitute other fruits if you so desire.  Pineapple, kiwi, pears, or mangoes would all be good.) 

Now, cover the fruit and cake with vanilla custard.  For the vanilla custard, if you are feeling ambitious, you can make a crème anglaise, which is a cooked custard with egg yolks that is very delicious.  It's also a pain to make, in my opinion, and I'm just as happy to use instant vanilla pudding, or Bird's Custard.  (I'm not sure how available Bird's Custard is in the U.S.A.  It's an instant custard mix, widely available in England and Canada, that is quite an acceptable - and foolproof - alternative to crème anglaise.)  If you're doing it right, the custard should cover the fruit, and drip down in between the cracks between the pieces of cake.

Sprinkle the custard with chopped or slivered nuts.  Cover the whole thing with a layer of sweetened whipped cream.

And now, repeat the entire process until your bowl is filled.  The bowl I use holds about three layers of trifle.  At the end, you can decorate the top with some fresh berries and a few slivered nuts.

When you serve the trifle, be sure to dip the spoon in deep, in order to get some of everything.

Oh, and Tap and Semaj are still dear friends, after all these years, and have two lovely children.  Tap's mother has gone on to her reward.  But Tap and I still have the occasional giggle about making trifle.

Little Davy and the Giant Jar of Peaches

My mother has always been the frugal sort.  She had to be, what with raising four children on just my Dad's non-union construction worker salary.  But we never felt deprived, and we certainly never went hungry.  Part of Mom's frugality was a flurry of food preservation during the summer and early autumn.  Grandmother always planted a big garden, and local orchards offered lots of inexpensive fruit in season.  By the time winter was upon us, the freezer was full of corn, green beans, and lima beans, and the shelves of the cellar were lined with row upon row of Mason jars of home-canned tomatoes, tomato juice, pickles, applesauce, and peaches.  This story involves one of those jars of peaches.

I was about two years old when this story took place.  Mom and Dad had to go out for the evening, and they took me to the Shanks' home, where their daughter Mary Beth was going to babysit.  The Shanks are dear family friends, and Mary is about 11 years older than me.  She is one of the sweetest people in the world.  However, she did not always demonstrate a great deal of common sense, and had not had a lot of experience dealing with children.  Nevertheless, everyone has to start somewhere, and I was left in Mary Beth's care for the evening.  Mom also gave Mary Beth a quart jar of her home-canned peaches, so she could give me a snack.  "Give him two or three peach halves," Mom said, "but if he wants more, he can have more."  And off she went.

Several hours later, Mom and Dad came back to collect me.  The jar of peaches was completely empty.  "What happened to the peaches?" Mom inquired.  "Davy ate them all!" was Mary Beth's answer.  "You said he could have more if he wanted, and he kept asking for more until he ate them all!"  And so I had.  Little two-year-old Davy Sauder had eaten an entire quart jar of peaches all by himself.

I still love peaches, and still have the unfortunate habit of overeating.

This recipe is adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Ginger Peach Clafouti

3 cups sliced peaches (can be fresh or canned)
1/4 cup peach brandy, peach schnapps, or cognac (optional)
1 cup milk (1 1/4 cup if not using the peach brandy)
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 T. vanilla extract
2 tsp. fresh ginger, finely grated
1/8 tsp salt
2/3 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350°.

Let the sliced peaches stand for an hour in the peach liqueur or cognac, along with 1/3 cup sugar.  Drain the peaches and reserve the liquid.

Put the drained liquid into an electric blender, along with the milk and the rest of the ingredients.  (If you have not used the peach liqueur, you should reserve 1/3 cup sugar.)  Cover and blend at the highest speed for one minute.

Lightly butter (or spray with cooking spray) either a 7-8 cup baking dish or a pyrex pie plate about 1 1/2 inches deep.  Pour about 1/4 of the batter in the baking dish, and put in the oven for a few minutes until a film of batter has set in the bottom of the dish.  Take the dish out of the oven, and arrange the peach slices over the batter.  (If you have not used the peach liqueur, sprinkle the reserved 1/3 cup of sugar over the peaches.)  Cover the peaches with the rest of the batter.

Put the dish back in the oven, and bake for about an hour.  It is done when it is puffed and brown, and a knife or toothpick comes out clean.

Let the clafouti cool down a bit, but serve while still warm.  Serve with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream.  If desired, you can also add a bit of grated fresh ginger when whipping the cream.

The next recipe is adapted from More with Less

Peach Melba Cobbler

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Cut in:
2 T. butter

To flour and butter mixture, add:
1/2 cup plain yogurt

Spray a baking dish with cooking spray (or butter the dish lightly), and pour batter into dish. Top with:
1/2 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1 1/2 cups sliced peaches (fresh, frozen, or canned)

Bake for 40 minutes.

Here's a picture of Mary Beth along with her two sisters, taken at my parents' 50th wedding anniversary party 10 years ago.  Mary's the one in the middle with the big hat.

The Muffin Story

In my family (as in most families, I suspect), some stories get told and retold so often that it is no longer necessary to recount the story to one another.  All that needs saying is "The Margarine Story" and everyone knows about the hobo in Tampa back during the Depression who thought that a tub of margarine sitting on my grandmother's counter was a bowl of pudding, and tried to eat it.  (Of course, details of this story vary, depending on which of my father's siblings is retelling it.)  And so it is with The Muffin Story.  The main characters of this one are my sister and me.

Back when I was a boy (probably 8 or 9), my sister Carol, who is three years older than I am, was learning to cook in her 4-H club.  Now, I adored my big sister (still do, as a matter of fact), and I was always wanting to do exactly what she did.  Naturally, this behavior drove her crazy, and so she would try to boss me around, as big sisters are wont to do.

Well, since Carol was learning to cook, I wanted to learn to cook, too.  And one day Mom said she was going to make some muffins, and I pestered her until she agreed to let me make them (with her supervision, of course).

Carol was livid.  "But MOOOOMMMM," she wailed, "Boys aren't supposed to cook, girls are supposed to cook."  And to me, she said, "You can't cook!  You don't know how!  Boys can't cook!"

But Mom let me make the muffins anyway.  We used the stand mixer, put in all the ingredients, filled the muffin tins, and popped them into the oven.  And then Mom sent me outside to do my regular boy's chore, which was mowing the lawn.

Twenty minutes later, Carol came marching out of the house to where I was mowing, with a hot muffin in hand, broken in two.  She showed me the muffin.  "You see?" she said triumphantly.  "I told you you couldn't cook!  Your muffins have air tunnels!"  And she turned on her heel, and flounced back into the house, vindicated.

Nowadays, of course, my muffins never have air tunnels.  That is because, despite Carol's objections, I continued to learn to cook, and now I know that the secret to a tender muffin without air tunnels is to never use a mixer, but instead to mix the wet and dry ingredients together separately at first, and then to combine them by hand just until all the dry ingredients are moistened.  Smooth batter is the enemy of good muffins.

Here is my recipe for apple-carrot-oatmeal muffins.

Apple-CarrotCarol-Oatmeal Muffins

3/4 cup all-purpose flour (you could use part whole-wheat flour as a healthier alternative)
1/4 cup quick oats
1/8 cup kasha*
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp spices (either cinnamon, nutmeg, or allspice, or a combination)
1/4 cup raisins (optional)
1 medium apple, peeled, cored, and diced
1 medium carrot, grated
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 cup milk

*Kasha is toasted buckwheat groats.  I buy it in bulk at the local health food store.  It adds a delicious nuttiness to the muffins.  If you can't find kasha, you could always use wheat germ.

Preheat the oven to 425°.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, kasha, baking powder, salt, and spices (and raisins, if you are using them).  Mix together until well blended.

In another smaller mixing bowl, beat the egg, and then add the vegetable oil, milk, apple, and carrots.  Mix together until well blended.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients all at once.  With a large spoon or rubber scraper, mix the wet and dry ingredients together just until all the dry ingredients are moistened.  Do not overmix, or you will get air tunnels, and your big sister will yell at you.

Pour into greased muffin tins (or muffin papers) and bake for 20 minutes.  They're best served piping hot, but they're awfully good left over, too.

Makes 6 large muffins.

Here's a picture of Carol and me, all grown up, taken 5 years ago in Alaska.

A Tale of Two Thanksgivings

I've always loved Thanksgiving. It's one of my favorite holidays. What's not to like? Family, friends, food, football, and just stopping everything for a day in the middle of the week to take stock of all the blessings in our lives, and to be thankful. It's one of the U.S.A.'s best traditions.

But in 1980, I moved to Canada. Now, Canada has a Thanksgiving, too, but it's on the second Monday in October, not the fourth Thursday in November. And when did I move? In the last week of October. So I was too late for Canadian Thanksgiving, and I moved away from the U.S. before American Thanksgiving. Missing Thanksgiving that year was very sad, especially when it was Thanksgiving back home and it was just another workday here in Canada.

So when Canadian Thanksgiving 1981 rolled around, I felt overdue for a good Thanksgiving feast. But to my amazement, no one invited me to their home for Thanksgiving dinner. I was a little hurt. No one at my church even thought to invite me over!

And then, a week or two before the day, our pastor announced that we would have a potluck after church on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. But it just seemed like it was going to be just like any old potluck - there didn't seem to be any indication that there would be turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and the normal Thanksgiving meal. So I marched up to Debbie and announced to her that I would accept nothing less. And she said, "Well, then, you're going to have to arrange it, because I'm not going to," to which I answered, "If that's what it takes!" (And that, boys and girls, is how the Social Committee at the Mennonite Fellowship of Montreal was created.) So I arranged for a full turkey dinner after church, and at least I had my Thanksgiving meal that year.

But it still wasn't the same as Thanksgiving back home. And as I stayed in Canada over the years, I came to realize that Thanksgiving is simply a different kind of holiday here. It's not necessarily worse - just different. Now, Canadians (unless they've spent a Thanksgiving in the U.S.A.) don't really understand what the differences are. So let me try to explain it.

First, there's all the hype. Thanksgiving in the U.S. is accompanied by stories of the cooperation between Pilgrims and Indians. There are lessons and pageants in schools. There are displays in stores. Thanksgiving is part of the national story.

In the U.S., it is unthinkable for anyone to spend Thanksgiving Day alone. It is a day meant to be spent with family, preferably, but if one does not have family around, with good friends. I cannot count the number of guests who we had in our home for Thanksgiving when I was growing up, especially single people whose families lived far away, and who were not able to go home. If I had been a single person new to a church in the U.S., I would easily have had a half dozen invitations to Thanksgiving dinner that first year.

But in Canada, Thanksgiving is much less of a family holiday than it is in the U.S. Of course, if family is all in the same general area, they will get together - a turkey feeds a lot of people! And sometimes, someone will even have a big meal and invite a large group of unrelated people. But it's not considered that much of a tragedy for someone to spend the day alone. As a matter of fact, since Thanksgiving is on a Monday, a turkey dinner at any point over the long weekend is perfectly acceptable, whereas Americans know that Thanksgiving is on Thursday. And then there's the travel. It would not occur to a Canadian to drive from, say, Montreal to Toronto for Thanksgiving dinner, much less to fly from Vancouver to Halifax. But such voyages are routine in the U.S., and part of the holiday.

But I think the biggest difference is simply that Americans take a little more time during that day to reflect on how fortunate they are to live in a land of plenty and freedom. Now, you can say what you want about American jingoism, and the inflated opinion that Americans have of themselves and their way of doing things, but this is one area where Canadians could learn from Americans. Because Canada, too, is a land of incredible plenty and freedom. But very often I think we fail to appreciate it.

It was at least 20 years before anyone invited me to Thanksgiving dinner in Canada. For the last few years, I've been going to my friends Sandy and Jim's place for Thanksgiving, and we've been cooperating on the meal. It has been lovely. But I've also been trying, as much as possible, to travel to the U.S. for Thanksgiving down there. My brother and sister-in-law have made that easier, by moving to New York, halfway between Montreal and my parents' home, and buying a huge house where they can accommodate everyone for the weekend. And so I'm heading there (on the train - yea Amtrak!) next Wednesday, for a time of food, family, games, and fun.

And now, the recipes. Last year, at our Thanksgiving potluck at church (that tradition continues), I was going to make a pumpkin pie. But I hate making pie crust (and my pie crusts aren't very good, because I always compare them to my late Grandma Sauder's pie crusts, which were the best I've ever had), so I decided to double my pumpkin muffin recipe, bake it in a tube pan, and call it a cake. People raved about it, and now I get specific requests to bring my pumpkin cake for potlucks. (I could also have baked it in loaf pans, and called it pumpkin bread, and so can you!) Here is the recipe (plus a bonus recipe for cranberry sauce):

Pumpkin Cake
4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. allspice
2 cups pumpkin puree
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use canola oil)
1 1/2 cups milk

A note about the pumpkin puree - Hallowe'en pumpkins look pretty, but don't make the best pumpkin for pumpkin pie. The small pumpkins (the ones that look like miniature versions of the big Hallowe'en pumpkins) are good, but the best is a good squash, such as a buttercup or butternut. Just bake the squash until soft, and mash it up with a potato masher.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine all the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.

In another mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, eggs, vanilla extract, vegetable oil, and milk. Beat together until smooth.

Pour the wet ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients. Stir just until all the dry ingredients have been moistened. The batter will be lumpy. If you continue stirring until the batter is smooth, your cake have an unpleasant tough texture.

Pour into a greased tube pan (or two greased loaf pans). Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. (It will probably take a little less for the loaf pans.)

Let cool and serve. This cake is very moist, so an icing is not really necessary. But if you want to ice it, a cream cheese or a maple frosting would be good.

Cranberry sauce

1 12-oz. bag fresh cranberries
1 medium orange
1/2 cup sugar
1 oz. Grand Marnier or other orange-flavored liqueur (Cointreau, Triple Sec, Curaçao)

Grate the orange rind (just the orange part; the white part is bitter), and then juice the orange. Put the cranberries, orange zest and juice, and sugar into a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. (Caution - when you put the orange juice into the saucepan, it will not look like enough liquid for the cranberries. Do not be tempted to add additional water or orange juice. The juice of one orange is plenty. Otherwise your cranberry sauce will be too runny.)

Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until all the cranberries have popped and the sauce has thickened. Take off the heat, and stir in the orange liqueur. (Do this while hot. The heat will make most of the alcohol cook off.)

Serve with the Thanksgiving turkey. If you have any leftover, it's really good spread on toast.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, everyone!

Welcome to my cooking blog!

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I love to cook. (It's no secret to anyone who lays eyes on me that I also love to eat, but that's another matter.) And people like my food, and I don't think they're just saying that so as not to hurt my feelings, because otherwise they would not eat as much of it as they do.

So I thought I'd start a blog about the food I like to cook. I hope to include stories about cooking experiences, and of course, recipes.

Now, let me tell you about recipes. There are people who only cook out of cookbooks, and who carefully measure each ingredient, and who will simply not attempt a dish if they are out of one of the ingredients demanded in the recipe, no matter how insignificant or easily substituted that ingredient is. I am not one of those people. I like cooking to be an expression of creativity. So when I use a recipe, I like to think of the recipe as a guideline, not a taskmaster.

This approach to cooking makes it difficult for me when people ask me for my recipe for something. More often than not, I've either modified whatever recipe I've used, or I haven't used a recipe at all. In either case, I certainly haven't measured things exactly, so telling someone else how much I've used is difficult. Nevertheless, I'm going to attempt to write down the recipes as I recall them. This blog is actually part of that exercise - that way, if I make something I really like, I'll write down what I did right away, and then (it is to be hoped) be able to reproduce the same dish later.

I do have quite a collection of cookbooks, but there are five that I return to over and over. Here is a list, and a brief description of what I like about each one:

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck - Besides being the inspiration for the book and movie "Julie and Julia," this cookbook is a classic which showed Americans that they could produce classic French cooking right in their own kitchens. Its recipes are sometimes impossibly complicated, and use scandalous amounts of butter and cream, but if I am looking to make a dish to really impress, this is the book that I use. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Garlic Mashed Potatoes.


The Classic Italian Cookbook by Marcella Hazan - What I love about this cookbook is the author's obvious love for food, and the simple joys of preparing it and sharing it. She concentrates on Northern Italian cuisine, which is much less about heavy tomato sauces (and which virtually never uses oregano), and more about simple, fresh food prepared well. Plus, she taught me that bechamel sauce is not French in origin, but Italian! My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Pork loin braised in milk.


The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker - I like this cookbook because it is a basic reference. You can find nearly anything in it. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Lemon Sponge Custard.


Mennonite Community Cookbook by Mary Emma Showalter - I love this cookbook because it captures my Mennonite heritage. The author wrote this book as a master's thesis, I believe, compiling recipes from Mennonite communities all over North America. While the book is showing its age (it was originally published in 1950), it's still a great resource for many traditional Mennonite dishes, such as shoo-fly pie and chow-chow. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Rhubarb conserve.


More with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre - I love this cookbook because it changed the way I think about being more conscious of responsible, sustainable ways of eating, and also because of the international flavor of the cookbook. It, too, is a compilation of recipes sent in by Mennonites from all over, but this time, it used recipes for dishes that these Mennonites had encountered in their travels and missions around the world. My favorite recipe from this cookbook: Middle Eastern lentil soup.


And now, in the spirit of More with Less, I give you my recipe for Vegetarian Chili. I'm not a vegetarian at all, but I was inspired to make this by some vegetarians I was working with recently, and I honestly like it just as much as chili with meat.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups dried beans (I used small red beans)
1 1/2 lbs. tofu (the soft kind)
2 T. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. coriander seeds
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
2 medium diced onions
2 T. olive oil
1 or 2 finely chopped jalapeno peppers (or 5 or 6 small chilis) - depends on how hot you like your chili
1 large (796 ml or 27 oz) can tomatoes
1 can corn niblets (or 1 cup frozen corn niblets, or one cup of fresh corn)

Put the tofu into a mixing bowl. Crush the cumin and coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle, or grind them in a coffee grinder. Sprinkle the chili powder, minced garlic, cumin, and coriander onto the tofu, and work them all into the tofu with a potato masher. Cover, and put in the refrigerator overnight.

Cover the beans with about 5 cups of water, and let soak overnight.

The next day, bring the beans to a boil, and let them simmer slowly until tender. How long will depend on how big the beans are - smaller beans will cook faster; large beans like kidney beans could take up to 3 hours.

In a big Dutch oven on medium-high heat, add the olive oil, and saute the onions and the jalapeno or chili peppers until the onions are translucent. Add the tofu and salt, and saute for a few minutes. Next, add the beans, along with the water they have been cooking in. Now add the tomatoes. If you are using whole tomatoes, chop them up roughly before adding them with all their juice; if you are using pureed tomatoes, just dump the whole can into the chili.

Let the chili simmer for a half hour or more, until all the flavors are married together. Just before serving, add in the corn. Thicken with a little cornstarch dissolved in some water, if desired.

Serve piping hot with warm corn tortillas. (I buy my corn tortillas at the Chinese supermarket around the corner from my house. Go figure.)

Well, that's my first post, folks! Please let me know how you like my blog by leaving comments!