The Best American Poetry

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Sloane Miller

all photos©Christopher Labzda

Sloane Miller and I were in grad school together though she studied poetry and I prose.  Since then, she's used her love of language and writing, food and cooking to transform herself into an effective spokesperson and advocate for people with food allergies.  She's the mastermind behind the Worry-Free Dinners that make it possible for families to dine in popular restaurants without fear of breaking out in hives, or worse.  I was thrilled when Sloane agreed to contribute to Much Depends . . . Here's what she has to say about cooking and today's recipe: 

SLOANE'S FIVE INGREDIENTS OR LESS COLORFUL VEGETARIAN MEDLEY         

 

As someone with food allergies since birth, I'm acutely aware of what I am eating every moment of every day. Embracing that awareness/food-fear and transforming it into a love of food fostered a deep respect and love for the art of cooking. I started getting serious about cooking when I was 16. I had become a vegetarian because of palate fatigue (I just couldn’t eat another burger) and immersed myself in the then current literature about being a healthy vegetarian. My first two bibles were Moosewood  and Diet for a Small Planet. Moosewood was especially freeing. Every page was filled with a call to arms: “Here’s the recipe, but change it if you like; go, play.”

 

I became the family cook because no one knew what a food allergic vegetarian could eat. I read cookbooks for fun and watched PBS shows like The Frugal Gourmet instead of doing homework. I went to culinary school to learn French culinary technique. I threw elaborate dinner parties and brunches; I baked my own bread and made my own preserves. I stayed a healthy vegetarian for 17 years. (NB: I added meat back into my diet recently.)

 

Even though I have food allergies  (or perhaps because of), I love to talk about, think about, read about and learn about food. Some of my happiest childhood memories involve cooking. I loved to watch my bubby as she deftly poured pancake batter so it would cook in the shape of a bunny or Mickey Mouse. What a master! When I was a little older I was sous chef for my father as he made pounds of “Daddy Pasta” in his loft on 18th street: fusilli pasta, ground veal, peas, sautéed garlic and onions, sesame oil and cups of Parmesan cheese. For so many of us, cooking and togetherness go hand in hand.

For my blog, Allergic Girl  and my food allergy coaching and consulting business,  Allergic Girl Resources, Inc, I dine out between five and ten times a week. But when I dine at home, I want colorful, attractive, nutritious, healthy, low fat, whole food and inexpensive dishes made with as few ingredients as necessary. These recipes use little-to-nothing processed industrially, highlight local, seasonal produce and you can make them within about 30 minutes from walking in the door.

 

Like Moosewood, I say, add and subtract flavors or components as you see fit. No chard? Use purple kale or spinach. No apples? Pears are fab. No rice? What about quinoa, barley, amaranth, or buckwheat noodles. No sweet potato? Pumpkin or any winter squash totally works. Spicy chickpeas not your thing? Here are five other chickpea versions from the  New York Times. Don’t like spicy? Just warm beans and add more olive oil and some kosher salt and pepper (even some lemon works). Don’t like beans? Sub another veg protein like tofu. See how it easy it is?

 

MISE EN PLACE

First, get your mise en place. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees for the sweet potato fries. Chop garlic,

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Shaindel Beers

Here's our second post in what I hope will be an ongoing series featuring writers who cook.  If you would like to contribute, please send me an e-mail at bestampo@gmail.com.

Shaindel Beers and I have never met but we're Facebook friends and over the past several months I've been impressed with her updates describing and picturing her cooking adventures.  She immediately came to mind as a contributor to this series.  OK so the picture above has nothing to do with today's recipe but I couldn't resist posting a photo of Shaindel after landing a steelhead.  Here's what she has to say about cooking and today's recipe for Poets' Quiche: I started cooking when I was about eight years old because that's when my mother had my younger brother Aaron and was very busy. I think I felt grown up helping because there was a baby in the house. It's also coincidentally about the time I could reach the stove on my own. I'm the oldest of four, so the one problem I run into with cooking is that I frequently make enough to feed an army. Lee (my husband) and I aren't opposed to leftovers, so luckily this works out well.

I like to cook because it's my quiet time alone in the kitchen. When I'm doing something really time-consuming like canning, I set my laptop on the dining room table and listen to The New Yorker's fiction podcasts. There's something magical about being told a story when you're cooking. It's either that, or singing along with great female singer-songwriters like Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, Lucinda Williams, and others. Then it's like hanging out with all the female friends you've ever had while working. Yes, I've been known to belt out "Coal-Miner's Daughter" while at the cutting board.

I also like cooking because (to me) it's a solitary activity like writing. You can experiment and see if something's working before you share it. If you experiment and things go horribly wrong, no one has to know, just like no one has to know about first drafts. It's also a terrific way of sharing yourself. A lot of people don't seem to really cook any more, so they're impressed when you do. I recently processed about fifty pounds of apples into apple sauce and apple butter. I gave apple butter to my hairdresser and the man who mows my lawn, and they were so grateful. A woman on Twitter offered to drive an hour to buy apple butter from me. I told her not to make a special trip, but if she's ever in town, I'll just give her a jar. Last weekend, I canned nine quarts of apple juice from apples that I'd picked that day. I brought in a pitcher of juice for people in my office. This weekend, I'm going to try canning apple pie filling. One of my students told me during office hours that she does that, so I'm going to give it a try. If all goes well, that might be what my office suite-mates get for Christmas this year.

There's a contentedness in being self-sufficient that I think people in rural communities understand. Recently, at an author event, I shared a table with a cookbook author, and there were samples of her salmon dip available. The event was near where I go fishing, so I asked if she had caught the salmon, and she laughed and said, "These are supposed to be quick and easy recipes! It's canned salmon." The last steelhead I caught was two years ago, so it certainly isn't the quick and easy way, but it's the way I'd like it to be for more people. I caught the fish, Lee smoked it, and I brought some to the office with cream cheese and crackers.

 

 This recipe is something I came up with last week because I had an overabundance of eggs and leftovers from the garden. One of my friends nicknamed it "Poets' Quiche." The great thing about this recipe is you can pretty much use any type of bread--I've used cubed French bread, leftover garlic bread. You can use frozen spinach, you can have a layer of cooked sausage. Pretty much, anything works, so have fun with it!

Poets' Quiche

2 slices of bread (I used wheat)
1 red pepper
2 orange peppers
12 cherry tomatoes
10 eggs
approximately 1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of shredded mozarella cheese
black pepper and salt to liking

Lightly oil bottom of 9" pie plate. Tear up two slices of bread and line bottom of pie plate with bread. Slice peppers into rings, halve cherry tomatoes, and place on top of bread layer. Sprinkle with mozarella cheese. Beat eggs thoroughly and mix in milk and salt and pepper, if desired. Pour mixture over bread, vegetable, and cheese layers. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until cooked through in center.

I serve with sour cream and hot sauce, but then I serve everything with sour cream and hot sauce. Enjoy!

Thanks, Shaindel.

--sdh

Much Depends on Dinner: Cooking with Grace Cavalieri

With this post we inaugurate a new series to showcase poets who cook.  We're delighted that Grace Cavalieri agreed to be our first contributor. Grace founded and  produces "The Poet and the Poem," now recorded at the Library of Congress for public radio. Her series celebrates its 32nd consecutive year on-air.  Grace and co-author Sabine Pascarelli have just published The Poet's Cookbook, with photographs by Dan Murano (A Solitary Moment).  The Poet's Cookbook includes full menus with more than 75 recipes for Antipasti, Minestre, Primi Piatti , Secondi Piatti, Verdure, Insalate, and Dolci.

Here's what Grace has to say about today's recipe:

Pomodori Ripieni is something my mother used to make. She even made this for my lunch when I came home from school. In the first part of the 20th century, there were no lunch rooms and cafeterias, no "Subway" or sandwich shops. Children walked home from school and back in one short hour. Nettie made Pomodori for me on toast. I guess that was our version of an open-face sandwich. 　Nettie's family　came from Sicily and my father, Angelo, who was truly a great chef, came from near Venice. If there were a class war between regions of Italy, it was never in the kitchen. This is the place that always smelled wonderful.

Dan Murano arranged these tomatoes beautifully in the pan. Mine are not always as symmetrical.

Stewed Tomatoes – Pomodori Ripieni

• 8 Fresh tomatoes
• 2 Cloves Garlic
• ½ cup of mixed herbs (parsley, basil and garlic ground together)
• 1/8 lb butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1 T olive oil

Cut tomatoes across in half. Scoop out seeds. Lay first layer in large pan. In place of seeds add the herb mixture and a dot of butter in each pocket. Place another layer of tomatoes on top. Drizzle with olive oil. Put ¼ cup water in bottom of pan, cover and cook on low for 45 minutes. Serves 4-6.

All photos by Dan Murano

Gabriel Received the Flan and Warm Smiles [by Stacey Harwood]

Dear Howard:  one shd. Never attempt FLAN in an unfamiliar and very bad oven – so forgive me if these are full of the unforgivable holes .. .I do hope you’re feeling better – Much love - 

                                  -- Undated note from Elizabeth Bishop to Howard Moss

 

Have you ever made flan?  I have, many times.  Flan is a light custard dessert that makes a great finish to a heavy meal.  Flan isn’t difficult to assemble -- there aren’t many ingredients (at its most basic, there’s milk, sugar, and eggs) and the method is straightforward -- but a lot can go wrong in the baking.  If you leave it in the oven for too long or if the temperature is off its mark, the mixture can end up resembling scrambled eggs.  If you take it out of the oven too soon, you’ll have an unappealing puddle of soup.  I’m not sure of what could have caused the holes in the version Bishop delivered to Moss, her friend and editor at The New Yorker, but given her characteristic modesty, I have a feeling that Moss was quite happy with his get-well gift.

Through the magic weirdness that is Facebook, I caught this update on poet Gabriel Gudding’s page: “Gabriel received the flan and warm smiles and t-shirt from Didi just now on the porch in the marmalade light and snow.”   Now there’s a lovely line, yes?  Bishop's spirit lives on in more than her writing! The Didi Gabe refers to is poet Didi Menendez, editor of MiPoesias, Ocho, and Oranges and Sardines.  She and Gabe are neighbors.  Lucky him.

Didi was happy to pass along her recipe (below the jump), but notes that credit goes “to an aunt of a cousin I visited in 1979 in Naples Florida although the almond extract part is my version and not part of the original recipe. Also the cheese variation comes from my mother Salome and I am not sure where she picked it up -- possibly on a bus on her way to work or back from working in the factory when we were kids.”  Didi's recipe is my favorite kind - it assumes that the cook has a certain amount of comfort and experience in the kitchen.  It's the kind of recipe exchanged between friends and family who know each others' habits.   

I can't wait to try it:

-- sdh