This post is about soup.  It contains a relatively simple and delicious recipe.  I just thought I'd say that up front, in case you don't have the wherewithall to get through the preamble.  

Soup, glorious soup!

      The events of November 8th have definitely left an impact on me.  Aside from sending some of my clients into crisis (I'm a psychologist, remember?), it's emboldened some assholes* in my city to be more visible in their hate mongering.  I've been stepping up my game as an activist in response.  That means more time writing about social justice, attending meetings, and reaching out.  It also means less time doing creative writing, or working on this blog.  *sigh*
      The good news is that my most recent writing project stalled after reaching 41,474 words.  That's in four weeks of writing.  I'm damn proud of myself.  If you're a serious writer, you know that kind of productivity is a gift--and a rush to boot.  As I adjust to my new obligations, I hope to find time to get back to it soon.
      In the meantime, there is one joy that life thrusts upon me daily, no matter what else is going on in the world: food!  We all need it.  Obtaining a meal can be a chore, it can be a side-effort, or it can be an opportunity for self-care and celebration.**  The weather is cold and some of us are in need of a little comfort, so the obvious answer?  Soup.
      Or pie.  But today's recipe is soup.
      This is a recipe inspired by a Majorcan vegetarian bread stew.  What the heck is a bread stew, you ask?  It's a soup finished with slices of bread on top, adding thickness and heartiness.  Lovely, but not always practical.  So here's my adaptation (I apologize there are no pictures, but every step looks pretty much as you might imagine, so no surprises):

Z.D.'s Vegetable Soup with a Spanish Flair

Ingredients:
1 Tbs olive oil
      You can substitute turkey bacon if you want, but then double the amount of olive oil and don't pour any off.  You can also omit the meat entirely and make this a vegetarian dish.  Finally, if you  like vegetable soup - or even if you just tolerate it - I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this Winter Vegetable Soup by Alton Brown.  It takes all afternoon to make, but holy crow, you will be flabbergasted that a vegetable soup can taste this good.



      Eat well.  Live well.  Help others to eat and live well, too.



*I will not use a softer word, because this one isn't strong enough.

**Oh yeah, don't we have a holiday coming up that has a lot to do with food?

      ...and I'm going to have just arrived in Hawaii.  From Ohio.  That's a 5 hour time difference.  Add in the bizarre exhaustion that comes with doing nothing but sitting on a plane, and I will be in no state to be baking anything.  So I want to live vicariously through you!
      Your mission - and you'd be insane not to accept it - is to celebrate National Sticky Bun Day* by making the best gosh darn breakfast buns you've ever eaten this weekend!  Now go forth, my comrades, and BAKE!

Are you drooling yet?

      A sticky bun is defined here in the U.S. as a strip of leavened dough, rolled into a tight spiral bun, tucked side-by-side with it's fellows into a pan lined with a sugary, buttery, and often nutty mixture.  When the buns are done baking they are flipped out of the pan upside down, so that the yummy sugary bottom is now the scrumptious top, rather like a tarte tartin.  But there are those who will bake them individually, or right-side-up, or with no nuts, or use a cream cheese glaze, and frankly I love breakfast so much I don't really care.
      If you need inspiration, here are some recipes I can personally recommend.  This first one really does make the best darn sticky rolls I've ever eaten.  The honey in the glaze adds that perfect extra flavor, so don't go with the cheap processed stuff, get some good, raw, wildflower honey.  I also recommend adding 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg in with the cinnamon, just because I love it so much.
      Now for those of you who prefer cinnamon rolls to sticky buns, I hear where you're coming from.  And I am not so much a purist that I would discount a delicious cinnamon roll as a tribute to the coming holiday.  So: here is Alton Brown's recipe for cinnamon rolls, which can be made the night before (always a good thing).  They served my in-laws very well this last Christmas, and I am happy to eat them any time.
      And finally, the last word in cinnamon rolls, ever: this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine is my all-time, hands-down, no-arguments favorite breakfast roll.  They call for Yukon Gold potatoes (which you MUST NOT substitute), and they can't really be made the day before, but they are worth every minute and every penny.  Trust me.
      So, what did you make, and how did it turn out?  Tellmetellmetellme!  I've spent enough time eating pastry and dreaming about Hawaii.  Now I want to spend time in Hawaii dreaming of pastry.



*Not a breakfast bun person?  Well, February 20th is National Cherry Pie Day.  So get crackin'!

      Those of you who read this blog regularly (all four of you) know that I typically post a recipe on Sunday.  This last weekend, I let you down.  And I'm sorry.
      That wasn't because I wasn't cooking.  It was because I was eating.  A lot.  I'm pretty sure I had five slices of bacon, and 7 waffles over the course of the afternoon.  A friend and I were celebrating our birthdays by binging on waffles and cartoons.

A show this sweet will warm your heart and spike your insulin levels.

      The cartoon: A Little Snow Fairy Sugar.  Yes, it's anime, and yes, it is for all ages.  It is goofy and cute and innocent (except for one slightly pervy fairy dude, but if you weren't on the lookout for perviness you'd never notice) and because it takes place in a small town in Belgium, everybody is eating waffles all the time.  Hence the waffle binge.
      We made two kinds of waffles: my family's recipe (four generations and going strong), and Alton Brown's Basic Waffles.  It was a good waffle experiment.  His were crispier, and a little nutty tasting from the whole wheat flour, but still gently sweet.  My family's recipe were more tender, and rich, but not all that sweet, so they were open to a greater variety of topings.
     Oh yeah, the toppings!  We tested classic maple syrup (always delicious), Nutella (hard to go wrong), and my own Salty Caramel Sauce with Stout (hands down everybody's favorite).  I specifically did not go the whipped cream and berry route because a. it's not berry season anymore, and b. while whipped cream is always delicious, it takes up valuable stomach real estate, and I wanted to leave no waffle un-tasted.
      So I considered posting my family's waffle recipe, but here's the thing: it's a family recipe.  I'm not 100% sure my Grandmother didn't get it from some cookbook originally, but I remember her greasy, stained recipe card, the instructions composed on an ancient typewriter, the ink fading a little more with every use.  Then my Mom copied it down with a pen into her spiral notepad of recipies, until it got so greasy and sticky with syrup she needed to re-write it on a proper recipe card.  And I got it from her.  There's a beauty to that--a sacredness.  Grandma passed away the better part of a decade ago, but I feel like I need to get an Ok from some of the other family foodies because I cast it out into the world.  I'll let you know.
      Thanksgiving it coming up!  This week's "Shadows on the Sound" podcast is about foods in legend and myth, and hopefully it will make you as hungry as it did me.  And I promise to have at least one tasty, unusual use for Thanksgiving leftovers posted in week after Turkey Day!

And if you care to answer S.O.S.'s Weekly Geeky Query, you can do so by commenting at this blog post!  The Query: If you could have a meal with any fictional character, who would it be, and what would you eat?

      I promised a review of my Thanksgiving attempt at Alton Brown's Super Apple Pie, and I am nothing if not a woman of my word when it comes to food. If you care to read the recipe (go ahead...I'll wait), you will see that it has taken the construction of what most people consider one of the simplest fruit pies to a level of complexity that may be best summarized in the following analogy. Regular Apple Pie : AB's Super Apple Pie, is like One Room Log Cabin : Frank Lloyd Wright's House of Falling Water. Ok, everybody on the same page now? Good.
      But I was game. Unable to locate good Braeburn apples, I only used three of the four recommended varieties, but I think that was no biggie. I also refused to go out and hunt for a two-inch deep tart pan with a removable bottom (can we say "uni-tasker," AB?), so instead I employed one of my many springform pans, a nice 9-incher I inherited from my maternal grandmother. And I am pleased to say that it worked perfectly in every respect, so I recommend one for pie purposes.
      The final pie was indeed delicious. The apples were tender but not mushy, the flavor was distinctly apple without being overwhelming. The applejack made for a tasty, tender crust.

And that little pie bird poking its head out is ADORABLE!

      But would I make this pie again? Probably not. I don't think the final product was sufficiently superior to my regular apple pie to warrant the extra time and effort. The thing is, my own recipe for pie crust is consistently tender (and if I infuse the vodka with ginger, the added flavor is awesome). I know enough about buying good pie apples that I don't need the melange. I cannot honestly say I got much flavor out of the Grains of Paradise--maybe I should have added more? The amount called for in the recipe seemed small. And frankly, I've never had much trouble getting pie out of a regular pie plate. *shrug* I guess I'm just talented that way.
      What I DID take away from this recipe was the use of tapioca flour (not to be confused with tapioca pearls) as a thickener for the filling. Bloody Brilliant! At first I was feeling disgruntled that I was buying yet ANOTHER flour for my kitchen*, but once I discovered the silky results, I was sold. I highly recommend that you try it.
      One of the reasons I made an apple pie for Thanksgiving was tradition. Tradition was also responsible for the turkey**, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (thank you again, dear guest, for bringing the best sweet potato dish I have ever had in my life, EVER), and even the plate of carrot and celery sticks that everyone ignores. Tradition also dictated the way I set the table, and the dishes I used. My guest and every friend and family member I talked to on the phone that day brought up their own traditions at least once.
      Another Thanksgiving tradition is football, and the Ohio State/Michigan game is always held the weekend following the holiday. As my husband was pointing out, that rival game is also fraught with tradition, including the OSU marching band forming the word "Ohio" with the tuba dotting the "i."
      Being a writer, these kinds of things prickle my mind on multiple levels, and I started thinking. At what point, I wondered, does the repetition of an action constitute a tradition? Let's start with the food thing: someone brings a dish to a holiday meal - let's say collard greens - and people enjoy it. The same dish is brought the next year. And then the next. Now, there are a few possible reasons for this recurrence, which are not mutually exclusive. There's the popularity of thing--if everyone likes it, then you know you have a hit, and of course you want to please. Then there's the also the laziness factor: you don't have to go through the process of deciding what to bring, digging out the recipe, making it, and then risking the displeasure of your fellow diners if you fall back on a previous success. And after enough time those collard greens may become expected, and you don't want to disappoint people. Which, I'm starting to think, may be the point at which it becomes a tradition.
      Traditions provide a feeling of security and continuity, adding to the over-all comforting effect of holidays. They can also bind us with the past, as with my family's traditional recipe for stuffing, which I believe now spans five generations; making it is not only adding something delectable to the meal, it brings back memories of previous holidays, and makes us feel closer to the dearly departed. Some people cleave to tradition as though it were a matter of life or death. Others eschew them, either casually or with intense deliberateness. Most of us do a little of both.
      As a writer, it occurs to me that which traditions are embraced and which are discarded say a LOT about a person, and makes a wonderful tool for character development. In the first chapters of my zombie story, our protagonist seeks out fellow professionals, and is greeted with varying levels of respect and tradition, which allows me to sketch their characters quickly and efficiently. This was not a deliberate choice at the time, but now that I'm thinking about it, well...go me, that was a great choice!
      How about you? Got any great - or crappy - traditions to speak of? Do you use them at all in your writing, or can you think of any that lend spice to a favorite story?


*I already have AP flour, cake flour, spelt flour and white rice flour on hand at all times, and bread flour throughout the cold months. My pantry space is not infinite. In my perfect universe, entering my pantry would be not unlike going through the wardrobe into Narnia, except my mythical world would be a cross between the awesomest grocery store, Pike Place Market and Candyland, and everything would be free. But alas, this is as yet only a fanciful dream.

**Incidentally - and not to brag o'er much - I am the turkey queen. Seriously, I have obscenely good luck with roasting delectable, tender, photo-worthy turkeys that are juicy through-and-through, with no weird gimmickry. I'm not going to blog about it here, but if you want to know how I do it, just ask.

     I'm a sucker for Thai food. Whether it's authentic recipes, no-apologies heat, or absurdly Americanized adaptations, a trip to my local Thai restaurant inevitably makes my tummy happy. But I can't afford to eat out very often. Which leaves me with few options other than learning to make these dishes myself.
      Asian cuisine is very different from European cuisine, and since I'm of European descent, guess which one was made the most often in my home growing up? The ingredients, flavor profiles, and techniques of French, German, Italian, British, and even Spanish food are much easier for me to grasp. I'm more likely to have the necessary spices and tools in my cupboard. If there's a last-minute hiccough, I'll probably be able to improvise with success. This is soooo not true for me and Asian food (and don't even get me started on authentic South American food)! Yet, I love to eat this stuff. So a few years ago I began slowly pushing myself to become more familiar with Japanese and Indian cooking.
      The first thing I learned? Saying "Indian" or "Japanese" food is a gross generalization. These countries have regions with unique ingredients and long-standing traditions. Local produce will be very different between Hokkaido and Kyushu (which, when you think about it, duh), so the recipes will be different, too. The same is even more true for India! So my self-education has been necessarily slowed by attention to detail. I have only just within the last few months become confident enough to make dal without looking a cookbook for every tiny measurement. That's what true love of food will get you.
      So authentic Thai food is on the to-do list, but don't hold your breath. In the meantime, however, I have been dearly missing some of my favorite foods. Last night I was struck with a longing for Swimming Rama*, a dish I've enjoyed in many an American Thai restaurant but whose authenticity strikes me as somewhat dubious. But who cares! Yum is yum, and that's all that matters at the end of the day. If you've never tried Swimming Rama, it is usually some form of protein (take your pick) served with spinach (or other vegetables, but usually spinach) in a Thai peanut sauce (which can vary so much between restaurants the only consistently identifiable ingredient is the peanut). I usually order this with beef whenever I'm anemic, and chow down without reservation. So last night I whipped up my first ever attempt, and was actually very, very pleased with the result!
      Two disclaimers: Firstly, since I had no idea how this was going to turn out, I did not take photos of the process, and didn't think to take photos of the finished product until after I'd eaten everything. It looked like slices of medium-rare grilled flank steak over brightly colored veggies and steamed rice with a generous amount of peanut sauce on top. Bet you would never have expected that. Secondly: the marinade which is at the core of this recipe is not mine, it is Alton Brown's skirt steak marinade. It is delicious, I use it often, and I could never dream of taking something from the Good Eats Guru and trying to pass it off as my own. This particular use of the recipe and the applied twists, however, was my own culinary flying by the seat of my pants.

Z.D.'s Swimming Rama with Beef (with considerable help from Alton Brown)

for the meat:
1/3 Cup soy sauce (I like low-sodium)
4 green onions, washed and cut into chunks
2 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1/4 Cup fresh lime juice (from about two small limes)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
2 Tablespoons golden brown sugar (packed)
1/2 teaspoon molasses
1/4 Cup olive oil
1.5 lbs flank steak, cut into two equal sized pieces

 - Place the soy sauce, green onions, garlic, lime juice, pepper flakes, cumin, sugar and molasses into a food processor, and blend until smooth. Pour into a measuring cup--you should have about one Cup of thick liquid. Pour HALF back into the processor for the meat marinade, reserve the rest for the peanut sauce.

 - Add the olive oil to the thick, oniony-soy mixture in the processor, then blend until smooth. Pour into a zip-top bag, add the flank steak, and seal, pushing as much of the air out as possible. Squish around the ensure the meat is coated, then marinade in the fridge for 2-3 hours. In the meantime, prep the sauce and veggies below.

 - When ready to cook the meat, line a broiler pan with foil, place your oven rack on the top-most level, and preheat your broiler. Remove the meat from the marinade (it's Ok if some remains on the meat, it's nummy!) and lay on the prepared pan. Place under the broiler until just beginning the char in some spots, about five minutes, then flip and cook the other side the same. Remove from oven, wrap in foil, and let sit 10-15 minutes to let the juices redistribute.

for the peanut sauce:
the remaining liquid from first part of recipe (about 1/2 Cup)
1 serrano pepper, coarsely chopped (use only half if you don't want a lot of heat)
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped (err on the side of generous)
3 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1/4 Cup coarsely chopped cilantro
1/4 Cup coconut milk
1 Tablespoon Thai fish sauce
8 to16 oz natural, creamy peanut butter
1/4 Cup chicken broth or water

 - Return the oniony-soy liquid to the now empty food processor. Add the serrano, ginger, garlic, and cilantro, pulse until smooth. Next add in the coconut milk and fish sauce, and pulse until thoroughly mixed.

*Also appearing on some Thai menus as Bathing Rama, but never yet as Showering Rama or Just-A-Quick-Face-Splashing Rama.

**In most restaurants this dish is made with just scarcely wilted spinach, which is high in iron and very tasty. However, if you've ever applied heat to spinach, you will notice in decreases in volume about 98,045,276 times. You start with bushels of leaves, and you are left with what looks like a leprechaun dropping. So since I like other veggies just as well, and the multiple colors look pretty on the plate, I went with this combo instead. Feel free to use spinach if you want. I'd say get at least four times as much as you think you're going to need, make sure it's THOROUGHLY washed if you didn't get the pre-washed stuff, and then toss it in a large frying pan or wok with just a spoonful of oil over medium-high heat, until every leaf has started to wilt a bit. Don't over do it, or you'll be left with a piddling amount of spinach-colored mush.

     If you've ever made biscuits, scones, or pie crust dough from scratch, you've probably seen the baking instruction: "Cut in the butter." (Unless you make oil pie crusts, in which case...well...just keep reading.) In baking terms, this means to take small chunks of cold culinary fat (i.e. butter, shortening or lard) and using some method of force to reduce it to teeny tiny bits thoroughly combined with your flour mixture. The fat then melts during the baking process, creating that flaky texture we all love. Some people cut in the butter with their fingers. Other people use two knives (a tactic I have never attempted), or a pastry cutter (a fascinating looking device), or a food processor. When I got married, one of my wedding gifts was a food processor, and upon receiving this excellent gizmo I began using it to cut the fat into all my pastries.
     Until Alton Brown set me straight.
     Not in person. If I ever met Alton Brown in person I would either flip out into permanent Squee-mode or enter the next level of culinary nirvana, from which I'm pretty certain I would be unable to type. The same goes for Dorie Greenspan, my other distant food sensei. You will hear these two names - plus Julia Child - mentioned a lot in my food-related entries. After my family, these geniuses have helped my kitchen prowess develop the most.
     But back to the butter! In another highly instructive episode of "Good Eats" (don't ask me which one, they all blur together into an amusing-yet-instructive mental mishmash) A.B. explained that cutting in fat wasn't just about reducing its size, but also about coating the little fat particles with flour, so that the flour better absorbs the oils. Then Dorie Greenspan explained in her brilliant cookbook Baking (freaking love that title, incidentally) that having uniform size pieces of fat would decrease the flaky quality--it's better to have several sizes, ranging from kosher-salt-size to small-pea-size. And this is essentially impossible to achieve with a food processor.
     Thus enlightened, I now always ensure my fats are thoroughly chilled, that I have rinsed my own fingers with cold water and quickly dried them (helps prevent my hands from melting the butter), and that I pinch-and-squish (another way of describing "cutting in") the fats quickly until they are of varying size. I can honestly say this has made a notable improvement to my already pretty darn tasty baked goods. So I encourage you to try this at home, and offer the following recipe as practice (we'll do pie crust another day--I'm looking at YOU, oil-crusters!).

Z.D.'s Herbed Buttermilk Biscuits

1 & 3/4 Cup all-purpose flour
1/3 Cup cake flour + more for dusting (yes, you really need this--trust me!)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 t sugar (you can round up to 1 T if you want, but I like these a bit more savory)
1/4 t kosher salt, generous
1 oz frozen shortening (about 2 T--I just always keep a jar of 1 T blobs of shortening in my freezer)
4 Tablespoons cold sweet cream (salted) butter, cut into small pieces
2 teaspoons (or more) finely chopped fresh herbs
3/4 Cup cold buttermilk (or 1 T white vinegar + 3/4 C whole milk, rest for 5 min)

- Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (I love me my Silpat!).

- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Add the shortening and the butter, and cut in until pebbly (biggest pieces like a small pea, smallest like kosher salt). Now, why am I using salted butter, you ask? Because if you're like me, you've noticed that EVERY baking recipe these days call for unsalted butter, but you keep running out, and you have all this salted butter sitting in your fridge that's getting totally neglected and is probably going to start picking up weird aromas here soon because it's not getting used quickly enough! The unsalted butter thing is about allowed more control over the amount of salt in your baking, which is a good thing, but honestly? In something like savory biscuits? A tiny bit more or less isn't going to make a huge difference! So I use salted butter for this recipe and it works out just freaking fine!

- Toss in the chopped herbs. This is a great way to use up leftover herbs sitting in your fridge before they go bad. I like to use rosemary or thyme the best, but anything will work. Also, ramps are EXCELLENT when they're in season, but go ahead and use 2 Tablespoons worth because they're so nummy!

- Drizzle in the cold milk and toss with a fork until just combined. Use the extra cake flour to heavily dust a good dough surface (You know those recipes that say "a lightly floured surface?" They lie.) and turn out the dough. Dust the top lightly with a bit more cake flour, then knead gently about four times. Yes, I know this seems contrary - after all, this is biscuit dough, and the more it's handled the tougher it will be! - but just a few kneads work wonders, so go ahead and give it a try. Then pat out the dough into about a 1/2 to 3/4 inch even thickness, and use a 2 inch biscuit cutter to cut out rounds (press straight down, then gave a small twist before lifting back up). You should get about 8 rounds. Place them on your prepared baking sheet just a hairs-breadth from touching each other (this helps them rise more). Pop 'em in the oven, and bake 14 - 18 minutes, until fawn brown on top and just starting to fill your kitchen with that lovely aroma.

Now, if you don't want to bake these right away, you can wrap the dough rounds tightly in plastic and foil and freeze them up to two months. Just pop 'em still frozen like a biscuit-cicle onto a lined pan and bake for 18-22 minutes instead. Permit me the following suggestion: cut the dough into much smaller biscuit - about one inch across or slightly smaller - and freeze the dough. The next time you're invited to a party and asked to bring an appetizer, bake these just before going so they're fresh and warm, and serve with a lovely soft chevre or other spreadable cheese on the side. People will sigh lusciously as they devour them!