A Chicken In Every Granny Cart

Let’s face it, it’s that time of year when the hearts of children, and yes, grown men and women the world over, sing with glee and hope.

It’s almost time to bite the ears off a chocolate rabbit.

Or snarf down multiple bags of Cadbury’s Mini Eggs.

And while I am human, and I do get a weird thrill out of chomping on dopey, oddly vacant bunnies in dark, milk and white chocolate varieties, the thing that really makes my heart go pitter-pat as we approach the Easter season is, of course, pickles.

And I know I am not alone.

I have been getting dozens of hits a day on this site in the past couple of weeks from people looking for a pickled red beet egg recipe.

So, pickled egg lovers of the world unite! Here is what you’re looking for:

Pennsylvania Dutch Pickled Hard Boiled Eggs And Red Beets (aka, pickled red beet eggs)

• 1 can small, whole red beets
• 1/3 c. brown sugar
• 1 c. cider vinegar
• 1 c. cold water
• 3 or 4 whole cloves
• small pieces of cinnamon
• 1 doz. hard boiled eggs

Put all together in a pan and simmer for 10 minutes.
Peel eggs and add to liquid and beets.
Put all in a jar or container and cover.
Allow to pickle for about 2 days before using (aka,EATING!)

This recipe first appeared in the Pitcher Hill Church’s Ladies Cook Book.

It’s my grandmother’s recipe, or maybe even her mother’s, or her mother’s mother’s. We’re not 100% sure.  What I can guarantee is that these are delicious. Make them and eat them in good health.

But why just make purple pickled eggs? Why not make say, purple pickled cauliflower?

Yeah, I thought it was a good idea when I came upon it in that Claudia Roden book, too.

They’re only just becoming really good. There’s a lot of sulfur and other unique chemical compounds for the brine to soften in family Brassicaceae (there’s that pesky Latin again).

As you can see, they’re beautiful, almost as if rather than starting out as white cauliflower they began life as the purple stuff. But no, all that color has come from the purple cabbage.

Ms Roden doesn’t say which part of the Middle East these are from, but unlike the Iranian pickles I made awhile back, these don’t have dill. They rely entirely on the raw ingredients and the brine to supply the punch, kind of like Middle Eastern sauerkraut.

And how do they taste? Pretty darn good. I tasted them a few days ago and thought they were too salty, so I added a little more white vinegar. This seems to have done the trick. They’re mildly bitter with a mustardy undertone, lightly spicy, perfectly salty and deliciously sour.

I can’t wait to eat them with some pate and crusty bread. But until Meat-Free March is over, tossing them with some bitter greens and cucumbers in a salad slicked lightly with the very best olive oil will have to, happily, do.

Head below the jump for the recipe for Purple Pickled Cauliflower.

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I’m going to go out on a limb here. I think spring has sprung.

Croci are blooming, Roger Clark has shed his ugly green jacket, and my mother tells me the vultures have returned Upstate (she swears this is a surer sign of spring than the return of the robins).

But what’s the surest sign of spring, chez Granny Cart? Yep, you guessed it, a very long walk.

12 miles to be exact, and with three distinct goals.

1. To show the boy Prospect Park at a time other than New Year’s Eve.

2. To have brunch at Prospect Heights’ jealousy-inducing Beast (I wish we had a spot like this in Bay Ridge).

3. To go to Fairway.

We entered from the south through the horse tamers’ gate and headed around the lake.

Idyllic isn’t it? Until you notice that gigantic styrofoam cup.

There was a little girl throwing bread crumbs to the birds. That swan was one foul fowl. I have a healthy fear of them, having been bitten (beaked?) by one in my teens.

There’s that guy that’s always getting in the way of my pictures.

This is the Camperdown Elm. Apparently it was planted in 1872, has a genetic mutation which causes it to grow outwards rather than upwards and is resistent to Dutch elm disease. That’s some tree!

Doesn’t this scene remind you of a Bob Ross painting?

Retreating glaciers left little ponds and rills in the park which Olmstead and Vaux worked into their plans.

They also designed parts of the park to remind you of the Adirondacks. This nearly-hidden pagoda certainly did.

It was a beautiful breezy day, perfect for flying kites… But the trees will always get one or two.

One of the stranger design conceits are the large Grecian urns lining the park’s wall that feature intertwined snakes as handles. They’re rather realistic, and just a little bit creepy.

I love any park that sandwiches its north/south entrance with grand monuments featuring horses. This arch sits at Grand Army Plaza, home to a wonderful Greenmarket on Saturdays.

By this time we had about 6.5 miles under out belts, on empty stomachs. It was time to stop and refuel. Two beers, two coffees, two poached eggs, Beast’s incredible roasted potatoes, some polenta and a grilled vegetable sandwich later, we headed west.

Someday, just maybe, the Gowanus canal will be beautiful. But for now? Not so much.

I was absolutely gobsmacked to see this pussy willow tree growing in the middle of industrial Brooklyn, directly below the Smith-9th St. subway station.

It’s such a misnomer to call this elevated platform a subway station, as it rises 91 feet into the air and is the highest one in the system. The views are incredible.

Eventually, we finally made it to Fairway. Why was getting there so important? Because I have been suffering from a major squid joness. Why? I read somewhere that Atlantic squid are at their most tender and flavorful in the late-winter/early-spring.

I kept trying to get them at our local fish shop, but I was always late. And then I’d see them at the Greenmarket, but would always be doing something later that evening that made carrying around a pound or two of fresh cephalopods a little, well, inconvenient.

And so finally I decided that if I couldn’t get fresh, local squid at Fairway, I’d give up. Thankfully giving up was not a necessary option.

Fairway had them. They also had the most beautiful New Zeland cockles (yes, I know, totally not local, but they’re delicious, so ease up) and gorgeous, aromatic sweet limes.

In fact the squid were so fresh one still had dinner in its belly. Kinda gross, but I took it as a sign of quality.

Dinner could not have been easier. Chop some French shallots, some garlic, sautée, squeeze a lime, add some vermouth, pop in the cockles, toss in the squid and then serve over top of radicchio pasta.

I don’t know if these noodles are available everywhere. I got mine the same place I got the farro curlicues. There’s not much of a raddichio flavor, but the color is lovely and the texture is simply out of sight. They cooked up to an almost ridiculously perfect al dente.

Our only misstep was not having any bread around to sop up the sauce. It was sweet and luscious and perefctly briny.

Oh, well, next time.

Good thing I’ve still got some squid stowed away in the freezer.

Head below the jump for the recipe for Squid & Cockle Pasta with Alliums Three-Ways.

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Thank god for Latin.

Without this sad dead language, the only class in my entire life I gave up entirely, I’d be lost.

I tried very hard to read Winnie the Pooh like an ancient Roman, but the look of perplexed amusement on my Professor’s face every morning when it was my turn to read to the class was too much. One morning he actually laughed out loud and asked, “Tell me again which language you spoke before this class?” I sheepishly replied, “German.” At which he nearly fell off his desk laughing and between gasps got out, “You have possibly the worst accent in Latin I’ve ever heard.”

I never went back to class after that. I decided that sleeping until 10am was far more important than being ridiculed by a tiny Englishman speaking a dead language every day for the rest of my freshman year. Sadly I hadn’t learned enough to become truly pretentious, but luckily I had learned enough to be good at parsing the etymology of taxonomic names.

Why should anyone who cares about food care about etymology and taxonomy? Because it can free you to shop in stores where not only do you not know the language, but sometimes you don’t even know the alphabet!

Case in point? Those amazing dried porcini mushrooms.

All the packaging is in Polish, except for their scientific name Boletus edulis and the word borowik, which rang a bell as the mushroom used as the stuffing for uzska. Now, if I hadn’t had at least a little Latin in my life (well, that and wikipedia) I might have written both these recipes telling you to use borowik mushrooms, when I could have told you to use ceps, porcini,king boletes, steinpilz or even crow’s bread mushrooms. Confused yet?

So rather than bowing to one language over another, I can just tell you to look for the little italic script on the dried mushroom packaging that says B. edulis.

Want another example of useful culinary Latin? Fish. There are so many names for fish, and they can sometimes be confusing.

Case in point? Escolar, aka Snake Mackerel , aka Lepidocybium flavobrunneum, which is sometimes passed off as Chilean Sea Bass (another misnomer as they aren’t even bass), aka Patagonian Tooth Fish, aka Dissostichus eleginoides and I believe also Butterfish of which there are three kinds, Alaskan (Anoplopoma fimbria), American (Peprilus triacanthus) and Pacific (Peprilus simillimus), but may actually be a kind of Oil Fish (Ruvettus pretiosus).

See, just a little Latin and a friendly fishmonger can save you too from a night of unbearable, gut twisting intestinal pain.

Anyway, back to the mushrooms.

Opening the package of dried B. edulis is like walking through a thick, ancient, verdant forest after a day of rain. Musky, earthy, vegetal aromas waft through the air as they soak in the hot water. If umami has a smell, it is this.

The scent memory was locked in my brain the whole next day after making the porcini spätzle. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I was a woman obsessed. And so somehow I convinced The Boy we needed to eat more mushrooms that very next night, and with pasta (not his favorite thing in the world), but I think the words farro (aka emer wheat, aka Triticum dicoccon) and risotto won him over.

What happened to the risotto, or absorption method of cooking pasta that had the foodblogosphere so in it’s thrall last year? Has everyone forgotten it? I certainly hope not because it’s a lovely and amazing way to impart flavor and a gorgeous texture to a simple pasta dinner.

For this dish I soaked the mushrooms and then used the liquid as the cooking liquid for the farro curlicues to absorb. The result was intensely mushroomy in a seriously sensual way. The pasta was silky, yet firm and highly perfumed, enveloped in the shadowy, musky, almost feral, aromas of porcini and fresh sage.

I knew the dish was going to be intense so we planned a light, fresh sunny salad to go alongside it. Sharp and bitter greens with blood oranges, dill and a slightly sweet lingonberry/Scandinavian mustard vinaigrette with chopped hazelnuts (aka filberts aka Corylus avellana) on the side. The salad was a breath of sunshine in these depths of winter.

The filberts were also excellent on top of the pasta, lending a distinctive crunch to the dish.

Sometimes all it takes is a nut to tie it all together.

And yes, that is a Jack Daniels glass I use to mix my salad dressings. You mean, you don’t use one too?

Head below the jump for the recipes for Posh Porcini Pasta and Sunshine Salad.

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Does anyone know if there’s an etymological root shared by porcini mushrooms and the word porcine?

If not, there should be, because they make a handy stand-in for bacon.

On an impromptu trip into the City this weekend, I picked up the winter issue of Diner Journal, a Williamsburg food mag with writing from one of my favorite bloggers, the ever irreverent and potty mouthed Grocery Guy. It’s a really cool little slice of literary food writing, with winter recipes from two Billyburg institutions, Diner and Marlow & Sons.

I browsed through it on the train home, drooling over all the meaty goodness. Brisket cooked in Chimay. Pork braised in milk. Lamb shanks cooked in white wine. Sigh. Can Meat-Free March be over already?

The weird, ball bearing snow we got on Friday night makes it hard to believe winter’s almost over, but there are signs. Croci and daffodils are muscling their ways out of the frozen earth, the robins have returned.

The spring vegetables have not, so larder cooking remains the name of the game.

One of the few meat-free recipes in the Journal is for spätzle. There’s also one for Lentils cooked in red wine I have my eye on. I’m beginning to sense a theme here… These folk really like cooking with booze.

Their spätzle recipe differs a bit from the one I concocted from the memories of my aunt’s Easter-time dumplings in the ratio of egg to milk, so I decided to stick with the one I know. I made the dough a little thicker, like a stiff pancake batter, and used two spoons, as if I was making quenelles, to get the batter to drip into the boiling water. And then, in place of the bacon, I used some reconstituted porcini mushrooms that they sell for scandalously cheap at Polbridge.

But man and woman cannot live on spätzle alone (although you could try, it would probably be a pretty good life too, until the scurvy kicked in of course).

The boy suggested making a vegetarian version of chocroute. I blanched. I paled. I gasped. I scoffed. I felt a little dizzy. Chocroute is one of the meatiest of meaty meat dishes. I felt Frenchmen and women all over the globe turning over in their graves at the very idea of taking the sausages and smoked meats and bacon out of the dish.

But then we got home.

I headed for The Czechoslovak Cookbook first. I hoped to find a cabbage or sauerkraut recipe, but alas, nothing piqued my interest. I then turned to Polish Cookery, and boy oh boy, here we hit the jackpot (and I bet you were beginning to wonder where the pickles fit in).

Like many good old ethnic cookbooks, this one offers up a “mother” recipe which is followed by “chick” recipes, or variations on a theme if you prefer. To wit; Vegetable recipe 30, Sauerkraut in Wine (Kapusta Kiszona na Winie) is followed by Sauerkraut with Dried Mushrooms (no. 31 Kapusta Kiszona z Grzybami) and Sauerkraut with Pickles (no. 32 Kapusta Kiszona z Ogorkami) which is where I stopped in wonder and glee. Sauerkraut? Pickles? Can we get a hells yeah? I thought so.

The original recipe (no. 30) obviously calls for cooking the kraut in wine, while the pickle variation calls for cooking in stock, but I’m a lot like the Diner Journal folks. I enjoy cooking my food in wine. So, I did, but to get that hearty savoriness one would get from stock, I threw in the porcini soaking liquid. Genius, right? I love it when everything ties up neatly in a pretty culinary package.

And how was it all? Delicious! The spätzle had much more body than my original batch and were so garlicky and tasty with the silky, earthy mushrooms mixed in. One would think the kraut would be very sour and sharp, what with pickles and wine along for the ride, but it just isn’t so. The browned onions and mushroomy goodness impart a depth to the liquid that seems almost meaty and gets soaked up by the spätzle doubling their deliciousness.

This is hearty woodsman fare.

But if you ever do actually feed this to a lumberjack I’d suggest throwing in some smoked pork loin (actually, I’d suggest this preparation for anyone not having a Meat-Free March)!

Head below the jump for recipes for Sauerkraut With Pickles & Porcini Spätzle.

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Why are kids and dogs fascinated with holes? Why do we lose our fascination with digging as we age?

I love beaches, always have.

My favorite thing to do on a beach is beachcomb. I have a rather nice collection of shells and rocks that I’ve managed to collect since The Boy and I have been dating. I bring something home from every trip we take.

I can beachcomb for hours now, but could not when I was a kid, I would get bored then and begin digging holes. Like most kids I wondered what would happen if I finally managed to get down to the magma in the middle of the earth, and like most kids, I never made it that far. But now I know. If I dug a hole right out in front of my apartment here in Brooklyn I’d end up in the middle of the Indian Sea, somewhere off of Australia.

I was kind of hoping I’d actually end up on the subcontinent of India. Why? Because something, aside from Gogol, should explain my recent obsession with Indian (and Middle Eastern) food. But alas. I learned from starting a hole where my friend Ruth lives in Bombay that I’d have to live somewhere in the South Pacific, off the coast of Peru, to have this excuse hold water.

So let’s move on to possible explanation number two. Might it be Meat-Free March? Possibly. And what is Meat-Free March? I’m not sure to tell you the whole truth, but it’s some attempt to control the chaos eddying around me I guess. Perhaps it’s the redheaded cousin of TV-Free February, which was scotched this year by the move.

Either way, after being a vegetarian for 13 years, one month is a breeze. Unfortunately I’ve also remembered why I was the only fat vegetarian I knew, it’s so easy to slip into a diet that consists mainly of cheese (glorious cheese!). We had an everyone-eats-cheese-dinner over the weekend (that was gloriously aided and abetted by Patrick from Stinky Brooklyn, thank you!) and so had to do some culinary atonement wherein I discovered the flavor of yellow.

And what is the flavor of yellow?

Curried cauliflower.

Gobbi Matar ki Sabzi to be exact.

On one of my recent book buying rampages I picked up Smita Chandra’s Cuisines Of India. This is a big, workmanlike book in which she covers both traditional and contemporary fusion recipes. In the section on ancient India, this cauliflower recipe jumped out at me immediately due to this phrase, “Grating the cauliflower not only reduces cooking time but also helps brown it thoroughly during sautéeing, enhancing the flavor of the dish.”

It sounded like a quick, 20 minute way to simulate roasted cauliflower, but with delicious spices taken along for the ride. I had to try it.

I’m glad we did. It was so delicious. I don’t keep garam masala lying around, so I had to improvise that, which I think worked out just fine.

I’m amazed at how much depth of flavor came out of such a quick dish. There was heat and intense, punchy spikes, but also mellow, blissed out layers of delicacy. This is a keeper.

The recipe said to serve with spinach and dal, which sounded like too much fuss, so I simply boiled some lentils with mustard seeds and ginger. These are actually better as leftovers. The flavors have had time to meld to great effect, and they’re luscious mixed into leftover basmati and warmed up. Good stuff for an after work dinner.

And so, I present to you the flavor of yellow. I’m very glad I don’t know what the flavor of blue is.

Head below the jump for the recipes for Grated Cauliflower Curry & Gingered Lentils.

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I can hear Fred gently calling to me from the dining room. I don’t know what he wants. I’ll probably never know. You see, Fred is a cat.

We discovered him lazing about in the sun when putting in the air conditioner yesterday, and he only disappeared when the sun went down. All day long he moved from dining room window to kitchen window and then back depending on where we were, gently miaowing in a friendly, conversational way while I baked bread. His handsome, fuzzy face was so distracting in fact, that he caused me to make some blunders in my loaf. Hence, Fred’s bread.

And how did this presumably stray cat get a name? I said something to the boy about fuzzy face, which made me think of Funny Face, which led me to think of Audrey Hepburn and of course Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s which led me to Fred . Et voila! A name is born. (I suppose Cat would have been a more logical name to chose from the movie, but inspiration doesn’t always strike perfectly).

A few weeks ago I was googling something random when I stumbled over this recipe. I was so excited. Crusty Croatian Bread? Yes! The bread in Croatia was amazing. There was something different about it. I kept conjecturing that it was possibly corn meal, but I could never find a recipe for any kind of Croatian bread that wasn’t a sweet, holiday-themed loaf until this one. I was a little disappointed to see nothing unusual in it however aside from the butter.

Last weekend I tried it out. I even found cake yeast and bought a scale to assure that I followed the recipe exactly. I whipped up a pot of fish soup (Shorbet el Samak to be exact) from my new favorite cookbook to have with the bread. I did everything perfectly. And how did the loaf turn out?

Meh.

It was bland and featureless. The crust was a ditzy shade of blond. The crumb was alright but had no flavor. The boy, as always, said it was wonderful. Isn’t he great? It was actually pretty good when soaked in olive oil, and after it had gone stale it reminded me of the bread sticks from the Olive Garden (I’ll leave you to decide if that’s a compliment or not).

And so I spent the week tinkering with the recipe in my head. I would add more salt, a little sugar, some white whole wheat flour and some cornmeal, just to see what happens. I would follow the recipe in technique, but add some twists of my own with a dash of advice from Nigel.

That was the plan, and then Fred showed up.

I was so busy “talking” to him I completely forgot to cut the butter into the flour. Oops. Apparently that was not a crucial step (I added it in little chunks to the already mixed dough) and the loaf turned out AMAZING.

The crust is deeply golden, very slightly charred and yet a breeze to cut through. The crumb is perfect, moist and full of flavor. I can’t believe I nailed my own bread recipe on the first try. It must have been Fred.

And now speaking of Fred… I know nothing about cats as I’m incredibly allergic and have never had one. So, I’m asking you guys. Is he a stray? Just a wandering Tom? What should I do? Should I let him in, put him in a carrier and take him to a vet and try and find him a home? Should I feed him?

He’s obviously full of love. He kept rubbing up against the screen as if he wished it was someone’s hands petting him, but he would also claw at the window screen in a way that made me fear for our new sofa. The only time I’ve ever spent with cats was when I worked for the HSUS in high school, and those were all strays or abused and bit me and scratched me and sent me to the hospital numerous times (not good role models).

Is Fred pulling a Snowball II on me?

Head below the jump for the recipe for Fred’s Bread.
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It’s that time of year. Veggies are looking sad, no matter where you buy them. Hearty winter dishes have lost their appeal. Is there anyway to eat one more root vegetable?

Yes.

Take a cue from summer and boil up a pot of salt potatoes. The spuds might not be the smallest, or the best, but they’re still delicious hot, cold, plain or doused in butter, or better yet, why not dress them up as Vikings?

No, I don’t mean that you should run out and buy a little horned hat for your Mr. Potato Head. Instead I would encourage you to track down some Nordic mustard.

This stuff hails from the ancestral home of Hamcheese and maker of the most amazing chicken pot pies, Nordic Delicacies on 3rd Avenue out here in Bay Ridge. I originally bought it because I liked the packaging, and my condiment addiction needed a fix, but, like most condiments, the mustard proved to be much more than a pretty face.

It has the most wonderful texture. Each little mustard seed pops in your mouth as you chew. It’s somewhat sweet, with just a hint of mustard bite, much different from it’s Polish cousins who tend to be brash and bright, and somewhat overwhelming.

So let’s say that you’ve managed to get some Idun Sennep Grov mustard and you were motivated enough to boil up some spuds. Now what?

Take a few ‘taters and heat them up in a pan with butter or olive oil. Mash them as they’re cooking with the back of a fork until they’re broken apart.

When heated through, place in a bowl and mix in a truly healthy dollop of mustard, a little yogurt or sour cream, a dash of lemon juice, a sprinkle of salt, a pinch of curry powder and a dusting of fresh or dried dill. A few chunks of chopped up cornichons would taste amazing in this as well.

Mix to incorporate, sit down and try to eat with a fork.

Just because your potatoes are wearing Viking garb doesn’t mean you should eat like one.

Gifts come in many guises.

They come in little blue boxes. Wrapped in the Sunday funnies. Hidden behind backs. In crates marked “fragiiile.” In baskets. With ribbons tied around fuzzy necks.

And sometimes, out of the blue.

Some of my favorite gifts are ones I’ve given myself (selfish-only-child that I am), like my new favorite book, purchased a few weekends ago at the Strand.

There are many Middle Eastern groceries in Bay Ridge, chock to the ceilings with amazing looking things in packages marked in curvy Arabic script that I don’t know how to use. On a recent book buying expedition, I spotted A Book Of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden. I grabbed it without even looking inside. I figured it would have at least something to teach me. I was right.

This book is a gift in every sense of the word. Full of anecdotes, knowledge and delectable recipes, I’ve barely been able to put it down since I picked it up Saturday morning after declaring to The Boy, “I think I want to make a lentil dish tonight.” If anyone knows the author, please thank her for me.

One of the other gifts to come into our busy, hectic lives since moving, is a place around the corner called The Family Store. It’s a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean deli of sorts. There’s olive oils and beans, dry cured olives, cheeses, rices, dried fruits, nuts.

But the real gem is the long case at the back of the store full of prepared foods. You never know what they’re going to have. One night it will be Chesapeake Bay-style crab cakes nuzzling up against rack of lamb. Curried cauliflower next to a warm salad of radicchio. But our go-to for a quick snack is a pilav made of bulgur wheat, reshteh and chickpeas tossed in olive oil with a hint of garlic. Outstanding warm, just as tasty cold.

I’m enamoured with these tiny noodles, the reshteh. They’re basically just broken up angel hair pasta, similar to what Spaniards use in fideuá or Mexicans in fideos. When I spotted a lentil recipe using the reshteh, I knew I had to make it. But, then, on second thought, what good are lentils with no starch?

It was time to confront my rice fears. I settled on making the lentils minus noodles, and rice plus noodles.

I know I say this from time to time, but I’m going to gush… This was one of the best meals I’ve ever made in my entire life. Hands down. The lentils were luxurious, simple, bold and seductive. The rice fragrant, clean, alluring and decadent.

I’m over the moon that I now own 10 pounds of, what I was assured to be, the very best (World’s Best & Longest!) Basmati rice you can buy for $8 (and get a free handbag to boot). I know this is the winter of discovering the obvious, but oh, Basmati! I love you! I love your aroma and your fluffiness, your adaptability, but mostly your aroma. I want to eat you for dinner every night.

They may not look like much, the sunny yellow lentils (no turmeric added!) and the bland white rice, but don’t let that fool you. This is hearty, soul-satisfying winter fare. If you need to serve more than two people, double the lentils. If you need to serve less than four people, or do not want leftovers halve the amounts in the rice recipe.

But why you wouldn’t want leftovers I have no idea. They heat up well on the stove, and would probably do just fine in the microwave.

Now, close your eyes, I have a present for you. It’s just a little thing, a gift to make a cold day feel warmer.

Tada! Yes, it’s just two recipes, but they’re really, really good ones.

This could even be party fare. Dig your best wall tapestry from college out of storage to use as a tablecloth, light candles, toast some naan, burn incense, eat with your hands and if you must, sit on the floor while drinking mint tea, and serve the rice and lentils with harissa-marinated lamb, pickled cauliflower and maybe a tomato and onion salad.

Happy Tuesday. I hope you like my gift.

It better fit.

I can’t return it.

Head below the jump for the recipes for Lavish Lentils and Roz Bil Shaghira.

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I was surprised by how many of you out there were surprised that I had done a stint in the belly of a restaurant a few years ago. All of my friends know this about me. But then it occurred to me that, well, yes, you, my readers, are in a way my friends, but that the only way that we talk is through this back and forth of blips on a computer screen.

You have no idea that when I’m puzzling over a tough problem at work, I chew on the charm dangling from my necklace. You can’t see how well I can tell an animal story because of my uncanny (and some would say dubious) talent for portraying the animals with body language and facial expressions. You (hopefully) are unaware of what a git I look like when I go running.

And so it is with this in mind that I’m going to briefly take up the gracious offer from culinary acupunctress Toni to tell you five things you (hopefully) don’t know about me. I’m using the restaurant stint as No. 1.

No. 2: When I was a kid I had a black lab that had to be taught to swim, a horse with a taste for fine champagne and an anorexic parakeet.

No. 3: I have a crooked toe on my left foot that I think is kind of cute, but most people find a little creepy.

No. 4: My favorite poem in the entire world is i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings.

No. 5: I was a vegetarian for 13 years.

This is the point I was actually trying to get to. Like many 13 year old American girls, I suddenly lost all ability to cope with meat. I can remember the day exactly.

My high school was doing an international food fair. Everyone in my German class was assigned a course to cook, typical German fare, natürlich! I was given the meat course, but being rebellious, I refused to cook something typical. So down onto the floor I flopped with my mother’s German edition of the ‘Round The World series (anyone in their 30s and older should remember these) to look for something edgy, unexpected and unique. And boy did I find it.

Here’s where my memory gets a little fuzzy. I believe the recipe I settled upon was called Fisherman’s Stew, but it contained no fish. Rather it was a stew of pork and beef. So my mother took me to the store, I picked out my cuts of meat and my vegetables, we got home and I started chopping. Everything was going along just fine until I started cutting the meat into cubes, at which time it didn’t go a little bit wrong, it went a whole lot wrong.

I started envisioning the animals from which the meat had come, their killing, butchering, the happy lives they could have had. I was taking an advanced biology class where we had just dissected cats. I knew what muscles I was cutting into. And so I threw up, and then I fainted. My mother had to finish the stew, and I didn’t eat meat for 13 years.

Soft fade back to a few years ago when I’m working in that kitchen. Chef finally convinces me that if I’m going to make a career of cooking for people I was going to have to eat what I was sending out to them, and so I stopped being a vegetarian. I believe my first meat meal was duck, and my second was bunny (that’s what they call rabbit in kitchens), but it could have been the other way around. I’ve never turned back.

Chef taught me proper butchering techniques and I try desperately to ensure the animals I consume lived a nice life, that they were happy. But every now and again I’ll come across something I won’t eat. Horse. No. Never. I rode for 16 years. There were times when my horse was my closest friend in the whole world. I would never eat my best friend, and I will never eat horse. I love to eat rabbit, but I will never cook it. They all look like they were killed mid-leap (I had a pet rabbit when I was a kid, too). Dog (see above).

And why am I telling you this? Because I think I added something else to this list, but not for moral reasons. Short ribs. Home cooked short ribs to be exact. The boy has been agitating for them for months now, and so when I fell prey to the siren call of mackerel I picked up some short ribs too.

It’s a cut of meat I had zero experience with, so I went where the curious home cook in the know goes, I went to The Kitchen and asked the panel. Unfortunately no one told me about the chilling and fat skimming until after the fact, but that’s okay, I forgive easily (just kidding Guido).

But that wasn’t the real problem. Perhaps it was the spices I used in the braise (allspice, fennel seed, bay leaves, seeds of paradise, kalonji & Worcestershire sauce in red wine) but the meat had, to me, an unpleasant, almost metallic crust that hurt my teeth. Chewing it was kind of like chewing aluminum foil; intensely unpleasant. But it was only me that felt this way. The boy was rapturous. He even ate with his hands (a sight that is very, very rare).

Oh well, these things happen. A countless number of meat recipes exist in the world for me try my hand it, it won’t hurt anyone if I leave this one recipe to the professionals.