vampryic food

Garlic.

Bulbous, papyrus-skinned, globes of garlie lie in my copper container on my kitchen counter. Vampire non-food.

For years I used to track down vampire literature, reveling in the seductive and repellant themes, especially during Halloween time. I read Dracula the classic by Stoker in college when working in a bookstore. The point was, I worked the night shift. After seven p.m. few came to buy books and my little store was across, dear reader, the alleyway from the main store. At nine when we closed I would shuttle the money bag back to the main store. Sure, I began to read about Vlad Dracul but by the middle of the book you have got to be kidding...now way was I going to finish it and walk across that alleyway. I finished it in the light on weekends.

But still, I love the stories and have collected them over time up to The Historian which had it all: Turkey, the Romanian connection, travel, sex, threat, and the vampires. I like to think of Ottoman Turks terrorized under the shadow of the Hagia Sophia by the bad, evil, vampires. It fits that region.

so back to garlic.

When I use garlic I cannot help but think of its association with DRacul. And, in a strange kitschy way I have a Turkish charm in my kitchen: faux garlic wrapped with blue evil eye beads. I like to think instead of the stake and cross that the evil eye and garlic would repel the undead.

But tonight I am cooking the dead, dead chicken. And for that matter: dead arugula, radishes, corn, and grapes. If you think of it, unless cannabal-like in a vegetarian way we stand in the garden and eat food still planted in the ground, we eat food of the dead. Not for the dead, but of the dead. It lies in its little crypt in my fridge waiting to be eaten. The chicken, chicken no more, is on its way to immortality, for a while, if to transpose Hamlet, " thus a chicken can go through the guts of a beggar to feed a king." All the food is dead before I cook it. Through cooking we have a rebirth, no stake through the chicken to keep it down.

My Tim Burton dinner is approaching garish associations, better stop. But I kind of like the idea anyway, a goth dinner, maybe with candles and black lace.

Back to garlic. I do love garlic and have said I would rather do without chocolate than garlic, onions, tomatoes and coffee. My mirepoix would suffer without garlic. My temper would remain if I could not smash the hell out of a clove of garlic with my chef knife. My home would never smell of baking cakes or cookies, I am not a sweet and comfy cook. But it does smell of garlic, immolated in great olive oil, throw in the onions, and pour on the wine to deglaze. I would rather cook garlic anyway.

There is no better gift to give a chef than food things and very sharp knives. I have in my covetous possession great, large, firm, garlic from Gilroy, the Mecca of garlic. Not this spurious "who raised it" garlic import from China. Not my dessicated and tortured garlic from the old back yard, suffocated by bad soil. No, this garlic is lush, plump, and redolent. Good gifts taste better than those foraged or bought.

So tonight I am making the famed 40 cloves of garlic chicken. Forty, count 'em, fourty cloves, denuded of their skins will rest inside a chicken. And it is no longer a food for the dead. GArlic brings things to life, it ressurects, it will perfume the chicken like frankensense on a mummy and create a great sauce when deglazed with some white Burgandy. I'll use some toasted garlic on the corn, and slivered garlic with French baby radishes in the arugula salad. I won't put essence of garlic on my breasts or pulsepoints but I will know that the home smells great. Opening, inviting, no garlic around the neck to repel some intimacy, and the sheer joy of planning the meal.

vanilla daze

I love vanilla. It is calming, soothing, and better than a session on the couch to calm down. ( I mean as in Freud, not that kind of couch session, get over it.)

Lately I have been aware of the constant presence of vanilla in my home and cooking. I have vanilla scented candles and light them when I come home. During the summer I use lemon, or a green scent, but now that it is turning to fall, I turn to vanilla. The sweet, calming scent is perfect after a day where I must wear my public face as a teacher. I don't over do it, the scent is not everywhere in my home, just in that candle. Ever since I have moved into my home, I light large candles in the evening to provide a presence, light, and scent. They are my company in a way when dogs and humans are not here. My pantry is filled with former candle jars now serving as cannisters for dried pulses and rices.

I have vanilla lotion and it is a nightly ritual to slather it on before bed, and after showering in the morning. Whether it is my own touch on my skin or someone else's hands on me, I like to think that the scent of vanilla is a relaxing, slightly sensual and at the same time creates memories of childhood as I smooth it on.

There are several types of vanilla in my pantry: Madasgaster, Mexican, and one from Hawaii. I have beans, paste, and extracts. Actually, I didn't realize I had so much or use so much until I began to write. Vanilla goes in my smoothies in the morning, along with yogurt, bananas and some fruit. It flows into my steel cut oats, flavoring their al dente bite instead of sugar. I generally make the coffee, start the oats or the smoothie and then drink and eat as I finish my hair and make up before running out to the car. The smell of vanilla and the light tan it tints my breakfast is a constant. Trivia? Maybe, but this is my posting and I am into it. Vanilla starts and ends my day, whether on my skin or on my tongue.

I could write about nutmeg or cinnamon, other favorites, and in truth will someday. But tonight I want to celebrate vanilla. If we could, as we taste each other, taste like vanilla, it wouldn't be a bad thing. Comfortable without becoming cloying, reminiscent of desserts in the past without nostalgia, and evocative of nights ahead with smooth and perfumed skin, it is truly a gift of orchids. Better than any orchid corsage, I would rather have vanilla in my clevage, my breakfast, and my perfumes.

watched pots

As the cliche goes, a watched pot doesn't boil. And I would add, over-watered herbs perish, a fridge that is opened too much grows toxic, and a waited for phone never rings. I must keep learning this lesson over and over.

So what is the difference between proactive smash the hell out of a piece of garlic and toss it in the grill compared to lightly bruising the thing and hoping it releases its fragrance? Between Calling first, or initiating the dance verses waiting for the guy to be well, manly, or ask you to dance. Or to do whatever.

Much is made of taking time and letting flavors develop. We marinate, macerate, brine, pickle, make ahead, and slow cook. Daubes, stews, casseroles all depend upon a slow marrying of flavors, bringing the heat up, and letting them simmer in their covered juices. Not much different from how relationships work. In the old days.

Darwin-like we have speeded up many things, we cook with microwaves, at a cosmic speed of light, race through drive through Starbuck's, and pour the smoothie into the travel mug. Two dates, the kiss, the bed. Three dates and it is over. Well, not always, but hold on here! Just slow down, and let the flavors mellow.

But do we have time? Peak oil, peak experiences, past experiences, and the french knife is heading to our lifeline, the thread ready to be cut. AT this point in life, should we wait? Why do we? Can we blend somehow a quick prep and preheat in the microwave of existence so we can then mingle, blend, and season our relationships over what time is left? Can we be both fast food and an eight course dinner delivered over hours with bottles of champagne?

I have no idea. I am just playing, laying, with this idea. I want both. I want it now, the fast food, the quick saute, the immediate thaw, and satiation by the time the oven is cool and the CD is through with its set. And, I want the full on Sunday afternoon tete a tete, oven heating, a great coq au vin simmering, wine chilling, wine breathing, and whip cream ready to layer on the dessert. I want fast hands, slow embraces, quick step dance and langorous stretches.

I want a microwave life in a rustic chateau, dripping with antiquity, cellars, and old world slowness. Taking time to work over an old table preparing food for someone I love, I use my old crystal, hundred year old silver, and new spices.

So you, if you are reading this out there, be both so I can be both. The paradox of modern life is I am not alone in this wish, and pinpoints of light are out there as maybe, someone is reading this. But we are everywhere, Darwin was wrong folks, we want it slow, it is the century which has sped up. And how do we find eath other, writing in our chateaus, our back rooms, our internet illusion?

slow food, slow love, a lifetime in the what may be, fewer years ahead than behind me. Hell. They had best be full on years, I have wasted enough.

salsas

hot hotter hottest.

the declension of heat. I have been reading about salsas, including those made with chipotles, smoky and elusive, with avocados and corn, smooth and chalky in their formation, with green tomatillos, bitter, grassy with some heat of habineros. All are vibrant cousins, and an over the top flavors compared to the jars and tubs of salsa made some time yesterday.

I understand, in the mythology of food which has run rampant, that salsas are running ahead of ketchup in sales. Ketchup, the puree of tomatoes, with salt and vinegar a red line staple on top of hot dogs is being replaced by chunky tomatoes with chilis in some form on top of a taco, eggs, steak, shrimp, even grilled fish. Paired with fruit, mango salsa is a dynamo over pork, mixed with jalepenos, a puree infusion of salsa was a flavor in a martini I had recently.

Salsa dancing is a new fave, I have tried, not successfully, to learn. But the name! Salsa meaning: hot, choppy, bringing up heat, a condiment to the feet and the music as it were, to dancing. Waltzes, now maybe they are the ketchup of dance. And Tango is the mustard, to extend the spurious metaphor. But salsa implies that I can mix and match what I want for the beat, as long as I follow a recipe in a way: one part heat, one part texture, two parts fruit or acid. Dancing: one part sex, hip to hip, or gyrate in pairs, one part pattern of the feet in unison mirror-like: he goes forward, she goes back; and two parts sweaty bodies moving as fast as you can to the increasingly hot beat of the drums.

No wonder that both are popular. Salsa the condiment adds a topping, a frisson of flavor on top of germane foods. It invokes the other, the non Protestant, non traditional, back street world that is not European, not Anglo, and much, in fact, a hell of a lot more fun. We need more fun in our lives. Live a little. Forget the low salt, non carb, organic ketchup. Toss the environmentally appropriate companion planted mustard seed and dijion jar. Go for the home made, mortar ground tomatoes with hot and hotter chilies and for the hell of it throw in limes, onions, and cilantro. Why not? live a little and for salt content; get over it.

As for the dancing: a slight reversal. I grew up in the 70'80's do what you want on the floor dirty dancing style. Gyrate, move over, around, and through your partner and move in your own space. but Salsa demands working as a team, with the woman responsive to the pressure of a man's hand to move in the direction he wants. It is damn sexy to watch and harder to learn. I can't just go where I want, I have to wait, and follow, and then surrender to the hand. And until I get it, I only get asked once by the men as they figure out I am not really in synch. But I will keep trying as the lure of the paired sexuality is just so great. And the humbling of rejection of only being asked once is a good learning point. Sort of.

I am still the ketchup to their salsa, damn. But my heart is there, my moves are catching up, the heat is, and always has been there for the dance. Just a few more lessons.

Off to grind tomatoes and prep the peppers as I listen to the music.