Stromboli Baby

I have a new favorite word, and perhaps a new favorite food.

Can you tell it is raining, and hailing? Yes we just as of five minutes ago set a new record for latest snowfall in Utah at valley elevations. Five straight weeks of precipitation, and moping, my usual coping method, got old, and I just don't have the young energy anymore to drink hard as a hobby, so I decided I'd better start cooking. I figure I have a lot of hiking to catch up with in June, so I might as well store a lot of good stuff to eat now. Preferably portable. And also I started to make muffins from scratch (3 kinds), am baking more breads, and invented some recipes to try soon, I hope.

Stromboli is an Italian dish defined on Wikipedia as being a calzone with the sauce inside. This tripped me up as I thought I was making calzones to throw in the freezer, but as I was over-ambitiously trying to put tomato sauce inside them without rupturing their thin skins, I learned I was making stromboli. Stromboli can be made in a swirl log shape too though, and I wanted to try that. The pics are above.

To start, just make a pizza dough as you normally would. Throw down a lot of flour on your counter and roll it into a rectangle. Then put down whatever you want, roll it up as you would a yoga mat or a sleeping bag, coat the edges with egg, seal, sprinkle with something good on top, bake, and carve it like a roast with a big bread knife. It is delicious, artistic, structurally sound, stores well in freezer, and will make you seem like you are an actual Italian in a way pizza will not, even when you make it from scratch.

My first roll stromboli was: tomato paste, black olive, red bell pepper, spinach leaves, whole basil leaves, slices of provolone cheese, roast beef, and salomi, mustard, garlic powder and sprinkled with asiago, romano, and parmesan cheese, and oregano on top. My dough was half whole grains- a mix of rye and whole wheat flours with unbleached standard baking flour. I think this is one sturdy food you could get away with all whole grain flour- it doesn't need to rise much, you are coating it with egg anyway, sprinkling it with good things, and stuffing it with sandwhich fixings and pizza toppings. No one will mind.

Some other ideas:

Vegetarian: tomato paste, bell pepper, olives, whole basil leaves, eggplant, squash, onions, provolone, sprinkled parmesan, romano, and asiago.

Vegetarian 2: tomato paste, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin strips, crushed red pepper, minced garlic, onions, mozzerella, sprinkled with oregano and parmesan on top

Pink Lady: Ham, mayo, mozzerella, tomato paste, olives, spinach or lettuce, crushed red pepper, a touch of ranch, ground rosemary, sprinkled on top with oregano and parmesan


Hot Italian sausage would be good too. I like parmesan cheese, if you cannot tell.

Now as to calzones, in their crescent shape, they will certainly make better easier to eat stored food, if you are in the habit of keeping tomato sauce around to dip them into, or some other condiment you prefer. They will be dry to travel with though, which for hiking and car trip purposes, is why I wanted them to be complete, with sauce inside, like a Hot Pocket.

I used to consider "Hot Pockets" one of mankind's greatest inventions. Then I got clued in a bit to the way the world used to be, you know, for about 4,000 years until the microwave and massive grocery markets, and realized they were just the corruption of every nation's old lunch pail stand by, the enclosed sandwich, calzone, stuffed na'an, empanada, pasty, etcetera. The coal miners even built a handle into theirs, which they would eat around and then discard, so birds could pick at the filthy black bread stick and die instead of them. Clever. So the original lunch pail was edible, and now it does not decompose for 25,000,000 years- approximately. Now, Hot Pockets are not very good, but I kept buying them in college, on the hopes they would be good, or really, the conviction that they SHOULD be good. I mean they were so convenient and clever and self-contained. Every food good right there, little spillage, eat it hot or just let it thaw as you sleep in class and then eat it coldish.

A better idea: buy a $6 dough press set (mine is by Progressive and can be found at TJ Maxx, Ross stores, and Amish farmers markets) and just make the things yourself, without preservatives and with a lot more flavor and real ingredients. You could make do without the dough press kit. If you can roll dough into a circle then you can fold it over itself. Paint the edges or lips with a little egg yolk, and press them with a fork if you want that artisan's touch. Almost anything can go in them, and you can make empanadas, mini dessert or fruit pastries, calzones, stromboli, and anything else you want to call them with one kit. The largest size my kit makes is about the size of a Hot Pocket, which I know is good to cut down hunger on the run, but not quite fill me. Simple eh? I have not tried empanadas yet, which I think I will fry in corn oil to make them a bit different, or mix in some masa to my dough. But here are some calzone tips, or stromboli tips, depending on how technical you want to be.

Do not overstuff them. That will be the temptation because everything going in them is good, and you like good things. But overstuffing stretches your dough and creates weak spots. They will leak- no big deal, or explode- which may be.

Use tomato paste, rather than tomatoes or tomato sauce. The paste is drier and will not weaken your dough or add to leakage. Then again, the most delicious part of the calzone experience is peeling that crispy patch of mozzerella and tomato goo off your pan after you lift off your calzones.

Type of pan does not seem to matter. I tried pale and dark metals, flat and high walled. What you want is to work your dough as little as possible. My early calzones in each batch were more stable than the ones I formed from the scraps of left-over dough I re-rolled out. Also, don't grease the pan, put down a little corn flour, it will add to your crust and works just as well, and is easier to clean off. Just shake it over the garbage can.

Coat your calzones with egg even if you don't want any herbs or cheese on the outside. It will make the crust less dry and taste better. I put herbs in my dough, which is a fair idea also. And garlic powder will work better than minced garlic. That too can go in your dough for safe keeping.

Bake around 400 degrees, and watch them close. They finish faster than you might expect. I left mine in the oven for 10-12 minutes. They will cook a bit more even after you've removed them, which is true of meat and any enclosed dish or food too.

Ricotta cheese is great in stuffed shells, but I think it is too hard to find good ricotta with the flavor you need to stand up to the crust of a calzone. Stick with mozzerella or provolone. Parmesan and cheddar in little touches will help to enhance either cheese.

Watch out when hot- they spit!

If you are really ambitious, try selling them. Who doesn't love a good portable meal?

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Forty Dollar Lamb

If you have 40 days and 40 nights to spare, try making this meal.

I exaggerate a little. It is mostly done in a slow cooker. And if you can chop even a little, you can make this delicious, perhaps, even, heavenly lamb tagine. Or stew. Or curry. Stewgine. Well, I combined a fruit tagine heavy on curry powder and a classic tomato and pepper stew recipe together because I could not decide between them, so I am not sure what to call it. I was thinking Miracle Manger Tagine, but Forty Dollar Lamb sounds good too, as you could easily charge that in a restaurant if your table cloth is white enough and well starched and you have a maitre-de with the proper upward tilt to his disdainful and superior chin. I left everything big, because that is a more classic slow cooker feel to me. I thought this collision of flavors would jump and jive well, but it could have fallen on its face and not shocked me. You will need:

1.5 lbs lamb stew meat or shoulder roast
4 potatoes (I used red and left skin on)
4 large carrots
1 green tart apple (leave the skin on)
1 unripe green banana
8-12 oz cut green beans
1/2 can coconut milk
1/2 can tomato sauce (plain)
4-6 mint leaves (fresh if possible, or try peppermint extract, or failing even that, anise extract)
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp cardamom
1.5 tsp black pepper
1 clove garlic minced
1 diced tomato, or 1/4 can diced tomato
3-4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
Medium to large slow cooker

Quinoa, cous-cous, rice or barley

Lamb is an excellent meat to work with in today's meat world, because it is not eaten enough to get the full fast-food treatment and have its life streamlined to a short, sad, scary efficiency. The flesh is full of flavor that rolls around all over your tongue, and it melts and still has fat in it. Imagine that: marbling! Beef gets worse all the time. Any slow foodist knows it. Chicken is too disgusting to think about and turkey can be worked with, but only if you hit yourself in the head with a mallet or the bottom half of a bottle of kalua first. You don't want to know what percentage of chicken can be feces legally by weight and volume. Oh wait, I think I told you once already in a blog.

Start by braising or searing your lamb. Use your slow cooker if you have a high setting, by chopping your meat and putting it in along the bottom, alone and dry. Let it brown, but not char. You will want the contrast of well-done lamb in this curry stew. While that starts, chop your vegetables. Use all the fat, it will melt into the body. Don't trim lamb. If a person complains the meat is fatty, they shouldn't be eating lamb. The fat will not be chewy like with some other meats and is part of the delicacy of lamb.

Once your meat is brown and mostly cooked, put in your potatoes and carrots, and coconut milk and tomato sauce. Let go on low for 2 hours or so. Then add your apples, green beans, spices and seasonings, garlic, olive oil, tomatoes, and butter. Let it go another 2 hours or so. Check on the vegetables for desired tenderness with a fork. The butter is optional at any point as a thickener if you need it. Slice half your banana as a last step and put it in for just a half hour at most.

Boil the grain of your choice and put the lamb and vegetables and sauce over it. I used quinoa, and they went very well together. This was one of the best things I have eaten in a long time. One of my favorite dishes. I think a gourmet would have a hard time identifying all the flavors but would approve heartily. It was excellent, delicious, and mouth watering. It would have been perfect had I not put my apples in so early and made them mushy. I corrected that above and suggested to not add them with the potatoes and carrots as I did. Mesmerizing. And if you think I am merely tooting my own horn, try to find other such words in my previous posts. Or ask Camila. Pretty good on my scale is a darn fine compliment. If I tell you your dish is very good, it probably means you should expect me to have diverted a parade route through your bedroom by tomorrow morning.

The above recipe will feed 6 people one full size portion each, unless they are pigs. Though that will leave them wanting more. You could satisfy 4 without a dessert. It does not recapture everything with reheating.

And now for dessert:

Apple Pear Raspberry Granola Crunch

You need:

3 apples (any variety: skin them only if you want to. May I suggest zebra tanning them? That's half skinning)
2 pears (skin them)
1.5 cups apple-raspberry granola or as close to that as you can arrange
1/2 cup whole oats
1.5 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup brown sugar
cinnamon
allspice
nutmeg
touch of lemon juice
8X11 casserole dish

You can reduce your sugar usage a lot by substituting vanilla. This almost qualifies as a health dish, but will be sweet enough for any tooth with some vanilla ice cream on top.

Grease your dish, slice your apples and pears, toss them in a big bowl with everything else. Pour it into the cassarole and smooth and flatten it as you can. You could try a bit of corn syrup if you want it to stick together like bars, but it should hold somewhat together after baking. Use the vanilla and spices to smell: if it smells delicious while you are tossing it, then they are probably right. If your mouth is not watering, shake in a bit more of whatever you fancy. Its hard to overdue vanilla, though a little goes a long way. Cinnamon also. Hold your nutmeg as large doses cause a) nausea, and b) peyote-like hallucinations, and c) vomiting after the visions. Or if you want to have a really interesting game of Pictionary after dessert...

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OMG I LOVE CHEESE

Andrew and Camila are reunited again!

After a fabulous, hula-hoop-filled visit to the Salt Lake City farmers market, we picked up fresh fruits and veggie and started working on dinner... which is:

- Corn on the cob dressed with butter, salt, lime juice and a hint of chile powder
- Beans, carrots, brown rice and a variety of grains - the tastiest, healthiest whole protein around!
- Deep-fried zucchini and eggplant
- Home-baked bread and crackers
- 8 kinds of cheese
- Fresh fruit punch (fresh-squeezed cantaloupe, peach, apple and pineapple juice mixed with sparkling water)
- Chocolate-tofu pie with raspberries.

LIFE IS WONDERFUL

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Corn and Pumpkin Chowder

Without any of my usual nonsense, here is a recipe and directions for a good soup.

Add 2 cans of corn plus 2 cans water to a pot and turn on some heat. Dice 1 lb or so of blue potatoes if you can find them, or your favorite variety and add. Dice two carrots into circles and add. Throw in the guts of one half of a pie pumpkin if you have them (I had some bagged in the freezer since November for just such occassions. I don't think canned would work.) Pour in 4-6 oz of cooking sherry or red wine. Add 3 oz olive oil. Get this to a boil and keep it there for 30 minutes. While doing that, julienne one half of a red bell pepper, and shred 1 large or 2 small kale leaves. Add these along with a half can of black beans to your pot and lower to a strong simmer. For spices you will wan t: 2 tsp white pepper, 1 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp onion powder, 1 tsp garlic, 1 tsp of chef's seasoning mix (just a blend of salt and lots of other stuff). Simmer for say 90 minutes.

Lower the heat to very low simmer. Add 2 cups milk and 4-6 oz of chedder or colby cheese. Stir until blended in. Add corn starch to thicken and that is a very fine corn and pumpkin chowder- colorful, healthy, somewhat low fat and flavorful. The pumpkin disintegrates and just adds color and flavor, nothing stringy. I liked it so much I made a second batch days later.

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The Its Cool to Be Square Jam Session

That's right- your questions answered. A two month catch up YBAC Mailbag. As always, these are real questions to Andrew from real readers. Why would I make these up, that would be a very deranged waste of a lot of my own time.

Why are pizzas round?
-Shawna: Sheboygan, IL

They don't have to be. If you watch Garfield cartoons, you know its because the first pizza chef baked them so hard that they inspired the frizbee. I made a cool square pizza the other night and will now make my own pizzas every time. Its too easy to make one to buy preservative-rich shipped from who knows where possibly due for a recall not nearly as tasty pizzas from the store. The one pictured is a simple crust with 1/4 of the flour rye, and lots of oregano and herbs de provance right in the crust. Also, you can put a bead of mustard around the edge before folding over for a more rewarding last bite of each piece. This one had mushrooms underneath- which were almost as fresh as the day I bought them two weeks after I bought them, wrapped tight in a brown paper bag in the crisper- a trick that apparently does work. And with soft mozerella beneath a crispy browned layer of parmesan. Oh and spinach.

Staying lazy? You don't hike, you don't blog, what do you do?
-Mitchel Prince: North Salt Lake, UT

I have been busy! I made my first zuccini bread batch (delicious) and need a heartier supply of zuccini as I fry them very well too. It is fairly easy, although I suggest using less than the 2 cups of sugar many recipes call for (better if you go half and half brown and white) because it just isn't necessary. A cup and a half will do it I think. I also made 2 batches of pumpkin pancakes with white chocolate chips and walnuts in them, and a new feature to my repertoire: buttermilk pancake syrup. I am even including the recipe for it. I love it with both pumpkin cakes, bars, and my coco craisin pancakes, which also have walnuts. I have never been a big maple person, although mainly I just think pancakes and crepes can do so many things, they deserve more than one sugary sticky goo to smother them in. I also now firmly believe that the wetter and oranger your pumpkin pancakes- the better. The trouble with pumpkin is you can only buy huge cans of it year round. At Thanksgiving Time this year, I am going to buy 10 single pie cans instead of these double ones, because I get pumpkinned out by the time I go through 32 oz of pumpkin in a week. Although, I do love pumpkin. This time I made the cakes really slopping over with it- and they were much better as more pumpkin than flour. Not that there is anything wrong with typical pancakes slightly flavored with pumpkin either. And pumpkin is very good for you- its absolutely slopping over with vitamins and especially lutein and Vitamin A, both of which are good for the eyes. Anything orange or red by the way is good for your eyes: carrots, tomatoes, red bell peppers. Its why a rainbow diet can be such a simple way to know you are healthy: pigments tell you what you are getting because they are created by particular compounds we need. Vitamin C makes things dark red/purple. As does lutein and Vitamin A (or orangey). That's your nutrition tip for the week.

So buttermilk syrup: 1.5 C sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup buttermilk (I use the buttermilk powder with 3/4 cup water), 2 tbsp corn syrup, 2 tsp baking soda, 1 whisked egg. Heat this to boiling for 7-10 minutes, then take off the heat and add 1 tsp of vanilla. If you don't like it, send it to me and I will post a picture of myself eating it.

I also have been hiking- creeks and canyons instead of mountains right now while I get strong again and wait for 99 degrees to go away- my roomate now goes out some times with me, which is great because its nice to have someone to talk to. I spent hours looking up shoes to try that might make my feet break less. I even posted a personal add for people interested in being my hiking friend on the employee board at work. That's not desperate right? Right!!!?

What could be simpler than fresh jam?
-John Miller: Logan, Utah

Finding fault with the idiotic Cash For Clunkers: or the idea that America is now completely sink or swim with the auto industry, the jumbo bank industry, and the same Can't The Government Do It For Me Mentallity- all three of which can't possibly work anymore. I no longer think America needs to eat its Barackoli and will not be printing those t-shirts with his smiling mug on the head of a big hunk of green vegetable. Why not just sink 2.1 billion into say Smart Cars, which are actually environmentally friendly, or any random industry- bean bags. i would rather support someone new and even someone pulled out of a hat than the worst run industries in the history of the modern world. With a 2.1 billion dollar give away program, I am pretty sure Smart Car could produce and sell several hundred thousand units- and create many jobs to replace those Detroit would lose. So auto workers would have to migrate- umm have you seen Detroit? I don't think they would mind once they realized the sky wasn't black everywhere. Why exactly can't anyone envision life without Ford? I once read that when bicycles became big, people stopped buying hats because they spent their free money on their bike (wasn't much flexible income in those days), and the hats blew away while on a bike, and lawmakers at the behest of hatmakers nearly passed a law requiring everyone to buy at least 2 hats per month to protect the jobs of hatmakers. However, eventually, they decided the hatmakers could learn a new skill or starve. Now that is the American way. I either need to get a cut of any future profits or I want my taxes to be withheld from bailouts. I see no reason to be slightly poorer to keep a bunch of frauds and sleezes at the top wealthy. At least give me some CEO heads on a platter and put young hungry people in charge. These guys caused the problem- since when has any American learned from a mistake? Or why not public transportation? Horses and buggies went away, so can cars. If public transportation were not terrible, I would use it. Basically this is just the bad end of Soviet communism isn't it? I support companies and never see the benefits. All for the good of the nation. If you hear about car dealers in Bountiful Utah getting fire bombed with home made lye-based incendiaries, forget we had this talk. Oh yes, and a quick other point: electricity is very cheap in bountiful with an "in-house" plant that produces enough for this town only- and I found out why it is so cheap. Instead of buying and then burning coal, they have paper and cardboard recycling bins everywhere and burn this! Isn't that clever. And Utahns who contemptuosly snear that if God wanted us to recycle he would say so through one of his living phrophets (all currently old white men who are too busy hating on gays and lesbians and Jews and so forth) are willing to recycle to save money. Now it isn't glass burning which I would prefer since few cities even try to recycle glass in Utah, but what a clever plan for a city. I am so proud to live here. Especially with a darling farmer's market once a week, at least, during summer. What was your question again?

Oh- nothing- I am ashamed I have not made home jams sooner. I made a batch of blackberry and raspberry the past two nights and am delighted with the results and process. Here are the steps: 1)Put berries in a pan and poke them with a fork or knife, 2) Put pan on low heat, 3) When you begin to see juice, add a little under a 1:1 ratio of sugar (so say 3/4 cup sugar to 1 cup berries), 4) Stir on low heat then up the heat to boiling, 5) Boil for about five minutes, stirring twice- if berries were large or firm, mash them a bit, and run a jar under hot water while you go, 6) Put berries in jar, let jar sit on counter for 30 minutes, then refridgerate. I think you will find that fresh jam is bursting with flavor much more so than storeboughts, and its fun and makes you feel smart. You can add pectin in the form of apples, any fruit with a crisp skin, or store bought pectin to make sure you get a solid gel, as berries will leave things a bit watery, but nature will make the jam thick enough to spread and stick to bread. Process should be about the same for peaches or any other fruit you want to add (peach rasperrry? Peach blueberry? Apple cranberry? Hmmmm...)

Do you think your feet might hurt because you wore those damn wrestling shoes with duct tape for 6 years?
-Various members of my family: 3 states

No, I do not actually. I think it is from walking down 10% grades and climbing 80% rock walls for miles and hours. Holding the heel of my sky blue wrestling shoes on with duct tape obviously helped, since my feet hurt more now that they are gone. Which is why I just bought some wrestling shoes- its like wearing no shoes at all, and some Wenger Swiss Army Knife shoes: they stretch with each step, and have temperature-treated grip rubber, and anti-fungal insoles and are perfectly balanced to hold up to the Alps and every kind of arch- and fulfill my need of good footwear and mantastic gadgets. Sadly none are not sky blue, but the wrestling shoes are red and yellow and look like Superman shoes and my Matterhorn hikers are sunset colored: orange, gold, and pink. I found some similar sky blue wrestling shoes to my old pair but realized it wasn't the color of them, it was the memories. I had been walking on memories. Sometimes those can be the only thing you are comfortable in, and you just have to give it time until the memories start causing you pain in your knees, back, and heels before you are ready to move on. And by the way, dear family of mine: offering me new shoes and hundred dollar bribes, and trips to Tahiti if I would only stop embaressing you by showing up in Illinois every other year for my two day hi I'm still alive wow who is this teenager and where is that baby you used to have? trips home did not speed things up. You ought to know by now I just like to egg people on until they froth at the mouth and shriek obsenities at me in grocery stores or chemistry classrooms and also should know I am more stubborn than a statue of a sleeping mule and that I loved those shoes and did not want a new pair. Also, I think things should last. I am opposed to buying new shoes all the time and new cars, and new everything. Why do we need to manufacture hundreds of cars? Leaders have so little imagination: if people keep old cars, then there will have to be more parts, and repair shops, and repair men. I'm not saying do nothing, but when you get a hole in your floor from throwing money at it until the boards cave in and your leaders decide, well if we throw enough money at the hole in one big honey-coated ball, it might clog the hole and hopefully won't make it bigger- that's just frustrating. Anyway I got six years out of those shoes and when I threw them out, I am pretty sure people in the Dominican Republic with no shoes would have even thought, you know, maybe my feet will just get hard over time and put them back in the dumpster. I am doing my part world. Ouch my feet hurt.

What are you wearing right now?
-Alexis Bladell, Hollywood

Shoes with ducktape, and an apron with a picture of Beanie and Cecil taped to it. And a bit of beet juice sadly. So right now by the way I am fermenting goat yogurt. That stuff if $6.79 at the store by the way. I paid half that for goat's milk. Now if I just had a cow and a goat I would really be self reliant. So how's about you new Number 1 Hot Celebrity Crush Who I Would Never Want To Meet Or Try Talking To Because She Is Probably Vain, Stupid, Or Otherwise Uninteresting, But Enjoy Looking At Immensely. How's the view from the top? I know you aren't wearing an Oscar for a neckless. Keep starring in movies though- now if only you had a cool internet nickname like ScarJo does. ABlad? Lexell? ADel? Nothing will top ScarJo.

I get discouraged. Do you ever cook anything that flops?
-Kristy: Cactusville, NV

This past week I cooked lamb for the first time. It came out good, but the tagine all around it (fruit-sweetened stew) was sub-par. I used too many cinammon sticks and too much tomato sauce so that my apricots got drowned out. But the lamb was delicious and I took it to a party for my poetry group and everyone thought I was brilliant and now is convinced I am a real 100% juice chef. I told them I was not and thought back longingly to the first tagine I made months ago. So yes, I often am disappointed with my food, but as I told Teresa the other night: quit complaining about your dinner, its good- hating everything you make is only cute when I do it. A good trick is to make something that nobody knows how it should taste: like a lamb tagine. When you say its a lamb tagine, most people don't know what that is so they say okay and take a little and then are impressed. They have nothing to compare it to. Mom didn't make lamb tagine every Tuesday when they were growing up. I even got several people to eat lamb thinking it was beef and that I was joking about it being lamb, and that thinking that they hated lamb. Now the know different. Just stay positive. I am trying that at work now too. It does no good to get mad at your hands and slam them into walls until they nearly break while shouting barbarically if they don't type as fast as you want: stretch them, massage them, put headphones on your fingertips at night so they can listen to Mozart (not that I do that), do fingertip pushups, practice typing. Try to think about what you do and how to improve it. Do you taste one ingredient? That's a good sign to put less in. Could it be sweeter? Maybe a sprinkle of sugar. Too dry? Cook the meat a little less, or sprinkle it with some lemon or lime juice next time. You can usually analyze anything and at least make a deduction of what went wrong (if anything) and improve every time. It leaves your hands less sore and your voice less hoarse.

Are your tortillas round yet?
-Blain: The Future

Some people obviously have an overactive sense of humor. Yes they are almost as round as store bought ones. This week I made a third batch and it went very smoothly, with slightly less muttering curses under my breath. I am good with a rolling pin now. And I melted some good cheese and then folded them around some hoisin-tamari soy Asian sticky rice. I still miss Chino Bandido. And Superstition Mountain. Other than that, Arizona can melt for all I care.

How's that cheese cake coming?
-Asuka: Osh-Kosh, Wisconsin

Shut up I'm totally going to make it soon. And then I will serve it with a delicious plum topping and hot fudge on top of a mountain while school children play delightful kazoo concertos I will write now that I am going to learn about music and composing- and you won't be invited.

How would you fix the world?
-Sarah: Vermouth, Alaska

I am glad you asked, since I so rarely take the time to speak out with my many crackpot theories about everything. My plan is an eight fold path.

Plastic Bags: I hear Oregon has banned these, which I love. What I would love more, is a very American-friendly (as in sure you can do what you want its a totally free country but...) $1 mandatory envirnmental repair fund tax per plastic bag at every store in the country. So you forget a bag and ask for one from the store for your Gatorade Easy-grip bottle of vitamized water- that's a buck added onto your 89 cent sale. You need 14 plastic bags at Walmart- $14 bucks. I am pretty sure people would bring their own bags at that point- either the same paper or plastic ones every week or expensive personalized hand woven custom hemp ones that could kick off a whole new industry since Americans love to buy things. I go rock climbing once a year I need $1000 dollars worth of gear, but no Andrew I don't want to die on the Grand Teton with you. Yuppies. Also last night a guy put bananas in a produce bag. I should have spat on him and then slapped him. They're bananas! They come wrapped! You stupid sleeze bag. When I am president of the world, anyone who puts bananas in a bag will be shot at dawn- firing squad: 8 jobs created.

Glass Powered Plants: All power plants will be converted to run on melted glass or burned paper. I know at least the paper is possible. Maybe melting glass requires heat and does not produce it- which seems likely as I type this- in which case, glass would be melted at the same plants and then reshaped and resold to companies or stores. Towns should be encouraged to construct local power plants. This would be better than Utah paving every still smooth road in the state right now because they weren't sure how to seize any of the free Government Fun Money being passed out right now other than road construction and repair grants- I never see any construction workers by the way so I guess not too many jobs were created.

Farmers Markets: There should be more of these. I see no reason why every city and town can't build a good modern green house using all the environmental control knowledge and tools we have and sell fresh produce year round with a minimal staff of gardeners to keep taxes down and help reduce emissions- sales reps could be volunteers, and community service penalized drivers. Of course grocery stores would complain, but suck it up and sell more cereal. This would also allow year round fresh local produce.

Store size limitation: Why is it legal to meddle in business in many ways but people would flip out about communism if a limit of say 50,000 square feet was put on stores. This should have been done a long time ago, but I guess no one saw Walmart coming. It snuck up on everyone with a hick Arkansas accent so no one took it seriously until too late. Some cities in Utah try to keep Walmart out- after they let one developer buy and zone a massive plot of ground for commercial use, who then sells it to Walmart. Um what did you think would happen? You can't swim in a pool with sharks and then wave them at the other guy and think it will work. Limiting store size would do a lot of good in keeping grocery stores and furniture stores and Ace hardwares from getting dwarfed and undersold by enormous warehouses- and it isn't really anything but a more grounded form of trust busting and 50,000 feet is still a pretty big store. This would also eat up free time, aiding my eighth and final fold- oh just wait till you get there.

Grass: Another thing I love about Bountiful. There is no grass requirement. There are ten houses I drive past that halve half their lawn fenced in with a cute white picket and dedicated to gardening. They then put up a sign with what they produce and what is fresh that day, and are listed on a cool website called Utah's Own which is dedicated to how to buy local. You ring the bell and some live-in grandparent or stay at home mom or kid on summer break earns their keep by helping you pick out your own produce right off the vine and then weighing and taking your cash. What a cute and wonderful idea. Seriously Bountiful is bursting with these, and some then load the back of a pick up truck, back up the sidewalk and sell from the truck bed at the weekly farmer's market. Having watched people in Illinois and Arizona spend hundreds of hours a year and immense amounts of water during drought seasons to make a vile weed-friendly, pest-rich trash herb or whatever it is like grass look good all summer, I imagine it takes little more work to keep a garden instead and make use of the land. The same yard with a single large tree or some trellissed fruit trees or grape vines could make a lot of products for sale and private use. (Trellis fruit trees are very cool- we saw some at Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake. They grow like vines into arches over your head and still produce apples, pears, peaches, and so forth. There are also dwarf trees which never get big but produce lots of fruit.) Grass is a horrible idea. Which is why I have never taken care of it and never will. I despise it, and yet most places ban anything but useless ugly grass and have been since the horrible baby boomers took over. And there is less and less farm land so that a famine is coming, and here every private land owner is devoting their soil to grass.

Grass Root Giveaways: No more free money for failed massive industries. Why create jobs for people? Companies offer less and less and will never stop doing so now that there are too many workers in the field and the advantage is with the hirers. You want to start a business, here's some money, straight from Uncle Sam at this percent. Oh that would destroy the evil banking and credit industry? Good. Good riddance. People should create their own jobs. I don't want to work for someone else, and I don't want to have to go beg Chase Bank for money. I want Chase Bank to go to He- never mind. No more Applebees, no more cookie cutter same as in Iowa as in Montana menus. Variety, local owners. Although the same people who start their own small business then go shop at Walmart.

Culture change: Obviously this all won't work if we keep selling people on the idea they can have a huge mansion, tons of expensive toys, should not have to pick out their own produce (didn't grocery stores get started because people could pick out their own goods and make sure their cans weren't dented, their apples weren't bruised and their sugar wasn't leaking?), that we should fix every law not by rewriting it but by taping a new one over it and adding a footnote to see amendment, page 3600 volume 29, version 4, that the outdoors are expendable and icky, that its a waste of time to look out the window at birds or trees on a windy day but not to watch the Batchelor, and that the best possible thing that can happen to you is to be famous and if someone isn't watching you do something, you should probably find something else to do. Americans take pride in laziness and greed, buying on credit, grass, and other useless and stupid practices. Everything should be easy. The ideal life is to sleep and lie on a couch all day: the more minutes of free time you can sqeeze out the more we have arrived. Well I say that's crap: we must be busy. I would rather slave sixty hours for myself than loaf forty hours for you or some creep who lives in New York. Shoes with duct tape should be the fashion trend I tried to make them. Fast food should be looked down on, (no more propoganda "field trips" to McDonaldses), anyone on food stamps who has a plasma TV should be deported, recycling should be taught in schools, along with buying local etcetera. Sneer at people who don't bring their own bag to the grocery store. I'm pretty sure we can't go back. There isn't enough land anymore for everyone to have a big single family house, and we won't let this swine flu gets its feet wet and thin out the ranks.

Woman, make me a Sandwhich: There are too many people in the job market. Let's say every woman was suddenly back in the kitchen. With half as many employees, these massive corporations would have to start treating people well the way they did for the baby boomers who now say, well I did good, I didn't have a college education, I own a house and two cars and put my kids through college, America is great. I hate you baby boomers. See Generation X, the novel, for more on this subject. A fine book which helped to invent that term. Every family needs to keep one person at home. This shouldn't be legislated, but if we went back to the shame of the 1950s through 1970s every man felt to have to admit his wife worked, then maybe we could get somewhere. And with a limitation on store size, instead of the little woman going to Walmart and spending $300 in two hours and being finished and being bored the rest of the week- she'll be running around all day between kids and check out lines. It doesn't have to be the woman- that was just to get you all to froth at the mouth and shriek about me in offended riled up tones. In face, I hereby volunteer my services as house husband. I promise to keep the sheets folded and you full of cheese-cake- when I make it next month for real. Why did women ever think going into the job market would make them feel fulfilled? What about their man scuffling in every day bent over like hideous customers had ranted at them and demanded to be treated like a prince and like some jerk they work for harassed them repeatedly for not giving 110%, and them then slugging back a few beers and not talking for two hours then seeming to shake out of it for a few minutes before bed and then hearing the sigh as they wake up every morning and realize its a work day made women think, he looks so fulfilled while I am stiffled here unable to show my creativity- I need to go get a job too. We are a society of Marie Antoinettes: playing on a model farm because we don't get to work on one like all the lucky peasant girls. Poo hoo. Of course I'm no better dreaming of little agrarian Tommy Jefferson societies that could never have worked and probably can't now. But's let's try something else, can't we?

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ice cream sandwiches

I made ice cream sandwiches the other day; as a pastime and as a source of deliciousness, I highly recommend it.

I will confess, I was lazy and bought the ice cream (on a great sale, too) rather than making it myself because I did not feel like making ice cream. THERE I SAID IT. I am on vacation and had plenty of time, but I felt like buying it (full of all kinds of preservatives and "chocolate flavored chips" even) rather than making it myself.

Also, the freezer bowl wasn't frozen. So there's that.

Anyway, they were delicious! And quite easy...

I just made Smitten Kitchen's oreos (which I have also made as actual oreos, which were a hit among people who like oreos... which does not include me) but, of course, without the filling. I would also recommend undercooking them a bit, for extra chewiness and less crunchiness.

I filled them with mint chocolate chip ice cream -- softened, of course, by letting it sit in the fridge for a while and on the counter for a while -- squished down, wrapped in wax paper and froze 'till solid.

We then carried them in a cooler onto a river, where we ate them while floating along in tubes. Again, as a wonderful summer experience... highly recommended! I will posit that just while food is more delicious the higher up a mountain you are, ice cream is also more delicious the farther from ice cream trucks you are.

But even if you don't have a river to float down, make some ice cream cookies! they are quite delicious, AND very fun to squish together!

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why I am not a vegan

So, I am a vegetarian. For lots of reasons - environmental, health, moral and also, to be totally honest, because I really just don't like meat that much. It was a completely logical and natural decision for me to give up meat.

Why not just eat less meat? Why not stop eating meat, but without any fuss? Why bother to identify as a "Vegetarian?" Answer: it's easier. It's easier to not eat meat if you have made the unilateral decision not to -- easier to explain to people why you're passing over the main course. "I don't like meat" is an insult to your host. "I'm vegetarian," much more of an exonerating explanation. And it's easier to resist eating the occasional chicken salad, which at this point, might make me sick.

I understand there's a certain amount of baggage to picking up any label - for vegetarians, stereotypes about crazy evangelical types, or delusional "oh-i-couldn't-hurt-any-creature" types. If you eat meat, you really ought to check out your local farmers market to see if you can buy some chicken or beef that was raised humanely and sustainably -- that's about as evangelical as I ever get. And personally, I firmly believe that animals raised for human use should be treated decently, allowed to grow up healthy and be killed painlessly - but I wear leather. I kill flies without guilt. And I am not a vegan.

Sometimes I think I should be a vegan. Especially when you consider the sheer awfulness of commercial egg production, and the difficulty of obtaining local dairy (basically impossible to make a living with small- or medium-scale milk production these days). And I don't really like drinking milk at all, and while I enjoy the occasional poached egg, I'm not a huge fan of boiled, scrambled or sunny-side up. And I have absolutely nothing against vegans or veganism. It seems completely legitimate and reasonable to me, as long as your soymilk is B12-fortified.

But:

Life without CHEESE? life without YOGURT???

life without.... heavy cream??? and butter?

You can't see me, but I am basically swooning at the thought. Look, I completley understand those of you who say, "yeah, sure, I see why you want to be a vegetarian, but I could NEVER give up steak." Because me, I could never give up cheese, not of my own accord.

Goat cheese. Cheddar cheese. Brie. Gruyere -- oh, gruyere! Stilton, jack, creamy ricotta... what would tiramisu be without marscapone? What would pasta be without parmesan? And what, I ask you, what would pizza be without mozzerella? The horror!

Vegan cheese? That's like those people who consider carob an acceptable substitute for chocolate. Look, I'm trying, world. I want to do this right. But I am not, in my heart, an ascetic. I believe in pleasure! In flavor! In taste! I BELIEVE IN CHEESE!

And it's not just cheese. Having tart yogurt with fresh berries on a bright summer morning seems to me a valid reason to be alive. (Speaking of which, I think I need a yogurt-maker. Andrew's math is quite convincing me that it would be a good investment).

And heavy cream and butter... well, there's a bit of a paradox. Savory-food-wise, I'm all about the healthiness. It seems to go hand in hand with flavor; brown rice, wheat bread, lots of fresh vegetables, lightly-dressed salads, fruit. It's tasty, it's good for you, life is wonderful!

But when it comes to desserts... well. Don't get me wrong, fresh fruit for dessert is good, but by all that's holy, there's nothing to beat tarts, cookies, pies, chocolate, ice cream, crepes, chocolate, cakes, mousses, chocolate... and with the singular exception of sorbet, I simply cannot bake, freeze, chill or fry a great dessert without butter, cream or eggs. I'm sorry, vegans and the lactose-intolerant. Ya'll have some pretty good desserts. I've had some quite tasty vegan cupcakes. But I can't give up heavy cream and butter. I won't!

And speaking of reasons to justify human existence, I nominate ganache. In fact, I nominate ganache as one of the most incredible substances on earth. Totally delicious, wonderfully textured, the perfect filling, frosting, topping, or base -- and nothing but chocolate, heavy cream and heat. I make mine with a bowl, a measuring cup, a microwave and a fork. It is a primary reason for my joy in life

The best substitute vegans have for ganache is tofu mixed with chocolate. Which sounds tasty and all (actually, yeah, it does -- I like tofu, I really do). But. No substitute. Nowhere close.

Anyway, the whole point of this epic post was actually supposed to be how much I love cheese. It's a lot, in case you missed that. In honor of cheese, here are a couple of dinners I made this last week. Actually, I could have just put these recipes here under that title, and it would have made about the same point. Oh well.

Goat Cheese and Tomato Tart.

This is SO easy and delicious. Tarts, I have discovered in my last month of frantic tart-baking (I shall have to describe my epic tart pan quest sometime) are greatly undervalued as a food type. They are much easier than pies, and look very impressive, which is also a plus.

1 savory tart shell, unbaked (try this recipe for pate brisee)
1/2 log of goat cheese
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Spices of choice (I used dried basil and oregano)
Really delicious tomatoes of choice (I had a great big yellow one and some red cherry tomatoes)
Fresh basil (I used green and purple)
Salt and pepper

Tart shells are really easy to make if you have a food processor, and pretty easy even if you don't, Make yours, and chill in the refrigerator for an hour or more to make your life easier. Of course, I just stuck mine in the freezer for 15 minutes, because how often am I thinking that far ahead?

Roll out the chilled dough between two sheets of floured wax paper. Make sure the paper isn't sticking -- sprinkle flour on the dough as necessary. When thick enough to cover your tart pan, lay the dough round over your pan, press in and trim/press off the excess dough.

Your hardest part is over. Now, take about 1/4 cup of goat cheese and soften it in the microwave. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, the minced garlic and dried spices. Mix well and spread on the bottom of your tart crust (this will keep your tomatoes from making your crust soggy). Spread a layer sliced tomatoes on top of this. Dot generously with goat cheese. Add more tomatoes, and if you really like goat cheese -- like me! -- dot generously again. Top with some salt and pepper.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, or until the crust is browned and the tomatoes look deliciously soft. Remove, top with sliced fresh basil, and serve with a salad.

Say "AHHHH I love goat cheese! I'm so glad I'm not vegan!"


Summer Vegetable Frittata

1 baby yellow squash, sliced
1 baby zucchini, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium bell pepper, diced
A few carrots, sliced (what? I can't remember how many it was!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Olive or canola oil
5 eggs
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
A few tablespoons of milk or cream
1/8 cup fresh parsley, chopped
Salt, pepper and any other spices your heart desires (I used a pinch of dried oregano)

Prep your veggies -- or better yet, recruit somebody else to. In a bowl or large measuring cup, beat your eggs with a fork, then mix in the cheese, milk (okay, yeah, I used heavy cream here... maybe I love the stuff for things other than desserts), parsley and spices. You should end up with at least a cup and a half of gooey, unvegan delight. I was closer to 2.

In a medium cast-iron (VERY IMPORTANT) pan over medium-high heat, saute your vegetables in a generous amount of oil. You want to make them all almost-but-not-quite done.

My advice: start with the minced garlic (it will brown away to nothing by the end, but the flavor will be wonderfully dispersed) and the carrots. Stir for a minute or two, then add the squashes. Stir for a minute or two, then add the onions and pepper. Keep stirring for another 3 minutes or so, then sample them. Nothing should be mushy, but nothing should be crunchy. Don't you love my technical terms?

Add a bit more oil, because you don't want your frittata to stick, then pour your gooey goodness into the pan. Stir until everything seems will-dispersed, then STOP STIRRING. Turn the heat down to medium, and let your frittata sit for a while. Something like 7 minutes, maybe? At any rate, it should firm up so that when you shake the pan, it seems to jiggle, not slop.

The top will still look firmly underdone. There's a solution! Put the whole thing in the oven under the broiler. Broil for a few minutes, or until the top looks nicely set up. Don't wait until it browns, though -- firm and yellow is good enough.

Remove from oven. Slice in the pan. Do try not to burn yourself in the process. Personally, I am convinced that my fingers will eventually turn into asbestos and this won't be a problem someday.

Serve to delighted nonvegans with crusty bread and a potato-feta salad! Or, you know, whatever salad you like. That's just my recommendation as a clueless cook.

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