Gifts from my Neighbors

Sunday night, right after pizza with grilled peppers, we ate a second giant dinner.  At about 7:30, our eight-year old neighbor Jessie knocked at our door and said, "My dad wants you to come over for noodles."  This happens once every 6 or 8 weeks, and we have to go.  We want to go, no matter how close to the kids' bedtime or how utterly stuffed we are.  

We've been neighbors with Jessie's family (Hong, Van, and their four children) for six years, and in the last 2 or 3 years, we are finally friends.  Yancey and I were naive when we moved to the Rainier Valley 12 years ago, expecting to instantly be friends with all our neighbors.  We're the only Anglo family on the block, and Wyatt is one of 12 Anglo kids at his elementary school of 500.  There are very real and persistent cultural, economic, and linguistic barriers to forming community where we live, and it takes a lot more than just being nice and well-intentioned to build relationships.  Part of what we're discovering is that it sometimes takes eating two dinners.

Not that it's a trial.  Hong is an excellent cook and exhibits the kind of hospitality I aspire to.  He ladles heaping, tangled bowls of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) and pulls out a case of cold Heineken.  Every five minutes, he proposes another toast and we clink bottles all around.  They show us their kids' good grades (all four are off-the-charts smart and accomplished) and always, always send us away with gifts.

This time, we carted home a sagging bag of mangos and oranges.  Hong runs an Asian grocery store in Olympia, and their house is always stocked with divine delectables.  These champagne mangos were the huge, supple, juice-runs-down-your-arm variety and were gone in 12 hours.  My kids grew a separate stomach for them.  I cannot overstate how perfect they were.  

The next afternoon, there was another knock at the door.  This time it was Van.  She smiled, nodded, and set a bagged chicken in my hands.  Chopped salad was on the menu for dinner, so I thought I'd roast up the chicken and we could have it alongside.  I slipped it out of the bag and about had a heart attack.  The head and neck flopped down against the side of the sink with a thwack.  The beak and beady eyes stared up at me, and I just wasn't prepared for company.  I think I may have screamed.  Which is so embarrassing.  I know where chicken comes from, don't I?  Clearly, I am a City Girl, and I'm admitting it to you.  In the era of "know-where-your-meat-comes-from," I have failed a major test, I think.

I managed to cut the foreign parts off and then noticed the claws were tucked up into the cavity of the bird--big, vicious looking ones.  I left them. I made broth out of the carcass later, and it was sinfully fatty and yellow. I strained the fat off after it chilled and my family had yet another variation of noodle soup when I was gone last night.  

Point is, living next to Hong and Van reminds me how giving and receiving cements relationships and how all of us need to be on both ends of that at different times .  And how food can make inroads when lots of other things can't. And how a white girl, no matter how hard I try, just can't find mangos like that to save my life.

Egg Noodles in Soy Broth

 


This Mark Bittman creation has been circulating all over the tweet-blogging interscapes the last couple weeks (here and here), and I drooled every time I saw it.  So I had to make it.  Plus, easy peasy.  Plus, you are now quite familiar with my childrens' love of Top Ramen.  Mark (Bittman, of course) calls this the un-ramen, meaning--you actually know what goes into it and the noodles aren't deep-fried.

It seems silly to repeat the recipe since you can actually watch Mark make it online (I have a new crush, obviously). But  I'll put it in here so you don't have to skip around and I can list my very basic additions.

I lined the bowls with spinach and chunks of soft tofu, put the cooked noodles on top of that, then ladled broth over the whole thing.  Then topped with chopped scallions.  Yum.  It's late at night as I type this, and I would consume a vat of it if it were in front of me.  The kids devoured it, and I'll have to work hard not to make it twice a week.  I could have done that in my pre-blogging life, but the pressure's on now.  Although I'm very comforted by this Orangette posting about how all desire to cook new things has gone out the window.  We've gone through many phases of nachos/quesadillas/repeat. I'm sure another one is just around the corner, only this time it might be noodles in soy broth followed by noodles in Nigella's ginger chicken broth.  I'm saving that one for another posting.  I need something up my sleeve when the creativity runs out.

In addition to being delicious, noodle soups really are comforting just like everyone says.  Our Great Grandma Luella passed away last month.  She was a life and laughter-loving woman who beat all sort of odds to live until 93.  After the memorial and graveside service (during which Wyatt was extraordinarily quiet and curious), we all went back to Dick and Phyllis' (my in-laws) house.  Phyllis had made a giant pot of chicken soup with udon noodles, and it was just the thing.  Everyone gravitated to it, just enjoying holding the warm bowls, standing around the steaming pot.  How good it is to eat together, whether we're happy or really sad.

There are so many other things you could add to this--leftover chicken or pork, bean sprouts, Asian basil, thinly sliced bok choy.  It won't surprise you to know that my children prefer it PLAIN, and I overload mine with spinach and spice the hell out of it.  Three cheers for things that please more than one generation.

Egg Noodles with Soy Broth
Serves 4--adapted from The Wednesday Chef (who got it from The Minimalist)   

Salt
1/3 cup soy sauce, more to taste
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar, more to taste
A few drops dark sesame oil
A squirt of sriracha or other Asian chile-garlic sauce
1 pound egg noodles, preferably fresh (but you can use dried spaghetti, angel hair, udon, soba, etc.)
Few handfuls fresh spinach
8 oz. soft tofu, cut into small cubes
2 green onions, thinly sliced  

 1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. In a smaller pot, bring 6 cups of water to a boil; once boiling, reduce heat so water bubbles gently.

2. To the smaller pot add soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar, sesame oil if using and sriracha or chili, along with a pinch of salt. Stir and let simmer. 

 
3. Add egg noodles to large pot; fresh noodles will be ready in just a couple of minutes; dried will take longer. When tender but not mushy, drain. Taste broth and add more soy, salt, vinegar or heat as you like.  

4. Line bowls with spinach and tofu, if using. Divide noodles into bowls and pour hot broth over all.  Top with green onions. Eat it and take a break from your sorrows, at least for a minute.

Grilled Pepper Pizza

Sorry, those of you who remain indifferent to pizza.  Here's the latest Sunday version.  Three guesses what it's topped with. Sarah's leftover grilled peppers!!  The most exciting thing about this photo, though, is the vase of lilacs that Yancey and Wyatt stole for me on Mother's Day morning.  My mom is Queen of Lilac Stealing, so we learned from the best.  I have always wanted a lilac bush--not a little struggling one that makes us wait, but a huge, lush double one.  Shoot.  We've been in our house over six years.  By this time, I certainly could have planted one and saved Wyatt from a life of crime.  

So remember those peppers and onions from yesterday?  They were chopped and mixed with parsley, garlic, and more olive oil and spread on a pizza crust.  With some little mozzarella balls and snippets of fresh chives. Priya asked recently how I can afford to always have fresh herbs around.  These chives are from a neglected pot on my deck, and this little clump has miraculously survived.  Mary gave me a beautiful herb pot for my birthday at least five years ago, and the other things have slowly died off.  I just re-potted the chives, and they seem grateful.  I love the delicate hollow tubes and how sprightly they welcome Spring. Fresh herbs make me think of Jamie Oliver.  He uses them recklessly and acts as if everyone has acres growing right outside their door.  I've always resented that when I'm following one of his recipes.  Now that I have some firmly established herbs of my own, I see why he can't shut up about them.  I'm sorry!  Don't expect me to be traveling in a van around Italy anytime soon, though.  Unlike Jamie, I don't have seven nannies.

So the end of Mother's Day was spent with yet another pizza and bottle of rosé champagne.  Yancey helped Wyatt with his homework, Loretta rode her trike, and I scripted what I would say to you all when it came time. You can find the pizza dough recipe here.  If  you don't have grilled veggies around, surely there's something. Make sure to tell me about what you found.

Grilled Peppers and Onions Pizza Topping
3 grilled peppers, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped (you can find technique here)
1 grilled onion, coarsely chopped
handful fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper
olive oil
8 oz. little fresh mozzarella balls or any kind of mozzarella
1/4 c. crumbled blue cheese 
handful snipped chives

In a bowl, combine peppers, onions, parsley, salt and pepper, and a couple big glugs of olive oil.  Spread on pizza crust and top with mozzarella and blue cheese.  Cook according to directions in this recipe.  Once the pizza is out, top with chives.

Blue Cheese Burgers with Grilled Onions and Peppers

One of the best things about this blog is that it's put me in contact with people on the fringes of my life.  If I've ever doubted my extrovert status, I don't anymore.  Some of you are laughing right now.  Isn't it funny how other people sometimes know us so much better than we know ourselves?

One of those fringe people is my cousin Megan who emailed me recently and said she's been on the hunt for the perfect burger.  Megan is an excellent cook (and seems to excel at whatever she does, come to think of it), so I'm quite reticent to call this the perfect burger.  Plus, isn't this really one of the more touchy, subjective food subjects? Some people are all about the beef--if it's Wagyu or not, how it's raised, how bloody it is.  Other people are all about the accoutrements and the bun.  I'm in the latter category.  So if you're all about the beef, try to stay with me for the sake of my needy extrovertedness.  What can I say?  I like an audience.

I can't really talk about burgers without saying, right off the bat, that my favorite burger place and the most constant craving in my life is Red Mill Burgers.  They have two shops in Seattle--one in Greenwood and one in Interbay. I probably think about Red Mill Burgers once a day and go there at least once a month even though it's a trek. Sometimes I have to put Red Mill out of my mind because the thought of their anaheim chile burger is so torturous. Like right now.  I have to change the subject...

To my other favorite burger place--Nell Thorn Pub way up in LaConner where my in-laws live.  Theirs is a grilled bun, juicy beef, and grilled red peppers and onions with a seasoned mayo.  The burger pictured is a copycat of Nell Thorn's, and it was almost as good.  For some reason, they do taste a bit better when I'm on a date with Yancey playing cribbage and drinking beer.

I grilled up a bunch of yellow peppers (4 lbs. for $1 at MacPhersons!) and onions and made some herbed mayo. And I bought Macrina brioche buns at PCC.  OMG.  Buns.  Since we only make burgers at home once every few months, there's no way I'm going to wreck it with a bad bun.  Good buns are very hard to find, it turns out.


All my opinions are coming out here.  I hope they don't feel wrathful.  But I hate ketchup on burgers.  I like ketchup on fries and fried egg sandwiches, but that's about it.  If I've just gone to all the trouble to grill peppers and onions, I'm not going to spoil everything with ketchup.  I am a mayonnaise lover from my youth (another touchy subject--some people shudder at the thought of mayo) so I have my burgers just with mayo or I often make a quick garlic or herbed version like I did here.

I'd better stop and redeem myself.  I am really serious about my belief that eating together is always more important than what is eaten.  I have gratefully eaten many, many burgers in my life that weren't like this one. Contrary to what lots of people think, I am not picky, and my worst fear is that friends or family won't want to cook for me because I go on and on about the horrors of ketchup on burgers.  I think I've offended lots of people in my life by being so bracingly opinionated.  It's just that, when I'm in my own kitchen, it's actually fun for me to occasionally produce that which I'm craving (and then to go on and on about it).  My friend Chris has called me "The Exaggeratress" for a long time, and this blog helps me turn that into a higher calling instead of just a flaw.

So here's the "recipe," finally.  My burger patties were nothing special--just meat and salt.  So I'll let you do those your way. And my Macrina buns were grilled (cold buns are another thing that can wreck a burger).  Otherwise, here's how to do the peppers and mayo, and blue cheese doesn't hurt, either.  I put it on when the burgers are almost done so it turns into a gooey, creamy mess.

Grilled Peppers and Onions
(This makes way too much.  Enough for the pizza I'll be writing about soon)

6 yellow (or red or orange or combo) bell peppers
1 large red onion
1 large yellow onion
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat grill on high.  Brush whole peppers with olive oil, and cut onions into 1/2" thick rings and brush with olive oil.  Grill everything together.  Onions will take about 4 or 5 minutes on each side, and you can take them off before the peppers are done.  Grill the peppers until charred all over--10-12 minutes.  Put the charred peppers in a plastic or paper bag and let them sweat and cool down in there, about 15 minutes.  This helps the skins come off easily.  Pell the skins off, cut and seed them, and add them to the bowl with the peppers.  Toss everything with olive oil, salt, and pepper.


Herbed mayo
1 c. mayonnaise
1 garlic clove, minced
1 handful chopped fresh herbs (I used oregano)
juice of 1/2 lemon
lots of salt
pepper

Stir everything together!

Children Running Through

Since I have now broken you into poetry, I figure I've got license to sneak it in more often.  Here's a beautiful Rumi poem that has been important to me all year and came up again today:

On Children Running Through
from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

I used to be shy.
You made me sing.

I used to refuse things at table.
Now I shout for more wine.

In somber dignity, I used to sit
on my mat and pray.

Now children run through
and make faces at me.

-----------------

This morning I went for a run after our Mother's Day maple bars.  I could talk about Western Donut's maple bars all day, but I'll just say for now they are ambrosial, and Yancey and Wyatt ran and got them for me before I woke up. On my run, I was thinking about something my sister said last night, which was that I seem more lighthearted and less intense these days.  Or, in Rumi's words, more likely to skip the somber dignity in favor of children running through and making faces at me.

Nearing the end of my run and smiling to myself about this, I encountered three children playing tag in front of their house. They waved and ran along with me for a block.  They didn't talk to me directly, but just kept company a few paces, still laughing and talking amongst themselves.  It was like I got caught in a flock of joy, carried along by a tailwind of sheer happiness.  The Sun had an interview this month with Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist who's spent more than 20 years researching positive emotions. She says, 

We should be focusing on how we feel from day to day, not on how we can become happy with life in general.  If you focus on day-to-day feelings, you end up building your resources and becoming your best version of yourself. Down the road, you'll be happier with life.  Rather than staring down happiness as our goal and asking ourselves, "How do I get there?" we should be thinking about how to create positive emotions in the moment.

Though we have been happy, healthy, and cared-for, the last three years have been a little bit hard.  Lots of transition and uncertainty and trying to live in the moment in spite of that.  This morning, getting caught up in the flock of children and eating maple bars with my family, I felt a kind of real-time happiness--the kind that doesn't need hindsight to be complete. And I knew that somber dignity is overrated and hasn't really produced much in my life.  Though I don't recognize it many days, I need children running through, and their silly faces save me from myself all the time.