The Chiro's Confetti Rice

Harriet Van Horne said, "Cooking is like love—it should be entered into with abandon, or not at all."

Like love, cooking can require patience, improvisation and a whole lotta prep work. Also like love, if you're doing it right, all the effort is worth it in the end. Feel free to quote me on that.

Last night I was craving Confetti Rice, a dish The Chiro took to making for me when I wasn't feeling well and was eating plain white rice day after day. He worried that I would get bored with my monochromatic meals and started adding different ingredients each time.

We never had a name for the dish until now.

Last night he chopped dark purple cabbage, ripe red bell pepper, and vibrant green italian parsely, minced two cloves of garlic and sauteed these in butter and olive oil with pine nuts and shredded carrots. All the while, the white and brown mix of basmati rices was bubbling.

He stirred the veggies as I snapped photos and suddenly asked me, "Can we call this Rainbow Rice?"
I laughed at the absurdity of the name, although in this variation it was entirely apt. "What happens though, when there isn't any cabbage or bell pepper?" I asked. "Wouldn't "Refrigerator rice be more fitting? You know, since we throw in whatever is in the fridge?"
He thought for a moment as he added the cooked rice, a pinch of saffron, a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkling of salt and pepper and a bunch of turmeric. He looked up at me. "Confetti Rice, then" he said. "In honor of your birthday."

So Confetti Rice it is.

Love and eating well

For me, the two are intertwined.

I just had the best frittata ever. Who knows, though. Maybe I'm just saying that because I am the one who made it?

The Chiro and I had set out early Sunday morning because we'd heard there was a farmer's market in the area. Since he works on Saturdays, we'd decided to hit the market on Sunday and see what looked appealing. When we arrived, laughing and holding hands, we realized that what was supposed to be a Sunday morning farmer's market, was now a new set of condominiums.

Whoops.

Luckily though, there was a New Seasons Market a block away, and we still wanted to buy some fresh vegetables. If any of you are lucky enough to have a New Seasons then you'll know what I mean when I talk about the allure of the produce section. I watched a woman hand-stack the kiwis for best presentation. A man who worked there was refilling in the baby bok choy where people had taken a few stalks, so that it looked inviting. (I'll admit, I was one of the people. Ginger tofu-vegetable stir fry anyone?) I just love that store! Plus, they carry really good frozen gluten free waffles (Van's brand).

Anyway, after wandering the aisles for an hour, we headed home to make some breakfast. While he put the groceries away and rinsed the firm, plump green grapes for us to snack on, I whisked 5 eggs with a handful of shredded carrots, a splash of milk, half a diced red bell pepper, one stalk of fresh spring onion and some minced garlic. I also added a splash of rice milk (The Chiro doesn't tolerate dairy really well) and a pinch of Vignalta herbed sea salt, my FAVORITE seasoning.

I melted some butter in a pan int eh oven and then poured this eggy mixture into the pan and baked it until it puffed up, then topped it with some crumbled feta cheese and baked it for 3 minutes more (so the cheese would soften). After plating it, we added a few forkfuls of Emerald valley salsa (grown locally in Eurene!) and gobbled the meal up before I had a chance to grab my camera and photograph the delectable meal. Really, I am sorry to deprive you all... it was beautiful sitting in the pan, but I had more use for it in my tummy!

I need a name

I've been thinking a lot about the poetry of our lives: That timeless ebb and flow of our days changing into nights and back into days. So often we get caught up in all the things we "have to do" and we forget to step back, relax, and smell the bread baking or the hyacinths in bloom.

I love to bake, but haven't done much of it lately. Part of that is because I'm afraid to try gluten free recipes (what if they fail miserably?), and part of that is that I have been so busy during my week that I just want to relax on the weekend and not "have to do" anything. Except maybe laundry.

Clean underpinnings are a good thing.

Someone once asked me what name I would have were my current one to flee, and I had a hard time choosing one. I think I finally settled on "ginger" thinking both of the spiky white fragrant flowers on those Hawaiian trees that I love to adorn my hair, and of the spicy seasoning that can play either naughty or nice (triple ginger chocolate cake versus a relatively sedate stir fry). I'm not so sure Ginger suits me anymore.

It's a funny thing about names, that our parents (usually) put in a lot of time and effort into choosing one imbued with meaning that they hope will fit us, and then by the time we are 8 or so, we've decided that we need a different name and so we pick alter egos and pseudonyms. Well, now I need a pseudonym for a top-secret assignment (I can't tell you any more about that or I'd have to kill you and I really don't want to kill you. I just washed this shirt). What I CAN tell you though, is that the name needs to reflect, not just who I AM, but who I'd like to be: Someone magnetic, passionate, vibrant, sassy, and maybe just a tad dangerous.

My mother recommended Veronica Franco to me. The main character in the movie "Dangerous Beauty," Veronica was a 16th century poetess... and courtesan. And as much as I like her ability to charm anyone she meets, I just can't reconcile being named after a hooker.

So the search continues...

We learn through our mis-steps

Blogging is a curious thing, isn't it? In a world that is increasingly reliant on technology (email, cell phones, computers, GPS sytems), it's easy to feel disconnected from one another. We spend less face to face time and more time playing with our various gadgets. But technology also can allow us to connect with people we might not otherwise encounter.
I remember when blogs first became popular: they served as more of an online personal diary and method of confession than anything else, and certainly there are blogs whose primary function is still to do that. But there are also the blogs that you find that make you feel understood, less alone, more normal.

Right after I discovered that I shouldn't eat gluten, I went through the grief stages of mourning my usual lunches and dinners. I became an avid ingredients reader, and tried some variations of recipes that turned out abysmally (DONT try to use an all purpose GF flour with your normal pizza dough recipe... needs some tweaking to come out edible!). In a search for gluten free dining, I stumbled across Gluten Free Girl's blog (and have included a link here). I was hooked after reading the first entry. She's got Celiac's Disease and her sweetie pie is a chef (!). She loves food and the way she writes about the joy, the passion that surrounds food reminds me of me. She also happens to be a very good writer and is a joy to read.

Her recipes have excited me (and I can't wait to try a few out this weekend), and reading about her exploits has reminded me that there are many, many people out there with food allergies, and there are many many recipe options.

I know that one of my biggest challenges to overcome is not in finding gluten free foods I can eat, but in experimenting with recipes. I tell my friends that no one is perfect (indeed, I told The Chiro that when we first started dating and he mentioned that he thought I was perfect for him), and yet I still don't want to make any mistakes. It seems that much worse when someone else witnesses my mistakes, but if I am afraid to play, then however will I learn?

This is a theme that comes up in my dancing as well. I have advanced through the ranks quite quickly, and yet still find flaws I want to iron out. I don't think we ever stop learning, but I have always tended to play it too cautiously.

Last week, I decided to experiment (with said GF flour and making pizza dough). I cooked some chicken breasts with herbed sea salt, summer savory, thyme, oregano and dill and then diced the breasts. I rolled out the pizza dough onto my stoneware and sprinkled olive oil over the crust. I chopped 3 fresh cloves of garlic and spread these over the crust as well and then spread shredded mozzarella and fresh baby spinach leaves of the top of this. I added the cubed chicken pieces, some sliced black olives and some crumbled feta and baked it forever.
The resulting pizza was... passable. The toppings were REALLY good (must remember what I did to the chicken!) The crust was dry, tasteless and slightly gritty from the garbonzo and fava beans in the flour mix. The most depressing thing about this whole experiment is that I spent $23 and 2 1/2 hours making this pizza, when I could have gone to papa murphys and gotten their herbed chicken Mediterranean pizza and just not eaten the dough (savings: $15 and 2 hours, includes drive time). Ah well, I know better now.

On her website, Shauna (the Gluten Free girl) mentions that Whole foods has an awesome gluten free pizza crust.
I shall have to try that next time I want to experiment.

There is a certain element to cooking that is like an elaborate dance. Like the form of tribal bellydance that I've been learning, much of cooking is improvisational. Oh sure, you have your rough guidelines (recipes, utensils, etc) but there is a certain grace to someone who is at ease in the kitchen, a flow to their movements.

As my 29th birthday approaches, I wish for myself the confidence to experiment, to takes risks, to play, and to learn. Afterall, as I keep reminding my friends, there is no failure: only feedback!

A Pasta-free Trip to Italy?

Well it's been ages since I've written anything and I have to apologize, my darlings. I hope you weren't terribly lonesome while I was off gallivanting and having fun?
Okay, I wasn't really: I was sick and stressed out and tired of feeling awful, but I figured out that I have a wheat intolerance and it was only a matter of eliminating it from my diet and VOILA! I feel much better. Of course, there was an adjustment period where all I ate was rice (and protein drinks). I was pretty cranky (not just because I wasn't getting enough nutrients, but also because I felt like the entire world of food I could have had just shrunk). I've always been a person who's derived such pleasure out of eating: sampling foods and sharing meals and laughing and socializing have all revolved around food for me. In addition, I love to cook and bake and that's one of the ways I show my love for the people around me. I can certainly still do all that, only now, I can't eat a majority of what I love preparing. On the upside: I'll be really healthy if I stick to my regimented diet (rice, protein, veggies, all fruits except blackberries, strawberries, melons, and oranges). Luckily, enough people are wheat intolerant that there are options in the stores for pasta made from rice flour.
Cooking mixes too, although nothing I've tasted thus far (with the exception of Van's WheatFree Waffles) are palatable.
If anyone knows of any kickass recipes for cinnamon rolls or cookies made with rice flour (or PIZZA DOUGH: I tried to make wheat-free pizza last night and... the toppings were really good. Yup. That's about all I'll say about that) please send them my way!

On a whole other note: I'm going to Italy! I can't wait, particularly since I started learning the language last year, with no trip in sight. People would ask me if I was going to go to Italy, and I'd reply "Of course I am. I just don't know when..." Well, the plane and hotels are all booked now and I couldn't be more ecstatic. We're flying into Milan on June 27th and staying the night there. In the morning we'll head to Cinque Terre for a nice relaxing 4 night stay in Vernazza. I'm particularly excited about this because we'll be able to relax on la spiaggia and swim in the Mediterranean and eat PESTO! Mmmm. Ligurian pesto (where the blend originated) is the best I've ever had. I still don't know if I'll be able to eat the pesto on the region's specialty pasta, trofie (it looks like little pale worms on the plate with mushed up grass from the bright green of the pesto). Mmm. There's a possibility that the wheat over there won't bother me because it's not genetically modified, but we shall see. If not, then I'll eat pesto on greenbeans, another specialty there!

While in CT, we'll take a day trip by train to Pisa (gotta see that crazy leaning tower!) and then head on to Florence. I am SO excited about this part. It's the birthplace of the Renaissance... which means art... I'm gonna go see The David's chiseled derrier! While in florence, we are also going to take a bike tour of the tuscan hills overlooking the city. Should be a blast! Then we head over to Venice, which I've heard people either LOVE or are totally indifferent to. There seems to be no middle ground (but I DO think it's interesting that the people who love the city tend to go with a romantic partner whereas the others have gone with a tour of strangers or a group of friends). Since I'll be there with my BF, I'm sure I'll love it. Plus...have you ever seen the movie Dangerous Beauty? Sigh.

After Venice, where we are going to take a cooking class and a daytrip to hike in the Dolomites, we head to Verona for 3 days to see the opera. Check this link out for the location of the Opera. Eccellente, no?

Then, a quick one night stay back in Milan before we fly out on July 14th. I am SO excited. If you know of anyplace I simply MUST go, please let me know. I'm always open to restaurant suggestions too!

It's been fun trying to practice my Italian as I email the owners of beds and breakfasts and make reservations... I have gotten really good at asking for a room for two with a shower and toilet...