You Know What I Like?

I went to a part last Saturday night, I told you that story, it’ll be all right, uh huh.

It ain’t no big thing.

Late for my job and the traffic was bad, had to borrow ten bucks from my old man, uh huh. It ain’t no big thing.

But I know what you like:

With apologies to Lita Ford.

Mojitos by the pitcher
3 limes
1 handful mint leaves
1½ c simple syrup (make by shaking 1 c sugar and 1½ c water in a jar until clear)
2 trays ice cubes
1½ c rum—I like Flor de Caña and I like it dark
2 c fizzy water

Throw the mint leaves in the bottom of a pitcher. Quarter the limes and squeeze each quarter into the pitcher. Take a wooden spoon and mess things up in there; smash up those mint leaves a little. (This is the famous muddle.) Add the syrup, fill up the pitcher with ice, then pour in the rum and fizzy water. Stir and serve.

Drink while wondering, “What is she doing to that guitar? And why?? And what is that beadwork snail doing on the cutting board? What the hell exactly is this post about, anyway?”

Kitchen's Done. Let's Drink!

My kitchen is done!

The last step was to put in the backsplash. I chose 2 x 6 subway tiles from Mission Tile West’s Revival series in blue wash. They make tiles to order, so I had to wait forEVER! for them to arrive. Almost none of them were broken and the guys from Handyman Connection were very careful and efficient. So now I have six or seven square feet of field tile left. What should I do with it? Someone hit me with ideas.

Detail: Look what a good job they did! Also: oooh, bullnose.

To celebrate, let’s make something easy and fun. The new countertops are acid-proof and the backsplash means I can use the blender with impunity. Let’s make fruity drinks!

I got a pineapple on sale and the mint in my garden is green and glorious. Plus there is a brand new bottle of rum in the cupboard just begging to be opened.

Yeah, baby.

Pineapple Agua Fresca Mojito
This is fun because a) it can be made out of any fruit you want, really; b) it probably doesn’t need any added sugar; c) you can skip the booze and it is still delicious.

A pineapple
Water
Sugar to taste (probably none!)
Mint leaves
Rum

Peel the pineapple. Don’t worry about doing too good of a job; and you don’t need to bother coring it, either. Cut it into chunks.

Fill the blender with pineapple chunks. Pour in some water; the waterline should be maybe a quarter to a third of the way up the blender jar. Liquefy. Set a fine strainer over a bowl and dump in the puree. Repeat this until there is no more pineapple. You may be forced to eat a chunk or two, you poor thing.

When the puree is well drained, sweeten the fruity water to taste (you might not need any sugar at all). Pour it into a pitcher and chill well. The pulp is done for, unless someone knows of a use for it besides compost?

Now then. Tear up a mint leaf or two or three into a tall glass. Use a chopstick or the handle of a wooden spoon to smash up the leaves a bit. Drop in some ice cubes and a finger or three of rum. Fill up with agua fresca, stir, and enjoy!

Parsley Overload? Tabouleh Is the Answer

There's too much parsley!

My garden is full of lush, rich green, glossy Italian flat-leaf parsley. The little sprig from Dehn's Garden that I planted in springtime has erupted into a leafy mound, all but smothering its neighboring plants.

October comes this week, and I'm in a produce panic. If I don't use this parsley, then spiteful frosts will just take it all away from me. I'm madly trying to eat a whole summer's worth of fresh herbs in the dwindling weeks of warm weather that remain. How am I going to manage it?

Tabouleh to the rescue!

If you hunt around, you will find there is no one way to make (or spell) tabouleh. The common elements, though, are finely chopped vegetables, bulgur, oil, lemon juice, and fistful upon fistful of chopped herbs. This is one of the few dishes I know that features parsley instead of relegating it to sideshow status or including it as an also-ran aromatic. In tabouleh, parsley is no mere Miss Congeniality. It gets to stand in the spotlight and sing its own song. Its bracing, clean taste makes this light dish pop with fresh, green flavor and color.

If I were you, I'd march into the garden and scythe down a huge hank of parsley. If you don't, then winter will most assuredly do it soon. Tastes better this way, trust me.

Tabouleh

To measure whole herb leaves, pack as many into the cup as you can make fit. This will be a pretty good measure of how much chopped herb you'll get from them.

2 c boiling water
1 c bulgur
2 ripe tomatoes
1 small onion
2 c parsley leaves (or any giant bunch of parsley you have)
1 c mint leaves
1/3 c olive oil
1/3 c fresh lemon juice
Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Stir the bulgur into the boiling water (off the heat) and cover. Let sit for 1/2 hour.

Meanwhile, chop the onion and tomato finely. Chop up the parsley and mint too. Whisk the olive oil and lemon juice together.

When the bulgur is ready, put it in a sieve and press it to drain off the extra water. Put everything together in a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, and mix it up thoroughly.

You can serve this chilled or room temperature. You can serve it on a bed of romaine if you are feeling particularly freaked out about summer being over.

Thai Eggplant ‘Salad’

Could I just say that I like Thai food? I like it a lot. Good thing I live in the Twin Cities, where we are blessed with perhaps more than our fair share of great Thai restaurants. (No, New York City, you CANNOT have a single one of them. We need them all, thank you very much.)

Now, there are cuisines that are about complicated nuance. Thai isn’t one of them. Thai food is about FLAVOR and lots of it. Japanese food might be subtle, and French food might be art. But Thai is like the old Batman TV series. There’s a ton of fresh herbs, POW! And fish sauce, SOCK! And blisteringly fresh chiles, WHAM! A Thai dish doesn’t pull any punches. It’s a knock-down, drag-out good time that everyone can understand and enjoy. You better hope your mouth has room for all the deliciousness.

And there’s more to love about Thai than its candor: there’s also its accessibility, its freshness, and its immediacy. If you want to make food crammed with the best produce summer has to offer, then here’s something that will make your friends gasp.

That’s what my friends did this week when I served them this yam. The closest English word for yam is “salad,” but that falls far short. It’s more like a party, or an explosion, or everything you ever wanted to happen to you in terms of food. Serve it with just the lettuce leaves for an attention-getting bar snack. Or add thinly sliced cucumber and zucchini, cook up a pot of jasmine rice, and find some mango sorbet for dessert. Then you’ve got a pretty good meal.

Eggplant Salad
This recipe is adapted from Seductions of Rice: A Cookbook by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

1.5 lb Japanese eggplants (the long thin purple kind)
½ c finely sliced shallots, separated into rings
½ c roughly chopped cilantro
¼ c chopped mint
6 T fresh lime juice
3 T Thai fish sauce
¼ t sugar
1 Thai chile, finely minced (more or less to taste)
1 head of soft lettuce, i.e. Bibb, separated into leaves

Diagonally slice the eggplant ¼ to ½ inch thick. Grill or broil the slices until golden brown on each side. Let them cool a bit, then chop coarsely and put in a large bowl. Add the shallots and herbs.

In a separate bowl, combine the juice, sauce, sugar, and chile. Pour onto the eggplant and toss. Set aside for a half hour or more so the eggplant can absorb the seasonings.

Serve the eggplant yam in a low bowl or on a plate accompanied by a plate of lettuce leaves (add thinly sliced vegetables if you like). Use the greens to scoop up a bite of yam.

Anyone know how to say “mangiamo” in Thai?