The Joy of a Good Veggie Sandwich

I had a sandwich for lunch today that was... how can I describe it?  I mean, I'd show you a photo of it, but I bought it for lunch and had no idea it would be so delicious, I'd want to blog about it.  Next time I order one -- probably next week sometime -- I'll photograph it, and show you what you're missing. Instead, here's a photo of the 1880 Cafe by James, on the first floor of 1880 Century Park East, in Century City.  This is where the sandwich was made, anyway.

It was yummy.

I don't know why don't know why I'm going ga-ga over a sandwich. It is just a bunch of stuff roasted and packed between two slices of bread.   Okay, so it was a panini, which means that the bread was toasted to a nice light brown crisp. Yeah, alright, and the "stuff" that was slapped in the middle were roasted portobello mushrooms, roasted peppers, provolone, ripe tomato and pesto sauce.  And, if you're going to get completely picky and detail-oriented, the sandwich was served with yummy mixed greens and the house vinaigrette, which is nothing original, but is tasty nonetheless.

I think the panini took me by surprise because I truly never anticipated ordering it.  I've been on a self-destructive food path for a while now.  There's been an undercurrent of choosing food that is the most destructive and unhealthy that somehow has driven my food choices -- not all the time, but regularly enough that it has effected every aspect of my life.  I have wished to eat better, but I've been unable to apply that wish to my actual choices.

I started to listen to an audiobook two days ago called A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever, written and read by Marianne Williamson. This book has shaken my spiritual foundation to its core, but I'm not going to go into details at the moment. I've vowed that I am going to read this book and no other until I have full "grokked" it and absorbed it. Suffice it to say that, although I have miles and miles to go before I sleep, Williamson's message of healing the spiritual wounds that keep one fat is so deeply profound and applicable that with every lesson, I'm finding I'm making healthier and healthier options.

Hence the vegetarian panini and salad for lunch.  And the banana for dessert.

What? I didn't mention the banana? Sorry... I was blinded by grilled portobella mushrooms.

Food is for sustenance, enjoyment and nourishment. It is not to be used for sublimating feelings.

This is my lesson to be learned, so I can love food in a healthy way.

~C~

Passing It On: Cooking Through Generations

Helen, age 13

I never met my maternal grandmother, Helen. She died of lung cancer at the age of forty-two, when my mother was seventeen.  I did briefly meet my grandmother's mother, Freda, when I was seven, and she lay in a hospital bed, dying.  She had practically raised my mother, having left her own husband to "help" with the new baby (my mother), and "helping" until Helen's death.  Freda did most of the cooking in the house, so most of my mother's tremendous cooking skills were passed straight through from her. Freda's cooking skills and family recipes came from her own mother, Cristina, on the other hand, had immigrated from Bremen in Northern Germany, near the North Sea, in the mid-1870s.  I have no idea where Cristina was originally from, but I have a strong feeling it wasn't from Bremen, since many of her recipes were decidedly Tuscan -- especially the spaghetti sauce she passed on to Freda, that Freda passed on to my mother, that my mother passed on to me. Also, she spelled her name with a "C", rather than the customarily Teutonic "K". This leads me to believe that she might have been Italian, if not by birth, then by heritage.

Freda, in her wedding dress

My mother didn't spend much time teaching me how to cook. She was a working mother, busy and tired, and most of the time, it was just easier for her to do things herself.  But the two dishes my mother did pass on -- particularly because they were dishes that came from Cristina through Freda -- were the famous spaghetti or red sauce (which I have used as the basis for every Italian red sauce from lasagna to baked shells to spaghetti), and the Dish That Hath No Name (but which spent some time being referred to as the "sausage-pepper-potato thing", before it found it's more permanent name of "Kielbasa, Pepper, Onion and Potato stir-fry").

Cristina, in Germany

These are the only two dishes that survived the test of time because a) they were relatively easy and inexpensive to make, and they yielded a lot of helpings, and b) we liked them enough to keep wanting to cook them.  They've evolved somewhat, based mostly on the availability of produce in each generation. Peppers were the most ethereal ingredient. They do not grow well in cold, cloudy climes and once picked, require refrigeration to stay fresh for any length of time.  Peppers were rumored to have been part of my great-great-grandmother's version, but once she arrived in eastern Pennsylvania, where I reckon peppers were a rare commodity, she replaced them with root vegetables. My great-grandmother split the difference, using parsnips and peppers at one point. My mother took the dish to a whole new level by eliminating root vegetables altogether and getting back to peppers -- this time, in the lovely red, orange and yellow hues we have come to know and love today.

I hope that my addition to the dish continues to make it new and better. I figure people have messed with the vegetables long enough. I decided that the kielbasa needed a little help, so I chop up a slice of bacon into bits and use the fat to help brown the sausage, then deglaze the pan to cook the veggies in.  I am pretty sure this is an improvement, if for not other reason than... hey... it's bacon....

The weather dropped today to below 65 degrees and that means it's time for two things -- close-toed shoes and the kielbasa stir-fry.  This weekend, I'll be making it for the first time in several months. I can only hope to do my ancestors proud.

~C~

Just so we're clear here....

"Thanksgiving" by Norman Rockwell
first published as cover of The Literary Digest
November 22, 1919

There is NO such thing as "healthy, low-fat Thanksgiving dinner."   Wait... I take that back... you can have a healthy Thanksgiving by taking all the necessary sanitation precautions of refrigeration, separate surfaces for meat and veggie food preparation and making sure all food is cooked to proper temperature.  You know, so that no one dies of ptomaine poisoning or salmonella.  Guests appreciate that kind of healthy cooking.  What they don't appreciate is your decision to cook everything vegan, because "we've been eating a lot of meat lately, and we thought we'd try something new."  Don't. Don't try something new.  Not for Thanksgiving.

If you're not up to making dinner, don't make dinner. Let's all go to the Smokehouse in Burbank -- they serve a killer-ass traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings. While the rest of us are happily engaged in the consumption of buttery mashed potatoes and savory walnut stuffing,  you can indulge your desire to experiment with a meat-free holiday all you want by ordering a salad.  We'll try not to rub it in.

But if you're in charge of my holiday menu -- as you must be if you've agreed to host it -- you'd better get pretty damn traditional, pretty damn quick.

And another thing -- while we're on the topic... What's up with the nouvelle Thanksgiving cooking? If I find a Vietnamese water chestnut within 200 yards of my Thanksgiving dinner, I'm calling Paula Deen, and SOMEBODY'S gonna get a stern talking to. My daughter still relates the story of how she attended Thanksgiving at her cousin's house. It was the first year the cousin and her husband hosted a holiday dinner for the whole family. They decided they were going to introduce the family to all kinds of new ethnically and culturally diverse recipes, few of which resembled anything traditionally associated with Thanksgiving. I guess they wanted to broaden the family's culinary horizons. It was the last holiday dinner my daughter (or, I believe, her father) attended at their house.  So the first holiday dinner quietly became the last. Sad, too, since, had she just been hosting a dinner party, her dishes might have been wildly popular. They sounded tasty when my daughter described them. Just not very in keeping with the season. When it comes to holidays, particularly Thanksgiving, people don't want new and exciting.  They want old and familiar.

Don't misunderstand -- I think serving new side dishes for Thanksgiving is a wonderful thing.  I myself have toyed with the idea of bringing some maple-soaked roasted butternut squash to the festivities, just because we've never had it, and it might be a tasty treat.  But maple and butternut squash are not exactly exotic flavors where Thanksgiving is concerned. And my holiday hostess is supplying our traditional family favorites -- including a green bean casserole concoction we got tired of referring to as "the green bean thingy" and finally dubbed "Cyril" -- in addition to new and different things.  Why? Because she's been at this for a lot of years. She knows what makes it feel like Thanksgiving.  It's the company, yes. But it's also the food. The familiar smells and tastes of food you only eat once a year.  Do you know how many roast turkeys I've had in my life? I'd tell you, but then you'd be able to guess my exact age, because I've had approximately one a year since I was two.  Now, ask me how many times this week I've eaten sushi.  Get my point?  Good.

So, the next time you're tempted to "help" your guests by foregoing traditional stuffing because "carbs are just so fattening," call us all up and tell us not to come over. Tell us you've lost your mind this year, and we'll all be eating at the Smokehouse for Thanksgiving.  That way, we won't have to hate you, and say "no, thank you" to your holiday invitations for the next twenty years.

Feed me new and interesting foods any other time of the year. On the fourth thursday of November, we'll brook none of your shenanigans.

~C~