Hangover Helper
July 12, 2004
We only wanted to go dancing.
And of course pollute ourselves and then sweat it out on a dancefloor in a very slutty way. We wanted to smoke and breathe deeply, to sweat. The goddess of Shake Yer Bootie unfortunately had other designs for the evening and our simple plan fell through. You can’t dance just anywhere. Sometimes that special sleazy ambience is essential to the formula. In the ‘consolation bar’ we sat to drink one more ‘last one’. Above my head hung fake old-fashioned enamel advertisements for Guiness stout that asserted, ‘Guiness gives strength’. Vitamine B complex, iron, excellent. I guess the moral of the story is that a person just doesn’t always need a whole hell of a lot of strength. This morning I was waxing existential when I remembered, ‘BREAKFAST!’ And I remembered it twice. This is my second breakfast.
Fried eggs with ‘cheese in a can’, the Turkish sheep cheese rounds in brine sold in cans here. Salty, crumbly, meltable, beautiful to the beholder, delicious. Thank Gawd for breakfast.
debra at 12:57 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
I love smoking: tea-smoked salmon and a dessert borscht fit for a foot massage
July 11, 2004
In 6 steps from upper left;
1. Line a wok with aluminium foil and place a handful of any sort of rice on the bottom.
2. Place a goodly amount of delicious loose tea on top of the rice. Earl Grey is the best choice. You are about to create a smoker in which the rice and the tea are the smoldering fuel.
3. Place some granulated sugar on top of the tea.
4. Set a slab of salmon in a bamboo steamer over the rice, tea and sugar heap (other fatty fish work well too). Dust the fish with sea salt, freshly ground pepper, lime zest and sprinkle with lime juice. Cover with the top part of the steamer.
5. Wrap the entire contraption in alu foil so that the smoke from the soon-to-be-smoldering rice and tea can only go through the bottom of the bamboo steamer and delicately smoke the fish.
6. Place the wok+steamer on a large flame and blast the hell out of it for a good *2-3 minutes. Turn the flame down almost as low as possible and wait until you smell the heady burning tea escaping from the smoker. Every now and again place your hand on top of the bamboo steamer - it should be hot hot hot. After 15-20 minutes open up the smoker and poke your finger through the fattest part of the flesh. It should be cooked or almost cooked.
Serve immediately.
*(Be careful not to smolder the tea too vigourously or you will get a bitter smokey flavour. Instead, just relax.)
Guest and composer Daniel Carney has come all the way from Baltimore and said that this tea-smoked salmon is the best thing he’s ever eaten ‘ceptin the last dinner you made me’. (Better count the silverware.) His t-shirt says, ‘I love the Korean alphabet!’ The dessert borscht (actually just hangop, lime zest, lime juice and a wee bit of the ‘ol white death - baroquely drizzled with beet caramel) is inspired by the chilled Polish summer fruit soups and as well the Polish summer borscht. One bite of borscht and Daniel exclaims, ‘Dang, I do believe this is the weirdest dessert ever to have crossed my lips!’
Orly is ecstatic with the dessert borscht and asks, ‘What, you want a foot massage?’
(not pictured, Orly’s husband and Waimes piano restorer, Gijs Wilderom)
debra at 16:14 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Taiwanese Bean Beverage
July 1, 2004
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Yesterday Dan said that Latvians are lucky.
But today is another day and for breakfast I decided to serve up this Taiwanese Bean Beverage to my Latvian guest *Emils. Just a little good morning experiment. Emils remained cheerful throughout the tasting although shortly after fulfilling his task as guinea pig he dashed out of the house supposedly to buy a shirt - but I think he hauled off and got a bagel.
)
Discorea Mixed Congee ingredients: water, sugar, adlay(?), discorea rhizome (?), chickpeas, glutinous rice, red beans, kidney beans, millet, oatmeal, oats.
* Emils Rode is a Latvian artist currently participating in the show BREAKTHROUGH in Den Haag. This exhibition in the Grote Kerk spotlights artists from the new European member states. http://www.grotekerkdenhaag.nl
debra at 14:41 | Comments (3) | post to del.icio.us
