Author: fif1202

Dearest M —

I seem to open every missive with “I’m so sorry for how long it’s taken me to reply…” So here I am on the Ides of March replying to your letter from the Ides of December. I wonder how your pork and beans turned out?! I wonder if you had to freeze and are maybe still enjoying portions? I love discovering yummy things I made months ago and forgot about at the bottom of our chest freezer…I am pork free as well, though I don’t think that would survive a trip to Spain, if we ever go again. Anyway, I’m sure it was delicious!

In December 2024 I started getting a weekly CSA box. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try, and the pickup is minutes from my job. It’s from this nearby farm, and is $25 per box. (It is, I think, a great value for what you get. I only buy occasional fruit and herbs in addition to the box.) I’m getting it weekly, but I’m not lying when I say that staying on top of our vegetables has turned into my primary non-work activity. I have sacrificed cleaning, sewing, other hobbies…it’s kind of ridiculous. And I might reduce it to 2 boxes a month. BUT, the veggies are so good!

Sam started an accelerated nursing program around the New Year, and he is completely absentee. It’s very far away and has a ridiculous pace. So, I’ve had to “hold down the fort,” which has meant…mostly finding ways to cook these damned vegetables every week. (Mostly Sam eats chicken nuggets and mac n’ cheese, but he will eat some of my vegetable creations, sometimes…)

A very partial list of what I have made to stay on top of the farm box:

– An Italian pie with a very simple water crust stuffed with several pounds of cooked greens (collard, Red Russian kale, Swiss chard, beet tops)
– Spring rolls with collard leaves instead of rice paper
– Fennel front pesto (fronts, anchovy, lemon, parm, olive oil)
– Pickled watermelon radish, daikon, and Nantes carrots (used to make banh mi with turkey bacon using the farm box cilantro and also to put in the spring rolls, above)
– Kabocha squash stuffed with sausage and cornbread
– Pumpkin bread
– Blended cauliflower clam “chowder”
– Thai curry with winter squash and stewed beef and beef bones
– The Chez Panisse leek tart (really good w/fried eggs)
– Brown butter and acorn squash puree w/parm and pasta
– Beet and saurkraut soup w/dill (from the farm)
– Tiny tender broccoli steamed on rice. I then make a spicy General Tso sauce and toss my vegetarian nuggets. It satisfies my greasy Chinese cravings (which aren’t infrequent!)

– We got navel oranges every week for a while, so I candied the rinds and made a stollen (we had gotten some candied lemon peel for Christmas too)
– Lots and lots of roasted cauliflower…So. Much. Cauliflower

I found a recipe that I’m going to try tomorrow where you roast the cauliflower, chop it up, cook up some sort of olive oil, garlic, anchovy, parsley base, then eat it with pasta. (When in doubt: Just put it on pasta.) We have an enormous head of green cabbage, so I’m going to use up a bit of it tonight making katsu (chicken for Sam, tofu for me), with white rice and lots of shredded cabbage. We will probably be eating that cabbage for a month.

I’m fearful of spring and summer, because the produce is so delicate and perishable! All winter we’ve gotten hardy greens and squashes and did I mention cauliflower? And these things can wait patiently until I get to them. But spring/summer is going to be downright athletic to stay on top of. I welcome the challenge, but I am not confident that I will rise to it. As April nears…we will find out!

Dear M –

I’m ashamed at how long it has taken me to reply to your last post. These exchanges bring me SO much pleasure and happiness, and yet I neglect it. I add to the long list of things that are good for my soul that I’ve neglected or abandoned since starting my job: exercise, thrifting, road trips, walks, nature, escaping to the coast because it’s now permanently over 100 degrees, intimacy. When I had jury duty for two weeks this spring, I experienced what could be: I left at about 8 and was home by 5:30. (The courthouse is 15 minutes by car.) My neighbor, who works for the feds, has just such a schedule. Instead, I’m gone 11 hours per day, and then on the weekends go to the blessedly air conditioned super market, clean, make food for the week, pat the cats a bit. I would truly love to know how my coworkers have work-life balance but…it’s possible they don’t either. (Though most of them live within 20 minute of the site.)

Your description of Italy and dinner parties and such was like reading about the exotic adventures of bygone explorers….It sounds truly lovely…but also really tiring. I do cook though, out of necessity and also because I can turn off my brain, put on an audio book, not talk to anyone, stay in air conditioning, and the results make my week much more bearable. Aside from an almost weekly cake or muffin, I’m usually experimenting with tofu. My ongoing “Will It Tofu?” project. (Nod to the mysteriously popular book “Will It Waffle?” By the author of “Will It Skillet?“—I’m guessing he came up with the title first for that one. Earning one’s living by putting various foods in a waffle iron and seeing what happens seems much more conducive to work-life balance.)

I nurtured a longstanding grudge against tofu due to my childhood experience of the following (on a regular basis): cubed tofu, doused in soy sauce, heated in a cast iron skillet with oil, brown rice, broccoli, and carrots. Nutritious but…blech. It took me decades to recover. Now I just try whatever with tofu, and sometimes it works great and sometimes it doesn’t. Some recent successes: tofu parmigiana, tofu katsu, tofu crumbles with pesto, tofu with various simmer sauces (nearly instant dinner), tofu banh mi, and “Thai Boxing Tofu”–which is tofu marinated in the “Thai Boxing Chicken” marinade from the Night and Market cookbook. This marinade is the definition of ambrosia. It makes everything divine and I have to restrain myself from drinking it. So far, I’ve soaked chicken, cod, shrimp, tofu, and beef in it and cooked them all under the broiler (since I lack a grill). There is no protein that this doesn’t make absolutely delicious, and I’m curious how it would do with vegetables–starting with kabocha. Maybe this winter.

My tofu failures so far (“No, It Won’t Tofu”) include tofu cake and tofu larb. The tofu cake was a viral social media thing where you beat a block of soft tofu with a little water or soy milk and then stir in cake mix and voila, perfect vegan cake. As with so much else on social media, this was a false promise. I tried it twice, first without fruit and then with nectarines and blackberries stirred in. The first one was, charitably, like wet mochi; the second, charitably, like a clafoutis or British style pudding. I mean, we ate it, but I won’t try a third time. (However, this experiment lead me to discover Bob’s Red Mill yellow cake mix–really tasty, and you can make summer fruit cake with slivered almonds in a matter of minutes. I also added spices and plums once. This winter I will try the chocolate mix, with some port-soaked prunes. Having cake on hand in minutes is very hard to resist.) I am going to try tempeh larb next–the tofu rendition was watery and bland and lacked umami–and also a recipe where you blend soft tofu with melted dark chocolate to make a mousse.

Your post reminded me that I am considering an Instant Pot. Your risotto is making me even more tempted. (Especially the newest one, which is a 13 in one! Air fryer, crock pot, pressure cooker, yogurt maker, bread proofer…I don’t know what the rest could be, but it does 8 more things.) Keeps the heat down too!

Love, C. xoxo

PS: Once I get around to signing up for a Spotify account, I can listen to your playlist. I miss our exchanges of mix tapes!

I don’t feel like leaving the house today (I am between banks and also the victim of debit card fraud, so I have been unable to spend money or do errands for 2 weeks. This has given me permission to do nothing but putter at home, when not at work, since leaving the house = spending money.) I happen to have the ingredients for that “hippy breakfast cake” you mentioned in your post, so I decided to give it a try. Normally, I would be baking muffins today. I typically make 6-10

jumbo “health muffins” every weekend. I told Sam recently I was getting a bit weary of muffin making, so let’s buy some instead. He was indignant and said, “but I married the Muffin Lady!” (No, we didn’t get married, don’t worry. We just lack a vocabulary, it seems, for talking about partnerships that aren’t marriage. Like, “that’s why I’m dating the Muffin Lady” just doesn’t capture almost 11 years, three cats, mothers,

TV dinners, laundry, etc. I’m guessing you can relate!) But today I branched out to try the cake. I tackled the challenge of lack of rise (I tend to dislike very dense cakes and tortes) by adding 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 2 teaspoons baking powder. It got enough rise, though is still far from fluffy. I also omitted the maple syrup, as you said, but I replaced it with a small container of applesauce and a splash of sweetened soy milk. Instead of pears I put 2 cups of whole frozen cherries (pears and cherries, IMO, play equally nicely with almond). The result tastes…healthy! My sweet tooth is at its most

demanding at breakfast, mostly because there is nothing I like more than coffee and pastry. (I have fantasies of traveling to Vienna just to sit around eating coffee and cake all day for a week. It is my understanding that that’s what the Viennese do with their time?) As you said, I swapped out 1 cup of the almond flour for 1/2 cup hemp seeds and 1/2 cup flax meal. I think I overbaked it a little, but the cake tastes a bit eggy to me. (I love eggs but hate egginess. I’m reminded of a Jim Gaffigan routine about hating fish. “What’s the best compliment you can give a fish? It’s to say that it’s not fishy.”) No matter, a nice pile of jam hides the eggy and it’s very satisfying and breakfasty. And good with coffee! Next time, I will add some sugar/agave/maple (whatever the hippies say, all sweeteners are just sugar to our pancreas).

The reason I constantly make muffins is because they are just so easy to freeze and reheat for weekday breakfasts. (I have a 1 hour commute, which means I’m up before the sun most days.) I just pop them out of my jumbo silicone muffin mold and pack them in freezer bags, to be retrieved and warmed as needed. The two I have on rotation right now are Modified Morning Glory and Banana Chocolate Chip. For the former, I swap out 60g of the flour for plant-based protein powder, omit the honey, decrease sugar to 1/4 cup, and add sunflower seeds. For the latter, I swap out 1/4 cup of flour for protein powder, decrease sugar to 1/4 cup, increase banana by 1/2 cup, double the baking powder, and add a generous pour of dark chocolate chips. (For my last batch I added chopped salted peanuts, too. Recommend!) I’m thinking of trying chocolate muffins next, which I’ve never attempted, and giving another go to savory muffins. (A summer favorite was cheddar, zucchini, scallion, and dill. I feel like winter squash and cheese might work?) The Muffin Lady never rests!

Revised Edition: Emerging from the depression, temper tantrum over, may cooler heads prevail. Amen.

Dear M~,

Food has lately been a fraught issue in our household, hence my long delay in writing. Inflation has been sneaking up on us, and suddenly the past 3 months our grocery bills were almost laughably high. Did I accidentally buy Humboldt Fog and wild scallops and Macallan? Am I sleep-shopping? No, same old same old, just skyrocketing prices. (And I say “inflation” with an eye roll–Costco has pocketed $90 billion in profits since 2020. That doesn’t happen when it’s actually “inflation.”) Anyway, this food situation lead to fights over money, which are second only to fights about mothers in terms of unpleasantness. We audited our receipts (no change, at all, in like a decade, in what we eat); scoured the fridge for pricey frills (the most expensive thing in there is definitely the probiotics); did our usual “only rice and beans” vow (as yet unfulfilled)…I read about a dozen blogs and Reddit posts about saving money on groceries, and a theme I kept seeing was, “Well, we are losing weight!” Which, Jesus. (I mean, the “meals” they outline I would categorize as snacks, so no surprise.) We eventually surrendered to, “Oh well, this is how it is, so be it, economize elsewhere.” Though we did cease almost all restaurant dining. (I can definitely make those $50 waffle breakfasts better at home.)

But the situation prompted me to pick up How to Cook a Wolf for the third or fourth time. I find this book a joy to read, though the topic is grim (and her meals oddly gourmet for someone living with rationing–it seems she never jettisoned wine and butter from her cart!). It also makes me feel connected to generations of women who have marched into the market, eyes sharp for deals, running calculations all the while, “Is that whole fish the best price? How much of it is bones? Is canned fruit actually thrifty? Seems like you’re paying for a lot of juice…” (I also adore that she has a chapter on feeding pets–our cats, with their respective prescription diets, cost more than Great Danes to feed.) I particularly vibe with this passage from Fisher, and may stick it on my fridge: “You can still live with grace and wisdom, thanks partly to the many people who write about how to do it and perhaps talk overmuch about riboflavin and economy [Note: Guilty as charged!], and partly to your own innate sense of what you must do with the resources you have, to keep the wolf from snuffing too heavily through the keyhole.”

We stopped fighting, and now that I’m sort of emerging from a depression I’m slowly rediscovering the enjoyment I normally find in food and cooking. I’m also finding ways to make economizing into a game or a puzzle, and having some success. A fun one is the “pantry challenge”–I reached far into the back of a cupboard and found a dusty jar of preserved lemons. So I made a tagine from dried chickpeas I’d had for a while, plus a random array of wilty veggies and canned tomatoes. I also found popcorn kernels and some ancient split peas, so those projects are next (probably not combined!). I also found an open bag of chickpea flour that I’m working on. Made socca, and while it was very filling, I can’t say I’m a fan. At any rate, I’m suddenly doing a lot more cooking, exploring new territory, and that, I know, will bring me out of my depression in time. And help me save a buck to boot.

Love, C.

Dear M –

Sorry for the hideous lag in my response–having a new full-time job and no longer working from home…it’s like I’m relearning how to be an adult. It seems being an adult means commuting for many hours each day, running to Costco at odd hours, and spending weekends doing chores and buying cat food. You know…glamour. But your culinary letter brought me immense joy. One of my recent weekend chores was clearing out decades of accumulated papers…I found so many letters from the 1990s, including a treasure trove from you! I forgot what devoted letter writers we used to be, before internet killed the radio star. So, this letter of yours brought me immense joy. Speaking of glamour and adulting: toilets. That must have been immensely satisfying, to do some plumbing and have good results. I once tried to replace the plumbing under my mom’s sink…it ended in hilarious, soggy disaster and a plumber had to undo my work. So, applause to you my dear! Sometimes being an adult is fun.

It’s OK to eat fish, because they don’t have any feelings.
– Nirvana, “Something in the Way”

Your chipotle soup creation sounds delicious, and I just so happen to have all of the ingredients on hand right this very moment, except for corn and chickpeas. Some diced sweet potato could add some starch, and I’ll eat it with corn tortillas! I also don’t have garlic scapes (I think I’ve probably never bought a garlic scape?) but I have the decidedly less sexy flat-leaf parsley. I’m currently doing a mass of recipe testing for a cookbook judging thing I’m doing, and am about to cook about 15 vegan recipes…I’m actually eager to try that, as I’ve never even tried to cook vegan, so it feels like exploring a new land. I have gradually cut back my meat consumption, probably by about 70%, over the last 2 years, for purely emotional reasons. (Though I totally disagree with Kurt, as fish most certainly have feelings. They are just fishy feelings, and therefore harder to read.) I made the new years resolution in 2019 to be a pescetarian, and I lasted exactly 2 weeks. Since then, I would characterize my journey as “slouching towards pescetarianism”… Anyway, for my job I have to eat everything, so I can never be too concrete about it. However, the joy has been discovering new ways to eat and new conceptions of “main dish.” This has meant fun times with tofu and tempeh, and many, many beans. I discovered that I love dal and make it constantly. This Mitti Handi Dal is my current fav, though lentils never let me down either. Another nice beany discovery: pinto beans, sautéed Swiss chard, cheddar cheese, rice, in a burrito. I’ve made some big lima beans and mashed them with garlic oil and lemon, or baked them with a Greek tomato sauce with dill and feta like a lasagna. I’m currently experimenting with soy curls, a weird and confusing invention out of Oregon. (They have a decidedly chickeny vibe.) Anyway, here’s a pretty yummy bean burger I developed for a bean-recipe contest. Next time you have a neglected can of chipotles hanging out in your fridge!

• Cooking spray
• 1 15-ounce can aduki beans (or substitute red kidney beans), rinsed and well drained.
• ½ cup finely chopped red bell pepper
• ½ cup finely chopped onion
• 1 garlic clove, pressed or minced
• ¾ cup unseasoned breadcrumbs
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 ½ teaspoons chipotle in adobo (or 1 tablespoon if you like very spicy burgers!)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4-6 ounces sliced smoked cheddar or mozzarella
• 4-6 burger buns
• 1 cup arugula, packed
• ¾ cup crispy onions
  
  BBQ Burger Sauce:

• 6 tablespoons mayonnaise (light or regular)
• 3 tablespoons bottled or homemade BBQ sauce
• 1 ½-2 teaspoons chipotle in adobo

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Coat a baking sheet (1/2 sheet, 13”x18”) with cooking spray and set aside.
2. Place the beans in a medium-sized mixing bowl and mash thoroughly with a fork. There should be no whole beans, but don’t overmash or it will be gluey.
3. Stir in the bell pepper, onion, garlic, breadcrumbs, egg, cumin, chipotle, and salt. The mixture should be evenly mixed with no dry spots.
4. Divide the mixture into 4 (or 6) equal sized balls. For small burger buns (2 ounces each), make 6 patties. For larger buns (3-4 ounces each), make 4 patties. Use your hands to mash and press the balls into smooth patties that stick together. (You may want to wet your hands if the mixture is sticking to them!)
5. Place the patties on the baking sheet and spray the tops lightly with cooking spray.
6. Bake until the burgers are firm to the touch but not dry, and have reached an internal temperature of 165°F, 12-18 minutes. In the last 3-5 minutes of baking, top the patties with the cheese slices and put the buns in the oven to toast.
7. When ready to serve, spread sauce (about 2 tablespoons, or to taste) on the buns and top with a patty, fried onions, and arugula. Serve immediately.

BBQ Burger Sauce:

1. In a small bowl, stir the sauce ingredients together until smooth. Sauce can be made up to 3 days in advance and stored in a jar in the refrigerator.