Hi, all. A lot has happened since my last newsletter, which I’m not going to go into right now. If you know, you know. Sorry to be vague.
I’m writing this with the tv on mute, broadcasting election results. On my computer, I’m listening to a group of women around the world talk on a zoom call about alternative economies (as part of a two-day conference from Chatham University on the food system; I learned about it from a post on farmer Mai Nguyen’s insta) and it’s really effing inspiring. (Here’s the livestream on YouTube, which I think you can watch later. Recordings from the whole conference will be online later, too.) There’s a group of people sitting outside, across the street, shouting about something or other. (They’ve been out there during the day for months, just to sit and talk to each other and sometimes blast music from an SUV. I love them, genuinely.) The breaking news in this moment is “Republicans push back against Trump’s false election claims” and I’m incredibly annoyed that that — a few Republicans deciding to have an inch of a backbone and say “hey, maybe don’t lie” — is breaking news.
Lunch will be bitter greens with a preserved lemon dressing spiked with anchovies and chile flakes, because I’m feeling extra punchy. A batch of yogurt is setting up in the oven; I started making yogurt ever since I read Priya Krishna’s dad’s method in her cookbook, Indian-ish. While I didn’t stress bake as much as I’d hoped this week — I had grand plans of making three different types of breakfast buns, two sweet, one savory — I did manage to make a killer batch of brownies from Charlotte Druckman’s Stir, Sizzle, Bake, which are in turn based off Alice Medrich’s cocoa brownies. (Any recipe that instructs you to beat something aggressively wins in my book.)
Somehow it’s Friday, and a beautiful day here in Washington, D.C.
I’m working on a few things that are keeping me blessedly distracted, but recent events have made my priorities shift. (Though I still don’t know what I’m doing or what I want to be doing, career-wise, I’m thankful that I’m able to be flexible.)
And how are you doing?
A thing I’ve gotten into recently is taking random bits of roasted vegetables, a cup or two of cooked beans, something fermented (kraut or kimchi), and something saucy (canned tomatoes or even just broth or bean cooking liquid), mixing them all together in a tiny casserole dish, and baking them in a hot oven until they’re bubbling and crisped on the edges. I guess it’s a casserole, or a version of baked beans, but if I call it that then you’d have a specific image in your head of what I’ve done, and it’s not that.
It takes little effort in the moment — the effort came earlier, which is why you have cooked beans and leftover roasted things and something fermented and a small casserole dish in the first place — and if you’ve got some bread or other starch to soak up the juices, it’s pretty ideal.
I honestly don’t remember what I put in my first version of this, other than beans and tomatoes and a topping of breadcrumbs (soaked in sunflower oil first, so they’d get nice and toasty brown). But this recent one had ~1 1/2 cups beans, ~1 cup roasted squash chunks, ~1/2 cup roasted pepper slices, a few handfuls of kraut, a few big spoonfuls of adjika (Georgian pepper paste bought at one of the NetCost Markets outside Philly, oh glorious Philly), and several shakes of khmeli suneli (Georgian spice blend purchased at European Delight in Rockville). It was better than I thought it’d be, honestly, though I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. When you combine ingredients that you know you like, with some inkling that they’ll get along together, then there’s little that can go wrong, especially when you top the hot mess with huge spoonfuls of sour cream and eat it with bread you dug out of the freezer and toasted in butter.
The picture at the top is a batch of pelmeni (Siberian dumplings) I made last month in Colorado. My nieces and mom helped fold them. We laughed at how much they look like little butts, and I hope that makes you laugh too.
Catch you next time.