Health of the Nation

Did you hear Obama's speech on healthcare? STOP BEING SCARED PEOPLE! We need healthcare and healthcare reform.

Scar McDyess: What do you think about Medpac? Here's the list of members.

While I would love to see the single-payer system that Scar discussed in early posts, that kind of change would be too much. So, I hope the plan they are trying to push through works.

Everyone seems to be concerned about sacrifices that might have to be made. Is this a real concern or can they simply reduce inefficiences to pay for the plan?

In other news, I'm going back to grad school! Most of you already know this news but some may not. I'll be moving to LA to pursue a master's in Urban Planning at USC.

Also, my garden is flourishing. Photo on left (basil, tomato, mint, and watercress). I'm so proud because it's the first time I've not killed all my plants. Plus, having these things on hand for cooking saves $$$$$.

Below is a delicious recipe that uses mint, basil, and tomatoes (sent by my friend Emily).

Pasta With Herbed Tomatoes

Mix:
5 tomatoes, chopped (I use 1 or 2 boxes of cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered)
3 cloves garlic, chopoped
1 C fresh basil, chopped
2 T fresh mint, chopped
2 t salt1 t pepper
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1/2 C olive oil

Marinate 2-3 hours or overnight

Cook 1 lb bow tie pasta; drain. Transfer to large bowl and add half the tomato mixture and 1/2 C fresh grated parmesan; mix til cheese begins to melt; add rest of tomato mixture and 1/2 lb fontinella or fontina cheese (can also substitute mozzarella). Stir and served warm or at room temperature.

Note: This recipe has a lot of cheese but if you want to cut back or omit, I think it would still be really good. The marinated tomatoes really make the dish.

1:1 delicious and delicious

I made Cooking Light's Ultimate Chocolate Cake recipe for my friend Megan's 30th recently (recommended by Mom).

As frosting, I used a very simple ratio for ganache also found in the Ratio, a book I mentioned in an earlier post. This is the ratio for ganache: 1:1 baking chocolate/cream. Now, good baking chocolate can be expensive but if you want to cut costs, chocolate chips are fine (or a mix of baking chocolate and chips). Heat up the cream and add the coarsely chopped chocolate to the pan. Remove pan from heat as soon as the chocolate has melted.

Result: Amazing cake. Great recipe. Highly recommended. You can't really go wrong with ganache. It would probably make rotten vegetables taste delicious.

Banana and Black Bean Empanadas and Go Mousavi!

The bananas undergo a transformation in this recipe and become the perfect partner to the heat of the jalapeno and the meat of the beans. I used fresh diced jalapeno instead of tabasco. The vegan recipe from the Vegetarian Times below is slightly dry (the crust), so I definitely recommend using a sauce like guacamole. I prepared a make-shift salsa with chopped tomatoes, onions and lime juice (this was not bad). Another reviewer suggested sour cream with lime zest and lime juice.

The non-vegan version here in epi is even easier to prepare.

Politics: All eyes on the election in Iran today. Let's hope Mousavi wins and the power transition is peaceful...

****
Ingredient List
Serves 6 Crust
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. chili powder
4 Tbs. cold soy margarine, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 Tbs. white wine vinegar

Filling
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped (1 cup)
1 cup cooked black beans
1 clove garlic, minced (1 tsp.)
2 bananas, peeled and diced (1 cup)
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
2 Tbs. chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp. red pepper sauce, such as Tabasco

Directions

1. To make Crust: Sift flours, salt, and chili powder in bowl. Mix in margarine with fingers until mixture resembles coarse meal. Whisk together applesauce, vinegar, and 1/3 cup cold water in separate bowl. Stir applesauce mixture into flour mixture until textured dough forms, adding up to 1/4 cup more water, if necessary. Knead on lightly floured surface until dough comes together. Form into ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill 1 hour, or overnight.
2. To make Filling, heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté onion 4 to 5 minutes, or until soft and translucent. Add beans and garlic, reduce heat to medium, and cook 3 minutes. Stir in bananas, cumin, cayenne, and coriander, and cook 2 minutes, or until bananas begin to break down and spices are fragrant. Remove from heat, and stir in cilantro and red pepper sauce.
3. Preheat oven to 400°F. Divide dough into 12 balls. Coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Roll out each ball to 6-inch round (1/4-inch thick) on lightly floured work surface. Fill with 2 Tbs. Filling, and brush edges of pastry with water. Fold dough circle in half, press to close, and crimp edges with fork to seal. Transfer to prepared baking sheet, and repeat with remaining dough balls and Filling. Chill 10 minutes. Bake empanadas 20 minutes, or until golden brown and crusty. Cool 5 minutes on baking sheet before serving.

Nutritional Information
Per : Calories: 364, Protein: 10g, Total fat: 10g, Saturated fat: 4g, Carbs: 60g, Cholesterol: mg, Sodium: 748mg, Fiber: 8g, Sugars: 8g

Cook with Math

Food

Cookbook foes, there is a new anti-cookbook cookbook for you! Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking provides formulas that promise to set you free from the bondage of recipes. An example:

Pie dough = 3 parts flour: 2 parts fat : 1 part water. Roux = 3 parts flour : 2 parts fat. Sausage = 3 parts meat : 1 part fat.

I am a slave to recipes, I admit. I've been trying to figure out why for years. My mother and grandmother also cook with recipes. My friends from more traditional cultures (Asian, Middle Eastern) don't use recipes and while I envy them, I generally stick to the book.

I haven't read this book yet, but I will post again when I do. Wanted to get the buzz out of there on it.

Politics

A shout out to Obama for a great speech in Cairo today.

Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw

I have neglected this blog! Here's a quick, cheap, and fairly healthy recipe I made recently. I really love cabbage these days.

*****

Who needs meat? The cumin-scented black bean filling is hearty, satisfying, and incredibly easy to prepare. Round out the meal—and get a complete protein—by adding Mexican rice.

Yield: Makes 4 servings
Active Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

1 15-ounce can black beans, drained
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
5 teaspoons olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 cups coleslaw mix
2 green onions, chopped
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
4 white or yellow corn tortillas
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
Bottled chipotle hot sauce or other hot sauce

preparation

Place beans and cumin in small bowl; partially mash. Mix 2 teaspoons olive oil and lime juice in medium bowl; add coleslaw, green onions, and cilantro and toss to coat. Season slaw to taste with salt and pepper.

Heat 3 teaspoons olive oil in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add tortillas in single layer. Spoon 1/4 of bean mixture onto half of each tortilla; cook 1 minute. Fold tacos in half. Cook until golden brown, about 1 minute per side. Fill tacos with feta and slaw. Pass hot sauce alongside.

nutritional information
Per serving: 232.6 (kcal) calories, 40.0 % calories from fat, 10.3 g fat, 2.7 g saturated fat, 11.1 mg cholesterol, 28.7 g carbohydrates, 5.0 g dietary fiber, 1.5 g total sugars, 23.7 g net carbohydrates, 7.5 protein

Nutritional analysis provided by Bon Appétit

You Don't Want Any Meat on Your Salad?

The Lake District, home of Beatrix Potter, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth (listed in order of importance), is really as charming as they say. We stayed at a place called Yewfield which I intend to review glowingly. Yewfield sits on a 30-acre farm complete with a tarn (small lake i think?), chickens, compost piles, nature trail, and an old English manor which serves as the b&b.

We tried to go on a nature walk but ended up in the chicken coop looking for a way back to the house--the path was hard to follow.

Back on the road, we headed to St. Bee's Head on the Cumbrian coast with GPS leading the way. We got very hungry around 2 or 3 and stopped to ask some kids where we could eat in this small town of St. Bee's. They recommended getting a pie at the post office???? Right, the post office? We ended up going to a pub inside a hotel on the beach. I checked the salad page of their menu and found a noticeable lack of greens and the strong presence of various meats. I asked the barmaid if I could just get a green salad and she said innocently: "You don't want any meat on your salad?" A few minutes later, I spilled my entire half-pint on my lap in front of a couple of staring construction workers.

We arrived in Edinburgh at Andrea's flat in the evening on Friday night and enjoyed a lovely curry made by John, Andrea's Scottish boyfriend. In the morning, we drove to Glasgow and met up with Geraldine, who is Irish but lives in Glasgow. Despite its reputation, Glasgow is very nice, especially the old town around the university. I met Andrea and Geraldine on the JET Program in Japan almost 8 years ago, so it was a mini-reunion of sorts.

On Sunday, we poked around the Royal Mile and the castle in Edinburgh, probably eating more than walking. Ahmet enjoyed some oysters and Guiness at Cafe Royal. I told the English bartender that I wanted to try some scottish whisky in my hot toddy (andrea had irish whiskey in hers) and got a showy reply. He said, "well, technically ALL whisky is scottish. If they want to use the spelling `whisky`, the whisky must be aged in barrels off the coast of Scotland for at least seven years". After encountering a mix of grumpy Scots and uppity English early that day, I decided to reply to his little tirade. I pointed to Andrea's glass of Jameson and said, "That's not Scottish whisky". He said, well it's a blend and look at the spelling anyway of 'whiskey'. I guess the implication was that all whiskeys, including Irish whiskeys, want to be Scottish.

We're off to Liverpool today and back in London for the night on Tuesday. Wednesday we return to blustery Chicago.

***

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot : O Christ !
That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

(from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge)

Viva GPS

When I last blogged, we were still in London. The next day we took the train to Heathrow Airport and picked up a rental car, a lovely Nissan Note. Will try to post a photo of it. We headed to Oxford but forgot to charge up the laptop which had the GPS antenna connected. Very difficult to navigate without GPS in the UK! It took us several hours to drive to Oxford when it should have taken one. We got a nice tour around the ancient college town from our Chicago friend Mike Mason, who is studying abroad there. After another two hours trying to get out of town, we drove to Bristol for the night and sadly had to skip Bath.

The next day we had GPS but no power connection for the laptop, so we got Gloucester and the laptop died in the middle of what we like to call a "sheep road". The countryside was very beautiful but we wondered if we would be sleeping in a barn that night. We slopped our way back to some paved roads and decided we had to skip our two stops that day, Church Stretton and Liverpool, and just drive straight through to Hawkshead in the Lake District. After deciding that we were totally helpless without GPS, we stopped in Birmingham and bought a AC/DC converter for the laptop at an electronics store called Maplin's. The clerk said he thought we had "western" accents. Wild west?

Things went a lot more smoothly on the drive after the GPS was working reliably. We arrived in Hawkshead around 9pm but we could sense the beauty of lakes and the land underneath the darkness.

I'm in Edinburgh now and my Irish friend Andrea just made us breakfast, so this post is to be continued. Photos here.

Afternoon Tea and Fun with Antiquities

Today we visited the Ancient Greek, Middle Eastern, and Japanese collection at the British Museum. The Museum houses more than 7 million objects, so it's really best to focus only on several collections unless you plan to camp out for the next year in front of the museum in Bloomsbury. The Egyptian collection was interesting, if not a little gross with preserved corpses and the like.

After the museum, we had afternoon tea with finger sandwiches and champagne at the The Orangery in Kensington Gardens (also home to Kensington Palace). My tea was a little pedestrian--I guess that's what I get for ordering the "classic". Ahmet's darjeeling was peppery and good.

Sunny days and nice weather so far. Not a drop of rain.

Tate & Tour

Yesterday we left the hotel early, before 9am, which is very early for us. A small miracle, really. We were jet-lagged and couldn't sleep, so we decided to take off early.

We signed up for one of those dorky bus tours where you can get on and off at will. We should have done the carbon-free walking tour, but my new "walking" shoes are really uncomfortable so we took the lazy choice on the bus. We did get a nice overview of the city and took advantage of the river cruise (included). A few observations:

1. English people love gardens.
2. They are more formal, starting with the schoolchildren in tiny, neat uniforms.
3. The food is not as bad as I thought (mostly international).

Our day in the city ended at the Tate Modern, but we hit a wall of fatigue by that time, so we had to take a break after each floor of art. I can't remember much of what we saw, save the Austrian expressionist pieces with bandages, needles, and self-mutilation featured. Cheery stuff.

Today we attempt the British Museum and afternoon tea if all goes well.

London

We arrived in London today (Sunday) disheveled but happy to be here, after a nice sleep on the floor of the airport in Dusseldorf for a few hours. That floor was so clean you could have almost eaten off of it.

London seems crowded but the neighborhood where we are staying, Belgravia, is cozy and pleasant. Poetry posted on tube--saw a nice one by Scottish poet Andrew Young. Will try to post it later if I can find.

They always give Ahmet a hard time at customs and border crossings. This time they asked about our relationship, his job, and our travel plans. We said we planned to drive through England to Edinburgh and this young guard said, "you know, that's a long way". Then he asked Ahmet in a worried tone: "Have you drive long distances before?"

It's only 400 miles one-way from London to Edinburgh and we aren't even driving it all in one day.

Blogging from UK

Greetings from an airbus 340-300 to london connecting dusseldorf. I will be posting trip updates on this blog over the next 10 days. Here's the itinerary: London-oxford-bath-bristol-lake district-edinburgh-york-london. I'll post again from london.

Early Adolescent Addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference

Jonathan Krohn isn't old enough to have a cell phone, so he uses his mom's to call into conservative talk shows. Check out the video of Krohn at the CPAC.

The Republican Party in disarray is looking everywhere for leadership, I guess.

Product Review: Fluidmaster Fill Valve and American Standard Tub Spout

Is your toilet broken? When you turn on the shower does the tub spout still leak?
In this economic cry-sis, do-it-yourself plumbing is not only financially savvy, but can provide endless hours of entertainment WITH a pipe wrench in hand.
Let me recommend the following item (my favorite Christmas gift this year!!!) for your future toilet repair needs:
The Fluidmaster!!!!


This product will charm your pants off (but wait until the toilet is fixed!) with it's steel gray and shiny black components. The Fluidmaster is really easy to install! It only took me two hours to read the fourteen steps, find the appropriate tools in our tool-jumble-puzzle-pile, take a few smoke breaks, and clean up all the toilet water off the floor. This is a great product with clear instructions.


If you would like to conserve a little more water, fix your leaky tub spout for around 15 dollars. I used the American Standard Tub Spout. Before you attempt this, make sure and decipher what kind of tub spout you have there are many models out there. This video will show you how to do this:
http://www.expertvillage.com/video/22903_leaky-faucet-removel-spout.htm

DO NOT BE FOOLED!!! It usually requires much more torque to get the spout off then "John the Plumber" at Expert Village would have you believe. Wail on that thing. Just do not rip the pipe out of the wall.

OMG Burgers

Chipotle-Chili Sauce for Burgers (epi)

* 3/4 cup mayonnaise
* 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 2 tablespoons minced red onion
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
* 1 tablespoon minced canned chipotle chilies
* 1 tablespoon drained capers

Recommended toppings: Arugula, sliced red onion, tomato

Combine all six ingredients and serve on any type of burger (meat or veggie) or fish/chicken sandwich. Yogurt can be used instead of mayo to make it more healthy.

Also, yesterday I finally went to a Parks and Rec yoga class for $3! Class was excellent. For those on a budget, I recommend you find out what your parks and rec offers. There may be some value-priced fitness in your future.

Peaches or Plums

Thanks to BK for sending this one. It's pretty hot.

Peaches or Plums

by Alan Michael Parker

Oh, how I hate my mind,
all those memories
that have invented their own memories.

Take my first love, for instance,
how after Mass we'd kneel
underneath the back stairs

and kiss and kiss and kiss and.
Were her lips like peaches or plums?
She was Catholic and she wanted

to be bad, and I loved her
more than baseball,
but all the other days

divided us, carry the one,
nothing left over. So strange,
only to kiss on a Sunday,

to hold my own breath again
for a week, another 10,022
minutes of wretched puberty,

until she moved to Iowa
or Ohio or the moon.
Oh, I can still remember

nothing about her,
only kissing, and the impossible
geometry of the descending stairs

that rose to the church kitchen,
her breath like hot nutmeg
and a little like the ocean;

and once, oh my god, she bit me,
a first taste of my body,
blood in her smile.

Alice's Kitchen Cabinet

Alice Waters, west coast culinary pioneer, is urging Obama to create a 'kitchen' cabinet. We'll see what happens with Obama's food policy.

Food talk is everywhere! Losing weight is the nation's #1 new year's resolution and advertisers are capitalizing on this.

Here's my first recipe for 2009. Savory, cinnamon-y and delicious.

Greek-Spiced Baked Shrimp
Gourmet | November 2008 (epi)

These saucy shrimp spiked with cinnamon, allspice, and feta quickly disappeared in our test kitchen. Have plenty of bread on hand for sopping up the juices.

Yield: Makes 4 servings
Active Time: 15 min
Total Time: 1 hr

ingredients
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon hot red-pepper flakes
Pinch of sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice, drained, reserving juice, and chopped
1 1/4 pound large peeled and deveined shrimp
1/4 pound feta, crumbled (2/3 cup)
2 tablespoons chopped dill

Accompaniments: crusty bread or steamed white rice; a green salad

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.

Cook onion and garlic in oil with 1/4 teaspoon salt in a 4-quart heavy saucepan over medium heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in spices and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. Add chopped tomatoes with juice and sugar and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

Season shrimp with 1/8 teaspoon salt, then stir into tomato sauce. Transfer to a 2-quart shallow baking dish and top with feta. Bake until just cooked through, 18 to 20 minutes. Serve sprinkled with dill.

Shopping List:

1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice, drained, reserving juice, and chopped
1 1/4 pound large peeled and deveined shrimp
1/4 pound feta, crumbled (2/3 cup)
2 tablespoons chopped dill
Bread or rice
Lemon for salad
Greens for salad

Detroit Bailout Fails in the Senate

It’s hard not to feel pessimistic tonight.

I am astonished that Washington can't come together for a little compromise in these crazy times. All the world is asking for is a little reassurance that we have one competent leader in the face of endless bad news on the economic front. Washington seems to be divided between two camps: Those who want to peel the band-aid off slowly and those who prefer to rip it off after counting "One!" The Democrats are afraid to let anyone fail, and the Republicans would rather let the chips fall where they may. I suppose the Bush White House is a third camp: It's desperately trying to keep itself out of the wastebasket of history. Good luck to that. Band-aids aside, what systemic changes are being proposed to prevent or mitigate similar debacles in the future? None so far... Both parties are failing the leadership test.

Dear friends, in times like these I wish everyone the best of luck. I hope that all of you are secure in your jobs. It's not too early for a new year's resolution: Job security should be our number one priority in 2009. There may not be a better time than now to do some serious sucking up to the Man or Woman (depending on your office demographics). Consider putting in extra hours and not-too-subtly advertising your dedication and value to your company. Don't let the higher-ups believe that you are expendable, because many folks have lost their jobs, and the bleeding is likely to get worse before it gets better. Even if you hate your job, it's probably better to tough it out and keep hating it rather than risk unemployment. If you depend on a sugar daddy or sugar mama, you should probably offer more oral sex.

Meanwhile, back in Washington… Obama should appoint a medium to his cabinet so that he can personally consult with FDR as needed. By the time January 20 rolls around, this country may be desperate for a fireside chat or two. I feel for poor Obama. No doubt, he's a talented politician, but I'm not confident that anyone can keep us out of some serious economic dumps. All he can do is act presidential, try not to make things worse (by sitting on his hands while the automakers collapse, for example), and hope that things start to look up before people begin to think he's part of the problem. Considering he'll probably spend most of his time trying to look busy on the economy, there's a good chance he won't get much else done the first couple of years.

Let us hope for change in 2011, then.

Taking the Streets

Just when I'm trying to wind down for the night, often Fresh Air on NPR from 10-11pm will derail me. Tonight, I heard the 'street doc' on Fresh Air and I was inspired. Jim Withers, an internal medicine physician in Philadelphia, started practicing medicine on the street in 1992, dressed as a homeless person accompanied by a formerly homeless assistant. His work grew into Operation Safety Net, hosting an international conference on street medicine this year.

Withers said he decided to start his project after reading 52 Ways to Help the Homeless (the cover has a hearty endorsement from jimmy carter).

Highlights of the interview

Withers started a wall with names of the homeless who had died in Philadelphia, to remember them and also to make a political statement. He wanted the plaque to go on the sidewalk in the places where people had died, but found that it was illegal. He negotiated with the city and eventually found a spot.

He said that homeless people are often the victims of attack, not from other homeless, but from non-homeless.

In places like Bangalore, he said the line between homeless and non-homeless is not as clearly drawn as it is here. He said that the stigma of homelessness is akin to leprosy in India. In Europe, access to health services means a smaller homeless population.

It's getting cold here in Chicago.

We need healthcare for everyone in the United States!

Note: you can read policy recommendations for 2008 from the national coalition for the homeless here.

One of the most interesting:

Enact the Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act. The Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act (H.R. 2216) compels law enforcement authorities to monitor incidents of crimes against people experiencing homelessness. Since 1999 there have been 774 documented acts of violence against homeless persons, including 217 deaths. 2006 saw a 65 percent increase in the number of hate crimes over the prior year. Incidents have included: setting a man on fire, pushing a sleeping woman into a river, and pummeling a woman’s face with a tire-iron. Including homeless persons as a protected class within federal hate crime laws will help stop violence targeted toward persons experiencing homelessness.

Someone give this woman a Pulitzer, or at least a "Harumph!"

I love Gail Collins. Some day I'm gonna have me a love sandwich with her and Nina Totenberg.

So, can we finally kick Joe Lieberman to the curb?

Wool

You are ambitious. You want to create gifts this year using only two wooden sticks and some wool. For inspiration, check out the Brooklyn Tweed blog. This man is (sigh) probably the most incredible knitter blowing up the blogosphere.

For your stash-check out the Beaverslide yarns from Montana.