WHO I AM NOT ~ a poem

WHO I AM NOT

I am not twenty~
No longer lean, smooth, unmarked.
Now my body is strong,
still lithe,
under a cloak of yielding softness.
My skin is not pearly
in winter.
Nor flawlessly unlined and brown
in summer,
from idle days spent perfecting
just the right look.
My scars, my cicatrices,
both inner and outer
have been earned;
often suffered for.
Reminders of where I have been.
I am not a girl
who falls asleep to dreams of possibilities.
I am a woman
who lives them.
Building on adventures lived,
planning explorations yet to come.
My body, although there is more of it now,
holds my soul.
Be kind.
As I am learning to be.

-GNB 08/2008 c.

SIMPLE SEAWEED SOUP

Whenever I get the chance, I like to gather seaweeds from the rocks on our coast. I especially love sea lettuce, when I can find it. It's not only delicious, it's beautiful! The smell of seaweed makes me happy - the briny, green freshness that translates so well into many dishes. But, soup is my favorite way to eat it and I have it often.

This can be made with fresh or rehydrated dry laver or wakame. I use wakame, as I like its more substantial bite. This is just the basic recipe, to which you can add virtually anything you like -- shredded daikon radish or carrot, tofu, ginger juice, yam noodles or bean threads, sliced bok choy leaves, sliced shiitake mushrooms, etc. Healthy, light and delicious!

Ingredients:

5 c. water

2 pkgs dashi no moto (or make your own dashi)2 T. shoyu or good quality soy sauce

1 c. fresh, chopped seaweed, or rehydrated seaweed to make 1 cup

3 scallions, sliced, white and green parts separated

1 T. white or yellow miso paste, dissolved in 2 T. cold water

2 eggs, beaten

Directions:

In medium stock pot, combine water, dashi no moto and shoyu and bring to a boil. Add seaweed and white portion of green onions and simmer for five minutes. Turn off heat, but leave pot on burner. Gently stir in the beaten eggs and add the miso paste. Cover pot and remove from burner. Serve with green portion of the sliced onions. Add additional shoyu, to taste.

Serves 4-6

GRILLED LAKE TROUT

No, I didn't catch these, but after the gorgeous day at the lake yesterday, trout seemed the perfect thing. The smoked paprika adds a nice depth of flavor and the smell as it comes off the grill will make your mouth water. I served these with freshly dug small potatoes and onions from the garden -- I cut them into chunks and drizzled them with olive oil, red chile flakes and some herbed salt. Baked them covered with foil at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes, then uncovered it and baked another 5 minutes, then broiled them till crispy. Yummy!

Ingredients:

2 fresh, cleaned trout - head and tail on

White wine vinegar

2 sprigs fresh tarragon, 6-8 inches long

2 tsp. smoked sweet paprika powder

1 garlic clove, sliced very thinly

Directions:

Pat the insides of the trout dry. Hold fish on its back as you work. Sprinkle a tablespoon or two of the white wine vinegar into the cavity. Insert the tarragon, with a few leaves sticking out the front. Lay half of the sliced garlic along the tarragon. Sprinkle one teaspoon of the paprika over all. Lay fish down and repeat with other trout. Have coals on the grill ready at medium heat. Put trout on grill and watch carefully. Smaller size trout will be done in about 12 minutes, turning over halfway through cooking. Large size trout will be done in approx. 15 minutes. Toward the end, I like to move the trout to the hottest part of the grill and crisp the skin. I love that crunch!

CIME DI RAPA & CANNELLINI BEAN SALAD

Wow! A recipe from me that includes neither meat nor rice! This is a summer salad, served warm or at room temperature. Cime di rapa, also known as broccoli raab, rapini and other monikers, is a member of the brassica family of plants. The florets that may bloom yellow are also edible, so don't throw them away. The flavor is of slightly bitter, young broccoli. It is very popular in southern Italian cuisine. As usual with Italian recipes, the ingredients are few, so best quality of each component is a must! You can choose to soak and boil dried cannellini beans, if you wish, but, since it's summertime - what say we don't get the house any hotter than we have to? All you need to go along with this is some iced tea or...my choice...well-chilled Pinot Grigio, Verdicchio or even Gewürtztraminer.

GAYLE'S CIME DI RAPA & CANNELLINI BEAN SALAD

2 15 oz. cans Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
2/3 c. chicken or vegetable broth
1.5 lbs. cime di rapa (broccoli raab)
1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
A dozen fresh sage leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Trim bottom inch or so off of the broccoli raab, then cut into 3 inch lengths. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to boil and cook until nearly tender. Drain well and transfer to salad bowl. While it is cooking, heat half of the olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat and add stemmed sage leaves to the oil. Stir gently but constantly, until leaves are crispy, but don't let them turn brown. Remove leaves to a plate. Add garlic to oil and turn off heat. Don't allow garlic to brown. Heat beans, sage leaves, garlic with oil and broth in a saucepan and simmer for five minutes. Pour beans over broccoli raab and gently toss with salt and pepper, to taste. Allow to cool down to warm temperature. Just before serving, pour remaining olive oil over salad and toss once more.
Serves 4 as main course, 6 as salad course.

TWO POEMS

Wearing only skin,

I feel the wind play around the curves

Of my body.

Cirrus clouds sweep in feathers and frost

On a summer blue sky.

I am being regarded.

Pigeon on the fence,

A cat, secret among the raspberries,

Grosbeaks on a branch.

Perfect companions

On this July day.

___________________________________

Black fur on creamy skin,

The cat moulds himself to my shape

Like warm water.

I think of your breath

As the breeze touches me.

Goosebumps,

In spite of the heat.

GNB

OFFALLY TASTY

Organ meats, offal, or the euphemistic "variety meats" are too often overlooked (at best) or run away from, with disgusted noises issuing forth from the escapee. If only more people would try them! Most of it is a mental block, of course. At what point did we decide that muscle was the only kind of meat we should eat?

I was raised with my German great-grandmother, who grew up on a farm. Every part of a slaughtered animal was used. To throw away a good part of that animal would have been unthinkable. That sort of waste was not only a luxury, but, given the delightful flavors of the various organs, would have been a real loss to gastronomic satisfaction. When I travel to Europe, I'm always thrilled to find organ meats on the menus and available for purchase in the stores. Heaven!

I'll ease the uninitiated in and begin with tripe. The simple definition of tripe is: the lining of a cow's stomach(s). However, tripe from pigs, goats or sheep can also be called tripe. But, the beef version is the most prevalent. There are 4 kinds of tripe, just as there are 4 stomachs in a cow or other ruminant. However, only 3 are usually available commercially, and only 2 are popular. The most readily available type is "honeycomb", from the second stomach, the reticulum. It is so named because the inner side has a pattern similiar to a honeycomb. Most recipes you will find call for this type. "Blanket" or smooth tripe comes from the first stomach, the rumen. This is the type favored for menudo. The third type available is one I like very much. From the omasum, it's called "bible" "book" or "leaf" tripe due to the hanging sheets of lining coming from the stomach. The fourth type is from the Abomasum and is called "reed" tripe. But it is usually not sold or sought after, due to its glandular tissue.

Trivia: the word 'ruminate' comes from ruminant...to slowly digest something.

Tripe dishes are popular in many countries...Patsas in Greece, Drisheen in Ireland, Dobrada in Portugal, Trippa in Italy, Andouille in France, Pepperpot Soup in America and Pho soup in Vietnam, for example. Popular belief has it that tripe is a cure for hangover and for improving your sex life! So why not eat some tripe today??? Try my recipe for Trippa alla Milanese and see what you think!

RICE, RISO, RIZ - MY FAVORITE

Anyone who knows me will tell you that rice is my comfort food. When other women crave chocolate, I crave rice. Any form of rice will suffice! My favorite basic rice is jasmine and my favorite dish is any kind of risotto, preferably made with Vialone Nano rice. I love 'wild pecan rice' from Louisiana. It has a nutty flavor and has some of the bran left on the grain. It smells like popcorn when cooking.

Rice is a grain belonging to the grass family. Botanical name: Oryza sativa and Oryza glaberrima. The plant requires warmth and moisture to grow, measures between 2 and 6 feet tall, depending on variety. Plants have long, flat, pointy leaves and stalk-bearing flowers which produce the grain known as rice. Rice is one of the few foods in the world which is entirely non-allergenic and gluten-free.

Rice is consumed by nearly half the entire world population and many countries are completely dependent on rice as a staple food. Rice is the most widely consumed grain in the world. It feeds a third of the world’s population: 590 million tons of rice were produced in 2003. The Chinese word for rice is the same as the word for food, and in Japanese, the word for cooked rice is the same word for meal. In Thailand, when you call your family to a meal you say, “eat rice.” Americans statistically eat only 25 lbs. of rice a year - not THIS girl...I eat 15 lbs. a month! In the Phillipines, a person eats 500 lbs. of rice per year!

At some point in its early cultivation in Asia, the more labor-intensive white rice became a status symbol—the whiter the better—and thus, the preferred variety. Only the poorest people, who could not afford white rice, ate brown rice. They, however, got far better nutrition. Today, it is unfortunate, given how many people in marginal economies eat rice, that white rice is the norm. Stripped of the bran and the germ, its most nutritious parts, white rice is almost pure starch. Brown rice has essential vitamins and minerals and takes less effort to mill. It would thwart the vitamin deficiency diseases that affect many of the world’s poorest rice-eating peoples, most notably beriberi. Enriching white rice does not compensate for the vitamins, minerals and fiber stripped away from the brown rice.

There are currently some innovative programs to grow rice more effectively. The system is called SRI, which stands for System of Rice Intensification, and the method at least doubles, the rice harvest. For an in-depth article about SRI, see the NY Times article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17rice.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Most of us will only ever try a fraction of the number of rice cultivars known. The largest collection of rice cultivars is at the International Rice Research Institute, with over 100,000 rice accessions held in the International Rice Genebank.

As to Indian rice, most people are familiar with Basmati. But this is only one of many varieties grown in India. Rice agriculture is the backbone of India’s economy, providing direct employment to about 70% of working people in the country. Rice finds applications in the arts and crafts of India. Rice paste is used in the resist-dyeing techniques of creating patterns on cloth. In traditional homes, decorative features frequently consist of wall paintings and floor patterns. It is usually women who paint renditions of folklore and mythology on domestic spaces, passed on from mother to daughter. In many parts of India, as part of daily ritual -- ephemeral, abstract designs created by women are traced in rice powder or paste on domestic thresholds and floors. These are known by various names, alpana in Bengal, mandana in Rajasthan and kolam in South India, for instance. The designs are meant to bring good luck to the home.

Over the centuries, three main types of rice had developed in Asia, depending on the amylose content of the grain. They are called indica (high in amylose and cooking to fluffy grains to be eaten with the fingers, generally long grain types), japonica (low in amylase and cooking to sticky masses suitable for eating as clumps with chopsticks, generally short to medium grain types), and javanica (intermediate amylose content and stickiness).

So, I've posted my favorite Indian rice recipe in the recipe section. The flavors are haunting and unusual. Hope you'll try it and like it as much as I do.