Cooking her way back to health

Jessica Fechtor was 28 and leading a wonderful life, married to a smart and charming man she met in college, living in Cambrige, Mass., on her way to earning a Ph.D. at Harvard.

Then, with no warning, an aneurysm burst in her brain as she worked out on a treadmill while she was at a conference in Vermont.

Fechtor has just published a wonderful book, Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me HomeDescribed as a memoir with recipes. it details her remarkable journey back to health, through the initial neurosurgery to repair the aneurysm, another surgery to battle a raging infection, a horrible reaction to medication and a long rehabilitation.

For 10 months, she lived without a piece of her skull, which had to be removed because of infection. The hockey helmet she wore for protection only partly hid the deformity. She lost the sight in one eye and her sense of smell (which happily she regained). Then she underwent a final surgery to repair a golf-ball-sized dent in her temple.

Learning to be a good guest

Jessica always loved to cook, but when she came home from the worst of her hospitalizations, she had to relinquish that pleasure to her friends and learn how to be a good guest in her own home.

“A good guest, we think, is an easy guest. A considerate one. She arrives on time with a bottle of wine or maybe a gift, some chocolate or homemade jam. She asks what she can do. She wants to help. She insists.

“What these best of intentions miss is the most basic thing of all: that a good guest allows herself to be hosted. That means saying, ‘yes, please,’ when your’re offered a cup of tea, instead of rushing to get it yourself. It means staying in your chair, enjoying good company and your first glass of wine while your host ladles soup into bowls. If your host wants to dress the salad herself and toss it the way she knows how, let her, because a host is delighted to serve. To allow her to take care of you is to allow your host her generosity. I’d always been too distracted by my own desire to be useful to understand this. I got it now.”

The early part of Jessica’s book alternates between chapters about her health crisis and recovery and chapters about how she met and married her husband, Eli. Later chapters describe her long rehabilitation. Each chapter concludes with a description of dish that is meaningful to her, along with a nice recipe. There’s baked ziti, kale and pomegranate salad, almond macaroons, apple pie, buttermilk biscuits, cherry clafoutis and more.

A food blog as therapy

As Jessica grew stronger after her first surgeries, she became restless. Not quite ready to return to her graduate studies in Jewish literature, she took the advice of a friend and started a food blog. She called it Sweet Amandine after her favorite almond cake. But in order to write about cooking, she had to cook.

“The kitchen became my arena for testing myself physically. I’d page through my cookbooks and stack of rumpled recipes in search of ones that felt safe….When the making and the eating were done, I’d sit down and write. Often, after a few minutes of staring at the screen, my eyes would begin to ache and my neck would tighten with nausea. I’d wish I could unscrew my head, so heavy and big, and just lay it down beside me for a while. Every few sentences of so, I would take a break. Sometimes, I would move to the sofa and close my eyes, string together the words for the next line in my mind, then make my way back to my desk and write some more. It might sound painfully slow, this limping, bit-by-bit way of writing, but as phrases became sentences became paragraphs, I felt like I was flying.”

Her anecdotes and reflections about food were ones she’d been sharing with friends and family for years, in letters or over the dinner table. Cooking, and writing about cooking, helped her begin to feel normal again.

“That cooking shifted my attention away from myself was a tremendous relief. In the kitchen, I got to care again about the small stuff that’s not supposed to get to you, but does when you’re normal and well. Now, when the biscuits burned, it was my privilege to care. The twinge of annoyance as I whisked them from the oven was proof I was getting better.”

Jessica and Eli now have two young daughters and live in San Francisco.

I found her story quite moving and look forward to trying some of her recipes, like this one for cream of asparagus soup. Jessica says the flavor improves after a night in the fridge, so make the soup in advance, and reheat it before adding the lemon juice.

Berry Pudding: The greatest thing since sliced bread

How often have you heard some wonderful new development heralded as “the greatest thing since sliced bread”?

These days all kinds of supermarket breads are available pre-sliced, and every neighborhood bakery has a bread slicer. But whenever I hear that expression, I always think of the cottony Wonder Bread-type stuff.

For me, today’s recipe may be the greatest thing since the invention of Wonder Bread. But while I was thinking about the recipe, I thought I’d look into the history  of sliced bread. It turned out to be a lot more interesting than I’d imagined.

The inventor

The one-loaf-at-a-time bread slicer was invented by Otto Rohwedder, who grew up in Iowa as the son of German immigrants. At 20, he moved to Chicago where he earned a degree in optometry and did an apprenticeship with a jeweler.

In 1905, Rohwedder moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, acquired three jewelry shops, and used his profits to invent new tools and machines.

As he started thinking about a bread-slicing machine, he wondered how thick he should make the slices, so he put a questionnaire in several large newspapers, garnering responses from 30,000 housewives.

In 1916, he sold his jewelry stores and used the profits to built a prototype bread slicer. Even a fire at his warehouse, which destroyed his machine and all his blueprints, failed to deter him.

One of the problems with pre-sliced bread was the perception (mostly justified) that the bread would get stale faster than a whole loaf. By 1927, Rohwedder had built a machine that solved this problem by tightly wrapping the

sliced loaves in waxed paper. This kept the slices together as a loaf and preserved freshnhess.

A tough sell

Bakers weren’t interested. The machine was bulky, five feet wide by three feet high. Finally Rohwedder asked a baker friend, Frank Bench, to give it a chance. Bench was on the brink of bankruptcy, but he decided to invest in the slicer.

The machine was installed at the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri, and on July 7, 1928, the company sold the first loaf of commercial sliced bread, called Kleen Maid.

(According to Wikipedia, Battle Creek, Michigan has a competing claim as the first city to sell bread sliced by Rohwedder’s machine; however, historians have produced no documentation backing up Battle Creek’s claim.)

Frank Bench’s bread sales increased by 2,000 percent within two weeks.

The New York-based Continental Baking Company started using Rohwedder’s machines in 1930 and created Wonder Bread.

By 1933, 80 percent of the bread produced in America was sold pre-sliced.

A ban on sliced bread

While housewives of the 1930s were thrilled not to have to slice bread every day, U.S. Food Administrator Claude R. Wickard ordered a ban”on sliced bread in 1943, citing wartime conservation efforts.

The government capitulated less than three months later, after a tremendous outcry from customers. Wickard said the War Production Board decided the industry’s use of waxed paper would not affect the country’s defense.

The bread slicer may not be the most important invention in human history, but Otto Rohwedder couldn’t ask for a better tribute than describing something new and exciting as “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

My husband loves to bake bread, so I hardly ever buy sliced bread, especially the puffy, white supermarket variety. But I made an exception when I found this recipe, which makes a lovely dessert for this time of year when berries are plentiful. It’s from the New York Times, which is a little surprising considering how easy it is to make.

 

Dishes pop with paprika

When we were in Budapest three years ago we brought back little containers of paprika as gifts. It’s probably the best gift you can bring someone from

Hungary, because Hungarian pepper is regarded as the best in the world.

Unfortunately, we neglected to buy any for ourselves, but luckily a friend visited Budapest a few months ago and brought us back little sample-size sacks of hot paprika and sweet paprika. These will join the jar of smoked paprika I already had in my spice collection: a paprika for every occasion!

Paprika is one of the world’s most popular spices. Even cooks who have little more than salt, pepper, garlic and oregano on hand will likely also have a bottle of paprika. Made from dried and ground red chili peppers, it adds a dash of color to any dish just by being sprinkled on top.

A New World spice

Chili peppers were unknown until the discovery of the New World—amazing when you consider how popular they have become in Asian and European cooking.

Hungarians were particularly drawn to the zesty flavor of paprika. When the laborious process of turning dried peppers into paprika was mechanized during the Industrial Revolution, the Hungarian city of Szeged became the center of the industry. Cheaper than black pepper, paprika became a staple forHungarian  home cooks.

Until the 1920s, the only kind of paprika available was the hot kind. Then a breeder in Szeged discovered a sweeter variety of the pepper, and propagated it by grafting. The sweet plant is the most popular type today.

Spain also produces paprika, mainly the smoked variety.

Paprika came back to the New World with Hungarian immigrants in the 19th century.

High in Vitamin C

A Hungarian scientist Dr. Szent Gyorgyi won a Nobel Prize in 1937 for his work with paprika pepper pods and Vitamin C research. Paprika peppers have seven times as much Vitamin C as oranges. (Though one must take such statements with the proverbial grain of salt; you’d never eat as much paprika as orange!)

The paprika you buy in the supermarket doesn’t have much flavor and is best used to give color to dishes. For real paprika flavor, use sweet or hot paprika labeled “Hungarian” paprika.

Paprika is an important part of many Hungarian dishes, including (duh!) Chicken Paprika (also called Chicken Paprikash). This recipe comes from my old standby, The Joy of CookingIf you are kosher or want to cook the dish dairy-free, you can use a soy-based product from Tofutti called Better Than Sour Cream.

 

Just for the kale of it

When it came time to plant our garden last year, we considered lettuce.

We changed our minds, though, when we realized that lettuce is cheap to buy in the supermarket, and even more importantly, it has a very short growing season; to have lettuce all season long you have to keep planting more seed.

Better we should plant kale, I said, because it sells for about $4 a pound and the plants keep producing until well into the fall, even after a frost.

Indeed, enjoyed fresh kale until late November!

We still like kale, even though it seems to have passed its peak as a trendy vegetable.

A few years ago you couldn’t turn around without bumping into food columns about kale and kale dishes galore in restaurants. Someone even invented kale chips by baking kale leaves; you can still find these in high-end food stores at hugely inflated prices.

This year’s “it” vegetable seems to be the humble cauliflower. Cabbage and brussels sprouts are also increasingly popular. One of the trends that’s bumping kale out of hipness is “kalettes,” a hybrid of kale and brussels sprouts, which produces clumps of small, curly leaves.

They’re all related members of the “cole” family, descended from wild cabbage, a group that also includes broccoli, kohlrabi and collards.

I thought I’d say something about kale before it totally disappears into mundanity.

Nothing new about kale

Until the end of the Middle ages, kale was among the most common green vegetables in Europe.

Kale was introduced into Canada and then into the U.S. by Russian traders in the 19th century, says Wikipedia.

Britain encouraged home cultivation of kale as part of the Dig for Victory campaign during World War II. Kale was easy to grow and provided important nutrients for a diet constrained by rationing.

When I was growing up, when the only lettuce we knew was iceberg and dinner vegetables came from a can or the freezer, no one ever mentioned kale!

Kale has lots of beta carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin K, and it’s rich in calcium. Kale is also a source of lutein, zeaxanthin and su lforaphane, a chemical with potent anti-cancer properties.

So what do you do with it?

First of all, remove the tough stems. Then chop or shred the leaves.

You can stir fry it in a little olive oil, then add a splash of balsamic vinegar just before serving. Or, as in the photo above, add a handful of raisins and some toasted pine nuts.

Like cabbage and spinach, kale cooks down to a fraction of its raw volume so you’ll need a big bunch of it to serve just a few people.

Raw kale is very popular for salads, but it’s can be hard to chew and also somewhat bitter.

I like this salad recipe for “massaged” kale salad. Rubbing salt and lemon juice into the leaves softens them. Adding honey to the dressing and mango to the salad counteracts the bitterness. The result is a very attractive and healthful dish.

 

Yemenite Jewish Kubaneh (Sabbath bread)

Gabriel Attar was born in 1951 in a dismal immigrant transit camp in Afula, Israel. His parents had been part of the soul-stirring effort of the Israel government to airlift more than 50,000 Jews from Yemen to Israel between 1948 and 1950.

Today, only a handful of Jews remain in Yemen.

Attar, a high school math teacher, spoke about his family’s history recently as part of a series of programs on Jews from Arab lands, sponsored by Congregation Keter Torah, the only Sephardic congregation in the Detroit area.

Strictly speaking the Jews of Yemen are not Sephardic but Mizrachi. Sephardic comes from the Hebrew word for Spain, and refers to the descendants of Jews who fled from Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition and settled in North Africa and the Middle East.

Jews who never left the Middle East but who stayed in Yemen, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and neighboring countries, are called Mizrachi, from the Hebrew word for “east.”

Operation Magic Carpet

Many of the Yemenite Jews who were airlifted from their homeland in the effort that became known as Operation Magic Carpet had never even seen an airplane, let alone ridden in one.

In Israel they were placed in tent cities until permanent housing could be built for them. Attar’s parents were born in one of these camps. She was 16 when they married.

Eventually the family was resettled in the Machane Yehuda section of Jerusalem, a multi-ethnic neighborhood that houses the city’s famous produce market.

Attar has vivid memories of the wedding of his uncle and aunt.

“Preparation started with the henna-painting party for the women one week before the wedding,” he said.

“For the wedding, Yona was dressed in traditional Yemenite bride attire with lots of jewelry. Every item of jewelry symbolized something different. Every ring and every bracelet was worn in a particular order to symbolize blessings such as fertility, longevity of life and marriage, peace in the home, etc.”

A family success story

Attar’s mother could not read or write, but her five sons are all educated and successful. His four brothers live in Israel with their families.

He met his American wife, Marilyn, when he was the driver and tour guide for her family who were visiting Israel. They married in 1985.

Guests at the program enjoyed a variety of Yemenite foods, including kubaneh, a traditional bread made for the Sabbath. It’s baked for a long time at a low temperature, and can even be baked overnight to be enjoyed warm on the Sabbath when cooking is not permitted.

This recipe comes from food.com.

 

 

 

 

Mmmmmm … Michigan cherry pie!

Today’s piece is by former newspaper publisher and University of Michigan Regent Phil Power, a longtime observer of Michigan politics and economics. He is also the founder and chairman of the Center for Michigan, a nonprofit, bipartisan centrist think–and–do tank, designed to cure Michigan’s dysfunctional political culture; the Center publishes the online Bridge magazine, where this article originally appeared. The opinions expressed here are Power’s own and do not represent the official views of the Center. He welcomes your comments at [email protected].

July is cherry season, one of the great glories of summer in Michigan.

It’s a subject near and dear to my heart, as my ancestors were among the first people to plant Montmorency cherries (called “sours” to distinguish them from the dark red eating cherries, “sweets”) in northern Michigan.

My great- great grandfather, Eugene Power, started a family farm near Elk Rapids, today still a tiny town northeast of Traverse City, late in the 19th century. He was among the first local farmers to plant cherries, which thrived on the sandy, well-drained soil and for a time became the dominant crop in the area.

The location – between Grand Traverse Bay and Elk Lake – was perfect, as the lakes moderated the cold winter winds and usually delayed flowering in the spring until after the last frost. Even today, much of the land around Traverse City that hasn’t been raped by the developers remains in cherry orchards.

10 cents for 30 pounds

My father, also called Eugene Power, remembered his first job was out on the family farm, picking cherries for 10 cents a 30-pound lug. That was a whole lot of cherries for a dime, but back in those days a dime went a whole lot farther than today. My grandfather, Glenn, who started out as a surveyor, helped lay out the newly planted cherry trees in long, straight lines.

There is a family picture of great-grandfather Eugene standing in his orchard, wearing a white shirt and necktie and a Panama hat, with a farm hand holding a pruning knife standing behind him.

It wasn’t easy being a pioneering family way back then. You couldn’t be sure the trees, once planted, would thrive or bear well. And there was always the risk of a late frost. Prices, too, bumped around a lot; a big crop meant low prices but high volume, while a small crop brought high price but low return. And capital, once lost, was very hard to regain.

A pioneering family

Family legend says the Powers were all a bit eccentric. My ancestors left a secure position in Farmington – an Oakland County town they founded when they first came to Michigan in 1824 – to move up north and start a farm. My grandfather left the farm to become a businessman in Traverse City, while my father struck out on his own as an entrepreneur in Ann Arbor. And I started my own newspaper company, largely from scratch, in 1965.

But that was the way of the pioneers, my ancestors and the ancestors of countless Michiganders who made our state and our nation what it is and whose creativity and, well, eccentricity made all the difference in the new lands of the New World. Reflecting on this history makes me feel like I’m standing on the shoulders of giants looking back in pride on our accomplishments as a nation and hope at our shadowed future. It’s that spirit of hope and confidence that makes our July 4 national holiday so important to so many.

And so, just in time for the sour cherry season, here’s our family recipe for Montmorency cherry pie.

My father preferred his pie with vanilla ice cream. I’m more of a purist, so I skip the ice cream. But I do like the pie cold for breakfast.

Either way, it’s a delicious way to celebrate Michigan cherries and mark our national holiday.

 

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Chard and Lentil Soup from MasterChef contestant Amanda Saab

The Detroit Free Press did a food story about the start of Ramadan a few weeks ago and featured home chef Amanda Saab, a former Detroit-area resident who now lives in Seattle where she’s a hospital social worker.

Amanda’s claim to fame is that she was (as of July 25 at least) a contestant on Fox TV’s cooking contest program, MasterChef.

Hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, the show has contestants complete various cooking tasts each week, including “Mystery Box” challenges. The winner receives a cookbook deal, $250,000 and the title of Master Chef.

Amanda, 26, has been a “foodie” since the age of 5, when she stood on a step-stool to pass tools to her mother in the kitchen. For her 16th birthday she requested, and received, a KitchenAid stand mixer.

Amanda, of Lebanese heritage,  is also a fellow food blogger, who gave me permission to reprint one of her posts. So below is her description of meeting one of the Mystery Box challenges on MasterChef, which she posted on June 11.

Unfortunately, the MasterChef rules prohibit Amanda from sharing the corn cheesecake recipe she made for the show, so I’m offering her recipe for Swiss Chard and Lentil Soup, which she says is a favorite for breaking the daily fast during Ramadan.

Crabs and Corn! (from www.amandasplate.com)

If you missed last night episode of MasterChef, you can watch it here.

Mystery boxes are always a little nerve wrecking. You never know what is under there and you really want to impress the judges and win the advantage.

To my surprise and delight, I lifted the wooden box to find live crabs!

After Hussein and I moved to Seattle three years ago, we of course did some food exploring. One of my favorite spots was Pike’s Place Market. There you can find the freshest fruits, vegetables and of course seafood! We love crab, especially the Dungeness crab, so when I saw that under the Mystery Box, I knew exactly what to make!

I made Dungeness crab cakes with a mango and arugula salad and an avocado cream sauce, and it earned me a spot in the top three dishes of the night!

Beside me was Olivia, who made a beautiful crab Benedict, and Jesse, who made a crab dumpling soup with a crab, avocado and apple salad! Jesse came out on top and won a huge advantage!

Jesse was able to decide who would make a sweet or savory dish. He asked which basket I preferred (what a gentleman) and I said “sweet” and that is what I got.

A sweet using corn

Once we entered the pantry, we learned what the ingredient was: CORN! I would have never guessed that! How was I going to make a sweet corn dish?

Well, corn is naturally sweet, so in my mind including it in a dessert was not that far out. I also knew that Chef Christina Tosi has a corn cookie (amazing) and uses corn flakes in several of her desserts, including her famous cereal milk!

I decided to roast the corn and make a cheesecake! The kernels were little golden nuggets in the smooth creamy, cheese filling. The crust was made with crushed corn flakes and corn pops! I also popped some popcorn and made a popcorn ball with salted caramel. For garnish I pulled some sugar (I also added corn syrup to the mixture) and crushed some tortillas for a “dust” on the plate. I was very proud of this dish and wish you could have seen it.

I may just have to remake it for you all.

The youngest contestant, Justin, was sent home. He is an incredibly bright young man with an even brighter future ahead of him! He just graduated high school and is on his way to culinary school!

The two best dishes in the elimination challenge were by Shelly and Stephen who will act as team captains in LAS VEGAS!!!!