Paella with Chicken

I wish you could have seen the almond trees in Spain that spring. Javi, a friend of a friend, had invited us for Sunday lunch in the countryside with his parents. At about half past one we followed his motorcycle across the city limits and along the highway to a pueblito (small town) a few dozen miles outside of Valencia. No one spoke over the flapping wind or loud music, though I can't remember now what we were listening to. Some of the girls slept the whole way there while cool air passed through the backseat and nursed our hangovers.

I hardly felt the top of the glass digging into my arm as I rested my head and elbow halfway out the window. The olive orchards on the side of the road looked so green and so dry from far away. I was anxious to know where we were going, but every time the sun peeked out from behind the clouds I forgot that I barely knew some of my fellow travelers.

When we arrived it smelled of farm and earth. Hardly a town, only a few homes were built on the shared hundred or so acres. Javi's parents welcomed us each with dos besos (two kisses) and scooted us outside onto the patio so they could start making the paella. We watched as his father fed the wood-burning oven and sizzled the sofrito (vegetables and paprika base).

He lectured us about proper technique: meat first then vegetables - always. As smoke rose from the paella he sent us on a walk until the meal was ready. I can only assume he wanted to keep the recipe a family secret.

 

At about three o'clock we returned to the kitchen and sat down to a table set for eleven. There were baskets of bread and plates of jamón. There were potatoes and salads somewhere in between. Bowls of olives spilled over onto the table cloth. On the counter pink boxes of cream-filled pastries waited patiently. There were glasses for water and glasses for homemade wine. And in the middle there was a golden paella dotted with crisp pieces of chicken and rabbit and dulled snail shells. The smell from the fire filled the entire house. The clinking of glasses echoed from one end of the table to the other. Finally, a half second of silence fell over all of us as we eyed what we would taste first.
 

Lunch lasted over three hours. After we helped clean up, everyone piled back into the cars (a little tighter than when we arrived) and waved goodbye. The gravel rumbled beneath us and we drove past the fields of almond trees. Dear friend, I wish you could have seen them that evening. Then you would understand when I say how perfectly they stood in military lines, their bodies rooted in soil. How the flowers danced between the branches and kissed the air as they spun to the ground like dizzy girls in ballerina pink.

Vietnamese Iced Coffee (Cà Phê Sữa Đá)

Debate and discussion are two of my favorite activities. For two years in high school I was on the debate team but quit because the actual competitions felt too formal. Well, let's be honest, I just wasn't very good under the pressure. The judges could tell I wasn't quite convinced that I was arguing for the right side as I stumbled over my words in a flustered mess. I'm the kind of person who insists on taking time to think before I speak and this just wasn't the forum for me. I need a comfortable space, like a coffee shop or a friend's living room, where debate means less emphasis on being right and more on discussing and understanding the issue at hand.

Vietnamese iced coffee is perfect for these meetings. The bold flavors of a dark brew and sweetened condensed milk make it a kind of "session" coffee that will keep you awake and lucid enough to speak your mind (not to mention how long it takes to actually make a cup). Though a warning: cà phê sữa đá is not for lovers of the watery stuff because, as my dad likes to say, "it'll put hair on your chest." The condensed milk creates a thicker mouthfeel and sweetness on the tongue than regular coffe, which goes hand in hand with the smokiness of the chicory blended grounds. Although normally made with special individual filters, you could brew a similar punch with a French coffee press. Served hot or on ice, Vietnamese coffee is perfect for an afternoon chat. So get that filter dripping and let's settle in to talk about food stamps.

A few weeks ago I read a mildly irritating article on Salon.com titled "Hipsters on food stamps", or as the program was renamed in 2008, the Supplemental Nutrition Assitance Program (SNAP). I don't really see how the author was able to justfy generalizing an entire group of "new" SNAP recipients with a label that many people immediately associate with entitlement and elitism. I also take issue with implying that an "ethnic market" means exotic and expensive products without actually documenting the cost of purchased items. In my experience "ethnic" stores actually have very competitive prices and a more interesting food selection than most big-name grocery chains. After rolling my eyes (hard) at the title and first paragraph, I composed myself enough to get through the rest of the essay. Despite the sensationalism, the author did convince this eater and writer to take a closer look and reconsider what she knows about food stamps.

Although some may believe that the food stamp program (FSP) was created merely as welfare to lift the down and out, original federal food assistance programs of the early 1040s - 1960s were designed to boost the agricultural industry and improve nutrition in low-income households. Unfortunately, stereotypes of FSP participants spread as the program grew. Federal food assistance has been criticized for enabling laziness, dependency, and perrsonal irresponsibility. According to the non-profit organization Feeding America, about 1 in 6 people face daily hunger in the United States. With such stark numbers, the stigmatization that follows SNAP users seems greatly counterproductive.

Luckily, this may be changing, though at the cost of more people having to enroll due to a troubled economy. The government took a large step forward in 2008 by renaming the program to reduce stigma linked to the term "food stamps" and extended the aid to more people. However, articles like "Hipsters on food stamps" takes us two steps backwards. By implying that the young and educated are taking advantage of the system by choosing to support local co-ops or organic produce centered chains, we revert to the stereotype that those who receive SNAP are the uneducated and desperate. How could hunger possibly be that prejudiced? True, if you are struggling enough to qualify for SNAP then your shopping list should not consist solely of luxury food items. And no, organic produce is not more nutritionally valuable than regular old pesticide produce. But if you know how to structure your diet with healthy choices on a limited budget then maybe you deserve to treat yourself to triple-cream brie every now and then.

 

I digress. What I really wanted to talk about was how the article raised questions concerning food education. Is it really so bad that the author witnessed SNAP being used to buy eggplant and fresh turmeric? Whether you are hungry or overfed, raw ingredients can be difficult to tackle, especially if you are overworked or if money is tight. What SNAP should do is rethink how to promote its fundamental mission of providing financial and nutritional assistance. The rules of SNAP already limit purchases to food products consumed at home (meaning no hot food prepared on site), but this is not enough as it does not exclude processed or packaged foods. SNAP needs to adopt a more present edcuation program about healthful diets and the benefits of home cooking with fresh foods. This could include local nutrition seminars, cooking classes, or community outreach from local farmers markets. In the past when traditional paper stamps were replaced with the current debit card, food stamp sales at open markets dropped in part because sellers were unable to accommodate electronic purchases. Now that the technology is more widely available, there should be a larger initiative to give SNAP sales back to farmers.

Most importantly, we need to focus a lot of attention on teaching our youth that eating well is important to living well. The myth that eating healthy means starving yourself with salads and water needs to stop spreading. Everyone should know that healthy food is good food; it is hearty and flavorful and can be a positive creative outlet. To get an idea of how important young students are to the future of healthy eating, I encourage you to check out this year's TED Prize winner, chef Jamie Oliver. Then, if you can stand it, maybe watch his tv show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution to see how he plans to bring food and education together. I'll save my comments about his bully tactics for another day, but I will say that it is hard to argue with someone who wants to replace frozen chicken nuggets with meals made by real people.

By now your coffee should be ready to pour over ice, so I'll leave you with a few questions to ponder. Why are people making unhealthy food choices? Is it because they can't afford fresh foods or because they don't know how to take advantage of their options? Do you know anyone who receives SNAP? Does your grocery store or farmers market accept food stamp payment? And if some day you find yourself needing a little bit of help, how would you spend your food stamps?

Duck Confit with Lemon & Thyme Potatoes

I am a terrible procrastinator. If you have spent time with me then you probably already knew that, but you could also guess from the infrequency of updates to BPH that I don't always rush to do what I should. Actually, considering how long it takes me to do important things like finish grad school applications or schedule dentist appointments, I'd say I'm a terrific procrastinator. I am so good at putting things off that I can even rationalize waking up 45 minutes after my alarm starts buzzing while still half asleep. But I like making lists and checking off To-Dos, so my behavior can be confusing. If productivity is satisfying for me, why wait to do tomorrow what I can accomplish today?

I don't really have an answer. The best I can say is that some projects take longer than others or I just need a little push every now and then. For instance, today I woke up thinking I'd write my personal statement and this recipe. Suddenly it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and the only productive thing I'd done was chat with a friend from England. Then, as if I wasn't already distracted enough, I hopped in the car to search for some ice cream, swearing that I would come back immediately and get things done. Of course, I had to stop and and read the food magazines, if only to remind me what I was supposed to be doing instead. I know what you're thinking but really, finding the April edition of Saveur was helpful. 

The editors seemed to have tapped directly into my mind for articles and got me thinking about the next recipes I want to tackle. The cover advertises paella (was just thinking about making that this weekend!), fried chicken (one of my all time favorite foods!), gin (drink of choice!), and cardamom (hello, recent rediscovery!). Not to mention that the table of contents photo is a big bowl of spicy Bucatini all'Amatriciana (just ate it yesterday for lunch!). What I'm saying is that maybe some higher delicious food power is at work here because it managed to remind me that I can't write about those foods until I finish what I started with this duck.

Duck confit requires a bit of procrastination, or as I sometimes like to call it, patience. In this centuries-old tradition, an entire season can pass between the first days of salt curing to the final days of storage. Before the convenience of refrigeration the French would preserve duck in salt then poach the meat in its own fat. After slow cooking on low heat, they would store the meat submerged in the fat to last through the winter.

Originally, duck or goose fat was used to cook (as opposed to olive oil) because of its abundance in the southwestern region of France.  I'll be the first to admit that this confit is not 100% authentic because of the olive oil substitute, but unless you have a lot of leftover duck fat from regular go-to meals it is a much less expensive alternative. Even so, the flavors of salt and thyme are deep; the meat is velvety and succulent. The saltiness can be adjusted to taste by shortening the curing process or storing the duck longer to develop more complex flavors. The entire dish is subject to personal preferences and limitations.

Of all the things I manage to distract myself from, figuring out "the future" is probably the most worrisome. Some people call it a quarter-life crisis while others just call me lost. I would probably resent those labels if I didn't already think them myself. For many people my age, this time of transition is excruciating, especially in this economy and amidst the constant flow of new technology. It seems like once I've reached an understanding of what's happening now the tomorrow is already emerging and I have to start over again.

Luckily, I'm realizing that this may just be a process that falls in the "projects that take more time" category. That attitude may lead down a dark path to nowhere or it will help to define a me that now seems completely intangible. Even though uncertainty like that often makes me feel like I am running in a cage wheel, I'd rather procrastinate be patient and know that my life has been deliberate rather than rushed. I want a future that is rich and tasty like my duck. And since everything that needs to be done always is, like this recipe, I'm not too concerned about where I'm headed. Now I just have to bring myself to work on that personal statement. Maybe I'll start right after I get another cup of coffee.     

Orange Cardamom Pound Cake

There is something really inviting about old friends in familiar settings. We are often tempted to want what once was (like croissants and cold mornings), in hopes that returning to our past will fulfill some sort of hollowness in the present. Were we somehow able to travel backwards in time, I don't doubt that many of us would slip into our youthful bodies and relive an experience or two. I've considered this often and always end up at the same question: Would our minds time travel in the same way our bodies do? If it were possible to make the jump, would we be able to or, more importantly, want to unlearn what we already know now?

Moving in time without seeing how or why we might want to change the past is interesting in the way it reflects the idea of ignorance is bliss. Yes, we could be happy again at age 7, 15, or 20, but it would only lead us back to where we are now. Without knowing what kind of days or people may be waiting for us in the future of the past, we would charge forward blindly, just as we already had. 

But the more I think about it, having experienced what led me to this point in my life has made me understand why everything came before is so indispensable. I would want to remember why I chose to return to a certain day or event and either maximize the pleasure of happiness or minimize the pain of a damning memory. It seems to me that reliving something exactly as it was in the past would be almost the same as remembering in the present but with much more complicated details about time and space continuums.

Having said that, I wouldn't mind returning to the instant my tongue touched a cup of cardamom tea. At the time, I was seated in an apartment with some of the best people I know I will ever meet. My friend M handed me a steaming mug that smelled familiar and exotic like musty basements filled with family memoirs waiting to be remembered. Looking back, it's hard to believe that I had lived so long without knowing how beautifully intricate and extensive cardamom could be alone.

A spice I previously considered to be only one component in complex flavor profiles was now standing in front of me on its own two feet. The tea burned my throat and the essence warmed my belly. Frankly, it was the best cups of anything I had ever tasted. But even though the robustness of that tea lingered on my palate, I still preferred it blended with cinnamon and ginger. The combination was traditional, and I reveled in the comfort. I didn't see a need to coax the cardamom and understand its individuality. Now I understand that I was very, very wrong.

For this recipe I knew I wanted to avoid a traditional pound cake. Orange seemed a nice fit, but never a big fan of dreamsicles, I needed to mellow the citrus with a vanilla alternative. Enter M's cup of creamy milk and tea. The cardamom and orange batter was bright and spicy, creamy yet sharp, and well suited for the soon-to-be-spring weather of the afternoon. The cardamom lifted above the orange and blossomed into its own. My only regret was that this awakening hadn't occurred sooner. If I knew back then in M's apartment what I know now, I would have made my way into the kitchen cupboard late at night and stolen every single tea sachet until I satisfied my thirst and curiosity.

Up until a certain point, I understood my friendship with M, and most other people in my life, as I did cardamom. I wasn't able to separate anyone from a specific group because I considered them to be elements of a greater experience. Like everyone else, the people of M's apartment were a unit, and a dinner or party without one member felt incomplete.

Then our lives started taking us to a different cities and priorities. As our paths diverged, we lost the convenience of a central gathering room and old friends took hold of new places. Passing conversations revealed more about each person than before and I began to realize that these were not the people I remembered. They were better because I knew more. I started thinking that sometimes the whole might be greater than the sum of its parts, but only if the parts are wonderful to begin with.

We can't time travel yet and I can't go back to that living room where we all sat for tea. For all of the conversations that should have already happened, I've settled with trying to fill in the holes now. M has been jetting around the world, saving our humanity as she was meant to do, but will be returning home soon for a visit. If she's reading, I hope that when we see each other she'll bring some tea because I'll have the cake ready, and we can sit down to talk about how she came to be.

Croissants

I've been thinking a lot about the life I left last May. It's taken me some time to realize that despite all of my frustrations, I wouldn’t mind returning to la belle vie by the sea. I don't miss the heartache from the later months, and I don't miss the constant urge to jump in the water and swim back to Virginia shores. What I do wish for is to go back to the weekend market at the bottom of my street and chat about curry with the woman who sold me spices. Without a doubt I would fly straight to Provence for another sunny afternoon picnic on the jetties with my housemates. But most of all, I would drop everything in an instant for one more early morning croissant from my favorite boulangerie.

Truthfully, I’m not sure how I managed to wake up at 5.30 am most days to travel one town over and teach hundreds of young French children. I remember my first morning alone in front of the students, feeling especially ill-equipped to be commanding a classroom. Fearfully, I rambled in English, loudly and slowly like strangers sometimes do to the blind in movies because they’ve confused them with the deaf. In this case, those 30 pairs of eyes might have very well been hard of hearing because their faces showed no signs of understanding. Though I towered over the desks, I felt significantly small among the seven-year olds. They terrified me with their Bonjour Madame’s. In their hands, they wielded fountain pens and for-construction-paper-only child safe scissors. Their silence was menacing in the way only a quiet mob can be before the destruction.


Teaching became my life. My classes were the first thing I thought about in the mornings and the last before I fell asleep. The single hall where I traveled from class to class permeated my dreams and my days off. All of a sudden, I could only speak of lesson plans and disciplining the misbehaved. I couldn’t explain enough times how there are only so many different techniques to teach the correct pronunciation of I am so that these kids didn’t grow up announcing to everyone, I ham! It was almost ridiculous how I agonized about arming a youth with existential crises of identity and deli meat.


After all of that, I made it. I survived the paper cuts and chalk dust; I endured coloring days and bingo games. Maybe it’s the time and distance, but now I fondly think about the friendship bracelets and drawings I’ve collected from my students.


I think a lot of my sanity was preserved in the quiet moments of respite that distanced me from foraging through foreign languages and cultural anomalies. There were naps during lunch among the library books and breezy Saturday mornings when the sounds of life below my apartment floated in through my tiny attic room window. Then there are the memories that I want to remember most.

Give me one perfect croissant and I am right back in those moments of clarity and purpose. They are always the same: the smell of butter rises in the cold air as I make my way past the clanking trash truck and closed post office. Holding a delicately warm wax paper bag under the weight of another navy sky, I try not to think about how today I will enunciate horse, human, and head. And as I wait for the last 6 am regular to saunter up just in time to see the bus pull in, I bite into an unmistakable balance of butter and pastry. First comes a crackle, then the soft and sweet, followed by a salty creaminess and a pocketful of air to tame the tongue before another mouthful of perfection. The taste is almost as pure as hanging a brightly colored Thanksgiving hand-dinosaur on the blackboard.