Wednesdays Ms. S. works what are for her ‘weird’ hours, 4-11pm. She gets lunch in the afternoon but needs a real ‘dinner’ when she gets home; she’ll be up for many more hours, so it’s not as if she’ll get home, eat a big meal, and then sleep on it. I like go go out of my way to make a varied but not too heavy late dinner on Wednesdays. Usually I come up with it after she goes to work, so I shouldn’t be surprised that I do not yet know what I’m going to cook.
But I wish I had some ideas.
Part the First: Starters
Ideas.
The following books and articles are full of thoughts and ideas.
- Schinharl, Cornelia, 1 Kartoffel, 50 Rezepte
- Havala Hobbs, Suzanne, Living Vegetarian for Dummies
- Gordinier, Jeff, “Vegan Food is Mainstream in Southern California“
There is nothing special about Havala Hobbs’ book, but it’s a reminder today that there’s a wide range of “comfort foods” or “all time favorites” that is nearly if not already vegetarian to start with, and that many or most are dishes fit for a quick dinner, such as pizzas and pastas, not to mention the more obvious soups and salads.
Which leads me to think that appropriate to tonight would be a quick soup and salad to start, followed by a pizza or “flatbread.”
Part the Second: Flat is Beautiful
I’m fond of (but not obsessed with) Michael Ruhlman’s “Ratio” for baking (breads). Pizza dough is basically just bread dough, that is, a 5:3 ratio (by weight) of flour to water. Flour is about 100 calories per ounce (~28g); to serve two I often make a small dough with 100g of flour and 60 to 65g of water, a pinch of salt, and a bit (1/4 tsp) of yeast. All you have to do is together the ingredients pretty well, cover with plastic wrap or a towel, and let rise in a warm-ish environment for a couple of hours. Roll it out, let it rest, roll it out some more if necessary … get it to the shape you want, though be satisfied with a “rustic” look. Bake it as hot as you can in your oven; 450F is fine, though. Often I’ll bake it a few minutes with just a coat of olive oil, then take it out and add toppings, then returning it for the last 5-10 minutes.
Tonight it would make sense to make this dough—or even reduce it to 85g flour and 50-56g water—, divided it in two when rolling it out, and make two small, single-serving flatbreads, each topped differently for me and for Ms. S.
Soup, salad, flatbread. All that’s left is dessert.
Part the Third: Contemplating Comments
There is nothing wrong with the NY Times article/post above about veganism in California, but it is open to a couple avenues of analysis.
The first is the use of the word “normal.” We use it at least three ways, only one of which is accurate here. We often take ‘norm’ or ‘normal’ to be ‘average’ or the ‘default’. This seems descriptive rather than prescriptive; it describes what is, not what ought to be. On the other hands, norms are normative; they prescribe, they tell us what we value, what we consider “normal.” When we say “normal people do this” or “normal people don’t do this” we are referencing values, regardless of actual statistical “averageness,” etc. And we’re not even talking about the use of “normalize” in data management and modeling. But the other way that it’s being used here is sort of related to the norm-normative version, but it’s not telling us what we ought to valuee, and it’s not telling us what is average or (most) common. Instead, it’s telling us that “vegan” and “vegetarian,” at least in some circles, are no longer strong outliers. They don’t necessarily raise eyebrows. They’re part of the common vocabulary, even if (though!) they represent only a minority.
That’s what it is in our society, or in lots of societies, to treat minories as “normal.” It’s not that they are “average” or “median” or “common,” only that they are part of a broad territory that we consider “normal.” When I was growing up everyone I knew, until one kid’s parents got divorced, belonged to a family with two married parents and one to several children. In the fourth grade a new kid moved to our school, he lived down the road, and we became friends. He lived with his mom and little sister in what had been a rural school years before and had since been sold and subdivided into a handful of two-bedroom, relatively low-income apartments. He and his family did not fit the “norm.” It’s not just that his situation was uncommon; it was marked, it stood out. When you said “family” you mean mother, father, children. When someone said lawyer or doctor, you assumed male and white. If you said elementary school teacher you mean female. Skip ahead a decade, two decades, now nearly three decades, and single-family households are completely normal in most of the US; two-mother and two-father households are becoming “normal”; this does not mean they are most common, “average,” more important than “traditional” families (whatever that means!), and so on.
The only way the NY Times article makes sense, using “normal,” is in the sense above, and this is even indicated at the bottom of the first page:
“I remember Werner Herzog yelled at me at a dinner party when I first started going that way. He totally made fun of me. In the beginning I didn’t know anyone who was eating this way. It was totally uncool.”
“Finding a sprouts-on-seven-grain-bread sandwich has never been a problem in Los Angeles, but even a few years ago, the vegan chef and cookbook author Tal Ronnen couldn’t imagine that his specialty would go as mainstream as it has of late.
It’s descriptive of California, though specifically much of Southern and probably the Bay area. It represents a good swath of the west coast in general, I suppose, but may not be representative as soon as you cross the Sierra Nevadas, or Cascades further north.
Then you read the comments and despair.
cjhsa (Michigan, Sept. 26, 2012 at 8:32 a.m.) repeats the old joke—I’ve repeated this joke, just not in print—that “Vegetables are what food eats.”
Joseph Badler (San Francisco, CA, Sept. 26, 2012 at 8:32 a.m.) goes off on a tirade about the distinction between vegan and vegetarian. Ah, rules and grammar lawyers, as we say. “That is the issue. Vegetarianism has gone mainstream by replacing meat with cheese, basically. Veganism is NOT mainstream by any meaning of the word.” And: “Try Boston, for example. How many vegan restaurants are there in Boston.” But he is missing the point, though the article was too broad: the article was about California, and if California were a stand-in for the entire US, or for *both* coasts, he would have a point. But to the extent it was descriptive of a certain California culinary experience, he’s wrong, precisely because vegan was represented.
Brucelis (Los Angeles, CA, Sept. 26, 2012 at 2:00 a.m.) rubs me the wrong way with his/her hipster “oh please, I know the *real* places …” attitude but is somewhat correct, and it’s not surprising. The NY Times is often terrible and terribly condescending reporting on food whenever it steps away from upscale, downtown NY fare. Writing about wine? Fine. Writing about beer? It’s as if they have discovered something new that the west coast and even midwest (regarding micro- and craft- brews, about lambics, etc.) discovered a decade earlier. It’s as if, leaving the cofines of Manhattan, someone has discovered that the outside world not only exists but has something worthwhile going on. But, alas, they get the theme park or tourist version of it.
And commenting, once more—to come full-circle, I suppose—on norms and normative, I have to think again of G.E. Moore, of Hume, of deriving and ought from an is and of the naturlistic fallacy. Julie Eyrich (rochester, Sept. 26, 2012 at 12:02 p.m.) attempts this from a most vegetarian standpoint: we are biological omnivores (questionable statement of fact), so we ought to eat mostly XZY vs ABC. In contrast we have Ernie (Bayside, NY, Sept. 26, 2012 at 11:26 a.m.) from a factually incorrect carnivore perspective, though his is more just a jumbled logical mess than a straight up is-ought problem. But the point remains: what is factually “normal” is not (ethically) “normative.”
Part the Third: This Spud’s for You
And finally there is the German potato book. Midway through there is the following recipe:
Kartoffel-Linsen-Creme
- 150 g vorwiegend festkochende Kartoffeln
- 1 Schalotte 2 Knoblauchzehen
- 3 EL Olivenöl
- 50 g rote Linsen
- 1/4 l Gemüsebrühe
- 1/4 Bund Koriandergrün
- 1/2 rote Chilischote
- 1/2 Bio-Zitrone
- Salz
It is described as “vegetarisch | leicht scharf” (vegetarian, lightly spicy/sharp/picant). It’s a creamy potato-lentil salad or side … somewhere between a potato salad and … something like mashed potatoes.
Translated, you need: 150g potatoes, 1 shallot, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 Tbsp olive oil, 50g red lentils, 1/4 liter vegetable broth/stock, 1/4 bundle cilantro, 1/2 red (hot) chili pepper, 1/2 (organic) lemon, salt.
Continued:
Für 4 Personen 30 Min. Zubereitung Pro Portion ca. 135 kcal, 4 g EW, 8 g F, 12 g KH
Die Kartoffeln schälen, waschen und klein würfeln. Die Schalotte und den Knoblauch schälen und fein hacken, in 1 EL Öl mit den Kartoffeln andünsten. Linsen dazugeben und kurz mitdünsten. Brühe angießen, aufkochen und alles bei schwacher Hitze zugedeckt in etwa 20 Min. weich kochen. Koriander waschen und trockenschütteln, die Blättchen mit der Chili fein hacken. Zitrone heiß waschen und abtrocknen, die Schale fein abreiben, 2 TL Saft auspressen. Kartoffel-Linsen-Mischung mit übrigem Öl fein pürieren und lauwarm abkühlen lassen. Alle übrigen Zutaten untermischen, mit Salz würzen.
It serves four, at about 135 calories per serving, 4g protein, 8g fat, and 12g of carbs.
Peel, wash, and cube the potatoes. Dice the shallot and garlic after peeling. Saute shallot, garlic, and potatoes in 1 Tbsp oil; add the lentils and saute briefly. Pour in the broth/stock, bring to a boil reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook about 20 minutes or until tender. Wash the cilantro and shake dry; chop the chile finely; wash the lemon, dry it, and zest it. Squeeze out 2 Tbsp juice. Puree the lentil-patato mixture with the remaining oil, cool until luke-warm. Lightly stir in the remaining ingredients and season with salt.
Part the Fourth: Conclusion
Ms. S. enters the office as I type. She inquires, “[1] am I eating too much soy, [2] should I eat less soy, and [3] how much soy should I eat?” The answers are no, no, and that depends. But that’s a topic for another blog.
She has used the nutrition tracker to figure out her food for the day, and because calories were left over and other macronutrient goals were met, she had time and room for a treat, RitterSport whole-hazenut dark chocolate.
It also means that I do not need to make a big 11pm dinner tonight. I have planned for naught … or I have planned for later.
I’ll need to go shopping if I want to make the potato-lentil-creme, as I’m out of spuds and cilantro.
But at least I have ideas.
