Okay, so it wasn't really great, and it wasn't REALLY an experiment since I used a recipe. But it did involve turnips.
It is a fact universally known to people who manage a CSA that their customers must be in want of foods they do not particularly like, or of whose identity they cannot be absolutely certain. And so the customers receive those foods. In GREAT quantities.
Some of these foods demand creativity to make them palatable. Sometimes the customer pairs them with other foods they DO like (I personally recommend copies amounts of chocolate). Or pairs the foods with other foods that go well together, such as more chocolate. It the foods have parts that must be removed, such as leaves or skin, the customer throws herself exuberantly into peeling or deleafing, sometimes resulting in more of the food going into the disposal or garbage than is strictly necessary. In extreme cases, she pretends the food has gone off on a Great Adventure in the bowels of the refrigerator, and expresses surprise and regret -- sometimes real, sometimes feigned -- when it emerges, months later, inedible and must be disposed of.
We have received turnips several times in our basket, and I have tried numerous ways to make them palatable. All were about as successful as making a chess board palatable. Weighing my options this time, it seemed a shame to waste chocolate on them, and so I chose to pair the turnips with sweet potatoes and hearty sage. In this way I hoped to obliterate the taste of the turnips altogether, given that the recipe called for 30 leaves of sage, which could pretty much obliterate the taste of anything.
After a few bites I declared the dish a success, based on 1) actually using the turnips, but 2) not actually tasting the turnips.
The Hero is extremely enthusiastic about nearly every dish I make, to the point where I once said I needed a more objective opinion to help me truly improve my cooking. He took this suggestion seriously, and now offers one of two measured, thoughtful opinions on any given dish or meal:
1) This is the best dish EVER made ANYWHERE!
2) This is not swill.*
So I fully expected one of these responses when I asked what he thought about the sweet potato-turnip mash.
"It's okay," he said, shrugging.
"Wow," I said. "That bad, huh?"
He thought it would be improved by "some spice...cinnamon, maybe."
"Hmmm," I said.
"You don't think it would be better with cinnamon?" he asked.
"Well," I said. "it wouldn't be swill."
____
*We are indebted to certain readers for introducing this word into the Hero's eating vocabulary.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Big and bigger
Several people, upon hearing that I recently returned from Dallas, have asked how it was.
"Big," I tell them. "Big and gray."
The buildings are tall. Many, such as the convention center where I spent several days, are gray. The insides of hotels and restaurants soar up to wasted space. The overpasses, which are numerous, are tall -- and gray.
True, many of the hotels in the area are lit up spectacularly at night, such that when you close your eyes in bed at night, that bombardment of color -- blue, purple, green, red, blue, purple, green, red, bluepurplegreenred -- invades your sleep. But during the day, the city pretty much resembles a gigantic herd of oddly shaped elephants.
Just a guess, but this is probably not the image city officials were going for.
And there are a lot of hospitals. Or course this is probably reflective of Dallas being a large city, perhaps even one on the forefront of medicine. But riding in a Dallas taxi -- as it careens around town as if in a supercharged video game -- gives one a unique perspective on health care in general and emergency medicine in particular. One has occasion, although not much time, to wonder whether one will need these services as a direct result of the taxi ride.
The airport, too, is large, unless you fly in to the smaller airport. This airport has a friendly, almost cozy feeling, with gate numbers like 3, or 7. This raises travelers' expectations that their luggage might actually arrive in a timely manner. Such expectations are unfounded, however, as luggage appears to travel from the smaller airport over to the larger one, take a little ride on the carousels there, and them finally make its way back to you.
In keeping with the BIG theme, food portions in restaurants are large enough that you may need another set of luggage to take your leftovers with you, but who is complaining? Grilled cheese on Texas toast, with three kinds of cheeses and ham high enough to fit under your Stetson -- what's not to love? The only regret, perhaps, is that such indulgences leave little room for dessert, which is why you have to engage in strategic food planning by having dessert for lunch.
Which is just what we did, encouraged by the free dessert provided at our convention lunch every day. But we didn't feel much guilt, because after lunch we had to hike about four miles within the convention center, and surely we walked off our lemon pie or Killer Mexican Chocolate Cake several times over.
Because, did I mention the convention center is big?
"Big," I tell them. "Big and gray."
The buildings are tall. Many, such as the convention center where I spent several days, are gray. The insides of hotels and restaurants soar up to wasted space. The overpasses, which are numerous, are tall -- and gray.
True, many of the hotels in the area are lit up spectacularly at night, such that when you close your eyes in bed at night, that bombardment of color -- blue, purple, green, red, blue, purple, green, red, bluepurplegreenred -- invades your sleep. But during the day, the city pretty much resembles a gigantic herd of oddly shaped elephants.
Just a guess, but this is probably not the image city officials were going for.
And there are a lot of hospitals. Or course this is probably reflective of Dallas being a large city, perhaps even one on the forefront of medicine. But riding in a Dallas taxi -- as it careens around town as if in a supercharged video game -- gives one a unique perspective on health care in general and emergency medicine in particular. One has occasion, although not much time, to wonder whether one will need these services as a direct result of the taxi ride.
The airport, too, is large, unless you fly in to the smaller airport. This airport has a friendly, almost cozy feeling, with gate numbers like 3, or 7. This raises travelers' expectations that their luggage might actually arrive in a timely manner. Such expectations are unfounded, however, as luggage appears to travel from the smaller airport over to the larger one, take a little ride on the carousels there, and them finally make its way back to you.
In keeping with the BIG theme, food portions in restaurants are large enough that you may need another set of luggage to take your leftovers with you, but who is complaining? Grilled cheese on Texas toast, with three kinds of cheeses and ham high enough to fit under your Stetson -- what's not to love? The only regret, perhaps, is that such indulgences leave little room for dessert, which is why you have to engage in strategic food planning by having dessert for lunch.
Which is just what we did, encouraged by the free dessert provided at our convention lunch every day. But we didn't feel much guilt, because after lunch we had to hike about four miles within the convention center, and surely we walked off our lemon pie or Killer Mexican Chocolate Cake several times over.
Because, did I mention the convention center is big?
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