Moroccan Spiced Root Vegetable Stew

When deciding on something to cook, I'll spend hours, occasionally days, perusing recipes (online and in *gasp* cookbooks), studying them, examining the spices, textures, techniques. In the end, I pick and choose what appeals to me - maybe add an ingredient or two - to create a dish that is truly my own.

Because of rainy winter weather - and plans to entertain several vegetarian friends - I decided that a root vegetable stew was in order. But not just any stew - it was Chanukah and I wanted a hint of far away lands... rich, earthy flavors ... curry, cumin ... Morocco.

So I went hunting for Moroccan Spiced Root Vegetable Stew. There are many many good recipes out there, and I took the best from each one and created something worth sharing. Here you go.

Ingredients
• Root vegetables (suggestions below, but you should choose your favorites)

1 turnip

1 rutabaga

2 sweet potatoes

4 large carrots

4 large parsnip

• 4 large shallots
• 1 large head garlic, cloves separated but not peeled
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• 1 onion
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1 can chick peas (drained and rinsed)
• zest and juice of one lemon
• 2 cups vegetable broth
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• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1tbsp curry powder (plus dusting)
• 1 tbsp cumin (plus dusting)
• olive oil
• salt, pepper, chili flakes to taste

• 2 cups chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions
• preheat the oven to 375
• peel the root vegetables, dice them into uniform bite-size pieces
• peel the shallots but do not chop
• separate the garlic cloves but do not peel
• toss with olive oil salt and pepper
• spread vegetables in ONE LAYER in a baking pan or cookie sheet
• dust with curry powder and cumin (just a SMALLL dusting)
• put in oven for about an hour
• turn vegetables and rotate pan at least twice during cooking

While root vegetables roast:
• Heat some olive oil in a large pot
• Slice the onion and put it in the pot with a pinch or two of salt
• Saute the onions until transluscent - about 20 minutes.
• Add the tomatoes, chickpeas, zest and juice of one lemon, vegetable broth, cinnamon stick, cumin and curry powder to the pot and simmer for a half hour. Add salt, pepper and chili flakes to taste.

• When the root vegetables are finished cooking (they should be brown and carmalized, fork tender but not mushy) take them out of the oven and add them to the pot with the liquid mixture.
• Cook on stovetop for another 10 minutes so flavors blend.

• Serve with couscous, crusty bread, or latkes.
• Offer cilantro to sprinkle on top (or do it yourself but not everyone likes cilantro)
• Remind guests to separate garlic from the skin and spread the creamy goodness onto bread.

Bonus Leftovers!
The stew is even better the next day, but if you'd like to do something special you can easily create individual pasti-like pastries by mounding spoonfuls of the stew into the center of squares of puff pastry dough, bringing the corners up, sealing them witha pinch at the top and throwing it all into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. Talk about satisfying. And impressive.

Let me know if there is any confusing bits or if you have any questions about the recipe.

Recreating a Tart

There is a cafe near my home that serves delicious, though overpriced, breakfasts and lunches. Because of the convenience, I find myself there about once a week. Smallish sandwiches are a hefty $8 which is more than I like to spend, but a slice of quiche or savory tart runs about $3.50 and provides me a perfect light meal. 

Their menu changes seasonally so last week I was pleased to see a tart of Acorn Squash, Walnut Pesto and Sage. The flavors are rich and satisfying. A vegetarian's dream (no, I'm not a vegetarian, but if I were, it would be in my dreams.) It was delicious. 

When I was assigned appetizers to bring to this year's Thanksgiving dinner I immediately thought about recreating the tart. There are essentially four parts: crust, walnut pesto, acorn squash and sage - and each requires it's own preparation, but putting it all together would be easy. I decided to do a test-run today (day before TG) and to make enough of everything to easily assemble another one tomorrow. 

Here you go:

SAVORY TART: ACORN SQUASH WITH WALNUT PESTO AND SAGE 

Crust: I don't bake, so I decided to use puff pastry dough. Get it in the freezer section of the store. Use one shet let it thaw per package directions. If you are an expert with tart dough, then, I say - go from scratch

Roasted Acorn Squash: Cut one acorn squash in half and scoop out and discard seeds. Place cut side UP in a shallow pan with an inch of water in the bottom. Place in 350 degree oven. Bake until tender but firm enough to slice. About an hour. After cooling, remove the skin and cut into half-moons.

Walnut Pesto: One cup EACH of walnut bits, parmesan cheese, olive oil and a quarter cup cream. Blend everything together. Consistency should be similar to natural peanut butter. Add more walnuts to make it thicker or more cream to make it thinner.

Sage Butter: Finely chop six fresh sage leaves. Put them in a pan with half a stick of butter and let them melt together. As the butter browns it will begin to smell slightly nutty. Be careful the butter doesn't burn. 

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Assemble and Bake the Tart: line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and dust with a small amount of flour. Lay the thawed PUFF PASTRY sheet on it. Spoon the WALNUT PESTO over the sheet and distribute all over in a thin layer. Place the ACORN SQUASH half-moon slices in an attractive pattern over the pesto. With a pastry brush, dab a generous amount of SAGE BUTTER over the top of the squash. Be sure that sage bits get brushed on as well. Fold the edges of the tart over and brush the top with the sage butter. Put into a 400 degree oven and bake for about 20 minutes - until the crust rises and the edges of it and the squash become golden. Serve at room temperature (with a glass of pinot).

 

Here is a (bad) picture of the test tart. You can see that I wasn't able to make nice half moons out of the squash (which kept breaking apart) so it's not as pretty as I envisioned, but it tasted surprisingly like the cafe's version.

Let me know if you make it.

A Life Online

It's now old news that I'm experimenting for a month with an online dating site. The process has followed a predictable pattern: One of us contacts the other via the dating site; emails are exchanged; a date is set; phone numbers are traded in case of last minute conflict; a text message or email is forwarded before the date to confirm; the date happens; a followup text message or email is sent thanking the other for a nice time (or not).

Quick. Simple. Easy. Efficient. I love this.

So when someone wants to change the formula I'm put on guard - as happened with this one particular suitor who contacted me via the site. Let's call him "B." B wanted to talk on the phone. I hate the phone. I explained that my reception is bad and text is better but he called anyway. And he talked at me for 20 minutes. I shouldn't say that. He clearly had my profile open on his monitor because he was referring to things I posted on the site ("... here on page 2 you say ..."). At the end of the "conversation" he said that he is looking for "beauty with brains" and that I seemed right for the job ... er, date. Seriously - it was as if he were interviewing me for a business position - but telling me all about the company (him) without asking about the reluctant applicant....

After the phone call I considered breaking the date, but friends said that maybe he was just nervous ... give him another chance .... If nothing else, I decided to stew on it a few days and decide (a'la Ms. O'hara) later.

The next two nights, at around 9, I received text messages from B saying, "sweet dreamz... :)" On the third day a photo was sent... I downloaded it and was relieved to see a view of the SF Bay.... The whole thing was feeling kind of weird, but the date was a couple of days away and, I told myself, I could pull out anytime.

I didn't have to.

Just as I was snoozing off last night, at about the time "sweet dreamz :)" had been popping up on my phone, I received this instead (SIC):

U on Twitter now, tweeting about everything on ur mind, missing in life, ur lack of a relationship with a real and; highly employed Jewish man, about ur college date rape or near one in Israel, what u ate or drank in dirty Berkeley ....omg how PATHETIC.

 Um, what? I was awake now, and texted back, "Really? Wow."

I made plans ... 2 meet a real high-end woman looking 4 a real relationship with a great guy. Take care get a highly talented PhD therapist, bye :)

I recognize that my online life is transparent - sometimes uncomfortably so - and I expect there will be  judgements made. I'm also not naive, and am fully aware that if I give someone my phone number they can do a reverse search on Google and find me instantly. If a guy wants to stalk me --- I mean --- check me out before a date, they are privy to a lot of information. It's happened before - the reactions are telling.

Admittedly I've put some stuff out there that definitely could be considered pathetic, however, the post to which B. was referring is candid and raw. It speaks about deceit and violence and how events can twist your life in ways never expected. It's about growth. There is nothing pathetic about it. That he reels against this particular piece of writing reveals almost as much about him as the post does about me. Following it up with a crotch shot to my home town ("dirty Berkeley") was unnecessary and frankly, irrelevant.

Clearly this guy was not worth meeting in the first place. Perhaps my on-line life will continue to work as a screen to filter out the assholes, but I worry that it could scare some men off. And while I may be a reflection of what I put up here, no one can really know me until they spend time with me. IRL. And even then, I'm complicated.

Happily so.

Testing the Waters

Regardless of what I may have claimed here, I am dating.

And, I've returned to the online search once again because it seems easiest.

In fact, it's really kind of lazy. Beyond writing the perfect essay(s) and filling out a few forms, there's nothing to it. You can sit around in your pajamas (or not), anytime of day or night, cruising (trolling) potential partners who "fit" your profile - according to the algorithm setup by whatever particular site you are using.

That said, I decided to notch it up a tad by joining a site that requires payment. Common sense dictates that someone who's forking out cash to meet dates is probably more serious about it than someone who's not. Right? RIGHT? Whatever.

Immediately, on these kinds of sites, I face a challenge: my profile reads "41, divorced, two children, self employed...." It's all there on the first page. Regardless of how attractive my picture may be, if I were a guy trolling the site, I'd likely click "next." Who needs the baggage? I lamented this fact to my brother-in-law who advised I change "divorced" to "single", "41" to "39" and "2 kids" to just "kids." Really? I consented to being single - because I am - but the rest is a lie, or close to it, and no way to start a relationship. Needless to say, I'm finding the proactive approach most fruitful.

It's been a couple of weeks and I've had a few dates. The experiences have been mostly rewarding in one way or another. I've not met anyone who is less than who they claim on their profile (which, I understand is unusual), so that's good. Furthermore, the diversion is fun. The site makes meeting people a game and there's something to be said for getting marked "favorite" or being "starred" that is stupidly satisfying.

I signed up for the one-month plan and have 14 days before expiration. I'm not going to renew (it's expensive!) but, as far as getting back into the dating pool, it does seem a good way to wet the toes.

Avoiding the Core

Angela Pierce, the protagonist in the movie Catfish, is a desperate character who brilliantly paints a fictitious story on facebook. She also paints canvases. The artwork showcased in the film was not impressive to me. The film, however, was - which compelled me to Google Angela Pierce, leading me to her website.

One piece struck a chord and I clicked through to an online store of prints available for purchase. They weren't expensive. I bought it.

Why this one? I wasn't sure at first, but the print arrived almost a month ago and I think it's starting to make sense.

All those apples - symbolic, at least to me, of temptation and loss of innocence. Each fruit, unfinished - tossed aside before reaching the core, which itself is truth. As if she doesn't want to know - she keeps munching, losing innocence, avoiding the truth. Getting nowhere.

Yet those apples are still so tempting. She takes another.
Crunch.

My Catfish

By now you've probably heard about the "facebook documentary" called Catfish. Maybe you've even seen it. There has been some debate about whether the film was staged, but honestly, I don't care. The story - the beginning and the end - was sweet and innocent; the characters naive and brilliant.

Sitting through the film was more uncomfortable than, say, watching porn with my dad might be. Seriously. It made me squirm. 

Why?

At first I thought it was the text messages - familiar in their content - like a script I've seen bleeped across my smart phone... SMS intimacy that blooms to "sexting" things that might otherwise be left unsaid. Or maybe the easy way in which they shared (or so it seemed) such personal parts of themselves on social media platforms like facebook. But no. It was bigger.

There's a lot I want to say about this film. It'll take more than one post. I'm going to start here - with the story of MY catfish. So you get a sense of where I'm coming from.

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It was early 1991 and I'd just completed college. As a mid-year graduate I had a semester and summer to kill while waiting to hear back from applications to grad school. My plan was to go to Israel (I'd been there the summer before and needed, for a variety of reasons, to return) but the Gulf War was in its fullest bloom and I was advised to wait - at least until the scuds stopped falling.

While waiting I lived with my parents in San Diego. I found a job at a gallery in a trendy beachfront mall and spent the evenings "babysitting" expensive Italian furniture and paintings. I'd sit there studying Hebrew and listening to the radio - practically praying that Bush (#1) would pull the troops out and officially end the war.

So it was on one of these nights that two young men walked into the gallery and, after chatting and flirting a bit, invited me to join them at a nearby restaurant for drinks. Which I did. One of them - Bill - and I hit it off immediately. We began dating.

Bill was a medical student at UCSD. He had class during the day, studied long hours and worked for his uncle selling mall jewelry on the weekends - to help pay the enormous student loans.

Still, we saw each other often and because I was living with my parents, he met them sooner than I might have felt comfortable. But they adored him (a doctor!) and immediately embraced his presence. Bill was invited to family dinners and parties with my parent's circle. I remember once, a long-time friend of my folks, a doctor's wife, said to me, "oh - where'd you find this one Cori? hold onto him!" Her husband liked him too and invited him to view a surgery.

All was peachy.

Soon enough, the war "ended" and I was accepted into a masters program in Jewish Studies, to begin in the fall. Despite being in love, I still wanted to go back to Israel to immerse myself in the language - attempt to learn it before diving into the primary sources written in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic. 

Bill and I agreed to carry on our relationship while I was away. He was looking into transferring to UCSF so we could be together in the Bay Area when I returned. We wrote long love letters back and forth... he'd share details about his internship at the Salk Institute and I'd relay my adventures living in the most orthodox part of Jerusalem while learning Hebrew in a government run ulpan populated entirely by a newly settled group of Russians. It was quite lovely.

Exorbitant long distance charges kept us from speaking on the phone, so when he called one day - two months before I was due to fly back - I knew something important had happened. And indeed - he had something to say that he was afraid would hurt me. That's OK, go for it, tell me. "I didn't get that internship at the Salk Institute. I told you and your parents that I did because I didn't want you to be disappointed in me." Is that all? Oh. Well, I'm sorry you felt that way but it doesn't change how I feel about you. I love you whether you have a prestigious internship - or not.

He was clearly relieved and we said goodbye

I looked back over the letters and studied the details he'd written about the internship: specifics about his office, research partner, the items served in the cafeteria - even difficulties parking. It was all made up. Pretend.

But I was in Israel and would be for another two months. I put the lie aside. I studied Hebrew. I waited to go home.

Home -

When I arrived at the airport my folks picked me up. My mom said something snide about Bill - something I didn't understand. I kept thinking about it while I freshened myself up for our reunion. And suddenly it hit me. I went to my sister (several years younger than me, still in high school) "Bill isn't a medical student, is he?" Her face said it all - fear, sorrow, pity. "No. - But don't tell Mom and Dad I told you."


I didn't tell. And I didn't tell Bill what I knew when he picked me up that night. I let him suffer through the evening, watching him try several times to confess. Finally, midnight, and we went to the beach to watch the waves. He said, "Cori, I'm not in med school. I'm not in school at all. I just sell jewelry." Wow.

Later I found out that my dad and Bill had had several discussions - at each meeting Bill looked into my dad's eyes and lied. But the lies became obvious and my dad made some calls (no record of Bill ever graduating from the college he said he came from. No record of Bill as a student at UCSD) and finally confronted Bill straight on: WHO the HELL are you?

Imagine for a moment that you are my dad. Have a knot in your stomach? I know I sure would.

But I was barely 22 and wanted to believe the man I was in love with was simply misguided (and not a sociopath). I forgave him. Yup. On the beach that night I said, "Bill, I would love you whether you were doctor or a garbage man. I'm sorry you felt you had to lie." I'M SORRY!?!?! Yea. I said that.

Naturally the relationship didn't last. I moved up to Berkeley for Grad School. He visited several times but I couldn't believe anything he said. His lies were like truths to him and I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. Talk about a mind fuck.

It was, actually, more than that: the previous year at college, before I met Bill, I'd been raped on a date and not long after - during my first visit to Israel, at Hebrew University - I was assaulted by a naked man hiding in the dorm bathrooms. He tried to rape me but I fought back and screamed bloody murder They caught him running down the hall pulling his pants on. I spent the last weeks of my visit  learning about the Israeli justice system (further complicated by the fact that my assailant was Palestinian....)

What Bill did to my mind was the same. I felt violated - and this time not by a date or a stranger - but by the man I loved. He'd stuffed a bunch of lies into my head and now he was slowly pulling them out - sharp edges and all. It hurt.

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The film Catfish brought all of this back to me. If you've seen the movie, then you know why. If you haven't, understand this: a catfish is something thrown into the mix to shake things up a bit - keep you on your toes. Bill is my catfish. And I say "is" in the present tense because his actions, 20 years later, still affect me. I could heal from physical assaults and even rape, but the way Bill managed to alter my perception... to fool me... I think I'll carry that around to the grave.

It's the Abstract that Hurts

I've had a string of rotten stuff happen. I keep pulling myself up from feeling sorry for myself by focusing on people in situations much worse than mine - like the 33 miners in Chile. I mean, if they can survive a month under the ground, who am I to complain about a few days of crap?

I don't really have a right to complain about the gardener hired by my landlady who called me a bitch at 8am on a Saturday morning. Or the client who insulted me personally and professionally while "excusing me" from duties on a project for which he wasn't paying. Or how about the colleague who, while attempting to sniff out my business plan, swooped in from behind and stole the job.

More abstractly I could complain about how the gardener, calling me a bitch at my own home, enunciated  the fact that there is no man living here (because if there were, he wouldn't have dared speak to me that way.) Or how the self righteous insults of the non-paying client had me questioning my professional capability at the same moment my "colleague" pulled out a knife and stabbed me in the back.

Or I could bemoan a lack of romance - real or imagined. The actuality I can live without - I've got more than a decade of practice. But the abstract romance keeps the pilot on. When it gets extinguished it becomes a hell of a lot more difficult to fire up. And the cooling is piercingly quiet.

But hey, the kids are healthy. The bills are paid. I'm going to see my favorite band perform tonight. (Never mind that I couldn't find a date and am going alone)

I'm not complaining.