I'm on a recipe roll!

The Airman's sister knows I like to post photos of the food I cook on Facebook  so she invited me to join a group where people do exactly that. I'll admit that I was pretty standoffish for for the first few months definitely a lurker more than anything. Then, for some unknown reason I got kind of competitive. The more I looked at other people's postings the more I thought, "My dinner is better than that!" What can I say, I'm kind of an asshole. So, I started posting me meals this past week. I'm a pretty good cook and lately, recipes on the internets have not been satisfying my taste buds. Earlier this week I posted my recipe for Spicy Pork Stew and Cheese Grits. Today I give you Moroccan Spiced Chicken with Toum.

Food and Wine  had a recipe for Moroccan Chicken that was way too busy (I'm sure it's delicious). So I cut out all the steps except for the  mixing the butter and all the spices together and then coating the chicken with the mixture inside and out. I also, for good measure, put a lemon in the cavity of the chicken. I have this terrible habit of basting my chicken with melted butter. So there's that too. I don't use too much--no need to clog all the arteries but I also like to put a last coat on the bird when it comes out of the oven.

Toum on the other hand, is something I was taught to make by my good friend and wifey extraordinaire, Manal.

I could eat this stuff all day. In fact I only made the chicken because of the Toum. Toum is a a Lebanese dipping sauce and to be honest I have no idea what the exact amounts of any ingredient used so I'm giving approximations.

Labna (in English, it's often written as Labni) is a Kefir cheese (basically a really think yogurt) Toss the entire contain in (i think the one I got was 16oz) a food processor.

Start with 5 cloves of garlic, peel them and toss them in.

Add a teaspoon of salt and a a tablespoon of olive oil.

A squeeze of lemon juice (I forgot this last night and no harm was done)

Blend until smooth.

Taste: It should have a spicy garlicky kick and it should not taste overwhelmingly like yogurt. This is probably not the best way to describe the flavor because I know other places online will say you can use any old Greek yogurt...Trust me, you can't. So if it's still tasting like yogurt add some more garlic and salt to taste.

Serve with the chicken and pita. It will change your world for the better.

My first recipe: Spicy Pork Stew with Cheesy Corn Grits

I'm not an expert cook but I can follow a recipe.

Yesterday morning I woke with a taste for spicy pork stew. I've never made spicy pork stew....I've never even had spicy pork stew. But that's what I wanted! So I spent a good hour in the morning (and a little bit of time at the end of the day at work) looking for a recipe.The Food Network, Food and Wine, Williams-Sonoma, and Martha Stewart all had some good recipes but nothing stood out. That, and my local market didn't have any tomatillos. So....I did what any self-respecting lady would do. I made it up.

Here are your ingredients:

1 1/2 to 2 lbs of boneless pork. ( I used boneless pork ribs because they were on sale and because they are delicious)
1 cup of corn grits (I like the Bob's Red Mill brand. You can find it in the natural foods aisle of the market)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
2 tbs of half and half
4 medium sized red potatoes diced
1 can of chipotle chillies in adobo sauce
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom (i just tossed in a cardamom pod because again, that's all I had)
16 oz of canned tomatoes Muir Glen is my preferred brand.
4 garlic cloves minced
1 small red onion minced
1 -2 tablespoons of cider vinegar
vegetable oil
flour to coat the pork
1 cup of stock

Step 1: Cut your pork into medium sized cubes and pour the cider vinegar over the pork to cover. Let it marinate for about 15 minutes.

Step 2. While the pork is marinating cut up your potatoes, onion, and garlic

Step 3: Heat some oil in a pan, then cover your pork with a light dusting of flour. Shake off the excess flour and brown the meat in the pan. Remove the pork and set aside

Step 4: (if you want, you can de-glaze your pan with a little bit of red wine) I added a little more oil to the pan and then added in my garlic and onion. Let it cook until fragrant and then add in your spices. Mix well before adding in your tomatoes.

Step 5:Add your pork back into the pan. Mix well. Add in your cup of stock, the chipotle chillies and  your potatoes.*I used veggie stock but I would have preferred to use chicken stock but I forgot to buy it.

Step 6. Cover and let it simmer over a medium hear for about an hour and a half.

I tossed in a little bit of salt and extra cumin but you should add seasonings that you  prefer.

I was going to serve this with jasmine rice but....my roommate took that with him when he moved out (it's okay, it was his). Then I was going to use regular old white rice but.....I think it had been in the cabinet for a long, long time. So I used corn grits instead. Cheesy corn grits to be exact.

Cheesy Corn Grits

Cook according to package instructions when they're done add in 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese and 2 tablespoons of half and half.

YUM.


Sorry that there aren't any pictures. It was delicious.

Take Your Novel to Work Week

The header says it all. It's officially Take Your Novel to Work Week. Gonna. Get. It. DONE!


That's all.

Hello Knitting!

For some reason, knitting has taken a backseat in my life this last year. I think this is in part to the incredibly challenging year I had balancing teaching with college guidance work. Partly because I'm in love (and no, I have not knit for him. I believe in the sweater curse....), and lastly I've felt uninspired. But then people I know started having babies (lots of babies, like four people impregnated in the last year...must be something in the water). Of the four people we/I know, I've knit for approximately 1 baby. Needless to say, I'm far behind. To get out of my knitting slump, I went to my LYS Lovelyarns in Hampden and asked if I could teach a class.

First, let me say that I love this shop. It reminds me of the places back in Iowa City where I spent so much of my time (and money). The people who shop there are wonderful, the owner, Sue, is awesome, and it's exactly the kind of place where you would want to sit for a few hours and knit.

Sue agreed to let me teach and voila! I'm knitting again! And I'm remembering how much I loved to knit in the first place. My class is over but I'm still knitting. I had amazing students (One brought muffins. MUFFINS!) and we had a great time. I'm teaching the class again in September and with any luck I'll be teaching a Fair Isle class come winter timer.

I have some knitting goals: Finish three baby sweaters (one for my niece, one for Jen and Patrick's baby, and one for Alyssa and Jay's baby). I need a warm weather knitted item for a Baby Waika in Los Angeles. It must be uber-fashionable because he lives in L.A. and babies there are incredibly fashionable.  I also need to finish a scarf I began making two weeks ago and a scarf I started two years ago....I'll post pictures when they're all complete. I'm working on three of these at once but it's nice to move back and forth. Keeps the knitting love alive!

New Publication!

Hello Friends. I realize I've been away for a long time. Long story short: I'm still with the Airman. I'm still employed. I'm still hacking away at my novel (not so much during the school year but I'm looking forward to finishing it this summer).

I have a new story up over at Frontier Psychiatrist. I'm really proud to be part of this online journal. The story is full of my favorite things: sex, wine, and Cape Cod.

Enjoy.

Too. Much. Food.

I went overboard last Saturday when I went grocery shopping. I always do when i go the day after I get paid. I feel oddly rich and I want to spend (Note: I am perpetually broke and my car needs work so it's only going to get worse). I went to town at Trader Joe's and then made my way over to the local shitty grocery for the things I couldn't get.

See, I had a plan. Dinners and lunches for the week and beyond! But it never really works that way. At least not in my world.

I've got:
Gingery pork and lightly pickled cucumbers (is that a thing?) that should go in a pita.
Leftover asparagus risotto
Chicken Chili
Pizza dough and prosciutto

All cooked (not the pizza dough but how long will it last?).
And I have an Airman who doesn't really like leftovers (He says he does, but I don't really believe it. Okay, sometimes he does.).

AND I still have a beef brisket that NEEDS to go in the oven or crock-pot like now. Or tomorrow when I remember to go buy potatoes.

I know, I know. First world problems.

The Blues

I don't have the Blues but I recently read Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin for the first time in a really long time. The re-read was prompted by the fact that I'm currently teaching it to my 9th graders. I remember feeling a kind of sadness the first time I read it but it doesn't compare with all the emotions I felt this time around. I actually sat in my office and cried. Real human tears. It was a combination of things that tugged at that tiny heart of mine.

This is the passage that struck me the most. I had to read it two or three times to really process the beauty of the writing and (what I think are) the meaning behind the words.


"This was the last time I ever saw my mother alive. Just the same, this picture gets all mixed up in my mind with pictures I had other when she was younger. The way I always see her is the way she used to be on a Sunday afternoon, say, when the old folks were talking after the big Sunday dinner. I always see her wearing pale blue. She'd be sitting on the sofa. And my father would be sitting in the easy chair, not far from her. And the living room would be full of church folks and relatives. There they sit, in chairs all around the living room, and the night is creeping up outside, but nobody knows it yet. You can see the darkness growing against the windowpanes and you hear the street noises every now and again, or maybe the jangling beat of a tambourine from one of the churches close by, but it's real quiet in the room. For a moment nobody's talking, but every face looks darkening, like the sky outside. And my mother rocks a little from the waist, and my father's eyes are closed. Everyone is looking at something a child can't see. For a minute they've forgotten the children. Maybe a kid is lying on the rug, half asleep. Maybe somebody's got a kid in his lap and is absent-mindedly stroking the lad's head. Maybe there's a kid, quiet and big-eyed, curled up in a big chair in the comer. The silence, the darkness coming, and the darkness in the faces frighten the child obscurely. He hopes that the hand which strokes his forehead will never stop-will never die. He hopes that there will never come a time when the old folks won't be sitting around the living room, talking about where they've come from, and what they've seen, and what's happened to them and their kinfolk.

But something deep and watchful in the child knows that this is bound to end, is already ending. In a moment someone will get up and turn on the light. Then the old folks will remember the children and they won't talk any more that day. And when light fills the room, the child is filled with darkness. He knows that every time this happens he's moved just a little closer to that darkness outside. The darkness outside is what the old folks have been talking about. It's what they've come from. It's what they endure. The child knows that they won't talk any more because if he knows too much about what's happened to them, he'll know too much too soon, about what's going to happen to him."

Godfuckingdamn. This made me weep. And it made me want to be a better writer. It made me remember why I wanted to become a writer in the first place. I could feel the tears coming after the first read but by the third, I was done. I wasn't even sure I could talk about it with the kids.

To get my kids started on discussing this story I had them listen to Strange Fruit by Nina Simone and So What by Miles Davis. Now I do love Nina but truth be told I've never been an instrumental jazz fan. But I think that's about to change....Back to the important stuff. So the kids listened to the music and I asked them to write down what they were feeling as the music played. When I asked them to share a lot of them gave me images they saw rather than feelings. When they were done I pointed out what they had said and then I asked them to try again to think about how they felt. What they said was rather personal so I won't re-post, but it was interesting. What was also interesting came later, today, in fact. We were continuing our conversation about the story, mostly what they thought was the meaning behind all the mentions of darkness and light. I also asked them to tell me what they liked most about the story.  Many of them related that they liked the way family was portrayed. "Don't let your brother fall,"  really resonated with a lot of them especially the ones with younger siblings. They also liked that there was a feeling of hopefulness at the end and that the two brothers had come to an understanding.

Class the last two days has been really interesting. Tomorrow we wrap up Sonny's Blues and move on to some Andrea Lee (YAY!!)

Also, I don't have the blues but I am ready for the weekend.

Reading Challenge Update

It just occurred to me that I have already (nearly) failed my own reading challenge. I'm already behind--I have about 50 pages left of The Yiddish Policeman's Union and I only just started Super Sad True Love Story. I'm going to do my best to finish Yiddish tonight that way I'm only half a failure.

Hearing Yourself

This morning I went looking for a recording of Tobias Wolff reading Bullet in the Brain. We had discussed it last night in my creative writing workshop at George Washington University. I thought maybe the Workshop had recorded the event as part of Live from Prairie Lights. Sadly, they hadn't. I did however find this: a reading I gave in Iowa back during my second year. So weird to hear myself. You absolutely don't have to listen but it was kind of a treat to find this recording from my past. Here it.

My Office...

Is a complete mess right now. There are papers everywhere a broken espresso maker, too many boxes that have to do with the yearbook, and books. Lots of books.

But then there is this little bit of cork board. It has lots of my favorite things.

A postcard from vonHottie, the Little Lord poster from Jewqueen, a knitting postcard, my statement of educational philosophy, photobooth photos of me and my mama, miscellaneous postcards of my favorite travel destinations (Cambodia, Prague), snippets of writing, story titles (to be used), a Sarah Lawrence banner, and a fake minor slip from Halloween.

Just thought I would share.

The Letter I Wrote to Start Writing Again

I'm sharing this because I think it is an honest and accurate account of the way my writing life has changed over the last year and a half.

Letter of Interest

RE: Jenny McKean Moore Free Community Workshop

Five years ago I wrote, “The writing life I lead now exists in stolen moments, free time at the office, early morning alarms that call me to write something, anything.“  Less than a year after writing that sentence I quit my job, packed up my apartment and moved to middle of nowhere to write. I spent three years in a small college town, teaching and writing.  I was experiencing the kind of professional and artistic fulfillment most people only dream of. 

When I came to Baltimore to take a job in the fall of 2010 I had high expectations. I assumed that I would somehow make it possible to continue leading the kind of life I had been living. As it turns out, teaching ninth grade English and guiding anywhere between twenty and forty high school seniors through the college search process leaves time for very little. I write on a daily basis, letters of recommendation, comments on five paragraph essays, and course evaluations twice a year. But I don’t write.  My novel lies in pieces on my hard drive and I have several short stories that are varying states of completion. The writing groups I once a member of have disbanded and my attempts to recreate them have been unsuccessful.  It’s hard to devote time to writing when everything else shouts out for attention with a much louder voice.

            As a writer, I thrive in an environment where I am forced to consider not only my art, but also the art of those around me.  Between 2005 and 2010 I took nine fiction writing workshops and taught an additional five. During that time I believe that I have produced my best work because I have inspired by the simple fact that someone out there would be reading it, thinking about it and assisting me in making it better. I find that I am most motivated when my writing is given more than those few stolen moments in between meeting with frenzied seniors and terrified freshmen.  I look forward to having the opportunity to work with other gifted writers in the same kind of environment that first encouraged me to embrace a life in which writing is central.

                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                                   

                                                                                   

Food Love

I've been realizing more and more that the way I show the Airman how much I love him is by cooking for him. I get it from my mother's family. I swear the way you know someone is in love with their partner by the way they make them a plate at a big (or small...not that we have many of these) dinner. Lately, I've become obsessed with cooking for him. Not only cooking but going a little on the gourmet side. Last night I actually plated dinner. What the fuck? You would have thought I was on Top Chef and Padma and Tom were waiting to taste. After last night's dinner I'm pretty sure I would not have been told to "Pack my knives and go." The recipe came from the Pioneer Woman. I love, love, love her blog. Her tv show, meh.

Her recipes are divine and I have yet to make one that didn't turn out awesome.  So last night, I made this for Airman: Braised beef ribs in a creamy wine sauce. Fanfuckingtastic. There are pictures to prove it.

This is when they got a little sear on them.

This is after I added the fresh rosemary, wine, and beef broth. The entire apartment smelled like rosemary, wine, and beef. I'm sure it's what heaven smells like.

While I let the ribs braise in the pan for three hours, I chopped up some portabello and shitake mushrooms, tossed them with olive oil, salt, and roasted 'em. The Airman questioned the amount of mushrooms I had purchased (about 2 1/2 pounds) but at the end of the night there were barely any for my lunch.

I took the ribs out of the pan after 3 hours. The meat was falling off the bones.

Then I plated that dish like a motherfucker. I started with a buttery helping of mashed potatoes, topped with mushrooms and then the delicious ribs. I topped it all off with a generous helping of the creamy wine sauce.

Food love.

Happy New Year!

Yeah....I know. I am a few weeks late but hey, I'm here. It's been a bumpy start to the new year. I kicked it off with bronchitis and and an upper respiratory infection that kept me in bed for four days past the start of school. My mom said "Well it's nice to not have to go back!" and I had to disagree with her. Even the doctor said that I looked like I wanted to die. I did. I was coughing as though I was going to hack up a lung. Then I read somewhere that a woman did actually cough up part of her lung and it terrified me.

I didn't cough up a lung. I made it back to work. I somehow, miraculously started 2012 in a bona fide, adult relationship that only gets better and better. And Hector the cat still likes to sleep in boxes. Things are good.

I'm also starting the new semester with some good writing news. I applied to the Jenny McKean More Community Workshop at The George Washington University using a sample from Until the Heart Stops Beating and a letter of interest that I will post later. I'm pleased to say that I've been accepted into the class! Hooray! This is both a good and terrifying thing.

Terrifying because I have to commute to DC every Tuesday: Yuck. It's also terrifying because I have written with any regularity in a year and a half (it looks sooo bad when I see that written down). I keep anxiously checking my email to see what my homework assignment will be! Homework! Ack!

But...It's a good thing because I do my best work when someone demands it of me. I'm really, really excited about writing for a small group of people. I can only hope that they are as excited about writing and read as I am. They must be if they took the time to apply, right?



That reading challenge I started? Oh yeah, that...Well, I'm going to try and finish up Yiddish Policeman tonight and tomorrow. And I'm reading a ton of short stories in preparation for the unit I am about to start with my class and hopefully this weekend I'll get to The Marriage Plot. But it's the Airman's birthday weekend so I make no promises.

I did begin and mostly finish these:

So I will have at least two knitting projects done! And I'm busting down my stash. Yay me again!

And because it's my blog and I can be obnoxious and gross and annoying here as much as I want, I'm still madly in love. #winning