Update on a story I mentioned back in February: after taking her driving test almost 200 more times, Cha Sa-Soon finally passed in early November. That is, she passed the written test – I haven’t yet seen a news story about attempts at the road test!

Afghani Skater Chick

So that I’ll have a post for October (!!), I’m going to link to this picture of a girl skateboarding in Kabul! My 9yo is very much into skateboarding right now. Our town has hundreds of parks, but no skate park. So many Saturdays, we drive north about half an hour so he can skate indoors at a park set up by a church. They divide the day by age groups, so he’s with kids his age – but it’s mostly boys. Nevertheless, he thinks this photo is awesome.

I need to make sure my kids don’t see this news item – I just convinced them that showers were better than baths because you weren’t soaking in the scunge that washes off your body!

Astonishing news from the world of science:

From the BBC: Ink found in Jurassic-era squid. Scientists found a squid ink sac in a Jurassic-era fossil, and were able to write with it! Inquiring minds want to know: will they be able to use the DNA to clone a squid? Jurassic Sea World, anyone?

And also from the BBC (because as long-time readers may have figured out, it’s my primary online news source): “If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively! That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.” Good to know it was research done in Canada, because otherwise you’d have some (R) senator spouting off about it next time NSF funding comes under scrutiny.

cc-licensed Zombie Squid illustration by Flickr user UNBORNE

I would suggest you go buy a zombie squid hat in honor of these two important findings, but it’s no longer available, so this illustration will have to suffice.

It’s time for my favorite food blog event – Paper Chef! (okay, it’s pretty much the only food blog event I’ve participated in more than once, but that’s because it’s my favorite!)

Basic idea: the host selects 3 events at random from a list, then adds a fourth to heighten the challenge. Participants have a weekend to make one or more dishes that incorporate the ingredients. This month’s host is Javaholic and she challenged us with couscous (preferably toasted Israeli couscous), chiles, peaches, and rosemary. I wasn’t phased by the peaches and chiles because there’s a peach salsa that I find really tasty, but peaches and rosemary? or even chiles and rosemary? Huh. Not sure I’ve mixed those before.

I have rosemary growing in a pot on my porch, and I keep stocked up on peaches this time of year. Chiles are not yet abundant at our Farmer’s Market (the summer has been cool), but I did manage to find a few that were allegedly anaheims, but pretty darn skinny if you ask me. And I stocked up on Israeli couscous at our local co-op on my way to the Farmer’s Market.

Paper Chef 43 Ingredients

Then I mulled around ideas. The obvious idea was a summer salad incorporating the four ingredients. I briefly considered making a dessert, kind of like mango sticky rice, only peach sticky couscous [uh, with chile strips as a topping! ?? !!]. What I really yearned to make was chiles stuffed with couscous, similar to the stuffed bell peppers my mom used to make, but alas, the chiles at the market were too skinny for that to be feasible.

So I made a casserole. Any self-respecting cook who grew up in New Mexico and/or El Paso knows a dish that includes some combination of squash, tomatoes, chiles, onions, maybe corn (usually topped with corn chips and melted cheese). This is similar, with the peaches standing in for the tomatoes. I’m calling it “cross cultural” because the peaches (in my mind) add a sort of midwestern fusion, and the Israeli couscous [or any other couscous, for that matter] certainly never appears in my Savoring the Southwest cookbook!

Cross-Cultural Casserole

Ingredients:

6 to 8 chiles
1ish medium (yellow) summer squash, sliced thin
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1 peach, sliced
1 egg
milk
few tablespoons parmesan [note: I probably would change this]
1 garlic clove
rosemary, minced – 1 Tablespoon
tarragon, minced – 1/2 Tab? I didn’t really measure
1 cup Israeli couscous
1.25 cup water
2 (more) medium peaches, sliced (~1 cup), optionally tossed with 2 tsp brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon
green chile salt

Directions:

Chile prep: roast your chiles (over a gas grill, or under a broiler). Let them sweat and cool in a paper bag, then remove the skin and seeds. Cut into slices.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Use an 8×8 baking dish. Film with olive oil.
Cover the bottom with a layer of squash. (I needed slightly more than 1 squash worth of slices.)
Layer on the onions.
Layer on the green chile strips until you are out (I used all my chiles, and had 3 layers).
Top with chunks from the first peach.
Mix 1 egg with milk in a small bowl or cup. (I poured the milk into the biggest half of the egg shell, twice – so about an egg’s worth of milk!) Beat lightly. Add parmesan. Pour over the top of the veggie layers.

Bake at 375 F for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile:
chop garlic clove, rosemary, and tarragon.
Using small sauce pan, saute garlic, rosemary, and tarragon in olive oil until fragrant.
Pour water – bring to boil – add couscous. Cover pan, lower heat to simmer, and cook for 6 to 8 minutes.
Add the peaches + cinnamon sugar and cook for 2 minutes more.
It’s okay if it’s still a bit soupy. When the couscous is al dente, pour the mixture over the casserole and let it cook in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes more (while you pull everything else together).

The result? Pretty tasty, although not particularly photogenic.

Out of the oven...

Jonski Papa was initially hesitant about the couscous (see our recent run in with pearl tapioca) and couldn’t figure out where the sweetness came from at first (the peaches), but he really liked it. He thought it needed a crunch element, so got some pita chips from the pantry (must be that corn chip crust he’s missing!). I felt like the rosemary was overwhelmed – I couldn’t really taste it at all. Use more? Add it at the end? Not sure the best way to address that.

What I would change: I’m still trying to decide if it needs a cheese element. Maybe some Mexican cheese in the casserole? Or a goat cheese added at the end? Oh shoot, there’s an idea: goat cheese with rosemary ‘crust’, that probably would have provided more of a rosemary oomph! I could have gotten some at the market.

cyclist on cell phone

Lately I’ve been seeing people talking on cell phones while riding a bicycle.

This makes me crazy. Not only does it seem idiotic from the distraction perspective (I also don’t wear headphones when I bike, although I will wear them when I walk or run on city sidewalks), but they’re usually holding the phone in their right hand. This means the only hand on the brakes is their left. (Of course, this photo I found on the web doesn’t really illustrate what I’ve been seeing, because that person is in Amsterdam and doesn’t have hand brakes. The people I see around here have hand brakes.)

What happens if they need to brake suddenly? They’ll slam on the left brake, which will stop the front wheel but not the back, and they’ll fly over the front of their bike and break their shoulder. Okay, maybe not, but I broke my shoulder because of left-hand-only braking (I was signaling with my right, not holding a phone!), so that’s the first thing I think of. But really, just WHAT are they thinking?

As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’ve been introduced to all sorts of new vegetables since I’ve belonged to my CSA. There are a few I try to give away to loving homes, such as beets and kale – I’ll eat them, but they’re not something I adore and we get more than I can readily use.

Kohlrabi is another one of those vegetables. My father-in-law loved to see it in the share box and would eat it raw, but I’ve never quite been at ease with this alien-looking knobby thing.

Until now – I found something that I like, and it was fairly simple to make. I stumbled across this recipe last week, and decided to get some fennel so I could try it. Sadly, we don’t get fennel in our box (or haven’t yet this year, maybe it’s still to come), but another vendor at the Farmer’s Market sells it so I was set. I didn’t have capers and didn’t take the time to hunt down reasonable substitutes, so my version of the salad is below.

Fennel and Kohlrabi Salad

1 small kohlrabi
1/2 a medium (?) fennel bulb
Large handful arugula, chopped

Lemon Dressing
1 clove garlic (or more to taste)
The juice of 1/2 large lemon + more for crisping the fennel
The same amount of extra virgin olive oil (as lemon juice)
Black pepper
Sea salt
1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard

Slice the fennel as thinly as you can and add to a bowl of cold water and a dash of lemon juice (I used the jarred stuff for this step!). Peel the kohlrabi. Pare strips off with a vegetable peeler (this is to get wafer thin slices). Add to the bowl with the fennel.

Make the dressing: Crush the garlic with a generous pinch of sea salt in a mortar and pestle. Add some black pepper and a heaped teaspoon of wholegrain mustard. Stir together. Add the lemon juice and olive oil. Whisk.

Drain the lemon juice off the fennel & kohlrabi mixture. Put the arugula in a bowl, add the fennel and kohlrabi, then toss it with the dressing.

I peeled the kohlrabi rather sparingly with a paring knife, then started paring off slices with a vegetable peeler as recommended. I discovered as I went that the center of the root is sweeter and more tender, so next time I will remove a deeper layer before scraping the curls for the salad.

Jonski Papa is a big fan of cherry pie, and it’s sour cherry season, so I decided to make a pie. I was startled to find that none of my cookbooks had a recipe for cherry pie. So I used this recipe from allrecipes.com. Elsewhere (in the same search) I came across recipes that mentioned you could use pearl tapioca instead of quick-cooking. I had to make a special trip to the grocery store for the tapioca (it’s not something we use regularly!), and the organic pearl tapioca came in a smaller package than quick-cooking, so that’s what I bought.

those white balls are not mold spores!

My first clue that I might have done something wrong was when I removed the baked pie and noticed white balls near the top. Uh-oh – the pearls did not dissolve! The ones further down in the filling were soft enough that they were unnoticeable, but the ones near the top were kind of crunchy. Cherry pie is not supposed to be crunchy! What did I do wrong?? Maybe I drained too much of the juice from the pitted cherries? Maybe a full crust instead of a lattice would have made them soft? Or rather, what is the proper way to use pearl tapioca?? I dunno. I guess I’ll have to get more cherries this week and try again…

Dear Bahlsen,

I am a big fan of your Afrika dark chocolate cookies (or rather, those delicate slices of wafer enrobed in dark continental chocolate). In fact, I once contributed some to a chocolate-lovers gift basket with a note that they were “the world’s best chocolate cookie, bar none.” I truly believe this. And the packaging was so simple – chocolate cookie squares, packed side by side, in a little cardboard tray that slides out of the cubic outer box. Lovely. Elegant!

old Afrika box, product shot from web

But when i went to buy a box the other day, I noticed something had changed. Not just the picture (which had changed on the old box a while back), but the shape of the box. It was strangely bigger – unusual in the current economic climate! But as soon as I picked it up, I heard a little rattle inside that revealed the presence of inner plastic packaging. “Feh!” I thought. “They added extra packaging, I bet there are fewer cookies inside.” And while I can’t be positive, I think the weight has decreased and there are fewer cookies inside.

Newly purchased Afrika box. Notice end of box is no longer square!

Now I shouldn’t begrudge you the need to cut a few corners. But honestly, did you think we would be fooled? I don’t have any old packages so I can’t compare the weights. But even if I’m wrong on that point, at a time when companies right and left are bragging about their eco-consciousness, did it really make sense to add excess packaging? Silly, that’s what it was. And the part of my brain that sat through a very basic operations research workshop eons ago suspects this costs more than what you were doing before. Sigh.

Recently purchased box. Notice excessive inner packaging.

Oh well, at least they taste the same (which, I still concede, is fabulous).

World's best chocolate enrobed wafer slices, bar none!

personal discount, for you my friend, today only!

(One thing is clear: Dr Aubrey is the one to go with! Well, there’s that anonymous 85% discount, but if the person won’t even identify the doctor what use is that??)