Mussels

It has been unseasonably warm in Michigan lately; the temperature reached fifty degrees today, and it doesn't look like we'll have winter weather again for another week. To celebrate the weather and mourn the snow, I made one of my favorite light spring suppers, a mussel dish with leeks, fennel, tomatoes and white wine, adapted from Shelia Lukin's "Pacific Northwest Light Mussels" from The USA Cookbook.
Light may not be the right word - the mussels are steamed in a chunky sauce with plenty of fresh veggies. They are served with the veggies and steaming liquid, which are scooped up with chunks of crusty bread. Also, the cooking fat is a 1/2 cup of unsalted butter.

Here' s how to make them:

Estimate about 1 lb of mussels per person. While running the mussels under cold water, scrub them with a stiff brush and tear off their "beards." Remember that after the "beards" are gone, the mussels will die pretty quickly, so do this as close to cooking time as possible.

Melt 1/2 cup of unsalted butter over medium heat in a pan large enough to hold 4-lbs of mussels. Saute two minced garlic cloves and four minced shallots (or you could use a small onion) until the shallots are translucent and the garlic aromatic (about 4 minutes for me). Give the shallots and garlic a stir, then toss in 1 head of fennel, chopped in 1/2 -3/4 inch dice. Let cook two minutes or so, stir, and add two medium leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced in thin rounds. Let sit 2-3 minutes, stir, sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper, and continue to cook until the fennel is translucent, about 8 more minutes. Stir and add a large can of diced tomatoes with their juices. Turn up the heat a bit, add some salt, and cook for 10 minutes, allowing the tomatoes to break down. Stir occasionally. Add 1 glass of white wine and allow the liquid to come to a simmer. Add the mussels, and cover the pan. Steam the mussels for 6-8 minutes. Serve in bowls with plenty of cooking liquids, and a hunk of baguette to mop up vegetables and juice.

Here's hoping it gets colder soon . . .

New Year's Resolutions

I've made a short list of New Year's Resolutions:

I. Find a grown-up job. [This is well on its way to completion. Barring disaster, this blog should be live from LA shortly.]

II. Compile list of 52 books to read this year, and read them. [This is silly. I've tried making "MUST READ" booklists before, and I've never managed to keep to them. This is more of a resolution to continue to read more, that I began last fall. Here's the list so far:

1. In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos by Richard Lloyd Parry

Saw this one at Border's last weekend; it looks really interesting. I know next-to nothing about Indonesia.

2. The Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Christmas present to myself. I like Wallace's essays; perhaps I'll like his fiction, too. Though, at around 1000 pages this book may count as two.

3 & 4. The Trial and The Castle by Franz Kafka

I've never read anything by Kafka. Maybe in 2007, I'll finally understand what people mean when they describe something as "Kafka-esque."

5-8. Anthony Trollope's Barchester Novels: Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage, Small House at Allington, and The Last Chronicle of Barset.

I finished The Warden and Barchester Towers shortly before Christmas; I'm looking forward to finishing the series. Trollope is great - he's like a politically-minded Jane Austen, and wonderfully snarky, to boot. The themes that he explores in his novels: the state's role (or lack of a role) in the care of the elderly and infirm, the role of religion in public life, the social and political affects of the disappearance of a political center, are are very relevant to modern life.

9. The People's Act of Love by James Meek

I read a great review of this book on Powell's website (see here). It sounds awesome. Here's the review from Publisher's Weekly:

Starred Review. Set during the waning days of the Russian revolution, Meek's utterly absorbing novel (after The Museum of Doubt) captivates with its depiction of human nature in all its wartime extremes. In 1919, the remote Siberian town of Yazyk contains a strange brew of humanity: the docile members of a mystical Christian sect, whose longing for purity drives them to self-mutilation; a small outfit of Czech troops, marooned by the civil war and led by the mad cocaine-snorting Captain Matula; and "the widow" Anna Petrovna, whose passion for worldly things (e.g., photography and men) isolates her from the devout townspeople. When the charismatic revolutionary, Samarin, trudges into town with a harrowing tale of escape from a distant labor camp and a dangerous philosophy, Yazyk becomes a theater of bloodshed and betrayal as well as heroism and compassion. Using the town as a microcosm of the larger war, Meek illuminates both perverted ideology and irrepressible humanity. With confident prose, layered storytelling and prodigious imagination, he combines scenes of heart-pounding action and jaw-dropping revelations with moments of quiet tension and sly humor. This original, literary page-turner succeeds both with its credible psychological detail and in its grandeur and sweep.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

10. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople by Jonathan Phillips

I started this last July, and got really into it - until I came to the part where Phillips spends 30 pages (not really, probably more like ten) describing the all of the marble in Constantinople. I put it down in favor of Peter Watson's The Modern Mind. (Not much luck there, either.) This year, I'll start over, and if need be, skip the part about the marble.

11. Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler

Another onanism I need to remedy. I got two hundred pages into this book over spring break last year, and then stopped for midterms. Ostler provides a lot of interesting insight into why some languages have survived for thousands of years (Farsi, Chinese) and most have died out. In the telling, Ostler gives information on a lot of World History that I was not informed about. Writing this, I'm really looking forward to picking this book up again.

12. The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner

This is the "Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Reads!" book of the year; my former coworkers at the Shaman Drum have recommended it.

13. The City of God by Saint Augustine of Hippo

I read excerpts of this in History class my Senior year of high school, and once considered attempting the whole book. Now that the Vatican has once again rejected Limbo, I've been moved to try again.

14. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Genji was written in the eleventh century by a lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Japan; it tells the story of a samurai father and son. A friend tells me it is commonly read as a bedtime story for children.

15. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

I'm a little dissappointed in myself that I haven't read this yet.

16. Swann's Way (hopefully to be followed by the rest of In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust

Time to find out what the fuss is all about.

17. Breakfast on Pluto by Patrick McCabe

Can't wait to see Cillian Murphy in the movie.

18. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

19. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Almost finished. I'll be sad when it is over, I'm really enjoying it. (See sidebar.)

20. The Dream of the Red Chamber: The Golden Days by Cao Xueqin

First volume in the Chinese classic. Described in the back-matter as a "novel of manners." Should be interesting to read and compare to Trollope and Austen.

21. Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine by Harold Bloom

Professor Bloom has been getting some nasty phone calls over his lastest work. I'm looking forward to finding out why.

The List is a work in progress, and looking at it now, I think a little ambitious, given the number of 1000+ page books, and my gnat-like attention span. ]

III. Start a garden.

I was inspired by this post on the 101Cookbooks forum about container gardens, in which one can grow a myriad of vegetables, fruit, and herbs on a porch, balcony, or in a stairwell. When I move into my own place in a month or so, I'm planning on starting my own porch/balcony vegetable garden. I picked up a book on Amazon, all about growing vegetables and herbs in pots and I'm very excited about the plan - my only problem now is figuring out what I don't want to plant. It is possible to grow everything but corn, watermelon, pumpkins, cabbage, and beefsteak tomatoes.

I'm more excited about this than I am about all of the books that I'm going to read, and almost as excited as I am about my change of scene. I can't wait to write about (and eat) fresh salads and soups straight from the garden, perfect little new potatoes baked in a salt crust, dipped in aioli, and drying herbs - and I'm going to try edible flowers as well.

Happy New Year!!

Brain Food, Part II

More Books:

12/4/05 - The Shadow of the Wind (3.5 stars)

by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

What a great find! A customer at Shaman Drum recommended this novel to me maybe a year ago when it came out. I have been meaning to read it for ages. At the end of November, I won The Daily Dose contest at Powell's and used my $40 gift certificate to buy The Shadow of the Wind, The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, The Dream of the Red Chamber: The Golden Days by Cao Xueqin, and The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch. I picked up The Shadow of the Wind the day it arrived - I'd been slogging through Peter Watson's The Modern Mind and I was not enjoying it. (Someday, I may finish this book. Someday.)

Set in Madrid shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War, The Shadow of the Wind tells the story of a young boy whose father, upon learning that the boy has lost the memory of his mother's face (at the novel's beginning, she has been dead four years), takes him to a hidden building that houses Madrid's Cemetary of Lost Books. There, the boy finds a copy of The Shadow of the Wind, a novel by Julian Carax. The boy begins reading as soon as he returns home, adn does not stop until the book is through; it is the best book that he has ever read in his entire life.

Wanting to know more about this mysterious author, the child begins a hunt for more of Carax's books, but none are to be found. A mysterious man has been hunting down and burning the writings of Julian Carax since the end of the Spanish Civil War, and it seems that the copy of The Shadow of the Wind, Carax's last novel, is the only one of his books that still survives. He begins a hunt for Julian Carax himself, hoping to find out why someone would destroy the works of such a gifted author.

The Shadow of the Wind is a mystery and a love story, as well as a tale of the destruction that war can bring. I would give it 4.5 stars if not for the fact that after 400 pages of lose ends in the plot, Zafon brings the novel to a close with a 100 page letter from one of the characters. This was lame. Otherwise, a great read.

12/5/05 - Bee Season (4.0 stars)

by Myla Goldberg

Beautifully written novel about the most painfully dysfunctional family ever. 10-year-old Eliza is in the slow-learner's class, and a source of constant disappointment to her father, Saul. She and her brother Aaron are constantly vying for his attention, having to compete with his spiritual studies. Meanwhile, their inattentive mother Miriam is off in a la-la-land of her own creation, and barely notices her husband or children.

The plot comes to a head when Eliza wins a place at the state spelling bee, and replace saaron as Saul's favorite child. Aaron starts questioning his religion and joins up with a cult, Miriam gets arrested, and Saul can't handle the crisis in his household; it comes down to Eliza to pull her family back together. Great novel. [I've heard the movie wasn't great - I'll probably catch it on DVD.]

Goulash from The Silver Spoon Cookbook (Just added tomatoes)

 

Brain food

Durign the five years that I was in college, I never had much time for my hobbies. In May, after I graduated, I finally had the opportunity to begin cooking on a regular basis, and I've written a little about my experiences here. It was not until Novembe,r however, that I took the time to take up my favorite past time of all - reading good books. I started a small section in the side matter here where I commented on the books that I'd been reading. I think I'll get rid of that, and just leave posts when I finish something, as I've been reading about as many books as recipes I've been making lately:

10/26/05 - Memories of My Melancholy Whores (4 stars)

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Review: "It is a triumph of life that old people lose their memories of inessential things," Garcia Marquez writes, "Though memory does not often fail with regard to things that are of real interest to us."

_Memories of my Melancholy Whores_ begins on the eve of the 90th birthday of the narrator, a journalist and columnist for a local newspaper. Feeling close to death, his birthday present to himself, which will (initially) cost him one month's wages, is a night in the arms of a virgin prostitute, in this case a fourteen-year-old girl he christens Delgadina.

He arrives at the brothel, where the girl has been drugged to calm her nerves. The narrator climbs into bed with her, and falls asleep. From here, he begins a year-long affair with a young woman that he has never spoken to, whose eyes he has never seen. He looks for her in the streets during the day, and then realizes that he would never recognize her awake or dressed. Yet, a change has come over him. Though his trists and the lavish gifts he has bestowed upon his Sleeping Beauty have made him destitute, and he is forgetting the names of his friends, for the first time in his life, he is in love, and happier than he has ever been.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores tells the story of an old man who has never loved anyone, never had a true friend, who has never made love to a woman that he hasn't paid. It is at once a novel about finding love at old age, after a long life ill-spent, and about coming to terms with the ghosts of one's past. What seperates this novel from others that cover these well-worn themes is that it is also about the state of being old itself. We do not waste away with time, Garcia Marquez seems to be saying; time is a tool that carves away our excess, like a chisel chips away marble to reveal a work of art.

Time has been good in this way for the author, as well. The novella, in my opinion, has always been Garcia Marquez's best form (e.g. A Chronicle of a Death Fortold) , and with MMMW he displays all of the qualities that made his past novellas great - playful language and imagery and few narrative excesses. Also like his past novellas, it is not the main characters that give the story depth - the professor is an admittedly shallow man, which is why his first love affair at the age of 90 comes as such a shock - but the minor parts: the brothel owner, the ex-fiance, the aging prostitute.

This was a great read.

11/23/05 - Getting Mother's Body (3.5 stars)

by Suzan-Lori Parks

GMB is Pulitzer-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks' first novel. It tells the story of Billy Beade, 16 years old, single and pregnant, and her quest to retrieve some valuable jewelry buried with her mother in Arizona. She has three problems: 1) she's not the only one after the jewels, 2) she has no way of getting to Arizona, and 3) her mother was quite a liar, and the jewels may or may not have been real.

This was a fun novel; can't wait to read her next one.

11/26/05 - Julie and Julia:365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen (0.5 stars)

by Julie Powell

I read Powell's blog, "The Julie/Julia Project", before she signed her book deal, and I was waiting impatiently for the book to arrive. I read it in two nights, and ended up angry and dissappointed. I tried to be nice on my review on Amazon, because after reading her blog, I really felt like I knew this woman, but given another month to think about the fac thta tI paid full price for this book has drained me of all of the good will I have toward this book.

Powell can't write. At all.

Now, I guess, it is a little hypocritical of me, having my own sloppily edited blog, to complain about the writing skills of another blogger. Blogs are rarely well written, mostly because it is the immediacy of the medium that makes them so attractive to read. I can check in on my favorite blogs once every hour or so [I won't mention them, as they are mostly celebrity gossip blogs, and I'm embarrassed] and usually one of them will have an update. It isn't like reading the New York Times, or anything - it's hardly likely that a writer with a blog can churn out an article or post of even moderate length that has been properly edited with all spelling and grammar mistakes fixed and any invalid or poorly written statements rewritten or excised in the time that they have every day to write and post. I tried editing my posts when I first started, but it took forever. So I've stopped.

Now, if I were writing a book for fans of From Eggs to Apples to read [hi, grandma!], and that they would have to pay approximately $26 for, I would bother with the thorough edit. Powell seems to have not thought of this, and so her book reads, well, like a blog.

It's also not at all about food. At all. The first half of the book is about how boring her life was before her husband came up with the idea of her starting a blog, and the second half was about how somewhat-more exciting her life was after she started her blog. So, the title of the book should read Julie and Julia: Woman has boring life, starts blog, leads somewhat-less-boring life.

Julie Powell is now a professional food writer [not a secretary, as she was a the time of the blog], and I've read some of her free-lance magazine articles on the web. They are much better. [See this cool piece in Archaeology Magazine: "The Trouble with Blood."] So, its not that she can't write well, or say anything interesting, its just that she's can't write anything interesting about herself well. And that's what this book is all about: Julie Powell.

To be fair, I did read it all the way through. I'm not mourning the three or four hours it took me to read it, and there are some cute anecdotes - hence the half a star.

More later.