fennel-olive pastries January 3, 2010

It’s been a while since I posted a recipe.

Reading my pal Erin’s blog about calzones reminded me that this summer I took photos of how her lovingly-grown fennel became Fennel-Olive Pastries, after she asked me what I did with it. So, though fennel is far from in season near me, maybe it’s in season where you are, or maybe you can get some nice organic non-local fennel, or you can just mark this recipe for summertime.

If you’ve got the ever-present fear of phyllo (which everyone but me spells “fillo,” apparently—I pronounce it like fillo and spell it as if it would be pronounced “fy-lo,” what can ya do.), now’s your time to get over it! Don’t be scared of phyllo. It’s so much easier to work with than you think. And it’s insanely impressive, because we’re at such a place in our cooking culture that people are impressed by anything that uses any sort of dough whatsoever.

This dish, along with my Vegetable Phyllo Triangles with Dijon Mustard-Lentil Sauce (which I’ll post as well if I get sufficiently unlazy) is the most requested meal from my clients. I make the Vegetable Phyllo Triangles four times a year, which is pretty heavy rotation for me. I make these twice a year, in the late spring and early fall, when fennel is in season here in upstate NY.

Enough chatter, let’s get a move on.

I just realized that I didn’t actually take any photos of Erin’s gorgeous fennel before it was chopped up, which is a minor sin. Hopefully you know what fennel looks like.

Though working with phyllo is easy, there are secrets that make it much easier:

• First of all: buy Fillo Factory brand. It’s organic, the spelt phyllo is perfectly lovely if you’re a spelt fetishist, and it’s made of high-quality ingredients. Many health food stores carry it (if you’re in New Paltz: Health & Nutrition carries it sporadically, no one else ever has it. If they don’t have it, I can always sell you some at cost, I buy it by the case). Otherwise, read the ingredients on your sketchy supermarket brand to make sure it’s vegan.
• Then, defrost it in the refrigerator overnight. Otherwise, defrost it in the box, in the plastic for a few hours on the countertop. I can’t really express in words how much worse of an option this is than the overnight fridge defrost route. Your goal with phyllo is twofold: to keep it from drying out, and to keep it from tearing. A slow defrost is essential to both. If you yank it from the freezer into a hot kitchen, and especially if you then unwrap it, exposing it to the drying effects of air, you will get a roll of phyllo with every sheet most likely torn along each crease because it defrosted too quickly.
• Here’s the thing though: it’s still fine. You can work with torn phyllo, and no one will ever know the difference in the final product, I guarantee it. You, however, will know, because it is infinitely more headachey to work with ragged strips, rather than beautiful whole sheets, of phyllo. So save yourself the headache and defrost it slowly.
• After the slumber party in the fridge, in an ideal world you’d then let the box hang out on the counter top for an hour or so, smoothing out the transition from cool fridge to presumably hotter counter top. If you don’t have an hour, that’s cool—see the above paragraph.
• After that, you’re ready to go. There are two ways to work with phyllo at this point: working fast, or covering it with a damp cloth or paper towel sprinkled with water. The goal, again, is to keep it from drying out, which will cause it to tear and crumble. If you work fast enough there’s no need to mess around with the damp towel, but if you’re just starting out it makes sense to give yourself some extra time by using a towel. More below.

Fennel Olive Pastries
Makes about 40

• You can sneak small amounts of some leftover vegs into these that might be dying in the fridge. Jarred artichoke hearts are lovely in here. But resist the temptation to throw in a ton of random stuff, it will muddle up the flavor.
• Make sure to rinse the olives, otherwise they will be too salty.
• If your fennel has no fronds attached, reserve and do not chop a small handful of the dill. Use dill fronds as instructed to decorate triangles instead of fennel fronds. Use the rest of the dill as indicated.
• These freeze ridiculously well.

Extra virgin olive oil, much more than you think you’ll need.
1 small fennel bulb (or two baby fennel bulbs), bulb finely chopped, fronds separated and set aside. Use all parts of the fennel that look fresh and green, especially the feathery fronds, but do not use any stalks coming out of the bulb that are hollow.
2 medium thinly sliced red onions
1 small bunch chopped dill (see note above)
2 cups pitted Kalamata olives, rinsed and chopped
3 teaspoons fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried oregano, chopped
1 teaspoon ground toasted fennel seeds or 2 tablespoons ouzo (fennel liqueur)
Optional: a few handfuls washed and chopped greens
1 pound phyllo dough, thawed in refrigerator if frozen (see above)
Sea salt and fresh pepper.

1. In a large saucepot, warm a few splashes of olive oil over high heat. Add fennel bulb and sliced red onions and cook until beginning to brown, about 7 minutes.
2. Add chopped dill, olives, oregano, fennel seeds, and greens, if using, and stir to combine. Turn off heat and let cool.

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly oil two baking sheets, or line with parchment. (I never do this, but I want to make sure yours come out perfectly, and I am afraid you won’t use the massive amounts of oil necessary to make these not stick to the baking sheet.)

1. Lay one sheet of phyllo on work surface. Cover the rest of the roll with a damp towel (do as I say and not as I do in the photo above).
2. Brush sheet with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Use enough oil to make everything slightly juicy, otherwise your triangles will be dry and not flavorful enough. Think about it this way: every bit of phyllo without some oil caressing it will be too dry and crumbly, and won’t have the full flavor that olive oil provides. Make sure pretty much all of it has a nice, thin oily sheen. Yay for fat!

1. On the short edge to your left, place four small (about one to two-inch) fennel fronds side by side with about one inch of space in between. Lay another sheet of phyllo on top, oil and season it, and cut into four strips.*
2. Place 2 tablespoons of so of cooled filling on the edge of phyllo opposite the fennel, and roll up like a flag. (It would have been really helpful if I had taken pictures of this part of the process.) Don’t use more than around two tablespoons of the filling–less is always more, and you will be astonished at how little you need. Too much filling will make messy, broken triangles.
3. The fennel fronds from the left edge should be visible through the phyllo when rolled up (if they aren’t it’s cool—they are just for show. In fact, feel free to skip that whole step). Brush triangles with oil and place on baking sheet. Continue until all filling is used up. Sprinkle each filled baking sheet with coarse salt and fresh-ground pepper.
4. Bake until phyllo is golden brown, about 20 minutes, turning halfway through. Cool slightly and serve, or cool completely, wrap well, and freeze.

*Please note that though I like the size of triangles when the sheet of phyllo is cut into four strips, These photos illustrate triangles made with phyllo sheets cut into three strips, because that’s how I usually make them for my clients. I made a few with the phyllo cut into four strips, though, see them there at the top of the baking sheet, next to the fennel? Three strips makes a bit more of a hearty, meal-like triangle. Four strips makes a nice appetizery, dainty, prettier triangle, which is especially suited to this recipe and its strong flavors.

Coveted part two: food and related January 3, 2010

Starting off the new year with consumer goods!

Part One, non-food covets, is here (the comments to that post are pretty hilarious, actually).

Let’s go!

Most beautiful dishes EVER, yo!!! Oh my oh my, so beautiful. (photo above)

A tool to make your standing mixer paddle truly scrape the side of the bowl.

These gorgeous cupcake liners are sold out, but are so cute I want to mark them in case another shipment arrives.

I need a little pastry roller—like a mini rolling pin, without arms—like this about every week, and end up making do with my fingers, which never gets crust as even in tight spots.

A sous vide setup!!

I think this one gallon ball jar with a spigot is just what I need when I have lemonade or flavored waters on hand.

My next kitchen scale—made of hemp!…

…On the other hand, these lovelies are more cute and colorful.

KitchenAid Grain Mill Attachment, for fresh-ground flour.

When it comes to pastry, specialized tools sometimes really do make a difference. Every time I move a fragile coconut oil pie crust I think about how I should just buy this giant spatula already.

So, if you don’t want whipped cream from a can—and what person in their right mind would, for about a zillion reasons—there are now these little nitrous oxide-charged whipped cream makers. Apparently your cow tit cream stays whipped and nice for two weeks or so in them. What would happen if you put coconut milk in one? I’m willing to bet you’d have the most amazing, all-natural vegan whipped cream OF ALL TIME. My god!!! When is someone going to give me thousands of dollars so I can just open up a vegan ice cream shop already and put into motion the million ideas I have like this?

And now the candy. Total junk ahead! We’ve all got to have it once in a while, right? I am partial to weird old-fashioned ultra sugary candies that are absolutely nothing like what I make myself. Here are a few.

These Old-Fashioned Peanut Candies are like the inside of Butterfinger bars (a bit like the coveted Chick-O-Stick!), and are made with 100% dreadful shite ingredients.

I am the only person in the world who likes certain candies. Like these French Creams. And these Black Walnut Chips.

On the other hand, these Mint Cream Straws are like candy canes only one thousand times better, and everyone loves them.

Done with candy.

For now.

On to drinking! I really like this elegant, vintagey wall-mounted bottle opener.

Look at these pretty, handmade salad tongs!

Fancy pants beans: heirloom beans are four or more times more expensive than what I usually pay for beans, but they really do taste so much better. My favorite are Calypso, super pretty yin/yangy black-white beauties. I also once had the pleasure of cooking up a pot of Tiger’s Eye beans, which are crazy creamy and also super beautiful.

For super super super special cupcakes, Fancy Flours’ pricey holders are too gorgeous to be believed.

I get most of my essences and extracts at the lovely Nature’s Flavors because they are organic, handmade, and really high quality. But I’m intrigued by these beautiful and super inspiring-looking chef-quality essential oils. (Also, Bickford flavors are really nice, my cooking school used this brand.)

Dynamic Immersion blender—what I’ll buy when the $2 stick blender I found at Salvation Army dies…which is bound to happen any second. So pricey, but so powerful!!

Ocean Approved brand kelp noodles. I know. I know. It sounds vomitous. But I once had some kombu noodles I actually sort of adored, and I am no sea veg fan, at all. But I sort of want to try these. (Actually, they should probably taste just like the kombu noodles, since kelp is just the English word for kombu. I just realized that.) In a cold salad dressed with sesame oil, shoyu, ginger, rice vinegar, and slivers of toasty garlic—it sounds good, right? Yum.

Monday Miscellany: hot chile edition (updated!) December 28, 2009

Jacob’s stepmother is from Thailand, and grows a truly astonishing amount of (primarily Thai) vegetables in a beautiful upland garden here in Hawaii. Here is one part of the green papaya forest, with Thai chile plants in the foreground. One morning we volunteered to help harvest chilies.

Just a few links for this lazy holiday week:

Blogreader Orlande pointed these out months before, but MY GOD! SO ADORABLE! Handmade vegan shoes. I’ll take one pair of each, please!

There is something beautiful and calming about a three-star New York Times review (beware: intense non-veganism at that link) even of a restaurant I will never, ever go to. Maybe this means that I’m a bad anarchist because deep down I value standards and being judged. Luckily, I am on vacation and am not going to think about it that deeply.

The chilies are HOT.

Oh dear this little French girl is cute. Just ludicrous.

Sometimes, as a subversive sort of “fuck you” to health food freakers, and because it looks so fun, I tell myself I want to get into intense sugar work like this or this or this. The desire always passes…but I hope that one day it doesn’t. In ten years, I’d love to have given myself over to the world of refined, refined sugar in all its glory.

Here’s a fascinating read about the real-life world of a non-supermodel model (since my favorite secret guilty pleasure blog, Elyse Sewell’s brilliant Livejournal, is apparently defunct, I apparently have a vacant spot for jaded ex-model stories).

This is her last batch, being sun-dried to a toasty crisp. She cooks with a LOT of chilies.

Two bits of local outrage to end with:

First, what is UP with this freaking New Paltz Middle School MADNESS? How can people who are against the renovation not understand that a) it has to be done, for the safety of “the children! the CHILDREN!!” and that b) it will cost much more down the line, if we don’t do it now? I’m so confused. Is it the same old boys network freaks who wanted to build a completely new school? Do they even understand the math at all, or are they just 100% corrupt? Either way, they certainly have a lot of cash—$800 ads in the NPT every week, really? I’m not very coherent on the whole thing, obviously, but School Board member KT Tobin Flusser is, so go read what she has to say.

Second, our blogreader pal Dan recently pointed out, in a well-written letter to our erstwhile local rag the New Paltz Times, that this whole natural gas drilling thing is a giant fiasco that threatens the very survival of our beloved Catskills.

This appears to be the next big battle in my neck of the woods between capitalism and the continuation of our local ecosystem, and I’ve been steadily ignoring the horribleness that is looming ever closer. The worst aspect of the war to come, it seems to me, is that it really pits us (mostly middle-class, let’s admit it) environmentalists against mostly working-class (if such a thing was permitted to exist anymore, which it’s really not) people who see the quick cashy allure of letting the very land under their feet be drilled (by such upstanding companies as….Halliburton!). This pollutes drinking water (and it’s not like all of NYC depends on upstate for their drinking water or anything…) and puts their houses at risk for fun things like exploding—but it does give some cash-strapped homeowners some desperately-needed dollars.

It’s a mess from top to bottom, and the very thought of stopping it is so daunting it makes me want to breathe into a paper bag. But stop it we must. And so we shall.

Dan points out CatskillMountainKeeper.org as the place to go for outrage/info/action.

Also, Dan? We’ve never met, but someone just told me you’re David Porter’s son? The David Porter who almost single-handedly defeated Wal-Mart in NP? I’m so in love with your dad!!! This makes me want to have a little New Paltz-Resistance is Fertile blog meet up thingie! Just you and me and Brittany and KT. And ol’ what’s-his-name! Um….maybe not.

Edible Hudson Valley, Winter 2009 issue: pros and cons December 25, 2009

Though I also adore The Valley Table, the other lovely upstate foodie rag, I have to say that I’m still a devoted Edible reader. The newest Edible Hudson Valley has certainly done me a solid too—my chocos are mentioned on page 22, and a (really great!) recipe of mine, for a Raspberry Truffle Tart with Shortbread Crust….

…

…

[Jacob just saw what I am doing and yelled out "Don't alienate!!! Deep breaths!!!"]

…

…

is on page 13. When the magazine is off the shelves I’ll post the recipe, but for now here are photos of it. It’s dead simple and amazingly wonderful (if you were at the Hudson Valley Seed Library art opening in November, you might have had a slice!). And they have an interview with Prince Safran Foer, and the magazine is a lot meatier (ha!) than any other Edible publication—there are actual articles, not just quickie paragraphs framed by too-large photos like many other Edibles I’ve read. And my pal Jay Blotcher has a nice profile of a food stylist, and there’s a beautiful article on my besties Ken & Doug over at the Hudson Valley Seed Library and a fascinating article on root cellars, and and and….so, basically, I should just keep my mouth shut about their hilariously idiotic cover story on foie gras.

And yet! I’m sure they expected some blowback, and I am here to blow, being, as I am….uh, nevermind.

On one hand (the tiniest hand imaginable, a fetus hand perhaps, still dumb to the realities of our ultra fucked-up universe): I give the writer, one Lisa M. Dellwo (hello, Google Alert!) props for coming clean from the beginning. She tells us right from the start that “I love to eat foie gras.”

And we’re off. This is no “Consider the Lobster.” David Foster Wallace is dead, so is Gourmet. I actually believe, well, I want to believe, that had she gone all Foster Wallace on us, Edible Hudson Valley probably would have printed her piece. But Ms. Dellwo, she’s already got blood in her mouth. And here we are.

She pays an arranged visit (no undercover investigation for this fattened-liver lover) to Hudson Valley Foie Gras, whose operations manager has a “soft Arkansas accent” and

was willing to show me every stage of production, including gavage [=force feeding ducks] and slaughter [=unethical murder]. We had timed my visit to coincide with the afternoon feeding [sic] of ducks but—at my choice—not the morning slaughter [If I wasn't such a feminist I'd call her, at this point, a fucking pussy.]. As [operations manager] Henley told me later, “Force feeding is the point of coming here.”

So, you see where we’re at.

We are squarely in the middle of the nouveau Slow Food-style of food writing, which prides itself on not shielding eaters from how their delicacies are produced. It disgusts me, because it speaks to the very worst, most sickening sort of person: those who see exactly how their food is made, and eat it anyway.

So she witnesses the force feeding, and she explains to us that (surprise!) ducks’ are built differently from us, so “I shouldn’t imagine that they can’t breathe, that their throats are being torn up and that they’re being fed more than they can handle…” Uh. I’ll just let that one sneak by, it’s too idiotic to address.

The force feeding commences, and it’s not too terrible-seeming. To her. Because she believes that it’s OK for humans to do whatever the fuck we want to animals, as long as we’re not too mean. Apparently. The fact that these ducks live in confinement and are completely at the whim of whatever humans want to do to them doesn’t bother her in the least. She just wants to make sure they aren’t hurt when food is being shoved down their throats. And from all that I’ve read, Hudson Valley Foie Gras doesn’t seem to be the very worst foie gras producer in the country. They’ve come under so much scrutiny, and they do appear to care somewhat for the animals whose lives they’ve stolen.

But WHO CARES?

Well, this lady does. She “drove away from the farm feeling pretty comfortable with what I’d seen.”

And guess who she calls up the next day? Our pal, Temple Grandin!

Of course.

And, in typical “I can’t ever love or even like you, but I can’t quite write you off” fashion, Grandin tells her she won’t eat foie gras, ’cause it seems cruel to her.

AHHHHHHHH……………………………………………………………………………….!!!!!!!!!!

What amazes me is this: that people draw these ridiculous lines in the sand. I’ll eat hamburgers, they tell themselves, but not foie gras.

Is it so terribly hard to have compassion for all animals? To understand that if you have to write an article and visit a farm and talk to experts and do all this heavy thinking about whether or not a food is cruel, perhaps the smart choice is to avoid that food in the first place? That maybe your first instinct—I’d prefer not to eat the artificially fattened liver of a duck that lived in darkness and confinement and died for my plate—is correct?

No, the nouveau Slow Foodies can never stop there. They keep going, past logic, and fetishize death for their pleasure. Because here’s the thing: it’s all about pleasure. In the end, pleasure is all that matters. I’m also a pleasure addict, of course. I just can’t believe that in order to be happy and well fed animals have to die.

The most I’m-laughing-so-I-don’t-start-screaming paragraph in the piece:

“If you’re going to do this [an animal welfare specialist tells her], they’ve tried hard to put in place a system that’s as noninvasive as possible.”

If you’re going to do this. It comes down to that. [blah blah, one of her friends tells her that foie gras is unnecessary] Of course it is. It’s unnecessary in the way that fine Bordeaux is [OH FUCK YOU, not AT ALL], or even bacon and eggs for breakfast. We don’t need it to survive. But if you believe that we join together at the table for pleasure as well as sustenance, then who defines what is unnecessary? It’s truly an individual choice.

OK, Ms. Dellwo, I’ve made a choice: I’d like to feed your liver to a duck. OK? Cool? Cool. I had a feeling you’d be fine with that, you with your oh-so logical mind and all.

The photos in the piece are arty shots of (and again with the feet in my mouth: I know the photographer a bit. I like her.): a duck being force-fed, the worker straddling it between his legs. Ducks in a dark barn, not caged but certainly not free, massed tightly together. Carcasses strung up in neat rows. One lone duck peeking out from some sort of confinement, staring directly into the camera lens.

These shots are not meant to provoke outrage. They are meant to teach us: this what happens, and this is OK. Understand it, so you are informed. There is no need to try to change it. This is how we live, and this is just fine.

This is the current legacy of the Slow Food movement, and this is why I can never embrace it. There was a time when all you had to do was show someone a slaughterhouse, and they were instant vegetarians. These days farmers merely need to treat their animals with a modicum of dignity and the brainless Slow Foodies literally eat it up. They’ve convinced themselves that as long as animal deaths are condoned by slick food magazines, meat doesn’t need to be justified or rationalized. It’s the Brave New World of meat-eating, and I’ll fight against it until the day I die.

Yesterday, I had lunch with someone who told Jacob and I, so casually, so calmly: “Yeah, I’m vegan. But, you know, I eat fish.”

I am vegan.

Jacob is vegan.

My friends are vegan.

My mother is vegan.

We are vegan because WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN USELESS KILLING.

Not because we want to be “healthier.”

Not because we want to see cute animals treated with more kindness and smiles before they die.

Not because we want to be trendy, or special, or self-important.

Because we do not believe in useless killing. Of ducks. Of cows. Of chickens. Of fish. Of children. Of poor people. Of old people.

Veganism is an anti-death practice.

That’s all there is to it.

on being a bad vegan, part two: my nonvegan gloves December 20, 2009

(I wrote this before the outpouring of loveliness from smarties in the post below, when I was still feeling super oppositional. I’m so interested to see what you all [or, as my trailer-park family would say: "ya'll"] think!)

I’m going to illustrate this post with snaps of me in my new boots that I own thanks to eagle-eyed blog reader Christy. They are organic cotton/bamboo/eco-friendly Simples, and so sooooooo comfy. I love them every day. (Except these days, because I’m not really wearing shoes at all for the next month).

I’m just going to say right away what will make everyone most mad, just for sheer kicks. (Sheer kicks, the best kind of kicks!)

I honestly believe (and please note I am saying this as someone who has been vegan for 16 or something years and would rather die than not be vegan) that in the grand scheme of things–if you take into account environmentalist factors, animal rights, human rights, corporatism, capitalism, etc etc—that making cupcakes with eggs made by chickens who live ludicrously happy lives at the farm down the street from your house (my house is literally two blocks from a farm that has some ludicrously happy and free chickens) is a better decision, on balance, than making vegan cupcakes laced with Earth Balance Buttery Spread.

Yeah, I said it. Wanna prove me wrong? Have at it, I’m excited! (Unless the vegan police, those joyless fucks, swing by. I want to chat this over with interesting, complex people ONLY, ok? Don’t be a sourpuss or an idiot, or I’ma moderate the shit out of your comments.)

A few points:

-Yeah, obviously no one uses eggs instead of Earth Balance in a recipe. I’m not talking cooking here, I’m just saying in general.

-While I believe this to be true, I also don’t particularly care. That is: I happen to also vehemently loathe Earth Balance, but a few times a year I will happily eat said EB-laced cupcake, because I simply care more about animal rights than any other of those issues listed above (corporatism, environmentalism, etc.). My beliefs are arranged hierarchically (hierarchies! Bad feminist!), and animal rights is right on top. I care about the lives of animals more than anything else. Done. So I don’t eat local eggs, because I don’t have a right to. Simple. But!

If you want to try to disprove my tantalizing theory, here’s what you’ve got against you:

-Local eggs are a sustainable, renewable resource, while EB is made from the insides of trees (palm oil, yo) that will take years and years to regenerate. It also supposedly impacts the habitats of lots of endangered species. (And by “impacts,” I mean “destroys.”) Now, I don’t think of eggs as a “resource,” of course. I still think of them as abortions even though I know it’s not quite right, and the idea of eating one is nauseating and morally reprehensible. Eggs exist for chickens, not us. Coconuts exist for us. (Thinking the natural world exists for humans! Bad environmentalist!) Again, I’m just saying.

-EB is made by a giant corporation, eggs can be bought from your friendly local anarchist farmer. Or bartered! Like I bartered lots of chocolates (made with his raspberries) to my farmer for B-grade tomatoes for sauce-making all summer!

-Thus, egg money can go back into your local community, you locavore freaker you.

-Obvs, local eggs use less carbon emissions to arrive at your doorstep.

-And I could go on. Can’t chickens eat table scraps?

(Wow, I’m really good at playing Michael Pollan when I want to, aren’t I?)

OK, here’s my point:
SOMETIMES VEGANS FORGET TO USE OUR HEADS. We’re so caught up in being right (which we are) that we forget to look at the whole picture. We have to be mindful of the fact that even my buddies olive and coconut oil present some challenges (capitalist and environmentalist) that eating local eggs don’t, and while this doesn’t mean we should eat eggs, it’s a reminder to keep thinking (like my farmer friend Erin). To know that simply being vegan doesn’t solve all problems. Things are, I’m going to say it again, complex.

Which brings me to my gloves.

What I said about them a few weeks ago, on a nameless website:

The animal fibers [the women of Bloodroot] use in their fiber arts are 100% from living animals who are treated well–no animals are ever killed for their wool sweaters. I adore a pair of rabbit fur gloves that Selma made for me–the rabbit fur was spun from a rabbit while it sat in Selma’s lap, being brushed and living a wonderful, pampered life. Selma dyed the fur with natural dyes made from plants grown in her garden, then knitted a pair of gloves I will always cherish.

Oh my god, I am the WORST VEGAN EVER! I know it. I wish I wasn’t on vacation right now in the tropics (she rides on planes! Such a hypocrite!) so I could snap a picture of these beautiful gloves.

Update: Here’s one that shows both the gloves and the boots!! My vanity finally comes in handy! You can’t see it so well in this picture, but the tops flip over so you can use your fingers, and they are a pink-and-red sort of Fair Isle kind of pattern.

The gloves are pretty deeply not vegan, but I stand by them. If you’re going to have pets (which deep down I don’t believe in, but we all make compromises and that’s one of mine), you shouldn’t be against brushing them and making LUDICROUSLY SOFT gloves from their fur. And guess what? I was talking about the gloves with Selma a few weeks ago, and she corrected me—the gloves are actually lined with dog fur, not rabbit fur. From some super soft dog one of her friends lives with. Selma brushed her, spun the resulting fur, dyed it, and presented me with the most beautiful birthday present ever. The dog was just happy to be free of some LUDICROUSLY SOFT hair.

So: let the games begin! Heap your hot coals upon my head! It won’t be the first time!

on being a bad vegan, part one December 19, 2009

Since I apparently have a fondness for everyone getting all touchy and angry at me for not toeing some magical lefty line, I thought I’d start a whole new giant fight with some controversal thoughts on veganism.

Some of these were inspired by discussions we had a few weeks ago, here and on another site I’m not going to link to because I don’t wanna. I’m thinking this is going to be a three-part post. Here’s Part One. Look out for Part Two: My Gloves, and Part Three: BEES!! soon.

At said nameless other site, someone was talking some smack about my besties over at Bloodroot. Said someone had once written a letter to their local paper (said someone apparently lives near Bloodroot) attacking them for not being 100% vegan, and repeated their arguments in the context of my supposed general shittiness.

Their argument: because the restaurant isn’t totally vegan, “the owners of Bloodroot are making money from their continued exploitation of other animals.” Of course, this is true. However, as usual I wanted to make this more-complex, long-view N*U*fuckin’A*N*C*E*D argument about why, though I wish Bloodroot was 100% vegan, I’m not heartbroken that it’s not. Surprise! It didn’t take. Let me try again here. Here’s what I said:

Hello, Person Who Wrote A Whole Essay About How Shitty I Am!

….It occurs to me to ask if you’ve ever spoken to Noel and/or Selma about veganism, since it appears that you live in Connecticut? If you had, you’d have a fascinating, nuanced conversation that would leave you refreshed and inspired about your own vegan practice. I’ve had countless talks with them about it, all of which were respectful and friendly.

Bloodroot is not a vegan restaurant, it’s about 90% vegan. Selma and Noel spin wool and other animal fibers. These sentences seem so damning to vegans, but there is a lot behind them.

First of all, the tiny bit of eggs and dairy that they use truly does come from sustainable, humane sources. Their cheeses are all vegetarian and are from small, artisanal businesses, many of whom they have visited themselves to verify that the animals were treated well. I haven’t eaten cheese in 17 years, but I respect the way that Bloodroot serves cheese.

Their dairy and eggs are locally produced, and the truth is that many of the dairy dishes on their menu are literally DEMANDED by longtime customers, many of whom would, without a doubt, stop coming to the restaurant if they couldn’t get their green tomato pie with cheese or butterscotch pudding with heavy cream.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever run a business, Person Who Wrote A Whole Essay About How Shitty I Am, but if you have I’m sure you understand the importance of keeping repeat customers. If you’ve ever fun a food business, where margins are notoriously tight, you will understand this even more.

In fact, I believe you could make a strong case that Bloodroot has done more to usher vegan meals into non-vegans’ diets than most vegans I know. Because many of their customers are not vegan, the 90% of their menu that is vegan is serious activism–getting vegan food into non-vegan bodies. [Many of their customers are not exactly the type to frequent 100% vegan restaurants, thus if they weren't at Bloodroot, chances are they would be eating meat somewhere else.]

Similarly, the animal fibers that they use in their fiber arts are 100% from living animals who are treated well–no animals are ever killed for their wool sweaters. I adore a pair of rabbit fur gloves that Selma made for me–the rabbit fur was spun from a rabbit while it sat in Selma’s lap, being brushed and living a wonderful, pampered life. Selma dyed the fur with natural dyes made from plants grown in her garden, then knitted a pair of gloves I will always cherish.

So then, said person said:

The idea of something being “90% vegan” is misguided. It’s as absurd as claiming a business can be “90% feminist” if it only exploits women 10% of the time. Even if only a tenth of a business is actively involved in the exploitation of women, it should still be considered anti-woman and anti-feminist. The same goes for the exploitation of other animals. This is because exploitation is a qualitative matter, not a quantitative one.

Also, the use of percentages is intentionally misleading. A plate of pasta with meat sauce may be made up of 90% plant-derived ingredients and 10% animal-derived ingredients, but we rightly consider such a dish to be inappropriate for vegans. Regardless of the limited content derived from the exploitation of other animal, it is the quality of the dish as a whole that is important. Likewise, the 10% of the Bloodroot that is directly involved in the exploitation of other animals can’t be separated out from the other 90% that is assumed otherwise.

I completely disagree! In my book, opposition to exploitation must be both qualitative and quantitative, and both are equally important. We’ve got to be vegan, yeah, but if we aren’t, 50% vegan is better than 0% vegan. And even though a plate of 90% vegan food isn’t suitable for vegans, it’s better, in the long run, than if it were 100% not vegan. Obviously, the more vegan food non-vegans eat, the better things are.

I see why you think the way you do (veganism is a totality, like being pregnant, blah blah), and in the case of feminism I do think it makes a teensy bit more sense, but, I live in the real world. (I mean, I try very very hard not to, but I have to sometimes, enough to know how it functions, at least.) And if 90% of the world became vegan, I’d be so fucking happy I might explode, and so would you. So don’t tell me I’m being INTENTIONALLY MISLEADING. It’s, first of all, just FUCKING RUDE. I’m FUCKING VEGAN HERE, OK? I WANT! PEOPLE! TO! BE! VEGAN!. My FUCKING GOD.

OK, um.

Let’s talk about this in a calm way. Because I’m sure you get my point by now, but I want to beat it into the ground.

Yeah, OF COURSE (oops. Calm.) a “plate of pasta with meat sauce may be made up of 90% plant-derived ingredients and 10% animal-derived ingredients, but we rightly consider such a dish to be inappropriate for vegans,” but…that argument doesn’t hold water if you take it out of the narrow context of a plate of food. Do you not shop at a supermarket that might have 50% vegan shite food and 50% not vegan shite food? When you go to non-vegan restaurants you’re not forced to eat the non-vegan food. (You might remember I’m the one in my vegan family who makes it a point to eat at non-vegan restaurants, to the dismay of my moms). Do you live in the world AT ALL? In the real world, honey, I’m thankful for people who are trying, who are being as vegan-friendly as they feel they can safely be. Of course I want the world to wake up vegan tomorrow, but I won’t be boycotting every single inch of this earth that isn’t vegan until that happens. I’ll just keep on keepin’ on, doing what I can and supporting others who do the same.

Then, someone else said:

Seems like you’re saying people have to exploit animals in order to advance veganism (or that it’s OK if they do).

And, uh, that comment is just so….SOMETHING, that I am pretty much flabbergasted. Uh, no  [insert WTF here]. I don’t think Bloodroot serving slivers of cheese is OK (and I never said I did)—I’m just trying to explain why I think it’s not the horrible horrible crime some are making it out to be. There’s a whole world between “I am just fine with this” and “it could be a whole hell of a lot worse.”

I’d much rather support a restaurant like Bloodroot, where the owners are engaged with vegan ideas and are thinking about problems and solving them in their own ways (though they might be sometimes different than how I would solve them), than your standard shitty vegan restaurant that uses tons of processed fake food (food bought from a Sysco truck, microwaved, with no soul or life) and doesn’t offend any vegans (except me). Bloodroot is a multi-faceted, complex, astonishingly fascinating universe. People who decide that their lines in the sand are made of stone won’t understand them, and they taught me long ago to accept that (I’m not listening lately, obviously).

I remember once Selma (Bloodroot’s co-owner) told me she was reading some gardening magazine or other put out by a Catholic group (she also reads Tikkun, which sort of equally astonishes me, knowing of her vehement atheism). I was astonished—Selma, who had an abortion at 16 (in the 1950s!), radical feminist lesbian Selma, Selma who talks shit (often using the word “shit”) about any religion to any religious person who might come through the door—how could she? “It’s a good magazine, interesting ideas,” she responded simply. We both read lots of non-vegan food magazines, calmly tearing off and tossing* the November turkey covers and gleaning what we can from the rest. We both mourned Gourmet’s death. We adore finding treasures at the Fancy Food Show, a trade show we go to every year where maybe 10% of the vendors have vegan samples and the atmosphere is thick with half naked women handing out energy drink samples.

You snatch out and cobble together the good parts of this horrid old world, and discard the rest. At Bloodroot, they call that “levity.” Rising above the shit, into your own thoughtful, personalized universe. It’s what smart people do.

(Ah, but I know what you want to talk about, antsy vegan pals o’ mine–those gloves I mentioned. Let’s have a fun fight about them in the next post! Disagree with me! Change my mind! Lets do this! But if you say my heart isn’t in the right place, I WILL FUCKING TEAR YOU UP—OK? Deal?)

*Of course, I mean RECYCLING. Gotta watch my language in this hyper-sensitive old internet, I guess.

soon, soon the flesh the grave cave ate will be at home on me December 10, 2009

OK, not for reals. Soon I will be a “smiling woman,” though, because soon soon I will be on a long vacation with lots, oh so many, SO MANY things to say on this here internet space that your mind, my friends (and joyless detractors), just might be blown. Veganism, consumer products, feminism, New Yorker notes, movie recommendations, my god, I have THINGS TO SAY. But first I must “last it out and not come back [here] at all” whilst I go play at being a good capitalist for another five days. I “may be skin and bone” by the time it’s done, you might have to “pick the [chocolate] off me like sticky pearls,” but hopefully it won’t be as dire as all that. ”I’m only thirty [one],” after all. And, because, you know, when it comes to my job:

I do it exceptionally well.

pure unadulterated awesomeness December 4, 2009

Just when I needed a little pick-me-up, one is deposited right into my inbox in the form of an email from a new client:

So far everything has been wonderfully yummy.

I wanted to thank you SO much for having this service. When I first contacted you, I was a lacto-ovo-pescatarian. I have since read Eating Animals (I stopped eating meat because of Factory Farming practices decades ago) and have finally (FINALLY) faced the hard facts about the dairy industry that I have ignored for so many years. So….no more dairy for me unless and until I can find a local farmer who puts the welfare of their animals above the bottom line…and that’s just not likely until they’re no longer competing with agribusiness. So you can count me among your vegan clients now. Had I not had a fridge full of your wonderful food, this transition would have been vastly more difficult.

So thanks. Really.

So wow, Eating Animals is doing something! Wonderful, wonderful.
And also, yay for me, making “lacto-ovo-pescatarian”s (……….won’t even go into that……..) into vegans every day!

PS:  “Adulterated” is a weird word, isn’t it? “Unadulterated” is even weirder. Does even our language have a fetish for childhood?

busy! November 18, 2009

Thanks for all the comments about the trans discussion below, everyone. And the emails. And the Facebook messages. Argh. I’ll have some time to think about it all beginning next Tuesday, after my super busy week is over. Of course, continue the discussion amongst yourselves!

In freedom,

Lagusta

pumpkin bourbon tart (Updated recipe!) November 18, 2009

Hello sweet beets,

A Facebook pal friend asked for my pumpkin pie recipe and I thought I’d toss it on here even though I don’t have a picture of it and it’s not exactly my recipe, but rather an adaptation of an old recipe from Fine Cooking. It’s so great though. Make it, take a picture, and send it to me along with your kudos, will ya?

Fun fact! I started making this tart my regular Thanksgiving pumpkiny dessert after Khaela Maricich (yes, Khaela of The Blow!) tasted it alongside my standard non bourbony pie and declared that it “had more going on.” My god, I love that Khaela. We’re actual friends, but every time I see her I still can’t stop from basically screaming about how much I love her and making dorky references to all her songs. This is of course slightly awkward and I commend her for being so awesome about it (full disclosure: she’s more of a Jacob friend than a Lagusta friend, but how great to be in a couple where you get to be friends with all your sweetheart’s friends, non? Actually…read this paragraph quick, because when Jacob sees it he will sigh in that “you don’t have to share everything with the internet” way and I will feel weird and take it down. He is in Sweden today though, so I can blab on and on about my deep and wild love for Khaela to the entire world without any sighing disrupting my oversharing.).

I LOVE THE BLOW!!!

Pumpkin Bourbon Tart with Walnut Streusel

1 11” tart

• This recipe looks long, but it is really just three easy components. It calls for a stand mixer and a food processor, but it can be made without these by combining the tart and filling ingredients (separately) in a bowl and by hand-chopping the streusel ingredients and combining them with a fork or pastry blender.
• The coconut oil should be at room temperature, which means that it shouldn’t be completely liquefied or completely solid – it should be soft enough to scoop out easily but still white. Since it can be tricky to get it to this consistency, especially in very hot or cold kitchens, remember that is always better to err on the side of it being more liquid, because otherwise the dough or streusel could end up with holes that were once solid coconut oil. However, a colder oil makes a more flaky pastry, so finding a balance between workable and too warm (liquid) is worth it. If you’re scared of coco oil or don’t know what kind to buy, read my coco oil manifesto here!

tart crust

2 c all-purpose flour

1/3 c sugar

1 ts. orange or tangerine zest (tangerine adds a special quality)

½ ts. sea salt

10 Tb. coconut oil, at room temperature, see note above

2 Tb. flax seed “eggs” (you know, just boil 1c of water and 3 Tb. flax seeds for a few minutes, then strain it. If it’s too thick to strain, add more hot water and whisk whisk whisk. Voilà! Egg whites!)

¼ c coconut milk, more if needed

1. In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, zest, and salt. Add the coconut oil and combine on low speed until the mixture looks crumbly and like dried peas – about 2 minutes.
2. Add the flax seed “eggs” and coconut milk and mix on low speed until the dough is just combined. If the dough is too dry to come together, add more coconut milk a spoonful at a time.
3. Evenly press dough into a 11” ungreased tart pan with a removable bottom. Refrigerate. (Yep, a pressed crust! EASY!)

pumpkin filling

15 oz. pumpkin or squash (I like Blue Hubbard squash the best), steamed (use canned pumpkin and I will kill you. Just STEAM SOME SQUASH, you can do that, Jesus!) [If anyone has both a scale and measuring cups and can tell me how many cups 15 oz. is, let me know and I will update this for the benefit of non-scale-owners. But if you're serious about baking, you should buy a scale!)

scant 1 Tb. agar powder (I talk about it here)

½ c evaporated cane juice sugar

¼ c packed minimally processed dark brown sugar

2 Tb. all-purpose flour

1 ts. ground ginger

1 ts. freshly ground cinnamon

¼ ts. freshly ground cloves

½ ts. sea salt

½ c coconut milk

¼ c bourbon (once I accidentally used Southern Comfort and it was delicious as well, which is weird because I usually find SoCal vomitious.)

1. In blender, combine all filling ingredients over low speed until combined. Set aside.

streusel topping

¾ c walnut halves, toasted, cooled

¼ c crystallized ginger, coarsely chopped

¾ c all-purpose flour

1/3 c evaporated cane juice sugar

¼ c packed minimally processed dark brown sugar

½ ts. freshly ground cinnamon (I always use canela Mexican cinnamon from my local Mexican market [Casa Latina in Poughkeepsie---I call it a Mexican market even though it's a Latina market because I am a big giant racist.] and grind it in a spice grinder, but you can use your sad little tin of cassia cinnamon, sure, go right ahead, even though it’s probably like 10 years old and doesn’t taste cinnamony at all…)

½ ts. sea salt

1/3 c coconut oil, at room temperature

1. In a food processor, combine walnuts and ginger. Pulse to chop into medium pieces. Remove. Add remaining ingredients except coconut oil and pulse briefly to mix. Add coconut oil and pulse until just barely combined. Remove blade and stir in walnuts and crystallized ginger.

assembling the tart

1. Heat the oven to 350F.
2. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the unbaked tart crust. Do not overfill tart pans because the filling puffs a little. It might overflow a little in the oven. I personally like the look of it when it does, and it sinks back down after it comes out of the oven, but if you want a tidy tidy tart, take out 1/3 cup or so of the filling and just eat it. Scatter the streusel topping evenly over the pumpkin mixture, covering it completely. Put the tart on a cookie sheet.
3. Bake until the topping is evenly cooked and no longer looks wet in the center, 50 to 65 to 75 minutes, depending on your oven.
4. Let the tart cool on a rack for at least 2 hours before serving. The tart can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated overnight; before serving, let it sit at room temperature 1 to 2 hours.
5. The flavor of this tart is best after one day, and it will keep up to 6 days.