Many of you have been wondering where I have been, these past six months, and those of you who have followed my sporadic blogging will know I have been looking after my Unwell Friend.
This morning, surrounded by her family, she died.
And I am heartbroken.
To borrow the words of Erich Segal:
What can you say about a forty-three-year-old girl who died?
That she was beautiful. And brilliant.
And brave.
That she loved, in no particular order, and amongst other things: her children, her husband and soulmate of twenty four years, break-up pieces of Munson’s chocolate, clothes from Lucy’s, her family, haggling to get a bargain (although she never did manage to get the lamp at Bungalow down to the right price), her cottage on the lake in Canada, her camp girls, the Fab Five, Beef Negimaki Bento Boxes at Matsu, skiing, her “A” team, aka Heidi’s Angels, Art Smarts, coaching her son’s soccer team.
That she had a smile that lit up the world. That her glass was always half full. That she only ever saw the good in people, in life, in any situation that came her way, and that she had more joie de vivre than anyone I have ever met.
Heidi didn’t just live life. She sparkled.
She was an extraordinary friend. Through thick and thin, she was always there, offering tremendous wisdom, common sense, support, and love.
I called her the Eskimo, because when it snows here in winter, she would take her children outside and build quinzhees with them: snow houses - something she learned to do as a child in Toronto.
She knew everything about survival: you could dump her in a rainforest with a pocketknife and backpack, and I guarantee that a year later she would be thriving, probably having built a small village.
But she couldn’t survive the cancer that swept through her body like a wildfire these past six months.
I, and others, have been with her almost every day for the past few months, and it has been a privilege and an honor to accompany her on this most heartbreaking of journeys. Her courage, her laughter, her beauty and grace have taught me extraordinary lessons about life.
And love.
She leaves an indelible handprint on all our hearts, and I will miss her for the rest of my life.
I have long been of the mindset that food is love. The reason I love entertaining so, is because it is the perfect way for me to show my friends how much I love them.
These past few months, I have been cooking for my Unwell Friend. First, for her, a multitude of vegan dishes to try and help her on the road back to health, and of late, for her family. They laugh that they are the lucky recipients of my cooking therapy, and it is true, but it is also my way of giving, of showing my love.
And it is because I do not know what else to do.
I have had a couple of huge hits with the recent food. I used two recipes: Sheila Lukins’s Asian Orange Chicken, with Delia Smith’s Chicken Basque, as inspiration, and combined them both to make a wondrous one-pot Asian orange chicken with onions, peppers and rice.
Fish Escabeche was the result of over-ordering fish and chips. I made a sweet and sour sauce, Filipino-style, with carrots, peppers and cucumbers and poured it over the fried fish to create an entirely new dish. The sauce would work equally well with chicken, or thick eggplant slices, dredged in flour and lightly fried, for a vegetarian option.
I made tandoori salmon kebabs, and a tofu version for us, using extra firm tofu, diced into large cubes. I served them with pureed cauliflower, a head of cauliflower steamed, then pureed with a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of tofutti sour cream - they were better than the best mashed potatoes I have ever eaten. I sliced fennel, thinly, and caramelised it with sliced leeks, a tablespoon of brown sugar, of white wine vinegar, and of olive oil, over a low heat for over an hour, until it was sticky, sweet and brown, and served it on top of the pureed cauliflower.
Asian Orange Chicken (serves 6 -
For the marinade:
Zest of 4 oranges
2/3 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
seasoning
2 chickens, jointed into 8 pieces, seasoned
2 large red bell peppers
2 medium onions
2 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup brown short grain rice
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
teaspoon of tomato paste
3/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 large orange, cut into 1/2″ wedges — peel on
4 scallions (white bulbs and 3″ green) thinly sliced on diagonal for garnish.
The day before serving rinse and dry chicken pieces, and combine orange zest and juice, honey, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes and seasoning into bowl for marinade. Stir well, coat chicken pieces and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to cook, tart off by seasoning the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Next, slice the red peppers in half and remove the seeds and pith, then slice each half into six strips. Likewise, peel the onion and slice into strips of approximately the same size.
Now heat 2 T. olive oil in the casserole, and when it is fairly hot, add the chicken pieces - 2 or 3 at a time - and brown them to a nutty golden color on both sides. As they brown, remove them to a plate lines with paper towels, using a slotted spoon. Next add a little more oil to the casserole, with the heat slightly higher than medium. As soon as the oil is hot, add the onion and peppers and allow them to brown a little at the edges, moving them around from timt to time, for about 5 minutes.
After that add the garlic and toss around for a minute or two until the garlic is pale golden then stir in the rice, and when the grains have a good coating of oil, add the stock, wine, tomato paste. As soon as everything has reached a simmer, turn the heat down to a gentle simmer. Add a little more seasoning, then place the chicken gently on top of everything (it’s important to keep the rice down in the liquid). Finally, scatter the wedges of orange in among them.
Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook over the gentlest possible heat for about 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until the rice is cooked but still retains a little bite. Alternatively, cook in a preheated oven at 350 for 1 hour.
Garnish with scallions.
Fish Escabeche (serves 4 - 6)
You could buy a couple of fish fillets, cod or snapper, dredge them in seasoned flour, and fry them until cooked. Or you could cheat and buy fried fish from your local fish and chip store which is far easier and less messy. If you’re still tempted to buy, you will need about 1lb fish.
Sweet and sour sauce:
1/2 cup superfine sugar (although I used raw organic natural cane sugar and it was perfectly fine)
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 small carrot, peeled and thinly sliced
1 medium green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 medium cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
1/2 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons water (this is the thickener. I had no cornstarch so used 1 1/2 tablespoons of wholewheat flour instead)
Fresh cilantro leaves to garnish.
To make sauce, combine sugar, vinegar, water and ketchup in a pan. Add carrots when hot, cook for 4-5 minutes, then add bell peppers and cucumber. Simmer, without stirring for another 3 minutes. Stir in cornstarch mixture and simmer until sauce thickens. Remove from heat.
Place fish on serving platter, pour sweet and sour sauce all over fish. Arrange vegetables around fish and garnish with fresh cilantro leaves.
Salmon or Tofu tikka skewers.
1 1/2 lb thick salmon filets, skinned, cubed, or 2 packets of extra firm tofu, diced into 1″ cubes
2 heaped tablespoons of tandoori curry paste
1 cup natural or soy yoghurt
1 bunch mint
1 bunch cilantro
1 tablespoon olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cucumber, chopped.
1 red onion, finely sliced
Mix the curry paste and 2 tablespoons of the yoghurt, and marinade the salmon or tofu for at least one hour.
For the dressing combine the rest of the yoghurt with the finely chopped herbs, cucumber, onion, lemon and olive oil.
Thread cubes onto soaked wooden skewers, and turn on a grill until cooked.
Serve with yoghurt salad.
Every month a magazine comes out called Connecticut Cottages and Gardens, featuring perfect and gorgeous homes in our state.
This month, their regular feature, “On the Couch” caught my eye.
It starts with this question: “Do you think the furnishings and objects in a room reveal much about the homeowner(s)?”
I then glanced over at the attached picture.
After I had stopped laughing, I decided to answer the question myself:
Not when you have paid a designer to put all the furnishings and objects in said room.
From what I can see, there isn’t a single personal item in the room, which renders the whole exercise entirely moot.
Is it beautiful? Yes, if that’s your kind of thing. Does it give anything away other than the people paid someone else a lot of money to a designer so they can buy good taste? I’m not so sure it does.
Were there books, paintings, objects, anything that revealed the owners’ taste, it would be a relevant exercise, but honestly, I just can’t quite see the point.
My own home is horribly cluttered, with beautiful bits. I decided to shoot a few vignettes, and do a little “On the Couch” of my own.
The owner has children, and guilt about throwing art projects, like slightly strange dioramas, in the bin. She collects pillboxes, and may be a writer, judging by the typewriter. Some of the pillboxes are not her taste, because secretly she only likes the quirky hand-painted Limoges ones, but The Olds have decided they will give her a collection (if the Olds are reading this, she very much likes the egg box with the egg inside, and she apologises if she is causing offence. Again). She is pretending perfume is room spray because she is too lazy to take the perfume up to her bedroom and frankly she prefers Le Labo.
The Buddha is a constant reminder that she is aiming for serenity, and he is missing a finger because what do you expect when your Buddha comes from HomeGoods and cost $16.95. She tried to fix it with Mighty Putty, but it didn’t work, thus proving the homeowner is also a sucker when it comes to Infomercials. The sunflowers are happy - she is a sunny person. The glass vase contains Charlie the caterpillar, proving she is very cheap when it comes to pets, and she is hoping Charlie survives longer than the fish. In the background you can see stacks of books on the kitchen counter, so she is horribly disorganised because fiction does not belong on a kitchen counter.
She dreams of one day owning an amphicar because she thinks it would be funny to drive down the ramp at Compo Beach and drive past waving at people. She is living the minivan dream, which she isn’t entirely sure she ever wanted, and the card that says damn right she’s good in bed, she can sleep for days, is honestly not a joke. She has a slight girl crush on Carolyn Bessette Kennedy who was her style icon for her recent wedding, and she is a boater, as the tide charts are up on the fridge. She is also not very tidy. Ahem.
And this, finally, is my beautiful vignette for the magazine, complete with requisite coral, shells, greyhound bookends and abstract art…
I have never been one of those people who sits and reads the New York Times from cover to cover on the weekends, then refers to it constantly all week. The New York Times piles up in my kitchen until I remember to grab the Style section, then usually chuck the rest away or use it to build a fire.
On rare occasions I am on my own - Smalls with their father, Beloved travelling for work - I will read as much as I can while I eat. Horrible habit, I know, but what else is one supposed to do when eating alone?
So today, I was reading about a thirteen-year-old girl who was blocked, by a Dutch court, from sailing around the world. This is her dream, to set off alone in her sailboat for a two-year trip around the world. Her parents said yes.
Her mother (divorced) apparently agreed to it fearing that she would lose contact with the daughter if she did not.
Sigh. Nothing like a spot of teen blackmail to get what you want…
I will say this. Mini-me would like to move in to an apartment of her own. She also wants a driving license. At the very least, she wants to go to sleepaway camp next summer for the entire eight weeks. She would like to cook her own meals, and preferably make her own money by working, although she hasn’t quite decided what as. Fashion designer, perhaps.
If she were to do any of these things, she would probably be fine. She is fiercely independent. And fearless.
She is also seven.
Which means she will not be doing any of these things for a very long time.
I don’t care if she hates me and she’ll never speak to me again and she’ll go and live with her father forever and ever and I’m the worst mother in the world and she’ll never invite me to her birthday party ever again and I mean it I really really hate you and it’s not funny I do.
This is a recipe adapted from The Joy of Cooking, found on www.sugoodsweets.com. I honestly thought we’d be eating leftovers for days, but they were so good, everyone kept eating them, and we had none left. If you are strictly vegan, you could substitute maple syrup, ajave nectar or golden syrup for the honey
Whisk together in a large bowl:1 cup whole-wheat flour 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 1/3 cup cornmeal, preferably stone ground 1/4 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking rolled oats 2 Tbsp sugar 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional) pinch of freshly grated or ground nutmeg or allspice.
Whisk together in another bowl:1 3/4 cups + 1 Tbsp plain soy milk 3 Tbsp oil 1/4 cup honey 1/2 cup ground flax seeds, 1 packed cup grated zucchini.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and gently whisk them together, mixing just until combined. Spoon 1/4 cup batter onto a heated (medium heat or 350 F), greased griddle for each pancake, nudging the batter into rounds. Cook until the top of each pancake is speckled with bubbles and some bubbles have popped, then turn and cook until the underside is lightly browned. Serve immediately or keep warm in a 200 F oven while you finish cooking the rest. Serve with pure maple syrup or honey.
Makes about 24 4-inch pancakes.
Sheila Lukins’ Luscious Lobster Rolls.
Sheila Lukins recently died of brain cancer at 66. She was one of the woman behind the Silver Palate cookbook, and an extraordinary chef. Her last book, Ten, is a must-have for any serious cook, and these rolls were sublime. My heart goes out to her family.
For the dressing:
½ cup mayonnaise
½ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon drained tiny capers
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped sweet pickles
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon or 1 to 2 teaspoons dried
dash of Tabasco sauce
freshly ground pepper to taste
For the lobster rolls:
1 lb cooked fresh lobster meat cut into ½ inch pieces
1 cup diced celery
2 scallions, thinly sliced on the diagonal
6 top split hot dog rolls
Prepare the dressing by combining well in a bowl. Set aside.
In another bowl combine lobster, celery and scallions. Fold dressing into lobster until well coated.
Toast the hot dog rolls. Fill with about 1/3 cup lobster salad, plus a little extra.
I lined the rolls with Boston lettuce – added a touch of green and looked wonderful in the red baskets.
Mushroom Pecan Burgers
Last night , at around five o’clock, as the children were sitting down to chicken, I realized I had nothing for dinner. A quick scour round the pantry produced a huge Costco jar of dried mushrooms, and, given that I had recently found a mushroom pecan burger I was desperate to try, I decided to give it a go.
I had no pecans so used walnuts instead, and instead of Hoisin sauce used a teriyaki that was in the fridge. Nevertheless, they were amazing. I had tried a different mushroom burger recipe recently, but this, found on epicurious.com, was so much better. I urge you to try.
1 1/2 pounds (685 g) cremini mushrooms
1/2 cup (30 g) fresh parsley
2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil, divided
2 large-size yellow onions, finely chopped
3 large-size garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 to 2 cups (165 to 220 g) bread crumbs or cracker meal
3 tablespoons (45 g) tahini
2 tablespoons (30 g) hoisin sauce
3/4 cup (85 g) toasted pecans or walnuts, chopped
3 tablespoons (45 ml) tamari soy sauce
1 teaspoon (2 g) dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
salt and ground pepper, to taste
Method
In a food processor, mince mushrooms and parsley. Remove and set aside.
In a sauté pan over medium heat, warm 1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil and cook onions and garlic for 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer onion mixture to a large-size bowl, and combine with minced mushrooms and parsley, bread crumbs, tahini, hoisin sauce, chopped nuts, tamari, oregano, sage, salt, and pepper.
Place mixture in refrigerator for at least half an hour. Mixture will be soft, but you should be able to form patties. Add additional bread crumbs or tahini, if needed.
Create patties using your hands. In a sauté pan, warm remaining 1 tablespoon (15 ml) oil, and fry patties over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes on each side, until lightly browned and crispy. Be careful to keep patties intact.
