this little piggy

I have a dear friend who wants me to write about pork. Apparently there is a big event in Italy and it concerns a saint (when doesn't it) and pigs. Sure, why not? I love her, I like pigs, and it will put me in a good mood after a cranky expletive of writing earlier.

so here goes.

Pigs!

Pigs are as smart or smarter than dogs, and they taste good. Maybe dogs do, but I come from a culture which doesn't eat dog nor will I ever, even in the interests of culinary research. Pigs however, are another matter. Over the years I have enjoyed pigs and began to think about them in the context of food and symbolism with this writing.

There are no pigs in Turkey, no Muslims eat pig. I totally respect that; I have adapted family recipes, as I wrote earlier for Turkish friends, taking out sausage. when I was growing up, we did have pork, and bacon, in the US commissary. It was shipped in from Europe for the Americans, and so I felt no lack of bacon or porkchops in my growning up.

In a curious parallel, dog treats are often pork rind and piggy snouts and ears. It is a little creepy to see them in the pet store: circles with two holes in them, pointy hoofs, and large as your hand triangles of piggy hide in sacks. Improbably, Porky Pig as trademark, happily hawking parts of his anatomy.

I do know two Turkish dogs, lovely large congols. Their tails curl in in a complete circle, they are as tall as a man when they stand up, and they have beautiful kohl rimmed eyes. My friend buys sacks of pig ears for treats for them when she comes to the States. I am bemused about these sacks of pig paraphanalia crossing the border to feed these "Muslim dogs." I wonder what her husband thinks.

Germany is porcine heaven. At the butcher, wursts, brats, porkchops, roasts, hash, more and more pig parts to braise, stew, steam, grill. I never saw fields full of pigs, but sure could smell them when traveling in the villages. At Fashing, the equivalent of the mania of Carnival or Mardi Grass, I loved the marzipan pigs sold for good luck. Dyed bright pepto bismol pink, they line the cases snout to snout waiting for someone to purchase them. I usually kept mine until they were almond dust, and would shatter when I bit into them. I had a little pink blown glass piggy from Dusseldorf as a charm for years.

I didn't think too much about pigs, after returning to the states to college. Porkchops were my first cooking attempts. As a grad student in Seattle, I planned for my date. I managed to brown the porkchops, add paprika and drain the sauerkraut. I would carefully put the kraut in all its briny smell and tangled mass in my glass brownie pan. I"d put the porkchops point to t-bone to fit, and pour a can of beer over it. By the time it heated in the oven I would manage to have the salad made and heat up the can of green beans. Viola! a meal!

We've come a long way baby, yet I remember those first attempts.

For many years I have taught over a shop and by a barn for the Future Farmers of America class. One year kids raised money for the class with a "kiss the pig " contest. We had a brand new teacher, a doll, a young girl that the boys would follow all over campus. Of course she was voted the reacher rep, and of course the vote was rigged. All the classes got the money and none to the teacher. That Friday, at 8 am she gamely went to the front of the school to "kiss the pig". A large Ford truck backed up, with a sow in the truckbed. Snuffling and snorting, she was huge her bristles brushing up against the side of the truck she was black and pink. Kids gathered, and the Ag teacher lowered the gate. Just as the young woman was getting ready to kiss that vibrating moist nose, a cute, cute, pink little piglet was pulled with a flourish out of the cab for her to kiss.

How can I eat something so cute? Well, it all is cute, and although I hate to eat a sentient being, I do love pork, and ham, and bacon. I just advocate for humane raising and butchering.

But gentle readers, there are just some pieces I cannot eat! I was in Baltimore at a famed market, and was amazed at the pieces on display. At a Korean butcher, case after case were lined with pig feet, smoked, glazed, brined and pickled. But it was the TAILS which threw me! Complete circles, like awful bracelets, they were for sale by the bag. I am a meat hypocrite, I prefer to have most things butchered beyond identification. What do you do with a tail? I just couldn't, and because I was in a hotel, didn't.

Porky Pig, Three Little Pigs, Piggly Wiggly, eat like a Pig, piggish eyes, oinkers, bring home the bacon, .....our language is full of homage to the pig. Whether from cartoon characters to beginning cooks, the noble, smart pig is a delight. Darling when little, they are imposing, and devoted good parents when older. Great food, good luck charms, material for brushes for artists....what a marvelous animal.

Happy St. day, pig lovers.

smart girls

I am smart. My girlfriends are smart. And at my age, it still feels sometimes like a punishment. Smart girls don't get the boy, the cuties who are dumb do. Or, at least at from my less than pollitically correct survey show. OK, maybe not dumb, but what IS it? That I am too particular?

I spent yesterday with three women whom I have known in various incarnations, for over twenty years. All are truly accomplished, brilliant in their fields, and interesting women, Between us we have six marriages and several long term relationships. Eight degrees, five children, and untold houses. World travels throughout Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, international publishing, activism, community support, multitudes of languages, musically talented, well read, the list goes on. I had a blast with them.

And tonight I am thinking why I know so many smart women but fewer it seems, smart men. I mean smart in that wide-ranging open-to-try-anything intelligence I felt over lunch yesterday with these women.

This is not a polemic about doing without men. It is not a commentary about why women can do just as well as men, or even manage and not miss them. What I am curious about is why so many of my smart friends have gone through so much. One is in a marriage more of convenience. One is in a long term one, but although adoring, both have thriving careers in differing directions. One has had dramatic upheavals and forges on, not at all interested in men in a relationship issue.Yet men flock around her, and right now she could care less. Too much burn. In my corner, am trying to figure out rejection, even at the early stages of pre-dating, when it does not happen. When that moment to meet, just does not get out of the block because I am "too smart, too urbane, too sophisticated....yada yada. I am told, "it is not me, good luck wish me the best, etc." What in the hell am I supposed to do? Dye my hair blonde? I don't give a rip if that is not correct, I just feel sometimes that I am Barbie's smart older sister, and she is Bianca, I am Katherine,but I do not get the guy first. Taming of the Shrew indeed. How about "You are too sophisticated," is a crap out from men who just don't match up.

Gee, should I not talk about my background? Should I pretend to not know something? I put out what I want, and guess what responded? " You are too urbane for me. " I think that is a cop out. One of my friends wrote me, "don't worry, all will fall into place." I give up, I think men say one thing, but you know what? They really want Barbie. Oh Yeah, Barbie who has never done anything but look adoringly at him.

And so, yesterday, over Greek lunch, after a fun morning at Nordstroms; we discussed politics, travel, education, make up, sex, children, the decline of American institutions, how to cook dolmas, but not once men. Not once did we worry what they were thinking; the woman who had a husband to go home to waiting dinner, the woman waiting for a call to work in East Europe, the woman whose husband was stranded at the airport back east, and me, the woman whose ex was on vacation. We all had mental push pins on our internal maps where they were but that did not stop us from having a great time.

So, right now, tonight, I say to heck with trying to meet someone in this town, this state. Let them all eat cake, I think that my banquet has some men starving to death and that is their own damn fault. They are missing out, that is not sour grapes, it is the truth. And I will not try to hard to mine an expired vein of gold. They can find me, and work for it. Someone will get it, but I sure hope I am around when they come around.

Off to bed. with dogs, and book, and to hell with it.

color wheel vegetable shopping

Lush colors, shapes that would make Miro happy, arrangements to irritate Cezanne, I adore vegetable stands.

I am seduced by them, each vegetable tempts me to buy and plan what to do to it. Him or her? If vegetables had gender, would they want one? Beyone the obvious, (ie; banana, male), what would they be? How to tell? Or personalilty, do they have one? Kohlrabi: irritable with all the points. Asparagus: placid with thoughts all in their head. Figs, tidy outside, a sensual delight inside. If they were women, they would wear suits, and wear bustiers underneath. Or, what about tomatoes? The schitzo of the group, one day a fruit, one day a vegetable...separated from its fruity cousins by unappreciative stockboys. I really am talking about fruits too, sorry veggies.
I enjoy vegetables, and shopping for vegetables in other countries are some of my best memories. In Izmir, I went with a dear friend for artichokes. Buckets of the ivory yellow hearts, were sold already prepared, cleaned and ready for cooking. The seller was up to his ankles in artichoke leaves, almost as if a huge artichoke tree overhead had suddenly dropped its leaves. I was amazed at the work. And, I mourned in a tiny way not seeing this majestic vegetable piled up in all its thorny sweet sculpture.

I didn't have a kitchen in Istanbul when I lived there alone in the Sulthanamet area for a week. It was torture to pass the stands and not buy vegetables. I bought a few tomatoes, and eight gorgeous Izmir figs, mottled brown and purple from the vendor. I placed them on my windowsill to keep warm and continue to ripen, they were my snacks at night. But I couldn't buy as much as I wanted, only look, smile, and move through the market.

In New Delhi I was amazed at the impossibly high pyramids created by arrangements of deep red carrots, okra, and peppers. How did they sell them? Were they re-arranged after every purchase, making pyramids anew? I never found out.

In summers in Eugene we have a farmer's market stand somewhere in town every day of the week. I literally have to stay away from them, because I cannot resist the colors, textures, and choices. The quantity of carrots I can cook never matches what I buy. I end up becoming short term best friends with my food, watch it age, and unfortunately have to throw it out.

I think it is the sculptural quality that seduces me first. Nicely round, ovoid, clustered, cylindrical, I play geometry with them. And then color coordination. If I were stocking these veggies, I would be tempted to group them by colors, not fruits and vegetables. Hmmm, should I pair all the reds together? Red peppers, tomatoes, strawberries,, then in a rainbow of chakra colors, move to the purples: eggplant, grapes, turnip tops facing out, on to the oranges: butternut, tangelos, chanterrelles...It would be beautiful. It is easy to imagine the array of produce fanned across like a spectrum. I organize my closet by color so this would be easy to me, just go to the color of the produce. Sometmes I can survey for several minutes until I find the food I want in large grocers. This way, it would be easy!

Or, what about complimentary pairing? Eggplant by bananas and lemons. Jonathan apples by green peppers. Blueberries by Navel oranges and apricots. What fun. And for special occasions when I would really like to confound the shoppers, group by shape. Play Seseme Street and think "one of these things is not like the other...." and resort all the sticks together: daikon, asparagus, burdock, the rounds: tomato, grapefruit, melons, and so forth.

Its and old joke to meet people in the frozen food section. But I think it is much more interesting to be in the produce. Its tactile, I can smell things, and watch others make their selection. Carefully, one bean at a time? Or with a devil may care attitude toss six pounds without looking into the plastic bag? My produce man is a friend, and the first part of the store I walk into . I ask what is good, he often brings me something from in back that is not set yet.

In my new home I have no room for a garden. But I do have a small balcony and plan to grow some cherry tomatoes this summer. And a basil bush. And bring Mona, my Italian bay laurel over from her old home. Adam and Eve, the fig trees can't move ( I named all my produce) but surely some more herbs can join Mona so she isn't lonely. I imagine myself this summer, sitting at a bistro table I will find somewhere, by my veggie friends and sharing a glass of sauterne with a new dear friend. Life goes on. Produce always is happy to see you. Like a good bookstore, the produce stand always is personal, fits, and is not judgemental.

I can hardly wait for the farmer's markets to open.

Baklava archaeology

I love baklava, the layered, flaky, teeth-chatteringly sweet dessert filled with a strata of ground nuts. If I could get away with it, or if I had a lobotomy and did not care about girth, I would have a piece each day. But I cannot, so I do not.

However, it is a show-stopper, and so darn easy I wonder why so many of my friends do not make it. I looked into the history of baklava once, and was consulted as to its origins. There are no clear rules, but I can say that the use of the thin filo dough is a hallmark of desserts in the Eastern Mediterranean, whether in Greece, Turkey, Syria. Filo has even migrated with Ottoman chefs to Eastern Europe and is the foundation of strudle and other layered, flaky, delights.

But back to baklava. Right now I am dieting, preparations for a culinary trip where chefs will try to stuff us silly with delights. And, filo dough is definitely off my list. So I will be a dessert voyeur, writing about it.

I first had it as a child in Izmir, but my mother had to make it, not buy. At the time, we most definitely did not eat out, fearing hepatitis...and so food was home cooked in those days. We had large marble counters in the kitchen; marble was cheaper than linoleum. "Moderns" were ripping out the marble and putting in lino, but my Mom was thrilled to have a cold surface for many cooking adventures: taffy, bread making, and baklava. She would lay the sheets out and cover them with a tea towel, unveiling one at a time as the dessert was layered. Dance of the balkava veils.

Much later, in California, in Armenian descendent homes I had baklava, but it was not the same. Nuts were larger, and more lemon used. I moved to Oregon, and made my own, with varying success depending upon my use of ground nuts. I grew weary of baking and stopped making it.

Then I married a Greek grandson. He told me of his grandma who would make her own filo, pulling and stretching it so thin the wood grain would show under the dough as she made it on the walnut table. I learned from him to cut the baklava into diamonds, and put the lemon sugar syrup over the hot dessert halfway through cooking.

It is a favorite for my cooking classes. Kids will eat anything sweet, and I have figured out a way to have an assembly line. "keep it covered!" "faster, your turn next" "remember the corners"...they approach the dough, one on each side of a large pot of melted butter. Dip brush into butter, sweep across pan, lay the sheet of filo in, scatter the perfectly process-cut nuts and sugar, and get out of the way for the next kid. We can make two trays in 30 minutes with 30 kids. Then cooking, tantalizing aromas of honey, lemon, and pastry drift through the air ducts to the music room and drive kids nuts. Great dessert, everyone is happy and they beg for the sugar soaked and crunchy corners.

It is far, far, better than the soggy, honey dripping squares sold in the local market. It is fresher by far than the trays of mindless baklava and kaydiff desserts sold at the huge national markets. Few people have had really, really, good baklava.

I made bakalva this winter for Christmas. I make really, really, good baklava. I love making Christmas cookies with my daughter, but our cookies are really about the frosting and designs we make up on the cookies. Cookies require you to do something every 11 minutes whether you want to or not. Baklava once made, is a gentle companion, baking nicely in the oven while you have a cup of tea. I felt very settled layering filo, scattering nuts, basting butter, and repeating. I really get off on making precise diamond cuts, perfectly parallel lines and crisp points. As the knife cuts through the layers, I love the sharpness of my tool, the feel as it cuts through dough and nuts, reaching the glassy bottom of the pan.

The smell is fulfilling, the layers, like layers of my baklava memories, hint at treasures underneath the flaky ivory top. Bottom layer, Izmir. Middle layers, California and college. Upper layer, marriage, Greek dreams. Top layer, my life now, no topsoil laid down, but excavations possible. I am a composite of it all. And as I cut, and arranged diamond points of baklava patterns on plates I gave away, wrapped in rose saran, I re-discovered my love of this dessert.