I’ve been a slacker, not posting anything for the entire month of January – sorry! I cooked a few international dishes last month, but have also been trying to eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies and not “plan” my food too much. I need a break from that sometimes :)

I did want to share the results of a dinner from mid-January with my fellow International Festival cooking demo planners. We decided that we would each cook at least one item from the 1992 Festival cookbook. We’re hoping to have a 20th Anniversary edition of that cookbook available at the 2012 festival. So this was  a good excuse to cook a few of the recipes, decide if they’re ones we want to include in the revised cookbook, and get some photos of the food. In addition to the dish I contributed (described below), we also enjoyed Irish soda bread, Pakistani Chicken Pulao, and a Greek Cabbage and Rice dish. I will also share in the next post about our dessert, South African Malva Pudding. It was quite the world tour!

The main dish that I made is called Aushak with Gondona filling; a spicy leek-filled ravioli served with thickened yogurt, crushed dry mint and a tomato meat sauce. I was intrigued by the recipe because of the mix of flavors, and because I love leeks and raviolis, so what could be better than putting them together!

The recipe was very involved, so I won’t type it all out here – but you’ll probably see it in the cookbook. Although it was time-intensive to make, we all agreed that it was unique and tasty enough that it should be included. My only criticism was the heaviness of the ravioli dough. It was homemade, using only flour, water and salt to make a very stiff dough that was difficult to roll as thin as it should have been. Next time, I might substitute a different dough, or use my machine pasta roller to get it thinner. It did hold together very well though, not one ravioli leaked (no pun intended) during the boiling.

Here’s what it looked like on my plate – yum!  I loved the combination of the spicy leek filling, the coolness from the yogurt and mint, and the tang from the tomato and yogurt.

This weekend, I learned a couple of things.

First, I don’t hate beets!  Mind you, I don’t love beets either, but I have learned to eat them, enjoy them a bit, and get on with it.  We used this recipe (minus the carrots and pork) last night as a side for pan-fried sausages and roasted cabbage, which sounds weird but is an easy, tasty way to prepare cabbage.  Plus, it doesn’t stink up your house like boiling cabbage does.  At least I think it doesn’t. I haven’t left the house since supper last night.

Lots more veg than meat on the plate last night.  I’m trying not to get smug about that.

The other revelation, I’m sorry to say, is that I’m afraid I have found a culprit to the migraines – excessive sugar.  I’ve been sort of tracking habits leading up to their arrival (No fancy spreadsheets or journals. Just relying on memory), and after an evening of super-sweet, more-sugar-than-I’ve-ever-seen-in-a-baked-good-recipe sweet brownie indulgence on Saturday night, I ended up with the “sick headache.”  So super sugary goods are out while I continue my experiment. (PS. I looked this up on discussion boards online, my number one health authority, and am now convinced.)

My aging crystal ball is telling me more beets, fewer brownies are in my future.

Are you all stocked up on haggis and whisky for tonight?

We’re a’ dry wi’ drinking o’t,
We’re a’ dry wi’ drinking o’t:
The minister kisst the fidler’s wife,
He could na preach for thinkin o’t.—

Another Burns birthday rolls around and I still haven’t memorized Tam O ‘Shanter. Next year!

I was somehow able to extend my 37th birthday celebrations throughout the entire week.

Lovely people, books, and confections abounded.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/11/skyscrapers-china-india-recession

This morning, I’ve been trying to decide which book to pick up next.  I want to read some fiction, but I’m not sure what to start with.

So I thought it might be fun to put together a best of 2011 reads until I decide.  Here are a few of my favorites from last year.

I read a lot in the spirituality category, and Anthony DeMello started it all.  So Awareness is definitely on my list of favorites as is Erich Schiffmann’s Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness.

I loved Louise Erdrich’s  Shadow Tag (disturbing as it was) and The Master Butchers Singing Club, though I may have read those in late 2010.  Great books nonetheless.

2010 was more the year of the biography for me, but I did enjoy Charles Shields’ Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee  this year.

My daughter and I have begun reading chapter books together. Some of her favorites, which we’ve read about a million times each, are Beverly Cleary’s Socks, Jeff Brown’s Flat Stanley and a young reader’s version of Heidi.

And I laughed out loud quite a lot while reading Tina Fey’s Bossypants.

What did you enjoy reading in 2011?  Any recommendations?

On January 4th, we got the keys to the new place.

Yay!

But now, the real work begins.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be painting, scrubbing, moving, furnishing and many other things that end in -ing.

And we are going to need your help.

Below is our up-to-date list with the things we currently need, along with scheduled work days.

(The list below is being constantly updated. Bookmark this page and check back often)

Things we need right now:

• Ace Hardware Gift Cards: You can get them at any Ace Hardware Store (or online) and mail them to the address on this page. 

Thanks for working with us on this. We want to be able to work with local businesses rather than national chains if at all possible.

• 10 metal folding chairs
• Got any church paraments floating around? (for our chapel)
• Cokesbury Gift Cards (or your willingness to buy us some church stuff on your church’s account).
• Microwave

Please click here to give us your name and email, so you can be notified of work days and volunteer opportunities (The form was not working properly, but has now been fixed).

Thanks, and again, bookmark this page and check back often for the list of the latest things we need.

So, the big news is… this week, we take possession of what will be the new offices of Love Wins Ministries .

It’s the result of a partnership between Hillyer Memorial Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Love Wins – we have been working on it behind the scenes for a few months now, but we finally got all the details worked out.

The building (that is it in the picture at the top of the page) is located at 707 West Jones Street (map), just a block off the R-Line and on three major bus lines. It is  a bit over 2200 square feet, with a fully built out attic and a basement with a concrete floor.  We will have space for storage, space for offices, a conference room, a small chapel for our worshipping community to meet each week and lots more. And, it will mean a savings of over $8500 in just the first year over all our current arrangements.

This is a big deal for us – it gives us permanence in the community, a place we can make long term plans and opens us up to many more options – most of which we haven’t even figured out yet.

Over the next month, we will establish a schedule of office hours (for which we will need volunteers to work the front desk – so keep your eye out for that). When that is settled, I will post it here.

We will need your help in so many ways – here are some off the top of my head:

• Moving stuff from paid storage to here
• Helping us move offices
• Painting
• Helping us find furniture
• Signage
• Volunteer signups to work our front desk
• Yard work

Thank you so much for all your love and support, and a big thank you to the good people at Hillyer Memorial Church.

Got questions? Put them in the comments.

Here are two vegetarian recipes that I adapted from a cookbook borrowed from my co-worker - Bulgarian Rhapsody by Linda Forristal. A simple pea and cabbage soup called “Autumn Soup” is flavored with paprika, parsley and just a bit of vinegar.  And a quickbread called Tutmanik is studded with feta cheese crumbles and garnished with paprika. 

The soup is a simple vegetable soup, but satisfying. The touch of vinegar at the end reminds me of the way my mom would make chicken soup where we would add a few drops of lemon juice right before eating. That bit of sour just generally brightens the flavors in the rest of the soup.

Autumn Soup
1 Tbsp. oil
1 onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
7 c. water
1 tsp. salt, plus more to taste
3 c. shredded green cabbage
3 c. potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 c. frozen green peas
2 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. flour
1 Tbsp. sweet Hungarian paprika
2 Tbsp. minced fresh parsley
1 Tbsp. vinegar

Saute onion and celery in oil over medium heat until translucent and just starting to brown. Add water and 1 tsp. salt and bring to a simmer. Add cabbage and potatoes and bring to simmer again. Simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, thaw and puree peas in a blender or food processor. You may need to add a bit of broth to fully puree the peas. Add peas to the soup.

Melt the butter in a small pan, add flour and stir to make a roux. After it is all incorporated, remove from heat and stir in paprika. Transfer about 1 c. of soup broth to the roux and mix in gently, gradually adding more broth to try and prevent clumping. Add roux back to the soup to help thicken it a bit. Stir well and take soup off heat. Add parsley and vinegar, serve.

Tutmanik – Feta Cheese bread
2 eggs
1/4 c. oil
1 c. yogurt
1/2 lb. feta
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
paprika to garnish

Preheat oven to 400F. Mix together the eggs, oil, yogurt, feta, and salt.  Sift together flour and baking powder, and stir in gently to the egg mixture. Grease and flour an 8-inch square baking pan. Pour the batter into this pan, and garnish with sprinkles of paprika.

Bake at 400F for 20 minutes, or just until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve with a dollop of yogurt as shown in picture.  This bread is supposed to be served for breakfast, but it did make a nice accompaniment for the soup. I halved the recipe and baked it in a smaller oblong baking dish. It was like a moist feta cheese biscuit!

My friend Garima’s parents are visiting from India, and I was very excited to get an invitation to cook with her mother this week! Garima and I used to work together, and we still get together occasionally to cook and bake, and to watch Hindi movies at the Galaxy theater. A few times, I have taught her to bake something, but mostly she teaches me to cook Indian dishes. 

This time, the lesson was mooli paratha, shown here. If you’ve eaten at Indian restaurants, you may know that paratha is a type of filled flatbread. It can be filled with different vegetables – in fact Garima and I made cauliflower paratha in a previous session. But for this meal, we filled them with mooli, or daikon radish. I had previously run into the daikon radish mainly in Asian cuisine, particularly Japanese and Korean cooking. I didn’t know until now that it is also grown and used as an ingredient in India. It’s a long white radish, often with just a tinge of green at the top where it has been exposed to the sun above the soil.

This recipe is fairly time-intensive, but the end result was very worth it! The first step is to peel and shred the mooli for the filling.

Next, Garima squeezed the juice from the radish into another bowl. Be careful with this step, the radish juice can be irritating to sensitive  or chapped skin (as we found out the hard way!). This radish juice was then used to make the dough, while the squeeze-dried radish was cooked for the filling.

To make the filling, the shredded radish was sauteed with anise seed, finely minced green chiles, ground red pepper, asafetida, and salt. This was stir-fried for about 5 minutes until well-mixed and slightly softened. The filling was removed from the heat, and chopped cilantro was stirred in. The filling was then spread out on a larger plate to cool quickly before filling the paratha.

The dough, which you can see in the larger square container above, was made from an Indian whole wheat flour called atta, which is much lighter than our typical whole wheat flour. You should be able to find this in any Indian grocery store, it looks similar to semolina in color, and I imagine if you tell someone you’re making paratha they’ll be able to point you in the right direction.

Unfortunately, I can’t really give you the amounts because this is one of those recipes that is done by feel, until it’s “right”….  But basically, Garima’s mom made the dough by mixing together the atta flour with a large pinch of salt, and adding strained radish juice, plus water as needed, to achieve the appropriate dough texture. She kneaded the dough for a minute or two in the bowl and set it aside to rest briefly until the filling was ready. It was stiff enough to knead, but very soft dough – one of those things that you have to try until you figure out the perfect consistency, I’m afraid! But it seems from our discussion that the softer the dough is, the better it will actually work in this recipe, stiffer dough might tear more easily rather than stretching to accomodate the filling.

She oiled her fingers a bit to grab off a small piece of dough, so that it wouldn’t stick. The dough was then worked into a small disc, dipping it in extra atta flour as needed to work it and then roll it into a circle about 5-6 inches in diameter. A large spoonful of the filling was placed in the middle as shown above, and then the edges all brought together above to seal in the filling (shown below).

This is the really tricky part, because then you need to roll the filled dough ball out into a thin paratha, more like 8 inches diameter, preferably without breaking through the dough and letting the filling spill out. I had tried this with the cauliflower paratha and knew that I’d make a mess of it, so I left that to the experts [plus, I was too busy eating the delicious paratha as they came off the griddle!]

The flattened, filled paratha is fried on one side on a griddle. After flipping to the second side, either vegetable oil, or ghee (clarified butter) is lightly spread on the top with the back of a spoon. This motion makes it puff up like this, if you’re an expert paratha maker, anyway…  And that’s how you make mooli paratha.

Now for how you EAT mooli paratha, I became an expert on that after eating my 4 for the evening :)  We made a simple raita of yogurt, toasted and coarsely ground cumin seeds, and black salt (you can use regular salt, but black salt has a unique sulfurous flavor that’s recommended if you can get it).

The paratha are eaten with the fingers, tearing off a small piece and eating it with this raita, tamarind chutney, and other spicy additions like spicy mango pickles or hot sauce. Delicious! It was a great evening of cooking, eating and chatting, as a couple of other folks dropped in to help eat the mooli paratha. I’m already looking forward to the return trip of Garima’s mom in March so we can cook again!

This recipe is adapted from Claudia Roden’s The Food of Spain. The great thing about this recipe IS it’s adaptability – you can pretty much use whatever vegetables you have available, toss it with the viniagrette dressing and some hardboiled eggs – and you have this salad, from the Murcia region of Spain. The recipe itself called for leeks, potatoes, artichoke, asparagus and tomatoes. I don’t like asparagus so I substituted green beans, and decided to also add more variety and color by also adding red pepper, zucchini and cauliflower.

Veggie Salad
1/2 head cauliflower, split into flowerets
1 potato, peeled and diced
1 large leek, sliced thickly
1/2 lb. green beans
8 oz. frozen artichoke hearts
1 zucchini, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
4 Roma tomatoes, diced
2 eggs
1 c. olive oil
5 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1/4 c. fresh parsley, minced
salt and pepper, to taste

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add salt. Blanch the cauliflower, green beans, potato, leek, zucchini, and artichoke hearts until just tender, maybe still a bit crunchy. Then remove each from the water and put in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Leave the red pepper and tomato uncooked.

Toss all the veggies together with the eggs. Make a dressing of the olive oil, vinegar (or substitute lemon juice for a slightly different flavor), parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss all veggies with the dressing and serve immediately or preferably within 2 or 3 hours. Any longer and the salad starts to get discolored (especially the green beans and parsley).

I’m guessing this would also be really good with a bit of feta cheese crumbled in there, and the recipe also recommends adding capers or olives.

This morning, I get on my bicycle at 8:45 and ride through the cold crisp air to meet Jim at the CVS to pay for his hypertension medication. He was introduced to me yesterday at our regular Sunday Morning Breakfast. 

He and I were to meet at the CVS at 9:00am. By 9:30, I gave up on him, but only after standing in the cold for half an hour. That Jim was not there when we agreed to meet is no reflection on his character, per se. When you are homeless, time is a fluid concept. He got out of the shelter at 7:00 or so this morning and so it is quite possible he sat outside the CVS from 7:30 until 8:50 and then gave up on me. 

Or maybe he found someone to hand him $4 cash yesterday after we talked. Or maybe he forgot. 

In any event, there are countless ways to have made the project called “Get Jim some drugs” more efficent.  Off the top of my head: 

• Have a volunteer take him yesterday to the 24 hour pharmacy and pay for his drugs.
• Have a $5 CVS giftcard in my pocket
• Agree to meet him this morning at the shelter and take him to the pharmacy.
• Develop a prescription drug program.
• etc.

Any of those would have been more efficent and, in fact, more effective at the project called “Get Jim his drugs”. 

But that is not the project I am working on. 

Instead, I am part of a project that could be called “Let’s Get to Know Jim”. And all relationships involve deliberate inefficency.

When you meet a friend for lunch, you do not go to the place that promises you the most efficent souce of high quality calories – instead you go to the place that makes hanging out with your friend the easiest. Things like quality of food, how fast the kitchen is and even cost take a back seat to things that make it easier to spend time with your friend. You are not working on the project called “Get Maximum Calories at the Best Price”. You are woking on a project called “Hang out with Mike over Food”. 

So, the project called “Get to Know Jim” took a hit this morning. It cost me a half an hour in the cold and fleeting frustration. And occasionally, on days like this, I am reminded why the projects other people are working on are the ones they are working on – because the relational way is hard and inefficent. 

That does not mean it is wrong, however. 

Part 2 of the Chinese Food class was held at a Chinese restaurant on the corner of Tryon and Cary Parkway in Cary – called Able Karaoke Bar & Grill.  I have to admit, I didn’t know what to expect from the name of the place, but the food was really delicious and we were served a feast!  The Confucius Institute combined the second part of the food class with a graduation and celebration ceremony for their language students and their teachers from this semester, probably 30-40 people altogether.We started with a tea pouring demonstration by Mr. Able. We got to smell and sip the special jasmine tea and black tea that he imports for himself and doesn’t serve at the restaurant.

He also showed us a special dried blossom (I think chrysanthemum or something related?) that is twisted and tied in a special way while drying so that when you immerse it in hot water it gradually blooms, like this! He cautioned us that the resulting ‘tea’ doesn’t taste very good, but hey – it’s pretty :)  This was also the point where Mr. Able said that he only serves food in his restaurant that he himself enjoys eating. His reasoning is because if he doesn’t taste the food, then he can’t guarantee that it is up to his standards. That encouraged me about the level of quality and pride that he brings to his restaurant – which was definitely proven by the meal that followed.

Pork Skin Jelly – you know how when you roast or cook pork at home, the juice forms a gelatinous goop when you chill it? This was like eating a very firm version of that jellied pork broth, not my choice in textures but it wasn’t unpalatable either. I finished a whole piece, but didn’t have seconds.

Peanut salad – the peanuts were very soft, had been soaked in something, though I’m not sure what.

Very tasty Chinese Salad – shredded dried tofu, carrots, snow peas, and bean sprouts. I couldn’t place the flavoring, but when I asked, Mr. Able said that it was Szechuan peppercorns, a distinctive spice that was very tasty in this dish.

We also had fried shrimp chips. These were all considered appetizers, which we ate while making dumplings.

They delivered  a plate of filling (leek, pork and shrimp) and a plate of homemade dumpling wrappers to each table and we all tried our hand at forming the dumplings. Then they gathered them back up and cooked them for us.

Spring Wraps were also on the menu for the evening. From the name, I was thinking they might be like Vietnamese summer rolls or fried Chinese spring rolls – but this was actually something in between, and different than anything I’ve had at a Chinese restaurant before. The fillings above, seasoned chicken and beef and scrambled eggs were provided to our table along with a big plate of shredded lettuce and green onion.

We wrapped any mixture of these fillings in a thick wheat flour wrapper which reminded me of a thick mu shu pancake or a homemade flour tortilla. It was then eaten fresh. If you only try one thing at this restaurant, you HAVE to try these spring wraps – they are offered as a lunch special and you can get them with assorted fillings.

About this time, others at my table were complaining about being too full, and I was having to finish off some of the extra food at the table so it wouldn’t ‘go to waste’ ;)  I found the pace of our meal to be slow enough that I really could eat more. We ate the entire meal over the course of about 2.5 hours, with a graduation ceremony in the middle.

This is when our main entree arrived at each table – a hotpot bowl filled with spicy broth on one side and mostly unseasoned broth on the other. They brought so many plates of veggies we could barely fit them on the table – baby bok choy, chinese cabbage, mustard greens, 3 kinds of mushrooms, bean sprouts, and bean thread vermicelli. Shortly after this picture was taken they also brought us 2 plates full of shaved beef, and one plate of shaved lamb. All of this was placed in the hotpot to cook and eat communally.

I have to say that the spicy broth (again flavored with Szechuan peppercorns) was incredibly spicy – and I don’t have a low tolerance for these things. Once I realized that there were whole peppercorns contributing to the heat, I was able to avoid biting into those, and the beef cooked in that side of the pot was very tasty. But it was impossible to scoop out the vermicelli without getting a whole bunch of peppercorns with it from the bottom of the pot. And the greens also seemed to soak up the spicy heat. But it was a very fun time with the others at my table, and if I go back again I’ll figure out my method for what goes on each side. It does make me worry a bit about the spicy hot pot mix that I bought at the supermarket last week though…

While we were cooking the hotpot additions, they brought us one more “appetizer” of lamb kabobs, seasoned with a very nice mixture that I think included cumin and paprika. They were cooked perfectly, still moist and tender with a lovely grilled flavor. It didn’t taste at all like what I would consider “Chinese” – but as we learned in part I of the class, there is a lot of variation within that cuisine that we aren’t typically exposed to in the West. Also, if you’ll notice, there was not a single grain of rice served at the meal!

Needless to say, we were all incredibly stuffed by this point, and there were a number of hotpot ingredients that could not be eaten at our table. I asked the waitstaff if the remaining beef, bok choy and Chinese cabbage would be discarded and when that was confirmed, I offered to take it home instead. Luckily (according to others at my table), this is seen as a compliment in Chinese culture, so they were happy to provide me with a takeaway box. I made this delicious stir-fry the next day with just a bit of soy sauce and ginger added.

I recently attended a two-part Chinese Food class, offered by the Confucius Institute of NC State University. The Institute mainly offers semester-long Chinese language classes, but they also have shorter classes on Chinese music and food.

The class I took was not a cooking class, per se, but a class to learn about the Chinese food culture. The first class was for a few hours on a Tuesday night at A&C Supermarket in South Raleigh. I had driven past this place many times, but never realized that a huge Asian grocery store was there! We met in the food court area where we were encouraged to buy dinner and sit together to eat and chat, getting to know each other a little bit until everyone showed up.

I was so hungry, the food was so tasty, and the conversation so interesting that I actually forgot to take a photo of my plate before I ate everything on it! There were a number of Chinese students (from NCSU, I assume) eating solo and in pairs, so based on that cue and the offerings on the menu (which included cow stomach), I’m assuming that this is pretty authentic food – or at least more so than many of the local Chinese takeout joints. I had some fresh stir fried bok choy which was delicious, and I also very much enjoyed an eggplant and tofu stir fry – the remnants of which are shown at the bottom of the photo above.

We then proceeded to have a slide show about the different regions in China and how their food differs. For example, in northern China the climate is cool enough that rice does not grow well, but they do grow a lot of wheat. That’s where many of the dumpling and noodle dishes originated.  We asked a lot of questions during the presentation, and then we walked around the grocery store.   A Chinese student who came along to help teach, Dong Shu, gave us some suggestions of how she cooks and the ingredients she uses.

This grocery store has quite a large produce section, and I was interested in many of the items, like fresh lotus root, Chinese okra, and about 6 different kinds of bok choy – yum!  I also noticed that they have some of the Vietnamese ingredients and herbs that I used last year during that month of cooking. They also have quite a selection of cooking utensils, pans and woks – it looked like a restaurant supply area.

Not everyone came away with groceries, but while we were going through the store I did some actual shopping, buying some of the suggested ingredients to play with. If any of you have ideas about what to do with these items, please let me know! Dong Shu said that she uses the spiced dry tofu (in the green package) just to cut up into a vegetable stir fry. The orange package on the left is a spicy hot pot mix (I’ll describe hot pot in the next post), and the jar is spiced preserved bean curd. And I also bought a dark soy sauce, who knew there were light and dark soy sauces for different purposes? The dark has less sodium and is used to add color to meat dishes, while the light has more salt. The dark soy sauce is the bottle on the left, and a dark rice wine vinegar is next to it.

And here are a couple of things I didn’t buy;

I’ll follow up with a second post for our part 2 class, where we met at a restaurant in Cary for a Chinese feast to celebrate the end of semester with all the language class participants. It will mostly be a photo journal of what we ate.

Raleigh old-timers (at least those who have been here the past 10-15 years) may remember the Rathskeller restaurant on Hillsborough St. I was recently reminded of the delicious lemon-tahini dressing from that restaurant, and mentioned it to some of my friends. My friend Deniz (she’s Turkish) described to me how she makes a similar dressing, so I decided to give it a try. Here’s an approximate recipe I ended up with below. Other recipes I found online have various ratios of lemon juice to tahini, most  with equal amounts or slightly more lemon juice than tahini. I personally like this ratio with more tahini, though it makes for a pretty thick dressing. Then again, I’ve always been partial to the flavor of sesame – so feel free to play around and find your favorite ratio.

Lemon-Tahini Dressing
1/4 c. fresh lemon juice
1/2 c. tahini (sesame paste)
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt, more to taste
1/8 tsp. black pepper
water to desired consistency, 1/2 c. or more

Whisk together everything except water, then gradually add water while whisking.  The water not only helps to thin out the dressing to a reasonable drizzling consistency, but it also tones down the tart of the lemon and slightly bitter flavor of the tahini. Serve with a salad or as a vegetable dip.

Yesterday was December 1^st and the start of our Nana punch season.  My grandmother made this wonderful concoction each year, and I’ll share it with you to enjoy during your festivities this month.

Yes, I am testing it this morning at 9 AM, sans spirits.  It brings me back to a table full of glossy ham, fruit salad, mile-high fresh coconut cake, lots more food – and family.

Nana Punch

 Combine the orange peel, lemon peel, orange juice, lemon juice, cloves, sugar, and tea bags in a pot and bring to a boil.  Boil lightly for 5 minutes.  Let stand off heat for 10 minutes.  Stir in apple juice and pineapple juice.  Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.  Serve with ginger ale.  Add whiskey for warmth.

It’s stew weather again (finally!) and I had a craving for one of my favorites – chick-peanut butter stew. This isn’t really an international recipe but it involves North African flavors, and the combination of spinach and peanut butter (‘ground nut’) which is also pretty uniquely African. The recipe actually came from the North Carolina State Fair cooking contests a couple of years ago. This recipe was a runner-up in the N.C. Peanut Growers Association recipe competition – in my opinion, it should have won first place, hands down!

The recipe is vegan, and the peanut butter that is added at the end makes it creamy even without any dairy or additional thickener. It’s a comforting soup full of iron and other great vitamins, and freezes very well.

Chick-Peanut Butter Stew
1/4 c. canola oil
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 can petite diced tomatoes, with juice
3 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 quart vegetable broth
1 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. peanut butter
5 oz. spinach

Saute onions and garlic in canola oil until softened and translucent. Add cinnamon, cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper and saute for another 1 minute until fragrant. Add tomatoes, chickpeas, broth, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir well, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 45 minutes.

Remove from heat. Puree half the soup (I use my “boat motor” handheld immersion blender), then add peanut butter and spinach. Heat through until peanut butter is dissolved into the soup, making it creamy. Serve immediately or freeze for later.

On Black Friday, instead of elbowing through crowds at the malls and marts, we ventured to a pottery sale that some family and others took part in on the grounds of an old farm in western North Carolina.  I come from a line of potters, though I have never been at a wheel before myself, and my eighty-something-year-old great uncle fairly recently started making his own, keeping the tradition of his uncle and father alive.

We had plenty of room to roam among stands of pots, cups, and bake ware and between old oak trees, barns and buildings.

We even got to peek through an outbuilding where the wheel lies among encrusted tools and the sunlight of the day pours through the clay-splattered window.