Spring’s here, and she demands parsley. This stew is healthy and easy and colorful and aromatic, light enough for the sun streaming in your kitchen window and rich enough to stave away any pesky winter winds asserting their waning presence. Kalamatas would be sublime; the green manzanillas I used were just dandy.

Make it with free-range chicken and you won’t regret it -I swear their liberty seeps merrily into the broth, saturating the cauliflower with wild chickeny depth you’d never squeeze out of cardboard-y 10-packs of pechuga.

—

Greek Chicken Stew With Cauliflower and Olives
adapted from The New York Times.

extra virgin olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
4+ garlic cloves (to taste), minced
1 giant free-range chicken breast on the bone. Or thighs, or whatever – use your judgement here.
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with juice
1/2 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cauliflower, cored, broken into florets, and sliced about 1/2 inch thick
about 15 manzanilla olives (or kalamata if you got ‘em), rinsed, pitted and cut in half (optional)
small handful chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 to 2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (optional – I didn’t use it, but it would be a welcome addition)

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep, heavy lidded skillet or casserole and brown the chicken, in batches if necessary, about 5 minutes on each side. Remove the pieces to a plate or bowl as they’re browned. Add the vinegar to the pan and scrape up all the bits from the bottom of the pan.

2. Add the remaining tablespoon of the olive oil to the pan, and turn the heat down to medium. Add the onion and a generous pinch of salt and cook, stirring often and scraping the bottom of the pan, until it is lightly browned and very soft.

3. Add the garlic and stir together for a minute or two more, until the garlic is fragrant, then add the tomatoes and their juice, the cinnamon, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer and simmer 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the mixture is reduced slightly and fragrant.

4. Return the chicken pieces to the pot, along with any juices that have accumulated in the bowl. If necessary, add enough water to barely cover the chicken. Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat, and simmer 15 minutes.

5. Add the cauliflower and olives and simmer for another 15 minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender and the chicken is just about falling off the bone.

6. Take chicken out of pot, remove from bone, shred, and re-incorporate. Simmer just a minute more, stir in the parsley, taste and adjust seasonings. Serve with grains – black rice is nice – with feta sprinkled on top if you like.

]]> http://contomates.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/greek-chicken-stew-with-cauliflower-and-olives/feed/ 2 contomates stew http://contomates.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/intentionality-illusion-and-turning-down-the-contrast/ http://contomates.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/intentionality-illusion-and-turning-down-the-contrast/#comments Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:16:01 +0000 contomates http://contomates.wordpress.com/?p=641 ]]>

This one’s massive, and much more personal-introspective than I tend towards on this blog. I’m happy with it, though, and I’m willing to share if you’re willing to read.

It all started when I bought myself a slick set of speakers. Here, set reading this post to the same beats I did while writing it, preferably on your own bitchin’ set of cans.

I haven’t been in stasis. The forces which act upon me are neither equal nor opposing to those which I myself exude; I am not at rest. Idleness is a clever, metamorphic beast, and it can be equally as dangerous to confuse it with calmness as with freneticism. What I mean here, in oh-so-many-words, is that it’s not always (ever?) straightforward for enterprising folk to draw a clear distinction between purposeful tranquility, the illusion of progress, and actual forward motion.

We’re talking severe second- and third- and fourth-guessing: what level of calmness is acceptable? Are nights in inherently better or worse than nights out? Does turning down social invitations indicate strength or weakness of character? How many bleary high-heeled sunrises and/or marathon application sessions are permissible before it becomes excess? Is actively electing to light candles and snug up with the Kindle for hours con- or de-structive? And whatever happened to exploring the city? Does it establish a sense of ownership of place to return to the same wine haunts, the same olivemonger, or is it merely a lazybones cop-out?

Is all this nothing more than a re-hash of the now more than a year old “From whence have you come, and where exactly is it that you think you are going?” self/princess-flagellation? Am I pleased with where I am with regards to a year ago, to two years ago, three? Where will I be in a year, in six months, next week? Why don’t I know, and shouldn’t I be panicking? Have I submitted a sufficient quantity of applications, have I looked into an appropriate number of nooks? Am I having the requisite amount of fun?

These past few months have been lived experiments in ways, ranging from the everyday aesthetic (What happens if I don’t bring my iPod on my commute? What happens if I don’t listen to my own music whatsoever?) to the corporal (How will my energy levels change if I work out 4-5 times a week?) to the academic (Can I pick up basic Italian in 30 minutes a night? Allora, capisko un po adeso). I’ve shifted 98% of my food purchases away from the big supers and now have an established cheese guy, fish guy, veggie guys (buncha Bangladeshis who quickly caught on to me coming in once a day… admittedly twice on occasion). Yeah, the olive guy too.

Today, the sun elects to peek attractively out from behind its oppressive winter blanket, making the idea of a citywalk not so entirely grotesque as it has been lately. After solo pesto lunch (another experiment there, Become At Ease With Eating Alone) and post-pesto black chai (and another: Drink More And Better Tea) I tossed on a skirt (Gussy Up For No Reason), set my mind on postcards (Do Unexpected Nice Things For Others), and emerged into the afternoon light (Get Up And Go). None of these are written down, mind you; I have no Master Capitalized List. They’re concepts, possibilities, stray potentialities. You never know until you try.

Northward, quick steps becoming more languid as I settle into a proper wander. Have given up iPodlessness, have pleasing soundtrack, begin to make occasional eye contact with passerby. It’s a pleasure trip. Cross the boundary of Atocha and into Huertas, older crowd here, placid pizza-munchers and families, Plaza Santa Ana’s nicer tourists doing their midday Spanish Tapas in the company of busking accordions. Pop out into Sol and its delirious bustle, the blood donation bus still makes me beam, slip up Montera as I prefer skeeze to shoppers, and no, I don’t have any friggin’ oro.

Traverse Gran Via and up Valverde, into Malasaña’s maze, all hills and cars and bars, ecological pizza here, retro-everything, Carnaval weekend’s brought pirates of all ages to Plaza San Ildelfonso. I pick up my postcards from Nest, contemplate calendars, remember recommendation of gourmet olive oil Chueca location from Spicy Yuli shopkeep, and the need arises to peruse their specialty products, right now. Arrive just as they’re re-opening from siesta, though, and decide to take a jaunt around the block so as to not appear overly eager for artisanal olive oil soaps. Go south and remember request for checking Cisne Azul hours, look but nothing’s displayed from the outside and it’s closed in the late afternoon, so let feet continue until something else occurs – what do I know that’s nearby? And then’s the ah-ha moment: that audiophile store. HiFi 25.

Ask For What You Want, Even If You Think You’ll Sound Like An Ass has been a damn difficult one for me, even with the linguistic cushion that being a non-native speaker provides. But the weeks of practice propel me, and I enter proclaiming bluntly that I want something simple and portable that will make my music sound syrupy, rather than the current setup, which is horroroso. I get a bit of a (merited) look for the adjective, but I also get precisely what I’m looking for: a demonstration of a two-piece JBL Duet speaker system that blows my belabored ears out of the water.

I buy them. In cash. I’ve wanted speakers for years now, years. I’m rounding up on my 25th. I’ve decided to stay here. Why not buy a nice thing for myself? Something not practical, something purely for enhancing my everyday sensory experience. Something middlingly expensive, something that I’ll take care of. Something far from temporary.

These speakers, man. They weren’t purchased as symbols, but as I write about them, they’re transforming before my eyes. My eardrums, really. They sound SO GOOD that I find it difficult to concentrate on the words, wishing to simply meld with the depth of sound swirling about my head. Feliz cumple indeed.

As I waltz back homeward, speakers in tow (I did poke into the olive oil outlet, but wasn’t called by it for my own uses. They might make nicely packaged foodie gifts for back home), there comes to me one of those stray concepts again, but this time linking things into a before-unseen potential pattern. I think I’ve been saying yes to absolutely everything for so long now, been so dedicated to the idea of openness and the new, that it’s come at the cost of much valuable specialization.

I’m not sure whether or not that rings true from an external perspective, but it certainly connects many dots from this end. I recall NYC amiga Alex’s visit back in October, and our long talks about futures and directions and directionlessness and turning 25 and adulthood, and me saying something to the effect of not being willing to choose due to a fear of excluding an even better possibility. I remember shock at hearing myself express this, as well as a fair degree of uncertainty as to what it was that I meant.

Somewhere along the line – we’re talking years ago, now – I think I decided that I hadn’t experienced a wide enough range of Whatever, and somehow, a Just-Say-Yes switch got flipped, and has simply remained on, and on, and on. I don’t think this is entirely a “bad” thing, or actually even negative in any sense – it’s lead me to delve into an enormous variety of activities over the past three years. I’ve grilled chipotle burgers for a crowd of 50 and started a food blog and regularly purchase specialty spices. I taught myself basic German and Italian, and also Photoshop and acrylic painting, and how to have a sense of direction while navigating a city. On New Year’s, I’ve glammed golden overlooking Bangkok and I’ve crunched whole fried fish in Sevilla and I’ve curled up with the Kindle in Evansville. I’ve met so many people from the internet, opened up my home and been invited into theirs, connected digitally across the wild miles, taken ill-advised risks that paid off gloriously. I’ve run the gamut from Fulbright to fulanita, from preened Official Model UN Logistics Representative at the NYC conference to curly-haired hippie hitchhiker just trying to catch a ride before nightfall. I’ve walked the Camino, twice, I’ve performed slam poetry in front of an audience, twice, and I’ve danced and I’ve danced and I’ve danced.

I don’t think I need a comprehensive/cohesive personality, or that it ought to be simple, or – worse – fixed. I don’t plan on a sudden cessation of the new. This isn’t a declaration so much as a recognition, a validation of choices made and anticipation of those soon to come. Specialization, becoming that expert I claim to value, and from there allowing self-respect to feed upon itself and flourish. Being okay with limiting myself to a narrower spectrum than Whatever, calling it “focusing,” and believing it, and living it.

The speakers reflect this, see – so does the freshly ground coffee from Cafés Pozo that bubbles through my cafetera each morning. And the metro rides when I lose myself alternatively in Kerouac and Franny and Zooey, and the ginger-apple-cranberry crisp I made this Saturday morning for my housemates, and the Ribera Del Duero-Campo Real ritual that I reserve for myself each night along with Italian practice. It’s there in the CCT project for certain – yeah, the big one that I’m not quite ready to reveal yet (!) – and in the gym membership and in the black rice obsession and in the upcoming weekend jaunt to Lisbon. In the plans to re-paint my walls and in the multiple colors of pen constantly on my person. In Thursday afternoon sixth hour in the office, alone and Photoshopping and drinking enough tea to send both my heart and bladder into overdrive, and feeling it, doing this thing, riding this wave.

In Bangkok – that behemoth of a writing project hasn’t been shelved, by the way – I feel I learned to get by with very little. The real lack of wealth was not in terms of time nor possessions nor social power nor even money, really, but rather in terms of investment in self. Prizing spontaneity and the apparently innovative above absolutely any kind of continuity led to, ultimately, a great poverty of character. Of course I learned/gained/experienced/blah blah; look – this isn’t to discount the period and its players, nor to disparage the enormous personal strides I made as a result. But I do feel I took away a conclusion of false liberation from it, one that could be achieved through detachment from the Valuable, reveling in that which is base and exciting and immediately available. We had so many visions, we painted them on our walls, but we never manifested a goddamn thing.

Be Purposeful. Invest In Self. Turn down the contrast, for crissake – extremity doesn’t equate with substance, with what Robert Pirsig called Quality:

“Quality . . . you know what it is, yet you don’t know what it is. But that’s self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There’s nothing to talk about. But if you can’t say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better than others . . . but what’s the betterness? . . . So round and round you go, spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding anyplace to get traction. What the hell is Quality? What is it?”

Plato’s Socrates has the perfect response:

“What is good, Phædrus, and what is not good… need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”

We don’t. We just need to live it. There’s my macroplan, to live with intention in the name of that which I value. It’ll keep shifting, and so will I, and I’ll keep writing it, and I just hope these olives come with me.

Needed pozole yesterday (did you know it comes from the Nahuatl word for “foamy”? also, that it used to be made with human flesh? mine was, uh, chicken), so clearly required a heap of cilantro to crown it. The bunch was slightly mangy-looking even last night, thus necessitating immediate use – and what better than spicy cilantro-almond pesto on which to base an afternoon mexi-feast?

It’s rare that I cook beef, not due to any particular dietary concern but rather based on heavy veggie and fish preferences. Upon hearing my pleas for meaty advice, the carnicería guy across the street suggested lomo de entrecot, which I think refers to entrecôte cut from the sirloin. I rubbed it with a healthy coat of Evansville Magic Dust and let it come to just about room temperature, then seared it in a cast iron skillet with just a smear of olive oil. While I was supremely happy with the crust that developed, the center was reduced to a light pink – much too done for my taste. I had the heat cranked, the cut was perhaps 1/3 inch thick, and I did the first side 2.5 minutes and flipped for another 1.5 – will try shaving off a minute next time. Still mad delicious with the spicy, nutty pesto.

I modeled the salad after the constant accompaniment I remember from Cuautla, where you just dip a whole cucumber into chile powder and bite into crunchy spiced bliss. Today was cucumber slices and halved cherry tomatoes sprinkled with chile powder, cayenne, lime juice, and salt – not a bad facsimile.

-

Cilantro-Almond Pesto
slightly adapted from Simply Recipes.

2 cups cilantro, large stems removed
1/2 cup blanched almonds
1 small roughly chopped red onion
1/2 chopped and seeded serrano chile – next time I’d add the whole thing, but I’m a spice masochist.
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil – I used a bit less, I think. Added it by the teaspoon until the consistency looked right, and it tasted like I never wanted to stop eating it.

1. In a food processor – or with an immersion blender if you must (and I must) – pulse the cilantro, almonds, onion, chile, and salt until well blended.

2. With the food processor/immersion blender running, slowly add the olive oil in a steady stream.

Makes about 1 cup. Whatever you don’t use, you can freeze. Line a ice cube tray with plastic wrap and fill in the individual cube spaces with the pesto. Freeze and remove from the ice tray, put in a sealed freezer bag for future use.

Birkenfeld is teeny, but the house is sprawling and immaculate.

The white sea of walls is frequently interrupted by a spectrum of oil paints and book spines.

This is a place apart, a world unto itself.

Magic abounds here, whether in the form of glittering golden crowns –

– or German bread breakfast. Salty croissants pair best with avocado, cool sliced cucumber, and tomato-pesto tapenade.

We are at ease here. Everyone settles into their element. Morning light floods gently over crisp country air; we bask and read, stirring little.

Until the beat strikes us, of course.

Adventure out means a Trier afternoon. The sun loves us.

And we love it right back.

Dining is organic, a take on ratatouille with polenta bathed in thick, tart tomato.

Trier is pleasingly German in architecture, a breath of fresh Deutsch air away from Spanish aesthetics.

The town cathedral is appropriately, imposingly gothic.

The outing is capped by ice cream sundaes and iPhones. We deal with it.

Our hosts are as generous as they are photogenic. We can’t stop thanking them for their overwhelming kindness shown in not only opening their home to us, but tending to our every possible detailed need –

– such as smiley face crepes in the morning.

A jaunt around Birkenfeld is sleepy, chatty, and intriguing in a distinctly small-town-Germany way. Sevi insists there’s naught to be seen, but each coat of paint on wrought iron grating is new to us.

There’s a quiet retro-beauty here, old and calm, far from glamorous. To call it quaint would diminish; we find it comfortable. It’s an escape, an invitation into an unagitated life for the briefest of stays.

We have a beer, or two, because it’s Germany and we must.

Lamb’s natural flavor is so strong that it can support a serious amount of spice, hence adding a pinch of practically everything in your cupboard followed by hours of simmering. It fills every nook in your house with scents, warm cinnamon and nutmeg and cardamom, then sweetens the deal with engorged plums that melt their sticky way into the broth and wine. Chile flakes and slivers of mint alternatively lift and cool, and a sprinkled nutty crunch of crushed almonds and sesame seeds completes the panorama. Make no mistake, stewed lamb meat is the focus here – the symphony of additional elements simply serves as suitable tribute.

The flavor profile is Turkish in inspiration, but completely adaptable to whatever you’ve got on hand. This is an over-the-top Impress dish, best served with a spread of brown jasmine rice and hunks of fresh crusty bread.

Spiced Lamb Stew with Dried Plums, Tomatoes, Almonds, and Sesame

1 1/2 yellow onions, sliced
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 inch ginger, minced
1 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 leg of bone-in lamb – mine clocked in just shy of a kilo, or approximately 2 lbs – removed from the bone and cut into 1′ pieces

2 cinnamon sticks
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chile powder
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon red chile flakes (or more…)
1 tablespoon Galician honey
1 tablespoon molasses
zest of 1/2 lemon
salt to taste

8-12 dried plums, pits removed and roughly chopped
28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes in their juice
1 1/2 c dry red wine
stock – I used chicken

cooked brown jasmine rice, for serving
crushed almonds
sesame seeds
torn mint leaves

1. Sautée onions, garlic, and ginger in butter over low heat until onion softens.

2. Mix in pieces of lamb, then spices, honey, molasses, lemon zest, and salt.

3. Add dried plum pieces, tomatoes and their juice, red wine, and 1 cup stock, plus the reserved lamb bones; bring to a simmer.

4. Let simmer for at least three hours, adding stock as necessary and occasionally skimming the surface of the accumulated fat. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

5. Remove bones and cinnamon sticks. Ladle atop fresh brown jasmine rice and serve sprinkled with crushed almonds, sesame seeds, and torn mint leaves.