For the first time since 1961 (that’s before I was born), Rice football is headed to a bowl game! With a six-game winning streak to finish regular season play, the Owls have earned a spot in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl on Friday, December 22. Cajun Rice, anyone?

[cynical aside: The Superdome sounds impressive (if you forget the Katrina aftermath), but R+L Carriers Bowl? Granted, I barely follow college football, but that sounds a bit like scraping bottom. {ouch, more bad puns!}]

If I were really ambitious, I’d search YouTube for the clip of JFK making his “Why does Rice play Texas? … And so we choose to go to the moon!” speech at Rice Stadium. Or else I’d search our meager video archive for C-boy as a 2 year old singing “Fight for Rice”. For now, a transcription must suffice:

Fight for Wice, Wice fight on, woyal sons awise,
when the blue and gway, of Wice today
comes cwashing through the skies
Stand and jeer, victory’s near,
Sammy weads the way!
On we go to CWUSH the foe
and fight foh Wice today!”

Somehow, I don’t think “stand and jeer” is what the original lyricist intended, but it always gets the biggest laugh from those of us who actually attended games and knew what it was like, especially in the 80s…

I’ve been out of my sling for nearly 2 weeks, but I still have some lifting restrictions – about 10 pounds, or not much more than a jug of milk (which is 8 lbs). The doctor specifically warned me against removing heavy turkeys from an oven, or carrying a big pot of potatoes in boiling water.

The former was going to be the biggest challenge to a traditional Thanksgiving, in large part because Jonski Papa and T-boy have been out of town since the 14th. Instead of inviting guests just to have someone to manage the turkey, we accepted an invitation to feast with friends. When I checked with C-boy and Z-boy to find out what I should offer to take, C-boy immediately exclaimed, “mashed potatoes, like Grandmother makes!” So of course I wasn’t too surprised to find this poem in his backpack at the end of the school week:

Mashed potatoes. Yum yum yum!
Ate or eat which one?
Small plate? No, I want a
Huge plate of mashed potatoes!
Eat or ate which one?
Deep down in the bowl mashed

Potatoes!
Oh so good!
The yum yum yum potatoes.
Ate or eat which one?
To eat mashed potatoes.
Oh so good!

I’m not big on mashed potatoes myself. I have too many childhood memories of being required to eat cold – and thus unpalatable! – mashed potatoes. But it’s almost a chicken-and-egg conundrum: did my potatoes get cold because I didn’t like them, or did I stop liking them after the first few times I was forced to eat them cold?

So when asked, I told our hostess that I would be in charge of mashed potatoes for C-boy’s sake, and also that I would bring the cranberry chutney that has become a tradition for Jonski Papa and I: not Mama Stamberg’s, but Madhur Jaffrey’s Garlicky Cranberry Chutney.

Garlicky Cranberry Chutney
from Madhur Jaffrey’s cookbook East/West Menus for Family and Friends (Harper & Row, 1987)

1-inch piece fresh ginger
3 cloves finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (I used a mixture of red wine and pear vinegars)
4 tablespoons sugar (I used 3 Tab raw sugar)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

l-pound can cranberry sauce with berries

1/2 teaspoon salt (or less)
ground black pepper

Cut ginger into paper thin slices, stack them together and cut into really thin slivers.

Combine ginger, garlic, vinegar, sugar and cayenne in a small pot. Bring to a simmer, simmer on medium flame about 15 minutes or until there are about four tablespoons of liquid left.

Add can of cranberry sauce, salt and pepper. Mix and bring to a simmer. Lumps are ok. Simmer on a gentle heat for about 10 minutes.

Serve warm or cool (refrigerate to store).

That left me with the mashed potatoes. A year or three ago when I made mashed potatoes, they came out all gluey and horrid. Since I knew that some potatoes were better for boiling and some for roasting – something to do with the starch profile, I think – I worried that it might have been from using a mix of potatoes from my CSA, that I’d used the wrong type of potatoes. But after listening to (and calling in to!) Turkey Confidential from The Splendid Table, I’m now convinced it’s because I used my stick blender in an attempt to get lump free potatoes (C-boy doesn’t like lumps).

Although “like grandmother makes” does seem like a high bar, in truth her method is rather traditional, probably about the same as in my Betty Crocker cookbook. The thing is, I favor roast potatoes – less work, plus I vastly prefer the taste and texture (even when cold!). I’ve tried to get them to eat roasted ones, which Z-boy tolerates, but C-boy doesn’t (maybe because of all the seasonings I use, or the crusty bits one gets from roasting). So this past year, whenever I roasted potatoes, I’d also bake a few large ones. I taught C-boy and Z-boy how to scrape out the center, mix it with butter and salt, and voila! A mashed potato-like substance.

Because of my doctor’s prohibition against big pots of potatoes, I thought about roasting, but that’s not really what my child wanted - and it was Thanksgiving after all, the day of family traditions. Betty Crocker’s recipe calls for 2 pounds of potatoes, boiled in 1 inch of water. Seems like that would stay under my 8 to 10 pound restriction, even if I upped it to 3 pounds of potatoes to serve a crowd. Plus, I’d be cooking them last minute at our friends’ house, so I could get someone else to drain out the pot if necessary.

Both dishes turned out to be successes. All the six children had one or more servings, and actually seemed to enjoy them (although I think a few other adults stuck to the more tasty side dishes, as I did!). The kids weren’t so keen on the chutney (I probably would have despised it as a child, had my mom been able to find fresh ginger in the store!) but the four other adults all raved about it and ate multiple helpings. Everyone was full and happy – more from the offerings of the house (including a fine heritage turkey from a farm on the other side of the state), but also from our small offerings.

Jonski Papa also made the cranberry chutney at his mother’s house. His older brother wouldn’t even try it. Oh well, you’d think we’d be used to such attitudes, with the selective diners in our own house. But when it’s your big brother, at least you can tease him – with your own kids, you’re better off saying “maybe when you’re older and have more sophisticated tastes, you’ll like it,” or exclaiming “great, more for me!” while serving them a huge plate of mashed potatoes and a few slices of turkey.

I found a note in my newspaper that led me to the web site for a team design project, with the theme “one-handed kitchen.” Learn about the designs and vote for your favorite here. If you have kids who aspire to be inventors, you should share it with them. (C-boy asked “are there jobs like this where you get to make things up?” so we talked about that prospect briefly.)

As a somewhat-one-handed kitchen user of recent weeks, my thought on looking at all of these was “but how is this going to help me carry my heavy-with-hot-waster pasta pot to the sink and dump it into a strainer?”

Last month, I asked my shoulder doc if I should be taking calcium supplements to help with bone healing. He said things along the lines of “if you’re getting a balanced diet with leafy green vegetables, calcium supplements aren’t really going to affect the healing” but also “all women should take calcium supplements anyway.” But then he wouldn’t recommend anything specific - he just told me to talk to my primary care doctor. I happen to like leafy greens, but don’t associate them with the fall. So I’ve been buying spinach at the market, and last week I picked up some bok choy. I see in From Asparagus to Zucchini that bok choy is touted as the garden vegetable highest in calcium. Since this recipe was so tasty, I guess I’ll get some more bok choy and make it again!

Sesame Soy Braised Bok Choy

1 head bok choy
2 Tab peanut oil
1 Tab grated ginger
1 Tab minced garlic
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 Tab toasted sesame oil
2 Tab soy sauce
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
2 Tab sesame seeds

Trim the root end off the boy choy head. Slice the leafy portions of the plant from the stalks. Cut both the leaves and the stalks into large matchstick-size pieces, keeping the two piles separate. Heat very large, heavy skillet or wok until it looks hazy over the surface, 2-4 minutes. Add peanut oil and swirl it to coat the pan. Add bok choy stems; stir-fry about 5 minutes. Add ginger and garlic and stir-fry briefly. Add bok choy greens, chicken stock, sesame oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until bok choy is tender and glazed with sauce, 5-8 minutes. remove cover, sprinkle with sesame seeds, increase heat to medium-high, and cook until excess liquid evaporates, 2-3 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Makes 4 servings.

Even though I forgot the sesame seed step, I really liked the way this turned out. For chicken stock, I used the pan juices from the chicken parts that were roasting in the oven - very tasty! (especially that from my chicken, which had been marinaded with a cranberry balsamic salad dressing). The bok choy ‘head’ (more like a bundle) must be smaller than what they tested the recipe with, because the sauce seemed like way to much. I retained a quarter to a third of it to use it another dish.

Earlier in the day when surfing blogs, I came across this description of the “Spice is Right” event that just wrapped up. When i roast potatoes, I typically like to toss them with green chile salt - but today I was inspired to try something new (although I didn’t have the time to make an official SiR entry). Thinking about the sweet-tart cranberry balsamic on the chicken, I was leaning towards ’sweet’ spices. Cinnamon seemed too ordinary somehow, so I decided to try Chinese five spice. It turned out really surprisingly well - a nice way to tie the bok choy to the chicken.

Go Blue! And Godspeed, Bo…

If you are going to make caramel apples - or even caramel-dipped apple slices - don’t skip the step where it says “line plate with wax paper.” Especially if one member in your party is viscerally opposed to apple peel because it made him gag once, so you have to peel some of the apple slices. That wax paper is kinda crucial if you want any caramel to remain on the slices instead of stuck to the plate!

(maybe that’s why caramel dipped apple slice recipes typically have you dip in peanuts - to avoid this very problem!)

Don’t want to violate any licensing restrictions, so I’ll direct you to the October 31 Pickles at the comics.com web site to see this in its entirety.
It’s so much easier to be allergic to avocado and shrimp! (Speaking of which, “avocado allergy” is the most common search string at this blog, so i really need to finish my update on how the allergy testing went.)