Epic Chef Day

Two years ago at Christmas, I received a rather unusual gift: holidays. Mark gave me a handful of holidays of our own invention, scattered throughout the year, that we would celebrate together. We set the dates and put them in our calendar, but somehow we never got around to celebrating them. Until this year . . .

May 26 (placed strategically six months away from Thanksgiving) was our first Epic Chef Day. As you might imagine, Epic Chef Day is a celebration of food. We both love to cook and bake, and we generally fill the house with tempting aromas as often as possible.

Epic Chef Day is our opportunity to pull out all the stops, to experiment, and to feast.  Unlike Thanksgiving, Epic Chef Day has no traditional menu to worry about, so we went a little nuts.  It was a good kind of nuts.

We planned two meals for our holiday, but a slight error on my part meant that Thursday morning breakfast will not make it into the hallowed annals of Epic Chef Day.  Wednesday night dinner, however, was stupendous! I'm going to transcribe the account from our feast journal (an idea suggested to us by Mark's mother).  Some recipes are included. If you want the recipe, let me know, and I'll send it to you. (Note: the pictures you see in this post are not from Epic Chef Day.  We forgot to take any pictures of our creations.  Oops!  But all this talk about feasting required some kind of food pictures, so I pulled from past cooking adventures.)

May 25, 2011--Our First Epic Chef Day
Grocery Bill: $130 (including dinner and breakfast supplies)

Guests: Kate F---- and Jack B----
Arrived: 7:00 p.m., food served at 7:30 p.m.

Appetizers: "Crack" Broccoli
Description: Broiling gets the crisping done quickly while leaving that satisfying vegetable crunch intact in the broccoli.  It's the best of cooked and fresh broccoli rolled around in a zesty mix of spices and cheeses.  (And it's really easy to make!)


-2 heads of broccoli, florets only
-In a mixing bowl add: 2-3 T. canola oil, 1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup finely grated toscano cheese (with pepper crust), about 1/2 T. garam masala (coat the top of the oil), 2 tsp. lemon juice (or more), 1/2 tsp. salt; stir into paste
-Optional additions: paprika, chili powder, cinnamon, fresh ground pepper
-Add florets to spice paste and stir until broccoli is infused with coating (no puddles left in the bowl)
-Lay out broccoli in a single layer (no pieces touching) on a baking sheet
-Sprinkle with a little paprika and fresh grated parmesan cheese
-Broil just until the tips of the broccoli become brown and crispy; cheese will crisp, also
-Serve hot as finger food

Salad: Apple, Chèvre, and Maple-Toasted Walnut Salad
Description: We used fresh greens from our garden that have a little peppery flavor.  This salad is as light as you want it to be, depending on how much goat cheese you add.  Mark's dressing is zippy and a little sweet--it goes really well with the apples.  We also had homemade croutons, which didn't hurt.

-Brush walnuts with maple syrup (diluted with water 3:1); spread out on a pan in (toaster) oven, 200-250ºF, until nuts begin to brown slightly in the middle
-On a bed of baby lettuce mix, scatter chopped tart apples, croutons, cherry tomatoes, walnuts, and small dollops of chèvre
-Dress with Gran Mark's dressing: take 1 cup of a basic balsamic vinaigrette (your favorite recipe or store-bought), add 2 T. of Gran Marnier, 2 T. maple syrup, and a pinch of salt.  Shake vigorously.

Beverages: Cucumber Water, White Wine, and Ice Wine (separate)
Description: You wouldn't think water could get more refreshing than just water, but you would be wrong.  Cucumber water is an EXCELLENT drink for hot summer evenings. Both wines were wonderful! 

-Cucumber Water: finely slice 1-2 small cucumbers, 1/4 of a lemon, and 1/4 of an orange into a glass pitcher.  Add water and let sit in refrigerator for 2-3 hours.  Serve cold, with or without ice.
-White Wine (brought by Jack and Kate): Dona Ermelinda 2009 Palmela D.O.C.
-Ice Wine (dessert):  Renwood 2009 Zinfandel, Amador Ice

Main Course: Savory Tart of Chanterelles, Swiss Chard, and Emmentaler, White Dog Cafe Cookbook, pg. 170-171
Description: Mark's goal was to make a main dish that met my vegetarian diet restrictions but didn't leave him looking for the meat.  This did the trick.  Layers of Swiss cheese, mushrooms, and chard wrapped in a flaky crust . . . let's just say that no one went away hungry!   The smell is intoxicating, but eating it is pure delight.

-We added sauteed leek scapes to the chard
-Chanterelles were dried and reconstituted; fresh shitakes were used to augment mushroom flavor/texture
-Pie dough adapted from Cook's Illustrated Sept./Oct. 2010 issue

Dessert: Strawberry Mini-pies and Cream Puffs
Description: Fresh strawberries in the springtime are hard to beat.  The filling is made of smashed strawberries and cornstarch, so there's no artificial flavors competing for your attention.  They were very, very popular.  The cream puffs were no less delicious--a light dough filled with a Boston Cream type custard.  The rich chocolate glaze didn't hurt, either.  :)

-Strawberry pies adapted from White Dog Cafe Cookbook, pg.250.  1/2 recipe.  1/2 recipe of pie dough (Cook's Illustrated) prebaked in muffin tins.  Topped with Vermont whipped cream.
-Cream Puffs: recipe in progress

It was delicious!  And, if I may wax reflective for a moment, it was actually quite touching for me.  I love our new holidays!  They are a conscious step back from obligations--even the obligations that come with Christmas and Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day can be trying at times. Our holidays give us a concrete means of living fully into the things we love.  We invite abundance into our lives; we celebrate for the sheer joy of it.  I don't think we'll ever be able to go back.  Epic Chef Day is now, irrevocably, a part of our lives.  And we welcome it, as it were, with all our hearts!

The Blessingtree

Yesterday, I stood on a folding stool in the bedroom and strung green and yellow leaves from wire branches. Before the wedding, I commissioned a wire tree from my dear friend, Rachel, who is a sculptor. Instead of having a guestbook, we asked our wedding guests to write notes to us--wishes or blessings for our marriage--on colored paper leaves. These, I laminated and cut out and, now, strung from our tree.

The result is beautiful. The leaves twist and blow in the slightest breeze. It looks rather like a weeping willow, conjuring images of a quiet pond in the golden late afternoon of summer. The words of love from our friends and family whisper around the edges of the scene. We will change the colors as the seasons change, and so we will have a continual flow of tender wishes, heartfelt blessings, and invaluable wisdom--cyclical and ever renewing, like the world we live in . . . the world we are striving to love.

Thank you to everyone who gave us your words, your wishes. Thank you to those who add to our blessingtree in intangible ways. You dress our tree with inspiration, with powerful examples of integrity and kindness. Thank you; we are blessed.

Side Effects

I am writing this post in one of two brief days that we are at home this month. The pace towards finishing the YERT film is quickening. As a result, we are spending a number of weeks in Louisville, KY, where Mark's partner in film-making, Ben, lives. This push to the end is exciting, of course--it's something we've been waiting for--but there are side effects to living with this kind of intensity.

A week or so ago, I spent a few days transcribing two key interviews for the film. Both interviewees were brilliant and wise; their words were rich with importance. What they had to say, however, was unsettling. Amongst those who watch the health of our planet and interpret her uncomfortable readjustments to our demands, there is a deep, sad undercurrent of nostalgia. It is almost as if they (the environmentalists/soothsayers in the interviews) have already lain out their mourning clothes, already wept for the most bitter and immediate loss, and are now practicing for the role of survivors. We may come through this ecological collapse alive, they say in steady and thoughtful tones, but it will not be the world we remember in our narratives of Paradise, the one we idolize in symbols and songs, the one we love.

Hope does not grow in the same bed as naivete. Hope requires that we recognize the full scope of our impending struggle and, seeing it unblinkingly, decide we are capable of dealing with it. That is a perspective that is reached by choice, not forced through by the weight of facts alone. For one thing, facts can easily remain merely intellectual abstractions, something you make yourself imagine by squeezing shut your eyes and concentrating very hard. The possibility of climate refugees, mass famines, and violent water wars seem little different from the histories of genocide and cruelty--tragic but immutable, moving but eternally distant. The little duties of day-to-day life are thick enough to bury those concerns--usually. But there was something about listening intently to the voices of these two sages and faithfully typing their words that narrowed the wiggle room in my attention. Not only was the fate of the Earth an image I did not have to imagine on my own, I couldn't look away. Accepting these predictions as realities, hope revealed itself for what it was--toil.

The last straw came a night or two later when "The Pianist" was on TV. I had been studying all day and had turned on the television to fill the last hour or so until Mark was ready for bed. If you haven't seen the film, it is only pertinent that you know that it is a Holocaust story. I watched humans do to each other the most illogical, hateful, horrific things we are capable of . . . and for what reason? A nation in economic distress and social disgrace, looking for someone to bear the guilt and receive the angry debt? A paralyzing, dehumanizing fear of the future? A culture of bitter prejudice and heavy-handed ideologies? These are not unfamiliar specters. If even one of these environmental prophets' predictions should come true--say, a wide-spread water shortage--what will keep these horrors from my door? Won't the powerful always put their own prosperity at the cost of another's suffering? Daily examples, the world over, answer my questions with chilling certainty.

Needless to say, it was not in peace that I went to bed that night. Mark and I talked for a long time before we slept. I can't say that we dispelled the dark shadows that had been gathering. We did, however, plant a few more of our hopes in the ideas of Transition Town, a community-based sustainability movement. And we allowed our conversation to drift to our plans to build an Earthship, a fully off-grid house that is all but a living protector from the perils of an unstable world. And I took comfort in turning from the panic, the dread, even the nostalgia evoked by my dark ruminations and burying myself in my husband's arms.

I can't really be certain that any of my worries will take shape as I imagine them. But I don't think it matters, really. The true test is not in predicting the exact, correct timeline for struggle--it is guaranteed that struggle will come to us some day, some way. The true test is in finding hope, toiling for it, and rearing it into a full-grown confidence that we are able to move through pain to renewal. We must live with the faith that the principles we believe in--love, community, learning, and true growth--still and always mark out the best possible path. We're working on building this kind of integrity in our lives. YERT is dedicated to cultivating that kind of hope and joy in the people it touches. Yes, part of the journey is letting go of our nostalgic longing for the world as it once was . . . and that process has some unpleasant side effects. But healing is on the wing. I trust. I hope.

Home

Mark sometimes jokes that he doesn't know how he even met me, given how often I leave the house. We concede the point to fate. But it's true. I am a person little bothered by long stretches of solitude and dearly fond of tugging 'home' around the sharp shoulders of a room. I am a homebody.

When Mark moved into this apartment, I took down all my pictures, unshelved all my books, and moved every piece of furniture to allow our home to grow naturally into the space that was once mine alone. But even then, I grew anxious waiting to return the rooms to a state of homeyness. The effects of living in a car for a year are still apparent in Mark's life. Many of his photos are unframed, and some of his dearest belongings are stored in the basements of relatives from here to California. When he set out on his journey, it was on a track faster and freer than the remnants of interior decorating could keep up with.

I found I couldn't wait for his material possessions to catch up. One framed print and a family photo are all that Mark has to represent him on our walls. My library has vacated a single shelf for his stereo. We carried in a few new cabinets to accommodate his arrival, and wedding gifts have begun to add heft to our common life, but I still have a niggling sense that my over-abundance of nesting impulses unbalance the character of our home. I do not want to dominate any sphere of our life, domestic or otherwise.

Perhaps some of these apparent imbalances will resolve themselves when we eventually move out of this apartment into a home that is truly joint space. Maybe time alone will help obscure the memory that this was my apartment before it was his also. Of course, the conscious effort to seek balance is fundamental. I hope to demonstrate my love, respect, and interest in my husband by celebrating his full entrance into the sacred creation of our home. In fact, I refuse to define home without him, although my impulses may urge me to move faster or more thoroughly than he is able to.

It is not, despite what it sounds, a sacrifice. This kind partnership is as beneficial to me as to him or anyone else--it is less fragile, more complex, more sustainable than building alone. I am not surrendering control, really. I offer my talents for homemaking and welcome his with my will fully intact. I choose this new means of staying at home.

And here, there remains an imbalance that I will never try to correct--I choose this new making of home with far more joy than regret, a greater swell of love than defensiveness, a tidal wave of eagerness that dilutes the trickle of worry to utter insignificance.

Wedding Photos are Online!

We've finally uploaded a whole lot of photos from our wedding. Feel free to browse through them when you have a half hour or so, and you're welcome to order prints, etc., from the site.

 Click here to view photos

Many thanks to Bernie Yoo, Julie Evans, and Dianne Carroll for so generously providing so many beautiful photos!

The Wedding Sermon

Thanks to the efforts of a variety of technically-minded friends and family at the wedding, we're delighted to share with you an MP3 of Valerie Dixon's sermon at our wedding. To listen, just click the play button on the player below:



Mom highlighted some life wisdom for us from one of the Hafiz poems we selected for the event: We Have Not Come To Take Prisoners. It was a joy and an honor to be blessed with a sermon presented by my mother at our wedding. I know that this sermon will continue to guide us long after the words were spoken on that magical wedding day. I look forward to the unfolding.

With love,
Mark

Married Life

One of these days, we'll get Mark to post something here, but, in the meantime, it seemed best to post an update on the past almost-two-months of marriage.

Married life is lovely. There's a deep truth to that phrase, "married life"--it's as if our individual lives, although threading along in closer and closer proximity to each other for the past number of months, have now begun to weave together and anchor in each other. And there's a simplicity in it. Almost daily, I find myself gushing to Mark about how perfectly easy it is to break from our work (we both work from home), sit down at our kitchen table, and eat a meal together . . . no matter how unpredictable our schedules are.

Furthermore, the balance of caregiving and need for care is easier to maintain with substantive bonds that bind us to each other. We have laid out for each other our needs and our stores of wealth and match them up, one to the other. This sounds like a solemn and meticulous process, but it is often in gleeful and giddy moments that we find we have sketched the blueprints of our habits and family traditions. (My favorite new "tradition" is a fall-specific game which involves long stretches of staring at a single oak tree interspersed with bursts of frantic hilarity as we both chase the same falling leaf. Whoever catches it gets a point. Mark won by one leaf.) These are the kinds of pleasures that I barely knew how to anticipate. They are delicate, nuanced, and sweetly mundane.

Now, I recognize that I tend to write in terms that tend towards the grandiose and metaphysical, and I also recognize that we've only been married for almost-two-months. I fully anticipate--hope, even--that our experiences will reveal to us facets of life we don't yet have the words to describe. But today is a part of our marriage as much as a day twenty years from now will be. It just happens to be the early part. So, we are thankful for the joy, and we carefully prepare for whatever else might be ours. And, to sum up, we are having a wonderful time of it.