Sweet and Savory Sesame

The other day, a few of us were having lunch at a Tel Aviv cafe. One of us was telling a story about her grandfather, originally from Russia, who can’t stand a few local foods, such as Tchina. A great wave of sadness washed over the table. “Life without tchina“, mumbled another friend. “Fancy that. How sad”.

Yes, we Israelis love our sesame. We like it on our bread crust, we like it as sweet halvaof various flavors, we use it to coat our schnitzels (breaded chicken meat) – but most of all, we love it as that fabulous paste, out of which we make a dip, a sauce or a spread, according to taste. Americans call this divine paste “tahini”, which has always made me giggle; the word tchina comes from the verb litchon, to grind. And, indeed, raw tchina is nothing more than ground sesame seeds.

I confess I’m not a big fan of halva, though Chad loves it very much and always keeps a box of a local, Jaffa-made variety, that looks like an old lady’s hair. I’ve given up sweets, and I don’t really miss them all that much. My fandom of sesame is almost entirely due to the fantastic tchina I eat everywhere.

There is, however, one exception; the wonderful and crumbly tchina cookies I tasted, for the first time, at YAFA – a little cafe/bookstore in central Jaffa, and our local peace oasis. YAFA is devoted to the understanding between Jews and Palestinians, offers a variety of interesting books about the Middle East, and hosts an impressive curriculum of classes in spoken and literary Arabic. They also serve fragrant herbal tea, accompanied by these little delicacies. After tasting them in the company of my dear pals Shachar and Amit, we all sought to recreate them; Amit, who is vegan, loves them and makes them often to our delight. The recipe I’m posting today, however, has a few small changes, which I think improve the cookie’s rich texture and allows vegans to skip the use of margarine (yuck).

The following two recipes – one for stir-fried vegetables with tchina, the other for the cookies – are my entries for a fun event, organized by Barbara at Tigers and Strawberries, called The Spice is Right: Sweet or Savory? I guess sesame, as well as sesame paste, are spices but also ingredients, and that’s how they’re used in these recipes. Enjoy.

Stir-Fried Vegetables and Tofu with Tchina Sauce

1 tablespoon olive or canola oil
1 package extra-firm tofu
4 garlic cloves
3 carrots
3 zuccini
1 package forest mushrooms, or fresh shiitake, or dried, pre-soaked shiitake
5-6 large leaves of kale or chard
1 inch piece of peeled and chopped or grated ginger
4-5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons raw tchina

black pepper or chilli flakes to taste

Mix soy sauce and tchina; cut tofu into 1/2 inch cubes and soak in the mix. Chop all vegetables into 1-inch cubes, and tea the kale or chard to large but edible pieces.
While tofu is happily soaking, heat up the oil in a large wok. When the wok is very hot, add garlic cloves and ginger, and stir a bit until fragrant. Then, add the vegetables: first the carrots, then the soy-tchina sauce from the tofu (keep the tofu aside for a while). Let the carrots sit in the wok a bit until they start to soften, then add the zuccini, mushrooms, tofu, and finally the kale. Add black pepper or chili flakes to taste and enjoy.

Tchina Cookies with COconut Milk and Spices

1/2 cup raw tchina
1 1/2 cups whole wheat or whole rice flour (I used the latter)
5 tablespoons coconut milk
4 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon of each: cinnamon, ground clove, nutmeg
3 heaped tablespoons brown sugar (optional)

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Knead to a dough. The dough comes out crumbly and a bit on the dry side, so do not be alarmed; if it’s very dry, add some more coconut milk or tchina. Now, make small (less than 1 inch) cookies; due to the dough consistency, you can’t exactly roll it, but rather squeeze it into a little ball. If you want to go fancy, one of these cookie presses might come in handy, will make your life easier, and your cookies prettier. Amit has one; yet another kitchen appliance which seems to be a refugee from the 1970s and works like a charm. Place on baking sheet and bake for about ten to fifteen minutes. Remove when cookies are slightly golden and no longer soft, but before they brown (they don’t taste as good when very brown). Consume with herbal tea or fragrant Turkish coffee.

Yasai Soba

(pic on its way)

The noodle craving is still on, and I’m contemplating the possibility of reproducing a household favorite of us: Yasai Soba.

It appears that noodle soup is something everybody likes; every culture has some version of it. Soba, a noodle made out of buckwheat and wheat, is a particularly delightful and healthy way of consuming noodles. Slimmer and browner than its big sister, the Udon noodle, Soba pleasantly slips through your throat and makes you feel warm and happy.

In our favorite vegan Japanese restaurant in Berkeley, Cha Ya, you can get two types of fabulous Soba soup: sansai soba, comprised of wild mountain vegetables and seaweed, and yasai soba, based on cooked vegetables which seem to be a tad more mundane in the Western world. Both versions are comprised of hot vegetable broth with soy sauce; the nonvegan versions use fish broth. The noodles, and delicately sliced and steamed vegetables, are decoratively placed in the bowl, and the soup is eaten with both a spoon and chopsticks.

As you’ll see from this recipe, the wheat-free, vegan adjustments are not difficult. As to the noodles, I’ve had good experience with soba from Eden Foods, but apparently other brands, like Clearspring carry it as well. Buckwheat, it turns out, is not a grain; it’s a fruit seed and a distant relative of sorrel and rhubarb. It offers a wealth of benefits, including anticancerous nutrients and fiber.

As to the broth, as you’ll see, this version of the soup uses shiitake mushrooms (which are anti-inflammatory and very good for your immune system), and the soaking water makes wonderful broth, particularly when mixed with Tamari soy sauce.

The vegetables, naturally, can change, depending on what’s out there in the market. This version sports carrots, turnips, potatoes, wild beet leaves, shiitake mushrooms, and extra-firm tofu.

Ingredients:
A package of soba noodles
10-15 dried shiitake mushrooms
4 carrots
3 turnips
4 large manguld (wild beet) leaves (chards also ok).
A few pieces of wakame seaweed
2 small potatoes
1 package of extra-firm tofu
1 cup Tamari soy sauce
4 cups water

We start by boiling the water and soaking the shiitake mushrooms in it. This needs to stand for, say 15 minutes at least, and the more it stands, the fluffier and softer your mushrooms and the richer your broth.
While this is going on, two things need to happen: the tofu needs to spend some time in the soy sauce, and the vegetables need to be steamed. Slice the tofu and place it in the tamari sauce for a while (you can dilute it in water, or in some tablespoons of the mushroom liquid). Also, slice the carrots, turnips and potatoes, and tear large pieces out of the manguld leaves. Place all these folks (except the wakame) in a steaming basket, and steam for about 30 minutes or until the vegetables are soft, but still have personality.
When the mushrooms have softened to your liking, strain, keep the liquid, and carefully slice them in pretty, thick slices. Save the mushrooms and steamed vegetables.
Pour the shiitake liquid into a large pot, and add the tamari sauce (without the tofu). Add soba noodles and cook for ten minutes or so, or until the soba is soft and slurpable. Then, using a straining spoon, place some noodles at the bottom of large, fun bowls. Arrange the vegetables and tofu prettily on top of the vegetables, then pour the hot soup to cover everything. Serve with chopsticks and a spoon. Enjoy!

Book Review: You Are What You Eat, by Gillian McKeith

It’s interesting to see the extent to which the food celebrity industry has captivated our lives. I suppose the best examples for our fascination with the combination of food and celebrities is The Food Network, featuring such figures as Rachael Ray, Alton Brown and others. We like celebrities, and we like food; many of these folks have websites, and magazines, and sell products. I’ve often asked myself how their literature would fare had they not enjoyed celebrity status, and recently, I had a chance to find out.

A few months ago, as part of my project of getting back on the holistic nutrition wagon, I bought myself Gillian McKeith’s book You Are What You Eat. I had no idea she was a celebrity and had no interest in it. Only after reading a good part of the book did I find out that she’s quite a controversial celebrity in England, with her very own TV show by the same name. Her website offers additional information about her various enterprises.

McKeith is Scottish in origin, lived in the States for a while, and is a holistic nutritionist. One of the more controversial features of her biography is her constant and irritating use of the title PhD, which she obtained from the unaccredited Clayton College. I must confess I’m bothered by this, but not for the same reasons that the medical orthodoxy is. Yes, I happen to know firsthand how much work goes into a PhD from an established academic institute, but the usage of the title in itself doesn’t annoy me nearly as much as what this says about a society which does not listen to anyone UNLESS they have a PhD next to their name. It is disappointing that McKeith feels the need to buy into this sad state of affairs by calling herself “Dr. Gillian” and “Dr. McKeith” almost every single page – and it’s particularly disappointing in light of the fact that she actually has many great things to say, and the book is really a very good and readable resource.

One of the book’s great strengths is the wealth of information it manages to convey in a cool, hip, magazine-like format. The colorful pages and beautiful vegetable and fruit photography makes one enthusiastic about healthy food and helps the readers get through quite a lot of details, advice, and regimes. This is important, because nutrition books are not often this fun. And, if you manage to ignore the personality cult and celebrity hype – and it’s possible – it makes for a very enjoyable read.

McKeith starts the book by providing several tools for self assessment. These are, to a great extent, based on tongue diagnosis principles from Traditional Chinese medicine. The book does not go into the difficult energetic terminology of Chinese medicine; none of the Zang Fu intricacies are mentioned, and the Five Elements are only hinted at. The book easily translates some of the diagnostics to Western anatomy, in an easy, down-to-earth manner. It’s not as precise, of course, as getting a diagnosis from a Chinese Medicine person, but it certainly provides layfolk with a wealth of tools to figure out why they feel the way they feel.

The book is also helpful in rejecting fad diets and in emphasizing the importance of variety and moderation. Extreme low-carb regimes are not encouraged, but whole grains and complex carbs are emphasized, and so are food combinations (particularly for folks suffering from digestive issues). Extreme low-fat regimes are also rejected, and McKeith recommends eating healthy fats, like avocados and nuts, as well as using Omega-3 supplements. In general, the plan is built on a wealth of natural foods: vegetables, fruit, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, seaweeds, goat dairy and yogurt (McKeith warns against too much consumption of cow dairy), occasional eggs, fish and chicken. She is an advocate of juices, but not at the expense of eating whole food with fiber. She also recommends a series of supplements: certain vitamins, good bacteria for colon health, green foods, and certain herbs for certain conditions. All this advice has to be balanced by mild exercise; she recommends picking something that would be fun, like walking, yoga, tai chi, pilates, trampoline hopping, or anything at all one would find enjoyable and not burdensome.

McKeith’s advice is geared towards overall health; she has recommendations for PMS, menopause symptoms, digestive issues, stress, hair, skin and nails, and – as one would expect – weight loss. The book also contains a very gentle and mild cleansing regime, which I tried a couple of months ago. It’s built on juices, salad and vegetable broth or miso soup, and truly works wonders. This cleanse is followed by an example of a seven-week plan. The recipes included in the book are, well, not fantastic; but with very little effort and some creativity, one can come up with delicious recipes containing the various natural foods featured in the book.

Some of the advice, I believe, is very specialized for a British readership. McKeith emphasizes the problems with overconsumption of alcohol and directs her criticism at pub culture. For an Israeli audience, I believe, that would be less of an issue (overeating would be a bigger problem). Also, she criticizes diets composed of mainly cooked foods and advocates a good balance between cooked and raw. In Israel, and in California, that would not be so much of a problem, though I imagine, in the British cold climate, folks tend to eat more warm and cooked foods.

The raw food recommendation, by the way, is a deviation from the traditional Chinese diet recommendations, which many holistic nutritionists like McKeith are modifying these days, arguing (quite plausibly) that the Chinese tendency to cook everything stemmed from the poor sanitation conditions in the times of the Yellow Emperor, when the seminal Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine was compiled.

All in all, the book makes a very good and lively read, and provides a lot of valuable advice both to beginners and to folks who want to refresh good nutrition principles. If you can get over the personality worship and the controversial PhD issue – and I’m sure you can – you’ll find this a helpful and entertaining companion on your journey towards good eating and good health.

What’s the Deal About Wheat Intolerance?

(photo from here)

There is so much talk about wheat and gluten these days. Or perhaps I hear more of it because it’s interesting to me. Various conflicting opinions are offered. Websites and information geared at food intolerant folks tend to emphasize how common the symptoms are – 15% of the population is estimated to be sensitive to either gluten or another component in wheat, and 33% to yeast, which composes most of the bread we eat. On the other hand, the British Nutrition Foundation reports that wheat intolerance is very uncommon. Naturally, none of these sites is unbiased, and as with other food issues, this one is highly political. Because wheat is a food staple and generates much income for the middlemen in the process of transferring it from the grower to the customer. For more info on these matters, do visit Parke Wilde’s excellent blog, US Food Policy. But let’s focus on wheat, for a minute.

There are a number of issues that could lead to bad symptoms when responding to bread, pasta and similar foods. It’s important to distinguish them, though in real life it may not be that easy.

1. Wheat Allergy, like other food allergies, refers to immediate and drastic responses to the consumption of wheat, which could include anything from hives to vomiting to swelling to loss of consciousness. Read more about how to test for food allergies.

2. Wheat sensitivity, or intolerance, is apparently less drastic and much more common. The sensitivity could be an outcome of any of the following reasons:

(a) Gluten intolerance, with celiac being the most severe form. Celiac can be tested for, and apparently has been identified as a genetic problem and related to autoimmune diseases. Gluten is the protein which makes bread elastic and fluffy. Celiac, at its worst, can be extremely dangerous and lead to death.

(b) Yeast intolerance, which is sometimes confused with wheat intolerance, because the main way we consume wheat is through bread with yeast. Yeast infections of various kinds often involve the growth of unhealthy yeast in the colon, with candida being quite notorious in causing digestive problems, bloating, gas, fatigue and other symptoms. Candida problems, and other yeast related issues, are extremely difficult to diagnose, and conventional Western medicine will usually not be quick to detect and acknowledge them. One way nutritionists identify candida is using screening questionnaires, which can point them to a probability that the cause of suffering has to do with yeast. Here’s one such questionnaire, from the informative website of Donna Gates, author of the well-researched and helpful book The Body Ecology Diet.

(c) Intolerance to other components of wheat. The wheat used all over the world nowadays is propagated by an extremely wealthy group of agribusinesses; and, as we now know, this was not always the case. In the attempt to modify wheat so that it can be easily grown in gargantual quantities, wheat was breeded and treated in certain ways which led it to become resilient and easily grown. Some folks may not respond well to these ways, and sometimes the intolerance emerges particularly from the fact that wheat has become so uniform and common as to make other forms of ancient wheat, like kamut and spelt, quite rare.

(d) Sometiems, the intolerance is not to wheat in itself, but to the various pesticides wheat is sprayed with. Obviously, this problem is not unique to wheat. The issue here is that the huge amounts in which wheat is grown probably involves economic considerations in choosing these pesticides. Again, in these issues it’s difficult to find an unbiased opinion.

What’s the deal, then? Are you sensitive to wheat or not? If one feels symptoms such as stomach ache, bloating, gas, abdominal discomfort, fatigue and extreme changes in weight, as well as cravings for sugar and starch, one should definitely seek the advice of both a doctor and a good holistic nutritionist. The latter will probably help you get on an elimination diet, which will help you learn more about the foods that agree and do not agree with you. Even if you are not sensitive to wheat, it’s probably a good idea to vary your diet with various types of grain, as each of them offers different nutritional components.

Finally, to learn more about food intolerance, and digestive health in general, do read Elizabeth Lipsky’s excellent book Digestive Wellness. It’s a very good resource on various health issues and offers very helpful advice.

Brown Rice Pasta with Greens and Mushrooms

Sometime in the early nineties, Israel went through a culinary revolution; gone were the awful salty, processed restaurant dishes always covered by a blanket of cheap, fat cheese. All of a sudden, we all became gourmets. And then came a succession of trendy foods, headed by pasta. One day, everyone knew that we had been cooking our pasta, which we had wrongly called “macaroni”, for too long, and it had to be al dente; fresh ingredients were added and eradicated the canned tomato paste regime.

But before we started counting our blessings and saying good riddance to the awful food we’d been eating, we took things to the other extreme; we became finicky, snobbish gourmets, establishing proper rules and regulations for even the simplest comfort foods. Now we’re all experts; we know which ingredients are used in which area of Italy, and what wine to serve with our pasta. But – y’know – sometimes you just want to eat a fun bowl of fine noodles, and not obsess about it.

Which is how the following recipe came about. We’re both exhausted from numerous work issues and social engagements which, while fun, took a toll on our sleeping and relaxing time. Today we felt like putting our house in order and cleaning it, and having a nice bowl of pasta. Fortunately, I had anticipated this craving and bought fabulous and healthful brown rice pasta.

Attention, all ye celiac folk, gluten-avoiding gents, wheat-intolerant ladies: there is excellent-tasting brown rice pasta out there. And the good people of Tinkyada make it for us. And it’s not devastatingly expensive. Naturally, it’s always best to actually have brown rice rather than pasta; but this stuff is big fun, and it allows me to enjoy an old favorite without suffering the repercussions (one of these days I’ll post some more info about the strange world of sensitivity to wheat). You can make the following recipe with their product, or with any whole grain or white (insert health-freak-shudder here) pasta of your choice. It involves lots and lots of greens, organic crushed tomatoes, sliced champignon mushrooms, lots of herbs, and much garlic. Serves two tired, grumpy folks, and restores their good spirits.

1 package (340 grams, I think) of Tinkyada brown rice pasta – I like the vegetable fusilli
4 cups of coarsely chopped kale, beet greens or Swiss chards
1 cup of organic crushed tomatoes
10 champignon mushrooms, thinly sliced
6 garlic cloves
3 hearty handfuls of chopped basil, parsley, or oregano

Boil about a liter of water in a large pot. While you wait for it to boil, heat up a large wok. When it almost smokes, add chopped garlic. After a minute or two, before the garlic becomes brown, add in the mushrooms. Cook a bit, then add the greens and stir around. Wait for them to slightly wilt, then put in the crushed tomatoes and about 1/2 a glass of water. Then add the herbs. Cook until sauce thickens and the greens’ stalks are chewable but not hard.

By now, the water is probably boiling. Add a tablespoon of herb salt and the pasta, stirring often to avoid stickiness. Cook to desired consistency, then drain.

Now, since this is a homey recipe, with no pretensions of authenticity, add the drained pasta to the wok and stir with sauce until it coats the noodles. Put in deep bowls and eat to your heart’s content.

Those Root Vegetable Leaves!

(photo from here)

Getting organic vegetables from a small farm is truly an educational experience. We get to see quite a few things we never see in the supermarket.

The best example is the stalks and leaves of root vegetables. In theory, of course, one knows that root vegetables grow underground, and that they have some sort of leaves overground. After all, like many other Israeli kids, I grew on the wonderful story Grandpa Eliezer and the Carrot, which involves a whole family pulling out a carrot by its leaves in an attempt to get it out. But, of course, then one goes, as a kid, with one’s parents to the supermarket, where carrots are bald and leaves fear to tread.

Actually, the whole supermarket experience, if you’ll allow me a short rant, divorces kids from the source of their food. When I lived in Jerusalem and visited Frida, my neighbor, I used to listen to her conversations with the kids she worked with. Once, a kid saw her cut potatoes for fries. Completely horrified, he said: “Why are you cutting those potatoes?” Frida replied: “For fries”. The kid’s eyes widened. “You make fries out of potatoes?” “Sure, out of what else?” asked Frida. The kid shrugged his shoulders. “Out of a bag”. Similar exchanges demonstrated that kids were amazed that lemons grew on trees. All this stuff makes me thing that Barbara’s previously mentioned rant about folks’ ignorance regarding the source of their meat extends to other types of food, as well.

In any case, folks, root vegetables do have leaves. And when we get our weekly Chubeza box, we get to meet them. Beets and turnips (lefet) have large, spinach-like leaves. Carrots have thin leaves on long stalks, a bit reminscent of algae. This, of course, raises the question, what shall we do with them?

Here are a few ideas.

Beet leaves make wonderful leafy greens and can be used in any way chard, kale, or manguld are used. My next post, hopefully, will include a fun recipe for pasta with greens which uses beet leaves; pasta works extremely well with greens, and when cooked with beet leaves, it takes a fun and entertaining pink color.

Another usage for beet leaves is in omelettes, for the egg eaters. You start by sauteeing roughly chopped leaves in a bit of olive oil with garlic and your favorite fresh or dried herbs, then you spread your egg, or egg-and-yogurt, mix on top.

Many stir-fry dishes benefit from greens. As you can read in Barbara Fisher’s Stir-Fry Technique guide, one adds the vegetables in the order that they get soft, which means the leafy greens go in last. They are ready as soon as they begin to wilt. One of our favorite dishes in California, which we ate often in Chinese restaurants in Chinatown and at Long Life Vegi House, was tofu, mushrooms and greens; these three work really well together.

Leafy greens, including beet leaves, make good fillings for crusts and play well with cheese, garlic, sauteed onions and (yum) pine nuts.

As to carrot greens, or any leafy greens you’re not using, please, take them as soon as you get them, rinse them well, stick them (with or without their roots) in a giant pot with lots of fresh, clean water, and cook them for forty minutes. You get a wonderful pot of vegetable stock, which you can later use for the rest of the week. You can cook your grains and beans in it; you can add them to your sauces instead of water; they can be fabulous bases for any kind of soup; and, of course, you can drink them in the evening, instead of tea, as a nice, warm and healthy liquid treat.

Sauerkraut Mystery Partially Solved

Our Chubeza delivery this week included more cabbage. We do like cabbage, honestly we do; my dad’s family has Polish roots, and Chad comes from a Mennonite family. And cabbage rolls are a staple of Mennonite cooking. And we like cabbage with tomato sauce, and we like slaw. But there was just too much of it for one week. So, we decided on sauerkraut. But we had no clue how to do it. We turned to two dependable sources of information: my grandparents and the internet.

Now, apparently, this is not very easy, and Faith Petric‘s song describes the process in a deceivingly easy way. In her song, while cleaning the fridge, she comes across a strange substance:

Look at this, it’s sauerkraut, now when did we have sauerkraut?
Whatever this stuff was, it sure is sauerkraut by now!

My grandparents, after a lengthy interrogation, confessed, that they don’t do any fermentation at all. They just stick the cabbage in a pot of vinegar. Now that won’t do. The internet resources, on the other hand, were less candid, and more vague and mysterious. “Large ceramic pots” in the garage were described, a process of removing some foam, daily, under a gauze, was mentioned, and the whole process was described very unappetizingly. Naaaah, we said, we won’t go there.

Then, Shari Ansky‘s book came to the rescue, and we modified the recipe there to include more stuff we liked. And after five days of just standing in our porch, it came out delicious. And here is how we did it.

The one essential tool for this enterprise is a large glass jar that closes hermetically, with rubber, like the one you see above in the picture.

You’ll need:
3 celery stalks
A nice head of green cabbage, cut into quarters or smaller pieces
4 red spicy chiles
4 bay leaves
black pepper, unground, to taste

Chop the celery stalks into pieces that fit on the bottom of the jar, and put them there. Then, pack the jar, very tightly, with cabbage pieces, chiles, bay leaves and pepper. Finally, pour into the jar salt water (1 tsp salt to 1 cup water) until the liquid covers the veg. Leave in a lit, sunny spot for five days. Voila.

The Veg Count Too: Rant and Recipe

Have you noticed how, for some meat eaters, the meal doesn’t count unless it contains meat?

Fear not, gentle reader. I’m not about to launch into another one of those vegetarian-carnivore debates. I have no beef (ha!) with meat eaters; becoming vegetarian is a highly personal choice, and I’ve heard, countless times, all the arguments and counterarguments. What I do want to rant about, is the way some carnivores make meat into the focus of their culinary experience, completely ignoring the rest of the food.

Now, with homemade food, for many folks here, the idea is that there’s an “entree” – namely, some sort of a dead animal – and then there are the “additions”, the things that meat is “served with”, which, in classy restaurants, are not even mentioned in the outset. You read that you’ll be served a steak or a leg of lamb, and then, in small print, it’ll say “with potatoes and asparagus”. Sometimes they don’t bother at all. This practice bothers me to no end, because it completely ignores the quality of ingredients, creativity and nutritional planning that goes into making a truly wonderful vegetarian dish. This tendency to ignore anything on your plate that isn’t meat, by the way, is a common accompaniment to the unwillingness to understand that one’s meat has come from animals – an absurdity on which my dear friend Barbara Fisher has written an award-winning post.

Why, you ask, have I launched into this rant? Well, Wednesday was Independence Day in Israel. While Americans tend to celebrate all their national dates of importance by, well, shopping, Israelis do so by eating. A lot. Of Meat.

All national parks, forests, patches of green, and often traffic circles, I kid you not, are invaded, since morning, by folks carrying dozens of kilograms of meat and a barbecue, or as it’s called here, a mangal. Gender roles are very specific, and very reminscent of Jean Auel books: only the men are allowed to directly deal with the fire, while the women hunt-gather for pita bread and condiments, and the children mainly eat and make noise. This in itself is quite fine, though the lust for such huge amounts of meat certainly does not agree with everyone’s arteries. In fact, Chad and I attended an event like this.

So, whaddwe do when we go to a barbecue? Do we sit and stare longingly at the meat, or stuff our face with meatless bread? Hell no. We bring Vegetable Skewers. We put them in a delicious, aromatic marinade. We include all sorts of exotic veg. And we eat with great pleasure. So this time, we brought in skewers with celery roots, beets, fennel, and other amazing organic veg. Oh, and we stuck on them the occasional cube of tofu. While our veg were top quality, the tofu, this time, was a tad mediocre, so we didn’t put much of it on.

And when we took them out, folks looked at them and said “heh, tofu skewers”.

Now that was really ridiculous. All these fabulous vegetables were there, but the folks around us zoomed in on the sole tofu cube, not even registering the rest of the skewer as “food”. But of course, we’re vegetarians, so given the fact that anything beyond meet is not considered “food”, then we must eat tofu all day.

Wrong, folks. We love our veg. And we never go hungry. And while protein is very important, so are vitamins, and minerals, and carbs, and other nutrients. Vegetables are food.

And then, one person asked to try one. And another. And another. And eventually they all ate, and were happy, and said it was very good.

So here’s the recipe, for your barbecuing pleasure:

Vegetable Skewers

Vegetables:
3 carrots
3 beets
1 large fennel bulb
1 celery root, cleaned
4 tomatoes
10 forest mushrooms of any kind
1 large onion

Marinade:
4 cups vegetable stock
2-3 cups soy sauce
1 one-inch diameter ginger chunk, chopped or grated
6-7 garlic cloves
3 handfuls of fresh herbs: we like parsley and cilantro
1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch (optional but helps consistency).

This can be done with any vegetables. Really. It’s just that the aboce combo worked so well. The trick is to skewer a variety of ingredients that work well together and take about the same time to cook. Alas, this is tricky; because the tomato cooks almost instantly, while, say, the carrots take a long time.

Which is why you steam the “hard” vegetables first.

“Peel” the celery root, that is, cut of its external rougher surface. Then, dice all the vegetables, so the pieces are about 1/2 inch wide and no more than 1 inch in other directions. It’s best if they are about the same size. Now, take the carrot cubes, the beets, the celeries, and the fennels, and steam them for about 30 minutes or until they are firm but easily pierced with a skewer. We use a bamboo steamer (easily purchased for very, very cheap in your local Asian houseware store), but a collander over a large pot of water would work just as fine. Just let the water work its magic.

Then, mix all ingredients for the marinade in a very large bowl, and put all vegetable cubes, including tomatoes and mushrooms and onions, into the marinade, and let them sit there for at least three hours.

Then, grap a bunch of skewers and get creative. One of the best ways to do this, is to place a large bowl in your sink, hang a collander over it, and pour the contents of your marinade bowl into the collander. Thus, you get all the veg ready for skewering, and you save the marinade for future use. Yay! Another recommendation is to split the different kinds of veg between several bowls, so you see how many of each you’ve got, and you don’t end up with a bunch of skewers that only have, say, carrots on them. In this, I beg to differ from Alton Brown: I understand the rationale behind skewering the same vegetables on the same skewer (uniform cooking time), but since folks will usually have no more than two of these, why not give them something that offers more fun and variety?

You can do whatever you want in terms of the order of skewering, but I really recommend having one of the firmer, tougher vegetables on each end. Also, a good idea is to stick bits of the onion and fennel between vegetable cubes, as they infuse their “neighbors” on the skewer with their magnificent aroma.

The best way we’ve found to carry the skewers to the barbecue is taking a very big plastic bag and putting a bowl inside it, with the skewers “standing” in the bowl. Also, be sure to carry a little container with marinade with you, so you can sprinkle it on the vegetables should they become dry.

Then, at the event itself, once you’ve fought off the meat eaters for some space on the barbecue, you simply place them out there,on the barbecue, and give them a little turn every couple of minutes. They’ll be done in five or seven minutes, depending on the size of veg you’ve picked. They’re very good with fresh tchina, or in a hummus sandwich. Enjoy!

Tiny Amaranth Popcorn



People around me LOOOOOVE to talk about food; which works out just fine, because so do I. And one of the topics people feel very passionate about is breakfast. I’ve often wondered why so many people are willing to try a variety of foods, but insist on having a familiar breakfast. I guess when you get up in the morning you want to face something you know and care for, before the surprises of the day start hitting you…

Here in Tel Aviv, one of the most beloved breakfast traditions is the Israeli breakfast, consisting of fried eggs, a vegetable salad, cheese, bread, orange juice and coffee. In California, going out for brunch meant you’d face fried potatoes and some meat, and sometimes fruit instead of vegetables. When I visited Oxford for a talk, my hotel served cooked tomatoes and mushrooms. Each of these, of course, seems the only viable breakfast option to those used to it…

These days, I usually have fruit, or veg juice, or some light cereal of some sort; the newest invention I’ve come across is actually quite fun, and it makes breakfast into snacktime. Eating popped grains for breakfast feels a bit like pretending to be sick and skipping school; it’s a breakfast that breaks the rules. I don’t mean Rice Krispies or anything of the sort, but something that can be made, within minutes, in your kitchen, and tastes lovely on its own, or with your favorite soy, goat or cow morning liquid.

Amaranth Popcorn.

Yeah, Amaranth Popcorn. The concept is quite fun, actually. When in California, I bought Amaranth and didn’t know what to do with it; my beloved nutritionist, Anasuya, recommended it as one of the healthiest whole grains. Apparently, amaranth seeds are very high in protein and contain significant amounts of amino acids; it’s high in fiber and mineral content, in fact, much higher in fiber than wheat and much higher in calcium than milk. Truly a supergrain. And, as an added bonus, its chemical structure makes its many nutrients available to us even when processed. Which means, folks, amaranth is good for us.

There are many ways to combine amaranth in your diet, and I’ve tried some of them, and I find that I don’t really enjoy cooked amaranth. In her wonderful breakfast book, Sunlight Cafe, Mollie Katzen recommends making wafers out of it, or cooking it into a porridge. You might enjoy this; me, I’ll stick to the popcorn option any day.

So, how do you do this?

Popping seeds is quite easy once you know how to do it – “follow these easy assembly instructions”, as Tom Waits says, and you’ll be left with beautiful amaranth popcorn, with no charred grain or sticky skillets. The only tool you need is a smallish skillet, preferrably with a glass lid. I wouldn’t do this in a wok, as the bottom needs to be wide and flat.

Put the skillet – dry, without even a drop of oil, on the stove. When the skillet is very hot, pour in, carefully, about a tablespoon of amaranth seeds. Avoid covering the entire bottom of the skillet. Quickly cover with the lid. You’ll then witness a fun theatre of miniscule popping action (now this is why a glass lid is best; otherwise, you’ll just have to trust your ears and listen carefully to the quiet, cute popping sounds). When all the grains have finished jumping merrily in the skillet, pour its contents into a bowl, return to the stove, and repeat with the next batch. Each batch takes, oh, about five seconds, and the entire amount you need will be made easily and quickly. The top picture in this post shows the exciting popping action as it happens.

Now, whaddya do with this thing? You could, of course, snack on it as it is. Or, you could add spices. Amaranth is a bit on the sweet side, but the popcorn will also take nicely to savory options. You could go with any of the following combinations:

Cinnamon, nutmeg, ground clove
Cumin, fennel seeds
Cardamon and cinnamon
Herb salt and pepper
Paprika
Sumak

The spiced popcorn goes well with nuts and yogurt, or with fruit, or on its own. Enjoy!

The Magical Study Aid Lentil Soup

So, the nice person brought us carrots. And tomatoes. And celery stalks. And celery root. And, I had to do some work over the weekend. So I recalled my very favorite culinary study aid.

Lentil soup.

Yes, it’s not a mistake. I work well with lentil soup. I don’t drink coffee – not any more – and while I am an obsessive consumer of herbal teas of all sorts, lentil soup is one of my foods of choice for times when I have to work. This is mostly due to nostalgia.

When I was a student in Jerusalem – living next door to the mythological Frida – my life was full of study-related stress. The well-known method of filling myself with black Turkish coffee would leave me jittery, irritable and, well, quite tired once the effect wore off. In addition, we were all encouraged to work in groups on our assignments. A typical assignment, in law school, would be a story, about half-a-page long, resembling a soap opera or a nonsense stand-up comedy, starring demented people with funny names like Mr. Mean and Mr. Belligerent, who incur the most improbable mishaps and complications in their personal and professional lives. We were expected to solve the mess and say who would win the case, and who would argue what. Some of us were quite good at this, and others found it difficult to dig all the important points out of the story. Me, I was often so fascinated with the crazy plot that I found it hard to focus on the legal issues it included; my mind would run wild, thinking about those people and why their lives had gone awry.

The solution to this problem was to invite my three or four favorite pals from school to my 1970s apartment and work on the assignment together, figuring that four brains were better than one. And it was Jerusalem in the winter, and folks would ride two buses to get to the fun-but-slummy neighborhood where I lived, and they would be cold, and wet. So I would feed them soup.

I had several lentil soup recipes, and they all served me well; this one, I think, is a combination of two different recipes. Naturally, this works really well with many sorts of vegetables one might have in one’s house, and it becomes even better after a day or two. Give it a try; it’s really good stuff. And who knows, perhaps if we fed it to Mr. Mean and Mr. Belligerent, they’d stop arguing, cancel the lawsuit, and we could all sleep in peace.

Magical Study Aid Lentil Soup

Ingredients
Olive oil
5-6 Garlic Cloves
1 large yellow onion
3 tomatoes
3-4 carrots
2 cups of black/green lentils
3 celery stalks, preferrably with the leaves
2 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp curcum (Middle Eastern yellow spice – optional)
a handful of coarsely chopped parsley
water, or vegetable broth
grated good quality goat cheese (optional)

You could soak the lentils beforehand, and it is preferrable, but not essential. If you decide to do it, simply place them in a bowl with water; they’ll swell up. Discard the water.
Start with a large soup pot. Heat it over the stove a bit, then pour some olive oil in. When the oil is hot and nearly smoking, chop in garlic cloves and onions, and add cumin, curcum and some of the parsley. Stir until the vegetables are golden and the onions begin to brown.
Then, add the lentils, and chop in the tomatoes, carrots and celery stalks. stir in a bit and mix with the garlic, onion and spices. After everything seems mixed and warmed up, add water or broth to cover. Bring to a boil, then put the lid on and cook for another, say, forty minutes, or until the lentils are very tender. If you make this recipe with red lentils, they’ll all dissolve and become puree by now, but black and green lentils tend to retain their shape even when they are tender. Sprinkle the remaining parsley and, if you so wish, the goat cheese, and serve in deep bowls or in large mugs.

There’s an interesting twist to this soup. If it’s made with less water, you basically end up with a lentil dish which can be served, cold, as a salad. Also yummy, but I find that, to serve this cold, you need to slightly inrease the amount of each spice.