The dream realized

Bodo's # 1

 

Picking up bagels for the family brunch on Brad's 25th birthday

 

 

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B.A.R.F.

Among the many reasons you should be grateful for your dear old parents is that we didn't let Dylan participate in naming either of his siblings. I've been reading Give and Take (2013) by Adam Grant[1] ($2 at the Book Sale). He has a few pages in there about some really interesting research on the surprising effects your name can have on, among other things, your occupation and even your longevity.[2]

 

For example, if your first name is Dennis, you're almost twice as likely to become a dentist (Dennis the Dentist!) than someone with a similarly common name like Jerry or Walter. Another study showed that people with the surname Doctor are more likely to become doctors (Dr. Doctor!) than lawyers, while people with the last name Lawyer are more likely to become lawyers. This phenomenon even extends to medical subspecialties, with Raymonds being more likely to become radiologists (Raymond the Radiologist!) than dermatologists.

What's more interesting is that even just your initials can have a seemingly big effect. For example, one study showed that men with "positive" initials—such as A.C.E., J.O.Y., or V.I.P.—live about 4½ years longer on average, while men with "negative" initials—like B.U.M., D.I.E., or P.I.G.—die about 2.8 years younger (the effect is smaller in women). For some reason, the effect was much larger in professional baseball players, among whom players with "positive" initials like A.C.E. lived a mean of 13 years longer than players with neutral initials or "negative" initials like D.E.D.

The world’s most relaxing song?

I came across an article claiming that the world's most relaxing song is "Weightless" by the English "ambient music" band Marconi Union. In creating the piece, the band worked with Lyz Cooper, the founder of the British Academy of Sound Therapy. (Sound therapy "uses sound, music and specialist instruments played in therapeutic ways, combined with deep self-reflection techniques to improve health and wellbeing," which sounds like a music therapy knockoff to me.) According to one study by Mindlab, the song lowers heart rate, slows breathing, and decreases levels of the stress hormone cortisol, thus "induc[ing] an 11% increase in relaxation over all other relaxing music tracks" (or at least the 16 other tracks included in the study, including "Someone Like You" by Adele). Not only that, but "Weightless" was even more relaxing than getting a massage (6% more relaxing, to be exact), having a cup of tea (clearly a British study), going for a walk, and playing video games.

If this all sounds like mushy junk science, that it is. The study only included 20 female participants between the ages of 18 and 61 (average age = 37), because who cares if guys relax to this stuff, I guess? They played only 3:00 of each of the other tracks for the participants, who then got a 10-minute back, neck, and shoulder massage from a professional massage therapist. Only after the participants were nice and relaxed from the massage did they then listen to the full 8:00 "Weightless" track, supposedly to "allow a direct comparison to the massage."

It sounds to me like the lab was pretty invested in making sure that "Weightless" won this battle at all costs, though no one commented on that in either of the articles I read about the relaxing power of the song in two reputable magazines: Forbes and Psychology Today. Anyway, here's the song so you can decide for yourselves just how relaxing it is. But first take note of the warning in the Psychology Today article: "Scientists recommend that you do not listen to this while driving." 🤣

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Pizza emergency

The other day Cassie forwarded me this text from her friend Bella:

 

That made my whole day! As it turned out, everyone was making Shortcut Sicilian-Style Pizza for dinner (except me):

 

Bella's pizzas

 

Cassie's pizza

 

Yum! Puts me in the mood for some pizza.

 

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Goodwill hunting

Mom has a new hobby. Whenever she's been out longer than I expected, she invariably ends up having visited one of the Goodwill shops around town. There's not much Mom takes more delight in than getting a compliment on a "new" shirt and responding, "Thanks, it was $3 at Goodwill!"

Fortunately, Mom's bargain shopping finally paid some kitchen dividends. She was looking for a cheap slow cooker and found this classic Rival Crock•Pot:

 

And look at the sticker: only $2.99, just like Mom's shirts she loves to brag about. The only problem is that it's small, only 2½ quarts, which is not enough for the slow cooker recipes I've already posted, which tend to nearly overflow even a pot more than twice that size. But it just happened to be exactly what I was looking for to make Alton Brown's ridiculously easy, and well reviewed, recipe for slow cooker chickpeas. How do you like dem apples?

 

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Philistines love company

I expended a lot of effort trying to come up with homemade brownies that Brad liked more than those made from Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Brownie Mix. I eventually succeeded, though Brad may just have been telling me what I wanted to hear. I was amused, then, to come across an article in Bon Appetit titled "The Best Brownies Come From a Box and I Will Not Apologize," in which the author rhapsodizes about brownies made from Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Premium Brownie Mix:

Most brownies are either fudgy or chewy, but somehow this brownie hits both ends of the spectrum. I don’t know how they do it, but there's drama in this box. The contrast between the thin crispy-chewy edge and the dense fudgy interior, studded with bittersweet chips, is so much more extreme than in any homemade brownie. I’m a corner person myself and this mix makes the ultimate corner piece. The edges are a little crunchy and a lot chewy while the middle has just the right amount of soft doughy texture and melty chocolate. The top features an ultra-shiny crackly top that adds a little sugary crispness to every bite. I don’t make Ghirardelli’s box mix brownies because they’re easy (which they totally are). I make them because they’re the best.

With Brad home for a long weekend, we picked up a box of the exalted mix and gave these a try. I still say homemade brownies are superior to brownies that come from a box, but I'll admit these are decent brownies and perfectly serviceable if you need a chocolate fix and don't want to spend more than five minutes throwing something together. I do think, though, that Ghirardelli's Triple Chocolate Brownie Mix—Brad's original favorite—may be marginally better than this Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix.

[10/1/22 update: Ghirardelli is doing something right, because the October/November 2022 issue of Cook's Country says that Ghirardelli's Chocolate Supreme Premium Brownie Mix is the best mix widely available in supermarkets. That mix doesn't have chocolate chips in it though, so it's hard to imagine Brad would prefer those over the Double, Triple, or Dark Chocolate mixes.]

 

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Revisiting the index card of fatherly wisdom

I read a good "personal history" essay by Yiyun Li ("Make My House Your Inn") in one of my hand-me-down issues of the New Yorker. It's a pretty sad piece, reminiscing about her father, who was a tight-lipped Chinese nuclear physicist, so the author didn't know all that much about him. One of the few stories her father told her about his early life was accompanied by his advice to "Always be kind to people. We don't often know what could make a difference to another person's life." From that advice, Li drew two principles she adopted as her default mode: "Be kind. Keep smiling." Reading that brought a smile to my own face, as it is remarkably similar to the sum total of the fatherly wisdom that I conveyed to each of you when you left for college.

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Punk rockin' with "Die Hard"

In one of Cassie's internship interviews, she was asked to improvise on "The Wheels of the Bus" in the style of punk rock. How bizarre is that?! Cassie was flabbergasted because she didn't even know what punk rock is, so apparently I neglected to educate her in the music of those great Queens punk rockers the Ramones. It’s never too late to discharge your parental obligations, I say. So here is your 4:27 introduction to punk rock—with the greatest bridge ever—courtesy of Guyz Nite and Die Hard:

 

 

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Fast food, episode VIII

I tried out a new recipe for Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew recently. It was fantastic* but took a lot longer than expected (I'm working on streamlining it a bit). While everyone was waiting for the sweet potatoes to finally be cooked through, Cassie browsed recipes for some kind of artichoke dip to make as an appetizer, but we were out of one ingredient or another for all of them. To keep the hungry crowd at bay, I whipped up this dip I had just seen in Joe Yonan's new Cool Beans cookbook. He calls it "Fastest-Ever Smoky Red Salsa." But Brad, Cass, and Mom all say it's the best salsa ever, so I edited the name to reflect that.

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*But that's another episode.

Best-Ever Smoky Red Salsa

Adapted from Cool Beans (2020) by Joe Yonan

Time: <10 minutes

If you're not wild about the flavor of raw garlic, zap the garlic clove, unpeeled, in the microwave for 10 seconds before peeling and mincing it.

1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted
¼ cup packed (10 grams) cilantro leaves and tender stems, coarsely chopped
1 large garlic clove, minced (see note)
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon (15 grams) freshly squeezed lime juice

Place all of the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. It works fine in a full-sized food processor, but the recipe is small so your best options, if you have any of these things, are: a mini insert for your food processor; a mini food processor; or the chopper attachment of an immersion blender (which is what I use). Pulse until combined but still slightly chunky, just a few pulses. Taste and adjust flavor with more adobo sauce, salt, and/or lime juice as needed. Makes about 2 cups.

Deluded Homo Sapiens

I finally finished Yuval Noah Harari's thought-provoking book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2015), more than a year after Moriah first recommended it. Among Harari's many fascinating observations is that, as human beings who evolved in small groups of hunter-gatherers began congregating in ever-larger numbers, we needed shared beliefs to allow us to cooperate on a grand scale. Those isms, or "imagined orders," give even millions of people something they can believe in together, without knowing each other personally. The shared myths are so ingrained that "[e]ven what people take to be their most personal desires"—such as taking a holiday abroad—"are usually programmed by the imagined order," romanticism and consumerism in the foreign travel example. At this point in our development, we cannot escape the imagined orders that allow us to live in large local, national, and global societies: "There is no way out of the imagined order. When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison."


Imagined Orders


Descended from apes—
same instincts,
better words.
Craving connections,
we form groups.
We all know each other in
families and small bands,
but after that we need
an Imagined Order.
Myths and totems work for
tribes and villages, but
mass cooperation demands
a bigger imagination:

Religion
Nationalism
Democracy
Human rights
Communism
Capitalism
Consumerism
etc.

Prisons of our own devising,
one and all.
Too clever ape-man.

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A trio of starters, episode II

I just finished reading Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler,* which is about a quirky family (aren't we all?) in Baltimore. One of the family's traditions was to celebrate Christmas with a dinner consisting entirely of hors d'oeuvres. That reminded me of 2015, when we kicked off our Christmas dinner with a trio of starters. Christmas is three months off, but I do have three appetizer recipes I've been meaning to post, and the first two won't really keep until Christmas anyway, because they're seasonal. They're all really good, but I like the first one best because I used tomatillos picked fresh from Mom's garden. It's very similar to the first tomatillo salsa I posted, but improved by a better technique and the addition of avocados, which pair well with tomatillos.

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*Anne Tyler was way ahead of her time. There is a character referred to as "Rita the Clutter Counselor"in Saint Maybe, which was published in 1991, when Marie Kondo was only seven years old.

Tomatillo Avocado Salsa

Adapted from At Home in the Whole Food Kitchen (2014) by Amy Chaplin

Time from start to finish: 30 minutes

To chop the cilantro, start at the stem end and cut off the first two inches of the stems. Then chop your way up toward and through the leaves, making the cuts ⅛-inch apart and using your free hand to keep the leaves close together as you chop.

1 pound (~10 medium) tomatillos, husks removed
¼ cup (~30 grams) minced white onion
2 medium garlic cloves
1 medium jalapeño, ribs and seeds removed and coarsely chopped
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ cup (~40 grams) chopped cilantro (see note)
2 ripe but firm avocados, diced
1 tablespoon (15 grams) freshly squeezed lime juice

   1. Fill a 3-quart saucepan half full with water, and bring to a boil. Boil the tomatillos for 5 minutes. Drain, then rinse under cold water. Set aside to drain and cool for at least 5 minutes.
    2. Meanwhile, rinse the minced onion under cold water in a fine-mesh strainer. Set aside to drain.
    3. Place the unpeeled garlic cloves in a small bowl. Microwave on high power until warm, 15 to 20 seconds. Peel the garlic, then place in a blender. Add the tomatillos, jalapeño, and salt. Blend on high speed until smooth. Add the cilantro and pulse a few times.
    4. Pour the mixture into a serving bowl. Stir in the drained onion, avocado, and lime juice. Taste for salt. Serve with tortilla chips or corn dippers.

Blistered Shishito Peppers

Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated (March/April 2018)

Time from start to finish: ~10 minutes

1½ to 2 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil, such as grapeseed or sunflower
6 ounces shishito peppers
scant ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

Heat the oil in a heavy 12-inch skillet (not nonstick) over medium heat until very hot and shimmering. Carefully add the peppers to the hot oil in a single layer and cook, without stirring, until the skins are blistered, about 3 or 4 minutes. Using tongs, flip the peppers and cook, without stirring, until blistered on the other side, about 3 or 4 minutes more. Transfer to a medium bowl, and toss with the salt. Serve promptly. Serves 2 or 3 as an appetizer.

Chipotle Cashew Dip

Adapted from Linda Spiker via The Organic Kitchen

Time from start to finish: 10 minutes (plus 2 hours soaking time for the cashews)

1 medium garlic clove, unpeeled
130 grams (~1 cup) raw whole cashews, soaked in water to cover for at least 2 hours and drained
¼ cup (60 grams) water, more as needed
1½ tablespoons (22 grams) freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon (13 grams) olive oil
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (~15 grams)
a few pinches of Diamond Crystal kosher salt

    1. Place the unpeeled garlic clove in a small bowl. Microwave on high power until warm, 15 to 20 seconds. Peel garlic, then place in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal “s” blade or, preferably, the blender cup of a NutriBullet or other personal blender.
    2. Add the remaining ingredients. Process until smooth. If needed, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time to achieve the consistency you want. Taste and decide if the dip needs more lime, salt, or chipotle. Serve with tortilla chips or corn dippers.

Out of work chauffeur

I’ve been on a bit of a Bruce Springsteen kick lately. Well, since 1975 really—when I was a 10-year-old waif and Born to Run hit the airwaves in New York and Bruce was on the cover of Time ("Rock's New Sensation") and Newsweek ("Making of a Rock Star") magazines in the same week. But I played his albums even more than usual when I was preparing for Springsteen on Broadway to be released on Netflix. And I listened to his autobiography Born to Run on CD; I had already read the book when it came out in 2016, but the experience is totally different hearing Bruce read his own story in that voice I grew up with. (Bruce on his own voice: “First of all, I don’t have much of one. I have a bar-man’s power, range and durability, but I don’t have a lot of tonal beauty or finesse.” But it “gets the job done.”).

In the book, Bruce talks about the depression he would usually suffer after the end of a tour. He says that when you come home off the road, the “insane high” of the tour and “the fact that it’s all about you” “stops on a dime and you’re a father and husband but now the kids are driving, so you’re an out of work chauffeur.” That made me laugh and think of the many, many hours I spent driving you all to soccer games and tournaments and music lessons and rehearsals and to and from school, among other things. And now that you’re all grown up, I’m just an out of work chauffeur. Of course, I’m always a father and a husband and never out on the road soaking up the adulation of my millions of fans, so I can laugh about it, instead of being cast into the especially deep depression that Bruce was after finishing up the Wrecking Ball tour. Still, I can be a little wistful about the time we used to spend bonding during all those car rides—even if I don't miss actually driving your asses all over creation.

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The essence of mushroom

Mushrooms are not a universally popular item in our house, but Dylan and I love them. If you're looking for an easy way to prepare mushrooms to have on hand for various uses (the classic pairing is Beef Wellington, but it's great in scrambled eggs or as part of the appetizer below), try duxelles (pronounced dook●sel). Named for the 17th-century French Marquis d'Uxelles, who employed the chef who came up with the idea, duxelles is basically a mushroom paste made from finely diced mushrooms sauteed in butter with a little shallot, herb, salt, and pepper. Once it's cooked down and browned, duxelles is like the essence of mushroom—which sounds great to me, but may seem like a nightmare to some of you (but definitely not to Dylan, who made the crostini appetizer with duxelles and pronounced it "ridiculously good," which is his equivalent of Mom's "heavenly").

Crostini

Time: 15 minutes

1 large baguette

Place a rack in the center of the oven, and heat to 400 degrees. Cut the baguette on the bias into ½-inch-thick slices. Arrange the pieces in a single layer on an 18-by-13-inch baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes. Turn the pieces with tongs. Bake until the bread is dry and crisp and taking on a little color, about 5 minutes more. Makes about 20 crostini.

Seasoned crostini
As soon as the crostini come out of the oven, rub them lightly with a peeled, raw garlic clove. Brush lightly with extra-virgin olive oil. Season to taste with fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Duxelles

Adapted from Vegetables Every Day (2001) by Jack Bishop

Time: 30 minutes

There are many uses for duxelles: try adding ¼ cup when beating scrambled eggs, making the appetizer below, or stirring them into soups or stews or mashed potatoes or rice or anything else you can think of. Dylan likes to spread duxelles on the inside of a grilled cheese made with Asiago, which sounds fabulous.

10 ounces/285 grams cremini or white button mushrooms or a mixture
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or extra-virgin olive oil or a mixture
2 tablespoons (15 grams) minced shallot (1 small shallot)
½ teaspoon minced fresh thyme or rosemary leaves
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
a few drops of dry sherry or white wine (optional)

    1. Wash the mushrooms. Trim a thin slice off the bottom of the stems. Halve the mushrooms. Mince the mushrooms into ⅛-inch pieces. You can do this by hand, but it’s easiest in the workbowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, using 5 or 6 one-second pulses. You want very small pieces, not mushroom puree (see the photo above).
    2. Melt the butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Stir in the shallot and thyme or rosemary and cook, stirring frequently, until the shallot is softened but not browned, about 2 minutes.
    3. Stir in the mushroom pieces. Season with a big pinch of salt and a few twists of pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms have released their liquid, the liquid has evaporated, and the mushrooms are browned, about 15 minutes. If you have a lot of fond on the bottom of the pan, you may choose to deglaze the pan with a few drops of dry sherry or white wine. Taste for seasoning. Use promptly or store in an airtight container in the fridge for several days. Duxelles also freezes well, so you may want to double the recipe, using a 12-inch skillet if you do. Makes about ¾ cup.

Crostini with Whipped Chèvre and Duxelles

Whipped chèvre adapted from The Quick Recipe (2003) by the Editors of Cook's Illustrated

Time: 8 minutes to make the whipped chèvre; 15 minutes to assemble the crostini

4 ounces/113 grams fresh chèvre goat cheese
2 tablespoons (30 grams) half-and-half or heavy cream
2 teaspoons lemon juice
fine sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
20 crostini (from recipe above) or firm crackers such as Trader Joe's Pita Bite Crackers
¾ cup duxelles (from recipe above)
a good finishing salt such as fleur de sel or Maldon

    1. For the whipped chèvre: Place the goat cheese, half-and-half, lemon juice, a pinch of sea salt, and a twist or two of pepper into a medium bowl. Whip with a handheld mixer until soft and homogeneous, about 1 minute. (The whipped chèvre may be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days.) 
    2. Spread a good dab of the whipped chèvre over each of the crostini. Place a spoonful of duxelles over the chèvre on each of the crostini. Sprinkle a small pinch of finishing salt over all of the crostini.

Tinkering, episode II: Hummus 2.0

Dylan recently sent me an article by J.M. Hirsch, who went "In Pursuit of Perfect Hummus" in Israel. The article appeared last year in Christoper Kimball's Milk Street Magazine (which is a perfectly pretentious name for Chris Kimball's post-Cook's Illustrated endeavors) and won a 2018 Beard journalism award in the "Dining and Travel" category. The lede certainly gets your attention if you consider yourself a hummus fan: "We make it wrong. We serve it wrong. We eat it wrong." Hirsch explains that hummus is served for breakfast in Israel, where people line up outside of shops to bring tubfuls of hummus home to be eaten warm. As for making the hummus, Hirsch covers various important elements: always use small, dried chickpeas versus canned; the chickpeas should be processed while warm; use a toasted, well-stirred, thin (pourable) tahini; and no garlic. The last element is interesting, as my first recipe used only one clove of garlic, while other recipes of note, including Ottolenghi and Zahav both use four cloves of garlic (albeit for double the recipe but still way too much for me).

Burrito bar

Mom and I hosted the annual Walton guidance end-of-year get-together last weekend. Mom thought a Chipotle-style burrito bar would work well, so I set about researching copycat Chipotle burritos. Chipotle helpfully publishes an ingredient list for every dish it serves. Lots of websites have used the ingredient list to create their own copycat versions of the Chipotle dishes. I looked at some of those and went to work.

This is the longest recipe I've ever posted on UaKS, but it really wasn't that onerous to put together, and the results were very good (or at least that's what everyone said). Mom always panics that we're going to run out of food, so we made twice as much food as in the recipe below (and more than three times as much meat—over six pounds of chicken and steak), which was twice as much as needed to feed the 11 people who came. So this recipe should be plenty to feed 8 to 10 people, even in our family.

Copycat Chipotle Chicken Burritos

Adapted from various sources, including Mashed, Culinary Hill, and the Chipotle ingredient list

Here is Joe Yonan’s copycat recipe for Chipotle sofritas if you want to keep it vegetarian.

For the chicken
1 tablespoon finely chopped chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
1 tablespoon sunflower, olive, or rice bran oil
½ teaspoon distilled white vinegar
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 large garlic clove, minced
water, as needed
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs

For the guacamole
¼ cup finely chopped shallot, red onion, or white onion
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeno or serrano pepper
½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
4 ripe avocados (~2 pounds)
freshly squeezed lime juice to taste

For the cilantro-lime rice
3 rice-cooker cups (2¼ cups) white or brown rice (brown takes longer to cook; I like jasmine rice)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 bay leaves or ¼ teaspoon laurel bay leaf powder
1 teaspoon sunflower, olive, or rice bran oil
water
Juice of ½ lemon, freshly squeezed
Juice of 1 lime, freshly squeezed
¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

For the beans
2 teaspoons sunflower, olive, or rice bran oil
1 small or ½ medium yellow onion (~3 ounces), finely chopped
1 medium garlic clove, minced

2 15-ounce cans black or pinto beans, or one of each, drained

Juice of ½ lemon, freshly squeezed
Juice of 1 lime, freshly squeezed
1 tablespoon finely chopped chipotle chilies in adobo sauce
2 bay leaves or ¼ teaspoon laurel bay leaf powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste

For the fajita vegetables
4 green bell peppers, trimmed and sliced into 1-centimeter-thick strips
2 red onions, trimmed and sliced, pole-to-pole, into 1-centimeter-thick strips
¼ cup sunflower, olive, or rice bran oil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon fine sea salt

For the build
8 or more burrito-sized tortillas
1 pound Monterey Jack cheese, grated
good store-bought salsa or Fresh Tomato Salsa (recipe below) or Best-Ever Smoky Red Salsa
shredded romaine lettuce
sour cream or whole-milk yogurt

    1. For the chicken: Place the chipotle chilies in adobo, oil, vinegar, salt, oregano, cumin, pepper, and garlic in the bowl of a blender or a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Process until smooth. Pour into a 1-cup measuring cup. Add enough water to make ¼ cup of marinade.
    2. Pour the marinade into a ziplock bag. Add the chicken, seal the bag, and press with your hands until the chicken is evenly coated with the marinade. Refrigerate for at least 90 minutes.
    3. Cook the chicken on medium-high in a grill pan or on an outdoor grill until charred and cooked through, 8–10 minutes total. Allow the cooked chicken to rest for a few minutes, then cut it into bite-sized pieces.
    4. For the guacamole: Place the shallot or onion, cilantro, and jalapeno or serrano in a mound on a cutting board. Sprinkle with the salt. With a large chef's knife, cut and mash together until everything is very finely chopped or pureed. (You can also do this with a mortar and pestle if you have one.) Transfer to a small bowl.
    5. Halve the avocados and remove the pits. Cut the flesh in a crosshatch pattern. Using a large spoon, scoop the pieces out of the skins and into the bowl. Add lime juice to taste. Stir everything together gently with a silicone spatula, leaving chunks of avocado. Taste, and add more salt and lime juice as needed.
    6. For the rice: Place the rice, salt, bay leaves, and oil in the rice cooker pot. Add water and cook according to the manufacturer's directions.
    7. Transfer to a large bowl. Remove the bay leaves. Stir in the lemon and lime juice and the cilantro.
    8. For the beans: Place the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onions and cook until softened and translucent but not browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
    9. Stir in the beans, lemon and lime juice, chipotle in adobo, bay leaves, oregano, cumin, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to maintain a steady simmer. Cook until heated through and the liquid has reduced some, about 10 minutes. Taste for salt. Remove and discard the bay leaves before serving.
    10. For the fajita vegetables: Stir all of the ingredients together in a large bowl. 
    11a. Transfer the vegetables to a large skillet (not nonstick), and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are charred and softened, about 8–10 minutes.
    11b. Alternatively, heat the oven to 425 degrees. Transfer the vegetables to an 18-by-13-inch sheet pan. Roast until charred and softened, about 20 minutes. You can switch to the broiler in the last few minutes of cooking to help get a good char.
    12. For the build: Serve burritos (or bowls without burritos) with your choice of chicken, rice, beans, fajita vegetables, guacamole, grated cheese, salsa, lettuce, and/or sour cream. Serves 8 to 10.

Fresh Tomato Salsa

Adapted from The Quick Recipe (2003)

½ chipotle chile in adobo sauce or ½ small jalapeño chile, minced
¼ small red onion, peeled, root end removed, and coarsely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
2 teaspoons lime juice
2 small, ripe tomatoes (about ¾ pound), cored and cut into eighths; or one 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained

Place all of the ingredients except the tomatoes into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Process until minced, about 5 one-second pulses. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the tomatoes and process until roughly chopped, about 2 one-second pulses. Transfer to a sieve to drain the excess liquid, about 1 minute. Makes about 1 cup. (The salsa can be covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days.)

The Christmas Miracle, part II: completing our family

Previously on The Christmas Miracle, part I, we left off with Mom and I ditching Connecticut after a bad miscarriage. We moved back to C'ville in the summer of 1992, where we lived right across the street from Auntie Leener and Uncle Clint in Greentree Park. That was a little cul-de-sac off of Georgetown Road, right next door to the Georgetown Vet, where we used to walk Aldo.

The change of scenery helped, and we were finally able to start our family. Dylan was born in July of 1994, about a year before we moved to the house you all grew up in. We tried to give Dylan a sibling within a few years, but it took longer than expected. We eventually turned to fertility drugs, starting with Clomid. When that didn’t work, we switched to Pergonal, which has to be injected into a glute. It’s a nuisance to go to the doctor’s office every month for a shot, so someone gives them to you at home. In this case, that would be me. So I was, quite literally, as opposed to the usual figurative way, a pain in your Mom's ass. Once when your Uncle Bob was visiting, we were heading out the door somewhere, but it was time for Mom’s injection, so I had to excuse myself to give Mom a shot. I miss the good old days.

The Pergonal worked, and Mom eventually got pregnant with Cassie, who was nearly, but not quite, the Christmas miracle. Cassie got stubborn, and insisted on wanting to come out face up, instead of the usual way face down, which lead to a long and painful back labor for Mom. That was the only time she needed an epidural during one of your births. So Cassie waited until December 27, when she could share a birthday with Uncle Bob.

After that, we weren’t supposed to be able to get pregnant again without the aid of fertility medication. In fact, Mom’s OB told her that contraception wouldn’t really be an issue for us. Until the Christmas miracle, of course. Brad was born on September 28. The human gestation period is nine months. You can do the math. Anyway, given that Dylan was still young and Cassie hadn’t even turned one yet, the opportunities weren’t too numerous, so we can, with great confidence, pinpoint the moment of Brad’s conception to Christmas Day at Grandpa Guy and Grandma Pina’s house. I had forgotten this, but apparently we confirmed this fact to Grandpa Guy, of which he is understandably proud, in a grandfatherly sort of way.

So there you have it, the story of how our family was completed through a miracle of Christmas. When I go all Grinchy during the holidays next year, you can just remind me of how much we have to be thankful for at this time of year.

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We had this baked Brie as part of the cheese plate we put together for this year's Christmas dinner. Two minutes of work for a real crowd-pleaser. As Emeril famously said about Brie, “You could put this on the bumper of a car and it would taste good.”

Baked Brie with Honey

Adapted from Ina Garten via the Food Network

Time from start to finish: 15 minutes

If you want to make this just for the family or a small gathering, Trader Joe’s has mini wheels (125 grams each) of Goat Milk Brie that are perfect for this.

1 6-inch wheel (~1 pound) of Brie (see note)
¼ cup (85 grams/3 ounces) honey

Place a rack in the center of the oven, and heat to 325 degrees. Line a small baking pan with parchment. Place the Brie on the parchment. Bake until the Brie is warm and soft but not melting into a puddle, about 6 to 8 minutes (toward the high end for goat milk Brie). Watch carefully. When the Brie is almost ready, drizzle with the honey and return to the oven for 2 minutes. Remove to a cutting board and allow to stand for a few minutes before serving. Serve with thinly sliced apples or pears and sliced crusty bread or crackers (mild water crackers are especially good with Brie).

Don't dis the Bodo's

The full weight of being the only child left in the house came crashing down on Brad this morning. Mom and I took Brad for his UVA college visit. On the way over, Mom decided we should spend the day playing a game to see who could work a selected word into the conversation the most times. Unsurprisingly, Mom picked "arse." I grudgingly went with "dumbass," for the obvious reason. Brad refused to play, which was also not a shock.

As bad as that was, it was the high point of the morning for Brad. In addition to being boring, the "biggest problem" with the UVA presentation for Brad came right at the start, when the presenter gave lunch options for the attendees and had the nerve to list Roots Natural Kitchen first, then Take It Away, then another sandwich place we never heard of third. Then the presenter finally got around to listing Bodo's as the fourth option, which was the ultimate insult to Brad. In fairness, the presenter did say that you have to go to Bodo's for an authentic Charlottesville experience if you've never been here before. But it was already too late for Brad when he heard three other options listed before the mighty Bodo's.

I've been wanting to try these chickpea crepes forever and finally got around to making some today after we were done torturing Brad. Mom and I snarfed three of these like candy the second they came out of the oven. (Brad was upstairs playing video games online with his friends. You snooze, you lose, dude. And he admitted today that he doesn't read my blog anyway, so he'll never know. Shh, don't tell!) Mom was bummed when I told her I couldn't whip up a few more right away because the batter has to rest for a few hours. And how cool is it to have a recipe for something called socca?

Socca

(Chickpea Crepes)

Adapted from David Lebovitz

1 cup (130 grams) chickpea flour (aka garbanzo bean flour)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (280 grams/ml) water
¾ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for serving
⅛ teaspoon ground cumin
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
freshly ground black pepper

    1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the chickpea flour, water, ¾ teaspoon salt, cumin, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil until completely smooth. The batter will be thin. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel, and let the batter rest on the counter for 2 hours.
    2. When ready to cook, place an oven rack in the second-highest position, and heat the broiler. Pour 2 teaspoons oil into a 9- or 10-inch cast iron skillet or nonstick cake pan, and place the pan in the oven to preheat.
    3. Tilt the hot pan to distribute the oil evenly. Pour or ladle one-third of the batter (a little less than a 6-ounce ladleful) into the pan. Broil until the crepe is set and the top is blistered, about 4–5 minutes.
    4. Carefully remove the blazing-hot pan from the oven, and transfer the crepe to a plate. Sprinkle generously with salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Tear into pieces, and serve immediately. Cook two more crepes the same way, adding 2 teaspoons of oil to the pan for each crepe. Makes 3 large crepes.

Who needs a master plan anyway?

The morning of Brad's family birthday party: Brad sits down across from Mom, whose first words to him for the day are, "Are you ready for my master plan?" Brad gloomily responds, "You should never start a sentence like that."

It's Brad's birthday party, so of course it's time for Uncle Clint's Mac and Cheese. I just whipped up two batches, one regular and one gluten free, and am waiting for them to come out of the oven. I threw these spiced cashews together in less than 10 minutes start to finish this morning, so everyone would have something to munch on before dinner. They're a good alternative to the Union Square Café’s Bar Nuts, which have a warmer spice from the heavy dose of rosemary. Mom thinks these are better, and Brad likes them, too, even if he isn't on board with her master plan.

Red Chili-Spiced Cashews

Adapted from Made in India (2015) by Meera Sodha

The recipe calls for 1 teaspoon chile powder, but ½ teaspoon was enough for us. I'd start with the lower amount, then add more if you want it spicier. Sodha calls for Kashmiri chile powder, which she says has a "mild heat." The key is the powder is made from nothing but red chiles, so you can't substitute a blended chili powder like most of what you see in the spice aisle here. You could try something like ancho chile pepper, but if you're planning to make Indian food frequently, it's worth looking for the real thing, which is pretty cheap for a large quantity.

200 grams unsalted cashews
1 tablespoon (13 grams) neutral-flavored oil such as canola or sunflower
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ to 1 teaspoon Kashmiri chile powder (see note)
freshly ground black pepper, optional

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven, and heat to 325 degrees. Spread the cashews out in a single layer on a 13-by-9-inch baking sheet (quarter sheet pan). Roast only until the cashews take on a light golden color, no darker than that, 6 to 8 minutes. Watch carefully as nuts love to burn if you take your eyes off them.
    2. Transfer the cashews to a small bowl. Add the oil. Stir well with a spoon until all of the nuts are coated with oil. Sprinkle over the salt and chili powder, then mix well. Stir in a few grinds of black pepper, if desired.
    3. The cashews will be soft right after you season them while they’re still warm. Let them cool completely so they get their crunch back before serving. Serves 4 as a starter or a light snack, with a kick.