Gluten-Free Low Fat Spinach, Leek & Mushroom Quiche

GLuten free quiche
This quiche serves 6 at only 235 calories a slice.

If, like me, you find yourself planning to make a lasagna for a friend recovering from surgery, stop for a second and consider, as I did, making something healthier. You just may find some amazing meals out there, including this delicious quiche from Cooking Light.

I was going for something not too high in fat, then realized that this quiche is also gluten-free*. Not that I have a gluten allergy, but any opportunity to replace processed white flour with whole grains is worth taking, as long as the result is edible.  And this is not only edible, it’s delicious!

*Oats and Oat Bran are naturally gluten-free. Cross contamination, however, can occur with gluten-containing products during storage and manufacture.  If you must, be sure to buy brands that are certified gluten-free.  

GLUTEN-FREE LOW-FAT, SPINACH, LEEK & MUSHROOM QUICHE

My recipe is a little different from the original in that I increased the leeks, skipped the dill, added a few sprigs of fresh instead of dried thyme, and also hot pepper flakes and fennel seeds. I skipped rolling out the dough and simply pressed it into a well greased tart pan. As you can see, the crust baked up beautifully (I placed the filled quiche on a baking sheet in the oven), and slipped out of the pan with no fuss at all. Maybe that’s because I used butter instead of cooking spray, so if you do that, add on a few calories. 

Crust

  • 1 cup regular oats
  • 1/3 cup oat bran
  • 2 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
  • 3 tablespoons cold water
  • Butter or cooking spray for the pan

Filling

  • 2 large leeks, cleaned and thinly sliced
  • 1 1/4 cups sliced mushrooms
  • 1 cup evaporated fat-free milk
  • 1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
  • A few sprigs of fresh thyme leaves
  • 1/4 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground pepper
  • 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 3 large egg whites
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
  • 1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
  • 1/4 cup (1 ounce) shredded Gruyêre cheese

Preheat oven to 375°. Grease a 9 inch tart pan with butter (or spray with cooking spray), being sure to get it into all the side grooves.

Combine oats and oat bran in a medium sized bowl; cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add water; stir. Press mixture gently into greased pan – it will seem like you won’t have enough, but you will, so just be patient, keep pressing it around and it will cover. Bake crust at 375° for 7 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool; leave oven on.

To prepare the filling, brush a cast iron skillet or saute pan lightly with olive oil (or spray with cooking spray), heat and add leeks. Saute for a few minutes till soft then add the mushrooms, salt, pepper, thyme and fennel and saute till the mushrooms start to release their liquid but are still plump and juicy. Spoon veggies into a large bowl and let cool.

Combine milk, Parmesan cheese and eggs in a blender and process until smooth. Add the spinach and pulse a few times to mix well.  Add to leek-mushroom mixture, and stir well. Pour into prepared crust (best to put the tart pan on a cooking sheet first, as it may leak a bit when you pour in the filling) and sprinkle with Gruyêre cheese. Bake at 375° for 35 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand 5 minutes, then remove pie from tart pan. Serve warm.

Teen Gyno

This was totally me at age 13 – except it wasn’t summer camp, it was the the local swim club, where I stood outside the bathroom stalls coaching my classmates through inserting their first tampon.

I had taught myself by reading the pamphlet that came with the box of tampons I bought,  after a 3 mile hike with what felt like a hoagie roll between my legs convinced me there had to be a better way.

Hey, someone’s gotta’ go first.

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(The video is part of a marketing campaign for HelloFlo, a company that lets you send monthly care packages timed to the menses. Very cute idea. I like how it’s taking menstruation out of the closet so to speak…)

The Fish Whisperer

The Fish Whisperer

It all started the end of last summer, when I tasted smoked trout in Saltzburg, served with a horseradish sour cream and dill.

And remembered that they stock our lake in the Endless Mountains with trout every year.

I had a mission.

Getting a fishing license 

Easy-peasy.  Just go online, buy it and print it out.  Make sure you buy the extra trout permit as well.

Getting a fishing buddy

Not as easy as getting a licence. My husband? Not interested. Most of my friends? Thought I was nuts. After all, Russ and Daughters  is just a few stops away on the F train.

Except for Paula, the Eull Gibbons of New York City, who knows more about nature than anyone I’ve ever met.  Here she is on a bike ride we took on the Croton Aqueduct Trail a few years back,  explaining how to use black walnuts as dye.

Of course Paula thought catching trout was a great idea, and actually knew how to fish! Yes, it had been over 20 years since she’d last cast a line, but who’s counting?

What Book to Read

The Science of FishingIf there is an antique fair in town the weekend you decide to become a fisherman, you must buy this book. The Science of Fishing -The Most Practical Book On Fishing Ever Published by (are you ready?) Lake Brooks.

If there is no antique fair, you can download the free kindle edition.

Getting Bait and Supplies

Fortunately, the country store down the highway sells hooks, weights, floats, night crawlers and red trout worms. Meghan, the young girl behind the counter,  shows you how to pierce the worm onto the hook, wrap it round and pierce it again, a skill you master well.

NIght crawler on a hook

Your brother-in-law left his fishing pole behind last time he stayed at your place. You’ll need a second pole, which luckily, an antique store in town has for just $10. The owner graciously oils the works for you and gives you a weighted hook from the glass cabinet for free.

Learning to Cast

Practice in the street across from your house  (sans hook, of course…) Your neighbors will have all kinds of advice, and everyone has a fishing story, so it’s a great way to pick the collective community brain on technique and timing.

When to fish

If you are Paula, who gets up at 5 am every day, or Peggy, who wants to be able to have enough time to smoke the trout for dinner that night, the answer is obvious – in the morning.

Everyone else will be asleep, so be sure to leave a note.

gone fishing

And mornings on the lake?

Eagles Mere Lake 1

The best.

Eagles Mere Lake 2

How to Fish

I had visions of me laying by a fishing pole propped up against the dock, hat turned down over my eyes Huck Finn-style, waiting for the big tug on the pole, at which point I would jump up and reel in a massive trout.

Turns out this is not actually how one fishes.

The Fish Whisperer Casts

You need to be constantly casting, reeling, tugging and tweaking the line. A few minutes in one spot, then reel in and try another. Watch the still waters for little ripples that indicate a swimmer, then cast in that direction, intermittently twitching the line and hook as you gently reel it in. Watch for the float to bob and drop, indicating that something is grabbing at the hook, then pull back sharply to snag the fish and then reel it in.

What we caught

Me? Not a damned thing in two consecutive mornings.  Seriously. Nada. Every worm, eaten off the hook.  Not counting the one still hanging from the tree near the dock. And the ones caught under a rock or tangled in the grass in the water.

But Paula, the fish whisperer?

Two sunnies

Pumpkin Seed Sunny

and two little perch.

Paula's perch

We tossed the sunnies and kept one of the perch.

How to Clean and Cook Your Fish

We followed the technique in this video entitled “How to clean a perch in 10 seconds!”  (The best part is the guy with the Minnesota accent saying “Gaw! No way!)

Our perch was way too small for smoking all by its’ lonesome, so we coated it with a teeny bit of mayo, tossed it in flour seasoned with salt and fresh ground pepper and pan-fried it in butter and oil.

Pan fried floured perch

Little bites of heaven.

Pan Fried Perch with lemon

PERCH ON A CRACKER

But not trout.

There’s Always a Catch…

In this case, it turns out that the best place to snag a trout is not in a lake using a worm, but  in a cold running brook using a fly.

Which, I expect,  is why they stock our lake each year. Except that they didn’t stock the lake this year, given the recent sunfish die off  – caused by stress around the time the lake turned,  but by the time they figured that out, it was too late to stock. (The water, thankfully, is as pristine as ever.)

But as it turns out, even if they had stocked trout, warm summer mornings are not the time to catch them.

Better in the fall and in the evening. And in a boat out on the lake.

So no trout.

For now.  But I’ll be back.

Hopefully the fish whisperer will be there too.

WHen the catch is done

Grape, Garlic and Goat Cheese Tartlets for a Summer Book Club Meeting

Grape, onion and goat cheese tartlets 3

Thanks so much to the great women in my book group for giving me the opportunity to do what I love doing more than almost anything else – cook for my friends. I only had the latter part of the afternoon to prepare, having seen patients that day, but it was so much fun spending even those few stolen hours during the work week in my kitchen with the afternoon sun coming in and the radio going.

Here’s the menu I prepared for our little rooftop gathering:

  • Goat Cheese, Garlic & Grape Tartlets
  • Cucumber slices topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon & dill
  • Assorted cheeses and crackers
  • Grapes
  • Castelvetrano Olives
  • Steamed edamame sprinkled with sea salt and fresh ground pepper
  • Pimm’s Cup Pitcher

Fueled by food and drink, we had a spirited discussion on the Middlesteins – a book I didn’t love, but that much of the group did.  Thanks to my fellow members for all the evenings they so generously hosted throughout this past year, and here’s to many more wonderful reads!

grape, garlic and goat chees tartelts 2

Goat Cheese, Garlic & Grape Tartlets

This recipe is modified from a crostini recipe in a lovely little cookbook entitle Small Gatherings – Seasonal Menus for Cozy Dinners by Jessica Strand. It’s a small book of gems for entertaining, complete with prep and timing instructions for stress free entertaining. 

The day was warm and crostini felt too heavy, so I opted to use puff pastry as the base. (If you use crostini, simply slice a baguette crosswise into 1/2 inch slices, brush with olive oil and toast lightly in the oven on 5-7 minutes.) I admit I increased the balsamic vinegar from 1 1/2 tbsp to 3 tbsp – I loved the idea of drizzling a little of that grape infused juice on the tarts.  And I added fresh thyme. 

Makes 24 tarts.

  • 1 box puff pastry (2 sheets)
  • Olive oil for brushing
  • 2 garlic bulbs
  • 4 cups mixed green and red small grapes
  • 1/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
  • 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 6 ounces goat cheese
  • Fresh thyme for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit

Thaw the puff pastry at room temp for 45 minutes. Unfold it onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 12 rectangles, Repeat with second pastry. Place rectangles onto a cookie sheet, brush with olive oil, prick with a fork and bake for 10-15 minutes, pressing the pastries down with a spatula if they puff up too much. (If you want to get really fancy, you can brush the edges with a little water, the roll them in to create mini crusts that you then press down with the tines of a fork., but who has time?) Remove to a rack to cool. Keep the oven on.

Using a serrated knife, cut off the tops of the garlic bulbs to expose the cloves. Place in a pie tin, cut side up. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the grapes, walnuts and vinegar and toss to mix well and coat the grapes fully with the vinegar. Transfer the mixture to a small baking dish.

Put the garlic and the grape mixture in the oven side by side. Bake the garlic until it is very, very soft. Bake the grape mixture until the grapes have collapsed and the juices are thick and bubbling. Both the garlic and the grapes should take 35-40 mins.

To assemble, squeeze a roasted garlic clove from its skin onto each puff pastry tart. Using a small knife, spread it as well as you can and then spread a generous teaspoon or two of the cheese on top of each.  (It will be like putting the first layer of icing on a cake – lots of crumbs – and this is where you will think that making this as crostini would have been a much better idea, but don’t worry it will be delicious…) Place a spoonful of the grape mizture on top of the cheese and drizzle a little of the juices atop and garish with a few thyme leaves. Arrange on a decorative platter, sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper and serve.

grape, garlic and goat cheese tartlets 5

Bun-ker Vietnamese – The Middle of Nowhere? More Like the Center of My Universe

Bunker 2

In the middle of nowhere, east of East Williamsburg, officially Ridgewood but not really, near the terminus of the Newtown Creek, across the road from an auto salvage yard and just up the road from the NYC Transit Authority is Bun-ker Vietnamese Restaurant, the new center of my universe.

Bunker decor

The place is tacky enough to be incredibly real as only a restaurant started on a shoestring by two brothers can be.  (The out of the way location was to have been a seafood distribution center, but Sandy put an end to that dream.) The walls are covered with bamboo covered wainscoting, little toy soldiers line the window trim and utensils are in aluminum cans on the vinyl tablecloth covered tables, whose benches are made from skateboards and other found wood. If you want filtered water you are welcome to get up and get it yourself from the big orange cooler on the table by the door.

The message is clear – this place is not about the decor. It’s about the food.

And that food is incredible.

Enough said – here’s what we ate –

Crab chips – spicy, light and perfectly accompanied by lime aid with Chia seeds.

crab chips

Bun=Ker Lime Aid with Chia Seeds

Summer Rolls – Shrimp, Pork and Vermicelli. Light, delicious, with fresh basil and a great dipping sauce.

Bun=Ker Summer Roll

Grilled Eggplant with Vermicelli, basil, peanuts, cucumber and roast tomatoes with a light rice wine-fish sauce dressing. Even I, the eggplant non-lover, loved it.

Bun-Ker Grilled Eggplant

Coconut braised Duroc short ribs. (Duroc are a breed of pigs, and these were antibiotic-free, pasture and humanely raised.) Literally falling off the bone.

Bun-Ker Coconut shortribs

Tomato Fried Rice – The perfectly softened garlic clove alone would have been enough.

Bun-Ker tomato fried rice

Ca Ri Ga. The best chicken curry OF MY LIFE, made with lemongrass and coconut, potatoes, and carrots and served with perfectly cooked Roti pancakes for mopping up the sauce.

Bun-ker Chicken Curry

Total tab including tip for this, two lime aids and two vietnames Iced Coffees was $92, which fed 5 of us with ribs leftover to take home.

There were so many dishes we wanted to try but did not – Lemongrass heritage pork loin with fried egg and rice, Banh Mi sandwiches, and the seared turmeric organic salmon just to name a few…

As we were leaving, past the line of patrons standing outside in the rain waiting for a table, Mason was scheming how she would get back for lunch tomorrow. Unfortunately, Mason,Bun-Ker is only open for dinner during the week, but does serve lunch on weekends.

To get there? I’d say take the L  to Jefferson St and take a nice long walk down Flushing Ave to Metropolitan. (Or come with us next time we drive there.)

Arrive early if you want to get a table without a long wait.

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We’re not the first ones to find Bun-Ker – The NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and NY Magazine, among others, beat us to it.  

Is Your Insurer Covering Preventative Services & Contraception without a Co-Pay?

copayYour insurer should be providing certain preventive services, including contraception, without a copay or out of pocket cost to you, even if you have not yet met your deductible for the year. These services include –

  • Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling;
  • Screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence;
  • Screening for gestational diabetes;
  • Cervical cancer screening, including DNA testing for high-risk strains of HPV;
  • Counseling regarding sexually transmitted infections, including HIV;
  • Screening for HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis;
  • FDA-Approved Contraceptive methods and counseling –  although your insurer can limit free contraceptive coverage to  generics brands on their formulary
  •  Prenatal Vitamins
  • Mammograms every 1-2 years for women over age 40
  • Well woman visits.

Are you still being asked for a copay for contraception or preventive services? 

Call your insurer and find out why.  (Some insurers have been grandfathered in and still don’t have to pay.)

If you do that and are still not getting the answers you need, the National Women’s Law Center has a toolkit to help that includes templated appeals letters on a range of preventive services.

Still not sure what to do?

Call 1-866-PILL4US or email pill4us@nwlc.org.

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Feed Your Brain – Chilled Avocado Vichyssoise

avocado vichyssoise

This is wonderful chilled soup combines my favorite comfort food – potatoes – with one of the best all around brain foods out there – avocado.

That’s right – avocado is good for your brain. And your mood.  And your heart. And your weight.

According to Drew Ramsey, MD , a NYC psychiatrist who has started an amazing conversation about the role of diet in mood and brain function,  avocados are rich in oleic acid –

Oleic acid …. is strongly linked to a decreased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and depression. It improves insulin sensitivity. Oleic acid is used by the body to create oleoylethanolamide, which enhances memory, induces fat burning, promotes weight loss, and reduces appetite.

Dr Ramsey has begun asking the question – Can you eat for a healthier brain? He has written a book called the Happiness Diet – a way of eating that eliminates processed foods and reintroduces us to the nutrients and foodstuffs that support a healthy mind. It’s a dietary message similar to that we’ve been hearing from food gurus like Michael Pollen and Mark Bittman, but focused on how the modern American diet has impacted our brain and our mood, and how getting back to foods like whole grains, grass fed meat, and  fruits and vegetables can support and even enhance interventions to improve mood.


“Your brain is made of fat”, he says, and he is right, because fats form the precursors for neurotransmitters.  Read Ramsey’s book, and you begin to understand why fat – the right kind of fat – is good for you.  

Of course, the amount of research on this approach is limited, but suggests that Ramsey is on the right track. As a physician, I see dietary interventions as supportive of, but not necessarily replacing, psychiatric intervention, whether it be psychotherapy, or if needed, medication.  I also see no harm in making the kind of dietary changes Ramsey recommends as a first step, along with exercise and talk therapy, when addressing milder forms of mood disorders that don’t require medication.

I’ve written before about the good fats found in whole sheep’s milk yogurt.  Now I’ve added avocado to the list of good-fat foods in my diet.

Avocados are an incredibly satisfying food, not to mention delicious. Add some to your salad. Have a few slices as a side with your lunch or dinner. Grab a spoon and scoop some out for a quick satiating snack.

Or make this marvelous soup.

avocado

Avocado Vichyssoise

Modified from a Recipe from Mark Bittman in the New York Times, one of twelve recipes for cold soups in an article entitled “Soup, Hold the Heat”.   Bittman calls for 1-2 avocados – I used 1 1/2, but that made for a pretty thick soup that required about 1/4 cup water to thin it. Next time I will just use one avocado and see how that tastes. (This was delicious). Don’t skip the cilantro – it is more than just a garnish, it’s essential for the flavor.   

2 tbsp butter
3 Idaho potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 leeks, cleaned and chopped
4 cups chicken broth
1-2 avocados, peeled and coarsely chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped cilantro for garnish

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a soup pot. Add potatoes and leeks. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring, until softened. Add 4 cups stock. Boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Stir in the avocado and puree (I use an immersion blender). Refrigerate till cold, then serve garnished generously with chopped cilantro.

Williamsburg Brooklyn Flea Market

WIlliamsburg Flea Market 1

When warm weather comes, the Brooklyn Flea moves outdoors. Saturdays, its in Fort Greene. And on Sundays, it’s the waterfront in Williamsburg.

For a pretty perfect Sunday at the Williamsburg Flea, arrive early to beat the crowds – the market opens at 10 am – and head straight to Milk Truck Grilled Cheese,

Milk Truck Grilled Cheese

where you will order an All Day Breakfast Sandwich without the grilled onions (OMG….)

Breakfast Sandwich Milk Truck Grilled Cheese

and while it’s grilling, grab a cup of iced coffee from Brooklyn Roasting Company.  Gape at the Manhattan views while you eat your breakfast, and begin to understand the allure of living in this trendy section of Brooklyn.

Water from Williamsburg FleaBut enough gaping, there are treasures to seek.

Metal chairs Williamsburg Flea Market

WIlliamsburg Flea 3

WIlliamsburg Flea letters

WIlliamsburg Flea 4

Lucky for you, your friend Amy is with you – she has the artist’s eye for flea marketing. After you passed through the best stall there  – Dan’s Parent’s House (how much do you love that name?) – without finding a thing, she zeroes in the very coolest things there. Like these colored metal coils (she’ll use the big red ones for Sabbath candle holders, and make a necklace out of the rest)-

Williamsburg Flea 2

and these red saws (She found the two best and will hang them on her wall in some cool arrangement)

Red Saw

But don’t be jealous, because you found this – a real working NYC parking meter!  Timed baking will never be the same in your kitchen…

NYC Parking Meter 2

Spend another couple of hours wandering, trying on clothes, wishing you needed a new dining room table because that one with the metal pipe fitted legs would be so perfect in your apartment, and in Amy’s case, regretting that you didn’t grab that red typewriter when you first saw it because now that nice young man is carrying it away (and at a great price too…)

Consol yourselves by leaving the now crowded market to head up the street to Artists and Fleas,

Artist & Fleas

a place where the uber-hip artists have taken what the rest of us miss and turn it into treasures. Like these game board journals at Another Work in Progress-

Game board vintage journals

and this gorgeous dress that had me wishing I were 18 again.

Dress artists and Fleas

When I say uber-hip I mean it. This place even has a DJ spinning vinyl jazz and samba –

DJ Artists and Fleas

Too cool even for me.

Which means it’s time for lunch –  in our case a delicious lobster roll at nearby Rosarito Fish Shack.

Lobster roll

 Of course, you could have headed back to the Flea Market to one of the many restaurant booths there, but a comfy seat and a cold drink under a spinning ceiling fan seems more in order on a warm afternoon before heading back home to Manhattan.

All in all, a pretty darned near perfect day.

I say darned-near because of the one thing we did not do, but which you must do when you go to the Williamsbug Flea, and that is to take the ferry there.

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The Brooklyn Flea Market on Sundays is in Williamsburg. (And now in Philly!!!)  On Saturday’s, it’s in Fort Greene. In the winter, it’s indoors at the Williamsburg Savings Bank.

The EHR is the Frankenstein of Modern Medicine

Frankenstein EMRWe created the electronic health record, but if we can’t figure out how to contain it,  it may just destroy us.

A recent study at Johns Hopkins University indicated that hospital interns — physicians at perhaps their most formative stage of training — spend only about 12 percent of their time interacting with patients. By contrast, they spend 40 percent of their time — more than 3 times as much — interacting with hospital information systems. The flesh-and-blood patient is getting buried under gigabytes of data.

The Drawbacks of Data Driven Medicine by Dr Richard Gunderman in this month’s Atlantic Monthly.

A must read for docs and patients alike.  Comments section rocks too.

Birth Control – It Works.

contraception-infographic2

A nice infographic from the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

These simple statistics demonstrate how effective contraceptive use can be. They also categorically refute claims by anti-contraception activists that access to contraception somehow leads to more unintended pregnancies and subsequent abortions.

Birth control works.

So use it.

“Birth control” means any effective method, including condoms, diaphragm, sponge, pills, patches,  implants, rings, shots, and IUDs.  The most effective methods on a population basis are the long acting methods – IUD’s and implants. Which does not mean you should stop your pills if you are an effective pill user, but means that in some women, longer acting methods make for better compliance.

Effective does not include withdrawal, and in most women, timing. Yes, I know – a few of you use timing well.  If so, go for it.  But before you do, remember the old joke – What do they call couples who use rhythm for birth control?

Parents.

Size Too

“Size Too” by Ariel Sobel

For every high school girl out there feeling like she’s not the right size for a prom dress.

I told you I’m a size two
And that’s the truth
I’m a size too powerful to fit your standards
Too chill to be wound up like lanyards
Too smart to have hair this light
And too fast not to be in flight
Too beautiful not to shatter your sight…
A fabulous poem and performance.

 

Potato Leek Soup

Potato Leek Soup

When I was a very little girl, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating mashed potatoes, and my mother turned to our neighbor, who was visiting at the time, and said, “She’d eat mashed potatoes till the cows came home”.

I’d say that still holds true.

Except sometimes I eat my mashed potatoes in a soup.

This is an exceedingly simple soup that is  lighter in calories than mashed potatoes, but just as satisfying for this half Irish girl who is still wondering where she’ll put those cows if they ever show up on her doorstep.

Postato Leek Soup

This recipe is from Richard Olney’s cookbook Simple French Food,  via one of my new favorite blogs, A Serious Bunburyist. There is no cream in this – it does not need it. But that butter at the end? C-est manifique!

Ingredients

  • 2 quarts salted boiling water
  • 1 pound potatoes, peeled, quartered lengthwise, sliced (we used Yukon golds)
  • 1 pound leeks, tough green parts removed, cleaned, finely sliced
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Olney has you add the vegetables to the salted boiling water and cook till the potatoes are soft and mashable. I was dying to saute those leeks up first in the butter and then add the water (or maybe chicken stock) and the potatoes, and then maybe a bouquet garni, but I really had no say in the matter as I was still at work when Mr TBTAM started cooking. By the time I arrived home, the leeks and potatoes were done,  so I just got out the old immersion blender and went to town.  Maybe someday I’ll try a fancier version, but this was pretty close to perfect as far as I’m concerned.

Serve hot or cold with a generous sprinkling of sea salt and pepper to finish.

Dawn Powell on Happiness

Dawnpowell_1914

Brilliant societal analysis from Dawn Powell (1896-1965).

What most people wanted was the happiness of having what other people wanted. Then they had brief moments of an inferior happiness when they only got what they themselves but nobody else wanted. This rather spoiled things.  Some people made mistakes in their opinion of what other people wanted, but if they didn’t  find out they managed to be happy , maybe wondering a little once in awhile what everybody wanted this for.  Others wasted so much time trying to have what other people wanted that they never knew they were perfectly happy without it. The biggest jolt in growing up was to discover that that you    didn’t like what others liked and they thought you were crazy to like what you liked.

I’d never heard of Powell till my book club read her book “My Home is Far Away“, from which this quote comes. (Thanks, Stacy, for suggesting it.) This is pretty much par for the course for Powell, who never gained the prominence many think she deserved during her lifetime, for as Gore Vidal wrote  –

For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion.

Powell was born in Mt. Gilead, Ohio in 1896, but ran away from home at age 13 and lived most of her adult life in Greenwich Village, where she was part of the Bohemian scene that included EE Cummings and John Dos Passos. She published 16 novels, nine plays and numerous short stories, not a few of which were acerbic Manhattan-based comedies that have been called funnier than Dorothy Parker’s and virtually all of which were out of print when she died in 1965.  Powell was rescued posthumously from obscurity by Vidal and then music critic Tim Rice, who published her bio in 1998 but failed to sell her diaries in 2012 (although Columbia University eventually purchased them in March of this year). According to the Library of America, more of Powell’s books are now in publication than at any time in her life.

I plan on reading more.
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More on Dawn Powell

Pic – Dawn Powell, 1914. From Wikipedia

Music & Medicine – All Schubert Concert

poster 3

Looking for something to do tomorrow (Wednesday May 22) evening? Come hear the Weill Cornell Music in Medicine Orchestra and Chorus perform an all Schubert Program at the Caspary Auditorium (that funky blue dome on the Rockefeller University campus).

I’ll be singing in the soprano section.